Analysis on the use of politeness strategies in a scene of The Crown

Received on: 11/16/2021. Approved on: 07/22/2021. Published on: 12/15/2021. ABSTRACT: This article aims to analyze the positive and negative politeness strategies speakers employ to avoid threatening the addresses’ face in the series The Crown (2017) in season 02, episode 08 entitled Dear Mrs. Kennedy. The analysis is held in light of the Politeness Theory by Brown and Levinson (1987, first published in 1978). It could be observed through a qualitative analysis that when there is a relation of power between the speaker and the hearer, the speaker tends to use bald on record expressions, whereas when the speaker is the subordinate, he/she tends to utter negative strategies and hedges to mitigate the threat to the hearer’s face.

to communicate may include or exclude us from a group. That is why being aware of the pragmatics of a language is a key aspect in communication.
When learning a foreign language, for example, the use of linguistic inaccurate grammar forms is easily "forgiven" by a hearer; however, the inappropriate use of pragmatic rules in a specific language might be offensive or rude depending on the culture. The scene chosen for this analysis deals with a very delicate issue that involves the Queen's reputation and even her physical appearance, uttered by someone she expressed appreciation for. The next sections of this paper present a description of politeness theory, as well as the strategies stemmed from it; it then describes methodology designed for the analysis and the discussion generated from it.

Background
There are four models of politeness theory in pragmatics literature: (i) the 'social norm' model, (ii) the 'conversational maxim' model by Leech (1983Leech ( , 2003; (iii) the 'face-saving' model by Brown andLevinson (1978, 1987), and (iv) the 'conversational contract' model by Fraser (1990). However, according to Huang (2007) the 'face-saving' model by Brown and Levinson is the most influential and comprehensive among the four models.
Brown and Levinson's Politeness theory has been the topic of innumerous studies and criticism in the field of Pragmatics. A research conducted under the light of politeness has as a first step to address the concept of 'face'. According to Bargiela-Chiappini (2003), Ervin Goffman, a Canadian sociologist, inspired himself in Chinese sources to elaborate the concept of 'face' as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the lines others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes -albeit an image that others may share, as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself. (Goffman, 1967, p. 5) Some years later, Brown and Levinson (1987), following Goffman's definition of 'face' , defined face as "something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction" (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 61). The authors assume that people tend to cooperate to maintain and protect

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Analysis on the use of politeness strategies in a scene of The Crown 3/10 each other's face in interaction, so that they do not take the risk to 'lose face', that is, to be embarassed or humiliated. On the contrary, people should make an effort to 'save face', to prevent each other from damaging one's reputation.
Brown & Levinson assume that there is a model person "a competent adult member of a society who has an inclination to keep up his face" (Jansen & Janssen, 2010, p. 2533). Furthermore, Brown & Levinson (1987) posit that every person has a face. The authors take the notion of face as an assumption and divide it into positive and negative face defining them as follows: negative face: the want of every 'competent adult member' that his/her actions be unimpeded by others.
positive face: the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others.
It is valid to say that the word 'negative' here, is not related to the adjective 'bad'; in fact, it is applied to make an opposition to 'positive'. The negative face is defined as the need to be free in our actions, in the sense of not having them imposed on by others, as well as the necessity to be respected and to be treated with deference, while the positive face refers to the need to be accepted as part of a society, to be liked by others. It is also important to say, according to Yule (1996), that politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance and closeness. The author illustrates positive and negative face with the examples below: a. Excuse me, Mr Buckingham, but can I talk to you for a minute? b. Hey, Bucky, got a minute? (Yule, 1996, p. 60) In (a), the speaker demonstrates he/she is aware of the distance between him/her and the addressee by employing in the utterance linguistic markers such as, excuse me, Mr., can I…, which convey respect and deference, whereas in (b) it is possible to note a closer relationship between the ones in the interaction, by the use of Hey to request attention, by the use of a nickname to address the hearer and the use of short grammatical structures. Brown & Levinson (1987)  Model Person A requests Model Person B to lend him fifty dollars, A's own positive face is threatened because he finds himself belonging to the unpleasant category of people who bother other people. Furthermore, A has to admit to himself that he is somewhat dependent on B, which threatens his negative face. As for B, his negative face is threatened because he knows that A expects him to comply; therefore, he has to do something that A asks, which limits his personal wants. If B refuses, he damages both his own positive face and that of requester A because he denies the legitimacy, or at least the normality of the request. (Jansen & Janssen. (2010, p. 2533 In order to save the hearer's face in a situation in which the individial's image might be threatened, According to the authors, "positive politeness can be associated with intimate language use, it can be used as a 'social accelerator', where S, in using positive politeness strategies, indicates that he/she wants to come closer to H" (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 103).
When one disrespects positive and negative politeness, they are performing, what politeness theorists call, face threatening acts (FTAs).
Considering that interaction is a cooperative action among those involved in a conversation, an FTA goes against this principle. In this case, the speaker is not concerned about preserving the hearer's self-image, threatening the positive 4/10 Porto Alegre, v. 12, n. 1, p. 1-10, jan.-jun. 2021 | e-41365 face, nor cares about the space and freedom the other needs. According to Brown & Levinson (1987, p.129) while positive politeness is free-range, negative politeness is specific and focused. It performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidably causes.
So, to soften the threats that can be performed to one's face, Brown & Levinson (1987) developed some strategies that speakers employ during interaction.
There are five main strategies which one can choose to avoid or soften FTAs, as we can see in the image below from Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 69): Second, if the speaker chooses to say something off record, the speaker is indirect and provides hints, that is, the utterances one might say are not directly addressed to the hearer, the hearer can act as if the utterances were not heard. Finally, the last strategy means not saying anything, but acting out with the intention that your need will be recognized; here, one can give non-verbal hints, e.g. searching for something in the pocket, or bag. Huang (2007, p. 118)  Situation: John, a student asks Mary, another student to lend him her lecture notes.

On record, without redress, baldly:
Lend me your lecture notes.

On record, with positive politeness redress:
How about letting me have a look at your lecture notes?

On record, with negative politeness redress:
Could you please lend me your lecture notes?

Off record:
I didn't take any notes for the last lecture.

Don't perform the FTA:
[John silently looks at Mary's lecture notes.] In bald on record speech can be performed by people from the same family or close friends, or for someone who decides to ignore the threat done by the FTA by uttering something unmitigated.
The indirect speech (off record) is considered less threatening to one's face, while the on record speech, when acted in a conversation between unequal speakers, may be associated by situations in which the speaker knows he/she has power over the hearer. In order to mitigate the threat it is necessary to use positive or negative politeness strategies to diminish the damage to the hearer's face. Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 102) identified fifteen positive politeness strategies, as follows:  (5) Seek agreement (6) Avoid disagreement (7) Presuppose/raise/assert common ground (8) Joke (9) Assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants (10) Offer, promise (11) Be optimistic (12) Include both S and H in the activity (13) Give or ask for reasons (14) Assume or assert reciprocity (15) Give gifts to H.

5/10
When a speaker needs to put into action negative politeness, he/she aims at showing deference and respect to the hearer and to his freedom of not being imposed on by others. Brown & Levinson (1987, p.130) claim that the linguistic realization of negative politeness strategies typically involve conventionally indirectenesses, hedges on illocutionary force, apologies and the emphasis on the hearer's power.
The maintenance of negative face in negative politeness requires the achievement of distance between speaker and hearer, so for the linguistic realization of negative politeness Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 131) listed ten strategies, as follows:
The concept of 'hedge' is important because hedges are much used in negative politeness strategies. Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 145) summarize the definition of hedges in the literature as a particle, a word, a phrase that modifies the degree of membership of predicate or a noun phrase in a set.
Further, the use of hedge tends to avoid commitment between speakers; it is a method of disarming a threat.
The positive and negative politeness strategies will be applied as a methodological procedure to observe the utterances used in the series The Crown, aiming to show which strategies were used to protect the Queen's face when threatened by an unfortunate situation with the United States First Lady, Jackie Kennedy.

Methodology
The approach for studying The Crown's episode is a descriptive qualitative method. The data sources in this paper are the utterances taken from season of observation here, is a dialogue between Queen Elizabeth II and her friend, Patrick. The lines uttered by these two characters are analyzed under the light of Brown and Levinson's ([1978] 1987) politeness theory and the fifteen and ten strategies stemmed from it. In order to conduct the analysis, the transcript of the referred episode was downloaded from 8Flix website granted for entertainment, convenience and study.
In the episode, Queen Elizabeth is inspired by

Analysis
In this section the analysis of the scenes is  (3), Elizabeth chooses to respond in a direct manner (line 4) performing an FTA on record, baldly without redress. According to Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 69), a speaker is direct when he/she is not afraid of the hearer's retribution, in a circumstance in which "the danger to the hearer's face is very small". The Queen knows that being direct in this situation will not threat Patrick's face, such that he replies in line 5 using positive politeness strategy 5, seeking agreement. By saying "the food's always good", allows Patrick to stress his agreement with the Queen and, therefore, corroborates with her opinion. Considering their close relationship, they both know the food at the Radziwills' is always good so much so that she confirms by uttering line 6.

7/10
It can be observed in the extract that Patrick is trying hard to escape from the dinner issue, for that he flouts one of Grice's Maxims, the Quantity one, for not being informative enough when he says the food's always good. However, the main objective of this paper is to give attention to face as well as politeness strategies, so the maxims are not going to be explored here.
The Queen's next trial is going on record, with negative politeness redress by the utterance in line 7. She is direct in her question, but gives deference to the addressee adding the hedge 'I'd like to know'. Here, the Queen uses negative politeness strategy 1, be conventionally indirect. Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 132) explain that when employing this strategy "the speaker is faced with opposing tensions: the desire to give H an 'out' by being indirect, and the desire to go on record.
In this case, it is solved by the compromise of conventional indirectness". The conventional indirectness is given by the application of the hedge, mentioned above. In this case, the utterance in line 7 indicates an on record strategy.
However, according to the authors, usually when a speaker uses this kind of technique he/she indicates his/her desire to have gone off record, in other words, to convey the same thing indirectly.
The first clue sent by Patrick that he knows the Queen's wants is the indication that he produces nervous laughter in line (2) and that, if he cooperates with her, he is going to commit an FTA. According to the Politeness theory designed by Brown & Levinson (1987) this kind of hesitation is also considered a hedge, in this case a kinesic hedge. The authors posit that speakers do not need to utter verbal hedges to indicate that what they are about to say may threaten the hearer's face.
It is of note that the Queen conveys solidarity and indicates that she knows Patrick's wants to protect her face. She also conveys that she takes this into account, so she decides to stablish common ground by uttering line (8). This is explained by strategy 7, presuppose/raise/assert common ground, when she mentions about their past relationship, we grew up together, and the use of the pronoun we, is an in-group identity marker, by making use of strategy 4. The Queen utters those structures to claim common ground and solidarity to Patrick. It is also interesting to mention that Elizabeth breaks the imposition of the hierarchical implications that exists because of her being a Queen. She has the intention to make their relation close, so he might feel more comfortable to perform the FTA, which is recalling the sentences uttered by Mrs. Kennedy. Therefore, Patrick yields to Elizabeth's claims and agrees to speak. According to Brown & Levinson (1987), when employing negative politeness the speaker uses negative strategies to show deference to the hearer.
Hence it is common to use hedges in order to be conventionally indirect in the FTAs performed. In 8/10 Porto Alegre, v. 12, n. 1, p. 1-10, jan.-jun. 2021 | e-41365 the extract above it can be observed that Patrick uses many hedges (What I overheard, I should mention, It's possible that I misheard) meaning that he is not taking full responsibility for the truth of his utterances in lines (11)  In the subsequent line, (17), Patrick comes back to the use of negative politeness strategies using hedges again, but this time he adds 'I think', to intend that his memory might not be as accurate as it seems. Also, it is a sign that he wants to detach himself from the truth of his following utterances.
It is important to stand out that Patrick witnessed the very indelicate comments stated by Jackie Kennedy about the Queen at Radziwills' dinner.
Besides all the deference Patrick shows to Elizabeth whether as a Queen or friend he might also feel the same about the U.S. First Lady for everything she represented at that time. Jackie Kennedy was admired and beloved by everyone for her elegance, beauty and kindness. Jackie's natural behavior even inspired the Queen on an important event she had to attend to during the episode. Therefore, the speech choices made by Patrick during his conversation with Elizabeth also seem an attempt to save Jackie's face and not only the Queen's.
With that said, it is also relevant to point out that Elizabeth invited Patrick for that conversation because she suspected that the words stood by Mrs. Kennedy were not as kind as they should be.
The Queen and the First Lady had met some days before and, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, they had got along well, so she was surprised and about Jackie's speech, the way she acts with all her subordinates. Nevertheless, she decided to preserve her friendship and to demonstrate her respect towards her childhood friend using a lighter tone and strategies that stablish common ground.
She shows solidarity to the man's effort to save her face and makes use of a few hedges to mitigate the threat to his face. Patrick utters more negative politeness strategies to give deference to his hearer, employs several hedges to soften the FTAs he is about to perform because he complies to the Queen's wants, therefore he prefers to insert the hedges not to be so direct and offensive.

Discussion and conclusion
As posited by Brown & Levinson (1987, p. 103) positive "politeness utterances are used as a kind of metaphorical extension of intimacy to imply

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Analysis on the use of politeness strategies in a scene of The Crown 9/10 common ground or sharing wants (…)". These are the techniques used by the Queen to convince Patrick to cooperate with her, even when he is not so willing to.
It is clear during the analysed dialogue that Patrick makes use of negative politeness techniques. Brown & Levinson (1987) highlight that speakers may have different motivations to use negative strategies. The authors claim that "the outputs are all forms usefull in general social distancing; they are therefore likely to be used whenever a speaker wants to put a social brake on to the course of this interaction" (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 130).
According to the analysis it could be observed that the Queen goes on record more often than Patrick, better saying, Patrick never goes on record in the extract. He, most of the time, employs negative politeness and uses hedges to mitigate the FTA he is to perform by cooperating with the Queen's wants. It is understandable that Patrick does not go on record because he knows he is talking to the Queen and that, even when she establishes common ground, it is hard for him not to respect the inherent power that exists between them. On the other hand, it seems to be easier for the Queen to go on record; despite her using positive politeness strategies not to sound rude, she is used to being direct to everyone. She knows that her subordinates will do their best to cooperate and to fulfill her wants even when they do not desire to. Furthermore, she knows that they will always save her positive and negative face whenever possible. Lakoff (1990, p.34) claims that "politeness is a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimazing the potential for conflict and confrontation". This claim is clear in the extract above. Patrick uses many politeness strategies to avoid confronting and disagreeing with the Queen's wants. He is vague, he uses verbal and non-verbal hedges, he tries everything he can to avoid desagreeing or saying "no" to the Queen, even when he does not wish to say the truth, so as not to threaten her face. However, Eizabeth's wants are met. She uses her power and positive strategies to achieve her goals, which in the extract is to find out Jackie Kennedy's opinion about her.
Considering Brown & Levinson's (1987) politeness theory, cooperation and face maintenace are aspects of communication that people who are involved in a conversation tend to respect. The use of politeness strategies are the means to preserve harmony in a community. In the society we live nowadays, in which information and "opinions" are everywhere, specially on the Internet, it is, sometimes, inevitable to avoid moments of conflict and confrontation during interaction. Therefore, it would be very difficult to establish good social relationship without the use of such strategies.