Daniel Kadar
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Theoretical linguistics, Faculty Member
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Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Research center for linguistics and applied linguistics, Department MemberNanjing University of science and technology, Foreign Languages, Department Member add
The present paper explores the phenomenon of 'public ritual apology'. In our definition, this phenomenon covers an apology performed in front of public, and which is ritual in the sense that it is symbolic and expected to restore the... more
The present paper explores the phenomenon of 'public ritual apology'. In our definition, this phenomenon covers an apology performed in front of public, and which is ritual in the sense that it is symbolic and expected to restore the moral order of the public, rather than grant actual reconciliation between the apologiser and the offended party. Thus, 'public ritual apology' usually occurs in contexts when someone apologises for acts that are deemed as grave and in the case of which apology is seemingly dysfunctional in the sense that it cannot usually grant forgiveness. Public ritual apology is a regretfully neglected area, in spite of the fact that such apologies are not only frequent but also generate significant public attention in media – thus, this paper fills an important knowledge gap. In our paper we focus on Chinese public ritual apologies, which are noteworthy to explore as Chinese is stereotypically referred to as a culture which disprefers apologising behaviour. Our methodology is predominantly interactional and metaprag-matic, and it combines qualitative research with quantitative elements.
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This is the programme of the Workshop on Sociopragmatics organised by Professor Yongping Ran, at the Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (I will also deliver a keynote). The event... more
This is the programme of the Workshop on Sociopragmatics organised by Professor Yongping Ran, at the Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (I will also deliver a keynote). The event will be of relevance to colleagues working on Chinese and cross-cultural sociopragmatics.
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Researchers have pursued interest in how the mimetic practice types of convention and ritual influence the ways in which people build up and maintain interpersonal relationships. Arguably, mimetic interactional acts that animate... more
Researchers have pursued interest in how the mimetic practice types of convention and ritual
influence the ways in which people build up and maintain interpersonal relationships.
Arguably, mimetic interactional acts that animate conventional and ritual practices are key to
capturing fundamental aspects of interpersonal phenomena such as politeness, impoliteness,
and humour, since language users tend to produce and interpret interpersonal behaviour
through normative and repetitive moves, which may develop into routines. Despite the
importance of mimetic acts in language use, little research has been done on mimesis itself
in the realm of interpersonal pragmatics even though memes themselves have received
attention. In this paper, we consider how mimetic chunks of interaction may develop into
localised convention and possibly ritual by examining a corpus of 955 business emails between
a British sole trader and her international clients, specifically focussing on mimetic practices
present in greeting, signing-off and conversation topic. In particular, we attempt to show that
by looking into habitual and everyday communication, the origins of conventional and ritual
practices may be uncovered. A marked convergence towards using the same greeting or signoff
convention is noticeable in our quantitative data analysis and when examining the data
qualitatively. The data also show that participants occasionally engage in relational practices
that involve repeated and consistent responses to the same stimuli. The results indicate a
tendency for accommodative communicative practices to be used, although there is no point
at which mimesis can be interpreted as permanently “switched on”.
influence the ways in which people build up and maintain interpersonal relationships.
Arguably, mimetic interactional acts that animate conventional and ritual practices are key to
capturing fundamental aspects of interpersonal phenomena such as politeness, impoliteness,
and humour, since language users tend to produce and interpret interpersonal behaviour
through normative and repetitive moves, which may develop into routines. Despite the
importance of mimetic acts in language use, little research has been done on mimesis itself
in the realm of interpersonal pragmatics even though memes themselves have received
attention. In this paper, we consider how mimetic chunks of interaction may develop into
localised convention and possibly ritual by examining a corpus of 955 business emails between
a British sole trader and her international clients, specifically focussing on mimetic practices
present in greeting, signing-off and conversation topic. In particular, we attempt to show that
by looking into habitual and everyday communication, the origins of conventional and ritual
practices may be uncovered. A marked convergence towards using the same greeting or signoff
convention is noticeable in our quantitative data analysis and when examining the data
qualitatively. The data also show that participants occasionally engage in relational practices
that involve repeated and consistent responses to the same stimuli. The results indicate a
tendency for accommodative communicative practices to be used, although there is no point
at which mimesis can be interpreted as permanently “switched on”.
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1. Introduction This chapter explores the relatively understudied area of intercultural (im)politeness. The fact that intercultural (im)politeness has not been a primary focus of (im)politeness researchers may be surprising in light of... more
1. Introduction This chapter explores the relatively understudied area of intercultural (im)politeness. The fact that intercultural (im)politeness has not been a primary focus of (im)politeness researchers may be surprising in light of the fact that culture itself has played an extremely important role in the field since its foundations, albeit one that has been increasingly contested. However, the bulk of such explorations of (im)politeness have been cross-cultural rather than intercultural by nature. That is, the vast majority of studies have analysed (im)politeness in intracultural settings, and compared such cases across cultural groups, rather than in encounters between interactants with different cultural backgrounds. There are a number of possible explanations as to why (im)politeness in intercultural settings has been relatively neglected by researchers. One reason is the assumption that communication with others of more or less the same cultural background is the unmarked norm, and that intercultural encounters are somehow less ubiquitous. It is for that reason, perhaps, that a specific theory of intercultural (im)politeness has yet to be developed (Haugh, 2010; Kecskes, 2013), in spite of the fact that theories of intercultural communication abound. However, such an assumption seems out of step with the lived reality of migrants, increasing recognition of the fundamentally multicultural nature of societies, the possibilities afforded by a world wide web, and the ever increasing forces of globalisation. A second, somewhat related reason is that what counts as an intercultural encounter has become increasingly difficult to say. Sifianou (2013), for instance, has argued that politeness behaviour in institutional encounters is increasingly following 'international' norms due to the pressures of globalisation. In such cases, the encounters in question may not display any interculturally salient phenomenon, at least not of the sort studied by (im)politeness researchers to date. Consequently, if one places such interactions under the lens of putative cultural differences one risks forcing one's own analytic agenda onto the data studied (Kádár & Haugh, 2013). Third, a highly reductive notion of culture that is associated primarily with nation states has left (im)politeness researchers with an analytical tool that does not do justice to the inevitable complexity of social interaction. The traditional notion of culture its seemingly natural relationship with nation states, has come under considerable fire in the past few decades. It is broadly accepted in the humanities that culture has many layers (see Clifford's [1988] seminal study). Indeed, people frequently engage in intercultural interaction in their daily lives, often without noticing it: in a sense, asking an administrative colleague to help with an academic matter in a university may be construed as an 'intercultural' request, as different identifiable communities of practice within workplaces tend to have different interactional cultures (however small such differences might seem). Yet if we take such a stance to its natural conclusion, for instance, in the guise of Holliday's (1999) arguments regarding " small cultures " , it leads us to fracturing our analyses to the point that almost any interaction can be regarded, at least in some respects, as intercultural. This might seem, at
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In this paper I examine Chinese perceptions of (in)appropriateness and of- fence from a cross-cultural pragmatic point of view, by exploring (in)appropriate evaluations in the context of a major social offence, and the influence of... more
In this paper I examine Chinese perceptions of (in)appropriateness and of- fence from a cross-cultural pragmatic point of view, by exploring (in)appropriate evaluations in the context of a major social offence, and the influence of Confucian ideology on people’s evaluative tendencies. By doing so, I aim to contribute to pragmatic understandings of Confucianism as an ideology that underpins evaluative attitudes in Chinese culture. On the theoretical level, I argue that one needs to carefully examine dimensions of ideologies that underlie evaluative tendencies, and also the ways in which ideologies are invoked, rather than making sweeping claims. I believe that is possible to adopt ‘ideology’ as an analytic notion in interpersonal pragmatics and (im)politeness research, but only if the influence of ideology on interpersonal interaction and evaluative tendencies is captured with the aid of qualitative and quantitative evidence, that is, only as far as one avoids using a certain ideology as an umbrella term to analyse culturally-situated data.
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Intercultural Communication, Aggression (Psychology), Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, and 10 morePoliteness theory, Confucianism, Intercultural Pragmatics, Cross-cultural pragmatics, Chinese Society, Confucian Ethics, Neo-Confucianism, Chinese Schools, Contemporary Confucianism, and Aggressive Language
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This paper analyses the phenomenon of participatory ambiguity in aggressive ritualistic interactions. One can ‘participate’ (Goffman 1979, 1981) in an interaction in different statuses, and these statuses entail different interactional... more
This paper analyses the phenomenon of participatory ambiguity in aggressive ritualistic interactions. One can ‘participate’ (Goffman 1979, 1981) in an interaction in different statuses, and these statuses entail different interactional constraints and obligations, also within the realms of language aggression and conflict. We are interested in a specific aspect of participation, namely ratification — the assumed right to participate in an interaction. ‘Ambiguity’ describes forms of behaviour which deviate from participant and observer expectations of interacting in certain discursive roles, without clearly violating (un)ratified participation roles. Examining the relationship between participatory ambiguity and language aggression fills an important knowledge gap in the field, as this area has been relatively ignored. We take heckling in experimental performing arts as a case study.
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This paper explores the (co-)construction of identities in ritual interaction, by focusing on the choice of interactional styles. ‘Interactional style’ describes a cluster of similar indexical actions within the interaction ‘frame’... more
This paper explores the (co-)construction of identities in ritual interaction, by focusing on the choice of interactional styles. ‘Interactional style’ describes a cluster of similar indexical actions within the interaction ‘frame’ (Goffman 1974) of a ritual. Ritual is a recurrent interaction type, which puts constraints on the individual’s ‘freedom’ to construct their (and others’) identities, in a somewhat similar way to institutional interactions, which have been broadly studied in the field. However, the constraints posed by ritual interactions are different from institutional, and so by examining identity (co-)construction via interactional style choices in ritual contexts, this paper fills an important knowledge gap. I approach interactional style choices through the notions of ‘role’ and ‘accountability’, and by placing ritual practices within Goffman’s (1981) participation framework. I use examples of heckling at performing arts events as data. By focusing on interactional style, the paper contributes to the present Special Issue dedicated to interactional styles across cultures.
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The present paper contributes to metapragmatics, by examining the question of how historicity influences the validity of certain modern metaterms that are accepted as ‘neutral’ and ‘scientific’ in pragmatics. We argue that it is... more
The present paper contributes to metapragmatics, by examining the question of how historicity influences the validity of certain modern metaterms that are accepted as ‘neutral’ and ‘scientific’ in pragmatics. We argue that it is fundamental to explore the history and development of such metaterms, and also to study their historically situated meanings, in order to increase the self-reflexivity and rigour of analyses. We analyse the notion of ‘discernment’ as a case study, and we will show that the way in which the Italian equivalent of this term (discernere) – which supposedly influenced historical English understandings of ‘discernment’ as well – is used in historical Italian metadiscourses contradicts the modern application of this metaterm.
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This is the pre-publication version of a paper to be published in the 10th Anniversary Issue of Journal of Politeness Research
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Co-authored with performing artist Sian Robinson DaviesThe present study explores the phenomenon of participatory ambiguity in ritualistic interactional settings that are associated with a specific pattern of aggressive behaviour.... more
Co-authored with performing artist Sian Robinson DaviesThe present study explores the phenomenon of participatory ambiguity in ritualistic interactional settings that are associated with a specific pattern of aggressive behaviour. ‘Participation’ refers to Goffman’s (1979, 1981) notion of participation status, i.e. various ways in which individuals can position themselves in relation to producing, interpreting, and evaluating talk and conduct. We are interested in a specific aspect of participation, namely ratification – the assumed right to participate in an interaction. ‘Ambiguity’ describes forms of behaviour which deviate from participant and observer expectations of interacting in certain discursive roles, without clearly violating (un)ratified participation roles. We take heckling in performing arts as a case study.
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Interpersonal Communication, Performing Arts, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, and 13 moreConflict, Ritual, Ritual Theory, English language and linguistics, Cross-Cultural Communication, Erving Goffman, Cross-cultural pragmatics, Aggression, Ambiguity, Sociopragmatics, Thatre-in-Action: Participatory Theatre for Bullying Prevention in Schools, Language and Forms of Rudeness, Politeness and Impoliteness, and Im/politeness
This study explores ritualisation in intercultural contact, i.e. it looks into the way in which ritual practices spread across cultures. It examines heckling as a case study, by reconstructing the way in which the British concept of... more
This study explores ritualisation in intercultural contact, i.e. it looks into the way in which ritual practices spread across cultures. It examines heckling as a case study, by reconstructing the way in which the British concept of electoral ‘heckling’ has been appropriated in China, as China adopted the parliamentary system in the early 20th century mainly under British influence. The present research fills two knowledge gaps in historical sociopragmatics: it integrates intercultural pragmatics into historical sociopragmatic research, and also it inquiries into the process of ritualisation, which is a long overdue task.
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Intercultural Communication, Translation Studies, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, and 9 moreRitual, Chinese Language and Culture, Ritual Theory, Intercultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Cross-cultural pragmatics, Metapragmatics, Chinese historical linguistics, and Language and Forms of Rudeness, Politeness and Impoliteness
This is a chapter from Relational Rituals and Communication, which studies relationally destructive ritual practices.
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This is a chapter from my Palgrave Macmillan monograph (2013) Relational Rituals and Communication.
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Interpersonal Communication, Cognitive, Affective, Social Capabilities Fostered by Mythic Rites & Forms, Pragmatics, Ritual, Ritual (Anthropology), and 9 moreRitual Theory, Interaction Ritual Theory, Interpersonal Relationships, Intercultural Pragmatics, Ritual Studies, Rituals, Affection, Ritual Practices, and Pragmatics and Cognition
This chapter provides an interaction-based typology of relational ritual practices.
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This chapter from my 2013 Palgrave Macmillan monograph provides a detailed description of the characteristics of in-group ritual practices.
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This paper presents some preliminary insights into an important yet generally neglected discursive phenomenon which we define as ‘in-group ritual’. In-group ritual refers to ritual practices formed by relational networks. In terms of... more
This paper presents some preliminary insights into an important yet generally neglected discursive phenomenon which we define as ‘in-group ritual’. In-group ritual refers to ritual practices formed by relational networks. In terms of typology, in-group ritual represents a different type of ritual than ‘social ritual’, i.e. ritual which counts as ‘normative’ on a social level (see more on ritual typology in Kádár, 2013). Examining in-group ritual and, in particular, its relational functions, we endeavour to approach ritual language use from a discursive viewpoint; as we see it, such an approach is long overdue, as rituality is relatively ignored in pragmatics.
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The present paper examines how interpersonal ritual notions are appropriated in intercultural contact, hence filling a knowledge gap in intercultural and cross-cultural pragmatics. As a case study, we examine how the English metalexeme... more
The present paper examines how interpersonal ritual notions are appropriated in intercultural contact, hence filling a knowledge gap in intercultural and cross-cultural pragmatics. As a case study, we examine how the English metalexeme ‘heckling’ has been appropriated in Chinese and Japanese cultures. We argue that the history and pragmatic features of native heckling metalexemes in Chinese and Japanese strongly influence the way in which English ‘heckling’ has been incorporated into these cultures. By studying the relationship between intercultural appropriation and metalexical history, we aim to draw attention to the importance of examining culture-specific metalexemes in intercultural research on rituals and other interpersonal pragmatic phenomena.
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This is a paper on Chinese rituals and politeness behaviour, published in Historical (Im)Politeness.
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Chinese Studies, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, Ritual, and 12 moreEpistolary literature, Chinese linguistics, Classical Chinese literature, Politeness theory, Ritual Theory, Cross-Cultural Communication, Historical Pragmatics, Cross-cultural pragmatics, Mock Impoliteness, Ritualized Behavior, Chinese Rituals, and China In Historical Perspective
This paper provides a general overview of the Chinese 'face' and (im)politeness field.
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The present paper provides a comparative survey of historical and contemporary Chinese politeness, hence contributing to postcolonial pragmatics and linguistic politeness research. There is a unique gulf between historical and... more
The present paper provides a comparative survey of historical and contemporary Chinese politeness, hence contributing to postcolonial pragmatics and linguistic politeness research. There is a unique gulf between historical and contemporary Chinese politeness, which is largely due to the influence of the 19th century colonization of China. While China was in fact partially colonized only, the invasion by foreign imperialist powers had a strong impact on the development of Chinese sociopragmatic norms. By demonstrating the gulf between ‘historical’ and ‘contemporary’, this paper provides an unprecedented case study for the influence of colonization on native language use. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first, section 2 of the paper, analyzes the ideologies, norms and practices of historical Chinese politeness, and demonstrate that historical Chinese politeness had some features that made it vulnerable to large scale socio-historical changes that led to the birth of contemporary Chinese politeness. Section 3, after reviewing politeness norms and ideologies in contemporary China, examine the similarities and differences between historical and contemporary practices of polite communication.
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This is an introductory paper for a Special Issue for the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, co-authored with Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini)
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Discourse Analysis, Asian Studies, Communication, Intercultural Communication, Chinese Studies, and 12 morePragmatics, Japanese Language And Culture, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, Chinese Language and Culture, Chinese linguistics, Institutional discourse, Cross-Cultural Communication, Intercultural Pragmatics, Chinese, Korean language, and Chinese Language and Linguistics
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The present paper aims to model the interactional operation of heckling, which has received little attention in impoliteness and interaction studies, despite the fact that studying this phenomenon has various advantages for the analyst.... more
The present paper aims to model the interactional operation of heckling, which has received little attention in impoliteness and interaction studies, despite the fact that studying this phenomenon has various advantages for the analyst. In order to fill this knowledge gap, I approach heckling by combining Turner’s (1982) anthropological framework with my interaction-based relational ritual theory (e.g. Kádár 2012, 2013; Kádár and Bax 2013). Following Turner, I define heckling as a ‘social drama’, which is evaluated by its watchers as ‘judges’. In accordance with my relational ritual framework I argue that heckling is a mimetic ritualistic mini-performance, which is inherently interactional as it operates in the adjacent action pair of the heckler’s performance and the public speaker/performer’s counter-performance. Adopting Turner’s terminology, heckling is a ritualistic performance of ‘anti-structure’, i.e. it upsets the regular social — and consequently interactional — structure of a setting. Successful counter-performance is a ritual of ‘structure’, which restores the normal social structure of the event, as the public speaker/performer regains control over the interaction. Through the social actions of performance and counter-performance the heckled and the heckler aim to affiliate themselves with the audience, who are ‘metaparticipants’ of the ritualistic interaction, and with the watchers/listeners in the case of video/audio-recorded interactions, who can be defined as ‘lay observers’ (cf. Kádár and Haugh 2013). Approaching heckling as a theatrical type of relational ritual helps us capture various complexities of this phenomenon, such as its relationship with certain interactional settings and metaparticipant expectations/evaluations, and its interface with related phenomena such as impoliteness.
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This study examines rituals of outspokenness, by analysing cases drawn from the US hidden camera show, Primetime: What Would You Do? Studying ritualistic behaviour in cases when bystanders become side participants as they stand up for... more
This study examines rituals of outspokenness, by analysing cases drawn from the US hidden camera show, Primetime: What Would You Do? Studying ritualistic behaviour in cases when bystanders become side participants as they stand up for victims of abuse fills a knowledge gap in pragmatics. A further merit of studying this phenomenon is that it provides insight into the reactive aspect of ritual behaviour, which is usually described in the field as a form of action rather than reaction. Furthermore, the morally loaded acts of rituals of outspokenness reveals the potentially complex relationship between aggression and normative behaviour.
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This is an introductory chapter for the volume Chinese Discourse and Interaction, co-edited with Yuling Pan.
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In this paper we examine a key relational practice found in interactions in online discussion boards in Mainland China and Taiwan: 'doing deference'. In drawing attention to a relational practice that has received attention in quite... more
In this paper we examine a key relational practice found in interactions in online discussion boards in Mainland China and Taiwan: 'doing deference'. In drawing attention to a relational practice that has received attention in quite different research traditions, namely, linguistic pragmatics and conversation analysis (CA), we mean to highlight the possible advantages of an approach to analysis that draws from both in analysing relational work in CMC. We claim in the course of our analysis that the participants are orienting not only to relationships but also to identities through these practices. In this way, we suggest that online discussion boards afford both meaningful interaction and relational work. We further claim that this analysis provides support for the theoretical position that while relational practices may intersect with the emergence of identities, they remain distinct analytical concerns.
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This paper investigates the use of the word ‘face’ in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Turkish and Chinese so as to trace the meaning of the concept in the two languages and cultures. The study describes the occurrence of the... more
This paper investigates the use of the word ‘face’ in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Turkish and Chinese so as to trace the meaning of the concept in the two languages and cultures. The study describes the occurrence of the lexeme in five semantic/pragmatic domains in novels dating from the turn of the twentieth century, a period that corresponds to an acceleration in modernisation movements. Two conclusions are drawn from the comparison of face in Turkish and Chinese, and noteworthy similarities and differences are shown. The interpersonal and the emotional domains cover a wide usage area but form mirror images of each other in terms of the frequency of the tokens. Yet, the Chinese novels reveal more metapragmatic discourse on talk. This is interpreted as face forming a profound emic notion in Chinese culture, which encompasses both relational management and the social worth of the person, while the Turkish novels suggest that it is an “idiom” primarily employed for describing relational management style.
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Preface of an edited volume that studies Chinese institutional interaction, which I co-edited with Hao Sun.
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This article engages with the notions of discernment and volition, developed by Ide (1989), in order to consider how the concept which these phenomena describe could be reintroduced into discursive approaches to the analysis of politeness... more
This article engages with the notions of discernment and volition, developed by Ide (1989), in order to consider how the concept which these phenomena describe could be reintroduced into discursive approaches to the analysis of politeness and impoliteness. It is our contention that these terms have been used in a way which polarises cultures, so that various Asian cultures are characterised as ‘discernment cultures’, whilst Western cultures are seen as ‘volitional’. We argue that this polarisation is problematic as it does not capture politeness behaviour beyond certain stereotypes, and as such it fails to address the complexities a cross-cultural examination of politeness needs to cope with. Nevertheless, we believe that the cross-cultural phenomenon which Ide attempted to capture should not be completely ignored. Thus, we reconceptualise the notions of discernment and volition, by focusing on discernment, and we integrate this concept into a framework (Kádár 2013) based on convention and ritual, hence providing a way of using the term discernment in cross-cultural analysis.
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Asian Studies, Intercultural Communication, Historical Linguistics, Chinese Studies, Pragmatics, and 19 moreLinguistic Politeness, Ritual, East Asia, East Asian Studies, Chinese Language and Culture, Chinese linguistics, Politeness theory, Chinese history (History), Historical sociolinguistics, Historical Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Cross-cultural pragmatics, Chinese Sociology, Address Terms, Forms of address, Honorifics, Lexical Semantics, Ritual Practices, CHINESE VOCABULARY, and Deference
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Intercultural Communication, Chinese Studies, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, and 8 moreRitual, Chinese Language and Culture, Chinese linguistics, Multimodality, Cross-Cultural Communication, Intercultural Pragmatics, Cross-cultural pragmatics, and Language and Forms of Rudeness, Politeness and Impoliteness
A paper on emotive discourse and Chinese honorific forms of address.
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This book offers a ground-breaking, discourse-based framework of rituals, which draws on multiple research disciplines. By examining data from different languages and cultures, it explores the way in which groups of people work out their... more
This book offers a ground-breaking, discourse-based framework of rituals, which draws on multiple research disciplines. By examining data from different languages and cultures, it explores the way in which groups of people work out their interpersonal relationships by performing rituals, and compares such in-group ritual practices with other forms of rituality. The cutting-edge theory proposed captures ritual as a relational action constructed in interaction through pre-existing patterns, and it overviews ritual from various perspectives such as history, culture and cognition. Stereotypically, English and other Western languages are thought of as languages which have dispensed with rituals, as ritual is popularly defined as a solemn, and often religious, act. The present book challenges this concept: it shows that ritual is more present in our daily lives than we would normally think, and that it manifests itself in both constructive and destructive forms of behaviour.
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This is the first edited collection to examine politeness in a wide range of diverse cultures. Most essays draw on empirical data from a wide variety of languages, including some key-languages in politeness research, such as English, and... more
This is the first edited collection to examine politeness in a wide range of diverse cultures. Most essays draw on empirical data from a wide variety of languages, including some key-languages in politeness research, such as English, and Japanese, as well as some lesser-studied languages, such as Georgian. The volume also includes four studies that discuss theoretical and empirical aspects of 'face', a construct that continues to attract much attention across disciplines. The specially-commissioned essays in this collection will be of interest to scholars, researchers and advanced students in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse studies, anthropology and intercultural communication.
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We use politeness every day when interacting with other people. Yet politeness is an impressively complex linguistic process, and studying it can tell us a lot about the social and cultural values of social groups or even a whole society,... more
We use politeness every day when interacting with other people. Yet politeness is an impressively complex linguistic process, and studying it can tell us a lot about the social and cultural values of social groups or even a whole society, helping us to understand how humans 'encode' states of mind in their words. The traditional, stereotypical view is that people in East Asian cultures are indirect, deferential and extremely polite - sometimes more polite than seems necessary. This revealing book takes a fresh look at the phenomenon, showing that the situation is far more complex than these stereotypes would suggest. Taking examples from Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Singaporean Chinese, it shows how politeness differs across countries, but also across social groups and subgroups. This book is essential reading for those interested in intercultural communication, linguistics and East Asian languages.
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Pan and Kadar's exciting research compares historical and contemporary Chinese (im)polite communication norms and maps the similarities and differences between them. Considering the importance of China on the world stage, understanding... more
Pan and Kadar's exciting research compares historical and contemporary Chinese (im)polite communication norms and maps the similarities and differences between them. Considering the importance of China on the world stage, understanding Chinese politeness norms is pivotal, to both experts of communication studies and those who have interactions with the Chinese community.
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This edited collection investigates historical linguistic politeness and impoliteness. Although some research has been undertaken uniting politeness and historical pragmatics, it has been sporadic at best, and often limited to traditional... more
This edited collection investigates historical linguistic politeness and impoliteness. Although some research has been undertaken uniting politeness and historical pragmatics, it has been sporadic at best, and often limited to traditional theoretical approaches. This is a strange state of affairs, because politeness plays a central role in the social dynamics of language. This collection, containing contributions from renowned experts, aims to fill this hiatus, bringing together cutting-edge research. Not only does it illuminate the language usage of earlier periods, but by examining the past it places politeness today in context. Such a diachronic perspective also affords a further test-bed for current models of politeness. This volume provides insights into historical aspects of language, particularly items regularly deployed for politeness functions, and the social, particularly interpersonal, contexts with which it interacts. It also sheds light on how (social) meanings are dynamically constructed in situ, and probes various theoretical aspects of politeness. Its papers deploy a range of multilingual (e.g. English, Spanish, Italian and Chinese) diachronic data drawn from different genres such as letters, dramas, witch trials and manners books.
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These are the PPTs of my plenary lecture at the 10th International Symposium of the Linguistic Politeness Research, which was held in York (July 2017).
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These are the PPT slides of my plenary lecture at The 3rd GDUFS Symposium on Applied Linguistics, which was held in the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China, in 2014.
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Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Linguistic Impoliteness, English language, Ritual, and 10 moreMorality (Social Psychology), Chinese Language and Culture, Politeness theory, Ritual Theory, Politeness, Cross-Cultural Communication, Intercultural Pragmatics, Aggressive Behavior, Metapragmatics, and Chinese
This is the flyer of East Asian Pragmatics, an international peer-reviewed academic journal that I co-edit with Xinren Chen.
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This is a popular (non-academic) writing, which introduces politeness for those who work in the business sector.
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The present chapter examines the phenomenon of indirect ritual oence, which includes cases of recurrent oences that are indirect and as such make it difficult for the targeted person to respond to them. Manifestations of indirect ritual... more
The present chapter examines the phenomenon of indirect ritual oence, which includes cases of recurrent oences that are indirect and as such make it difficult for the targeted person to respond to them. Manifestations of indirect ritual offence include a series of indirect attacks that recurrently target a person, and cases in which the targeted person is recurrently ostracised. While this behaviour has received significant attention is social psychology, it has not been studied in pragmatics and (im)politeness research, in spite of the fact that it is one of the most widely discussed forms of impoliteness behaviour in public discourses. e examination of this phenomenon also contributes to the pragmatic examination of the dierence between indirectness and implicitness; as I point out in this chapter, indirect ritual offence becomes implicit from both academic and lay points of view if the frequency of such attacks decreases but the attacks nevertheless continue. In such cases, the targeted person may reinterpret previous attacks as " harmless " and speculate about the nature of new attacks, and even more importantly the abuser can easily claim that they have not intended to offend the other at all – thus, in such cases indirect ritual offence gains an implicit nature. In order to illustrate this point, I examine ways in which " implicit " as an evaluator tends to be metapragmatically used in accounts on indirect ritual offence.
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This special issue addresses (im)politeness in contemporary contexts, using real-language data, such as email messages, copy-editors’ comments on literary translations, comments from blogs, as well as elicited... more
This special issue addresses (im)politeness in contemporary contexts, using real-language data, such as email messages, copy-editors’ comments on literary translations, comments from blogs, as well as elicited self-experienced examples taken from surveys. The data analyzed is mostly written data and most of it is taken from professional settings. The contributions use various theoretical approaches, including applied linguistics, pragmatics, and intercultural communication. Themethodologies used include surveys, interviews, and discourse analysis. The articlesin this special issueresearch topics connected to divergent speech practices (Rygg), situation-specific expectations (Felberg & Šarić;Solum;Marsden & Kádár), and diverging sociocultural values (all of the articles), as classified by (Haugh 2010, p. 143)