A review of politeness

This paper seeks to review the development of research in the area of politeness over the years. Traced back to, at least, Goffman’s (1967) conceptualisation of face, politeness has not only picked up since, but it has also drawn considerable contestation amongst scholars owing to its intricacy. Here, I give an overview of the earlier and seminal works of Lakoff (1973) [Rules of Pragmatic Competence], Leech (1983) [Maxims of the Politeness Principle] and Brown and Levinson (1987) [Face-saving Model of Politeness], before terminating into the most current approaches, mainly characterised as the discursive approaches of politeness, whose notable proponents are Eelen (2001), Kadar and Bargiela-Chiappini (2011), Kadar and Haugh (2013) and Leech (2014). The discursive approaches break the mould by reflecting on politeness from this multi-pronged prism: universality vs culture-specific; longer fragments of speech; speaker vs hearer; interactants’ interpretations; and social practice. Building on this, I also offer my critique and propose modifications, including the following: focusing institutionalised politeness, politeness as a continuum and as a contextualised phenomenon. To conclude, I consider politeness not only intricate but also potentially open-ended. I hope, thus, this review contributes towards a more holistic and critical understanding of the concept and phenomenon of politeness