6.1 Introduction

In this final chapter, I describe how, in post-Brown and Levinson theorising, we can best theorise politeness and impoliteness and what implications this type of materialist discursive theorising has for our analysis. I note what implications this has for our analysis of the relationship between culture and politeness. I also consider whether it is possible to discuss British-English politeness at all and what the relationship between class and notions of British-English politeness hold for individuals when they interact in particular contexts.

6.2 Ways Forward for Politeness Research

I have argued that politeness research needs to consider more carefully the way that it theorises politeness and impoliteness. Theorists need to consider the class-based provenance of the politeness norms they are describing and which group's language is stereotypically reflected and embodied in those norms. It is important for us to focus on the norms which inform an individual's production of ‘polite’ language and their evaluation of other's language. Queer theory has helped in making that which positions itself as invisible and as a norm to become visible (Zimman et al., Reference Zimman, David and Raclaw2014). This type of deconstructive theorising also helps in the process of ‘checking privilege’, because that which is positioned as commonsensical and ‘normal’ is often held in place by invisible advantage for some and exclusion for others.

As politeness theorists, we need also to focus on the work that politeness does in marking boundaries between social groups, rather than assuming that politeness is simply centred on being considerate and impoliteness is centred around being offensive. Just as Mugglestone (Reference Mugglestone2007) has described the class-based nature of the linguistic ideologies underlying the judgements made about the moral and aesthetic values of accents and dialects, we should analyse those linguistic ideologies as they inform the judgements made about politeness. If politeness and impoliteness are evaluations and ideological in nature, then our focus needs to turn to those ideologies first, before we analyse manifestations of what we take to be politeness itself in interaction. Our focus will need to be on the evaluations made by individuals and groups and we need to recognise that those judgements are themselves generated at a social level, rather than simply at the level of the individual.

It is important to recognise that these politeness norms are not universally evaluated in the same way across social groups. Therefore, when we have isolated a feature such as self-deprecation or reserve as a quintessentially British-English politeness resource, we should not assume that it is always deployed by interactants positively, nor is it understood consistently by others. Therefore, while we need to focus on resources and norms which appear to inform interactants' expression and evaluations, we also need to not simply rely on our own gut feelings about what a particular element means in context. We need to interview interactants and discover from them what the function of a particular element is for them in that context (van der Bom and Mills, Reference van der Bom and Mills2015).

6.3 Norms, Stereotypes and Ideologies

With our focus on non-elite groups, we can then perhaps make tentative generalisations about the various norms and forms of language circulating, contested and affirmed within societies. Thus, although I have argued that it is no longer possible to generalise about English politeness and impoliteness as a whole, since what we are describing is in fact an ideology of middle-class politeness norms, we can take a meta-level analysis to describe the process whereby stereotypes and resources come to be regarded as self-evidently appropriate by individuals and groups. We can analyse the way that gender, age and class are factors in the construction of particular forms of polite behaviour, and that politeness in its turn constructs those boundaries dividing off males and females, young and old, middle and working classes. These features are drawn on by individuals in the process of constructing themselves as particular types of subject. Politeness norms can be seen as stereotypical hypotheses, but these nevertheless inform individuals' linguistic behaviour and their interpretation of language. In this way, politeness norms can be seen as an interactive resource. In describing these norms we can describe the resources that individuals within groups have at their disposal. These resources, as I have explained, are not agreed upon by all or evaluated by all in the same way. But in aligning themselves or distancing themselves from the resources which are assumed to be at play within an interaction, participants can construct for themselves a particular position or stance within the group.

Stereotypes and norms about British-English politeness can be readily accessed, as I have indicated throughout this book. We can see these stereotypes and norms at work in the extracts I have included from etiquette manuals, since all of the writers seem to be drawing on the same set of features when they are describing British-English politeness. We can also detect these stereotypes at work when we consider humorous representations of English politeness; even in mocking the stereotypes, they are nevertheless kept in circulation. Respondents to a questionnaire about British-English politeness I distributed also seemed very aware of what exactly constituted English politeness and how it contrasted with the politeness norms of other languages. They could give anecdotal evidence of conversations which illustrated the differences between, say, French politeness and English politeness. While this is interesting, such accounts of British-English politeness do not take into account all of the other non-stereotypical ways that British people have for being polite or impolite. Politeness theorists themselves also have a very clear idea that British English politeness is fundamentally different from other politeness systems, and they again can readily provide evidence from data to support their claims. However, that is not sufficient. We need to recognise that these are stereotypes, and when we find them in data, we need to examine the richness of the data, encompassing as it does both this stereotypically polite data and other more contradictory elements which do not conform to our assumptions about politeness. Furthermore, I have argued that we can trace the force of these stereotypes in the effect they have on an individual's linguistic production and their evaluation of what counts as polite or impolite. However, we need to be aware that these are stereotypes – they are not an accurate representation of the way that individuals speak; however, they do have a profound impact on what interactants consider appropriate, and what they see as available as a resource.

6.4 Context

A materialist discursive approach is thus concerned, not with making sweeping generalisations about the language use of a group as a whole, but rather with examining the uses that individuals within Communities of Practice, make of the politeness resources that they consider to be available to them. As I have shown, in the analysis of the data from the Great British Bake Off, the language production of individuals within particular contexts seems to be driven largely by the linguistic norms which appear to be in place in that context, rather than by their individual choices. All of the contestants consistently used self-deprecation, and they used it to achieve a range of conversational and individual ends. But these individual aims were set within the context of the Community of Practice (CoP) norms, and these seem to have drawn on the values indirectly indexed by stereotypical British-English politeness. Thus, our focus on contextual analysis needs to consistently reference the norms not of the individual only, but those of the CoP, developed within the context of wider social norms.

6.5 Non-Elite Groups and Politeness

Theorists should therefore move away from simply analysing middle-class interactions and should focus on the analysis of a range of behaviours from and associated with different classes. Politeness cannot simply be reduced to the analysis of stereotypical middle-class politeness. As politeness theorists, we should consider middle-class norms of politeness and the way that these class-based evaluations inform interaction, but we also need to consider the way that non-elite groups manage relational work, both drawing on these middle-class norms and rejecting them. If we are not to characterise working-class and non-elite groups' interactions as necessarily deviant – impolite, boorish – then perhaps we will need to focus on the way that individuals within these groups negotiate with the resources of politeness and impoliteness. Thus, following Snell's (Reference Snell2013a,b) example, we can focus on the way that working-class groups use what would conventionally within a middle-class framework be considered politeness and impoliteness for particular effects. We might, in addition, consider which contexts and for what effects more conventionally middle-class norms of politeness are also used by these groups.¹ It is also important where interaction is across classes or within classes that this should be signalled and the significance of class should be foregrounded, where it appears to be salient.

Politeness research needs to move away from its focus on middle-class interactions and its assumptions about what functions politeness has within these contexts. We should recognise that the resources of politeness and impoliteness, while relatively stable, have a range of different interpretations and effects within particular contexts. By turning our attention away from middle-class subjects, we might discover the way that the resources of politeness are used creatively by non-elite interactants.

6.6 Politeness as Indexing Social Position

Politeness therefore needs to be seen as not only a display of one's concern for others (empathy with them, respect for them) but also a means of indexing one's social position in relation to them, and one's position in relation to the social group as a whole. All of these elements are always in play, along with many others, when individuals draw on the resources of politeness and impoliteness. In addition, by using what is recognised as politeness, one indicates one's sense of one's position within a social group and one's relation to that wider social group and its moral values. By using forms which are considered within a particular context to be appropriate, one is setting oneself in a particular relation to that social group.

6.7 Definition of Politeness

As will have been noted throughout this book, the difficulties in defining politeness are legion. Christie (Reference Christie2013: x) argues that ‘for politeness research to take place at all it is necessary to be able to use the abstract term “politeness” as though the writer and reader were able to assign a meaningful concept to that term. At some level then, a tacit acceptance of a second order notion of politeness is a necessary precondition of any politeness research, and in particular of politeness research that engages with cultural difference. This may actually mean that research into politeness across cultures, in resting on such a precarious axiom, is itself a precarious enterprise.’ I would agree wholeheartedly about the precariousness of the type of assertions which we can make about politeness from a materialist discursive approach. Thus, within this model of politeness, it would seem as if we cannot come to a simple definition of politeness at all. However, it is clear that individuals use the term politeness themselves and evaluate politeness in other people's speech, even though that definition of politeness may well not refer to the same type of behaviour or language, or behaviour which we, as analysts, would recognise as polite or impolite. Thus, what we can do, by approaching the study of politeness in this way, is deconstruct politeness, to make more visible the way that judgements of politeness and impoliteness are constructed from resources, which are themselves constituted from ideological beliefs. These judgements of politeness feel ‘common-sense’ or ‘natural’ to those who use them, as if they are just their own judgements and as if they were unproblematic. Nevertheless, it is our task as analysts to unpick the process whereby those ideologies about politeness become naturalised and draw attention to the instability of evaluations of politeness.

It is difficult to know exactly what politeness or evaluations actually mean for participants and how they contribute to establishing an individual's position within a group. Culpeper (Reference Culpeper2011a: 152) argues that ‘the impression discursive theorists give is of great instability of meaning and uncertainty in communication. This impression does not square with the intuitions we share with others in our communities about conventionalised meanings even out of context, nor with the evidence for a large amount of informational redundancy in … communication – all of which points to stability and certainty (though of course these can never be absolute).’ For Culpeper, meaning is relatively stable, but for a materialist discursive approach there is a greater focus on the way that stability or the illusion of stability are achieved, through the force of CoP norms and the norms circulating through stereotypical usages, which are positively or negatively evaluated. The individual positions themself either in alignment or in opposition to these stereotypical norms depending on the CoP and thus positions themselves in relation to the group and the wider society. Thus, judgements about and definitions of politeness and impoliteness should be recognised for the function they have in establishing positions within a hierarchy.

6.8 Culture and Politeness

As I have shown throughout this book, making generalisations about the politeness norms of a particular culture are fraught with difficulty (Kadar and Mills, Reference 137Kadar and Mills2013). The generalisations that have been made about British-English politeness draw on ideological beliefs about the British as a cultural group, and these are generally generalisations which have been made on the basis of stereotypical beliefs about middle-class behaviour. These stereotypes are drawn on by individuals when they interact with others, but they cannot be seen to represent the whole of polite or impolite behaviour of British/English people. Nor are they interpreted in a uniformly positive way. It is for this reason that we need to be extremely careful when generalising about British-English politeness, ensuring that we carefully scrutinise the stereotypical elements which inform our own judgements of interaction.

6.9 Conclusion

This way of thinking about politeness, the individual and their relationship to culture makes analysis of politeness and impoliteness far more complex and messy than in Brown and Levinson's approach. Certainly, generalising about English politeness as a whole is extremely difficult from this perspective. But instead we can view the resources of politeness being engaged with by interactants within particular contexts. However, ultimately, a materialist discursive approach, by focusing on the evaluations and ideologies associated with politeness, provides us with a richer sense of how interactants intend and interpret politeness. A focus on class highlights the way in which politeness functions as a marker, among other things, of class boundaries, and enables us to analyse the way that individuals align themselves with or distance themselves from particular class-based moral positions.