Disagreement Realizations: Some Methodological Concerns

Abstract

Interlanguage pragmatics is concerned with how nonnative speakers use and develop their L2 pragmatic competence (Kasper 1996: 145). In this context, realizations of face threatening speech acts that such speakers perform are examined and contrasted with those of native speakers of the same target language. This has been done with a view to minimizing communication breakdowns and developing a better mutual cross-cultural understanding. Yet, despite the large number of studies conducted in this field, only a few have manage to achieve their purpose. This is often the case due to some methodological flaws that characterize such studies. The current study sheds light on these methodological flaws so that future research yields more representative, credible and informative findings. In particular, the researcher provides a critique of the methodological perspectives adopted in contrastive cross-cultural research on disagreement realizations by reviewing eight studies that have examined disagreement strategies in English by speakers of different language backgrounds.