Pragmatics and Linguistic Politeness

Politeness research is a relatively young academic field. Politeness as a theory first gained serious scholarly interest in the 1970s with the work of Lakoff (1973), Leech (1977), and Brown and Levinson (1978) within the scope of pragmatics. A broad variety of politeness concepts necessitate some kind of evidence that the interactants pay attention to each other's feelings and concerns, and thus contribute appropriately in interaction. The scientific study of politeness as a linguistic phenomenon has been inspired by this objective. Therefore, a wide range of social sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, social psychology, sociology, and communication, have been interested in politeness aspects.The objective of politeness research is to systematically examine how we maintain good relations and avoid interpersonal conflict through the use of different linguistic rules and strategies that seek to establish smooth communication by minimising the disharmony and conflict that are inherent in human communication.