Politeness in Language

Testing Major Linguistic Politeness Theories against the Marital Relationships of Bilingual (Urdu and Punjabi) Speaking Pakistani Couples

“…The word 'politeness' generally applies to any social behaviour, which is culturally appropriate and shows care for other people's feelings (McIntosh, 2013) whereas the term 'linguistic politeness' refers to such use of language in conversation as is appropriately considerate for the feelings and desires of the interlocutors and is intended to develop or maintain good interpersonal relationships (Huang, 2017;Sharifian, 2017;Van Olmen, 2017). The word 'appropriately' here denotes cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural differences in distinguishing the polite from the impolite (Hirschon, 2001;Lustig & Koester, 1999;Van Olmen, 2017).…”

“…The word 'appropriately' here denotes cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural differences in distinguishing the polite from the impolite (Hirschon, 2001;Lustig & Koester, 1999;Van Olmen, 2017). Linguistic politeness, both in its concept and the practice, has never been new to human beings, but serious research into this phenomenon only became evident in the 1970 and 1980s, mainly in the fields of pragmatics and sociology (Hirschon, 2001;Van Olmen, 2017).…”

“…The word 'appropriately' here denotes cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural differences in distinguishing the polite from the impolite (Hirschon, 2001;Lustig & Koester, 1999;Van Olmen, 2017). Linguistic politeness, both in its concept and the practice, has never been new to human beings, but serious research into this phenomenon only became evident in the 1970 and 1980s, mainly in the fields of pragmatics and sociology (Hirschon, 2001;Van Olmen, 2017). One seminal, and the most famous, contribution of that era is Levinson's (1987 [1978]) politeness theory that draws on Goffman's (1962) notions of face and facesaving, Austin (1962) and Searle's (1979) speech act theory and Grice's (1975) cooperative principle (Márquez-Reiter, 2000).…”

“…One seminal, and the most famous, contribution of that era is Levinson's (1987 [1978]) politeness theory that draws on Goffman's (1962) notions of face and facesaving, Austin (1962) and Searle's (1979) speech act theory and Grice's (1975) cooperative principle (Márquez-Reiter, 2000). The theory quickly caught on and inspired a plenty of politeness research in the CONTACT Iftikhar Ahmad Khokhar at diligentiftikhar@gmail.com upcoming years but several of its claims could not be tested against the accumulated data over the years (Huang, 2017;Márquez-Reiter, 2000;Mills, 2011;Van Olmen, 2017). The invariable sociolinguistic factors did not prove to be universal, as this theory had suggested, and its second-order, observer-oriented, 'etic' approach significantly differed from the first-order, participant-generated, 'emic' perspective (Armaşu, 2012;Lakoff & Ide, 2005;Mills, 2011;Van Olmen, 2017).…”

“…The theory quickly caught on and inspired a plenty of politeness research in the CONTACT Iftikhar Ahmad Khokhar at diligentiftikhar@gmail.com upcoming years but several of its claims could not be tested against the accumulated data over the years (Huang, 2017;Márquez-Reiter, 2000;Mills, 2011;Van Olmen, 2017). The invariable sociolinguistic factors did not prove to be universal, as this theory had suggested, and its second-order, observer-oriented, 'etic' approach significantly differed from the first-order, participant-generated, 'emic' perspective (Armaşu, 2012;Lakoff & Ide, 2005;Mills, 2011;Van Olmen, 2017). Several other alternative theoretical accounts of politeness and impoliteness have been proposed since then, the most influential of whom are the discursive (or postmodern) model, the frame-based model and the rapport management model (Armaşu, 2012;Haugh, 2007;Huang, 2017;Mills, 2011;Van Olmen, 2017).…”