["Xhosa language -- Honorific", "Xhosa language -- Interrogative", "Grammar, Comparative and general -- Honorific", "Grammar, Comparative and general -- Interrogative", "Dissertations -- Xhosa language"]
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This study investigates how politeness may be employed in requests in Xhosa. Whilenumerous studies on speech act have been conducted in different languages, theinvestigation of speech acts in African Languages, particularly Xhosa, shows no suchprogress. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining the notions of politeness inrequests as perceived among the Xhosas.With the study of speech acts, two instances of meaning have been identified. In the firstmeaning a speaker utters a sentence and means exactly and literally what he says. In thesecond meaning the speaker utters a sentence with an additional illocution with a differentprepositional content.It has been established that various meanings playa role in the understanding of indirectrequests. This finding is based on the theory of Brown and Levinson's (1987) face work ofpoliteness. Scholars like Clark and Schunk (1980) argue that the politeness of response isgoverned by the attentiveness hypothesis which states that the more attentive the heareris to all aspects of the speaker's request, within reason, the more polite he is.One of the most common motivations for politeness is a request. Brown and Levinson(1987) define politeness as the manifestation of respect for and recognition of another'sface. They delineate face into two components: negative face and positive face. Positiveface is the way a person wants to be regarded, admired, or approved by others and to betreated as a friend. On the other hand, negative face is the person's desire not to beimposed on by other people. A request threatens face in the sense that it imposes on thehearer, that is why in some cases requests call for mitigation, so as to compensate fortheir impositive effect on the hearer.Various subcategories of requests within which negative politeness may appear have beenestablished, as well as the various ways in which these subcategories of requests may belinguistically expressed in Xhosa. Three distribution types of request categories withnegative politeness have been found: high frequency, No very regular and negligible.Requests with the highest frequency may be divided into three subcategories: compliance;information; and action. These subcategories demand non-threatening strategies:compliance demands obedience, action demand doing things with a desired result, andinformation demands knowledge from a person. These three are thus face-threateningacts, which demand respect for the hearer's antonomy. Such requests may seriouslythreaten the hearer's negative face. If no politeness strategy is attempted, these requestswill be viewed as most threatening acts.The ten negative politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson did not apply to Xhosabecause they have been developed for a Western language. In the place of thesestrategies, it has been found that negative politeness may be expressed in Xhosa throughcertain subcategories as above, but also through certain pragmatic functions by means ofwhich negative politeness may be applied to avert a face-threatening act.Brown and Levinson (1987) list fifteen positive politeness strategies. In the case of thefour Xhosa books, which were analyzed, only eight strategies for positive politeness werefound. These strategies can be divided into two groups: high frequency and negligible.The most regular strategies are: seek agreement, give or ask for reasons, address forms,presupposition, and those, which include both speaker and hearer.An explanation for the high frequency of these strategies is to be found within positivepoliteness. Positive politeness forms emphasize closeness between speaker and hearerand it can be seen as a solidarity strategy. Thus, a face saving act, which is concernedwith the person's positive face, will show solidarity.
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