Beyond Grammar and Vocabulary: German and American Differences in Routine Formulae and Small Talk

Abstract

In recent years the study of pragmatics, which attempts to account for language meaning and use, has led to the understanding that language strings are interpreted and used differently by people in different situations or subcultures. Human beings, although they may be speaking the same language, do not necessarily interpret that language in the same way and can misunderstand each other (e.g., Green, Blum-Kulka et al., Tannen). When people attempt to speak or understand a foreign language, miscommunication becomes that much more feasible. A case in point is the middle class American English usage of routine formulae such as Hi, how are you? in service encounters (e.g., at the cashier at the supermarket), a convention widely used by U.S. Americans, and widely misunderstood by native speakers of German, who do not use it with strangers. Applied linguistics has also recently seen the need for an understanding of pragmatics in the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Scholarship in the teaching of German in the United States has produced some excellent articles which address this need (e.g., Lovik, Webber, WildnerBassett, Byrnes). Yet, the study of pragmatic uses of language often does not reach the textbook or the classroom even today. German students of English, and American students of German often come away from the classroom poorly equipped to understand the target language's differing uses and interpretations of specific language strings or specific situations.