2 - Theorising politeness

Summary

Introduction

In this chapter, I critically survey some of the work that has been undertaken on linguistic politeness. Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) model of politeness has influenced almost all of the theoretical and analytical work in this field. However, in recent years there have been a number of critiques of their work, many of them synthesised in Eelen's work (Eelen, 2001). I would like to consider some of the problems which have been identified in their work, in order to suggest alternative forms of analysis. My intention in this chapter and in the book as a whole is not to attempt to negate the importance of this work by Brown and Levinson: in many ways, as a system of analysis, it works very well, within its own terms. However, perhaps this is one of the major difficulties with the model that, in some respects, it works a little too well – it can be made to work well on a range of different languages, as many linguists have shown, but it does this by focusing on a very restricted model of what constitutes politeness (Fukushima, 2000; Sifianou, 1992). And yet, despite the fact that data can be found to fit the model, to prove that speakers use positive politeness and negative politeness strategies, it is clear that politeness is a much more complex phenomenon. Watts et al. argue that ‘politeness, despite the eagerness with which empirical researchers have used existing theories, remains elusive’ (Watts et al., 1992: 11).