1.Politeness and contextual factors

Politeness

Politeness comprises linguistic and non-linguistic behavior through which people indicate that they take into account others’ feelings of how they should be treated (Kádár, 2017).

Traditionally, we tend to think of "being polite" as being more formal, and this may be the case in many situations. However, politeness can also refer to being informal when necessary. It can be just as impolite to be formal with your best friend as it is to be very informal with a boss or professor. When learning to be appropriate, it is important to consider what is polite in the given situation. 

Factors affecting politeness

In order to determine what is appropriate, it is important to evaluate the contextual factors surrounding the situation. The three most common factors affecting politeness are

1. Power

2. Social distance

3. Level of imposition

Power refers to the power relationship between two interlocutors. You will typically find yourself in three types of power relationships. In the first, you would have equal power with the person you are talking to (e.g., a friend or classmate). In the other two, you would either have more power (e.g., as a boss, teacher) or less power (e.g., employee, student) than the person you were talking to. 

Social distance refers to the relationship between the interlocutors; specifically, to their degree of familiarity or closeness. Social distance is a continuum, in which one end would be typically represented by very close relatives (for instance, mother and daughter) and the other end by strangers.

Level of imposition refers to the importance or degree of difficulty in the situation. For example, in requests, a large rank of imposition would occur if you were asking for a big favor, whereas a small rank of imposition would exist when the request is small.

How do these factors work in the relationship between students and faculty?

If we focus on power, the relationship between university instructors and students is considered unequal, as instructors have more power than students do. In turn, distance and imposition will vary depending on each specific communicative situation. Therefore, these materials will focus on how to write emails that are appropriate considering different degrees of distance and imposition. 

Social distance

Social distance between you and the instructor you are writing to will influence the amount and kind of information you need to include in your email, as well as the tone (formality) of your message. 

Distance will be at its highest level if you have not met the instructor yet. If this is the case, you will need to be explicit and include information that (i) identifies who you are in a very explicit way, and (ii) provides sufficient context to your email and your request.

To consider other degrees of social distance you can consider questions such as the following ones:

• Are they your instructors or do they teach other courses?

• How many times have you interacted in person? 

• Do you go to class frequently and actively participate in class?

• Is it a small class or a large group?

• If they are no longer your instructors, have you kept in touch with them?

However, bear in mind that as friendly and informal as your instructors may seem, low social distance only refers to people with whom you have very close ties, such as family, partners, and good friends. Therefore, your emails are expected to keep a formal tone typical of university communication. 

Level of imposition 

Considering the imposition of your request involves being able to put yourself in the instructor’s shoes. To ‘measure’ the level of imposition of your requests to academic faculty you should consider questions such as these ones: 

• Is the request something that is within their duties or is it more of a favour? 

• Does it take little, some, or a lot of effort?

• Does it take little, some, or a lot of time? 

• Is it urgent? Is there a deadline? Is the deadline close or is there plenty of time? 

If you consider these issues, you will see that the same request (for instance, scheduling a meeting) may vary in its degree of imposition depending on its specific conditions: meeting with students is considered part of instructor’ duties. If you ask to schedule a meeting within office hours at least a week in advance, it will be considered a low imposition condition, while scheduling a meeting for the same day or outside office hours will be more imposing to your instructor. 

In turn, making an appointment to see the professor is not seen as imposing as other types of requests, for example, asking for an extension of a due date, because it is typically the job of the professor to have consulting hours in which students may speak to them.

Interaction between distance and imposition

Finally, both distance and imposition interact:  Asking a lecturer you have not met before for a favour would be considered a high imposition request, and thus you would need to include explicit information about yourself, very well developed reasons, as well as to write in a very formal tone. 

Now that you have learned the basics about distance and imposition, you are ready to keep on learning about the specifics of email requests to faculty.