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Article published In: Politeness in and across Historical Europe
Edited by Annick Paternoster, Gudrun Held and Dániel Z. Kádár
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 160–178

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The codification of nineteenth-century etiquette

On politeness, morality, rituals and discernment

 | Università della Svizzera italiana
Published online: 14 March 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00069.pat
Abstract
Etiquette has only marginally attracted the attention of politeness scholars. This article aims to fill a knowledge gap as it explores the concept in a more systematic way, using nineteenth-century prescriptive metasources from four countries (Britain, France, Italy and the United States). Etiquette is found to form a complicated, all-encompassing body of tendentially amoral, mandatory norms, adapting the minutiae of court protocol to private settings. Since the conventions of etiquette are sequentially structured as scripts with a social gatekeeping function, they can be seen as rituals – that is, schematic, performative interaction that is emotionally invested. Furthermore, given the combination of mandatory behaviour and a concern for rank (precedence), etiquette is seen as a manifestation of Discernment, although etiquette privileges non-verbal aspects of interaction, with less attention for language advice. I consider “etiquette” to be a historically and geographically situated first-order term for the analytical concept of Discernment: emerging in Europe and in North America in the late eighteenth century, it is still in use today.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Etiquette books
  • 3.Etiquette, politeness and moral values
  • 4.Etiquette and ritual
  • 5.Etiquette and discernment
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
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Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Krawczyk, Dariusz
2025. Review of Paternoster (2022): Historical Etiquette: Etiquette Books in Nineteenth-Century Western Cultures. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 26:1 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Jucker, Andreas H.
2024. Conduct politeness versus etiquette politeness: a terminological distinction. Journal of Politeness Research 20:1 ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Constantinescu, Mihaela-Viorica
2023. Ritual and modern “politeness” in the Romanian Principalities during the Phanariot period. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 124 ff. DOI logo
Isosävi, Johanna
2023. Historical changes in politeness norms. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 198 ff. DOI logo
Kádár, Dániel Z., Gudrun Held & Annick Paternoster
2023. Introduction. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Paternoster, Annick
2022. Scripts and Lines. In Historical Etiquette, ► pp. 191 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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