Linguistic politeness of Pakistani English and British English speakers: Culture and gender perspectives

Abstract

This study examines sociocultural, pragmatic, and gender differences between native speakers of British English (BritE) and Pakistani English speakers (PakE) in expressing apology responses (ARs). Based on a discourse completion task (DCT) using data from 60 speakers of both cultures, the study focuses on the variations in the use of apology response strategies in three severe and three non-severe situations. The findings show that the two groups use a variety of politeness strategies in expressing apology responses. The majority of BritE speakers tend to use ARs with the relatively strong hearer-oriented strategies (Acceptance). PakE ARs, on the other hand, seem to be dominated by the frequent use of Acknowledgment, with speaker-oriented strategies. Similarly, BritE speakers tend to use more indirect (Evasion) strategies as compared to PakE speakers. These results have proven that both male and female English-using Pakistanis are amazingly obvious and direct in their apology responses. Furthermore, the findings do not show quite pronounced gender differences both within and between the two cultures in terms of the strategy use and expressions.

Keywords

• apologies
• cross-cultural pragmatics
• culture
• sociocultural
• speech acts
• politeness