Politeness in Shakespeare: Applying Brown and Levinson´s politeness theory to Shakespeare’s comedies
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Abdelaziz Bouchara
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Politeness in Shakespeare: Applying Brown and Levinson´s politeness theory to Shakespeare’s comedies
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Diplomica Verlag GmbH
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9783836627535
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1
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CHF 38.90
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Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
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English
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120
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kein Kopierschutz/DRM
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PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
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PDF
Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English in Much Ado about Nothing, Measure for Measure, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night. The comedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period, (2) the psychological soliloquies in the comedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory, and (3) the comedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory.
The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness), interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the comedies are illustrated.
Kapitel 4.1.2.1 Strongly contradictory contrasts
In Much Ado about Nothing Hero, the daughter of the Governor of Messina, addresses her maid, Margaret, with a courteous speech. The deferential indirect request pray thee scores +1 for negative politeness, and the diminutive Meg adorned with the positive politeness hedge good adds two points for positive politeness, making a total score of +3. Margaret, in her response and in the whole scene „is nervous and rapid and full of elision [...] she was dressed in Hero´s clothes and entertaining Borachio“, thus unwittingly assisting the plot to discredit Hero before her wedding. Her nervousness and embarrassment may, therefore, account for her impoliteness to Hero. Her disagreement with Hero is a threat to Hero´s positive face because her choice of clothes is considered to be wrong and thus disapproved. Hero stands higher than her servant, and so far as power considerations go, should feel no compulsion to be polite. What happens in is quite the opposite. Hero is being polite, cf. dyad, in which Margaret´s speech causes Hero to be suddenly impolite to her.
In Measure for Measure Isabella´s speech in is a challenge to Angelo and thus a threat to his positive face since she thinks he is unreasonable in his verdict to execute her brother, Cla
Politeness in Shakespeare
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Table of Contents
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Abbreviations
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1 Introduction
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2 The Brown and Levinson model: some central concepts
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2.1 Face
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2.1.1 Face-work
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2.1.2 Positive and negative face
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2.1.3 Face-threatening acts
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2.2 Strategies for carrying face-threatening acts
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2.2.1 Bald on-record
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2.2.2 Positive and negative politeness
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2.2.3 Off-record
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2.3 The social context: power, distance, and ranked extremity
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2.4 Summary
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3 Politeness theory and literary discourse
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3.1 The Brown/Gilman version of the Brown/Levinson model
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3.2 Politeness theory and Shakespeare´s dramas
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3.2.1 The Scoring of deference
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3.2.2 Unscored face-threatening acts
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3. 2. 3 Applying the model to Shakespeare´s four major tragedies
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4 Applying the model to four Shakespearean comedies
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4.1 Power
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4.1.1 Contrasts confirming the theory
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4. 1. 2 Contrasts contradicting the theory
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4. 2 Extremity
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4. 3 Distance
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4. 3. 1 Some consequences of the relationship affect variable
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4. 3. 2 Contrasts of distance as affect
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5 Conclusion
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6. References
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7 Appendix
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Abdelaziz Bouchara
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