Intercultural Communication

1. Intercultural Communication Language and Verbal Behaviour

2. Outline • What is Language? • Symbols, design features and rule systems • Pragmatics • Cooperative Principle • Politeness and facework • Indirect/direct speech and high- /low-context speech • Language Attitudes • Standard/nonstandard speech • Attitudes and discrimination

3. What is Language? • Communication is the process of exchanging messages and creating meaning. • Language is a symbol system. It includes rules regarding the combination of sounds into meaning units, meaning units into words, words into sentences, along with the rules for using that language.

4. Symbols • Symbols are arbitrarily assigned representations that stand for something else; conventional labels used by participants in a language community to arouse standardized aspects of reality.

5. Some Design Features of Language • Arbitrary • Conventional • Discrete • Displacement • Productivity

6. Rule Systems in Language semantic syntactic The vet examines the dog. the vet examine s the dog morphological Th+e+v+e+t+e+ks+a+m+i+n+s+th+e+d+o+g phonological

7. Rule Systems, cont:Pragmatics • Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle • “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” (p. 45)

8. Rule Systems, cont:Pragmatics • Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle 4 Maxims • Quantity: Say only what is required, no more, no less • Quality: Be nonspurious, be sincere, speak the truth • Relation/Relevance: Be relevant, to the point • Manner: Be perspicuous, avoid ambiguity and obscurity

9. Rule Systems, cont:Pragmatics • Politeness and Facework (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987) • Violations of maxims happen in the interest of politeness, in an effort to be efficient but meet face concerns. These violations can render our speech more or less direct or indirect.

10. Rule Systems, cont:Pragmatics • Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness and facework • Face: “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact (Goffman, 1967, p. 5) • Negative face = autonomy concerns • (e.g. requests and impositions) • Positive face = closeness concerns • (e.g. disagreements and criticism)

11. Direct and Indirect Speech • Speech varies in the extent to which it is direct, explicit, and exact with regards to the speaker’s true intentions vs. indirect, implicit, and ambiguous. • 2 dimensions of indirectness are correlated (Holtgraves, 1997) • Look for indirect meanings in others’ remarks • Speak indirectly • Using indirect speech may be related to minimizing face-threats.

12. Direct and Indirect Speech • Direct speech • reveals speaker’s true intentions (manner). • is relevant to the topic at hand (relevancy). • is consistent with true feelings & opinions and reveals personal information (quality). • is precise (quantity).

13. Direct and Indirect Speech • Indirect speech • Does not reveal speaker’s true intentions (manner). • May be ambiguous and irrelevant; the listener must infer what is relevant (relevance) • Does not reveal personal information but relies on group-based information (quality) • Involves the use of understatement.

14. High vs. Low-Context Language • We can figure out indirect speech from context. • Context can include • World knowledge • Knowledge of the other • Knowledge of the context • The history of their interactions • Verbal and nonverbal messages • Social roles

15. High vs. Low-Context Language • Hall (1976, p. 79) • High-context messages include “… most of the information in either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message”. • Low context messages include most of the information in the explicit code.

16. High vs. Low-Context Language • High context (direct) speech • reveals speaker’s true intentions (manner). • is relevant to the topic at hand (relevancy). • is consistent with true feelings & opinions and reveals personal information (quality). • is precise (quantity).

17. High vs. Low-Context Language • Low context (indirect) speech • Does not reveal speaker’s true intentions (manner). • May be ambiguous and irrelevant; the listener must infer what is relevant (relevance) • Does not reveal personal information but relies on group-based information (quality) • Involves the use of understatement.

18. Related Ideas • Elaborate vs. Understated Interaction Style • Elaborate style refers to the use of expressive language in everyday conversation (e.g., exaggeration or animation). • Understated style involves use of subdued language (e.g., silence, pauses, and understatements).

19. Language Attitudes: Definition of Attitudes • An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related. (G.W. Allport, 1935)

20. Attitudes and Language Variation • “Persons have attitudes toward language which are especially salient and influential in initial interactions. Various linguistic features trigger in message recipients beliefs and evaluations regarding message senders and these beliefs and evaluations are most likely to affect recipient’s behaviours toward senders in contexts of low mutual familiarity” (Bradac, 1990, p. 388)

21. Standard and Non-Standard Speech Styles • A standard speech style is the prestige form of a language, associated with the higher status group in a society. • A nonstandard form is any variant from the standard form (e.g., another language, dialect, accent), usually associated with the lower status group.

22. Hypotheses about Standard and Non-Standard Speech Styles • Inherent value hypothesis • The standard dialect became the prestige form of the language because it evolved as the aesthetically ideal form of that language. • Imposed norm hypothesis • Standard and non-standard dialects are equally aesthetically pleasing, but the non-standard form is viewed negatively because of social norms which are biased against it.

23. Research Approaches • Content analyses • Survey research • Experimental research

24. Matched Guise Technique(Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, & Fillenbaum 1960) • Independent Variable • 4 bilingual speakers read passage once in English and once in French = 8 passages • Dependent Variable • Height, good looks, leadership, sense of humour, intelligence, religiousness, self-confidence, dependability, entertaining, kindness, ambitious, sociable, character, likeablity

25. Evaluative Dimensions • Evaluations can occur along 2 (or more) dimensions (Ryan et al., 1977) • Status • Educated-uneducated, wealthy-poor, intelligent-unintelligent • Solidarity • Trustworthy-untrustworthy, friendly-unfriendly, kind-cruel

26. Language Attitudes and Discrimination • Compliance • Workplace • Education • Law • Medicine

27. Language Attitudes and Discrimination in the Workplace (de la Zerda & Hopper, 1979) Probability of Employment

28. Code-switching • “the juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or sub-systems” (Gumperz, 1982, p. 59) • Examples • extra-sentential • Il est difficile, you know? • intersentential • Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in English y termino en español. • intrasentential • J’aime ta jupe, mais je n’aime pas le way que it hangs.

29. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory (Kim, 2005) • Goals approach • Want to understand “why” certain types of verbal strategies are preferred by a cultural group • Predictability of strategy choices • Want to discover underlying reasons why specific strategy choices are made across cultures and how general impressions of competence are formed.

30. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory • Conversational constraints (Kim, 1993, 1995) • “cognitive generators of tactical preferences” (Kim, 2005, p. 95) • principles that guide an individual’s conversational style in general. • General and overarching criteria for choosing conversational strategy (Kim, 1993)

31. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory • Knowledge of interaction goals is cast at 3 levels of abstraction • 1. tactical or strategic goals • Desires for a specific behavioral action (e.g. raise eyebrows, ask a question, turn away) • 2. primary communication goals • desires for the outcome of a conversation (e.g. gaining compliance, seeking information, testing affinity) • 3. global goals • Guide conversational style in general (e.g., Clarity/efficiency and face-support/ appropriateness)

32. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory • 5 global constraints • Concern for clarity • Concern for minimizing imposition • Concern for other’s feelings • Concern for avoiding negative evaluation by the hearer • Effectiveness

33. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory Kim (1994) No significant cultural differences in concern for avoiding negative evaluation by the hearer (appropriateness) and in concern for effectiveness. Group differences emerge in terms of what predicts effectiveness Korea: avoid neg. eval/hurting other US: clarity

34. Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) Coworker Mother Coworker Mother SELF SELF Friend Neighbour Friend Neighbour Independent Interdependent

35. Independent Separate from social context Bounded, unitary, stable Internal, private (feelings, thoughts) Life tasks: Be unique, express self, self-actualization Self-esteem depends on ability to express self, validate internal attributes Direct communication Interdependent Connected with social context Flexible, variable External, public (roles, statuses, relationships) Life tasks: belong, fit-in, engage in appropriate action, promote others’ goals Self esteem depends on ability to adjust, maintain harmony, restrain self Indirect communication Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)

36. Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory • (Kim et al., 1994; Kim & Sharkey, 1995) • The higher the level of independent self-construals, the greater the concern for clarity; • The higher the level of interdependent self-construals, the higher the perceived importance of not hurting the hearer’s feelings. • The higher the level of interdependent self-construals, the greater the concern for negative evaluations.