Things I love-hate about Canada - part the second

Politeness.

As most of you will know, Canadians have the reputation for being the politest people on earth.

Canadians talk about this a lot, they are quite proud of this tag. Nova Scotians add to it their tag of 'friendliest people in the world'.

Coming from the land of a hundred thousand welcomes I know what a ball of smoke the concept of friendliness can be, so I'm not even going there today.

The question about Canadian, or Nova Scotian in particular, politeness is not whether this is true or not, but why it exists in the first place.

So I went rooting around Wikipedia for some answers. And lo and behold, there's a theory about politeness. Why am I not surprised? There's a theory about everything, isn't there?

Politeness Theory

Politeness consists of attempting to save face for another. Simply put, model persons want to maintain others’ face, but nevertheless are often forced to commit face threatening acts. Thus, politeness strategies are developed in order to formulate message in order to save the hearer’s face when face threatening acts are inevitable or desired. This means that the speaker avoids embarrassing or making the listener feel uncomfortable.

So, politeness is a construct designed to get other people to acquiesce to your needs without feeling that they have lost face.

And here was me thinking that politeness was 'a good thing to do'.

Apparently, the majority of Canadians believe the same, telling pollsters recently that they were polite because that was how they were reared. That would explain a lot. In Nova Scotia politeness is often given as a necessity rather than a gift. I am of the opinion that if you don't feel like being polite then you should be grumpy. Therefore, I HATE IT when people are polite to me because they have to be and then glower at me because of it. Here in Nova Scotia, mostly in work, I often come across politeness which barely conceals disdain, contempt, aggression, rage, passive acceptance of being trampled underfoot, or just plain dislike.

I'm still not done with feeling crap when it happens.

I often think it is me. My politeness techniques are different to theirs and the difference grates on them, or so I rationalise it to myself. I get archly teasing about my 'Irish temper' and my 'Irish directness' (in the Nova Scotian 'I am polite but you are pissing me off so much I am grinding my teeth, so I am going to put you down so I can feel better about the whole thing' manner which they have nailed perfectly in this province).

But if politeness is a construct designed to get other people to acquiesce to your demands, then that's a whole different kettle of fish, isn't it?

Back to Wiki:

There are four main types of politeness strategies: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-the-record or indirect strategy.

First, bald on record strategies do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer’s face. This strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their audience. With the bald on record strategies there is a direct possibility that the audience will be shocked or embarrassed by the strategy. For example, a bald on record strategy might be to tell your sister to “do the dishes. It’s your turn.”

This would be my normal way of operating in the world. I assume everyone I meet is a friend I don't know yet, so I assume that if I don't closely know them that I soon will, so I go for them baldheaded.

This tends to terrify the shit out of your average Nova Scotian. Those people who are not terrified become my friends. Easy peasy.

The second strategy is positive politeness and this strategy attempts to minimize the threat to the hearers face. This strategy is most commonly used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well. Quite often hedging and attempts to avoid conflict are used. For example, a positive politeness strategy might be the request “I know that you’ve been really busy lately, but could you do the dishes?”

Normally, if someone has been really busy lately, I will do the dishes for them. So I don't tend to use this one too much. Consequently, I am really bad at it, and even if I do use it, I come across as being sarcastic and so it generally backfires.

The third strategy is negative politeness which presumes that the speaker will be imposing on the listener. The potential for awkwardness or embarrassment is greater than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous. Thus, a request without consideration of the listener’s negative face might be uncomfortable: “I need $5” is awkward if five dollars is outside the recipient to the question’s financial capabilities. But if the speaker, knowing that the listener wants to maintain their autonomy, adds an out for the listener like “I know you’ve been kinda strapped for cash, but could I borrow $5?”, the listener is more likely to give them that money because the request showed a respect for their ability to maintain autonomy.

I tend not to borrow money from friends unless I absolutely have to, it being the root of some evil. Having said that, when I am asking for something that will involve a Canadian losing face, I tend to forget (for that read 'don't bother') to add the required add on.

This is where I hit the wall in Canada. In Ireland if you do this, the person will either say no, or show through a facial expression that they really don't want to do it. At which point you back off and say 'don't worry about it'. At which point the Irish person would either not worry about it, or spend twenty minutes telling you it was NO PROBLEM while you said, NO NO, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, and face is saved by having a row over who was prepared to be put out the most.

In Canada they don't do this. They just stare at you with an expression of panic. The more insecure ones flap their hands around a lot. I am always at a loss for words at this stage and this kind of encounter drives me crazy.

It doesn't help that I still don't really know what is an acceptable favour to ask a Nova Scotian. Not very much of a favour or a HUMUNGOUS one I think. In between ones leave them flailing.

The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect strategy. This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to being imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so.

This of course is what girlfriends do to their boyfriends. To no effect. I did it this morning actually. Woke Himself up and said 'I'd love some coffee'. To which he said 'mrufufrahaslummmnn' and went back to sleep.

Bastard. Had to get up and make my own coffee.

Anyways, politeness, the ultimate fitting in to a new place test.

I'm probably scoring a C minus at the moment.