Contrastive analysis of the speech act of complaining in Macedonian and American English

Koceva, Ana (2017) Contrastive analysis of the speech act of complaining in Macedonian and American English. Masters thesis, University Goce Delcev.

Text (master thesis) Contrastive analysis on the speech act of complaining in Macedonian and American English.pdf - Published Version Download (2MB)

Abstract

The research presented in this thesis is a cross-cultural study of the speech
act of complaining in Macedonian and in American English. Our aim was to
determine the differences and similarities of formulating complaints in the two
languages with respect to complaint strategies, perspective and modification. We
based our analysis on the work of Trosborg (1995), Olshtain and Weinbach (1993),
Haverkate (1998) and Wahyumi (2010).
Data for the research were collected through an online Discourse Completion
Task (DCT) consisting of eight hypothetical situations that elicit complaints. The used
situations had different social and power distance between the interlocutors and
different severity of offence. The participants were 29 students at the Public
Secondary School “Kole Nehtenin” located in Shtip, Macedonian, and 29 students at
the John Burroughs High School located in Burbank, California, USA.
The research has indicated that there are some differences between the two
languages in the strategy use, the perspective and the use of internal modifiers,
which may cause miscommunication. In general, the research has implied that the
similarities outnumber the differences. In this study we have also identified the most
common forms of complaining preferred by the speakers of both communities.
The findings of the research can help us understand the social values and
relationships in the two languages, and they can also help us overcome the possible
language barriers between the speakers of the Macedonian and the American
community.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	Humanities > Languages and literature
Divisions:	Faculty of Philology
Depositing User:	Ana Koceva
Date Deposited:	02 Jul 2021 06:04
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2021 06:04
URI:	https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/28254

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