User:RyanMorville/sandbox

This a link to the sandbox for the Wikipedia article on Politeness Theory

This is the page you will use to draft your work on the article on Politeness Theory. Cakers01 (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

The article on Politeness theory could benefit from several revisions, which include the following:
 * 1) General format: A more succinct and focused introductory summary; consolidate sections and elaborate important claims. There are a number of criticisms on the talk page about the origin of the theory and its historical precedents. The introductory section could be revised, and a separate section entitled “History” (or something along those lines) could address this controversy. The differences between this Western study of politeness and that of the other traditions discussed in the dispute could be elaborated in this section, or another one entirely. Additionally, the claim that Brown and Levinson’s proposal of politeness as a universal concept created academic controversy is mentioned in passing in the introductory section could be elaborated as well. This is done briefly in the “Criticisms” section, but could be better substantiated.   Some sections appear to be extraneous as individual sections, and could be consolidated into other sections. For example, the “Analysis” section attempts to weigh criticisms and strengths, but the criticisms far outweigh the strengths. Perhaps the claims of the strengths portion could be either incorporate into other sections, or elaborated into its own individual section. On the whole, the page is criticized as being “text-heavy” on the talk page, and the layout could benefit from a revision that would make it seem less jumbled, more concise, and so on.
 * 2) Fact checking; more citations from sources that are not the primary authors of the theory; corroborating evidence from other disciplines. In general, it appears that the article could use some fact-checking. There are a disproportionate amount of citations to the original authors of Politeness theory discussed in this article, Brown and Levinson. Accordingly, I propose to carry out some fact-checking, making sure the citations are appropriate to the claims being made. In the process, I expect to find corroborating evidence from other disciplines that may make the claims of the article stronger (or, otherwise, more fuel for criticisms). It would be interesting to see what other fields of inquiry have to offer for Politeness theory, such as moral psychology or evolutionary biology. These would only perhaps contribute a passing mention and a link to other pages, but would enhance the credibility of the theory.

I will enact some or all of these changes over the course of this semester. RyanMorville (talk) 02:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Group Proposal

For my part in this group project, I would like to focus on fact-checking, corroborating claims, and providing additional insights into the breadth of Politeness Theory from other related disciplines. I have provided some examples of how I might go about this, as well as some of the sources I will likely use, in the Week 6 Discussion forum. I may very well create a bibliography here, in this sandbox, in order to account for my contributions. Since Christian has signed on a bit late and has not yet stated what he intends to contribute, I leave the determination of his part entirely up to him. RyanMorville (talk) 04:26, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Bibliography

I've begun to list a working bibliography below, to be organized and updated as we develop this page. RyanMorville (talk) 01:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)


 * "Politeness Theory" in International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction links historical antecedents to PT with more recent theoretical developments, which could improve the article by establishing a firmer historical account and an updated general scope of the theory.
 * "Face and (Im)politeness" in the Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness features chapters that present aspects of politeness from many different angles, of which some would doubtless provide some useful commentary on PT.
 * Book: "A Critique of Politeness Theory, Vol. 1" by Gino Eelen features a section that compares and contrasts the theory articulated by Brown and Levinson (the apparent focus of the PT article) with other politeness theories. Provides direct confirmations for the claim made in the Wikipedia article that Brown and Levinson’s theory was highly influential.
 * Politeness theory and relational work deems “politeness theory” a misnomer for Brown and Levinson’s theory, instead claiming that it should be construed as “facework” theory. This is a claim that is made in the Wikipedia article and could be better supported, as the citation provided is cited fairly heavily throughout the article. Proposes a way to situate Brown and Levinson’s theory within a broader, more capable framework.
 * Politeness and language compares face theories with other influential approaches to characterizing politeness, and claims that they are best suited to converge with other related social-scientific disciplines. Features a detailed analysis of various critiques of Brown and Levinson’s theory. Introduces an avenue for face theories to weigh in on the origins of human cooperation.
 * Disentangling Politeness Theory and the Strategic Speaker provides elaborations about Brown and Levinson’s account of off-record indirect speech, while comparing and contrasting it with that of Steven Pinker et al. Off-record politeness strategies are explained in considerably less detail than others in PT article (this point is made by a commentator on the talk page), so this paper could provide a more satisfactory acco
 * (Relates PT to more practical considerations and real world examples (a suggestion on the talk page)):
 * Politeness Theory Analysis of Cell-Phone Usage in the Presence of Friends investigates the types of politeness strategies employed during cell phone use.
 * A hashtag worth a thousand words explains how PT can be applied to digital media such as hash tags.

Proposal update: I will work on delineating precisely which aspects of my proposal I intend to enact over the next few days, in which case it will be more clear which of the others are up for grabs. I was consumed by other deadlines and midterms this week. RyanMorville (talk) 02:09, 5 March 2018 (UTC)