THE PRAGMATICS OF POLITENESS, Author: Geoffrey Leech

Abstract

The study of “politeness” by sociolinguists is quite new and frequently cites Brown and Levinson’s work from 1978 entitled “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena”. The article was modified and republished as a book in 1987 with the title Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Ever since, there has been a substantial explosion in the amount of research on “im/ politeness” in linguistics and related fields. Geoffrey Leech can be deemed one of the pioneering authors in the discipline of politeness studies, along with Robin Lakoff (1973), Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978, 1987), and others. The Pragmatics of Politeness by Geoffrey Leech is a wonderful addition that serves to remind readers of the linguistic roots of this area of study. This book offers an overview of politeness and supports the idea that it is a form of communicative altruism. It describes a variety of English politeness phenomena and provides numerous instances of actual language use from reliable British and American sources to demonstrate its points. The book also presents a thorough examination of politeness in contemporary English, including all significant speech acts that are either positively or negatively linked with politeness, such as requests, apologies, compliments, offers, agreement, and disagreement. Chapters on impoliteness and the related concepts of irony (mock politeness) and banter (mock impoliteness) are also included. Additional chapters explore research techniques and learning English as a second language. The history of politeness in the English language, which spans more than a thousand years, is covered in the final chapter. Therefore, The Pragmatics of Politeness is intended to establish itself as a new benchmark in the study of (im)politeness.