Вип. 26 (2011)

Записки з романо-германської філології. – ВИП. 26. – 2011 р.
desire not to be imposed upon, noting that negative face could be impinged upon
by imposing on someone.
In English “job interview” the strategies of positive politeness are oriented
to identifying the means that indicate:
‣ mutual understanding, community of interests with the help of tactics of
consent (That’s what I thought, too; Absolutely, I take … seriously) and the tactics
of implication (As you know; We should remember; we all know people like
that);
‣ relevance of information for the listener (I see that you speak very good
English; I noticed from your job description that it requires a lot of interaction
with the marketing department. So I thought this would be a good stepping stone
to a marketing position);
‣ awareness of private information (I hear you are a diver yourself);
‣ liking, solidarity, mutuality (I think audiences will come to see this action
and adventure thriller; You are right on the money; That’s good; Great); sharing
interests, needs and desires of the interlocutor (I bet – children can be a handful!).
Strategies of negative politeness are expressed with the means that demonstrate
the distance between interlocutors, enable to reduce coercion and justify the
unwillingness to act according to somebody’s rules as well as mitigate refuse,
minimizing moral losses and offences. The most common expressions of negative
politeness include:
‣ questions and utterances with rather high level of politeness (I would like
to ask...; Would you mind telling us what your greatest weakness is? Could you
perhaps just give us some specifics on what you were doing? );
‣ indirect speech turns (for example, the phrase „It’s been very interesting
talking to you, Dr Vila. However, we still have one more person to interview” is
in fact the refusal in employment, but is perceived by the candidate as a polite
excuse that doesn’t hurt his feelings much);
‣ means of hedging and mitigation (With the risk of sounding arrogant, I
don’t think; I was just wondering whether you’re ready to...; I’ve got a short list
of questions if you don’t mind …; Well, may be you have a point; );
‣ means of depersonalization (We could use somebody around here who thinks
like an entrepreneur; We’re looking for someone who’s prepared; If you’re someone
who can take the ball and run with it, you’d be a great addition),
‣ means of generalization, formulated as a rule or maxim (do you think that
the customer is always right? Well, that’s one way of handling it).
The Gricean maxims are based on his cooperative principle, which states,
‘Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it
occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged,’ and is so called because listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively
and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. The principle
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