Basic concepts

Verbal communication is not limited to the exchange of information but includes, as one of its major functions, the shaping of interpersonal relationships. In making their linguistic choices speakers take this function into account. In order to adjust their speech behaviour to the communicative purposes at hand, they monitor their speech. Among the many choices they make in conversation the politeness level of their utterances is one of the more conspicuous, and it is one where social constraints are most keenly felt. Socially adequate behaviour depends on the observance of general principles and specific norms which, in the broadest sense, are subsumed under the concept of politeness. Various definitions of the notion of politeness have been proposed, and over the past several decades a large body of literature on politeness has been produced. Because of its ubiquity in language use it is difficult to delimit the phenomena that should be dealt with in the empirical investigation of politeness. Suffice it for present purposes to describe politeness as the practice of organizing linguistic action so that it is seen as inoffensive and conforming to current social expectations regarding the trouble-free management of communication. From this point of view, politeness appears not as decorum added to what really matters (the propositional content of an utterance), but rather as fundamental to social life.