LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 4 April 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Some Pragmatic Markers of Politeness Used in English to Smoothen Communication

Prashant Mishra, M.A., P.G.C.T.E., P.G.D.T.E., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Abstract

In all the languages, speakers use certain pragmatic markers to save themselves from impolite and face-threatening acts. In order to minimize impoliteness and face-threatening assertive, commissive and directive speech acts, speakers use certain pragmatic markers that contribute to indirectness, tentativeness and optionality. Through making utterances indirect, tentative, optional and less forceful, these pragmatic devices lessen the force of impositions. The present paper is an attempt to prepare an inventory and to explore the pragmatic markers of politeness which are used as hedging devices to soften the force of commands which if used in a direct and blunt manner may mar the communicative goals.

Keywords: Pragmatic markers, Hedging devices, Indirectness, Tentativeness, Optionality, Directives

Introduction

In the present globalized world, the aim of communication has not remained confined to the encoding, comprehensibility and intelligibility of the message but has gone beyond that. Communication becomes an act that is performed for fulfilling some goal or motive by the speaker. Hence, unless the speaker's goal is fulfilled, the aim of communication is not achieved. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of communication, adoption of some cooperative and politeness strategies to avoid conflicts and offence to the hearer and to smoothen the communication process becomes necessary.

In interpersonal communication, speakers use some pragmatic devices - lexical as well as grammatical - to hedge a conflict that may arise between interlocutors due to direct and blunt assertive, directive and commissive speech acts. According to Searle (1975), Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983), indirect illocutions raise the degree of politeness.

Prof. Leech regards indirect illocutions more polite "because (a) they increase the degree of optionality, and (b) because the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be" (1983:108). He recommends hedging impositions, providing options and avoiding cost to the hearer as some means to avoid impoliteness.

According to Searle, "Politeness is the most prominent motivation for indirectness in requests, and certain forms tend to become the conventionally polite ways of making indirect requests"(1975:76).

The present paper, therefore, aims to explore some linguistic devices in English used by the speakers to smoothen the communication process by hedging face-threatening communicative acts and to soften them in order to achieve the intended goals of communication.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Prashant Mishra, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of English
Government S.V.P.G. College
NEEMUCH 458 441
Madhya Pradesh, India
drprashant_mishra@yahoo.co.in

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