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Recently, studies on politeness have been increasing in most of the world’s languages. This study analysed politeness in the casual conversations in the Matengo language. It intended to achieve three specific objectives which include, to examine face threatening acts in casual conversations in matengo, to investigate linguistic strategies used to express politeness in Matengo, to examine non-linguistic acts used to express politeness in casual conversations in Matengo.The study employed qualitative approach to collect data from four wards of Mbinga District, namely Mikalanga, Maguu, Litembo, and Mpapa. The purposive sampling procedure was used to select Mbinga district and four wards (Mikalanga, Maguu, Mpapa and Litembo), households and informants for the follow up interviews. The sample size for the study was 46 informants and 10 transcripts of naturally occurring conversations. Informed by Brown and Levinson’s Theory of Linguistic Politeness and Interactional Sociolinguistic Approach, data were gathered through the collection of naturally occurring conversations and participant observations followed by follow-up interviews. Data were analysed through thematic coding approach. The findings revealed that requests, advices, refusals, cheating, insults and orders are face-threatening acts in Matengo. It was also revealed that plural personal pronouns, particle oti „please,‟ diminutive morpheme ka (singular) with its variant tu (plural) and proper address terms are linguistic strategies used to express politeness in Matengo society. Further, silence, eye contact, gestures (handshake, nodding and waving), sitting down and smile were revealed to be non-linguistic acts used to express politeness in casual conversations in Matengo society. The study recommends that linguists should conduct researches on other Bantu languages that are not extensively researched, particularly on the area of politeness to come up with plausible generalization among cultures and ethnic community languages. |
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