Introduction: Impoliteness definitions

Surveying a recent volume of papers on impoliteness, the editors conclude ‘there is no solid agreement in the chapters as to what “impoliteness” actually is’ (Locher and Bousfield 2008: 3). As the following quotations illustrate, there is no commonly accepted definition of impoliteness:

1. (1) The lowest common denominator [underlying definitions of impoliteness in Bousfield and Locher 2008] can be summarized like this: Impoliteness is behaviour that is face-aggravating in a particular context. (Locher and Bousfield 2008: 3)

2. (2) [rude behaviour] does not utilise politeness strategies where they would be expected, in such a way that the utterance can only almost plausibly be interpreted as intentionally and negatively confrontational. (Lakoff 1989: 103)

3. (3) …rudeness is defined as a face threatening act (FTA) – or feature of an FTA such as intonation – which violates a socially sanctioned norm of interaction of the social context in which it occurs. (Beebe 1995: 159)

4. (4) …impoliteness, communicative strategies designed to attack face, and thereby cause social conflict and disharmony … (Culpeper et al. 2003: 1546)

5. (5) Impoliteness comes about when: (1) the speaker communicates face-attack intentionally, or (2) the hearer perceives and/or constructs behaviour as intentionally face-attacking, or a combination of (1) and (2). (Culpeper 2005a: 38)

6. (6) …marked rudeness or rudeness proper occurs when the expression used is not conventionalised relative to the context of occurrence; following recognition of the speaker's face-threatening intention by the hearer, marked rudeness threatens the addressee's face … impoliteness occurs when the expression used is not conventionalised relative to the context of occurrence; it threatens the addressee's face … but no face-threatening intention is attributed to the speaker by the hearer. (Terkourafi 2008: 70)

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