ABSTRACT

One of the hindrances to the study of politeness as a real world goal is the lack of proper understanding that words/utterances (linguistic choices) cannot be considered polite or impolite independently of a speaker's attitude/behaviour (non-linguistic choices), within varying contexts, in interpersonal communicative events. This study on Face-Saving Acts as Politeness Goal in Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is hinged on Brown and Levinson's 1978 and 1987 Politeness Principle while adopting FSA as analytical tool. Using descriptive research design, the study presents nine (9)excerpts, which are utterances of selected characters, in a face-to-face conversation, randomly and purposively selected from the primary text, and analyzed along stratified Preventive/Corrective face-saving politeness strategies of Solidarity, Personal Information and Common Ground as well as their pragmatic implications. Findings are that interlocutors, while applying some face-saving strategies, threaten the face of their co-conversationalists. Also, the study recorded a preponderance use of preventive facesaving acts (which are acts used to prevent face-threatening from occurring) and less of corrective face-saving acts (which are acts used to mitigate/redress threatened face) in various contexts. The study recommends that face-saving strategies be applied on time to reduce the adverse effect of FTAs on interlocutors which invariably affect future interpersonal relations.