Linguistic Politeness in matrimonial advertisements from German speaking online-newspapers

This paper focuses on the theory of “Linguistic Politeness” of Brown &Levinson (1978), which is defined as the ways in which language is employed to show awareness of self-image. The main question of this paper has to do with the kinds of positive-face strategies used in selected data of matrimonial advertisements from German speaking online-newspapers. The rationale behind choosing the data in question lies in the cultural and linguistic diversities between the advertisers in both newspapers. This paper aims to find similarities and differences between the strategies of Muslims and non-Muslims. The study shows that the main strategies which all advertisers have used are: “Attend to the hearer's interests and needs“ and “Exaggerate interest in interests of hearer”. Moreover, the German advertisers emphasize their physical appearance and protect the image of the partner, while the Muslim advertisers are more conservative about describing the self-image, and they exaggerate their self-image as well.