Chapter I. Theoretical foundations and approaches to the study of politeness 7

Language
Example
Letter of invitation in English.	Dear Mr. and Mrs. Schmitt: You are cordially invited to a formal dinner in honor of Samuel Whitters on October 21, 20XX, at 8 p.m. at the Boise Hilton. Please note that this is a black-tie event. RSVP with the names of those attending by October 14. Sincerely yours, John Randall III Chairman, Social Committee

After analyzing the examples of invitation letters in this table, we can say that this type of business letter is very different from those that we considered earlier.

There is a difference between the structure of the letters we have chosen. The English version has a more complete structure:
1) The formal phrase of the appeal;
2) Time, place and date;
3) Deadlines and requirements.
As for point 3 in the structure of the English example of a letter, it is impossible not to notice an interesting abbreviation - RSVP (Respondez s’il vous plait = Please reply), which means that the sender is waiting for a response to this letter of invitation.
This abbreviation is a mandatory part of the official letter. Also, this invitation has a requirement - this is a black-tie event. This phrase means that you need to come to a meeting in a certain style of clothing, in our case it is an evening dress.
The contrastive approach to politeness is therefore crucial for both learners and teachers, especially who teach languages to students from different cultural backgrounds. Having an appropriate pragmatic competence assist teachers to lead productive lessons and create a warm and bonding atmosphere among learners as well as benefit to increase awareness in intercultural communications. Likewise, for learners the contrastive approach is crucial in interacting with their peers from other cultures and in raising pragmatic competence, which is an asset in different contexts of life. It is essential to note that speech etiquette of different nations depends on their cultural background, life style and world perception. Therefore, speech etiquette in English and Uzbek has its national-cultural peculiarities which are specific and vary in many cases.
3.3-§. Using negative politeness expressions and sentence frames in
e-mails
Email communication is placed within the computer-mediated discourse (CMD) field, which is in turn the branch of a broader field called computer-mediated communication (CMC)⁹⁹. The function of emails can be both transactional and interactional. It means that they are sent with the purpose of not only receiving and sending information but also establishing and maintaining a social relationship¹⁰⁰. S. Graham and C. Hardaker defined emails as a highly asynchronous medium of communication as there is usually a time-lapse between the time something is sent and the time that message is read. Then, they emphasized that “the more asynchronous an environment is, the more likely it is that any perception of impoliteness will expand and multiply within a community”¹⁰¹.
Writing an email based on the right politeness etiquette is not an easy task and requires both pragmalinguistic (the knowledge of what the appropriate forms are) and sociopragmatic (the knowledge of when these forms are contextually appropriate) knowledge¹⁰². Adhering to appropriate language functions in academic contexts where the relationships are mainly hierarchical is significant and students are expected to use language and email markers which comply with and acknowledge the higher status of their professors¹⁰³. Therefore, they need to make appropriate pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic choices to meet e-politeness etiquettes. This seems to be more challenging for non-native speaker students who are sending emails in a foreign/second language¹⁰⁴.
To quote P. Brown and S. Levinson: “Negative politeness is redressive action addressed to the addressee’s negative Face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded.”¹⁰⁵ The strategies are always aimed at minimizing the particular imposition of the FTA. Brown and Levinson claim that negative politeness is what we most often associate with politeness in western cultures¹⁰⁶. Negative politeness operates across five broad mechanisms such as Be direct, Don’t presume, Don’t coerce, which are further divided into ten output strategies. In the following section we are going to predominantly focus on outline of the particular strategies and their examples.

1.