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As helpful as social support can be, the reality is that some attempts to offer support are more helpful than others. In trying to be supportive, we can make things better, but we can also make things worse (Brashers et al., 2004; Burleson & Samter, 1985; Goldsmith, Lindholm, & Bute, 2006; Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997). In everyday situations, simply bringing up a sensitive topic may cause negative emotions for a conversational partner or remind them of a topic that they are trying not to think about. In addition, it is possible to say something that makes a person feel worse about the way they are handling a delicate situation. This dissertation applies Burleson and Samter’s (1985) social support framework, a model of Verbal Person Centeredness (VPC), to the context of grief. This dissertation examines what types of grief support are most effective, and looks at whether, in some instances, more sophisticated message are not the most comforting. This dissertation will examine whether closeness operates as a moderator, making moderately sophisticated messages of support more effective than highly sophisticated ones in some situations, such as instances in which the person offering support is less close to the bereaved. It is hypothesized that this will happen due to threats to the bereaved’s sense of independence or autonomy (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Hence, in some instances, it may be more helpful for people offering support to use moderately sophisticated messages. Although experimental data from this dissertation did not support an interaction between closeness of target and helper and perceived effectiveness of support message, data from open-ended questions did suggest that individuals prefer moderately sophisticated messages from less close others (e.g., coworkers). Other themes from open-ended questions provide additional details about the type of support people in grief might desire.

This thesis aims to analyze the formation of politeness in the use of Orwell's artificial language, Newspeak. Multiple theories of politeness will be utilized for the examination but with primary focuses on Brown and Levinson's (1987) original theory and Watts' (2003) views on politic behavior. Orwell's (1949) original novel will be used for the grammatical and lexical basis of the language as well as the source for the language's sociolinguistic aspects. It will be shown that politeness is present within the society and its language, even though it is mechanically altered due to the structure of Newspeak. The largest changes are through the realization of face in INGSOC where a hybrid of Western and Eastern social principles are present.

Politeness is a part of student-tutor interactions and research in affective computing has shown that this social convention may also be applicable when a computer plays the role of tutor. This study sought to build on previous work that examined the effect of the politeness of computer feedback through the application of social and cognitive theories. Employing a mixed-factor design, a sample of 150 college students completed a multiple cue probability learning task (MCPL) on a computer that provided feedback phrased in one of three different tonal styles (joint-goal, student-goal and baldon- record). Feedback tone was a within-subjects factor. Subjects received feedback as either text or as audio. Audio feedback was a between-subjects factor and was delivered in one of four different modes male/female human voice or a male/female synthesized voice. The study found gender differences in tone preference as well as a possible impact of the Tone x Mode interaction on learning. Specifically, men were more likely than women to prefer the student-goal style feedback prompts. It is hoped that this research can provide additional insight to designers of learning applications when they are designing the feedback mechanisms that these systems should employ.

The following study used politeness theory to explore the impact of simultaneously engaging in a face to face conversation and a text message conversation. Specifically the study used Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) five original politeness strategies to see whether strategy choice (in the face to face conversation) impacts the face threat present in engaging in multiple conversations. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to understand the impact different politeness strategies had on the following variables: conversational appropriateness, relational/social appropriateness, immediacy, attentiveness, and politeness. Findings show that when a face to face partner ignores (no verbal/nonverbal politeness) a text message interruption the partner is seen as more relational/socially appropriate, immediate, attentive, and polite. Findings also indicate that aside from ignoring the text message, politeness messages that acknowledge the text message interruption and offer a relevant verbal message are viewed as more relationally/socially appropriate, immediate, attentive, and polite than those that indirectly deal with the text interruption. This study partially supports the popular belief that texting in the presence of others violates face to face conversational expectations and is perceived as “rude.” However, future studies need to look at the role and influence mediated conversational expectations play in overall conversational expectations.

In everyday language, people tend to speak in a non-committing fashion when making claims, either to save their own face or to save another person’s face. In linguistics, this is called hedging, with common words and expressions such as probably, assume and I don’t know often revealing that a hedging speech act has been performed. In computer-mediated communication, Skovholt et al. (2014) discovered that emoticons, rather than signaling the sender’s emotions, were used to hedge. This study aims to further investigate the matter by looking at how users on a board game forum hedge when speaking about board games’ complexity with the research question “do more complex games involve more hedge usage on the board game forum Boardgamegeek?” as the point of departure. Data was taken from forum posts tagged with rules. The results showed that complexity barely increases the likelihood of hedging, with a slight edge given to simpler games.

In a world which continuously becomes more globalised, the need to adapt one's language depending on context becomes increasingly important. This is acknowledged in the Swedish syllabus for the upper-secondary school, which emphasises communicative competence and the need to adapt to situation and hearer. This study uses a foundation based on politeness theory, where the act of requesting is considered a threat to the notion of face. The concept of face that is being used is based on the work of Brown and Levinson (1987) and the idea is that everyone has a positive- and negative face where the former is the need for one’s self-image to be respected and the latter is the freedom to act without imposition from others. By role-playing different scenarios, the participants of the study, all students of the English 7 course, were asked to perform requests which varied in imposition and which targeted hearers of different statuses. The results were analysed using a qualitative approach, which leads to the conclusion that half of the six participants adapted their language appropriately to the communicative situation. Those three had managed to show an increase in face-saving acts where the imposition was greater, or the hearer was of a higher status. That only half of the participants managed to do this shows a lack of success in teaching the students the necessary pragmatic skills encoded in the syllabus and more focused studies in this area are recommended to address this issue. Due to the small number of participants, further studies are needed to fully confirm the results presented in this study.

ANDRADE, Richarson Lobo de. A personalização em e-mails promocionais. 2008. 104f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Letras Vernáculas, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística, Fortaleza (CE), 2008. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-20T15:00:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rlandrade.pdf: 873853 bytes, checksum: 68cce29c3ff2e4182990cb3b275c38f5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-20T17:15:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rlandrade.pdf: 873853 bytes, checksum: 68cce29c3ff2e4182990cb3b275c38f5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-20T17:15:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_rlandrade.pdf: 873853 bytes, checksum: 68cce29c3ff2e4182990cb3b275c38f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / The present study has as a goal, taking as the basis the Politeness Theory, developed by Brown and Levinson (1987), to show how certain strategies of politeness can contribute to personalize the reader/client of promotional e-mails. We analyze some positive politeness strategies, used by opt-in promotional e-mails, that is, the ones sent with the addressee’s permission, and opt-out, that is, the ones sent with no permission. From the presuppose that the politeness strategies, essential in the face-to-face interaction, are used with the objective of client’s personalization. The methodology used is from interpretative and qualitative basis, in that the object of this study is focused through observation and data analysis. The corpus is formed of 30 promotional e-mails (15 opt-in and 15 opt-out). We observed that the major part shoed the politeness strategies, presenting that way, personalization’s mechanisms; differently from the opt-out e-mails, which show few or no personalization’s strategy. The research is situated, then, in a interdisciplinary perspective between Interactional Sociolinguistics and Marketing, contributing for a reflexion about the various strategies used in the publicitary language, a phenomenon so actualt in our lives / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo, tomando por base a Teoria da Polidez, desenvolvida por Brown e Levinson (1987), mostrar como certas estratégias de polidez podem contribuir para personalizar o leitor/cliente de e-mails promocionais. Analisam-se algumas estratégias de polidez positiva, utilizadas em e-mails promocionais opt-in, ou seja, aqueles enviados com consentimento do destinatário, e opt-out, ou seja, aqueles enviados sem consentimento do destinatário. Parte-se do pressuposto, que as estratégias de polidez, essenciais na interação face-a-face, são utilizadas com o objetivo de personalização do cliente. A metodologia empregada é de base interpretativa e qualitativa, em que o objeto de estudo é focalizado através de observações e de análises de dados. O corpus analisado constitui-se 30 e-mails promocionais (sendo 15 do tipo opt-in e 15 do tipo opt-out). Constatou-se que a maioria dos e-mails opt-in apresentou as estratégias de polidez, demonstrando, assim, mecanismos de personalização; diferentemente dos e-mails opt-out, que apresentaram poucas ou nenhuma estratégia de personalização. A pesquisa situa-se, portanto, numa perspectiva interdisciplinar entre a sociolingüística interacional e o marketing, contribuindo para uma reflexão sobre as várias estratégias utilizadas na linguagem publicitária, fenômeno tão presente em nossa vida.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo, tomando por base a Teoria da Polidez, desenvolvida por Brown e Levinson (1987), mostrar como certas estratÃgias de polidez podem contribuir para personalizar o leitor/cliente de e-mails promocionais. Analisam-se algumas estratÃgias de polidez positiva, utilizadas em e-mails promocionais opt-in, ou seja, aqueles enviados com consentimento do destinatÃrio, e opt-out, ou seja, aqueles enviados sem consentimento do destinatÃrio. Parte-se do pressuposto, que as estratÃgias de polidez, essenciais na interaÃÃo face-a-face, sÃo utilizadas com o objetivo de personalizaÃÃo do cliente. A metodologia empregada à de base interpretativa e qualitativa, em que o objeto de estudo à focalizado atravÃs de observaÃÃes e de anÃlises de dados. O corpus analisado constitui-se 30 e-mails promocionais (sendo 15 do tipo opt-in e 15 do tipo opt-out). Constatou-se que a maioria dos e-mails opt-in apresentou as estratÃgias de polidez, demonstrando, assim, mecanismos de personalizaÃÃo; diferentemente dos e-mails opt-out, que apresentaram poucas ou nenhuma estratÃgia de personalizaÃÃo. A pesquisa situa-se, portanto, numa perspectiva interdisciplinar entre a sociolingÃÃstica interacional e o marketing, contribuindo para uma reflexÃo sobre as vÃrias estratÃgias utilizadas na linguagem publicitÃria, fenÃmeno tÃo presente em nossa vida. / The present study has as a goal, taking as the basis the Politeness Theory, developed by Brown and Levinson (1987), to show how certain strategies of politeness can contribute to personalize the reader/client of promotional e-mails. We analyze some positive politeness strategies, used by opt-in promotional e-mails, that is, the ones sent with the addresseeâs permission, and opt-out, that is, the ones sent with no permission. From the presuppose that the politeness strategies, essential in the face-to-face interaction, are used with the objective of clientâs personalization. The methodology used is from interpretative and qualitative basis, in that the object of this study is focused through observation and data analysis. The corpus is formed of 30 promotional e-mails (15 opt-in and 15 opt-out). We observed that the major part shoed the politeness strategies, presenting that way, personalizationâs mechanisms; differently from the opt-out e-mails, which show few or no personalizationâs strategy. The research is situated, then, in a interdisciplinary perspective between Interactional Sociolinguistics and Marketing, contributing for a reflexion about the various strategies used in the publicitary language, a phenomenon so actualt in our lives

In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) revised the Course of Study in English education twice in the last decade (in 2002 and in 2011), and the drastic changes have been made especially in the section of communicative skills: introduction of English study in elementary school, teaching English in English in high school, requirement of the subject ‘Oral Communication I’ in high school, etc. The aim of the revisions is to produce international individuals, who have high English proficiency not only in input-skills but also in output-skills, especially in speaking (MEXT 2004: 90, MEXT 2011). Despite the revisions of the Course of Study, Japan is still ranked low in English proficiency not only among the developed countries but also among the Asian countries (Sakamoto 2012: 409; Sullivan and Schatz 2009: 586; Educational Testing Service 2012). Inputs on different cultures and languages take an important role in language learning especially in the modern society where students have high chances to encounter cross-cultural communication. The politeness strategy is one of those factors that the social actors must learn for the sound relationships with others. Each culture has its own politeness strategy; therefore, miscommunication is observed more often in intercultural conversations due to the various conceptualization of politeness in different cultures (Sifianou 1992: 216). That is, comprehending the diversity in politeness strategy seems to be a clue of smooth communication and better apprehension of different cultures in cross-culture conversations. The Course of Study for foreign languages and English language also refers to the significance of comprehending various cultures and languages (MEXT 2009); however, as previous studies represent the Japanese students studying abroad or the Japanese businessman in intercultural communications seem to lack the understanding of the western politeness strategy (cf. Fujio 2004, Nakane 2006). Besides, it is vague what ‘different cultures’ refers to in the Course of Study for English. Based on the attitudes of the Japanese students towards cross-cultural communication and ambiguous explanation on ‘cultural learning’ by the Course of the Study, I assume that one of the reasons why Japan cannot achieve the communication-focused curriculum might be attributed to the lack of politeness theory perspective in English learning. Taking differences in politeness strategies between the western societies and the Japanese ones into consideration, it seems to be unfeasible and insufficient to only increase the number of communicative lessons and compel students into speaking English. The differences in politeness strategy should be applied into English learning in order to boost the English proficiency of Japanese students and produce globalized students. The present paper focuses on the following two aspects of English learning in Japan in order to test the hypothesis: The Course of Study in English learning in Japan does not specify what is ‘cultural learning’, which triggers the lack of politeness perspective The lack of politeness learning obstruct Japanese students to successful crosscultural communication In the present paper, in order to observe the application of the politeness theory in English learning, firstly English textbooks used in Japan are analyzed in terms of the politeness theory by focusing on the following four aspects: silence, speech style, ambiguity, and hierarchical relationship. Previous studies have shown that extinctive differences between the western politeness and the Japanese politeness in communication are obviously revealed in those four points (cf. Fujio 2004; Kameda  2001; Nakane 2006). In addition to the analysis of the English textbooks, an interview on the correlation between English learning and politeness theory is conducted on international Japanese in order to observe how they acquire the western politeness strategy, how English learning at school functioned to learn the western politeness strategy, etc. (cf. see 3. for details). To contextualize this paper, the politeness theory and the previous studies on the relation between the Japanese politeness and crossculture communication will be presented first, and a brief overview of English education in Japan and tendencies in Japanese schooling will follow.