Politeness Strategies Used by The Interviewer of BBC World’s  “Hard Talk” Programme

Khaldoon Khattab, Maysoon; Lecturer, Assistant

	Politeness Strategies Used by The Interviewer of BBC World’s “Hard Talk” Programme
Journal of The Iraqi University
Article 1, Volume 2, Issue 34, 2016, Pages 657-682
Authors
Maysoon Khaldoon Khattab; Assistant Lecturer
Abstract
This research has been motivated by a general concern for the study of the politeness strategies in political interviews which are among the most common programmes broadcast by TV channels. Also this study has been inspired by the work of Brown and Levinson, exploring mainly their distinction between 'positive' and 'negative' politeness. According to their theory of politeness, face can be distinguished into two components: positive face and negative face. Positive face occurs when the individual desires to be liked, approved of, respected and appreciated by others, whereas negative face is the individual's desire not to be impeded or put upon and to have the freedom to behave as one chooses (Brown and Levinson, 1978). Lakoff (1975: 64) suggests that "politeness is developed by societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction". Similarly, Leech (1980: 19) defines "tact" as "strategic conflict avoidance", adding that it "can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation". For Holmes, linguistic politeness means " recognizing the autonomy of others and avoiding intrusion (negative politeness), as well as emphasizing connectedness and appreciation (positive politeness) (1995:24). Goffman (1967) refers to face in his attempt to define politeness as "the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself". "Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes" (Ibid. : 5), i.e. a person’s feeling of self-worth and self-image (Thomas,1995:169). In a later work, Brown and Levinson (1978) have used Goffman’s concept of face to explain politeness. Despite the great significance of 'politeness', it is only in recent years that this concept has become a major issue in linguistics. This is evidence in the vast range of publications which followed Brown and Levinson's (1978) original extended essay on politeness phenomena, including both confirming and disconfirming findings for their theory.

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