The mitigation of disagreement in Spanisha contrastive approach between native and non-native speakers

Abstract

Many verbal and non-verbal resources exist for graduating the illocutionary force of speech acts, including mitigation tactics (Albelda & Cestero, 2011; Albelda,Briz, Cestero, Kotwica & Villalba, 2014; Villalba, 2020). This paper focuses on mitigating the illocutionary force of the speech act of disagreement (MedinaSoler, 2012, 2013;Fernández García, 2020; Fernández & Sánchez, 2021). Specifically, in this paper, a contrastive analysis of the mitigating linguistic tactics employed by native Spanish speakers and non-native speakers (with Italian or English as their mother tongue and with at least a B1 level of Spanish) is presented.Based on the data collected, obtained through the presentation of scenarios (Di Pietro, 1987; Kasper & Dahl, 1991; Landone, 2022) and the use ofOral Discourse Completion Tasks (Ogiermann, 2018), it is concluded that there are certain confluences in the degree of frequency of mitigating strategies (for example, the least frequent strategy is to restrict or limit what is said). However, specific differences are observed: from the numberof linguistic modulationsin absolute terms to the use of specific mitigating strategies, such as justification or concession. These and other data analysed in the paperreveal the interlanguage identity of non-native speakers and demonstrate the importance of teaching pragmatic strategies in the classroom of Spanish as a second language. In the specific case ofmitigation of disagreement, teaching would strengthen pragmatic competence to avoid eventual interpersonal conflicts or threats to images