Politeness Strategies Employed in Student-Teacher Facebook Interaction.

Abstract

A plethora of studies revealed the fact that there must be an appropriate manner in student-teacher interaction. The research in hand sheds light on a different type of interaction, which is ‘‘student-teacher Facebook interaction”, and demonstrates the appropriate politeness strategies in order to achieve a successful interaction. To fulfill the objectives of the study which was conducted in the English department of Ibn Khaldoun University, Tiaret, we adopted a qualitative research method in which sixteen (16) data were collected from Master two EFL students as a case study. In order to investigate the existence of the politeness strategies in students’ and teachers’ Facebook texts (messages and comments), a text corpus analysis was employed. The results revealed that the majority of students use Bald-on record politeness strategy when addressing their teachers. Similarly, most teachers use the same strategy because it helps in guiding students and keeping distance with them. Therefore, Face Threatening Acts occurred more than Face Saving Acts.