TY - JOUR

T1 - Payment offers, suggestions to share expenses and payment negotiation sequences on initial dates in Germany and the United Kingdom

AU - Barron, Anne

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Settling the bill is often an integral and unavoidable part of initial dates. The speech acts of payment offers and suggestions to share expenses have been shown to play a key role in payment negotiation, and to also reveal gender variation (Barron, 2025). From a pragmatic standpoint, however, our understanding of payment negotiation is confined to the cultural context of the United Kingdom (Barron, 2025). The present paper addresses this research gap by focusing on payment negotiation interactions broadcast in Germany and in the United Kingdom (UK) on the first date reality television series, First Dates – ein Tisch für zwei and First Dates. Examining the speech acts of payment offers and suggestions to share expenses, and payment negotiation sequences, the analysis takes a cross-cultural perspective on how interactants negotiate the wider payment event, also with a view to the interaction of gender conventions. In so doing, the study also adds to the naturalistic data on offers and suggestions and at the same time to research on pragmatic analyses of reality TV shows. Findings highlight cross-cultural variation on a sociopragmatic and discoursal level in speech act sequencing and in the use and status of suggestions to share expenses across cultures, and a correlation between gender and speech act choices in both cultures. On a pragmalinguistic level, cross-cultural variation is recorded, with a higher level of directness in payment offers in the UK. Findings have implications for cross-cultural understanding and for foreign language teaching.

AB - Settling the bill is often an integral and unavoidable part of initial dates. The speech acts of payment offers and suggestions to share expenses have been shown to play a key role in payment negotiation, and to also reveal gender variation (Barron, 2025). From a pragmatic standpoint, however, our understanding of payment negotiation is confined to the cultural context of the United Kingdom (Barron, 2025). The present paper addresses this research gap by focusing on payment negotiation interactions broadcast in Germany and in the United Kingdom (UK) on the first date reality television series, First Dates – ein Tisch für zwei and First Dates. Examining the speech acts of payment offers and suggestions to share expenses, and payment negotiation sequences, the analysis takes a cross-cultural perspective on how interactants negotiate the wider payment event, also with a view to the interaction of gender conventions. In so doing, the study also adds to the naturalistic data on offers and suggestions and at the same time to research on pragmatic analyses of reality TV shows. Findings highlight cross-cultural variation on a sociopragmatic and discoursal level in speech act sequencing and in the use and status of suggestions to share expenses across cultures, and a correlation between gender and speech act choices in both cultures. On a pragmalinguistic level, cross-cultural variation is recorded, with a higher level of directness in payment offers in the UK. Findings have implications for cross-cultural understanding and for foreign language teaching.

KW - Language Studies

KW - First dates

KW - offers

KW - payment offers

KW - suggessions

KW - payment negotiation

KW - gender

KW - english

KW - german

KW - british english

KW - cross-cultural pragmatics

KW - variational pragmatics

KW - English

U2 - 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.01.016

DO - 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.01.016

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 239

SP - 56

EP - 76

JO - Journal of Pragmatics

JF - Journal of Pragmatics

SN - 0378-2166

ER -