“Aber ganz ehrlich”: Differences in episodic structure, apologies and truth-orientation in German and Australian workplace telephone discourse

This paper reports on a study of cultural differences in conversational structure and the expression of apology in German and Australian workplace telephone discourse.While the overall episodic structure of German and Australian telephone conversations was similar, there were differences in content or social orientation. This impacted on both whether and how topics representing high threat to face were aired. Australians preferred to avoid face-threatening acts and, if an apology was required, minimise threat to face by telling half-truths. Germans were more likely to provide a truthful account of events, express disappointment and chastise their interlocutors.While such cultural styles were initially transferred from German into English, the longer German native-speakers interacted with Australian English-speaking colleagues, the more likely they were to hide negative opinions and tell half-truths. At the same time, Australians who interacted with Germans on a daily basis tended to accommodate towards German interactional style in English.This study indicates that further research should be conducted on Australian and German workplace discourse. Such research may further our understanding of stumbling blocks to successful inter-cultural workplace communication and provide insight for the teaching of socio-pragmatics in second language acquisition settings.