POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 2016

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

Field: English Language
Code: 8220201
POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH
AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 2016
CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG BÀI PHÁT BIỂU
CỦA TỔNG THỐNG DONALD TRUMP TẠI ĐẠI HỘI
TỒN QUỐC ĐẢNG CỘNG HỊA NĂM 2016
NGUYỄN TIẾN ĐẠT

Hanoi, 2018


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

Field: English Language
Code: 8220201

POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH
AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 2016
CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG BÀI PHÁT BIỂU
CỦA TỔNG THỐNG DONALD TRUMP TẠI ĐẠI HỘI
TỒN QUỐC ĐẢNG CỘNG HỊA NĂM 2016
NGUYỄN TIẾN ĐẠT

Supervisor name: ASSOC. PROF. DR. HỒ NGỌC TRUNG

Hanoi, 2018


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
POLITENESS

STRATEGIES

IN

DONALD

TRUMP’S

SPEECH

AT

submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used
without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2018
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 2016

Nguyen Tien Dat

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung
Date: 19/11/2018

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and
support from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung, my supervisor, who has patiently
and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and
whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired
me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to the teachers at Faculty of Post
Graduate, Hanoi Open University and many others, without
whose support and encouragement it would never have been
possible for me to have this thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my wife, for
the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic
work.

ii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of authorship

Acknowledgements
List of tables
Abstract
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale for the study ................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study ............................................................................... 1
1.3. Research questions ...................................................................................................... 1
1.4. Methods of the study................................................................................................... 2
1.5. Scope of the study ....................................................................................................... 3
1.6. Significance of the study............................................................................................. 3
1.7. Design of the study ..................................................................................................... 3
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................... 5
2.1. Previous studies .......................................................................................................... 5
2.2. Theoretical background .............................................................................................. 6
2.2.1. Pragmatics ............................................................................................................ 6
2.2.2. Discourse analysis................................................................................................ 8
2.2.3. Conversational cooperative principle .................................................................. 8
2.2.4. Political speeches ................................................................................................. 9
2.2.5. Historical background of the speech .................................................................. 10
2.3 Theoretical framework ............................................................................................... 10
2.3.1 Face ..................................................................................................................... 10
2.3.2 Politeness strategies ............................................................................................ 14
2.4. Summary ................................................................................................................... 25
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY............................................................................................. 27
3.1. Subjects ..................................................................................................................... 27
3.2. Instruments................................................................................................................ 29
3.3. Procedures ................................................................................................................. 29
3.4. Statistical Analysis .................................................................................................... 31
3.5. Summary ................................................................................................................... 31
Chapter 4: POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH AT

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 2016 .......................................................... 32
4.1. Realizations of politeness strategies used in Donald Trump’s speech at Republican
National Convention 2016 ............................................................................................... 32
4.1.1. Realizations of bald on record ........................................................................... 33
4.1.2. Realizations of positive politeness ..................................................................... 35

iii


4.1.3. Realizations of negative politeness .................................................................... 45
4.1.4. Realizations of off record .................................................................................. 46
4.2 Functions of politeness strategies in Donald Trump’s speech at Republican National
Convention 2016 .............................................................................................................. 47
4.3. Discussion ................................................................................................................. 49
4.4. Implications .............................................................................................................. 50
4.4.1. Result of the survey questionnaire ..................................................................... 50
4.4.2. Suggestions for improving English textbook and testing - assessment of
speaking skill/presentation skill ................................................................................... 51
4.4.3. Suggestions for methods/techniques of teaching speaking skill/ presentation
skill............................................................................................................................... 52
4.4.4. Suggestions for methods/techniques of learning speaking skill/ presentation
skill............................................................................................................................... 53
4.5. Summary ................................................................................................................... 53
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 55
5.1. Summary of the findings........................................................................................... 55
5.2 Concluding remarks ................................................................................................... 55
5.2.1. Concluding remarks on the first objective of the study ..................................... 55
5.2.2. Concluding remarks on the second objective of the study ................................ 55
5.3. Recommendations for further Study ......................................................................... 55
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... i

APPENDICES ......................................................................................................................iii

iv


LIST OF TABLES

1

Table 2.1. Sub-strategies of Bald on record

15

2

Table 2.2. Sub-strategies of Positive Politeness

16

3

Table 2.3. Sub-strategies of Negative Politeness

21

4

Table 2.4. Sub-strategies of Off record

22

5

Table 4.1. Realizations of politeness strategies

32

6

Table 4.2. Results of Survey questionnaire

51

7

Table 4.3. Sample matching table

52

v


ABSTRACT
The reason for writing the research lies in two points. The first one is to find
out the politeness strategies and their functions in the speech of Donald Trump in
Republican National Convention 2016. The second point is to apply the findings of
the research to suggest measures to improve presentation skill of Vietnamese
students. The research problem is politeness strategies in politeness theory by
Brown and Levinson. The scope of the research is politeness strategies used in the
speech of Donald Trump in Republican National Convention 2016. In this research,

the author uses a pragmatic approach to a genre of discourse: political speeches.
Within this domain, qualitative method is chosen as the main method to carry out
the research because this study focuses on understanding a linguistic phenomenon,
politeness strategy used in a formal speech. Besides, the author would like to also
use quantitative method and statistical instrument in order to list all of the politeness
strategies, their frequency. Donald Trump uses all four politeness strategies in his
speech at Republican National Convention 2016. Among those strategies, positive
politeness is mainly used and has the highest rate of use. The other three strategies
only used occasionally due to their limitation and nonconformity. The main reason
for the difference in using rate lies in the function of each strategy. The reason is
positive politeness strategy helps Donald Trump to be closer to the hearers and
therefore, Donald Trump will more likely gain sympathy and support from the
hearers. From the findings of the research, the author suggests to improve
presentation skill of Vietnamese students via three measures. First of all, the author
suggests improving English textbook and testing - assessment speaking
skill/presentation skill. Secondly, the author suggests some speaking
skill/presentation skill teaching methods/techniques. The last implication is
suggestions for speaking skill/ presentation skill learning methods/techniques.

vi


Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale for the study
Politeness strategies are widely used in communication to maintain harmony
as well as to avoid conflict. Those phenomena can appear in any speech. In the
situation of this study, Donald Trump was a candidate of the president of the United
States and he delivered a speech in front of American people and the officials of the
Republican Party. Therefore, it was a must for him to use politeness strategies to
have a successful speech. This research focuses on finding out the politeness

strategies that have been used, their functions and their implication in improving
presentation skill.
The expected result of the study is to give modest contribution to linguistics
theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the author would like to give scientific
contributions especially in the Politeness Theory proposed by Brown and Levinson
(1987).
Besides, practically, the study is expected to give a valuable source of
information for readers and other researchers and Vietnamese students. For the
readers, by reading the research, they can gain useful information and understanding
about Politeness Strategy. The study can lay a firm ground for other researchers to
carry out further research on Politeness strategy. Then, this study will help
Vietnamese students improve their presentation skill.
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study
The study is aimed at helping Vietnamese students have a better presentation
skill by better knowing the politeness strategies used in Donald Trump’s speech in
Republican National Convention 2016.
The study has two objectives:
• Finding out the politeness strategies used in the speech and their functions;
• Suggesting some implications for improving presentation skill for
Vietnamese students.
1.3. Research questions
Based on the aims and objectives of the study, the author comes up with two
research questions:
- What are politeness strategies and their function used in the speech of
Donald Trump in Republican National Convention 2016?

1


- What are implications of politeness strategies in improving presentation skill

for Vietnamese students?
1.4. Methods of the study
In this research, the author adopts a pragmatic approach to a genre of
discourse: political speeches. Within this domain, qualitative method is chosen as
the main method to carry out the research because this study focuses on
understanding a linguistic phenomenon, politeness strategy used in a formal speech.
The first reason for this choice is that qualitative method helps the researcher to
have a deeper look into the phenomenon than the quantitative method. Secondly,
the data source of this study is utterances, which makes difficulties in transforming
them to numerical statistics. In addition, because the data of the research is analyzed
by word other than by number, the researcher also employs descriptive method,
which helps to analyze the data descriptively to gain deep understanding about
politeness strategies used in the speech. Besides, the author would like to also use
quantitative method and statistical instrument in order to list all of the politeness
strategies, their frequency.
The data was collected from reputable sources from the internet about the
speech of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention 2016. The main
source is youtube.com. This is an important speech, so the speaker has to be careful
with his sayings and therefore, the words, phrases and sentences are carefully chosen
to make sure that the speech is liked by the voters.
In doing this research, the researcher collected, identified, analyzed and
discussed the data collected. During this process, the important data which contains
politeness strategy was sometimes collected and noted down. For the step of
collecting the data, the researcher used the transcript from trusted source on the
internet. To assure the accuracy of the transcript, the author watched the video several
times and changed the initial transcript accordingly. Then the author highlighted the
utterances which contain politeness strategy.
In general, there are four main steps that the author follows in order to do the
research. Firstly, the researcher identifies the data containing politeness strategy
based on Brown and Levinson’s theory. Secondly, the researcher decides what

strategy is used in each utterance among: positive politeness, negative politeness, bald
on record and off record. Thirdly, the findings are analyzed and discussed by using
the theory of politeness strategies by Brown and Levinson. Finally, the researcher
2


comes up with application of the results and the conclusion is withdrawn.
1.5. Scope of the study
The scope of the study is the politeness strategies used in Donald Trump’s
speech at Republican National Convention 2016 from view of Politeness Theory by
Brown and Levinson. The approach that the author follows to do this research is
discourse analysis and pragmatics.
1.6. Significance of the study
The importance of the research lies in the reality of the research result. Speech
often conveys more than the writing. Therefore, it will have more meanings, more
attitudes and more underlying implicatures between the speaker and the hearer.
The main practical problem is that a lot of Vietnamese students find it difficult
to give a presentation. The result of this study is expected to be able to give valuable
contribution both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, this study is expected
to give scientific contributions, especially in linguistics about the concept of
politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). Practically, this
study is expected to give valuable information to researchers, Vietnamese students,
and readers. For readers, readers can use the study as a source of reading to broaden
their knowledge about Politeness Theory. For researchers, this study is expected to
provide the basis for analyzing the politeness strategies more deeply. For
Vietnamese students, this study is expected to give useful information in
understanding politeness strategies in order to improve their presentation skill.
1.7. Design of the study
The study is structured into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction to the
study. This chapter provides information about: rationale for the study, aims and

objectives of the study, research questions, methods of the study, scope of the study,
significance of the study, design of the study. Chapter 2 deals with literature review.
This part includes review on previous studies, theoretical background, theoretical
framework and a summary on these points. Chapter 3 focuses on subjects of the
study, instrumentation, procedures, and statistical analysis. Chapter 4 is the core
chapter of this study which answers the two research questions of: What are
politeness strategies and their function used in the speech of Donald Trump in
Republican National Convention 2016? From the findings of the study, and the
information collected from the survey questionnaire, the author withdraws
implications of politeness strategies in improving presentation skill for Vietnamese
3


students. The last chapter is the conclusion which summarizes the findings in
chapter 4 to come up with the general conclusions for the whole study as well as
provides recommendations for further study.

4


Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Previous studies
There are many previous studies in politeness theories. However they vary in
subjects and ways of analysis. Therefore, each of them has a different result. They
provide a good ground for this research to accomplish the target. Besides, because
the Speech of Donald Trump in Republican National Convention 2016 is new to the
reader, by the time the author chooses to do this research (2017), there is still not
any study about politeness strategy in the Speech of Donald Trump in Republican
National Convention 2016. To finish this research the researcher uses four
researches as references.

The first one is Politeness Strategies Used by Michelle Obama and Oprah
Winfrey at the United State of Women Summit in 2016. The objectives of the study
are to identify the types of politeness strategies used by Michelle Obama and Oprah
Winfrey in their conversation at the United State of Women Summit in 2016, and to
describe the realizations of the politeness strategies used by Michelle Obama and
Oprah Winfrey in the conversation at the United State of Women Summit in 2016.
After doing the research, the author concludes that: All four types of politeness
strategies are found throughout the data. The types are bald on record, positive
politeness, negative politeness, and off record strategy. However, the use of bald on
record and off record strategy is only found in Michelle’s utterances. In this case,
the choice of politeness strategies depends on the circumstances and the speakers’
wants related to maintaining the hearers’ face. Concerning with the second
objective which is to describe the realizations of politeness strategies used by
Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey in the conversation at the United States of
Women Summit in 2016, the researcher could find 22 sub-strategies of politeness
strategies. As a consequence, there are some sub-strategies that cannot be found in
both Michelle’s and Oprah’s utterances since they have limited time which do not
support them to apply all the sub-strategies. In addition, positive politeness strategy
has the highest variation of the realizations achieving 11 out of 22 realizations of
politeness strategy performed in the conversation. It signifies that both Michelle and
Oprah attempt to come closer or to be friendly even though the conference tends to
be in a formal situation. The second study is An Analysis of Politeness Strategy in
Barack Obama’s Victory Speech 2016. The two main objectives of the study are to
know the politeness strategies are used in Barack Obama’s Victory Speech 2016
5


and reveal how the process to apply politeness strategies in the speech. The results
of the study are: Politeness strategies are of importance to deliver speech in front of
people. Barrack Obama uses politeness strategies to influence the listeners about his

leadership. And finally, Obama uses positive strategies more often by joking,
intensifying interest, exaggerating, giving sympathy, understanding and cooperating
than negative politeness.
The third study that the author would like to mention is Politeness Strategies
in Barrack Obama’s Speech in Democratic National Convention 2012 by Akbar
Kusuma. The study deals with realizations of politeness strategies used by former
President Barrack Obama in Democratic National Convention Speech. The context
and the subject of the study is similar in general to the context and the subject of the
study of the author. The study of Akbar Kusuma comes up with the conclusion that
Positive politeness is used at the highest rate among four politeness strategies. In
order to come to this conclusion, Akbar Kusuma employs qualitative and
descriptive methods to screen the data which are taken from Youtube.com.
The forth study the author would like to refer to is a thirteen-page Journal on
A pragmatic study of Barrack Obama’s Political Propaganda (2015) by Prof. Dr.
Riyadh Tariq Kadhim Al- Ameedi and Zina Abdul Hussein Khudhier. This short
paper focuses on investigating pragmatically, the language of five electoral political
propaganda texts delivered by Barak Obama with three clear aims: (1) identifying
the speech acts used in political propaganda, (2) showing how politicians utilize
Grice's maxims and the politeness principle in issuing their propaganda, (3)
analyzing the rhetorical devices used in political propaganda.
The difference between this study and the above referent studies lies in two
main points. First of all, there is obviously difference in the data of the study. This
study uses data from Donald Trump speech at National Convention. Each person
has a different way of communicating, so how he uses politeness strategies varies.
Secondly, the target of the study is to find out and link the politeness strategies with
their function in the speech as well as to apply to communication skill.
2.2. Theoretical background
2.2.1. Pragmatics
In communication, what an utterance means may be different in different
contexts. Therefore, the hearers have to interpret the meaning regarding the

6


circumstances. Pragmatics is a sub-branch of linguistics which deals with these
language elements.
Following Yule (1996), the definition of pragmatics contains four parts.
Pragmatics deals with the study of what the speaker really means by their utterances
rather than what the words or phrases mean by themselves. Besides, pragmatics also
studies the way contextual meaning is produced by the speaker and is interpreted by
the hearer. Context here means the circumstance and the audience or public.
Pragmatics is also the study of “invisible meaning” - how more meaning is
communicated than what is said. This means the inferences are made by listeners or
readers in order to arrive at an interpretation of the intended meaning. A great deal
of what is unsaid is recognized as a part of what is communicated. Lastly,
pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance - the closeness or
distance of the listener or the reader determines how much needs to be said.
Researcher Mey (2001) adds to the notion of pragmatics that pragmatics is the
study of language used by human communication considering a certain situation.
Meanwhile, Griffiths (2006) claims that pragmatics studies the meaning of the
utterances of the speaker which is affected by the context.
From these points of view on pragmatics of these researchers, the author
would use the notion that pragmatics is a sub-branch of linguistics that studies the
meaning of language determined by the context. This notion contains how the
speaker considers the context to use utterances to achieve the communication
purpose, how the hearer interprets the speaker’s utterance by considering the
context and how the context influences the producing of the utterances.
There are several concepts in pragmatics worth studying, which are: deixis,
presupposition, speech act and implicature. These skeletal definitions are mentioned
as below.

Following Yule (1996), deixis is a technical term which originates from
Greek. Deixis means “pointing via language”. People use deictic expression to refer
to something in the immediate context.
Presupposition is mentioned by Yule (1996) as what the speaker assumes
before making an utterance. There are seven types of presupposition, including:
potential presupposition, existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical
presupposition, structural presupposition, non-factive presupposition and counterfactual presupposition.
7


Implicature is defined by Yule (1996) as the meaning of an expression which
is more than the meaning of words, this kind of meaning is and “additional
conveyed meaning”.
Researcher Yule (1996) states that speech acts are actions performed by
producing utterances. Speech act varies due to type of action, such as complaint,
compliment, invitation, promise or request, apology, etc.
2.2.2. Discourse analysis
Following Harris (1952), one of the founders of the theory of discourse
analysis, discourse is a chain of linked sentences.
A definition of discourse analysis is raised by G. Brown and G. Yule (1988) as
an investigation of what that language is used for.
Discourse analysis as an approach lies at the interface of many disciplines
such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, philosophy, text linguistics. Discourse is
defined as a socially situated communicative and interactional process. It is purpose
and action oriented. The definition of discourse and discourse analysis comes close
with some critical concepts for discourse analysis as context, coherence vs.
cohesion, the communicativeness, relevance of discourse, structure of discourse and
how background knowledge is used in computing comprehension of discourse, as
well as its semiotic nature (Nguyen Hoa, 2004).
There are many approaches to discourse analysis including pragmatic theory,

interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, conversation
analysis, discourse analysis in social psychology, critical discourse analysis. A
discourse analysis of a genre is also given, which clearly recognizes the role of both
functionalism and structuralism in discourse analysis (Nguyen Hoa, 2004).
By referring to this definition, the author would like to use discourse analysis
theory to analyze the use of politeness strategies in the speech of Donald Trump in
Republican National Convention 2016.
2.2.3. Conversational cooperative principle
Conversational cooperative principle has provided a hugely influential
framework for thinking about implicature (Grice, 1987) and Grice’s Maxims.
Implicature is first presented in a 1967 lecture series and published in 1987. “The
core idea of the account is that the link between utterances and the implicatures they
carry is not arbitrary or contingent, based on the speaker’s intentions or general
conventions, but a rational one, grounded in general principles of cooperative
8


behavior. Grice argues that an implicature arises when an utterance would be
uncooperative if taken literally, violating one or more maxims about how a
cooperative speaker should convey information. Since a presumption of cooperation
is essential to communication, Grice argues, in such cases the speaker must be
understood to be conveying something other than the literal meaning of their
utterance, and this is the implicated meaning. Grice’s Maxims are an
characterization of conversational principles that would make recommendations for
achieving maximally efficient communication. They are Maxim of Quality (speak
the truth, be sincere), Maxim of Quantity (don’t say less than required, don’t say
more than required), Maxim of Relevance (be relevant to the topic) and Maxim of
Manner (be perspicuous, avoid ambiguity and obscurity) (Brown and Levinson,
1987). To understand conversational implicatures and Grice’s Maxims is of high
importance because two of four main strategies in politeness strategies are related to

this theory - off record strategy and bald-on-record.
2.2.4. Political speeches
Political speech can be defined as “speech deals with matters of public
concern when it can be considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or
other concern to the community”. Therefore, political speech is a broad definition. It
can be about any issues that are for public interest like: taxes, world events,
immigration,
healthcare,
economy
and
candidate
for
office
( />Following Prof. Nguyen Hoa, political commentary discourse comes with
some general features. First of all, the discourse is structured into three main parts:
opening, development, conclusion which makes political discourse differ from news
discourse. There are five types of political commentary discourse, namely: short
commentary discourse, daily commentary discourse, weekly commentary discourse,
fighting discourse and explanatory discourse. Regarding the content, there is no
difference between commentary discourse and editorial.
Moreover, there are some linguistic features of political speech. The first
feature is the introduction of a speaker and those who are present at the event as
well as the use of repetition (reiteration). The first feature lies in the use of
contrastive pairs and antithesis and rhetorical questions. Secondly, the speaker uses
inclusive strategy for self-presentation while uses exclusive strategy for otherpresentation. The third feature is the use of biblical and historical allusion and the
9


last feature is rhetorical tropes (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, personification,
etc.)

2.2.5. Historical background of the speech
The 2016 Republican National Convention was held on July 18-21, 2016, at
Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the third time Cleveland was
chosen as hosting site for Republican National Convention and the first since 1936.
There were 2,472 delegates coming to the convention, in which most of them were
bound for the first ballot of the convention based on the results of the 2016
Republican presidential primaries. The convention formally nominated Donald
Trump for President and Mike Pence - Indiana Governor for Vice President.
On May 3, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus declared
Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee after the drop-out of Ted Cruz. The day
after that, Ohio Governor John Kasich suspended his race. Therefore Trump is the
only delegate for the Republican Presidential nominee. Trump is the first nominee
of major party since 1940 who does not have any political experience and holds
neither political office nor a high military rank before.
The Republican Platform 2016 was finally adopted by July 12. This 66-page
long document reaffirms the principles that united the party with 6 main points:
Restoring the American Dream, A Rebirth of Constitutional Government, American
Natural Resources: Agriculture, Energy, and the Environment, Government
Reform, Great American Families, Education, Healthcare, and Criminal Justice and
America Resurgent.
( />2.3 Theoretical framework
2.3.1 Face
Following Brown and Levinson (1987), face is the public self-image that
every member wants to claim for himself, consisting in two related aspects. The
notion of “face” is derived from that of Goffman (1967) and from the English folk
term, which sticks to notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, or “losing face”.
Thus face is a thing that emotionally invested and it can be lost, maintained,
enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people
cooperate to maintain face in interaction because face is vulnerable. The reason why
they cooperate is that if one’s face is threatened, that person will likely defend his

face. By acting to defend his face, he would threaten others’ face. Although specific
10


cultures define face in different ways, it is general that face is generally accepted as
a person’s self-image which needs maintenance.
Beside the notion of face, the notion of face want is also studied thoroughly by
Brown and Levinson. There are two face wants, such as negative face and positive
face.
Negative face is the want of every “competent adult member” that his actions
be unimpeded by others. Positive face is the want that his wants to be liked, desired
by some other people. In general, negative face, the notion comes along with nonimposition, is highly familiar in communication while positive politeness and its
derivative forms are less obvious. The most noticeable feature of positive politeness
is the desire to be ratified, understood, approved of, liked or admired.
This definition of positive face is adequate only if the partner in
communication can partly interpret at least some of the meaning of the speaker.
First of all, the positive wants may actually have been satisfied as they can be
considered old wants in the past which are presented by present achievements or
possessions. Secondly, the wants can be for material or non-material things such as
for values (love, liberty, piety), or for activity such as playing golf, singing, jogging,
etc. Thirdly, in general, people want their goals, possessions, and achievements to
be thought desirable not just by anyone, but by some particular others especially
relevant to the particular goals, etc.
From these points of view, Brown and Levinson (1987) come up with the
ways wants can be interpreted in a simple way:
Hearer wants others (namely a1, a2, a3...) to want the corresponding set of
hearer’s wants (w1, w2, w3...).
Let a1 = people in hearer’s relation
a2 = people in social class that hearer is in
a3 = hearer’s husband or wife

Let w1 = hearer has a luxurious car; hearer is responsible and law-abiding
w2 = hearer has a muscle car and a leather jacket
w3 = hearer is happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise
These specific facts are obviously highly culture-specific, group-specific, and
ultimately idiosyncratic. In spite of that, there are in general some common grounds
between any two persons in the society. If they are strangers this ground can be
reduced to some highly safe topic like: interest in good/bad weather, if they are
11


close friends, it can be extended to personal desires and lives. However, these can
cause affront by stating that “I am in the set of persons who will please you by
commenting on your clothes”. Due to this, the attention to positive face in a society
is often highly restricted.
Regarding face threatening acts, those acts are defined as all acts that by their
nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker. Acts
here means verbal or non-verbal communication. There are two distinctions of acts.
The first way is to distinguish them regarding the kind of face that is threatened by
the acts. Those acts that primarily threaten the addressee’s negative face want by
indicating potentially that the speaker does not intend to avoid impeding hearer’s
freedom of action include three main categories.
The first one includes acts that predicate some future act A of the hearer, and
in so doing put some pressure on hearer to do (or refrain from doing) the act A:
a) Orders and requests (speaker indicates that he wants hearer to do, or refrain
from doing, some act A)
b) Suggestions, advice (speaker indicates that he thinks hearer ought to
(perhaps) do some act A)
c) Reminding (speaker indicate that hearer should remember to do some A)
d) Threats, warnings, dares (speaker indicates that he - or someone, or
something - will instigate sanctions against hearer unless he does A)

The other one refers to acts that predicate some positive future act of speaker
toward hearer, and in so doing put some pressure on hearer to accept or reject them,
and possible to incur a debt, which are divided into offers (when speaker indicates
that he wants hearer to commit himself to whether or not he wants speaker to do
some act for hearer, with hearer thereby incurring a possible debt) or promises
(when speaker commits himself to a future act for hearer’s benefit)
The third category relating to acts that predicate some desire of speaker toward
hearer or hearer’s goods, giving hearer reason to think that he may have to take
action to protect the object of speaker’s desire, or give it to speaker. Those acts can
be compliments, expression of envy or admiration (speaker indicate that he likes or
would be something of hearer’s), or expression of strong (negative) emotions
toward hearer - e.g. haired, anger, lust (speaker indicates possible motivation for
harming hearer or hearer’s goods).

12


The other kind of face threatening acts are acts that threaten the positive face
want by indicating that the speaker does not care about the addressee’s feelings,
wants, etc. which means the speaker does not want hearer’s wants. This includes
three main types. The first type is act that shows that speaker has a negative
evaluation of some aspect of hearer’s positive face. They can be expressions of
disapproval, criticism, contempt or ridicule, complaints and reprimands,
accusations, insults (when speaker indicates that he does not like/want one or more
of hearer’s wants, acts, personal characteristics, goods, beliefs or values) or
contradictions or disagreements, challenges (when speaker indicates that he thinks
hearer is wrong or misguided or unreasonable about some issue, such wrongness
being associated with disapproval). The second type of act is act that shows that
speaker does not care about hearer’s positive face. It can be expression of violent
emotions (when speaker gives hearer possible reason to fear him or be embarrassed

by him) or irreverence, mention of taboo topics, including those that are
inappropriate in the context (speaker indicates that he does not value hearer’s values
and does not fear hearer’s fears) or bringing of bad news about hearer or good news
about speaker (speaker indicates that he is willing to cause distress to hearer and
does not care about hearer’s feelings).
Considering this distinction, it is noticeable that there is sometimes overlap
between face threatening acts when the acts threaten both negative and negative
face, such as: complaints, interruptions, threats, strong expressions of emotion, and
requests for personal information.
The second distinction of face threatening act based on the target of face
threat. In conversation, the threat can be for hearer or can be for speaker. face
threatening acts that threaten speaker include those that offend speaker’s negative
face or those that directly damage speaker’s positive face. Six types of face
threatening act that offend speaker’s negative face include:
a) Expressing thanks (speaker accepts a debt, humbles his own face)
b) Acceptance of hearer thanks or hearer’s apology (speaker may feel
constrained to minimize his debt or transgression, as in “it was nothing, don’t
mention it”).
c) Excuses (speaker indicates that he thinks he had good reason to do, or fail to
do, an act which hearer has just criticized; this may constitute in turn a criticism of

13


the hearer, or at least cause a confrontation between hearer’s view of things and
speaker’s view).
d) Acceptance of offers (speaker is constrained to accept a debt and to
encourage upon hearer’s negative face)
e) Responses to hearer’s faux pas (of speaker visibly notices a prior faux pas,
he may cause embarrassment to hearer; of he pretend not to, he may be discomfited

himself)
f) Unwilling promises and offers (speaker commits himself to some future
action although he does not want to; therefore, if his unwillingness shows, he may
also offend hearer’s positive face)
Six types of face threatening acts that directly damage speaker’s positive face
include:
a) Apologies (speaker indicates that he regrets doing a prior face threatening
act, thereby damaging his own face to some degree - especially if the apology is at
the same time a confession with hearer learning about the transgression through it,
and the face threatening act thus conveys bad news)
b) Acceptance of compliment (speaker may feel constrained to denigrate the
object of hearer’s prior compliment, thus damaging his own face or he may feel
constrained to compliment hearer in turn)
c) Breakdown of physical control over body, bodily leakage, stumbling or
falling down, etc.
d) Self-humiliation, shuffling or covering, acting stupid, self-contradicting
e) Confessions, admissions of guilt or responsibility - e.g. for having done or
not done an act, or for ignorance of something that speaker is expected to know
f) Emotion leakage, non-control of laughter or tears
These two ways of classifying face threatening acts give rise up to four-way
grid which offers the possibility of cross-classifying in some certain cases.
However, such a cross-distinction has a complex relation to the ways in which face
threatening acts are handled.
2.3.2 Politeness strategies
Regarding types of strategies, Brown and Levinson (1987) divide politeness
strategies into four categories ie. bald on record, off record, positive politeness and
negative politeness. In order to make it easier for reader to have an overview on

14

sub-strategies of Politeness strategies by Brown and Levinson (1987), the author
has summarize sub-strategies of bald on record strategies in table form.
2.3.2.1. Bald on record

Bald on record is used when the speaker does the face threatening act in the
most direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way possible (for example, for a
request).
Table 2.1. Sub-strategies of bald on record
No.

Name of sub-

Example

strategy/group

Explanation

Help!
Speaker
speaks
as
if
Where maximum Watch
out! maximum efficiency is very
efficiency is very Your pants are on fire! important.
He
provides
1

important
and Give me just one more metaphorical urgency for
both hearer and week!
emphasis.
speaker know the Listen! I've got an idea. Where
communication
no face redress is Hear
necessary.
Look,

me
out: difficulties impose pressure to
the point is speak
with
maximum

Come home right now!

2

Where
nonredress occurs is
Bring me wine, Jeeves.
where speaker's
Add three cups of flour
want to satisfy
and stir vigorously.
hearer's face is
small

15

efficiency!
Either because speaker is
powerful and does not fear
retaliation or non-cooperation
from hearer.


In doing the Face Threatening

Doing

Face

Careful!
dangerous

He's

a Act, speaker conveys that he
man. does care about hearer and the

Your slip is showing.
Threatening Act
Your wig is askew; let
is primarily in
me fix it for you.
hearer's interest.

Your headlights are on!
Yes, you may go.

3

hearer's face. Therefore, he
uses no redress. Sympathetic
advice or warning or granting
permission for something
hearer has requested may be
baldly on record

Do come in, I'm here.
Cases of Face
Threatening Actoriented bald-onrecord usage

4

Come.
The speaker goes bald-onGo.
record
by
invitations,
Don't bother, I'll clean greetings,
farewells
and
it
up. offers.
Leave it to me.

By redressive action, the action is giving face to the addressee, which shows
the attempt to limit the damage to the face of addressee. Based on this, we can
easily know that redressive actions are divided into two types due to the kind of face
is saved.
2.3.2.2. Positive politeness
Positive politeness is used to redress the hearer’s positive face. Positive
politeness indicates that in some situations, speaker wants what hearer wants. “The
potential face threat of an act is minimized in this case by assurance that in general,
speaker wants at least some of hearer’s wants”. For example, speaker can treat
hearer as a member of a group or consider hearer to be important or like one of the
hearer’s feature or things. (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
Table 2.2. Sub-strategies of Positive Politeness
No.

Sub-strategy

Example

Claim common ground

16

Explanation


1.

Notice, attend to Goodness, you cut your Speaker should take notice
the hearer

hair!

of

aspects

You must be hungry, condition
it’s a long time since changes,

of

hearer’s
(noticeable
remarkable

breakfast. How about possessions, anything which
some lunch?
looks as though hearer
What a beautiful vase would wants speaker to
this is! Where did it notice and approve of it).
come from?
2.

Exaggerate

What a fantastic garden This is often done with
you have!
exaggerated
intonation,
How

absolutely stress and other aspects of
marvelous!

3.

Intensify interest to I came down the stairs, This may be done with vivid
the hearer

4.

prosodic, as well as with
intensifying modifiers.

and what do you think I presents because hearer is in
see? ...
the center of the story being
told.

Use
in-group Mate,
buddy,
pal, By using in-group words
identity markers honey, dear, cutie, like:
sweetheart, etc.
usages of address forms
Come
here, dialect or in-group language,
mate/buddy/honey!
jargon or slang,
Got any 555?

Lend me 2 bucks.
Contraction and ellipsis.
Mind if I smoke?
Got any spare cash?
How about a drink?

17