This study explores the evaluation of (im)politeness, which is made by a hearer (or a beneficiary). Although discursive researchers advocate the importance of the evaluation of (im)politeness made by a hearer in politeness research, empirical studies on the evaluation of (im)politeness are still limited. The non-linguistic aspect has not been much researched in previous politeness studies. This study tries to fill these gaps in politeness research, by focusing on evaluation of (im)politeness from the non-linguistic perspective.
Among many other things, the evaluation of attentiveness (demonstrator’s preemptive response to a beneficiary’s verbal/non-verbal cues or situations surrounding a beneficiary and a demonstrator, which takes the form of offering) is focused on in this study, making cross-cultural (Japanese and American) and cross-generational (university students and their parents’ age groups) comparisons. The data were collected through a questionnaire, which consisted of six situations, and interviews. 298 people (Japanese university students, Japanese parents and American university students) served as the participants. The results of the questionnaire data show that there were significant differences among the participants in the evaluation of attentiveness in two situations, those of the interview data revealing that most participants evaluated attentiveness positively, except in two situations. This study contributes to further understanding of (im)politeness from the perspective of attentiveness with cross-cultural and cross-generational differences as well as similarities.
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Cited by
Cited by 13 other publications
Allan, Keith
2016. A Benchmark for Politeness. In Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 4], ► pp. 397 ff.
Fukushima, Saeko
2015. In search of another understanding of politeness: From the perspective of attentiveness. Journal of Politeness Research 11:2
Fukushima, Saeko
2019. A Metapragmatic Aspect of Politeness: With a Special Emphasis on Attentiveness in Japanese. In From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness, ► pp. 226 ff.
Fukushima, Saeko
2024. Japanese politeness revisited: from the perspective of attentiveness on Twitter. Journal of Politeness Research 0:0
Fukushima, Saeko & Michael Haugh
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Fukushima, Saeko & Maria Sifianou
2017. Conceptualizing politeness in Japanese and Greek. Intercultural Pragmatics 14:4
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar & Maria Sifianou
2017. (Im)politeness and Identity. In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ► pp. 227 ff.
Hodeib, Christina
2023. Conceptualizations and evaluations of (im)politeness in Syrian Arabic. Journal of Politeness Research 0:0
Ran, Yongping & Linsen Zhao
2019. Impoliteness Revisited: Evidence fromQingmianThreats in Chinese Interpersonal Conflicts. Journal of Politeness Research 15:2 ► pp. 257 ff.
Sifianou, Maria & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
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2021. Reflexivity and Meta-awareness. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 117 ff.
Zhao, Linsen
2020. Mock Impoliteness and Co-Construction of Hudui Rituals in Chinese Online Interaction. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 45 ff.
[no author supplied]
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