Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness

Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness

Edited by

Denis Jamet and Manuel Jobert

 Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness,
Edited by Denis Jamet and Manuel Jobert

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Denis Jamet and Manuel Jobert and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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ISBN (10): 1-4438-4905-7, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4905-0

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................. vii

Denis Jamet and Manuel Jobert

List of Contributors ................................................................................. xiii

Chapter One
General Approaches to Impoliteness and Rudeness

Part I: Impoliteness: Questions and Answers ............................................. 2

Jonathan Culpeper

Part II: Politeness, Impoliteness, Non-Politeness, “Polirudeness”

The Case of Political TV Debates ............................................................ 16
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni

Part III: The Power of Impoliteness: A Historical Perspective ................. 46

Sandrine Sorlin

Chapter Two
Impoliteness in Television Series and in Drama

Part I: Dr. House and the Language of Offence ....................................... 60

Linda Pillière

Part II: Domestic and Professional Impoliteness in Fawlty Towers:

Impoliteness as a Dramatic Device........................................................... 75
Manuel Jobert

Part III: “Polite Company”:

Offensive Discourse in William Congreve’s Comedies ........................... 94
Natalie Mandon-Hunter

Chapter Three
Impoliteness in Literature

Part I: Medieval Rudeness:

The English Version of a French Romance Custom ............................... 110
Brindusa Grigoriu
vi Table of Contents

Part II: Paradoxes of Impoliteness in Vanity Fair,

by W.M. Thackeray ................................................................................ 122
Jacqueline Fromonot

Part III: Impoliteness and Rebellion in “Christmas”

by John McGahern ................................................................................. 134
Vanina Jobert-Martini

Part IV: “Who are They to Talk to Us Like That?”

Narrative Impoliteness and the Reader ................................................... 145
Claire Majola-Leblond

Chapter Four
Impoliteness in Philosophy of Language

Part I: Systematized Impoliteness in the Nonsense World of Alice’s

Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass ................. 160
Célia Schneebeli

Part II: Impoliteness, agôn, dissensus in “The Two Philosophers”:

Irvine Welsh and a Political Philosophy of Language ............................ 172
Simone Rinzler

Chapter Five
Impoliteness and Modern Communication

Part I: You Know: (Im)politeness Marker

in Naturally Occurring Speech?.............................................................. 190
Isabelle Gaudy-Campbell

Part II: Alternative Spelling and Censorship:

The Treatment of Profanities in Virtual Communities ........................... 209
Laura-Gabrielle Goudet

Part III: Fanning the Flames?

A Study of Insult Forums on the Internet ............................................... 223
Bertrand Richet

Index ....................................................................................................... 242

 INTRODUCTION

DENIS JAMET
UNIVERSITÉ JEAN MOULIN – LYON 3,
CEL – EA 1663, FRANCE

MANUEL JOBERT
UNIVERSITÉ JEAN MOULIN – LYON 3,
CREA – EA 370, FRANCE

Ever since the publication of Politeness – Some Universals in

Language Use in 1978, the study of verbal interactions has been somewhat
biased and “linguistic politeness” has established itself as the main
research area. Brown & Levinson’s model has of course been adapted and
criticised but it remains highly influential. In Principles of Pragmatics,
Leech [1983] suggested an alternative model more explicitly based on
Gricean pragmatics but also favouring politeness. More recently, however,
a new research paradigm has emerged, that of impoliteness. Many
scholars, like Culpeper [1996], [2003], [2005] and [2010] or Bousfield
[2008], now endeavour to counterbalance the previous theory and study
the notion of “impoliteness” more thoroughly than ever before. Is the
study of impoliteness set to replace the study of politeness? Is it simply a
way of compensating for a research area that has been neglected for too
long or is it the beginning of a new approach to the study of verbal
interactions encompassing both politeness and impoliteness under the
umbrella term of (im)politeness as Watts [2003] and Kerbrat-Orecchioni
[2005] seem to advocate?
In Talks and Talkers, Robert Louis Stevenson [1882: 30-31] clearly
indicates that two forces are at work in conversations: the first one can be
defined as a positive force which secures harmony during verbal
interactions while the other – the negative force – is based on verbal
struggle. Stevenson’s intuition seems to be corroborated by the various
theories currently available to analyse speech-in-interaction. In Empreintes
de l’euphémisme, tours et détours [Jamet & Jobert 2010], several papers
viii Introduction

highlight the fact that politeness strategies are closely linked to euphemism
while dysphemism is clearly on the side of impoliteness strategies. This
suggests that the positive / negative force dichotomy concerns discourse
but also the lexicon, hence, language at large. The fact that several
competing theories exist indicates that research is actively in progress. The
field, it seems, is now clear for linguists to consider the duality inherent in
human behaviour, hovering between harmony and struggle, dubbed
“politeness” and “impoliteness” by conversation analysts.
Another problem is raised when dealing with (im)politeness. The terms
used tend to confuse the issue as they are used both technically i.e.
linguistically, as well as in everyday language to characterise a person’s
behaviour or speech. Attempts have been made to distinguish between
social (im)politeness and linguistic (im)politeness. Watts [2003: 30]
explains:

[…] we rapidly encountered the term ‘politeness’ as a technical term used

in the pragmatic and sociolinguistic study of socio-communicative verbal
interaction, and I suggested that the use of the term should be referred to as
‘second-order politeness’ (politeness 2).

However, a certain porosity remains between the two types of

(im)politeness and linguists should make sure that the definitions they
provide are intuitively compatible with the lay meaning of the terms. As a
matter of fact, between July and August 2011, the French newspaper le
Monde published eighteen articles on “Politeness in the world” (La
politesse dans le monde). Although these articles were aimed at the
general public, they exhibit very interesting comments on language usage
and behaviour in several countries. While some major differences were
expected about politeness in China or in Columbia, it was surprising to
discover major differences among European countries. Some of them
concern social behaviours while others directly impact linguistic
behaviour. For instance, in Germany, the notion of Ehlichkeit, often
translated as “sincerity” is the basis for the understanding of how German
conversations work: directness is politeness (le Monde, 8 August 2011).
Similarly, in Spain, the more brutal the speech, the more the speaker
seems to care about his/her interlocutor (Le Monde, 7 August 2011). The
point of these remarks is not to highlight cultural and linguistic
differences. These are well known and have been studied at length in
Politeness in Europe by Hickey & Stewart [2005] or in Politeness in East
Asia by Kadar & Mills [2011], to quote but a few. What is striking is that
people from different backgrounds (those specializing in Anthropology,
Linguistics, Media Studies, as well as lay people) are now tackling these
 Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness ix

issues and it befalls to linguists to provide analytical frameworks

accessible to specialists and lay people alike.

This is precisely the purpose of this book in which linguists, discourse

analysts and literary critics contribute to the clarification of impoliteness
as a common research paradigm. Although most contributors base their
analyses on the pragmatics of talk-in-interaction, the variety of the subject-
matter tackled makes this volume a valuable contribution to impoliteness.
Various researchers have therefore been selected to contribute to Aspects
of Linguistic Impoliteness, and the diversity of sub-disciplinary approaches
is reflected in the multi-dimensional organisation of the five sections of
the book which is divided into 5 thematic chapters, with 15 parts in all, as
presented below.

The first chapter “General Approaches to Impoliteness and

Rudeness” aims to study the links between impoliteness and rudeness, by
providing a general framework for these notions. The chapter opens with
an introductory article by Jonathan Culpeper, entitled “Impoliteness:
Questions and Answers”, which intends to define the very notion of
“impoliteness”, and the reasons for studying it. Related topics concerning
the creativity of impoliteness, as well as the most frequent linguistic ways
in which somebody causes impoliteness are also tackled. The main point is
to demonstrate clearly that impoliteness, because of its complex nature,
and the serious implications it has for interpersonal communication and
society as a whole, is deserving of serious and concentrated academic
study. Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni in “Politeness, impoliteness, non-
politeness, “polirudeness”: The case of political TV debates” shows that in
order to identify an utterance as polite or impolite, its content (as a face-
threatening act (FTA), a face-flattering act (FFA) or a combination of
both), its formulation, and its context of production must be taken into
account, and other categories besides politeness and impoliteness must
also be introduced into the theoretical system. Here, the hybrid notion of
“polirudeness” is shown to be essential. Kerbrat-Orecchioni provides a
detailed analysis of two political speeches given during the 2007 French
presidential election to demonstrate that the way an utterance is qualified
by the analyst is entirely dependent on the definitions initially adopted. In
“The power of impoliteness: a historical perspective”, Sandrine Sorlin
shows that throughout the ages the word “politeness” has taken on various
meanings, and that the notion of “impoliteness” can be perceived more
positively than it commonly is. Yet, linguistics always tends to define it as
a violation of cooperative rules, even though those resorting to impolite
x Introduction

language may have different objectives. She goes on to examine the

potential subversive power inherent in impoliteness, highlighting the
parallels between politeness and political correctness, and concludes on a
new definition of impoliteness that makes it a positive non-conformist
resisting force.

The second chapter “Impoliteness in Television Series and in

Drama” deals with occurrences of impoliteness in television series and
drama and opens with Linda Pillière’s “Dr. House and the Language of
Offense”. The aim of this paper is not to reconsider theoretical frameworks
nor to add another definition to the term “impoliteness”, but to study how
impolite language and behaviour work within a specific context and how
they can be used to create humour. Linda Pillière’s point is to offer a
different way of viewing impoliteness that is based on theories of
interpretation and context models, and to highlight the need to see
offensive language in relation to context models, as the study of a
television series, such as House, clearly demonstrates. In “Domestic and
Professional Abuse in Fawlty Towers” Manuel Jobert shows that
comedy-shows, such as Fawlty Towers, heavily rely on verbal abuse,
which suggests that laughter is often triggered by impolite interaction, and
that impoliteness is clearly one of the major sources of comedy both in the
private and the public sphere. This tends to demonstrate that impoliteness
is not simply an element of characterisation but an essential ingredient
present on several planes simultaneously in the series. Natalie Mandon in
“‘Polite company’?: Offensive Discourse in William Congreve’s
Comedies” examines how Congreve successfully combines two aims: the
staging of verbal interaction in which language is used to cause offence
and at the same time achieve comic effect. She shows that determining
what is offensive must rely not only on the response of stage characters
but also on what we know about the linguistic norms of the period, i.e.
what constituted appropriate and/or acceptable linguistic behavior and
what did not in a seventeenth-century London theatre.

The third chapter “Impoliteness in Prose Fiction” mainly focuses on

the discursive creations of impoliteness found in literary works. The
chapters opens with a contribution from Brindusa Grigoriu entitled
“Medieval Rudeness: The English Version of a French Romance Custom”
in which Grigoriu offers a contrastive analysis of the French and the
English version of Tristan and Ysolt following Brown and Levinson’s
“Politeness Theory”. Jacqueline Fromonot in “Paradoxes of Impoliteness
in Vanity Fair, by W.M. Thackeray” demonstrates that Thackeray varies
 Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness xi

strategies to address the issue of linguistic impoliteness in fictional and

metafictional passages. This contribution aims to show that impoliteness
can be analysed using three related sub-categories: “polite impoliteness”,
“impolite politeness” and “impolite impoliteness”, which can be used to
structure the rhetorical and stylistic investigation of impoliteness in Vanity
Fair. In “Impoliteness and rebellion in “Christmas” by John McGahern”,
Vanina Jobert focuses on the combination of verbal strategies of
character, narrator and author, which produce a specific effect on the
reader. Those verbal interactions help build a very specific text world
ruled by rigid social codes and at the same time feature a dynamic process
of rebellion. Claire Majola in “‘Who are they to talk to us like that?’
Narrative impoliteness and the reader” lays emphasis on the fact that
impoliteness cannot be an aim, but a strategy and as such, a central
component of what could be termed “authorial policy”. After reminding
the reader of the main taboo topics in Irish literature, she focuses on
Colum McCann’s story “Everything in this Country Must” to show how
authorial strategies can be seen to “work on” the reader, thereby
suggesting that literary interaction is face-flattering, or rather, face-
enhancing.

The fourth chapter, “Impoliteness in Philosophy of Language”,

concentrates on impoliteness and the philosophy of language. The chapter
opens with Célia Schneebeli’s “Systematized impoliteness in the
nonsense world of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass”, in which she presents a reading of Alice in Wonderland
using Geoffrey Leech’s “Politeness Principle” and Lecercle’s
“Impoliteness Principle”. As for Simone Rinzler in “Impoliteness, agôn,
dissensus in “The Two Philosophers”: Irvine Welsh and a political
philosophy of language”, she analyses a short story by Irvine Welsh, “The
Two Philosophers”, in which the rules of dialogue are flouted
continuously. Rinzler resorts to Lecercle’s Philosophy of Nonsense, in
which he conceives a set of principles of struggle to deconstruct the two
famous principles implemented by Leech – the “Politeness Principle” –
and by Grice – the “Co-operative Principle”.

The fifth and final chapter “Impoliteness and Modern

Communication” offers three case-studies of impoliteness in modern
communication, be it oral communication or virtual communication.
Isabelle Gaudy-Campbell in “You know: (im)politeness marker in
naturally occurring speech?” investigates the hedging function of you
know and its face-saving dimension. Is you know a genuine address to the
xii Introduction

hearer, or rather a fake address, a form of mock politeness, making it

possible to impose a consensus by presenting it as agreed upon? In
“Alternative spelling and censorship: the treatment of profanities in virtual
communities” Laura Goudet presents a study of the ways used to avoid
profanities and insults on the Internet, by focusing on the use of automated
censorship scripts as a means to neutralize offensive words and
expressions with a simple substitution command. The study is based on
the most important African American related website, Black Planet, and
examines other layers of identification, anti-identification and name-
calling that come into play. The volume ends with Bertrand Richet’s
“Fanning the Flames? A Study of Insult Forums on the Internet” which
investigates insult forums on the Internet, raising key questions such as:
Why and how is an insult forum created? How does it evolve? What does
it imply? What is the usefulness of an insult forum? Can one really insult
somebody else, other than on a very short term basis, for no other reason
than the pleasure derived from the act of insulting?”

Each exploring a theme of its own, these five chapters bring together in
a single volume a carefully chosen collection of scholarly reflections on
linguistic impoliteness. Seeking to address the emerging interest, both
academic and non-academic, in this topic, Aspects of Linguistic
Impoliteness provides a multidisciplinary perspective. As such, it is an
excellent reference for readers who seek both an introduction to
impoliteness as well as a guide to the current breadth of scholarly work on
this phenomenon.
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster University—UK)

Jacqueline Fromonot (Université de Paris 8—St Denis—France)
Isabelle Gaudy Campbell (Université de Metz—France)
Laura Goudet (Université de Paris 13—France)
Brindusa Grigoriu (University Alexandru Ioan Cuza—Romania)
Denis Jamet (Université Jean Moulin—Lyon 3—France)
Manuel Jobert (Université Jean Moulin—Lyon 3—France)
Vanina Jobert (Université Jean Moulin—Lyon 3—France)
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (Université Lumière—Lyon 2—France)
Claire Majola (Université Jean Moulin—Lyon 3—France)
Natalie Mandon (Université Jean Moulin—Lyon 3—France)
Linda Pillière (Université de Provence—Aix-Marseille—France)
Bertrand Richet (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3—France)
Simone Rinzler (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense—France)
Célia Schneebeli (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense—
France)
Sandrine Sorlin (Université Paul Valéry—Montpellier 3—France)
 CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL APPROACHES TO IMPOLITENESS

AND RUDENESS
 PART I

IMPOLITENESS:
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

JONATHAN CULPEPER
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, UK

1. What does this paper cover?

I have been researching impoliteness for over 20 years. During this
time, I have forayed into various issues and explored a range of data.
Along the way, my understanding of impoliteness has developed. This
paper is a retrospective, reflecting on some key questions that have
emerged and supplying possible answers. Fuller descriptions of many
phenomena discussed can be found in Culpeper (2011).
In the remainder of this paper I will address the following questions:
Why bother to study impoliteness? What is impoliteness? Is impoliteness
the best label for “it”, and what do the possible labels tell us about “it”?
What are the most frequent linguistic ways in which somebody causes
impoliteness? Is it the case that impoliteness is not creative? Is it the case
that the British are now more impolite than they were? Is it the case that
some people are predisposed towards being impolite?

2. Why bother to study impoliteness?

I conduct research in a number of different areas, including the
language of Shakespeare. The different reactions I get from non-academics
(and even sometimes academics) when I announce that my research is the
language of Shakespeare compared with impoliteness is striking.
Impoliteness is considered the nasty marginal stuff on the fringes of
language and indeed society. There is little to understand or investigate
because it is so simplistic. Hence, reactions are rather muted expressions
of puzzlement about why anybody would want to research impoliteness.
In fact, there are several strong reasons why research is necessary.
Impoliteness is socially important. It is highly salient in public life (much
 Jonathan Culpeper 3

more so than politeness). Public signs, charters, laws and so on try to

prohibit it. It is also much talked about (in 2006 the best-selling author
Lynne Truss published Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of
Everyday Life). It can be highly damaging to personal lives. A saying in
the UK, often delivered by parents to children, runs: “sticks and stones
may break my bones but words can never hurt me”. Research suggests this
is not always true (e.g. Burman et al. 2002; Greenwell and Dengerink
1973, 70). Impoliteness is—or at least should be—of interest to linguistics
research. From a descriptive point of view, impoliteness plays a central
role in many discourses (from military recruit training to exploitative TV
shows), yet those discourses are rarely described in detail. From are a
theoretical point of view, many theories, notably in pragmatics and
interactional sociolinguistics, are biased towards, and developed from,
socially cooperative interactions—thus, they cannot adequately explain
anti-social interactions. From a methodological point of view, traditional
pragmatics research methods (e.g. discourse completion tasks, role play)
are likely to be flawed, because informants may well not perform in a
natural way when they know that repugnant behaviour is being recorded.
There are also important spin-offs for other disciplines, including social
psychology (especially related to verbal aggression), sociology (especially
related to verbal abuse), conflict studies (e.g. resolution of verbal conflict)
and media studies (e.g. exploitative TV).

3. What is impoliteness?
If this question were easy to answer, I would not have spent the time I
have researching impoliteness. The somewhat elusive nature of
impoliteness is one of the things that makes it interesting. Let us begin
with an example. This is a diary-type report produced by one of my
students:

I was in a taxi with 5 other girls, on our way into town. The taxi driver
seemed nice at first, commenting on how pretty we looked, etc. Then he
turned quite nasty, making vulgar sexual innuendos, swearing a lot and
laughing at us. He then insulted some of us, commenting on the clothes we
were wearing and when we didn’t laugh, he looked quite angry. He then
asked where we were from, we told him, and then he started criticising and
insulting us and our home towns. We mostly stayed quiet, giving non-
committal, single word answers until we could leave.

I used this particular example to open my 2011 book on impoliteness

precisely because it contains many impoliteness-related features. Note the
4 Impoliteness: Questions and Answers

specific kinds of communicative behaviour reported to be produced by the

taxi driver: “commenting”, “innuendos”, “swearing”, “laughing”,
“insulted”, “criticising”, plus various non-verbal aspects, “he looked quite
angry”; “his tone of voice and facial expressions also made us feel very
uncomfortable”. Each one of these kinds of communicative behaviour is
worthy of investigation in its own right. But how do I know that such
behaviour has anything to do with impoliteness? I asked my student
reporters to reflect on their diary reports immediately after they wrote
them (needless to say, so as not to bias the data, they were not told that I
was interested in impoliteness). This student described the taxi driver’s
behaviour as “sexist, rude, very offensive and inappropriate given the
context”. We will discuss the labelling of impoliteness in more detail later,
but here note that two labels, “sexist” and “rude”, are metapragmatic
labels for impoliteness, especially so in the case of “rude”. So, what we
have in this diary reflection is some evidence that one of the actual targets
of the communicative behaviour took it as impolite.
More recently, I have used this particular example in presentations and
discussed it with various audiences. It was suggested to me that this might
not be a case of “genuine impoliteness” at all, but of “failed banter” on the
part of the taxi driver. The notion of “pragmatic failure” was put forward
by Thomas (1983). In essence, it concerns the failure to convey the right
pragmatic meaning. Thomas was particularly concerned with pragmatic
failure in cross-cultural communicative situations, where one participant
might have different understandings of pragmatic resources and the
situations in which they are used from other participants. There is indeed a
cross-cultural dimension to this interaction: the taxi driver is highly likely
to be a local, born and bred Lancastrian, whereas the passengers are
students from other parts of the UK. Cultures, of course, do not simply
correlate with nation states. Within any nation, there is much cultural
variability. Whilst I cannot find any research proving the prevalence of
banter in northern England, it is certainly generally assumed to be the case
(compare the many hits for “Northern banter” in Google, compared with
the very few for “Southern banter”). It is plausible that at least initially the
taxi driver was attempting banter. Note that some support for this is in the
fact that things turn nastier “when we didn’t laugh”. Sharing laughter is
consistent with doing banter, not genuine impoliteness. The implications
of not joining in banter or at least reacting positively (e.g. laughing,
smiling) are that it could be taken as a rebuff. Banter is a way of
promoting social solidarity (cf. Leech 1983), something which is
stereotypically associated with Northern culture. So a rebuff could be
taken as a way of promoting the opposite social distance, not only from the
 Jonathan Culpeper 5

taxi driver but also, especially if the passengers were from the south of
England, from the taxi driver’s cultural milieu. This may explain why “he
looked quite angry”. The following communicative activity may well have
been closer to genuine impoliteness.
Impoliteness, then, is not something that is a given. In my earlier work
(e.g. 1996; Culpeper et al 2003), I tended to emphasise the role of
intention. Intention may be one aspect involved in the above example. It is
possible that the passengers misunderstood the taxi driver’s intention
behind his early communicative behaviour. Obviously, we cannot get
inside people’s heads; the important thing here is the perception of
intention. To fully accommodate that, in 2005 I produced the following
definition of impoliteness:

Impoliteness comes about when: (1) the speaker communicates face attack
intentionally, or (2) the hearer perceives and/or constructs behaviour as
intentionally face-attacking, or a combination of (1) and (2). (2005, 38)

However, note that this definition still ties intention of some kind to
the notion of impoliteness. Is it really the case that impoliteness only
occurs if people take it to be intentional? The work I have done over the
last six years would suggest that the answer is no. A common context in
which behaviour is known not to be intentional but is still taken as
impoliteness causing offence concerns interactions between socially close
individuals, typically partners. In such contexts, the person who produces
impoliteness is held responsible for not foreseeing its offensive
consequences. As a result, I revised my definition of impoliteness thus (the
key part is italicised):

Impoliteness is a negative attitude towards specific behaviours occurring in

specific contexts. It is sustained by expectations, desires and/or beliefs
about social organisation, including, in particular, how one person’s or a
group’s identities are mediated by others in interaction. Situated
behaviours are viewed negatively—considered “impolite”—when they
conflict with how one expects them to be, how one wants them to be and/or
how one thinks they ought to be. Such behaviours always have or are
presumed to have emotional consequences for at least one participant, that
is, they cause or are presumed to cause offence. (Culpeper 2011, 254)

This definition also solved another problem, namely, my previous

reliance on the notion of face. As Goffman puts it (1967, 5), face is “the
positive social value a person effectively claims for himself [sic] by the
line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”. Obviously,
issues of identity are tied up with the notion of face. Some impoliteness
6 Impoliteness: Questions and Answers

phenomena very clearly relate to face, insults being a good example. But
others are far less clear. In one of the examples I collected, a student
informant describes how a member of staff at a bar was rude because he
refused to serve her a glass of tap water. She reported that she felt it was
her “right” that tap water should be available. This kind of impoliteness is
fully accommodated by my definition above. The student expected to be
served tap water, wanted to be served tap water, and moreover thought that
it was her right to be served tap water. Such cases have less to do with the
notion of face. Incidentally, the emotional correlates of face-related
impoliteness as opposed to rights-related impoliteness are very different.
Face-related impoliteness involves “hurt”, whereas rights-related
impoliteness, as indeed reported by the above informant, involve “anger”.

4. Is impoliteness the best label for “it”, and what do the

possible labels tell us about “it”?
The English language is replete with words that can be used to describe
impoliteness behaviours, including:

bratty, ill-mannered (bad-mannered, unmannered, unmannerly), unruly,

rude, discourteous, ungracious, abusive, not polite, ill-bred, bounderish,
yokelish, ungracious, unrefined, uncouth, uncivil, crude, vulgar, lacking
tact or refinement, insulting, insensitive, abrupt, brusque, curt,
disrespectful, contemptuous, gruff, impudent, impertinent, insolent,
cheeky, crusty.

I was motivated to investigate the labels for impoliteness for two

reasons. One was that in common with other scholars I need a label for the
phenomenon that I am investigating. The other is that the labels constitute
part of the metapragmatic language for impoliteness. Investigating the
usage of these labels—what they refer to, who uses them and in what
contexts – should be illuminating.
In the world of linguistic pragmatics, the two labels which are
repeatedly used are impoliteness and rudeness (along with their adjectival
counterparts). In the adjacent fields of psychology and sociology, we find
the terms such as verbal aggression and verbal abuse (along with their
adjectival counterparts) for similar phenomena. In order to investigate the
currency of these terms amongst the general public, I checked the
frequency of these terms in the two-billion word Oxford English Corpus
and found the following:
 Jonathan Culpeper 7

• Rudeness (1546) / rude (19012)

• Verbal abuse (1522) / verbally abusive (201)
• Verbal aggression (164) / verbally aggressive (64)
• Impoliteness (30) / impolite (874)

As can be seen, most frequent is rude; whereas, in contrast, the least

frequent term is impoliteness, the very term I have been using in this
paper. Indeed, the nominal form impoliteness is strikingly rare,
considering it only achieves 30 instances out of 2 million. In fact, this suits
my purposes. I adopt the term impoliteness partly because it displays the
fact that this work is related to work on politeness, but also because its
currency is so paltry that I can appropriate it as a technical term covering
the various aspects of impoliteness that fall under the definition given in
the previous section.
As to the issue of what the term impoliteness labels, clearly, a mere 30
instances are unlikely to reveal very much. Even the adjectival form with
874 instances would not result in particularly strong patterns. However, I
had discovered that all senses and usages of impolite are in fact
interchangeable with specific senses and usages of rude (there are some
usages of rude, especially positive ones, that are not interchangeable with
impolite). Thus, I could search on rude and impolite together, thereby
examining a total of 19,886 instances—more than enough for patterns to
emerge. Again, I deployed the Oxford English Corpus, and used the
program Sketch Engine (see www.sketchengine.co.uk). This programme
performs a statistical analysis of collocates in particular grammatical
relations with the target item. Amongst the most interesting results is the
finding that rude/impolite typically describe the following grammatical
subjects (in rank order of strength of association): doorman, bouncer,
bartender, waitress, waiter, [New] Yorker, staff and French. It is striking
that many of these items relate to public service contexts such as
restaurants and bars. It is here, presumably, that our expectations, wishes
and indeed assumptions about entitlements to good service are infringed,
resulting in the description of the person responsible for the offending
behaviour as rude or impolite. We also might note the appearance of
[New] Yorker and French. Here, it needs to be pointed out that data in the
Oxford English Corpus reflects the cultures of the English-speaking world,
and in particular that 60 per cent of the data emanates from North
America. The appearance of [New] Yorker reflects the largely North
American perception that people from New York are typically
impolite/rude, and similarly the appearance of French reflects the largely
North American perception that people from France are typically
impolite/rude. I also identified what actions are typically described by the
8 Impoliteness: Questions and Answers

words rude/impolite, and they include (in rank order of strength of

association): eavesdropping, interrupting, pointing, ignoring, declining,
smoking, listening and laughing. As can be seen, these items generally
relate to intrusions and impositions, as well as disassociation. Such things
are again contrary to what we expect, wish or think ought to be the case.

5. What are the most frequent linguistic ways in which

somebody causes impoliteness?
As we saw from the data discussed in section 3, impoliteness can be
quite a slippery notion. Nevertheless, there are in fact regular linguistic
ways in which it is achieved. Amongst the most common in my data are
the following (all are real examples; square brackets demarcate structural
units; slashes separate optional elements):

Vocatives
• moron / plonker / dickhead / etc.
• [you] [[fucking / rotten/ dirty / fat / etc.] [burk / pig / shit / bastard/
loser / etc.]] [you]

Personal negative evaluations

• you’re [nuts / nuttier than a fruit cake / hopeless / pathetic / stupid etc.]
• you can’t do anything right

Dismissals
• get [lost / out]
• [fuck / piss] off

Silencers
• shut [it / your mouth, face / etc.]
• shut [the fuck] up

Threats
• [I’ll / I’m /we’re] [gonna] [smash your face in / beat the shit out of you
/ box your ears / bust your fucking head off / etc.]
(See Culpeper 2011, 135-6, for a more complete list)

It is not the case that impoliteness is inherent in the semantic meaning

of these linguistic formulæ. But there is a case for saying that these
formulæ are conventionally associated with specific impoliteness contexts,
and thus are in a sense contextually tagged for impoliteness (see Culpeper
2010 for this argument, and Terkourafi, e.g. 2002, for a similar argument
in relation to politeness). Thus, uttering one of these formulæ loads the
 Jonathan Culpeper 9

linguistic dice in favour of impoliteness effects. Something of this can be

seen in the statement by Dog Chapman, a North American bounty hunter,
who, commenting on the moment when he makes an arrest, said: “It’s
important to make a scary first impression. I know Christians get upset
because I say ‘Freeze, motherf***er!’ but I told them that ‘Freeze, in
Jesus’ name’ doesn’t work.” (reported in The Week, 5/10/06).
Of course, impoliteness can and often does take place without any
conventional impoliteness formulæ being uttered. In fact, I have some
evidence that implicit ways of achieving impoliteness are slightly more
frequent than explicit ways deploying impoliteness formulæ. 59 per cent
of the student reports I collected did not involve impoliteness formulæ
(although I have no way of telling whether that result may have been
influenced by the methodology). An example is the following in which the
informant describes an event in a bar where she worked:

As I walked over to the table to collect the glasses, Sam said to Aiden
“Come on, Aiden let’s go outside,” implying she didn’t want me there.
This was at the pub on Sunday night, and I just let the glasses go and
walked away.

I didn’t particularly feel bad, but angry at the way she had said that straight
away when I got there. We aren’t particularly friends but she was really
rude in front of others.

There is nothing, of course, inherently impolite in the words “Come

on, Aiden let’s go outside.” Here, impoliteness comes about through
implicatures generated in that particular context. Assuming that the words
had relevance for the informant, then the likely implicature is that her
arrival at the table is the reason why Sam suggests to Aiden that they go
outside. The fact that she is excluded in something that presumably
infringes what she expects, wants or thinks should happen, and hence is
taken as impolite.

6. Is it the case that impoliteness is not creative?

As mentioned in section 2, impoliteness is generally assumed to be the
entrails, or perhaps even the fæces, of language—a repugnant thing, best
avoided. Moreover, as such, it is assumed to be simplistic, hardly meriting
study. This assumption is not true. Impoliteness is often creative, and in
fact achieves its effects through their creativity. This is the case with
implied impoliteness, as illustrated by the final example of the previous
section. The words “Come on, Aiden lets go outside” do not
10 Impoliteness: Questions and Answers

straightforwardly convey impoliteness. That comes about through a more

creative process of delivering particular words in a particular context at a
particular time, signalling to the target that she should infer the meanings.
The connection between creativity and inferencing is made by Carter in
his book on language and creativity: “The well-known truths expressed by
proverbs are usually oblique and implicit rather than direct statements,
they often have a metaphorical basis and their indirectness prompts
interpretation and a ‘creative’ inference of meaning” (Carter 2004, 134,
my emphasis). There are also other kinds of creativity in the conduct of
impoliteness that fit the kind of creativity regularly discussed in the field
of stylistics as deviation from some norm (i.e. an unexpected regularity or
irregularity) (e.g. Mukařovský, 1970; Leech, 1985). Let us consider some
examples.
Exploitative TV shows, notably chat, talent and quiz shows such as
Jerry Springer, X Factor and The Weakest Link, have become increasingly
popular on British television, especially in the last couple of decades.
Many of the shows have been franchised to other countries across the
world. One of the ways in which these shows entertain is through creative
impoliteness. Consider these lines from Anne Robinson, the host of The
Weakest Link:

Are you running on empty?

He who stumbles should not survive.
Give the heave-ho to the hopeless.

The first clearly exploits a metaphor, drawing on the source domain of

the car. The second, apart from some alliteration involving sibilants, is a
pseudo-aphorism involving an intertextual reference to the Bible
(Apostles). The third deploys creative sound patterning: not only
alliteration (heave / ho / hope) but also repetition of the same syllables
(the, ho) and trochaic metrical patterning. Shakespeare, of course, did
similar things, as we might note from this extended metaphor: “You are
now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion, where you will hang like
an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard” (Twelfth Night).
One problem in all this is whether impoliteness with creativity is
actually genuine impoliteness. Creative devices can signal a more playful
frame. Consider the case of banter, some forms of which exist as a heavily
ritualised kind of language game. In America, this is known as
“sounding”, “playing the dozens”, or “signifying”. Labov’s (1972) work
has been influential in revealing the complexity of the insults used and the
well-organised nature of this speech event. Typically, these insults are
sexual, directed at a third person related to the target, and couched in
 Jonathan Culpeper 11

rhyming couplets. For example: “Iron is iron, and steel don’t rust, But
your momma got a pussy like a Greyhound Bus” (Labov 1972, 302).
However, creativity alone is not enough to signal a playful frame.
Reviewing the literature on teasing, Keltner et al. (1998, 1233) suggest
that devices accompanying the tease that indicate that it is “off-record,
playful, and not be taken seriously” include “unusual vocalisations,
singsong voice, formulaic utterances, elongated vowels, and unusual facial
expressions”. Similarly, with banter the whole gamut of multimodal
communication is often deployed to indicate a playful frame. Moreover,
and this is the key point, there are cases where impoliteness is clearly
genuine and also creative. I have already pointed to the example at the end
of the previous section, which is not playful. A further example is this
utterance: “do me a favour don’t have any children”. This was said by a
U.S. male army sergeant major to a female recruit who is guilty of
insubordination. It was said in the context of a fifteen-minute long
“dressing down”, during which three non-commissioned officers fire
insults and criticisms at the recruit, whilst denying her any kind of
defence. The utterance is creative because it combines a conventional
politeness formula, “do me a favour”, with an extremely impolite and
unusual request “don’t have any children” (implying, in this context, that
she should not have children because she herself is so bad). Not only does
this deviate from the kind of request that typically follows “do me a
favour”, but also, of course, we realise that the politeness of that formula is
merely a sneering sarcastic veneer.

7. Is it the case that the British are now more impolite

than they were?
Certainly, it is a common view in the UK that British people are
becoming, indeed have become, more impolite. Ascertaining whether this
is really true is, as one might imagine, a huge undertaking. A study that
provides some insight is Culpeper and Archer (2008). In this we analysed
1,200 requests in trial proceedings and drama from around Shakespeare’s
time. We found that 1 in 3 requests were made with the simple imperative,
e.g. “Fetch me the water”, “Get thee gone”, “Bake the bread”, “Go!” (and
over half of these had no additional polite supporting move). This
contrasts with the evidence we have about requests in more recent
decades. Only 1 in 10 requests are made with the simple imperative (cf.
Blum-Kulka and House 1989). Most requests deploy forms such as “Could
you fetch me the water?” (cf. Aijmer 1996). So, with regard to linguistic
form we have moved away from direct requests to conventionally indirect
12 Impoliteness: Questions and Answers

requests. Given that indirectness has been thought to be of particular value

in doing politeness in British culture, it would seem to be the case that the
British, far from becoming more impolite, have become more polite!
However, neither impoliteness nor politeness are simply in the words
that are spoken or written, as we have seen. Indirectness undoubtedly was
given a boost in British society in the Victorian period, when values
relating to the individual such as privacy and self-respect became highly
prized (see Culpeper and Demmen 2011). However, Victorian values are
now being challenged by new ideologies. Cameron (2007) suggests that
the challenge is coming from two particular directions. One is the advent
of psychotherapy and its popularisation. Here, the direct expression of
emotion is highly prized (it is good to express yourself, to let it all hang
out). The other is the rise of corporate organisations. Here, the direct
expression of views is seen as conducive to efficient communication and
progression of the business (it is good to get to the point, to cut through
the crap). This does not mean to say that indirectness is not highly prized
any more. Many people clearly do prize it. But there are also others who
are being influenced by newer ideologies which prize directness. This
clash of values is partly what drives debates and agonising about
impoliteness. Those more influenced by Victorian values are likely to be
affronted by those behaving in accordance with values prizing directness.

8. Is it the case that some people are predisposed towards

being impolite?
Impoliteness is often assumed to be an unfortunate behavioural
aberration, a predisposition, or even to be the consequence of genetics.
One might consider that the expression “genetically impolite” is slang for
“someone who is of detestable nature, or lower intelligence”
(http://www.urbandictionary.com). This illustrates the fact that people
perceive a very close connection between behaviours and people:
judgements about behaviours blur with judgements about people and the
social groups of which they are a part. Describing someone as impolite is
both a comment on their behaviour and a comment on them as a person
and their cultural background.
There is no clear evidence that impoliteness relates to genetics. This is
not surprising, because it is very difficult to establish connections between
genetics and behaviours in general. However, we would not want to
dismiss the possible role played by biological factors. Beatty and Pence
(2010), reviewing studies pointing to biological causes of verbal
aggression and those pointing to social causes, conclude that “verbal
 Jonathan Culpeper 13

aggression is best accounted for by biological factors rather than variables

in the social environment” (2010, 21) (see also Heisel 2010, on prefrontal
cortex asymmetry). Nevertheless, whilst biological theories clearly play a
part, biological theories are not sufficient as full explanations of the
complexities of (verbal) aggression. Moreover, research has also suggested
that aggressive behavioural routines in particular situations can be learnt
and enacted (e.g. Perry, Perry and Boldizar 1990), i.e. they are not
genetic/biological. It seems likely that all this is the case for impoliteness
too.

9. What should we conclude about impoliteness?

If there is one conclusion that I would like readers to take away, it is
that impoliteness is deserving of serious and concentrated academic study.
It is complex, not at all easy to pin down; it has serious implications for
interpersonal communication and society as a whole; it is realised in
fascinatingly creative ways. And, importantly, it is surrounded by myths
and misunderstandings, which need to be dispelled.

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 PART II

POLITENESS, IMPOLITENESS,
NON-POLITENESS, “POLIRUDENESS”:
THE CASE OF POLITICAL TV DEBATES

CATHERINE KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI
ICAR, UNIVERSITÉ LUMIÈRE
– LYON 2, FRANCE

1. Theoretical framework
1.1. Politeness as face-work
As politeness (and its negative counterpart impoliteness)1 plays an
important role in all kinds of discourses, discourse analysis benefits most
from incorporating this dimension into its work.2 In this respect, we are
greatly indebted to Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, “whose work
has acquired canonical status and exerted immense influence” (Harris
2001: 452) and who have unquestionably laid down the foundations for a
new paradigm by endowing the notion of politeness with a real theoretical
status.
From this standpoint, politeness is equivalent to face-work, a concept
which does not exactly cover the notion of politeness as carried by
everyday language. It is therefore necessary to distinguish from the outset,
following Watts, Ide & Erlich (1992: 3), between the common-sense

1
In this article we will use the term “impoliteness” rather than “rudeness” in order
to keep in mind that we are dealing with a theoretical notion. However, as two
words are available in English for the same notion, some researchers (such as
Culpeper 2008) draw a clear distinction between them, from different (and
sometimes even opposite) criteria.
2
For example, we could show that principles of “preference” identified in
conversation analysis cannot be accounted for satisfactorily without making use of
observations of this kind (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2010: 78-80).