Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Perspectives on “Planning Phases” After Invitation Acceptance: Comparison Be-tween Native Japanese and Malay Speakers

Abstract

This paper focuses on the “planning phase” after invitation acceptance and analyzes it from the perspectives of “utterance function” and “expression form.” The findings reveal that both Japanese and Malay native speakers emphasize face equilibrium throughout discourse in native contexts. However, Japanese speakers strive to avoid significantly disrupting face equilibrium, whereas Malay speakers tend to restore significantly disrupted face equilibrium by employing more direct expressions. In terms of facework, although native speakers of Japanese and Malay adjust to face equilibrium differently, they share the same objective: maintaining face equilibrium.