Cross Cultural Communication and Discourse

This is it!

2009-11-12T17:16:00.000+08:00

And it is down to the last one.

This module has been insightful and fun to be in. The topics each week had touched on communication issues which we use on a daily basis, yet until taking this module, they didn't seem very significant and had hardly noticed them at all. For example, listener's responses and telephone openings and closings. It is part of our everyday speech yet I had overlooked it all my life!

I particularly enjoyed the lecture on CMC. It is something that I can really relate to, and can easily see the things we had learnt being applied to my daily CMC. I also liked the lecture on gender differences. It is something related to my project, and through both the lecture and the project, I discovered some interesting differences between males and females, but it mostly boils down to the same few reasons. We humans are fundamentally so simple aren't we?

I also like that this module is has a different mode of assessment. Such as this blogging reflections thing. Although it can be quite tedious to keep up with the weekly deadlines, it is still more fun than having to submit multiple papers or tests.

On a side note, the title of this blog post has nothing to do with Micheal Jackson's movie. Just that this is my last time having to submit anything for school (sans the report and exams blah blah blah), it is like sort of significant, seeing how after this I will be graduating. I think taking this module had been at an appropriate time, seeing how some of the things that have been taught in this module might come in handy during work, such as politness maxims and the like.

Not to say that we all have to go through such a course to know what politness and communication is all about, it is just that through this course, I am sure most of us are now more aware of the nuances of communication and speech.

With that, thank you, Dr. Deng for the enjoyable course, and dear classmates for the stimulating discussions and the fun time we've had in class. =)

Computer mediated communication

2009-10-14T16:18:00.001+08:00

I think this week's topic is really interesting. Technology has been so integrated in our daily lives that our language and communication methods has also changed.

With word limits and the need to be fast and efficient in communicating, we have contracted and abbreviated almost every word possible. I think the point of CMC affecting our expression is something that I see very often in younger students these days. As an English tutor, I often find broken sentence structures and spelling mistakes in many of my students' work. Many times because they could only remember the spelling of the contracted word and not the full spelling. These are the kids who had grew up in the technology era, and this early exposure might have done them more bad then good in their proficiency of the language.

Here's a classic case. Not from my student's work, but was an answer I got when teaching a primary school kid. All thanks to video gaming.

As mentioned in class, proficient users of the language is capable of switching between contexts easily, but if children are still learning the language, wouldn't it be jeopardizing their learning development if they are exposed to CMC too early in life?

On the other hand, abbreviated forms add some colour to a conversation. It has become so popular that there is an entire website on CMC abbreviations!

Internet slangs: http://www.internetslang.com/

Now we can form an entire sentence with letters that don't make sense, and still make sense! YKIMS. =)

Ways of politeness

2009-10-13T21:53:00.001+08:00

After reading the lecture notes on this topic, I realised people actually put in a lot of effort to be polite, that it makes me wonder if it is not part of human nature to be polite.

I think this topic of politeness can be linked to our previous topic of compliment response.

For example, when a classmate compliments me on doing well for an assignment, I could say, "I think you did a better job than I did." This is like a generosity maxim as I am minimising the expression of benefit to myself and maximising cost to self, because I am giving myself less credit for my work.

I think the topics we learn in this module are all kind of inter-linked in the sense that it is there to help us forge better relationships with each other, but at the right time. Here's a cartoon just for laughs.

Source: http://firstcertificate.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/howtobepolite.jpg

Cultural Systems

2009-10-04T18:18:00.000+08:00

I find this week's lecture particularly interesting, as we are finally talking about how the society works as a whole. It does reveals alot of similarities and differences. The video showed in class was quite an eye opener, especially the part on idioms. "Crooked belly button."

Here's some other idioms from other languages, just for fun.
French: Panne d’oreiller: literally mean pillow failure, which is the English version of to sleep in.

German: mit jemandem unter vier Augen sprechen: literally to talk with someone under 4 eyes. But it really means to speak to someone in private.

Malay: hangat-hangat tahi ayam: literally for as long as as chicken shit is hot, which means until the enthusiasm fizzles out.

To a foreign speaker, these translated idioms are really funny. Imagine your French boss would like to reward his employee for working hard, and told him to take a day off to have pillow failure! I would be totally perplexed if I was that employee, I wouldn't know if it's meant to be a good or bad thing to have pillow failure.

This shows that cultural specific communication is hard to be transported to another culture, it may be functional to a certain extent, but it would require furthure explanation, and that's not without misunderstanding first.

Written Discourse: Are doodles enough?

2009-09-22T21:14:00.002+08:00

On Kaplan's doodles of categorizing written pieces into different writing structures, and that people of that culture will prefer writings of their language to others. I think it does what it does best, at simply categorizing. But this also brings about the problem of exclusion.

An example I can think of is the Harry Potter series of books. J. K. Rowling is undoubtedly an English speaker and writer. Her Harry Potter series are a world wide hit which has been translated into many different languages, from Chinese to Arabic. I would assume that after the translation, the story is still the same as it is in English. If we were to put Rowling's writing into one category, it would be "English ↓".

In light of this, we would also assume that a large proportion of non- English writers and speakers will not find the Potter series very appealing, yet is is! I suppose when the Potter stories have been translated into another language, the locals would like it, as it is now written in a language that they are familiar with.

Another problem is that there may be written pieces which are hard to categorize. For example, Robert Frost's poems. One very good example of this case is the poem, "The secret sits". It is one of my favourite poems by Frost, it is written in English, yet it doesn't quite follow the English doodle writing structure.

Here's the poem,

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

It gets to a point at the end, but what it is talking about, really nobody knows. It is unlike the writer's responsibility typical of English writing. It seems like this poem follows a combination of different writing structures, it is direct in the English sense, yet it has much hidden meaning which the writer does not divulge, like of a Chinese writing.

What I have learnt in Literature classes was that this poem was meant to be self-fulfilling. However, I would never know this if I was just a lay reader. So irresponsible of Frost!

Phone Conversations- Rules still relevant?

2009-09-13T15:40:00.001+08:00

This week's topic reminded me of the first thing my German lecturer told my class on the first day of class. It was how to communicate with her via the telephone.

Here's the German way to opening a phone conversation:

Me: Ring...
Lecturer: Geiser.
Me: Eileen.
Lecturer: Hallo Eileen, und wie gehts...
(Hello Eileen, how are you?)

And then followed by the conversation topic.

A classmate of mine had forgotten that this was the norm for Germans, and one day he had to call Frau Geiser (my lecturer), and he opened the conversation in the typical Singaporean manner:

My classmate: Ring...
Lecturer: Geiser.
my classmate: Hello.
Lecturer: (in German) Hello? I don't know anyone named Hello. I think you've got the wrong number.

Of course my lecturer knew it was one of her students, and was just trying to be funny to get the right German response out of my classmate. It was hilarious when she told us about it in class the next day. She has a humourous way of embarrassing us at times.

We don't always adhere to these rules of phone conversations openings or closing, even in our own culture, especially so when we are speaking to someone whom we know very well.

For example, when I call one of my closer girlfriends, most of the time, we open with, "Hey!", and get on with our intention of calling. Or at times, there is no greeting at all, but simply straight to the point, "You know that thing I asked you the last time...."

Similarly, when we are hanging up, we just go, "Alright then." and hang up. It is even more minimalistic when I talk to my parents, when closing, it is something like this:

Mum/Dad: Ok bye.
Me: hmm.
Hang up.

=) Might seem quite rude to some, but this has became the way of telephone conversation between my parents and I, and they have also gotten used to this quick way of getting their message across and getting on with their work.

With SMS and other modes of communication, I think it is pretty common for telephone conversations to become shorter and governed by less strict rules.

Speech Events: More than words?

2009-09-04T22:32:00.002+08:00

I was just thinking about the speech events that I have experience before, and I suddenly thought of an incident that happened at last year's Formula 1 race in Singapore. I volunteered as a track marshal at last year's F1, possibly the most dangerous role on the circuit. This was what happened.

Nelson Piquet's Renault had crashed and left debris along the track, which posed as potential hazard to other drivers. A track marshal from my sector was tasked to run out onto the track (race still ongoing), pick up the debris, and run back to safety. The other track marshals will serve as lookouts for this (brave) track marshal to warn him of any incoming traffic.

My question is, is this a speech event? Here's the analysis using SPEAKING.

1. Genre: Warning

2. Topic: Warnings to keep track marshal (TM) out of danger

3. Function: To warn (brave)TM of incoming F1 cars, and to keep (brave)TM in as little danger as possible.

4. Setting: During the race, on the race track, sound transmission constrains due to the noisy track.

5. Key: Urgent and serious

6. Participants: (brave) TM, TM (behind barriers), Sector marshal

7. Message form: Whistling and running

8. Act sequence:

-(brave)TM runs out to the track,
- pick up debris,
-warning: TM (behind barriers) sees incoming traffic and whistles loudly to warn (brave) TM.
- response: (brave) TM quickly jump over the nearest track barrier to safety.

9. Rules for interaction: Socially acceptable behaviour- be alert and keep a look out; quickly run onto the track and back, don't dilly dally

10. Norms of interpretation: Warning is necessary for the safetey of a fellow TM, and also a life is at stake. The TM has to be quick about it so as not to cause any hazard or hindrance to the ongoing race. Whistling is necessary as shouting won't be of any use on the noisy track.

Through this simple analysis, perhaps we can all now see what my question mean. It does fulfil all the 10 criteria of a speech event, yet nothing has been uttered in the entire event. Communication was entirely replaced by sounds (whistling) and actions (running). Without the speech component, can this still be considered a SPEECH event?

Anybody?

On a lighter note, I am glad I won't be taking on such a dangerous role on the track this year. =)

The first reflection: Compliments

2009-08-28T17:13:00.003+08:00

This week's lecture ended with Dr Deng asking if any of us ever complimented our parents, which made me realised that I probably complimented my friends more than I have ever complimented my parents, even though I know my parents much longer than my friends.

I think we dish out compliments in different forms for different people.

Here are my personal experiences for comparison. When I have had a really good dinner at my grandmother's place, I would probably tell her (in Hokkien) after the meal that "I am so full.", showing that I have eaten a lot because the food she cooked is really good. However, at a potluck dinner with my friends, we simply and directly tell each other (in English) that the food that we each brought to the potluck tastes really good.

I think this difference stems from the way we were brought up in our families. Being Asian, compliments are not part of our daily conversation, so when we do want to compliment our family, we have to do so indirectly, and yet at the same time still keep to our cultural norms of being scant with compliments. However, with friends, we are accustomed to the way of the English speaking, and thus compliments just flow easily.

This was also mentioned in lecture, whether our teachers complimented us when we were in school. Come to think of it, in primary school, if I had did my homework or tests well, my English speaking teachers would always leave a comment on my assignment, such as "Excellent work, Eileen. Keep up the good work!", or " Well done!", but I don't ever remember my Chinese teachers ever doing such things. Even if I scored 100% for "Ting Xie" (spelling test), there would be nothing written on my script except for the test score and a stamp asking for parent's signature. =(

I think this really reflects the dichotomous culture practices that we have in Singapore. I am not sure how generous the Malay or Tamil teachers are with their compliments though. =)