Istituto di Studi Italiani

Il saggio si rivolge a chiunque voglia esplorare un campo di ricerca affascinante e tuttora poco noto in Italia: la (s)cortesia storica. Preceduto da un’introduzione teorica, in cui si presentano le innovazioni più recenti nei campi della pragmatica storica e della pragmatica della (s)cortesia, lo studio si impernia su una trasformazione chiave, vale a dire la progressiva erosione del cerimoniale di antico regime e la nascita della cortesia contemporanea nell'Ottocento, che viene esaminata sia dall'ottica prescrittiva dei trattati comportamentali, sia attraverso rappresentazioni fittizie della prassi (s)cortese storica. Si seguono le tracce di questa trasformazione in tre generi letterari “orali” – il dialogo teorico, il teatro e il romanzo – di autori (Castiglione, Bibbiena, Ariosto, Goldoni, Manzoni e Collodi) che usano gli scambi dialogici fittizi o per contestare le norme vigenti o per promuoverne delle alternative.

This article explores evaluations of impoliteness and over-politeness in crime novel dialogues, in reference to the Pragmatics of Politeness and the Discursive Model (Watts, 2003, 2005, 2010; Locher and Watts, 2005). Metapragmatic comments, in which dialogue participants evaluate the ongoing communicative behaviour, offer important insights into the values and social norms that make up interaction. Literary dialogues, as opposed to naturally occurring conversations, have the advantage of offering numerous metapragmatic comments. This study examines police investigator dialogues that contain metapragmatic comments of impoliteness and over-politeness, concentrating on two maverick figures, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh-based John Rebus and Andrea Camilleri’s Sicilian Salvo Montalbano, both of whose fractiousness in regards to procedural rules extends to social norms as well. The first part of the analysis looks at impoliteness, confirming the image of the maverick for whom impoliteness is fairly stereotypical . The determining factor is police rank: I find frequent institutional, that is, legitimized, and unchallenged impoliteness by the higher in rank. Secondly, I look at instances of over-politeness. The inspector, who readily uses insincere politeness in order to manipulate a suspect or a witness, is sceptical when evaluating politeness in others. By not commenting on impoliteness and through extensive negative evaluations of politeness, the narrator creates a protagonist who has become disenchanted with politeness and uses impoliteness as if it were normal, appropriate behaviour.

Keywords: politeness; impoliteness; over-politeness; rudeness; metapragmatic comment; dialogue; insincerity; appropriateness; inappropriateness

Historical (Im) Politeness Research panel 21 Politeness and Style in The Betrothed (I promessi sposi, 1840): An Italian Novel by Alessandro Manzoni PATERNOSTER, ANNICK Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, University of Leeds; E-Mail: apaternoster@ btinternet. com In a ...

This article explores evaluations of impoliteness and over-politeness in crime novel dialogues, in reference to the Pragmatics of Politeness and the Discursive Model (Watts, 2003, 2005, 2010; Locher and Watts, 2005). Metapragmatic comments, in which dialogue participants evaluate the ongoing communicative behaviour, offer important insights into the values and social norms that make up interaction. Literary dialogues, as opposed to naturally occurring conversations, have the advantage of offering numerous metapragmatic comments. This study examines police investigator dialogues that contain metapragmatic comments of impoliteness and over-politeness, concentrating on two maverick figures, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh-based John Rebus and Andrea Camilleri’s Sicilian Salvo Montalbano, both of whose fractiousness in regards to procedural rules extends to social norms as well. The first part of the analysis looks at impoliteness, confirming the image of the maverick for whom impoliteness is fairly stereotypical . The determining factor is police rank: I find frequent institutional, that is, legitimized, and unchallenged impoliteness by the higher in rank. Secondly, I look at instances of over-politeness. The inspector, who readily uses insincere politeness in order to manipulate a suspect or a witness, is sceptical when evaluating politeness in others. By not commenting on impoliteness and through extensive negative evaluations of politeness, the narrator creates a protagonist who has become disenchanted with politeness and uses impoliteness as if it were normal, appropriate behaviour. Keywords: politeness; impoliteness; over-politeness; rudeness; metapragmatic comment; dialogue; insincerity; appropriateness; inappropriateness

Although politeness theories – applied to all kinds of cultures, languages and communication events all over the world – are more than ever in the focus of pragmatics, Europe, as a historically grown cultural community in a loose geographic area, however, is still getting comparatively marginal attention, whilst English is overrepresented. Though the volume Politeness in Europe (2005) set an important research agenda, it mainly neglected the historical point of view. The panel invites further investigations of the European tradition from Antiquity to dynamically trace common cultural roots and their development over time, through language use and metalanguage, whilst keeping in mind that politeness is a strictly relative concept, and at the same time dependent on situated external and internal factors, which are constantly varying and changing. In the light of the theoretical key-concepts (claimed in Kadár/Haugh 2013:159ff.) of comparability and representation, transformation and continuity, the panel challenges new insights into 'European politeness' at the macro-, the meso-and the micro-pragmatic level, going beyond lingua-cultural — and national — boundaries. We ask special attention for the shared socio-cultural development in relevant periods of time, the mutual cultural contact and exchange by areal proximities as well as dominant ideological and sociopolitical influences, the foundation, reification, change and irradiation of a European human ethos, as reflected in both the ongoing social interaction and the evaluative comments drawing on the expected or neglected social behaviour. More specifically, for Europe (understood as a geographic area including also Russia and Turkey), the panel wants to promote interest into periodization issues, and into factors for change ranging from ideological, political, social, economic, to mediatic and their influence on conventions, rituals and values. Topic of interest include but are not limited to: egocentric vs sociocentric values, philosophy, Christianity, deference, feudalism, absolutism, emancipation, class mobility, rise of middle classes, decline/resilience of aristocracy, urbanization, industrial revolution, population increase, the nuclear family, and so on.) In terms of sources and methods, in front of the difficult data situation we see metapragmatic (metalinguistic, metacommunicative, metadiscursive and metacognitive) approaches as a key area offering a methodologically sound access. We welcome qualitative approaches aiming at identifying 'European' human qualities that go beyond the relativity of historical politeness and quantitative methods to provide evidence for recurrent schematic practices and their conventionalization from a diachronic perspective. Whether within a social semantic, discourse analytical or a genre-or frame-based perspective, we ask attention for lexical items and labels, routine formula and other questions of lexico-grammar as well as speech-acts, conversation patterns, discourse traditions and any other kind of communicative events. We hope to assemble researchers with a wide range of approaches, in order to foster insight in the convergent or divergent social practices of a shared European human ethos.

Il saggio mira a ricostruire il profilo della giovane donna proposto come modello da emulare nella trattatistica comportamentale nel periodo che va dall’Unificazione al primo dopoguerra. I galatei postunitari, particolarmente frequenti tra gli anni ‘60 e ‘70, contengono solo timide ed eccezionali aperture verso l’istruzione delle donne e si mette qui in risalto la posizione progressista di Costantino Rodella, autore di Marina ossia il galateo della fanciulla, 1872. Verso la fine del secolo, alcuni libri di etichetta cominciano a diffondere un emancipazionismo più pronunciato: non solo si raccomanda un’istruzione migliore, si prospettano anche dei ruoli professionali per le lettrici. È nei capitoli dedicati alla Signorina da autrici quali Anna Vertua Gentile (Come devo comportarmi? Libro per tutti, 1897) e Jolanda (al secolo Maria Majocchi Plattis, autrice di Eva Regina. Il libro delle signore, 1909) che si registrano i cambiamenti sociali più marcati. Solo Eva Regina discute l’opportunità di acquisire il diritto di voto e così l’argomento del femminismo politico fa la sua prima apparizione nei libri di etichetta. Si conclude che nella trattatistica comportamentale il cammino all’emancipazione si gioca su tre piani diversi, che emergono come altrettante tappe successive: l’istruzione, il lavoro e, infine, il voto.

The article aims to define the model of the young woman promoted by conduct literature texts in the period from Unification to after the Great War. Conduct manuals (galatei) in the post-Unification period, which particularly flourished in the 1860s and 1870s, included only rare and tentative hints concerning women’s education; particular attention is given here to the progressive position of Costantino Rodella, the author of Marina ossia il galateo della fanciulla (1872). Towards the end of the century, some etiquette books began to support women’s emancipation in a more direct manner, not only by encouraging more extensive by authors such as Anna Vertua Gentile (Come devo comportarmi? Libro per tutti, 1897) and Jolanda (pseudonym of Maria Majocchi Plattis, author of Eva Regina. Il libro delle signore, 1909). Eva Regina is exceptional in its discussion of the issue of women’s right to vote, and marks the first appearance of political feminism in this kind of conduct literature. The article concludes by suggesting that in conduct literature of the period, the questions of women’s emancipation is played out on three different levels, which are also three stages in an historical sequence: education, work, and, finally, the vote. for women but also by touching upon professional roles for their readers. Examples of marked social changes can be found in the chapters devoted to the signorina (the unmarried woman)

This study examines evaluative adjectives and politeness evaluators in 9 popular etiquette books published in turn-of-the-century Italy between 1877-1914, with the aim to determine the values that are involved in the judgement of behaviour. Using Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005), I group positive evaluative adjectives in the following semantic sets: Normality, Capacity, Tenacity, Veracity and Politeness. Politeness comprises the subsets Conformity, Affection, Goodness and Pleasure. The paper establishes diversity and frequencies within the various lexical sets, which are used to design a conceptual map. The map shows the dominating ideological weight of etiquette and its core values of Normality and Conformity, which point towards intensely regulated behaviour in a large number of contexts.