“And We Still Would Like a Driver Swap Here” : Adaptation and Use of Politeness Strategies in Formula One Team Orders

Abstract

This thesis investigates the application of politeness strategies in how team orders are communicated in Formula One. The goals of this study were to find out the type of strategies used and whether they influenced driver compliance, as well as how engineers attempted to repair rejected orders. The orders were extracted from transcriptions and audio recordings of team radio during twelve grand prix at the beginning of the season. Qualitative discourse analysis was then applied to the data and analyzed through the lens of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework on politeness.

The results showed that negative politeness strategies were the most common choice for issuing team orders, with more direct approaches reserved for specific situations. None of the politeness strategies could guarantee full compliance with these requests. The engineers additionally avoided giving team orders altogether when drivers were competing for the top positions. However, rejected orders showed consistent success in repair when engineers increased their use of mitigating language. It is recommended for future research to consider grands prix over a full season as well as to factor in the length of a driver and their engineer’s work relationship to reduce possible biases that smaller datasets may have on how politeness strategies manifest in the sport.