5. Researching impoliteness and rudeness: Issues and definitions

Swearing methodologically : the (im)politeness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on Youtube

“…As already indicated, the present discussion is premised on the distinction between first order politeness (lay language users' approach to politeness) and second order politeness first addressed by Watts et al (1992) and Eelen (2001). The dichotomy is also applied to impoliteness (Locher and Bousfield 2008;Bousfield 2008bBousfield , 2010. Researchers tend to argue in favour of moving scholarly analysis to how participants themselves view (im)politeness in discourse (Haugh 2007;Mills 2003;Watts 2003), in order to ensure that the "analyst's interpretation is consonant or analogous with the participant's understanding" (Haugh 2007: 311).…”

“…the next section), lay language users have a tendency towards a different opinion. As Bousfield (2010) rightly notes, daily occurrences reported in the media, as well as legal acts testify that, in first order politeness, expletives are conventionally considered impolite/rude (in non-theoretic terms, the two words may be used interchangeably). Thus, language users tend to consider them to be offensive, at least in formal contexts, or prohibited by the letter of the law, speakers' intentions and situational factors notwithstanding.…”

“…Researchers tend to argue in favour of moving scholarly analysis to how participants themselves view (im)politeness in discourse (Haugh 2007;Mills 2003;Watts 2003), in order to ensure that the "analyst's interpretation is consonant or analogous with the participant's understanding" (Haugh 2007: 311). This article champions a tenet that second order approach needs to recruit first order understandings (Locher and Bousfield 2008;Lorenzo-Dus 2009;Bousfield 2010). Accordingly, second order terms should be used to capture first order communicative phenomena.…”

“…According to the model of intention-based impoliteness (e.g. Culpeper 2005Culpeper , 2008Culpeper et al 2003;Bousfield 2007Bousfield , 2008aBousfield , 2008bBousfield , 2010Lorenzo-Dus 2009) espoused here, it is verbal acts which are produced with an intention to cause harm that should be conceptualised as impoliteness, as opposed to (unintentional) rudeness. The latter is anchored in utterances which, even if produced intentionally as such, are not intended to give rise to face threat, and yet they do from the hearer's perspective.…”

“…This article aims to tease out a number of methodological issues pertinent to studies on the (im)politeness of swearing, with special focus on Internet discourse, typified by written commentaries on YouTube. This necessitates the application of second order (im)politeness, which must be informed by the first order approach (see Locher and Bousfield 2008, Lorenzo-Dus 2009, Bousfield 2010, for a distinction between the two see Watts et al 1992;Eelen 2001;Locher and Bousfield 2008;Bousfield 2008bBousfield , 2010. Additionally, a number of other theoretical issues central to (im)politeness research are addressed, such as the relational view, which is embedded in the first order approach (Watts 2003;Locher 2004Locher , 2006Watts 2005, 2008), the premise of speaker's intentions underlying (im)politeness (e.g.…”