Notice Board

Many theorists of interactional linguistics like Brown & Levinson (1987) posit that linguistic politeness is universal. That presupposes that world languages more or less use the same strategies to express respect, deference, admiration, etc. It is submitted that this is to perhaps confuse the popular interpretation and the technical interpretation of politeness, that is, politeness as a social reality – regardless of the linguistic means that can be used to achieve it – and politeness as a linguistic reality through which each language and culture can utilise different strategies, including complex ones, to express it. This study thus aims at emphasizing cultural relativity of politeness or impoliteness through the use and non-use of anthroponyms in Cameroon. It is based on the hypothesis that people’s proper names, whether used as an address or reference term, could in certain cases threaten the face of the person who is being addressed or referred to. However, the use of people’s titles, occupations or positions, nicknames, even when they do not really look face saving, seem to be preferred by many an individual. The data analysed in this study are drawn from six novels that depict the social realities of Cameroon.