Politeness Strategies Of Filipino Teenagers In The Household

Abstract

Politeness achieves effective communication and maintains relationship. More so, Filipinos are always known to be docile, respectful, and courteous when conversing with the elders however, related studies stated that the absence of politeness becomes evident in teenager’s response in conversing with their parents. This qualitative research study employing discourse analysis investigated the different politeness strategies of Filipino teenagers in their household. It used a corpora of ten household conversations of parents and teenagers. Conversations were observed and recorded with the signed and approved informed consent form (ICF). The study was analysed using the framework of Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies. Results revealed that the four politeness strategies were present in the conversation between teenagers and parents in the household. Filipino teenagers generally utilized positive politeness to express kinship and to keep close relationship with their parents while chatting and conversing at home; bald on records to offer a clear and explicit message; negative politeness to lessen the coercion to their parents and off record to drop indications. These politeness strategies of Filipino teenagers in the household show that they are respectful in conversation with their elders however at times lack the appropriate respect and manner when they directly command their parents to do something. Further, teenagers converse with their parents by showing friendly behaviour that shows warmth but were also unmannered at some point. This shows that their behaviour has something to do with the upbringing and with how they were raised and what culture and environment they grew up with. Indeed, the environment and mores at home had an impact on the politeness methods used in the household conversations.