Elaboration and analysis of a corpus in a research on cross-cultural pragmatics

• Grant number: 15/03496-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: May 24, 2015
• End date: June 03, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Elisabetta Antonietta Rita Maria Carmela Santoro
• Grantee: Elisabetta Antonietta Rita Maria Carmela Santoro
• Visiting researcher: Elena Nuzzo
• Visiting researcher institution: Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The research project "Elaboration and analysis of a corpus in a research on cross-cultural pragmatics", for which we decided to invite Prof. Elena Nuzzo, aims to set up a corpus to carry out a study in cross-cultural pragmatics, to compare, at a first moment, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Italian data, based on requests produced by native speakers of each language, collected through DCT (Discourse Completion Test) and multiple choice questions. The project's goal is to build corpora, using online tools in order to achieve a high number of participants and thus be able to create reference standards. The methods chosen for data collection have, in fact, a high internal validity and allow isolating variables that can be analyzed comparatively in different languages. In addition, these highly "controlled" methodologies are suitable for studying specific phenomena and comparing languages and cultures because they are more easily replicable and comparable. To prepare the first questionnaire (which is already online) were used in addition to the classic studies on politeness of Brown & Levinson (1987) the theories developed by Haverkate (2004) and Bravo & Briz (2004). The analysis will consist in studying attenuation and other aspects of politeness, in particular taking into account the following variables: social distance (degree of familiarity) and degree of imposition. The project is being developed by a research group, registered in the CNPq Research Groups Directory and created in 2013, whose name is "(Inter)linguistic and inter/cross-cultural Pragmatics." The group includes the participation of researchers from three different Graduation Programs at the University of São Paulo: Elisabetta A.R.M.C. Santoro (leader, Graduate Program in Italian Language, Literature and Culture), Luiz Antonio da Silva (deputy leader, Graduate Program in Philology and Portuguese Language) and Maria Zulma M. Kulikowski (Graduate Program in Spanish and Spanish-American Language and Literature) and cooperates with Prof. Ulrike Schröder, of the Graduate Program in Linguistics of University of Minas Gerais. Currently, the group has 4 PhD students, 4 master students and three undergraduates. The group is now expanding and there are researchers of other Brazilian and foreign institutions interested in collaborations that are now being organized. Other than the main project, researches, with different subjects, have been developed. (AU)