Jonathan Culpeper

Towards an anatomy of impoliteness

Politeness theories have focussed on how communicative strategies are employed to promote or maintain social harmony in interaction. On the other hand, little work has been done on communicative strategies with the opposite orientation, that of attacking ones interlocutor and causing disharmony. In this paper, I consider the notions of inherent and mock impoliteness, and discuss contextual factors associated with impoliteness. In particular, I attempt to build an impoliteness framework which is parallel but opposite to Brown and Levinsons (1987) theory of politeness. Finally, I demonstrate that in some contexts — specifically that of army training and literary drama — impoliteness behaviour is not a marginal activity, and that we need an appropriate descriptive framework in order to account for it.

Impoliteness revisited: with special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects

This paper focuses on impoliteness, the use of communicative strategies designed to attack face, and thereby cause social conflict and disharmony. Using television documentary recordings of disputes between traffic wardens and car owners as our data, we revisit the impoliteness framework mapped out in Culpeper [J. Prag. 25 (1996) 349]. Having justified why an impoliteness framework is needed, we explore the notion of impoliteness and consider whether the impoliteness strategies identified in Culpeper can be found in another discourse type. We argue that for impoliteness to be fully appreciated we need to move beyond the single strategy (lexically and grammatically defined) and examine both how impoliteness pans out in extended discourse and the role of prosody in conveying impoliteness. Our paper has important implications for politeness theory and discourse studies in general, and the role of prosody in discourse in particular.

Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: ‘The Weakest Link’.

Abstract Building on Culpeper (1996) and Culpeper et al. (2003), I first propose a new definition of impoliteness and general revisions to my model of impoliteness, both derived from data analyses. Given that my particular data in this paper, The Weakest Link, is a television entertainment quiz show, I will briefly account for why impoliteness might be entertaining. As a backdrop to my micro-analyses of interactions, I discuss the nature of “exploitative” chat and game shows, and I examine the structure of The Weakest Link and how it maximizes the potential for face-damage. In my analyses, I show the formulaic and creative nature of parts of the discourse, and also how analyzing prosody is key to understanding the impoliteness. I pay special attention to “off-record impoliteness”, sarcasm and mimicry, and I integrate into my model Spencer-Oateys (2002) revisions of Brown and Levinsons (1987) concepts of negative and positive face. Finally, referring to Levinsons (1992) “activity types”, I consider whether the context of the quiz show “neutralizes” the “impoliteness”. I argue that the salience of “impolite” signals engulf the context, with the result that targets often take offense in contexts where they theoretically should not.

Cross-cultural variation in the perception of impoliteness:a study of impoliteness events reported by students in England, China, Finland, Germany and Turkey.

Abstract This paper investigates cross-cultural variation in the perception of impoliteness. It is based on 500 impoliteness events reported by students in England, China, Finland, Germany, and Turkey. The main analytical framework adopted is Spencer-Oateys (e.g. Rapport management: A framework for analysis, Continuum, 2000) “rapport management,” covering various types of face as well as sociality rights. We offer some clarifications of this framework, and explain and demonstrate how it can be operationalized for quantitative analysis. In general, it offers a good account of our data, though accommodating ambiguous cases proved to be a major challenge. Our quantitative analysis suggests that three of the five categories of Spencer-Oateys framework are key ones, namely, quality face, equity rights, and association rights. Furthermore, differences between our geographically separated datasets emerge. For example, the England-based data has a preponderance of impoliteness events in which quality face is violated, whereas the China-based data has a preponderance where equity rights are violated. We offer some explanations for these differences, relating them where possible to broader cultural issues.

Using a corpus to test a model of speech and thought presentation

This paper reports on a text-based empirical project aimed at testing and refining Leech and Shorts (1981) model of speech and thought presentation. A balanced British English corpus consisting of twentieth-century prose fiction and contemporary press stories was tagged using Leech and Shorts categories of speech and thought presentation as a starting point. The tagging of the corpus led to the introduction of two new categories (the narrators report of voice and the narration of internal states), and a number of sub-types of existing categories. We define and exemplify the new categories and sub-categories, indicate their frequencies in our data, and explore their effects in different text-types. We also discuss the coding difficulties posed by anibiguities and overlaps between categories, and consider the implications of such problems and other factors for the claim that the boundaries between speech and thought presentation categories are clinal in nature. Although our research reveals a wealth of evidence to support the idea that the speech and thought presentation scale is a cline rather than a series of discrete categories, it also suggests that some category boundaries (especially those at the direct/free indirect boundary) are less clinal than others.

Impoliteness: Eclecticism and Diaspora An introduction to the special edition

Impoliteness research has finally begun to expand with researchers, like those contributing to this Special Edition, drawing from an eclectic range of research paradigms. One of the most enduring language-oriented lines of research feeding into the study of “impoliteness” must be the study often philological in flavour of swearing. The classic is Montagu’s Anatomy of Swearing (1968) and the most substantial work to date is Hughes’s mighty An Encyclopaedia of Swearing (2006). However, perspectives on swearing have recently broadened to include both a sociolinguistic perspective (see McEnery 2005), and one that combines both social and cognitive issues (see Jay 2000). Nevertheless, whilst, unlike earlier studies, these approaches do consider the use of swearing in context, it is obvious that there is more to being impolite than just swearing. Perhaps the first comprehensive and theoretically-grounded paper on the topic is Lachenicht’s (1980) “Aggravating language: A study of abusive and insulting language”. Although there are problems with both the theory and methodology (see Culpeper et al. 2003: 1553 1554), it is weighty and innovative. Surprisingly, far from being a catalyst for further research, it almost disappeared without trace. In the interim, research into “politeness” gathered momentum. The classic politeness theories, such as Lakoff (1973), Brown and Levinson (1987 [1978]) and Leech (1983), focused on harmonious interactions, and thus, quite understandably, ignored impoliteness. Moreover, as elaborated by Eelen (2001: 98 100), they are generally not well equipped, conceptually or descriptively, to account for impoliteness. In particular, they tend to give the impression that impoliteness is either some kind of pragmatic failure, a consequence of not doing something, or merely anomalous behaviour, not worthy of consideration. The revival of discussions of impoliteness, within pragmatics at least, seems to have come

Inferring character from texts: Attribution theory and foregrounding theory

There is at present no theoretical framework that captures the processes involved in literary characterisation. In this paper, I focus on the issue of how and when people infer information about character from a text. Drawing upon work in social psychology, I assess and compare two attribution theories, both of which are designed to explain how we infer aspects of personality in real life situations. In particular, I highlight the apparent mutual incompatibility of these theories. In order to strengthen their theoretical position, I describe how these theories are analogous in particular ways with foregrounding theory, a theory which addresses issues to do with literary interpretation. In drawing this analogy, I demonstrate how the two attribution theories might be reconciled. Finally, I consider the operation of attribution theory in literary texts and demonstrate its power as a descriptive and explanatory framework.

A cognitive approach to characterization: Katherina in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

In this article, I argue that literary characterization can be fruitfully approached by drawing upon theories developed within social cognition to explain the perception of real-life people. I demonstrate how this approach can explain the construction of Katherina, the protagonist in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Specifically, I introduce notions from cognitive theories of knowledge (especially schema theory), and impression formation. Using these, I describe (1) the role of prior knowledge in forming an impression of a character, and (2) how various types of impression are formed. Prior to my analysis of Katherina, I outline the kind of shrew schema the Elizabethans might have had knowledge of. Then, in my analysis I argue that the textual evidence in the first part of the play is largely consistent with this schema, and thus Katherina at this stage is largely a schema-based character. However, I show that as the play progresses a number of changes create the conditions for a more complex and personalized character. As a consequence of this analysis, I claim that Katherina is not, as some critics have argued, simply a shrew, or an inconsistent character, or a typical character of a farce.

The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im) Politeness

This handbook comprehensively examines social interaction by providing a critical overview of the field of linguistic politeness and impoliteness. Authored by over forty leading scholars, it offers a diverse and multidisciplinary approach to a vast array of themes that are vital to the study of interpersonal communication. The chapters explore the use of (im)politeness in specific contexts as well as wider developments, and variations across cultures and contexts in understandings of key concepts (such as power, emotion, identity and ideology). Within each chapter, the authors select a topic and offer a critical commentary on the key linguistic concepts associated with it, supporting their assertions with case studies that enable the reader to consider the practicalities of (im)politeness studies. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of linguistics, particularly those concerned with pragmatics, sociolinguistics and interpersonal communication. Its multidisciplinary nature means that it is also relevant to researchers across the social sciences and humanities, particularly those working in sociology, psychology and history.

Drama : stylistic aspects.

The stylistics of drama is the linguistic description and interpretation of play-texts. The keystone of the field must be the recognition that the language of play-texts constitutes a distinctive genre worthy of analysis in its own right; that is to say, play-texts should not be taken as simply a ‘dramatic poem’ or as a reflection of ‘real life’ spoken conversation. Play-texts are framed by a characteristic discourse structure and are largely constituted by dialogue, through which character is constructed. But they also include quasinarratorial devices (e.g., some stage directions) and monologic discourse (e.g., soliloquies). They have a controversial relationship with theatrical performance.