i hate e-learning [& not showing politeness for e-learning]

call me conventional/obiang/stupid-cannot-adapt but e-learning is a bit of hellish for me... hahaha .... i had always wished to experience e-learning since poly but i think once for me is enough ...

Who had know that politeness can be grouped into so many groups? Particularly the six maxims by Leech and the negative or positive politeness. To think that I had always thought you can be either polite or sarcastic / plain impolite - how ignorant of me~

Tact and Generosity Maxim

I think this can be seen most prominent during new year visits or open house for malay friends and indian friends who invited us to deepavali visits. They don't say peel these fruits or pick up the rubbish you left behind but they say help yourselves, eat more and do not feel shy even when we might be really full or something haha. Went for a session at AS7 yesterday and the lady Mrs Katherine Ho was real nice, kept asking me to eat and saying its REALLLLLL nice (might be exaggerating here, but haha). My aunt is another case, when we go back to visit or during chinese new year, she will keep piling food and we will be "OKOKOK" haha...

Also, we see many cases of Tact Maxim when we chat we friends such as "give me a second" or I will be reaching in a minute but in actual fact we need like 5 or 10 minutes haha... but to maximize benefit to the hearer or receiver we have to say that. Imagine someone tell you "I will be there in an hour" when you are at the meeting place, I will go nuts most probably.

Approbation Maxim 

I think the case of the quiz question occurs more often now but in the past (at least in my school),  some of my teachers will really tear us up for failing the papers. But this occurs more frequently between friends I guess, for example that this friend is wearing something that you might not like and she goes "Is my dress nice?", out of politeness I might reply "its quite nice" but if it is a best friend I might just go "not really, I think the other dress suit you better =P"

I think it shows that different groups of people elicit different response.

Modesty Maxim

Oh, something my coordinator friend and I always practise. Once she reminded me that someone I had left out and I went, "omg, how careless of me" and she will often say she got something silly to ask. haha.. a bit of too much modesty maxim haha.

Agreement Maxim

ok, very common between a boss and his/her employee. Like we will agree with what our boss have said most of the time but deep down we might be grumbling. Or project mates, to agree and not creating conflicts which will make things harder and slows down the progress.

Sympathy Maxim

A case of "i'm sorry about your pet or relative who passed away". I have to admit I am not a very good practicer of sympathy maxim because I am afraid that whatever condolences I say might cause more grief. AI remembered my really good friend's grandmother passed away and all i could mustered was "Are you okay" after a few minutes of silence. [i might be seen as cold person here ='(]

Off the record

HAHAHA!! I do that a lot, but mainly is grumbling to myself and if the hearer wants to help it will be good, if not I will find my own solution. But most often if the hearer help, it would be friends. But sometimes a simple sigh will make a a friend beside you ask "what happen" or "why sigh?" and then we can proceed to tell our problem to the other party *laughs*

Negative and positive politeness

a case of distance, formal language (negative) against informal language, talking on common ground. Sometimes you might just be polite and ask "negatively" that if the other party if he/she fancy lunching together. But even if for someone you do not like for example in the office, you still have to ask if he/she fancying joining the group expecting him/her to reject the invitation (being a little evil here)

But if one is new to the company, if the fellow colleagues ask if you wanna join them for lunch "positively" would you decline? For me, I can say I will because I feel uncomfortable being with new people as I am afraid of the stagnant mood amongst people who just meet and to avoid that, I had better not join them for lunch. I'm so dead here, not very sociable.

But then again, like cultures, showing of positiveness cannot be generalized because of the different context and situation (such as imposition, formality, familiarity and social distance, power and lastly culture). Like in the case of a friend and a best friend, you speak and reply to them different, we might be polite and showing generosity maxim to a friend and being blunt and straight to a best friend for you know that the best friend would understand.

Lastly, to end, how different response is elicit in terms of formality and social distance: -

A friend says: "You're so smart~!"

Reply 1 (to a casual friend): "No lah, I got lucky, hantam only. I'm actually very stupid"

Reply 2 (to a best friend): "Of course!" [but the friend will know that you are joking]