(Im)politeness and argumentation in the discourse of politicians (Mexico-Cuba relations)

Abstract

Diplomacy demands from the actors to comply with certain rules and codes to solve conflicts and to relate countries economically, culturally and politically. Therefore, the use of strategies of politeness is transcendent for these actors. In this paper, we examine transversely the processes of (im)politeness and face. We studied a telephone conversation between diplomats from Mexico and Cuba from a socio-pragmatic and rhetorical-discursive perspective to examine the social representations and the strategies of the political discourse under the premises of the French School of discourse analysis and reviewing the processes of interaction that allow to construct arguments and arguments in opposition.