LING1901 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Mexican Spanish, Westron, English Language In England
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Wednesday, 14 September 2016
LING1901 LECTURE 12
SPEECH ACTS AND POLITENESS ACROSS CULTURES
-Speech acts
•People use language to do things
•Common speech acts include
-Requesting
-Complaining
-Apologising
-Complimenting
•Speech acts are performed and interpreted differently across cultures
-Intercultural pragmatics/communication
•These terms refer to research involving:
-Native speakers and competence in second language users
-Participants from different cultures engaged in natural intercultural communication in a language that is not
their L1
-(In)directness and politeness
•Indirectness traditionally linked to politeness in Brown and Levinson’s model
-Allows people to save face
•However, some cultures/languages encode politeness by being direct
•In Mexican Spanish, directness is preferred in a ‘solidarity’ politeness system that displays closeness [-distance
and -power]
-Requests
•Blum-Kulka (1987)
-Examines indirectness and politeness used by participants who were asked to rank a set of varied requests
in terms of directness and politeness in English and Hebrew
-Students who were native speakers of English and Hebrew
-Students asked to rank some randomly presented requests related to 5 different situations in terms of
directness ad politeness
-Findings reveal that imperatives are seen as the least polite in both Hebrew and English
•House and Kasper (1981)
!1
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Speech acts: people use language to do things, common speech acts include. Complimenting: speech acts are performed and interpreted differently across cultures. Intercultural pragmatics/communication: these terms refer to research involving: Native speakers and competence in second language users. Participants from different cultures engaged in natural intercultural communication in a language that is not their l1 (in)directness and politeness. Indirectness traditionally linked to politeness in brown and levinson"s model. Allows people to save face: however, some cultures/languages encode politeness by being direct. In mexican spanish, directness is preferred in a solidarity" politeness system that displays closeness [-distance and -power] Examines indirectness and politeness used by participants who were asked to rank a set of varied requests in terms of directness and politeness in english and hebrew. Students who were native speakers of english and hebrew. Students asked to rank some randomly presented requests related to 5 different situations in terms of directness ad politeness.
