Cross-Cultural Encounters in Giving Compliments and Making Requests through Literary Texts: Pedagogical Ramifications
It can be argued that literature represents social reality. The symbiotic relationship between literary works and authentic interactions opens the door to cross-cultural communication. Therefore, reading various literary texts will help readers enrich their cultural knowledge and understand other cultures. A range of literary texts from Malaysia and The Philippines were selected to exemplify this connection between talk in these literary texts and the understanding of a range of speech acts across cultures. The speech acts include requests and compliments performed within two Southeast Asian cultures: Malaysia and The Philippines. Examples of the various forms of each of these speech acts were examined and analyzed. Such practices are culturally bound and should provide readers with a wide, rich and interesting cultural experience.