MULTICULTURALITY, LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY AND POLITENESS: THE USE OF THE ATTENUATION CONDITIONAL IN SPANISH SPEAKERS FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES

Abstract

The teaching of a foreign language, as may be the case of the Spanish language, requires the acquisition not only of a linguistic competence or a communicative competence, but also of an intercultural competence. Learners of a foreign language must know the sociocultural rules of the linguistic community in order to achieve pragmatically successful interlocutions. In this regard, learners must know not only the linguistic resources of courtesy, but also how useful it can be for the aims pursued and how it should be adapted to the communicative context. Among these resources, we find in the Spanish language the so-called condicional de cortesía/de atenuación, a conditional tense used for polite requests. In addition, this can be combined with other resources, such as indirect speech acts, modal verbs, etc. The aim of this study is to investigate whether a different acquisition is detected among native speakers of individualistic cultures and speakers of collectivist cultures when going from A2 level to B1 level. Based on the Corpus de aprendices del español of Instituto Cervantes, we have been able to demonstrate that evolution is indeed dissimilar (the speakers of collectivist cultures seem to faster acquire the pragmatic value of said conditional tense) and that these results may possibly spring from the different worldview of social relations in each of these cultures.