mmunication should be acquired by English learners. To that belongs knowledge of the following: usage of a certain type of a speech act (eg request vs. Command), implying certain content (excluding taboo questions like those about income, religion, nationality) and others. According to the data given by several American people, to speak politely means to:
use good manners in everyday communication (eg not have food in your mouth when speaking) - use respectful language: use kind words and not swear, use certain form of an utterance ( when asking for something say 'May I please have that' - not 'give me that.' ) - use a proper tone in your voice so as not to be condescending to the other person - look at the person (make eye contact) - say greeting words, say good-bye , sorry and thank you when it is necessary-introduce yourself/a new person-not interrupt when someone else is speaking-listen when someone else is speaking and hear what they are saying-apologize and ask for forgiveness when impoliteness happens, and try not to do it againexist some theories of politeness, one of those being Brown and Levinson s whose basic notion is face , or individual s self-esteem [1]. In other words, it implies people s desire, on the one hand, for freedom to act (negative face), and, on the other hand, to be liked, approved of and included (positive face) [3]. Successful social interaction requires that speakers pay attention to both negative and positive face of their interlocutor; when either is potentially at risk, the speaker must take steps to minimise the threat by saying something in a way that offends as little as possible. So we can state that the greater the imposition and the greater the social distance between participants, the more face-work is required [ 3]. speech act that is a potential threat to an interlocutor s face is the request [3]. Politeness is connected with mitigating a direct form of asking for something and expressing an idea non-directly which means one applying a different grammatical form in the sentence, in this case the form of a question, most often a modal one. If you want somebody to bring you a definite book you would sooner say Can you bring me the book?
