Politeness markers in French: post-posed quoi in the Tourist Office
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Kate Beeching
Kate Beeching is a Principal Lecturer in Linguistics and French at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She takes a sociolinguistic and corpus approach to the analysis of spontaneous spoken French. Her research focuses on the way that politeness is mediated through the use of mitigating expressions and, in 2002, she publishedGender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French .
Abstract
Post-posed quoi is traditionally stigmatized as a meaningless filler or “tic” and considered inappropriate in formal or polite speech. The usefulness of “small words” in smoothing social interaction has more recently been recognized, at least as far as English is concerned (see, for example, Hasselgren 2002), and this article aims to explore the extent to which “quoi” is employed in workplace contexts in France. Interviews in shops, Tourist Offices and professional contexts across France have been extracted for detailed study from the Bristol Corpus (1988–1990) and the Corpus de Référence du Français Parlé (2002). The data amount to a total of 524,334 words; 108,272 words and 52 speakers in the workplace context and 416,062 words and 147 speakers in the private context. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to explore the frequency and function of quoi in both contexts. Rates of usage of this stigmatized marker in workplace and professional contexts exceed rates in the “private” interviews in the corpora. The data appear to suggest that social and power differentials are bridged by the symbolic use of the markers of “camaraderie”, the possessors of information downtoning their expertise in a bid to politely engage the interest and adherence of interlocutor(s).
About the author
Kate Beeching is a Principal Lecturer in Linguistics and French at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She takes a sociolinguistic and corpus approach to the analysis of spontaneous spoken French. Her research focuses on the way that politeness is mediated through the use of mitigating expressions and, in 2002, she published Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French.
© Walter de Gruyter
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- Special issue of the Journal of Politeness
- Politeness at work: Issues and challenges
- Power distance at work: The cases of Turkey, successor states of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe.
- “Girls on tour”: Politeness, small talk, and gender in managerial business meetings
- Politeness in small shops in France
- Aspects of polite behaviour in French and Syrian service encounters: A data-based comparative study
- Politeness in the portrayal of workplace relationships: Second person address forms in Peninsular Spanish and the translation of humour.
- Politeness markers in French: post-posed quoi in the Tourist Office
- Book reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Special issue of the Journal of Politeness
- Politeness at work: Issues and challenges
- Power distance at work: The cases of Turkey, successor states of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe.
- “Girls on tour”: Politeness, small talk, and gender in managerial business meetings
- Politeness in small shops in France
- Aspects of polite behaviour in French and Syrian service encounters: A data-based comparative study
- Politeness in the portrayal of workplace relationships: Second person address forms in Peninsular Spanish and the translation of humour.
- Politeness markers in French: post-posed quoi in the Tourist Office
- Book reviews
