# The American “Positive Attitude”

Eve Bernier-Rock

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# The American “Positive Attitude”

## A study of positive appraisal in American conversations

### Eve Bernier-Rock

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OpenEdition
Journals

**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/angles/8510

DOI: 10.4000/13oft

ISSN: 2274-2042

**Publisher**

Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur

**Electronic reference**

Eve Bernier-Rock, "The American "Positive Attitude"", *Angles* [Online], 19 | 2025, Online since 01 April 2025, connection on 09 April 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/angles/8510; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/13oft

This text was automatically generated on April 9, 2025.

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# The American “Positive Attitude”

A study of positive appraisal in American conversations

Eve Bernier-Rock

## Introduction

1. In numerous sketches from French comedians, Americans are represented as highly optimistic, prone to smiling, over-enthusiastic, and almost aggressively friendly. It is the case in “Doria à l’américaine” (sketch in *Le Grand Journal* 2014), where the French comedian Dorial Tellier imitates an American woman using words with highly amplified positive semantic value: “I’m so thrilled to be here,” “I just love your country,” “I mean, camembert, I love it,” or “this is so cute.” She also inserts a few times the interjection “wow” in her monologue and uses the volume of her voice and the higher pitch of her intonation to convey her excessive excitement and admiration. Other comedians seem to have the same image of American people, such as Gad Elmaleh in a scene of a French person visiting an American store (*American Dream* 2018), or Anne Romanoff depicting “un touriste Americain à Paris.” (2019) Comedy often aiming at exaggerating collectively known stereotypes, it makes us wonder what could have created this image of Americans as much more positive than French people.

2. According to multi-cultural guides (Althen 2002: 13; Asselin & Mastron 2001: 139), which are based on observations from expatriates and travelers, there might be different cultural values and behaviors in France and the United States that lead one to believe that American people have been taught to adopt a more “positive attitude”, since they were raised in a cultural environment promoting harmony, optimism and “a strong need to be liked.” As a result, one could wonder if the perceptions of the image of the exaggerated positive attitude of the Americans might result from true differences in the verbal behavior of American people compared to French people when they express positive emotions and opinions in conversation.

3. Indeed, when learning a foreign language, it is important to understand that translation is insufficient, and that “pragmatic failures” might still arise. Riley defined the latter as “a label which is attached to a wide range of gaffes, clangers, *faux pas*,
dropped bricks and misunderstandings. In very general terms, these dysfunctions result from an interactant's applying inappropriate social rules or knowledge to the production and interpretation of discourse and related communicative behaviours" (2007: 190). Therefore, getting more information about the appropriate use of "positive attitude" in conversation in each country might help improve the intercultural skills of foreign language learners and help them better integrate into the country they visit.

4

Following these assumptions, it was decided to conduct an empirical study in order to observe the differences in the production of positive appraisal¹ in France and the United States and help the French understand the American “positive attitude” and how it works so that they can better navigate the American social sphere. Notably, the research started with the hypothesis that American speakers use positive appraisal more often, more directly, or emphatically than French people in conversation.

5

This study combines theoretical research with a quantitative and qualitative analysis of two corpora of conversations collected during “Speed-Friending” events. This helped understand the way French and Americans chose to connect during first encounters and provided comparable situations that fit this sociolinguistic study.

6

The article begins with an introduction of the theoretical framework of “positive attitude” in conversation. The second section describes the data collection protocol, data organization, and data analysis followed and applied in the same manner for the American and French corpora. The third section consists in comparing the results obtained from the analysis of the corpora. Finally, the article ends with a discussion about how this might serve as a guide for French people visiting or living in the United States to improve their intercultural skills through specific communication strategies.

## Theoretical framework on positive “attitude” in conversation

7

In order to teach positive attitude, it is necessary to understand what it means to be positive in conversation, how to analyze positivity linguistically, and what its role is in conversation. In this section “positive attitude” is defined through several works in pragmatics, and then the role of positivity in social interactions is described.

### Linguistic terms for positive “attitude”

8

Subjectivity is everywhere in language. From the personal pronoun to the tenses we use, we speak in a subjective manner (Benveniste 1966: 266). Linguists have used very different terms in the study of the subjective and emotive function of language, as explored in this sub-section.

### From affect to appraisal

9

According to Jakobson and Stankiewicz, language has several functions; and the “emotive function” refers to the expression of emotions in conversation (Jakobson 1960; Stankiewicz 1964). Lyons calls that same function the “expressive function” (1977: 51).
10 While Merriam Webster defines the word “attitude” as “a mental position with regard to a fact or state” and also “a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state,” one wonders if there is a linguistic concept that could encompass both emotions or feelings and opinions or judgments. Consequently, rather than calling this “attitude,” which would be more about the non-verbal behavior, or “affect,” which focuses on emotions, “appraisal,” defined below by White, seems to be a better term to describe the way speakers express linguistically their positive attitude:

> Within this broad scope, the theory is concerned more particularly with the language of evaluation, attitude, and emotion, and with a set of resources which explicitly position a text's proposals and propositions interpersonally. (White, Appraisal Theory Website)

11 Indeed, the term encompasses the expression of positive evaluation, positive attitude and positive emotion. All of these verbal acts could participate in building the collective portrait of Americans' "positive attitude" if performed in high quantity in conversation. Americans could also be perceived as more positive than French people because of the way they perform these acts, since appraisal can also be expressed on a scale of different degrees of positivity or negativity (Martin and White 2005: 135). The focus of this study is on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of positive appraisal in American and French conversations.

12 To identify positive appraisal, it is necessary to select expressions with a positive semantic value accompanied by linguistic tools expressing emotion. Leech and Svartvik have listed some of these tools in their book *A Communicative Grammar of English* (1994: 152–8), which includes adjectives and adverbs describing emotions, emphatic tools such as exclamations, interrogations, interjections, or adverbs, and verbs expressing taste. Positive appraisal can also be identified through a pragmatic approach, which implies detecting the different verbal acts in conversation that express positive emotions, opinions, and attitudes.

## Types of positive appraisal

13 The most studied type of verbal act that allows the speaker to express positive feelings and appreciation about their interlocutor is the compliment. Kerbrat-Orecchioni identifies the compliment as “toute assertion évaluative positive portant sur une qualité ou une propriété de l’allocutaire A (...) ou d’une personne plus ou moins étroitement liée à l’allocutaire A.”² (1987: 5) Therefore, the compliment is a type of positive appraisal directed towards the addressee that is called here speaker B. Some sociolinguistic studies have already revealed the important function of compliments in American conversations. For example, Manes and Wolfson (1981) have revealed that compliments functioned as “routine formulae” in conversation in the same manner as “hello,” “thank you,” and “goodbye.”

14 On the other hand, compliments can be more or less direct and can also be solicited or be directed towards the speakers themselves (speaker A), according to Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1987: 6–8). The Americans’ positive attitude could even be about other people and other things, situations, and objects. As a result, the following taxonomy of types of positive appraisal has been created, which will serve as a framework in the conversational analysis of the corpus:
<table><caption>Table : Framework of types of positive appraisal</caption><thead><tr><td>Type n°</td><td>Type of positive appraisal</td><td>Definition</td><td>Example from the corpus of American conversations</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>It includes the declaration of love or friendship, congratulations, and direct compliments.</td><td>"I like you a lot by the way. I can tell I do." (E1T1C2.am, [00:07:16], P12 to P1)</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>It might be compliments about the accessories or possessions of speaker B, or a person or animal linked to them or their makeup, haircut, or just showing appreciation and admiration about their personal or professional experience.</td><td>"I like your nails." (E3T1C7.am, [00:00:03], P18 to P17)</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Positive appraisal of the personal situation of speaker B</td><td>This refers to when speaker A expresses excitement, admiration, joy, or other positive feelings and opinions about the situation of speaker B, such as their job, their place of living, their life experiences.</td><td>"Yeah, it sounds like, and it sounds like you had a really good timing in terms of housing prices." (E2T1C3.am, [00:06:51], P13 to P15)</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>It includes expressions of self-love, self-congratulations, or direct self-compliments.</td><td>None found in the American corpus but in the French corpus: "Moi j'vais être vraiment un bon sujet j'pense peut-être!"³ (E1T4C5.fr, [00:01:18], P11 to P8)</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>Speaker A shows their appreciation for their own possessions, accessories, personality attributes, animal or friend, or relative.</td><td>"I have a young daughter. Amazing." (E3T2C3.am, [00:02:27], P20 to P17)</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Positive appraisal about the personal situation of speaker A</td><td>It involves being proud or happy about one's situation in life (job, experiences, place of living, etc.).</td><td>"I get nice mountain views and everything, so I'm pretty happy to be here." (E3T4C3.am, [00:00:34], P22 to P19)</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Positive appraisal about another person or a group of people</td><td>The speaker could show admiration for a famous person, a person they both know, or a group of people such as young people, French people, city people, etc.</td><td>"No and that he'd been around for like 50 years and he⁴ was up there just going for it. It's just this old dude and I was like, awesome. That's really cool." (E1T2C7.am, [00:04:40], P9 to P3)</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>8</td><td>Positive appraisal about an impersonal object or situation</td><td>The speaker expresses positive feelings and opinions towards an external object or situation, such as a couch they don't own, the weather, the city, an event, etc.</td><td>"Yeah, I love it⁵. I absolutely love it. I had not actually ever been here and but the second my son graduated high school, I packed up a truck, put the house on the market and came down here." (E3T1C1.am, P16 to Assistant)</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Solicited positive appraisal</td><td>Instead of expressing a positive emotion or opinion about something, the speaker asks speaker B to express or confirm their enthusiasm or appreciation of something.</td><td>"That's a really wonderful job, isn't it?" (E1T6CC1.am, [00:03:16], P11 to P12)</td></tr></table>

15 This classification of types of positive appraisal allows one to observe how direct Americans are in expressing positive attitudes in conversation compared to French people. These levels of directness used with positive appraisal could be linked with how positive appraisal is perceived in conversation as a useful tool to establish solidarity with the interlocutor or a strategy that makes someone feel uncomfortable, indebted, or dubious of the speaker's sincerity.

## The function of positive attitude in conversation

16 Teaching French people the American positive attitude in conversation might also help them integrate better into an American environment. Therefore, it is relevant to study when positive appraisal can be useful and when it can be risky in a social interaction. For example, positive appraisal can become dangerous for the hearer's face when used too much or too emphatically.

### Establishing solidarity

17 According to Manes and Wolfson, compliments are not only routine formulae for Americans but are also an icebreaker that allows people to establish solidarity in conversation (1981: 124). Compliments are used to flatter interlocutors and to introduce a new topic of conversation that could become a whole new "speech event". Sometimes, the compliment is so expected that not producing it might be "perceived as a sign of disapproval" (Manes and Wolfson 1981: 130).

18 Complimenting is one of many strategies possible to establish solidarity with other speakers. According to Blum-Kulka (1987), Brown and Levinson (1987), and Holtgraves (1992), solidarity is a type of politeness (solidarity-politeness or solidarity-oriented politeness). It can also be called "positive politeness," since its goal is to satisfy the needs and desires of the interlocutor's "face⁶" and reflect a positive image of oneself (Brown and Levinson 1987: 311). Considering compliments as a solidarity strategy is connected to Janney and Arndt's theory of politeness, which states that it is better to use verbal acts that support the face of the addressee and, therefore, to privilege the expression of positive messages rather than negative messages (1985: 26-29).
19 Consequently, one could argue that emitting any positive appraisal, whether directed towards speaker B or not, is an excellent strategy for remaining polite in conversation and establishing solidarity with the other speaker. Nonetheless, Janney and Arndt have also mentioned the dangers of being too “weak” or too “aggressive” when expressing positive messages (1985: 35–36). Other pragmatists have also revealed that compliments might be risky since they might be perceived as insincere or put the interlocutor in an uncomfortable situation.

## Dangers of positive attitude

20 In the list of Face Threatening Acts developed by Brown and Levinson, compliments appear as a strategy that threatens the hearer's negative face since it limits their freedom to act as they want by putting a type of pressure on them (1987: 313). Indeed, when receiving a compliment, speaker B is left with two main options: to accept it or reject it. If they accept the compliment, they respect Leech's maxim of solidarity and cooperation but might appear less humble. If they refuse it, this privileges Leech's maxim of modesty, they break the maxim of cooperation and might appear cold or ungrateful (Leech 1983). Herbert characterizes this situation as a “double-bind” (1990: 208) and shows the need to take precautions with positive appraisal strategies in conversation.

21 Aside from the dangers of compliments on the hearer's face, compliments might also be risky for the speaker's positive image. Although compliments are produced primarily with the function of pleasing the interlocutor, the person complimenting might be perceived as insincere if using too many of them or using them hyperbolically (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1987: 25). Consequently, it seems like perceptions of Americans as hypocritical or exaggerated might be connected to a higher quantity of compliments produced in conversation or being more direct or intense in their expression in the interactions of French people.

22 Although most studies have focused on the pragmatic consequences of compliments in conversations, any positive appraisal might negatively impact the hearer or the speaker's face. One way to avoid these dangers might be to use less direct strategies (instead of compliments, a positive appraisal about an impersonal object or situation) or to minimize instead of maximizing the positive semantic value of the appraisal. Analyzing the intensity of the appraisal in conversations and observing the differences between French and American behaviors might help us understand what might have created the stereotype of the over-the-top optimistic American.

## Keeping the balance, playing with intensity

23 To improve politeness in conversation, Grice developed several cooperative principles to follow. Two of them seem connected with the idea of intensity of appraisal: the maxim of quantity and the maxim of quality. Indeed, according to the maxim of quantity, one can appear cooperative and polite while being somewhat reticent and, according to the maxim of quality, one must tell the truth and avoid exaggerations or irony (1975: 45). Consequently, it seems important to modulate positive appraisal appropriately in order to appear polite. However, politeness and appropriateness depend highly on the culture of belonging, as Janney and Arndt explained (1993: 20). Pragmatic failure and the propagation of stereotypes could surface because of distinct
behaviors concerning the intensification of emotions and opinions in conversations. It
seems relevant to study intensity when analyzing positive appraisal in our corpus of
conversations in order to improve our teaching of American “positive attitude” to
French people.

24

According to Labov, “intensity operates on a scale” and can be more or less intensified or minimized (1984: 44). Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory also discusses a “graduation” system with “force,” allowing the speaker to amplify or attenuate the semantic value of the appraisal, and “focus,” consisting of specifying the meaning of the expression or clarifying it. In the corpus under study, the codes are labelled “amplification” and “attenuation” to reveal if Americans use more amplification with positive appraisal than French people do. Additionally, this will allow us to observe if their tools of intensification or minimization were different in conversation.

25

These linguistic tools have been categorized under different names by pragmatists: “downgraders” and “upgraders,” “strengtheners” and “weakeners,” “maximization” and “minimization,” or “understatement” and “overstatement” (Brown and Levinson 1987).

26

One way to decrease the semantic force of appraisal is using “hedges,” which allows the speaker to be less assertive or direct in the expression of their emotions or opinions (Hübler 1983: 163). There are many ways to be less assertive in conversation, including using modals, stating your intention, or adding some preparatory conditions. In syntax, the speakers can use interrogatives, negation, or the past tense. There are also some small lexical and grammatical tools, such as “a bit” or “perhaps.” Being less explicit, using irony, or hesitating are also rhetorical tools that allow the speaker to tone down statements (Carnoy 1927: 347–50). In pragmatics, House and Kasper have developed a long list of “downgraders” that include, for example, “play-downs” (“I wondered if...”), “consultative devices” (“Would you mind if...”), or “scope-staters” (“I’m afraid you’re in my seat...”), to just name a few (1981: 166–68).

27

On the other hand, to strengthen the semantic value of an act of positive appraisal, speakers might use various strategies, including syntactic tools such as changing the order of words in order to emphasize the expression of emotions or opinions, repetition, or active voice (Ochs and Schieffelin 1989: 14). Speakers might use grammatical tools such as the intensifiers “very” or “so.” In rhetoric, the speaker might also use hyperbole. In pragmatics, House and Kasper have drawn a long list of “upgraders” such as “overstaters” (“absolutely,” “terribly”), “plus committers” (“I’m sure,” “certainly”), or “aggressive interrogatives” (“Why haven’t you told me before?”) (1981: 169–70).

28

Finally, one must remember that in conversation, there are many phonological and
paraverbal strategies that make the speaker sound more or less assertive or emphatic.
For example, hesitation can be marked through a slower rhythm (Fletcher 2010), and
uncertainty is often reflected by the use of “upspeak.” On the other hand, a higher
volume, a higher pitch, or a brutal change of intonation might signal strong emotions
and make the speaker look overdramatizing (Tannen 1987: 40, 137).

29

In conclusion, to improve their communication skills with American people and reduce the construction of negative stereotypes, it is relevant to teach the French the rules of American positive attitude. For instance, how often can they emit positive appraisal in conversation? What can’t they be enthusiastic about? How strongly must they express
their positive emotions and opinions? I will now describe my research protocol and its
advantages for a comparative conversational analysis.

Methodology of analysis

30 Improving the intercultural skills of second-language learners involves teaching about the main differences between the cultural and verbal behaviors of different cultures. To develop a comparative analysis of conversations in French and American social contexts, I followed a very specific protocol for data collection and analysis.

"Speed-Friending" for research: an innovative method to collect data

31 Sociolinguists may encounter many difficulties when collecting data. While wishing to observe the most authentic and representative data, they also need to respect certain ethical and legal rules that may limit the choices available. Moreover, in a comparative study, they need to apply the same exact protocol in each context of data collection. Consequently, I decided to follow an original protocol that presents some advantages for intercultural comparative analyses.

Choice of the methodology

32 When choosing my data collection protocol, I adopted an empirical approach based on a corpus of conversations recorded in the most authentic and least controlled environment possible. As opposed to the DCT (Discourse Completion Test) used by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984), which involves asking people to write their answers in different scenarios, recording conversations of people in a specific social context could result in more spontaneous and less manipulated speech production. However, it was important to get my protocol approved by an IRB (Interview Review Board) in the United States in order to proceed with our research in the field. Indeed, I needed to consider several ethical and legal rules before collecting data. As a result, it wasn't possible to record people without their approval or to reveal any identifying information about our participants. Consequently, it was necessary to find volunteers to participate in my research in the context of an organized event. Nonetheless, there was no need to reveal the purpose of the research before the end of the event, and it was possible to create an environment that allowed the participants to forget they were being recorded.

33 The factor of comparability was another consideration to take into account. According to Béal and Traverso, in comparing two languages, it is important to study them in the same social situation that “exists in the two (or more) different cultures,” “translates into similar ‘interaction types’”, “contains enough similar interactional ‘activities’ to warrant fitting under the same label.” (2010). Since the aim is to help French speakers establish contact with American people without appearing too negative, I organized social events that gathered people who didn’t know each other but wished to connect. As a result, this allowed me to observe the socialization strategies of American people and French people in first encounters.

34 One type of event that gathers people meeting for the first time is “Speed-Dating,” a term that appeared in 2000 according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, and which
refers to a type of event where each participant speaks to another one at a table for a few minutes, then switches to the next partner of conversation, until they have all met each other so as to select the one they wish to meet again for a date. Instead, I wanted to organize "Speed Friending" events which consist in inviting volunteers who wish to meet new friends. In this event, they have eight minutes to socialize with another person, and when the timer rings, they must switch seats in order to meet the next participant. It was advertised on several social networks online (MeetUp, Facebook, Knock Ap, or toutesmessorties.com) under the title "Speed Friending for Research," which contributed to attract a diversity of profiles interested in the originality of the concept.

The purpose of the research was not revealed except that it was for a sociolinguistics study, preventing any manipulation of the results. The same protocol was applied in France and the United States, allowing the samples to be comparable. Moreover, the context of Speed-Friending presented many advantages: focusing on first encounters, observing the first minutes of conversations and their icebreakers, and maximizing the quantity of data collected thanks to the rotation system.

## Proceedings of the events

The three Speed-Friending events in the United States were organized in March, 2023 and three Speed-Friending events in France were held in June-July, 2023. All events were located on university campuses, but in meeting rooms rather than classrooms in order to make participants feel more comfortable.

All the events were organized in the same manner. The welcome time consisted of having our participants sign a consent form and be assigned a participant number to remain anonymous. They also gave information about their age, gender, profession, region of origin and previous traveling experience.

After 15 minutes of welcome time, the event started, people were assigned seats, and a light sound signal indicated that they could start talking to each other. Whenever the alarm rang, they were asked to change seats according to a pre-established order. The event lasted two hours in total, but they were given a 15-minute break in the middle, and we finished 15 minutes earlier in order to reveal the objective of our research and make them sign a second consent form.

Although participants were aware that they were being recorded, they seemed to forget rather quickly that they were observed, which allowed for the collection of spontaneous and authentic conversations. However, the recorded conversations might differ slightly from those one could collect from unaware speakers on the street or in a more natural environment. Moreover, the Speed-Friending events attracted a specific profile of participants: people who are sociable, interested in research, or in the university sphere. Nonetheless, this protocol allowed a large collection of data with a diversity of speakers in gender, age, region of origin, and profession, as we will see in the next section, which focuses on the data collected.
## Protocol of analysis

40 Once the events concluded, there was a large quantity of data to analyze. Sharing information with readers about the data collected and the tools used for our analysis seems like an important step before sharing the results.

### Information on the data collected

41 The call to participate attracted 22 American volunteers and 25 French volunteers. These 47 participants let us record their conversations, which allowed the gathering of a total of 185 conversations of eight minutes each. As a result, I was able to analyze and observe a corpus of 88 conversations in English and 97 conversations in French. Although the data collected is only a sample of conversations and couldn't encompass the variety of conversations produced in France and in the United States, it is large enough and varied enough to permit some comparisons between the communicational behaviors of French and American people.

42 In both American and French events, I collected conversations from both men and women, but most participants were female (around 75% in each corpus). The participants' age went from 22 to 80 years old. In the United States, people between 51 and 70 years of age were the most represented (64% of speakers), while in France, the population was slightly younger (28% between 21 and 30 years old, 24% between 31 and 40 years old, and 32% between 41 and 50 years old). The socio-professional categories of the speakers varied, and some of them were even unemployed. Finally, there was a fairly similar quantity of people coming from the southern region of the United States and France as from the North.

43 This information allows to verify that there was enough diversity in both our corpora to represent the variety of speakers in each country. It also confirms the possibility of comparing the samples in the conversational analysis.

### Tools used for the analysis

44 Once recorded, the conversations were transcribed using a software called Sonix. In order to respect the conditions of anonymity of our consent form and our IRB, I also had to manually erase any identifying information. The appendix includes the transcription protocol respected to produce the same format for the French and American conversations corpora.

45 The format of the files of transcriptions allows one to quote from our corpus easily by writing the number of the event (E1, E2, E3), the number of the table where the conversations were recorded (T1, T2, T3, etc.), the number of the conversation recorded at that table (C1, C2, C3, etc.), if it is from the French or the American corpus (.fr or .am), the specific time at which the intervention was produced ( between zero and eight minutes placed between brackets), and the speaker and hearer's numbers (P1 to P4, for example). As an example, here is how we would quote this intervention from our American corpus: "All right. I love your eyes. That's so cute." (E1T5C3.am, [00:00:00], P6 to P9)

46 Once the corpus was organized, I explored the different software that could help me analyze the large quantity of textual data and find the answer to the research
questions. I chose Nvivo, a software used to make qualitative and quantitative analyses of a textual corpus. Thanks to this software, I could decide on several types of codes (production of positive appraisal, types of positive appraisal, amplification, or minimization) and then highlight all the parts in our conversations that could be assigned to each code.

47

Therefore, the results in the following section will rely on the total of references coded to each category. One can observe the results on the production of appraisal in each corpus through quantitative data, but also observe specific samples to observe how positive appraisal is intensified or minimized. Finally, I will compare both corpora and offer some possible instructions on how a French person could adopt an American “positive attitude” so as to better navigate American society.

# Characteristics of the American “positive attitude” compared to the French

48

After defining what is meant by “positive attitude” and introducing the data and the tools used in the analysis, I will now show the reader some of the characteristics of the production of positive appraisal in American and French conversations. The aim is to reveal some discrepancies that might help French expatriates improve their intercultural skills in the United States.

## American positive attitude

49

Some multicultural guides have highlighted a tendency of American people to value optimism and to present the most positive image of themselves: “In general, one is expected to be a ‘nice guy’ who promotes people’s ideas and spreads a positive attitude.” (Asselin and Mastron 2001: 47) However, these communicational preferences rely on subjective observations from travelers rather than scientific data. Using the corpus of conversations recorded during the Speed-Friending events, my objective is to verify this hypothesis by a qualitative and quantitative analysis of positive appraisal in American conversations.

## Production of positive appraisal in the American corpus

50

First, I decided to count the number of times an American speaker decided to produce positive appraisal in conversations. The number of references corresponds to the number of times American speakers initiated a conversation with a positive appraisal. On many occasions, the topic discussed in the positive appraisal is then elaborated by both speakers and becomes a full speech event. In total, in the American corpus, there were 511 clear interventions initiating positive appraisal. We also counted nine references where the positive appraisal is more implied than explicit.

51

Moreover, there were 217 references coded for short interventions with a semantic positive value: interjections such as “wow” or “aww” or adjectives such as “cool,” “awesome,” and “neat” (sometimes preceded by “that’s”). These interventions were coded in a separate category because these short declarations sometimes seem to lose their positive semantic value and appear to simply signal that the hearer is listening in the same manner as an “okay.” Nonetheless, if I add these more ambiguous cases to the
total of references coded for positive appraisal, it results in a total count of 737 references. Divided by the number of conversations recorded (88), it can be interpreted that American participants decided to initiate positive appraisal as a socialization strategy 8.375 times per conversation on average. Therefore, “positive appraisal” seems to be a privileged strategy of American people in social contexts, especially in first encounters.

52

As seen in “Types of Positive Appraisal”, an act of positive appraisal can be more or less directly addressed to speaker B. It could be a compliment or about speaker A, another person, an object, or a situation. Applying the different categories developed earlier through the software Nvivo resulted in the following data:

<table><caption>Table: Number of references coded to each type of positive appraisal in the corpus of American conversations</caption><thead><tr><td>Type n°</td><td>Type of appraisal</td><td>Number of references coded in the American corpus of conversations</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Positive appraisal of the personal situation of speaker B</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Positive appraisal about the personal situation of speaker A</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Positive appraisal about another person or a group of people</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>Positive appraisal about an impersonal object or situation</td><td>258</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Solicited positive appraisal</td><td>35</td></tr></tbody></table>

53

The favored type of positive appraisal in American conversations is that of an impersonal object or situation (258 references). American people seem to be more often indirect in their appraisal. The number of references coded to a direct positive appraisal of speaker B is also very low (three references). However, there seem to be many compliments. Still, they are more indirect, usually about speaker B's personality and skills (33 coded references), their possessions (16 coded references), or sometimes about someone or an animal closely related to them (seven coded references), and a few times their appearance (three references coded). We also notice several acts of positive appraisal have been produced on speaker B's personal situation (51 coded references): their job, housing situation, life, and experiences. Therefore, the American positive attitude is not necessarily just complimenting but is emitting positive emotions and opinions about speaker B's personal life.
54

There are many instances where speaker A has produced an act of positive appraisal about their own personal situation (101 references), even more so than about speaker B's situation. However, they have less often produced "self-compliments," although a few speakers have expressed satisfaction about their own skills (twelve references) or some about their possessions (three references), but mostly about a person or animal related to them (25 references). It seems that the maxim of modesty (Leech 1983) is mostly respected by the American participants, which is why they prefer to be more indirect when producing positive appraisals about themselves.

55

It seems like it is also possible for speaker A to establish some solidarity by inviting speaker B to share positive feelings and opinions about something (type 9) (35 references). On a few occasions, American speakers have also expressed their admiration of other people (celebrities, for example) or groups of people (French people, Asheville people, etc.).

56

Overall, Americans express their positive attitude about situations (impersonal or personal) rather than people or things. However, when they do, they seem to be more on skills, possessions, or animals and people related to them, not as much on appearance. Nonetheless, among the possessions, some physical appearance accessories can be complimented (a necklace and a bag are mentioned), especially between female speakers. Being indirect is more common, which might indicate that the risks of positive appraisal for the face of the hearer are known by the American speakers, who prefer to direct their appraisal to something rather than someone.

57

The next section describes how positive appraisal is emphasized or minimized in conversation. Indeed, in the French media, we have mentioned in our introduction how American people are parodied as exaggerated individuals with an over-the-top "positive attitude." A quantitative and qualitative analysis of positive appraisal in American conversations will help confirm or deny these expectations spread by the French media about the Americans' exaggerated positive attitude.

## Intensity of positive appraisal in the American corpus

58

Is the American positive attitude usually expressed in an emphatic manner? Coding the corpus to "amplification," "attenuation," or "semantic negotiation" enables us to observe some of the characteristics of the realization of positive appraisal. We have seen in the subsection entitled "Keeping the balance, playing with intensity" that there are a variety of linguistic tools that can be used to amplify or attenuate the semantic value of an expression of positive appraisal. We also noticed some instances where the speaker used both minimizers and maximizers, upgraders and downgraders, in the same speech act. These are labelled "semantic negotiations," since speakers seem unsure about how assertive they must be and prefer to negotiate the semantic value of the positive appraisal. Finally, there were also many instances when the American speakers expressed positive emotions and opinions without being emphatic or using euphemisms.

59

The following table illustrates the results obtained from the quantitative analysis of the corpus of American conversations. It shows the number of times an act of positive appraisal has been modified by "amplification," "attenuation," or "semantic negotiation."
<table><caption>Table: Number of acts initiating positive appraisal coded according to their intensity in the American corpus</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Amplification</th><th>Attenuation</th><th>Semantic Negotiation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Number of interventions initiating positive appraisal coded in the American corpus</td><td>266</td><td>56</td><td>25</td></tr></tbody></table>

Out of a total of 511 interventions initiating positive appraisal, 266 were amplified, 56 were attenuated, and 25 underwent a “semantic negotiation.” Therefore, 164 interventions didn’t see their intensity modified. The following diagram shows the distribution of these different types of realization of appraisal in percentage of the total number of positive appraisal references coded.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure: Distribution of the different realization patterns of positive appraisal in the corpus of American conversations</figcaption></figure>

We note that more than half of the interventions initiating positive appraisal have been amplified in American conversations. Moreover, American speakers rarely choose to attenuate the semantic value of the positive appraisal, which seems to reveal they don’t see it as the way to reduce the threat to the hearer’s face. It seems to align with the hypothesis that Americans would express their positive feelings emphatically. However, in 32.1% of cases, neither an amplification nor an attenuation was applied to the expression of positive appraisal, which means that American people don’t “always” exaggerate when expressing their positive emotions and opinions.

A qualitative analysis of the corpus show that American people used a variety of linguistic strategies to be more emphatic or assertive in their “positive attitude.” They used lexical expressions with a strong positive value, such as “wonderful,” “amazing,” “awesome,” or “great,” and grammatical tools such as the intensifiers “so much,”
"very," and adverbs "totally," "completely," or "really." American speakers also used many superlatives, such as "the best," that were even maximized by adding the adverb "ever." Overall, they tend to be hyperbolic, using adverbs "all" and "everything." They sometimes used syntactic devices to bring the emphasis on the positive appraisal, such as punctuation, repetition ("And I won, I won XXX," (E1T1C7.am, [00:02:48], P1 à. P7)) or change of the natural order of the sentence ("That is just. That is something I really enjoyed here." (E1T1C9.am, [00:06:42], P1 à P11)). To be more assertive, American speakers also used some "plus committers" (House and Kasper 169-70) such as "I'm sure" or "I mean."

62

Moreover, on many occasions, emphasis was carried by the tone or volume of the voice, the intonation, or other phonological devices. For example, an American speaker would amplify the strength of their sincere interest by articulating slowly the statement "That is interesting." (E1T5C6.am, [00:06:55], P2 à P9) In another instance, the speaker would extend the vowel in "good" to be more assertive. There were also some dramatic changes from a high rise to a high fall pitch that revealed the strength of their emotions, such as in "This is beautiful!" (E1T1C6.am, [00:07:10], P1 à P4) Therefore, it seems that the Americans' perceived "exaggerated positive attitude" might also come from their intonation, pitch, voice, and volume rather than just the linguistic tools they use.

63

In order to improve French intercultural skills, it is necessary to compare the way French people produce positive appraisals in conversation. Indeed, there may be some discrepancies that will help English language learners understand that translating is not enough to communicate in another language.

## Comparison to the French

64

In American movies, the French character is often the bad guy with a cynical personality, such as Jean Girard in *Talladega Nights* (2006) or The Merovingian in *The Matrix* (2002). They can also be mocked for their reticence in smiling and capacity to argue, such as in the series of SNL sketches called "Les Jeunes de Paris." Overall, they are not often represented with a positive attitude. Nonetheless, results from the analysis of our corpus of conversations show that French people also use positive appraisal as a socialization strategy. This section explores in what way their "positive attitude" is different from that of the Americans.

## Production of positive appraisal in the French corpus

65

After applying the same coding protocol for the corpus of American conversations, I collected 465 interventions initiating positive appraisal in French conversations. Additionally, there were six instances where the positive message was more implicit and 162 short interventions with interjections or adjectives that could be interpreted as positive appraisal or simple markers of listenership. If I add all of these cases together, we obtain a total number of 633 references coded at positive appraisal in French conversation. This means that, on average, French people used positive appraisal 6.526 times per conversation. Compared to the average of 8.375 in American conversation, there is a tendency for American people to use positive appraisal slightly more often in conversations than French people do.
66

Now, one can wonder if French speakers are more indirect than American people when expressing positive appraisal. The results in "Intensity of positive appraisal in the American corpus" showed that American speakers favor strategies that do not emit direct appraisal of speaker B but rather express positive emotions and opinions about other situations or objects or something related to speaker B or A. Here are the results of the number of references coded to each type of positive appraisal in the French corpus of conversations:

<table><caption>Table : Number of references coded to each type of positive appraisal in the corpus of French conversations</caption><thead><tr><td>Type n°</td><td>Type of appraisal</td><td>Number of references coded in the French corpus of conversations</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker B</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Positive appraisal of the personal situation of speaker B</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Direct positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Indirect positive appraisal of speaker A</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Positive appraisal about the personal situation of speaker A</td><td>102</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Positive appraisal about another person or a group of people</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>Positive appraisal about an impersonal object or situation</td><td>227</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Solicited positive appraisal</td><td>32</td></tr></tbody></table>

67

The table reveals that the favorite type of positive appraisal of French speakers is also the one directed towards an impersonal object or situation (227 references). Similarly to the American corpus, the second most privileged strategy is the one directed towards the personal situation of speaker A (102 references). Overall, there are few differences between the types of positive appraisal favored in the two corpora. French people also avoid being direct towards speaker B (only eight references). Moreover, most compliments consisted in showing one's appreciation of the speaker B's first name, (e.g. "Ah c'est un très joli prénom mais qui est très à la mode actuellement."). ⁸" (E1T2C4.fr, [00:00:11], P4 to P9)), but almost none of them were on speaker B's appearance or physical accessories.

68

In conclusion to this section, the results of the conversational analysis conducted show that there is a gap in the overall frequency of production of positive appraisal in American and French conversations. Still, no significant discrepancies exist in the favored types of positive appraisal chosen in conversation. Americans tend to express their positive emotions and opinions more often as a socialization strategy than French people do. Yet, it doesn't mean that French people avoid it. Studying the amplification and attenuation of positive appraisal and comparing the French to the Americans
might be relevant in order to help French speakers adjust to American style of expressing their “positive attitude” in conversation.

## Intensity of positive appraisal in the French corpus

Since American people are perceived as “over the top” when they express positive opinions and feelings in the French media (for example, “Doria à l’américaine” sketches on the French TV show *Le Grand Journal* in 2014), one might wonder if they truly have a tendency to emphasize more often than the French people do to reinforce their “positive image.”

After coding the cases of “amplification,” “attenuation,” and “semantic negotiation” in our French corpus, the following table of results was obtained:

<table><caption>Table: Number of acts initiating positive appraisal coded according to their intensity in the French corpus</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Amplification</th><th>Attenuation</th><th>Semantic Negotiation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Number of interventions initiating positive appraisal coded in the French corpus</td><td>185</td><td>50</td><td>16</td></tr></tbody></table>

Out of 465 interventions initiating positive appraisal in the French corpus, 185 were modified by linguistic tools of amplification, 50 were minimized or downgraded, and 16 showed signs of semantic negotiation. 251 interventions were neither amplified nor attenuated. To illustrate the distribution of the interventions initiating positive appraisal in the French corpus according to their intensity, the following diagram shows the results in percentages:
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure: Distribution of the different realization patterns of positive appraisal in the corpus of French conversations</figcaption></figure>

71 Although positive appraisal is often amplified in the corpus of French conversations, it is not half the time (39.8% compared to 52.1%). In most instances, acts of positive appraisal are neither amplified nor attenuated (46.0%). Nonetheless, French people don't often minimize or downgrade the semantic value of their positive appraisal, which shows that they do not consider positive appraisal too risky for the face of the hearer.

72 French speakers also amplified or attenuated their positive appraisal with various linguistic tools. For example, they used lexical intensification with expressions such as “super,” “adorable,” or “merveilleux,” or grammatical tools such as intensifiers “très,” “trop,” adverbs “vachement,” “vraiment.” There were some instances of hyperboles with “tout,” or “éternel,” and many prosodic and syntactic ways to be emphatic, mostly with exclamations or repetitions such as in: “Ah oui, ça, c’est intéressant, ça,” (E2T3C4.fr, [00:00:39], P17 to Assistant). Finally, there were some occurrences of phonological emphasis, mostly with extensions of vowels (such as “bien” in “Ah oui. Ah, c’est bien,” (E1T2C4.fr, [00:02:32])) and changes of intonation from rise to fall (often “C’est bien ça” with a rise on “bien” and fall on “ça”).

73 Nonetheless, in the French corpus, the intonation changes and the vowels' extensions are much less “dramatic.” In American conversations the intonation pattern consists in a “high rise” and “high fall,” while in French conversations, it is a lighter “rise-fall.” For example, in the French corpus, many speakers reply to a comment with “C’est bien ça,” rising slightly their intonation on “bien” which allows them to appear more emphatic and sincere when expressing their opinions and feelings. In comparison, when American speakers want to amplify the semantic force of the equivalent expression “That’s good” or “that’s great,” they rise their intonation at a much higher pitch than the French do.

74 The vowel extension is also done much more quickly in French conversations than in American conversations, where it might be extended emphatically for more than a second. Overall, the choice of being emphatic with the voice is made less often in
French than in American conversations. Moreover, French speakers never used superlatives such as “le meilleur” or “the best” in English, while American people used them several times. Intensity turns out to be more like a scale with different degrees (Labov 44) than just a dichotomy between two axes, “amplified” and “attenuated.” American speakers tend to maximize the amplification with “so” and “so much” rather than “very” or “really.”

75

In contrast, French people prefer “très” to “vraiment.” On the other hand, French people minimize positive appraisal with many negations (“pas mal,” “pas mauvais”). In contrast, American people minimize it more often with adverbs (“pretty,” “rather”) or just with hedges that allow them to be less assertive.

76

Therefore, some differences exist between French and American people regarding their use of positive appraisal in conversation and intercultural comparative studies can help improve foreign language teaching.

## Discussion

77

As a closing section, this article attempts to discuss the new results found and develop some new strategies for English language learners traveling in the United States.

### Main differences observed

78

The study of conversations recorded during Speed-Friending events makes evident that expressing positive emotions and opinions is a socialization strategy often employed in first encounters. However, contrary to expectations, compliments are not necessarily the first type of positive appraisal chosen either by the French or the Americans. It seems that it is favored to express positive opinions and feelings about other impersonal objects or situations, or sometimes about the personal situation of speaker A or speaker B, rather than one of the speaker's appearance or personal qualities.

79

However, there are several differences between the production of positive appraisal in France and the United States that might help reduce pragmatic failures in intercultural conversations and the creation of bad perceptions. For example, in the American corpus of conversations, interventions initiating positive appraisal are slightly more numerous than in the French corpus (8.375 against 6.526 per conversation). Moreover, more than half (52.1%) of the acts of positive appraisal were amplified in American conversation, while 39.8% of the acts of positive appraisal initiated by the French participants were amplified. As a matter of fact, in the French conversations, acts of positive appraisal tended to be neither amplified nor attenuated (46.0%).

80

Moreover, a qualitative analysis of the corpora has revealed that American people amplify at a higher degree than French people, using “so” rather than “very” and using more intense changes in intonation than French people do. The perception of Americans as aggressively friendly and highly optimistic could also be connected to their use of a very high-pitched voice. Indeed, Addington (1968) explains that: “Whether we like it or not, our voices do elicit stereotyped personality judgments which may or may not be consistent with other more direct or valid personality assessments.” (493) Nonetheless, perceptions could result from a combination of linguistic differences that create a pragmatic failure in an intercultural encounter. These different strategies could be taught in foreign language classrooms, textbooks, or
multicultural guides in order to improve the intercultural skills of travelers and
expatriates in the United States.

Teaching positive attitude to the French

Here are some strategies French people could use to better navigate American society by adjusting to their style of expressing their “positive attitude” in conversation:

* On first encounters, expressing positive emotions and opinions is a socialization strategy commonly more employed than in French conversation (in a short eight-minute conversation with someone the speaker doesn't know, one might produce positive appraisal about eight times).

* It is not necessarily the favored strategy to compliment someone on a first encounter, but if you do so, you might be able to compliment them on their physical appearance, accessories, or skills. It is nonetheless more common to express your positive emotions and opinions about their personal situation, your own personal situation, or even better, an impersonal situation you have in common (the weather, the event you both meet at) or an external object or thing (a city, a car).

* American people are more emphatic than French people when expressing positive appraisal (they use amplification about 50% of the time), so French people are encouraged to prefer stronger lexical (“great”, “amazing”) and grammatical (“so”, “so much”, “the best”) linguistic tools to amplify their positive appraisal.

* The intonation pattern of American people is also very different from the French. To express positive appraisal in the United States, speakers extend their vowels a little longer on words that contain the positive semantic value or on the intensifiers preceding or following these words. American speakers also tend to produce more extreme intonation shifts by rising their pitch higher and then making their pitch fall very low in the same sentence.

Conclusion

In order to teach French students and expatriates the appropriate way to express positive appraisal in American conversations, this empirical study aimed at revealing the discrepancies that exist between the production of positive appraisal in France and in the United States in first encounters. This quantitative and qualitative analysis brought to light some differences that could help French expatriates in the United States better integrate into the country by adjusting to the American “positive attitude” through various strategies. Notably, the analysis showed that American people produce more acts of positive appraisal than French people do and tend to amplify the expression of positive emotions and opinions more frequently and emphatically than French people do. Therefore, to improve their intercultural skills and adopt the American positive attitude, French people must learn the various lexical, grammatical, and phonological tools favored to maximize the positive semantic value of their appraisal. Nonetheless, these results from a sample of the American and French populations should be combined with other sociolinguistics and comparative studies. This work is part of more extensive research comparing the use of positive appraisal and negative appraisal, as well as their production, intensification, and reception in French and American conversations. In this larger research, the study of reception of appraisal revealed other linguistic differences between American and French speakers, such as the higher American tendency to reply with interjections and vivid displays of
emotions or with forms of agreement that increase the positive value of the appraisal produced by their interlocutor. The research also revealed that there were much less discrepancies between the French and American communities in the production and intensification of negative appraisal. The results of our quantitative analysis also confirmed that American speakers tended to favor positive appraisal to negative appraisal as a solidarity tool in conversation. These new results can further increase our linguistic and cultural knowledge of the American and French communities and thereby improve intercultural communication and help prevent the formation of negative stereotypes about each community.

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# APPENDIXES

## Transcription protocol

### Transcription Tools used

All conversations were recorded using a voice recorder placed on each table, which was turned on from the moment participants entered the room until they left, including break times.

However, the transcriptions were segmented to keep only the conversations conducted in pairs during each eight-minute "Speed-Friending" encounter. The waiting period at the beginning, the break in the middle, and casual conversations at the end were removed, as participants could not be reliably identified by voice alone.

To transcribe the conversations recorded with the Dictaphone, we used the automatic transcription website *Sonix*, as well as the dictation tool in *Microsoft Word*. After automatic transcription, a manual verification and correction process was conducted to ensure a uniform transcription code, anonymize any identifiable information, correctly assign each utterance to the corresponding participant, and provide an accurate timestamp.

### Organization of Transcriptions

A separate transcription file was created for each table. These files were named following a structured format to facilitate organization: *E* represents the event, followed by the event number; *T* represents the table, followed by the table number; *C* represents the conversation, followed by the conversation number; *am* or *fr* indicates whether the date corresponds to the American or French corpus (e.g., E1T2.am or E3T4.fr).

During each event, participants changed conversation partners multiple times. The structure of data collection was as follows:

#### In the United States:

* Event 1: 6 tables, each recording 9 conversations

* Event 2: 2 tables, each recording 3 conversations
* Event 3: 4 tables, each recording 7 conversations.

In France:

* Event 1: 6 tables, each recording 9 conversations

* Event 2: 4 tables, each recording 9 conversations

* Event 3: 3 tables, 2 of them with 6 conversations each, and one with 3 conversations each, to ensure that only first-encounter conversations were collected.

Within each file, each new conversation was assigned an individual number. Assistants present during the data collection facilitated the coordination of the event and occasionally acted as participants when an odd number of attendees required an additional conversation partner.

Time stamps (from 0 to approximately 8 minutes per conversation) are provided in brackets for each speaker's utterance.

This organization enables precise citation of interventions from the corpus. We recommend citing excerpts as follows:

* After the quotation, included in parentheses: the event, table, conversation number, and corpus (*am* or *fr*) (e.g., E1T2C4.fr)

* Indicate the timestamp in brackets (e.g., [00:04:10])

* Specify the participant who produced the utterance and the one who received it (e.g., P3 to P5).

For example: "It sounded weird, and I just thought it sounded very interesting. The whole idea, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into, to be honest. (laughs)" (E1T2C2.am, 00:00:30], P3 à P2)

**Orality in the corpus:**

We chose to preserve the informal style adopted by the participants. For instance, when the *Sonix* website transcribed "going to" and "want to" but participants actually said "gonna" and "wanna", we manually transcribed these expressions as they were initially pronounced.

Similarly, we kept filler words such as "like" and "you know", which *Sonix* automatically removed.

**Symbols Used:**

<table><thead><tr><td>SYMBOL</td><td>MEANING</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>XXX</td><td>Manually deleted information to protect participant anonymity (in compliance with research ethics guidelines).</td></tr><tr><td>(...)</td><td>Unintelligible segment (often due to low volume of the speaker's voice, or high volume of the background noise)</td></tr><tr><td>(hyphen at the end of an utterance)</td><td>The speaker's turn was interrupted by another speaker</td></tr><tr><td>(hyphen at the end of an unfinished word)</td><td>The speaker did not finish his word before continuing the sentence</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>(hyphen between each syllable)</td><td>The speaker pronounced each syllable separately for emphasis</td></tr><tr><td>(hyphen between each letter)</td><td>The speaker spelled out a word or name letter by letter.</td></tr><tr><td>...</td><td>Incomplete sentence, hesitation marker</td></tr><tr><td>.</td><td>Complete sentence: descending intonation suggests a declarative statement.</td></tr><tr><td>?</td><td>Intonation suggests a question (either rising or rising-falling)</td></tr><tr><td>!</td><td>Intonation, voice volume, or vowel elongation suggests an exclamatory statement.</td></tr></table>

**Interjections:**

Additional information about specific speech tone, or emotional reactions is provided in parentheses and italicized. For example: (laughs), (sighs), (gasps) etc.

For other emotional reactions expressed through interjections, we referred to the following sources:

For American English interjections: https://theeditorsblog.net/2014/05/29/spelling-interjections-and-exclamations/

For French interjections: https://grandrobert-lerobert-com.ezproxy.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/robert.asp and https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com/dictionnaire/grammaticale/interjection

**NOTES**

1. "Appraisal" is a notion developed by White and Martin (2005) in order to refer to the language of evaluation, attitude, and emotion (cf. section "From Affect to Appraisal").

2. "Any positive evaluative assertion about the quality or attribute of the addressee A (...) or a person more or less tightly linked to the addressee A."

3. Translation: "I'm gonna be a good research subject I think maybe."

4. About a musician in a UK punk rock band

5. About the city of Asheville, NC

6. Term defined by Goffman as "the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact." (1967: 222)

7. Consisting in a rise of the intonation at the end of sentences. This strategy is said to be more used by women (Linneman 2013).

8. Translation: "Oh, it's a very pretty first name, but it's very trendy currently."
ABSTRACTS

Although American people are perceived as a cultural community with a positive attitude, they are sometimes mocked or criticized in the media for their exaggeration, superficiality, hypocrisy, or being “aggressively friendly.” On the other hand, the French are perceived by American people as complainers, pessimistic, cold, and arrogant. This study brings to light the differences in expressing positive emotions and opinions in French and American social contexts. Through an analysis of authentic conversations collected during “Speed-Friending” events, some language discrepancies will be revealed, so as to be later taught to future foreign language learners in order to reduce bad intercultural perceptions.

INDEX

**Keywords:** Attitude, emotion, appreciation, didactics, sociolinguistics

AUTHOR

EVE BERNIER-ROCK

Eve Bernier-Rock completed a PhD dissertation in sociolinguistics in 2024. Her research consisted in comparing the socialization strategies of France compared to the United States and in analyzing how intercultural pragmatic failure could contribute to the creation of negative perceptions and stereotypes. Her research projects include expanding scientific knowledge of the communication strategies favored by different anglophone and francophone communities, through corpus-based data analysis. She is part of the CLIMAS laboratory and a member of GLIDE (Groupe de linguistes et de didacticiens émergents, Laboratoire CLIMAS) at University Bordeaux Montaigne. She also works as a full-time French instructor and head of the French program at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina since 2021, and has previously worked for the University of North Carolina in Asheville, North Carolina from 2019 to 2021.