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Concept
Politeness theory
Summary
Politeness theory, proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, centers on the notion of politeness, construed as efforts on redressing the affronts to a person's self-esteems or effectively claiming positive social values in social interactions. Such self-esteem is referred as the sociological concept of face (as in "save face" or "lose face") to discuss politeness as a response to mitigate or avoid face-threatening acts such as requests or insults. Notable components in the framework of the theory include positive and negative faces, face threatening act (FTA), strategies for doing FTAs and factors influencing the choices of strategies; each described below.
Among the studies of politeness in a variety of cultures for many years, Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson's politeness theory has become very influential. Though Brown and Levinson proposed their model as universally applicable, their theory has been challenged by other scholars in varied aspects such as its cross-cultural applicability or ways to interpret and conceptualize politeness.
The concept of face was derived from Chinese into English in the 19th century. “Face” conceptualized as an individual's positive claim of social values in socializing contact was introduced into academia by Erving Goffman through his theories of "face" and "facework". According to Brown and Levinson's assumption in politeness theory based on Goffman's “face”, one's face is categorized into two forms: positive and negative. Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways: as "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others executors" (p. 62), or alternatively, "the positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants" (p. 61). Negative face was defined as "the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be unimpeded by others", or "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction—i.e.
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