Ministry of higher education, science and innovations of the republic of uzbekistan termiz state university

CHAPTER III. A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN E-MAILS (based on English and Uzbek materials)


3.1-§. The role of politeness strategies in writing emails
Politeness is an essential ingredient in a great variety of professional communication situations, so interpersonal relation and politeness strategies have become increasingly important in practically all professional setting. Most of the research related to politeness has focused on daily communication. There has been extensive research on politeness in professional written discourse in writing. Computer-mediated communication, such as email, offer us a chance to understand how social relationships are built and maintained in an environment in which interlocutors are not face to face with each other and also have little time to develop rules of conduct.
According to P. Brown and S. Levinson⁷⁸ people will use certain politeness strategies to enhance face between themselves and their interlocutors. These strategies will depend on the level of intimacy between the participants and the seriousness of the situation. This study investigates how people employ certain politeness strategies when discussing taboo topic in the domain of emails. In the field of speech act studies, most of the research related to politeness has focused on daily communication. However researchers have pained more and more attention to specific fields of communication, for instance, technical written and business communication, to explore the features of speech acts in different registers.
Since the early days of email, researchers realized that this new medium of communication had new conventions that did not fully belong to spoken or written varieties of language. Emails were a fundamentally new medium with significantly new characteristics that con not be treated with the old rules alone. Researchers realized that this new medium of communication had affected cultural value, workplace environment and language use. Successful communication entails not only the knowledge of grammar and text organization, but also the pragmatic aspects of the target language.
Some people write and understand emails better than others. To that extent, there is something about emails that can be learnt, and thus something that can be taught (there are indeed books and courses designed to do precisely that). We might therefore assume that email language involves a kind of competences, perhaps based on rules that must be learned and observed. Such rules might be:

1. 
   Use the subject line for a concise description of the topic.
   
2. 
   When replying to a message, automatically cite the previous message.
   
3. 
   Make sure you are replying to the intended person (i.e. “Reply to all” or “Reply to sender”).
   
4. 
   Keep your message short.
   
5. 
   If you are addressing two distinct topics, use two emails.
   
6. 
   Use short sentences and short paragraphs.
   
7. 
   Only use all caps if you are shouting.
   
8. 
   Use and understand smileys and the like.
   

The present study hypothesizes that personal e-mails might be characterized by features that reflect greater informality, so that the e-mail texts would use comparatively more positive politeness features than the negative one, and such texts might exhibit indirectness in their requests rather than directness, perhaps in an attempt to save time and effort. Because "the growth of the use of the technological innovations has witnessed the development of conventions or practices unique to each discourse, for example the widespread use of ‘smiley face’ and ‘frowny face’ symbols in e-mails"⁷⁹, the investigation of personal e-discourse offers some benefits. First, it provides understanding into the ways in which the new technology is used in contemporary communication. Second, because e-mail has become a pervasive tool for communication, there might exist certain types of politeness strategies unique to private e-mail messages. An analysis of their forms in relation to situational factors such as distance and medium provides a better understanding of the politeness conventions in naturally produced personal e-mail messages as an evolving genre.
When we communicate about a sensitive topic, we often become more careful with our languages, using politeness strategies to avoid social awkwardness. Email, which falls under the broad category of computer-mediated communication (CMC), is also an important medium of language to study because it is a relatively new and unique form of communication. The use of emails is so new and widespread, so it offers a unique opportunity to study how humans have adopted to a new form of communication. As Al-shalawi stated it, study of CMC can provide us with a crucial direction leading to the understanding of how the principles of social relationships are realized in a new form of language⁸⁰.
Linguistic politeness is a relatively new sub-field of linguistic that has received a great deal of literature. Yet, it remains a fuzzy term despite the fact that it is a crucial element of interpersonal communication in all cultures. It is a communication strategy used by people to maintain good relationships among them. According to many researchers⁸¹ politeness could be defined as means of expressing consideration for others. The concept of face was first proposed by Erving Goffman who defined it as “the positive social value that a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”.
Then it was defined by P. Brown and S. Levinson (1987) as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself”⁸². In any interaction, this “self-image” could be maintained or lost. Each participant in communication aims to maintain both their and others face via recognizing others desires and understanding their desires.
Many theories have been proposed in the area of politeness such as Lakoff (1975) maxims of politeness⁸³, Grice (1975) cooperative principle (CP) and Leech (1983) worked on politeness but P. Brown and S. Levinson theory has remained the most seminal and influential in the area of politeness⁸⁴. The study of politeness seeks to find the motive behind choosing a less direct course action in language. P. Brown and S. Levinson see this factor as the negotiation of face. According to P. Brown and S. Levinson there are two different types of face desires: positive face and negative face. Negative face is the desire that one`s actions be unobstructed by others while positive face is the desire that one`s wants be pleasing to others.
We are usually trying to avoid damaging face, by adjust our choice of words in order to protect the interlocutors. Exactly how we adjust our language depends on our perception of the conditions of the exchange and of the role of the producer and recipient. Positive politeness strategies include exaggerating interest, using group identity markers, avoiding disagreement and assert common ground. Negative politeness’s strategies include being reluctant, apologize and use passive voice.
P. Brown and S. Levinson claim that there are three factors that people assess when they choose politeness strategy. Social distance is defined in terms of similarity and frequency of interaction and intimacy. It is important to keep in mind that both negative and positive face desires occur to some degree at the same time. Tanskanen`s (1998) study examined politeness strategies used in a mailing list discussion group. This study sound that many spoken language strategies were also found in the discussion group, including the use of hedge and third person pronouns.
A 2001 study by Al-shalawi found that Brown and Levinson`s theory could not adequately account for politeness strategies disagreements⁸⁵. Al-shawali concluded that the dichotomous concept of face as either positive or negative was not supported by the interpretation of most of the politeness strategies in the study. Based on the framework from Brown and Levinson, we can make predictions about how certain language features will be used. We will compare the results of the emails to the predictions made by the Brown and Levinson framework, to determine if the framework can be applied to email communication.
Based on explicit and implicit modes of expression courtesy, this communicative category is considered by us as a dual phenomenon associated:
1) with the observance of conventional norms and rules of communicative behavior (explicit, or conventional politeness);
2) with the implementation of positive and negative politeness (implicit or individual politeness).
In this regard, we define politeness as a central and fundamental category of communicative consciousness, content which is, on the one hand, a set of standardized norms and rules of social behavior regulating communicative interaction of those who communicate, on the other hand, a system of communicative strategies of positive and negative politeness aimed at harmonious, conflict-free communication. The units of analysis were, first of all, the formulas of speech etiquette, which are stable clichéd phrases and used in standard situations of communication.