GENDER AND POLITENESS IN AN ESL LANGUAGE ACADEMIC CONTEXT Research Paper - 1

GENDER AND POLITENESS IN AN ESL LANGUAGE ACADEMIC CONTEXT - Research Paper Example There are several ways in which members of a particular gender express themselves politely. Globally, there are various ways of expressing oneself be it with his/her peers or the elderly, or the use jargon depending on the context, the consideration of all these elements boils down to the varied linguistic expressions of politeness by both males and females Linguistics is the study of language. Language is the total whole of meanings and sound. It is the mode of communication between genders and thus for there to be a sense of politeness in an academic context, the following must be addressed. The context of a school setting is that of a teacher, student and other non teaching staff and due to the different backgrounds students have, the expression of politeness varies between the male and female students Literature review According to (Wehmeier, 2000) politeness are defined as having respect and good manners in consideration of the feelings of others. The theory of linguistic polite ness by Brown and Levinson holds that the individuals face is interpreted as self image seen publicly. (Grundy, 2008) notes that the faces of human beings are properties comparable to self esteem. (Kitamura, 2000) notes that the face notion is classified into two, that is the positive and the negative. On one hand, the positive face represents the similarities that exist between people interacting and appreciate each other’s self image while on the other hand; the negative face represents the desire to be unrestricted. These theorists argue that interact ants mutually aim to maintain each other’s face. (Holmes, 2006) notes that ideally, one can never know what people are feeling or thinking in a conversation, thus try to construe what is conveyed to them through communication For the sake of harmony in a given society, politeness strategy is essential and thus employed in conversations. This is so as (Bowe & Martin, 2007) note that face can be maintained, lost, enhance d and monitored during interactions. According to (Bowe & Martin, 2009) citing Brown and Levinson, the face is threatened by inappropriate behavior or acts. (Holmes, 2006) points out that this situation is assessed through three operational defined factors: the social distance (D) between partners, the ranking of the imposition (R) shared in the word of the appropriate culture and the power (P) of the addressee over the speaker. The seriousness of these acts therefore can be easily measured and assessed. With regard to gender, it argues that women are linguistically more polite than the men. The use of minimal responses like yeah and mhm demonstrates active participation, agreement and therefore used by both sexes. The use of questions for men, normally, it is genuine while for women it’s more of a rhetoric question and therefore use it more for conversation’s sake, with regard to writing, both use it as a literacy tool. In conversation, meaning is determined by the pe rson listening depending on his/her concerns, focus and habits rather than the will intended for. Women seem to attach more weight to the significance of listening rather than men. The use of verbal aggressiveness is used more so by women and physical aggression is used more by men. The issue of self