Brown and Levinson

Linguists Brown and Levinson put forward ideas about politeness, suggesting that people have positive face needs and negative face needs.

Positive face needs are wanting to be liked and approved of in our exchanges with others. Due to positive face needs, people use positive politeness strategies, which may include:

• paying attention
• seeking agreement (safe topics)
• pretend agreement (white lies, hedging)
• using humour
• using appropriate address terms
• compliments

Negative face needs are having to deal with difficult conversations in tactful ways. People use negative politeness strategies to deal with negative face needs and these may include:

• being indirect
• questioning and hedging
• being apologetic
• giving deference (reducing your own status)