Post Six: What Do You Mean I'm Not Polite?

The first time I saw the terms 'Agreement Maxim' and 'Modesty Maxim' in the articles I was assigned to read for my literature review, I thought it was just an 'Agreement vs Modesty' debate. So I was rather surprised that there's not just 2, not 3 ... But 6 maxims in total introduced by Geoffrey Leech. Often, when it comes to reviews on the topic of 'compliments and compliment responses', the two most prevalent maxims are (once again) Agreement and Modesty maxims.

So I tried to find out more about this maxim. Unlike Hofstede, these two prominent figures do not have their own official website (or maybe not for now ...). Hence, I would like to share some light on my findings with my fellow coursemates. Leech's Politeness Maxims were actually built upon the maxims brought about by philosopher Paul Grice. His Gricean Maxims are also known as 'Conversational Maxims'.

So how are they both different? Well, let's take a look at the table I've prepared below (I've omitted the info on Leech's maxims that we've already done in class):

Both maxims attempt to lay down the socially-acceptable ways of interacting and executing conversations with the people around us i.e. they can be the underlying criteria for the etiquettes we observe everywhere we go. And in both cases too, flouting the maxims may produce a negative pragmatic effect such as sarcasm and irony.

As discussed, of course both sets of maxims don’t hold true for all cultures. Grice’s oppose what is being practised by the Malagasy of Madagascar and Leech’s might not be entirely true for countries like Cuba.

Reflecting on what I’ve learnt from the last class and the additional research that I’ve done, I begin to reflect on what I’ve been doing all these while in an attempt to be polite:

- Maximise benefits in others i.e. make them pleased/happy with my words and actions

- Maximise cost to self i.e. going the distance to make people feel pleased e.g. say thank you, smile

- Malays love to praise one another hence it is something which I often do to my friends. Usually in younger ones like myself, the things that we praise on are often appearance and possessions. Of course, the typical skill which most of us praise on nowadays are on cooking.

- It is also typically the Malay culture to be humble and hence, minimise self-praise i.e. I rarely praise myself

- Agreement is not always observed in my conversations. It’s just alot of listener’s response and don’t often always confer agreement

- Sympathy is one thing which Malays are well-known for. We sympathise other people too much at times. So much so, our sympathy is sometimes seen as questionable

As for conversational skills, I realise that I still don’t observe the following maxims:

- Maxim of manner: I often talk a little bit too much (adhering too much to the Quantity maxim i.e. to make my speech most informative) so much so it tends to digress

- Maxim of relation: because I like to communicate as informatively as possible, I tend to overlook this aspect

- Maxim of quality: I still realise that some of the things that I say tends to be ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ i.e. fine details that I can’t remember are usually filled in with details that are often inaccurate

Ah well, so much for talking and not observe any rules that govern these talks! =) Once again, a person who has never thought much about linguistics would have never thought that all the speech acts we execute, observe specific rules (which most of us are totally unaware). These rules that govern ‘polite’ speeches too come as no surprise. Something to 'chew on' ... =)