Being impolite while pretending to be polite. The rupture of politeness conventions in electoral debates

Abstract

This paper is a part of a larger research that pursues a global understanding of impoliteness in face-to-face electoral debates. That research distinguishes three essential axes, three complementary analytical perspectives: functional strategies of impoliteness, linguistic-discursive mechanisms to implement them and social impacts of impolite acts. In this frame, the present work develops an in-depth analysis of a special category of mechanisms, namely the rupture of politeness conventions, a subgroup within postliteral implicit mechanisms. This subgroup acquires its identity by the fact of carrying out a linguistic action that is conventionally associated with a polite attitude, but doing it in a rhetorically insincere way: the consequence is that apparent politeness becomes impoliteness. Relevant aspects in the characterization of ruptures are isolated fernández: politeness conventions 137 clac 67/2016, 136-166 and, on this basis, it is developed a detailed analysis of three specific kinds of mechanisms in which ruptures take shape: using ironic statements, developing different forms of overpoliteness and adopting a falsely collaborative attitude toward the interlocutor. The analysis of that group of mechanisms takes into account, simultaneously, the other two axes of the main research, strategies and social impacts.

Political TV debates: how to get more power and damage the opponent’s face?

“…Pasaulio mokslininkai įvairiais aspektais aptaria nemandagumą. Pavyzdžiui, vieni mokslininkai (Culpeper 1996;Garcia 2016) nemandagumo teorinius rėmus konstruoja remdamiesi mandagumo teorija, kuriai pagrindus padėjo Penelopė Brown ir Stephenas Levinsonas dar XX amžiaus pabaigoje (Brown, Levinson 1987). Toks nemandagumo teorijos, kaip priešpriešos mandagumo teorijai, konstravimas pasižymi tuo, kad pirmiausia kuriami teoriniai nemandagaus elgesio rėmai ir pateikiami pavieniai nemandagaus elgesio pavyzdžiai, iliustruojantys kurį nors teorijos aspektą.…”

“…Nemandagiam elgesiui analizuoti tyrėjai pasitelkia įvairias prieigas. Pavyzdžiui, lingvistinė pragmatika pasitelkiama nemandagumui kaip įžeidžiam, netinkamam adresanto elgesiui konkrečiame kontekste aptarti (pvz., Culpeper 1996;Garcia 2016). Diskursyvinę prieigą taikantys tyrėjai (pvz., Haugh 2013Haugh , 2015Dobs, Blitvich 2013) analizuoja ne tiek adresanto sukurtus pasakymus, bet labiau aptaria socialines sąveikas konkrečiuose kontekstuose, konkrečiose kultūrose.…”

Impersonalization as a Mechanism of Impoliteness in Aeschines and Demosthenes: A Study of οὐδείς and μηδείς

“…taken into account, as well as those written by other scholars that focus on impoliteness in general -Bousfield (2008), Kientpointner (1997Kientpointner ( , 2008 -, (im)politeness in the courtroom (Lakoff 1989, Kurzon 2001, Martinovski 2006, on political discourse (Harris 2001) and on electoral debates (Fernández García 2016). Within this theoretical framework, this paper identifies and explains the face-attack strategies in which οὐδείς and μηδείς are involved.…”