The Effectiveness of Social Distance on Requests

Abstract

This essay is an attempt to explain one of the fundamental discourse analysis theories in the field of politeness: Brown and Levinson's face-saving theory. They divide the face into positive and negative then they formulate five politeness strategies the speaker can use when the person faces any of the face threatening acts. The aim of this paper is to investigate how this theory can be adapted and applied to interview using requests. In addition, the essay will identify the strategies of request and politeness phenomena in producing a request speech act. It will record a 10-minute interviews with an Australian native speaker of English and an Indonesian nonnative speaker about topics of interest to the participants. The study will show how the social distance, the power that the speaker wield on the hearer and the imposition of the request on the hearer impact forming the request sentence. Introduction One of the aims of socialization is to develop the ability to behave appropriately in terms of politeness. The presence or absence of politeness depends on the social appreciation of competent members of society; not-so-competent members or nonnative speakers may face the permanent risk of violating politeness norms. Politeness as a linguistic phenomenon has been studied by various scholars over the past three decades, including linguists, language philosophers, and sociologists. Many theories have appeared during that time, one of which will be the focus of this paper: Brown and Levinson's theory. The work of these writers on linguistic politeness was first published in 1978, although Penelope Brown wrote an article entitled "Women and Politeness" in 1976 in which she expressed a new view about language and society. Brown and Levinson's theory, also called the "face-saving" theory of politeness, was revised in 1987. This theory has generated some controversy but is considered a fundamental politeness theory in the linguistic field. The first and main section of this essay describes the literature on Brown and Levinson's theory, addressing the content of the theory and the criticisms that the theory has received from other scholars. A section concerning methodology follows, which provides data related to the theory and its analysis. The third section of this paper contains results and findings. Discussion is the focus of the next section. The paper's final section presents conclusions about the theory and the strategies that are used in interview requests.