Setting our House in order: The workings of impoliteness in multi-party film discourse

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is to elucidate the workings of (intentional) impoliteness in multi-party film talk. The departure point is the diversification of hearer types, coupled with the premise that film discourse operates on two communicative levels, namely the inter-character level and the recipient’s level, at which the audience interprets characters’ conversations. It is thus argued that the speaker’s impolite utterance may carry different pragmatic effects when directed towards (yet not necessarily targeting), and interpreted by, his/her interlocutor(s) (an addressee or a third party), overhearers (a bystander or an eavesdropper), or when face-threatening to a non-participant. Moreover, the recipient (i. e., the viewer), is yet another hearer category, for whose pleasure impoliteness is interactionally rendered at the characters’ level. The theoretical proposal to extend the dyadic model of impoliteness is illustrated with utterances produced by Gregory House, the main protagonist of the television