The act of thanking and the role of modal verbs in teaching German in secondary education

The act of thanking represents one of the most frequent and pragmatically significant speech acts in both everyday and educational discourse. In the context of learning German as a foreign language, the appropriate realization of this speech act largely depends on the correct use of the modal verbs müssen, dürfen, and können, which convey different semantic and pragmatic values related to obligation, permission, and possibility. The aim of this study is to examine the role and function of these modal verbs in expressing gratitude among secondary school students, with particular focus on second and third-year students in the advanced German program, as well as fourth-year students in regular classes. The research is based on an empirical analysis conducted through a questionnaire, which includes various communicative situations of thanking, the selection of an appropriate modal verb, and the perception of politeness and appropriateness in both educational and everyday contexts. The results indicate clear differences in the choice and interpretation of modal verbs depending on students’ age, educational profile, and the degree of formality of the communicative situation. In the final part of the paper, a teaching model aimed at developing pragmatic and intercultural communicative competence among secondary school students is proposed; through targeted exercises, analysis of authentic examples, and scenarios drawn from real communicative situations, with the goal of improving the effective and functional use of modal verbs in the German language.
Keywords: act of thanking, modal verbs, modality, pragmatics