Volume 22, Issue 1

This article focuses on the recent pronoun-sharing practice (in bio signatures or interactions) and demonstrates the need to apprehend the trend within a pragmatic framework. Basing her analysis on a questionnaire and extracts from the web via SketchEngine, the author shows that the different evaluations of the phenomenon cover the whole spectrum from politeness to impoliteness theory. Pronoun sharers evince what she calls “inclusive politeness” by paying attention to others’ face needs. Rejecters consider the practice an impingement on their sociality rights. What they regard as an impolite act towards them in turn justifies their opting out of inclusive politeness. The author then evinces that there is a middle-ground attitude between these two opposed perspectives. Some people may not consider themselves allies to the cause and yet opt for the correct pronoun out of “civility”, which can be either genuine or “virtue-signalling”. The article proposes to see pronoun sharing as a preemptive act aimed at avoiding the damaging act of misgendering, and assesses the cost such a practice entails and to whom. It finally advocates for a Critical Politeness Theory, acknowledging the subjective position of the researcher and their critical third-order perspective on matters of consideration for fellow human beings.

Wishes are remarks that express the desire that things will turn out well for one’s interlocutor. They are among the expressive speech acts that have received scant scholarly attention. Purporting to further their study in online communication and extend the line of their comparative analysis, the present study examines wishes in the digital environment of Greek and English food blogs. Employing the relational work framework, our study examines 1,061 wishes occurring in the comment section of three Greek and three English food blogs. Our aim is to identify the triggering events, the types (situational, interactional or mixed) and forms (conventionalised or creative) of wishes found in the data, and the functions they perform in terms of relational work (politic or polite). Our analysis shows that the majority of wishes in Greek and English food blogs are situational. Interactional wishes are also present in the data; however, the majority of the English ones relates to the topic of the blog, i.e., the making or the consumption of a dish, whereas most Greek interactional wishes concern the addressee’s well-being. Finally, mixed wishes appear much more frequently in the Greek than in the English dataset. Our findings suggest that wishes are instances of polite relational work for Greek commenters, whereas of politic behaviour for the English.

This paper analyzes whether gender affects how people respond to a refused friend request combined with an impolite private message that expresses condescension and criticism. The private message was designed to elicit a response to the face-threatening acts of request, refusal and negative impoliteness. The study adopted an explanatory mixed methods approach to analyze 120 participant responses. Firstly, Culpeper et al.’s (Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield & Anne Wichmann. 2003. Impoliteness revisited: With special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics 35(10–11). 1545–1579.) model of response to the refusal options was applied to identify counter-offensive and counter-defensive responses. After that, replies were categorized according to Culpeper’s (Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25(3). 349–367., Culpeper, Jonathan. 2005. Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The weakest link. Journal of Politeness Research 1(1). 35–72.) (im)politeness super-strategies and Bousfield’s (Bousfield, Derek. 2007. Beginnings, middles and ends: A biopsy of the dynamics of impolite exchanges. Journal of Pragmatics 39(12). 2185–2216) defensive counterstrategies. The results show that men predominantly utilize defensive and aggressive counterstrategies, particularly mock politeness. Women, in contrast, heavily use counter defensive strategies, specifically abrogation, to deny responsibility for the triggering act. Social media is an increasingly crucial communicative tool in contemporary society, and this study provides evidence that gender-based differences can be observed in etiquette and norms on social media, which may be influenced by face-to-face dynamics. In addition, the study investigates how culture-specific expressions are discursively employed on social media to denote sarcasm or impoliteness, giving further insight into how language usage patterns may be impacted by social media.

In the second-wave, research on (im)politeness has experienced a discursive turn that witnesses an increasing interest in the naturally occurring and situated discourse. Although numerous researchers have evaluated interactional orientation of (im)politeness via a wide range of pragmatic phenomena, few studies have probed the dynamic characteristics and pragmatic functions of (im)politeness in discourse generated in children’s daily communication, such as parent–child discourse in family mealtimes. Based on the discourse between Chinese preschool children and their caregivers, the current study addresses the internal characteristics of (im)politeness by exploring how force dynamics can be formed and mediated in family mealtimes through the lens of dinner table rituals. Furthermore, the pragmatic functions of (im)politeness were revealed from the ritual perspective, namely, enhancing language socialization, expressing emotions, indicating meaningful educational directions, and guiding children’s moral practice. Utilizing force dynamics of (im)politeness, the current study aims to provide new insights for the understanding of children’s (im)politeness and emphasize the critical place that ritual occupies in (im)politeness research.

This paper examines the use of sarcastic interrogatives as a face-aggravating strategy and the contextual factors influencing their use. Through a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses of data from three distinct American English corpora, we present two key findings. First, sarcastic interrogatives function as a face-aggravating strategy by projecting a negative image of addressees through connotations, ad hoc categorization, and maxim-flouting. Such usage challenges previous research that predominantly associates sarcasm with insincere or mock politeness. Instead, results position sarcasm as a more direct and conventionalized face-threatening act in certain discourse contexts. Second, our study demonstrates that sarcastic interrogatives are more commonly employed as a face-aggravating strategy in online political debate forums, compared to spoken and unscripted TV discourse. This variation is attributed to contextual differences, including social distance, anonymity, and the likelihood of joint accomplishment in each discourse type. The findings highlight the role of discursive environments in shaping sarcastic usage, offering new insights into the relationship between sarcasm and impoliteness. Overall, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of how discursive environments shape the use of sarcasm, emphasizing its nuanced role in impoliteness and face-aggravation across varying communicative contexts.

A stand-up comedy by American-Singaporean Jocelyn Chia concerning the missing Malaysian flight MH370 triggered significant backlash and public controversy, according to Malaysian and Singaporean media outlets, sparking discussions on the boundaries of comedic expression. Drawing from the concept of “entertaining impoliteness”, this research examines the use of impoliteness in comedy, focusing on how it is creatively deployed within the rituals of the comedic form. The study explores the balance between using impolite language for humor and ensuring that it remains connected to the core purpose of comedy. The findings highlight that while impoliteness can enhance creativity, its usage is limited by the need to align with the comedic ritual, as deviating too far from the main theme risks confusing or alienating the audience. This work offers insights into the structure of comedic impoliteness and suggests that while creativity can drive comedic innovation, it must always return to the central ritual of comedy. Building on this, future work could explore how comedians in different cultural contexts negotiate impoliteness and audience expectations in their performances.

This study investigates the complex role of explanations in refusal strategies, focusing specifically on the themes, attributional dimensions, and contextual variations in Chinese speakers’ refusal explanations. Despite their prevalence and recognized importance in refusal research, explanations have often been analyzed as a uniform strategy without exploring their internal variations or underlying logic. Drawing on attribution theory and rapport management frameworks, this study systematically examines how individuals attribute causes for their refusals along dimensions of locus (internal vs. external) and controllability (controllable vs. uncontrollable). Data from 100 Chinese university students were elicited through discourse completion tasks across varied contexts of power and social distance. The findings reveal eight recurring thematic categories of refusal explanations and four attributional patterns: internal-controllable, internal-uncontrollable, external-uncontrollable, and vague reasons. Notably, participants predominantly employed uncontrollable attributions to mitigate accountability and rapport threats. Attributional patterns also varied significantly with relational contexts, showing that participants strategically adapt their explanatory framing to interactional demands, particularly concerning refusees’ power and social distance. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of refusals by integrating attribution theory, rapport, and accountability within pragmatics, providing fresh analytical insights and a foundational framework for future research exploring refusal discourses.

This article examines criticism in answers to reader letters in the 1880 volume of The Girl’s Own Paper. The editors’ responses are notable for regularly including criticism that lacks mitigation and/or contains features likely to increase the damage to the letter writers’ face. I argue that these criticisms constitute a form of institutional facework , serving to establish and defend the editors’ claims to both epistemic and deontic authority. Specifically, the editors position themselves as experts with the epistemic authority to issue firm verdicts, often without explanation or justification. Moreover, they claim the right to determine what kind of behavior is acceptable, an aspect of deontic authority that has not yet been discussed in depth. Finally, the editors use criticism to defend or reclaim authority when they feel it has been called into question. Through these criticisms, the editors construct an asymmetrical relationship with readers characterized by unequal rights to face protection. This data set is thus especially interesting as a source of insight into how participants (often implicitly) make claims about what kind of facework is owed to whom.