Power and Politeness in Action: Disagreements in Oral Communication (Language, Power, and Social Process)

This study investigates the interface of power and politeness in the realization of disagreements in naturalistic language data. Power and politeness are important phenomena in face-to-face interaction. Disagreement is an arena in which these two key concepts are likely to be observed together. Both disagreement and the exercise of power entail a conflict. At the same time, conflict will often be softened by the display of politeness. The material for analysis comes from three different contexts: (1) a sociable argument in an informal, supportive, and interactive family setting; (2) a business meeting among colleagues at a research institution; and (3) examples from public discourse collected during the US Election in 2000.