Abstract
Mitigation is an interesting pragmatic concept which has attracted some attention. It can usefully be considered in relation to the more general communicative strategies for modifying the strength or force of speech acts, namely, attenuation and boosting. The effects of these strategies on positively affective and negatively affective speech acts are discussed and exemplified, and reasons for using them are considered. A range of linguistic devices which may be used to modify the illocutionary force of speech acts is described and illustrated.
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