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THE CATEGORY OF POLITENESS IN THE CONDITIONS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES Dilfuza Yulchiyeva
Teacher of Uzbekistan state world languages university d.yulchiyeva@uzswlu.uz https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11220098
ABSTRACT
Received: 12th May 2024 Accepted: 19th May 2024 Online: 20th May 2024
KEYWORDS Pragmatics, politeness, intercultural
communication, discourse, communicative purpose, research, theory, speech acts.
In this article, the factors of the realization of the category of politeness in English and Uzbek languages in the context of intercultural communication, the importance of a pragmatic approach in the process of communication, and the specific norms that representatives of different cultures should take into account in the process of mutual communication, and the issues of describing the category of politeness in speech etiquette are covered.
Introduction.
Politeness is one of the important qualities of a person that has been valued since ancient times. Nevertheless, it is an important tool for having proper communication with others in society. Although we live in a globalized world under one umbrella, each culture still has different phenomena of politeness. Therefore, the term politeness is very broad, it is derived from the Latin word "politus" which means polished. From a linguistic point of view, politeness is not only about being humble or doing good to others or maintaining social behavior, but it is also one of the important concepts of pragmatics. According to Austin, when communicating with an addressee, the addressee can produce three types of speech acts, i.e. locative, illocative, and perlocutionary.(Austin, J. 1962). These behaviors represent the listener's response to the speaker's speech, and they are important in analyzing the concept of politeness. Therefore, if the speaker shows politeness in the communication, the receiver can behave well while maintaining his positive image in different situations.
Nevertheless, people can show different attitudes in different situations, and this is one of the important issues to consider in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages.
Meyerhoff defines politeness as "actions adopted by educated speakers in a society to engage in social or interpersonal disorder". In other words, when learning a new language, interaction in the target language that may be directly the same as in the primary language causes failure to be effective in communication and one should be aware that in some contexts the result is less accurate and less accurate in the language. (Meyerhoff, M. 2011)
Finally, and most importantly, Leech proposed six maxims of politeness, one of which is the maxim of tact, which is directly related to the concept of politeness. According to Leech,
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politeness is listener-centered, and says "Minimize the cost to others" and "Maximize the benefit to others".(Leech, G.1983). This means that in interaction we can use the maxim of tact in communicating with the receiver to appear polite and more efficient. Therefore, it can be said that all these linguistic studies through the context of language use by language producers and receivers have made this concept important in language learning. As mentioned above, "the concept of politeness has been studied by many scientists focusing on the concept of face-honor, reputation, that is, every member of society claims his public image for himself". (Brown, P., & Levinson, SC (1987) Just as it is true that politeness helps to form interpersonal relations and communication, members of society use politeness in order to overcome failure in mutual communication. In this sense, being polite or polite in communication is not only about showing one's manners to others, but it is emotionally and socially effective for both the speaker and the listener. In order to be socially acceptable, you need to know how to be polite and speak in a way that does not offend others. According to Yule, "politeness is an emotional and social sense of self that everyone has, and what is expected of everyone is to show consideration for and awareness of the honor of others".(George Yule, 2010)
Similarly, in social life, failure to show politeness can lead to high levels of communication breakdown. Scollon notes that "any communication is a risk to one's own dignity; at the same time it belongs to the honor of others" (Scollon, R. and Scollon, SW, 2001). Thus, in order to reduce this risk, one should show a level of politeness during the communication process according to the culture and social norms of the interlocutor and know how to approach the situation. Therefore, when communicating with people, the age, gender and most of the interlocutor the main thing is that it is very important to show manners in communication and to preserve his honor, taking into account his culture.
Nevertheless, it is very difficult to know precisely all the specific features of the concept of politeness in each culture, if one does not study politeness in the life of people of different cultures at their level or see it in their way of life. It should be noted that culture is a social norm that includes language, food and drink, clothing, traditions and holidays, table manners, music, religion, family relationships, politeness, taboos, and many others. will be related to aspects. In this sense, each culture has its own norms and customs, and it is these characteristics that distinguish this culture from other cultures. According to Liddicoat and Scarino. "Culture can be understood as a system of collective concepts that inform and interpret experience as meaningful" (Liddicoat, AJ and Scarino, A. (2013) In other words, to carry out meaningful communication, it is necessary to know the specific, unique and similar characteristics of that culture, because, as in every culture, there are certain expressions and certain norms for expressing politeness and respect. However, it's not just easy, because understanding other people's culture does not always guarantee an adequate knowledge of the language. Even language learners acquire the grammar and lexis of the language, but in some contexts they may not be able to communicate it correctly. Just as cultures are diverse, so are the politeness expressions used in them, and this is not just a direct translation from one language to another. F. Coulmas points out: "The relationship between the speaker's politeness and expressive politeness is not the same for all languages and communicators. The degree of politeness of a person in communication depends on whether or not he can adequately use politeness in
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speech. Being polite is difficult, but in some languages it is even more difficult than in others, because some languages have richer lexical and grammatical features for expressing politeness than others. This aspect is important in verbal politeness, because in order to make the right choice, the speaker must combine linguistic tools and social tools together with appropriate norms of behavior" (Coulmas, F. (2005). Therefore, if one does not realize that the linguistic system of each language is different, it can be said that mastering the grammar and lexicon of the studied language is not enough to know the language well. It is only the speaker's choice to use the language appropriately, which all members of society use to be polite and speak naturally in the language.
English and Uzbek cultures differ from each other in terms of culture, religion and language. For example, in Uzbek culture, it is a sign of decency and respect for women in a close relationship to kiss each other's cheeks. But in social places, this situation is considered taboo and forbidden among members of the opposite sex. Because it has a lot to do with maintaining religious rules among the members of the society. In English culture, they may use a handshake or a hug to greet or introduce each other. However, in Uzbek culture, women and men usually do not shake hands with each other unless the woman shakes hands with the man first. Therefore, it can be seen that there is a cultural gap between these cultures at the behavioral level. Similarly, there is a pragmatic gap in the use of language in these cultures, which will be analyzed below.
In Uzbek culture, politeness plays an important role in mutual communication, and it has long been a tradition that respect for both the young and the elderly is the key to establishing strong social ties with each other. For example, when Uzbek people see each other on the road, regardless of whether they know each other or not, they say "Assalamu aleikum" (I wish you health). The response to this greeting that the other person receives is "Waaleykum assalam" (I wish you good health as well). This greeting originally entered the Uzbek culture from the Arabic language; its English equivalent is good morning/afternoon or evening and is used at any time of the day. If we look at the English language, the greeting system is based on the time of day, for example, "Good morning, etc. "Assalamu aleikum" or its alternative "Salom" (Hello) is a bit confusing for Uzbek language learners learning English.
The Uzbek language has a set of expressions specific to this culture. Even these features are available in other languages; they have no exact equivalents in English. For example, in Uzbek, as in other languages, the pronoun siz/ you is mainly used to show respect to the listener. From a young age, children are taught to use this pronoun for adults and older sisters in the family, with the exception of the use of sen/you (together) for younger siblings. However, among friends, you/you (together) is more accepted if they have known each other for a long time. In Uzbek families, young people call their older brothers "sister" and "brother".
Whereas in English, there is no such pronoun to show respect to people, because there is only one pronoun, "you", both singular and plural, and they use it in all situations. However, there are certain words and grammatical structures in English that make their speech seem more polite. For example, if they want to ask something, to make the speaker's speech more polite, use "Could you please...?", "Would you like...".), "I would be very glad if you could help me or show your favor".
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In English, before a person's surname, Mr. Mrs. Ms. It is still customary to use certain words of respect such as in some situations, but today people prefer to call each other by their first names, regardless of age or social status. In Uzbek culture, there are no such honorifics, on the contrary, in a very official situation: for example, the name of the person left over from the Russian culture and the name of the father are used. Anvar Rajabovich has an additional inflectional morpheme (-ich) for men, and ((o)vna) for women, like Dilnoza Zokirovna. We also have a purely Uzbek version of this, as in "Dilnoza Zakir's daughter" or "Anvar Rajab's son", the name of the person is added depending on the person's gender.
In Uzbek culture, it is impolite to call older people by their names. That's why the following expressions are used to address in Uzbek culture. "Teacher" to teachers, uncle, paternal brothers, sisters, maternal uncles; "Aunt" to sister and "grandmother" and "grandfather" to both parents. In other cases, older women are called sister or older men are called brother to show respect for their age, even if people do not know each other well. At least like sister Dilnoza or brother Anwar.
One of the most important features of Uzbek culture is that from ancient times, wives did not address their husbands by their first names, but instead used the word "begim". Today, this tradition is losing its cultural value, but there are still people who use this expression, and now it is customary to call wives "oyisi" - "mother of the child" and "dada" - "father of the child".
The Uzbek language has a set of expressions used to welcome guests, such as "Khush kelibsiz" and "You are welcome" in English. In response, the expression "It is nice to see you here" is used in English. "Salom" is used in Uzbek as a greeting among young people.
There are also certain ways of apologizing or getting attention, and these differ in different cultures. For example, "Excuse me" in Uzbek is used to get someone's attention or to ask where to go. "Uzr" in Uzbek culture is used in the English language "sorry" to apologize or make a mistake. The English use the word "sorry" very often and it has many reasons and meanings, making it a popular English word for English people or other non-natives living in the UK.
At the time of blessing, if the phrase "Enjoy your meal" is used for those around the table, after eating, the elders of the family or the man of the family give good wishes and recite the prayer "Amen".
The Uzbek word "Thank you" is used in many cases when a person wants to express his gratitude to someone. The British are also on the receiving end if they want to express their gratitude, they express it through "Thanks", "Thanks a lot", "Cheers".
The most remarkable phenomenon in this regard is that in the Uzbek language, when helping the elderly, in order to express their gratitude, they wish a lot of good words "amen" to the one who received the help. For example, in Uzbek, the expression "Umringiz uzoq bo'lsin" is equivalent to "May you live long life" in English, and English people use such wishes in certain situations, such as birthdays. In addition, there are certain words and phrases that are only relevant to a certain culture. For example, Uzbeks use the word "Labbay" when someone calls or when they have not heard and want to be repeated by the addressee. Originally, this word was derived from the Arabic phrase "Labbay'k", which translates as "I am here". There is no equivalent of this word in English. In such situations, they use the word "Yes" with a falling
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accent, or the direct translation of "What, I don't understand" is used with , which is considered a bit impolite in Uzbek culture.
After analyzing the main characteristics of these cultures, it is important to consider that in learning any language, there is always a reason and a purpose for the pursuit of language knowledge. The key to learning a language lies in the uniqueness of the content resulting from its interaction with a specific culture. In other words, testing a language in real situations may not happen for every language learner who has studied that language. At the very least, this pragmatic competence in politeness helps to learn about different cultures, their similarities and differences. The ultimate goal of learning the politeness system of each culture is to achieve meaningful communication in that language. In this sense, it does not make sense to directly translate politeness words and phrases from one language to another, because the linguistic system of one language is different from the other. So, the language is learned in such a way that it becomes natural for all members of the society. There are a lot of language activities in the teaching process, which are polite words and phrases that reflect the pragmatics of the language being studied. As mentioned above, students need to know how each system works. Of course, it is difficult to achieve this goal with young students through a theoretical approach. Therefore, it is important to conduct training with young students in a practical and direct way, by showing them the pragmatic system of the language on various topics based on the curricula of certain institutions. it is recommended to go.
In order to develop students' pragmatic competence in the teaching process, some "activities aimed at increasing students' pragmatic awareness, as well as offering opportunities for communicative practice activity" can be used(Eslami-Rasek, Z(2005). According to Eslami-Rasek, "awareness activities are activities aimed at developing awareness of the correct use of language forms in context. The aim is to expose learners to the pragmatic aspects of language (L1 and L2) and to provide them with the analytical tools they need to use context-appropriate language to reach their own conclusions. In other words, it can be demonstrated through different methods, how words are used in languages through original materials and practicing it in real situations through role plays. Students will then learn how language varies across contexts and how some words that are polite in one language are considered rude in another context. In this, the teacher's skills are useful in providing students with interesting and challenging education, which leads to the expansion of students' pragmatic skills and worldview.
In conclusion, it can be said that the study of the pragmatic and polite system of languages is the most important for language learners. As humans, the only thing that separates us from robots is our greater need for interactions that are natural and meaningful. If we learn the target language and use it as directly as we do, it may seem impolite to the receivers and cause them to misunderstand us. and can lead to the failure of speech acts in communication. Therefore, the opposite approach to politeness is very important for students and especially for teachers who teach languages to students from different cultures. helps create a warm and connected environment. Also, the use of a contrastive approach is very important in improving the pragmatic competence they have in communicating with their peers from other cultures and in
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