Applying Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory on Lady Macbeth's Speech in Shakespeare's Macbeth

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to apply Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory on Lady Macbeth’s speech in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. By analyzing her dialogues in the play, the researchers try to find the politeness strategies in these dialogues, and the reasons behind preferring the use one strategy over another. After classifying the analyzed selected parts of the play and arranging them according to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness strategies, the researchers found that power, status and distance play the biggest role in preferring one strategy over the others. Moreover, the findings revealed that Lady Macbeth’s ideology leads her to prefer one strategy over another in order to perform her plans successfully.