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Politeness Strategies Employed by College Students in Uncomfortable Situations

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), there are four politeness strategies people employ within interactions. Past literature has indicated that societal norms play an important role in the way men and women interact in the public sphere. Such norms are tantamount to one gender employing more apologies, or being more indirect than the other. Building on these research findings, the current study examines the use of politeness strategies within the context of an awkward social situation, particularly in a university setting. Twenty college students were subjected to a trial wherein the experimenter would take their seat when the student left it unoccupied. The students' resulting reaction to this unexpected transgression was then examined. This study examines the various requests, categorizes them based on the four politeness strategies, and aims to analyze whether one gender is prone to using a certain politeness strategy over the other. Introduction From the time we first learn to speak, we are primed to acquire certain politeness behaviors that are widely accepted by society. Beginning with learning to say “please” and “thank you” and developing the skill to recognize when it is appropriate to apologize, one might observe that these techniques take a long time to absorb. However, no one can ever be truly prepared to employ such strategies in every situation. Even when primed with the correct responses, an occasion is bound to arise in which a person will not know what to do. Thus, the question is how does one respond when faced with an awkward situation? This is the issue the current study is going to address. We aim to answer the follow questions: How do students employ politeness strategies while acknowledging