5.2.

Types of Politeness:
In an attempt to elaborate and refine the notion of politeness beyond the idea of
appropriateness, some researchers have distinguished between this more traditional
notion of politeness and a more theoretical, linguistic notion (Watts, Ide and Ehlich,
1992). Developing this idea, some linguists differentiate between two types of
politeness; first-order (or politeness1) and second-order (or politeness2) politeness
respectively. This twofold distinction is a crucial one in the linguistics literature. It is
probably the most basic and far reaching in the field.

5.2.1. First-order politeness

Kasper (1994:3206) discusses first-order politeness as the social notion of
"proper social conduct and tactful consideration of others". Janney and Arndt (1992)
follow the same categorization, referring to first-order politeness as social politeness.
According to Janney and Arndt, the function of social politeness is to provide routine
strategies in social situations to "coordinate social interaction" (1992:24). In this
classification of approaches to politeness, Fraser (1990) views politeness as etiquette
and social appropriacy (the social-norm view and the conversational contract view in
his terminology), i.e., the first-order politeness.
Another basic categorization has emerged. Watts 1 (1992) proposes the term
polite behaviour (first-order politeness). He sets two marked forms of behaviour: non-
politic, i.e. behaviour leading to communicative breakdowns, and polite, i.e.,
behaviour whose function is to "enhance the individual's own image in the eyes of the
others" (Meier, 1995:347).
Van De Walle refers to the same dichotomy in his analysis of two frameworks
(Brown and Levinson's and Fraser's), where he proposes a broader definition of
politeness in terms of "adequacy"(1993:76), i.e. first-order politeness.

5.2.2. Second-order politeness

Kasper (1994:3206) discusses second-order politeness as the pragmatic concept
of "ways in which rational function in linguistic action is expressed". Janney and
Arndt (1992) refer to second-order politeness as interpersonal politeness (also called
tact). Janney and Arndt point out that tact involves looking at politeness on the
pragmatic level as a supportive relationship with the function to "preserve face and
regulate interpersonal relationships" (1992:24). According to Fraser, second-order
1
See section (5.3.1.) for Watts’ detailed theory of politeness.

1
politeness is politeness as seen through a linguistic perspective (the conversational-
maxim view and the face-saving view). Watts (1992) uses politic behaviour to refer to
second-order politeness. He defines politic behaviour as "socioculturally determined
behaviour directed towards the goal of establishing and/or maintaining in a state of
equilibrium the personal relationships between the individuals of the social group"
(Watts, 1992:50), i.e., socially appropriate behaviour. Van De Walle proposes a
narrow concept of politeness of the strategic/social indexing type (1993:76), i.e.
second-order politeness.
The distinction proposed by Watts (1992) is a useful one since it allows for
layers in the conceptualization. In other words, politic behaviour is the broader
concept of social appropriateness from which the narrow concept of politeness may
be derived. Brown and Levinson (1978) view politeness2 as "a complex system for
softening face-threatening acts". They are concerned with avoiding threatening the
face of the speaker. Leech (1980:19) defines politeness2 as "strategic conflict
avoidance", which "can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the
avoidance of a conflict situation" and "the establishment and maintenance of comity".
Here, the avoidance of conflict is represented as a conscious effort on the part of the
person being polite, since it is strategic.
The categorizations presented above rest on an important point: the duality of
the two levels of politeness and the conceptual need for them to be separated although
they are constantly interrelated. If the distinction between them is not addressed, the
confusion between politeness as a commonsense term and politeness as a technical
term will continue to lead to more contradictory research since different levels of
analysis will be used each time without this difference being taken into consideration.

5.3. Theories of Politeness2:

There are several theories of politeness but most of them subsume similar
explanatory tendencies (Sifianou and Tzanne, 2010). Some major politeness
principles proposed by Lakoff (1975), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), Leech
(1983), Watts (1992), Scollon and Scollon (2001), Giles et al. (1987) and others are
critically overviewed below. Therefore, it is my purpose to attempt a revision of some
theories of politeness. In fact, B & L’s (1978, 1987) and Leech’s (1983) theories of
politeness are adopted for the purpose of data analysis in this study. In the course of
2
This section reviews some important, not all, theories of politeness. There are other theories by other
scholars.

2
my argument throughout this study, I shall however provide further objections to the
claimed universality of Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness, as well as to
Leech’s maxims which can hardly reach cross-cultural validity.

5.3.1. Politeness as Tact

Watts (1992), as we have mentioned in the previous section, distinguishes
between social politeness and interpersonal politeness – tact. Both types of politeness
– social and interpersonal – are culturally acquired, and interrelated in speech. Social
politeness is rooted in people’s need for smoothly organized interaction with other
members of their group. Tact is rooted in people’s need to maintain face, in their fear
of losing it, and in their reluctance to deprive others of it (Goffman 1967).
The difference between tact and social politeness is that whereas the function of
social politeness is essentially to coordinate social interaction – to regulate the
mechanical exchange of roles and activities – the function of tact is quite different:
namely to preserve face and regulate interpersonal relationships.
In fact, it is probably not social politeness that enables people to avoid most
everyday interpersonal conflicts, but tact. Linguistic politeness, in turn, is based on
interpersonal politeness. Watts (1989) uses the term politic verbal behaviour to cover
various realizations of linguistic politeness in language usage.
It is very difficult to draw the distinction between linguistic and nonlinguistic
politeness as there is a clear interrelation between them.

5.3.2. The Social-Norm View of Politeness:

The social-norm view of politeness has its historical basis in the general
understanding of politeness possessed by the public in English speaking parts of the
world. This view assumes that each society has a certain set of social norms based on
rules that prescribe a particular behavior, a state of affairs, or a manner of thinking in
a context (Fraser, 1990:220). According to this belief, politeness arises when an
action adheres to the norm, while impoliteness or rudeness results when an action
stands in violation of the norm. It is also crucial to note that the social-normative view
historically relates politeness to speech style, and in doing so equates a higher degree
of formality with greater politeness.
Furthermore, Garfinkel (see Fraser 1990:221) conducted studies in which
students were instructed to act more politely than usual toward their families and to
note the reaction. The majority of students equated increased politeness with

3
increased formality, while their families viewed their more formal behavior as
impolite and disrespectful. In terms of traditional linguistic contributions, politeness
was referred to very rarely. Given the stronger focus on prescriptive grammar at this
time, Fraser (1990:221) hypothesizes that “what little mention of politeness could be
found was indeed equated with language usage and not with language itself”.
It is safe to say that the social-norm approach has few adherents among current
researchers.

5.3.3. The Conversational-Contract View of Politeness:

According to Fraser and Nolan (1981), speakers operate in terms of a
conversational contract. This contract serves as the unspoken guidelines for successful
communication. When the conversational contract is violated, one possible result is
impoliteness. Fraser and Nolan view politeness as a voluntary action which is not
inherently present in sentences (1981:96). Instead, the judgment of politeness is
determined by the conditions under which utterances are used. It is the hearer who
ultimately judges whether an utterance is polite or impolite. These judgments made by
the hearer are both individual and social in nature. It is not uncommon for two hearers
to interpret a given utterance differently. However, for the majority of conversational
exchanges to be successful, there must be a certain set of norms which determine
whether an utterance is judged as polite or impolite under specific conditions.

5.3.4. The Conversational-Maxim View

The conversational-maxim perspective relies principally on the work of Grice
(1975) – his now classic paper Logic and conversation. In an attempt to clarify how it
is that speakers can mean more than they ‘say’, Grice argued that conversationalists
are rational individuals who are, all other things being equal, primarily interested in
the efficient conveying of messages. To this end, he proposed the Cooperative
Principle3 (CP) which postulates that one should say what he/she has to say, when
he/she has to say it, and the way he/she has to say it.

5.3.4.1. Politeness as Rapport:

Lakoff (1973) was among the first to adopt Grice’s construct of Conversational
Principles in an effort to account for politeness. Unlike Grice, however, Lakoff (1973)
3
See section (3.8.) for more illustration for the Cooperative Principle and Maxims.

4
explicitly extends the notion of grammatical rule and its associated notion of well-
formedness to pragmatics: We should like to have some kind of pragmatic rules,
dictating whether an utterance is pragmatically wellformed or not, and the extent to
which it deviates if it does4 (Lakoff 1973:296).
Extending this to the domain of politeness, she considers the form of sentences
– i.e., specific constructions to be polite or not. In her later works she refers to
politeness as: a device used in order to reduce friction in personal interaction (Lakoff
1979:64). Lakoff (1973) suggests two rules of Pragmatic Competence: (i) Be Clear
(essentially Grice’s maxims), and (ii) Be Polite.
She takes these to be in opposition to each other, and notes that they are at times
reinforcing, at other times in conflict. Lakoff (1975) claims that people use politeness
principles (PP) to avoid confrontation in interpersonal interaction. So, she posits sub-
maxims (sub-rules or Rules of Politeness) or “Rules of Rapport” used to describe the
universal selection of linguistic forms. Her maxims (or rules of politeness) include
formality (keep aloof), deference (give options), and camaraderie (show sympathy).
Lakoff proposes that formality and camaraderie are mutually inclusive whereas
difference tends to go with formality for keeping aloof or go with camaraderie for
showing sympathy.
Accordingly, in addressing an invitation, the interlocutors will apply different
politeness rules according to their interpersonal relationship. First, formality concerns
not being too close to others in order to keep a polite distance. When the inviter is not
so close to the invitee, the inviter will try not to impose the invitee by wanting the
invitee to do nothing but come. Moreover, deference represents another way of
offering invitation to a distant person. In this case, the speaker (e.g. the employee
regards himself/herself as inferior to the invitee (e.g. the boss) and, therefore, gives
the invitee a chance to make decision of whether to come or not. On the other hand,
camaraderie concerns that the speaker considers the hearer as equal (e.g. relationship
of classmates). When offering an invitation, the speaker tries to be friendly in the
interaction with direct and open behavior. From the given examples above, it is
obvious that conversation is not an easy interacting process merely regarding how
people interact. Lakoff devaluates what and how people say in different ways. In
other words, CP, only, illustrates how interlocutors are cooperating in the
conversation, but it is PP that explains why they say something in the way they say it.
4
Emphasis is mine.

5
 In fact, Lakoff’s three rules are applicable more or less depending on the type
of politeness situation as understood by the speaker. For example, if a speaker
assesses a given situation as requiring Intimate Politeness, window shutting might be
requested by uttering: Shut the window, while Informal Politeness might be met with
Please shut the window. The reader is never told how the speaker or hearer is to
assess what level of politeness is required.
Answering objections to the universality of politeness, Lakoff claimed that her
theory does not contradict the fact that different cultures have different customs. She
believed that what creates differences in the interpretation of politeness across
cultures is the order these rules take precedence one over the other.

5.3.4.2. Politeness as Comity:

The position of Leech (1983) is a grand elaboration of the Conversational
Maxim approach to politeness. Like Lakoff, Leech (1983) adopts the framework
initially set out by Grice: there exists a set of maxims and sub-maxims that guide and
constrain the conversation of rational people.
Important to Leech’s theory is his distinction between a speaker’s illocutionary
goals (what speech act(s) the speaker intends to be conveyed by the utterance) and the
speaker’s social goals (what position the speaker is taking on being truthful, polite,
ironic, and the like). In this regard, he posits two sets of conversational (rhetorical)
principles – Interpersonal Rhetoric and Textual Rhetoric, each constituted by a set of
maxims, which socially constrain communicative behavior in specific ways.
Leech (1983) treats politeness within the domain of Interpersonal Rhetoric,
which contains the following first-order principles: those falling under the terms of
Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP), those associated with a Politeness Principle (PP),
those associated with an Interest Principle (IP) and Pollyanna Principle. The Interest
principle is briefly characterized as: “say what is unpredictable, and hence
interesting”, the Polyanna Principle postulates that participants in a conversation will
prefer pleasant topics of conversation to unpleasant ones (euphemism is one aspect of
this principle) (cf. Pikor-Niedzialek, 2005:105-7).
Each of these Interpersonal Principles has the same status in his pragmatic
theory, with the (CP) and its associated maxims used to explain how an utterance may
be interpreted to convey indirect messages, and the (PP) and its maxims used to
explain why such indirectness might be used.

6
 Although CP successfully accounts for how the utterances of the interlocutors
cooperate in the conversation, CP in itself cannot explain why the interlocutors do not
directly convey the intended meaning. As CP fails to take situational factors into
consideration, Leech (1983) proposes Politeness Principle (PP) to keep the balance of
social necessity and the friendly relations in the situations in which the politeness acts
as backup. According to Leech (1983:132) PP includes six maxims:
1. Tact Maxim (in impositives and commissives)
(a) Minimize cost to other. (b) maximize benefit to other.
2. Generosity Maxim (in impositives and commissives)
(a) Minimize benefit to self. (b) Maximize cost to self.
3. Approbation Maxim (in expressives and assertives)
(a) Minimize dispraise to other. (b) Maximize praise to other.
4. Modesty Maxim (in expressives and assertives)
(a) Minimize praise to self (b) Maximize dispraise of self.
5. Agreement Maxim (in assertives)
(a) Minimize disagreement between self and other
(b) Maximize agreement between self and other.
6. Sympathy Maxim (in assertives)
(a) Minimize antipathy between self and other.
(b) Maximize sympathy between self and other.

Leech’s Principle of Politeness can be stated as the following: other things

being equal, minimize the expression of beliefs which are unfavorable to the hearer
and at the same time (but less important) maximize the expression of beliefs which are
favorable to the hearer (My emphasis). According to Leech, politeness is emphasized
more on other than on self. Moreover, sub-maxim (a) appears more important than
sub-maxim (b), which implies that negative politeness is a more important
consideration than positive politeness.
The speech act of invitation, the target act of this study, is related to the first two
maxims (namely, Tact Maxim and Generosity maxim). In the case of invitation, when
a speaker intends to invite a friend to dinner, he/she would prepare a dinner to
maximize the invitee’s benefit, and the invitee does not have to do anything but come
to the house to minimize the invitee’s benefit by conforming to Tact Maxim. On the
other hand, the speaker spends time preparing dinner to maximize his/her own cost,
and the speaker does not intend to get anything from the invitee to minimize his/her
benefit by conforming to Generosity Maxim.

7
 The above example indicates that for the sake of cost-benefit and/or modesty,
PP determines how CP is to be implemented. Very often, the need of politeness may
collide with Manner Maxims of CP, which demands brevity and clarity. The
following conversation can be used as an example:
A: We’ll all miss Bill and Agatha, won’t we?
B: Well, we’ll all miss Bill. (Leech, 1983, p.80)

In the above example, in order to follow the Maxim of Quality to give a

contribution that is as informative as possible to respond to A’s utterance, B should
probably answer, “Well, we’ll all miss Bill, but we won’t all miss Agatha.” However,
B, for politeness’s sake, retains only the first clause and deletes the second one to
implicate that they do not miss Agatha. Another example is given to illustrate the
trade-off of Politeness Principle under sociocultural controls. Yu (2003), in his study
on compliments, noticed that English speakers tend to conform to the Agreement
Maxim by accepting other’s compliment. That is to say, English speakers tend to
maximize praise of self by de-emphasizing Modesty Maxim, which Chinese speakers
incline to minimize praise to self by upgrading Modesty Maxim. For these reasons,
the speech act of invitation is expected not follow the CP and the PP completely, and
the choices of linguistic forms will change with contextual factors, such as the
relationship between interlocutors and the social situations. Accordingly, CP will be
weakly operating when politeness plays an important role in specific contexts.
Another problem that speech acts raise in connection with politeness is the
belief that some speech acts seem to be impolite by their nature, such as orders or
commands, while others are polite by nature, such as offers or invitations (Leech,
1983). Thus, according to Leech, when we talk about speech acts, we must distinguish
between positive politeness, which increases the politeness in the case of inherently
polite speech acts, and negative politeness, which reduces the impoliteness of
inherently impolite speech acts. He also argues that one has to pay attention to the
relativeness of politeness, as this depends on the culture of the speakers. My argument
in this study is that there are no speech acts that are inherently polite. It is the situation
or context that determines whether a speech act is polite or not. Speech acts are not
decontextualized, but they appear within discourse.
The desire to be polite also influences what kind of speech act one decides to
use. Thus, one may choose an indirect speech act instead of a direct one in order to be
more polite (Leech, 1983). Leech called this “the metalinguistic use of politeness in

8
speech acts”. Leech suggests that it is possible to increase the degree of politeness by
using more indirect illocutions: “(a) because 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: 131-32).
According to Leech (2005:7), certain maxims (such as the Tact Maxim and the
Modesty Maxim) represented the goals people pursue in order to maintain
communicative concord.
The POP 5 approach (which I still adhere to, although I now avoid the term
‘maxim’) is a goal-oriented approach. It is assumed that we have some illocutionary
goals, i.e. the primary goals we want to achieve in linguistic communication (e.g.
persuading someone to help us). We also have social goals, i.e. maintaining good
communicative relations with people. But illocutionary goals may either support or
compete with social goals –especially the goal of being polite (Leech, 2005:7).

According to Leech (2005:9), politeness makes us behave in ways which our

visitor from Mars would think irrational: e.g. a sequence of polite utterances such as
the following may occur in certain cultures (traditionally, in Chinese, for example):
invitation →refusal →invitation →refusal →invitation→ accept
It is worth mentioning that a sequence of such utterances usually occurs in Palestinian
Arabic as well, but not in American English. According to Leech (2005:10), such
sequences represent “battles for politeness”6. These battles can be resolved by
negotiating with the other person’s politeness. Thus traditionally, after a third
invitation, say, an invitee will ‘reluctantly’ accept the invitation. Or one person will
‘reluctantly’ agree to go first through the doorway before the other.
Therefore, the relationship between politeness and speech acts seems therefore
very much similar to that between direct and indirect speech acts. This study adopts
the idea that it is very difficult to label a certain speech act as polite or impolite, and
use these labels as rules. Whether the meaning a certain speech act conveys is polite
or impolite is rather very much dependent on the contextual circumstances in which
they are uttered.
To sum up this section on the conversational –maxim view of politeness and as
has been presented above, Lakoff (1973) considered (CP) to be a subcase of the rules
of politeness. Leech (1983) claims that (CP) and (PP) are pragmatic principles of the
first-order, i.e. they are principles of equal linguistic status, coordinate and

5
POP (Principles of Pragmatics): is a name of a book written by Leech.
6
See chapter 11 on the notions of insistence and ritual refusals.

9
complementary rather than subordinate (of one in relation to the other). Despite
Leech’s postulate, it must be claimed that the (CP) is always basic because it defines a
norm from which departures are accounted for in terms of other principles, e.g. (PP).
Furthermore, the maxims of (CP) are valid for and may apply to the maxims of (PP)
rather than the other way round; which seems to support the view of (CP) as the basic
conversational principle in pragmatics (cf. Pikor-Niedzialek, 2005).

5.3.5. The Face7-View of Politeness

Face as a notion to the study of politeness was adopted by some scholars in their
investigations of social interactions (Goffman, 1967; and Brown and Levinson, 1978,
1987). Face was a crucial point in the analysis of politeness.

5.3.5.1. Politeness as Face by Goffman:

Goffman (1967) is concerned with social interaction, whether it is face-to-face
or mediated interaction. By social interaction, Goffman means the behavior of
individuals as an attribute of social order in a particular society, rather than an
attribute of the behavior of an individual person (Marquez-Reiter, 2000). According
to Sarangi (2011:248), for Goffman, “this social behavior is on loan to the individual
from society and is governed by certain legalized and endorsed societal rules”.
Presenting a view similar to that of Goffman, Sarangi (2011:252) states that “when in
the presence of others, the individual is guided by a special set of rules which have
been here called situational properties. Upon examination, these rules prove to govern
the allocation of the individual’s involvement within a situation, as expressed through
a conventionalized idiom of behavioral clues”.
As mentioned earlier, the term face was employed by Goffman (1967:5) to refer
to the public image a person projects for himself or herself. Goffman assumes that
social interaction plays an important role in determining our position in, as well as our
knowledge, of the world. Therefore, face is central to social interaction in that its
presentation achieves some sort of social harmony. Hence, it is interactants’ mutual
responsibility to maintain face because the loss of face during an encounter may
precipitate a breakdown in the exchange.
Therefore, Goffman (1967:10) maintains that, “although face is the possession
of the individual, it is on loan from society and can be withdrawn from the person
once he or she behaves in a way that runs contrary to the rules endorsed by the
7
See chapter 4 for a detailed cross-cultural investigation of the notion of face.

10
society". In short, Goffman’s image of face is collectively 8 oriented. The individual
does not have an absolute freedom to do whatever he or she wants; instead the society
monitors the behavior of individuals and gives accreditation to their face wants if they
keep themselves in line with its norms. Once a person behaves otherwise, face will be
definitely at risk and its possible loss may incur negative consequences.
As far as face is concerned, Goffman (1967) distinguishes three terms pertaining
to face. First, we can say that a person has a “good face” when the “line he effectively
takes presents an image of him that is internally consistent, that is supported by
judgments and evidence conveyed by other participants, and that is confirmed by
evidence conveyed through impersonal agencies in the situation” (ibid: 8). Second,
we can say that a person is in “wrong face” when “information is brought forth in
some way about his social worth which cannot be integrated, even with effort, into the
line that is being sustained for him” (ibid: 8). Third, we can say that a person is “out
of face” when he “participates in a context with others without having ready a line of
the kind participants in such situations are expected to take” (bid: 8).
However, according to Goffman (1967), once contact takes place, other
procedures, namely: “defensive procedures”, should be introduced to maintain face
and enhance hearers’ face. First, when feeling that an activity may incur face threat to
the hearer, one may, at once, cease the activity. Second, one may, at a suitable
moment, alter the subject of the talk if one feels that the conversation is incompatible
with the line supported by others. Third, one is required to show “diffidence and
composure” (ibid:16).
Goffman (1967) was aware of individual as well as of cross-cultural differences
when dealing with face saving, stressing the fact that “each person, subculture, and
society seems to have its own repertoire of face-saving practices. It is to this
repertoire that people partly refer when they ask what person or culture is really like”
(ibid: 13).
According to Parvaresh and Pasekh (2009:2), not only does Goffman (1967)
define the concept of face; he also acknowledges the crucial role in saving self-face,
arguing that: “The combined effect of the rule of self-respect and the rule of
considerateness is that the person tends to conduct himself during an encounter so as
to maintain both his own face and the face of other participants” (Goffman, 1967:11).
Moreover, Goffman also puts forward certain practical procedures that might help to
8
See section (5.10) on Collectivism Vs Individualism.

11
save face, beginning with the avoidance process in which a person abjures interaction
with others, if a potential loss of face is likely to happen.

5.3.5.2. Politeness as Face (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

Goffman (1974:224) relates politeness to face which is defined as “social value”
and “image of self” which people claim for themselves. Following Goffman’s concept
of politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose that politeness is related to face
work, which achieves the goal of social interaction in which the interlocutors try to
maintain or enhance the face of each other.
According to ALFattah (2010:114), Goffman's face as being "located in the flow
of 'public property' is only assigned to individual contingent upon their interactional
behavior. In contrast, Brown and Levinson characterize face as an image that
intrinsically belongs to the individual to 'self'. Here, the public characteristic that is
'essential' to Goffman's analysis of face seems to become as 'external' modifier or
adjunct for rather than an 'intrinsic' constituent of, this image".
Brown and Levinson’s (1978) model is believed to have the ability to account
for cross-cultural similarities and be a tool for investigating the quality of social
relations in any society. The doctrine of cultural relativity is rebutted and cultural
diversities, according to them, emerge from underlying universal principles. Brown
and Levinson’s face theory contains three basic notions: face, face threatening acts
(FTAs) and politeness strategies. They argue that everyone in the society has two
kinds of face needs. One is negative face which is defined as one’s desire that nobody
impede his or her actions. The other is the positive face which implies that people
expect their needs to be desirable to others as well. Therefore, every utterance is
potentially a face threatening act (FTA), either to the negative face or to the positive
face. Therefore, people need to employ politeness strategies to redress the FTA.
For Brown and Levinson (Brown & Levinson, 1978: 66), face means
“something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained or enhanced,
and must be constantly attended to in interaction.” Face is a favorable public image
consisting of two different kinds of face wants, the desire to be unimpeded in one’s
actions, and the desire to be approved of. People in interaction, according to this
model, try to preserve both kinds of face for themselves and the people they interact
with; they cooperate in maintaining face because it is their best interest to do so.

12
 In more details, Brown & Levinson (1978) construct a “Model Person”
representing a willful and fluent speaker of a natural language, endowed with two
special properties – rationality and face. Rationality is to be understood as the
availability to the (MP) of a mode of reasoning ‘from ends to the means that will
achieve those end’. Rationality here means the ability to choose appropriate means to
meet their goals (Brown and Levinson 1978:63). The MP is also endowed with face,
i.e. with two particular wants: (a) the want to be unimpeded (b) the want to be
approved of in certain respects. It is worth mentioning that the notion of face, on
which the whole theory is based, is derived from the English folk term lose face9 that
ties face up with notions of being embarrassed or humiliated.
Since different speakers put different emphases on the two kinds of faces under
different sociocultural needs, misunderstanding may be aroused because the
interlocutors do not comprehend each other’s face need. Therefore, before messages
and intentions are exchanged, interlocutors need to negotiate, in advance, the
relationship between them, which, in turn, would determine the necessity of
maintaining each other’s face. In sum, linguistic manifestations are reflections of such
expectations (Brown & Levinson, 1878, 1987).
In fact, Brown and Levinson (1987:60) claim that acts that threaten the hearer’s
positive face consist of expressions of disapproval or disagreement, criticism, and the
mentioning of taboo topics. They further explain that, under normal circumstances, all
individuals are motivated to avoid conveying FTAs and are more motivated to
minimize the face threat of the acts they use. Consequently, individuals must often
prioritize three wants, the want to communicate the content of a face-threatening act,
the want to be efficient, and the want to maintain the hearer’s face.
Therefore, while face can be preserved, it can be damaged, which will result in
impoliteness. In fact, Brown and Levinson further explain this issue with the notion of
face threatening acts (FTAs) which are Illocutionary acts that are capable of
damaging other people’s face. To deal with those acts, Brown and Levinson (1978)
identify a set of strategies which can help either to avoid or minimize them.

Without redressive action, baldly

On record Positive polite

9
See chapter 4 (section 4.4) for a detailed illustration of the notion of loss of face.

13
 Do the FTA Without redressive action

Off record Negative politeness

Don’t do the FTA

Figure 5.1.: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1978)

FTAs can come with four strategies: 1) on record, baldly, with no redressive action; 2)
on record with redressive action and positive politeness; 3) on record with redressive
action and negative politeness; and 4) off record. off-record politeness, means flouting
one of the Gricean (1975) maxims on the assumption that the addressee is able to
infer the intended meaning. On a more general level, Gricean model of Cooperative
Principle is another building block in Brown & Levinson’s theory. “On record”
means directly saying something in an unambiguous way, while “off record” means
expressing in an indirect way so that it can be interpreted ambiguously as a way to
minimize the extent to which the addressee’s face is threatened. On record FTAs can
be committed with redressive action, which is “action that ‘gives face’ to the
addressee, that is, that attempts to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA”
(Brown and Levinson 1987: 69). In other words, when the message about to be
delivered has the potential to damage the addressee’s face, the speaker can modify the
message to show that no such face damage is intended. Redressive action can be
employed towards either the positive face or the negative face of the hearer. One can,
of course, choose not to do an FTA, which results in no utterance of words.
Brown and Levinson (1987:102/132) list 15 substrategies 10 of positive
politeness and 10 of negative politeness and say that even these lists are not
exhaustive. A slightly simplified and modified version of the substrategies of positive
politeness is presented in Brown and Gilman (1989:167).
To conclude, the point that is considered throughout this study is that Brown
and Levinson (1987) adopt a reductionist method by reducing social facts – some
norms of language usage – to the outcome of the rational choices of individuals. In
fact, Brown and Levinson view linguistic politeness as a formal, deductive and
predictive system. However, Brown and Levinson contend that any speech act has the
potential of threatening either the face of the speaker or that of the hearer. They

10
The strategies of positive and negative politeness will be investigated thoroughly with regard to the
speech act of inviting in chapter 10.

14
believe that conversation is much more concerned with observing politeness
expectations designed to ensure the “redress of face than with the exchange of
information” (Salmani-Nodoushan, 1995:4). They have proposed a direct relationship
between social distance and politeness in such a way as to indicate that an increase in
social distance will bring about an increase in the degree of politeness and vice versa.

5.3.6. Scollon and Scollon’s Model of Politeness

The Scollon and Scollon’s (2001) approach to the study of politeness is different
from traditional treatment of politeness in that their approach ties the Brown and
Levinson’s ([1978] 1987) concept of face to social and cultural systems.
According to Al-Marrani & Sazalie (2010:65), the main idea of Scollon &
Scollon’s model of politeness or politeness systems is that face relationships are
divided into three politeness systems (deference politeness system, solidarity
politeness system and hierarchical politeness system). According to this model of
politeness, in a deference politeness system, the speaker and hearer see themselves at
the same social level with no interlocutor exerting power over the other (-Power), but
with a distant relationship (+Distance). As a result, both interlocutors use
independence strategies, including expressions that minimize threat to avoid the risk
of losing face. In a solidarity politeness system, interlocutors see themselves as being
of equal social position (-Power) and with a close relationship (-Distance); in this
system, the interlocutors use involvement strategies to assume or express reciprocity
or to claim a common point of view ( cf. Al-Marrani & Sazalie, 2010:65) .
Finally, in a hierarchical politeness system, one participant is in a superordinate
position (+Power) and the other is in a subordinate position (-Power). In this
asymmetrical system, where the relationship may be close or distant (-Distance or
+Distance), Scollon and Scollon observed that the participant with power may use
involvement strategies. The participant in a lower position may employ independence
strategies to minimize threat or to show respect to the interlocutor. In particular, this
independence aspect of face shows that ‘‘a person may act with some degree of
autonomy and that he or she respects the rights of others to their own autonomy’’
(Scollon and Scollon, 1995: 37).
To sum up, it is clear that Scollon and Scollon (1995) use the concept of face to
refer to the ways a cultural group organizes its social relationships and the politeness
strategies depend on the culture differences. They state that the idea of self in Western

15
societies corresponds to highly individualistic and self-motivated ideology and open
to ongoing negotiation, whereas Asians societies concentrate on a more collectivistic
self which is more connected to membership in basic group.

5.3.8. Communication Accommodation Theory and Politeness

Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT henceforth) addresses
behavioral adjustments, including alternations in levels of politeness, individuals
make during communication in order to express values, attitudes, and intentions.
Specifically, CAT sets out “to clarify the motivations underlying, as well as the
constraints operating upon, speech shifts during social interactions and the social
consequences of these” (Giles et al., 1987: 14).
CAT explores the various reasons why individuals emphasize or minimize the
social differences between themselves and their interlocutors through verbal and non-
verbal communication. This theory is concerned with the links between “language,
context and identity”. It focuses on both the intergroup and interpersonal factors that
lead to accommodation as well as the ways in which power, macro and micro-context
concerns affect communication behaviors (See Mirzaiyan et al. 2010).
CAT assumes that people bring in their backgrounds and fields of experience
into their interactions through their speech and behaviors, and that therefore speech
and behavioral similarities exist in all conversations. It also assumes that
“accommodation is influenced by the way in which people perceive and evaluate what
takes place during a conversation, that is: how people interpret and judge the
messages exchanged in conversation”11.
In fact, CAT was developed by Howard Giles, professor of linguistics. It
evolved from the Speech Accommodation Theory (SAT henceforth), which was
developed in order to demonstrate the value of social psychological concepts to
understanding the dynamics of speech. It sought to explain “the motivations
underlying certain shifts in people’s speech styles during social encounters and some
of the social consequences arising from them” (Bunz et al. 2002). Particularly, SAT
focused on the cognitive and affective processes underlying individuals’ convergence
and divergence through speech. CAT has broadened this theory to include not only
speech but also the “non-verbal and discursive dimensions of social interaction”

11
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_accommodation_theory

16
(Bunz et al. 2002). Thus, CAT now encompasses other aspects of communication,
including politeness. It now also covers a wider range of phenomena.
Two key concepts related to CAT are convergence and divergence.
Convergence is the process of individuals adapting toward each other’s speech. When
Giles (1973) first introduced accommodation theory, he illustrated convergence by
reporting that individuals in interview situations adjusted their accents toward that of
the interviewer. Divergence, on the other hand, refers to the way individuals adjust
their speech away from each other in order to accentuate differences. Bourhis and
Giles (1977) reported divergence in their study of the reactions of Welsh people to
language questions asked of them by English-sounding speakers. When the English-
sounding speakers threatened the ethnic identity of the Welsh by challenging the
value of learning the Welsh language, the Welsh individuals diverged from the
English by broadening their Welsh accents.
Adaptative behaviors have been identified in several studies (see Giles,
Coupland, & Coupland, 1991). Features of convergence may include utterance length,
speech rate, information density, vocal intensity, pausing frequencies and lengths,
response latency, self-disclosure, jokes, expressing solidarity/opinions/orientations,
gesture, head nodding, facial affect, and posture.
While excessive convergence may be perceived as patronizing or inappropriate,
speech convergence is generally met with positive evaluation. It follows that
convergence may reflect an individual’s desire for social approval (Giles et al., 1987).
Giles et al. (1987) pointed to research demonstrating that similarity in speech rates,
response latencies, language, and accent are perceived more favorably than
dissimilarity in the realms of social attractiveness, communication effectiveness, and
cooperativeness.
Therefore, accommodation tends to occur when the speakers like each other.
Alternatively, accommodation has been observed when the need to be deferential
arises, or when one person wants to put another person at their ease. Consequently,
accommodation can be interpreted as a polite speech strategy, designed to convey the
impression that the addressee's speech is legitimate and worthy of consideration.
To sum up, this study examines politeness as a form of accommodation in
making, accepting and refusing invitations. In fact, politeness in invitations can be
represented by verbal/ lexical markers and structural elements. Speakers may alternate
or accommodate politeness levels during an interaction. Politeness, as a form of

17
accommodation, in invitations is a relevant area that must be thoroughly considered.
This study posits that social context cues indicating politeness can easily be, and often
are, included in invitations, and it is conceivable that individuals may accommodate to
these cues when interacting with others in different contexts.

According to Sifianou (1992), most scholars, basing on the investigation of

English, have argued that the degree of indirectness determines the degree of
politeness to a great extent. Although there are some ideas that indirectness and
politeness are not the same (Kasper, 1998; Holtgraves, 1986), most scholars have
argued that overall, in English, indirectness and politeness are closely related,
especially in request- a kind of directive speech acts. While the scale of indirectness
seems to be universal, the assertion between indirectness and politeness differs across
cultures.
I have observed that contrary to most English societies where the display of non-
imposition and concerns for distancing in speech acts are believed to help avoid face
threatening acts and hence to be more polite, a number of cultures prefer a show of
solidarity and sincerity by directly delivering them. Sifianou (1992) has proved that
Greeks request, advise and suggest structurally more directly than English because
they see those acts as their duty to help and support each other without any idea about
imposition or non-imposition. In another study which examines the politeness
perceptions of speakers of Israeli Hebrew, Blum-Kulka (1987) finds that speakers of
Hebrew favor directness rather than indirectness. Wierzbicka (1985) comes to a
similar result with the speakers of Polish. Generally speaking, speakers from those
mentioned cultures either seem to pay much attention to involvement and solidarity
relation, i.e. the positive aspect of face, or belong to a kind of societies where people
depend on each other more and therefore individuals are less emphasized than
interdependent social relations. In other words, most of them probably correspond to
positive politeness societies where indirectness will not necessarily be related to
politeness.
To sum up, my argument is that the claim for a linear relationship between
indirectness and politeness is not adequate. Studies of some languages, such as
French, Chinese, Spanish and Polish show that there is clearly a problem in
establishing an objective measure of directness as related to politeness. In this sense,
one can easily accept that politeness is a phenomenon found in all languages, but it is

18
not logical or convincing to consider it universal in its operations, rules, and
strategies. Therefore, the association of politeness and indirectness in Palestinian and
American cultures should be investigated in concerning to a specific kind of speech
acts such as inviting.

5.4. Linguistic Choice by Indirectness and Politeness:

As we have seen earlier, it has been claimed by some scholars (Brown and
Levinson, 1987; Leech, 1983) that the notion of politeness is related to the degree of
indirectness. For example, Brown and Levinson (1987) maintain that politeness is
highly based on the strategy for doing face-threatening acts. When the speaker goes
on record and baldly does the act without redress, the degree of politeness which the
speaker conveys is very low. Next, politeness increases as the speaker tries to employ
redressive actions. Moreover, the “off-record” behavior yields a high degree of
politeness. Leech (1983) advocates the same idea by claiming that when the degree of
optionality or indirectness of illocution increases, the indirect act becomes more
polite. However, the concept is questionable. That is to say, a higher degree of
indirectness does not necessarily imply a higher degree of politeness (See the previous
section).
Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) divide request strategies into three categories.
First, direct strategy of request is the least indirect one compared to the other
strategies; next, conventional indirect strategy (such as willingness, desire, and
ability) is more indirect than direct strategy; then, non-conventional indirect strategy
(such as hints) is considered the most indirect (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984).
However, it is pointed out that politeness does not correlate with indirectness for the
three strategies (i.e., direct strategy, conventional indirect strategy and non-
conventional indirect strategy). Rinner and Kobayashi (1999) claim that selections of
certain strategies for the sake of politeness are different in different cultures. In their
investigation on Japanese culture, requestive hints of high indirectness may be polite
and impolite in different situations. As noted by Blum-Kulka (1987:13), the use of
hints for requests is not necessarily polite because the lack of “the pragmatic clarity”
is essential to get the intended meaning of the speech. A similar phenomenon appears
in imperatives. In Kallia’s (2005) study on the speech acts of request and suggestion,
imperative is found to be both polite and impolite in Greek. Moreover, some scholars
found that hinting sentences and imperative sentences are not polite (Rinner &

19
Kobayashi, 1999; Tusuki, Takahashi, Patschke & Zhang, 2001). The results of these
studies reveal that the linguistic choice for the sake of politeness is different from one
culture to culture.
Conventional indirect strategy is most frequently used by American English
speakers (Blum-Kulka & House 1989; House & Kasper, 1981; Rinner & Kobayashi,
1999). Carrel and Konneker (1981) claim that the syntactic pattern is a primary
indicator to differentiate the degree of politeness. That is, interrogative is the most
polite, declarative is the next most polite, and imperative is the least polite. Therefore,
in general, conventionally indirect strategy can be divided into two groups-the
interrogative one and the affirmative one in linguistic structure level, with the former
being more polite than the latter.

5.6. Why is Politeness Interesting?

Only in the past few decades have philosophers, linguists and others become
interested in the pragmatic study of language, i.e. they developed an interest in the
way language is used in communication between people. In 1962, Austin introduced
his theory of speech acts, and Searle (1969) systematized it; then came Grice (1975)
with his co-operative principles and implicatures as a means to study discourse. Grice
himself noted the importance of politeness as a factor in the account of conversational
meaning, though he did not deal with it in detail.
It is only in recent years that discourse analysts began to investigate the area of
polite language usage, and this partly because the Gricean CP does not fully explain
the use of language. According to Leech (1983), “the CP in itself cannot explain (i)
why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean; and (ii) what is the
relation between the sense [meaning as semantically determined] and force [meaning
as pragmatically as well as semantically determined] when non-declarative types of
sentence are being considered.” (p. 80). So he introduces what he calls the PP
(politeness principle) and shows that both the CP and the PP are needed for pragmatic
interpretations (see Alaoui, 2011).
Very often in everyday speech, utterances which flout the Gricean CP are used
and are understood. The force of these indirect illocutions can be worked out if the
Hearer uses implicatures. Leech illustrates this with the example,
It’s cold in here

20
as a request to switch on the heater. Surely in producing this indirect illocution instead
of a direct one, the speaker intends to fulfill a goal beside just attaining the desired
state and that is to maintain a good social relationship with the hearer by being polite
and yet at the same time imposing his own will. The choice of one of the different
realizations of speech act in part depends on the extent to which the contextual
situation requires politeness, for the PP applies differently in different contexts. This
is what Leech sets out to study while Brown and Levinson move toward the study of
politeness as a universal phenomenon. Brown and Levinson try to account for the
observed cross cultural similarities in the abstract principles which underlie polite
usage. Therefore, this study will be grounded in Leech’s view of politeness and
Brown and Levinson’s model as a theoretical framework for the purpose of
investigating politeness in issuing invitations in Palestinian Arabic and American
English.
Though it cannot be denied that there are certain features of politeness common
to some languages, if not all, yet the use of politeness does alter from one culture to
the other, in that, one society can give precedence to one maxim of PP rather than
another while other societies would not; for example, the Palestinian society gives
preference to the generosity maxim while the American does so to the agreement
maxim. In this respect, politeness can be said to be a culture-specific norm.
The fact that politeness is culture specific 12 probably accounts for the difficulties
EFL learners face when they try to be polite in L2. Indeed, even if they master the
lexical and grammatical aspects of the English language, they sometimes fail to
communicate well at the pragmatic level. “In part, second language speakers’
pragmatic failures have shown to be traceable to cross-linguistic differences in the
speech act realization rules, indicating in Widdowson’s terms (Widdowson, 1978) that
learners are just as liable to transfer rules of use (having to do with contextual
appropriacy) as those of ‘usage’ (related to grammatical accuracy)” (Blum-Kulka and
Olshtain,1984: 196).
Arabic speakers of English, for example, sound phony or lacking sincerity to
native speakers because of the excessive usage they make of polite forms. The
following illustration will make this point more explicit. If say a Palestinian speaker
of English met a person s/he knows, even though this person is not their close friend,
a likely greeting s/he could come up with could be the following:
12
The notions of universality Vs Culture-specificity will be illustrated in details in section (5.9.).

21
 Hello, hello, hello! How are you? It’s been such a long time since I last saw you.
Where have you been all this time? How is the family, the wife, the children, your
parents… ? Are they alright? My regards to all of them…
This is a kind of ritual greeting that one has to go through in Arabic, or at least a
Palestinian society, but a greeting of this sort might shock a native speaker of English
who would regard it as overfriendly; perhaps they might consider the speaker as
treading on their private territory because s/he (the speaker) is not keeping the social
distance usual in the American society.

5.7. Non-Verbal Communication VS. Politeness13:

For politeness purposes, speakers might utilize all possible strategies of both
verbal and/or non-verbal signals in communication depending on different contexts.
In fact, speakers have a tendency towards non-verbal signals in all languages, but
speakers in different cultures assign different values of politeness to the same
nonverbal signals. In fact, certain politeness strategies, whether verbal or nonverbal,
are culture-specific.
Castillo and Eduardo (2009: 12-14) explore practices, including practices
expressing verbal and non-verbal politeness, which members of a culture use to carry
out their way of life. They investigate very concrete actions or behaviors that affect
the appropriateness of communication. This specificity makes the pragmatic elements
more visible. Castillo and Eduardo (2009: 12-14) organize features of communication
into two broad categories: linguistic and extralinguistic. Linguistic features are those
that deal with language, verbal or written, including paralanguage, the vocal effects
that accompany oral language. Extralinguistic features are those that are commonly
referred to as non-verbal communication. It necessary to mention that these features
have different politeness values in different cultures. The extralinguistic category of
components refers to important elements such as: kinesics, proxemics, oculesics,
chronemics, and haptics, and context (cf. Castillo and Eduardo, 2009: 13-14). Below I
list some of these extralinguistic features with brief definitions and examples.
1. Oculesics: This consists of eye movements used to convey meaning. These
movements include maintaining or avoiding direct eye contact, blinking, winking,
staring, squinting, rolling the eyes, crossing the eyes, closing the eyes, and other eye

13
See section 8.3 for a detailed exploration of non-verbal communication in AE and PA.

22
behaviors. These movements convey meanings. For example, avoiding direct eye
contact conveys meanings of respect and deference in some cultures, but in others,
messages of guilt or embarrassment.
2. Context: Edward T. Hall (in Castillo and Eduardo, 2009) propose two different
categories of context to categorize the differences in communication style: Low
context is where the message is direct, explicit, as in the utterance (“Oh I forgot my
cell phone… Would you mind if I use yours to make a phone call?”), and high context
where the speech is indirect, subtle, and understood basically because of social
situation signs. For example, a person is looking desperately for something in her
purse. She is trying to find a payphone and another person offers her a phone.
3. Chronemics: This element of communication or politeness can be defined as the
use of time in nonverbal communication. In fact, most cultures follow a particular
time pattern or even certain human groups in within that culture use a different time
pattern. The time perceptions include punctuality, willingness to wait, and interactions
in conversations.
Chronemics has identified two different patterns of behavior in cultures:
polychronic and monochronic. The United States is considered a monochronic culture
which means that things are generally done separately, as in “one thing at a time”.
People value their own time and therefore, they value the times of others. These
factors of punctuality and respect for the time are rooted in the industrial revolution
where according to Guerrero, DeVito & Hecht (2009:236) (as cited in Castillo and
Eduardo, 2009) "factory life required the labor force to be on hand and in place at an
appointed hour".
On the other hand, Latin America and the Arabic world are polychronic
cultures, where people do many things at once, and are highly distracted and subject
to interruptions when a conversation takes place. This pragmatic component of
chronemics is important for learners of English since it also includes interesting
elements that vary according to the culture such as the pace of the conversation, also
known as register, and even how long the people are willing to wait in a conversation.
4. Haptics: This is how touching conveys messages in nonverbal communication.
Even though touching is part of all cultures, in some of them it can carry positive and
negative denotations. A touching gesture can be perceived as positive/polite in certain
situations, but in others a person may get the opposite feeling when it is interpreted as
insincere or suggesting ulterior motives. For some cultures touching is highly

23
determined by the age, sexual orientation, gender and rank of the individuals who
intervene in the conversation.
5. Kinesics: This is the term used to describe body language. Kinesics includes
movement of the hands, arms, head and other parts of the body.
6. Proxemics: This is the use of space between objects and between persons to
convey meanings. For example, the distance between two people standing face to face
conveys meaning. The closer the distance, generally speaking, the more intimate the
message. Similarly, Argyle (1972) stresses the importance of including non-
verbal signals, such as head-nods, shifts of gaze, fine hand-movements, etc., in any
analysis of social interaction. Argyle (1972:246-270) classifies non-verbal
communication (NVC) under ten headings:

1. Bodily contact: This may take a number of forms-hitting, pushing, stroking,

etc.-most of which may involve a variety of areas of the body.
2. Proximity: Argyle (1972:247) states that how close people sit or stand can
easily be measured. According to Argyle (1972:247), there are much greater cross-
cultural variations, in that Arabs stand very close, while Swedes, Scots and the
English stand much further apart. However, Argyle (1972:247) also admits that
differences may exist due to personal tendencies.
3. Orientation: This is the angle at which people sit or stand in relation to each
other. According to Argyle (1972:247), Arabs prefer the head-on position.
4. Appearance: Many aspects of personal appearance are under control-clothes,
hair, and skin, while others are partly so-physique and bodily condition.
5. Posture: In any given culture, many different ways of standing, sitting or lying
are possible. Posture is used to convey interpersonal attitudes. Distinctive postures are
adopted for friendly, hostile, superior, and inferior attitudes.
6. Head-nods: these are the faster-moving non-verbal signals.
7. Facial expressions: The face is a specialized communication area. Facial
expressions express surprise, disagreement, pleasure, etc.
8. Gestures: The hands are able to communicate a great deal: movements of
head, feet, and other parts of the body may also be used.
9. Looking: During conversations each participant looks intermittently at the
other. According to Argyle (1972:250), “Looking plays an important role in
communicating interpersonal attitudes and establishing relations. The act of looking

24
sends a signal to the other that a certain amount of interest is being taken in him, and
interest is a kind which is signaled by the accompanying facial expression”.
10. Non-verbal aspects of speech: The same word can be delivered in quite
different ways by variations in pitch, stress and timing.
The above lists, as mentioned, presents concrete behaviors that second language
learners need to recognize and to employ effectively and appropriately to achieve
successful friction-free interaction. These behaviors are set within particular situations
and social circumstances that also need to be understood.
Feghali (1997) tries to present an important account of non-verbal and
paralinguistic patterns of communication in the Arab World. Arabs in general use
certain non-verbal representations that are culture specific. According to Feghali
(1997:364), members of Arab communities interact with a direct body orientation.
Direct eye contact between same-sex communicators for extended periods, for
example, allows interactants to ascertain the truthfulness of the other’s words, as well
as to reciprocate interest. Lowering gaze, on the other hand, signals “submission,
expected of religious persons with strangers of the opposite sex or politeness in
children being chastised”.
Feghali (1997:364) argues that Arab societies have been commonly accepted as
“contact” cultures, in which people tend to stand close together and touch frequently.
La Barre (1976) (as cited in Feghali 1997) suggests that touching in Arab societies
“replaces” the bowing and handshaking rituals of other societies. (Such a statement,
of course, is relative to cultures in which handshaking or bowing are the norm.) It is
more accurate, however, to stress tendencies toward same-sex touching. Dyads of
men or dyads of women frequently walk hand in hand or arm in arm down streets in
Arab countries.
Touching between members of the opposite sex occurs less often in Arab public
and can be considered extremely offensive, especially in Palestine, Saudi Arabia and
the Arabian Peninsula countries. As Nydell (1987) (as cited in Feghali, 1997) warns,
display of intimacy between men and women “is strictly forbidden by the Arab social
code, including holding hands or linking arms or any gesture of affection such as
kissing or prolonged touching”.
Relative to personal space, Arabs as compared with Westerners demonstrate
tolerance for crowding, pushing, and close proximity in public places. Arabs do not

25
distinguish between public and private self, which is common in Western societies
and representative of separation between mind and body (cf. Feghali, 1997).
Paralinguistics-or vocalizations which impact how something is said have
distinct functions, yet few empirical studies have examined paralinguistic phenomena
in Arab societies. Rather, introductory texts and other publications rely on descriptive
anecdotes to discuss volume and rate of speech, intonation, use of silence, and the role
of smell. Members of Arab societies tend to speak fast and loudly. To Arabs loudness
connotes strength and sincerity, a soft one implies weakness or even deviousness (cf.
Feghali, 1997).
To sum up, it does not make sense to generalize things. Arabs do not have one
single Arab culture. Even in Palestine there are different sub-cultures. Regional
variations, which have different implications, do exist, and these variations have
different politeness values. In fact, touch and personal space are regulated by a wide
variety of contextual variables. We should be skeptical of stereotypical descriptions
that suggest, for example, Arabs are comfortable with an interpersonal distance of
about two feet, as compared to five feet for Americans (Almaney & Alwan, 1982, pp.
96-97) (as cited in Feghali, 1997). It is more effective to say that Americans in
intercultural encounters may feel disturbed by invasion of their personal space,
because physical nearness may carry sexual, impolite, aggressive, or belligerent
connotations. Arabs, on the other hand, may feel slighted or unattended to if
Americans or others back away from them. Therefore, some aspects of Arab
nonverbal and paralinguistic patterns have received more attention than others.
Gestures and interpersonal distance now have a foundation with which to compare to
other societies. Additional empirical examination of eye contact, attitude toward time
and paralinguistics is necessary.

5.8. Universality versus culture-specificity of Politeness:

Politeness is one of the most important impressions of human and human beings
cannot live with each other and communicate together if conventions of politeness are
not observed in the society that they live in. It is a universal, interdisciplinary
phenomenon. I argue that every culture, every language, has its ways of displaying
respect and deference, saving face, avoiding, or minimizing, imposition and
exercising good manners verbally and non-verbally. Numerous studies have shown

26
that “the conventions of politeness are different from one culture to another” (Al-
Marrani & Sazalie, 2010:63).
What might be polite in one culture might not be so in other cultures. Eelen
(2001:128) supports the notion that politeness differs from culture to culture and
cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to another
but also from one regional and social variety to another. She claims that
"communicative success depends on the right amount of and kinds of politeness
applied at the right time to the right speech act, as determined by social norms that
stipulate what is appropriate for a specific interactional situation” (ibid:128).
Likewise, Pablos-Ortega (2010:149) states that the principles upon which the
linguistic phenomenon of politeness is based differ from language to language and, as
a consequence, misunderstandings may arise when non-native speakers come into
contact with a specific language. This type of a misunderstanding may refer to either
particular linguistic structures used to express a type of communicative function, such
as asking, or may refer to the norms and social elements that are an integral part of a
specific culture. Similarly, according to Parvaresh and Pasekh (2009), politeness is
not only culturally, but also contextually determined. They state that “cultures differ
from each other as far as the realization of polite behavior is concerned”.
According to Samarah (2010:57), it is important to be polite in the Arabic
culture. “Maybe this is one interesting difference between Arabic society and Western
society”. Sometimes Westerners react to what they feel is extreme politeness on part
of Arabic speakers. There are even people who interpret this kind of politeness as the
ingratiation. For this reason it is important to emphasize the cultural value of
politeness.
This topic reminds me of an incident that took place upon my arrival to Madrid
to conduct my doctorate research. I used to go to the university by Metro. It was about
ten o’clock in the morning and, luckily, I was sitting on a seat. Usually there were not
enough seats for all passengers. An old woman, looked tired, in her fifties was
standing. I invited her to take my seat as I usually do in Palestine. However, she
refused my offer/ invitation. All I intended to do was to be polite with her, but she
refused even though the offer was for her benefit. I sat again in my seat, but I was
very embarrassed that she refused my invitation. I continued my journey thinking of
reasons of her refusal. When I offered her the invitation, I thought of my offer as a
face-enhancing act since it was for her benefit. However, later on I became convinced

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that my offer was regarded by the old woman as a face-threatening act. It seemed that
the woman interpreted my invitation to her to have my seat as an attack to her face,
and she wanted to tell me that she was not a weak person. In Palestine, offering a
woman, whether she is old or young, a seat in a public means of transportation is a
behavior that is considered extremely polite. It is not polite to keep sitting while there
is a woman who is standing in public transportation.
Therefore, the speech act of inviting is realized differently in different cultures
which have different values in assessing the force of same speech act. In fact, cross-
cultural differences of politeness should be regarded carefully in any conversation.
Individualism and collectivism have been major concepts used to explain
differences and similarities in communication across cultures (Hofstede, 1991;
Triandis, 1995; Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988; Kim, 1995). In general, cultural
differences are derived from two tendencies: individualism and collectivism, with the
former focusing on an individual’s goal, while the latter emphasizing the goal of a
group of people (Hofstede, 1980; Kim, 1994; Triandis, 1995) as it is the case in the
Palestinian society.
My argument is that the fundamental cultural difference lies in the fact that
Palestinian people strictly stick to collectivism in their speech and acts, while people
in the West and English-speaking countries are characterized by individualism. In
Palestine, the concept collectivity is considered as the core of the Palestinian culture,
which means that people should always care about other in-group members, regard
themselves as members of a collectivity and give priority to the collectivity over
individuals. “In cultures that tend toward collectivism, a ‘we’ consciousness prevails:
identity is based on the social system; the individual is emotionally dependent on
organizations which invade private life”. (Lihui and Jianbin, 2010:46)
Consequently, in the Palestinian value system, the interests of the collectivity
outweigh the individual’s interests. Furthermore, the aim of each individual is to
contribute to the comfort and prosperity of the group/country. Social hierarchy,
Cooperation and harmony are valued in interpersonal relationships and people respect
authority. Conversely, individualism is the core of Western culture. In Western
society, individual development, benefits and achievements are encouraged and
protected and people should satisfy their own needs first. “In cultures that tend toward
individualism, an ‘I’ consciously prevails: competition rather than cooperation is
encouraged; personal goals take precedence over group goals; people tend not to be

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emotionally dependent on organizations. These cultures stress individual initiative and
achievement, they value individual decision making. Individualism promotes self-
efficiency, individual responsibilities and personal autonomy” (Lihui and Jianbin,
2010). So, in many Western societies, people have been taught to think and behave
independently since childhood and for them, the concept of collectivity is quite
obscure (see also Honglin, 2007:64).
In fact, exploring cross cultural differences of politeness necessitates further
exploration of the notions of universality and relativity. The issue of universality and
linguistic relativity in language has always been controversial and appears to be
related to earlier considerations such as the Whorfian14 hypothesis and its views on the
relationship between language and thought. In the field of politeness, the issue of
universality attracts much debate. Some linguists, focusing on cross-cultural
differences, try to refute the idea that politeness is a universal notion. Wierzbicka
(1991) states that treatments of politeness by Brown and Levinson have a Western
bias: they emphasize an individualist ethos versus group orientation. The cornerstone
of politeness theorizing, for B&L, has been their individual-wants concept of face.
Wierzbicka (2003), in her introduction to her 2nd edition, espouses ‘the idea that
interpersonal interaction is governed, to a large extent, by norms which are culture-
specific and which reflect cultural values cherished by a particular society’. Later, she
criticizes Leech and “tars” him with the same universalist brush as Brown and
Levinson, referring to
the once popular assumption that the “principles of politeness” are essentially
the same everywhere and can be described in terms of “universal maxims” such as
those listed in Leech (1983: 132)…

Actually, Leech (2005:3) denies using the words in double quotes in this
passage: “principles of politeness” (in the plural) and “universal maxims”. Leech
(2005:3) says “In fact, I never made any claim for the universality of my model of
politeness.”
However, according to Leech (2005:2), “despite differences, there is no East-
West divide in politeness”. Leech (2005:2) states that the concepts of collective, group

14
The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which
its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view. Popularly known as the Sapir–
Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined as having two versions: (i) the strong
version that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive
categories and (ii) the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain
kinds of non-linguistic behaviour.

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culture (East) and individualist, egalitarian culture (West) are not absolutes: they are
positions on a scale. All polite communication implies that the speaker is taking
account of both individual and group values. In the East, the group values are more
powerful, whereas in the West, individual values are.
Therefore, individualism and collectivism can be used as criteria to differentiate
Western cultures from Arab cultures. However, these two tendencies do not appear
separately; instead, they coexist in all cultures, and it is the matter of predominance
that determines which culture a country belongs to. In many researches, Western
cultures are empirically proved to be more individualistic than Arab Cultures
(Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995). Correspondingly, American culture gives priority to
individualism, which is self-oriented, by emphasizing on individual goals,
independent self, and internal attribution. On the other hand, Palestinian culture is
characterized as a culture focusing more on collectivism, which is others-oriented,
and stress in-group goals, interdependent self, and external attribution.
Concerning politeness strategies, Ting-Toomey and Kurogi (1998) argue that
“the members of collectivistic cultures use other-oriented face-saving strategies and
use other face approval-enhancement interaction strategies more than members of
individualistic cultures. Conversely, members of individualistic cultures use more
self-oriented face-saving strategies and use self-face approval-seeking interaction
strategies more than members of collectivistic cultures” (as cited in Gudykunst and
Lee, 2002:40). Gudykunst, Yoon and Nashida (1987 as cited in Gudykunst & Lee,
2002:30) also note that “the greater the degree of collectivism in cultures, the greater
the differences in the intimacy of communication, the synchronization of the
communication, and the difficulty of communication in in-group and out-group
relationship”.
According to Hofstede’s study (1980), cultural differences could also be
explained in power distance dimension. Gudykunst and Lee indicate that “members of
high power distance culture accept power as part of the society. Members of low
power distance cultures, in contrast, believe power should be used only when it is
legitimate and prefer expert or legimate power” (ibid:2002:37). Collectivist cultures
are believed to be in high power distance nations where the hierarchical position of
unequals is more clearly identified. On the other hand, individualist cultures, are also
believed to be low power distance nations, tend to de-emphasize power distance.

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 The fact that there are differences between languages in relation to the
sociocultural norms and to the linguistic components and elements used to express a
specific function in language, may give rise to and develop certain attitudes in the
learners of a foreign language. Therefore, teachers of foreign languages need to be
aware of the presence of the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic components of a
language in order to facilitate the development of the pragmatic competence of the
foreign language learner. Consequently, the aim is to educate speakers to become
competent not only from a linguistic, but also from an intercultural point of view.
This study aims to investigate the different interpretations of the notion of
politeness by different cultures, in particular, Palestinian and American cultures,
which are generally perceived to be representing two extremes with the former one
being more conservative and the latter being more open.

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