Politeness in the Czech Republic - Thanking and Accepting Thanks

This work deals with politeness, politeness strategies and thanking and accepting thanks in the Czech Republic. At first, the thesis processes the issue from a theoretical point of view, there are presented the findings and theories of Czech and foreign linguists, who are interested in politeness and communication, several approaches toward polite or impolite behaviour. I describe in detail thanking and responses to thanks, expressions of gratitude and ingratitude; there are presented the topics, which directly relate to the issue, too. The practical part deals with the research of supposed responses of respondents - thanking and accepting thanks - in specific situations. The task isn't to research the using of speech, but the utterance considered as polite and suitable in the situation. I chose the questionnaire with 5 open questions, where respondents were asked to write the answer according to their experience. The research was oriented on respondents of both sexes between the ages of 14 to 42 years. The results are given in real numbers (firstly both sexes together and then separately). Finally, the results and findings are analysed and interpreted. Keywords: politeness, speech etiquette, Czech culture, thanking, accepting thank