Alle Publikationen
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2016
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(2016): Being Politically Impolite. Extending Politeness Theory to Adversarial Political Discourse. In: Discourse & Society 12 (4), S. 451-472. DOI: 10.1177/0957926501012004003
Abstract: This article attempts to extend politeness theory beyond informal situations to adversarial political discourse, using Prime Minister's Question Time in the British Parliament as data. Viewing the House of Commons as a 'community of practice' (Lave and Wenger, 1991) provides a way of exploring concepts of politeness and impoliteness against a set of member expectations. The article argues three main propositions: (1) that much of the discourse of Prime Minister's Question Time is composed of intentional and explicitly face-threatening (or face-enhancing) acts and that these can be analysed in terms of both propositional and interactional levels: (2) that negative politeness features co-exist with the performance of intentional threats to the hearer's positive face and that these can only be understood and interpreted in relationship to Parliament as an Institution and the wider political context; and (3) that systematic impoliteness is not only sanctioned but rewarded in accordance with the expectations of Members of the House by an adversarial and confrontational political process.
2007
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(2007): What's in an FTA?. Reflections on a chance meeting with Claudine. In: Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 3 (2). DOI: 10.1515/PR.2007.011
Abstract: This paper is about face-threatening acts (FTAs). It upholds the usefulness of the general concept as first introduced by Brown and Levinson but presents a different view of (1) what an FTA is and how it arises and (2) how to gauge the relative severity of one. Regarding (1), it argues that no act is intrinsically face-threatening and that FTAs cannot be equated with speech acts. They can only be identified in the context of the ongoing interaction. An FTA, it is suggested, is simply any move which predicates a change in face. However, its ultimate identification rests with interactants. With regard to (2), the paper demonstrates that Brown and Levinson's 'weightiness' formula does not work. It is suggested that the severity of an FTA is the product of two factors: the amount of face-change it predicates and the amount of salience accorded to face at the time. But the values of these factors are also ultimately determined by participant reactions. Both matters are addressed largely through the close examination of one particular moment in one particular encounter.
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