Class Ethos and Politeness

Abstract

This article lends quantitative support to the notion that politeness is variable across social strata, and provides linguistic evidence for the notion of a "social class ethos.' This difference is shown to be encoded in ordinary usage, within the genre of direction giving. Interpretation of the natural language data collected is based here on Brown and Levinson's "politeness theory" (1978, 1987). The data give evidence that middle-class speakers are more likely to make use of the more elaborated negative politeness strategy, with suggestions being issued in an indirect way. Workingclass speakers tend to choose the "bald-on record" strategy, suggesting directions in the form of direct bald imperatives. Variable speaker perceptions of social distance across the two classes give the results found in the data.