The impulse to the study of politeness (in linguistic pragmatics) came from H. P. Grice’s seminal paper ‘Logic and conversation’ (1975), in which he proposed a Cooperative Principle and four maxims underlying transactional discourse. Lakoff, Leech and Edmondson elaborated his suggestion of an additional politeness maxim. A different approach to politeness was proposed by Brown & Levinson, who derive politeness from Goffman’s (1971) notion of face. Most theoretical contributions and empirical studies adopt Brown & Levinson’s work as a reference point, debating in particular the universality of their theory. This essay further discusses various approaches to and expressions of politeness, as well as variables in politeness investment and a discourse perspective.