A Comparative Sociolinguistic Analysis of Thanking Strategies in Mbə kum

Abstract

This study addresses the speech act of thanking in Mbə kum. It investigates native speakers’ behaviour in expressions of gratitude on the basis of an intracultural comparison of men and women in terms of perception and production performances. Data used was obtained from 30 Female Native Speakers of Mbə kum (NS-F) and Male Native Speakers of Mbə kum (NS-M). The participants provided answers to an oral Discourse-Completion-Task (oDCT) questionnaire which consisted of 20 situations. A total of 1200 responses were collected and coded following the coding system used by Eisenstein, M. & Bodman, J. (1986, 1993), Songthama I. (2004) and Gila A. & Svenja A. (2006). Results reveal that there are thirteen thanking strategies in the linguistic repertoire of the participants. Though the NS-F group used more strategies than the NS-M group, participants from both groups used least effort strategies more frequently to express gratitude.