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Ideology and (Im)politeness

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The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness

Abstract

In this chapter, Manfred Kienpointner and Maria Stopfner examine the manifold interrelationship of two scientifically much disputed concepts: ideology and (Im)politeness. Providing a condensed overview of the conceptual history of the term, ‘ideology‘, a non-pejorative concept of ideology as common sense is assumed, in order to describe the different perspectives taken with a view to (Im)politeness. After a critical review of the first wave theories of (Im)politeness, the authors establish a typology including ideologies of the folk theories of (Im)politeness, based on concepts such as class, gender or ethnicity, as well as ideologies within the scientific theories of (Im)politeness, such as the ideology of rationalisation. The systematic classification of the implicit ideological assumptions within these theories serves to clarify the relationship between ideology and (Im)politeness.

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Kienpointner, M., Stopfner, M. (2017). Ideology and (Im)politeness. In: Culpeper, J., Haugh, M., Kádár, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_4

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