Journal of Pragmatics

Journal of Pragmatics 20 (1993) 91-116 North-Holland

91

New Zealand women are good to talk to: An analysis of politeness strategies in interaction

Janet Holmes*

This paper compares evidence from New Zealand women’s and men’s talk regarding amount of speech, interruptions, the use of pragmatic particles and the distribution of apologies and compliments to support an argument that women are ideal speaker-hearers. Women’s other- oriented behaviour makes them ideal conversational partners.

1. Introduction

The concept of the ideal speaker-hearer has come under such attack from sociolinguists over the last twenty years that he has doubtless retired gibbering to the wings. One of his major deficiencies was his insensitivity to the different communicative demands of contrasting social and pragmatic contexts (Hymes 1972). In this paper I want to present a rather different ideal speaker-hearer - she is female, sociolinguistically and pragmatically sensitive, and a cultural rather than a linguistic conceptualisation. 1 To what extent she is a sociolinguistic and pragmatic New Zealand reality is an empirical question we have only just begun to address, but the picture which is developing appears very positive so far.

There seems little doubt from the social dialect studies that have been undertaken to date that New Zealand women from a range of social classes use more prestigious and socially valued phonological forms of New Zealand English than the men do (Bayard 1986, Gordon and Maclagan 1986, Holmes et al. 1991, Holmes and Bell 1992). To this extent they fit the image of the

* I would like to express appreciation to Allan Bell, who provided helpful comment on a draft of this paper and to the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language at the University of Lancaster, where I was based when I wrote it.

Correspondence fo: J. Holmes, Department of Linguistics, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.

Guest editor’s note: The first draft of this paper was received by me in November 1988. For a number of reasons, some of which are my responsibility (and none of the editors of JoP), the paper has taken this long to see the light of day, with only slight revision possible. John Kinder. 1 The notion of women as users of ‘ideal language’ is explored in Penny (1988) as is the relevance of cultural values as opposed to social factors in explaining differences in women’s and men’s speech behaviour.

0378-2166/93/$06.00 0 1993 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved

92 J. Holmes / Politeness strategies in interaction

society’s ideal speakers. But there is additional evidence from a wider range of contexts than formal social dialect interviews that, compared to men, women conform more closely to the community’s image of ‘ideal speaker-hearers’. In particular, research on New Zealand middle class educated women and men in the following three areas demonstrate that for a variety of reasons women

are good to talk to:

(1) interactional style (2) the use of pragmatic particles (3) the realisation of speech functions.

2. Interactional style

There is a considerable body of research suggesting that in a range of situations American women are supportive and cooperative conversationalists; they act as an ideal and responsive audience - usually to men2 Women have been described as good listeners (Fishman 1983, Hirschman 1974) as interactively facilitative and positive politeness-oriented participants (Edelsky 1981, Holmes 1984b, 1986a, 1988, Thorne et al. 1983), and as ‘affiliative’ and cooperative conversational partners (Aries 1976, 1982, Cameron 1985, Coates 1987, 1988, Kalcik 1975, Preisler 1986, Smith 1985). Some of the evidence for these claims derives from the way women and men share the available talking time.

In formal meetings researchers have shown that men dominated the discussion, taking more and longer turns and interrupting more often than women (Eakins and Eakins 1979, Swacker 1979). In informal committee meetings women contributed most to what Edelsky (1981) describes as a jointly constructed or ‘collaborative floor’, a ‘more informal cooperative venture’ than the alternative, namely, monologues characterised by ‘single-party control and hierarchical interaction’; the latter were the prerogative of men (1981: 416). In casual interactions men frequently interrupted women while the reverse was rare (Zimmerman and West 1975) and in conversations between couples the women did the lion’s share of keeping the conversation alive (Fishman 1983, Soskin and John 1963).

The pattern for New Zealand women is undoubtedly similar. The little formal research there is provides some interesting insights into the question of what characterises the ideal speaker-hearer in a particular situation3

z See the contributions in Pauwels, ed., 1987, for comparable data on Australian women and

men. 3 Informal evidence on the miscommunications which occur between New Zealand women and men (Holmes 1985) suggests they are often the result of the different weightings the sexes assign to ‘informativeness’ vs. ‘rapport’ (Lakoff 1980) in personal interactions. Women appear to emphasize

J. Holmes / Politeness straiegies in interaction 93

2.1. Amount of talk

It is generally assumed that, since in western culture talk is regarded as a desirable ‘good’, domination of the talking time is inherently unfair to women and is evidence of male control. While this is undeniably true in some contexts, such as formal meetings, like most generalisations, it is an over- simplification. Much depends on the purpose of the interaction and the different roles participants are expected to play. Franken (1983) recorded and transcribed three television interviews. The interviewee in each case was a well-known male, and in each programme there were three interviewers: the front-person, who was a woman, and two invited guests who were different in each interview, one male and one female. It was reasonable to expect that the males being interviewed should dominate the talking time available, as indeed they did. Anything else would have been quite anomolous and it would be ludicrous to suggest this was evidence of male domination and control. The interviewees had a responsibility to do most of the talking.

The role of the interviewers on the other hand was quite different. Their job was to elicit talk, to encourage the interviewee to contribute in an interesting way. There was no reason why any one of them should have taken more time than any other, though one could argue that the front-person, as the person responsible for the programme, might legitimately have been expected to contribute more than her two guest assistants. The results, however, are quite at variance with such a prediction, as table 1 reveals. In a situation where each of the interviewers was entitled to at most 33% of the talking time, the males in each of the three television programmes in fact appropriated at least 50%. In this context, then, the women behaved more appropriately in relation to their roles.

Table 1 Amount of talk by TV interviewers (Franken 1983)

Interviewer

sex

Total words

I

No. %

2 3

No. % No. %

F (frontperson) 243 17.4 181 11.6 244 24.3 F 289 20.7 540 34.5 263 26.2 M 865 61.9 843 53.9 497 49.5

Total 1397 100 1564 100 1004 100

interpersonal goals more than men do. This can result in frustration when, for example, a woman describes a worry or a problem wanting reassurance and sympathy, and the male reaction, responding to utterance content, is to analyses and attempt to solve the problem. Both partners feel misunderstood and frustrated after such an exchange while rarely realising the source of the

misunderstanding.

94 J. Holmes 1 Politeness strategies in interaction

Whereas one might expect interviewers to be frugal with words since their job is to elicit talk, the same is not true of interviewees. A cooperative interviewee is one who contributes plenty of talk especially if the talk is elicited at some cost (such as time) to the interviewee. Thus it seems to me, on the basis of the information provided by Swacker (1975) one could argue that the American males she interviewed were more cooperative since they contributed more talk. By contrast, in interviews involving ten middle class New Zealand women and men, just the reverse proved true: the women contributed more talk. Miriam Meyerhoff (1986) found women contributed more talk in a task which involved the interviewee in describing a picture in sufficient detail for the interviewer to ‘spot the differences’ between the copy she or he held and the interviewee’s modified copy. Each interviewee performed the task with a male and a female interviewer (both of whom were equally experienced), and both sexes talked most to the female. See table 2.

Table 2 Amount of talk in picture description (Meyerhoff 1986)

Interviewee Average words per interview

sex To M interviewer

No.

To F interviewer

No.

F 729 784

M 586 141

Interviews devised by Debbie Jones also involved a woman and a man interviewing 15 female and 15 male academics about their physical fitness. 4 Once again the women interviewees were more cooperative, contributing substantially more talk overall than the men. In this case, however, both sexes talked more to the male interviewer who was more experienced and proved particularly skilful in eliciting talk.

Table 3 Amount of talk in fitness interviews

Interviewee Average words per interview

sex To M interviewer No.

To F interviewer No.

F 2313 1645 M 1863 1301

4 This data was collected by two interviewers under Debbie Jones’ supervision as the first stage in her Ph.D. research. The data was transcribed subsequently by Maria Verivaki and has been

analysed by me.

J. Holmes / Politeness strategies in interaction 95

2.2. Interruptions

While accepting Murray’s important caveat that “‘interruption’ is always an interpretation - by interactants as well as by analysts - of the intent of a second speaker” (1988: 115), it must nevertheless be recognised (pace Murray and Covelli 1988) that there is a substantial amount of evidence that men interrupt women more often than the reverse. 5 The New Zealand evidence supports the general pattern. Data collected by Maria Stubbe (1978) for a small study of the differences in interrupting behaviours between four flat- mates reveals the men interrupting more than the women during a meal-time conversation. The males were responsible for 60% of the interruptions, despite the fact that one of them spent a good proportion of his time in the kitchen. However she notes that females were responsible for 57% of the overlaps, suggesting that these women had developed their own strategies for ensuring that they got the next turn when they wanted it.

In a small study which paid particular attention to the various functions of overlapping speech (see Beattie 1981, Murray 1985), Christine Hyndman (1985) was astonished to find that in two separate informal contexts the interrupting behaviour of her New Zealand male student friends confirmed the overseas evidence. She distinguished between interruptions (which she defined as attempts to gain the floor), overlaps, and minimal responses. She also distinguished within the interruption category between successful and unsuccessful attempts to gain the floor. Table 4 summarises her results. Not only is it clear that the men interrupted more than the women (77% of the interruptions were initiated by men), they also overlapped more, and their interruptions were five times as likely as women’s to be successful in gaining the floor.

Table 4

Interruptions in student chat (based on Hyndman 1985)

Interruption

type

F M

No. % No. %

Overlaps 28.0 37.8 46.0 62.2

Interruptions 17.0 23.0 57.0 71.0 [interrupter gained floor 8 16 42 84 interrupter didn’t gain floor 9 37.5 15 62.51

Minimal responses 195.0 81.2 45.0 18.8

Hyndman also looked at the distribution of minimal responses (such as mm and mhm), forms which often overlap the speech of others, but which, as

S See, for example, section VC of the annotated bibliography in Thorne et al. (1983).

96 J. Holmes / Politeness stralegies in inieracrion

backchannelling devices or supportive feedback, have a very different function than interruptions. She found that here it was the women’s usage which predominated: women gave over four times as much of this type of positive and supportive feedback as men.

The little New Zealand evidence there is, then, suggests that New Zealand women are sensitive conversational partners. The amount they contribute depends on what they perceive as most helpful to their interlocutors or audience; they act as responsive and supportive listeners, minimising interruptions, and providing encouraging feedback to others. One could reasonably say that the evidence reveals them as ideal speaker-hearers in a number of contexts.

3. Pragmatic particles

Robin Lakoff s depiction of women’s speech dominated the 1970’s (Lakoff 1973, 1975). The features she identified as characterising ‘women’s language’ portrayed women as hesitant, unconfident, spineless creatures, unwilling to assert their own opinions in case they offended others, or worse, because they had none. Hardly ideal speaker-hearers in anyone’s terms.

The features she identified were selected as characteristic of the speech of those “out of power” (1975: 14) of those whose societal role required them to

avoid offence at all costs. They included using “hypercorrect grammar”. avoiding swear words, using “superpolite forms”, adopting rising intonation on declarative statements, and both intensifying and hedging utterances in order to ensure one’s message got across, while avoiding offence for expressing one’s views at all (Lakoff 1975: 53-57). The spate of research that her hypotheses generated provided a great deal of very confusing and apparently contradictory results. While some researchers produced data which confirmed Lakoffs claims, others produced contradictory findings and many more pointed out ways in which they needed to be qualified or the data re- interpreted.6 My own research suggests a need for greater subtlety and sophistication, both in the methodology adopted and in the interpretation of the linguistic forms being analysed. I will illustrate with reference to three pragmatic particles which Lakoff included in her list of ‘hedges’: tag questions, sort of and you know.

3.1. Tag questions

3.1.1. Functions Lakoff (1975: 54) suggested that tag questions were used by women as a

6 See Holmes (1984a, 1990), Smith (1985), Cameron (1985), Coates (1986) and Cameron et al. (1988) for discussion of some of the contradictory results and possible reasons for them.

J. Holmes 1 Politeness strategies in interaction 91

device for avoiding commitment to the validity of a proposition, as attenua- tors or hedges on the strength of an assertion.’ It is certainly possible to identify tag questions which serve this purpose. (1) is just such a case:

(1) Context: one friend to another recounting her school experiences

I did my exams in sixty three was it

The speaker is uncertain of the date and the tag signals this to the listener. But this is just one of a wide variety of forms of tag question, expressing one of a range of functions. Tags vary in intonation, in syntactic form, and in lexical shape; and in addition to expressing uncertainty or asking for confirmation from the addressee, they may serve pragmatically as politeness devices (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987).8 By attenuating the force of a directive or softening a criticism, they may express negative politeness, as in (2).

(2) Context: mother to child who has emptied her shopping out all over the floor.

that was a bit of a daft thing to do wasn’t it

In different contexts they may serve as positive politeness devices, encouraging the addressee to participate and facilitating interaction. Teachers, interviewers, hosts, and, in general, those responsible for the success of an interaction tend to use tags in this way (Johnson 1980, Holmes 1984b, Cameron et al. 1988). (3) illustrates its use to provide easy entry into the conversation for a guest.

(3) Context: host to dinner guest.

Ray had some bad luck didn’t you Ray.

Finally tags may be used not as politeness devices mitigating face-threatening acts but as confrontational and coercive devices marking an utterance as a ‘face attack act’ (Austin 1987, 1988). (4) is an example of a tag used to ‘force feedback when it is not forthcoming’ (Thomas 1988: 27) provided by Jenny Thomas from her ‘unequal encounter’ data.

’ See Kinder (1988) for a discussion of the form and function of hedges in bilingual speech. B See Holmes (1982, 1984b, 1990) for a range of references on the form and function of tag

questions in English.

98 J. Holmes / Politeness straregies in interaction

(4) Context: Superintendent to Detective Constable during interview criti-

cising the Constable’s performance. “A . . . you’ll probably find yourself urn before the Chief Constable, okay?

B Yes, Sir, yes, understood. A Now you er full understand that, don’t you? B Yes, Sir, indeed, yeah” (E xample from Thomas 1988 : 28).

The tag functions not to attenuate but rather to strengthen the negative illocutionary force of a face attack act. Tags which serve this coercive or challenging function are properly analysed as intensifiers rather than as hedges. To describe tags as devices for expressing uncertainty, as Lakoff did, is clearly to oversimplify. One needs to pay attention to their form and function in context before it is possible to comment on the implications of their distribution in the speech of women and men.

3.1.2. Distribution

Researchers who have investigated Lakoffs claims regarding tag questions have frequently counted tags without attention to the variety of forms involved or the different functions they express. Moreover they have generally compared the usage of women and men without controlling for the total amount of speech produced by each sex. Since, as mentioned above, there is abundant evidence that, especially in formal contexts, men tend to dominate the interaction, it is not surprising that Dubois and Crouch (1975) for instance, found men used more tags than women. If comparisons are to be valid, the number of forms produced must be presented as a proportion of the total speech produced by each sex.

When one takes account of the form and functions of tags. and controls for the quantity of speech produced by each sex and the contexts in which it is produced, the results present a rather different picture of women speakers from the wimpish women depicted by Lakoff. Table 5 summarises the patterns found in a corpus of equal amounts of female and male speech collected in a range of matched contexts.

Contrary to Lakoffs hypotheses, New Zealand women use tags most often as positive politeness facilitative devices, encouraging the addressee to contribute to the conversation. They use them in this way more often than men, who tend to use more epistemic modal tags asking for confirmation or expressing uncertainty. This data thus contributes further detail to the picture of New Zealand women as supportive conversational partners.


Table 5

Distribution of tag questions by function and sex of speaker

Function of tag Female

No.

W)

Male No.

W)

Epistemic modal

(expressing uncertainty)

Positive politeness

(facilitative) p = 0.001

Negative politeness

(softening)

Face attack marker

(challenging)

Total

(C) (Z)

_

(:I 59 41

3.2. You know

3.2.1. Functions You know is another of the pragmatic particles which Lakoff labelled a hedge and included in her list of the features of women’s language which reflected women’s lack of confidence in their assertions. Like the tag it is more complicated in prosodic form than Lakoff and most of those who investigated her claims acknowledged (see Crystal and Davy 1975). And though it may indeed express uncertainty, or imprecision, it may equally express a range of other functions. It can, for example, act as a turn-yielding device, as a linguistic imprecision signal, as an appeal to the listener for reassuring feedback, or as a signal that the speaker attributes understanding to the listener (Holmes 1986a).g Like tag questions, however, you know has also been counted by those investigating Lakoffs claims, without adequate attention having been paid to the complexity of its form and function.

In analysing instances of you know in context the various functions identified can be categorized into two broad groups: one category of functions in which you

9 &tman (1981), Schourup (1985) and Schiffrin (1987) also provide detailed discussions of the functions of you know. Information on the syntactic and prosodic features of you know in British

English is provided in Crystal and Davy (1975: 92-93) and compared to New Zealand usage in

Holmes (1986a).


know expressed the speaker’s confidence or certainty, the other reflecting uncertainty of various kinds (Holmes 1986a). In the first category there were instances where you know expresses the speaker’s confidence concerning the addressee’s relevant background knowledge and experience, attitudes and anticipated response. In this function it is an other-oriented device establishing or maintaining solidarity. In this category too belong instances of you know where it serves an emphatic function to reassure the addressee of the validity of the proposition. (5) serves to illustrate this ‘confident’ meaning of you know.

(5) Context: radio interviewee describing past experience and that way we’d

get rid of exploitation of man by man all that stuff/you know/you’ve heard it before

In the second category there are instances of you know expressing both addressee- oriented uncertainty and message-oriented uncertainty. The former relates to the speaker’s uncertainty concerning the addressee’s attitudes or likely response in the interaction; the latter expresses uncertainty regarding the linguistic encoding of the message. (6) is an example of you know expressing this ‘uncertain’ meaning.

(6) Context: young woman to close friend.

and it was quite // well it was it was all very embarrassing you knou

3.2.2. Distribution Using these two broad categories, table 6 summarizes the distribution of different functions of you know in women’s and men’s speech. lo

Table 6 Distribution of you know by function and sex of speaker

Function of you know Female

No.

(%)

Male

No.

(%I

Expressing confidence

Expressing uncertainty

Totals

(::.6, (&

(& $2)

69 106

lo Table 6 is based on a larger New Zealand corpus than was used in earlier analyses (Holmes 1987). 15,000 female and 15,000 male words from matched informal interviews have been added to bring the corpus to 60,000 words of New Zealand speech.


It is clear that the distribution of this pragmatic particle also challenges Lakoffs claims about hedges. Overall, in a corpus of speech matched in quantity and discourse type, the men use a third as many instances again of you know as the women. And whereas there is little difference in the number used by women to express confidence rather than uncertainty, with the balance being in the direction of the former, the men use considerably more for expressing uncertainty and attenuation than they do to express confidence. Thus there is no support for the suggestion that women use you know as a hedge more often than men do. Quite the opposite. Women use you know in its positive politeness functions to convey speaker confidence and solidarity with the addressee more frequently than they use it to convey uncertainty, in a mitigating negative politeness function, whereas the reverse is true for men.

As with the tag question, then, a careful analysis of the form and functions of the presumed hedge, you know, as well as an examination of its distribution in women’s and men’s speech reveals that it is considerably more complex in its use than was at first apparent. The analysis also challenges the view of women as unconfident conversationalists. New Zealand women use you know more frequently than men to signal solidarity and rapport with their addressees.

3.3. Sort of

3.3.1. Functions By contrast to tag questions and you know, there seems little doubt that the pragmatic particle sort of serves a basic attenuating or hedging function in all the contexts in which it occurs .ll In a detailed analysis of the form and functions of sort of two broad functions emerge (Holmes 1989b): firstly an epistemic modal meaning in which sort of functions as an approximation or imprecision signal, illustrated in (7); and secondly an affective or interpersonal meaning in which it functions to reduce social distance and expresses the speaker’s desire for a relaxed relationship with the addressee, as exemplified in

(8).

(7) Context: male student to female interviewer in description task. they’re sort of typical er/medieval type baggy things er pantaloons and that sort of stuff

(8) Context: one neighbour to another do you think I could sort of come and watch a programme on your TV tonight / it’s only short//

I1 See Holmes (1989b) for a review of the relevant research.

102 J. Holmes 1 Politeness strategies in interaction

In both cases the particle could reasonably be described as a hedge, but the emphasis varies according to the pragmatic context. In the first case it is content-oriented, hedging or qualifying the precision of an element of the proposition to which it relates, while in the second case it is addressee- oriented, attenuating the force of the speech act in which it occurs (see Holmes 1984~).

3.3.2. Distribution A comparison of the distribution of sort of by the sex of the speaker in different contexts suggests, as does the tag data, that Lakoffs claims regarding women’s linguistic usage need some modification. Especially in informal speech, she suggested, compared to men women are likely to use more hedges, such as sorr of, expressing uncertainty. The facts appear to be rather different. Though New Zealand women used proportionately more instances of sort of than New Zealand men in semi-formal interviews, there was no significant difference in the usage of women and men in the informal speech situations Lakoff (1975: 58) identified as crucial (Holmes 1989b). Moreover, in Meyer- hoffs task-oriented interviews, it was the men who used the most instances of sort of conveying imprecision or uncertainty (Meyerhoff 1986).

Table I Distribution of sot-f qf by function and sex of speaker

Function of sort of Female

No.

(%I

Male

No.

(%I

Epistemic modal meaning

Affective meaning

Ambiguous

Total

(Z.4)

(::I)

14

(30.4)

,::.g,

7

(15.2)

53 46

Table 7 presents an analysis of the distribution of sort of in its epistemic vs. affective meaning in my New Zealand corpus. Both women and men appear to use sort of most often to express epistemic rather than affective meaning, but the little evidence there is of favoured meanings between the sexes suggests that, as in other research on female-male interaction, women tend to put more emphasis on the interpersonal use of particles such as sort of than men do.

Much clearer, however, is the evidence that frequencies of sort of correlate


with the sex of the addressee. Table 8 shows that in semi-formal private interview contexts, sort of is addressed more often to women than to men, supporting earlier research that identifies the addressee as an important variable accounting for linguistic usage (e.g. Crosby and Nyquist 1977, Brouwer et al. 1979, McMillan et al. 1977, Brown 1980, Bell 1984, Preisler 1986, Holmes 1986b). Occurrences of sort of can undoubtedly be treated as evidence of a more relaxed and informal situation. It occurred three times as frequently in informal as opposed to formal interactions (Holmes 1987). As listeners it appears, then, that women create a more relaxed atmosphere than men, and that this is reflected in their interlocutors’ speech style. Far from reflecting the inadequacies of women’s speech, instances of sort of appear to be a clear signal of women’s conversational skills and their success in creating a relaxed environment for their interlocutor’s talk.

Table 8 Distribution of sort of by sex of speaker and addressee

Speaker sex Addressee sex

Female No.”

Male No.

Semi-formal interviews Females Males

Semi-formal task Females Males

24 11.8 13.1 7.0

105 93 134 113

B Note these figures represent instances per 10,000 words

This analysis of New Zealand women’s use of pragmatic particles thus suggests that LakofI’s claims about women’s language are wide of the mark by a considerable margin. Like men, women use pragmatic particles both as epistemic and politeness devices, but a consistent pattern emerges of women as considerate and supportive conversational partners, expressing themselves with confidence and conveying positive politeness towards their addressees.

It may be thought that facilitative and supportive behaviour could be interpreted as evidence of weakness or lack of power, but there is nothing to suggest this would be a valid interpretation of the data (see also Smith 1985: 157). On the contrary, facilitative behaviour is appropriate for those in leadership roles and can be expected of those responsible for ensuring that interaction proceeds smoothly (Johnson 1980, Holmes 1984b). Moreover there is interesting evidence that it is women’s style of interaction which both sexes find attractive and choose for preference - at least in less formal contexts (Aries 1976, Coates 1986). As Coates comments:


“some dissatisfaction with the male style is imPlied by Aries’ finding that the men she studied

became less interested in attending all male sessions and looked forward to the meetings of the

mixed groups; the women, on the other hand, preferred the all-women sessions.” (1986: 117)

In view of the evidence of the way women interact, including their use of pragmatic particles, this preference for women as conversational partners is hardly surprising.

4. Speech functions

There is as yet little research which focusses on sex differences in the

realisation of specific speech functions or speech acts. One study by Goodwin (1980) demonstrated that black girls and boys in Philadelphia expressed directives differently in same-sex interactions. The boys tended to use impera- tives reflecting the hierarchical organisation of their groups, while the girls used forms introduced by let’s and modalised declaratives, reflecting their more participatory decision-making styles. In New Zealand Jones (1980) documents the functions of gossip defined as a ‘way of talking between women in their roles as women, intimate in style, personal and domestic in topic and setting’. By contrast Austin (1987, 1988) explores ways in which speakers formulate ‘face attack acts’, such as insults and put-downs, illustrat- ing predominantly from observed cases of face attack by men on women. The evidence for women’s more cooperative interaction style continues to accumu-

late. My own research in this area focusses on the distribution of apologies and

compliments in women’s and men’s speech. It is particularly useful to consider the functions these speech acts serve for women and men, since this provides an additional dimension to the picture of women as ideal speaker-hearers.

4.1. Apologies

Apologies are utterances aimed at remedying the effects of an offence or face- threatening act (FTA) and restoring social harmony and equilibrium. They are examples of negative politeness strategies or utterances concerned with maintaining or supporting the addressee’s negative face (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987). Apologies may be expressed by a range of strategies, with some variant of sorry the form most frequently used (Fraser 1981, Olshtain and Cohen 1983, Owen 1983, Blum-Kulka and Olshtain 1984, Trosborg 1987). There are no significant differences between women and men in the preferred strategies for expressing apologies (Holmes 1989a). The differences which arise in women’s and men’s apology usage relate rather to the distribution of apologies in their speech and the response strategies they appear to prefer.


4.1.1. Distribution of apologies Firstly then the data summarised in table 9 shows that in a corpus of 183 apologies produced by New Zealand women and men there were significant differences (x2 = 54.487) between the sexes in the distribution of apologies. Women gave 74.5% of all the apologies recorded and received 73.3% of them. Hence in this corpus at least, over a range of contexts, New Zealand women apologised more than New Zealand men did, and they were apologised to more frequently than the men were. The table also illustrates the fact that apologies were most frequent between women, while apologies between males were relatively rare (only 8.5%).

Table 9 Apologies analysed according to sex of participants

Aoologiser - Victim Number %

Female-Female (F-F) 99 56.3 Female-Male (F-M) 32 18.2 Male-Female (M-F) 30 17.0 Male-Male (M-M) 15 8.5

Total 176 100

It is superficially surprising that apologies to males are so much less frequent than apologies to females (26.7% vs. 73.3%). One might expect negative politeness strategies, as expressions of deference and social distance, to be used more to those with power and status in the society. Acting as signals of concern for offending or interfering with the addressee’s freedom of action, apologies could be expected to occur most often ‘upwards’. In female- male interaction in western culture it is generally accepted that males are perceived as the dominant and powerful group. On this analysis one would expect more apologies to men from women, but the number of apologies between the sexes is remarkably evenly distributed.

Part of the answer to this puzzle may lie in differential perceptions by women and men of verbal politeness devices. The contexts, types of relationship, and kinds of offence which elicit apologies appear to differ between the sexes (Holmes 1989a). It seems likely that women regard explicit apologies for offences as more important in maintaining relationships than men do. The very low frequency of apologies between males provides support for this hypothesis. Apologies, it seems, function differently for women and men. Women perceive them as important face-support strategies while men appear to regard them as more dispensable.

4.1.2. Distribution of apology responses The distribution of responses to apologies is also different between women

106 J. Holmes / Politeness srrategies in inreruction

and men. Responses provide an indication to the apologiser of whether the goal of reestablishing social harmony or equilibrium has been achieved. Table 10 shows the distribution of response strategies between women and men.

Table 10 Sex of responder by apology response strategy

Response strategy Sex of responder

F

No. %

M

No. %

A. ACCEPT 49 38.0 13 21.1 e.g. that’s OK

B. ACKNOWLEDGE 14 10.9 5 10.6

e.g. OK (but)

C. REJECT 15 11.6 9 19.1

e.g. Marked silence

D. EVADE 28 21.7 12 25.5 e.g. let > make another time

E. NO RESPONSE EXPECTED/ 16 12.4 7 14.9

PROVIDED

F. OTHER

e.g. another apology; a humorous rejection

7 5.4 1 2.1

Total 129 loo 41 100

It is clear that the most likely response from both sexes is to accept the apology, with a remark such as ‘That’s OK’ or ‘No problem’. An evasive

lateral comment, sometimes responding to some other aspect of the apology, is the next most frequent response. (9) provides an example:

(9) Context: A is phoning V, a close friend, to cancel a lunch-date. A. I’m sorry - I can’t make it after all. I’ve got an unexpected meeting.

It’s a real pain. V. Let’s make another time.

While the distributional difference between female vs. male responses just fails to reach significance for this table (x2 = 10.835) the patterns nevertheless provide suggestive trends. Women appear to be more likely to accept an apology than men, while men are more likely than women to reject an apology. Women responded to an apology with an apology more often than men (7 of the 8 in the OTHER category), but the numbers are obviously too small to be more than suggestive.


Accepting an apology can be interpreted as a threat to the face of the offended person, since the acceptance implicitly confirms that the addressee has imposed on and offended the speaker. An acceptance is therefore self- denying and ‘other-oriented’. It is intended to restore the balance and thus preserve the offender’s face. A rejection, on the other hand, threatens the offender’s face and preserves the face of the offended person, and is thus more self-oriented. An evasion allows the speaker an ‘out’ in these circumstances and avoids admitting the loss of face resulting from the offence. Men appear to be less other-oriented than women in this New Zealand data in that a higher proportion of their responses (44.6% compared to 33.3%) fall into the reject and evade category than into the accept category.

Other-oriented behaviour patterns are regularly associated with women’s interactive behaviour. In their apology behaviour too, both in making apologies and responding to them, we have evidence that women pay attention to their addressee’s face needs - evidence which provides further support for the claim that women make sensitive and responsive conversational partners.

4.2. Compliments

The final area I want to consider in presenting the evidence that New Zealand women make good conversational partners involves an examination of their complimenting behaviour. Compliments clearly function as positively affective speech acts which serve to increase or consolidate solidarity between the speaker and addressee (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987). They are social lubricants serving to ‘create or maintain rapport’ (Wolfson 1983: 86).

4.2.1. Distribution of compliments An analysis of nearly 500 compliments demonstrated that New Zealand women give and receive significantly more compliments than New Zealand men do. Table 11 shows that women gave 67.7% of all the compliments recorded and received 74.3% of them. It is also clear that compliments between men were relatively rare (only 9%), and that even taking account of women’s compliments to men, they received overall considerably fewer compliments than women (only 25.5%). Complimenting appears to be a speech behaviour occurring much more frequently in interactions involving women than men.


Table 11

Compliments according to sex of participants

Complimenter-Recipient Number %

Female-Female (F-F) 248 51.2

Female-Male (F-M) 80 16.5

Male-Female (M-F) 112 23.2

Male-Male (M-M) 44 9.1

Total 484 100

The frequency patterns identified are consistent with the hypothesis that women generally perceive compliments as positively affective speech acts, and the between-women complimenting patterns are also consistent with research which interprets women’s linguistic behaviour as ‘affiliative’ or cooperative, rather than competitive or control-oriented (Cameron 1985, Kalcik 1975, Smith 1985). However, the patterns in table 11 suggest that, as with apologies, men may perceive these speech acts differently. Men do not give or receive compliments to each other very often, and women do not compliment men as often as they compliment women.

It is interesting to speculate on the reasons why people do not compliment men as often as they do women. It appears to be much more acceptable and socially appropriate to compliment a woman than a man. Wolfson (1984) takes the view that compliments act as socialising devices and thus one would expect more of them to be addressed ‘downwards’; the pattern is thus explained by referring to women’s socially subordinate status in society. She says :

“women because of their role in the social order, are seen as appropriate recipients of all manner

of social judgments in the form of compliments the way a woman is spoken to is, no matter what her status, a subtle and powerful way of perpetuating her subordinate role in socie-

ty.” (Wolfson 1984: 243)

In my view compliments are appropriately regarded not as put-down or socialisation devices, nor as patronising linguistic strategies, but rather as positively affective speech acts. They serve as signals of solidarity and, as such, one might expect them more frequently in same-sex interactions than cross-sex interactions. While this is clearly true for women, supporting my interpretation of their function, it is not for men. It may be, however, that males do not consider compliments the most appropriate way of expressing solidarity. They may use other linguistic and non-linguistic strategies for this purpose (see Kuiper 1987, Philips 1980).

If men regard compliments as FTAs, experiencing them as embarrassing and discomfiting speech acts, then it is not surprising that the fewest compliments occur between men. And the lower frequency of compliments from


women to men as opposed to from women to women can then be interpreted as evidence of women’s sensitivity to men’s feelings about compliments. A more detailed analysis of the contexts in which they occur could throw further light on these speculations. If this interpretation proved sustainable then the complimenting behaviour of women could be seen as providing further evidence of the ‘other-orientation’ which generally characterises women’s behaviour. l2

4.2.2. Distribution of compliment responses Finally it is useful to examine responses to compliments. In an interesting analysis Pomerantz (1978) points out that responses represent the recipient’s resolution of conflicting conversational constraints. In any conversational exchange, she suggests, the preferred second part will represent an agreement with the previous utterance (Pomerantz 1978: 83). There is thus pressure on the recipient of a compliment to agree with the complimenter and accept the compliment. On the other hand, there is strong pressure on speakers to avoid or minimize self-praise.

In the New Zealand data by far the most common response to a compliment is to accept it, with the next most frequent response being to deflect the credit; it is relatively rarely that New Zealanders overtly reject compliments (Holmes 1986b). Using Pomerantz’s discussion as a starting point, three broad categories of compliment response were developed to describe the New Zealand corpus: ACCEPT, REJECT and DEFLECT or EVADE (see Holmes 1986b for a fuller discussion). Each has a number of sub-categories with fairly transparent labels. Table 12 identifies and illustrates the categories with examples which can be interpreted as responses to a compliment such as ‘What a beautiful jersey!’

Table 12 shows that essentially there is no significant difference between the women and the men in terms of the likelihood that they will accept (p = 0.98) or reject a compliment (p = 0.71), or evade responding 0, = 0.20). Moreover both sexes are most likely to accept with an agreeing comment and least likely to reject a compliment by challenging the complimenter’s sincerity (p = 0.00004).

Though there are no significant differences between the sexes in choice of overall stategy, if we examine preferred strategies within the three major categories there are a couple of within-category differences which deserve comment. It seems more likely that a man will ignore or legitimately evade a compliment than that a woman will (19.3% vs. 11.2%). In fact the preference for a legitimate evasion over other strategies, such as shifting credit, as a

I2 It should also be noted that in this respect at least the men’s complimenting behaviour also shows evidence of sensitivity to the preferences of the addressee. The number of compliments noted from men to women is considerably higher than the number noted between men.


Table 12

Compliment responses according to responder’s sex

Response type F M

No. % No. %

A. ACCEPT 1

2.

3.

4.

B

1.

2.

3.

Appreciation/agreement token e.g. thanks. yes

52

Agreeing utterance

e.g. I think ii’s lovely too.

Downgrading/qualifying utterance e.g. it’s not too bad is it.

Return compliment

e.g. you’re looking good too.

110

29

14

Subtotal 205

REJECT

Disragreeing utterance

e.g. I’m qfiaid I don’t like it much.

Question accuracy

e.g. is beautiful the righr word?

Challenge sincerity

e.g. you don’1 really mean that.

23

Subtotal

7

3

33

5

33

C. DEFLECT/EVADE

1. Shift credit

e.g. my mother knitted it.

2. Informative comment

e.g. I bought il at that Vibrant Knits place

3. Ignore 8 e.g. it YF time we were leaving isn’t it?

4. Legitimate evasion 29 Context needed to illustrate

5. Request reassurance/repetition 17 e.g. do you really think so?

Subtotal 92

15.8 18

33 40

8.8 II

4.2 4

62 13

7 5

2.1 3

0.9 1

10 9

1.5

10 9

2.4 6

8.8 16

5.2 5

27.8 36

15.8

35

9.6

3.5

64

4.4

2.6

0.9

7.9

7.9

5.3

14

4.4

31.6

Total 330 100 II8 100

deflect strategy is statistically very significant 0, = 0.00007) for males, but not for females. It is the second most popular male strategy: i.e. to avoid a verbal response altogether by ignoring the compliment or responding to some other aspect of the previous speaker’s utterance. It seems probable that this avoid- ance strategy of changing topic or focus is most likely to be used if a


compliment is experienced as embarrassing. The male preference for this strategy would thus be consistent with the hypothesis that compliments are more often experienced as FTAs by men than by women. The preferred female DEFLECT strategies of shifting credit or providing informative comments do not repudiate the compliment so strongly as strategies which ignore it.

Given that there are no sex differences in the proportion of REJECT responses used overall, within this category the female preference for a disagreeing utterance rather than a challenging or questioning REJECT strategy is statistically significant (p = 0.00004). The distribution of the male response strategies within the REJECT group is not significantly different, though the figures are too small to be very reliable. Given the claim that women tend to use and perceive compliments as positively affective speech acts, it is perhaps surprising that REJECT responses occur in women’s usage at all. Rejecting a compliment cannot easily be interpreted as cooperative linguistic behaviour. It is worth noting, however, that this strategy is the least aggressive of the three REJECT strategies, so the significant female preference within this category is consistent with a view of women as relatively cooperative partners in conversation.

5. Conclusion

I have argued somewhat tongue-in-cheek given the furore raised by the ideal speaker-hearer concept as defined by Chomsky (1965) that, on the basis of a range of evidence, New Zealand women constitute ideal speaker-hearers. Nevertheless the evidence that New Zealand women make attractive conversational partners is undeniable.

In the data examined New Zealand women respond sensitively to the demands of context with respect to the amount of talk which is appropriate. They encourage others to talk in contexts where their task is to facilitate the interaction, but when their role is that of interviewee they contribute gener- ously themselves. In informal contexts they do not interrupt in order to gain the floor as frequently as men do; rather they provide positive and encouraging feedback, supporting the contributions of their interlocuters.

That these behaviour patterns are not evidence of powerlessness, but should rather be seen as positive features of women’s speech, is suggested by the fact that many of the facilitative patterns which characterise women’s speech in general also characterise the speech of those in leadership roles or positions where they are responsible for ensuring the success of an interaction. Tag questions are an obvious example, but the use of you know as a positive politeness device, together with the tendency for sort of, a particle which reflects a relaxed and informal interaction, to be used more often by women

112 J. Holmes / Politeness strategies in inleraction

as a solidarity marker, and by both sexes in contexts with women listeners, all add to the overall picture of women as experts in verbal interaction.

Finally there is evidence that women’s concern for others extends to the frequency with which they use politeness strategies such as apologies and compliments. Attention to the face needs of others is reflected in the greater frequency of apologies used by women, as well as their willingness to graciously and explicitly accept them from others. Men by contrast appear to find them dispensable and are more likely to omit any overt response. Similarly compliments, which are very obvious positive politeness devices, are much more frequent in interactions between women. Men are again more likely than women to avoid an overt response.

These speech acts are aspects of behaviour which involve the speaker taking the initiative. They clearly refute any claims that women’s interactive behaviour can be explained by seeing them as adopting a passive, submissive or powerless conversational role. Rather they provide strong support for the claim that New Zealand women are considerate, ‘other-oriented’ participants in interaction.

I have presented the arguments without qualifications as if New Zealand women were a monolithic group. Yet there are many qualifications to be borne in mind. Most of the contributers are well-educated middle class Pakehas. The linguistic behaviour of lower or working class women and of Maori women has been little studied to date. Moreover the evidence I have presented is purely distributional and there is an obvious need for further detailed qualitative research to explore the ways these patterns show up in individual interactions.

There is another qualification which is more complex. The perception of women as ideal speaker-hearers or, less provocatively, as sensitive conversationalists, depends on one’s viewpoint and the context of the interaction. In formal contexts women do not compete for talking time as men do, and as a result men get more than their fair share of the intraction. Thus men benefit and from their point of view women are ideal conversational co-participants. In informal interaction women contribute more equally, but the overall effect of their contributions is to make the interaction a more pleasant experience for everyone - more relaxed, more participative. Edelsky comments on the positive feeling experienced by both sexes from participation in the more collaborative types of ‘floor’ which she describes as “high involvement, synergistic, solidarity building interaction” (1981: 417). She suggests this type of interaction (in which the number of women’s contributions more closely matches men’s) provides a “high level of communicative satisfaction (interest, a sense of ‘we’-ness, excitement, fun, etc.)” (1981: 416) which both men and women enjoy. In their use of compliments and apologies, however, it may be that women’s behaviour gives most satisfaction to other women. The low numbers of these speech acts noted between men suggests they are not as


highly valued by men, and may even be experienced as face-threatening by men.

This final piece of evidence, then, suggests that women’s role as positive conversationalists need not be perceived and defined entirely in relation to the advantages their behaviour offers men. Indeed one could argue that men simply benefit inordinately from the positive effects of interactive behaviour aimed at co-participants generally. The fact that many men exploit women’s willingness to share the talking time, and take advantage of their facilitative style, is merely evidence of their lack of interactive sensitivity. The greater use of face-supportive acts such as compliments and apologies between women suggests that women take positive steps to maintain verbal behaviours they value. They are not just passive respondents in interaction and nor is their behaviour determined by male norms. There are clearly definable female norms which put the addressee’s interests and needs first. Consequently both women and men recognise that talking to women is a positive experience. But not everyone realises why.

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