Creating the Right Impression – the politeness and pragmatics of ELF

1. Creating the Right Impression – the politeness and pragmatics of ELF Chia Suan Chong ETAS ZUG SIG Day Sept 2012

2. Can you take the rubbish out, please?

3. What is ELF? Kachru Expanding Circle Outer Circle Outer Circle Inner Circle

4. Alternative Models Modiano (1999) Learners of International English Native & Foreign Language Proficiency Proficient in International English

5. Alternative Models Emerson Barely-intelligible International English Reasonably-intelligible International English Fully-intelligible International English

6. What is ELF? Jennifer Jenkins • 85% of English language use is NNS-NNS • ELF – a variety in its own right • Learning to speak like NS is ‘unnecessary, unrealistic & harmful’. • Whose standard is the standard? • Codification of NNS English - VOICE

7. The Lingua Franca Core-Pronunciation Features Core to Mutual Intelligibility • Distinction between long and short vowels e.g. sheep versus ship • Consonant Clusters and Consonant Contrast e.g. strength, Spain; van versus ban • Nuclear/Contrastive Stress e.g. Michael has 1 brother (not 2). • Tone Groups e.g. This is the mouse that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

8. Lexico-grammatical Features • Use of 3rd person singular Zero because if some… if one woman have a very ugly appearance so… then erm she hm… she have problems… if she have some complex • Exploited redundancy, e.g. ellipsis with objects and complements of transitive verbs. I wanted to go with Last month I was living in Exeter but erm… actually I really regret so I decided to move to London

9. Lexico-grammatical Features • Extension to collocational field of words with high semantic generality e.g. do, have, make, take • Shift in preposition use e.g. we have to discuss about • Increased explicitness e.g. black colourrather than just ‘black’, or how long time for ‘how long’

10. My issues with ELF • Condescension towards learners • Celebration of varieties negates mutual intelligibility? • Codifying ELF • Dumbed-down version of English

11. The importance of mutual intelligibility

12. Examples from Coursebooks • …was reckoned to… • …got lumbered with… • an unmitigated disaster • She’ll do her nut if she catches you • I was lugging her suitcases around • Stop faffing around • …got mangled… • …was knackered.

13. Would you? Could you? How are you doing? Everything’s going to be fine. to scold sb a small problem exhausted awful rebellious shocked to make fun of sb How are you diddling? She’ll be apples. to give out to sb a snag knackered the dog’s breakfast bolshy gobsmacked to take the mickey of sb What’s up? Everything’s going to turn out peachy. to tell sb off a setback worn out appalling fiesty dumbfounded to mock sb

14. As far as I’m concerned,… The most important thing is… I see what you mean. It was absolutely certain that… We’re in agreement. It’ll never happen. …in an impossible position Be patient. Arguably,… It all comes down to… I see where you’re coming from. It was taken for granted that… We’re on the same page. It’ll never come into fruition. …between a rock and a hard place Bear with us. I’m going to stick my neck out and say… It all boils down to… I get your drift. It was a foregone conclusion that… We’re singing from the same hymn sheet. It’ll never see the light of day. …between the devil and the deep blue sea Hold your horses.

15. Hmm…Lighter?

16. Intelligibility vs Impressions? or

17. Politeness

18. Definitions of Politeness- Japanese, English or Greek? • Friendliness • Respect • Appropriacy • Formality • Maintenance of Distance • (In)Directness

19. Politeness Brown and Levinson ‘The public self-image that every member of society wants to claim for himself’

20. Face Threatening Act (FTA) Mutual Maintenance of Face

21. Levels of Directness • Most direct ‘bald on record’ Take the rubbish out. • Conventionally indirect You wouldn’t mind taking the rubbish out, would you? • Unconventionally indirect ‘off the record’ Oh, the bin is so full, I really should take it out…but… Oh! My poor back!

22. Literature Review • Politeness Studies: Focus on surface syntactic structures; • Intercultural Communication: Focus on mismatches of cultural values & beliefs; • Interlanguage Pragmatics: Focus on realising politeness in NS ways, using NS-based formulae; • ELF: Focus on intelligibility and identity.

23. The Research The Context

24. The Research Design • The Audio Recording: 8 hours, 49 requests • The Questionnaire Survey: 111 respondents • The Interviews: 8 Focus Groups 6 one-to-one Interviews

25. The Audio Recordings

26. Most Direct Explicit Requests Visitor 1 V: Excuse me, the director Maria?Director? Maria?

27. Most Direct Explicit Requests Visitor 2 V: Excuse me, I want to cancel the IELTS and Maria, he want... X: she wants. V: She wants... R: I don’t believe that’s possible. V: You can ask the IELTS office, yeah? Yeah. Change to…Maria. R: I don’t know if it’s possible.

28. Conventionally Indirect Requests Visitor 3 V: Excuse me, can I know my result of IELTS entrance exam?

29. Conventionally Indirect Requests V: I’d like to have information about an advanced level because I’m reading economics...business and economics and I need to improve my English...so I don’t know if I need a specific exam in Business or in general. I don’t know my level, if I can do this test or not. Visitor 4

30. Unconventional Indirect Requests Visitor 5 R: Can I help you? V: Uh...I book the IELTS course for the 11th of June but I didn’t get the information paper. Visitor 6 V: Hello. I cannot find my name on...(looks at notice board)

31. Interviews & Focus Groups- On formulaic language S: …I should say ‘excuse me’, ‘can I’, ‘could I’. This is the first thing you can learn or do when you go to another country… R: Okay, I think it’s the whole manner in which they approach you, it’s whether they say ‘excuse me’…and also the expression on their face…

32. Interviews & Focus Groups- On intercultural communication S: Maybe, um…at first, I transferred a lot of things from my behaviour in Brazil, but here (…) I started to adapt (…) It’s not that I was not polite in Brazil and now I’m polite. No. It’s just that here you use just different ways to get there.

33. Interviews & Focus Groups- On intercultural communication R: It’s actually very hard. Especially with different cultures (…) they do tend to use words, not whole sentences sometimes (…) That in itself, can be more aggressive. But you know the culture, and you know they don’t mean aggression (…) You take that into account, an yes, then you don’t consider them particularly rude.

34. Interviews & Focus Groups- On intercultural communication S: …you have to understand you are with people from different cultures. You are, you have to try to find, um, balance, between all cultures, so you can relate to each other, talk and understand without having any problems.

35. Interviews & Focus Groups- On being NNSs S: They tend to use just only single words…Without any verbs or any subject. So I understand they are learning English. S: …so you already are a bit nervous because of the surroundings, you just arrived here (…) So it might be that in the exciting, you might lose control of the, of the structures you’ve learnt, or whatever. So I would understand that.

36. Interviews & Focus Groups- On being NNSs S: In a conversation, I think being clear of what you want is the most important thing. Because I can have a little knowledge of English, but knows exactly what I want to say, even if I don’t make a sentence and everything, but to show that I need some help…

37. Interviews & Focus Groups- On being NNSs R: …if they’re NNSs, I can understand what they want, you know, I don’t mind using perfect polite way of, you know, expression. When a NNS, they don’t tend to look down on you (…) I feel more confident if I speak to NNS because usually their English is quite basic (…) I just give some time to express themselves, but if smiling and very very friendly (even if they don’t use formulaic polite language), I’m very willing to help.

38. Interviews & Focus Groups- On being NNSs S: If you don’t speak the language yourself as a NS, you can’t expect the other person to speak better than you do. You see what I mean? When you are not native, and the other is not native, you should not expect much from him or her.

39. Interviews & Focus Groups- On para- & non-linguistic factors S: I just pay attention to the tone (…) sometimes, the syntax is…isn’t correct, but the tone is friendly and very polite. S: …I think that the (facial) expression transmits what you really want to, to say, because the language has a limit for us, so even if we have…uh, a high level of English, we’re not native speakers.

40. Interviews & Focus Groups- On situational factors S: If the attitude of the other person is like ‘Tell me quickly because I have a lot of work to do’, then people is more nervous and don’t have time to say ‘please’ or another thing. And could be sound rude. And could be influence the other person.

41. Interviews & Focus Groups- On situational factors R: …the bigger the favour, the more polite you need to be, and also, the more, shall we say, unrelated the question is to the business, you need to be more polite again (…) If you go to a hotdog stand and ask for a hotdog, then you don’t have to be very polite, do you? (…) If you have a request which is not directly related, ‘Do you know where the nearest underground is? Could you please…’ You need to be more polite than asking for the hotdog.

42. Perception-Creation as amultifactorial construct

43. Lessons for the Classroom

44. Lessons for the Classroom

45. Discussions for the Classroom • What is the context? Who are the interlocutors? • What image do you think the interlocutors want to portray? • How do they try and achieve this? • Were they successful? Would you do it differently?

46. Using Role Plays • What did you think of the interlocutors? What made you feel that way? • How did this change as the conversation continued? • Is there anything you think they could have done better?

47. Role Plays B: You are a waitress at a restaurant in South Korea. You are busy and have lots of customers. You are efficient worker. You have a C1, Pre-Advanced level of English. A: You are a customer at a restaurant. You want a steak and you want it done rare. Your level of English is A2, Pre-Intermediate. You think ‘Steak English Style’ means ‘rare’. (You don’t know the word ‘rare’)

48. My issues with ELF • Condescension towards learners Or • Un-useful Interlanguage Continuum + Acknowledging that ELF transcends NS targets

49. My issues with ELF • Celebration of varieties negates mutual intelligibility? Or • Focus on Adapting and Accommodating Strategies?

50. My issues with ELF • Codifying ELF Or • Every ELF scenario and ELF community is different – Focus on negotiation of meaning.