The two classic pragmatic politeness theories

The conversational-maxim view: Lakoff (1973) and Leech (1983)

The classic theories of politeness draw, as one might guess, on the classic pragmatic theories, notably, Gricean conversational implicature and speech act theory, as outlined. Given that pragmatic theory has moved on, this is one of the weaknesses of those politeness theories. The bulk of the work in politeness studies has been based on or related to Brown and Levinson (1987), which we will outline in the following section. First, however, we will also note an alternative theory, mainly as a way of illustrating how politeness can interact with the Cooperative Principle (see section 4.2.2).

Robin Lakoff (1973) was the first to posit a maxim-based view of politeness. In brief, she proposes that there are two rules of pragmatic competence, one being “be clear”, which is formalized in terms of Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle, and the other being “be polite”, which is formalized in terms of a Politeness Principle. The latter Politeness Principle consists of the following maxims: (1) don’t impose, (2) give options, and (3) make your receiver feel good. Lakoff notes that sometimes the need for clarity would clash with the need for politeness. Leech (1983) also posits a Politeness Principle, one which is more elaborate than that of Lakoff. The central mechanism of his Politeness Principle is involved in “trade-offs” with the Cooperative Principle. As an illustration, consider this event. At the annual general meeting of an undergraduate university society at which the major business was to vote for the president for the coming year, an author of this topic witnessed that a candidate for the presidency had gained only one vote from the forty people present in the room. The candidates had been waiting outside, and the first author of this topic was asked to summon them inside to receive the results.

Upon meeting the candidate who got one vote, the candidate immediately asked him how many votes she had gained. He could not reveal the truth, since that would upset her; on the other hand, he did not want to be seen to be lying. Cornered by her question, he decided to be vague and replied, not many. His response thus avoided both a prototypical lie and the upset to the hearer that would have accompanied a more cooperative – in Grice’s sense (1975) – reply. By flouting Grice’s maxim of Quantity (1975) (not many relative to what?), he hoped that she would draw the implicature that a more cooperative reply would have been more damaging to her, and that was why he had been uncooperative. In Leech’s (1983) terms, the reason why he had expressed himself unco-operatively was to uphold the Politeness Principle, which Leech defines as: “Minimize (other things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs ... (Maximize (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs)” (1983: 81). More specifically, he had abided by the Approbation maxim (minimize dispraise of other/maximize praise of other), by minimizing “dispraise” of the candidate. The other maxims of the Politeness Principle are: Tact, Generosity, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy (see Leech 1983: 131–139, for details). The key point is that the Cooperative Principle accounts for how people convey indirect meanings, the Politeness Principle accounts for why people convey indirect meanings.