Positive Politeness
I. Research Background
Communication has an important role in our life. According to Gartside communication is the art of sharing anything. In its vital sense it means a sharing of ideas and feelings in a mood mutual understanding (1986:1). Thus, people can cooperate with each other when they communicate just as they do in any other shared activity. Communication is usually defined as conversation, namely for sending and receiving message. If the message cannot be received it means that communication does not work well. In order to make communication run in harmony, the hearer should know the speaker’s aim. Moreover, every day we adapt our conversation to different situations. Among our friends for instance, we can easily say something that would be seen discourteous among strangers and we avoid over formally with our friends. In both situations above we try to avoid making the hearer embarrassed and uncomfortable.
People generally behave in accordance with their expectation concerning their public self-image or face wants to be respected. Face means public self image of a person; it refers to the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone to recognize (Yule, 1996:60). Face has two aspects, positive and negative. An individual’s positive face is reflected in his or her desires to be liked, approved of, respected of and appreciated by others. While an individual’s negative face is reflected in the desire not be impeded or put upon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses (Thomas, 1995:169). Therefore, people in their relationship need to preserve both kinds of faces for themselves and the people they interact with the politeness utterances.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987:65), certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face want of the hearer and / or of the speaker. For example, the hearer’s positive face will damage when the speaker insulting the hearer,
Communication has an important role in our life. According to Gartside communication is the art of sharing anything. In its vital sense it means a sharing of ideas and feelings in a mood mutual understanding (1986:1). Thus, people can cooperate with each other when they communicate just as they do in any other shared activity. Communication is usually defined as conversation, namely for sending and receiving message. If the message cannot be received it means that communication does not work well. In order to make communication run in harmony, the hearer should know the speaker’s aim. Moreover, every day we adapt our conversation to different situations. Among our friends for instance, we can easily say something that would be seen discourteous among strangers and we avoid over formally with our friends. In both situations above we try to avoid making the hearer embarrassed and uncomfortable.
People generally behave in accordance with their expectation concerning their public self-image or face wants to be respected. Face means public self image of a person; it refers to the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone to recognize (Yule, 1996:60). Face has two aspects, positive and negative. An individual’s positive face is reflected in his or her desires to be liked, approved of, respected of and appreciated by others. While an individual’s negative face is reflected in the desire not be impeded or put upon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses (Thomas, 1995:169). Therefore, people in their relationship need to preserve both kinds of faces for themselves and the people they interact with the politeness utterances.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987:65), certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face want of the hearer and / or of the speaker. For example, the hearer’s positive face will damage when the speaker insulting the hearer,