Aproximación sociopragmática y pragmalingüística a la formulación de buenos deseos y felicitaciones en español

The Spanish communicative culture has been described as a culture that tends towards the use of strategies of positive politeness (Haverkate, 1994; Hickey, 2005). This tendency, however, is not universal, since the politeness phenomenon varies with each cultural group. This variation has a direct impact on the L2 teaching process, as students will tend to transfer their L1 sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic norms, which has undesirable consequences on the social and interpersonal level. The sociopragmatic and a pragmalinguistic study of congratulatory and well-wishing acts provides considerable insight into the processes activated when producing and interpreting these two acts, which, as examples of polite speech acts, have a key role in the Spanish culture. The research also enriches the L2 teaching process, since it offers information that will undoubtedly help students learn the pragmatics of Spanish.