CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Literature
review provides readers grasps of the past research done pertaining to the area
of the research and to identify remaining gaps in the respective area of
research. In this chapter, the researcher will briefly discuss on the theories,
past studies, and related conceptual frameworks within the past studies’ review,
and also a few models which can be used and are related to the area of (im)politeness
the researcher is proposing for this study.
2.2 THEORIES
2.2.1 THEORY OF POLITENESS
Theory
of politeness has been first developed by these pioneers: Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) which has
significantly been the basis of the new area of sociolinguistics at that time.
It is later on developed and extended by other researchers to ‘fill’ in the
other aspects unveiled in the earlier version of this theory. Dalton (2013:
p.3) claims that this theory is a “robust system that attempts to categorize
and predict speech acts and responses typified by Western (primarily
English-speaking) societies’ dyads”. He has further discussed that this theory
was initially developed to analyze the linguistics universality which is the cross-cultural and cross-linguistics
communication corpuses which comprised of and related to a few aspects: “social
hierarchy, social distances, and relative forms of imposition have upon the
linguistic devices speakers make use of” in relation with the ‘face’ notion of
maintenance. In this theory, there are two distinctive types of face which are
introduced by these respective pioneers, Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987). The
types are:
- Negative
Face: the want of every competent
adult member that his/her actions be unimpeded by others.
- Positive
Face: the want of every member that
his/her wants be desirable to at least some others.
(Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987 in Dalton 2013: p.
4)
Of
a few essences in the theory of politeness, intention is one of the most vital
indicators which contribute to the politeness occurrences in context.
2.2.2 THEORY OF IMPOLITENESS
This
theory of impoliteness is derived (adapted and adopted) from the theory of
politeness, championed by Culpeper (1996) and other scholars such as Mills
(2003). It is of crucial to expand the basis of the first theory developed by
Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) which is the theory of politeness, so that the
elements analyzed in the impoliteness studies do adhere and counterbalance to
the original theory of politeness. Bousefield (2008 in Dalton, 2013) acknowledges
that impoliteness “is very much the parasite of politeness” (2008, p. 43). There
are 5 points which are reflecting on the politeness theory especially in the
use of ‘face’ concept, but are more extended in impoliteness area by Culpeper which
are:
1.
Bald on Record Impoliteness: A specific and outright attack or intent to cause
face damage toward the hearer.
2.
Positive Impoliteness: The use of FTAs to attack or cause damage to the
hearer’s positive face wants or desires to be accepted.
3.
Negative Impoliteness: The use of FTA’s to attack or damage the hearer’s
negative wants value.
4.
Off Record Impoliteness: These
impoliteness FTA’s are “conveyed indirectly” and are able to be cancelled
should the need arise
5.
Withhold Politeness: The deliberate refusal (or silent refusal) to employ a
politeness strategy when context or the hearer typically would expect such.
(Bousfield 2008, p. 92-93 in Dalton, 2013)
According
to Dalton (2013) who favours Bousfield’s works on impoliteness, his take on the
impoliteness theory, after his thorough analysis on Culpeper’s work, is that, Bousfield’s
system of impoliteness is well-detailed, and is more succinct than Culpeper’s
model. He is able to address some minor redundancies found in Culpeper’s
treatment of face and FTAs. He further added that, Bousfield’s reinterpretation
of Culpeper’s work has the benefit of “being successfully applied to extended
conflictive discourses” (Dalton, 2013: p. 16).
Significant point about the theory
of impoliteness is the intention of the speaker (or author) to ‘offend’
(threaten/damage face) must be understood by those in the receiver role (p. 17).
A series of four impoliteness distinctions that further elaborate upon speaker
intentionality and hearer interpretation have been established are:
1.
If the Speaker (or someone in the producer role) intends face-damage and the
Hearer (or someone in a receiver role) perceives the Speaker’s (Producer’s)
intention to damage face… then impoliteness is successfully conveyed.
2.
If the Speaker/Producer intends face damage but the Hearer/Receiver fails to
perceive the speaker’s intent/any face-damage, then the attempt at impoliteness
fails.
3.
If the Speaker/Producer does not intent face-damage but the Hearer/Receiver
fails to perceive the speaker’s intent/Producer’s utterance as being
intentionally face- damaging then this could be Accidental face-damage, which
could be caused by one or more of the following: Rudeness; Insensitivity;
Hypersensitivity; a clash of expectations; a cultural misunderstanding;
misidentification of the Community of Practice or the Activity Type in which
they are engaged; some combination of these, or some other hitherto
unidentified means of inadvertently causing offense or of perceiving offense
when none was intended.
4.
If the Speaker/Producer does not intend face-damage but the Hearer/Receiver
constructs the Speaker’s/Producer’s utterance as being unintentionally face
damaging then this could be one of the following: Incidental or Accidental
face-damage… which could be caused by one, or more of the following: Rudeness;
Insensitivity; Hypersensitivity; a clash of expectations; a cultural
misunderstanding; misidentification of the Community of Practice or Activity
Type in which they are engaged; some combination of these, or some hitherto
unidentified means of inadvertently causing offense or of perceiving offense
when none was intended (p.72- 73.
(Dalton, 2013: p. 16-17)
Significant
points on impoliteness theory which have been critically discussed by the
scholars such as Culpeper and Dalton (2013) can be used in this study to
analyze the data later.
2.3 DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
2.3.1 PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE
Persuasive language is being used in many aspects
nowadays. It is usually used in the advertisements where there are products
promoted, its functions, the strengths and the images used are manipulated and
exposed the best as they can. This persuasive language is also used in the text
will gives impacts to the attitude or behaviour of someone when they see,
listen or read it. Better yet of it, it gives positive impacts to the audience.
The audience will think about what they have heard, seen or even read, in this
context.
The
audience will think what they have read, seen, or listened and consider what
action they should take, either do something about it or just ignore it. From
here, it can be seen the language used is effective or not effective at all to the
audience. This thus can be shown by this discussion,
First, people may
consider affect when they are unable or unwilling to process more complex
information, such as the arguments contained in the persuasive message. In
addition, people with low motivation and ability may fail to determine that
their extraneous affective reactions are irrelevant to the judgment they are
about to make, and, consequently, affect may have an influence.
(Petty & Wegener, 1999 Albarracı´n &
Kumkale, 2002 )
This
discussion brings to the ultimate action taken when of the audience are given a
space for them to think and decide and have enough motivation to take an action
about the message that is being delivered to the audience. Thus, the persuasive
language plays crucial roles in order for it to successfully apply in the text
itself.
In this article, it is mentioned by
the researchers that the readers, in this context, favor to a strong argument
or statement shown in the text than the weaker argument because it has an
“extraneous affect” that influencing on behaviour of one. Percentages are shown
as such: 73% vs. 54%” (Albarracı´n & Kumkale, 2002).
On this discussion for this paper,
entitled “Language used in Health Awareness Campaigns”, the persuasive language
is strongly recommended as the best way to be used as to give the impacts
towards the self of audience and to achieve the expected goals or purported
aims. In terms of language bias, the persuasive language used is not bias on
any particular party or what. It can be used to analyzed the language used in
the text or media, and can be related to the target audience in that particular
readers of that particular text or media. It is purported to deliver the
important message and information to the audience to create awareness that
there are such diseases in the time.
One
of the focuses of this paper is to show that persuasive language used is
divided into two arguments, the strong and weaker. The strong version is
usually can give impacts towards the audience. It is shown that it has this
“extraneous affect” that influencing on behaviour of one.
2.3.2 MEDIA DISCOURSE
As far as media study is concerned, it has different
notions in order for it to work. Media plays vital roles in spreading-off the
information to the readers as well as to deliver important messages, to promote
product as well as to entertain to the audience or readers. For instance,
advertisements via Internet, radio stations, and television are effectively and
widely used in this era. However, all these are in a different discourse than
the printed or written discourse. They may fall into a spoken discourse.
Magazines, for instance, is one of a media discourse but it is in a written
discourse. What is media discourse?
According
to Joshi (2000) pertaining to the media discourse, the
discourses of Mass media are even more difficult to be analyzed. He added that
in the media discourse, there are many dogmas. The ideologies than had been
simplified as such,
The
first of them is the paradigm of Left, Right and Center. The other is that of
status quo and anti status quo, male chauvinistic and feminist. ..
Interestingly, these paradigms are also not that straight as they appear. There
will be numerous discourses within each of these categories…
(Joshi, 2000 in http://www.suite101.com)
In media
discourse, American scholars have discussed much about Right, Left and Center
paradigm. They discussed about it to explain to the generation of media
discourse, “which is claimed to be objective and neutral”. This shows that anything that the matter to
be published in the media is either propagated or just neutral with no bias.
Cohen in Joshi (2000) his paper Propaganda from the Middle of the
Road: The Centrist Ideology of the News Media states that,
There is a notion -- widely believed in the mainstream media -- that
while there is propaganda of the left and propaganda of the right, there is no
such thing as propaganda of the center. In this view, the center doesn't
produce propaganda, it produces straight news.
(Cohen in Joshi, 2000 in http://www.suite101.com)
Again,
this shows that anything that to be published in the media should be either
propagated or just neutral with no bias.
In
media discourse as well, the journalists claimed that they can accept the
ideology of conservatism or ‘rightism’. These ideologies are carried with it
“certain values and opinions, beliefs about the past, goals for the future.
They can accept that leftism carries with it values, opinions, beliefs” (Joshi,
2000 in http://www.suite101.com).
There
are a lot of activities done with mass media. Media has such a power to give
impact to either the hearers, or readers. In short, they are the audience.
There are four identifiable and recognizable reasons for the use of mass media for
language and communication. According to Bell (1995) in Bell & Garrett (1998), the four factors are
Firstly, media are a rich source and readily
accessible data for research and teaching. Secondly, media usage influences and
represents people’s use of and attitudes towards language in a speech
community. Thirdly, (and related) media use can tell us a great deal about
social meanings and stereotypes projected through language and communication…
Fourthly, the media reflect and influence the formation and expression of
culture, politics and social life.
(Bell
(1995) in Bell & Garrett (1998)
This is why the media is widely being used nowadays
since it has its power to influence the people’s attitude, beliefs, thought and
so on. These reasons can be used later in Part Four when the researcher wants
to explain her data.
2.4 PAST
STUDIES
2.4.1 A Tentative Study on Impoliteness Phenomenon in Computer-mediated Communication by Shuang L., 2010
The
qualitative study intends to analyze the applicability of the politeness
principles based on Face to Face (FTF) communication into Computer-mediated
Communication (CMC). Shuang (2010) has used Politeness theory, proposed by
Leech (1983) to justify her findings. She has transcribed her data for the
analysis purpose.
This
study discovers that traditional politeness principles and maxims based on FTF
are “often violated and readapted in synchronous on-line chat”. In addition,
through this study too, she has found out that despite of the mentioned finding
on FTF, the violation and adaptation are found to fulfill different social and
interpersonal functions in CMC. These include fostering solidarity between the
participants, venting one’s emotions, improving the efficiency of
communication. In the researcher’s point of view, in terms of clarity, it is
best suggested if Shang (2010) could elaborate more on some of the concepts
which appear unfamiliar to the readers such as “synchronous on-line chat”.
In
sum, the finding of this study shows that (im)politeness employed in CMC
reflects on the social identity of the virtual community and is used to express
emotion and assist in effectiveness of communication among the members of
discourse.
2.4.2 Linguistics Impoliteness: A Small Corpus Analysis by the Use of Impolite Language among Children by Murni S. M.,
& Solin, M. (2012)
This
study aims to analyze the linguistics impoliteness among Indonesian children.
This study is a qualitative design in nature where it analyzes and describes
the findings thoroughly. In order to analyze the data, the researchers have
transcribed the conversation.
This
study has taken the Violation of the Qur’anic
Principles of Politeness as the guideline for their data analysis. The
concept ‘impoliteness’ defined by Bousfield (2008) as “behaviour that is face
aggravating in a particular context” (p.1) is taken by the researchers to clarify
their take on the impoliteness concept since there are other definitions given
by other scholars on this term. According to Bousfield (2008), the
‘impoliteness’ concept is understood as an action which will negatively affect
on its’ interlocutor’s or hearer’s face. They have also outlined the three
categories of impoliteness which are affective, coercive an entertaining
impoliteness which the researcher has briefly discussed in the previous
chapter. In this research they have used the Violation of the Qur’anic Principles of Politeness as the
guideline for their data analysis. They have emphasized and categorized their
findings into three Arabic concepts: Qaulan
Ma’rafa (speaking nicely), Qaulan
Karima (speaking
honourably) and Qaulan Layyina
(speaking softly). They have also related moods and the lexicons as part of the
concepts used to analyze their data. Lexicons are divided into three
categories: animal (the meaning), physical appearance (metaphore) and behaviour
assessment (bad term). They concluded that the categories identified that in
the small corpus of children, the language impoliteness are affective and coercive.
In
conclusion, this study which focuses on speech, is a good study where it has
brought a new insights on looking at the concept of ‘impoliteness’ and it has
enlightened the concept of ‘impoliteness’ from the religion guideline (Islam
perspective) to analyze their data instead of only depending on the established
theories in (im)politeness area as other studies did.
2.4.3 Linguistic Impoliteness and Social
Disruption in Literary Discourse by Abbas N. F., (2012)
This
study is qualitative study in nature.
Abbas (2012) has taken Montgomery’s (2003) novel entitled Anne of Green Gables as the study
context. This study basically aims at probing the model of 'impoliteness', as
first proposed by Culpeper (1996) and as revised and developed later by
Culpeper et al (2003) and Culpeper (2005) which focuses on the impoliteness and
social disruption aspects in the novel chosen by Abbas (2012). It contended on
how the impoliteness perceived and responded in relation to the face
threatening aspects in the chosen literary text. Concepts such as 'face' and
'sociality rights' are used in this study to further scrutinize and explain on
some character traits since impoliteness is an essential part of the
communicative process to promote and maintain social harmony. This study is in
short one of the examples of studies completed in ‘impoliteness’ area where
text (novel) is taken as its discourse.
2.4.4 Impoliteness in Computer Mediated Communication by Dalton E. J.,
(2013)
Being
aware of the aggressiveness and antagonistic posts in the virtual words,
specifically Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), this problem has driven
Dalton (2013) to analyze the disrespectful of speech acts happening in the
social interaction, namely communication.
By
using the theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), theory of (im)politeness
(Bousfield, 2008; Culpeper, 1996; Culpeper, 2005; Lachenicht, 1980), understanding the basic politeness, the
concepts of veil, flaming (w4x0r: 2003; Meri: 2005, Tony,
2003; and Anataka: 2007 in Dalton, p. 19: 2013), and trolling in virtual
(Entity, 2002; Exitium, 2003; Makur,
2004; Pachmoedius, 2009; and Hardaker, 2010 in Dalton, 2013), Dalton (2013) is
able to analyze and justify his data. He also studies on the concept of virtual
community as to understand the pragmatics (im)politeness in his research. He
has also discussed in depth on the discourse concept since this study is
clearly related to another area of linguistics which is the discourse of
virtual community. Communication discourse has changed from face to face to
CMC. He has chosen MSN forum comments posts as his data by using Halo 3 and
video recordings as the mean to collect his data.
‘Flaming’
and ‘trolling’ have been found out to be the significant forms of
(im)politeness in his study. In his work, Dalton (2013) has defined the ‘flaming’
concept as conflictive expression of antagonistic behaviour, while the
‘trolling’ concept has been termed as skulking for an online community who is
looking for trouble. The major similarity of this study with Shuang (2010)
study, idiosyncratic patterns of speech have been also significantly identified
as a marker for the solidarity and communicative identity of the CMC community.
The
concepts identified in this study are proportionate with the current issues in
language and technology pertaining with impoliteness. Readers and CMC community
discourse should be updated with the dynamic concepts in CMC as well.
2.5 Proposed Models for An Investigation of (Im)politeness:
13th Malaysia General
Election Issues on SNS Pages among Non-Political Observers
Most
studies have used theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) and
also (im)politeness theory by Culpeper (1996). In this study, instead of using
these two well-established
theories, the researcher would also like to adapt the possible adapted and
adopted models used in the past studies.
Figure
1.1.The adapted and adopted model, extended by Brian in Bousfield (2008) as
part of guideline for his analysis.
Figure
1.2 The model proposed by Cashman (2006) which is adopted from Culpeper (2005),
and used by Abbas in analyzing his data in response to enlighten the definition
of impoliteness.
Based
on these proposed models, the researcher will identify the related criteria to
be used as her fundamental guideline for this study.
2.5 Conclusion
In
conclusion, there are actually many studies done on impoliteness area, but in
this chapter of proposal, only a few studies chosen to show the gap for this
study. It can be concluded that impoliteness has been analyzed in the area such
as speech, conversation, internet (chat and MSN), political TV debates by
Kerbat- Orecchioni, C,. in Culpeper (2013). However, still, the researcher
feels that research studying on impoliteness in political discourse in CMC
especially in the one of the latest Social Network Sites (SNS) is still
lacking. To recapitulate, the researcher intends to analyze the (im)politeness towards 13th Malaysia general election issues on SNS
pages in Facebook among non-political observers.
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