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POLITENESS: SOCIO-CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATIVE- STRATEGIC
FEATURES OF THE NORM
This article describes many challenges in intercultural competence develop exactly as a result of the interlocutors' incapacity to express their commitment to one other in line with the standards of a particular culture and depending on the desired of the partner, as dictated by the national etiquette system. Neglecting local and cultural aspects of polite conduct, as well as misunderstanding their reasons, impedes dialogue and gives birth to a plethora of ethnic stereotypes.
Key words: Politeness, social behavior, positive politeness, negative politeness, socio-cultural phenomenon, etiquette, non-contacting languages, hierarchical relations, interlocutor, dominant language, etiquette inversion, speech maxims.
В данной статье описывается множество проблем в межкультурной компетенции, возникающих именно в результате неспособности собеседников выразить свою приверженность друг другу в соответствии с нормами той или иной культуры и в зависимости от желания партнера, как того требует национальная система этикета. . Игнорирование местных и культурных аспектов вежливого поведения, а также непонимание их причин затрудняет диалог и порождает множество этнических стереотипов.
Ключевые слова: Вежливость, социальное поведение, позитивная вежливость, негативная вежливость, социокультурный феномен, этикет, неконтактные языки, иерархические отношения, собеседник, доминирующий язык, этикетная инверсия, речевые максимы.
INTRODUCTION
Politeness (in language), a term traditionally used to refer to a variety of means of linguistic expression of social relations between the speaker, the listener and the people in question. These social relations can be diverse and far from being reduced to politeness in the everyday sense of the word. In their most general form, they can be divided into two types, which Patricia Brown and Stephen Levinson, developing Erving Hoffmann's ideas about the "social face", called positive and negative politeness. Positive politeness is associated with the linguistic expression of solidarity, the inclusion of the interlocutor and other persons in the same group with the speaker,
Lutfullayeva Azizakhan Zafarullayevna
Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages Master's Degree Student
ABSTRACT
АННОТАЦИЯ
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while negative politeness is associated with self-restraint of the speakers, the desire to avoid conflicts, it strongly depends on the structure of hierarchical relations in society and the social distance between the speaker and other people.
Often, politeness in the language is understood only or mainly negative politeness. On the other hand, A.P. Volodin and V.S. Khrakovsky call the forms of politeness just the means of expressing positive politeness, and they suggest calling the forms of negative politeness forms of etiquette.
DISCUSSION AND RESULTS
The ways in which politeness is expressed in different languages are highly dependent on the structure of the societies in which these languages function, and on the models of social behavior adopted in them. There are also structural differences: in some languages (for example, Japanese, Korean, etc.) there are special grammatical categories of politeness, while in others (including all European languages) they are absent, at least in the standard interpretation of grammar. However, there are also fairly general patterns of expressing politeness, and often the same ways of expressing social relations exist in genetically unrelated and non-contacting languages. As P. Brown and S. Levinson point out, linguistic signs associated with the expression of politeness are, as a rule, involuntary and directly reflect social patterns and institutions.
Positive politeness is reflected in special ways of speaking with "ours" and about "ours", different from speech with "strangers" and about "strangers". Often, the inclusion of the interlocutor in a single group with the speaker is achieved through the use of a special language or a special variety of language. It can be special slang or jargon, incomprehensible to "outsiders". It may be a dialect or a local variety of a language; it is spoken with "friends", and when communicating with "strangers", the literary language is used; this is typical for Japan, a number of territories where the German language is spoken, including Austria and the German part of Switzerland, as well as for many other territories in various regions of the world. National minorities can use their native language in this role, which is incomprehensible to most of those around them, while when talking with "strangers" of different nationalities, they use the dominant language of a given country, or territory: English in the USA, Russian in Russia, etc. To express positive politeness, various defaults are widely used, or, more precisely, non-pronunciation, based on common knowledge: according to the well-known remark of L.N. Tolstoy, very close family members can communicate with a minimum of words; in a similar way, the German philosopher M. Heidegger interpreted language as a means of coping with the "breakdown" of the normal course of affairs - when everything goes as it should, language is not needed.
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Other common ways of expressing positive politeness include the use of special forms of designation, naming, and especially address, such as the use of kinship terms
(Brother or father) for non-relatives; diminutive vocabulary; special particles; special intonation contours, etc. This includes the appeal "to you" in a number of Western European languages (French, German, etc.) and partly in Russian, indicating the inclusion of the interlocutor in a single group with the speaker, as well as constructions that include oneself and the interlocutor in a single activity like the Russian Come on (those) ... In the field of grammar, personal forms of inclusiveness (expressing the meaning "we are with you / with you"), which are available in a number of languages, as opposed to forms of exclusivity (meaning "we are without you / without you"), can be attributed here.
The expression of negative politeness in many languages is associated with one or another way of paying attention to the interlocutor or third parties, often with simultaneous etiquette "belittling" the speaker. As a rule, negative politeness is more formalized than positive: there is a certain set of standard etiquette formulas that allow the speaker not to hurt the feelings of the interlocutor and show his ability to use the rules of politeness accepted in society. Sufficiently universal are the special forms and constructions used when directly addressing the interlocutor: an order, a request, advice, etc. Very often, the rules of etiquette do not allow the use of imperative forms, except in cases of very small social distance, the appeal of the higher to the lower and extreme situations. Indirect ways are preferred: negation, question, subjunctive, passive, etc. are used in a variety of languages. Wed Russian Open the door! And could you open the door? (in the last example, along with the use of a special form of address "na you", the written language also presents "spelling politeness", which manifests itself in writing this you with a capital letter, cf. also the similar spelling of German Sie in the function of polite address). Often in a variety of languages, for greater politeness, different lexical and sometimes grammatical means are used, which reduce the categoricalness of the statement. An ellipsis is also used (omitting some words and expressions), but it is not based on the common knowledge of the speaker and the interlocutor, as in the case of positive politeness, but on the desire to avoid naming what may be unpleasant for the interlocutor; some types of euphemisms can also serve as a means of expressing negative politeness. In a number of languages, such as Japanese, it is very impolite to use words that mean "no". In the same language (as in a number of others), it is impolite to directly address the interlocutor, instead of 2nd person pronouns, polite ways of naming in the 3rd person are used.
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For negative politeness, hierarchical relations in society are very significant: strict rules of etiquette in relation to superiors are usually removed when referring to the inferior or in speech about the inferior. Relations "higher - lower" can be associated with social hierarchy, with age, often with gender (men are socially higher than women, however, in certain sociocultural conditions, the etiquette inversion of this principle can also be practiced, presented, for example, in appeals such as Lady and gentlemen; consistent "political correctness" attempts to banish signs of the gender hierarchy from the language in principle, considering etiquette inversion as a disguised discrimination, social role at the moment (a policeman or a doctor in the line of duty is perceived as superior, cf. the situations "policeman at the dentist" and "dentist stopped by for speeding"), psychological state, etc. Social distance is also significant, here negative politeness intersects with positive one: special politeness is usually necessary only when referring to "strangers", while when referring to one's own, it can just be used as a means to indicate alienation and hostility.
Language means of expressing negative politeness are used in any society, playing an important role in maintaining hierarchical relations and in human relationships. However, in different societies they play an unequal role, which creates difficulties in mastering foreign languages and the rules of linguistic communication. For example, Japanese students and trainees in the United States experience inconvenience due to the fact that from the speech of their American colleagues they cannot extract the necessary information from their point of view about the social hierarchy. On the other hand, not only Japanese, but even British speech etiquette seems to Americans too formal.
It should be noted that the semantics of the politeness category and the rules for its use are quite complex and are not always described in detail even in languages with not very developed systems of politeness forms. Thus, a simple everyday notion of politeness does not explain, for example, some cases of the choice of forms of address in Russian, cf. the appeal "to you" to God (the only possible one) and, until a certain time, to the king (Order, sovereign - and hit the feet of the king. - Dm. Kedrin) or the presence of such non-trivial options for combining appeals "to you" or "to you", on the one hand, and by name or by name and patronymic, on the other, as "university you" (you, Petya ... when a teacher addresses a student) and "nomenclature you" (You, Petr Petrovich ...).
Politeness is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon. It is closely related to the fundamental principles sociocultural organization of society and interpersonal relations existing between its members, with their communicative consciousness. Politeness is determined by the set social and cultural values that guide interlocutors,
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satisfying mutual expectations. Issues related to politeness and its implementation in different cultures, are of interest to specialists in many humanities, such as psychology, ethnopsychology, cultural studies, anthropology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, applied linguistics, communication, etc., and this is not accidental, since they can considered only at the interdisciplinary level and in intercultural aspect. The increased interest in "linguistic" politeness points to importance of this issue in human relationships in general and especially in intercultural communication. Currently is widely recognized fact that verbal communication is not only the exchange of information, but also a means of establishing, maintenance and termination of social relations, demonstration their relationship to the interlocutor. Purely informative speech is, rather the exception than the rule. Politeness is an integral component of intercultural communicative competence. Many problems of intercultural communications arise precisely because of the inability of the interlocutors demonstrate their attitude towards each other in accordance with the norms of a given society and the specific expectations of a partner. Many researchers note the fact that in communication with foreigners, people easily forgive grammatical and lexical errors, as they are explained by a lack of linguistic knowledge, however, they are very sensitive to violations of etiquette standards, since believe they were intentionally violated (Janney & Arndt 1992; Sifianou 1992; Agar 1994; Ter-Minasova 2000 and others).
Politeness is a nationally specific category, which is difficult to define unambiguously, especially in intercultural aspect, since the understanding of politeness among different peoples is different. A look at politeness as a social norm (the social - norm view) suggests that the actions corresponding to the etiquette norms are regarded as polite, those that do not comply with them, considered rude. This concept has not been widely confessions (see Fraser 1990). With this view of politeness, the latter is considered as observance of social norms of behavior that exist in every society and are contained in books on etiquette, such as "Avoid topics related to events or circumstances that may be painful" ("avoid topics which may be supposed to have any direct reference to events or circumstances which may be painful" - quote from "Ladies' Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness") (quoted in Kasher 1986). Actions that comply with etiquette standards are regarded as polite; those that do not conform to them are considered rude. Such view of politeness historically connects it with the style of speech, when the higher the formality of communication, the higher the degree of politeness. However, experiments carried out in this direction showed that formality in an informal setting is not perceived as politeness, but as rudeness. (Fraser, 1990, p. 221; Thomas 1995)
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A look at politeness as speech maxims, rules (the conversational-maximum view) is associated primarily with the names of P. Grice, R. Lakoff, J. Leach. In his work Logic and Conversation ("Logic and speech communication", 1985), written in 1967 and published in 1975, P. Grice first attempted to formulate the rules to be followed interlocutors in the process of communication. P. Grice proceeded from the fact that interlocutors are interested in the efficiency of information transfer. He put forward the idea that communicants in the process of exchange information cooperate with each other, contributing to the construction and flow of discourse. This well-known principle of cooperation, cooperation (cooperative principle) includes 4 postulates: quantity, quality, attitudes and speech patterns. Each one is made up of more specific maxims that regulate speech behavior: provide as much information as is necessary for the implementation specific goals of communication; do not say more than required; not say what is surely wrong; express your thoughts clearly; avoid inaccurate expression; avoid ambiguity; be brief (avoid unnecessary verbosity); state your thoughts clearly. These maxims of verbal communication are a guide to rational use of language and are qualitatively different from grammar rules. If a violation of grammar rules testifies to ignorance of the language, violation of speech maxims can be perceived as a signal of the specific intentions of the speaker. In one situation, it is possible to use several maxims. P. Grice did not claim that his set of rules for speech communication is complete. He also acknowledged that the rules he had outlined were aimed at efficiency and informative and do not take into account the expressive aspect speech. They are more suitable for business rather than casual communication. Speaking about the universality of the highlighted maxims, P. Grice emphasized that they constitute "reasonable" (reasonable), "rational" behavior without specifying what is meant.
It is interesting to note that, according to R. Lakoff, clarity and politeness is sometimes not compatible. If the main goal of the speaker is convey information, the focus is on message clarity; if the status is taken into account interlocutor and / or the situation of communication, then the speaker is more focused on politeness. Very often these two rules come into conflict. In such cases, clarity is most often brought as a sacrifice of politeness, since in everyday communication we are more degree interested in establishing and maintaining social relationships than in the accurate transmission of information. In the process of communication, people, as a rule, perceive and evaluate each other from the standpoint of their own culture and internal, its inherent standards, i.e. in terms of ethnocentrism. Trying to predict the communicative behavior of the interlocutor, they consciously or unconsciously rely on their previous experience communication however, if they are representatives of
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different cultures, then this experience differs significantly between them, which seriously complicates the communication process. Studies on ethnocentrism have shown that all people tend to consider what is happening in their culture as natural and right, and what happens in other cultures, unnatural and wrong; view the customs of one's own group as universal; consider their norms and values unconditionally true [ Silyaeva 2002 : 54; Gudykunst & Nishida 1994: 89-90). The communicative behavior of people is a component of their national culture and is governed by national norms and traditions with deep historical roots.
CONCLUSION
Interpretation of the behavior of representatives of another culture should be based on knowledge of the causes of this behavior. The type of culture to which the interlocutors belong is underlying reason for differences in their communicative behavior. In the process of life and adaptation to the environment, people develop languages of communication, social norms, hostel rules, and normative etiquette -everything that regulates social life in this community.
Many difficulties in intercultural communication arise precisely because of the inability of the interlocutors to demonstrate their relationship to each other in accordance with the norms of a given society and specific expectations of the partner, in accordance with the national courtesy system. Ignoring national and cultural features of polite behavior, misunderstanding of their causes hinders communication and gives rise to numerous ethnic stereotypes.
REFERENCES
1. Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: William Morrow.
2. Fraser, Bruce. (1990). "Perspectives on politeness". Journal of Pragmatics 14:
3. Janney & Arndt (1992). Politeness in Language Studies in its History, Theory and Practice.
4. Sifianou M. (1992). The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek versus English. Journal of Pragmatics, 17, 155-173.
5. Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.
6. Ter-Minasova, S.G. (2000) Language and Intercultural Communication. SLOVO, Moscow, 624 p.
219-236.
