(Im)politeness in health settings

Often studies on health communication come from many different disciplines and do not necessarily work with (im)politeness frameworks. For this reason we first discuss the scope of the current research, the emerging importance of e-health practices, cultural influences on practices, as well as the range of theories and methods. Next to these general insights, we particularly highlight four areas of interest to (im)politeness scholars: (1) The face-threatening potential of many interactions in health contexts, (2) the negotiation of roles pertaining to health interaction in dynamic encounters, (3) the creation and maintaining of trust and expertise, and (4) the importance of advice giving, information giving, counselling, etc. We illustrate how these areas of interest are interlinked with a selection of examples.