<html><head><style type="text/css">
#header {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
top: 0;
bottom: auto;
right: 0;
left: 0;
margin-left:0px;
margin-bottom:30px;
padding:0px;
}
#footer {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
top: auto;
bottom: 0;
right: 0;
left: 0;
margin-top:50px;
margin-bottom:50px;
}
#resenaDiv {
margin-left:20px;
margin-right:20px;
text-indent:0in;
text-align:left;
font-weight:normal;
text-decoration:none;
font-variant:normal;
color:#000000;
font-size:0.9em;
font-style:normal;
widows:2;
/*font-family:'Times New Roman';*/font-family: Arial, Verdana,
Helvetica, sans-serif;
/*font-size:0.85em;*/
}
table {
}
td {
border-collapse:collapse;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:top;
}
/*p, h1, h2, h3, li {
color:#000000;
font-family:'Times New Roman';
font-size:11pt;
margin-bottom:10pt;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:normal;
}*/
/*p, h1, h2, h3, li {
color:#000000;
font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:0.9em;
margin-bottom:10pt;
text-align:justify;
vertical-align:normal;
}*/
#header p, h1, h2, h3 {
color:#000000;
/*font-family:'Times New Roman';*/font-family: Arial, Verdana,
Helvetica, sans-serif;
/*font-size:0.8em;*/
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:normal;
}
#footer p, h1, h2, h3 {
color:#000000;
/*font-family:'Times New Roman';*/font-family: Arial, Verdana,
Helvetica, sans-serif;
/*font-size:0.8em;*/
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
text-align:center;
vertical-align:normal;
}
p.cita-larga {
/*font-size:0.9em;*/
margin-bottom:6pt;
margin-left:0.3937in;
text-align:justify;
}
p.superindice,p.endnote_reference {
vertical-align:super;
font-size:/*7pt*/0.6em;
}
span.superindice,span.endnote_reference {
vertical-align:super;
font-size:/*7pt*/0.6em;
}
p.texto {
margin-bottom:6pt;
text-align:justify;
}
p.footnote_text {
/*font-size:0.9em;*/
}
p.notas {
/*font-size:0.9em;*/
margin-bottom:3pt;
text-align:justify;
}
p.seccion {
font-size:/*11pt*/1em;
font-weight:bold;
margin-bottom:6pt;
text-align:justify;
}
p.titulo_notas {
font-size:/*11pt*/1em;
font-weight:bold;
margin-bottom:12pt;
margin-top:24pt;
text-align:justify;
}
p.pie_de_pgina {
/*font-size:0.8em;*/
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
text-align:center;
}
p.bibliografia {
margin-bottom:6pt;
text-align:justify;
text-indent:0.4924in;
}
p.titulo_referencias_bibliograficas {
font-weight:bold;
margin-bottom:12pt;
margin-top:24pt;
}
p.titulo_resea {
font-weight:normal;
margin-bottom:36pt;
/*margin-left:0.3937in;*/
margin-left:2in;
margin-right:0.4333in;
text-align:justify;
}
p.encabezado {
/*font-size:0.8em;*/
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
}
p.endnote_reference {
font-size:0.6em;
vertical-align:super;
}
span.cursiva {
font-style:italic;
}
*.ABI_FIELD_page_number{
display: none;
}
</style></head><body><a href="http://infoling.org"
target="_blank"><img src="http://infoling.org/img/infoling.png"
alt="Logo image by Hay Kranen / CC-BY" width="255" height="50"
align="left" border="0" /></a>
<br /><br /><br />
<br /><font style="font-size:80%"><table border="0" bordercolor="#FFF"
width="190px"><tr><td> </td><td> <a
style="text-decoration:none" href="http://www.facebook.com/infoling"
target="_blank"><img border="0"
src="http://infoling.org/img/facebook-icon.png" alt="Infoling at
Facebook" style="vertical-align:-30%;height:16px;width:16px" />
Facebook</a></td><td> <a style="text-decoration:none"
href="http://www.twitter.com/infoling" target="_blank"><img border="0"
src="http://infoling.org/img/t_small-b.png" alt="Infoling at Twitter"
style="vertical-align:-30%;height:16px;width:16px" />
Twitter</a></td></tr></table></font>
<br />Moderador/a: Carlos Subirats (U. Autónoma Barcelona), Mar Cruz
(U. Barcelona)
<br />Editoras: Paloma Garrido (U. Rey Juan Carlos), Laura Romero (UB)
<br />Programación, desarrollo y asesor para informaciones de
lingüística computacional: Marc Ortega (UAB)
<br />Directoras de reseñas: Alexandra Álvarez (U. Los Andes,
Venezuela), Yvette Bürki (U. Bern, Suiza), María Luisa Calero (U.
Córdoba, España)
<br />Asesoras/es: Luis Cortés (U. Almería), Isabel Verdaguer (UB),
Gerd Wotjak (U. Leipzig, Alemania)
<br />Colaboradoras/es: Julia Bernd (Cause Data Collective, EE.UU),
Antonio Ríos (UAB), Danica Salazar (UB)
<br />
<br />Con el patrocinio de:
<br /><table border="0" bordercolor="#FFFFFF"
width="200px"><tr><!--<td><a href="http://www.fundacioncomillas.es/"
target="_blank"><img
src="http://www.infoling.org/img/logo-comillas.png" alt="Fundación
Comillas" width="85" height="49" align="left" border="0"
/></a></td>--><td><a
href="http://www.arcomuralla.com/Arco/Shop/default.asp"
target="_blank"><img style="border:0;margin-top:10px"
src="http://www.infoling.org/img/logoarco.jpg" alt="Arco Libros"
width="62" height="34" align="left" border="0"
/></a></td></tr></table><br /><font style="font-size:90%">ISSN:
1576-3404 </font>
<br /><font style="font-size:90%">© Infoling 1996-2012. Reservados
todos los derechos</font>
<br />
<br /></br><hr /><b>Reseña:</b><br />
Julià Luna, Carolina. 2012. . Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang<br /><b>Autor/a de la reseña:</b> Carolina Julià Luna<br
/>Compartir: <a
href="http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/facebook/offer?url=http://infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html&pubid=ra-4def7f4a7565a706"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img border="0"
src="http://infoling.org/img/facebook-icon.png" alt="Send to Facebook"
title="Send to Facebook"
style="vertical-align:-30%;height:16px;width:16px"
/></a> <a
href="http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/twitter/offer?url=http://infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html&template=@infoling%20Julià,%20Carolina.%20%20{{url}}&pubid=ra-4def7f4a7565a706&shortener=bitly&bitly.login=infoling&bitly.apiKey=R_60e1d6b1cb688030e7759b835f63d0c0"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img border="0"
src="http://infoling.org/img/t_small-b.png" alt="Tweet this"
title="Tweet this" style="vertical-align:-30%;height:16px;width:16px"
/></a><hr /><div id="resenaDiv"
style="margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;text-indent:0in;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;font-variant:normal;color:#000000;font-size:1em;font-style:normal;widows:2;font-family:
Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<div id="header" style="position: relative;width: 100%;height:
auto;top: 0;bottom: auto;right: 0;left:
0;margin-left:0px; margin-bottom:15px;padding:0px;"><p
class="encabezado"
style="font-size:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,
Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;text-align:left;vertical-align:normal;"
awml:style="Encabezado" dir="ltr" style="text-align:left"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Infoling, 22 de mayo de
2012</span></p><p class="encabezado"
style="font-size:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,
Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;text-align:left;vertical-align:normal;"
awml:style="Encabezado" dir="ltr" style="text-align:left"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Director de reseñas para esta sección:
Carlos Subirats (UAB, España)</span></p><p class="encabezado"
style="font-size:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,
Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;text-align:left;vertical-align:normal;"
awml:style="Encabezado" dir="ltr" style="text-align:left"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES"><a
href="http://www.infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html"
target="_blank">http://www.infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html</a></span></p>
</div>
<div id="main">
<div>
<p class="nflng-tituloresea" awml:style="NFLNG-TITULORESEÑA"
dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-left:12pt;margin-right:12pt;margin-bottom:24pt;margin-top:18pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Gonzalo Martínez Camino. Reseña de <a
href="http://infoling.org/search/books/ID/331" target="_blank">Ester
Brenes. 2011. <i>Descortesía verbal y tertulia televisiva. Análisis
pragmalingüístico</i>. Bern: Peter Lang AG</a></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Reseña distribuida con permiso de
Linguist List: </span><a target="_blank"
href="http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=4546764"><span
xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=4546764</span></a></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">This book constitutes a solid and
insightful case study of verbal impoliteness. The author sets out her
aims in the introduction: the study of the interrelation between
linguistic forms and social factors (contextual and situational). To
this end, she focuses on what she calls a pseudo TV talk-show:
“a specialized branch of journalism focusing on the private
lives of persons considered famous or well-known” (p. 14, my
translation). She justifies her choice because, as long as
“television is the nerve centre of our existence […], we
convert the characters in these television programs into a standard,
guide or model of our own behaviors” (p. 14-15, my translation).
It is logical, therefore, that the author should choose this form of
speech since, because it has a strong influence on large sectors of
society, it also has a major influence on verbal
communication.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The book consists of six chapters, the
conclusions, and two appendices. The six chapters form two parts: in
the first three, Brenes Peña defines the main concepts around which
her study will revolve, (im)politeness and TV talk-shows; the second
part is a detailed analysis of the linguistic and rhetorical
strategies that she finds in her corpus.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In the first two chapters, the author
illustrates her position on (im)politeness. She begins with an outline
of the state of the art. She observes how the evolution of these
studies, since their origins in the early seventies, has marked out a
socio-pragmatic field in the larger area of Pragmatics.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Nowadays, its object of study is the
negotiation of the face of the communicators during an exchange and
the description of its linguistic expressions. However, the author
sees a shift in the perspective from a predictive one in the seventies
and eighties toward a descriptive one at the start of the millennium.
Taking into account her own interests, she dedicates half of the
chapter to the concept of impoliteness and the development of its
study.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In Chapter Two, the author outlines her
methodology. The (im)politeness of a message depends on the
receiver’s assessment; linguistic expressions are neither polite
nor impolite in themselves. However, the repeated use, inside a speech
community, of a linguistic expression with a social value allows this
(im)polite value to be codified. This means that any person who wants
to be an operative member of a community needs to acquire a shared
socio-cultural knowledge about which social values are associated with
which expression, what effects these expressions will have in which
situations, and how she or he can, finally, evaluate the social effect
of the message once it has been produced in a specific communicative
encounter. Therefore, the context is the shared socio-cultural
knowledge that surrounds the communicative encounter and its
interlocutors and it is necessary to distinguish clearly between what
is codified and what is the result of the interpretation during the
interaction (Briz Gómez 2004). Brenes Peña distinguishes four
different variables that condition how the interlocutors assess
whether the communicator is being polite or not: socio-cultural,
generic, situational, and individual. The first refers to what a
particular culture understands by (im)polite, to the set of values and
social roles. The second is related to the differences of the type of
exchange. The third variable is the formality or informality of the
situation. Finally, the fourth variable is the character of the
interlocutors.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Consequently, she defines (im)politeness
as a pragmatic function of a discourse where the emitter’s
intention is present, either to enhance or damage the social face of
his or her receiver, and where the latter decodes this message
properly. This reminds us of the Relevance Theory definition of
ostensive-inferential communication as the communicator’s
behaviour that makes manifest to her audience her intention of making
manifest a basic layer of information. In this reviewer’s
opinion, if the author thinks that (im)politeness is not coded in the
linguistic units but is rather an effect that the communicator intends
to stimulate in her audience’s mind(s) using her or his message,
it would have been better to use terms such as
“interpret”, “assess”, and
“react”, rather than “decode”. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The social effects that result from this
pragmatic function form a gradation with two contradictory poles: the
polite effect that creates a comfortable communicative atmosphere; the
impolite effect that degrades both this atmosphere and the
interlocutors’ faces; in the middle, a neutral zone. Here Brenes
Peña locates adequate communicative behavior that fits in with the
situation and, therefore, goes by unnoticed by the interlocutors; it
corresponds to what Watts (2003, 2005, 2008) calls politic behavior.
However, we wonder if a behavior that fits in the interlocutors’
socio-cultural expectations does not produce the social effects of
polite behaviour: facework and a comfortable communicative atmosphere.
On the other hand, she thinks that politeness can enhance the
emitter’s face because she or he can be seen as a competent or
considerate interlocutor; in contrast, impoliteness makes the receiver
think that the emitter is incompetent or inconsiderate. However, the
author, following Held (2005), Hernández Flores (2005, 2006), and
Bernal (2007), thinks that, in some situations, it could be assessed
positively that the speaker behaves impolitely, for example, in
parliamentary debates or military training.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The author classifies the impolite
strategies of the interlocutors taking into account three criteria:
Omission/expression, directness/indirectness, autonomy/affiliation:
</span></p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The emitter is impolite because he or
she fails to produce a speech act that he or she is expected to
produce taking into account the (in)formality of the situation, his or
her social role and the genre he or she is using. </span></li>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The emitter is impolite because he or
she produces a speech act that he or she is not expected to produce
taking into account the (in)formality of the situation, his or her
social role and the genre he or she is using. </span>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">This speech act can be assessed as an
aggression to the face of the receiver as an autonomous member of the
group (face of autonomy) </span>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">and it is expressed directly
</span></li>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">or indirectly. </span> </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">This speech act can be assessed as an
aggression to the face of the receiver as an accepted member (face of
affiliation) </span>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">and it is expressed directly
</span></li>
<li dir="ltr"
style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:0pt"> <span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">or indirectly.</span> </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In the third chapter, the author
addresses the definition of her object and the justification of her
choice. What is the relation that she finds between this TV genre and
impoliteness? The need to have a greater share of the TV audience
makes the channels increase the level of impoliteness of these
debates. This creates what the author calls mediatic-ludic
impoliteness as well as a new genre, the pseudo TV talk-show. This is
one of the situations where impolite behavior could be assessed
positively. To analyse this, Brenes Peña recorded several broadcasts
of seven programs; and she transcribed these audio-visual texts using
the system proposed by Grupo Val. Es. Co (2003).</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In order to define this genre,
Brenes-Peña draws on Ducrot’s theory of polyphony (1986). She
distinguishes between the semantic point of view of the director and
the persons responsible for the show, on the one hand, and the
presenter’s and the participant’s view, on the other. The
latter may just utter, as “enunciators”, the message
planned by the former, who, therefore, occupy the position of
“locutors”, those who are responsible discursively and
legally. The presenter and the participants behave like
“locutors” when they express their own points of view.
Brenes Peña describes the reception as a triangular structure with a
twofold disposition: on the first level, she finds that the presenter
and the participants are “allocutionary receivers” when
other participants are holding the floor. However, on a second level,
she finds two different types of “non-allocutionary
receivers”: “addressees” and
“non-addressees”. The former is made up of the public that
may be physically present in the TV studio or viewing the talk-show at
home. The latter receive the message accidently. These are the
discursive coordinates which, according to Brenes Peña, define this
genre. Nevertheless, this applies to any type of TV or radio debate.
Brenes Peña, however, identifies particularities in three areas:
objective, content and roles. The main objective of the talk-show is
not the debate of an idea, but the manifestation of conflict among the
participants. Therefore, the pitiless criticism of the romantic and
sexual life of celebrities has to feed this conflict. Consequently,
the presenter is no longer a “firefighter”; rather, the
presenter’s function is “to throw gasoline on the
confrontation”. If traditionally the attending public’s
role was to clap whenever the director of the program told them to,
now, the channel and the program directors try to reduce the gap that
separates these addressees from the participants in the talk-show. The
presenter and the participants address them directly and, therefore,
they become allocutionary receivers; in response, this public cheers
and may even interrupt the participants or may try to correct what has
been said. The use of SMS (texting, etc.) allows the absent public to
participate too. Finally, Brenes Peña considers as a defining feature
of this genre that it turns impolite behavior into a show.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In Chapter Four, the author identifies
the impolite strategies and linguistic expressions that the
participants use in the talk-show samples that make up her corpus. She
focuses on those that are used in symmetrical relations between
participants. The methodology she uses in order to identify the
particular cases of impoliteness is to pay attention to the reactions
of the receiver, whether it be the allocutionary addressees, that is
the other participants in the talk-show, or the non-allocutionary
addressees, that is the public, present or absent. She can observe the
reactions of the allocutionary addressees during the debate, but how
can she verify the reactions of the non-allocutionary addressees? She
resolves this by conducting a test of social habits; the results of
this test are found in the second appendix of the book. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">She identifies two main impolite
strategies: imposition and discrediting. In the former, the
participants try not just to defend their position vehemently, but to
silence the other interlocutors. In the latter, they completely
disqualify the other participant’s opinion.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Here the author runs into a
controversial sociopragmatics dilemma: if an impolite behavior is
habitual in a situation or genre, and the interlocutors are used to
it, does this mean that it is no longer impolite? Brenes Peña
observes that the dissenting messages are not considered as what
conversational analysts call a dispreferred reply: they are expressed
explicitly, without delay or mitigation. The participants are aware
that their job is to contradict each other; therefore, they do not
feel offended because the others dissent, but they do when this
rejection is expressed discrediting their person or their opinions, or
when they are repeatedly interrupted in an attempt to silence them.
Therefore, she concludes that the fact that the impolite messages are
expectable does not mean that their social effect is necessarily
positive. She quotes Bousfield (2007: 2189), when he says that just
because something is more prevalent, or more central, does not
necessarily mean that it constitutes a norm within that discourse
type. However, I would observe that, in the case of talk-shows, as in
military training or parliamentary debates, the speakers are expected
to be impolite; therefore, normality and impoliteness are not
contradictory. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Brenes Peña uses a test of social
habits based on the one used by Hernández-Flores (2008, 2009) and
Sifianou (1992) in order to determine the opinion of the absent
public: they have the same perceptions as the participants; expressing
dissent is not impolite (even when expressed in strong terms);
however, discrediting others or their opinions or interrupting them
constantly is assessed as impolite. This confirms not only what is
expectable about this genre, but what is expectable about Spanish
culture where self-affirmation and conflict are accepted forms of
interaction (Hernández-Flores, 1999, 2002; Hickey, 2004;
Martínez-Camino and Dalley, 2004). </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">In the next two chapters, Brenes Peña
carries out a thorough and detailed analysis of these two impolite
strategies. In Chapter Five, she addresses the imposition of
one’s opinion: she describes how the participants in the
talk-show intensify their assertions in such a way that they are
presented as absolute truths that cannot be contradicted; they also
interrupt the others in order to try to silence them or they even
threaten them. In Chapter Six she addresses the discrediting of others
or others’ opinions.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The author takes the position that the
assertion is the enunciative commitment of the emitter with what she
or he has said (“dictum”): at one extreme, the speaker can
mitigate this commitment and express a very weak assumption; at the
other, the speaker can intensify it and express a very strong
assumption. She analyzes the five different types of linguistic
resources that the participants use in order to intensify the
commitment of their messages when they contradict each
other.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The first is made up of the elements
that mitigate or intensify the responsibility of the emitter: modal
adverbs that present what is said as something accepted by the whole
community (“logicamente, evidentemente, obviamente, claro, desde
luego, por supuesto” [logically, evidently, clearly, obviously,
of course]); expressions of the speaker’s “authority”
(“según mis fuentes” [according to my sources]);
expressions that present the “dictum” as something
accepted by the interlocutor (“como tú sabes” [as you
know]); expressions that present the participant as an expert
guaranteeing what she or he has said (“yo lo he vivido en
primera línea” [I have been through that myself]); and
expressions, with adverbs (“sinceramente” [sincerely]) or
formulae (“de verdad, yo soy sincera” [really, truly]), of
the participant’s honest and cooperative attitude. Other
resources are used in order to manifest the speaker’s modal
attitude of security and truthfulness about her or his
“dictum”; now the communicator is not looking for support
in the community or expressing authority or honesty, she or he wants
to qualify what she or he is saying as something unquestionable or
irrefutable: “seguro, las cosas son como son, te guste o no te
guste, la verdad es que…, efectivamente” [sure, that’s
the way it is, whether you like it or not, the truth is that, sure
enough]. The participant can try to establish a hierarchical
organization of the information, reinforcing her or his assertion;
they can use a false sensorial imperative (“mira, escucha”
[look, listen]), introductory formulae (“te voy a decir una
cosa, que lo sepas” [let me tell you something, so that you
know]); appellative appendices or tagged sentences (“¿me estás
entendiendo?, ¿vale?, ¿de acuerdo?” [do you understand? OK? Do
you see?]). The speakers can reinforce the contraargumentative
function of their message with different types of resources:
emphasizing the pronunciation, pronouncing syllables separately,
lengthening the vowels, repeating parts of the message, using
rhetorical questions, or using formulae that end the conversation
(“y con esto zanjo el tema para siempre” [and that’s
the end of that]). Finally, the participant can present what she is
saying as her subjective opinion and, therefore, as irrefutable from
any other subjective position (“tú puedes decir lo que quieras
que estás en tu derecho, pero yo” [you can say whatever you
want, that’s your right, but I]). </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The participants can also try to impose
their opinions by interrupting their interlocutors. The author,
drawing on the literature, obtains a definition that will allow her to
analyze the participants’ behavior. She considers interruption as
a transgression of the turn-taking system that is intended to remove
the current speaker from the floor; this might be accomplished with or
without overlapping. Therefore, she differentiates between this
phenomenon and others such as casual overlapping or different types of
back-channelling. The author also reflects on the relation between
interruption and impoliteness. Brenes Peña points out that the
(im)polite effect of an interruption will vary according to the
culture, the type of discourse, the relation between the
interlocutors, and the function. She also identifies several elements
that might help to mitigate its impoliteness: the interrupting
speakers can use mitigating expressions such as “solamente una
cosita” or “perdona que te interrumpa” [just one
thing, sorry to interrupt you]; she or he can avoid overlapping or, at
least, she or he can try to reduce the duration of the overlapping and
use a low tone and a low intensity; the less frequent the
interruption, the less impolite. However, her empirical analysis shows
that the participants frequently fall back on the use of
interruptions, with frequent and long overlappings; they shout,
expressing themselves aggressively, using a high tone; when they use
elements that might mitigate the social effect of the interruption, it
is often more to attract the attention of the speaker than to
mitigate. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Brenes Peña identifies another impolite
behavior that the participants use in order to impose their opinions:
threatening. She points out that the effect of this is always very
negative and the emitter can intensify it by expressing it clearly and
explicitly with obscene language, using a high tone and challenging
gestures and glances. She observes that the participants threaten
when, in a burst of rage, they are incensed by the heat of the
dialectical battle. They lose their temper and any trace of a line of
argumentation. They portray themselves as lacking any arguments or any
rational capacity to use them. The social effect is devastating and it
drives the exchange to the verge of dissolution. Threatening goes
beyond even the lax limits of this permissive genre whose purpose is
to use impolite behavior as a spectacle.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Brenes-Peña points out that when the
participants lack arguments to contradict their interlocutors, they
can also fall back on discrediting them, their opinions, or the act of
expressing them. This is a strongly impolite behavior; however, the
social effect is not as devastating as with threats; on the contrary,
it portrays the participant as a controversial member that will
improve the share of the program. Consequently, these strategies fit
in well with the rules of the talk-show.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">The author identifies several strategies
that can be used in order to attack the affiliative face of other
participants. These strategies are attacks on the qualities that are
necessary in order to be an operative member of a talk-show, such as
her or his credibility or the credibility of her or his sources. For
example, Brenes-Peña identifies the use of the expression “eso
lo dices tú” [that’s what you say] which underlines the
idea that the participant lacks the ability to make a dispassionate
assessment of reality. In this sense, the interlocutors can use
insults that negate that the interlocutor qualifies as an appropriate
participant. For example, “chupacamaras” [camera-hog] -
this insult means that the interlocutor is capable of anything if this
can help her or him to become a celebrity. The participants can also
use metaphors in order to intensify their attacks on other’s
faces as qualified members of the talk-show; for example, one of the
participants can refer to the other as a vulture, meaning that she is
ready to use anything in order to feed her fame. Finally, the
participants use irony in order to present themselves as witty
interlocutors and, therefore, enhance their affiliative faces; this
also allows them to ridicule in one way or another their
“allocutionary receivers”; at the same time, they achieve
the involvement of the “non-allocutionary receivers”
because they can laugh together at the expense of the other
participant. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">On the other hand, Brenes-Peña
identifies three different strategies that the participants use in
order to discredit their interlocutor’s act of expressing
opinions: they can say that she or he is violating the maxim of
quality (“estás faltando a la verdad en toda regal” [you
are lying through your teeth]); they can state that she or he does not
follow the principle of non-contradiction (“pero este hombre
¿qué? ¿se contradice siempre?” [but this guy contradicts
himself every time]); they can accuse them of following an
inconsistent path of behavior (“¡ah antes lo defiendes y ahora
lo puteas, ¡qué bueno eres!” [So you used to defend him and
now you attack him, that’s great!]). All of this means strong
attacks on the affiliative face of the interlocutor because it makes
her or his utterances worthless.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Finally, the participants may show that
it is not worth the effort of paying attention to what their
interlocutors have said because it is false (“eso no es
verdad” [that’s not true]), boring (“que me aburres,
que me aburres, chico” [you’re boring me, son]), irrelevant
(“yo creo que esto sea ahora mismo el tema, perdona que te
diga” [pardon me but that’s not what we’re talking
about now]), intrinsically stupid (“porque a las idioteces hay
que contestar con idioteces” [because it’s not worth
responding to nonsense]). Nevertheless, Brenes-Peña points out that
to deny the discursive cooperation completely is the most aggressive
strategy against the face of the interlocutor: the speaker gives up,
replying “si piensas eso…” [if that’s what you
think…].</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
style="font-weight:bold" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">EVALUATION</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">This book offers a valuable contribution
to the understanding of three objects of study: facework and
(im)polite linguistic behavior; the talk-show, a new TV genre, and the
society of spectacle. Obviously its first target is the talk-show
participants’ impolite behavior; however, since impoliteness is a
social effect, the author analyzes its cultural and discursive
coordinates and repercussions. For this reason, Brenes Peña’s
study allows us to understand how deep the impact of sociopragmatics
can be when it comes to articulating an explanation of human nature
and culture.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">First of all, this work is a thorough
and detailed empirical study of a talk-show corpus, based on a no less
thorough and detailed grasp of the tenets of sociopragmatics. However,
the author makes her own choices and articulates her own position;
therefore, we read something that is more than a solid exposition of
others’ ideas: “verbal (im)politeness arises from the
confrontation of the meaning or value of an utterance with the social
precepts that govern a specific communicative interaction” (p.
42, my translation).</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Brenes Peña analyzes her audio-visual
texts in order to identify these linguistic elements and show us how
they are used in order to create particular social effects in the
communicative exchange. Consequently, she studies how the participants
try to influence the discursive development of these programs falling
back on certain linguistic instruments. This work, then, is not just
the study of a series of verbal units: it explains how the
interlocutors enhance, attack, build or undermine their faces,
constructing, discursively, their interpersonal reality. I think this
is the right direction for the development of the discipline. However,
her analysis at times lacks a more macroscopic perspective, which
might allow her to advance further down this road. Perhaps she could
have included the study of some particular exchange to show how it
develops, dialogically, a communicative project. However, this is just
a minor consideration in an otherwise highly commendable
work.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">This book allows us to understand how a
new TV genre has emerged because the conditions of television culture
demand the broadcasting of dialogues where semiotic and linguistic
instruments are used in order to develop a facework characterized by
imbalance, conflict or even hostility, just the opposite of daily,
common conversation. In this sense, a little more macroscopic
perspective would have refined Brenes Peña’s explanation of this
phenomenon. Beyond this, Brenes Peña points out how the development
of this new type of interpersonal exchange might affect suprapersonal
habits and intrapersonal expectations: we may get used to rudeness and
accept it as the normal aggressive management of communication.
Sociopragmatics allows us to understand how interlocutors construct,
through communicative encounters and projects, their interpersonal
reality with deep sociological and psychological repercussions, and
this book is a good example of how this discipline can obtain these
results.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
style="font-weight:bold" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">REFERENCES</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Bernal, María. 2007. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">Categorización sociopragmática de la cortesía y
descortesía. Un estudio de la conversación coloquial en
español</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">. Stockholm:
Stockholm University.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Bousfield , Dereck. 2007. Beginnings,
middles and ends: a biopsy of the dynamics of impolite exchanges.
</span><span class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;"
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Journal of Pragmatics</span><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US"> 39 (12): 2185-2216.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Briz Gómez, Antonio. 2004. </span><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Cortesía verbal codificada y cortesía
verbal interpretada en la conversación. In D. Bravo, and A.
Briz Gómez, eds. </span><span class="cursiva"
style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Pragmática
sociocultural: estudios sobre el discurso de cortesía en
español</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">. Barcelona:
Ariel.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Ducrot, Oswald. 1986. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">El decir y lo dicho: polifonía de la
enunciación</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">. Barcelona:
Paidos.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Grupo Val. Es. Co. 2003. Un sistema de
unidades para el estudio del lenguaje coloquial. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Oralia</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US"> 6:
7-61. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Held, G. 2005. Politeness in linguistic
research. In R. Watts, S. Ide, and K. Elich, eds. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Politeness in Language. Studies in its History, Theory
and Practice</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Hernández-Flores, N. 1999. Politeness
ideology in Spanish colloquial conversation: the case of advice.
</span><span class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;"
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Pragmatics</span><span xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES"> 9 (1): 37-49.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Hernández-Flores, N. 2002. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">La cortesía en la conversación española de familiares
y amigos. La búsqueda de equilibrio entre la imagen del hablante y la
imagen del destinatario</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">.
Alborg: Alborg Universitet.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Hernández Flores, Nieves. 2005.
Cortesía y oscilación de la imagen social en un debate televisivo.
</span><span class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;"
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Actas del II Coloquio de
EDICE</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">: </span><a
href="http%3a//www.edice.org"><span xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">http://www.edice.org</span></a><span xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES"> </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Hernández Flores, Nieves. 2006.
Actividades de autoimagen, cortesía y descortesía: tipos de
actividades de imagen en un debate televisivo. In J. L. Blas Arroyo,
M. Casanova Ávalos, and M. Velando Casanova, eds. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">Discurso y sociedad: contribuciones al estudio de la
lengua en contexto social</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">.
Castellón de la Plana: Publicaciones de la Universitat Jaume I:
1583-1591.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Hernández Flores, Nieves. 2008.
Politeness and other types of facework: communicated and social
meaning in a television panel discussion. </span><span class="cursiva"
style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Pragmatics</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US"> 18
(4): 681-706.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Hernández Flores, Nieves. 2009.
</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">El test de hábitos
sociales: una aportación metodológica al estudio de la
(des)cortesía</span><span class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;"
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">.</span><span xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES"> In C. Fuentes Rodríguez, and E. Alcaide Lara,
eds.</span><span class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;"
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES"> Manifestaciones textuales de la
(des)cortesía y agresividad verbal en diversos ámbitos
comunicativos</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">. Sevilla:
Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Internacional de
Andalucía.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Hickey, L. 2004. Politeness in Spain:
Tha</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">nks but no
‘thank’. In L. Hickey, and M. Stewart, eds. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">Politeness in Europe</span><span xml:lang="es-ES"
lang="es-ES">. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters: 317-330.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Martínez-Camino, G. & Dalley, E.
2004. Cortesía e ideología en el discurso: la atenuación de la
discrepancia en los foros webct. In G. Martínez Camino, M. García
Casado, and Sean Scurfield, eds. </span><span class="cursiva"
style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">Encuentro de
lenguas y literaturas</span><span xml:lang="es-ES" lang="es-ES">.
Santander: Ediciones TGD & Departamento de Filología de la
Universidad de Cantabria.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Sifianou, M. 1992. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Politeness phenomena in England and Greece. A
Cross-Cultural Perspective</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Watts, Richard. 2003. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Politeness</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Watts, Richard. 2005. Linguistic
politeness and politic verbal behaviour: reconsidering claims for
universality. In R. Watts, S. Ide, and K. Elich, eds. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Politeness in Language. Studies in its History, Theory
and Practice</span><span xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US">Watts, Richard. 2008. Rudeness,
conceptual blending theory and relational work. </span><span
class="cursiva" style="font-style:italic;" xml:lang="en-US"
lang="en-US">Journal of Politeness Research</span><span
xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-US"> 4(2): 289-317.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div id="footer" style="position: relative;width: 100%;height:
auto;top: auto;bottom: 0;right: 0;left:
0;margin-top:50px;margin-bottom:30px;">
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align:justify;margin-bottom:6pt"> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;"><b>Versión en
PDF:</b><br /><a href="http://www.infoling.org/reviews/pdfs/NB331.pdf"
target="_blank"> http://www.infoling.org/reviews/pdfs/NB331.pdf</a><br
/><br /><b>Información en la web de Infoling:</b><br /> <a
href="http://www.infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html" target="_blank">
http://www.infoling.org/resenas/Review153.html</a></div></body></html>