Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own ...

106 Pages·2016·2.06 MB·English

”Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own
house, but not to your own facts” – A study of impoliteness in a formal political context

Vilma Keränen 175470
English Language pro gradu thesis
Department of English Language and Culture
University of Eastern Finland
May 2016
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

Tiedekunta – Faculty Osasto – School
Philosophical Faculty School of Humanities
Tekijät – Author
Vilma Keränen
Työn nimi – Title
”Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts” –
A study of impoliteness in a formal political context
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level P äivämäärä – Date S i v u m ä ä rä – Number of pages
Pro gradu -tutkielma x
English Language and Culture Sivuainetutkielma 17.5.2016 102
Kandidaatin tutkielma
Aineopintojen tutkielma
Tiivistelmä – Abstract

In recent years, impoliteness has become a rather popular area of study in linguistics (see, e.g. Meier 1995; Bousfield, 2008; Mills, 2009;
Culpeper, 2011). The phenomenon is highly multifaceted and frequent in several different situations of interaction – in conversations, at
work, in school, in television, in movies, social networks, between friends, lovers, and people in general. Academics previously saw it
only as anomalous behavior, or as a pragmatic failure of politeness, but the new studies have demonstrated it to be a purposeful and
functional aspect of language.

The aim of this study was to examine impoliteness in a very formal setting, that is, in U.S. presidential debates, and as data, it employed
six presidential debates from years 2008 and 2012. The purpose was to understand how the debaters managed impoliteness in spoken
discourse, and how they expressed themselves in the restricted conditions of formal debates. I examined all the debaters: John McCain,
Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama, but my main focus was on Obama. His participation in both sets of debates gave insight on whether
his approach had altered during the four-year time period. The presumption was that Obama would use more impoliteness during the
first election when challenging the ruling party, and less during the second election, when he was defending - and trying to maintain - his
current position. In addition, to utilize the research already done on the subject; and to bring an intercultural aspect to the study, the
results were compared with Lötjönen’s (2014) study on British English.

The field has started to grow, but the theory that is considered to be among the best models of impoliteness was presented by Culpeper
in 1996. It is one of the most tested, modified, and adjusted theories at present and it was further modified by Bousfield in 2008.
Altogether, they introduced 20 impoliteness strategies; eight of which were found in the data: ‘criticize’, ‘seek disagreement or avoid
agreement’, ‘disassociate from the other’, ‘condescend, scorn, ridicule or belittle’, ‘explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect’,
‘hinder/block’, ‘challenge’, and ‘use sarcasm’.

The study was carried out from a qualitative and a quantitative angle, and the instances of impoliteness were identified from the data
using the classifications presented in the theory frame. The research showed that the impoliteness strategies were used rather extensively
throughout the six debates and the ‘hinder/block’ strategy was the most frequent strategy in both American and British English. The
study also demonstrated how the surrounding circumstances, such as power relations and personal techniques have an effect on the use
of impoliteness. Although Obama ended up using impoliteness rather similarly in both elections, there were differences between the
debates each year. In addition, the results supported the argument that both Romney and McCain would utilize impoliteness more than
Obama.

It was demonstrated that the debates were rather face threatening (see. e.g. Brown and Levinson 1987) situations, mostly as a result of
the competitiveness of the candidates. Furthermore, the study established that (at least) the two sets of debates in question had obvious
similarities. The resemblance between American and British English was obvious even in a situation as constrained and under specific
conditions as the debates. The same strategies seemed to recur in both British and American data, and this in turn indicated that there
might be regularities in the usage of impoliteness in formal contexts in general. It is my strong opinion that the research has a lot of
potential for development and the matter in question should be examined further.

Due to the scope of this text, this study of impoliteness was done in a rather general level and concentrated only in singular instances of
impoliteness. However, it was successful in bringing new information to the field. The findings strongly implied that impoliteness should
be examined more from an intercultural perspective.
Avainsanat – Keywords

Impoliteness, Impolite, Presidential debates, Linguistics, Political speech
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

Tiedekunta – Faculty Osasto – School
Filosofinen tiedekunta Humanistinen osasto
Tekijät – Author
Vilma Keränen
Työn nimi – Title
”Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts” –
A study of impoliteness in a formal political context
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level P äivämäärä – Date S i v u m ä ä rä – Number of pages
Pro gradu -tutkielma x
Englannin kieli ja kulttuuri Sivuainetutkielma 17.5.2016 102
Kandidaatin tutkielma
Aineopintojen tutkielma
Tiivistelmä – Abstract

Viime vuosien aikana epäkohteliaisuudesta on tullut suosittu tutkimuskohde kielitieteissä (esimerkiksi Meier 1995, Bousfield 2008, Mills
2009, Culpeper 2011). Kyseinen konsepti on erittäin monitahoinen ja yleinen monissa sosiaalisissa tilanteissa – keskusteluissa, töissä,
koulussa, televisiossa, elokuvissa, sosiaalisissa verkostoissa, ystävien, rakastavaisten ja yleisesti ihmisten kesken. Epäkohteliaisuutta ei
enää pidetä poikkeavana käytöksenä tai kohteliaisuuden pragmaattisena virheenä, vaan uudet tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet sen olevan
tarkoituksenmukainen ja funktionaalinen osa kielenkäyttöä ja kommunikointia.

Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli tarkastella epäkohteliaisuutta hyvin muodollisissa tilanteissa: Yhdysvaltojen
presidentitiehdokkaiden vaaliväittelyissä. Aineistona toimivat vuosien 2008 ja 2012 vaaliväittelyt, joita oli yhteensä kuusi kappaletta.
Tutkimus keskittyi tarkastelemaan kuinka kanditaatit käyttivät epäkohteliaisuutta puheissaan ja miten he ilmaisivat itseään
vaaliväittelyiden rajoitetussa kontekstissa. Tutkimuskohteena toimivat kaikki väittelijät: John McCain, Mitt Romney ja Barack Obama,
mutta pääkohteena oli Obama. Obaman osallistuminen molempien vuosien väittelyihin antoi mahdollisuuden tarkastella muutoksia
hänen väittelytavassaan. Oletuksena oli, että Obama käyttäisi enemmän epäkohteliaita ilmaisuja ensimmäisien vaalien aikana, sillä hän
haastoi valtaapitävän tahon, kun taas toisena vaalikautena hän pyrki puolustamaan jo saavuttamaansa asemaa. Saatuja tuloksia verrattiin
Lötjösen (2014) vastaavaan tutkimukseen brittienglannista.

Epäkohteliaisuuden kielitieteellinen tutkimus on lisääntynyt, mutta Culpeperin vuonna 1996 luomaa mallia pidetään edelleen yhtenä
parhaimmista malleista sen tarkasteluun. Kyseinen malli on yksi testatuimmista ja muokatuimmista teorioista alalla ja Bousfield kehitti
sitä pidemmälle vuonna 2008. Yhdessä he esittelivät yhteensä 20 kategoriaa epäkohteliaisuuden tutkimiseen ja näistä kahdeksan löytyi
tämän tutkimuksen aineistosta: ”kritisoi”, ”ole eri mieltä tai vältä yksimielisyyttä”, ”erottaudu toisesta”, ”puhu alentuvasti, halveksu,
pilkkaa, vähättele”, ”yhdistä toinen negatiiviseen asiaan”, ”häiritse/estä”, ”haasta” ja ”käytä sarkasmia” (vapaamuotoinen käännös).

Tutkimus oli sekä kvalitatiivinen että kvantitatiivinen ja kaikki epäkohteliasuustapaukset poimittiin aineistosta teoriapohjan luokittelua
apuna käyttäen. Tulokset osoittivat, että epäkohteliasuusstrategioita käytettiin väittelyissä hyvin kattavasti ja että ”häiritse/estä” –
kategoriaa käytettiin eniten sekä amerikanenglannissa että brittienglannissa. Tutkimus havainnollisti myös kuinka olosuhteilla, kuten
valtasuhteilla ja henkilökohtaisilla tekniikoilla, oli vaikutusta epäkohteliasuuden ilmenemismuotoihin.

Tulosten perusteella väittelytilanteet ovat ”kasvoja” (kts. esimerkiksi Brown and Levinson 1987) uhkaavia tapahtumia, mikä johtuu
suurimmaksi osaksi kandidaattien kilpailuhenkisyydestä. Vaikka Obama päätyikin käyttämään epäkohteliaisuusstrategioita hyvin samalla
tavalla molempien vuosien vaaleissa, väittelyiden välillä esiintyi kuitenkin erilaisuuksia. Lisäksi tutkimus tuki argumenttia, jonka mukaan
sekä Romney että McCain käyttivät enemmän epäkohtaliaisuusstrategioita kuin Obama. Kävi myös ilmi, että ainakin verratuissa
väittelyissä oli selkeitä yhtäläisyyksiä. Amerikan- ja brittienglannin samankaltaisuus oli selkeä näissä rajoitetuissa ja tarkasti säädellyissä
olosuhteissa. Samat strategiat esiintyivät molemmissa aineistossa, joka viittaa siihen, että kulttuurien välillä on mahdollisesti löydettävissä
yleisiä säännönmukaisuuksia epäkohteliaisuuden käytöstä muodollisessa kontekstissa. Aiheen käsittely vaatii syvempää tutkimusta.

Rajallisen mittakaavan takia tämä tutkimus toteutettiin hyvin yleisellä tasolla ja se keskittyi ainoastaan yksittäisten
epäkohteliaisuustapausten tutkimiseen. Tutkimus onnistui silti tuottamaan lisää tietoa alalle. Tulokset viittasivat siihen, että
epäkohteliaisuutta kannattaisi tutkia monikulttuurisesta perspektiivistä.

Avainsanat – Keywords

Epäkohteliaisuus, Epäkohtelias, Presidentinvaaliväittelyt, Kielitiede, Poliittinen puhe
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Theory ........................................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 The term, the definition and the concept ............................................................................ 6
2.2 Universal impoliteness ..................................................................................................... 11
2.3 Research on the field of impoliteness .............................................................................. 14
2.3.1 From politeness to impoliteness ........................................................................ 15
2.3.2 The early studies ................................................................................................ 17
2.3.3 The concept of Face and the Face-threatening Acts (FTA) .............................. 20
2.3.4 On the different models of impoliteness ........................................................... 26
2.4 Culpeper’s approach and the impoliteness categories ...................................................... 30
3. Data and methods ....................................................................................................................... 40
4. Results......................................................................................................................................... 45
4.1 Criticize ............................................................................................................................ 53
4.2 Seek disagreement or avoid agreement ............................................................................ 57
4.3 Disassociate from the other .............................................................................................. 59
4.4 Condescend, scorn, ridicule or belittle ............................................................................. 62
4.5 Explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect ....................................................... 65
4.6 Hinder / block ................................................................................................................... 67
4.7 Challenge .......................................................................................................................... 72
4.8 Sarcasm ............................................................................................................................ 75
4.9 A comparison with British English .................................................................................. 76
5. Discussions ................................................................................................................................. 81
6. Conclusions................................................................................................................................. 88
References .......................................................................................................................................... 92
Primary sources ...................................................................................................................... 92
Secondary sources .................................................................................................................. 93
Appendix 1 ......................................................................................................................................... 98
Appendix 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 100
1. Introduction

The object of this pro gradu thesis is to study impoliteness. I will concentrate on the concept, and
how impoliteness presents itself in the U.S presidential debates in 2008 and 2012. Impoliteness has
been studied, but mostly in informal contexts, and has not been widely tested empirically (Bousfield
2008: 3, Harris 2001: 452). Some researchers, including Lakoff (1989, 1990), have taken steps to
examine politeness and impoliteness in professional settings, such as the courtroom or the
therapist's office. However, Beebe (1995: 155) goes on to point out that unfortunately even those
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studies managed to only skirt the edges of impoliteness and there is still a lot to learn. Lötjönen
(2014) mentioned this absence of studies done on formal content and conducted a study on
impoliteness similar to mine, however, concentrating on British English. I will briefly compare in
Chapter 4.9 the results of this study with Lötjönen’s (2014) impoliteness findings in British English
and see if there are regional differences.

According to Culpeper et al. (2003: 1546), impoliteness consists of strategies that are designed to
offend others and cause conflict in social situations. Culpeper (2011: 3) also points out that
impoliteness is “a multidisciplinary field of study” – and this versatility should be taken more
advantage of and the subject studied from different angles. Therefore, I will be conducting a study
on American English in a formal context, in which it has not been studied that excessively. In
addition, although I will be concentrating on all of the candidates and their usage of impoliteness,
my main focus will be on Barack Obama. It will give me insight on how his approach has or has not
changed during the time period between 2008 and 2012. This will also be a small-scale longitudinal

1 Beebe and a few other researchers (e.g. Archer 2008, Lakoff 1989) do not use this term to describe the phenomenon,
but for the sake of clarity I will be referring to this phenomenon as impoliteness henceforth.
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study, which have been rather scarce in the field of impoliteness. As Harris (2001: 455) points out,
these presidential debates have both formal and informal ‘rules’ and they have specified patterns of
turn-taking, which in turn will demand a high level of constraint from the debaters. This thesis is an
attempt to understand how the debaters manage impoliteness in extended instances of spoken
discourse, and how they express themselves in the restricted conditions of a formal debate.

I have already carried out a study in 2012 on the 2008 presidential debates of the United States
between Barrack Obama and John McCain, but analyzed them with politeness theories. It was
interesting to note that, although the two candidates used the politeness strategies quite sufficiently,
there were many instances that, in my opinion, did not quite fit in the given theory and could be
examined more accurately from the impoliteness point of view. Therefore, I am interested to see
how well the impoliteness approach manages to capture these same debates and if it offers adequate
results.

Barack Obama is a culturally historical figure. He was the first African-American president of the
United States and I have always admired how he presents himself in political events. Moreover, the
different public situations have shown that he has great humor, self-irony, and he is frequently
referred to as an exceptional speaker. One would, therefore, speculate that Obama’s approach in the
debates would be very thorough, articulate, and innovative. All in all, he presents an interesting
subject to study from a linguistic point of view and it will be interesting to observe if these features
come across when he has the floor in the debates.

2
In this study, I will be using the same debates from 2008 and also three new ones from 2012. The
debates are 90 minutes long each and have different topics, such as domestic issues and foreign
policy. There are altogether six debates – three between the Senator (and later the President of the
United States) Barrack Obama, the democratic presidential nominee and the Republican nominee
John McCain in 2008, and three between Obama and the Republican nominee Mitt Romney in
2012. The debates are taken from a website called The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).
The first debates are from the year Barack Obama was running for president for the first time and
the latter are from the year he was re-elected.

In 2008 both Barack Obama and John McCain were running for president as new candidates,
whereas in 2012, Barack Obama had already been the president for four years. He had made
decisions that not everyone was happy with and he had obtained a position he had to now defend.
That is to say, he had to justify to people why they should vote for his re-election. In 2008, he was
the new ‘Hope/Yes We Can’ -icon for America and did not have “anything to lose.” He could
afford to be more aggressive in his approach. The overall conditions of these debates are similar,
but there are rather major changes in the circumstances between 2008 and 2012. Therefore, it is
indeed very probable that the changed context and Obama’s status affect his debate tactic between
the two elections. I will go into more detail on this matter in Chapter 4, but my hypothesis is that
Obama will use more impoliteness during the first election, because he is challenging the ruling
party, whereas during the second election, he is defending and trying to maintain his (and his
party’s) current position. In addition, I will be observing how many strategies there are altogether
present in the data and if any of them is distinctly more utilized by the candidates than the others. I
will use both quantitative and qualitative methods, and the purpose of this study is to present a clear
overview of the topic.
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This pro gradu thesis will be divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction. In order to give
a general idea of the topic, I will review the concept of impoliteness and the different aspects of
defining the said concept in Chapter 2. Furthermore, this chapter also introduces the history and the
research done in the field of impoliteness, as well as the theory and concepts relevant to my study.
In Chapter 3, I will present the data in more detail and the methods used to conduct this research
and in Chapter 4, the results. Chapter 5 has the discussions, and Chapter 6 concludes this study.

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2. Theory

For a long while, impoliteness was considered to be just a part of politeness, the opposite of it to be
more precise, and it was not seen as something that needed its own theory base. Watts (2003: 57)
points out that another reason for this neglect was very possibly the tendency to see impoliteness
only as a lack of politeness. But, as Bousfield (2008: 55) notes, “we can’t consider politeness
without impoliteness.” In his opinion, the existence of impoliteness should be at least acknowledged
in the politeness models. In fact, it should be considered more as an equal to politeness, instead of
only seen as a ‘marginal’ behavior (Culpeper 2008: 71). Watts (2003: 5) actually finds this previous
lack of interest in impoliteness to be very surprising. Inappropriate behavior is usually a
phenomenon that causes the participants of that particular situation to notice it more readily for
conflicting information usually requires more effort to process. Politeness, on the other hand, goes
often unnoticed (Culpeper 2011: 198). Therefore, it is only natural to assume that a behavior, which
causes as much reaction as impoliteness does, would have been considered as interesting from the
beginning.

Moreover, many researchers have argued for a while now that impoliteness is a very multifaceted
concept, and not something to pass over. For instance, Culpeper’s (2011) and Beebe’s (1995)
studies have shown that impoliteness can be, and, is indeed, a strategic, systematic, and
sophisticated phenomenon. Both also mention Kienpointner (1997), Lakoff (1989), and Kasper
(1990) to be among the ones, who have done a lot of work to change the previous way of thinking.
That is, politeness was seen as the norm and impoliteness as the “pragmatic failure” in achieving
the norm in question (Beebe 1995: 156). Culpeper et al. (2003) point out that impoliteness and
conflict are also commonplace in many different situations of interaction – in conversations, at
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work, in school, in television, in movies, social networks, between friends, lovers, and people in
general, in other words, far from being only anomalous behavior. Locher and Bousfield (2008) go
so far as to argue that “impoliteness is ubiquitous” (quoted here from Culpeper 2011: 7), and as
Waters (2012: 1501) notes, researchers have started to pay more attention to this phenomenon over
the recent years and the field has steadily started to grow (see, e.g. Bousfield, 2008; Culpeper et al.,
2003; Culpeper, 1996, 2011; Meier, 1995a, b; Mills, 2009).

2.1 The term, the definition and the concept

What is impoliteness, then? In a very simplified definition, impoliteness is “a negative attitude
towards specific behaviors occurring in specific contexts” (Culpeper 2011: 23). It is behavior that
depends greatly on external factors, such as the situation it appears in, and the audience that is
present (ibid). Generally, impoliteness is thought of as an offensive verbal behavior towards others,
but for example banter, or mock impoliteness (Culpeper 1996: 352), is more of a way to show how
close a relationship you have with another person. For instance, a word such as ‘bastard’ is usually
considered to be a rude word, but in a different situation, where the receiver is in a close
relationship with the speaker, it can be an endearment between lovers or friends. The intended
meaning depends on the context (Waters 2012: 1058). In addition, the effects of impoliteness also
vary depending on the degree of politeness that was expected from the other (Culpeper 2012: 1130).
That is, when a person is being polite to somebody, it sets up expectations of a polite response in
return. An impolite response seems much worse in that particular situation than in a context where
impoliteness might have been expected (ibid).

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