ISSN: 1750-8649 (print)
ISSN: 1750-8657 (online)
Sociolinguistic
Studies
Review
Research on politeness in the Spanish-speaking world.
María Elena Placencia and Carmen García (eds) (2007)
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. v + 442
ISBN 0–8058–5227–1
Reviewed by Julie M. Sykes and Carol A. Klee
The study of politeness in any language presents immense complexity and often
requires the incorporation of a multiplicity of theoretical approaches. This
volume successfully tackles these challenges by synthesizing existing politeness research in the Spanish-speaking world and, at the same time, offering
new insights into the field. In providing both a theoretical overview as well
as empirical analyses of new data, this compilation of work by well-known
researchers in pragmatics presents a comprehensive treatment of politeness
research on Spanish that comprises an important resource for both novices
and experts.
The volume is composed of four major sections and an introductory chapter
written by the editors that provides a theoretical orientation to the field. The
introductory chapter is an especially valuable summary of the various models
of politeness that have been developed and utilized by researchers. While the
focus of the volume is politeness in the Spanish-speaking world, the theoretical
summaries presented in the introductory chapter would also be useful for
researchers examining politeness in any language. Concise reviews of many
of the well-known (im)politeness models (e.g., Lakoff, Brown and Levinson,
Culpeper) as well as the less-commonly recognized approaches (e.g., Aston,
Affiliation
Both authors: University of Minnesota
email: [email protected]
Sols vol 1.3 2007 541–544
©2008, equinox publishing
doi : 10.1558/sols.v1i3.541
LONDON
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Ide) are included. These frame the reviews and studies presented throughout
the others sections of the book.
Following the introductory chapter, Part 1 – Overviews of Politeness Studies
includes comprehensive literature reviews of the politeness research being
carried out in a variety of Spanish-speaking regions. As noted by the editors, ‘the wide range of studies on politeness phenomena are, nonetheless,
dispersed in journals across three or more continents, making it difficult
to get a clear picture of the many different developments and findings’ (p.
xiii). Therefore, this section is intended to provide a much needed overview
by bringing together a wide range of previous studies on Spanish. In total,
Part I is made up of six chapters each reviewing politeness research that has
been carried out in a specific region. While the authors acknowledge that
geographic area is not the only (or necessarily the most accurate) manner to
distinguish different varieties of Spanish, they selected the regional approach
based on the current research being done in the field and the available scholarly resources. The chapters included in Part 1 are: 1. Peninsular Spanish
(Iglesias Recuero), 2. Argentinean and Uruguayan Spanish (Alba-Juez), 3.
Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian Spanish (Placencia), 4. Venezuelan
and Cuban Spanish (García), 5. Mexican Spanish (Curcó), and 6. Spanish of
the United States (Cashman). The reviews presented in this section accomplish the goal of synthesizing and compiling the research done in each of
these areas and suggesting gaps to be addressed by future research. They
present a well-rounded and thorough review of the work that has been
undertaken by Hispanists in the area of politeness. Chapter 6, which deals
specifically with politeness phenomena in Spanish of the United States, is an
especially interesting and useful addition to the compilation. Its inclusion
helps to establish the United States as a valid and important context for
politeness research in the area of Spanish pragmatics.
The second section of the book, Part 2: Empirical Studies of Politeness, includes
seven chapters, each of which details an original empirical study. The research
included in this section analyzes politeness in a variety of contexts (institutional
and non-institutional) as well as in five geographical contexts (Spain, Chile,
Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico). Each of these studies represents a
different theoretical perspective and methodology. This variation is insightful
because it demonstrates ways in which the different approaches discussed in
the introductory chapter and previous section can productively be applied to
data analysis in various communicative contexts.
Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 all examine politeness phenomena in institutional
contexts. In Chapter 7, Lorenzo-Dus analyzes conflictive conversation in a
Peninsular Spanish talk show (Carta Blanca), a context in which she notes
that impoliteness takes on an important role in maintaining and establish-
review: Placencia & García 543
ing the genre and managing relationships. In this case, she determines that
impoliteness is not necessarily inherent in utterances or determined only
by cultural context, but rather is established by the specific ways in which
members of this Community of Practice incorporate general politeness
practices into their interactions. Similarly, Carranza (Chapter 8) finds that
politeness management in the Argentinean courtroom is unique and tends
to adhere to the ideology of the specific situation and the social relations
and power relations inherent to it. She finds that (im)politeness operates on
a complex continuum in which different considerations are used to frame
interaction, either and/or in conjunction with the institutional expectations
or the individual participant frame of reference and position within the institution. In Chapter 9, Cordella analyzes non-compliance in doctor-patient
interaction in medical consultations in Santiago, Chile using data from a
corpus of 27 recorded interactions. Results demonstrate that doctors use a
number of different types of responses to non-compliance. These include
education, reprimand, and shows of disapproval. However, because the
politeness system appears to be dynamic and involves a range of variables,
the author submits that it would be difficult to predict when doctors will
use the potentially face-saving strategy (education) as opposed to the facethreatening act (reprimand, shows of disapproval). Finally, the politeness
strategies for requesting in service encounters (customers and vendors/
service providers) in Havana, Cuba are examined by Ruzickowa in Chapter
10. A quantitative analysis of the data demonstrates that positive politeness
strategies tend to be more prolific than negative politeness, but that both
are used for requesting in Cuban service encounters. Each of these studies
takes a distinct approach, yet together they demonstrate the importance of
the communicative context (especially in the case of institutional speech) in
determining what is ‘polite’ and what is ‘impolite.’ Also noteworthy is the use
of naturally-occurring conversation data for analysis, a practice that is often
underutilized in pragmatics research.
The second segment of the empirical section includes two studies of politeness
phenomena in non-institutional contexts – social interactions in Colombian
Spanish (Fitch) and invitations in Argentinean Spanish (García). In Chapter 11,
Fitch examines the underlying cultural representation of participants as related
to ‘dilemmas of politeness.’ She notes two politeness dilemmas that speakers
are faced with in interaction – (1) Confianza vs. Authority and (2) Sincerity vs.
Appropriateness – and provides an ethnographically researched analysis of how
these dilemmas are mitigated in interaction by speakers. Finally, in Chapter 12,
García presents a qualitative analysis of informal invitations in Argentinean
Spanish. Her results reveal that solidarity-building strategies were preferred by
the participants overall, yet deference strategies are also utilized in invitation
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sequences. Comparisons of differential strategy use according to gender as well
as an analysis of different stages of the invitation interaction are also included.
The final chapter of Part II examines the unique role of silence for politeness in
Zapotec interactions as compared to Spanish (Schrader-Kniffki). The author
analyzes the various functions silence conveys in interaction as well as how the
use of silence is evolving, likely because of contact with the Spanish language
and culture in Mexico. This chapter is an especially interesting glimpse of how
politeness is mitigated and managed in language contact situations.
Part III of the volume offers an insightful perspective on politeness (Fant) in
which the author addresses the importance of rapport and identity management
as applied to Spanish data. In this section, the author examines the complexities
of politeness in terms of membership and identity, face, individuality, turns
vs. voices, agenda, territory, mitigation and aggravation. This chapter adds an
additional layer of complexity to the politeness research in providing another
theoretical approach for systematic analysis. It enhances our understanding
of the complexity of politeness research in any arena, including the Spanishspeaking world.
In the final section of the book, the editors provide an insightful commentary and synthesis of the theoretical and empirical issues highlighted in
the volume. In doing so, they situate the research being done by Hispanists
within the field of politeness research in general, provide insight into current
issues being debated in the field, and offer an extensive agenda for future
research in this area.
Overall, this volume presents a clear representation of politeness research
in the Spanish-speaking world that is congruent with the type of work being
done internationally. It is a valuable tool for those just beginning their journey
into politeness research and serves as an important reference for those already
involved in studies in this area.