Esame Lingua Inglese, prof. Sala

POLITENESS AND CONTEXT

SITUATIONAL CONTEXT: since politeness is a pragmatic phenomenon, it is influenced by elements of the context.

There are two situational context factors that influence the way we make a request:

- Size of imposition: the greater the imposition, the more indirect the language is

- Formality: the greater the formality, the more indirect the language is.

SOCIAL CONTEXT: the choice of the politeness formulation depends on the social distance and the power relation

between speakers. When there is social distance, there is more indirectness; where there is less social distance,

there is less negative politeness and indirectness. The variables that determine social distance are degree of

familiarity (that is one of the most obvious social variables that affect how politeness is expressed) and differences of

status, soles age, gender, education, class, occupation and ethnicity these can give speakers power and authority.

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It is those of the lower status, the less dominant role etc, who use more indirectness and more negative politeness

features. Expressions that are bald on record are used by people who assume that they have got power.

CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT: some cultures put less emphasis on negative politeness than on positive politeness. The

use of the maximum of tact and generosity varies greatly from country to country. For example, in Cuba saying to a

friend thank you for a cup of coffee (this is maximising praise of other) can cause offence as it appears to put up

barriers.

In summary, politeness is related to the context, the language used, the speech acts, the structure of the

conversation and the principle of cooperation. Politeness is a basic form of cooperation and it underlines all

language in some way or another.

Linguistic and social behaviours are based on commonalities, regularities and routines which are shared,

recognizable and subconsciously accepted by members of a given community. → by observing the way people talk or

behave, we recognize them as representative of a given culture, despite surface differences between them (i.e. the

“ethnographic dazzle” you are dazzle – obbligato – by the prominent feature)

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The idea of stereotypes originates from this “recognisability” – stereotypes are features easily recognisable and

belonging to a specific culture. The overall “recognisability” or “stereotypicality” of some behaviours is so strong that

instances of deviation from it are considered as idiosyncrasies or eccentricities – so what doesn’t correspond to the

stereotype, is atypical. When we meet for the first time someone, we go by stereotypes and then we are

disappointed when we find out that person coming from that place doesn’t correspond to those stereotypes.

The notion culture is what allows us to distinguish between stereotypical and atypical behaviours of a given

community.

What is culture? Culture is not necessarily “High Culture”, something that is taught and learned (art, literature,

classical music), usually related to a very specific portion of time, the majority of cases, produced in the past.

Culture is a shared system of beliefs, values, strategies – containing both typical and atypical elements – that we use

to understand and interpret reality and organizing experience, a shared mental model or map of the world; Culture

is a complicated complex, made by 3 different levels (from the most abstract to the most concrete):

 IDEOLOGY internal ideal (beliefs, values etc)

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 EXTERNAL BEHAVIOUR language, gesture, custom habits these are all the practices we applicate when

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we talk to others. The subject of stereotypes.

 PRODUCT literature, folklore, art and so on.

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These factors are raged in a hierarchical order where internal ideas are likely to affect external behaviour and both

affect cultural practices, artefacts, symbols (the product).

THE TRIAD OF CULTURE (HALL, 1982). Culture can be divided in

Technical culture → things that are consciously learned, so they’re not intui ve (art, music, food drinks, language). It

is also that type of seeing the worls that is concerned with the process of giving name to any single thing.

Formal culture → things subconsciously acquired through experience (customs, style of discourse, good manners…)

but they can be analysed and taught (like the level of politeness and cooperation that we learn).

Informal culture → out-of-awareness level to which we respond emo onally, related to the illocu onary level (i.e.

expressions of surprise, shock, solidarity, desire, etc.) → it is more or less shared all over the world, although it could

be problematic for outsiders (coming from a different culture).

Language can be considered as technical culture and formal culture because you assimilate it, but you can study it as

well.

A culture can have many ideologies, often in conflict. What is Ideology?

A restricted set of values within a given culture pointing in a very specific direction and influencing our perception

and interpretation of the world. Ideology influences us on what we think is good or bad etc.

 Hegemonic ideology: the dominant one, in term of influence. It is typical of the power and with power we

mean: a.i. Institution: they control higher education (government, business, teachers, universities)

a.ii. Media: information programs, newspapers, entertaining programs etc. it is almost

impossible to have an objective idea because everyone interprets reality in a different way

and its idea is influenced, for example, by the newspaper (every journalist tell the story from

a different point of view.)

a.iii. Intellectuals: producer of cultural product in on domain that takes position in other domains

(politic, social issues etc) it means that people who are supposed to concern in one field,

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concern on other fields where they have not a proper competence, so it is pretty impossible

that they have an objective point of view.

a.iv. Think tanks: organization doing research on political, economic, social matters (thus

providing explanations of chunks of reality.)

Every community (vegans, religions, football supporters etc.) has its own hegemonic ideology

 Non-hegemonic ideologies: often more widely shared than the hegemonic among people, but not among

those who have the power, so they need a justification in order to be “acceptable”. Ex. I’m not racist, but …

the “but” introduces a justification. You know you’re about to say something that sound racist, but you

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have to say previously that you’re not racist, since according to the hegemonic people mustn’t be racist.

Dynamic between ideologies: doxa, heterodoxy, orthodoxy

DOXA general knowledge of the world, framework for interpreting things (doxa is much wider than ideology). We

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can say that it is a set of ideologies, pointing, more or less, in the same direction. It can be seen as the “general

background”. It is based on tradition that we tend to share (not consciously because it is something we see almost

every day). Doxa is that thing that makes us accept something as it is the only possible way.

Tradition-bound, influenced by social order and system (school, family, media etc.)

• Implicit, subconscious and accepted – unquestionable.

• Perceived as the “only, natural and normal” way of dealing with reality objects.

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HETERODOXY specific ideology, opposing traditional doxa.

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It is an explicit and conscious (and possibly polemical) challenge to the doxa anything that there is in the doxa is

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wrong. They criticize doxa not because they don’t like it but just because they don’t accept the fact that everything

of doxa is seen as “the only right and possible one”.

ORTHODOXY specific ideology, opposing diverging views.

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Explicit and conscious (sometimes polemical and aggressive) counterclaim to heterodoxy. So, it is defensive

• to the doxa anything that there is in the heterodoxy is wrong.

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Systematic organization of elements of doxa

• Explicitly defending itself as the only possible position among others.

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For example: doxa: traditional medicine

heterodoxy: alternative medicine

orthodoxy: traditional, scientific proven, medicine

Language influences the way we represent reality. But language does not represent reality, but construe it when

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we talk about something it is obvious that it is filtered by the way we perceive reality.

Language helps organizing our interpretation, through:

LINGUISTIC-GRAMMATICAL RESOURCES, that are:

• a.i. Denotation: If use the word terrorist, but on their point of view, they are freedom fighter.

Obviously, if we use the first term, we construe a negative image; if we use the second one,

the image we give to the same situation is positive.

a.ii. Connotation: can be positive or negative variation or deviation

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a.iii. Verb voice: active or passive.

Cognitive resources abstraction of elements from reality, section of linguistic elements (words) sequencing of

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information in a way that seems compelling.

THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISHNESS: CONVERSATION CODES (by Fox)

Some unwritten rules used by English people (native speakers/living in England/exposed to English culture) in most

occasional conversation (in fortuitous and not institutionalised occasions):

- To overcome people’s natural reserve (shyness);

- As ‘displacement practices’ (to avoid awkward moments by moving from a subject to another).

The way they behave very often is related not only to their culture, but also to the language and vice-versa. Linguistic

behaviour can be divided into 3 categories, signalling the predominant negative face and reserve of English people,

based on the general rule of privacy (≠ Americans). for instance, when they introduce, they always let the

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interlocutor the decision to answer or not. They wouldn’t say, as Americans do, What’s your name? or What’s up?,

because the person they’re referring to must answer, instead they prefer.

These three cathegories are:

1. Greetings – weather speak

2. Grooming talk

3. Bounding talk.

WEATHER SPEAK is used as greeting, in order to signal people that you want to interact, but leave the interlocutor

the freedom to engage in conversation or not. It is just a way to signal willingness/to interact start a conversation

without sounding too direct. Example: Nice day, isn’t it? – instead of saying Hi! What’s up? (American way)

the weather speak rule implies two different reactions:

1. Reciprocity rule 2. Agreement rule

Why the weather? Because of the unpredictable and mutable nature of the English weather (since people usually

talk about what deviates from the norm); Because it is a neutral subject, which does not require the interlocutors to

disclose their personal sphere (≠ health, politics and social circumstances).

GROOMING TALK All those usages of language to sig