Speech Acts Bibliography:
Conversational Dynamics & Politeness

Bravo, D. (2002). Actos asertivos y cortesía: Imagen del rol en el discurso de académicos argentinos. In Placencia, M. E. & Bravo, D. (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortesía en español (pp. 141-74). Munich, Germany.

This study examines politeness in assertive acts in Argentinean Spanish through the notions of autonomy and affiliation.  Acts (communicative objectives), sub-acts (sub-objectives derived from the first), and strategies (how the act is realized) in a discussion group of four participants (male: 2; female: 2) were analyzed in terms of face.  Results demonstrated a priority for interpersonal agreement and maintenance of their image as academic professionals.  In addition, strategies were used to protect their 'basic' image and their image as an 'Argentinean'.  Strategy choice was influenced by the level of conflict, the relation between the intensity of the assertion and the level of conflict, the level of politeness, and the social effect of the assertion.  In general, group discussion can be said to be a social-emotional environment.

Bunnie, E. M. (2002). A cross-cultural comparison of Spanish and English conversational discourse. University of Regina, Canada. (No. 0-612-75157-0) .

This qualitative study is a cross-cultural comparison of Peninsular Spanish and Canadian English conversational discourse.  Five features in recorded naturally-occurring data (2-140 line dialogues) and thorough ethnological methods are analyzed.  These features are Principles of Conversational Organization (PCO), interruptions, gestures, inter-gender differences, and Peninsular Spanish non-verbals as communicative events.  The author’s conclusions can be summarized in each of these five areas.  First of all, the five PCO are used in both languages (i.e., greetings and state-of-being questions in openers).  Overlap and interruption occur in both language varieties, but the Spanish participants exhibited a much higher incidence of interruption and overlap, indicative of a high-involvement style.  This conversational style is signaled by rapid pacing and participatory listening.  A gender comparison of these features results in some difference, namely that, in both groups, males do not dominate through interruption and that females tend to provide more supportive utterances.  Finally, gesture use is varied and non-verbals in Peninsular Spanish can be classified as communicative events (in this case, criticism).

Chodorowska-Pilch, M. (2000). The imperfect of politeness in Spanish. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 19, 29-44.

This work examines the noncanonical use of the imperfect (i.e., reference to the past and aspectual values) as a politeness strategy in Peninsular Spanish. The author notes that in specific impositive speech acts, the imperfect is a grammaticalized device for encoding politeness. Very often this occurs in situations where the speaker manifests a differential attitude towards the hearer or addressee. Analysis is based on naturally-occurring data from two travel agencies in Spain. An explanation and classification of the noncanonical uses of the imperfect and the verbs encoding politeness is given. Results show that the imperfect is used to express politeness in a variety of speech acts and is associated systematically with verb choice (e.g., querer is found in direct questions, impositive statements, indirect questions, and indirect requests). Examples of each case are given.

Curcó, C. & De Fina, A. (2002). Modo imperativo, negación y diminutivos en la expresión de la cortesía en español: el contraste entre México y España. In Placencia, M. E. & Bravo, D. (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortesía en español (pp. 107-40). Munich, Germany: LINCOM Europa.

The interaction styles and verbal politeness in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish are compared by analyzing imperatives, negation, and diminutives. This exploratory analysis examines perceptions of face threatening acts as well as social and linguistic components of politeness in both language varieties. One hundred fifteen Mexican university students and 134 Spanish students completed two questionnaires. The first measured students' perceptions of distance, power and rank of imposition. The second measured the two group's reactions when confronted with certain linguistic forms in fixed contexts. Results demonstrate interesting behaviours. It was predicted that in calculating each of the social factors combined as well as each separately, that the Mexican students would express a sense of risk and higher level of imposition. However, although it was a tendency (70% of the situations), this was not always the case. When calculating distance, power, and imposition together, the Mexican students' and the Spanish students' perceptions were based on the contextual situation. The Mexican group saw complaints and disagreements as needing more mitigation and the Spaniards reflected higher imposition when modifying the course of action. Analyzed separately, these social factors do show differences, but not those predicted by the researcher. Distance was evaluated equally by both groups, power was evaluated higher in the Spanish group, and degree of imposition was evaluated higher in the Mexican group. The analysis of linguistic markers highlights the use of imperatives in Peninsular Spanish and diminutives in Mexican Spanish. The use of the imperative was seen as less polite by 93-99% of the Mexican participants. In terms of interrogatives, both groups saw them as equally polite. However, the Mexican group noted that mitigators increase politeness and the Spanish group demonstrated no effect of these mitigators. This study also demonstrates a likely perceived difference between perception and actual use of politeness strategies. In general, the authors conclude that the Mexican group tended to be more sensitive to distance and hierarchy. The Mexican participants valued deference without affecting solidarity and were especially sensitive to the maintenance of positive face. The Spanish group tended to value free expression and spontaneity.

Farr, M. (2000). ¡A mi no me manda nadie! Individualism and identity in Mexican Ranchero speech. Pragmatics, 10, 61-85.

This article provides an ethnographic account of individualism and identity as reflected in Mexican Ranchero speech. As part of the analysis, the author provides a socio-historical account of this dialectical group as well as an anecdotal account of speech events. Conclusions assert that the Ranchero speech community values both autonomy and affiliation, traditionally demonstrated by franqueza (direct, straightforward, candid language). The construction of the Ranchero identity through language use is explored in detail.

Forbes, K. & Cordella, M. (1999). The role of gender in Chilean argumentative discourse. IRAL, 37, 277-89.

The role of gender has been shown to have an influence on a number of discourse features. In this study, the influence of gender on argumentative discourse is analyzed. Three groups (G1--n= 3 males, 1 female, G2--n=3 females, 1 male; G3--n=2 females, 2 males) discussed discrimination that women experience in society. The argumentative discourse of these conversations was analyzed. Results show that gender did not completely determine role in participant style. Gender preferences were noted, but most strategies were used by both genders. The most influential factor on gender variation was the balance ratio of gender. Females tended to favor overlap, latching, back channeling, supportive moves, and repetition of others, except when there was a balanced ratio of gender. When the group composition was balanced, females tended to accommodate to male strategy balance, demonstrating sensitivity to group dynamics and a need for harmony and cooperation. Male strategy choice varied more when they were the majority and seemed to be exercising power.

García, C. (2002). La expresión de camaradería y solidaridad: cómo los venezolanos solicitan un servicio y responden a la solicitud de un servicio. In Placencia, M. E. & Bravo, D. (Eds.), Actos de habla y cortesía en español (pp. 55-88). Amsterdam, Netherlands: LINCOM Europa.

This article provides a comparison of gender differences when requesting service and responding to a request for service in Venezuelan Spanish. Twenty native speakers (NS) of Venezuelan Spanish (10 male and 10 female) participated in two open-ended role play situations and a follow-up questionnaire to validate the authenticity of the responses in the dialogues. In general, both male and female responses can be classified as belonging to a solidarity politeness culture based on closeness (i.e., less worry of imposition and offence, confirmation of positive face is critical). Nevertheless, among these strategies, distinct differences were found between the strategies used by male and female participants. When requesting service, females used more strategies (240) then their male counterparts (148) and demonstrated a balanced preference for mitigating (equal number of head acts and supporting moves). The males used a higher number of head acts then supporting moves. Furthermore, males demonstrated a preference for solidarity and maintaining their position while females preferred deference and cooperation. When responding to a request, the interlocutors performed three stages in the response: (1) accept or reject request, (2) negotiate terms, and (3) conclude the interaction. Both genders utilized solidarity politeness strategies and a marked preference for mitigators. Males opted for more negotiation, utilizing an equal number of head acts and supporting moves while females tended to opt for cooperation, utilizing a higher number of mitigators. In all cases, the participants preferred to threaten their interlocutor’s negative face rather than their positive face, demonstrating the importance of maintaining solidarity over avoiding imposition.

García, C. (2007). "Y bueno pienso que vos podrías dársela": Estrategias de cortesía utilizadas por participantes argentinos en la solicitud de un servicio profesional. (‘Good, I think you could give it to her”: Politeness strategies used by Argentinean participants in requests for professional services.). In P. B. Franch, A. E. Sopeña Balordi, & A. Briz Gómez (Eds.), Pragmática, discurso y sociedad (pp. 153-174). Cuaderns de Filología, Estudis Linguístics 12. Valencia, Spain: Universitat de València.

The objective of this study was to investigate strategies used by a group of 20 Argentinean adults in soliciting professional services in role-play situations where degree of power, distance, and level of imposition varied.  The researcher was interested in whether Argentineans preferred solidarity over deference in the negotiation of their requests and how this preference might be reflected in their cultural perspectives.

Hernández-Flores, N. (2004). Politeness as face enhancing. Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish (pp. 265-84). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.

A theoretical exploration of the functions of politeness utilizing data from Peninsular Spanish is presented. The author explores existing politeness theory and asserts that an additional function of politeness (face enhancement) should be considered in order to account for situations in which politeness is used without the presence of a threat to face, a very common practice in Peninsular Spanish. In contrast to ‘protecting face’ during face enhancement, interlocutors seek to maintain the ‘ideal face balance.’ The three functions of politeness in Peninsular Spanish are presented with naturally-occurring, examples of each: (1) mitigation (used when there is risk to face), (2) reparation (used when damage to face has already occurred), and (3) enhancement (used when there is no threat). The occurrence of politeness behavior is not always a strategy containing redress; rather, it is a manifestation of the three functions due to cultural restraints. For example, in the case of Peninsular Spanish, requests are not always face-threatening. The author contrasts this notion with Western cultures that often socially construct interaction as face threatening by nature.