Do we even care about politeness anymore? : A mixed-methods study of societal perceptions on pragmatic competence in English

Abstract: Politeness is viewed as an admirable trait by most people, yet what it means to be polite is arguably a controversial issue when it comes to using English, as people of different ages, education levels, and proficiency levels use English daily, and may have different views on politeness. These observations raise questions about whether there are certain universal pragmatic rules, or if pragmatic rules are primarily language- and/or culture-specific. The current study situates itself within the fields of cross-cultural pragmatics and English as a lingua franca and is intended to explicitly address how social distance impacts English users’ views of politeness and appropriateness in English today. The study addresses this issue by investigating how speakers of English perceive appropriateness in certain speech acts, specifically requests and compliment responses, and how they justify or explain their reasoning concerning this. The study employs a mixed-method approach to data collection, where data was collected through two steps: first, a questionnaire distributed online and, second, a set of follow-up interviews with questionnaire respondents. In total, 79 respondents contributed to the questionnaire and, out of these, eight participated in follow-up interviews. Through this dual method of data collection, the intention of the study was to provide some insight into societal perceptions on politeness today from two different perspectives. To that end, the analysis of data takes a two-fold approach: by using T-tests, the statistical relevance of the questionnaire findings is analyzed, and through an inductive analysis of the interview findings, a more in-depth view of the issue at hand is offered as a complement to the initial survey results. By providing insight to the societal perceptions of the pragmatics of English through two different perspectives, the findings of the study could inform and inspire further studies concerning pragmatic norms and, by extension, research focused on the teaching of English.