Historical politeness

Dániel Z. Kádár
Table of contents

The present paper introduces a recent and rapidly developing field within politeness research, and pragmatics: historical politeness (and impoliteness) research. The diachronic study of politeness is an area which, by its nature, does not necessarily attract researchers and students involved in synchronic pragmatics. My aim is to show that historical politeness is not only a thought-provoking area, but research on certain of its key topics can broaden our understanding of the operation of politeness, as well as the interpersonal aspects of language usage in a broader sense – i.e. “the relational, attitudinal/emotive, and evaluative aspects of embodied language use” (see Haugh et al. 2013, forthcoming). With this objective behind, in this article I focus on the major key concepts of historical politeness research from a somewhat ‘non-historical’ angle and occasionally I illustrate these concepts by using modern data.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price.

References

Antonacopolou, Elena, and Haridimos Tsoukas.
2002 “Time and reflexivity in organization studies: An introduction.” Organization Studies 23(6): 857–862. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Auer, Peter.
1992 “Introduction: John Gumperz’ approach to contextualization.” In The Contextu-alization of Language, ed. by Peter Auer and Aldo Di Luzio, 1–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Austin, Paddy.
1990 “Politeness revisited: The Dark Side.” In New Zealand Ways of Speaking English, ed. by Allan Bell and Janet Holmes, 276–294. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Bax, Marcel.
2010 “Epistolary presentation rituals: Face-work, politeness, and ritual display in early modern Dutch letter-writing.” In Historical (Im)politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper and Dániel Z. Kádár, 37–85. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2012 “An evolutionary take on (im)politeness: Three broad developments in the marking out of socio-proxemic space.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 12 (1/2): 255–282. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bax, Marcel, and Dániel Z. Kádár
(eds.) 2012 Understanding Historical (Im) Politeness. Double Special Issue of Journal of Historical Pragmatics 12(1/2).Google Scholar
Bax, Marcel, and Streekstra, Nanne.
2003 “Civil rites: Ritual politeness in early modern Dutch letter writing.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4(2): 303–325. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Beeching, Kate.
2007 “A politeness theoretical approach to pragmatico-semantic change.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 8(1): 303–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beetz, Manfred.
1999 “The polite answer in pre-modern German conversation culture.” In Historical Dialogue Analysis, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Gerd Fritz and Frantz Lebsanft, 139–166. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elite Olhstain
1984 “Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP).” Applied Linguistics 5(3): 196–213. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, Jan, and Herman Roodenburg
1997 A Cultural History of Humour: From Antiquity to the Present Day. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson
1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman
1960 “The pronouns of power and solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. New York: MIT.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Burke, Peter.
1987 “The art of insulting in early modern Italy.” Culture and History 2: 68–79.Google Scholar
Carpanzano, Vincent.
2004 “Text, transference, and indexicality.” In Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics, ed. by John A. Lucy, 293–314. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clancey, William J.
1993 “Situated action: A neuropsychological interpretation response to Vera and Simon.” Cognitive Science 17(1): 87–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan.
2009 “Historical sociopragmatics: An introduction.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 10(2): 179–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Dániel Z. Kádár
(eds.) 2010 Historical (Im)Politeness. Berne: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Kytö, Merja.
2010 Speech in Writing: Explorations in Early Modern English Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Berg, Henk.
1992 “A systems theoretical perspective on communication.” Poetics Today 16(4): 709–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul.
1997 “‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of trouble in conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 28(1): 69–101. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Elden, Stuart.
2002 Mapping the Present: Heidegger, Foucault, and the Project of Spatial History. London and New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Eelen, Gino.
2001 A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St Jerome.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Ehlich, Konrad.
2005 “On the historicity of politeness.” In Politeness in Language (2nd Edition), ed. by Richard Watts, Sachiko Ide, and Konrad Ehlich, 71–108. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fitzmaurice, Susan.
2002 The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English: A Pragmatic Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel.
1973 The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Gibson, James J.
1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton MifflinGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving.
1981 “Footing.” Semiotica 25(1/2): 1–30. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
1981 Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael.
2004 “Revisiting the conceptualisation of politeness in English and Japanese.” Multilingua 23(1/2): 85–109. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
2007 “The discursive challenge to politeness research: An interactional alternative.” Journal of Politeness Research 3(2): 295–317.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “Epilogue: the first–second order distinction in face and politeness research.” Journal of Politeness Research 8(1): 111–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael, Dániel Z. Kádár, and Sara Mills
2013 “Interpersonal pragmatics: Issues and debates.” Journal of Pragmatics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Held, Gudrun.
1999 “Submission strategies as an expression of the ideology of politeness: Reflections on the verbalization of social power relations.” Pragmatics 9(10): 21–36.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan C.
2003 “Media and language change: Introduction.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4(1): 1–17. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Heidegger, Martin.
[1927] 1991 Being and Time. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Ide, Sachiko.
2005 “How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance: The indexicality and reflexivity of linguistic rituals.” In Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, ed. by Robin T. Lakoff, and Sachiko Ide, 45–64. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iggers, Georg G.
2007 “Rationality and History.” Retrieved from: http://​www​.culturahistorica​.es​/iggers​/rationality​_and​_history​.pdf
Jacobs, Andreas, and Jucker, Andreas H.
1995 “The historical perspective in pragmatics.” In Historical Pragmatics – Pragmatic Developments in the History of English, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, 3–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jucker, Andreas H.
1995. Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoP
2000 “‘Thou’ in the history of English: A case for historical semantics or pragmatics?” In Words: Structure, Meaning, Function. Festschrift for Dieter Kastovsky, C. Dalton-Puffer, and N. Ritt, 153–163. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “‘In curteisie was set fulmuchelhir lest’, Politeness in Middle English.” In Historical (Im) Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper and Dániel Z. Kádár, 175–200. Berne: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2012 “Positive and negative face as descriptive categories in the history of English.” In Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness, ed. by Marcel Bax, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 178–197. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, and Irma Taavitsainen.
2013 English Historical Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z.
2007 Terms of (Im)Politeness: On the Communicational Properties of Traditional Chinese (Im)Polite Terms of Address. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University Press.Google Scholar
Kádár, Daniel Z.
2010. Historical Chinese Letter Writing. London and New York: Continuum.
Kádár, Dániel Z.
2012 “Relational ritual.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren, 48 pp. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Michael Haugh
forthcoming. “Intercultural politeness research.” In Handbook of Pragmatics ed. by Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren Amsterdam John Benjamins DOI logo
Kaestle, Carl F.
1985 “The history of literacy and the history of readers.” Review of Research in Education 12: 11–53.Google Scholar
Kohnen, Thomas.
2008 “Linguistic politeness in Anglo-Saxon England? A study of Old English address terms.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 9(1): 140–158. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
2012 Understanding Anglo-Saxon ‘politeness’: Directive constraints with ic wille / ic wolde . In Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness, ed. by Marcel Bax and Dániel Z. Kádár, 230–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kopytko, Roman.
1995 “Linguistic politeness strategies in Shakespeare’s plays.” In Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, 515–540. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kumatani, Akiyasu.
1990 “Language policies in North Korea.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 127: 87–108.Google Scholar
Lee, Hyo%n-Bok.
1990 “Differences in language use between North and South Korean.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 82: 71–86.Google Scholar
Lucy, John A.
2004. Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoP
Meier, A.J.
1995 “Passages of politeness.” Journal of Pragmatics 24(4): 381–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mills, Sara, and Dániel Z. Kádár
2011 “Politeness and culture.” In Politeness in East Asia, ed. by Dániel Z. Kádár and Sara Mills, 21–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moreno, Maria Cristobalina.
2002 “The address system of the Spanish of the Golden Age.” Journal of Pragmatics 34(1): 15–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mützel, Sophie.
2009 “Networks as culturally constituted processes: A comparison of relational sociology and actor-network theory.” Current Sociology 57(6): 871–887. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu, and Tanskanen Sanna-Kaisa
(eds.) 2007 Letter Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norris, Sigrid.
2004 Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework. London: Routledge.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Ong, Walter.
1984 “Orality, literacy, and medieval textualization.” Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages 16(1): 1–12.Google Scholar
Pan, Yuling, and Dániel Z. Kádár
2011 Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Peacock, James L. and Dorothy L. Holland
1993 “The narrated self: Life stories in process.” Ethos 21(4): 367–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruhi, Ükriye and Dániel Z. Kádár
2012 “‘Face’ across historical cultures: A comparative analysis of Turkish and Chinese.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 12 (1/2): 25–48. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Seppänen, Eeva-Leena.
2003 “Demonstrative pronouns in addressing and referring in Finnish.” In Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems, ed. by Irma Taavitsainen and Andreas H. Jucker, 375–399. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shields, David S.
1997 Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America. Chapell Hill and London: University of North California Press.Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria.
1999 Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael.
2003 “Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life.” Language and Communication 23: 193–229. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Skewis, Malcolm.
2003 Honglou meng Journal of Pragmatics 35(2): 161–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Wenying Jiang
2003 “Explaining cross-cultural pragmatic findings: Moving from politeness maxims to sociopragmatic interactional principles (SIPs).” Journal of Pragmatics 35 (10/11): 1633–1650. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen.
[2000] 2008 “Introduction: Language, culture and Rapport Management.” In Culturally Speaking, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 1–10. London and New York: Continuum.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Suhr, Carla and Irma Taavitsainen
(eds.) 2012 Developing Corpus Methodology for Historical Pragmatics. Special issue of VARENG 11.Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma and Andreas H. Jucker
(eds.) 2003 Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Trosborg, Anna.
1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Van De Walle, Lieve
1993 Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit: A Pilot Study in Linguistic Politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Watts, Richard J.
1999 “Language and politeness in early eighteenth century Britain.” Pragmatics 9(1): 5–20.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 Quo vadis? In Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory, and Practice, ed. by Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide, and Konrad Ehlich, xi–xlvii. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “A socio-cognitive approach to historical politeness.” In Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness, ed. by Marcel Bax and Dániel Z. Kádár, 103–130. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Wayne, Pace R.
1962 “Oral communication and sales effectiveness.” Journal of Applied Psychology 46(5): 321–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wetzel, Patricia.
2004 Keigo in Modern Japan: Polite Language from Meiji to the Present. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Max W.
1994 “‘Politeness’: Sociolinguistic theory and language change.” Folia Linguistica Historica XV: 149–174.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Neil L.
1995 “The historical anthropology of text: The interpretation of Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana.” Current Anthropology 36(1): 53–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar