‘Its all in the asking’

When people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds have to work together, this often leads to negative stereotyping, as the result of clashing rules of interaction. This article, based on ‘on the job’ recorded data, looks at the particular case of French people living and working in Australia, in relation to one specific type of exchange: the request. It isolates three major types of causes of tension and misunderstandings between them and native speakers of Australian English: differences in politeness strategies, differences in the assessment of what constitutes a ‘face-threatening act’ and clashes between ‘face wants’ and other wants.