Politeness strategies in verbal communication of representatives of British and American cultures

She shook her head.

The interaction in this extract begins with the positive politeness. Bill chooses to make a compliment and back it up with a joke to relief Rose's nervousness and make the conversation more comfortable for her ('You look good. Kind of funny, like a kid playing dress-up, but good. Really.') But it is obviously not enough to help Rose calm down and cheer her up. And Rose turns strict again, using bald on-record to make sure Bill understands what she is expecting from him ('Don't hurt me.') This phrase, however, is not offending and Bill makes a promise which helps to bring some relief to Rose's mind.

'Well, those little pegs are for your feet.' He bent over the back of the bike, rummaged, and came up with a helmet. She observed its red-purple color with absolutely no surprise. 'Have a brain-bucket.'

She slipped it on over her head, bent forward, looked solemnly at herself in one of the Harley's side-mirrors, then burst out laughing. 'I look like a football player!'

'Prettiest one on the team, too.' He took her by the shoulders and turned her around. 'It buckles under your chin. Here, let me.' For a moment his face was kissing distance from hers, and she felt light-headed knowing that if he wanted to kiss her, right here on the sunny sidewalk with people going about their leisurely Saturday-morning errands, she would let him. Then he stepped back.

'That strap too tight?'

She shook her head.

'Sure?'

She nodded.

'Say something, then.'

'Iss sap's ot ooo ite,' she said, and burst out laughing at his expression. Then he was laughing with her.

As the interaction continues, we can clearly see that Bill has chosen right strategy to make a relief in the interaction that has been leading to more nervousness. What follows is the interaction within the strategy of positive politeness, backed up with jokes, and with almost no sign nervousness that has been between the interactants before.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

'You look good.'

'Kind of funny, like a kid playing dress-up, but good. Really.' - joke

Bald on-record

'Don't hurt me.'

Extract 9

'Buddy! Hey, buddy! Come back here!'

Norman stopped at once, his hands frozen on the wheels of his chair, blank eyes staring at the Haunted Ship and the giant robot in old-time ship's captain's clothes that stood out in front. 'Ahoy for terror, matey!' the robot ship's captain called over and over again in his mechanical drone of a voice. No, he didn't want to attract the wrong sort of attention . . . and here he was, doing precisely that.

'Hey baldy! You in the wheelchair!'

People turning to look at him. One was a fat black bitch in a red jumper who looked about half as bright as The Base Camp clerk with the harelip. She also looked vaguely familiar, but Norman dismissed that as plain paranoia -- he didn't know anyone in this city. She turned and walked on, clutching a bag the size of a briefcase, but plenty of other people were still looking. Norman's crotch suddenly felt humid with sweat.

'Hey, man, come back here! You gave me too much!'

In the extract above, a case of using bald on-record in a casual situation is depicted. Having noticed that a “handicapped” person paid full price for the ticket to the park without caring to take the change, cashier decides to use bald on-record to draw the attention of the “handicapped” and give him his change. The use of such strategy turns out untactful and draws too much attention.

Strategies used:

Bald on-record

'Buddy! Hey, buddy! Come back here!'

'Hey baldy! You in the wheelchair!'

'Hey, man, come back here! You gave me too much!'

Extract 10

'Cool wheelchair, my friend,' a young woman in leopardskin shorts said cheerfully. She was leading a little boy by the hand. The little boy had a cherry Sno-Kone in his free hand and appeared to be trying to coat his entire face with it. To Norman he looked like a world class booger. 'Cool sentiments, too.'

He smiled and slapped her outstretched hand lightly. 'You the best, girl,' he said.

'Do you have a friend here?' the woman asked.

'Well, you,' he said promptly.

She laughed, pleased. 'Thanks. But you know what I mean.'

'Nope, just diggin the scene,' he said. 'If I'm in the way, or if it's a private gig, I can always head out.'

'No, no!' she said, looking horrified at the idea . . . as Norman had known she would.

'Stay. Hang out. Enjoy. Could I bring you something to eat? It would be my pleasure. Cotton candy? A hotdog, maybe?'

'No, thanks,' Norman said. 'I was in a motorcycle accident awhile back -- that's how I lucked into the wonderful wheelchair.' The bitch was nodding sympathetically; he could have her bawling in about three minutes, if he felt like it. 'I don't seem to have much appetite since then.' He grinned tremulously at her. 'But I enjoy life, by God!' She laughed. 'Good for you! Have a great day.'

He nodded. 'Goes back double. You have a good day too, son.'

The extract above contains an interaction between people not acquainted with each other, still held within the boundaries of positive politeness. But after a personal question is asked ('Do you have a friend here?'; 'Thanks. But you know what I mean.'), Norman switches to negative politeness to, as it may seem, minimize the potential face threat. The true intention is to make the woman embarrassed of asking personal questions and present himself as a trustworthy person.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

'Cool wheelchair, my friend.'

'No, no! Stay. Hang out. Enjoy. Could I bring you something to eat? It would be my pleasure. Cotton candy? A hotdog, maybe?'

'Good for you! Have a great day.'

'Goes back double. You have a good day too, son.'

Negative politeness

'If I'm in the way, or if it's a private gig, I can always head out.'

2.2 The Analysis of the Extracts from “Pig Island” by Moe Hyder

Extract 1

'I'll put your lighter in the rucksack,' said Lexie, suddenly, from the kitchen. 'I'm putting it in the front pocket.'

I paused the video and turned to look at her.

'It was in your jacket pocket,' she said, reading my mind.

'I got it for the stove. There's no pilot.'

'Yeah,' she said, laughing. 'You're so transparent.'

I laughed too. Just a bit. 'Transparent or not - I used it for the stove.'

'OK,' she said lightly. 'OK. I believe you. You're so believable.' She set her tongue at the back of her front teeth and smiled up at the ceiling. Her smiling made the sinews in her neck stand out. She'd got skinny recently. I waited a few more moments to see if we were going to pursue this. Not dropping the smile or taking her eyes off the ceiling, in that same high voice she goes: 'And there was tobacco in the shorts you had on yesterday.'

'You're going through my pockets now?'

'Yes. My husband lies to me about smoking so I go through his pockets.' She dropped her chin then and met my eyes and I saw she'd flushed a deep purplish colour - like her cheeks were bruised. 'My husband thinks I'm stupid. So I have to fight back.'

In this extract, Lexie tries to make her husband confess that he lied to her about giving up smoking, yet she chooses more or less polite way. The strategy chosen by her is indirect one. Phrases about the lighter are supposed to show Joe that Lexie is not blind and can clearly see what it was used for, despite the fact that Joe denies everything. That makes Lexie a little bit harsh, but still she is trying to be indirect, using hedgings like in the phrase ' My husband lies to me about smoking so I go through his pockets.'

After that Joe finally has to make a confession.

I stood slowly and went to stand in the kitchen doorway, looking at her. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I am.'

She didn't move for a moment. Then her shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh. 'That's OK,' she said, shaking her head and holding out the rucksack to me. 'It can't be easy, giving up.'

'No, but I'm working on it.' I pulled on the rucksack. 'Believe me.'

What comes next is the attempt to minimize the upcoming family conflict. Joe apologizes and admits that he shouldn't have lied to his wife. In return, Lexie chooses to use positive politeness to avoid further confrontation such as in phrase 'That's OK. It can't be easy, giving up.'

She forced a smile. 'I've put some water_bottles in, at the bottom, and some factor ten.' She smoothed down the rucksack straps across my chest and, finding an imaginary stain on my T_shirt, wet her finger and rubbed at it. A compulsive neatnik, Lex, this grooming, this shrimping, was her way of showing I was forgiven. 'Now,' she said. 'I know it's your turn to cook tonight, but you'll be exhausted, so I'll do a pasta salad. Avocado, bacon, olives. It'll save if you're late.'

'Lexie,' I said, 'I told you. Didn't I? I said I didn't know if I'd be back tonight. I told you this. Remember? I said I could be out there a few days.'

She bit her lip. 'A few days?'

'We talked about it. Don't you remember? I said I'd probably have to stay over and you said you'd be all right on your own.'

'Did I? Did I say that?'

'Yes.'

She shrugged. 'Well, don't worry about it. I mean I'd've loved some time with my husband on our holidays, and obviously I'd rather not be in this place on my own.' She opened her hands to indicate the bungalow. She'd hated it at first sight. She'd booked it but turns out to be my fault it was so shitty. 'But, don't worry, it's all right, I'll be all right.'

'Lex. I said it was work, remember?' Remember how I said it was_'

'Please!' She cut me off, holding up her hand in the air. 'Please don't. Please just go. I'll be fine.'

'I'll call you. If there's a signal out on the island I'll call you. I'll tell you how it's going - when I'll be back.'

'No,' she said. 'Don't. Really - don't. Just… just go. Do your thing.' She drummed her fingers on the table, not looking up at me. 'Go on,' she repeated, when I didn't turn to go. 'Just go.'

Having successfully avoided one potential confrontation, both Joe and Lexie find themselves at the verge of another one. This one is related to Joe's work. He explains to his wife that he is has to spend some time away on a distant island, and that they have discussed it before. Lexie uses disjunctive questions to indicate uncertainty about it, but when she runs out of patience, she uses bald on-record strategy ('No. Don't. Really - don't. Just… just go. Do your thing.') to stop the conversation leading to the confrontation.

Strategies used:

Off-record

'I'll put your lighter in the rucksack,'

'It was in your jacket pocket'

'My husband lies to me about smoking so I go through his pockets.'

Positive politeness

'That's OK. It can't be easy, giving up.'

Bald on-record

'No. Don't. Really - don't. Just… just go. Do your thing.'

Extract 2

This time we're in Santa Fe. The stage looks the same. Asuncion's in an embroidered baptism shift, and when she spots me in the queue again - almost shaking, I'm so angry - she takes my hand and leads me back through the crowd. 'Where are we going?' I can see the exit door approaching. 'What's happening?'

She doesn't answer. She just leads me, with this totally surreal calm, through the back door of the chapel and left through a door into the toilet block.

'Move your bowels,' she goes, pointing to one of the toilets.

'What?'

'Move your bowels to complete the treatment.'

I stand there stunned, looking from the bog seat to her then back again. 'I can't just_'

'I think you'll find it easier than you expect.'

I stare at her for a long time. I'd like to slap someone right now, but even at eighteen I'm clear enough to see a story when it comes my way. My hands hover on my belt. 'What about you? Where are you going to be?'

'I've seen it several times before.'

'You're going to watch? You have to be_' I break off. She's looking at me with one of those faces that doesn't need any words - eyebrows slightly raised, chin tilted down, arms crossed. An SS guard, may as well be. Her mouth is closed in a firm line: Argue all you want, it says. I'm not budging. I sigh. 'OK, OK. Just stand back a bit, for Christ's sake.' I unbutton my trousers, pull down my shorts and sit on the toilet, elbows on my bare knees, hands dangling, looking up at her. 'Well,' I say, after a while. 'I told you, nothing's going to happen_'

Before I know it, Asuncion's conjured a wad of toilet paper out of thin air and is thrusting it down under my arse, forcing it up against me. There's a moment of uncomfortable slithering as I struggle, 'What the hell do you think you're - get your hand out of _' and an unfamiliar wet, cold sensation around my arsehole. Then she steps away, pushing her hair triumphantly out of her eyes, the tissue bunched in her fingers.

'You fucking lunatic!' I go. 'What was that about?'

'The tumour,' she says, holding the paper under my nose, making me recoil at that awful smell. A wad of something black and slimy sits in the petal_white tissue, something that smells of putrefaction and death. 'You passed it.'

The extract above illustrates how bald on-record strategy, used in communication between people who barely know each other, fails to bring both interactants to the understanding. The phrases Asuncion uses while `treating' different patients are based upon the idea that no one doubts the efficiency of the treatment, thus, no one will complain about practically direct orders since people come to her to get rid of their diseases (real or imaginary) and will obey and direct instructions to achieve that goal.

But since Joe is a journalist and skeptic, trying to prove this kind of medication a hoax, the strategy used by Asuncion is not an appropriate one here. Thus, Joe has to follow the orders, but with no wish to do it, expressed in quite impolite way.

Strategies used:

Bald-on record

'Move your bowels to complete the treatment.'

2.3 The Analysis of the Extracts from “Hanging Hill” by Moe Hyder

Extract 1

Zoe licked her fingers carefully then leaned a little way out of the kitchen door and peered at the staircase. `Is her room up there?'

`There've been some teams in it already. They took her computer. They left about an hour ago.'

`Could I have a look?'

`Of course you can. You'll forgive me if I don't come with you.'

In this extract, Zoe sticks to a strategy of negative politeness in a conversation with the woman she doesn't know well. The phrase `Could I have a look?' leads to an equivalent reply within the same strategy of communication (`Of course you can. You'll forgive me if I don't come with you.')

Also, it is necessary to mention that the whole interaction begins with the off-record strategy, which is used correctly by Zoe, changing the focus of the conversation on the things that are important to Zoe.

Strategies used:

Off-record

`Is her room up there?'

Negative politeness

`Could I have a look?'

`Of course you can. You'll forgive me if I don't come with you.'

2.4 The Analysis of the Extracts from “Duma Key” by Stephen King

Extract 1

A week or so later, Tom Riley came to see me again. By then the leaves had started to turn color, and I remember the clerks putting up Halloween posters in the Wal-Mart where I bought my first sketchpads since college… hell, maybe since high school.

What I remember most clearly about that visit is how embarrassed and ill-at-ease Tom seemed.

I offered him a beer and he took me up on it. When I came back from the kitchen, he was looking at a pen-and-ink I'd done -- three palm trees silhouetted against an expanse of water, a bit of screened-in porch jutting into the left foreground. “This is pretty good,” he said. “You do this?”

“Nah, the elves. They come in the night. Cobble my shoes, draw the occasional picture.”

The extract above illustrates a standard interaction between two persons who know each other well enough to hold the conversation within the strategies of positive politeness, backed up with jokes to relief the pressure.

He laughed too hard and set the picture back down on the desk. “Don't look much like Minnesota, dere,” he said, doing a Swedish accent.

“I copied it out of a book,” I said. I had actually used a photograph from a Realtor's brochure. It had been taken from the so-called “Florida room” of Salmon Point, the place I had just leased for a year. I had never been in Florida, not even on vacation, but that picture had called to something deep in me, and for the first time since the accident, I felt actual anticipation. It was thin, but it was there. “What can I do for you, Tom? If it's about the business--”

“Actually, Pam asked me to come out.” He ducked his head. “I didn't much want to, but I didn't feel I could say no. Old times' sake, you know.”

“Sure.” Tom went back to the days when The Freemantle Company had been nothing but three pickup trucks, a Caterpillar D9, and a lot of big dreams. “So talk to me. I'm not going to bite you.”

“She's got herself a lawyer. She's going ahead with this divorce business.”

“I never thought she wouldn't.” It was the truth. I still didn't remember choking her, but I remembered the look in her eyes when she told me I had. And there was this: once Pam started down a road, she rarely turned around.

“She wants to know if you're going to be using Bozie.”

I had to smile at that. William Bozeman III was a dapper, manicured, bow-tie-wearing sixty-five, wheeldog of the Minneapolis law-firm my company used, and if he knew Tom and I had been calling him Bozie for the last twenty years, he would probably have suffered an embolism.

“I hadn't thought about it. What's the deal, Tom? What exactly does she want?”

He drank off half his beer, then put the glass on a bookshelf beside my half-assed sketch. His cheeks had flushed a dull brick red. “She said she hopes it doesn't have to be mean. She said, `I don't want to be rich, and I don't want a fight. I just want him to be fair to me and the girls, the way he always was, will you tell him that?' So I am.”

He shrugged.

I got up, went to the big window between the living room and the porch, and looked out at the lake. Soon I would be able to go out into my very own “Florida room,” whatever that was, and look out at the Gulf of Mexico. I wondered if it would be any better, any different, than looking out at Lake Phalen. I thought I would settle for different, at least to begin with. Different would be a start. When I turned back, Tom Riley didn't look himself at all. At first I thought he was sick to his stomach, and then I realized he was struggling not to cry.

“Tom, what's the matter?” I asked.

He tried to speak and produced only a watery croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Boss, I can't get used to seeing you this way, with just the one arm. I'm so sorry.”

It was artless, unrehearsed, and sweet: a straight shot to the heart. I think there was a moment when we were both close to bawling, like a couple of Sensitive Guys on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

That idea helped me get myself under control again. “I'm sorry, too,” I said, “but I'm getting along. Really. Now drink your damn beer before it goes flat.”

He laughed and poured the rest of his Grain Belt into the glass.

What follows is the change of mood in the conversation, it begins with Eddie noticing some strange details in Tom's behavior, to which he replies “Boss, I can't get used to seeing you this way, with just the one arm. I'm so sorry.”

Eddie shares Tom's concerns, but using a positive politeness strategy of being optimistic, Eddie assures Tom that he is fine. This act is backed up with joke.

“I'm going to give you an offer to take back to her,” I said. “If she likes it, we can hammer out the details. Do-it-yourself deal. No lawyers needed.”

“Are you serious, Eddie?”

“I am. You do a comprehensive accounting so we have a bottom-line figure to work with. We divide the swag into four shares. She takes three -- seventy-five per cent -- for her and the girls. I take the rest. The divorce itself… hey, Minnesota's a no-fault state, after lunch we can go out to Borders and buy Divorce for Dummies.”

He looked dazed. “Is there such a book?”

“I haven't researched it, but if there isn't, I'll eat your shirts.”

“I think the saying's `eat my shorts.'”

“Isn't that what I said?”

“Never mind. Eddie, that kind of deal is going to trash the estate.”

“Ask me if I give a damn. Or a shirt, for that matter. I still care about the company, and the company is fine, intact and being run by people who know what they're doing. As for the estate, all I'm proposing is that we dispense with the ego that usually allows the lawyers to swallow the cream. There's plenty for all of us, if we're reasonable.”

He finished his beer, never taking his eyes off me. “Sometimes I wonder if you're the same man I used to work for,” he said.

“That man died in his pickup,” I said.

More jokes follow. But at the end of the conversation the mood changes again, and the last reply in the extract is made in a tone of negative politeness, aimed at creating distance between the interactants.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

“Nah, the elves. They come in the night. Cobble my shoes, draw the occasional picture.”

Negative politeness

“Boss, I can't get used to seeing you this way, with just the one arm. I'm so sorry.”

Positive politeness

“I'm sorry, too, but I'm getting along. Really. Now drink your damn beer before it goes flat.”

Negative politeness

“That man died in his pickup”

Extract 2

I was three-quarters of the way home when the Fevereau woman went past me in her ridiculous mustard-colored Hummer. As always, she had her cell phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other; as always she was going too fast. I barely noticed, and I certainly didn't see Gandalf dash into the street up ahead, concentrating only on Monica, coming down the other side of the street in Full Girl Scout. I was concentrating on my reconstructed hip. As always near the end of my short strolls, this so-called medical marvel felt packed with roughly ten thousand tiny points of broken glass.

Then tires yowled, and a little girl's scream joined them: “GANDALF, NO!”

Mrs. Fevereau half-jumped and half-fell from the Hummer's ridiculously high driver's seat. Ava Goldstein came running from the front door of the Goldstein house, crying her daughter's name. Mrs. Goldstein's blouse was half-buttoned. Her feet were bare.

“Don't touch him, honey, don't touch him,” Mrs. Fevereau said. She was still holding her cigarette and she puffed nervously at it.

Monica paid no attention. She stroked Gandalf's side. The dog screamed again when she did -- it was a scream -- and Monica covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. She began to shake her head. I didn't blame her.

Mrs. Fevereau reached out for the girl, but changed her mind. She took two steps back, leaned against the high side of her Hummer, and looked up at the sky.

Mrs. Goldstein knelt beside her daughter. “Honey, oh honey please don't.”

The extract above contains the use of bald on-record strategies in a dangerous and stressful situation. Is begins with the exclamation of a little girl (“GANDALF, NO!”) who has just seen her dog being run down by a car. The mother of that girl tells her to stay away from a dying dog (“Don't touch him, honey, don't touch him,”), a strategy, which is usually used in situations like this.

Strategies used:

Bald on-record

“Don't touch him, honey, don't touch him,”

“Honey, oh honey please don't.” - marker of desperation.

Extract 3

The extract below illustrates the situation when one person has to hold a speech in front of a relatively large audience consisting of different people, while most of them are not acquainted personally with the speaker himself. The speaker is quite nervous at the beginning of the interaction, so he decides to relief the nervousness using positive politeness strategies in his speech.

“Hello--” I began, then recoiled at the way my voice boomed out from the

microphone. The audience laughed, but the sound didn't make me angry, as it would have a minute before. It was only laughter, and good natured.

I can do this.

“Hello,” I said again. “My name is Edgar Freemantle, and I'm probably not going to be very good at this. In my other life I was in the building trade. I knew I was good at that, because I landed jobs. In my current life I paint pictures. But nobody said anything about public speaking.”

This time the laughter was a little freer and a little more general.

After the greeting words, the whole speech seems to be held within the strategies of negative politeness as in the phrases like “My name is Edgar Freemantle, and I'm probably not going to be very good at this” (speaker is being pessimistic, hedges are used) But the obvious thing is that those sentences are more of a joke to relief the nervous atmosphere and calm himself down.

“I was going to start by saying I have no idea how I wound up here, but actually I do. And that's good, because it's all I have to tell. You see, I don't know anything about art history, art theory, or even art appreciation. Some of you probably know Mary Ire.”

This brought a chuckle, as if I'd said Some of you may have heard of Andy Warhol. The lady herself looked around, preening a little, her back ramrod straight.

“When I first brought some of my paintings into the Scoto Gallery, Ms. Ire saw them and called me an American primitive. I sort of resented that, because I change my underwear every morning and brush my teeth every night before I go to bed--”

Another burst of laughter. My legs were just legs again, not cement, and now that I felt capable of running away, I no longer wanted or needed to. It was possible they'd hate my pictures, but that was all right because I didn't hate them. Let them have their little laugh, their little boo-and-hiss, their little gasp of distaste (or their little yawn), if that was what they wanted to do; when it was over, I could go back and paint more. And if they loved them? Same deal.

“But if she meant I'm someone who's doing something he doesn't understand, that he can't express in words because no one ever taught him the right terms, then she's right.”

Kamen was nodding and looking pleased. And so, by God, was Mary Ire.

“So all that leaves is the story of how I got here -- the bridge I walked over to get from my other life to the one I'm living these days.”

Kamen was patting his meaty hands together soundlessly. That made me feel good.

Having him there made me feel good. I don't know exactly what would have happened if he hadn't've been, but I think it would have been what Wireman calls mucho feo -- very ugly.

“But I have to keep it simple, because my friend Wireman says that when it comes to the past, we all stack the deck, and I believe that's true. Tell too much and you find yourself… mmm… I don't know… telling the past you wished for?”

I looked down and saw Wireman was nodding.

“Yeah, I think so, the one you wished for. So simply put, what happened is this: I had an accident at a job site. Bad accident. There was this crane, you see, and it crushed the pickup truck I was in, and it crushed me, as well. I lost my right arm and I almost lost my life. I was married, but my marriage broke up. I was at my wits' end. This is a thing I see more clearly now; I only knew then that I felt very, very bad. Another friend, a man named Xander Kamen, asked me one day if anything made me happy.

That was something…”

I paused. Kamen looked up intently from the first row with the long gift-box balanced on his non-lap. I remembered him that day at Lake Phalen -- the tatty briefcase, the cold autumn sunshine coming and going in diagonal stripes across the living room floor. I remembered thinking about suicide, and the myriad roads leading into the dark: turnpikes and secondary highways and shaggy little forgotten lanes.

The silence was spinning out, but I no longer dreaded it. And my audience seemed not to mind. It was natural for my mind to wander. I was an artist.

“The idea of happiness-- at least as it applied to me -- was something I hadn't thought of in a long time,” I said. “I thought of supporting my family, and after I started my own company, I thought of not letting down the people who worked for me.

I also thought of becoming a success, and worked for it, mostly because so many people expected me to fail. Then the accident happened. Everything changed. I discovered I had no--”

I reached out for the word I wanted, groping with both hands, although they only saw one. And, perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside its pinned-up sleeve.

“I had no resources to fall back on. As far as happiness went…” I shrugged. “I told my friend Kamen that I used to draw, but I hadn't done it in a long time. He suggested

I take it up again, and when I asked why, he said because I needed hedges against the night. I didn't understand what he meant then, because I was lost and confused and in pain. I understand it better now. People say night falls, but down here it rises. It rises out of the Gulf, after sunset's done. Seeing that happen amazed me.”

I was also amazed at my own unplanned eloquence. My right arm was quiet throughout. My right arm was just a stump inside a pinned-up sleeve.

“Could we have the lights all the way down? Including mine, please?”

Alice was running the board herself, and wasted no time. The spotlight in which I had been standing dimmed to a whisper. The auditorium was swallowed in gloom.

I said, “What I discovered, crossing the bridge between my two lives, is that sometimes beauty grows in spite of all expectations. But that's not a very original idea, is it? It's really just a platitude… sort of like a Florida sunset. Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth, and the truth deserves to be spoken… if you can say it in a new way. I tried to put it in a picture. Alice, could we have the first slide, please?”

It shone out on the large screen to my right, nine feet wide and seven feet high: a trio of gigantic lush roses growing from a bed of dark pink shells. They were dark because they were below the house, in the shadow of the house. The audience drew in its breath, a sound like a brief but loud gust of wind. I heard that and knew it wasn't just Wireman and the folks at the Scoto who understood. Who saw. They gasped the way people do when they have been blindsided by something completely unexpected. Then they began to applaud.

As it turns out, Edgar has chosen right strategies to hold his speech. Using the forms of negative politeness as a source of jokes to cheer up the audience and himself, he manages to make an outstanding speech and present it to the people who he doesn't know well enough.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

“I was going to start by saying I have no idea how I wound up here”;

“When I first brought some of my paintings into the Scoto Gallery, Ms. Ire saw them and called me an American primitive. I sort of resented that, because I change my underwear every morning and brush my teeth every night before I go to bed” - extensive use of jokes.

Negative politeness

“My name is Edgar Freemantle, and I'm probably not going to be very good at this” -speaker is being pessimistic, hedges are used.

Extract 4

The extract above illustrates not only linguistic politeness, but also behavioral one.

Gene Hadlock came in and offered his hand. His left hand… which in my case was the right one. I found I liked him quite a lot better when he was divorced from Principe, the goateed neurologist. He was about sixty, a little on the pudgy side, with a white mustache of the toothbrush variety and a pleasant examining-table manner. He had me strip down to my shorts and examined my right leg and side at some length. He prodded me in several places, enquiring about the level of pain. He asked me what I was taking for painkillers and seemed surprised when I told him I was getting by on aspirin.

Even before starting the conversation, Gene Hadlock makes a decision while greeting his interaction partner, having taken into account the nature of the injuries his interaction partner has.

“I'm going to examine your stump,” he said. “That all right?”

“Yes. Just take it easy.”

“I'll do my best.”

I sat with my left hand resting on my bare left thigh, looking at the eye-chart as he grasped my shoulder with one hand and cupped my stump in the other. The seventh line on the chart looked like AGODSED. A god said what? I wondered.

From somewhere, very distant, I felt faint pressure. “Hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay. No, don't look down, just keep looking straight ahead. Do you feel my hand?”

“Uh-huh. Way off. Pressure.” But no twinge. Why would there be? The arm that was no longer there had wanted the pen, and the pen was in my pocket, so now the arm was asleep again.

“And how about this, Edgar? May I call you Edgar?”

“Anything but late to dinner. The same. Pressure. Faint.”

“Now you can look.”

I looked. One hand was still on my shoulder, but the other was at his side. Nowhere near the stump. “Oops.”

“Not at all, phantom sensations in the stump of a limb are normal. I'm just surprised at the rate of healing. And the lack of pain. I squeezed pretty darn hard to begin with.

This is all good.” He cupped the stump again and pushed upward. “Does that give pain?”

It did -- a dull, low sparkle, vaguely hot. “A little,” I said.

“If it didn't I'd be worried.” He let go. “Look at the eye-chart again, all right?”

I did as he asked, and decided that all-important seventh line was AGOCSEO. Which made more sense because it made no sense.

“How many fingers am I touching you with, Edgar?”

“Don't know.” It didn't feel like he was touching me at all.

“Now?”

“Don't know.”

“And now.”

“Three.” He was almost up to my collarbone. And I had an idea -- crazy but very strong -- that I would have been able to feel his fingers everywhere on the stump if I'd been in one of my painting frenzies. In fact, I would have been able to feel his fingers in the air below the stump. And I think he would have been able to feel me… which would no doubt have caused the good doctor to run screaming from the room.

He went on -- first to my leg, then my head. He listened to my heart, looked into my eyes, and did a bunch of other doctorly things. When he'd exhausted most of the possibilities, he told me to get dressed and meet him at the end of the hall.

This turned out to be a pleasantly littered little office. Hadlock sat behind the desk and leaned back in his chair. There were pictures on one wall. Some, I assumed, were of the doctor's family, but there were also shots of him shaking hands with George Bush the First and Maury Povich (intellectual equals, in my book), and one of him with an amazingly vigorous and pretty Elizabeth Eastlake. They were holding tennis rackets, and I recognized the court. It was the one at El Palacio.

“I imagine you'd like to get back to Duma and get off that hip, wouldn't you?” Hadlock asked.

“Must hurt by this time of the day, and I bet it's all three witches from Macbeth when the weather's damp. If you want a prescription for Percocet or Vicodin--”

“No, I'm fine with the aspirin,” I said. I'd labored to get off the hard stuff and wasn't going back on it at this point, pain or no pain.

“Your recovery is remarkable,” Hadlock said. “I don't think you need me to tell you how lucky you are not to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, very likely steering yourself around by blowing into a straw.”

“I'm lucky to be alive at all,” I said. “Can I can assume you didn't find anything dire?”

“Pending blood and urine, I'd say you're good to go. I'm happy to order X-rays on your rightside injuries and your head, if you've got symptoms that concern you, but-- ”

“I don't.” I had symptoms, and they concerned me, but I didn't think X-rays would pinpoint the cause. Or causes.

He nodded. “The reason I went over your stump so carefully was because you don't wear a prosthesis. I thought you might be experiencing tenderness. Or there might be signs of infection. But all seems well.”

“I guess I'm just not ready.”

“That's fine. More than fine. Considering the work you're doing, I'd have to say `If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies here. Your paintings… remarkable. I can't wait to see them on display at the Scoto. I'm bringing my wife. She's very excited.”

“That's great,” I said. “Thank you.” This sounded limp, at least to my own ears, but I still hadn't figured out how to respond to such compliments.

The whole positive tone of the interaction can be explained by a professional etiquette of the doctor examining his patient. Still all the phrases used to express the interest in the patient and his needs flavor the conversation with the scents of positive politeness. At the very end of the conversation the doctor also expresses his interest in the artistic talents of his patient (“Your paintings… remarkable.”)

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

“That all right?”

“Hurt?”

“That's fine. More than fine. Considering the work you're doing, I'd have to say `If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies here. Your paintings… remarkable. I can't wait to see them on display at the Scoto. I'm bringing my wife. She's very excited.”

Extract 5

Tom Riley fell in beside me as I moved back through the crowd toward my family, smiling and shaking conversational gambits as fast as I could. “Boss, these are incredible,” he said, “but they're a little spooky, too.”

“I guess that's a compliment,” I said. The truth was, talking to Tom felt spooky, knowing what I did about him.

“It's definitely a compliment,” he said. “Listen, you're headed for your family. I'll take a hike.” And he started to do just that, but I grabbed him by the elbow.

“Stick with me,” I said. “Together we can repel all boarders. On my own, I may not get to Pam and the girls until nine o'clock.”

He laughed. Old Tommy looked good. He'd added some pounds since that day at Lake Phalen, but I'd read that antidepressants sometimes do that, especially to men. On him, a little more weight was okay. The hollows under his eyes had filled in.

The extract above illustrates how a person can use positive politeness strategy of appraisal (“Boss, these are incredible,”) to express the interest in the needs/wants of the communication partner. This course is accepted by other person participating in the communication process, and the answer is represented in the form of a joke to keep up the optimistic atmosphere.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

“Boss, these are incredible.”

“Stick with me. Together we can repel all boarders. On my own, I may not get to Pam and the girls until nine o'clock.”

2.5 The Analysis of the Extracts from “Firestarter” by Stephen King

Extract 1

"So I drop you at the old Albany airport, and as far as Moms knows, you flew,right?"

"Sure." His head was thudding.

"Also, as far as Moms knows, you're no plucka-plucka-plucka, am I four-oh?"

"Yes." Plucka-plucka-plucka? What was that supposed to mean? The pain was getting bad.

"Five hundred bucks to skip a plane ride," the driver mused.

"It's worth it to me," Andy said, and gave one last little shove. In a very quiet voice, speaking almost into the cabby's ear, he added, "And it ought to be worth it to you."

"Listen," the driver said in a dreamy voice. "I ain't turning down no five hundred dollars. Don't tell me, I'll tell you."

"Okay," Andy said, and settled back. The cab driver was satisfied. He wasn't wondering about Andy's half-baked story. He wasn't wondering what a seven-year old girl was doing visiting her father for two weeks in October with school in. He wasn't wondering about the fact that neither of them had so much as an overnight bag. He wasn't worried about anything. He had been pushed.

In the extract above the interaction is held within the boundaries of positive politeness. Both participants meet each other for the first time, thus the offer given to a taxi driver sounds a little suspicious, in which case he has to use bald on-record strategy to express that he doesn't like how it all sounds, but still can't afford to lose a chance to get that amount of money.

Strategies used:

Positive politeness

"So I drop you at the old Albany airport, and as far as Moms knows, you flew,

right?" - demanding clarification through posing a question where both interactants participate actively.

Bald on-record

"Listen. I ain't turning down no five hundred dollars. Don't tell me, I'll tell you."

Extract 2

The man in charge of the experiment was Dr. Wanless. He was fat and balding and had at least one rather bizarre habit.

"We're going to give each of you twelve young ladies and gentlemen an injection," he said, shredding a cigarette into the ashtray in front of him. His small pink fingers plucked at the thin cigarette paper, spilling out neat little cones of golden-brown tobacco. "Six of these injections will be water. Six of them will be water mixed with a tiny amount of a chemical compound which we call Lot Six. The exact nature of this compound is classified, but it is essentially an hypnotic and mild hallucinogenic. Thus you understand that the compound will be administered by the double-blind method . . . which is to say, neither you nor we will know who has gotten a clear dose and who has not until later. The dozen of you will be under close supervision for forty-eight hours following the injection. Questions"

"If there are no more questions, I'll ask you to fill out these forms and will expect to see you promptly at nine next Tuesday."

The extract above is another example of one person making a speech in front of the audience. This one, however, doesn't contain any positive politeness strategies to relieve the nervousness among the audience (as in extract 3 from “Duma Key” by Stephen King). The speaker seems to choose neither the positive politeness, nor the negative. The speech is held within bald on-record instead, as the speaker reveals the procedure of scientific tests the audience has volunteered to participate in.

Strategies used:

Bald on-record (task oriented)

Extract 3

The interaction in the extract below begins with the offer expressed with the help of positive politeness.

"How would you feel about a quick two hundred?" Quincey had asked.

Andy brushed long, dark hair away from his green eyes and grinned. "Which men's room do I set up my concession in?"

The offer is met with suspicion, but a suspicion in a form of joke, since the interaction is held within a circle of two persons who know each other well. But despite this overall joking mood of the questions asked by Andy, there is still uncertainty about whether to accept that offer or not. So the questions continue.

"No, it's a psych experiment," Quincey said. "Being run by the Mad Doctor, though. Be warned."

"Who he?"

"Him Wanless, Tonto. Heap big medicine man in-um Psych Department."

"Why do they call him the Mad Doctor?"

"Well," Quincey said, "he's a rat man and a Skinner man both. A behaviorist. The behaviorists are not exactly being overwhelmed with love these days."

"Oh," Andy said, mystified.

"Also, he wears very thick little rimless glasses, which makes him look quite a bit like the guy that shrank the people in Dr. Cyclops. You ever see that show?"

Andy, who was a late-show addict, had seen it, and felt on safer ground. But he wasn't sure he wanted to participate in any experiments run by a prof who was classified as a.) a rat man and b.) a Mad Doctor.

"They're not trying to shrink people, are they?" he asked.

Quincey had laughed heartily. "No, that's strictly for the special-effects people who work on the B horror pictures," he said. "The Psych Department has been testing a series of low-grade hallucinogens. They're working with the U.S. Intelligence Service."

"CIA?" Andy asked.

"Not CIA, DIA, or NSA," Quincey said. "Lower profile than any of them. Have you ever heard of an outfit called the Shop?"

"Maybe in a Sunday supplement or something. I'm not sure."

Quincey lit his pipe. "These things work in about the same way all across the board," he said. "Psychology, chemistry, physics, biology . . . even the sociology boys get some of the folding green. Certain programs are subsidized by the government. Anything from the mating ritual of the tsetse fly to the possible disposal of used plutonium slugs.

An outfit like the Shop has to spend all of its yearly budget to justify a like amount the following year."

"That shit troubles me mightily," Andy said.

"It troubles almost any thinking person," Quincey said with a calm, untroubled smile. "But the train just keeps rolling. What does our intelligence branch want with lowgrade halucinogens? Who knows? Not me. Not you. Probably they don't either. But the reports look good in closed committees come budget-renewal time. They have their pets in every department. At Harrison, Wanless is their pet in the Psych Department"