Cultural Values and Impolite Behaviour. The Case of Spaniards and North-Americans

  1. Francisco Miguel Ivorra Pérez 1
  1. 1 Universitat de València
    info

    Universitat de València

    Valencia, España

    ROR https://ror.org/043nxc105

Journal:
Miscelánea: A journal of english and american studies

ISSN: 1137-6368 2386-4834

Year of publication: 2016

Issue: 53

Pages: 47-66

Type: Article

More publications in: Miscelánea: A journal of english and american studies

Abstract

This paper explores the influence of the individualism index (Hofstede 1991) of Spaniards and North-Americans on verbal impoliteness behaviour following Kaul de Marlangeon’s (2008) taxonomy of impolite acts. The level of social distance and affect between the interlocutors are considered as potential factors impacting on the use of impoliteness types and strategies. The corpus consists of scripts from a small sample of six movies (three from Spain and three from the US) and we follow an observational and a quantitative analysis. The findings reveal remarkable statistical differences as a result of the impact of cultural values on the verbal impoliteness behaviour of speakers from each country.