CrossculturalIntercultural Communication and its Implications for Teaching Oral English Courses

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Cross-cultural/Intercultural Communication and
its Implications for Teaching Oral English
Courses

• Shau-Ju Chang
• National Taiwan Normal University

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What had happened?

• Instance one
• In the conversation class, when told to initiate
  a conversation with a stranger, a student said,
  Hi, my name is Vicky. Do you speak English?
  Can I practice English with you?
• Instance two
• In the public speaking class, a student when
  feeling nervous and failing to collect her
  thoughts, declaring to the audience, Im so
  nervous.
• Instance three
• Right after a debate finished, a student
  approached her classmate apologizing, Im sorry
  that I asked you so many questions. Please dont
  hate me for that.

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Culture as an Important Factor in the Speakers
Field of Experience

• Culture and self
• Culture and value/perception of communication
• Culture and characteristics of communication

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Culture and Self

• An independent self in American culture
• Individuals ability, characteristic, attribute,
  or goal as referent.
• Belief in the wholeness and uniqueness of each
  persons configuration of internal attributes

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Culture and Self (cont.)

• An interdependent self in Chinese culture
• Defined by relations with others in specific
  contexts.
• Relation and other being keys to self
• Recognized, defined and completed by others

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Culture and Value/Perception of Communication

• In American culture
• Communication situated in individual persons
• Verbally active culture
• A means to assert oneself
• A means to establish relationships
• Communication avoidance or reticence seen as a
  deficiency

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Culture and Value/Perception of Communication
(cont.)

• In Chinese culture
• Communication situated in relationships
• Verbally passive culture
• Action speaks louder than words
• Development of moral character more important
  than that of verbal eloquence
• Serious consequence of improper verbal behavior

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Culture and Value/Perception of Communication
(cont.)

• In Chinese culture
• Communication avoidance stemming from a
  sensitivity to social context, and a concern for
  harmony maintenance, impression management, face
  protection, etc.
• Communication avoidance seen as caution and
  politeness

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Culture and Characteristics of Communication
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Culture and Characteristics of Communication
(cont.)
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Implications for Teaching Oral English Courses

• English Conversation
• Public Speaking
• Debate

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English Conversation

• Initiation of conversation
• Act of talking vs. substance of talk
• Topic progression mode (leaps and bounds vs. camp
  fire chain)
• Self-disclosure
• Speech acts (e.g., disagreeing,
  opinion-expressing, requesting, rejecting)
• Cultural difference in the conceptualization of
  conversation (connection between conversation and
  relationship)

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• Conceptualization of conversation for Chinese
• There is an omnipresent, close link between
• conversation and relationship.
• Conversation is normally an output rather than a
  prelude of a relationship.
• Conversation is also a manifestation of a
  relationship. The conversation is dictated by
  and should adequately reflect a relationship.
• If the relationship is nurtured and grows strong
  via means other than language, conversation in a
  way takes care of itself. Thus, the idea of
  managing a conversation or conversation
  management skills may be novel to Chinese.

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• Conceptualization of conversation for Americans
• Conversation is only loosely connected to
• relationship.
• Though with the potential to forge a
  relationship, conversation is fundamentally a
  form of self-expression.
• Relationship is relatively indiscernible or
  untellable in conversation.
• Conversation has to be managed so that it can
  facilitate self-expression for the interlocutors,
  crystal the messages exchanged in the
  conversation, and make the interlocutor appear as
  pleasant and agreeable as possible.

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Public Speaking

• Speaker Everyone vs. selected few
• Purpose Informing, persuading, and entertaining
  vs. building consensus, and strengthening group
  solidarity
• Confidence control vs. confession connection
  
• Rhetorical form
• Rhetorical proof

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Public Speaking (cont.)

• Degree of specificity and concreteness
• Impromptu speech (degree of challenge)
• Delivery style (perception of confident and
  forceful)

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Debate

• Degree of familiarity
• Debate and interpersonal relationship
• Ways of contending
• Performance in cross-examination

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What had happened?

• Instance one
• In the conversation class, when told to initiate
  a conversation with a stranger, a student said,
  Hi, my name is Vicky. Can I practice speaking
  English with you?
• Instance two
• In the public speaking class, a student when
  feeling nervous and failing to collect her
  thoughts, declaring to the audience, Im
  nervous.
• Instance three
• At the end of a debate, one debater approached
  her classmate apologizing, Im sorry that I
  asked you so many questions. Please dont hate
  me for that.

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• As an essential component of our being, language
  is more than a vehicle it is also a subjectin
  a double sense it is both an academic subject,
  and a constitutive-element that shapes the
  learner-users subject self. That is, by
  learning English, learners not only incorporate
  socio-cultural background information into their
  own selves, they also integrate conceptual models
  inherent to English into their own conceptual
  systems.
• --LTTC call for
  paper