Why say it that way?: evasive answers and politeness theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Jessica Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Question Under Discussion

Abstract Examples of evasive answers frequently appear in discussions of non-literal meaning comprehension. A considerable amount of work on this topic has focused on how this kind of non-literal meaning is generated. Of the researchers who have dealt with speakers’ motives for using evasive answers, and how hearers’ awareness of these motives affects their interpretations, the majority have focused on evasive answers that are not intended to be recognized as such – in Gricean terms, those that violate the Maxim of Relation. Comparatively little research has dealt with answers that are blatant in their failure to answer the question – that is, those that flout Relation. This paper proposes that the majority of answers in the latter category can be understood using Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) model of politeness – in particular, that evasive answers are motivated by considerations for both speaker and hearer’s positive face-wants. Evasive answers are defined according to Roberts’ (2012) model of “the question under discussion” and characterized in terms of violating, infringing, or flouting Grice’s (1975) Maxim of Relation. Various contexts in which the latter category of evasive answers occur are identified and discussed with reference to their role in avoiding face-threatening acts. Potential exceptions to the proposition that blatantly evasive answers can be explained using Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) model of politeness are identified, and problems with treating violating, infringing, and flouting as clearly distinct categories are discussed.

TINDAK PENGANCAMAN DAN PENYELAMATAN WAJAH ANIES BASWEDAN DAN BASUKI “AHOK” TJAHAJA PURNAMA

Jurnal KATA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 356
Author(s):  
Saiko Rudi Kasenda
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Large Range ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Crucial Point ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Positive Image ◽  
The Face ◽  
Face Saving ◽  
The One

<p><em>This article is aimed to investigate face threathening acts and face saving acts demonstrated by Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as the candidates of DKI Jakarta governor during the debate held in April 2017. Face threatening act and face saving act are analyzed because they are able to show not only their positive image but also the negatve one in front of not only to each candidate but also to the audience watching the debate. Politeness theory from Brown and Levinson (1987.) are employed to analyze both candidates’ face threatening acts and saving acts since this theory provides detailed descriptions of a large range of strategies that can be used to deeply understand both face threatening acts and face saving act performed by the candidates. The context surrounding the debate becomes a crucial point to analyze how politeness strategy is applied to show face thratening act and face saving act. Through qualitative method, this study found that 1) Bald on-record is the strategy used by the candidates to show face threatening and they are intended to show contradictions, to disagree, to insult, to interrupt, to speak out-of-topic, to challenge, and to exaggerate. 2) Both candidates use positive and negative strategies to show face saving act intended to show contradictions, to assert common ground, to show agreement, to joke, to apologize, and to avoid disagreement. 3) The face threatening act and saving acts can be considered as the efforts to defend their argumentations and to preserve their positive faces, 4.) The use of the word “kita” and passive voice can be seen as markers in both candidates’ utterances to minimize the imposed face threatening act and to signal solidarity to each candidate and to audience, 5) While Anies is revealed to be the one who more frequently uses face threatening act, Basuki is the candidate who uses face saving act more often during the debate. The study is expected to enrich the study in the field of pragmatics focusing on the use of politeness strategy. </em></p><p> </p><p>Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menginvestigasi tindak pengancaman muka wajah dan tindak penyelamatan wajah yang ditunjukkan oleh Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama pada Debat Pilkada gubernur provinsi DKI Jakarta 2017.<strong> </strong>Tindak pengancaman wajah dan penyelamatan wajah diteliti pada makalah ini karena dapat merepresentasikan citra positif maupun citra negatif kandidat pilkada Gubernur DKI tidak hanya dihadapan masing-masing kandidat tetapi juga kepada masyarakat umum yang menyaksikan. Teori kesantunan dari Brown dan Levinson digunakan untuk menganalisis tindak pengancaman muka dan tindak penyelamatan muka kedua kandidat karena teori ini memiliki penjelasan yang komprehensif tentang berbagai strategi yang dapat dipergunakan untuk memahami secara mendalam bagaimana tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah ditunjukkan oleh kedua kandidiat. Konteks topik debat yang diangkat dipahami untuk dapat menganalisis tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah oleh Anies dan Basuki.  Melalui metode kualitatif, studi ini menemukan bahwa 1) Bald on-record adalah strategi yang sering digunakan untuk menunjukkan tindak pengancaman muka dan ditujukan untuk menyatakan kontradiksi, menyatakan ketidaksetujuan, menyinggung, menginterupsi, berbicara di luar topik pembicaraan, menantang kandidat lain, dan memberikan pernyataan yang berlebihan. 2) Tindak penyelamatan muka dilakukan dengan strategi kesantunan positif dan negatif seperti menyatakan kontradiksi, menegaskan common ground, memberikan persetujuan, membuat lelucon, meminta maaf, dan menghindari ketidaksetujuan. 3) Tindak pengancaman muka dan penyelamatan muka dapat dianggap sebagai cara untuk mempertahankan argumentasi kedua kandidat dan untuk melindungi wajah positif masing-masing.4) Penggunaan kata “kita” dan kalimat pasif dimaksudkan untuk meminmalisiri ancaman sekaligus sebagai sinya solidaritas.5) Anies ditunjukkan sebagai kandidat yang lebih sering menggunakan tindak pengancaman muka, sedangkan Basuki adalah kandidat yang lebih sering menunjukkan penyelamatan muka selama debat berlangsung. Studi ini diharapkan dapat memperkaya pemahaman di bidang pragmatik khususnya tentang penggunaan strategi kesantunan</p>

Semantics for Reasons

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan R. Weaver ◽  
Kevin Scharp
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
And Linguistics

The focus of the book is the semantics of reasons locutions, for example reasons for someone to do something or believe something or be a certain way. Given the leading role that talk of reasons plays in many different kinds of philosophy, the book addresses issues in the theory of reasons, metaethics, epistemology, the philosophies of language and perception, and linguistics. The primary aim of the book is to present and defend a contextualist semantics of reasons locutions. the book’s contextualism for reasons locutions is based on the idea that conversations have a particular question under discussion (QUD). The QUD in a conversation determines which meaning the word ‘reason’ has in that context. The book shows why reasons contextualism is preferable to four competing views on the topic: Simon Blackburn’s expressivism, Stephen Finlay’s conceptual analysis, Tim Henning’s alternative contextualism, and Niko Kolodny’s relativism. In addition, the work pursues secondary aims of consolidating insights about the nature of reasons from different philosophical subfields and establishing results about reasons in several debates ranging across philosophy. In particular, the book draws the implications of reasons contextualism for the ontology of reasons, indexical facts, whether there are reasons to be rational, the nature of moral reasons, and the idea that reasons have a special place in the realm of normative phenomena in general.

scholarly journals Creation of Technical Conditions for Use or Infringement – The Meanders of the Warehouse Keeper’s Liability in Light of CJEU Judgment C-567/18 Coty Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-282
Author(s):  
Krystyna Szczepanowska-Kozłowska
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Property Right ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Industrial Property ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Law ◽  
Trademark Use

AbstractOne form of industrial property right infringement is stocking for the purpose of offering or marketing. This form of infringement appears both in EU legal acts on trademarks or designs, as well as in national regulations, including those concerning patents. What is specific to stocking when compared to other activities comprising the stipulated exclusivity of the holder of industrial property rights is the fact that the literal meaning of “stocking” does not explain whether the infringing party or the warehouse keeper is the entity that places the goods in storage. The structure of industrial property rights as absolute rights would theoretically permit the view that the law is violated by both the entity that accepts the goods for storage and the entity that places such goods in storage. To determine if there is an infringement, it must be established what the goods being stocked are further intended for. It is not without significance that the finding of an infringement of industrial property rights does not depend on fault or awareness. From the point of view of the industrial property law regime, it is difficult to find arguments against this understanding of infringement by stocking. Since the offeror of goods infringing industrial property rights may be held liable even if the goods have not yet been manufactured, it is conceivable that the entity accepting such goods for stocking is also liable. This interpretation of the concept of stocking would certainly correspond to the absolute nature of liability for infringement.In a recent judgment the CJEU confirmed that the warehouse keeper who, on behalf of a third party, stores goods which infringe trademark rights only creates the technical conditions for trademark use by this third party provided that the warehouse keeper is not aware of that infringement. The CJEU also confirmed that only the person who decides about the purpose of storing the goods can be treated as an infringer. However, the CJEU did not respond to the question regarding whether the warehouse keeper could be treated as an infringer if it pursues the aims of storing the goods at the request of the entity that put the goods into storage.

Politeness theory and refusals of requests: Face threat as a function of expressed obstacles

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danette Ifert Johnson ◽  
Michael E. Roloff ◽  
Melissa A. Riffee
Keyword(s):  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Face Threat

Politeness and social utopia in Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Björkstrand
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Initial Study ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Social Visions ◽  
The One ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Social Utopia

This paper is an interdisciplinary analysis of Friedrich Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1804). An initial study of its dramatic structure suggests a change in the relationship between the Swiss peasants and nobles. A further analysis, based on Brown’s and Levinson’s politeness theory confirms the development of a social utopia in the play, but also reveals that Wilhelm Tell plays a minor role in the social development described. The comparison of the play with earlier versions of the Tell legend highlights the roles of peasants and nobles in the establishment of the Swiss Confederation and suggests that Schiller elaborated extensively on the idea of a ‘common ground’ among the Swiss from different classes. The comparison between Schiller’s play and the contemporary German philosopher Johann Benjamin Erhard’s essay Über das Recht des Volks zu einer Revolution illustrates that Schiller’s social utopia develops in accordance with contemporary social visions. However, Tell’s act of murder separates him from the other Swiss protagonists in Schiller’s attempt to outline a righteous revolution, different from the one in France.

Same Context, Different Strategies

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Chan
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Business Meetings ◽  
Practice Framework

This paper uses audio and video data to examine the discourse of a New Zealand IT company director in business meetings. Three examples of the director dealing with behaviour by his subordinates that he wants to influence are analysed by drawing on a collection of discourse analytic frameworks including conversation analysis, social constructionism, politeness theory, and a community of practice framework. The examples reveal that the director employs a range of discursive strategies to express his disapproval and to rationalise his feedback. At times he adopts indirect and mitigated strategies, while at other times he uses explicit and authoritative strategies. Moreover, the examples also demonstrate the dynamic nature and the complexity of interaction. The analysis shows that the director’s choice of strategies in these examples is a response to the specific discourse context and represents the result of negotiation between interlocutors, and that the giving of negative feedback occurs as a sequence of utterances instead of one single utterance. Finally it is suggested that the strategies used by the director are relevant resources because of the close relationships between the director and his subordinates and the shared repertoire of the focus workplace.

Interventions of Speakers of Polish and British Parliaments in the light of politeness theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-109
Author(s):  
Dorota Brzozowska ◽  
Władysław Chłopicki
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
Politeness Theory

Abstract The present study attempts to analyze the interventions of Speakers of Polish and British Parliaments in the selected exchanges from 2018 to 2019 in terms of discourse-sensitive politeness theory advanced by Jonathan Culpeper. He proposes to use three types of impoliteness that affect three types of interlocutors’ faces via a range of impoliteness strategies. In the analyses we consider the linguistic, personal, and cultural as well as political context of the exchanges against the background of the unique, historically rooted institutional circumstances, with a special emphasis on the role of different physical contexts of respective Parliamentary chambers. We emphasize the discursive nature and continuum of (im)polite/(in)appropriate behaviors. In conclusion, the study falls back on Brown and Levinson’s tradition, argued not to be incompatible with Culpeper’s system, and confirms the existence of largely negative and largely positive politeness cultures, emphasizing the prevalence of Polish formal, impersonal, sometimes also affective impoliteness in contrast to the British somewhat more person-oriented, coercive impoliteness.

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