Politeness, speech acts and socio-cultural change

Abstract This paper studies the long-term diachronic development of the speech act of expressing gratitude in the history of English in Britain. The speech act underwent a considerable transformation from a religious-devotional practice and an expressive act with a high illocutionary weight addressed to a fellow human being towards a predominantly phatic routine in everyday conversation. Based on empirical data it is suggested that this development is characterised by the interplay of four proce