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The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness pp 357–379Cite as

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(Im)politeness: Prosody and Gesture

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Abstract

This chapter looks at how (Im)politeness is communicated through non-verbal means, including prosody and gesture. Brown and Prieto show that multiple acoustic features pattern with politeness- and impoliteness-related meanings, including fundamental frequency (pitch), duration (length), intensity (loudness) and various aspects of voice quality, including breathiness. Despite claims that there is a frequency code by which high pitch is universally associated with politeness, the authors demonstrate that cross-linguistic research does not always support such claims. Various co-speech gestures and other non-verbal features also interact closely with prosody in the communication of politeness, including manual gestures, facial expressions and bodily orientation. Discussions in this chapter show (Im)politeness to be a complex phenomenon communicated through multiple modalities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We would like to thank Bodo Winter and Sven Grawunder for allowing us to use this example.

  2. 2.

    Praat can be downloaded free of charge from www.praat.org. This website also includes a useful beginner’s manual and tutorials.

  3. 3.

    R can be downloaded free of charge from www.r-project.org. For an easily accessible tutorial on the linguistic applications of R, see Winter (2013).

  4. 4.

    ELAN is a professional tool for the creation of annotations on video and audio resources. The program can be downloaded free of charge from http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

    Lucien Brown

  2. ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Pilar Prieto

Authors
  1. Lucien Brown
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  2. Pilar Prieto
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucien Brown .

Editor information

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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Brown, L., Prieto, P. (2017). (Im)politeness: Prosody and Gesture. 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_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_14

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-37507-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-37508-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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