Politeness motivated by the ‘heart’ and ‘binary rationality’ in Thai culture

Most politeness theoretical frameworks are derived from Euro-American ways of thinking, with facework and the notion of rationality often being their common denominators. In this paper, I introduce an aspect of Thai politeness called kʰwaːmkreːŋaj (KKJ) and propose an alternative model for analysing behaviours that are associated with it. Having the literal meaning ‘fear of hearts,’ in the Thai native speaker mindset, KKJ is more widely construed as ‘consideration or concern for others’ feelings.’ Judged in terms of the supposedly rational ways of doing things prevalent in the West, some KKJ behaviours, despite the lofty moral ideals attached, can be regarded as indications of irrationality, insincerity and many other negative traits. To make sense of KKJ, I maintain that we need a rationality that is binary in nature: ‘means-to-end’ and ‘rapport-oriented.’ The findings of this study provide evidence for the existence of KKJ in other cultures and suggest that politeness research will benefit from looking beyond the confines of the face metaphor and a rationality based exclusively on logic and individualism. The paper concludes that integrating ingredients of politeness from different cultures may enable us to realise Emancipatory Pragmatics's goals of looking locally while shedding new lights on the underrepresented facets of other politeness systems.