This thesis investigates self-guiding sociopragmatic interactional principles (SIP) in communication and choice of linguistic strategies of politeness during service encounters in Turkish and English. To this end, two questionnaires were administered to 67 monolingual native speakers of English (ENS) by online administration and 85 monolingual native speakers of Turkish (TNS) by pen and paper administration who were all university students. Data were collected (1) by a SIP questionnaire to determine what principles are important in deciding what to say, and (2) by a linguistic strategies of politeness questionnaire (LSQ) to determine the strategies subjects would employ in conflict-generating service encounters. Three sociopragmatic interactional superprinciples were identified through factor analysis, namely (a) Tact (cost-benefit), (b) Relational Communicative Style, and (c) Task achievement. It has been found that face is of central value in communication and the key to the design of politeness and that its maintenance appears to be a prerequisite to adjusting communicative style and goal-orientation. Results indicate that the major differences between TNS and ENS were related to the principles of &amp / #8216 / sounding restrained&amp / #8217 / , &amp / #8216 / sounding humorous&amp / #8217 / , and &amp / #8216 / sounding warm and friendly&amp / #8217 / . The principles of &amp / #8216 / hinting&amp / #8217 / and &amp / #8216 / clarity&amp / #8217 / were not found as opposites for the TNS whereas they were in negative correlation for the ENS. Moreover, findings for the LSQ demonstrate that realization of self-goal was more important for TNS than ENS as reflected in conflict-maximizing linguistic strategy choice. The study underscores the need for a novel approach to politeness that incorporates SIPs choice of linguistic strategy.

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis is a sociolinguistic exploration of the research that was conducted on the Manenberg community. It focuses on the community’s socio-economic vices such as gangsterism, drug trafficking, drug addiction, prostitution, lack of education, poverty, unemployment, domestic violence and so forth (c.f. Salo, 2004; Willenberg & September, 2008). Taking these factors into account, the research explores discourses surrounding HIVand AIDS messages and investigates whether such euphemisms are dependent on age and gender. This study also evaluates the politeness strategies employed by the youths and adults as means to de-taboo taboo talk related to HIV and AIDS

Hemingway's dialogue and the texts of politeness and literature -- Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies -- The face of honesty in "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife -- The face of bravery in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" -- The face of love in "Hills Like White Elephants" -- Interpretive implications of politeness theory.

<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>

No description available.

This study examines the functions of phrases with the word missverstehen in any inflected form in German discussion groups. The corpus consists of about 600 different messages with a phrase containing the verb missverstehen from all kinds of discussion groups speaking the German language. The hypothesis is that those phrases do not always refer to a factual misunderstanding in the communication. There is no such thing as total understanding in communication, since people cannot fully know how other people are thinking. Instead understanding is a social construct. Misunderstanding occurs when a group member cannot interpret a message so that it correlates with what the sender has meant. This understanding contains both the discussed theme as well as the relation between the group members. Relevance occurs when interpretable information is communicated through contextualization cues. Some cues carry information about the discussed theme, others communicate face work. A misunderstanding is caused by missing contextualization cues, i. e. the message is irrelevant. The study shows how the communicators can construct a disagreement as a misunderstanding, which it in turn has an impact on face work. The phrase is then being used together with added contextualization cues in order to construct a common understanding. Thereby the communicators can influence the interaction. This is done in a sequence in the discussion group. Hence the script theory (Schank/Abelson 1977) aims to describe the phenomenon of how a phrase with the word missverstehen can be used for different purposes. One script is defined for each purpose. The difference between the scripts is being maintained by the contextualization cue that carries the information about how the relations between group members are interacted.

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.

The subject of this thesis consists in comparing means of request expression in French and Czech language in pursuit of scaling them by their politeness level, taking into account the socio-pragmatic environment of both languages. Apart from that, a syntactic realisation of request is analysed in both languages as well as morphological, lexical and stylistic instruments that either increase or decrease the degree of politeness and the effect of performed request. Attention is primarily focused on indirect requests in both French and Czech in order to identify an appropriate translation equivalent expressing the same degree of politeness. The fundamental source for the contrastive analysis lies in InterCorp parallel corpus data. This research is further extended with survey that verifies the previous findings.

This study examines how a Swedish upper secondary school EFL teacher avoids performing Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) in instances of reprimanding and giving oral feedback to students. The results and discussion show that the teacher evades potential FTAs caused by statements and demands by using indirectness in the form of questions and requests. Moreover, the feedback was delivered in an emphatic manner, primarily consisting of positive reinforcement regarding the students having performed a task, and secondarily on content and students’ skills. The act of causing face impediments was also mitigated in the delivery of performance feedback with the use of hedges to corrections and with the use of plural ‘you’ rather than focusing on individual student’s errors. These findings suggest that teachers can enhance and maintain rapport with their students in instances that are inherently face-threatening, thereby providing further insight into how teachers can strengthen social relations through the choice of appropriate speech acts.

La présente recherche a pour objectif d’examiner les stratégies de politesse utilisées par des apprenants coréens qui apprennent le français comme langue seconde lors des situations de demande et de mettre en évidence le rôle de la L1 et de la culture d’origine des apprenants quant à leurs choix des stratégies de politesse en français. Trois groupes de répondants ont participé à la recherche : 30 locuteurs natifs coréens qui habitent à Séoul, en Corée, 30 étudiants coréens apprenant le français comme langue seconde à Montréal, au Canada, et 30 locuteurs natifs francophones habitant Montréal. Les données recueillies auprès des locuteurs natifs ont servi de bases de données reflétant respectivement les normes de la L1 et celles de la langue cible. Pour la collecte de données, nous avons utilisé quatre outils : le Discourse Completion Test (DCT) écrit, des échelles d’évaluation des variables contextuelles, un Questionnaire à choix multiples (QCM) ainsi qu’une entrevue semi-structurée. Les réponses obtenues au DCT écrit ont été analysées à l’aide du schéma de codage élaboré dans le cadre du Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). Les résultats de notre recherche ont démontré que les apprenants coréens ont estimé les variables contextuelles, comme l’intimité et le pouvoir social ressentis vis-à-vis de l’interlocuteur dans les situations de demande de façon similaire aux locuteurs natifs francophones, alors qu’ils ont eu tendance à estimer une plus grande gravité d’imposition de la demande que les deux groupes de locuteurs natifs dans plusieurs situations de demande. Quant aux stratégies de demande, tandis que ce sont les stratégies indirectes qui ont été le plus fréquemment utilisées par les apprenants coréens et les locuteurs natifs francophones, les apprenants coréens ont montré une tendance au transfert pragmatique de la L1, en recourant aux stratégies directes plus fréquemment que les locuteurs natifs francophones. De plus, étant donné que les apprenants coréens ont utilisé beaucoup moins d’atténuateurs que les locuteurs natifs francophones, leurs formules de demande étaient plus directes et moins polies que celles employées par les locuteurs natifs francophones. En ce qui concerne les mouvements de soutien (supportive moves), les apprenants coréens se sont démarqués des deux groupes de locuteurs natifs, en recourant plus fréquemment à certaines catégories de mouvements de soutien que les autres répondants. Les analyses de corrélation entre l’estimation des variables contextuelles et le choix des stratégies de politesse nous ont permis de constater que les apprenants coréens ainsi que les locuteurs natifs francophones ont eu tendance à utiliser davantage d’atténuateurs lorsque le locuteur possède moins de pouvoir social. Les implications des résultats pour l’enseignement et l’apprentissage des aspects de la politesse dans la classe de français langue seconde ont été exposées. / The aim of this study is to investigate request strategies that Korean learners of French use in request situations. The role played by the learners’ first language and their culture of origin in making these choices will also be explored. Three groups of respondents participated in this study: 30 native Korean speakers living in Seoul, Korea, 30 Korean French learners in Montreal, Canada, and 30 French native speakers living in Montreal. Data collected from native speakers of both Korean and French were used to create baseline data reflecting first and second language norms respectively. Four data collecting methods were used: the Discourse Completion Test (DCT); an assessment questionnaire evaluating situational factors such as intimacy, the social power between interlocutors and the degree of imposition of requests; the multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ); and a semi-constructed interview. The responses obtained from the written DCT were analysed using the coding scheme elaborated in the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). The results of the study showed that the Korean French learners estimated situational factors like intimacy and the relative social power that they feel with interlocutors in a manner similar to that of the French native speakers. However, in many situations, the Korean learners of French tended to estimate that a request represented a greater imposition than either group of native speakers. Further, while the Korean French learners frequently used indirect strategies as the French native speakers used them, they showed a tendency towards pragmatic transfer from their first language (L1), using direct strategies more frequently than their native French-speaking counterparts. Moreover, as the Korean French learners used downgraders far less frequently, their semantic formulas were more direct and less polite than the ones used by French native speakers. Concerning supportive moves, the Korean French learners showed a different tendency from the two groups of native speakers, in that they used some categories of supportive moves more frequently. The correlation analysis between the results of the assessment questionnaire about situational factors and the politeness strategies used by respondents revealed that the Korean learners and the French native speakers used more downgraders when they have less social power than the hearer. Finally, the implications of these findings as relates to the pedagogical and didactic aspects of politeness in French as a second language classroom are examined.