Perception of politeness: some perspectives from Ghana

Abstract

This study gives an account of what Ghanaians perceive as politeness in their daily interactions by gathering data from interviews granted by residents of Accra, Kumasi and Ho. The residents selected as respondents are people whose ages are above fifty years and who have lived in any of the communities for at least twenty years. The study shows that among Ghanaians, politeness is the use of any communicative behaviour that expresses respect or deference. Some of such communicative behaviours identified are greetings, the use of titles and honorifics, the use of “please” and “thank you”, the use of “a soft voice” and being silent as and when necessary. Although the communicative behaviours that manifest politeness usually involve speech, politeness can be also be achieved by employing paralinguistic and extralinguistic features like soft voice and silence. This confirms Culpeper’s (2005) assertion that the communicative resources for politeness or impoliteness extend well beyond grammar and lexicon.