The value placed on politeness by men and women in the Hindu sector of the South African Indian English speaking community

Abstract

The study investigates the value placed on politeness by men and women in the Hindu sector of the South African Indian English speaking community, through a study of the speech acts of requests and apologies. Data were collected by means of interviews with community leaders and families, and through discourse completion tasks. The community under investigation is shown to be still largely male-dominant, but with changes in the position of women currently being negotiated. From a cultural perspective there is a greater demand on women to display polite behaviours, which is confirmed to a certain extent by the data from the discourse completion tasks. At the same time, we identify some signs of an awareness that the politeness demands placed on women both signal and perpetuate the subordinate position of women, and that the current changes in the community may well lead to a different management of politeness.