Abstract
This edited collection consists of 12 main chapters which are divided into three main parts. In the Foreword, Chris Christie welcomes this book as a much-needed look at recent scholarship in politeness, particularly as it engages a large number of languages. In Chapter 1 (Introduction), the editors offer a brief survey of the linguistic theory of politeness, indicating how current scholarship – while it builds on earlier, foundational works such as those by Lakoff (1973, 1977), Grice (1975), and Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) – has begun to recognize the discursive nature of politeness. As a result, politeness is analyzed in long fragments of authentic interactions; focus is placed on both the speaker’s and the hearer’s utterances; and a distinction is made between the interpretations of politeness maintained by interactants (first-order politeness) and those maintained by researchers (second-order politeness). Further, the editors explain their rationale for this book: investigation of the current theoretical underpinnings for politeness and facework in a wide range of cultures.
In Part I, Face in Interaction, there are two chapters, both of which explore the theoretical framework behind the study of face and politeness. In Chapter 2, Jim O’Driscoll offers an expansive theoretical look at face by addressing how face relates to politeness; how face can be studied across cultures; where face takes place; how face is carried lexico-grammatically; and what face is made of. In Chapter 3, Maria Sifianou presents a study of metaphors from Greek to see how face is conceptualized and how it relates to positive politeness. The data suggest that face has inherent characteristics, such as honor and dignity; while it may be modified in interactions, face is generally relatively stable from one interaction to the other.
In Part II, Im/politeness in Intracultural Interaction, there are five chapters that focus on intracultural polite behavior in a variety of cultural contexts. In Chapter 4, Louise Mullany examines how pragmatic features such as expletives, adjacency pairs and interruptions help to construct gender identities and maintain social power in the documentary series Ice Road Truckers, a show about men working as seasonal truck drivers on Canadian ice-roads. In Chapter 5, Zohar Kampf and Shoshana Blum-Kulka study the discourse of children and of politicians in Israel, recognizing each group as belonging to a particular community of practice with its unique discursive norms. They conclude that while both communities of practice have similar internal workings, children exhibit cooperativeness to mitigate and resolve conflict, while politicians magnify conflict to achieve political gain. In Chapter 6, Lucien Brown studies honorifics in Korean to question earlier research findings that perceived of these honorifics as stable and uncontested. He employs a tripartite model of (revealed, suppressed and ignored) culture to argue that ideology must be unpacked to better understand how honorifics function in Korean society. In Chapter 7, Yueguo Gu questions the ‘simplistic’ approach adopted by earlier researchers of Chinese politeness whose monolithic view of the Chinese language had resulted in universal politeness. Gu offers a postmodern view of politeness within the larger context of the rich history of the Chinese language and the complex cultures producing it. In Chapter 8, Manana Rusieshvili directs her attention to the Georgian language and culture to examine what impact in-group and out-group interactions may have on modes of address between female staff members in two professional contexts: medical and academic. She concludes that linguistic markers of politeness are highly sensitive not only to professional identity and social relationships and power, but also to the situation at hand.
In Part III, Im/politeness and Face: Intercultural and Crosscultural Perspectives, there are four chapters that offer cross-cultural perspectives on politeness and facework. In Chapter 9, Karen Grainger examines indirectness, and how it relates to politeness, in the discourse of some of her personal acquaintances who are Zimbabwean English speakers in the UK. Highlighting the complexity of the interpretation of politeness in an intercultural context, she argues for the merger of the first and second orders of politeness, particularly in a case that involves the researcher as an active participant in the discourse under investigation. In Chapter 10, Eva Ogiermann and Małgorzata Suszczyńska discuss how changing political and social realities resulting from the fall of the Iron Curtain may have affected modes of im/politeness in Poland and Hungary. While politeness has traditionally had different motivations in these countries (i.e. interest in others in Poland and respect in Hungary), it has morphed into the same thing in the new political regimes in both countries: superficial politeness. In Chapter 11, Yasuhisa Watanabe studies facework in Japanese–English bilingual interactions. He argues that the study of facework should be conducted longitudinally to reveal the complexity of constructing and upholding face and how side-participants contribute to that dynamic. In Chapter 12, Ewa Bogdanowska-Jakubowska suggests that limiting face to self-presentation and relationships in single interactions hardly does it justice. She proposes a cultural face model that recognizes facework as a social practice that finds face and social reality dialectically constitutive.
In the Epilogue, Sandra Harris applauds the efforts that have led to the publication of this scholarly work and offers a set of recommendations needed for a productive future in the study of politeness across cultures: first, emphasis should be placed on investigating ideologies in the construction of politeness; second, new models, besides face-based ones, are needed to examine the relationship between politeness and culture; and finally, a critical investigation of the intersection of politeness and culture is due.
Politeness Across Cultures brings together 17 international scholars from a wide range of linguistic theoretical backgrounds and methodologies to investigate how politeness and face are constructed linguistically, socially and culturally in nine languages. The breadth of its linguistic and cultural coverage, complemented with the depth in which topics are examined and analyzed, speak to the international appeal this book must have for both the seasoned scholar and the beginner in politeness studies. For the former, it is a good textbook to use in teaching how politeness has emerged as a viable and relevant study in discourse studies; and for the latter it is a valuable introduction to the current scholarship in politeness studies. Given the variety of approaches and methodologies employed in it successfully, this book makes a strong argument for cross-disciplinary scholarship, incorporating fine attention to language, and creativity in collecting authentic data, called for in linguistics and ethnographic studies, respectively. A question that persisted in the mind of this reviewer while reading the book is this: In today’s increasingly, though admittedly variably, interconnected world citizenry, how convincingly can one argue for cultural boundaries? Some of the authors of this book seem to recognize how cultural boundaries are contested or unstable linguistically and socially, but the collection and analysis of their data do not seem to give this issue the attention it deserves. This question will need to be addressed in future studies in politeness – a possibility, now that this book has paved the road to a sophisticated understanding of this complex socio-linguistic phenomenon.