The Linguistics of Gratitude and Courtesy in Indian and Sri Lankan English

Abstract

This corpus-based Master Thesis explores linguistic politeness and gratitude in Indian and Sri Lankan English. First, the theory section displays the historical development of the Indian and Sri Lankan English varieties, as well as the current status and characteristics of South Asian English. Since this thesis focuses on South Asian English varieties, Schneider's Dynamic Model and Kachru's Three Circles Model are also discussed. In the last parts of the theoretical framework, approaches to linguistic politeness are defined and previous research on gratitude is presented. In the methodology section, details about the extracted data set from the International Corpus of English (ICE) are explained. The results are then presented and discussed in terms of previously formulated research questions.