Pragmatics: A Cross-Cultural Study

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If one looks at the different cultures from a point of view far away, one already can recognize some of the characteristics which made up a culture and at the same time make it different from other cultures. Every person, including you and me, is an individual but also a part of culture and society. So if we start to communicate with each other, it isn"t only important what you and I think or believe; it also plays a role from where you and I are coming and of which culture we are part of. The following work is going to explore the topic of cross-cultural pragmatics with the Anglo Saxon culture as the initial point.
 The first chapter will clarify the terms of "pragmatics" and "cross-cultural pragmatics" by trying to give definitions or at least detailed descriptions of these two concepts.
 The second chapter then will look behind the term of "pragmatic presupposition" by analyzing some examples. Furthermore, the problem of ethnocentricity is going to be explained and examined further as to its role in the formation of opinion about other cultures.
 In the following chapter the theory of the previous chapters is going to be employed by studying different cases which are mostly chosen from the Polish, Anglo Saxon, Australian and Japanese culture. The first case includes the different forms of address and requests and its pragmatic meaning within the different cultures. The usage of tag questions in different languages will also be studied. In the second case study the expression of opinions and exclamations is going to be characterized and described as to their forms and usage. The last case of the third chapter is concerned with the term of "addressivity" coined by Bakhtin and the marking of social affiliation, namely the social deixis. In this case study the forms of address in different cultures are going to be presented including the distinction between familiar and reverential addressing forms.
 The fourth and final chapter is going to have a look at the different cultural values and traditions among different cultures with special regard to the English, American, Polish and Japanese culture...

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