ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of (im)politeness theories developing from the pragmatic theories of Grice and the neo-Gricean and post-Gricean approaches which developed from his work. Early work, including the particularly influential work of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, referred to the notion of ‘face’ taken from the work of Erving Goffman and focused on ways in which communicative behaviour aims to avoid ‘face-threatening acts’. More recent work acknowledged that all interactive behaviour is more or less polite and that behaviour sometimes aims implicitly or explicitly to threaten face. It also focuses on questions about linguistic and cultural variation, on how understanding develops during interactions, and on the distinction between ‘Politeness 1’ (which refers to the evaluations and attitudes of participants) and ‘Politeness 2’ (which refers to the views of observers or theorists).
