Bethan Davies is a Lecturer on Linguistics and Phonetics at the University of Leeds, UK. Andrew John Merrison is a Lecturer in the English Language and Linguistics Department at York St. John University, UK. Michael Haugh is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Linguistics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

For those interested in politeness - which surely includes most of us - this book is essential reading. Covering a range of theoretical approaches, settings, languages and cultures, Situated Politeness explores some of the key issues in current im/politeness research by some of the leading scholars in the field. The book adopts a new three-way division of politeness into institutional, interpersonal and public settings, including a variety of contexts and cultures, such as New Zealand workplaces, classrooms in Mexico a university hockey club in Sheffield, Japanese television drama, and a national advertising campaign in Australia. Particularly significant, Situated Politeness is primarily concerned not only with the local negotiation of both politeness and impoliteness but how these are, crucially, played out against a wider backdrop of social and cultural practices and beliefs. Not least, the style is highly accessible, and the various chapters offer a wide range of relevant and fascinating data.

• 1. Situating Politeness Bethan Davies, Michael Haugh and Andrew John Merrison; Part I: Politeness in Institutional Settings; 2. Relativity Rules: Politic Talk in Ethnicised Workplaces Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra; 3. Negative Politeness Features and Impoliteness in Institutional Discourse: A Corpus-Assisted Approach Charlotte Taylor; 4. That's Not Very Polite! Discursive Struggle and Situated Politeness in the Mexican English-language Classroom Gerrard Mugford; 5. Getting Stuff Done: Institutional Requests in UK Higher Education E-mail Andrew John Merrison and Bethan Davies; 6. Expectations and Realities: How to Behave in the Post-Observation Feedback Event Fiona Copland; 7. National Face and National Face-Threatening Acts: Elements of Politeness in Informative Booklets on the European Constitution Elena Magisto; Part II: Politeness in Communities of Practice; 8. Communities of Practice and Politeness Sara Mills; 9. Relational Work in a Sporting Community of Practice Jodie Clark; 10. Do You Want to Do it Yourself Like? Hedging in Irish Traveller and Settled Family Discourse Brian Clancy; 11. Situated (Im)Politeness and the Use of Addressee Honorifics in Japanese Television Dramas Andrew Barke; Part III: Discursive Perspectives on the Situatedness of Politeness; 12. Situated Impoliteness: The Interface between Relational Work and Identity Construction Miriam Locher; 13. Unpacking the Hearer's Interpretation of Situated Politeness Noriko Inagaki; 14. Humour and Face in Getting Acquainted Michael Haugh; 15. Tourist Advertising of Australia: Impolite or Situation-Appropriate? Angela Ardington; 16. Confrontation or Communication? The Negotiation of Face and Power via Email Shin-Chieh Hsieh; Bibliography; Index.