Talk:Politeness theory

38.100.212.21 (talk) 11:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RyanMorville, Christian Nap. Peer reviewers: Sibyl.ambazhachalil, Phoderolfeen.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Jtshores.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 September 2019 and 12 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ZhengyanCai.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ajt70.

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Untitled

The example of a positive politeness strategy given in this text ("I know that you’ve been really busy lately, but could you do the dishes?") is incorrect - this is instead another example of a negative politeness strategy. An example of a positive politeness strategy would be the following: you have just had dinner at your neighbours' house and say to the host(ess): "This meal was absolutely delicioius, you are a splendid cook". Every expression of apreciation towards another person, whether it is through compliments, use of dialect, jargon, friendly nicknames or jokes, is considered positive politeness according to the theory of Brown & Levinson (1987). / Disa H.

This article seems a bit misleading. It implies that Brown and Levinson invented politeness theory, which they did not, however important their work may be. See Richard Watts' 2003 book Politeness, which explains that "politeness in linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics is a relatively young subdiscipline in Western Europe and North America, dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. As we shall see later in this section, however, politeness phenomena have been a feature of the study of the Chinese and Japanese languages for millennia" (53). Usuallylucid (talk) 01:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Introduction of politeness theory

The comment above states that Brown and Levinson did not invent politeness theory (I personally am not sure about this), but according to the text, "Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson's politeness theory has become very influential," which implies that the theory was invented by Brown and Levinson. Which is the case? Chanalexccha (talk) 00:42, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chanalexccha. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read through the entire source offered by the author of the comment above re: the creators of politeness theory. My understanding is that politeness has been studied in other cultures longer than it has been studied in Western societies, and that Brown and Levinson created the version of politeness theory that expands on Goffman's idea of face in the 1960s or 1970s (which would make their theory fall under the recent development of politeness study in Western societies). Hopefully someone else will be able to answer your question more directly! Cal 2016 (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Off-record politeness

The section about off-record/indirect politeness seems like it should be expanded. It isn't very clear how indirect politeness differs from indirectness as a part of negative politeness. It also might be good to have more examples, in order to see what contexts it's used in. Lccady (talk) 01:13, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

General Style

There are boxes around some text that are jarring and confusing. Downsoc (talk) 06:44, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

in Refusals' threats to positive and negative face, could you explain the three dimensions more in the intro? it's hard to follow. Hmfergus90 (talk) 07:55, 25 June 2016 (UTC) I am also uncertain as to whether there should be an ' after "refusals" Hmfergus90 (talk) 07:57, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Hmfergus90. Thank you for your comments! I've added a block quote from the original source that I feel clarifies the three dimensions very well. Additionally, I updated the title of the section from "Refusals' threats to positive and negative face" to "How refusals threaten positive and negative face." Cal 2016 (talk) 21:26, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

In Cultural Differences, "As discussed in the first shortcoming of politeness theory, academics main critique of Brown and Levinson's theory is their claim of universality." "academics" doesn't seem to fit properly. Also, "Many academics criticize that politeness theory is heavily based on Western cultures where individualism is highly valued whereas many non-Western cultures individuals heavily base their identity on group identity." This sentence might flow better if it is readjusted/rewritten. Hmfergus90 (talk) 08:06, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Format

The bullet points and asterisks are very strange and difficult to understand. If you could fix that, that would be fantastic. Rtzentmyer (talk) 06:44, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Rtzentmyer. Thank you for your comment. Most, if not all, the bullet points and asterisks are the work of early contributors to this page. While my classmates and I will not be changing this aspect of the page for our course project, we agree that improvements can be made. Cal 2016 (talk) 01:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

In positive politeness, hedging could be linked to "Hedge (linguistics)" Also, a little more information on some of the examples might help a naive reader understand the information more. For example, " Use solidarity in-group identity markers Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?" Maybe it's just me, but I don't totally understand this Hmfergus90 (talk) 08:08, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I added a second example under the 'mate' one, one whose in-group identity marker I understand better than 'mate' (since 'mate' isn't a part of my dialect), and added a translation, explanation, and linked the term in question to its Wiki page. Jm-amb-151 (talk) 14:13, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Cultural differences

"In the Cultural difference section under Shortcomings of politeness theory, I find it useful to link "Japanese honorific system" with the wikipedia page: Honorific speech in Japanese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific_speech_in_Japanese). Moreover, I notice that it is very common for people to find a language phonetically or culturally more politely-sounding that another, which is however not captured by the politeness theory. I am not sure if this is of interest to your group, but this Cultural difference section can definitely be expanded by exploring it. For example, Japanese is considered a very "polite" language not only of its honorific system. You may find the following page relevant: http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/polite.html http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/honorifics.html

Also, when I was editing my group's page (Lavender Linguistics), I received this message from a spectator, and you may find it useful as well: "Welcome to Wikipedia! I see that you're doing a lot of hard work on Lavender linguistics. I do ask you to look not only at the way the other section headings in the article are capitalized, but Wikipedia's manual of style regarding this issue, MOS:SECTIONCAPS. We do section headings in Sentence case, not Title Case: "Multiplicity of Social Identity", for example, should be "Multiplicity of social identity". There is a lot to get used to here; I just wanted to help you out regarding this nitpicky issue. Again, if you look at a lot of other Wikipedia articles you'll see that this is the norm even though it might not be consistent with what you've ever done in an academic setting. Style manuals are like that.... Take care!"

Overall very good job! Chanalexccha (talk) 01:15, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

One more thing, I remember I read about this: the politeness theory does not account for impoliteness. Refer to Making Nice in Eckert's Language and Gender (I forgot which page) Is this something that can be added to your section? Chanalexccha (talk) 01:20, 24 June 2016 (UTC)" Chanalexccha (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Comm Theory

Hello Wikipedians!

I am editing the Politeness theory page for a class assignment. Any feedback and suggestions are welcome. I've started editing the page and started to lay out my plans to add resources, and I have a few questions I'd love to get your thoughts on.

1. Under the "Politeness Strategy" heading I added a summary chart of the strategies and examples. I felt that the page was very text heavy and could benefit from something to make the text easier to read and digest. Do you think the placement of the summary chart table is good at the beginning of the section, or should i stick at the end? I'd also like to add in-page citations, but am having trouble figuring out how to do that. If you know how let me know!

2. I am planning on adding a section where I can connect politeness theory to different arenas and industries. I have the section titles up, but I was wondering if you had any ideas on how I might organize this better?

3. I want to draw a connection to politeness theory and mitigated speech and Gauffman (a sociologists) theory about hierarchy The connection is referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers." Do you have any suggestions on where I might put this? Perhaps a section titled, Similarities to other theories? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajt70 (talk • contribs) 01:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review from Katherine Chow

I agree with you that the page is very text heavy, but I think you did a good job with adding in sections and the summary chart table to help clarify the information. Amazing job on adding the summary chart - it’s absolutely helpful with explaining the different strategies revolving around politeness theory. One thing I would suggest adding to this is maybe an example or two of each strategy being played out. This gives viewers an actual example of it occurring in a real-life situation. I do see that there are examples laid out in the more descriptive sections, but it might be good to have everything in one place to refer back to if needed.

Do you mean adding the [1] that comes after a sentence? If so, I can show you how to do this in class!

I think it’s perfect to place the section connecting politeness theory to different arenas and industries under the “Applications” section. Under the “Further research and applications” section, it might be good to lead into the sections that you are adding with a one-sentence summary of each as an introduction. The placement is great though - it will provide for great insight into how politeness theory is being applied in real research today.

For your proposed section on connecting politeness theory and mitigated speech and Gauffman's theory about hierarchy, I saw a section on Yang’s wiki where it tied his theory to others name “Related Theories”. You can add this under the “Applications” section and I think it’ll have a nice flow to close out. One other thought I had was critiques of Politeness Theory. It might be good to add a little section with some critiques to the theory if applicable.

Hope this helps and let me know if you have any specific questions!

-Katherine, kc1015 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kc1015 (talk • contribs) 22:21, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review from Amanda

Hi Anna! I know nothing about Politeness Theory, so this is exciting to learn more about the theory while also looking for ways to improve on the theory's wikipedia page, which has been and will continue to be edited quite well by you!

I think the summary chart looks wonderful! I'm wondering how you did it. It looks amazing! I think you've placed it in the perfect spot - I appreciate that all of the strategic information is all placed inside the chart, then if readers want to continue/elaborate on one given concept, they can continue reading as they scroll down the page. I do not think it would look as nice, or be as helpful, if you placed the chart toward the bottom.

I think that incorporating Politeness Theory into real-world applications will be very helpful. I see what you mean regarding the organization of the section titles. I'm wondering if you could put sub-sections like "Art," "Business Communications," "Humor," etc under the "Further Research and Applications" section? Or put the sub sections under another newly-titled section, such as "Politeness Theory Applications in the Real World" (obviously not that title exactly, but something along those lines). I'm not entirely sure, but I do think it would help to organize the structure just a little more, and to me, the section titles pop out as a little bit long. However, I look forward to reading the content because it sounds fascinating! As someone who learns best when I can see how something is applied to everyday life, I think that these additions will be very helpful.

As for adding the "Similarities to other theories" section, I say go for it! It sounds interesting and relevant, and I think that could really strengthen the information that already exists regarding Politeness Theory. I wonder if it would be applicable to place it right before the "Applications" section? In between the "Analysis" section and the "Applications" section?

Overall, great job so far! I look forward to seeing how you continue to edit the page and strengthen it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amm564 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review from Jiang Yang

Hi Anna! Yoyr vision for the page is quite clear. For the first question, yes I agree that the page is too heavy -- I have the same question with my page as well, I guess the previous editors wants to include as much information as possible and that's a common fallacy when you are trying to build a page out of nothing.I believe you should put the summary at the beginning part -- I assume there would be people who just wanna a brief description of the page and don't need a specific look, a summary at the top would help a lot.

The second question is the existing part for my page. I have a page that list the application of CPM in different fields including SNS, health etc. So I guess you could catagorize the arenas and industries that you wanna elaborate on, I mean to divide them into some general sections, and sum up the source that you wanna add into the page.

The third question is actually your biggest contribution to the page as I see it. In my page, there's a entry calles "See also" in which the previous editor marked two links to other theories that could help understanding the CPM theory. I think it's not intuitive enough as people who are not that familiar with the theory may be confused to refer to theories that only partly related to the current theory. So I suggest you work out a outline fot the outside source that you wanna introduce to help the reader to decide whether it would be helpful or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yj122 (talk • contribs) 04:11, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review from Tyler

Anna, first let me say I am very impressed with the depth of your article. As someone new to politeness theory and relational communication in general, I found this page very helpful in gaining an understanding of the concepts. I want to commend your efforts. I understand that this is a complicated theory to fully understand and communicate and I do not claim to be an expert in this field. The aim of this review is simply to give feedback from a reader's perspective.

I am wondering, from a reader's perspective, if the information would be easier to digest with the following revisions:

A summarization of the "Face-threatening acts" section by omitting examples. This may serve the page well by giving the reader a brief understanding of the concepts but moving their attention to "Politeness Strategies", which may be a better lead (in my limited understanding). I understand that to grasp the strategies you must understand positive and negative face. I do think that moving through this quickly will aid the reader in understanding how these connect and do not get lost in text.

The main idea of "How refusals threaten positive and negative face" might be condensed by summarizing the last three paragraphs and leveraging your impressive References section. Furthermore, examples like the dialogue between Helen and Clarrie, while informative, do add bulk to the text. It may be a better use of space to simply refer to these examples in the reference page.

Lastly, when reading through the critiques section, you may want to limit each critique and use a reference once. The last bullet point shows 3 references with the same attribution. Again, impressive and very thorough. I am only looking at this from a consolidation point of view in order to give your audience the most important information quickly, since the subject is weighty and requires a lot of text to fully grasp.

One perspective I looked at when reading your article was whether or not this article was written from a neutral viewpoint. I believe you accurately covered all topics without introducing your own beliefs and appreciate your dedication to research without bias.

Thank you for your contributions to the field. I hope this was helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtshores (talk • contribs) 14:45, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

peer review comments for Zhengyan

I see that your peer review is not posted yet, however I would like to suggest some ideas here for you now to help you get started! I will add more thoughts once you post your own peer review, but for now I had some thoughts to share. Zhengyan should stick to editing the content of this page in terms of shortening it. A benefit to this article was it includes a large critique page and relevant strategies of positive and negative face. Which as we have learned in class, are very important parts to this theory. Another great thing this article does is it clearly defines examples of how to understand examples of politeness in positive and negative exchanges. Some areas I suggest Zhengyan to do would be to use more examples of updated research, which I have attached below, that focus more on this in real life with our own technology. This article is legible, but just needs more revision and concise structure with a better lead too. I would love to help again once I have read her ideas too.

Miller-Ott, A. E., & Kelly, L. (2017). A politeness theory analysis of cell-phone usage in the presence of friends. Communication Studies, 68(2), 190-207.

This article does a great job of pulling in real world examples of cell phone usage and the destructive issues attached, in terms of politeness. In phone conversation while with another person would be a great example for Zhengyan to use towards the end of the article, perhaps even with some pictures of how this looks from both people. It also talks about how to feel more pressured in a conversation in terms of being polite vs. taking the time to reply in a message and potentially come off as both polite or impolite. I highly recommend using this piece.

Sirota, M and Juanchich, M (2015) 'A direct and comprehensive test of two postulates of politeness theory applied to uncertainty communication.' Judgment and Decision Making, 10 (3). 232 - 240. ISSN 1930-2975.

This article takes a different turn to looking at politeness with uncertainty. Uncertainty is a factor to consider in politeness theory, since not in all cases will every message be equally understood via a message or in person. They say that when in person and articulating a positive face and being direct, they found that face management is performed for both positive and negative messages, even when uncertainty is prevalent. I think this would be a different, but interesting source to use for more examples at the end of the article. Amb549 (talk) 19:11, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

CCT peer review 2019

Hey you, I can see that the page is pretty comprehensive already and it covers a wide range of related topics, the examples listed in each section are helpful for understanding, nicely done! Personally, I found the first paragraph under the section “positive and negative face” hard to read, I did not quite understand the two concepts by reading it-probably just me though, but, for readers like me, it would be great if it was elaborated more clearly instead of only citing original text, so that we could get a better understanding at first glance. Also, it seems like politeness theory has had some applications on pedagogy as well, in which situation members from non-western culture learn the politeness strategies and better understand the semantic contexts, here are the links for you to consider:

Kawai, Maho. “THE APPLICATION OF POLITENESS THEORY INTO ENGLISH EDUCATION IN JAPAN.” N.p., 2013. Print.

Tanaka, S., & Kawade, S. (1982). Politeness Strategies and Second Language Acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5(1), 18-33. doi:10.1017/S0272263100004575

Good luck editing, you are doing a great job! Yuenyeewong (talk) 04:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

CCTP-6038 peer review

Hello, everyone. I’m a student in the CCTP-6038 course at Georgetown University, and my assignment requires me to conduct a peer review of this theory.

Overall, this Wikipedia entry covers the main aspects of politeness theory quite well, with clear explanations of core concepts, strategies, and face-threatening acts. However, from my personal reading, I found that the explanation of face-threatening acts could be made more understandable. Additionally, the distinction between positive and negative face is not very clearly presented. I believe that including simpler definitions and examples would make these concepts easier to grasp.

Positive face: Refers to everyone’s desire to be accepted, appreciated, and liked by others. A positive face-threatening act is something that makes someone feel "unappreciated." For instance, openly criticizing someone’s actions.

Negative face: Refers to each person’s wish to have autonomy, independence, and freedom from imposition. A negative face-threatening act is one that makes someone feel "compelled to do something they don’t want to do." For example, asking someone to do a favor that they’re not keen on doing.

Additionally, on a deeper level, I believe that the article lacks discussion of politeness theory in the context of digital communication, such as emails and social media. For example, Darics and Erika’s 2010 paper focuses on politeness strategies in instant messaging within virtual teams, where team members can use specific language forms like abbreviations and polite phrases to promote and maintain team relationships.

Darics, Erika. (2010). "Politeness in Computer-Mediated Discourse of a Virtual Team." Journal of Politeness Research, 6(1), 129-150. Chenhao Duan (talk) 07:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)