POLITENESS
Semra Emici
Tuba Göktürk
Duygu Yoldaş
Nihan Ergönül
Rıdvan Gürevin
Hüda Karasu
Mustafa Murat Ata
Politeness
Mustafa Murat Ata
At all times when people interact,
identities and senses of selves are
jostling for attention. A central
concept in pragmatics is the concept
of face, that is, the public self-image
that we all want to maintain.
There are two aspects to the concept of
face:
 Negative face, which basically denotes the
need to be independent and free from
imposition.
Example:
A- Could you lend me a pen?
B- I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask you
for a pen or something?
C- I know you are busy,but might ı ask you
if-emm- if you happen to have an extra pen
for me?

Positive face, which very simplified, denotes
the need to belong and be accepted.
Example: Your friend asks for a ride to the
airport.
Positive face needs: You think, I better take
him, because ı want him to like me, and I want
the reputation of being a reliable person.
In conclusion, negative face is the need to be
independent, and positive face is the need to
be connected.
Politeness is a way of interaction which shows
awareness of and respect for someone else’s face.
 A face threatening act is an act that
threatens the integrity and self-image of
another person. For example, giving someone a
direct order such as “Sit down” and “be quit”
implies having social power over that person.
 Conversely, if we act or behave in a way that
lessens a possible threat to another person’s
face, we engage in a face saving act. If, for
example, you wish to get on with the meeting
and that your colleague would stop roaming
about the room talking on his mobile phone, you
might convey this by using an indirect speech
act like “Right”, “should we sit down and
continue?”
This section will give a very brief sketch
of how indirect speech acts differ from
direct speech acts, as well as mention
some ways in which languages have
grammaticalized politeness. It is beyond
the scope of this section to give a
comprehensive discussion of all the
aspects involved in the study of linguistic
politeness.
INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
Rıdvan GÜREVİN
A speech act is an utterance that has
performative function in language and
communication. Speech acts may be either
direct or indirect. In a direct speech act the
content of the utterance corresponds the
speaker’s intention of the utterance. So the
declarative is a statement uttered with the
purpose of giving information whereas
interrogative is a question uttered with the
purpose of getting information, and the
imperative is a command uttered with the
purpose of getting someone to do something.
Namely; when engaging in direct speech, we
mean what we say. When using the direct
speech, we must take into account social
situations involving the complex structures of
cooperation. For example; giving someone a
direct command implies that we have power
over him or we are very intimate with him or
both. A parent can give a command to his child,
or close friends sometimes can give commands
to each other. But it is not useful for a student
to give a command to his teacher. Therefore,
we engage in various politeness strategies.
If we want to save someone’s negative face,
we must use some phrases like excuse me,
pardon me, I am sorry to bother you, etc. A
way of saving someone’s positive face is to
increase the sense of group belonging, for
example we can use the inclusive we (You are
at a meeting and one of your friend is
talking on the phone as well as walking
around. And you: Right, should we sit down
and continue?). Although the use of we gives
a tone of group belonging, there is one
intended addressee.
When engaging indirect speech, we do not
mean exactly what we say. For example,
when a stranger asks you do you know where
the Forum is? You probably answer it by
giving directions instead of answering
something like yes I know. For example, you
and your friend are in your room and your
friend says you here is too hot. You probably
interpret that as an indirect command ‘’ open
the windows.’’ Namely; interrogatives and
declaratives can be used as politely
disguised request or commands.
Indirect speech acts are commonly used to
reject proposals and to make requests. For
example, a speaker asks, "Would you like to
meet me for coffee?" and another replies,
"I have class." The second speaker used an
indirect speech act to reject the proposal.
This is indirect because the literal meaning
of "I have class" does not entail any sort of
rejection.
When interpreting speech acts, there is
always a misunderstanding between
individuals and cultures. What is polite for
someone may not be for the other and so on.
For example; the individual who has been
raised to never directly ask for something
might, when having dinner with his
colleagues, ask her neighbor would you like
some more potatoes? in the expectation
that the neighbor will then ask the same
question to which she can safely say yes.
But if the neighbor does not think it
impolite to ask for something, he might
not understand the question as an
indirect speech act, and might
therefore simply answer no thank you,
in which case there has been a
miscommunication. This is true for
clashes between people of different
cultures.
Honorifics
Hüda Karasu
Honorifics
Many languages grammaticalize various politeness
strategies. Honorifics can be thought as devices for
marking social distinction. Following Brown and Levinson
we can classify honorifics in three types depending on
the relationship between the speaker and others.
The referent honorifics, which have to do with the
relationship between the speaker and things or persons
referred to.
Addressee honorifics, which have to do with the
relationship between the speaker and addressee.
Bystander honorifics, which have to do with the
relationship between the speaker and the “bystanders”
or overhearers.
Referent honorifics
With a referent honorific the politeness or respect
distinctions are conveyed by referring to the target
of the respect, that is, the choice of the linguistic
form is dependent on what is referred to. A well
known instance of referent honorifics is the choice
of pronoun when addressing a person. In Europpean
languages it is very common to have a binary
distinction of politeness, where one form is
considered familiar and the other polite, as in the
French distinction tu/vous, both of which refer to a
single person. This binary distinction in pronouns of
address is often called T/V pronouns, tu
‘you.SG.NOM’ and vous ‘you.PL.NOM’.
In his sample of 207 languages on politeness
distinctions in second person pronouns,
Helmbrecht found that 49 languages (23.7 %)
make use of this kind of binary distinction, many
of which cluster in Europe, but these languages
shows vastly different levels of T/V pronoun
usage. For example, in German the polite form Sie
is the Standard form of address between adults
who are not in a close social relation. In Swedish,
however, it is imaginable to use the plural pronoun
form ni to address a single person, the context
would be highly marked indeed.
Addressing between adults who don’t know
each other is with the singular du. The usage
of universal du in Swedish is a rather recent
phenomenon and, interestingly enough, it
seems that the language might be changing
back to making politeness distinctions.
Some languages, 15 (7.2%) in Helmbrecht’s
database, mainly clustered in South Asia but
also found elsewhere, use multiple politeness
distinctions fort he second person pronoun.
Nepali is an example of a language with three
levels of politeness distinctions in the singular
and two in the plural.
NEPALI (INDO-EUROPEAN (INDIC): NEPAL
SINGULAR
PLURAL
LOW GRADE
ta
HONORIFIC (‘informal’)
timi-haru
MID GRADE
HONORIFIC(‘polite’)
timi
timi-haru
HIGH GRADE
HONORIFIC
(‘superpolite’)
tapai
tapai-haru
PRONOUN AVOIDANCE
Nihan Ergönül
► There are also languages where a pronoun
is avoided for the sake of politeness. In
these languages it may be considered face
threatening to directly address a person, so
other kinds of terms are used instead, such
as status and kindship terms or various
kinds of titles, and so on.
► In Indonesian, for example, kinship terms:
Saudara ‘sibling;relative of same generation’ function
as an impersonal pronoun used between speakers of
the same generation (or by a speaker to somebody
younger) when they are not well acquainted.
While such term as bapak ‘father’ or ibu ‘mother’
are used as a respectful address to people older
than the speaker and between adults of marriable
age.
► Very often people will avoid using the pronoun
even when on an equal status level, and instead use
the addressee’s name.
Effectively saying something like ‘Does Tom want
more tea?’ when addressing Tom.
►The majority of the languages in Helmbrecht’s database,
however, do not make any politeness distinctions for the
second person pronominals. The languages in APICS display
an almost identical patterns, as shown in the Table below.
Value
WALS (200)
APICS (201)
1.No politeness distinction
66.4 % (136)
63.5 % (47)
2. Binary politeness distinction
22.9 % (47)
24.3 % (18)
3. Multiple politeness distinction
7.3 % (15)
5.4 % (4)
4. Pronoun avoidance
3.4 % (7)
6.8 % (5)
Total
205
74
►Referent honorifics which pronoun
politeness is a part of the choice of form is
dependent on who or what is being referred
to. With second person pronouns the
referent and the target happen to be the
same. But we may also have honorific
distinctions in the third person. In Korean,
for example, the choice of the third person
pronoun is dependent on what is being
referred to and what level of politeness is
required:
3rd PERSON
SINGULAR
PLURAL
THING
CHILD
ADULT:FAMILIAR
ADULT:BLUNT
ADULT:POLITE
D-kes ‘it’
D-ay
‘s/he’
D-salam ‘s/he’
D-i
‘s/he’
D-pun ‘s/he’
D-kes-tul
D-ay-tul
D-salam-tul
D-i-tul
D-pun-tul
‘they’
‘they’
‘they’
‘they’
‘they’
ADDRESSEE HONORIFICS
Semra Emici
Addressee honorifics : express social status of person
being spoken to (the hearer) regardless of what is
being talked about. For example, Javanese has three
different words for “house” depending on the status
level of the person spoken to.
An addressee honorific system : linguistic form choice
is dependent on the addressee of the utterance.
● Languages may have morphologically variable forms
depending on levels of politeness. This may be seen in
verb forms ( different kinds of imperatives carrying
different kinds of politeness connotations.
Languages may make a distinction between immediate
and distal imperatives (immediate imperative is a
familiar command while the distal imperative is a polite
command).
Epena Pedeee ( Choco ( Choco): Colombia)
a. phata
kho-ti
plantain eat- IMP. PL
‘ Eat the plantain!’
b. thipi
phua-pheda
a-hi
firewood blow- POL. IMP
say- PAST
‘ He said, “ you will have to fan the fire’’’.
Above, it is seen that There is polite imperative receiving
its own morphological marking. Compare –ti in (a) with –
pheda in (b). This shows that action is going to have to be
carried out some point in the future. The distal natüre of
this kind of imperative makes it less direct and so logically
more polite.
Korean: Korean honorifics
Korean honorific speech is a mixture of subject
honorification, object exaltation, and the
various speech styles. Depending on how these
three factors are used, the speaker highlights
different aspects of the relationship between
the speaker, the subject, and the listener (who
may also be the subject).
The Korean language incorporates a hierarchy
of speech styles divided according to its
system of honorifics each with its own set of
verb endings. The six speech styles from
lowest to highest are:
1. Plain style (haerache or 해라체)
 Formal
 Signals
more social distance between the
speaker and addressee than that when using
intimate style
 Generally
audience
 Generally
used when writing for a general
used in written language, but when it
used in spoken language, it represents
admiration.
2. Banmal or intimate style (haeche or 해체)
 Informal.
 Typically
used with close friends, by parents
to their children, by a relatively older speaker
to a child, by children to children, or by
youngsters to the same-ages.
 Recently,
parents.
many children use banmal to their
3. familiar style (hageche or 하게체)
More formal than banmal style
 Signals that the speaker will treat the listener
with consideration and courtesy
 Typically used when the addressee is below the
speaker in age or social rank (e.g. the speaker is
at least thirty years old and the addressee is of
college age)
 The familiar style generally implies the speaker is
showing authority therefore typically requires the
speaker to be sufficiently mature.
 Women seldom use familiar style because it is
commonly associated with male authority.
 Generally, it is used by senior citizens, getting out
of use by most of people in everyday language.

4. semiformal or blunt style (haoche or 하오체)
More formal than familiar style with neutral
politeness
 Used to address someone in an inferior position
(e.g. age or social rank)
 A speaker will use semiformal style with a
stranger whose social rank is clear but not
particularly lower compared to the speaker.
 It is generally used by senior citizens, getting out
of used by most of people in everyday language.
 When semiformal style is used by young people, it
also represents humorous sense, and is thought to
be unsuitable for serious situations.

5. polite style (haeyoche or 해요체)
 Informal
but polite.
 Typically
used when the addressee is a
superior (e.g. by children to their parents,
students to teachers)
 This
is the most common speech style and is
commonly used between strangers.
6. formal or deferential style (hapshoche or 합쇼체)





Used to treat superiors with the most reserve and the
most respect
Commonly used in speeches delivered to large audiences, in
news reports, radio broadcasts, business, and formal
discussions.
In most of cases, books are written in plain style(herache),
or formal style(hapshoche).
In some cases, speakers will switch between polite and
formal styles depending on the situation and the
atmosphere that one wishes to convey.
These six speech styles are sometimes divided into
honorific and non-honorific levels where the formal and
polite styles are honorific and the rest are non-honorific.
According to Strauss and Eun, the two honorific speech
levels are “prototypically used among non-intimate adults
of relatively equal rank”. Comparatively, the non-honorific
speech levels are typically used between intimates, ingroup members, or in “downward directions of address by
the speaker to his or her interlocutor.
Korean verbs are not only marked with TMA
and sentence type affixes but also a host of
affixes relating to addresee honorifics. For
example, statement like it is raining takes
six different forms depending on the social
relationship between the speaker and the
addressee:
KOREAN (ISOLATE: N, S KOREA)
Plain
Intimate
Familiar
Blunt
Polite
Deferential
Neutral
‘ It is raining’.
pi
Rain
ka
NM
pi
Rain
ka
NM
pi
Rain
ka
NM
pi
Rain
ka
NM
o-n-ta
come-IN-DC
w-a
come-INT
o-ney
come-FML
o-o
come-BLN
pi
Rain
ka
NM
w-a. yo
pi
Rain
ka
NM
o-p-ni-ta
pi
Rain
ka
NM
come-POL
come-AH-IN-DC
o-t-a
come-IN
-DC
Javanese has a so -called ‘honorific register’,
the choice of vocabulary is addresee honorific.
The choice of which words to use for an
utterance is dependent on the relationship
between the speaker and the addressee.
Three main speech levels:
 Ngoko (informal)
: used only speaking to
smo very familiar.
 Madyo (semi-polite): used with people of an
intermediate level of familiarity, like
neighbours.
 Kromo (polite)
: used with distant adults.
Respect vocabulary conveys an added level
of respect. It has two subcategories
1. Kromo inggel : with highly respected
persons.
2. Kromo andap : used in referring to any
person’s actions towards a highly respected
person.
Five different words that are translated
the same way into English, carry different
levels of politeness.
JAVANESE (AUSTRONESIAN ( JAVANESE): INDONESIA)
NGOKO
Akon
MADYO
ken
KROMO
kengken/pureh
KROMO INGGEL
dawoh
KROMO ANDAP
ng-atur-I
Above, there are five different words that all translate
into the same thing in English. But the word choice is
dependent on the level of the respect the speaker wishes
or is obliged to show the addressee. There are also further
distinctions in the choice of grammatical affixes. The
combination of vocabulary and affixes leads to nine
different levels of politeness. The three main speech level
vocabularies have different sizes: ngoko is the basic
vocabulary carrying every kind of concept, kromo has about
850 words , kromo inggel has about 260 words, madyo has
about 35 words and kromo andap has about 20 words (
Myhill: 75f).
BYSTANDER HONOROFICS
Duygu Yoldaş
Bystander honorofics express the status of
someone who is nearby, but not a participant
in the conversation. With bystander
honorofics, the linguistic form of the
language isn’t dependent on the speaker or
on the addressee, but on who is within
earshot of the utterance. The linguistic
form of the language isn’t dependent on the
relationship between the speaker and the
addresssee, nor it is dependent on what is
being referred to.
However, it depends on anyone who can hear
what is being said. Therefore, this covers
participants, such as audiences, as well as
“non-participants” or “bystanders”. This is
often termed “avoidance language” or
“honorofics register”. It is the least
common, and are found primarily in
“avoidance speech” such as the mother-inlaw languages of aboriginal Australia, where
one changes one’s speech in the presence of
an in-law or other tabooed relative. Many
Australian languages have bystander
honorifics to varying degrees.
Dyirbal is famous for having had two
language variants such as Guwal and Dyalɲuy.
Guwal was used in all circumstances except
when certain “taboo relatives” were present.
In these kind of situations in which taboo
relatives were used Dyalɲuy had to be used.
Therefore the avoidance language, Dyalɲuy,
had to be used whenever a taboo relative
was within earshot. The taboo was
symmetrical for instance – if X was taboo to
Y so was Y to X.
Taboo relatives were:
1-) a parent in-law of the opposite sex; and,
by the symmetry rule, a child in-law of the
opposite sex.
2-) a cross-cousin of the opposite sex- that
is, father’s or mother’s brother’s child.
Although the two languages Guwal and
Dyalɲuy differ completely in their
vocabulary, they were identical
phonologically and almost identical
gramatically.
Dyirbal ( Australian (Pama- Nyungan) :
Australia)
Guwal
yanu
buɽal
ɲalɲga
ɲinay
Dyalɲuy
bawalbil
ɲuɽimal
ɲalmaru
madirabil
‘go’
‘see, look at’
‘child’
‘sit, stay, camp’
Taboo relatives are not identical crossculturally whilst a number of languages may
have ‘taboo relatives’. In Guugu- Yimidhirr, a
traditional Australian Aboriginal language,
special avoidance lexemes are used to
express deference when in the presence of
tabooed in-law relatives. In other words,
speakers will either be completely
prohibited from speaking to one’s motherin-law or must employ avoidance language to
one’s brother in-law.
The overlap between the two vocabularies
seen in Guwal and Dyalɲuy wasn’t complete
and the basic, informal ‘everyday lexicon’
had more items than the ‘respectful lexicon’.
It is possible to express the same things in
both varieties. For instance, in Guugu
Yimidhirr, some everyday language words
translate into only one respectful language
word:
Guugu Yimidhirr (Australian (Pama- Nyungan):
Australia)
Everyday language
language
dhadaa
‘go’
dharmbil
‘float,sail’
yaalgal
‘limp’
gaynydyarr
‘crawl’
biilil
‘paddle’
Respectful
balil ‘go’
Bystander honorifics do not have to be
restricted to the lexicon. Waray,one of the
language having an avoidance language,
referred to as ‘sideways language’ that was
used with various in-law relatives and which
involved adding a suffix –lawu to nominals
and using the plural forms for verbs.
Waray (Australian (Waray): Australia)
nguk-lawu
tobacco- avoid
npst-dat’
ban-ba-wu
1sg.obj-2pl.s-give
gan-a-ga-ng-u
Irr-2pl.s- have-
Would you (PL) give me any tobacco if you (PL) have any?
(addressed to one person)
Speech Acts in Sign Languages
Tuba Göktürk
Speech Acts in Sign Languages
●Like spoken languages, all known sign
languages have ways to carry out the basic
functions of giving information, gleaning
information and issuing commands.
●The most common, maybe even universal,
negative marking head movement across sign
languages is a repeated side-to-side head
shake. The head movement may combine with
facial expressions, and manual sign.
●The second strategy is to have a single sideward head turn, where the head is turned to
one side and is then kept in that position for
the duration of the negation.
●The third strategy involves a backward tilt of
the head, where the head is tilted backwards
and remains in that position for the duration of
the negation.
● Non-manual facial negators tend to be less
grammaticalized and therefore less
systematic. They usually involve “negative”
mimics, such as manipulating the eye-brows
(lowering or frowning, etc.), the eyes
(narrowing or squinting, etc.), the mouth
(drawn down, pursed or spreading the lips,
etc.) and the nose (e.g. wrinkling). Nonmanual facial negators tend to co-occur with
the negative marking head movement.
●IRREGULAR NEGATIVES TYPICALLY INVOLVE SIGNS
OF COGNITION. MOST SIGN LANGUAGES HAVE
SEVERAL SUCH IRREGULAR NEGATIVES. BSL, FOR
INSTANCE, HAS AT LEAST EIGHT:
EVALUATION:
COGNITION:
EMOTIONAL ATTITUDE:
NOT AGREE;
POSSESSION:
TENSE:
NOT.GOOD
NOT.KNOW
NOT.WANT; NOT.LIKE;
NOT BELIEVE
NOT.HAVE
WILL.NOT
●Ten languages in Zeshan’s database have 2-5
irregular negatives. LIS, for example, has four. Three
languages, the Indian dialect of IPSL, KK and LSE,
have only one irregular negative, while only one
language, the Karachi dialect of IPSL, has none.
LIS (Sign Language: Italy)
KK(Sign Language: Indonesia)
modality:
CANNOT
aspect: NOT.YET
evaluation:
NOT.POSSIBLE
emotional attitude:
NOT.WANT; NOT.LIKE
●Interrogatives are typically formed with
non-manual facial signs. Sign languages also
have ways of forming polar questions and
content questions. Typical non-manuals for
polar questions are: raised eyebrows, wide
open eyes, eye contact with the addressee,
head forward position and body forward
posture.
● Sign languages also have politeness
strategies. Indirect speech acts may be
employed to form polite requests, but
morphological politeness distinctions can also
be found, notably in referent and addressee
honorifics. In terms of indirect speech acts, it
is used to express wishes and commands, just
as in spoken languages. As for referent
honorifics, pronominal system referencing to a
person by ‘pointing’ with an open hand. Parallel
to spoken languages, addressee honorifics
occur in sign languages, for instance with
imperatives.
The End