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span class="inline inline-left">Issues on politeness have long attracted and intrigued scholars, particularly in the field of sociolinguistics.

A plethora of politeness research in the past is clear evidence of this, attesting to the passion of sociolinguists in fathoming how politeness can be manifested via linguistic realities, for instance, through the use of honorific terms. Two classical works by such experts in the field as Robin Lakkof, Penelope Brown, Stephen Levinson have become the epitomes of modern sociolinguistic frameworks for politeness research.

Admittedly, though these classical works remain the most influential to date and have been employed to as a theoretical framework for politeness research, current thinking in politeness studies has brought the winds of change for sociolinguists to pursue further interests in politeness research.

Politeness in East Asia certainly offers fresh outlooks for several reasons. First, the book radically shifts the orientation of politeness research preserved in the politeness research orthodoxy.

Driven by dissatisfaction against the tenets of classical politeness research frameworks, which tend to be based on Anglo-Saxon social realities, this book broadens the scope of investigation to include East Asian societies such as China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore, with the ideologies of Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism serving as an ideological-cultural link between the linguistic politeness system of East Asia.

Similarly, while orthodoxy claims the universality of the applicability of its research framework, this book has shown that such a claim is no longer valid and insufficient to account for the remarkably convoluted formation of politeness in East Asia societies.

Second, the analysis of the East Asian politeness system conducted through the five studies in this book, is supported by a sophisticated methodology informed mainly by the postmodernism spirit — that is, the book employs the use of “discursive” and “emic” approaches in researching politeness in the aforementioned societies. This approach — unlike the conventional approach, which was grounded in individual or single utterances — is discourse-based, focusing on longer fragments of authentic interactions in which both the speakers’ language productions and the hearer’s interpretation of them are taken into account.

The strength of discursive approach over the classic approach lies in its capability in capturing more nuanced and authentic views of politeness in cross-cultural contexts, primarily because discursive approach is “focused on contextual analysis and the possibility of multiple interpretations”.

Finally, broadening the scope of politeness research to East Asian societies has challenged and complicated the commonly-held stereotypes that people in East Asian cultures are indirect, deferential, and polite.

It needs to be noted here that the term “East Asia” is defined by Kadar and Mills not in terms of a strictly geographical sense, but in light of a historical-cultural sense, and hence the inclusion of Singapore — a country whose societies (like other countries in East Asia in a geographical sense) are also influenced by the social ideologies of Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism.

The studies of politeness in each Asian society disentangled by mostly non-native English scholars in the book have provided invaluable insights into how patterns of politeness are intricately distinct even within the same East Asian society.

Interestingly, although Indonesia belongs neither historically nor culturally to East Asia societies, readers can deduce that much of what has been unraveled in politeness studies in this book demonstrates that there are similarities (albeit to different degrees) between the system of politeness in our societies and those of East Asia.

The use of linguistic honorific terms and non-linguistic or paralinguistic aspects like smiles, considerate behavior, and gestures among others illustrate these similarities.

This book then is a must read for readers who have a passion for intercultural communication and politeness systems in East Asia languages. It can also stimulate those who wish to conduct politeness research in their own societies.