 In our previous modules, we talked about politeness and speech activity separately. They are linked with each other because when we perform speech acts, we take care of politeness, we take care of positive and negative phase of the addressing. Now this time, we will use this knowledge of speech acts and knowledge of politeness to understand their relationship with gender. First question to be answered is when we want to understand this relationship, can we classify speech acts on the scale of politeness? As we said in previous modules that in linguistics, in pragmatics particularly, politeness is on a scale. It can be on positive end, it can be on negative end, it can be up then. So this is a scale. Can we classify speech acts on the scale? Can we say that apology is related with negative politeness and compliments are related with positive politeness? Can we do such kind of classification of speech acts? This is the first question. And second question is, is there link between gender and politeness? There are politeness formulas like please excuse me, pardon. If you don't mind, we call them formulas because we use them like formulas in our talk. They are used so frequently that we regard them as formulas. This is also known as formulaic language, formulaic expression. So why do we use them? They listen. They listen means they decrease, threats to face needs. Whenever you take part in some conversation, there is always threats to your face needs. If your speaker does not meet your expectations, you can be embarrassed because your face needs are not kept in view. If you use these formulas while performing your speech acts, there are chances that you mitigate the injury to face of the other person. Here face means the wants, the expectations. Here face does not mean our physical face, self-image. We can use them with any speech act, whether it is apology, whether it is compliment, whatever speech act it is because it is usually understood in pragmatics that all directives, all imperatives in simple words, request, order, etc. They are face-threatening acts. While you perform these acts, the face is under threat. But when you use these formulas with them, the face-threatening is eliminated. We can use them with that to promote our positive face because you are accepted. You are accepted by the person who wants a distance from you when you use them. In this way, you save your positive face because positive face demands closeness. When you use please, etc., the other person's face needs, which are negative, who wants to keep you at a distance, they are also satisfied. With the help of these formulas, we save face needs. That is why we say that there is no need to classify speech acts with reference to politeness. Suppose teacher and students are talking in class. Now student needs positive face connection. The teacher should understand him as member of the group, as member of the class. And teacher on the other hand needs negative face. He demands distance and respect from the student. So there is a kind of clash between face needs. One needs positive face, the other needs negative face. What happens? Student considers both face wants using our magic formulas. He addresses the teacher as sir, please. And teacher on the other hand keeps in mind the student's positive face, the connection, the association with teacher and with the class. He can use such kind of formulas by bright student. Very good, great, bravo, etc. Is there any link between politeness and gender? The first question is almost answered. What is the relationship between speech acts and politeness? Whether we can classify speech acts with reference to politeness? We said no need of that if we use formula language. Now the second question is taken up. We said is there any link between politeness and gender? And this is what we talked about in a previous module. That there is also a common opposition between gender that women are more polite than women. This is the relationship between politeness and gender. Whether this statement is valid or not, let's see. Research differs on it. There is debate on it. Differences are found. For some researchers, women are more polite than men because their language is polite. And we have discussed it in introductory modules when we talked about came around studies on language and lack of study on language especially. Positively polite in compliments. Women are positively polite when they compliment others. Positive means they want appreciation, friendliness, closeness. They use for this purpose compliments. And negatively in apologies. When they want to save negative face of the addressing, they offer apologies to that. If they think that she might hurt, she might hurt the feelings of the addressing. So she offers apologies and that's why they often use, sorry, if you don't mind, excuse me, etc. In some cultures, politeness is ritualized and normative. Now, if we see the previous statement just discussed now, we see that so far it is understood that women are more polite because they take care of both positive and negative ways. But in some cultures, the politeness has no option that you can be either positive or negative. It is fixed. And as I mentioned earlier, you have to be negatively polite. Where and when and how it would tell us the relationship between politeness and gender when we answer this question. Men and women need now hear things. Men and women, in which cultures, where politeness is defined purely in terms of morality and norms and convention. So both are bound to use negative politeness. So this difference that men are more polite and less polite and women are more polite. So here it is vanished. This difference is eliminated here. When you define politeness in terms of linguistic, the difference exists. But when we define it in terms of morality, the difference is no more. See, men and women need more negatively polite. Both have to be at home with elders, with mothers, with grandparents, with grand relatives, aunts, etc. They can't be positively polite. They have to pay them respect and they have to take care while talking with them. They won't talk with them like intimate friends, juniors, etc. We conclude there is no direct link between speech checks and politeness. And similarly, there is no direct link between politeness and gender.