politeness (nevala 2010)

7/21/2019 Politeness (Nevala 2010)

1/18

Hndbcoks of Pragmatics F{istoricalPragmatics

EclitorsWolframBublitzAndreas H. JuckerKlaus P. Schneicler

Volume B

Edired byAndreas H. JuckerIrma Taavitsainen

De Gruyter Mouton5, r .{{,

De Gruyter Mouton


2/18


3/18

420 Vlinna Nevaia

lookingat reasons for changes in reciprocal politeness than, for example, fictionand letters (e.g. Kielkiewicz-Janowiak1992; Bruti2000; Nevala 2004: Kohnen2008a and 2008b). In particular, studies that compare court language withdramaticdialogue have revealed differingpatterns in the writtenand spoken forms of politelanguage use. In addition to address terms, there have also been studies on powerand solidarity (e.g. Brown and Gilman 1960, 1989; Calvo L99l; Hart 2000), defer-ence (Fitzmaurice2001), politeness strategies (Kopytko1993,I995; Tieken-Boonvan Ostade 1999; Martino2000) and gender-specific use of politeness (Pakkala-Weckstrm 2002,2003). The few studies on impolitenessin historicerl materialhave, on the other hand, concentrated on insulting speech acts and aggressive lan-guage use, hostilityand verbal "duelling"(e.g.Culpeper 1996, 1998; Bax 1999;Jucker and Taavitsainen 2000; Kryk-Kastovsky2006; Rudanko 2006; Chapman2008). The material for these studies has mainlybeen taken tiom drama as wellasauthentic courtroonl discourse.

One of the reasons for the dominance of stuciies on polite language use over lin-guistic impoliteness concerns the prevalent interest in flrst-order normativeap-proaches to politeness in general. The situation is gradually imprclving,since mod-els such as those in Culpeper (1996) and Culpeper, Bousfieldand Wichmann(2003) are being increasingly used and modified,and also significantlyrevised bythe originalauthors themselves, to suit the analyses of different modern and his-toricaldata (see e.g. Culpeper 2005, 2008; Archer 2008; Bousfield2008a, 2008b;Bousfield and Culpeper 2008; Locher and Bousfield 2008).The same recurrentthemes are taken up in the context ofboth politeness and impoliteness theories andtheir applications: the principles of (ini)politelanguage use and its universal fea-tures have been a hotbed of modern politeness research for several decades, and, asmy followingsynthesis willshow, have recently started to emerge in the fieldclfhistoricalpragmatics as well.

2. What is politeness? On the conternporarytheoretical background

As studies on premodern data show, historical(im)politenessresearch has beenrelatively successfully builton modern politeness models and theories. lnstead ofan in-depth examinationof well-knowntheories, like Bror,vn and Levinson's(1978, 1987) orWatts's (2003) niodels, I willdiscuss here some of the ba.sic pol-iteness issues that have been the cause of debate over the past two decades. Sinceissues concerning polite language use, power, distance and positive/negative pol-iteness are increasingly recurrent themes in historical pragmatics as well,I willconcentrate more closely onsome facts about these topics in this section.

Politeness 421

2"1,. Definitionof politeness

The ciscussion around the concept of politeness itself has been going on for morethan two decades. one of the most debatecl definitionsof what constitutes politelanguage use is, of course, that discussed in Brownand Levinsion,stheory. But, asMeier(1995), for one, notes, although Brownand Levinson have formulated a the-ory of politeness, the term is never actually defined in their book. Instead, theyfocus on describing politeness via accounts of negative ancl positive politenessstrategies" To them, understanding how people ,rr" iunguuge in a strategic" mean-ingfulway requires reconstructingspeakers' communicativeintentions and thelogicbehind their linguisticchoices (Brown and Levinson19g7: g).

This strategicness of politeness to redress face threats has been


4/18

422 MinnaNevalai-

varying interpretations, or folk-notions,of politeness. According to House anclKasper (1981 157), politeness is a specificallyurbane form of emotionalcontrol.3It can also be separated from what is considered "normal"behaviour: it includesthe kind oflanguage used "beyond"what is expected in a communicativesitu-ation.

Watts (1992 65-67,2003: 19,21,133,156,169; see also Thomas 1995 152)also sees this normal behaviour as politicand argues that, for example, forms of ad-dress do not represent politeness at all, unless they are used "inexcess" of what is

necessary, in whichcase they become a conscious choice of the speaker. Weshould, of course, remember that when we start talking about any consciouschoices made in a communicativesituation, it is, as Watts argues, the interactantsthemselves who define the "norm"for each encounter, not the researcher (see sec-tion 5 below for further discussion; also Jucker 2008: 23-24)"

As one of the latest discussants on politeness theory, Haugh ar_ques that "thepostmodern approach" employed by, for example, Watts (2003, 2005) and Locherand Watts (2005) abandons not only a predictive and a descriptivetheory of pol-iteness, but also "any attempts to develop a universal, cross-culturallyvalid theoryof politeness" (Haugh2007:291). This results in a situation in which a theory ofpoliteness is not seen as a necessary element, and thus the focus of politeness re-searchers easily shifts to broader issues of interpersonal interactionor "relationalwork"(L,ocher and Watts 2005)" Whether it is possible to formulate a universalpoliteness theory an issue that has been, and no doubt willcontinue to be, at thecentre of attention in the fieldsof pragmatics and discourse analysis, very nruch sobecause of the great ditTerences between polite language use in the western andeastern hemispheres.a

').2. Power and distanceLike the preceding aspect of Brownand Levinson's politeness theory, the socio-logicalvariables clf power and distance have been criticisedfromboth a functionaland a structural point of view.In general, Brownand Levinson are said to representa traclitionalapproach. in which variables are related to politeness as external fac-tors that workmore closely for socially hierarchical,rather than functional, pllr-poses (Werkhofer 1992: 114: for a discussion of power in both traditionaland so-

cial approaches, see Eelen 200'1: 224, also Bousfieldand Locher 2008). Thernodern view, on the other hand, takes the variables as dynamic forces affecting so-cial language Llse, and afTecting not onlypoliteness strategies, but also the structureof discourse itself and the negotiation of participant roles (Diamorid1996: I49',Blum-Kulka1997: 53).

It has also been argued that Brown and l,evinson's definitionof power and dis-tance is vague, sirnplistic and incomplete,particularlyin the historical str"rdies ofKopytko(1993) and Brownand Gilman (1989).s It must be noted, hor,vever, that

politeness 423the concepts are considered difficultto clefine, both fiom the historical and themodern perspective. According to"rhomas (lgg5: l2g), power and distance areoften confused with each other, since people tend to be sociallydistant from thosesuperior in power. Also wetzel ( I gg3: +02) describes power as a ,,slippery conceptat best' and ineffectiveat worst",and concludes that iiisextrem"ryoiin.ultto finda neutral term that wouldcover the meaning of power in most cultures (for a morecomplete discussion of power and distan. u, pragmoticconcepts, see spencer_Oatey 1996)"

The variabilityof power can be seen either as intent.ionalor unintentional,or asnegotiable and interactive(Diamond1 996: r-56; Hart 2000:2r0).Moreover, it canbe thought of both in terms of a capacity to reach a goal and in termsi of relationalpower over the other petson.6 Djstance usually .orr.lut., with negative politeness,and many studies have shown that relational.lor.n"r*induces explicitspeech anddirectness, since informalityis something that is expected of the interactants (Dil-lard et al' 1991:318). Similarly,intentionalhostilityor rudeness can cause defer-ence to be i-qnoredor cliscounted (Janney and Arndt1992:40; see also Kasper,s no,tionof "motivated rudeness", r990: 20g) Jary ( r99g), Lherefore, refuses to drawany conclusions as to the nature of the relationbetween a linguisticformor a prag-matic strategy ancl the values of the variables. Culpeper (lgg6: 354),on the otherhand' reminds us that there is evi


5/18

424 iVlinnaNevala

Manes and Wolfson(1981: 130-131) have found that some strategies that havebeen considered by Brownand Levinsonas threatening negative face can be usedto create or affirm solidarity,i.e. to attend to positive face. Such is the case withcomplimenting,for example (see Brownand Levinson1987: 66 for their interpre-tation). Negative face cannot thus always be redressed by negative politeness strat-egies, nor positiveface withpositivestrategies, since politeness "stretches overmore than one speech event" (Watts 2003:93-95: fora discussion of the applica-bilityof negative politeness in historicalresearch, see Held 2010 in section 5below).Those theories that criticise the overall existence of politeness in the strategiesinclude Watts (2003: 95,97) who, as already mentioned in the previous section, ar-gues that what Brown and Levinsoncall positive and negative strategies are morestrategies of faceworkthan politeness.B Accordingto Watts, it is arguable whetherall utterances, or lir-rguistic structures,represent linguisticpoliteness. Sell (1992:115-ll6)argues that politeness on the whole "is neither here nor there", and thatsornetimes politeness can be achieved, in fact, by being impolite.

Diamond(1996: 49) links social "group preservation" and "self assertion"withpeople's use of negative and positive politeness, although she prefers to callthe strategies "deference" and "solidarity""rIn lde's (1989: 239) opinion,Brownand Levinsonmixbehavioural strategies withlinguisticstrategies, and do notproperlyallowthe existence of formalelements that are not always volitional,such as honorifics(for f'urther discussionsee Matsumoto1989; concerning histori-cal research, see also Kdr2007). Brownand Levinson(1987: 230) do, however,also discuss cases of mixingelements of both strategies, and admit that, forexample, in some utterances, negativeiypolite techniques, such as using tag-ques-tions, may stillend up being interpreted as positively polite.They call this kind ofstrategy a hybrid strategy. They (1987: l8) also admit that they may have been inerror in setting aside two mutually exclusive strategies, altlioughthey persist thatconfusionin the interpretation ofwhich strategy is used may be due to the fact thatthe use of linguisticelements like address fbrms can be subject to dualisticevalu-ation.

Brown and Levinson's politeness theory has been shown by many to be usefuland flexible,particularly in the study of address use. Reasons for this includethatthe differentiationbetween negative and positive politeness fits the complexityofdifferent formulae,and the fact that the model includes the variables of power anddistance helps the analysis of the social, interpersonal andhierarchical lactors inthe choice of address" Furthermore, the theory is considered broad enough to allownot only the analysis of the use of politeness in many contemporary societies, butalso in historical ones. On the formallevel, the notions of positive and negativepoliteness can be used to describe how and why the forms are constructed as theyappear in various data. The strategies have allowedthe study of not only variationin the overalluse of different linguistic items and the diachronic change occurring

in time, but also of variationthat occurswillbe explained in more detail in theand impoliteness research.

Politeness 425

within the items themselves. These factorsfollowingsections on historicalpoliteness

3. Politeness in historical datausing historicalmaterial means making compromises at many dit1'erent levels.

In alinguisticanalysis, applyingmodern tools can be challengingand rewarding,butsometimes also frustrating,since present-clay models and theories often originatefrom studies of language forms and communicativesituations that greatly differfrom those of the past. There are, however, also models of politeness that may be,and have in fct been, developed and applied withhistoricalmaterial in mind"Inthis section, I wrllfirst go through the seminal studies by Brown and Gilman (1960,1989)' then discrtss historicalpoliteness from both a social and a functionalper-spective' and finallyconcentrate more closely on politeness research cond*cted onearly letters and literature.

3.1 . Brownand GilmanIn one of the most central models for the diachronicstudy

of adclress pronouns inGermanic and Romance languages, Brownand Gilman( 1g60) look at how shifts inpower and solidarityin the relationship between the speaker and the hearer areshown in the use of pronorninalforms (Ttuland vfousJ). power involves..a rela-tionship between at least two persons, ancl it is nonreciprocal in the sense that. bothcannot have power in the same area of behavior,, (255). Soiidarity, on the otherhand, concerns the "general relationship", and it is a symmetricar trlhenonrenon258)' The analysis is mostly based on the social perspective in that they see thepr:imaryreason for the iiifferentuse of address pronouns being status related. Re-spectfui V forms are used froman inferiorto a superior, while T forms are usedeither by superiors in return, or between equals. The relationshipbetween interac-tants is also marked in terms of the solidaritysemantic, scaling from mutual fam-iliarityto clistance' In addition to being corrstrainecr by purely social factors. theway in which power a'nd soliclaritymanifestthemselves in langr:age use can also beaffected by group normativityand indiviclualattitude.

The results have been corroboraterJ by a later study (Brownancl Gilman l9g9),whichshows that the use of address pronouns and indirect requests in shakes-peare's plays also reflect the social andcontextual positions of the speaker and theaddressee' Solidarityaff-ects adclress usage, which means that the pronoun you iscommonlyused between equals, such as spouses, adulf brothers and sisters, par-ents and their adult children, and gentle-bornfriends"The use of thott is, on theother hand, largely restricted to inieraction bet."veen members of ungentle ranks.


6/18

426 NlinnaNevala

plays'*were chosbn because they providegood informationon colloquialspeechof the Shakespeare era. The basis for the study is the notions ofpower, distance andranking of a face-threateningact, which are the dimensions of contrast in the mi-nimailycontrasted dyads Brownand Gilmanset out to search for in the plays.When such a pair is found,the two speeches are scored for politeness. BrownandGilman (1989: 166) also oppose mutual exclusiveness and present a modifiedver-sion of the strategies, in whichboth are subsumed under a single strategy of redressr,vhere they may or may not be mixed. This means that politeness strategies work

on the "few-many"scale, whichsuggests that when a face-threatening act is re-dressed, the amount of redress willincrease as the risk offace loss of weightiness(W*)increases.

Brownand Gilmandiscuss deference in the tragedies by dividingnames andtitles, for exarrrple, inioseparate categories and scoring them on a scale from-lto+2.The categories include names withhonorificadjectives (e.g, vrtliantOthello),unadorned titles (e.g. sir, madarn) and adornerl titles (e.g. gentle lady). 'Ihe firstand second are scored withone point, and the third withtwo points. Christiannames alone form a neutral category, and therefore score no points fbr deference(except for royaity). Points are then added, which means that positivelypolite andnegativelypolite terms are combined to make up a total score. The method makesit difficultto differentiate between mixed forms of address, and it can be arguedthlt the detailed model complicates, for example, the classificationof such formu-lae as my respectfut Lord and my dear Lordby givingthem the sa.me number ofpoints.

Furthermore,Brown and Clilmanargue that politeness in Shakespeare is "gov-erned by feeling",and that an additionalparameter of "relationshipal-fect"shouldbe adclecl to Brownand Levinson's variables. Instead of talking about pclwer, dis-tance and ranking of imposition, we should be talking about power, affectionandextremitygf face threat (1989: 168, I 96, I99). HowBrownand Gilman's interpre-tation cliffersfrom that of Brown and Levinsonis not exhaustively explained in thestudy, since variation in the degree of politeness withinthe material itselfcannot beexplained by genre characteristics alone.10

Brownand Gilman's controversial,and in part vague, article has given cause tomany later studies, mainly on the use of address terms and pronouns. Asone of thelater researchers on the subject, Busse (2003; see also lv{azzon2003) looks at ad-clress in Shakespeare's plays. His aim is to study whether Brownand Gilman'sclairn that the address pronouns followthe status rule in a predictable mannercanbe validateci,by fclcusing on both the pronominaland the nominal forrrs.His re-sults show that their modelis too rigi


7/18

428 Minna Nevala

nowiaktgT2; Calvo iggZ:Nevalainen 1994: Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg1995; Raumolirr-Brunberg1996: Nlagnusson 1999; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 1999;Mazzon2000; Blake 2002, Fitzmaurice2002;Nevala 2002,2003).rrSocialdis-tance, in particular, has been considered an influentialfactor in the development ofboth nominal and pronominal forms of address. In some cases, social constraintsand norms have been found to outweigh interpersonal or interactional factors.Suchis the case, for example, in relationships orsituations that involve social mobility(Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg1995 Nevala 2002).The choice between dif-

ferent politeforms can, on the other hand, be considered a highlyconscious one,and therefore different approaches on address use often involvenot only the socialand conventional, but also the functionalfactors concerning the attitudinal andsituational background of the interaction (see e.g" Pakkala-Weckstrm2002,2003;Burnley 2003).

The rnore functionai approach goes deeply into the contextual level ofthe text"It has been used in studies by Hope (1993, 1994), Jucker (2000), Bruti (2000) andHonegger (2003), to mention a few. Here, the social status of the writer/speaker isnot the primarypoint of departure; instead, differences in the use of address areseen as momentaryshifts that derive frclm thecontext of the utterance. Accordingto Bruti(2000: 28; also Bentivoglio2003: 188), for example, fluctuationin the useof address terms is not necessarily triggered by shifts in social status but caused byvariation in re_gister and style or changes in emotional and affective attitudes of the

speaker.The more central aspect in anaiysing politeness is, then, the interactional status

that the speaker establishes in a discourse situation. The social status of the inter-actants is considered a relatively fixedcharacteristic, whiietheir social roles areseen as more flexibleand dependent on the nature of interpersonal relationshipsand temporaryshifts in power (Jucker 2000; see also Calvo 1992). "Ihechoice be-tween address forms is not governed by rigidconventions, and so situationalchanges have a strong influence on, for example, whichpronoun of address ischosen. In her study of Shakespeare's language, Calvo (1991: 16-17) sees anyshifts between the two pronouns as triggered by speech acts, so that, for example,thctn is usually used in insults,apostrophes, promises and expressions of gratitude.Shifts also seem to correlate witha change of topic as well as with the beginningand ending of sections in dialogue. In general, changing the pronoun of address canbe anaiysed as a textual marker that indicates that the interaction"is taking a newdirection"(Caivo1991: l7).

Fluctuationin the use of thou and you has mostlybeen studied in dialogicma-terial, such as collrtrecords and plays, which seem better suited for lookingat rea-sons for changes in reciprocal address usage than, for example, fictionand letters.Particularlystudies that compare court language withdrarnatic dialogue have re-vealed differingpatterns in the writtenand spoken use of address.12 In one suchstudy, Hope (1993: 97) contrasts court records with,for example, Shakespeare's

Politeness 429

plays, and his results show that by the middle of the sixteenth century, the use ofthou andyou was already different in speech ancl wriring(see also Mazzon 2003:239; Bergs 2004)" In his later study, Hope (1994:147) distinguishes between socialstatus and situational fluctuation,and concludes that the micropragmaticshiftingfrornone address pronoun to another is mostly restricted to "exchanges,,, i.e. con-versations in whichboth participants use address pronouns" instead of "addresses,,,i.e" discourse where onlyone participant uses address. I{ope(1994: L44-145) il-lustrates an emotive use of thou in an exchange from the Durham depositions bythe followingexcerpr (l) (italics original):(1.) Bullman'swifeIto Styllynpe/:,.Noughtie pak,,

styllyngefto Bullrnan's wifel:"what nowtynes know youby me? I am neythergoossteler nor steg [gander] steiler, I would yoaknelv ytt,'Bullman's wife[to styllynge]:"what, noughty hoore, caull thoy me goosesteiler?"styllynge [to Bullman'swife]:"Nay, mayry, I knowthee for no such, but Ithank you f.or yonr good reporte, whillsyott and I talk futher',r3

Here an opening insult is followectby a more subtle counter.insuit, whichimpliesthat Bullman'swifeherself is a goosestealer. This provokesBullman's wifeto afurtherattack and the use of thou, to whichStyllyngethen answers firstusing thou,but then changing back to you.This, in Hope's opinion, ,,retains for styllynge thehigh moral ground of restraint, and impliesa superiorityin keeping wittr the formaltone" (1994:145).

Walker (2000, 2003) makes a comparison sirnilar to Hope's between dramatexts and authentic speech from court records. She notes thliLthott used in the cle-positions is heavily marked, mostly to express either emotionor the inferiorityofthe addr:essee, whereasyoLtis used as the neutral form.Not surprisingly,she finclsthat in drama the choice between the two pronollns seems to be based more on ar-tisticmeans than on contemporary usage .[n her later work, Walker (2007) pointsout certain difficuitiesin applyingpoliteness theory to the use of thott and..yort: theuse of the pronouns does not only relate to faceworl


8/18

430 Minna Nevala

erned purefi by either social, societal, personal, interpersonal or interactional fac-tors. For example, Arnovick(2000: 117-I18) talks about the relatic-rnshipbetweennegative politeness and discursisation, i.e. the process of illocutionary"smooth-ing"of tlre discourse functionof a linguisticitem, such as goodbye. She argues thatthe term was discursised partly because there was a need for something to mark theclosure of an interactional sequence. Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Faya Cerqueiro(2007:440)also suggest that the wordplease was developed as a negative polite-ness marker in encounters between servants and their socialsuperiors mainlybe-

cause of the need for more or new politeness terms in power-related discourse dur-ing the Late Modern English period.Similarly, the pr:oblematic relationshipbetween distauce, indirectness and pol-

iteness is taken up by Del Lungo Camjciotti(2008) whose study on directives andcommissives in early English business correspondence touches on the issue of rit-ualised language use and conventionalisation.She (2008: 119) reminds us that inpast politeness researh tn" notion ofpoliteness has been partly linked to howdi-rect or indirect a person is, for example, in requesting someone to do something orcommittingoneself to a course of action.l5 Indirectness has sometimes been con-siclered a corelative to polileness. Recently, Culpeper and Archer (2008: 76) haveargued, however, that indirectness and politeness cannot be taken as necessary cor-relates, ancl therefore we rnust be careful not to make any definiteconclusions, forexample, on eariy cultures being "less polite"than present-day ones (see also dis-cussion in section 5 beiow).

.3"3. Early letters and literature: Politeness, facelorkor discernment?Ilrownand Levinson's concepts of positive politeness and negative politeness havebeen the basis mostly for analyses of address formulae in literary as well as in non-literarytexts. In addition to studies of address used in drama and courtroomdis-course (e.g. Hope 1993 Nevalainen 1,994; Walker 2007), private letters haveyielded fruitfulmaterial for this purpose. In their article on salutational forms ofaddress in personal early English correspondence, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg (1995) make a thorough pragmatic survevof both diachronic trendsandsocial differences, studying the increase in positivepoliteness strate-qies" 'I'hey ac-knowiedge the method introduced by Brown and Gilman ( 1989), but conclude,however, that because of the structure of the address formulae in letters, usingquantitative methods likescoring causes problems in the analysis. In their opinion,the additive models introduced by previous scholars could oniyshow "shifts in thestructuralcomplexityof address formnoun phrases" (Nevalainenand Raumolin-Brunberg 1995: 590). Therefore, they suggest that a qr,ralitative approach should beused instead.

Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg's (also Raumolin-Brunberg1996) basicsolution to the problem is an idea of a scale of politeness - a politeness continuum -

Family\brother)

Terms ofendearment

(sweetheart)Nicknames

(WID

Adjectivesworshipful kindhonotred hvingFigure I. The politeness continuum(adapted from Raumolin-Brunberg 1996: 171)whichcan be seen in Figure 1. The scale ranges from markers of negative polite-ness, i.e. honorificsand titles, to markers of positive politeness, such as nicknamesand terms of endearment. Occupationaltjtles and kinship terms are placed in themiddle of the scale, since they often appear withinthe same context as the forms ateither end of the scale (i.e. Captnin Johnson and Brother Joh.n).

Nevala (2003) has nrade even finerdistinctionswithinNevalainen and Raumo-lin-Brunberg'sscalar politenes.s model in her study on address forrns in Early Mod-ern English tamilycorrespondence" Her analysis shows that, on the whole, thepositiveend of the scale is better represented than the negative encl, ancl there is ageneral movement towards the positive end from the fitteenth to the seventeenthcentury. 'Ierms showing positivepoliteness increase in letters between spouses, inparticular. The address forms also become simpler, but this does not seem to have anoticeable effect on the degree of positive politeness" Instead, it seerns that poweris a weightier factor in the diachronic increase in positive politeness at least: itspreads more slowlyin letters writtenfrom a familymember of less relative powerto a member of more power, at least in the.case of a chilclwritingto his/her parent.Similarly,the use of positivepoliteness does not necessarily extend as far in theirletters as it does in those written by famiiymembers of rnore power.

So, the writet'ssocial role and thus the power characterjstics seem to affect theuse of address forms to a certain degree. Nevala (2002) also comes to similarcon-clusions when tooking at address pronouns: early English letter writers tencl to usethou to their int-eriorsand )rou to their sgperiors. The seventeenth century appearsto have been decisive in this respect as well,since there seems to have been "abreach" of the power rule. This means that wii'e.s, mosrly considered as having in-ferior status, be-ein to address their husbancls lvith thotL.Example (2), from a letterby a seventeenth-century lvife,Maria'Ihynne,to her husband, uses both a term ofendearment and the pronoun r/zozl (Nevala 2003: I4l):

Negative

Politeness 431

Positive

Honorifictitles(lord)

Other titles(captain')


9/18

432 Minna Nevala

(Z)MineTwn sweet Thomken,Ihave no longer ago than the last night wrttten sucha iarge volume in praise of thy kindness to me ["']'6

This development may be seen as the result of the increase in the more positive andencouraging attitude towards the expression of intimacyand closeness betweenfriends and family.The use of address pronouns also seems to be influencedto acertain degree by the situational level of intimacyand affectionbetween membersof a familyand close friends,yet mostly the choice between thort andl'orr cannot be

explained in terms of shifts in politeness strategies or situational context (see alsoBusse 2002; Walker in the previous section)'

These studies indicate that the need to show group membership appears to be

one of the central factors that affect the use and understanding of politeness in alanguage" Particularly in-.group membership is influentialin endorsing the use clf,u rters of politeness as terms of address and qualifyingattributes (Neval-ainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 1995: 588; Nevala 2003: 160 and 20a4: 2,131)"Group dynamics anci shared knowledge become even more crucialwhen we look at

,"r*,usecl to refer to people. In her contrastive study of address forms and refer-ential terms, Nevala (iOOq:2,150)has found that, in reference, the need to identifythe referent,.neutralises" the forms whichcould be considered most positivelypol-

ite in direct address (e.g. first names), and, in this respect, the politeness scale loses

sorle of its importance. ln her forthcomingstudy, Nevala therefore proposes thatwhat we should actually talk about in the context of reference is faceworkratherthan politeness as such.

seil t1985: 501), stuclying chaucer, proposes an alternative to facework in theforrnof ritual equilibrium,whichbasically means one's need to preserve -qroupsolidarity and, at the same time, to mitigateclisagreement' Yet, on the meta-level,he talks about selectionai politeness (i.e. the writer's choice of never offendingreaders or challenging their tastes, dignityor importance) and presentational pol-iteness (i.e. the writer tells everythingthat is happening or what is meant)' In a way'

we can draw some similaritiesbetween what Sellcalls selectional politeness andwhat, for example, Fitzmaurice (2002:258) calls humiliativediscourse: in bothoases, the writerputs his/her addressee or audience in a favourable position inor6er to win their acceptance. But, as Fitzmaurice adds, there is always the danger

thatthe writermay riskhis/her own negative face by attendirlg to the addressee's

positiveface. This pragmatic risk is not, of course, as high in drama or literatureasin the more p.rronol and interactivegenre of correspondence (see alscl Fitzmaurice2006).

Genre and register variatirlnis, of coufse, not the onlykind of variation wecan findinfluencingour unclerstanding of politeness in early interaction.Kohnen(2004, 200ga ana zoogu) tackles diachronic variation in his studies on speechacts from oid to Early Modern English. He (2004: 172) has found rhar it wasnot untilthe late midclleand early modern periods that what researchers today

Politerress 433

call politeness and facework started to show in language use. Directivespeechacts were, for exarnple, considered mclre face threateningthan before, which re-sulted in people developing additionalpoliteness strategies (also Kohnen 2008b:3910).

The situation thus seems rather differentifwe look at the earliest periods in thehistory of English. In his study on OldEnglish directives, Kohnen (2008a: 155)does not refer to politeness and facework,but rather talks about "the sense of dis-cernment", or politicbehaviour, that was triggered by the rigid social structure of

the time. Particularlyin religious instruction, the Christian modelsof h.umilita,sandoboedientia were considered factors uniting people. 'l'he choice of directives wasnot necessarily determined by facework,but served other purposes of urgency ornecessity (Kohnen 2008b: 4l). This kind of discernment (politeness) refers to be-havionr that is sociallyadequate and relates to the social constraints of maintainingreiationships. Basically, it does not contradict facework-basedpoliterress; rather, as.lucker argues, both types of politeness are only "differentaspects of verbal inter-action"(2010). 'Ihe main difference liesin how rnuch weight is lent to each type indifferentsocieties and time periods.

4. Irnpoliteness in historical data

Studies on how impoliteness is revealed in historicallanguage use havs begun tcrgain more ground during the past decade" New linkshave been drawn notonlybe-tween impoliteness and insulting language, but also in reference to hostility,aggra-vation and verbal duelling.In this section, I willfirstlydiscuss some of the issuesthat have been raised in present studies on the concept clf impoliteness ingeneral,and then move on to give examples of impoliteness in historicaldrama and cour.troorn discourse.

4.I. Identifyingimpoliteness in historical interactionCulpeper's (1996) seminal article on impoliteness strategies has given rise to vari-ous studies on the use of impoliteness in both conternporary andhistorical ma-terial. ln his study, impoliteness isseen as a series of communicativestrrtegies de-signed to attack face, and thus to cause social conflictand disharmony (Culpeper,Bousfield and Wichmann 2003: 1,546)" Face attack may be either intentional,per-ceived as intentional,or both; orelse, not intentional butperceived as such. The1996 article addresses a historicalaspect as Culpeper shows how, in Shakespeare'swork,irnpoliteness can be used as a strategic, multipurposetool: in Mctcbeth, forexample, Lady Macbeth attacks her husband's face withimpoliteness,which ismeant not only to functionas an insult butalso as an incentive for him to get backintclhis masculine role after a mornentary relapse (1996: 365). ln example (3), the


10/18

434 MinnaNevaia:

opening, "Areyou a man?", serves as an implication ofMacbeth lackingthe char-acteristics of a man, and escalates into a further attack on his masculinity ("Awoman's story at a winter's fire, Authoris'dby her grandam").

13) Lady Macbeth Are you a man?Macbeth Ay, and a bold one that dare look on that

Whichmight appal the Devil.LadyMacbeth O proper stuff

This is the very painting of your fear;This is the air-drawndagger whichyou said,Led you to Duncan. O, these flawsand starts -Impostors to true fear - would wellbecomeA woman's story at a winter'sfire,

. Authoris'dby her grandam. Sharne itselfWhydo you make such faces? When all's done,You look buton a stooi.lT

Also in his later studies, Culpeper (1998) touches on the more general question ofhow important this kindof conflictis in the furthering ofplot and characterisationin drama texts. One particular issue that Culpeper raises in his later discussion ofthe strategic use of impoliteness relates to the intentionalityof face-threateningacts. Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichmann(2003) argue that earlier theories of pol-iteness, such as Brown and Levinson's, have concentrated on speaker intentronwhile failingto adhere to hearer perception on what is politeor impolite. Knowingthe discoursal background of an Lltter?ince is crucial, but, even more importantly,we should concentrate on how the utterance is interpreted and acted upon.

If intention is a factor that distinguishes irnpoliteness fiompoliteness, as we argue, thenwe need a richer understanding of an interactant's behaviour, including theirprosody,and of the discoursal context, in order to infer intentions[...]It is the response to an ut'terance, and indeed the construction of the whole speech activity,that may determinehow that utterance is to be taken, including whether it be poiite, impolite orsomethingin between (Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichmann 2003:1,576;.ts

This is, of course, one of the points that is increasinglyattended to in historicalstudies of impoliteness as well. Jucker (2000), for one, has taken up the issue in his

study of verbalaggression in Chaucer's language. He (2000: j75) argues thatit isonly because insuits are stronglyrelated to the perlocutionaryeffect that they haveon the addressee that they can be produced unintentionally.The same utterancemay be insulting for one but not for another. This also has to do withwhat Juckercalls ritualvs. real insults: the insult can be either playfulor serious, and the ulti-mate interpretationdepends on how the target of the insult reacts to it or whether(s)he knows how (s)he is expected to react to it in its situationaland culturalcon-text.

politeness 435similarly'Kryk-Kastovsky(2006s tliscusses lhe ,,semantic/pragmatic clime'_ion"of "overt impolitene','iund 'tovert ,*p"rii.""ss,,in historicar courtroomiscourse' she draws simirarities.l0culpep"r,, .on..pr, of inherent vs. mock im_oliteness, but als' makes other distinctions;";;;;,tions' she concenrrates on wherher an utreran.. "ul'lt;:.r;:|ji:ix:';;r;ilasis of its surface representations or whether impolitene*i, in ,*, way in_erred. she (2006: 225) fincrs,for exampr", d;;, *'u .our,.oom serring, covert im_oliteness is often used when judges, oy conrusi'nf

;jffi;;*;,,1;"rr.r, rry toake rhem urtimarerv chang. thri, given d;;;;;;;. A more overr rype of impo_iteness occurs in cases wheie rhe juJge "p.;i;;i;i*,trro, the witness is somehowilXilillt"ra reriable addrlls rr," unequoifor", rerarion between rhe rwocaring,orr,",,T;:^;_i.:liTiT:i?'*j:,il,r";;J'".ffi1x*ruT;:,ffiHi,1ii,'j|j"ff:op'n io judges r.." ur,o ,irpeper,"o ryi"iooo, rucker

In his study on insurring epithers in ora Engrish, chapman (200g: 6) arso tarksbout how the force of un inrutt lies in the facitrrui'i,tur,.t, the rarget as undesir-ble and in sorne way defective"But, as earrier ,rrol., arso c'ncur, this undesir-bilitymust be recognised u*,u.h, both by tt. uaJr.rsee and by anyoneelsepres_nt in the situation"As with the.ur: ol.,nerminingit.*itn.rs,s credibjlityeirher;J#ll":"_";Tir

in a courtrooin,in Ctrupmon;,.i.-pr.s insulrs are als' usecr tori o n a,, d e ri v e ,.; ff ::: i;,,,;ffii, 3J Ijifj:i ;T**Ji.l il **:, m,oos' bodilydefecation ot tittn.rr,and thus mark the grave differencebetweenhe target and the :",.b.".,of .rsp..toble society.T'he sociopsychologicalfact tiat notro,:y *r. to be rabered as der,e*ive orndesir.ble can' of course, be taken as universar. whathas been found as curture-nd context-specific' however. is ttre actual realisation of impoliteness in language.nstead of c'ncenrrating on ,p.rt-, inrenrions ;;;;;r", perceptions, Jucker andraavitsainen talk abouihow ,i.,"uno.rrtanding

"r *rr",constitutes porite behav-our, or jts violation,differs no, onti syrr.hronilallvbut also diachronically.Thus,;T:TJ:j"::,::-politeness *ork.din pasr ,o"il,i*,may somerimes ,.be rosr to,he fac,.rs,,

"t, fi: ,fi) ffi:: :*t;x**;n*1*;

''H ::*:longside the intentionalityoi irio.,ual manifestatjon in language use. since thewo aspects are interrelated,I willjir.u*these issues in more depth in the ratteri:t ,j;]i'#;ir?J.:oncentrating*o..crosery on Archer,s (2008) and Rudan_


11/18


12/18


13/18

440 lvlinnaNevalaI

The question of whether we are dealing withpoliteness'impoliteness'politic

behaviour, discernment or ritual language ur. .urr.t,. and hasalready raised' an-

orher poinr of wherher politener, .ui bJ stuoied in historicalmaterialin the first

place. As could be seen ln the previous section, Archer(2008)' for one' emphasises

how important it is to relate (im)politeness in languageto its socioculturaland so-

ciopsychologicalconlext.Ashistoricallinguists,weareverymuchatthemercyofour clata: as Kasper (2007) reminds ur, *J can make only "educated

guesses" on

what was interpretecl as politeand impolitein the past(see also Nevala 20i0)' we

cannot get into tfre heacls of our historical informantsto findout what they werethinkinga| a certain point in time; nol can we do so with

oul present-day inform-

ants. Naturally,knowingthe sociohistoricalbackgroundis a great help in itself'

and we willbe abie to do much more than just guess whenthe study of historical

politeness is further diversifiedvia the expnsion clfreliablematerial' In the near

future, educatecl guesses on how (im)politenessworksin historical data willno

doubt become "rblirh"dknowledg"on its functions in early interaction'

Notes

I By the term "social status" I mean one's position or rank in the social stratificationsys-

, :r" (1998: 18) argues that reievatrce theory coversnot only Bror'vnand Levinson's no-

tion of politeness, ut also Watts's and Meiei'sviews'as it also offers an alternative to the

viewthat polite behaviour is motivatedby the desireto communicate pclliteness'

3 See also Arndr. ancl Janney (19g5: zsl un Holmes (1995: 4) for"concern for the feelings

^;lr:jTilro""r,sresses the fact that the norms applied by the inreracranrs

sho'ld be

studied in tl-reirhistorical context'5 One might also argue whether the variables work for politeness at all' For

example' watts

(1989:131,n,3),althoughrecognisingtheexistenceofdifferentdegreesofpowerandsratus, claims thert the variables "^ir, ,irtnin

politicbehaviour rather than withinpolite-

NCSS.

6 Spencer-Oatey ancl Jiang (2003: 1,6,1,5) suggest that people's use of languageis not only

influencedby immediate contextual factois, such " 'o-iologicalvariables'but also by

underlyingsociopragmaticinteractionatprinciplescalled SIPs' These include fundamen-

tal, univers.r iipr,a-s wellas ti,niteJ SIps, such as a face SiP' a rights and obligations

SIP

3:: ir:T*tl,ot.', (.tss2)scale of politeness; cLrlpeper ( 1996) and Culpeper' Bor-rsfieldand Wichmann (2003) for the superstrategies of impoliteness,

and Sell (1992)'

In general, Watts izO:ldistingulsh"s b""tw""nthe so-calledemic (first-order)and etic

(second-order)viewsonpoliteness,atendencyalsoprevalentrnothercur:rentpolitenessresearch (see also "'g' lu4itt'2003'

and Locher and Watts 2005)"

Thomas ( 1995: 150) sees cleference as connected withpoliteness' but nevertheless a dis-

:Ili:ffi"""..'o".her' cieference is the opposite of familiarityrarher rhan 'f polite-

10

Politeness 44'l

By this I mean the fact that Brown and Gilman (1989: 193, 195) repeatediy point outhow "sudden", "dramatic"and "extreme" these changes of feelingare in their material --a characteristic ofdramatic dialogue that, in their opinion, leads to "feeling"becomingmore crucial than "interactiveintimacy", which inturn prevents them applyingthe vari-able of distance, unless it be heavily modified.As studies on different languages show, these politeness phenomena are by no means re-stricted to the English ianguage. As, for example, Moreno's (2002) study shows, thesolidaritysemantic started to workin the Spanish address system already in the six-teenth century, when it was strongly connected with the concepts of face, honour and

class membership(see

also Bentivoglio2003).By the terms "written"and "spoken",I mean the difference betweendata fhat arecomposed for the purpose of oral presentation (dramatic dialogue)and that are origin-allyuttered but then written down(court records)"Case 139: Depositionof "Agnes Wheitley[.. ] of Segefield, aged 33", Surtees Socrety1845,104.In a similarvein, Fanego argues that the early use of address terms appears to have been"far frombeing as automatic and predictabie as Kopytkoand others claim"(2005:29:;see also Nevalainenand Raumolin-Brunberg1995: 547)"Del Lungo Camiciottirefers here to Rlum-Kulka(1987), rn particular.The Corpus o.f Early English Correspondence (CEEC):THYNNE,1604,32.IVIctcb e th III"iv.57-67The concept of "intention"in gener:al has been one of the most contested terms in bothcurrent politeness arrd impoliteness research (see e.g. Bousfieldand Locher 2008).The Corpus of EnglishDialogues". Trial ofChristopherLayer (1'722).The articles by Bax, Fitzmaurice,Jucker and Nevzria referred to in ttris sectjon willap-pear in a 2010 volume, whichis a compilation ofthe papers pre.sented in a workshop onhistorical(im)politeness at the 4th International Symposium on l-inguisticPoliteness,Budapest, Hungary, in July 2008 (see References).Stein (1994: 8) also talks about how politeness as a concept graduallychanged liom theseventeenth-century social ideal of pragrnatic language behaviour to the eighteenth-century "politeprescriptivism",whichwas in general connected with the ideology ofstandardisation prevalent at the time (see also Fitzmaurice 1998; Watts 2000 and 2002;Taavitsainen and Jucker 20i0).

References

Archer, Dawn2008 Verbal aggression and impoliteness:Related or synonymous?

fieidand MiriamA. Locher (eds. ). 1 81-208"Arndt,Horst, and Richard W. Janney

1985 Poiiteness revisited:Crossmodal supportivestrategies. 1R4l

In: Derek Bous-

'23':281 -300"

t2

13

r1

t4

1.5

r617l8

1920

21

Arnovick,Leslie K.2000 DiachronicPragmatics: Seven Cnse Studies in llloctttionaryDevelopment.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: JohnBenjamins.


14/18

442 Minna Nevala:-.

Bax, Mafcel1999 Rituai leveiling:'Ihe balance between the eristic and the contractual motive in

hostile verbal encounters in medieval romance and eariy modern drama. In:Andreas H. Jucker, Gerd Fritzand Franz Lebsanft (eds.), HistoricalDinlogueAnolysi s,35-80. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:John Benjamins.

Bax, Marcel2003 Civilrites: Ritualpoliteness in Early Nlodern Dutch letter-writing.Journal of

Historic nl P rcgmatic s 4: 303-325.Bax, Marcel

2010 Epistolarypresentation rituals: Face-work, politeness, and ritual display inEarly ModernDutch letter-writing.In: Jonathan Crllpeper and Dniei Z. Kddr(eds.), 31-86.

Bentivoglio,Paoia2003 Spanish formsof address in the sixteenth century. In: lrma Taavitsainen and

Andreas H. Jucker (eds.), 177--191"Bergs, Alexander T. .

2004 Ad


15/18

Clulpeper,2010

Culpeper,2000

444 Minna Nevala'i-

Culpeper, Jbnathanzoos Impoiiteness and The Weakest Link.Journal of Politeness Research |:35-.12.

Culpeper, Jonathan2008 Reflectionson impoliteness, relationwork and power' ln:Derek Bousfieldand

IvliriamA. Locher (eds')' 1144'Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dawn Archer

200g Requests and directness in Early Modern English trial proceedings and piay-texts,1640-:-',l60.In:AndreasH.JuckerandlrmaTaavitsainen(eds')'45-8'{'

Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousheld and Anne Wichmann

2003 Impoliteness revisited:withspecial reference to dynamic and prosodic as-pects. Jottrnal of Pragntatics 35: l'545-l'519"Jonathan, and Ddniel Z. K6'ddr(eds')

Historical(Im)politenessResearclz' Bern: Peter Lang'Jonathan, and MerjaKYt

Ge,ncier voices in the spoken interaction of the past: A pilotstudy based onEarly Nlodern English tiialproceedings. In: Dieter Kastovskyand ArthurNIet-tinger (eds.), 53-89'

Del Lungo Camiciotti,Gabrieila2008 Two polite speech acts froma diachronic perspective: Aspects of the real-

isation of requesting and undertakingcontmitmentsin the nineteenth-centurycommercial community. In: Andreas H. Jucker and lrma Taavitsainen (eds')'

ll5-132'Diamond, Julie

1996 Stattt,s and Power in Verbal lnteraction.Amsterdirm/Philadelphia:John Ben.jamins.Dillard,James price, Steven R. Wilson, Kyle James Tusing and rerry A. Kinney

1997 Politeness judgments in personal relationships' JotLrnnl of Language ancl 'So'cictl PsYcltologY16: 291-325 '

Eelen, Gino1g9g Politeness and ideology: Acriticalrevierv. Prognntics 9" 163-113'

Eeien, Gino200lACritiqtteofPolitenessTheories.Manchester:St.Jeronte.

Fanego, Teresa2005 'Fare thee well,Dame': Shakespeare's forms of adclress and their socio-affec-

tiverole.Jottrnaloftlrcspanishsocier1nforEnglishRenaisstttlcesttdies15:2342.

Fitzmaurice,Susan

1998 'fhe commerce of language in the pursuit of politeness ineighteenth-century

Englan


16/18

446 lvlinnaNevalaT-

Ide, Sachiko, Beverly Hill,Yukiko M.Carnes, Tsunao Ogino and AkikoKawasaki1992 The concept of politeness: An empirical studyof American English and Jap-

anese. In: Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide and Konrad Erlich (eds.), 281-297.Janney, Richard W., and Holst Arndt

1992 Intracultural tact versus interculturaltact. In: Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide andKonrad Erlich (eds.), 21-4L

Jary, Mark1998 Relevance theory and the communicationof politeness. Journal of P ragtnutics

30: 1-19.Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.)

1995 HistoriculPragmatics: Pragmatic Developrnents in the Historyo.f English"Amsterdam/Philadeiphia:John Benlamins.

Jucker, Andreas H.2000 Slanders, slurs and insults on the road to Canterbury: Forms of verbal aggres-

sion in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. [n: Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen,Pivi Palita and MattiRissanen (eds.), Placing MiddleEnglish in Context,369--389. Berlin/NewYork: Nloutonde Gruyter.

Jucker, Andreas H.2008 Politeness in the history of English. In: Richard Dury, MaurizioGottiand

MarinaDossena (eds.), English HisroricalLinguistics 2006. Vol. II:Lexiculand S e nzant ic C han g e, 3-29 . Ams terdam/Philadelphia:John Benj amins.

Jucker, Andreas H"2010 'ln curteisie was set ful muchel hir lest': Politeness in VliddleEnglish. ln:

Jonathan Culpeper and Ddniel'2.Kdclir(eds.), 175-200.Jucker, Andreas H., and Irma Taavitsainen2000 Diachronic speech act analysis: lnsr,rits from flytingto flaming. Journalof His-

torical Pragmatics 1: 61--95.Jucker, Andreas H., and Irrna'Iaavitsainen (eds.)

2008 Speech Acts in tlrc Historyof Erzglish. Amsterdarn/Philadelphia:John Benja-mins.

Kdr, DntelZ.2007 On historicalChinese apology and ils strate-slc application.Jounml ofPolite-

ness Re,s'ectrch 3: 125- 1 50.Kasper, Gabriele

1990 Linguisticpoliteness: Current research issues. Journal cf Pragmatics l4:I 93*2I 8.

Kasper, Gabriele2007 Politeness" In Httnclbookof Pragmotics Online. Availableat www.benja-

mins. com,/oniineihop.Kastovsky,Dieter, and ArthurN{ettinget(eds.)2000 The Historyof ErLglisltin a Social C)ontext: A Contributiortto HistoricalSo

ciolinguistics.Berlin/NervYork: lVlouton de Gruyter.Kielkier,vicz-Janowiak, Agnieszka

1992 A Socio-Hi.storicalStudy oJ Atldress: PoLi.sltand Englisl2.Bern: Peter Lang"Kohnen, Thomas

2004 'Let mee bee so bold to request you to teilmee': Constr uctions with let me andthe history of Englishdilectives. .lournal of HistoricaL Pragmatics5: 159-173.

Politeness 417

Kohnen, Thomas2008a Linguisticpoliteness in Anglo-saxon England? A study of old English addressterms. Jottrnal of Historicalpragmatic.s 9: j40_15g.

Kohnen, Thornas2008b Dilectivesin old English:Beyond politeness'? In: Andleas H"Jucker and IrmaTaavitsainen (eds. ), 27 4/+.

Kopytko,Roman1993 Polite DiscotLrse in Shctke,speare,,s

versitypress"

Kopytko,Roman

English"Poznafl: Adam NlickiewiczUni_

1995 Linguisticpoliteness strategies in shakespeare's plays. In: Andreas H. Jr-rcker(ed.), 515_539.Kryk-Kastovsky,Barbara

2006 Impoliteness in Early lvloc.lernEnglish courtroom discourse. Journal of His-to rical p ragntatics 7 : 213_243.Kryk-Kastovsky,Barbara

20(\9 Speech acrs in Early NlodernEnglish court440.457 "

Locher, NliriarnA., ;rnd Derek Bousfield

trials. .lourttaloJ' pragmatics 4l:

2008 Introduction: Impoliteness and power in lairguage. In: Derek Bo*selcla'dMiriamA. I_ocher (eds.), l*l-1.Locher, ViiriarnA., and Richard J. Watts2405 Politeness theory and relationallvork.Journal of politene^ss Resecrrclt 1: 9*34.NIa_qnusson, l-ynne

1991) 'shakespeare nnd Social Dtrtlogtte:DrcmtcrticLcutgrtrtge an4 ElizaltetltanLetters. Carnbridge: Cambridge IJniversjtypress"Manes, Joan, and Nessa Wolfson

1981 The complimentformula. In: Florian Coulmas (ed.), 1 L5-_132Martinti.Crbrielhdi2000 Politeness strategies in seventeenth-century cJidactic dialogues. in: Gabriella diVlartinoand fuIariat,ima (eds.) , ZZl_246.Vlartino,Gabriellacli,ancl Maria l_ima (ecls..)2000 En,glish Diachronic prctgrnati.cs. Napoli: CLIEN"lVlatsurnoto,Yoshiko1989 Politeness and conversational universals - observati,ns from Japanese. fululti-lingun 8:207_221.

NIazzon,2000

N4azzon,2003

iVIeier,Ar 99"i

Gabriellasocial relations and forms

of address in the canterhutry TLrles"In:Dieter Kas-tovskyand ArrhurIV{ertiriger(eds.), l j5_16g.Gabrlella

Pronouns and nominal address in Shakespearean English:A socio-affectivemarking system ln transition. ln: Irma Taavitsainen and Andreas H" J.cker(eds.), 223-250..I

Definingpoliteness; LJniversality in appropriateness. Lctr,guage scienc.es 11:345-356


17/18

448 Minna Nevala

Mills,Saral2003 Gencler and politeness. Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress'

Moreno,Maria Cristobalina2OQ2 The address system in the Spanish of the Golden Age' Jrturnal of Pragmatics

34 1547 "Mhlhusler,Peter, and Rom Harr

1990 PronotLns ancl People." The Lingttisticcon,stnLction of social ancl Per'sonalI cte ntit -tt. Oxford : Blackwell"

Nevala,IVIinna

2002 Yotrre ntoder Sertcl a letter to the: Pronounsof address in private correspon-

dence frornLate Micldleto Late lvlodern English"[n: Helena Raumolin-Brun-berg, IvlinnaNevala, Arja Nurmi and lvlattiRissanen (eds'), variation Past andpresent". VARIENGSttttlies on English for Terttu Nevalainen, 135-159' Hel-sinki : Soci6t6 NdoPhilologique'

Nevala, Minna2003 Familyhrst: Adclress and sutrscriptionformulae in English familycoffespon-

dence from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century' ln: lrma Taavitsainen andAnclreas H. Jucker (eds';, 141-176

Nevala, lVlinna2OO4Accessingpolitenessaxes;Formsofadclressandtermsofreferenceinearly

English .r"spona ence. Journnl of pragmatics 36'.2,125 -2,160.Nevala, Minna

2010 Keeping up appearances; Facework tn self- and addressee-oriented person ref-.r"n.".]n,Jon.ethan Culpeper and Daniel Z"Kddt (eds.), 147--174'

Nevalainen, Terttulgg4 Ladies and gentlemen: 'The generalizationof titles in Early Modern English'

In: Francisco Fernndez" NliguelFuster irnd Juan Josd Calvo (eds')' EnglishHistoric:ctlLittgttistics1g92,1fi--3'27.Amsterdam/Philadelphia:John Benja-mins'

Nevalainen, Terttu, and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg1995 Constraints on politeness: The pragmatics of a


18/18

450 tulinna Nevalai

Walker,'feny2003 You and thou in EarlyModern English dialogues:Patterns of usage. [n: Irma

Taavitsainen and Andreas H. Jucker (eds.), 309-342.Walker,'ferry

2007 Thou nnd You irz EarlyModern English Dialogues. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:John Benjamins.

Watts, Richard J.1989 Relevance and relationalwork:Linguisticpoliteness as politicbehaviour.

Ivlultilinguct8: 13 l-167.Watts, Richard J.

1992 l-inguisticpoliteness and politicverbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims foruniver:sality. In: RichardJ. Watts, Sachiko Ide and Konrad Erlich (eds.), 43-69.

Watts, Richard J.1999 Language and politeness in early eighteenth century Britain.Prngmatics 9:

5-20.Watts. RichardJ. :

2000 Niythicalstrands in the ideoio-ey of prescriptivism. In:Laura Wright(ed.),TheDevelopmentof Srandard English 1300-1800: Theories, Descriptions, Con-flicts,29-48. Cambridge: Cambridge{JniversityPress.

Watts, Richard J.2002 From polite language to educated language: The re-emergence of an ideology.

ln: Richard J. Watts and Peter Trudgill(.eds.), Alternative Histrtriesof Engli,sh,155-1 72. London: Routledge.

Watts, Richard J.

2003 Politeness.Cambridge:CambridgetJniversityPress.Watts, Richard J.2005 Linguisticpoliteness research: Quo vadis? In: Richard J. Watts, Sachiko lde

and Konrad Erlich (eds.), Politeness in Language: ,Stutlies i.n its History, The-ory and Prttctice, xi-xlvii"2"d ed. Berlin/NewYork: N{outonrJe Grr:yter.

Watls, Richard J., Sachiko Ide and Konrad Erlich(eds.)1992 Politeness in Language: Studies in its Histary, Theor;t und Prac:tice. 1.' ed.

Berlin/NewYork: Moutonde Gruyter.Werkhofer, Konrad T.

1992 Traditional and modern views: Thesocial constitutionand the power of polite-ness. In: Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide and KonradErlich(eds.), 155-199.

Wetzei, Patricia J.1993 The language of vertical relationshipsand linguisticanalysis. Nlultilittgua12

387-406.

L5. ContnoversiesGerd Fritz

1. Introduction

Unfortunately, peopledo not always agree on what is true, what is good and whatshould be done' In the case tlfdisagreement, there nre various options fclrhow todeal with conflict,includingviolence, negotiations, legal action, me4iationand,last but not least, conflictmanagement by discussion, both in private and in thepublic arena' This kin

politeness (nevala 2010)

Documents