The study of positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in wuthering heights = các chiến lược lịch sự dương tính được biểu hiện trong lời hội thoại trong tiểu thuyết đồi gió hú

1

vinh university
foreign language department
========

Ngun ThÞ hun Trang

the study of positive politeness strategies
manifested in conversations in "wuthering
heights"
(Các chiến lợc lịch sự dơng tính đợc thể hiện qua
lời hội thoại trong tiểu thut "§åi giã hó")

graduation thesis
Field: Linguistics

====Vinh, May 2006===


2

vinh university
foreign language department
========

the study of positive politeness strategies
manifested in conversations in "wuthering
heights"
graduation thesis
Field: Linguistics

Supervisor: M.A. Lê Thị Thuý Hà
Student:
Nguyễn ThÞ Hun Trang
Class: 43A2 - English

====Vinh, May 2006===


3

Acknowledgements
This study would not have been in form without the valuable and
constructive comments from many people.
First of all, I would like to express my deep thanks to all teachers of the
Foreign Languages Department for giving me an opportunity to carry out this
thesis.
Especially, I would like to express my special thanks to M.A Le Thi Thuy
Ha- my supervisor who gave me great support and academic guidance during
the preparation and the writing of this graduation paper. The success of my
paper would be almost impossible without her great help and advice.
My sincere thanks are also given to my dear parents for their support and
encouragement, to my close friends for their knowledge and help. My great
thanks also goes to the writers of a great deal of references that I used to
consult.
To everyone, I am honestly grateful.
Vinh, May_2006.


4

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale......................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study........................................................................................2
3. Scope of the study........................................................................................2
4. Methods of the study...................................................................................3
5. Design of the study......................................................................................3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1.
Speech acts....................................................................................5
1.1.1
Definition of speech acts...............................................................6
1.1.2
Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.......................7
1.1.3
Classification of speech acts..........................................................7
1.2
Politeness.......................................................................................10
1.2.1
What is politeness?........................................................................10
1.2.2
Approaches to politeness...............................................................11
1.2.2.1
The conversational-maxim view on politeness..............................12

1.2.2.1.1 Politeness rules..............................................................................12
1.2.2.1.2 Politeness maxims.........................................................................14
1.2.2.2
The face saving-view on politeness...............................................17
1.2.2.2.1 Face...............................................................................................17
1.2.2.2.2 Face-threatening-acts.....................................................................18
1.2.2.2.3 Politeness strategies.......................................................................19
1.2.2.2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies.........................................................20
1.2.2.2.4 Social factors affecting politeness.................................................22
CHAPTER 2: POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES MANIFESTED
IN CONVERSATIONS IN “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”WUTHERING HEIGHTS”
2.1Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering
Heights”...........................................................................................................24
2.1.1
Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H.......................................................25


5
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
2.1.5
2.1.6
2.1.7
2.1.8
2.1.9

Strategy 2: Exaggerate....................................................................25
Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H...................................................26
Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers......................................27

Strategy 5: Seek agreement.............................................................28
Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement......................................................28
Strategy 7: Presuppose/raise/assert common ground......................29
Strategy 8: Joke...............................................................................30
Strategy 9: Assert/presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for
H’s want...........................................................................................31
2.1.10
Strategy 10: Offer, promise ............................................................31
2.1.11
Strategy 11: Be optimistic................................................................31
2.1.12
Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity............................32
2.1.13
Strategy 13: Give (or ask) reasons...................................................32
2.1.14
Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity.......................................32
2.1.15
Strategy 15: Give gifts to H.............................................................33
2.1.16
Strategy 16: Encourage, condole.....................................................33
2.1.17
Strategy 17 : Asking personal questions..........................................33
2.2
Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in
“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” seen from S-H relationships..........................................34
2.2.1
Master/mastress/servant..................................................................35
2.2.2
Lovers..............................................................................................36
2.2.3

Husband/wife...................................................................................36
2.2.4
Acquaintances.................................................................................36
2.2.5
Strangers..........................................................................................36
2.2.6
Friends.............................................................................................37
CHAPTER 3: THE POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY USED
MOST FREQUENTLY AND ITS REASONS. BENEFITS OF THE
STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGY, IN GENERAL, POSITIVE
POLITENESS STRATEGIES, IN PARTICULAR, IN TEACHING AND
LEARNING ENGLISH
3.1 The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and its reasons......38
3.2 Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positive politeness
strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English...............................40
PART III: CONCLUSION
1. Review the major findings...........................................................................44
2. Suggestions for further study.......................................................................45


6
REFERENCES................................................................................................46


7

ABBREVIATIONS
C.P : Cooperative Principle
E.g : For example
FTA : Facing Threatening Act

H : Hearer
P.P : Politeness Principle
S
: Speaker


8

part a: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Human beings are inherently social beings and language is social
phenomenon, the primary means through which they act in the world to
communicate with each other (Halliday,1978). People use language to
represent thoughts and more importantly to communicate attitudes, feelings
and wants to others-in other words, to create a social world-translates into the
use of language to act in and on the social world. However, not always we
communicate effectively and naturally because sometimes we must tell
another something that the other does not want to hear or we must refuse one's
request or we must end a conversation before the other is quite willing to go.
In such cases, consequently there is the danger of insult and the break down of
communication, in other words, we hurt one's feelings. If there is no way to
smooth over moments of conflict and confrontation, social relationship would
be difficult to establish and continue. A big question is exposed that how to
rescue' the danger' in such cases?
The same utterance can be understood differently from culture to
culture. Thus, a successful communication requires not only a good linguistic
knowledge but also interactional skills and cultural knowledge. Respected
president Ho Chi Minh has ever said that a genuine writer had to know what
to write to whom and how to write. That means our language choice must be
done depending on cultural and social contexts. Nowadays, teaching and

learning language focus on communicative goal. The aspect of language
choice makes a good contribution to achieve that goal. And politeness is the
one of the most important factors determining the language choice. Thus,
teaching and learning will be more successful if we study politeness more
deeply.
Now, we are living in a civilized society. People tend to employ
politeness strategies to make their communication effective. Thus, politeness
manifests more frequently in everyday conversations. We know that literature
is one of artistic forms created to reflect any aspects of real life. Inevitably,
politeness also manifests in characters’ utterances in those literary works.
Literature is one of our favour subjects, especially we spend much free time
reading novels of which content as well as conversational language attract our
souls. One of them is “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, retold by Clare
West, which is considered as a masterpiece of English literature. Although


9
this novel was born before politeness theory has been developed perfectly, it’s
clear that characters employ politeness strategies in making utterances. As we
know, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose 4 ways of redressing an FTA:
bald-on-record, off-record, negative politeness and positive politeness.
Positive politeness strategies are used more frequently than negative ones by
oriental people, particularly Vietnamese people. The manifestations of both
these types in literary work have been studied deeply already. We are only
interested in positive politeness strategies not negative ones or both because
we recognize that Vietnamese people really want to use these strategies more
frequently so that it is easier to understand them clearly. For all of the
mentioned reasons above, we’ve decided to choose positive politeness
strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” to be the topic
of this thesis

2. Aims of the study
Politeness has a strong influence on the effect of communication,
especially cross-cultural communication. Therefore, the most important aim of
our study is to emphasize the importance of politeness strategies, in general,
positive politeness strategies, in particular, in communication and to study the
utilities of positive politeness strategies in conversations between characters of
“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights”.
3. Scope of the study
Due to the limitation of a graduation paper, time, it is impossible for us
to cover all types of politeness strategies. Therefore, our thesis only focuses
on positive politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987)
theoretical framework. The study only deals with verbal aspects of politeness.
We use utterances taken from the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” of Emily Bronte
retold by Clare West as our data analysis. We also select useful information
related to the topic taken from other sources.
The data analysis is based on utterances in conversations between
characters in the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by the English novelist Emily
Bronte. “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” is the wild, passionate story of intense and
almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling
adopted by her father. After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Catherine’s brother
Hindley behaves Heathcliff very badly and considers him as a servant.
Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine but he wrongly believes that his love for
Catherine is not reciprocated. He leaves “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”, only returns


10
years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible
revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and
unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure.
Conversations among characters of this novel reflect truthfully their deeper

feelings so that they are reliable enough to serve effectively for our topic.
4. Methods of the study
In order to carry out this research, we have collected different kinds of
books which contain politeness part as well as found information from website
Google.com. We use analysis method to analyse the collected data and
quantitative method to measure positive politeness strategies used in the
novel.
5. Design of the study
The thesis comprises of 3 parts:
Part A: Introduction
This part discusses the reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope,
methods and design of the study.
Part B: Development
This part is divided into 3 chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
Chapter 2: Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in
“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights”
Chapter 3: The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and its
reasons. Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positive
politeness strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English.
Part C: Conclusion
This part reviews major findings of the study and suggests some
directions for further study.
REFERENCES
APPENDIX


11

12

PART B : DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Speech acts
Language and philosophy are related to each other. The relationship
between them attracted attention of many philosophers such as Oxford-based
philosophers like G.E.Moore and Bestrand Russell (logical positivism
philosophers) since the early years of the twentieth century, and then Austin
and his group (ordinary language philosophers). However, there was a
disagreement between the ordinary language philosophers and logical
positivism philosophers of language. In the view of the logical positivism
philosophers of language, there are two different trends: one trend, followed
by Moore, was interested in "the language of common sense"; the other
concerned with everyday language which, according to them, is somehow
deficient, ambiguous, imprecise and contradictionary. Their aim was to reach
an ideal language by refining language by the way of removing its perceived
imperfections and illogicalities.
As a reaction to this view, Austin and his group observed that ordinary
people manage to communicate fluently and effectively with language just the
way it is. He suggested that we had better try to understand how people could
manage to use ordinary language effectively instead of making an efford to
free of its imperfections. Austin believed that a language had a lot more than
the meaning of its words and phrases. That using language is not only to say
something but also to do things convinced Austin and led him to illocutionary
acts theory which examines what kind of, how we do things when we speak
and how our acts 'succeed' or 'fail'.
Austin first explored his ideas by way of the 'performative hypothesis'
which show differences between a truth-conditional approach to meaning and
Austin's view in which he considered 'words as actions'. According to him,

most utterances have no truth-conditions. They are not statements or questions
but only actions. In order to prove his ideas, Austin distinguished constative
(statement) and performative. "Constative means an utterance which can be
judged as either true or false" (quoted in Dang Thi Manh 2005,thesis:4). For
example, "Lan is wearing a pair of leather gloves" is true if the gloves are
made of leather, but it is false if they are made of different materials as cotton,
etc. Performative, according to Austin, can not be judged in the same way. For
example, "Would you like a cup of tea?"; when the speaker makes this


13
utterance, he aims at not questioning but inviting. Thus, we can not judge
whether it is true or false but consider it as an act of invitation.
Austin observed that by saying we not only communicate but may also
transform the reality. Speech acts which effect such a change through the
action of being spoken are called performative speech acts.
1.1.1. Definition of speech acts
Speech acts are actions performed by the utterances to communicate, in
other words, "in attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce
utterances containing grammatical structures or words, they perform actions
via those utterances, which are generally called speech acts" (George
Yule,1996:47)
We use language all time to make things happen. Saying something will
often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the
feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other
persons. It may be done with the design, intention or purpose of producing
them.
We can easily realize that speech act in everyday conversations or in
characters's utterances viewed as engaged to convey a "message" or achieve a
personal goal. That means "the speaker normally expects that this his or her

communicate intention will be recognized by the hearer" (George
Yule,1996:47)
"On any occasion, the action performed by producing an utterance will
consist of three related acts" (George,1996:48). They are carried out at the
same time. According to Austin, they are locutionary act, illocutionary act,
and perlocutionary act. The term "speech act" can be used interchangeable
with illocutionary act.
1.1.2. Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts
Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance which is roughly equivalent to
uttering a certain sentence with a sense and reference or "meaning" in
traditional sense. It is difficult for people to produce a locutionary act
successful if they have trouble with performing sounds and words to create a
meaningful expression in a language.
Illocutionary act is the real action performed by the utterance where
saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming and
warning.


14
Perlocutionary act is an effect of the utterance on the listener. "The
perlocutionary act may be either the achievement of a perlocutionary object
(convince, persuade) or the production of a perlocutionary
sequel"(Austin,1962:118). Depending on the certain situations, the hearer will
react appropriately to his understanding of the illocutionary force of the
speaker’s utterances. For example, when a roommate says “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”It’s rainning
outside”, the other will perform the perlocutionary act that (s)he takes an
umbrella. The communication is considered successful if the perlocutionary
act and the illocutionary act are identical.
1.1.3 Classification of speech acts
Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number

of categories or types. According to the grammatical structure view, speech
acts can be divided into three types: statement, question and
command/request. They coincide with three basic sentence types: declarative,
interrogative and imperative. For examples:
You wear a seatbelt.
(declarative)
Do you wear a seatbelt? (interrogative)
Wear a seatbelt.
(imperative)
These structural forms and communicative functions, however, do not
coincide at any time. For example, a declarative normally functions as a
statement but it can also be used to make a request. "Whenever there is a
direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct
speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure
and a function, we have an indirect speech act."(George Yule,1996:54,55).
Thus, we perform a direct speech act when we use a declarative to make a
statement, we perform an indirect speech act when we use it to make a
request. For example, when the S says: "It is hot in here", if his aim is to
mention about the weather, he has made a direct speech act; but if he aims at
requesting someone to turn on the fan or open the door, by this way he has
perfomed an indirect speech act.
As mentioned above, a structure can be used to make different
communicative functions, vice versa the same basic function can be
accomplished by different structures. For example, when the S wants the
hearer to 'close the door', he may say:
a.Close the door.
b.Can you close the door, please?
c.Would you be so kind to close the door, please?

15
d.Would you mind closing the door?
e.Do you forget to close the door, please?
f.It's cold outside.
g.The door is, obviously, open.
(cited in Internet)
Generally speaking, the use of indirect speech act is more polite than the
use of direct speech act.
Another approach to clasify speech acts is based on their function. Based
on this approach, there has been several different trends. One, following
Austin (1962), is principally a lexical classification of so-called illocutionary
verbs. The other, following Searl (1979), is a classification of acts. The
remain, following Leech (1983), is derived from viewpoint of functions and
relationship between communicative and social goals.
According to Austin (1962) there are five types of speech acts: verdictives,
exercitives, commissives, behabitives and expositives.
Verdictives, as the name implies, are typified by the giving of a verdict by
a jury, abitrator or umpire. Its content may be true or false, sound or unsound
and fair or unfair. Exercitives are speech acts of giving decision either to
support or oppose a certain course of actions (e.g, commitments, voting,
ordering, urging, advising, warning, etc.). Commissives are the speaker's
himself commitment to do something. Behabitives are the speaker 's reaction
to other's behaviour and his attitudes to their past actions (e.g, apologizing,
congratulating, commending, condoling, etc.). Expositives are acts of
exposition involving the expounding of views, the conducting of arguments,
etc.
From Searl's (1979) point of view, speech acts are divided into 5 groups :
assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declaratives. Assertives
show the speaker's assertion of a proposition to be true, using such verbs as :
affirm, believe, conclude, etc. Directives are those kinds of speech acts that

the speaker uses to make the hearer do something, with such words as : ask ,
beg, challenge, command, invite, insist, request, etc. Commissives commit the
speaker himself/herself to a future course of action, with such verbs as :
guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, undertake, warrant, etc. Expressives are
speech acts that the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs ,
using such verbs as : apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest,
regret, thank, welcome. Declarations are a special kind of speech acts that the


16
speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation by
making utterance, e.g dismissing, appointing, naming, etc.
Yule (1996) has the same way of division as Searl's. According to him,
there are 5 types of speech acts : declarations, representatives, expressives,
directives and commissives.
When approaching the way Searl classifies illocutionary acts, Leech
(1983) recognizes that politeness has an impact on these categories. Thus,
basing on the grounds of politeness, he puts speech acts into 4 types:
Competitive which is produced when the illocutionary competes with the
social goal (e.g, ordering, asking, demanding, begging, etc), convivial (e.g,
offering, inviting, greeting, etc), collaborative (e.g, asserting, reporting,
announcing, instructing, etc) and conflictive (e.g, threatening, accusing, etc).
According to Leech, competitive and convivial mainly involve politeness.
Negative politeness is required when a competitive illocutionary act is
performed meantime positive politeness is required when a convivial
illocutionary act is produced. Leech also claims that politeness is not relevant
to collaborative and conflictive illocutionary acts.
Of all the ways of classification of speech acts, the most worth discussing
is Searl’s.
1.2 Politeness

1.2.1 What is politeness?
In history of pragmatics, there has been a great deal of interest in
'politeness' such an extent that politeness theory could almost be seen as a
sub-discipline of pragmatics. Many theories of politeness were born in which
people use the same terms in different ways, operate with different definitions
and talk at cross-purpose. More recent works in politeness theory, notably that
of Leech (1980,1983a) and Brown and Levinson (1978) has focused on
politeness as a pragmatic phenomenon.
Politeness, in the technical sense of the term, refers to all the ways in
which speakers adapt (or decide not to adapt) to the fact that their
interlocutors, actual or imagined, have human needs like their own. Politeness
is one of the main reasons for which people are often indirect, not saying
precisely what they mean but imply it by conventional ways.
Geoffrey Leech defines politeness as "forms of behaviour that establish
and maintain comity". That is the ability of paticipants in a social interaction
to engage in interaction in an atmostphere of relative harmony.


17
Within an interaction as mentioned by Yule (1996), the term politeness
does not refer to the idea of 'polite social behaviour' or 'etiquette within a
culture'.
It depends on the concept of 'face' to be effectively understood. Based on
Yule's assertion about 'face' one can conclude it means by the way everyone is
socially considered due to his or her self-image, that is his or her public selfimage towards the others. In an interaction, politeness can be defined as the
means employed to show awareness of another person's face, either in social
distant situation or social close ones.
Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of
Penelop Brown and Stephen Levinson which was first published in 1978 and
then reissued in 1987. In their model, politeness is defined as"redressive

action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effect of face-threatening acts."
(Kasper,1990:194)
In their theory, communication is seen potentially dangerous and
antagonistic. A strength of their approach over that of they explain politeness
by deriving it from more fundamental notions of what it is to be a human
being. The basic notion of their model is "face".
1.2.2. Approaches to politeness
In social life, interaction between people continuously occurs. Regardless
of non-verbal communication politeness is the essential demand to make the
interaction successful. Especially, in the civilized society, it needs a high
requirement of politeness. To be linguistically polite there is necessity for
people to select appropriate language depending on the relationship between
them and the circumstance under which they are communicating.
Politeness is considered one of the features of discourse, an undeniable
element of linguistic communication. It has a very big influence on the
communicative effect, especially in cross-cultural communication. It has,
therefore, becomes an increasingly more significant matter of pragmatics-the
study of speaker's meaning. A long time before the appearance of the speech
act theory, politeness has been studied based on no basic theory. It has only
been studied systematically after speech act theory was born. Linguists have
applied this theory accompanied with Goffman's notion of face and Grice's
cooperative principle to develop politeness theory. The notion of politeness is
defined by many different ways depending on the orientation of approach.
Fraser (1990) provides an overview of the four main approaches. The first
perspective is the social-norm view proposed by many scholars in pre-


18
pragmatics studies, in which politeness correlates with formality. The second
perspective, the conversational-maxim view, has developed out of Grice's

Cooperative principle and maxim, proposed by Lakoff (1973,1989) and Leech
(1983). The third view is face-saving, derived from Brown and Levinson's
model of politeness (1987), which is itself based on Grice (1975) and
Goffman's (1967) notion of face. The final perspective is called
conversational-contract view of Fraser (1990). Of all these views, the
conversational-maxim view of Leech and Lakoff and the face-saving view of
Brown and Levinson (1987) are most largely appropriated and discussed.
1.2.2.1. The conversational-maxim view on politeness
1.2.2.1.1 Politeness rules
The conversational-maxim view of Lakoff (1973) and Leech (1983) based
on theoretical frameworks on Grice's Cooperative principle (1967, published
in 1975). The Cooperative principle is assumed to be of key importance in
regulating conversation based on the general assumption of cooperation in a
conversation between interlocutors. Lakoff extends Grice's work and argues
for the necessity of both a politeness principle and a cooperative principle.
Unlike the cooperative principle, which has a primarily referential orientation,
the politeness principle addresses relational goals and serves primarily "to
reduce frictional pesonal interaction" (Lakoff,1989:64). According to her, the
politeness principle consists of 3 rules: Don't impose, Give options, and Make
the hearer feel good. According to the pragmatic well-formedness of
utterances, Robin Lakoff (1979) suggests a cline of politeness types ranging
from formal politeness through informal politeness to intimate politeness.
Rule 1: Don't impose.
This is the most formal politeness rule. The S following this rule will try to
minimize infringing on hearer's privacy or preventing him embarrassed with
something which can not be mentioned. However, in some cases, the intrusion
is inevitable. In those cases, the S minimizes the degree of imposition on
hearer by seeking permission or giving apology such as when the S asks the
hearer to do something; or when the S embarrasses the H with citation of
unmentionables he can use technical term or a euphemism. This rule is used

in the situation when paticipant's power and status are greatly different such as
a student and a teacher, a boss and an employee, etc. Rule 1 becomes
operative when very formal politeness is required.
Rule 2: Give options


19
This rule is more informal than the first one, which means "let the
addressee make his decision" (Lakoff,1990). The S following this rule will
offer options to H by expressing himself somehow that H can not complain
about S's imposition on him or reject S's options. Rule 2 is used effectively in
interaction between people who are not different in power and status but are
not socially close such as a businessman and a client when informal politeness
is required.
Rule 3: Make the hearer feel good.
This is a very informal rule of politeness which involves establishing
rapport, camaraderie, a sense of equality or respect, distance and a
racognition of inequality between S and H. Contrast with the second rule,
indirect speech acts and hedges are completely in appropriate. In interaction,
paticipants are not afraid of threatening hearer's face by asking personal
questions, making remarks or telling the truth, etc. This rule is used when
intimate is required.
1.2.2.1.2. Politeness maxims
Similarly to Lakoff, Leech (1983) connected politeness with Grice's CP.
He considered the CP and the PP to constitute only the principles of
interpersonal rhetoric that means the focus is on the S's social goals rather
than his or her illocutionary goals. The major purpose of the PP is, according
to Leech, to establish and maintain feelings of comity within the social group.
The PP regulates the " social equilibrium and the friendly relations which
enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first

place" (1983:32). For Leech (1983) politeness is a strategy of conflict
avoidance calculated on the basis of costs and benefit related to both the S
and the H. Politeness, according to him, is the compensation for the costs
caused to hearer by the S's expressions. The good way for the S to do this is
adjusting the cost-benefit balance in order to make interpersonal interaction
balanced. Leech gives an introduction for PP as following:
"Minimize (all things being equal) the expression of impolite belief;
maximize (all things being equal) the expression of polite belief".
The PP consists of 6 maxims , all of which are related to the notion of cost
and benefit and related pairs of values. These maxims are useful for "
explaining the relationship between sense and force in human conversation".
Maxim I: The Tact Maxim


20
This maxim is only applied in illocutionary functions classified by Leech
as 'impositive' such as ordering, requesting, commanding, etc and
'commissive'.
The Tact maxim states: "Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply
cost to other; maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other".
It is obvious that Tact maxim is strive for other-centered. There are several
ways that S can use to follow this maxim. He can use minimizers to reduce
that implied cost to the hearer and limit the size of imposition on hearer. As a
result of this, politeness can be improved. This strategy closely resembles with
Lakoff's politeness rule : "Don't impose"
E.g: .Hold me for a while.
.I've got a little bit of difficulty.
.Just a minute.
The use of indirect illocutions is another way to reach the scale of
politeness. 'Leech claims: "Indirect illocutions tend to be more polite(a)

because they increase the degree of optionality and (b) because the more
indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tend to
be" '(cited from Dang Thi Manh,2005:12)
E.g: .Open the door.
.Would you mind opening the door?
.It's kind of you to open the door.
Maxim II: The Generosity Maxim
Leech's Generosity maxim states : "Minimize the expression of benefit to
self; maximize the expression of cost to self"
It is easy to recognize that this maxim seems to be the reverse of the Tact
maxim. Because when S intends to minimize benefit to self, he also intends to
minimize cost to other and when cost to self is maximized, benefit to other is
maximized. Due to this reverse, both of them can be used in the same
utterance. Nevertheless, in some cases, only one maxim is observed, but not
the other.
Maxim III: The Appobation Maxim
According to Leech, the S following this maxim will: "minimize dispraise
of other, maximize of praise of other". The fact that people prefer to hear
pleasant things rather than unpleasant ones even though it is unreal. In real
life, sometimes it is unlikely to praise others honestly. In such case, it is best