ТЕОРИЯ ВЕЖЛИВОСТИ POLITENESS: WEST AND EAST Geoffrey Leech and Tatiana Larina1 Lancaster University Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, United Kingdom 1Department of Foreign Languages Faculty of Philology Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Mikhlukho-Maklaya str., 6, Moscow, Russia, 117198 The present paper was planned for this issue of our journal, which Geoffrey Leech and I intended to devote to Politeness phenomena across cultures. <...> It is based on his article titled “Politeness: Is there an East-West Divide?” (2005) which he suggested as a theoretical framework and includes results of our discussions held during our personal meetings and our epistolary exchange. <...> The aim of this article is to sum up the main ideas of Politeness Theory presented earlier in Leech 1983, 2003, 2005, and other publications and discuss how that theory applies (or fails to apply) to other languages, with the main emphasis on the Russian language and culture. <...> The term ‘maxim’ used in Principles of Pragmatics (Leech 1983) is avoided here as much as possible, as it implies some kind of moral imperative, rather than a pragmatic constraint. <...> Instead, a single constraint, which comprehends all the maxims (the Maxims of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement, Sympathy), and is called the Grand Strategy of Politeness (GSP), is used. <...> The GSP says: In order to be polite, S expresses or implies meanings which place a high value on what pertains to O- his/her wants, qualities, obligation, opinion, feelings (O = other person[s], [mainly the addressee, i.e. H = hearer]) or place a low value on what pertains to S (S = self, speaker). <...> The essential point is that these are not separate, independent constraints or maxims: they are instances of the operation of the GSP as ‘super-maxim’ which is an overarching framework for studying linguistic politeness phenomena in communication. <...> The following hypothesis will be put forward, and supported by limited evidence: that the GSP provides a very general explanation for communicative politeness phenomena in Western languages such as English, Eastern languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and Slavonic languages such as Russian as well with a few examples from other languages <...>