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Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110
www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Disinvitations: You’re not invited to my birthday party

Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig *
Indiana University, United States
Received 9 July 2014; received in revised form 28 October 2014; accepted 29 October 2014

Abstract
This paper examines the speech act of disinvitations, the act of rescinding an invitation or an anticipated invitation. Naturally occurring,
authentic disinvitations are analyzed to determine the structure of disinvitations providing a second-order analysis; online discussion
posts concerning disinvitations provide first-order accounts of attitudes toward disinvitations, outcomes, and the conditions under which
they can be performed. An additional online survey supplements the unsolicited data providing additional examples, disinvitation
reconstructions, and reactions to and interpretations of disinvitations. First-order discussions characterize disinvitations as highly
undesirable, and advice postings admonish would-be disinviters to avoid the act. Nevertheless, the meeting of certain speech community
norms allows disinvitations to be performed appropriately with sufficient relational work.
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Disinvitations; Invitations; First-order analysis; Speech acts; Relational work

1. Introduction

This paper examines the speech act of disinvitations, outlining both their structure and the conditions under which they
can be performed. A disinvitation occurs when a speaker (S) makes a statement that the hearer (H) is not, or is no longer,
invited to an event that H expects to attend. Disinvitations may be as short as the one I overheard one child say to
another---You’re not invited to my birthday party!---or they may be elaborated.
In Example (1) a representative of the Huffington Post disinvites reporter Nate Thayer from a TV interview. Thayer had
been invited to do the interview on the topic of the media’s use of unpaid reporters; when Thayer indicated that he would
also discuss Huffington Post’s use of unpaid reporters, the producer checked with superiors. After doing so, the producer
texted Thayer the disinvitation in (1). (Note that all written examples contain the original spelling; the head act is
underlined.) An abbreviation indicates the website, with full addresses listed in Appendix B.

(1) Thanks much for making time to talk. Sorry this one isn’t going to happen, but I’ll reach out again for others
stories. I’ll just say good luck. [observer.com]

This is a particularly short disinvitation, consistent with being sent by text, but it undertakes relational work and reveals the
basic components of the more elaborated disinvitations discussed in the following sections.
The present paper draws on two research traditions. I will undertake a traditional second-order analysis of
disinvitations, providing a speech act-theoretic account of disinvitations and a description of the disinvitation speech act
set. Following the work of Eelen (2001), Locher and Watts (2005), and Schneider (2011), I will then present an analysis of

* Correspondence to: Department of Second Language Studies, Indiana University, 1021 E. Third Street, Memorial Hall 315, Bloomington, IN
47405-7005, United States. Tel.: +1 812 855 9877; fax: +1 812 855 5605.
E-mail address: bardovi@indiana.edu.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.10.010
0378-2166/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 93

first-order metapragmatic comments from online discussion posts and a survey to provide a speaker-based perspective of
the performance of disinvitations. Finally, the first-order accounts will be used to inform the second-order analysis for an
integrated relational and rational account.
Disinvitations pose a challenge to the pragmatic skills of the disinviters, given that they seek to rescind a previous
invitation and thus take away proffered benefits to the invitee. Online discussion posts to disinvitation inquiries capture the
conflict in performing disinvitations: ‘‘No one yet has invented a way to be polite while being rude. You cannot avoid being
rude if you do this, terrible thing to do’’ [yahooanswers.com] and ‘‘There’s no polite or graceful way. . . because it’s an
inherently impolite and graceless thing to do’’ [askmetafilter.com]. Given the inherent difficulty of aligning disinvitations
with politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987) or intentional impoliteness (in the sense of Culpeper, 2010), I will view the
performance of disinvitations through the lens of relational work. Relational work is ‘‘the ‘work’ individuals invest in
negotiating relationships with others’’ (Locher and Watts, 2005:10) which ‘‘comprises the entire continuum of verbal
behavior from direct, impolite, rude or aggressive interaction through to polite interaction, encompassing both appropriate
and inappropriate forms of social behavior’’ (p. 11). I will attempt to show that there are speech community guidelines for
performing disinvitations that address the issue of relational work, which---if observed---may help interlocutors maintain
their relationship, but do not transform disinvitations into polite utterances.
This investigation of disinvitations begins with a brief review of speech-act accounts of invitations which are traditional
second-order accounts. Disinvitations are related to invitations not only by withdrawing the proffered benefits of
invitations, but also by having the potential to cancel their desired perlocutionary effects.

1.1. Invitations

Invitations have been characterized as directives (Searle, 1976, 1979; Vanderveken, 1990). Like all directives, invitations
attempt to get the hearer, H, to do something. Invitations are generally good for the hearer, which Vanderveken captures as a
preparatory condition: ‘‘it is something that the hearer will be happy about and that is perceived to be good for him’’ (p. 191).
While the traditional speech-act categorization of an invitation as a directive emphasizes what H will do, an alternate
analysis proposed by Hancher (1979) includes not only what H will do, but also what S is required to do. Hancher observes
that ‘‘an invitation is not only a directive but a commissive: it commits the speaker to a certain course of behaviour’’ (p. 6).
Thus, Hancher assigns invitations to a hybrid class of commissive directives. Isaacs and Clark (1990) capture the
commissive nature of the invitation in the following: ‘‘A must believe B would like to be present at Event E, and A must be
able to provide what she offers’’ (p. 499).1
As Hancher notes, ‘‘the directive aspects of offering and inviting can be hidden, for either speaker or hearer (or both),
behind the appearances of generosity of commitment on the speaker’s part.’’ This observation finds resonance in other
analyses. Although García (2007, 2008) categorizes invitations as a type of request and thus face-threatening, she also
entertains the possibility that invitations may be face-boosting; her empirical cross-cultural comparisons accord well with
Hancher’s assessment of invitations as commissive directives and suggest that some cultures may orient more to one
aspect of the invitation than the other. From a conversation analytic perspective, Schegloff (2007) claims that offers
(commissives) are preferred over requests (directives) as first pair parts, suggesting a possible motivation for Hancher’s
observation. Isaacs and Clark (1990), working with reports of invitations, identified two perlocutionary effects: ‘‘B comes to
believe that A wants B to attend event E’’ and ‘‘B comes to feel that A likes or approves of B’’ (p. 502). Similarly, García
(1999) later observed that invitations express ‘‘approval and liking of the interlocutor’’ (p. 401).
The earliest empirical studies of authentic invitations (Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson et al., 1983) identified the essential
components of sincere invitations as reference to a time and/or mention of a place or activity and a request for a response.
Although there are very few key components required for a sincere invitation, cross-cultural empirical accounts show that
invitation negotiations can be quite extended both in natural conversation (Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson et al., 1983, for English;
Eslami, 2005 for Persian) and role plays (García, 1999, 2007, 2008 for national varieties of Spanish; Bella, 2009, for Greek).

1.2. Disinvitations

Disinvitations withdraw or cancel the invitation they refer to. Consider Vanderveken’s (1990:210) characterization of
‘‘cancel’’ as a starting point: ‘‘To cancel an order or an authorization or any other speech act is to declare it to be no longer in
effect. There is a preparatory condition to the effect that an act had been made and is in effect, and a propositional content
condition that this is terminated.’’ In the case of the disinvitation, the invitation is cancelled. As the data presented below will
show, in the case of disinvitations there is a modification to Vanderveken’s preparatory condition for cancellations that allows
for expected or anticipated invitations to also be cancelled. Invitations may be reasonably expected in the case of family
membership or established friendships, reciprocal invitations, or previous participation in similar events, consistent with

1
Isaacs and Clark (1990) use ‘‘A’’ for the speaker (the potential inviter) and ‘‘B’’ for the hearer (the potential invitee).
94 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

Isaacs and Clark’s observations that ‘‘in this culture, it is considered impolite to exclude some members of a group’’ and
‘‘B can ordinarily expect an invitation to an event when B becomes aware that others are planning to attend the event’’
(pp. 499--500). Thus, disinvitations may also cancel the expectation or assumption of an invitation.
Like more general cancellations, disinvitations are declaratives. The effect of a declarative is immediate, not mediated
by future action. There are both pre-emptive disinvitations which say, in effect ‘‘I’m not going to invite you’’ and post-
invitation disinvitations which say ‘‘you are no longer invited.’’ The common declaration in both cases is ‘‘You are not
invited.’’ The result of the declarative is the implied directive: ‘‘Do not come.’’ The disinvitation withdraws the proffered
benefits of the invitation, cancels S’s commitment to H, and releases H from following the original directive.
Disinvitations have not received prior attention in the empirical literature, thus motivating this exploratory descriptive
study as the basis for future research. The goal of this paper is to examine authentic disinvitations and metapragmatic
discussions of disinvitations to investigate the components of disinvitations, conditions on their performance, and the view
of an online English-speaking community toward the performance of disinvitations in order to provide a full account of this
speech act.

1.3. Research questions

This paper addresses four research questions concerning the structure, use, and evaluation of disinvitations and the
conditions under which they may be performed.

1. What is the structure of the disinvitation speech act set?

2. What are the constraints under which disinvitations may be performed?
3. What are the outcomes and costs of disinvitations?
4. What is the community assessment of disinvitations?

2. Data collection

This study investigates two types of data: authentic disinvitations and metapragmatic reports of disinvitations. Data
were collected from a number of sources (cf. Culpeper, 2010). Authentic disinvitations comprise the primary linguistic data
for this study. They were collected from email, blogs, and an online survey designed for this study. First-order
metapragmatic reports were collected from the online survey and from publically accessible blogs and discussion posts
which existed independently of this study.
There were nine questions on the survey, the first of which asked respondents to describe the disinvitations or to paste
in a copy or provide a reconstruction of the disinvitation (see Appendix A, Question 1). The eight additional survey
questions asked respondents to describe the event, back story, their feelings, the relationship of the disinviter (S) and the
disinvited (H), and the age and gender of each. The relationship of the disinviter and the disinvited and their ages are
standard variables in pragmatics; the event and the back story were elicited to provide context; and the question about
feelings was added to gain a sense of the reactions of the addressees in the absence of observable turns and uptake. (The
full survey appears in Appendix A.) The survey was posted on Linguist List and our department website, and forwarded by
participants to other participants in snowball sampling. The respondents were unknown to the researcher.
Websites and blogs discussing disinvitations were identified by a Google search using ‘disinvit,’ thus including both
‘disinvite’ and ‘disinvitation.’ The first sites that were returned on two separate searches about one month apart were
included. The searches returned 14 posted queries on discussion boards and their responses (6 general social websites
and 8 wedding websites), 14 blogs from social mavens, and 30 news media posts.2 The search concluded when over
300 posts had been collected. (See Appendix B for the data sources and websites.)
The data collection resulted in 9 authentic disinvitations, one reconstructed (oral) disinvitation, 3 disinvitation scripts
(from blogs and discussion boards giving advice on how to word a disinvitation), and 70 personal accounts of
disinvitations (54 from the survey; 6 from advice posts; and 10 from blogs). In total, 306 discussion posts were analyzed:
292 responses and 14 expert blogs.3 The 14 blogs written by experts divided into 9 blogs on weddings and 5 on general
social disinvitations.
Authentic disinvitations are the primary evidence for a traditional second-order analysis of the structure of disinvitations
(Q1). First-order metapragmatic discussions provide a portrait of the relational work undertaken by disinviters and their
addressees. The discussion posts provide the constraints on performing disinvitations (Q2) and evaluations of
disinvitations (Q4). Personal accounts of disinvitations in discussion posts, blogs, and the survey provide evidence of
outcomes and costs (Q3). The analyses of each of the data sets are described in the relevant sections.
2
Due to space limitations the media accounts will not be discussed in detail.
3
The 292 discussion posts come from 13 queries. The remaining query posed a unique question and is discussed qualitatively in section 5.2.
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 95

3. The structure of disinvitations

The disinvitations collected for this study included both social and professional disinvitations. Disinvitations to social
events often reference longer histories between the disinviter and addressee than professional disinvitations do and thus
differ in the number and elaboration of solidarity moves they employ, but they share the same semantic formulas as
illustrated by Examples (2) and (3).4 Example (2) is a professional disinvitation emailed on the occasion of the double
booking of a keynote address for a regional conference; Example (3) is an elaborated social disinvitation. (Other events
are listed in Table 1.)

(2) Emailed professional disinvitation

Subject RE: Speaker inquiry
Hi,
[Solidarity with problem] I’m embarrassed but I think I jumped the gun a bit.
[Explanation] While I contacted you, another board member secured another speaker for that slot,
[Disinvitation] so it is booked now.
[Offer of Future Redress] I definitely want to keep you on the list for the next year, however. Sometimes we do
mid-year speaker events as well.
[Solidarity moves: I’ve seen you present at [Conference] and read some of your papers, and your work
Comembership] is very interesting. I saw that you are also going to the [Topic] conference this month. I
was hoping to go to that but can’t make it.
[Apology] I’m so sorry the confusion.
[Appeal for understanding] I hope you understand!
[Signature]

(3) Elaborated social disinvitation

Subject heading: 6 recent photos of the visitor from hell
[Solidarity] PICT01.JPG,PICT02.JPG,PICT03.JPG,PICT04.JPG,PICT05.JPG,PICT06.JPG
Hi [Nickname],
[Solidarity] Sorry we haven’t been able to touch base but my life has been complicated lately.
First, we had the 3, that’s THREE, visitors from HELL. They’re [mammals] who
decided to move into our house. I can’t even begin to tell you the havoc they wreaked
in the pantry and on [father-in-law’s (FIL)] den bookshelves.
[Solidarity] . . .[second paragraph on pests, 117 words]. . .
[Solidarity] Then, we just returned from seeing [doctor] at [medical] Center in [city] and, long story
short, [explanation of her own medical condition and surgery][198 words]. . .
[Solidarity] Very few people know it so please don’t say anything to anyone, but [FIL’s diagnosis]
[32 words]. . .
As I mentioned before, I’m planning a surprise 75th family birthday party for [FIL] in
[place] the weekend of [date].
[Appeal for understanding] As you can imagine, it’s a difficult scenario
[Explanation] because [your ex-husband] might be bringing someone and I don’t want it to be
uncomfortable for anyone and I don’t want to spend the weekend worrying about how
everyone is getting along
[Disinvitation] and that’s why I decided to ask [your daughters] and not you. I know in time that
tensions will ease up but right now I just am not able to deal with emotions, hurt
feelings, etc.
[Arrangements] I know the girls are busy but if there’s anyway they could make it---even if they could
fly in on Saturday for the big party at [their aunt and uncle’s] and depart on Sunday---I
know it would mean a lot to [FIL]. I would be willing to pay expenses.
So I’m trying to maintain a zen-like composure with all the chaos that’s flying around
and I’m trying to keep my sense of humor as well. I know we’ll get through all of this
and laugh about it afterwards, but right now I’m finding that a little difficult to believe.
[Solidarity] I hope all’s well with you. Life goes on. . .and only gets better and better.
Closing XO, [Given name]

4
In this paper the traditional ‘‘S’’ and ‘‘H’’ will be referred to as ‘‘disinviter’’ and ‘‘addressee/recipient’’ to accommodate written disinvitations.
 96
Table 1
Disinvitation components.

Semantic TV appearance PSN GB Camp Baby Keynote Review Lecture 75th Family Wedding Thanksgiving
formula (Example 1) (conference) (conference) (Example 2) Birthday Party (Example 4) Dinner
(Example 3)

Greeting Dear Industry Hi Stefania, Hi! Dear Professor Dear Professor Hi [nickname]! Dear Friend Hey
Colleague Family name, Family name,
Solidarity move/ I’ll just say good I’m embarrassed [solidarity] I I hope that your (1) Pictures, (1) sent email (1) I am sorry to

K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

problem luck. but I think I thank you most New Year and (2) pests, (2) out of control, write this, but I
statement jumped the gun a sincerely for your new semester (3) health-self, (3) history have upset some
bit. willingness to have started off (4) health- together; people in the
review for Prof on the right foot. husband (4, post disinvite) family and I have
[family name]. impressed by to do this. (2,
friend’s studies post disinv) but if
you are not
invited, then I
may not go
either!
[Explanation] [provided by Unfortunately Unfortunately, While I contacted Your acceptance Unfortunately, I (1)[your Realized that our (1) it was not my
invitee; demand for we can only you, another e mail reached write to you with ex-husband] space and place to invite
discussion of places. . . accommodate board member me after I bad news: Due to might be bringing budget. . .limited; you with out
unfair practices exceeded supply those who secured another forwarded all unexpected someone; family and close asking your
by news outlet and we have to registered to speaker for that documentation circumstances (2) and I don’t friends. . . we see boyfriend and his
offering prioritise public arrive and leave slot, to the first three beyond our want it to be often and. . . Mom. . ..
invitation] sector requests within the [organization’s] uncomfortable close by [assurances of
followed by parameters of control, . . . a for anyone affection] (2) but
PSNGB Johnson’s Camp serious budget was not my place
members, Baby. shortfall. . . to invite you!
. . .only one place
. . .per
organization
[Disinvitation] Sorry this one Therefore. . . [explanation so it is booked and this now we have I decided to ask I have to take
isn’t going to [apology] but on functions as now. results that your concluded that [your daughters] back my
happen, this occasion we head act] services are not we have no and not you. invitation to the
are unable to required for this choice but to family dinner in
offer you a place round of cancel the event. nov
promotions.
[Offer of future but I’ll reach out However I would I will be sure to I definitely want and that we may It is our loss to I hope [. . .] that
redress] again for others like to extend an include you in all to keep you on approach you miss the chance we’ll see each
stories invitation to future invitations the list for the again for other to meet with you, other soon and
attend a future and mailings. next year, promotion and so we celebrate all our
PSNGB meeting however applications in wonder if you milestones
as a guest if your future. would be willing together.
organisation is to attempt this
not already a visit in the [. . .]
member. semester.
[describes
financial

K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

preparation]
Appeal for I hope you I trust that you As you can I hope this please do not be
understanding understand! will understand imagine makes sense mad! because I
this and my family
really want you
there.
Apology (Sorry) see I am very sorry I’m so sorry the We deeply (1) I am sorry if
disinvitation confusion. apologize for any you are hurt by
inconvenience this;. . . (2) so I
this may cause, apologize from
[reimburse the bottom of my
expenses] heart!
Thanking Thanks much for Thank you for Thanks so much I again express
making time to your application for getting in my appreciation
talk to attend the touch about for your
PSNGB Camp Baby! willingness to
Roadshow event asist us in the
on 10th or 12th promotion
July. process
Closing Take care! [First initial] Regards I look forward to XO, given name Very much love
Best, redacted, Dr. [male your response. and peace, First
on behalf of professor] name
Johnson’s Camp Chair: College
Baby Promotion
Committee

97
98 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

Prior to the disinvitation in Example (2), two emails---an invitation and an acceptance---had been exchanged.
Disinvitation (2) opens with a friendly greeting ‘‘Hi!,’’ then presents a solidarity move, drawing the recipient into the problem
faced by the disinviter, I’m embarrassed but I think I jumped the gun a bit. The second paragraph resumes with another
solidarity move that includes comembership reference.
The disinvitation in (3) is a pre-emptive disinvitation for a social event emailed to a former daughter-in-law by the father-
in-law’s wife. The disinvitation was written two years after the divorce of the addressee and the honoree’s son. Perhaps
because of the longevity of the relationship between the correspondents (31 years), there is extensive relational work
done through multiple solidarity moves, any one of which is likely to have been sufficient on its own. In addition to the
verbal solidarity moves, the email also contains six attached pictures. Due to the personal nature of the content, the
solidarity moves have been heavily redacted as indicated.
Disinvitation (3) uses extensive family membership markers throughout, including a nickname not used outside the
family, disclosure of FIL’s health issue marked by Very few people know it so please don’t say anything to anyone,
but. . .marking addressee as in-group, and closing with XO (kiss and hug). The assessment We’ll get through this is
ambiguous between inclusive we (writer and addressee) or exclusive we (writer and FIL). Additionally, there is an appeal
to the daughter-in-law to facilitate her daughters’ attendance at the event to which she is not invited.
Disinvitation (4) is a personal disinvitation sent to an old friend on the occasion of a wedding. As in (2), the disinviter in
(4) reports difficulty performing the act. In contrast to (1)--(3), (4) has no explicit disinvitation formula and instead relies on
the addressee to interpret the explanation as a disinvitation (as other speech acts rely on explanations in lieu of an explicit
head act); in this case, the disinviter implies that the hearer is not in the category of ‘‘close friends that we see often and live
close by.’’ For the disinvitation to carry the intended force (reported by the hearer on the survey), the addressee had to
interpret that category of guest as excluding her.
(4) Social (Wedding) Disinvitation (email; posted on survey)
Dear Friend,
[Solidarity] When Bob and I got engaged last February, I sent you an email to share the joyful
news.
[Explanation] I did not know then, however, what a monster the guest list would turn out to be.
. . .[guest list as volcano]. . . We’ve realized it’s necessary to keep it on the small side,
with family and close friends who we see often and who, for the most part, who live
close by.
[Solidarity/Problem I have been worried about writing this note to you for the past several months,
for disinviter] because I don’t want this unpleasant reality to overshadow our important history
together. Believe me when I tell you we’ve had to make some super tough decisions
and it has hurt both of us.
[Appeal for understanding] I hope this makes sense,
[Future redress] and that we’ll see each other soon and celebrate all our milestones together.
[Solidarity] I love hearing -- indirectly through FB -- about your studies. I am totally impressed by
the work you’re doing, and think it’s so awesome that the one semester in the
Amazon turned you on to these wonderful projects. It seems like you’re really
flourishing. Yay for you!
Closing Very much love and peace, Given Name
Table 1 presents an analysis of the semantic formulas of all the disinvitations collected for this study, including greetings
and closings. The disinvitations exhibit the following semantic formulas: [Solidarity move], [Explanation], [Disinvitation],
[Appeal for understanding], [Offer of future redress], [Apology], and [Thanking] (see Table 1). Explanations are used by 8 of
the 9 disinvitations; the explanation for Example (1) was provided by the recipient in a previous exchange, and thus was not
repeated. Solidarity moves and/or problem statements occur both in professional and personal disinvitations, although they
appear to be optional in professional disinvitations. When they occur, they are less elaborate than they are in social
disinvitations. Explicit disinvitation statements, offers of future redress, and solidarity moves each occur in 7 of 9
disinvitations. Less common are the appeals for understanding (5/9), apologies (4/9), and thanking (4/9). Closings, like
openings, are cordial, and in the case of friends and family may use ‘‘love’’, ‘‘hugs and kisses,’’ and nicknames.
As in the performance of other dispreferred speech acts, such as disagreements and complaints, the head act is
postponed. Explanations generally precede the head act and offers of future redress follow it, in the order [Explanation]
[Disinvitation] [Future redress]. The order of supporting moves may vary; solidarity moves, thanking, apologies, and
appeals for understanding may precede or follow the head act. In cases where there are multiple solidarity moves, they
may occur both before and after the disinvitation.
Inclusion of a disinvitation semantic formula found in Examples (1)--(3) contrasts with the absence of one in Examples
(4)--(6). As in other speech acts, the disinvitation head acts differ in directness, ranging from the less direct this one isn’t
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 99

going to happen and so it is booked now to the more direct on this occasion we are unable to offer you a place (after a place
in fact had been offered and was being rescinded), to the most direct I decided to ask [your daughters] and not you and I
have to take back my invitation to the family dinner in nov.
The nine authentic disinvitations include six professional and three social disinvitations. The social disinvitations are
supplemented by three social disinvitation scripts posted in blogs and discussion posts, and one reconstructed
disinvitation. Like Disinvitation (4), the scripts also omit an explicit disinvitation head act as in (5), relying on the willingness
of the hearer to infer the disinvitation from the context.

(5) Script for disinvitation [torontobrides.com]

Beth,
[Solidarity] I’m calling because I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate our friendship
[Problem] and that it troubles me
[Explanation] but I have to cut down on the guest list because we’ve come into a budget crunch.
[Appeal for understanding] I know that as a close friend, you’ll support me in this decision and
[Offer of future redress] I’d love for us to get together before/after the wedding.

The reconstruction in (6) of a face-to-face oral disinvitation submitted to the survey is the only example in this data set
that includes turn-taking, albeit reconstructed. (The formatting was added by the researcher; the commentary provided by
the respondent is given in square brackets.)

(6) Reconstructed, face-to-face, oral disinvitation

[This interaction was just a week or two ago, so I remember quite a bit of the conversation. First, she approached
me in person as we were walking across campus from our last class and introduced the topic of the conversation.
It went something like]
S: You know how I’ve been talking about how big my wife’s party is that I’ve been planning?
[This friend of mine had been describing the ups and downs of her party planning process for a couple of months at
that point.]
H: ‘‘Yeah?‘‘
S: ‘‘Well, you know how I’ve been saying that it’s all getting too big way too fast?’’
[At this point, I could kind of predict what she was trying to tell me from the tone of her voice. I perceived that
she sounded a bit embarrassed and nervous]
H: nodded ‘‘uh huh’’
S: Well, I might have to cut down the number of people and I was wondering if you’d be really offended if we only
had family and friends that both of us [her and her wife] know? I mean, I wouldn’t even ask if I didn’t feel like
you’d understand since you’ve heard me complaining about it for so long?‘‘
[She definitely sped up her speech and either her pitch went up or she got louder. I can’t exactly remember, but I
could definitely feel that she was uncomfortable.]
H: ((laugh)) ‘‘No, it’s cool. I may not even be here in the summer anyway.’’
[I was trying to make her feel better and not be so embarrassed.]
S: ‘‘Are you sure you won’t be mad? I feel bad for asking, but (her wife) is really stressed and. . .’’
[And then she continued on giving reasons for why she had to change her plans for the party.]
This reconstruction shows the same semantic formulas as the written disinvitations. The solidarity moves, You know
how I’ve been talking about how big my wife’s party is that I’ve been planning? Well, you know how I’ve been saying that
it’s all getting too big way too fast both lay out the problem and draw on the women’s previous shared conversations. The
explanation I might have to cut down the number of people follows with an explicit but indirect head act: I was wondering if
you’d be really offended if we only had family and friends that both of us [her and her wife] know? As in Examples (4) and
(5), the hearer is left to work out that she is not in the category of guests of ‘‘family and friends that both the honoree and
inviter know’’ but unlike Example (4), there is an explicit framing of the disinvitation with hedging I was wondering and an
acknowledgement of the potential outcome if you’d be really offended. This is followed by an appeal for understanding I
mean, I wouldn’t even ask if I didn’t feel like you’d understand since you’ve heard me complaining about it for so long.
In addition to the commentary, the reconstruction also includes the hearer’s turns, which are preempted by written
disinvitations. The commentary by the hearer shows that on the one hand, she anticipates bad news, and on the other, she
plays down the effect that the disinvitation has on her by her responses to the speaker. She reports that she knew the
speaker was uncomfortable and her move, It’s cool, I might not even be here in the summer anyway, is an attempt (by her
own account) to lessen her friend’s embarrassment. Thus, the reconstruction corroborates the difficulty the speakers
claim to have in performing disinvitations in Examples (2) and (4) and reveals the inclination for the hearer to support the
speaker, even when the speaker is delivering a dispreferred turn such as a disinvitation.
100 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

4. Metapragmatic accounts of disinvitations

This section addresses the three research questions regarding the conditions under which disinvitations may be
performed, the costs and outcomes of disinvitations, and the evaluation of disinvitations by exploring the first-order
metapragmatic data found in the discussion posts and the survey responses. Six analyses were performed. The
discussion posts were coded for
(a) explicit statements about conditions under which disinvitations can be performed.

The first-hand reports were additionally analyzed for

(b) the reasons for the disinvitations and

(c) the reported outcomes.

The researcher and a research assistant coded the 70 first-hand accounts for

(d) the feelings reported as a result of the disinvitations

and the 306 posts for

(e) the adjectives used to describe disinvitations and

(f) the assessments of disinvitations.

Our inter-rater reliability for (d)--(f) was 97.2%; differences were resolved by discussion. The discussion posts are
discursive events in their own right. Community members may read and respond to each other’s posts as well as to the
original question. Thus, it is important to bear in mind that the comments do not necessarily constitute independent
judgments as they would be in individual interviews or experimental judgment tasks.

4.1. Constraints on disinvitations

Constraints on disinvitations discussed in the posts generally take the form of conditions such as ‘‘you can’t disinvite
someone unless’’ or ‘‘you can disinvite someone only if.’’ Three conditions recurred in the posts: (a) the disinviter was the
original inviter, (b) an offense was committed by the invitee, and (c) the offense occurred after the invitation.

4.1.1. The disinviter must be the inviter

When prospective disinviters reveal that they were not the person who extended the invitation, respondents are quick
to point out that only the inviter may disinvite a guest. Examples include a groom who wants to disinvite his fiancée’s ill-
behaved friend from the wedding to save her the trouble, and a host who wants to disinvite a guest invited by her mother,
illustrated in (7).

(7) Q: My mom accidentally invited a non-wanted party guest to my party. I want to tell him that the invite was a
mistake but I DONT WANT TO BE RUDE. Please help?
A: You can’t uninvited somebody because you didn’t do the inviting.
Your mum needs to call him up and explain. . .that she was in the wrong to invite them and that she apologises.
If she won’t do that then you have to be a great host. . .[yahooanswers.com]

The respondent advises that the mother must do the disinviting as the original inviter, and barring that, the daughter is
advised to endure (discussed in section 4.3).

4.1.2. Offense and timing of offense

The constraints concerning the offense and the timing of the offense are closely related (but distinct). The nature of
‘‘disinvitable’’ offenses is described in the blogs of two social mavens in (8) and by posts on social websites in (9).
(8) a. Only if the offence is genuinely scandalous, scurrilous, and/or felonious in nature. Otherwise, you should do
everything you can to avoid the ‘‘disinvite.’’ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/should-i-disinvite-my-pals-to-
a-new-years-eve-party/article4084630
b. . . .if someone has done something severe and you are afraid that having him or her at your wedding could
jeopardize the event or cause a scene. . .Or if the person has done something so crappy that. . . [Claudia
Maittlen-Harris, Huffington Post]
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 101

(9) Discussion posts: You cannot disinvite someone unless. . .

a. they have personally offended you [answers.yahoo.com]
b. they’ve tried to kill you, stop the wedding, or sleep with your FI[ance] [theknot.com]
c. you uncover evidence that they’ve committed a serious crime in between the invitation and the party
[ask.metaFilter.com/190318]
d. there was a knock-down, blow-out fight between the host and a guest or a horrific breakup pre-party or
something [yehoodi.com]

In order to determine the frequency and type of offenses that occur, the first-hand accounts of disinvitations were
analyzed. Sixty of the 70 accounts included a reason for the disinvitation. Only 13 (22%) of the accounts reported that the
disinvitee had committed an offense; 35 accounts (58%) reported that the host had not planned well; 5 accounts (8%)
stated that a former romantic partner was expected to be in attendance; and 7 (12%) did not provide a clear account of
responsibility (Table 2).

Table 2
Speaker and hearer responsibility in reasons cited in first-hand accounts of disinvitations.

Responsibility N (%)

H did something ‘‘bad’’ or was responsible or partially responsible 13 (22%)

S did not plan well 35 (58%)
Ex-romantic partner 5 (8%)
Cannot determine responsibility, but not severe 7 (12%)

The offenses cited as the basis for social disinvitations included arguments, rifts, falling out, disagreements, change in
relationship, and showing up drunk. Miscalculations by hosts included lack of space, downsizing, budget, and mistakes.
Offenses cited in professional disinvitations include late replies, noncompliance to some rule (e.g., not being able to attend
the full conference), falling out among committee members, and quality of work. Other accounts reported that people had
been disinvited because the host said that the topic to be discussed might make the invitee uncomfortable or that the
inviter did not have the money to carry out the invitation.5
Example (10) was contributed to the survey by a 65-year old disinviter who was insulted by the invitee. The example
details the offense, the opportunity for an apology (and presumably the potential retraction of the disinvitation), and the
difficulty of performing a disinvitation as evidenced by the enlisting of his partner to compose the disinvitation.

(10) Regretfully I told my old (former) friend that he was no longer invited to my birthday party. He had got drunk at
dinner and insulted me in a rather gross way -- about as grossly as it is possible for an English man to insult
another -- using terminology usually read as an invitation to fight -- as I read it. The text of the disinvitation was
actually given word by word by my partner. She is much better at this sort of thing than me. It was worded so as to
allow an unqualified and fulsome apology -- which I would have accepted. But none came. . .

The timing of the offense further constrains disinvitations: The offense must have occurred after the invitation was
extended as stated in (9c) and (d). Of the 60 of the 70 first-hand accounts of disinvitations that report an offense, 16 (27%)
occurred after the invitation, 8 occurred before (13%), and the rest reported no specific timing.6
Taken together, the constraints on the occurrence of an offense and its timing seem to separate the legitimate (and
perhaps ‘‘felicitous’’) disinvitations from the infelicitous ones. An offense by the invitee committed after the invitation meets
the conditions for felicitous disinvitations, whereas a miscalculation on the part of the host regarding space, budget, place
settings, or other facets of event planning do not. The difference between legitimate reasons (invitee offended the inviter)
and illegitimate reasons (poor planning on the part of the inviter) is illustrated in the response to the post in Example (11).

(11) Q: i invited someone i knowto a big party i’m having. then i realised later that she wasn’t who i thought she was
so i told her it was a mistake. was i unreasonable?
A: Did you invite Jane thinking it was Jayne or did you catch her wiping her nose on your curtains?
[mumsnet.com]

5
Reports from the news media also include religious and political affiliations, positions on social issues, and actual illegal activity, but these
reasons were not reported in the personal accounts.
6
The media accounts suggest a modification to the timing constraint. It seems that rather than the actual offense happening after the invitation,
it is the knowledge of the offense that seems to be relevant, at least in newsworthy cases.
102 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

‘‘Did you invite Jane thinking it was Jayne’’ presupposes a mistake on the inviter’s part in confusing two potential guests. In
contrast ‘‘did you catch her wiping her nose on your curtains’’ offers an interpretation in which the guest has committed an
offense. The first, by the metapragmatic accounts, is not a legitimate reason for a disinvitation; however the second option,
representing bad behavior by a guest, is a legitimate reason.

4.2. Expanding the invitation condition

Vanderveken’s preparatory condition for cancellations is that a speech act has been performed. In the case of
disinvitations, this would mean that an invitation had been extended. However, the disinvitations and the metapragmatic
comments reveal that the assumption of an invitation either on the part of the prospective disinviter or guest is a second,
alternative precondition for social disinvitations. One discussion thread specifically discussed the status of romantic partners
and (dis)invitations which can be summarized as ‘‘if you’re inviting someone’s partner, you sort of by default invite them too’’
and ‘‘no way to ‘uninvite’ someone from a party especially if you purposefully invited their SO’’ [ask.metafilter.com/190318].
Examples throughout this paper illustrate that in addition to romantic partners, family members (Examples (3) and (25)),
friends (Example (4)), and those previously invited (Example (17)) may legitimately expect an invitation to certain events, and
thus are potential recipients of disinvitations which cancel that expectation. These expectations seem to echo the
observation by Isaacs and Clark (1990) that it is considered impolite to exclude some members of a group when extending an
invitation.

4.3. Avoid the act: opt out

Avoiding the act, or opting out, is the single most common type of advice given in response to posts contemplating
disinvitations. The posts recount the specifics of the situation then ask how a disinvitation can be performed; the question
often indicates reluctance as in the following: How do you uninvite someone to a party? Is it ever acceptable? [ask.
metafilter.com/190318]; and How do you tactfully uninvite someone to a party? [yehoodi.com].
Ninety-one posts addressed questions like these. One social expert, Julie Rottenberg, answered the question as in (12).

(12) Picture me, with my hands to my face, doing Edvard Munch’s The Scream and you will understand that my
answer is: No! While there are certainly all kinds of mores about crafting a guest list for a dinner party, the one
rule that is nonnegotiable is that you cannot disinvite someone from a party of any kind, for any reason, once he
or she has been invited. [realsimple.com]

Key words that were repeated in the responses are reported in (13a); summaries of uniquely worded assessments are
given in (13b). Only the first assessment in a post was coded to equalize posts of different lengths.

(13) Assessments (91):

a. Recurring words: Can’t (15), no way (13), never (7), have to (still) invite (7), no (4), don’t (4), cannot (3),
wouldn’t (2)
b. Recurring sentiments: general negative assessment (8), not worth the problems it will cause (7), constraints
(7), no turning back (5), consequences (1), fine (8)

The assessments may be summarized as ‘‘There’s no (adj) way to disinvite someone’’ and ‘‘Can’t/don’t/never disinvite
someone.’’ The majority of the assessments are negative; only 8 can be summarized as ‘‘fine.’’
While some posts simply tell the advice-seeker not to perform a disinvitation, 55 posts suggest one of three specific
strategies as a means: endure (let the person come and try to be a good host, 15), accommodate (make room, 26), and
cancel the event (9).

(14) Endure: Focus on other guests, not the problem guest [yahooanswers.com]
a. I think uninviting them would be much more trouble than just having this person come to the party and politely
putting up with him/her
b. just ignore
c. Put on your big-girl pants, be a gracious host and don’t be all Mean Girls

(15) Accommodate: Scale back and keep the guest

a. For a party: Alter the formality of the event [party] move from sit-down to buffet [thedailymeal.com]
b. for a wedding: [determine] what needs to be cut from your wedding expenses to make up for inviting so many
people (serve one meal option, have beer and wine only, don’t have flowers, rent a sound system and use an
iPod) [weddingbee.com]
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 103

(16) Cancel:
a. You could cancel the party and try again later [ask.metafilter.com/190318]
b. I think the only way to really handle it would be to cancel the party and then to reschedule it, being a little
more careful about who you invite next time. [ask.metafilter.com/190318]
c. Just tell them it was cancelled. [yahooanswers.com]

The endure and accommodate strategies allow the host to avoid the disinvitation, and thus the withdrawal of proffered
benefits to one person. In contrast, the cancel strategy withdraws proffered benefits to all potential guests equally, and
consequently has a wider effect, but without treating one individual differently. However, this strategy is not without risk
because a subsequent lack of invitation to the next event may be noticed by the guest as reported in (17).

(17) . . .Some time later, she re-scheduled the dinner and invited the same people again, but this time she did not
invite the husband’s friend. The lack of invitation was not made explicit; he just did not get an e-mail from her that
time, and later learned that the rescheduled dinner had taken place. He brought up the topic with her, and she did
not offer an apology or explanation. [survey]

A fourth, and less often discussed avoidance strategy suggested by five responses is to lead the guest to decline the
invitation by making it seem less appealing, a strategy also used in ostensible invitations (Eslami, 2005).

4.4. Reported feelings and outcomes

One of the reasons for avoiding disinvitations is the potential for hurt feelings. Thirty-seven of the 70 first-hand accounts
reported feelings resulting from the disinvitation; the reports included 28 negative feelings and 9 neutral reactions
summarized in (18).

(18) a. Negative feelings: hurt (7); disappointed (5); upset (4); awkward (2); abandoned and forgotten; bad; bad and
shame; betrayed; devastated; horrible feeling; miffed; offended; taken aback; understood and odd
b. Neutral: alright; did not feel hurt in the least; didn’t care much; fine; hate the couple? No. . .(but no reciprocal
invitation); I could care less; indifferent; no problem; relief rather than insult (received better invitation as
redress)

Even recipients of disinvitations that met the offense condition report feeling bad about being disinvited. In the survey one
respondent who had a misunderstanding with his uncle before the wedding reported feeling ‘‘abandoned and forgotten,’’
and another who reported a small argument with her friend wrote ‘‘I felt bad and shame.’’
Three of the neutral reports, . . .did not feel hurt in the least, . . .relief rather than insult, Hate the couple? No. . .(but no
reciprocal invitation), admit the presupposition that recipients of a disinvitation might be hurt or insulted. In one case, a
disinvited bridesmaid reported that the re-invitation as a wedding guest was a better invitation, and in another Hate the
couple? No the daughter of the disinvited couple reported that there would be no reciprocal invitation to her wedding.
The last analysis of outcome identified 13 reports of long-term impact on relationships. These ranged from friendships
that had ended---ruined our friendship, no longer friends, broke up, don’t contact her any more, friendship later dissipated,
we never spoke again, our junior high friendship was over---to potential friendships that did not develop when the
disinvitation happened early in a relationship---never became friends, potential friendship ended up just fizzling before it
really began---to relatively more minor social ramifications which include no reciprocal invitation, S[ignificant] O[ther] will
not be attending, and [We] smirk at social clumsiness. Only one of the accounts reported still being friends, I was slightly
taken aback but we remained good friends for years and are still in touch.
In addition to the potential negative outcome to the addressee (hurt feelings) and to the disinviter and addressee (loss
of friendship), the discussion posts reveal another negative outcome to the disinviter, namely loss of social status as a
good host. The loss of reputation as a good host is predicted to result from people talking about the disinvitation in
Example (19); other posts warned disinviters to be careful with the wording ‘‘be careful with your words so you and your
future bride are not smeared over Facebook, twitter, etc.’’ [timesunion.com], and still others encouraged recipients to tell
about their disinvitations.

(19) Although we might be tempted to disinvite, a gracious host never, ever withdraws an invitation --- that is, if she
ever wants to have guests over again, as guests do talk and a ‘‘disinvite’’ will certainly give them something to
talk about. [thedailymeal.com]
104 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

4.5. Community descriptions of disinvitations

Expanding from personal accounts to community evaluations of disinvitations, the discussion posts containing
descriptions were analyzed for adjectives (or conjoined adjectives), adjective-noun combinations, and other descriptors,
following Spencer-Oatey’s (2011) analysis of adjectives used to describe relational work in institutional interaction. Only
the first descriptor was counted to equalize posts of different lengths. The 306 discussion posts yielded 82 descriptions of
disinvitations.

(20) Descriptions of disinvitations (82 descriptors):

Rude (28), YABU [you are being unreasonable] (5), awkward (4), mean and tacky (3), naughty (3), crap/crappy
(3), bullshit (2), tacky (2), against etiquette, awful, bad, bad manners, cruel, cruel and tacky, delicate situation,
embarrassment, fiasco, harsh, impolite, impolite and graceless, lack of respect for friends, lame, mean, not a
good or nice thing to do, not very classy, offensive, petty and immature, poor etiquette, really breaking some
serious rules/really poor manners, selfish, self-centered, serious, stupid, terrible, the most heinous, grievous and
egregious social misstep there is, total asshole move, total bitchy thing, ugly deed, unreasonable, wrong

The most common description of disinvitations is ‘‘rude,’’ occurring in 28 of the 82 descriptions (34%), and the other
descriptions are similarly negative, revealing an overall negative assessment of disinvitations. Disinviters are character-
ized negatively as ‘‘classless’’ or ‘‘Olympic-level jerks’’ or worse [ask.metfilter.com].
Although the negative descriptions are consistent with admonition to avoid disinvitations, there may be an additional
consideration. The difference between the invitee-caused offenses and the inviter’s difficulties in planning an event may
give a clue to why disinvitations are so widely regarded as ‘‘rude.’’ Disinviting guests for reasons of poor planning on the
part of the inviter seems to be especially disfavored.

4.6. Minimizing the negative effects of a disinvitation

Although performing disinvitations is widely discouraged, some discussion posts do make suggestions on how
disinvitations can be performed as the script in Example (5) shows. The first-order metapragmatic comments also
contain information on what the speech community holds to be appropriate ways of performing disinvitations:
Apologize, offer redress, do it in person, and be truthful. Apologizing, offering redress, and mode of delivery are all
facets of relational work which are in evidence in both the authentic disinvitations and in the first-order metapragmatic
discussions.

4.6.1. Apologize
The admonition to apologize---‘‘apologize profusely and preferably make a date to catch up with them at another time’’
[metafilter.com]---corresponds to the occurrence of the apology formula seen in the authentic disinvitations in Table 1:
I’m so sorry for the confusion; We deeply apologize for any inconvenience; I am very sorry.

4.6.2. Offer redress

Prospective disinviters are encouraged to ‘‘make it up to’’ the disinvited person. Like apologies, this corresponds to a
semantic formula identified in section 3. Offers of future redress attempt to compensate the hearer for the disinvitation. In
the words of the post in (21c), offers of future redress attempt to demonstrate that the speaker still likes the hearer, thus
separating the disinvitation from the friendship.

(21) Make it up to the guest (offer of future redress) [ask.metafilter.com/184257]

a. Definitely try to spend time with this friend, maybe do something nice together
b. . . .with sincere promise to get all dolled up and go out someplace wonderful; make it concrete
c. . . .and then a sincere attempt should be made to demonstrate that you do like the person by inviting them
immediately to something else. Preferably something better

In one account from the survey, a person was told that she lived too far away for someone to pick her up and take her to
the party, and so she was disinvited. However, she was offered redress in the form of a future invitation, ‘‘We’ll invite you
next year after you’ve moved closer.’’ The importance of offers of future redress, which often take the form of another
invitation, is further emphasized by the professional disinvitations which were followed by reinvitations. Three
disinvitations in Table 1 were followed by re-invitations: ‘‘PSN GB Conference’’ and ‘‘Review’’ to the same event, and
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 105

‘‘Lecture’’ was rescheduled when the student organization had raised the money for speaker travel funds (the lack of
which had led to the disinvitation). Thus, offers of future redress can be substantive offers as well as relational work.

4.6.3. Mode
In the discussion posts, potential disinviters are advised to carry out disinvitations in person or by phone as opposed to
email, voice message, or text. The examples in (22a-d) give advice about how to deliver a disinvitation. (22e) presents the
recipient’s perspective of receiving a disinvitation to a cousin’s wedding by ‘‘just an email’’ and the first line of (24)
describes being disinvited ‘‘via text’’ as adding ‘‘salt to the wound.’’

(22) a. But you do owe a personal phone call/explanation to everyone you are un-inviting. [eastsidebride.com]
b. I suggest calling them personally and telling them exactly what happened [yehoodi.com]
c. A polite phone call can handle this situation. It’s not a fun phone call, but people appreciate being told the
truth [Claudia Maittlen-Harris, huffingtonpost.com]
d. If you are going to uninvite Ms. X, you should probably do it in person rather than by phone, email, or text
messaging. Using forms of communication to complete a rude act gives you the appearance of a coward.
Don’t be a coward. [timesunion.com]
e. I was disinvited. . .No reason, no phone call, just an email. [eastsidebride.com]]

In the exchange between posters in (23), Lonicera contrasts ‘‘personally and apologetically’’ with ‘‘send her an email’’
When MMJ admits to sending an email, a third participant assesses her mode of delivery as ‘‘terribly bad manners.’’

(23) did you do it personally and apologetically, or did you send her an email? [Lonicera]
i sent her an email.
do you think i should have spoken to her personally? [themildmanneredjanitor]
That’s terribly bad manners mmj. [CleverlyConcealed] [mumsnet.com]

4.6.4. Truthfulness
Although being honest is a Gricean maxim that applies generally to conversation, its relevance to disinvitations is often
emphasized in the posts. The outcome of an untruthful explanation is reported in Example (24) and the outcome of an
untruthful cancellation in Example (25).

(24) I was uninvited via TEXT, which added more salt to the wound.
Later, we were sent a URL to watch their wedding live as it happened on the beach (they were having a small,
‘‘family-only’’ wedding.) We watched and were shocked to see about 75--100 guests there, including some of our
friends in attendance. . . .Needless to say we are no longer friends [100layercake.com/blog]

(25) I was told the family Xmas party was cancelled. . .until 2 days after Christmas when I got a phone call from
another family member asking why I was not at the Christmas eve party. ‘‘I was told it was cancelled this year’’,
‘‘well, that is funny cause we were all there wondering where you and the kids were’’ [survey]

As these examples show, untruthfulness compounds an already delicate situation. In the case of (24), the addressee was
on good enough terms with the disinviter to watch the wedding, but the untruthfulness led to the ultimate loss of friendship.

5. Discussion

This exploration of disinvitations allowed for multiple perspectives on disinvitations and the relational work required in both
performance and receipt. The data sources, the authentic disinvitations, first-hand accounts, and discussion posts allowed
multiple perspectives to be taken into account. The petitions for advice about performing disinvitations reveals speaker
intention in what amounts to speech-act slow motion, away from the tempo of conversation, as speakers solicit advice from
online communities. This shows speakers and speech act performance to have an intentional and rational side, at least in this
case where disinvitations are considered beforehand and are delivered as discrete speech events in writing (in spite of
advice to the contrary), both of which encourages planning and rational thought. The perspective of the hearer is present in
the first-hand accounts of disinvitations by the recipients who reported feelings, outcomes, and events that led up to the
disinvitations. Finally, the perspective of a loosely defined English-speaking community is articulated in the explicit
metapragmatic discussion posts in response to postings by prospective disinviters. Community responses include negative
assessments of disinvitations, admonitions not to perform them, and constraints on doing so, and much less often, the
106 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

necessary components. Thus, although the primary linguistic data---the electronically delivered disinvitations---are not
themselves interactional, the discussion posts and first-hand accounts paint a clear picture of relational work surrounding
disinvitations in order to maintain the relationship between the host and the disinvited guest. Moreover, the first-order
metapragmatic comments inform the traditional second-order speech-act account regarding constraints, semantic formulas,
and preference for modality, and provide a perspective of what happens to relationships beyond the disinvitation.

5.1. A speech-act account

The metapragmatic comments provide the basis for expanding a formal statement of preparatory conditions on
disinvitations. On the basis of the evidence provided by the metapragmatic comments, the preconditions for disinvitations
can now be elaborated:

a. H expects to attend the event (by virtue of explicit invitation or group membership)
b. H has committed an offense against S
c. Offence occurs after the invitation and before the event
d. S was the inviter

The majority of the reports of negative outcomes of disinvitations orient to invitations as commissives. The first-order
metapragmatic comments clearly focus on loss to the prospective guest (hence the offer of future redress). Comments
that assess the disinvitation as ‘‘fine’’ may have oriented to the invitation as a directive---as in the case of the bridesmaid
who was re-invited as a guest. By virtue of not being a bridesmaid she was also absolved of her responsibilities and the
cost and time necessary to participate in the wedding party. Thus, disinvitations also shed light on invitations, suggesting
that Hancher’s hybrid commissive-directive more accurately captures the community’s orientation to the speech act than
the directive account does.
It is also clear from the metapragmatic comments that disinvitations run the risk of cancelling feelings of being liked and
valued which are engendered by invitations (and often do so), and for that reason, first-order accounts emphasize making
other arrangements with the disinvited person precisely to maintain the friendship.
Comparison of the conditions under which disinvitations felicitously occur according to the first-order metapragmatic
comments and the conditions under which they are reported to have occurred in both discussion posts and the survey
suggests why the majority of descriptions are negative. While dispreferred, done with care, disinvitations need not be ‘‘rude’’ if
they follow the constraints, particularly those pertaining to offenses committed by invitees; they may be appropriate if they
conform to community expectations (Schneider, 2011). However, as many of 58% of the disinvitations were attributed to host
planning error, and these may be seen to be particularly infelicitous as the host is withdrawing benefits from the prospective
guest, through no fault of the guest. Cases of disinvitations explained by the expected attendance of former romantic partners
may also be viewed negatively because the host is choosing one invitee to the exclusion of another. The first-order
comments revealed an inconsistency in the ‘‘allowable’’ reasons for disinvitations and the reported reasons, pointing the way
for additional research to determine if first-order assessments of disinvitations would be less negative if they followed the
conditions set out by the community, on the order of ‘‘regrettable, but well handled.’’

5.2. A natural test of the account

A naturally occurring test of the constraints on disinvitations and their hypothesized and documented outcomes is
found in a post that asks a different question from the ones considered previously: Am I being unreasonable and a
massive cow? [mumsnet.com/unreasonable]. This was the only advice-seeking post to document bad behavior on the
part of the invitee after the invitation. After providing a history of selfish behavior on the part of the invitee, the subsequent
growing apart, and the invitation to the wedding and the hen (bachelorette) party as an ‘‘olive branch,’’ the writer details the
post-invitation offenses that include asking for the hen party to be held in the invitee’s home town (200 miles away from the
bride’s family), planning to bring her husband to the hen party,7 and taking more than a month to confirm attendance (and
thus hotel reservations) for the party. In light of the offenses, the poster is advised to disinvite the friend, in proportions not
seen in the other 13 advice posts. The respondents also discuss disinviting the (former) friend with the purpose of ending
the friendship (‘‘cease all contact’’, ‘‘delete her contact details’’, ‘‘ditch the bitch’’). The bride takes an active role in the
online discussion, and when she is advised to not follow the save-the-date notice with a wedding invitation, she pursues
that option only to discover that the invitations had already been mailed, reporting to the group ‘‘Bollocks, I’ve texted my
mum and the invites went out this week,’’ and asks ‘‘Can I rescind? I’m going to hell. . ..’’ In this reiteration of the question,
we see a second negative assessment of the bride’s own contemplated action. After 46 turns, the bride decides to
7
Gendered parties seem to be an exception to the ‘‘partner’’ rule.
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 107

disinvite the friend from the hen party (the smaller and more intimate gathering) using the most neutral of the offenses as
the explanation, namely that the late communication of acceptance and arrangements meant that there were no longer
hotel rooms available. She then follows the advice to endure and let the wedding invitation stand. (In a later turn the bride
revealed that the friend’s sister had also been invited to the wedding.) After sending the disinvitation she posted ‘‘I’m quite
relieved tbh [to be honest]. She’ll be at the wedding, but I feel as though that’s manageable.’’ The next day, after receiving
a reply from the friend saying that she would see her at the wedding, the bride posted ‘‘Ah well, I’ve got what I wanted
(sort of) in the end and I’ve managed not to look like a total bitch, so I’m happy with that.’’
This extensive exchange illustrates the issues that are involved in performing a disinvitation on the part of the disinviter
to avoid subsequent negative outcomes, both in terms of protecting one’s own reputation and not ending a friendship
(however shaky), the role of recipient offenses in licensing a disinvitation, the power of group membership in preserving an
invitation, and the option of avoiding a disinvitation by strategies such as enduring. A significant amount of relational work
was undertaken by the potential disinviter, with the help of discussants, in an effort to maintain both good relations and
good feelings. The outcome appears to be promising (as long as the friend doesn’t read the website).

5.3. Limitations and future research

The authentic disinvitations collected for this study are all electronic. Although this makes little difference for the
metapragmatic reports, the electronic communication of disinvitations---in contrast to the admonition that disinvitations
should be oral (face-to-face or by phone)---means that the disinvitations are not interactive and that we have to rely on the
metapragmatic reports to determine relational outcomes. Missing cues as to the difficulty of performing disinvitations were
included by accounts from the survey:

(26) ‘‘listen, um, uh well you see well’’ (I knew something was wrong because she is always outspoken and
never minces words)
(27) She definitely sped up her speech and either her pitch went up or she got louder.

Although spoken disinvitations are characterized as showing greater deference to the recipient, the advantage of the
written disinvitation to the disinviter is that there are no interruptions, no interaction, and no argument from the addressee.
Of course, one significant advantage of the electronic disinvitations is that they can be shared, and that fact permitted the
collection of the authentic disinvitations explored here and permits the sharing of the disinvitation to the potential detriment
of the host (see the first, fifth, and sixth columns in Table 1 whose disinvitations were posted on blogs).
Because the discussion posts are discursive events in their own right and community members may read and respond
to each other’s posts as well as to the original question, the comments do not necessarily constitute independent
judgments. In order to secure independent judgments and to further explore attitudes toward disinvitations made for
different reasons---most notably recipient offense versus host planning error---a controlled judgment task could be
undertaken using the authentic disinvitations and/or the original requested for advice collected for this study. Since they
were originally written, they lend themselves to a judgment task.
A second and more obvious area of future work is the collection and analysis of authentic oral disinvitations occurring in
conversations. I expect this to be a rather difficult task, but one whose fruits would likely be very informative as to the
relational work done by the speaker and hearer at the time of the disinvitation. I respectfully submit that although many
aspects of conversation have been successfully imitated through conversation simulations including role plays,
simulations of disinvitations would not capture the risk to relationships so clearly seen in the authentic disinvitations
considered here and the metapragmatic comments about disinvitations.

6. Conclusions

Disinvitations test the bounds of analyzing all speech acts from the perspective of politeness. For politeness to retain
value as a theoretical concept that accords with popular accounts or our own common sense, there have to be alternatives
such as that afforded by relational work as outlined, for example, by Locher and Watts (2005) and Schneider (2011).
Speech acts that are described variously by community members as ‘‘rude,’’ ‘‘impolite,’’ or ‘‘mean and tacky’’ may be
outside politeness, but not beyond the bounds of relational work or constraints on performance. Disinvitations may
be found to be appropriate when they observe constraints, such as being issued only when the invitee commits an offense
after the invitation. Disinvitations that violate the constraints and are based solely on a host’s error in planning may still
be seen to be appropriate if they include appropriate relational moves such as apologies or offers of future redress. As one
poster observed, ‘‘Disinvites can be done kindly or cruelly, but there simply aren’t ‘nice’ ways to do them’’ [askmetafilter.com].
The greatest act of relational work may be in not performing a contemplated disinvitation. I hope this initial account of
disinvitations will lead to more work on this and other speech acts on the edge.
108 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

Appendix A. The Online Survey

Disinvitation Survey
I am studying disinvitations and need your help.
Recently I was on the receiving end of what I’ll call a ‘‘disinvitation,’’ the adult equivalent of the six-year-old’s ‘‘you can’t
come to my birthday party.’’ Uncomfortable as it was to receive this, I found the disinvitations to be very interesting.
You (or someone you know) may have received a disinvitation if you or your acquaintance
(a) have/has been explicitly not invited to something or
(b) an invitation previously extended to you or someone you know has been rescinded.
If this has happened to you or someone you know, and you are willing to fill out this survey, it will ask you for either a copy of
the disinvitation (for example, an email or a text) or your recollection of the disinvitation, followed by a brief description of
the disinvitER (approximate age, gender, relationship to the addressee), the recipient/disinvitED (approximate age,
gender, relationship to the speaker/sender), the event, and any background information you would like to provide.
There is no ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘wrong’’ answer to any of these questions. Your responses are completely anonymous. Please do
not use names! Use terms like ‘‘my brother’’ or ‘‘my friend’s sister.’’
The survey is very short; the amount of time it takes is up to you and how much you want to say.
Thank you for agreeing to take part in this study on disinvitations.
*1. Consent
I have been informed about the nature of this study and willingly consent to take part in it. I understand that I may withdraw
from the study at any time.
Please date as e-consent.

2. The disinvitation
If you have the original email or copy of a disinvitation, please type or paste your disinvitation here. Remember to change
names to relationships, such as ‘‘Bill’’ to ‘‘my ex-boyfriend.’’

If you don’t have the original disinvitation, but can reconstruct it, please type or paste your disinvitation here. Remember to
change names to relationships, such as ‘‘Bill’’ to ‘‘my ex-boyfriend.’’

3. What was the event to which you were disinvited?

4. Disinviter’s age
5. Disinviter’s Gender
6. Recipient’s Age
7. Recipient’s Gender
8. Relationship of Disinviter to Disinvited (Recipient)
 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110 109

9. Is there any background information that would help me understand the situation better? Again, please no names, only
relationships!
10. How did you feel about it?

Appendix B. Sources and Websites

Disinvitations (found at these sources and sites; numbers correspond to the left to right order of presentation in Table 1)

1. Nate Thayer: http://observer.com/2013/04/nate-thayer-disinvited-from-huffpo-tv-appearance

2. Brian Condon: digital-citizen.co.uk/wordpress/?p=1694
3. Stefania Pomponi Butler: http://www.citymama.com/2008/03/johnsons-baby-c.html
4--7 emailed
8--9 posted on survey

General social advice (etiquette) message boards

1. http://ask.metafilter.com/190318/Is-there-any-way-to-uninvite-someone
2. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111116171159AAK4Cq0
3. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100803102500AAwPFWo
4. http://www.yehoodi.com/comment/80688/how-to-gracefully-uninvite-someone/
5. http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/924655-to-disinvite-some-one-to-my-party/AllOnOnePage
(first 35 posts)
6. http://ask.metafilter.com/184257/How-to-disinvite-someone-to-be-my-date-to-a-wedding

Wedding advice sites

1. www.etiquettedaily.com/.../disinvite-disgust-when-your-rsvp-is-too-late/
2. http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/stds-disaster#axzz2uqlHsOCD
3. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090815220725AA6YURa
4. http://www.eastsidebride.com/2013/04/is-it-possible-to-revoke-wedding.html
5. http://www.100layercake.com/blog/2011/11/22/dear-esb-is-it-okay-to-un-invite-people/
6. http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_moms-maids_can-disinvite-
maid-wedding-party?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:357Discus-
sion:046851d6-a860-44b1-be33-fafa9a772c39Post:fdb63000-c0a0-48db-aad9-a4cedc87a6b8
7. http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/ara-should-i-uninvite-my-fiancees-friend-from-the-wedding/53989/
8. http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1474392-to-uninvite-my-friend-from-my-wedding

Professional advice columns or essays

1. Peggy Post etiquette: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/etiquette/disinviting-friends-from-wedding-guest-list

2. www.huffingtonpost.com/.../can-you-disinvite-a-weddi_b_3692083.html [Claudia Maittlen-Harris]
3. http://www.torontobrides.com/questions/wedding-guest.php
4. http://weddings.weddingchannel.com/wedding-planning-ideas/wedding-etiquette/qa/can-you-uninvite-a-wedding-
guest.aspx
5. http://www.drdaveanddee.com/disinvite.html
6. http://www.onewed.com/wedding-advice/2010/10/07/ask-wedding-maven-can-i-disinvite-bridesmaid
7. http://myweddingdirectory.com/qna-etiquette_page.html
8. www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/.../mannersmondays_n_3781169.html
9. http://www.emilypost.com/home-and-family-life/children-and-teens/752-middle-school-kids-ask-questions-about-
etiquettes
10. http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/etiquette/manners/disinviting-party-guest-00000000030157/
11. http://www.qfak.com/arts_humanities/etiquette/?id=1947620
12. http://www.thedailymeal.com/it-ok-disinvite-guest
13. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/should-i-disinvite-my-pals-to-a-new-years-eve-party/article4084630/
14. www.guyspeak.com/page/296/?__mode=feed&_type...blog...
110 K. Bardovi-Harlig / Journal of Pragmatics 75 (2015) 92--110

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Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig is Professor of Second Language Studies at Indiana University where she teaches and conducts research
on pragmatics, second language acquisition, and tense-aspect systems. Her work on pragmatics has appeared in Discourse Processes,
Language Learning, SSLA, and Intercultural Pragmatics and in handbooks including the Handbooks of Pragmatics (de Gruyter Mouton). She is
co-editor of Interlanguage Pragmatics: Exploring Institutional Talk (Erlbaum), Pragmatics and Language Learning, and Teaching Pragmatics
(http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/resforteach/pragmatics.html).