Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Mary T. Copple / Using the framework for politeness developed by Brown and Levinson (1987), this research evaluates the production of politeness strategies by sophomore and senior EFL learners in Afghanistan by focusing on the language used in letters of inquiry. Twenty eight letters emailed by Afghan students at Balkh University were surveyed by thirteen native American English speakers. Each letter was surveyed by six different American participants who gave their perspectives about the effectiveness and politeness of the language used in the letters by the students. The American participants’ evaluations of politeness were compared with actual linguistic features employed, including the word choice in the salutation and closing, the use of indirect language, and politeness markers (e.g. thank you or other expressions of appreciation). The results show that a relationship between proficiency and politeness exists, consistent with the findings of Tanaka and Kawade (1982) who found that second language learners acquire both linguistic and pragmatic knowledge as the learning of the target language progresses. In addition, this study describes the linguistic behavior perceived as most polite by the native speakers and reflects on possible instructional implications.

Taking a social constructionist perspective, this dissertation explores politeness-as-practice (Eelen, 2001) of L2 English speakers in intercultural communication encounters. The study is situated within the English as an International Language (EIL) paradigm which suggests that pragmatic norms in interaction between EIL speakers are dynamic and flexible, and therefore, instead of measuring EIL speakers' success in interaction against a "native-speaker" norm, the research should focus on how speakers themselves define and (co-)construct pragmatic norms and successful interaction (e.g., House, 2003a; McKay, 2009). The view of politeness taken in this study is based on postmodern approaches to politeness, which submit that politeness is dynamic and that the politeness meanings of particular strategies, utterances, and linguistic forms are assigned to them by participants within an interaction. Data were collected through background questionnaires, written questionnaires in the form of critical incidents, and semi-structured informal interviews. The data were analyzed qualitatively, relying primarily on discourse analysis complemented by the theories of "third place", facework, and politeness. The results of this study offer insights into the nature of pragmatic competence in EIL, the processes of the development of such competence, and challenges that L2 English speakers face in this process. Specifically, this study investigates how L2 speakers of English conceptualize politeness, the hybrid and dynamic nature of their pragmatic competence in general and politeness-in-practice in particular, and the interrelationship between politeness and other factors that determine the speakers' pragmatic choices in situations that have potential for misunderstanding, conflict, and face loss. This dissertation contributes to the theory and research in the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), EIL, Intercultural Communication, Interlanguage Pragmatics and Politeness by providing insights into the pragmatic competence and politeness of L2 English speakers. This work deepens the body of scholarship in these fields in that it provides the speakers' own perspectives on the processes of their pragmatic competence development and their concepts of politeness. It is also hoped that insights provided by this study will benefit English language teachers who aim to develop intercultural communicative competence in their classrooms.

The present thesis applies the sociolinguistic concepts of politeness and face on interpreting theory and practice. Interpreting is, in its essence, highly face-threatening, which is reflected in codes of ethics adopted by interpreting vocational associations. Having insight into two cultures, interpreters can use their communication competence to preserve the face of their recipients or the speaker. For the Western society, it is natural to protect one's own face in communication; however, such efforts can collide with the endeavour to convey the message faithfully and precisely. The thesis therefore studies the strategies that interpreters apply in face-threatening situations and presents examples of what interpreters do to save face, including such events when face- preserving outweighs conveying the message. There is also a discrepancy between the conventional role of a neutral or passive interpreter as a message conduit and the role of interpreters as active communication participants who take the initiative. By analysing interviews and an online survey, the study demonstrates that many interpreters believe that their role is an active one and their impact on the output of interpreted interactions is significant. Keywords: face, politeness, interpreting, face-preserving strategies,...

1 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to analyze communication functions, verbal and nonverbal means of compliments in Czech which occur in private informal discourse. Material for this analysis was collected from audiovisual and audio recordings of communication between family members and friends. As for the identification of the communication functions of compliments the method of conversation analysis was chosen. Functional classification was created based on the location of compliments in global organization of conversation, linguistic form of compliments and actions that compliments are performing or accompanying. Another part of this thesis is devoted to the analysis of verbal and nonverbal means used at complimenting. The structures, lexical units and the most significant nonverbal means used in the production of compliments were identified. For the purpose of comprehensive description of compliment sequences we also analyze reactions to compliments.

The subject of the submitted thesis: "On the problem of address forms in the Portuguese language - text analysis" is to analyze the various address forms belonging to noun, pronoun and verb word classes. The evolution of these forms is emphasized; however, more approaches are considered since evaluating the diachronic one requires that the synchronic one is also examined. The goal is to look at the issue in several ways, taking into account the broader historical, political and sociolinguistic issues. The theoretical part is aimed at the general principles of addressing in terms of external, internal and historical linguistics and to the evolution of addressing in the Portuguese language. This includes Portuguese addressing terminology specifics, like the form of voc. The practical part describes the address forms in Brother Luís de Sousa, the historical Portuguese play (theatrical) from 1844 set in the beginning of 17th century, comparing these forms to authentic texts from that period. The conclusion presents the results of the text analyses and sums up the problems related to the issue of politeness in linguistics.

Este estudo evidencia o modo como se organizam as estratégias de cortesia que se manifestam na ocorrência dos marcadores discursivos pues, ya e claro em intervenções orais de adolescentes de duas capitais, Madri e Santiago do Chile, presentes no Corpus de Lenguaje Adolescente (COLA). Considerando a diversidade sociocultural (Bravo, 2004) e que os marcadores discursivos sinalizam a direção em que se deve buscar a relevância dos enunciados (Escandell-Vidal, 1998), esta pesquisa também analisa se adolescentes brasileiros, estudantes de língua espanhola, da região de São Paulo, constroem uma interpretação adequada quanto à presença ou ausência da cortesia, ao entrar em contato com as conversações do material de análise. Como resultado, foram descritos os contrastes entre as amostras das variedades - a santiaguina e a madrilena - de língua espanhola quanto ao uso das partículas pues, ya e claro. Observou-se que essas diferenças se relacionam ao contexto de enunciação e ao processamento discursivo, semântico e pragmático desses marcadores, comprovando que a cortesia apresenta particularidades e possui um valor relativo de acordo com a interação verbal, os traços culturais e o tipo de relação social entre os interlocutores. Através da escuta de alguns diálogos extraídos do corpus e guiados por um questionário, a maioria dos estudantes brasileiros construiu interpretações equivocadas das formações discursivas. Verificou-se que estas construções de sentido concerniram ao desconhecimento da forma ou do uso dos marcadores, que impediu que estes orientassem o processo de interpretação, e à desconsideração das diferenças interculturais e dos modelos de cortesia em diferentes interações verbais. / This study shows how strategies of politeness occurring when discourse markers are used in oral interventions of teenagers from the two capital cities of Madrid and Santiago de Chile contained in the Corpus de Lenguaje Adolescente (COLA) are organized. Considering the socio-cultural diversity (Bravo, 2004) and discourse markers indicate in which direction we should look for the relevance of utterances (Escandell-Vidal, 1998), this research also analyzes if Brazilian teenagers, students of Spanish language in São Paulo region, have a proper interpretation regarding the presence or the absence of politeness when they are exposed to the conversations of the material analyzed. As a result, the differences between samples of Spanish language varieties from Santiago and from Madrid regarding the use of the particles pues, ya and claro were described. Such differences were seen to be related to the context of enunciation and the discursive, semantic, and pragmatic processing of the markers, which confirms that the politeness shows particularities and has a relative value according to the verbal interaction, cultural traits, and the type of social relationship between interlocutors. By hearing some of the dialogs extracted from the corpus and guided by a questionnaire, most Brazilian students had wrong interpretations of discursive formations. Such constructions of meaning were seen to be related to the lack of knowledge of the markers form or usage, which prevented the markers to guide the interpretation process, and the disregard of intercultural differences and models of politeness in various verbal interactions.

Esta pesquisa se fundamenta na pragmática sociocultural, com o propósito de descrever, dentro do próprio sistema sociocultural a que pertencem os falantes do estudo, a produção e a interpretação das mensagens transmitidas (Bravo, 2010). Pretende-se ir, por um lado, para além da análise da transcrição de um corpus específico (Charaudeau, 2012) e, por outro, abrir novos horizontes para os estudos interdisciplinares, contrastivos e holísticos, cujo objeto seja o uso da linguagem. Assim, como objetivo, esta pesquisa procura descrever e contrastar estratégias pragmáticas, com foco na manifestação da cortesia, em português e em espanhol, em comunidades de fala de São Paulo e Santiago do Chile, indagando quais recursos os interlocutores, universitários em grupos de estudos, utilizam no trabalho de imagem em atos assertivos e exortativos. Para isso, apresentamos uma proposta metodológica que visa a delinear aspectos das construções discursivas, a revelar a complexidade dos fenômenos da interação oral e a variedade de componentes envolvidos em uma situação comunicativa. Nesse sentido, definimos quatro etapas: o enfoque interdisciplinar, a análise do corpus oral, os testes de hábitos sociais (Hernandez Flores, 2002; Contreras, 2004 e Bernal, 2007) e o contraste cross-cultural. O corpus é composto por vinte e cinco horas de gravações em vídeo de reuniões em grupo de estudantes universitários, no Chile e no Brasil, e quarenta testes de hábitos sociais de cada comunidade de fala também. Em uma análise sincrônica, identificamos no contexto brasileiro, a tendência de o indivíduo projetar a imagem de cordialidade, cooperação e semelhança na gestão da autoimagem. Entre os interlocutores chilenos, a imagem de ordem e a de hierarquia foram as que se evidenciaram. Na gestão interrelacional, destacamos contrastes, além de semelhanças, entre algumas estratégias pragmáticas: o fenômeno da atenuação assertiva, nas intervenções brasileiras, em maior número se associa a posturas afiliativas, na gestão da alo- e autoimagem; no material de análise chileno, a atenuação, muitas vezes é construída como uma estratégia autocêntrica; em ambas as comunidades de fala encontramos mecanismos de autorrepetição e intensificação, vinculados à força argumentativa e fenômenos de heterorrepetição que promovem o contato social; no entanto, no contexto chileno, a heterorrepetição ocorre na expressão do desacordo com mais frequência do que no contexto brasileiro; realizados de maneira direta, encontramos atos exortativos, como a petição, em interações brasileiras e chilenas, mas nas primeiras, geralmente, ocorrem atos de justificação, a expressão da diminuição do custo para os ouvintes e, em maior grau, mecanismos de atenuação. Os resultados, que encontraram eco em estudos de outras ciências do comportamento humano, na análise do corpus e nas respostas dos informantes dos testes hábitos sociais, podem sinalizar a projeção de experiências específicas de um corpus a um estilo de cortesia que se estenda a outras situações de comunicação sem prescindir da enorme diversidade do uso da linguagem (Bravo, 2004). / This research is based upon sociocultural pragmatics and aims at describing within the very sociocultural system to which the speakers participating in this study belong how transmitted messages are produced and interpreted (Bravo, 2010). On the one hand, this research aims at going beyond analyzing the transcription from a certain corpus (Charaudeau, 2012); on the other, opening up new horizons for interdisciplinary, contrastive and holistic studies on the use of language. Thus, this research aims at describing and contrasting pragmatic strategies focused on how politeness is shown both in Portuguese and Spanish within speaking communities from São Paulo, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile while investigating which features are used by interlocutors (undergraduates in study groups) in their face-work during assertive and persuasive acts. In order to do so, our proposed methodology is aimed at outlining the core of discursive constructions, unveiling the complexity of verbal interaction phenomena and the variety of components involved in a communication situation. To that end, four stages have been defined: interdisciplinary focus, speech corpus analysis, social behavior tests (Hernandez Flores, 2002; Contreras, 2004 and Bernal, 2007) and cross-cultural contrast. The corpus consists of about five hours of videotaped undergraduate study group meetings in Chile and Brazil and 40 social behavior tests from each speaking community. In a synchronous analysis, we found that Brazilian individuals tend to convey an image of kindness, cooperation and similarity in managing their self-image. An image of order and hierarchy stood out among Chilean interlocutors. As to inter-relationship management, contrasts and similarities were noted between a few pragmatic strategies: in Brazilian interventions, the assertive attenuation is mostly connected with affiliative postures in allo-image and self-image management; in the Chilean material, attenuation is often constructed as an self-centric strategy. Self-repetition and intensification mechanisms (linked to argument strength) and hetero-repetition fostering social contact were found in both speaking communities. Nevertheless, hetero-repetition occurs more often when expressing disagreement in Chilean context than in the Brazilian context; it is performed directly and with exhortative acts (such as petition) in Brazilian and Chilean interactions, but the former usually present justification acts, expression of effort reduction for listeners and in a higher degree attenuation mechanisms. The results which were supported by studies from other behavioral sciences, corpus analysis and answers from informants of social behavior tests can indicate the projection of experiences that are specific to a corpus to a politeness style comprising other communication situations without forgoing the immense diversity of the use of language (Bravo, 2004).

This work deals with irony in popular television genre, entertaining talk show. The first partdefines the basic concepts which we work with (public communication, cooperative principle, politeness, irony). In the second part there is characterized the media dialogue, specifically talk show. The third part deals with particular public television's talk show - Všechnopárty. This thesis examines, on selected examples, how irony works in the show, how it manifests itself and how it is used by participants in talk show. The main finding is that irony in Všechnopárty is used as a communication game, mostly as a specific variant of irony called teasing (banter). It is a communication acting describable as pretended threatening of face of communication partner or of your own face, resp. communication which intentionally and transparently for the viewer violates Leech's courtesy maxima (most often tactfulness and modesty maxima).Teasing irony in Všechnopárty is used as a fun element increasing attractiveness of the show for spectators and participants of the talk show are usually knowingly involved in it. KEYWORDS communications, media dialogue, talk show, cooperative principle, politeness, irony, teasing

The thesis is concerned with the definition of the speech politeness as a unique pragmatic system which is specific for each language community and which creates in speakers a pragmatic habitus or an abstract model for culturally speech behavior, manifested as a polite speech norm in geographically and time-limited context of a linguistic market. In the practical part, the thesis deals with the comparison of the language devices used by Czech and Spanish speakers to maintain the safe relationship with the addressee in order to achieve a successful socio-economic exchange. The study focuses on speech courtesy on one hand and comparison of two ethnolinguistic areas from the point of view of linguistics, pragmatics, sociology and cultural anthropology.

<p>Communication in professional settings is essential to arriving at end results. Managers use speech acts to delegate, instruct, and in other ways get subordinates to perform everyday tasks. The present study aims to investigate how speech acts are performed using different politeness strategies, how these politeness strategies affect the motivation in subordinates, and how politeness can be used strategically in specific situations. The results indicate that politeness strategies used by managers are important for the motivation of subordinates and that different situations and different individuals call for different politeness strategies. Thus it is necessary for managers to make conscious and strategic linguistic choices adapted to specific situations and individuals.</p>