4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I examine the relationship between class and politeness in more detail. I examine, first of all, the way that politeness and civility are associated, and then I go on to examine class and language, particularly recent sociological and sociolinguistic analysis, which will help us understand the role politeness plays in indexing class position. I then give an example of an analysis of politeness where class is indexed. Finally, I examine the work of critics who have argued that politeness, and hence civilisation, are in decline, exposing the link between politeness and elite culture.
4.2 Politeness and Civility
Politeness is often characterised as civility, which emphasises the sense that politeness is closely linked with a state of civilisation. Even in popular linguistics books, civility is seen to be threatened by overly masculine behaviour or by what is characterised as working-class uncouthness (Lakoff, Reference Lakoff, Lakoff and Ide2005; Truss, Reference Truss2005). In a popular book on the historical decline of violence, Pinker (Reference Pinker2011) makes this connection between manners and civilisation explicit, for he states: ‘For as long as I have known how to eat with utensils I have struggled with the rule of table manners that says you may not guide food onto your fork with your knife’ (Reference Pinker2011: 76). It was only when he began reading the work of Norbert Elias on the civilising process that Pinker began to understand the prohibitions on certain types of behaviour when eating. He argues that behaviour has become gradually more civilised and this has come about through individuals being constrained in their expression of their own needs and being forced to consider the needs of others. For him, this has led to a decline in violent crime, and etiquette and polite behaviour have played a major role in this change.
Pinker consults etiquette books from the Middle Ages and from them he deduces how certain strictures on behaviour when eating developed. He gives examples from a number of these etiquette books: ‘Don't foul the staircases, corridors, closets or wall hangings with urine or other filth. Don't relieve yourself in front of ladies, or before doors or windows of court chambers. Don't slide back and forth on your chair as if you are trying to pass gas. Don't touch your private parts under your clothes with your bare hands. Don't greet someone while they are urinating or defecating. Don't make noise when you pass gas. Don't undo your clothes in front of others in preparation for defecation or do them up afterwards’ (cited in Pinker, Reference Pinker2011: 78). Pinker comments on this and many examples which Elias gives of the uncouthness of behaviour in the Middle Ages, which these etiquette books were trying to change: ‘[T]he habits of refinement, self-control and consideration that are second nature to us had to be acquired – and they developed in Europe over the course of its modern history’ (Reference Pinker2011: 79). The main message of these advice manuals can be summed up as ‘control your appetite; delay gratification; consider the sensibilities of others; don't act like a peasant; distance yourself from your animal nature’ (Pinker, Reference Pinker2011: 81). Here, the class-based nature of this behaviour is explicit since the advice is to distance oneself from peasant-like and base, animalistic behaviour.
He argues that the culture of honour prevalent in the Middle Ages, where one had to express outrage and with violent acts, if someone insulted your name or standing, gave way in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe to a culture of dignity, which was characterised by ‘the readiness to control one's emotions’ (Reference Pinker2011: 83). This entailed that elite males saw themselves less as warriors and more as courtiers, with their behaviour scrutinised in relation to complex systems of etiquette devised by the monarch's court.
Pinker's and Elias's argument about the decline of violence being correlated with the growth of civilising factors, may be one that we would like to take issue with in some respects,1 but their argument is very persuasive, especially when Pinker argues that etiquette, courtesy and politeness norms play a significant role in this civilising and constraining process.
Refinement and civil behaviour is generally associated with the middle and upper class. If we assume that politeness norms are those associated with and developed by the middle classes (historically having been copied over the centuries from courtly and aristocratic behaviour), then we might ask ourselves what non-elite groups actually do in relational work, and what they are represented as doing? In this chapter I examine the linguistic ideologies surrounding non-elite groups, ranging from the over-politeness associated with women, and the impoliteness associated with working-class groups and regional varieties. The focus of this chapter is largely on class, but class should not be analysed in isolation, since class intersects with gender, race and age in complex ways. Class is always gendered and raced, just as race is always classed and gendered. Nor should class be seen simply as a variable which has an impact on interaction, but instead as something which interactants work out and orient to in the course of interaction and also something which has a material effect on interaction and judgements made about participants and their contributions.
4.3 Class
Class and inequality are inextricably linked. As Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015: 46) put it: ‘Social classes are fundamentally associated with the stored historical baggage and the accumulation of advantages over time.’ This inequality is not simply economic, nor can it be reduced to the accumulation of capital. Instead, we should see this set of ‘advantages’ as having a clear cultural and social history.
Since Bernstein's (Reference Bernstein1973, Reference Bernstein1996) work on the linguistic deficit associated with working-class children, class has been largely neglected in linguistic analysis, both because of the difficulties of categorising individuals into particular classes, and because of the problems associated with discussing class difference in terms of deficit. Largely because of the changes that there have been in recent years in the class system, whereby a large number of working-class children have attended university, and the ranks of the middle class have been swelled through changes in employment in industry and the service sector, it has become possible for politicians to argue that class is no longer of importance. With the move away from manual industrial work in the West, many have asserted that, in fact, Britain is a classless society. At the same time as it is possible to assert that ‘we are all middle class now’, within recent years there has been a realisation that British society is also growing increasingly unequal, with benefits being restricted and withdrawn from the most vulnerable in society, and zero-hours contracts becoming the norm in certain sectors of society. Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015: 59) argue that we are thus faced with a paradox: ‘Britain is now more unequal than most comparable nations. Before taxation and welfare transfers only Ireland and Portugal were more unequal among developed nations.’ And Savage et al. argue that in many surveys almost 80 per cent of people are critical of this inequality.
Perceptions of our own status in relation to inequality are similarly paradoxical. Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015) conducted interviews with a wide range of individuals about their perceptions of their own class and position. In one question, where interviewees were asked to rank themselves on a scale from one to ten in relation to money, most of the interviewees, regardless of their wealth or poverty, placed themselves in the middle of the scale. Thus, one of their interviewees earning £6,000 a year, with low savings and in rented accommodation, rated herself as in the same middle position which another person also chose for herself, although the latter earned £60,000 per year, had savings of £100,000 and owned a property valued at £700,000. Because of the ideology of classlessness, it is possible for individuals to simply not see inequality in action.
Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015: 47) argue that we should not simply focus on economic issues in discussions of class: ‘[C]lass is not to be conflated with the division of labour … or with concepts such as exploitation … but instead [we need to focus] on the processes by which resources are unevenly accumulated.’ Even though it is difficult, as Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015) put it, to ‘domesticate the analysis of class’, because class is now understood in very different ways and is no longer simply seen in terms of a division between working and middle classes, nevertheless there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of class in linguistic analysis and the urgency of developing a framework adequate to its analysis (Bennett, Reference Bennett2012; Block, Reference 132Block2014; Mugglestone, Reference Mugglestone2007; Smyth and Wrigley, Reference Smyth and Wrigley2013; Snell, Reference Snell2013a,b; Tyler, Reference Tyler2008). For some, the difficulty in describing class has led to a ‘reluctance to acknowledge class divisions and an unjust economic system’ (Smyth and Wrigley, Reference Smyth and Wrigley2013: 1).
Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Taylor, Li, Hjelbrekke, Le Roux, Freidman and Miles2013, Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015) have been central in this process of rethinking class categorisation, especially in their work in developing, in conjunction with the BBC, an on-line survey entitled the ‘Great British Class survey’ (2011). The aim of this survey was to answer the question ‘What class am I?’ The survey asked participants a series of questions which enabled them to calculate their own class position. Rather than thinking about class simply in economic terms, as has been the case since the nineteenth century, they proposed that class divisions should be considered, using the work of Bourdieu (Reference Bourdieu1984), to be based on individuals' access to social, economic and cultural capital. This more complex class categorisation took into account the social networks individuals had (whether they knew individuals solely from their own social group or from other groups); what their income and capital was, and what their engagement with high culture was. In this way, Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Taylor, Li, Hjelbrekke, Le Roux, Freidman and Miles2013, Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015) have developed a way of describing class in terms of seven categories: a small elite (largely CEOs and industrialists); a complex middle class composed of five different categories based on cultural and social capital, and a small precariat (those who are largely unemployed or on low incomes).2 These classifications indicate a much more dynamic and delicate view of class, where an individual's class position can change over time, for example with the accumulation of capital and status (due to age, experience and promotion), and where class position is not solely restricted to capital accumulation but is also reliant on education and social networks. This is what they have termed ‘cultural class analysis’ (Savage et al., Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Taylor, Li, Hjelbrekke, Le Roux, Freidman and Miles2013: 220). Thus, rather than class making little difference, for them, class is perhaps even more significant now, because ‘what a more competitive and unequal society has generated is actually strong class divisions, where a person's class of origin leaves a powerful stamp on his or her life chances’ (Savage et al., Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015: 217). However, one of the many problems with this analysis of class is the assumption that one's class position is something that you simply choose yourself, rather than something to which one is allocated. Furthermore, this type of analysis does not consider the way that class is oriented to in interaction.
4.3.1 Class as a Variable
Class, within sociolinguistic studies, has often been treated as a variable which forces individuals into behaving in certain ways. However, as Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith argue in their analysis of Japanese women's language, ‘speakers do not automatically choose language because they belong to a particular social category’ (Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith, Reference Okamoto, Shibamoto-Smith, Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith2004: 6). This is an important point, so that we do not analyse class simply as a variable which has an impact on the way individuals within that socio-economic group speak. For the relationship between class and language is in fact much more complex than that. Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith's (Reference Okamoto, Shibamoto-Smith, Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith2004) work on gender is instructive here as they take a social-constructionist position, which argues that rather than gender, in this case acting upon individuals, individuals draw on linguistic resources which are themselves indirectly indexed as gendered. As a consequence, individuals produce themselves as gendered in that they may be understood by their interlocutors to have oriented to gendered speech. However, while this is adequate at the level of the interaction, what a social constructionist position omits is the concern with wider social forces, as well – the way that institutions and social-economic forces act upon the individual and with which the individual engages. Thus, I would like to retain a notion of class as something which has an impact on the individual, both materially and economically, and also in eroding or boosting their confidence, and their sense of what it is possible for them to do. One's assigned class position or the class position which one forges for oneself has an impact on one's sense of entitlement, one's membership of the wider social group, one's sense of what one is capable of, one's social capital, as Savage (Reference Savage2013) terms it. If we only focus on how interactants orient towards class within interaction, or only on the way that we are categorised into a particular class and the effect that this has on us, we will not be aware of the combined force of class divisions on individuals, together with the orientation individuals take to class divisions in their speech.
4.3.2 Class as an Orientation in Talk
In recent sociolinguistic work, such as that by Snell (Reference Snell2010, Reference Snell2013a and b), there has been a move to consider the way that individuals orient to class division in their talk, by marking out their identity roles through linguistic markers indexing class position. In her analysis of working-class and middle-class schoolchildren in the north-east of England, she focuses on linguistic features in the children's talk, which would, in conventional sociolinguistic analysis, be considered dialect features, and which would perhaps mark the children as belonging to a particular class. These features, such as the use of ‘howay’, are often ones which teachers try to persuade children not to use, because of their stigmatisation as dialect, non-standard features. She shows that children use a wide range of these linguistic features, which carry significance for them in terms of marking out the nature of the interaction and their relation with others. Thus rather than-working class schoolchildren being viewed as being ‘restricted’ to a particular dialect, she suggests that children actively draw on a range of resources which constitute their linguistic repertoire. The children can use the standard form in locations where to them it appears appropriate, but they use a range of non-standard forms in the playground or group task-based work and those non-standard forms have a range of functions, not simply indicating class membership. She cites Blommaert and Backus: ‘[T]he resources that enter into a repertoire are indexical resources, language materials that enable us to produce more than just linguistic meaning but to produce images of ourself, pointing interlocutors towards the frames in which we want our meanings to be put’ (Blommaert and Backus, 2012, cited in Snell, Reference Snell2013a).
Snell argues that the children in the working-class areas tend to use ‘us’ (as a first-person singular pronoun equivalent to ‘me’), more consistently than those in the middle-class schools, who tend to use ‘me’ (for example, ‘Give us that’ instead of ‘Give me that’). This is not simply asserting that working-class children always use ‘us’ in this way, but that they use it in contexts where they wish to index ‘meanings related to solidarity, alignment and group identity’ (Snell, Reference Snell2013a: 116–17). Thus, rather than children in the working-class areas speaking in the way that they do because of the force that class exerts upon them, we can see these children as speakers who are continually making choices ‘between socially meaningful forms, adapting and combining resources from their repertoires in a process of stylistic “bricolage”’ (Snell, Reference Snell2013a: 120).
4.3.3 Class as a Moral Judgement
Class is not a neutral categorisation. In nineteenth-century Britain, distinctions of class were always moral distinctions. For example, Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015: 32) note that nineteenth-century mapping surveys of living areas, by social reformers such as Booth and Rowntree, always ‘conflated class with respectability and morality’, such that working-class areas were categorised as ‘vicious and semi-criminal’, whereas more wealthy areas were classified as ‘respectable’ and ‘comfortable’. By drawing on the notion of indirect indexing, it is possible to examine the way that often in representations of class, various undesirable elements are indexed (such as obesity, laziness and uncouthness). Jones (Reference Jones2012) examines the representation of the chav, a term used in Britain since the 1990s to denote a group within what Savage et al. (Reference Savage, Devine, Cunningham, Friedman, Laurison, Miles, Snee and Taylor2015) would term the precariat. This group is characterised as being in receipt of welfare benefits, with little cultural capital, and consuming expensive items which are beyond their means. Jones examines the way that, in popular representations, working-class people have been demonised as an underclass. With such negative representations of class, it is unsurprising that language associated with this class group is similarly stigmatised and the norms associated with middle-class groups is considered refined (Mugglestone, Reference Mugglestone2007). In this view, ‘respectable’ working-class people would use middle-class politeness norms to demonstrate their affiliations with the middle class, while ‘rough’ working-class members would use those resources associated with uncouthness and rudeness/impoliteness as a way of aligning with working-class values and gaining covert prestige (Skeggs, Reference Skeggs1997). However, these stereotypes are ones which individuals draw on and use to their own ends, using them as part of their fashioning of their own identities and as part of managing relationships with others – for example, affiliating or disaffiliating with members of their group. Middle-class politeness does not constitute all of the relational work within English politeness.3 For this reason it is important for us as politeness theorists to move our focus away from the middle-class examples which we use at the moment and to focus on working-class interaction, or at least to acknowledge that what is described is middle-class politeness norms and not national politeness norms. Class is difficult to talk about and difficult to pin down; however, class seems to lie at the heart of judgements of politeness and impoliteness.
4.4 Class and Politeness
Fox (2004: 73) argues that ‘all English people, whether they admit it or not, are fitted with a sort of Global Positioning Satellite computer that tells us a person's position on the class map as soon as he or she begins to speak’. As mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2, politeness in Britain was always associated with the language and behavioural norms of the court (see Pan and Kadar, Reference Pan and Kadar2011, for a historical account of Chinese politeness; and the special issue of the Journal of Politeness Research on historical politeness, 2016). Terkourafi (Reference Terkourafi2011: 176) states: ‘Politeness norms typically emanate from the upper classes and are a reflection of their power. This allows them to play a gate-keeping role which is central to the smooth operation of society.’ This link between politeness and class is made clear by Picton, a nineteenth-century architect, when he stated: ‘Policy, polity, politeness, urbanity, civility, derive their names as well as their nature from city life, while the terms rustic, savage, heathen, pagan indicate the rougher and more backward tendencies of the herdsmen and cultivators of the ground’ (cited in Hunt, Reference Hunt2016: 19). Picton fuses together the values of politeness and the civilised values of the city, in stark contrast to what he sees as the uncivilised behaviour of the rural peasant class.
There is often an association between British politeness and refinement which has class-based connotations; when discussing standard language, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (Reference Eckert and McConnell-Ginet2003: 282) state that ‘the time and financial resources required to manufacture a refined self and to engage in refined behaviour, and the incompatibility of refinement with physical work, are an important component of the symbolic value of refinement. Refinement distances a person from the physical world, and in a working class environment, it is the ability to work with the physical world that is valued.’ This account is of particular interest here because it employs the perspective of a ‘linguistic market’, that is, their account does not necessarily assume that refinement will be valued in all classes, although clearly, the fact that refinement is valued by an elite will mean that within a global setting, the value of refinement will hold sway. Within a local setting, other values, perhaps normally associated with impoliteness within that middle-class sphere, will tend to dominate.
Allen (Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016) makes the elitist nature of politeness apparent when he argues that ‘just as the newly rich gentlefolk of the post-medieval period strove to adopt those manners of their social superiors which they approved of, the manners of gentlefolk in the 18th and 19th centuries supplied the pattern for proper and therefore polite language behaviour in Britain and its colonies’ (Allen, Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016: 14). He explicitly associates middle-class ideologies of appropriate behaviour with politeness, and he does this approvingly, arguing that what he terms the Middle Class Politeness Criterion (MCPC) is the default option or benchmark in conversation between mixed-sex casual acquaintances. He argues that ‘the MCPC is an idealised benchmark against which the analyst will compare instances of behaviour’ (Allen, Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016: 19). From Allen's perspective, politeness is largely about euphemisms and the avoidance of swearing. He argues that ‘people who are impolite are judged rude, coarse and ill-bred, unmannerly and sometimes just plain nasty; sometimes when being impolite, they manifest that they are ill-socialised’ (Allen, Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016: 8). Here, many of the terms used to describe people who are impolite are also terms to denote the working class: ‘coarse’, ‘ill-bred’, ‘ill-socialised’. He argues, however, that polite behaviour is not restricted to the middle classes, as he states: ‘I am certainly not suggesting that the MCPC fails to apply between children or between close acquaintances of the same sex or among members of the highest and the lowest socioeconomic class’ (Allen, Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016: 12). He argues that MCPC is in fact simply politic behaviour; it is that which is socially approved: ‘[O]ne is polite only if he or she behaves in congruence with the expected norms in a certain situation, in a certain culture and society’ (Allen, Reference Allen, Capone and Mey2016: 14). But paradoxically, these approved norms, which are presented as simply general cultural norms, have already been associated explicitly by Allen with middle-class norms.
4.5 Class, Politeness, Impoliteness and National Identity
Politeness is often explicitly or implicitly associated with class divisions in the British press. There are frequently – particularly in the right-wing press, such as the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail – articles on etiquette, manners and moral panics about the decline in politeness. These reports focused on politeness are largely discussed in terms of class distinction, with middle-class and aristocratic behaviour being characterised as polite, and working-class or arriviste behaviour being characterised as impolite.
Politeness is also used to figure national identity, so that Britishness itself is elided with those behaviours which are considered to typify British politeness. In the Daily Telegraph (18 October 2013), a test was published: ‘How English are you?’ Most of the elements in the quiz were concerned with stereotypical British English politeness. For example, the first question is:
You're out to dinner. Your fish arrives overcooked, the potatoes almost raw. Do you:
(a) Send the dish back to the kitchen straight away and request one that's properly cooked
(b) Grumble loudly and start composing a bad TripAdvisor review
(c) Soldier on until the waiter asks ‘How was our meal?’ and respond ‘Lovely thanks’.
A further question asks:
You're in Paris for a special weekend. You need to rush to make the Eurostar home, but you're lost. What do you ask?
(a) Excusez-moi monsieur, je dois prendre le Eurostar a sept heures et quart. Vous pouvez me donner des directions à la gare?
(b) La Garr silver plait
(c) DO – YOU – KNOW – WHERE – THE STATION – IS? STATION?
A further example is:
It's pouring with rain and your umbrella turns inside out. Do you:
(a) Fly into a rage at the cruelty of the universe
(b) Break down and cry at your miserable plight
(c) Make a joke at your own expense as you arrive in the office soaked to the skin.
At the end of the quiz, there is a section which interprets your choices. Thus, ‘if your responses are mainly ‘a’, then ‘you're a citizen of the world’. All very nice, but it's not quite cricket. And if your response is mainly ‘c’ then ‘you're as English as they come. Now calm down and don't make a fuss about it’. Here the qualities which are associated with Englishness are self-deprecation and suffering politely rather than complaining (see Chapter 3). Responses which are mainly categorised as ‘a’ are seen as not fitting in with a middle-class British ideal of politeness, either because they index foreign behavioural norms, working-class or impolite behaviour. Those responses which are mainly categorised as ‘c’ are emphatically middle-class and are evaluated positively by the newspaper.
In the supposedly humorous Dictionary of Chavspeak, analysed by Bennett (Reference Bennett2012), one of the ways in which working-class speech is characterised at a stereotypical level, is as boorish and impolite. It is explicitly contrasted with polite middle-class speech. In this ‘dictionary’, the following are listed, with the first entry being an example of chavspeak, while the second entry is a ‘translation’ into standard English, which seems to be characterised by elements stereotypical of middle- or upper-class politeness, or over-politeness:
1. Gizz a faaag, mate.
(Excuse me, but can you let me have one of your cigarettes, please.)
2. Yerr wan’ aany draw?
(Would you like to purchase some cannabis resin?)
3. Oi! Ge’ us 4 Bacaardibreezas, moosh.
(Would you please break the law and purchase four Bacardi Breezers for me, as I am too young to buy alcohol.)
4. Call vat a large chips? Yerr ‘aving a faackin/laarf aintcha?
(Are you jesting? I think this portion of chips is slightly smaller than it should be.).
5. Do vat again Chesney, and I'll bleedin’ beltcherr one!
(Please don't do that again Chesney or I will be forced to administer some form of corporal punishment.)
6. Wha'chooyoulookinatmoosh?
(Excuse me, but can I help you? (Wallace and Spanner, 2004: 31–5, cited in Bennett, Reference Bennett2012: 18)
Here both stereotypical versions of chavspeak and middle-class speech are being satirised, since the chavspeak is exaggerated for comic effect, in much the same way as the middle-class over-polite forms are.
As can be clearly seen from the above examples, in fact impoliteness is firmly associated with the working class. Many of the definitions of impoliteness given in the literature are about ‘intentionally gratuitous and conflictual face threatening acts which are purposefully performed’ (Bousfield, Reference Bousfield2007: 7), which can be seen to be a characteristic, at an ideological level, of working-class behaviour – rude and uncultured. Very few theorists comment on the class-associated nature of discussions of impoliteness.
4.6 Intersectionality
As I mentioned above, it is not possible to analyse class in isolation from other factors such as gender, age and ethnicity. A concern with intersectionality focuses on the way that gender is classed and raced, just as class is gendered and raced. However, here I describe each of these variables separately, for the purposes of clarity.
4.6.1 Gender and Politeness
Certain politeness forms such as indirectness and over-politeness are often associated with femininity, particularly middle-class femininity (Mills, Reference Mills2003b). While men and women use linguistic resources in much the same way, there is a stereotype that women will be naturally concerned for others' welfare and will want to do the ‘housekeeping’ in conversation (Mills and Mullany, Reference Mills and Mullany2011). Masculinity is obviously constituted partly through a construction of behaviour in contradistinction to feminine behaviour, i.e. through the use of politeness and impoliteness. What we need to examine is the way that individuals interact and negotiate with these norms of the gendering of politeness. Ochs (Reference Ochs, Coupland, Giles and Wiemann1991) argues that gender identity is constructed largely through an indirect association between various styles or even institutions and gender. I have described the way that public speaking has often indirectly indexed particular forms of masculinity, which in turn have indexed professionalism (Mills, Reference Mills2004). This is not to suggest that when women speak publicly or take up public roles that they are restricted, or have to take on masculine identities, but it is to suggest that their speech is often judged in a different way to that adopted in relation to males speaking in public. In relation to politeness, it is important to recognise that gender is an issue in the production of politeness, in that women are aware of the stereotypes of how they should speak in certain contexts; but crucially, the reception and judgement of politeness is important not just at the level of individuals but at the community, regional and cultural level, for this informs the ideological resources which individuals draw on when they use and interpret politeness and impoliteness.
4.6.2 Politeness, Class and Region
The force of class divisions can be seen in the music journalist Stuart Maconie's book about the North of England, where class and geography are often elided. He gives an example of becoming very conscious of class distinctions when he moves to London from the North of England: ‘A few years ago, I was standing in my kitchen, rustling up a Sunday brunch for some very hungover, very northern mates who were “down” for the weekend. One of them was helping me out, finding essential ingredients like paracetamol and orange juice and asked me, “Where are the sun-dried tomatoes?” “They're next to the cappuccino-maker”, I replied. A ghastly, pregnant silence fell. Slowly we turned to meet each other's gaze. We didn't say anything. We didn't need to. Each read the other's unspoken thought; we had changed. We had become the kind of people who rustled up brunch on Sundays, passed around sections of the Sunday papers, popped down to little bakeries; the kind of people who had sun-dried tomatoes and cappuccino-makers. Southerners, I suppose’ (Maconie, Reference Maconie2008: xi).
This is interesting, as what Maconie seems to be describing is a process whereby he and his friends perceive themselves as having become Southern, whereas perhaps also at the same time they have become middle class. For Maconie, being Northern is being working class. Maconie also points out that in the process of becoming Southerners, he and his friends have also become emasculated; when he talks about the contrast between the sort of food he feels he should eat as a Northerner and the food he actually eats, he writes of this process of emasculation: ‘… on some level, I feel it should be a plate of tripe and a pound of lard, the sort of food you want after a hard day digging coal from a three foot seam or riveting steel plates – proper jobs, in fact, as opposed to tapping effeminately at a keyboard for hours on end or talking to yourself in a radio studio’ (Maconie, Reference Maconie2008: xii).
The features that he focuses on when he characterises the North of England are clearly markers also of class – ‘bullishness, lack of sophistication, dour self-sufficiency … bluff and no-nonsense’ (Maconie, Reference Maconie2008: 179) and these features bear resemblance to those language features which characterise impolite language. These class-markers manifest themselves in the type of language which is used – again, a mixture of class and geography. He claims that people in Yorkshire are ‘happiest when talking about Yorkshire, using “plain language” and “speaking as they find”. What some may call meanness, they call “being careful”’ (Maconie, Reference Maconie2008: 180). He relates an anecdote about taking a taxi to a gig in Leeds: as he waited at traffic lights, a young man came over and ‘leaning almost into the car, snarled RICH BASTARD at me … Here was the north … bitter, envious, aggressive, impoverished, the kind of place where if you take a four quid taxi ride, you're a pampered aristocrat’ (Maconie, Reference Maconie2008: 201). As I argued above, it is difficult to isolate class from region, and this account of Northernness shows that we need an intersectional account of class, gender and region, particularly since stereotypical British-English politeness is largely associated with Southern-British middle-class behaviour.
4.6.3 Politeness and Ethnicity
Ethnic identity intersects in complex ways with class identity and categorisation. Hill (Reference Hill2008) has charted the way that in the United States Black people are still discriminated against and their behaviour is judged as aberrant against the norms of the dominant ideology of what counts as appropriate behaviour. She argues that the elements which are characterised as unruly or impolite behaviour are often behaviours which are the result of being discriminated against and being poor and excluded from the mainstream. Lakoff (Reference Lakoff, Lakoff and Ide2005) argues that American civility norms are under threat from new immigrant groups whose politeness norms are very different to those of the mainstream: ‘[U]ntil very recently, those who were not white, male and middle class and above had no access to public discourse, no way to compete for the right to make their own standards of meaning and language. Since the 1960s more and more formerly disenfranchised groups have demanded and to some degree received, the right to make language, make interpretations and make meaning to themselves. The sharing of the right to make meaning turns America truly multi-cultural – and pretty scary for the formerly “in” now moving towards the periphery’ (Lakoff, Reference Lakoff, Lakoff and Ide2005: 36). She goes on to say: ‘Speakers from those formerly silenced groups can no longer be ignored on the grounds that they don't know how to behave. But often their behaviour does not coincide with traditional cultural understandings of what is “polite”’ (Lakoff, Reference Lakoff, Lakoff and Ide2005: 36). She characterises these ‘new groups’ as ‘obstreperous’. Lakoff does not spell out very clearly who these new groups are, but she does reference the debate about Ebonics in the 1990s and she mentions the term ‘racism’, so it can only be assumed that she is referring to African American and Hispanic peoples.
4.6.4 Politeness and Age
There is the most disagreement about politeness norms between generations. Older people tend to behave according to a set of beliefs about politeness norms which are not shared by younger people. Politeness is obviously not static, and each generation creates new stereotypes and refines the resources available. Truss (Reference Truss2005) makes this age difference in views about politeness most explicit when she says ‘the outrage reflex (“Oh that's so RUDE”) presents itself in most people at just about the same time as their elbow skin starts to give out … [if your elbow skin is puckered, i.e. you are old] you can probably name about twenty things, right now, off the top of your head, that drive you nuts: people who chat in the cinema; young people sauntering four abreast on the pavement, waiters who say “There you go” as they place your bowl of soup on the table; people not even attempting to lower their voices when they use the “Eff” word’ (Truss, Reference Truss2005: 5). These are classified as concerns which older people might have and which younger people do not share, and while all of them are not necessarily strictly speaking issues of politeness, for Truss these are clear indicators of a decline in the politeness system or civility. She argues that older people tend to spend time finding fault: ‘I now can't abide many, many things and am actually on the lookout for more things to find completely unacceptable’ (Truss, Reference Truss2005: 5). Truss's account is a humorous one, and yet at the same time, this association between things which irritate one, and things which one considers to be impolite or uncivil is an interesting one. Thus, variables such as gender, ethnicity and class are somehow translated into concerns about politeness.
4.7 An Analysis of Class, Politeness and Age
I would like to examine some data to show the way that factors such as age are elided with other factors when politeness is focused on.4 The data I will be focusing on here is an internet post entitled 25 Manners Every Kid Needs by Age 9, which appeared initially in Parents Magazine, in 2011, and was written by David Lowry, an ex-head teacher from Kentucky. Lowry devised the list when he saw a child being ‘unintentionally rude’ by talking when a teacher was engaged in conversation with another adult: ‘[T]he student wasn't being intentionally rude; he simply did not know it was impolite to interrupt.’ Therefore, Lowry decided to make a list of manners and send it to the parents in this school. This is significant because the children themselves were not consulted or talked to.5 The post was very widely circulated and has proved to be fairly controversial, eliciting both negative and positive below-the-line comments. This set of instructions to parents is about trying to ensure that children behave in a way that is respectful of others. However, it is quite clear that fundamentally these instructions are not aimed necessarily at the children themselves but at the adults who see it as their job to try to control them.
In this etiquette list, there are twenty five rules for children. These range from conventionalised ‘polite’ formulae, such as ‘When asking for something, say “Please”’, to more complex attempts to control children's unruly behaviour, such as ‘When you have any doubt about doing anything, ask permission first’. Many of these ‘Dos and Don'ts’ listed are to do with the need for children to be controlled by adults, and for the needs of adults to take priority over the needs of children. This is a complex example of hegemony that is not just the restriction of someone's behaviour by another who has greater power but also the acceptance of that restriction by the person whose behaviour is being restricted. Thus, what this etiquette advice exemplifies is the elision of politeness with control of children's behaviour, the blurring of the boundaries between being polite, and being docile, ‘well behaved’, and cognisant of the priority of adult needs. I am not arguing that children do not need to be controlled, as much for their own sakes as for the benefit of adults. What interests me here, rather, is the fact that this need to control children's unruly behaviour is presented in the guise of advice about politeness and that the forms of behaviour advocated are very much modelled on the middle-class norms as detailed in Chapter 3.
In the following analysis, I give examples of the way that ideological messages about polite behaviour, what children should do in relation to being perceived as polite, are in fact ideological messages which are more to do with the primacy of adults and their need to control children's behaviour.
Firstly, I would like to consider the advice where it seems as if conventional politeness is being unequivocally invoked, for example:
1. When asking for something, say ‘please’.
2. When receiving something, say ‘thank you’.
These examples are clearly simply the type of behaviour which is aimed at ensuring that children recognise when someone has done something for them, which requires formal recognition by the child. There are other guidelines (23, 24, 25) which are all concerned with conventional middle-class table manners:
23. Use eating utensils correctly. If you are unsure how to do this, ask your parents to teach you or watch what adults do.
There is an assumption here that certain groups of children will not have learnt how to use knives and forks ‘correctly’, and either they must then consult their parents (since their parents have clearly not taught them), or if their parents are not able to teach them, they should copy adults who do know the correct way to use utensils. It is assumed here that teachers, being middle class, will know these conventions and will be able to act as role models for the children, whereas their parents may not.
This group of guidelines is not about politeness as such, but more to do with conventionalised etiquette, which largely reflects middle-class behavioural codes. There are also guidelines concerning hygiene, for example:
18. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.
There is further guidance about not picking one's nose in public and using a handkerchief when sneezing. Thus, a set of guidelines for children's behaviour concerned with table manners and hygiene are mixed with other advice which is more clearly recognisable as politeness advice.
While the above guidance seems fairly uncontroversially concerned with politeness and etiquette, as the list progresses the guidance becomes more clearly about adults asserting control over children's behaviour. There is a directive to children to internalise the legitimacy of adults' primacy. Politeness and manners here are the ideological gloss on a set of practices which aim to restrict children's behaviour. For example, in the next guideline, children are advised to always assume that adults' needs come first:
5. When you have any doubt about doing anything, ask permission first.
Here it is assumed that children should always seek guidance on their behaviour from adults. However, this advice is posed as a concern with politeness. In the next example, children's language comes under scrutiny, and it is assumed that children should not swear.
13. Never use foul language in front of adults. Grown ups already know these words and they find them boring and unpleasant.
There is an assumption that grown-ups have a negative view of children swearing. It is the judgement of the adults which is important here, for adults find swear words ‘boring and unpleasant’. In the next example, children are advised to always do whatever an adult tells them to, and in addition to do so with good grace.
21. When an adult asks you for a favour, do it without grumbling and with a smile.
Children are also advised not to express their true feelings or opinions, but simply repress these feelings.
16. Even if a play or an assembly is boring, sit through it quietly and pretend that you are interested.
Thus, much of this advice to children is concerned with ensuring that children keep quiet, that they do not express opinions or feelings which are at odds with those of adults, and that even when they are asked to do something that they do not want to do, they do so with the appearance of doing so willingly.
Throughout these guidelines, the needs of children are represented as secondary to the needs of adults.
3. Do not interrupt grown-ups who are speaking with each other unless there is an emergency. They will notice you and respond when they are finished talking.
Here it is clear that the rights of the adults to talk without interruption from children takes precedence over children's right to speak. Adults are represented as having serious work to do which should not be interrupted, except if there is an emergency.
20. If you come across a parent, a teacher or a neighbour working on something, ask if you can help. If they say yes, do so – you may learn something new.
The child is here characterised as someone with no rights of their own, but rather as someone who must simply obey adults, and who must offer to help the adult. This is even posed as being of benefit to the child (you may learn something new).
In some of the guidance, the opinions of children are represented as being annoying or of little value in comparison to the opinions of adults.
6. The world is not interested in what you dislike. Keep negative opinions to yourself, or between you and your friends, or out of earshot of adults.
7. Do not comment on other people's physical characteristics, unless of course it is to compliment.
Children are characterised as not being able to express negative beliefs about anything, and here they are advised to either keep silent about their beliefs or ensure that adults are not disturbed by the expression of their beliefs. Thus these guidelines show what children should be like: quiet in the presence of adults, whose needs take priority.
Overall, the linguistic ideologies encapsulated in this advice about politeness are that children are not well behaved, but that they should be. Politeness rules are one of the ways that we can judge children and make them into compliant individuals who will do what adults want them to. These messages are not simply concerned with respect for others, but largely about asserting that adults' needs are to be given priority. It is because of this mixture of conventional middle-class politeness, etiquette and advice which attempts to control children's behaviour that we should view these guidelines as driven by particular ideologies.
I would like now to consider the below-the-lines comments on these guidelines, because discursive approaches to the analysis of politeness are very concerned not just in the description of politeness norms but also their reception. These below-the-line comments were posted on Altamirano's website, on which the guidelines were posted:
RT 2014 comments: ‘I work in an environment with a number of young adults (18–30 mostly males) I am amazed at their lack of manners, respect and work ethic.’
As you can see from this comment, politeness seems to slide very easily into other elements, such as ‘work ethic’, which have very little to do with manners or politeness.
One poster, kwardle 2014, who was a teacher, made explicit why the ban on expressing dislikes was important as advice: ‘[W]hat I assign has meaning, so the bottom line is, like it or not, they have to do it.’ This, more starkly than other posts, draws attention to the control which adults would like to have over children.
While most of the below-the-line comments are broadly positive about the guidelines and the people commenting stress that they would circulate them within their own schools, some of the other comments by those who disapprove of the guidelines draw attention to the ideological nature of this advice.
Jen 2015 comments: ‘I agree with all but 6 and 21. Kids have a right to say what they dislike … Grownups are NOT always right.’
The next post makes clear that the guidelines are an attempt to limit children's behaviour. Mandy 2014 says: ‘Children are not slaves or pets, they are people with voices that deserve to be heard as much as adults do.’
Sweden 2014 also objects to the notion that children are being advised not to express negative sentiments, saying: ‘[I]t is unhealthy for kids to hold in negative feelings. Imagine an adult doing that? Not humanly possible so we shouldn't enforce it on our kids.’
Peekster 2014 also comments on the notion that children should always offer to help adults: ‘I generally balk at the idea of just having random adults think my children are their personal gophers.’
Thus, these below-the-lines comments make clear that the guidelines are interpreted as a mixture of politeness guidelines and assertions of control over children by adults. Through the analysis of these guidelines, it is evident that often social control is elided with advice about polite behaviour, particularly when children are the focus of attention. These guidelines are a mixture of advice about politeness and other aspects of children's behaviour, and as such they are profoundly ideological in representing children's needs as being secondary to adults' needs. Thus, the analysis of politeness and impoliteness cannot be simply focused on the individual and their linguistic choices, because those choices themselves are fundamentally informed by social forces and the individual's perceptions of what norms of appropriateness are in play. In turn, those social norms are modified or maintained because of the linguistic behaviour of individuals. This more interactive model of politeness and impoliteness allows us to describe the role of social forces without assuming that the individual is solely the originator of their language; nor does it force us to assume that the individual is a pawn at the mercy of social forces.
4.8 Decline of English Politeness and the End of Civilisation
There are very many politeness theorists and journalists who consider that English politeness is in decline and that civilised values are affected as a result. Truss (Reference Truss2005: 6) argues that ‘the era of the manners book has simply passed … This is an age of lazy moral relativism combined with aggressive social insolence, in which many people have been trained to distrust and reject all categorical answers’. Truss (Reference Truss2005) argues that British society is in decline and the changes that she perceives in the politeness system are indicators or causes of that decline. She states that ‘the trouble is, our own personal space always seems to be up for grabs in unacceptable ways. Other people don't respect our personal space and are conducting private phone conversations in public places, regardless of the annoyance they cause. Which is very very rude of them’ (Truss, Reference Truss2005: 101). Truss lists the things that she ‘can't stand’ in contemporary culture and she labels these practices as rude or uncivil. She says that she ‘mourns the apparent collapse of civility in all areas of our dealings with strangers’ (Truss, Reference Truss2005: 3).
Lakoff (Reference Lakoff, Lakoff and Ide2005) also sees that American politeness is in decline. She argues that there has been a shift from deference to camaraderie which she attributes to the growth of new immigrant groups in the United States. Lakoff charts a historical change from deferential norms and asserts that this deferential system is ‘not just a set of neutral rules, but perceived as a marker … of “good breeding” and decency, and that quintessential American trait, niceness' (2006: 26). Thus the move from what she sees as a deferential system of politeness is not a neutral change, but one which is characterised as a change in values, from an elite form of politeness to one which favours non-elite types of behaviour. Lakoff describes a range of disparate behaviour which she sees as indicative of this shift, ranging from public shows of affection, increased violence in the media, uncontrolled displays of hostility, such as road rage, and negative political advertising. She argues that people are aware that Americans have become more uncivil and less polite. She blames these changes on ‘America's increasing diversity’, the development of the Internet and the rise of camaraderie politeness.6
A further example of a commentator who views British politeness as in decline can be seen in an article by Rhoda Koenig in The Daily Mail (Reference Koenig2007). Koenig is an American journalist who was ‘shocked by the rudeness she encountered in today's Britain’ (Reference Koenig2007: 46). She argues that she moved to Britain from New York 20 years ago, because ‘there seemed to be more public civility; more decency and respect for others’ (ibid). Therefore, she decided that for a period of three months she would challenge every instance of what she considered impolite behaviour in public. She describes these incidents where she challenged the behaviour of strangers – for example when they were talking too loud on their phones or when they swore in public. For example, she describes a woman who was ‘bellowing into her mobile phone’ and who then went on to shout ‘f**k’; Koenig said to her, ‘You really can't say that’ and comments, ‘She bares her teeth, like a furious monkey and shouts, “I can say anything I want”.’ Koenig states that she is ‘stunned for the moment by this social problem in human shape’. She also comments on an incident where a small boy was annoying people in the street by blowing a whistle loudly, and there appeared to be ‘no parents in sight’. Koenig asked him to stop and ‘instantly two Furies descend on me – raddled scrawny women who are dressed like cute teenagers. Both scream non-stop in a kind of stream of consciousness’ (Reference Koenig2007: 47). There is clearly a judgement being made about the individuals whom Koenig accosts and there seems to be a clear association between them appearing to be working class and them being considered by her to be impolite. Her final example is of ‘three teenage girls – slender, pretty obviously from the grubby council estate nearby – [who] are swearing at the top of their voices. They are not angry, just showing off’ (Reference Koenig2007: 47). She berates them for their behaviour.
Often language changes are introduced by younger people and are fiercely resisted by certain groups of older people (Deutscher, Reference Deutscher2005, Reference Deutscher2011). In Japan, for example, the debates over what counts as polite behaviour are often about the linguistic norms and their flouting by younger people. For example Hasegawa (Reference Hasegawa2012) draws attention to the use of tameguchi or 50–50 language, which often receives negative reactions from older people where the use of the polite masu form is not observed. She describes a blog where this issue is discussed: ‘[A] new employee at a nursing home does not stop using tameguchi to aged relatives because s/he believes it conveys psychological closeness. Almost all responses to this post indicate that tameguchi is inappropriate and does not work positively to build rapport with the elderly’ (Hasegawa, Reference Hasegawa2012: 252). However, we must ask why the younger care assistant at the nursing home uses this form if it receives so many negative evaluations. There must obviously be some sort of ‘payoff’ for using this form, for example perhaps explicitly setting the care worker off from older models of behaviour and constituting them as young. Here Hasegawa seems to be aligning herself with the older people who respond negatively to this new usage.
Deutscher pinpoints the ideological nature of discussions of linguistic decline; he argues that when theorists or commentators discuss the ‘decline’ of a language, they are inevitably discussing what they see as the decline of the society as a whole: ‘[A]ll the signs seem to point to a Golden Age lying somewhere in the twilight of prehistory … when languages were graced with perfectly formed structures, especially with elaborate arrays of endings on words. But at some subsequent stage … the forces of destruction were unleashed on the languages and began battering the carefully crafted edifices, wearing away all those endings’ (Deutscher, Reference Deutscher2005: 7). It is because of this profoundly ideological view of the role of politeness as associated with the refinement of the middle classes, that when theorists and commentators make statements about the decline of English society, they tend to do this through the medium of commenting on politeness and impoliteness. Martin (Reference Martin2005: 17) in her Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour states that ‘only a strict code of manners can keep civilization from descending into chaos’ and while there is a fair degree of irony and post-modern self-reflexiveness throughout her guide, nevertheless it is clear that she is arguing for a strong link between everyday manners and the state of civilisation as a whole. She does not argue for harking back to a golden age, as she acknowledges that in the past there was a great deal of sexism and homophobia; yet at the same time it is clear in posing herself as a grandmother giving advice, she is perhaps recalling an era which she presumes paid more attention to manners. She gives advice to those who write to her column both in newspapers and on-line, and she advises on events where readers assume that there is a clear rule for correct behaviour. Most of the time she refers them to the way people behaved in the past, and particularly the way that those from the elite behaved in the past. Her advice concerns itself with curbing the free expression of emotion or needs and curbing what she deems baser emotions; she states: ‘A child who is able to express his true feelings without restraints of conventions is a menace to society’ (ibid: 61). She argues against the belief that politeness is concerned with being put upon rather than being assertive, which she sees as a current trend; she also argues against what she sees as a change towards more informal behaviour, for she says: ‘I am appalled by this rudeness which passes for casualness or friendliness’ (ibid: 107), for she says ‘reticence and modesty are no longer considered the virtues they once were’ (ibid: 116). In short, ‘Miss Manners believes that civilised society as we know it will come to an end on the day the present fourth graders are let loose upon the world’ (ibid: 85).
There are frequent publications on the issue of the decline of politeness in relation to a decline in civilisation. For example, Debrett's, which describes itself as ‘Britain's leading experts on manners and etiquette’, has published a guide to British etiquette which it describes as ‘Debrett's first book defining modern manners in over a decade’ and a ‘comprehensive review of traditional codes of conduct’ (Reference Debrett's2008). Many of the entries in its guide to everyday etiquette are concerned with describing the ‘correct’ behaviour of the aristocracy. For example, under the heading ‘dress codes’, the guide states: ‘Special occasions in Britain often require a multitude of different dress codes. For private events such as parties, balls etc., the dress code will usually be stated on the invitation. Public events – for example, Royal Ascot, Henley Royal Regatta – vary in formality and the required dress code often depends on what type of ticket or enclosure badge you have. Dress codes are strictly observed in Britain – failure to comply would be considered rude or, at worse, you would be refused entry to the event.’ The guide then goes on to list the events where black tie, white tie and morning dress are appropriate. This clearly only applies to upper-class and upper-middle-class events, although the guide is aimed at the general reader.
This publication covers a wide range of other topics, such as chivalry. Debrett's states: ‘Historically, chivalry was seen as an integral, and indispensable, feature of the British “gentleman”. Throughout history and literature, flawless manners and polite masculinity were the defining characteristics of the British gent. Today, however, men face the tricky challenge of adapting traditional gestures to fit in with modern Britain's more relaxed ways. Chivalry may be the courteous behaviour of a man towards a woman, but when is it out-dated and patronising, and when is it appropriate and well-mannered? New Chivalry is all about the natural gesture, striking a balance between treating a woman like a lady, but respecting her independence.’ Thus, Debrett's draws attention to the fact that politeness and etiquette are associated with a particular class position, signified by the gentleman, and also that this style of behaviour is often seen by others as out-dated.
Debrett's comments: ‘In a society where behaviour is becoming increasingly loud and brash, we need to preserve politeness as the vital ingredient in the cocktail of manners that makes our world a better place; somewhere where basic survival is finessed into a more subtle pleasure. So bring back the doffing of hats, bring back the polite boardroom, let's have unisex chivalry’ (Debrett's, Reference Debrett's2008). In an article about the publication of the Debrett's guide and in response to training offered by Debrett's on manners, Sarah Rainey in The Daily Telegraph commented that in a poll of business managers, 77 per cent of executives ‘thought that social skills were worse than 20 years ago, while 72% said mobiles encouraged rudeness’ (Rainey, Reference Rainey2013). Further, The Daily Telegraph published Debrett's guide to using your mobile phone as a series of 10 ‘rules’; for example, ‘watch your language’, ‘never shout’, ‘take notice of who is around you’. McCartney (Reference McCartney2013) also wrote about Debrett's guide in The Daily Telegraph; she wrote that when someone sent her a thank you card after a meal, ‘the children and I practically danced around it, like bug-eyed peasants upon receipt from 16th century royalty’, again pointing out the association of formal polite behaviour with classed behaviour.
These examples thus demonstrate that it is a fairly common trope to discuss what commentators feel is a decline in moral standards by charting what they believe to be a decline or change in politeness norms and behaviour, usually from what are perceived to be aristocratic/middle-class to working-class norms.
4.9 Conclusion
This chapter has drawn attention to the consistent ideological representation of middle-class politeness norms as national politeness norms which are evaluated positively. Linguistic behaviour stereotypically associated with the working class is negatively evaluated and associated with impoliteness. I have argued throughout this chapter on the importance of foregrounding class as a variable in the analysis of politeness.
