Gratitude Strategies as Pragmatic Parameter of Filipino Pre-Service Teachers’ Identity

Abstract

This study investigated the common gratitude strategies in different situations, which permeated indebtedness as a way of shaping pre-service teachers' identity.  Using a 15-item Discourse Completion Test (DCT), 22 pre-service teachers in the Province of Cavite, Philippines participated in this study.  An informal interview was conducted to validate the gathered data from the instrument used.  The analysis was done through the use of Cheng's (2005) taxonomy of gratitude expressions, which include eight (8) strategies: thanking, appreciation, repayment, recognition of imposition, apology, positive feeling, alerter, and other non-taxonomy-based expressions.  The results revealed that the respondents highly employed the use of 'simple thanking,' which reflects the simplicity and directness of the Filipino linguistic choice in making responses on various occasions.  It was also found out that aside from the taxonomy-based thanking schemes, the respondents also used combined strategies and the 'no-response' strategy.  Supported by Woodward’s identity theory, the identified gratitude strategies, as an illocutionary speech act, built the participants’ identities with an implication to their relational and socio-cultural patterns of language.