POLITENESS: CHARACTER-TO-CHARACTER LEVEL
Polite interactions
Dialogue containing inherently polite
interactions is not particularly easy to find, perhaps because it is not very
interesting: ‘Wouldn’t you like some more broth?’ the woman asked him now. ‘No,
thank you very much. It is awfully good.’ (Hemingway, ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’,
1939/1964: 458) Quite often such dialogue is relegated to a combination of NRSA
or FIS with perhaps one fragment of DD. In this example, we note that an offer
(inherently polite) is made; the refusal is softened by praise, because it
potentially affronts the positive face of the speaker.
Quarrels
The same characters involved in the last dialogue
are not always so polite to each other. As they are (apparently) married, one
can argue that impolite dialogue is not only naturalistic, but promotes or
maintains intimacy.
‘. . . You can’t die if you don’t give up.’
‘Where did you read that? You’re such a bloody
fool.’
(Hemingway, ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’,
1939/1964: 444)
Both participants are bald on record, and the
second is clearly an affront to the positive face of the addressee. It is
unlikely to be used except where the interactants are intimates, or there is a
strongly asymmetrical relationship. Another interesting example of an argument
(also in a domestic context) involves