Revealing Patterns: Descriptive Empirical Norms (Studies 1 and 2)

Abstract

In this chapter, two data-based studies will be used to explore the Japanese speech act of ‘thanking’. Studies 1 and 2 will investigate Japanese cultural patterns of speech act realisations from different perspectives using different data elicitation methods and research designs. The analysis of both studies will take the respective characteristics and the limitations of the data elicitation methods employed into consideration. Study 1 encompasses the field of cross-cultural pragmatics as well as interlanguage pragmatic transfer, including native speakers of Japanese and English, and also English-speaking learners of Japanese.¹ However, as discussed in the previous chapter, the learners’ data will not be compared with any native speaker groups.