In Expressions of gratitude, the speaker thanks the hearer for something he or she is doing, or has done. There is usually an imbalance in the relationship between the speaker and the hearer because the speaker owes a favor to the hearer in return.  By thanking the hearer, the speaker expresses his or her feelings of indebtedness as well as those of appreciation. 

Leave taking occurs on a number of occasions. In leave taking, the speaker indicates that he or she must leave (or hang up) and says good-bye. This communicative act happens in face-to-face conversations as well as on the telephone; it is used between people who have a close relationship as well as among strangers. Proper leave takings are important because they close an interaction and indicate the tone of future interactions between the interlocutors.

In this module, we will examine various pragmatic strategies you can use in Spanish to express gratitude and perform leave takings in Spanish.

At the end of this module, you will know how to:

1. Identify expressions of gratitude and leave takings in a variety of contexts.
2. Express gratitude using appropriate pragmatic strategies (sociocultural and language) while considering important social factors within context.
3. Perform leave takings using appropriate pragmatic strategies (sociocultural and language) while considering important social factors within context.