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The main aim of the work is to assess physical parameters of forest woodchips and their impact on the prices achieved by the supplier in transactions with a power plant. During fragmentation of logging residue, high content of green matter and contaminants negatively impacts the quality parameters that serve as basis for settlements. The analysis concerns data on the main parameters -water content, fuel value, sulphur and ash content -from 252 days of deliveries of forest chips to a power plant. The deliveries were realised from forested areas on an average about 340 km from the plant. Average water content and the resultant fuel value of forest chips was within 27-47% and 8.7-12.9 GJ×Mg −1 (appropriately), respectively. They depend on the month in which they are delivered to the power plant. The threshold values for the above-mentioned parameters are set by the plant at a real level and the suppliers have no problems with meeting them. The parameter that is most frequently exceeded is ash content (11.5% of cases). The settlement system does not differentiate on the basis of the transport distance but gives possibility to lower the settlement price when the quality parameters are not met but provides no reward for deliveries with parameters better than the average ones. On the basis of results obtained, it was calculated that average annual settlement price is lower than the contract price by about 0.20 PLN×GJ −1 , which in case of the analysed company may translate into an average daily loss of about 700 PLN.

The main assumption in this article is that the pragmatics of the variety of South African English commonly referred to as black South African English (BSAE) have been shaped, over time, by educated bilinguals, through a transfer of features from African languages. Transfer of syntactic forms, now firmly established in the variety, is evidenced by, among other things, the preferred use of forms dispreferred in requesting formulae in the native varieties of English. To test the hypothesis of transfer of forms into English for the same requesting functions as in Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho), an African language of South Africa, use was made of a contrastive study, using ethnographic notebook data of BSAE and DCT (discourse completion task)-elicited requests in both languages and acceptability judgements on 'politeness' in the African language. The results of a pragmatico-syntactic analysis, which found a mismatch between knowledge about and use of appropriate speech act formulae in the native form of English, (1) confirm the hypothesis of a transfer of strategies from L1 to L2 over time in the speech of educated bilinguals which shaped BSAE; (2) suggest the influence of 'cultural rules' (because contact of languages involves contact of cultures) in shaping the pragmatics of BSAE, on the basis of which the 'Cultural Difference Hypothesis' is proposed; and (3) concur with the emerging conclusion of the institutionalization of BSAE as an indigenized variety of English.

The article reports on a contrastive study of apologies in native and "nativized" varieties of English and the South African variety of Setswana. Quantitative data were elicited by means of discourse completion tasks (DCT) along the lines of the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) project's framework. Qualitative data were elicited by means of video-taped role plays. A statistical analysis of the DCT supports the prediction of significant differences in the use of pragmalinguistic resources in apologizing between, on the one hand, Setswana and the nativized variety of English, and, on the other, the native variety of English. This is especially true of the use of the responsibility strategy. There, thus, seems to be a reasonable avenue for theorizing from the speakers' predominant politeness and apology realization on language-specific patterns. Apologizing is a prime case of face-work because it is a redressive speech act to repair an offensive or face-threatening act and, thus, restore harmonious, orderly, or friendly interaction. However, our findings call for an interpretation of group-or community-based face, not an individual one. For this purpose, we offer an ethnographic analysis inspired by the "cultural scripts" framework. Finally, these findings can be used to foster awareness about different sociopragmatic features and pragmalinguistic means and the potential for pragmatic failure in different-culture samelanguage interaction.

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