DE GRUYTER MOUTON Journal of Politeness Research 2015; 11(2): 329–354

Marta Dynel
The landscape of impoliteness research
DOI 10.1515/pr-2015-0013

Abstract: This article attempts to give a state-of-the-art picture of impoliteness

studies and to indicate a few prospective research directions to enrich them. It
critically surveys a number of theoretical and methodological problems (impo-
liteness vs. rudeness; intention; sanctioned face-threat; and impoliteness strate-
gies), as well as the paramount topics of investigation (such as disagreement;
arguments; insults, taboo words; or sarcasm), and discourse domains in which
impoliteness can be found. Importantly, this paper brings to focus a selection
of notions central to impoliteness, albeit not yet widely recognized in the schol-
arship on impoliteness. These include: slurs; pejoratives; and a number of phe-
nomena promoted by computer mediated communication (e.g., flaming or trol-
ling).
Keywords: impoliteness research, manifestations of impoliteness, methodologi-
cal problems, theory of impoliteness

1 Introduction
The 10 th anniversary of the Journal of Politeness Research is a good occasion to
dwell on the past and future of impoliteness research, which will soon have its
20 th anniversary. Primarily thanks to Culpeper’s 1996 article,1 the notion of
impoliteness has developed into an independent field of investigation vis-à-vis
politeness studies. Whilst the volume of research done on impoliteness cannot
eclipse that of politeness, which enjoys a much longer tradition and never ceas-
es to stimulate academic interest, the scholarship on impoliteness continues
expanding very rapidly (cf. the paucity of research lamented by Locher and

1 However, the concept of face attack/aggravation had been addressed in earlier works (Goff-
man 1967; Craig et al. 1986; Lachenicht 1980; Austin 1990; Penman 1990), and Lachenicht
(1980) also proposed a classification of “aggravating language” strategies inspired by Brown
and Levinson’s (1987) framework.

Marta Dynel, Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź,

E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
330 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

Bousfield in 2008). The multifarious studies on impoliteness fly in the face of

Leech’s claim that “conflictive illocutions tend, thankfully, to be rather margin-
al to human linguistic behaviour in normal circumstances” (Leech 1983: 105),
as well as a misguided assumption that Brown and Levinson’s (1987) on-record
strategy can accommodate face-attacks. A bedrock premise underlying the clas-
sical scholarship (Craig et al. 1986, Culpeper 1996, 2005; Culpeper et al. 2003,
Bousfield 2008a) is that impoliteness cannot be viewed as part of politeness
and deserves to have distinct theoretical frameworks developed for it that will
account for its workings. As Bousfield (2008a) explains, when a speaker makes
an impolite utterance, he/she not only refuses to preserve the hearer’s face but
also actively seeks to damage/aggravate it. Similarly, following in Beebe’s
(1995) footsteps, Culpeper et al. (2003) take as their departure point an assump-
tion that impoliteness is not merely an unintentional result of failed politeness.
In the light of the above, “impoliteness” is traditionally used as an umbrel-
la term for purposefully produced face-threatening utterances,2 by means of
which the speaker intends (rather than happens) to inflict face-damage (cf. e.g.,
Lachenicht 1980; Culpeper 1996, 20053, 2008; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield
2007a, 2007b, 2008a, 2008b, 2010). Face-threatening utterances have two para-
mount manifestations, depending on how they are delivered:
(i) Unmitigated, in contexts where mitigation is required, and/or,
(ii) With deliberate, aggression, that is, with the face-threat intentionally exac-
erbated, “boosted”, or maximized in some way to heighten the face-damage
inflicted (Bousfield 2007a: 2186–2187, 2008b: 72, cf. Bousfield 2008a: 132).

Many theoretical problems and conceptualizations are germane to both polite-

ness and impoliteness. These include the distinction between first and second
order 4 approaches, i.e., lay users’ own understandings vs. theorists’ conceptu-
alizations of impoliteness (see, for example, Locher and Bousfield 2008; Bous-
field 2010), the notion of face (e.g., Bousfield 2008a), relational work (e.g.,
Locher and Watts 2008), or intercultural/intracultural issues (e.g., Mills 2009;
Haugh and Schneider 2012; Sifianou 2013). However, the centre of attention
here is a choice of issues specific to impoliteness. Impoliteness studies rely
on research frameworks and terminology independent from those germane to
politeness, fielding research queries different from those pivotal to politeness.

2 Nonetheless, silence can also be conceived of as a vehicle for impoliteness.

3 In his more recent work, Culpeper (2005, 2011) incorporates the hearer’s perspective into
the definition (cf. Dynel 2013b).
4 For the distinction, see Craig et al. (1986); Watts et al. (1992); Eelen (2001).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 331

Additionally, impoliteness shows a plethora of manifestations across discourse

domains, some of which will be surveyed in the course of this article.
This paper gives an overview of a number of theoretical and methodologi-
cal problems and the paramount topical research strands pursued in the schol-
arship on impoliteness (for other summaries of the field with different foci of
interest, see Bousfield and Culpeper 2008; Locher and Bousfield 2008; Garcés-
Conejos Blitvich 2010a). Importantly, this article addresses also a selection of
linguistic concepts which seem to be closely related to impoliteness, as defined
above, but are not necessarily widely recognized by impoliteness researchers
yet. It is thus shown how impoliteness studies can enrich and, simultaneously,
benefit from other research traditions.

2 Bones of contention in impoliteness research

Several theoretical problems loom large in the scholarship on impoliteness.
One of them concerns the basic terminology. Whilst the label “impoliteness”
prevails in the literature in reference to deliberately face-threatening acts, some
(e.g., Tracy and Tracy 1988; Kasper 1990; Kienpointner 1997; Beebe 1995) dis-
cuss the same phenomenon, calling it rudeness. Interestingly, Kienpointner
(2008) recognizes the duality but chooses to use both terms synonymously.
Several researchers have delved into this issue, which turns out to be merely
the problem of transposed labels. In the light of historical and etymological
evidence collated across different languages, Terkourafi (2008) avers that
“rudeness” is the right label for intentional face-threat, whilst impoliteness best
captures unintentional face-threat. By contrast, Bousfield (2008a, 2010), Cul-
peper (2008), and Culpeper et al. (2003) support an opposite view, which tallies
with the prevalent parlance in the literature. Regardless of (historically validat-
ed) lay language users’ choice, impoliteness is a natural counterpart of the
earlier studied “politeness”, which accounts for intentional language behaviour
as viewed academically (see Culpeper 2008;5 Bousfield 2010). At this stage, the
prevalence of this term (together with the useful label “(im)politeness”, which
captures the two opposing poles of the continuum) may be considered reason
enough to sustain it. “Rudeness”, on the other hand, may be deployed with

5 Even though he endorses the second order term, irrespective of the labels used by lay
language users, Culpeper (2008) does state that his approach is validated by dictionary defini-
tions, and that the word “rude” exhibits polysemous meanings. Additionally, Culpeper (2011)
does corpora research into lay uses of the words captured by an umbrella term “impoliteness
metadiscourse”.
332 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

reference to unintended face-threatening behaviour. Nevertheless, the para-

mount criterion distinguishing between impoliteness and rudeness constitutes
a problem on its own.
The notion of intention lies at the heart of the prevailing definitions of
impoliteness (e.g., Culpeper 2005; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield 2008a, 2010),
according to which impoliteness is an intentional act of face-aggravation. This
is a neat conceptualization, yet it raises major queries when language data are
to be analyzed. This is because intentions can never be determined, but only
“plausible” intentions can be reconstructed, given adequate evidence” (Culpe-
per et al. 2003: 1552), yet the result of intention attribution is never certain
(Hardaker 2010). However, other authors argue that it is not the speaker’s inten-
tion, which escapes verification, but the interactants’ (first order) judgement of
an utterance (e.g., Locher and Watts 2008) that is the crucial determinant of
impoliteness. Interestingly, although Culpeper’s (2005) definition of impolite-
ness encompasses both provisions, viz. the speaker’s intention and the hearer’s
recognition of it, he indicates that impoliteness comes into being as long as at
least one of the two criteria comes into play. Later, Culpeper (2011: 254) bases
his definition on the hearer’s perspective, marginalizing the speaker’s inten-
tion: “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”. Hence, the speaker’s intention to
cause offence is entirely insignificant from this perspective (cf. Dynel 2013a).
Frequently, nevertheless, emphasis is placed on the joint communicative prod-
uct created by the speaker and the hearer (Mills 2002, 2003, 2005; Watts 2003;
Culpeper 2005, 2008, 2011; Bousfield 2007a, 2008a, 2008b, 2010; Locher and
Watts 2005, 2008; Terkourafi 2008; Hardaker 2010).
From this, one can extrapolate that impoliteness in interaction escapes sim-
ple definitions, whether or not intention-based. Admittedly to resolve this prob-
lem, Bousfield (2010) proposes a complex classification of (intentional) impo-
liteness and (unintentional) rudeness centred on four binary criteria, which
clarifies the terminology and theoretical landscape of face-aggravation in inter-
action. These criteria, each of which may be satisfied or not, are as follows:
the speaker’s intent/projectability; the speaker’s awareness of possible face-
damaging effects of his/her utterance; the hearer’s perception of the speaker’s
intent; and the hearer’s actual taking offence. Prototypical impoliteness meets
all the four criteria, whilst other impolite/rude behaviours present different
combinations of the (non-)fulfilled criteria.
All of the above also indicates that second order (etic) approaches (Polite-
ness2) need to deploy first order (emic) evaluations (Politeness1) (Locher and
Bousfield 2008; Lorenzo-Dus 2009; Bousfield 2010). The problem of intention
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 333

recognition is also manifest at the level of first order interpretations, which

influence second order interpretations. The need and possibility of the hearer’s
appreciating the speaker’s intention is frequently called into question (e.g.,
Arundale 2008; Haugh 2008; Locher and Watts 2008). This problem is related
to epistemological ambiguity of intentions, that is whether hearers consciously
ascribe intentions to speakers when construing meanings (Haugh 2008). One
may venture to claim the hearer aims to decipher the speaker’s intended mean-
ing (Bilmes 1986) and usually holds the speaker accountable for the meaning
he/she has gleaned, tacitly assuming that the latter intends to communicate it
even if this should not be the case. This happens also when the hearer regards
the speaker as having violated his/her expectation/desire concerning situated
behaviours, which is conducive to impoliteness (cf. Culpeper 2011). The hearer
will hold a default subconscious belief concerning the speaker’s intentions and
will purposefully ponder it only when an utterance causes interpretative prob-
lems or when the speaker denies an intention ascribed to him/her 6 in the
course of the interaction. Overall, impoliteness is co-constructed by interactants
on the reception and production ends, being subject to scholarly investigation.
Another query related to this is whether face-threat endemic in some communi-
ties of practice7 (e.g., the army, or political debates) or prevalent situational
contexts (e.g., a mother disciplining her child) should really be deemed impo-
liteness (albeit variously labelled) by interactants themselves and by research-
ers alike.
Watts (2003) proposes the concept of sanctioned aggressive facework, which
is rooted in individuals’ neutralizing face-threatening acts in interactions
among family members, friends, competitors (e.g., in politics) or hierarchically
organized interlocutors (e.g., military services). In a similar vein, verbal con-
flicts in the British parliament are thought of as conventionalized aggression
(Harris 2001), face-threatening acts in local governance meetings are dubbed
reasonable hostility (Tracy 2008), and impolite messages communicated on an
everyday basis by superiors in the workplace are conceptualized as politic be-
haviour, on condition that the targets do not show offence in their replies
(Schnurr et al. 2008). Rightly, Terkourafi (2008) distinguishes unmarked rude-
ness8 which is realized by dint of conventionalized impolite expressions expect-

6 Hence, “a priori” intention tends to be superseded in the literature by “post facto” intention
(Haugh 2008; Culpeper 2011), which captures cases when interlocutors use the notion of inten-
tion explanatorily.
7 The concept of a “community of practice” was first advocated by Lave and Wenger (1991)
and later popularized by Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (e.g., 1992, 1998).
8 Terkourafi (2008) uses “rudeness” as a label for intentional face attacks.
334 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

ed in contexts conventionally perceived as face-threatening. The use of such

unmarked face-threatening utterances (Dynel 2015a) is most pronounced in in-
stitutional power structures, which may (at least sometimes) provide for the
use of legitimate power (see Eelen 2001; Harris 2001; Watts 2003; Mills 2003;
Locher 2004; Bousfield 2008a; Mullany 2008) by those higher in the hierarchy
(e.g., an employer towards an employee, a police officer towards a detained
person, an army sergeant towards a recruit, a teacher towards a pupil) when
giving commands or orders or voicing criticism. This, technically speaking, can
scarcely count as prototypical impoliteness (cf. Culpeper 2011). Such behaviour
may be conceived as the realization of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) bald-on-
record strategy, originally encompassed by the politeness framework. Essential-
ly, relative power relation and the absolute ranking of imposition will help deter-
mine whether a request (e.g., “Send these files within 15 minutes please”) or a
critical comment (e.g., “Your answer is wrong”) can be made bluntly without
mitigation, not impugning the hearer’s dignity. Even if the latter should not be
content, they can hardly accuse the speaker of having been rude, impolite,
aggressive, etc. However, face-threatening utterances in facilitating contexts
cannot be taken as one homogenous construct. Some may indeed display exac-
erbated face-threat, given their form or topic (see Dynel 2015a).
Mills (2002, 2003, 2005) consistently avers that aggressive behaviours in
certain communities of practice (epitomized by the army) conform to norms of
appropriacy and that they can hardly be regarded as impoliteness either by
participants (first order impoliteness) or by researchers (second order impolite-
ness). This approach is premised on an assumption that “impoliteness only
exists when it is classified as such by certain, usually dominant, community
members, and/or when it leads to a breakdown in relations” (Mills 2002: 79).
On the strength of the evidence she provides, it is typically the dominant speak-
ers that produce face-threatening acts towards hearers lower in the hierarchy
and it is also these speakers that consider their communicative practices to
conform to the prevalent norms. Nonetheless, the targets of face-threat should
also be able to decide what counts as impoliteness, i.e., inappropriate behav-
iour, even if, due to lack of leverage, their evaluations may not overtly impact
on their relationships with dominant community members.
Culpeper (2005, 2011) contests Mills’ approach, convincingly arguing that
sanctioning/legitimating aggressive behaviour does not equal neutralizing it (for
a different view, see Watts 2003). Even if sanctioned/legitimated, blatant verbal
aggression may not be disregarded by hearers. In other words, they will recog-
nize the face-threat, which is why it should be conceptualized as (second order)
impoliteness as well (Culpeper 1996, 2005, 2011; Bousfield 2007a, 2008a, 2010).
Culpeper (2011) marshals diversified socio-cognitive research, adducing evi-
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 335

dence in favour of the reasons why individuals may be offended by sanctioned

impoliteness. The reception of (im)politeness depends on different types of
norms (Culpeper 2008),9 whilst impoliteness is judged in the context of cultural
and personal norms, which “can engulf local norms which might otherwise
‘neutralise’ a judgment that it is impolite” (Culpeper 2008: 31, Culpeper 2005).
As a result, an interactant may still recognize the impoliteness of an utterance
which subscribes to the current activity type or a situational/co-textual norm
at hand. Also, as Bousfield (2010) rightly observes, normative concepts are a
matter of social conventionalization, and they obtain across communities of
practice, which are linked and whose members are cognizant of their common
characteristics. This may explain why individuals still rely on the norms with
which they are already familiar (thanks to their prior interactions with members
of other communities of practice) once they enter a community of practice
which deploys aggressive behaviour as a peculiar norm. Among other things,
language users can recognize certain communicative practices as being impo-
lite, even though they may not be able to label them, which is a researcher’s
task. Researchers also aim to distinguish and term the forms impoliteness as-
sumes.
As any other linguistic phenomenon, impoliteness exhibits an array of sub-
types and manifestations. Attempts have been made at listing and classifying
those in order to facilitate the detection of impoliteness in discourse. The taxon-
omy put forward by Culpeper and colleagues (Culpeper 1996; Culpeper et al.
2003) has given rise to a flurry of academic research (e.g., Cashman 2006;
Lorenzo-Dus et al. 2011) but primarily student research, testifying to its useful-
ness in a wide range of discourse analyses. The five-point classification ad-
vanced by Culpeper (1996, 2005) and Culpeper et al. (2003)10 is as follows: bald-
on-record impoliteness; positive impoliteness; negative impoliteness; sarcasm/
mock politeness (Culpeper 1996; Culpeper et al. 2003), later changed for off-
record impoliteness (Culpeper 2005); and withhold impoliteness. Albeit widely
accepted, this well-entrenched classification can be, and has been, challenged
on similar grounds as Brown and Levinson’s (1987) taxonomy11 of politeness
strategies (Bousfield 2008a; Dynel 2013b, cf. Culpeper 2015 forthcoming) and
reorganized (Bousfield 2008a). The central point of criticism is that the super-

9 The categories of norms Culpeper (2008) endorses may overlap or may be interdependent.
The total of situational norms an individual has garnered may have a bearing on his/her
personal norms.
10 In his later work, Culpeper (e.g., 2011, 2015) abandons this approach, even though he does
not deny its feasibility (see Dynel 2013a).
11 Lachenicht’s (1980) typology is burdened with the same methodological problem.
336 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

strategies are discerned with reference to two unrelated criteria: observing/

flouting the Gricean maxims (conducive to literally conveyed meanings or im-
plied meanings, respectively) and face orientation. Negative and positive impo-
liteness strategies do involve literalness or implicitness, whilst off-record and
on-record strategies address positive or negative face. Consequently, the super-
strategies are not mutually exclusive (see Bousfield 2008; Dynel 2013b).12 An-
other issue, which also Culpeper et al. (2003) acknowledge, is that positive face
orientation and negative face orientation merge in discourse, which is why
the face-related dichotomy may be regarded as being superfluous (Harris 2001;
Cashman 2006; Haugh 2006; Bousfield 2008a). Also, the strategies (whether or
not relating to one face) can easily co-occur, and thus one utterance may
present more than one of them, which poses a major problem for quantitative
studies.
Furthermore, the decision to distinguish sarcasm, which is defined as a
face-threatening type of irony couched in pretended politeness (see Section 3.1),
as a superstrategy (Culpeper 1996; Culpeper et al. 2003) may be considered dubi-
ous. Sarcasm is later (Culpeper 2005) replaced in the list of five superstrategies
by off-record impoliteness, yet retaining the status of a “meta-strategy, using
politeness for impoliteness” (Culpeper 2005: 42, cf. Culpeper 2015 forthcoming).
This presents itself as a right move, inasmuch as off-record (i.e., implicature-
based) impoliteness seems to be a superordinate notion, which encompasses
“sarcasm”, as well as a wide spectrum of other impolite implicatures, which
the earlier version of the framework does not appear to have accounted for.
As a result of his critique, Bousfield (2008a) gives up on the original taxon-
omy and proposes a robust compilation of impoliteness strategies, extending
Culpeper’s list, which he duly divides into two main groups: on-record impo-
liteness and off-record impoliteness, the latter of which includes sarcasm and
withhold politeness. Whilst this classification of sarcasm is understandable, it
is open to question whether not producing a polite expression inherently pro-
motes implicature (e.g., purposefully not saying “Thank you” having been done
a favour is not necessarily conducive to an implicature in a Gricean sense; it is
just an overt signal of the beneficiary’s impoliteness). Additionally, Bousfield’s
(2008a) approach inherits another minor shortcoming of Culpeper’s approach:

12 Brown and Levinson, in whose work this problem first arose do concede that they “may
have been in error to set up the three superstrategies, positive politeness, negative politeness,
and off-record, as ranked unidimensionally to achieve mutual exclusivity” (Brown and Levin-
son 1987: 18) and that there is a “possibility that the off-record strategy is independent of, and
co-occurrent with, the other two super-strategies is something which definitely requires closer
investigation” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 21).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 337

the strategies seem to show different degrees of generality: some are very spe-
cific and capture solely the mechanics of impoliteness, whilst other ones consti-
tute distinct communicative phenomena which may (but do not need to) pro-
mote impoliteness. As Culpeper (1996) stresses, however, not all of the listed
strategies are inherently associated with impoliteness, being heavily dependent
on the context (see Culpeper 2010). This is the case with the use of taboo lan-
guage, which will be discussed in Section 3.1.
As researchers agree, impoliteness (and politeness alike) cannot inhere in
semantic meanings, whilst no linguistic form invariably carries politeness or
impoliteness across contexts (cf. Fraser and Nolen 1981; Watts 2003; Locher
2004; Locher and Watts 2005; Mills 2005). Nevertheless, some expressions are
commonly associated with impoliteness, especially in the first order approach
(Bousfield 2010; Culpeper 2010). Culpeper (2010, 2011) rightly observes that
some formulae (which may be couched in taboo expressions) tend to occur
in impoliteness contexts, and thus they are tagged for impoliteness. Whether
particular instances of such conventionally impolite formulae do subscribe to
impoliteness or less typical politeness uses must be judged individually.
Apart from presenting itself in a number of strategies, which may be stud-
ied in isolation, such as threats (Limberg 2009), impoliteness shows affinity
with, or bears resemblance to, a number of notions which have been studied
outside the field of impoliteness research. Also, impoliteness, in its various
forms and guises, reverberates across different discourse domains. These no-
tions and domains will now be briefly revisited.

3 Manifestations of impoliteness
Allegedly marginal and non-normative, impoliteness is a frequent communica-
tive phenomenon, which manifests itself in the whole gamut of discourse do-
mains, private or public/mass-mediated, informal or institutional, face-to-face
or technologically mediated, spoken or written, and fictional or real-life. Here
is a selection of discourses which are studied by impoliteness researchers, the
lists of discourse types and references being subject to further expansion:
– military training discourse (Culpeper 1996; Bousfield 2007a)
– legal discourse (Archer 2008; Harris 2011)
– classroom discourse (Cashman 2006; Dobs and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
2013)
– talk in the workplace (Schnurr et al. 2008; Mullany 2008, 2011)
– institutional discourse (Taylor 2011)
338 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

– YouTube interactions (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2010b, 2012; Lorenzo-Dus et

al. 2011; Bou-Franch et al. 2014)
– Internet forums (Graham 2007, 2008; Hardaker 2010; Haugh 2010)
– political broadcast (Harris 2001; Clayman and Heritage 2002; García-Pastor
2002, 2008; Lorenzo-Dus 2007, 2009; Kienpointner 2008; Tracy 2008, Gar-
cés-Conejos Blitvich 2009, Dynel 2011a)
– (exploitative) quiz and talent shows (Culpeper 2005; Garcés-Conejos Blit-
vich et al. 2010, 2013; Lorenzo-Dus et al. 2013; Culpeper and Holmes 2013)
– films and drama (Culpeper 1998, 2001; Dynel 2012a, 2013c, 2015a, 2016
forthcoming)
– (exploitative) reality shows (Blas Arroyo 2013; Gordon 2013)
– literature (Culpeper 1996; Rudanko 2006; Bousfield 2007b; Toddington
2008)

Whilst some speech activities in everyday interpersonal interactions, such as

conflicts and quarrels, will be replete with impoliteness, they are much more
rarely analyzed by researchers, given their restricted availability (cf. moral is-
sues concerning the recording of subjects, in tandem with the social and legal
proscriptions that come with the use of offensive language). It is thus hardly
surprising that researchers should resort to diversified forms of publically avail-
able discourse: Internet communication, television talk, as well as the language
of films and literature; each of which displays its distinctive characteristics,
which may have a bearing on the nature of impoliteness. For example, it is
widely acknowledged that Internet users’ anonymity instils a sense of impunity
and lack of inhibitions in them, whereby it facilitates the occurrence of impo-
liteness (cf. the paragraphs on computer-mediated communication in Sec-
tion 3.1). On the other hand, largely thanks to its creativity, impoliteness in
mass-mediated real and fictional interactions is shown to perform an entertain-
ing function (cf. the paragraphs on humour in Section 3.1).
An important query arises regarding the feasibility of investigating fictional
discourse,13 given that impoliteness may be considered to be artificial, if con-
structed by (script)writers. Linguists examining stylistics consider communica-
tive phenomena necessarily as fictional, not necessarily extrapolating from
their findings any conclusions holding for real-life language use, even though
they tacitly assume that fictional talk does hold lessons for real-life interaction.
On the other hand, linguists with other research interests may treat fictional
data as specimens of discourse that help elucidate universal mechanisms of

13 Interestingly, both Bousfield and Culpeper, two of the forerunners of impoliteness theories,
have engaged in stylistic readings of (im)politeness.
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 339

impoliteness (Bousfield, personal communication). Support may be given to

Coupland’s (2004: 258) premise: “My motive in using fictional, media texts
is partly based in the belief (cf. Grimshaw 1996) that fictionalized reality can
sometimes reveal social processes more clearly than lived reality.” Needless to
say, it would be unwise to do sociolinguistic studies based on non-natural data,
but it can be safely assumed that fictional discourse and real-life discourse
present a lot of affinities, also with reference to the mechanics of impoliteness.
After all, (script)writers are language users with acute sensitivity to communi-
cative patterns and phenomena, and their (script)writing success resides in the
verisimilitude of the fictional characters’ interactions of their devise. This helps
viewers immerse themselves in the fictional reality. Fictional discourse also
manifests benefits for researchers in that it does not operate on interlocutors’
restricted common ground, whilst the characters’ rationale, goals and feelings
can typically be conjectured, insofar as fictional interactions are inherently con-
trived for viewers’ understanding.

3.1 Notions related to impoliteness

Impoliteness is inextricably connected with a few notions which, as such, con-
stitute distinct research topics outside (im)politeness studies in various disci-
plines of linguistics and beyond. One of the concepts pertinent to impoliteness
is verbal aggression,14 a notion discussed at length in psychology and sociology
(e.g., Harris et al. 1986), by means of which impoliteness tends to be defined
(e.g., Bousfield 2007a, 2008a, 2008b) and which very frequently reverberates
across analyses of impoliteness practically as a synonym of the latter. The un-
derlying rationale can be found in Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 1) statement
that politeness presupposes the “potential for aggression as it seeks to disarm
it, and makes possible communication between potentially aggressive parties”.
By way of contrast, impoliteness thrives on aggression, being its concomitant.
On the other hand, Archer (2008) views impoliteness as a category of verbal
aggression, which is because the latter encompasses not only intentional but
also incidental and unintended face-threat (cf. Goffman 1967). This alludes to
the problem of the speaker’s intention underlying impoliteness, as well as the
rudeness – impoliteness distinction considered earlier.
Disagreement (e.g., Locher 2004; Tannen 1981, 1998) is another concept
which seems to be related to impoliteness, being not only a situational factor

14 This also shows in the contents of the latterly launched journal entitled the Journal of
Language Aggression and Conflict.
340 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

fostering impoliteness but also one of its salient strategies cf. “seek disagree-
ment” (Culpeper 1996; Bousfield 2008a). According to a standard definition, it
is “an oppositional stance (verbal or non-verbal) to an antecedent verbal (or
non-verbal) action” (Kakavá 1993: 36). Although disagreement rests on oppos-
ing views, it may be a topic for politeness researchers, given interactants’ at-
tempts to mitigate face-threat and achieve rapport. In this vein, disagreement
is perceived as unmarked behaviour and even a norm in chosen communicative
contexts, for instance being commonplace in problem solving (see Angouri and
Locher 2012). However, most importantly here, disagreement may also be con-
ducive to face-threat, and thus impoliteness (e.g., Sifianou 2012; Langlotz and
Locher 2012; Shum and Lee 2013).
Impoliteness researchers (e.g., Harris 2001; Graham 2007; Bousfield 2013;
Bou-Franch and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2014 forthcoming) frequently raise the
topic of conflict (Grimshaw 1990; Kakavá 2001). The labels “conflict” and “disa-
greement” are practically interchangeable, as evidenced for instance in this
definition: “Conflict is a disagreement between two or more parties who per-
ceive incompatible goals or means of achieving those goals” (Jones 2001: 91),
even though some authors distinguish between them, suggesting that not all
disagreement must be conflictual (e.g., Langlotz and Locher 2012). Both conflict
and disagreement may also be studied in the context of broader communicative
phenomena, such as arguments (Schiffrin 1985), disputes (Brenneis 1988), and
quarrels (Antaki 1994).
Whilst the few notions succinctly presented above are naturally associated
with (im)politeness, albeit not always expounded on in the literature with refer-
ence to impoliteness frameworks, this is not the case with a few other concepts,
which will now be addressed. Although intermittent works devoted exclusively
to these impoliteness-related phenomena can be found, their affinity with im-
politeness shows much more potential for future investigation. Each of these
notions boasts its own research tradition, on which impoliteness scholars may
capitalize. Given the extensive research on most of these notions outside impo-
liteness studies, only a few references to some of the classical and most recent
publications are provided, where further bibliography can be sought.
The topic of insults is the one that nicely bridges the overview of the phe-
nomena central to impoliteness with a survey of independent concepts that
may be geared towards impoliteness effects. Sometimes, insulting is under-
stood as a superordinate goal of causing offence, as evidenced by the title of
Lachenicht’s (1980) paper or Goffman’s (1967: 14) reference to purposeful of-
fence performed “maliciously and spitefully, with the intention of causing open
insult”. However, Culpeper (2011) presents an insult as one category of the
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 341

impoliteness formulae. An insult may be understood as a distinct type of speech

activity encompassing remarks which invoke negative characteristics of the tar-
get, so far studied primarily in sociolinguistics (Labov 1972; Illie 2001; Ev-
aldsson 2005; Stokoe and Edwards 2007) but more recently also in pragmatics
(Mateo and Yus 2013), which is still in need of investigation in terms of impolite-
ness. Mateo and Yus (2013) propose that insults can perform three functions:
offence, praise and social bonding. It might be observed that whilst the first
one is orientated towards impoliteness, the latter two appear to serve solidarity
politeness. This will also be the case with ritual insults, as testified by Labov’s
(1972) classical study. Insults often make use of taboo language, which is anoth-
er potential focus of investigation.
Using taboo language is recognized as an impoliteness strategy (Culpeper
1996; Culpeper et al. 2005; Bousfield 2008a) and is reported to have constituted
one of the first strands of research on impoliteness (see Bousfield and Culpeper
2008). Nonetheless, the topic of taboo words or expletives (i.e., socially circum-
scribed polysemous words related to taboo spheres, notably religion, sex and
bodily functions), together with its salient subtype swearing (also known as
cussing), has received relatively little focused attention in impoliteness studies
(see Jay and Janschewitz 2008; Dynel 2012b; Christie 2013; see also short discus-
sions in Bousfield 2010, and Culpeper 2010). However, it has generated ample
interest within general pragmatics, sociolinguistics and speech ethnography
(e.g., Montagu 1967; Jay 1992, 2000, see Dynel 2012b for more references). Re-
searchers have dwelt on the forms and functions of taboo words, as well as
sociopragmatic variables related to their use, such as gender. Generally, three
major functions of expletives can be differentiated, viz. social connection (also
referred to as solidarity), catharsis (i.e., to give vent to frustration or indicate
one’s pain) and aggression (which typically shows in verbal abuse/insults di-
rected at the hearer). Regardless of their potential solidarity politeness func-
tion, taboo words are commonly regarded as violating etiquette and being im-
polite, which is why they may be considered to be impoliteness formulae
(Culpeper 2010, 2011).
Related to both expletives and insults is the topic of slurs. These are defined
as derogatory expressions targeting chosen (groups of) individuals with refer-
ence to their nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation among other things,
and typically having neutral counterparts, which capture the same group but
are devoid of deprecation. Slurs, therefore, seem to be a salient type of insults,
yet they boast a markedly different research tradition. Over the past fifteen
years, this topic has drawn interest of philosophers and linguists, raising ques-
tions concerning the theory of meaning, the semantic – pragmatics divide and
342 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

the descriptivism – expressivism dichotomy (e.g., see Anderson and Lepore

2013; Hedger 2013; Vallée 2014; Croom 2014). Given their scope, slurs are of
central importance to (im)politeness studies. Whilst they appear to generate
impoliteness towards the targets, slurs’ functions are more diversified and are
contingent on whether they are used by in-group and out-group speakers
(Croom 2013). For instance, they may serve appropriation (Croom 2011) when
used by targeted groups themselves for the sake of dissociation from others
(Bianchi 2014).
Taken together, swearwords and insults, including slurs, are also teased
out in the philosophy of language under the blanket term pejoratives, which
are defined as expressions which are meant to insult or disparage (Hom 2010).
They are elucidated, for instance in reference to their (non-)truth-conditional
content (Hom 2012). Swearing and insulting, whether playful and solidarity-
building or orientated towards impoliteness, may also foster humour experi-
ence in some hearers.
Linguistic research into humour is an internally heterogeneous and fast-
developing field, which may offer many insights into impoliteness. (Im)polite-
ness frameworks have been used in various analyses of conversational humour
forms (e.g., Haugh 2010; Haugh and Bousfield 2012; Sinkeviciute 2013, 2014;
Dynel 2016 forthcoming). On the other hand, some light has been shed on
the interdependence between impoliteness and entertainment (Culpeper 2005,
2011), which may also lead to humour experience. Paradoxical as it may seem,
genuine impoliteness enjoys a humorous potential. This is possible because the
co-existing face-threat and humour are devised for different hearers as inde-
pendent communicative goals (see Dynel 2011a, 2012a, 2013c). It is primarily
the viewers of television programmes (Culpeper 2005), films, series and serials
(Culpeper 2008; Dynel 2012a, 2013c, 2016) that are meant to reap humorous
rewards, which validates the prevalence of (creative) impoliteness in media
discourse. Impoliteness may be shown to coincide with many aggression-based
forms of humour, notably disparagement humour captured by the superiority
theory (Dynel 2013c). Such humour presents itself, for instance, as putdowns
or sarcasm.
The term sarcasm will be familiar to impoliteness researchers as a synonym
of mock politeness, which corresponds to what Leech (1983) discusses as irony
(Culpeper 1996; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield 2008a). As Culpeper explains
(Dynel 2013a), he sees sarcasm as a narrow category of irony, which produces
negative interpersonal effects. Nonetheless, in other linguistic studies, sarcasm
is viewed as a broader concept which does not need to centre either on pretend-
ed politeness or on irony. These are markedly different linguistic phenomena.
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 343

Irony15 is traditionally defined as a rhetorical figure16 carrying an implicit mean-

ing and is prototypically (but not always) anchored in overt pretence and/or
overt untruthfulness. The moot point in the voluminous theoretical pragmatic
and philosophical literature on irony is its definition that would account for its
different manifestations (see Gibbs and Colston 2007; Dynel 2014). Most impor-
tantly here, irony may also be approached in terms of its (im)politeness-related
consequences. So far, researchers have attempted to explore the communica-
tive effects it brings about, pondering on whether it magnifies or mitigates
negative evaluation, with the findings being diverse, admittedly because of
the different methodologies and examples the researchers use (e.g., Kumon-
Nakamura et al. 1995; Colston and O’Brien 2000; see Dynel 2015b forthcoming).
By contrast, sarcasm is a concept with fuzzy boundaries. It is seen as being
tantamount to “cutting, contemptuous, and ‘biting’ remarks, delivered often in
a hostile manner” (Berger 1993: 49). A sarcastic speaker’s intrinsic aim is then
to cause verbal harm, as many authors indicate (Ball 1965; Fowler 1965; Berger
1993; Littmann and Mey 1991; Partington 2006), which is why sarcasm may be
claimed to be encompassed by impoliteness. However, sarcasm need not mani-
fest the features which are the hallmarks of irony. Sarcasm does not reside in
meaning opposition and does not need to convey the critical evaluation via
implicature, both of which are central to irony. Also, unlike irony (which may
be, but does not have to be, humorous) sarcasm is frequently discussed as a
category of witty but impolite humour17 operating in multi-party talk (see Ball
1965; Fowler 1965; Berger 1993; Littmann and Mey 1991; Partington 2006; see
Dynel 2015b forthcoming).
As reported above, the topic of the humorous capacity of impoliteness is
related to its workings in multi-party interactions, which transcends the canoni-
cal speaker-hearer dyad. It is argued that impoliteness carries different mean-
ings to, and exerts various communicative effects on, hearers, depending on
their footing, participatory status and relationship to the target (Dynel 2012a;
Haugh 2013). Impoliteness studies may then recruit findings from the pragmat-
ics of interaction (D’hondt et al. 2009), a field inspired by Goffman’s (1981)
seminal collection of essays. So far, multi-party interactions, sometimes re-
ferred to as polylogues, have been studied also with reference to impoliteness

15 However, some researchers, especially those of American provenance, give preference to

“sarcasm” as a label synonymous with “irony”.
16 Irony is here perceived as a verbal/linguistic phenomenon (cf. irony of fate or dramatic
irony).
17 However, speakers may also produce sarcasm, not meaning to amuse anybody else, but
showing off their wit and superiority, and thereby enjoying themselves.
344 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

primarily in the context of media discourse and computer-mediated communi-

cation (Lorenzo-Dus et al. 2011; Dobs and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2013; Bou-
Franch and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2014).
The various genres of computer-mediated communication (CMC) offer fertile
ground for impoliteness, which results in a number of communicative phenom-
ena involving exacerbated face-attack, such as spamming, cyberstalking, and
cyberbullying (for references, see Hardaker 2010). However, scarcely have these
forms been discussed in linguistics, let alone in the light of impoliteness frame-
works, which leaves an enticing lacuna for the future. One of such CMC phe-
nomena is flaming, which can be understood as sending aggressive messages
at an individual Internet user. Flaming is seen as an antisocial activity carrying
repercussions for relationships (Alonzo and Aiken 2004; Johnson et al. 2008),
and an activity which violates norms (O’Sullivan and Flanagin 2003), which is
why it may be studied with respect to impoliteness frameworks. Interestingly,
flaming can also be approached as a politeness phenomenon, for interactants
develop alliances and solidarity by performing face-threatening acts (Perelmut-
ter 2013). Another phenomenon which has gained some scholarly attention is
trolling (e.g., Herring et al. 2002; Hardaker 2010). Trolling rests on posting com-
ments which provoke other Internet users into conflict. A few authors (Donath
1999; Dahlberg 2001; Hardaker 2010) also observe that trolling typically in-
volves deception, since a troll very frequently pretends to share the group’s
concerns while aiming to disrupt the ongoing discussion.
Deception, including lying, its salient subtype, is another potential issue to
be explored in impoliteness research. This is a topic that has been avidly pur-
sued in the philosophy of language, with attempts being made to best define
its various manifestations (e.g., Dynel 2011b; Saul 2012; Meibauer 2014a). De-
ception is traditionally defined as causing the hearer to (continue to) nurture a
false belief, i.e., something the speaker believes to be false, not necessarily
what is objectively untrue. Impoliteness researchers may be most interested in
the interpersonal repercussions that deception carries, especially if it should
transpire or be suspected, for the target of deception may find his/her face
threatened. This research topic involves major problems in empirical investiga-
tion, though. Firstly, the notion of the speaker’s belief escapes verification.
Secondly, an act of deception that is successfully performed (from the speaker’s
perspective) is one that is not recognized as deception by the hearer, and a
researcher alike. Therefore, unless deception fails immediately or is later dis-
covered, the deceived hearer cannot appreciate the moral inappropriateness of
the deceptive act, even if it can be perceived as such by other hearers (and
researchers) with insight into the communicative phenomenon at hand. This is
why the data may need to be restricted to public discourse on television or
DE GRUYTER MOUTON The landscape of impoliteness research 345

the Internet. Essentially, lying, together with other forms of deception, can be
perceived as being morally wrong (Saul 2012), as insulting (Williams 2002), and
thus as indicative of impoliteness. Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) are proba-
bly the first researchers to have recognized the aggressive potential of decep-
tion, which involves “the breach of faith, the shift, on the speaker’s part, from
coordination to conflict” (1981: 753). They aver that aggression is intrinsic to
all forms of deception, even if it should be hearer-protective (cf. white lies). In
this vein, Meibauer (2014b) considers the topic of bald-faced lies, which are
sometimes considered neither lies nor deception, in a technical sense (Dynel
2011b; Meibauer 2014a), but which may be viewed as acts of overt aggression.

4 Conclusions
This paper aimed to give an overview of impoliteness research, addressing a
number of the crucial methodological queries, research domains, as well as
potential developments in the field. The first part of this article brought to
focus a number of vexing methodological and theoretical issues inherent in
impoliteness studies, which do not cease to provoke scholarly debates: the
problem of employing technical labels “rudeness” vs. “impoliteness”, the status
of speaker intention and its recognition by the hearer, the conceptualization of
sanctioned face-threat, the tenability of impoliteness taxonomies, and impolite-
ness formulae.
The second part of the paper briefly revisited the studies on impoliteness
across diversified discourse domains which are riddled with impoliteness. Em-
phasis was placed on linguistic notions and communicative phenomena which
inhere in, or overlap with, impoliteness. Whilst some are naturally associated
with impoliteness, such as disagreement, conflict or verbal aggression, as evi-
denced by the prevailing approaches to impoliteness, other concepts have been
studied independently from impoliteness frameworks, with only intermittent
impoliteness-orientated studies. This pertains to topics such as taboo words
and swearing, slurs and pejorative language, insults, disparagement humour,
sarcasm, or CMC phenomena, such as flaming and trolling. Thus, directions of
possible extensions in the field of impoliteness studies were indicated. These
new topics may benefit impoliteness by enriching the existing research method-
ology. On the other hand, impoliteness frameworks may help explain the inter-
personal workings of these notions, their list being an open-ended one. In all
likelihood, there are more communicative phenomena that bring about impo-
liteness effects. Additionally, language users will certainly continue contribut-
346 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

ing new manifestations of impoliteness, thereby submitting new topics for aca-
demic investigation.

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354 Marta Dynel DE GRUYTER MOUTON

Bionote
Marta Dynel

Is Associate Professor in the Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź. Her

research interests are primarily in pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms of humour, neo-
Gricean pragmatics, the pragmatics of interaction, (im)politeness theory, the philosophy of
overt and covert untruthfulness (irony and deception), as well as the methodology of
research on film discourse. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and
volumes, contributing over 60 articles in the space of the past 10 years. She also is also the
author and editor of several volumes.
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