A Case Study on Complaint Speech Acts in Intercultural Communication

This case study explores changes in the speech act of complaint within a migration context, focusing on Italians, Anglo-Italians, and Italo-Australians. The author investigates pragmatic transfer, highlighting the lack of attention given to the impact of host language on migrant language pragmatics. The methodology involves open role-play scenarios with adult participants from each group, analyzing their responses in situations involving complaints related to noise, parking, and accidents. The results indicate that Australians were most successful in achieving repair, while Italo-Australians, despite being the least successful overall, showed dominance in expressing complaints explicitly and forcefully, often using supportive acts. Italians, conversely, preferred implicit complaints and less conflictual acts. The study concludes that Italo-Australians maintain native pragmatic competence while displaying Anglo-Australian influences. The critique suggests improvements in methodology reporting, consideration of location effects, and inclusion of ethical background and research challenges.

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

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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

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positive resolution in the rock music scene. Interestingly, some study participants were not sure
how to handle resolution in the situation presented as reported in previous studies (Gal, 2006).
Furthermore, the Italo-Australians were found to be dominating in expressing the complaint
where they preferred complaining explicitly and forcefully (Rubino, 2011). Similarly, the Italo-
Australians resorted to supportive acts to substantiate their complaints and help in mitigating
through disarmers. The Australians just like Italo-Australians also expressed their compliant
explicitly however they were least conflictual as they used high number of supportive acts to
substantiate their complaints. The Italians on the other hand did not prefer complaining openly as
to they chose to leave the complaint implicit and chose directive acts. The Italians used mostly
the least conflictual acts when presented with conflicting situations. The most conflictual acts
during the study were accusing behavior or blaming the person directly. In relation to asking for
the repair, the Italo Australins were found to be the most dominant in asking for the repair
explicitly than the other groups. They used forceful terms and non-conflictual acts when asking
for the repair. In conclusion, the Italo-Australins were found to have maintained pragmatic
competence of native though they displayed influence of Anglo-Australian norms.
PAPER CRITIQUE
In the introduction section the author admits that studying pragmatic languages is
challenging task that need good control of data collection and analysis procedures to provide
reliable information of the research to the audience. The methodology section should allow the
author to closely follow how the research was conducted and one should be able to repeat same
procedure elsewhere and get consistency in results (Peffers et al., 2007). The author however,
just mentions theoretical framework and suggest that method used in current study has been
described in other studies by Rubino and Bettoni. I feel it would have been better for Rubion

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(2011) to describe procedures of recruiting participants in the paper to save audiences time
required to seek further information elsewhere. Similarly, the author did not clearly explain how
the location of the study might have affected the study since Italians who are the major interest in
the study were subjected to conflicting situation in Australia. Previous studies have shown that
people may act in certain way in foreign country to minimize conflict as they would when in
their mother country (Erdal & Oeppen, 2013). With this regard I would raise an important
question as to whether the Italians and Italo-Australians could have acted the same way when
presented with similar situations in Italy.
With regard to presentation of background information, there was need for the author to
provide more literature on previous studies relating current study. The author, in the introduction
section mentions that the way migrants speak host language have significant implications on the
image they project of themselves with regard to attitude that interactions can foster in native
population. It has been reported that the social context particularly moral and ethics guidelines
significantly influence interactions among people having different cultural backgrounds
(Guttman & Salmon, 2004). The author could have highlighted more on the ethical backgrounds
of the study groups especially what is considered morally acceptable or unacceptable in Italy and
Australia. This is because people tend to make decision based on their morals when presented
with conflicting situation. Finally, the author need to have identified challenges during research
and recommend need for future further studies.

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References
Erdal, M. B., & Oeppen, C. (2013). Migrant balancing acts: understanding the interactions
between integration and transnationalism. Journal of Ethnic and Migration
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Gal, S. (2006). Migration, minorities and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe.
In Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices (pp. 13-27). Palgrave Macmillan,
London.
Guttman, N., & Salmon, C. T. (2004). Guilt, fear, stigma and knowledge gaps: ethical issues in
public health communication interventions. Bioethics, 18(6), 531-552.
Mahler, S. J., & Pessar, P. R. (2006). Gender matters: Ethnographers bring gender from the
periphery toward the core of migration studies. International migration review, 40(1), 27-
63.
Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., & Chatterjee, S. (2007). A design science
research methodology for information systems research. Journal of management
information systems, 24(3), 45-77.
Rubino, A. (2011). Changes in the Speech Act of Complaint in a Migration Context: Italo-
Australians vs Italians and Anglo-Australians. Italica, 88(1), 115-139.
Syed, J., & Pio, E. (2010). Veiled diversity? Workplace experiences of Muslim women in
Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 27(1), 115-137.
Ting-Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (2005). Understanding intercultural communication. New
York: Oxford University Press.

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