LINGUIST List 19.2711
Sun Sep 07 2008
Diss: Pragmatics: Isik-Guler: 'Metapragmatics of (Im)politeness in ...'
Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter
<evelynlinguistlist.org>
1. Hale
Isik-Guler,
Metapragmatics of (Im)politeness in Turkish: An exploratory emic investigation
Message 1: Metapragmatics of (Im)politeness in Turkish: An exploratory emic investigation
Date: 05-Sep-2008
From: Hale Isik-Guler <hisikmetu.edu.tr>
Subject: Metapragmatics of (Im)politeness in Turkish: An exploratory emic investigation
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Institution: Middle East Technical University
Program: Foreign Language Education
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2008
Author: Hale Isik-Guler
Dissertation Title: Metapragmatics of (Im)politeness in Turkish: An exploratory emic investigation
Linguistic Field(s):
Pragmatics
Subject Language(s): Turkish (tur)
Dissertation Director:
Prof.Dr. Şükriye Ruhi
Dissertation Abstract:
The research at hand maintains an emic approach to understanding(im)politeness1 (i.e. in its folk sense) within the meaning makingprocesses involved in Turkish. With the intention of reaching anethnopragmatic theoretical account of (im)politeness, this studyinvestigates tacit knowledge native speakers of Turkish have on(im)politeness and their related perceptions and evaluations. The thesisexplores the cultural-conceptual system of (im)politeness in Turkishutilizing three sources: (a) data from an open-ended metapragmaticconceptualization questionnaire probing Turkish native speakers' politenessencounter narratives through seven key metapragmatic politeness terms (i.e.KİBAR, İNCE, NAZİK, DÜŞÜNCELİ, SAYGILI, GÖRGÜLÜ, TERBİYELİ) and eight keyimpoliteness terms (i.e. KABA, NEZAKETSİZ, DÜŞÜNCESİZ, SAYGISIZ, GÖRGÜSÜZ,TERBİYESİZ, PATAVATSIZ, KÜSTAH), and (b) corpus analyses for the lexicalitems KİBAR and KABA, (c) (im)politeness encounter narrative interviewswith native speakers of Turkish. This research study has been designedmainly as an exploration of what Turkish people consider to be (im)polite,how they express they become (im)polite, and how (linguistic)(im)politeness is interpreted by others in everyday communication, as wellas how Turkish native speakers evaluate (im)politeness through the key(im)politeness lexemes available in the language, what their 'bases ofevaluation' are and what views they hold concerning motivations underlyingthe want to be (im)polite in Turkish. The qualitative thematic analysisconducted on the questionnaire data yielded six bases of evaluation for(the total of 1211) politeness narratives, and eight bases of evaluationfor (the 1306) impoliteness narratives. It was revealed that the bases ofevaluation for a polite act in Turkish were primarily 'attentiveness toother's emotions, needs and goals' and abidance by 'custom', whereas theywere '(quality) face-attack' and '(equity) rights violations' forimpoliteness. The corpus analysis and interview data also corroboratedthese findings. The quantitative cross-mapping of (im)politeness lexemes to(im)politeness themes suggested biases of lexemes for certain themes andthemes for lexemes. The motivational and strategic uses of (im)politenesswere related more to egocentric tendencies with politeness being motivatedpredominantly for self-promotion and image management, and goal attainment,and impoliteness motivated mainly by the desire to establish power andproject power on to other, to perform an emotive reaction, to hurt otherand to reciprocate others' impolite acts to self. The relationship between(im)politeness and the concepts of sincerity, intentionality, historicity,reciprocity and public versus private domain influences are worth pursuingfurther research on for the Turkish culture. All in all, this studyprovides Turkish baseline data for later cross-cultural (im)politenessresearch and suggests that (im)politeness1 (lay) conceptualizations can aidthe (scientific) theorizing of (im)politeness2 to a great degree.
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