Q. What constitutes good manners? A. It varies from culture to culture.
Many of us interact without thinking much about how we learned to be polite, and how we know when someone is being impolite. It just comes naturally; we have been learning these rules since we began to interact with others. But if you’ve ever lived in another country or with another culture, you quickly realize that politeness rules are not the same.
Geoffrey Leech’s politeness principles help us realize how tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement and sympathy are expressed in American culture.
If you’re working with advanced ESL or ELL students, you’ll find a discussion of these maxims, and how they sound in informal and formal settings, to be very informative and enlightening. This topic can generate great conversations in classes of mixed cultures and backgrounds.
Leech’s 6 politeness principles:
TACT: ‘Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other; maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other.’
GENEROSITY: ‘Minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the expression of cost to self.’
APPROBATION: ‘Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other; maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other.’
MODESTY: ‘Minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of dispraise of self.’
AGREEMENT: ‘Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.’
SYMPATHY: ‘Minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and other.’