“Can I have a cup of tea please?” Politeness markers in the Spoken BNC2014

Abstract

Abstract Politeness is one of the stereotypes associated with the British that seems to be crucial in terms of their self-identification and self-perception. The focus of this study is four frequently-used politeness markers: please, thank you, thanks, and sorry. The paper aims to precisely identify the different senses of these words in the newly released corpus of spoken British English, the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. The findings of this analysis reveal that the markers under investigation are primarily used in their core senses, such as politely requesting something, showing gratitude, or apologising; other identified senses include self-correcting and being confrontational or ironic. The analysis of the authentic data helps us classify senses for each of the target words based on different contextual situations.