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Intercultural Communication

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Title: Intercultural Communication


1
Intercultural Communication
  • Language and Verbal Behaviour

2
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

3
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.

4
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.

5
Some Design Features of Language
  • Arbitrary
  • Conventional
  • Discrete
  • Displacement
  • Productivity

6
Rule Systems in Language
semantic
The vet examines the dog.
syntactic
the
vet
examine
s
the
dog
morphological
Theveteksaminsthedog
phonological
7
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)

8
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

9
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.

10
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)

11
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.

12
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).

13
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.

14
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

15
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.

16
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).

17
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.

18
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).

19
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)

20
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)

21
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.

22
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.

23
Research Approaches
  • Content analyses
  • Survey research
  • Experimental research

24
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

25
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

26
Language Attitudes and Discrimination
  • Compliance
  • Workplace
  • Education
  • Law
  • Medicine

27
Language Attitudes and Discrimination in the
Workplace (de la Zerda Hopper, 1979)
Probability of Employment
28
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.

29
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.

30
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)

31
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)

32
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

33
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

34
Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals
(Markus Kitayama, 1991)
Coworker
Mother
Coworker
Mother
SELF
SELF
Friend
Neighbour
Friend
Neighbour
Independent
Interdependent
35
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

36
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.
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