This opening chapter first discusses the important position politeness research holds in pragmatics. Four areas of research are selected for the purpose: speech acts, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and interaction on the Internet, with the overarching aim to show that politeness offers insights for how meaning is made and transmitted in each of these areas. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the discussion on the important role Chinese politeness plays in politeness research in general. Since the notion of Chinese face is a pillar of Brown and Levinson’s notion of face, an in-depth understanding of Chinese face and, subsequently, Chinese politeness, stands to benefit the understanding of Brown and Levinson’s thinking in their theory. In addition, research on Chinese face has been drawing an increasing amount of attention from scholars of politeness in recent decades, accumulating a literature the size of which few other languages can parallel and offering insights to the understanding of politeness that are unique and significant, a thorough exploration of Chinese politeness can inform the field about politeness theorizing.

This chapter focuses on the hybrid genre of pamphlet advertisements of proprietary medicines from the late seventeenth century. These texts have a dual purpose: on the one hand, they promote a medical product, and on the other hand, they appropriate and distribute medical information for the general public. A move analysis of thirty-two advertisements reveals seven structural elements, of which three can be considered obligatory elements. Parallels with the structural elements of recipes and specialised medical treatises are also considered to show how established elements are appropriated and mixed from different existing genres alongside completely fresh elements in the new hybrid genre. The analysis thus shows the dynamic nature of medical writing of the period, in which authors made use of their considerable knowledge of established medical genres and the characteristics of the contemporary medical marketplace to form a new genre for new purposes.

This chapter examines the genre of bills of mortality covering plague epidemics of seventeenth-century London. The texts consist of largely numerical data, but providing up-to-date news about the progress of epidemics in different parts of the city was not their only function. Description of earlier, historical plague outbreaks was sometimes included and later, with the worsening of the epidemics, various remedies and religious advice were often added. Statistical information about the increase or decrease in the number of victims could also be given. The analysis combines linguistic analysis with that of the visual features, which were abundant especially towards the end of the period, used to emphasise certain elements and distinguish between different functions of the text. The study shows that these broadsheets adapted in multiple ways to the changing needs and wants of their readers in the course of the seventeenth century.