The perception of the speech act of invitation by Spanish and English speakers

Starting from an initial analysis on the nature of the speech act of invitation and its relationships with (im)politeness, this paper contrasts the perception that Spanish and English speakers have of such a speech act. The aim pursued is that of determining whether there are patterns of cultural variation -and, if this is the case, also of social variation- in this sense. The analysis combines quantitative and qualitative methodology and is based on the answers to a questionnaire by 240 informants (carefully selected according to their geographical origin, age, sex and academic training) who were shown two variants of a dialogue with a sequence invitation-justified rejection-insistence on the invitation. The results obtained confirm the expected existence of cultural differences, although only partially coincident with the profiles traditionally described in the specialized bibliography, in addition to the presence of fairly clearly defined parameters of social variation, both cross-cultural and specific to one or the other culture.