A Critique of Politeness Theory: Volume 1: v. 1 (Encounters (Manchester, England).) by Gino Eelen

Author:Gino Eelen [Eelen, Gino]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317641360
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

4.2.3 Norm-ality

Sharedness introduces another way in which norms manifest themselves in the theoretical models: through the notion of ‘normality’ and the ‘normal’. As the politeness system is “ingrained in the mind, learned effortlessly in infancy” (Lakoff 1990:24) and shared by all members of a society or culture, any normal human being can be supposed to have internalized it. Indeed, Arndt & Janney’s cultural assumptions are notions of reality “[a]ll people in a culture who wish to be regarded as normal” (Arndt & Janney 1992:30) must acquire. Not doing so results in “social exclusion, being labeled abnormal, retarded, defective, or deviant” (ibid.:30). Thus, “[j]uvenile, mad, incapacitated persons” are excluded from Brown & Levinson’s model – albeit only “partially” and in a footnote (Brown & Levinson 1987:285, footnote 7). But as these form only a marginal minority, Lakoff’s politeness rules can safely be claimed to describe “normal behavior” within a particular society (Lakoff 1979:69).

As there are certain characteristics an individual must display in order to qualify as a ‘normal’ person, the notion of ‘normality’ clearly involves a standard or norm against which behaviour can be evaluated. Besides this moral evaluative aspect (with deviation being cast in pathological terms and involving some kind of exclusion from the group), normality also has a quantitative aspect. The characteristics that define normality are not random, but depend on the (perceived) typical characteristics of members of a particular group – i.e. of the majority. The moral evaluative side thus has a numerical corollary: it is the kind of behaviour “most of us” “ordinarily” exhibit (Lakoff 1977:89; Fraser & Nolen 1981:94). Within a framework based on sharedness, this majority can theoretically even be expected to comprise 100% of the population, with as only exceptions ‘pathological’ cases (Brown & Levinson’s “mad” and “incapacitated”) or people who are not yet “mature” (Brown & Levinson’s “juvenile”).

As a result, sharedness and normality provide the link back to hearer expectations. If the ‘norm-al’ behaviour for the majority of people in situation S is to display behaviour B, then obviously hearers can expect any speaker to perform accordingly. Sharedness ensures that the speaker is able to predict the hearer’s expectations and perform appropriately. And because expected events are unsurprising and very often go by us unnoticed, politeness is associated with the ‘unmarked’ in a number of theories. This is explicitly the case in Fraser & Nolen, Blum-Kulka, Ide’s Discernment and Watts’ politic behaviour, but on an implicit level the association could be made for most of the other theories as well.

Finally, the combination of appropriateness, sharedness, expectations and normality with the conceptual bias towards polite behaviour results in a view where the majority of people are generally polite to each other – politeness is the norm in everyday interaction. Again, this conclusion is explicitly drawn by only a few researchers (Arndt & Janney, Fraser & Nolen, and arguably Brown & Levinson, see above, section 4.1), but it will be clear that it is slumbering beneath the surface of all of the theories, as it would be a natural and logical conclusion from their conceptual underpinnings.

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