‘Early interactions’ in Australian English, American English, and English English: Cultural differences and cultural scripts

This study applies the techniques of contrastive ethnopragmatics to communicative style in initial conversational interactions in three varieties of Anglo English: Australian English, American English, and English English. It proposes for each variety a distinctive suite of cultural scripts concerning matters such as presumed stance in relation to sameness and difference, degree of attention to accent and speech style, expected degree of interest in personal information about the interlocutor, expressions of accomplishments and ambitions, and ‘phatic complimenting’. Evidence is drawn from personal testimonies about cultural cross-talk, sociological and cultural studies, and contrastive corpus data. Different communication styles pertaining to initial self-presentation have implications for mutual misperception, negative evaluation and stereotyping.