Politeness in classroom-Comparison between JSL and EFL classrooms

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This study compares discourse of JSL and EFL classrooms in terms of teacher student interaction, particularly in the light of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987). Using the notion of "face" (positive face and negative face) in the theory, similarities and differences in the two classroom types are discussed. The findings are; 1) all kinds of positive politeness strategies except one (strategy 12) were used in both classrooms, 2) the same types of negative politeness strategies (strategies 3, 8, 9, and 10) were avoided in both classrooms, and 3) the mixture of both positive and negative politeness strategies was recognized in a sentence or discourse in both JSL and EFL classrooms. The reasons of the above findings were discussed. With some idiosyncratic differences of JSL and EFL classrooms, it can be said that politeness theory is universal, and can be used to analyze an institutional discourse such as classrooms.