POLITENESS RANKING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE USE

The politeness ranking is thought to be one of the features of the Politeness Principle (PP) (He Ziran 1988 P. 102). In the views of Leech, Brown and Levinsodn, speakers, when obeying the PP may choose appropriate politeness ranking according to contextual factors——social distance and status,age,sex,the ranking of impositions, the formality of the occasion and so on and the extent that a given act benefits or costs the addressee in a given situation.