Impoliteness in only drunks and children tell the truth by drew Hayden Taylor

The present study attempts to examine (im) politeness in Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, a drama play written by Drew Hayden Taylor. Politeness and impoliteness have received a great amount of attention from many scholars in recent years. The study applied a classification developed by Culpeper in his latest book entitled Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. The classification mainly focuses on conventionalized and implicational impoliteness in literary texts. Drew Heyden through his characters’ conversational dialogues presents numerous (im) polite expressions to both entertain and make actors and audiences think critically. This study applied the previously mentioned classification to examine impoliteness in characters’ expressions. The findings revealed that impoliteness is a common phenomenon in the language used especially by women characters in the play. The main reason behind this is the emotional pain the characters experienced in their life. Impoliteness was used by both females and males, but it was found that women used more impoliteness strategies than men.