A study investigated cultural variations in the ways groups of speakers reach consensus in the face of disagreement or suggestion. Subjects were six graduate students in each of five groups: one composed of native speakers of American English, two of Taiwanese Chinese, and two of mainland Chinese. Each group performed a desert survival exercise,…

By comparing the language performance of native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and English to English second language performance across similar speech events, a study suggests a methodology for discovering potential areas of pragmatic transfer. Subjects were 6 native American English speakers and 12 native Chinese-speakers, 6 using Chinese and 6…