A Study of Politeness Strategies Used by the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Students

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of politeness strategies used by Students of the National University of Lesotho. The study examines how NUL students respond to, communicate with and address their lecturers. The paper thus illustrates how and when NUL students make use of address forms such as titles, kinship terms, nicknames, personal names, and other strategies like “face principle” in their verbal interactions with their lecturers. The paper equally examines the various moods of greetings employed by NUL students. The paradigm of the study includes that politeness is a required linguistic communicative behavior in the linguistic and cultural ideology of the Basotho people, thus NUL students. As such, impoliteness is penalized with the essence of preserving relationships and being at peace with oneself and others. The analysis reveals that the choices of linguistic strategies by NUL students are guided by the politeness principles in Lesotho and the social relationship that exists in the University setting. This relationship is based on age, social status, and kinship. The paper, however, demonstrates that age is not the dominant feature for expressing politeness between people. Another common feature found as a strategy by NUL students to express politeness is the extension of kinship terms to all lecturers (even non - kins). I finally argue that with urbanization, caused by exodus from cities to rural areas and vice versa, modernization, and adoption of Western way of life, the polite linguistic and cultural behavior of NUL students is gradually drifting away from their cultural expectations.

Key words: Politeness, Strategies, Behavior, Students, Basotho, Culture, Status, Lecturer