Politeness

Abstract

During the fifteen years prior to the first publication of this book in 2003, existing models of linguistic politeness generated a huge amount of empirical research. Using a wide range of data from real-life speech situations, this introduction to politeness breaks away from the limitations of those models and argues that the proper object of study in politeness theory must be commonsense notions of what politeness and impoliteness are. From this, Watts argues, a more appropriate model, one based on Bourdieu's concept of social practice, is developed. The book aims to show that the terms 'polite' and 'impolite' can only be properly examined as they are contested discursively. In doing so, 'polite' and 'impolite' utterances inevitably involve their users in a struggle for power. A radically new account of linguistic politeness, the book will appeal to students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, in linguistics and the social sciences.

Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action

“…[26] This is a special case of another common property of network formation, homophily, the tendency of people to connect with others similar to them. [27] Assuming, as we have, that node degree is correlated with networked power, this implies that powerful people within a networked public will be clustered together. An assortatively mixed network looks a lot like the public sphere described by Fraser: not just marked by inequality between individuals, but between publics and counterpublics.…”

“…I argue that the tools of network science [16] give us ways to think rigorously about parity and power within networked publics. This rigorous understanding can then be used to design politically motivated technical interventions.…”

“…In contrast, the distribution of personal height is normally distributed-roughly bell shaped, with many people around average height and a few extremes in both directions. [22] Networks that have power law degree distribution are called scale-free networks.…”

Of babies and bath water: Is there any place for Austin and Grice in interpersonal pragmatics?

“…These problems are covered well by a number of politeness scholars such as Eelen (2001), Watts (2003) and Mills (2003) and it is not my intention here to go into these arguments again in detail. However, I would like to point out what aspects of the traditional approach may be usefully salvaged.…”

“…The move towards a 'discursive' approach to pragmatics seems to have gained momentum in the field of politeness research largely as a reaction to Brown and Levinson's (1978;1987) treatment of linguistic politeness, much of which is entrenched in Gricean and Austinian pragmatics. Critics of Brown and Levinson (Eelen, 2001;Watts, 2003;Mills, 2003) have shown that this traditional approach to language in use (also characterised by Leech, 1983 andLevinson, 1983) has a number of weaknesses, largely arising out of a tendency to focus on speaker intention and decontextualised utterances. The 'answer' to these criticisms is generally thought to lie with a discursive approach to data analysis, since it has the benefit of using stretches of naturally-occurring instances of language in use.…”