The politeness theory exhibits how and why we protect, promote and save our ‘face’; it accounts for the redressing of affronts to a person’s ‘face’ by face-threatening acts. Goffman (1967) explains “face” as being an image, an “a positive social value” that individuals like to maintain and protect during social interactions. Brown and Levinson (1987) portray face in two ways. Positive face depicts the desire to be appreciated by others whilst negative face describes the desire to not be imposed upon. Brown and Levinson highlight the idea that speech acts threaten a recipient’s sense of face and how politeness strategies are used to mitigate this threat.

Politeness strategies can be enacted through being off record to completely eradicate the threat, positive and negative politeness to minimise the threat or being bald on record meaning doing nothing to reduce the threat to the hearer. This is significant in the presidential debate due to the opposing views of both candidates. Furthermore the presidential debate is televised worldwide this would put emphasis on candidates utilising politeness strategies in order to persuade their respective audiences why. As stated in William O. Dailey (2007) during a political debate “stakes are much higher regarding the outcome of the transaction”. expBrown and Levinson (1987) convey the message that the politeness principles are universal and can be practised differently on the basis of cultural differences during interaction.

This may be applicable in Lord of the Flies as it presents an environment where social class, strength, hierarchy factors determine the power one asserts between the other adolescent boys, in comparison to the presidential debate **Finish**… . The levels of politeness and face threatening acts are determined by three factors including distance between the speaker and the hearer, power, and ranking. This is relevant due to the language used by Jack is distinctively more explicit towards Piggy. In the presidential debate the presidents serve a role internationally and therefore need to be consider their far reaching audience thus reducing any threatening face acts towards the audience.  (Seem appealing to the audience)