Teaching impoliteness in the second-language classroom.

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tongue and raised in the same society is unable to differentiate the ‘tone’ in the remarks made by their peers, then it is a complicated concept to explain. Mostly, because each culture has ‘socially acceptable’ things and our background tends to make harder to assimilate any changes.

As for the strategies people show for dealing with social impoliteness, I have discovered that I unconsciously do the ‘excessive politeness’. My tutor at the University in the US had to sat me down and explained to me that I overly thanked people, that he knew it was a cultural thing (he was married with a Mexican for 10 years) but that in the US it was not necessary, that I could imply it with my tone. It was eye opening, because he stated he had received some complaints; there were people that understood my thank you as an offensive remark, similar to sarcasm or an insult they could not figure out. I never knew!

Finally yet importantly, I find significant to state that while doing some research about the topic on hand, I found Brown (1987) and an idea that it is worth mentioning: the existence of positive and negative politeness. The usage of the first will create intimacy, camaraderie and so on; the latter, however, will hamper communication. The results you get will depend on how you decide to use it. I would like to think it applies the same way with its opposite.

In conclusion, it is my belief that, incorporating impoliteness teaching in a SL classroom could make a difference in how we understand not only the language but also the culture of a given place. In order to gain a full immersion in the society we are –permanently or temporarily- we should aim to comprehend not only their utterances produced but the meaning and intention behind them.

References:

Brown, P. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Vol. 4). Cambridge University Press.