Understanding Politeness

This groundbreaking exploration navigates the reader through the fascinating area of politeness.

Dániel Z. Kádár (Author), Michael Haugh (Author)

9781107626942, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 August 2013

306 pages, 25 b/w illus. 4 tables 6 exercises
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.46 kg

'The authors present their innovative approach to studying interaction, focusing on (im)politeness through time and social space. Understanding Politeness can be used as a study book for students majoring in pragmatics and is a must-read for politeness researchers.' Ekaterina Rudneva, Antropologicheskij Forum

Politeness is key to all of our relationships and plays a fundamental part in the way we communicate with each other and the way we define ourselves. It is not limited only to conventional aspects of linguistic etiquette, but encompasses all types of interpersonal behaviour through which we explore and maintain our relationships. This groundbreaking exploration navigates the reader through this fascinating area and introduces them to a variety of new insights. The book is divided into three parts and is based on an innovative framework which relies on the concepts of social practice, time and space. In this multidisciplinary approach, the authors capture a range of user and observer understandings and provide a variety of examples from different languages and cultures. With its reader-friendly style, carefully constructed exercises and useful glossary, Understanding Politeness will be welcomed by both researchers and postgraduate students working on politeness, pragmatics and sociolinguistics more broadly.

1. Introduction
Part I. Theoretical Framework: 2. The roots of politeness research
3. Recent developments in politeness research
4. Politeness as social practice
5. Understandings of politeness
Part II. Politeness and Time: 6. Politeness in interaction
7. Politeness, convention and rituality
8. Politeness and history
Part III. Politeness and Social Space: From Mind to Society: 9. Politeness and metapragmatics
10. Politeness, cognition and emotion
11. Culture, identity and politeness
12. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]