The Expatriate Participants’ Relational Strategies

Abstract

This chapter and the next three chapters will explore the intercultural differences in relational strategies for problem talk. It is believed that clashes of cultural expectations of relational strategies played a major role in causing the communicative breakdown at the meeting. The framework of Cultural Self Perception (CSP) will be applied to the explanation of the differences in cultural expectations of relational strategies. This chapter focuses on the investigation of the Western expatriate speakers’ relational strategies for problem talk. The expatriates’ problem talk was completed within one speaker turn, so the investigation will be conducted by examining the speech act scheme. The next three chapters will examine the Chinese participants’ relational strategies for problem talk on different levels of the MLM and make an attempt to explain the causes of the communicative breakdown by accounting for the clash of expectations drawing on the CSP.