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ACADEMIA Letters A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, Universidad Europea de Canarias Speech acts have been differently defined and examined. Classically, speech acts are generally understood as communicative activities achieved in relation to the speaker’s intention and the hearer’s interpretation in a certain situation under certain social conventions (Allwood 1977). The complexity of these communicative activities has raised a dyadic debate between those – such as Searle’s (1969, 1975) - who hold a rather monolithic interpretation of speech acts by only dealing with speech acts from the speaker’s utterance (e.g. the illocutionary force) alone, while ignoring the reaction on the hearer’s part (e.g., the perlocutionary force), and those – such as Weigand (2010) – who counteract Searles’ view by opting for a more dialogic understanding which focuses on how the speaker’s and hearer’s parts equally intervene in the process of producing and understanding an utterance. Concretely, this later approach to speech acts is somewhat thought provoking in that, for example, expressive speech acts (e.g., wishes) have to be understood as having two indispensable and inseparable sides among which one cannot exist without the other; as such, both sides need to be equally considered. In other words, if A utters: I wish you a speedy recovery, such an utterance could be seen as an incomplete act as long as B does not react to this illocutionary act, with one potential response being: Thank you. The thesis is that a speech act is a set of illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect working together to the effect of producing a completely meaningful utterance. Rather than considering the hearer to be a passive and naïve interlocutor whose straightforward role is to infer from what is uttered by the speaker, the hearer has to be taken as the second half of a speech act without which an utterance is senseless (Tsoumou 2020). Beyond the complexity expressive speech acts (Austin 1975), researchers concur over the argument that the illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 1 (Searl 1976; Norrick 1978; Maíz-Arévalo 2017). The main characteristic of expressives is their “lack of direction of fit – i.e., there is no match between the words and the world since the speaker is referring to her inner world rather than the external one” (Maíz-Arévalo 2017: 154). In other words, expressives reflect the speaker’s inner world as well as their state of mind, attitude and feelings that underline language users’ emotions. Furthermore, expressives are context bound in nature, and they are mainly of two forms. On the one hand, there are expressive acts centred on the speaker (e.g., Weigand refers to those as emotives) – such as expressing joy. On the other hand, there are expressives more cantered on the hearer – such as expressive condolences. Whilst speaker-centred motives focus on the speaker’s emotions; on his/her emotional involvement with the utterance itself and their function is to announce and/or express emotions, the hear-centred expressives (i.e., thanking, congratulating, apologizing, expressing condolences or compliments) mostly aim at boosting the hearer’s positive face (Maíz-Arévalo 2017). Following this, Haverkate (1993, 149– 150), points out that “hearer-centred expressives outnumber speaker-centred ones precisely because of the polite functions they perform, even if the original emotional content is still partially present”. The aim of these socially expected expressives (also known as declaratives in Weigand’s terms) is, therefore, the creation of social rapport by means of politeness conventions and routinized behavioural practices which may or may not express sincere feelings (Weigand 2010; Maíz-Arévalo 2017). This brings us to the nature per se of (im)politeness. Recent research concurs over the argument that understanding politeness is a complex process (Culpeper et al. 2017; Haugh and Watanabe 2017). This has given rise to constant epistemological development and implementation of theoretical definitions and refinement of what (im)politeness really alludes to. Some scholars – such as Eelen (2001) - attempt to define politeness by taking commonsense as their departing point as they understand politeness in terms of proper behaviour which is not confined to language, but can include verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Others – such as Spencer-Oatey 2008– take a more interactional view of politeness by defining it as a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interactions by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontations inherent in all human interchange. From classic normative theories (Grice 1975, Leech 1983) to interactional based understandings of politeness events, the centre of debate has merely been the difference between politeness 1 and politeness 2 and the incorporation of the two in the analysis (Eelen 2001, Mills 2003, Watt 2003). While the first-order politeness makes reference to the various ways in which polite behavior is perceived and talked about by members of socio-cultural groups, the second-order politeness, on the other hand, is a theoretical construct, a term within a theory of social behavior and language usage (Watts et al. 2005; Culpeper 2011). Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 2 From this classic distinction, politeness accounts for both a commonsense as well as a scientific notion which should be examined in an integrative fashion, combining cooperative elements from both sides to form a coherent outlook on social and linguistic reality (Haugh and Watanabe 2017). Whether it is theoretically construed or in situ evaluated by members of given community, one thing stands out; that is, politeness is a merely a context-dependent socio-cultural phenomenon which can deem to be marked in some situations while unmarked in others. As Eelen (2001: iv) puts it, most people will be familiar with examples of politeness such as holding the door open for someone, greeting someone with a wave of the hand or a nod and so on. Likewise, it would be fair to say, for instance, that well-wishing comment and compassion are contextually the fair unmarked reactions expected in the context where a person catches such a life-threatening disease as COVID-19. Such an unmarked reaction falls within maxims of generosity and sympathy, two of the six Leech’s politeness maxims. 1 The absence of generosity in a context of a deadly disease is likely to result in conflictbuilding. Impoliteness, on the other hand, is a relatively novel area of research which arose as the consequence of the classic politeness theories’ failure to treat face-attacking strategies systematically as well as the surprising fact most early theory of politeness have merely focused far more on polite behaviour than on impolite behaviour (Holmes and Schnurr 2005; Locher and Watts 2005; Spencer-Oatey 2008), even though, as Watts (2003:5) puts it “commentators on and participants in verbal interaction are more likely to comment on behaviour which they perceive to be ‘impolite’, ‘rude’, ‘discourteous’, ‘obstreperous’, ‘bloody-minded’, etc. than on ‘polite’ behaviour, to agree far more readily in their classification of the negative end of the scale than of the positive end”. In other words, whereas harmonious behavior would go unnoticed amongst participants – mostly because this type of behavior falls appropriately within what is termed as conversational contract, impolite behavioral practices, on the other hand, tends to become marked, as they entail a violation of the rights and obligations of the conversational contract (Fraser and Nolen1981). In the view of this, the correlations between expressive speech acts and (im)politeness conducts are here salient. Concretely, if A’s utterance above (i.e., I wish you a speedy recovery) is not met with a response from B, A may potentially lose face; as a result, this utterance could ultimately become a face-threatening act. If, however, B responds positively by Thank you, the utterance could become a sort of face-enhancing act. As Spencer-Oatey (2008: 21) 1 The six Leech’s (1983) politeness maxims are Tact - which is concerns with minimizing cost and maximizing benefit to the hearer -, Generosity – which tells people to minimize their own benefit, while maximizing that of hearer – Approbation – which involves minimizing dispraise and maximizing praise of the hearer -, Modesty – which concerns minimizing self-praise and maximizing self-dispraise -, Agreement – which is about minimizing disagreement and maximizing agreement between Self and other -, and Sympathy – which warns to minimize sympathy between Self and Other. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 3 points out, “losing face is a painful experience [for every language user], which is generally in every participant’s best interest to maintain each other’s face”. Expressive acts are generally demanded by certain socio-cultural norms, as they may be highly expected by interactants in certain contexts (Maíz-Arévalo 2017). For instance, if A greets B, A may have some sociocultural expectation of a response from B, while B is socio-culturally in a sort of obligation to react to B’s greetings. As Maíz-Arévalo (2017:154) explains “the absence of these expected expressives can be perceived as marked and eventually lead to social disruptiveness, since they play a crucial role in facework or social rituals”. In other words, if A catches such a life-threatening disease as COVID-19 – which has been demonstrated to be highly contagious and deadly –, social expectations require an expression of sympathy in terms of wishing A’s welfare, which would create and even foster potential social rapports among the interactants. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 4 References Allwood, Jens. 1977. A critical look at speech act theory. In Logic, Pragmatics and Grammar, edidted by Dahl, 53-99, Studentlitteatur, Lund. Culpeper, Jonathan, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 2017, eds. The Palgrave handbook of linguistic (im) politeness. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press. Fraser, Bruce and William Nolen. 1981. The association of deference with linguistic form. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27, 93–109. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts, edited by Cole Peter and Morgan Jerry, 41–58, London and New York: Academic Press. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2017. Expressive speech acts in educational e-chats. Pragmática sociocultural/Sociocultural pragmatics, 5(2), 151-178. Michael Haugh, Michael, and Yasuhisa Watanabe Yasuhisa. 2017. (Im)politeness Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 65-76. Routledge, London. Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge University Press. Norrick, Neal, R. 1978. Expressive illocutionary acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 2(3), 277 Searle, John, 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Searle, John. 1975. A taxonomy of illocutionary acts. In: Günderson, K. (Ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge, vol. 7. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 344-369. Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. (2002) Managing rapport in talk: Using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations. Journal of Pragmatics 34 (5): 529–45. Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. 2008. Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures (2nd). London and New York: Continuum. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 5 Tsoumou, Jean Mathieu. 2020. Analyzing speech acts in politically related Facebook communication. Journal of Pragmatics 167, 80-97. Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge University Press. Watts, Richard J., Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich (eds.). 2005. Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice (2nd). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Weigand, Edda. 2010. Dialogue: The Mixed Game. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Holmes, Janet and Stephanie Schnurr (2005) Politeness, humor and gender in the workplace: Negotiating norms and identifying contestation. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1 (1), 121–49. Locher, Miriam A. and Richard J. Watts (2005) Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1 (1), 9–33. Michael Haugh, Michael, and Yasuhisa Watanabe Yasuhisa. 2017. (Im)politeness Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 65-76. Routledge, London. Haverkate, H. (1993). Acerca de los actos de habla expresivos y comisivos en español. Diálogos hispánicos 12, 149–180. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 6
ACADEMIA Letters A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, Universidad Europea de Canarias Speech acts have been differently defined and examined. Classically, speech acts are generally understood as communicative activities achieved in relation to the speaker’s intention and the hearer’s interpretation in a certain situation under certain social conventions (Allwood 1977). The complexity of these communicative activities has raised a dyadic debate between those – such as Searle’s (1969, 1975) - who hold a rather monolithic interpretation of speech acts by only dealing with speech acts from the speaker’s utterance (e.g. the illocutionary force) alone, while ignoring the reaction on the hearer’s part (e.g., the perlocutionary force), and those – such as Weigand (2010) – who counteract Searles’ view by opting for a more dialogic understanding which focuses on how the speaker’s and hearer’s parts equally intervene in the process of producing and understanding an utterance. Concretely, this later approach to speech acts is somewhat thought provoking in that, for example, expressive speech acts (e.g., wishes) have to be understood as having two indispensable and inseparable sides among which one cannot exist without the other; as such, both sides need to be equally considered. In other words, if A utters: I wish you a speedy recovery, such an utterance could be seen as an incomplete act as long as B does not react to this illocutionary act, with one potential response being: Thank you. The thesis is that a speech act is a set of illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect working together to the effect of producing a completely meaningful utterance. Rather than considering the hearer to be a passive and naïve interlocutor whose straightforward role is to infer from what is uttered by the speaker, the hearer has to be taken as the second half of a speech act without which an utterance is senseless (Tsoumou 2020). Beyond the complexity expressive speech acts (Austin 1975), researchers concur over the argument that the illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 1 (Searl 1976; Norrick 1978; Maíz-Arévalo 2017). The main characteristic of expressives is their “lack of direction of fit – i.e., there is no match between the words and the world since the speaker is referring to her inner world rather than the external one” (Maíz-Arévalo 2017: 154). In other words, expressives reflect the speaker’s inner world as well as their state of mind, attitude and feelings that underline language users’ emotions. Furthermore, expressives are context bound in nature, and they are mainly of two forms. On the one hand, there are expressive acts centred on the speaker (e.g., Weigand refers to those as emotives) – such as expressing joy. On the other hand, there are expressives more cantered on the hearer – such as expressive condolences. Whilst speaker-centred motives focus on the speaker’s emotions; on his/her emotional involvement with the utterance itself and their function is to announce and/or express emotions, the hear-centred expressives (i.e., thanking, congratulating, apologizing, expressing condolences or compliments) mostly aim at boosting the hearer’s positive face (Maíz-Arévalo 2017). Following this, Haverkate (1993, 149– 150), points out that “hearer-centred expressives outnumber speaker-centred ones precisely because of the polite functions they perform, even if the original emotional content is still partially present”. The aim of these socially expected expressives (also known as declaratives in Weigand’s terms) is, therefore, the creation of social rapport by means of politeness conventions and routinized behavioural practices which may or may not express sincere feelings (Weigand 2010; Maíz-Arévalo 2017). This brings us to the nature per se of (im)politeness. Recent research concurs over the argument that understanding politeness is a complex process (Culpeper et al. 2017; Haugh and Watanabe 2017). This has given rise to constant epistemological development and implementation of theoretical definitions and refinement of what (im)politeness really alludes to. Some scholars – such as Eelen (2001) - attempt to define politeness by taking commonsense as their departing point as they understand politeness in terms of proper behaviour which is not confined to language, but can include verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Others – such as Spencer-Oatey 2008– take a more interactional view of politeness by defining it as a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interactions by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontations inherent in all human interchange. From classic normative theories (Grice 1975, Leech 1983) to interactional based understandings of politeness events, the centre of debate has merely been the difference between politeness 1 and politeness 2 and the incorporation of the two in the analysis (Eelen 2001, Mills 2003, Watt 2003). While the first-order politeness makes reference to the various ways in which polite behavior is perceived and talked about by members of socio-cultural groups, the second-order politeness, on the other hand, is a theoretical construct, a term within a theory of social behavior and language usage (Watts et al. 2005; Culpeper 2011). Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 2 From this classic distinction, politeness accounts for both a commonsense as well as a scientific notion which should be examined in an integrative fashion, combining cooperative elements from both sides to form a coherent outlook on social and linguistic reality (Haugh and Watanabe 2017). Whether it is theoretically construed or in situ evaluated by members of given community, one thing stands out; that is, politeness is a merely a context-dependent socio-cultural phenomenon which can deem to be marked in some situations while unmarked in others. As Eelen (2001: iv) puts it, most people will be familiar with examples of politeness such as holding the door open for someone, greeting someone with a wave of the hand or a nod and so on. Likewise, it would be fair to say, for instance, that well-wishing comment and compassion are contextually the fair unmarked reactions expected in the context where a person catches such a life-threatening disease as COVID-19. Such an unmarked reaction falls within maxims of generosity and sympathy, two of the six Leech’s politeness maxims. 1 The absence of generosity in a context of a deadly disease is likely to result in conflictbuilding. Impoliteness, on the other hand, is a relatively novel area of research which arose as the consequence of the classic politeness theories’ failure to treat face-attacking strategies systematically as well as the surprising fact most early theory of politeness have merely focused far more on polite behaviour than on impolite behaviour (Holmes and Schnurr 2005; Locher and Watts 2005; Spencer-Oatey 2008), even though, as Watts (2003:5) puts it “commentators on and participants in verbal interaction are more likely to comment on behaviour which they perceive to be ‘impolite’, ‘rude’, ‘discourteous’, ‘obstreperous’, ‘bloody-minded’, etc. than on ‘polite’ behaviour, to agree far more readily in their classification of the negative end of the scale than of the positive end”. In other words, whereas harmonious behavior would go unnoticed amongst participants – mostly because this type of behavior falls appropriately within what is termed as conversational contract, impolite behavioral practices, on the other hand, tends to become marked, as they entail a violation of the rights and obligations of the conversational contract (Fraser and Nolen1981). In the view of this, the correlations between expressive speech acts and (im)politeness conducts are here salient. Concretely, if A’s utterance above (i.e., I wish you a speedy recovery) is not met with a response from B, A may potentially lose face; as a result, this utterance could ultimately become a face-threatening act. If, however, B responds positively by Thank you, the utterance could become a sort of face-enhancing act. As Spencer-Oatey (2008: 21) 1 The six Leech’s (1983) politeness maxims are Tact - which is concerns with minimizing cost and maximizing benefit to the hearer -, Generosity – which tells people to minimize their own benefit, while maximizing that of hearer – Approbation – which involves minimizing dispraise and maximizing praise of the hearer -, Modesty – which concerns minimizing self-praise and maximizing self-dispraise -, Agreement – which is about minimizing disagreement and maximizing agreement between Self and other -, and Sympathy – which warns to minimize sympathy between Self and Other. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 3 points out, “losing face is a painful experience [for every language user], which is generally in every participant’s best interest to maintain each other’s face”. Expressive acts are generally demanded by certain socio-cultural norms, as they may be highly expected by interactants in certain contexts (Maíz-Arévalo 2017). For instance, if A greets B, A may have some sociocultural expectation of a response from B, while B is socio-culturally in a sort of obligation to react to B’s greetings. As Maíz-Arévalo (2017:154) explains “the absence of these expected expressives can be perceived as marked and eventually lead to social disruptiveness, since they play a crucial role in facework or social rituals”. In other words, if A catches such a life-threatening disease as COVID-19 – which has been demonstrated to be highly contagious and deadly –, social expectations require an expression of sympathy in terms of wishing A’s welfare, which would create and even foster potential social rapports among the interactants. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 4 References Allwood, Jens. 1977. A critical look at speech act theory. In Logic, Pragmatics and Grammar, edidted by Dahl, 53-99, Studentlitteatur, Lund. Culpeper, Jonathan, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 2017, eds. The Palgrave handbook of linguistic (im) politeness. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press. Fraser, Bruce and William Nolen. 1981. The association of deference with linguistic form. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 27, 93–109. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts, edited by Cole Peter and Morgan Jerry, 41–58, London and New York: Academic Press. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2017. Expressive speech acts in educational e-chats. Pragmática sociocultural/Sociocultural pragmatics, 5(2), 151-178. Michael Haugh, Michael, and Yasuhisa Watanabe Yasuhisa. 2017. (Im)politeness Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 65-76. Routledge, London. Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge University Press. Norrick, Neal, R. 1978. Expressive illocutionary acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 2(3), 277 Searle, John, 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Searle, John. 1975. A taxonomy of illocutionary acts. In: Günderson, K. (Ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge, vol. 7. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 344-369. Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. (2002) Managing rapport in talk: Using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations. Journal of Pragmatics 34 (5): 529–45. Spencer-Oatey, Helen D. M. 2008. Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures (2nd). London and New York: Continuum. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 5 Tsoumou, Jean Mathieu. 2020. Analyzing speech acts in politically related Facebook communication. Journal of Pragmatics 167, 80-97. Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge University Press. Watts, Richard J., Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich (eds.). 2005. Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice (2nd). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Weigand, Edda. 2010. Dialogue: The Mixed Game. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Holmes, Janet and Stephanie Schnurr (2005) Politeness, humor and gender in the workplace: Negotiating norms and identifying contestation. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1 (1), 121–49. Locher, Miriam A. and Richard J. Watts (2005) Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1 (1), 9–33. Michael Haugh, Michael, and Yasuhisa Watanabe Yasuhisa. 2017. (Im)politeness Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 65-76. Routledge, London. Haverkate, H. (1993). Acerca de los actos de habla expresivos y comisivos en español. Diálogos hispánicos 12, 149–180. Academia Letters, July 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Jean Mathieu Tsoumou, 190589jeanmathieu@gmail.com Citation: Tsoumou, J.M. (2021). A brief review of expressive speech acts and their correlations with (im)politeness in COVID-19 era. Academia Letters, Article 1715. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1715. 6