131,132) Thus, negative politeness deals with saving one’s negative face by showing respect, appreciating the other’s interests or hobbies, and in some cases justifying the disturbance made to the other. (Yule, 1996, p. 62) Finally the off-record means, an act of communication that is vague and has many interpretations, so that, the speaker is not at fault or guilty of saying something that can hurt the face of the hearer. (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 211) The off-record strategy is to be further explored in the next
Expanded upon the theory of Lakoff and Goffman, the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson is clearly the best known and most followed. Like Lakoff, Brown and Levinson examined politeness in term of conflict avoidance, but their explanatory is different. Central theme to their model of politeness is the abstract concept of “face”
It is a strategy of speaking which uses a metaphorical extension of intimacy to imply common ground or sharing of wants to be a limited extent. It is used to make the hearer feels good about himself, his interests or possessions. It is usually used in situations where the audience knows each other very well. Negative politeness strategy is oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and emphasizes avoidance of imposition on the hearer. This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to be imposing.
Brown and Levinson defined the notion of face with “the aspects of face as basic wants, which every member knows every other member desires, and which in general, it is in the interests of every member to partially satisfy” (1987, p. 62). Hence, the relationship between the concept of face and interaction was described as “the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face” (Yule, 1996, p. 60). Face depends on whether the speaker choices to perform a face threatening act (FTA) or face saving act (FSA). A FTA is defined as “those acts that by their nature run
The concept of politeness language is not merely a means of passing information, it is also a way to form relationship and negotiate interpersonal meaning (Locher, 2012). There are some factors that affect use of language in communication. These factors are: 1) the relative power of the addressee over the speakers, 2) the degree of imposition of the to be performed act, and 3) the social distance between the speaker and the addressee. The degree of these factors determines the degree of politeness applied by the interactants in communication (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.73). According toLackoff, to decide whether an act is polite or impolite, three rules while considering that different culture mayjudge differently on the same acts (1975,
Although the speech act is direct, Karla adds phrases like please and be comfortable that show her respect to Idriss, she performperforms a negative face saving act towards her hearer. ‘Can we offer you something?’- This is a typical indirect speech act. Karla offers something. NeverthelessNevertheless, she is not asking about possibility of offering, as a verb can may indicates, but about what does Irdiss want to
Politeness Politeness social position or status is enigmatic and controversial for some people who do not share the same culture and value. Our mind could blow just thinking and cracking this nebulous concept of politeness as if we are deciphering a message into every society worldwide to comprehend other cultures which considered as polite to them but not to us. Numerous studies have attempted to explain politeness, for example Brown and Levinson (1978) which stated politeness as the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself. While, Mustafa Haji Daud (1995) cited politeness as “proper conversational language, refined speech, disciplined behavior, courtesy, well-behaved manner and good character.” Politeness is also a theory describing a proper social system, rules for speech and behavior (Brown, 2015). In other language, it means politeness can be either linguistics or actions taken by people based on the social system and rules applied in the society or culture.
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory has been considered as the most influential theory of politeness. They based their theory on Goffman’s (1971) assumptions, focusing mainly on his notion of face. Their theory of politeness is related to the pragmatic focus on the social functions of language implied in interactions bearing in mind Austin’s (1962) classification of utterances. From Austin’s classification, Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory tried to clarify what it is said and its implications paying attention to the social functions of language. Furthermore, they also adopted speaker’s rationality in conversation introduced by Grice (1975).
However, Halpern (2007) believed that Critical thinking is beyond one 's own thinking or making judgments and solving problems by pointing out that it is using skills and strategies that will make desirable outcomes. Halpern (2007) considered critical thinking skills the same as higher order thinking skills and used them interchangeably. The important role of critical thinking in the learning process is not a new issue in language learning and skills. In fact, it has long been addressed by old theorists and educators. For example, Piaget (1971) and Vygotsky (1962) confirmed there are close relationships between language and thinking skills (as cited in Faravani & Atai, 2015).
Narrative text commonly relates to a story, myth, legend, fable etc. In narrative texts, there is opening, heart of events and closing unites. Furthermore, narrative text mainly focuses on some main components which are character, setting, theme, conflict, series of events and solution of the conflict (Comprehension Instruction, 2002). Rumelhart (1980) calls these characteristics as 'story grammar', and he investigates that they are beneficial for the readers to comprehend what they read, because these characteristics help them to get inside the text, meet the characters, pursue the series of the events and finally be aware of the conflict and solution. Regarding to the expository text, the writer's purpose usually is to show and explore information, and mostly it is related to history and science.