Pragmatics researchers study language in interaction, language users, and the process of making and interpreting meaning. Pragmatic competence, a crucial component of communicative competence, entails knowledge of interactionally-appropriate linguistic resources (i.e., pragmalinguistic competence) and the ability to appropriately navigate the culturally-embedded social perceptions that underlie performance and interpretation of interaction (i.e., sociopragmatic competence). Speech acts (e.g., requests) are an essential element of pragmalinguistic competence and are an important building block of interaction. These acts do not occur in isolation, thus their use must take into account culturally-bound interactive expectations. Politeness models have been of particular interest to Spanish pragmatics researchers. So-called universal models of politeness, focused on the protection of individual social value, do not adequately account for the community-centric culture frequently found in the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, speech acts that might be considered threatening in and English-speaking context (e.g., advice-giving) are used to build solidarity in some Spanish-speaking contexts (Hernández-Flores, 1999). While speech act theory and politeness theory do not comprise the entirety of Spanish pragmatics, they provide a lens for examining the rich pragmatic variation that occurs in Spanish-speaking contexts.