Politeness strategies in academic digital discourse

Abstract

The paper explores the discourse strategies used in academic discourse in the informal setting of a personal web page. The aim is to study a digital variation of academic discourse that blends features of spoken and written academic discourse. It typically provides spontaneous responses using direct ways of expressing ideas. Unlike scholarly discussions at conferences, academic etiquette and diplomatic language are not always maintained and personal attacks and emotive statements occur; participants tend to express their preferences, professional standpoints, ideas and personal attitudes frankly and openly. Expressing criticism and disagreement, the participants may or may not use politeness strategies to mitigate face-threatening responses. Mapping the variety of these strategies, I work with those parts of academic web pages that are devoted to vivid and uncensored discussions of the subject matter. The analysis is theoretically rooted in the conception of interpersonal rhetoric as defined by Leech (1983). The research draws from a corpus of articles and related responses randomly chosen from personal and institutional academic web pages.