Distinguishing polite from impolite style The indexical nature of language Language is a major tool by which we communicate Who we are, what we do (referential function) How we feel toward addresses and the events around us (indexiacal function) İndexes are signs that indicate contextual information: dark clouds: rain, smoke: fire,… ‘Here’ indexes a place close to the speaker, ‘I’ and ‘you’ index the current speaker and addressee in the speech context! Indexes are interpreted only in the current speech context: INDEXICALITY. A teacher asks a students to read and the student says: «I don’t wanna read». (with a rising intonation) Refusal? or Request for encouragement? In London, a West Indian bus driver announced «Exact change please» (with a falling tone) Demanding and rude? or Polite? The feeling and idea these senteces give to you are called CONTEXUALISATION CUES, a subclass of indexes. They are tools for sense making in social interactions. Japanese is rich in morphological contextualization cues, such as honorifics and sentence-final particals. Tetsudatte kurete doomo arigatoo Rude Doozo yoroshiku Doozo yosroshiku onegai shimasu Tetsudatatte kudasatte doomo arigatoo gozaimasu Thank you very much for helping me Doozo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu Polite Please treat me well All same in the meaning (referential function) but different in contextualization cues. In social interaction how an utterance is said is more important than what is said. For foreign and second language learners, learning how to interpret and use contextual cues is extremely difficult. Also, interlocutors need to know their social role and the normative expectation of that role in society to better speak and interpret utterances. NSs acquire contextualization conventions primarily through socialization process in the family, among friends and in innstitutional environments. However, NNS are restricted only to classroom environment. The Study “Why can’t learners of JFL distinguish polite from impolite speech styles?” by Haruko Minegishi Cook Participants: 120 JFL learners Data collection tool: Listening comprehension task (3 job aplicants seeking a part-time position from a clothing company and to judge the politeness level of their self-introductory speeches) Results: %80 of the students were unable to recognize the impolite speech style indexed by co-occuring lingusitc features. Suggestion: co-occuring lingustic features should be dealt in the class, especially the relationship between a linguistic form and its social meaning.