Responses to Communication Trouble in English, Spanish, and Chinese: Cross-Cultural Variation in Pragmatic Strategies and Implications for L2 Instruction

Abstract

When speakers encounter errors or misunderstandings in others’ talk, how they respond carries both pragmatic and interpersonal consequences that vary systematically across languages and cultures, yet this area remains underexplored in cross-cultural pragmatic research. This study examines how native speakers of English, Spanish, and Chinese respond to communication trouble across comparable sociopragmatic situations, and how social distance and social status shape these responses. Data were elicited from 124 L1 speakers of English, Spanish, and Chinese using an online Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and analysed using a pragmatics-oriented framework distinguishing three main types of responses: remediation, trouble-signalling, and let-it-pass. Results show that all three groups preferred remediation, particularly indirect remediation, reflecting a shared concern for managing the face-threatening potential of addressing others’ problems. The groups diverged most sharply in their use of let-it-pass, with Chinese and English speakers leaving trouble unaddressed far more often than Spanish speakers. Social status emerged as a more robust and cross-linguistically consistent factor than social distance, with remediation more frequently selected in high-status contexts across all three groups. These findings provide a cross-cultural reference point for L2 pragmatic instruction, particularly for learners whose L1 norms diverge most sharply from the target language in managing communicative trouble.