Investigation #7 Analyzing Politeness

In the Central Library, one lady was talking phone regardless of the library rule. A librarian came nearby her and politely warned her.

Librarian: Excuse me, miss. Library regulation requires all users not to talk on phone in library. Would you please go outside?
Lady: (keep talking, did not notice the surroundings)
Librarian: Excuse me, miss. Would you please go outside?
Lady: (disregard the library officers and feel annoyed)
Librarian: Excuse me.. (two other library officers follow him and stand nearby the lady)
Lady: (feel annoyed, frown at the officers, finally end her call)

In the conversation with the lady, who violated the library rule of talking on phone, the librarian made a shift in communicative style. When he first approached that lady, he used a very formal and polite way to address the lady, as Miss. He also referred to the library regulations stated by the nearby notice sincerely. After attempting two times, he was a bit intolerant. So he simply urged the lady to end the call immediately by saying “Excuse me”, and with two other library officers standing nearby the lady.

In the Face theory in sociolinguistics, face, is the public self-image one wishes to claim. We study how participants decide what their relative statuses are, and what language they use to encode their assumptions about such differences in status. In addition, face can also be lost, maintained, or enhanced in different social interactions in the same event.

Here, we find two negative faces coexist among these two participants. First, the librarian poses his positive face as he desires the lady can be cooperative to accept his warn. Meanwhile, he also carries the negative face for maintaining his desire for autonomy. The way he addresses the lady as miss rather than you - a title rather than a familiar personal pronoun, has marked the difference of their relationship. Second, the lady also strongly induces her negative face. As she does not want to be unimpeded, she wants her freedom from interference can be achieved and maintains her personal space. So, she shows an uncooperative attitude to the librarians.

Given the assumptions of the universality of face, it is unavoidably that certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face. In this case, for the act that threaten the lady, the hearer, (H)’s negative face, it involves the pressure given by librarian in order to warn her not to use the phone. For the act that threatens H’s positive face, it includes the reprimand, though lenient, towards the lady in a public area. For the act that threaten the librarian, the speaker, (S)’s positive face, it contains the act of incorporation and annoyance shown by lady.

Being rational, people will try to avoid Face Threatening Acts to minimize their effects. Particular in the civil service sector, the library are required to provide library users a neutral service attitude. The autonomy cannot be executed that extreme. Therefore, the desire to maintain face (both H’s and S’s) has to be balanced. Here, as the setting has restricted to be mitigated by showing respect for the lady’s desire not to be disturbed, (“Excuse me, miss, would you please go outside?); it may be made “off record”- the strategy 4 according to the politeness strategy.

There are three main factors involved which bring such a politeness system into being: power, distance, and the weight of the imposition.

Power refers to the vertical disparity between the participants in a hierarchical structure. We would describe the relationship between the librarian and the lady as +P (plus power) because the librarian owes the authority to control library user’s discipline, in response to library regulation, and the lady owes duties to follow rules. Distance refers to the closeness of relationship. We would thereby describe as +D (plus difference) between those two participants. They have the hierarchical difference and would never contact each other. Weight of imposition refers to how important the topic of discussion is for the participants. And we describe it as +W as the librarian takes on a deferential tone to address the lady as miss. He also uses a higher level of independence strategies than he normally uses.