Politeness reciprocity in Shakespeare’s dialogue
The case of thanks
Recently, it has been proposed that (im)politeness in interaction today is governed in large part by a Principle
of (Im)politeness Reciprocity (
Culpeper and Tantucci 2021). This paper investigates
whether politeness reciprocity works similarly in early modern English – specifically, in the plays of Shakespeare. Focussing on
thanking behaviours, the questions of whether politeness reciprocity can be detected, and, if so, how social status might
influence the nature of reciprocity, are addressed. The first part of the paper establishes that Early Modern English politeness
behaviours were being discussed in terms associated with reciprocity (e.g., metaphors relating to balance and financial/commercial
transactions). Then, all the instances of the two main thanking formula patterns (the verbal
first person pronoun +
thanks +
second person pronoun and the nominal
thanks) were extracted from
thirty-eight plays attributed wholly or substantially to Shakespeare, and coded for a number of variables, including the
weightiness of the gift for which thanks has been given, the amount of effort expended in performing thanks, and the social
statuses of the Thanker and Thankee. The results show that reciprocity does govern thanking behaviours, and that social status
licences imbalances in those behaviours. The paper also touches on conventionalisation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Reciprocity and (im)politeness
- 3.(Im)politeness reciprocity in the context of early modern English
- 4.A note on thanking
- 5.Data and method
- 6.Analysis and findings
- 6.1Reciprocity and social power
- 6.2A close-up on the dynamics of thanking interactions
- 6.3A note on reciprocity and conventionalisation
- 7.Conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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