Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metal...

Electronic data

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metalanguage: A case study on Shakespeare's plays

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published

Standard

A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metalanguage: A case study on Shakespeare's plays. / Oliver, Sam.
In: Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 199, 31.10.2022, p. 6-20.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Harvard

APA

Vancouver

Oliver S. A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metalanguage: A case study on Shakespeare's plays. Journal of Pragmatics. 2022 Oct 31;199:6-20. Epub 2022 Jul 18. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.07.001

Author

Bibtex

@article{ded200634ad944c0bcab5ce160039f38,
title = "A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metalanguage: A case study on Shakespeare's plays",
abstract = "In their criticisms of traditional theories of politeness, Watts et al. (2005 [1992]) and Eelen (2001) call for first-order approaches to (im)politeness. While their {\textquoteleft}discursive approach{\textquoteright} has faced its own criticisms, one useful strand which has emerged from this research is a focus on how (im)politeness is evaluated and discussed. However, compared to other approaches to (im)politeness, such language has received little attention. Studies on (im)politeness metalanguage also often preselect lexical items for analysis, for instance {\textquoteleft}polite{\textquoteright}, {\textquoteleft}rude{\textquoteright}, and {\textquoteleft}courtesy{\textquoteright}. Likewise, there is still a near vacuum in historical and stylistic aspects of (im)politeness metalanguage. This paper broadly contributes to (im)politeness (meta)pragmatics by establishing a method for inductively locating (im)politeness metalinguistic items in a corpus, specifically employing a corpus of Shakespeare's plays, and in doing so locates a total of 234 (im)politeness metalinguistic forms with a collective total of 4,023 instances in a corpus of 1 million words. This study then identifies semantic patterns in how these terms are used by arranging them into five second-order categories, reflecting on previous (im)politeness literature. Finally, the study briefly considers the potential that this approach has for (im)politeness research, as well as this data in particular for stylistic and historical interests in (im)politeness.",
keywords = "(im)politeness, (im)politeness metalanguage, metapragmatics, first-order (im)politeness, historical pragmatics, shakespeare",
author = "Sam Oliver",
year = "2022",
month = oct,
day = "31",
doi = "10.1016/j.pragma.2022.07.001",
language = "English",
volume = "199",
pages = "6--20",
journal = "Journal of Pragmatics",
issn = "0378-2166",
publisher = "ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - A corpus-based approach to (im)politeness metalanguage

T2 - A case study on Shakespeare's plays

AU - Oliver, Sam

PY - 2022/10/31

Y1 - 2022/10/31

N2 - In their criticisms of traditional theories of politeness, Watts et al. (2005 [1992]) and Eelen (2001) call for first-order approaches to (im)politeness. While their ‘discursive approach’ has faced its own criticisms, one useful strand which has emerged from this research is a focus on how (im)politeness is evaluated and discussed. However, compared to other approaches to (im)politeness, such language has received little attention. Studies on (im)politeness metalanguage also often preselect lexical items for analysis, for instance ‘polite’, ‘rude’, and ‘courtesy’. Likewise, there is still a near vacuum in historical and stylistic aspects of (im)politeness metalanguage. This paper broadly contributes to (im)politeness (meta)pragmatics by establishing a method for inductively locating (im)politeness metalinguistic items in a corpus, specifically employing a corpus of Shakespeare's plays, and in doing so locates a total of 234 (im)politeness metalinguistic forms with a collective total of 4,023 instances in a corpus of 1 million words. This study then identifies semantic patterns in how these terms are used by arranging them into five second-order categories, reflecting on previous (im)politeness literature. Finally, the study briefly considers the potential that this approach has for (im)politeness research, as well as this data in particular for stylistic and historical interests in (im)politeness.

AB - In their criticisms of traditional theories of politeness, Watts et al. (2005 [1992]) and Eelen (2001) call for first-order approaches to (im)politeness. While their ‘discursive approach’ has faced its own criticisms, one useful strand which has emerged from this research is a focus on how (im)politeness is evaluated and discussed. However, compared to other approaches to (im)politeness, such language has received little attention. Studies on (im)politeness metalanguage also often preselect lexical items for analysis, for instance ‘polite’, ‘rude’, and ‘courtesy’. Likewise, there is still a near vacuum in historical and stylistic aspects of (im)politeness metalanguage. This paper broadly contributes to (im)politeness (meta)pragmatics by establishing a method for inductively locating (im)politeness metalinguistic items in a corpus, specifically employing a corpus of Shakespeare's plays, and in doing so locates a total of 234 (im)politeness metalinguistic forms with a collective total of 4,023 instances in a corpus of 1 million words. This study then identifies semantic patterns in how these terms are used by arranging them into five second-order categories, reflecting on previous (im)politeness literature. Finally, the study briefly considers the potential that this approach has for (im)politeness research, as well as this data in particular for stylistic and historical interests in (im)politeness.

KW - (im)politeness

KW - (im)politeness metalanguage

KW - metapragmatics

KW - first-order (im)politeness

KW - historical pragmatics

KW - shakespeare

U2 - 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.07.001

DO - 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.07.001

M3 - Journal article

VL - 199

SP - 6

EP - 20

JO - Journal of Pragmatics

JF - Journal of Pragmatics

SN - 0378-2166

ER -