Mitigative strategies of self-evaluation in German linguoculture

Abstract

The article deals with studying the strategy of mitigating the evaluation intention in potentially conflictogenic situations which traditionally include request, refusal and evaluation situations. Speech behavior of German-speaking communicants in self-evaluation situations is analyzed. Mitigative strategies correlating with the politeness maxima can be both conventional and individual representing communicants' linguocreative opportunities. Mitigative style of communications behavior is characterized by its focus on the recipient's expectation. The evaluative mitigation strategies under analysis are determined by linguocultural specificity of discourse practices of a specific ethnic society. © IDOSI Publications, 2014