Routledge Focus on Impoliteness – serie

This book seeks to build further links between (im)politeness research and autism by countering prevailing notions in pragmatics around autism and media portrayals of autistic characters through the lens of neurodiversity.The volume explores the social, cognitive and emotional impact of perceptions of rudeness and autistic masking on autistic individuals and the need for pragmatics research to move away from existing theorisations and instead put neurodiversity at the fore. Jagodziński locates this book’s theoretical foundations in the work of Goffman, reconceptualising notions of face, facework and line around interpersonal dynamics from a neurodivergent perspective. Jagodziński uses Polish television series Herkules, which stars an autistic character, as a springboard for showcasing a new pragmatic model for neurodivergent facework rooted in autistic unmasking, best understood as being motivated by the need to bid for interactional freedom that is then co-constructed with a neurotypical interlocutor. This book makes the case for introducing new language and perspectives in the way we describe autistic communication toward capturing pragmatic differences specific to the autistic community in an inclusive way.This book will appeal to scholars in pragmatics, politeness studies, and language and communication, as well as those interested in interdisciplinary perspectives in autism research.

This volume highlights cutting-edge research bringing together insights from psychophysiology and (im)politeness studies, showcasing the state of the art and future directions for this interdisciplinary area of study.The book opens with foundational context on the latest methods from psychophysiology, understood as the field exploring the links between the body and the brain, and their efficacy for (im)politeness research, including fMRI and EEG. While psychophysiology work has been explored in experimental pragmatics, Ruytenbeek points to implications from this work and their potential applications for (im)politeness. The volume presents existing studies using psychophysiological techniques, with a focus on emotional reactions triggered by (im)politeness events. Ruytenbeek reflects on the results of these studies and other recent advances in psychophysiological methods in experimental pragmatics to look ahead to the ways in which they might enhance existing understandings of linguistic (im)politeness.This innovative book will appeal to students and scholars interested in (im)politeness, in such fields as pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.

This volume brings together work on im/politeness with identities analysis research through the study of lay understandings of im/politeness in face-to-face naturally occurring interactions.The book features the case study of Greek friendship groups living abroad and their coffee meetings to unpack how individual negotiate explicit and implicit, multimodal evaluations of im/politeness in everyday contexts. Data from audio and video interactional data, participation observation, and playback interviews allows for multi-faceted analysis. The volume combines a conversation-analytic interaction approach to im/politeness with an ethnographic perspective to offer a nuanced, holistic view of different forms of evaluation across a range of daily activities and participation frameworks, with implications for adopting this synthesized framework to elucidate new insights at the intersection of im/politeness and identities research.This volume will appeal to scholars interested in im/politeness, in such fields as pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis.

This book examines multimodal (im)politeness in telecinematic fiction and its humorous effects for viewers, offering new insights into the forms, meanings, and functions of (im)politeness in contemporary popular culture and audiovisual media.The volume develops an integrated analytical framework that brings together models of (im)politeness, the pragmatics of fiction, and a social semiotic approach to multimodality to explore how (im)politeness unfolds in interaction within and across modes (e.g., gesture, touch, music, and speech). Drawing on data from character interactions in the American mockumentary sitcom Modern Family, the volume offers insights into multimodal impoliteness through a fine-grained qualitative analysis, supplemented where relevant by an overview of the dataset. It demonstrates (1) how situated (im)politeness-related meanings (e.g., face, sociality rights, identity, and emotion) are dynamically produced through the interplay of modes in interaction; and (2) how these multimodal ensembles create humour potential for viewers. This volume advances a perspective that moves beyond multimodal description to explain why (im)politeness is realised multimodally, while highlighting the distinct affordances of different modes in (im)politeness communication.This book will appeal to scholars and students in pragmatics, (im)politeness studies, multimodal communication, and humour research, as well as those interested in fictional and media discourse.

This book explores the pragmatic concept of interactional explanation (IE) in linguistic (im)politeness research.The volume establishes a working understanding of IE, understood as the response to a perceived appeal for information in an interaction. The book considers how IE is pragmatically sought, given, interpreted, and evaluated in interactions, processes which give rise to linguistic (im)politeness. The book highlights two case studies on Chinese linguacultural nuances, building on the work of Brown and Levinson (1987) and more recently, Chen (2001, 2023). In showcasing this particular context, Ning not only extends Chen’s work on self-politeness theory, in which the desire to “save face” impacts what and how one speaks, but underscores the importance of studying linguacultural variations in order to deepen our understanding of the connections between IE and linguistic (im)politeness research.This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in interactional phenomena, in such areas as pragmatics, language and communication, and second and foreign language and teaching.