Abstract
The aim of the present academic discussion note is to generate feedback on a recent project that revisits the nature of speech acts as analytic constructs for politeness theory. While speech act has been largely discredited in the field, we believe that they need to be kept in the core of politeness inquiries, in particular if we approach them in combination with other units of analysis. In addition, there are instances in which speech act unavoidably becomes the focal point of research. To discuss this latter notion, we introduce the concept of ritual frame and argue that speech act must be put in the core of an analysis if there is a tension between a ritual frame – an interactional scene in which rights and obligation prevail and the interactants are highly aware of who and where they are – and a particular speech act. As a case study, we examine reflections on an alleged apology in a recent Mixed Martial Arts match.
References
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1990. You don’t touch lettuce with your fingers: Parental politeness in family discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 14(2). 259–288.10.1016/0378-2166(90)90083-PSearch in Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House & Gabriele Kasper. 1989. Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Search in Google Scholar
Bousfield, Derek. 2008. Impoliteness in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.167Search in Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813085Search in Google Scholar
Edmondson, Willis & Juliane. House. 1981. Let’s talk and talk about it. Munich and Baltimore: Urban & Schwarzenberg.Search in Google Scholar
Eelen, Gino. 2001. A critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St Jerome.Search in Google Scholar
Fraser, Deborah, et al. 2006. Examining and disrupting rituals of practice in the primary classroom. Education: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education 37(2). 105–119.10.1080/03004270802012657Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction ritual. Essays on face-to-face behavior. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Grainger, Karen. 2013. “Of babies and bath water”: Is there any place for Austin and Searle in interpersonal pragmatics? Journal of Pragmatics 58. 27–38.10.1016/j.pragma.2013.08.008Search in Google Scholar
Horgan, Mervyn. Forthcoming. Everyday incivility and the urban interaction order: Theorizing moral affordances in ritualized interaction. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict – Special Issue: Conflict, Aggression, Morality and the Moral Order. eds. Dániel Z. Kádár and Vahid Parveresh.10.1075/jlac.00018.horSearch in Google Scholar
House, Juliane. 1989. Politeness in English and German: The functions of please and bitte. In Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House & Gabriele Kasper (eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies, 96–119. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Search in Google Scholar
Ide, Sachiko. 1989. Formal forms and ‘discernment’: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8(2/3). 223–248.10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223Search in Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z. 2017. Politeness, impoliteness and ritual: Maintaining the moral order in interpersonal interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781107280465Search in Google Scholar
Koutlaki, Sofia A. 2002. Offers and expressions of thanks as face enhancing acts: Tæ’arof in Persian. Journal of Pragmatics 34(12). 1733–1756.10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00055-8Search in Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1976. Language in the inner city: Studies in the black english vernacular. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press.Search in Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341386.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511615238Search in Google Scholar
Ohashi, Jun. 2008. Linguistic rituals for thanking in Japanese: Balancing obligations. Journal of Pragmatics 40(12). 2150–21.10.1016/j.pragma.2008.04.001Search in Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Maria. 2011. The puzzle of indirect speech. Journal of Pragmatics 43(11). 2861–2865.10.1016/j.pragma.2011.05.003Search in Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina & Dániel Z. Kádár. 2017. Convention and ritual. In Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh & Dániel Z. Kádár (eds.), The palgrave handbook of linguistic politeness, 171–194. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_8Search in Google Scholar
Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511615184Search in Google Scholar
Whutnow, Robert. 1989. Meaning and moral order: Explorations in cultural analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520909250Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston