In this paper, I will be discussing the versatility of mitigation markers and what forms they come in and address appropriate times when using direct and indirect forms of speech. Communicators, besides using basic speech acts need to specify and be aware of their intended purpose with every interaction. Additionally, the communicator needs to know how to go about the conversation to achieve their desired objective. Should the discussion be conducted in a minimalist manner? Or does the word choice need to be a little softer to avoid face threading acts or any negative implications stemming from your word choice? Mitigation markers are a particularly useful form of indirect speech and are extremely powerful in face-threatening situations or just merely in daily life. Mitigation markers are a diverse set of conversational devices that are used to achieve indirectness. They can be used in expressions of opinion, information inquiries, and often times come in the form of “negative politeness”. Mitigation markers are used to soften the blow of a negative experience or interaction, they can come in the form of irony, euphemisms and many more! “His aunt passed away last …show more content…
Irony is expressing the opposite of what one means, and as a communicator, it is crucial to know the distinctions between literal and ironic forms. An example of irony is a “ barista handing a coffee to a woman, and it spills all over her. The women responds ’how elegant.” This is an excellent use of irony because obviously, this is not an elegant situation. The women uses a light-hearted comment avoided a possible face-threatening situation but also acknowledged what happened. This is precisely why irony is so powerful in direct situations because with this device you can divert an unpleasant situation to something that contains humor and indirectly avoid a