I feel that all of the examples in the article challenge Politeness Theory. In each incident, there is one person who is just acting as they please. There is little regard for how one’s behavior might affect the outcome of the situation. The two examples that come to mind are #4 – the man complains about the airline, so the pilot says he cannot fly – and #3 – the man reacted to what he thought was going to inconvenience him when really he was being asked if he wanted an upgrade.
I reread the three assumptions from our book for PT before writing this:
#1: PT assumes that all individuals are concerned with maintaining face
#2: PT assumes that human beings are rational and goal oriented, at least with respect to achieving face needs
#3: PT maintains that some behaviors are fundamentally face threatening
While the examples above stood out to me the most, I really feel all of them go against these assumptions.
I was with a friend today who is a flight attendant for Frontier and showed her this article. She said, unfortunately, nothing in there surprised her. She said that people seem to think over 30,000 ft they can get away with anything – both the employees and the passengers!
Amalea,
ReplyDeleteDo you see examples of negative face and face-threatening acts in this article, though? Remember that face is not just about being polite. Although the assumptions are there, the theory also accounts for impolite acts people commit all the time (FTAs, suprastrategies, etc.). So it may be a bit of an oversimplification to simply say this article challenges the theory. But nice work thinking about the assumptions and how they are (or are not, rather) illustrated in this article.
Hello Amalea -
ReplyDeleteYour examples compared to the assumptions showed how the employees were exhibiting negative face. I believe that each employee had a negative goal of that would ultimately fulfil them personally. Some of the articles showed negative face better than others. Do you still think that the examples go against the theory?
Tanya - thanks for the question. I talked with Allison on Monday after class to help clarify this. I was missing the idea that some people are choosing to show a negative face and that is the face they are trying to save. I was confusing it all with just being polite or impolite.
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