Brown and Levinson’s Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Cambridge, 1987) and Barbara O’Keefe’s take on politeness theory had a significant influence on how I think about communication. Grappling with politeness theory as a rational theory of language (rather than a theory of frequency or of cause and effect) prompted me to ask a different set of questions about social support. Specifically, it helped me work out the social conditions and discourse features that shaped when advice-giving could be an appropriate and effective response to another’s distress. My own research on facework is detailed in the Advice-giving and Facework tab. In addition, the following book chapters give my interpretation of politeness theory and its relevance to interpersonal communication theory.
Goldsmith, D. J., & Normand, E. L. (2014). Politeness theory: How we use language to save face. In D. E. Braithwaite, & P. Schrodt (Eds.), Engaging theories of interpersonal communication, 2nd ed. (pp. 267-278). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Goldsmith, D. J., & Donovan-Kicken, E. (2009). Adding insult to injury: Face, politeness, and hurt feelings. In A. Vangelisti (Ed.), Feeling hurt in close relationships (pp. 50-72). New York: Cambridge.
Goldsmith, D. J. (2009). Politeness theory. In S. W. Littlejohn & K. A. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Communication Theory (pp. 754-757). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Goldsmith, D. J. (2006). Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. In B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining communication: Contemporary theories and exemplars (pp. 219-236). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
