Abstract

The present study aims to explore the function of mitigating lexical items in English such as hedges, disclaimers or so-called downtoners as a politeness strategy in different contexts. The data were taken from a corpus of spontaneous speech tape-recorded from television shows. Analyses are anchored within Brown and Levinson's politeness theory of 'face wants,' and Robin Lakoff's model of communication. Eight speech acts are discussed in terms of the use of mitigation; they are raising of emotional/critical topics, request for agreement/permission/confirmation, suggestion, interruption, boasting and self-praising, replying to the embarrassing question, confession, and comments/accusation/criticism. By examining these lexical devices, we can better understand how people use language unreflectively but nevertheless use it with purpose smoothly and efficiently. Besides, the study also provides some pedagogical implications for teaching English to speakers of other languages. ESL/EFL teachers could promote students' awareness of the strategic use of mitigation in English to help students be able speak not only grammatically but also pragmatically appropriate.