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Text 15


Date: 2015-10-07; view: 353.


gabriele kasper: 'Politeness' in R. E. Asher (ed.):

The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Volume 6.

Pergamon 1994, page 3209

Some types of linguistic action are carried out more frequently in some cultures than in others. Hearer-beneficial acts such as com­plimenting and thanking occur more regularly in some Western contexts (e.g., the USA) than in some Asian cultures (e.g., main­land China), reflecting both the strong positive politeness orienta­tion and reluctance to impose on others in mainstream American culture, on the one hand, and the assumption, in China, that par­ticipants act according to their social positions and associated roles and obligations, on the other. Also, hearer-costly acts such as refusals are perceived as being more socially offensive by Japanese and Chinese interlocutors and thus tend to be avoided, whereas it seems more consistent with American interlocutors' right to self-determination not to comply with another person's wishes.

0 Can you think of other 'hearer-beneficial acts' and other 'hearer-costly acts'? For example, what is an invitation or a complaint? Is it possible that the concepts of 'cost' and 'benefit' may be culturally determined?

t> There is a suggestion in this text that people in the USA are more concerned with their rights as individuals than with their social roles and obligations. What kind of evidence from language behavior would you look for in order to decide whether this suggestion is true or not?

I> Can you characterize the normal behavior of your own social group as having more 'hearer-beneficial' acts? What about 'hearer-costly' acts? Are there other social groups with whom you share the same language, but whose politeness strategies appear to be different?

D> Where does Lakoff's 'conventional camaraderie' (Text 14) fit into the distinction that Kasper is making here?



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