Politeness Principle as a Pragma-Stylistic Device in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

This study investigates into how politeness principle is employed in the regulation of discourse in literary texts. It also evaluates the applicability of the politeness principle, which is a pragmatic principle designed to regulate spoken discourse, to literary discourse. Excerpts from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus were collated, presented and analyzed based on the politeness maxims postulated by Leech (1983) and, Brown and Levinson (1987). This study reveals that politeness strategies could be used as a stylistic device for the regulation of discourse among characters in a discourse and, between a narrator and his reader. They enable a participant in a discourse to exploit language to achieve communicative goals, and when used appropriately they ease tension and promote comity and understanding. This study also reveals that politeness is culturally bound, as it varies from one culture to another. It also shows that politeness could be deduced from the linguistic and paralinguistic attributes of the text. It is obvious from the analysis of the excerpts that politeness principle is applicable to literary discourse.