Am 22. Januar 2011 wurde zugleich mit dem Neujahrsempfang der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig das Kunstwerk „Perspektive“ von Lada Nakonechna eingeweiht. Die über 100 Quadratmeter große Bleistiftzeichnung der ukrainischen Künstlerin wurde in dreimonatiger Arbeit erstellt und schmückt nun den vor zehn Jahren neu aufgebauten Alten Lesesaal. Die Stadt Leipzig ist unter den Sponsoren dieser Kunstaktion und hat den Neujahrsempfang zur festlichen Erinnerung an 50 Jahre Städtepartnerschaft zwischen Leipzig und Kiew genutzt.

The aim of this thesis is to compare linguistic means of expressing politeness in Czech and in Danish. The term politeness covers both norms defining socially acceptable behaviour and strategies that speakers use to achieve their goals and avoid conflicts. After defining the term politeness, I briefly introduce the most influential theoretical approaches to politeness since the 1960s. The second chapter brings an overview of linguistic means of expressing politeness in Czech and in Danish. The last, most comprehensive part of the thesis is concerned with selected areas typically connected to politeness, i.e. greetings and forms of address, expressing thanks and reacting to them, orders, bans, and requests. In Czech, a polite request usually contains the particle prosím (please). This word has no equivalent in spoken Danish; however, Danish speakers can make use of other expressions, such as particles godt, nok, lige and vel, or the expression vil du være sød/venlig (would you be so kind). They can also use some of the conventional means of expressing a request indirectly. Many of those strategies are common to both languages, especially formulating the requests as a question, perhaps in a negative form. Polite requests in Czech are characterized by the use of conditional, Danish requests typically...

The aim of the dissertation is to examine the approach to politeness in Swedish and in Czech and to compare its features in both languages. In the theoretical part there are presented the most influential approaches to politeness. The next two chapters focus on practical examples. In the first of these there are summarized linguistic means which are used to express politeness in Czech, and they are compared with Swedish. The second one deals with several specific speech acts, in which courtesy applies. The different ways of expressing politeness in Czech and Swedish are described on the base of the literature and also on my own questionnaire. Not only the spoken but also the written form of the communication is ranged in the dissertation. Key words: communication, courtesy, politeness, Czech, Swedish, language, form of address, formal terms, written communication, greeting

Der Neujahrsempfang 2009 der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig fand diesmal in besonderen Räumlichkeiten statt: Das leergeräumte Erdgeschoß West der Bibliotheca Albertina enthielt früher u. a. einen Lesesaal, künftig werden die Räumlichkeiten für Schulungen, Ausstellungen und Vorträge genutzt. Als erstes wird im Sommer 2009 der neue Ausstellungsraum eröffnet werden.

El presente estudio se establece en el ámbito de la enseñanza de la competencia pragmática del español como lengua extranjera, más concretamente en el acto de habla expresivo del saludo. Existe una amplia variedad de estudios sobre la instrucción explícita de actos de habla en inglés, aunque el número de estudios basados en el aprendizaje de actos de habla a través de tratamientos pedagógicos en español es reducido y ninguno de ellos se centra en el saludo. El saludo es un acto de habla expresivo que, a pesar de su carácter universal y su extensa variedad de fórmulas, únicamente se expone en las primeras lecciones de E/LE. Acorde con las preguntas de investigación, el propósito de esta investigación es realizar un análisis sobre la enseñanza explícita con atención en la forma del acto de habla del saludo en el contexto sueco. A través de éste se comprueba la eficacia del tratamiento pedagógico y los efectos que tiene a distintos niveles de competencia. Para la recogida de datos se diseñó un tratamiento pedagógico, un cuestionario sociolingüístico y un test (pre y post) sobre conocimientos del saludo. Los participantes del estudio fueron estudiantes de secundaria suecos estudiantes de L3 español, los cuales conforman la muestra experimental y un grupo de control. Asimismo, también tomaron parte estudiantes de secundaria españoles como grupo de control de la lengua meta. Los resultados del estudio demuestran que los participantes con un mayor nivel de competencia son los que se han beneficiado considerablemente del tratamiento pedagógico centrado en el saludo. / The following study pertains to the field of Spanish as a foreign language: teaching the pragmatic competence, more specifically in the expressive speech act of greetings. There is a wide variety of studies related to the explicit instruction of speech acts in English, although the number of studies based on the learning of speech acts through educational treatments in Spanish is reduced and none of them focuses on greetings. Despite its universal nature and wide variety of forms, greetings are expressive speech acts only presented during the first lessons of Spanish as a foreign language. In accordance with the research questions, the aim of this research is to analyze the explicit teaching based on focus on form methodology of the greeting speech act in a Swedish context. Within this particular context, the efficiency of the pedagogical treatment as well as its effect on different levels of competence are going to be checked. A pedagogical treatment, a sociolinguistic questionnaire and a test (pre and post) on greeting knowledge have been designed to collect data. Study participants were Swedish high school students of L3 Spanish; they were organized into either experimental sample and control group. Spanish high school students also took part into this study as a control group of the target language. The study results show that participants with a higher level of competence receive the greatest benefit from the pedagogical treatment focused on the greeting.

Der Neujahrsempfang 2009 der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig fand diesmal in besonderen Räumlichkeiten statt: Das leergeräumte Erdgeschoß West der Bibliotheca Albertina enthielt früher u. a. einen Lesesaal, künftig werden die Räumlichkeiten für Schulungen, Ausstellungen und Vorträge genutzt. Als erstes wird im Sommer 2009 der neue Ausstellungsraum eröffnet werden.

Ce travail de thèse s’inscrit dans une perspective comparative et interculturelle. Sa mise en œuvre repose sur l’idée que c’est en observant ce qui se passe dans les interactions du quotidien que l’on peut mieux comprendre le rapport que les cultures entretiennent, et mettre au jour ce que les comportements observés dans chacune des cultures étudiées ont de spécifique. En s’appuyant sur l’analyse minutieuse et détaillée d’enregistrements effectués dans quatre sites commerciaux français et britanniques, l’étude tente de comprendre le comportement langagier des participants en le mettant en relation avec divers éléments du contexte (éléments relevant du micro-contexte : matériel discursif contigu aux énoncés étudiés ; du contexte situationnel : agencement du site, nombre de participants, finalité de l’interaction ; du macro-contexte : place occupée par les interactions de commerce dans les cultures en question, par les sites, valeurs culturelles d’arrière-plan). La finalité de cette étude (qui aborde les rituels d’entrée et de sortie d’interaction ; les remerciements ; la réalisation d’actes de langage directifs : questions, requêtes, offres ; les séquences conversationnelles) est d’obtenir une meilleure compréhension des profils communicatifs relatifs aux cultures française et britannique. / This thesis, which is of a contrastive and intercultural nature, is informed by the idea that it is by observing the behaviour of interactants in everyday interactions that the relationship between cultures can best be approached, and the specificity of the forms of behaviour encountered explored. Through the careful and detailed analysis of recordings taken in four different shops (French and British), the study aims to understand the linguistic behaviour of the participants by linking it to various contextual elements (micro-contextual elements: discursive material that surrounds the utterances analysed; situational elements: site layout, number of participants, interaction’s finality; macro-contextual ones: status of service encounters and of the types of shops selected, cultural values that underpin explored behaviour). The purpose of the study (which analyses opening and closing rituals; thanking; the way directive speech acts such as questions, offers and requests are performed; conversational sequences) is to provide a better understanding of the communicative styles that can be associated with French and British cultures.