1. Gender and Politeness in E-mails: Expressing/
Interpreting (Im)politeness within an
Organisation
By Liberty Borjal
28381
Project submitted in partial fulfilment of the Degree
of BA (Hons) in English Language
Majan College (University College)
In association with the University of Bedfordshire, UK
Date: 6 June 2011

2. DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this dissertation is my own work in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for BA (Hons) English Language.
Liberty Borjal
6 June 2011

3. Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………i
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………ii
Chapter 1
1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….......1
1.1 Research Background – Testing an Alternative Politeness Model
on a Small-Scale Study….............................…………………………....…..4
1.2 Statement of the Problem…...………………………………………….……6
1.3 Aims and Objectives………………………………………………………...7
1.4 Rationale: Significance of Investigating Gender Politeness Differences in
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) at a Workplace……………....8
1.5 Overview of the Methodology……………………………………………..10
Chapter 2
2. LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………12
2.1 Theoretical Literature……………………………………………………...12
2.1.1 Gender…………………………………………………………...12
2.1.1.1 A Sociological Definition of Gender
(Wodak and Benke, 1997)…………………………......13
2.1.2 Politeness…………………………………………………………15
2.1.2.1 The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975)…………........16
2.1.2.2 The Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983)………………...17
2.1.2.3 A Model of Politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987)......18
2.1.2.3.1 Reconciling the Politeness and Cooperative
Principles as Non Coordinate Principles……..18
2.1.2.3.2 Politeness Strategies in Language…………....19
2.1.2.3.2.1 Bald on Record………………….....20
2.1.2.3.2.2 Positive Politeness………………....21
2.1.2.3.2.3 Negative Politeness………………...21
2.1.2.3.2.4 Off Record…………………………22

4. 2.1.2.4 An Alternative Model of Politeness (Watts, 2003)…….23
2.1.2.4.1 Post-Brown and Levinson (1987) Research
into Politeness………………………………...23
2.1.2.4.2 A Social Model of Politeness………………...24
2.1.3 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)……………………26
2.1.3.1 Effects of Technology on Written/Spoken Text
(Cornbleet & Carter, 2001)……………………………..26
2.1.3.2 Electronic Communication
(Thomson and Murachver, 2001)………………………28
2.1.4 Corporate Discourse……………………………………………...29
2.1.4.1 Corporate Discourse (Scollon and Scollon, 2001)……..29
2.2 Empirical Research…………………………………………………………30
2.2.1 Gender and Politeness……………………………………………30
2.2.1.1 Are Women More Polite Than Men?: Power, Distance
and Ranking of Imposition
(Brown and Levinson, 1987)…………………………...31
2.2.1.2 Power and Indirectness in Women’s Speech
(Romaine, 1999)………………………………………..33
2.2.1.3 Gender and Politeness (Mesthrie et. al., 2000)...….…...35
2.2.2 Gender and CMC
2.2.2.1 CMC and Group Composition (Savicki et. al., 1996b)...36
2.2.3 Politeness and CMC
2.2.3.1 Is Politeness Present in CMC?
(Morand and Ocker, 2003)……………………………..38
2.2.3.2 E-mail Facilitating Politeness Strategies
(Duthler, 2006)…………………………………………40
2.2.4 Gender and Politeness in CMC
2.2.4.1 The New Decade of Evidence on Gender and Politeness
in CMC (Herring, 2004)………………………………..41

5. Chapter 3
3. METHODOLOGY……………………….………………………………………43
3.1 General Perspective and Type of Research………………………………...43
3.2 Research Context: The “AIESEC” International Student Organisation
Context……………………………………………………………………..45
3.3 Research Subjects…………………………………………………………..46
3.4 Instruments Used in Data Collection……………………………………….48
3.5 Procedures Used……………………………………………………………49
3.6 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………….....51
3.7 Summary……………………………………………………………………52
Chapter 4
4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION………………………………………………...53
4.1 Presentation of Results……………………………………………………..53
4.1.1 Directive E-mails………………………………………………...54
4.1.2 Non-directive E-mails……………………………………………56
4.2 Discussion………………………………………………………………….59
4.2.1 Politeness Markers and Consultative Devices as Directive and
Non-directive EPM’s Respectively………………………………59
4.2.2 E-mails with no EPM’s…………………………………………..60
4.2.3 Non-directive E-mails from Female and Male Senders………….61
4.2.4 Expectations of Directives and Non-directive E-mails…………..63
4.2.5 E-mail Sender Communication with the Same and Opposite Sex:
Are EPM’s Favoured by Female Recipients…………………......63
Chapter 5
5. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………66
Chapter 6
6. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………......68
REFERENCES……………..…………………………………………………………70
Appendix A: Task Soliciting/Seeking E-mail Messages………………………...…..80

6. Abstract
Researchers have used the politeness theory to interpret the language use of men
and women. Drawing on the politeness theory, this study investigated the diverging/
converging male/female language in the context of soliciting or seeking tasks through
e-mail messages, setting out to see whether the purported differences between men
and women’s language use are still relevant in a particular setting and how different or
similar they can be. The study collected e-mails constituting the internal communication
of an international student organisation’s members, who had goals to achieve and
requested or sought the accomplishment of tasks. The collected e-mails were divided
into directive and non-directive e-mails; each of them was searched for linguistic
expressions indicating politeness. The e-mails were collected from male and female
senders, and the gender of the recipient was noted. The results showed that, for e-
mails from both males and females, certain linguistic expressions were used more
for directive e-mails and more for non-directive e-mails. Also, when it came to non-
directive e-mails, e-mail messages from female senders exhibited a higher variety of
politeness linguistic structures than the e-mail messages from male senders. It was
found as well that politeness linguistic structures were used more for e-mails sent to
female recipients, suggesting that somehow politeness is favoured by women and the
e-mail senders were aware of or perceived this. With the prevalent use of Internet in
modern society and business being conducted over e-mail, it would be of value to
perceive politeness not as a fixed system, but as something individually perceived by
participants in an interaction.
i

7. List of Tables
Table
I E-mails Collected for the Study………………………………………………47
II EPM’s in Directive E-mails – Male Senders………………………………….54
III EPM’s in Directive E-mails – Female Senders……………………………….55
IV EPM’s in Non-directive E-mails – Male Senders…………………………….56
V EPM’s in Non-directive E-mails – Female Senders…………………………..57
ii

8. Chapter 1
1. INTRODUCTION
Much has been said about the way women’s and men’s use of language differ.
Generally, certain features have been attributed to women’s talk, which has always
been, stereotypically at least, considered to be significantly different from the language
used by men. A less explored issue, however, is the extent to which men’s and women’s
talk can be similar. A plausible scenario is that of both genders finding themselves in
a formal business setting, obliged to fulfil measurable tasks and, possibly, employ a
specific type of language to accomplish and/or solicit these tasks. Men and women will
then potentially differ or not differ in the topics that they discuss and could or could not
be allowed to be informal in their discourse. In the end, men and women may or may
not differ in the tactics that they employ to get these tasks done by others.
Mesthrie, et. al. (2000: 235) observed that: “Some researchers have drawn on
politeness theory to interpret women’s and men’s language use.” As a matter of fact,
if there were one theory within which all the features that differentiate men’s and
women’s talk can be explored, it would be the politeness theory. Romaine (1999: 168)
proposes: “Indeed, some of the differences between male and female behaviour… such
as amount of talk, distribution of talk, interruptions, questions, and backchanneling,
may be better handled as differences in politeness”. She follows this up by stating
“there are a number of ways to be polite” and notes that this variation takes place
“cross-culturally or even from group to group within the same culture” (Ibid.: 169).
1

9. With the success and prevalent use of Internet technology in the 21st century,
cross-cultural communication is relevant more than ever and the world has, indeed,
become flat, with communication swiftly travelling across seas, crossing boundaries
and deeming geographical and cultural distances irrelevant. Such phenomenon is
supported by the Internet. Debrand and Johnson (2008: 20) note that: “Interpersonal
communication has been a prevalent use of the Internet, despite the number of other
services available”. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (cited in
Ibid.): “on a typical day in 2000, 47 percent of people who went online sent email, over
double the number of people who conducted any other Internet activity”. This goes to
show that, apart from giving insight into cross- or intercultural communication, e-mail
can give access to a wide sample of human interpersonal communication.
When it comes to cooperation and politeness in the business scenario, previous
attempts, indeed, have been made to analyse and comprehend gender differences in e-
mails with respect to these two. One of them was a study by Kaul and Kulkarni (2009),
who researched gender and politeness in e-mails in the Indian business setting, and
found that specific forms of politeness will result in cooperation among team members/
co-workers in e-mail communication; adherence to politeness maxims is higher in
women than in men; specific examples of violations of politeness maxims are higher
in men than in women; adherence to politeness maxims in clusters is not gender
specific, but rather, contingent on the situational or organisational needs; and finally, in
directives, the variations in use of politeness maxims across genders is the highest.
Just like Kaul and Kulkarni’s research, this study intends to extend attempts
to analyse and comprehend e-mail gender differences. The difference, however, lies
2

10. in the setting. Instead of analysing data from subjects in a corporate business setting,
this study drew data from the e-mail messages of members in an international student-
run organisation. These members are part of specific teams and have definite roles to
fulfil. At the same time, these young people are, themselves, bound for business careers,
and, by taking part in the organisation, are already starting to develop and nurture a
culture of professionalism, which they will most likely take with them when they enter
into their own respective careers. Another difference is in the methodology. Several
politeness studies have used the Leech (1983) and Brown and Levinson (1987) models.
This study, however, uses an alternative model of politeness proposed by Watts (2003)
and sees how such a model can possibly apply to a study of this nature.
In line with all of the above, this study collected e-mail messages, with more
e-mails found from female senders. E-mails were collated in relation to directives
soliciting accomplishment of tasks or non-directives seeking information or
accomplishment of tasks, through the observation or non-observation of politeness. This
was done for the purpose of finding out how politeness is manifested in e-mails by men
and women in a specific setting with a particular code of conduct, and how politeness,
or the lack thereof, varies in soliciting tasks, as gender could be irrelevant when it
comes to internal communication in an organisation striving to achieve specific goals.
The following sub-sections of this introduction chapter serve to open the paper
with a background of the study, which gives a background on the politeness model
used in this study; a statement of the problem; the aims and objectives of the study;
the rationale, explaining as well the significance of the study; and an overview of the
methodology.
3

11. 1.1 Research Background – Testing an Alternative Politeness Model on a Small-
Scale Study
A dominant model on politeness to emerge in the last decades is that of Brown
and Levinson ([1978] 1987), which put forward the dichotomy of negative and positive
politeness. Watts (2003) argues that we should do away with this duality in politeness
and go back to the concept of face as formulated by Goffman ([1955] 1967). Watts saw
a problem with the definition of linguistic (im)politeness and questioned the implication
made by Brown and Levinson that it is language usage geared towards mutual face
needs. Watts argued that politeness theory can never be fully equated with face theory
and phrased three consequences that confront a point of view as Brown and Levinson
imply (that politeness theory can be fully equated with face theory):
a. “The term ‘linguistic politeness’ runs the risk of becoming vacuous,
since any linguistic expressions at all which are used in face-
maintenance would then be examples of ‘linguistic politeness’.
b. Certain speech activities which ‘look’ and ‘sound’ polite in fact aim to
achieve the very opposite of face-maintenance.
c. The definition rests on the assumption that all social interaction is
geared towards cooperative behaviour.” (Watts 2003: 118-9)
Goffman’s notion of face, Watts claims, “helps us to form a relatively stable
conceptualisation of the self” (Ibid.: 124). Also, Watts points out, “face is dependent on
4

12. the interpretation of the other participants more than ourselves” (Ibid.). In Goffman’s
([1955] 1967: 6, quoted in Watts 2003: 124) words:
“One’s own face and the face of others are constructs of the same order;
it is the rules of the group and the definition of the situation which
determine how much feeling one is to have for face and how this feeling
is to be distributed among the faces involved.”
Face, therefore, Watts (2003: 125) states, is not a fixed or permanent aspect of
our construction of the self and that, as Goffman makes clear, despite the significance
face has for an individual, it is ‘only on loan from society’. In conclusion, Watts notes:
“To classify as linguistic politeness all those structures which are
used in positive and negative facework is to empty the terms ‘polite’
and ‘impolite’ of the meanings we attribute to these, and similar,
lexemes in social practice and to deny that there is a discursive struggle
over their use.” (Ibid.: 141)
One of the aims of this study, as will be stated in the aims and objectives
section, is therefore to test an alternative model of politeness and see how it potentially
applies to the respective nature of the small-scale study.
5

13. 1.2 Statement of the Problem
The problem this study seeks to address is that of whether males and females
converge or diverge in using (im)politeness when it comes to soliciting tasks. Several
researches have been put forward purporting to show the clear or unclear differences
between men and women’s speech, and, while politeness has also been an issue touched
upon/covered by these researches, it is worthwhile to zero in on a specific speech
community and examine their verbal interaction, such as the internal communication of
an organisation. Within an organisation wherein members or constituents are working
towards a common goal, there are likely to be protocols, procedures or normalised
forms that govern how internal communication is performed by each individual in the
organisation.
Given these ‘uniformities’, will there still be a difference between the speech of
men and women, particularly when they have to drive productivity and solicit certain
tasks? And, if there are any differences or idiosyncrasies, can these be more attributed
to personal style and choice, perhaps because internal communication is differentiated
from communication within the larger society/bigger community and its social
influences (as what has been seen to shape gender)? Does individual background also
play a role?
To add to the whole equation is the realm of computer-mediated
communication, an area relevant to this day and age due to the widespread use of
Internet. Sending e-mail messages has been seen to be one of the most common
activities of Internet users. And, especially within an organisation, electronic
6

14. communication, especially e-mail, holds great value. This study also seeks to determine
whether sending the task-solicitation messages via e-mail are influenced by the
communication medium, overall revealing (or striving to reveal, at least) the relation
between gender, politeness and computer-mediated communication, particularly within
a specific setting. This study specifically seeks to identify how politeness is manifested
in e-mail messages sent by men and women.
1.3 Aims and Objectives
The aims and objectives of this study can therefore be enumerated as follows:
• To investigate men and women’s speech in a specific condition, under a particular
setting (internal communication within an organisation via e-mail to solicit a task).
• To see whether varying degrees of politeness are exhibited, at the same time
exploring models of politeness and testing one of them, particularly a lesser used but
interesting one, to see whether it is relevant, in examining e-mail communication
within an organisation at least, to apply a radically alternative view of politeness.
• To look at the extent to which computer-mediated communication, particularly
e-mail, influences interpersonal communication and the placing of requests, and
whether men and women differ and/or are similar in the language they use when
they send e-mail messages.
7

15. • To observe whether personal choice/style and/or background play a role in an
individual’s language in the above-mentioned circumstance and setting.
1.4 Rationale: Significance of Investigating Gender Politeness Differences in
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) at a Workplace
Much has already been studied regarding ‘gendered speech’ and much
has yet to be discovered, but is it really worth it to zero in on the politeness aspect of
speech and apply this to electronic communication, particularly in the workplace?
Savicki et. al. (1996b) acknowledged the emphasis now being placed on computer-
mediated communication in both education and the workplace. When it comes to
gender politeness differences, Holmes (1994, mentioned in Romaine 1999), as a matter
of fact, looked at the implications of the differences in education and the workplace.
Holmes’ results tended to support the “different cultures” approach that Tannen (1990)
popularised; however, she went further than the conclusion of Tannen that
“communicational difficulties” are resolved by “mutual respect and tolerances for
differences in conversational style” and “saw power as the key issue” (Romaine 1999:
172). Romaine (1999) relayed Holmes’ finding regarding the power issue: “It is power
differences that sanction men’s norms and give them the right to ignore the
contributions made by others, to interrupt others, and to not apologize” (Ibid.).
Granted that there is insight to be found from exploring gender politeness
differences in CMC, particularly in the workplace, can gender even manifest in
electronic discourse? Thomson and Murachver (2001) put forward their prediction
8

16. that, even in the absence of a ‘gender-informative signature’, gender is conveyed in
electronic discourse. According to them, people convey their gender in electronic
discourse by generalising established ‘gender-preferential’ language patterns “from
spoken communication to the electronic medium” (Thomson and Murachver 2001:
193). They acknowledge, too, that: “it is likely that similar differences are present
in electronic communication” “given that gender differences in language emerge in
oral and written communication” (Ibid.: 195). To show this, they cite recent reports
suggesting there are different styles used by both genders in electronic communication
(Herring 1993, 1994; Savicki et. al. 1996c; Witmer and Katzman 1997).
It can thus be concluded from the above that examining gender politeness
differences in electronic discourse, particularly in the workplace, can be very
enlightening and that, indeed, ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ speech is demonstrated even
in a medium as seemingly impersonal (due to the absence of face-to-face interaction)
as e-mail. Such an investigation therefore has potential for achieving the previously
outlined aims and objectives of the study, which, in turn, have potential as well to
confirm or contest previous claims and to guide new ways of looking into the field or
the formulation of new yet significant questions that could similarly provide a new
perspective.
9

17. 1.5 Overview of the Methodology
As mentioned in the background (Section 1.1), this study intends to use an
alternative model of politeness, and the methodology itself will be elaborated in a later
chapter. This section serves to give an overview of what this methodology will be as
well as the research perspective and methods used.
Firstly, data were collected by rounding up multiple e-mails and copying them
onto a Word document. The e-mails were classified according to the gender of the
sender, as well as the gender of the addressee: male, female or both if the e-mail had
more than one recipient. Because the study also looks at intercultural communication,
the nationality of the sender was profiled as well in case there was any cultural context
that could be applied or a culturally significant observation made. Afterwards, the e-
mails were divided further into directives and non-directives. In the first place, the e-
mails collected had to be soliciting tasks or requesting for something to be done;
therefore, the directives are e-mails in which the sender assigns a task to the recipient
and non-directives are e-mails “seeking information” or “seeking tasks to be
accomplished” (Kaul and Kulkarni 2009: 8). The directives/non-directives division is
the same one that was used by Kaul and Kulkarni (2009) in their study on gender and
politeness in e-mails, but in an Indian business setting.
The study diverges from other similar ones in how politeness is coded or
identified. Since Watt’s (2003) social model is used, the e-mails were examined for
what Watts called, “expressions of procedural meaning” or EPM’s. In identifying the
EPM’s, House and Kasper’s (1981) taxonomies of politeness structures were employed,
10

18. to narrow down the different (im)politeness strategies used by the e-mail senders to
solicit tasks.
Results, in the end, were presented in tables and the research possessed a
quantitative nature since the tokens of politeness (the EPM’s) were counted. However,
the study was also qualitative due to the unevenness of e-mails collected from male and
from female senders (there were more female-composed e-mails). To reconcile this, a
qualitative review of the results was made to provide a plausible analysis.
In order to satisfy the aims and objectives mentioned earlier in this introductory
chapter, the study, following this chapter, will elaborate on previous findings and
relevant topics in an exhaustive, multi-disciplinary literature review. It will then allot
a chapter to the methodology, describing in detail the steps that were taken to collect,
code and analyse the data. The results of the research will then be presented and a
discussion made. The study will end with a conclusion and some recommendations,
going back to the above-stated aims, gauging whether the previously defined objectives
were met and stating what more needs to be done.
11

19. Chapter 2
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
In conducting a study on gender and politeness in e-mails, several factors are
taken into account: definitions of gender, politeness and electronic communication
(as exemplified by e-mail); and a description of how each of these relate to one
another. This exhaustive literature review thus puts forward, chronologically, findings
from different researchers in the varying fields relating to gender, politeness and
computer-mediated communication, by first exploring the concepts of each of the
three (theoretical literature), then showing empirical studies that were made to show
their relationships with one another. Additionally, since the study focuses on e-
mails produced within an organisation, a separate section is dedicated to ‘corporate
discourse’.
2.1 Theoretical Literature
2.1.1 Gender
What is gender and how can sex be differentiated from gender? Are there any
factors that must be considered when looking at gender or conducting a study that
involves gender? Wodak and Benke (1997) look at different perspectives given on
gender and comment on the shortcomings of sociolinguists in dealing with the context
of the data they investigate.
12

20. 2.1.1.1 A Sociological Definition of Gender (Wodak and Benke, 1997)
A straightforward distinction between “sex” and “gender” comes from Giddens
(1989: 158, cited in Wodak and Benke 1997: 128), who defines sex as “biological or
anatomical differences between men and women” and gender as what “concerns the
psychological, social and cultural differences between males and females”.
Lorber and Farrell (1991: 7, mentioned in Ibid.), however, keeping in mind a
social construction perspective, observe that sex and gender are socially developed
statuses. Sex is therefore a continuum consisting of chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, and
hormonal sex, which all together “work in the presence and under the influence of a set
of environments” (Fausto-Sterling 1985: 71, cited in Ibid.). Wodak and Benke (1997)
then posit that it does not make sense to assume there is a singular set of traits
characterising men or women in general that therefore define masculinity or femininity.
Such, they comment, is a familiar part of sexual society and paves the way for
“sociobiological explanations relating neurological facts to linguistic behaviour”
(Chambers 1992, mentioned in Ibid.).
Connell (1993: 170ff., cited in Ibid.) therefore proposes a “non-unitary model of
gender”. Both femininity and masculinity, Wodak and Benke relay, vary, and
understanding this context-dependent variety is “regarded as central to the psychology
of gender” (Ibid.). Furthermore, Wodak and Benke state, Connell argues that since
masculinity and femininity coexist in the same person, they should not be seen as polar
opposites, but as separate dimensions: “Femininity and masculinity are not essences:
they are ways of living to be replaced by histories, analyses of the joint production of
13

21. sets of psychological forms” (Connell 1993: 179, quoted in Ibid.).
To add to this, Lewontin (1982: 142, cited in Wodak and Benke 1997: 129)
emphasises the socialisation process’ relevance: the development of gender identity
“depends on what label was attached to him or her as a child . . . Thus biological
differences became a signal for, rather than a cause of, differentiation in social roles.”
This definition, Wodak and Benke (1997) comment, excellently connects the impact of
societal norms and evaluations, power structures and the role of socialisation. Thus,
they posit, it makes more sense to talk of genders in the plural, “because what it means
to be a woman or to be a man changes from one generation to the next and is different
for different racial, ethnic, and religious groups, as well as for members of different
social classes” (Ibid.). Gender categories, Wodak and Benke relay, are ‘social
constructs’ – they institutionalise cultural and social statuses, and “have served to make
male dominance over women appear natural” (Ibid.) Stolcke (1993: 19, quoted in Ibid.)
states: “gender inequality in class society results from a historically specific tendency to
ideologically ‘naturalize’ prevailing socio-economic inequalities”.
Wodak and Benke (1997: 129) subsequently note that a further aspect needs to
be included: “the negotiation of gender in actual interaction”. This, they observe, leads
us to the understanding of gender “as a routine, methodical, and recurring
accomplishment . . . doing gender is undertaken by men and women, doing gender
involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional, and micropolitical
activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine natures”
(West and Zimmerman 1991: 13-14, quoted in Wodak and Benke 1997: 129-130).
14

22. Such an understanding and definition of gender, Wodak and Benke (1997)
conclude, marks the importance of context-oriented research (Wodak 1994, Duranti and
Goodwin 1992); “language behavior is always situated in certain contexts and cannot be
regarded as isolated from these contexts” (Wodak and Benke 1997: 130). Wodak and
Benke comment, however, that, “although sociolinguistics explicitly includes societal
context in its fundamental and constitutive assumptions about language and meaning,
many survey studies on variation have dealt very superficially (or not at all) with the
context of the data investigated” (Ibid.).
2.1.2 Politeness
Politeness is a theory that has been contemplated by various researchers. Grice’s
(1975) Cooperative Principle played an influential role on the birth of the politeness
theory and from it sprung Leech’s (1983) Politeness Principle. The most influential
work on politeness, however, is possibly that of Brown and Levinson (1987), who
talked about negative and positive face and strategies for ‘face-threatening acts’. Brown
and Levinson’s theory was examined critically by Watts (2003), who provides his own
alternative model of politeness, relaying that politeness is recognised during social
practice.
15

23. 2.1.2.1 The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975)
Grice (1975), Cruse (2004) points out, put forward a very influential account of
implicature, which explains certain features of conversations. Grice’s version, Cruse
(2004: 367) says, “of what a conversationalist implicitly endorses” is manifested as the
cooperative principle: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at
the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged.” This principle, Cruse continues, is explained further by a set
of maxims: 1) the maxim of quality, which is concerned with telling the truth; 2) the
maxim of quantity, which is concerned with the amount of information conveyed by an
utterance; 3) the maxim of relation, which prescribes to “be relevant”; and 4) the maxim
of manner, which prescribes to “avoid obscurity”, “ambiguity” and “unnecessary
prolixity”, and to “be orderly” (Ibid.: 367-9). Grice also, Cruse explains, emphasised
that these maxims are not culturally bound conventions, but rather, are “rationally
based, and would hence be expected to be observable in any human society” (Ibid.:
370). In addition, these maxims can be deliberately flouted under certain circumstances
(see Cruse 2004: 372).
16

24. 2.1.2.2 The Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983)
Leech (1983), Cruse (2004:376) relays, “proposed an independent pragmatic
principle, to function alongside the cooperative principle” and this particular principle
Leech called the politeness principle. Just like Grice, Leech accompanies his principle
with a set of maxims: 1) the tact maxim, which prescribes to “minimize the cost to the
hearer” and maximise the benefit to them; 2) the generosity maxim, which prescribes to
“minimize the benefit to self” and “maximize the cost to self”; 3) the praise maxim,
which prescribes to “minimize dispraise of the hearer” and maximise praise of them; 4)
the modesty maxim, which prescribes to “minimize praise of self” and “maximize
dispraise of self”; 5) the agreement maxim, which prescribes to “minimize disagreement
with the hearer” and maximise agreement with them; 6) the sympathy maxim, which has
the sub-maxims of “maximize sympathy (expression of positive feelings) towards the
hearer” and “minimize antipathy (expression of negative feelings) towards the hearer;
and 7) the consideration maxim, with the sub-maxims of “minimize the hearer’s
discomfort/displeasure” and “maximize the hearer’s comfort/pleasure” (Leech 1983,
mentioned in Cruse 2004: 377-381). Just like the cooperative principle, Cruse (2004:
382) states, “the politeness principle is intended to be universal”, meaning culturally
independent, “in its application” and that, however, “the politeness maxims are given
different relative weightings in different cultures”.
17

25. 2.1.2.3 A Model of Politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
2.1.2.3.1 Reconciling the Politeness and Cooperative Principles as Non Coordinate
Principles
Brown and Levinson (1987)1 argued against Leech’s claim that, without the
politeness principle, the cooperative principle “would make erroneous predictions”
because the politeness principle explains why “people sometimes quite appropriately
say things that are false or less informative than is required” (Leech 1983: 80-1,
mentioned in Brown and Levinson 1987: 4). Brown and Levinson (1987: 5) state that
there are several reasons for arguing against this, but the one most relevant to their book
is that “every discernable pattern of language use does not, eo ipso, require a maxim or
principle to produce it”. The Gricean maxims are not merely statements of regular
patterns in behaviour, but rather, ‘background presumptions’, which “are robust to
apparent counter-evidence” (Ibid.). Therefore, Brown and Levinson state, assuming
cooperative behaviour is hard to undermine as tokens of what appears to be
uncooperative behaviour can actually be interpreted as cooperative on a ‘deeper level’.
Brown and Levinson go on to suggest that, “if politeness principles had
maxim-like status”, just like in Leech’s politeness principle, the same robustness
would be expected and “it should, as a matter of fact, be hard to be impolite” (Ibid.).
Brown and Levinson’s position then is that Grice’s cooperative principle “is of quite
different status from that of politeness principles” as it “defines an ‘unmarked’ or
1 Brown and Levinson (1987), in their introduction (“Introduction to the Reissue: A Review of Recent
Work”) to the [book] reissue of their work, ‘Universals in language usage: politeness phenomena’.
18

26. socially neutral (indeed asocial) presumptive framework of communication; the
essential assumption is ‘no deviation from rational efficiency without a reason’”, while
politeness principles are “just such principled reasons for deviation; therefore, linguistic
politeness is “implicated in the classical way”, “with maximum theoretical parsimony”,
from the cooperative principle (Ibid.). In their model, then, Brown and Levinson put
forward, what “allows the inference of implicatures of politeness” is, together with
the cooperative principle, “the mutual awareness of ‘face’ sensitivity, and the kinds of
means-ends reasoning that this induces” (Ibid.: 6, 5).
2.1.2.3.2 Politeness Strategies in Language
Brown and Levinson (1987) put forward four ‘super-strategies’ for doing ‘face-
threatening acts’. Firstly, the notion of ‘face’, the public self-image that every member
wants to claim for himself, is derived both from Goffman (1967) and the English folk
term, “which ties face up with notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, or ‘losing
face’” and thus “face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost,
maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction” (Brown and
Levinson 1987: 61). Furthermore, Brown and Levinson refer to “the aspects of face as
basic wants, which every member knows every other member desires, and which in
general it is in the interests of every member to partially satisfy” (Ibid.: 62). As a result,
the components of face can thus be divided into: negative face, described as “the want
of every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others”, and
positive face, described as “the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at
19

27. least some others” (Ibid.).
With the assumption of the universality of face is the universality
of ‘rationality’, which Brown and Levinson (1987: 64) put forward as “the application
of a specific mode of reasoning – what Aristotle (1969) called ‘practical reasoning’ –
which guarantees inferences from ends or goals to means that will satisfy those ends”.
Kenny (1966, cited in Brown and Levinson 1987: 64) posits, according to Brown and
Levinson, that “a system of practical reasoning must allow one to pass from ends to
means and further means while preserving the ‘satisfactoriness’ of those means”.
Both face and rationality considered, it is intuitively the case, Brown and
Levinson (1987: 65) state, that certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, those
acts that run contrary, by their nature, to the face wants of the addressee and/or speaker.
In this context, wherein a mutual vulnerability of face is present, say Brown and
Levinson, “any rational agent will seek to avoid face-threatening acts” (FTA’s) or make
use of specific strategies to minimise the threat (Ibid.: 68).
2.1.2.3.2.1 Bald on Record
The first FTA-avoiding/minimising strategy is called “bald on record”, which is
defined as performing a certain act if the communicative intention leading to it is clear
and unambiguous to the speaker (S) and hearer (H), and doing so in “the most direct,
clear, unambiguous and concise way possible” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 68-69).
Normally, Brown and Levinson state, an FTA is done in this manner only if the speaker
“does not fear retribution from the addressee” (Ibid.: 69). Examples of these
20

28. circumstances include: 1) S and H both tacitly agree that the relevance of face demands
may be suspended in the interests of urgency or efficiency; 2) where the danger to H’s
face is very small, as in offers, requests, suggestions that are clearly in H’s interest and
do not require great sacrifices of S (e.g., ‘Come in’ or ‘Do sit down’); and 3) where S is
vastly superior in power to H, or can enlist audience support to destroy H’s face
without losing his own (Ibid.).
2.1.2.3.2.2 Positive Politeness
Positive politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987: 70) put forward, is oriented
towards H’s positive face and ‘anoints’ the addressee’s face by indicating that, in some
respects, S wants H’s wants. In this case, an act’s potential face threat is minimised by
the assurance that S generally wants at least some of the wants of H (Ibid.).
2.1.2.3.2.3 Negative Politeness
Negative politeness, in contrast, Brown and Levinson (1987: 70) explain, is
mainly oriented towards “partially satisfying (redressing) H’s negative face, his basic
want to maintain claims of territory and self-determination”. The realisation of this
strategy is therefore to assure that S recognises and respects the wants of H’s negative
face and thus will not, or will only minimally, interfere with H’s freedom of action
(Ibid.). Brown and Levinson therefore describe negative politeness as self-effaced,
formal and restrained, with focus on restricted aspects of H’s self-image and H’s want
21

29. to be unimpeded. In Brown and Levinson’s words, FTA’s in negative politeness are:
“redressed with apologies for interfering or transgressing, with linguistic and
non-linguistic deference, with hedges on the illocutionary force of the act, with
impersonalizing mechanisms (such as passives) that distance S and H from
the act, and with other softening mechanisms that give the addressee an ‘out’,
a face-saving line of escape, permitting him to feel that his response is not
coerced.” (Ibid.)
2.1.2.3.2.4 Off Record
In the off record strategy, Brown and Levinson (1987: 69) elaborate, if S goes
off record in performing an act, “then there is more than one unambiguously
attributable intention so that the actor cannot be held to have committed himself to one
particular intent.” Linguistic realisations of off-record strategies, they note, include:
“metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions, understatement, tautologies, all kinds of hints
as to what a speaker wants or means to communicate, without doing so directly, so that
the meaning is to some degree negotiable” (Ibid.).
All these strategies outlined by Brown and Levinson for dealing with FTA’s
(bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off record) are chosen
according to influencing factors: Brown and Levinson (1987: 71) argue that “any
rational agent will tend to choose the same genus of strategy under the same
conditions”. This means, they elaborate, that the rational agent will tend to make the
22

30. same moves as any other would under the same circumstances. They explain this by
putting forward “the fact that the particular strategies intrinsically afford certain payoffs
or advantages, and the relevant circumstances are those in which one of these payoffs
would be more advantageous than any other” (Ibid.).
2.1.2.4 An Alternative Model of Politeness (Watts, 2003)
2.1.2.4.1 Post-Brown and Levinson (1987) Research into Politeness
Watts (2003: 98-9) presents five categories that label politeness research made
since the 1987 reissue in book form of Brown and Levinson’s work:
a. Work criticizing aspects of Brown and Levinson’s model – Watts states that
some of this literature advocates a revision of Brown and Levinson, while
others opt for the Leech approach.
b. Empirical work on particular types of speech activity in a wide range
of cultural and linguistic settings – Watts identifies requests, apologies,
compliments and thanks to be the most commonly discussed speech
activities, with request situations at the head of the list. Most of the empirical
work, notes Watts, employs the framework of Brown and Levinson on the
grounds that its tools are most efficient for the analysis of those speech
events, although some researchers, Watts admits, prefer to use the Leech
model.
23

31. c. Cross-cultural work assessing the ways in which two or more cultures differ
in their realizations of politeness, either in general terms or in relation to
specific speech activities – The preferred model here, Watts reveals, is the
one of Brown and Levinson.
d. The application of politeness models, mainly Brown and Levinson, to data
in other disciplines – Watts expounds that these disciplines are dominantly
in developmental and cognitive psychology, psychotherapy, business and
management studies, language teaching, gender studies, and law, among
others.
e. Sporadic attempts to suggest alternative lines of enquiry – Watts states that
the most radical suggestions were made by Eelen (2001).
2.1.2.4.2 A Social Model of Politeness
Brown and Levinson’s model, according to Watts (2003), has frequently been
understood to be a production model of linguistic politeness. Watts (2003: 142) states
that both explanatory and descriptive approaches to linguistic politeness make the same
mistake by abstracting away from real data and creating a concept of politeness for
which they claim universal validity. As a result, Watts relays, the assumption is made
that politeness is found in all societies; however, what the theory predicts to be polite
behaviour is not recognised as such by lay members. Watts therefore proposes an
alternative model of politeness, which he claims, unlike other models, does not attempt
to define politeness as a term in a model of society, but rather, allows us to see how the
24

32. social members themselves define the term. To do this, Watts (2003: 143) makes use of
Bourdieu’s (1990) theory of practice and his own theory of emergent networks, in
which “notions of capital and symbolic resource are linked to ways of understanding
politic behaviour” (linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour constructed by participants
to be appropriate to the ongoing social interaction). Watts (2003: 145) further defines
politic behaviour as: “behaviour which is consistent with the dispositions of the habitus
in accordance with the social features of the situational context”.
Meanwhile, Bourdieu’s theory of practice, according to Watts (2003: 147),
“denies the dichotomy between objective and subjective approaches to the study of
society” in “developing a processual way of looking at social structure”. Watts (2003:
148) aptly notes that both approaches (objective and subjective) “reify the social world
as a ‘given’, functionalist-structuralist sociology seeing it as a culturally determined,
institutionalised entity and existentialist-phenomenological and ethnomethodological
sociology seeing it as a natural entity”. Bourdieu’s solution then, Watts reveals, is to
synthesise both the objective and subjective approaches with the proposal of a third
option, his Theory of Practice.
The earlier mentioned ‘habitus’, Latin for a state of being; a demeanour,
manner or bearing; or the style of dress or toilet, is, Watts relates, the central concept
in this theory and is the set of dispositions to act in certain ways; this set is acquired
through ‘socialisation’ (Ibid.:149). The habitus, Watts states, is “most closely related to
the concept of politic behaviour” and is “responsible for both the reproduction and the
change of social structure” (Ibid.).
25

33. In conclusion, Watts notes that, while “we recognise politic behaviour when
engaging in social practice”, even though we can declare or determine what is and what
is not appropriate behaviour, there are no objective criteria to determine politic
behaviour and there are also no purely subjective criteria (Ibid.: 166). In such a social
theory then, Watts observes, only the individual’s past experiences and the interactive
partners’ perception of experiences that are similar decide what is or what is not politic
behaviour.
2.1.3 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)
What does text on an e-mail look like and how is conversation or interaction
affected by technological conditions/conventions? Cornbleet and Carter (2001), for
starters, provide a practical and simple approach to analysing/commenting on electronic
communication texts. Thomson and Murachver (2001) contemplated electronic
discourse as well and cited researchers who have looked into electronic messages.
2.1.3.1 Effects of Technology on Written/Spoken Text (Cornbleet & Carter, 2001)
When it comes to the effects of technology on writing, Cornbleet and Carter
(2001) claim that the communication type and language used are affected and
determined by the pace at which language is produced and correction facilities
available. They subsequently note that today, time is of the essence socially,
professionally and personally and that the choice of medium and the language employed
26

34. are influenced by speed and urgency. Cornbleet and Carter therefore distinguish
between two types of technological effects: graphic (adjustments made with, for
example, sending text messages and Internet Relay Chat or IRC) and interpersonal (the
new form interpersonal communication has to take when time and money are major
considerations) (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 113).
With regard to e-mail, Cornbleet and Carter observe that economy is not so
relevant with the freedom the sender has to compose messages (at no cost) off-line but
that time is still a likely factor. They note as well that not only time factor accounts
for a ‘fairly quick and informal style’ but also the “immediacy of the send/receive
mode, not only with IRC but with conventional emailing that affects the language
and style” (Ibid.: 114-5). They go on to observe that the language is close to a verbal
conversation, resembling it in its ‘chatty, colloquial style’, due to the speed of response,
and yet, at the same time, constraints imposed by the channel (mentally planning and
composing, typing, seeing the words in print) cannot be ignored and are all part of the
writing process, and still, Cornbleet and Carter claim, “this immediate communication
event doesn’t easily lend itself to a more formal written style” (Ibid.: 115). They posit:
“Hangovers from conventional letter writing still persist for many users, so some people
feel unsure whether to start with Dear Bob or just Bob or Hi, Hi-ja . . . or nothing at all”
(Ibid.).
Lastly, from a comparison of sample e-mails (see Cornbleet and Carter 2001:
117-8), Cornbleet and Carter (2001: 118) conclude that e-mail messages “cross the
boundaries between spoken and written language but not in a uniform, fixed way”
since “there are many different variations as there are differing individual styles and
27

35. preferences”.
2.1.3.2 Electronic Communication (Thomson and Murachver, 2001)
Electronic discourse, Thomson and Murachver (2001: 195) relay, “shows
elements of both written language and speech” (Foertsch 1993, Lea 1991). Thomson
and Murachver state that, although electronic discourse is written, it actually nears
speech interactivity because it is sent and received so rapidly, and, thus, conversations
can occur. Electronic messages, they observe, are “typically composed on the spot, and
are less censored and more informal than writing intended for hard copy” (Thomson
and Murachver 2001: 195). Yates and Orlikowski (1993), Thomson and Murachver
note, document some similarities between spoken conversation and e-mail, such as
that both “make use of informal vocabulary and incomplete sentences” (Ibid.). On the
other hand, Thomson and Murachver show, Yates and Orlikowski find examples where
electronic communication is similar to written correspondence, as “both show evidence
of editing, careful formulation and use of formulating devices such as headers and lists”
(Ibid.).
28

36. 2.1.4 Corporate Discourse
In order to understand the type of discourse this study investigates, it is worthy
to look at a certain type of discourse, the ‘corporate discourse’, for which Scollon and
Scollon (2001) provide a background and picture, relating it as well to the Utilitarian
ideology/discourse system.
2.1.4.1 Corporate Discourse (Scollon and Scollon, 2001)
Scollon and Scollon (2001: 186) consider the corporation to undoubtedly be the
“dominant form of business organization in the modern world” and note that the
modern corporation’s evolution to its current form is the rise of the Utilitarian ideology
and, as a result, is the said ideology’s “organizational and legal expression in business
affairs”. According to them, since corporate discourse systems are goal-oriented,
“the preferred forms of communication within corporate discourse systems are the
most focused, goal-oriented forms of discourse”, and relating this with the Utilitarian
discourse system state: “...goal-oriented discourse systems tend toward the use of anti-
rhetorical, positivist empirical, deductive, individualistic, egalitarian, and publicly or
institutionally sanctioned forms of discourse” (Ibid.: 196-7). By saying that corporate
discourse systems are goal-oriented, Scollon and Scollon mean that the discourse
29

37. systems are conceived to achieve specific purposes and, in the beginning, at least, those
purposes will dominate the discourse system’s ideology. Furthermore, Scollon and
Scollon label the corporate discourse as, in some ways, the model Utilitarian discourse
system (Ibid.: 197). Where face strategies are concerned, Scollon and Scollon observe
that, since “corporate discourse systems epitomize the Utilitarian discourse system, a
corporation’s internal communications are “generally hierarchical” (Ibid.: 199).
In regards to language, corporate discourse, according to them, is goal-oriented
and therefore has the tendency to emphasise information over relationship, negotiation
over ratification and individual creativity over group harmony (Ibid.: 201). There is,
they note, a stated ideology within corporate discourse of the value of negotiation and
negotiation of relative power and status positions tends to be placed a high value by
corporations – “Anyone can succeed” is attributed by Scollon and Scollon to be the
“underlying motto within most corporate discourse systems” (Ibid.). Simultaneously,
however, they note that the “yes men”, ones who “clearly, often loudly, ratify”
the existing power and status structures, are commonly recognised to get rewarded
promotion and privileged work assignments (Ibid.).
2.2 Empirical Research
2.2.1 Gender and Politeness
In order to understand the relation of and potential role of gender to politeness,
it is relevant to look at the way women’s language or way of speaking could be
distinguished. The following sections show various researches that have pondered this
30

38. matter, as well as the possible contributing factors to the differences if they exist.
2.2.1.1Are Women More Polite Than Men?: Power, Distance and Ranking of
Imposition (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
Lakoff set off the arguments that “women are more ‘polite’ than men” (Lakoff
1975, 1977, 1979; mentioned in Brown and Levinson 1987: 29-30). However, Brown
and Levinson observe, empirical tests of Lakoff’s claims that, for instance, women
use more tag questions, hesitation markers and ‘trivializing’ adjectives, failed to
substantiate Lakoff’s arguments and, despite the recurrence of evidence in much
research showing the absence of clear sex differences, the idea that sprung from
Lakoff’s arguments of women having a distinctive ‘style’ is still being pursued (Ibid.:
30).
Brown and Levinson (1987) propose that, in order to understand the elusive,
hard-to-pinpoint differences between the way language is used by men and women,
there needs to be absolute clarity and precision in how and where differences are
supposedly manifested. They specify that first, behaviour in both same-sex and cross-
sex dyads need to be distinguished, and that secondly, speaker-sex caused effects and
addressee-sex caused effects need to be distinguished as well. They conclude that the
claim of ‘women are more polite than men’ needs to be more specific – against whom
are women more polite, to whom are women more polite, what are women polite about
and in what circumstances?
31

39. Brown and Levinson’s framework puts forward some potential parameters to
account for politeness levels variation. Most obvious is the power (P) variable, wherein,
if gender contributes to social asymmetry, power and authority perception, then it could
be expected that women are more polite to an arbitrary interlocutor than are men from
the same status-bearing group. Brown and Levinson show certain studies that suggest
the importance of power, such as work on interruptions (see Zimmerman and West
1975; West 1979), which show, not only men’s tendency to interrupt women, but high-
status men/women’s tendency to interrupt low-status men/women and adults’ tendency
to interrupt children as well.
The next parameter in Brown and Levinson’s framework is the social distance
(D) variable. Brown and Levinson hypothesised how more likely women would be to
develop positive politeness strategies to a high degree when it comes to operating dense
social networks possibly associated generally with lower-status groups. As found by
Labov and his associates, “women typically use more prestigious dialect variables”
“than men do in comparable situations” (Labov 1966, Trudgill 1974 and Cheshire 1982
mentioned in Brown and Levinson 1987: 31), while work by Milroy (1980), Brown and
Levinson observe, shows that this phenomenon can be attributed, not to sex, but to “the
relative absence of dense female networks”: in the Belfast working-class communities
studied, “men typically had denser social networks than women – density being
associated with divergence from the standard dialect” (Ibid.).
The final and only parameter in Brown and Levinson’s framework, which is not
dependent on social attributes of the interlocutors, is the ranking of imposition (R),
which measures the perceived intrinsic ‘danger’ of an FTA (face-threatening act) (Ibid.:
32

40. 32). Brown and Levinson claim that sex differences in language use are also possibly
due to perceived differences in this ranking [of imposition]. This, as Brown and
Levinson say, would be assessed in subcultures where gender groups are sufficiently
segregated and in such cases, “there is a systematic higher rating of FTAs by women”
and this kind of account was developed by Brown (1979) to deal with female speech
characteristics in Tenejapa, a society where there is relative segregation of the sexes
(Ibid.).
In the end, Brown and Levinson conclude that whether cross-culturally, it is
generally true that ‘women are more polite than men’, and, if so, whether this results
from the systematic contribution of gender to P and D assignments remain open-ended
questions (Ibid.).
2.2.1.2 Power and Indirectness in Women’s Speech (Romaine, 1999)
Romaine (1999: 168) states that “what is universal about politeness is acting
deferentially to the person perceived as higher in status or power” and cites Bourdieu
(1977) who remarked: “politeness contains a politics, a practical and immediate
recognition of social classifications and hierarchies” (Bourdieu 1977: 662, quoted in
Romaine 1999: 168). Holmes (1994), according to Romaine (1999), defines politeness
as behaviour expressing either positive concern for others or distance and desire to
avoid imposing. In her studies of male and female conversational patterns in New
Zealand, Romaine (1999) relays, Holmes (1994) took as a measure of politeness the
amount of talk dependent on context and found a striking difference, depending on
33

41. their role as interviewer or interviewee, between the amount of talk produced by men
and produced by women. Holmes, in looking at compliments and apologies used by
both genders, Romaine relays as well, found that women give and receive more of both
than men do and that the similarity could have to do with the functions shared by both
on demonstrating concern for personal relationships. It was found that, although most
compliments and apologies occur between equals, those who were more powerful were
apologised to more frequently by women and even by men. For Lakoff, on the other
hand, Romaine states, indirectness, particularly when making requests, was another
way in which women showed their unassertiveness. Indirectness and hedging, Romaine
notes, have been seen to be typical and expected, yet undesirable, in some respects,
features of women’s speech.
In the business world, Romaine (1999) brings attention to the popular press’
mention of women’s language as a reason for women’s ineffectiveness. She highlights
the idea that communicative styles perceived to be feminine make women less serious
by citing a newspaper article entitled, “Job-hunting advice for women: Talk like a
man”, which said: “Women’s language is not the language that business people want
applicants to speak. Even women don’t want to hear it. They want a woman to talk like
a man” (Knotts, in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 1991, cited in Romaine 1999: 170).
However, as Romaine thoughtfully points out, the quoted newspaper article’s
suggestion of women talking like men “treats symptoms of women’s inequality rather
than its causes” and there is presently “a great deal of tension involved when women try
to combine femininity and power” (Romaine 1999: 171). In this vein, Romaine argues:
“If men’s greater success in business lies not in the way they act and speak, but is due
34

42. instead to their gender and society’s endorsement of male behavior as ‘normal,’ then the
advice being given to women is self-defeating” (Ibid.). Romaine points out, too, that the
meaning of indirectness and its role in politeness depend on who uses it and the context
and culture in which it occurs.
2.2.1.3 Gender and Politeness (Mesthrie et. al., 2000)
Lakoff (1975: 2, mentioned in Mesthrie et al. 2000: 235) argued that the social
role of women included arbiter of morality, judge of manners; thus, this encouraged
women to be “linguistically polite”. Brown (1980, mentioned in Ibid.) developed
a politeness model with Levinson and carried out research in Tenejapa, a Mayan
community in Mexico. As Mesthrie et. al. (2000: 235) relay, she found that extremes
of positive and negative politeness were used by women in the Tenejapan community,
whereas “men spoke more ‘matter-of-factly’”. Brown related her findings to the social
positions of both men and women in Tenejapan society, which she saw to be, for the
women’s part, for instance, “relative powerlessness” and “their vulnerability in relation
to men and their need to protect their reputations” (Brown 1980, cited in Ibid.). In New
Zealand, Holmes (1995: 6, quoted in Mesthrie et. al. 2000: 235) carried out a study
on use of the English language and argued: “[w]omen’s utterances show evidence of
concern for the feelings of the people they are talking to more often and more explicitly
than men’s do”. When she analysed her data, Holmes identified distinct functions of
tag questions and argued that facilitative and softening tags express politeness while
epistemic modal and challenging tags do not. In her data, she found that men used more
35

43. epistemic modal tags while women used more facilitative tags. Holmes (1995: 111,
quoted in Mesthrie et. al. 2000: 237) also argues: “women’s subordinate societal status
may account not so much for the way women talk, as for the way their talk is perceived
and interpreted”.
2.2.2 Gender and CMC
2.2.2.1 CMC and Group Compositions (Savicki et. al., 1996b)
Savicki et. al. (1996b) note that both popular press (Tannen 1994) and research
studies (Herring 1994) recently gave attention to a relationship between gender and
CMC and perceive such examination to be timely due to more emphasis being placed
on CMC in both education and the workplace. Savicki et. al. recall that historically,
CMC was a male-dominated domain (Kirk 1992); however, they notice that women
are also participating in this mode of communication in ever increasing numbers. Both
situations wherein CMC acts as a hindrance to participation for both genders (Herring
1994) and CMC enhances communication for both genders (Herschel 1994) are cited by
previous studies (Savicki et. al. 1996b).
Savicki et. al.’s (1996a) study focused on what can be narrowed down to four
significant considerations in the examination of gender and CMC. First, it was found
that, contrary to preceding expectation (Herring 1993), women were most satisfied with
CMC when they were working in female only (FO) groups while men in male only
(MO) groups were least satisfied, and evenly mixed male and female (MIX) groups
were in between in terms of satisfaction measure. Secondly, it was found that,
36

44. consistent with previous research (Herschel 1994) predicting the absence of differences
in participation between genders, there were no differences between all groups (FO,
MO and MIX). Third, it was found that, in contrast to previous research (Herring 1993)
that men talk more about themselves and their ideas as related to the group task while
women pay more attention to socioemotional aspects of the group process, “women in
FO groups used more self-referent or ‘I’ language than did men in MO groups” and
“there was no difference in use of group-oriented or ‘we’ language between groups”
(Savicki et. al. 1996a: 551). Lastly, predictions on interpersonal conflict (“or ‘flaming’
as it is called in CMC”) were that “men would engage in more acrimonious
interchanges in order to avoid changing their opinions; and that women would more
actively seek to reduce conflict and would be more likely to abandon their opinions”.
The study results confirmed this; however, no difference was found in the amount of
efforts for tension reduction across groups.
The abovementioned study left some questions to be asked, such as a call for a
finer discrimination in communication variables and clarification of how men and
women deal with CMC conflict (Savicki et. al. 1996b) and so, a newer study was
conducted by Savicki et. al. (1996b) and four issues concerning gender and CMC
emerged. First, gender being a factor that must be considered in CMC remains clear;
however, group composition appears to be a potent mediator of gender effects and the
direction of these effects are not always as predictable. Second, there was a lack of
effects in tasks, which calls for a need for a finer distinction of tasks and task demands,
and this is somewhat echoed by the study of Straus and McGrath (1994), who found
that some task results matched predictions while others did not. Third, the study
37

45. revealed that the well-being of the group should take conflict into consideration.
Herring (1994) explains that CMC groups can be ‘gendered’ and stated: “Women place
a high value on consideration for the wants and needs of others... Men, in contrast,
assign a greater value to freedom from censorship, forthright and open expression, and
agonistic debate as a means to advance the pursuit of knowledge” (Herring 1994: 7,
quoted in Savicki et. al. 1996b: 563). Lastly, Savicki et. al. recommend that it is useful
to define communication styles which enhance group development in the CMC context.
2.2.3 Politeness and CMC
2.2.3.1 Is Politeness Present in CMC? (Morand and Ocker, 2003)
Morand and Ocker (2003), in their conceptual article entitled, “Politeness
Theory and Computer-Mediated Communication: A Sociolinguistic Approach to
Analyzing Relational Messages”, explored the question of whether politeness is
present in CMC and state that it in fact does. In their words: “There should be little
doubt that face, FTA’s [face-threatening acts], and the remedial politeness behaviors
used to defray face-threat, occur with considerable frequency in computer-mediated
environments” (Morand and Ocker 2003: 4). Hiemstra (1982, mentioned in Morand
and Ocker 2003) examined transcripts from synchronous and asynchronous CMC
sessions and, relay Morand and Ocker, “found the great majority of messages to
contain instances of face-threat, face-threat mitigated through employment of linguistic
politeness” (Ibid.). FTA’s, Morand and Ocker straightforwardly put, are unavoidable in
CMC no less than in face-to-face interaction. Common interactional events, they state,
38

46. even those found in CMC, such as disagreements, criticisms, requests for information
or help, giving directives or a simple request for clarification of a prior message, are
“charged with potential face threat” (Ibid.). Goffman (1967, cited in Morand and Ocker
2003: 5), they relay, “observed that even technical interchange is bracketed by opening
(greeting) and closing (farewell) sequences in which actors clarify and fix the roles that
the participants will take and show participants what they may expect of one another
when they next meet.
To further illustrate their point, Morand and Ocker also talk about the Lee’s
(1994: 152, mentioned in Ibid.) analysis of e-mail exchanges between an employee who
sent requests to a number of individuals to take part in a training programme and the
request recipients, wherein the request was observed to be a “politically sensitive” one
that “shattered protocol”. Morand and Ocker therefore conclude that face-work does not
need face-to-face interaction. Moreover, they demonstrate how electronic technologies
beget FTA’s of their own, stating that “interpersonal intrusions are actually facilitated
by techonology” for “it is easier to hit the ‘send’ button than to walk down the hall”
(Ibid.). Furthermore, Morand and Ocker state that politeness tactics, as indicated by
prior research, can be observed reliably and thus quantitatively measured. They mention
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) drawing upon a body of “well-established and carefully
researched linguistic and sociolinguistic findings” as an example, and therefore put
forward the assumption that: “The specific tactics of politeness can be reliably observed
and thus quantitatively measured; as such they can be used in the assessment of
relational ties within CMC, at a linguistic level of analysis” (Morand and Ocker 2003:
5).
39

47. 2.2.3.2 E-mail Facilitating Politeness Strategies (Duthler, 2006)
Duthler (2006) provided support for Walther’s (1996) “hyperpersonal model” in
his study on the politeness of requests made through e-mail and voicemail. The
hyperpersonal model, Duthler states, “suggests that CMC can facilitate more socially
desirable levels of interaction than face-to-face communication” (Duthler 2006: 504).
Duthler goes on to relay that in “asynchronous” interactions, individuals can better plan,
compose, edit and review the content of their message as well as “time self-disclosure
and message exchange with more forethought” (Ibid.). Walther (1996: 26, quoted in
Ibid.) states: “Asynchronous interaction may thus have the capacity to be more socially
desirable and effective as composers are able to concentrate on message construction to
satisfy multiple or single concerns at their own pace”.
In the results of his study, Duthler found that e-mail users produced more
adjunct phrases and words than voicemail ones and that e-mail requests varied in
number of adjunct phrases and words, as well as the formality of address phrase
according to imposition – all of this show, in Duthler’s conclusion, that “email
facilitates politeness strategies” (Ibid.: 515). Furthermore, Duthler concluded from
his study that his results support Walther’s hyperpersonal model and demonstrate that
“email enabled the creation of more polite message content compared to messages
created through voicemail” (Ibid.: 519). Duthler concludes as well that “the intersection
of politeness theory and CMC can lead to a deeper understanding of the constraints and
freedoms offered by CMC technology” (Ibid.).
40

48. 2.2.4 Gender and Politeness in CMC
2.2.4.1 The New Decade of Evidence on Gender and Politeness in CMC (Herring,
2004)
Herring (2004), in a plenary speech at the International Conference on
Language, Politeness and Gender, acknowledged an early claim, which became
common wisdom, that “text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC)
predisposes people to be less polite than they otherwise would be face-to-face” (http:/
/www.nord.helsinki.fi/clpg/CLPG/Susan%20Herring.pdf). However, she notes, “the
literature on politeness and CMC has never addressed the challenge articulated by
Herring (1994), notably the observation that males and females differ systematically
in their use of (im)polite language” (Ibid.). Herring (2004) claims that “online gender
differences in politeness cannot be accounted for by any presumed homogenizing
technological effect” and that “overall results show that gender differences in politeness
are evident in every form of CMC studied”.
On another note, Herring states as well the revelation from recent research of
variation across cultures, and between public and private CMC, which, she posits,
points to the necessity for a refinement of earlier claims about online gender ‘styles’.
In presenting evidence from ten years of research on gender and language in different
modes of CMC (email, listservs, chat rooms, instant messaging, weblogs) in varied
contexts of use, Herring stated that the findings “underscore the socially, rather than
technologically, constructed nature of politeness on the Internet” and proposed an
41

49. alternative explanation for the purported frequency of impolite expression in CMC
(Ibid.).
Various theories and definitions have been put forward to describe the
respective phenomena of gender and of politeness. Furthermore, empirical studies have
been made to look into the relation and connection between the two, as well as the
relation and connection of each to CMC. Further still, relating all of the three, Herring
(2004), in presenting a new decade of evidence on gender and politeness in CMC,
relays that findings point to politeness on Internet as a social construction. In finding
how gender, politeness and CMC relate to one another, it is crucial to first understand
each of the three. Moreover, it is vital to see how the three coexist and how each of
them possibly affects one another, and, while some research has already been done to
explore these, there are questions yet to be answered. In the next chapters, an attempt
will be made to draw a conclusion on the above based on a research design that will be
explained in the following chapter.
42

50. Chapter 3
3. METHODOLOGY
This chapter contains a description of the methods that were used in the study.
At the stage of the project’s conception, a methodology was already being considered;
however, as the project progressed, the methodology evolved and took shape during the
process. The following sub-sections strive to give a picture of how the study was
carried out and what was involved.
3.1 General Perspective and Type of Research
The study combines both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective as it: 1)
counts the number of e-mails for specific categories in order to look at the frequency of
e-mails sent by both male and female containing “expressions of procedural meaning”,
and 2) examines these e-mails, closely at certain times yet overall from a large
perspective in able to grasp the overall implications of the findings or observations.
The research is mainly a quantitative one with use of a qualitative perspective to
carry out the analysis and look at the relationships between gender, politeness and e-
mail communication. At the same time, the research approach incorporates Watt’s
(2003) social model of politeness, an alternative model of politeness that looks at
the manifestation of politeness as dependent on the perceptions of the participants in
43

51. the interaction; therefore, there can be no way of defining what is (im)polite without
considering the perspectives of those involved in the interaction.
Expressions of procedural meaning (EPM’s) is a term coined by Watts
(2003: 180) to refer to the linguistic expressions in any language that have
become ‘pragmaticalised’ so as to “signal procedural meaning”. EPM’s, he explains,
are “part of the politic behaviour of different forms of linguistic practice” (Ibid.:
182). “When they are missing”, he continues, “their absence is easily interpretable as
impoliteness, and when they are in excess of what is required by the situation, they are
easily interpretable as politeness” (Ibid.). According to Watts, linguistic expressions,
though not inherently polite linguistic structures, are important clues to interpret
whether “the interactant remains within the scope of politic behaviour or violates
it either by not uttering the EPM when expected or by uttering the EPM when not
expected” (Ibid.: 217-8).
Finally, the study relied heavily on raw data and its approach depended on
observing the internal communication within an organisation as it was. Therefore, even
if more female-composed e-mails than male-composed ones were found, these e-mails
were still included in the study. Additionally, having more data from female senders
was considered a way to see, to a greater extent, the variety of EPM’s appearing in
female-composed e-mails, especially since, as mentioned previously, women were seen
as adhering more to politeness in their communication. Furthermore, data in this study
were treated as data contained in e-mails from male or female senders (and more than
one of these e-mails could come from the same sender) rather than data coming from
individual male or female senders.
44

52. 3.2 Research Context: The “AIESEC” International Student Organisation
Context
To analyse gender differences in e-mail, this study gathered data from a
particular context that would enable it to easily collect samples of task-soliciting e-
mails that would demonstrate varying degrees of politeness as exhibited by males and
females. As mentioned in the introduction, instead of analysing data from subjects in a
corporate business setting, this study drew its data from the e-mail messages of
members in an international student-run organisation, “AIESEC”. The e-mail messages
collected were sent between September 2009 and May 2011.
AIESEC is a global, non-political, independent, not-for-profit organization run
by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher education. It is the world’s
largest youth-run organization, enjoying presence in over 107 countries and territories
and a membership base amounting to over 50,000. Together, the AIESEC network
manages relationships with well over 4,000 partners, facilitates more than 10,000
exchanges and 10,000 leadership roles, and organizes over 470 conferences each year.
AIESEC is focused on providing a platform for youth leadership development through
offering its members the opportunity to participate in international internships,
experience leadership and participate in a global learning environment. (http://
www.aiesec.org, accessed January 3, 2011)
Having started in 1948 as an exchange programme by countries in Europe,
AIESEC has over 60 years of experience in providing leadership development
45

53. opportunities to young people. The name, ‘AIESEC’, was originally a French acronym
meaning, Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et
Commerciales (International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial
Sciences). The organisation no longer uses the said French acronym since it eventually
expanded to backgrounds other than the economic and commercial sciences. (Ibid.)
AIESEC was chosen for this study on gender and politeness in e-mails to
provide a context different from that of the typical corporate business setting used in
previous studies. However different the setting of AIESEC is from that of a corporate
business setup; like professionals in a business setting, the members of AIESEC aim to
conduct their tasks in a professional manner, performing in various leadership roles as
team members or leaders, managing and/or carrying out organisational operations, as
well as interacting with representatives (i.e. CEO’s, directors) from corporate, non-
governmental and governmental partner organisations. Moreover, a study focusing on
youth as its subjects has the potential of giving insight into the language use of future
professionals, especially as the organisation’s alumni are leaders within their
organizations and communities (Ibid.).
3.3 Research Subjects
The subjects in the research, being members of the international student
organisation, are aged between 19 and 25 years old. Following is a table detailing
specific information about the e-mail messages that were collected (in the order that
they appear on the table, horizontally): 1) the period in which the e-mail messages
46

54. were sent (a term in AIESEC typically runs from 1 July of one year to 30 June of the
next), 2) the sending/receiving group of the e-mails (“Group” in the table means e-mails
involving different members from different internal departments), 3) the nationalities of
the e-mail senders, 4) the quantity or total number of e-mails collected for the specific
time period and sending/receiving group, 5) the number of male senders out of that total
quantity, 6) the number of female senders out of the total quantity and 7) the numbers
as the e-mails used in the study were labelled with in Appendix A. There were a total of
122 e-mails used in this study – 21 from male senders and 101 from female senders.
Time
Period
Sender/Recipient Group Sender Nationalities Qty. M F Nos.
2009-2010
Term
Group (Oman)
Bahraini, Russian,
Omani, American,
Indian, Bangladeshi
14 4 10 1-14
Local Committee
Executive Board (Muscat)
Omani, Sri Lankan,
Indian
20 3 17 15-34
International
Partnerships
American, Egyptian 4 4 0 35-38
National Leadership
Team (Oman)
Russian, Omani 8 0 8 39-46
National Committee
(Oman)
Russian, American,
Australian
10 2 8 47-56
International Ethics
Subcommittee
African, Brazilian,
Australian
7 3 4 57-63
Summer -
November
2010
Group (Slovenia) Slovenian, French 6 2 4 64-69
National Committee
(Slovenia)
Slovenian, Romanian,
Polish
21 2 19 70-90
2010-2011
Term
Group (Oman) American, Jordanian 7 0 7 91-97
National Support Team
(Oman)
American, Omani,
Kenyan, Indian
8 1 7
98-
105
National Committee
(Oman)
American, Omani,
British, Ugandan,
Jordanian, Kenyan
17 0 17
106-
122
Total: 122 21 101
47

55. Table I: E-mails Collected for the Study
3.4 Instruments Used in Data Collection
The e-mails were selected on two bases: 1) whether the sender assigns a task to
the recipient, or 2) whether the sender seeks information or tasks to be completed. As
a result, two categories were drawn up: directive (for the former) and non-directive
(for the latter). These directive and non-directive e-mails were then examined based
on the presence or absence of EPM’s (defined in Section 3.1). Where there is an EPM,
the EPM was identified according to the following politeness structures taxonomies
suggested by House and Kasper (1981, cited in Watts 2003: 182-3). The following are
the taxonomies that were found in the e-mails collected:
• “Politeness markers, by which they mean expressions added to the utterance
to ‘show deference to the addressee and to bid for cooperative behaviour’”.
Most obvious is the politeness marker in English of “please”; however, there
is also, among others, the use of the tag question with the modal verb will/
would following an imperative.
• “Play-downs, by which they understand syntactic devices which ‘tone down
the perlocutionary effect an utterance is likely to have on the addressee’.”
These were divided into sub-categories that boil down to the following
which were found in the e-mails collected: ‘use of past tense’ (I wondered
if...), ‘progressive aspect together with past tense’ (I was wondering
whether...) and ‘interrogative containing a modal verb’ (would it be a good
48

56. idea...).
• “Consultative devices, by which they understand structures which seek to
involve the addressee and bid for his/her cooperation” (Would you mind...,
Could you...).
• “Downtoners, which ‘modulate the impact’ of the speaker’s utterance” (just,
perhaps).
• “Committers, which lower the degree to which the speaker commits her/
himself to the propositional content of the utterance” (I think, I believe).
The above EPM’s are considered to be “downgraders”, the opposite of
“upgraders”, which are modality markers used by speakers to “increase the impact of
the utterance on the addressee” (House and Kasper 1981, cited in Watts 2003: 184).
Any expression that appeared to be an EPM that did not fall under any of House and
Kasper’s taxonomies and any expression that was a combination of two of the structural
categories were separately identified.
3.5 Procedures Used
In carrying out the research, the following specific procedures were followed:
a. Directive and non-directive e-mails were collected according to the first
two fields (time period and sender/recipient group) in Table I (Section 3.3;
49

57. remaining fields in the table were filled in based on the information collected
and taken during the data collection process).
b. E-mails were copied and pasted onto a Word document, with only the part
of the message that requests/seeks tasks to be done added. All formatting
(especially bold and italics) and graphics were also removed, and the
font was changed to Arial, size 10. For purposes of anonymity, all names
mentioned in each message were replaced with “xxx”. At the same time,
all Internet website links mentioned in each message were replaced with
“[link]”.
c. E-mails were numbered chronologically, according to the order in which
they were collected (based on the sequence in Table I).
d.Codes were assigned to the e-mails in addition to the number
(simultaneously with labelling the e-mails according to the sender and
recipient genders): e.g. 1 – N – F – Mixed, wherein “1” is the assigned e-
mail number, “N” is the type of e-mail that was collected (“D” for directive
and “N” for non-directive), “F” is the gender of the e-mail sender (“F”
for female and “M” for male) and “Mixed” is the gender(s) of the e-mail
recipient(s) (“F” for female, “M” for male, and “Mixed” for both male and
female).
e. Task-requesting/seeking content was highlighted if there were parts of the
selected message that did not correspond to requesting or seeking a task to
be accomplished.
50

58. f. EPM’s were identified in each selected e-mail message, with the EPM itself
formatted in italics2, and tables for findings/results were completed (one for
each set of directive or non-directive e-mails sent by a gender, as shown in
the next chapter), taking note of the EPM category, the number of e-mails
found with the EPM (sub-dividing it into e-mails with same-sex, opposite-
sex and mixed-set recipients; while calculating the total and percentage)
and the e-mails themselves where the EPM is found (identified according
to the designated e-mail number). The reason why genders of the recipients
were classified as ‘sex’ (i.e., ‘same-sex’ and ‘opposite sex’) is to treat
their ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ as biological attributes, since gender as a
social concept is performed and such performativity cannot be seen without
observing the interaction of the individuals in question. In the discussion,
however, the recipient gender is referred to as ‘gender’ in describing the
interaction of the e-mail sender with them.
3.6 Data Analysis
The data collected from the study were analysed according to the results that
were recorded, since the approach of the study was to rely on raw data and the
observation of it. Some principles were kept foremost in consideration. Firstly,
directives are expected to be, as the name suggests, ‘direct’, and therefore, no EPM is
2 Only the EPM’s corresponding to the House and Kasper (1981) politeness structures taxonomies were
placed in italics.
51

59. absolutely necessary, but if the task being solicited could require a certain amount of
effort on the recipient’s part, then an act of deference displays consideration. Secondly,
a directive or non-directive e-mail message with no EPM is open to interpretation
and does not automatically qualify as impolite (after all, politeness depends upon the
perception of the participants in the interaction). Finally, females, to a certain extent,
are expected to be more polite or to favour politeness – certain studies have shown they
use/favour standard language more and it has been claimed that they generally have
a subordinate position in society. Keeping these principles in mind, the results of the
study were treated with subjective observation that may lead to fulfilling the study’s
aims and objectives. As a final measure, the literature review was revisited and relevant
claims/findings from previous researches were applied to the discussion of the results.
3.7 Summary
The study wished to consider three variables. As a result, it is an explanatory
one as it aims to see the relations between these elements: gender, politeness and CMC
via e-mail. Several studies have been conducted in the past to explore how these three
areas interact with one another, but a great deal of these studies used Leech’s or Brown
and Levinson’s models of politeness, among others. One of this study’s aims was to test
an alternative model for politeness (Watt’s social model), and see if it holds any value
for finding out the relationships between the abovementioned three. Consequently, the
methodology of collecting e-mails and searching them for EPM’s was undertaken, with
the gender of both the senders and the recipients taken into consideration, and a sample
52

60. collected from multi-national e-mail senders communicating internally within an
organisation in order to provide a multicultural approach within a corporate discourse
setting. The next chapter presents the results of the study and a discussion of these
results.
Chapter 4
4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
After the data were collected, expressions of procedural meaning (EPM) were
highlighted and counted for frequency in each category and sub-category of e-mails:
directive and non-directive e-mails, further broken down into e-mails from male senders
and e-mails female senders, subcategorised into e-mails sent to the same sex, to the
opposite sex and to both sexes (mixed).
4.1 Presentation of Results
The tables below show the frequency counts for e-mails in the above categories/
subcategories according to the EPM’s that they contain and indicate the percentage of
e-mails that exhibit the particular EPM (out of the total e-mails from the same sender
gender) and ‘reference e-mails’ (specific e-mail messages found to exhibit the EPM). A
count of only one (1) is allotted for every e-mail that shows the EPM, regardless of how
many times that EPM is used in the same e-mail. In other words, the frequency counts
refer only to the number of e-mails exhibiting the EPM, and not the number of times the
53

61. EPM is used in each e-mail.
4.1.1 Directive E-mails
EPM Frequency – E-mails from Male Senders (out of 21)
Downgraders:
To
Same
Sex
To
Opp.
Sex
To
Mixed
Set
Total
Reference E-mails
(by number, see Appendix A)
Politeness Markers 0 3 6 9 (43%)
12, 35-36, 47, 57, 63, 66, 74,
77
Consultative Devices 0 1 0 1 (5%) 47
No EPM 1 1 2 4 (19%) 9, 30, 60, 65
Table II: EPM’s in Directive E-mails – Male Senders
In Table II, it can be seen that only two types of EPM were used in directive e-
mails composed by male senders: politeness markers and consultative devices, with
consultative devices being used in only one (1) e-mail and politeness markers being
used in a total of nine (9) e-mails. On the other hand, no EPM was used at all in a total
of four (4) e-mails. Overall, it can be seen that most of the e-mails containing EPM’s
were addressed to the opposite sex and to a mixed set and that e-mails with no EPM
were addressed to the same sex, the opposite sex and a mixed set.
54

62. EPM Frequency – E-mails from Female Senders (out of 101)
Downgraders:
To
Same
Sex
To
Opp.
Sex
To
Mixed
Set
Total
Reference E-mails
(by number, see Appendix A)
Politeness Markers 13 1 40 54 (53%)
2-4, 6-7, 17, 19-21, 23, 26,
32-34, 40, 43-46, 48-49, 51-
52, 56, 58-59, 61, 64, 67-68,
70-71, 73, 75-76, 79-80, 82-
83, 85, 87, 90-92, 96-97, 99,
101-102, 113, 115, 118-120
Downtoners 0 0 1 1 (1%) 118
Committers 0 0 1 1 (1%) 64
Other (use of modal
+ infinitive)
0 0 3 3 (3%) 2, 80, 117
No EPM 1 2 9 12 (12%)
5, 16, 39, 41, 53, 69, 72, 88-
89, 108, 109, 111
Consultative +
Politeness Marker
0 0 1 1 (1%) 8
Table III: EPM’s in Directive E-mails – Female Senders
Table III, which shows frequency counts for directive e-mails composed by
female senders, on the other hand, shows four EPM categories that were used, with a
fifth category being an EPM cluster (combination of consultative device and politeness
marker). Politeness markers were used in a total of 53% of the e-mails, while other
EPM’s [downtoners, committers, use of modal and infinitive (e.g. I would like to…),
55

63. and the EPM cluster] were each found in under 5% of the e-mails3 and in the e-mails
addressed to a mixed set. No EPM was used in a total of twelve (12) e-mails, with most
of these e-mails (9) addressed to a mixed set.
4.1.2 Non-directive E-mails
EPM Frequency – E-mails from Male Senders (out of 21)
Downgraders:
To
Same
Sex
To
Opp.
Sex
To
Mixed
Set
Total
Reference E-mails
(by number, see Appendix A)
Politeness Markers 0 2 2 4 (19%) 14, 54, 78, 104
Play-downs 0 3 1 4 (19%) 14, 29, 37, 104
Other (use of modal +
infinitive)
0 1 0 1 (5%) 22
Consultative +
Politeness Marker
0 1 1 2 (9%) 29, 54
Play-down +
Downtoner
0 1 0 1 (5%) 38
Table IV: EPM’s in Non-directive E-mails – Male Senders
Table IV shows that in non-directive e-mails composed by male senders, a
greater variety of EPM’s (3 types and 2 EPM clusters) was used: politeness markers,
play-downs, use of modal and infinitive, and EPM clusters (combination consultative
device and politeness marker, and combination play-down and downtoner). Most of
these EPM-utilising e-mails were addressed to the opposite sex, and, unlike in the
3 With the exception of the use of modal and infinitive, all the EPM’s (downtoners, committers and the
EPM cluster) appeared in only one e-mail each.
56

64. directive e-mails, none of the non-directive e-mails composed by male senders were
devoid of EPM’s. The top three EPM’s in the e-mails were: 1) politeness markers (in
a total 4 e-mails), 2) play-downs (in a total 4 e-mails) and 3) consultative device +
politeness marker (in a total 2 e-mails). All of these male-composed non-directive e-
mails exhibiting EPM’s were sent to either the opposite sex or a mixed set, with the said
e-mails addressed to the opposite sex amounting to twice the number of the said e-mails
addressed to a mixed set.
EPM Frequency – E-mails from Female Senders (out of 101)
Downgraders:
To
Same
Sex
To
Opp.
Sex
To
Mixed
Set
Total
Reference E-mails
(by number, see Appendix A)
Politeness Markers 3 0 6 9 (9%)
1, 10, 25, 27, 55, 81, 93-94,
106
Play-downs 3 0 4 7 (7%)
55, 95, 106, 110, 116, 121-
122
Consultative Devices 5 1 4
10
(10%)
10, 11, 15, 31, 42, 62, 84, 98,
100, 122
Committers 1 0 1 2 (2%) 62, 95
Other (use of modal +
infinitive)
0 0 1 1 (1%) 1
No EPM 0 0 2 2 (2%) 13, 50
Consultative + Politeness
Marker
4 0 2 6 (6%) 1, 18, 28, 42, 103, 107
Consultative + Downtoner 1 1 0 2 (2%) 24, 105
Play-down + Downtoner 1 0 0 1 (1%) 112
Politeness + Downtoner 0 0 1 1 (1%) 55
Play-down + Consultative 2 0 0 2 (2%) 86, 114
Table V: EPM’s in Non-directive E-mails – Female Senders
57

65. Table V, documenting e-mail frequency counts for EPM’s used in non-directive
e-mails composed by female senders, shows the greatest variety of EPM’s used (5 types
and 5 EPM clusters), and yet, unlike in the non-directive e-mails composed by male
senders, there are female-composed non-directive e-mails with no EPM. The most used
EPM types, though not dramatically high, are (in order of total number of e-mails with
them): 1) consultative devices (in a total 10 e-mails, for the first time beating politeness
markers), 2) politeness markers (in a total 9 e-mails), 3) play-downs (in a total 7 e-
mails) and 4) consultative device + politeness marker (in a total 6 e-mails). The rest of
the EPM’s appear in only one (1) or two (2) e-mails for each type not mentioned above.
Most of the EPM-utilising female-composed non-directive e-mails were addressed to
the same sex or a mixed set. Only consultative devices and consultative + downtoner
were found in e-mails addressed to the opposite sex. As for non-directive e-mails
showing no EPM, there are two (2) composed by female senders and both of them were
addressed to a mixed set.
Overall, it can be seen from all of the four tables above that, for e-mails
composed by both male and female senders, politeness markers are the top used EPM’s
in directive e-mails, while consultative devices prominently figure in female-composed
non-directive e-mails and is one of the top three EPM’s in male-composed non-directive
e-mails (but only as an EPM cluster with a politeness marker). Most of the politeness
markers that were used in the e-mails, as a matter of fact, were the word, “please”, used
once or more than once in the same e-mail. In the next section, these results will be
discussed more and reflected upon.
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66. 4.2 Discussion
In the previous section, the results from the data collected were shown and
summarised. Overall, it was found that various EPM’s were used in e-mails from both
male and female senders. The following sections will re-visit the results presented in the
previous section and seek to obtain a meaning from them, based on the aims and
objectives of the study and concepts mentioned in the previous chapters.
4.2.1 Politeness Markers and Consultative Devices as Directive and Non-
directive
EPM’s Respectively
The types of EPM’s used, as demonstrated by the results in the previous
section, were shown to differ with the category of the e-mail, nearly regardless of the
sex or gender of the sender (i.e. more politeness markers for directive e-mails and
more consultative devices for non-directive e-mails). It would make sense to use a
politeness marker in a directive e-mail, for instance, in order to accompany a direct
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