Communicative styles in English and German

Abstract In this paper cultural differences in communicative styles preferred by speakers of German and English are presented, and their impact on intercultural misunderstandings and the ascription of politeness or impoliteness is discussed. Concretely, five dimensions along which these cultural differences (as outcomes of extensive contrastive-pragmatic work can be placed) are introduced and exemplified. Further, the value and the explanatory power these dimensions might have for culture clashes and for the perception of misunderstanding and (im)politeness are discussed. Keywords: communicative stylesdimensions of cultural differences (German – English)politenessmultilevel model of politenessopening and closing phasesgambitsdiscourse strategiesspeech actsintercultural misunderstandingdirectness vs indirectnessorientation towards self vs orientation towards othersorientation towards content vs orientation towards addresseesexplicitness vs implicitness ad hoc formulation vs verbal routines