APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Applied Linguistics

Applied Linguistics

1. Introduction

Current research based on politeness theory has critically re-examined previous accounts ofpoliteness phenomena and offers an alternative for investigating politeness in interaction (Bravoand Briz, 2004; Eelen, 2001; Locher, 2004; Locher and Watts, 2005; Ma´rquez Reiter andPlacencia, 2005:chap. 4; Mills, 2003; Watts, 2003; Wierzbicka, 2003). During the course ofsocial interaction, interlocutors engage in a negotiation of face relationships (Scollon andScollon, 2001) and employ strategies to express a series of communicative acts in conversationsuch as requesting, complaining, or refusing. Politeness is a form of social interaction that is conditioned by the sociocultural norms of a particular society; it can be expressed throughcommunicative and non-communicative acts. The present study investigates the linguisticstrategies employed by male native speakers of Mexican Spanish to maintain the equilibrium ofinterpersonal relationships in the course of denial interactions in formal and informal situations.According to Watts (2003), linguistic politeness may be recognized by means of both formulaicand semi-formulaic utterances.1 Formulaic utterances are linguistic signs that are utilised inritualized types of verbal interaction and comprise types of address, signs routinely usedin exact speech acts such as thanking, apologizing, or refusing, and ritualized expressions ofleave-taking. On the other hand, semi-formulaic signs are conventionalized types that''carry out indirect talk actions befitting to the politic behavior of a communal position' (Watts,2003:169) and may encompass linguistic forms that internally change a speech proceed to make softer theillocutionary force of a declaration (e.g., I don't believe, maybe, probably), solidarity markers thatsupport mutual information of the participants (e.g., you know), and sentential structurescontaining exact modal verbs (e.g., May I ask you to open the door?). It should be documented thatalthough no linguistic expressions are inherently gracious or imgracious, some signs may beopen to a gracious or impolite understanding in a granted context.Empirical work on linguistic politeness has concentrated on various aspects of pragmatics indifferent varieties of the Spanish-speaking world. Bravo (2003), Bravo and Briz (2004), andPlacencia and Bravo (2002) provide collections of studies that analyze theoretical and empiricalissues related to the realization of linguistic politeness, including an investigation of diverse speechacts in distinct diversity of Spanish from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico,Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Other investigations have analyzed linguistic politeness and the notionof politeness in diverse varieties of Spanish and with distinct speech acts: praises inPeninsular Spanish (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001); directive talk actions in Colombian and PeninsularSpanish (Delgado, 1995); face-work and face-threatening actions in Cuban (Ruz?ic?kova´, 1998),Ecuadorian (Placencia, 1996), and Peninsular (Herna´ndez-Flores, 1999) Spanish; invitations andrefusals to invitations in Peruvian, Venezuelan, and other Latin American varieties of Spanish(Fe´lix-Brasdefer, 2003a; Garci´a, 1992, 1999); insights of politeness in Mexican andPeninsular Spanish (Curco´, 1998; Curco´ and De Fina, 2002); denials in Puerto Rican Spanish(Ramos, 1991); demands in Uruguayan and Peninsular (Ma´rquez Reiter, 2002), Ecuadorian andPeninsular (Placencia, 1998), and Mexican (Fe´lix-Brasdefer, 2005) Spanish; demands andapologies in Argentinean and Uruguayan Spanish (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Ma´rquez Reiter,2000); reprimanding and responding to a reprimand in Peruvian and Venezuelan Spanish (Garci´a,2004); requests and reprimands in Peruvian Spanish (. Garci´a, 1993, 1996); and suggestionsand requests in Mexican Spanish (Koike, 1994), among ...