National cultural norms or activity type conventions? Negotiation talk and informal conversation among Swedes and Spaniards
Original version
SYNAPS - A Journal of Professional Communication 19(2006) pp.1-23Abstract
A problematic issue in cross-cultural studies has been to determine to what extent activity
type (or ‘genre’) conventions interact with national behavioral preferences. On the one hand,
activity type conventions can be seen as more or less ‘universal’ and culture-independent
features and, on the other hand, it can be assumed that such conventions are also, to a greater
or lesser degree, influenced by ‘national’ values and norms. While this issue may be analysed
from a sociological stance using questionnaires and interviews, or with more anthropological
methods such as participant observation, it may be claimed that the greatest potential for
extracting quantifiable data in this field is provided by linguistically-based conversation
analysis.