Two general approaches to politeness

The socio-cultural view of politeness

A notion at the heart of much work on the socio-cultural view of politeness is that of social norms. Social norms are of two types. A prescriptive social norm is a rule of behavior enforced by social sanctions. Thus, throwing litter on the floor breaks a social norm. Social norms are driven by social rules (“do not litter”), and breaking those rules incurs sanctions. Impolite language – that is, abusive, threatening, aggressive language – is often explicitly outlawed by signs displayed in public places (e.g. hospitals, airport check-in desks). Sanctions are underpinned by social institutions and structures (e.g. a legal system) and enforced by those in power. Moreover, if social norms become internalized by members of society, as they regularly do, sanctions can take on a moral dimension in the form of attitudes, such as disapproval from others or guilt emanating from oneself. Interestingly, the word morals is derived from the Latin mores, meaning customs. The obligations associated with social norms are what underlie their morality. Such obligations can be articulated in rules of conduct. Goffman (1967: 49) makes the link with morality clear:

Rules of conduct impinge upon the individual in two general ways: directly, as obligations establishing how he is morally constrained to conduct himself; indirectly, as expectations, establishing how others are morally bound to act in regard to him.

Those expectations are attitudes about how things should be, and their violation leads to a sense of immorality.

What he refers to as the “social-norm view” of politeness is neatly summed up by Fraser (1990: 220):

Briefly stated, [the social-norm view] assumes that each society has a particular set of social norms consisting of more or less explicit rules that prescribe a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or a way of thinking in context. A positive evaluation (politeness) arises when an action is in congruence with the norm, a negative evaluation (impoliteness = rudeness) when action is to the contrary.

Politeness, in this sense, subsumes everyday notions such as “good manners”, “social etiquette”, “social graces” and “minding your ps and qs”. Parents teaching their children to say please typically proscribe requests that are not accompanied by that word. Social norms, of course, are sensitive to context: the social politeness norms that pertain to a family dinner are rather different from those pertaining to a formal dinner occasion. Actually, there are some situations where communicative behaviors are not subject to politeness prescriptions; in other words, situations in which behaviors which might be viewed as “impolite” are unrestricted and licensed. Often, such situations are characterized by a huge power imbalance, as might be the case in army recruit training, but not necessarily so. Harris (2001), for example, describes the sanctioned impoliteness that takes place in the UK’s House of Commons, giving Opposition MPs opportunities to attack the Government that they might not have had in other contexts.

There is another sense in which social norms underpin much research on politeness. Experiential or descriptive social norms have their basis in an individual’s experience of social situations. Repeated experiences of social situations may lead one to expect certain kinds of interaction to happen, be able to hypothesise what others’ expectations are, and know how to meet them. Opp (1982) argues that regular behaviours develop into expectations, those expectations give people a sense of certainty, and it is this certainty that has value – value which feeds politeness attitudes. People generally like to know what will happen next, a point made forcefully in social cognition in relation to schema theory (see, for example, Fiske and Taylor 1991: 97). Additionally, in the area of human relations, Kellerman and Reynolds (1990: 14), investigating the link between expectancy violations and attraction, state that deviations from expectations are “generally judged negatively”. However, it is important to note context dependency. It is not the case that all thwarted expectations are judged negatively. Aesthetic pleasure and entertainment are often achieved through surprise (as in the surprise ending of a film).

Etiquette books and parental instruction are simply not detailed enough to help us through the mass of social occasions we will tackle in our lives. We acquire politeness routines from our regular experiences of social interactions. Politeness routines or formulae are expressions which have become conventionally associated with politeness attitudes in specific contexts. Linguistic politeness can be taken to mean the use of expressions that are both contextually appropriate and judged as socially positive by the target (some researchers, such as Watts 2003, take “socially positive” primarily to mean showing “consideration” to the target) (cf. Locher and Watts 2005). Remember the use of please? It is not just used by anybody to anybody, or in any context, and when it is used, it is generally considered socially positive. The point about politeness routines/markers is that knowledge of both their appropriate context and their positive social meaning has become conventionally associated with the linguistic expression. This is why we can pronounce on how polite or otherwise an expression sounds even when considering that expression out of its normal context (e.g. in a list of politeness expressions). Of course, this does not mean that simply using a politeness routine/marker will result in people viewing it as polite. Politeness always involves an overall contextual judgement. Thus, Go to hell please, said to get rid of somebody, might well be considered socially negative, despite the fact that a conventional politeness formula (please) has been used. In fact, this particular utterance achieves its power, because politeness is part of the conventional meaning of the expression please. The contexts of usage and socially positive meanings of that word clash with its actual usage on this occasion – they lend a note of sarcasm (which can be regarded as a form of mock politeness).

In practice, prescriptive social norms and experiential social norms can – and often do – coincide and interact. Thanking a host for dinner, for example, involves both: it is something we are under social pressure to do and we often do it. The socio-cultural view of politeness has been given a new lease of life in the last decade, notably in the guise of discursive politeness, and we shall consider relevant work.