The expression of politeness in a bilingual setting: exploring the case of maltese English

CONCLUDING REMARKS

By looking at the frequency and intonation of politeness markers as well as the politeness strategies used in the responses collected by means of our spoken DCT, we were able to identify some differences and similarities between Maltese and British English, and assess how and to what extent they influence Maltese English in the expression of politeness. As discussed in the previous section, although it was revealed through our investigation that Maltese has a pronounced influence on Maltese English as far as intonation is concerned, the results regarding the employment of politeness strategies and use of politeness markers across the three datasets were largely inconclusive; and while the former can be explained in terms of the cultural proximity of our participant groups, the latter was quite surprising for us. Our everyday encounters had given us the impression that, like Maltese speakers, Maltese English ones use far fewer politeness markers that the British, and rely to a far greater extent on intonation to express politeness. In retrospect, we believe that our results were affected by the method used to collect our data, since in a DCT, participants are fully aware that they are being recorded, which may on its own render their responses more artificial than they would be in real life situations. In other words, we believe that the very nature of the DCT could have conditioned the participants to provide the answers that they were expected to provide, rather than the ones they would spontaneously use if actually faced with the same situation in their everyday life. This, in combination with the fact that children in Malta (and the UK) are taught from a very young age to use politeness markers in the presence of an unfamiliar observer, might have had an impact on the results obtained concerning the use of politeness markers.

Bearing these limitations in mind, it seems to us that study should be carried out on a larger scale in order to obtain more reliable results, especially when it comes to answering the question of which language affects the expression of politeness in Maltese English the most. Obviously, a different methodology or DCT set up would need to be adopted in order to obtain spontaneous data that would be closer to the real-life use of politeness markers in the local setting, and further speech act types, like, for example, complaints (see Gallaher 2014) or invitations (see Schelchkova 2013), as well as further linguistic devices that communicate a polite attitude (for an overview of various such devices, see Gazizov 2014), could be included in order to get a better view of the influence patterns overall. Independently of politeness, a further element that emerges from this analysis as a promising avenue for further study is the use of the two `stylised' forms, SF and SR. Whilst a more in-depth analysis of these forms is clearly necessary in order to determine with certainty the status of these entities as distinct categories in the different language varieties, an interesting observation that can already be made at this point is that in both the Maltese and the Maltese English data, the use of the SR is not limited to politeness markers such as mitigators; rather, the SR can be repeated or echoed on subsequent elements, serving in this way to enhance the degree of politeness expressed. Given our present modest aims, however, we hope to have at least helped showcase that the investigation of linguistic politeness in the unique context of Malta is an interesting and worthwhile venture.

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APPENDIX DCT ELICITATION ITEMS

Requests

1. You're at a fast food restaurant with a close friend. You order your food and the server gives you the bill. You fish for your wallet in your back pocket only to realise that you've forgotten to bring it with you. You now have to ask your friend to lend you some money. You turn to her and say:

2. You are in a professor's office to discuss an assignment. You take out your notebook to take down a few notes. You realise that you've forgotten your pen and decide to ask your professor if she could lend you one of hers. You turn to her and say:

3. You are running late for a job interview. You enter the building and head to the reception to ask for directions to the room you need to go to, only to find out that there is no one there. You see a smart dressed lady walking towards your direction. Even though she seems to be an executive, you decide to ask her for directions. You approach her and say:

4. You've just spent a fortune on your new phone. On a night out, your friend accidentally knocks it out of your hand while drunk and shatters the display. When you meet with him the following day you remind him what he did and ask him to pay for the repair charges. You show him the broken phone and say:

5. You are planning to go to a charity event with your colleagues. You managed to get a discount for being a group of 15 people, but one day before the event, one of your colleagues drops out. Since this is bound to make the price go higher, you decide to ask you boss to join you. You go to his office and say:

6. You really want to go out tonight with your secondary school friends whom you haven't seen for a long time. Your car is at the mechanic's so getting back will be an issue, so you have to ask your sister to lend you her car. You go to her room and say:

Apologies

1. You promised your roommate that you'll do the dishes this time, but, as you're sipping coffee in the kitchen, you realise that you are late for a doctor's appointment and you're not going to manage to do the washing up. Your roommate walks in looks at the pile of dirty dishes and then at you. You look at him and say:

2. You are at a restaurant sitting at a table. You excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. On your way, you bump into a waiter who is carrying a tray full of glasses and a bottle of wine. Needless to say, the wine is now all over the floor along with the remains of the bottle and the glasses and the waiter is looking at you all flustered. You look at him and say:

3. You have to prepare a presentation with a classmate. You are all set to go meet him but while you are preparing to leave the house, you suddenly start feeling very sick. Making it on time or even in a decent state is out of the question. You call him and say:

4. After a night out, you wake up all hungover and head to the kitchen for some coffee and an aspirin. You suddenly hear an urgent knock on the door. It's your elderly neighbour holding the pieces of a broken car side-view mirror. You remember that he was in the car when you tripped and fell on it the night before. You look at him and say:

5. It's your sister's birthday and you have plans to go to her birthday dinner with the rest of the family. A few hours before the dinner you start to feel really unwell so you opt to stay at home to try and preserve your health for the exam you have the following day. You call your sister and say:

6. It's Christmas season. You work in a toyshop and your job for the day is to give out treats outside the store dressed as an elf. It's almost closing time and you're out of your last pack of sweets. As you turn round to head back in, a tiny, shy 4 year old holding on to his mother's hand asks you for a treat.

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