Intercultural Communication

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Intercultural Communication

• Language and Verbal Behaviour

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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

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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.

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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.

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Some Design Features of Language

• Arbitrary
• Conventional
• Discrete
• Displacement
• Productivity

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Rule Systems in Language
semantic
The vet examines the dog.
syntactic
the
vet
examine
s
the
dog
morphological
Theveteksaminsthedog
phonological
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Rule Systems, contPragmatics

• Grices (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)

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Rule Systems, contPragmatics

• Grices (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

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Rule Systems, contPragmatics

• 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.

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Rule Systems, contPragmatics

• 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)

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Direct and Indirect Speech

• Speech varies in the extent to which it is
  direct, explicit, and exact with regards to the
  speakers 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.

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Direct and Indirect Speech

• Direct speech
• reveals speakers 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).

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Direct and Indirect Speech

• Indirect speech
• Does not reveal speakers 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.

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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

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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.

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High vs. Low-Context Language

• High context (direct) speech
• reveals speakers 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).

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High vs. Low-Context Language

• Low context (indirect) speech
• Does not reveal speakers 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.

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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).

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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
  individuals response to all objects and
  situations with which it is related. (G.W.
  Allport, 1935)

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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
  recipients behaviours toward senders in contexts
  of low mutual familiarity (Bradac, 1990, p. 388)

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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.

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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.

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Research Approaches

• Content analyses
• Survey research
• Experimental research

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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

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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

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Language Attitudes and Discrimination

• Compliance
• Workplace
• Education
• Law
• Medicine

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Language Attitudes and Discrimination in the
Workplace (de la Zerda Hopper, 1979)
Probability of Employment
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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 Ill start a sentence in English y
  termino en español.
• intrasentential
• Jaime ta jupe, mais je naime pas le way que it
  hangs.

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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.

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Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory

• Conversational constraints (Kim, 1993, 1995)
• cognitive generators of tactical preferences
  (Kim, 2005, p. 95)
• principles that guide an individuals
  conversational style in general.
• General and overarching criteria for choosing
  conversational strategy (Kim, 1993)

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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)

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Culture-Based Conversational Constraints Theory

• 5 global constraints
• Concern for clarity
• Concern for minimizing imposition
• Concern for others feelings
• Concern for avoiding negative evaluation by the
  hearer
• Effectiveness

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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

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

• 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

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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 hearers feelings.
• The higher the level of interdependent
  self-construals, the greater the concern for
  negative evaluations.