Abstract
With the plethora of studies on politeness in general and linguistic politeness in particular, it is difficult for those who want to apply the theoretical findings to authentic language data, to find a roadmap to theoretical framework on which to base the data processing and achieve relevant results. The pre-requisite for such objectives is the familiarity with the existing politeness theories of which to choose with a particular aim in mind, but since there are so many, also the knowledge of their potential taxonomies and the pros and cons of such taxonomies when applied to overt language manifestations of politeness (e. g. in addressing or apologizing). Consequently, the multiple aim of this study is to survey the approaches to the concept of politeness and its layering, outline the taxonomies of various approaches to polite-ness, and discuss the ways of their applicability (based on my hands-on experience with overt language manifestations of social deixis in addressing and strategies of apologizing). In the application section, the importance of a dynamic, context-sensitive approach to language data is advocated, followed by proposed changes in speech act taxonomies. The conclusion then sums up possible perspectives in intercultural communication which remain a challenge to new insights into politeness research and ELT methodology.
Highlights
Politeness, understood as a common-sense notion or a lay concept (Watts 1992), is an old phenomenon, probably as old as the human race itself
In 1983, Thomas published an influential article “Crosscultural pragmatic failure”, suggesting that the nature of pragmatic language learning was considerably different from the learning of grammar
While in grammar we can make errors, in pragmatics we speak rather about failure as there are no prescriptive rules. This pragmatic failure can be more serious than grammatical errors
Summary
Politeness, understood as a common-sense notion or a lay concept (Watts 1992), is an old phenomenon, probably as old as the human race itself. If asked to explain the term politeness, no matter how common it is and how frequently we use it, I think people would face difficulties and see how slippery and elusive it is since it is open to a significant degree of individual variability ( my preference for scalarity of the term as opposed to binarity – the traditional opposites polite-impolite are seen as various degrees on the scale from polite to impolite, including overpoliteness and underpoliteness) It is exactly this variability which needs to be overcome when elevating politeness to the status of a scientific term in various models of politeness theory. It is practically impossible to classify impoliteness strategies, and no maxims can be formulated to prevent impoliteness or possible conflict
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