Politeness is a topic on which people have very different opinions （and \"people，\" in this case， includes linguistic scholars and researchers）. According to one view， politeness is a superficial and dispensable adornment of human language， rather like icing on a cake. For others， including myself， it is a deeper phenomenon， something that human communicators would find it hard to do without. Many children leaming their native language soon discover the importance of saying things like please and thank you， which are insisted on by their parents in the process of socialization-becoming \"paid-up\" members of human society. This renunds us that politeness is a social phenomenon-and yet a social phenomenon largely manifested through the use of language.
　　Hence politeness has to be studied in terms of the relationship between language use and social behavior. This area of linguistic study is typically called pragmatics. However， pragmatics-the study of language use and its meaning to speakers and hearers-can readily be seen in terms of two interfaces： the one between pragmatics and linguistic form （known as pragmalinguistics） and the other between pragmatics and society （known as sociopragmatics）， It is virtually impossible for any book to cover all aspects of politeness， and therefore I have oriented this book more toward pragmalinguistics， an area that has been somewhat neglected of late， while not ignoring sociopragmatics This means taking a fairly detailed close-up view of the way a language is used for politeness， rather than the big-picture view of how politeness relates to social behavior and society in general. Another major limitation of this book is that its focus will be mainly on one language： English. Although the emphasis will be on polite forms of language and how they are used， it is important not to ignore impolite linguistic behavior-the topic that will be dealt with in Chapter 8， and which has recently become a popular area of research. At the same time， I naturally devote most of my attention in other chapters to politeness， rather than impoliteness， as some degree of politeness is generally considered the unmarked form of behavior.