These two linguists put ideas forward about politeness, they gave them the term positive and negative face needs.
Positive face needs refer to people wanting to be liked and what language they use when they want to be liked, this results in them using a positive politeness strategies. This is mainly used when you first meet someone and want to make an impression. This is usually done by: using humour, agreeing to avoid conflict (para linguistic language e.g. nodding), eye contact, asking questions and smiling.
Negative face needs is the opposite and is mainly used when you are trying to say something difficult and therefore you are trying to be tactical about what you say. This means you tend to use negative politeness strategies such as: being indirect, being sympathetic/apologetic, questioning and hedging and avoiding humour.
Your language choices change and adapt to what situation and context you are speaking in and these are some of the ways they change and why they do.
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