Pragmatic and sociolinguistic analyses of im/politeness have usually been dependent on context and cultural frames of reference. This new study approaches the concept from an original perspective, namely situatedness.
Although politeness research often concentrates on examining how speeches or discourses themselves are situated with regards to different places and contexts, the focus on just one situation, and various text types within it, can also be of value. Situated Politeness is concerned with disentangling the factors which govern our behaviour within a given social context as well as across them. A range of expanding disciplines, including corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, are brought to bear on the topic, and this work will be of interest to a diverse global audience.
'For those interested in politeness - which surely includes most of us - this book is essential reading. Covering a range of theoretical approaches, settings, languages and cultures, Situated Politeness explores some of the key issues in current im/politeness research by some of the leading scholars in the field. The book adopts a new three-way division of politeness into institutional, interpersonal and public settings, including a variety of contexts and cultures, such as New Zealand workplaces, classrooms in Mexico a university hockey club in Sheffield, Japanese television drama, and a national advertising campaign in Australia. Particularly significant, Situated Politeness is primarily concerned not only with the local negotiation of both politeness and impoliteness but how these are, crucially, played out against a wider backdrop of social and cultural practices and beliefs. Not least, the style is highly accessible, and the various chapters offer a wide range of relevant and fascinating data.' - Sandra Harris, Professor Emeritus, School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, UK