Persuasion, Politeness and Relational Models

Politeness Theory, just like Grice’s Cooperative Principle, points out that pragmatic analysis of language behaviour has to be grounded in extra-linguistic facts of social (or even biological) nature. Additionally, despite the slightly misleading label, Politeness Theory provides a sound methodology to explain some persuasive as well as politeness phenomena. In the same vein, the so called Relational Model Theory provides another theoretical framework for the explanation of persuasive phenomena and persuasive language. Both Relational Model Theory and Politeness Theory show that persuasion is also to be understood as a rational response to not-so-rational social and biological needs. In the article an attempt is made to compare the two theories focusing on their explanatory power in reference to language choices aiming at enhancing the persuasive potential of a language message.