This book adopts an interactional pragmatics and multimodal approach to the study of im/politeness, offering unique insights for better understanding intercultural interactions in today’s globalised world.

The volume explores face/identity and its relation to im/politeness, not only through language but through gestures as well. In addition, this study brings greater awareness to analyses of interactions with participants from different cultural backgrounds, specifically drawing upon data from authentic video-recorded interactions between Finnish and French speakers in both personal and professional contexts. Detailed analyses of interactional situations across different phases of life, from family meals to social interactions between students and friends to coaching at work, elucidate both the ways in which face/identity are co-constructed during interactions through an intercultural lens and offers new directions for its further study.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars in pragmatics and intercultural communication.