3.2.2 Negative courtesy
The negative courtesy is of nature abstentionnist or
compensatory: it consists in avoiding producing a FTA, or softening the
realization of it.
Knowing perfectly that their pain cannot be repaired by
financial means, the entire Government nevertheless was mobilized so that the
exhaustive list of the victims is drawn up and that are identified the heirs to
missing by the establishment from judgments from heredity, so that their is
given what the law grants to them as regards compensation, beyond the acts from
solidarity from every moment. (Seck 2003 : 6)
In this example, the negative courtesy is compensatory.
Indeed, the FTAS is consisted the promise of compensation which seems the only
alternative offered to the parents of the victims of the boat Joola in
a company or the human life is crowned and does not have price. The pronominal
group « knowing perfectly that their pain cannot be repaired by
financial means » allows to soften the FTAS while preventing on its
interpretation.
It is the same process which is used in the example
below : having projected charts illustrating the situation of poverty in
Senegal, the PM requires of the deputies to look at the chart. To prevent that
this request is not included/understood like an order, it expresses its request
in the form of an invitation. The invitation thus becomes the softener of a
request paces of injunction : « To be convinced some, I invite
you to look at this chart » (Seck 2003 : 6).
Or,
On this total, I am deeply pained to note that only 78
disappeared victims could to date be the subject of a judgment of heredity. I
understand that still ravaged by the pain, the endeuillées families did
not make these administrative steps a priority... (Seck 2003 : 7)
In the same way, in this passage, after having deplored the
delay or the little of will on behalf of the families of the victims of the
shipwreck, the Prime Minister attenuates his criticism in their finding
extenuating circumstances.
In this other example :
My ambition and my duty are to modify the aspect of this
chart, while answering the social request (Seck 2003 : 8),
the posting of its ambition is attenuated by the fact that it
remains not only one simple will of its share, but a requirement clarified by
the substantive « to have ».
In the same order of idea, the Prime Minister, by implying
itself the competence of the members of the government which it chose derogates
from the rule of propriety which postulates that the individual does not praise
his own merits. This nonrespect of the standard is however attenuated by the
implication of the deputies who would have noted themselves this
competence :
To face this mission, a particular care was taken to the
composition of the Government which I direct. You already had the occasion to
appreciate engagement as much as the competence of the ministers who make it
up. (Seck 2003 : 8)
This same process is used in connection with the audits. The
idea spread within the public opinion was that the Prime Minister controlled
the missions of audits directly and used them with fine policies against its
possible adversaries. May the Prime Minister discharges on his predecessor who,
according to him was the single person in charge for the control of the
missions of audits. However, to evacuate any idea of eagerness, it takes the
precaution to rent its merit initially :
My predecessor Mame Madior Boye, to which I make a point of
paying homage, left me in authority only 2 files of audit requiring of
additional information. On the 30 files which had been transferred to him, the
former Prime Minister in classified 10, and transmitted 18 to justice. (Seck
2003 : 10)
But beside the simple attenuation, based on nuance or
complimentary closes, we have other forms of attenuation, in particular the
attenuation by modulation. The modulation is a reduction in the degree of car
implication of the speaker in his statement.
According to Robert Vion, it integrates
All processes tending to decrease the share of subjectivity,
and thus of risk, that each one can invest in the interaction [...]: the
register of the euphemism, the attenuation (...) précautionneux speeches
(...) of the indirect acts, preliminaries, justifications, autocorrections, etc
(Vion 1992 : 244)
In our corpus, we have examples of attenuations by modulation.
Those relate to mainly the recourse to other voices (brought back speech,
polyphony) and make it possible to go towards the other, to negotiate this
Co-construction of the direction without too much exposing its face or that of
others.
Reacting to the drama of the boat Joola, the Prime
Minister has of another solution to propose only one council at the same time
as a requirement : that to be strong. However, it can appear surprising
not to rather intend it to the possible coercive measures to inflict to the
culprits. Consequently this call is likely to constitute a car-FTAs threatening
its negative face (credibility, to be able of sanction). Also, in order to
soften this threatening act, it resorts to another voice which ensures the
stating of the act of suspect language.
Then: Cold of North, pluviometric deficit, and Shipwreck of
Joola.
This last test most deeply marked us.
I attended the concert of the children of the school
franco-sénégalaise Dial Diop, last fifteen December. They sang
their pain in these terms :
« It was a white boat.
Who sailed in the wind.
It was called Joola.
Today, it is not there any more.
It y' had our parents.
There were our children.
There were our friends.
The sea took them to us.
When the boat ran,
Everyone cried.
There were too many deaths.
It will be necessary to be strong. »
Yes dear compatriots, it will be necessary to be strong. (Seck
2003 : 6)
The injunction is of as much less suspect than it would come
children from which L `innocence excludes any calculation.
A second example of courtesy by modulation is provided to us
by this passage :
If the argument of his/her uncle were the unpaid goods, Goor
will be able to be made the echo of the pathetic interpellation that Mamadou
Moctar Ndiaye, political leader and companion of combat of the President of the
Republic, addressed to me at the time of my listening of the CAPE 21 :
« Tranquillize the country, Mister the Prime Minister. Pay the goods
of the peasants. Even if we know that these goods do not emanate from the
Government ». (Seck 2003 : 11)
That it is positive or negative, the courtesy makes possible
the mutual safeguarding of the faces threatened by the majority of the acts of
language. It takes part of the management of the faces insofar as it makes it
possible to the speaker to reconcile his audience. However, the management of
the faces is made complex by the fact that it is not solely consisted the acts
of courtesy. It integrates also the threatening acts.
The strategy of management of the faces is based on standards
social and communication. As regards the social aspects, it proceeds of a will
to spare the face of others in order not to shock its audience. On the
communication level, it takes part in the principle of co-operation between
agents of the communication.
In a specific way, the strategy of management of the faces
implemented here is inseparable from the kind to which this text belongs,
namely the political speech. Indeed, in the political speech, the management of
the faces is revealing of two principal logics which characterize it with
knowing logic of domination and the logic of seduction. The logic of domination
justifies the threatening acts while the tempting aiming underlies the elements
of courtesy.
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