Rudeness, conceptual blending theory and relational work

Abstract

The present article takes a discursive approach to the topic of impoliteness, in which conceptualizations of impoliteness are construed in the process of real-time interaction. The term “discursive” refers neither to a conversational analytic approach to interaction nor to one which is derived from principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. It rests rather on lay members' ongoing interpretations of what constitutes inappropriate forms of behaviour rather than on a theoretical concept that we choose to label “impoliteness”. The article makes a case for rejecting the term “impoliteness” itself on two grounds: (a) that this term would only make it the mirror opposite of whatever is taken to be “politeness”, and (b) that lay members, if they comment on inappropriate behaviour at all, are more likely to use terms such as rude, offensive, or aggressive than impolite. If we wish to tease out evidence of such imputations in the absence of lexical items indexing behaviour from instantiations of oral interaction, we need to apply the insights of cognitive blending theory and to adapt that theory in such a way that it can account for differential conceptualizations of behaviour as inappropriate or not. In this sense, the article is intended as a contribution towards the wider theory of relational work which has emerged recently from politeness research.