Cover not available
Part of
It's different with you: Contrastive perspectives on address research
Edited by Nicole Baumgarten and Roel Vismans
[Topics in Address Research 5] 2023
► pp. 397–422

Chapter 16
Address and politeness

A theoretical exploration

| University of Sheffield
This chapter sets out to explore the theoretical relationship between address and politeness. It explores the nature of address and discusses the concept of “address theory”, the need for such a theory, and what it should encompass. It analyses, for the first time, the theoretical contrasts between address and politeness by means of a chronological discussion of politeness theory and its treatment of address, as well as a critical discussion of the handling of politeness theory by the address literature. It concludes, with Terkourafi (2005), that each of the approaches to politeness surveyed has its merits, and observes that, despite frequent references to politeness, the address literature engages in reflection on politeness (theory) only sporadically. It also calls for a debate about the need for a (separate) address theory, including the continued use of the labels T and V, which is widespread in both address research and politeness research.
Keywords: address theory, politeness theory, deixis, second person pronouns, vocatives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Address
    • 2.1What is address?
    • 2.2Address theory
  • 3.Politeness theory
    • 3.1First wave politeness theory and address: Brown and Levinson
    • 3.2Address, volitional vs. discernment politeness and an optimistic view of face
    • 3.3The discursive turn and address
    • 3.4Third-wave politeness theory and address
  • 4.Address and politeness
    • 4.1The Kiel address project and politeness
    • 4.2Address research and politeness theory
    • 4.3Address theory, politeness theory, or both?
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.5.16vis
References (61)
References
Aalberse, Suzanne. 2004. Waer bestu bleven? Verdwijning van het pronomen du in een vergelijkend perspectief. Nederlandse Taalkunde 9.3. 231–252.Google Scholar
. 2009. Inflectional economy and politeness: morphology-internal and morphology-external factors in the loss of second person marking in Dutch. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Alberdi-Larizgoitia, Xabier. 2018. Forms of address in Basque. Pragmatics: quarterly journal of the International Pragmatics Association 28.3. 303–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Braun, Friederike (1988) Terms of Address. Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, New York & Amsterdam. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Braun, Friederike, Armin Kohz & Klaus Schubert. 1986. Anredeforschung: Kommentierte Bibliographie zur Soziolinguistik der Anrede. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Brown, Roger & Marguerite Ford. 1961. Address in American English. Journal of abnormal and social psychology 62. 375–385. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Roger & Albert Gilman. 1960 [1972]. The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Pier Paolo Giglioli (ed.), Language and social context, 252–282. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
. 1989. Politeness theory and Shakespeare’s four major tragedies. Language in Society 18. 159–212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1978. Universals of language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Esther N. Goody (ed.), Questions and Politeness, 56–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University.Google Scholar
. 1987. Politeness. Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burt, Susan Meredith. 2019. Person-referring expressions, reference nominals, and address nominals. Informalization in an Illinois neighborhood social group. In Bettina Kluge & María Irene Moyna (eds.), It’s not all about you. New perspectives on address research, 397–413. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clyne, Michael, Catrin Norrby & Jane Warren. 2009. Language and human relations. Styles of address in contemporary language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cook, Haruko M. 2006. Japanese politeness as an interactional achievement: Academic consultation sessions in Japanese universities. Multilingua 25. 269–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cook, Manuela. 2014. Beyond T and V – Theoretical reflections on the analysis of forms of address. American Journal of Linguistics. 3.1. 17–26.Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2010. Conventionalised impoliteness formulae. Journal of Pragmatics 42, 3232–3245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Oliveira, Sandie Michelle. 2013. Address in computer-mediated communication. In: Susan Herring et al. (eds.), Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, 291–313. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eelen, Gino. 2001. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan. 1972. Sociolinguistic rules of address. In John B. Pride & Janet Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics, 225–240. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan, Jiansheng Guo & Martin Lampert. 1990. Politeness and persuasion in children’s control acts. Journal of Pragmatics 14.2. 307–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Bruce & William Nolen. 1981. The association of deference with linguistic form. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27. 93–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilman, Albert & Roger Brown. 1958. Who says “tu” to whom? ETC: A Review of General Semantics 15.3. 169–174.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1972. Interaction ritual. Essays on face-to-face behaviour. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole and John L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics. Vol, 3. Speech Acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael & Jonathan Culpeper. 2018. Integrative pragmatics and (im)politeness theory. In Cornelia Ilie & Neal R. Norrick (eds.), Pragmatics and its Interfaces, 213–239. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes. 2003. Politeness distinctions in second person pronouns. In Friedrich Lenz (ed.) Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person, 185–202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hwang, Juck-Ryoon. 1990. “Deference versus “Politeness” in Korean Speech. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 82. 41–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ide, Sakido. 1988. Introduction. Multilingua 7.4. 371–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1989. Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8.2–3. 223–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Daniel & Michael Haugh. 2013. Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kasper, Gabrielle. 1990. Linguistic politeness: current research issues. Journal of Pragmatics 14.2. 193–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine. 1992. Les Interactions Verbales. Vol 2. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
. 1997. A multilevel approach in the study of talk-in-interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association 7.1. 1–20.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2010a. S’adresser à autrui. Les formes nominales d’adresse en français. Chambéry: Université de Savoie.Google Scholar
. 2010b. The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction. In Jürgen Streeck (ed.), New Adventures in language and interaction, 71–97. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 2014. S’adresser à autrui: Les formes nominales d’adresse dans une perspective comparative interculturelle. Chambéry: Université de Savoie.Google Scholar
Kluge, Bettina & María Irene Moyna (eds.) 2019. It’s not all about you. New perspectives on address research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kraska-Szlenk, Iwona. 2018. Address inversion in Swahili: Usage patterns, cognitive motivation and cultural factors. Cognitive Linguistics 29.3. 545–583. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. 1973. The logic of politeness; or, minding your p’s and q’s. In Claudia Corum, T. Cedric Smith-Stark & Ann Weiser (eds.), Papers from the ninth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 292–305. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
. 2005a. Civility and its discontents. In Robin T. Lakoff & Sachiko Ide (eds.), Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness, 23–43. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005b. The politics of nice. Journal of Politeness Research 1(2). 173–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
. 2014. The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1989. Politeness and conversational universals – observations from Japanese’. Multilingua 8.2–3. 207–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mühlhäusler, Peter & Rom Harré. 1990. Pronouns and People. The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Neveu, Franck. 2003. Grammaires de l’adresse. Aspects de la discontinuité syntaxique. Cahiers de praxématique 40. 27–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva & Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich. 2019. Im/politeness between the analyst and participant perspectives: An overview of the field. In Eva Ogiermann & Pilar Garces-Conejos Blitvich (eds.), From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, 1–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Richard W. 1980. Review of Esther Goody, ed., Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. RELC Journal 11.2. 100–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1969. Speech Acts. An Essay on the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1976. A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in society 5, 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina. 2005. Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research 1. 237–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Toward a unified theory of politeness, impoliteness, and rudeness. In Derek Bousfield & Miriam A. Locher (eds.), Impoliteness in Language: Studies on Its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, 45–74. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ton, Thoai N. L. 2019. A literature of address studies from pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives. In Bettina Kluge & María Irene Moyna (eds.), It’s not all about you. New perspectives on address research, 23–45. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vismans, Roel. 2015. Negotiating address in a pluricentric language: Dutch/Flemish. In Catrin Norrby & Camilla Wide (eds.), Address practice as social action. European perspectives, 13–32. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Jojoën tussen u en je. Over de dynamiek van het gebruik van Nederlandse aanspreekvormen in het radioprogramma Casa Luna. Internationale neerlandistiek 54.2. 117–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. Address negotiations in Dutch emails. In Bettina Kluge & María Irene Moyna (eds.), It’s not all about you. New perspectives on address research, 253–279. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Watts, Richard. 1989. Relevance and relational work: Linguistic politeness as politic behavior. Multilingua 8. 2–3. 131–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1992. Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality. In Richard J. Watts, Sakido Ide & Konrad Ehlich (eds.), Politeness in Language, 43–69. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2016. Terms of Address in European Languages: A Study in Cross-Linguistic Semantics and Pragmatics. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use, 209–238. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 9. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar