Theories Of Politeness

The theory of politeness has been an arguable topic which has been studied by many researchers over years. They could not reach a fixed definition for it; as everyone has studied it from his own perspective. They have had many ideas in common. However, they have differentiated within some points.
As for Yule, unlike other researchers, politeness has been considered as "a fixed concept as in the idea of 'polite social behavior' or etiquette within any culture (Yule,1996,p.60).
On the other hand, Lakoff (1990), has defined politeness as " a system of interpersonal relation designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherited in all human interchange" (p.34).
Unlike Yule and Lakoff, Arndt and

''Brown and Levinson (1978,1987), has distinguished between positive and negative politeness. Both types of politeness involve maintaining -or redressing threats to- positive and negative face, where positive face has been defined as the addressee's 'perennial desire that his wants . . . should be thought of as desirable'' (p. 101), and negative face as the addressee's ''want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded'' (p. 129).
Leech (2005), has used the abbreviation for both positive politeness and negative politeness. he has used post.politeness for positive politeness and neg.politeness for negative politeness claiming that he has made a bit

"post.politeness has been defined as increasing the estimation for the other person", " while the neg.politeness is minimizing the greatest extent the goal which the speaker has imposed on the hearer" (Leech, 2005, p.7).
Negative politeness strategies:
Negative politeness strategies have been intended to avoid giving offense by showing deference. These strategies include questioning, hedging, and presenting disagreements as opinions. Yule has assured this point as he has added " a face-saving act which has been oriented to the person's negative face would tend to show defense, emphasize the importance of the other's time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption. This has been called negative politeness" (p.62).
According to Yule (1996), the usage of the questions that have contained modal verbs such as: might, could, ... etc, has considered as one of the main forms to apply the negative politeness theory, and he has noticed that negative politeness has been used to apply the face saving act within most speaking contexts.
Positive politeness