Cross-Cultural Discourse as 'Unequal Encounter': Towards a Pragmatic Analysis1

In a previous paper in this journal (Thomas 1983a), I put forward the notion of ‘pragmatic failure’ (which I distinguished from linguistic error) and I discussed some of the underlying reason for the fact that non-native speakers often seem inappropriately over-assertive or domineering when talking English. In a second (unrelated) paper on the language of asymmetrical discourse (see Thomas 1983b), I described a range of pragmatic and discoursal features which recurred with great regularity in the speech of the dominant participant in a variety of ‘unequal encounters’ (i. e. interactions in which one participant is in a position of authority relative to the other, as in police-suspect, teacher-pupil interactions). This paper brings these two strands of research together, in order to demonstrate that one reason for non-native speakers sometimes appearing inappropriately domineering or authoritarian in interactions with English-speaking ‘equals’ is that they are inadvertently employing as ‘communication strategies’ certain linguistic features which, for the native-speaker, tend to be inextricably linked with the language of unequal encounters. I discuss in relation to cross-cultural spoken and written data two such features, and argue that they may well lead to some from of pragmatic failure. They involve the inappropriate use of: (a) IFIDs (Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices); and (b) Metapragmatic Comments, ‘Upshots’, and ‘Reformulations’.