Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay
A contrastive study of requests and apologies
Author
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.
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.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 83] 2000. xviii, 225 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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List of figures | p. ix
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Acknowledgements | p. xi
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Introduction | p. xiii
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1. Politeness theory | p. 1
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2. Speech act theory and politeness: Requests and apologies | p. 31
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3. Structure of the study and methodology | p. 57
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4. The findings: Requests | p. 99
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5. The findings: Apologies | p. 143
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6. Conclusion | p. 169
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Appendix | p. 185
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Subject index | p. 223
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Appendix | p. 185
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Subject index | p. 223
“[...] the book is very interesting and very easy to read despite the statistically quantitative approach adopted (and rightly to) in the book. It does show, for the first time, how the Uruguayan and the British differ when coming to display considerations of politeness at a discourse level.”
Francisco Yus, University of Alicante, Spain
“Márquez Reiter's study provides the reader with a comprehensive contrastive study of the realizations of requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish. This rather quantitative analysis is an important contribution to cross-cultural studies on politeness that would appeal to a wide audience, both specialists and non-specialists, interested in issues of cultural communication and politeness studies.”
Nuria Guerra-Bernal, University of Birmingham, in the Journal of Politeness Research 1 (2005)
“This is a book that practitioners in the field of linguistic pragmatics will enjoy and learn from.”
Robert S. Burton, California State University, Ohio in Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Vol.25:1 (2003)
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General