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Shifts in politeness strategies in contemporary Czech society

Publication at Faculty of Education |
2013

Abstract

The presented article deals with communicative and politeness strategies chosen by Czech native speakers. The method of the research was a discourse completion test; data collected in 2003 and 2011 were compared.

Several situations (forms of addressing, thanks, apologies) were presented to the informants, their task was to write down a spontaneous reaction. In relation to Hofstede´s dimensional model several observations were made: power index is getting smaller in formal communicative situations, the use od academic titles declines.

There is a rising tendency to individualism and competition, speakers often violate modesty maxim, express their needs and emotions more openly. However, the low tolerance of uncertainty does not allow those tendencies to be manifest in formal situations where there is a great risk of face loss, in formal situations speakers prefer stereotypical formulas and chose indirect strategies.