Speech Act / Area of Focus

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1990). Congruence in native and nonnative conversations: Status balance in the academic advising session. Language Learning, 40(4), 467-501.

Looks at 32 advising sessions between faculty advisors and NS and NNS grad students. Found that nonnative subjects (NNSs) may lack status-preserving strategies that minimize the force of non-congruent speech acts -- i.e., those strategies that allow students to take out-of-status turns without jeopardizing their relationship with their advisors. The linguistic competence of the NNSs was thought to be good, but the lack was in context-specific pragmatic competence.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1991). Saying "no" in English: Native and nonnative rejections. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, (Vol. 2, pp. 41-57). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This article examines rejections used by 7 NSs and 39 proficient NNSs of English from 39 audio-taped academic advising sessions. Refusals were analyzed in terms of linguistic marking, semantic formulae, and context specific content of the refusals. While NSs were able to reject an advisor's suggestion and still maintain the status balance, NNSs were less predictably able to do so. NNSs tended to employ a wider variety of refusals than the NSs, but were more successful when following the NS tendencies. Explanation was the most common semantic formulae for both groups. Giving alternatives was the second most common strategy for NSs, and avoidance was the second most common strategy for NNSs.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1993). Learning the rules of academic talk: A longitudinal study of pragmatic change. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15(3), 279-304.

Reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of pragmatic competence. Ten advanced adult nonnative speakers of English were taped in two advising sessions over the course of a semester -- an early and a later session. Two speech acts, suggestions and rejections, were analyzed according to their frequency, form, and successfulness and compared with similar data gathered for six native speakers. The nonnative speakers showed change toward the native speaker norms in their ability to employ appropriate speech acts, moving toward using more suggestions and fewer rejections, and became more successful negotiators. However, they changed less in their ability to employ appropriate forms of the speech acts, continuing to use fewer mitigators than the native speakers. Furthermore, unlike native speakers, they also used aggravators. The investigators claimed that these results may be explained by the availability of input: learners received positive and negative feedback from the advisor regarding the desirability and outcome of particular speech acts, but they did not receive such feedback regarding the appropriateness of the forms of such speech acts.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1993). Refining the DCT: Comparing open questionnaires and dialogue completion tasks. Pragmatics and Language Learning (Vol. 4,pp. 143-165). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Compares the influence of two forms of discourse completion tasks on the elicitation of rejections of advice. An open questionnaire, which provided scenarios alone, was compared with a classic dialogue completion task in which a conversational turn was provided. The study was based on their Hartford & Bardovi-Harlig 1992 study but the DCT has authentic language in it. Thirty-two grad students participated (19 NSs, 13 NNSs), all having been in an actual counseling situation with an adviser. 17 did the open questionnaire first and then the discourse completion task, 15 did it vice versa. Both NSs and NNSs showed task influence, although it was greater for the NNSs. In many cases NNS's responses were very similar to those of NSs on the dialogue completion task. Their conclusion was that for reactive speech acts (i.e., those that never stand alone) such as rejections, the inclusion of conversational turns is the preferred format. The increased specificity of the dialogue completion task over the open questionnaire is particularly important to the NNSs. NSs were more adept at imagining a plausible conversational turn given a scenario than the NNSs, so for them the presence of talk made less difference. Refining of DCTs should be to include more authentic speech in the conversational turn(s) provided.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1996). Input in an institutional setting. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 171-88.

Investigates the nature of input available to learners in the institutional setting of the academic advising session. The advisory session is viewed as an unequal status encounter that by nature is a private speech event and cannot be observed by other learners. They report on the longitudinal study of sixteen graduate students (Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford 1993). Whereas the advisor may teach the advisees about the form of the interview and content that is appropriate, the advisees do not receive negative feedback regarding form, so they cannot learn from that.

DeCapua, A., & Huber, L. (1995). ‘If I were you. . .’: Advice in American English. Multilingua, 14(2), 117�132. doi:10.1515/mult.1995.14.2.117

This article examines some aspects of advice in American English.� We consider how social norms concerning authority, expertise and intimacy are manifested in advice exchanges, solicited and unsolicited.� The aim is to shed light on the expected and emergent role relationships that are part of public and private contexts of advice.� Aspects of this speech event (Hymes 1972) are looked at using data gathered from native speakers through interviews, questionnaires, and direct observation.� This leads to a better understanding of the complexity of advice as a social linguistic act.� We also examine advice given in the public domain (TV, radio, newspapers and magazines).

Hartford, B. S., & Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992). Experimental and observational data in the study of interlanguage pragmatics. Pragmatics and Language Learning. (Vol. 3, pp. 33-52). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Compares data on rejections of advice by NSs and NNSs from natural conversations in academic advising sessions with data collected from a discourse completion test (DCT) -- 13 NSs and 11 NNSs on the DCT vs. 39 advising sessions (18 NSs and 21 NNSs). Their studies found that NNSs used more semantic formulas (hence, made more turns) for a rejection and made more rejections while NSs made suggestions more than twice as often as they rejected advice. They found three common semantic formulas (explanations, alternatives, rejections) and more than ten less common ones. Although the use of DCTs has benefits such as availability of large samples and experimental controls, there are biases: respondents used a narrower range of semantic formulas on the DCT (as Beebe & Cummings, 1985, found), used fewer status preserving strategies, and lacked extended negotiations found in the natural data. This is because the DCT does not promote the turn-taking and negotiation strategies found in natural conversation. Also, the DCT allows students to be less polite, and more bald-on-record statements are used than in the natural situation � even in the status-unequal situation that these investigators used, because of the anonymity involved in the measure. Also, respondents can opt out with the DCT, which is unlikely in a natural conversation. However, the DCT facilitates testing hypotheses derived from instances in natural conversation where there is insufficient data. It provides data to help explain and interpret the natural data. Conclusion � need for more observational data but DCT has an important role as well.

Heritage, J., & Sefi, S. (1992). Dilemas of advice: Aspects of the delivery and reception of advice in interactions between health visitors and first-time mothers. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work (pp. 359-417). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hern�ndez-Flores, N. (1999). Politeness ideology in Spanish colloquial conversation: The case of advice. Pragmatics, 9(1), 37-49.

This article addresses the lack of universal application of Brown and Levinson's (1987) notion of politeness as related to positive and negative face by analyzing colloquial conversations in Peninsular Spanish, specifically the case of advice. The author proposes that politeness is not always used to mitigate face threatening acts. Adapting Bravo's (1996) classification of face, the data was analyzed utilizing the notions of autonomy (perception by people as being one's own within a group, self-affirmation) and affiliation (to be perceived as an integrated part of the group) as well as the cultural notion of confianza. This study asserts that, in the case of advice in Peninsular Spanish, politeness is often used to "enhance the relationship between interactants” and not necessarily to mitigate face threatening acts, as proposed in Brown and Levinson's model. This conclusion is supported by examples from the corpus indicating the common and friendly expression of unsolicited advice, clear assertions, and rejections by the hearer.

Hinkel, E. (1997). Appropriateness of advice: DCT and multiple-choice data. Applied Linguistics, 18(1), 1-26.

Looks at what can be learned about L2 speech acts from data obtained by means of English language multiple-choice and DCT instruments in two experiments. The focus was on the L1 responses of NSs and the L2 responses given by speakers of Chinese to DCTs multiple-choice questionnaires (constructed using the DCT responses as alternatives) dealing with the appropriateness of advice in common and observed situations. The finding was that significantly more of the 40 NSs than of the 40 Taiwanese Chinese preferred direct and hedged advice in response to the DCTs. When responding to the multiple- choice questionnaire, another group of 40 NSs selected substantially fewer options with either direct or hedged advice than another group of 40 Taiwanese Chinese subjects did, which is congruent with the body of research on NSs and Chinese L1 sociolinguistic behaviors. The investigator determined that since the multiple-choice responses were consistent with the literature, the DCTs may not be the best elicitation instrument for L1 and L2 data pertaining to ambiguous and situationally constrained sociolinguistic acts.

Houck, N. R., & Fujimori, J. (2010). Teacher, you should lose some weight: Advice giving in English. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 89-103). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Jeon, M. (2003). Closing the advising session. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 18(2), 89-106.

The study looked at the four subsections of closings (shutting down, preclosing, thanking -- expressions of gratitude, terminal exchange) in advising sessions and the effect of ESL proficiency on the ability to do these without having the speech behavior marked. It built on the work by Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford. There is a delicate balance between overly extending closings and terminating the conversation too abruptly with "gotta go." The study involved four native English-speaking advisors and 32 ESL learners from eight language backgrounds and at three proficiency levels. Abbreviated closings were seen as missing any of the four subsections, and extended closings added another step after preclosing, namely reopening or making arrangements. Results: off the 32 interactions, 15 had extended closings, 10 "completed" (or appropriate), and 6 were abbreviated. The results showed that cross-sectionally, abbreviated closings decreased as proficiency increased. Also, the least proficient were most likely to engage in extended closings. Since the most advanced students were least likely to have marked closings, it was seen not only as an indication of advanced proficiency, but also more experience with such advising situations. The author points out that the participants did not provide retrospective information which might have enhanced her understanding of their perceptions of them. She suggests the need to provide instruction on proper closings.

Locher, M. (2006). Advice online: Advice-giving in an American internet health column. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Advice Online presents a comprehensive study of advice-giving in one particular American Internet advice column, referred to as ‘Lucy Answers’. The discursive practice investigated is part of a professional and educational health program managed by an American university. The study provides insights into the linguistic realization of both asking for and giving advice in a written form and thus adds to the literature on advice columns as a specific text genre, on advice in health care contexts, and on Internet communication. The book offers a comprehensive literature review of advice in health encounters and other contexts, and uses this knowledge as a basis for comparison. Advice Online demonstrates how qualitative and quantitative research methods can be successfully combined to arrive at a comprehensive analysis of a discursive practice. It provides essential information on advice-giving for researchers, academics and students in the fields of (Internet) communication, media studies, pragmatics, social psychology and counseling. Health educators who work for advice columns or use similar forms of communication will also benefit from the insights gained in this study.

Martinell-Gifre, E. (1992). Preguntas que no preguntan. E.L.U.A., 8, 25-35.

The author provides an exploratory look at utterances that appear to be interrogatives (e.g., rising intonation, punctuation, etc.) that do not actually function as questions. That is, they are not used to obtain information. Instead, many of these utterances are used to suggest, threaten, request, etc. In an analysis of the circumstances and purposes for which these types of utterances are used, the author classifies five distinct contexts of use to: (1) anticipate attitude or response, (2) elicit response or reaction, (3) react to what has been said, (4) react to attitudes of actions of others, and (5) demonstrate a physical presence that is not dispensable. Examples and discussion of each type of use are given.

Stewart, M. (2004). Written pedagogic feedback and linguistic politeness. In R. M�rquez Reiter, & M.E. Placencia, (Eds.), Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish (pp. 99-120). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.

This qualitative investigation analyzes written feedback given by native Spanish-speaking (Peninsular Spanish) tutors to Spanish language learners on written assignments (NS of British English). Fifty-eight tokens of written feedback were analyzed for presentational (level of the text) and selectional (level of the utterance) politeness. Results of the analysis show that extra-linguistic variables (e.g., power, roles) help determine weight accorded to the face threatening act, types of strategies used, and level of attention given to the speaker and hearer. As opposed to linguistic feedback, where the NS felt a very high level of authority, in this study, the tutors opted for more strategy use and face care when giving conceptual feedback, a subject on which they likely felt less authority. Linguistic feedback was given with little mitigation and included imperatives and present tense indicative statements (familiar form). However, conceptual feedback was given at the presentational (justification, exemplification, and appeal to a higher authority) and selectional levels (hedging, presupposition, and defocusing of the agent) in order to focus on protecting both the face of the speaker and the hearer.

Waring, H. Z. (2007). The multi-functionality of accounts in advice giving. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(3), 367�391. [Available online]

Accounts have traditionally been understood as explanations designed to exonerate the speaker from an untoward act (e.g., account for lateness) (Scott and Lyman 1968). In this paper, I examine the use of accounts in advice giving, adopting a broader view of accounts as the reasoning provided to bolster the viability of the advice. The data set consists of 15 graduate peer tutoring sessions and a total of 143 advising sequences collected over a period of four years. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, I show that besides their remedial utility of 'repairing the broken,' accounts can also be used proactively to validate and promote a current agenda. In particular, I argue for the multi-functionality of accounts in addressing face threats, managing resistance, and doing pedagogy.

Al-Zumor, A. W. Q. G. (2010).� Apologies in Arabic and English: An inter-language and cross-cultural study. Journal of King Saud� University�Languages and Translation, 23(1), 19-28.� [Available online]

This paper focuses on the investigation of English apology strategies as employed in various social situations by Arab learners of English studying in India. These strategies are compared and contrasted against the strategies elicited in the same situations from Indian English speakers, American English speakers, and British English speakers. Pragmatic transfer from Arabic is also examined. The study findings reveal that the religious beliefs, concepts and values are responsible for many deviations in the Arab learners’ language from that of the native speakers. Moreover, Arabs using English are more keen on taking on responsibility, whereas the English native speakers are more keen on formulaic offers of repair or verbal redress. Interesting similarities in the selection of arrangement patterns of the major apology strategies are found between the Arab learners’ data and the data elicited from Indian English speakers. This is interpreted as a result of some aspects of cultural similarities. Finally, some pedagogical implications are highlighted.

Bataineh, Ruba F., & Bataineh, Rula F. (2006). Apology strategies of Jordanian EFL university students. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(11), 1901-1927. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.11.004

This study is an investigation of Jordanian EFL university students’ apologies, using a 10-item questionnaire based on Sugimoto's (1997). The findings revealed that male and female respondents used the primary strategies of statement of remorse, accounts, compensation, promise not to repeat offense, and reparation. They also resorted to the use of non-apology strategies such as blaming victim and brushing off the incident as unimportant to exonerate themselves from blame. The findings further revealed that male and female respondents differed in the order of the primary strategies they used. In addition, female respondents opted for non-apology strategies that veered towards avoiding the discussion of offense while male respondents used those which veered towards blaming the victim. This research is hoped to have implications for ESL/EFL pedagogy as well as the study of intercultural communication. The researchers put forth a number of relevant recommendations for further research.

Bataineh, Ruba F., & Bataineh, Rula F. (2008). A cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(4), 792-821.

This study compared the realization patterns of the apology strategies used by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. The participants consisted of 50 American undergraduate students at an American university and 50 Jordanian undergraduate students at a Jordanian university. The respondents ranged between 17 and 24 years of age. Gender was examined as a variable. Results in this study showed that participants were found to differ in their use of apology strategies. Differences involved using various manifestations of explicit, less explicit, and non-apology strategies. Thus, although both groups used explicit apology, Jordanian respondents tended to use more manifestations of expressions of apology and higher frequencies of combinations of expressions of apology with various intensifiers than their American counterparts. This showed that the Jordanian respondents had a tendency to exaggerate their expression of apology, probably as an attempt to win the victim’s sympathy. Furthermore, results revealed that although the two groups opted for the same primary apology strategies, the frequency and order of some of these strategies varied. Thus, unlike Americans, Jordanian participants opted for using proverbs and sayings widely in order to ease their responsibility and pacify the victim. Jordanian respondents also used non-apologies strategies more than their American counterparts. Also, the evident difference in frequency between negative and positive assessment of responsibility in Jordanians’ apologies revealed that whenever they attempted to assign blame, they used negative and positive assessment assigning the blame to themselves and others in close frequencies. By contrast, Americans used only negative assessment of responsibility in order to assign the blame to others. In addition, the differences in the use of apology strategies were found not only in the two cultures but also between the males and females of the same culture. The authors suggested that apologies could be problematic for ESL/EFL learners since strategy use in one’s culture may differ from that in the target culture.

Bergman, M. L., & Kasper, G. (1993). Perception and performance in native and nonnative apology. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 82-107). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Bharuthram, S. (2003). Politeness phenomena in the Hindu Sector of the South African Indian English speaking community. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1523�1544. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00047-X

This study examines the understanding of politeness phenomena within the Hindu sector of the South African Indian English (SAIE) speaking community by focusing on the speech acts of apologies and requests. Data have been collected through interviews with cultural/religious leaders and with families, as well as through discourse completion tasks. The findings are compared with Western/non-Western views of politeness to determine their appropriateness in describing politeness in the target community. The influence of the Western value system on the evolution of politeness phenomena in the target community is also studied.

Bielski, M. (1992). Some remarks on Polish-English apology speech acts. In F. J. H. Dols (Ed.), Pragmatic Grammar Components (pp. 53-68). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). Playing it safe: The role of conventionality in indirectness. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: requests and apologies (pp. 37-70). Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213. doi:10.1093/applin/5.3.196

The paper reports on an ongoing project concerned with a cross-cultural investigation of speech act realization patterns. The goals of the project are to compare across languages the realization patterns of two speech acts�requests and apologies �and to establish the similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers' realization patterns in these two acts in each of the languages studied within the project. The theoretical and methodological framework for this investigation has been developed as a result of close collaboration among the participants of the project, who have all followed the same approach in data collection and data analysis. The paper will outline the theoretical framework for the project, present the methodology developed, and illustrate our procedures for analysis by giving examples from the data in some of the languages studied.

Borkin, A., & Reinhart, S. M. (1978). Excuse me and I'm sorry. TESOL Quarterly, 12(1), 57-69.

In this paper we examine two different but often functionally similar phrases, excuse me and I’m sorry.� We discuss the use and effect of these phrases in particular social situations, with reference to two basic definitions:� (1) a definition of excuse me as a formula to remedy a past or immediately forthcoming breach of etiquette or other minor offense on the part of the speaker, and (2) a definition of I’m sorry as an expression of dismay or regret at an unpleasantness suffered by the speaker and/or the addressee.� In the light of these definitions, we examine reasons for the inappropriateness of some uses of excuse me and I’m sorry on the part of non-native speakers of English, and we point out the importance of cultural knowledge for the accurate interpretation of generalizations about these formulas.� We review how excuse me and I’m sorry are treated in current ESL texts, and describe a teaching unit that is compatible with the assumptions and assertations of this paper.� Finally, we argue that, in the current enthusiasm for developing communicative competence, the use of basic linguistic research in preparing materials for teachers and students should not be ignored.

Cenoz, J., & Valencia, J. (1994). Interlanguage pragmatics: The role of linguistic and social psychological elements in the production of English requests and apologies. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain: Dept. of English and German Philology, University of the Basque Country.

Investigates whether NSs (34) and NNSs (62 Basque) of English used the same linguistic expressions to make requests and apologies, whether these varied according to situation, sex, and social status. They used the DCT � four requests and four apologies. They found similar overall patterns, but NSs used more alerts and locution derivable strategies than learners, and learners used more syntactic downgraders in requests. NSs used more intensifiers in apologies. No significant differences were found between males and females.

Chang, Y.-F. (2010). ‘I no say you say is boring’: The development of pragmatic competence in L2 apology. Language Sciences, 32(3), 408-424. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2009.07.002

While the number of studies on pragmatic development has been increasing since Kasper and Schmidt’s call for more research into this under-researched area (e.g., [Barron, A., 2003. Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Benhamins, Amsterdam; Achiba, M., 2003. Learning to Request in a Second Language: Child Interlanguage Pragmatics. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, UK; Schauer, G., 2006. Pragmatic awareness in ESL and EFL contexts: contrast and development. Language Learning 56(2), 269�317]), the development of certain speech behaviors such as the speech act of request in a second language seems to receive more attention than the others. In addition, as Kasper and Schmidt [Kasper, G., Schmidt, R., 1996. Developmental issues in interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, 149�169] pointed out, studies investigating the order of acquisition for interlanguage pragmatics have been scant. Furthermore, most of the studies on pragmatic development have examined adult learners of higher proficiency level and have been limited in the range of first and target languages. The need to include young beginning-level learners and to expand the range of first and target language studies examined has therefore been advocated (e.g., [Bardovi-Harlig, K., 1999. Exploring the interlanguage of interlanguage pragmatics: a research agenda for acquisitional pragmatics. Language Learning 49(4), 677�713; Kasper, G., Rose, K., 2002. Pragmatic development in a second language. Language Learning 52(Suppl. 1)]). This article is intended to contribute to the body of research on acquisitional pragmatics by examining the development of pragmatic competence in L2 apology produced by Chinese learners of English of different proficiency levels.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1981). Developing a measure of sociocultural competence: The case of apology. Language Learning, 31(1), 113-134. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1981.tb01375.x

For a number of years, there has been interest in measuring sociocultural competence (Ervin-Tripp 1972, Hymes 1974, Canale and Swain 1980). This study focuses on one important aspect of such competence: the ability to use the appropriate sociocultural rules of speaking, by reacting in a culturally acceptable way in context and by choosing stylistically appropriate forms for that context. We chose to look at productive performance in sociocultural aspects of speaking, focusing on the speech act of “apology.” The research question that prompted this study was, “Can a rating scale be developed for assessing sociocultural competence?” The subjects were 32 native Hebrew speakers, 20 of whom served as informants for apologies in English LZ and 12 as informants in Hebrew LI, and 12 Americans who served as informants in English LI. These subjects were asked to role-play their responses in eight situations in which an apology was expected. The findings show that it is possible to identify culturally and stylistically inappropriate L2 utterances in apology situations. The authors feel, however, that the results so far provide at best a crude measure of sociocultural competence and that further work with this speech act and with others is called for.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1985). Comparing apologies across languages. In K. R. Jankowsky (Ed.), Scientific and humanistic dimensions of language (pp. 175-184). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1993). The production of speech acts by EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 27(1), 33-56.

Reports on a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. The subjects, fifteen advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role-play along with a native speaker. The interactions were videotaped and after each set of two situations of the same type, the videotape was played back and then the respondents were asked both fixed and probing questions regarding the factors contributing to the production of their responses in those situations. The retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three languages (if trilingual), utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar nor to pronunciation. Finally, there were respondents whose speech production styles characterized them as "metacognizers," "avoiders," and "pragmatists" respectively.

Cohen, A., Olshtain, E., & Rosenstein, D. (1986). Advanced EFL apologies: What remains to be learned? International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 62(6), 51-74.

This article examines the nature of apology speech act set. The findings showed that there were not many differences between the natives and the nonnatives with regard to the main strategies for apologizing, which would be expected given the nonnatives' advanced level of English. Expression of apology was used by the advanced nonnatives in much the same way as the natives did. The natives seemed more likely than the nonnatives to use an emotional and an offer of repair in place of the formal expression of apology. While natives and nonnatives were not seen to differ markedly in the use of strategies for apologizing, striking differences emerged in what are being referred to as the various modifications of such apologies. This seemed to be the area that actually distinguished natives from nonnatives. These phenomena included the intensity of the apology, minimizing or denying responsibility, the use of emotionals, minimizing the offense and commenting. The nonnatives were found to intensify their expression of apology significantly more in one situation. This extra intensity on the part of the nonnatives was not necessarily warranted, given the generally low or moderate severity of the offense in some situations.

Cohen, A. D., & Shively, R. L. (2007). Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 189-212. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00540.x

A study examined the effect of a curricular intervention on study-abroad students' use of language and culture-learning strategies and their acquisition of requests and apologies. Findings revealed that students improved their request and apology performance over the course of one semester; there were no statistically significant differences between students who spent a semester abroad and a control group in their rated speech act performance overall; although fewer students than native speakers used the “query preparatory with verbal downgrading,” there appeared to be some increase in the use of this strategy by study-abroad students; not as many study-abroad students intensified their apologies in instances where native speakers tended to do so; and the percentage of study-abroad students who acknowledged responsibility for certain infractions tended to be lower than that of native speakers.

Cordella, M. (1990). Apologizing in Chilean Spanish and Australian English: A crosscultural perspective. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 7, 66-92.

Apology is intended to 'set things right' through "remedial work" (Goffman 1971). This involves, in some cultures, a face threatening act on the part of the Speaker who undertakes an apology to maintain or re-establish social equilibrium or harmony (Edmondson 1981 and Leech 1983) between speaker and hearer. Several studies across languages (Cohen and Olshtain 1981, Olshtain 1983, Trosborg 1987, Holmes 1989) investigated the different social and contextual factors that influence native speakers to select one or a group of "semantic formula(s)" (Fraser 1981) in the act of apologizing. Nevertheless the literature is still in its infancy (Fraser 1981 and Holmes 1989) in respect to the gender differences between speaker (apologizer) and hearer (recipient), and in the comparison of Spanish and English. Therefore this study aims to investigate which strategies, semantic formulas and excuses are most commonly used by female and male speakers of Chilean Spanish and Australian English. To determine similarities and dissimilarities between their apologies, a role play was carried out in their mother tongue. Twenty two Chileans (twelve females and ten males) who had lived for not more than three years in Australia and twenty Australians (ten males and ten females) who, like the Chileans, varied in age from 17 to 30 and who were students of secondary or tertiary institutions helped as informants in this study. The speech event was designed to elicit an apology and was held constant for both groups. Results show that Chileans in comparison with Australians make less use of explicit expression of apology. Nevertheless they appear to give more explanations than Australians in the act of apologizing. Dissimilarities in both languages were also found in the use of speaker and hearer oriented apologies and in the the use of some strategies and intensifiers, in which the addressee gender played an important role in both languages.

Coulmas, F. (1981). Poison to your soul: Thanks and apologies contrastively viewed. In: F. Coulmas (Ed.) Conversational Routine: Explorations in standardised communication situations and prepatterned speech (pp. 69-92). The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter.

Deutschmann, M. (2003). Apologizing in British English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ume� University, Sweden. [Available online]

The politeness norms of any society can be seen as the product of socio-economic factors and refl ect not only the current social structures but also the historical circumstances out of which these norms have grown. This sociolinguistic study of apologies in the spoken part of the British National Corpus examines the use of the apology form in dialogues produced by over 1700 speakers, acting in a number of different conversational settings. The forms and functions of the apologies are examined and variations in usage patterns across the social variables gender, age and social class are elucidated. The study also treats aspects of the conversational setting, such as formality, group size and the genre, which affect the use of this politeness formula. Finally, the effects of the speaker- addressee relationship on apologetic behaviour are considered. The study provides a unique insight into the use of this speech act in British English of the 1990s. The findings do not only reflect the use of linguistic politeness, but have wider implications concerning the social power structures in modern Britain.

Edmondson, W. J. (1981). On saying you’re sorry. In F. Coulmas, (Ed.) Conversational routine: Explorations in standardised communication situations and prepatterned speech (pp. 273-288). The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter.

Edmundson, R. J. (1992). Evidence for native speaker notions of apologizing and accepting apologies in American English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

Attempts to determine (1) how semantic formulae are interpreted by native speakers [so there is the intention and the interpretation], (2) the cues subjects use to interpret the sincerity of an apology and whether it was accepted, and (3) the rules needed to account for variety in interpretations of semantic formulae. Points out that studies looking at strategies in realizing a speech act are problematic in that often one element can be classified in more than one category. 161 native speakers of English (from 8 Intro to Language classes at Indiana U.) were asked to view one of two videos containing six apologies within the discourse of several popular TV programs and to answer several questions concerning each apology. There were some general patterns of interpretation but much variation in the responses. Subjects used mostly prosodic cues to judge sincerity of an apology. Females relied on lexical cues to judge the acceptability of the apology, while the males (1/3 the sample) relied on lexical, paralinguistic, and prosodic cues equally. The researcher found two interpretations of what accepting an apology meant. Some thought it meant acknowledging the offense and forgiving the offender. Others thought it meant that the social balance was fine (either because the social balance was restored or there was never anything wrong in the first place). Edmundson concluded that classification by semantic formula was completely unreliable as subjects might classify a single semantic formula into two or three different categories � i.e., "the choice to justify, explain, or excuse oneself while apologizing is a risky one which may have serious consequences for the social repair at hand" (98). Appropriateness of an apology was rated according to sincerity.

Ely, R., & Gleason, B. J. (2006). I’m sorry I said that: apologies in young children's discourse. Journal of Child Language, 33(3), 599-620. doi:10.1017/S0305000906007446

We examined children's use of apology terms in parent-child discourse. Longitudinal data from 9 children (5 males, 4 females) between the ages of 1;2 and 6;1 were analysed. Before 2;0, the use of apology terms was rare. Thereafter, several developmental trends were noted including a decrease with age in directly elicited apologies and an increase in indirectly elicited apologies. With age children's apologies also became more elaborate. Children were exposed to apology terms primarily through apologies directed to them and, to a lesser degree, in talk about apologies. Our study documents young children's early mastery of an important pragmatic skill and identifies parents' role in its acquisition.

Enochs, K., & Yoshitake, S. (1996). Self-assessment and role plays for evaluating appropriateness in speech act realizations. ICU (International Christian University) Language Research Bulletin, 2, 57-76.

This study reports on the reliability, validity, and practicality of the same three measures of cross-cultural pragmatic competence that were developed by Hudson et al. (1992, 1995) and used in the Japanese FL study by Yamashita (1996). The current study administered these tests to 25 first-year Japanese EFL learners. There was a self-assessment test with 24 situations, 8 requests, 8 refusals, and 8 apologies, with varying degrees of power, social distance, and imposition. Respondents rated themselves on a 5-point scale as to how appropriately they would respond. A role-play self assessment test -- performing 8 scenarios for the speech acts, described in English and Japanese. After performing the role plays, they had to rate themselves on a 5-point scale. Role-play test -- with native speakers of English (as in previous), videotaped and rated by three native speakers on a 5-point scale. All three tests proved to be both reliable and valid in assessing pragmatic competence. In addition, the TOEFL subtest scores did not correlate with the pragmatic measures. A limitation was that this was a homogeneous group of students.

Enochs, K., & Yoshitake, S. (1999). Evaluating six measures of EFL learners' pragmatic competence. JALT Journal, 21(1), 29-50.

This study reports on the reliability, validity, and practicality of the same six measures of cross-cultural pragmatic competence that were developed by Hudson et al. (1992, 1995) and used in the Japanese FL study by Yamashita (1996). The current study administered these tests to 25 first-year Japanese EFL learners. Four of the tests were highly reliable and two less so, and the tests distinguished those with substantial overseas experience from those without any -- a distinction which the TOEFL did not show. The two less reliable tests were the Open Discourse Completion Test (24 descriptions of speech act situations to provide written response and rated on 5-point scale) and Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (same as OPDCT but MC responses from among 3). Both were take-home tests.

Fahey, M. P. (2005). Speech acts as intercultural danger zones: A cross-cultural comparison of the speech act of apologizing in Irish and Chilean soap operas. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 8. [Available online]

Intercultural communication presents many challenges and one of them refers to the need to create awareness about the importance of understanding speech acts cross-culturally. Speech acts are what the writer or speaker is doing in uttering a particular form of words, and their focus is on meaning (speaker's intention). The recognition of the meaning of a particular speech act in a given cultural setting is at the heart of successful intercultural communication. Speech acts are considered universal, nevertheless research shows that they can manifest differently across languages and cultures. This cross-cultural difference in language use is indicative of broader socio-cultural differences that underline language in use internationally and certainly it is at this level that much inter-cultural misunderstanding has its origin. This paper focuses on the speech act of apologising, and it draws on two linguistic datasets or corpora for its analysis: one comprising two hours from an Irish soap opera Fair City and the other comprising two hours of comparable data from Amores de Mercado, a Chilean soap opera. These data are transcribed to form an electronic corpus for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Extracts of data containing the speech act of apologising in both sets of data are compared and the socio-pragmatic implications for meaning and intercultural communication are discussed.

Bataineh, Ruba F., & Bataineh, Rula F. (2008). A cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(4), 792-821.

This study compared the realization patterns of the apology strategies used by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. The participants consisted of 50 American undergraduate students at an American university and 50 Jordanian undergraduate students at a Jordanian university. The respondents ranged between 17 and 24 years of age. Gender was examined as a variable. Results in this study showed that participants were found to differ in their use of apology strategies. Differences involved using various manifestations of explicit, less explicit, and non-apology strategies. Thus, although both groups used explicit apology, Jordanian respondents tended to use more manifestations of expressions of apology and higher frequencies of combinations of expressions of apology with various intensifiers than their American counterparts. This showed that the Jordanian respondents had a tendency to exaggerate their expression of apology, probably as an attempt to win the victim’s sympathy. Furthermore, results revealed that although the two groups opted for the same primary apology strategies, the frequency and order of some of these strategies varied. Thus, unlike Americans, Jordanian participants opted for using proverbs and sayings widely in order to ease their responsibility and pacify the victim. Jordanian respondents also used non-apologies strategies more than their American counterparts. Also, the evident difference in frequency between negative and positive assessment of responsibility in Jordanians’ apologies revealed that whenever they attempted to assign blame, they used negative and positive assessment assigning the blame to themselves and others in close frequencies. By contrast, Americans used only negative assessment of responsibility in order to assign the blame to others. In addition, the differences in the use of apology strategies were found not only in the two cultures but also between the males and females of the same culture. The authors suggested that apologies could be problematic for ESL/EFL learners since strategy use in one’s culture may differ from that in the target culture.

Fraser, B. (1981). On apologizing. In: F. Coulmas, (Ed.). Conversational routine: Explorations in standardised communication situations and prepatterned speech (259-271).The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter.

Garc�a, C. (1989). Apologizing in English: Politeness strategies used by native and nonnative speakers. Multilingua, 8(1), 3-20. doi:10.1515/mult.1989.8.1.3

This paper presents the results of empirical research comparing the politeness strategies used by Americans and Venezuelans in an English language roleplay situation, apologizing to a friend for not having attended his party. The analysis of their conversations indicates that whereas the Americans were deferential and self-effacing towards the offended American host (using negative politeness strategies), the Venezuelans, in line with their socio-cultural rules of language use, were friendly but not contrite, expressing themselves in terms of familiarity and solidarity with the host (using positive politeness strategies). The result of the American approach was the establishment of harmony.� It left both the participants and the host comfortable with the outcome.� By contrast, the Venezuelan approach led to disharmony between the host and the participants resulting in miscommunication of the intended message.� The host was offended by what he perceived as callousness on the part of the Venezuelans, and the Venezuelans for their part felt harassed by a friend who demanded respect when none was called for. This and other studies have shown that differences in conversational style have the potential for creating disharmony and misunderstanding.� Thus, as Byrnes (1986) indicates, it may be desirable to improve cross-cultural communication by using common highly deferential style which subsequently could be modified if mutually acceptable to the communicative partners.

Glinert, L. (2010). Apologizing to China: Elastic apologies and the meta-discourse of American diplomats. Intercultural Pragmatics, 7(1), 47-74.

The study examined the pragmatic negotiation of state-to-state apologies in two Sino-American crises: the Belgrade embassy bombing and the Hainan airplane collision represented in interviews by US officials involved in these negotiations. The interviews were not recorded but they revealed the officials’ metapragmatic thinking about diplomatic apologies in general, and apologizing to China in particular. The study emphasized the importance of negotiation and discursive struggle in the diplomatic apology and possibly in apologies in general. Data consisted of off-the-record interviews conducted in late 2001 with four State Department and ex-State Department officials with a close knowledge of Sino-American relations. The subjects were students of Eastern cultures. The interviews centered on apologies by US to China followed two major incidents: the bombing by US aircraft of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and the collision of an American and a Chinese airplane off the coast of China in 2001, followed by the emergency landing of the American airplane on Hainan Island. The subjects reported that the apologies involved extended negotiation, strategic illocutionary and semantic ambiguities, and a struggle to achieve each nation’s real-political goals that at the same time presented a dialectical struggle over the pragmatic meaning of the wording used and over what an apology actually was and did. Furthermore, subjects stated that American diplomatic apologies had a loose quality, responding in an ad hoc manner to the specific situation. The officials that were interviewed agreed that in this type of apologies a strategic use was made of ambiguity, cross-linguistic gaps, and pragmatic perception of them. The author asserted that it was found that the whole process and outcome presented a strategic pragmatic elasticity that satisfied the parties on both occasions but which was not guaranteed to do so in other different contexts. Also, it was contended that this elasticity seemed to have a broader significance for understanding apologies, both between states and in everyday interactions.

Gonzales, M. H., Pederson, J. H., Manning, D. J., & Wetter, D. W. (1990). Pardon my gaffe: Effects of sex, status, and consequence severity on accounts. Journal of Personality and Psychology, 58(4), 610-621.

This study examined the effects of offender sex, offender status, and consequence severity on accounts following an embarrassing predicament. Data were collected from 80 undergraduate introductory psychology students who volunteered to participate in exchange for extra course credit at the University of Minnesota. Subjects were induced to believe they had committed a gaffe with either relatively mild or severe consequences for a confederate/victim of either higher or lower status than they, and their verbal and nonverbal behaviors captured on videotape served as the source of dependent variable measures. Verbal accounts were coded using Schonbach’s (1980) account taxonomy. Nonverbal behaviors were also coded, as were measures of subjects’ verbal and behavioral helping. Results showed a main effect for gender on account length (p<.001), number of concessionary elements (p<.001), and verbal helping scores (p = .001). Mitigating accounts were preferred more than aggravating accounts. Thus, subjects frequently demonstrated concern for the victim’s face at the apparent expense of their own face needs. Two-way interactions by gender and status of the participants, as well as by account type (strategies such as concessions, excuses, justification, and refusals) and severity of the offense also were obtained. The authors reported longer accounts and more excuses, justifications and concessions on the part of female apologizers. Results of the study point to the potential usefulness of this more complex conceptualization of accounts as remedial strategies serving the needs of all encounter participants, and predictions of politeness theory were partially supported.

Grainger, K., & Harris, S. (2007). Introduction: apologies: introduction. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 1-10. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.001

The apology is a speech act which has deep and wide social and psychological significance. In both popular and academic notions of politeness it is perhaps the example par excellence of politeness at work. As Holmes (1998: 217), rightly, contends, “the apology is quintessentially a politeness strategy”. In both public and private interaction, the need for an apology signifies that something has gone wrong and needs to be put right. In terms of spoken encounters, to utter an apology involves the speaker acknowledging some perceived social transgression and the hearer receiving and dealing with this act. The apology arguably puts both speaker and hearer in a precarious relational position and necessitates remedial “facework” (Goffman 1971), usually involving some form of linguistic management. Furthermore, the nature of the apology can be very important in resolving a variety of types of conflict, ranging from uncomfortable moments in conversation through serious breaches of social and/or cultural norms by an individual to incidents with national or international political significance (See Zhang 2001; Harris et al. forthcoming; Jeffries forthcoming). As such, apologies, along with requests, have probably generated more research in the past two decades than any other form of speech act. Much of this research has emerged in relation to pragmatics and politeness theory but has also come from a variety of other disciplines, i. e., sociolinguistics, social psychology, philosophy and foreign language teaching.

Guan, X., Park, H. S., & Lee, H. E. (2009). Cross-cultural differences in apology. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(1), 32-45. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.10.001

The current study examined the effects of national culture (U.S., China, and Korea) and interpersonal relationship type (a stranger and a friend) on apology. Findings revealed that participants (N = 376) from the three cultures differed in their perceptions of the offended person's emotional reaction and their propensities toward apology use (i.e., desire, obligation, and intention to apologize, as well as their perception of normative apology use). Regardless of their cultures, participants showed stronger obligation and intention to apologize to a stranger than to a friend. With regard to the intention to apologize, both American and Korean participants showed a greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture than did Chinese participants. Although participants from the three cultures did not differ in their propensities toward apology use for a friend, both American and Chinese participants showed greater discrepancy than did Korean participants for feeling obliged to apologize to a stranger. For intention to apologize to a stranger, both American and Korean participants, compared to Chinese, showed greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture. Other findings and implications thereof are discussed in more detail in the paper.

Harris, S., Grainger, K., & Mullany, L. (2006). The pragmatics of political apologies. Discourse and Society, 17(6), 715�737. doi:10.1177/0957926506068429

Despite the wealth of literature generated over the past two decades on the apology as a speech act, the political apology has been relatively neglected as a research topic. This article aims to examine the pragmatics of such apologies as a generic type of discourse by identifying their salient characteristics: they are in the public domain and highly mediated; they are generated by (and generate) conflict and controversy; on the basis of media and viewer evaluations/judgements, they need to contain both an illocutionary force indicating device (Ifid) and an explicit expression of the acceptance of responsibility/blame for the ‘offence’ in order to be clearly perceived as valid apologies; and they rarely, if ever, involve an expression of absolution. Drawing primarily on data concerning recent political events in the UK (especially the Iraq War), the article attempts to set out and illustrate the different types of political apology. The resulting analysis is related both to previous and current apology research and to recent developments in politeness theory.

Hayashi, A. (1999). Kaiwa tenkainotameno sutorategi: "Kotowari" to "wabi" no syutsugen jokyoto kaiwa tenkaijono kinou (‘Strategies for conversation: Analysis and functions of "refusals" and "apologies"’). Bulletin of Tokyo Gakugei University Section II Humanities, 50, 175-188.

The author compares German and Japanese refusals (cancellation of an appointment) and apologies but reports only her analyses of Japanese in this study. Fifty-seven native Japanese-speaking university students completed a written questionnaire (but only 48 were analyzed) creating an imaginary dialogue between themselves and an unacquainted professor. Their task was to request the professor for a change of an appointment on the telephone and the participants were free to come up with their own reasons. The paper examines reasons for the cancellation (and the request for the change), and the ways in which the reasons were presented in the discourse. It was found that private reasons were often presented only once if ever. The speaker tended to convey the idea of the refusals first, then provide the reasons gradually as the information was requested by the hearer. Also, the speaker often prepared the hearer for the upcoming special reasons by the use of jitsuwa ‘actually.’ With regard to apologies, the semantic strategies, their frequencies, reasons for their use, and the ways in which the apologies were presented in the discourse were examined. Apologies often signaled an upcoming request and were used to close the conversation.

Holmes, J. (1989): Sex differences and apologies: One aspect of communicative competence. Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 194-213. doi:10.1093/applin/10.2.194

This paper examines sex differences in the distribution of apologies in order to illuminate the complexity of the language learner's task in acquiring communicative competence. Apologies express negative politeness. They signal the speaker's awareness of having impinged on the hearer's negative face and restricted her/his freedom of action in some way. A corpus of apologies permits an analysis of the range of strategies used by New Zealanders for expressing this aspect of negative politeness as well as the distributional patterns for women and men. The offences which elicit apologies and the strategies selected to realize them provide clues to the kind of speech acts the community regards as FTAs (face-threatening acts) and the relative seriousness of different FTAs. As with other speech acts, apologies can serve as illuminating sources of information on the sociocultural values of a speech community, including possible differences between female and male values. Learning how to produce, interpret, and respond to them appropriately requires a thorough familiarity with those values.

Holmes, J. (1990). Apologies in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 19(2), 155-199.

The function of apologies is discussed within the context of a model of interaction with two intersecting dimensions -- affective and referential meaning. Apologies are defined as primarily social acts conveying affective meaning. The syntactic, semantic, and sociolinguistic features of apologies are described, based on a corpus of 183 apologies. While apology exchanges divided equally between those which used a combination of strategies and those where a single strategy sufficed, almost all apology exchanges involved an explicit apology. An account is provided of the kinds of social relationships and the range of offenses which elicited apologies in this New Zealand corpus. Apologies are politeness strategies, and an attempt is made to relate the relative "weightiness" of the offense (assessed using the factors identified as significant in Brown and Levinson's model of politeness) to features of the apology strategies used to remedy it. Though some support is provided for Brown and Levinson's model, it is suggested that Wolfson's "bulge" theory more adequately accounts for a number of patterns in the data. In particular, the functions of apologies between friends may be more complex than a simple linear model suggests.

Hussein, Riyad F., & Mamoun T. H. (1998). Strategies of apology in Jordanian Arabic and American English. Grazer Linguistische Studien 49, 37�51. [Available online]

Ide, R. (1998). 'Sorry for your kindness': Japanese interactional ritual in public discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 29(5), 509-529. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)80006-4

The study examines the social and metapragmatic functions of sumimasen (lit., 'there is no end' or 'it is not enough'), a conventional expression of apology in Japanese that is also used to express the feeling of thanks. Using Goffman’s (1971) notion of ‘remedial’ and ‘supportive’ interchanges as the conceptual framework, the paper first describes seven pragmatic functions of sumimasen based on 51 instances of sumimasen recorded through ethnographic participant/non-participant observations of discourse in an ophthalmology clinic in Tokyo. The professionals were two female doctors, a female nurse, and a female receptionist. 58 patients participated, males and females of many ages. The seven functions: 1) sincere apology; 2) quasi-thanks and apology; 3) request marker; 4) attention-getter; 5) leave-taking devise; 6) affirmative and confirmational response; 7) reciprocal exchange of acknowledgment (as a ritualized formula. These seven functions are presented not as mutual exclusive but rather overlapping concepts, ranging from remedial, remedial and supportive, to supportive in discourse. The author also cites Kumagai, Kumatoridani, Coulmas, and others to account for the concept of indebtedness that emerges from the shift of point of view from the speaker (the benefactor) to the listener (the provider of the benefit) (‘debt-sensitive’ society). The paper also demonstrates the exchange of sumimasen as a metapragmatic ritual activity, an anticipated and habitual behavior in public discourse in Japanese society. The author also reframes the multiple functions of sumimasen in accordance with the folk notion of aisatsu, which constitutes the ground rules of appropriate and smooth Japanese public interaction. The author notes that historically arigato 'thank you' was a form of excuse, derived from ari 'exist, have' plus gatashi 'difficult,' literally meaning, 'it is hard to accept/have.' Shitsurei shimasu 'I intrude' is a similar expression when leaving or entering one's space in public.

Intachakra, S. (2004).� Contrastive pragmatics and language teaching: Apologies and thanks in English and Thai *T.� RELC, 35(1), 37-62. doi:10.1177/003368820403500105

The assumption that native speaker usage is the sole reference point in determining the content of teaching materials has long held sway in lan guage teaching. Recently this philosophy has come to be questioned with the emergence of the notion of English as an International Language and the idea that non-native users of English are also a significant speech network (Kachru 1992), ones who need to be acknowledged in the process of curriculum planning. The present paper seeks to add to this discussion by examining how the study of cross cultural pragmatics can contribute to language teaching and curriculum development.

Jaworski, A. (1994). Apologies and non-apologies: Negotiation in speech act realisation. Text, 14(2), 185-206.

This qualitative study of apology variation in Polish is presented in the light of Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) politeness theory.� Examination of a small corpus of ethnographically collected apologies in Polish (84 tokens) raises some general, theoretical issues with regard to the data collection procedure, and provides some examples� which show that speech acts are 'fuzzy' categories and range from the most to the least prototypical.� This leads to the discussion and presentation of what is called 'apology negotiation'.� Politeness theory serves as the descriptive and analytic framework focusing on how speakers manipulate the social factors involved in the assessment of the seriousness of a face threatening act (FTA):� (i) the 'social distance' between participants; (ii) the relative 'power' of the participants; and (iii) the ranking of imposition of a given act.

K�d�r, D. Z. (2007). On historical Chinese apology and its strategic application. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 125-150. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.006

The present paper aims (a) to reconstruct the formal peculiarities of historical Chinese apology (HCA), and (b) to apply the data gained to reexamine the concept of “discernment”. In the first part of the study I look into the interactional application of ritualised formulae of apology (apology-RF), with the aid of historical pragmatics. The examination not only reveals the characteristics of apology-RF, but also shows the fact that they and elevating/denigrating terms of address (EA/DAs, cf. K�d�r 2005a; forthcoming) correlated in HCA. In the second part of the study I try to reinforce the findings of studies that deny the claim that the use of honorifics/ritualised formulae was definitely non-strategic, as is asserted according to the so-called “discernment” aspect of linguistic politeness. HCA provides a corpus that is appropriate for analysing this issue because, as the first part of the study shows, in old China apology was practiced via honorific/ritualised formulae, the contextual application of which was constrained by strict sociolinguistic rules. As the examination of the honorific formulae of HCA shows, in spite of their “fixed” contextual application schemata, in a number of cases the speakers intentionally deviated from these to attain personal discourse goals.

Kampf, Z. (2008). The pragmatics of forgiveness: Judgments of apologies in the Israeli political arena, Discourse & Society, 19(5), 577-598. doi:10.1177/0957926508092244

Although the theme of forgiveness has been studied extensively in various fields of humanities and social science, it has thus far been neglected by discourse scholars. Drawing on data from the Israeli political discourse between 1997 and 2004, this article analyzes the ways in which apologies are interpreted and judged by political actors as members of a distinctive interpretive community. The findings show that although realized infelicitously, most of the apologies made by Israeli political figures were accepted by the offended parties or their representatives. One explanation for this finding is that the traditional felicity conditions are replaced in the political arena by the `embarrassment condition', that is, the extent to which the gesture is perceived by the forgiver as threatening the apologizer's political image. Other reasons to forgive are less dependent on the judgment of the linguistic performance than on the various interests on the part of the forgiver. In cases in which the interest of the offended party is to detract from the symbolic power of his/her rival, even a full and humble apology may be refused. Inversely, even an incomplete form may be accepted if the offended is motivated to forgive. These findings are in line with Mills' argument regarding the total dependency of the apology on the way in which it is judged by its recipient.

Kampf, Z. (2009) Public (non-)apologies: The discourse of minimizing responsibility. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(11), 2257�2270. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.11.007

The frequent realizations of apologies in the global arena since the beginning of the 1990s, has turned the speech act into a common device for image restoration. In spite of the advantages that public figures can benefit in contemporary politics of trust from apologizing, the speech act still poses a threat to the public figure's image. Apologies can undermine the public figure's desired face, and project an image of a person who is lack of professional capabilities. The aim of this paper is to examine how public figures realize creative forms of apologetic speech in order to minimize their responsibility for misdeeds, while calculating the costs and benefits in producing apology utterances. Based on the analysis of 354 apologies made in the Israeli public discourse between 1997 and 2004, I demonstrate tactics which range on four main categories of minimizing responsibility for misdeeds: compromising the apology's performative verb (e.g. using the verb sorry or regret instead of apologize), blurring the nature of the offense (e.g. by apologizing for a specific component, rather than the entirety of the offense), questioning the identity of the offended (e.g. claiming that no one should be offended by the act) or questioning the identity of the offender (e.g. explicitly denying direct responsibility for the offense).

Kampf, Z., & Blum-Kulka, S. (2007). Do children apologize to each other? Apology events in young Israeli peer discourse. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 11-37. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.002

Children's apologies are greatly under-researched. Though there is wealth of information available on the pragmatics of apologies generally, we know much less about whether and how children apologize. Our study explores modes of remedial work by Israeli children in peer discourse. The data were collected through ethnographic observation of Israeli preschool and preadolescents, and consist of 57 (taped and transcribed) apology events identified in natural peer interactions. The analysis of children's apology events revealed a rich range of apology strategies used by 4�6 year old children, indicating the acquisition of remedial competencies for face management at a relatively early age and showed that with age, a richer range of potential violations is identified, and more elaborate forms of repair are being used, indicating a growing sensitivity to the other's face needs. Furthermore, we found that adult intervention in children's conflictual situations serves to model remedial strategies, but is not necessarily effective for conflict resolution. Importantly, peer talk apology events index the centrality of friendship in young children's social world: breaches from expected behavior in play are taken as face threatening to the core of friendship, namely the children's shared face as friends, and hence can function to end (even if temporarily) the friendship. Consequently, in such cases, the restoration of friendship becomes a necessary precondition for the felicitous realization of an apology.

Kasanga, L. A., & Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. (2007). Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 65-92. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.004

The article reports on a contrastive study of apologies in native and “nativized” varieties of English and the South African variety of Setswana. Quantitative data were elicited by means of discourse completion tasks (DCT) along the lines of the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) project's framework. Qualitative data were elicited by means of video-taped role plays. A statistical analysis of the DCT supports the prediction of significant differences in the use of pragmalinguistic resources in apologizing between, on the one hand, Setswana and the nativized variety of English, and, on the other, the native variety of English. This is especially true of the use of the responsibility strategy. There, thus, seems to be a reasonable avenue for theorizing from the speakers' predominant politeness and apology realization on language-specific patterns. Apologizing is a prime case of face-work because it is a redressive speech act to repair an offensive or face-threatening act and, thus, restore harmonious, orderly, or friendly interaction. However, our findings call for an interpretation of group- or community-based face, not an individual one. For this purpose, we offer an ethnographic analysis inspired by the “cultural scripts” framework. Finally, these findings can be used to foster awareness about different sociopragmatic features and pragmalinguistic means and the potential for pragmatic failure in different-culture same-language interaction

Kasper, G. (1989). Variation in interlanguage speech act of apologizing. In S. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.), Variation in second language acquisition: discourse and pragmatics (pp. 189-229). Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.

Keenan, S. (1993). Investigating deaf students’ apologies: An exploratory study. Applied Linguistics, 14(4), 364-384.

This paper explores the written apologies of deaf students. The data, obtained from a discourse completion test (DCT), were analyzed according to strategies comprising the speech act set as identified by Olshtain (1989), use and types of intensifiers, and subjects' assessment of the situations. Results of the study show that both word choice and word order give a routinized feel to the apologies, in part attributable to American Sign Language (ASL). Results further show that strategy choices reflect the respondents' assessments of the situations, including a culture-specific view of what constitutes social offenses. A discrepancy in the data between written responses and the subjects' view of situation severity is attributable to these students' status as learners of English as a second language. Finally, the paper discusses the flavor of these written apologies and concludes that the observed bluntness of the responses is attributable to respondents' reduced control of English.

Kim, H. (2008). The semantic and pragmatic analysis of South Korean and Australian English apologetic speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(2), 257-278.

The aim of this study was both to examine how South Korean apology speech act expression differed conceptually from Australian English expressions and to analyze how South Koreans performed the speech act of apologies. For the first part, the author provided a semantic and pragmatic analysis of the main Korean apology speech act expression mianhada and compared it with the use of the Australian English word sorry. In the process, she illustrated some distinguishable features of South Korean culture. The findings revealed that the attitudinal meanings of mianhada and sorry, as well as the range of illocutionary acts associated with the two expressions were different. Decomposing mianhada and sorry into their illocutionary components provided a fine-grained description of what the author assumed to be the attitudes and states of mind of South Koreans and Australians, respectively, when performing the apologetic speech act. In the second part of the paper, she investigated South Korean apology speech act strategies among 30 South Korean University students in seven situations, rating them according to social distances, social power, and severity. The investigation was modeled on the work of Blum-Kulka and her collaborators (1989). Findings indicated that South Korean speakers preferred not to express responsibility. Instead, they followed up their illocutionary force indicating devices (such as those indicating (being) sorry, apologizing, regretting, excusing, etc.) with a compensation strategy. The author also noted that when the speaker could not compensate for a serious offense, the strategy of expressing the speaker’s responsibility was used as intensification but the explanation strategy was not preferred in South Korean. In addition, her study suggested that conceptualizing speech act expressions, using semantically simple words, could help second language learners acquire the proper ways of carrying out speech acts (including non-verbal expressions) in the target language and culture.

Koutsantoni, D. (2007). “I can now apologize to you twice from the bottom of my heart”: Apologies in Greek reality TV. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 93-123. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.005

While the speech act of apology has been investigated in a number of languages and cultures, there has been little research into apologies in Greek. Apology studies have tended to identify apology strategies, without taking into account the effect of the wider cultural context on apologies motivation and strategies, and have also tended not to include apology responses in their analyses. Remedial work, however, involves both apologies and replies to them (Goffman 1971). Based on data from a recent Greek TV reality game show, this paper looks at apologies and apology responses (“remedial interchanges”, Goffman 1971), analyzing in detail the context in which they occurred and the relationship between interactants. The main aims are to identify: (1) the constituent elements of an offence and the factors that determine its weightiness; (2) the degree to which face, social distance and power determine the weightiness of an offence, the recipients' responses, and the strategies and language used in the remedial interchanges, and (3) the degree to which these are culturally determined. This involves an investigation of the components of face and relations of power and solidarity in Greek society as well as of the ways the game show manipulates interpersonal relations and foregrounds Greek traditions and cultural values by explicitly attempting to contravene them.

Kumagai, T. (1993). Remedial interactions as face-management: The case of Japanese and Americans. In S. Y. T. Matsuda, M. Sakurai, A. Baba (Eds.), In honor of Tokuichiro Matsuda: Papers contributed on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday (pp. 278-300). Tokyo: Iwasaki Linguistic Circle.

Compares general patterns of the remedial interaction of Japanese and Americans, focusing on the cultural meaning of the act of apology and the dynamics underlying the realized behaviors. She found that similar strategies had different implications and effects in Japanese and American interactions. Japanese emphasized restoring the relationship while Americans focused on solving the problem. The Japanese used penitent utterances, humble in nature, while Americans used explanatory utterances; the former were empathetic, the latter rational; the former self-threatening (reciprocity expected), the latter self-supporting. The examples of remedial interactions were collected from scripts of 40 Japanese TV dramas, 4 Japanese dramas and 90 American films. The corpus contained 154 Japanese and the same number of American English remedial interactions, from a larger corpus of 400 each.

Kumatoridani, T. (1993). Hatsuwa koui taisyo kenkyuuno tameno tougouteki apurouchi: Nichieigono "wabi" wo reini (‘An integrative approach to contrastive speech-act analysis: A case of apologies in Japanese and English’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 79, 26-40.

The author poses 4 questions to be answered in pragmatics research: 1) for what purpose a speech act is performed; 2) in what situations the speech act is performed; 3) how the repertoire of strategies and linguistic forms are related; 4) what discourse functions the speech act serves. Taking English and Japanese apologies as an interpersonal repair strategy, the author argues that there are differences in speech act realization between the two languages in terms of the situations that require an apology, linguistic forms/strategies used, and responses to apologies. No mention of the data source is given.

Kumatoridani, T. (1999). Alternation and co-occurrence in Japanese thanks. Journal of Pragmatics, 31(5), 623-642.

This article deals with how thanks and apologies are not as distinctly different as might be though. Thanks in Japanese can be conveyed by apologizing: Shooyu o toote moraemasen ka. 'Please pass me the soy sauce.' Hai dozoo. 'Here you go.' Doomo sumimasen. '(lit.) I'm very sorry.' The apology form is in empathy to the hearer (such as when this person is of higher status). Sumimasen can be used for local management of an event and then arigato for closing the gratitude exchange. The paper compares usages and functions of two Japanese apologizing and thanking expressions, sumimasen and arigatou, based on: 1) 140 collected interchanges including naturally occurring gratitude and apology exchanges; 2) findings from the questionnaire give to 189 native speakers of Japanese; and 3) his own native speaker intuition. Although sumimasen can replace the gratitude expression arigatou, the two are not completely interchangeable. The author first accounts for the applicability of alternation, and discusses the more formal and thus polite nature of sumimasen as an expression of gratitude. The use of sumimasen as a gratitude expression occurs as a result of a shift in the focus (‘empathy operation’) from the speaker’s to the hearer’s perspective. This shift is considered a conventionalized strategic device to repair the politeness imbalance between the interlocutors. However, the use of sumimasen tends to be appropriate only in expressing acceptance of the offer combined with gratitude and not refusal, whereas arigatou can be used for both acceptance and refusal of the offer. Use of sumimasen is also inappropriate in response to ‘affective’ speech acts such as congratulations, condolences, compliments, and encouragement. Finally, the author explains the sequential preference in using the two expressions in a single event (sumimasen first, and then arigatou). While sumimasen functions to repair imbalance locally, arigatou has dual functions both to repair imbalance and to close a conversation.

Lakoff, R. B. (2001). Nine way of looking at apologies: The necessity for interdisciplinary theory and method in discourse analysis. In: D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, & H. Hamilton, (Eds.). Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 199-214). London: Blackwell.

Liebersohn, Y. Z., Neuman, Y., & Bekerman, Z. (2004). Oh baby, it’s hard for me to say I’m sorry: Public apologetic speech and cultural rhetorical resources. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(5), 921�944. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2003.12.003

The current study deals with public apologetic speech in the context of political rhetoric. The main argument of this paper is that different cultures support their members with different cultural rhetorical resources for a public apologetic speech event, and that one must pay close attention to the way an apologizer draws on historical, social and political contexts. This argument is illustrated by two rhetorical case studies. More specifically, we conduct an in-depth analysis of two public apologetic speeches given by two political leaders of two different cultures: the former American president Clinton, and the former Israeli Prime Minister Barak. By analyzing these two speeches, we aim to illustrate the way in which cultural rhetorical resources frame and transform the rhetorical situation.

Linnell, J., Porter, F. L., Stone, H., & Chen Wan-Lai. (1992). Can you apologize me? An investigation of speech act performance among non-native speakers of English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8 (2), 33-53.

Examines the performance of apologies among 20 NNSs of English and 20 NSs. The eight verbal discourse completion tests designed by Cohen and Olshtain were administered on a one-to-one basis. No significant differences were found between NNSs and NSs in six of the eight situations. Explicit apologies, acknowledgments of responsibility and intensifiers were significantly undersupplied by NNSs in two of the situations. NNSs undersupplied an explicit apology and an intensifier in an unintentional insult situation and acknowledging responsibility for forgetting a meeting with a boss. Performance did not correlate with TOEFL scores.

Linnell, J., Porter, F. L., Stone, H., & Chen, W.-L. (1992). Can you apologize me? An investigation of speech act performance among non-native speakers of English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8(2), 33-53. [Available online]

In this study, the performance of apologies among 20 non-native speakers (NNSs) of English and 20 native speakers (NSs) of English was examined. Two questions were addressed: How did NNSs' apologies compare with NSs' in identical situations? What relationship existed between the performance of apologies by NNSs and Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores? Eight verbal discourse completion tests were administered by the researchers to the participants on a one-to-one basis. Each response was taped, transcribed, coded, and analyzed by the researchers. No significant differences were found between NNSs and NSs in six out of eight situations. According to NS norms, explicit apologies, acknowledgements and intensifiers were significantly undersupplied by NNSs in two of the situations. No linear relationship was found to exist between TOEFL scores and the performance of apologies by NNSs.

Lipson, M. (1994). Apologizing in Italian and English. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 32(1), 19-39.

How much do cultural values affect the use of language?� How can the language teacher help build the advanced student’s language awareness?� This experiment tries to address itself to these two issues.� It analyzes and contrasts apology strategies in American English and in Italian in terms of Marion Owen’s remedial strategies (Owen, M., 1983) and Olshtain and Cohen’s semantic formulas in the apology speech act set (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983).� The subjects for the study were 10 students at the University of Bologna and the unusual instrument used for data collection was the television:� a series of American sitcoms was shown to the students and the respective apology episode in each sitcom was rewritten by the students for an appropriate Italian context.� The difference between the original script and the students’ version were discussed and analyzed together.� The purpose of the study was not only to compare apology speech acts and remedial strategies but to also exploit the television as an educative and stimulating resource in the language classroom where live and spontaneous language is difficult to isolate for observation and analysis.� The findings suggest that the status and role of the participants in the remedial exchange situation affect the Italian speaker’s choice of apology strategies and semantic formulas more so than they do the American English speaker’s.� The limitations of the study are pointed out as well as the benefits of this kind of work in the classroom for the development of the student’s language awareness.

Maeshiba, N., Yoshinaga, N., Kasper, G., & and Ross, S. (1996). Transfer and proficiency in interlanguage apologizing. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 155-187). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Begins with a review of current research and theories about pragmatic transfer from the L1 to the L2. They noted that several non-structural factors interact with pragmatic transfer, including the learning context and length of residence in the target community (learner-external factors), and attitude towards the native and target community and second language proficiency (learner-internal factors). They then reviewed recent studies about native and non-native apology, noting that in most studies it appears that apology performance is affected by context-external factors such as social power and social distance. The perpetrator is more likely to employ an explicit apologetic formula the lower his/her status is vis-a-vis the offended person. The authors then described their own study to examine the relationship between contextual factors and strategy use in apologies. The subjects participating came from 4 groups: 30 Japanese learners of English (Intermediate) students from the JEI program at Hawai'i Pacific University; 30 Japanese learners of English (Advanced) from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa; 30 native speakers of English who were undergraduates at Hawai'i Pacific University; and 30 native speakers of Japanese who were also undergraduate and graduate students at Hawai'i Pacific University. The participants were given an Assessment Questionnaire and a Dialogue Construction Questionnaire (in English and/or Japanese) in which they were asked to rate each of 20 contexts on a five-point scale for: severity of offense, offender's obligation to apologize, likelihood for the apology to be accepted, offender's face loss, and offended party's face loss (context-internal factors) and social distance and dominance (context-external factors). The results showed that there was strong agreement between the native speakers of English and Japanese in perception of status, obligation to apologize, and likelihood of apology acceptance. The effects of positive transfer seemed to be much more pervasive than negative transfer in the learners' apology performance and perception. An important finding did occur: native speakers of Japanese who were advanced learners of English only transferred their Japanese apology behavior in 2 instances, whereas the intermediate group transferred their native apologetic behavior 6 times, which indicates that advanced learners were better able to emulate American apology behavior. The intermediate learners tended to use a less elaborated approach based on apology behavior used in their L1. The authors then compared the results to previous studies cited earlier regarding positive and negative pragmatic transfer.

M�rquez Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay: A contrastive analysis of requests and apologies. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.

The request and apology behavior of British English (BE) and Uruguayan Spanish (US) speakers are analyzed in depth. The author first reviews the literature surrounding notions of politeness and speech act theory within the domain of linguistic pragmatics. She then describes the basic linguistic forms and general functions of requests and apologies in both English and Spanish. Data was collected using open-ended role plays containing social variables such as distance and power. Participants [BE: N=61 (m-29, f-32); US: N=64 (m-33, f-31)] participated in 12 combined situations resulting in 12 requests and 12 apologies. Analysis of the request results indicates a marked preference for conventional indirectness (CI) in both language varieties. However, variation did occur in the types of strategies used. For example, the US subjects were less concerned about naming the addressee as the actor. Cross-cultural differences were also found in the use of impositives (US used this type of strategy more and in a wider variety of situations) and non-conventional indirectness (only BE used this type of strategy). In general, US speakers tended to be more direct than BE speakers when requesting. The analysis of apologies also offers insight into cross-cultural differences. BE opted for intensification of one formulae (“Sorry”) when apologizing. In addition, more apologies and explanations were given by BE speakers as compared to US speakers. The US showed a clear preference for non-intensification and used several formulae to apologize. In both groups, there was agreement as to the severity of the situation, which served as the main motivator for strategy selection. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed and implications for language teaching are also given.

Matsuura, H. (1998). Japanese EFL learners' perception of politeness in low imposition requests. JALT Journal, 20 (1), 33-48.

Study of perception of politeness in requests with 77 Japanese English majors and 48 American students in two U.S. universities. Perceptions were similar except that Japanese saw interrogatives with a present tense modal ("May I borrow a pen?") as less polite than those with a past tense modal ("Could I borrow a pen?").

Meier, A. J. (1998). Apologies: What do we know? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(2), 215-231. doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.1998.tb00130.x

Based on a review of the apology literature, Meier (1998) comes to the conclusion that there exists a less than unified picture of "facts" about apology behavior. She notes that there are conflicting claims regarding the distribution of strategies, the degree of mitigation effected by account types, the co-occurrence of strategy types, the effect of the severity of the offense, the effect of gender, and the effect of the interlocutor relationship. She thus concludes that attempts to provide a summary description of apology behavior in English based on such lack of consensus could only be arbitrary, vague, or disjointed. There is the argument as to how much knowledge about a certain language behavior is necessary in order to assess it. The burden is now on the SLA researchers to fine-tune our descriptions of speech acts.

Meyeroff, M. (1999). Sorry in the Pacific: Defining communities, defining practices. Language in Society, 28(2), 225-238.

This article examines the distribution of speech acts based on the word sore 'sorry' in Bislama, the creole language spoken in Vanuatu. Three functions of these "apology" routines are identified and analyzed within the frame-work of politeness theory. Women are shown to use sore more frequently over all than men; they are also found to use sore to express empathy with the referent/addressee. Empathy is expressed in men's speech in other ways. The asymmetric distribution of sore is shown to make sense, given wider societal beliefs about and attitudes toward appropriate behaviors for women and men. Given a strict definition of a "community of practice," it is clear that this shared speech behavior does not mean that women in this speech community can be said to form a community of practice. Analyses based on the speech community and intergroup distinctiveness are more useful in understanding this variation.

Mir, M. (1992), Do we all apologize the same? An empirical study on the act of apologizing by Spanish speakers learning English. In L. F. Bouton and Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol.3, pp. 1-19). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A study examined the production of English apology strategies by Spanish speakers learning English, by analyzing the remedial move in native and non-native social interactions. To restore harmony when an offensive act has been committed, remedial exchanges are performed according to the rules of speaking and the social norms of the speech community; different cultural patterns in the act of apologizing will be reflected in the use of different apology strategies and their intensification during remedial work. Subjects were 29 native speakers of English from the United States and 29 native Peninsular Spanish speakers learning English, who were posed eight situations, each including an offensive action. Responses were elicited. The degree of severity of the offense, age of interactants, and degree of familiarity between interactants were systematically varied to observe their effect on the apologies elicited. Results revealed cultural dissimilarities in the Peninsular Spanish and American English apology systems, and the subsequent transfer strategies of native rules of speaking to the target language. They also show different degrees of intensification between native and non-native responses. Implications for second language teaching are discussed.

Miyake, K. (1994). "Wabi" igaide tsukawareru wabi hyogen: Sono tayoukatno jittaito uchi, soto, yosono kankei (‘Formulaic apologies in non-apologetic situations: A data analysis and its relation with the concept of uchi-soto-yoso’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 82, 134-146.

This is a questionnaire study reporting the occasions on which apologies like sumimasen are likely to be used (as well as non-apologetic occasions on which apologies are used) and the effects of social variables on such occasions. English and Japanese questionnaires were given to 101 British and 122 Japanese participants respectively. The questionnaire presented 36 situations that elicited expressions of gratitude and/or apologies. Closeness and status of the interlocutors, and severity of the offense/indebtedness (benefits and losses) were manipulated in those situations. The participants first wrote down the responses they were likely to give (perhaps orally---not specified in the article) and indicated on a 5-point scale what their feelings would be (strong gratitude/slight gratitude/neutral feeling neither gratitude nor apology/slight apology/strong apology/others). The paper reports only the idiomatic expressions found in the data, excluding additional expressions. Major findings: 1) the language forms for apology expressions (e.g., sumimasen) in Japanese are used not just to express apology but also gratitude; the Japanese form for apology can co-occur with the form for thanking (arigato) where both are intended as part of an apology (thanking apologetically), and as a way of phatic communication (like greetings); 2) Japanese speakers tend to feel apologetic in more situations than British English speakers; 3) Japanese speakers tend to feel the more apologetic when their feeling of indebtedness is the greater. However, apologies are often employed when the hearer is relatively older in age and in a soto ‘outside’ relationship (e.g., an academic advisor), as opposed to uchi ‘inside’ and yoso ‘somewhere else.’

Moriyama, T. (1999). Oreito owabi: Kankei syufukuno sisutemu toshite (‘Gratitude and apologies: A system of repair’). Kokubungaku: Kaishakuto kyouzaino kenkyu (Japanese Literature: Interpretation and Material development), 44(6), 78-82.

This article is an essay on gratitude and apology expressions in Japanese as a repair strategy in interpersonal communication. The motive for both gratitude and apologies is a psychological imbalance (or a sense of indebtedness) between the speaker and the hearer. Expressions of gratitude and apologies both attempt to adjust that imbalance. An expression of gratitude repairs the sense of imbalance accompanied by a certain benefit on the part of the speaker offered by the hearer. Apologies also repair the offense caused by the speaker. Section 1: conceptual understanding of gratitude and apologies. Section 2: analysis of various expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 3: sumimasen as an expression of gratitude. Section 4: responses to expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 5: phatic greeting expressions including gokuro sama, otsukare sama, omedetou.

Mulamba, K. (1991). Apologizing and complaining in Ciluba, French, and English: Speech act performance by trilingual speakers in Zaire (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Most studies of pragmatic aspects of language learning have dealt mainly with two languages, a native language and a second or foreign language. None of these studies has investigated a multilingual situation where there is interaction among three different languages spoken by one person. Neither have they dealt with an African language as the first language.The present study was designed to discover the norms of the three languages under investigation and to see how people speaking a second and a foreign language, with different levels of fluency in each, can participate in the activity of the speech communities of the two languages without violating their socio-cultural norms, and what impact, if any, their knowledge of these languages has on each of the languages they speak.Data was elicited from monolingual English and French speakers and trilingual speakers native in Ciluba by written questionnaire, and from monolingual Ciluba speakers by oral interview. In addition, naturally occurring speech acts and TV dialogue were considered. It was found that for the speech acts of apologizing, complaining, and complimenting, Ciluba socio-cultural norms are different from those of English and French, which are similar to each other. In contrast to the socio-cultural norms of French and English, in Ciluba, social distance and relative power between the participants played an important role in deciding whether one of the three speech acts was to be performed or not. However, the results also revealed that, despite the difference in norms which exists between Ciluba and the other two languages, i.e., French and English, some subjects from the group of Ciluba monolingual speakers showed some similarities with the groups of French and English monolingual speakers in their responses to some items in the questionnaire. This deviation from the norms of their native Ciluba was hypothesized to be a result of their contact with the urban environment and its mixed culture.It was also discovered that the trilingual speakers (who were native in Ciluba) used in French and English pattern of address which is not used by native English and French speakers.

Murata, K. (1998). Has he apologized or not?: A cross-cultural misunderstanding between the UK and Japan on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain.� Pragmatics, 8(4), 501�513.

This paper will examine the misunderstanding between the British and Japanese governments in the interpretation of the letter of apology (according to the British government)/ congratulation (according to the Japanese government) sent by the then Japanese Prime Minister to the then British Prime Minister just before the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain. It will first investigate what the speech act 'apology' entails in these two different discourse communities and then explore how this speech act was differently interpreted on the special occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War by the two former enemy governments according to their respective interests and differing social and political pressures from war veterans and bereaved families. Using a selection of newspaper articles from this period, the paper will illustrate how deeply wider social, political and historical backgrounds can affect the interpretation of linguistic meaning and how the interpretation of an utterance can vary depending on the context. It will also demonstrate how the use of vague expressions and culturally loaded styles could lead to misinterpretation or misunderstanding, referring to the letter written by the then Japanese Prime Minister. The letter was said to have originally been meant to be one of congratulation by the sender but was not interpreted in this way by the receiver. Finally, I will reemphasize the importance of taking the context into consideration in utterance interpretation.

Nakai, H. (1999). Universal and cross-cultural features of apologies. Tenri University Journal for Linguistics, Literature, the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences, 192, 119-139.

The first part of this literature review discusses the semantic strategies in an apology speech act set. The author asserts that in Japanese apologies, the apology realization is centered around the expression of apology and the explanation or excuse, and why Westerners have difficulty understanding this focus by Japanese on apologetic expressions in situations perceived as inappropriate by the Westerners. The last part of the article is on what to teach about apologies and how to teach it. He gives the results of a questionnaire filled out by 43 female Japanese HS students (ages 17-18) with speech act situations and tasks to perform. He demonstrates that although the students were familiar with three expressions in English, "I'm sorry," "excuse me," and "thank you," they were not in agreement over when to use them in the situations provided. He suggests starting by heightening the awareness of the learners such as by administering a questionnaire to elicit data and to get the learners to think about different realization patterns in the L1 and L2. Then he would explain the universal and language-specific aspects of apologies. Then he would stage role plays among learners and then with native speakers providing the model -- going from less severe to more severe apology situations. Finally he would have learners take a look at the pragmalinguistic side -- the language options such as "I'm sorry" and "excuse me."

Nakamura, H. (1997). Socio-pragmatic anatomy of Japanese apology. Kinki Daigaku Kyouyoubu Kiyou [Kinki University General Education Department Bulletin], 29(1), 23-30.

General article on apologizing in Japanese.� It notes that sumimasen is used for both apology and gratitude.� The author notes that Japanese prefer intuition and harmony, enjoy emotional dependency and group solidarity, while avoiding direct confrontation for the sake of the group.� Ambiguous, indirect, suggestive, euphemistic, and understated discourse is preferred.� Brevity is a virtue; silence is preferred to eloquence.� Exactness and directed logical exposition is considered impertinent and arrogant.

Nakata, T. (1989). Hatsuwa kouitoshiteno chinshato kansha: Nichiei hikaku (‘Apology and Thanks in Japanese and English’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 68, 191-203.

This study compares English and Japanese apologies and thanks collected in movie and TV drama scenarios (400 apologies and 400 thanks in English and Japanese each). Major differences between the two languages: 1) Japanese were more likely to thank for voluntary assistance offered by the hearer; 2) Japanese more often apologized for someone close to themselves than English speakers; 3) Japanese thanking expressions included versatile expressions like sumimasen that can be used both for apologies and thanks.

Nishimura, F. (1998). Cyukyu nihongo gakushushaga kaku wabino tegamini okeru goyou bunseki: Bunno tekisetsuseino kanten kara (‘An error analysis of letters of apology written by intermediate-level students: From the viewpoint of appropriateness’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 99, 72-83.

This study examines written apologies produced by 31 intermediate American learners of Japanese in comparison with 20 Japanese apologies by native speakers of Japanese and 15 English apologies by native speakers of American English. Major findings with learners’ apologies: 1) inaccurate modest verb forms; 2) inappropriate use of ...kara in presenting excuses; 3) lack of regret expressions (...te shimau) ; 4) choice of face-threatening excuses without mitigating strategies.

Nonaka, K. (2000). Apology is not necessary: An in-depth analysis of my own intercultural and intracultural miscommunication. Journal of Hokkaido University of Education at Kushiro, 32, 155-186.

In the paper, the author focuses on some cases of Japanese and American cross-cultural differences based on Hall's Beyond culture (high vs. low-context situations: especially the explicit vs. the implicit, overt vs. covert in the culture ). She does a context analysis of some of the typical and atypical interactional situations in both cultures, connecting them with her own experience. She gives an example of how she as a high-context person expected low-context Americans to sense what was bothering her without having to spell it out -- without having to be specific. She points out that Americans rank logic high and feelings low and Japanese vice versa which can explain why Japanese say "I'm sorry" as a way of showing consideration to the interlocutor's feelings even if the speaker is not logically at fault for the problematic situation. Americans, she maintains, do not tend to apologize merely to show consideration for others if the problem is not their fault. In fact, Americans will say, "Don't be so apologetic," "Why did you say 'sorry'? It's not your fault."

Nonoyama, F. (1993). Apologies: Toward communicative competence. The Bulletin of Nihon Fukushi Daigaku. Nihon Fukushi University, 88(2), 195-217.

Politeness rules in Japanese. Be polite to persons of a higher social position, persons with power, older persons, to men if a woman, in formal settings, and to someone with whom you do not have a close relationship. The author generalizes that older Japanese and those who have not lived in the U.S. tend to transfer their own sociocultural rules when they apologize in English. A study was conducted with 70 native English speakers in the US and 234 Japanese speakers, 70 responding in Japanese and 164 in English. Age, gender, position of power, and social distance were varied in four versions of a questionnaire. The research appears to find that his Japanese respondents do not make excuses to a person with higher status, yet the findings here ran counter to that. On bumping into a female, the E1 group expressed an apology, while both the J1 and E2 groups did not, but rather confirmed damage ("Are you OK?" "Are you hurt?") Not a gender difference here -- females likely to express an apology (89%) tan males (52%). So E2 was more like J1 than E1. An exception: a difficult job to do, J1 utilized expression of apology, while E2 hedged as did E1.

Nureddeen, F. A. (2008). Cross cultural pragmatics: Apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(2), 279-306

This study attempted to outline the type and extent of use of apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. The study also aimed to shed light on the sociocultural attitudes and values of this community. The corpus examined consisted of 1,082 responses to a discourse completion test that presented ten different social situations of varying severity of offense, strength of social relationship, and power between hypothetical speakers and hearers. The participants consisted of 110 college educated adults in Khartoum, Sudan. The author asserted that the results supported earlier findings suggesting the universality of apology strategies, but nevertheless the selection of apology strategies in this study reinforced the culture-specific aspect of language use. The results revealed an orientation toward positive politeness. This was indicated by the respondents’ attempts not to damage their own positive face. They tried to preserve their positive face by avoiding the use of apology strategies that were considered the most damaging to the speaker’s face such as taking responsibility, intensification, and promise of forbearance. Instead informants preferred to rely on ‘less dangerous’ strategies such as the illocutionary force indicating device that were used to present an excuse and avoidance of self-blame, probably because participants preferred not to apologize explicitly in less serious offenses. Likewise, as an attempt to reduce the threat of a strong apology, respondents preferred to use non-threatening strategies such as humor, minimization, denial, and opting out at a higher frequency. On the other hand, the study also illustrated the use of religious words and phrases in everyday communication with varied illocutionary forces, possibly as fillers, hedges, or devices to soften the threat of an act.

Obeng, S. G. (1999). Apologies in Akan discourse.� Journal of Pragmatics, 31(5), 709-734. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00089-7

With knowledge of the potentially deadly repercussions of the spoken word in some communicative encounters, the Akan interlocutor employs various mitigating strategies that pay attention to the face needs of an addressee either by softening the locution of a possible facethreatening act inherent in a speaker's stretch of utterance, or by attempting to remedy an offense committed by the speaker or by someone whose actions for which the speaker accepts responsibility. An apology or a remedy (Goffman, 1971: 140) � a speech act whose primary purpose is redressive action � is one such speech strategy which pays attention to the face needs of interlocutors. It is basically aimed at maintaining or enhancing their face or restoring decorum (Goffman, 1967). Among the Akan, apology expressions may be complex � involving a combination of both explicitness and implicitness � or compound, involving a combination of two or more implicit strategies.

Ogiermann, E. (2006). Cultural variability within Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory: English, Polish and Russian apologies. In C. Mour�n-Figueroa & T. I. Moralejo-G�rate (Eds.), Studies in Contrastive Linguistics (pp. 707-718). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Publicaci�ns.

Ogiermann, E. (2008). On the culture-specificity of linguistic gender differences: The case of English and Russian apologies. Intercultural Pragmatics, 5(3), 259-286. doi:10.1515/IPRG.2008.013

The study examined the influence of gender and culture on the speech act of apologies by comparing gender-specific language use both in Britain, where the gender roles have considerably changed over the past decades, and in Russian, where linguistic gender differences had never been perceived as significant or problematic. The study analyzed responses to offensive situations under the same contextual conditions by English and Russian women and men. Data were collected by means of discourse completion tests (DCTs) that consisted of ten scenarios, eight of which described offensive situations and the other two served as distracters. The scenarios included variables of social distance, power, and gender. The subjects were all students from three British universities and two Russian ones. A corpus of 100 English and 100 Russian DCTs with equal distribution between genders was comprised. The data consisted of a total of 1600 responses elicited under identical contextual conditions. Findings revealed that in both languages women were more verbose; they used more illocutionary force indicating devices; and opted for the form with a strong illocutionary force more often than men. In addition, although English and Russian women used more intensifiers and exclamations than men, the discrepancies were less marked in Russian. English and Russian women used higher frequency of positive politeness apology strategies confirming the author’s hypothesis that women put more effort into maintaining relationships than men. Furthermore, English and British women employed more upgrading and fewer downgrading accounts than men. In addition, the study illustrated the importance of culture as a factor that determined not only the differences between female and male conversational styles in this study but also for attitudes towards these differences.

Ogiermann, E. (2009). On apologizing in negative and positive politeness cultures. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

This book investigates how speakers of English, Polish and Russian deal with offensive situations. It reveals culture-specific perceptions of what counts as an apology and what constitutes politeness. It offers a critical discussion of Brown and Levinson's theory and provides counterevidence to the correlation between indirectness and politeness underlying their theory. Their theory is applied to two languages that rely less heavily on indirectness in conveying politeness than does English, and to a speech act that does not become more polite through indirectness. An analysis of the face considerations involved in apologising shows that in contrast to disarming apologies, remedial apologies are mainly directed towards positive face needs, which are crucial for the restoration of social equilibrium and maintenance of relationships. The data show that while English apologies are characterised by a relatively strong focus on both interlocutors’ negative face, Polish apologies display a particular concern for positive face. For Russian speakers, in contrast, apologies seem to involve a lower degree of face threat than they do in the other two languages.

Okamoto, S., & Tamon, Y. (2000). "Shitsurei" no syoyouhou: Youhouno sougo kanrenseini cyakumokushite (‘Use of shitsurei: How are they related?’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 104, 30-39.

Use of the variants of shitsurei (e.g., Shitrurei shimasu, shitsurei shimashita, shitrurei desuga) was analyzed based on the data from scenarios, novels, conversations and narration on the radio and television, and observations of naturally occurring discourse. Section 1: brief overview of the past research and dictionary definitions of shitsurei. Section 2: 3 forms of shitsurei- 1) shitsurei shimasu type in reference to a future event; 2) shitsurei shimashita type in reference to a past event; 3) shitsurei desuga type acting as a note/disclaimer for an accompanying action. Section 3: semantic categories and use of shitsurei � shitsurei used for recognition of: the speaker’s invasion, discrepancy of action between the speaker and the hearer, an inappropriate communication style, an inappropriate content of conversation, an inappropriate action. Section 4: interrelationships among these categories. Section 5: differential degree of rudeness among the 3 forms of shitsurei.

Okumura, K., & Wei, L. (2000). The concept of self and apology strategies in two cultures. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 10(1), 1-24. doi:10.1075/japc.10.1.02oku

The speech act of apologising aims at maintaining, restoring and enhancing interpersonal relationships. Most of the existing studies of apology in different languages and cultures follow the Brown and Levinson (1987) approach and describe apology as a `negative politeness' strategy. In this paper, we study the use of apology by two groups of women from Japanese and British cultural backgrounds, in conjunction with an examination of the cultural conception of `self'. Using both standard test (Twenty Statements Test, TST) and questionnaire data, we demonstrate that important differences exist in the self concept of the two groups, and these differences are reflected in and impact on the women's use of apologies in social interaction.

Olshtain, E. (1983). Sociocultural competence and language transfer: The case of apology.� In S. M. Gass & L. Selinker (Eds.). Language Transfer in Language Learning (pp. 232-249). Rowley, MA : Newbury House.

Olshtain, E. (1989). Apologies across languages. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics (pp. 155-173). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A. D. (1983). Apology: A speech act set. In N. Wolfson & E. Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (pp. 18-35). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Olshtain, E. & Cohen, A. D. (1989). Speech act behavior across languages. In H. W. Dechert & R. Manfred (Eds.), Transfer in production (pp. 53-67). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

One of the major concerns of discourse studies across languages is that of setting up comparable units of analysis within the various languages being studied. Speech acts represent a highly complex mapping of meaning onto form. Hence, comparative studies are faced with a number of theoretical and methodological problems. Some of these problems are discussed in this chapter, with the aid of empirical data drawn from the act of apologizing in different languages.

Overfield, D. (1994). Cross-cultural competence and apologies among learners of Spanish as a foreign language. Osamayor, 8, 45-61.

Apologies tend to be more situation-dependent and occur less frequently than other speech acts. This study aims to examine their use among native speakers (NS) of Latin American Spanish and American English as well as learners of Spanish. Data was collected utilizing a discourse completion task from seven NS of Latin American Spanish and eleven learners (of English as well as Spanish). An analysis of the DCT data demonstrates some differences in the apologies produced by each group. The NS of Latin American Spanish tended to use disculpar, perd�n/perdonar, and lo siento all followed with an explanation or acknowledgement of responsibility. More than one strategy often occurred in the same apology. Furthermore, an apology was not given in only one case. In contrast, the types of apologies produced by NS of American English demonstrate the use of explicit expressions with explanations or accounts. In addition, it was deemed more acceptable to say nothing in certain situations. A comparison of the learner data shows that their apologies approximated English strategies rather than Spanish, indicating that linguistic competence and sociolinguistic competence are two separate areas. The author asserts that pragmatic instruction is essential and intrinsically linked to culture in the foreign language classroom. The concluding portion of the article offers insights and suggestions as to how to make pragmatic instruction an important component in classroom learning.

Owen, M. (1983). Apologies and remedial interchanges: a study of language use in social interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rintell, E., & Mitchell, C. J. (1989). Studying requests and apologies: An inquiry into method. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics (pp. 248-272). Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.

Robinson, J. D. (2004). The sequential organization of “explicit” apologies in naturally occurred English. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37(3), 291-330. doi:10.1207/s15327973rlsi3703_2

In this article, I use the method of conversation analysis and data from American- and British-English conversation to analyze the sequential organization of "explicit" apologies (e.g., I'm sorry, and I must apologize). I demonstrate that (a) apologies can occupy a number of different sequential positions, with different ramifications for the organization of apologizing as an action; (b) apologies can be first parts of adjacency-pair sequences; (c) apologies index particular offenses and embody a claim to have offended someone; (d) As first-pair parts, apologies have a preference organization such that preferred responses mitigate or undermine, and dispreferred responses endorse, apologies' claims to have caused offense; and (e) apology terms can be used to accomplish nonapology actions. In this article, I contribute to our understanding of the social and sequential organization of talk in interaction as well as communication practices dealing with the maintenance of social/relational harmony.

Rojo, L. (2005). "Te quer�a comentar un problemilla..." The speech act of apologies in Peninsular Spanish: A pilot study. Hipertexto, 1, 63-80.

This preliminary, pilot study surveys the use of apology speech acts in Peninsular Spanish. Five native speakers of Peninsular Spanish (n=2 female and 2 male, plus 1 male constant) participated in an open role play in which they had to apologize to a friend or acquaintance for having borrowed his laptop. The role plays were analyzed and coded according to the head acts used, as well as upgraders and downgraders. The results show a marked preference for acknowledgement of responsibility (Es culpa m�a), followed by intensified offers of repair (Yo te lo voy a llevar a arreglar Carlos, de verdad). A wide-variety of upgraders and downgraders were used, with downgraders being the most common. Interestingly, this study shows very infrequent use of IFIDs (illocutionary force indicating devices), a highly formulaic strategy. The author speculates that the lack of use of this strategy is likely due to the insincerity often attached to formulaic expressions in Peninsular Spanish. Thus, it is more important to be sincere than use 'polite' routine formulae (IFIDs).

Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22(1), 27-67.

Reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses in EFL or in Cantonese -- the first two speech acts being in their curriculum but not the third. They found little evidence of pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. The subjects were approximately 40 children at levels P-2, P-4, and P-6 respectively, half receiving the prompts in English, half in Cantonese. They were to tape record what they thought the character in the cartoon would say. In requests, there is at best only weak evidence of any situational variation. It would seem that the children had not yet developed the pragmatic competence in English to exhibit such situational variation. It could also be that the instrument did not adequately capture the relevant contextual features. In apologies, all three levels had similar responses regarding the strategy of expressing an apology. However, P-6 demonstrated more control over intensifiers. They also acknowledged responsibility more and offered repair -- a pattern that was not found in the Cantonese data. There was little evidence of situational variation however. Compliments were not in the curriculum. The most frequent strategy was acceptance of the apology -- in Cantonese as well, so the patterns were similar. There was a marked increase in both frequency and range of strategies used with the P-6 group. No background questions were asked so there is no way of knowing about exposure to English-speaking domestic helpers, parents' English proficiency, and attitudes towards English.

Ruzickova, E. (1998). Apologies in Cuban Spanish. Paper presented at the Perspectives on Spanish Linguistics Conference.

Apologies and notions of offense and obligation are analyzed and classified in terms of politeness. The data consists of naturally occurring apologies made by 42 native speakers (NS) of Cuban Spanish (n=24 females and 18 men) in 11 different contextual situations. Results indicate that Cuban Spanish-speakers opted for positive politeness strategies 5:1. An overwhelming majority of the strategies utilized were IFIDs utilizing some form of disculpar, perdonar, dejar, and sentir. The author concludes that ‘politeness’ is not universally constructed and depends highly on the cultural values of the individual society.

Sabate i Dalmau, M., & Curell i Gotor, H. (2007). From “Sorry very much” to “I’m ever so sorry”: Acquisitional patterns in L2 apologies by Catalan learners of English. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(2), 287�315. doi:10.1515/IP.2007.014

This paper analyzes the acquisitional stages of L2 apology realizations in response to discourse completion tasks produced in a cross-sectional study by 78 Catalan learners of English at three different proficiency levels. The average number of explicit apologies (IFIDs) used per situation is examined, as are the learners' lexical choice of apology performative verbs, on the one hand, and the degree and type of apology intensification (both lexical and phrasal) they use, on the other. The learner data is compared to analogous British English and Catalan native speaker data. The paper discusses pragmatic transfer, as well as the types of interlanguage behavior of each of the three groups of L2 learners.

Sachiko, N. (1994). Apologies in English by Japanese learners. JALT Journal, 16(1), 75-89.

Examines apologies in English produced by undergraduate Japanese. The 12 students tended to apologize twice as much in their L1 as Americans did in English. And in their L2 the Japanese students also offered more apologies than did 12 Americans (grad and UG).

Sameshima, S. (1998). Communication task ni okeru nihongo gakusyusha no tenkei hyougen/bunmatsu hyougen no syuutokukatei: Chuugokugo washa no "ira" "kotowari" "shazai" no baai (‘The acquisition of fixed expressions and sentence-ending expressions by learners of Japanese’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 98, 73-84.

This paper examines speech act performance of request, refusal, and apology by Chinese speakers of Japanese in Taiwan. Three levels of learners, high-beginners, low-intermediate, and high-intermediate, took a discourse completion test that included 3 situations eliciting the three speech act performance. The results were analyzed in terms of the linguistic form of each core speech act and the language use in the opening and closing of the dialogue. The author also compares the learners’ performance with the expressions included in their textbooks. Generally learners’ linguistic performance approximates that of native speakers as their levels became more advanced, although all level learners tended to oversimplify opening and closing statements.

Scher, S. J., & Darley, J. M. (1997). How effective are the things people say to apologize? Effects of the realization of the apology speech act. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26(1), 127-140.

The Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989a) identified five components of an "apology speech act set": five strategies that speakers use to apologize. This study examined the effects of four of those strategies (illocutionary force indicating device, expression of responsibility, promise of forbearance, and offer of repair) on the judgments made by hearers about the speaker and about the apology. The presence or absence of the four apology strategies was manipulated in a split-plot design. Thirty-two American female university students volunteered to serve as subjects. They read about a character who failed to fulfill an important promise for a friend. Each subject responded to eight possible combinations of the apology elements. To control for order effects, the eight apologies for each subject were counterbalanced with a Latin square. To examine the effect of each of the apology components, regression analyses were conducted. In order to examine the possibility that specific strategies might interact with one another, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted, followed by univariate analyses for those effect which were significant in the analysis. The study showed that the strategies participants used to realize the speech act of apologizing had a clear and independent effect on the judgments that they made about the transgressor. Each strategy showed an additive effect on judgments of how appropriate the utterance of the transgressor was. Further, the magnitude of these effects appeared to have been roughly similar for each of the strategies. This study showed that the things people say to apologize seemed to be effective in accomplishing the self-presentational goals of apologizers in their attempts to remedy the social relationships that had been threatened by their transgressions

Shardakova, M. (2005). Intercultural pragmatics in the speech of American L2 learners of Russian: Apologies offered by Americans in Russian. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(4), 423�451. doi:10.1515/iprg.2005.2.4.423

The study expands the current research on second language acquisition (SLA) into intercultural pragmatics by introducing data on the development of pragmatic competence by American second language learners of the Russian language. The article discusses learners’ acquisition of pragmalinguistic and socio-linguistic knowledge in its relation to both their advancement in linguistic proficiency and study abroad experience. With pragmatic competence understood as learners’ ability to make their conversational contributions relevant, polite, and effective (House 1996), the article examines the ways in which American learners of Russian craft their apologies within three communicative contexts: a) the context of intimacy (communication with a friend); b) the context of unfamiliarity (communication with a stranger); and c) the context of unequal social status (communication with an authority figure). As the data demonstrate, Russian native speakers opt for distinctively different means in each communicative context, while American learners tend to over-generalize their apologies to friends and carry them over into other communicative contexts. Both an increase in linguistic proficiency and direct exposure to Russian culture enable students to align their apologies more closely with the native speaker (NS) norm. The group that most approximates the Russian norm is the group of learners with low linguistic proficiency and study abroad experience. Increase in proficiency without exposure to the target culture often results in overly polite apologetic behavior and strategy overuse. It is also found that learners with high linguistic proficiency who study abroad exhibit divergent tendencies, and their apologies become more individualized. The observed convergence with, or divergence from, NS pragmatic conventions are seen as the result of both learners’ linguistic and pragmatic development and their self-reflection: learners do not blindly copy the NS norms, they create their own interlanguage and an accompanying identity in the learning process. The article also suggests some directions for future research and for classroom practices that would promote intercultural competence and help American learners of Russian become more effective and successful communicators in their second language.

Shariati, M., & Chamani, F. (2010). Apology strategies in Persian. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(6), 1689-1699. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.10.007

The present study is a research into the frequency, combination, and sequential position of apology strategies in Persian. The investigation is based on a corpus of 500 naturally-occurring apology exchanges, collected through an ethnographic method of observation. The results revealed that (1) explicit expression of apology with a request for forgiveness (bebaxs�id) was the most common apology strategy in Persian. (2) The aforementioned strategy together with acknowledgement of responsibility formed the most frequent combination of apology strategies in this language. (3) The same set of apology strategies used in other investigated languages was common in Persian; however, preferences for using these strategies appeared to be culture-specific.

Sugimoto, N. (1997). A Japan-U.S. comparison of apology styles. Communication Research, 24(4): 349-369. doi:10.1177/009365097024004002

This article compares U.S. and Japanese styles of apology. 200 U.S. and 181 Japanese college students were asked to construct messages indicating what the offender would say in response to potentially offending situations. The messages were deconstructed into minimal meaningful segments and were coded to indicate the apology strategies used. Members of both cultures reported that the offender would be more likely to respond than not. Beyond these basic norms of apology shared by the two cultures, cultural differences emerged in the use of various apology strategies. More U.S. than Japanese participants included accounts in their messages, whereas Japanese participants were more likely than U.S. participants to employ strategies such as statements of remorse, reparation, compensation, promise not to repeat the same offense, and requests for forgiveness. Given these findings, this study questions some of the presuppositions previously held regarding U.S. and Japanese communicative patterns.

Sumita, I. (1992). Nihongno wabino aisatsukotoba:Jyoshi gakuseino gengo seikatsuniokeru danwa shiryouwo motonishite (‘Apologies in Japanese: Data analysis of discourse by female university students’). Nihon Bungaku Kenkyu (Studies in Japanese Literature), 28, 235-243.

This paper discusses different functions of apology expressions by drawing examples from naturally occurring discourse between female university students. Multiple functions of apology expressions (e.g., sumimasen, gomen(nasai), moushiwake arimasen, shitsurei shimasu) includes: signaling an inquiry, signaling a refusal, thanking, getting attention, apologizing, signaling a request, recognizing the hearer’s favor/the speaker’s troubling the hearer (disclaimer?), opening, closing conversation, and interrupting.

Suszczyn�ska, M. (1999). Apologizing in English, Polish and Hungarian: Different languages, different strategies. Journal of Pragmatics 31(8), 1053-1065. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00047-8

The author pointed out that much of the cross-cultural research into the speech act of apologizing had focused on the phenomenon of non-native communicative competence and less on cross-cultural data. This study attempted to provide a more detailed analysis of a small portion of data from a corpus of English, Hungarian, and Polish written responses to a discourse completion test of 14 American, 20 Hungarian, and 76 Polish students. The goals in this study were as follows: first to highlight the differences in the realizations of apologetic responses that could be found not only in the choice and sequential arrangement of strategies but also in the content and in the choice of linguistic form. Second, this paper sought to understand the nature of different communicative styles. The researcher viewed undertaking such a detailed analysis as essential in order to grasp important differences in cultural communicative styles and in helping to understand different cultural values and assumptions concerning interpersonal conduct in West and Central Europe. The author felt that politeness theory did not explain the linguistic differences, since they stemmed less from universal norms of politeness but more from culture-specific values and attitudes.

Suszczyn�ska, M. (2005). Apology routine formulae in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 52(1), 77-116.

This paper describes the forms and functions of Hungarian apology routine formulae (RF) used by Hungarian adults in a written Discourse Completion Test. Five apology RF types are identified, their choices being influenced by such factors as the offence type and its severity, the social role of the interlocutor and the offender's gender. Two main apology RF types, Ne haragudj `Don't be angry' and Eln�z�st `Excuse me' are shown to perform complementary communicative functions of restoring harmony in familiar vs. unfamiliar settings. Gender differences in the use of RF types present on various levels of analysis demonstrate that males and females choose different ways to restore social harmony and may attach importance to different aspects of the context.

Takaku, S., Weiner, B., & Ohbuchi, K. I. (2001). A crosscultural examination of the effect of apology and perspective taking on forgiveness. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 20(1-2), 144-166. doi:10.1177/0261927X01020001007

Guided by Robinson’s general belief that polite language yields trust from others, the authors examined the likelihood of apology acceptance in two cultures (Japan and the United States).Prior to reading a scenario in which they were to imagine being mistreated by their classmates, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three perspective-taking conditions: (a) recall times when they mistreated or hurt others in the past; (b) imagine how the victimized classmate would think, feel, and behave in the scenario; or (c) imagine the situation as the personal victim. Participants then read the scenario, which was followed by an elaborate apology from the classmate. Results from both cultures indicated that, compared with the participants in the control condition, the participants in the recall-self-as-wrongdoer condition were significantly more likely to accept the apology from the classmate and forgive the transgression. Expected and unexpected cultural differences also were found.

Tanaka, N. (1999). Would you apologize when you are not responsible? Unpublished paper presented at the AILA Congress, Tokyo.

Reports on a research study that was conducted with 131 Japanese university students. They were given a discourse completion task with eight situations, and were asked what they would say to the other person who was annoyed with a time-related matter. Among other things, she compared apologizing for a situation in which the complaining person was mainly responsible for the problem and one in which external circumstances were mainly responsible. In the latter cases they were far more likely to use a form that marked their utterance as an apology in Japanese.

Tateyama, Y. (2001). Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 200-222). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Studies the effects of explicit and implicit instruction in the use of attention getters, expressions of gratitude, and apologies to beginning students of Japanese as a foreign language. The groups received treatments four times over an 8-week period, with the treatment for the explicit group (N=13) including explicit metapragmatic information, whereas that for the implicit group (N=14) withheld it. Participants engaged in role-play and multiple-choice tasks as well as two different forms of self-report (retrospective verbal report from the students and the raters' comments as well). There were no differences between the two groups in the multiple-choice and role-play tasks. However, close examination of the errors in the multiple-choice tasks indicated that the participants in the explicit group were more successful in choosing the correct answers in items that required higher formality of the linguistic expressions. It seems that these participants benefited from explicit teaching on how the degree of indebtedness in thanking situations, the severity of offense in the apology contexts, and such factors as age social status, and in-group/out-group distinction intricately influence the choice of routine formulas. This suggests that some aspects of interlanguage pragmatics are teachable to beginners before they develop analyzed second language knowledge.

Trosborg, A. (1987). Apology strategies in natives/nonnatives. Journal of Pragmatics 11(2), 147-167. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(87)90193-7

The researcher noted that learners of a foreign language could be proficient in grammar and vocabulary, but still fail to communicate effectively because they lacked social-appropriateness rules as well as linguistic realization rules for conveying their intended communicative acts. This study of the speech act of apology analyzed the sociopragmatic competence in terms of the selection of appropriate apology strategies in a given social context among Danish learners at three levels of English compared to native speaker performance. The paper was divided into two parts: (1) an outline of apology strategies, and (2) an analysis of native/non-native communicative behavior in terms of these strategies. The findings showed that sociopragmatic strategies were indeed transferred from one language to another but the frequency with which the seven main strategies (minimizing the degree of offence, acknowledgment of responsibility, explanation or account, expression of apology, offer of repair, promise of forbearance, and expressing concern for hearer) were selected revealed a deviation from the English native speakers’ norms for a number of strategies. When the performance of native speakers of English was compared to the performance of native speaker of Danish, no significant differences were found on the main strategies since the researcher contended that the two countries shared similar cultures. Hence, negative transfer from the L1 would not be likely to cause major deviations from the norm in the choice of strategies when apologizing in the L2, but nevertheless had some impact all the same. In sum, the author’s extensive analysis of apologies found no substantial differences among the three participating proficiency groups (intermediate, low advanced, and high advanced). The biggest difference she observed was that most proficient learners used more modality markers. Trosborg also noticed that lack of linguistic proficiency prevented learners from providing substantial explanations comparable with the native speakers’.

Uehara, E. (1993). The role of uptake in speech acts. The Journal of the Tokyo International University, 47, 73-83.

Austin (1962) defined uptake as the understanding of the meaning and the force of the locution. So while perlocutionary force is whether or not the speech act achieved its purpose, uptake is not just understanding the meaning but also understanding the intent of the speaker. The hearer may understand the message (uptake) but reject it, misunderstand the message (unsuccessful uptake), or not understand it at all (no uptake).

Vollmer, H. J., & Olshtain, E. (1989). The language of apologies in German. �In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 197-218). Norwood, N. J.: Ablex.

Warga, M., & Sch�lmberger, U. (2007). The acquisition of French apologetic behaviour in a study abroad context. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(2), 221�252. doi:10.1515/IP.2007.012

Research in interlanguage pragmatics and sociolinguistics has suggested that foreign language learners have difficulties in reaching higher levels of pragmatic and sociolinguistic competence without receiving specific instruction or without spending some time in the target speech community (Dewaele 2002; Warga 2004). The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of a period of immersion in the target language community on the pragmatic development of foreign language learners of French in the area of apologies. The study, thus, adds to the scarce body of literature on pragmatic development in general and on the pragmatics of French as an L2 in particular. The participants in this longitudinal study are seven Austrian learners of French who studied at the Universit� de Montr�al in Quebec for a period of ten months. Base-line data elicited from native speakers (NSs) of Quebecois French and NSs of Austrian German are also analyzed. The methods of data collection include a four-item discourse completion task designed to elicit the speech act of apology and a questionnaire completed before and after the year abroad. The analysis reveals that while some aspects of apologetic behavior approximate the Quebecois French NS norm over time spent in the target language community (e.g., decrease of Justifications), other aspects remain unaffected by the exposure (e.g., frequency of IFIDs) or even shift away from the L2 norm (e.g., increase in the use of two upgraders). Overall, a coexistence of target-like and non-target-like developments was observed in the data. Moreover, many of the features investigated were found to develop in a non-linear�rather than linear�fashion. It is, therefore, suggested that future studies in the field take a more dynamic perspective in order to obtain a fuller understanding of the path of pragmatic development.

Wouk, F. (2006). The language of apologizing in Lombok Indonesia. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(9), 1457-1486. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.011

This paper examines the speech act of apologizing in Lombok, Indonesia, based on discourse completion task (DCT) data. In particular, it looks at the type of apology term used, and at the types of upgrading used, in different situations. Comparisons are made with published results of choice of apology term and use of upgrading in other cultures. Some findings include: Lombok Indonesians are shown to prefer requests for forgiveness, and not to use other apology terms. Use of upgrading varies both with nature of offense and with nature of relationship, but little difference is seen between genders. Where difference does occur, males proved more likely than females to use solidarity oriented upgrading. Patterns in the use of upgrading sometimes paralleled those found in other studies: deference strategies were used with higher status addressees, while solidarity strategies were used with social intimates. However, often usage reflected particular conventions of Lombok Indonesian society, and could not be explained in terms of the same factors as had proved relevant in other studies.

Yanagiya, K. (1992). Investigating communication competence: Contrasting speech acts across cultures -- the case of "apologies." Bulletin of the English Literature Department (pp. 105-128), Teikyo University, Tokyo.

The author raises the question of whether routine (not "heartfelt") apologies really express regret. When might they be considered insincere, infelicitous? Or are they not apologies at all but simply share the forms? This is considered exacerbated with Japanese where apologies are not so much an expression of regret as an expression of sumanasa, mooshiwakenasa and oime -- the feelings of inexcusableness and indebtedness. His point is that speech acts are not clear-cut entities but rather overlap or fade into each other. The features of the core, prototypical cases may be said to be universal. Even though it may seem like dominance, social distance, and severity of offense are universal in defining the character of a situation, the formality of the occasion in Japanese may change the forms of the utterances even when other factors are kept constant (119). The author also points out that in Japanese apologies are frequently nonverbal -- just hanging down one's head without saying a word, possibly with tears in the eyes. The author reminds us of the Hymes grid and would apply it to analyzing the speech act (setting, participants, goals, act sequence (form of the message), tone, language variety, norms of interaction, and genre. She then makes the case that Japanese society which is group oriented, genuinely values apologizing to show that one is indeed indebted, "By showing that one subscribes to the same conventional norms which presupposes role and rank relationship, and thereby proving that one shares the same sense of values and is content with it, one can alleviate the threat towards the other's (weighted) face" (p. 123). Hence, in Japan apologizing generally isn't done so as a strategy for recovering balance among status-equals. She points out that "apologies" and "thanks" overlap in a continuum: yorokobi 'pleasure,' arigatasa 'gratitude,' oime 'indebtedness,' kyooshuku 'embarrassment,' mooshiwakenasa 'inexusableness,' jiseki 'guilt,' and ikan 'regret.' Kinodokuna koto-o shita and variants can be used for both "apology" and "sympathy" (the hearer's misfortune) or consideration (omoiyari). She notes that not everyone can say sumimasen. It is not used towards a child nor from a child to others. To a child we say arigatoo and gomenne. With elders, araigatoo gozaimashita and moodhowake gozaimasendeshita are appropriate. So with children, persons of higher status, and intimate friends, expressions of gratitude and regret are used. With non-intimate persons of same rank, expressions of indebtedness are used. So the paper is essentially non-empirical, and rather based on native speaker intuitions.

Garc�a, C. (2009). The performance of a rapport-challenging act (blaming) by Peruvian Spanish speakers. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture, 5(2), 197-222.

This paper aimed to study how Peruvian subjects blamed the interlocutor throughout the interaction. It analyzed the subjects’ basic assumptions and values when blaming by examining how their behavioral expectations were expressed, what types of face were respected or threatened, and what interactional goals were selected by the participants. It also analyzed the participation of Peruvian Spanish speakers in a rapport-challenging situation exhibiting social distance, strong power differential among interlocutors and high damage received by the participant. Gender differences and similarities were also considered. Data were collected in 2006 using subjects in a role-play scenario. Subjects included twenty adults, 10 males and 10 females. All were native Spanish speakers from Lima, Peru. The group was diverse in terms of education and occupation, including members of the middle-middle and upper-middle classes. All role-plays were taped and transcribed. The analysis of the data showed that subjects went through three defined stages: investigating the situation, rebuttal of the interlocutor’s explanation, and finishing up the interaction. Male and female differences were found throughout these stages. In addition, findings revealed that participants started and developed the interaction maintaining a rapport-challenging orientation in their pursuit of transactional goals and violated the interlocutor’s identity and respectability face. At the end of the interaction, participants showed a rapport-maintenance orientation. Also, they continued violating the equity principle like they did throughout the interaction but in a lesser degree.

Abdolrezapour, P., Dabaghi, A., & Kassaian, Z. (2012). Iranian EFL learners' realization of complaints in American English. Gema-online (Journal of language studies), 12(2), 711-725. [Available online]

This study aims to examine how Iranian EFL learners perceive complaining utterances produced by Americans in 4 asymmetrical situations. The main focus of the study is on perceptive data elicited from Iranian informants (male vs. female) with respect to the using of such strategies. Role-play interactions taken from 10 American speakers and a perceptive questionnaire constructed based on the interactions were used to collect the required data. Results of the questionnaire showed that more indirect complaints were perceived as more polite by EFL learners. Furthermore, social variables of power and distance made a difference in the degree of politeness perceived; Iranians (irrespective of their genders) were more concerned about the social power of the complainee than the social distance between the interlocutors. Subjects' gender did not have significant relationship with how the participants assessed the politeness degree of complaints.

Arent, R. (1996). Sociopragmatic decisions regarding complaints by Chinese learners and NSs of American English. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 125-147.

An exploratory study that compares the relative frequency of the performance and avoidance of oral complaints by 22 Chinese learners and 12 native speakers of American English. Respondents asked to respond to three problematic situations that were set in the same university housing complex. Audiotaped roleplays, interview data on perceived situational seriousness, and verbal report data were obtained. Respondents were allowed to opt out, and effects of social distance, power, and type of social contract controlled for. Found that sociopragmatic decision making for Chinese learners and NSs of American English appears to be associated with individual perceptions of situational seriousness and with culturally-conditioned perceptions of the flexibility of explicit social contracts. In the car being towed situation, the Chinese learners saw it as more serious than the Americans did. The numerous limitations of the study are listed (138).

Bol�var, A. (2002). Los reclamos como actos de habla en el espa�ol de Venezuela. In M.E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 37-53). Munich, Germany: LINCOM Europa.

This study analyzes different complaint strategies used in Venezuelan Spanish in two different contexts (private and public arena). Fifty Venezuelan university females, ages 18-25, were surveyed utilizing a discourse completion task. Their responses were analyzed and classified into 3 types of strategies (alerters, directives, and evaluators). The results reveal the influence that social factors (i.e., distance, power, social arena) have on strategy choice. In the private sector complaint (breaking a promise to a friend), the most commonly used strategy was warning (No vuelvo a prestarte mi carro), followed by a personal complaint (T� eres irresponsable). There were no instances of request for repair. However, in the public complaint (a stranger's dog defecating on the lawn), a request for repair (H�game el favor y lo limpia) was the most common strategy. Other strategies used in this situation include alerters (disculpa se�ora) and moral instruction (Educa un poco mejor a tu perro). Detailed examples of the various uses of these strategies are given.

Bonikowska, M. P. (1998). The choice of opting out. Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 169-181. doi:10.1093/applin/9.2.169

Pragmatic research dealing with speech acts has invariably focused on analysing the speaker's performance of speech acts (strategies employed, factors affecting speech-act performance, etc.). This paper argues for including the analysis of the ‘opting out’ choice (the speaker's decision not to perform a speech act) into the realm of pragmatic study. The opting out choice is as much a pragmatic choice as any strategic choice employed in speech-act performance, made through activating the same components of pragmatic knowledge. Analysing reasons for opting out reported by speakers can help validate claims about conditions for speech acts and factors influencing speech-act performance. The data presented to illustrate the point come from the study of the speech act of complaining.

Boxer, D. (1993). Complaining and commiserating: A speech act view of solidarity in spoken American English. NY: Peter Lang.

Studies 295 interlocutors, producing 533 indirect complaints. An indirect complaint is defined as a negative evaluation wherein the addressee is not held responsible for the perceived offense (i.e., griping); the expression of dissatisfaction to an interlocutor about a speaker himself/herself or someone/something that is not present. ICs are frequently employed in an attempt to establish rapport or solidarity between interlocutors (pp. 2-3). Ch. 2 describes 3 types of IC themes (personal, impersonal, other -- trivial) followed by 6 types of IC responses (nothing or topic switch, question, contradiction, joke/teasing, advice/lecture, commiseration). Then the chapter analyzes supportive and neutral exchanges. Ch. 3 (71 ff) deals with gender, social status, social distance, and theme. Ch. 4 relates ICs to the norms of the community. Half of interlocutors were Jewish (Boxer's circle of friends), so possible to investigate ethnicity. Nine out of 10 strongly agreed that Jews complain more -- part of ethnicity (pp. 133-137). Ch. 5 focuses on what the learner needs to know about complaining and commiserating (147-166). E.g., NNSs need to know that commiserating with complaints is important -- being supportive. This builds solidarity. Ch. 6 gives the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study. For example with respect to gender, women mostly commiserated with ICs, while men contradicted or gave advice. Points out that ESL textbooks do not include ICs or include them but don't treat them as ICs.

Boxer, D. (1993). Complaints as positive strategies: What the learner needs to know. TESOL Quarterly, 27(2), 277-299.

Studies indirect complaint + commiseration (griping) in conversations between Japanese learners of English as an L2 and their E1 peers. An indirect complaint is defined as the expression of dissatisfaction about oneself or someone/something that is not present. The addressee is neither held responsible nor capable of remedying the perceived offense. Natives use indirect complaints as a positive strategy for establishing points of commonality. Researcher used spontaneous speech or field notes. 295 interlocutors were recorded in spontaneous conversation (195 women and 100 men). The issue that emerged was that of how to respond to an indirect complaint. Natives used joking/teasing, nonsubstantive reply ("hmn"), question, advice/lecture, contradiction, and commiseration. With NSs most responses were commiseration with some questioning. For NNSs, the major category was nonsubstantive, then with some questioning and some commiseration. The author suggests that the Japanese ESL learners are missing out on opportunities for conversation by not engaging in the interaction more fully -- utilizing talk more the way NSs do.

Boxer, D. (1993). Social distance and speech behaviour: The case of indirect complaints. Journal of Pragmatics 19(2), 103-125. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(93)90084-3

This paper discusses speech-act research with specific reference to Wolfson's ‘Bulge’ theory of social distance. The theory maintains that most solidarity-establishing speech behavior takes place among status-equal friends and acquaintances. Wolfson built her theory on evidence from data collected on two speech acts: compliments and invitations. Counterevidence is given here on another rapport-inspiring speech-act sequence termed indirect complaints/commiseration. Indirect complaining/commiserating is described in detail with specific reference to the effect of the variable of social distance on its distribution. The way in which indirect complaints and commiserative responses pattern out along the social distance continuum indicates that the characteristic Bulge is not in the middle (among friends and acquaintances) but is always skewed toward one end of the continuum (strangers) or the other (intimates). In contradistinction to the way in which compliments and invitations appear to be socially distributed with reference to social distance, commiseration occurs almost as frequently among strangers as it does among friends. The conclusion to be drawn is that some rapport-inspiring speech behaviors occur almost as frequently among interlocutors of extreme social distance as they do among friends and acquaintances.

Boxer, D. (1996). Ethnographic interviewing as a research tool in speech act analysis: The case of complaints. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 217-239). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Reports on baseline findings on rules for the realization and underlying social strategies of a specific speech act set sequence. She endorses ethnographic interviewing as a way of tapping the norms of the communities both in research on speech act usage among native speakers in particular languages and research on non-native speaker pragmatic transfer. In this chapter, she discussed the results of 2 sets of interviews, one of which was structured and one of which was open-ended, which were designed to evaluate "troubles-telling" (indirect complaining designed for sharing mutual sentiment) in a group of native speakers. Her goal in the studies was to tap not only sociolinguistic knowledge that was explicit, but knowledge that was tacit in the "naive" respondents. There were ten informants who were students, staff, faculty members, or alumni at a large university in the northeastern U.S., all of Jewish background. [It appears that the subjects were the same for both interview sets, but Boxer interwove information in such a way that it was difficult to follow exactly what pertained to what interview process.] The spontaneous speech data consisted of 533 troubles-telling exchanges that were tape recorded or recorded in field notes. Six major categories of responses emerged as ways in which this speech community responded to indirect complaints: 1) response or topic switch, 2) questions, 3) contradiction, 4) joke/teasing, 5) advice/lecture, and 6) agreement/commiseration (a category which made up almost half the responses).

Boxer found that troubles-telling in this community was not so much negative as positive in nature, in that it was used to further conversation, build relationships, and establish solidarity. But Boxer also found that using the same questions with each of the subjects, as was done with the structured interview, was not the best idea because it inherently limited the depth of the subjects' responses. In the second (open-ended) interview, Boxer used a more open format, which allowed for expansion of ideas and greater flexibility of responses. It was easier to obtain more information about the assumptions and perceptions, which shaped the respondents' answers and ideas about troubles sharing. Boxer described the factors that made for a more ideal ethnographic interview, such as rapport with the subjects, having subjects who feel comfortable doing much of the talking, and following the lead of the subjects' narratives, rather than using preconceived questions formulated by the interviewer. Her findings revealed that in terms of troubles sharing, most respondents felt that while direct complaints qualify as "complaints," indirect complaints were not seen so much as complaining but rather a positive way of sharing mutual information and building relationships. Boxer found that more women participated in troubles-talk than men and were recipients of more indirect complaints because they were seen as "more supportive in general than men." While the explicit assumption about complaining was that it constitutes negative speech behavior, tacit assumptions proved otherwise.

Boxer, D., & Pickering, L. (1995). Problems in the presentation of speech acts in ELT materials: The case of complaints.� ELT Journal 49(1), 44�58.doi:10.1093/elt/49.1.44

This article surveys seven ELT texts that are organized around the teaching of functions in order to explicate several problems evident in their presentation of speech acts. A specific speech act sequence, that of complaint/commiseration, is the focus of the analysis. This speech behaviour is highlighted in order to demonstrate the mismatch between data from spontaneous speech, and data that is contrived through the native speaker intuitions of textbook developers. A first problem is that intuition about speech act realization often differs greatly from the way in which naturalistic speech patterns out. Second, it is demonstrated that important information on underlying social strategies of speech acts is often overlooked entirely. A sample lesson on complaining/commiserating based on spontaneous speech is offered, to draw a contrast with the lessons on complaining presented in the texts surveyed.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1993). The production of speech acts by EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 27(1), 33-56.

Reports on a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. The subjects, fifteen advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role-play along with a native speaker. The interactions were videotaped and after each set of two situations of the same type, the videotape was played back and then the respondents were asked both fixed and probing questions regarding the factors contributing to the production of their responses in those situations. The retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three languages (if trilingual), utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar nor to pronunciation. Finally, there were respondents whose speech production styles characterized them as "metacognizers," "avoiders," and "pragmatists" respectively.

Du, J. S. (1995). Performance of face-threatening acts in Chinese: Complaining, giving bad news, and disagreeing. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 165-206). Manoa, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press.

Gives a definition of three face-threatening acts, complaining, giving bad news, and disagreeing, and discusses the illocutionary verbs which denote these acts and the semantics of face in Chinese culture. According to Du, in Chinese culture face is socially oriented and reciprocal, and as such requires some method of maintaining "face balance." The act of giving bad news may in some cases be face-saving, depending on the relationship between the interlocutors and the nature of the message. However, complaining (which indicates that the person's behavior is not approved or accepted by other social members) and disagreeing (which indicates a contradiction or negative evaluation of a person's face) are in most cases, clearly face-threatening. Therefore these acts require some strategy for preserving the lian/mianzi (face) of both interlocutors. Du conducted a study with thirty students (male and female) from Beijing Normal University ranging from 19 to 30 years old. Du explored the three speech acts listed above using a 19-item questionnaire that described face-threatening situations and asked each subject to contemplate the situation and write his/her response. The results showed that strategy choice varied according to the referential goal and the nature of the interlocutor relationship, but a general pattern could be noted: face-threatening acts in Chinese tend to be performed "in a cooperative rather than confrontational manner. By emphasizing common ground and constructive problem solutions, attention is paid to both participants' lian and mianzi."

Frescura, M. A. (1993). A sociolinguistic comparison of "reactions to complaints": Italian L1 vs. English L1, Italian L2, and Italian as a community language (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Graduate Department of Education, University of Toronto, Toronto.

Discusses role-play data on reactions to complaints (mostly apologies) that were tape-recorded from native Italian speakers in Italy, native English speakers in Canada, Italians residing in Canada, and English-Canadian learners of Italian (N=83). After being tape-recorded in six role-play interactions, the respondents were asked to listen to all six recordings and to provide retrospective verbal report on (a) how close to real life they felt their performance to be, (b) how dominant they felt their interlocutor was, (c) their sensitivity to the severity of the offense and to the tone of the complaint, and (for Italians in Canada and learners of Italian) (d) their possible linguistic difficulties. The data were coded according to a taxonomy comprising seven semantic formulas in two categories: hearer-supportive (including formulas providing gratification and support for the "face" of the complainers) and self-supportive (including formulas uttered by the speakers to defend and protect their own "face"). Performance was measured according to the three dimensions of production (total output of formulas, including repetitions), selection (types of formulas used, excluding repetitions), and intensity of formulas produced. Native speakers of Italian had an overall preference for the self-supportive category of formulas, while native speakers of English had a preference for the hearer-supportive category. Learners of Italian did not indicate any preference, while Italian-Canadian speakers, though diverging some from the native norm, gave indication of language maintenance as well. Frescura's use of verbal report helped her establish, among other things, that the learners of Italian tended to think in English first before responding to the role plays.

Kumagai, T. (2004). The role of repetition in complaint conversations. In P. Szatrowski (Ed.), Hidden and open conflict in Japanese conversational interaction (pp. 199-220). Tokyo: Kurosio.

The author defined complaint conversations as conversations that involve two parties with distinct communicative orientations, the complainer and the complainee. She asserted that complaint conversations are distinguished from quarrels in that the former involves an effort by the complainee to minimize the confrontation while with the latter, the two confront each other on a par. In the chapter Kumagai focused on two complaint conversations and discussed how the repetition of utterances within such conversations functions as a conversational strategy to 1) express emotions (complainer expresses negative feelings and disapproval, complainee regret and disagreement), 2) deal with the complaint situation effectively as a complainer or complainee (complainer: intensification of reproach, maintaining stance by adding utterances, sarcasm using complainee’s words; complainee: repeating apologies, stalling/diverting the complaint), 3) provide rhetoric for argument (complainer: holding the floor by speaking fluently and adding utterances, controlling the topic of the complaint; complainee: reorienting the conversation to a solution, closing the conversation), and 4) manipulate the conversational development. In particular the author focused on uses of repetition, both exact repetition as well as modified repetition or paraphrase, of utterances made earlier in the same conversation. She supported Tannen’s (1989) claim that repetition is a major means for creating speaker involvement and not merely a matter of redundancy. She took the two conversations from a corpus she collected earlier (1991-2). In the first conversation the complainer was a male shopkeeper in downtown Tokyo and the complainee a male university student attempting to conduct a survey. The complainee’s mother and wife also participated in an effort to keep the peace when the shopkeeper returned to the shop to find the student there after he had told him he could not do his survey there. In the second conversation, one teenage girl was accusing the other of being later for their appointment.

M�rquez Reiter, R (2005). Complaint calls to a caregiver service company: The case of desahogo. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(4), 481-513.

The study analyzed pragmatic strategies used by Uruguayan (Montevidean) custormers and service representatives during complaint calls to a caregiver company. More specifically, it explored aspects of the interactional behavior by analyzing the pragmatic strategies adopted by callers in constructing their complaints and those by call-takers in responding to them with special attention to the expression of ‘desahogo’ � a self disclosure pragmatic strategy used by callers when they realized that they had been unsuccessful in obtaining their main transactional goal. Data presented in this study was based on 15 telephone conversations recorded in 2002 by one of the largest companies in Uruguay. The median call length was nine minutes. Results indicated that the pragmatic strategies reflected the Uruguayan socio-cultural reality in which venting to a complete stranger appeared to be a socially accepted behavior. Also, the author noted that these strategies reflected the country’s lagging provision of consumers’ rights. Thus, in the context of desahogo in complaints, it functioned as a verbal avenue through which interlocutors expressed their frustration about the service received, even if remedial action was unlikely to occur. The author pointed out that in the study context desahogo was explained by: “1) a shared cultural understanding of the type and amount of personal information considered to be appropriate and/or inappropriate to disclose in task-oriented interactions with complete strangers; and 2) Uruguay’s developing socio-economic infrastructure, which does not yet fully safeguard consumers’ rights.”

Morrow, C. K. (1996). The pragmatic effects of instruction on ESL learners’ production of complaint and refusal speech acts (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). State University of New York, Buffalo. [Available Online]

A case study of intermediate-level, English-as-a-Second-Language students was conducted to investigate the capacity of formal speech-act instruction to promote pragmatic development in the production of two problematic speech acts: refusals and complaints. The subjects (n = 20) consisted of 9 females and 11 males enrolled in two spoken English classes in an intensive English language program in the U.S. Their countries of origin were: Japan (7), Korea (4), Columbia (4), and other (5). The instructional intervention lasted three and one-half hours and included the use of model dialogues, prescribed speech-act formulae, and various types of performance activities (e.g., games and roleplaying). Oral data were collected prior to, following, and six months after the intervention by means of seven semi-structured role-play tasks which prompted subjects to perform three direct complaints and four refusals with peer interlocutors. The data were analyzed using (a) holistic ratings of clarity and politeness, and (b)comparisons of the pretest and posttest distributions of discourse features with those of native-English-speaking controls (n = 14). T-tests comparing the pooled pretest and posttest holistic scores revealed improvements in subjects' levels of clarity and politeness which were significant at $p\le .005$. Similar comparisons of the posttest and delayed posttest scores did not attain statistical significance ($p< .05$). The refusal analyses of discourse features (viz., semantic formulae) revealed increases in the use of politeness strategies, especially of negative politeness strategies. Frequently these developmental changes appeared pragmatically appropriate even when they failed to converge toward the native speaker frequencies. Analyses of propositions and modifiers in the complaint data revealed gains in pragmatic competence which were indicated by such changes as increased indirectness, more complete explanations, and fewer explicit statements of dissatisfaction. These results, which corroborated the findings from the holistic ratings, suggested that speech-act instruction helped the subjects to perform complaints and refusals which were clearer, more polite, and, to a limited extent, more nativelike. Additional intra-task comparisons found that higher levels of pragmatic competence were achieved when the interlocutor's level of social distance was lower (i.e., friends as opposed to acquaintances).

Mulamba, K. (1991). Apologizing and complaining in Ciluba, French, and English: Speech act performance by trilingual speakers in Zaire (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Most studies of pragmatic aspects of language learning have dealt mainly with two languages, a native language and a second or foreign language. None of these studies has investigated a multilingual situation where there is interaction among three different languages spoken by one person. Neither have they dealt with an African language as the first language.The present study was designed to discover the norms of the three languages under investigation and to see how people speaking a second and a foreign language, with different levels of fluency in each, can participate in the activity of the speech communities of the two languages without violating their socio-cultural norms, and what impact, if any, their knowledge of these languages has on each of the languages they speak.Data was elicited from monolingual English and French speakers and trilingual speakers native in Ciluba by written questionnaire, and from monolingual Ciluba speakers by oral interview. In addition, naturally occurring speech acts and TV dialogue were considered. It was found that for the speech acts of apologizing, complaining, and complimenting, Ciluba socio-cultural norms are different from those of English and French, which are similar to each other. In contrast to the socio-cultural norms of French and English, in Ciluba, social distance and relative power between the participants played an important role in deciding whether one of the three speech acts was to be performed or not. However, the results also revealed that, despite the difference in norms which exists between Ciluba and the other two languages, i.e., French and English, some subjects from the group of Ciluba monolingual speakers showed some similarities with the groups of French and English monolingual speakers in their responses to some items in the questionnaire. This deviation from the norms of their native Ciluba was hypothesized to be a result of their contact with the urban environment and its mixed culture.It was also discovered that the trilingual speakers (who were native in Ciluba) used in French and English pattern of address which is not used by native English and French speakers.

Murphy, B., &. Neu, J. (1996). My grade's too low: The speech act set of complaining. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu(Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in second language (pp. 191-216). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer.

Begins by providing a background about communicative competence and an overview of some of the issues covered in research on speech act production and speech act acceptability judgments. (They cited the work of Austin, Searle, Manes, Wolfson, D'Amico-Reisner, & Huber, Cohen & Olshtain, van Dijk, and Ferrara.) The authors then described their own study which had two objectives: 1) to compare components of the speech act set (of complaining) produced by U.S. American native speakers and Korean non-native speakers of English, and 2) to ascertain how these speech act sets were judged by native speakers based on a number of factors (such as whether the act is aggressive, respectful, credible, appropriate, and similar to what a native would use). For the productive part of the study, the subjects were 14 male U.S. American and 14 male Korean graduate students from Penn State University. Twenty-three undergraduate and 4 graduate students (for a total of 27) participated in the receptive part of the study, judging the acceptability of the speech act sets. The speech act data were collected via an oral discourse completion task. A hypothetical situation was presented in which the subject was placed in the position of a student whose paper had been unfairly marked and the subjects were directed to "go speak to the professor." The subjects' response was recorded by tape recorder. The instrument in the acceptability judgment part of the study was a questionnaire with 10 yes-no questions and one open-ended question. Five of the yes-no questions were "distractor items" and the other 5 were designed to measure the native speakers' perceptions about the speech act acceptability. The open-ended question asked, "If you were the student in this situation, would your approach be different from the student you've just heard? Please explain you answer for both speaker-student 1 and speaker-student 2." Each subject was alone during the discourse completion task and his/her data were later transcribed into written form. The speech data elicited for the first part of the study were examined using Cohen and Olshtain's (1981) definition of speech act set. A .05 alpha level of significance was set for a Chi-square analysis of the U.S. American students' responses to the five yes-no questions (which were not distractors) and the Yate's Correction for Continuity was used to analyze all differences between responses.

The results showed that when expressing disapproval about a grade received on a paper to a professor, most U.S. American native speakers would produce a complaint speech act set, while most Korean non-native speakers (11 out of 14) would not. Both native and non-native speakers used an "explanation of purpose" to begin the speech act set in similar ways. The native speakers then produced a complaint only after the explanation of purpose. This complaint appeared to be what most of these native speakers felt was the most socially appropriate option for expressing disapproval. The act involved: acceptance of responsibility, depersonalization of the problem, questioning techniques that used modals "would" and/or "could," use of mitigators, and use of the pronoun "we." The 11 non-native speakers who did not use a complaint form employed what was perceived by native speakers as a form of criticism instead which: served to abdicate responsibility, personalized the problem (placed blame), and involved using the modal "should." This represented a serious deviation from the native speakers' speech data. Both the native and non-native speakers then used similar types of "justifications" in their speech act sets, referring to amount of time, effort, and/or work put into the paper. Finally all of the native and most (12 out of 14) of the non-native speakers included a candidate solution: a request form in the speech act set in order to propose an option that would politely remedy the situation (such as reconsidering the grade, discussing the paper, or editing the paper further for an improved grade). As a result of the "criticism" form used by the many of the Korean non-native speakers, native speakers judged the non-native speakers' speech act sets to be more aggressive, less respectful, less credible, and less appropriate than the common "complaint" speech act sets offered by native speakers.

Nakabachi, K. (1996). Pragmatic transfer in complaints: Strategies of complaining in English and Japanese by Japanese EFL speakers. JACET Bulletin, 27, 127-142.

The speech act of complaining is examined cross-linguistically -- Japanese L1 vs. EFL by Japanese speakers. The study looked at whether Japanese EFL learners changed their strategies of complaint when they spoke in English, and if so, what the factors were affecting change. The subjects were 39 undergraduates with an intermediate level of proficiency in English but no experience living in English speaking countries. A discourse completion test was used, including eight situations. It was found that almost half of the subjects changed their speech strategies in English. Over a quarter used more severe expressions than natives did. This was interpreted as over-accommodation to the target language norms, and seemed to suggest the risk involved with attempting to adapt to the local sociocultural norms.

Olshtain, E., & Weinbach, L. (1985). Complaints: A study of speech act behavior among native and nonnative speakers of Hebrew. In J. Verschueren & M. Bertuccelli-Papi (Eds.), The pragmatic perspective: Selected papers from the 1985 international pragmatics conference (pp, 195-208). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Olshtain, E., & Weinbach, L. (1993). Interlanguage features of the speech act of complaining. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 108-122). New York: Oxford University Press.

Saito-Stehberger, D. (2010). Indirect complaints as a conversational strategy. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 141-159). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Tatsuki, D. H. (2000). If my complaints could passions move: An interlanguage study of aggression. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(7), 1003-1017. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00076-4

This study explores the use of the “Picture Frustration Test” (Rosenzweig, 1978) which is a psychological test to measure aggression to elicit complaints by Japanese students in both Japanese and English. A significant number of subjects responded to stress or frustration using the same direction of aggression in both languages but the type of aggression was different. In L1 it was extrapeditive, which is similar to Olshtain and Weinbach's (1993) expression of annoyance or disapproval, severity level 1. However, in L2 it was extrapersistive, which is similar to Olshtain and Weinbach's accusation and warning, level 4 or 5. In the case of one situation, there was an effect for order of language.

Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage pragmatics: requests, complaints, and apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Achugar, M. (2001). Piropos as metaphors for gender roles in Spanish speaking cultures. Pragmatics, 11(02), 127-37.

Achugar analyzes piropos as metaphors for gender roles as well as speech events. The article explores their use historically as well as their evolution in the Spanish-speaking world. Specific contextual and formulaic constraints for performing piropos are analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that piropo topics tend to center around food, movement, chivalry, and divinity. Traditionally, piropos were seen as compliments, but as the nature of piropos and the role of women change, piropos seem to be perceived as more offensive by women. The author discusses the connection between men's linguistic choices for performing piropos and their view of, and relationship with, women. Achugar speculates on the continued use of piropos as compliments in Latin American as the role of women also continues to evolve.

Achugar, M. (2002). Piropos: Cambios en la valoraci�n del grado de cortes�a de una pr�ctica discursiva. In M.E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 175-92). Munich, Germany: LINCOM Europa.

Traditionally piropos have been categorized as polite compliments given by men to women in the public realm. They are often given anonymously without a response. This study analyzes the use of piropos in order to determine the standard by which piropos are considered polite or insulting by women as well as the social and linguistic variables that affect this perception. In order to gain insight into women's perspectives of the politeness of piropos, 23 Uruguayan women (ranging from 21 to 56 years of age) completed an interview discussing perceptions of piropos and rating various examples as more or less polite. Results show different politeness perceptions based on the topic of the piropo, age of the women, and other factors influencing the effect of the piropo (e.g., gestures, intention). Piropos that referred to the divinity or the braveness of the man were generally rated as more polite while those referring to food or movement were interpreted as less polite, sexual in tone, and an invasion of privacy. Furthermore, piropos were generally considered more polite by women as they increased in age. The author asserts that many of these politeness perceptions are influenced by the society in which the participants live and the changing roles of men and women.

Al Falasi, H. (2007). Just say “Thank You”: a study of compliment responses. The Linguistics Journal, 2(1), 28-42. [Available online]

This study aims at finding out whether Arabic learners of English (Emarati Females in particular) produce target-like compliment responses in English and whether pragmatic transfer can occur. Discourse completion tests (DCTs) and interviews were used to study the strategies employed when responding to compliments by native speakers (NSs) and Arabic non-native speakers (NNSs) of English. Findings suggest that Arabic (L1) expressions and strategies were sometimes transferred to English (L2). This study also indicates that Emarati female learners of English transfer some of their L1 pragmatic norms to L2 because they perceive these norms to be universal among languages rather than being language specific. It also indicates that Arabic NNSs of English have some misconceptions about NSs that affect the way they respond to their compliments. Some important cultural and pedagogical implications are discussed at the end of the paper.

Alba-Juez, L. (2001). Some discourse strategies used to convey praise and/or positive feelings in Spanish everyday conversations. In H. Campos, E. Herburger, A. Morales-Front, & T. J. Walsh (Eds.), Hispanic Linguistics and the Turn of the Millennium: Papers from the 3rd Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 364-80). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

In this work, the author analyses instances of positive irony in Peninsular (PnS) and Argentinean (AS) Spanish. She notes that, as opposed to the traditional negative use of irony in English, the combination of affirming the interlocutor's positive face and using irony is very often utilized to offer praise in Spanish. This use of irony is often linguistically marked (e.g., PnS: Menuda or diminutive; AS: castigar). Furthermore, the use of profanity is very common. A number of strategies are employed to achieve this positive irony. These include: opposite position of literal utterance, adj + ‘menuda’, diminutives, joking, insults, understatements, superlatives, exaggerations, If p, then q = not p, echo thought, prosodic features, pretending, and contradicting. Examples and analysis of each strategy are given.

Barnlund D. C., & Araki, S. (1985). Intercultural encounters: The management of compliments by Japanese and Americans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 16(1), 9-26.

An interview with 56 participants (20 Americans in the US, 18 Japanese in the US, and 18 Japanese in Japan) revealed that the Americans gave compliments much more frequently than the Japanese � Americans reported to have given a compliment in the previous 1.6 days whereas Japanese had only done so in the previous 13 days. Some of the findings: most frequently praised features were appearance and personal traits among Americans and acts, work/study, and appearance among Japanese. American used a wider range of adjectives than Japanese who used fewer adjectives and adjectives with less of a range in meaning. In responding to compliments, Americans tended to accept compliments or justify or extend them; Japanese questioned their accuracy, denied them, explained the reason why they were not deserved, or responded by smiling or saying nothing at all. The closer the relationship was, the more frequently Americans gave compliments, while Japanese were less likely to offer praise. Female speakers in both cultures were more likely to give and receive compliments. The authors also report their findings from a questionnaire given to 260 Japanese and 260 American participants. Although preferred strategies of expressing admiration were similarly indirect among both the American and Japanese participants, Japanese preferred noting one’s own limitations twice as much as Americans and relied on non-verbal communication much more frequently. Americans preferred giving praise to a third party twice as much as Japanese. Some other findings are in relation to gender, topic focus, and communicative partners.

Barnlund, D. C., & Araki, S. (1985). Intercultural encounters: The management of compliments by Japanese and Americans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 16(1), 9-26.  doi:10.1177/0022002185016001002

Two types of inquiry were used to explore the norms governing the management of compliments in Japan and the United States. The first, a semistructured interview, revealed great differences in the frequency of complimenting behavior and in the hierarchy of attributes praised. Incidents from these interviews were used to construct a Complimentary Mode Questionnaire that was then administered to larger samples of Japanese and Americans. The resulting data indicated there were highly significant differences in the reported praising behavior of members of the two cultures. These differences appeared with regard to the status of communicative partners and with regard to the attributes admired. No sex differences were found. When the Japanese were expected to prefer more indirect forms of praise they also showed greater preference for many direct forms; when Americans were expected to prefer more direct forms of praise, they showed surprising preference for indirect forms. The relations of these patterns to other cultural variables and their implications for interaction between the two cultures are suggested.

Billmyer, K. (1990). "I really like your lifestyle": ESL learners learning how to compliment. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 6(2), 31-48. [Available online]

A study investigated the effect of classroom instruction in giving compliments on actual encounters between native and non-native speakers of English. Production of compliments and replies to compliments were compared in two nine-member groups of Japanese learners of English as a Second Language, one group receiving six hours of formal instruction in the rules of complimenting in American English and the other given no instruction on this topic. Interaction in conversation with native English-speakers studying Japanese was observed. Several measures of learner performance of compliments were used, including: frequency of occurrence of norm-appropriate compliments; level of spontaneity (speaker-initiated, task-related spontaneous, and addressee-induced); level of appropriateness; well-informedness of utterance; and adjectival repertoire. Replies to compliments were evaluated by reply type and its effect on the interaction, and length of reply. On five of seven measures, subjects in the tutored group showed complimenting behavior more closely approximating native speaker norms than subjects in the untutored group, supporting the idea that formal classroom instruction in social rules of language can assist learners in communicating appropriately and meaningfully with native speakers. A 44-item bibliography is included.

Bu, J. (2010). A study of pragmatic transfer in compliment response strategies by Chinese learners of English. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 1(2), 121-129. doi:10.4304/jltr.1.2.121-129

For decades, the first language culture influence on second language acquisition has fascinated researchers. Based on Giao Quynh Tran’s classification, this paper uses the naturalized role-play to conduct a research on pragmatic transfer in compliment responses strategies by Chinese learners of English. The data collected through the naturalized role-play are analyzed quantitatively between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups, and between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups. The research has concluded that the strategies which have� the statistically significant differences in terms of compliment response strategy use between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups are those strategies which have the close similarities in the respect of compliment response strategy use between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups. This conclusion has proven that there is, to some extent, pragmatic transfer in compliment response strategies by Chinese learners of English.

Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(1), 49�75. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(93)90106-Y

This paper reports a study on politeness strategies American English speakers and Chinese speakers use to respond to compliments. It has three aims: (1) to discover similarities and differences of politeness strategies between the two groups, (2) to provide empirical evidence for or against existing theories of linguistic politeness, and (3) to reveal differences of social values between the two cultures. The two groups were found to use largely different politeness strategies: the American English speakers' strategies are mostly motivated by Leech's Agreement Maxim, whereas the Chinese speakers' strategies are motivated by his Modesty Maxim. This difference isthen related to differences of social values between the two cultures, particularly in their respective beliefs about what constitutes self-image. The findings of this study point to some inadequacies of Brown and Levinson's (1987) model of politeness, since it cannot explain all strategies used by the two groups of subjects, particularly those used by the Chinese speakers. Gu's (1990) model, on the other hand, accounts for the Chinese data well, but cannot explain most of the American English speakers' strategies. Leech's (1983) Politeness Principle is shown to be the most adequate model to analyze the data of the present study.

Creese, A. (1991) Speech act variation in British and American English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 7(2). [Available online]

Comparisons of British English and American English in the past have concentrated on similarities and differences at the phonetic, semantic and syntactic level, while overlooking variation at the socio-cultural level.� This paper attempts first to investigate how cultural differences are reflected in five speech acts:� requesting, thanking, apologizing, complimenting and greeting.� It reports on the results of preliminary study in which eight Americans and four Britons were interviewed in order to elicit their perceptions concerning speech act differences between the two cultures.� Then the focus of the paper shifts to a more comprehensive analysis of on of the above speech acts, namely complimenting.� Compliment data was collected in both Britain and the United States and analyzed with a view to revealing differences and similarities in language use.� Results how that despite sharing an essentially common linguistic system, the rules for complimenting differ significantly cross culturally.� Given the current trends of teaching language and culture simultaneously and given that American and British dialects serve as models of language instruction throughout the world, it is argued that consideration be given to such differences by ESL textbook writers, teachers and students alike.

Daikuhara, M. (1986). A study of compliments from a cross-cultural perspective: Japanese vs. American English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 2(2), 103-134. [Available online]

115 compliment exchanges were collected in natural conversations by 50 native speakers of Japanese and analyzed in terms of age, gender, relationships, situations, and non-verbal cues. The most frequently used adjectives in the compliments were: ii ‘nice/good,’ sugoi ‘great,’ kirei ‘beautiful/clean,’ kawaii ‘pretty/ cute,’ oishii ‘good/delicious,’ and erai ‘great/deligent." The "I like/love NP" pattern never appeared in the data. Although there was a great similarity between compliments in Japanese and English (as was found by Wolfson, 1981) with regard to the praised attributes, in Japanese, compliments about one’s ability or performance (73%) or character (rather than one’s appearance) were common. While Americans praised their family members in public, the Japanese seldom complimented their spouses, parents, or children as this would be viewed as self-praise. Ninety-five percent of all responses to compliments fell into the "self-praise avoidance" category, which included rejection of the compliment (35%), smile or no response (27%), and questioning (13%). The author argues that compliments in Japanese seem to show the speaker’s deference to the addressee and this perhaps creates distance between the interlocutors. The addressee fills in this gap by rejecting or deflecting the compliment in order to sustain harmony between the interlocutors.

Dunham, P. (1992). Using compliments in the ESL classroom: An analysis of culture and gender. MinneTESOL Journal, 10, 75-85.

Reports on an informal study with 45 Southeast Asian high school students employing the complimenting strategy as outlined by Wolfson. The students in the study were instructed on how to maintain or continue the conversation based on the response of the addressee. The author reports that the feedback from the students concerning their use of complimenting and connecting was encouraging, and often resulted in an increased confidence in initiating and maintaining conversations with natives. The author describes a series of 10 techniques for teaching complimenting behavior (82-83): starts by checking out how it is done in the native culture, then in US, vocabulary phrase lists, student practice, role playing in pairs, teacher role play with students in front of class, projects where learners must compliment natives, reporting in next class, connecting techniques to lengthen conversation, paired interaction with complimenting and connecting techniques.

Furukawa, Y. (2000). "Home"no joukenni kansuru ichikousatsu (‘An observation on conditions for compliments’). Nihongo nihon bunka kenkyuu (Research on the Japanese Language and Culture), 10, 117-130.

The author illustrates through examples that compliments reflect not only sociocultural values but also personal values and standards, and defines the compliment in consideration of the recipient of the compliment and closeness and status of the interlocutors. The paper also includes analyses of written compliments, compliments directed at a third party, and other functions of compliments using data from newspapers and books.

Furukawa, Y. (2001). Gengo kinou dounyuueno ichi shian: "home" wo chuushinni (‘Introducing linguistic functions: Compliments among other functions’). Nihongo nihon bunka kenkyuu, 11, 57-72.

Compliments directed at someone who is of higher status are considered a face-threatening act in Japanese, yet native speakers use a number of strategies to retain respect and politeness while realizing the act. The author argues that no textbook or research has completely analyzed such potentially face-threatening use of speech acts and begins by listing the situations that require particular strategies and commenting on common errors made by learners. The situations in interaction with those of higher status include: when one does a favor or receives one, when one has more knowledge or experience, when one is at advantage, when one gives a compliment, when one invades the hearer’s private territory, when one refers to the hearer’s misfortune, when the hearer makes some sort of an error. The article also includes some sample dialogues in which a person of lower status compliments another of higher status.

Golato, A. (2003). Studying compliment responses: A comparison of DCTs and recordings of naturally occurring talk. Applied Linguistics,24(1), 90-121. doi:10.1093/applin/24.1.90

This article provides a detailed study of the differences between compliment responses collected with two different data collection procedures: naturally occurring data analysed through conversation analytic (CA) methodology, and elicited data collected via a discourse completion task (DCT). The DCT was designed to evoke the same discourse context and preceding cotext observed in the naturally occurring data. The article demonstrates that these data collection procedures do not always yield data that speak equally well to given research questions. It is argued that recording naturally occurring talk-in-interaction enables the researcher to study how language is organized and realized in natural settings, whereas responses from data elicitation procedures such as DCTs indirectly reflect the sum of prior experience with language. Additionally, the article discusses advantages and disadvantages of data collection procedures including questionnaires, recall protocols, role play, field observation, and recordings of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction. The article concludes by discussing the feasibility of generalizing findings generated from the aforementioned data-collection instruments.

Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and compliment responses: Grammatical structure and sequential organization. London: John Benjamins.

This book analyzes compliments and compliment responses in naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in German. Using Conversation Analytic methodology, it views complimenting and responding to compliments as social actions which are co-produced and negotiated among interactants. This study is the first to analyze the entire complimenting sequence within the larger interactional context, thereby demonstrating the interconnectedness of sequence organization, turn-design, and (varying) function(s) of a turn. In this regard, the present study makes a novel contribution to the study of talk-in-interaction beyond German. The book adds to existing work on interaction and grammar by closely analyzing the functions of linguistic resources used to design compliment turns and compliment responses. Here, the study extends previous Conversation Analytic work on person reference by including an analysis of inanimate object reference. Lastly, the book discusses the use and function of various particles and demonstrates how speaker alignments and misalignments are accomplished through various grammatical forms.

Han, C.-H. (1992). A comparative study of compliment responses: Korean females in Korean interactions and in English interactions. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8(2), 17-31.

Compares the compliment responses of 10 Korean females in English interactions and in Korean interactions, with 10 American females. Data from field notes and interviews. Found that Korean females responded differently when speaking in Korean and English, with little evidence of pragmatic transfer. In Korean, the respondents mostly rejected the compliments (45%), deflecting or evading them in 35% of the cases, and accepting them only in 20%. In English, there was 75% acceptance (!) with only 20% rejection. It appears that the interview was after the compliment to check how the Korean speaker really took it. Their explanation for behavior in English was that textbooks only give "thank you" as response to a compliment, as well as a belief that Americans always accept compliments upon receiving them.

Herbert, R. K. (1989). The ethnography of English compliments and compliment responses: A contrastive sketch. In W. Olesky (Ed.), Contrastive pragmatics (pp. 3-35). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Hern�ndez-Herrero, A. A. (1999). Analysis and comparison of complementing behavior in Costa Rican Spanish and American English. Ka�ina, 23, 121-31.

This descriptive work offers a lexical and syntactical comparison of complimenting behavior in American English (AE) and CrS (Costa Rican Spanish). Utilizing previous work (Wolfson, 1981, 1989; Wolfson & Manes, 1989) on complimenting in AE, the researchers analyze 80 naturally-occurring compliments in CrS. The results indicate that, while AE speakers utilize a restricted set of lexical and syntactical structures (85% consisting of 4 structures), CrS speakers use a more varied system of 6 syntactic patterns.

Holmes, J. (1998). Paying compliments: A sex-preferential politeness strategy. Journal of Pragmatics, 12(4), 445-465. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(88)90005-7

This paper examines women's and men's complimenting behaviour, exploring the function of compliments on the one hand as positively affective speech acts and exemplary positive politeness strategies, and on the other as potentially face threatening acts. Using a corpus of over 450 compliment exchanges, an analysis is provided of the distribution of compliments between women and men and some methodological considerations relating to the sex of the researcher are briefly discussed. The syntactic patterns and topics characterizing the compliments of female and male New Zealanders are described; the relative status as well as the sex of givers and receivers of compliments is examined, and responses to compliments are categorized according to their function as well as the responder's sex. The findings are related to the hypothesis that compliments may serve different functions in women's and men's interaction.

Holmes, J., & Brown, D. (1987). Teachers and students learning about compliments. TESOL Quarterly, 21(3), 523-546.

Paying appropriate compliments and identifying them accurately is an aspect of communicative competence which may differ in a variety of ways from one culture to another. This article provides examples of misunderstandings in compliment exchanges in different cultural contexts and analyzes them as instances of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failure. An analysis of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic norms of complimenting behavior in two English-speaking communities forms the basis of a set of exercises designed to assist learners in developing the ability to recognize and use compliments appropriately.

Huth, T. (2006). Negotiating structure and culture: L2 learners’ realization of L2 compliment-response sequences in talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(12), 2025�2050. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2006.04.010

This study investigates the effects of teaching American learners of German culture-specific complimenting behavior with findings in conversation analysis (CA). Using CA as a tool to analyze dyadic L2 learner interaction, this study focuses on how L2 learners realize sequences underlying L2 compliment-responses in talk-in-interaction. Based on two data examples of NNS�NNS interaction, it will be demonstrated that (1) L2 learners display their structural awareness of the sequential organization of a particular L2 compliment-response and use it in talk-in-interaction; (2) L2 learners employ distinct discourse markers to signal to their co-participants the specific use of L2 sequential patterns; (3) L2 learners display their cultural orientation as they apply the L2 sequences and thus make the “foreign” sequences a locus for negotiating their own cultural identity. While the data suggest that teaching L2 conversational sequences may be effective to heighten L2 learners’ cultural awareness, problematic aspects involved in L2 learners’ negotiating cross-cultural differences in their talk, such as fallacious interpretations of the teaching materials and the need for displaying their own cultural orientation, are equally reflected in the structure of their talk. The data thus show the inherently social nature of L2 interaction in the context of foreign language teaching.

Ishihara, N. (2003). Formal instruction on the speech act of giving and responding to compliments. Proceedings of the 7th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 62-78. [Available online]

This preliminary case study explores immediate and delayed effects of formal instruction on giving and responding to compliments in an ESL classroom setting. The instruction, given to 31 intermediate adult ESL learners, facilitated their outside-of-class observation and interaction. Their performance in and awareness of giving and responding to compliments were described as measured before, during, immediately after, and one year after the instruction. As the instruction progressed, learners produced longer written complimenting dialogues on appropriate topics, approximated native speakers in their use of syntactic structures of compliments, and utilized newly learned response strategies. Even one year after instruction, a subset of the learners demonstrated their retention of central skills although a few response strategies were marginally employed and may have largely been forgotten. The instruction also contributed to the learners’ understanding of the culturally specific nature of complimenting and awareness of gender, relative status, and appropriate topics in the interaction. After the instruction, the learners reported a higher level of confidence in complimenting interactions and enhanced motivation for learning other speech acts. The analyses lend support to the positive effects of formal instruction in pragmatics reported in previous studies.

Ishihara, N. (2003). Giving and responding to compliments. In K. Bardovi-Harlig & R. Mahan Taylor (Eds.), Teaching pragmatics. Washington DC: Office of English Programs, U.S. Department of State. [Available online]

This paper introduces classroom instruction on giving and responding to compliments for intermediate ESL learners. The instruction facilitates learners outside-of-class observation of and interaction with other speakers of English. Class discussions encourage learners to consider various situational factors and compare American compliments with those in their native languages, sensitizing them to appropriate use of language and cultural differences.

Jaworski, A. (1995). ”This is not an empty compliment!” Polish compliments and the expression of solidarity. �International Journal of Applied Linguistics,5(1), 63�94. doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.1995.tb00073.x

The most commonly recognized function of American English compliments and compliment responses is the expression and maintenance of solidarity between interlocutors. An analysis of Polish compliments and compliment responses collected in natural settings leads to the adoption of a distinction between procedural and relational solidarity. It is argued that many Polish compliments which are used in a manipulative or instrumental way are only procedurally solidary but not relationally solidary. Poles do not insist on establishing solidarity with each other by relying on formulaic speech patterns to the same degree that Americans do. Instead, they prefer other ways of maintaining (relational) solidarity, e.g. exchange of goods, services and information. Such exchanges may be, in part, triggered by the use of compliments.

Jucker, A. H. (2009). Speech act research between armchair, field and laboratory: The case of compliments. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(8), 1611-1635.

This article explored pragmatic research methods and the suitability of applying them to various research questions in speech act research. It categorized the different research methods based on Clark and Bangerter’s (2004) distinctions of “armchair,” “field,” and “laboratory” to refer to linguistic methods based on intuited data, natural data, and elicited date respectively. The study took the view that all the three methods and the subtypes have their intrinsic values, but all of them are limited in the types of research questions. The author stated that an assessment of a particular method always depends on the specific research question that the researcher tries to answer because the different methods vary enormously in their suitability for specific questions. In addition, the author illustrated these considerations with research efforts carried out in studying the speech act of compliments. The author asserted that “compliments are particularly interesting because they pose a politeness dilemma for the recipient, who either has to violate the maxim of agreement or the maxim of modesty”. This speech act has been investigated from very different perspectives (pattern of the compliment, the demographics of the complimenter and the compliment recipient, compliment responses and so on) and with a range of different methods (including the notebook method, the corpus method, and discourse completion tests). In this way the author reviewed this literature and discussed the suitability of individual methods in relation to individual research questions.

Knapp, M., Hopper, R., & Bell, R. (1984). Compliments: A descriptive taxonomy. Journal of Communication, 34(4), 12-31. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1984.tb02185.x

Conducted 3 sets of interviews to analyze the nature of compliments that people recalled as having been recently given or received. In the 1st set of interviews, 116 compliments and replies received by 58 Ss were content analyzed. 369 people were then interviewed yielding 768 compliments and replies. In the 3rd set, 30 male and 35 female Ss (aged 12�80 yrs) were interviewed about demographic information and the atmosphere in which a compliment was given and received. Results show that the content of compliments focused most often on performance and appearance. Compliments were structured along 4 dimensions: direct�indirect, specific�general, comparison�no comparison, and normal�amplified. Characteristics of those giving and receiving compliments showed that there were no significant differences between givers and receivers and that most thought compliments were well-deserved. Compliments were most often direct, general, and without comparison or amplification.

Koike, H. (2000). "Home"eno hentouni kansuru fukuji bunkateki hikaku: Taijin kankei betsu, seibetsu, sedaikan (‘A comparative study of responses to compliments in terms of subcultures: Interpersonal relations, sex, and generations’). Shinshuu Daigaku Kyouiku Gakubu Kiyou (Journal of the Faculty of Education), 100, 47-55.

Analyses of responses to compliments were based on the data from natural conversation in which research assistants complimented their friends and family members in authentic situations. The response strategies in the data obtained from 326 native speaking subjects were examined separately for interpersonal variables, generations, and gender. The author also came up with her own categorization based on past studies (acceptance, rejection, and neutral responses, and sub-strategies in each). Subjects in their 30’s tended to either express thanks(25%), or reject the compliment and offer humble comments (44%), while those in their 60’s mostly responded favorably, often accepting the compliment. Among family members, rejection and humble comments were found much less frequently than in other interpersonal situations, but speakers tended to sound proud or offer positive comments. In responding to work-related people, such a positive tendency drastically decreased and rejection, humble responses, and thanks occurred five times as frequently as in family relationships. Responses to friends were found somewhere in between. Women used rejection, humble comments, and thanks more often than men, while men responded proudly or expressed shyness more than women.

Kryston-Morales, C. (1997). The production of compliments and responses in English by native Spanish speakers in Puerto Rico: An intercultural pragmatics study. New York University. (UMI No. 9810491)

A comparison of compliments and compliment responses of native speakers of American English (n=25) and Puerto Rican Spanish (n=25) as well as native speakers of Puerto Rican Spanish speaking English (n=25) is presented. The primary research questions aim to examine how compliments and responses are realized and negotiated by the non-native speakers of English as well as how socio-linguistic norms of both groups are reflected in these compliments. In addition, the study compares the strategy choice and use of NS of English and NS of Puerto Rican Spanish. Results were collected in three stages. Stage 1 consisted of natural ethnographic observation and compliment record forms. In Stage 2, the participants completed a DCT task with six compliment situations. Open-ended interviews were used to confirm the responses. Stage 3 involved rating the NNS responses on a "nativeness" scale. Similarities and differences between the two NS groups were found and the NNS group fell right in the middle of the two, reflecting values from both language systems. In general, strategy choice is similar; however, the semantic content of both languages varies. The Puerto Rican Spanish-speakers tended to include more set-ups by the person receiving the compliment, fewer mentions of a "good deal", more requests for clarification, and the desire to lend or borrow the items being complimented on. The author asserts that miscommunication by the NNS in English is likely to occur when set-ups are used (may be seen as "fishing for compliments") and when the same item is desired (may impose on the English speakers individuality). Gender differences and implications of these results are further explored

Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2001). Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(1), 107-127. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00127-7

Responding to a compliment poses a dilemma for speakers (Pomerantz, 1978) because they have to balance two diametrically conflicting conversational principles: to agree with one's conversational coparticipants and to avoid self-praise (Herbert, 1989). Far from being universal, the solution to the above dilemma hinges upon politeness principles at work within and across societies (Brown and Levinson, 1978 [1987]). In this paper the speech act of compliment responses is analysed in the light of a relative, rather than absolute, orientation towards positive or negative politeness. Using Herbert's (1989) taxonomy of compliment responses, a corpus of more than a thousand compliment responses by British and Spanish male and female undergraduates was examined. The results show the existence of cross-cultural and cross-gender similarities as well as differences between the four groups. For example, Spanish males tended to upgrade compliments ironically (a type of compliment response absent in the British data) more frequently than their female counterparts. This clearly has important implications as, unless speakers are made aware otherwise, they may bring into their intercultural encounters pre-conceived, often stereotypically negative, evaluations about the other individuals' identity. Further research in this area of language use, particularly within the field of second language acquisition, is therefore essential.

Migdadi, F. H. (2003). Complimenting in Jordanian Arabic: A sociopragmatic analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

The overall purpose of this study is to correlate features of compliments and compliment responses in Jordanian Arabic with social variables including gender, age, and traditionalism. This research project sets out to investigate the following questions: 1. Do men and women give and respond to compliments differently? If so, how? 2. Do people of different age groups give and respond to compliments differently? Ifso, how? 3. Do traditional and non-traditional people give and respond to compliments differently? If so, how? Naturally occurring examples of compliments/ compliment responses were gathered by 10 fieldworkers in the research site of Irbid, Jordan. The dependent variables that were investigated include the topics, syntactic patterns, positive semantic carriers, the format of compliments, and the types of compliment responses.The results indicate that although the complimenting behavior of Jordanian people is similar in some ways, the social variables do correlate with some systematic differences. Specifically, people who share the same gender, age, or level of traditionalism compliment each other more frequently than persons who differ in any of these categories. Moreover, females and young people primarily use the following complimenting categories: compliments on appearance, explicit compliments, exclamatory syntactic patterns, and compliment plus explanation. Women and men differ in using compliment responses in that the women prefer questions and accounts compared to the men who employ more blessings and disagreements. Explanations forthese variations are discussed, based on the functions of compliments and the nature of the Jordanian culture.This research contributes to socio-pragmatics by analyzing variation in the use of complimenting in a relatively homogenous speech community. It tackles some culture-specific features of politeness and indirectness that are crucial to any politeness theory. The research also serves pedagogical purposes in that the application of its results in the classroom will help to reduce the communication breakdowns often experienced by L2 learners. With respect to methodology, the study provides adequate data to further test the validity of natural data collection in the investigation of speech acts.

Nakajima, Y. (1996). Politeness strategies in the workplace: Which experiences help Japanese businessmen acquire American English native-like strategies? Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 13(1), 49-69.

Studies use of discourse completion tests (DCT) and a questionnaire with 22 male speakers of American English and Japanese to see which experiences help Japanese business people to acquire target-like politeness strategies and how Japanese business people perceive the relationship between degrees of indirectness and politeness in Japanese and in English. There were 5 Japanese working for Japanese trading firms in Japan, 5 Japanese working for big business firms in Japan but where they had to use English, 5 Japanese working for a Japanese firm in the US and needing English, 2 Japanese who have worked for firms in Japanese and are currently working in the US in a firm, and 5 native English speakers working in an English-speaking firm in the US. The Japanese and American male speakers were seen to perceive politeness strategies in similar ways. In addition, the study demonstrated that if learners are exposed to specific experiences, they are more likely to acquire the target-like politeness expression rather than transferring their native pragmatics. She looked at refusals, responses to compliments, giving embarrassing information, disagreement, and the relationship between degrees of directness and politeness. Only Japanese who had work experience in English speaking countries understood English "want statements" which are direct but are not considered impolite. The respondents were seen to value their native norms when responding to higher status business people. Most of the Japanese respondents expressed humbleness in their comments and most of the Americans made positive comments in their responses.

Nelson, G. L., Bakary, W. E., & Batal, M. A. (1996). Egyptian and American compliments: Focus on second language learners. In S. M. Gass and J. Neu(Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 109-128). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Uses the act of complimenting for cross-cultural study because it tends to be "a troublesome aspect for speakers of English for learners from different cultural backgrounds," especially because of the form and frequency with which compliments occur in American English. They cited Wolfson and Manes (1980) who collected over 1000 American compliments in a wide range of situations and found that approximately 80% of compliments fall into 3 syntactic patterns: NP is/looks (intensifier) ADJ; I like/love NP; and PRO is ADJ NP. In addition, they found that 2/3 of the adjectival compliments used one of 5 adjectives: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, and great. Before discussing their own study, the researchers described 2 key concepts in understanding complements in Arabic -- the belief in the "evil eye" and the practice of offering the object of the compliment to the person who complimented. They then described their study which investigated Egyptian and American compliments to determine similarities and differences in: 1) compliment form, 2) attributes praised, 3) gender of the compliment giver and recipient, and 4) compliment frequency. The subjects were 20 Egyptian students in Egypt and 20 U.S. students in the U.S. between 18-25 years old, half male and half female. In an interview (which was audiotaped) they were asked to tell the most recent compliment they had given, received, and observed, the relationship between the complimenter and the recipient, the attribute praised, the exact words used in the compliment, and the day the compliment was given.

The results showed that the Egyptian and U.S. American compliments were similar in their form, which was primarily adjectival (adjective was responsible for the positive meaning). The average number of words used in compliments by American females was 6.2, while for males it was 4.3. Egyptian compliments were longer, as Egyptian females used an average of 10.7 Arabic words and males used 8.7. The longer length of Egyptian compliments appears to be due in part to use of repetition of almost the same idea in different words and the use of several adjectives in a series. American and Egyptian compliments also differed in use of comparatives (similes and metaphors particularly), in that 11% of Egyptian compliments contained comparatives while they were not used at all in the American compliments. Many of these Egyptian compliments took the form of "proverbs and other precoded ritualized phrases." In contrast to the 3 main forms of compliments listed above for American compliments, Egyptian compliments predominantly followed these 3 forms: NP ADJ (intensifier); NP VP (intensifier) (ADJ); and NP DEM. PRO. In terms of attributes praised, the researchers found that personal appearance was praised frequently in both cultures, accounting for 50% of Egyptian compliments and 43% of the American compliments. The largest category of American compliments was regarding skills/work, which made up 47% of the total. The type of compliment given in both Egyptian and American compliments appeared to depend on the gender of the giver and recipient of the compliment as well. The study found that Americans gave compliments more frequently than Egyptians, as the number of days reported between the last compliment given and the interview was only an average of 1.6 for Americans while it was an average of 8.6 for Egyptian respondents.

Nomura, M. (1998). "Home" eno hentouto "reigi tadashisa"no futatsuno kijun (‘Replies to compliments and two standards of "politeness"‘). International journal of pragmatics, 10, 19-32.

The author uses 40 complimenting conversational excerpts in Japanese taken from television broadcasts and popular magazines and argues that there were two forms of politeness: one related to the relationship between the parties involved in the conversation ("local politeness") and the other related to the surrounding environment ("global politeness").

Placencia, M. E., & Y�pez, L. M. (1999). Compliments in Ecuadorian Spanish. Revista Lengua, 9, 83�121.

This study drew on Wolfson and Manes's work on compliments in American English (AE), in particular, and attempted to determine similarities and differences between AE and Ecuadorian Spanish (ES). Significant similarities were found regarding what constitutes the topic of compliments in both languages and their form and function. With respect to the first, as in AE, compliments on appearance, for example, were found to be the most common. There were differences. however, on what aspects of appearance were complimented on in each society: a focus on natural beauty was found to be common in ES, but not in AE. It was suggested that there is a difference in terms of what spheres in a person's life are open to verbal appraisal in both societies, American society allowing for verbal appraisal of aspects that are a result of a person's effort, and Ecuadorian society also allowing for appraisal of natural traits (and even sex-appeal in the case of piropos). Along the same lines, a focus on natural talents was also found in ES, whereas in AE the emphasis appears to be on the result of a person's talent. These are areas where communication conflict between Americans and speakers of Ecuadorian Spanish is expected.

With respect to form, similarities between ES and AE included the use of semantic and syntactic formulas. In both languages, the use of certain lexical items and grammatical structures appeared to be of common occurrence. A difference found, however, had to do with the range of flexibility encountered in both languages: In ES, as opposed to AE, a wider range of forms and structures was available to participants for compliment exchanges. There were fixed forms that were common, and less fixed ones that also occurred with a relatively high degree of frequency. It was suggested that these differences might correlate with the use compliments are put to in each language and society, compliments in AE perhaps mostly being used for the fulfillment of the addressee's expectations, and compliments in ES being frequently used to express a judgment as well. Another important formal difference that was highlighted was the first person focus in AE as opposed to the second person focus in ES. It was suggested that this difference may be in line with the focus found in ES on what Americans would regard as more personal aspects of a person's life. Because of these features, it was also suggested that compliments in ES may be regarded by Americans as more direct, and as more intrusive although other aspects of the form of compliments in ES (e.g. the use of impersonal forms such as se ve que ...) would suggest Ecuadorians have a preference for indirect forms. Non-verbal aspects in the utterance of compliments were also mentioned as possibly being characteristic of ES (e.g. the co-occurrence of whistles and the use of interjections and vowel lengthening). It was suggested that audio-recordings of complimenting events would be needed, however, for a systematic examination of features of this type.

Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 79-112). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22(1), 27-67.

Reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses in EFL or in Cantonese -- the first two speech acts being in their curriculum but not the third. They found little evidence of pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. The subjects were approximately 40 children at levels P-2, P-4, and P-6 respectively, half receiving the prompts in English, half in Cantonese. They were to tape record what they thought the character in the cartoon would say. In requests, there is at best only weak evidence of any situational variation. It would seem that the children had not yet developed the pragmatic competence in English to exhibit such situational variation. It could also be that the instrument did not adequately capture the relevant contextual features. In apologies, all three levels had similar responses regarding the strategy of expressing an apology. However, P-6 demonstrated more control over intensifiers. They also acknowledged responsibility more and offered repair -- a pattern that was not found in the Cantonese data. There was little evidence of situational variation however. Compliments were not in the curriculum. The most frequent strategy was acceptance of the apology -- in Cantonese as well, so the patterns were similar. There was a marked increase in both frequency and range of strategies used with the P-6 group. No background questions were asked so there is no way of knowing about exposure to English-speaking domestic helpers, parents' English proficiency, and attitudes towards English.

Rose, K. R. (2001). Compliments and compliment responses in film: Implications for pragmatics research and language teaching. International of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 39(4), 309-326. doi:10.1515/iral.2001.007

The paper aimed at examining a corpus of compliments and compliment responses by exploring the viability of film as a resource for pragmatics research and language teaching. It excerpted the compliments and compliment responses from forty America feature films and compared their realization to naturally-occurring data from the available speech act literature. The films were not older than fifteen years and they portrayed contemporary people in real-life settings. Findings revealed that the film language appeared to be most representative of naturally-occurring speech from a pragmalinguistic perspective, particularly for major pragmalinguistic categories such as syntactic formula in compliments was concerned. Also, findings indicated that film data corresponded fairly closely to authentic data, particularly for pragmalinguistic categories such as compliment formula. In addition, the author indicated some differences after analyzing aspects of sociopragmatics such as gender distribution and compliment response strategies. Results overall suggested that film represents a valuable resource for the teaching of pragmalinguistics, but perhaps less so for sociopragmatics, where it would better used as a point of departure rather than a model. The author pointed out that detailed microanalysis of film data for pragmatic purposes has been probably not well-advised. Further studies are necessary to be carried out (with, for example, difference speech acts or different films). Nevertheless, film can be used for other research purposes, such as in the construction of instruments for data collection.

Rose, K. R., & Kwai-fun, C. N. (2001). Pragmatic and grammatical awareness: A function of the learning environment. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 145-170). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Compares the effects of inductive and deductive approaches to the teaching of English compliments and compliment responses to university-level learners of English in Hong Kong. While the deductive group (N=16) was provided with metapragmatic information through explicit instruction before engaging in practice activities, the inductive group (N=16) engaged in pragmatic analysis activities in which they were expected to arrive at the relevant generalizations themselves. Three measures of learner performance were administered in a pretest/posttest design: a self-assessment task (from Hudson et al. and asking respondents to indicate what they believe to be the level of their ability to respond appropriately in the 18 scenarios), a discourse completion task (DCT) (with respondents providing both the compliment and the response for the 18 scenarios), and a metapragmatic assessment task (where they had to rank-order four possible responses from the most to the least appropriate for the same scenarios). The DCT and metapragmatic assessment task were also administered to natives speakers of English and native speakers of Cantonese. Results were mixed, indicating no effect for instruction on learner confidence or metapragmatic assessment of appropriate compliment responses. However, the results from the DCT showed a marked increase in the use of compliment formulas by both treatment groups, with no similar increase for the control group (N=12). Results for compliment responses revealed a positive effect only for the deductive group, indicating that although inductive and deductive instruction may both lead to gains in pragmalinguistic proficiency, only the latter may be effective for developing sociopragmatic proficiency.

Shimizu, T. (2009). Influence of learning environment on L2 pragmatic realization: A comparison between JSL and JFL learners’ compliment responses. In Naoko Taguchi (ed.), Pragmatic competence, (pp. 167�198). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Sykes, J. (2006). Pragmatic evolution: An examination of the changing politeness perceptions of piropos in Yucat�n, M�xico. Paper presented at the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium (HLS). University of Minnesota.

The study examined the perception of piropos by men and women in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico in order to determine how semantic content, gender, and age influence the perception of a piropo as a compliment or an insult. Participants included six Spanish-speakers from the Yucatan, Mexico of equivalent social class, ranging from ages 31-70. They took part in semi-structured interviews addressing the use of piropos and evaluating 16 sample piropos on a scale of social acceptability. Results demonstrated that semantic content, gender, and age played an important role in the perception of piropos as compliments or insults. The semantic categories of movement/process and food were viewed as the most offensive or vulgar and the categories of divinity, uniqueness, and the world were perceived as compliments. The category of movement fell in the middle of the two. Furthermore, males tended to view all semantic categories as more polite, and tended to place more value on the art of the piropo as a whole. Participants in older generations tended to view piropos as more acceptable than in the younger generations. However, in the oldest generation (ages 61-70), the acceptability levels returned to the youngest generation. Finally, the changing practice of piropos within the speech event as a whole was confirmed across generations.

Tang, C., & Zhang, G. Q. (2009). A contrastive study of compliment responses among Australian English and Mandarin Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(2), 325-345.

This study analyzed compliment responses between Australian English and Mandarin Chinese speakers. The data were collected through the use of written discourse completion tasks, with four situational settings (appearance, character, ability, and possession) in two language versions. A total of 60 university-student informants participated in the study, 30 Mandarin Chinese native speakers, and 30 Australian English native speakers. In each group there were 15 males and 15 females. The findings demonstrated a consistent tendency across the macro, micro, and combination levels for the Chinese participants to use fewer accept strategies, and more evade and reject strategies, than their Australian counterparts. The Chinese speakers expressed appreciation for a compliment to a lesser degree and denigrated themselves more. For the Chinese participants, an implicit and ‘detouring’ approach was at least as desirable as an explicit compliment response. The authors stated that this is in line with modesty and collectivism�pillars of Chinese culture. On the other hand, Australians tended to prefer explicit compliment responses. In addition, the study demonstrated that the Chinese participants used far fewer combination strategies (i.e., Accept + Evade, Accept + Accept, Appreciation + Return compliment, and Appreciation + Downgrading) than the Australians. Consequently, the author’s initial hypothesis that no universal pattern could be generalized regarding the use of compliment responses (CR) among these two languages was supported since the results of the variant pragmatic strategies of compliment responses showed that different cultures have different sets of protocols. Hence, the authors pointed out that any CR model cannot be generalized and applied universally to all cultures.

Tatsuki, D., & Nishizawa, M. (2005). A comparison of compliments and compliment responses in television interviews, film, and naturally occurring data. In D. Tatsuki (Ed.), Pragmatics in language learning, theory, and practice (pp. 87-97). Tokyo: Pragmatics Special Interest Group of the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

The study compared compliments in interviews, films, and in naturally occurring data � English L1. The authors found syntactic similarity across the venues, indicating that compliments were formulaic in nature. They also asserted that TV interviews and films were reliable models of pragmalinguistic behavior. In their analysis they concluded that sociopragmatic features such as gender distribution, topic, and adjective choice were less clear-cut. In the Larry King Live data, males gave and received as many compliments as females whereas in naturally-occurring data, females were the ones who gave and received more compliments than males. Regarding the analysis of films, results indicated that males were the ones who gave and received more compliments. In their analysis of interviews, the authors found few compliments about appearance. Instead, the compliments were related more to acts and attributes. The most common inflated adjectives found in the data were: “terrific” and “incredible.” In addition, they noted that the naturally-occurring data were mostly of female graduate students with male-to-male interactions limited, and they were field observation data.

Terao, R. (1996). Home kotobaeno hentou sutairu (‘Response styles to compliments]. Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 5(5), 81-88.

Using 901 responses to compliments from TV talks shows and authentic conversations, the author focuses on characteristics of compliment responses in Japanese in this article. Compared to Holmes (1986) (although the taxonomy is slightly different) where acceptance types occurred 60% of the times, acceptance was found less than a third (30%). Rejection was used much more frequently in Japanese (25%) than in English (10%). By drawing examples and analyzing some lexical items (e.g., dakewa, nomi, igaito, kekkou, warito ichou, chotto, sukoshi(wa)), the author points out that even in acceptance types in Japanese, there were humble comments that speakers offered. Speakers also used various other semantic strategies to avoid self-praise and admiration for their family members (e.g., offering negative comments and perspectives).

Vald�s, G., & Pino, C. (1981). Muy a tus �rdenes: Compliment responses among Mexican-American bilinguals. Language and Society, 10, 53-72.

This study compares the compliment responses among English-speaking monolinguals, Spanish-speaking monolinguals, and bilingual Mexican-Americans by analyzing the constraints underlying their responses as well as how speech is used to observe these constraints. Results demonstrate different constraints in the language groups. The English-speaking monolinguals’ responses tended to be categorized as token appreciation, rejection/disagreement of the compliment, or as additional strategies taken from previous research. The Spanish monolinguals included many of the same strategies as the English monolinguals; however, this group also showed a marked distinction between intimates and non-intimates in strategy choice as well as in the politeness formulae that was used (e.g., a tus �rdenes). An additional strategy that was found was a request for clarification (noted as a strategy to avoid self-praise). The bilingual group adapted patterns from both groups, demonstrating a greater variety of acceptance patterns. Furthermore, both English and Spanish were used in responses from the bilingual group. The authors assert that this demonstrates a unique system for bilingual speakers, not identical to either group.

Wieland, M. (1995). Complimentingb in French/American cross-cultural dinner conversations. �The French Review, 68(5), 796-812.

This study analyzed complimenting behavior in French between French native speakers and American advanced French learners in seven dinner party conversations. Data are found to provide a rich source of lessons in politeness for both sociolinguistic and pedagogic descriptions of French speech acts.

Wolfson, N., & Manes, J. (1980). The compliment as a social strategy. Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication, 13(3), 410-451. doi:10.1080/08351818009370503

Within the framework of ethnography of speaking, this paper presents an analysis of the speech act of complimenting in American English. The major focus is a discussion of the way in which compliments are used in a variety of social situations. It is argued that, whatever the immediate discourse function, complimenting has the underlying social function of creating or reinforcing solidarity between the speaker and the addressee. The linguistic structure of compliments is seen to be closely tied to this basic interactive function.

Ye, L. (1995). Complimenting in Mandarin Chinese. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 207-295). Manoa, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press.

Begins with a cross-linguistic/cultural literature review of the role of complimenting in terms of formulas used, topics, responses, distribution and frequency, function, and compliments as a gender-preferential strategy. Since most of the research so far has focused on varieties of English, Lei Ye conducted a study of Chinese compliments to give a different cultural perspective. The subjects were 96 native speakers of Chinese in China (42 male, 54 female) ranging from age 18 to 38 years old, all with an education above the tertiary level. A discourse completion task was used consisting of 16 situations, eight for giving compliments and eight for responding to compliments. The dependent variables were compliment structure, compliment focus, and compliment response strategy. The independent variables were gender (gender-specific names were given to the fictional interlocutors) and compliment topic (personal appearance and skill/performance). Detailed statistical information was given in the chapter for each of the result categories. Some distinctive features emerged: the most frequently used positive semantic carriers in Chinese complimenting were adjective/stative verbs and adverbs; the use of nouns related illocutionary force of complimenting to categorization and evaluation; and verbs rarely function as semantic positive carriers. In Chinese culture, there is preference for giving compliments about performance rather than appearance (in contrast to English in which they are fairly evenly distributed). There are constraints upon giving compliments across genders, because while giving compliments in Western cultures is seen as a courtesy, in Chinese it can be seen as a violation of social order. In addition, the function of compliments seemed to be different in Chinese, because while compliments function to create solidarity in Western cultures, in Chinese it may actually increase social distance. Empirical data supported this claim in that the occurrence of compliments was shown to be relatively low when the status of the Chinese interlocutors was equal.

Yl�nne-McEwen, V. (1993). Complimenting behaviour: A cross-cultural investigation. Journal of Multicultural Development, 14(5), 499-508. doi:10.1080/01434632.1993.9994551

Complimenting and responding to compliments were investigated in three language varieties, British English, Finnish and the interlanguage of Finnish learners of English. Twenty British and thirty Finnish females were used as subjects. Their productions in six different roleplay situations formed the data. These were analysed in terms of the syntactic structure and length of compliments, and the kind of strategy employed in compliment responses. It was found that complimenting is formulaic in English and Finnish although more syntactic variation is present in Finnish. Compliments in Finnish were longer than in English, as measured in the number of propositional acts, and this is seen to reflect the infrequent occurrence of compliments in Finnish. Finnish learners of English demonstrated appropriate (formulaic) complimenting behaviour in English although some transfer from the first language was noted, particularly in the frequent use of hearer-oriented compliment forms. Compliments are accepted more often in British English than in Finnish. This may be a reflection of the different social structures of the two cultures, Finnish culture allowing the negotiation of solidarity to a larger extent.

Yokota, J. (1986). Homerareta tokino hentouni okeru bokokugo karano shakai gengogakuteki teni. (‘Sociolinguistic transfer from the native language in the responses to compliments’). Nihongokyouiku (‘Journal of Japanese Language Teaching’), 58, 203-223.

This research was conducted to test a hypothesis that American learners of Japanese tend to transfer their L2 pragmatic norms in accepting compliments directed to their family members rather than deflecting or refusing them as Japanese speakers would normally do. Nineteen learners of Japanese took the DCT that included 5 items in which the speakers were complimented and another 5 where their family member was complimented both by a same-gender friend of their age. Their responses were compared with those by 20 native speakers of Japanese and those by 21 native speakers of American English (responded in English). The responses were categorized into acceptance, deflection, and rejection, each in combination with upgrading, offering comments, shifting topics, downgrading, returning a compliment, and joking. In her taxonomy, native speakers deflected the compliments more than half of the time. Although they accepted and rejected a compliment about 25% of the time respectively, they tended to make the acceptance and rejection ambiguous by adding negative comments (avoidance of self-praise). Learners seemed to believe that rejection was most polite (overgeneralization) and rejected compliments about 40% of the time. Although most natives deflected or rejected compliments directed at their family members, learners tended to accept them (70%).

Yu, M. -C. (2003). On universality of face: Evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1679�1710. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00074-2

The aim of this study is to examine cross-cultural politeness behavior. Politeness appears to be a prevalent concept in human interaction, and to date, many models of politeness have been put forward in the literature. The focal point of this paper is Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) formulation of politeness behavior, for compared with other models of politeness, theirs is the one that most clearly maintains its pancultural validity, thus evidently claiming its application as a basis for cross-cultural comparison (O'Driscoll, 1996). In this study, the compliment response behavior of native Chinese speakers, who are typically regarded as having rules of speaking and social norms very different from those of Westerners, is compared closely with that of native American English speakers to see if it can provide evidence to support Brown and Levinson's universal thesis. The results show that while there are indeed some general concepts and dimensions of politeness that are shared by Chinese and English speakers, the different strategies they use indicate the important role culture plays in its speakers’ speech act performance. This important role should never be treated lightly when we explore the issue of speech act universality.

Yu, M. -C. (2004). Interlinguistic variation and similarity in second language speech act behavior. Modern Language Journal, 88(1), 102�119. doi:10.1111/j.0026-7902.2004.00220.x

This study investigates the compliment response behavior of 2 groups of Chinese learners of English, one living in the United States and the other in Taiwan. The present study compared the behavior of these learner groups with that of native Chinese and English speakers in order to determine how they respond to compliments in different situations when two contextual variables, addressees' status and gender, vary. Compliment responses by the Chinese using Chinese and the learners in Taiwan were more likely to be rejections than acceptances, whereas responses to compliments by the Americans and the learners in the United States were more likely to be acceptances than rejections. Furthermore, although there were substantial differences between the 2 learner groups, the performance of both reflected native language (L1) communicative styles and transfer of L1 sociocultural strategies in their second language behavior.

Yu, M. -C. (2005). Sociolinguistic competence in the complimenting act of native Chinese and American English speakers: A mirror of cultural value. Language and Speech, 48(1), 91-119.

The present study examines sociolinguistic features of a particular speech act, paying compliments, by comparing and contrasting native Chinese and native American speakers' performances. By focusing on a relatively understudied speaker group such as the Chinese, typically regarded as having rules of speaking and social norms very different from those of Westerners, this paper aims at illuminating the fact that, in cross-cultural communication, foreign language speakers have to pay close attention to sociolinguistic rules of the target language in addition to structure and discourse rules to meet the needs of linguistic accuracy and fluency. This is due to the fact that such rules play an indispensable role in appropriating the proper use of linguistic forms. The data for this study were collected using ethnographic observation pioneered in this field by Wolfson and Manes (1980). The analysis will first explore both the features of distribution of paying compliments, and the functions they may serve in spoken exchanges for native Chinese and American English speakers. To present a fuller picture of the socio-cultural features this speech act may represent in Chinese and American societies, the analysis will further focus on the issues of topics, the addresser-addressee relationship, and culture-specificity versus universality.

Zuo, H. (1990). Verbal interactions of compliment in American English and Chinese. In W. Hu (Ed.), Intercultural communication -- what it means to Chinese learners of English (pp. 117-136). Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

The author describes the characteristics and cultural assumptions of compliments in Chinese and American culture. The chapter is descriptive in nature, and includes a 3-page transcript of a video-taped interaction in the appendix.

Garc�a, C. (2010). ‘Cuente conmigo’: The expression of sympathy by Peruvian Spanish speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(2), 408-425.

The study attempted to fill in the gap the study of expression and pain by analyzing the expression of sympathy by a group of native Spanish speakers. Using Spencer-Oatey’s (2005) rapport-management approach, the goal of the study was to analyze Peruvian Spanish speakers’ preferred communication patterns in the performance of expressing sympathy in a situation exhibiting social distance, power differential among interlocutors, and where the loss experienced by the interlocutor was high. Data were collected in Lima, Peru in 2006 using subjects participating in an open-role scenario. Subjects included twenty adults, 10 females and 10 males. The group was diverse in terms of education and occupation. Participants represented a continuum from middle to upper middle class. Analysis of the data showed that subjects exhibited a strong rapport-enhancing orientation using a series of strategies that expressed respect towards the equity and the association principles. Participants observed their behavioral expectations in this context expressing empathy, involvement, and respect. In addition, the author noted that participants also respected the interlocutor’s identity and respectability face, which at the same time, reflected positively on their own identity and respectability face. The study asserted that the participants’ interactional wants were notably relational, both maintaining and enhancing in-group harmony. Thus, a perfect synchrony among participants was observed that included rapport-enhancing orientation, respect for the interlocutor’s identity and respectability face wants, and the pursuit of relational wants. Gender comparisons showed that males and females had different preferences in their observation of the association principle. Females preferred to express empathy and involvement while males preferred to convey respect and empathy.

Garc�a, C. (2009). "�Qu�::? �C�mo que te vas a casar?” Congratulations and rapport management: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers. International Pragmatics Association, 19(2), 197-222.

This paper aimed to study the extent of how congratulating reflected Peruvians’ self construals (or ‘relatedness’) and rapport management preferences. It used Spencer-Oatey’s (2005) rapport management theoretical framework in order to examine Peruvian Spanish-speakers’ behavioral expectations, types of face respected/threatened, and interactional wants when congratulating. The study also showed Peruvian Spanish speakers’ preferred communications patterns when they were in a situation exhibiting low social distance and low power differential among interlocutors. Data were collected in Lima, Peru in 2006 using native Spanish speakers in an open-role play scenario. Subjects included twenty adults, 10 males and 10 females. The average age of the participants was 32 for males and 33 for females. The group was diverse in terms of education and occupation. Findings revealed that subjects exhibited a rapport-maintenance orientation using strategies that, although apparently violating the equity principle, reflected their interdependent self-construals and observed the respect component of the association principle. In addition, as far as participants’ respect for their own and the interlocutor’s face sensitivities it was found that participants enhanced their own identity and respectability face. In doing so, they also enhanced the interlocutor’s respectability face by making her the beneficiary of their concern for her and well-being at the expense of appearing intruding or even imposing. Finally, the author asserted that the participants’ interactional wants were relational, both maintaining and enhancing in-group harmony. Also, gender differences were observed in the female participants. They exhibited a stronger tendency to violate the autonomy-control component of the equity principle, but these differences were not statistically significant.

Dewaele, J. M. (2004). Blistering barnacles! What language do multilinguals swear in?! Estudios de Socioling��stica, 5(1), 83-105.

The study analyzed the effects of language dominance/attrition, context of acquisition, age of onset learning, frequency of general use of a language and sociodemographic variables on self-reported language choice for swearing. It also investigated whether the independent sociobiographical variables linked to swearing in monolingual contexts, and to the use of emotional language in a bilingual context, exerted a similar influence of swearing behavior in other languages known to the speaker. Data consisted of a database to which 1039 multilinguals contributed through a web based questionnaire that elicited multilinguals’ perceptions of the swearing and taboo words use. The participants spoke a total of 75 different L1s. English speakers represented the largest group, followed by Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, among others. The study focused on the self-reported language choice for swearing. The question was formulated as follows: “If you swear in general, what language do you typically swear in?” Findings revealed that multilinguals’ choice of a language for swearing was determined by several independent variables related to the individual’s linguistic history (how and when the language was learned, how frequently it had been used). Accordingly, swearing happened most frequently in the multilinguals’ dominant language. Sociodemographic variables were not found to have any effect. In addition, frequency of language choice for swearing was positively correlated with perceived emotional force of swearwords in that language. The author asserted that high levels of sociopragmatic and sociocultural competence were needed to be able to swear appropriately within a certain community.

Jay, T., & Janscheewitz, K. (2008). The pragmatics of swearing. Journal of Politeness Research, 4(2), 267-288.

The study aimed at developing a cognitive psychological framework to explain how swearing varied as a function of communication context. More specifically, this study examined how people attended to contextual variables such as speaker-listener relationship and social-physical setting in the process of swearing. The authors described the factors that influenced the likelihood and offensiveness of swearing, as well as the relationship between swearing and politeness research. They asserted that people learn to judge when, where, and with whom it is appropriate to swear, or where swearing would be offensive and this provides the basis for determining the extent to which speech is rude or impolite. The data presented supported the context-dependence of one’s perception of the inappropriateness of swearing, both in terms of situational variables (e.g., location of the interaction that involves swearing) and those that involve the qualities of the participants in the interaction (e.g., speaker-listener relationship, whether the rater was a native or non-native speaker). The study tested the effects of English experience and gender on ratings of offensiveness and likelihood of use of taboo words in different social and speaker contexts. Participants included 121 undergraduate students from the University of California. Sixty-eight were native English speakers (41 women and 27 men) and 53 were non-native English speakers (34 women and 19 men). Students were presented a questionnaire that presented combinations of taboo words, speakers and locations creating a total of 81 scenarios per questionnaire. Results showed that participants were sensitive to pragmatic variables underlying swearing: speaker, location, and type of word. The authors noted that this sensitivity to offensiveness and likelihood provided a basis for judgments about appropriateness. Furthermore, no difference within the sample of level of English experience (native versus non-native) on offensiveness or likelihood ratings was found. Also, it was confirmed the authors’ prediction that native English speakers were more responsive to the influence of contextual variables in swearing scenarios than non-natives. The authors suggested that greater English experience was associated with higher sensitivity to the nuances of situational determinants of swearing. In addition, in regard to gender differences, women provided higher offensiveness ratings than men.

Vanci-Osam, �. (1998). May you be shot with greasy bullets: Curse utterances in Turkish. Asian Folklore Studies, 57, 71-86.

The study examined curse utterances as the speech act behavior of native Turkish speakers by employing criteria suggested by Hymes (1974). The author pointed out that cursing was a perlocutionary act directed toward the addressor rather than the addressee. He observed that in Turkish there was a correlation between the social background of a person and the use of this speech act. In this language, the use of curse utterances was not considered proper and refined, and it projected personal traits such as rudeness and aggressiveness in the addressor. Despite the negative connotation found in this speech act, the analysis noted that they were commonly used in colloquial speech due to their routine-like nature. The author asserted that the speech act of cursing reflected the cultural identity since it provided a rich source of data to observe the dynamic nature of the Turkish language. He also indicated that cursing would continue existing as verbal customs and traditions along the changes of the world.

Chodorowska-Pilch, M. (2002). Las ofertas y la cortes�a en espa�ol peninsular (Offers and politeness in Peninsular Spanish). In M. E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 21-36). Munich, Germany: LINCOM Europa.

This article provides an analysis of naturally-occurring offers made in a travel agency in Spain. The linguistic construction and grammatical modifications of offers that encode politeness are analyzed. In addition, the author identifies various contexts in which the speaker modifies his or her offer in order to express politeness. Offers threaten both the positive and negative face of the hearer, thus, mitigation is often used to demonstrate politeness. Three classes of offers are examined. That is, direct offers (Te puedo ofrecer...), indirect offers (preguntas, a ver si, conditional, si quieres), and other mitigation markers (grammatical mechanisms). A summary of these findings includes twenty-eight offer constructions in Peninsular Spanish. The author concludes that there are determined structural and grammatical constraints for codifying politeness in offers.

Georgalidou, M. (2008). The contextual parameters of linguistic choice: Greek children’s preferences for the formation of directive speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(1), 72-94.

This study focused on the forms and functions of directive speech acts by Greek children of nursery school age. The analysis was based on actual conversational exchanges, audio-recorded in six nursery schools classes during class and play time activities. The participating children represented both sexes and came from different social backgrounds. Their average age was five. Based on the frameworks of Speech Act Theory, Conversation Analysis, and Interactional Sociolinguistics, the author gave examples of the different strategies applied by speakers of nursery school age regarding to the choice of form, the negotiation of communicative goal within conversation, and the protection of face. In addition, children’s strategies were contrasted to the preferences exhibited by adult speakers of Greek. The findings revealed that children rarely used politeness markers in the data. Nevertheless, they seemed to have developed their own strategies to success on their primary directive goal, and for the protection of their relationship with the interlocutors. Thus, when Greek children were addressing their peers, they were quite direct and imposing but managed to preserve cooperation and continue playing. When the teacher was addressed, Greek children had a tendency to avoid imperatives by using more declaratives and interrogatives as a marker of the differing roles as far as the distribution of power was concerned. Consequently, conversational episodes initiated by children directing the teacher towards some course of action were shorter than the ones that involved only children. These results indicated that children were aware of parameters of the adult culture, such as distance and status, but they tended to distinct strategies to map them onto conversational practices.

Guidetti, M. (2000). Pragmatic study of agreement and refusal messages in young French children. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(5), 569-582. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00061-2

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the gestural and/or verbal forms of agreement and refusal messages in young French children aged 21 to 27 months vary according to the social function they fulfill. Two types of messages were considered: assertives and directives. Children interacting with an adult were observed individually. The adult prompted the child to produce agreement and refusal messages of the assertive or directive type by proposing objects (puzzle pieces) that either fit or did not fit into the interaction situation (e.g.: ‘Is this an X?’, where X was/was not the piece being presented, or ‘Should I give you the X?’ for pieces that did/did not go with the puzzle the child was doing). The results showed that the children's message forms varied with age (21 or 27 months), type of message (agreement or refusal), and type of speech act (assertive or directive). The different variations are discussed and show that by the age of two, children indeed have different forms at their disposal (gestural and/or verbal) for expressing agreement and refusal in accordance with the two types of speech acts achieved in these messages.

Myers-Scotton, C., & Bernstein, J. (1988). Natural conversation as a model for textbook dialogue. Applied Linguistics, 9(4), 372-384. doi:10.1093/applin/9.4.372

This paper considers the relevance for TESOL classes (and, indirectly, for any second language classes) of several studies of natural conversations involving native speakers of American English in direction-giving and also in directive use in service encounters. The study demonstrates all direction-givers show overwhelming uniformity in the structure of their direction-giving turn. Also, natural direction-giving contains many other turns and parts outside of the request for directions and the actual directions. In addition, findings show such exchanges make cognitive and interactional demands on the direction-seeker not normally taught in TESOL textbook dialogues. The directive studies present empirical evidence on how the unmarked (expected) directive form in American English varies across situations. The paper argues that unless classroom materials contain the interactional and peripheral parts characteristic of real direction-giving, the learner will have little chance to develop selective listening skills. Also, unless classroom directive exercises pay attention to what form is unmarked for what situation, the learner may use syntactically well-formed directives in marked ways.

Pearson, B. A., & Lee, K. S. (1992). Discourse structure of direction giving: Effects of native/nonnative speaker status and gender. TESOL Quarterly, 26(1), 113-127.

This study analyzed the results of four grad students (2 native speakers (NS) and 2 non-native speakers (NNS), M/F) posing as direction seekers on Arizona State University campus. They asked 200 NS respondents (100 M, 100 F) for directions. A hidden recorder got 50 exchanges, half with males and females. The seekers had a script, which may have made NNSs sound more fluent. The majority of direction givers included similar moves (opening, main body, pre-closing, closing) and main body submoves (directives, parenthetical remarks, orientation, and comprehension checks). The female direction givers paused more than the males and issued more comprehension checks; male direction givers used more indirect directives. Female direction seekers received more opening combinations, more directive-types, greater complexity of vocabulary, and more parenthetical remarks. NS/NNS status affected only hedges and closings, with NNSs receiving fewer hedges and more closings. The conclusion was that simplification or other interactional modifications is not automatic with NNSs. It must be triggered by an indication of a lack of comprehension. Also, it concluded that M/Fs both addressed females differently from males.

Pearson, L. (2006). Patterns of development in Spanish L2 pragmatic acquisition: An analysis of novice learners’ production of directives. Modern Language Journal, 90(4), 473�495. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2006.00427.x

A study examined the development of pragmatic competence by novice students of second language (L2) Spanish. Participants were 131 students of Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin. Results revealed that verb forms with greater morphological complexity took the place of lower level directive strategies. In addition, results suggested that pragmatic competence preceded grammatical competence and that the first language pragmatic system had a role in processing L2 data for use in production. Implications of the results are discussed.

Placencia, M. E. (2002). Desigualdad en el trato en directivas en la atenci�n al p�blico en La Paz. In M. E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 193-208). Amsterdam, Netherlands: LINCOM Europa.

Through the analysis of directives (i.e., instructions, requests for information, requests) in service encounters in La Paz, Bolivia, this article provided an example of how language maintains and produces social order. Various interactions were recorded and observed in the waiting room of a hospital and other public offices as well as from an information office at a municipal department. The results demonstrated discriminatory institutional practice reflected in the linguistic strategies employed. A marked difference was found between politeness strategies used with the white-mestizo population and with the indigenous population. Typically, the white-mestizo was addressed with formal forms (Ud.), greetings and use of titles, politeness markers, and indirect requests. On the other hand, the indigenous population was addressed with informal, familiar forms, no title or sarcastic use of titles, and direct requests. Examples of this variation were found in requests for location of people, places, and services as well as requests for payment, taking a seat, and forming a line. Social implications as well as socio-historical factors underlying these linguistic choices are discussed.

Takahashi, S., & DuFon, M. A. (1989). Cross-linguistic influence in indirectness: The case of English directives performed by native Japanese speakers. Unpublished manuscript, Department of English as a Second Language, University of Hawai`i at Manoa (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 370 439)

This study examined the nature of language transfer and its role in second language acquisition. Nine Japanese female young adults residing in Honolulu, divided into through groups based on English language proficiency, took part in two role playing situations with an American native speaker of English. The subjects were to attempt to get a higher-status neighbor to comply with a request directive. Immediately following the role play, the subjects were interviewed, in Japanese, about the situations. The results were then compared to earlier data on Japanese and American directive speech. The results indicated that Japanese learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) tended to proceed from less direct to more direct levels in their directive choice. This is the opposite of the sequence of development in native English-speaking children, which proceeds from more direct to less direct. This finding suggests that other factors besides transfer appear to be influencing the directive choice. The study also found that the beginning group took longer to complete the task, and had more difficulty with it, than either the intermediate or advanced group of ESL learners. Three appendixes contain a taxonomy of directness and indirectness, copies of the role play situations in Japanese and English, and a student general background questionnaire. Contains 44 references.

Vine, B. (2009). Directives at work: Exploring the contextual complexity of workplace directives. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(7), 1395-1405.

This study explored the influence and importance of contextual factors on the frequency and expression of directives in studying workplace both at a broader social level as well as at the level of discourse. The article focused on aspects of social context, such as purpose of interaction, participant status and social distance, gender, and the way that they affect both directive frequency and expression. The data examined comes from three managers working in two New Zealand government departments. All the directives were issued by these managers to subordinates in one-to-one interactions. The main purpose of each interaction was to achieve a work-related goal and the interactions were relatively informal. The actions requested were about the work responsibilities of the addressee and included tasks such as setting up meetings and writing letters. The managers varied their use of forms to express directives. Therefore, variation was not accounted for solely by factors pertaining to the participants such as social distance and power, although these factors were important. Given the workplace context and the nature of the requests, the rank of imposition was generally low, although this varied. Consequently, the author examined another aspect of social context referring to the influence of purpose of interaction along with the effect of participants on the frequency and expression of directives. Thus, the directives were studied in their discourse context. In addition, the influence of the surrounding talk on the way directives were expressed was explored. The results revealed that both social context and discourse context were important in accounting for variation. Examination of context at the level of discourse also showed a pattern found in the data where imperatives were used at the end of a long discussion, when there were multiple tasks, when directly elicited, and in the case of ‘now’ directives. More mitigated forms tended to occur in problem-solving and task-allocation interactions when the directive was isolated and when there was a high level of imposition. A different approach was suggested. Results also showed that the male manager was more direct using a larger percentage of imperatives to express his directives than female managers, and that he responded to the same contextual factors as the women in terms of when he used the most and least forceful forms.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Salsbury, T. (2004). The organization of turns in the disagreements of L2 learners: A longitudinal perspective. In D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen (Eds.) Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 199-227). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

This chapter reports on the development of oppositional talk in L2 English conversation.� In oppositional talk, speakers express opposing views.� Oppositinal talk in American English includes, disagreements, challenges, denials, accusations, threats, and insults.� In this chapter, we analyze the sequence and structure of turns in disagreements, following Pomeranz’s (1984) analysis.� The disagreements were colleted during a one-year longitudinal study of 12 learners of English as a second language as they interacted wth native speakers during conversational interviews.� Whereas most learners started the study with direct disagreements, all of the learners elaborated their disagreements as time passed.� Learners elaborated disagreements in at least four ways:� they increased the amount of talk, included agreement to later positions in their initial turns, and used multiple turn structure to potentially avoid disagreement.� Only through the studying of speaking the development of turns be understood.

Beebe, L. M., & Takahashi, T. (1989). Do You have a bag?: Social status and pattern variation in second language acquisition. In S. Gass, C. G. Madden, D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.), Variation in second language acquisition: Discourse, pragmatics and communication (pp. 103-125). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Looks at American and Japanese performance on two face threatening acts -- disagreement and giving embarrassing information. The study combined ethnographic data (notebook of naturally occurring instances of face-threatening acts) and discourse completion tests (12 situations and allowed to opt out). There were 30 participants -- 15 Americans and 15 advanced Japanese ESL speakers. Surprising data resulted. The study found that Americans were not always more direct nor more explicit than Japanese; that Japanese did not always avoid disagreement, nor critical remarks (especially when talking to lower status person). Japanese and Americans used questions to function as a warning, for the purpose of correction, to indicate disagreement, for chastisement and delivery of embarrassing information but the utterances from the two groups were significantly different in tone and content. Americans using positive remarks more frequently and in more places than Japanese. Both Japanese and Americans used style shifting in English according to the status of the interlocutor. Japanese were more outspoken if they didn't like the boss' plan. The question was why the Japanese were more outspoken, and one interpretation was that the Japanese speakers were influenced by their native language in their efforts in their ESL. Perhaps their outspokenness can be attributed to overshooting the mark in their effort to conform to the new, more direct speech patterns of American English -- i.e., overgeneralizing a perceived American directness. The DCT was inadequate in its range of possible formulas, length of response, depth of emotion, amount of repetition, and degree of elaboration. But there were also problems with natural data: biased by the linguistic preferences of friends, relatives, and associates. Also, the data was biased in favor of short exchanges because they could not record long ones in the notebook.

Beebe, L. M., & Takahashi, T. (1989). Sociolinguistic variation in face-threatening speech acts: Chastisement and disagreement. In M. R. Eisenstein (Ed.), The dynamic interlanguage: Empirical studies in second language variation (pp. 199-218). NY: Plenum.

Studies data collected on disagreement and chastisement in American and Japanese performance -- both natural speech collected in notebooks and through a discourse completion test/written role-play questionnaire (15 Americans, 15 Japanese intermediate ESL students). The study arrived at seven conclusions, many of which are contrary to cross-cultural expectations: Americans are not always more direct or explicit than Japanese, Japanese are not always avoiding disagreement or critical remarks (especially to lower status person) or apologizing more. Both groups used questions to function as a warning, in order to correct, to indicate disagreement, to chastise, and to convey embarrassing information, but questions by Americans and Japanese were seen to be significantly different in tone and content. Americans used positive remarks more frequently and in more places than did the Japanese.

Bell, N. (1998). Politeness in the speech of Korean ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 14(1), 25�47. [Available online]

This paper makes a contribution to the field of second language pragmatics by examining the production of three speech acts by a group of high beginning Korean learners of English. In comparing disagreements to requests and suggestions, it was found that, although the students demonstrated the ability to increase the level of politeness, their disagreements tended to be direct and unmitigated. It is suggested that status, and in particular age as a component of status, is an important factor in influencing the students’ choices regarding the perceived level of appropriate politenesstouse.

Cordella, M. (1996). Confrontational style in Spanish arguments: Pragmatics and teaching outlook. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 9, 148-62.

This report examines the confrontational style of distinct groups of advanced learners of Spanish. Group 1 (G1) consisted of four students with Latin American backgrounds. Group 2 (G2) was made up of five students who had all lived abroad in a Spanish-speaking country for at least one year and Group 3 (G3) consisted of four students who had never lived abroad. All had advanced grammatical proficiency in the language itself. Each group’s debate of the role of women in society was recorded and transcribed for analysis. The results demonstrate a marked difference between G1/G2 conversational style and that of G3. G1 & G2 included the presence of challenge questions as well as consistent cooperative overlap. These strategies were used to maintain friendship, interest, and involvement in the discussion (as opposed to being face-threatening). G3 demonstrated a very different confrontational style that was brief in comparison to the other two groups. In Group 3, conflict was handled with orderly turn-taking and very little overlap. Thus, the author concludes that since all participants had equivalent linguistic abilities, confrontational style is primarily acquired when learners are in contact with native speakers (e.g., Hispanic families, living abroad, etc.).

Du, J. S. (1995). Performance of face-threatening acts in Chinese: Complaining, giving bad news, and disagreeing. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 165-206). Manoa, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press.

Gives a definition of three face-threatening acts, complaining, giving bad news, and disagreeing, and discusses the illocutionary verbs which denote these acts and the semantics of face in Chinese culture. According to Du, in Chinese culture face is socially oriented and reciprocal, and as such requires some method of maintaining "face balance." The act of giving bad news may in some cases be face-saving, depending on the relationship between the interlocutors and the nature of the message. However, complaining (which indicates that the person's behavior is not approved or accepted by other social members) and disagreeing (which indicates a contradiction or negative evaluation of a person's face) are in most cases, clearly face-threatening. Therefore these acts require some strategy for preserving the lian/mianzi (face) of both interlocutors. Du conducted a study with thirty students (male and female) from Beijing Normal University ranging from 19 to 30 years old. Du explored the three speech acts listed above using a 19-item questionnaire that described face-threatening situations and asked each subject to contemplate the situation and write his/her response. The results showed that strategy choice varied according to the referential goal and the nature of the interlocutor relationship, but a general pattern could be noted: face-threatening acts in Chinese tend to be performed "in a cooperative rather than confrontational manner. By emphasizing common ground and constructive problem solutions, attention is paid to both participants' lian and mianzi."

Edstrom, A. (2004). Expressions of disagreement by Venezuelans in conversation: Reconsidering the influence of culture. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(8), 1499-1518.

It has been asserted that native speakers (NS) of Venezuelan Spanish tend to be confrontational when expressing disagreement and tend to enjoy contradiction because it demonstrates sincere involvement. This study investigates this idea further by examining how females of Venezuelan Spanish present disagreement in casual conversation. Disagreement is studied in six, naturally-occurring conversations between NS of Spanish and NS of English who live in Venezuela. All participants are mothers of children at a bilingual Spanish/English school. There was one English control group, one Spanish control group, and four mixed groups. Results show that direct strategies (36 instances) were used over indirect strategies (26 instances). However, the author points out the fact that indirectness was used in this context. Thus, confrontation is preferred, but not exclusive. Furthermore, the nature of the topic has an influence on the directness and confrontational nature of the expression of disagreement and that the social variables are very influential in strategy choice.

Forbes, K., & Cordella, M. (1999). The role of gender in Chilean argumentative discourse. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 37, 277-89.

The role of gender has been shown to have an influence on a number of discourse features. In this study, the influence of gender on argumentative discourse is analyzed. Three groups (G1--n= 3 males, 1 female, G2--n=3 females, 1 male; G3--n=2 females, 2 males) discussed discrimination that women experience in society. The argumentative discourse of these conversations was analyzed. Results show that gender did not completely determine role in participant style. Gender preferences were noted, but most strategies were used by both genders. The most influential factor on gender variation was the balance ratio of gender. Females tended to favor overlap, latching, back channeling, supportive moves, and repetition of others, except when there was a balanced ratio of gender. When the group composition was balanced, females tended to accommodate to male strategy balance, demonstrating sensitivity to group dynamics and a need for harmony and cooperation. Male strategy choice varied more when they were the majority and seemed to be exercising power.

Garc�a, C. (1989). Disagreeing and requesting by Americans and Venezuelans. Linguistics and Education, 1(3), 299-322.

The study compared the stylistic devices used by ten native English-speaking Americans and ten female Venezuelans (in the US for from 3 months to 3 years) in two different English language role-play situations: disagreeing and requesting. In the L1, speakers preferred nonconfrontational stylistic devices when they disagreed with an L1 interlocutor and impersonal stylistic devices when they requested a service. L2 speakers used more confrontational devices when disagreeing and more personal devices when requesting a service.

Salsbury, T. & Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Oppositional talk and the acquisition of modality in L2 English. In B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M. E. Anderson, C. A. Klee, & E. Tarone (Eds.), Social and cognitive factors in second language acquisition: Selected proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 57-76). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Reports on a one-year longitudinal study of the relationship between grammatical development in the form of modality and pragmatic development as represented by oppositional talk (i.e., when speakers express opposing views -- disagreements, challenges, denials, accusation, threats, and insults). The subjects were eight beginning level ESL learners, interviewed every month. They were from differing language and cultural backgrounds (Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French/Bambara). They found that the appearance of the linguistic form does not mean the learner has the pragmatic functions. The learners resort to lexical choices to mitigate their messages. They found evidence of late emergence of would and could.

Salsbury, T., & Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Oppositional talk and the acquisition of modality in L2 English. In B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M. E. Anderson, C. A. Klee, & E. Tarone (Eds.), Social and cognitive factors in second language acquisition: Selected proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 57-76). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Reports on a one-year longitudinal study of the relationship between grammatical development in the form of modality and pragmatic development as represented by oppositional talk (i.e., when speakers express opposing views -- disagreements, challenges, denials, accusation, threats, and insults). The subjects were eight beginning level ESL learners, interviewed every month. They were from differing language and cultural backgrounds (Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French/Bambara). They found that the appearance of the linguistic form does not mean the learner has the pragmatic functions. The learners resort to lexical choices to mitigate their messages. They found evidence of late emergence of would and could.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1993). Cross-linguistic influence in the speech act of correction. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 138-152). NY: Oxford University Press.

Looks at American and Japanese performance on the speech act of correction in status unequal (professor-student: low to high, high to low) situations where one knows the other has made a factual error. The study had 55 subjects -- 15 Americans, 15 Japanese responding in English, and 25 Japanese responding in Japanese (in Tokyo) -- fill out a 12-situation discourse completion task. The average age of respondents was 32-33. It found that positive remarks are an important adjunct to face threatening acts in English -- "I agree with you, but..." 64% of Americans did this while only 13% of the Japanese in Japanese did so (AE>JE>JJ). All groups used softeners, "I believe," "I think," questions, "Did you say...?" and expressions to lighten the gravity of the mistake or defend the interlocutor, "You made one small error in the date." Japanese also used softeners but not as frequently in ESL (50% of time vs. 71% of time for E1 group). Both groups used verbal indications of correction in English more than in Japanese (only 26%) (professor to student: AE>JE>JJ, student to professor: JJ>JE>AE). The reason was that in Japanese paralinguistic means such as facial expressions, tone of voice, sighs, hesitating serve that function. Japanese are more overt in their consciousness of status and in not covering it up in their use of language. Americans harbor a polite fiction that you and I are equals.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., Hartford, B. A. S., Mahan-Taylor, R., Morgan, M. J., & Reynolds, D. W. (1991). Developing pragmatic awareness: Closing the conversation. ELT Journal, 45(1), 4-15.doi:10.1093/elt/45.1.4

Many commercially available English-language materials do not provide natural, or even pragmatically appropriate, conversational models for learners. This paper argues for increasing the role of pragmastics in English-language instruction. Classroom teachers can integrate pragmatics into the language curriculum by drawing on natural conversations, students' observations, and incomplete dialogues in textbooks. The paper provides guide-lines for pragmatically-centred lessons, as well as examples of specific activities, using closings in American English to illustrate these examples.

Grieve, A., & Seebus, I. (2008). G’day or Guten Tag? A cross-cultural study of Australian and German telephone openings. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(7), 1323-1343.

This pilot study analyzed social factors such as age, gender, purpose of call and rules of mirrored form that influenced and modified German and Australian telephone openings. More specifically, it focused on factors influencing the way in which the callee used explicit identification and salutation formulae. Additionally, it identified differences in how members of these two cultures answered the phone. The data were collected by 17 German native speakers in Hannover, Germany and 12 English native speakers in Melbourne. All collectors were white-collar middle-class professionals that represented a cross-section of age and gender. Data collectors were asked to note down details of telephone conversations they made and received within a week. The calls were not audio-taped for many reasons, specifically for ethical restrictions in Australia (by which both callers had to be aware that a conversation was being recorded before any interaction took place). Results of this study involved quantitative research, based on qualitative studies, showing that Australians had a marked preference for implicit identification in private calls and Germans tended to identify themselves explicitly in all call types. Nevertheless, in business calls Australians were more likely to self-identify. Furthermore, this study found that not only the call type and cultural rules of mirrored form modified how individuals opened telephone calls, but age and gender could also play a part. Thus, Australian results showed that men were more likely to self-identify than women. Callee salutations tended to occur more in private calls than in business calls. In business calls callees, who were under 50 years-old, tended to include a salutation in a higher frequency than those older than 50. In the German results, mirroring of self-identification with self-identification and salutation with a greeting occurred in both private and business calls. The age factor had an influence on the role of the inclusion of a salutation. Callees older than 36 years old were less likely to include a salutation than younger German callees. Use of ‘Sie’ (formal ‘you’ in German) was more utilized in business than in private calls. In sum, the comparative results showed that overall Germans tended to self-identify more frequently than Australians, and that Australian callees showed a higher tendency to include a salutation than Germans. Mirroring of self-identification occurred in both Australian and German calls.

Moriyama, T. (1999). Oreito owabi: Kankei syufukuno sisutemu toshite (‘Gratitude and apologies: A system of repair’). Kokubungaku: Kaishakuto kyouzaino kenkyu (‘Japanese Literature: Interpretation and Material development’), 44(6), 78-82.

This article is an essay on gratitude and apology expressions in Japanese as a repair strategy in interpersonal communication. The motive for both gratitude and apologies is a psychological imbalance (or a sense of indebtedness) between the speaker and the hearer. Expressions of gratitude and apologies both attempt to adjust that imbalance. An expression of gratitude repairs the sense of imbalance accompanied by a certain benefit on the part of the speaker offered by the hearer. Apologies also repair the offense caused by the speaker. Section 1: conceptual understanding of gratitude and apologies. Section 2: analysis of various expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 3: sumimasen as an expression of gratitude. Section 4: responses to expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 5: phatic greeting expressions including gokuro sama, otsukare sama, omedetou.

Placencia, M. E. (1997). Address forms in Ecuadorian Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics, 9(1), 165-202.

This study provides a qualitative exploration of address forms (i.e., names, titles, name substitutes) in naturally-occurring telephone conversations in Ecuador. Factors that govern use of various address forms in relation to context and other social factors (e.g., age, social distance, power relationship, etc.) are discussed. The author also identifies types and placement of address forms in conversations as well as the functions they perform. Using a conversation analytical approach, the researcher examined a corpus of 78 telephone conversations that included a variety of conversations among the six permanent members of the household. Results show that in Ecuadorian Spanish a variety of address forms are used. These include first name, full name, titles and surname, title and full name, name substitutes, and address pronouns. Their use primarily occurs during openings and closings of conversations, during a preface of the reason for the call, or in situations of heightened emotion. The patterns of use depend primarily on age, distance, power relationships, sex, frequency of interaction, and the goal of the interaction. Examples and detailed explanations of each of these address forms and their contextual constraints are given.

Reed, B. S. (2009). Prosodic orientation: A practice for sequence organization in broadcast telephone openings. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(6), 1223-1247.

This article investigated telephone opening sequences from a corpus of English-speaking radio phone-in programs. It employed the approach to data and analysis prevalent in interactional linguistics and conversation analysis. The data corpus was a collection of 16 radio phone-in programs from five different radio shows, involving varying presenters. In total, 131 opening sequences were selected for closer examination. All data were transcribed and analyzed. The data analysis included the study of the relations between turns and turn constructional units. Prosodic aspects such as pauses, intonation, pitch register, stress, speech rhythm, and speech rate were recorded in detail. All pauses were measured electronically and the speech rhythms were analyzed through waveforms. This investigation offered insights into two aspects of verbal interactions: participants’ deployment of prosody and their negotiation over matters of sequence. In regard to the nature of sequences in the case of phone-ins, the study showed a first noticing of the potential for a pause between the presenter’s introductory turn and the caller’s first turn on air. Also, results showed that presenters always initiated the interaction, and the sequential status of turns was negotiated by participants, rather than given � through displayed orientation to other participants’ prosody. The study indicated that the temporally first position of hosts’ turns did not automatically give them the status of a sequential first, if sequences were considered to be structures validated and accomplished by participants themselves, rather than by the chronology of interaction. In this study the sequential status of a turn as a first or a second was established through separation and integration. Thus, separation and orientation were achieved mainly through participants’ display of awareness of each others’ prosody. On the other hand, the conversational activity involved a cluster of cues from different conversational modes such as lexis, grammar, semantic and pragmatic meaning, prosody, and kinesics. In addition, findings revealed that in a specific context participants’ interaction in the realm of prosody could be the primary factor in defining a turn’s sequential status. The author pointed that it was not a single participant’s prosody delivery that identified a turn as a first or a second, such as higher-than-normal pitch and loudness or faster-than-normal speech rate. In this study the sequential status of turns was established by the way in which one participant’s turn behaved prosodically in relation to a previous turn by another participant, i.e. whether it broke with, or continued a previously established prosodic pattern. The author concluded that the continuation of prosodic patterns was accomplished through various forms of prosodic orientation and that prosody could be treated by participants as a primary negotiating resource for interaction.

Sullivan, P. (1979). Conversation: Saying hello and goodbye. TESOL Newsletter, 13(1), 29.

Reports in a sampling of textbooks, dialogs did not match those collected from spontaneous speech. In seven textbooks, the most common greeting was "How are you?" (which was heard only once in 65 greetings). The researcher took a sampling of ESL textbooks. They also took a sampling of spontaneous speech of speakers by sex, place (beauty parlor, elevators, office buildings, airports, stores, TV) -- ages 18-45. Of 46 female greetings, 31 said "hi" (67%). Of 19 males, 7 said "hi" (37%). They also asked 13 native speakers about their greetings.

Takami, T. (2002). A study on closing sections of Japanese telephone conversations. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 18(1), 67-85.

The study used quantitative discourse analysis to examine how Japanese telephone closings are realized between intimates with three phases of the closing section: pre-closing, terminal exchanges, and leave-taking. The study found preferable and frequently-used patterns at all three phases.

Valeiras Viso, J. (2002). ‘Deja tu mensaje despu�s de la se�al’: Despedidas y otros elementos de la secci�n de cierre en mensajes dejados en contestadores autom�ticos en Madrid y Londres. In M. E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 209-32). Amsterdam, Netherlands: LINCOM Europa.

Answering machine messages provide interesting insight into cultural variation. This study systematically examines this variation through a comparison of the closing sections of 70 answering machine messages in British English, 70 messages in Peninsular Spanish, and questionnaires examining cultural perceptions of answering machines. In both language varieties, the length of the closing section was dependent upon the relationship between interlocutors. Even still, a great deal of variation was found in the particulars indicative of closings, expressions of future contact, and leave-takings. The British English speakers rarely used more than one particular for closing (e.g., ok, ok?, so, anyway, alright?), whereas the Peninsular Spanish groups tended to use a combination of two or more together (e.g., Vale?, Venga, Bueno, Pues nada, Eh?). Both groups also included expressions of future contact; however, the British English speakers demonstrated a wider variety of strategies usually referring to "speaking" soon. The Peninsular Spanish speakers tended to refer to "seeing" the interlocutor later. The most variation was found in leave-takings. The British English speakers used a total of 6 strategies whereas the Peninsular Spanish speakers utilized 21 different strategies. In general, the author concludes that a different perception of answering machines pervades in each cultural group. The British English speakers seem to see the messages as more of a threat to privacy and show ease and precision in closing. However, the Peninsular Spanish group tends to show more difficulty in closing due to the need to maintain solidarity.

Eslami, Z. (2005). Invitations in Persian and English: Ostensible or genuine? Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(4), 481-514.

The study described the features of Persian genuine and ostensible invitations. The goal of this research was to broaden the scope of speech act studies to include a non-Western language to extend the scope of intercultural speech act studies to ostensible speech acts. The results of the data were compared with the structure of invitations in English reported by Isaacs and Clark (1990). The study examined the intercultural differences in the realization of patterns of invitations in relation to the politeness theory. Data were collected through observation and participation in a variety of spontaneously occurring speech situations. The researcher gathered 80 ostensible and 80 genuine invitations in Persian. The participants included 40 graduate students, 25 females and 15 males, from three different Iranian universities. They were asked to tape-record invitations in which they participated or they were witness of those invitations in daily interactions. In addition, 20 native speakers were interviewed concerning the perceived characteristic and cultural values of genuine and ostensible invitations. Findings revealed that the structure of ostensible invitations in Persian were more complex than in English. The features of ostensible invitation in English were not sufficient to distinguish between ostensible and genuine invitations in Persian. The author asserted that invitations that met the criteria for being genuine invitations in English could be classified as ostensible by Persian speakers due to their indirect linguistic form, hesitant tone, and lack of persistence. In contrast to Isaac and Clark’s finding regarding to the fact that English speakers’ ostensible invitations were rare in most situations, the author noted that Persian speakers used a considerable number of ostensible by invitations in their daily activities as a manifestation of their ritual politeness. Furthermore, the study postulated that the main underlying factor in using ostensible invitations in Persian was enhancing face (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Thus, in an attempt to adhering to societal norms Persian speakers enhanced their face and the interlocutor’s one by using ostensible invitations in everyday language.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2003). Declining an invitation: A cross-cultural study of pragmatic strategies in American English and Latin American Spanish. Multilingua, 22(3), 225-55.

This article provides a cross-cultural analysis of preference for and use of politeness strategies when declining an invitation by native Spanish-speakers and advanced non-native speakers of Spanish whose native language is American English. All subjects were graduate students at a major American university (N=30; 15 male and 15 female). The subjects were divided into three groups (10 NS of Spanish speaking Spanish [SPN-SPN], 10 Americans speaking Spanish [ENG-SPN], and 10 NS of English speaking English [ENG-ENG]). They each completed five, open role plays containing three invitation refusals and two distracters. The data was analyzed in terms of strategies used as well as degree of politeness. The analysis demonstrates a significant difference between the ENG-ENG group and the SPN-SPN as well as some differences from the ENG-SPN group. Similar strategies were used by all three groups with the difference lying in the frequency and preference of their use. Results show that the ENG-ENG group tended to be more direct than the SPN-SPN group with the ENG-SPN group falling in the middle. This level of directness was also affected by the social constraints of the situation. Both positive and negative pragmatic transfer was found and many of the advanced learners lacked some L2 socio-cultural knowledge when declining the invitation. Pedagogical implications of the study are discussed.

Garc�a, C. (1992). Refusing an invitation: A case study of Peruvian style. Hispanic Linguistics, 5(1-2), 207-43.

This study compares the politeness strategies used by male and female speakers in a role play situation: refusing an invitation. The respondents were 10 male and 10 female Peruvians with with ages ranging from their 20s to their 70s and representing three different social classes. Both groups performed distinctly marked stages: (1) invitation-response, and (2) insistence-response. In the first stage both genders used deference politeness strategies for head acts, while in the second stage they adopted solidarity politeness strategies. In the first stage, both genders expressed their respect toward their interlocutor and their friendship with him or her. However, in the second stage, males tended to refuse, while females generally responded affirmatively, though vaguely.

Garc�a, C. (1996). Teaching speech act performance: Declining an invitation. Hispania, 79, 267-79.

The author explores the teaching of speech acts through inviting and declining an invitation. The author advocates that instructing about frames of participation, underlying preferred politeness strategies, and linguistic strategies is essential to pragmatic development. The importance of using empirical data for instruction is discussed and pedagogical suggestions are made based on Cohen & Olshtain (1991) and DiPetro (1987). Examples of each of the five stages of pragmatic instruction are given�(1) Diagnostic Assessment, (2) Model Dialogue, (3) Evaluation of Situation, (4) Role play Activities, and (5) Feedback, Discussion, Conclusion.

Garc�a, C. (1999). The three stages of Venezuelan invitations and responses. Multilingua, 18(4), 391-433.

This study compares politeness strategies utilized by males (n=10) and females (n=10) when inviting and responding to an invitation. The subjects were all native Venezuelan Spanish-speakers with varying educational levels and occupations. The average age of the males was 41 and the females was 35. Each subject participated in two role plays: one in which they invited a friend to attend a birthday party and a second scenario in which they refused a friend’s invitation to a party. In each role play, the participants interacted with the same interlocutor, a 40-year-old female they knew. Following the role plays, the participants completed a questionnaire regarding their perception of the interaction, interlocutor, and level of politeness. An analysis of the data shows that the invitation sequences involved three distinct stages: (1) invitation-response, (2) insistence-response, and (3) wrap-up. In terms of gender analysis, a number of differences occurred. Females tended to be more verbose and more deferential than their male counterparts when inviting, and they used solidarity politeness strategies only when parting. When refusing invitations, both groups used deferential strategies (males more than females). In general, the author categorized the Venezuelan participants as belonging to a positive politeness culture, preferring friendliness over imposition.

Bouton, K., Curry, K., & Bouton, L. (2010). Moving beyond “in my opinion”: Teaching the complexities of expressing opinion. In D. H. Tatsuki and N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 105-123). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Dafouz-Milne, E. (2008). The pragmatic role of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers in the construction and attainment of persuasion: A cross-linguistic study of newspaper discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(1), 95-113.

This article explored the role of metadiscourse markers in the construction and attainment of persuasion in order to identify which metadiscourse categories predominated in newspaper discourse. It presented quantitative and qualitative research on the presence and persuasive function of metadiscourse markers in a corpus of Spanish and English opinion columns. Two elite newspapers were chosen due to their status and their political and rhetorical influence they exerted in their respective national cultures: the British The Times and the Spanish El Pa�s. The corpus consisted of a total of 40 texts (20 in English and 20 in Spanish, accounting 46,815 words). They had similar length and were matched for topic in order to ensure comparability. Concerning similarities, the study revealed that textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers were present both in the English and Spanish texts, but there were variations as to the distribution and composition of such markers. Regarding differences, the findings suggested that there was some room for internal variation across languages in the construction of opinion columns. Also, there were differences in the amount of code glosses, that is, in the type of supplementary material that English and Spanish writers considered to be important. As to the analysis of persuasion, the findings revealed that the informants considered that texts with a balanced number of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse items were the most persuasive, followed by texts with a high number of these markers. The texts were considered to be the less persuasive of all, were the ones with a low index of metadiscourse markers. The author noted that it seemed that readers highly valued texts that guided and showed consideration towards the audience.

Traverso, V. (2007). Insisting: A goal-oriented or a chatting interactional practice? One aspect of Syrian service encounters. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(3), 377-398.

The study analyzed insistence as a feature of the Syrian interactional activity in service encounters. The study focused on how an interactional activity was introduced, closed, and sequentially achieved. Data were audio-recorded in diverse busy shopping districts of Damascus, Syria. They were recorded in closed settings. The selling stores included shoe shops, clothing shops, sewing shops, jewelers, cosmetics shops, and toiletry. Data were collected by the author in two parts: when she accompanied friends doing shopping and when permission was granted by the sellers to her to tape-record their business interactions. In the service encounter situations, customers usually did not take as closure-oriented the turns in which the seller asserted that the request could not be satisfied due to the unavailability of the product. On the contrary, customers kept on asking for the same product or same service while sellers kept on repeating that they were unable to comply. As the author stated, the interaction unfolded for a while in the form of “repetitive loopings” of insistence. The author contended that the insistence exchanges in service encounters seemed to aim at assuring the customer that what the seller had said was true. Thus, insistence was employed just in the case that a “single” request (without insistence) had not been sufficient for the purpose. In addition, the study also revealed that the way in which these exchanges were closed led to hypothesize that what the customer expected in performing them was a type of discourse in which the seller showed his sincerity. By interviewing native speakers about this type of interaction, the author concluded that these exchanges were somewhat a form of pleasure of chatting, and more precisely, that they were used as a device for exchange expansion. This activity was considered positive and was characterized as part of good manners by native speakers of the Damascus culture.

Arundale, R. (1999). An alternative model and ideology of communication for an alternative politeness theory. Pragmatics, 9(1), 119-153.

Atkinson, J. M. (1982). Understanding formality: The categorization and production of 'formal' interaction. The British Journal of Sociology, 33(1), 86 -117.

This paper examines the relationship between 'formal' and 'informal' social action with reference to recent research in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Evidence is presented in support of the proposal that a taken for granted model of conversational interaction is used by analysts, both lay and professional, as a comparative reference point against which certain actions are categorized as 'formal'. Such a procedure, it is suggested, results in evaluative interpretations which fail to address the question of how such interactions may be operating to produce orderliness in the settings where they are found. This theme is developed mainly in relation to the way a number of recurrent features of multi-party interaction may provide practical solutions to a general problem which appears to be common to all such settings, namely that of how to create and preserve the conditions for sustaining the shared attentiveness of all co-present parties to the proceedings at hand. The general themes are also briefly considered with reference to small-scale interactions that are likely to be regarded as 'formal'.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1990). Congruence in native and nonnative conversations: Status balance in the academic advising session. Language Learning, 40(4), 467-501. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1990.tb00603.x

This paper examines the notion of status in institutional discourse and identifies congruence as a factor in determining the success of native speaker (NS) and nonnative speaker (NNS) interactions in that context. Thirty-two academic advising sessions between faculty advisors and both native and highly proficient nonnative graduate students were examined. Whereas both NSs and NNSs show variable success in negotiating noncongruent (status-challenging) speech acts such as suggestions, NNSs are generally less successful because of the absence of status-preserving strategies that minimize the force of noncongruent speech acts. These strategies allow students to take out-of-status turns without jeopardizing their relationship with their advisors. Because of the advanced level of the NNSs, lack of success is not attributable to lack of linguistic competence but to lack of context-specific pragmatic competence involving the use, kind, and number of status-preserving strategies as well as the content and form appropriate for noncongruent speech acts.

Bargiela-Chiappini, F., & Harris, S. (2006). Politeness at work: issues and challenges. Journal of Politeness Research, 2(1), 7-33. doi:10.1515/PR.2006.002

In this article we will attempt to address some of the issues that arise in researching politeness in the workplace, especially, though not exclusively, in the context of multicultural and multilingual encounters. We propose to look at debates around the nature of politeness and their relevance for research in work settings and to discuss the contribution made to these debates by analyses of politeness in the workplace. Finally, we will discuss some of the methodological problems that field researchers will face when conducting research on the field, especially in intercultural work contexts. These will include, for example, issues such as the choice of methodology/s, confidentiality, the nature of the involvement of the researcher, making use of multi-method approaches, the comparability of analytical categories across different languages and culture. Finally, we suggest, very briefly, some directions for further research.

Beebe, L. M., & Waring, H. Z. (2005). Pragmatic development in responding to rudeness. In J. Frodesen & C. Holten (Eds.), The power of context in language teaching and learning (pp. 67-79). Boston: Thomson/Heinle.

The study aimed at locating evidence of pragmatic development in responding to rudeness among lower and higher proficiency ESL learners. It also attempted to identify pragmatic constructs other than frequently studied speech acts (e.g., request, apology, refusal, complaint, and compliment) in measuring pragmatic development. The study reported on 20 low-proficiency and 20 high-proficiency students reacting to rudeness as collected through notebook data. They were asked to write out what they would say, as well as what they would like to say but wouldn't. Findings revealed that the higher proficiency students were found to be more aggressive in their responses than lower proficiency learners. They also sent off-record messages more frequently. The authors suggested that the learners displayed progress in their ability to communicate on a subtle and effective level.

Beebe, L. M., & Takahashi, T. (1989). Sociolinguistic variation in face-threatening speech acts. In M. Eisenstein (Ed.), The dynamic interlanguage (pp. 199-218). New York, NY: Plenum.

The cross-cultural study of speech acts is vital to the understanding of international communication. In reviewing this area of research, we realize that face-threatening acts are particularly important to study because they are the source of so many cross-cultural miscommunications. Research has been done on a number of face-threatening speech acts1�for example, on apologies (BlumKulka & Olshtain, 1984; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, in press; Borkin & Reinhart, 1978; Cohen & Olshtain, 1981, 1985; Coulmas, 1981; Godard 1977; Olshtain, 1983; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983); requests (Blum-Kulka 1982; BlumKulka & Olshtain, 1984; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, in press; Tanaka & Kawade, 1982); refusals (Beebe & Cummings, 1985; Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz, in press; Takahashi & Beebe, 1986, 1987); complaints (Bonikowska, 1985; Olshtain & Weinbach, 1986); disagreement (LoCastro, 1986; Pomerantz, 1984); expressions of disapproval (D’Amico-Reisner, 1983); and expressions of gratitude (Eisenstein & Bodman, 1986). The evidence provided in these studies suggests that second-language (L2) learners are faced with the great risk of offending their interlocutors or of miscommunication when performing face-threatening acts.

Bell, N. (1998). Politeness in the speech of Korean ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 14(1), 25�47. [Available online]

This paper makes a contribution to the field of second language pragmatics by examining the production of three speech acts by a group of high beginning Korean learners of English. In comparing disagreements to requests and suggestions, it was found that, although the students demonstrated the ability to increase the level of politeness, their disagreements tended to be direct and unmitigated. It is suggested that status, and in particular age as a component of status, is an important factor in influencing the students’ choices regarding the perceived level of appropriate politenesstouse.

Bharuthram, S. (2003). Politeness phenomena in the Hindu Sector of the South African Indian English speaking community. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1523�1544. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00047-X

This study examines the understanding of politeness phenomena within the Hindu sector of the South African Indian English (SAIE) speaking community by focusing on the speech acts of apologies and requests. Data have been collected through interviews with cultural/religious leaders and with families, as well as through discourse completion tasks. The findings are compared with Western/non-Western views of politeness to determine their appropriateness in describing politeness in the target community. The influence of the Western value system on the evolution of politeness phenomena in the target community is also studied.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1985). Modifiers as indicating devices: Same or different? Theoretical Linguistics, 12(2-3), 213-29. doi:10.1515/thli.1985.12.2-3.213

Most of the research carried out on speech act modifiers (such as politeness markers and hedges) has been concerned mainly with their socal impact.� The research reported here shifts the emphasis to the role of modifies as request pragmatic force indicators.� It is argued that speech act modifiers are multifunctional in two distinct ways:� first, in that the same occurrence of a modifier can serve both to modify social impact and to signal pragmatic force, and second, that in their social function, modifiers can both mitagte and aggravate degree of coerciveness.� The argument is developed by considering the occurecne of a group of modifiers in request patterns used in Hebrew and English, and by analyzing native spearkers, assessments of relative requestive force in request patterns with and without modifiers.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1987). Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of Pragmatics, 11(1), 131-146. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(87)90192-5

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the notions of indirectness and politeness as applied to requests. It is argued that (contrary to current theories of politeness) the two notions do not represent parallel demensions; indirectness does not necessarily imply politeness. The relationship between the two was examined in a series of experiments designed to tap native speakers' perceptions of politeness and indirectness in Hebrew and English. The results indicate that the two notions are perceived as different from each other: The most indirect request strategies were not judged as the most polite. The strategies rated as the most polite, on a scale of politeness, were conventional indirect requests (‘on record’ indirectness); the strategies rated as the most indirect, on a scale of indirectness, were hints used fom requests (‘off record’ indirectness). These results are interpreted in the framework of a suggested model for politeness. The thrust of the argument is that a certain adherence to the pragmatic clarity of the message is an essential part of politeness. Politeness is defined as the interactional balance achieved between two needs: The need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness. This balance is achieved in the case of conventional indirectness, which indeed received the highest ratings for politeness. Tipping the balance in favor of either pragmatic clarity or non-coerciveness will decrease politeness; thus, direct strategies can be perceived as impolite because they indicate a lack of concern with face, and non-conventional indirect strategies (hints) can be perceived as impolite because they indicate a lack of concern for pragmatic clarity.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). Playing it safe: The role of conventionality in indirectness. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: requests and apologies (pp. 37-70). Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Bravo, D. (2002). Actos asertivos y cortes�a: Imagen del rol en el discurso de acad�micos argentinos. In M.E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 141-74). Munich, Germany.

This study examines politeness in assertive acts in Argentinean Spanish through the notions of autonomy and affiliation. Acts (communicative objectives), sub-acts (sub-objectives derived from the first), and strategies (how the act is realized) in a discussion group of four participants (male: 2; female: 2) were analyzed in terms of face. Results demonstrated a priority for interpersonal agreement and maintenance of their image as academic professionals. In addition, strategies were used to protect their 'basic' image and their image as an 'Argentinean'. Strategy choice was influenced by the level of conflict, the relation between the intensity of the assertion and the level of conflict, the level of politeness, and the social effect of the assertion. In general, group discussion can be said to be a social-emotional environment.

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This study is about the principles for constructing polite speeches. The core of it first appeared in Questions and Politeness, edited by Esther N. Goody (now out of print). It is here reissued with a fresh introduction that surveys the considerable literature in linguistics, psychology and the social sciences that the original extended essay stimulated, and suggests distinct directions for research. The authors describe and account for some remarkable parallelisms in the linguistic construction of utterances with which people express themselves in different languages and cultures. A motive for these parallels is isolated - politeness, broadly defined to include both polite friendliness and polite formality - and a universal model is constructed outlining the abstract principles underlying polite usages. This is based on the detailed study of three unrelated languages and cultures: the Tamil of South India, the Tzeltal spoken by Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico, and the English of the USA and England, supplemented by examples from other cultures. Underneath the apparent diversity of polite behaviour in different societies lie some general pan-human principles of social interaction, and the model of politeness provides a tool for analysing the quality of social relations in any society. This volume will be of special interest to students in linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropology, and the sociology and social psychology of interaction.

Bunnie, E. M. (2002). A cross-cultural comparison of Spanish and English conversational discourse. University of Regina, Canada.

This qualitative study is a cross-cultural comparison of Peninsular Spanish and Canadian English conversational discourse. Five features in recorded naturally-occurring data (2-140 line dialogues) and thorough ethnological methods are analyzed. These features are Principles of Conversational Organization (PCO), interruptions, gestures, inter-gender differences, and Peninsular Spanish non-verbals as communicative events. The author’s conclusions can be summarized in each of these five areas. First of all, the five PCO are used in both languages (i.e., greetings and state-of-being questions in openers). Overlap and interruption occur in both language varieties, but the Spanish participants exhibited a much higher incidence of interruption and overlap, indicative of a high-involvement style. This conversational style is signaled by rapid pacing and participatory listening. A gender comparison of these features results in some difference, namely that, in both groups, males do not dominate through interruption and that females tend to provide more supportive utterances. Finally, gesture use is varied and non-verbals in Peninsular Spanish can be classified as communicative events (in this case, criticism).

Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(1), 49�75. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(93)90106-Y

This paper reports a study on politeness strategies American English speakers and Chinese speakers use to respond to compliments. It has three aims: (1) to discover similarities and differences of politeness strategies between the two groups, (2) to provide empirical evidence for or against existing theories of linguistic politeness, and (3) to reveal differences of social values between the two cultures. The two groups were found to use largely different politeness strategies: the American English speakers' strategies are mostly motivated by Leech's Agreement Maxim, whereas the Chinese speakers' strategies are motivated by his Modesty Maxim. This difference isthen related to differences of social values between the two cultures, particularly in their respective beliefs about what constitutes self-image. The findings of this study point to some inadequacies of Brown and Levinson's (1987) model of politeness, since it cannot explain all strategies used by the two groups of subjects, particularly those used by the Chinese speakers. Gu's (1990) model, on the other hand, accounts for the Chinese data well, but cannot explain most of the American English speakers' strategies. Leech's (1983) Politeness Principle is shown to be the most adequate model to analyze the data of the present study.

Chodorowska-Pilch, M. (2000). The imperfect of politeness in Spanish. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 19, 29-44.

This work examines the noncanonical use of the imperfect (i.e., reference to the past and aspectual values) as a politeness strategy in Peninsular Spanish. The author notes that in specific impositive speech acts, the imperfect is a grammaticalized device for encoding politeness. Very often this occurs in situations where the speaker manifests a differential attitude towards the hearer or addressee. Analysis is based on naturally-occurring data from two travel agencies in Spain. An explanation and classification of the noncanonical uses of the imperfect and the verbs encoding politeness is given. Results show that the imperfect is used to express politeness in a variety of speech acts and is associated systematically with verb choice (e.g., querer is found in direct questions, impositive statements, indirect questions, and indirect requests). Examples of each case are given.

Craig, R. T., Tracy, K., & Spisak, F. (1986). The discourse of requests: Assessment of a politeness approach. Human Communication Research, 12(4), 437- 468. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1986.tb00087.x

A corpus of transcribed, oral requests used in a previous study of compliance-gaining strategies (Tracy, Craig, Smith, & Spisak, 1984) is examined interpretively from the perspective of the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1978). Findings include the following: (1) politeness strategies occur in great abundance and variety; (2) superstrategies are mixed in varyingly skillful ways; (3) goals are accomplished through multifunctional discourse; (4) the interpretation of politeness strategies confronts several kinds of indeterminacy; (5) facework strategies that fall outside the scope of the politeness theory, including aggravation and speaker-oriented strategies, are much in evidence. In response to the several theoretical problems that emerge in the course of the analysis, six tenets on which to build a new theory of facework are proposed.

Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(3), 349-67. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(95)00014-3

Politeness theories have focussed on how communicative strategies are employed to promote or maintain social harmony in interaction. On the other hand, little work has been done on communicative strategies with the opposite orientation, that of attacking one's interlocutor and causing disharmony. In this paper, I consider the notions of inherent and mock impoliteness, and discuss contextual factors associated with impoliteness. In particular, I attempt to build an impoliteness framework which is parallel but opposite to Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory of politeness. Finally, I demonstrate that in some contexts � specifically that of army training and literary drama � impoliteness behaviour is not a marginal activity, and that we need an appropriate descriptive framework in order to account for it.

Curc�, C., & De Fina, A. (2002). Modo imperativo, negaci�n y diminutivos en la expresi�n de la cortes�a en espa�ol: el contraste entre M�xico y Espa�a. In M.E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 107-40). Munich, Germany: LINCOM Europa.

The interaction styles and verbal politeness in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish are compared by analyzing imperatives, negation, and diminutives. This exploratory analysis examines perceptions of face threatening acts as well as social and linguistic components of politeness in both language varieties. One hundred fifteen Mexican university students and 134 Spanish students completed two questionnaires. The first measured students' perceptions of distance, power and rank of imposition. The second measured the two group's reactions when confronted with certain linguistic forms in fixed contexts. Results demonstrate interesting behaviours. It was predicted that in calculating each of the social factors combined as well as each separately, that the Mexican students would express a sense of risk and higher level of imposition. However, although it was a tendency (70% of the situations), this was not always the case. When calculating distance, power, and imposition together, the Mexican students' and the Spanish students' perceptions were based on the contextual situation. The Mexican group saw complaints and disagreements as needing more mitigation and the Spaniards reflected higher imposition when modifying the course of action. Analyzed separately, these social factors do show differences, but not those predicted by the researcher. Distance was evaluated equally by both groups, power was evaluated higher in the Spanish group, and degree of imposition was evaluated higher in the Mexican group. The analysis of linguistic markers highlights the use of imperatives in Peninsular Spanish and diminutives in Mexican Spanish. The use of the imperative was seen as less polite by 93-99% of the Mexican participants. In terms of interrogatives, both groups saw them as equally polite. However, the Mexican group noted that mitigators increase politeness and the Spanish group demonstrated no effect of these mitigators. This study also demonstrates a likely perceived difference between perception and actual use of politeness strategies. In general, the authors conclude that the Mexican group tended to be more sensitive to distance and hierarchy. The Mexican participants valued deference without affecting solidarity and were especially sensitive to the maintenance of positive face. The Spanish group tended to value free expression and spontaneity.

Eelen, G. (2001). A Critique of politeness theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.

As a sociolinguistic phenomenon that connects language and its users to the social world that surrounds them, politeness can provide insights into the very structure of social reality and the process by which it is established and maintained. And through its focus on ethical aspects of social interaction, it can expose the fundamental nature and the inner workings of morality in our everyday lives. Although a highly specific subject matter, politeness therefore touches on issues far beyond its immediate borders. In a critical state-of-the-art review of the field, this book examines the extent to which the potential impact of politeness has been explored so far. Through a metatheoretical analysis of epistemological, methodological, social and psychological ideologies prevalent in mainstream politeness theory, it offers an overview of sociolinguistic thinking about language and social reality during the past quarter of a century. Eelen's analysis of the literature reveals a coherent and consistent ideology underlying the entire field, but also shows how this ideology has caused scientific theory to miss out on many important aspects of the reality of everyday life. His examination of the relationship between science and commonsense thinking, between scientific and everyday notions of politeness, draws attention to issues which remain untouched by current theoretical models and opens up avenues of research hitherto left unexplored.

Farr, M. (2000). �A mi no me manda nadie! Individualism and identity in Mexican Ranchero speech. Pragmatics, 10, 61-85.

This article provides an ethnographic account of individualism and identity as reflected in Mexican Ranchero speech. As part of the analysis, the author provides a socio-historical account of this dialectical group as well as an anecdotal account of speech events. Conclusions assert that the Ranchero speech community values both autonomy and affiliation, traditionally demonstrated by franqueza (direct, straightforward, candid language). The construction of the Ranchero identity through language use is explored in detail.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2004). Interlanguage refusals: Linguistic politeness and length of residence in the target community. Language Learning, 54(4), 587�653. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2004.00281.x

Using role play and verbal-report data, this study investigates the sequential organization of politeness strategies of 24 learners of Spanish and whether the learners’ ability to negotiate and mitigate a refusal was influenced by length of residence in the target community. Refusal sequences were examined throughout the interaction (head acts, pre- and postrefusals) and across conversational turns. Results showed more frequent attempts at negotiation and greater use of lexical and syntactic mitigation among learners who had spent more time in the target community and also revealed a preference for solidarity and indirectness, which approximated native Spanish speaker norms. It is suggested that the variables of proficiency and length of residence should be considered independently. Finally, learners’ perceptions of social status are discussed.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2008). Politeness in Mexico and the United States: A contrastive study of the realization and perception of refusals. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

This book explores the issue of politeness phenomena and socially appropriate behavior in two societies, Mexico and the United States, in three different contexts: refusing invitations, requests, and suggestions. In addition to a state-of-the-art review of the speech act of refusals in numerous languages, the book provides a rigorous analysis of data collection methods utilized to examine speech act behavior at the production and perception levels. Many examples of native speaker interactions illustrate the similarities and differences observed in the realization patterns and the perception of refusals by Mexicans and Americans in formal and informal situations. The data are analyzed in terms of refusal sequences and pragmatic strategies which are strategically used to carry out relational work during the negotiation of face. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses are interpreted in light of the notions of face, politeness, and relational work in Mexico and the United States. This publication will be of interest to researchers and students in pragmatics and discourse analysis, cross-cultural communication, and sociology.

Forbes, K., & Cordella, M. (1999). The role of gender in Chilean argumentative discourse. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 37, 277-89.

The role of gender has been shown to have an influence on a number of discourse features. In this study, the influence of gender on argumentative discourse is analyzed. Three groups (G1--n= 3 males, 1 female, G2--n=3 females, 1 male; G3--n=2 females, 2 males) discussed discrimination that women experience in society. The argumentative discourse of these conversations was analyzed. Results show that gender did not completely determine role in participant style. Gender preferences were noted, but most strategies were used by both genders. The most influential factor on gender variation was the balance ratio of gender. Females tended to favor overlap, latching, back channeling, supportive moves, and repetition of others, except when there was a balanced ratio of gender. When the group composition was balanced, females tended to accommodate to male strategy balance, demonstrating sensitivity to group dynamics and a need for harmony and cooperation. Male strategy choice varied more when they were the majority and seemed to be exercising power.

Fraser, B. (1990). Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(2), 219-36. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(90)90081-N

This paper reviews four current approaches to an account of politeness: the social-norm view; the conversational-maxim view; the face-saving view; and the conversational-contract view. A characterization is given for each, followed by a discussion of certain salient aspects of the approach. While none of the views is considered adequate, the face-saving view is seen as the most clearly articulated and most thoroughly worked out, therefore providing the best framework within which to raise the crucial questions about politeness that must now be addressed.

Garc�a, C. (2002). La expresi�n de camarader�a y solidaridad: c�mo los venezolanos solicitan un servicio y responden a la solicitud de un servicio. In M.E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 55-88). Amsterdam, Netherlands: LINCOM Europa.

This article provides a comparison of gender differences when requesting service and responding to a request for service in Venezuelan Spanish. Twenty native speakers (NS) of Venezuelan Spanish (10 male and 10 female) participated in two open-ended role play situations and a follow-up questionnaire to validate the authenticity of the responses in the dialogues. In general, both male and female responses can be classified as belonging to a solidarity politeness culture based on closeness (i.e., less worry of imposition and offence, confirmation of positive face is critical). Nevertheless, among these strategies, distinct differences were found between the strategies used by male and female participants. When requesting service, females used more strategies (240) then their male counterparts (148) and demonstrated a balanced preference for mitigating (equal number of head acts and supporting moves). The males used a higher number of head acts then supporting moves. Furthermore, males demonstrated a preference for solidarity and maintaining their position while females preferred deference and cooperation. When responding to a request, the interlocutors performed three stages in the response: (1) accept or reject request, (2) negotiate terms, and (3) conclude the interaction. Both genders utilized solidarity politeness strategies and a marked preference for mitigators. Males opted for more negotiation, utilizing an equal number of head acts and supporting moves while females tended to opt for cooperation, utilizing a higher number of mitigators. In all cases, the participants preferred to threaten their interlocutor’s negative face rather than their positive face, demonstrating the importance of maintaining solidarity over avoiding imposition.

Glick, D. (1996). A reappraisal of Brown and Levinson’s politeness: Some universals of language use, eighteen years later. Semiotica, 109(1-2), 141-171.

Goody, E. (1978). Questions and politeness: strategies in social interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

These essays draw on material from speech communities in three continents to raise fundamental questions about the ways in which interrogative and politeness forms are used in day-to-day social interaction. The authors suggest that interrogative and politeness forms have universal features which make them efficient for certain strategies of interaction.

Grainger, K., Mills, S., & Sibanda, M. (2010). “Just tell us what to do”: Southern African face and its relevance to intercultural communication. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(8), 2158-2171. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.017

This paper contributes to the debate on the precise nature of face as a universal phenomenon, and the cultural variability within it. Specifically, we bring the ‘Southern’ perspective to the debate by discussing the previously neglected African dimension. Recent scholarship suggests that the concept of face and the notion of self in traditional African culture may have more in common with Eastern collectivist cultures than with Anglo-American culture. We examine the interactional management of an encounter between a Zimbabwean English speaker and British English speakers in a community singing group. We argue that, while face needs may be universally relevant in such a situation, the way in which they are oriented to in interaction depends on cultural understandings of which aspects of face are paramount in particular circumstances. Since these assumptions are deep-seated and invisible they are not easily open to explicit negotiation and hence can lead to misinterpretation. By conducting an ethnographic study of the communicative event and combining it with a detailed examination of the co-construction of meaning in this interaction, we show how the participants’ contributions can be related to differing � and potentially conflicting � interpretation frameworks. These frameworks are informed by culture-specific notions of appropriate self-presentation.

Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in Modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(2), 237-257. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(90)90082-O

This paper presents an account of politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. The modern conception of politeness as well as its historical origin are discussed. A critical comparison is made between western notions of face and politeness and their Chinese counterparts. Four politeness maxims are formulated and illustrated. The relation between politeness on the one hand, and language and conversation on the other, is also discussed.

Harris, S. (2003). Politeness and power: Making and responding to ‘requests’ in institutional settings. Text, 23(1), 27�52.

Explores the use of the politeness theory in understanding institutional discourse in power-laden contexts and how politeness strategies are realized in discourse practices. Relationship between the use of redressive linguistic forms and institutional power; Extent to which participants with externally given power employ mitigation while at the same time claiming power in relation to their clients.

Hassall, T. (2006). Learning to take leave in social conversations: A diary study. In M. A. Dufon & E. Churchill (Eds.), Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp. 31�58). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

This is a study of one learner's acquisition of the speech act of leave-taking in social conversations in Indonesian, over a three-month period.� Its main purpose is to identify the stages by which he developed the ability to take leave; a secondary aim is to identify key factors that influenced his learning.� This will add to the scant body of research on how pragmatic ability is acquired in a second language.

Haugh, M. (2007). Emic conceptualisations of (im)politeness and face in Japanese: Implications for the discursive negotiation of second language learner identities. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(4), 657-680.

This article studied if learners of Japanese were to learn how to successfully manage and face various dilemmas in relation to their identities in their second language. The author noted that Japanese learners needed to acquire a more emically-grounding understanding of the various dimensions that could influence or be influenced by the second language identities. The emic analysis of ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’ aimed to give learners of Japanese the tools to better manage their identities, and to empower them in their attempts to move beyond the model identities that were often implicitly presented to them in language textbooks. The author proposed that the discursive accomplishment of identities was reflexively indexed through ‘place’ (defined as encompassing one’s contextually contingent and discursively enacted social role and position) to the interactional achievement of ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’. This approach attempted to represent a tentative analysis in order to lead to more carefully theorize about ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’ based on more interactive theories of communication. It also aimed to offer greater clarity in explaining the way in which discursive dispute could impact upon the negotiation of identities in intercultural conversation. The author proposed that this approach may enable learners of second languages to gain a better understanding of these concepts that will help them negotiate the kind of identities they want to have in their second language performance.

Hayashi, T. (1996). Politeness in conflict management: A conversation analysis of dispreferred message from a cognitive perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(2), 227-55. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(94)00080-8

The present study discusses strategies of conflict management from a cognitive perspective and attempts to explicate redressive mechanisms involved in conversation. On the basis of the premise that the speaker's intention may be conveyed by sequences of acts as outputs of plans, a conversation analysis of preference organization was conducted on natural data from a counseling session between a pre-service teacher and a supervisor. The supervisor's redressive strategies were examined both globally and locally in the light of Brown and Levinson's (1978) politeness theory, by following how a dispreferred message of refusal is presented through a series of exchanges. It is demonstrated that the speaker's politeness strategies in a goal-oriented discourse can be described as a plan-directed collaborative venture of top-down operations, which involve the use of global knowledge on the interactional and organizational structure of discourse, on the one hand, and of bottom-up operations, which involve the use of local knowledge in sequential turn-by-turn actions, on the other.

Held, G. (1992). Politeness in linguistics research. In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice (pp. 131-153). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hern�ndez-Flores, N. (2004). Politeness as face enhancing. In R. M. Reiter & M. E. Placencia (Eds.), Current trends in the pragmatics of Spanish (pp. 265-84). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.

A theoretical exploration of the functions of politeness utilizing data from Peninsular Spanish is presented. The author explores existing politeness theory and asserts that an additional function of politeness (face enhancement) should be considered in order to account for situations in which politeness is used without the presence of a threat to face, a very common practice in Peninsular Spanish. In contrast to ‘protecting face’ during face enhancement, interlocutors seek to maintain the ‘ideal face balance.’ The three functions of politeness in Peninsular Spanish are presented with naturally-occurring, examples of each: (1) mitigation (used when there is risk to face), (2) reparation (used when damage to face has already occurred), and (3) enhancement (used when there is no threat). The occurrence of politeness behavior is not always a strategy containing redress; rather, it is a manifestation of the three functions due to cultural restraints. For example, in the case of Peninsular Spanish, requests are not always face-threatening. The author contrasts this notion with Western cultures that often socially construct interaction as face threatening by nature.

Hickey, L., & Stewart, M. (2005). Politeness in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Politeness as practised across 22 European societies, firmly set within critical debates developed since the 1980s, is here presented in ways related to concrete situations in which language-users interact with one another to achieve their goals. Areas covered include types of politeness, forms of address, negotiation and "small-talk" in various contexts.

Hill, B., Ide, S., Ikuta, S., Kawasaki, A., & Ogino, T. (1986). Universals of linguistic politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 10(3), 347-371. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(86)90006-8

A cross-cultural study of requests for a pen in Japanese and in American English provides empirical evidence for a common factor, Discernment, which we hypothesize operates in all sociolinguistic systems of politeness. We also propose a complementary factor, Volition, hypothesizing that differences in the weighting of the two factors afford one way to characterize sociolinguistic systems of politeness in different languages. The results of the study further offer empirical support for the theories of Brown and Levinson and Leech.

Hinkel, E. (1996). When in Rome: Evaluations of L2 pragmalinguistic behaviour. Journal of Pragmatics, 26(1), 51-70. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(95)00043-7

Research has found that perceptions of and attitudes toward an L2 affect language acquisition. This study focuses on the effect that perceptions of L2 pragmalinguistic norms and behaviors can have on their acquisition. In two experiments, a total of 240 speakers of Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic responded to a questionnaire containing 29 statements dealing with various aspects of L2 politeness, subjects' awareness of it, and perceptions of L2 pragmalinguistic norms. The subjects and control groups of 61 NSs of American English ranked the statements according to their agreement or disagreement on a 10-point Likert scale. The results of the study indicate that the NNSs recognized pragmalinguistic behaviors accepted in the U.S. However, despite their evident recognition of L2 pragmalinguistic norms, NNSs often viewed L2 behaviors critically, compared to those accepted in L1 communities, and were not always willing to follow them.

Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.

Women, Men and Politeness focuses on the specific issue of the ways in which women and men express politeness verbally. Using a range of evidence and a corpus of data collected largely from New Zealand, Janet Holmes examines the distribution and functions of a range of specific verbal politeness strategies in women's and men's speech and discusses the possible reasons for gender differences in this area. Data provided on interactional strategies, 'hedges and boosters', compliments and apologies, demonstrates ways in which women's politeness patterns differ from men's, with the implications of these different patterns explored, for women in particular, in the areas of education and professional careers.

House, J. (2005). Politeness in Germany: Politeness in Germany? In L. Hickey & M. Stewart (Eds.), Politeness in Europe (pp. 13-29). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters..

House, J., & Kasper, G. (1981). Politeness markers in English and German. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Conversational routine (pp. 157-185). The Hague: Mouton.

This paper attempts to reveal�on the basis of a corpus of parallel German and English interactions�how different norms concerning interlocutor’s interpersonal communicative strategies result in differing distributions� of deference markers in the two speech communities.�� Although the phenomenon of deference formulas seems to be universal, their structure and uses are clearly culture specific, i.e., part of an emic system.

Ide, S. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua, 8(2/3), 223-248. doi:10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223

Brown and Levinson (1978,1987) proposed principles of language usage according to politeness, which they claim to b universal.� Their principles are supported by evidence from three languages of different origins.� However, the universality of the principles is questionable from the perspective of language with honorifics, in particular Japanese.� Their framework neglects two aspects of language and usage� which are distinctly relevant to linguistic politeness in Japanese.� The neglected linguistic aspect is the choice of ‘formal linguistic forms’ among varieties of with different degrees of formality.� The neglected aspect of usage is ‘discernment’: the speaker’s use of polite expressions according to social conventions rather than interactional strategy.� This paper claims that a comprehensive framework for for universals of linguistic politeness will have to incorporate these aspects and shows how Brown and Levinson’s framework put these aspects outside of their scope.� Finally, the justification of the comprehensive frameworks is discussed in terms of Weber’s typology of actions and Habermas’ theory or communicative action.

Ide, S. (1993). Preface: The search for integrated universals of linguistic politeness.� Multilingua, 12(1), 7-11. doi:10.1515/mult.1993.12.1.7

Ide, S., Hill, B., Carnes, Y., Ogino, T., & Kawasaki, A. (1992). The concept of politeness: An empirical study of American English and Japanese. In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory, and practice (pp. 281-297). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Jakubowska, E. (1999). Cross-cultural dimensions of politeness in the case of Polish and English. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu S�la�skiego.

Janney, R. & Arndt, H. (1992). Intracultural tact versus intercultural tact. In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice (pp.21-42). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Janney, R., & Arndt, H. (1993). Universality and relativity in cross-cultural politeness research: A historical perspective.” Multilingua, 12(1), 7-34. doi:10.1515/mult.1993.12.1.13

Although comparative politeness research during the past decade has been tacitly rooted in assumptions about the universality of politeness phenomena across cultures, finding of individual studies tend to underscore the cultural relativity of politeness phenomena.� Partly for this reason, the standard interdisciplinary research framework developed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), a mixture of linguistic concepts adapted from British speech act theory (notions of verbal proposition, intentionality, implicature, rational conversational principles, maxims, etcetera) and interactional concepts adapted from North American social psychology (notions of self, partner, interpersonal relationships, face work, conflict avoidance, etcetera), has been criticized increasingly for having a Western ethnocentric bias.� Interest in the cultural orientation of politeness research is a sign that scholars are starting to question the assumptions, theories and methods that have guided work up to now.� The following paper is a partial contribution to this widening inquiry.� The notion of ‘universals of politeness’ is discussed against the background of the historical conflict between proponent of universality� and relativity hypotheses in Western linguistics since at least the eighteenth century.

Kasanga, L. A., & Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. (2007). Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana. Journal of Politeness Research, 3(1), 65-92. doi:10.1515/PR.2007.004

The article reports on a contrastive study of apologies in native and “nativized” varieties of English and the South African variety of Setswana. Quantitative data were elicited by means of discourse completion tasks (DCT) along the lines of the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) project's framework. Qualitative data were elicited by means of video-taped role plays. A statistical analysis of the DCT supports the prediction of significant differences in the use of pragmalinguistic resources in apologizing between, on the one hand, Setswana and the nativized variety of English, and, on the other, the native variety of English. This is especially true of the use of the responsibility strategy. There, thus, seems to be a reasonable avenue for theorizing from the speakers' predominant politeness and apology realization on language-specific patterns. Apologizing is a prime case of face-work because it is a redressive speech act to repair an offensive or face-threatening act and, thus, restore harmonious, orderly, or friendly interaction. However, our findings call for an interpretation of group- or community-based face, not an individual one. For this purpose, we offer an ethnographic analysis inspired by the “cultural scripts” framework. Finally, these findings can be used to foster awareness about different sociopragmatic features and pragmalinguistic means and the potential for pragmatic failure in different-culture same-language interaction

Kasper, G. (1990). Linguistic politeness: Current research issues. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(2), 193-218. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(90)90080-W

The paper reviews a substantial part of the research on linguistic politeness, with the objective to evaluate current politeness theories and to outline directions for future politeness studies. The topics addressed comprise (1) the distinction of politeness as strategic conflict avoidance and social indexing; (2) the linguistic enactment of politeness; (3) social and psychological factors determining politeness forms and functions; (4) the impact of discourse type on politeness; (5) the counterpart to politeness, i.e. rudeness. Furthermore, the paper provides an introduction to the remaining contributions to this Special Issue.

Kasper, G. (2006). Politeness in interaction: Introduction to the special issue. Multilingua, 25(3), 243-248. doi:10.1515/MULTI.2006.014

Kasper, G. (2006). When once is not enough: Politeness of multiple requests in oral proficiency interviews. Multilingua, 25(3), 323-350. doi:10.1515/MULTI.2006.018

The paper takes a conversation-analytic approach to examine the politeness of multiple requests in Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI). In this assessment activity, interviewers regularly reissue a first request in environments of increased task demands or in response to candidates’ difficulties with the first directive. In such multiple request sequences, two kinds of structurally parallel operations of mitigation and conventionally indirect request frames are observed. For the most part, interviewers treat mitigational material and conventionally indirect request frames as dispensable in the subsequent version, a pattern seen in multiple requests in same-turn as well as in other-initiated and third position repair. When local contingencies increase the risk that the interviewer’s request may not generate the projected action, subsequent versions tend to be prefaced by the marker please. Furthermore, in environments of topic introduction or change, presequences also play a politeness-implicative role. The paper closes by considering some implications of the analysis for an interaction-based theory of politeness.

Kasper, G. (2009). Locating politeness in interaction. Hawaii: University of Hawai’i at Manoa. [Available online]

Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (2005). Politeness in France: How to buy bread politely. In L. Hickey & M. Stewart (Eds.), Politeness in Europe (pp. 29-44). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Kienpointner, M. (1997). Varieties of rudeness: Types and functions of impolite utterances. Functions of Language, 4(2), 251-87. doi:10.1075/fol.4.2.05kie

Standard theories of politeness (Lakoff 1975, Leech 1983, Brown and Levinson 1987) face a number of problems. To mention but a few, it can be doubted that these theories have managed to establish truly universal concepts and classifications of (im)polite behavior; they exaggerate the relative importance of indirectness; they do not treat situational and societal constraints sufficiently; finally, they do not deal with rudeness in enough detail. �Therefore, it does not seem to be possible to describe rudeness simply as a deviation from or violation of rules and maxims of cooperative/polite communication. Starting from suggestions made by Kasper (1990) and Culpeper (1996), I will try to refine standard definitions of politeness and rudeness. Moreover, examples of rude utterances (mostly taken from spoken and written English and German dialogues) will be used to establish a typology of communicative rudeness. Several subtypes of cooperative (e.g. ritual insults, reactive rudeness, sociable rudeness) and non-cooperative (e.g. strategic rudeness in public institutions) rudeness are distinguished.

Kitao, K. (1990). A study of Japanese and American perceptions of politeness in requests. Doshida Studies in English, 50, 178-210.

This study investigated the level of politeness of various forms of request made in English, as if spoken to an American, as perceived by college-level native speakers of English (n=80), Japanese speakers in the United States (n=34), and Japanese speakers in Japan (n=103). A semantic differential questionnaire measuring 10 levels of politeness was administered. The instrument consisted of three sections, namely: (1) ratings of requests that might be used in four situations; (2) ratings of frequency of use of request forms; and (3) demographic information, including language background. In the request situations used, relative status of the addressee is high in two situations, low in a third, and equal in the fourth. Familiarity was low and request magnitude small in all situations. Analysis of responses found support for almost all hypotheses concerning relative politeness of request forms, including the use of interrogatives, declaratives, imperatives with and without tag questions, tense, use of modals, positively and negatively worded requests, requests with tags, and negative politeness. No significant differences in perceptions were found between Americans and Japanese, but the Japanese in the United States perceived the requests as more polite than the other Japanese. The questionnaire is appended.

Lee-Wong, S. M. (1999). Politeness and face in Chinese culture. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

This book draws on a number of disciplines, including sociology, cultural anthropology and political science. It examines how Chinese native speakers in the People's Republic of China, Melbourne, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries formulate face-to-face requests. In the Chinese socio-cultural context, both li and mianzi play a prime role in the perception and conceptualization of politeness. Unlike the West, where directness is considered impolite, Chinese speakers place greater emphasis on the use of terms of address which mark relative social distance and relative power. Failure to use appropriate terms of address constitutes impoliteness. Directness is neither face-threatening nor imposing. Rather, it serves to signal ingroup solidarity. Effective communication in China demands cultural sensitivity - sensitivity to distinguish between norms and strategies in politeness.

Linguistic Politeness Research Group. (Eds.). (2011). Discursive approaches to politeness. Berlin: De Gruyter.

This collection of essays by the Linguistic Politeness Research Group represents the results of over a decade of the group's research, discussions, seminars and conferences on the subject of linguistic politeness. The volume brings together cutting edge essays reflecting the range of discursive approaches to the analysis of politeness and impoliteness.

Locher, M. (2004). Power and politeness in action: Disagreements in oral communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This study investigates the interface of power and politeness in the realization of disagreements in naturalistic language data. Power and politeness are important phenomena in face-to-face interaction. Disagreement is an arena in which these two key concepts are likely to be observed together: both disagreement and the exercise of power entail a conflict, and, at the same time, conflict will often be softened by the display of politeness (defined as marked relational work). The concept of power is of special interest to the field of linguistics in that language is one of the primary means to exercise power. Often correlated with status and regarded as an influential aspect of situated speech, the workings of the exercise of power, however, have rarely been formally articulated. This study provides a theoretical framework within which to analyze the observed instances of disagreement and their co-occurrence with the exercise of power and display of politeness. In this framework, a checklist of propositions that allow us to operationalize the concept of power and identify its exercise in naturalistic linguistic data is combined with a view of language as socially constructed. A qualitative approach is used to analyze the concepts of power and politeness. The material for analysis comes from three different contexts: (1) a sociable argument in an informal, supportive and interactive family setting, (2) a business meeting among colleagues within a research institution, and (3) examples from public discourse collected during the US Election 2000.

Locher, M., & Watts, R. J. (2005). Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 9-33.

In this paper we briefly revisit politeness research influenced by Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. We argue that this research tradition does not deal with politeness but with the mitigation of face-threatening acts (FTAs) in general. In our understanding, politeness cannot just be equated with FTA-mitigation because politeness is a discursive concept. This means that what is polite (or impolite) should not be predicted by analysts. Instead, researchers should focus on the discursive struggle in which interactants engage. This reduces politeness to a much smaller part of facework than was assumed until the present, and it allows for interpretations that consider behavior to be merely appropriate and neither polite nor impolite. We propose that relational work, the “work” individuals invest in negotiating relationships with others, which includes impolite as well as polite or merely appropriate behavior, is a useful concept to help investigate the discursive struggle over politeness. We demonstrate this in close readings of five examples from naturally occurring interactions.

L�rscher, W., & Schulze, R. (1988). On polite speaking and foreign language classroom discourse. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 26(3), 183-199. doi: 10.1515/iral.1988.26.3.183

Lubecka, A. (2000). Requests, invitations, apologies and compliments in American English and Polish: A cross-cultural communication perspective. Krak�w: Ksie�garnia Akademicka.

Mann, W. C., & Kreutel, J. (n. d.). Speech acts and recognition of insincerity. [Available online]

From the earliest years of speech act theory, sincerity, or the absence of it, has been one of the defining aspects of speech acts and their uses. It remains prominent today, but models of communication often give it little function. How could a model of dialogue be designed so that the sincerity of speech acts could be defined and examined? How could natural language understanding and generation programs recognize or use insincerity? Is sincerity part of a collection of speech phenomena that could share implementation methods? The issues are complex, but approachable. What are appropriate recognition criteria for sincerity? Are the sincerity-conditions described by Austin or Searle adequate guides to recognition of insincerity? No. Other ways of using assertions have a formal resemblance to insincere assertions. Several of these ways involve statements by a speaker who does not believe those statements. Not all of these ways involve deception. Examination of a collection of similar ways to use language leads to a much more accurate, possibly adequate, guide to recognizing the absence of sincerity. This paper examines relationships between (in)sincerity and other language phenomena. Focusing on irony, exaggeration and understatement, it also identifies several others that share characteristics with sincerity, and thus might benefit from joint work on definitions, formalization and computational model building.

Mao, L. R. (1994). Beyond politeness theory: ‘Face’ revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics, 21(5), 451-86. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(94)90025-6

After reviewing Brown and Levinson's face-saving model of politeness in light of Goffman's original discussion of face, and tracing the origin of this concept back to Chinese, the essay analyzes in detail the Chinese concept of face (that is, mi�nzi and li?n), pointing out its interactional differences from Brown and Levinson's negative and positive face. The essay further examines an intrinsic link between face and politeness (l?m�o) in Chinese, and draws upon studies of Japanese interaction and its underlying concept of face. The essay argues that Brown and Levinson's claim to provide a universally valid model of face is empirically inadequate; the dynamics of Chinese face call for an alternative, and more flexible framework. It is therefore suggested that a relative face orientation construct be posited to address cultural variations in notions of face and to identify two competing forces shaping our interactional behaviors: the ideal social identity and the ideal individual autonomy. The essay finally analyzes two Chinese discourse activities�a pre-dinner invitation and a post-dinner offer�focusing on the complexity of Chinese face, and discussing its persistent, mutually shared, orientation toward an ideal social identity.

M�rquez, Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain in Uruguay: A contrastive study of requests and apologies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

The first well-researched contrastive pragmatic analysis of requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish. It takes the form of a cross-cultural corpus-based analysis using male and female native speakers of each language and systematically alternating the same social variables in both cultures. The data are elicited from a non-prescriptive open role-play yielding requests and apologies. The analysis of the speech acts is based on an adaptation of the categorical scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The results show that speakers of English and Spanish differ in their choice of (in)directness levels, head-act modifications, and the politeness types of males and females in both cultures. Reference to an extensive bibliography and the thorough discussion of methodological issues concerning speech act studies deserve the attention of students of pragmatics as well as readers interested in cultural matters.

Matsumoto, Y. (1988). Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese.� Journal of Pragmatics, 12(4), 403-426. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(88)90003-3

This paper is a critical examination of the theory of linguistic politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987). The paper focuses on the notion, fundamental to their theory, of ‘face’, and questions the universality of the proposed constituents of ‘face’ in the light of the Japanese language and culture. First, results from anthropological studies on Japanese society are presented to illustrate the discrepancy between Brown and Levinson's assumption and the Japanese notion of ‘face’, Secondly, linguistic evidence is given that Brown and Levinson's theory provides wrong predictions for Japanese politeness phenomena. Examples are drawn from formulaic expressions, honorifics and the verbs of giving and receiving. One conclusion from these observations is that a universal theory of linguistic politeness must take into account at a more fundamental level the cultural variability in the constituents of ‘face’.

Matsumoto, Y. (1989). Politeness and conversational universals. Multilingua, 8(2), 207-222. doi:10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.207

Principles of conversation as postulated by Grice (1975), and the politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) are both presented as universal.� Observations of politeness phenomena in Japanese, especially in the use of honorifics, cast such doubt on the explanatory power of these two theories for non-Western languages that it is not clear how, short of major revision, they can be considered as giving and adequate account of conversation and linguistic politeness.� In Japanese, for example, social context plays a much larger role than is assumed in their theories.� The discrepancy between the theories and practice in Japanese seem to be rooted in the variability across cultures in the expectation of the quantity and type of information that should be conveyed in linguistic communication and in the variability of the motivations underlying the manifestation of politeness.

Naitou, M. (1997). Nihongono taiguu hyougen “irai” “kotowari”: Nihongo bogowashato nihongo gakushuushatono koodono sai [Japanese politeness in requests and refusals: Differences in code between native speakers and learners of Japanese]. In M. Hubbard, T. Sakamoto, & J. Davis (Eds.), Nihongo kyouiku ibunkano kakehashi: Miura Akira sensei koki kinen ronbunshuu [Progress in Japanese Linguistics and pedagogy: A collection in honor of Professor Akira Miura’s 70th birthday] (pp. 101-115). Tokyo: Arc.

Obeng, S. G. (1999). Apologies in Akan discourse.� Journal of Pragmatics, 31(5), 709-734. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00089-7

With knowledge of the potentially deadly repercussions of the spoken word in some communicative encounters, the Akan interlocutor employs various mitigating strategies that pay attention to the face needs of an addressee either by softening the locution of a possible facethreatening act inherent in a speaker's stretch of utterance, or by attempting to remedy an offense committed by the speaker or by someone whose actions for which the speaker accepts responsibility. An apology or a remedy (Goffman, 1971: 140) � a speech act whose primary purpose is redressive action � is one such speech strategy which pays attention to the face needs of interlocutors. It is basically aimed at maintaining or enhancing their face or restoring decorum (Goffman, 1967). Among the Akan, apology expressions may be complex � involving a combination of both explicitness and implicitness � or compound, involving a combination of two or more implicit strategies.

Ogawa, N., & Gudykunst, W. B. (1999). Politeness rules in Japan and the United States. Intercultural Commuication Studies, IX(1): 47-68. [Available online]

The purpose of this study was to examine politeness rules in ingroup and outgroup relationships in Japan and the U.S. Based on a preliminary study and a literature review, 105 potential politeness rules were isolated. In the main study, responses to the rules were submitted to a culture free factor analysis. Seventy-three rules that loaded on the first unrotated factor appear to be politeness rules used in Japan and the U.S. Culture influenced 23 rules (12 US>J, 11 J>US). Seventeen rules appear to be common rules in Japan and the U.S. Ingroup-outgroup relationship influenced only two rules. Independent self-construals influenced 19 rules, interdependent self-construals influenced 21 rules, and both self-construals influenced 11 rules.

Ogiermann, E. (2006). Cultural variability within Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory: English, Polish and Russian apologies. In C. Mour�n-Figueroa & T. I. Moralejo-G�rate (Eds.), Studies in contrastive linguistics (pp. 707-718). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Publicaci�ns.

Ogiermann, E. (2009). On apologizing in negative and positive politeness cultures. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

This book investigates how speakers of English, Polish and Russian deal with offensive situations. It reveals culture-specific perceptions of what counts as an apology and what constitutes politeness. It offers a critical discussion of Brown and Levinson's theory and provides counterevidence to the correlation between indirectness and politeness underlying their theory. Their theory is applied to two languages that rely less heavily on indirectness in conveying politeness than does English, and to a speech act that does not become more polite through indirectness. An analysis of the face considerations involved in apologising shows that in contrast to disarming apologies, remedial apologies are mainly directed towards positive face needs, which are crucial for the restoration of social equilibrium and maintenance of relationships. The data show that while English apologies are characterised by a relatively strong focus on both interlocutors’ negative face, Polish apologies display a particular concern for positive face. For Russian speakers, in contrast, apologies seem to involve a lower degree of face threat than they do in the other two languages.

Pan, Y. (2000). Politeness in Chinese face-to-face interaction. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

This book attempts to bring in the perspective of situational variation in analyzing linguistic politeness, and looks at politeness in the larger framework of social context. It outlines the way into the problem of politeness in Chinese culture and the steps taken in the application of politeness strategies in verbal interaction.

Pizziconi, B. (2003). Re-examining politeness, face and the Japanese language. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1471�1506. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00200-X

Japanese scholarship on Linguistic Politeness has contributed to a polarised view of politeness systems, whereby some languages are considered to conform to a strongly agentivistic paradigm while others conform predominantly to the pressure of external social norms. Japanese has been presented as a typical example of the latter, which invalidates Brown and Levinson's claims of the universality of politeness strategies. This paper re-examines the evidence presented to support this position and reassesses the Japanese scholars’ contribution to the critique of the then predominant model of politeness. It argues that the principles regulating the use of honorific devices in Japanese are not substantially different from those of English, both being similarly strategic. On the other hand, it highlights crucial implications of the Japanese scholars’ work which were not explored exhaustively: the critique of the pervasiveness of negative strategies, the universal importance of considerations of appropriateness and the key role of positive strategies. The paper concludes that politeness (as ‘appropriateness’) is better observed, even in Japanese, in the polite stances constituted by strategic use of polite devices rather than in unmediated polite meanings conveyed by the plethora of dedicated honorifics.

Reiter, R. M. (2000).� Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

The first well-researched contrastive pragmatic analysis of requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish. It takes the form of a cross-cultural corpus-based analysis using male and female native speakers of each language and systematically alternating the same social variables in both cultures. The data are elicited from a non-prescriptive open role-play yielding requests and apologies. The analysis of the speech acts is based on an adaptation of the categorical scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The results show that speakers of English and Spanish differ in their choice of (in)directness levels, head-act modifications, and the politeness types of males and females in both cultures. Reference to an extensive bibliography and the thorough discussion of methodological issues concerning speech act studies deserve the attention of students of pragmatics as well as readers interested in cultural matters.

Salsbury, T., & Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Oppositional talk and the acquisition of modality in L2 English. In B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M. E. Anderson, C. A. Klee, & E. Tarone (Eds.), Social and cognitive factors in second language acquisition: Selected proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 57-76). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

The study reported on a one-year longitudinal study of the relationship between grammatical development in the form of modality and pragmatic development as represented by oppositional talk (i.e., when speakers express opposing views -- disagreements, challenges, denials, accusation, threats, and insults). The subjects were eight beginning level ESL learners, interviewed every month. They were from differing language and cultural backgrounds (Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French/Bambara). They found that the appearance of the linguistic form does not mean the learner has the pragmatic functions. The learners resorted to lexical choices to mitigate their messages. They found evidence of late emergence of would and could.

Schnurr, S., Marra, M., & Holmes, J. (2007). Being (im)polite in New Zealand workplaces: Maori and Pakeha leaders. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(4), 712-729. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2006.11.016

This paper investigates the ways in which leaders in ethnically diverse workplaces in New Zealand construct themselves as effective leaders in interaction with subordinates, whilst also taking account of the politeness norms of their specific workplaces. Case studies of two leaders, one from a Pa�keha� and one from a Ma�ori workplace, illustrate that shared ethnic values and attitudes impact on the behaviour of all members of the leaders’ communities of practice. The analysis of meeting openings and the use of contestive humour demonstrate that what is considered appropriate behaviour in one organisational context, and what is perceived as constituting polite behaviour by group members, may be considered inappropriate and even impolite by members of another organisation. By behaving in ways that are in accordance with the norms developed in their ‘ethnicised’ communities of practice, leaders and other organisational members reinforce, maintain and shape these politeness norms.

Sifianou, M. (1992). Politeness phenomena in England and Greece A cross-cultural perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Politeness is crucial to successful communication and is consequently of great interest to those who study language in its social context. This book presents the first application of Brown and Levinson's ground-breaking theoretical work in a full-length comparative case study. Maria Sifianou draws her data from a variety of sources, including literature (particularly drama), questionnaires, and personal observation. She attempts to discover the principles underlying social interaction in both intracultural and intercultural contexts, and discusses the extent to which the concept of politeness is common to different cultures. She argues that politeness is conceptualized differently and thus manifested differently in the two societies under study: Greeks tend to use more 'positive' politeness devices than the English, who prefer more 'negative' devices. Positive politeness is more closely related to friendliness, negative politeness to formality. Dr Sifianou's analysis illustrates and supports the general claim that, despite popular stereotypes, there can be no objective verification for the view that one nation is more polite than another.

Sifianou, M. (1993). Off-record indirectness and the notion of imposition. Multilingua, 12(1), 69-80. doi:10.1515/mult.1993.12.1.69

Off-record utterances are polite ways of requesting, but encode their politeness in situationally and culturally specific ways.� Off-record requests have been largely seen as device deriving their politeness force from minimizing impositions by leaving the options open for the addressee to interpret them.� This paper presents some preliminary observations and finding which associate off-record requests with offers in familial and familiar contexts in Greek.� It is thus argued that another equally strong motivation for their employment is the opportunity they provide the addressee to offer instead of being requested.� Bearing in mind differences between the Greeks and the English concerning the variable importance attached to the notions of involvement and independence, it appears that the motivation for offering is stronger in Greek that that of non-imposition, which appears to be stronger in English.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2002). Managing rapport in talk: Using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(5), 592-545. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00039-X

This paper focuses on the motivational concerns that underlie the management of relations. In linguistics, the management of relations has been discussed extensively within politeness theory, and so the paper starts by identifying four key issues of controversy in politeness theory: (a) should ‘polite’ language use be explained in terms of face (e.g. Brown, Penelope, Levinson, Stephen C., 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage, CUP, Cambridge. [Originally published as Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomenon. In: Goody, Esther, (Ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. CUP, New York, 1978), conversational maxims (e.g. Leech, Geoffrey N., 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. Longman, London), and/or conversational rights (e.g. Fraser, Bruce, 1990. Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics 14 (2), 219�236); (b) why are speech acts such as orders interpersonally sensitive � is it because they are a threat to our autonomy (Brown and Levinson, 1987 [1978]), or because of cost�benefit concerns (Leech, 1983); (c) is Brown and Levinson's concept of negative face too individually focused, and should a social identity component be included (Matsumoto, Yoshiko, 1988. Reexamination of the universality of face: politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 12, 403�426); and (d) is face just a personal/individual concern or can it be a group concern (Gao, Ge, 1996. Self and other: a Chinese perspective on interpersonal relationships. In: Gudykunst, W.B., Ting-Toomey, S., Nishida, T. (Eds.), Communication in Personal Relationships Across Cultures, Sage, London. pp. 81�101.)? The paper then uses reports of authentic rapport sensitive incidents to throw light on these controversial issues and to find out the relational management concerns that people perceive in their everyday lives. It maintains that such data is important to politeness theory, because linguistic politeness needs to be studied within the situated social psychological context in which it occurs. The paper ends by presenting and arguing for a conceptual framework that draws a fundamental distinction between face and sociality rights, and that incorporates an independent/interdependent perspective, thus providing a more comprehensive framework for analysing the management of relations than is currently available.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2005). (Im)politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: Unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 113-137. doi:10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.95

This paper takes rapport (Spencer-Oatey 2000, 2002) as its central concern, since (im)politeness is typically associated in some way with harmonious/conflictual interpersonal relations. The paper discusses the factors that influence people's dynamic perceptions of rapport, and proposes that there are three key elements: behavioral expectations, face sensitivities, and interactional wants. The paper explores the components of these three elements and uses authentic discourse data to illustrate how people's judgments about rapport can be unpackaged in relation to these elements. The approach enables us to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that influence people's dynamic judgments of rapport, which is essential if we are to understand how and why problems of rapport occur.

Spencer-Oatey, H., & Jiang, W. (2003). Explaining cross-cultural pragmatic findings: Moving from politeness maxims to sociopragmatic interactional principles (SIPS). Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1633-1650. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00025-0

This paper focuses on how culture can be treated as an explanatory variable in cross-cultural pragmatic studies. It starts with a review of pragmatic maxims [Grice, H. Paul, 1989. Logic and Conversation. William James Lectures, 1967. (Reprinted in Grice, H.P. (Ed.), Studies in the Way of Words, pp. 22�40); Leech, Geoffrey N., 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman; Journal of Pragmatics 14 (1990)237], discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the concept. It then presents the findings from a British-Chinese replication of Kim's [Human Communication Research 21(1996)128] cross-cultural study of conversational constraints, and argues that the notion of maxims should be reconceptualised as sociopragmatic interactional principles (SIPs). The notion of SIPs is defined and explained, referring to the sociopragmatic-pragmalinguistic distinction [Leech, Geoffrey N., 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman; Applied Linguistics 4(1983)91] and other cross-cultural pragmatic approaches [House, Julianne, 2000. Understanding misunderstanding: a pragmatic-discourse approach to analyzing mismanaged rapport in talk across cultures. In: Spencer-Oatey, H. (Ed.), Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. Continuum, London; 145�164; Journal of Pragmatics 9 (1985)145]. SIPs are also discussed in relation to Brown and Levinson's [Brown, Penelope, Levinson, Stephen C., 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. CUP, Cambridge (Originally published ad ‘Universals in language usage: politeness phenomenon’ In: Goody, E. (1987), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. CUP, New York.)] perspectives on the impact of culture on language use. The paper ends with a call for more research to establish on an empirical basis the types of interactional principles that exist, and their interrelationships.

Tan, K. H., & Farashaiyan, A. (2012). The Effectiveness of teaching formulaic politeness strategies in making request to undergraduates in an ESL classroom.� Asian Social Science, 8(15), 189-196.

doi:10.5539/ass.v8n15p189

It is widely acknowledged that the main thrust of second language (L2) teaching and learning is establishing and developing the communicative competence of learners. Especially, in recent years, the focus has shifted more towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC). As such, it is more practical that educational endeavors should be directed both towards the grammar or lexis of the target language as well as the appropriate use of these grammatical and lexical systems in a variety of situations by considering different social and contextual factors. Therefore, this study embarks on the effect of explicit instruction of formulaic politeness strategies among Malaysian undergraduates in making request. Sixty Malaysian undergraduates participated in the study. The students included two groups of intervention and control groups. The data were cumulated through three tests, namely open ended completion test, a listening test and an acceptability judgment test. Treatment or experimental group received explicit instruction with structured and problem-solving and input tasks. The comparison was made between the performance of treatment group and that of control in terms of the pre-test and post-test. The findings show that the treatment group outperformed significantly than the control group. This matter is suggestive that in this probe, explicit form-based instruction was successful for learners to comprehend and produce the English politeness strategies effectively in making request. The findings of this study will be beneficial for material developers and teachers to make use of form-focused strategies more effectively to teach second language pragmatic features to Malaysian students.

Tanaka, N. (1988). Politeness: Some problems for Japanese speakers of English. JALT Journal, 9(2), 81-102.

In this study, the politeness strategies of Australians and Japanese speakers of English are compared in two tasks involving polite requests. Four Australians and four Japanese were ''video-taped'' making the requests. Their language and the strategies they used are analyzed using the concepts of face, notice and small-talk (Brown & Levinson, 1978). �Initial and final salutations and the language of the request are also discussed. The Japanese speakers were more direct, and did not appear to be as appropriately polite as the Australians. The weaknesses in the performance of the Japanese are traced to inadequacies in the teaching of English in Japan. Some recommendations are made for the teaqhing of English for communication in Japan.

Tannen, D. (1981). Indirectness in discourse: Ethnicity as conversational style. Discourse Processes, 4(3), 221-238. doi:10.1080/01638538109544517

This paper focuses on indirectness in discourse as a feature of conversational style. Reported research emphasizes social differences in expectations of indirectness in the context of conversation between married partners. To discover patterns of interpretation, findings are drawn from (1) interviews with Greeks and Americans about their interactional experience and (2) a pilot study consisting of a questionnaire based on a conversation reported in (1) and including (a) paraphrase choices (b) short answers and (c) open-ended interview/discussions with respondents. Results suggest that Greeks are more likely to expect indirectness in the context presented, and that Greek-Americans who may not speak Greek have retained the influence of Greek communicative strategies. Discussion of differences in interpretive strategies focuses on 1) the discourse function of questions and 2) the significance of ellipsis, yielding a brevity effect, associated for Greeks with an enthusiasm constraint. Theoretical implications include an alternative to Bernstein's hypothesis about restricted and elaborated codes, such that restriction and elaboration are not monolithic. Rather, groups differ with respect to which contexts, channels, and cues require elaboration.

Terkourafi, M. (2001). Politeness in Cypriot Greek: A frame-based approach (Unpublished doctorial dissertation). University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [Availble online]

This research combines elements in pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics, using empirical data to contribute to our understanding of the processing of polite discourse. One hundred and five hours of spontaneous conversational data produced by native Cypriot Greek speakers of both sexes and of various ages and socio-economic backgrounds were recorded in various settings. The semi-phonological transcription of realisations of offers and requests yielded a corpus of 2,189 observations. Extra-linguistic variables considered during the analysis of these data included the interlocutors’ sex, age, and social class, the relationship between them, the setting of the exchange, and the order of occurrence of the speech act in the flow of the conversation. Linguistic variables included the presence/absence of a main-clause verb, its type (lexico-semantically defined), the subjective modality, and number+ person for which this was marked, as well as additional markers of politeness (address terms, diminutives, etc.). To test the validity of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) prediction that the degree of indirectness of an utterance realising an FTAx is commensurate with the sum of the Distance between interlocutors, the Power of the hearer over the speaker, and the Ranking of the imposition which FTAx entails in the culture in question, frequencies of co-occurrence between these variables were investigated. This investigation revealed an arbitrary association of particular combinations of linguistic features with particular combinations of extra-linguistic features.

It is proposed that, to the extent that particular expressions are conventionalised for some use, and to the extent that such expressions constitute our main resource for achieving politeness, politeness is presumed given a minimal context. Such context is modelled as a frame combining information about extra-linguistic features of the situation and the (socio-culturally defined) appropriate use of language therein. The presumptive nature of the implicatures arising when a frame of this kind is instantiated guarantees that politeness, defined as a perlocutionary effect consisting of the addressee holding the belief that the speaker is polite, is achieved all else being equal. A natural explanation is thus provided for the oft-repeated observation that politeness commonly passes unnoticed.

This account departs from previous approaches, which view politeness as tied to speakers’ intentions and communicated by means of particularised implicatures. In the proposed schema, speakers’ intentions come into play only when the expression used is not conventionalised for some use relative to the (minimal) context of utterance. They then give rise to particularised implicatures which necessitate a reference to the nonce context of utterance.

Terkourafi, M. (2005). Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research, 2(1), 237-262. doi:10.5555/jplr.2005.1.2.237

Politeness research to date has generally adopted one of two views: the “traditional” view based on the dual premises of Grice’s Co-operative Principle and speech act theory (Lakoff 1973, Brown and Levinson 1987 [1978], Leech 1983), or the “post-modern” view, which rejects these premises and substitutes them by an emphasis on participants’ own perceptions of politeness (politeness1) and on the discursive struggle over politeness (Eelen 2001, Mills 2003, Watts 2003). Contrasting these two views, this article considers not only their points of disagreement, but, crucially, points where the two views coincide, bringing to light their common underlying assumptions. It then goes on to show how, departing from these common assumptions, a third direction for politeness studies, the “frame-based” view, is possible. Following an outline of the frame-based view, it is suggested that this fits in with the traditional and the post-modern views in a three-layered schema addressing politeness phenomena at different levels of granularity.

Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in “interaction: An introduction to pragmatics. New York: Longman Group.

This introduction considers the development of pragmatics as a subject, drawing attention to problems in the early work, and bringing the reader up to date with a discussion of current issues. Basic concepts are covered in considerable detail and the theoretical points are illustrated with examples taken from the media, fiction and real-life interactions. Jenny Thomas focuses on the central roles of both speaker and hearer in the construction of meaning and takes account of both social and psychological factors in the generation and interpretation of utterances. 1. What is pragmatics? 2. Speech acts 3. Conversational implicature 4. Approaches to pragmatics 5. Pragmatics and indirectness 6. Theories of politeness 7. The construction of meaning

Tirkonnen-Condit, S. (1996). Explicitness vs. implicitness of argumentation: An intercultural comparison. Multilingua, 15(3), 257-73. doi:10.1515/mult.1996.15.3.257

This paper compares the styles of argumentation in American, British, and Finnish editorials with a focus on how explicitly the arguable is expressed.� Previous research suggested greater implicitness in Finnish argumentation, and the difference was attributed to the tendencies towards consensus, context-dependence, and communication reticence in Finnish society.� In this paper two hypotheses are investigated, a global cross-cultural one and topic-specific one, namely that Finnish argumentation is less explicit, and that ’safe’ topics are more likely to elicit explicitness than ‘touchy’� topics.� Indicators of explicitness include clarity of thesis statement, expression of anticipated disagreement, and expression of response in the heading.� The most marked difference was found in the clarity of thesis statement. Whereas the Anglo-American writers crystallize the main point of the argument into a thesis summary irrespective of touchiness of topic, the Finns seem to use the absence of thesis summary as some kind of politeness strategy to mitigate the message of potential disagreement�which, however, inevitably goes together with argumentation.

Tyler, A. (1995). The coconstruction of cross-cultural miscommunication: Conflicts in perception, negotiation, and enactment of participant role and status. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17(2), 129-152.

Examines the miscommunication which occurred in a videotaped tutoring session between a Korean tutor and an English student. The student needed assistance writing a computer program that would score bowling, while the tutor was enrolled in an English oral communication course requiring students to offer help in their area of expertise and afterwards discuss the videotaped session. After reviewing the literature dealing with non-native speaker (NNS) and native-speaker (NS) interaction, the author establishes this case as an example of naturally-occurring miscommunication based upon differences in the cultural foundations of discourse and the establishment of status. Eight minutes of the videotape were transcribed, with each participant providing comments reflecting their reactions at each troublesome point in the conversation. The initial "clash" occurred when the student inquired if the tutor knew how to score bowling. His reply, "Yes, approximately," was the culturally-appropriate way in Korea to modestly claim expertise, but the student interpreted his statement and later silences as ignorance. After thus determining her higher status as possessor of cultural knowledge, she could not accept her tutor's explanations as valid or useful, although she knew little about scoring herself. While the Korean tutor's discourse management style contributed to the initial difference in participant frames, his use of an inductive schema to explain the topic, beginning each time from scratch and gradually building upon previous information, suggested to the student that he was trying to figure the rules out for himself. Accustomed to the Korean formal relationship of status between teacher and student, he assumed she would accept his expertise unquestioned and interpreted her questioning as rudeness. In addition, his use of contextualization cues such as may and might, chosen out of politeness on his part, reinforced the student's image of him as tentative and unsure of himself. In summary, the mutual miscommunication occurred not because of either participant's uncooperativeness, as both the tutor and student believed, but rather because differing cultural frameworks for discourse caused each participant to negotiate the higher status for themselves.

Watts, R. J. (1989). Relevance and relational work: Linguistic politeness as politic behavior. Multilingua, 8(2-3), 131-166. doi:10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.131

Using the social activity of a family gathering, form both British and German Swiss perspectives, the author argues for the notion of politic verbal behavior.� In order to account for a marked decrease in overt politeness strategies in closed groups, the notion of polite verbal behavior must be embedded within a more fundamental one of politic verbal behavior.� Within this broader framework, cross-cultural differences may be observed in social activities whose speech events do not necessitate a high level of conventionally polite verbal behavior. The article explores the hypothesis that in such speech events where the fabric of interpersonal relationships is at a premium, and the relationships in the social group need to be maintained as far as possible in a state of equilibrium, the participants are continually involved in relational work, which can only be successfully carried out in accordance with the perceived relevance of the individual contribution to the overall interaction.

Watts, R. J. (1992). Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality. In R. J. Watts, S. Ide, & K. Ehlich (Eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice (43-69). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watts, R. J., Ide, S., & Ehlich, K. (Eds.). (1992). Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

The second edition of this collection of 13 original papers contains an updated introductory section detailing the significance that the original articles published in 1992 have for the further development of research into linguistic politeness into the 21st century. The original articles focus on the phenomenon of politeness in language. They present the most important problems in developing a theory of linguistic politeness, which must deal with the crucial differences between lay notions of politeness in different cultures and the term 'politeness' as a concept within a theory of linguistic politeness. The universal validity of the term itself is called into question, as are models such as those developed by Brown and Levinson, Lakoff, and Leech. New approaches are suggested. In addition to this theoretical discussion, an empirical section presents a number of case studies and research projects in linguistic politeness. These show what has been achieved within current models and what still remains to be done, in particular with reference to cross-cultural studies in politeness and differences between a Western and a non-Western approach to the subject. The publication of this second edition demonstrates that the significance of the collection is just as salient in the first decade of the new millennium as it was at the beginning of the 1990s.

Wierzbicka, A. (1985). Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 9(2-3), 145-178. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(85)90023-2

This paper discusses a number of differences between English and Polish in the area of speech acts, and links them with different cultural norms and cultural assumptions. It is shown that English, as compared with Polish, places heavy restrictions on the use of the imperative and makes extensive use of interrogative and conditional forms. Features of English which have been claimed to be due to universal principles of politeness are shown to be language-specific and culture-specific. Moreover, even with respect to English, they are shown to be due to aspects of culture much deeper than mere norms of politeness. Linguistic differences are shown to be associated with cultural differences such as spontaneity, directness, intimacy and affection vs. indirectness, distance, tolerance and anti-dogmaticism. Certain characteristic features of Australian English are discussed and are shown to reflect some aspects of the Australian ethos. Implications for a theory of speech acts and for interethnic communication are discussed. In particular, certain influential theories of speech acts (based largely on English) are shown to be ethnocentric and dangerous in their potential social effects.

Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction (Vol. 53). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This book challenges the approaches to human interaction based on supposedly universal 'maxims of conversation' and 'principles of politeness,' which fly in the face of reality as experienced by millions of people crossing language boundaries (refugees, immigrants, etc.) and which cannot help in the practical tasks of cross-cultural communication and education. In contrast to such approaches, this book is both theoretical and practical: it shows that in different societies, norms of human interaction are different and reflect different cultural attitudes and values; and it offers a framework within which different cultural norms and different ways of speaking can be effectively explored, explained, and taught. The book discusses data from a wide range of languages and it shows that the meanings expressed in human interaction and the different 'cultural scripts' prevailing in different speech communities can be clearly and intelligibly described and compared by using a 'natural semantic metalanguage,' based on empirically established universal human concepts. As the book shows, this metalanguage can be used as a basis for teaching successful cross-cultural communication, including the teaching of languages in a cultural context.

Wildner-Bassett, M. (1986). Teaching 'polite noises': Improving advanced adult learners' repertoire of gambits. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Learning, teaching and communication in the foreign language classroom (pp. 163-178). �rhus: Aarhus University Press.

Wildner-Bassett, M. (1994). Intercultural pragmatics and proficiency: 'Polite' noises for cultural appropriateness. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 32(1), 3-17.

This article summarizes a study in the field of German-English interlanguage pragmatics which investigates pragmatic declarative and procedural knowledge as realized by routine formulas and conversational strategies.� Language instruction which has the goal of developing metapragmatic declarative knowledge as well as situational/functional (procedural) knowledge results in real progress toward proficiency, even at the elementary level of language instruction.� The results of the empirical study show a typology of deficits and characteristic pragmatic aspects of American learners’ German interlanguage. These finding and further studies of the pragmatics of native, target, and interlanguages ofour students will help us successfully teach them to make the right polite noises at the time most interactionally appropriate for achieving their personal communicative goals in the target language.

Yu, M. (2003). On universality of face: Evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1679�1710. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00074-2

The aim of this study is to examine cross-cultural politeness behavior. Politeness appears to be a prevalent concept in human interaction, and to date, many models of politeness have been put forward in the literature. The focal point of this paper is Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) formulation of politeness behavior, for compared with other models of politeness, theirs is the one that most clearly maintains its pancultural validity, thus evidently claiming its application as a basis for cross-cultural comparison (O'Driscoll, 1996). In this study, the compliment response behavior of native Chinese speakers, who are typically regarded as having rules of speaking and social norms very different from those of Westerners, is compared closely with that of native American English speakers to see if it can provide evidence to support Brown and Levinson's universal thesis. The results show that while there are indeed some general concepts and dimensions of politeness that are shared by Chinese and English speakers, the different strategies they use indicate the important role culture plays in its speakers’ speech act performance. This important role should never be treated lightly when we explore the issue of speech act universality.

Zhan, K. (1992). The strategies of politeness in the Chinese language. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, The University of California.

Zhang, Y. (1995). Indirectness in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as native and target language (pp. 69�100). University of Hawai’i Press, Hawai’i.

Egner, I. (2006). Intercultural aspects of the speech act of promising: Western and African practices. Intercultural Pragmatics 3(4), 443-464.

The paper aimed to examine and clear up the reasons for intercultural misunderstanding between Africans and Westerners when promising. The author used her personal intercultural experience in West Africa (Ivory Coast) in studying the conditions of use for the act of promising in each culture. The author contended that the notions of sincerity and commitment were closely attached to the Western promise, while the African promise was typically informed by different cultural premises, where sincerity was found to be irrelevant. The study used Searle’s felicity conditions in order to clarify whether the African promise could be still classified as an illocutionary act of promising. Findings revealed that the African prototypical promise was made out of politeness in order to satisfy social expectations and to be cooperative. It did not imply a sincere commitment, not even the intention to carry out the promise act. The author asserted that this difference caused misunderstanding between Westerners and Africans since in the Western culture the notions of sincerity and commitment was implied in the speech act of promising. The study results confirmed the Western promise and the polite African promise were two different kinds of illocutionary acts.

Abdolrezapour, P., & Vahid Dastjerdi, H. (in press). Examining mitigation in refusals: A cross-cultural study of Iranian and American speech communities. Sociolinguistic Studies.

This study investigates the type of mitigation devices employed by Persian and American native speakers in refusal interactions in a number of formal/informal situations. Twenty two American and thirty Iranian university students participated in four role-play interactions. The production data were supplemented by verbal reports and questionnaires completed by 45 Americans and 50 Iranians to examine speakers’ perceptions of mitigation devices. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that, in identical situations, Iranians use more mitigation devices and more specifically make more use of external mitigation devices in comparison to Americans. Moreover, social variables such as social power and social distance made a difference in the way Iranians refused while Americans’ refusals did not change considerably with regard to social variables. It is suggested that foreign language teachers help learners enhance their communicative competence to avoid communication breakdowns which might occur due to inappropriate use of speech acts.

Al-Issa, A. (2003). Sociocultural transfer in L2 speech behaviors: Evidence and motivating factors. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27(5), 581-601.

This article examines the phenomenon of sociocultural transfer and its motivating factors within the realization patterns of the speech act of refusals by Jordanian EFL learners. EFL refusal data were collected using a discourse completion test (DCT), which was designed and further developed based on observational field note data. The DCT was then followed by semi-structured interviews. Using semantic formulas as units of analysis, EFL refusal responses were compared with similar data elicited from native speakers of English responding in English and native speakers of Arabic responding in Arabic. The results showed three areas in which sociocultural transfer appeared to influence the EFL learners' selection of semantic formulas, the length of their responses, and the content of the semantic formulas. The cases of transfer were seen to reflect cultural values transferred from Arabic to English. On the basis of the interview data, it was determined that the learners pride in their LI, their perceptions of the L2, and their religious values all played a role in the sociocultural transfer that was found.

Allami, H., & Naeimi, A. (2011). A cross-linguistic study of refusals: An analysis of pragmatic competence development in Iranian EFL learners. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(1), 385-406. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.07.010

The present study aimed to recast the issue of production of refusals by Iranian EFL learners, exploring the frequency, shift and content of semantic formulas with regard to learners’ language proficiency (lower-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate), status of interlocutors (lower, equal and higher) and types of eliciting acts (requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions) on realization of the strategies. Thirty Persian-speaking learners of English were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), consisting of 12 situations realizing the refusal of 4 types of eliciting acts. In addition, 31 native speakers of Persian were asked to fill out the same DCT, rendered into Persian, for comparative analyses. Responses of 37 American native speakers in a relevant study were also reviewed for evidence of common components of speech act sets to establish a set of baseline responses. All data were coded and analyzed according to the taxonomy of refusals developed. The results revealed that there were differences in the frequency, shift and content of semantic formulas used in refusals by Iranian and American speakers when responding to a higher, an equal, and a lower status person. For instance, while both groups used providing excuse/reason for the refusal, the American participants’ excuses were more specific, concrete and to the point in both place and time. On the other hand, native speakers of Persian displayed a nearly high level of frequency shift in their use of several semantic formulas, whereas American patterns for refusals were quite consistent regardless of status level. Data also indicated pragmatic transfer in the realization of the speech act of refusal among Iranian EFL learners, and that there was a positive correlation between L2 proficiency and pragmatic transfer; upper-intermediate learners tended to transfer more L1 sociocultural norms to L2 and made more pragmatic errors than the lower-intermediate learners. The results indicate that refusing in an L2 is a complex task as it requires the acquisition of the sociocultural values of the target culture.

Archer, E. (2010). They made me an invitation I couldn’t refuse: Teaching refusal strategies for invitations. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 181-194). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., Nickels, E., & Rose, M. (2008).  The influence of first language and level of development in the use of conventional expressions of thanking, apologizing, and refusing.  In M. Bowles, R. Foote, S. Perpi��n, & R. Bhatt (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 113-130).  Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

This paper explores the influence of first language and level of development on the use of conventional expressions in the realization of three speech acts, namely, expressions of gratitude, apologies, and refusals. An experimental approach reproduced the conditions for the use of conventional expressions employing a computer-delivered aural-oral discourse completion task (DCT) with timed presentation of scenarios and a recorded interlocutor to simulate turn taking in scenarios that promoted high use of conventional expressions by native speakers. Learners from four levels of proficiency representing four first language groups (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; n=108) and native speaker peers and teachers (n=49) participated in the study. Use of conventional expressions was in part mediated by first language and instructional level. The comparison of multiple L1s showed that learners of various L1s often shared production strategies. The comparison of different levels of instruction showed that learners increased their use of conventional expressions at higher levels, requiring both linguistic and sociopragmatic competence.

Beebe, L. M., & Cumming, M. C. (1996). Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method affects speech act performance. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures (pp. 65-86). Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.

Compares refusals in spontaneous speech and written discourse completion tests. Eleven E1 female ESL teachers filled out a questionnaire item while eleven others were called on the phone and asked the same question. It was a genuine request to help out at the TESOL'85 Convention in NY, and 20 of those approached agreed to do so. The findings revealed that discourse completion tests are an effective means of gathering a large amount of data quickly, creating an initial classification of semantic formulas, and ascertaining the structure of refusals. In only 5 out of 27 formulas, strategies, or subcategories was there a difference of three or more tokens between the oral and written data. However, the tests did not elicit natural speech with respect to actual wording, range of formulas and strategies, length of responses (4 times as many words and sentences over the phone) or number of turns necessary to fulfill a function. Nor did they adequately represent the depth of emotion and general psycho-social dynamics of naturally occurring speech.

Beebe, L. M., Takahashi, T., & Uliss-Weltz, R. (1990). Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals. In R. Scarcella, E. Andersen, & S. D. Krashen (Eds.), Developing communicative competence in a second language (pp. 55-73). New York: Newbury House.

The authors administered a discourse completion test with 60 participants (20 Japanese-speaking in Japanese, 20 Japanese-speaking in English, and 20 Americans speaking in English) to investigate pragmatic transfer in refusals to requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions directed at higher-, equal-, and lower-status interlocutors. The data were analyzed in terms of the sequence, frequency, and content of semantic formulas. The evidence of pragmatic transfer was found at least on three levels: the sequence, frequency, and the intrinsic content (or tone) of the semantic formulas used in the refusals. This is an often cited paper in the study of refusals.

Bresnahan, M. J., Ohashi, R., Liu, W. Y., Nebashi, R., & Liao, C. (1999). A comparison of response styles in Singapore and Taiwan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30(3), 342-358.

This study examined whether Chinese from Singapore and Taiwan responded differently to requests made by friends and whether male and female students had different preferences for response tactics. A total of 300 Chinese students at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and 297 Chinese students at Feng Chia University in Taiwan were recruited to fill out discourse completion questionnaires, containing one of three scenarios, representing different levels of imposition. A questionnaire assessing self-construal scale and manipulation checks was also administered. The response types were coded and divided into compliance with and refusal of the request. The independent variables included national grouping, self-construal, gender, and the level of imposition whereas the dependent variables were the number of strategies and the degree of directness in the refusals as associated with the strategy favoring collective good vs. individuals’ needs. The results indicate that although independent self-construal was associated with more explicit refusal and more concern with clarity, interdependent self-construal was not associated with compliance and greater concern for others’ feelings. Differences in the level of imposition in a request were related to the type of response. Responses to lower-imposition requests tended to comply; responses to higher-imposition requests tended to refuse the requests. Overall, men were more compliant than women. Singapore Chinese indicated a greater preference for complying with the request from a friend than Chinese in Taiwan, but Taiwan Chinese used more indirect refusal strategies and embedded structures to soften the tone of voice. When Singapore participants used refusals, they were more direct and used fewer strategies to refuse than their Taiwanese counterparts. The study concluded that the response styles of Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan were distinctive.

Chang, Y.-F. (2009). How to say no: an analysis of cross-cultural difference and pragmatic transfer. Language Sciences, 31(4), 477�493. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2008.01.002

The purpose of the present study is to investigate pragmatic transfer in refusals by native speakers of Mandarin speaking English, and to what extent transfer is influenced by the learners’ level of L2 proficiency. The elicitation instrument used for data collection was the discourse completion questionnaire developed by Beebe et al. [Beebe, L., Takahashi, T., Uliss-Weltz, R., 1990. Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals. In: Scarcella, R. et al. (Eds.), Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language. Newbury House, New York, pp. 55�73] Participants in this study were composed of four groups: 35 American college students (AE), 41 English-major seniors (SE), 40 English-major freshmen (FE), and 40 Chinese-major sophomores (CC). The refusal responses were analyzed in terms of (1) the frequency of semantic formulas, and (2) the content of semantic formulas. It was found that while all groups employed a similar range of semantic formulas in responding to the refusals elicited by different initiating acts, they differed in the frequency and content of the semantic formulas.

Chen, X., Ye, L., & Zhang, Y. (1995). Refusing in Chinese. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 119-163). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Discusses the act of refusal in Chinese as it relates to the concept of maintaining mianzi and lian -- ones face and public image. According to the authors, Chinese perceive it as imperative to "'liu mianzi' -- preserve face for the refusee," and "'liu houlu' -- leave oneself a way out for the refuser." In Chinese culture, refusal is seen as having a potentially negative impact on future interaction, therefore great care is taken to follow implicit rules of appropriate behavior that shows respect for each person's role in the interaction. The authors carried out a study to examine the way both substantive and ritual refusal are handled by native speakers of Chinese in a variety of interactive relationships. The subjects were 50 male and 50 female speakers of Mandarin Chinese who had lived in the U.S. for an average of 2.4 years at the time of the study. Data were collected by means of a 16-item questionnaire designed to elicit responses to four types of initiating acts: requests, suggestions, invitations, and offers. The first part of the study involved substantive refusals, and each item specified the speaker's social status relative to the interlocutor. A detailed analysis of the frequency with which each form was used and some examples of each were given. The second part of the study involved ritual refusal as a commissive-directive act, and the authors described the strategies used by the subjects to interpret and respond to offers.

Da Silvia, A. J. B. (2003). The effects of instruction on pragmatic development: Teaching polite refusals in English. Second Language Studies, 22(1), 55�106. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/sls/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Silva.pdf

This study was set up to further investigate whether relatively explicit instruction may be facilitative for L2 pragmatic development, and the most appropriate and effective ways to deliver the pragmatic information to L2 learners. Adopting a pre-test/post-test design with treatment and control groups, it incorporated metapragmatic awareness into task-based methodological principles in its instructional treatment in order to teach the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic components of the speech act of refusals. Fourteen low-intermediate learners from various L1s (Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Serbian, and Portuguese) were randomly assigned to both control (7) and treatment (7) groups. Data, collected by means of role-play, were transcribed, and a qualitative discourse analytic approach was used to examine the learning outcomes in the treatment group as compared to the control group. The findings illustrate that the instructional approach enhanced the L2 pragmatic ability of performing the speech act in focus. This suggests that L2 pedagogy which aims at providing learners with metapragmatic information associated with meaningful opportunities for language use may result in gains in learners’ L2 pragmatic development.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2004). Interlanguage refusals: Linguistic politeness and length of residence in the target community. Language Learning, 54(4), 587�653. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2004.00281.x

Using role play and verbal-report data, this study investigates the sequential organization of politeness strategies of 24 learners of Spanish and whether the learners’ ability to negotiate and mitigate a refusal was influenced by length of residence in the target community. Refusal sequences were examined throughout the interaction (head acts, pre- and postrefusals) and across conversational turns. Results showed more frequent attempts at negotiation and greater use of lexical and syntactic mitigation among learners who had spent more time in the target community and also revealed a preference for solidarity and indirectness, which approximated native Spanish speaker norms. It is suggested that the variables of proficiency and length of residence should be considered independently. Finally, learners’ perceptions of social status are discussed.

F�lix-Bradesfer, J. C. (2006). Linguistic politeness in Mexico: Refusal strategies among male speakers of Mexican Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(12), 2158-2187.

The study investigated the linguistic strategies used by monolingual native speakers of Mexican Spanish of one community in Mexico in refusal interactions in formal and informal situations. Linguistic politeness was investigated by examining the linguistic strategies and perceptions of politeness among male university students during refusal interactions in three politeness systems: solidarity, deference, and hierarchy (Scollon and Scollon, 2001). In addition, the study focused on three aspects of politeness: (1) degree of formality, (2) politeness systems and strategy use, and (3) politeness and the notion of face in Mexico. Participants were twenty Mexican male university students participated in four role-play interactions. Ages of the participants ranged from 21 to 26 years. Data were collected at the Universidad Aut�noma de Tlaxcala using open role-plays supplemented by retrospective verbal reports to examine speakers’ perception of refusals. A total of 80 role-play interactions were examined according to a modified classification system of refusal strategies proposed by Beebe et al. (1990) that included direct and indirect refusals, and adjuncts to refusals. The results showed that in this community politeness was realized by means of formulaic/semi-formulaic expressions employed to negotiate face (Watts, 2003), that is, ritualized linguistic forms were used to convey respect and to weaken the illocutionary force of a refusal. An analysis of the refusal interactions indicated that among these speakers, the negotiation of face was accomplished largely by various indirect attempts at (re)negotiating a successful resolution politely. Also, face needs were oriented towards the group, emphasizing involvement over independence. In addition, the findings of this empirical study showed that social factors such as power and distance played a crucial role in determining appropriate degrees of politeness in Mexican society. Finally, the notion of negative face, as proposed in Brown and Levinson (1987), was re-examined in light of the data.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2008). Politeness in Mexico and the United States: A contrastive study of the realization and perception of refusals. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

This book explores the issue of politeness phenomena and socially appropriate behavior in two societies, Mexico and the United States, in three different contexts: refusing invitations, requests, and suggestions. In addition to a state-of-the-art review of the speech act of refusals in numerous languages, the book provides a rigorous analysis of data collection methods utilized to examine speech act behavior at the production and perception levels. Many examples of native speaker interactions illustrate the similarities and differences observed in the realization patterns and the perception of refusals by Mexicans and Americans in formal and informal situations. The data are analyzed in terms of refusal sequences and pragmatic strategies which are strategically used to carry out relational work during the negotiation of face. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses are interpreted in light of the notions of face, politeness, and relational work in Mexico and the United States. This publication will be of interest to researchers and students in pragmatics and discourse analysis, cross-cultural communication, and sociology.

F�lix-Brasdefer, C., & Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2010). "I'm sorry. Can I think about it?" The Negotiation of refusals in academic and non-academic contexts. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts. (pp. 163-180). New York: TESOL.

Garc�a, C. (1992). Refusing an invitation: A case study of Peruvian style. Hispanic Linguistics, 5(1-2), 207-243.

Intends to compare the politeness strategies used by male and female speakers in a role-play situation: refusing an invitation. The respondents were 10 male and 10 female Peruvians with an age range from the 20s to the 70s and with three different classes represented. Both groups went through distinctly marked stages: (1) invitation-response, and (2) insistence-response. In the first stage both genders used deference politeness strategies as the head act, while in the second stage they adopted solidarity politeness strategies for head acts. In the first stage both genders expressed their respect toward their interlocutor and their friendship with her. However in the second stage, males tended to refuse, while females generally responded affirmatively, though vaguely.

Garc�a, C. (2007). “Ch�, mir�, vos sab�s que no voy a poder”: How Argentineans refuse an invitation. Hispania, 90(3), 551-564.

This paper analyzed the strategies used by a group of 22 adult Argentinean Spanish native speakers, 11 males and 11 females, when refusing an invitation. Participants were video-taped in role-play interactions. This study identified their preferred politeness strategies and attempted to uncover the underlying perspectives that made up their culture within the context examined. The analysis incorporated Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of politeness and Blum-Kulka et al’s (1989) distinction between head acts and supporting moves. More importantly, it took into account “the discourse context [...], discourse organization, and conversational management [...]” (Kasper 2000) to describe the overall politeness system expressed. Results showed that there were two clearly defined stages: response to the invitation and response to the insistence. The findings indicated that invitees preferred to balance their expression of respect and friendliness when refusing. Thus, when providing a dispreferred response, Argentinean participants favored strategies that expressed deference and respect towards the interlocutor (58%) using solidarity strategies. In addition, they used strategies that threatened their own face with more strength than the interlocutor’s (i.e., the inviter), specifically their negative face. Garc�a noted that this was seen as an effort to diminish the face-threatening force of their refusal. The comparison of male and female participation showed that both groups preferred deference politeness strategies in the first stage. In the second stage, males balanced their deference politeness strategies and their solidarity politeness strategies but females favored the solidarity politeness strategies. All these strategies contributed to the maintenance of their v�nculo (Fitch 1998) with the interlocutor. Also, the author pointed out that the study indicated that the participants belonged to and reflected a positive politeness culture.

Gass S., & Houck, N. (1999). �Interlanguage refusals: A cross cultural study of Japanese-English.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

The book has as its main goal the study and description of refusal sequences as exemplified through the verbal and nonverbal performance of a group of L2 speakers, namely, Japanese learners of English. First, the study is situated within a general framework of refusals and analytic schemata used in previous studies is considered. Then they discuss different methodologies for collecting data. They offer a unit of analysis for extended refusal interactions (the episode) and the analysis of a complex refusal interaction sequence. They also look at the management of back channel type utterances and nonverbal behavior by nonnatives.

Guidetti, M. (2000). Pragmatic study of agreement and refusal messages in young French children. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(5), 569-582. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00061-2

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the gestural and/or verbal forms of agreement and refusal messages in young French children aged 21 to 27 months vary according to the social function they fulfill. Two types of messages were considered: assertives and directives. Children interacting with an adult were observed individually. The adult prompted the child to produce agreement and refusal messages of the assertive or directive type by proposing objects (puzzle pieces) that either fit or did not fit into the interaction situation (e.g.: ‘Is this an X?’, where X was/was not the piece being presented, or ‘Should I give you the X?’ for pieces that did/did not go with the puzzle the child was doing). The results showed that the children's message forms varied with age (21 or 27 months), type of message (agreement or refusal), and type of speech act (assertive or directive). The different variations are discussed and show that by the age of two, children indeed have different forms at their disposal (gestural and/or verbal) for expressing agreement and refusal in accordance with the two types of speech acts achieved in these messages.

Ikoma, T., & Shimura, A. (1993). Eigo kara nihongoeno pragmatic transfer: "Kotowari" toiu hatsuwa kouinitsuite (‘Pragmatic transfer from English to Japanese: The speech act of refusals’). Nihongokyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 79, 41-52.

This study investigates pragmatic transfer among advanced-level American learners of Japanese (fourth-year students at the University of Hawaii). Ten Japanese native speakers and ten American learners of Japanese performed refusals to requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions based on Beebe et al. (1990) elicited through discourse completion tasks. Three instances of negative transfer identified were that learners: 1) did not provide alternatives as often as native speakers, 2) tended to inappropriately use kekkoudesu ‘no, thank you’ in interactions with friends possibly due to its similarity to an English expression, "No, thank you," and 3) did not use incomplete sentences fully, which would have assisted in presenting oneself hesitantly and politely especially with those of higher status.

Kanemoto, M. (1993). A comparative study of refusal assertion in the United States and Japan. Ryudai Review of Language and Literature, 38, 199-212.

The author investigates five popular publications regarding refusals in American English and Japanese to examine the refusal strategies recommended by the writers from the two cultures and underlying values behind such refusal strategies. The three formal characteristics in Japanese refusals were: 1) avoiding a clear refusal, 2) mentioning a third party as a reason for the refusal, and 3) using a fictitious reason for the refusal. The author contends that in Japanese culture, refusal means not only a "no" to a request but also to personal relationships and that fictitious reasons and other strategies were employed as a social lubricant to reduce the impact of the refusal assertion. Two characteristics of recommended refusals in American English were that the clear and constructive refusal must be articulated and that reasons for a refusal do not necessarily have to be offered.

Kawate-Mierzejewska, M. (2002). Request-refusal interactions in telephone conversation. Unpublished manuscript. Fourth Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan.

This study investigated request-refusal interaction between Japanese speakers speaking Japanese (10 M, 10 F JJs - never having lived in English-speaking country) and North American English speakers speaking Japanese (10 M, 10 F AJs � living in Japan for over 10 years) in telephone conversations, focusing on the differences and similarities between native and nonnative speakers in 40 conversations (JJ-JJ and JJ- AJ) with two requests in each (10-15 minutes per conversation). The nature of refusal sequences was examined by four coders. JJs tended to employ delay as their immediate response to the implicative request types, while AJs were found to have a wider variety of refusal types (delay, avoidance, acceptance, positive indication but excuse, excuse). They didn't use formulaic patterns as often as JJs. The AJ variety was attributed to lack of sociocultural and pragmalinguistic ability. The JJs had six types of refusal sequences: excuse, delay-excuse, delay-excuse-alternative, delay-excuse-apology, delay-apology, and delay-promise. AJs had seven: excuse, delay-excuse, delay-avoidance by postponement, avoidance-delay-excuse, avoidance-avoidance, acceptance-delay-excuse, positive indication with excuse-avoidance. Appendix B gives a classification of refusal realization strategies.

King, K. A., & Silver, R. E. (1993). "Sticking points": Effects of instruction on NNS refusal strategies. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 9(1), 47-82.

Reports on a group of three intermediate ESL students who received 70 minutes of training in refusal strategies in a conversation class (which they admit may have been too little), while three others just received conversation on getting to know Americans. Pre and post consisted of a written discourse questionnaire on refusals -- without rejoinders. Two weeks after instruction the participants were telephoned and asked to perform a burdensome activity known to conflict with their schedule so as to elicit a refusal (to give a talk when they had a class and to set up an info booth on an exam day). Results from the questionnaire indicated little effect of instruction, and the telephone interview indicated no effect. They found a large disparity between the written and spoken refusal strategies. The paper is short on subjects but long on details -- such as the treatment used (59), which included saying something to make the person feel good before refusing, using a starter ("let me see"), using "that's too bad" instead of "I'm sorry" (which nonnatives overuse), and using specific not general excuses. The researchers were surprised to find that the telephone conversation had many fewer strategies than in the discourse completion task.

Kitao, S. K. (1996). Communicative competence, preference organization, and refusals in British English. Sougou Bunka Kenkyujo Kiyou, 13, 47-58.

The researcher administered a discourse completion test (based on Beebe et al., 1990), with 12 items on refusals to requests given to 40 British English speakers. The magnitude of the request (large and small request), status of the interlocutors (higher, equal, and lower than the speaker), and the closeness of the interlocutors (close or distant) was manipulated in the DCT instrument. The most common strategy was an expression of regret followed by an excuse or reason (30% of the responses). Another 20% of the responses either reversed the order or added another element (such as promising future compliance of the request, or negative willingness). As it is in American English, giving a reason seemed to be central, and the reasons were found to be generally concrete and specific. Expression of regret occurred in more than half of the refusals (especially refusing a small request by those of equal status), although apologies were more often offered in response to a larger request.

Kondo, S. (2008). Effects on pragmatic development through awareness-raising instruction: Refusals by Japanese EFL learners. In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 153-177). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

Kwon, J. (2004). Expressing refusals in Korean and in American English. Multilingua, 23(4), 339- 64.

This study investigated refusals of forty Korean speakers in Korea (KSKs) and thirty-seven American English speakers in the USA (AEAs). Subjects’ refusals were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) taken from Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990). Data were analyzed in terms of semantic formula sequences and were categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al. (1990). Results indicated that although a similar range of refusal strategies were available to the two language groups, cross-cultural variation was evident in the frequency and content of semantic formulas used by each language group in relation to the contextual variables, which include the status of interlocutors (i. e., higher, equal, lower status) and eliciting acts (i. e., requests, invitations, offers, suggestions). For instance, Korean speakers hesitated more frequently and used direct refusal formulas much less frequently than did English speakers. Thus, Korean speakers’ refusals at times sounded less transparent and more tentative than those of English speakers. In addition, Korean speakers frequently paused and apologized before refusing, while English speakers often stated positive opinion and expressed gratitude for a proposed action. Further, the two language groups differed in terms of the types of reasons used in their refusals; Korean speakers typically used reasons (e. g., referring to a father’s 60th birthday when refusing a boss’s invitation), which were not found in the English data. Evidence also suggested that Korean speakers tended to take a more mitigating approach in dealing with a higher status person as compared to other status types, whereas English speakers did not seem to be particularly sensitive to one status versus another in their refusals across the different situations. These differences in Korean and English refusals may cause pragmatic failure when Korean learners of English rely on their native culture-specific refusal strategies in interacting with native English speakers.

Laohaburanakit, K. (1995). Refusal in Japanese: A comparison of Japanese textbooks and actual conversation data. Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 87, 25-39.

Focusing on the refusal itself and the statement of the reasons as core strategies of refusals, the author compares refusals for requests and invitations in ten Japanese language textbooks with those in authentic telephone conversation by native speakers. Most of the textbooks did not carry sufficient information regarding the refusing context (i.e., relationship of the interlocutors, whether the refuser is able to comply with the request/invitation in terms of time and ability, and the degree of importance for acceptance of the request/invitation in the requester’s perspective), although the authentic data showed the refusing context influenced the selection of the refusal strategy or the combination of the refusal strategies. Authentic data found cases where the speakers made refusals even thought they were able to comply with the request/invitation, and several strategies used by the speakers in such a case.

Laohaburanakit, K. (1997). Forms of refusals: A comparison of refusal forms used by learners of Japanese and Japanese native speakers. Japanese-Language Education around the Globe, 7.

The author uses authentic telephone conversation including refusals from 15 native speakers of Japanese and 11 nonnative speakers of Japanese. The analysis focuses on the refusal itself and the statement of the reasons. Learners’ overall use of sentence-final particles following an excuse (e.g. noda/kara/node/te/shi) approximated that by native speakers. However, conversation analysis of the data also revealed that learners generally did not use sentence-final particles (e.g., kna, na(a), wa) which serve to soften the refusal assertion and refusal markers (e.g., chotto, yappari, uun) which precede a refusal and prepare the hearer for the upcoming refusal. The author contends that these are missing aspects in Japanese language textbooks and research that require more attention.

Liao, C., & Bresnahan, M. J. (1996). A contrastive pragmatic study on American English and Mandarin refusal strategies. Language Sciences, 18(3-4), 703-727.

This study contrasted responses made by American and Chinese university students to six requests. The scenarios ranged from (1) a teacher’s request for help preparing for a reception, (2) a tardy classmate’s request to borrow class notes, (3) a longtime friend’s request for help with moving, (4) a friend’s request to borrow a car for a vacation, (5) a friend’s request to borrow a small amount of money to buy a textbook, and (6) a family member’s request to borrow a substantial amount of money. The subjects comprised of 570 undergraduate students at Feng Chia University in Taiwan and 516 at the University of Michigan. The subjects were asked to respond to one of the six request scenarios by filling in their responses. The responses were coded according the number of strategies used in each response to examine ethnicity and gender differences. The refusal patterns indicated that both groups refused requests from a teacher more easily than from either a friend or a family member, but Chinese gave more specific reasons than Americans. Women tended to use more strategies than men to refuse someone of higher status. It was common for Americans to begin a refusal with a positive response, followed by a refusal, such as I’d love to, but�; however, it was rare for Chinese to use this strategy. Chinese students found requests from family members hard to turn down whereas American students found friends’ requests were hardest to refuse. When refusing to lend class notes to a friend, American students were more likely than Chinese students to add a comment on the inappropriateness of the request. Americans were more willing to lend a small amount of money to his/her friend, while Chinese students found it hard to refuse a request from a family member for a large amount of money. Compared with Chinese students, American students, especially male, were less likely to turn down a request for help someone move. But in cases where Americans refused to lend their cars to their friends, they provided a ‘statement of principle’ as an excuse, whereas Chinese students were more economical at using strategies in such refusals, following a principle of dian-dao-wei-zhi ‘marginally touching the point’.

Marti-Arn�ndiz, O., & Salazar-Compillo, P. (Eds.). (2013). Refusals in instructional contexts and beyond. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.

Little exposure and few opportunities for practice are two main drawbacks for learners in instructional contexts. These problems are intensified when dealing with face-threatening acts such as refusals, as learners are not fully capable of expressing their meanings and miscommunication is a likely by-product. The present volume aims at exploring factors and production of refusals in different instructional settings by means of ten original papers which address key questions dealing with the speech act of refusals. The relevance of the volume lies in the individual contributions which embrace innovative perspectives on refusals in order to provide an excellent contribution to this field of enquiry. The book is an obligatory reading for researchers and students interested in the field of interlanguage pragmatics, who will benefit from the range of educational contexts in which refusals are investigated.

Moriyama, T. (1990). ‘Kotowari’ no houryaku: Taijin kankei chouseito komunikeishon (‘Strategies of refusals: Interpersonal adjustments and communication’). Gengo (Language), 19(8), 59-66.

This article analyzes the speech act of refusals in terms of benefits and imposition, strategies, and reasons behind using particular strategies. The author administered a questionnaire to 51 male and 40 female Japanese college students, eliciting the refusal strategies that they would use in one refusal situation. The refusal strategies fell into four categories: 1) direct refusal, 2) telling a white lie, saying tsugouga tsukanai ‘I have a prior engagement that cannot be changed,’ 3) postponing response, saying kangaete oku ‘I’ll think about it,’ and 4) making an indefinite response by smiling. The response strategies were also analyzed in terms of closeness, social status, age, and gender of the interlocutors. The direct refusal (Type 1 above) was found to be often directed to close friends (approximately 70%) as the respondents probably perceived no need to conceal true feelings in such a relationship. Telling a white lie (Type 2 above) was perhaps used in consideration for the hearer, behaving as if the hearer’s intentions were more important than the speaker’s or as if the refusal was beyond the speaker’s control. The postponement (Type 3) by a close friend was interpreted as cause for hope by 60% of the participants while only about 30% did so if uttered by someone not very close. The postponing strategy was seldom used with someone of higher status, since it presupposed the importance of the speaker’s intention rather than the hearer’s. With regard to the second refusal in response to the friend’s repeated request, males were likely to make a direct refusal while females tended to tell a white lie.

Morrow, C. K. (1996). The pragmatic effects of instruction on ESL learners’ production of complaint and refusal speech acts (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). State University of New York, Buffalo. [Available online]

A case study of intermediate-level, English-as-a-Second-Language students was conducted to investigate the capacity of formal speech-act instruction to promote pragmatic development in the production of two problematic speech acts: refusals and complaints. The subjects (n = 20) consisted of 9 females and 11 males enrolled in two spoken English classes in an intensive English language program in the U.S. Their countries of origin were: Japan (7), Korea (4), Columbia (4), and other (5). The instructional intervention lasted three and one-half hours and included the use of model dialogues, prescribed speech-act formulae, and various types of performance activities (e.g., games and roleplaying). Oral data were collected prior to, following, and six months after the intervention by means of seven semi-structured role-play tasks which prompted subjects to perform three direct complaints and four refusals with peer interlocutors. The data were analyzed using (a) holistic ratings of clarity and politeness, and (b)comparisons of the pretest and posttest distributions of discourse features with those of native-English-speaking controls (n = 14). T-tests comparing the pooled pretest and posttest holistic scores revealed improvements in subjects' levels of clarity and politeness which were significant at $p\le .005$. Similar comparisons of the posttest and delayed posttest scores did not attain statistical significance ($p< .05$). The refusal analyses of discourse features (viz., semantic formulae) revealed increases in the use of politeness strategies, especially of negative politeness strategies. Frequently these developmental changes appeared pragmatically appropriate even when they failed to converge toward the native speaker frequencies. Analyses of propositions and modifiers in the complaint data revealed gains in pragmatic competence which were indicated by such changes as increased indirectness, more complete explanations, and fewer explicit statements of dissatisfaction. These results, which corroborated the findings from the holistic ratings, suggested that speech-act instruction helped the subjects to perform complaints and refusals which were clearer, more polite, and, to a limited extent, more nativelike. Additional intra-task comparisons found that higher levels of pragmatic competence were achieved when the interlocutor's level of social distance was lower (i.e., friends as opposed to acquaintances).

Naitou, M. (1997). Nihongono taiguu hyougen "irai" "kotowari": Nihongo bogowashato nihongo gakushuushatono koodono sai (‘Japanese politeness in requests and refusals: Differences in code between native speakers and learners of Japanese’). In M. Hubbard, T. Sakamoto, & J. Davis (Eds.), Nihongo kyouiku ibunkano kakehashi: Miura Akira Sensei Koki Kinen Ronbunshuu (Progress in Japanese Linguistics and pedagogy: A collection in honor of Professor Akira Miura’s 70th birthday) (pp. 101-115). Tokyo: Arc.

This paper contains a report dealing with three questionnaires investigating native and nonnative Japanese speakers’ 1) politeness judgment of request expressions in six situations, 2) judgment of the speaker’s intent in two hints, and 3) feelings experienced by the speaker who once again refuses a second invitation made to him/her. The author also lists useful request and refusal expressions that can be taught to learners of Japanese.

Nakajima, Y. (1997). Politeness strategies in the workplace: Which experiences help Japanese businessmen acquire American English native-like strategies? Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 13(1), 49-69.

Nelson, G. L., Carson, J., Al Batal, M., & El Bakary, W. (2002). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Strategy use in Egyptian Arabic and American English refusals. Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 163-189.

This study investigated similarities and differences between Egyptian Arabic and American English refusals using a modified version of the discourse completion test (DCT) developed by Beebe et al. (1990). Refusals were selected because they were considered more of a face-threatening act in Arabic because the Egyptians are more status conscious than Americans. There were 10 situations calling for a refusal -- 2 requests, 3 invitations, 3 offers, and 2 suggestions. Thirty US interviews resulted in 298 refusals and 25 Egyptian interviews resulted in 250 refusals. An interviewer read each situation aloud to the subjects and asked them to respond verbally on audiotape. Also, oral data were seen as more consistent with Arab behavior with the distinction between spoken and literary Arabic. Each refusal was divided into its component strategies (see p. 171 for the chart). Data were analyzed to compare the average frequencies of direct and indirect strategies (reason, consideration of interlocutor's feelings, suggestions of willingness, letting interlocutor off the hook, statement of regret, hedging, statement of principle, criticizing the request/requester, repetition of part of the request), the average frequencies of specific indirect strategies, and the effect of interlocutor status on strategy use across groups. Two situations were eliminated -- asked employer for a pay increase and a student making a request to a teacher. Results indicated that both groups use similar strategies with similar frequency in making refusals, counter to Al-Issa's findings where Jordanians used more indirect strategies than Americans. The findings, however, suggest that although methods such as the DCT may be appropriate for collecting pragmalinguistic data, they fail to reveal the sociopragmatic complexities of face-threatening acts such as refusals. The Egyptians indicated that they would not make refusals in some of these situations, like refusing an invitation from the boss.

Placencia, M. E. (2008). (Non)Compliance with directives among family and friends. Intercultural Pragmatics, 5(3), 315-344.

The study explored how middle-class Quite�os in Ecuador responded to two convivial directives: (a) invitations that they were not able or willing to accept, and (2) anticipated insistence when taking leave from social gatherings among family and friends. This sociopragmatic study examined the strategies used by Quite�os when they were dealing with tensions that arouse from two conflicting forces: social pressure and individual wants. The paper aimed to contribute to the characterization of Quite�os’ rapport management style by the identification of patterns of interaction and the examination of native terms and concepts such as compromiso (social) (i.e., the obligation that relations of kin or friendship impose) and quedar bien (to look good in other people’s eyes) that were used in the data. Data collection was based on notes from participant observation during the author’s visits of one to two months to Quito between 2004 and 2006. A total of seven months in all, as well as recordings of naturally occurring interactions, and interview data were analyzed in this study. The focus of observation was the behavior of adults ranging between 30 to 55 years old. The author described them as a middle class based on their educational background and occupation. Findings revealed that middle class Quite�os had a tendency to avoid directly refusing certain convivial directives-invitations and anticipated insistence at leave-taking among family and friends. The author provided examples of tokens and avoidance politeness strategies (e.g., offering assurance to comply but not complying; slipping away from social gatherings) that were used by Quite�os as a response to different behaviors such as the social pressure (el compromiso); their conflicting desires of looking good (quedar bien) in their interaction with others; avoiding hurting other people’s feelings; and not going against their own individual wishes. The author also contended that close ties among family members and intimate friends made refusals to certain directives difficult since the subjects felt obligated to comply because of el compromiso (social). On the other hand, it was postulated that when there was less closeness, token acceptances and avoidance strategies were employed for face-saving purposes. It was asserted that Quite�o society displayed an interpersonal ideology of connectedness (Fitch, 1998) by the use of both sets of behavior (compliance and non-compliance).

Robinson, M. (1992). Introspective methodology in interlanguage pragmatics research. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Japanese as native and target language. Technical Report #3 (pp. 27-82). Honolulu, HI: Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center, U. of Hawaii.

This study involved elicited refusals in written form from 12 native Japanese speaking females in US for 3 months to 3 years. There was no interaction with an interlocutor. It was called a DCT, but was not interactive with rejoinders from the interlocutor, simply one-shot responses of 6 refusals. Respondents were instructed to think aloud while filling out their response. Then their tape was played back so they could hear their think-aloud data to get more on their think-aloud utterances. This lasted from 25-75 minutes. Then, there were 20-30 minute sessions with the researcher in which the respondents were to provide verbal report in the form of think aloud. After responding, the respondents were interviewed for 20-30 minutes (49). Result that the report had more on their personality and reaction to the situation. The investigator did not speak Japanese and all verbal reports were in English. Some respondents indicated not having experience with the situation (66), as in Cohen & Olshtain (1993). One methodological problem was that respondents accepted the request rather than refusing it. It was positive about verbal reports. Verbal report revealed a pragmatic problem that Japanese girls are brought up to say "yes," or at least not say "no" (59). It found that intermediate students generally reported the effects of training while advanced subjects remarked on inductive learning from experience, if they remarked at all.

Sadler, R. W., & Er�z, B. (2001). "I refuse you!" An examination of English refusals by native speakers of English, Lao, and Turkish. Arizona Working Papers in SLAT, 9, 53-80.

Thirty respondents fill out a refusals DCT in English -- 10 Americans, 10 Lao, and 10 Turkish -- constructed by Beebe et al. (1990). It included 12 situations designed to elicit refusals for requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions (in lower, equal, or higher status situations). All respondents tended to use excuses, explanations, or reasons, with a statement of regret preceding or following the reasons or excuses. The Turkish and Americans used pause fillers and then statements of gratitude and appreciation, while the Lao respondents used statements of regret, followed by adjuncts. The Turkish refused a bit less than the others. Interestingly transfer from L1 language and culture patterns did not seem to be that prevalent. The four different kinds of refusal situations did get different kinds of responses. Requests were refused by an excuse or explanation, with a statement of regret. Regarding an invitation, regret was expressed when refusing someone of higher status. Gratitude and appreciation were used along with an excuse or reason in refusing an offer. For suggestions, a reason, explanation, or excuse was

Sameshima, S. (1998). Communication task ni okeru nihongo gakusyusha no tenkei hyougen/bunmatsu hyougen no syuutokukatei: Chuugokugo washa no "ira" "kotowari" "shazai" no baai (‘The acquisition of fixed expressions and sentence-ending expressions by learners of Japanese’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 98, 73-84.

This paper examines speech act performance in requests, refusals, and apologies by Chinese speakers of Japanese in Taiwan. Three levels of learners, high-beginners, low-intermediate, and high-intermediate, took a discourse completion test that included 3 situations, eliciting performance on the three speech acts. The results were analyzed in terms of the linguistic form of each core speech act and the language use in the opening and closing of the dialogue. The author also compared the learners’ performance with the expressions included in their textbooks. The learners’ general linguistic performance approximated that of native speakers as their levels became more advanced, although all level learners tended to oversimplify opening and closing statements.

Shigeta, M. (1974). Ambiguity in declining requests and apologizing. In J. C. Condon & M. Saito (Eds.), Intercultural encounters with Japan: Communication -- contact and conflict (pp. 193-195). Tokyo: Simul Press.

The study compared responses by Japanese and Americans at International Christian University in Tokyo in six situations, 2 apologies, 2 requests, and 2 refusals � in each case, once to a higher status person and once to a person of equal status. While the Japanese were concerned about relative status, the Americans paid more attention to the personal relations or closeness with the person. The Japanese were more ambiguous in their responses. While this is a very short report with no details, the study constitutes a pioneering effort, some seven years before the appearance of what were considered the "initial" empirical studies.

Shimura, A. (1995). "Kotowari" toiu hatsuwa kouiniokeru taiguu hyougentoshiteno syouryakuno hindo, kinou, kouzouni kansuru chuukanngengo goyouron kenkyu (‘Frequency, function, and structure of omissions as politeness expressions in the speech act of refusal’). Keiougijyuku Daigaku Hiyoshi Kiyou (Keio University at Hiyoshi, Language, Culture, Communication), 15, 41-62.

This paper focuses on the use of incomplete sentences in performing refusals in Japanese. Native speakers often use incomplete sentences especially with those of higher status in order to avoid making direct refusals and appear hesitant, which is considered a polite gesture. Based on the same data used in Ikoma and Shimura (1993), learners’ and native speakers’ use of incomplete sentences were analyzed in terms of the syntactic and semantic structures, frequency, correlation with interlocutors of various status. Approximately 24% of the refusal sentences made by native speakers were left incomplete and over half of them (54%) were used with someone of higher status than the speakers. Over half of the incomplete sentences used by natives (61%) and learners (72%) were when providing a reason for a refusal (e.g., �te/de, �node/kara), as well as in responding negatively, providing an alternative, and responding positively. More than half of the incomplete sentences (61%) appeared at the end of the refusal sequences. The learners’ use of incomplete sentences was similar to that of natives except that the learners used incomplete sentences less frequently (15%) and more often with someone of lower status, rather than with higher status interlocutors.

Soler, E. A., & Pitarch, J. G. (2010). The effect of instruction on learners’ pragmatic awareness: A focus on refusals. International Journal of English Studies, 10(1), 65-80.

The benefits of instruction on learners’ production and awareness of speech acts is well documented (see Alc�n and Mart�nez-Flor, 2008, for a review of pragmatics in instructional contexts). However, few studies examine the influence that instruction may have on the cognitive processes involved in speech act production (F�lix- Brasdefer, 2008). In order to address this research gap, and taking into account the discussion in research on the concept of attention and related terms such as awareness (see Al-Hejin, 2004, for a review of the role of attention and awareness in second language acquisition research) this paper reports on the benefits of instruction on learners’ attention and awareness during the performance of refusals. Thus, based on a pedagogical proposal for teaching refusals at the discourse level, we focus on the benefits that this pedagogical proposal can have on the information attended to during the planning and execution of refusals. Secondly, we explore whether instruction makes a difference in learners’ awareness of refusals.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1986). ESL teachers' evaluation of pragmatic vs. grammatical errors. CUNY Forum, 12, 172-203.

Studies ESL teachers' reactions to pragmatic errors as compared with their corrections of grammatical errors -- specifically, how they reacted to refusals that contained grammatical and pragmatic errors. A questionnaire was prepared to elicit ESL teachers' reactions to 18 refusals -- 6 made by intermediate ESL students, 6 by advanced, and 6 from native American English data. Half were refusals of invitations, the other half refusals of requests. They varied as to the nature of the mistake(s). The AE responses were doctored to include grammatical errors. 15 teachers graded according to classifications for grammar, style, spelling/punctuation, and pragmatics. This study did not yield clear indications as to whether grammatical or pragmatic errors were attended to more. So, a second study was conducted where the number of grammatical mistakes was controlled for in each item -- one per item. The sequence and content of pragmatic features in each refusal was left unchanged. A new group of 15 teachers responded. Here they found an increase in attention to the pragmatic level, with each higher proficiency level of student rated higher, because grammar errors were controlled. The first study had more corrections and comments per item. In the first study teachers were unable to provide many comments on sociolinguistic appropriateness due, they argue, to preoccupation with grammatical errors. In the second study when minimum attention to grammar was required, ESL teachers' awareness of sociolinguistic appropriateness became well manifested.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1987). The development of pragmatic competence by Japanese learners of English. JALT Journal, 8(2), 131-155.

Reports on a study to examine the development pragmatic competence of Japanese learners of English as compared with native Americans. Their pragmatic competence was analyzed qualitatively in terms of the tone and content of their refusals. Qualitative assessments of transfer strategies were also given. The data were based on the written refusals of 80 subjects -- 20 native speakers using Japanese and 20 native speakers using English, as compared with 40 Japanese students speaking English (20 EFL and 20 ESL). Within the ESL and EFL categories, 10 students were at the grad level and 10 UG. They found evidence that transfer existed in both the EFL and ESL contexts, and that native language influence was generally stronger in the EFL context [makes sense]. They also found transfer to exist at both the lower and higher proficiency levels. Interestingly, they found that negative pragmatic transfer occurred more at the more advanced levels of ESL (not EFL). The interpretation was that precisely their greater ease at speaking English allowed them to express notions that seemed typically Japanese (e.g., being "deeply honored" to receive a simple invitation).

Turnbull, W. (2001). An appraisal of pragmatic elicitation techniques for the social psychological study of talk: The case of request refusals. Pragmatics, 11(1), 31-61.

The focus of the paper is the appropriateness of pragmatic elicitation techniques for generating talk to be used in analyses of talk and social structure. In the best pragmatic elicitation techniques (i) data are generated in situations in which researchers can manipulate variables in the testing of hypotheses, and (ii) speakers can talk freely and spontaneously without awareness that their talk is the object of study. This claim was tested in an examination of the hypothesis that more facework will occur in refusals to a High versus Low status requester. Requester status was manipulated in Oral and Written Discourse Completion, Role Play, and an Experimental elicitation technique. Support for the hypothesis was found only in the Role Play and Experimental conditions. Next, refusals generated in the above four elicitation conditions were compared to Naturally-occurring refusals. At the levels of the acts by which refusals are accomplished and the internal structure of the head act, Oral and Written DC produced anomalous and non-representative refusals. Role Play and the Experimental technique produced refusals that were very similar to Natural refusals, though Role Play refusals tended to be somewhat repetitive and long-winded. It is concluded that an Experimental technique is the preferred pragmatic elicitation technique.

Ueda, K. (1974). Sixteen ways to avoid saying "no" in Japan. In J. C. Condon & M. Saito (Eds.), Intercultural encounters with Japan: Communication -- contact and conflict (pp. 185-192). Tokyo: Simul Press.

The chapter is about not wanting to say no to a boss so as not to hurt the superior's feelings and not to endanger own position at work. A "no" may suggest the junior person is selfish and unfriendly, so this person may have not choice but to accept. The flat "no," ie, is avoided in speaking. A vague "no" is preferred or an expression that could be either yes or no. Silence is also used. Other possibilities: a counter question, a tangential response, leaving the scene, lying, criticizing the question, refusing to answer the question, giving a conditional "no," using "yes, but...," delaying the answer, declining but without giving a direct "no" but rather an expression involving both apology and regret, expressing "I will accept" (to a superior) but with some excuse which warns of likely failure to carry out the request, an apology. An empirical study found that lying was the preferred approach. Younger respondents preferred apologies. The older generation preferred tangential responses and delayed answers. Men used a flat "no" more than women which women avoided.

Umale, J. (2011). Pragmatic failure in refusal strategies: British versus Omani interlocutors. Arab World English Journal, 2(1). 18-46.

The article provides the detailed study of the similarities and differences between the British and the Omani ways of refusing requests. A refusal is a face-threatening act that tends to disrupt� harmony in relationships. It causes damage to both the face of the speaker and the listener. A lot� of strategies are used to mitigate the effect of a refusal and save the relationship. The choice ofstrategy used can be dictated by the socio-cultural factors generating an inappropriate reply. These may be labeled 'rude' by the native speakers. Transforming the rules and the cultural norms of the first language to the target language also results in pragmalinguistic failure. For this research a discourse completion test was modeled on Beebe et al. (1990). The situations were categorized into three requests, three invitations, three suggestions and three offers. One of each group required a refusal to an equal status person, a higher status person and a lower status person. The test was translated into Arabic and administered to ten Omanis and the English version was given to ten British people. Data was analyzed according to the strategies used by the British and the Omanis, the role of status in refusals and the pragmalinguistic errors surfacing in the study. The study found that the Omanis used more direct strategies than the British in refusing requests and offers. Both the British and the Omanis also used indirect strategies to refuse requests, especially when dealing with higher status people. The British used more directstrategies when dealing with lower status people while the Omanis used care for interlocutor’s feelings.

Wannaruk, A. (2008). Pragmatic transfer in Thai EFL refusals.� RELC, 39(3), 318-337. doi:10.1177/0033688208096844

Communication breakdowns can occur during cross-cultural communication due to different perceptions and interpretations of appropriateness and politeness. This study investigates similarities and differences between refusals in American English and Thai and incidences of pragmatic transfer by Thai EFL learners when making refusals. The participants of the study include Thai and American native speakers and EFL learners. All of them are graduate students. The data were collected by means of a discourse completion test (DCT) which was designed on the basis of interviews carried out with a view to possible situations for refusals. EFL data for refusals were compared with similar data elicited from native speakers of American English and Thai. Results indicate that overall all three groups share most of the refusal strategies and that pragmatic transfer exists in the choice and content of refusal strategies. Awareness of a person of a higher status and the characteristics of being modest in L1 culture motivate pragmatic transfer. Language proficiency is also an important factor in pragmatic transfer. In making refusals, EFL learners with lower English proficiency translate from L1 to L2 because of their lack of L2 pragmatic knowledge.

Widjaja, C. S. (1997). A study of date refusals: Taiwanese females vs. American females. University of Hawai'i Working Papers in ESL, 15(2), 1-43.

Looks at a special case of refusals, namely, dating, since it involves both explicitness and politeness. In the study, 10 Taiwanese and 10 American female college students performed three different dating role plays (classmate, stranger, and boyfriend contexts) in English as a second vs. native language, with retrospective interviews to get at thought processes and negative and positive politeness strategy formulation. Negative politeness strategies included: a direct refusal, a refusal, an indirect refusal, an expression of regret, an excuse, an objection, and a hedge. Positive politeness strategies included: offering an alternative (e.g., "Can I bring my friend?"), a vague future acceptance, a future acceptance, an acceptance, a postponement, solidarity, a positive remark (e.g., "I'm flattered"), a positive opinion, and thanking. Results showed that both groups preferred negative politeness strategies. The Taiwanese preferred higher directness in refusing dates. Overgeneralization from Chinese patterns, L1 pragmatic knowledge, and lack of pragmatic knowledge in L2 were factors, along with social distance.

Frescura, M. (2006). Reacting to a context specific reprimand: A study of an Italian speech community. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(12), 2144-2157.

This paper focused on the speech behavior of native speakers of standard Italian reacting to a direct reprimand for failing to comply with non-smoking regulations in hospitals. Data were collected during three days in two different hospitals in Northern Italy on how smokers reacted when they were reprimanded for their offense. The investigator approached 29 individual offenders (14 males and 15 females) for not complying with no-smoking regulations and noted down their reactions immediately after the occurrence. This study presented an ethnographic analysis to a context specific reprimand. It analyzed the second component of the adjacency pair reprimanding-reactions to reprimanding in a context where maximum social distance between interlocutors (strangers who will never meet again) was used in order to avoid any danger of hindering their relationship. Findings revealed several types of reactive behavior that provided insights into the attitude of Italian smokers who did not seem to be concerned by the existence of laws or rules to be observed and respected. As the author stated, no-smoking regulations were perceived as limiting their freedom of action and invading their personal territory. From a linguistic point of view, the offenders’ verbal reactions to the reprimand were instantaneous, brief, and unoriginal as they made use of linguistic formulae associated with self-defense or denial pragmatic strategies in Italian. In addition, the authors noted that gender might have had some impact among participants of the same status. In addition, there was some evidence that when the reprimander was in a position of authority, some compliance occurred regardless of social distance and gender.

Garc�a, C. (1996). Reprimanding and responding to a reprimand: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 663-697.

This study analyzes the responses of ten male and ten female Peruvians from Lima when reprimanding or being reprimanded. The average age of the respondents was 43. They were asked to perform role play tasks. When reprimanding, both males and females preferred solidarity over deferential politeness strategies, and strategies threatening the face of the other. Males were far more authoritative than females. Females were more likely to express concern for the interlocutor. Furthermore, older participants and upper middle class participants were more forceful and imposing. When responding to a reprimand, participants preferred deferential approaches as opposed to solidarity politeness strategies. Males were more confrontational and in a challenge mode. Females balanced their confrontation with an admission of responsibility. Older and upper middle class participants were more deferential when responding to a reprimand.

Garc�a, C. (2004). Coercion and cooperation. In R. M�rquez Reiter, & M. E. Placencia, (Eds.), Current trends in the pragmatics of Spanish (pp. 231-64). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.

Reprimands and responses to reprimands in Argentinean Spanish (AS) are examined in order to identify preferred politeness strategies as well as gender differences. Twenty NS of Argentinean Spanish (10 male and 10 females) participated in two role play scenarios. In the first situation, participants performed the reprimand, and in the second, they responded to the reprimand. Head acts and supporting moves were analyzed in terms of strategy type and politeness orientation (i.e., bald on record, positive politeness, and negative politeness). When reprimanding, the AS participants preferred bald on record strategies and positive politeness when performing head acts. Males showed a tendency to use BORS and females PPS. Females also used slightly more supporting moves to mitigate and aggravate when reprimanding. Males opted for coercion strategies and females for cooperative strategies. In general, when reprimanding, the AS participants tended to threaten their interlocutor’s positive and negative face equally as well as maintain their own authority and freedom of action. When responding to a reprimand, there were less gender differences. Overall, the AS participants preferred to threaten their own negative and positive face, as opposed to their interlocutor’s positive or negative face. Nevertheless, they approached the interaction somewhat symmetrically and from a cooperative framework by maintaining the preference for BORS and PPS.

Garc�a, C. (2004). Reprendiendo y respondiendo a una reprimenda. Spanish in Context, 1, 113-47.

The politeness strategies of reprimands and responses to reprimands of NS of Peruvian and Venezuelan Spanish are compared in terms of politeness strategies. Twenty Peruvians (male--n=10; female--n=10) and twenty Venezuelans (male--n=10; female--n=10) participated in two role plays with a constant interlocutor. The age range of the participants was between 24 and 65 years of age. Head acts and supportive moves of each of the role plays were coded and classified. Similarities and differences between the two dialectical groups were found. When reprimanding, both groups preferred to threaten the positive (29%) and negative face (71%) of their interlocutor. They only threatened their own negative face. Also, both groups opted for direct strategies. However, the Venezuelan group tended to be more verbose, opted for mitigators over aggravators, and followed three clear stages in the reprimand: (1) present the reprimand, (2) response to interaction, and (3) conclusion. The Peruvians, on the other hand, preferred aggravators over mitigators and did not follow an ordered sequence of reprimand stages. They did, however, demonstrate the existence of three steps that could be interchanged: (1) reprimand, (2) justification, and (3) response to justification. Overall, the main difference observed between the two groups when reprimanding is how they exercise power. When responding to the reprimand, the groups expressed more variance. Again, the Venezuelan group was more verbose and more varied. Venezuelan participants showed a preference for direct strategies (47%), followed by positive politeness (31%), and finally negative politeness strategies (22%). Overall, they were more aggressive and tended to opt for self-defense, attack of their interlocutor, and acceptance of the reprimand. The Peruvian group was less aggressive and showed a different preference for response strategies: negative politeness (60%), direct strategies (26%), and positive politeness (14%). In general, the variance is correlated with a different perception of power. Implications of the similarities and differences are discussed.

Garc�a, C. (2009). Intra-lingua pragmatic variation in the performance of reprimanding. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(4), 443-472.

This paper analyzed a regional pragmatic variation in Spanish by Peruvians, Venezuelans, and Argentineans when reprimanding. The author used Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management framework (2005). Data were collected in Lima, Peru in 1988; in Caracas, Venezuela in 1993; and in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2000 using subjects in a role play scenario. Participants in the three cultural groups were native speakers of Spanish. In each group there were twenty adult participants consisting of 10 males and 10 females. A total of 60 participants were video-taped. Findings revealed that the three groups favored their satisfaction of their transactional wants. There were some differences among the three groups regarding to their behavioral expectations and respect/threat to their own and/or the interlocutor’s identity face. Peruvians coerced the interlocutor and emphasized the power differential between the participants. They also preferred an independent posture and were not interested in either protecting or threatening their own identity face. Venezuelans and Argentineans revealed a preference for interdependent self-construals and an interest in protecting their identity face. The author pointed out some possible miscommunication could have occurred in a hypothetical intra-lingual interchange between the members of these three different cultural groups.

Abdolrezapour, P. (in press). The effect of expectation of compliance on the preferred request strategy: Cross-cultural and situational variation in Iranian and American speech communities. Australian Journal of Linguistics.

This study examines one type of directives, requests, and analyzes the (socio-) pragmatic variation in two socio-cultural contexts � i.e., Persian and American � with regards to expectations of compliance and preferred request strategies when requesting in 4 different social situations. The main focus of the study is on perceptive data elicited from both interlocutors (i.e. the requestor and the requestee) when they use such strategies. Role-play interactions, stimulated recall procedure, and questionnaires constructed based on the interactions were used to collect the required data from 45 American and 55 Iranian native speakers. As for indirectness, a cross-cultural comparison revealed that conventionally indirect requests are the most preferred strategy in these two cultures. Also, the results of the questionnaires showed that more indirect strategies resulted in more certainty of compliance in both cultures. However, the perception of social power and social distance variables differed in these cultures. Whereas, the Americans were more influenced by the social distance between the interlocutors, the Iranians were more concerned with the social power of the requestee than the Americans.�

Abdolrezapour, P., & Eslami-Rasekh, A. (2012). The effect of using mitigation devices on request compliance in Persian and American English. Discourse Studies, 14(2), 145-16. doi:10.1177/1461445611433789

Strategies used in requestive speech act and their effects on compliance have been the focus of a number of studies. Previous research, however, has dealt mainly with perceptive data elicited from one of the interlocutors involved in the use of mitigation. A sociolinguistic study could explore the perception of both the requestor and the requestee with respect to using such strategies. This article aims to study the possible correlation between request compliance and the use of mitigation devices. The question is what observable effects using mitigators have both on the requestor's judgment of compliance and on prohibiting the requestee from rejecting the request. Four role-play interactions followed by stimulated recall procedures were used to collect the required data. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that, in similar situations, American requestors are comparably more certain than Iranians that the addressee would comply with their requests using fewer mitigation devices. While, as far as the requestees are concerned, the Americans are more influenced by the use of mitigation devices on the part of requestor than the Iranians.

Achiba, M. (2002). Learning to request in a second language: Child interlanguage pragmatics. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

This volume is one of those workhorses that could easily be overlooked. However, it represents one of the most detailed and extensive of the very few longitudinal studies of the pragmatic development of a child learning English as a second language. The learner, Yao (the author's daughter), is a native speaker of Japanese. At the age of 7, with only brief prior exposure to English, she moved with her mother to Australia, where she was immediately enrolled in a local school. Shortly after their arrival, Yao's mother began collecting audio and videotaped data of Yao playing with peers, a teenager, and two adults (a babysitter and a neighbor). Transcripts of these interactions�collected every 6 weeks over 17 months by Achiba, who was present as an observer�form the basis of the analysis. Despite the fact that Achiba continued to use Japanese with her daughter, Yao began early on to address her mother in English. Achiba was thus able to supplement the play data with a diary of additional requests by Yao to her mother as well as Yao's metalinguistic comments. Yao's requests were analyzed to determine the development of request strategies�linguistic realizations and modifications as well as variation according to goal or addressee.

Akikawa, K., & Ishihara, N. (2010). Requesting a letter of recommendation: Teaching students to write e-mail requests. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 47-66). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Alc�n, E. (2005). Does instruction work for learning pragmatics in the EFL context? System, 33(3), 417�435.

This paper is based on a study which attempted to examine the efficacy of instruction at the pragmatic level. Specifically, the main purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent two instructional paradigms � explicit versus implicit instruction � affected learners’ knowledge and ability to use request strategies. One hundred and thirty-two students were randomly assigned to three groups (explicit, implicit and control). The three groups were exposed to excerpts including requests taken from different episodes of the TV series Stargate. However, while the explicit group received instruction by means of direct awareness-raising tasks and written metapragmatic feedback on the use of appropriate requests, the implicit group was provided with typographical enhancement of request strategies and a set of implicit awareness-raising tasks. Results of the study illustrate that learners’ awareness of requests benefit from both explicit and implicit instruction. However, in line with previous research, our study illustrates that, although an improvement in learners’ appropriate use of requests did take place after the instructional period, the explicit group showed an advantage over the implicit one. The empirical study also provides insight into interlanguage pragmatic pedagogy and presents suggestions for future research.

Baba, T., & Lian, L. C. (1992). Differences between the Chinese and Japanese request expressions. Journal of Hokkaido University of Education, 42(1), 57-66.

This is a contrastive analysis of Chinese and Japanese performance of requests. The author gives some examples of downgraders in both languages and upgraders in Chinese. With regard to the politeness strategies, Japanese has some linguistic features that do not exist in Chinese (e.g., the perspective difference (kureru vs. morau), politeness/formality level markers, sentence final particles, and gendered particles), while Chinese often depends on lexical choices such as certain terms of address. In both languages, the choice request forms were usually influenced by closeness between the interlocutors. While the status difference seemed to override age difference in Japanese in determining the politeness level, the opposite was the case with Chinese interactions.

Bal, C. (1990). It's all in the asking: A perspective on problems of cross-cultural communication between native speakers of French and native speakers of Australian English in the workplace. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Series S, 7, 66-92.

Bal, C. (1994). Keeping the peace: A cross-cultural comparison of questions and requests in Australian English and French. Multilingua, 13(1/2), 35-58. doi:10.1515/mult.1994.13.1-2.35

This paper investigates one of the most common sources of cross-cultural misunderstanding between French and English speakers:� the way questions and requests are phrased.� It is based on an analysis of hundreds of authentic speech acts recorded in and office-work situation in which French people used English as a second language.� The analysis, based on an adaptation of the Cross-cultural Speech Act Realization Project coding system, compare questions in English by Australian speakers with question in French and in English by native French speakers. Marked differences in the choice of syntax and lexicon emerge between the two groups.� Three types of explanations are put forward for this linguistic behavior:� 1) mastery of L2 and/or fossilization, 2) pragmalinguistic transfer and 3) socio-pragmatic failure.� Together they throw light on why native French speakers often come across as blunt in an English-speaking environment while claiming that their Australian counterparts tend to ‘beat around the bush’.� The differences in communicative strategies in turn reflect diverging cultural assumptions towards the listener and what constitutes face-threatening acts.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Griffin, R. (2005). L2 pragmatic awareness: Evidence from the ESL classroom. System, 33(3), 401-415. doi:10.1016/j.system.2005.06.004

This paper reports on the results of a pragmatics awareness activity in an ESL classroom held before learners received formal instruction in pragmatics. Five intact ESL classes consisting of 43 students from 18 language backgrounds participated in this activity. During the activity, learners worked in pairs to identify pragmatic infelicities in video-taped scenarios and performed short role plays to repair the infelicities they had identified. The student role plays were also video-taped. The purpose of the role plays was to determine the types of pragmatic infelicities that are readily noticed by high intermediate learners and that are most easily remedied by them. The role plays showed that learners recognized and supplied missing speech acts and semantic formulas, although the form and content of the repairs differed from target-like norms in some respects. That is, learners may easily supply a missing apology for arriving late or explanations for making requests or for not having completed a class assignment, but the specific content or form may be less culturally or linguistically transparent. Thus, the results of the activity suggest areas where learners might benefit from instruction.

Bataller, R. (2010). Making a request for a service in Spanish: Pragmatic development in the study abroad setting. Foreign Language Annals, 43(1), 160�175. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2010.01065.x

This study addresses the development of the request strategies used in two service encounter scenarios by 31 nonnative speakers of Spanish spending 4 months living and studying in Valencia, Spain. The main method of data collection was an open role-play in which participants interacted with a Spanish native speaker. Results show that while there were some aspects of the learners' request production that changed after the study abroad experience, there were other aspects that remained unaffected. Knowing which aspects from the nonnative speakers' request production are acquired and which ones are not after a student has been immersed in the target culture for 4 months is relevant to informing second language acquisition, specifically the field of interlanguage pragmatics in the study abroad setting.

Bell, N. (1998). Politeness in the speech of Korean ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 14(1), 25�47. Retrieved from http://www.gse.upenn.edu/wpel/sites/gse.upenn.edu.wpel/files/archives/v14/v14n1bell.pdf

This paper makes a contribution to the field of second language pragmatics by examining the production of three speech acts by a group of high beginning Korean learners of English. In comparing disagreements to requests and suggestions, it was found that, although the students demonstrated the ability to increase the level of politeness, their disagreements tended to be direct and unmitigated. It is suggested that status, and in particular age as a component of status, is an important factor in influencing the students’ choices regarding the perceived level of appropriate politenesstouse.

Billmyer, K., & Varghese, M. (2000). Investigating instrument-based pragmatic variability: Effects of enhancing discourse completion tests. Applied Linguistics, 21(4), pp. 517� 552. doi:10.1093/applin/21.4.517

A significant dilemma in sociolinguistic research concerns the methods used to collect data, the validity of different types of data and, '...their adequacy to approximate the authentic performance of linguistic action' (Kasper and Dahl 1991:215). Manes and Wolfson (1981) claimed that the most authentic data in sociolinguistic research is spontaneous speech gathered by ethnographic observation. Difficulties in relying on this method are well-documented (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989, Aston 1995) and have led to the wide use of an elicitation procedure known as the discourse completion test (DCT). Justified criticisms have been levelled at the DCT, some labelling it an instrument that limits the capturing of authentic communication, and others making it look almost obsolete. However, there are to date no other sociolinguistic data collection instruments that have as many administrative advantages as the DCT, making it, practically speaking, a resource pragmatics testing and teaching will continue to rely on. Furthermore, a better understanding of communication in such a constructed context may help us gain a better understanding of authentic communication. This study investigates the effect of systematic modification to DCT situational prompts used to elicit requests on the responses of native and non-native speakers of English. Modification included enhancing the situational prompts did produce significantly longer, more elaborated requests in both groups. These findings point to the importance of external modification of speech act production and the need for an instrument that can satisfactorily account for both variation and context. This study has implications for both teaching and testing in interlanguage pragmatics.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1985). Modifiers as indicating devices: Same or different? Theoretical Linguistics, 12(2-3), 213-29. doi:10.1515/thli.1985.12.2-3.213

Most of the research carried out on speech act modifiers (such as politeness markers and hedges) has been concerned mainly with their socal impact.� The research reported here shifts the emphasis to the role of modifies as request pragmatic force indicators.� It is argued that speech act modifiers are multifunctional in two distinct ways:� first, in that the same occurrence of a modifier can serve both to modify social impact and to signal pragmatic force, and second, that in their social function, modifiers can both mitagte and aggravate degree of coerciveness.� The argument is developed by considering the occurecne of a group of modifiers in request patterns used in Hebrew and English, and by analyzing native spearkers, assessments of relative requestive force in request patterns with and without modifiers.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1987). Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of Pragmatics, 11(1), 131-146. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(87)90192-5

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the notions of indirectness and politeness as applied to requests. It is argued that (contrary to current theories of politeness) the two notions do not represent parallel demensions; indirectness does not necessarily imply politeness. The relationship between the two was examined in a series of experiments designed to tap native speakers' perceptions of politeness and indirectness in Hebrew and English. The results indicate that the two notions are perceived as different from each other: The most indirect request strategies were not judged as the most polite. The strategies rated as the most polite, on a scale of politeness, were conventional indirect requests (‘on record’ indirectness); the strategies rated as the most indirect, on a scale of indirectness, were hints used fom requests (‘off record’ indirectness). These results are interpreted in the framework of a suggested model for politeness. The thrust of the argument is that a certain adherence to the pragmatic clarity of the message is an essential part of politeness. Politeness is defined as the interactional balance achieved between two needs: The need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness. This balance is achieved in the case of conventional indirectness, which indeed received the highest ratings for politeness. Tipping the balance in favor of either pragmatic clarity or non-coerciveness will decrease politeness; thus, direct strategies can be perceived as impolite because they indicate a lack of concern with face, and non-conventional indirect strategies (hints) can be perceived as impolite because they indicate a lack of concern for pragmatic clarity.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1989). Playing it safe: The role of conventionality in indirectness. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 37-70). Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1991). Interlanguage pragmatics: The case of requests. In R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M. Sharwood Smith, & M. Swain (Eds.), Foreign/second language pedagogy research (pp. 255-272). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Presents a model for the study of interlanguage pragmatics that expands interlanguage to embrace interculture. Focuses on pragmatics of "requests" and discusses constraints (level of proficiency, transfer from L1, perception of target language norms, length of stay in target community). Presents data from bilingual English-Hebrew immigrant speech acts, showing the behavior is different from Israeli and from American patterns: authentically intercultural. Claims that native Israeli norms are defied because learners do not wish to identify with native speaker norms. Gives helpful theoretical introduction (256-261). For example, gives four categories for linguistic encoding (as opposed to situational parameters and social meanings): strategy type (direct, conventionally indirect, hints), perspective (hearer dominant, speaker dominant, hearer and speaker dominant, impersonal), internal modifications (downgraders -- "please," hedges, upgraders -- e.g., time-specifiers, expletives), external modifications (grounders -- e.g., explanations and justifications, cost minimizers, disarmers).

Blum-Kulka, S., & House, J. (1989). Cross-cultural and situational variation in requestive behavior in five languages. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 123-154). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patters (CCSARP).� Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213. doi:10.1093/applin/5.3.196

The paper reports on an ongoing project concerned with a cross-cultural investigation of speech act realization patterns. The goals of the project are to compare across languages the realization patterns of two speech acts�requests and apologies �and to establish the similarities and differences between native and non-native speakers' realization patterns in these two acts in each of the languages studied within the project. The theoretical and methodological framework for this investigation has been developed as a result of close collaboration among the participants of the project, who have all followed the same approach in data collection and data analysis. The paper will outline the theoretical framework for the project, present the methodology developed, and illustrate our procedures for analysis by giving examples from the data in some of the languages studied.

Byon, A. S. (2001). The communicative act of requests: Interlanguage features of American KFL learners (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Hawaii.

The purpose of this investigation is to identify and describe interlanguage features of American KFL learners in the Korean communicative act of request. Fifty female KFL learners were asked to write down in Korean what and how they normally say in 12 different situations, in which they have to carry out the speech act of request. Their Korean performances were compared to those of 50 Korean female native speakers in order to find out deviations and problems, which the American KFL learners were confronted with when trying to acquire this particular communicative function. Fifty female American English native speakers also participated in order to provide baseline intra-cultural data as possible source of the learners' deviant realization behaviors from target norms. The data, collected from a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), were analyzed descriptively in terms of sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic aspects. In the sociopragmatic analysis, 17 semantic formulas for Request Supportive Move in Korean were developed, and five semantic formulas for Request Head Act in Korean were established. In the pragmalinguistic analysis, nine downgraders were developed.

The patterns of semantic formulas of the KFL learners were similar to those of the American English native speakers, indicative of L1 transfer effect. In addition, the effects of L1 transfer were evident in the KFL learners' choice of lexical, phrasal, and sentential items.Moreover, the request behaviors of the KFL learners were more verbose and varied in forms than those of the Korean native speakers. The patterns of the use of the formulas and the pragmalinguistic differences of the respective groups support Sohn (1986)'s discussion that Koreans are relatively more hierarchical, collectivistic, indirect and formalistic than Americans, whereas Americans are relatively more egalitarian, individualistic, direct and pragmatic than Koreans. In addition, the social variables: Power and Distance affected the pattern of use of semantic formulas, the downgraders, and the honorifics for both groups. However, the Korean native speakers seemed more sensitive to those factors by varying the degrees and types of formulas than the KFL learners.

Cenoz, J., & Valencia, J. (1994). Interlanguage pragmatics: The role of linguistic and social psychological elements in the production of English requests and apologies. Unpublished manuscript. Deptpartment of English and German Philology, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.

Investigates whether NSs (34) and NNSs (62 Basque) of English used the same linguistic expressions to make requests and apologies, whether these varied according to situation, sex, and social status. They used the DCT � four requests and four apologies. They found similar overall patterns, but NSs used more alerts and locution derivable strategies than learners, and learners used more syntactic downgraders in requests. NSs used more intensifiers in apologies. No significant differences were found between males and females.

Codina-Espurz, V. (2008). The immediate vs. delayed effect of instruction on mitigators in relation to the learner's language proficiency in English. In E. A. Soler (Ed.), Learning how to request in an instructed language learning context (pp. 228�256). Berlin: Peter Lang.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1993). The production of speech acts by EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 27(1), 33-56.

Reports on a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. The subjects, fifteen advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role-play along with a native speaker. The interactions were videotaped and after each set of two situations of the same type, the videotape was played back and then the respondents were asked both fixed and probing questions regarding the factors contributing to the production of their responses in those situations. The retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three languages (if trilingual), utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar nor to pronunciation. Finally, there were respondents whose speech production styles characterized them as "metacognizers," "avoiders," and "pragmatists" respectively.

Cohen, A. D., & Shively, R. L. (2007). Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 189-212. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00540.x

A study examined the effect of a curricular intervention on study-abroad students' use of language and culture-learning strategies and their acquisition of requests and apologies. Findings revealed that students improved their request and apology performance over the course of one semester; there were no statistically significant differences between students who spent a semester abroad and a control group in their rated speech act performance overall; although fewer students than native speakers used the “query preparatory with verbal downgrading,” there appeared to be some increase in the use of this strategy by study-abroad students; not as many study-abroad students intensified their apologies in instances where native speakers tended to do so; and the percentage of study-abroad students who acknowledged responsibility for certain infractions tended to be lower than that of native speakers.

Cook, M., & Liddicoat, A. J.� (2002). The development of comprehension in interlanguage pragmatics: The case of request strategies in English. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 25(1), 19-40.

In the past, research in interlanguage pragmatics has primarily explained the differences between native speakers' (NS) and non-native speakers' (NNS) pragmatic performance based on cross-cultural and linguistic differences. Very few researchers have considered learners' pragmatic performance based on second language comprehension. In this study, the authors examine learners' pragmatic performance using request strategies. The results of this study reveal that there is a proficiency effect for interpreting request speech acts at different levels of directness. It is proposed that learners' processing strategies and capacities are important factors to consider when examining learners' pragmatic performance.

Craig, R. T., Tracy, K., & Spisak, F. (1986). The discourse of requests: Assessment of a politeness approach. Human Communication Research, 12(4), 437- 468. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1986.tb00087.x

A corpus of transcribed, oral requests used in a previous study of compliance-gaining strategies (Tracy, Craig, Smith, & Spisak, 1984) is examined interpretively from the perspective of the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1978). Findings include the following: (1) politeness strategies occur in great abundance and variety; (2) superstrategies are mixed in varyingly skillful ways; (3) goals are accomplished through multifunctional discourse; (4) the interpretation of politeness strategies confronts several kinds of indeterminacy; (5) facework strategies that fall outside the scope of the politeness theory, including aggravation and speaker-oriented strategies, are much in evidence. In response to the several theoretical problems that emerge in the course of the analysis, six tenets on which to build a new theory of facework are proposed.

Crawford, B. (2008). Interaction in academic lectures vs. written text materials: The case of questions. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(7), 1216-1231.

This study showed that several factors other than mode could have a marked influence on questions in spoken lectures versus written text materials. In this study only direct questions were taken into account. Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, a contrastive analysis was carried out on questions in spoken lectures versus written text materials (both print and online). The data were extracted from a business studies lecture corpus consisting of 12 lectures on a variety of business studies topics offered at the University of Florence, Italy. Two corpora were used: (1) six lectures were recorded during a guest lecture series, and (2) the other six lectures were delivered in classrooms settings of ongoing courses where lectures and students were familiar with each other. Across the corpora, questions showed a lot of variation in form and function. In the lectures, questions presented features that reflected not only the face-to-face interaction (audience-oriented), but also the pedagogical aims (content-oriented) of the speakers. In the written text materials, questions were also content-oriented (e.g., wh-questions frequently used as section headings). In addition, many of them were described as face-to-face in orientation (e.g., dialogic yes/no questions, elliptical forms, and aggressively thought-provoking questions) and they overlapped considerable into the spoken dimension. Speech-like questions and provocative questions were especially pronounced in the online texts, suggesting that this new medium had a hybrid and highly interactive nature since it produced texts with an increasing degree of spoken/written hybridity. The study showed a variation in question form and function influenced by the interactional efforts and pedagogic aims of the lecturers and material writers. The author contended that this variation in the use of questions across spoken lectures and written text materials did not appear to follow the alignments normally associated with spoken versus written language but it seemed instead to correspond more to the unique and evolving needs of instructional settings. Finally, the relatively high number of questions found in the two corpora in comparison with other studies based on multidisciplinary textbooks and lectures suggested that questions had a special status in the field of business studies.

Ellis, R. (1992). Learning to communicate in the classroom: A study of two language learners' requests. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14(1), 1-23.

Looks at the extent to which communication in an ESL classroom (in London) resulted in the acquisition of requests by a 10-year-old Portuguese speaker and an 11-year-old Punjabi speaker. The latter had had little formal education in Pakistan. The researcher recorded 108 requests over 16 months for the former, 302 requests over 21 months for the latter. He wrote down everything the subjects said and had an audio recording as a backup. He found that both learners failed to develop the full range of request types or a broad linguistic repertoire for performing those types that they did acquire. They also failed to develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of request to take account of different addressees. His interpretation was that the classroom lacked the conditions for real sociolinguistic needs even though it fostered interpersonal and expressive needs. There was no data on the kinds of requests they were exposed to, however.

F�rch, C., & Kasper, G. (1989). Internal and external modification in interlanguage request realization. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics (pp. 221-247). Norwood, N. J.: Ablex.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2007). Pragmatic development in the Spanish as a FL classroom: A cross-sectional study of learner requests. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(2), pp. 253-286. doi:10.1515/IP.2007.013

This study investigates the development of requests from the beginning of foreign language instruction to advanced levels of proficiency in face-to-face interactions. Data were collected from three learner groups (American learners of Spanish) (45 learners [15 per group: beginning, intermediate, advanced]). Open role plays were used to collect data in four request situations. Data were analyzed for request head acts (direct, conventional indirect, non-conventional indirect), the request perspective, and internal and external modification. Findings indicate that the beginner group produced the largest number of direct requests. They, thus, showed little competence in situational variation. These direct requests were often realized by means of verbless requests, statements of need, imperatives, and requests with an infinitive used as a main verb. In contrast, a strong preference for conventionally indirect requests was observed among intermediate and advanced learners in formal and informal situations, with a decline in direct requests noted to appear with increasing proficiency. Four stages of pragmatic development among learners in a FL context were identified and discussed in light of existing research in pragmatic development. This study also addresses the issue of the primacy of pragmatics over grammar in expressing pragmatic intent, formula research in interlanguage pragmatics, and pragmatic development in the FL classroom.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2009). Pragmatic variation across Spanish(es): Requesting in Mexican, Costa Rican, and Dominican Spanish. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(4), 473-515.

The study addressed the issue of pragmatic variation at the regional level and analyzed the similarities and differences in the realization of requests in three varieties of Latin American Spanish: Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic in three symmetric situations (� Power) with different degrees of distance (+/� Distance). More specifically, the study focused on intra-lingual pragmatic variation at the actional level (i.e., the level of illocutionary force) and examined how male university students performed and negotiated requests. Data were collected in the form of open role play interactions in three regions: from Oaxaca in Mexico, from San Jos� in Costa Rica, and from Santiago in the Dominican Republic. A total of 54 male monolingual native speakers of Latin American Spanish (18 participants in each group) participated the study. All were undergraduate university students. Participants’ age ranged from 20 to 24 years old and they represented a continuum between the low-middle-to-middle class in the Mexican and Costa Rican groups (state universities) and the upper-middle class in the Dominican group (private university). The 162 interactions were classified according to the request head act: direct, conventionally indirect, and non-conventionally indirect strategies. The requests were analyzed in two sequential environments: initial requests and post-initial requests. The analysis of this speech act revealed participants showed a general preference for conventional indirectness in the first request and a preference for impositives in post-initial requests. In addition, the most frequent strategies used by the participants were the imperative and query preparatory and their selection was conditioned by the situation, the group, and the sequential environment. Furthermore, the author analyzed the internal modification of the request with regard to lexical, syntactic, and prosodic downgraders. He contended that prosodic downgraders (intonation, tempo, loudness, and rate of delivery) were factors used to convey various degrees of tentativeness, solidarity, and politeness in this study.

Francis, C. (1997). Talk to me! The development of request strategies in non-native speakers of English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 13(2), 23-40.

Focuses on requests produced by adult ESL learners across three settings (public administrative office, private office of a U. program advisor, ESL classroom) and nine levels of ESL proficiency. The data were gathered from naturalistic observation, audio recording, and some video recording as well. Data were analyzed using the CCSARP project categories (Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). The nonnatives were found to rely on direct request strategies until their proficiency improved, whereupon they began to use more complex strategies. The percentage of conventionally indirect requests made by intermediate students (24%) was twice that of elementary students (12%). To some extent contextual demands helped to explain variations across settings. Students were more likely to explain their circumstances and desires in terms of their own perspective when in the position of justifying these to the advisor.

Fukushima, S. (1990). Offers and requests: Performance by Japanese learners of English. World Englishes, 9(3), 317-325. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1990.tb00269.x

This paper investigates how Japanese university students performed in English, when offering something to someone and when making requests, in situations where the addresser and the addressee are equal in status, and the degrees of closeness between them are different. The performances by the Japanese subjects were compared with those of native English-speaking people. The major findings of this study include: (1) the Japanese subjects could not use appropriate expressions according to situations, even when they wanted to be more polite to the addressees; and (2) the expressions used by the Japanese subjects were too direct in most situations, and sounded rude. This meant that the Japanese subjects could not express their intentions in English, when they wanted to differentiate expressions under various situations. The results of this study revealed that the pragmatic competence of Japanese learners of English needs to be reinforced in their language instruction.

Fukushima, S. (1996). Request strategies in British English and Japanese. Language Sciences, 18(3-4), 671-688. doi:10.1016/S0388-0001(96)00041-1

This paper examines English production by British subjects and Japanese production by Japanese subjects in request situations. A previous study (Fukushima, 1994) selected comparable request situations between British and Japanese cultures among which, two situations were used in this study: one which was assessed as a request with low imposition on the requestee and the other which was assessed as a request with high imposition on the requestee. The results showed that more politeness strategies were employed both in English and in Japanese when the degree of imposition increased. A closer investigation, however, revealed some differences between English and Japanese request strategies.

Garc�a, C. (1989). Disagreeing and requesting by Americans and Venezuelans. Linguistics and Education, 1(3), 299-322.

Compares the stylistic devices used by ten native English-speaking Americans and ten female Venezuelans (in the US for from 3 months to 3 years) in two different English language role-play situations: disagreeing and requesting. In the L1, speakers preferred nonconfrontational stylistic devices when they disagreed with an L1 interlocutor and impersonal stylistic devices when they requested a service. L2 speakers used more confrontational devices when disagreeing and more personal devices when requesting a service.

Garc�a, C. (1992). Responses to a request by native and non-native English speakers: Deference vs. camaraderie. Multilingua, 11(4), 387-406.

Focuses on the data from a study of 10 Venezuelan females and 10 NS American women, on their requests in English, and the effects of sociocultural background. The NSs participated within a "business" frame, underlining their preference for the expression of deference, while non-native speakers participated within a "friendly" frame, underlining their preference for the establishment of camaraderie. The consequence in the latter case was disharmonious leading to a frame clash.

Garc�a, C. (1993). Making a request and responding to it: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 19(2), 127-152.

This article reports on ten males and ten female Peruvians from Lima who took part in two role plays (making a request for service and responding to it) as well as follow-up interviews. The strategies used by Peruvian Spanish speakers when making a request showed a marked preference for the expression of deference over camaraderie in both head acts and supporting moves. However, when responding to the request, they preferred the establishment of camaraderie with the interlocutor. Males and females performed similarly enough so that there were no significant differences. However, when requesting, females tended to increase the impact of their request through repetition and emotional appeal whereas males tended to be more direct and then express gratitude.

Garc�a, C. (2002). La expresi�n de camarader�a y solidaridad: c�mo los venezolanos solicitan un servicio y responden a la solicitud de un servicio (The expression of camaraderie and solidarity: How Venezuelans request a service and how they answer a service request). In M. E. Placencia & D. Bravo (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortes�a en espa�ol (pp. 55-88). Amsterdam, Netherlands: LINCOM Europa.

This article provided a comparison of gender differences when requesting service and responding to a request for service in Venezuelan Spanish. Twenty native speakers (NS) of Venezuelan Spanish (10 male and 10 female) participated in two open-ended role-play situations and a follow-up questionnaire to validate the authenticity of the responses in the dialogues. In general, both male and female responses were classified as belonging to a solidarity politeness culture based on closeness (i.e., less worry of imposition and offence, confirmation of positive face was critical). Nevertheless, among these strategies, distinct differences were found between the strategies used by male and female participants. When requesting service, females used more strategies (240) than their male counterparts (148) and demonstrated a balanced preference for mitigating (equal number of head acts and supporting moves). The males used a higher number of head acts then supporting moves. Furthermore, males demonstrated a preference for solidarity and maintaining their position while females preferred deference and cooperation. When responding to a request, the interlocutors performed three stages in the response: (1) accept or reject request, (2) negotiate terms, and (3) conclude the interaction. Both genders utilized solidarity politeness strategies and a marked preference for mitigators. Males opted for more negotiation, utilizing an equal number of head acts and supporting moves while females tended to opt for cooperation, utilizing a higher number of mitigators. In all cases, the participants preferred to threaten their interlocutor’s negative face rather than their positive face, demonstrating the importance of maintaining solidarity over avoiding imposition.

George, A. (2011).� Teaching pragmatics using technology: Requests in the foreign language classroom. In C. Torres, L., G�mez-Chova, & A. L�pez Matinez (Eds.), Proceedings of the fourth international conference of education, research and innovation.� Valencia: International Association of Technology, Education and Development.

This study examines how teaching, through the use of online videos, affects the acquisition of second language pragmatics, specifically the acquisition of requests by students whose first language is English. These online videos bring native Spanish speakers to the foreign language classroom and serve as a model to students in that they show speakers in their age group speaking about topics interesting to them. Pragmatics is often ignored in the beginning foreign language classroom and this paper will show that instruction, even at the beginning level, is essential to teaching learners the differences between making requests in their first language versus their second language. This paper shows the pragmatic awareness possessed by third semester learners of Spanish and how instruction impacts the performance of these learners’ requests. The results show that participants demonstrated pragmatic awareness, as measured by directness, level of imposition, and social distance, after watching and discussing videos in which native speakers make requests. The participants also completed a written pre and post-test discourse completion test, which elicited requests, before and after a lesson on requests in the target language. The lesson incorporated videos and activities from the Dancing with Words website (/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home.html), as well as small group and class discussion about directness, level of imposition, and social distance and how this impacts requests in the target language. Differences between target language and native language requests were also pointed out. The results show that without any teaching, very few requests were target-like. After instruction, 45% of the participants improved their production of requests. The results also show that more instruction on how to incorporate target-like grammar into the requests is needed.

Gibbs, R. W., & Mueller, R. A. G. (1988). Conversational sequences and preference for indirect speech acts. Discourse Processes, 11(1), 101-116. doi:10.1080/01638538809544693

Two experiments are reported examining people's preferences for indirect speech acts in making requests in conversation. We investigated the effect of pre-requests (e.g., “Do you sell Marlboros?”) which prepares the addressee for an upcoming request, (e.g., “I'll take two packs”). We hypothesized that pre-requests function to remove any obstacles to compliance for the addressee and predicted that speakers would produce different kinds of request forms in situations where a pre-request has been made than in contexts where pre-requests were not present. The results of Experiment 1 showed this to be true for both service encounters and detour situations where a speaker must interrupt the ongoing activities of the addressee to insert the request. In Experiment 2 subjects read and ranked different conversational sequences used in making indirect requests. The data indicated that in both service encounters and detour situations subjects most prefer conversations where the addressee in tum offers to fulfill the request implicit in the speaker's pre-request. Overall, these studies highlight the influence of conversational organization on people's linguistic behavior in making indirect speech acts in different social situations.

Goldschmidt, M. (1996). From the addressee's perspective: Imposition in favor-asking. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 241-256). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Focuses on the speech act of favor-asking and the impact that this act has on an addressee in terms of a specific reaction, imposition. She defined the act of favor-asking by 4 characteristics: 1) a speech act which involves asking for something outside the addressee's daily routine, 2) entails doing activities that require some time and/or effort on the part of the addressee or involves a good belonging to the addressee [not really clear what she means by that last part], 3) entails no role-related obligation on the part of the addressee to fulfill the task, and 4) implies the notion of reciprocity in terms of a return favor. Goldschmidt conducted a survey of 200 speakers of U.S. American English between the ages of 17 and 69 to determine how much of an imposition they feel is placed upon them when certain favors are asked. She then tried to determine the pedagogical implications for non-native speakers inherent in such an analysis. The subjects were made up of 100 students from Villanova University (Philadelphia) between the ages of 17 and 21 and 100 non-students between the ages of 20 and 69. They were asked to rate the amount of imposition in 5 data-generated questions (selected from a corpus of 200 favors) that were judged to represent "typically asked favors... which seemed to depict a range in terms of degree of imposition." The results showed that in this particular speech community the respondents felt most imposed upon in situations where family privacy (or special family time together) is intruded upon or in situations which involve a great deal of time and effort. Time seemed to be considered a precious commodity, and the more time the act was perceived to require of the respondent the more of an imposition it was considered. The ratings were very similar in terms of degree of imposition for most situations regardless of age, gender, and student or non-student status of the respondent, which implies a sort of universal understanding of imposition parameters. Goldschmidt concluded that the pedagogical implications for TESOL are that non-native speakers need to be taught what kind of situations are conducive to creating a feeling of imposition in the speech community in order to appropriately learn the act of favor-asking. This is a large part of becoming a truly competent member of a target language community.

Goldschmidt, M. M. (1998). Do me a favor: A descriptive analysis of favor asking sequences in American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 29(2), 129-153. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00038-6

This paper investigates the linguistic realization of a particular speech act, culturally defined as favor asking among speakers of American English. Favor asking belongs to the directive type of speech acts, of which the request is prototypical and is a type of “control act” (Ervin-Tripp et al., 1984: 116) or manipulation of language which attempts to accomplish a goal through another's actions. Through an in-depth analysis of favor asking, insight may be gained into aspects of a particular American value system as it is reflected in the types of favors deemed appropriate to ask, and the kinds of responses and negotiations which follow upon such requests for help and/or service. The present paper focuses on the choices people make when asking and responding to favors in terms of their rights and obligations to one another, thus fitting neatly into pragmatics as a function of communication.

Guti�rrez-Rivas, C. (2007). Variaci�n pragm�tica del espa�ol de los cubanos y cubanoamericanos en Miami. El efecto de g�nero y generaci�n en el uso de estructuras discursivas. (‘Pragmatic variation in the Spanish of Cubans and Cuban-Americans in Miami. The effect of gender and generation on the use of discourse structures’). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.

The study analyzed the variation of the speech act of requests in three generations of Cubans and Cuban-Americans from Miami. The researcher explored the effect of generation and gender on the discourse structures of such speakers. Focusing on the speech acts that require politeness when asking for favors, she specifically studied the pragmatic differences in the Spanish language within this population. She highlighted how particular discourse structures, which were culturally determined in large part, might have also had important implications for theories of linguistic variation and change. The ideology of solidarity as reflected in particular discourse structures appeared to condition the speech act of requests more among the first generation, born and raised in Cuba, than among the generations born or educated in the United States. There was more evidence of qualification, support, and hedging involved in the speech of the second generation (which was called “the transitional generation”) and especially, third-generation speakers. As control of attenuating forms of the verb system, such as subjunctives and conditionals, weakened among this latter group, the use of compensation of periphrastic and lexical devices became more prevalent in their Spanish. At the same time, American English discourse structures, generally more reflective of a negative politeness framework, appeared to set in motion a process of pragmatic calquing which complemented the use of periphrastic and lexical devices in asking for favors. One prime example of this process was the reduced usage of direct command forms among third-generation speakers, much more common in speech requests in Caribbean Spanish than in American English. In addition, in this dissertation the ideology behind language use for the construction of gender to explain the differences found in the data and its repercussions in society was explored in depth. The researcher described the elements found in the language of first-generation speakers of both genders and looked for structures such as upgraders and downgraders, which were indicators of coerciveness and mitigation respectively. The fact that third-generation Cuban-American women exhibited more mitigation in their utterances could be proof of change of politeness systems. The shift from positive politeness, used by Cuban women of the first and second generation, to negative politeness would suggest that third-generation women exhibited transference of strategies, characteristic of Anglophone society.

Halenko, N., & Jones, C. (2011). Teaching pragmatic awareness of spoken requests to Chinese EAP learners in the UK: Is explicit instruction effective? System, 39(2), 240-250. doi:10.1016/j.system.2011.05.003

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of explicit interventional treatment on developing pragmatic awareness and production of spoken requests in an EAP context (taken here to mean those studying/using English for academic purposes in the UK) with Chinese learners of English at a British higher education institution. The study employed an experimental design over a 12 week period with 26 students assigned to either an explicitly instructed group or a control group receiving no instruction. Performance was measured based on a pre, immediate and delayed post test structure using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs). The findings firstly revealed that explicit instruction facilitated development of pragmatically appropriate request language, although this was not noticeably maintained after a six week period. Secondly, despite the potential advantage that the second language environment affords to pragmatic development, this was not necessarily instrumental in enhancing competence. Finally, study abroad (ESL) (taken here to mean those studying English in an English speaking country as opposed to EFL learners studying English in their home country) learners found pragmatic instruction valuable, which suggests practitioners should consider incorporating this at the pre departure stage in order for learners to be more adequately prepared for communicating in similar EAP contexts.

Harris, S. (2003). Politeness and power: Making and responding to ‘requests’ in institutional settings. Text, 23(1), 27�52.

Explores the use of the politeness theory in understanding institutional discourse in power-laden contexts and how politeness strategies are realized in discourse practices. Relationship between the use of redressive linguistic forms and institutional power; Extent to which participants with externally given power employ mitigation while at the same time claiming power in relation to their clients.

Hartford, B. S. (1996). "At your earliest convenience:" A study of written student requests to faculty. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 7, pp. 55-69). Urbana, IL: Division of English as an International Language, Intensive English Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Studies e-mail requests from NS and NNS students to faculty evaluated for their positive or negative effect on the addressee. The perceived negative requests assumed a greater obligation to comply by the faculty member than was appropriate. Differences were in the acknowledgment of degree of imposition, manner of presentation of time constraints, and explanations for the request. NNSs were found to use fewer downgraders than NSs.

Hayashi, A. (2000). Kaiwa hattenno kouzouto syuufukuno sutorateji: Nichi dokugo taishono shitenkara mita "irai" to "kotowari" ni okeru intarakusyon (‘Conversational structures and strategies for remedial work: Interaction of "requests" and "refusals" from contrastive analysis of Japanese and German’). Bulletin of Tokyo Gakugei University Section II Humanities, 51, 81-94.

This paper compares a request-refusal interaction in German and Japanese role-played by 34 native Japanese speakers and 26 native German speakers in terms of 1) the request-refusal adjacency pair, 2) response strategies to refusals, and 3) explanation of reasons and hearer’s understanding. Some of the differences between the two languages are: 1) In Japanese, the refuser often used backchanneling and hedging expressions, which prepared the requester for the upcoming refusal. This tendency did not exist in German, where there were twice as many refusal expressions found in the interactions than in Japanese. 2) Japanese speakers sometimes expressed empathy for the requester before actually refusing. 3) In German, the requester suggests an alternative repeatedly and if each alternative is rejected and the requester explains the reasons. 4) In German, accepting the legitimacy of the reasons implies compliance with the request, while in Japanese, showing understanding for the reasons can be a stage before a refusal.

House, J., & Kasper, G. (1987). Interlanguage pragmatics: Requesting in a foreign language. In W. L�rscher & R. Schulze (Eds.), Perspectives on language in performance. Festschrift for werner h�llen (pp. 1250-1288). T�bingen: Narr.

Isaacs, C. K. (2006). How do you like your cereal? A linguistic analysis of a service encounter. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 21(2), 87-102.

The study examined servers’ questions and customers’ responses to the server-posed question. More specifically, it analyzed native English speakers’ responses to the phrase “How do you like your cereal?” issued in a service encounter at a cereal cafe, Cereal Land. The study focused on the linguistic responses or non-responses as was sometimes the case, to variants of the question. In reality, many of the employees did not ask this question but some other. Conversation analysis was the primary method used to analyze the data. The author collected data on what they actually asked (e.g., “How would you like your cereal?” “How do you like your cereal today?” “How do you like your cereal usually?”). Then she provided a description of customer responses. She found that for some customers, the question provoked disfluencies and confusion. Some customers interpreted the question as a request for information and others as an ordering prompt. Apparently the question violated some linguistic norms.

Iwai, C., & Rinnert, C. (2001). Cross-cultural comparison of strategic realization of pragmatic competence: Implications for learning world Englishes. Hiroshima Journal of International Studies 7, 157-181.

The study reports on the realization of requests and apologies using DCTs among four groups -- ESL/EFL respondents in Hong Kong (44), EFL respondents from Japan (100), ESL respondents from Singapore (71), and NSs from the US (100). There were 13 situations on the questionnaire but only four were used for this study -- two requests and two apologies. Thirteen percent of the Japanese respondents in EFL in the situation of breaking a friend's vase asked, "What should I do?" which the researchers saw as a translation of doo shiyoo? In the situation of forgetting a meeting with their professor, Japanese infrequently used a mitigator with their repair ("I'll be there if you don't mind..." "I'm afraid I'll be an hour late."). In apologizing they were likely to repeat "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," which US respondents didn't do. The Japanese used significantly fewer words than the other groups. With regard to requests, only the Japanese EFL respondents used either a direct strategy ("Please lend me your notes.")(32%) or a conventionally indirect expression of desire ("I would like you to lend me your notes.")(24%), which were the two most popular responses for this group. This is consistent with behavior in Japanese, according to the researchers. The Japanese used the conventional politeness marker "please" much more frequently (34%) than the other groups and used other softeners much less frequently than the other three groups.

Izaki, Y. (2000). Cultural differences of preference and deviations from expectations in requesting: A study of Japanese and French learners of Japanese in contact situations. Journal of Japanese Language Teaching, 104, 79-88.

This study examines sociolinguistic differences in request behavior in French and Japanese, focusing on supportive move strategies (pre-request moves). Native speakers of Japanese and French role-played three request dialogues, and their performance was compared to that of seven French speakers learning Japanese (three beginners, three intermediates, and one advanced learner). Japanese speakers always used the precommital strategy (e.g., Jitsuwa onegai shitai kotoga arimashite ‘In fact, I have a favor to ask of you’) before making a request. The request can be preceded by another optional pre-request move that provides or asks for relevant information. In French, no precommital strategy appeared in the data; instead a pre-request move and a response to the pre-request are present in all request interactions. Sometimes since the pre-request move functions as a requestive hint, the speaker has no need to make an actual request. French speakers also often use conditional clauses suggesting that the hearer takes an action, which is in French normally considered as requests or negotiations. The author states that there are sociocultural differences in determining distance, power, and the degree of imposition of the request, and this results in differential politeness levels between the two languages.

Kasper, G. (2006). When once is not enough: Politeness of multiple requests in oral proficiency interviews. Multilingua, 25(3), 323-350. doi:10.1515/MULTI.2006.018

The paper takes a conversation-analytic approach to examine the politeness of multiple requests in Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI). In this assessment activity, interviewers regularly reissue a first request in environments of increased task demands or in response to candidates’ difficulties with the first directive. In such multiple request sequences, two kinds of structurally parallel operations of mitigation and conventionally indirect request frames are observed. For the most part, interviewers treat mitigational material and conventionally indirect request frames as dispensable in the subsequent version, a pattern seen in multiple requests in same-turn as well as in other-initiated and third position repair. When local contingencies increase the risk that the interviewer’s request may not generate the projected action, subsequent versions tend to be prefaced by the marker please. Furthermore, in environments of topic introduction or change, presequences also play a politeness-implicative role. The paper closes by considering some implications of the analysis for an interaction-based theory of politeness.

Kawamura, Y., & Sato, K. (1996). The acquisition of request realization in EFL learners. JACET Bulletin, 27, 69-86.

Investigates how Japanese EFL learners assess the degree of English politeness according to situational factors in the speech act of requesting. The subjects were 168 Japanese undergraduates at three Japanese universities. Cross-sectional analysis was done of higher-level and lower-level EFL groups regarding their perception of situational factors in the use of internal and external modification when making requests. A discourse completion test with ten request situations was used in which the setting, social and psychological distances between speaker and addressee, and social status were specified, and the degree of imposition. It was found that the two groups responded similarly in terms of external modification (alerters, grounders, intensifiers, other supportive moves), with the social distance being the dominant factor in choice of request forms. However, there was considerable difference in the use of the internal modification (head act) -- namely, the higher-level group was able to vary the degree of politeness in the request realization according to situational factors.

Kawanari, M. (1996). Irai hyougenno modariti: Shujoshi "ne" to "yo" ni kansuru ninchi goyouronteki kousatsu (‘Modality in requests: Cognitive/pragmatic analysis of sentence-final particles "ne" and "yo"‘). Nihon Joshi Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyou (Bulletin of Nihon Women’s College School of Literature), 45, 55-63.

This paper analyzes sentence-final participles ne and yo used in requests in terms of modality. These sentence final particles characterize discourse, reflecting the speaker’s consideration of the hearer. In expressions of requests, ne mitigates the force of the request proposition or imply that the speaker’s anticipate the hearer’s compliance (e.g., Shibaraku issyoni itene ‘Please stay with me for a while’). On the other hand, yo reinforces the proposition and upgrades the request (e.g., Onegai desukara, kondo syoukai shite kudasaiyo ‘I’m asking you, please introduce [him/her] to me next time’). Ne appeared 111 times and yo 89 times in 600 request interactions collected from 50 male and 50 female Japanese university students.

Kim, J. (1995). Could you calm down more?: Requests and Korean ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 11(2), 67-82. R[Availble online]

Begins by giving an explanation of what constitutes a request schema and an overview of Blum-Kulka and Kasper's 1989 Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP). This project yielded 2 important findings that were relevant to Kim's study discussed in this article: 1) learners vary the strategies used in request acts depending on the situation, and 2) learners vary the type and quantity of external modification by situation. Kim then discussed her study in which she asked the following research questions: 1) Under varying social constraints, how do advanced Korean learners of English compare to native American English speakers in request realizations -- or more specifically, in directness levels and external modifications? and 2) By including a comparison of Korean subjects requesting in English and subjects requesting in Korean, will there be any evidence of negative transfer? If so, under what conditions? The subjects were from 2 groups: one consisting of 25 native Korean speakers (13 male, 12 female) enrolled in high intermediate to advanced level ESL classes or as graduate students in a university in Philadelphia, and a one consisting of 15 native speakers of American English (8 male and 7 female). The Americans served as informants to establish "acceptable" request norms, 10 of the native Korean speakers served as informants for comparable situations in Korean, and the remaining 15 Korean speakers served as the non-native speakers requesting in English and the main focus of the study. Data were collected through an oral discourse task with 6 situations designed to assess pragmatic competence among non-native speakers of English. Data analysis was conducted to compare native and non-native requests in terms of: directness levels (mood derivable -- directness signaled by grammatical mood of the verb -- "Go to sleep!", performative, locution derivable -- the illocutionary force is derivable from the semantic content of the request -- "I think you'll have to bring this back," suggestory formulas, preparatory, and hint) and external modification -- aggravating or mitigating the request by using specific types of supportive moves (preparatory -- preparing the hearer for the ensuing request -- "I have a request to make," getting a precommitment -- "Could you do me a favor," apology, grounder -- "I'm studying for an exam," disarmer -- "I know you don't like this, but...," and promise of reward).

Results showed that although native and non-native speakers used the same level of directness, native speakers used internal modification plus routinization to further mitigate their requests. (Such as, "I was wondering if I could get an extension on the due date...") In terms of external modifications, 53% of the native speakers used preparators while neither of the Korean subject groups used preparators at all. All 3 groups used grounders as a supportive move, but unlike non-native speakers, native speakers tended to use them both before and after the head requesting act. Non-native speakers and Korean speakers used more apologies than native speakers of English. In general, the findings showed that in all 3 language groups realization of requests was determined by the sociopragmatic features of the situational context. Non-native speakers of English deviated from native speaker norms in some situations due to negative transfer from pragmatic rules in Korean.

Kitao, K. (1990). A study of Japanese and American perceptions of politeness in requests. Doshida Studies in English, 50, 178-210.

This study investigated the level of politeness of various forms of request made in English, as if spoken to an American, as perceived by college-level native speakers of English (n=80), Japanese speakers in the United States (n=34), and Japanese speakers in Japan (n=103). A semantic differential questionnaire measuring 10 levels of politeness was administered. The instrument consisted of three sections, namely: (1) ratings of requests that might be used in four situations; (2) ratings of frequency of use of request forms; and (3) demographic information, including language background. In the request situations used, relative status of the addressee is high in two situations, low in a third, and equal in the fourth. Familiarity was low and request magnitude small in all situations. Analysis of responses found support for almost all hypotheses concerning relative politeness of request forms, including the use of interrogatives, declaratives, imperatives with and without tag questions, tense, use of modals, positively and negatively worded requests, requests with tags, and negative politeness. No significant differences in perceptions were found between Americans and Japanese, but the Japanese in the United States perceived the requests as more polite than the other Japanese. The questionnaire is appended.

Kobayashi, H., & Rinnert, C. (2003). Coping with high imposition requests: High vs. low proficiency EFL students in Japan. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 161-184). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

A request study which reanalyzed samples of role-play performance by Japanese EFL students (a study by Shimazaki, 2000), comparing their performance with that of naturally occurring L1 request data in Japanese and English (data they collected in 1999 and 2000). They also looked at how levels of EFL proficiency affects students' choice of strategies for coping with high imposition request situations. They looked at the length of request sequences, the presence of pre-request negotiation, supportive moves, the position of grounders, build-ups to requests, head act shift (e.g., from direct strategies in low imposition requests to conventionally indirect strategies for high imposition requests), pervasive want-statements as head acts (in NNS data, not in L1 data), and strategies for acknowledgement (by the requester once the request has been accepted). Findings were mixed. They found that high proficiency students were more likely to delay their request after a long build up, thanks to their linguistic resources allowing for this extended negotiation strategy. Also, while for low proficiency learners in the high imposition situations, the number of supportive moves like grounders increased, for high proficiency students, there were not only more grounders (and some placed after the requests) but also longer turns, more mitigators, requests were frequently delayed, and more upgraders were added in acknowledgements. Their main finding was that we cannot presume negative transfer. Some aspects are more easily transferred than others. One persistent L1 transfer feature in EFL requests is the use of want-statements given their perception that this is the polite form. They provide some important differences between Japanese and English would probably need to be taught: 1) in Japanese requests, contextual factors such as status difference between speaker and hearer significantly affect the requester's choice of request form; 2) Japanese speakers prefer "lend" to "borrow," whereas speakers of American English choose "borrow" over "lend"; 3) EFL learners need to know that the conventional English translations of Japanese request strategies such as V-shite itadake-nai-deshoo-ka 'Would/could you VP?' or V-shite-hoshi-n-desukedo 'I would like you VP' do not carry the same degree of politeness as in Japanese. They would suggest that learners write a script for a role play, perform such role plays, watch the video taping and revise the role play as necessary, and replay the revised version. Then they are to try to apply it to a new role play situation. Teachers could have learners practice delayed requests, even at the risk of an overly long delay. Learners can be taught to use pre-sequences like "I have a favor to ask you," or "Can I ask you a favor?" and checking preparatory conditions with "Do you have time?" or "Are you available now?"

Koike, D. A. (1989). Pragmatic competence and adult L2 acquisition: Speech acts in interlanguage. The Modern Language Journal, 73(3), 279-289.

Reports on three experiments with beginning learners of Spanish. In the first, 40 students had to identify three kinds of speech acts, requests, apologies, and commands. In the second, 27 students had to write requests. These were analyzed for how polite they were and compared with how 23 native speakers made requests in L1 (Exper. 3). The L1 requests used far more markers of politeness.

Kubota, M. (1996). Acquaintance or fiancee: Pragmatic differences in requests between Japanese and Americans. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 12(1), 23-38. Retrieved from http://www.gse.upenn.edu/wpel/sites/gse.upenn.edu.wpel/files/archives/v12/v12n1kubota.pdf

This study investigated differences in the speech styles used in making requests among five native speakers of Japanese (JJ), five American learners of Japanese (AJ), and Americans speaking English (AE) and their implications for intercultural communication. All subjects were adults. Data were elicited in role-plays of a scenario including the face-threatening situation of making a request of a supervisor. Results show differences in the order of speech acts indicating request and reasoning in JJs and AJs; all AJs explained the situation before making the request, while four JJs made the request first. Content of the semantic formulas in each group varied in the style of the request opening, but no significant patterns emerged. JJs expressed desire explicitly but only one asked for permission explicitly. AJ requests were very implicit, and AE requests were explicit. It is concluded that results show differences between Japanese and American business cultures. Follow-up interviews with the subjects indicated that while the Americans were aware of Japanese speech style rules, they did not necessarily try to follow them, seeking instead a non-offensive style within which they were comfortable. Speech samples are appended. Contains 16 references.

Kumagai, T. (1995). Iraino shikata: Kokken Okazaki cyousano deta kara (‘How to make a request: From Okazaki national survey results’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 22-32.

This paper analyzes strategies (moves) of the orally elicited requests obtained from 400 native speakers of Japanese in terms of achievement of the goal and consideration for the hearer. The informants were to ask a doctor to immediately come to see their very sick neighbor. The functions involved in the requests include: making a request to come, providing information, expressing apologies, addressing the doctor, and offering to give directions. Request strategies include: prompting the hearer’s action, repeating the request, emphasizing the urgency, and prompting the action by making an offer, along with others to show consideration for the hearer (e.g., apology, hedging, and mitigating expressions). The researcher provides the results of correlational analysis between the number/contents of the moves used and the ages of the informants.

Kumatoridani, T. (1995). Hatsuwa koui riron kara mita irai hyougen: Hatsuwa koui karadanwa koudoue (‘Requests from the perspective of speech act theory: From speech acts to discourse’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 12-21.

This paper includes analysis of requests 1) in light of speech act theory (Searle, 1969), 2) as communication strategies, and 3) from the perspective of interaction/discourse. Examining requests in the discourse, the author discusses the "remedial interchange" present in the requests in the form of an apology or reasons for the request.

Le Pair, R. (1996). Spanish request strategies: A cross-cultural analysis from an intercultural perspective. Language Sciences, 18(3-4), 651�670. doi:10.1016/S0388-0001(96)00040-X

Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational setting are supposed to influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness strategies used to realize directive speech acts such as requests. As the influence of these variables may differ from one culture to another, these variations are relevant factors for a person's intercultural communication competence, viewed as his capacity to communicate appropriately and effectively in a foreign language. Since deviations from native language use may have consequences for the intercultural interaction between Spanish and Dutch interlocutors, a cross-cultural research project on the use of request strategies in Spanish was carried out, in order to investigate the speech production of Spanish and Dutch speakers of Spanish. In this investigation, several differences between the two groups become manifest: it is shown that Spanish native speakers tend to use more direct strategies than Dutch nonnative speakers of Spanish. Furthermore, conventional indirectness, although the most frequently used politeness strategy by both groups of speakers, is realized in substantially different ways by Spanish speakers on the one hand, and Dutch speakers of Spanish on the other. Contrasting the results of the two parallel experiments of request production in similar situational settings, I will illustrate the types of variations that occur, and argue that some of them may have been caused by cross-linguistic differences between Spanish and Dutch.

Lee, S. (2009). Extended requesting: Interaction and collaboration in the production and specification of requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(6), 1248-1271.

This study used the traditional approach of conversation analysis to explain the action of requesting sequential terms. In this paper, requests were analyzed as an instance of a first pair part of an adjacency pair. Usually, requests initiated an adjacency pair sequence and made relevant the recipient’s production of a second pair part, in which the recipient responded to them with a verbal granting or rejection. This paper aimed to describe the nature of first pair part actions that were built over the course of a set of sequences. In conversational analysis first pair parts have been described as actions occurring in a single turn or single turn constructional unit. The data were based on a corpus of telephone calls to an airline service in South Korea. The calls were audio-recorded by the airline company for quality assurance purposes from 2002 to 2003. The analysis indicated that requests were composed of several components and they were also constructed and completed piece by piece as those components were specified over a number of sequences. Thus, the sequences were used to realize the action of requesting. The author termed this type of request as ‘extended’ since the nature and content of a request were the object of collaborative interactional work extended over several sequences that specified a request. The party who ‘directed’ this collaboration was the object of negotiation across the requesting sequences. The author pointed out that this sequential construction seemed to be a feature of a more general class of requests in many service contexts, i.e., requests that involved glosses on the requested entity, in which the gloss needed to be unpacked in some fashion and the specification required relatively specialized knowledge. Another finding indicated that requests could proceed in alternative ways of being customer-directed or agent-directed. Finally, the author noted that the development of the action of requesting was constrained by a particular order in which a particular component was processed in the course of specification.

Li, D. (1998). Expressing needs and wants in a second language: An ethnographic study of Chinese immigrant women's requesting behavior (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). New York City: Teachers College, Columbia University.

The study primarily focuses on the requesting needs of 4 Chinese immigrant women in NYC. Another 16 women participated in a peripheral way. All 20 were enrolled in a clerical careers training program. This study was about getting the necessary sociocultural information in order to perform a speech act in an appropriate way -- in this case, requesting. The data were recorded through audiotaping of daily interactions, the researcher's journaling, the participants' journaling, ESL essays, and formal and informal oral interviews. The researcher was also a volunteer ESL instructor for conversation classes at the Chinese American Association in NYC. The first case study is of Cathy. "For Cathy, making a request is not only a linguistic process, but also a sociocultural process of creating and negotiating her multiple social identities. The various requests Cathy made were not only ways by which she constructed and maintained social interactions, but also ways of expressing her sense of who she was, what personalities she felt herself to have, what roles she filled or what status she occupied in different social contexts, what she needed, and what she valued" (pp 115-116). The narrative about Hui includes lots of frustration at the hospital in trying to see a doctor (150-161). Lina had difficulty making a request to have her government job cover her carfare. Ming had retrained her Chinese indirect communication style and did not feel free making requests. In the first anecdote it was not clear to the NS whether Ming was coming to offer or request information -- she actually wanted job information. The second situation was one in which Ming actually wanted guidance in what to say in a job interview. The Chinese way would be to provide grounders (reasons or background information) to steer the course of the interaction in the direction of her intended goal and to provide chances for her interlocutor(s) to offer her information without her actually have to perform the face-threatening act of requesting it. The next anecdote was about her learning to give her opinions. The fourth situation was learning how to request respect at work. The last was asking for a reasonable amount of workspace at the office. Ming underwent a socialization in which she learned how to be more American in her request behavior.

The study demonstrated how complex it can be to make a request if you do not have all the requisite linguistic, cultural, and other resources (e.g., tenacity, assertiveness, time, energy). Many contexts required more than one-utterance question and response -- rather it was made on one day and fulfilled on another, or made on one day, repeated over many days, revised, elaborated upon, facilitated by others, and finally fulfilled. Then there were requests that were not fulfilled as well (286). The methodology was considered valuable because it allowed Li to observe what people were actually doing in real situations. It gave her interactive discourse. She got to understand, interpret, and explain the requesting behavior in its fullest social, historical, and cultural context. She also got to understand, interpret, and explain requesting behavior by discovering the insider's view.

Li, D. (2000). The pragmatics of making requests in the L2 workplace: A case study of language socialization. Canadian Modern Language Review, 57(1), 58-87.

Describes a Chinese immigrant woman, Ming, as she learned to make requests in English, using a longitudinal, ethnographic case-study approach. The author asserts that this approach was not common in pragmatics research. This study was about getting the necessary sociocultural information in order to perform a speech act in an appropriate way -- in this case, requesting. The data were recorded through audio-taping of daily interactions, the researcher's journaling, the participants' journaling (in all there were 20 Chinese immigrant women, with four serving as key participants), ESL essays, and formal and informal oral interviews. The researcher was also a volunteer ESL instructor for conversation classes at the Chinese American Association in NYC. The author was working on a doctorate at TC Columbia. Ming had retrained her Chinese indirect communication style and did not feel free making requests. In the first anecdote it was not clear to the NS whether Ming was coming to offer or request information -- she actually wanted job information. The second situation was one in which Ming actually wanted guidance in what to say in a job interview. The Chinese way would be to provide grounders (reasons or background information) to steer the course of the interaction in the direction of her intended goal and to provide chances for her interlocutor(s) to offer her information without her actually have to perform the face-threatening act of requesting it (p. 70). The next anecdote was about her learning to give her opinions. The fourth situation was learning how to request respect at work. The last was asking for a reasonable amount of workspace at the office. Ming underwent a socialization in which she learned how to be more American in her request behavior.

Li, S. (2012), The effects of input-based practice on pragmatic development of requests in L2 Chinese. Language Learning, 62, 403�438. Doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00629.x

This study examined the effects of input-based practice on developing accurate and speedy requests in second-language Chinese. Thirty learners from intermediate-level Chinese classes were assigned to an intensive training group (IT), a regular training group (RT), and a control group. The IT and the RT groups practiced using four Chinese request-making forms via computerized structured input activities over 2 consecutive days. During this time, the IT group practiced using the request-making forms twice as much as the RT group. The control group did not practice. The results show that the input-based practice was effective in promoting accuracy in an Oral Discourse Completion Task and in enhancing speed in a Pragmatic Listening Judgment Task. No other effects of practice were observed.

LoCastro, V. (1997). Politeness and pragmatic competence in foreign language education. Language Teaching Research, 1(3), 239-267.

Reports on an analysis of evidence of politeness in requesting in 17 senior HS EFL textbooks used from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Japanese will seem less polite in English in phrases such as "I want you to do X." It was found that the textbooks were lacking in politeness markers. She found no explicit instruction on the use of modals or style-shifting in requests. In looking for explanations, one she found was that politeness is generally associated with oral skills. Also, forms are presented without attention to their communicative function.

M�rquez, Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain in Uruguay: A contrastive study of requests and apologies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

The first well-researched contrastive pragmatic analysis of requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish. It takes the form of a cross-cultural corpus-based analysis using male and female native speakers of each language and systematically alternating the same social variables in both cultures. The data are elicited from a non-prescriptive open role-play yielding requests and apologies. The analysis of the speech acts is based on an adaptation of the categorical scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The results show that speakers of English and Spanish differ in their choice of (in)directness levels, head-act modifications, and the politeness types of males and females in both cultures. Reference to an extensive bibliography and the thorough discussion of methodological issues concerning speech act studies deserve the attention of students of pragmatics as well as readers interested in cultural matters.

Marti, L. (2006). Indirectness and politeness in Turkish-German bilingual and Turkish monolingual requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(11), 1836-1869.

This study analyzed the realization and politeness perception of requests made by Turkish monolingual speakers and Turkish-German bilingual returnees. It focused on how Turkish-German bilingual returnees’ pragmatic performance might have been affected by pragmatic transfer from German. In addition, the study examined whether indirectness and politeness were related concepts. First, a discourse completion test (DCT) was administered to 230 Turkish monolingual students at the ?ukurova University in Turkey and to 107 Turkish-German bilingual returnees from the German Language Teaching Department. From these participants 118 were female and 81 male. The DCT comprised 10 situations of eliciting requests. Second, a politeness rating questionnaire was used to measure the perceived politeness of requests in Turkish in order to investigate the relationship between indirectness and politeness. The results of this study showed that indirectness and politeness were related but they were not linearly linked concepts. In addition, the author noted that other factors such as the semantic meaning of the expressions used to formulate a request could sometimes override the indirectness factor. As to indirectness, a cross-cultural comparison showed that Turkish monolingual speakers tended to prefer more direct strategies when compared to German speakers. Although the overall results of the DCT did not confirm pragmatic transfer, bilingual participants tended to prefer indirectness more than Turkish monolinguals. Furthermore, this study adopted a broader perspective beyond the limits of traditional speech act theory when analyzing the DCT data of requests (i.e., moving beyond the Blum-Kulka et al. [1989] framework). Consequently, this study reported new strategies other than those found in most studies using DCTs. The new investigated strategies were: deliberate choices of opting out, provision of alternative solutions, and attempts at negotiation. Finally the author noted that re-analysis of the DCT data revealed that in some situations the Turkish monolinguals tended to be more reluctant to make a request, whereas the Turkish�German bilinguals opted out less frequently, but they preferred indirect strategies.

Mart�nez-Flor, A. (2008). The effect of an inductive-deductive teaching approach to develop learners’ use of request modifiers in the EFL classroom. In E. Alc�n-Soler (Ed.), Learning how to request in an instructed language learning context (pp. 191�226). Berlin: Peter Lang.

Matsuura, H. (1998). Japanese EFL learners' perception of politeness in low imposition requests. JALT Journal, 20(1), 33-48.

Study of perception of politeness in requests with 77 Japanese English majors and 48 American students in two U.S. universities. Perceptions were similar except that Japanese saw interrogatives with a present tense modal ("May I borrow a pen?") as less polite than those with a past tense modal ("Could I borrow a pen?").

Mir, M. (1995). The perception of social context in request performance. In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 6, pp. 105-120). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In studying the role of context in speech act performance, the tradition has been to use controlled elicitation instruments that allow for manipulation of social dimensions. The assumption is that by controlling social context, all respondents will assess social relations very similarly, although little research has dealt with the validity of this assumption. The current study explores the relationship between situational and cultural factors in producing requests and in assessing social dimensions in interaction. Data are drawn from a larger study of request performance by native and non-native speakers of English where two measures were used: an open-ended questionnaire that elicited responses according to contextually controlled situations and an assessment questionnaire that triggered the subjects' evaluation of social parameters. Results indicate that the perception of social dimensions in interaction, and their interrelationship, definitely have a significant role in verbal behavior. Further, a correlation was found between the subjects' assessment of social factors and their requesting behavior, such as in the level of directness shown in subjects' request responses. Contains 9 references.

Miyaji, Y. (1995). Irai hyougenno ichi (‘The semantic position of request expressions’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 4-11.

The article discusses in Sections 1) and 2) semantic positioning of requests in relation to other speech acts such as orders, invitations, interrogations, and questions, in Section 3) common expressions of requests (variants of hoshii, kudasai, onegai shimasu, kureru, morau), in Section 4) requests as weak demands of action, and in Section 5) requestive hints.

Mizuno, K. (1996). "Irai" no gengo koudouni okeru cyuukan gengo goyouronn: Cyuugogujin nihongo gakusuushano baai. (‘Interlanguage pragmatics of requests: The case of Chinese learners of Japanese’). Gengo Bunka Ronsyuu 17(2), 91-106.

This paper compares role-play performance of requests by 20 native speakers of Japanese and 20 native speakers of Chinese learning Japanese (intermediate level). Utilizing the data from the previous study (Mizuno 1993), the author seeks to determine whether there is any difference in performance between the advanced and intermediate learners, and if so, whether it can be attributed to negative L1 transfer or limited linguistic proficiency. Only supportive moves are analyzed in this paper (categories and examples pp. 94-5).

Mizuno, K. (1996). "Irai" no gengo koudouni okeru cyuukan gengo goyouronn (2): Directness to perspective no kantenkara. (‘Interlanguage pragmatics of requests: Directness and perspectives’). Gengo Bunka Ronsyuu (Papers on Language and Culture), 18(1), 57-71.

This paper analyzes head act strategies used in role-play by 20 intermediate and 12 advanced Chinese learners of Japanese in comparison with those by 12 native speakers of Japanese (same data analyzed in Mizuno, 1996a). Eight semantic categories were determined according to the level of directness/indirectness (pp. 59-60, based on Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). Perspectives include not only those in Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) but also the combination of "hearer-oriented (H)" and "speaker-oriented" (S) perspectives (e.g., Kashite (H) itadake (S) masuka?)

Moriyama, T. (1995). "Teineina irai" no sutoratejito unyou nouryoku: Iraino tegamino kakikatawo reini (‘Strategies for "polite requests" and communicative competence: Writing a request letter’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 95-101.

The author first analyzes factors of "imprudence" from 4 perspectives: severity of imposition, politeness strategies, interpersonal variables, and degree of necessity, and then examines request expressions written by 10 Japanese college students. The participants were asked to request a paper from a teacher they had never met. The common semantic strategies in the letters were: opening greetings, self-introduction, reasons for the request, the request, and the closing greetings, mostly in this sequence. Request expressions used included: interrogatives, variants of tara saiwai, "wish" expressions (tai), kudasai, and onegaishimasu.

Naitou, M. (1997). Nihongono taiguu hyougen “irai” “kotowari”: Nihongo bogowashato nihongo gakushuushatono koodono sai [Japanese politeness in requests and refusals: Differences in code between native speakers and learners of Japanese]. In M. Hubbard, T. Sakamoto, & J. Davis (Eds.), Nihongo kyouiku ibunkano kakehashi: Miura Akira sensei koki kinen ronbunshuu [Progress in Japanese Linguistics and pedagogy: A collection in honor of Professor Akira Miura’s 70th birthday] (pp. 101-115). Tokyo: Arc.

Nakagawa, Y. (1997). Nihongo Iraino Hyougen: Iraino sugorateji to nihongo kyouiku. (‘Expressing requests in Japanese: The strategies for expressing requests and teaching Japanese’). Kyoto University of Foreign Studies Academic Bulletin L, 218-227.

This study compares the questionnaire-elicited request performance from 203 native speakers of Japanese, 24 highly advanced learners of Japanese, and 8 advanced learners of Japanese. Eleven Japanese language textbooks were also analyzed in terms of the request strategies used. Most of the textbooks, with an exception of a few, employ only a few request strategies and their relationships to contextual variables seem to be mostly ignored.

Nakahama, Y. (1998). Differing perceptions of politeness between Japanese and American learners of Japanese. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 20, 61-80.

Studies five native Japanese making a request in Japanese and five American learners of Japanese making a request (a letter of recommendation at short notice) in Japanese FL and English L1. The study used open role-play and retrospective verbal report. With regard to the opener, all Japanese respondents introduced themselves while the Americans did not, and instead just excused themselves for interrupting. In retrospective verbal report, the Americans said that introducing themselves was unnecessary because the professor referred to them by their name when they came in. Also, they felt it was rude to assume the professor didn't know who they were. The Americans gave an excuse for why the request was at the last minute but did not express their apology as the native Japanese speakers did. The Americans also commented on how difficult the situation was for the professor but not the Japanese who felt it was arrogant to judge the situation.

Nakahama, Y. (1999). Requests in L1/L2 Japanese and American English: A crosscultural investigation of politeness. In L. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 9, pp. 1-29). Urbana, IL: Division of English as an International Language, Intensive English Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Investigates the politeness behavior of five American learners of Japanese performing requests both in Japanese and English, with five native Japanese speakers providing baseline data for comparison. Retrospective verbal reports were obtained for all participants. There were striking differences in strategies of the opener and the request, especially with regard to external modifications, such as grounders. The situation was asking a professor to write a letter of recommendation. The Japanese felt the need to establish who they were while the American students did not. While American respondents gave a justification for giving only short notice for the recommendation, the Japanese kept apologizing profusely. The Americans were found to transfer their L1 sociopragmatic rules while making requests in Japanese.

Nakamichi, M., & Doi, M. (1995). Nihongo kyouikuni okeru iraino atsukai (‘Teaching of requests in Japanese language education’). Nihongogaku (Japanese Linguistics), 14, 84-93.

The article overviews ten currently-used Japanese language textbooks to examine how requests are taught and the frameworks that are to be used to teach performatives. In the beginning level, kudasai is taught in all the textbooks, but often as invitations or instructions. Although kudasai is often too direct when used as a request, the textbooks tend to introduce it as a request expression. Kudasai masenka, te itadake masenka, te itadaki taindesuga are also frequently introduced yet differently in beginning level textbooks. One intermediate to advanced level textbook uses video to teach a request-refusal interchange, incorporating gestures and tone. Some other textbooks utilize flow charts to make learners aware of the strategies (moves) involved in the discourse structures of request interactions. The article also describes several steps to perform appropriate requests (i.e., determining request strategy sequence, making linguistic choices, determining the timing to initiate and develop the request, controlling the interaction, and responding appropriately to the hearer). The authors argue that different politeness strategies and contextual variations of requests have not yet been adequately addressed in textbooks.

Otcu, B., & Zeyrek, B. (2008). Development of requests: Astudy on Turkish learners of English. In N. P�tz, &, J. Neff-van Aertselaer (Eds.), Developing contrastive pragmatics (pp. 301�333). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Phillips, E. M. (1993). Polite requests: Second language textbooks and learners of French. Foreign Language Annals, 26(3), 372-381.

Reports on a survey of 22 introductory and intermediate textbooks of French that found that students are inadequately trained in socially appropriate request forms. When forms were presented, caution regarding their appropriateness in a variety of contexts was seldom offered and few alternatives to their use were suggested. Then two task-related instruments were completed by 193 [college?] students, a recognition and a production task, to assess degrees of politeness based on three variables preferred by natives -- interrogative, conditional mood, and hearer-orientation. The results were that while students could recognize degrees of deference only to a moderate degree, only 30% used the conditional in making requests. Reasons for the gaps -- negative transfer from L1, the difficulty of grammatical structures required for polite requests. Conclusion: input from textbooks can be used to fill the gap related to polite requests if more attention is devoted to the presentation and practice of formulaic expressions and appropriate linguistic forms such as the conditional of politeness.

Pinto, D. (2005). The acquisition of requests by second language learners of Spanish. Spanish in Context, 2(1), pp. 1�27. doi:10.1075/sic.2.1.01pin

This cross-sectional study in interlanguage pragmatics analyzes the requests employed by English-speaking learners of L2 Spanish, using data collected from university students at four different levels of language learning. The most common request strategies are first identified in a cross-linguistic analysis of Spanish and English and are then compared to the interlanguage data. The requests of lower-level students are found to be more idiosyncratic and pragmatically ambiguous than those of advanced learners, although not necessarily more direct. Advanced learners show signs of improvement, but still rely largely on L1 request behavior. Learners at all levels display more difficulties in areas in which there is cross-linguistic variation between the L1 and L2.

Placencia, M. E. (1998). Pragmatic variation: Ecuadorian Spanish vs. Peninsular Spanish. Spanish Applied Linguistics, 2(1), 71-106.

Focuses on differences between the two varieties with regard to: the degree of indirectness employed, the degree of formality expresses, the degree of fullness or completeness of request utterances, the degree of deference conveyed through particular requests based on a corpus of request data from Quito and Madrid. The requests were from outside clients to receptionists in a hospital in each of the two cities. There were 163 requests in Ecuador, and 153 from Spain. More indirectness was found in Ecuadorian Spanish(ES). If more direct forms were used, then softeners were added to minimize the imposition. The researcher also found ES more formal. Deference was found to be common in ES and not found in Peninsular Spanish.

Rinnert, C. (1999). Appropriate requests in Japanese and English: A preliminary study. Hioshima Journal of International Studies 5, 163-175.

A study with 103 Japanese speakers (93 university students and 16 teachers) and 95 English speakers (40 teachers, mostly from North America, teaching in Japan and 55 university students in the U.S.) Respondents were given six request situations and a series of responses which they were to rate from 1 to 3 (low to high) in terms of its level of appropriateness in the given situation, with 1 indicating "unnatural/inappropriate" and 3 "natural/appropriate." The study found that whereas both Japanese and English speakers found formal and indirect forms highly inappropriate with higher status hearers, Japanese speakers, unlike English speakers, rated formal forms highly appropriate with socially close interlocutors and were accepting of direct requests (e.g., lend me) with close hearers. Relatively "safe" semantic formulas for requests in English included questioning "ability" (could you...?), "willingness" (would you mind...?), and "possibility" (can/could I...?). In Japanese, as long as the formality level was appropriate, the two formulas of "willingness" and "possibility" (...kurenai/kuremasenka/itadakemasenka/dekimasu ka?) were found generally most acceptable. Also, the hint formulation stating a grounder (reason) for the request (e.g., the copy machine isn't working) was found appropriate in both languages. Potentially dangerous request formulas across the two languages, because of widely differing perceptions of appropriateness, include "desire" (...hoshiin da/desu kedo, I would like you to...), direct requests and perhaps the hint strategy of "questioning feasibility" (e.g., kopi-ki no naoshikata wakarimasu ka, do you know how to fix the copy machine?). The author asserts that raising the level of awareness regarding similarities and differences in request strategies could help avoid misunderstandings across the two cultures.

Rinnert, C., & Iwai, C. (2010). I want you to help me: Learning to soften English requests. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 29-46). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Rinnert, C., & Kobayashi, H. (1999). Requestive hints in Japanese and English. Journal of Pragmatics 31(9), 1173-1201. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00027-2

The analysis of elicited questionnaire judgments and naturally occurring data on Japanese and English requests revealed an apparent contradiction between the perception of decontextualized hints (except for the very formal Japanese hints) as relatively impolite and the high frequency of actual use of hints in a university office setting. It was found that Japanese hints are generally more opaque than English hints. There is a trade off between pragmatic clarity on the one hand and avoiding coerciveness on the other. The researchers found that "off-record" requestive hints may differ from "on-record" hint-like request formulations. They concluded that the use of requestive hint formulations builds solidarity in different ways in the two cultures. The researchers used a questionnaire with 10 English requests varying in terms of formality levels and degree of directness. The authors describe in detail how they presented the Japanese request material (1177-78). The sample consisted of 145 Japanese subjects (92 university students, 14 teachers, and 30 university office workers or older students) and 95 native English-speaking subjects (40 teachers mainly from North America teaching in Japan and 55 U students in the US). The findings were as follows: Japanese perceptions of linguistic politeness depend heavily on the formality level of the utterance (morphologically encoded honorifics and verb endings). The perception of politeness of hints, however, appears to be affected not only by the form itself, but also by the social information it carries (the speaker's relationship to the hearer). The informal hint, sono hon mou sunda? 'Are you through with the book yet?' was rated much closer to the informal direct request than the informal conventional indirect requests ("desire" and "willingness"), due at least in part to the plain form da-ending, which evokes a close relationship between speaker and hearer in the raters' mind. The very formal hint, Sono hon mou o-sumini narimashita ka? 'Were you [possibly] to the point of having finished with that book?' gained the highest ratings in terms of perceived politeness because it was marked with the polite honorifics o and nari-, while the feature of indirectness remained intact. The use of such honorifics is usually associated with people socially higher or psychologically distant. Also, leaving the interpretation of the utterance up to the hearer is very often viewed as polite by Japanese speakers especially when speaking to someone of higher status. English perceptions of politeness were not affected as much by formality level.

Naturally occurring requestive hints were also collected in Japanese (n=78) and in English (n=67). Here the finding was that Japanese hints generally tended to be more opaque than English hints, particularly in terms of the illocutionary scale. In office situations in Japan where a person of higher status could risk losing face if a person of a lower status reject their request, the use of highly indirect requests (i.e., requestive hints) functions to avoid coerciveness more than the use of conventionally indirect requests. Information-seeking questions give the speaker the possibility of denying it was a request (e.g., "Are there any batteries?"). Also in Japanese they found utterances with the component (reference to some component of the requested act) + zero illocutionary force (no statement of illocutionary intent), (e.g., o-bento 'box lunch' used as a request to order a box lunch). There is no need to request it because it is understood from context. Saying more would create a negative impression of verbosity, directness, or aggressiveness. Such preference for implicitness could account for the high level of ellipsis in the Japanese data they collected. In the English data, the component (reference to some component of the requested act) + a grounder (giving a reason why the request is necessary) was most frequently employed (e.g., If she comes around I need to talk to her). This can be interpreted as solidarity building between the speaker where the speaker does not impose the request on the hearer.

Rintell, E. (1981). Sociolinguistics variation and pragmatic ability: A look at learners. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 27, 11-34.

Research in second-language acquisition has evolved from the study of the learner's errors in the target language to an approach emphasizing the constantly changing nature of the learner's increasing ability, comparable to children's stages of first-language development. Both of these approaches have focused on the acquisition of linguistic competence, that is, the ability to combine strings of sounds so as to produce meaningful utterances. It is the purpose of this study to examine the ways in which adult learners perform two speech acts, the request and the suggestion, with particular attention to the way their language is sensitive to aspects of the relationship between speaker and hearer. Specifically, the article looks at the variation of the level of deference conveyed by these speakers as a function of the age and sex of the addressee. The article also has chosen to look at the effect of the above variables, which anthropologists, sociologists and linguists view as being associated with varying degrees of status and familiarity, in light of some work which has confirmed that the relative status of speaker and addressee affects language choice. In light of the possibilities, the present study has been undertaken in order to determine in what ways at least one group of learners varies language in response to the contextual factors pertaining to two important aspects of the relationship between speaker and hearer.

Rintell, E., & Mitchell, C. J. (1989). Studying requests and apologies: An inquiry into method. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics (pp. 248-272). Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.

Rose, K. R. (1999). Teachers and students learning about requests in Hong Kong. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 167-180). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Deals with the nature of pragmatic competence and pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR). Rose offers some techniques for PCR based on activities focusing on requests that were carried out with students in Hong Kong. He defines PCR as an inductive approach to developing awareness of how language forms are used appropriately in context. The aim is not to teach explicitly the various means of performing a given speech act (request, apology, compliment) but rather to expose learners to the pragmatic aspects of language (L1 and L2) and provide them with the analytical tools they need to arrive at their own generalizations concerning contextually appropriate language use. A caveat is that very little is known about the effects of such consciousness-raising activities. Teachers can start by giving examples of pragmatic failure -- anecdotes. Then an area is presented, such as requests, with description of its various components. Then the EFL students have a worksheet and collect data on requests in their L1. From the Hong Kong data the students learned about conventionally indirect requests.

Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22(1), 27-67.

Reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses in EFL or in Cantonese -- the first two speech acts being in their curriculum but not the third. They found little evidence of pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. The subjects were approximately 40 children at levels P-2, P-4, and P-6 respectively, half receiving the prompts in English, half in Cantonese. They were to tape record what they thought the character in the cartoon would say. In requests, there is at best only weak evidence of any situational variation. It would seem that the children had not yet developed the pragmatic competence in English to exhibit such situational variation. It could also be that the instrument did not adequately capture the relevant contextual features. In apologies, all three levels had similar responses regarding the strategy of expressing an apology. However, P-6 demonstrated more control over intensifiers. They also acknowledged responsibility more and offered repair -- a pattern that was not found in the Cantonese data. There was little evidence of situational variation however. Compliments were not in the curriculum. The most frequent strategy was acceptance of the apology -- in Cantonese as well, so the patterns were similar. There was a marked increase in both frequency and range of strategies used with the P-6 group. No background questions were asked so there is no way of knowing about exposure to English-speaking domestic helpers, parents' English proficiency, and attitudes towards English.

Rue, Y.-J. (2008). Request strategies: A comparative study in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

This book investigates request strategies in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and is one of the first attempts to address cross-cultural strategies employed in the speech act of requests in two non-Western languages. The data, drawn from role-plays and naturally recorded conversations, complement each other in terms of exhaustiveness and authenticity. This study explores the similarities and differences of the request patterns that emerged in the Chinese and Korean data, and the intricate relation between request strategies and social factors (such as power and distance). The findings raise questions about the influence of methodology on data, and the applicability of so called universals to East Asian languages. They also offer new insights into generally held ideas of directness and requesting behaviours in Chinese and Korean, and the problems of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic communication.This research is suggestive for the disciplines of cross-cultural pragmatics, cross-cultural communication, contrastive linguistics, applied linguistics and discourse analysis.

Ruzickova, E. (2007). Strong and mild requestive hints and positive-face redress in Cuban Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(6), 1170-1202.

This study analyzed politeness strategies used by the speakers of Cuban Spanish in their performance of the speech act which was classified by Blum-Kulka and House (1989) and Kasper (1989) as a non-conventionally indirect request (i.e., a hint). It attempted to correlate Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) politeness theory with empirical evidence from naturally occurring recorded conversations. In addition, the study aimed to show how a different view of what constituted “good” (a polite behavior in interaction) could serve as an attempt at determining how politeness strategies were reflective of culture-specific norms of facework and face behavior. Furthermore, the study presented quantitative data on politeness strategies in order to support claims of the crucial importance of cultural specificity (and not universality) in defining face phenomena. The author analyzed a corpus of 51spontaneous hints (indirect requests) of naturally occurring data, elicited by means other than a socio-linguistic interview in Havana, Cuba in 1996. The sample population was not restricted by extra-linguistic variables but it consisted of Cuban men and women of all age groups, socio-economic status, educational levels, and regional and ethnic backgrounds. The findings revealed that hints characterized Cuban politeness as an “approach-based” system in opposition to an “avoidance based” system. The specific Cuban cultural norms of facework and face behavior showed a preference for using strategies aimed at positive-face redress. The author noted that Cuban speakers did not go out of their way to maintain social distance or to show that the addressee’s response was not being coerced. Neither were they concerned about being too familiar toward the addressee, indicating that they were aware of the hypothetical infringements perpetrated against the hearer’s territory by practically anything and everything that the speaker could have said. In addition, the article concluded that there were no instances of hints performed solely with negative-politeness strategies, which were employed considerably less frequently. Hints in Cuban Spanish were not purely deferential but they seemed to be employed as part of either an exclusively positive politeness or simultaneously positive and negative politeness.

Safont Jord�, M. P. (2003). Instructional effects on the use of request acts modification devices by EFL learners. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 211-232). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

While the use of modification devices in requesting was not explicitly taught in her study, the investigator found that awareness-raising and pragmatic production tasks favored the use of peripheral modification devices by 160 female learners of EFL. The categories were "softeners," "attention getters," "hesitation," "grounders," "disarmers," expanders," and "please." She used a discourse completion test in a pretest/posttest design over one semester. She used a 5-point continuum of politeness in requests in her treatment. She found that while at pretesting few modification devices were used, at posttesting the learners largely modified their requests. In posttesting, the learners began to use attention getters, a bit of grounding, and many instances of "please."

Sasaki, M. (1995). Irai hyougenno taisyou kenkyuu: Eigono irai hyougen (‘Contrastive anlysis of requests: English and Japanese requests’). Nihongogaku, 14, 61-68.

Some of her analyses include sociolinguistic similarities and differences between Japanese and English requests. For example, Japanese tend to adjust their language based on status of the interlocutors. The author also claims that in Japanese, requests are often considered to be difficult to refuse. The hearer normally attempts to avoid refusing, and the speaker uses negative politeness to minimize the imposition. The author argues that in English it is easier to refuse to comply with a request.

Schauer, G. (2004). May you speaker louder maybe? Interlanguage pragmatic development in requests. In S. H. Foster-Cohen, M. Sharwood Smith, A. Sorace and M. Ota (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook (Vol. 4, pp. 253�272). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

This paper presents the results of a longitudinal study into the pragmatic development of German learners of English. The data were elicited with the newly developed “Multimedia Elicitation Task” (MET), which contains 16 request scenarios investigating different status and imposition conditions. The 27 participants included 12 German adults studying at a British university for one academic year and an English native speaker control group of 15 students. The data were collected at three distinct points of the Germans’ stay in Great Britain: shortly after their arrival, in the middle of their stay and shortly before their return to Germany. The results provide evidence both for temporal patterning and for individual variation in the learner group. Generally, internal lexical downgraders seem to be acquired earlier than syntactic downgraders, and external modifiers can be assigned to four main groups: the first group contains supportive moves that had already been acquired by all the participants before the first data collection session and the remaining three groups comprise external modifiers whose first occurrence in the corpus displays a correlation with the length of stay in the target environment.

Sifianou, M. (1993). Off-record indirectness and the notion of imposition. Multilingua, 12(1), 69-80. doi:10.1515/mult.1993.12.1.69

Off-record utterances are polite ways of requesting, but encode their politeness in situationally and culturally specific ways.� Off-record requests have been largely seen as device deriving their politeness force from minimizing impositions by leaving the options open for the addressee to interpret them.� This paper presents some preliminary observations and finding which associate off-record requests with offers in familial and familiar contexts in Greek.� It is thus argued that another equally strong motivation for their employment is the opportunity they provide the addressee to offer instead of being requested.� Bearing in mind differences between the Greeks and the English concerning the variable importance attached to the notions of involvement and independence, it appears that the motivation for offering is stronger in Greek that that of non-imposition, which appears to be stronger in English.

Soler, E. A. (2008).� Learning how to request in an instructed language learning context. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) is a field of growing interest. Focussing on the speech act of requesting, the volume provides information about opportunities for pragmatic learning and how pragmatics can be integrated into instructional foreign language learning contexts. In addition, the research reported here provides methodological insights for those interested in investigating ILP from a second language acquisition perspective. The reader will also encounter some research issues worth examining in relation to pragmatic language learning. Topics include the use of assessment instruments in measuring learners' perception and production of different pragmatic issues, the long-term effects of instruction, and the effectiveness of different teaching approaches.

Taguchi, N. (2006). Analysis of appropriateness in a speech act of request in L2 English. Pragmatics, 16, 513�535.

Fifty-nine Japanese college students of English at two different proficiency levels were evaluated for their ability to produce a speech act of request in a spoken role play task. Learners’ production was analyzed quantitatively by rating performance on a six-point scale for overall appropriateness, as well as qualitatively by identifying the directness levels of the linguistic expressions used to produce requests. Results revealed a significant L2 proficiency influence on overall appropriateness, but only a marginal difference in the types of linguistic expressions used between the two proficiency groups. Moreover, grammatical and discourse control encoded in the rating scale seemed to have affected the quality of speech acts.

Takahashi, S. (1996). Pragmatic transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 189-223.

Examines the transferability of five Japanese indirect request strategies to corresponding English request contexts. The subjects were 142 Japanese male students (freshmen or sophomores) at 2 universities in Tokyo. They were divided into low and high EFL proficiency on the basis of a reading comprehension test. The subjects were used as a cross-sectional sample. The first study called for collection of request data for situations calling for low and high degrees of imposition. Questionnaires were constructed, based on previous request work in the field and a rigorous categorization of request strategies (with explicit and implicit reference to the requested act) was used (pp. 220-221). The Japanese request strategies were found to be differentially transferable. The learners' perception of transferability was influenced by their L2 proficiency to some extent, but the transferability of each L1 request strategy seemed to be determined by the interaction between the politeness and conventionality of each strategy and the degree of mitigation required in each imposition context. Both proficiency groups tended to fall back on the L1 strategy "would you please" when confronting L2 high-imposition situations. Thus learners were seen to misjudge functional equivalence relations between the L1 and L2 and project L1 form-function mappings onto L2 contexts. This suggested to the investigator that it may be necessary to explicitly teach appropriate pragmatic realization patterns in the L2.

Takahashi, S. (2001). The role of input enhancement in developing pragmatic competence. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 171-199). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Examines the effects of input enhancement on the development of English request strategies by Japanese EFL learners at a Japanese university, using four input conditions -- explicit teaching (N=27) (detailed info on requests + a composition exercise packet with J-E translation exercises, hi-lo status and social distance noted), form-comparison (N=25) (respondents to compare their utterances with those of NSs and determine differences), form-search (N=24) (comparing NNS with NS utterances, but not their own), and meaning-focused (N=31) (reading transcripts of interactions and having to answer comprehension questions addressing the content) conditions. The researcher was interested in both success at learning requests and at level of confidence. An open-ended DCT and a measure of confidence in selecting request forms were administered pre-post. Written immediate retrospective verbal report data were also collected to gain information about the subjects' conscious decisions during their request performance. The degrees of input enhancement were found to influence the acquisition of request forms, with the explicit teaching having the strongest impact, then form-comparison, form-search, and meaning-focused in that order. Explicit instruction helped develop both proficiency and confidence to a greater extent than the other three conditions. The form-search and meaning-focused conditions both failed to draw the learners' attention to the target forms in the input.

Takimoto, M. (2006). The effects of explicit feedback and form--meaning processing on the development of pragmatic proficiency in consciousness-raising tasks. System, 34(4), 601-614. doi:10.1016/j.system.2006.09.003

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, consciousness-raising instruction (the consciousness-raising task only) and consciousness-raising instruction with feedback (the consciousness-raising task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese learners of English. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on the pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests: a planned discourse completion test, a planned role-play test, an unplanned listening judgment test, and a planned acceptability judgment test. The results of data analysis indicate that the two treatment groups performed better than the control group, and that the explicit reactive feedback was not always indispensable in the consciousness-raising task.

Takimoto, M. (2006). The effects of explicit feedback on the development of pragmatic proficiency. Language Teaching Research, 10(4), 393�417. doi:10.1191/1362168806lr198oa

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, structured input instruction (a structured input task only) and structured input instruction with feedback (the structured input task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese learners of English. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on the pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests: a discourse completion test, a role-play test, a listening judgement test, and an acceptability judgement test. The results of data analysis indicate that the two treatment groups performed better than the control group, and that the explicit reactive feedback was not always indispensable in the structured input task.

Tan, K. H., & Farashaiyan, A. (2012). The effectiveness of teaching formulaic politeness strategies in making request to undergraduates in an ESL classroom.� Asian Social Science, 8(15), 189-196. doi:10.5539/ass.v8n15p189

It is widely acknowledged that the main thrust of second language (L2) teaching and learning is establishing and developing the communicative competence of learners. Especially, in recent years, the focus has shifted more towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC). As such, it is more practical that educational endeavors should be directed both towards the grammar or lexis of the target language as well as the appropriate use of these grammatical and lexical systems in a variety of situations by considering different social and contextual factors. Therefore, this study embarks on the effect of explicit instruction of formulaic politeness strategies among Malaysian undergraduates in making request. Sixty Malaysian undergraduates participated in the study. The students included two groups of intervention and control groups. The data were cumulated through three tests, namely open ended completion test, a listening test and an acceptability judgment test. Treatment or experimental group received explicit instruction with structured and problem-solving and input tasks. The comparison was made between the performance of treatment group and that of control in terms of the pre-test and post-test. The findings show that the treatment group outperformed significantly than the control group. This matter is suggestive that in this probe, explicit form-based instruction was successful for learners to comprehend and produce the English politeness strategies effectively in making request. The findings of this study will be beneficial for material developers and teachers to make use of form-focused strategies more effectively to teach second language pragmatic features to Malaysian students.

Tanaka, N. (1988). Politeness: Some problems for Japanese speakers of English. JALT Journal, 9(2), 81-102.

In this study, the politeness strategies of Australians and Japanese speakers of English are compared in two tasks involving polite requests. Four Australians and four Japanese were ''video-taped'' making the requests. Their language and the strategies they used are analyzed using the concepts of face, notice and small-talk (Brown & Levinson, 1978). �Initial and final salutations and the language of the request are also discussed. The Japanese speakers were more direct, and did not appear to be as appropriately polite as the Australians. The weaknesses in the performance of the Japanese are traced to inadequacies in the teaching of English in Japan. Some recommendations are made for the teaqhing of English for communication in Japan.

Tateyama, Y. (2009). Requesting in Japanese: The effect of instruction on JFL learners’ pragmatic competence. In N. Taguchi (Ed.), Pragmatic competence (pp. 129�166). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This study investigates the effect of instruction on the pragmatic competence of learners of Japense as a foreign language (JFL), focusing on the speech act of requests in Japanese.� Students enrolled in four fourth-semester Japanese courses at an American university participated in the study.� Two classes received expanded pragmatics instruction, while the other two received regular instruction.� Both groups were given explicit instruction in Japanese requests following the course syllabus, but each received a different instructional package.� The expanded instruction group engaged in additional consciousness raising activities, oral communicative practice with native speakers (NSs) of Japanese, and a video feedback session.� The regular instruction group closely followed the textbook lesson on making request.� They also had opportunities for oral communicative practice, but these were not related to requests.� Effect of instruction was measured through telephone message (TM) and role play (RP) tasks that involved request-making situations.� Both measures had two situational types:� one talking to a friend and the other talking to a teacher.� The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.� The results revealed a significant instructional effect in both measure as rated by Japanese NSs, although the learners performed significantly better in the RP than in the TM tasks.� No significant difference was observed between the two groups.� However, there was a tendency that the expanded instruction group made greater gains than the regular instruction group when the interlocutor was a teacher, which suggest that the instruction was effective in raising their awareness about pragmalinguistic forms that index politeness.

Tello Rueda, L. Y. (2006). An�lisis contrastivo e interling��stico de peticiones en ingl�s y espa�ol (‘Contrastive and interlinguistic analysis of requests in English and Spanish’). �kala, 11(17), 89-116.

This article presented the results of a descriptive investigation in the field of interlanguage pragmatics. It contrasted the requests formed by 10 native speakers of Spanish, by 10 native speakers of English, and by 10 EFL learners also native speakers of Spanish. Data were collected through a closed role-play, in order to analyze the direct and indirect request strategies, as well as forms of alerts and internal and external modifications used by participants in the oral production of requests. Findings showed that the three groups used many direct and indirect pragmatic strategies when requesting. More specifically, the EFL learners were the ones who used more direct pragmatic strategies, followed closely by the Spanish native speakers. Both groups tended to produce more commands in their requests. On the contrary, the English native speakers showed a tendency for using more indirect pragmatic strategies such as statements of need when requesting. In addition, this analysis showed the detection of pragmatic transfer from Spanish to English. The author asserted that this outcome was crucial for the design of methodological and curricular proposals that could contribute to offset the effect of this factor as a generator of communicative breakdowns and misunderstandings when learning a second language.

Traverso, V. (2007). Insisting: A goal-oriented or a chatting interactional practice? One aspect of Syrian service encounters. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(3), 377-398.

The study analyzed insistence as a feature of the Syrian interactional activity in service encounters. The study focused on how an interactional activity was introduced, closed, and sequentially achieved. Data were audio-recorded in diverse busy shopping districts of Damascus, Syria. They were recorded in closed settings. The selling stores included shoe shops, clothing shops, sewing shops, jewelers, cosmetics shops, and toiletry. Data were collected by the author in two parts: when she accompanied friends doing shopping and when permission was granted by the sellers to her to tape-record their business interactions. In the service encounter situations, customers usually did not take as closure-oriented the turns in which the seller asserted that the request could not be satisfied due to the unavailability of the product. On the contrary, customers kept on asking for the same product or same service while sellers kept on repeating that they were unable to comply. As the author stated, the interaction unfolded for a while in the form of “repetitive loopings” of insistence. The author contended that the insistence exchanges in service encounters seemed to aim at assuring the customer that what the seller had said was true. Thus, insistence was employed just in the case that a “single” request (without insistence) had not been sufficient for the purpose. In addition, the study also revealed that the way in which these exchanges were closed led to hypothesize that what the customer expected in performing them was a type of discourse in which the seller showed his sincerity. By interviewing native speakers about this type of interaction, the author concluded that these exchanges were somewhat a form of pleasure of chatting, and more precisely, that they were used as a device for exchange expansion. This activity was considered positive and was characterized as part of good manners by native speakers of the Damascus culture.

Turnbull, W. (2001). An appraisal of pragmatic elicitation techniques for the social psychological study of talk: The case of request refusals. Pragmatics, 11(1), 31-61.

The focus of the paper is the appropriateness of pragmatic elicitation techniques for generating talk to be used in analyses of talk and social structure. In the best pragmatic elicitation techniques (i) data are generated in situations in which researchers can manipulate variables in the testing of hypotheses, and (ii) speakers can talk freely and spontaneously without awareness that their talk is the object of study. This claim was tested in an examination of the hypothesis that more facework will occur in refusals to a High versus Low status requester. Requester status was manipulated in Oral and Written Discourse Completion, Role Play, and an Experimental elicitation technique. Support for the hypothesis was found only in the Role Play and Experimental conditions. Next, refusals generated in the above four elicitation conditions were compared to Naturally-occurring refusals. At the levels of the acts by which refusals are accomplished and the internal structure of the head act, Oral and Written DC produced anomalous and non-representative refusals. Role Play and the Experimental technique produced refusals that were very similar to Natural refusals, though Role Play refusals tended to be somewhat repetitive and long-winded. It is concluded that an Experimental technique is the preferred pragmatic elicitation technique.

Us�-Juan, E., & Mart�nez-Flor, A. (2008). Teaching learners to appropriately mitigate requests. ELT Journal, 62(4), 349-357. doi:10.1093/elt/ccm092

It is commonly recognized that, for lecturers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a university setting, the goal of their teaching is to develop learners' ability to communicate appropriately in this language. This means that teaching practices should pay attention not only to the key features of the linguistic system of English, but also to its pragmatic norms since lack of this knowledge may impede communication. Consequently, language learners need to be exposed to appropriate input in the classroom. In order to help lecturers in this task, it is the aim of this paper to present a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners' pragmatic ability when using request mitigating devices in EFL. The rationale behind the selection of this pragmatic feature is discussed in the paper together with an explanation of the proposed teaching method.

Varghese, M., & Billmyer, K. (1996). Investigating the structure of discourse completion tests. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 12(1), 39-58.

Examines the internal structure of the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and investigates the effect of systematic modification of the DCT situational prompt on subject response. The researchers found that the amount of detail in the prompt for request situations on the DCT made a significant difference in the nature of the response. The alternate prompt that they constructed for each situation had not only information on the requestive goal, social distance, and social dominance, but also the gender of the interlocutor, the role relationship, the length of acquaintance, the frequency of their interaction, whether the relationship was optional, and a description of the setting. A third prompt was the same as the second except that respondents were asked to reflect on each situation for 30 seconds before responding. The study involved 55 native speakers of American English, with 20 getting version one, 19 version two, and 16 version three randomly. They found that the head act request strategy was not affected by extra information and wait time. The respondents used conventionally indirect strategies. However, they did find that the mean length of the request act was two-to-three times greater in the second and third versions than in the first. There were no statistical differences between the latter two versions. Also, there were two-to-three times more supportive moves (e.g., an aggravating or mitigating utterance) in last two versions. There were also three times more use of alerters (i.e., warning the hearer of an upcoming speech act) in the last two versions. Their interpretation was that a typical DCT situation does not bring out the real dynamics of natural interaction between members of a group because respondents are addressing an anonymous fictional character and there is no motivation to establish or preserve a relationship.

Weizmann, E. (1989): Requestiv hints. In S. Blum-kalka, J. House, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 123-137). Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

Yates, L. & Springall, J. (2010). Soften up! Successful requests in the workplace. In D. H. Tatsuki and N.R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 67-86). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

This chapter focuses on helping adult learners of English participate in complex problematic request sequences in the workplace in situations in which power differences exist between the speakers. Requests are potentially risky because we try to get others to do things for us. Requests, whether to peers or to superiors, are challenging in one’s native language, and even more so in a foreign language because adults routinely make use of various deference, rapport-building, and softening strategies, which they may transfer from their native language and culture.

Zhang, Y. (1995). Indirectness in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 69-118). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Looks at existing theories on requestive acts in terms of their definition, scale, and relationship with politeness. According to Zhang, most of the study on indirect speech acts has been based on analysis of individual utterances by contrasting locutionary sense and illocutionary force. Zhang compared conventional indirectness (CID) strategies, utterances which are "standardized to perform particular functions which are not assigned to them in their grammatical forms," with non-conventional (NCID) strategies, utterances that are "ambiguous in either propositional content or illocutionary force or both." Zhang discussed a scale of indirectness described by Blum-Kulka in the CCSARP, which identified nine requestive strategies gathered from data from seven languages (mood derivable, performative, hedged performative, locution derivable, want statement, suggestory formula, query preparatory, strong hint, and mild hint). Both CID and NCID strategies exist in Chinese requesting, and in this chapter, Zhang looked at the relationship between directness and politeness represented by these linguistic options. Zhang displayed culture-specific conceptions, perceptions, and linguistic manifestations through a detailed description of research findings and two role plays. Based on the findings, Zhang concluded that Chinese language instruction should include a comprehensive look at indirectness for comprehension and production in oral and written communication with "sensitivity to the information embedded in the supportive moves." It should be made clear that Chinese self-denigration interwoven in many requestive acts is not a sign of weakness or gesture of hypocrisy, but is an essential part of mastering appropriate pragmatic form. In addition, students should learn linguistic strategies circumlocuting direct, flat negative responses.

Zhang, Y. (1995). Strategies in Chinese requesting. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 23-68). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Looks at the speech act of requesting in Chinese to determine how performative verbs differ in level of politeness and how that level is marked. In the introduction, Zhang stated that while requesting acts in Western cultures are generally seen as an imposition tied to the concept of individual space, in Chinese culture requests may be the sign of a good relationship and even respect. Zhang conducted a study of politeness strategies by sending a questionnaire to 30 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese who were students at various universities in the United States. In this chapter, Zhang described the specific request strategies indicated by the answers on the questionnaires (such as explicit performative, hedged performative, suggestory formula, or query prepatory, to name a few) in terms of being direct or indirect and then discussed the relationship between the level of directness and the degree of politeness. Zhang also discussed how the interaction between directness and politeness is influenced by factors such as power and familiarity between interactants, the degree of imposition, age and gender, directive goals, the requester's right to request and the level of obligation, and the likelihood of compliance. A detailed description of the statistical results is given.

Banerjee, J., & Carrell, P. L. (1988). Tuck in your shirt, you squid: Suggestions in ESL. Language Learning, 38(3), 313�364. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1988.tb00416.x

A discourse completion questionnaire consisting of 60 situations designed to elicit suggestions in English was administered to 28 native speakers of Chinese or Malay and 12 native speakers of American English. The purpose of the study was to determine what, if any, differences exist between the way adult native speakers and nonnative speakers make suggestions and what implications there may be, if any, for the ESL classroom teacher in helping students develop pragmatic competence. Situations reflected three degrees of embarrassment to addressees who were varied by familiarity and sex. Speakers provided suggestions to about 50% of the situations, natives slightly more frequently than did nonnatives; however, nonnatives were slightly more direct in their responses than were natives. All subjects provided suggestions more frequently in urgent situations and less frequently in embarrassing situations. Simple statements of fact were the most common and neutral type of suggestions made by all speakers. Although suggestions made by native and nonnative speakers were basically similar in directness and frequency, they differed in the number and type of politeness strategies used. Examples of successful strategies used by native speakers, which could be taught to ESL students using a functional approach, as well as some of the pragmatically less successful strategies used by nonnative speakers are discussed.

Jiang, X. (2006). Suggestions: What should ESL students know? System, 34(1), 36-54. doi:10.1016/j.system.2005.02.003

This paper describes the linguistic forms used to perform the speech act of suggestions in both real language and ESL textbooks. Comparisons between suggestions in two authentic settings in a corpus, professor�student interaction during office hours and student�student study groups, and six popular ESL textbooks, three old and three recent, were made to evaluate the extent to which textbook materials reflect real-life language use. Register differences between office hours and study groups demonstrate the contextual sensitivity of certain linguistic forms and the complexity of performing speech acts. Although the new generation textbooks introduce more linguistic structures for suggestions than the old generation textbooks, the discrepancies between real language use and ESL textbooks are still apparent. The author recommends that, instead of simply teaching lists of grammatical structures as decontextualized language points in monotonous drills and unnatural dialogues, ESL textbooks should include background information on appropriateness when presenting linguistic structures, provide classroom tasks drawn on naturally occurring conversations, and raise learners’ awareness of the different socio-cultural assumptions underlying various linguistic forms for the same speech act.

Koike, D. A. (1996). Transfer of pragmatic competence and suggestions in Spanish foreign language learning. In S. M. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp. 257-281). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Begins with an overview of studies about strategy transfer in foreign language learning. Koike assumes ("as does Gass," an editor of this volume) that syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and other features of grammar interact simultaneously to influence the way a learner interprets input. She stated that if there are cross-linguistic differences in cue usage, then the learner must learn "not only the appropriate cues of the target language but the strength of those cues." For example, there are many forms that suggestions can take in Spanish and English, and several of the forms are similar enough that transfer between languages is appropriate. There are some forms of suggestion, however, that are not conducive to direct transfer, because they must be expressed negatively in Spanish. (E.g., "No has pensado en leer este libro?" "Haven't you thought about reading this book?") The slight differences in linguistic form may be perceived by English speakers as almost a reproach, when the intent is merely to communicate a particular illocutionary force. There are also differences in grammatical formulation of suggestions in English as opposed to Spanish that can complicate the process of comprehension. Koike discussed some of these situations based on ideas expressed in two studies of speech acts in Spanish (Hobbs, 1990; Koike, 1994). Koike then discussed her current study which sought to examine the comprehension and reactions of English-speaking students of Spanish upon hearing negated suggestions. The participants were 114 students comprised of the following proficiency levels: 46 first-year students in intensive Spanish language classes at the beginning of the second semester; 34 second-year students at the end of their third semester; and 34 advanced students, most in their third or fourth year of university Spanish courses. The subjects were given the context for each situation and then were asked to watch a short section of a videotape of a native speaker giving a suggestion, for a total of 7 acts. (The purpose of using video- versus audiotape was to give holistic information, including facial expressions, body movements, etc.) Immediately following observation of the videotape, the informants were asked to fill out a questionnaire with three questions, as if they were responding in English or Spanish [depending on proficiency? -- this isn't clear] back to the native speaker on the videotape. Next they were asked to identify the speech act expressed, and then to reproduce it as it was expressed. Finally they were asked to evaluate the speakers in terms of degrees of aggressive/passive, rude/polite, non-communicative/communicative, strong/weak, and friendly/unfriendly, using a Likert-scale.

The results showed that all of the respondents transferred their L1 speech act knowledge in differing degrees to understand the L2 acts, with varying success. The more advanced speakers of Spanish had a much easier time comprehending forms that differed from parallel English forms, with the exception of one situation which all subjects responded incorrectly. (In this example the speaker used interrogative rather than declarative intonation which made the intent unclear.) Data showed that there was a misunderstanding of the intent of the speech act in about half of the cases for advanced students and about 60-75% of the cases for the first- and second-year students. In all of the cases, the respondents were able to say something in response to the speech acts which would have perpetuated conversation and would most likely have led to negotiation of meaning in the conversation. Overall, the advanced students displayed much greater competence in responding to the speech act of "suggestion." Koike noted that a pedagogical implication of this study is that foreign language teachers should be aware of the possibilities for miscommunication for students, even at the advanced level, so that students should be taught not only forms of making suggestions, but possible implications of different forms.

Martinez-Flor, A., & Fukuya, Y. J. (2005). The effects of instruction on learners’ production of appropriate and accurate suggestions. System, 33(3), 463-480. doi:10.1016/j.system.2005.06.007

Only a few empirical studies have explored Focus on Form in the pragmatic realm. By operationalising this theoretical construct for an implicit condition, this study examined the effects of two types of pragmatic instruction (explicit and implicit) on learning head acts and downgraders in suggestions. Eighty-one Spanish learners of English took one of the three sections of a computer science class for a 16-week university semester. During this period, an explicit group was exposed to metapragmatic information on suggestions for 12 h; an implicit group participated in pragmalinguistic input enhancement and recast activities; a control group never received equivalent instruction. All the participants engaged in e-mail and phone tasks as pre- and post-tests. The results revealed that both explicit and implicit groups had post-instructional improvements in their production of pragmatically appropriate and linguistically accurate suggestions. This study highlighted the ways input enhancement and recasts could be implemented at the pragmatic level. We concluded that coupled instruction of these two techniques is a sound option to teach suggestions to foreign language learners and finally provided a pedagogical implication.

Rintell, E. (1981). Sociolinguistics variation and pragmatic ability: A look at learners. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 27, 11-34.

Research in second-language acquisition has evolved from the study of the learner's errors in the target language to an approach emphasizing the constantly changing nature of the learner's increasing ability, comparable to children's stages of first-language development. Both of these approaches have focused on the acquisition of linguistic competence, that is, the ability to combine strings of sounds so as to produce meaningful utterances. It is the purpose of this study to examine the ways in which adult learners perform two speech acts, the request and the suggestion, with particular attention to the way their language is sensitive to aspects of the relationship between speaker and hearer. Specifically, the article looks at the variation of the level of deference conveyed by these speakers as a function of the age and sex of the addressee. The article also has chosen to look at the effect of the above variables, which anthropologists, sociologists and linguists view as being associated with varying degrees of status and familiarity, in light of some work which has confirmed that the relative status of speaker and addressee affects language choice. In light of the possibilities, the present study has been undertaken in order to determine in what ways at least one group of learners varies language in response to the contextual factors pertaining to two important aspects of the relationship between speaker and hearer.

Al Falasi, H. (2007). Just say “Thank You”: a study of compliment responses. The Linguistics Journal, 2(1), 28-42. Retrieved from http://www.linguistics-journal.com/April_2007_haf.php

This study aims at finding out whether Arabic learners of English (Emarati Females in particular) produce target-like compliment responses in English and whether pragmatic transfer can occur. Discourse completion tests (DCTs) and interviews were used to study the strategies employed when responding to compliments by native speakers (NSs) and Arabic non-native speakers (NNSs) of English. Findings suggest that Arabic (L1) expressions and strategies were sometimes transferred to English (L2). This study also indicates that Emarati female learners of English transfer some of their L1 pragmatic norms to L2 because they perceive these norms to be universal among languages rather than being language specific. It also indicates that Arabic NNSs of English have some misconceptions about NSs that affect the way they respond to their compliments. Some important cultural and pedagogical implications are discussed at the end of the paper.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Nickels, E. L. (2011). No thanks, I'm full: Raising awareness of expressions of gratitude and formulaic language. In N.R. Houck & D.H. Tatsuki (Eds.) Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation (pp. 23-40). New York: TESOL.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., Nickels, E., & Rose, M. (2008).  The influence of first language and level of development in the use of conventional expressions of thanking, apologizing, and refusing.  In M. Bowles, R. Foote, S. Perpi��n, & R. Bhatt (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 113-130).  Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

This paper explores the influence of first language and level of development on the use of conventional expressions in the realization of three speech acts, namely, expressions of gratitude, apologies, and refusals. An experimental approach reproduced the conditions for the use of conventional expressions employing a computer-delivered aural-oral discourse completion task (DCT) with timed presentation of scenarios and a recorded interlocutor to simulate turn taking in scenarios that promoted high use of conventional expressions by native speakers. Learners from four levels of proficiency representing four first language groups (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; n=108) and native speaker peers and teachers (n=49) participated in the study. Use of conventional expressions was in part mediated by first language and instructional level. The comparison of multiple L1s showed that learners of various L1s often shared production strategies. The comparison of different levels of instruction showed that learners increased their use of conventional expressions at higher levels, requiring both linguistic and sociopragmatic competence.

Coulmas, F. (1981). Poison to your soul: Thanks and apologies contrastively viewed. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Explorations in standardized communication situations and patterned speech (pp. 69-92). The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton.

The author considers thanks and apologies, and argues that a contrastively informed analysis can help to reveal typological relationships between them. He draws on materials from European languages and from Japanese. He makes the point that both thanking and apologizing are linked to the notion of indebtedness, through gratitude and regret respectively. He notes that in Japanese culture, the concept of gifts and favors focuses on the trouble they have caused the benefactor rather than the aspects which are pleasing to the recipient. So leaving a dinner in a Japanese home we might say, O-jama itashimashita 'I have intruded on you.' The response, Iie, iie, do itashimashite 'No, no, don't mention it' is a responder for both apologies and thanks. Coulmas notes that sumimasen 'thank you' or 'I'm sorry' tends to be appropriate for a host of occasions. It is noted that in Japan the smallest favor makes the receiver a debtor. Social relations create mutual responsibilities and debts. Both thanks and apologies stress obligations and interpersonal commitment. In fact, gratitude is equated with a feeling of guilt. The Japanese language has a large range of routine formulae for exhibiting sensitivity to mutual obligations, responsibilities, and moral indebtedness.

Eisenstein, M., & Bodman, J. W. (1986). 'I very appreciate': Expressions of gratitude by native and non-native speakers of American English. Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 167-185. doi:10.1093/applin/7.2.167

The researchers looked at 6 DCT situations out of 14, administered first to 56 NSs and then revised and administered to 67 NNSs from five countries. The study found native speakers to show consistent use of expressions of gratitude within specifically defined contexts, often in the form of speech act sets. For example, the thanks was accompanied by other functions such as complimenting, reassuring, expressing surprise and delight, expressing a lack of necessity or obligation. The speech act sets ranged from two to five functions. Shorter thanking episodes sometimes reflected greater social distance between the interlocutors. Longer episodes would come under conditions of social disequilibrium when the perceived need for thanking was great. Advanced nonnative English speakers had considerable difficulty adequately expressing gratitude in the target language. They found limitations at the sociopragmatic level that were severe because they created the potential for serious misunderstandings. Other problems arose at the pragmalinguistic level: divergence at the lexical and syntactic levels and inability to approximate native idioms and routines. They had the most difficulty with a situation involving a lunch treat. Almost all native speakers stated in general terms an invitation to reciprocate ("Thank you very much. Next time it's on me.") NNSs rarely said this, though some indicated in interviews afterwards that they intended to do this but felt it unnecessary and inappropriate to mention it. When this was omitted, native speakers felt the responses were incomplete or lacking the appropriate level of gratitude. The researchers were struck by the fact that the Japanese respondents had the lowest percentage of acceptable and native-like/perfect responses. The researchers speculated that they either could not find the words, were perhaps not comfortable socializing in the US, or had not had opportunities to express gratitude.

Eisenstein, M., & Bodman, J. (1995). Expressing gratitude in American English. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 64-81). NY: Oxford University Press.

The authors point out that expressing gratitude is a complex act, potentially involving both positive as well as negative feelings on the part of the giver and receiver. They note that thanks is a face-threatening act in which the speaker acknowledges a debt to the hearer � thus threatening the speaker's negative face. Thus the very nature of thanking, which can engender feelings of warmth and solidarity among interlocutors stands as well to threaten negative face (a desire to be unimpeded in one's actions). They report on four studies that they conducted on expressions of gratitude. In the first they audiotaped or wrote field notes on 50 situations in which expressions of gratitude occurred. They then prepared 14 vignettes which they had 56 NSs of American English write written responses to. These natives were found to draw from a finite pool of conventionalized expressions and ideas. In the second study, the same questionnaire was administered to 67 nonnative speakers in advanced-level ESL classes. Twenty-five of them also provided L1 responses, so that they could check on transfer from the L1. In their report of the findings, they focused on the seven situations that were problematic. The Japanese respondents were found to have a low percentage of acceptable responses. One explanation given was the lack of cultural congruity and the fact that this written DCT did not allow for nonverbal cues and prosodic features which could soften the response. In addition, they might have wanted to apologize instead, since that would be acceptable in Japanese given the indebtedness implied in an expression of gratitude in Japanese culture. In a third study, the questionnaire was administered orally to 10 NSs. They found the results almost identical to the written DCT results for NSs. In a fourth study, they set up role plays � 34 by NS pairs, 40 by NNS pairs, and 24 by NS with NNS pairs. They found that the role plays contained the same words and semantic formulas as in the written data, confirming that the written data were representative of oral language use as well. NNS role plays were 50% shorter than those of natives, most likely because they lacked the words. Also, they lacked the warm and sincere tone conveyed by NSs. NNSs sometimes lacked the expression of reciprocity that NSs gave or did not convey it in an appropriate manner. They conclude that expressing gratitude involves a complex series of interactions and encodes cultural values and customs.

Ferrara, K. (1994). Pragmatic transfer in Americans' use of Japanese thanking routines. Unpublished manuscript. Department of English, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.

Report on two studies, first an ethnographic observational one where it was found that 15 native English speakers persisted in verbal patterns established in their base culture and ignored native Japanese models with regard to apologies. She presents the American and the Japanese views as to when apologies are called for. Then she reports another study involving a discourse completion test and an attitude questionnaire given to 15 JSL faculty in residence in Japan for 2 years with one year of formal study, 7 JSL faculty back in US -- had 2 mo. of study and resided in Japan 10 months, 14 JFL who had 1 year of study and half had been to Japan, 4 J1, 7 E1. They all rated both cultures on politeness and propensity to apologize. On a DCT found that the Americans tended to use thanks where a quasi-apology form was the preferred token. When a professor is given a small gift, Americans chose to give thanks whereas Japanese would apologize for being unworthy. Naturalistic learning was found to provide a slight advantage over classroom learning of quasi-apology thanking routines. Also, awareness of the norms was seen to evolve. Conflict of a rights-oriented vs. an obligation-oriented culture. Recommendation that more overt instruction in cultural differences be offered.

Ghobadi, A., & Fahim, M. (2009). The effect of explicit teaching of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students at English language institutes. System, 37(3), 526�537. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.02.010

Since the early 1980s, researchers have established that the foreign language learners’ development of various aspects of pragmatic competence may be facilitated by the instruction of pragmatic routines and strategies in the foreign language classroom (Kasper and Rose, 2001). Consistent with this line of research this study, using conversations compared the use of explicit and implicit instruction of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic awareness. The data collected for the present study, applying a DCT (discourse completion test) and four role-plays were analyzed at two distinct levels. First using descriptive statistics the mean and SD (standard deviation) of the data collected were estimated. Then using inferential statistics and applying independent samples T-test, the researcher investigated the (dis)approval of the hypotheses proposed for the study. The results obtained from the explicit instruction group indicated that instruction had an impressively positive effect on raising students’ sociopragmatic awareness as well as their hindrance of L1 pragmalinguistic transfer to L2 (second language). Also, comparing the level of English proficiency and age of the learners involved in Rose and Connie Ng’s study to our study, it can be concluded that younger students possessing lower levels of grammatical and sociolinguistic competence in the second language need explicit instruction both on sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic preferences of the NSs (native speaker); that is, they will not be able to understand the differences between the two languages without being exposed to instructions.

Hinkel, E. (1994). Pragmatics of interaction: Expressing thanks in a second language. Applied Language Learning, 5(1), 73-91.

Reviews several cultural differences in the implications of expressing thanks, e.g., in South and East Asian languages (not including Chinese), expression of thanks implies social indebtedness that is not connoted by a thank-you in Chinese or English. In some Arabic cultures, certain forms of thanking establish a social debt while others do not. Gender differences exist as well, e.g., in Hispanic countries (75-76). Knowledge of how to say thanks in a second language does not necessarily translate into knowledge of when a statement of thanks is appropriate (73-74). To examine nonnative-speaker (NNS) use of thanking with respect to native-speaker (NS) norms in English, a study was conducted with 233 graduate and undergraduate students at Ohio State University, with 1 to 5 years of residence in the U.S. Of the sample, 199 were NNSs from Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Arabic backgrounds, in decreasing size of sub-samples. The remaining 34 comprised a native English control group (77). Data were grouped according to a taxonomy of thanking from Coulmas (1981), which gave these features of thanking: expression before or after the stimulus action had occurred, thanks for material or immaterial goods, action initiated by the benefactor or the beneficiary, and thanks that do or do not imply indebtedness (77-78). Participants were presented with 24 situations involving a fictitious fellow student, "KC," with whom participants were to imagine that they were acquainted. Each situation gave a choice of three responses that involved zero, one, or two direct expressions of thanks (78-79). Responses with one statement of thanks were omitted from the analysis; responses with either zero or two thanking statements were analyzed with Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance (W), which ranges in value from 0 (random) to 1 (high consistency/correlation).

For the response categories analyzed, W was very high: .981 and .851 (p<.001) for zero and two thanks, respectively. This indicated that each sub-sample was highly consistent in its preferred response, although it did mean that persons in different cultural sub-samples responded similarly (80). Analysis with Kendall's Tau (T), with values ranging from -1 (inversely related) to 1 (directly related), showed Chinese and English NSs to be most similar in their choice of responses, with T=.84 and T=.86 for one- and two-thanks responses, respectively (p<.01). The correlations for no other pairs of sub-samples were higher than the critical value of T=.64 (p<.05) (81-83). The results of the first analysis with Kendall's W present negative evidence for Blum-Kulka's notion of a pragmatic interlanguage that conforms to neither L1 nor L2 norms, since sub-samples are highly consistent within themselves. Rather, L1 appears to provide the basis for forming responses in the L2 in every case (83), in which case it is the rules for thanking in the L1, learned at a very early age, which predominate. Thus, NNSs who have resided in the U.S. for long periods still may not render a thank-you appropriately (83-84). The implication for teaching is that appropriate pragmatic use of thanks and other speech acts must be explicitly taught and is not acquired incidentally. This begins with making NNSs aware of the implications of their nonnative-like productions. NNSs can also learn from observing NSs offering thanks and taking note of what is said in what contexts. While the pragmatics of thanking are quite complex, their relative linguistic simplicity allows them to be presented at intermediate, as opposed to advanced, levels of language learning (84-85).

Ide, R. (1998).�‘Sorry for your kindness’: Japanese interactional ritual in public discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 29(5), 509-529. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)80006-4

Sumimasen, the object of analysis in this study, is a conventional expression of apology in Japanese that is also used to express the feeling of thanks. While many of the previous studies on the use of sumimasen attempted to explain the dual functions of the expression from a speech act point of view, this study aims to elucidate the social and metapragmatic functions of sumimasen within the larger framework of public discourse in Japan. The paper first describes seven pragmatic functions of sumimasen distinguished through ethnographic observations of discourse in public, using Goffman's notion of ‘remedial’ and ‘supportive’ interchanges (1971) as a conceptual framework. Then, the paper demonstrates that the exchange of sumimasen forms a metapragmatic ritual activity that is an anticipated, habitual behavior in public discourse in Japanese society. This argument is developed by reframing the multiple functions of sumimasen in accordance with the folk notion of aisatsu, which constitutes the ground rules of appropriate Japanese public interaction. The paper ultimately discusses how sumimasen functions not only as the expression of gratitude and apology, but also as one of the ritualized formulae used in Japanese society to facilitate public face-to-face interaction.

Intachakra, S. (2004).� Contrastive pragmatics and language teaching: Apologies and thanks in English and Thai *T.� RELC, 35(1), 37-62. doi:10.1177/003368820403500105

The assumption that native speaker usage is the sole reference point in determining the content of teaching materials has long held sway in lan guage teaching. Recently this philosophy has come to be questioned with the emergence of the notion of English as an International Language and the idea that non-native users of English are also a significant speech network (Kachru 1992), ones who need to be acknowledged in the process of curriculum planning. The present paper seeks to add to this discussion by examining how the study of cross cultural pragmatics can contribute to language teaching and curriculum development.

Kim, Y. (1994). Nihonjin jyakunensouno ‘kansya’ to ‘wabi’no aisatsuno hyougenno anketo cyousa to sono kousatsu (‘A study of the expressions of gratitude and apology in Japanese young generation: In comparison with those in older generation’). Kokugogaku Kenkyuu (The Japanese Language Review) 33, 23-33.

This study used a questionnaire to survey 20 native speakers of Japanese in their 20’s to 30’s (younger generation) in comparison with another 20 in their 50’s to 60’s (older generation) regarding their use of apologizing and thanking expressions. The frequency of the expressions and intensifiers (adverbials such as doumo, taihen, hontouni, makotoni) were analyzed in terms of: the semantic categories (apology, or thanks, although sometimes combined), magnitude of thanks and apology, and status of the interlocutors. Among the younger speakers, the prototypical expressions of thanks were variants of arigatou, whereas typical apology expressions (variants of gomen, sumanai, and moushiwake nai) were sometimes used for thanks as well. The larger the magnitude of thanks/apology was and the older the hearer was than the speaker, the more intensifiers were likely to be used and apologetic expressions were preferred (rather than pure expressions of thanks like variants of arigatou).

Kimura, K. (1994). The multiple functions of sumimasen. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 5(2), 279-302.

The article describes the functions of sumimasen, expressing both apology and thanks in everyday Japanese conversation. A database consisting of 10 hours of daily conversation was used, yielding a total of 44 tokens of sumimasen (41 uttered by women, 3 by men). The database had been collected in 1984 and consisted of audiotaped conversation between a housewife in Tokyo and people she interacted with for a week. Five functions of sumimasen were found: request marker, attention-getter, closing marker, regret marker, and gratitude marker. As a gratitude marker, "the speaker, recognizing that s/he is the cause of some trouble for the addressee, attempts to redress the threat to the addressee's face by producing sumimasen. If sumimasen is not uttered by the speaker, the addressee may feel that s/he has lost face through the imposition" (p. 287). The study also relates sumimasen to at least ten other strategies for expressing apology and to eight other ways to express gratitude in Japanese (e.g., arigatou 'thank you,' osore irimasu 'thank you so much,' and kyoushuku desu 'thank you so much.').

Kotani, M. (2002). Expressing gratitude and indebtedness: Japanese speakers use of “I’m Sorry” in English conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35(1), 39-72. doi:10.1207/S15327973RLSI35-1_2

This article describes a use of "I'm sorry" that accomplishes a function that has not been identified previously and discusses possible consequences of this use in the American English-speaking community. First, a Japanese speaker's practice of saying "I'm sorry" in a conversation with an English speaker is analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that her use of the phrase expresses her mixed feelings of gratitude and indebtedness about putting a burden on her co-interactant. Then, in-depth interviews are analyzed to explore English speakers 'cultural knowledge regarding the use of the phrase and compare it with Japanese speakers 'knowledge. Because English speakers 'central assumption (consistency between words and feelings)and culturally salient meaning (admitting responsibility)of "I'm sorry" are different from those of Japanese speakers (discrepancy and acknowledging the suffering, respectively),English speakers may interpret the use of "I'm sorry" that does not reflect the speaker's feeling of responsibility in serious situations as being "insincere."

Kumatoridani, T. (1999). Alternation and co-occurrence in Japanese thanks. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 623-642.

The paper compares usages and functions of two Japanese apologizing and thanking expressions, sumimasen and arigatou, based on: 1) 140 collected interchanges including naturally occurring gratitude and apology exchanges; 2) findings from the questionnaire give to 189 native speakers of Japanese; and 3) his own native speaker intuition. Although sumimasen can replace the gratitude expression arigatoo, the two are not completely interchangeable. The author first accounts for the applicability of alternation, and discusses the more formal and thus polite nature of sumimasen as an expression of gratitude. The use of sumimasen as a gratitude expression occurs as a result of a shift in the focus (‘empathy operation’) from the speaker’s to the hearer’s perspective. This shift is considered a conventionalized strategic device to repair the politeness imbalance between the interlocutors. However, the use of sumimasen tends to be appropriate only in expressing acceptance of the offer combined with gratitude and not refusal, whereas arigatoo can be used for both acceptance and refusal of the offer. Use of sumimasen is also inappropriate in response to ‘affective’ speech acts such as congratulations, condolences, compliments, and encouragement. Finally, the author explains the sequential preference in using the two expressions in a single event (sumimasen first, and then arigatoo). While sumimasen functions to repair imbalance locally, arigatoo has dual functions both to repair imbalance and to close a conversation.

Miyake, K. (1994). "Wabi" igaide tsukawareru wabi hyogen: Sono tayoukatno jittaito uchi, soto, yosono kankei (‘Formulaic apologies in non-apologetic situations: A data analysis and its relation with the concept of uchi-soto-yoso’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 82, 134-146.

This is a questionnaire study reporting the occasions in which apologies like sumimasen are likely to be used (as well as non-apologetic occasions in which apologies are used) and the effects of social variables on such occasions. English and Japanese questionnaires were given to 101 British and 122 Japanese participants respectively. The questionnaire presented 36 situations that elicited expressions of gratitude and/or apologies. Closeness and status of the interlocutors, and severity of the offense/indebtedness (benefits and losses) were manipulated in those situations. The participants first wrote down the responses they were likely to give (most like in speaking, although this is not specified in the article) and indicated on a 5-point scale what their feelings would be (strong gratitude/slight gratitude/neutral feeling neither gratitude nor apology/slight apology/strong apology/others). The paper reports only the idiomatic expressions found in the data, excluding additional expressions. Major findings: 1) the language forms for apology expressions (e.g., sumimasen) in Japanese are used not just to express apology but also gratitude; the Japanese form for apology can co-occur with the form for thanking (arigatou) where both are intended as part of an apology (thanking apologetically), and as a way of phatic communication (like greetings); 2) Japanese speakers tend to feel apologetic in more situations than British English speakers; 3) Japanese speakers tend to feel the more apologetic when their feeling of indebtedness is greater. However, apologies are often employed when the hearer is relatively older in age and in a soto‘outside’ relationship (e.g., an academic advisor), as opposed to uchi ‘inside’ and yoso ‘somewhere else.’

Moriyama, T. (1999). Oreito owabi: Kankei syufukuno sisutemu toshite (‘Gratutude and apologies: A system of repair’). Kokubungaku: Kaishakuto kyouzaino kenkyu (Japanese Literature: Interpretation and Material development), 44(6), 78-82.

This article is an essay on gratitude and apology expressions in Japanese as a repair strategy in interpersonal communication. The motive for both gratitude and apologies is caused by a psychological imbalance (or a sense of indebtedness) between the speaker and the hearer. Expressions of gratitude and apologies both attempt to adjust that imbalance. An expression of gratitude repairs the sense of imbalance accompanied by a certain benefit on the part of the speaker offered by the hearer. Apologies also repair the offense caused by the speaker. Section 1: conceptual understanding of gratitude and apologies. Section 2: analysis of various expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 3: sumimasen as an expression of gratitude. Section 4: responses to expressions of gratitude and apologies. Section 5: phatic greeting expressions including gokuro sama, otsukare sama, omedetou.

Nakata, T. (1989). Hatsuwa kouitoshiteno chinshato kansha: Nichiei hikaku (‘Apology and Thanks in Japanese and English’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 68, 191-203.

This study compares English and Japanese apologies and thanks collected in movie and TV drama scenarios (400 apologies and 400 thanks in English and Japanese each). Major differences between the two languages: 1) Japanese were more likely to thank for voluntary assistance offered by the hearer; 2) Japanese more often apologized for someone close to themselves than English speakers; 3) Japanese thanking expressions included versatile expressions like sumimasen that can be used both for apologies and thanks.

Ogawa, H. (1995). Kansha to wabino teishiki hyougen: Bogowashano shiyou jitttaino cyousa karano bunseki (‘A study of Japanese formulaic thanks and apologies: A data analysis of the use by Japanese native speakers’). Nihongo Kyouiku (Journal of Japanese Language Teaching), 85, 38-52.

This paper investigates formulaic expressions of gratitude, which includes not only the variants of arigatou but also those that can also convey apology (such as sumimasen). Utilizing a questionnaire containing 19 thanking and 9 apologizing situations, this study surveyed native speakers in their 20’s to 80’s to reveal their usage of formulaic expressions of thanks and apology. The informants were 221 females and 51 males of similar educational backgrounds who spoke the standard variety of Japanese. The variables manipulated in the survey were high/low status, in-group/out-group, and closeness/distance. The findings suggest that the use of sumimasen is not suitable for all thanking situations. Whereas in this study the younger generation of speakers used sumimasen to express slight thanks or apology to someone older and/or in out-group (soto such as strangers), the older generation used it to friends or those younger than themselves. Younger speakers used more formal apology expressions (such as moushiwake arimasen) with someone older (and higher in status) for a major infraction, since sumimasen was used to express relatively slight thanks and minor apology.

Ohashi, J. (2008). Linguistic rituals for thanking in Japanese: Balancing obligations. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(12), 2150-2174.

This study examined a Japanese cultural way of thanking, o-rei,that implied a verbal symbolic repayment of debt. A total of 56 naturally occurring telephone conversations in Japanese were collected. From this data, 28 segments that referred to a favor or gift given or received were extracted and transcribed for analysis. Three households participating were asked to record their telephone conversation in a gift-giving-season. The 28 segments involved 20 Japanese native speakers: 13 females and 7 males between 30 and 75 years-old. The study indicated that conversational participants cooperated to achieve a mutual pragmatic goal of ‘debt-credit’ equilibrium. In addition, the study suggested that among people outside of a family circle, the linguistic ritual of o-rei served to achieve this temporary restoration of equilibrium. It was characterized by the beneficiary’s explicit marking of imbalance and by the benefactor’s denigration of credit. The prolongation of such conversational exchanges was another important characteristic that highlighted the relevance of the mutual involvement of conversational participants in understanding the social meaning of o-rei. The data demonstrated that the different means used to indicate o-rei such as benefactive verbs, apology speech formulae, and debt-sensitive conversational formulae were not predicted by most politeness and speech act theories. Outside a family circle, o-rei was used as a symbolic repayment of debt. Within a family circle participants did not verbalize o-rei to restore credit-imbalance but they engaged in ‘complimenting-gladness’ sequences. The author questioned the adequacy of the definition of thanking, ‘expressions of gratitude and appreciation’, which had been commonly used in cross-cultural and inter-language pragmatic research, and suggested that the mutual and reciprocal aspects needed to be taken into account.

Ozdemir, C., & Rezvani S. A. (2010). Interlanguage pragmatics in action: Use of expressions of gratitude. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 3, 194-202. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.032

This study examined non-native speakers’ production of speech acts of gratitude in an EFL context, specifically how Turkish and Iranian advanced speakers of English expressed gratitude in terms of strategy use and length of speech. The results of the study revealed that both Turkish and Iranian speakers of English employed most frequently similar strategies for expressing gratitude; however their length of speech was somewhat different.

Schauer, G. A., & Adolphs, S. (2006). Expressions of gratitude in corpus and DCT data: Vocabulary, formulaic sequences, and pedagogy. System, 34(1), 119-134.

The study analyzed the similarities and differences between a discourse completion task (DCT) and corpus data. The study aimed to examine: (a) to what degree DCT and corpus data yielded similar results in regard to formulaic sequences used by native speakers and (b) how variations in the findings of both data sets could provide justifications for using both instruments in conjunction to inform teaching materials. Participants included16 English native speakers studying at the University of Nottingham. The authors contrasted their expressions of gratitude elicited by a DCT (with 8 vignettes, based on Eisenstein and Bodman’s 1986 questionnaire) with those found in a five-million-word corpus of spoken English (Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English). In addition, they examined the advantages and disadvantages of both data sets with regard to the language-teaching context. The authors reported that the main difference between the two resources was related to the point at which categorization took place. The DCT’s categories informed the instrument while in the case of the corpus, the data often tended to inform the categories. Also, the investigation of expressions of gratitude in the DCT and corpus data revealed that the data elicited with the discourse completion task contained a great variety of interactional formulaic sequence categories that could be linked to a controlled contextual environment, while the corpus data provided detailed insights into additional situational thanking contexts and the use of expressions of gratitude over several conversational turns. Based on these findings, the authors suggested that a combination of both instruments might aid the teaching of formulaic sequences in the classroom. The corpus added some features picked up in interactional data, such as the use of "cheers" as a response to an expression of gratitude in British English. Also the corpus data showed the use of thanks over several turns. The authors noted that the use of the corpus involved searching a tagged corpus for the relevant part of speech information of the sequence identified in the DCT data. The six categories of thanking revealed by DCTs were: thanking + complimenting interlocutor, stating reason (numerous cases in corpus), confirming interlocutor’s commitment (not in corpus data), stating intent to reciprocate (not in corpus data), stating interlocutor’s non-existent obligation (not in corpus data), refusing (most frequent in corpus data). The advantages for DCTs were: (1) wide range of interactional formulaic sequences that it provided, and (2) raising awareness as to recent changes in word meanings and use in formulaic sequences, such as "wicked" in a positive sense. Similarly, the advantages found for the corpus data were that they allowed: (1) a broader picture, (2) repeated picture of collaborative negotiation of the expression of gratitude, and (3) the predominance of extended turns.

Bouton, L. (1988). A cross-cultural study of ability to interpret implicatures in English. World Englishes, 17(2), 183-196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1988.tb00230.x

The purpose of this study was to investigate two questions: (1) to what extent does a person's cultural background affect his or her ability to derive the same meanings from conversational implicatures in English as native English-speaking Americans do, and (2) can a specially designed multiple-choice test measure a person's ability to interpret these implicatures? The results show clearly that cultural background is a reliable predictor of nonnative speaker (NNS) ability to interpret implicatures the way native speakers (NSs) do. Not only do NNSs infer different meanings from implicatures than NSs do, but culturally defined subsets of NNSs also perform differently from each other. When variations in English language proficiency are controlled for, the effects of cultural background as measured by a one-way ANOVA were significant at the 0.0001 level [F(6,323 = 23.83, p < 0.0001]. All of these data were gathered using a multiple-choice test, which indicates that the answer to our second question cited above is a definite ‘Yes”.

Bouton, L. F. (1990). The effective use of implicature in English: Why and how it should be taught in the ESL classroom. In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning, (Vol 1, pp. 43-51). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

Bouton, L. F. (1992). The interpretation of implicature in English by NNS: Does it come automatically--without being explicitly taught? In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning, (Vol. 3, pp. 53-65). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

A 1991 study investigated the extent to which living in the United States and communicating daily in English provided students of English as a Second Language (ESL) with skills in interpreting implicature. Subjects were 30 students tested in a 1986 study of ESL implicature who were retested with a battery of four tests: structure; cloze; dictation; and a measure designed specifically to test ability to interpret implicatures in English. Analysis of changes in scores from the early to the later testing showed improvement in implicature interpretation, but the skills still differed significantly from those of native speakers. Improvement was noted particularly in items in which knowledge of American culture was important and those in which understated criticism was a basis for the implicature.

Bouton, L. F. (1994). Can NNS skill in interpreting implicatures in American English be improved through explicit instruction? A pilot study. In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning, (Vol. 5, pp. 88-109). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

An ongoing series of studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign concerning cross-cultural interpretation of implicature in conversation is discussed. Implicature is defined as the process of making inferences about the meaning of an utterance in the context in which it occurs. The studies focus on non-native speakers' (NNSs') interpretation of implicatures in American English. The first two studies, in 1986-91 (n=436 NNSs) and 1990-93 (n=304 NNSs), found that NNSs can develop a high level of proficiency in interpreting implicatures if given enough time, and that the amount of time required depends on implicature type, formulaic or relatively non-formulaic. The third study (1993) with 14 international students in an academic English course investigated whether classroom instruction on specific rules and patterns of implicature could speed acquisition of interpreting skills. Results suggest that formal instruction can be effective when focused on the more formulaic implicatures, while the less formulaic forms were as resistant to formal instruction as they appeared to be, in earlier research, to natural learning processes occurring in the American academic environment. Contains 11 references.

Bouton, L. F. (1994). Conversational implicature in the second language: Learned slowly when not deliberately taught. Journal of Pragmatics, 22(2), 157-67. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(94)90065-5

The importance of conversational implicature (Grice, 1975) in expressing a message indirectly is well established. Yet Keenan (1976) has shown that members of different cultures derive different implicatures from the same utterance in essentially the same context, and Bouton (1988) found that even reasonably proficient nonnative speakers (NNS) of English (average TOEFL score = 550) interpret implicatures differently from American native speakers (NS) 21% of the time. Yet relatively few examples of implicature appear in ESL textbooks and few of those are dealt with directly (Bouton, 1990). These facts, then, suggest that little attempt is made in the ESL/EFL classroom to make learners aware of implicature as a tool of communication or to give them practice at using it in English. And this raises a question: can NNS learn to use implicature with little or no direct instruction. To investigate this question, two groups of international students at an American university who had been tested with regard to their ability to interpret implicatures when they first arrived on campus were tested again 18 and 54 months later, respectively. This paper reports on their progress in regard both to the overall set of implicatures and to various specific types identified during the original study.

Garcia, P. (2004). Pragmatic comprehension of high and low level language learners.� TESL-EJ, 8(2), 1-15. [Available online]

This study compares the performances of 16 advanced and 19 beginning English language learners on a listening comprehension task that focused on linguistic and pragmatic processing. Processing pragmatic meaning differs from processing linguistic meaning because pragmatic meaning requires the listener to understand not only linguistic information, such as vocabulary and syntax, but also contextual information, such as the role and status of the interlocutor (Rost, 2002). The study used a theoretical framework of pragmatic processing (Thomas, 1995) that included the comprehension of speech acts, in which the speaker tries to do something or get the hearer to do something (Searle, 1969), and conversational implicatures, in which the speaker expresses attitudes and feelings using indirect utterances that must be inferred by the hearer (Grice, 1975). T-test results indicate developmental differences in comprehension of pragmatic meaning. Pearson correlation results support construct differences between linguistic and pragmatic comprehension, and between the comprehension of speech acts and the comprehension of implicatures.

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol.3, pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.

Keenan, E. O. (1976). The universality of conversational implicature. Language in Society, 5(1), 67-80.

Grice's analysis of conversational maxims and implicatures is examined in the light of Malagasy language and ways of speaking. A cultural contrast in primary assumptions is described. Grician analysis retains usefulness but within the perspective of a comparative typology in which locally valid systems may differ strikingly in what is marked and unmarked. An ethnographic base and ethnological comparison are required. The situation some-what resembles the situation with regard to grammatical categories addressed by Boas (1911) and Sapir (1921).

Kubota, M. (1995). Teachability of conversational implicature to Japanese EFL learners. IRLT Bulletin, 9, 35-67. [Available online]

As teaching pragmatic competence is considered to be one of the neglected aspects in English language teaching in Japan, this paper investigates the teaching of conversational English implicature of 126 Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) learners. University student participants were divided into three groups and given a multiple choice test and a sentence-combining test. In one group, the explanations of rules were given by a teacher; in the second, consciousness-raising tasks evolved from group discussion. The third group was a control. All subjects received a pre-test and two post-tests. Results indicate that experimental groups generated significantly better responses. In addition, no subjects extracted the expected pragmatic generalizations from the treatment that they were applying to the new items. Also, the conscious-raising groups performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test, and they had significantly higher scores in the guessing of items on the first post-test than the pre-test. Results confirm that teaching conversational implicature through explicit explanations of rules and consciousness-raising tasks is highly facilitative, amount of time and exposure to the pragmatic system may be a crucial factor to induction, and it may be advantageous for learners to process language on their own through consciousness-raising tasks.

Panther, K.-U., & Thornburg, L. L. (Eds.). (2003). Metonymy and pragmatic inferencing. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

In recent years, conceptual metonymy has been recognized as a cognitive phenomenon that is as fundamental as metaphor for reasoning and the construction of meaning. The thoroughly revised chapters in the present volume originated as presentations in a workshop organized by the editors for the 7th International Pragmatics Conference held in Budapest in 2000. They constitute, according to an anonymous reviewer, "an interesting contribution to both cognitive linguistics and pragmatics." The contributions aim to bridge the gap, and encourage discussion, between cognitive linguists and scholars working in a pragmatic framework. Topics include the metonymic basis of explicature and implicature, the role of metonymically-based inferences in speech act and discourse interpretation, the pragmatic meaning of grammatical constructions, the impact of metonymic mappings on and their interaction with grammatical structure, the role of metonymic inferencing and implicature in linguistic change, and the comparison of metonymic principles across languages and different cultural settings.

Taguchi, N. (2005). Comprehending implied meaning in English as a foreign language. Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 543�562. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00329.x

This study investigated whether second language (L2) proficiency affects pragmatic comprehension, namely the ability to comprehend implied meaning in spoken dialogues, in terms of accuracy and speed of comprehension. Participants included 46 native English speakers at a U.S. university and 160 Japanese students of English in a college in japan who were at different L2 proficiency levels. They took a 38-item computerized listening task measuring their ability to comprehend conversational implicatures of different types (i.e., 2 sets of items in different degrees of conventionality). The participants' comprehension was analyzed in terms of accuracy (i.e., test scores on a multiple choice measure) and comprehension speed (i.e., average time in seconds taken to answer each item correctly). The results revealed a significant L2 proficiency influence on accuracy, but not on comprehension speed. There was no significant relationship between accuracy and comprehension speed. A post hoc analysis of error data revealed a short-term memory influence on comprehension accuracy for L2 learners. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in “interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Longman Group.

This introduction considers the development of pragmatics as a subject, drawing attention to problems in the early work, and bringing the reader up to date with a discussion of current issues. Basic concepts are covered in considerable detail and the theoretical points are illustrated with examples taken from the media, fiction and real-life interactions. Jenny Thomas focuses on the central roles of both speaker and hearer in the construction of meaning and takes account of both social and psychological factors in the generation and interpretation of utterances. 1. What is pragmatics? 2. Speech acts 3. Conversational implicature 4. Approaches to pragmatics 5. Pragmatics and indirectness 6. Theories of politeness 7. The construction of meaning

Adolphs, S., & Durow, V. (2004). Social-cultural integration and the development of formulaic sequences. In N. Schmitt (Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 107�126). Amsterdam : John Benjamins

Aijmer, K. (1996) Conversational routines in English: Convention and creativity. London: Longman.

It is surprising how much of everyday conversation consists of repetitive expressions such as 'thank you', 'sorry', would you mind?' and their many variants. However commonplace they may be, they do have important functions in communication. This thorough study draws upon original data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English to provide a discoursal and pragmatic account of the more common expressions found in conversational routines, such as apologising, thanking, requesting and offering. The routines studied in this book range from conventionalized or idiomatized phrases to those which can be generated by grammar. Examples have been taken from face-to-face conversations, radio discussions and telephone conversations, and transcription has been based upon the prosodic system of Crystal (1989). An extensive introduction provides the theory and methodology for the book and discusses the criteria for fixedness, grammatical analysis, and pragmatic functions of conversational routines which are later applied to the phrases. Following chapters deal specifically with phrases for thanking, apologising, indirect requests, and discourse-organising markers for conversational routines, on the basis of empirical investigation of the data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2006). On the role of formulas in the acquisition of L2 pragmatics. K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. F�lix-Brasdefer, & A. S. Omar, (Eds.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, (Vol. 11, pp. 1-28). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2007). Recognition and production of formulas in L2 pragmatics. In Z. Han (Ed.), Understanding Second Language Process (Vol. 25, pp. 205-222). Multilingual Matters: Clevedon, England.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2009). Conventional expressions as a pragmalinguistic resource: Recognition and production of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Language Learning, 59(4), 755�795. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00525.x

This study investigates the source of second language (L2) learners’ low use of conventional expressions�one part of pragmalinguistic competence�by investigating the relationship between recognition and production of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Two tasks�an aural recognition task and an oral production task�were completed by 122 learners of English as a second language with mixed-language backgrounds and 49 native speakers of English divided among peers and teachers. The aural recognition task presented 60 expressions to which participants responded with one of three levels of self-assessed familiarity, operationalized as an estimate of how often they hear a given expression (I often/sometimes/never hear this). The computer-delivered production task included 32 scenarios to which participants responded orally. Results show that recognition of conventional expressions is a necessary condition for production but not sufficient. Lower use of conventional expressions by learners may have multiple sources: lack of familiarity with some expressions; overuse of familiar expressions, which subsequently reduces the opportunity to use more target-like expressions; level of development; and sociopragmatic knowledge.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2010). Recognition of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. In G. Kasper, H. T. Nguyen, D. R. Yoshimi, & J. K. Yoshioka (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 12, pp. 141-162). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2011). Assessing familiarity with pragmatic formulas: Planning oral/aural assessment. In N. R. Houck & D. H. Tatsuki (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation (pp. 7-22). New York: TESOL.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2012). Formulas, routines, and conventional expressions in pragmatics research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32, 206�227. doi:10.1017/S0267190512000086

This article reviews the recent research on formulaic language in pragmatics from three perspectives: foundational issues, recurrent research questions, and the populations studied. Examination of foundational issues, including definitions and operationalization of the concept of formula in pragmatics, shows the way in which pragmatics understands formulaic language and what it contributes to the study of formulaic language, namely, a strong sense of social contract. Recurrent themes in contemporary investigations include how formulas are used in general and in specific contexts, determining how extensive the use of formulas is, attitudes toward formulas, acquisition of formulas in second language (L2) pragmatics, and formulas in pragmatics pedagogy. The third section reviews pragmatic research according to language community, defined for the purposes of this review as first language (L1; native-speaker communities), L2, cross-cultural comparisons, indigenized varieties, and lingua franca communities. The investigation of formula use by different communities addresses questions of the particular and the universal in formula use and the importance of community and community membership.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Bastos, M.-T. (2011). Proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of interaction and the acquisition of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Intercultural Pragmatics, 8(3), 347�384. doi:10.1515/iprg.2011.017

This study investigates the contribution of proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of interaction to the recognition and use of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics by host-environment learners of English. An aural recognition task and an oral production task targeting conventional expressions were completed by 122 learners and 49 native speakers of American English via two computer-delivered tasks: The aural recognition task consisted of 60 conventional and modified expressions, and the oral production task consisted of 32 scenarios pretested to yield conventional expressions (Bardovi-Harlig, Language Learning 59: 755�795, 2009). Proficiency was determined by scores on a 3.5-hour, four-part placement exam, yielding four low-intermediate to low-advanced levels. Length of stay in the host environment was measured in months. Intensity of interaction was measured by self-report of weekly English language use outside class with native speakers, daily use with other learners, and television viewing. A repeated measures logistic regression model showed significant influence of intensity of interaction on recognition of conventional expressions. A separate repeated measures logistic regression model showed that both proficiency and intensity of interaction have a significant influence in the production of conventional expressions. Length of stay did not have a significant effect on either recognition or production.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Nickels, E. L. (2011). No thanks, I'm full: Raising awareness of expressions of gratitude and formulaic language. In N. R. Houck & D. H. Tatsuki (Eds.) Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation (pp. 23-40). New York: TESOL.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., Nickels, E., & Rose, M. (2008).  The influence of first language and level of development in the use of conventional expressions of thanking, apologizing, and refusing.  In M. Bowles, R. Foote, S. Perpi��n, & R. Bhatt (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 113-130).  Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

This paper explores the influence of first language and level of development on the use of conventional expressions in the realization of three speech acts, namely, expressions of gratitude, apologies, and refusals. An experimental approach reproduced the conditions for the use of conventional expressions employing a computer-delivered aural-oral discourse completion task (DCT) with timed presentation of scenarios and a recorded interlocutor to simulate turn taking in scenarios that promoted high use of conventional expressions by native speakers. Learners from four levels of proficiency representing four first language groups (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; n=108) and native speaker peers and teachers (n=49) participated in the study. Use of conventional expressions was in part mediated by first language and instructional level. The comparison of multiple L1s showed that learners of various L1s often shared production strategies. The comparison of different levels of instruction showed that learners increased their use of conventional expressions at higher levels, requiring both linguistic and sociopragmatic competence.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Salsbury, T. (2004). The organization of turns in the disagreements of L2 learners: A longitudinal perspective. In D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen (Eds.) Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 199-227). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

This chapter reports on the development of oppositional talk in L2 English conversation.� In oppositional talk, speakers express opposing views.� Oppositinal talk in American English includes, disagreements, challenges, denials, accusations, threats, and insults.� In this chapter, we analyze the sequence and structure of turns in disagreements, following Pomeranz’s (1984) analysis.� The disagreements were colleted during a one-year longitudinal study of 12 learners of English as a second language as they interacted wth native speakers during conversational interviews.� Whereas most learners started the study with direct disagreements, all of the learners elaborated their disagreements as time passed.� Learners elaborated disagreements in at least four ways:� they increased the amount of talk, included agreement to later positions in their initial turns, and used multiple turn structure to potentially avoid disagreement.� Only through the studying of speaking the development of turns be understood.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Vellenga, H. E. (2012). The effect of instruction on conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. System, 40(1), 77-89. doi:10.1016/j.system.2012.01.004

This study investigates the effects of instruction (input plus focused metapragmatic noticing) on the oral production of conventional expressions, particularly those conventional expressions which perform specific pragmatic functions in English. Using a pre-test�instruction�post-test design we tested 36 university-level students in six intact intensive English classes in order to determine whether guided metapragmatic noticing activities help learners increase oral production of targeted conventional expressions and whether such gains (if they are realized) can be generalized to other conventional expressions. Students were divided into two groups of three classes each; the two groups received instruction on a different set of expressions. Results showed that both instructional groups showed significant gains on one set of conventional expressions but not another, suggesting that learning conventional expressions is sensitive to instruction but also constrained by the transparency of the expression and the learners’ level of linguistic development.

Conklin, K., & Schmitt, N. (2008). Formulaic sequences: Are they processed more quickly than nonformulaic language by native and nonnative speakers? Applied Linguistics, 29(1), 72-89. doi:10.1093/applin/amm022

It is generally accepted that formulaic sequences like take the bull by the horns serve an important function in discourse and are widespread in language. It is also generally believed that these sequences are processed more efficiently because single memorized units, even though they are composed of a sequence of individual words, can be processed more quickly and easily than the same sequences of words which are generated creatively (Pawley and Syder 1983). We investigated the hypothesized processing advantage for formulaic sequences by comparing reading times for formulaic sequences versus matched nonformulaic phrases for native and nonnative speakers. It was found that the formulaic sequences were read more quickly than the nonformulaic phrases by both groups of participants. This result supports the assertion that formulaic sequences have a processing advantage over creatively generated language. Interestingly, this processing advantage was in place regardless of whether the formulaic sequences were used idiomatically or literally (e.g. take the bull by the horns = ‘attack a problem’ vs. ‘wrestle an animal’). The fact that the results also held for nonnatives indicates that it is possible for learners to enjoy the same type of processing advantage as natives.

Coulmas, F. (1979). On the sociolinguistic relevance of routine formulae. Journal of Pragmatics, 3(3-4), 239-66. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(79)90033-X

Routine formulae are expressions whose occurrence is closely tied to types of recurrent social situations. In providing the verbal means for mastering such situations in a generally accepted manner, they carry a great deal of social meaning. It is argued in the present paper that the pragmatic conditions for their appropriate usage as well as their communicative functions can only be explicated in terms of cognitive systems of beliefs, wants, wishes, preferences, norms, and values. The problem of translation of routine formulae is discussed, and it is demonstrated that a proper analysis can only be reached on the basis of a contrastive pragmatic approach. An attempt is made at explaining in what sense routine formulae are typical of a given sociocultural system.

Coulmas, F. (1981). Conversational routine: Explorations in standardised communication situations and prepatterned speech. The Hague: Mouton.

Fraser, B. (1981). On apologizing. In: F. Coulmas, (Ed.). Conversational routine: Explorations in standardised communication situations and prepatterned speech (259-271).The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter.

Ghobadi, A., & Fahim, M. (2009). The effect of explicit teaching of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students at English language institutes. System, 37(3), 526�537. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.02.010

Since the early 1980s, researchers have established that the foreign language learners’ development of various aspects of pragmatic competence may be facilitated by the instruction of pragmatic routines and strategies in the foreign language classroom (Kasper and Rose, 2001). Consistent with this line of research this study, using conversations compared the use of explicit and implicit instruction of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic awareness. The data collected for the present study, applying a DCT (discourse completion test) and four role-plays were analyzed at two distinct levels. First using descriptive statistics the mean and SD (standard deviation) of the data collected were estimated. Then using inferential statistics and applying independent samples T-test, the researcher investigated the (dis)approval of the hypotheses proposed for the study. The results obtained from the explicit instruction group indicated that instruction had an impressively positive effect on raising students’ sociopragmatic awareness as well as their hindrance of L1 pragmalinguistic transfer to L2 (second language). Also, comparing the level of English proficiency and age of the learners involved in Rose and Connie Ng’s study to our study, it can be concluded that younger students possessing lower levels of grammatical and sociolinguistic competence in the second language need explicit instruction both on sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic preferences of the NSs (native speaker); that is, they will not be able to understand the differences between the two languages without being exposed to instructions.

Gibbs, R. W., & Mueller, R. A. G. (1988). Conversational sequences and preference for indirect speech acts. Discourse Processes, 11(1), 101-116. doi:10.1080/01638538809544693

Two experiments are reported examining people's preferences for indirect speech acts in making requests in conversation. We investigated the effect of pre-requests (e.g., “Do you sell Marlboros?”) which prepares the addressee for an upcoming request, (e.g., “I'll take two packs”). We hypothesized that pre-requests function to remove any obstacles to compliance for the addressee and predicted that speakers would produce different kinds of request forms in situations where a pre-request has been made than in contexts where pre-requests were not present. The results of Experiment 1 showed this to be true for both service encounters and detour situations where a speaker must interrupt the ongoing activities of the addressee to insert the request. In Experiment 2 subjects read and ranked different conversational sequences used in making indirect requests. The data indicated that in both service encounters and detour situations subjects most prefer conversations where the addressee in tum offers to fulfill the request implicit in the speaker's pre-request. Overall, these studies highlight the influence of conversational organization on people's linguistic behavior in making indirect speech acts in different social situations.

Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and compliment responses: Grammatical structure and sequential organization. London: John Benjamins.

This book analyzes compliments and compliment responses in naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in German. Using Conversation Analytic methodology, it views complimenting and responding to compliments as social actions which are co-produced and negotiated among interactants. This study is the first to analyze the entire complimenting sequence within the larger interactional context, thereby demonstrating the interconnectedness of sequence organization, turn-design, and (varying) function(s) of a turn. In this regard, the present study makes a novel contribution to the study of talk-in-interaction beyond German. The book adds to existing work on interaction and grammar by closely analyzing the functions of linguistic resources used to design compliment turns and compliment responses. Here, the study extends previous Conversation Analytic work on person reference by including an analysis of inanimate object reference. Lastly, the book discusses the use and function of various particles and demonstrates how speaker alignments and misalignments are accomplished through various grammatical forms.

House, J. (1996). Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language: Routines and metapragmatic awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 225-252. doi:10.1017/S0272263100014893.

This study explores whether pragmatic fluency can best be acquired in the classroom by provision of input and opportunity for communicative practice alone, or whether learners profit more when additional explicit instruction in the use of conversational routines is provided. It is hypothesized that such instruction raises learners' awareness of the functions and contextual distributions of routines, enabling them to become more pragmatically fluent. Two versions of a communication course taught to advanced German learners of English for 14 weeks are examined, one version providing explicit metapragmatic information, the other withholding it. Samples of tape-recorded conversations at various stages of the courses are used to assess how students' pragmatic fluency developed and whether and how the development of fluency benefits from metapragmatic awareness.

Jiang, N., & Nekrasova, T. (2007). The processing of formulaic sequences by second language speakers. Modern Language Journal, 91(3), 433-445. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00589.x

A study examined second language speakers' processing of formulaic sequences. Participants in a first experiment were 40 native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English mostly studying at Georgia State University, and participants in a second experiment were 44 NSs and NNSs of English at U.S. and Chinese universities. Results revealed that both NSs and NNSs responded to formulaic sequences significantly quicker and with less errors than to nonformulaic controls.

Jones, M., & Haywood, S. (2004). Facilitating the acquisition of formulaic sequences: An exploratory study in an EAP context. In Schmitt, N. (Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 269-300). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Kasper, G., & Kim, Y. (2007). Handling sequentially inapposite responses. In H. Zhu, P. Seedhouse, L.Wei, & V. Cook (Eds.), Language learning and teaching as social interaction (pp. 22-41). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. [Available online]

Miller, S. (2000). Speech acts and conventions. Language Sciences, 22(2), 155-166. doi:10.1016/S0388-0001(99)00010-8

In this paper I take up one of the main unresolved questions that arises from J.L. Austin’s work, namely, the the question of the conventionality of speech acts. I argue that the evidence is against the existence of essentially conventional speech acts.

Nattinger, J. R. & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Recent second language acquisition research is used here to present a language teaching programme based on the use of 'prefabricated language'. The authors show that the unit of language they term the 'lexical phrase' can serve as an effective basis for both second and foreign language learning.

Schmitt, N. (Ed.). (2004). Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Formulaic sequences (FS) are now recognized as an essential element of language use. However, research on FS has generally been limited to a focus on description, or on the place of FS in L1 acquisition. This volume opens new directions in FS research, concentrating on how FS are acquired and processed by the mind, both in the L1 and L2. The ten original studies in the volume illustrate the L2 acquisition of FS, the relationship between L1 and L2 FS, the relationship between corpus recurrence of FS and their psycholinguistic reality, the processes involved in reading FS, and pedagogical issues in teaching FS. The studies use a wide range of methodologies, many of them innovative, and thus the volume serves as a model for future research in the area. The volume begins with three survey chapters offering a background on the characteristics and measurement of FS.

Schmitt, N., D�rnyei, Z., Adolphs, S., & Durow, V. (2004). Knowledge and acquisition of formulaic sequences: a longitudinal study. In Schmitt, N. (Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 55-86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Available online]

Suszczyn�ska, M. (2005). Apology routine formulae in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 52(1), 77-116.

This paper describes the forms and functions of Hungarian apology routine formulae (RF) used by Hungarian adults in a written Discourse Completion Test. Five apology RF types are identified, their choices being influenced by such factors as the offence type and its severity, the social role of the interlocutor and the offender's gender. Two main apology RF types, Ne haragudj `Don't be angry' and Eln�z�st `Excuse me' are shown to perform complementary communicative functions of restoring harmony in familiar vs. unfamiliar settings. Gender differences in the use of RF types present on various levels of analysis demonstrate that males and females choose different ways to restore social harmony and may attach importance to different aspects of the context.

Tan, K. H., & Farashaiyan, A. (2012). The effectiveness of teaching formulaic politeness strategies in making request to undergraduates in an ESL classroom.� Asian Social Science, 8(15), 189-196. doi:10.5539/ass.v8n15p189

It is widely acknowledged that the main thrust of second language (L2) teaching and learning is establishing and developing the communicative competence of learners. Especially, in recent years, the focus has shifted more towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC). As such, it is more practical that educational endeavors should be directed both towards the grammar or lexis of the target language as well as the appropriate use of these grammatical and lexical systems in a variety of situations by considering different social and contextual factors. Therefore, this study embarks on the effect of explicit instruction of formulaic politeness strategies among Malaysian undergraduates in making request. Sixty Malaysian undergraduates participated in the study. The students included two groups of intervention and control groups. The data were cumulated through three tests, namely open ended completion test, a listening test and an acceptability judgment test. Treatment or experimental group received explicit instruction with structured and problem-solving and input tasks. The comparison was made between the performance of treatment group and that of control in terms of the pre-test and post-test. The findings show that the treatment group outperformed significantly than the control group. This matter is suggestive that in this probe, explicit form-based instruction was successful for learners to comprehend and produce the English politeness strategies effectively in making request. The findings of this study will be beneficial for material developers and teachers to make use of form-focused strategies more effectively to teach second language pragmatic features to Malaysian students.

Bell, N. (2009). Responses to failed humor. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(9), 1825-1836.

The study dealt with how and why humor failed through the examination of a corpus of 186 responses to failed humor. Data were collected at two American universities. Participants were six graduate students and 27 undergraduates enrolled in a sociolinguistic course. They were asked to respond to the telling of a joke found to be lacking in humor for most hearers, and their responses were classified by type and affective sense (positive, negative, and neutral). The data were also categorized by the sociolinguistic variables of age, gender, and social relationship. Findings indicated that responses to failed humor went well beyond the typical groans or fake laughter that were often asserted as prototypical reactions in the literature, where laughter, metalinguistic comments, and interjections were typical responses. In this study, such responses were among the least frequent reactions. Instead, the results demonstrated that although a wide variety of responses types occurred, most reactions clearly communicated recognition, comprehension, and lack of appreciation of the attempted humor. The data consisted primarily of metalinguistic and other evaluative comments. In addition, no significant differences were found in response types according to age or gender; however, very strong effects were found for social relationship with negative reactions more common among intimates, with neutral reactions being preferred by acquaintances and strangers. Also, findings revealed that strangers and acquaintances tended to use more neutral responses.

Br�ne, G. (2008). Hyper-and misunderstanding in interactional humor. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(12), 2027-2061.

This article addressed the semantic-pragmatic intricacies of two subtypes of conversational humor: hyper-understanding and misunderstanding as responsive conversational turns connected to a previous made utterance. In the first part of this study, the author developed an analytical model that provided a unified account about both phenomena using Clark’s notion of layering and Fauconnier’s mental spaces theory. Hyper-understanding was understood as an adversarial language game in which a speaker employs his/her ability to exploit potential weak spots (ambiguity) in a previous speaker’s utterance by echoing the latter’s words with a fundamentally different reading. It involved an ironic and dissociative echo. This type of playful verbal echoing served as a background for the analysis of the second phenomenon, in which the misunderstanding was not pretended. In both cases, the type of discourse stratification seemed crucial to an account of the dynamics of interactional humor. In the second part of this study, the author attempted to chart the different linguistic key elements that served as pivots in hyper- and misunderstanding. A corpus analysis of the British series Blackadder revealed that phenomena ranging from lexico-semantic (polysemy, (near-)homonymy), constructional (idiom), and syntactic ambiguity to more pragmatic issues (reference, illocution, deixis, inference) could yield potential ambiguities, becoming a trigger for hyper- and misunderstanding. The author concluded that the study showed the importance of the metalingual level of entrenchment (pragmatic or sociocultural meaning components that became entrenched through their frequent use referred to as encoding idioms) and idiomaticity (fixed expressions, deixis, inference, etc.) and that it revealed a significant subclass of interactional humor that crucially depended on metalinguistic features.

Habib, R. (2008). Humor and disagreement: Identity construction and cross-cultural enrichment. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(6), 1117-1145.

This study investigated the intersection of two different speech behaviors, disagreement and humor in naturalistic settings to enrich pragmatic and cultural knowledge. It also dealt with personal identity among L2 users of English in cross-cultural communication. The study involved an ethnographic approach to communication in its data collection and analysis, combined with interactional and conversation analysis in order to show how certain speech behaviors, such as overlapping and simultaneous speech, constituted a seeking of alignment. The data consisted of three hours of audio-taped spontaneous interactions among a group of four female friends who met once a week during a period of six weeks for a Greek lesson given by one of the participants. The participants came from different backgrounds: an American professional, and three students (a Syrian, a Portuguese, and a Greek). The lessons took place in the houses of the participants. The author pointed out that this analysis focused on how the group talk represented a way of reflecting on the world and the various cultures through language socialization. The focus of the study was on the use of teasing and disagreement as educational tools rather than conflict indicators, and on the implementation of these tools to maintain a strong relationship, raise cultural awareness, and gain knowledge of the world. Results revealed that these two speech acts could have a positive function in conversations. First, teasing and disagreement were used jointly to establish and develop relational identity among speakers from different cultures. Second, they could insert their L1 identity through reflecting on their own culture and experiences and mirroring these experiences in comparison with other speakers. In addition, the author stated that expressing opposing views might have been both a way of asserting their own identities and way of being afraid to lose that identity. The study also pointed out that these conversations created an atmosphere for scaffolding and learning about other cultures and other peoples’ pragmatics. Finally, it was concluded that disagreement and teasing could be used as educational instruments, specifically in natural settings, facilitating the learning of pragmatics by L2 learners.

Mizushima, L., & Stapleton, P. (2006). Analyzing the function of meta-oriented critical comments in Japanese comic conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(12), 2105-2123.

This study examined not only the contents of utterances, but the speakers’ mutual communicative processes including the function of Japanese meta-oriented critical comments (speakers’ mutual communicative processes) in terms of speakers’ reciprocal interactions, that is, the invitation to criticize (or actually, ‘‘tease’’) and the feedback following this invitation. Paralinguistic expressions (e.g., laughter, gaze, gesture, and facial expressions) were also analyzed since these non-linguistic features aided in understanding the speakers’ humorous intentions. This study attempted to describe and analyze a particular aspect of Japanese humor, namely, the importance of harmony. As the author contended, this humor was governed by the two larger forces of a harmony-seeking culture and a strong reliance on ritualized interaction. The study particularly used the pragmatic/sociolinguistic approach and discourse-analytic methodology in order to explore the nuances of Japanese humorous conversations. In addition, in order to obtain a detailed analysis of each utterance, some of the methods of conversation analysis were employed in investigating turn-taking segments in conversation. Data were collected in the summer of 2003. Participants included 11 males and 2 females. They were divided in four different parties of friends known to one of the authors. Most of the participants were in their mid-twenties. They were from Sapporo, in the north of Japan. In order to ease tension in the conversation, the location of the video-recording was not assigned or limited by the authors. Participants were not informed of the specific purpose or the topic of the research. In the analysis of four hours of conversation there was a particular focus on teasing remarks. It was found that some Japanese humorous conversations followed a distinct formulaic communicative pattern, in which it was the person being criticized who initiated the criticism, rather than the individual who first uttered the critical remark. Consequently, an exchange of meta-oriented critical comments took place, adding a new dimension to the teasing dynamic. Thus, rather than beginning with a transparently critical remark, the meta-oriented exchange started the teasing interaction one utterance earlier and required intimate cultural knowledge for ritualistic exchange to proceed. The authors noted that one implication of this study was the need to recognize the important role that cultural knowledge plays in meta-oriented interactions.

Norrick, N., & Chiaro, D. (2009). Humor in interaction. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.

This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to humor in interaction. It is a collection of essays by an international array of scholars representing various theoretical perspectives, but all concerned with interactional aspects of humor. The contributors are scholars active both in the interdisciplinary area of humor studies and in adjacent disciplines such as linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, psycholinguistics, gender and translation studies. The volume effectively offers an overview of the range of phenomena falling in the broad category of ‘conversational humor,’ and convincingly argues for the many different functions humor can fulfill, bypassing simplistic humor theories and reducing humor to one function. All the articles draw on empirical material from different countries and cultures, comprising conversations among friends and family, talk in workplace situations, humor in educational settings, and experimental approaches to humor in interaction. The book is a potential value to scholars in the various subfields of humor studies, pragmatics and sociolinguistics.

Norrick, N., & Spitz, A. (2008). Humor as a resource for mitigating conflict in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(10), 1661-1686.

The study investigated how participants deployed humor to mitigate and resolve conflict sequences in interaction by exploring the structures and dynamics of conflict talk. The results reported were based on conversational data from a range of contexts and from a range of corpora, avoiding specialized contexts and institutional settings such as classrooms, courtrooms, and formal political debates. In addition, it explored different types of humor and the deployment and effects of humor in conflict talk by demonstrating the following: (1) how humor could successfully end conflict, (2) how a participant could ignore/reject an attempt at humor by others, (3) how humor could forestall an impending conflict, but fail to end it, (4) how two parties in conflict talk could ignore attempts at humor by a third, unratified party, (5) how laughter alone � even in the absence of any clear orientation to humor � could ameliorate conflict, and (6) how a humorous key could defuse or prevent conflict from the outset in delicate situations. The article also focused on how the effectiveness of humor depended on a series of factors such as the seriousness of the conflict, the social power relationship between the participants, the kind of humor, the reactions of the participants, and finally, who initiated the humor. The authors noted that heatedness of the argument and the significance of its topic could influence the efficacy of humor and the trajectory of the interaction as well. Furthermore, the authors felt that ratified participants (addressed recipients) could end conflict sequences in conversation with humor, especially when they have higher status (more power) in the interaction. Consequently, this study contended that an orientation to humor supplied an effective resource for ending conflict � and for controlling certain aspects of interaction � but that sometimes it was impossible to convince the primary discussants to alter their stance or behavior, and their attempts at humor remained ineffective.

Popa, D., & Attardo, S. (2007). New approaches to the linguistics of humour. Galati, Romania: Editura Acad�mica.

The book comprises fifteen contributions offering diversified analyses of the phenomenon of humor. As the authors themselves acknowledge with regret, the section of conversational humor has been particularly underrepresented, although it is genuinely a prolific area of research. The book presents a variety of topics and methodological perspectives. The contributors of the book are scholars from various disciplines, not only linguistics, but also from philosophy, psychology, computer science or folklore inter alia. The papers in this book tackle a gamut of topics and represent different approaches, methodologies, and levels of expertise. The authors comment upon a number of problematic or dubious issues raised in some of the contributions, which was by no means meant to undermine their scholarly input on the whole. The articles are divided into thematic sections, viz. conversational humor; literary analysis; multilingualism, ethnicity and culture; mechanisms of humor; visual humor and a debate on the General Theory of Verbal Humor.

Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Humor in business: A double-edged sword. A study of humor and style shifting in intercultural business meetings. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(1), 4-28.

This study focused on the use of humor in a series of internal business meetings in a large international airline corporation in south-east Asia. The paper investigated the interplay between interactive style and power and their influence on these contexts. Particularly it considered how some speakers appeared to be more influential than others in terms of quantity and quality of contribution. The naturally-occurring data were collected from four meetings which were audio-recorded over a period of one week. Although the meetings were similar in structure and function, three of the four meetings were ‘intercultural’ � between Anglophone expatriates (i.e. British, Irish, Australian, American, and Canadian) and ethnic Chinese (i.e. Hong Kong Chinese, Singaporean, Malaysian, and Indian) employees. The purpose of the meetings was routine reporting and problem-solving on diverse functional areas. The findings of the study revealed that humor was presented in all meetings but its frequency and tone varied with the style of the meetings. Thus, a considerable variation in interactive style was seen to relate to differences of formality between meetings and there were also stylistic shifts from formal to informal episodes within the same meetings. Humor was one of several interactive strategies which clustered together to mark these shifts towards greater informality. Hence, humor within these style shifts seemed to be used strategically to show solidarity and/or power and influence, particularly by the high-status participants and the dominant ‘in-group’ of western male participants. In addition, the author suggested that in these meetings humor was used as a ‘double-edge sword’ serving both as a form of positive politeness (i.e., facilitating collaboration and inclusion) as well as negative politeness (i.e., for distancing and facilitating collusion, exclusion, and exerting social control).

Trachtenberg, S. (1979). Joke-telling as a tool in ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 13(1), 89-99.

This paper focuses on an approach to using joke-telling in ESL classes. A joke is a speech act which requires a great deal of communicative competence on the part of the speaker and the hearer. The comprehension no less than the telling of a joke also requires a fair degree of sociolinguistic familiarity with the target culture. Like other speech acts, the telling of jokes involves certain formulae which differ from language to language and from culture to culture. Thus, as this paper will demonstrate, the use of jokes as teaching material within the ESL class serves as a vehicle to promote 1) fluency-the simple paraphrasing of a joke in itself is a valuable structured oral exercise, 2) sociolinguistic rules-being able to understand or "get" a joke is a measure of the hearer's aural competence and sophistication in the TL, and 3) an appreciation and understanding of certain values in American culture, of which the joke is an important conveyor.

Tsakona, V. (2009). Language and image interaction in cartoons: Towards a multimodal theory of humor. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(6), 1171-1188.

This study analyzed the meaning and humor of cartoons via two semiotic modes (symbolic, representational), the verbal and the visual, or solely via the visual mode. This study aimed at showing that cartoon humor was not always easy to grasp fully. Consequently, all the verbal and visual details of each cartoon were considered. For this purpose, a General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) framework of analysis was adopted using cognitive and semiotic approaches. The author paid special attention to strategies such as exaggeration, contradiction, and metaphor as humorous mechanisms. Another strategy analyzed in this study was hyperdetermination of humor as a result from the interaction of verbal and visual elements and from the use of visual metaphor. The data analyzed consisted of 561 political cartoons coming from the most popular daily and weekly Greek newspapers collected from 2004 to 2005. This study focused on some of the most common mechanisms in both modes: the verbal and the visual. By considering the GTVH, this analysis attempted to take a step further in unifying the linguistic and semiotic approaches to humor. The author contended that cartoons having their semiotic domain that combine language, image, and print could transmit humorous political, social, and other messages of great importance for people. Consequently, the author suggested that the analysis in GTVH terms could bring to the surface the semiotic resources involved in the production of the cartoon humor.

Wahsburn, G. N. (2001).� Using situation comedies for pragmatic language teaching and learning.� TESOL Journal, 10(4), 21-26.

Discusses the advantages of using situation comedies to teach pragmatic language usage in a second or foreign language. Gives advice on how to choose and use sitcoms and provides a sample lesson plan.

Bosco, F. M., & Bucciarelli, M. (2008). Single and complex deceits and ironies. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(4), 583-607.

This study proposed a more general distinction between simple and complex communicative acts which also applied to any kind of pragmatic phenomena such as deceit and irony. The authors based their experimental hypotheses on the mental representations and inferential processes of varying complexity. They assumed that these representations and processes were involved in the different sorts of communication acts being investigated. A developmental perspective assuming that the children’s ability to deal with representations of increasing complexity increases with age was used to test the authors’ hypotheses. Participants were randomly selected from among middle-class Italian students attending two different junior schools in Turin, Italy. There were a total of 96 children participating in this study. The authors contended that a complex act was more difficult to comprehend than a simple act as it was the case of ironies that required a complex inferential chain in order to grasp the communicative intention of the speaker. In addition, it was asserted that simple acts of different sorts, such as deceits and ironies, involved mental representations of different degrees of complexities. The authors predicted that simple standard acts were easier to comprehend than simple deceits, which were in turn easier than simple ironies. The results of this study as to deceits revealed that the youngest children performed as predicted but showed no statistically significant difference in performance with simple and complex acts. Moreover, the oldest children performed at the top level with both simple and complex deceits. In regard to irony, the youngest children performed at the bottom level. These results confirmed the authors’ hypothesis as to irony was one of the most difficult pragmatic phenomenon. The study also revealed that irony comprehension was more difficult than comprehension of deceit.

Eisterhold, J., Attardo, S., & and Boxer, D. (2006). Reactions to irony in discourse: Evidence for the least disruption principle. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(08), 1239-1256.

This article examined the use of irony/ sarcasm from a spontaneous spoken data against the validity of the “Non-Cooperative Principle” (NCP). The NCP, proposed by Attardo (1999), is a principle that regulates the violations of Grice’s Cooperative Principle and its maxims. As the authors stated “it enjoins speakers to minimize said violations”. The study was based on a corpus of anthropological data collection consisting of 395 ironical or sarcastic utterances collected during a 2-year-period and recorded in the form of field notes immediately after the observation. The data were collected in various settings, such as personal face-to-face interactions, classrooms, and service encounters. This study analyzed the entire ironical exchange focusing particularly on responses to an initial ironical turn. Also, it took into consideration the issue of multi-turn ironical exchanges and unacknowledged utterances. In addition, the effects of sociolinguistic variables were included such as age, gender, social distance/power, and social status. Findings revealed that age and gender variables played a significant role in the ironical interaction. The results supported the view that speakers tended to limit the extent of the violations of the cooperative principle. Consequently, they produced relatively few multi-turn ironical/sarcastic utterances.

Lagerwerf, L. (2007). Irony and sarcasm in advertisement: Effects of relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(10), 1702-1721.

This study examined the effects on the readership when irony is used in commercial magazine advertisements, and the reader effects of sarcasm when used in public service announcements to promote society responsibility. The study included sixty student respondents (31 males and 29 females) from different disciplines at the University of Twente in Holland. The material used for the stimuli consisted of 12 magazine advertisements chosen from a larger set. Six of these were positively formulated when they contained positive evaluative expression, and six were negatively formulated when they contained an explicit negation element and a negative evaluative expression. The author found that the effects were all in the areas of emotional appeal and understanding. In the advertisements for commercial products and services, irony was found in the use of negative captions where positive captions were expected. Study 1 showed that negative captions were inappropriate and that they scored higher in emotional appeal and appreciation if relevant interpretation could be found. On the other hand, sarcasm was used by placing a positive caption against a background displaying a harrowing picture. Thus, sarcastic advertisements dealing with societal issues showed a higher emotional appeal than did warnings, but at a cost of negative effect on clarity, both in the advertisements and their messages. The author concluded that irony and sarcasm could impede a proper understanding of the advertisements’ informative intention, having a negative impact on the assessment by an audience of the importance of the societal issues emphasized in sarcastic announcements.

Mann, W. C., & Kreutel, J. (n. d.). Speech acts and recognition of insincerity. [Available online]

From the earliest years of speech act theory, sincerity, or the absence of it, has been one of the defining aspects of speech acts and their uses. It remains prominent today, but models of communication often give it little function. How could a model of dialogue be designed so that the sincerity of speech acts could be defined and examined? How could natural language understanding and generation programs recognize or use insincerity? Is sincerity part of a collection of speech phenomena that could share implementation methods? The issues are complex, but approachable. What are appropriate recognition criteria for sincerity? Are the sincerity-conditions described by Austin or Searle adequate guides to recognition of insincerity? No. Other ways of using assertions have a formal resemblance to insincere assertions. Several of these ways involve statements by a speaker who does not believe those statements. Not all of these ways involve deception. Examination of a collection of similar ways to use language leads to a much more accurate, possibly adequate, guide to recognizing the absence of sincerity. This paper examines relationships between (in)sincerity and other language phenomena. Focusing on irony, exaggeration and understatement, it also identifies several others that share characteristics with sincerity, and thus might benefit from joint work on definitions, formalization and computational model building.

Partington, A. (2007). Irony and reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(9), 1547-1569.

This paper investigated the nature and functions of irony in both spoken interaction and written texts. The study outlined a corpus-assisted investigation in which three corpora were used: (1) semi-spontaneous interactive spoken discourse (circa 6 million words of White House press briefings in transcription), (2) spoken interviews (250,000 words of transcribed televised UK political interviews), and (3) written texts (100 million words of UK broadsheet texts). This article reviewed some of the principal current debates in irony studies. First, it examined a corpus-based real-life data and then how explicit irony operated on it. Second, it considered whether there might be a more objective way of identifying and defining episodes of implicit irony rather than simply relying on the researcher’s unsupported intuition. Potential sites of implicit irony were examined in the data to see how and why speakers and writers employed it and how hearers and audiences responded. The findings revealed strong evidence that the main mechanism driving all irony was an implied reversal of the evaluative meaning of the utterance (rather than of the propositional/ideational meaning, as argued in many other traditional theories of irony). As the author contended, the view that irony was driven by evaluation was understood in this analysis as the dualistic, bi-dimensional sense of “how writers/speakers approved and disapproved, enthused and abhorred, applauded and criticized, and how they positioned their readers/listeners to do likewise.” In addition, the analysis showed how irony was a bisociative phenomenon in which the speaker constructed a pair of narratives: both of these were more or less presented in the text in explicit irony; whereas in the implicit type, only one was apparent and the other was implied. Furthermore, the author proposed that irony could be affiliative in at least three ways: it could bind speaker and hearer when a third party was the object of criticism; it could be used in friendly teasing; and it could be used in self-deprecatory humor, in self-teasing, or a combination of other- and self-teasing.

Kogure, M. (2007). Nodding and smiling in silence during the loop sequence of backchannels in Japanese conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(7), 1275-1289.

This study examined the occurrence of silence in the sequence of backchannels, known as the loop sequence, as to verbal responses and nonverbal responses (e.g., vertical head movement). It analyzed participants’ nods that occurred independently without vocals, during the loop sequence in Japanese conversation. The study aimed to show that silence was not interactionally vacuous in this context of Japanese conversation. The data consisted of four audio- and video-recorded dyadic conversations that included two sets of cross-gender dyadic conversations: one female dyadic conversation and one male dyadic conversation. The participants were given a theme to discuss. The analysis of the data indicated that Japanese participants frequently utilized nods in the loop, along with verbal backchannels. In addition, the analysis suggested that the participants avoided creating a silence where no talk-relevant activities occurred. Also, in order to fill in the vacuous silence, the participants collaboratively exploited every available communicative channel such as nods or smiling, creating a certain rhythm and maintaining smooth progress in the floor negotiation during the loop sequence. The author contended that using these strategies resulted in preserving a cooperative atmosphere during the loop. The study revealed that at least in the loop sequence context, silence was not interactionally vacuous.

Kurzon, D. (2007). Towards a typology of silence. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(10), 1673-1688.

This article extended a previous model of silence by showing how silence of an individual in some types of conversation could be interpreted. It also introduced a typology of silence in social interaction. This typology was based on different features such as the relationship between the silent person and the addresser, the number of participants in the interaction, the identity of the text that was left unsaid, the presence or non-presence of silent speakers, the intention of the silent person to maintain silence, and the question of authority and social norms. The typology proposed four types of silence: (1) the conversational silence such as the silent answer to a question or the case of not participating in a conversation even when one was physically present; (2) the thematic silence occurring when a topic was not mentioned, that is, the speaker deliberately ignored a topic and chose silence instead of taking about that topic; (3) the textual silence referred to the presence of a specific text that was read or recited when silent; (4) and the situational silence occurring when a group of people were silent but were not reading or reciting any specific text or anything at all. The features to distinguish the types of silence were the relationship between the silent person and the addresser, the number of people involved, the presence of a text, the intention of the silent person to maintain silence, the presence or non-presence of silent persons, and the question of authority and social norms. The types of silence were illustrated by examples such as silence in the library, during classroom lessons, in political speeches, remembrance ceremonies, and theatrical and musical performances. In addition, the author discussed several problematic cases concerning, not only the classification of instances of silence, but whether what had been called silence was in effect silence.

Nakane, I. (2006). Silence and politeness in intercultural communication in university seminars. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(11), 1811-1835.

This study examined naturally-occurring interactions by Japanese students in Australian university seminars. This paper reported an analysis of the politeness orientation of participants with Japanese and Australian backgrounds in relation to speech and silence. The data were collected at two universities in Sydney, Australia. It included interviews with 19 Japanese students studying in mainstream university courses; questionnaire responses from 34 university lectures; video-audio recorded seminar-style classroom interactions and interviews with three Japanese students; and video-recording and field notes of classroom interaction from two Japanese high schools. The paper aimed to explain the role of Japanese students’ silences as politeness strategies in multicultural university seminar settings. The study examined silence and politeness not only from the users’ perspectives but also from the receivers’ point of view. The study revealed that silence was employed by Japanese students as realization of face-saving strategies. Contrastively, the study found that silence as a face-saving strategy was much less common among Australian students who tended to perform face-work verbally and established rapport more easily with Australian lectures. Japanese students’ silence was negatively perceived in the Australian university seminar setting and it seemed to be a threat to face. In addition, silence was found as a negative indicator of academic competence in Australian university education. The author felt that cross-cultural sociopragmatic failure might have been caused by a lack of harmony between the politeness orientation of Japanese students and their Australian peers and lectures.

Abdolrezapour, P., & Eslami-Rasekh, A. (2012). The effect of using mitigation devices on request compliance in Persian and American English. Discourse Studies, 14(2), 145-16. doi:10.1177/1461445611433789

Strategies used in requestive speech act and their effects on compliance have been the focus of a number of studies. Previous research, however, has dealt mainly with perceptive data elicited from one of the interlocutors involved in the use of mitigation. A sociolinguistic study could explore the perception of both the requestor and the requestee with respect to using such strategies. This article aims to study the possible correlation between request compliance and the use of mitigation devices. The question is what observable effects using mitigators have both on the requestor's judgment of compliance and on prohibiting the requestee from rejecting the request. Four role-play interactions followed by stimulated recall procedures were used to collect the required data. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that, in similar situations, American requestors are comparably more certain than Iranians that the addressee would comply with their requests using fewer mitigation devices. While, as far as the requestees are concerned, the Americans are more influenced by the use of mitigation devices on the part of requestor than the Iranians.

Abdolrezapour, P., & Vahid Dastjerdi, H. (in press). Examining mitigation in refusals: A cross-cultural study of Iranian and American speech communities. Sociolinguistic Studies.

This study investigates the type of mitigation devices employed by Persian and American native speakers in refusal interactions in a number of formal/informal situations. Twenty two American and thirty Iranian university students participated in four role-play interactions. The production data were supplemented by verbal reports and questionnaires completed by 45 Americans and 50 Iranians to examine speakers’ perceptions of mitigation devices. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that, in identical situations, Iranians use more mitigation devices and more specifically make more use of external mitigation devices in comparison to Americans. Moreover, social variables such as social power and social distance made a difference in the way Iranians refused while Americans’ refusals did not change considerably with regard to social variables. It is suggested that foreign language teachers help learners enhance their communicative competence to avoid communication breakdowns which might occur due to inappropriate use of speech acts.

Bal, C. (1994). Keeping the peace: A cross-cultural comparison of questions and requests in Australian English and French. Multilingua, 13(1/2), 35-58. doi:10.1515/mult.1994.13.1-2.35

This paper investigates one of the most common sources of cross-cultural misunderstanding between French and English speakers:� the way questions and requests are phrased.� It is based on an analysis of hundreds of authentic speech acts recorded in and office-work situation in which French people used English as a second language.� The analysis, based on an adaptation of the Cross-cultural Speech Act Realization Project coding system, compare questions in English by Australian speakers with question in French and in English by native French speakers. Marked differences in the choice of syntax and lexicon emerge between the two groups.� Three types of explanations are put forward for this linguistic behavior:� 1) mastery of L2 and/or fossilization, 2) pragmalinguistic transfer and 3) socio-pragmatic failure.� Together they throw light on why native French speakers often come across as blunt in an English-speaking environment while claiming that their Australian counterparts tend to ‘beat around the bush’.� The differences in communicative strategies in turn reflect diverging cultural assumptions towards the listener and what constitutes face-threatening acts.

Bazzanella, C., & Damiano, R. (1999). The interactional handling of misunderstanding in everyday conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 31(6), 817-836. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00058-7

In this paper, we will deal with the handling � within the conversational interaction � of linguistic misunderstanding, on the basis of an Italian corpus. The following aspects of this process will be analyzed: the author of the repair, the phases of negotiation (i.e. “the negotiation cycle of misunderstanding”), the collocation of the repair (third and fourth turn repairs are the most common patterns), linguistic and non-linguistic misunderstanding. A general distinction will be drawn between coming to understanding, understanding and misunderstanding on the one hand, and non-understanding on the other. In conclusion, misunderstanding, as a ‘form of understanding’ internal to the process of comprehension, which has to be monitored and negotiated interactionally, should not be seen as a polar process (absence/presence of comprehension) but, rather, as a continuum.

Beebe, L. M., & Takahashi, T. (1989). Sociolinguistic variation in face-threatening speech acts. In M. Eisenstein (Ed.), The dynamic interlanguage (pp. 199-218). New York, NY: Plenum.

The cross-cultural study of speech acts is vital to the understanding of international communication. In reviewing this area of research, we realize that face-threatening acts are particularly important to study because they are the source of so many cross-cultural miscommunications. Research has been done on a number of face-threatening speech acts1�for example, on apologies (BlumKulka & Olshtain, 1984; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, in press; Borkin & Reinhart, 1978; Cohen & Olshtain, 1981, 1985; Coulmas, 1981; Godard 1977; Olshtain, 1983; Olshtain & Cohen, 1983); requests (Blum-Kulka 1982; BlumKulka & Olshtain, 1984; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, in press; Tanaka & Kawade, 1982); refusals (Beebe & Cummings, 1985; Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz, in press; Takahashi & Beebe, 1986, 1987); complaints (Bonikowska, 1985; Olshtain & Weinbach, 1986); disagreement (LoCastro, 1986; Pomerantz, 1984); expressions of disapproval (D’Amico-Reisner, 1983); and expressions of gratitude (Eisenstein & Bodman, 1986). The evidence provided in these studies suggests that second-language (L2) learners are faced with the great risk of offending their interlocutors or of miscommunication when performing face-threatening acts.

Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1986). Too many words: Length of utterance and pragmatic failure. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8(1), 47-61. doi:10.1017/S0272263100006069.

This paper investigates the theoretical and applied domains of pragmatic failure. With respect to theory, it further clarifies pragmatic failure both in native and non-native speech, and with respect to the applied domain compares request realizations of native and non-native speakers in terms of length of utterance. In discussing the results of this comparison, a number of hypotheses are put forward concerning the ways in which deviation from native norms of utterance length might be a potential cause for pragmatic failure. The data were collected within the CCSARP (Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Pattern) project involving seven different languages and dialects (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984). The data were collected from both native and non-native speakers of each of the languages. The analysis of responses across several languages revealed a systematic difference in length of utterance used to realize speech acts by non-native speakers as compared to native speakers. The types of pragmatic failure that might be linked to being a non-native speaker are examined, thus continuing a line of research focusing on the pragmatic aspects of interlanguage (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Thomas, 1983; Edmondson et al., 1984).

Blum-Kulka, S., & Weizman, E. (1988). The inevitability of misunderstandings: discourse ambiguities. Text, 8(3), 219-41. doi:10.1515/text.1.1988.8.3.219

This paper argues for the inevitability of unresolved misunderstanding in ordinary talk.� The discussion combines a pragmatic theory-based formal analysis with a more interpretive approach in the analysis of discourse ambiguities in two naturally occurring conversational segments.� First we analyze the interpretive options opened up for the participants by each move of a dialogue lacking in surface evidence of any type of misunderstanding.� Second, we follow participants’ efforts to clarify intentions in a case where misunderstanding is acknowledged and its nature negotiated.� The first case represents an non-negotiated misunderstanding, the second a negotiated one.� We argue that dialogues containing discourse ambiguities feature a prolonged indeterminacy which can be unattended to by both parties, and re furthermore characterized by lack of clear resolution and frame.�� Either negotiated or not, they leave interactants with contradictory perceptions of the meaning of particular interactions.� The analysis raises questions about the adequacy of current views on miscommunications, showing that the levels at which misunderstanding exists may remain covert.

B�hrig, K., & Thije, J. D. (2006). Beyond misunderstanding: Linguistic analyses of intercultural communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

This book challenges two tacit presumptions in the field of intercultural communication research. Firstly, misunderstandings can frequently be found in intercultural communication, although, one could not claim that intercultural communication is constituted by misunderstandings alone. This volume shows how new perspectives on linguistic analyses of intercultural communication go beyond the analysis of misunderstanding. Secondly, intercultural communication is not solely constituted by the fact that individuals from different cultural groups interact. Each contribution of this volume analyses to what extent instances of discourse are institutionally and/or interculturally determined. These linguistic reflections involve different theoretical frameworks, e.g. functional grammar, systemic functional linguistics, functional pragmatics, rhetorical conversation analysis, ethno-methodological conversation analysis, linguistic an-thro--pology and a critical discourse approach. As the contributions focus on the discourse of genetic counseling, gate-keeping discourse, international team co-operation, international business communication, workplace discourse, internet communication, and lamentation discourse, the book exemplifies that the analysis of intercultural communication is organized in response to social needs and, therefore, may contribute to the social justification of linguistics.

Coupland, N., Giles, H., & Wiemann, J. M. (1991). 'Miscommunication' and problematic talk. Newbury Park: Sage.

Language use and communication are pervasively and even intrinsically flawed, partial and problematic - this is the contention of this volume, which explores failures in interpersonal communication. Rather than approaching communication in terms of competence, effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, the contributors reassess key social contexts in terms of miscommunication rather than communication, failure rather than success. They provide an integrative overview of research in defined social contexts, highlighting particular social groups, social situations and communicative modes. The elderly, children, non-native speakers, medical personnel and the disabled are among those discussed.

Cribb, M. (2009). Discourse and the non-native English speaker. Cambria Press.

This book is for graduate students and English language teachers and researchers and deals with the problems that non-native speakers of English have with extended turns and monologues. The book examines a corpus of spoken data collected from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and focuses on how semantic and pragmatic miscues lead to breaks in coherence and comprehensibility. It specifically analyzes how a lack of verbal and non-verbal support from interlocutors leads to difficulties in expression at the discourse level. This book represents both a textual and evaluative approach to discourse studies. Numerous transcripts of the discourse of speakers of English as a second or foreign language are analyzed to identify the points at which miscues leading to lack of coherence arise. It also examines the relationship between fluency and coherence. This book would be of interest to applied linguistics and English language teachers and assessors.

Fraser, B. (1980). Conversational mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics, 4(4), 341-50. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(80)90029-6

Mitigation is defined not as a particular type of speech act but the modification of a speech act: the reduction of certain unwelcome effects which a speech act has on the hearer. Within mitigation there appears to be two types: self-serving and altruistic. These are defined and examples are given. Finally, a variety of strategies used by speakers to indicate their intent to mitigate the force of an utterance are presented. These include the use of indirectness in performing a speech act, the use of distancing techniques, disclaimers, parenthetical verbs, tag questions and hedges.

Gass, S., & Varonis, E. (1991). Miscommunication in nonnative speaker discourse. In N. Coupland, H. Giles and J. Wiemann (Eds.), Miscommunication and problematic talk (121-145). Newbury Park: Sage.

House, J. (1996). Contrastive discourse analysis and misunderstanding: the case of German and English. In M. Hellinger & U. Ammon (Eds.), Contrastive sociolinguistics (345-361). Berlin: Mouton.

House, J., Kasper, G., & Ross, S. (Eds.) (2003). Misunderstanding in social life. Discourse approaches to problematic talk. Harlow, UK: Longman/Pearson Education.

Misunderstanding is a pervasive phenomenon in social life, sometimes with serious consequences for people's life chances. Misunderstandings are especially hazardous in high-stakes events such as job interviews or in the legal system. In unequal power encounters, unsuccessful communication is regularly attributed to the less powerful participant, especially when those participants are members of an ethnic minority group. But even when communicative events are not prestructured by participants' differential positions in social hierarchies, misunderstandings occur at different levels of interactional and social engagement. Misunderstanding in Social Life examines such problematic talk in ordinary conversation and different institutional settings, including socializing events and story tellings, education and assessment activities, and interviews in TV news broadcasts, employment agencies, legal settings, and language testing. The analyzed interactions are located in a variety of sociocultural environments and conducted in a range of languages, including English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, such language varieties as Aboriginal Australian English and Maori New Zealand English, and nonnative varieties. The original studies included in this volume adopt a variety of theoretical perspectives, including discourse-pragmatic approaches, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, social constructionism, tropological and narrative analysis. They represent multiple views of misunderstanding as a multilayered discourse event.

Jenkins, S. (2000). Cultural and linguistic miscues: A case study of international teaching assistant and academic faculty miscommunication. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24(4), 477-501. doi:10.1016/S0147-1767(00)00011-0

This case study explores the communication patterns between Chinese international teaching assistants (ITAs) and academic faculty in a Mathematics Department. The faculty highly esteemed the ITAs as excellent mathematicians, but generally attributed negative causes to their behavior outside the realm of mathematics. The ITAs’ polite deference and concern for maintaining appropriate face for unequal status interactions manifested itself as silence and avoidance in formal contacts with faculty, both in and out of the classroom. Most faculty interpreted this behavior as lack of motivation, isolationism and unwillingness to cooperate in ITA instructional assignments, or in improving their English. The students attributed their own behavior to stressful situational pressures and to the mixed messages they received from the faculty about the amount of time they should devote to English. Results are interpreted as supporting Gumperz’ theory of conversational inference (1982: Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1992: Gumperz, J. (1992). Contextualization and understanding. In A. Duranti, & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context (pp. 229�252)), and of attribution theoretical approaches. Implications for ITA training programs are discussed.

Kasper, G., & Kim, Y. (2007). Handling sequentially inapposite responses. In H. Zhu, P. Seedhouse, L.Wei, & V. Cook (Eds.), Language learning and teaching as social interaction (pp. 22-41). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/sls/wp-content/uploads/Handlingsequentially.pdf

LoCastro, V. (2010). Misunderstandings: Pragmatic glitches and misfires. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 7-16). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Meier, A. J. (1996). Two cultures mirrored in repair work. Multilingua, 15(2), 159-169. doi:10.1515/mult.1996.15.2.149

This paper explores the reflections of two cultures in their respective use of Repair Work strategies (i.e., apologies, excuses) as exhibited in a contrastive corpus-based study of Midwest American English and Austrian German.� The interplay of cultural perceptions revealed in particular situations in this study supports an awareness-raising approach to incorporating sociopragmatic aspects into foreign and second language pedagogy.

Murata, K. (1998). Has he apologized or not?: A cross-cultural misunderstanding between the UK and Japan on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain.� Pragmatics, 8(4), 501�513.

This paper will examine the misunderstanding between the British and Japanese governments in the interpretation of the letter of apology (according to the British government)/ congratulation (according to the Japanese government) sent by the then Japanese Prime Minister to the then British Prime Minister just before the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain. It will first investigate what the speech act 'apology' entails in these two different discourse communities and then explore how this speech act was differently interpreted on the special occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War by the two former enemy governments according to their respective interests and differing social and political pressures from war veterans and bereaved families. �Using a selection of newspaper articles from this period, the paper will illustrate how deeply wider social, political and historical backgrounds can affect the interpretation of linguistic meaning and how the interpretation of an utterance can vary depending on the context. It will also demonstrate how the use of vague expressions and culturally loaded styles could lead to misinterpretation or misunderstanding, referring to the letter written by the then Japanese Prime Minister. The letter was said to have originally been meant to be one of congratulation by the sender but was not interpreted in this way by the receiver. Finally, I will reemphasize the importance of taking the context into consideration in utterance interpretation.

Obeng, S. G. (1999). Apologies in Akan discourse.� Journal of Pragmatics, 31(5), 709-734. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00089-7

With knowledge of the potentially deadly repercussions of the spoken word in some communicative encounters, the Akan interlocutor employs various mitigating strategies that pay attention to the face needs of an addressee either by softening the locution of a possible facethreatening act inherent in a speaker's stretch of utterance, or by attempting to remedy an offense committed by the speaker or by someone whose actions for which the speaker accepts responsibility. An apology or a remedy (Goffman, 1971: 140) � a speech act whose primary purpose is redressive action � is one such speech strategy which pays attention to the face needs of interlocutors. It is basically aimed at maintaining or enhancing their face or restoring decorum (Goffman, 1967). Among the Akan, apology expressions may be complex � involving a combination of both explicitness and implicitness � or compound, involving a combination of two or more implicit strategies.

Padilla Cruz, M. (2013). Understanding and overcoming pragmatic failure in intercultural communication: From focus on speakers to focus on hearers. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 51(1), 23�54. doi:10.1515/iral-2013-0002

For learners to communicate efficiently in the L2, they must avoid pragmatic failure. In many cases, teachers' praxis centres on the learner's performance in the L2 or his role as a speaker, which neglects the importance of his role as interpreter of utterances. Assuming that, as hearers, learners also have a responsibility to avoid pragmatic failure, this paper endorses the relevance-theoretic view of communication, its explanation about why misunderstandings arise, and the belief that the learner's sophistication in understanding is not the same as that of a native. Therefore, it argues that learners must be taught to be cautious optimistic hearers. As a result, learners will be able to reject interpretations of utterances, which, due to the linguistic or cultural incompetence of their native or non-native interlocutors in the L2 system, they are led to regard as relevant enough although their interlocutors may have expected them to arrive at a different interpretation.

Scheu-Lottgen, U. D., & Hern�ndez-Campoy, J. M. (1998). An analysis of sociocultural miscommunication: English, Spanish and German. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 22(4), 375-394. doi:10.1016/S0147-1767(98)00006-6

Nowadays, the significance of linguistic analysis applied to cross-cultural communication is enormous due to the heterogeneity of societies and the increasingly cross-cultural nature of commerce, politics, education etc. The application of linguistic theory, therefore, means the study of sociocultural communication since analysing the pragmatics of intercultural communication is the analysis of language itself. By observing the range of aspects of communication that can vary from culture to culture, we will exemplify levels of difference in habits and expectations in signalling how speakers mean what they say.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1993). Cross linguistic influence in the speech act of correction. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 138-157). New York: Oxford University Press.

Corrections performed by Japanese learners of English were compared to those of native speakers of Japanese and of American English, focusing on corrections performed with status unequals. With regard to the modification of corrections by means of positive remarks and softeners, the Japanese learners' style-shifting patterns were clearly influenced by transfer from Japanese. While Japanese learners, reflecting native sociopragmatic norms, style- shifted more than American respondents when refusing, contradicting and disagreeing, dramatic style-shifting was seen in the American speakers' use of positive remarks. Their prevalent use of positive remarks in the high-low status condition, which was not matched by the Japanese learners or native speakers, provides more evidence of a positive politeness orientation in American interaction and greater emphasis on status congruence in Japanese conversational behavior.

Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 91-112. doi:10.1093/applin/4.2.91

I have given the term ‘pragmatic failure’ to the inability to understand ‘what is meant by what is said’.� In this paper I argue that pragmatic failure is an area of cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little attention from language teachers.� I suggest that there is on area of pragmatic failure (‘pragmalinguistic failure’) which is fairly easy to overcome.� It is simply a question of highly conventionalized usage which can be taught quite straight-fowardly as ‘part of the grammar’.� The second area (‘sociopragmatic failure’) is much more difficult to deal with, since it involves the student’s system of beliefs as much as his/her knowledge of the language.� I argue that it is essential to avoid prescriptivism in this very sensitive area of language in use.� To do so we must draw on insights from theoretical pragmatics and develop ways of heightening and refining students’ metapragmatic awareness, so that they are able to express themselves as they choose.

Tyler, A. (1995). The coconstruction of cross-cultural miscommunication: Conflicts in perception, negotiation, and enactment of participant role and status. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17(2), 129-152.

Examines the miscommunication which occurred in a videotaped tutoring session between a Korean tutor and an English student. The student needed assistance writing a computer program that would score bowling, while the tutor was enrolled in an English oral communication course requiring students to offer help in their area of expertise and afterwards discuss the videotaped session. After reviewing the literature dealing with non-native speaker (NNS) and native-speaker (NS) interaction, the author establishes this case as an example of naturally-occurring miscommunication based upon differences in the cultural foundations of discourse and the establishment of status. Eight minutes of the videotape were transcribed, with each participant providing comments reflecting their reactions at each troublesome point in the conversation. The initial "clash" occurred when the student inquired if the tutor knew how to score bowling. His reply, "Yes, approximately," was the culturally-appropriate way in Korea to modestly claim expertise, but the student interpreted his statement and later silences as ignorance. After thus determining her higher status as possessor of cultural knowledge, she could not accept her tutor's explanations as valid or useful, although she knew little about scoring herself. While the Korean tutor's discourse management style contributed to the initial difference in participant frames, his use of an inductive schema to explain the topic, beginning each time from scratch and gradually building upon previous information, suggested to the student that he was trying to figure the rules out for himself. Accustomed to the Korean formal relationship of status between teacher and student, he assumed she would accept his expertise unquestioned and interpreted her questioning as rudeness. In addition, his use of contextualization cues such as may and might, chosen out of politeness on his part, reinforced the student's image of him as tentative and unsure of himself. In summary, the mutual miscommunication occurred not because of either participant's uncooperativeness, as both the tutor and student believed, but rather because differing cultural frameworks for discourse caused each participant to negotiate the higher status for themselves.