Transcription
What's up everybody? My name is Demetri. I'm a current VC English language tutor and also owner of Learn Mate Tutoring. Uh, and today I'm going to be talking to you about the positive and negative face strategies that we use in English language.
Now, uh, next year in 2016, uh, the study designed for English language VC level has been updated, uh, to reflect certain changes. Now, one of those important changes is the inclusion and awareness of positive and negative face strategies. Now, as a current VC English language tutor, I have—I'm very aware of this and have learned—I did actually learn it in year 12—um, but it really wasn't that aware—it wasn't generally assessed. However, nowadays, especially uh, next year, it's going to be uh, assessed and obviously brought to the students' attention. So, uh, today I'm going to give you a quick overview of the differences between the two.
Now, in this article on VCStudyGuides.com, uh, you'll be able to find a—an attachment—an attachment with um, all the positive and negative face strategies within that document. So make sure you download that. Okay.
So firstly, to start off with, guys, basically positive face refers to a person's need to be accepted or liked by others and to be treated as a member of a group, knowing that their wants are shared by others. So basically, to keep it real simple, it's a way of people aiming to build up closeness and social rapport with each other, which is basically the positive face.
Now, on the contrary, the negative face refers to a person's need to be independent and not be imposed on by others. So to keep it real simple, that means just trying to avoid imposing on their freedom, so preventing them from having uh, freedom of choice and freedom of—freedom of ability—uh, in their actions.
So before we delve into the difference between the two, make sure you thoroughly understand those differences. Yes, they may seem to overlap, but they're actually quite distinct. So just remember, positive face is your desire to be included with the group, so talk about agreeable topics, uh, you know, using euphemisms, things of that nature. And then, on the contrary, negative face refers to your need as a human to not have your freedom imposed on.
Okay, so let's go through positive face strategies really briefly. So essentially, positive face notices or attends to the other person's wants, needs, or possessions. So if one of your friends recently bought a new suit to the formal and you said to him, "That's a nice suit, where did you get it from?" That's attending to your positive face needs because it shows that you're attending to his possessions and obviously, in this case here, people want to look good. So by saying that, it ends up looking good on them; they feel as though you actually care about them as a person. So ultimately, this helps to decrease the social distance and build rapport.
Next, we also have the intensification of one's interest, approval, or sympathy for the other person. So generally, this can be seen through uh, through death, for example. So you might want to sympathize with someone else by saying, "I'm very sorry to hear your grandfather passed away. My condolences to yourself and your family." So that actually leads to the next point where I've used a euphemism, "passed away." So, "I'm sorry to hear your grandfather passed away." Now, the semantic euphemism in this case allows us to appear sensitive to the other person and attends to their wants and needs. So ultimately, again, that helps to create a—a sense of social rapport.
Next, we move on to using uh, ingroup identity markers such as ingroup address forms like diminutives as well as even jargon and slang. So, for example, uh, even in English language when we're communicating with each other, even when I'm communicating with my students, when you're communicating with your uh, classmates in English language, you'll be using jargonistic terminology to ultimately subconsciously build a relationship, obviously in addition to facilitating uh, precise and economical communication. Now, with regards to diminutives, your friend might be called D; you might want to say to D, "What's up D? How—how you pulling up today after a big night, mate?" So by using all these Australian terms like "mate" as a colloquialism, "D" as a diminutive, it allows you to create a greater sense of social inclusion and a rapport with the other person, and that also is very similar with slang.
Now, next is choosing topics you'll both agree on, so mutually interesting to build um, social rapport. For example, you—you both might like dogs, so you talk about dog breeds and um, you know, how you walk your dog and things like that. So by talking about a common interest or PS4 games or computer games, anything like that, again helps to facilitate the building of social rapport.
Okay, next we move on to asserting common ground. So initially when you meet someone, you might want to talk about random topics like the weather, for example. You might say, "It's such a nice day today, isn't it?" And what this does is it basically asserts common ground with the other person and breaks down the initial social barriers that we have with someone upon initial social rapport—initial social encounter, sorry. Okay. And also the use of "we" rather than "you." So this also includes conjugations of each pronoun. For example, uh, in English we might say, "Let's go, guys," which creates a sense of social inclusion rather than exclusion. So using "we" versus "you," "we" creates a greater sense of inclusion whereas "you" is more direct.
Okay. Now let's contrast this with negative face strategies. So as I said before, negative face refers to the person's need to not have their freedom imposed on and to be an independent human being in society. So firstly, we give the person choices, allowing them to maintain their freedom. So, for example, someone might say, "Would you like to meet up tomorrow night or next week? What suits you?" So by giving someone the options of when you like to meet up for, say, coffee or dinner, it creates a sense of greater independence and uh, less imposition.
Next, we use indirect speech. So using indirect speech could be uh, for example, "You couldn't possibly tell me the time, please?" So if you want to ask someone for the time, I.E., you impose on their freedom, you might say it indirectly. So not say, "Give me the time," you might say, "You couldn't possibly tell me the time, please?" So what this does is it minimizes that imposition on someone's freedom and independence.
Okay. Next, we do not assume or presume by asking questions such as, "Could you do this for me?" Uh, we also give deference by the use of certain address forms such as, "We look forward very much to seeing you again," after you've left a new cafe or restaurant. So hypothetically speaking, imagine if you went out to a new restaurant in your suburb just to try out the new food and as you left the waitress or waiter said to you, "We look forward to seeing you again." What this does is it uh, prevents the imposition of saying, "You must return to this restaurant," rather it gives you the choice and also creates a level of deference.
Okay. Next, we have apologies. So did you know that you can actually first apologize to someone and then ask them to do something? For example, "I'm sorry to be asking you this, but could you please pick me up after school?" So what it does is it creates a sense of apology before asking them to uh, enact a particular command. And lastly, we move on to making requests by using "you," the personal pronoun "you," instead of the personal pronoun "I." So, for example, I might say to you, "You couldn't give me a can of Coke, could you?" instead of, "I want a can of Coke." So by—by removing the "I," it creates a sense of um, of selflessness by removing the "I." So you could say, "You couldn't give me a can of Coke, could you?" Therefore, you might want to say that as a way of minimizing the imposition on someone's freedom.
So there you have it, guys. This is the summary format of positive and negative face strategies. Uh, there are a few more, but uh, to keep this video as short and concise as possible, I decided only to go through the main ones. Um, so if you do have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Um, otherwise, I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you.