A study of politeness strategies in the conversational contexts of the coursebook " New Headway" pre-Intermediate (The third ed.)

Abstract

This study is to focus on positive and negative politeness strategies in conversations of the course book “New Headway Pre-Intermediate (The Third Edition)”, with an aim to help the students at Thang Long University improve their awareness of positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book mentioned above, thus to apply these strategies in their everyday conversations in English. In the course book “New Headway Pre-Intermediate (The Third Edition)”, typical conversation activities are classified into “Requesting”, “Making suggestions”, “Inviting” and “Social behaviors” and then analyzed mainly in the light of the politeness theories of Brown & Levinson. The research shows that the frequency of positive and negative politeness strategies depends not only on the purpose of the interactions but also on the relationship between speakers and hearers in communication. Last but not least, some suggestions for learning and teaching positive and negative politeness strategies are also presented.