The pragmatics of advice giving: Cross-cultural perspectives

This article presents the results of our investigation into the giving of advice by native and non-native speakers of American English. Specifically, we examine how advice giving is enacted in a series of advice letters, which were modeled on letters to popular advice columns found around the world in newspapers and magazines, and on the Internet. Our data indicate that there are important pragmatic differences between how native speakers and non-native speakers in the United States offered advice, regardless of the non-native speakers' English proficiency. The non-native speakers produced comparatively brief and formulaic responses, requiring coding and analysis based upon form categories. The native speakers produced narrative responses that required coding and analysis based upon content categories. Research such as this underscores the need to provide language learners with an awareness that pragmatic behaviors differ across cultures.