On Cooperation and Im/politeness in French Interactions

Bibliographic Data

ID12865822
AuthorsRuth De Oliveira (0000-0003-0100-0259, University of Cape Town, corresponding author)
Year2021
Issue39
Pages41-55
Publication date2021-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies About Languages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1648-2824 • E-ISSN: 2029-7203
PublisherKaunas University of Technology (KTU) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5755/j01.sal.1.39.29953
OpenAlexW3217124409
LanguageEN
References cited19

In Culpeper’s (2009) extensive study of how impoliteness-related terms are used, especially in relation to people’s expectations in public-service contexts, the term “french” occurs twice, along with “doorman,” “bouncer,” “bartender,” “waitress,” “waiter,” “yorker,” “staff.” Based on this, could one suppose that, in daily interactions in French, the principles of cooperation (Grice, 1975) and politeness come into conflict, leading to the characterization of speakers as impolite? If this is the case, why? How does it occur? Is this characterization specific to public-service contexts, or does it extend to other domains of social life? Aiming to provide answers to these questions, this study draws on the framework of conversation analysis using a socio-pragmatic approach (from Austin, 1962, to Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2010, and Culpeper, 2021). Guided by socio-cultural and historical factors (Bourdieu, 1984; La Bruyère, 1688), it explores the concept of linguistic im/politeness (Culpeper, 2009, 2021; Curtin, 1995; Meier, 1995) in its interaction with Grice’s (1975) principles of cooperation. To this end, we examine the ritual of greeting, in particular the exchange of “bonjour” in daily social interactions in a French-speaking context, using an authentic data corpus (Reddit, 2014). The results of our analysis show that, in certain situations, when the symmetry of this ritual is broken and the act fails, French speakers attribute to what is understood as politeness a rating higher than they do to cooperation, giving rise to the opposite phenomenon, impoliteness

Context (archaeology · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Grice · Linguistics · Politeness · Pragmatics · Relation (database · Social relation · Sociology · Computer Science · History · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · linguistics and terminology studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Translation Studies and Practices

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