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3.2. Politeness as a universal variable in cross-cultural communication

The attention within pragmatics towards politeness theory over recent decades has resulted in a vast and varied literature. Indeed, linguistic politeness theory can almost be considered an independent branch of pragmatics; more specifically, it constitutes a social approach to pragmatics, rather than a cognitive approach (such as in relevance theory). Thomas (1995) enumerates a variety of sets of phenomena for which theories of politeness have been used: politeness as (1) a real-world goal; (2) as deference; (3) as register; (4) as a surface level phenomenon; (5) as an illocutionary phenomenon (1995: 149). The approach to politeness discussed in the present chapter falls within the fifth sub-class. However, even in this subset, various areas can be identified. Thus, Thomas (1995) following Fraser (1990) has gone on to distinguish between:

1. Politeness explained in terms of principles and maxims (Leech 1983)

2. Politeness and the management of face (Brown and Levinson 1987)