(Des)cortesía y poder en el discurso telecinemático de ficción

This paper addresses the interdependence between (im)politeness and power carried out with reference to telecinematic talk, in the light of an overview of the relevant scholarship from (im)politeness studies. Moving from an electronic corpus of the scripts of the Spanish television series Vis a Vis, the study endeavours to describe how patterns of (im)politeness can be dialogically constructed in filmic speech to create power, which, in the specific environment of this series, is closely related to violence and fear. (Im)politeness is a frequent feature in film and tv series, as it reflects everyday communicative practices, but also contributes to the construction of the expressive identity of characters; in a higher communicative level, it is designed to impact the emotions of the audience, who can be not only empathically involved with the characters, but also can take pleasure, especially in viewing face-threatening acts.