Polite words by male and female teacher trainees in speaking English: Can Cambodian teacher candidates be considered polite?

Abstract

People in a society would behave in particular manners based on their own social rules and norms partly influenced by the surrounding group of citizens who carry similar cultural rules and practices. It is believed that women act up respectfully toward others while men are often considered less polite in speaking and behavior. This study investigated how teacher trainees majoring in English Education perform their politeness in terms of spoken discourse during classroom interaction with lecturers and classmates. In this research, we chose to use the ethnographic technique in order to examine the behavior of teacher trainees of their attitude carried out through their own cultural rules and norms. The results show that male frequently perform politeness, such as using polite words more often than females do. Men are reported to be well-behaved in greeting trainers at the beginning and the end of the class and two among all men say “excuse me or sorry†before interrupting lecturers’ speech. Furthermore, it can be seen that some women just stood up and a few of them did not even stand up. Although women interact less frequently in spoken discourse, they still respond and actively engage in classroom activities. They are found to be able to utilize a wide range of polite expressions, such as “I am sorry and thank you†and some common polite words and phrases, especially F8 and F10. Therefore, men are recognized to adopt polite words in speaking, yet the number of females using more synonyms is greater than male. Thus, it is suggested that further research should take into account the mixed-method in order to investigate research problems way more exact with insightful research results.