本研究旨在探討中美文化差異對於建議語行為的影響，並且進一步探究文化差異以及社會地位、人際熟悉度等情境因素如何影響台灣英語學習者的建議語行為。本研究的三組受試者分別為35位英語母語人士、35位中文母語人士、35位英文程度佳的台灣英語學習者。語料蒐集工具為言談情境填充問卷(DCT)。所蒐集的語料針對受試者的建議語策略使用來進行量化以及質化的分析。 研究結果顯示，中文組的建議語行為比英語組來的直接。而學習者組在建議語的策略使用上則近似於中文組，也表現出比英語組直接的建議語行為。這樣的結果很可能由中美文化的差異所導致。此外，台灣英語學習者的建議語行為受到了文化差異的影響，表現出來自於母語的語用移轉(pragmatic transfer)，除了語用移轉所造成的語用失敗(pragmatic failure)之外，研究者還發現兩項學習者在建議語使用上的語用失敗，分別是：教學引起的誘發性錯誤(teaching-induced errors)，以及使用過多文字(waffle phenomenon)。有鑑於這些語用失敗，本研究提出兩點教學上的啟示。一、語言教師必須引導學生瞭解文化差異對於跨文化溝通的影響。二、語言教師以及教材編者必須提供充足的語境訊息(contextual information)以教導英語學習者如何適宜地的表達。 / The present study aimed to explore the cross-cultural differences between the suggestion behaviors by Chinese and Americans, and further investigated how the differences affect Taiwanese EFL learners’ interlanguage suggestion under two social variables. Three groups of participants were concerned in this study. They were 35 native speakers of American English, 35 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and 35 Taiwanese EFL learners. The data were collected by written DCT elicitation questionnaire. Participants’ responses were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to see how the three groups of participants employed the suggestion head act strategy, hedging devices, supportive moves and suggestion patterns. The results showed that the Chinese group was more direct than the American group. Besides, the learner group approximated the Chinese group and thus also employed more direct suggestion patterns and strategies than the American group did. This may be possibly due to the cultural differences between the Chinese and the American culture. This study also found that the EFL learners transferred both their native socio-cultural norms and pragmalinguistic conventions into their suggestion behaviors. In addition to pragmatic transfer, two more pragmatic failures were found; they were teaching-induced errors and the waffle phenomenon. With regard to these failures, this study suggested that language teachers should make learners aware of the importance of cultural differences in cross-cultural communication. Besides, teachers and language materials designers should provide as much contextual information as possible so that learners can learn the appropriate form or structure for its corresponding function.

Abstract  The present work is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of pragmatic strategies for delivering critique, and types of politeness, used by undergraduate L2 students of English at different stages of peer-review discussion. The material examined consists of four corpora of authentic conversations between students, the main purpose of which was to give feedback on each other’s contributions during an English A-level course, at Mid-Sweden University. The conversations explored were carried out electronically, and represent four different online environments, or modes of computer-mediated communication (CMC). The material from the two asynchronous modes of CMC is comprised of L2 students’ written discussion board messages and spoken posts recorded using online software. The two synchronous environments under investigation are text-based and voice-based chat. Taking Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework of politeness as a point of departure, the present study uses a combination of corpus and conversation analytical methods. The basic unit of analysis has been defined as the shortest message of peer-review critique that constitutes a thematic unit: these have been examined in terms of their content and politeness features associated with them, and analyzed in terms of the pragmatic strategy and type of politeness adopted. The types of pragmatic strategies or message organization patterns at different stages, i.e. initial versus subsequent feedback, of the peer-review discussion have also been analyzed. The results of the study show that the pragmatic strategies aimed at praise and agreement prevail in the corpus data produced by predominantly native speakers of Swedish. Even though the pragmatic strategies used for disagreement and negative evaluation are rich in propositional content, their occurrences and distribution vary across the four modes of CMC examined. These results seem to have wider implications in the context of online L2 learning activities, providing insights about the language of peer-review critique in a Swedish academic setting.   Keywords: computer-mediated communication (CMC), Conversation Analysis (CA), conversation management, discussion boards, feedback category, mode of CMC, peer-review discussion, politeness theory, pragmatic strategy, speech act of critique, text-based chat, type of politeness, voice-based chat, VoiceThread

Politeness is viewed as an admirable trait by most people, yet what it means to be polite is arguably a controversial issue when it comes to using English, as people of different ages, education levels, and proficiency levels use English daily, and may have different views on politeness. These observations raise questions about whether there are certain universal pragmatic rules, or if pragmatic rules are primarily language- and/or culture-specific. The current study situates itself within the fields of cross-cultural pragmatics and English as a lingua franca and is intended to explicitly address how social distance impacts English users’ views of politeness and appropriateness in English today. The study addresses this issue by investigating how speakers of English perceive appropriateness in certain speech acts, specifically requests and compliment responses, and how they justify or explain their reasoning concerning this. The study employs a mixed-method approach to data collection, where data was collected through two steps: first, a questionnaire distributed online and, second, a set of follow-up interviews with questionnaire respondents. In total, 79 respondents contributed to the questionnaire and, out of these, eight participated in follow-up interviews. Through this dual method of data collection, the intention of the study was to provide some insight into societal perceptions on politeness today from two different perspectives. To that end, the analysis of data takes a two-fold approach: by using T-tests, the statistical relevance of the questionnaire findings is analyzed, and through an inductive analysis of the interview findings, a more in-depth view of the issue at hand is offered as a complement to the initial survey results. By providing insight to the societal perceptions of the pragmatics of English through two different perspectives, the findings of the study could inform and inspire further studies concerning pragmatic norms and, by extension, research focused on the teaching of English.

This diploma thesis deals with the power of language and the relation between language and thought, perception and experience. The topic is viewed through the "Respektovat a být respektován" (To Respect and To Be Respected) educational method. The main assumption of this method is that the way the parent communicates with the child affects educational success as well as the behaviour of the child and the values and attitude he or she will have as an adult. This premise is empirically tested by interviews with parents and observations in families, which show how the specific way of communication (which is based on particular grammatical and pragmatic rules) influences the behaviour and experience of both the child and the parent.

<p dir="ltr">The present dissertation addresses the gap of how the three contextual variables (power, distance, and imposition) affect the use and perception of pitch range and final pitch contours in Central Peninsular Spanish polar questions. The methodological approach in this dissertation combines a production experiment in the form of a contextualized sentence-reading task (e.g., Brown et al., 2014; Henriksen, 2013) and a perception experiment using a pragmatic judgment task (e.g., Nadeu & Prieto, 2011). Both tasks systematically incorporated a set of situations that included the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition. Thus, this dissertation provides a systematic analysis of power, distance, and imposition to investigate their influence on the use and perception of pitch range and pitch contours. To analyze pitch in the production experiment, a categorical analysis of final pitch contours (e.g., low-rising contour) and a quantitative analysis of prosodic features (i.e., pitch range and its conversion into semitones) were conducted. For the perception experiment, analyses included the comparison of linear mixed models to examine the perceived degree of politeness.</p><p dir="ltr">The findings presented in this dissertation support the Frequency Code Hypothesis in that they showed the relevance of pitch for signaling and perceiving politeness in requests in Spanish. The results from the production experiment suggested there are no effects of power, distance, and imposition on the selection of final intonational contours. Regarding the analysis of pitch range, the results from the production experiment indicated that the use of greater pitch range was associated with an increase in the social distance between the speakers. In the perception experiment, the results indicated that an increase in pitch range was directly associated with an increase in the perceived degree of politeness. Furthermore, the findings from this dissertation provided evidence for including a systematic analysis of the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition to conduct analyses within the politeness framework instead of analyzing the formal/informal dimension in isolation The overall results of this dissertation contribute to the understanding of how suprasegmental features are employed in showing and perceivicing politeness.</p>