Adopting a discursive approach to politeness (see, for example, Mills 2011), this paper explores spontaneous naturally occurring compliment responses (CRs) in Chinese from a cross-generational perspective. It aims to extend our understanding of the dynamic nature of face and/or politeness in contemporary Chinese. 16 multiparty conversations among two generations of the Chinese in China’s mainla...

Politeness issues in virtual commercial contexts received rare attention from both practitioners and researchers. This work developed an instrument for gauging degree of politeness in online retailers’ storefronts. The instrument’s reliability and validity were confirmed through empirical data analysis. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis revealed that online consumers' tendency in payi...

This conceptual paper suggests how Politeness Theory [6] – well known in anthropological and linguistic literatures – can contribute to the study of role relations in computer-mediated communication. Politeness, phrasing things so as to show respect and esteem for the face of others, occurs throughout social interchange. The paper reviews politeness theory and enumerates specific linguistic ind...

Students rated 16 tutorial statements on negative politeness (i.e., how much the tutor ‘‘allows me freedom to make my own decisions’’) and positive politeness (i.e., how much the tutor was ‘‘working with me’’). Consistent with an adaptation of Brown and Levinson’s [1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge University Press, New York] politeness theory, (a) students rated dire...

Pragmatics deals with language use in the context that relates to speech acts' meaning. Politeness strategies and politeness principles, as manifestation of pragmatics, are two determining communication factors both speaker hearer. This qualitative study was intended analyze used by main character Mulan her family. The data were collected using observation checklist adapted from Brown Levinson ...

A number of researchers have recently argued that politeness is not always inferred in the form of an implicature as claimed by Brown and Levinson (1987), but rather can be anticipated by addressees when it involves expected behaviour. The distinction between anticipated and inferred politeness is thus an important area for further development of politeness theory. In this paper, the way in whi...