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Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.185–212

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Greek women’s stories about intimate relationships

Conceptualizing politeness through “small stories” and identity analysis

 | King’s College London
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18062.sal
Abstract
While sociolinguistic studies of politeness and identities present many disciplinary parallels, their paths have seldom intersected (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, P., & Sifianou, M. (2017). (Im)politeness and Identity. In J. Culpeper, M. Haugh & D. Kádár (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness (pp. 227–256). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, p. 227). It is within this context that this paper uses “small stories” research ( (2006). Stories: Big or small? Why do we care? Narrative Inquiry, 161, 147–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; (2006). Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis. Narrative Inquiry, 161, 129–137. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2007). Small stories, interaction and identities. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and identities analysis to study politeness-in-interaction ( (2013b). Small stories and identities analysis as a framework for the study of politeness-in-interaction. Journal of Politeness Research, 91, 55–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). It particularly looks at a group of young Greek women, and focuses on their “small stories” about the tellers’ and others’ management of politeness norms in intimate relationships. A multi-method approach to data collection is used that involves both naturally-occurring narratives-in-interactions in self-recordings, and reflexive tellings in playback interviews. Drawing on (2007). Small stories, interaction and identities. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar triptych of “ways of telling-sites-tellers”, and on Bamberg, M. (1997). Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1/4), 335–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar model of positioning, the analysis illustrates the significance of politeness-related identity claims for signaling lay norms of politeness ratified by the local group of friends. It also shows how politeness construction is intertwined with the interactional fabrication of identities.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical framework
    • “Small stories” research
    • Identity work in “breaking news” stories as a platform for politeness
  • Methodology
  • Analysis
    • Iterativity in the ways of telling
      • Breaking news story about the ‘polite’ guy
      • Reference to the shared story about the polite guy
    • Politeness and tellers’ positioning vis-à-vis master narratives
      • Playback interview session with Emma
  • Concluding discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (50)
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