Politeness in Language Use

The importance of politeness in interpersonal communication cannot be over stressed given the fact that most speech acts are inherently face threatening. Therefore, there is need to employ politeness strategies in order to maintain the faces of the interlocutors. Most research works on politeness studies in Nigeria focus on other sectors. The present study fills the gap in knowledge by investigating polite language use in the educational sector. The work examines the politeness strategies that undergraduates employ on campus in communicating with fellow students, academic staff, administrative staff, food vendors, as well as other business operators on campus. Besides, instances of obvious impolite language use, violations of politeness principles and flouting of politeness maxims are also identified. More so, it reveals the sociolinguistic phenomena reflected in students' language use in a bid to indicate politeness, impoliteness, face management and face threatening strategies. In addition, it shows that gender, ethnicity and levels of study are among the sociolinguistic features that influence polite or impolite behaviour in students¿ linguistic interactions.