Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Introduction -- Part 1: The Theory and History of Linguistic Politeness -- 1. Intracultural tact versus intercultural tact -- 2. Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality -- 3. On the historicity of politeness -- 4. Literary texts and diachronic aspects of politeness -- 5. Politeness in linguistic research -- 6. Traditional and modern views: the social constitution and the power of politeness -- Part 2: Empirical Studies in Politeness -- 7. Secondhand politeness -- 8. Between matter-of-factness and politeness -- 9. Children's understanding of white lies -- Part 3: Politeness in a Non-Western Cultural Setting -- 10. The metapragmatics of politeness in Israeli society -- 11. The concept of politeness: An empirical study of American English and Japanese -- 12. Linguistic etiquette in Japanese society -- 13. Politeness in Thai -- References -- Author and subject index -- Backmatter