Politeness in small shops in France

Abstract

This study aims to show that a distinguishing feature of interactions in small shops in France is the very large number of polite formulae, which seek to “polish” and soften the transactional process. Having briefly presented the descriptive model employed (a “Brown et Levinson revisited” model), the author describes the main forms of politeness to be found in this type of situation: opening and closing rituals, and the formulation of requests and thanks. The study is based on corpora recorded in different small shops in the town of Lyons. The author concludes with some comments of an intercultural nature.