TITLE:
Politeness in Online Educational Discourse: Exploring Relational Work Strategies in Online Teacher-Student Interactions
AUTHORS:
Qianyuan Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Politeness, Politeness Theory, Online Educational Discourse, Online Teacher-Student Interactions, Relational Work, Relational Work Strategies
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.7,
July
26,
2022
ABSTRACT: The current study explores politeness in computer-mediated communication
from the perspective of online educational discourse. Focusing on the use of language in teacher-student interactions, we
collect data that consist of 117 naturally-occurring
conversations from three online language courses in Dingtalk, one of the
most popular online educational platforms in Mainland China. Data are analyzed
using an adapted version of politeness theory and
the notion of relational work. The results show that the management of
relational work and the realization of politeness through certain strategies.
The preferred relational work strategies employed by teachers and students are
positive relational work strategies, negative relational work strategies, and
emoji relational work strategies. The preference for these strategies indicates
that teachers and students are concerned about constructing politeness by
considering their positive and negative face. In addition to contributing to
the existing literature on politeness and
relational work in computer-mediated communication, the present study
offers practical implications for using relational work strategies to do polite
and appropriate relational practices to maintain politeness in the online
education community.