Im/politeness and in/civility: A neglected relationship?

Abstract

Recent approaches to im/politeness have emphasised the importance of lay understandings of politeness and suggested that they should constitute the locus of attention in politeness research. Pursuing this direction of research, the data for this paper come from an on-line article entitled “Greek impoliteness: 10 things that kill you in this city” and the comments it received.The analysis of the data shows that the understandings of impoliteness presented are not restricted to what researchers understand as impoliteness but reflect the rather broader concept of incivility. Drawing from various fields, the paper investigates understandings of in/civility and the relationship between im/politeness and in/civility and shows the conceptual affinity between the two concepts. Despite this affinity, their exact relationship and their points of overlap and divergence remain rather unclear. The paper argues for the significance of lay conceptualisations of im/politeness and suggests that in/civility and its relationship to im/politeness which have so far been neglected in im/politeness research deserve further in-depth exploration.