37.3089, Confs: Panel at IPC20 - Rethinking Politeness Formulae: Bridging Traditional and Advanced Approaches in Pragmatics (Online)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3089. Mon Sep 28 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3089, Confs: Panel at IPC20 - Rethinking Politeness Formulae: Bridging Traditional and Advanced Approaches in Pragmatics (Online)

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Date: 26-Sep-2026
From: Gudrun HELD [gudrun.bachleitner-held at plus.ac.at]
Subject: Panel at IPC20 - Rethinking Politeness Formulae: Bridging Traditional and Advanced Approaches in Pragmatics


Panel at IPC20 - Rethinking Politeness Formulae: Bridging Traditional
and Advanced Approaches in Pragmatics
Short Title: Panel at IPC20

Date: 27-Jun-2027 - 02-Jul-2027
Location: Online
Contact: Gudrun Held
Contact Email: gudrunheld65 at gmail.com
Meeting URL: https://pragmatics.international/page/IPC20Helsinki

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Historical Linguistics;
Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics
Language Family(ies): Chinese; English based; Germanic (germ1287);
Romance (roma1334)

Submission Deadline: 15-Oct-2026

Rethinking Politeness Formulae: Bridging Traditional and Advanced
Approaches in Pragmatics
Since the seminal work of Brown and Levinson (1978/1987), politeness
strategies have occupied a central place in pragmatic theory. In line
with the three epistemological ‘waves’ politeness was first
conceptualized as the mitigation of face-threatening acts, then as
participants’ context-dependent interpretations, and, more recently,
as a jointly negotiated interactional achievement. From this
perspective, politeness is no longer treated as an inherent property
of linguistic forms, but as an emergent quality of situated discourse.
This conceptual shift removes a linguistic category from the
theoretical core: politeness formulae, a heterogeneous group of
phrasal units attested in the lexicon of all languages and highly
frequent in everyday usage. Traditionally understood as
conventionalised forms carrying inherently polite meanings and forming
part of culture-specific behavioural codes, these units have lost
their status as standard politeness markers and are increasingly
treated as ‘default’ discourse routines (cf. Coulmas 1981; Beeching
2016).
As a result, both the label and the analytical status of politeness
formulae have become unstable (Schlund 2014; Beeching & Murphy
2019)—an issue further complicated by the distinction between two
notions of politeness: politeness1, the culturally learned lay
concept, and politeness2, the theoretical construct. Fully
understanding politeness—as an object, an action, or a perspective
(Haugh 2024)—thus opens up a critical debate that advances
multi-layered, integrative pragmatic theorising (Haugh & Terkourafi
2019): (im)politeness emerges as a complex system in which production,
perception, and evaluation involve numerous dynamic components, among
which canonical expressions may play a minor role.
However, with the increasing use of large digital corpora and
bottom-up approaches, formulaic language has regained the attention of
politeness research: Watts’ (2003) definition of ‘politic’ behaviour,
Terkourafi’s (2005) frame-based theory, and the recent interest in
meta-discursive resources (Paternoster 2026) revalue its character as
context-appropriated and rule-embedded language use. Providing
quantifiable datasets, formulae reveal themselves as key sites for
examining conventionalisation, evaluation, and linguistic change. This
renews inter- and cross-cultural analysis (cf. the RFIEs, House &
Kádár 2021) and supports historical pragmatics: Often considered
fossilised residues of earlier behavioural forms, politeness formulae
both undergo social transformation and reflect processes of
pragmaticalization (Brinton 2017). As such, they offer a valuable lens
for tracing the historicity of politeness (Jucker 2020).
The panel therefore seeks to reassess the role of formulae and
formulaic expressions in both politeness theory and social practice,
from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It invites contributions
addressing questions such as:
 - What justifies retaining or abandoning the label politeness
formula?
 - How does this category relate to politeness as a lay concept and as
an analytical construct?
 - Under what contextual conditions do standardised expressions evoke,
negotiate, neutralise, or transform (im)politeness?
 - Which theoretical and methodological approaches are best suited to
their investigation?
We welcome theoretical and data-driven contributions on individual
formulae, formulaic repertoires, and broader systems of
conventionalised pragmatic expression. Comparative, cross-linguistic,
and diachronic perspectives are especially encouraged.



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