'De rien ma puce ! C'est entre nous !' RESPONDING TO THANKS IN CAMEROON FRENCH

Abstract

This study examines strategies employed by Cameroonian French speakers when responding to gratitude expressions. Based on data collected by means of Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), the study explores communicative choices in the realization of responses to thanks and the pragmatic motivations behind such choices in three different situations. The findings show that Cameroon French speakers have at their disposal a variety of face-saving and face-enhancing strategies that are used to downplay the cost of the benefit they are being thanked for, express positive feelings towards the addressee, express pleasure for providing the benefit, etc. Overall, responses to thanks occur in the data either as single head acts or as combinations of head acts and supportive acts.