Politeness in Academic Emails: Pragmatic Competence and Power in Teacher–Student Communication

Politeness is a fundamental aspect of human communication, functioning as a core pragmatic principle that guides appropriate language use, facilitates mutual understanding, and sustains interpersonal relationships across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts. Politeness strategies are employed to manage social distance, power relations, and degrees of imposition, enabling speakers and writers to adapt their communication to specific social and institutional settings. Email communication has become one of the most common forms of interaction between university students and professors, making pragmatic competence and politeness strategies essential for effective academic discourse. This study investigates the use of politeness strategies in academic email communication, focusing on how students formulate requests, apologies, a teacher survey and a dataset of authentic students’ emails collected from two higher education institutions in North Macedonia—South East European University (SEEU) and “Goce Delčev” University. The findings reveal that while many students demonstrate awareness of basic email conventions, their application of politeness strategies is inconsistent. Students frequently employ basic markers such as greetings and expressions of gratitude; however, more complex mitigation strategies—such as indirect requests or hedging—are used less consistently. Faculty perceptions further indicate that pragmatic issues related to tone, clarity, and contextual appropriateness often lead to misunderstandings in email communication.