Vous ou tu?: Towards Understanding the Politeness Concept in French

Politeness strategies in French have a primary goal of establishing and maintaining good social relationships between fellow members of the community. They are determined based on the principles of savoir vivre, literally translated as the knowledge of living, and savoir faire, the ability to say or do the right thing. In general, students taking French face difficulty in understanding the use of the pronoun Vous and Tu. This indicates that they do not master the concept of politeness in this language. Many studies have been made on this issue but none was done among students in Malaysia. In this study conducted among UKM students, questionnaire was distributed to identify the existing problem and intervention strategies, such as the use of flashcards and oral drills in role-plays were carried out. Implications derived from this study on the teaching and learning of the French language is that researchers are able to identify strategies to address the problems faced by students and to come up with a method that can be used in teaching to facilitate students’ understanding of the concept. Once this concept is clearly understood, this in turn will boost students’ confidence to converse in French.