Re-examining the Concept of Comparison in the Context of Interpersonal Pragmatics

This paper revisits the question of why we compare interpersonal pragmatic phenomena across languages. A review of key cross-linguistic/cultural studies of interpersonal pragmatics indicates that the rationale for comparison reflects ideological influences, including native speakerism, at a given time. In the context of English as a foreign language ( EFL ), the influential work of Eisenstein and Bodman (1986; 1993) significantly advanced our understanding of speech act realisation patterns of thanking. However, their research primarily focused on identifying the differences between non-native and native speaker performances when carrying out the speech act of thanking. I argue that contrastive pragmatic research would be enriched by elucidating how social actors in disparate spatial and temporal contexts balance their obligations with self-respect and consideration for others, despite undergoing divergent socialisation and conditioning within each given community.