Morand, D.A. & Ocker, R.J. (2003)
Politeness Theory and Computer-Mediated Communication: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Analysing Relational Messages
Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences IEEE 0-7695-1874-5/03
?page numbers
p1 ‘CMC research lies at the intersection of several disciplines’
Suggest Politeness theory as a useful tool for CMC research particularly when looking at interaction sequences in terms of relational ties eg. power, friendship, social distance.
FTA face threatening act
Definitions
Politeness: Phrasing things so as to show respect and esteems for the face of others.
Face: p2 ‘ the positive social value each person effectively claims for him or her slef in the public arena’
Communication cf Interaction
Communication has a technical meaning, the process of encoding meaning., transmission and subsequent decoding by a receiver’
Interaction ’directs attention away from strict message content and toward the psychological and group dynamics occasioned by the interfacing of public personas.’ Authors query use of CMC rather than CMI. i.e. p5 ‘ individuals in CMC modes are aware of and motivated by dramaturgical concerns. ‘ Politeness goes against the grain ….. whereby researchers allocate conversational acts into either task or socio-emotionally orientated moves’ ….. ‘task work often entail substantial emotion work – designed to appease and buffer the face of others’
Politeness theory
Theoretical provenance - sociolinguistic & anthropological. p1 ‘socio linguistics is expressly concerned with how language varies as a function of social roles and variables, and with how specific linguistic elements function to convey relational meaning’.p6 ‘Anthropological and social psychological literatures suggest that there exist two generic, broad based role orientations under which many other forms of role orientations may be classified…. Social distance ( horizontal dimension) and power distance ( vertical dimension0. ‘ The notion of generic role orientations is akin to factor analytic techniques in statistics; that is, what at first glance appear to be a number of disparate role orientations can be shown to share underlying commonalities or factors’ therefore authors propose that status relations are defined by politeness asymmetries.
Draws in part on dramaturgical framework ( Goffman) individuals use linguistic, behavioural and gestural displays to present a positive self-image ( face) to the social world’ however politeness theory also emphasises ‘ interactional support work destined towards others’ face. That is, all individuals have face, but also ‘face wants’ – the desire and expectation that others who surround them in interaction will work to affirm and preserve their public persona’
thus politeness theory p1 ‘provides a novel yet grounded framework that offers fresh insights into the emotional and interpersonal dynamics undergirding group processes’
Politeness as a process during social interaction; locating politeness in everyday speech.
Politeness & therefore face work is ongoing throughout social interaction. However there are some common interactional events (FTAs) e.g. disagreement, interrupting , asking a favour etc during which support work ( ? face work) is particularly critical.
See diagram at the end of the notes.
Ambiguity is a way of providing a range of possible attributions ( interpretations) so that any that might be inadvertently attributed ( receiver) or intended (sender) as a threat may be softened by the ambiguity.
Unambigous may be accompanied by redressive action , p3 ‘the most common and linguistically diverse strategy. Senders draw on an array of linguistic devices – negative and positive.... These two categories derive from the fact that face wants possess two basic aspects – positive face and negative face.
Positive face references every individual’s basic desire for their public self image to be shown engagement, ratification, appreciation from others – the want to be wanted. Examples of positive politness use colloquialisms or slang to convey in-group membership, use first name or in-group name ( eg Bud) to insinutae familiarity, use inclusive forms ( we) give something desired eg gifts, sympathy, understanding.’ i.e. try to identify commonality between sender and receiver. Positive tend to be less polite.
But just as individuals desire affirmation and esteem, they also desire a degree of autonomy and self-determination.
Negative face represents the want of each actor that his or her person be unimpeded – the desire for freedom from impingement. Positive politness tactics thus address or invoke others’ positive face wants, palliating through the demonstration of esteem.
Examples of Negative politeness: hedges, subjunctives, deference ( Sir)apologise, impersonalize the speaker ( avoid I & you) , use past tense to create distance in time.
See paper for full copy of Brown & Levinson examples of negative and positive politness. Note positive tactics are less polite than negative tactics. For example positive tactiice could be receieved as an imposition on the personal space of the other. Note p5 ‘ Brown & Levinson drew upon a large body of well established and carefully researched linguistic and sociolinguistic findings’ to compile their tables and therefore these should form a reliable basis for a methodological approach
CMC and politness
Is CMC same/similar to face-to-face?
Hiemstra, G. (1982) Teleconferencing, concern for face, and organizational culture
CommunicationYearbook M. Burgoon, Editor. 1982 Sage: Newbury Park, CA p874-904.
Examined CMC session transcripts , synchronous & asynchronous.
P5 ‘ Goffman observed that even technical interchange is bracketed by opening ( greeting ) and closing ( farewell ) sequences in which actors ‘ clarify and fix the roles that the participants will take’
Lee, A. (1994. Electronic mail as a medium for rich communication: An emprirical investigation using hermeneutic interpretation’ MIS Quarterly 143-147.
(KRO - not a strong or comprehensive review for conclusion that CMC and face-to-face are similar apart from interruptions that is although authors claim that CMC has alternatives such as the send button ( Lee paper) KRO – need to tease out in terms of asynchronous/synchronous.
Evolution of politeness norms in CMC
Two basic rules of communicative competence guide all communication, clarity and politeness. These rules ‘clash’. In F to f non verbal cues play a substantial role in the contextualisation of politeness. Absent such cues and there is a greater chance for message misinterpretation – maybe a partial explanation for flaming.
Senders will continuously adjust (KRO same for face to face presumably) p7 ‘ senders will eventually gain awareness of which aspects of written messages make them vulnerable to misinterpretation and learn ways around this. One way to make up for the lack of non-verbal accompaniments would entail being less polite- ie more direct and straightforward in CMC’. May give the appearance of rudeness.
