Invitational strategies in Spanish and speakers' social image: an empirical study

Abstract

The present study may be analysed within the framework of pragmatic studies dealing with politeness. Its aim is to study the implication of the speakers' face on the different invitationstrategies used in Spanish, as well as the politeness processes involved. This study is based on a corpus of genuine invitations, where both the type of person invited and the social situation of the invitation are taken into account.

Even though invitations are considered inherently polite, this study shows how in Spanish some invitation strategies imply positive politeness while others manifest negative politeness. The act of inviting in Spanish is a proof of the paradox of the speaker's face, who is torn between involvement and independence: the various strategies choose between the prevention of the potential threat against the hearer's independence and the establishment of links which favour social relations.