Implementation of Politeness in Pakistani Political Talk Shows: A Legal Perspective
Authors
AAMIR KHAN JAMALI, MUHAMMAD ASIF KHAN and ABDUS SAMAD KHAN
Abstract
The aim of this study is to analyse political talk shows employing Politeness theory. The Theory of Politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987) has been utilized in this study. This study has investigated the politeness of the Political discourse employing the Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) and Face Saving Acts (FSAs) along with legal perspective that how these FTAs can be disturb the social balance. Moreover, it has been analysed that how verbal, nonverbal, and Para- verbal expression can damage the hearer’s and speaker’s face. The researcher has found that FTAs and FSAs are not only verbal but also nonverbal and para verbal in the political discourse. The usages of FTAs and FSAs have emerged differently in the data. It has been found that certain offensive words which are FTAs for someone, but the same words are FSAs for another person. Moreover, he or she utilizes FTA to another person at a particular time, it can be FSA to the same person at another time and vice versa. Lastly, the use of negative or positive words can limit the loss of the face of another person. The use of words by human beings can make a distinction between particular social gatherings from tribe to tribe and community to community. The face-threatening acts emerged in the data are “distrust”, “warning”, “threat”, “hatred” and “order” whereas“greeting”, “request”, “acceptance” and “wish are the main face-saving acts. The study is important because it analyses the political shows realistically. This study brings the novelty in bringing the four episodes of Pakistani political talk shows which have not been analysed before with respect to face-threatening and face-saving acts.
Keywords: Theory of Politeness, Tolerance in Speech, Freedom of Speech, Legal Action and Speech Acts.