The use of Politness in Linguistic language

  • I am currently working on a short research project and my hypothesis is "The use of Politness in Linguistic language varying according to gender in a particular social context." The method i used was observation where i watched and listened to people use politness in linguistic language in 4 social contexts. i.e shop, college, pub and holding a door open. I have collected my results now i would need some help in putting it together and addtional information as my report has to be 1500 words long. I need a clear statement of the hypothesis, an outline of my plan, how i collected the data and a clear presentation of my results, an analysis and interpretation of the results. Could you help me with any additional information on the use of politness in Linguistic language. Am really stuck as am not sure how to go about it and it has to be 1500 words.


  • Hi nyajao, Your topic sounds intriguing and I may be interested in helping you with it. However, I'm not really clear on what you would like from a researcher. Nobody can write your 1500 words for you (only YOU know what you actually did), but I certainly would be happy to help walk you through the process of putting together your report -- helping you with each of the sections you have described (hypothesis, data presentation, etc.) Is this something you would like? If so, use your CLARIFY QUESTION button to let me know, and I'll get right on it. If you're going to be around today, I think we can do this nicely with thorugh a series of clarifications and an answer. Let me know - -K~


  • Yes please i would like you to walk me through the process of putting my report together and any additional information on politness in linguistic language.


  • Great nyajao-ga, I'm happy to help! I think the best way to do this is step-by step. If it's OK with you, I'm going to ask you a few rounds of questions in order to figure out just what you need to say in your report. Once I have enough information from you, I'll post an answer that consists of the context of your report in mostly your own words. .. with some fixing-up on my part. First, I need to know one thing --- What level of school is this for? Highschool? University? What year? And for what course? That will make a difference in how we prepare this. OK… now let's talk about your project … can you answer the following questions for me in your own words --- --------------- 1 -- What was the purpose or point to your project? In other words, what were you trying to figure out? Starter ideas .. "I wanted to see if ….. " "I wanted to find out how many times …." "I wondered whether men or women …" " I wondered about the differences between …" ---------------- 2 – Before you began, what did YOU think your results were going to be? What were your predictions? Your prediction could be general, "I thought there would be a difference between people's language in Pubs versus people in Shops" Or it could have been specific – " I thought people in pubs would use fewer polite words then people in Shops" Be honest about what YOU thought would happen, without regard to what your results actually showed. Remember, science doesn't look down on people who guess wrong. That's what experiments are all about. ---------------- 3 – Explain to me exactly what you did to collect your data. Use steps if it's easier for you. And include details -- For example – 1 – selected a pub, shop college, door, on Main Street … (tell me how you decided on these places) 2 – sat outside each one for 1 hour a day for 5 days (time of day? ) 3 – wrote down sex of each person going in 4 – noticed how many times a person said Thank You. .. Or whatever .. :-) ----------- This will give us a good start. After you answer these questions, I'll have more for you, so check back here later. I'm sure we can come up with a nice report for you once I understand fully what you did. Remember, the more you tell me, the better I'll be able to do this, so don't be shy about explaining things! Looking forward to hearing from you – (And don't forget, I need to know what class and level this is for) --K~


  • Hi am happy you'll help! Am currently in my first year at University studying a BA(Hons) in Communication and Language Studies. 1) Am trying to figure out who is more polite men or women? by observing them in particular social contexts. who is more likely to use polite words like Thank you, sorry, Please, excuse me or just say nothing at all. 2)Actually i could sort of predit that people in pubs especially men would use less polite words than in shops or college. Maybe cause they are drunk. 3)This reasearch project was done as a group of five where we choose particular contexts due to the fact that we had access to data. In all five contexts we did something that required some sort of acknowledment and encouraged the use of politness. We chose gender rather than age as it was easier to measure. We tried to provide a neutral situation by not being too polite that would encourage people to mirror us back. so we each allocated ourselves different places by using the observation method and writing down our results. One of us went and observed and recorded use of politness in a shop, the second one went off and did her observation in a college, while the third one went and did her observation at a mall where she held the door at the exit for people walking in and out of the mall. The forth one worked at a pub and so did her observation there. And the last one we all did together where we tried to obstruct people at the University entrance. We did all this reasearch in one day each of us lasting for 2hrs. We each had a results sheet we had drawn up together that looked like this. Male Thank you sorry Please Excuse me Nothing at all Female We then recorded our results for each context i.e pub, shop, college obstruction at mall,and University entrance by ticking how many male or female used the above polite words or nothing at all. Then counted them up in the end to know whether men or women used more polite words or vis versa. Our results we as follows: Pub: More men used polite words than women. We thought maybe its because they were being served by a woman and were just being flattercious when drunk. whereas women are naturally abit "bithy" Holding the door at the Mall: Both men and women were equal. Maybe because they are aware of the situation or are in a rush. Obstructing at the University entrance: More women than men used polite words. Shop: Again men and women were equal. College: Less men used polite words than women


  • Hi nyajoa, I've looked carefully at what you've written here and I'm afraid there is problem – For a university level project, there are some real problems with the way you've designed this study. You've made some elementary mistakes that most high school students know to avoid in testing a hypothesis. I honestly can't imagine a professor of an honors university course accepting your study design as it is. (I'm truly not trying to be harsh here...just realistic.) I don't know what your deadline is, but if you have time, I wonder if you would consider the following -- First -- Allow me to post a critique of this study and provide you with a new study design to do it correctly, as answer here for the $45 you have offered. Then, you go out and do the study the new way and post a new $45 question directed to me so that I might help you with the final report based on your new study design and data. OR .. if you don't want to do that (or there isn't time) then we'll just continue on here. In that case, I'll need your actual data: How many observations did you make at each location? What were the specific numbers of each response? Break them down by location. Also, did you all make your observations at the same time of day? If so, when? If not, what were the hours for each set of observations? After I get your data, I will give you the report based on your current study design. It's entirely up to you... I'm happy either way. One other thing .. it would help me to know what our deadline is here and where you are time-zone-wise. Just so I know when I can expect responses from you. I'm in Canada, eastern time .. so that's GMT -5. Let me know what you'd like to do. I look forward to hearing from you! -K~


  • Thanks for pointing out where i have gone wrong. Since i don't have alot of time to do this all over again as i have to work on other assisgnments i will just give you the actual data like you suggested. 1)The observations were made once at each location. 2)At each location we did 20 numbers. That is 10 male and 10 female 3)As we weren't together when collecting our data we did our observations at different times. The Pub: Evening The Shop: Afternoon The Mall: Afternoon Obstruction at university Entrance: Morning The College: Morning My deadline for this project is 30/04/03 and is worth 50% and has to be roughly 1500 words the other 50% is an exam i have to do on the 6/05/03. I just started this course on the 28/01/03 instead of September last year and their is still alot i have to learn. I have do pass this module though to go to my second year in September and am doing all i can. So am very greatful and really appreaciate the help you are giving me so far. Am in the U.k GMT time.


  • Hi nyajoa, Thanks for the further info. It looks like we're in opposite time zones here, so I'll be working while you're sleeping. (Oh right, you are a University student. Do you ever actually sleep? :-) ) Anyway, as long as you keep getting back to me promptly with answers to my questions, we'll have no problem finishing this up by this weekend. OK, let's continue forward with what we've got. I've started working on the basic draft of your report, but I still need some more from you. #1 --- I need data that looks something like this for each location --- PUB: 10 Males observed – 3 said Thank you 2 said Sorry 0 said Please 2 said Excuse me 3 said Nothing at all 10 females observed - 2 said Thank you 5 said Sorry 1 said Please 1 said Excuse me 1 said Nothing at all Or whatever. I also need the answers to these questions – #2 --- WITHOUT regard to location (or possible drunkenness), overall who did you predict would use polite words more frequently .. MEN or WOMEN? #3 --- regarding the above, why did you think that? Have you read something that gave you this idea? Has it been your experience and you wanted to test it? Or was it just a WAG (Wild-assed-guess)? :-) #4 --- Did your TOTAL research (that is adding ALL of the data from all of the locations) prove your guess to be true? #5 – What do you think accounted for the results you got? Just give this your best guess. Something like … "I think the reason (men/women) used more polite language is because …" Ideas might be – Maybe they are taught differently.. if so how? Maybe they are trying to impress the other sex? Why? Maybe they are less in a hurry? Why? Maybe their brains are different? How? Like I said, the more details you can give me, the better I can do it, so don't be afraid to pile on the details, tell me how you figured something out, or ask me questions. Looking forward to your reply .. --K~


  • QUESTION 1 PUB MALES FEMALE THANK YOU 3 1 SORRY 3 0 PLEASE 0 0 EXCUSE ME 3 5 NOTHING AT ALL 1 1 COLLEGE MALES FEMALE THANK YOU 2 3 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 1 1 EXCUSE ME 2 3 NOTHING AT ALL 0 1 SHOP MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 3 2 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 2 1 EXCUSE ME 4 5 nOTHING AT ALL1 1 HOLDING DOOR AT MALL MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 5 5 SORRY 1 0 PLEASE 0 1 EXCUSE ME 2 2 NOTHING AT ALL 0 1 OBSTRUSTION AT UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 2 3 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 1 2 EXCUSE ME 0 1 NOTHING AT ALL 1 2 QUESTION 2 Personally i think men use more polite language when dealing with women as compared to when dealing with other men. But generally i think they are more polite QUESTION 3 By experience i think men use more polite words. They are friendlier than women. Women tend especially when dealing with other women to be "bitchy" "Sorry excuse my language." QUESTION 4 According to my total research women (42 in total) seem to use more polite language than men (34 in total) which frankly didn't prove my guess to be true Question 5 I think the reason women used more polite language is because men and women are generally very different. Women are naturally more caring, considerate, nuturing and kinder than men. Maybe its because they are the child bearers. I think what am trying to say is that they have a soft side and are more likely to use more polite words than men.


  • Hi there nyajao! Ok….as promised, I've got a report here for you! I'm going to give you the report first – below – and then after that I'm going to give you some discussion and some pointers. Note one thing first – in the report you will see areas where I've inserted rows of stars with text --- ************ TEXT LIKE THIS ************ These are areas that need your attention. ALSO: Please be sure to read what I've written after the report. It will probably give you ideas of things you can add to your report or ways to improve on it. As I told you before, my plan is not to completely write the report for you, but to use your words as much as possible in a structured way. You may still want to add to what I have written. After reading what I did here, it shoudl be clear to you where to put things. ------------------------ WORD COUNT: 1400 THE USE OF POLITE LANGUAGE BY MEN AND WOMEN IN DIFFERENT SOCIAL CONTEXTS =================== ABSTRACT =================== Counting the frequency of use of certain words in our language can be used as one way to measure a person's level of politeness. There may be differences in how often men use certain polite terms versus how often women use them. We designed a study to count how often men and women use specific polite terms in different situations to see if there was a difference between the sexes. Our assumption is that the number of polite words a person uses can be positively correlated with that person's overall level of politeness. The more polite words a person uses, the more polite they actually are. ================== HYPOTHESIS ================== Our team hypothesized that in general men would be more polite and use more polite language than women. But we also thought that that people in pubs, especially men, would use fewer polite words than in shops or college; maybe because of the effects of alcohol. So in the pub we expected to get lower numbers of responses overall. Our hypotheses were based on personal experience. In general we have observed that men tend to use more polite words. They are friendlier than women. Women tend, especially when dealing with other women, to be impolite or even snippy. =================== STUDY DESIGN =================== We chose sex as our independent variable, rather than age, because it is easy to identify without interviewing the subject. Our dependent variable was the frequency of use of "polite words" as an indicator of overall politeness. We selected the following polite words: Thank you Sorry Please Excuse me We used observational research to observe and record our data. We used different researchers in different locations so that the research would not be biased to one place. Also we didn't want to use just one researcher in case that made a difference. We selected our test subjects to balance the sex ratio, but otherwise we chose them randomly during our observation periods. They were all ages. ==================== PROCEDURE ==================== Our goal was to do something that encouraged the use of politeness and/or required the subject to give some sort of acknowledgment. We were careful to try to provide a neutral situation by not being so extremely polite that it would encourage people to mirror us back. Our group of researchers conducted this research project in five different locations. The locations were chosen based on ease of access and proximity to where we live or work. Our Locations and technique for initiating response was as follows – ************ FILL IN THE TECHNIQUE YOU USED IN EACH LOCATION *********** 1 – SHOP 2- COLLEGE 3 – MALL - The researcher held the door at the exit for people walking in and out of the mall. 4 – PUB 5 - UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE - We tried to obstruct people at the entrance At each location we collected the following data for 20 interactions (10 male, 10 female) in a chart like this one: ****** INSERT THE BLANK CHART THAT YOU USED ********** We recorded our results for each location by ticking how many male or female used the above polite words or said nothing at all during an interaction. Then we counted them up in the end to know whether men or women used more polite words. =============== DATA =============== ******** MAKE THE BELOW CHARTS MATCH THE FORMAT OF THE ONE YOU USED ABOVE *************** The data for each location was as follows: --------------------------------------- 1 – SHOP --------------------------------------- MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 3 2 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 2 1 EXCUSE ME 4 5 NOTHING AT ALL 1 1 ---------------------------------------- TOTAL 10 10 ---------------------------------------- 2- COLLEGE ----------------------------------------- MALES FEMALE THANK YOU 2 3 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 1 1 EXCUSE ME 2 3 NOTHING AT ALL 0 1 ------------------------------------------ TOTAL 5 9 ------------------------------------- 3 – MALL ------------------------------------- MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 5 5 SORRY 1 0 PLEASE 0 1 EXCUSE ME 2 2 NOTHING AT ALL 0 1 ------------------------------------- TOTAL 8 9 -------------------------------------------- 4 – PUB -------------------------------------------- MALES FEMALE THANK YOU 3 1 SORRY 3 0 PLEASE 0 0 EXCUSE ME 3 5 NOTHING AT ALL 1 1 ---------------------------------------------- TOTAL 10 7 ----------------------------------------------- 5 - UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE ----------------------------------------------- MALE FEMALE THANK YOU 2 3 SORRY 0 1 PLEASE 1 2 EXCUSE ME 0 1 NOTHING AT ALL 1 2 ------------------------------------------ TOTAL 4 9 Our aggregate data was as follows – ************ FILL IN THIS DATA ************** --------------------------------------- TOTALS FOR ALL LOCATIONS --------------------------------------- MALE FEMALE THANK YOU SORRY PLEASE EXCUSE ME NOTHING AT ALL ---------------------------------------- TOTAL ------------------------------------------ # OF SUBJECTS # OF TIMES POLITE OBSERVED WORDS WERE USED ------------------------------------------ SHOP 20 18 COLLEGE 14 13 MALL 17 16 PUB 17 15 UNIVERSITY 13 10 ------------------------------------------- TOTAL 81 72 ====================== RESULTS ======================= According to our aggregate results, out of 81 interactions, more women (42 in total) used polite words than men (34 in total). It would appear from this result that women are generally more polite than men. This result did not confirm our hypothesis that men tend to use more polite words than women. However, when we looked at each of the individual locations, some of the results (those in the pub) were different and confirmed our hypothesis. Pub: More men used polite words than women. Holding the door at the Mall: Both men and women were equal. Obstructing at the University entrance: More women than men used polite words. Shop: Again men and women were equal. College: Less men used polite words than women We had also predicted that there would be fewer responses overall in the pub. This proved not to be true. The number of times people used polite terms in the pub (15 times out of 17 interactions) was roughly the same as in the other locations. ========================= INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS ========================= We think that the reason women tend to use more polite language is because men and women are generally very different biologically. Women must be naturally more caring, considerate, nurturing and kinder than men. Maybe this is because they are the child bearers. This might give them a "soft side" and make them more likely to use more polite words than men. In some of the specific locations that we tested, we think the location or what we did might have affected the individual results. Pub: We thought that in this case maybe men used more polite words than women because they were being served by a woman. Men in pubs are probably just trying to flatter the women. Alcohol could make them act different than they normally would. Also, we have observed in the past that women in pubs tend to be less polite to other women. Holding the door at the Mall: We thought that the results for men and women were the same because the subjects were aware that we were watching them or maybe because they were in a hurry. Obstructing at the University entrance: More women than men used polite words. This might have been different depending on who did the obstructing. =================== CONCLUSION =================== Our aggregate data did not support our original hypothesis. As far as the individual locations went, only the pub data supported our original statement – that men would be more polite than women. We think this may be because we were basing our hypothesis on how we have seen men and women act with us and with each other in pubs and we just assumed that this same behavior would carry over to other locations and with other people. What we learned is that there may be more to how polite people are than just their sex. Where they are and who they are talking to could also make a difference. =================== FURTHER RESEARCH =================== When we decided how to do this study, we didn't understand that so many things could affect how people act or how polite they are. Now we know that we had too many variables in our study. The locations, the sex of the person trying to encourage the use of polite words, and alcohol use were some of the variables we didn’t consider. To continue this research it would probably be better to do all 100 observations in the same location (like in a mall) just to see who is more polite in that one location, men or women. ---------------------------- So that's that nyajao! Now.. here are my thoughts on this whole thing. You may want to consider them and expand your report. The difficulty here was in interpreting your results because you had too many variables in your study design. (SEE the link to "STUDY DESIGN TIPS AND DEFINITIONS" below) You have stated that you wanted to see who used "polite words" more often – men or women. But you have introduced other variables such as location, alcohol consumption, time of day, type of interaction (helpful vs. hindering), even possibly the sex of the person "causing" the interaction. (For example a man might be more likely to apologize to a woman as opposed to another man). In order to properly measure a single behavior and compare between sexes, you must remove every other variable from your equation. The subject's sex must be the ONLY difference in the interactions you are observing. The circumstance you present to the subject must be identical in every single case. And your results must be presented as applicable ONLY in that circumstance. For example, a result might look like this – "Our data, based on 100 samples, shows that if a woman holds a door for a man exiting a grocery store while pushing a cart, the man will thank her 80% of the time. If she holds a door for a woman pushing a cart, the woman will thank her 50% of the time." Or something like that. I suspect that your professor will award you points for acknowledging this deficiency in your study (in the CONCLUSION and FURTHER RESEARCH portions of your report)and coming up with your own ideas of how to remedy it the next time. SPECIFIC POINTS ----------- Use Excel or the table function in your word processor to make your charts. They will look nicer. I have used the terms "Our team" and "we" because I thought this was a group effort and most reports are written to include the team. If I misunderstood, just go back and change every thing to "I" Normally in a report like this, there would be statistical analyses, to determine if your results are valid. In other words, did you test a big enough sample and are your results meaningful. I have not included a statistical interpretation of your results because A) It didn't seem that you were trying to delve that deep and B) I don't know enough about statistics to do it right. If you need stats run on your data, you'll need to post that as a new question. FURTHER HELP ---------------- I found a couple of websites that would be useful to you in learning how to conduct and report linguistic politeness or other psychological research. STUDY DESIGN TIPS AND DEFINITIONS This shorter-link site will redirect you to the correct site: Your shorter link is: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G62E21954 Vocabulary Terms for Research in Psychology http://psychlab1.hanover.edu/classes/Research/Terms.html A good report to use as an example --- Requesting strategies in English and Greek: Observations from an Airline’s Call Centre http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/nlc/economidou.pdf Vol. 3 (April 2002): Linguistic Politeness and Context http://www.history-journals.de/articles/hjg-eartic-j00094.html LANGUAGE AND SEX http://teachers.englishclub.com/articles/language.htm That should be everything you need to put the final touches on your report and have it ready to turn in by the 30th. If anything I've said is not clear, please feel free to ask me for clarification. Thanks for your question. You've done a great job of answering my questions so that we were able to write this report together. Good luck with it! -K~


    • December 01st 2008 Posted to munchsmadonna.com edit