VERBAL POLITENESS AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE: POLITE REQUESTS AS DISCOURSE TRADITIONS

Abstract

Many techniques of linguistic mitigation are closely related to strategies of verbal politeness. A classic example are utterances of the type Could you please pass the bread? which function as a polite request. The core question is how this well-known communicative routine can be described in the interplay of language and culture. Based on Eugenio Coseriu’s concept of the system of a language as a form of cultural competence we raise the question whether such routines belong to the linguistic traditions of a language or whether this technique is to be seen as a cultural discourse tradition that may be realized within various languages. In the field of linguistic mitigation and verbal politeness the concept of discourse tradition opens up a methodological perspective that enables us to describe the interaction of language and culture.