Politeness strategies in the genre reader’s letter in the context of brazilian portuguese as additional language

Abstract

This work aims to investigate how a student at the intermediate level of Portuguese course for For-eigners of the University of Brasilia makes linguistic-discursive adjustments concerning the use of politeness strategies in the reader’s letter genre. Therefore, this research, affiliated with the studies of interactional sociolinguistics and (intercultural) pragmatic, is based on the concept of face and the theory of politeness as well as the notion of textual genres. After performing our methodological actions (reading and analyzing the reader’s letter, and producing this genre), we found that the research collaborator made appropriate use of politeness strategies, in line with Brazilian sociocultural conventions since, in general, equalized sincerity (necessary for the criticism) and politeness (necessary to watch over to the social image).

Keywords

• Estratégias de polidez. Carta de leitor. Ensino de português brasileiro como língua adicional.