Lakoff's Politeness Theory

Erwing Goffman was one of the most famous sociologist on the world, he was considered to be "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century" (Fine and Manning (2003), p. 34.). He is famous from his social theory in his study of symbolic interaction. His most famous work is The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, where he compares our lives to a theatre, and from his point of view people play roles like actors, and wear masks which match to the particular situation.
Now is time to introduce the Goffman’s concept of politeness. He introduced the theory of “face”. Face is defined to be a positive value, which is used in social interactions. It is an image of self which is being created depending on a situation, interlocutors

2.3. Lakoff’s rules of politeness
Robin Tolmach Lakoff is a linguist who is famous from her work ‘Language and Woman’s Place’, and in this part of the chapter his rules of politeness will be presented.
She was analyzing, the Co-operative Principles by Grice, which have been described in the previous part. Moreover, Lakoff claims that Grice’s maxims are too general. The words “relevance” and “amount of information” used by Grice in his theory, needs a better explanation. The scientist, instead of co-operative principles is introducing her own rules of pragmatic competence:
1) Be clear and be polite.
2) “Don’t impose, 2. Give options, 3. Make Addressee feel good, be friendly” (R. Lakoff, 1973, 297)
As Lakoff believes politeness is “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchanges” (1990:34). Generally speaking, according to J. César Félix-Brasdefer, Lakoff’s notion of politeness is a conversation without any conflict between interlocutors, who are trying to indulge each other’s needs and interests by using politeness strategies that stand for harmony and cohesion during a social