Ling 122: English as a World Language

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Ling 122 English as a World Language

• NON-NATIVE VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
• Social and Cultural Features
• Readings
• Y. Kachru L. Smith, Chapters 2 4

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Kachru Smith, Chapter 2 Context of Culture
Speech (communication) happens in the context of
culture in a particular community (society).
Chapter 2 Context of Culture attempts to
connect the three components 1. Culture 2.
Society 3. Speech Context.
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1. What is Culture?

• A. Geertz (1973)
• Culture is a historically transmitted pattern
  of meanings embodied in symbolic forms by means
  of which people communicate, perpetuate, and
  develop their knowledge about and attitudes
  toward life.

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1. What is Culture?
B. Quinn and Holland (1987) Culture is what
people must know in order to act as they do, make
the things they make, and interpret their
experience in the distinctive way they do.
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1. What is Culture?
C. Bloch (1991) Culture is that which people
must know in order to function reasonably
effectively in their social environment. Social
environment consists of social organizations and
behaviors that are instruments through which
people relate to each other.
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1. What is Culture?
D. Kachru and Smith (2008) Culture is both
historic and immediate It shapes action -
verbal as well as a variety of other actions -
and in turn is shaped by them It is a dynamic
process rather than a static, monolithic entity
with a stable existence.
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Kachru Smith, Chapter 2 Context of Culture

• So, culture is,
• All-inclusive, all aspects of life.
• Metaphors
• -A filter through which people see the world.
• -The raw dough from which each person fashions a
  life that is individual and satisfying.

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Kachru Smith, Chapter 2 Context of Culture
Culture is Universal - Everyone belongs to one
or more cultures - It is the template for
rituals - It is the way to organize and
interpret experience - It simplifies living by
giving structure to daily life, minimizing
interpersonal stress.
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External and Internal Symbolic Systems of Culture
External and Internal Symbolic Systems of
Culture - External symbolic systems that vary
among cultures include dress, personal
appearance, and make-up. - It may be acceptable
to some cultures and families for young girls to
wear make-up, while others find this
inappropriate and suggestive of premature
sexuality.
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External and Internal Symbolic Systems of Culture
Internal symbolic structures include beliefs
about natural phenomenon, luck, fate, ceremonies,
work, play, medicine, health, hygiene, politics,
religion, sex roles, social and economic class,
food, child-rearing, age-related activities, and
the importance of the arts and humanities.
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2. What is Society?
A. Ginsberg (1932) A society is a collection of
individuals united by certain relations or modes
of behavior which mark them off from others who
do not enter into those relations or who differ
from them in behavior. B. Linton (1036) A
society is any group of people who have lived and
worked together long enough to get themselves
organized or to think of themselves as a social
unit with well defined limits.
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2. What is Society?
C. Mandelbaum (1970) Society is a social system
consisting of groups whose members together
perform certain functions that they do not
accomplish as separate groups. The groups are
thus interdependent, and they are interdependent
in a particular way. That is to say, the
participants in each group act in regular,
anticipated ways towards members of other groups
and toward the external environment.
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3. What is Speech Context/Situation?
Human actions, including verbal interactions,
take place in institutions defined by societies,
such as the institutions of family, workplace,
education, worship and others.
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S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

• Setting both physical and psychological
• Participants speaker, hearer, addresser,
  addressee
• Ends goals, purposes
• Act acts (statements of fact, questions,
  requests, invitations, thanks, etc.)
• Key mood, joking, serious, etc.
• Instrumentalities speaking, writing, text
  message, e-mail, language, etc.
• Norms of behavior, of language use, cultural
  values, etc.
• Genres business letters, business meetings,
  casual conversations, fairy tales, recipes, term
  papers, etc.

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The Structure of Background Knowledge

• Schemata (scheme) structures in memory that
  remain active and developing A and B were
  going shopping when they had an accident.
• Frames principles of organization that govern
  events in which they are subjectively involved
  School
• Scripts a standard sequence of events that
  describes a situation Im thirsty
• Scenario knowledge of the settings and
  situations behind a text - Thanksgiving

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Example

• Before carrying the rice up into the barn, the
  time arrives for making merit at the threshing
  floor. They make a pavilion and set up a place
  for the Buddha image and seats for monks at the
  threshing ground. In the evening of the day
  appointed for making merit at the threshing
  floor, when the time arrives monks come and
  perform evening chants at the threshing ground.
  (Rajadhon 1968)
• Schema knowledge representations of rice farming
• Frame knowledge of components of making merit
• Script knowledge of event sequences of making
  merit
• Scenario actions associated with making merit

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Class Group Exercise
Kachru and Smith conclude in the chapter that
labels such as American or British or Indian or
Thai culture are referred to as if they are
monolithic entities with no internal variation.
That, however, is not true. Each one of these
cultures represents variations based on factors
such as region, ethnicity, age, gender, class,
social status, education, and profession.
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Class Group Exercise

• It has been said that the US mainstream culture
  (middle class) includes the following
• 1. Individualism (individual freedom)
• 2. Independence and self-reliance
• 3. Equality
• 4. Ambition and industriousness (hard work)
• 5. Competitiveness
• 6. Appreciation of the good life
• 7. The perception that humans are separate and
  superior in nature
• Discuss possible variation(s) (or degree of
  variations) towards each value in the so called
  mainstream American culture.

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Kachru Smith, Ch 4 Intelligibility
Interlocutors
In discussing social and cultural features of
non-native varieties of English, we need to
address the concept of intelligibility. The
reason for that is that questions of
intelligibility arise whenever there is variation
in language use. And, non-native varieties of
English, by definition, exhibit variation
therefore it is natural that intelligibility
becomes an issue for those using world Englishes
across cultures.
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Kachru Smith, Ch 4 Intelligibility
Interlocutors
Understanding and intelligibility are often
used interchangeably in conversation. It is not
uncommon for intelligibility to be the cover
term for all aspects of understanding. But in
order to understand the social and cultural
features of the non-native variety of Englishes,
Kachru and Smith separate three layers of
understanding 1. Intelligibility 2.
Comprehensibility 3. Interpretability.
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Definition of Intelligibility
Intelligibility is the recognition of the words
or another sentence-level element of an
utterance. E.g. Anyone lived in a pretty how
town What do we know about this utterance? -
It contains six English words - We know the
meaning of every word in the utterances. - But,
do we know what it means?
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Definition of Intelligibility
When told that its the first line in a poem by
e.e. cummings, we still not understand the
meaning of the utterance. So, if we know the
meaning of each word (or at least almost all the
words) in an utterance, and recognize that the
grammar appears appropriate, we say that we
have an intelligibility of the utterance. TEST
dictation to write down the utterance.
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Tests of Intelligibility

• Ability to repeat the utterance
• Ability to write the utterance
• Volume, clarity, and speed of the recitation, as
  well as presence or absence of outside noise,
  would affect the intelligibility of an utterance.

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Definition of Comprehensibility
Intelligibility is the recognition of a word
and/or grammatical structure of an
utterance. Comprehensibility is the recognition
of a meaning attached to a word or utterance,
i.e. an understanding of a possible
meaning. E.g. When you hear the word Please,
what do you recognize about its contextual
meaning? - Its a request or directive - Its
usually polite
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Test of Comprehensibility
Please be prepared to leave the area by 3
pm! (1) Ability to paraphrase the
utterance (2) Ability to answer a question
like What time are we supposed to leave the
area?
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Intelligibility vs. Comprehensibility
Intelligibility and comprehensibility are
certainly interrelated but are not the
same. Intelligibility usually refers to speech
perception Comprehensibility usually refers to
what is conveyed In certain contexts, it is
possible to have intelligibility without
comprehensibility and it is possible to measure
the difference between them.
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Class exercise Dictation

• In South ___ Southeast Asia, ___ the general ___
  of internationalisms ___ Euro-American
  colonialism, ___ shows tendencies ___ combating
  cultural ___, much more ___ neighboring
  vernaculars, ___ the more ___, since the ___ have
  little ___ any national ___.
• Fill in the blanks intelligibility
• Paraphrase comprehensibility

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Intelligibility vs. Comprehensibility

• Exercises
• 1. From The Tigers Daughter (B. Mukherjee,
  1972, p. 42)
• 2. A Conversation in Australia

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Interpretability
Interpretability refers to the recognition by the
hearer/reader of the intent of purpose of an
utterance, i.e. the intentionality of the
utterance. It is a more complex feature of
understanding than either intelligibility or
comprehensibility because one must know something
about the cultural context of the statement in
order to have the medium to high
interpretability.
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Class Exercise Interpretability

• Form groups of 3-4 students.
• Address the following
• In Class Exercises 3 ,4 and 5 (handout), are
  there problems regarding an interpretability
  issue.

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Interpretability
What are the problems regarding interpretability
in the following example While living in the
United States, a Japanese woman was invited by an
American friend to a disco party. She said,
Well, I dont like discos very much but Ill
consider it. She was surprised and displeased
when her friend called her on the day of the
party to say, Are you ready? Im on my way to
pick you up.
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Conclusions

• English language fluency and grammatical
  competence facilitates successful intelligibility
  and comprehensibility, but it is clearly not
  sufficient for successful interpretability.
• Interpretability requires cultural competence as
  well.
• Includes pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary,
  politeness strategies, appropriate topics of
  conversation, sequence of information, ways of
  greeting, showing agreement, using directives,
  making refusals, leave-taking, etc.

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• Implications for your future work?