Breakdowns in Politeness Across Cultures: A Discourse-Based Model for Improving Communication

الملخص

This paper studies why polite talk fails across cultures. It argues that breakdowns do not begin with one rude word. They begin when speakers and hearers attach different values to the same discourse move. The study uses an integrative review of major work in politeness, intercultural pragmatics, and discourse analysis. It also uses practical public evidence from CCSARP, MICASE, the Enron email corpus, and research on student-faculty email requests. The review shows that breakdowns often grow from five linked pressures. These pressures are directness, mitigation, hierarchy, address forms, and the loss of contextual cues in digital writing. Drawing on Brown and Levinson, Spencer-Oatey, Locher and Watts, and Haugh, the paper proposes a discourse-based model with three layers. These layers are linguistic form, pragmatic action, and sociocultural expectation. The model explains how one utterance can be read as efficient, cold, respectful, distant, or rude. The paper then offers a repair path for classrooms, workplaces, and online communication. The main claim is simple. Politeness should be studied as an interactional achievement, not as a fixed set of forms. A discourse-based approach helps explain failure more clearly and supports better intercultural training.