Comparing Expressions of Gratitude in English: Native vs. Non-Native Speakers, Cheat Sheet of History

Download Comparing Expressions of Gratitude in English: Native vs. Non-Native Speakers and more Cheat Sheet History in PDF only on Docsity! ES 25 (2004-2005):91-102 THE SPEECH ACT OF THANKING IN ENGLISH. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NATIVE AND NON- NATIVE SPEAKERS’ BEHAVIOUR Francisco Javier Díaz Pérez Universidad de Jaén The main purpose of this article involves the analysis of certain aspects of the speech act of thanking in English both as a native and as foreign language. Those aspects include the selection of the strategy used in the expression of gratitude and the use of external modifiers. Expressions of gratitude in Spanish, the mother tongue of the English non-native speakers, were also considered for the sake of comparison. The data for this study were collected by means of a discourse completion test (DCT), which was administered among 225 informants. The main difference between the expressions of gratitude produced by English native speakers and those produced by English non-native speakers was related to the use of colloquial strategies. The results of this study suggest the importance of paying attention to pragmatic aspects in the class of English as foreign language. 1. INTRODUCTION Expressions of gratitude are closely linked to the notion of verbal politeness. In the same way as apologies, expressions of gratitude are produced as a reaction to a previous action and have as an objective to restore the balance in the social relations between speaker and hearer. The aim of this paper will be to analyse certain aspects of the speech act of thanking in English, such as the strategy employed to express gratitude or the use of certain external modifiers or supportive moves. Likewise, a comparison is established between the expressions of gratitude produced by English native speakers and those realized by English non-native speakers. 92 FRANCISCO JAVIER DÍAZ PÉREZ 2. THE SPEECH ACT OF THANKING Expressions of gratitude, like complaints, are expressive speech acts, but unlike the latter, their nature, following Leech’s (1983: 104) terminology, is convivial, since their objective involves keeping harmony between speaker and hearer. In this sense, Bodman & Eisenstein (1988: 1) state that the expression of gratitude is an essential pragmatic function to establish social links, which is reflected in the association produced in many English native speakers’ minds between that function and politeness or good manners. Eisenstein & Bodman (1993) highlight the importance of the social value of the expression of gratitude in American English in the following way: One indication of its importance is that it is one of the few functions that most speakers can remember being explicitly taught as children. Used frequently in a wide range of interpersonal relationships, this function, when appropriately expressed, can engender feelings of warmth and solidarity among interlocutors. Conversely, the failure to express gratitude adequately can have negative consequences for the relationship of speaker and listener (Eisenstein & Bodman 1993: 64). Searle (1969: 65) also refers to the positive aspects of thanking, which he defines as an illocutionary act produced by a speaker as a reaction to a past act carried out by a hearer which the speaker considers that has been beneficial to him/her. Therefore, expressions of gratitude, like complaints and apologies, and unlike requests, are retrospective acts or post-events, since they refer to a past or ongoing action. Haverkate (1993: 160) states, in this sense, that the act of thanking is a reactive act, that is to say, it is determined by an interlocutor’s previous action. According to him, “[e]ste acto, que puede ser verbal o no verbal, produce un cambio en el mundo que redunda en beneficio del hablante que agradece” (Haverkate 1993: 160). Apart from its retrospective or reactive character, thanking may also be characterized as a speech act which is included, following Searle’s (1975) typology, under the category of expressive acts, whose illocutionary point may be formulated in the following manner: “to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content” (Searle 1975: 12). The main characteristics of thanking may be summarized by means of the following table: Type of speech act Action Assessment of the action Actor Addressee of the action Expressive Previous to the speech act Positive Hearer Speaker Table 1. Characteristics of the speech act of thanking THE SPEECH ACT OF THANKING IN ENGLISH. 95 or age range. The distribution between sexes is the same in the three groups: 29 male informants and 46 female informants. GROUP OF INFORMANTS LANGUAGE SPEAKERS NUMBER OF INFORMANTS I British English Native 75 (29 M + 46 F) II Peninsular Spanish Native 75 (29 M + 46 F) III English Non-native 75 (29 M + 46 F) Table 2. Description of the group of informants 3.2. RESEARCH INSTRUMENT The data for this study were elicited by means of a discourse completion test. Such a research instrument was used to ensure cross-cultural comparability. The test is composed of five socially differentiated situations which vary in terms of the interlocutors’ relationship, that is to say, on the dimensions of dominance or social power and social distance or familiarity. Therefore, this instrument has allowed us to investigate not only the similarities and differences in the realization patterns of expressions of gratitude between native and non-native speakers of English, but also the effect of social factors on those realization patterns. The situations are as follows: S1 You are at the university with a friend of yours. You have to hand in a paper the following day, but your computer is not working. Your friend lends you his/her portable computer. S2 You are in the university refectory. You are going to pay for your lunch and you discover that you have no money. One of your teachers, who is queuing behind you notices this and lends you 5 pounds. S3 You are at home. A stranger rings the bell and brings you a folder in which your name and address appear. You had lost the folder and he/she found it at a bus stop. S4 You are at the university bus stop. A teacher you have never met before offers to give you a lift. Since you do not know whether the last bus has already left, you accept his/her offer. S5 You are in class taking notes. Your pen suddenly stops working. A class mate sitting next to you notices and lends you a pen. 96 FRANCISCO JAVIER DÍAZ PÉREZ As has been mentioned before, the five situations vary with regard to the social relationship between the interlocutors across the dimensions of social distance or familiarity and social power or dominance. Social distance is a binary variable in this case, that is to say, either the interlocutors know each other, in which case there is no social distance (−SD), or they have never met, which implies the existence of social distance (+SD). The variable of social power, in turn, also has two possible values: hearer’s dominance (S<H) or equal power between speaker and hearer (S=H). Like in Bonikowska (1988), Trosborg (1995) and Sasaki (1998), the situations have been designed in such a way that the informants ―all of them university students in a western society― would find them familiar and everyday situations. In order to avoid the artificiality implied by the adoption of a role that would be completely alien to students ―as that of a company manager, teacher or boss in an office―, in the present study we have chosen not to include situations in which the speaker had to adopt a power position with respect to the hearer. In this connection, Hernández Sacristán (1999: 59) states that, if situations which would be foreign to the informants were included, the effort of metapragmatic reflection demanded from them would have to do, therefore, not with what the informant would say in a given situation, but with what he/she thinks that an interlocutor A would say to an interlocutor B in the situation described. This would obviously affect the reliability of the data obtained, since, if there is a difference between what somebody really says in a situation and what he/she thinks that he/she would say, the difference will be greater when the answer corresponds to what somebody thinks somebody else would say in a given situational context. Table 3 shows the relationship between speaker (S) and hearer (H) across the two social dimensions previously mentioned and with respect to the degree of imposition of the action. Thanking situations Social distance Dominance Degree of imposition S1 Computer −SD S = H + S2 Lunch −SD S < H + S3 Folder +SD S = H + S4 Lift +SD S < H + S5 Pen −SD S = H − Table 3. Description of the situations proposed in the discourse completion test 4. THANKING STRATEGIES Among the strategies used to express gratitude different levels may be distinguished, which range from the most direct, or Illocutionary Force Indicating THE SPEECH ACT OF THANKING IN ENGLISH. 97 Devices (IFIDs), to the indirect strategies, which combined with an IFID, may also be used as supportive moves to the nuclear act in an expression of gratitude. The fourth level or category corresponds to the direct strategies, grouped under the common label IFID, or Illocutionary Force Indicating Device. Within this group different strategies may be established. Each of those strategies is associated to a particular register. Thus, in English two types of IFID which are clearly linked to a colloquial register may be used to express gratitude. It is the case of cheers and ta. In Spanish there is not an equivalent form, a reason which explains why the percentage of use of this strategy is obviously 0 %. In 17.3 % of the expressions of gratitude produced by the English native speakers a colloquial IFID has been used, whereas in the group of the English non-native speakers this percentage descends to 1.6 %. The differences between one group and the other are therefore statistically significant. These differences between native and non-native speakers are due to the fact that these colloquial forms are closely connected to the type of language spoken in informal situations and are, consequently, forms which tend to be acquired in the country where the foreign language is spoken and which are not normally taught in the classroom. Besides, the fact that no equivalent forms exist in Spanish also explains this difference in behaviour between native and non-native speakers, since in this case positive transfer from Spanish to English is not possible. As can be observed in example (3), these colloquial IFIDs may be intensified by means of adverbs. (1) Cheers mate. I won’t nick it. (I/9/5)1 (2) Oh, cheers, man. Nice one. I’ll buy you a drink or something. (I/53/1) (3) Ta very much. (I/15/5) (4) Cheers, mate. (III/30/5) (5) Ta! (III/72/5) Another IFID also associated to a colloquial register, although less informal than the previous ones, is the English formula thanks, which has no clear equivalent in Spanish either. The differences between English native and non-native speakers are also statistically significant in this case. Whereas English native speakers have used this IFID in 47.7 % of their expressions of gratitude, non-native speakers have done it only in 26.9 %. (6) Thanks very much. It was very kind of you to come all this way and bring it back. (I/4/1) 1 The relevant linguistic item or sequence appears in italics. In the code system used to identify the examples, the first number represents the group of speakers (I: English native speakers, II: Spanish native speakers, and III: English nonnative speakers), the second number (from 1 to 75) represents the informant, and the third number (1 to 5) refers to the situation. 100 FRANCISCO JAVIER DÍAZ PÉREZ are frequently used in English, such as You’re a lifesaver.2 In complimenting his/her interlocutor, the speaker is indicating that the former has done an effort to carry out an action from which the speaker has benefited and that anybody would not be ready to do that. English native speakers —with 16.2 % of expressions of gratitude which contain a praise to the person— significantly differ from the informants of the other two groups. In the Spanish native speakers and the English non-native speakers the percentages are respectively 6.7 % and 8 %. (19) Cheers, you’re an absolute lifesaver! (I/1/1) (20) Thanks a lot, that’s really kind of you. (I/4/1) (21) ¡Qué guay que eres! Te lo devolveré tan pronto lo termine. Gracias. (II/25/1) (22) Muchas gracias. Ha sido muy amable. (II/22/4) (23) Thank you very much, Tom. You’re a good friend. (III/5/1) (24) Thanks a lot, it’s difficult to find people like you nowadays. (III/28/3) 6. CONCLUSIONS The main purpose of this paper has been to explore some characteristics of the speech act of thanking in English both as a native and as a foreign language. As has been shown, probably the most relevant difference between native and non-native speakers of English with regard to the production of expressions of gratitude has to do with the use of colloquial strategies. This is an aspect directly related to the pragmatics of a language, that is to say, the use of that language in particular contexts. Although it has been traditionally disregarded in the foreign language classroom —in which the emphasis has been placed on other fields such as grammar or vocabulary—, pragmatics seems to be gaining ground due to certain aspects, such as the communicative approach to foreign language teaching or the growing interest in pragmatics as a field of study in itself. To become communicatively competent in language learning implies not only the progressive enrichment of linguistic knowledge but also developing the ability to use linguistic forms that are appropriate to the socio-cultural context in which communication takes place. Communicative language learning and teaching can therefore not be understood but in the light of pragmatics. Nor can the functional bias of 2 About the use of hyperbolic statements and their relation with politeness, Leech states the following: “There will naturally be a preference for overstating polite beliefs and understating impolite ones” (Leech 1983: 146). THE SPEECH ACT OF THANKING IN ENGLISH. 101 communicative language syllabuses be approached without a reference to speech act theory. REFERENCES Aston, Guy. “Say ‘thank you’: Some pragmatic constraints in conversational closings”. Applied Linguistics 16 (1995): 57-86. Bodman, Jean and Miriam Eisenstein. “May God increase your bounty: the expression of gratitude in English by native and non-native speakers”. Cross Currents 15 (1988): 1-21. Bonikowska, Malgorzata. “The choice of opting out”. Applied Linguistics 9/2 (1988): 169-181. Coulmas, Florian. “Poison to your soul: Thanks and apologies contrastively viewed”. Conversational Routine. Ed. Florian Coulmas. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. 69-93. 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