Politeness, face and facework: Current issues

The main purpose of this paper is to consider some current issues in the study of linguistic politeness and its relation to the notions of face and facework. These notions have received a myriad of different definitions in pragmatics and sociolinguistics during the last decades. On the basis of the examination of some definitions, it is concluded that the notions of politeness and face should not be equated. In addition, it is stated that the commonsense and the theoretical notions of politeness should be distinguished. The paper also briefly discusses the relationship between epistemic meanings and meanings, related to facework.

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