Richard J. Watts, University of Berne

Title:  The Discursive Construction of Politeness/Impoliteness

Abstract: The study of linguistic politeness/impoliteness has experienced a renaissance over the past six or seven years, particularly after the publication of Gino Eelen’s penetrating A Critique of Politeness Theories (2001). Three of Eelen’s main criticisms concern a) the confusion between first-order lay notions of “politeness” and second-order conceptualisations of the term, b) the indiscriminate use of an undefined concept of “culture”, and c) the claim that “politeness” is a universal aspect of human behaviour somehow reflected in language use. However, prior to Eelen’s 2001 book, it was already clear to many of the contributors to Watts, Ide, and Ehlich (1992) that a distinction should be made between first- and second-order politeness and that claims for a universal concept of politeness were, at the very least, premature, and at worst, grossly exaggerated. The impetus towards a new approach in researching the term, one that might then be used more fruitfully in SLA and cross-cultural interaction, was generated by the realisation that, whatever politeness was, it seemed to be involved in the exercise of power in social interaction (cf. Kienpointner’s 1999 special issue of Pragmatics) and to emerge as an issue in instantiations of verbal interaction in communities of practice. The present lecture will deal with ways in which politeness (and almost more importantly, impoliteness) is constructed discursively in ongoing social practice as a first-order concept by those involved.

References:

Eelen, Gino (2001). A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Press.
Watts, Richard J., Ide, Sachiko and Ehlich, Konrad (eds.) (2002). Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kienpointner, Manfred (ed.) (1999). ‘Ideologies of politeness’. Special issue of Pragmatics 9(1).

  
Bio-statement: Richard J. Watts was born in London in 1943 and gained his first university education in Britain. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1969, where he has been living ever since, working on a full-time basis at the University of Zurich and then at the University of Berne, where he has been Professor of English Linguistics since 1984. His work is in the fields of linguistic politeness, pragmatics, socio-historical linguistics and the sociolinguistics of English. His previous publications include Power in Family Discourse (Mouton de Gruyter), Politeness in Language (edited with Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich, Mouton de Gruyter), Standard English: The Widening Debate (edited with Tony Bex, Routledge), Alternative Histories of English (edited with Peter Trudgill, Routledge) and Politeness (Cambridge University Press). He is currently working on a book with the somewhat provisional title of Linguistic Myths in the History of English for Oxford University Press. Apart from English, his native language, he is fluent in Standard German as well as the Zurich dialect of Swiss German (being married to a native of Zurich) and French, and he relishes the frequent opportunities in Switzerland to use all of these languages on a regular, everyday basis. The language he uses with his family, including the dog, is  – Swiss German.

Please direct questions to aaal2007@indiana.edu  *  Costa Mesa, California  *  April 21-24, 2007