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Treffer: 113
  • 2017

  • Ehrhardt, Claus (2017): Tatsuhiko Yoshida. 2016. Höflichkeit als Ressource zur interkulturellen Kommunikation. Theorie und Praxis zur gesprächsanalytischen Höflichkeitsforschung. München. Iudicium. 289 S. In: Zeitschrift für Rezensionen zur germanistischen Sprachwissenschaft 9 (1-2), S. 72-77. DOI: 10.1515/zrs-2017-0012

    Abstract: Die vorliegende Monografie präsentiert sich als Beitrag zur Erforschung von sprachlicher Höflichkeit und schreibt sich damit in eine Tradition ein, die mit der wegweisenden Arbeit von Brown & Levinson (1987) beginnt. Seitdem sind zahlreiche Monografien, Sammelbände und Zeitschriftenaufsätze erschienen, die dazu beigetragen haben, dass das Forschungsgebiet, ausgehend von einer kritischen Würdigung der Pioniere, sich weiterentwickelt und differenziert hat. In den meisten Fällen wird dabei auf die Grundbegriffe der Pragmatik und der Soziolinguistik bzw. der Interaktionslinguistik rekurriert. In der Forschung hat sich weitgehend die Auffassung durchgesetzt, dass Höflichkeit im Rahmen von sprachwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen von der Etikette unterschieden werden muss und dass die Höflichkeit einer Äußerung nicht in einem direkten Abhängigkeitsverhältnis zu den verwendeten Wörtern oder Konstruktionen steht. Höflichkeit wird von vielen Forschern als Teil der sozialen Praxis und als Gegenstand von interaktionalen Aushandlungsprozessen verstanden: Sprecher und Hörer beurteilen im Gespräch wechselseitig ihre Verhalten unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Höflichkeit und passen sowohl ihre eigenen Beiträge als auch die Höflichkeitsurteile an ihr Verständnis des Gesprächsverlaufs an. Höflichkeit wird also ko-konstruiert und kann nicht als a priori gegebener und in der Sprachgemeinschaft allgemein geteilter Verhaltensmaßstab angesehen werden. Die Prozesse des Aushandelns lassen sich natürlich am besten an authentischen Gesprächsdaten untersuchen. Aus diesem Grund ist die Auseinandersetzung mit der real existierenden Kommunikation zu einem immer wieder angemahnten Bestandteil der Diskussion geworden. Neuere Arbeiten (etwa Watts 2003 oder Kádár & Haugh 2013) enthalten denn auch regelmäßig Auszüge aus transkribierten Gesprächen und diskutieren diese im Hinblick auf die Höflichkeitstheorie. Bisher wurde aber von Seiten der Höflichkeitsforschung kaum an die Arbeit der Gesprächsanalyse angeknüpft – eine Tradition, die im Umgang mit Daten geschult und empirisch versiert ist. Tatsuhiko Yoshida nimmt sich für sein Buch genau das vor und stößt damit in eine Forschungslücke. Schon im Untertitel wird deutlich, dass es dem Autor darum geht, die Höflichkeitsforschung mit der gesprächsanalytischen Praxis zu verbinden. Davon sind zweifellos interessante Einsichten über die Natur und den Stellenwert von Höflichkeit zu erwarten.

  • Ehrhardt, Claus; Neuland, Eva (Hg.) (2017): Sprachliche Höflichkeit. Historische, aktuelle und künftige Perspektiven. Tübingen, Germany: Narr Francke Attempto

    Abstract: Sprachliche Höflichkeit ist ein breit diskutiertes Thema in Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit. Oft wird ein Mangel an Höflichkeit oder gar deren Verfall beklagt. Neue Medien und die zunehmende Interkulturalität scheinen das Problem zu verschärfen. In der Sprachwissenschaft greifen zahlreiche Ansätze solche Fragen auf und versuchen eine wissenschaftliche Klärung und Einordnung in neuere theoretische und methodische Entwicklungen. Der Band dokumentiert ausgewählte Beiträge einer internationalen Fachkonferenz. Er präsentiert aktuelle Entwicklungen in der deutschen Sprache und neue Ansätze in der Höflichkeitsforschung, auch in kontrastiver Perspektive und in verschiedenen Anwendungsfeldern. Kulturhistorische Einschätzungen über Ursprung und Entwicklung von Höflichkeitskonventionen sowie Ausblicke auf künftige Herausforderungen runden den Band ab.

  • Held, Gudrun (2017) : Der face-Begriff im Schnittpunkt zwischen politeness und facework. Paradigmatische Überlegungen In: Ehrhardt, Claus; Neuland, Eva (Hg.): Sprachliche Höflichkeit: Historische, aktuelle und künftige Perspektiven: Tübingen, Germany: Narr Francke Attempto, S. 57-76
  • Lee, Namyeon; Kim, Jeonghun; Kim, Eunji; Kwon, Ohbyung (2017): The Influence of Politeness Behavior on User Compliance with Social Robots in a Healthcare Service Setting. In: International Journal of Social Robotics 9 (5), S. 727-743. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-017-0420-0

    Abstract: Particularly in the healthcare service domain, social robots are expected to be good assistants, advisers, or practitioners. To increase the effectiveness of healthcare services provided by social robots, patients must comply with their requests. Research is plentiful on what makes patients comply with healthcare advice. In this paper, which is based on Bulgurcu's study of rationality-based beliefs, command-compliance theory, and social exchange theory, we propose a research model of compliance during interaction with social robots, examining beliefs about and overall assessments of the consequences of complying with robot requests and extending the findings of previous studies to the setting of healthcare services. We specifically investigate the perceived level of politeness in robots' speech and gestures as a determinant of compliance intention. Using a social robot, NAO, as a provider of healthcare services, we conducted an experiment. The results suggest that the aforementioned theories are useful in understanding user behaviors toward social robots in a healthcare service setting. Interestingly, and unlike in other settings, the perceived level of politeness of a social robot in a healthcare service setting negatively affects the perceived benefit of compliance, and, hence, intention to comply. A lower politeness level is closer to a command or strong recommendation than a suggestion or causal recommendation, which is common in shopping, tourism, or convention settings. The findings of this study imply that polite behavior from a social robot is an important factor in the compliance of healthcare service users. Direct speech with polite gestures is the most effective way to increase patient compliance in with healthcare advice provided by social robots in healthcare settings. However, higher levels of politeness do not always increase patients' intention to comply.

  • Liu, Phoebe; Glas, Dylan F.; Kanda, Takayuki; Ishiguro, Hiroshi; Hagita, Norihiro (2017): A Model for Generating Socially-Appropriate Deictic Behaviors Towards People. In: International Journal of Social Robotics 9 (1), S. 33-49. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-016-0348-9

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-016-0348-9 

    Abstract: Pointing behaviors are essential in enabling social robots to communicate about a particular object, person, or space. Yet, pointing to a person can be considered rude in many cultures, and as robots collaborate with humans in increasingly diverse environments, they will need to effectively refer to people in a socially-appropriate way. We confirmed in an empirical study that although people would point precisely to an object to indicate where it is, they were reluctant to do so when pointing to another person. We propose a model for selecting utterances and pointing behaviors towards people in terms of a balance between understandability and social appropriateness. Calibrating our proposed model based on empirical human behavior, we developed a system able to autonomously select among six deictic behaviors and execute them on a humanoid robot. We evaluated the system in an experiment in a shopping mall, and the results show that the robot’s deictic behavior was perceived by both the listener and the referent as more polite, more natural, and better overall when using our model, as compared with a model considering understandability alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

  • Sharifian, Farzad; Tayebi, Tahmineh (2017): Perception of (im)politeness and the underlying cultural conceptualisations. In: Pragmatics and Society 8 (2). DOI: 10.1075/ps.8.2.04sha

    Abstract: The present study sets out to investigate the role of 'culture' as one of the many important factors that influence the evaluation of (im)politeness in Persian from a Cultural Linguistics perspective. The paper argues that Cultural Linguistics, and in particular the notion of cultural schema, has the potential to offer a robust analytical framework for the exploration of (im)polite use of language. We elaborate on this proposal by presenting examples of data from Persian in which speakers interpret impolite behaviour in light of a number of Persian cultural schemas. The study also offers a novel three-layered approach for the analysis of (im)politeness data that combines metadiscourse analysis with the ethnography of cultural conceptualisations, while highlighting the importance of the notion of 'heterogeneous distribution' of cultural conceptualisations, a pivotal theoretical concept in Cultural Linguistics which accounts for the variations in speakers' evaluation of (im)politeness.

  • Song, Sooho (2017): The Brown and Levinson theory revisited. A statistical analysis. In: Language Sciences 62, S. 66-75. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.006

    Abstract: The Brown and Levinson (1987) theory posits that the combination of social distance, power ratio, and task imposition determine politeness weightiness perception regardless of the culture. In order to test the effects of culture, I conducted statistical analyses using subjects with American, East Asian, and Latin American cultural backgrounds. The results reveal that task imposition does not have a statistically significant impact on the speaker's determination of politeness weightiness in East Asia while it does in the US and Latin America. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  • 2016

  • Dillard, James Price; Wilson, Steven R.; Tusing, Kyle James; Kinney, Terry A. (2016): Politeness Judgments in Personal Relationships. In: Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (3), S. 297-325. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X970163003

    Abstract: Brown and Levinson's politeness theory specifies five strategies for achieving politeness. Although the strategies are presented as ordered and mutually exclusive, there is reason to believe that they are neither The authors offer an alternative means of classifying requests that is grounded in the phenomenology of the social actor and depends on three message features: explicitness, dominance, and argument. Separate samples of judges viewed video clips of one college student attempting to influence another and provided judgments of politeness (n = 100), explicitness and overall dominance (n = 435), linguistic dominance (n = 80), or argument (n = 60). A regression analysis predicting politeness was conducted using message as the unit of analysis. The results showed a strong, negative relationship between politeness and dominance and weaker;positive associations with explicitness and argument.

  • Formentelli, Maicol; Hajek, John (2016): Address practices in academic interactions in a pluricentric language. In: Pragmatics 26 (4), S. 631-652. DOI: 10.1075/prag.26.4.05for

    Abstract: Following the recent development of address research in pluricentric languages (Clyne et al. 2006), the present study describes address practices in English-speaking academic settings and pursues two main objectives: (a) to provide a profile of address patterns in academic interactions in Australian English; and (b) to compare address practices in higher education across the three dominant varieties of English, namely American English, Australian English, and British English. The data on Australian English are drawn from 235 questionnaires completed by students, who reported on the address strategies adopted by students and teaching staff in classroom interactions in an Australian university. Data on American and British academic settings were retrieved from the research literature on the topic. The findings show a high degree of informality and familiarity in student-teacher relations in Australia, where reciprocal first names are the default pattern of address at all levels. By contrast, in American academia the hierarchical organization of roles and the different professional positions are foregrounded and reinforced through an asymmetrical use of titles, honorifics and first names. Finally, the British university setting displays a non-reciprocal usage of first names and titles between lecturer and students, which gradually evolves into a more generalised reciprocal use of first names, usually after extended contact and collaboration. We argue that the distinctive patterns of address observed in the three varieties of English reflect diverse social and cultural values systems at work in different speech communities.

  • Holtgraves, Thomas; Perdew, Audrey (2016): Politeness and the communication of uncertainty. In: Cognition 154, S. 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.05.005

    DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27232520 

    Abstract: Ambiguity in language derives, in part, from the multiple motivations that underlie the choice to use any particular expression. The use of some lexical items, such as probability expressions and scalar terms, can be motivated by a desire to communicate uncertainty as well as a desire to be polite (i.e., manage face). Research has demonstrated that the interpretation of these items can be influenced by the existence of a potential politeness motive. In general, communications about negative events, relative to positive events, result in higher likelihood estimates whenever politeness can be discerned as a potential motive. With few exceptions, however, this research has focused only on the hearer. In the present research we focused on the dyad and examined whether speakers vary their messages as a function of politeness, and the effect that this has on subsequent judgments made by a recipient. In two experiments we presented participants with situations that varied in terms of face-threat and asked them how they would communicate potentially threatening information. Both experiments included a second set of participants who read these utterances and provided judgments as to the degree of uncertainty conveyed by the utterance. In both experiments, messages in the face-threatening condition conveyed greater uncertainty than messages in the non-face-threatening condition, and the probability estimates made by the second set of participants varied as a function of conveyed uncertainty. This research demonstrates that when examining speakers and hearers together, severe events may be judged less likely (rather than more likely), because speakers tend to hedge the certainty with which they communicate the information.

  • 2015

  • Bonacchi, Silvia (2015): Der „kommunikative Raum“ in der kulturologischen (Un)Höflichkeitsforschung. In: Glottodidactica. An International Journal of Applied Linguistics 40 (1). DOI: 10.14746/gl.2013.40.1.3

    Abstract: The paper attempts to define the term "communicative space” for (im)politeness research. “Communicative space” is a crucial notion for the definition of concepts such as “ritual balance”, “discursive rule”, “discursive position”, “territoriality”, “field of action” and “co-construction of communicative interaction” (Jacoby, Ochs 1995). “Communicative space” cannot be reduced to the mere physical space in which an (im)polite communicative interaction takes place (“transactional space” according to Kendon 1990). It is a mental space, which is “co-constructed” in so far as it is the result of the convergence of the mental worlds of interactants mediated by utterences. In this sense it can be defined as a “phenomenal space” which is ruled by structuring principles and field laws. The capacity of creating convergent communicative spaces is a key competence which lays the foundations for dialogue capacity and permits successful communicative interactions; therefore it is defined as a very important educational goal in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001).

  • Caffi, Claudia (2015): (Un)expected behavior. Some general issues and a papal example. In: Journal of Pragmatics 86, S. 19-24. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2015.06.008

    Abstract: The definitional debate as to which concept - politeness or appropriateness - it to be chosen as the superordinate one is far from over in politeness studies. In this paper I will raise the question of whether unexpectedness could be a candidate as the encompassing category. I will also tackle two related issues: that of unexpected behavior as a marked choice in a given context, and that of the relevance of the emotive aspects of interaction to the construction of the context. To this end, I will advance the hypothesis that the following notions can together help understand interaction functioning: (a) the interplay/co-variance among different interactional parameters (Caffi, 2001, 2007), (b) the divergence of different kinds of expectations from anticipatory schemata (Caffi and Janney, 1994), and (c) the notion of interactional temperature (an extension of Watzlawick et al.'s, 1967 thermostat metaphor). After some preliminary remarks meant to illustrate the above-mentioned points, I will discuss an example of unexpected behavior, Pope Francis's first greeting after his election. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  • Dynel, Marta (2015): The landscape of impoliteness research. In: Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2), S. 329-354. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2015-0013

    Abstract: This article attempts to give a state-of-the-art picture of impoliteness studies and to indicate a few prospective research directions to enrich them. It critically surveys a number of theoretical and methodological problems (impoliteness vs. rudeness; intention; sanctioned face-threat; and impoliteness strategies), as well as the paramount topics of investigation (such as disagreement; arguments; insults, taboo words; or sarcasm), and discourse domains in which impoliteness can be found. Importantly, this paper brings to focus a selection of notions central to impoliteness, albeit not yet widely recognized in the scholarship on impoliteness. These include: slurs; pejoratives; and a number of phenomena promoted by computer mediated communication (e.g., flaming or trolling).

  • Mitchell, Nathaniel; Haugh, Michael (2015): Agency, accountability and evaluations of impoliteness. In: Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2), S. 207-238. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2015-0009

    Abstract: It is now well recognized that the recipients' evaluations need to be given serious consideration when theorizing impoliteness. Yet despite the importance placed on evaluations by recipients, the role of the recipient in interaction has been reduced through theorizing within the field to the ascribing of (perceived) intentions or interpreting of (perceived) social norms and expectations. We suggest, in this paper, that this under-theorizes the role of the recipient vis-a-vis evaluations of impoliteness. Building on an account of (im)politeness as social practice (Haugh 2013b, 2015; Kadar and Haugh 2013), we argue that evaluations of impoliteness inevitably involve those recipients construing the speaker's action as a particular kind of social action, and holding them accountable for that particular kind of social action with respect to particular dimension(s) of the moral order (Haugh 2013a, 2015). The accountability of social action is underpinned, in part, by the presumed agency of participants. Agency involves the socially mediated capacity to act that is afforded through 1. knowing one has the ability to act, 2. knowing that these actions may affect others (and self), and 3. knowing that one will thus be held accountable for those actions (Ahearn 2001; Duranti 2004; Mitchell forthcoming). We argue that a focus on agency in theorizing impoliteness allows for the ways in which recipients do not just simply invoke social norms or (in some cases at least) perceived speaker intentions in evaluating talk or conduct as impolite, but may also exercise their own agency in construing the speaker's actions as a particular kind of action, and thus as offensive or not. It is concluded that the agency exercised by recipients with respect to the degree to which they hold speakers accountable for impolite or offensive stances needs to be examined more carefully in theorizing about (im) politeness more generally.

  • Ridao Rodrigo, Susana; Vivas Márquez, Julia (2015): "Lo siento, pero me parecen horribles!!!": Pragmalinguistic analysis of impoliteness in the Facebook social network. In: REVISTA DE FILOLOGIA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA 33, S. 217-236

    Abstract: This paper focuses on analyzing the strategies of impoliteness displayed on two corpora of publications extracted from the social network Facebook. To this purpose, theoretical models about impoliteness designed by Culpeper (1996, 2005) and Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichmann (2003), Kientpointner (1997, 2008), Kaul (2005, 2008) and Ridao (2009) have been studied. From this analysis, two main conclusions were obtained. On one hand, the absence of hurtful impoliteness in private profiles examined, in contrast to the presence of strategies of direct impoliteness in public profiles. On the other hand, the need to analyze impoliteness in social networks taking into account these variables: direction or indirection, intentional or not intentional, membership of the damaged image (sender or receiver), low or high group connection, degree of hierarchy and familiarity

  • Ryabova, Marina (2015): Politeness Strategy in Everyday Communication. In: Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 206, S. 90-95. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.10.033

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.10.033 

    Abstract: The culture of contemporaneity presents itself through various concepts and discourses that constitute the category of everyday life, which they reveal and portray. In linguistic terms, the category of everyday life is manifested in different forms of communication, and first of all in the system of norms and models of speech behavior, known as speech etiquette. The goal of the article is to analyze the use of some models of English speech etiquette, specifically the use of politeness forms typical of the English. Politeness strategy presents itself in various types, as absolute, relative, negative or positive politeness. The type of politeness presupposes a definite form of etiquette speech act. Politeness strategy is analyzed in speech acts of apologies and condolences, through their pragmatic structures.

  • Terkourafi, Marina; Defibaugh, Staci (2015): Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Im/politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company

    Abstract: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Im/politeness brings together the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and second language experts in order to provide readers with a snapshot of the possibilities for studying im/politeness in the 21st century. The volume is organized along methodological lines in three parts each preceded by a brief introduction outlining the evolution and advantages and disadvantages of the relevant methodologies, while a specially commissioned epilogue places the volume in the field as a whole. Part I is dedicated to self-reporting studies, Part II covers observational studies, and Part III introduces experimental studies. A central goal of the present collection is to make a case for the relevance of all these types of data and of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to the ongoing theoretical debates in the field of im/politeness.

  • van der Bom, Isabelle; Grainger, Karen (2015): Journal of Politeness Research. Introduction. In: Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2), S. 165-178. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2015-0007

    Abstract: This issue marks the 10th 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 10th 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

  • A. Morand, David (2014): Using politeness to model the psychosocial dynamics of power in organizational interaction. In: International Journal of Organizational Analysis 22 (2), S. 247-273. DOI: 10.1108/IJOA-09-2011-0515

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-09-2011-0515 

    Abstract: Purpose: The purpose is to show how actors' relative power or parity is dynamically instanced in discrete speech behaviors that are exchanged throughout everyday organizational interaction. Design/methodology/approach: Politeness theory, rooted in the dramaturgical theories of Erving Goffman, details a set of linguistic indices used to show regard for others' face. This conceptual paper draws on politeness theory to model the unfolding of power relations within face-to-face verbal interchange in organizations. The paper presents a number of propositions suggesting how power differentials (or parity) are reflected in a set of common speech behaviors used to defray threats to face throughout organizational interaction. Findings: This article extends and applies politeness theory to organizations by exploring specific motives and linguistic outcomes of high and low power actors, describing the behavioral egalitarianism associated with organic organizations, and suggesting ho w the de mand characteristics of face-to-face interaction create oligarchic tendencies that militate against the success of workplace participation. Politeness' role in the social construction of power, and in distortive processes within hierarchical communication, is also discussed. Research limitations/implications: This paper enables researchers to understand the specific linguistic features associated with power-related roles, and it shows how the social distribution of certain speech behaviors is a function of power and dependency relations. Practical implications: The findings provide managers a fine-grained understanding of how power affects speech, and an understanding of how such speech patterns may stymie attempts to stimulate organizational empowerment and employee voice. Originality/value: Prior scholarship has neglected this most important topic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

  • 2013

  • Ankenbrand, Katrin (2013): Höflichkeit im Wandel. Entwicklungen und Tendenzen in der Höflichkeitspraxis und dem laienlinguistischen Höflichkeitsverständnis der bundesdeutschen Sprachgemeinschaft innerhalb der letzten fünfzig Jahre. Heidelberg University Library

    Abstract: Vorliegender Arbeit liegt die Hypothese zugrunde, dass sich gegenwärtig im bundesdeutschen Sprachgebiet ein Höflichkeitswandel vollzieht. Der Publizist und langjährige ZEIT-Redakteur Dieter E. ZIMMER (1991) spricht von einer ‘Neuen Herzlichkeit’. Beobachtbar ist die Tendenz eines Übergangs von einer etikettehaften, ritualisierten Höflichkeit mit etablierten Ausdrucksmitteln zu einer Simulation von Nähe und Vertraut¬heit, in der nichtetablierte sprachliche Mittel zum Einsatz kommen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Beschaffenheit des Höflichkeitswandels im Deutschen zu beschreiben und mögliche Ursachen zu diskutieren. Der Arbeit liegt ein korpusgestützter Untersuchungsansatz zugrunde. Das Datenkorpus, das die Grundlage zur Analyse der Höflichkeitsperformanz bildet, umfasst rund 2300 Schreiben aus dem Bereich der deutschsprachigen Geschäftskorrespondenz ausgewählter Unternehmen und öffentlicher Einrichtungen. Die Auswertung der empirischen Daten lässt den Schluss zu, dass sich als neue Höflichkeit im Deutschen vier Ausprägungsformen von Nähehöflichkeit postulieren lassen. Nähehöflichkeit zeigt sich erstens in dem Transfer von Umgangsformen aus dem Kommunikationsbereich der Nähe in den Kommunikationsbereich der Distanz, zweitens in einer erhöhten sprachlichen Kreativität und Individualität der Sprachbenutzer, drittens in einer verstärkten Verwendung konzeptioneller Mündlichkeit in der geschäftlichen Korrespondenz¬ und schließlich in der Übernahme amerikanischer Umgangsformen. Der laienlinguistische Metadiskurs über Höflichkeit verläuft parallel zu ihrer Performanz und fungiert dabei sowohl als ständiges Performanzkorrektiv wie als Initiator des Höflichkeitswandels.

  • Chen, Rong; He, Lin; Hu, Chunmei (2013): Chinese requests. In comparison to American and Japanese requests and with reference to the “East-West divide”. In: Journal of Pragmatics 55, S. 140-161. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.012

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.012 

    Abstract: This paper reports an empirical investigation of Chinese requests using Hill et al's (1986) methodology. The study has yielded the following findings. (1) Chinese requests seem to be determined by Brown and Levinson's notions of power and distance, as are Japanese and American English requests as reported in Hill et al., (2) Chinese requests may not be as direct as has been argued in the literature. We view these findings as evidence for Brown and Levinson's universal theory of politeness but against the claim that East and West are fundamentally different in their respective politeness systems (cf. Chen, 2010 and Leech, 2007).

  • Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar (2013): Introduction. Face, identity and im/politeness. Looking backward, moving forward: From Goffman to practice theory. In: Journal of Politeness Research 9 (1), S. 1-33. DOI: 10.1515/pr-2013-0001

    Abstract: The field of linguistic politeness has of late experienced a renewed interest in conceptualizations of one of its core concepts, face. Since the publication of Brown and Levinson’s formative paper in 1978 and the subsequent application of its tenets, politeness scholars, mainly Asian and non-Anglo, have raised concerns regarding the suitability of Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization of face to their respective cultures (Wierzbicka 1985; Matsumoto 1988; Ide 1989; Gu 1990; Nwoye 1992; Mao 1994). Different options were put forth to solve what was seen by many as a fundamental flaw of the model, from culture-specific reconceptualizations (Sifianou 1992; Strecker 1993; Bravo 1999) to elaborations (O’Driscoll 1996; Terkourafi 2008) or simplifications (Bousfield 2008). Some (Bargiela-Chiappini 2003; Locher and Watts 2005), have argued for a return to the Goffmanian essence of face. Yet, others, Arundale (2006, 2009, 2010), have posited new approaches to face inspired by more current models of communication based on the dyad and on social constructionist premises or have come up with discursive accounts of face (O’Driscoll 2011, Sifianou 2011). Furthermore, there seems to be a consensus that to come to grips with an understanding of face, it has to be studied on its own right, aside from politeness (Bargiela Chiappini and Haugh 2009; Haugh and Bargiela-Chiappini 2010). This renewed interest in face has coincided with the advent, albeit with some delay, of the discursive turn within politeness scholarship. The discursive turn refers to the strong trend that emerged toward the end of the 20th century to reconfigure the subject as something socio-cultural and socio-historical: an unfinished product of discourse (Benwell and Stokoe 2006). Its impact on im/politeness scholarship has been manifold. Among the many effects, it has had important repercussions for the relationship between face and identity, the focus of this special issue.

  • Haugh, Michael (2013): Disentangling face, facework and im/ politeness. In: Sociocultural Pragmatics 1 (1), S. 46-73

    Abstract: It is generally assumed in pragmatics that face is essentially a “socially attributed aspect of self”, and that politeness is one kind of facework, alongside other forms of facework such as impoliteness, mock impoliteness, mock politeness, self politeness and so on. In this paper, the assumed necessary link between face and im/politeness is questioned. Drawing from emic studies of face and im/politeness, it is argued that face and im/politeness should be studied, in the first instance, as distinct objects of study in their own right. It is also suggested that drawing from a wider range of emic conceptualisations of face and im/politeness opens up aspects of interpersonal phenomena that have been relatively neglected in pragmatics to date, namely, the importance of relationships as well as the sets of expectancies that underpin evaluations of im/politeness, as distinct areas for theorisation and analysis. It is concluded that while the Goffmanian face(work) paradigm has proven very productive in pragmatics, drawing from various other emic understandings affords further hitherto relatively under-explored analytical opportunities in the study of interpersonal phenomena.

  • Kádár, Dániel Z.; Haugh, Michael (2013): Understanding politeness. 1. publ. Cambridge u.a.: Cambridge University Press

    Abstract: Politeness is key to all of our relationships and plays a fundamental part in the way we communicate with each other and the way we define ourselves. It is not limited only to conventional aspects of linguistic etiquette, but encompasses all types of interpersonal behaviour through which we explore and maintain our relationships. This groundbreaking exploration navigates the reader through this fascinating area and introduces them to a variety of new insights. The book is divided into three parts and is based on an innovative framework which relies on the concepts of social practice, time and space. In this multidisciplinary approach, the authors capture a range of user and observer understandings and provide a variety of examples from different languages and cultures. With its reader-friendly style, carefully constructed exercises and useful glossary, Understanding Politeness will be welcomed by both researchers and postgraduate students working on politeness, pragmatics and sociolinguistics more broadly.

  • Shahrokhi, Mohsen; Bidabadi, Farinaz Shirani (2013): An Overview of Politeness Theories: Current Status, Future Orientations. In: American Journal of Linguistics 2 (2), S. 17-27

    Abstract: This paper is an endeavour to depict a holistic image of theories of politeness ranging from classic theories of politeness to the most up-to-date theories. To this end, the reviews of the social norm view, the conversational maxim view, the conversational-contract view, Brown and Levinson’s face-saving view, Arndt and Jannaey’s Supportive face-work and interpersonal politeness, Spencer-Oatey’s view of rapport management, Ide’s notion of discernment and volition, Scollon and Scollon’s intercultural communication, and Watt’s politeness view are provided and the main tenets of every theory are explained critically. The explanation of the current status of theories of politeness would be followed by conclusions that provide some orientations for future studies conducted on politeness.