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The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness pp 11–39Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Pragmatic Approaches (Im)politeness

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Abstract

This chapter elaborates on how concepts and theories from linguistic pragmatics (notably, speech act theory and conversational implicature) have shaped early politeness theories. It critically examines key politeness notions (e.g. face threatening acts; politeness principles, maxims and implicatures; politeness strategies; indirectness), highlighting how their linguistic pragmatic underpinnings led to specific problems, yet also how developments in pragmatics (e.g. Neo-Gricean pragmatics, Relevance theory) have promoted positive developments in politeness research (e.g. the frame-based approach to politeness; the various proposals for strengthening and extending Grice’s account of implicature in the context of politeness). The chapter concludes by noting how recent pragmatics researchers have taken a renewed interest in (Im)politeness phenomena because of what they can contribute to experimental and formal pragmatics research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Compliments are exclusively face-threatening in Brown and Levinson’s model but can be face-boosting in Leech’s model (2014, p. 36).

  2. 2.

    Brown and Levinson discuss the Tzeltal particle ‘ala as an example of both (1987, pp. 109, 177–8).

  3. 3.

    Recall that in Relevance Theory, implicatures can only be particularised. RT does not acknowledge generalised conversational implicatures.

  4. 4.

    Leech (2014, pp. 71–74) also discusses default implicatures in relation to politeness but does not develop these ideas further.

  5. 5.

    On the notion of perlocutionary effect see Sect. 2.1 above. The idea that politeness is a perlocutionary effect was first proposed by Fraser and Nolen (1981, p. 96).

  6. 6.

    This assumption also underlies recent game-theoretic accounts of indirect speech (Pinker et al. 2008; Lee and Pinker 2010).

  7. 7.

    Example courtesy of Bruce Fraser (pers. comm.).

  8. 8.

    It is a known limitation of Brown and Gilman’s work that their conclusions reflect the middle-class speech of their questionnaire respondents.

  9. 9.

    This shift and the pragmatic mechanisms it involves are taken up in Terkourafi (2005b).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Jonathan Culpeper

  2. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), Leiden, The Netherlands

    Marina Terkourafi

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  1. Jonathan Culpeper
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  2. Marina Terkourafi
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Correspondence to Jonathan Culpeper .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Linguistics & English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    Jonathan Culpeper

  2. School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Michael Haugh

  3. Dept of Linguistics and Modern Languages, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, United Kingdom

    Dániel Z. Kádár

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Culpeper, J., Terkourafi, M. (2017). Pragmatic Approaches (Im)politeness. In: Culpeper, J., Haugh, M., Kádár, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_2

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