Impoliteness in polylogal interaction: Accounting for face-threat witnesses’ responses

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Journal of Pragmatics 53 (2013) 112--130 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Impoliteness in polylogal interaction: Accounting for face-threat witnesses’ responses Abby Mueller Dobs a,*, Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich b a

Department of Applied Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, 304 Sparks Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States b University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of English, Fretwell, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223-0001, United States Received 13 September 2012; received in revised form 6 April 2013; accepted 3 May 2013

Abstract Though, in recent years, impoliteness research has embraced a view of impoliteness as dynamically co-constructed in interaction, the role of impoliteness in polylogal discourse is still in need of further examination. Drawing from a corpus of naturally occurring classroom discourse, this paper uses a genre approach (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010) to examine the role of face-threat witnesses in small-group discussion practices among adolescents. Our research shows that face-threat witnesses respond to impoliteness in complex and dynamic ways that are integral to the co-construction of impoliteness, and that would have been missed entirely if the focus of our analysis had been purely dyadic. In view of our findings, we propose a refinement of extant models of response options (Culpeper et al., 2003; Bousfield, 2007, 2008) that incorporates the response options available to face-threat witnesses, thus moving beyond the dyad. Accounting for the multifunctionality of impoliteness in polylogal interaction allows for an understanding of impoliteness as constitutive, not just disruptive, of social life. With further application, our proposed refinement of extant models can help expand research that examines manifestations of impoliteness in a wide range of (non)institutional, polylogal discourse. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Impoliteness; Polylogal discourse; Classroom interaction; Small-group discussion; Adolescent

1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to further current understanding of impoliteness by analyzing how witnesses to the face-threat (Goffman, 1967:27, 125) or impoliteness act respond to impoliteness and to propose a revision to extant models (Culpeper et al., 2003; Bousfield, 2007). In-depth research on impoliteness is relatively recent (Culpeper, 1996, 2011; Bousfield, 2008), and it has inherited, as it were, some of the methodological traits of traditional politeness scholarship, among those a focus on dyadic interaction (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010, 2013; Dynel, 2012; Lorenzo-Dus et al., 2011; Watanabe, 2001). However, many interactions are likely to be polylogal (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2004) -- i.e. they involve three or more participants. Polylogal interactions provide interesting sites for research, as was pointed out by Goffman (1981:133): ‘‘The relation(s) between speaker, addressed recipients and unaddressed recipient(s) are complicated, significant, and not much explored’’. These relations remain, to this day, mostly unexplored. In what pertains impoliteness, an analysis of face-threat witnesses’ responses to impoliteness helps us better understand the dynamic ways in which impoliteness meanings are co-constructed in interaction and impoliteness interpretations arise. This is what we set out to

* Corresponding author at: 430 N. Allegheny St. Apt. 3B, Bellefonte, PA 16823, United States. Tel.: +1 704 231 2356; fax: +1 814 863 7986. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A.M. Dobs), [email protected] (P.G. Blitvich). 0378-2166/$ -- see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.05.002

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do here by applying a genre approach to im/politeness (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010, 2013) -- which understands genres not as forms but as frames for social action -- to the analysis of face-threat witnesses’ responses as they engaged in one genre practice of classroom discourse, namely small group discussion. Our results strongly suggest that current models of responses to impoliteness, mostly based on dyadic interaction, cannot fully account for the complexity and multifunctionality of impoliteness in unfolding discourse. Recent years have seen a proliferation of im/politeness models both from a politeness1 (Eelen, 2001; Locher and Watts, 2005; Mills, 2003) and a politeness2 (Brown and Levinson, 1978/1987) standpoint; Mills (2011) claims that all share a discursive orientation. Along the same lines, Haugh (2010) sees recent im/politeness models as socialconstructionist in nature. Furthermore, there seems to be a growing consensus that ‘‘judgment is at the heart of politeness and impoliteness behaviour’’ (Mills, 2011:48). However, ascertaining participants’ judgments presents a challenge for im/ politeness scholars. Analysts can enhance their understanding of participants’ judgments of im/politeness with survey or interview data, but these instruments still do not assess judgments as they are made in interaction, and can thus be problematic. The best option seems to be to focus on participants’ unelicited, linguistic responses as the potential im/polite act occurs. Previous scholarship has examined participants’ responses to impoliteness (Bousfield, 2007, 2008; Culpeper et al., 2003) and put forth a model of response options that describes the ways in which a face-threat recipient may respond or not to an impolite act (see Appendix A). If s/he chooses to respond, the recipient can accept or deny the impoliteness act. In denying the act, s/he can come to a compromise in hopes to end the conflict or counter defensively (see Appendix B for a list of defensive strategies) or offensively with reciprocated impoliteness. Due to the polylogal nature of many interactions, however, solely focusing on the face-threat recipient’s response does not seem sufficient to grasp the dynamics of im/politeness. Recently and along the same lines as Goffman (1967, 1981), im/politeness scholarship has introduced a number of hearer or participant typologies (Bousfield, 2008; Dynel, 2010, 2012; Kádár and Haugh, 2013) in an effort to accommodate participation frameworks that extend beyond the dyad. Following Thomas (1986), Bousfield (2008:175) differentiates between (a) the addressee, to whom the utterance is directed, and the hearer, a ratified participant in the interaction; (b) the addressee and the audience, who has no or reduced speaking rights; and (c) bystanders, individuals known to be in earshot but not ratified participants in the interaction, and overhearers, individuals who are within earshot unbeknownst to the ratified interlocutors. With a single turn as her unit of analysis, Dynel (2010, 2012:168) proposes a hearer typology that first differentiates ratified and unratified participants. Ratified participants consist of the speaker and hearer/listeners. The latter is further categorized as either an addressee or a third-party participant. In line with Bousfield (2008), she then delineates nonratified participants as overhearers, either bystanders or eavesdroppers. In her analysis of film discourse, Dynel (2012:172) also distinguishes recipients who comprise the intended viewing audience and metarecipients, such as academics or film critics, who analyze the dialog of the film as privileged viewers. Dynel (2012:187) notes that in polylogal interaction ‘‘an utterance may involve different face-threatening acts, as viewed by different hearers, and not all of such acts must be speaker-intended’’. This is one reason Kádár and Haugh (2013:75) recommend a move to discuss ‘‘understandings of politeness. . .rather than of a single understanding’’. They propose a similar framework of participation status. Rather than using the terms speaker/hearer, Kádár and Haugh (2013:79) use the terms producer/recipient in order to avoid a bias toward spoken interaction. Like Dynel (2012), they categorize ratified recipients as either an addressee or a side participant. They account for one more distinction in unratified recipients identifying categories for bystanders, listeners-in, and eavesdroppers. Though our paper also aims to push analysis of impoliteness beyond the dyad, we have chosen to conceptualize participant roles with a different set of terms that better suit our data, analysis, and proposed refinements to Bousfield’s (2007) model of participant response options to impoliteness. While our analysis considers impoliteness as it is coconstructed across discourse, the unit of analysis represented in the model consists of the initial impoliteness act(s) and the responses from both the receiver of the face-threat and any other participants in the interaction, ratified or not. Rather than using speaker or producer, we use the term face-threat initiator, which allows for the accommodation of different modes of communication. Additionally, we use face-threat initiator in an attempt not to privilege this role over those played by other participants in the co-construction of impoliteness. Rather than using the term, addressee, we use face-threat recipient as the face-threat recipient may not be the individual the face-threat initiator addresses directly, and in polylogal interaction, all ratified participants may be considered addressees. Finally, we use the term face-threat witness to discuss any participant, ratified or un-ratified who witnesses the initial FTA. We use the term face-threat witness to place more emphasis on his/her integral role in the co-construction of impoliteness rather than on his/her role as hearer. Though he does not present the word witness as a technical term, Goffman (1967:27) uses it to point out that the face-work following a face-threat can be carried out not only by the offender and the individual whose face was threatened but also by a witness. We do not mean for the term witness to be understood in a passive sense but rather as a position in which an individual can also ‘‘bear witness’’. We think the term face-threat witness may be less problematic than terms like third-party or side participant which may imply that the individual is of secondary importance to the interaction. Face-threat witnesses are still active participants within the interaction, and their roles within the interaction are as important to the analysis as the

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face-threat initiator and the face-threat recipient. This paper makes an attempt to further discussion in the field concerning the necessary language for addressing the complexities of polylogal interaction in the analysis of impoliteness. As more impoliteness studies adopt a discursive approach, a model of response options to impoliteness can provide analysts with common language. In keeping with a discursive approach though, such models can serve as tools for analysis and discussion rather than serve solely as a top-down, all-encompassing set of rules to be applied to discourse. Furthermore, Bousfield’s (2007) model has yet to be tested in a variety of discourse types (see Lorenzo-Dus, 2009 for an application of Bousfield’s model to a reality television show). By limiting their corpora to documentary recordings, Culpeper et al.’s (2003) and Bousfield’s (2007) data are not necessarily representative of impolite discourse as the documentary producers most likely preselected the most confrontational episodes for airing in order to appeal to their audiences (Bednarek, forthcoming; DeVolld, 2011; Lorenzo-Dus, 2008). In addition, the authors draw most of their examples from dyadic interaction. In the examples that Bousfield (2007) does draw on polylogal interaction, the role of the third and fourth participant appears to be peripheral to the impolite act and largely unexplored in the analysis. Bousfield (2008:206) recognizes this need for wider application and further research, acknowledging ‘‘that in other discourses other impoliteness patterns may well emerge, as well as other defensive strategies’’. Mueller (2011) found Bousfield’s (2007) model useful in analyzing participant responses to impoliteness in naturally occurring classroom discourse. She found that students’ responses to impoliteness, as face-threat recipients, aligned with the options described by Bousfield’s model, including nearly all of the outlined defensive strategies. However, the model could not fully account for the discursive co-construction of impoliteness in the polylogal discourse of classroom discussion as face-threat witnesses’ responses were integral to the unfolding interaction. Using Mueller’s (2011) same corpus of classroom discourse, this paper explores the more dynamic response options available to interlocutors in polylogal interaction and proposes a revised model of response options to impoliteness.

2. Methodology 2.1. Data, participants and setting Drawing from a microethnographic methodology (Streeck and Mehus, 2005), small-group and whole-class discussions in four classrooms of an eighth grade team were observed, videorecorded, and audiorecorded. From the seven hours of lessons incorporating whole-class discussion and twelve hours of lessons incorporating small-group discussion, moments of conflict exhibiting impolite behavior were transcribed to create the corpus, consisting of circa 15,000 words across 1900 turns (Mueller, 2011). A middle school team includes a Math, Social Studies, Science, and English/Language Arts teacher all of whom teach the same set of students. The cooperating school was a large, suburban middle school in the Southeast of the United States. Of the school’s 1500 students, 66.5 percent were identified as White, 16.2 percent as Black, 8.6 percent as Hispanic, 5.3 percent as Multi Racial, and 3.3 percent as Asian. Academically, the school’s standardized test scores were consistently well above the state average. The participating teachers’ class sizes ranged from 24 to 28 students. Of the 107 students on the team, 93 students returned the necessary consent forms to participate. In the Math and Science classes, students participated in whole-class discussions. In the Social Studies and English classes, students participated in small-group discussions of four or five students. In both classes, the teachers assigned students to their groups. For this paper, we will focus our discussion and analysis to student interaction in smallgroup discussion. Pseudonyms will be used for all participating teachers and students. The chosen data for this study contribute to the growing body of impoliteness research as they are not only polylogal, but also naturally occurring and unelicited. Thus far, however, much of impoliteness research has drawn from interaction displayed as a source of confrontainment -- a term that refers to ‘‘conflict-based televisual entertainment’’ (Lorenzo-Dus, 2008:83) -- on characteristically confrontational genres of media discourse (see, among others, Culpeper, 2005; GarcésConejos Blitvich, 2009, 2010; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009; Perelmutter, 2012) such as reality TV which is by definition scripted, storyboarded and highly edited. Along similar lines, research offering new participant typologies for analyzing impoliteness in multi-party interaction has substantially drawn on scripted, fictional discourse (Dynel, 2010, 2012; Kádár and Haugh, 2013). The data traditionally under analysis have, as it were, oversimplified the task of locating instances of impoliteness, which are not necessarily so clear cut and evident in real interaction. Far from it, impoliteness occurrences are subtle and often require an in-depth knowledge of participants and relationships to be properly understood. Therefore, although expanding the scope of impoliteness research to encompass unelicited, naturally occurring interaction presents challenges related to both data collection and analysis, it can also lead to new insights into the everyday, often more understated, manifestations of impoliteness. Additionally, our analysis of impoliteness focuses on adolescents -- an age group whose use of impoliteness remains largely unexplored -- and adds to our understanding of impoliteness in a classroom setting (Cashman, 2006, 2008; Payne-Woolridge, 2010) which has not been widely researched in terms of impoliteness either.

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2.2. Framework This study adopts a genre approach to the analysis of impoliteness (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010a, 2013). Fairclough’s (2003) notion of genre is central to the genre approach. Fairclough (2003) explains that the discourse of a social event is comprised of three dialectically related ‘‘orders of discourse,’’ namely genres, discourses, and styles. He defines genres as ‘‘ways of acting,’’ discourses as ‘‘ways of representing,’’ and styles as ‘‘ways of being’’ (2003:26). In a given social context, an individual’s linguistic choices are constrained by the orders of discourse appropriate to that context. As individuals are socialized into discourses (Scollon and Scollon, 2001), identity construction, conceptions of face and how to negotiate it are realized and constrained by genre practices (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010a). Furthermore, Fairclough relates style to voice so even though an individual is constrained by genre conventions and the norms associated with them, s/he is able to make linguistic choices that may contest and eventually change those conventions. It is thus at the level of style that im/politeness is (co)constructed. Though a communities of practice approach (Locher and Watts, 2005; Mills, 2003; Mullany, 2008) has proved useful for the analysis of impoliteness in classroom discourse (Cashman, 2006, 2008), within a classroom, as is the case with any community of practice, teachers and students will participate in many genre practices; each of these genres has different communicative features and norms which influence and guide the production of im/politeness as well as its interpretation. Drawing from Pennycook (2010), Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (2013) argues that genres provide an analytical frame for understanding practice at a mesopolitical level so that analysts can examine how im/politeness both instantiates (individual microlevel) and is instantiated in social structure (societal/institutional macrolevel). Relating this notion back to Fairclough (2003), she writes: Discourses, genres and styles are durable and stable, but they are also in constant flux. At the style level, agents are carriers, as it were, of discourse/genres. However, they do not merely reproduce them, by constructing recognizable identities, but can reinterpret/reinvent them in a way, that if constant and shared, may significantly alter the genre and, in turn, the discourse (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2013:23). Thus, individuals can use relatively stable generic norms to interpret and produce potential instances of im/politeness, and at the level of style, individuals can reproduce these norms or work to transform them through resistance and reformulations. Depending on the institution, teachers -- and students even less so -- may have little power in determining the genre practices in which they and their students engage in their classrooms, but while acting within these constraints, each participant does have an individual voice -- his/her style -- that negotiates generic constraints with varying degrees of compliance and contestation. Within a genre approach, impoliteness becomes defined as the disregard for ‘‘(pre)genre-sanctioned, norms and interactional parameters regulating the rights and obligations associated therein with a given individual/social identity’’ (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010a:63). Thus, analysts can use their knowledge of the norms repeatedly associated with a given genre practice as a basis for making assessments of impoliteness, incorporating an impoliteness2 approach. In the case of this study, both authors, as instructors at secondary and post-secondary institutions share a familiarity with the genres at hand. The first author, in particular, worked as an eighth-grade teacher at this same school at the time of data collection, and six years prior to it, and frequently engaged with her own students in these same genre practices. At the same time, with a genre approach, an analyst can examine how impoliteness is co-constructed in interaction at the level of style, incorporating an impoliteness1 approach. Furthermore, genre, as an overarching unit of analysis, allows us to circumvent the pitfalls of most models/theories of im/politeness. These models/theories, although developed to account for dyadic/face-to-face interaction are used, with varying degrees of success, to account for polylogal, mediated, interactive phenomena which are clearly beyond their descriptive capability. If we strive to create a comprehensive model to account for im/politeness phenomena, we need to find a unit of analysis that can account for both dyadic and polylogal interaction whether face-to-face or mediated. Genre, viewed as practice and frame for social action, constitutes that unit of analysis. At the social level, Fairclough (2003) regards genres as forms of interactions, constituting particular sorts of social relations between interactants. Social relations are described as relations between social agents: organizations, groups or individuals. Communication can be between organizations, groups, or individuals or combine different types of social agents (2003:75). This view of interactants allows for a polylogal, multi-party view of interaction, which is presupposed in the very definition of genre (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010). Indeed, genre constrains participatory frameworks (Goffman, 1981), which are also an integral part of a genre’s characteristics. 2.3. Procedure Along the same lines of Fairclough (2003), we used Swales’s (1990) three part genre model (communicative purpose, move structure, and rhetorical strategies) to identify and describe the defining features of small-group classroom

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discussion. Small-group and whole-class discussions are intrinsically polylogal genres that have become increasingly incorporated into both K-12 and college classrooms across content areas (White, 2011). Although small-group discussion is a widely recognized genre by teachers and students and promoted by state and national standards, small-group discussions will vary in their prototypicality across academic contexts. The communicative purpose of small-group discussion is for students to progress in forming conclusions and arguments that are supported with the use of evidence (Bennett et al., 2004), creating ‘‘a form of socially constructed knowledge’’ (McNair, 2000:197). Usually, discussion is spurred by a text or questions provided by the teacher. Throughout the discussion, students have several move options. They can agree with a position and support their agreement with an additional reason or piece of evidence, or they can disagree with a position or reason or present an alternative position altogether. As arguments become more complex students can give rebuttals of reasons as well (Chinn et al., 2000). Within the genre of small-group discussion, argument is not angry disagreement and is viewed as a constructive process of learning. Students must, therefore, draw on rhetorical strategies to further the discussion of opposing ideas in a nonconfrontational, unhostile manner. It is at this point when issues of politeness and impoliteness become relevant. The first step of data analysis was to isolate and transcribe examples of discourse that could be assessed as impolite from the audio and video recordings. As disagreement is a part of the generic conventions of small-group discussion, disagreements alone do not necessarily lead to assessments of impoliteness. Impoliteness scholars have debated whether or not confrontational interaction that is expected in discourses like army training or confrontational news programs is in fact impolite (Culpeper, 1996, 2005; Mills, 2005; Piirainen-March, 2005). Culpeper (2008:40) argues that sanctioned impolite behavior is not necessarily neutralized and may still cause offense. Similarly, Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (2009:178) contends that, within the news interview, when genre-sanctioned adversarialness is not ‘‘balanced with objectivity’’, the behavior may be considered impolite. In small-group discussions, students can maintain this balance by objectively and reasonably expressing their contentions. Raised voices, intentional aggravation, and personal attack indicated a loss of balance. Nonetheless, identifying impoliteness in naturally occurring discourse is not an easy task. Following Haugh (2007) and Culpeper (2011:11), we looked closely at participants’ uptake in the co-text, their retrospective comments (if present), their non-verbal actions, and their use of conventional politeness formulae. Thus, we measured our impoliteness2 assessments -- guided by our familiarity with the norms of the genre -- against participants’ own impoliteness1 assessments. In order to discern and discuss participant assessments, we drew from Bousfield’s (2007) model for analyzing participant responses to impoliteness while maintaining a bottom-up approach. So as to use a shared language to discuss our impoliteness2 assessments, a slightly modified version of Culpeper’s (2005) taxonomy of impoliteness strategies was used in the analysis of the corpus (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010c; Lorenzo-Dus et al., 2011) (see Appendix C). In the case that impoliteness2 evaluations did not accord with participant evaluations, the participant evaluations were given primacy. What is relevant here, and has not necessarily been paid excessive attention to in other studies, is that often explicit responses to impoliteness did not always or solely stem from the face-threat recipients, but from face-threat witnesses as well. As discussed above, instances of impoliteness in unelicited, naturally occurring interaction are often manifested in both complex and subtle ways. In our analysis, we refer to certain linguistic behaviors as impoliteness acts as their inclusion in the smaller corpus made up of conflictive moments -- and in this paper -- was based on (a) participants’ uptake that clearly indicated they were assessed as impolite by recipients/witnesses and (b) our own, long-standing knowledge of the genre and the subject population under study. This study -- as proposed by the genre approach -- combines a politeness1 with a politeness2 analysis. Therefore, as analysts and teaching professionals, we feel we have the experience and the background to assess certain behaviors as not abiding by the small group discussion genre norms/constraints, i.e. impolite. We also had the advantage of direct observation and access to prosodic aspects of participants’ responses, as well as to the whole corpus, which allowed us to contrast these occurrences with others in which, in our view, impoliteness was not present. In all cases, however, we have checked our assumptions against participants’ responses and justified at length the inappropriate/impolite interpretation.

3. Witnesses to the face-threat: response options to impoliteness Mueller (2011) showed how Bousfield’s (2007) model for participant response options adequately addressed the ways in which the face-threat recipient responded to impoliteness in whole-class and small-group discussions. However, upon further examination of the data, it is evident that face-threat witnesses also responded in complex and dynamic ways. Our analysis shows that Bousfield’s model can be revised and expanded to incorporate the potential responses of face-threat witnesses. As face-threat recipients can choose to respond or not respond (Bousfield, 2007), face-threat witnesses also make this choice. In the participatory framework inherent to small-group discussion each student is considered a ratified participant within his or her group. The teacher who circulates the room throughout the activity also has the right to

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intervene at any point in any of the on-going discussions. While s/he is a ratified participant of each group, a studentspeaker may or may not be aware of the teacher’s listening presence at a given point in time. As these small-groups are sharing the same classroom space, there is some interaction between groups involving unratified hearers. However, in our data there were no instances in which unratified hearers responded to potential impolite acts. Therefore in the analysis below, the representative responses of face-threat witnesses only involve ratified participants, but unratified participants theoretically could respond in similar ways. 3.1. Do not respond In choosing not to respond, the face-threat witness is choosing to remain silent. As Bousfield (2007) notes when discussing the face-threat recipient’s option to not respond, analyzing silences presents a challenging task for the analyst. This is also true when considering the face-threat witness’s option not to respond. For example, if the face-threat recipient responds immediately herself, it may be unlikely that the face-threat witness is necessarily choosing not to respond. In addition, a participant may remain silent for many reasons or to achieve a number of goals. The silence may serve to defend the face-threat recipient’s face, or in a situation when a response is anticipated, it may be face-threatening to the face-threat initiator (Bousfield, 2007). The English/Language Arts students in the following example were given the task of making a list of ten items they would take with them if they were forced into hiding like Anne Frank. In their small-groups, students proposed items to be included on the list and discussed the advantages and disadvantages to bringing each item, ultimately reaching a consensus of only ten items (see Appendix D for transcription conventions). Example 1: 1. Albert: 2. Jerome: 3. Kelly: 4. Alexis: 5. (6.0) 6. Kelly: 7. (.2) 8. Albert: 9. (3.0) 10. Albert: 11. (1.0) 12. Kelly:

U:h, u↑nd[erwe:ar.] [And it’s] small and portable. ((referring to an I-pod)) A toothbrush. *U↑nderwe::ar. (CSR) Deodorant A baseball. A baseball. De[odorant.]

The potential impoliteness act occurs in line four. Although speaker emphasis and rises and falls in pitch are not transcribed in detail elsewhere in the transcription, these have been marked in lines 1 and 4 as they are particularly significant to explaining Alexis’s use of impoliteness here. Considering meta-impoliteness comments drawn from weblogs, Culpeper (2011) argues for the importance of considering prosody when analyzing impoliteness as it plays a major role in the way in which participants interpret impolite behavior. In our view, Alexis is here using the impoliteness strategy condescend, scorn, ridicule because her tone was mocking and unkind. Culpeper (2005:59) states that impolite mimicry is ‘‘not only an echo, but also a distortion of the echoed behavior’’. In this instance, not only does Alexis echo the unusual rise in pitch in the first syllable of the word and the elongation of the vowel in the last syllable (line 4), she distorts the echoed behavior, using a creaky voice and exaggerating the vowel elongation. Here, Alexis is not abiding by the generic norms of small-group discussion: instead of proposing a logical argument against Albert’s suggestion to bring underwear or providing reasons it should not be added to the list, she refutes his contribution to the discussion by mocking it. The participants’ responses, or lack thereof, offer further evidence to support our interpretation of Alexis’s impoliteness. As mocking can comprise forms of mock impoliteness like teasing and banter, as well as genuine impoliteness, such behavior can be difficult for analysts to tease out and participants’ responses must be carefully considered.1 As Haugh and Bousfield (2012:1103) point out, participants may draw different interpretations of mock impoliteness and face-threat recipients may feel pressure to treat the behavior as non-impolite. Dynel (2008:248) notes that utterances can only be

1 In the creation of the corpus, we did not include instances of mock impoliteness when there was clear evidence that it functioned to build rapport and solidarity amongst all of the interlocutors. This evidence consisted of the prosodic features of the utterance and the participants’ uptakes.

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considered teasing if the target interprets them as ‘‘benevolent and humour-oriented’’, which s/he may demonstrate in many ways, the most obvious including ‘‘laughter, a smile, or a witty response’’. In addition to its break with small-group genre conventions, Alexis’s mocking tone does not appear to be taken up as playful teasing, as it is not followed with laughter nor is it followed with a retort as would be expected with banter. Instead, an unusually long silence ensues. It is important to note for the interpretation of this silence that prior to this point in the discussion, the teacher mentioned to students that they only had five minutes remaining to finalize their lists. At this point, the students began quickly calling out ideas for their lists one right after the other, sometimes repeating ideas that were not acknowledged by the group. Thus, the six-second pause following Alexis’s impoliteness seems significant. Both the face-threat recipient, Albert, and the face-threat witnesses, Kelly and the other group member, choose not to respond to Alexis’s impolite act. The face-threat witnesses’ silence may indicate an unwillingness to take sides or serve as a means of creating an awkward silence, which could be a way of acknowledging the inappropriateness of the impoliteness act. 3.2. Respond In Bousfield’s (2007) model, the face-threat recipient has two main options in responding, to either accept the face attack or deny the face attack. In our analysis we found that face-threat witnesses have three similar response options: to corroborate, to deny, or to react to the face attack. 3.2.1. Corroborate opposition According to Bousfield (2007:2198), in accepting the face attack, ‘‘the recipient may, for instance, assume responsibility for the impoliteness act being issued in the first place or they may agree with the impolite assessment contained within the exacerbated FTA’’. The notion and language of accepting the FTA is not completely transferable when discussing the response options of face-threat witnesses as the act of assuming responsibility can only be accomplished by the face-threat recipient. There were no instances, for example, when a face-threat witness assumed responsibility for or apologized on behalf of the face-threat recipient, though this may be theoretically possible in other genres with other participatory frameworks. There were, however, instances in which a face-threat witness would agree with the impolite assessment and corroborate the impoliteness act, sometimes strengthening it. Usually, students in the corpus corroborated an impoliteness act by committing an additional face attack against the face-threat recipient. Thus, by the nature of corroboration, when initiating this act of impoliteness, this participant is also simultaneously forming a coalition, a characteristic of polylogal discourse, (Bruxelles and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2004; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2009) with the participant who initiated the original face-threat. The students in example 2 are a small group in Social Studies class, discussing the similarities amongst the Great Depression poems or letters they have each written for homework. Example 2: 1. Tiffany: Oh well, we all put something sad in our poems, I guess. 2. Elijah: It’s the Great Depression. (IP) [You think there are going to be] pa:rtie:s:.= (CSR) 3. Jessica: [Of course. You had to put something sad.] (IP) 4. Tiffany: =Yeah, of course! I’m just kidding. In line 2, Elijah states the obvious fact that the poems refer to the Great Depression, and in doing so, he implies that Tiffany’s original contribution to the discussion is pointless, which calls into question the intelligence of her statement. While indicating flaws in a classmate’s position is in line with small-group generic conventions, Elijah does not maintain neutrality as he emphasizes the obviousness of Tiffany’s contribution by adding stress to ‘‘Great’’. Rather than pushing the discussion forward with a new idea, he further ridicules her, providing additional evidence that his initial point of contention is impolite. He creates an incongruous statement using a mocking tone, indicated by the exaggerated prosody of ‘‘pa:rtie:s:’’, and attributes it to her thinking with the second-person pronoun ‘‘you’’, reinforcing the implication. Speaking at the same time, Jessica’s implicated impoliteness in line 3 corroborates Elijah’s. Her use of the phrase ‘‘of course’’ also implies that Tiffany’s statement is so obvious it would be better not mentioned. In saying ‘‘You had to put something sad’’, Jessica also suggests that Tiffany’s answer was dumb. Because of the scornful quality of Elijah’s utterance and that neither his nor Jessica’s utterances were couched in laughter or other nonverbal cues that would indicate the use of mock impoliteness, it is likely that Tiffany, the facethreat recipient, did not interpret their criticism in this way. In this case, Tiffany’s response in line 4, ‘‘I’m just kidding’’, could be a form of abrogation and its production in a sing-songy voice, could demonstrate use of the defensive response strategy dismiss or make light of to counter her classmates’ face-threats and minimize face-damage.

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Example 3 comes from the English/Language Arts class, and the group of students is discussing their list of ten items to bring into hiding. Throughout this first part of the discussion, Christopher has suggested adding a gun to the list several times, along with 20,000 dollars. At one point, he dismisses the idea of bringing clothes because he’ll just ‘‘run around naked’’. In the small-group discussion here and in the Social Studies classroom, Christopher appears to be a student who does not take small-group discussions seriously, one of the expectations of the small-group discussion genre practice. Example 3: 1. Christopher: As long as you have a gun [you can steal just about anything.] (DUU) 2. Elizabeth: [It’s like you steal a Bible and say] 3. [Sorry God I didn’t mean to steal a Bible.] 4. Kate: [Okay, Christopher’s not doing this.] [Okay.] (EOA) 5. Christopher: [What?] N[o:ho.] ((laughing)) 6. Megan: [Yeah you’re] not 7. doing this. Let’s the girls do this. (EOA) 8. Elizabeth: Okay. (EOA) 9. Christopher: *No::. 10. Kate: Alright. (EOA) In the small-group discussion genre, all students are expected to take reasonable positions that continue the conversation in a productive manner. This example aptly demonstrates the co-construction of impoliteness at the level of style as Christopher flouts this generic convention, using impoliteness as a negative identity practice (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2009; Mueller, 2011) in order to co-construct himself as a student who does not take his classwork too seriously. He seems disinterested in and unconcerned about the legitimate discussion his group members are trying to pursue. It appears, however, as if the other group members are tiring of Christopher’s flippant contributions to the group discussion. In line 4, Kate announces, ‘‘Christopher’s not doing this,’’ thereby excluding him from the activity. We understand this behavior to be impolite as student participation in small-group discussion is expected to be inclusive. Initially, Christopher laughs at having elicited a reaction from Kate, and he voices his disagreement to her proposal (line 5). As witnesses to this face-threat, Megan and Elizabeth, the remaining group members, corroborate Kate’s impolite act in lines 6--8 also seeking to exclude Christopher from activity. Christopher’s protest in line 9, no longer accompanied with laughter and accentuated with squeaky voice, supports our interpretation of the girls’ behavior as impolite. At the same time, this impoliteness strategy, exclude other from the activity, builds rapport amongst Megan, Elizabeth, and Kate. In the small-group discussions found in this corpus, impoliteness was often a ‘‘marker’’ (Bruxelles and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2004) for the existence of coalitions (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2009; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich et al., 2010; Mueller, 2011). In line 7, Megan explicitly acknowledges the formation of a coalition of ‘‘girls’’. Thus, the girls’ corroborative use of impoliteness works as both an affiliative and disaffiliative strategy. While excluding a group member breaks generic conventions as all students are expected and encouraged to participate, the girls’ impoliteness also serves to attain the communicative purpose (Swales, 1990) of the genre, attempting to curb Christopher’s nonproductive participation. This analysis further demonstrates that impoliteness can be constitutive, rather than disruptive of social life (also see GarcésConejos Blitvich, 2009, 2010a). 3.2.2. Deny opposition When choosing to deny opposition (Bousfield, 2007), the face-threat recipient may choose to counter the impolite act with offensive or defensive strategies or compromise. Similarly, in this data face-threat witnesses chose to counter the face-threat with offensive or defensive strategies or to propose a compromise. 3.2.2.1. Propose a compromise. In Bousfield’s (2007) response model, compromise is a negotiation between the facethreat initiator and the face-threat recipient that works toward a mutually satisfying position between the two conflicting stances. He acknowledges that in compromising the face-threat recipient may only be denying particular aspects of the conflicting stance. In students’ small-group discussions, face-threat witnesses also made attempts to bring about a compromise between the face-threat initiator and the face-threat recipient. We have added the language propose to this response option as the compromise must ultimately be accepted by both the face-threat initiator and the face-threat recipient. The following two examples of compromise illustrate the variety of ways it can be realized by a witness to the impoliteness act. In example 4 a small-group of students in English/Language Arts class is discussing which items to put on their list for going into hiding. The group has debated a few items and has decided to include clothes on the list.

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Example 4: 1. Tanya: 2. Stephanie: 3. Tanya: 4. Adam: 5. Tanya: 6. Tori: 7. 8. Adam:

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Sho:es. (.) Put shoes. Clothes are shoes. NO, THEy’re not. (IOS) Ye:s they A:R:E. (IOS) Th[ey’re an access]o:rY: to your clo::[thes.] (CSR) [You guys. No. (xx)] [You] should bring like one pair- Oo:h. Ms. King. Is shoes part of clothes?

Tanya’s response to Stephanie in line 3 does not maintain the balance between the adversarialness of small-group discussion and objectivity and reason. She raises her voice and fails to provide a reason that shoes would not be considered clothes to support her point, which would be a typical next move in small-group discussion. Culpeper et al. (2003:1575) claim that high pitch and extreme loudness may be interpreted as ‘‘an invasion of auditory space’’. Along these lines, we have identified Tanya as using the impoliteness strategy, invade other’s space. Even though disagreement is sanctioned and even encouraged by the norms of the small-group discussion genre practice, student concession of a previously argued stance in small-group discussion may still be face-threatening (Sharma, 2012). Stephanie’s disagreement in line 12 implies that Tanya should make such a concession. She suggests that as the students have already listed clothes, adding shoes would be superfluous. Tanya’s seemingly aggressive tone may be in response to this potential face-threat, or it may be that Tanya interpreted Stephanie’s disagreement in line 2 as face-threatening. We also interpret Adam’s response in line 4 as impolite due to pitch and loudness. Although he supports his stance with a supporting reason, his tone is condescending as indicated by his repeated use of lengthening. In lines 6--7, Tori steps in and offers a compromise. Her use of the hedge ‘‘like’’ serves as a way of mitigating her suggestion; though she’s putting forward Tanya’s item for the list, she’s pointing to it as a compromise, that it is only one set of shoes. A visual recording would have helped the analysts here because it is unclear how Tori is cut off at the end, which she indicates with a frustrated ‘‘ooh’’. It is likely that Adam has given some nonverbal cues that he is dissatisfied with Tori’s suggestion and plans to seek intervention from the teacher, as he does in line 8. Example 5 occurs moments later in this same discussion as the group is ready to begin writing some of their ideas on a large piece of chart paper that they will later present to the class. Example 5: 1. Adam: 2. Tori: 3. Adam: 4. Tori: 5. Adam: 6. Stephanie: 7. Adam: 8. Tori: 9. Adam: 10. Tori: 11. Adam: 12. Tori: 13. 14. Tori: 15. Adam:

Oh, why am I using this? ((a marker)) Yeah, no: mi↑:ne. (BO) (IOS) No, you [stop it.] (BO) [No, I] (.) I want to write it. (SD) I will viciously ass[ault everyone] (FR) [Awri:ght. Wri::te.] ((whiny voice)) (CSR) Here. [Wr↑i:te.] (IOS) [That’s awk]ward. Tha[t’s not] very [nice.] [Write.] [Wri:te.] (IOS) Say sorry I’m sorry. [Write.] [Good] (2.0) What am I writing? Okay, toothbrush, clothes

Tori and Adam are vying for the role (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005) of writer in the small-group discussion. Although Tori does not raise her voice to a significant degree in line 2, we have interpreted the rise in pitch and prominent emphasis of the word ‘‘mine’’ as a possible use of the impoliteness strategy invade other’s space, as well as Adam’s utterances in lines 7 and 9. Tori and Adam’s utterances in lines 2 and 3 have been labeled as block other because they serve to prevent the other from taking up the role as writer. Tori’s utterance in line 4 has been identified as seek disagreement because she is not presenting an idea or position to the group as part of discussion in the way that disagreement is sanctioned by the generic conventions of small-group discussion. Adam seems to increase his use of impoliteness with a threat, frighten. Though his threat is not literal and the other students most likely do not fear for their well-being, it is likely that the utterance makes the group feel uncomfortable. Tori’s response in line 8 is a clear example of an impoliteness1 assessment in which she reprimands Adam’s behavior as ‘‘awkward’’ and ‘‘not very nice’’. Stephanie presents the compromise in line 6.

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Although she delegates the role of writer to Adam, her tone is whiny and condescending, indicated by the prominent emphasis and elongated vowels. Stephanie allows Adam to have his way but in a manner that implies that she did so because he was acting impolitely and immaturely. Thus, if Adam were to accept the role of writer, he would also have to accept the implied face-threat. He tries to turn the tables in line 9 but ultimately apologizes and accepts the opposition, enabling the discussion to continue. His acceptance of the opposition may only be partial, or partially sincere, as his apology is elicited by Tory’s demand rather than his own desire to apologize. 3.2.2.2. Counter. Face-threat witnesses countered impoliteness acts, using many of the same strategies included in Bousfield’s (2007) model of response options for face-threat recipients. A face-threat witness can choose to counter offensively with an oppositional face attack against the original face-threat initiator or defensively with any number of defensive strategies. In the corpus, face-threat witnesses’ countering impoliteness acts usually aimed at defending the face-threat recipient’s face but sometimes also served to maintain the generic integrity of discussions. Example 6 illustrates how a witness to an impoliteness act can respond offensively against the face-threat initiator (Mueller, 2011). Students have finished reading their Great Depression poems and are discussing them in Ms. Roberts’s class. Note that in giving the assignment, Ms. Roberts had specifically directed students to ‘‘say nice things’’ about each other’s poems during the discussions. Example 6: 1. Michael: 2. 3. Parker: 4. Michael: 5. (1.0.) 6. Parker: 7. Michael: 8. Michael: 9. (2.0) 10. Connor: 11. 12. Michael: 13. 14. Connor: 15. 16. Michael:

I liked Connor’s because it’s it kind of rhymed. Also, while expressing a:ll the things that went through the Great Depression (.) Yeah. Good job Connor. Yeah, good job. Oh, you did a letter, right? (.) I [cou]ldn’t really hear.= [Br] =Brianna’s was boring though. (CSR) I thought I thought Michael’s was a little extre::me. [Like, like it] was good but it was extreme [(xxxx)]. (CSR) [I know. (.) I I] [I did I did it in] homebase. (Yeah, but, uh) It was just really hard core I guess. Which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but. Yeah.

In line 8, Michael criticizes Brianna’s poem, and unlike his contribution in lines 1--2, he does not support his opinion with reasoning or evidence as would be expected in a small-group discussion. Additionally, the group’s poems were meant to act as a springboard for discussing how one might have experienced life in the Great Depression and expressed this experience through writing, and students were not expected to discuss their entertainment value. This, coupled with the fact that the teacher had specifically instructed the students to discuss points of interest and approval, creates a context in which Michael’s criticism could be interpreted as impolite. Because the two-second pause that ensues is longer than a typical pause between turns but not so long as to become particularly awkward, we interpreted it as providing space for students to decide how to respond to Michael’s face-threat. Brianna herself does not respond, but Connor responds by matching Michael’s FTA (lines 10--11). It is likely that Connor intends his use of the word ‘‘extreme’’ in a negative sense because he hedges the statement with a compliment. However, he repeats his statement that ‘‘it was extreme,’’ indicating that the overall force is that of a criticism. In this way, Connor simultaneously can threaten Michael’s face and defend Brianna’s face. Michael responds with abrogation in line 11, offering an excuse, indicating that he too interpreted Connor’s comment as a criticism. Again, even though Connor mitigates his criticism in lines 14--15, ‘‘Which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing,’’ his use of the word ‘‘necessarily’’ and then ‘‘but’’ at the end, could indicate his intent is to be impolite with a secondary goal of defending Brianna’s face. He puts the criticism on record, but softens the threat to Michael’s face. Here, we can see the different ways in which impoliteness is instantiated at the level of style, where Michael’s use of impoliteness is very direct and Connor’s criticism is mitigated, influenced to a greater degree by generic constraints. The next example is another illustration of how face-threat witnesses offensively counter the face-threat initiator. Example 10 is taken from another small-group discussion in Ms. Roberts’s Social Studies class; Robby is just beginning to read his Great Depression letter.

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Example 7: 1. Robby: 2. 3. Caroline: 4. Xander: 5. Robby: 6. Xander: 7. Caroline: 8. 9. Robby: 10. Caroline: 11. Xander: 12. Robby: 13. Xander: 14. Robby: 15. Robyn: 16. Caroline: 17. 18. Robby: 19. Caroline: 20. Robby: 21. Xander: 22. Caroline: 23. Xander: 24. Robyn 25. Caroline: 26. Robyn:

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Alright, Dear President Hoover. The Great Depression has taken its toll on the family and I. As a f-. What? Wait. (BO) From what p[oint of view] is that? (IOS) [Keep reading.] I don’t (hu wu). What do you what do you mean? Mm[hm.] [Um,] you’re supposed to write from a point of view. I was wondering what it was. I hu what? I don’t know. Okay, slacker. Are you talking like from you or from like an outer body experience? Oh, I’m talking [from me.] [Like are you] up in the air? From me. Okay, from [you’re] [Oh] But like, but like what kind of person are you in the Great Depression? I’m a farmer. Okay. I was about to get to that. Are you a good farmer? (IOS) Shush. (BO) What [do you] farm? (IOS) [Shh] (BO) Sh[ut up.] Let him do it. (BO) (TW) [Shut up.] (BO) (TW)

Caroline interrupts Robby as he reads his poem in line 3, invading his linguistic space. Xander evidently interprets this to be impolite as he tells Robby to keep reading, which would mean ignoring Caroline’s question (line 4). In writing their letters, the students had to create a persona, from whose point of view the letter was written. It appears that Caroline feels her own interruption is justified because this information is important for understanding the poem; after she is told that Robby is assuming the persona of a farmer, she signals with ‘‘Okay’’ (line 19) that she is ready for Robby to continue reading. When Xander continues the line of questioning, she shushes him (line 22), using the strategy hinder or block other, for invading the linguistic space she has created for Robby. This also indicates that Caroline interprets Xander’s questions as off-topic and inappropriate. Undeterred, Xander continues with another question, and Robyn shushes him (line 24). As their initial impoliteness strategy, hinder or block the other is not effective, Caroline and Robyn strengthen their impoliteness with taboo words. The phrase ‘‘shut up’’ acts to hinder or block the other, but it is also a phrase that students are instructed not to use in school as a matter of respect for their classmates, making its potential for genuine impoliteness more salient. From here, Xander chooses not to respond to Caroline’s and Robyn’s uses of impoliteness, and Robby continues reading his poem. As witnesses to Xander’s impoliteness acts (lines 21 and 23), Caroline and Robyn respond with impoliteness, maintaining the integrity of the genre by keeping their activity on track. Here, again, impoliteness is constitutive rather than destructive of the group’s practice. In this corpus, face-threat witnesses also countered with defensive strategies in order to maintain the face-threat recipient’s face. All of the defensive response strategies outlined in Bousfield (2007) were also employed by face-threat witnesses except for plead and treat the situation as a different activity type for which there were no examples in the corpus. Due to space limitations, it is not within the scope of this paper to describe the ways in which face-threat witnesses used each of the defensive strategies outlined in Bousfield (2007). Instead, we will present an interesting example of how a face-threat witness applied a variation of the defensive-strategy opt out on record (Bousfield, 2007) as representative of the dynamic ways students countered defensively. This example is taken from one of the small-group discussions in the English/Language Arts class about the list of items to take into hiding. Example 8: 1. Mary: 2. 3. Michael: 4. Danielle:

Hey, hey, I agree with the Bible except I’m not Christian so (.) it’s gonna be like (1.0) Wait, what are you? (MOFU) Yeah just like wh[atever you need for religion]

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

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Mary:

[It’s gonna be it’s gonna to be] (.) Danielle: Religion Mary: Holy book [or] religion book. Danielle: [Yeah] Michael: Wait, Mary, what are you? Like? (MOFU) Danielle: Does it matter?= Mary: =It’s none of your business. (EOA) Michael: I wanna (know though.)= Danielle: =Alrighty, so we have holy book, first aid, I-Pod, cell phone, family picture, clothes, laptop, trumpet

Some relevant background information is important here for analysis. There is very little religious diversity amongst the students or teachers in this school and the surrounding community. The dominant religion is Christianity, and many Christian students feel comfortable sharing their religious beliefs and experiences in class and with peers. Teachers sponsor a Fellowship of Christian Athletes Club and a Bible Club that meet regularly before and after school. Thus, it is extremely marked for a student to divulge publicly that they practice another religion, and non-Christian students very rarely present this identity to their classmates or teachers. For this reason, it appears from Mary and Danielle’s responses that Michael’s question in line 3 makes others feel uncomfortable. Mary’s choice not to respond to the question substantiates this interpretation. In addition, Danielle and Mary purposefully avoid singling out a particular religion as they work to supply a word for Bible (lines 4--9) that will represent all religious beliefs. However, these defensive strategies do not deter Michael from repeating his question in line 10. In line 11, when Danielle retorts, ‘‘Does it matter?’’, she is putting on record that Mary does not need to respond to Michael. It may be due to this level of support offered by Danielle that Mary does respond in line 12. We have identified this response as exclude other from activity because the girls are withholding information from Michael. Michael’s uptake in line 13 also supports this interpretation. With the transition ‘‘Alrighty’’ (line 14), Danielle moves on quickly and decidedly, diverting attention from Mary’s religious beliefs. Mueller (2011) also identified an additional defensive strategy, not previously identified by Bousfield (2007), used by face-threat witnesses, namely reprimand or correct the face-threat initiator. Although there were no instances in this corpus, the face-threat recipient could in theory also respond with this strategy. Perhaps, the strategy may not be as effective if used by the face-threat recipient herself. When employed by a face-threat witness, however, his or her face is not at stake which would give the appearance of a neutral or an unbiased response. The students in example 9 are participating in small-group discussion in Ms. Roberts’s class and Carrie reprimands the face-threat initiator. At this point in the lesson, students have finished discussing their Great Depression poems and letters and are now brainstorming a list of jobs that existed during the Great Depression but no longer exist today. Example 9: 1. Jason: 2. Sara: 3. Devonte: 4. Sara: 5. Carrie: 6. Sara: 7. Devonte: 8. Sara: 9. Jason: 10. Sara: 11. Jason: 12. Carrie: 13. Devonte: 14. Sara: 15. Carrie: 16.

A door to [door salesman.] [Devonte]. (IOS) A door to door sales[man. Good] job Jason. [Devonte] (IOS) Okay, let’s think of one. Or let’s [write them down] I mean. [Devonte.] (IOS) Hold on. There’s some[thing inside] your nose. (WP) [The milkman] You have a big booger [hanging] [out of your] nose. (CSR) [Milkman] [No, you don’t.] ((to Jason)) Awright. ((gasp)) Carrie::: ((squeaky voice)) The way you’re supposed to do it, is do it discreetly so if someone’s itching their nose you’re just like (xx)

Sara repeatedly and deliberately calls Devonte’s name (lines 2, 4, and 6). Because they are collaborating in a group discussion, singling out Devonte’s attention is an indication that her talk is going to be off-task, or at least exclusive. Just prior to this point in the discussion, Sara suggested that the group consider putting ‘‘stork’’ on the list, referring to the story of storks delivering babies, which further supports that Devonte may have interpreted these lines as an attempt to elicit

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off-task behavior. Accordingly, we have interpreted this repeated action as invading Devonte’s linguistic space. Though, Devonte’s behavior could be interpreted as ignore/snub the other, as he ignores her first two attempts to obtain his attention, he remains on topic in the discussion, which is part of the genre’s expectations. In light of Sara’s prior off-task behavior, it is reasonable to suppose that her utterances in lines 8 and 9 are made in jest, to elicit a reaction from Devonte and entertain her group. However, in consideration of the face-threat recipient’s and facethreat witnesses’ responses, it seems as if impolite behavior is being co-constructed here. In this context, and particularly at this age, it can be an embarrassing situation for anybody to have anything ‘‘hanging out’’ of his or her nose so Sara’s assertion in line 8 is potentially face-threatening. She does not mitigate her comment with politeness, using the impoliteness strategy withhold politeness. Devonte’s choice not to respond may be an indication that he interprets Sara’s behavior as impolite as well. Having received no response from Devonte, Sara amplifies the potential impoliteness act even more directly with the words ‘‘big booger’’ so we have identified her behavior here as condescend, scorn, ridicule. Though it is unclear to the analysts whether or not Devonte does in fact have anything visible in his nose, Carrie denies the potential impoliteness act with a direct contradiction (line 12). This is a defensive strategy heretofore categorized as an option for the face-threat recipient (Bousfield, 2007), but Carrie, the face-threat witness, is able to use the same strategy to deny the face-threat for Devonte, the face-threat recipient. In line 14, Sara seems to display disappointment in reaction to Carrie’s contradiction which further indicates that she may have intended her impolite behavior to be taken up playfully and perceived as mock impoliteness. However, the face-threat recipient as well as one of the face threat-witnesses, Jason, ignore her claims and continue to abide by generic norms, focusing on the discussion (lines 9, 11, and 13). Further evidence that the group does not interpret Sara’s behavior as banter or refuses to acknowledge it as such is Carrie’s explanation in lines 15 and 16. Carrie explains to Sara the appropriate way to handle this type of situation (lines 15 and 16), and this explanation functions as an indirect reprimand as it implies that Sara’s behavior was inappropriate. It is this explanation that we have identified as the defensive strategy reprimand or correct the face-threat initiator. 3.3. React In Bousfield’s (2007) model, the face-threat recipient has only two options in responding, to counter or deny. We observed a third option available to face-threat witnesses, to react. We have categorized this response option as distinct from countering or denying because the face-threat witnesses do not take up for the face-threat recipient with a counter strategy, nor do they take the side of the face-threat initiator. The two previously unidentified strategies face-threat witnesses used to react are: make a reactive comment to heighten the drama or react with genuine surprise to the impoliteness act (Mueller, 2011). Mueller (2011) observed that the response option of making a reactive comment to heighten the drama was used as a reaction to insults that directly targeted another student in which the students who initiated the impoliteness act used the impoliteness strategies explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect or call the other names, condescend, scorn, ridicule. These responses amplify the spectacle of the confrontation for the purposes of confrontainment. The students’ employment of this response strategy is reflective of the audience reactions in confrontational talk shows, like The Jerry Springer Show. Lunt and Stenner (2005:67) explain that the audience in The Jerry Springer Show acts ‘‘as a barometer of the affective climate in the studio, and as its amplifier. . .breaking out into howls, shouts and screams proportionate to the level of emotional conflict between the guests, who are in turn thereby incited to further emotional escalation’’. The following example demonstrates how face-threat witnesses in a face-to-face environment turn impoliteness acts into entertainment spectacles, reflective of confrontational television. In this interaction, another group of students in English/Language Arts class discuss whether or not to bring soap as one of their ten items for going into hiding. Example 10: 1. Lola: I don’t like feeling dirty. Now keep going. 2. Troy: As long as I’m not sweaty, I don’t really care. 3. Amelia: It doesn’t matter you look dirty anyway! (ANA) 4. Troy: O:::ho:hoho. (Talking to recorder) Did you catch that? (.) Did you catch that? 5. Amelia: (laughing) I’m just kidding. 6. Troy: That’s mean. 7. Amelia: (laughing) I’m just kidding. 8. (9.0) 9. Amelia: I’m just ki= 10. Amelia: =We can crack on each other right? (1.0) Go ahead= 11. Troy: =She’s mad at you. 12. Amelia: Tell me to go jump the border or something.

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Amelia explicitly associates Lola with a negative aspect in the third line by telling her she looks dirty. In lines 5, 7, and 9 she frames this insult as mock impoliteness. Participant intentions and interpretations of mock impoliteness, however, are often at odds or concealed by the participants, creating ‘‘slippage between evaluations of genuine impoliteness and mock impoliteness in interaction’’ (Haugh and Bousfield, 2012:1102). Lola’s lack of response indicates that she may interpret Amelia’s utterance as genuine impoliteness, and Troy’s comments in lines 6 and 11 point to Lola’s not interpreting Amelia’s behavior as joking. In line 10, Amelia attempts to explain her comment as having ‘‘a relationship-affirming character’’ (Kotthoff, 1996:299), and within that relationship Lola’s expected response would be to continue the friendly banter with a follow-up insult. After a significant wait time of nine seconds, Amelia even goes so far as to provide Lola with an insult demeaning her own Latina background. Again, following Dynel (2008), the face-threat recipient’s response to and interpretation of impoliteness that may be construed as banter by the face-threat initiator is given precedence in our analysis. Without evidence of laughter or witty repartee from Lola, the face-threat recipient, we understand this interaction to be an instance of impolite behavior. Additionally, we give precedence to the face-threat witness’s response; as Lola does not respond to Amelia’s utterance, Troy’s response and assessment are integral to the co-construction of the utterance as impolite. In polylogal interactions, the speaker may use mock impoliteness to entertain others and/or for humorous effect at the face-threat recipient’s expense (Boxer and Cortés-Conde, 1997; Culpeper, 2011; Dynel, 2011; Norrick, 1993, among others), as may be the case here as indicated by Troy’s initial response in line 4. He draws overt attention to Amelia’s insult, aiming not to defend or enhance Lola’s face but to heighten the drama of the FTA. For Troy, the tape recorder functions much as a video camera would for the filming of a confrontational reality television show. He hopes this dramatic confrontation is caught on record. It is clear that Troy’s comment is taken as funny and entertaining, at least by Amelia, because she laughs in response. Though the audiorecorder here may have prompted Troy to react in this way, this strategy of making a reactive comment to heighten the drama was also employed by students without the involvement of a recording device. Identifying this reactive strategy reinforces the importance of expanding research on adolescents’ use of impoliteness and raises interesting questions about the relationship between the role of impoliteness in the media and the daily lives of these adolescents. This example also illustrates the importance of examining impoliteness as it is constructed across multiple turns by multiple participants. Sometimes, face-threat witnesses simply reacted with surprise. This was often the case in reaction to students’ use of taboo words, perhaps because there are clear rules against profanity at school. In example 11, students are reading their Great Depression poems and letters aloud in their small-groups. Example 11: 1. Christopher: 2. 3. 4. Erin: 5. Christopher: 6. Josh: 7. Erin: 8. Josh: 9. Erin: 10. Group: 11. Christopher:

Okay, well, the one that I wrote it was like from the point of view of a kid in the Great Depression and he was like suffering from hunger and shit (TW). It’s a really good poem (SRC) (DUU). Oh my [Go::d.] ((laughs)) [(But I lost it.)] Christopher. Christopher. ((laughing)) I hope that ((tape recorder)) didn’t pick up. It’s okay. ((laughing)) ((laughs)) Just go anyway.

Within a middle school setting, ‘‘shit’’ is considered taboo language, at least by faculty and staff, and thus deemed inappropriate within any school genre. In fact, it is explicitly against the school rules for students to curse. As discussed above, Christopher often gives the impression that he does not take small-group discussions seriously, using impoliteness as a negative identity practice. In line 3, he speaks sarcastically, with an insincere tone, so his utterance has been identified as sarcasm. When Christopher combines his use of the taboo word and his sarcastic remark, it seems as if he is pretending to take himself and his poem seriously for a humorous effect. One could interpret his behavior as facethreatening to the students’ social face, using the strategy be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic, since he is dismissing their discussion, thus not abiding by the genre constraints. However, the group’s laughter indicates that they may not have found it personally face-threatening. This is an interesting point of contrast to example 3 (section 3.2.1) in demonstrating the co-construction of impoliteness at the level of style, as the members in that small-group discussion did not appear amused by Christopher’s pushing against the generic constraints and instead responded by excluding him from discussion. Still, Erin and Josh exhibit surprise that Christopher would use the taboo word in lines 4 and 6; the elongated vowel in his name creates an incredulous tone. Josh is also concerned that the curse word will be picked up on the recording (line 8). Thus, despite the fact that Christopher may not personally attack the face of any of his classmates, they do underscore the inappropriateness of his behavior and his disregard for (pre)genre-sanctioned norms as related to

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the definition of impoliteness we use in this paper. In addition, although Ms. Roberts did not hear Christopher’s language, she is present in the room, a ratified participant, moving in and out of student discussions, and it is likely that she would find it face-threatening as Christopher is showing scorn and disinterest for the assignment she has given him. 4. Conclusion In this paper, we have shown how face-threat witnesses play a central role in the co-construction of impoliteness in interaction. Therefore, we believe it is paramount for impoliteness scholarship to account for face-threat witnesses’ evaluations of and responses to impoliteness in order to advance the field. As many interactions are polylogal (KerbratOrecchioni, 2004), accommodating analysis of polylogal discourse in impoliteness research will expand the types of discourses considered by scholars and push the field toward a greater understanding of the dynamic and multifunctional ways impoliteness is co-constructed in interaction. Crucially, the multifunctionality of impoliteness in polylogal interaction, as the one here under scrutiny, allows for a view of impoliteness as constitutive, and not just disruptive, of social life. As we have seen repeatedly in the analysis, students used impoliteness to safeguard the norms and communicative purpose of the genre practice they were involved in. Additionally, considering face-threat witnesses’ responses to impoliteness can aid the analyst’s understanding of subtle instances of potential impoliteness and the success or failure of mock-impoliteness. Drawing from the findings of our analysis, we would like to propose a revised version of Bousfield’s (2007) model of response options to impoliteness that accounts for the role of witnesses to the impoliteness act (Fig. 1). When a participant produces an impoliteness act, both the face-threat recipient and the face-threat witness have the potential to act. If the face-threat recipient acts, s/he may choose from the same set of response options as described by Bousfield (2007). If the face-threat witness acts, s/he may choose to respond or not respond. In responding, s/he may deny the opposition, corroborate the opposition, or react to the opposition, making a reactive comment to heighten the drama or demonstrating genuine surprise. With a denial of the opposition, s/he may present a compromise or counter. If s/he counters

Fig. 1. Proposed model for participant response options.

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the opposition, s/he may employ defensive or offensive strategies. As with Bousfield’s (2007) model, any given response has the potential to become an impoliteness act itself at which point participants again face the same set of response options. We view our contribution as a refinement, by no means final, of Bousfield’s (2007) model. Bousfield (2007:2215) himself agrees that his, like all models, need to be ‘‘. . . subject to trial and revision in relation to data sets of differing discourse types’’. Face threat witnesses’ responses need to be studied in other genres which may result in the further elaboration of our own proposal. As models of im/politeness are proposed/modified to better accommodate polylogal discourse, they need to be grounded empirically in a bottom-up approach. Along these lines, as we firmly believe that impoliteness is co-constructed in interaction, we want to stress that our proposing a revised model is not intended to further a purely top-down, prescriptive approach to impoliteness. It is not our goal to account for or to predict all potential responses to impoliteness as participant responses are spontaneous and variable across genres and the use of impoliteness is complex and multifunctional. Instead, we view models and taxonomies as useful tools that provide analysts with a common language and benchmarks for assessing and discussing participants’, including face-threat witnesses’, responses to and evaluations of impoliteness, which are central to a discursive approach. Appendix A. Bousfield’s (2007) model for participant response options

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Appendix B. Defensive counter-strategies as modified by Bousfield (2007)

Defensive strategy

Explanation

Direct contradiction (Inversion) Abrogation Dismiss: make light of damage, joke Ignore the face attack, offer insincere agreement Offer an account/explanation

The receiver of the FTA denies the FTA. The receiver denies personal responsibility for the triggering event. The receiver acts as if the FTA is unimportant or as if it is not face-threatening. Sometimes this strategy is used to allow the speaker who makes the impolite utterance(s) to vent. Other times, the receiver ignores an implied FTA. The receiver of the FTA attempts to explain facts that led to the triggering event so the speaker of the FTA may have to retract it or appear to have made a mistake by using the FTA in the first place. Bousfield acknowledges this to be a theoretical move as he did not find instances in his data. In pleading, the receiver of the initial FTA uses positive politeness and deference to enhance the speaker who committed the FTA’s face while simultaneously damaging his or her own positive face. Like ‘‘offer an explanation’’ the goal is for the speaker to retract the FTA or look bad for having committed it. The receiver chooses not to respond, but does so on record. The receiver treats the situation as a different activity type, one in which the utterance would not be considered impolite

Plead

Opt out on record Treat the situation as a different ‘activity type’

Appendix C. Taxonomy of impoliteness strategies

On record impoliteness (ON-IMP)

Off record impoliteness (OR-IMP)

Withhold politeness

Positive impoliteness (PIMP): ignore/snub the other (ISO); exclude other from activity (EOA), dissociate from other (DFO); be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic (DUU); use inappropriate identity markers (IIM); use obscure secretive language (OSL); make the other feel uncomfortable (MOFU); seek disagreement (SD); use taboo words (TW); call the other names (CON); explicitly associate other with a negative aspect (ANA)

Implicated impoliteness (IP)

(WP)

Negative impoliteness (NIMP): frighten (FR); condescend, scorn, ridicule (CSR); invade the other’s space (IOS); put the other indebtedness on record (PIR); hinder or block the other, either linguistically or physically (BO).

Sarcasm (SRC)

Appendix D. Transcription conventions (.) (1.0) : CAP [] * = (( )) (guess) (xx)

a brief pause or break in timing a counted time lengthening of the preceding vowel or consonant loudness overlapping speech creaky voice latching non-verbal activity or transcriber’s comments transcriber’s best guess at unclear speech unclear speech

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Under speaker emphasis Note: these conventions were only used when directl y referred to in analysis ↑↓

rise or fall in pitch

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