Introduction

This chapter sets out to examine the basic relationship that exists between ritual action and evaluation of its (im)polite fringing. As has been pointed out in Chapter 2, ritual actions can be performed with no noticeable effort to be saliently polite or impolite; this is particularly valid to ritual practices that are meant to uphold relational stasis, such as the ones represented by examples (2.7) and (2.8). Also, it is possible (and often safe!) to perform some relationally constructive and destructive ritual actions with minimal interactional effort. In Chapter 2, example (2.5) represents a relationally destructive case of a ‘legally correct’ rite of workplace demotion, while example (2.4) represents a relationally constructive rite of passage, in the course of which the newbie member of a relational network seems to adopt the overall style of the group she joins, which is a typical form of behaviour in this social position (Angelle 2002). When such ‘unfringed’ – or not clearly fringed – ritual behaviour triggers (im)polite inferences, participant/observer inferences tend to accord with the relationally constructive/destructive function of the given ritual practice, as Figure 1.2 [4.1] in Chapter 1 has illustrated (see next page).

Yet, performing certain ritual actions – typically the ones that have a clear relationally constructive or destructive function – puts pressure on the performer to ‘invest’ some politeness into the ritual action vis-à-vis fringing it. The moral order of many interpersonal relationships presumes that a liminal ritual action that triggers a relational change cannot be left unfringed; otherwise, it will be perceived to cause some sense of harm to the recipient of the ritual, hence violating the ritual performer's duty to act as a representative of a social grouping. For example, unless a manager has a particular reason to be succinct, and if a company is conscious of its work ethics, it is likely that a rite of demotion would take a more complex and fringed form than what is represented by example (2.5), and perhaps also in a face-to-face manner. As regards the latter point, choosing the written medium itself is potentially problematic in this ritual, as breaking news about such a grave decision through a written medium when the option of face-to-face interaction is available may convey, to many, the stance of the management being ‘uninvolved’ in the event, and, as such, being immoral/amoral.