... act. 1.1.5. Expressing gratitude as a speech actBasing on the classification above, it can be concluded that expressing gratitude is an expressive act. This is the reason Wiezbicka (1 987 ) put it ... studied by a number of pragmaticists such as Leech (1 983 ), Brown & Levinson (1 983 , 1 987 ), Thomas (1995) and LoCastro (2003). Leech (1 983 : 1 08) believes that one can increase the degree of politeness ... divided into 3 parts :Part A: Introduction This part introduces the rationale, the aims of the study, the objectives of the study, the scope of the study and organization of the study .Part B: Development...