Dissertation acknowledgements in Cameroon English: A study in linguistic politeness

Abstract

This study investigates the polite language behaviour of users of Cameroon English in a typical plurilingual and multiethnic context with emphasis on the politeness strategies used with regard to acknowledging. Based on Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, the data, obtained from the acknowledgements pages of students' dissertations in the University of Yaoundé 1, were investigated with the aim of identifying politeness strategies and their relative frequency. The study demonstrates that the urge to save face by being polite engenders a range of strategies, including the use of honorifics to mark deference, the use of terms of kin to foster solidarity and the use of self-abnegation as well as polite lexical forms to show deference, create and consolidate fraternity and above all save face as they acknowledge the contribution of others to the realisation of their research projects.

Keywords::

• politeness
• Cameroon English
• acknowledgements
• face
• deference
• solidarity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. A hybrid code constituted of HL, English and French coinages.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Nkwain

Joseph Nkwain has completed a PhD thesis in the English Department, University of Yaoundé 1, on the polite linguistic behaviour of pidginophones – users of Cameroon Pidgin English. He holds the position of a Graduate Assistant Lecturer in the Bilingual Training Unit and the Bilingual Studies Department in the same university where he is presently involved in the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English/French comparative and contrastive studies. He has published book chapters with Nova Publishers (Hauppage, New York) and Springer (Dordrecht, The Netherlands), Cambridge Publications, Frontiers Research Group, as well as peer-reviewed articles in Acta Linguistica Hafniensia and Linguistik Online. His areas of interest include Sociolinguistics, Postcolonial Pragmatics, English/French comparative studies, New Englishes and Discourse analysis.