On Im/politeness Behind the Iron Curtain

Abstract

This chapter examines culture-specific conceptualisations of Polish and Hungarian im/politeness, the influence of political and societal changes on im/politeness and the differences between the developments in Poland and Hungary before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The analysis is based on narratives revealing perceptions of im/polite behaviour and metapragmatic terms referring to im/politeness elicited with the help of semi-structured episodic interviews.