Politeness Principle

As can be seen from the previous examples, the maxims of CP are often conventionally suppressed in favour of maintaining the ´social equilibrium´ which may be just as important as the cooperation itself (it may even be more important as in  white lies, i.e., minor, polite, or harmless lies). The need not to cause any damage to and to uphold each others´  face (e.g., not criticizing the quality of service or food in the restaurant directly) is the central problem of the theories of politeness. G. Leech (1983) proposes the six maxims of Politeness Principle (PP) as a way of complementing the CP and thus ´rescuing´ it from serious ´trouble´ (i.e., accounting for the situations when a strict adherence to CP would be unacceptable):  tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, sympathy.  The tact maxim regulates the operation of the directive speech acts (which are marked with highest face-threatening potential) and addresses the dominant type of politeness which, with regard to the addressee, can be ´measured´ on the  cost-benefit scale: the more costly an action, the less polite it is, and, conversely, the more beneficial it is to the addressee, the more polite it is. This helps explain why, for example, imperative mood is not necessarily associated with impoliteness: Bring me some water vs. Have another drink. Next, optionality scale is used to rank options according to the degree of choice offered to the addressee - the degree of politeness matches the degree of indirectness (tentativeness), and, vice versa, increased directness results in greater impoliteness (e.g., Lend me your car vs. Do you think you could possibly lend me your car?). It appears that while imperatives offer little option of whether or not to comply  with the action requested (Give me some change), questions (Have you got a quarter, by any chance?), hypothetical formulations (Could I borrow some money?), and ones using negatives (You couldn´t lend me a dollar, could you?) provide greater freedom to deny that request. Of course, politeness formulae (please) can always be added to give extra politeness. We should also differentiate between  absolute and  relative politeness; in the absolute sense, Lend me your car is less polite than  I hope you don´t mind my asking, but I wonder if it might be at all possible for you to lend me your car. However, in some situations, the former request could be overpolite (among family members) and the latter one impolite (as an ironic remark).