The Use of Politeness Strategies in the Analysis and Discussion Sections of English Research Articles

Abstract

This study explores the use of politeness devices in the Analysis and Discussion sections of research articles produces by English Language Teachers in the University of Cape Coast. The corpus comprises 20 Analysis and Discussion sections of the research articles. Using Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) and Myers’ (1989) models for the analysis, it was found that these lecturers use politeness strategies in their research articles. It also became clear from the analysis that these lecturers favor the use of negative politeness strategies as compared to the positive politeness strategies.

Keywords: research articles, politeness strategies, academic discourse, Analysis and Discussion sections