Ling 122: English as a World Language - 13

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Ling 122 English as a World Language - 13

• Cross-Talk

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• This is a bit of historical documentation of what
  Spring Breaks were like when I was an
  undergraduate (well, really when I was still in
  high school) .
• Welcome Back from Spring Break

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• DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR CROSSTALK
• I. In the first episode in the video, the
  service encounter at the bank, cross-cultural
  differences in intonation contribute to
  difficulty between the bank teller and the
  customer. Do you think that these problems arise
  solely because of differences in norms for
  pronunciation, or might they also result from
  stereotyped attitudes of each speaker toward the
  other? Can you remember observing or being
  involved in other service encounters where
  similar problems arose in conjunction with
  differing norms in accent, particularly due to
  intonation?

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• II. In the second episode in the video, why
  does the service encounter between the social
  services worker and the applicant for assistance
  break down? Consider, in particular, problems
  that arise due to matters of domain, register,
  and genre, especially with regard to expectations
  of what types of information are relevant in this
  genre.

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• III. In the third episode in the video, the
  interview for the college library position, the
  interviewers and the interviewee never seem to
  understand each other. Try to explain what some
  of the problems are by referring to Kachru and
  Smiths notions of schemata / scripts / frames /
  scenarios and to cross-cultural differences in
  expected behaviors in the genre of an employment
  interview. For example, some of the problems may
  arise due to differing expectations about the
  purpose of the interview, telling the truth,
  providing evidence of accomplishments, and the
  relevance of a candidates training and
  experience to the position being sought.