While it is important to be able to read and interpret individual papers, the results of a single study are never going to provide the complete answer to a question. To move towards this, we need to review the literature more widely. There can be a number of reasons for doing this, some of which require a more comprehensive approach than others. If the aim is simply to increase our personal understanding of a new area, then a few papers might provide adequate background material. Traditional narrative reviews have value for exploring areas of uncertainty or novelty but give less emphasis to complete coverage of the literature and tend to be more qualitative, so it is harder to scrutinise them for flaws. Scoping reviews are more systematic but still exploratory. They are conducted to identify the breadth of evidence available on a particular topic, clarify key concepts and identify the knowledge gaps. In contrast, a major decision regarding policy or practice should be based on a systematic review and perhaps a meta-analysis of all the relevant literature, and it is this approach that we focus on here.

Chapter 8 explores the second major component of the evaluation warrant: the socio-moral order that underpins judgements and complements the other major component – interpersonal sensitivities. The chapter starts by considering theorising on morality and the moral order, since recent work in politeness theory has focused particularly on this. First, it discusses pragmatic theorising on the moral order before turning to work in moral psychology and describe two well-known moral frameworks in psychology. The chapter then explores possible links between face, values and moral foundations/motives from an interdisciplinary perspective, in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of their interconnections. Finally, the chapter argues for the inclusion of a social order that is primarily convention-based (i.e. relates more to descriptive norms and ‘social oughts’) and proposes that there is a continuum between the social and moral warrants to participants’ judgments. The chapter labels this the socio-moral order. As with concepts discussed in previous chapters, the issue of universality and cultural variability is central. There are three main sections to the chapter: morality and the moral order; moral foundations, values and face; social transgressions and morality.

This chapter provides an overview to Part II of the book, which focuses on the process of making evaluative judgements with regard to politeness. Early in the history of mainstream politeness research, theorists argued that words and phrases are not inherently polite or impolite, but rather are judged as such by participants. Yet for many years there was remarkably little research into the process of interpersonal evaluation. Recently, there has been more attention paid to evaluation, yet there is a need for greater theorisation. This may particularly be the case with regard to politeness in intercultural scenarios, considering that the cultural background of the interactants, the extent to which culture influences the context of the interaction, and other aspects of culture strongly influence politeness evaluations. The chapter outlines the various steps involved in the process of making politeness evaluations. There are five main sections to the chapter: behaviour in context; normalcy zone and triggering of the evaluation process, evaluating behaviour and agent, evaluation warrant and judgement of behaviour and agent. We explore each of these steps in detail in subsequent chapters of Part II.