Lubna Zuhair AlHakeem, Dr. Mahmoud Sabbagh & Dr. Zohreh Taebi Noghondari
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
This article focuses on politeness/ impoliteness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) which is based on the concept of face. The conception of face contains two related components or desires which are negative face and positive face. Additionally, this study will apply the theory on chosen excerpts taken from the American Play Detective Story written by Sidney Kingsley in 1949. The study explains when and where we have Face threatening act and what does it indicate or what is its significance. The findings of this study will show that all characters in the play are acting politely, except for Detective McLeod who keeps using face threatening acts. We can infer that his impoliteness and cruel character is because of his sense of control and disinterest in the principles of due process. The important point is that being a police detective and the indulgence in law practice led McLeod to ignore even the good manner of normal people.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
