Politeness Theory
Politeness Theory, developed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978, revised 1987), is the most influential framework for understanding how speakers manage social relationships through language. It is built on the concept of Face — the public self-image that every person claims in interaction.
Core Concepts
Face
Brown and Levinson, drawing on Goffman (1967), define two aspects of Face:
- Positive face — the desire to be liked, approved of, and valued by others
- Negative face — the desire for autonomy, freedom from imposition, and respect for one's territory
Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)
Many Speech Acts inherently threaten face:
| FTA type | Threatens whose face | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Threats to hearer's positive face | Hearer | Criticism, disagreement, insults, complaints |
| Threats to hearer's negative face | Hearer | Requests, orders, suggestions, advice, reminders |
| Threats to speaker's positive face | Speaker | Apologies, confessions, accepting compliments |
| Threats to speaker's negative face | Speaker | Accepting offers, expressing thanks, making excuses |
Politeness Strategies
Brown and Levinson propose five superstrategies for managing FTAs, ranked from most to least face-threatening:
- Bald on-record — direct, with no mitigation. Used when efficiency matters more than face (emergencies, close relationships). "Close the door."
- Positive politeness — attends to the hearer's positive face. Shows solidarity, approval, common ground. "That's a great idea — could we also think about...?"
- Negative politeness — attends to the hearer's negative face. Shows deference, minimises imposition. "I'm sorry to bother you, but would you mind...?" Hedging is a key negative politeness device.
- Off-record — performs the FTA indirectly through hints, irony, or ambiguity. "It's a bit cold in here." (= close the window). Relies on Implicature.
- Don't perform the FTA — decide the face risk is too high and say nothing.
Factors Governing Strategy Choice
Brown and Levinson propose that speakers calculate face risk based on three variables:
- Social distance (D) between speaker and hearer
- Relative power (P) of hearer over speaker
- Ranking of imposition (R) — how great the FTA is in the given culture
Higher D + P + R = more indirect strategy chosen.
Criticisms
- Western bias — the theory assumes individual face wants; collectivist cultures may prioritise group face (Matsumoto, 1988; Gu, 1990)
- Oversimplification — the rational-actor calculation does not capture how politeness works in practice, where speakers often combine strategies
- Positive/negative binary — Spencer-Oatey (2000) proposed "rapport management" as a more nuanced alternative
- Power dynamics — the model underestimates how institutional power shapes what counts as polite
Despite these criticisms, the framework remains the starting point for any discussion of linguistic politeness and is essential background for teaching Pragmatic Competence.
ELT Relevance
- Students need explicit teaching of politeness strategies, especially negative politeness (the default in much English-speaking professional and academic communication)
- Register shifts are often driven by politeness calculations
- Cross-cultural pragmatic failures frequently involve mismatched politeness expectations
- Hedging and indirectness are high-frequency politeness devices in academic and professional English