Chapter 2 provides an overview of the chronological background of cross-cultural pragmatics. We argue that cross-cultural pragmatics cannot be traced back to a single academic tradition but rather it is an outcome of the confluence of various strands of academic inquiry, spanning speech act theory, to discourse analysis and to contrastive linguistics. We also discuss the ground-breaking Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), which represents a cornerstone in the development of cross-cultural pragmatics. We devote particular attention to the research methodologies that the CCSARP Project deployed. We argue that while the methodological framework of the CCSARP Project has been subject to major criticisms, it laid down the foundations of what we define as dualcontrastive and ancillary research in our cross-cultural pragmatic framework. In Chapter 2, we also discuss the current state of the field and the reason why this book is needed to fill a knowledge gap.

Chapter 6 describes the fundamental research questions, empirical approaches and findings of sociolinguistics & anthropological linguistics. These are two interdisciplinary linguistic subfields investigating language (with a focus on variation) in its socio-cultural context. Key issues of empirical research include aspects of data collection, such as fieldwork and participant observation, considerations on linguistic and non-linguistic data types (emic vs. etic parameters), and research participants, as well as methods of analysis. The chapter ends with recommendations for further reading and a list of short exercises and ideas for small research projects.