Interaction and impoliteness: a pragmatic view

Abstract

The balance of an interaction may depend on how participants react to conflicts that arise during the conversation. From the moment the interaction begins, there is a game of different interests and, even intuitively, the speaker and interlocutor negotiate in order to achieve a certain balance. In general, it is the balance that characterizes interactions, even though there are times when one or both parts want the conflict. It is known that it is risky to state that a given interaction is or is not impolite, because, depending on various factors, such as context, power relationship and social distance between the interlocutors as well as the degree of imposition of the directive act, hence a given interaction that may be apparently discourteous, it may not properly be impolite. In line with Fuentes Rodriguez and Brenes Peña (2013), we consider that there are two extremes, politeness and impoliteness, between which there is a gradual continuum that needs to be observed. Our objective is to make considerations about these two extremes, based on two models: Brown and Levinson (1987) and Culpeper (1996).