Politeness Strategies in English and Armenian

Directness vs. Indirectness

Abstract

The article attempts to carry out a comparative analysis of politeness strategies in English and Armenian based on the factor of directness and indirectness. The connection between indirect expression and politeness have been widely discussed among linguists and pragmatists (see Brown and Levinson 1987; Lakoff 1973; Leech 1983; Searle 1976). Many of the scholars having underlined the close connection between the concepts mentioned, note that a higher degree of indirectness presupposes more politeness. Speech act of request has been chosen as the material of the research. The investigation has revealed a number of similarities and differences in the application of politeness strategies of expressing request in both languages. In particular, the two languages use the same three basic strategies of request – direct, conventional and indirect and unconventional indirect. Conventional Indirect strategy especially in patterns made up with interrogative sentences prevail both in Armenian and in English. However, along with the similarities in the strategies of the two languages, many differences have been observed in their forms of expression – in the structures and patterns.