CulpeperHaugh2014-Chp7 Interpersonalpragmatics
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Interpersonal Pragmatics
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7 Interpersonal Pragmatics
7.1 Introduction
197
198 Pragmatics and the English Language
persons, or our relationships with those persons, which influence the way
we think and feel about those persons and relationships, and consequently
sometimes what we do” (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 61) (for the nature of those
links, see the work of Teun van Dijk, e.g. 1987: 188–193).
The main area which Leech (1983) discusses under the heading of inter-
personal rhetoric is politeness, and we will do likewise in this chapter. Both
politeness and impoliteness can be seen as interpersonal attitudes. We should
note at this early stage Leech’s (1983: 62) point that interpersonal pragmatics
plays a greater role in strongly situated uses of language (e.g. face-to-face
interaction with an assistant in a coffee shop) as opposed to “unsituated” uses
(e.g. encyclopaedia articles). The notion of situated can be understood with
reference to Goffman’s ([1964] 1972: 63) definition of a social situation as “an
environment of mutual monitoring possibilities, anywhere within which an
individual will find himself accessible to the naked senses of all others who
are ‘present’, and similarly find them accessible to him”.1
What exactly is politeness? Need the question be asked? We all know
what politeness is, don’t we? Imagine you are ensconced at a dinner table
in England: politeness might include remembering to use please when you
want something passed, saying something nice about the food and defi-
nitely not burping. Actually, all of these particular things are somewhat more
complex – even problematic – than they first appear. The word please is the
“magic word” that British parents impress upon their children to use with
all requests, and it looms large in the British psyche. But how is it actually
used? Aijmer (1996: 166–168) provides some evidence. It matters how the
rest of the request is worded: please is most likely to be used in conjunction
with an imperative (e.g. “please make me a cup of tea”) or with could you (e.g.
“could you please make me a cup of tea”), but much less likely to be used with
can you or will you. You will note that we failed to specify whether you were
ensconced at a family meal or had been invited to dinner. Differences in situa-
tion would influence whether you use the word please. Please tends to be used
in relatively formal situations, and in business letters and written notices. It
is particularly frequent in service encounters, notably via the telephone (all
too often we hear “can you hold the line please!”). So, if the dinner were a
formal invitation, please would be more likely to be used. Complimenting the
cook on the food may also seem a straightforwardly nice thing to do, but it
is not straightforward: you place the recipient of the compliment in a rather
tricky position. If they simply accept the compliment, they may sound rather
1
Intriguingly, one might note that this definition seems to be echoed in Sperber and Wilson’s
(1986[1995]: 41–42) description of context from a Relevance theory perspective: “Any shared
cognitive environment in which it is manifest which people share it is what we will call a
mutual cognitive environment”. This is in spite of the fact that the data discussed in their book is
far from situated.
Interpersonal Pragmatics 199
immodest, but if they simply reject it, they may offend the person who made
it. Consequently, responses to compliments in Britain tend to weave a path
between these two positions. A response such as “it’s kind of you to say that”
suggests that the compliment is (at least in part) a product of the compli-
menter’s kindness and not necessarily a true reflection of the value of the
food. Finally, even burping cannot always with certainty be seen as the antith-
esis of politeness. Cultural considerations come into play. In some cultures,
burping may be acceptable, or even a sign of appreciation of the food – a
compliment! Needless to say, culture keenly influences politeness. The use of
the word please is more typical of British culture than North American, being
used about twice as frequently (Biber et al. 1999: 1098). This is not to say that
American culture is less polite. There are other ways of doing politeness, and
those other ways might be evaluated as polite by North Americans, just as
using please in certain contexts might be evaluated as polite by speakers of
British English. Politeness, or impoliteness for that matter, is in the eyes and
ears of the beholder. It is a particular attitude towards behaviour, and one that
is especially sensitive to the relational aspects of context. The fact that polite-
ness involves both the interpretation of a behaviour in context and working
out its attitudinal implications (rather than the straightforward decoding of a
sign of politeness) is what makes it a pragmatic and interpersonal matter.
Politeness, then, involves a polite attitude towards behaviours in a partic-
ular context. In fact, that attitude is often extended towards the people who
do politeness: they are considered polite people. What those behaviours,
linguistic and non-linguistic, consist of, how they vary in context, and why
they are deemed polite are some of the key areas of politeness study. The first
part of this chapter introduces two different approaches to politeness. The
middle and largest part of this chapter focuses on the most popular polite-
ness framework, namely, that of Brown and Levinson ([1978] 1987) (hereafter
Brown and Levinson). The chapter then briefly considers a new, rapidly devel-
oping area, closely related to politeness, namely, impoliteness. Finally, the
chapter concludes by looking at relatively recent work which argues that the
notion of politeness and its place within interpersonal pragmatics be recon-
sidered from an interactional perspective.
throwing litter on the floor breaks a social norm. Social norms are driven
by social rules (“do not litter”), and breaking those rules incurs sanctions.
Impolite language – that is, abusive, threatening, aggressive language – is
often explicitly outlawed by signs displayed in public places (e.g. hospitals,
airport check-in desks). Sanctions are underpinned by social institutions and
structures (e.g. a legal system) and enforced by those in power. Moreover, if
social norms become internalised by members of society, as they regularly
do, sanctions can take on a moral dimension in the form of attitudes, such
as disapproval from others or guilt emanating from oneself. Interestingly, the
word morals is derived from the Latin mores, meaning customs. The obliga-
tions associated with social norms are what underlie their morality. Such
obligations can be articulated in rules of conduct. Goffman (1967: 49) makes
the link with morality clear:
Those expectations are attitudes about how things should be, and their viola-
tion leads to a sense of immorality.
What he refers to as the “social-norm view” of politeness is neatly summed
up by Fraser (1990: 220):
Briefly stated, [the social-norm view] assumes that each society has a
particular set of social norms consisting of more or less explicit rules
that prescribe a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or a way of thinking
in context. A positive evaluation (politeness) arises when an action is in
congruence with the norm, a negative evaluation (impoliteness = rude-
ness) when action is to the contrary.
Opposition MPs opportunities to attack the Government that they might not
have had in other contexts.
There is another sense in which social norms underpin much research on
politeness. Experiential or descriptive social norms have their basis in an
individual’s experience of social situations. Repeated experiences of social
situations may lead one to expect certain kinds of interaction to happen, be
able to hypothesise what others’ expectations are, and know how to meet
them. Opp (1982) argues that regular behaviours develop into expectations,
those expectations give people a sense of certainty, and it is this certainty
that has value – value which feeds politeness attitudes. People generally like
to know what will happen next, a point made forcefully in social cognition
in relation to schema theory (see, for example, Fiske and Taylor 1991: 97).
Additionally, in the area of human relations, Kellerman and Reynolds (1990:
14), investigating the link between expectancy violations and attraction, state
that deviations from expectations are “generally judged negatively”. However,
it is important to note context dependency. It is not the case that all thwarted
expectations are judged negatively. Aesthetic pleasure and entertainment are
often achieved through surprise (as in the surprise ending of a film).
Etiquette books and parental instruction are simply not detailed enough
to help us through the mass of social occasions we will tackle in our lives.
We acquire politeness routines from our regular experiences of social interac-
tions. Politeness routines or formulae are expressions which have become
conventionally associated with politeness attitudes in specific contexts.
Linguistic politeness can be taken to mean the use of expressions that are
both contextually appropriate and judged as socially positive by the target
(some researchers, such as Watts 2003, take “socially positive” primarily to
mean showing “consideration” to the target) (cf. Locher and Watts 2005).
Remember the use of please? It is not just used by anybody to anybody, or
in any context, and when it is used, it is generally considered socially posi-
tive. The point about politeness routines/markers is that knowledge of both
their appropriate context and their positive social meaning has become
conventionally associated with the linguistic expression. This is why we can
pronounce on how polite or otherwise an expression sounds even when
considering that expression out of its normal context (e.g. in a list of polite-
ness expressions). Of course, this does not mean that simply using a polite-
ness routine/marker will result in people viewing it as polite. Politeness always
involves an overall contextual judgement. Thus, Go to hell please, said to
get rid of somebody, might well be considered socially negative, despite the
fact that a conventional politeness formula (please) has been used. In fact,
this particular utterance achieves its power, because politeness is part of the
conventional meaning of the expression please. The contexts of usage and
socially positive meanings of that word clash with its actual usage on this
202 Pragmatics and the English Language
All that is really being claimed is that people employ certain strategies
(including the 50+ strategies described by Leech, Brown and Levinson,
and others) for reasons of expediency – experience has taught us that
particular strategies are likely to succeed in given circumstances, so we
use them.
has moved on, this is one of the weaknesses of those politeness theories.
The bulk of the work in politeness studies has been based on or related to
Brown and Levinson (1987), which we will outline in the following section.
First, however, we will also note an alternative theory, mainly as a way of
illustrating how politeness can interact with the Cooperative Principle (see
section 4.2.2).
Robin Lakoff (1973) was the first to posit a maxim-based view of politeness.
In brief, she proposes that there are two rules of pragmatic competence, one
being “be clear”, which is formalised in terms of Grice’s (1975) Cooperative
Principle, and the other being “be polite”, which is formalised in terms of a
Politeness Principle. The latter Politeness Principle consists of the following
maxims: (1) don’t impose, (2) give options, and (3) make your receiver feel
good. Lakoff notes that sometimes the need for clarity would clash with
the need for politeness. Leech (1983) also posits a Politeness Principle, one
which is more elaborate than that of Lakoff. The central mechanism of his
Politeness Principle is involved in “trade-offs” with the Cooperative Principle.
As an illustration, consider this event. At the annual general meeting of an
undergraduate university society at which the major business was to vote for
the president for the coming year, an author of this book witnessed that a
candidate for the presidency had gained only one vote from the forty people
present in the room. The candidates had been waiting outside, and the first
author of this book was asked to summon them inside to receive the results.
Upon meeting the candidate who got one vote, the candidate immediately
asked him how many votes she had gained. He could not reveal the truth,
since that would upset her; on the other hand, he did not want to be seen to
be lying. Cornered by her question, he decided to be vague and replied, not
many. His response thus avoided both a prototypical lie and the upset to the
hearer that would have accompanied a more cooperative – in Grice’s sense
(1975) – reply. By flouting Grice’s maxim of Quantity (1975) (not many rela-
tive to what?), he hoped that she would draw the implicature that a more
cooperative reply would have been more damaging to her, and that was why
he had been uncooperative. In Leech’s (1983) terms, the reason why he had
expressed himself unco-operatively was to uphold the Politeness Principle,
which Leech defines as: “Minimize (other things being equal) the expression
of impolite beliefs ... (Maximize (other things being equal) the expression of
polite beliefs)” (1983: 81). More specifically, he had abided by the Approbation
maxim (minimise dispraise of other/maximise praise of other), by minimising
“dispraise” of the candidate. The other maxims of the Politeness Principle
are: Tact, Generosity, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy (see Leech 1983:
131–139, for details). The key point is that the Cooperative Principle accounts
for how people convey indirect meanings, the Politeness Principle accounts
for why people convey indirect meanings.
204 Pragmatics and the English Language
Perhaps the biggest problem for all classic approaches to politeness, both
those subscribing to the maxim view and those subscribing to the face-saving
view (to be discussed below), is that they focus on politeness arising from
deviations from the Cooperative Principle, and pay little attention to polite-
ness that does not. Merely saying good morning to a colleague at the beginning
of the working day may be considered “polite”, but this does not involve a
deviation from the Cooperative Principle triggering the recovery of the speak-
er’s intention – it is more a case of performing a routine expected by the
hearer, given the social norms. A number of researchers have accounted for
the fact that politeness can be expected, normal, not noticed and thus not a
deviation from the Cooperative Principle (e.g. Escandell-Vidal 1998; Jary 1998;
Terkourafi 2001; Watts 2003). This kind of politeness is labelled anticipated
politeness by Fraser (1999, cited in Terkourafi 2001). Anticipated politeness
is based on associative inferencing, as described in section 3.2.1. The distinc-
tion between anticipated politeness and inferred politeness is elaborated
by Haugh (2003) (see also Terkourafi 2001: 121–127). Inferred politeness is
based on “logical” inferencing as mentioned in section 3.2.1 and elaborated
Interpersonal Pragmatics 205
Face
What is face? Notions such as reputation, prestige and self-esteem, all involve
an element of the folk notion of face. The term is perhaps most commonly
used in English in the idiom losing face, meaning that one’s public image
suffers some damage, often resulting in humiliation or embarrassment. Such
reactions are suggestive of the emotional investment in face. Much modern
writing on face draws upon the work of Goffman (e.g. 1967). Goffman
(1967: 5) defines it thus: “the positive social value a person effectively claims
for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact.
Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes.”
Brown and Levinson’s conception of face consists of two related compo-
nents, which they assume are universal: “every member wants to claim for
himself” (1987: 61) [our italics]. One component is labelled positive face,
and appears to be close to Goffman’s definition of face, as it is defined as “the
want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others ... in
particular, it includes the desire to be ratified, understood, approved of, liked
or admired” (1987: 62). One may assume, for example, that you want your
existence acknowledged (e.g. people to say Hello), approval of your opinions
(e.g. You’re right about that student), or the expression of admiration (e.g. I
thought you did a good job). Note that positive face clearly involves particular
attitudes. The other component, negative face, is defined as: “the want of
every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others”
(1987: 62). One may assume, for example, that you want people to let you
attend to what you want, do what you want and say what you want (hence,
requests that inconvenience you are tentatively worded). Incidentally, the
words “positive” and “negative” in the labels for these two kinds of face
carry no implications of good and bad; they are simply technical terms for
different kinds of face.
206 Pragmatics and the English Language
For anybody familiar with the cultural practices of the people of England,
there is something that rings true about the claim that they have a prefer-
ence for negative politeness practices. However, it is a cultural generalisa-
tion, a stereotype (see Mills 2009, who elaborates on this point during her
discussion of culture and impoliteness). For anybody familiar with the North
of England, it is likely not to ring so true. Strangers are often met with terms
of affection (e.g. love, pet, darling) in conjunction with relatively direct utter-
ances, as well as banter – not the stuff of negative politeness. Unfortunately,
empirical research on the intra-cultural politeness practices of England is
lacking, so we cannot substantiate these intuitions. Incidentally, it is worth
pointing out here that cultures continually experience diachronic change
as well as synchronic, though this seems to have escaped the attention of
most researchers in cross-cultural pragmatics. The evidence points quite
strongly to early politeness practices in England being oriented towards
positive politeness rather than negative, the shift from one to the other
commencing in the early modern period (see Jucker 2008). Culpeper and
Demmen (2011) provide evidence showing that the current most common
negative politeness structures for achieving requests – namely, could you X
and can you X – were not established as politeness formulae before the 19th
century. They argue that Victorian values, with their emphasis on the self
(e.g. self-respect, self-sufficiency), did much to drive the rise of negative
politeness in the English cultures of Britain.
208 Pragmatics and the English Language
disagreement (Yes, it’s kind of nice), assuming common ground (I know how
you feel) and so on.
Negative politeness: The speaker performs the FTA in such a way that
attention is paid to the hearer’s negative face wants. Includes such strategies
as mollifying the force of an utterance with questions and hedges (Actually,
I wondered if you could help?), being pessimistic (I don’t suppose there would be
any chance of a cup of tea?), giving deference, that is, treating the addressee
as a superior and thereby emphasising rights to immunity (I’ve been a real
fool, could you help me out?), apologising (I’m sorry, I don’t want to trouble you
but ...), impersonalising the speaker and the hearer (It would be appreciated,
if this were done) and so on.
Off-record: The speaker performs the FTA in such a way that he can avoid
responsibility for performing it. The speaker’s face-threatening intention
can only be worked out by means of an inference triggered by the flouting
of a maxim.
Don’t do the FTA: The speaker simply refrains from performing the FTA
because it is so serious.
On the face of it, Speaker A’s utterance is an innocent enquiry about Speaker
B’s state of knowledge. However, the prosody triggered a different interpre-
tation. Speaker A heavily stressed and elongated the beginning of anything,
coupled with marked falling intonation at that point (we might represent
this as: “do you know \ANYthing about /yo-yos?”). It signals to B that A’s
question is not straightforward or innocent. It triggers the recovery of impli-
catures that Speaker A is not asking a question but expressing both a belief
that Speaker B knows nothing about yo-yos (the prosodic prominence of
anything implying a contrast with nothing), and an attitude towards that
belief, namely, incredulity that this is the case − something which itself
implies that Speaker B is deficient in some way. Without the prosody, there
is no clear evidence of the interpersonal orientation of Speaker A, whether
212 Pragmatics and the English Language
Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory has been applied, in full or part,
to a wide variety of discourses, situations and social categories, including
“everyday” conversation, workplace discourse, job interviews, healthcare
discourse, political discourse, media discourse, literary texts, historical texts,
gender and conflict, not to mention a huge literature examining intercultural
or cross-cultural discourses. For the purposes of exemplifying the kind of anal-
ysis that can be done, we will examine an example of healthcare discourse.
Our data is taken from Candlin and Lucas (1986), where politeness issues are
in fact only very briefly touched on. The lineation has been slightly changed.
The context is an interview at a family planning clinic in the USA. CR is a
counsellor, who interviews clients before they see the doctor. CT is a client,
who is pregnant.
12 CR: well. you know it’s not easy. cause everybody. well I’ve got
my bad habits too. so I know it’s not easy ... I smoked for
eight years too so I know it’s not easy.
Interpersonal Pragmatics 213
CR’s goal is to get CT to stop smoking. She repeatedly uses the speech act
of request. However, this request is realised indirectly. A very direct request
might be “quit smoking”. In contrast, in turn 1 her request is couched as a
question about whether CT has ever thought about stopping, and in turn 3 it
is a question about what CT thinks of her ability to stop. This does not meet
with success, so in turn 5 CR tries another tack, engaging CT in talk about a
possible cause of the smoking, rather than directly talking about stopping.
Then in turn 7 CR links the cause to cutting down. Note how indirect this is:
it is phrased as a question about whether she has thought about whether she
would be able to cut down. CR’s strategy thus far is largely off-record politeness:
by flouting the maxim of Relation (it is improbable in this context that CR is
only inquiring about CT’s thoughts) and the maxim of Quantity (what is to
be cut down is not specified), she leaves it to CT to infer that she is requesting
her to stop smoking (i.e. CR’s implicature).2 Turn 7 is further modified by
hedging the possibility that she has the ability to cut down (cf. might), and
making it conditional (cf. if you worked on those things). These linguistic strate-
gies – conditionals and hedges – are the stuff of negative politeness. Note that
a downside of this kind of indirectness is the loss of pragmatic clarity. In turn
2 CT either chooses to ignore or possibly was not aware of CR’s implicature
requesting her to stop, and just replies to the literal question (I’ve thought about
it). Similarly, after turn 7 CT either exploits or is simply confused by the lack
of clarity regarding what she should cut down (on the stress you mean). In turn
9 CR probes what the reasons for not giving up might be. The frequent hesi-
tations signal tentativeness, a reluctance to impose, and thus can be consid-
ered a negative politeness strategy. In the final part of that turn, she again
uses a question, but notably she refrains from completing the question and
spelling out the other half of the if-structure (i.e. if the stress is eliminated,
the smoking will be). This could be considered an example of don’t do the
FTA. Thus far, CR does not seem to be making much progress with her goal,
and in the following turns (not presented in the text above) she makes only
minimal responses. In turn 12 CR tries a completely different tack. She not
only self-discloses (I’ve got my bad habits too ... I’ve smoked for eight years too so
I know it’s not easy), but reveals information that (a) is negative about herself,
and (b) is something that she has in common with CT. The kind of strategy
in (a) is not well covered in Brown and Levinson, but could be accounted
for by Leech’s Modesty maxim (minimise praise of self/maximise dispraise of
self); the strategy in (b), claiming common ground, is an example of positive
2
See Haugh (in press, 2014) for an alternative account of such phenomena through the lens of
the notion of “politeness implicature”.
214 Pragmatics and the English Language
politeness. Importantly, note the effect of this on CT. For the first time, CT has
engaged CR in conversation: instead of simply responding in a fairly minimal
way, she asks a question (Did you quit?).
While over the decades there has been a strong chorus of critical comment
on the classic politeness theories, including the issues raised in the boxes
above, no single replacement model has yet emerged. Instead, over the last
decade three different, yet partly overlapping, approaches have emerged,
approaches which we will label discursive, relational and frame-based. We
will give the flavour of these approaches in the following subsections. These
will be followed by (1) a section on what might be seen as the opposite to
politeness, namely, impoliteness, an area of study that has grown rapidly in
the last decade, and (2) a section on the interactional approach to politeness,
an approach that has made an appearance in recent years and is in tune with
the interactional thread running through this book.
7.4.1 Discursive
Generally, recent work on politeness has usefully stressed that politeness
is not inherent in linguistic forms but is a contextual judgement (see also
comments at the end of section 7.2.1). More fundamentally, Eelen (2001)
and Watts (e.g. 2003) argue vigorously that the classic pragmatic approaches
articulate a pseudo-scientific theory of particular social behaviours and label it
politeness (so-called politeness2), while ignoring the lay person’s conception
of politeness (so-called politeness1) as revealed, for example, through the use
of the terms polite and politeness to refer to particular social behaviours. The
key issue here is who decides that some piece of language counts as polite? Is
it the analyst applying a politeness theory to a recording of language or is it
the actual user of the language making comments about it?
Discursive politeness approaches lean towards politeness1, and indeed
share some of its characteristics (see, for example, the discussion of politeness1
in Eelen 2001: 32–43). For example, they share a dislike of universalising gener-
alisations. A key feature of discursive approaches is that they emphasise that
the very definitions of politeness itself are subject to discursive struggle (what
might be polite for one participant might be impolite for another). Discursive
approaches typically have at least some of the following characteristics:
• the claim that there is no one meaning of the term “politeness” but that it
is a point of discursive struggle;
• the centrality of the perspective of participants;
Interpersonal Pragmatics 215
Works that might claim to be discursive include: Eelen 2001; Locher and
Watts 2005; Mills 2003; Watts 2003 (Locher 2006 is a very useful outline of
the approach). In 2011 the volume Discursive Approaches to Politeness, edited
by the Linguistic Politeness Research Group (LPRG), appeared.3 However, one
problem for this approach is that the publications which cover it vary widely
in what they take to be discursive, often mixing discursive elements with non-
discursive elements (see Haugh 2007b). For example, work by Richard Watts
and Miriam Locher incorporates the notion of “politic behaviour”, which will
be discussed in the following section. Politic behaviour is not a label that is at
all familiar to the lay person. Further, discursive analyses of data sometimes
seem suspiciously reminiscent of the kinds of analyses undertaken by scholars
who are considered non-discursive (e.g. because they deploy intuitions and
interpretations flowing from the analyst rather than the lay person).
The discursive approach is concerned with “developing a theory of social
politeness” (Watts 2003: 9, et passim; our emphasis), though creating a
“theory” of politeness seems not to be the objective for the discursive polite-
ness approach (cf. Watts 2005: xlii). A consequence of focusing on the dynamic
and situated characteristics of politeness is that politeness is declared not to be
a predictive theory (Watts 2003: 25), or, apparently, even a post-hoc descrip-
tive one (ibid.: 142). This is unlike classic politeness theories, especially Brown
and Levinson (1987), which predict the choice of pragmatic strategies in the
light of the degree of face threat as determined by sociological variables. A
pragmatic approach has a different agenda:
3
Whilst it is clear that this volume did much to set the agenda for the new discursive approach to
politeness, it should be noted that not every paper within it could be described as discursive.
216 Pragmatics and the English Language
ground, and avoid getting lost too easily in abstractions such as “face” or
“culture”. The basic question is: what did s mean [to convey] by saying X?
It is useful to postulate the Politeness Principle (PP), I claim, not because it
explains what we mean by the word “politeness” (an English word which
in any case doesn’t quite match similar words in other languages), but
because it explains certain pragmatic phenomena.
(Leech 2003: 104–105)
Bearing in mind section 7.2.1, one can see that the discursive approach is
more sympathetic to the prescriptive social norm view (etiquette manuals,
for example, provide insight into what the lay person would label polite). In
contrast, the pragmatic approach is more sympathetic to the experiential
social norm view, given that it often focuses on regular usages (cf. strate-
gies) in context – usages which have usually become regular because they are
expedient.
7.4.2 Relational
Relational approaches have a central focus on interpersonal relations in
common, rather than a central focus on the individual performing “polite-
ness” which is then correlated with interpersonal relations as variables, as
happens with Brown and Levinson (1987). This, in fact, has important impli-
cations. The term polite has been stretched, especially in the classic theories,
to cover a range of different phenomena, not all of which would readily be
recognised as polite by the lay person. In Britain, saying please or thank you
would readily be recognised as polite, but would giving someone a compli-
ment attract the same label? Perhaps the latter is just seen as an example of
“nice”, “kind” or “supportive” behaviour, or even “sneaky”, “manipulative”
or “arse-licking” behaviour. Of course, it is an empirical question as to what
perceptions and labels particular behaviours attract, but there is no doubting
that their discussions of politeness encompass such a breadth of phenomena
that the label polite is unlikely to be the descriptor of choice for each indi-
vidual phenomenon. Relational approaches avoid seeing everything through
the prism of politeness. In point of fact, they also encompass impolite behav-
iour. We will briefly outline the two main relational approaches, the relational
work approach of Locher and Watts’ (e.g. Locher 2004, 2006; Locher and
Watts 2005; Watts 2003) and the rapport management approach of Spencer-
Oatey (e.g. 2008).
Locher and Watts state that “relational work can be understood as equiva-
lent to Halliday’s (1978) interpersonal level of communication” (2005: 11)
and, further, that “[r]elational work is defined as the work people invest in
negotiating their relationships in interaction” (2008: 78). Relational work
is not switched off and on in communication but is always involved. The
concept of face is central to relational work, though not as defined by Brown
and Levinson (1987) but by Goffman (1967: 5). Face is treated as discursively
constructed within situated interactions. Watts (2005: xliii, see also Locher
and Watts 2005: 12; Locher 2004: 90) offers a diagram which usefully attempts
to map the total spectrum of relational work, reproduced in Figure 7.1.
218 Pragmatics and the English Language
politic/appropriate behaviour
“non-polite”
“polite”
“impolite”
“rude” “over-polite”
non-politic/inappropriate behaviour
M: Hello, Mr. Smith. It’s great to see you. We missed you. How are you?
S: Hello David. I’m fine thanks. It’s great to see you too. How are you?
People often (although not always) have specific goals when they interact
with others. These can be relational as well as transactional (i.e. task-focused)
in nature. These “wants” can significantly affect their perceptions of rapport
because any failure to achieve them can cause frustration and annoyance.
7.4.3 Frame-based
Terkourafi (e.g. 2001) is certainly not the first, or indeed only, scholar to
have related politeness to the notion of a (cognitive) “frame” (Watts 2003;
Locher 2004; and Locher and Watts 2005 do likewise). However, Terkourafi
produces the most elaborate account of the frame-based approach to polite-
ness, anchoring it in pragmatic theory. For this reason, we will focus on her
work in this section.
Terkourafi argues that we should analyse the concrete linguistic realisations
(i.e. formulae) and particular contexts of use which co-constitute “frames”.
This avoids problematic notions like directness (see section 7.3). Moreover,
“[i]t is the regular co-occurrence of particular types of context and partic-
ular linguistic expressions as the unchallenged realisations of particular acts
that create the perception of politeness” (2005a: 248; see also 2005b: 213;
our emphasis). It is through this regularity of co-occurrence that we acquire
“a knowledge of which expressions to use in which situations” (2002: 197),
that is, “experientially acquired structures of anticipated ‘default’ behaviour”
(ibid.). Note that we are tapping into experiential norms, and also that we
are dealing with anticipated politeness. The fact that the expressions are not
only regularly associated with a particular context but also go unchallenged
is an important point. This feature seems to be similar to Haugh’s point that
evidence of politeness can be found in, amongst other things, “the reciproca-
tion of concern evident in the adjacent placement of expressions of concern
relevant to the norms in both in that particular interaction” (2007b: 312).
That we are dealing with regularities means that we can deploy quantitative
as well as qualitative methodologies (a simplistic quantitative methodology,
such as counting up a particular form, is not possible, however, as we must
count up forms in particular contexts that are unchallenged).
Of course, it is not the case that such conventionalised formulae – the stuff
of anticipated politeness – constitute the only way politeness is conveyed and
understood. Terkourafi (e.g. 2001, 2005b) develops neo-Gricean pragmatics
(see section 4.3.1) to account for more implicational/inferential modes.
Hitherto, standard, classical Gricean accounts of politeness (e.g. Leech 1983)
have made no explicit connection with generalised implicatures, instead
discussing politeness in terms of the recovery of the speaker’s intentions in
deviating from Gricean cooperativeness on a particular occasion (i.e. in terms
222 Pragmatics and the English Language
7.5 Impoliteness
Although the study of impoliteness has a fairly long history (usually in the
guise of the study of swearing), and although early scientific attempts to address
the topic (e.g. Lachenicht 1980) did not galvanise scholars, momentum has
been increasing, with the arrival of Lakoff (1989), Culpeper (1996), Tracy and
Tracy (1998), Mills (2003), Bousfield (2008), Bousfield and Locher (2008) and
Culpeper (2011a), to mention but a few. A key question is: should a model
of politeness account for impoliteness using the same concepts, perhaps
with an opposite orientation, or is a completely different model required?
Impoliteness phenomena are not unrelated to politeness phenomena. One
way in which the degree of impoliteness varies is according to the degree
of politeness expected: if somebody told their University Vice-Chancellor
to be quiet, most likely considerably more offence would be taken than if
they told one of their young children to do the same. Moreover, the fact
that sarcasm trades off politeness is further evidence of this relationship. For
example, thank you (with exaggerated prosody) uttered by somebody to whom
Interpersonal Pragmatics 223
a great disfavour has been done, reminds hearers of the distance between
favours that normally receive polite thanks and the disfavour in this instance.
There are, however, also some important differences between politeness and
impoliteness. Recollect that both of the relational frameworks discussed in
section 7.4.2 accommodate, explicitly or implicitly, both politeness and
impoliteness. It is true that within a relational approach such as Locher and
Watts (2005) there is a ready opposition: impoliteness can be associated with a
negative evaluation as opposed to a positive evaluation, which can be aligned
with politeness. However, the categories “positive” and “negative” are very
broad. When we look at the specifics, the polite/impolite opposition runs into
some difficulties.
One possible characteristic of politeness, as noted in section 7.2.1, is consid-
eration. In a very broad sense any impoliteness involves being inconsiderate,
but defining something in terms of a negative (i.e. what it is not) is not very
informative about what it actually is. Moreover, Culpeper (2011a) reports a
study of 100 impoliteness events narrated by British undergraduates. 133 of
the total of 200 descriptive labels that informants supplied for those events
fell into six groups (in order of predominance): patronising, inconsiderate, rude,
aggressive, inappropriate and hurtful (see Culpeper 2011a: chapter 3). Clearly,
being inconsiderate is a descriptive label that strikes a chord with participants.
However, patronising, by far the most frequent label, does not have a ready oppo-
site concept in politeness theory. Presumably, it relates to an abuse of power,
a lack of deference, but neither power nor deference are well described in the
classic politeness theories. Similarly, aggressive, with overtones of violence and
power, has only a very general opposite in politeness theory, namely, harmo-
nious. And there are yet other differences or cases where there do not appear
to be easy diametric opposites between impoliteness and politeness. Anger is
one of the most frequent emotional reactions associated with impoliteness,
particularly when a social norm or right is perceived to have been infringed
(see Culpeper 2011a: chapter 2). But anger lacks a similarly specific emotional
opposite associated with politeness. Furthermore, taboo lexical items appear
relatively frequently in impolite language. Lexical euphemisms, however,
while they are associated with politeness, play a minor role.4
An important point is that relational frameworks are not models of polite-
ness or impoliteness themselves; they are models of interpersonal relations
which may accommodate at least some aspects of politeness, impoliteness,
and so on. So, while they will provide insights, we cannot expect a complete
apparatus for accommodating or explaining the rich array of communicative
4
Leech (2009) argued that taboo language is one of two impoliteness areas which politeness
theory, specifically his own, cannot adequately account for. The other concerns the negative
acts, threats and curses.
224 Pragmatics and the English Language
Apart from insults, other important impoliteness formulae types are: pointed
criticisms/complaints; challenging or unpalatable questions and/or presup-
positions; condescensions; message enforcers; dismissals; silencers; threats;
curses and ill-wishes; non-supportive intrusions (further detail and exemplifi-
cation can be found in Culpeper 2011a).
[7.5] I saw her immediately after I went to the cafeteria. I told her
ideas for some activities for our class. I intended to collect some
suggestions from my classmates by telling them the activities
ahead of the schedule. I was shocked at her answer. She rejected
the ideas loudly with a tone of ordering in front of all the people
in the cafeteria. Despite explaining to her softly and humbly,
she rejected them more disrespectfully than before, paying no
attention to my good manner. I was greatly annoyed because my
classmates all respected me and I had never come across situa-
tions like that before.
“In order to show solidarity with h, say something which is (i) obviously
untrue, and (ii) obviously impolite to h” [and this will give rise to an inter-
pretation such that] “What s says is impolite to h and is clearly untrue.
Therefore what s really means is polite to h and true.”
[7.8] A
s I walked over to the table to collect the glasses, Sarah said to Joe
“come on Joe lets go outside”, implying she didn’t want me there.
This was at the pub on Sunday night, and I just let the glasses go
and walked away.
228 Pragmatics and the English Language
I didn’t particularly feel bad, but angry at the way she had said that
straight away when I got there. We aren’t particularly friends but
she was really rude in front of others.
The question is: is Wayne’s apology polite (or not)? Asking such a question
already presupposes a number of different perspectives. You, the reader, may
form your opinion about this particular incident. Your perspective (as the
analyst) is grounded as an observer (although sometimes the analyst can also
be a participant), specifically, an overhearer. Your footing therefore differs from
that of the speaker (Wayne) and the addressee (Joyce). You evaluate it without
having direct access to the minds of either participant and so, inevitably, draw
5
The permission of the researchers to use this recording was gained from both participants.
230 Pragmatics and the English Language
The third footing to consider is that of you, the reader. Here we would
suggest, based on Chang and Haugh’s (2011) study, that your understanding
is likely to vary. Chang and Haugh elicited metapragmatic evaluations of the
apology as (very) polite, neither polite nor impolite, or (very) impolite from a
sample of Australian and Taiwanese respondents. While there was interesting
intra-group variation found across these evaluations, particularly amongst
the Australians, there was nevertheless a very clear inter-group difference.
Overall, the Australians found it not impolite, while the Taiwanese found it
impolite. This difference results from different cultural perspectives on the
apology that these respondents brought to bear. The Australian respondents
emphasised Wayne’s attempts to show friendliness as increasing the level of
sincerity (and thus acceptability) of his apology. The Taiwanese respondents,
on the other hand, emphasised the lack of repetition as indicative of a lack of
sincerity, which was one of their main reasons for evaluating the apology as
impolite. Both the Australian and Taiwanese respondents shared the view that
the account Wayne gave was somewhat inadequate, but ultimately judged the
apology overall quite differently.
From this brief analysis a number of issues emerge. One key question that
needs to be asked according to the interactional approach is whose under-
standing of politeness is it that we are analysing. In section 5.2.1, we outlined
the multiple participation footings that underlie pragmatic meaning. This
complex array of participation footings is also relevant to interpersonal atti-
tudes such as politeness. Recipients may be addressees, side participants,
overhearers or bystanders, for instance, and their evaluations of a particular
pragmatic meaning or act may vary not only with those of the speaker but
also amongst themselves (see Haugh 2013c for further discussion).
A second key question according to the interactional approach is how is it
that participants (and so analysts as well) know something counts as polite,
mock polite, mock impolite, impolite, over-polite, and so on. In other words,
what are the moral grounds for making such an evaluation? To date a tech-
nical notion of “face” has generally been invoked in analysing politeness (see
sections 7.3 and 7.4). In the interactional approach, however, we argue that
there are other possible explanations of politeness from an emic perspective,
namely, that of members of the (sub)cultural group in which the interaction is
situated. The notion of face as a publicly endorsed social image of individuals
is just one. There are others, including an orientation to one’s sense of “place”
relative to others or the heart/mind of others, for instance (see Haugh 2013a
for further discussion).
A third question is how do we as analysts establish that evaluations of
politeness, impoliteness and so on have indeed arisen. In the interactional
approach we argue that the study of politeness (at least in interaction)
232 Pragmatics and the English Language
7.7 Conclusion
This chapter has surveyed various approaches to politeness, and also briefly
considered impoliteness. As we have identified the phenomena that pertain
to (im)politeness, we have shown how they are culturally variable and, in
particular, pointed to some distinctive aspects of British politeness. Readers
may be wondering how exactly we conceive of politeness. So we will recap
and clarify. We see politeness as an interpersonal attitude. Attitudes, of
course, are well established in social psychology, and especially in language
attitude research. An attitude involves a favourable or unfavourable reaction
to stimuli, and has cognitive, affective and behavioural elements (see Bradac
et al. 2001, and references therein). Note that conceiving of politeness as an
attitude accommodates the frequently stated point that politeness is subjec-
tive and evaluative (e.g. Eelen 2001; Watts 2003; Spencer-Oatey 2005; Ruhi
2008). However, it should be noted that simply referring to “positive” evalua-
tive beliefs is not sufficiently specific. It is unlikely that politeness involves any
positive belief. For example, amusing somebody is an interpersonal activity
that is generally viewed positively, but it is not at all clear that it would
normally be considered a matter of politeness. A key objective for researchers
is to understand the subset of positive evaluative beliefs that count as polite-
ness on a particular occasion. The concept of face (Goffman 1967) is one
Interpersonal Pragmatics 233
mechanism for trying to doing this. However, we are not convinced that face
easily accommodates all politeness-relevant positive beliefs. People also have
such positive evaluative beliefs about social organisation and behaviours
within social organisations – how people should be treated; what is fair and
what is not; and so on. Some of these morality-related beliefs are associated
with politeness. Spencer-Oatey’s (e.g. 2008) Rapport Management framework
does a good job of accommodating this array of evaluative beliefs, incor-
porating as it does the notion of sociality rights, although it will perhaps
inevitably require further adjustments as our understanding of politeness
continues to evolve in light of work that further teases out alternative emic
perspectives on politeness.
Linguistic politeness refers to linguistic or behavioural forms that are
(conventionally) associated with contexts in which politeness attitudes are
activated (this view is consistent with, for example, Terkourafi e.g. 2001,
outlined above). We acquire linguistic politeness from our experience of
social interactions (e.g. Ervin-Tripp et al. 1990; Escandell-Vidal 1996; Snow
et al. 1990). It involves the use of expressions that are both contextually
appropriate and positively evaluated by the target (cf. Locher and Watts
2005). Remember the use of please, as discussed towards the beginning of
this chapter. It is not used by anybody to anybody, or in any context, and
when it is used it is generally considered interpersonally positive. The point
about politeness routines/markers is that knowledge of both their appro-
priate context and their positive social meaning has become convention-
ally associated with the form. Of course, this does not mean that simply
using a politeness routine/marker will result in politeness being achieved.
Politeness always involves a contextual judgement; as is frequently pointed
out, politeness is not solely determined by forms alone (e.g. Watts, 2003: 168;
Locher and Watts, 2008: 78). Not only this, politeness is not some fixed value
waiting to be retrieved. It emerges dynamically in interaction, and different
participants may make different judgements. So, how do we tap into these
judgements? It makes sense to examine the interaction in which they are
mediated, as well as the broader societal milieu in which these interactions
are situated, as, for example, happens in the interactional approach to polite-
ness outlined in section 7.6.
Impoliteness has been accommodated by recent frameworks designed more
with politeness in mind. In fact, it is also accommodated by Leech’s (1983)
Politeness Principle, which has a “negative” side to it. It clearly has some
connections with politeness, as evidenced not least by the phenomena of
mock politeness and mock impoliteness. But it is also obvious that it is not
the same as politeness. The interesting issue is to specify in what ways. A key
feature is that impoliteness involves emotion – especially emotions such as
234 Pragmatics and the English Language
hurt and anger – in a much more intense way than politeness. Impoliteness
obviously has its own set of conventionalised formulae and pragmatic strat-
egies. It is also the case that the social contexts that give rise to impolite-
ness are not the same as those that give rise to politeness. As far as at least
some British cultures are concerned, perceived abuses of power relations,
resulting, for example, in patronising behaviours, are key to many instances
of impoliteness.