I've been an ESL instructor for over 9 years, and I am still amazed how little I know about the language that I teach. Even if we do possess remarkable innate language abilities (Chomsky, 75), I have a growing suspicion that my entire life will be not enough to learn everything about English.
A year ago I came to America to teach at Hinds Community College, in Raymond, MS, and noticed that one of the major challenges with which the Russian exchange students and faculty have been dealing is the problem of cross-cultural communication. Belonging to a different culture we found some local language phenomena quite out of the ordinary. English expressions and customs are based on the American culture and are characterized by the fact that it is not possible for foreigners to comprehend them without losing some sense. Those basic specific elements of linguistics culture impeding our understanding of certain speech fragments are called lacunas (from Latin pit, gap). Would you find it strange to have your health inquired after three times in a row according to Afghani tradition? Isn't it weird when the Chinese ask if a guest is tired after the meal? Likewise, I assure you that some American speech peculiarities look quite bizarre to Russians. Having spent almost a year in America, I've made some observations on the curious language lacunas of the English speech etiquette and behavior patterns. In my research I've been actively using American movies as an abundant source of various present-day English dialogues which provide illustrations to my notes.

Addressing: In Russia and the U.S., two young people when first meeting call each other by their first names. But in Russia use of first names is completely inappropriate in conversation between adults, who should address each other by their first and patronymic (father's) names at all times. If a person calls anyone who looks older by the first name, it's an insult unless they are close friends. An exchange from Legends of the Fall emphasizes this point:

Greetings: Another language lacuna is that in America we may ask a person about his life and never get a real answer. Phrases like "How're you doing? How do you do? What's up?" are not questions any more. Somehow they turned into greeting clichйs which require the same cliche in return.

Both in the U.S. and in Russia, country people tend to greet everybody they meet, regardless of whether they know each other. Although there are quite a lot of people on campus, I've always been very amazed and pleased to be greeted by students that I've never seen before. I wouldn't mind if one day we had this custom on our Russian campus; otherwise, you will be misunderstood. A hypothetical exchange between an American and Russian students might look like this:
- Hi, how're you doing!
- Excuse me, have we met?

Complaining: I see now that display of "bad feelings" in Anglo-American culture may be seen as serving no useful purpose and either damaging to person's "image" or unpleasant for other people (Goddard, 38). No matter how hard life is and how bad they feel, the Americans generally try to look better than they really are, and a reply of "Fine, thank you" provides them a cheerful "mask" to cover their true emotions. Russians are more likely to answer honestly. They might reveal their complaints and troubles, even though some are now adopting the American habit of an always positive response. This is clearly demonstrated in the dialogue from Lost in Translation:

Invitation: I've never thought that going to party would confuse me so much. That confusion started with a little talk:
- I am having a party. Can you all come?
- I think I can. I'll bring a salad.
If you were to hear this dialogue in Russia, the next line would be the following: "Excuse me? You are going to do what? Bring a salad? You must be kidding!"
If you are invited to a party in Russia, the host will provide all of the food. An invited guest never asks to help by bringing food. Even a birthday party is held not by the friends but by the one who celebrates his or her birthday. One is welcome to bring something to eat or drink, but it should be more like a gift: a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine. When the party is over, we don't even think of taking back home what is left. People would never invite us again after such an outrageous act of greed.

Native speakers often forgive phonological, syntactic and lexical errors as clear signs that a speaker does not have native control of a language; however, they typically interpret sociolinguistic errors as breaches of etiquette rather than the transfer of different sociolinguistic rules (Boxer, 2). My hope is that in our ESL classes we could find more time to spend on explaining the aspects of cross-cultural communication, for a successful conversation is based not only on good command of the foreign language but also on cultural competence of the speakers.

Works Cited
Boxer, Diana. Complaining and Commiserating. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1993.
Chomsky, Noam. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. New York: Plenum Press, 1955.
Goddard, Cliff. Explicating Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: A Semantic Approach. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002.