Cover not available
Article published In:
(Co-)Constructing Interpersonally Sensitive Activities Across Institutional Settings
Edited by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Rosina Márquez Reiter
[Pragmatics and Society 7:4] 2016
► pp. 540–569

Negotiating with the Boss

An inter- and cross-cultural perspective on problematic talk

| Stockholm University
| Jönköping University
Elicited conversations with participants engaged in a problematic negotiation with their boss were analyzed in groups of native speakers of British English, Chilean Spanish and Swedish, and in groups of Swedish speakers of L2 English and L2 Spanish (longtime residents in their host community and highly proficient in their L2). Two planes of comparison were involved: cross-culturally, addressing differences between the native groups, and, inter-culturally, addressing interaction between natives and non-natives. Results show considerable distance between the three L1 groups, especially regarding how power distance and social distance are managed both by the ‘employees’ and the ‘bosses’. As regards L2 speaker behavior, alignment with target community patterns largely prevails and few instances of L1 transfer occur. Communicative clashes are found to take place more often in the Swedish-Spanish encounters than in the Swedish-English ones, arguably due to the wider cultural distance between the Chilean and Swedish socio-cultures.
Keywords: conversational repair, dialogue analysis, argumentation strategies, rapport management, socio-pragmatic alignment, cross-cultural pragmatics, highly proficient L2 use, intercultural communication
Published online: 20 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.7.4.02fan
References (42)
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen. 2001. “Evaluating the Empirical Evidence: Grounds for Instruction in Pragmatics?” In Pragmatics in Language Teaching, ed. by Kenneth E. Rose and Gabriele Kasper, 13–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “Developing L2 Pragmatics.” Language Learning 631: 68–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1987. “Indirectness and Politeness in Requests: Same or Different?” Journal of Pragmatics 11 (2): 131–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds). 1989. Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1978. “Universals of Language Use: Politeness Phenomena.” In Questions and Politeness, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bülow Møller, Anne-Marie. 1993. “Negotiating in a Foreign Language.” Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 111: 11–26.Google Scholar
Chen, Rong. 2001. “Self-politeness: A proposal.” Journal of Pragmatics 331: 87–106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Andrew D. 2012. “Research Methods for Describing Variation in Intercultural Pragmatics for Cultures in Contact and Conflict.” In Pragmatic Variation in First and Second Language Contexts, ed. by J. César Félix-Brasdefer and Dale April Koike, 271–294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coulmas, Florian. 1978. „Routineformeln und pragmatische Interferenzen.“ In Kongressberichte der 8. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik Mainz 1977. Vol. 111, ed. by Wolfgang Kühlwein and Albert Raasch, 31–40. Stuttgart: Hochschulverlag.Google Scholar
Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Daun, Åke. 1992. “Modern and Modest.” In Culture and Management in the Field of Ethnology and Business Administration, ed. by Annick Sjögren and Lena Janson, 101–111. Stockholm: Stockholm School of Economics, Institute of International Business.Google Scholar
. 1996. Swedish Mentality. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dippold, Doris. 2011. “Argumentative Discourse in L2 German: A Sociocognitive Perspective on the Development of Facework Strategies.” Modern Language Journal 95 (2): 171–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erman, Britt, Annika Denke, Fanny Forsberg, and Lars Fant. 2014. “Nativelike Expression in Long-residency L2 Users: Multiword Structures in L2 English, French and Spanish.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 24 (1): 160–182.Google Scholar
Eemeren, Frans van, and Rob Grootendorst. 1983. Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies: A Pragma-dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fant, Lars. 2007. “Rapport and Identity Management in Spanish Spontaneous Dialogue.” In Research on Politeness in the Spanish-Speaking World, ed. by María Elena Placencia and Carmen García, 335–365. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fant, Lars, Fanny Forsberg, and Carlos Olave Roco. 2011. “Cómo pedirle dos días de permiso al jefe: el alineamiento pragmático de usuarios avanzados de EL2 en diálogos asimétricos.” In El diálogo oral en el mundo hispanohablante, ed. by Lars Fant and Ana María Harvey, 219–249. Madrid & Frankfurt: Iberoamericana Vervuert. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “Los límites de la adaptación socioprágmatica en el uso muy avanzado de la L2. Análisis de conversaciones en español entre empleado sueco y jefe chileno.” In Pragmática y comunicación intercultural en el mundo hispanohablante, ed. by María Elena Placencia and Carmen García, 283–314. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Félix-Brasdefer, J. César. 2010. “Data Collection Methods in Speech Act Performance: DCTs, Role Plays, and Verbal Reports.” In Speech Act Performance: Theoretical, Empirical and Methodological Issues, ed. by Alicia Martínez-Flor and Esther Usó-Juán, 41–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forsberg, Fanny, and Lars Fant. 2010. “Idiomatically Speaking: The Effects of Task Variation and Target Language on the Use of Formulaic Sequences in High-level Use of French and Spanish.” In Perspectives on Formulaic Language, ed. by David Wood, 47–70. London & New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Forsberg Lundell, Fanny, and Britt Erman. 2012. “Pragmatic Performance of Requests: A Study of Immersed L2 Users of English and French, and Native Speakers.” Journal of Pragmatics 44 (6–7): 709–928. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gille, Johan. 2001. Pautas argumentativas en el diálogo espontáneo: Un estudio de conversaciones intra- e interculturales. Doctoral dissertation. Stockholm University, Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.Google Scholar
Hofstede, Geert, Gert-Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov. 2010. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele. 1992. “Pragmatic Transfer.” Second Language Research 8 (3): 203–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Cathérine. 1997. “A Multilevel Approach in the Study of Talk-in-interaction.” Pragmatics 7 (1): 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Peter D. 1999. “Language Anxiety: A Review of the Research for Language Teachers.” In Affect in Foreign Language and Second Language Teaching: A Practical Guide to Creating a Low-anxiety Classroom Atmosphere, ed. by Dolly J. Young, 24–45. Boston: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Peter D., and Robert C. Gardner. 1989. “Anxiety and Second Language Learning: Towards a Theoretical Clarification.” Language Learning 391: 251–275. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez Reiter, Rosina, Isobel Rainey, and Glenn Fulcher. 2005. “A Comparative Study of Certainty and Conventional Indirectness: Evidence from British English and Peninsular Spanish.” Applied Linguistics 26 (1): 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McSweeney, Brendan. 2002. “Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith – a Failure of Analysis.” Human Relations 55 (1): 89–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merkin, Rebecca S. 2006. “Uncertainty Avoidance and Facework: A Test of the Hofstede Model.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 30 (2): 213–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J., Phillip Bailey, and Christine E. Daley. 1999. “Factors Associated with Foreign Language Anxiety.” Applied Psycholinguistics 201: 217–239. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Porter, Patricia A. 1986. “How Learners Talk to Each Other: Input and Interaction in Task-centered Discussions.” In Talking to Learn: Conversation in Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Richard R. Day, 200–222. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Schumann, John H. 1978. “The Acculturation Model for Second Language Acquisition.” In Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Learning, ed. by R.C. Gingras, 27–50. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron, and Suzanne Wong Scollon. 2001. Intercultural Communication. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2000. “Rapport Management: A Framework for Analysis.” In Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–46. London & New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
. 2007. “Theories of Identity and the Analysis of Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 291: 649–656.Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen E. 1958. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trompenaars, Fons, and Charles Hampden-Turner. 1997. Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1995. Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints, and Apologies. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Welzel, Christian. 2013. Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
World Values Survey. Accessed 21 September 2015. [URL].
Yates, Lynda, and George Major. 2015. “‘Quick-chatting’, ‘Smart Dogs’, and How to ‘Say Without Saying’: Pragmatic Learning in the Community.” System 481: 141–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Liu, Shuang
2021. Development of English teaching theory and practice research from the cross-cultural perspective. The International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education ► pp. 002072092110077 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 october 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.