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Politeness in Digital Communication: A Study of Pragmatics
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Language
Abstract
This study is a cyber-linguistic investigation of politeness principle in selected WhatsApp messages. It aims at examining the use of politeness principle and how it is essential for maintaining social friendliness among WhatsApp users. As such, this research is built upon pragmatic model of politeness. Politeness plays a crucial and significant role in all cultures and societies for keeping relationships and saving faces. Although politeness is common to all cultures and languages but how it is realised is different from one culture to another. This research therefore intends to understudy its applicability on the internet community. The research sourced its data from individual and group platforms. Three chats of twelve conversations were randomly selected and the data were presented and analysed using descriptive quantitative approach. The results of the analysis show that there are several instances of observance and non-observance of the politeness maxims. Findings from the study therefore revealed that in internet/digital communication, interlocutors or participants tend to observe tact maxim more often than the rest of the maxims and they also fail to observe generosity maxim while the agreement maxim is not applicable in the two instances (observed and non-observed maxims).
Keywords
Language, Pragmatics, Cyber-pragmatics, Politeness Principle, WhatsApp
References
[1] Cutting, Joan and Kenneth Fordyce (2015). Pragmatics: A Resource Book for Students. Theoretical and experimental issues.
[2] Elite Olshtain and Idan Trega (2023). Cyberpragmatics: Complaints and the collective perspective. Constrative Pragmatics, Vol 4, pp 307.
[3] Miriam, Locher (2011) Cyberpragmatics: Internet-Mediated Communication in Context: A Review of Francisco Yus’ Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, Volume 213, pp 353,
[4] Amsterdam, Miftahush, Shalihah (2023). Politeness Strategies in WhatsApp Text Messaging: International Journal of Social Science Research and Review Volume 6, Issue 7 July, Pages: 137-151
[5] Participatory Communication with Social Media
[6] Suerni, Itkes Ikabina (2024). Application of Politeness Theory in Digital Communication: Impacts and Implications for Online Interactions. International Journal of Educational
[7] Research Excellence (IJERE) Vol. 3 , Stephen, Levinson (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.
[8] Yus, Franscisco (2011). Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated Communication in Context. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[9] Yule, George (I996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
How to cite this paper
@article{1709813,
author = {Abdulazeez, Jamiu Adewale, Salisu, Muhammed Raj},
title = {Politeness in Digital Communication: A Study of Pragmatics},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2025},
volume = {9},
number = {1},
pages = {1072-1078},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1709813.pdf},
abstract = {This study is a cyber-linguistic investigation of politeness principle in selected WhatsApp messages. It aims at examining the use of politeness principle and how it is essential for maintaining social friendliness among WhatsApp users. As such, this research is built upon pragmatic model of politeness. Politeness plays a crucial and significant role in all cultures and societies for keeping relationships and saving faces. Although politeness is common to all cultures and languages but how it is realised is different from one culture to another. This research therefore intends to understudy its applicability on the internet community. The research sourced its data from individual and group platforms. Three chats of twelve conversations were randomly selected and the data were presented and analysed using descriptive quantitative approach. The results of the analysis show that there are several instances of observance and non-observance of the politeness maxims. Findings from the study therefore revealed that in internet/digital communication, interlocutors or participants tend to observe tact maxim more often than the rest of the maxims and they also fail to observe generosity maxim while the agreement maxim is not applicable in the two instances (observed and non-observed maxims).},
keywords = {Language, Pragmatics, Cyber-pragmatics, Politeness Principle, WhatsApp},
month = {July},
}