Culturally Speaking

Introduction - language, culture and rapport management. Part 1: fundamental conceptual issues; rapport management - a framework for analysis; cultural as an explanatory variable - problems and possibilities. Part 2: cross-cultural pragmatic research empirical studies; "it's not my fault!" - Japanese and English responses to unfounded accusations; compliment responses in Chinese and English - evaluative reactions; telephone conversations in Greek and German - attending to the relationship aspect of communication. Part 3: intercultural discourse - analytic models and concepts; pragmatic transfer in intercultural communication; understanding misunderstanding - a pragmatic-discourse approach to analyzing mismanaged rapport in talk across cultures; accommodation theory - a conceptual resource for intercultural sociolinguistics. Part 4: intercultural discourse - empirical studies; argumentation and resulting problems in the negotiation of rapport in a German-Chinese conversation; negative assessments in Japanese-American workplace interaction; impression management in East and West German job interviews; a problematic Chinese business visit to Britain - issues of face. Part 5: methodological issues; methodological issues in conducting theory-based cross-cultural research; data collection in pragmatics research.