TOOLS FROM POLITENESS LINGUISTICS IN ORDER TO ANALYZE A TEXT

The explanatory model of politeness linguistic proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) can be summarized in these passages:


- even if the speaker intends to perform an FTA (a threatening act to the face) with maximum efficiency, the speaker must determine whether he wishes to achieve the listener's need for face through the listener's cooperation or with the preservation of his face.


- the speaker should determine the threat of a given FTA and determine to what extent to minimize face losses due to the act of threat, considering factors such as the need for clarity and that of not overestimating the potential degree of loss of one's face .


- the speaker must choose a strategy that provides the "face-saving" degree with the one mentioned above. Taking the listener into consideration determines the strategies chosen to achieve the act in line with the expectations required for that act by the listener.


- the speaker must then choose a linguistic meaning that satisfies him for the conclusion of that strategy. Each strategy embraces a wide graduality of politeness where the speaker will be asked to consider the specific linguistic form used to grasp its effects when used together with other linguistic elements.


- another important element is to understand that the choice of a linguistic form is determined by the responsibility of the speaker towards his interlocutor during the interaction. In the context of contrastive pragmatics studies, it appears necessary to integrate the form conceived by Brown and Levinson to define how "face" is conferred within the various cultures.

The elements present in the verbal interaction can be social distance as a form of credibility as well as the time of a linguistic event is very important for loading or not in term of importance for an event in the personal or collective memory of a given community.

If you belong to a culture with a high contextual index, often in the context of interaction you are forced to defend the collective face of your group of origin.

The interlocutor's words can make me pay costs both in terms of a positive face as well as in a negative face. It is interesting how a linguistic act, in absence of the conditions of implementation, can be perceived as useless or unhappy.

Speakers often feel the duty and duty of defence of their person in the context of interaction. Often the defence of one's face can take place in terms of the use of indirect answers in order to avoid a problem explicitly.

In terms of sociopragmatics it is very important to identify the conversational style of the speakers during an event. Often the disagreement between the interactants arises because at the base they adhere to very different conversational styles (cordial-distant, direct-indirect; clear-vague; modest-affirmed; habitual-novelties; humble-affirmed, warm (engaging) in cold (distant) , routine-innovative.)

The same concept of "context" is very relevant because it influences the realization or not of some linguistic acts as in the case in which some linguistic acts are not spoken in order not to modify the extra-linguistic context. In that case, producing certain linguistic acts has the function of modifying that context to give a positive face to the one who makes this choice. Surely this move is very risky in that given cultural "climate".

Your own "in-group" of origin, your territory or region or even the State are often the elements that the speaker finds himself defending in terms of "collective face".

The use of forms of allocative terms such as "lei \ vous" have a mitigation value in terms of costs for those who produce and receive them since it offers the possibility of carrying out an attack by decreasing the threat risks in terms of positive courtesy.

Another very recurring element in the interaction is the concept of change of person as a way to act on the context and to modify the event by the person who makes this communication move. The allocutive form is often a way to be able to index the person in a given context while the way of referring to another speaker is a way to agentivate one's own person.


What is the disagreement in the conversation


In some interactions, prolonged disagreement is a way of defending one's negative face as a way of expressing the right to defend one's negative face in the face of arguments from others that make me pay very high costs. The difference in conversational style is often the foundation where the nature of disagreement lies, as does the recognition or absence of recognition of the need to be another person. Often in the interaction we find ourselves having a personal face and a collective face to defend in case we are tied to or belonging to a given culture with a high contextual index.

There are also forms of compensation that lead to certain requests. Another element of difference could be our "being for and with" others to put it to Duranti (2007) within an interaction. For example, there are interlocutors who see disagreement as a form of sociality (Jewish community of New York, for example, Israelis, on some informal occasions for Italians, Greeks and Spaniards) while other groups are used to a more deferential style and based on consideration or frankness.

In institutionalized meetings there is often a hidden degree of taxation that emerges during the conversation according to the status \ role of the interlocutors.

In the same way we have the problem of how to interpret the event among the interlocutors as a primary source of disagreement among people.

In Italian often the "prosody" of our statement which indicates a disagreement as when it is said in Italian "don't speak to me on this tone, it can change tone" so as to avoid paying all the costs of the interaction in terms of a positive face . In the end we always look for a form of balance between costs and benefits within the conversation. These requests for change of tone are also boundaries within the conversation to be able to start indexing the interlocutor in another way. Therefore in an event we have costs and benefits as well as rights and duties during the event in light of our need for a positive or negative face.

For example, one way to report your disagreement with an in-group member is to use your other party's name. In short, it is a mitigation strategy to hide the strength of the disagreement as there is a strong need to spare others' faces as a peer.

Another way to enhance the need for a positive face is to ask many questions to the other interlocutor as a way to signal your role as a defender of the collective face of other people who delegate this task to others.

Another way to signal the disagreement is to repeat the element of disagreement present in the statement of the other interlocutor as a way to mitigate the attack on the positive face of the other but at the same time allows you to intensify your statements because you he disagrees on the subject but not on the person. The act of obtaining a greater positive face by formulating a strong disagreement is not very recurrent in the interaction in Italian as the best way to mitigate the play on the face is precisely to save one's interlocutor.

Yet another way to express one's denial with the intention of paying no cost is to deny the psychological reality of the other interlocutor using the expression "it is not true". In this way the maximum quality is denied (tell the truth). In other words, there are benefits and costs in the interaction in terms of positive courtesy. Expressing disagreement is also a way to interact with your person in an interaction to avoid paying costs to your face. Scepticism is a form of mitigation and is also a defence for one's positive face within a more complex search for a balance in terms of costs and benefits. Everything is related within a certain vision of "being for and with" as a form of being with others.

A very effective strategy is to compliment the interlocutor so as to give the interlocutor a positive face as a form of interaction management.

Another very interesting concept is that of a collective face (Schwartz, 1992) when a speaker becomes a delegate or representative of a given community. This mode is widespread in the field of media interaction where the stakes are often outside.

Very important is the concept of mitigation in the context of the formulation of linguistic acts in harmony with the culture of a given linguistic courtesy. For example, the use of adverbs or lexical modifiers as well as the use in the preface of elements of hesitation are all ways to activate mitigation during the interaction. In the same way, an indirect style can be a great way to not make the other interlocutor pay too high costs and to maintain a certain emotional distance during the interaction.

Disagreement for those in positions of power



During the interaction with a power-carrying interlocutor, the degree of taxation present in that culture is often used to avoid paying any interactional costs during the interaction exchange. Furthermore, it tends to want to manage the turns of speech and to abolish every right \ duty and \ or cost \ benefit present in an interactional exchange. Style is often a way to interact with the other interlocutor in order to reduce its impact in terms of obtaining a positive face. Those who hold power do not intend to pay any costs and offer no benefits during the interaction. In practice, there is a psychological unavailability when you do not intend to pay any costs.