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At the same time that language is fundamental for establishing and maintaining social-cultural groups, it is also influenced by them to the extent that a number of social-cultural conventions are unconsciously mirrored in their members’ linguistic manifestations. Different expectations regarding conversational style in interactions between speakers from different cultural groups can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts or even to the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes. This paper will present some examples and considerations of conversational style and interculturality in general and about conversational style in German and Brazil in particular.
The article presents an analysis of different speech styles used by participants of the German speech community in contrast to the Brazilian one, based on examples of interviews made in both cultures. After the illustration of the different language uses, the article’s focus will be on the communicative functions the styles in each community. So, we find the phatic, poetic and expressive function more dominant in the Brazilian speech, whereas the use of the referential and the metalinguistic function seem to be more common in the speech of the German respondents. It is therefore possible to establish the dichotomy between the actor and the spectator in a metaphorical sense to summarize these contrasting functions. Finally, the fact in which these results can in part be explicated by their embedding in different cultural and historical backgrounds, emphasizing the Brazilian speech community as a more heterogenous and baroque, compared with the German one which tends to be more homogenous and (self)-observing will be shown.