(Im)politeness from an Emic Perspective. Illustrations from Present Day Romanian Parliamentary Debates

Abstract

The paper focuses on metacommunicative and metadiscursive comments made by members of the Romanian Parliament with regard to the ‘(im)politeness’ of their own and their fellow members’ behaviour. The metacommunicative elements cover mainly the evaluative ‘(im)politeness’ lexicon, while the metadiscursive elements refer to the interactants’ comments on desirable behaviour and to the way of expressing expectations according to social norms. The aim of the paper is to construe, in a qualitative research, the institutional and cultural perspective on ‘(im)politeness’ in present-day parliamentary sittings. As a community of practice, the Parliament is an interesting arena for investigating the manner in which ‘(im)politeness’ is framed and commented on.