Situation-Bound Utterances as Cultural Scripts in Spoken Discourse

Abstract

This paper provides insight into the pervasive use of situation-bound utterances and their pragmatic functions in spoken discourse. It is corroborated that situation-bound utterances are socially and culturally charged communication routines used by the native speakers in actual speech. The paper analyzes the cultural content of situation-bound utterances and their role in non-native communication. We attempt to show that situation-bound utterances as cultural scripts pertain to cognitive mechanisms of spoken discourse and culture. The study shows that analysis of SBUs as cultural scripts might be used as a learning strategy in foreign language acquisition.