A critic of politeness theories (Gino Eelen)

Review of Gino Eelen, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2001, viii+280 pages, paperback, ?7.99

"To ignore politeness studies entails running the risk of miscommunication,conflict and friction among other things. In other words, where there is communication, there is politeness studies."
This book will probably sparks and inspires a new surge of debate and discussion as to how to account for politeness and that, all the more significantly, it will draw renewed attention paid to ontological(

), epistemological() and methodological() bases on which a coherent, if not allinclusive theory of politeness could be possibly built. 1. The presuppositions many politeness theorists have about the conceptualizations of politeness do not come from empirical data.More serious, some if not many of them naively infer that their own views on politeness, which may turn out to be wrong or inaccurate, can represent the views of their people if not the whole of human culture, assuming the universality of human nature, taking little into consideration such things as individual differences, regional divergences, and contexts of social interaction. 2. The nine major theories of politeness under discussion. These nine perspectives on politeness are those advocated by Robin T. Lakoff, Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, Geo?rey Leech, Yueguo Gu, Sachiko Ide, Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Bruce Fraser and William Nolen, Horst Arndt and Richard Janney,and Richard Watts. All those nine theories share one common feature: they all view politeness as con-fict-avoidance and as social indexing (pp. 2123). The choice of a specific address form is called social indexing. 3. Future orientation: The marriage of relevance theory and the theory of politeness (potential yet unresearched topic so far) 4. Turner(1993: 61) argument that pragmatics should not be defined and then done but done and then defined is also true of the definition of politeness. After all, the act of defining something itself has in a sense limited the extent to which this very something can be studied. 5. Politeness 1 refers to politeness notions of the outsiders (ordinary speakers) or emic accounts, while politeness 2 refers to those of the insiders (researchers and scholars)or etic accounts. Eelen distinguishes three different kinds of politeness 1: expressive politeness 1, classificatory politeness1 and metapragmatic politeness 1, which are mainly characterized by evaluativity, argumentativity, and normativity. Politeness 2 is the scientific conceptualization of politeness100 (p. 45), seeking to expound everyday politeness phenomena. Eelen argues that researchers should take an inductive reasoning process in accounting for politeness. For more details, Please download the PDF materials from the above.

A Critique of Politeness Theories (Book Review)

SILVIE VLKOV
2008-09-08

The article reviews the book A Critique of Politeness Theories by Gino Eelen, a study based on detailed explanation of the existing politeness theories with suggestions for further research.

EELEN, G. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1-90065040-1, 280 pp. Although politeness as a research area of pragmatics and sociolinguistics was initiated by Brown and Levinson more than 30 years ago, it seems to be a topic which still offers enough space for new definitions and theoretical frameworks within which researchers concentrate on various politeness strategies and also language devices used for their manifestations, often in different languages and cultures. The already established theories reflect different scope of coverage of the multifaceted notion of politeness, the diversity of models by which to approach this cognitive space by linguistic or rather socio-linguistic means, and the consequent diversity of a partly redundant and partly overlapping terminological apparatus, very often giving the impression of adding the air of newness to the already existing terms. The diversity of theoretical frameworks contributes to the gradient of their acceptance: while some of the theories - namely those promising dynamic and flexible tools for applicability, and operating within clines or scales rather than binary yes/no decisions - have become good theoretical tools for a wide spectrum of application, those, prescribing fixed, singleculture-based generalisations, are accepted, or rather approached, with mixed feelings, if not subjected to apparent criticism. In this climate of partly inherited and partly innovative conceptions, a book critically surveying the status quo of politeness theories is a promising invitation to a guided quality-based selection, namely if its very title explicitly offers a critical standpoint. What makes Eelens critique of politeness theories different from other studies is his ability to capture the nexus of the existing theories which he considers representative and foreground their distinctive aspects as well as their common characteristic features. The critique, based on very detailed explanation of the existing theories, enables readers to get effortlessly a detailed overview. Chapter 1 introduces an overview of theories whose universal connections are conceptualizing politeness as strategic conflict-avoidance and politeness as social indexing, i.e. what is socially appropriate depends on the speakers social position (in relation to hearer). (Eelen 2001: 21). The core theories studied are those of R. Lakoff, P. Brown and S.C. Levinson, G. Leech, Y. Gu, S. Ide, S. Blum-Kulka, B. Fraser and W. Nolen, H. Arndt and R. Janney, and R. Watts. Although other names and theories are mentioned, the author considers the above listed scholars representative of current scientific thinking about politeness. In Chapter 2 the author stresses the importance of distinguishing between the commonsense notion of politeness and its scientific conceptualization, in other words distinguishing between politeness 1 and politeness 2. The clear distinction between the two is confused by most of the theorists, their position in relation to the distinction is often ambiguous, implicitly present but not explicitly stated. According to Eelen, the main features of politeness 1 are evaluativity (both politeness and impoliteness are evaluative in nature impoliteness involves negative evaluation, while politeness can be both positive and negative); argumentativity (politeness 1 is aimed at some social effect, associated with situations where there is something to lose or gain); politeness (politeness refers to the polite end of the polite-impolite continuum, it does not cover impolite behaviour);normativity (it involves social norms, the normativity of politeness 1 is connected to its association with appropriateness); modality and reflexivity (refers to the optionality of polite interactional strategies for the actor). Politeness 2 as a scientific conceptualization should describe how politeness 1 works, what it does for people. Politeness 2 should avoid being evaluative in nature, should be non-normative and should cover the whole range of the polite-impolite continuum.

Chapter 3 deals with the distinction between politeness and impoliteness. While the current theories remain centred on the polite side of the distinction (only four of them explicitly incorporate impoliteness), Eelen argues that the theory of politeness should take into account both sides of the coin politeness and impoliteness. Another critique is that the theories in their conceptualizations of politeness are biased towards the speaker in the interactional speaker-hearer dyad and towards the production of behaviour rather than its evaluation. Chapter 4 focuses on normativity as one of the politeness 1 features. According to Eelen, norms in some form appear in various politeness theories and their common features are appropriateness, sharedness and norm-ality. The commonsense idea that politeness is a matter of socially shared norms is retained in the scientific models, where those norms are translated into social/cultural principles that guide language behaviour. Norms are thus not relative to the individual, but become absolute, objective entities operating on the level of society/culture. Politeness is seen as a system of such absolute norms that needs to be internalized by the individual through socialization. (Eelen 2001: 187). The critique of the theories concerning the inclusion of norms into politeness conceptualization is based on a sociological theory, although culture is not theoretically defined in terms of particular social characteristics. (Eelen 2001: 164). In Chapter 5 the author, influenced by the works of sociologists Talcott Parsons and Pierre Bourdieu, presents a social-psychological model of human reality underlying the politeness theories, stressing the fact that in all the theoretical frameworks the social level is prior to the individual, which leads to the unidirectional determination of the individual by the social level (Eelen 2001: 246) an obvious reminiscence of Hallidays (1978) conception of language as social semiotic. Based on Bourdieus notion of habitus, Eelen introduces suggestions for an approach in which the social and the individual are more in balance. To reach such balance, researchers should concentrate on the processes of social production rather than on the product of these processes. The main characteristic features of politeness perceived from this perspective are variability, evaluativity, argumentativity, and discursiveness. The suggested approach enables researchers to capture both politeness and impoliteness by the same concepts; empowers the hearer and the individual in general; covers more data as it also includes statistically marginal and contradictory data and gives a richer view on politeness itself. The last chapter of the book summarizes the findings of previous chapters together with the consequences that the findings can have for the conceptualization of politeness. The shortcomings of the theories under investigation can be generalized by the authors own words By taking many aspects of politeness 1 at face value, generally mimicking its procedures and unquestioningly accepting its representation of reality, politeness theory becomes largely based on the very commonsense commonplaces it sets out to examine, and thus fails to provide any original insights beyond those already available on the intuitive level. (Eelen 2001: 246). However excellent the book seemed to be at the beginning, showing impressive knowledge and insight into politeness theories, it became rather breathless towards the end, offering no balance between criticism and Eelens own contribution by which to push the research forward and provide a workable model of analysis. His own definition of politeness is missing, giving politeness the status of a nowhere defined but everywhere present assumption. The vagueness of this status is amplified by the vagueness of some of the terms he suggests. What Eelen, however, gives us at the end of his book is a battery of suggestions for further discussion and research in the field of politeness. In spite of the above mentioned shortcomings, the book should definitely become an inseparable part of a bookcase of those interested in pragmatics and sociolinguistics, namely those focusing on linguistic politeness.

1. Gino Eelen, A Critique of Politeness Theories, Manchester: St. Jerome's Press, 2001, ISBN: 1-9006-5040-1, 280 pp., 17.99. Reviewed by Abdurrahman Hamza

For about more than fifteen years, politeness has been one of the most important and productive areas of research in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. Its importance in crosscultural communication is obvious, and comparative studies of the conceptualisation and manifestations of politeness in different cultures must therefore be regarded as vital in an era of growing internationalisation. Gino Eelen, in his critique of politeness theories is very critical of the theoretical assumptions of the major politeness theorists, Brown and Levinson, and that of many other theorists influenced by their work, for example, Gu, Lakoff, Leech, Blum Kulka, Fraser and Nolen, Ide, and Arndt and Janney. He is critical of them on a number of counts: because of their reliance on Speech Act theory, they all focus too closely on the speaker, at the expense of the hearer; they also assume that all politeness is strategic. For him, these theorists reify politeness, characterising it as something which hearer and speaker can unproblematically recognise. He discusses two perspectives on politeness which he argues most theorists of politeness confuse: politeness1 (the common-sense notion of politeness) and politeness2 (the scientific conceptualisation of politeness). He argues for the importance of the distinction between the two perspectives on politeness in research: politeness 2 concepts should not just be different from politeness 1 concepts, or given different names, but rather the relationship between both notions should be carefully monitored throughout the entire analytical processnot only at the input stage.' (Eelen 2001:31). He discusses politeness1 and classifies it to include two aspects: the action-related side which refers to the way politeness actually manifests itself in communicative behaviour; and the conceptual side which refers to common-sense ideologies of politeness. He extends the discussion to involve, as characteristics of politeness1 a) evaluativity, where he argues that politeness and impoliteness are connected to social values and always evaluative in nature; b) argumentativity, where it is always associated with situations where there is something to lose or gain; c) polite-ness, where each individual considers themselves and their cultural group as polite, where only others are impolite; d)- normativity, where politeness is the result of the pressure of social norms; and e) modality and reflexivity, which refers to optionality of polite interactional strategies for the actor. For him, politeness2 is the scientific conceptualisation of the social phenomena of politeness; in that sense it is the theory of politeness1. Politeness2, he argues, describes how politeness1 works, and also what it does for people. He argues unlike politeness1 which is restricted to the polite end of the polite-impolite continuum, politeness2 should cover the whole range of the continuum. Eelen claims that the core politeness theories fail to distinguish between what he calls politeness one and politeness two because of the normative nature of most of the theories. He argues that impoliteness becomes not only a matter of speakers' producing behaviour, but also of hearers' evaluating that behaviour. He argues that the norms that govern appropriateness are social norms. They are not individual norms held only by the hearer, but rather pertain to situations and cultures, and norms are not individual but shared by all. In sum, for Eelen, his critique of the theoretical frameworks are: (1) that they involve a conceptual bias towards the polite end of the polite-impolite distinction: (2) that they conceptualise politeness and impoliteness as opposites; and (3) that their conceptualisations of politeness are biased towards the production of behaviour, or towards the speaker in the interactional dyad. Eelens critique is based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu which involves a different way of looking at politeness. On the basis of Bourdieu' s sociological thinking, Eelen suggests a possible alternative conceptualization of politeness. Bourdieus notion of 'habitus' is used as a

guide in the development of such a theoretical framework where the social-cultural is the result of human interaction rather than the opposite.. Depending on Bourdieu, Eelen considers the issue of culture as the core issue in the field of politeness. Eelen asks the question how do these theories handle the normativity of commonsense politeness and the situation of culture?" He argues that politeness is subject to cultural expectations arising from cultural norms. Eelen considers the notion of politeness differs from culture to culture and that cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to another, but also from one regional and social variety to another. Probably this is why he chooses to base his critique on a sociological theory, even though culture is not explicitly theoretically defined in terms of its particular social characteristics. (Eelen 2001:164) He claims that his approach inspired by Bourdieus notion of habitus, takes full account of the hearers position and the evaluative moment; deals with both politeness and impoliteness; and provides a more dynamic, bidirectional view of the social-individual relationship. He believes that the driving force behind the system of politeness is the socioculturally shared norms. He considers that norms belong to the level of culture and part of the sociolinguistic system of which politeness is subsystem: communicative success depends on the right amount and kind of politeness applied at the right time to the right speech act, as determined by social norms that stipulate what is appropriate for a specific interactional situation" (Eelen, 2001:128) Eelen considers the aspects politeness and impoliteness on the same level, and claims that they are captured by the same concept: the empowerment of the hearer and of individual in general in spite of the belief that only polite behaviour can ever be culturally appropriate, while impoliteness is somehow non-cultural in nature. The most important characteristics of the notion of 'culture' as employed in theories of politeness are its vagueness and its transformation form an observational into an explanatory notion". (Eelen 2001:169) However, although this book is an excellent and provocative critique of politeness theory, it does not offer us a workable model of analysis. There are still some issues insufficiently investigated, in spite of his criticism of previous theories for failing to provide adequate explanation for them, for example, he does not give a clear definition of politeness on which we could base future analysis. He also claims that the core theories of the book fail to make a clear distinction between what he calls politeness one and politeness two, but his model is not clearly identifying its principles and leaves many elements vague and ill-defined, for example the definition of the terms `norm and `culture. However, this book provides a thorough critique of the main theories of politeness and their major findings. Whilst not providing a clear theoretical framework for the analysis of politeness, he does provide suggestions for further discussion and research in the field. This book then will prove to be a of value to social scientists and linguists and for those interested in understanding the relationship between language culture and society.