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Journal of Pragmatics 57 (2013) 170--172
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Book review

Impoliteness. Using Language to Cause Offence

Jonathan Culpeper, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, 299 pp., ISBN 978-0-521-68977-9

Impoliteness has attracted a lot of scholarly attention recently, with countless articles but only one edited volume
(Bousfield and Locher, 2008) and one monograph (Bousfield, 2008) published so far. Impoliteness. Using Language to
Cause Offence is a long awaited monograph on this topic, in which Jonathan Culpeper views impoliteness as a
multidisciplinary field of study and approaches it from several different linguistic perspectives: pragmatics, cognitive
linguistics and phonetics, drawing also on other disciplines, primarily social psychology.
The scope of the book is epic. The introduction presents the reader with the superb range of analytic problems that
impoliteness research covers. It also includes a description of the data used in the book. The first two chapters set out to
determine what impoliteness is and what its components are, in the Author’s view. The central aim of Chapter 3 is to depict the
metadiscourse of impoliteness; how the terms ‘‘rudeness’’ and ‘‘impoliteness’’ differ, what metapragmatic comments are,
and how they are used in research. This is carried out by means of a corpus study and an analysis of impoliteness/rudeness
labels used by respondents. Chapter 4 focuses on conventionalised impoliteness formulae (cf. Culpeper, 2010). The chapter
begins with investigating whether impoliteness is inherent in language and closes with establishing the mechanisms of
exacerbating offences. Chapter 5 sheds new light on behavioural triggers (which can be form-driven, convention-driven, and
context-driven) for implicational impoliteness. In Chapter 6, Culpeper expands on the notions of co-text and context, which he
then discusses with reference to norms created by the co-text, and also establishes a politeness threshold. The remainder of
the chapter is devoted to mock impoliteness and impoliteness neutralisation vis-à-vis impoliteness sanctioning. The main
focus of Chapter 7 is on the functions of impoliteness, the major ones being: affective, coercive and entertaining ones. This
chapter also deals with the notions of creativity and institutional impoliteness.
Although the book is a continuation of Culpeper’s earlier work on impoliteness (e.g. Culpeper, 1996; Culpeper et al.,
2003), there is a shift in its focus. The strategies of employing impoliteness, first advanced in the seminal article (Culpeper,
1996), are not overtly addressed but emerge in a data-driven analysis of metalanguage (Culpeper in Dynel, 2013a). Also,
Culpeper adopts Spencer-Oatey’s (2005, 2007, 2008) analytical framework, endorsing three types of face: quality, social
identity and relational. In Culpeper’s understanding, the last category does not contain relationships between participants
based on role rights and obligations. In his view, whenever impoliteness is geared towards violations of a person’s role
rights or obligations, the offence is directed not at his/her face, but at his/her sociality rights (cf. Spencer-Oatey, 2008), i.e.
people’s expectations regarding what others should do or not do in certain contexts. Given the wide range of topics and
research strands pursued in the book, only a few can be addressed here, for reasons of space.
Since impoliteness is widely recognised by language users, Culpeper devotes ample space to its metalinguistic
analysis. The discussion of metalanguage starts with justifying why the term ‘‘impoliteness’’ is preferable to ‘‘rudeness.’’
Culpeper proves, based on evidence from the Oxford English Corpus, that the term ‘‘impoliteness’’ is much less frequently
employed. At the same time, he establishes the difference between the two adjectives ‘‘rude’’ and ‘‘impolite’’ by analysing
their collocates. The former links speakers and their talk, whilst the latter is related to hearers and their perception of
someone else’s talk. (Incidentally, a very careful reader may note a minor misprint in the description of Table 3.6 on page
85. The frequencies of grammatical patterns appear to be swapped for ‘‘rude’’ and ‘‘impolite’’.) This discussion of labels is
linked to the phenomenon of impoliteness metadiscourse. Culpeper points out the importance of laymen’s labelling of
particular impolite events, observing that one’s metalanguage associated with impoliteness represents one’s beliefs
about the mediation of face and social norms. He underscores that thought influences language and language influences
thought, which may be associated with linguistic relativity. Culpeper does acknowledge the connection but does not dwell
on the Sapir--Whorf hypothesis.
Yet another interesting issue connected with impoliteness metadiscourse is the notion of metapragmatic comments.
A metapragmatic comment is an evaluative expression referring to a particular utterance which is understood within the

0378-2166/$ -- see front matter

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.08.010
 Book review 171

speech community in which it operates. As an example, Culpeper provides the phrase ‘‘That’s rude.’’ He analyses
institutional rules of what is expected of people, but more interestingly, he focuses on two handbooks of misbehaviour
(one jocular and one serious), in the light of which he arrives at a set of strategies, similar to, if not the same as, the ones
proposed in the 1996 article.
Culpeper addresses the vexing question of whether impoliteness is inherent in language. He admits that context is
immensely important in recognising impoliteness, yet he emphasises that the role of context may blur the fact that
linguistic expressions also play a role in the inferential process. Culpeper posits conventionalised impoliteness formulae
(cf. Culpeper, 2010), which typically promote impoliteness, as a result of the conventionalisation of context-specific
impoliteness effects. This is based on Terkourafi’s (2001, 2005) frame-based approach to politeness, which proposes that
the recognition of these frames lies in their regularities and the frequency of their use. Culpeper, however, rejects this
premise of the notion of conventionalised impoliteness formulae, rightly arguing that they may be based on indirect
experience or even solely on metadiscourse. This stems from the assumption that metadiscourse is connected with a
social group’s norms and concomitant ideologies. Typically, a group member accepts its norms and manifests his/her
group membership by adopting the same metadiscourse. This is a tenable conceptualisation, as evidenced by swearing,
for example. Language users are well aware that swearing is generally (in formal contexts or in public discourse) regarded
as impolite, even if they do not need to have had any direct experience of producing or listening to foul language.
Apart from conventionalised impoliteness, Culpeper proposes implicational impoliteness. When discussing form-
driven impoliteness, he specifies the characteristics of impolite mimicry. Culpeper’s point of departure is Goffman’s (1974)
definition on mimicry, which he conflates with Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) echoic irony. The application of this theoretical
approach is illustrated with a recording from The Weakest Link in which Anne Robinson mimics one of the contestant’s
pause-filler, ‘‘eer’’. The speech samples are analysed acoustically. The vowels are plotted on two vowel diagrams, with
RP vowels used for reference. What seems problematic here is that Culpeper compares isolated sounds produced by a
male and a female speaker. Such a comparison would normally take into account the differences in the structure of the
male and female vocal tracts (Fry, 1984; Lieberman and Blumstein, 1993; Watt et al., 2011), which involves setting the
frequency range between 75 and 300 Hz for a male speaker and 100 and 500 Hz for a female speaker (Boersma and
Weenink, 2013). Although Anne Robinson’s mimicked schwa does have a substantially higher F2, a comprehensive
phonetic analysis would also examine her usual schwa in relation to other vowels in her repertoire.
The reader is not informed about the methodology of the acoustic analysis, but given the pragmatic nature of
Culpeper’s analysis, the setting of the Praat programme used may not have had a crucial impact on his treatment of
mimicry. The remaining examples of mimicry in Chapter 5 are analysed in terms of pitch contour. The findings create a firm
basis for drawing conclusions as to the aggravating effect of the speaker’s prosody.
Culpeper distinguishes neutralisation from sanctioning or legitimisation/legitimation (cf. Culpeper, 1996, 2005, 2008)
as well as normalisation. Neutralisation captures cases in which the target of impoliteness is aware that the context blocks
genuine impoliteness, and the utterance is not meant to be genuinely offensive. When discussing neutralisation, Culpeper
provides counterevidence to Mills’s (2002) arguments with regard to army training discourse and points out that
neutralisation is often mistaken for legitimisation or sanctioning. He maintains that even though communicative behaviour
may be legitimised, it does not have to be neutralised, at least from the target’s perspective. Sanctioning, or legitimisation,
in turn, means that potentially impolite behaviour inheres in a particular activity type. Culpeper convincingly argues that the
ideology of legitimisation values impoliteness as positive. Also, legitimisation is most pronounced in institutional structures
(which relates to the main difference between legitimisation and normalisation, the latter being the same process, but
pertinent to private domains).
This ties in with Culpeper’s (2008) postulates regarding the perception of impoliteness as being dependent on four
types of norms: personal, cultural, situational, and co-textual ones. It appears that personal and cultural norms have a
stronger effect on the target than situational and co-textual norms, thus making the target feel offended even if the context
and co-text should suggest that an utterance is not intended to be taken as an insult. In order to support his hypothesis,
Culpeper cites a number of socio-psychological studies. The workings of sanctioned but not neutralised impoliteness are
illustrated with examples from The Weakest Link (see Culpeper, 2005). The contestants are aware of the nature of the
programme, expecting impoliteness, which they should duly take for granted. Yet they do feel offended by Anne
Robinson’s biting remarks and mockery.
The analysis of The Weakest Link is also connected with a type of impoliteness labelled by Culpeper as entertaining.
Even though impoliteness involves hurting someone’s feelings, it may be a source of pleasure for other hearers, such as
television viewers. An audience may take pleasure in witnessing violations of other people’s social rights. Culpeper
enumerates five sources of such pleasure: emotional pleasure (creating a state of arousal in the observer), aesthetic
pleasure (the audience is amused by speakers’ verbal creativity), voyeuristic pleasure (observers like experiencing other
people’s emotional exposure), being superior (people enjoy watching others in a worse state), and feeling secure. These
concepts have been investigated in more detail under the incongruity theory of humour, as well as the superiority theory of
humour (see Dynel, 2012, 2013b).
172 Book review

Culpeper’s monograph is an engrossing description of a wide spectrum of impoliteness phenomena. It provides the
reader with new insights into this field of investigation, bringing together findings from a number of disciplines so that they
create a heterogeneous but, at the same time, harmonious description of impoliteness. Given the theoretical scope of the
book, the data-driven approach, the clarity of presentation, as well as comprehensive explanations of the issues raised,
Culpeper’s Impoliteness. Using Language to Cause Offence is a must-read for enterprising students and seasoned
researchers of impoliteness. The monograph will serve as a challenging textbook and as a thorough reliable consolidation
of research on impoliteness.

References

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(retrieved 09.07.13).
Bousfield, Derek, 2008. Impoliteness in Interaction. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Bousfield, Derek, Locher, Miriam (Eds.), 2008. Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay With Power in Theory and Practice. Mouton de
Gruyter, New York.
Culpeper, Jonathan, 1996. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25, 349--367.
Culpeper, Jonathan, 2005. Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: the weakest link. Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1),
35--72.
Culpeper, Jonathan, 2008. Reflections on impoliteness, relational work and power. In: Bousfield, D., Locher, M.A. (Eds.), Impoliteness in
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Dynel, Marta, 2012. Setting our house in order: the workings of impoliteness in multi-party film discourse. Journal of Politeness Research 8,
161--194.
Dynel, Marta, 2013a. On impoliteness and drama discourse: an interview with Jonathan Culpeper. International Review of Pragmatics 5, 163--188.
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Michał Piotrowski
Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University
of Łódź, al. Kościuszki 65, Poland
E-mail address: m.piotrowski@o2.pl