This volume presents an in-depth analysis of mock politeness, bringing together research from different academic fields and investigating a range of first-order metapragmatic labels for mock politeness in British English and Italian. It is the first book-length theorisation and detailed description of mock politeness and, as such, contributes to the growing field of impoliteness. The approach taken is methodologically innovative because it takes a first-order metalanguage approach, basing the analysis on behaviours which participants themselves have identified as impolite. Furthermore, it exploits the affordances of corpus pragmatics, a rapidly developing field. Mock Politeness in English and Italian: A corpus-assisted metalanguage analysis will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students researching im/politeness and verbal aggression, in particular those interested in im/politeness implicatures and non-conventional meanings.

Michael Haugh, The University of Queensland:
This book offers an important new perspective on “ironic” and “sarcastic” uses of language and how these relate to our understanding of (im)politeness. It challenges the common assumption that irony and sarcasm can be straightforwardly defined in a technical manner by showing important differences in the way these concepts are understood and practised in (British) English and Italian from a participants’ perspective. It contributes to the growing field of metapragmatics, the study of awareness on the part of users about the ways in which they use language, and is essential reading for (im)politeness researchers who are serious about taking into cross-linguistic differences in theorising (im)politeness. It will also be of great interest to researchers in humour studies, particularly those with an interest in “irony” and “sarcasm”.