Effect of Gender on Language Performance of American Speakers, Russian Native Speakers, and American L2 Learners of Russian in a Complaint Situation

• Authors: Beata Gallaher
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The present study investigates linguistic choices and strategy selection of American speakers of English, Russian native speakers, and American L2 learners of Russian in their complaints by exploring the interaction of social factors and gender. The data was elicited through an open-ended discourse completion questionnaire and an assessment questionnaire. The qualitative analysis shows significant differences between genders in the group of Russian speakers. The major finding was that Russian males were more judgmental and direct in their complaints, but they were also more humorous and ironic than Russian females. Fewer differences were observed in the group of American speakers and American L2 learners of Russian. The findings indicate similar gender differences within each group and across groups in terms of strategy selection and the number of words. Some of the differences were statistically significant.The findings of the interlanguage analysis open areas for pedagogical intervention so that L2 learners better understand how to address males and females, as well as which linguistic strategies to use to minimize offense while negotiating a problem in Russian culture.

Keywords

EN

gender; the speech act of direct complaint; second language acquisition; Russian; English; politeness

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Journal: Lodz Papers in Pragmatics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 171-195

Dates

published

2014-12-29

received

2014-10-24

revised

2014-11-15

accepted

2014-12-23

online

2014-12-29

Contributors

author

Beata Gallaher

• Independent Scholar

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/lpp-2014-0010