Politeness Strategies Used by Youth in Their Language Use

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate politeness strategies that are employed by youth while communicating with other members of society. It is a known fact that, youth have been castigated for lacking decency while addressing issues that may be perceived to be obscene in nature such as deaths, diseases, different functions of body parts, sexual matters, just to mention a few. Despite unprecedented complaints on the manner by which some youth use their language, this study set out to denounce that old folk by unearthing the various politeness strategies that Kenyan youth engage in while communicating with different groups of people. This study established that the language that is often used by the youth carries politeness elements in different levels during their communication; with such evidence in place, politeness in the youth language use was absolute. Descriptive method of data analysis was relied on. Purposeful sampling design was used with the researcher using questioners. The questions were aimed at identifying researcher respondent's level of language use sensitivity in line with the purported obscene language use. Because the study intended to investigate youth politeness strategies; the researcher relied on Brown and Levinson Politeness Theory. Sampling was done from 30 respondents from 3 secondary schools in then Nakuru Municipality. There were 15 female students and 15 male students. The study established that youth use assorted set of politeness strategies in their language; in essence, the study found out that the said politeness strategies are assigned differently depending on the social class of the speaker and the recipient, discourse topic involved, context and more importantly the reason behind their communication