(Im)politeness on Stage

Monday 15  – Tuesday 16  December, 2025

University of Naples L’Orientale

(Im)politeness plays a crucial role in the analysis of dramatic dialogue, revealing complex aspects of characterization, plot development, and the underlying structure of social harmony or discord. The ways in which characters deploy impoliteness strategies on stage provide insights into power dynamics, relationships, and the negotiation of social boundaries. Beyond its narrative function, impoliteness also serves as an important theatrical tool: it can enhance entertainment, generate humour, and, in the case of mock impoliteness, even express intimacy, affect, or strategic cunning. While dramatic texts have often been overlooked in stylistic and pragmatic studies due to the long-standing debate between text-based and performance-based approaches, the increasing availability of filmed stage performances—through platforms such as National Theatre Live, National Theatre at Home, Digital Theatre—has facilitated new analytical possibilities. The integration of multimodal analysis now allows scholars to examine not only the language of dramatic texts but also their performative realization, including prosody, gesture, and spatial dynamics. As Boulton argues, a play is an organic, complex organism: it does not simply signify, but it “walks and talks before our eyes” (1960: 3). This highlights the need to examine dramatic dialogue from multiple perspectives, considering how meaning emerges not only from the text itself but also from its delivery, interactional dynamics, and performative realization. By integrating linguistic, pragmatic, and multimodal approaches, scholars can explore the full range of strategies through which (im)politeness operates in drama—whether in written scripts, staged performances, or filmed versions.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on a wide range of topics related to (im)politeness in dramatic discourse. The main topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

● The multiple functions of (im)politeness in dramatic representation;

● (Im)politeness and characterisation in plays;

● Mock-politeness, humour, sarcasm, banter in plays

● Multimodal approaches to (im)politeness

● (Im)politeness and violence in dramatic discourse

● Rhetoric in inter-character dynamics;

● Stylistics and narration in drama;

● Persuasive discourse;

● Taboo language;

● Translation of Drama and (Im)politeness Theory;

We welcome contributions from scholars in pragmatics, discourse analysis, stylistics, drama studies, multimodal analysis, and related fields. Papers may focus on historical or contemporary drama, as well as on different theatrical traditions.

Abstracts should not exceed 300 words and should be sent as email attachments in .doc or .docx format to valentina.vetri@unisi.itvalentina.vetri@unisi.it o chiara.ghezzi@unior.it by 15/07/2025

Proposals should include:

– full name;

– academic position;

– affiliation;

– email address;

–  keywords (5 max.)

–  references (5 max.)

Notice of acceptance will be sent by 31/07/2025.

Organising and Scientific Committee

Valentina Vetri, Bianca Del Villano, Chiara Ghezzi, Roberto Esposito, Mariaconcetta Mirto, Emma Pasquali, Aoife Beville.

Selected bibliography

Abdesslem, H. “Politeness Strategies in the Discourse of Drama: A Case Study.” Journal of Literary Semantics, vol. 30, no. 2, 2001, pp. 111–38.

Bennison, N. “Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics and the Dramatic ‘Character’: Tom Stoppard’s Professional Foul.” Language and Literature, vol. 2, no. 2, 1993, pp. 79–99.

Birch, D. The Language of Drama. Macmillan, 1991.

Boulton, M. The Anatomy of Drama. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960.

Bousfield, D. “Impoliteness as Banter in Henry IV, Part I.” Language and Literature, vol. 18, no. 2, 2009, pp. 127–44.

Brown, R., and A. Gilman. “Politeness Theory and Shakespeare’s Four Major Tragedies.” Language in Society, vol. 18, no. 2, 1989, pp. 159–212.

Burton, D. Dialogue and Discourse: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Modern Drama Dialogue and Naturally Occurring Conversation. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Carlson, M. Speaking in Tongues: Languages at Play in the Theatre. University of Michigan Press, 2006.

Culpeper, J. “(Im)politeness in Dramatic Dialogue.” Language of Drama: From Text to Context, edited by J. Culpeper, M. Short, and P. Verdonk, Routledge, 1998, pp. 83–95.

---. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Longman, 2001.

---. “A Cognitive Stylistic Approach to Characterisation.” Cognitive Stylistics: Language and Cognition in Text Analysis, edited by Elena Semino and Jonathan Culpeper, John Benjamins, 2002, pp. 251–72.

---. “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 25, 1996, pp. 349–67.

Culpeper, J., Derek Bousfield, and Anne Wichmann. “Impoliteness Revisited: With Special Reference to Dynamic and Prosodic Aspects.” Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 35, 2003, pp. 1545–79.

Herman, V. Dramatic Discourse: Dialogue as Interaction in Plays. Routledge, 1995.

Lloyd, Michael. “Politeness and Impoliteness in Aristophanes.” Pragmatic Approaches to Drama. Studies in Communication on the Ancient Stage, Brill, 2020, pp. 213–33.

Mandala, S. Twentieth-Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk: Speaking Between the Lines. Routledge, 2016.

McIntyre, D. “Integrating Multimodal Analysis and the Stylistics of Drama: A Multimodal Perspective on Ian McKellen’s Richard III.” Language and Literature, vol. 17, no. 4, 2008, pp. 309–34.

Morini, M. Theatre Translation: Theory and Practice. Bloomsbury, 2022.

Pavis, P. Languages of the Stage: Essays on the Semiology of Theatre. Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982.

Short, M. “Discourse Analysis and the Analysis of Drama.” Language, Discourse and Literature: An Introductory Reader in Discourse Stylistics, edited by R. Carter and P. Simpson, Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 139–68.

---. “From Dramatic Text to Dramatic Performance.” Exploring the Language of Drama, edited by J. Culpeper, M. Short, and P. Verdonk, Routledge, 1998, pp. 6–18.

Sidiropoulou, M. “Introduction: Im/Politeness and Theatre Translation.” Translation & Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts (TTMC), vol. 6, no. 1, 2020.

Simpson, P. “Odd Talk: Studying Discourses of Incongruity.” Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, edited by J. Culpeper, M. Short, and P. Verdonk, Routledge, 1998, pp. 34–53.