The Evaluations of Appropriateness Through Impoliteness in Business Discourse Reframed for Entertainment Purposes

The abstract of this study provides an overview of the evaluations of appropriateness through impoliteness in business discourse when reframed for entertainment purposes. The paper examines the formulation of impoliteness in business discourse and its potential effects. Central to this exploration is the importance of evaluating and understanding the context of such impoliteness, since there could be numerous interpretations depending on the situation or setting. By extrapolating relevant theories from the field of Linguistics, we aim to demonstrate a variety of potential interpretations for an impoliteness strategy. My hypothesis is that certain face threatening acts (FTAs) may be more easily identifiable in the context of entertainment, since the onus for understanding and accommodating the speaker's intended meaning may differ. The application of linguistic theory to the context of workplace discourse is not a new concept; in discussing the notion of FTAs in business interaction, Bies’ definition provides a useful starting point. When introducing a focus on impoliteness, Culpeper suggests that there are three points of relevance for linguistic impoliteness: firstly, the occurrence of impoliteness strategies; secondly, the theory that impoliteness is a form of attack on social values; and finally, the idea that impoliteness is a breach of politeness. His focus is mainly on articulating the features of linguistic impoliteness and providing some kind of typology, as well as critiquing Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory. The desire to explore the appropriateness of face work in remedial and institutional settings has rarely extended to the entertainment sphere, and it is this noted absence which provides the context for the present research. Cultural products including comedy programmes, dark humour and horror have embraced ‘edgy’ content such as impoliteness due to a relaxation in boundary conditions, which may allow for more creative discursive strategies.