(Im)politeness and Race

Brown and Levinson 

(Im)politeness is not easy to define. There are different rules of politeness belonging to different cultures which may not apparent to outsiders. As humans functioning in society we are marked in a particular way based on the way that we speak. Different situations require different types of politeness, even within the same culture. Politeness varies between the office, a social gathering, a classroom and church.  "Politeness involves "polite" behaviors." (Culpepper p. 524) The most popular politeness framework is that of Brown and Levinson (1987). There are two types of social norms, prescriptive and experiential. A prescriptive social is a rule of behavior enforced by social sanctions (Culpepper p. 524). For example, a social norm is that a student should be fully dressed when attending class, so the rule is that you should always wear clothes when in attendance to class. Sanctions can be rules in legal systems or can take the form of disapproval from peers or self-guilt. Experiential social norms have a basis on individual experience. Experiential allows you to be able to think about how others are going to react to situations and know of outcomes of your behaviors as well (Culpepper p. 525). Politeness always involves context and contextual judgement. For example, adding "please" to the phrase "shut up" does not necessarily make the phrase "please shut up" polite. In the context of "please shut up", "please" does not give "shut up" a socially positive meaning (Culpepper p. 525).

Face threatening acts are "any action that impinges in some degree upon a person face". Face work is anything you do that reinforces your face.  Face work is used to counteract threats. Face can be categorized by the type of face used (Culpepper p. 527). 

Another important aspect in Brown and Levinson's theory is face, which in this context means public self-image. There are two needs when it comes to face, positive and negative face (Culpepper p. 527). Positive face is, what do I want people to see as a public self image? Positive face seeks approval and wants to be apart of "we."  It seeks to be ratified, approved of and liked (Culpepper p. 527) For example when on the street and you see a friend you can assume your friend wants a nice hello from you to acknowledge their presence. Negative face is respecting others rights and freedoms as well as not imposing on others space and time (Culpepper p. 527).  For example, if somebody is attending a dinner with friends you are not going to impose your opinion on what they should eat. If they want to eat chicken for dinner you will allow them to order chicken instead of imposing your opinion that they should order salad.

 Which form of politeness is this? It is negative politeness, because the women does not want to seem to be a bother to the person in which she wants to borrow the computer.

There are two types of politeness, positive and negative politeness. Positive politeness is a face threatening act that targets what positive face wants (Culpepper p. 530). The speaker will preform acts that the positive face wants. For example, saying hello and acknowledging or avoiding disagreement. Positive politeness could be used by saying something as simple as "the weather is nice today", which is something that can be easily agreed with. The other category identified as negative politeness is identical to positive face, but negative politeness pays attention to negative face wants (Culpepper p. 530). For example, apologizing, being pessimistic, and even treating the hearer as repetitive.

Stella Ting-Toomey's Critique on (Im)politeness

A critique on Brown and Levinsons theory can be easily identified by Stella Ting-Toomey. Ting-Toomey believes that there are cultural variations within face. She constructed the face negotiation theory which proposed that different cultures respond to conflict in various ways (Ting). This conflict puts our "face" at risk and becomes a part of how we deal with conflicts. Society sees and evaluates our face based on cultural norms and values (Ting). An example of this is that individualistic and collectivist cultures have different measures of maintaining face and resolving conflict. In an individualistic culture, people would mostly be thinking about themselves individually. In a collectivistic culture people are more concerned with the needs of the group. Collectivistic cultures are seen more in Asia, Africa, and eastern Europe. Individualistic cultures are seen in western Europe, and English speaking countries. This effects face because collectivistic is more concerned with the face of the group while individualistic cultures are focused more on the individual (Ting).

Criticism of Impoliteness within the African American Speech Community

We realize there are issues within the adequacy of impoliteness. We can go beyond face notions and realize that culture directly effects (im)politeness within communities, individualistic or collectivistic. Scholars need to pay special attention to levels of politeness around the world. We recognize that it is unfair that politeness around the world is always subjective to "white" politeness. It goes beyond please and thank yous because though please and thank you may seem necessary in the United States, these ways of proving "politeness" may not be considered as politeness in other parts of the world. For example Rachel Jeantell in the recent controversial Trayvon Martin case was subjected to a more of a white definition of politeness, when on the other hand many people in the African-American speech community supported her behaviors besides the fact that she may have been frustrated or unprepared. It seems foolish to compare politeness within different cultures because these cultures hold different value sets, and histories. For example someone who lives in the North Pole versus someone who lives in the Saharan desert would have different sets of rules of (im)politeness because the needs and values vary between each location and culture. To truly understand the rules on impoliteness within different cultures you must examine each culture individually. Only once you understand the values, priorities, history and background of the people then you can begin to decipher what the particular culture might consider polite and impolite. It becomes critical to take steps to begin to understand the people around yous culture before judging their politeness. When you finally understand their culture only then you can start to decode what is polite and what is not. It is unfair to judge those based on your own cultures set of rules for politeness. It is also critical to understand that within these cultures the rules of politeness are bound to change so it is imperative to become fluid with these changes in order to become a better communicator and understanding those around you without judging them based on your own rules of politeness. 

References

Culpeper, J. (2009). English language description, variation and context (pp. 253-535). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian.

(2010). [Image of photograph]. California; CSUF College of Communications Entertainment. Retrieved December 5, 2013, from http://procomm.fullerton.edu/stella.html
Ting-Toomey, S. (2005) The Matrix of Face: An Updated Face-Negotiation Theory. In W.B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing About Intercultural Communication(pp. 71–92). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage