Negative Politeness Strategies (Brown and Levinson)

Another kind of politeness strategies is negative politeness. This strategy used when S wants to show that he cares and respect H’s Negative Face. If S did or will do an FTA, he will minimize the threat by using apology, deference, hedges and other strategies. Negative Politeness strategies consist in assurances that the speaker recognizes and respects the addressee’s negative-Face wants and will not (or will only minimally) interfere with the addressee Freedom of Action.

This strategy assumes that there might be some social distance or awkwardness between speaker and hearer and it is likely to be used whenever a speaker wants to put a social brake on his interaction (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 129).

Moreover, they (p. 129) introduce some strategies that included in negative politeness, they are:

1. Be direct
In the formal situation, sometimes the directness is needed to minimize the imposition by saying the point and avoiding the further imposition of prolixity and ambiguity as mentioned by Lakoff (in Goody, 1996). Fortunately, this strategy is rarely used in negative politeness because it is more relevant to be used in bald on-record strategy. For example, “Help me to pick up these boxes!”
In this strategy, S chooses to come rapidly to the point directly when she or he wants something. She does not care about maintaining face of the H but still respects and assure not to disturb the freedom of action of H.

2. Don’t assume about H’s wants
This type tries to avoid assuming that anything in FTA is desired or believed by H. it is stressed by hedging such assumptions in the form of word and phrase that modify the degree of predicate membership. For example, “A swing is sort of a toy’, or “You are quite right”.

3. Don’t coerce H
a. By avoiding coercing H’s response means that S gives H the option not to do a certain act.

b. By avoiding coercion of H means that S minimizes the threat by clarifying S view of the P, D and R values. 

c. Communicate S want not to impinge on H Indicate that S is aware and he takes account in his decision to communicate the FTA is one of the ways to satisfy H’s negative face.

4. Redress others’ wants of H

This is the higher strategy of negative politeness that consists of offering partial compensation for the face threat in FTA. It shows that negative politeness attends to other wants can be derived (H’s desire for territorial integrity and self determination). 

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Concept of Face and FTA (Face Threatening Acts)

Face
Based on Brown and Levinson (1987: 61) “Face is derived from the notion of Goffman and English people which is related to the idea of being embarrassed or humiliated, or ‘loosing Face’.” Since Face is something that is emotionally invested, can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, a person has to pay attention to his interlocutor’s Face. In other words, the speaker and the hearer must cooperate in maintaining each other’s Face in interaction. The action of maintaining each other’s Face called ‘Face work’.
Moreover, Goffman in Renkema (1993: 13) introduces the concept of face as an image which is projected by a person in his social contacts with others. Face has the meaning as in the saying to loose fact. Based on the opinion of Goffman, every participant in the social process has the need to be appreciated by others and the need to be free and not to be disturbed. He calls the need to be appreciated as a ‘positive face’ and the need to be free or not to be disturbed is called as ‘negative face’.
While negative face is defined as the desire of every member that he has Freedom of Action as well as freedom of imposition (the desire to not to be disturbed). For example is a father who is in the middle of giving advice to his children expects that his children do not tend to interrupt his speech (freedom of imposition).


Face Threatening Acts (FTA)
Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with the FTA’s. We understand the notion of ‘face’ previously from the dramaturgical theories of Erving Goffman that individuals as social actors perform (present a public self) on the stage of everyday life. The acts that threaten either the negative or positive face of the hearer are called ‘Face Threatening Acts’ (FTA) (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 65). There are acts that threaten the H’s Negative Face such as order, request, suggestion, advice, reminding, threat, warning, offer, promise, compliment and expression of negative emotion. Here, the speaker does not intend to avoid impeding H’s Freedom of Action. For example, when you ask someone to lend you some money, you are considered threaten that person’s Negative Face. It happens since you have violated his want to be free from being imposed.
In contrast, there are acts that threaten the H’s Positive Face such as expression of dissatisfaction, criticisms, complaints, accusation, and insult, disagreement, out of control emotion, irreverence, and bringing bad news about H or boasting about S, raising divisive topics, and blatant non-cooperation in an activity. All these acts indicate that the speaker does not care about the addressee’s feeling or wants. For example, disagreeing with someone’s opinion also causes a threat to his Positive Face, as it means that you indicate that he is wrong about something.

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