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Politeness Strategies (politeness + strategy)
Selected AbstractsThe impact of politeness and relationship on perceived quality of advice about a problemHUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Issue 2 2000DJ Goldsmith Advice is a common but potentially problematic way to respond to someone who is distressed. Politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) suggests advice threatens a hearer's face and predicts that the speaker-hearer relationship and the use of politeness strategies can mitigate face threat and enhance the effectiveness of advice messages. Students (N=384) read 1 of 16 hypothetical situations that varied in speaker power and closeness of the speaker-hearer relationship. Students then read 1 of 48 advice messages representing different politeness strategies and rated the message for regard shown for face and for effectiveness. However, neither speaker-hearer relationship nor politeness strategies was consistently associated with perceived threat to face or perceived advice effectiveness. We suggest revisions to politeness theory and additional factors that may affect judgments of face sensitivity and advice effectiveness. [source] Martha Stewart behaving Badly: Parody and the symbolic meaning of style1JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 5 2009Jennifer Sclafani This study addresses the issue of how to correlate social meaning with linguistic style through an investigation of the parodic speech genre. The analysis examines two parodies of lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart and compares linguistic strategies used in parodies of Stewart to her own linguistic performance on her talk show. Features considered include phonological characteristics, lexical items, politeness strategies, and voice quality. A comparative quantitative analysis of aspirated and released /t/ as employed by Stewart and her parodist reveals that a variable feature of Stewart's style is rendered categorical in the parody. It is demonstrated that both parodies exploit elements associated with Stewart's ,Good Woman' image in order to expose Stewart as a ,Bad Woman', a reputation she earned for her 2003 insider trading conviction. This study suggests that parodic performance may serve to strengthen and even iconize indexical connections between stylistic variants and their social meaning in particular contexts. [source] The advocate as gatekeeper: The limits of politeness in protective order interviews with Latina survivors of domestic abuseJOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 4 2001Shonna L. Trinch Within institutions that provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, professionals and volunteers work as advocates for their clients at the same time that they act as gatekeepers for their agencies. While the labor of advocacy consists of empowering clients and validating their concerns and feelings, the task of gatekeeping entails making judgments about them in order to dole out goods and services. Thirty protective order interviews and their resulting affidavits form the data for this study. These interviews take place in a district attorney's office and in a pro bono law clinic. This micro-level analysis of the verbal interaction between protective order application interviewers (both paid and volunteer) and their Latina clients investigates what positive politeness strategies can reveal about how interviewers construct the conflicting discursive identities of advocate and gatekeeper. I examine what interviewers say to clients as well as how interviewers allow clients to give their accounts of abuse. The study points to specific linguistic techniques that may leave victims feeling unaccompanied in the sociolegal system. I suggest that one consequence of the gatekeeping required of interviewers is that victim-survivors may perceive a ,second assault' by the institutions meant to serve them. Linguistic phenomena particular to Latina women in the United States are also brought to light. [source] | ||||||||||