Discourse cross-cultural variation
Languages often varies from each other due to cultural due to cultural factors because one’s culture plays very important role in shaping one’s language. similarly, in the field of world Englishes, all the varieties are different from each other due to cultural diversities. For example, when we are communicating with foreign people or having conversation with people of other languages, we must be very conscious about the cultural differences. For example, in western culture thumbs up is a sign of encouraging someone like well-done but in the middle East it might be proved as offensive. Similarly, shaking one’s head is symbol of yes in some countries but in other countries it is sign of no. Thus, when we are talking about cross-cultural communication between countries through English one must be very conscious about other’s culture. Y. Kachru (1983) examines that the reasons of different discourse pattern are not English, but it is context in which it is used, and context is depend on culture. Saville-Troike (2003) conducted a research on over the 200 purpose statements written by different students across the world for getting admission in undergraduate programmes in USA. The results show that all the students have written the form according to their culture, one of the features was strategies for politeness. For example, Asian student wrote your respected university, would be part of your distinguished graduate and studying from the outstanding faculty would be reasons for application whereas non-Asian students use different strategies like “given my background, experience and interest, I believe myself to appropriate candidate for this course, your reasonable fees and environment motivated me to apply at the university. Troike investigated that the responses of students are changes not because of their mother language but due to culture variation.
Conclusion: To sum up the whole discussion regarding pragmatics and discourse cross-cultural variation in world Englishes we can say that culture play very immense role in shaping one’s language either it is mother tongue or second language. Hence, the varieties of English languages are also due to cultural variation.
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