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The answer is clearly yes in the sense that certain speech acts (apologizing, suggesting, requesting, etc.) are used universally across speech communities (see Section 5.1.4). However, they are often different in both form (pragmalinguistics) and situational use (sociopragmatics) across cultures. Pragmalinguistic knowledge refers to the linguistic resources needed to express the pragmatic message, that is, how something is grammatically encoded. For instance, a request in English may be phrased as an imperative, for example, Give me that pen, or by using a modal, for example, Could you pass me that pen? Choices made by L1 speakers will depend on the particular context and relationship between interlocutors. One is more likely to use a bare imperative with an intimate, child, or spouse for example; and more likely to use the modal with a stranger or with someone of a perceived higher status. A second-language learner may not possess the pragmalinguistic resources to make all the correct distinctions. In a study of Americans learning German, for example, Wildner-Bassett (1994) found that learners overgeneralized the use of very specific lexical fillers in conversations (und so ‘and so’ and und so weiter ‘and so on’) as they were most familiar with and most comfortable with these forms. We will consider pragmatic markers in more detail in Section 7.3.

Sociopragmatic knowledge comprises a speaker’s understanding of what contextual information (Section 1.1.3) needs to be taken into consideration in order to perform a speech act correctly or even at all. For example, in early work as part of the CCSARP Project (Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns), Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984, p. 209) suggest that coming late to a work meeting may be perceived as a more serious offence in an American setting than in a comparable Israeli one, and thus Americans, as a group, will tend to apologize more intensely than Israelis would expect in this situation. For further discussion of context, see Section 8.3.

A second area of pragmatics that is relevant here is politeness. Traditionally viewed through Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, three variables

1 social power,

2 social distance, and

3 degree of imposition

are regarded as “universal constraints on linguistic action” (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996, p. 155). We can also assume that some of the strategies used to address these factors may be universal such as the use of indirect vs. direct language or the use of mitigating language. This area also includes the use of interactional discourse markers, semantic formulas, and routines including conventional expressions, for example, those that are frequently used to convey relational goals, such as nice to meet you. Wildner-Bassett describes these as “the polite noises we make every day in countless situations, the oil we need to keep the social machine running smoothly” (1994, p. 4). While these “polite noises” are universally expected across cultures, their pragmalinguistic realization and even sociopragmatic context can be very different. In another example from her German as a Foreign Language learners, Wildner-Bassett demonstrates that American English speakers carry over a routine from English, I’ll remember that into pragmatically inappropriate German ※ ich erinner mich daran (‘I remind myself of that’), as opposed to the correct form ich werde es mir merken (‘I’ll keep that in mind’; pp. 10–11).

Again, although it is clear that these constraints will apply across speech communities, expectations regarding when and how they are expressed can be very different. For example, politeness in interaction would seem to be a fairly straightforward notion and being more polite rather than less polite would be thus a safer option. However, over-politeness, “behavior which is evaluated as too polite for the context” (Izadi, 2016, p. 13), can be just as damaging as impoliteness, as it can be perceived as “mock politeness” or “insincere politeness.” Izadi gives several examples from Persian that can be disruptive in cross-cultural contexts including ritualized practices such as perceived over-complimenting or offering food or drink to an adjacent person (who may be a total stranger on an airplane) multiple times. We will look at the field of politeness, which has expanded considerably over the past few decades, in more detail in Chapter 5.