Speech etiquette in the structure of communicative behavior. Principles of politeness.
By speech etiquette we understand the system of rules of communication, which are prescribed by the society for establishing the communication between interlocutors, for communication of people with different social statuses in formal and informal situations. This means that the speech etiquette is not just a functional-semantic field of units of communication used in polite situations of communication [Формановская 1982], but also related to the semiotic and the social concept of etiquette in general, and, consequently, it performs a regulatory role in the selection of a solution of register of intercourse, which manifests itself in specific speech acts [Арутюнова 1981]. That is why mankind has a special system of rituals and formulas, which allow us to maintain a friendly tone of verbal communication.
Speech etiquette is associated with the notion of etiquette, which is defined as a set of rules of conduct related to attitudes towards people (manners, forms of address and greetings, behavior in public places, and even manner of dressing).
Etiquette, which regulates the behavior of people in standard situations, is an important part of culture. Non-observance of etiquette of communication leads to misunderstanding and culture shock.
Etiquette rules are related to traditions, customs of people, so comparing them can be very useful for the study of national characteristics of communication. By repeating the typical situations in direct communication, speech etiquette exists in the form of a stereotypical, clichéd phrases, stable communication units. Also, speech etiquette is understood as a "micro nationally specific stable formulas of communication adopted and prescribed by the society to establish contact between interlocutors and maintain communication" [Формановская 1989:47].
Speech etiquette is an important component of national culture. It represents the background knowledge of the people speaking the language, and therefore acquiring the knowledge of the system of national peculiarities of speech etiquette is necessary for normal communication of individuals belonging to different cultures.
From the theoretical point of view the concept of politeness was developed in the modern pragmatics within the frameworks of the theory of speech communication. One of the principles is the principle of politeness the influence of which often plays the basic role when producing an utterance. Politeness can be defined as the principle of the social influence where the respect towards the partner is in the basis. This general principle is expressed in all kinds of human correlation – verbal and non verbal.
The principle of politeness, which regulates the relationship between a person and the society, refers to the area of etiquette behavior. Etiquette is defined as “the socially determined norms of behavior in the society. Any member of the society is ascribed certain modus of behavior according to the social characteristic. Speech etiquette regulates the speech behavior of members of society. In the process of communication they can be either a listener or a speaker in different social situations of the intercourse. The rules of speech etiquette vary in the sphere of intercourse, a situation of intercourse and they depend on such extralinguistic factors, as role and personal relations of communicants. The degree of determinacy of speech behavior of a speaker depends on the degree of standardization of this or that speech act, this or that situation of the intercourse.
It is possible to single out two types of situations. The first type includes situations, in which the speech behavior of a speaker is ritualized. It means that such situations have certain set of forms. And the speaker uses them automatically. Etiquette (ritualized) speech situations are the speech acts, which express the reaction towards the behavior of other people: the expression of gratitude, condolence, congratulation, wish, declaration of war etc. The second type includes such speech situations in which a speaker has a set of variants in order to express his communicative intention. The choice of the form is determined by the factors of extralinguistic character. The choice of the form is determined by extralinguistic factors, such as the status, position, age of communicants, conditions of the intercourse, the degree of the social and psychological distance etc. The choice of the adequate form in the situations, which are described by the presence of variants of expression, is closely connected with the concept of norm. On the one hand, the norm is defined as “the steady realization of the linguistic system, which is understood by the society as correct, obligatory”. On the other hand, they are understood as “a set of rules”, which determine the strategy of the choice of one of the variants depending on parameters of the social situation. The concept of norm serves as the central concept when describing the speech behavior and the starting point when giving definition to the concept of politeness.
To follow the principle of politeness means, that a person must take into consideration the interests of other people, take into account their opinion, desires, feelings and facilitate the tasks assigned on them. In the long run, to keep the aim of the principle of politeness means to achieve the efficiency of the social correlation by “keeping the social balance and familiarity”. In the pragmatical theory of speech communication, politeness is considered as the universal principle, which plays a more important role in the practice of speech correlation than the principle of cooperation [Беляева 1992:41].
The social behaviour is regulated by rules. And speech activity is not an exception. Though the norms of speech behaviour are included into the educational system, they refer to the sphere of agreements between the obliged members of the society from the point of view of communication. The task of the pragmatics is to find and formulate them. Grice worked out more developed and systemic experience of the formulation of rules of communication and it is called “principle of cooperation”. There is a requirement to make contribution into speech according to the aim of the intercourse. Grice developed the mechanisms of speech implication.
The information transmitted in the speech act is divided into two parts. What is being told, what has been told, represents itself in the logic content of the utterance. For all the other part of the information, which can be taken by the listener from the concrete utterance, Grice introduced the term “implicature”. The implicatures are divided into two types – conventional and non-conventional, in particular “conventional implicatures”. Conventional implicatures include all those aspects of information not connected with the condition of truth, which are transferred by the utterance only by virtue of the meaning of words or forms. Conversational implicatures are connected with the linguistic meaning of the utterance only by indirect method. They are deduced from the meaning of the sentence, but they exist because the participants of the speech act are connected by one aim of communicative cooperation.
Communicative postulates or “conventional maxims” follow from the general principle of cooperation [Грайс 1975:45]: the postulate of quantity, the postulate of quality, the postulate of relevance, the postulate of the way of expression.
The given postulates allow the speaker to embody his communicative intention, not resorting to the verbal expression of what can be deduced by the listener by means of these postulates from direct sense of the utterance. They serve to explain, how “the meaning of a speaker” can include more than the literal meaning of the sentence.
The principle of politeness, which regulates the relationship between “I” and “others”, is also of great importance. The following maxims belong to this principle:
1) maxim of tact (mind the interests of other people);
2) maxim of generosity (do not trouble other people);
3) maxim of approval (praise other people);
4) maxim of modesty (do not accept praise);
5) maxim of agreement (avoid objections);
6) maxim of sympathy (express favor).
The expressiveness of the speech may be the result of breaking the rules of communication. It can formulate different stylistic devices, such as repetition, irony, hyperbole, litotes, etc. Deviation from the rules can lead to the degradation of the speech and its sublimation.
The society is a complex inconsistent social system. It functions as one unit because it establishes the certain frameworks of behavior of individuals. Thus, the society works out the standardized norms and rules of social behavior, or etiquette, and it regulates the behavior of individuals according to the social requirements. The society works out ritual forms of behavior when establishing and keeping in contact with the communicants and demands from native speakers that they should keep the rules. From the early childhood people are accustomed to the etiquette, to the formulas of greeting, farewell, gratitude, etc. and negatively react to non-observance of infringement of such rules on the part of the communicant.
Native speakers are united into community, that uses the wide set of common and stylistically limited expressions of speech etiquette. The use of formulas of speech etiquette creates a favorable microclimate of communication, raises a person’s spirits in the community. Thus, the interaction and the interference “society - etiquette” is of great importance.