Impoliteness and taking offence in initial interactions

The notion of “offence” lies at the core of current models of impoliteness. Yet is also well acknowledged that being impolite is not necessarily the same thing as being offended. In this paper, it is suggested that previous work on causing offence ( Culpeper, 2011) can be usefully complemented by an analysis of taking offence. It is proposed that taking offence can be productively examined with respect to a model of (im)politeness as interactional social practice ( Haugh, 2015). On this view, taking offence is analysed in part as a social action in and of itself, which means those persons registering or sanctioning offence in an interaction, whether explicitly or implicitly, can themselves be held morally accountable for this taking of offence. It is further suggested that taking offence as a form of social action can be productively theorised as a pragmatic act which is invariably situated with respect to particular activity types and interactional projects therein (Culpeper and Haugh, 2014). This position is illustrated by drawing from analyses of initial interactions amongst speakers of (American and Australian) English who are not previously acquainted. It is suggested that ways in which taking offence are accomplished both afforded and constrained by the demonstrable orientation on the part of participants to agreeability in the course of getting acquainted.