Communicative strategies and tactics of speech manipulation in intercultural business discourse

Abstract

The study considers the communicative strategies and tactics of linguistic manipulation used by the representatives of professional communities speaking two national varieties of English, British and American, to identify the content and functional-pragmatic characteristics of communicative strategies used in the framework of intercultural business communication in general, and in the framework of two specific genres in particular, presentations and business interviews. The authors also provide general analysis of some gender aspects of speech behaviour in intercultural business communication. The study is conducted along the lingua-pragmatic and socio-cultural lines of research with evaluation of data backed by quantitative analysis. Research material is represented by business discourse texts used by American and British male and female respondents. The authors make inferences about the manipulative nature of communication, single out some of its key features, and present an outline of gender-based differences encountered in professional discourse. The study ultimately holds that gender-based parameters of communication can be described as flexible, which is essentially due to the extensive scope of contextual settings to be considered.