Conversational patterns in Maltese talk-shows : a perspective on politeness

Abstract

This thesis sets out to investigate (im)politeness as this arises in the conversational patterns of television talk-shows. More specifically, it explores the extent to which overlapping is accepted in Maltese and looks at the use of certain expressions (or EPMs) which are tied to (im)politeness, by seeing whether their perception is contextually bound or not. To this end, two studies were conducted on the basis of a sample corpus of television talk-shows. The first involved a critical analysis of the corpus, with the second seeking to expand on the corpus study observations by collecting data on the (im)politeness perception of a larger group of Maltese speakers.

The corpus study revealed a tendency to link non-threatening overlaps with politeness and threatening ones with impoliteness respectively, with EPMs being present in instances belonging to both sides of the (im)politeness spectrum, suggesting that their use is primarily governed by context. The perception study then, corroborated the idea that EPMs are contextually bound, but also showed that threatening overlaps may still not be viewed as entirely impolite in Maltese, since their perception hovered around impoliteness in a marginal way. This, coupled with certain cases were even threatening overlaps were judged as polite by the study participants, suggests that all kinds of overlap may be found acceptable in Maltese.