I’m puzzled about where Americans get their reputation for being direct from. It doesn’t seem to spring from their use of polite modals or indirect requests. Across the pond, someone else has been investigating a similar question about another nation with a reputation for directness – Germany .
Sabrina Malon-Gerland is an American who has been living in Germany for many years – initially working as a business English trainer and now a cross cultural trainer. She noticed that German speakers may avoid, or even reject, some English pragmatic strategies when they they don’t fit their perceptions of appropriate behavior. So she set out to investigate and began by comparing German and native speaker responses in discourse completion tests.
She found:
Overall, the data shows the German population is relatively well versed in English politeness devices. In fact, if being polite was determined simply through the frequency of politeness devices, it could be said that the German population in this study is politer than the English native speaker group. The German group showed a higher frequency of the following devices to soften their disagreements: I’m sorry; I’m afraid; auxiliary modals; I think; and I suggest… English speakers, among others, stereotypically label Germans as “too direct”, hence implying impolite. If this data represents the kind of language used in German business, it must be asked what exactly is considered to be “too direct”?
To read more on Sabrina’s research, check out her blog.