Cyberpragmatics refers to the skill of understanding others’ interactional meanings in the context of computer-mediated communication (CMC), which has emerged as an essential skill in the intercultural online education setting (Godwin-Jones, 2013; Yus, 2011). It is imperative that online discussion participants have the awareness of the conventions of effective online engagement, one of which includes the use of politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson (1987) argued that an individual has to acknowledge the notion of face in his or her social relationships and interactions. This sense of self is universal and is embedded in all cultures, so people tend to take their feelings and interpersonal perceptions into consideration to avoid Face Threatening Acts (FTAs). If they cannot avoid FTAs, they employ negative politeness strategies to mitigate the imposition and mediate communicative disputes. Whereas, positive strategies can be used for being more direct and strengthening solidarity among interlocutors.

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              In the light of CMC developments, though many recent studies have revisited Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987) in a variety of platforms, such as online discussion platforms and social networking sites (Marlyna & Rosil, 2017; Aliakbari, M., & Moalemi; Chojimah, 2015; Locke & Daly, 2007), questions remain regarding to what extent the politeness strategies are selected and operated differently by students, based on different cultural background and meaning negotiation.

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              The present study examines how non-native speaking pre-service teachers employ politeness strategies differently in online discussion platform compared with native speaking ones. Thirty native speakers in the States and thirty non-native ones from an Asian country took part in an online graduate level course for pre-service teacher education within 15 weeks. They would carry out their discussions regarding assigned readings on an asynchronous online platform. The corpus of one hundred eighty-six online discussion entries were collected for coding and analysis, followed by selected interviews to understand more about the assumptions in politeness strategies from both groups.

              Preliminary results demonstrated that non-native speaking participants tend to overuse negative politeness since socio-cultural constraints governing their selection, which caused the misunderstanding in some posts. In the absence of face-to-face, they also use more nonverbal channels, such as emoticons or bolded letters as a replacement for verbal politeness strategies. This finding highlights the importance of nonverbal elements in cross-cultural online exchanges, especially when disagreement happens.

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              The implication of this study is to gain insights into cross-cultural cyberpragmatics strategies and implications into the the intercultural educational programs.

 

Keywords: cyberpragmatics, intercultural communication, politeness theories