The pragmatic view of politeness

The classic, and most frequently cited, politeness studies lean heavily towards a pragmatic view. From roughly the late 1970s to the early 2000s, politeness theories have concentrated on how we employ communicative strategies to maintain or promote social harmony (e.g. Leech 1983: 82; Brown and Levinson 1987: 1). Thomas (1995: 179) neatly summarizes the research agenda of scholars engaged in the study of pragmatic politeness:

All that is really being claimed is that people employ certain strategies (including the 50+ strategies described by Leech, Brown and Levinson, and others) for reasons of expediency – experience has taught us that particular strategies are likely to succeed in given circumstances, so we use them.

In our dinner table scenario, an example would be selecting a pragmatic strategy in order to achieve the goals of both being passed something and maintaining “social equilibrium” and “friendly relations” (Leech 1983: 82) despite inconveniencing the target of our request. For example, could you pass the salt please may be more expedient in this sense at a formal dinner event than pass the salt. We take pragmatic strategy here to mean a conventional means of achieving the goals of a participant.

Given the dominance of the pragmatic view in politeness research, we will devote the next section to outlining classic theories positioned within it.