Expressing disagreement in English as a lingua franca: Whose pragmatic rules?

Abstract

Multicultural classrooms provide the intercultural pragmatist with a breeding ground to get firsthand information on intercultural communication. In such a context, if English is used as a lingua franca, these classrooms also become an ideal setting to observe the pragmatics of this relatively unknown variety. The present article aims to analyze qualitatively a sample of data produced by a multicultural group of masters students in which English is used as the lingua franca. More specifically, I intend to answer the following research question: In a multicultural class where English is the medium of instruction and students' peer to peer communication, whose pragmatic "rules" are followed? In other words, do these speakers stick to their own cultural pragmatic rules or follow nativelike ones? More specifically, I focus on the speech act of disagreement given its face-threatening nature and its disruptive potential if carried out in what interlocutors might perceive as the "wrong" way. Disagreement was also chosen given the relative paucity of studies on this speech act -as opposed, for example, others like requests or compliments. For this purpose, the 10 students -from very different cultural backgrounds -were asked to carry out a group assignment. Their negotiation and discussion process, however, was computer-mediated via the use of forums rather than face-to-face. This allowed the researcher to collect naturally occurring, spontaneous data in a relatively easy way (without the need for transcription). It also gave the students the opportunity to interact in a more democratic way. In fact, by being an asynchronous discussion online, they did not have to fight for the conversational turn, but all of them had the chance to contribute to the discussion at their own pace. The sample so collected consists of 15,598 words. The limitation of the sample calls for a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach but is valuable insofar as it represents naturally occurring data. Disagreement expressions were classified according to two main categories: strong and mitigated disagreement (following Kreutel 2007;Pomerantz 1984 andRees-Miller 2000). Inspection of the data reveals that students on the whole show a tendency to avoid strong disagreement whilst favoring mitigated disagreement of different sorts (e.g., use of hedges, asking for clarification, giving explanations, etc.). Moreover, students with high linguistic proficiency displayed a wider range of strategies, following a more nativelike pattern -specifically; they seemed to follow the pragmatic rules of British English. On the other hand, students whose linguistic proficiency was lower also showed a tendency to avoid strong

Speech Act Set in TripAdvisor Conflictive Exchanges

“…The formulas through which explicit disagreement is manifested are diverse (Kreutel, 2007;Maíz Arévalo, 2014) including next actions such as negative evaluations and accusations (Decock and Spiessens, 2017: 93) statements (Koczogh, 2014: 149;Decock and Spiessens, 2017: 93); explanations and requests for clarification (Maíz Arévalo, 2014: 445-446;Maíz Arévalo, 2014: 216-217); clarifications of the speakers' meaning (Koczogh, 2014: 151); accusations (Decock and Spiessens, 2017: 93); listing services, or reprimanding (Vanderveken, 1990: 179;Dozie and Otagburuagu, 2019: 33).…”

“…Dissenting acts can be carried out both through direct refusals and denials, or indirect speech acts. Sometimes these acts go beyond being instances of dissent, that is, showing disagreement (Langlotz and Locher, 2012;Maíz Arévalo, 2014;Decock and Spiessens, 2018), to become acts that Bach and Harnish (1979) have termed disputative in which speakers make an objection to the initial act. By rejecting the assertions of the initial act (the complaint), the speaker justifies their disagreement (Brenes Peña, 2011), meaning that disputative acts involve an even higher degree of illocutionary force than dissenting ones.…”

Disagreement Strategies Used in Jordanian Arabic lanations

“…Thereby, the speakers express their opposing opinions in a more polite and convincing way. The use of explanations is considered to be one of the most preferred strategies in a number of studies on disagreement (Kreutel, 2007;Lawson, 2009;Fernandez, 2013;Maíz-Arévalo, 2014).…”

“…Using such a strategy, the speakers are only interested in DISAGREEMENT STRATEGIES USED IN JORDANIAN ARABIC 428 refuting the previous opinions. In Maíz-Arévalo's (2014) taxonomy, the use of bare negative forms is a strong disagreement strategy which is characterized by the lack of mitigation of any sort.…”