Politeness and Impoliteness Strategies: An Analysis of Gender Differences in Geralyn l. Horton's Plays

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the speeches in six one-act plays by an American woman playwright, Geralyn L. Horton, to examine the gender differences in impolite acts. In the analysis of impoliteness, two classifications are taken as basis: types of strategies are classified according to the conventionalized impoliteness formulae and implicational impoliteness in Culpeper's latest book, Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence; responses to impoliteness are classified within the framework in Bousfield'sImpoliteness in Interaction. The findings show that men use more impoliteness than women in their speech, and the frequency rates of the types of strategies deployed by men and women show differences.Keywords

• Impoliteness strategies; 
• gender differences; 
• Geralyn L. Horton; 
• American women dramatists

References

• Brown, 1980

• Brown, P. (1980). How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. In S. McConnell-Ginet, R. Borker, & N. Furman (Eds.), Women and language in literature and society (pp. 111-136). New York: Praeger.

• Brown and Levinson, 1987

• Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Brown and Gilman, 1989

• Brown, R. and Gilman A., (1989) Politeness Theory and Shakespeare's Four Major Tragedies .Language in Society, Vol.18,No:2 pp159-212 Bousfield, D.;1; (2006)) The Grand Debate: Where next for politeness research? Culture, Language and Representation Vol. III: 9-16 Bousfield, D.;1; (2008) Impoliteness in Interaction, Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing Company.

• Coates and Jennifer/Cameron, 1998

• Coates, Jennifer/Cameron, Deborah. (eds.) (1998): Women in Their Speech Communities. London: Longman.

• Cooper, 1998

• Cooper, M.M. (1998). Implication, convention and The Taming of the Shrew. In Culpeper, J; Short, M.; Verdonkt, P. (eds) Exploring the Language of Drama: From text to context. London: Routledge.

• Culpeper, 1996

• Culpeper, J. (1996). Toward an Anatomy of Impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics25:349-67.

• Culpeper, 1998

• Culpeper, J. (1998). (Im) politeness in dramatic dialogue. In Culpeper, J; Short, M.; Verdonkt, P. (eds) Exploring the Language of Drama: From text to context. London: Routledgea.

• Culpeper, 2001

• Culpeper, J. (2001). Language and Characterization: People in Plays and Other Texts. London: Longman.

• Culpeper, 2005

• Culpeper, J. (2005). Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1: 35-72.

• Culpeper, 2011

• Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Culpeper et al., 2003

• Culpeper, J., Bousefield, D. and Wichmann, A. (2003) Impoliteness revisited: with special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1545-1579.

• Goffman, 1967

• Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York: Doubleday.

• Grice, 1975

• Grice, P. (1975).’Logic and conversation’. In: Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. pp. 41-58.

• Holmes, 1995

• Holmes, J. (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman.

• Horton, 2002

• Horton, G.L. (2002). Under Cover. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012 Horton, G.L.;1; (2003). Happy Hour. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012 Horton, G.L.;1; (2008). The Dark Side. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012.

• Horton, 2010

• Horton, G.L. (2010). Party,Party: Tea and Antipathy. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012 Horton, G.L.;1; (2010). On Speaking Terms. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012.

• Horton, 2011

• Horton, G.L. (2011). Kiss the Twins for Me. Retrieved from http://www.stagepage.info/oneactplayscripts/_oneact.html on Apr.2nd, 2012.

• Lakoff, 1973a

• Lakoff, R. (1973a.)’The logic of politeness: or, minding your p's and q's’. In: C. Corum et al.,eds., Papers from the ninth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago Linguistic Society. pp. 292-305.

• Lakoff, 1973b

• Lakoff, R. (1973b). Language and woman's place, Language in Society. 2, 45-80.

• Leech, 1992

• Leech, G. (1992), Pragmatic principles in Shaw's You never can tell: in Toolan, M. ed., Language, text and context: essays in stylistics, London, Routledge, 259-278.

• Magnusson, 1992

• Magnusson, L. (1992). The Rhetoric of Politeness in Henry XIII. Shakespeare Quarterly Winter 1992, 43,4. pp. 391-409.

• Mills and S, 2003

• Mills, S (2003). Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• O’Barr and Atkins, 1980

• O’Barr, W.M., & Atkins, B.K. (1980). Women's language” or “powerless language? In S. McConnell-Ginet, N. Borker, & R. Thurman (eds.), Women and Language in Literature and Society, New York: Praeger, 93-110.

• Tannen, 1990

• Tannen, D. (1990). You just Don’t Understand. New York: Ballentine Books Watts, R.;1; (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

☆Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Hafize Keser Ankara University, Turkey.Tel.: +21 765 3221.Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

2. •