Speaker
Description
This presentation proposes applying Geert Hofstede's six-dimensional model of national cultures, a popular theory in social psychology, to intercultural pragmatic research as a supplement to politeness theories. The presenter reports on a study analyzing Vietnamese and Japanese students' compliment and compliment response emails, as well as their feedback from a post-project questionnaire. The presenter then shows how well Hofstede’s theory explains the differences in the performances of the two groups, especially in terms of politeness.
Summary
Language and culture intersect in pragmatics and the cultural side is called sociopragmatics. This presentation reports the results of analyzing Vietnamese and Japanese college students’ emails and feedback from the international business email exchange projects in terms of both sociopragmatics, especially politeness, based on traditional Brown and Levinson’s (1978) politeness theories (cross-cultural pragmatics) and Hofstede’s (2001, 2010) six-dimensional model of national cultures (cross-cultural psychology and sociology).
| Teaching Context | College and university education |
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