Lecture 7: Face and Politeness

Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts. ~Abel Stevens

I always thought of politeness as a way of presenting oneself, but its astonishing to know the different types of levels of politeness involved. Therefore, I guess it is relatively important for one to portray the correct level of politeness in the process of face negotiation.

For polite maxims, I guess it’s a way of speech where words conveyed do result in the formation of a new knowledge; rather, it is just an act to be friendly, or even to negotiate the face value amongst participants. I feel that a common notion in these 6 maxims is that one has to be humble, in order to show politeness to another party.

As for face negotiations, I believe that, even in the case of hinting, the person (A) hinting is actually saving some face value to the other party (person B) as well. If person B gets the hint and offer help or solution to person A, face value for person B increases as it is seen as an act of kindness.

As for the experience on e-Learning. I sincerely feel good about it since we do not have to travel to school, but also a bit insecure on the concepts taught. To me, virtual learning can never replace face-to-face learning as there is much more rapport in face-to-face learning. Having a tutor or lecturer in front of you is definitely different then learning in front of the computer.

Still, having a "break" from physical classroom is definitely welcome but this will have to depend on the topic being taught as well. For this week's material, I guess its rather easy for us to grasp the main concepts as they are "tactics" that we used in everyday's life. But i do wonder which of the maxim does the use of "please" falls under? Or does it depends on the whole statement being used?

Just one suggestion though, maybe we can have a virtual class (where everyone log in at the same time) on Secondlife or IVLE Chatroom for the lecture on CMC? I think it should be quite relevant to the concepts being taught. Just a thought though :)