**5. Discussion and conclusion**

The aim of this study was to examine some pragmatic aspects of Cameroon French, focusing on expressions of gratitude. Using data provided by a group of University students, the analysis reveals the use of a wide range of strategies to express gratitude in situations involving close friends, strangers, and professors.

Overall, factors such as the weight of the favor granted/received, level of familiarity between the speaker and the hearer, and power distance between the interaction partners played an important role in the choices and combinations of thanks strategies. As far as the complexity of the utterances is concerned, the informants mostly used complex gratitude expressions. The complexity of the utterances is due to the fact that the proper gratitude expressions are either repeated or combined with a number of other speech acts with various pragmatic functions (familiarization, comments, apologies, encouragements, etc.). Such complexity helps the speakers to give thanks while performing other face-saving and/or face-enhancing activities. The results show, for instance, that the familiarization act is mostly employed with strangers. This choice is due to the fact that familiarization is "important in multilingual and multiethnic postcolonial communities because of multiple identities people construct around their languages, cultures, religions, and social groups. Through familiarization, interlocutors quickly know the identity to adopt that fits the context of interaction and the status of their addressees" ([32], p. 58).

With respect to level of directness, the study has shown that the participants employed direct gratitude expressions as well as indirect gratitude expressions. Far more direct gratitude expressions were registered than indirect gratitude expressions. As far as the realizations of direct thanks are concerned, the results show that the simple form *merci* "thanks" is rather rare in the professor situation. A possible reason for this choice is that this simple pattern is not suitable to reflect the weight/ value of the favor granted and the power asymmetry (student-professor) in this formal situation. When *merci* is employed in the professor situation, it is mostly accompanied and reinforced by nominal address terms. Also interesting is the fact that explicit performative patterns such as je vous remercie are most frequently employed in the professor situation. It could be said that the formality of the situation plays an important role in the choice of types of direct gratitude expressions.

With respect to indirect gratitude expressions, the results show that Cameroon French speakers use the "*praising the addressee*" realization pattern much more toward strangers (54 tokens: 63.5%) than with friends (23 tokens: 27%) and professors

(8 tokens: 9.5%). The "promising to compensate" strategy only occurs in the friend situation. The "praising the act" pattern is mostly used in the friend situation (28 instances: 48.3%) and the professor situation (24 tokens: 41.4%). In contrast, the "expressing indebtedness" pattern is most frequent in the professor situation (25 tokens: 62.5%).

The analysis also reveals the use of a number of supportive acts and different types of nominal forms of address that seem to be indicative of some sociocultural norms of interaction in postcolonial contexts. For instance, the collectivist nature of the Cameroonian society that is reflected in the abundant use of nominal address terms in gratitude expressions. Looking at the findings summarized in **Table 8**, we see that most of the terms used in the friend and stranger situations hint at the group-based conceptualization of relationship. Such terms index closeness, affection, in-group belonging, and the pragmatic intent behind their use is to intensify the gratitude expressions. Also noteworthy is the abundant use of honorific terms to index the power imbalance between the speaker (student) and the interlocutor (professor). In a postcolonial context such as Cameroon, such honorifics "mark respect and deference along a continuum of age and social hierarchy" ([32], p. 100). It could be said that in giving thanks to a professor, Cameroon French speakers use honorifics "as a sign of respect for his/her social, professional status, and possibly age" ([32], p. 100). Overall, address terms, a major postcolonial pragmatic component, play a vital role in the intensification of gratitude expressions [33–36].

The study has some limitations. Since it was based on written questionnaire data, it is not sure that the examples provided by the participants would be the same as their choices in naturally occurring situations. Nevertheless, the results obtained here still reflect potential trends of Cameroon French speakers' thanking behavior. Since the research considered only three situations, we cannot make any claim that the results obtained would be generalized to all situations. There is also a need to consider factors such as age, socioeconomic groups, gender, and ethnic group in the analysis of thanks strategies. It is likely that such factors may lead to the use of strategies that differ from those found in the present study. Future studies can expand the scope of the current study by overcoming these limitations.
