Towards A Model Of Competence For Linguistic Politeness

The communication in modern society has made us more and more aware of the importance of the polite use of our language. The ability of speaking polite language not only helps us achieve our communicative goal but also helps us establish a positive and friendly image for ourselves. Despite the apparent advantage of speaking politely for anyone in society, the issue as for how to develop this special aspect of pragmatic competence has not been given much consideration so far. This paper is intended to propose a comprehensive model of competence for linguistic politeness that may give some insights into the teaching of pragmatic competence in EFL. The first section of this article reviews two classic theories, the Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987) and the Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983), which are regarded as the theoretical basis of the discussion. The functions of linguistic politeness in interpersonal communication are dealt with in the second section. The third section discusses the model of competence for linguistic politeness in depth. This aspect of competence is grounded in the communicative competence and its components are analyzed from linguistic, social, and cultural perspectives. The last part attempts to discuss some implication to the EFL teaching of linguistic politeness.