Politeness ideology in Spanish colloquial conversation

Abstract

This article addresses the lack of universal application of Brown and Levinson's (1987) notion of politeness as related to positive and negative face by analyzing colloquial conversations in Peninsular Spanish, specifically the case of advice. The author proposes that politeness is not always used to mitigate face threatening acts. Adapting Bravo's (1996) classification of face, the data was analyzed utilizing the notions of autonomy (perception by people as being one's own within a group, self-affirmation) and affiliation (to be perceived as an integrated part of the group) as well as the cultural notion of confianza. This study asserts that, in the case of advice in Peninsular Spanish, politeness is often used to "enhance the relationship between interactants” and not necessarily to mitigate face threatening acts, as proposed in Brown and Levinson's model. This conclusion is supported by examples from the corpus indicating the common and friendly expression of unsolicited advice, clear assertions, and rejections by the hearer.