Diplomatic letters from the Republic of Ragusa in the fifteenth century

Abstract

In this paper, I study the ways in which (im)politeness strategies are used in letters sent by the Republic of Ragusa to its ambassadors in the Bosnian Kingdom during the fifteenth century. The corpus for this research comprises the Lettere di Levante collection, today kept in the Dubrovnik State Archives, Croatia. I aim to determine the politeness strategies that were used in the letters based on the Brown and Levinson framework. The paper focusses on mitigating strategies used when making requests, expressing condolences, offering congratulations and making threats. The research reveals patterns in conversational and written exchanges, whose goal is to be conventionally polite and diplomatic. This research aims to offer insights into intercultural communication in Europe, inter-European influence, and communication patterns in diplomatic discourse and might be of interest to political scientists, historians and diplomats.