IMPOLITENESS AS AN IDENTITY MARKER
Giacomo Ferrari
Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy
Abstract
Politeness and impoliteness as communication strategies have been investigated in different ways and with different theoretical approaches since the sixties. The different theoretical accounts are not completely homogeneous with one another, but a proposal will be made to integrate them in a single model consisting in three layers, a “semantic”, a strategic and conversational, and a lexical one. This harmonisation is necessary to motivate different types of impoliteness as violation of one or more layers. In particular, two cultural communities, Naples and Livorno, are examined, in which impoliteness is not only ordinarily practised, but also adopted as cultural identity markers, which people are proud of, although they are also able to practise ordinary politeness. These two examples show the impact of cultural aspects on the very notion of politeness as well as on the different types of impoliteness. In fact, although the two towns share some aspects of their history and of their social structure, they practise two different types of impoliteness, violating different layers of the model proposed.
Keywords: Politeness; Impoliteness; Cultural markers; Social motivation of impoliteness; Historical motivation of impoliteness.
References
Allen, J. F., & Perrault, C. R: (1980). Analyzing intention in utterances. Artificial Intelligence, 15, 143-178.
Arndt, H., & Janney, R. W. (1985). Politeness revisited: Cross-modal supportive strategies. IRAL: International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 23(4), 281-300. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.1985.23.1-4.281
Brown, P. (2015). Politeness and language. In International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., Vol. 18, pp. 326-330). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53072-4
Brown, P., Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge University Press.
Cadot, Y. (2020). Les formes contraintes au Japon (kata): formatage ou émancipation de l’individu? Des pratiques à la vie sociale. In F. Heuser, G. Touya, A. Terrisse (Eds.), Formation, sports de combat et arts martiaux. (pp. 59-70). Presses de l’Université Toulouse 1 Capitole.
Cambridge Dictionary. (2025). ignorance. Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org
Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 25, 349-367. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00014-3
Culpeper, J. (2005). Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show. The Weakest Link. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture, 1, 35-72. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.35
Culpeper, J., & Terkourafi, M. (2017). Pragmatic approaches (im)politenss. In J. Culpeper, M. Haugh, & D.Z. Kádár (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of linguistic (im)politeness (pp. 11-39). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_2
Culpeper, J., Hardaker, C. (2017). Impoliteness. In J. Culpeper, M. Haugh, & D.Z. Kádár (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of linguistic (im)politeness (pp. 199-225). Palgrave Macmillan:. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7
Daniele, P. (1980). A me me piace ‘o blues. Nero a Metà [Album].
DaPersonalizzare. (2024). Cazzima t-shirt. Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://www.dapersonalizzare.it
Eelen, G. (2001). A critique of politeness theoriesSt. Jerome’s Press.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025). Naples. Retrieved January 28, 2025, from https://www.britannica.com
FacciaUbo. (2024). Heart, courage and cazzimma. Retrieved January 28, 2025, from https://www.facciaubo.com
Fagliano, M. (2020). Manuale di Cazzimma: Corso pratico e divertente.
Favilla, C. (2018). “Deh!”. In Livorno non stop, 32 (646), 15-16.[1]
Ferdinando I de’ Medici. (n.d.). Costituzione livornine. LiberLiber. Retrieved January 28, 2025, from https://liberliber.it/
Goffman, E. (1956). The nature of deference and demeanor. American Anthropologist, 58(3), 473-502. https://doi.org/10.1525/AA.1956.58.3.02A00070
Hill, B., Ide, S., Ikuta, S., Kawasaki, A., & Ogino, T. (1986). Universals of linguistics politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 10, 347-371. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(86)90006-8
Ide, S. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness. Multilingua, 8(2-3), 223–248. https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223
Il Tirreno. (2012, April 14). Livorno. Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://www.iltirreno.it/livorno/cronaca/2012/04/14/
Kasper, G. (1990). Linguistic politeness: Current research issues. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 193-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90080-W
Lakoff, R. (1973). The logic of politeness: Or, minding your p’s and q’s. In C. Corum, T. Cedric Smith-Stark, & A. Weiser (Eds.), Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. (pp. 292–305). Chicago Linguistic Society.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Linguistic theory and the real world. Language Learning, 25(2), 309-338. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1975.tb00249.x
Leech, G. (1980). Explorations in semantics and pragmatics. John Benjamins.
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. Longman.
Lopez, S. (1898, 16-17 April 1898). Livorno e i Livornesi. Il Telegrafo.
Mills, S. (2009), Impoliteness in a cultural context. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(5), 1047-1060. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.014
NapoliMania. (2025). Online souvenir shop. Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://www.napolimania.com
Parlando di Sport. (n.d.). Retrieved July 28, 2025, from https://www.parlandodisport.it
Raffone, S. (2023), Livorno – cacciucco di pesci, cacciucco di genti. ETS. [2]
Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Clarendon. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198239727.001.0001
Terkourafi, M. (2005). An argument for a frame-based approach to politeness: Evidence from the use of the imperative in Cypriot Greek. In R.T. Lakoff, & S. Ide (Eds.), Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness (99-116), John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.139.10ter
Watts, R. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge University Press.
Watts, R.J., Ide, S., Ehlich, K. (Eds.) (1992). Politeness in language. Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199819
How to cite this article: Ferrari, G. (2025). Nuances of (im)politeness: Impoliteness as an identity marker. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 18(2), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2025.18.2.2
For details on subscription, go to: http://jolie.uab.ro/index.php?pagina=-&id=19&l=en