This chapter has two core aims: first, it argues that a ‘discursive’ approach to im/politeness, which foregrounds interactants’ own (emic) evaluations of the (in)appropriateness of language as they arise in discourse, is needed to properly capture the nuances of social interaction in Greek and Roman literature. Second, it seeks to demonstrate the utility of Conversation Analysis in approaching this emic perspective. The chapter sets out from various passages in Greek tragedy in which speakers explicitly comment on the inappropriateness of their interlocutors’ language (metapragmatic comments), and shows that such comments regularly coincide with disruptions of regular conversational sequencing. The chapter then offers an extensive analysis of the herald scene in Euripides’ Supplices, a passage rich in metapragmatic commentary. Theseus’ principal concern in that scene, it is argued, is the correct procedural conduct of inter-polis diplomacy, rather than any putative personal face wants. Accordingly, expressions traditionally interpreted as politeness formulae should in this scene be seen as procedural rather than face-oriented devices.

This chapter investigates impoliteness in subliterary texts, namely in bilingual teaching material for learning languages. It takes the Colloquium Harleianum, one of the conversation manuals in the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (second to third century CE) as a corpus. The chapter studies both impoliteness forms and their evaluations from culture-internal speakers. The impoliteness forms, the metalanguage and the metapragmatic comments on the quarrel represented in this corpus are compared with quarrels represented in literary texts, mainly Roman Comedy (second to third century BCE) and the novel (second cetury CE). It relies on metapragmatic comments as the main entry to the emic evaluations of impoliteness forms and of offences present in the corpus. In this way, the chapter provides a diachronic perspective on ancient impoliteness in Latin by taking into account both literary and subliterary evidence. By dealing with teaching manuals, it provides a unique contribution on pragmatic competence for non-native speakers, and it offers insights on the etiquette norms for the elite, which is the perspective that the evidences in the corpus reflect.

The chapter focuses on the pragmatic valence of the parenthetical clause ut mihi (quidem) uidetur, a formulation which, by underscoring the subjective value of a statement, often conveys important interactional functions. A close survey of the use of this expression in Latin authors from Cicero to Augustinus highlights the essentially redressive value of the formula, which mainly acts as a mitigating hedge in stance taking, aimed at avoiding the negative effects of potential face-threatening acts and at managing self-presentation. Special attention is paid to Cicero’s usage of the formula as a refined conversational marker, through which the speaker showing modesty and awareness of others’ value reveals his superior moral and social standing. Hence, the chapter explores the role of speaker-oriented strategies of politeness in Rome, as part of an interactional style aimed at indexing a precise social identity.

Metapragmatic comments, that is, comments that reflect the understandings of speakers or lay observers regarding the ways and aims for which the language is used, are one of the main means of access to native ideas on im/politeness in corpus languages. This chapter analyses the metapragmatic comments on im/politeness that can be identified in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, as a mean to understand the Roman conceptions of im/politeness (that is, the emic perspective of this phenomenon), and the social and moral order underlying those conceptions. This approach facilitates a more detailed and integrated analysis of the speaker’s intentions and/or the interpretation of a particular utterance as polite (or impolite or overpolite) by the addressee, whether or not there are linguistic markers to indicate this intention.

This chapter examines friendship terms (e.g. phile, beltiste, daimonie) in Plato in the light of Brown and Levinson’s face-threat theory of politeness. It argues that every friendship term in Plato is polite redress for a specific face-threatening act, and aims to explain not only their general significance but also why they occur exactly when they do. The chapter examines Phaedrus in detail in order to show how friendship terms are associated with particular face-threatening acts, and supports the argument with a selection of passages from other dialogues. About 240 out of the 457 friendship terms in the corpus are either discussed in detail or explicitly linked to a specific face-threatening act, and the remaining examples should be readily intelligible in the light of this. Friendship terms are formally polite, in keeping with Socrates’ persona as represented in the dialogues, but also serve to emphasize face-threatening acts such as criticism and refutation. It is notable that there are no friendship terms in dialogues, or sections of dialogues, where overt face threat is avoided (e.g. the conversation with Gorgias in Gorgias).

The use of the present tense to refer to the past in summary narrative, that is, narrative passages where small stretches of discourse time cover large stretches of story time, depends upon the idea that the designated events are currently accessible through the medium of the discourse. The present tense serves to highlight the importance of the designated events for the development of the discourse. This diegetic use of the present has a predilection for certain attention-management strategies, such as cataphoric reference and complex clause structure, which puts the main clause event in focus within the wider discourse context. More specifically, the diegetic present has two main functions: marking changes in the narrative dynamic, and marking changes in the status of referents.

The use of the present tense to refer to the past in scenic narrative, that is, narrative passages where discourse time comes close to story time, depends on the pretense that the past events are being currently re-enacted. This pretense is facilitated by a mimetic style of narrating: the narrative is construed in such a way that the activity of processing the narrative is similar to the processing of actual experience. This is achieved in three ways. First, by narrating events that are concrete and appeal to our sensorimotor faculties. Second, by depicting the narrative events through gesture, direct speech representation, sound symbolism, and other means. Third, by using simple grammar to mimic the immediacy of actual experience. Moreover, the present tense is more likely to be used when the narrated events are high in communicative dynamism, which means that they are particularly newsworthy or important for the development of the discourse.