Face Threatening Acts and their Mitigation Strategies in Chindali Requests

Abstract

Understanding how to mitigate face-threatening acts during communication offers valuable insights in the study of unique nature of languages and communities. This paper investigates the strategies speakers of Chindali language use to mitigate face-threatening acts during communication, specifically in expressing politeness while making requests. Since the speakers of Chindali are widely spread, and manifest diverse dialectal differences, this study focuses on the dialect spoken by native speakers of Chindali residing in Kapelekeshi, Kalembo, Ngulughulu and Kafule villages in Songwe Region in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. The study uses text analysis and focused group discussions as methods of data collecton. The study is couched in the Linguistic Politeness Theory by Brown Penelope (1987) and Interactional Social Linguistic Theory by John Gumperz (1982). The findings of the current study indicate that three strategies are used to show politeness when making requests. These strategies include apologising structures, joking structures and indirect responses. With one or a combination of the strategies, speakers build, develop and maintain good relationships among themselves. Besides, the findings reveal that as speakers maintain the use of apologising, joking and indirect structures, challenges and misunderstandings that would otherwise occur are resolved by uniting the speech participants and the rest of the community members. This study, therefore, argues that while communication is fundamental in all human societies, communicating effectively requires insights from the culture of the speakers involved in communication. Keywords: Face-threatening acts, politeness strategies, nterlocutors, conversation, Chindali DOI: 10.56279/jlle.v19i2.10