Impoliteness and emotional arguments
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Manfred Kienpointner
Abstract
After a few introductory remarks on recent impoliteness research, a preliminary definition of impoliteness/rudeness is given. Then the important role emotions play in relation to (im)politeness is briefly sketched, followed by descriptions of some connections between emotional arguments, fallacies and impoliteness. Emotional arguments need not be fallacious nor are they always formulated in impolite ways. However, certain fallacious subtypes of emotional arguments involving appeals to negative emotions tend to be formulated in an impolite way. Such arguments are called “destructive arguments” in this paper.
A few case studies of spoken and written passages of argumentative discourse are used to support the hypothesis that certain subtypes of emotional arguments are likely to be destructive. It is also shown, however, that sometimes even fallacious arguments involving positive emotions, such as pity, can be formulated in an impolite way. Finally, it is demonstrated that in certain exceptional cases even rude and fallacious arguments are not (totally) destructive because they ultimately serve some vital interests of the opponent.
© 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & KG, D-10785 Berlin
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- Impoliteness: Eclecticism and Diaspora An introduction to the special edition
- “Reasonable Hostility”: Situation-appropriate face-attack
- Impoliteness and ethnicity: Māori and Pākehā discourse in New Zealand workplaces
- Participants' orientations to interruptions, rudeness and other impolite acts in talk-in-interaction
- Impoliteness and emotional arguments
- The pragmatics of swearing
- Rudeness, conceptual blending theory and relational work
- Sociopragmática y Retórica Interpersonal: La Cortesía en Inglés y Castellano. [Interpersonal Sociopragmatics and Rhetoric: Politeness in British English and Spanish], by John A. G. Ardila
- Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French, by Kate Beeching
- Terms of (Im) Politeness: A Study of the Communicational Properties of Traditional Chinese (Im) Polite Terms of Address, by Dániel Z. Kádár
- Sarcasm and Other Mixed Messages: The Ambiguous Way People Use Language, by Patricia Ann Rockwell
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Impoliteness: Eclecticism and Diaspora An introduction to the special edition
- “Reasonable Hostility”: Situation-appropriate face-attack
- Impoliteness and ethnicity: Māori and Pākehā discourse in New Zealand workplaces
- Participants' orientations to interruptions, rudeness and other impolite acts in talk-in-interaction
- Impoliteness and emotional arguments
- The pragmatics of swearing
- Rudeness, conceptual blending theory and relational work
- Sociopragmática y Retórica Interpersonal: La Cortesía en Inglés y Castellano. [Interpersonal Sociopragmatics and Rhetoric: Politeness in British English and Spanish], by John A. G. Ardila
- Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French, by Kate Beeching
- Terms of (Im) Politeness: A Study of the Communicational Properties of Traditional Chinese (Im) Polite Terms of Address, by Dániel Z. Kádár
- Sarcasm and Other Mixed Messages: The Ambiguous Way People Use Language, by Patricia Ann Rockwell
- Contributors
