{"id":315,"date":"2017-03-06T15:15:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T15:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/?page_id=315"},"modified":"2017-03-06T15:15:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T15:15:34","slug":"definitions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/about\/definitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Definitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Definitions of Politeness<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is remarkably difficult to come to a definition of politeness and impoliteness. Several theorists have tried to offer definitions of politeness 2 (that is the scientific abstracted view of politeness as opposed to politeness 1 which is the \u201clived experience\u201d of politeness):<\/p>\n

Robin Lakoff (1975:64) \u201cpoliteness is developed by societies in order to reduce friction in personal interaction\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leech (1980:19) politeness is \u201cstrategic conflict avoidance\u201d which \u201d can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brown and Levinson (1978) politeness \u201cas a complex system for softening face threats\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kasper (1990: 194) \u201ccommunication is seen as fundamentally dangerous and antiganostic endeavour\u201d. Politeness is therefore a term to refer to the strategies available to interactants to defuse the danger and minimalise the antagonism.<\/p>\n

Arndt and Janney (1985:282) politeness is \u201cinterpersonal supportiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hill et al (1986:349) politeness is \u201cone of the constraints on human interaction, whose purpose is to consider others\u2019 feelings, establish levels of mutual comfort and promote rapport\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ide (1989:22) politeness is \u201clanguage associated with smooth communication\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sifianou (1992: 86) politeness is \u201d the set of social values which instructs interactants to consider each other by satisfying shared expectations\u201d.<\/p>\n

All of the above quotations are taken from Watts (2003:50-52) Politeness, Cambridge University Press. Watts argues that \u201cthe very fact that (im)politeness is a term that is struggled over in the present, has been struggled over in the past and will, in all probability continue to be struggled over in the future should be the central focus of a theory of politeness\u2026investigating first order politeness is the only valid means of developing a social theory of politeness\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Definitions of Politeness It is remarkably difficult to come to a definition of politeness and impoliteness. Several theorists have tried to offer definitions of politeness 2 (that is the scientific abstracted view of politeness as opposed to politeness 1 which is the \u201clived experience\u201d of politeness): Robin Lakoff (1975:64) \u201cpoliteness is developed by societies in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7302,"featured_media":0,"parent":294,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-315","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315\/revisions\/316"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/politeness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}