'Understanding Politeness provides an innovative, integrative understanding of politeness as an evaluative social practice. It is destined to become the standard paradigm for teaching students and for studying these complex phenomena.' Robert B. Arundale, Professor Emeritus of Communication, University of Alaska Fairbanks 'Understanding Politeness focuses on politeness as social practice, and sets politeness within a social, historical and evaluative context. It constitutes an excellent engagement with past and current politeness research, describes key concepts in politeness clearly, and also provides many illustrative examples from a range of different media.' Sara Mills, Research Professor in Linguistics, Sheffield Hallam University 'The authors present their innovative approach to studying interaction, focusing on (im)politeness through time and social space. Understanding Politeness can be used as a study book for students majoring in pragmatics and is a must-read for politeness researchers.' Ekaterina Rudneva, Antropologicheskij Forum