Brown + Levinson's Face Theory and Grice's Maxims

Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory

Politeness can be described as normal social behaviour or a set of prescriptive social ‘rules’ also known as rules or things we do to be liked. Lots of linguists have researched into politeness including Brown and Levinson who developed their face theory in 1987, based on our desire to be liked.

Brown and Levinson’s theory is called the ‘face theory’ this is because of our public image which is important during everyday interaction. There are two aspect of ‘face’, these are positive and negative. Positive is the desire to be appreciated and liked whereas the negative face is the desire to be free and therefore not be imposed upon. Brown and Levinson also come up with the face threatening act (FTA) this is where an act is put on purposely threatens the face needs of others.

Politeness is defined as ‘using communicative ways to create and maintain social harmony.’ Brown and Levinson’s face theory relates to this is various ways:

·         Being appropriate
·         Following social and cultural normality
·         Being socially positive

People use politeness strategies in order to ‘save face’ by using FTA’s:

·         Not attempting to minimise face threat
·         Positive politeness, showing you value someone
·         Negative politeness, not impending on someone
·         Avoiding responsibility for the FTA by being indirect

Politeness strategies are also determined by contextual factors:

·         Power of relationship between listener and speaker
·         Social distance between listener and speaker
·         How great the threat of the FTA is

The aim of conversation is usually cooperative, therefore the more dangerous our FTA is, the higher number strategy we use.

 

 

Grice’s Maxim’s

Maxim of Quantity- A person attempts to be as informative as they can and gives as much information as needed and no more.

Maxim of Quality- A person attempts to be truthful and therefore doesn’t pass on false information or say anything that cannot be supported by evidence.

Maxim of Relevance- A person tries to be relevant and only says things relevant to the topic of conversation.

Maxim of Manor- A person attempts to be as clear, as brief and as orderly as they can avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.