Abstract
This chapter is a belated acknowledgement of the role of politeness as conceptualised through indirect reporting. Politeness is quintessential in discussing a sound theory of social interaction in general and pragmatics in particular. After some general elaborations on ethical issues and moral standards during interaction, this chapter introduces the concept of the ‘Dynamic Dialogic Ethic’ whereby it is argued that a scientific definition of ethics should pass through individuals’ viewpoints as the self- and other-regulatory entities in interaction based on sociocognitive factors. Indirect reports (as a complex language game) can act as a powerful tool to manipulate politeness. Indirect reporting closely embraces individuals’ appreciation of self-image (positive face), and their claim for personal preserves (negative face). The practice of indirect reporting creates responsibilities for all participants in indirect reporting. The reporter can use some parts of the original speaker’s speech to frighten the hearer, impose something upon him/her, or limit his/her freedom. In this case, indirect reporting is a paradigm example of negative impoliteness. Based on the discussion on the different impoliteness strategies by Culpeper, this chapter treats ‘third-person-report impoliteness’ in indirect reports. Additionally, the complicated case of accountability in indirect reporting is considered in this chapter and it is argued that based on the issue of strategic (im)politeness, the issue of responsibility in reporting slurring is not a straightforward topic. The concept of ‘disagreement’ is dealt with in this chapter and several kinds of disagreement in indirect reporting are dealt with.
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Notes
- 1.
Interlocutors do not always reach an agreement, for there might be some conflict, such as when the topic is not interesting enough to maintain the attention of one or both of the interlocutors. When there is no interest in the topic, or when the interests of one of the interlocutors are at stake, any attempt to reach a consensus would certainly be regarded as ‘much ado about nothing’. One may believe that ‘the earth is flat’, while many others would counter argue such a claim. However, one may not be interested in opposing views, and/or may choose not to discuss this issue with others since the topic is not something that s/he will necessarily want to talk about (the flatness/roundness of the earth may not be an interesting topic for a linguist, for example).
- 2.
I consider the underlying process of ethics as the universal feature, rather than the way in which these assumptions are manipulated in different cultures during interaction. Whatever the definition of ethics may be, it cannot escape individuals’ sociocognitive processes. Thus a sound theory of ethics should be based on the sociocognitive features underlying interaction.
- 3.
There is a distinction between first-order politeness (i.e., how politeness is conceptualised by the layperson) and second-order politeness as defined by researchers (Watts, 2005[1992]).
- 4.
As advocated by Jay and Janschewitz (2008, p. 269), “[o]ver time, speakers learn that politeness is not always the norm, as in situations where rudeness is warranted (e. g., courtroom discourse or venting negative emotions).”
- 5.
In consonance with Culpeper, the paradigm example of withhold politeness is when someone is silent when they should be doing politeness work.
- 6.
Leech (2014, p. 18) argues that in third-person politeness, “the ‘target’ of politeness is not the addressee but some third person(s), i.e., neither the speaker not the addressee.” That said, this kind of definition does not fit for the kind of (im)politeness I have proposed here. The indirect reports in (1–6) are ‘third-person-report politeness’, in which the reporter addresses the hearer but the (im)politeness is done by a person who is (usually) absent and thus “incapable of appreciating the [im]polite remark” (Leech, 2014, p. 18).
- 7.
Thanks to Jonathan Culpeper for making this clear for me. In this case, there is no reciprocal politeness, and this is a case of withholding politeness. However, this kind of indirect reporting (said nothing) is rare but not impossible. In (5), ‘said nothing’ is an ostensive sign that helps the hearer find out the impoliteness.
- 8.
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Morady Moghaddam, M. (2019). Politeness in Indirect Reporting. In: The Praxis of Indirect Reports. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14269-8_7
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