**3.1 Procedure and informants**

The data for the study were collected in Yaoundé and Douala, Cameroon, by means of a discourse completion task questionnaire (see [28]) consisting of several situations in which the participants had to realize a number of different speech acts in short dialogs. Each scenario comprised a brief description of the setting, i.e., "the general circumstances […] and the relevant situational parameters concerning social dominance, social distance, and degree of imposition" ([22], p. 43).

Recordings of spontaneous or naturally occurring conversations could have been the ideal data for a study like this. Getting such data is, however, difficult: apart from the time-consuming nature of such recordings, a large quantity of the data obtained may contain a very small number of gratitude expressions. It may also be difficult to examine the impact of factors such as social status, social distance, types of gratitude expressions, etc., because these variables are difficult and even impossible to control in spontaneous conversations (cf. [29, 30], p. 35–37). The discourse completion task (DCT) questionnaire is one of the most widely used data collection instruments in pragmatic research. Established in the CCSARP [28], this instrument has the greatest advantage of producing a large number of data in a short time and it helps to account for variation in speech act realization influenced by social and contextual variables. While such data may not always be natural, they at least help to "inform about speakers' pragmalinguistic knowledge of the strategies and linguistic forms by which communicative acts can be implemented and about their sociopragmatic knowledge of the context factors under which strategic and linguistic choices are appropriate" ([31], p. 329). The three scenarios used to elicit thanks, the focus of the present study, were described as follows:


In situation 1 (friend), the speaker, i.e., the person thanking for the favor (the thanker), and the addressee, the person being thanked for the favor (the thankee), are close friends and equal in social status. In situation 2 (stranger), the speaker and the addressee do not know each other. The relationship here is one of total social distance. Situation 3 (professor) illustrates an asymmetrical interaction: the

addressee has a higher power position (professor) than the speaker (student) and they know each other as acquaintances. The respondents were asked to write down what they would say in order to express their gratitude in the three situations.

A group of 148 French-speaking Cameroonian students participated in the study: 104 students at the University of Douala and 44 students at the University of Yaoundé I. Of the 148 respondents, 100 (67.6%) were females and 48 (32.4%) were males. They ranged in age from 18 to 30; however, 105 (70.9%) of the respondents were between 20 and 25 years old. The respondents were speakers of French in a multilingual context where two official languages (French and English) are permanently in contact with more than 250 native languages. All the participants indicated that they acquired French through school education and that they have been speaking French for more than 15 years. With regard to the questions of the main language used at home, 118 (79.7%) use indigenous languages and 41 (27.7%) use French. Concerning the main language used with friends: 144 (97.3%) use French, 11 (7.4%) use Camfranglais, 8 (5.4%) use English, 3 (2%), and 3 (2%) use German. The complex sociolinguistic and cultural background and language choices of the participants certainly also play an important role in the choice of strategies when expressing gratitude in French4 .

#### **3.2 Data analysis**

The participants provided 411 answers for the three questionnaire tasks, namely 139 examples in situation 1, 137 examples in situation 2, and 135 examples in situation 35 . The analysis of the examples collected involved both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Some of the utterances provided consist of only one move/act as in *merci, c'est gentil, je suis recnnaissant*. Each of such utterances is a communicative unit that realizes thanks independently of any other unit of a conversational turn: they are "head acts."

Other examples in the corpus consist of two moves as in (1) or more than two moves as in (2) and (3). In (1), the speaker combines a direct gratitude expression, namely *merci beaucoup*, with an indirect gratitude expression, namely an appreciation of the addressee (*c'est gentil de ta part*). Each of these strategies could be used alone to express gratitude. The example (2) consists of three moves: two direct thanks, namely *merci* and *je ne sais comment vous remercier*, and an invitation act ("*Ça vous dirait de prendre un verre ensemble?*"), which serves here as a supportive move. In (3), the speaker employs a more complex structure and does three things: (a) he uses a familiarization act to introduce himself (the speaker says who he is and why he has come to see the professor), (b) he produces an utterance presenting the paper to the professor, and (c) he expresses his gratitude for the favor. Of these three acts, only the last one could be employed alone to realize the speech act of thanking.

**143**

**Table 1.**

*Overall distribution of strategies.*

*Thanking in Cameroon French*

*ensemble?* (stranger)

me?"

of the analysis.

friend situation.

**4. Results and discussion**

**4.1 Overall use of strategies**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86140*

1.*Merci beaucoup! C'est gentil de ta part!* (friend6

"Thanks very much. That's kind of you."

)

2.*Merci, je ne sais comment vous remercier. Ça vous dirait de prendre un verre* 

Here is the paper and I thank you for your understanding."

"Thanks, I don't know how to thank you. Do you mind having a drink with

3.*Monsieur je suis l'étudiant à qui vous avez accordé un autre délai pour la remise du travail, voici le rapport et je vous remercie pour votre compréhension* (professor) "Sir, I am the student whom you granted an extension to submit the paper.

Due to the complexity of some thanks utterances in the data, the first step of the analysis was to segment each of the examples collected in individual acts and to classify each of them as a head act (i.e., a gratitude expression proper) or as a supportive act. The next step was to examine types of gratitude expressions attested in the data, namely direct gratitude expressions and indirect gratitude expressions, with emphasis on their pragmatic functions and distributions. The last step focused on the analysis of types, pragmatic functions, and situational distributions of supportive acts in the corpus. The next section presents the results

**Table 1** shows the distribution of the three main strategies used to construct thanks utterances in the data. Overall, the participants produce 754 occurrences in the corpus. Direct expressions of gratitude are by far the most frequently employed in the examples, and they represent 407 occurrences and account for 54% of the data. There are 267 instances of indirect expressions of gratitude, which represent 35.4% of all examples and 80 tokens of supportive acts (10.6%). **Table 1** also indicates that while direct gratitude expressions are most preferred in the professor situation, indirect gratitude expressions mostly appear in the friend situation. We also see that the respondents mostly prefer supportive acts in the

**Friend Stranger Professor Total**

<sup>6</sup> The examples from the data are coded as follows: friend for "thanks in the friend situation," stranger

Direct expressions of gratitude 123 (43%) 138 (59%) 146 (62%) 407 (54%) Indirect expressions of gratitude 128 (45%) 73 (31.2%) 66 (28%) 267 (35.4%) Supportive acts 34 (12%) 23 (9.8%) 23 (10%) 80 (10.6%) Total 285 (100%) 234 (100%) 235 (100%) 754 (100%)

for "thanks in the stranger situation," and professor for "thanks in the professor situation."

<sup>4</sup> It is worth mentioning that English and French, the two official languages, are the sole medium of education, while the indigenous languages, Pidgin English and camfranglais are used in nonofficial domains. All the participants in this study acquired French in education settings (starting in elementary school) and they were university students. The analysis did not pay attention to the impact of French proficiency level on the use of gratitude expressions.

<sup>5</sup> This number (instead of 444 examples) is due to the fact all the respondents did not do all the questionnaire tasks.

expressing gratitude in French4

**3.2 Data analysis**

they are "head acts."

situation 35

thanking.

level on the use of gratitude expressions.

.

The participants provided 411 answers for the three questionnaire tasks, namely

qualitative aspects. Some of the utterances provided consist of only one move/act as in *merci, c'est gentil, je suis recnnaissant*. Each of such utterances is a communicative unit that realizes thanks independently of any other unit of a conversational turn:

Other examples in the corpus consist of two moves as in (1) or more than two moves as in (2) and (3). In (1), the speaker combines a direct gratitude expression, namely *merci beaucoup*, with an indirect gratitude expression, namely an appreciation of the addressee (*c'est gentil de ta part*). Each of these strategies could be used alone to express gratitude. The example (2) consists of three moves: two direct thanks, namely *merci* and *je ne sais comment vous remercier*, and an invitation act ("*Ça vous dirait de prendre un verre ensemble?*"), which serves here as a supportive move. In (3), the speaker employs a more complex structure and does three things: (a) he uses a familiarization act to introduce himself (the speaker says who he is and why he has come to see the professor), (b) he produces an utterance presenting the paper to the professor, and (c) he expresses his gratitude for the favor. Of these three acts, only the last one could be employed alone to realize the speech act of

<sup>4</sup> It is worth mentioning that English and French, the two official languages, are the sole medium of education, while the indigenous languages, Pidgin English and camfranglais are used in nonofficial domains. All the participants in this study acquired French in education settings (starting in elementary school) and they were university students. The analysis did not pay attention to the impact of French proficiency

<sup>5</sup> This number (instead of 444 examples) is due to the fact all the respondents did not do all the

. The analysis of the examples collected involved both quantitative and

139 examples in situation 1, 137 examples in situation 2, and 135 examples in

addressee has a higher power position (professor) than the speaker (student) and they know each other as acquaintances. The respondents were asked to write down what they would say in order to express their gratitude in the three situations. A group of 148 French-speaking Cameroonian students participated in the study: 104 students at the University of Douala and 44 students at the University of Yaoundé I. Of the 148 respondents, 100 (67.6%) were females and 48 (32.4%) were males. They ranged in age from 18 to 30; however, 105 (70.9%) of the respondents were between 20 and 25 years old. The respondents were speakers of French in a multilingual context where two official languages (French and English) are permanently in contact with more than 250 native languages. All the participants indicated that they acquired French through school education and that they have been speaking French for more than 15 years. With regard to the questions of the main language used at home, 118 (79.7%) use indigenous languages and 41 (27.7%) use French. Concerning the main language used with friends: 144 (97.3%) use French, 11 (7.4%) use Camfranglais, 8 (5.4%) use English, 3 (2%), and 3 (2%) use German. The complex sociolinguistic and cultural background and language choices of the participants certainly also play an important role in the choice of strategies when

**142**

questionnaire tasks.


"Thanks, I don't know how to thank you. Do you mind having a drink with me?"

3.*Monsieur je suis l'étudiant à qui vous avez accordé un autre délai pour la remise du travail, voici le rapport et je vous remercie pour votre compréhension* (professor) "Sir, I am the student whom you granted an extension to submit the paper. Here is the paper and I thank you for your understanding."

Due to the complexity of some thanks utterances in the data, the first step of the analysis was to segment each of the examples collected in individual acts and to classify each of them as a head act (i.e., a gratitude expression proper) or as a supportive act. The next step was to examine types of gratitude expressions attested in the data, namely direct gratitude expressions and indirect gratitude expressions, with emphasis on their pragmatic functions and distributions. The last step focused on the analysis of types, pragmatic functions, and situational distributions of supportive acts in the corpus. The next section presents the results of the analysis.
