Different Perspectives of Approaching the Concept of Culture within Politeness Field

Abstract

The notion of culture has received different definitions in pragmatics. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to critically review and evaluate the current literature on these definitions and the associated approaches followed for studying it within politeness field. It basically considers some significant issues regarding the relationship between these definitions and the integration of the notion of culture and linguistic politeness in the analysis of pragmatic research data. It tries to find out which one of the approaches ( the postmodern and the discursive ) followed for studying the concept of culture should be mainly considered for analyzing the results of cross-cultural studies in terms of cross-cultural differences and politeness. Based on the thematic review conducted on the current literature related to the examination of the definitions of the notion of culture, it can be concluded that these definitions should not be equated rather, they should be made distinguished for pragmatics researchers. The review has shown that drawing upon different perspectives of approaching the concept of culture within politeness field can shed greater light on the analysis and discussion of previous research findings, especially because it is a very essential concept to be considered for the analysis of pragmatic research findings. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s1p399