Introduction: Politeness in Professional Contexts

Journal of Politeness Research (Vol 3, pp.295-317), 2007

The discursive approach to politeness represents one of the most coherent challenges to the dominance of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to date, and indeed to the continuing viability of the field of politeness research itself. However, while the discursive approach advocates the displacement of politeness as the focus of research, upon closer examination of the epistemological and ontological assumptions underlying this approach, a number of inconsistencies arise. In particular, the issue of how researchers can identify instances of (im)politeness without imposing the analysts' understandings comes to the fore. In this paper it is suggested that a theory of (im)politeness needs to examine more carefully how (im)politeness is interactionally achieved through the evaluations of self and other (or their respective groups) that emerge in the sequential unfolding of interaction. This entails the analyst looking for evidence in the interaction that such (im)politeness evaluations have been made by the participants, either through explicit comments made by participants in the course of the interaction (less commonly), or through the reciprocation of concern evident in the adjacent placement of expressions of concern relevant to the norms invoked in that particular interaction (more commonly). In this way, the development of a theory of (im)politeness within a broader theory of facework or interpersonal communication can remain a focal point for the field of politeness research.

Journal of Politeness Research, 2015

This issue marks the 10 th year anniversary of the Journal of Politeness Research: Language, behaviour, culture. Ten years ago, founding Editor-in-Chief Christine Christie established the journal as an "international and multidisciplinary forum for research into linguistic and non-linguistic politeness phenomena" (Christie 2005: 1). Under her editorial guidance, the journal published a great number of papers which embodied this founding principle. In 2010, Derek Bousfield and Karen Grainger took over the editorship and in 2013 Karen Grainger became the sole Editor-in-Chief, and the Journal of Politeness Research has grown and matured further under the stewardship of Bousfield and Grainger. Today, with the invaluable contributions of authors and reviewers, and the continuous support of the journal's readership, editorial team and advisory board, the journal remains a flagship for and a pioneer of research into all kinds of politeness phenomena. To celebrate this 10 th year anniversary, it is worth reviewing in detail what has been achieved so far, and to take a look at promising future developments of politeness research.

2014

De ning certain sequences of words as polite formulae, we o en take their polite value for granted, irrespective of context of situation in which they are used. It is worth considering whether words can be polite as such? Are they adequate means of expression, if we want to be polite? Does their use always guarantee polite behaviour? We can distinguish linguistic politeness and extralinguistic politeness. us, to be polite we do not need words. However, if we decide to use them, the so-called polite formulae do not always guarantee the reception of our behaviour as polite. Like many other values, politeness is relative. Participants of social interaction may di er in evaluation of the behaviour of particular persons taking part in it. A matter of contention is a set of evaluative expressions, such as polite, impolite and rude. In other words, what is considered polite by some people may be impolite for others. And it is out of the question to di erentiate between them like between good-bad or black-white. Polite and impolite are part of the same spectrum, the spectrum of interactional behaviour. Richard Watts 1 calls it relational work. It is "the 'work' individuals invest in negotiating relationships with others" 2. It comprises negatively marked behaviour (impoliteness, rudeness, overpoliteness), positively marked behaviour (politeness), and unmarked behaviour (politic behaviour) 3. e di erence between the former two and the latter lies in that (im)polite behaviour is the one which is perceived as being beyond what is expectable, while politic behaviour, as Watts 4 de nes it, is "linguistic behaviour which is perceived to be appropriate to the social constraints of the ongoing interaction, i.e. as non-salient. " (Im)politeness is a value dependent on context of situation. Depending on the context, interactants' behaviour can be perceived as polite, appropriate or politic, impolite and rude. e perception of (im)politeness depends on such contextual components as relation be

Early work on “politeness” and more recent work on “impoliteness” have provided a wealth of insight into the kinds of strategies used to either protect and save the “face” of interactants, or disregard and attack it, respectively. Even though, at a theoretical level, recent interactional and relational approaches to communication clearly show that both politeness and impoliteness should be encapsulated into a single theoretical framework, most empirical research has concentrated on one or the other of these, even though in both natural and institutional interaction these strategies may be mixed in the same encounter. Indeed, there are some contexts in which speakers use politeness strategies to build up the conversation to a point where they can make an impolite remark. Interestingly, one such context is The Weakest Link, an “exploitative” TV programme (Culpeper 2005) whose attraction for the audience lies in its “sanctioned aggressive facework” (Watts 2003: 260). This programme depicts an environment where the hostess is “licensed” to attack the contestants’ face, but only after having collected adequate material through a systematic use of positively polite strategies. This paper investigates the management of impoliteness through politeness and intends to show that these two can be components of the same interaction.

Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 2009

Journal of Pragmatics, 1990

These raise but a few of the important questions to be asked in pursuit of an understanding of what linguistic politeness is, how it is used, what factors influence a speaker's choice to be heard as polite and what sort of a model is maximally useful. Optimists take the position that if we continue to work on the problem, we can expect to arrive at a serious theory of politeness, necessarily somewhat different from the existing model. Pessimists, on the other hand, take the position that while we all know polite behavior when we see it, we will never be able to speak definitively about it. I am an optimist. U n c o r r e c t e d p r o o f s - J o h n B e n j a m i n s P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y TSL[v.20020404] Prn:24/03/2005; 13:17 F: PB13903.tex / p.2 (66) U n c o r r e c t e d p r o o f s - J o h n B e n j a m i n s P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y

rEFLections

The job application letter is a sub-genre of business letter. It is a formal letter and is aimed to promote the applicant for a specific job application. This paper describes and analyses the discursive elements of a sample letter by using the principles of politeness proposed by Leech (1983, 2005). The findings display the interplay of Modesty and Approbation Maxims, while the Tact Maxim also plays a part in the interpretation of the letter.

Cultura Lenguaje Y Representacion Culture Language and Representation, 2006

Bousfield suggests the need to focus on the negative term in the binary opposition im/politeness, that is impoliteness, though acknowledging that it has a distinctive nature which requires that it be approached in its own terms. In this light, the study of positive / negative face in relation to im/politeness must be reoriented to give appropriate weight to contextual factors such as the psychology of im/ politeness, the generation of contextualised implicatures and the context of discursive production.

REiLA : Journal of Research and Innovation in Language

This study aimed at reviwing brown levinson politeness strategies purposed in their book (1978) entitled "POLITENESS (Some Universals in Language Usage)". Over the past three decades, there has been a significant increase in research on politeness strategies from social and linguistic aspects. This is evident from the many papers that appear on this issue in international journals and monographs. Brown and Levinson (1978) developed a theory to explainphenomena related to the Politeness on verbal communication and non-verbal. This article For methods using a content analysis approach as a qualitative in research. Which has been studied in the book Brown & Levinson This article is interested in focusing on the types of politeness strategies put forward by Brown and Levinson (1978). This present study sees politeness stretegies proposed by brown and levinson still can be used in current situation related politeness both verbal and non verbal communication.

1970

Bousfield suggests the need to focus on the negative term in the binary opposition imlpoliteness, that is impoliteness, though acknowledging that it has a distinctive nature which requires that it be approached in its own terms. In this light, the study of positive / negative face in relation to idpoliteness must be reoriented to give appropriate weight to contextual factors such as the psychology of i d politeness, the generation of contextualised implicatures and the context of discursive production.