Politeness and Its Perception by Armenian Learners of English: From Theory to Action

Abstract

The study of the mechanisms of politeness in society has been a subject of interest for scholars of linguistics since the 20th century with the development of pragmatics and sociology. The aim of the current article is to introduce the most popular politeness theories as well as investigate how linguistic politeness is understood and used by students of English. We have conducted a social survey with students of English at the Department of European languages and Communication to see how well they perceive linguistic politeness in its two forms – negative and positive – as suggested by Brown and Levinson in their seminal work “Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage”. As a result, we have arrived at some interesting conclusions with regards to the way the students understand the two types of politeness, and at the same time we have offered some ways of improving the “lacuna” in their knowledge in relation to the appropriate use of politeness in interaction.