Politeness, Politics and Diplomacy

Abstract

The Brown-Levinson analysis of politeness phenomena is reinterpreted and applied to political texts, specifically texts in international communication. The Brown-Levinson framework explicates many aspects of verbal formulation in face-to-face interaction, but it gives the impression of treating social relations as a natural state of affairs to which interlocutors respond. The article first indicates some inherently political elements in the concept of `face' (Goffman). `Positive face' can be linked to identity and consensus, `negative face' to territorial security, freedom of action and privacy. Political discourse can be seen to use positive-and negative-face strategies, and off-record strategies, in consensus building and in the performing of `face-threatening', that is coercive, intrusive or persuasive verbal acts. Secondly, the need to extend the Brown-Levinson framework beyond interlocutor pairs to multiple audiences seen in their historical context is noted. And thirdly, these points are illustrated by means of selective analysis of speeches by Gorbachev and Reagan in which domestic and international contexts affect the verbal acts performed in what were in effect moves in the process of negotiating the 1987 INF Treaty.