Politeness and off-record indirectness

• Autores: Maria Sifianou
• Localización: International journal of the sociology of language, ISSN 0165-2516, Nº. 126, 1997, págs. 163-179
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The view that politeness is the major motivation for indirectness has been very influential. Such accounts based on British English view politeness primarily asformality and a means of expressing distance. The distinction drawn between on-record and off-record indirectness seems useful in clarifying some of the problems stemming from such view s. This paper focuses on off-record indirectness. Drawing evidence from Greek, it shows that offrecord indirectness can express not only formality (negative politeness) but also solidarity (positive politeness).