Chapter 6 aims at accounting for modification by temporal adverbials. The binary approach allows them to operate on different levels of tense structure above S_0. Crucial is the new insight that the relation between modifier A and modified B is not to be expressed as location of A in B but rather as the intersection of A and B. This insight and the flexibility of (deictic) adverbial modification offers the possibility of presenting a structural solution to the Present Perfect puzzle. It also sheds light on the nature of the in/for-test: it explains why terminative sentences with a for-adverbial introduced at a higher level may be regarded as well-formed as opposed to those which require a token interpretation.

Chapter 5 describes how all verbs are anchored in the system of positive real numbers R+ by focussing on the meaning of a verb without taking into account its arguments. This makes it possible to distinguish stative from non-stative verbs by assigning to each of them a (mathematical) function determining the value of the eventuality argument ?? of the verb. The next step is then to separate non-stative verbs expressing continuity in R+ from verbs expressing discreteness in N by assigning to the latter a discretizing function mapping from R+ to N. A formal account of aspectual composition from the tenseless bottom to the tensed top S’makes it possible to distinguish the (ten) factors that are in play on different levels of phrase structure.

In Chapter 7, we discuss expressions, constituting the ‘lowest’ unit of analysis in our model. We here focus specifically on pragmatically salient conventionalised expressions indicating the interactants’ rights and obligations in a particular context. We propose an analytic procedure by means of which such expressions can be systematically compared by using large corpora. As a case study, we examine Chinese and British English expressions. We focus on expressions popularly associated with the speech acts Request and Apologise. We examine groups of expressions with an increasing degree of complexity.

Chapter 8 discusses how our framework can be operationalised in cross-cultural pragmatic research focusing on the analytic unit of speech act. We first propose a typology of speech acts. This typology is essentially different from others, in that it provides a system of speech acts based on their interactional and relational functions. We argue that in using any typology of speech acts, it is fundamental for the cross-cultural pragmatician to avoid unnecessarily proliferating speech act categories. After outlining our model typology of speech acts, we provide a coding scheme by means of which speech acts can be systematically described in data analysis.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the chronological background of cross-cultural pragmatics. We argue that cross-cultural pragmatics cannot be traced back to a single academic tradition but rather it is an outcome of the confluence of various strands of academic inquiry, spanning speech act theory, to discourse analysis and to contrastive linguistics. We also discuss the ground-breaking Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), which represents a cornerstone in the development of cross-cultural pragmatics. We devote particular attention to the research methodologies that the CCSARP Project deployed. We argue that while the methodological framework of the CCSARP Project has been subject to major criticisms, it laid down the foundations of what we define as dualcontrastive and ancillary research in our cross-cultural pragmatic framework. In Chapter 2, we also discuss the current state of the field and the reason why this book is needed to fill a knowledge gap.

In Chapter 12, we engage in the study of the unit of speech act by contrastively examining the ways in which historical letters are conventionally closed in three different linguacultures: Chinese, German and British English. The ‘cross-cultural’ aspect of pragmatics does not only involve the study of language use in geographically different cultures – we may as well go back in history and compare language use in various historical periods within a particular linguaculture. Furthermore, we may also combine research on spatially distant linguacultures with that of diachronically distant ones. In this chapter we do exactly this, by conducting a contrastive analysis of typologically ‘closer’ and typologically more ‘distant’ linguacultures. By focusing on historical data, we highlight the overlap between cross-cultural pragmatics and the field of historical pragmatics. The chapter shows how our speech act coding scheme outlined in Chapter 8 can be put into use in data analysis.

Chapter 5 examines a key phenomenon in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics, namely, linguistic politeness and impoliteness. While politeness popularly describes ‘proper’ behaviour, as a technical term it encompasses all kinds of behaviour by means of which language users express that they take others’ feelings into account. Similarly, impoliteness not only refers to rude language but rather it covers all types of behaviour that are felt to cause offence. Politeness and impoliteness have been the most researched phenomena in the field, and in chapter 5 we provide a summary of those politeness- and impoliteness-related phenomena which are particularly relevant for cross-cultural pragmatic inquiries.

In Chapter 11, we venture into the realm of language and globalisation, as well as translation, by examining the ways in which translated IKEA catalogues handle (and fail to handle) potential cross-cultural irritations triggered by the translation of the English pronoun you. By so doing, we provide a case study for the cross-cultural pragmatic analysis of pragmatically salient expressions, which often have very different pragmatic meaning and power across linguacultures. In terms of methodology, we first conduct a contrastive pragmatic analysis of translational choices of pronominal form in a variety of catalogues, spanning Belgian French to Mainland Chinese and to Hungarian. Following this, we conduct an ancillary investigation of the linguacultural perceptions of the (in)appropriacy of the translational choices that we are studying, by deploying an ancillary investigation in the form of interviews.

Chapter 13 provides a case study for cross-cultural discourse analysis, by studying war crime apologies performed by representatives of the Japanese and German states. The term ‘war crime Apologise’ (or simply ‘war apology’) refers to a public ritual speech centering on the speech act Apologise, realised by a ratified person (Goffman, 1967) – usually a representative of the state or a state minister – following crimes which were perpetrated during a wartime situation. War Apologise discourse represents a form of political rather than interpersonal Apologise, which can bring about reconciliation, but not necessarily so.Along with illustrating how the unit of discourse can be systematically compared across linguacultures, the chapter also illustrates that cross-cultural pragmatics provides a highly innovative way of engaging in the study of language and politics because it allows us to consider controversial and emotively loaded political phenomena, such as war crime apologies, from a non-ideologised angle.