Abstract
From the viewpoint of information transaction models in linguistic pragmatics, expressions of linguistic politeness (LP) induce costs upon speakers. That speakers regularly “pay" such cost is what formal models of LP typically explain either by individual-level strategic considerations (e.g., the speaker’s aim of avoiding a face-threat to the hearer) or community-level conventional considerations (e.g., the use of LP as a relation-acknowledging device). Because these explanations are compatible, as each relates to the speaker and hearer’s social relation, we combine them into a single game-theoretical model enriched by three types of social network structures (ring-shaped, star-shaped, and complete). Using simulation studies of (single and repeated) speech acts of requesting, we let the degree of LP be determined by (i) the degree of social imposition associated with a request, (ii) the number of interlocutors’ past interactions, and (iii) the relative importance of strategic and conventional considerations. The greatest average optimal degree of LP is obtained in the star-shaped network, which intuitively corresponds to a power-centered, hierarchical society.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Frank Zenker for hel** to prepare the final submitted version of this paper. The author appreciates the comments and suggestions from Kevin Zollman as well as the audiences from the Workshop on Foundations of Game Theory: Logic, Bounded Rationality, and Decisions in Tokyo, 2022. The author is also grateful to the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on the previous manuscript. The research reported in this paper is supported by the National Social Science Youth Foundation (No. 18CZX064) and the National Social Science Foundation Key Program in China (No. 23 &ZD240).
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Tang, L. Linguistic politeness in social networks. Synthese 203, 204 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04642-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04642-8