Cancelar una cita como estrategia de rechazo postergado: resultados e implicaciones didácticas de un estudio transcultural

Abstract

The comparison of the modalities used by speakers of different languages/cultures to produce speech acts has been the object of numerous studies in recent decades, although less research on this topic has focused on Italian. This type of study is important for those who work in language teaching because it helps to raise students' awareness of the pragmatic differences between their own language/culture and the target language/culture. Being aware of cross-cultural differences in the performance of linguistic acts can reduce the risk of negative pragmatic transfer and consequent misunderstandings, communicative breakdowns or even interpersonal conflicts. The objective of this work is to investigate the linguistic act of the last-minute cancellation of an appointment as a possible strategy of delayed refusal to an invitation by native speakers of Italian and Colombian Spanish. The results show that there are important differences between the two groups related to the way in which the informants think they should carry out this linguistic act with respect to external and internal modifiers. This suggests that last-minute cancellations represent a more routinized strategy for Colombians than for Italians.