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



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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.