Abstract The shift to a middle ground between classic and discursive approaches to politeness has opened up space for the proliferation of various different theoretical accounts of (im)politeness. While this diversity can lead to different insights into the same dataset, as we have seen in this special issue, it does beg the question of whether the field of (im)politeness research remains a coherent enterprise. After pointing out that different theories of (im)politeness inevitably not only afford but also constrain what we observe and the explanations that can be developed to account for those observations, I suggest that in light of the increasing proliferation of theoretical approaches in the field, a greater focus on metatheorization is in order. After briefly discussing some of the key questions such a metatheoretical discussion should address, I conclude that metatheorizing enables us to systematically examine what different theories of (im)politeness bring to the field, thereby also drawing attention to what areas appear to be in particular need of further theoretical development and empirical study.

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后记：礼貌性的理论化

摘要在礼貌的经典方法和话语方法之间过渡到中间立场，为（礼貌）礼貌的各种不同的理论解释开辟了空间。正如我们在本期特刊中所看到的那样，尽管这种多样性可以导致对同一数据集的不同见解，但这确实引发了一个问题，即礼貌研究领域是否仍然是一个连贯的事业。在指出不同的（礼貌）礼节理论不可避免地不仅提供而且限制了我们观察到的内容以及为解释这些观察结果而提出的解释之后，我建议鉴于该领域理论方法的日益普及，有必要更加关注元理论化。