S.L. Kikamba 2016
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FACE ORIENTATIONS IN ATHOL FUGARD’S THE ROAD TO MECCA, MY CHILDREN! MY AFRICA! AND VALLEY SONG S.L. KIKAMBA 2016 FACE ORIENTATIONS IN ATHOL FUGARD’S THE ROAD TO MECCA, MY CHILDREN! MY AFRICA! AND VALLEY SONG by SIMÃO LUYIKUMU KIKAMBA submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject THEORY OF LITERATURE at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROF. M KEURIS OCTOBER 2016 DEDICATION To my beloved parents, this work is fondly dedicated. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my supervisor Professor Marisa Keuris for her unrelenting guidance, as well as her unfailing, sometimes brutal comments and criticisms without which this work would not have been possible. She is definitely to be credited for any merit to this work, while the shortcomings are entirely my responsibility. I would also like to thank Mrs Napaai and her staff at the UNISA Library for their assistance in procuring those books and articles this research could not have done without. The following individuals are also gratefully acknowledged: the Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Universidade Agostinho Neto, Dr Alexandre Chicuna for the financial aid, Dr Petelo Nginamau for his encouragements, Professor Kuntondi Mankutima for offering to read a draft of this work, and Professor Manuel da Silva Domingos for the technical assistance. iii ABSTRACT This dissertation seeks to address the multiple ways face or one’s public self-image is attacked, supported and maintained in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, My Children! My Africa! and Valley Song, and through this discussion demonstrate how the notion of face can make a contribution to the study and understanding of Athol Fugard’s work. In the pursuit of their goals/objectives, interactants perform speech acts which may threaten the face of other participants. The choice of strategies available to participants in the performance of these face- threatening acts (FTAs) includes going on record, off record (indirectly) or avoiding the FTA altogether (saying nothing). Each text offers a fresh perspective from which face can be analysed: rebelliousness against conformism (The Road to Mecca); the perspective of the cross-racial, cross-cultural relationships (My Children! My Africa!); and the context of a closely-knit family relationship (Valley Song). Keywords: adjacency pairs, Athol Fugard, face, facework, face-threatening-acts (FTAs), implicatures, politeness, turn-taking. iv CONTENTS DEDICATION .............................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. iv CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................. v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... - 1 - 1.1 Background to the Topic ...................................................................................................... - 1 - 1.2 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... - 3 - 1.3 Aims .......................................................................................................................................... - 4 - 1.4 Methodology .............................................................................................................................. - 4 - 1.5 Scope of Research .................................................................................................................. - 5 - 1.6 Structure of the Dissertation ............................................................................................... - 5 - CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS .......................................................... - 7 - 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... - 7 - 2.2. Speech Act Theory ................................................................................................................ - 8 - 2.2.1. Locution, illocution and perlocution .............................................................. - 8 - 2.2.2. Classification of speech acts ............................................................................ - 9 - 2.2.2.1 Representatives .................................................................................................. - 9 - 2.2.2.2 Directives ......................................................................................................... - 10 - 2.2.2.3 Commissives ................................................................................................... - 10 - 2.2.2.4 Expressives ...................................................................................................... - 11 - 2.2.2.5. Declarations ..................................................................................................... - 12 - 2.2.3. Felicity conditions .......................................................................................... - 12 - 2.2.3.1. Propositional content ....................................................................................... - 12 - 2.2.3.2. Preparatory condition ...................................................................................... - 12 - 2.2.3.3. The sincerity condition .................................................................................... - 13 - 2.2.3.4. The essential condition .................................................................................... - 13 - v 2.3. The Cooperative Principle (CP) and its Maxims ........................................................ - 14 - 2.3.1 Maxims (quality, quantity, relation and manner) ...................................... - 14 - 2.3.2 Implicatures ................................................................................................... - 16 - 2.4. Ethnomethodology and Conversational Analysis ....................................................... - 18 - 2.4.1 Systematics of turn-taking ............................................................................ - 18 - 2.4.2 Adjacency pairs ............................................................................................. - 22 - 2.5. The Notion of Face and Politeness Theories ................................................................ - 24 - 2.5.1 The Chinese concept of mianzi ..................................................................... - 24 - 2.5.2 Erving Goffman’s concepts of face and facework ...................................... - 26 - 2.5.3 Brown and Levinson’s face-saving view of politeness ................................ - 27 - 2.5.3.1 Negative face and positive face ....................................................................... - 27 - 2.5.3.2 Face-threatening acts (FTA) ............................................................................ - 28 - 2.5.3.3 Power, distance and size of imposition ........................................................... - 29 - 2.5.3.4 Doing the FTA bald-on-record ........................................................................ - 32 - 2.5.3.5 Doing the FTA with redress (positive politeness) ........................................... - 33 - 2.5.3.6. Doing the FTA with redress (negative politeness) .......................................... - 34 - 2.5.3.7 Doing the FTA using off-record politeness ..................................................... - 37 - 2.5.3.8 Not doing the FTA (opting out) ...................................................................... - 38 - 2.5.3.9 Criticisms of the model ................................................................................... - 39 - 2.5.4 Lakoff’s rules of politeness ........................................................................... - 40 - 2.5.4.1 Rule of clarity .................................................................................................. - 40 - 2.5.4.2 Rule of politeness ............................................................................................ - 41 - 2.5.5 Leech’s politeness principle .......................................................................... - 41 - 2.5.5.1 Tact maxim ...................................................................................................... - 42 - 2.5.5.2. Generosity maxim ........................................................................................... - 43 - 2.5.5.3. Approbation maxim ......................................................................................... - 43 - 2.5.5.4. Modesty maxim ............................................................................................... - 44 - vi 2.5.5.5. Agreement maxim ........................................................................................... - 44 - 2.5.5.6. Sympathy maxim ............................................................................................. - 45 - 2.5.6. The social-norm view of politeness .............................................................. - 45 - 2.5.7. The conversational contract view of politeness .......................................... - 45 - 2.5.8 Scollon and Scollon’s intercultural communication