Impoliteness Strategies and Social Characteristics. An Analysis of Films in Peninsular Spanish and American English Speakers at Work

This paper aims to offer a brief revision of some of the best-known contributions to the field study of impoliteness. On the one hand, a taxonomy of impoliteness strategies is presented, based on my own model of social characteristics. On the other hand, as an example of the application of this model, dialogues in six films – three of them filmed in peninsular Spanish and the rest in American English – are analysed, in search of the use of such impoliteness strategies. The results will show that different cultural conceptions of these two groups reflect upon the use of impoliteness strategies.