2.4.1. Hedging as a negative politeness strategy Hedges/ hedging in general belong to negative politeness.

Brown and Levinson (1987: 105) appoint that: In a literature, hedge is a particle, word, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set For example, English A serving is a sort of toy John is a true friend I rather think it is hopeless You are quite right Vietnamese Kiu nh mt tr chi John ng l mt ngi bn tt Ti thong ngh l khng c hi vng u Hnh nh bn hi ng

According to Brown/ Levinson (1987), conversational principles are the sources of strong background assumptions about cooperation, in formativeness, truthfulness, relevance, and clarity which on many occasions need to be softened for reasons of face. Here to, hedges are the most immediate tool for the job and the authors discuss such hedges on Grices Maxims. The four maxims of Grice recognized are quality, quantity, relation, and manner. - The quality states: +Make yourself as informative as required (for the current purpose of exchange) +Dont make us contribution more informative than it is required -The quantity maxim says: +Dont say what you believe to be false and +Dont say that for which you lack adequate evidence -The relevance maxim says: +be relevant -Grices specific maxims of manner are: +Be perspicacious +Avoid obscurity of expression +Avoid ambiguity

Grices idea becomes the basis for what Fraser (1990) calls a conversational maxim view of politeness from the conversational viewpoint found in the work of R.Lakoffs paper (1973) and Leechs (1978). Lakoff (1990) wishes to show that in addition to semantic and syntactic rules, language users follow rules of pragmatic competence for reasons of politeness. Then Brown and Levinson (1987) distinguishes four different kinds of hedges, namely those affecting illocutionary force, hedges on Grices maxims, hedges addressed directly to politeness strategies and hedges encoded in prosodic and kinetic strategy. However, due to limited time, the author only takes notice of hedges on Grices maxims. *Hedges addressed to Grices maxims _ Quality hedges (i) Quality hedges may suggest that S does not taking full responsibility for the truth of his utterance English There is some evidence to the effect that. As far as I know .. I may be mistaken but I think Im not sure if its right but I guess I believe . I assume . E.g. Dont be so sad. I believe he is still alive. Em khng ng anh hon ton ngc li so vi suy ngh ca em. C th em sai nhng em mun bit cuc hn nhn vi vng ca anh c hnh phc khng? (Bo Th gii Ph n s 39/ 2002) (ii) Or alternately they stress Ss commitment to the truth of his utterance English Vietnamese Vietnamese C mt s dn chng cho thy l.. Ti khng chc lm .. Theo ch ti bit .. Ti ngh rng Ti cho l . Nghe u l . Ti tin l ..

With completely honesty I can say . I absolutely deny that . I absolutely believe that .

Th thc l Ti thc s tin rng .. Ti hon ton tin l ...

(iii) Or they may disclaim the assumption that the point of Ss assertion is to inform H. English As you know .. As you probably/ may know . As you and I both know Vietnamese Nh cc bn bit. Mi ngi bit y . C ngi ni rng .. C ngi cho rng . Ngi ta cho rng E.g. I am not sure and let me tell you why I am not sure. It seems to me I want to be as accurate as I can be. Seems to me the last time she was there to see Barry before Christmas we were joking (..) and so I said would qualify or something like that. I dont/ I dont think we ever had more of a conversation than that about it. (Bill Clinton By Nguyen Hoa An introduction to semantics, p.168) Ri nh anh vn va ni y, by gi em ang bn khon . th liu rng c quay li vi nhau i chng na, em c gi gn c tnh yu hay khng? (An interview on VOV 12/ 2003) (iv) As quality hedges, we have degrees of probability expressed in increasing doubt. English Definitely Probably May/ might E.g. He will probably coming He just may come C th l anh y s khng n u. Anh c gng lm tt n v sng tt H Ni nha anh. Rt c th ngy anh bo v n tt nghip em s khng ra c v anh c. ng gin em nha! (Bo Th gii Ph n s 27/ 2002) C th l Vietnamese

Em khng th ni, khng th din t c mnh au n th no khi chng mnh chia tay nhau mc d chng mnh c nhiu k nim p bn nhau. (v) These are also quality performed by auxiliary, emphasizing adverbs on explicit and deleted performatives English For sure I see it I can infer I widely conjecture Truthfully Honestly, Quite candidly, Quite frankly, E.g. The thief broke the lock, for sure I saw it I would say he wont go out with Mary. _ Quantity hedges (i) Quantity hedges give notice that not as much or not as precise information as might be expected English I cant tell you than that it is I should think Roughly More or less Approximately Give or take a few Or so All in all In nutshell Vietnamese Ti cng khng bit chc Ti khng cn bit ni g hn Khong chng l ng chng l Xp x l Hnh nh l Tng nh l, u nh l Hng chc l, hng nm l Kiu nh l Vietnamese Ti chc chn y Thnh tht m ni Ni tht l Cng phi ni ngay rng

To cut a long story short In short Basically So to speak Sort of Some sort of . like To some extent In a way Somehow Up to a point

, kiu nh n cng mt kha cnh no V c bn l Bit y l u, bit u c chuyn y Mt cht na, mt t na

(ii) We also get expression with clear politeness functions like I just say - I just say getting there is not easy as it looks. - A: Have you ever been there? B: Well somewhere in the Middle East _ Relevance hedges (i) There are hedges English Vietnamese

This may not be relevant/ appropriate/ Khng bit c nn ni khng timely but . This may sound like dumb question but. Not to change the subject .. Now is probably the time to say I might mention at this point Since Ive been wondering Since its been on my mind .. Sorry, Ive just thought By the way ... Oh I know Anyway ... While I remember ... While I think of it ... All right now Khng dm cm phin ng Ca ng ti Cht mt ci l Qu c th Ni b ngoi ngoi tai D sao i chng na Tin th l Nhn tin y nhn tin Ni trm bng va Ni anh b qu cho

(ii) The use of now interacts with the use of tense deixis, now making a claim for relevance (because it is a proximal deictic marker) and past tense hedging a bit on the relevance Now I was wondering if . (iii) Also under this rubric fall hedges on whether the point or the purpose of the speech act is in fact relevance. For examples: - For assertions: I dont know whether youre interested but If you ask me, .., in case you want to know - For reply to the questions: Yes, since you ask Yes, if you care to know Vng nu anh thc s mun th V anh hi nn Anh c bit khng

Nu anh mun bit, kin ca ti l - For questions: ..., do you know? - For commissives: Im sorry, if you want to know my feelings. Im furious, if you care to inquire my feelings on the matter. - For declarative : If you allowed me, .. If we all agree . (iv) And there are clauses that modify the performative verb by giving reason why S made the utterance, making this an explicit claim to being relevant. E.g. Do you have any flour to spare because Ive just run out? _ Manner hedges English If you see what Im getting at If you see what Im driving at To be succinct, Not to beat about the bush You see. What I meant was.. More clearly, To put it more simply, . Now to be absolutely clear, I want Im not sure if it makes sense ... I dont know if this is clear at all (ii) Not related are these expressions that query whether is following Ss discourse adequately English Yeah? Got it? OK? Phi khng? .m .nh Vietnamese Vietnamese Ti xin i thng vo vn ti l Ni n gin l.. Ni nm na l ... cho r rng hn ..

You with me? Is that clear? See?

.nghe R cha?

Such maxim hedges as those we have been discussing are used with great frequency in ordinary talk. According to Brown/ Levinson, they have in many cases straightforward politeness applications. Quality hedges that weaken Ss commitment may redress advice or criticisms: I think perhaps you should. Quantity hedges may be used to redress complaints or requests: Could you make this copy more or less final? Relevance hedges are useful ways of redressing offers or suggestions: This may be misplaced but would you consider? And manner hedges can be used to redress all kinds of FTAs: You are not exactly thrifty, if you see what you meant. In addition to the hedges on the maxims with their FTA uses there are some which, while they may be derived from Maxim hedges, function directly as notices of violations of F wants. For example: Frankly, to be honest, I hate to have to say this but , I dont want to hurt you but (which preface criticisms and bad news).

Brown and Levinson (1987) divided particles which hedge illocutionary force into strengthener those that mainly act as emphatic hedges: exactly, precisely, emphatically and weakeners those that soften or tentativize what they modify. Nevertheless, the author only investigates weakeners mentioned above in the scope of the study because of the suitability to the topic of the thesis Hedging before giving bad news. Weakening particles is to use adverbs as: really, sincerely, and just Sincerely, the more I hear about your husband, the less I like him. Thats just true. The tentativizers: perhaps, maybe, I wonder which seem often to indicate the presence of an implicature are ways of avoiding FTAs. It looks good, but maybe, this job does not suit you. C v tt lm nhng c l cng vic ny khng ph hp vi anh u. Dubitative particles: I guess/ I think/ I suppose .. suspend the felicity condition on assertions that the S knows what he says to be true: You are sad, I guess.

As we can see above, the felicity condition dubitative particles suspend is the sincerity condition so that S is not claiming to be doing the speech act he appears to be doing or doesnt take responsibility for the truth of his assertion. In the second place, Heringer (1972:55) describes a set of illocutionary force hedges that consist of the expression of a felicity condition in an if clause Catch me if you can If you can in the above example pragmatically functions as hedges on the force of the speech act. Here comes the other phrases of if clause. I wonder if/ I wonder whether .. if I may ask you? if you dont mind? if you want/ you can? If you allow me .. If you are already ... Another level of phenomena is presented by you know, you see, I mean, as it were, in all possibility, it seems to me. I was coming out of the door, you know when I mean I saw him standing there, waiting. From the contrary-to-expectation sense one moves naturally to a commiservative usage which softens the FTA of conveying bad news and which we can gloss as: Im afraid, Im sorry. Hes left, Im afraid. Im sorry, he didnt come. FTA source for implicatures are sort of, kind of, a mere and a little bit, just a little bit serves notice of reluctance impinge. I sort of hate to say this but .. The fish is great, but a little bit salty. Mn c ny rt ngon nhng hi mn mt cht (Vietnamese) Or indicate a co-operative avoidance of positive disagreement. I really sort of think.

There are phrases which have distribution predicable essentially on pragmatic rather than semantic grounds but which are transparently related to literal meanings that already have hedging functions. In his reply to Ross (1970) and G. Lakoff, Fraser (1972) notes apparent counter examples to the claim that the performative verb must be the highest verb in surface structure. I regret that I must inform you of your dismissal. I am pleased to be able to offer you the job. I would like to congratulate you. Since on our view performativity is indirect even in explicit performative utterances, these sorts of sentence offer no special problems for our account. Embedding increases the inferential load on the H, but there is no difference in kind between performative utterances with embedded and those with embedded performative verbs. Sadok (1974: 55-61) has in effect argued against the indirectness of these cases and Fraser (1975) has gone on to investigate sentences like these in some detail under the label of hedged performatives. Fraser (1975) has discussed the interesting cases of utterances that differ from simple performative utterances in the performative verbs preceded by a modal like must, can, will, would, might, should or semi modal such as have to. Such utterances seem to have the illocutionary force of the act named by the performative verb used, as illustrated by typical utterances of sentences like these: I must ask you to leave I can promise you will be home. I want to thank you for the Beaujolais. I would suggest you try some. Fraser is concerned both to account for their illocutionary force in terms of certain conventional principles, and to account for cases (weak performative) that do not have the force of the act named by the performative verb, such as: I must forbid you from cutting off your right arm. Fraser seems to assume (he says nothing explicity) that simple performatives do not pose the same

explanatory problem as hedged performatives. Since he indicates nothing to the contrary, presumably he thinks that simple performatives are literal and direct illocutionary acts and therefore that they have their illocutionary force. For hedged performatives, like standardized indirect acts generally, there is ample precedent for the inference the H is intended to make, consequently the SAS is short-circuited. What distinguishes direct performatives and hedged performatives from illocutionary standardization generally is that the illocutionary verb explicitly occurs in the utterance. Thus the Hs search procedure, even if such utterances lacked precedent, would be simple and short. In reviewing the other main cases of hedged performatives, we will give brief versions of the inference required in accordance with the maxim of sufficient reason. According to Fraser, hedged performatives with can generally require some adverbial like now, finally or at last to count as the sort of illocutionary act named by the performative verb. I can now admit that I did Such an adverbial is not necessary, however, as shown by example repeated here: I can promise you will be home. The hedged performatives with would, might, should are interesting because grammatically they seem to be consequence of subjunctive conditionals without any expressed antecedent. A sentence like this might be construed as an elliptical version of a conditional with an antecedent like If you were to ask my opinion. I would suggest a short of Irish whiskey. Finally, Fraser claims that for each kind of hedged performative only certain sorts of illocutionary verbs work performatively with the modal (or other expression) in question. The following, for example, are clearly not acts of the sort named by the performative verb. I must invite you to say. I can (now) ask you to go I will order you to sit down. However, it is not the verb itself but the verb together with its complement that determines whether an utterance of a sentence in normal circumstances has the illocutionary force designated by the

verb. The following examples, with the same verbs as in these examples, seem to have that illocutionary force: I must invite you to another one of those horrible parties at the bosss house. I can (now) ask you to turn up the radio-the kids are asleep finally. I will order you never to come back until I tell you to. In each case the hedged form has the illocutionary force named by the verb because the utterance meets the conditions that hedged performatives of that sort need. Hedged performatives with must are acts that the S is reluctant to do. Those with can imply that the conditions were not right previously vat is now. Those with will imply that the S was not previously willing or that a certain condition is assumed under which he is willing. And so on for other cases. The point is that performativity, simple or hedged, is not a question of semantics. The only question about the acceptability of a performative reading of sentences used performatively, that is, to perform an act (indirectly in our view) of the sort named by the performative verb. When such a sentence is so used on a given occasion, no special reading is required to explain that use.