Diana Boxer

Language for Rapport and Solidarity:  Miscommunication Across Cultures

Linguistics Dept., University of Florida

This talk describes my work on the use of English in interactional contexts for the purpose of simply achieving the warm feelings of human interaction (as opposed to transaction). It springs from my recent book, The Lost Art of the Good Schmooze: Building Rapport and Defusing Conflict in Everyday and Public Talk. I show, through data derived from ordinary everyday talk to talk in public domains, the pitfalls of “communicative incompetence” and how small talk can be a big thing. The lecture demonstrates the juxtaposition between CCP, or Cross Cultural Pragmatics in a globalized world, and Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP), a concept in the field of Second Language Acquisition.