Intercultural Communication: Changes in the Speech Act of Complaint in a Migration Context

Running head: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 1
Intercultural communication
Student’s name
Date

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 2
SUMMARY OF THE PAPER
a) Introduction
The paper is aimed at investigating the changes in the speech act of complaint in a
migration context of Italians, Anglo- Italians and Italo-Australians. In the introduction section
the author presents background information forming basis for his research. Rubino mentions that
not much attention has been given to pragmatic transfer in language from the host to the migrant
language (Rubino, 2011). The author further continues to justify why there has been much
attention on the impact of the communicative norms of migrant language on the way the
migrants tend to use the host language. It was evident that it is problematic to study the effect of
host language on pragmatics of migrant language thus necessitating the current study. However,
it was difficult for the author to carry out the study in the country of migrant since it has been
reported that effective analysis of pragmatic changes behavior of migrants can be effectively
studied when the interactions are conducted in home country of a person rather than in the
migration context (Mahler & Pessar, 2006).
The interaction among the native and migrants usually affect communication process and
in some instances causes prejudice and wrong interpretation of massages causing conflict (Ting-
Toomey & Chung, 2005). This is attributed to the choice of words used in the context discourses.
The gap identifies by the author is the lack of information regarding handling of complaints in a
cross-cultural perspective. This is because Australia is having great language diversity with
people from different parts of the world working or visiting for business or tourism activities
(Syed & Pio, 2010). This study particularly explores complaints realized by Anglo-Australians
and Italians living in Australia and compares it with similar context by Italians living in Italy.

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 3
b) Methodology
The author adopted open role play to explore the speech act of complaint. The research
participants included only the adults where 10 individuals were picked from each group of the
Anglo-Australians, Italo-Australians and Italians. The partners were required to act under nine
situations involving complaint where one partner played role of complainer and the other
complainee. The focus of the study being on the Italo-Austalian context, the author excluded the
recent migrants from Italy who have not stayed in Australia for more than 20 years when
selecting Italo-Australian participants. However, such migrants were required to be native
Italians and having high degree of familiarity the Italian context. Thus the 10 Italo-Australians
who met the said criteria was recruited by snowball approach and were found to be having age
ranging between 40 and 66 and had at least secondary education qualification. The three role
plays were analyzed with the first one being rock music where complainer complains to new
neighbor who plays loud rock music till late into the night. The repair was achieved when
addressee lowers music. The second situation involved parking spot where complainer addresses
the driver who took space he/she has been waiting for; the repair was achieved when driver
vacates the spot. Finally, the third situation involved an accident where the addressee failed to
follow traffic lights rules thus causing car accident to the complainer. The repair was achieved
when complaineee accepts responsibility and agree to formalize the matter with the police. The
sub acts arising from the complaints was then analyzed and presented in tables as discussed
below.
c) Results, discussion and conclusions
The author found out that the Australians were the most successful in obtaining repair
followed by Italians and Italo-Australians the least. However, Italo-Australians achieved highest