National cultural norms or activity type conventions? Negotiation talk and informal conversation among Swedes and Spaniards

Abstract

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.