An Analysis of Linguistic Impoliteness in the Selected American Movies

Year 2021, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 11 - 31, 30.06.2021

Aysel Nasirli

Abstract

This study has investigated one of the pragmatic phenomena impoliteness in the American movies based on Jonathan Culpeper’s impoliteness model (1996) as a theoretical framework, also the variation of impoliteness strategies used by characters, the frequency of impoliteness utterances, and the reasons behind the impoliteness act or utterances have been researched. The present study is also concerned with the fact that whether the characters respond the impoliteness utterances by choosing offensive or defensive strategy or accept the face attack or simply staying silent and not respond to it. The hypothesis of this study is that in interactions impoliteness serves to achieve certain goals and there are reasons behind the use of every impolite act. This study is descriptive and qualitative type of research. However, the study also incorporated a simple quantitative method. The data have been collected from four movies of different genres. All movies have been produced by USA. The researcher concluded that all impoliteness strategies listed by Jonathan Culpeper (1996) were used by main characters in movies and there are reasons for every impolite act or utterance. The study is one of the first studies to analyze impoliteness strategies in several movies of different genres. 

Keywords

Pragmatics, impoliteness, impoliteness strategies, power relations, offensive strategies, defensive strategies

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