M. Noonan's maxims

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 378.

The Sympathy maxim

The sympathy maxim states: 'minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and other.' This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing condolences - all of which is in accordance with Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategy of attending to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs.

e.g. "I was sorry to hear about your father."

In all societies, maxims of politeness govern linguistic and non-linguistic

behavior. The details of these maxims vary [sometimes greatly] from culture to

culture [and subculture to subculture], leading to situations where

misunderstandings may occur. In middle-class American society, M. Noonan

identifies the following five maxims:

tact: Minimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other.

modesty: Minimize praise of self; maximize dispraise of self.

phatic: Keep talking; avoid silence.

irony: If you must cause offence, at least do so in a way which doesn't

overtly conflict with maxims of politeness, but allows the hearer to arrive at the

offensive point of your remark indirectly, by way of implicature [inference]. banter: In order to show solidarity with the hearer, say something that is (1)

obviously untrue and (2) obviously impolite to the hearer.