Cross-Culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-Culturally [1 ed.] 9781443855273, 9781443852258

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Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally

Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally

Edited by

Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan and Christine Béal

Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally, Edited by Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan and Christine Béal This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, Christine Béal and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5225-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5225-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Kerry Mullan, Christine Béal and Bert Peeters Part One: Cross-cultural Encounters Chapter One ............................................................................................... 11 Retrospective Verbal Reports as a Way to Investigate Cross-cultural Pragmatic Problems in Oral Interaction Yoko Sato Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 47 Formality as a Cross-cultural Issue: An Analysis of L1 and L2 Speaker Australian Employment Interviews Denise Gassner Part Two: Cross-cultural Comparisons Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 77 Italian L2 Address Strategies in an Australian University Setting: A Comparison with L1 Italian and L1 EnglishPractice Maicol Formentelli and John Hajek Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 107 Issues in Conversational Humour from a Cross-cultural Perspective: Comparing French and Australian Corpora Christine Béal and Kerry Mullan Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 141 How do People Give Advice in Wu Chinese? Huimin Xie

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Part Three: Helping the Cross-cultural Learner Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 183 A Cross-linguistic Approach to Teaching Grammar Marika Kalyuga Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 207 Self-discovery through Ethnography in Language-culture Education (LC2) Colette Mrowa-Hopkins Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 231 Language and Cultural Values: Towards an Applied Ethnolinguistics for the Foreign Language Classroom Bert Peeters Index ........................................................................................................ 261

INTRODUCTION KERRY MULLAN RMIT UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE [email protected]

CHRISTINE BÉAL UNIVERSITÉ PAUL VALÉRY, MONTPELLIER [email protected]

BERT PEETERS MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, SYDNEY [email protected]

Issues in cross-cultural communication have exercised the minds of thousands of scholars world-wide and will no doubt continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Cross-cultural communication is often relatively unproblematic (as relatively unproblematic, that is, as communication within cultures), but it is a well-known fact that problems do develop from time to time and warrant the attention of linguists and applied linguists alike. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure, as it has been called, occurs because of insufficient knowledge, either of the formal rules of the language in which an interaction takes place (rules that relate to its lexicon, its phonetics, its syntax), or of more elusive aspects related to implicit cultural norms and values, often not adequately taught in foreign language classrooms. In the absence of appropriate cross-cultural savoir-faire, it can have disastrous repercussions for interpersonal relationships and lead to unhelpful stereotyping. This volume, which aims to make a modest contribution to the fast growing body of cross-cultural literature published across the world, bears the name of an international conference organised in July 2009 at Macquarie University, Sydney, under the auspices of Macquarie’s Department of International Studies and in close cooperation with the Département des Sciences du Langage, Université Montpellier 3, France. The phrase crossculturally speaking was meant to emphasise the idea of speaking from a

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Introduction

cross-cultural point of view; the phrase speaking cross-culturally shifted the attention to the idea of speaking across cultures. Like its predecessor, the July 2007 Montpellier conference Les enjeux de la communication interculturelle: Compétence linguistique, compétence pragmatique, valeurs culturelles, which also resulted in a collective publication (Nathalie Auger, Christine Béal & Françoise Demougin, eds., Interactions et interculturalité: variété des corpus et des approaches, Bern, Peter Lang, 2012), the Macquarie conference brought together a number of scholars interested in gaining a better understanding, through the study of actual communicative behaviour, of the various linguistic and pragmatic aspects of crosscultural competence which are required for communication across cultural boundaries to be successful. Conference participants were asked to situate their papers in one of three pre-defined approaches: x A “comparative” approach which entails side-by-side observation of native speakers using their respective native languages in similar contexts or interactions. The comparative approach allows similarities and differences in usage and expectations in appropriately defined communicative contexts to be brought into focus, and thus paves the way towards formulating hypotheses on potentially sensitive points in cross-cultural situations. x A “cross-cultural” approach which entails analysis of contact situations in which speakers belonging to different cultural backgrounds interact with one another. The cross-cultural approach allows identification of presumed obstacles in cross-cultural communication which appear to generate misunderstanding or interpersonal clashes, and thus paves the way towards the identification of underlying cultural values which are relevant for one or more of the speakers but not for all. x A “pedagogical” approach which relies on observation of interlanguage behaviour among peers, comparing it to native performance in similar contexts or interactions. The pedagogical approach relies on simulations and allows L1 interferences on L2 to be brought into focus and thus complements findings achieved within a crosscultural approach. Preliminary versions of six of the eight papers included in this volume were presented at the conference, and selected for inclusion on the basis of their intellectual rigour as well as of a stringent anonymous peer-review

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process which has resulted in extensive rewriting. The two remaining papers (by Gassner and Peeters) were similarly subjected to blind peer scrutiny. The editors would like to thank the many colleagues who agreed to take part in the peer-review process; this volume owes its existence to each and every one of them. The editors also gratefully acknowledge the editorial assistance provided by Dominique Irlinger, who ensured that all due processes were followed and who laid the groundwork for the cameraready copy. The papers included in this volume have been allocated to three parts which group similar contributions, more or less in line with the approaches detailed above. Part One deals with cross-cultural encounters, Part Two makes cross-cultural comparisons and Part Three focuses on ways to help the cross-cultural learner.

Cross-Cultural Encounters The two papers which make up the first part are by Yoko Sato and Denise Gassner, respectively. Sato investigates the oral communication problems of Japanese tertiary learners of intermediate English, with a particular focus on cross-cultural pragmatic problems experienced by a native speaker interlocutor. Sato uses the Retrospective Verbal Report technique to analyse pragmatic problems, to investigate how these might influence communication and to determine whether Japanese learners of English are aware of the possible negative effects of their own performance. Several learner features are found to be problematic from the native speaker’s point of view, but these had not been identified by the Japanese students, indicating the need to incorporate pragmatic instruction into the English language classroom. In her study, Gassner takes a comparative approach to examine the relationship between formality and culture in employment interview responses by native and non-native speakers of English. While the author makes a strong claim for the cultural background of the speaker having a strong influence on the level of formality chosen, the analysis shows that inherent properties of the speech event also determine the formality level chosen. Of particular note in this study is how Gassner illustrates that the use of informal language can downplay power differences (i.e. mitigationP) while the use of formal language can enhance or strengthen them and, thus, introduce the opposite effect (i.e. boostingP).

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Introduction

Cross-Cultural Comparisons The second part contains papers by Maicol Formentelli & John Hajek, Christine Béal & Kerry Mullan, and Huimin Xie. The first paper, by Formentelli & Hajek, presents an important comparison of the English and Italian address systems employed in two universities, one Australian and the other Italian. The results show an asymmetrical distribution of forms in interactions, with students in Australian classrooms employing mainly formal lexical strategies upwards to lecturers and receiving informal vocatives in return. Symmetrical informal address follows relatively quickly on invitation from the lecturer, however. This contrasts with student/lecturer interactions in Italian universities, where speakers employ reciprocal use of the polite pronoun Lei, and a shift to reciprocal familiar forms is rare and takes longer. The authors show that although the choice of address strategies in Australian and Italian academic settings is influenced by the same sociolinguistic and contextual parameters, such factors are evaluated differently by speakers of Australian English and Italian, resulting in divergent patterns of address. Béal & Mullan employ a cross-cultural perspective to examine the use of spontaneous humour in social interaction in French and Australian English. The authors argue that traditional folk categories such as jokes, anecdotes, wordplay or teasing are not readily suited to a discourse based analysis of humour, due to the difficulty in separating these aspects. Béal & Mullan propose a new four-dimensional model for the analysis of conversational humour using a cross-cultural and interactional approach. The authors analyse several examples from their two corpora, demonstrating how humour is created interactionally by the participants over several turns. Similarities and differences in the way French and Australian English speakers use conversational humour are presented, and the links to the participants’ respective underlying ethos and cultural values are explored. The third paper dealing with cross-cultural comparisons is by Xie, who presents a sociolinguistic discourse analysis of the speech event of giving advice in Wu Chinese. The author analyses advising sessions involving recent high school graduates and/or their parents talking with their families, friends, teachers and other education experts. Xie examines the content and forms of this speech event in relation to the variables of social distance and power relationship, while re-examining the universality of

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Brown & Levinson’s (1987) concept of face. The author concludes that advice-giving in this context in Wu Chinese is not a face threatening act in the sense of Brown & Levinson, and that, instead, the Chinese conception of face, lian and mianzi, accounts for the findings.

Helping the Cross-Cultural Learner The three contributions in the third part were written by Marika Kalyuga, Colette Mrowa-Hopkins and Bert Peeters, and have in common a particular focus on assisting cross-cultural learners. Kalyuga’s study examines the ways in which the cross-linguistic comparison of conceptual metaphors can help learners with their comprehension of grammar and, therefore, can facilitate the learning of a foreign language. The author illustrates this by using Russian expressions for mental activity historical meaning shifts and polysemy extensions based on the location event-structure metaphor and the object event-structure metaphor. In her paper, Mrowa-Hopkins underscores the pedagogic value of an ethnographic approach to intercultural understanding within university courses dealing with second languages and cultures. Such an approach emphasises the need for students to develop an ability to engage in critical reflection on their own cultural values and knowledge, explores the ambiguity inherent in intercultural life and gives access to the deepest tacit cultural structures of the mind and emotions. The author describes the implementation of pedagogical tasks aimed at recognising cues to emotion communication; this can be used by learners to express their own feelings and to respond to interlocutors in ways that are considered acceptable by members of the target group. In this way learners should reflect on their own identity and themselves as human beings while engaged in analysing culture as multiple and constructed. The final paper in this section, and indeed the volume, is by Peeters, who agrees with Mrowa-Hopkins on the importance for all foreign language learners to gain an early awareness of the cultural values and communicative norms of those whose language they are learning. As Peeters points out, immersion in the language-culture usually achieves that end, as it is through immersion in a foreign culture that differences with one’s own culture come to the fore. Peeters proposes that exploitation of selected resources in the (advanced) foreign language classroom is likely to facilitate subsequent immersion. The author goes on to define five

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Introduction

ethnolinguistic pathways which will help the foreign language learner discover and/or gain a better understanding of the values upheld by the native speakers of the language they are learning. Applied ethnolinguistics illustrates how the study of culturally salient words, phrases, productive syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours can lead to the discovery of cultural values which then become the subject of further investigation leading to either the confirmation or rejection of their assumed status.

The Editors Bert Peeters is Associate Professor of French at Macquarie University, Sydney. His main research interests are in the areas of French linguistics, intercultural communication, and language and cultural values. He is currently working on a monograph dealing with French language and cultural values. Over the years, he has authored and edited a number of volumes written in English as well as French dealing with historical phonology (1992), the lexicon-encyclopedia interface (2000), the natural semantic metalanguage approach (1993, 2006) and French sociolinguistics (2009). He has also contributed chapters to several edited volumes and has published papers, reviews and review articles in a wide range of international journals. Kerry Mullan is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of French Studies at RMIT University, Melbourne. Her main research interests are crosscultural communication, discourse analysis and differing interactional styles. Her book on expressing opinions in French and Australian English discourse (2010) contrasts the distinct styles of French and Australian English speakers, specifically the interactional functions and semantics of the expression I think and its three French (approximate) equivalents. She is currently investigating humour in French and Australian English social visits with colleagues Christine Béal and Véronique Traverso and has written a number of other publications on cross-cultural pragmatics, subjectivity and applied linguistics. Christine Béal is Professor in Linguistics and Communication in the Sciences du langage department at the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3. She is a member of the Praxiling-CNRS (U.M.R. 5267) research team and editor in chief of the academic journal Les Cahiers de Praxématique. She has also co-edited a number of other volumes on crosscultural communication. Her main research interests are discourse analysis, conversational analysis, cross-cultural pragmatics and cultural

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values. Her latest book (2010) examines everyday interactions in French and English. Other publications include a wide range of book chapters and journal articles on forms of address, politeness rituals and the pragmatic functions of humour.

PART I CROSS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS

CHAPTER ONE RETROSPECTIVE VERBAL REPORTS AS A WAY TO INVESTIGATE CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATIC PROBLEMS IN ORAL INTERACTION1 YOKO SATO HOSEI UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract This paper reports the results of a study investigating the oral communication problems of Japanese university students learning English, with a specific focus on the cross-cultural pragmatic problems experienced by a native speaker (NS) interlocutor. The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of the problems as perceived by the communicators themselves in contextualised interaction, and to identify instructional priorities. By using the Retrospective Verbal Report (RVR) technique, the study aimed to go beyond inferences based on performance analysis and the use of discourse completion tasks, which have been prevalent in past cross-cultural communication research. The participants were thirty-two students at an intermediate level of English proficiency. Interaction was elicited through a video-recorded one-to-one, face-toface interview conducted by a NS interlocutor. The video-recording was used as a prompt in the subsequent one-to-one RVR sessions conducted by the researcher, in which the learners and the NS interlocutor were asked to verbalise problems encountered during the interaction. The key significance of the RVRs is that they provide information as to which learner features actually cause pragmatic problems, how these influence communication and whether the learners are aware of the negative effects of their own performance.

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The results indicate that, in the eyes of the NS interlocutor, turn-initial silences, lack of eye contact, under-elaborated responses and flat intonation caused the most serious pragmatic problems. These features were interpreted as indicative of the learners’ lack of interest and willingness to communicate. However, the learners’ RVRs showed little awareness of the negative impact of these features, seemingly because these are accepted aspects of communication in Japanese. The findings suggest the effectiveness of the combined use of an interactive task and the RVR technique when investigating cross-cultural pragmatic problems. They also indicate the need for incorporating pragmatics instruction into English language classrooms.

1. Introduction Over the last few decades, strong emphasis has been placed in Japan on English language education. However, only recently has oral communication received serious attention. A pilot questionnaire survey preceding the present study shows that the quality of English oral communication classes in secondary schools varies considerably across courses and teachers. Typical contents include choral repetitions, role-play exercises and one-way talk by a native-speaker (NS) teacher. It seems that many Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL)2 have little opportunity for spontaneous, authentic exchanges in English before entering university. It is perhaps due to this that oral communication has traditionally been considered as one of the most problematic areas for Japanese university students. Consequently, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has emphasised the need for improvement in this area (MEXT 2003). The first step towards the development of effective pedagogical approaches is arguably to identify the areas in which learners need most help and to establish instructional priorities. It has been pointed out that pragmatic inappropriateness of language learners seriously affects the social and personal relationship they will develop in real life (e.g. Thomas 1983). However, there is a dearth of research on pragmatic problems actually experienced by a NS interlocutor when interacting with Japanese EFL learners. This study aims to explore this neglected area and to provide insights into the areas of priority for EFL oral communication instruction at Japanese universities. It is also hoped that the findings have some research and pedagogical implications for a wider learner population.

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2. Cross-cultural pragmatic problems What makes pragmatics particularly problematic in cross-cultural communication is the fact that people are usually unaware that different communicative behaviours are considered appropriate in different languages and cultures (Wolfson 1983: 62). As a result, while NSs tend to tolerate purely linguistic mistakes in interacting with non-native speakers (henceforth referred to as L2 speakers) (Thomas 1983: 96), pragmatically inappropriate behaviour tends to be misinterpreted “in attitudinal terms”, such as “unfriendly, impertinent, rude, [or] uncooperative” (Gumperz 1982: 132; see also Thomas 1983: 97, Wolfson 1983: 62). The subsequent misunderstandings “can interfere with social, academic, and professional opportunities for L2 speakers” (Tanaka 1997, quoted in Matsuda 1999: 40; see also Gumperz 1982, 1995, 1996, Thomas 1983). Moreover, unlike linguistic mistakes, which often cause non-understanding and are signalled by the interlocutor, the unpleasantness caused by pragmatic inappropriateness is often not explicitly expressed by the offended party. This makes it extremely difficult for L2 learners to realise and correct their own faux pas. Because of the serious effects of pragmatic problems and the difficulty of naturally acquiring pragmatic conventions due to their “invisible” nature, Thomas (1983, 1995) emphasises the importance of incorporating pragmatics into L2 instruction. However, typical FL instruction “emphasise[s] microlevel grammatical accuracy at the expense of macrolevel pragmatic appropriateness” (Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei 1998: 254), and is characterised by the “predominance of the referential over other speech functions” (Kasper 1982: 107). In Japan, the situation is exacerbated by the backwash of university entrance examinations (Ellis 1991, Kubota 1995). Furthermore, even the teachers, whether NS or L2 speakers, do not necessarily have adequate knowledge and awareness of pragmatic conventions (Wolfson 1983; see also Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei 1998). As a result, FL learners are rarely given instruction on this aspect of communication. It has been reported that “even advanced language learners often show a marked imbalance … of their communicative competence, with pragmatic competence lagging behind grammatical knowledge” (BardoviHarlig & Dornyei 1998: 234; see also Ellis 1991, Kasper 1992, 2000, Nakane 2003, Ross 1998, Rossiter 1989).

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3. Major findings of past research on Japanese EFL learners Kasper (1997a: 346) refers to pragmatic problems as “communicative events which fall short of participants’ actional (illocutionary and perlocutionary) and relational goals”. They have been investigated in several research fields with different theoretical perspectives, foci and methodological approaches, both in and out of the target-language environment (i.e. second language [SL] and foreign language [FL] contexts respectively). Many interlanguage pragmatics studies have found instances of first language (L1) transfer of linguistic speech act strategies in the performances of Japanese learners of English, which could potentially have negative communicative effects. For example, Japanese FL/SL learners: x differentiate their refusals according to the status of the speakers as opposed to the closeness of the relationship, which differentiates NS behaviour (Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz 1990); x make less specific excuses for refusals and sound more formal in tone compared to NS samples (ibid.); x apologise in situations which typically elicit an expression of gratitude from NSs (Narita & Young 1994: 76; see also Nakamichi 2000); x tend to use a more direct “Request for Action” in requests, whereas NSs favour a less direct “Request for Permission” (Rossiter 1989, Rossiter & Kondoh 2001). Intercultural communication researchers frequently mention the problematic silences of Japanese EF/SL learners. They claim that it is their native collectivist culture that often leads Japanese EFL speakers to use silence as a strategy to avoid losing face (e.g. Hofstede 2005). For example, students may fall silent instead of risking wrong answers or explicitly admitting the inability to answer, since “whether shame is felt depends on if the infringement has become known by others” (Hofstede 2005: 89). NS interlocutors may perceive such silences negatively as “a lack of interest in the other person, a lack of willingness to disclose, or a reluctance to get close to the other person” (Tannen & Saville-Troike 1985, quoted in Davies 1998: 286). Their individualist cultures are characterised by lowcontext communication (Hall 1976), which expects messages to be expressed explicitly and verbally. However, because of the subconscious and invisible nature of pragmatic conventions referred to above, “Japanese

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performing in English often do not realise how much distress is caused by remaining silent for long periods” (Loveday 1982: 8). Some empirical studies in a classroom setting have supported this. For example, Japanese EF/SL learners’ silence was perceived by NS teachers as a lack of “interest” and “commitment” (Nakane 2003: 302), passivity, inability and/or unwillingness to speak (Dwyer & Heller-Murphy 1996, Harumi 1999, Lawrie 2006, Nakamichi 2000). However, close qualitative examinations in some of these studies (Harumi 1999, Lawrie 2006, Nakane 2003) indicate that what caused negative reactions in the NS interlocutors was not silent pauses per se, but those occurring at the turn-initial position, where “learners need to display comprehension and competence by projecting the beginning of their turn” (He & Young 1998: 14). Turninitial silences are “ambiguous and difficult to interpret” (Nakane 2003: 308) from the NS viewpoint; because of the “high inferential demands” they place on the addressee, they are at risk of being one of the “least polite forms” (Sifianou 1997, quoted in Nakane 2003: 311). It has been reported in various studies that NSs (Nakane 2003) and proficient/fluent L2 speakers (Fulcher 1996, Young & Halleck 1998) verbally express their problems, think aloud and/or use interactional meta-comments such as “I don’t know how to say…” (Young & Halleck 1998: 377). The studies suggest that such verbal expressions of thought processes may be preferable to silence since they at least signal the speakers’ attempt to communicate. However, most of the Japanese learners in these studies appeared to be unaware of the negative effect of their silences and/or the need to fill pauses. In fact, Nakane’s interviews with learners revealed that they sometimes used silence as “a strategy to avoid loss of face” (2003: 311). Harumi (1999) suggests that the learners’ use of silences may be influenced by Japanese cultural values, which “emphasise accurately expressed thoughtful comments, and encourage accurate expressions”, and therefore make longer pauses acceptable. It is important to note that Nakane’s participants were advanced ESL learners and that she did not find any association between the number of silences and linguistic proficiency. Under-elaboration is another performance feature of Japanese EF/SL learners which has been frequently reported as causing pragmatic problems. Intercultural communication researchers (e.g. Andersen 1994, Ishii & Bruneau 1994) and some L2 contrastive analysts (e.g. Loveday 1982, Thompson 2001) argue that Japanese EF/SL learners transfer their highcontext communication style (Hall 1976), which does not require all information to be explicitly expressed verbally. This results in the

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production of linguistically and factually accurate minimal utterances, which “frustrate” (Loveday 1982: 5) English NSs from a low-context communication culture, where information “must be elaborated, clearly communicated and highly specific” (Andersen 1994: 236; see also Poyatos 2002b: 321). This has been supported by some empirical studies, many of which were conducted in language proficiency interview settings and used the conversational analytic approach. These studies show that East Asian (including Japanese) EF/SL learners tend to provide under-elaborated responses, which seem to have a negative effect on the NS interviewers’ perception of their performance (e.g. He 1998, Ross 1998, Young 1995, Young & Halleck 1998). Ross (1998: 344) observed that even linguistically advanced interviewees provided under-elaborated answers to “seemingly innocuous” questions, such as family or work. They elaborated on their responses only when prompted by the NS interviewers. He suggests that the interviewees may have adopted “a minimalist approach” (ibid.: 339) based on L1 pragmatic conventions. In Japan, the interview situation is interpreted as “bestow[ing] the speaking rights to the interviewer, while the candidates’ role is to provide exact responses to questions” (ibid.: 343). The interviewees are expected to speak “concisely without appearing superfluous or verbose–two traits that are not particularly valued in the Japanese speech community” (ibid.: 339, drawing on Lebra 1987). Alternatively, learners may have used under-elaboration as “a culturespecific strategy” (ibid.: 344) to indicate an unwillingness to answer “potentially face-threatening” (ibid.: 346) questions. However, NS interviewers, whose culture values elaboration and talkativeness (Ross 1998, Young & Halleck 1998: 366, 378), seem to perceive the learners as “uncooperative conversationalists” (Young & Halleck 1998: 364). They seem to feel that these learners infringe Grice’s (1989: 26) maxim of quantity and demand excessive effort to elicit adequate utterances. He (1998) observed that under-elaborated responses sometimes occur after the turninitial silences discussed above, the two together leaving a negative impression on the NS interviewers. It should be noted that, in a slightly different context (a job interview of a Pakistani applicant by a UK NS), Gumperz (1995: 113-114) observed that it was the recurrence of underelaboration that caused serious problems: [It] is the cumulative effect of what happens in the course of the encounter that suggests lack of cooperation. One single instance of a violation might have passed as a lapse.

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A limited number of studies on paralanguage have suggested that Japanese EF/SL speakers’ lack of eye contact and flat intonation may cause pragmatic problems. It is argued that, in Japanese culture, eye contact is not considered important (Porter & Samovar 1994: 17) or is even consciously avoided to show respect (Poyatos 2002b: 244). On the other hand, cultures of English-speaking countries encourage eye contact to show “conversational involvement” (Gumperz 1982, Tannen 1989) such as “attention and interest” (Beattie 1980: 133, drawing on Argyle & Cook 1976). Hence, NS interlocutors may misinterpret Japanese EF/SL learners’ eye aversion as the absence of such involvement (Poyatos 2002b: 243, Cameron 2001: 107, Hawrysh & Zaichkowsky 1990). Kameda (2002: 14) notes that flat intonation is often used by Japanese speakers of English, which can be interpreted as “disinterest or boredom or worse yet sarcasm”. However, this is only based on general observation, not on any empirical evidence. Gumperz’s (1982) study, although not conducted on Japanese EF/SL speakers, commands attention since it is one of the very few empirical studies of pragmatic problems caused by prosodic features of L2 speakers. He found (ibid.: 173) that Indian and Pakistani ESL speakers were “perceived as surly and uncooperative” by their British customers because they used falling intonation in their questions rather than the rising intonation normally used by British NSs. Gumperz (1982, 1995, 1996) emphasises the important role of prosody as a “contextualisation cue”, which signals how the speaker’s communicative intent should be interpreted. He warns that its misinterpretation could cause serious interpersonal and social consequences, especially when people from different speech communities interact.

4. Limitations of past research and suggestions for further study Past research has provided some insights into possible causes of crosscultural pragmatic problems experienced by NS interlocutors while interacting with Japanese EF/SL learners. However, there are a few serious limitations, which impinge on the usefulness of the findings. First, L2 performance has been typically approached from a normative/prescriptive (as opposed to a communicative/descriptive) perspective. This has led to what Bley-Vroman (1983) calls a “comparative fallacy”. The main focus has been on the analysis of deviations from NS norms and models, assuming them to be “communicatively disruptive regardless of whether they actually caused trouble or not” (Kasper 1997a: 355-356).

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Kasper (ibid.: 356, drawing on Meeuwis 1994) points out that NS interlocutors may employ “a metastrategy of ‘communicative leniency’” and adjust their expectations according to the proficiency of the L2 speakers and the purpose of the communicative event. Intercultural communication researchers have attempted to describe people’s behaviour only in terms of different types of culture, and this has been criticised as prescriptive and risking “reductionist overgeneralization” (Holliday 1999: 237). Secondly, past research has failed to provide a holistic picture of crosscultural pragmatic problems because the investigations have been conducted separately in several different fields, each with a narrow scope. For example, interlanguage pragmatics has almost exclusively focused on inappropriate linguistic realisations of speech acts resulting from L1 transfer. However, there are other causes of pragmatically inappropriate L2 performance, such as “teaching-induced errors” (Kasper 1982, Thomas 1983: 101-103) and individual stylistic differences (He 1998, Young & Halleck 1998). Also, as Kasper (1997b: paragraph 1) notes, “communicative action includes not only speech acts … but also participation in conversation … and sustaining interaction in complex speech events”. Theories of communicative competence conceptualise pragmatic competence as related not only to verbal but also to non-verbal forms of communication (Canale 1983, Swain 1984; see also Wilson 2004). However, not enough attention has been paid to non-verbal communication in L2 teaching or learning research (Fujimoto 2003: paragraph 1). Even fewer studies have been conducted on the pragmatic effect of L2 learners’ prosodic features. Although a specific focus permits detailed and thorough investigations, a broad scope is crucial in order to identify areas that pose particularly serious problems and to make suggestions for instructional priorities. Finally, there are some serious methodological shortcomings in each research field that limit the generalisability of the findings to real-life communication. In eliciting learner data, interlanguage pragmatics studies almost exclusively rely on role-play questionnaires called Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), and this has been criticised as seriously impinging on the validity of the findings (Wolfson 1983, Beebe et al. 1990, Ellis 1991, McDonough 1995). Data elicited via oral role-play are no less questionable, particularly when the situations are unrealistic to the participants.3 Intercultural communication researchers typically speak in general terms and/or base their claims on anecdotal evidence from different contexts (Andersen 1994: 231), without conducting systematic empirical investigations. There are a few empirical studies dealing with actual

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communication problems experienced by interactants in naturally occurring interactions (e.g. Gumperz 1983, 1995). However, they are extremely small-scale and focus on ESL populations in vocational contexts, which are very different from the learners investigated in this study. Thus, what is needed is an empirical descriptive study which investigates pragmatic problems as experienced by the interlocutor. It should use a data collection method which is “ecologically valid” (Kasper & Kellerman 1997: 12) and encompass not only verbal but also non-verbal aspects of communication. Such a study will enable us to go beyond inferences about pragmatic problems and to provide insights into the areas of priority for EFL oral communication instruction. The present study aims to achieve this through the use of a face-to-face interaction task and the retrospective verbal report (RVR) technique.

5. Research question The following research question is addressed in this paper: what features of Japanese EFL learners’ performance cause pragmatic problems as perceived by a NS interlocutor in face-to-face oral interaction? Following and expanding on Thomas’ (1983) concept of pragmatic failure, a pragmatic problem is defined in this study as a failure or difficulty in interpreting the learner-speaker’s intention or maintaining interaction. The focus of this paper is the NS interlocutor’s perception and not the analysis of observed phenomena (e.g. errors or non-target-like features in learner performance) per se.

6. Method 6.1 Interaction task A one-to-one, face-to-face oral proficiency interview of approximately 15 minutes was chosen as the interaction task, because it seemed to strike a balance amongst the competing criteria of authenticity, interactiveness, feasibility, elicitability, controllability and assessability,4 which are considered important in obtaining the data sought in this study. It might be argued that the kind of interaction occurring in an interview is unique to the task, especially in terms of the asymmetrical distribution of turns and power in controlling the topic (Johnson & Tyler 1998). However, it has been pointed out that interviews have some conversational characteristics,

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such as the accommodation of supportive behaviour to individual learnercandidates (Lazaraton 1996) and question-answer adjacency pairs common in conversation (He 1998). Furthermore, the exact content can be adapted to individual learners’ interest (Buck 1989: 1-2, quoted in Lazaraton 1996: 154, Davies 1998). Also, as Moder & Halleck (1998: 118) point out, informal conversation is “just one type of speech event”. Interviews are not only “a crucial part of everyday life” but also have “significant consequences, … determining access to services or occupational opportunities” (ibid.: 118-119; see also He & Young 1998: 11). In particular, oral proficiency interviews often have a decisive influence on L2 speakers’ choice of academic and vocational opportunities. Therefore, the interview format is considered relevant and important. Amongst validated formats, Part 1 of the speaking test of the Preliminary English Test (PET) and Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE) (Cambridge ESOL 2001a, 2001b) were selected as the bases for designing the task, as these best met the above-mentioned criteria.5 The interview consisted of three main phases, which were designed to elicit different types of interaction and utterances on different topics: warm-up, interaction, and long turn and challenge. The learners were asked to talk about simple and familiar topics, such as their home town, family, hobbies and English study. In order to provide a social context that is generalisable to broader settings, the learners were advised, both orally and in writing, that what they were going to have was not a language test but an interaction with a British NS who is completely unfamiliar with Japanese language and culture; in addition, if they wished to do so, they could ask the NS any questions, at any time. Each interview was video-recorded and used as a recollection cue to elicit retrospective verbal reports (RVRs) (see below). The researcher was also present and took notes on salient features to be explored in the RVR sessions. In order to minimise observer effects, three precautions were taken: a small video-camera was set a few metres away from the participants prior to their arrival; two very small audio-recorders were placed near the video-camera and only a very inconspicuous sensitive microphone was put on the desk near the learner; the researcher sat behind the learner sideways at some distance so that she was invisible to the learner but could still observe his/her behaviour unobtrusively. Participants were informed in advance of the presence of the recording devices and the researcher as well as the non-evaluative nature of the note-taking. In addition, they spent approximately 10 minutes in the room receiving

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instructions and asking questions so that they became familiar with the recording devices and the physical environment. Both audio and visual data were later transcribed for analysis.

6.2 Interlocutor The role of the interlocutor was extremely important in this study; he/she needed to elicit parallel data across all learners, which were adequate in both amount and content, to evaluate the learners’ performance in a reliable manner and to provide detailed RVRs. Therefore, a qualified and experienced NS interviewer-examiner was chosen, although the researcher was fully aware that the perception of such an expert might be different from that of a “naïve” NS. The interviewer selected was a British female NS, who did not speak or understand much Japanese and was not overly familiar with Japanese culture despite living in Japan. In order to minimise interlocutor variables, only one person, who was known to none of the learners, was selected. She was provided with the interviewer guidelines, which contained the topics, sample questions and corresponding phases. Interviewer behaviour, such as the amount and type of support, was also controlled by the use of an interviewer frame. In order to reduce the effects of fatigue, data were collected over a year, with a maximum of four interviews per day.

6.3 Learners Thirty-two first- and second-year Japanese university students of approximately intermediate level written English ability participated in the study. An equal number of male and female students, aged between 18 and 20, were selected from three major disciplines (engineering, social science, humanities), according to the representative profile developed through a large-scale pre-study questionnaire survey (N=506). The assessment of interview performances by the NS interlocutor indicates that the learnerparticipants’ oral communication ability ranged from pre-intermediate to intermediate.

6.4 Retrospective verbal reports (RVRs) As mentioned above, pragmatic problems are rarely expressed by the offended or bewildered party and therefore not observable in performance data. The RVR technique allows access to this usually hidden information through the post-task verbalisation of thoughts and feelings during task

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performance. More specifically, it can reveal which L2 performance features actually cause pragmatic problems, how these features influence communication and whether the L2 speakers are aware of the negative effect of their own performance. Although there is considerable disagreement over the validity and reliability of this method (for discussion of this issue, see Cohen 1984, 1987, 1998 and Ericsson & Simon 1993), many researchers agree that “verbal reports, elicited with care and interpreted with full understanding of the circumstances under which they were obtained, are, in fact, a valuable and thoroughly reliable source of information about cognitive processes” (Ericsson & Simon 1980: 247). The present study mainly draws on Poulisse, Bongaerts & Kellerman (1987), who succeeded in maximising the benefits and minimising the drawbacks of this technique by designing procedures following Ericsson & Simon’s (1984) suggestions. The RVR sessions were conducted by the researcher on a one-to-one basis, first with the NS and then with the learner. In order to minimise memory loss, RVRs were elicited immediately after each interview. Oral and written instructions were provided in the participants’ L1s. They emphasised that the participants were to verbalise only what they were thinking at the time of interaction and nothing that emerged while they were watching the video, and that they should limit themselves to what they clearly remembered and not add anything they guessed or inferred. It was also stressed that the researcher was not interested in checking the learners’ mistakes or knowledge of English but the participants’ thoughts and feelings. The learners were not informed about the details of the RVR sessions prior to the interview so that their performance would not be influenced. The participants were allowed to choose the language or a combination of languages of verbalisation. All of them chose their respective L1s. It was observed in the pilot study that the learners who were more familiar with the researcher tended to provide more verbalisation. On the other hand, it was suspected that if the researcher was the participants’ teacher of a credit-bearing course, the participant might worry about the possible negative effect of their performance and RVRs on their grades, and this could in turn influence the data. In order to address these issues, the learner-participants were chosen from the researcher’s former students wherever possible. To a few current students, it was emphasised that the project was completely independent of the course work and their performance would not affect their grades in any way.

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Two types of RVRs were elicited in order to obtain different kinds of information sought in the present study. At the beginning of the RVR sessions, the participants were asked, without recall cues, to comment on their overall impressions of the interview (General RVRs), with a specific focus on particularly serious communication problems. They were allowed to comment on as many problems as they experienced. General comments elicited without memory-retrieval cues are said to be less valid and reliable than those on specific instances elicited with prompts (Ericsson & Simon 1993). Therefore, the results should be treated with caution. However, this process was considered necessary in obtaining spontaneous comments on experiences that were of particular psychological salience or importance to the participants and/or on the cumulative effect of multiple instances of problems. This was then followed by Specific RVRs, which aimed to elicit comments on specific instances of problems, irrespective of their relative seriousness and salience. The video-recordings of the interviews were used as recollection cues to enhance the completeness and accuracy of verbalisation. The researcher played the video and the participants were instructed to request that the video be stopped when they wanted to make any comments. The NS reported in the piloting stage that the visual cues were useful especially in remembering specific problems related to body language. All learners indicated that the use of video-recording was useful in the post-RVR questionnaire (see below). The researcher prompts were kept to a minimum in order to minimise the risk of inducing inaccurate verbalisation and tiring the participants. However, when the researcher judged it necessary, she prompted the participants by asking indirect questions such as “Did you understand what the learner said there?” (to the NS) or “You were pausing there. Do you remember what you were thinking about?” (to the learners). Special care was taken not to ask leading questions in order to avoid researcher bias. The prompts were sometimes used to check the learners’ awareness of the negative impact of their performance indicated in the NS’s RVRs. At the end of each RVR session, the learner was asked to complete a post-RVR questionnaire about their perception of the RVR task.6 The results indicate that most learners (n=23) did not have difficulty providing RVRs. More than 80% of the learners (n=26) reported that they could verbalise 80% or more of their thoughts in their RVRs, with half the learners 90% or more. Nearly 90% of the learners (n=28) said they were motivated to give RVRs, with none indicating they were “demotivated”. Twenty-two learners reported that it was a valuable opportunity to reflect

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on their own performance, which in turn motivated them to increase their study efforts. On average, the NS’s RVRs lasted approximately 43 minutes per interview, and the learners’ RVRs approximately 55 minutes. The RVR sessions were audio-recorded and later transcribed (see Appendix for the transcription conventions). As stated above, the present study focuses on problems experienced by the NS interlocutor, as opposed to those inferred by the researcher-analyst through observation. Therefore, the identification and the classification of problems were solely based on the interlocutor’s RVR comments indicating the existence of problems or difficulties. In order to ensure a purely descriptive analysis, individual categories of problems were developed as they emerged from the RVR data. The combined transcripts of the interviews and RVRs were coded using the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti (version 4.2, 1999). Transcripts for three learners (approximately 10% of the data) were coded by an independent coder familiar with the verbal report technique. The co-coder coded the transcripts segmented by the researcher using a provisional coding scheme. The two coders achieved 87.4% of agreement on average. Any disagreements were resolved through discussion.

7. Results 7.1 Quantitative results Due to space limitations, only the results concerning particularly serious pragmatic problems that have emerged from the NS’s General RVRs are presented. A total of 68 instances were identified (see Table 1), across more than 80% of the learners (n=26) (mean frequency: 2.13; sd: 1.64). The top three causes of problems were (especially long, silent) pauses, inappropriate prosody (e.g. flat intonation) and inappropriate body language (e.g. lack of eye contact). These together accounted for nearly 80% of the instances. Under-elaboration and use of L1 were also occasionally commented on. Only one instance was related to inappropriate register.

Retrospective Verbal Reports

Causes Pauses Prosody Body language Under-elaboration L1 Register Total

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Frequency (%) 20 (29.4%) 18 (26.5%) 15 (22.1%) 8 (11.8%) 6 (8.8%) 1 (1.5%) 68 (100%)

Table 1: Causes and frequency (group total) of particularly serious pragmatic problems

7.2 Qualitative results The results of the qualitative analysis of the NS’s RVRs, relevant learner RVRs7 and interaction data are presented below, together with some illustrative examples. The focus is on the four major causes of particularly serious problems having emerged from the quantitative analysis. Pauses and inappropriate body language are discussed together because they were closely related and/or frequently occurred in combination. Results concerning under-elaboration and inappropriate prosody are presented separately.8

Silent pauses NS RVRs indicate that long, silent pauses frequently caused serious pragmatic problems. In particular, turn-initial silences were felt to be disturbing since the NS interlocutor perceived them as complete abandonment of communication: (1) NS: So can you tell me about *Nerima* {L30’s hometown}? L30: (5) L30 RVR: I didn’t know what to talk about when she asked about Nerima. [R: Did you think about saying that in English?] No, not at all. I was asked to tell her about Nerima, so even though I thought there is nothing to talk about, I tried to find something. … I just tried to express what I had to, so I omitted anything unnecessary.

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NS RVR: Long pause... It’d have been much better if he’d said, “Oh I don’t know how to say it,” “Oh that’s difficult”, “oh”, “ahm”, “trees”, “no trees”, “houses”, “many houses”, “no houses”, ANYTHING… That was the worst possible thing he could do. He didn’t communicate at all. It is important to note that Learner 30 consciously avoided saying “There’s nothing to talk about”, regarding it as “unnecessary”. However, the NS commented that the expression of difficulty, use of fillers or provision of information, no matter how simple and fragmentary, would have been greatly preferable to silence because it would have shown the speaker’s effort to communicate. Turn-initial pauses were felt to be particularly disturbing when they occurred after “simple” questions, for example about the learners’ home towns and hobbies: (2) NS: L6: NS:

L6: NS: L6:

What do you usually do in *Shibuya* {place L6 often visits}? (.) Go shopping. mhm, (3) [look down] Can you tell me about some places in *Shibuya*? [looks away] (7) (*to* {L1 filler}) [looks down] (9) There, there are many (.) *mmto* {L1 filler} (3) (*nante iundaro?* {what is it called}) (l) *ehto* {L1 filler} (10) [looks away then down]

L6 RVR: I was trying to remember what “department store” was in English. NS RVR: I felt, “Oh come on, I’m asking you in a very simple English what you like doing?”, and she had to stare at the table for ten minutes before she answered. And by the time she spoke I wasn’t interested. The learner’s RVR shows that the pauses were due to her attempt to find an English vocabulary item. However, the NS RVR indicates that pauses after seemingly simple questions were particularly problematic. They not only led to temporary communication breakdowns but also

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irritated and demotivated the interlocutor, who was left wondering why the learners were not responding. When they were recurrent, lengthy turn-initial silences had a negative discourse-level impact on the NS’s motivation and interest: (3) NS: do you want to use English in the future? L30: (8) if (.) I (.) have (.) time to speak English, I can (.) I (.) can speak English. NS RVR: [R: Did it make sense?] Honestly, I just didn’t care at that point. … I was not asking him another question ‘cause another pause. … So by that point, because of all the pauses …, I didn’t even really listen that much to the actual content. The negative effect of turn-initial pauses was exacerbated when they occurred in tandem with the lack of eye contact, which was perceived by the interlocutor as the abandonment of communication or lack of interest on the part of the learners: (4) NS: Ah, can you tell me about your sisters? L30: [looks at the ceiling] (25) NS RVR: As soon as he did that, … looking up at the ceiling, looking away from me, I knew he was not going to communicate with me properly... Even when they have a problem, if they’re looking at me and like “oh, oh, well,” that’s fine. But when there was complete silence, and the body language was away from me… it was like the end of communication. Although the learner’s RVR reveals that he was looking for an English word for what one of the sisters does during the pause (see Sato 2005b: 27), this effort was not communicated to the NS. The RVRs of learners who lacked eye contact typically did not show any awareness of the need for maintaining eye contact or the negative effect of their body language. Conversely, mid-turn pauses, preceded by even a brief response, did not have a serious impact as the NS knew the learners had started to respond:

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(5) NS: and how about in Thailand? was that better? [l] L29: *mmto* yes better. Ah (1) mm (1) *ehto* (.) people is very kind, NS: mm L29: ah (5) shopping is very fun funny, NS: mm L29: and very cheap. NS RVR: …what I liked about her was that she came in very quickly with the answers… and then had a bit of a pause, so I was very rarely greeted with silence. Rather than “How about Thailand?”, huge pause and then “Yes”.

Under-elaborated responses Another performance feature that caused serious pragmatic problems was the existence of under-elaborated responses, many of which were oneword answers. They gave the interlocutor the impression that the learners were unwilling to communicate: (6) NS: L22: NS: L22: NS: L22: NS: L22: NS: L22:

So can you tell me what you like listening to on the radio? Ahm (1) I (1) mm music, uh-huh, and (.) m music. (l) So what kind of music do you like? Ah anything. Anything. Yeah. No favourites? Mm (l) yeah.

L22 RVR: I don’t have any favourite genres. … I listen to music just because the room feels too quiet otherwise. NS RVR: Very brief answers. … Quite difficult. …’cause usually we say, “Any favourite?” and they’ll do something and try. It’s very unusual for someone not to have a go and just say “anything”. … Nobody likes

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all music. So either you can’t be bothered talking about it, or… he didn’t want to communicate. Minimal answers also had a negative discourse-level effect when recurrent: (7) NS General RVR on L22: …the amount was really problematic. He gave the briefest answers as possible. ... Brief answers were irritating because I had to keep asking questions. … Felt like finishing. … completely dependent. As the above comment indicates, minimal responses were felt to be disconcerting and taxing also because they demanded that the interlocutor keep asking further questions in order to elicit more “meaningful” responses and to maintain the interaction. The need to ask more questions created the impression that the learner was passive and dependent on the interlocutor. Several learners provided under-elaborated answers on simple topics such as family and hobbies. For example, some learners merely listed their family members, believing such a response to be appropriate: (8) NS: L1: NS: L1: NS: L1: NS: L1: NS: L1: NS: L1: NS: L1:

And can you tell me something about your family? Mmm my family: (.) four member. uh-huh, Sister, father, mother. and DOG. Oh. *a* FIVE member. [l] Five members. [l] Ah my father’s name is Makoto. uh-huh, ah my mother’s name is Yumiko. muhu, My sister’s name is Nao. uh-huh, My dog name is Ren.

L1 RVR: I knew what to say when I was asked about my family because I learnt it at junior and senior high school. I wanted to say how many members there are in my family and after that their names.

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NS RVR: Sounded like he was repeating the list from a lesson or something. … the whole thing was kind of weird, because, I mean, you’d never tell, you’d say “You know, my dad works here or my mom works there” ... He was not telling me anything. Contrary to Learner 1’s confidence about his response learnt in English lessons, the NS felt that merely listing family members neither complied with the L2 convention nor provided communicatively “meaningful” information. The RVRs of the learners who provided under-elaborated responses did not usually indicate any language-related problems. In fact, the NS commented that the linguistic levels of Learner 22 above and Learner 31 below were relatively high. The learners were typically unaware of the need for elaboration. They simply provided the minimum factual information explicitly asked for by the NS, without providing any background which would have made their responses more appropriate. Learner 31 was an exception; he commented that his under-elaboration was due to L1 pragmatic transfer and under-developed L2 pragmatic competence: (9) NS: And can you tell me ahm a bit about your family? L31: Ok, my family (.) my family is six people my, gran, grandparents, my mother, and my father and older sister, NS: uh-huh, L31: and uh I have a (1) one dog, NS: mm, L31: (1) Yeah, that’s all. NS: Can you tell me a bit more about them? L31: ah so (.) mm. L31 RVR: I had a real problem with that kind of question. I answered what I was asked and thought I was finished, so when the NS asked for more, I didn’t know what to do. It’d have been much easier if she had asked me narrower questions like “What does your father do?” or “How old is your sister?” because then I could have given factual information. … I know foreigners want us to talk about anything and everything, but in our Japanese notion of communication, we’re finished when we provide one piece of information. [R: So you were thinking that way even when you were speaking in English?] Yes. I

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haven’t reached that stage of English ability {to talk about anything and everything} yet. It is worth noting that this learner had had one-month homestay experiences both in Canada and Australia. This may have raised his awareness of different pragmatic conventions in Japanese and English.

Flat intonation The NS interlocutor commented that flat intonation affected the learners’ attitudinal messages and had a negative affective impact on her: (10) NS General RVR on L31: The impression from his pronunciation was quite negative ‘cause the way he spoke was quite flat. It made it a bit boring to listen to him actually. And it made him sound a little bit bored. The negative effect of flat intonation was exacerbated when coupled with drawling speech. Even the combination of positive body language, elaborated utterances and linguistic strength could not compensate for it: (11) NS: So do you like New Year’s Day? L28: (.) Yes. Becau:se mm:: (3) New Year’s Da:y is (4) new::: (.) everything is cha:nge to new, NS: mm, L28: so: (1) my feeling (.) is ha:ppy:. NS RVR: But she didn’t sound happy. “Ha:ppy:” {flat intonation and drawling speech}. … she’s got lots of strengths, but it was all spoiled … that tone and pitch. NS General RVR on L28: …she sounded deadly bored. ... Very flat intonation. … If I had spoken on the telephone, I’d have hung up after a few minutes. So she was really smiley … she had good eye contact, and … great language … but the intonation ... Especially because she talked at length, she was very good at extending … So normally I’m sort of like, “Oh great, you’re telling me more”… but I just wanted to stop. No comments on intonational features were found in any of the learners’ RVRs, and there was no indication of their awareness of the

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communicative impact of their own prosody. Learners’ prosodic features typically stayed constant throughout the interaction, and it is the persistence of flat intonation that seems to have caused serious problems. It may be worth mentioning that learners’ intonational characteristics in L2 speech were similar to those in their L1 speech.

8. Discussion and research implications The findings suggest that the combined use of a face-to-face interactive task and the RVR technique is effective in investigating the reality of cross-cultural pragmatic problems. The proficiency interview elicited real interaction between learners and the NS interlocutor, typical of such a communicative setting. It should be noted, though, that the interview format places several restrictions on the exchange, such as the asymmetrical distribution of turns and power in controlling the topic. The results need to be evaluated accordingly. However, as discussed above, oral proficiency interviews often have significant impact on L2 learners’ academic and vocational opportunities, and are therefore considered relevant and important to the investigation of cross-cultural pragmatic problems. The data are more “ecologically valid” (Kasper & Kellerman 1997: 12) than written responses about oral behaviour in imaginary situations typically collected in past L2 pragmatics research. The NS interlocutor’s RVRs were indispensable in revealing the reality of pragmatic problems, as opposed to those inferred through performance analysis. Her RVRs were crucial in identifying the existence, exact causes and effects of pragmatic problems, which she did not express during the interview. Learner RVRs were also essential in determining the extent to which learners were aware of the negative impact of their own behaviour. Having only one interlocutor-RVR provider has drawbacks, such as the potential idiosyncrasy in the interactional behaviour and perception of learner performance. These need to be kept in mind in interpreting the results. However, this decision was inevitable because the focus of the study was on the investigation of the interlocutor’s perception, as opposed to that of observers, and interlocutor variables need to be minimised. Having a few interlocutors, whose perceptions and behaviour could have been similarly idiosyncratic, would have increased the risk of introducing extraneous variables without mitigating the shortcomings. In order to compensate for the disadvantages, an experienced and linguistically aware interviewer-examiner was used in combination with the interviewer frame.

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The amount and quality of the RVR comments, as well as the learners’ positive responses to the post-RVR questionnaire, indicate the validity, reliability and completeness of the RVR data. Use of L1 in verbalisation was indispensable in obtaining adequate data from both the NS interlocutor, who did not speak much Japanese, and from the learners, who were at a relatively low level of proficiency in spoken English. The video-recordings of the interview were also vital in helping recall, particularly of problems related to non-verbal features. Researcher prompts were helpful to elicit enough data from the learners, who did not express personal feelings unless explicitly requested. Similarly, an encouraging and unthreatening environment seemed important in eliciting honest and complete verbalisation (see also Barnlund 1975, Hofstede 2005, Ishii & Bruneau 1994, Loveday 1982, Ross 1998). On the other hand, prior knowledge about RVRs may not necessarily affect the task performance of learners at this level, since their cognitive resources are likely to be fully used to cope with the demanding task of L2 interaction. The results of this study partly contradict and partly confirm past findings. It is noteworthy that only in one instance pragmatic problems were found to be related to the deviant realisation of a speech act. This may be due to the interview format used in this study, which limited the variety of speech acts learners were required to perform. On the other hand, the NS interlocutor may have adjusted her expectations, opting for a “metastrategy of ‘communicative leniency’” (Kasper 1997a: 356) towards the nonadvanced L2 learners. Either way, it is clear that the almost exclusive focus of past interlanguage pragmatics research on speech acts is to be called into question (Kasper 1997b, paragraph 1). Further studies involving a variety of tasks and learners at various proficiency levels are needed to draw a more complete picture of cross-cultural pragmatic problems. It was found that turn-initial silent pauses frequently caused serious pragmatic problems. This supports past studies on Japanese and other East Asian EFL learners (e.g. He 1998, Lawrie 2006, Nakane 2003). The NS interlocutor regarded turn-initial silence as a lack of “conversational involvement” (Gumperz 1982, Tannen 1989; see also Bygate 1987), i.e. the abandonment of communicative effort or unwillingness to communicate. As Sifianou (1997, quoted in Nakane 2003: 311) suggests, this type of pause puts “high inferential demands” on a NS interlocutor, who is left wondering whether it is brought about by non-comprehension of the interlocutor’s previous utterance or an inability to respond due to a content- or language-related problem. This is why pauses after simple questions,

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followed by minimal responses and/or unaccompanied by appropriate body language to signal understanding, were felt to be particularly problematic. The NS pointed out that expression of difficulties would have been greatly preferable to silence, as suggested by Nakane (2003) and Young & Halleck (1998). Similarly, mid-turn pauses following quick, if fragmentary, responses were preferred because the interlocutor at least knew the learners were taking the turn, and this made the nature of the problem clearer. This concurs with Lawrie’s (2006) finding. Under-elaboration was another feature that caused serious interactional problems. This confirms past empirical findings (He 1998, Ross 1998, Ross & Berwick 1992, Young & Halleck 1998) and general observations (Andersen 1994, Ishii & Bruneau 1994, Loveday 1982, Thompson 2001). As these studies suggest, under-elaborated responses gave the NS interlocutor an impression that these learners were “uncooperative conversationalists” (Ross 1998: 364), infringing Grice’s (1989) Maxim of Quantity. The NS comments indicate that under-elaborated responses could be interpreted as the unwillingness to communicate and/or could tire or bore the interlocutor. This could in turn undermine social and interpersonal relationships in real-life situations, as suggested by some researchers (Andersen 1994, Gumperz 1995, Ishii & Bruneau 1994, Loveday 1982). Contrary to some researchers’ suggestions (e.g. Nakane 2003, Ross 1998), however, the learners of this study do not seem to have used silence or under-elaboration as an intentional strategy to avoid loss of face. This may be partly because of the friendly and encouraging behaviour of the NS interlocutor, which was commented on positively by the learners in the post-task questionnaire. It may also be because the interaction did not happen in the official test or classroom situations investigated in past studies. This points to the significance of investigating pragmatically problematic L2 behaviour within the context of a specific communicative setting, the relationship between the interactants, and the learners’ perception of these. Lack of eye contact and flat intonation also had a serious affective and interactional impact, failing to show conversational involvement. Eye aversion signalled unintended negative attitudinal messages, such as lack of interest or willingness to communicate, and demotivated the NS. This finding supports past arguments about the serious effect of miscommunication induced by body language (Andersen 1994, Fujimoto 2003, Hawrysh & Zaichkowsky 1990, Poyatos 2002a, 2002b, Wilson 2004).

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Similarly, flat intonation demotivated the NS interlocutor, who perceived it as the learners’ boredom or lack of interest, as suggested by Kameda (2002). The negative effect of flat intonation was such that linguistic accuracy, positive body language and elaboration could not compensate for it. The negative attitudinal message did not reflect these learners’ true intentions as indicated by their questionnaire responses and RVRs. This finding supports claims by Gumperz (1982, 1995, 1996), who argues that prosody functions as an important “contextualisation cue” which enables the interlocutor to interpret the verbal message, and that misinterpretation of prosody could lead to serious interpersonal and social consequences. Like the L2 speakers in Gumperz’s studies, the learners of the present study spoke similarly in L1 and L2, and seemed to be completely unaware of their own prosodic behaviour and its negative communicative impact.

9. Pedagogical implications The NS interlocutor’s RVRs indicate that the fundamental cause of the pragmatic problems she experienced was the learners’ failure to signal conversational involvement in a way recognisable to the interlocutor. The learners were typically unaware of their own behaviour and its negative communicative impact and focused on providing explicitly requested factual information in a concise and linguistically accurate manner. There is a gap between the NS interlocutor’s and the learners’ perception as to what constitutes appropriate communication, and as to the function of silences, elaboration and paralanguage as “contextualisation cues”. The learners’ unawareness of L2 pragmatic conventions may be partly due to the EFL environment, where the opportunity of authentic L2 communication is scarce (Kasper 2000). It may also be due to the instructional focus on linguistic accuracy and the conveyance of propositional content (Ellis 1991, Kasper 1982, Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei 1998) “at the expense of macrolevel pragmatic appropriateness” (Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei 1998: 254; see also Kubota 1995: 35). A pedagogical implication is that Japanese EFL learners should be made aware that L2 communication is not only about conveying factual information in accurate language but also about developing and maintaining interpersonal and social relationships across linguistic and cultural boundaries (Byram 1997: 7). More specifically, learners need to be sensitised to “possible cross-cultural pragmatic differences” (Thomas 1983: 99) and to the importance of signalling conversational involvement in a way recognisable to interlocutors from different communicative backgrounds.

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It also needs to be emphasised that “effective communication does not rely on spoken words alone” (Fujimoto, paragraph 6). In responding to the post-RVR questionnaire, many learners indicated that viewing their own video-recorded performances and providing RVRs were informative and motivating experiences. Thus, video-prompted RVRs could be used beneficially as an instructional tool to promote L2 learners’ self-awareness in a motivating manner. At the same time, explicit instruction should be given on verbal and non-verbal L2 pragmatic conventions, and the likely impact on NS interlocutors of silence, under-elaboration, eye aversion and flat intonation. As Loveday (1982: 9) points out, despite the fact that communication problems are “mutually created”, L2 learners cannot assume that their real-life NS interlocutors will always be sympathetic. A pedagogical approach which is realistic and helpful to our learners would be to provide them with “the knowledge to make an informed choice” so that they know what they are doing (Thomas 1983: 110). It is noteworthy, however, that there was one learner who was aware of L2 pragmatic conventions but nonetheless could not perform accordingly. This supports Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei’s (1998: 254-255) observation that pragmatic awareness may not be sufficient to produce appropriate performance. Thus, awareness-raising instruction should be followed by practice. For example, learners need to learn how to maintain communication in awkward moments by using L2 fillers and/or interactional metacomments (e.g. “Oh that’s difficult”, “I don’t know how to say it”), which were found to be useful both in this study and in previous work (e.g. Fulcher 1996, Young & Halleck 1998). Learners also need practice in elaborating on a topic (Loveday 1982, Young & Halleck 1998: 363), using, for example, a technique called the AAA (Answer, Add, Ask) approach (Tomalin & Stempleski 1993). Some instances of brief responses were found to be “teaching-induced errors” (Thomas 1983: 101-103, Kasper 1982), and this highlights the need for teachers and textbook writers to provide materials which are not only linguistically accurate but also pragmatically appropriate. This in turn demands awareness, on the part of these professionals, of L2 pragmatic conventions, something which may require specific training (Wolfson 1983; see also Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei 1998). The fact that problematic behaviour was observed irrespective of learners’ linguistic proficiency suggests that pragmatics instruction would benefit Japanese EFL learners across all proficiency levels.

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10. Future directions An important finding, supporting Gumperz (1995), is that the recurrence and persistence of problematic features undermined the interlocutor’s motivation to keep interacting with the learners. The seriousness of pragmatic problems also depended on the extent and complexity of the messages the learners were attempting to convey. All of this underscores the importance of investigating cross-cultural pragmatic problems in discourse-level interaction, with particular reference to both the quantity and quality of relevant utterances. The seriousness of the pragmatic problems caused by misinterpreted body language and prosody highlights the significance of using face-to-face elicitation tasks and of analysing audio-visual data. These findings, in turn, indicate the limitations of DCTs or audiorecording, used in many past pragmatics studies. The paralinguistic aspect is one of the most neglected areas in L2 oral communication research (Fujimoto 2003). Further studies are called for in order to confirm (or disprove) the findings of this study. Due to the time-consuming nature of the data collection and analysis, the learner sample size had to be limited. In order to minimise the disadvantages of a small sample size, learners were selected on the basis of a representative profile developed through a large-scale questionnaire. Interestingly, this did little to reduce the significant discrepancies in frequency and type of pragmatic problems experienced by the NS interlocutor from one interview to the next. This supports He’s (1998) and Young & Halleck’s (1998: 378) claim that the effect of L1 transfer on L2 performance should not be overestimated. More descriptive studies are called for. In particular, future studies could focus on learners who differ in terms of L2 proficiency, experience abroad and personality, to find if and how such factors influence the nature and frequency of pragmatic problems. It is hoped that this study will “set in train some major research programmes which … will have to focus on particular learners in particular encounters with the aim of building up a gradual mosaic of experience” (Candlin 1983: xii).

11. Conclusion This paper has reported on a study of oral communication problems of Japanese university EFL learners. Using a face-to-face interaction task in combination with the RVR technique, the study aimed to go beyond inferences based on performance analysis or DCTs and to probe the reality

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of cross-cultural pragmatic problems as experienced by an NS interlocutor in contextualised oral interaction. The focus of the study and the necessity to control extraneous variables entailed some methodological decisions which have led to certain limitations. These include the use of a proficiency interview task, only one interlocutor and a relatively small sample of learners. The results need to be interpreted with these limitations in mind and within the context of the particular communicative setting. Nevertheless, it is believed that the findings provide insights into areas of priority for EFL oral communication instruction to Japanese university students. It is also hoped that this study will have some research and pedagogical implications, such as the use of the RVR technique, that are generalisable to a wider L2 population. It was found that the main causes of pragmatic problems experienced by the NS interlocutor were turn-initial silences, under-elaboration, lack of eye contact and flat intonation. These sent negative attitudinal messages and confused, irritated and/or demotivated the interlocutor. Their impact could be even more serious when the interlocutor is a “naive native speaker [who] is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity” (Wolfson 1983: 62). As Gumperz’s studies (1982, 1996) have indicated, crosscultural pragmatic problems “can interfere with social, academic, and professional opportunities for L2 speakers” (Tanaka 1997, quoted in Matsuda 1999: 40). The seriousness of pragmatic problems and the learners’ lack of awareness demand the incorporation of pragmatics in L2 oral communication pedagogy. The effectiveness of such instruction on Japanese EFL learners will be an area for future investigation.

Notes 1

This paper is based on part of the author’s PhD thesis (Sato 2008). The thesis drew on materials supplied by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations; I would like to express my gratitude to them for their support. 2 In this paper, the term L2 is used to refer to any language, either second (SL) or foreign (FL), other than the speaker’s mother tongue or first language (L1). 3 E.g. university English majors performing a role-play involving a business meeting (Rossiter 1989), Japanese students apologising to family members in English (Narita & Young 1994), etc. 4 Assessability was needed to obtain information on the oral proficiency of the learner-participants, who had never taken any speaking tests prior to this study. See Sato (2008) for details.

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5 It should be mentioned that some major modifications were made to the format of the interviews to suit the purpose of the present study. A one-to-one interview was used instead of a pair interview so as to eliminate any confounding variables related to group dynamics. The phase of an uninterrupted long turn was excluded as it is beyond the focus of the present study. The reliability and validity of the test materials may have been altered in the process; neither should be assumed to be comparable to the reliability and validity of the original FCE and PET tests used in the Cambridge examinations. 6 The NS interlocutor was asked to complete a similar questionnaire in the piloting stage. 7 The learners’ RVRs were translated from Japanese into English by the researcher. 8 See Sato (2005a, 2008) for a discussion of inappropriate use of the L1.

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Canale, M. 1983. “From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy”. In J.C. Richards & R.W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. Harlow: Longman. 2-27. Candlin, C.N. 1983. “Preface”. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (eds.), Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. London: Longman. ix-xiv. Cohen, A.D. 1984. “Studying second-language learning strategies: how do we get the information?” Applied Linguistics 5. 101-112. —. 1987. “Using verbal reports in research on language learning”. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (eds.), Introspection in Second Language Research. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 82-95. —. 1998. Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Davies, C.E. 1998. “Maintaining American face in the Korean oral exam: reflections on the power of cross-cultural context”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 271-296. Dwyer, E.; Heller-Murphy, A. 1996. “Japanese learners in speaking classes”. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 7. 46-55. Ellis, R. 1991. “Communicative competence and the Japanese learner”. JALT [Japan Association for Language Teaching] Journal 13. 103129. Ericsson, K.A.; Simon, H.A. 1980. “Verbal reports as data”. Psychological Review 87. 215-251. Ericsson, K.A.; Simon, H.A. 1987. “Verbal reports on thinking”. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (eds.), Introspection in Second Language Research. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 24-54. Ericsson, K.A.; Simon, H.A. 1993. Protocol Analysis: verbal reports as data. Revised version. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fujimoto, D. 2003. “Nonverbal communication and pragmatics”. The Language Teacher 27:5. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://www.jaltpublications.org/old_tlt/articles/2003/05/fujimoto. Fulcher, G. 1996. “Does thick description lead to smart tests? A databased approach to rating scale construction”. Language Testing 13. 208-238. Grice, H.P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gumperz, J.J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1995. “Mutual inferencing in conversation”. In I. Markova, C.F. Graumann & K. Foppa (eds.), Mutualities in Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 101-123.

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—. 1996. “The linguistic and cultural relativity of inference”. In J.J. Gumperz & S.C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 374-406. Hall, E.T. 1976. Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Harumi, S. 1999. “A study of the use of silence by Japanese learners of English”. The Japanese Learner 18. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://owww.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/jl-archive/jl-bestof/23.pdf. Hawrysh, B.M.; Zaichkowsky, J.L. 1990. “Cultural approaches to negotiations: understanding the Japanese”. European Journal of Marketing 25:10. 40-54. He, A.W. 1998. “Answering questions in LPIs: a case study”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 101-116. He, A.W.; Young, R. 1998. “Language proficiency interviews: a discourse approach”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1-24. Hofstede, G. 2005. Cultures and Organizations: software of the mind. Second edition. New York: McGraw Hill. Holliday, A. 1999. “Small cultures”. Applied Linguistics 20. 237-264. Ishii, S.; Bruneau, T. 1994. “Silence and silences in cross-cultural perspective: Japan and the United States”. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Porter (eds.), Intercultural Communication: a reader. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. 246-251. Johnson, M.; Tyler, A. 1998. “Re-analyzing the OPI: how much does it look like natural conversation?” In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 27-51. Kameda, N. 2002. “Japanese corporate communication in English”. Worldwide Business Review 3. 11-19. Kasper, G. 1982. “Teaching-induced aspects of interlanguage discourse”. Studies of Second Language Acquisition 4. 99-113. —. 1992. “Pragmatic transfer”. Second Language Research 8. 203-231. —. 1997a. “Beyond reference”. In G. Kasper & E. Kellerman (eds.), Communication Strategies: psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. New York: Longman. 345-360. —. 1997b. Can Pragmatic Competence Be Taught? Honolulu: Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawai’i. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/NetWorks/ NW06/.

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—. 2000. “Pragmatics in EFL contexts”. The Language Teacher 24:7. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://jalt-publications.org/old_tlt/ articles/2000/07/kasper. Kasper, G.; Kellerman, E. 1997. “Introduction: approaches to communication strategies”. In G. Kasper & E. Kellerman (eds.), Communication Strategies: psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. New York: Longman. 1-13. Kubota, M. 1995. “Teachability of conversational implicature to Japanese EFL learners”. IRLT Bulletin 9. 35-67. Lawrie, A. 2006. “Don’t interrupt, I’m thinking!” The East Asian Learner 2:2. 7 pp. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://cs3.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/eal-2-2/vol2-no2-lawrie.html. Lazaraton, A. 1996. “Interlocutor support in oral proficiency interviews: the case of CASE”. Language Testing 13. 151-172. Lebra, T.S. 1987. “The cultural significance of silence in Japanese communication”. Multilingua 6. 343-357. Loveday, L.J. 1982. “Communicative interference: a framework for contrastively analysing L2 communicative competence exemplified with the linguistic behaviour of Japanese performing in English”. IRAL 20. 1-16. Matsuda, A. 1999. “Interlanguage pragmatics: what can it offer to language teachers?” CATESOL Journal 11. 39-59. McDonough, S.H. 1995. Strategy and Skill in Learning a Foreign Language. London: Edward Arnold. Meeuwis, M. 1994. “Leniency and testiness in intercultural communication: remarks on ideology and context in interactional sociolinguistics”. Pragmatics 4. 391-408. MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). 2003. Regarding the Establishment of an Action Plan to Cultivate “Japanese with English Abilities”. Retrieved 4 July 2006 from http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/03072801.htm. Moder, C.L.; Halleck, G.B. 1998. “Framing the language proficiency interview as a speech event: native and non-native speakers’ questions”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 117-146. Nakamichi, T. 2000. “Cross-cultural communication breakdown: Japanese students’ pragmatic failure in Canada”. JABAET [Japan-Britain Association for English Teaching] Journal 4. 15-42.

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Nakane, I. 2003. Silence in Japanese-Australian Classroom Interaction: perceptions and performance. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney. Retrieved 19 April 2006 from http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/ bitstream/2123/568/3/adt-NU20040816.10080001front.pdf. Narita, S.; Young, R. 1994. “Apologies in English by Japanese learners”. JALT [Japan Association for Language Teaching] Journal 16. 75-81. Porter, R.E.; Samovar, L.A. 1994. “An introduction to intercultural communication”. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Porter (eds.), Intercultural Communication: a reader. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. 4-26. Poulisse, N.; Bongaerts, T.; Kellerman, E. 1987. “The use of retrospective verbal reports in the analysis of compensatory strategies”. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (eds.), Introspection in Second Language Research. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 213-229. Poyatos, F. 2002a. Nonverbal Communication across Disciplines. Vol. 1. Culture, Sensory Interaction, Speech, Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. —. (2002b). Nonverbal Communication across Disciplines. Vol. 2. Paralanguage, Kinesics, Silence, Personal and Environmental Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ross, S. 1998. “Divergent frame interpretations in oral proficiency interview interaction”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 333-353. Rossiter, P. 1989. “Comparative culture in the conversation classroom”. Hikaku Bunka [Institute for Comparative studies of Culture] 35:2. 1619. Rossiter, P.; Kondoh, A.S. 2001. “Pragmatic transfer in making request: a cross-cultural study”. In K. Matsuno & S. Yoshijima (eds.), Gaikokugo Kyouiku: riron kara jissen made [Foreign Language Education: from theory to practice]. Tokyo: Asahi. 107-154. Sato, Y. 2005a. “‘I don’t know how to explain osechi’: communication problems and strategies of Japanese university students in speaking English”. JASEC [Japanese Association for Studies in English Communication] Bulletin 14. 27-39. —. 2005b. “EFL communication problems and strategies of Japanese university students: progress report 2”. In M. Kawate-Mierzejewska, E. Churchill, T. Matikainen, R. Martin & J. Pielech (eds.), Proceedings of Temple University Japan Applied Linguistics Colloquium 2005. Tokyo: Temple University Japan. 23-32.

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—. 2005c. “Communication problems of Japanese university EFL learners–a descriptive study using retrospective verbal reports: a progress report”. In G. Chatzidamianos, G. Chi, L. Frey, K. Hargreaves, T. Kras, N. Novakovic & E. Vilar Beltran (eds.), Camling 2005: proceedings of the University of Cambridge third Postgraduate Conference in Language Research. Cambridge: Cambridge Institute of Language Research, University of Cambridge. 199-206. —. 2008. Japanese University Students’ Problems and Communication Strategies in EFL Speaking: a descriptive study using retrospective verbal reports. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading. Sifianou, M. 1997. “Silence and politeness”. In A. Jaworski (ed.), Silence: interdisciplinary perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 63-84. Swain, M. 1984. “Large-scale communicative language testing: a case study”. In S. Savignon & M. Berns (eds.), Initiatives in Communicative Language Teaching. Reading, MA.: Addison Wesley. 185-201. Tanaka, K. 1997. “Developing pragmatic competence: a learners-asresearchers approach”. TESOL Journal 6:3. 14-18. Tannen, D. 1989. Talking Voices: repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tannen, D.; Saville-Troike, M. (eds.). 1985. Perspectives on Silence. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Thomas, J. 1983. “Cross-cultural pragmatic failure”. Applied Linguistics 4. 91-112. Thomas, J. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: an introduction to pragmatics. London: Longman. Thompson, I. 2001. “Japanese speakers”. In M. Swan & B. Smith (eds.), Learner English: a teacher’s guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 296-309. Tomalin, B.; Stempleski, S. 1993. Cultural Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, A. 2004. “When contextualization cues mislead: misunderstanding, mutual knowledge, and non-verbal gestures”. California Linguistic Notes 29. 1-4. Wolfson, N. 1983. “Rules of speaking”. In J.C. Richards & R.W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. London: Longman. 61-87. Young, R. 1995. “Conversational styles in language proficiency interviews”. Language Learning 45. 3-42. Young, R.; Halleck, G.B. 1998. “‘Let them eat cake!’ or how to avoid losing your head in cross-cultural conversations”. In R. Young & A.W. He (eds.), Talking and Testing: discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 355-382.

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Appendix Transcription conventions for interaction and RVR data Symbols L NS . , ? (.) (5) [l] [xxxxx] CAPITAL : *asterisk* (xxxxx)

{xxxx} [R] …

Meanings learner NS interlocutor falling intonation level, continuing intonation rising intonation short untimed pause of approximately 0.5 second silence, in seconds laugh body language stress/emphasis lengthened syllable Japanese (including fillers and self-talk) whisper omission in the interview data explanation added by the researcher researcher prompt in the RVR data omission in the RVR data

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CHAPTER TWO FORMALITY AS A CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUE: AN ANALYSIS OF L1 AND L2 SPEAKER AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWS DENISE GASSNER

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY1 [email protected]

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between formality and culture in employment interviews. A comparison of the use of informal lexemes such as guys with more formal items such as task in speech by interactants from different L1 backgrounds suggests that the cultural background of speakers can influence the formality level chosen in this speech event. In particular, it will be discussed how the use of informal language can downplay power differences (i.e. mitigationP) while the use of formal language can enhance or strengthen them and, thus, introduce the opposite effect (i.e. boostingP). This study takes a comparative approach as the use of formality/informality is investigated in employment interview responses by L1 and L2 speakers of English. While it will be claimed that culture has a strong influence on formality, the analysis will show that inherent properties of the speech event also determine the formality level chosen. Therefore, analysing L1 and L2 speaker discourse, this study finds a complex relationship between culture, formality and speech event.

1. Formality as style The notion of formality has been discussed in previous sociolinguistic research on style, where it has been described as a resource for speech participants to express interpersonal meaning (Coupland 2007). Part of a speaker’s communicative competence is, thus, to understand “how a style marks out or indexes a social difference” (ibid.: 1). In variationist

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sociolinguistics, style has been viewed as “a re-voicing of social class, or a modification of a speaker’s social class self-projection” (ibid.: 7). The most notable proponents of this view are Labov (e.g. 1966, 1972a) and scholars working in the field of dialectology (e.g. Chambers & Trudgill 1999, Trudgill 1986), of which the latter analyse style with respect to location. Hence, variationist sociolinguistics discusses style as indexing social class and geographical location. Later studies, however, have suggested moving away from investigating style with respect to location and class. Instead, they propose to shift the focus to an analysis of style in “particular moments and contexts of speaking” (Coupland 2007: 3). The concept of genre has been firmly established as part of this research (Bakhtin 1986, Bhatia 1993, Macaulay 2001, Swales 1990). Bhatia (1993: 13) defines a genre as a “recognisable communicative event characterised by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs” and adds that, most often, it is “highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value”. Recognising the genre that applies, i.e. showing awareness of and using the linguistic patterns associated with a particular context of speaking, requires pragmatic competence. While the notion of genre provides a good starting point, it appears that analysing language only according to genres may be too simplistic. It is the concept of a speaking frame that seems to allow for a nuanced analysis of formality as frames operate more locally than genres. Frames are central to Goffman’s (1974) research on interactions in social contexts and also feature prominently in Hymes’ (1974) ethnography of speaking. In particular, they refer to expectations interactants have regarding linguistic behaviour in a specific speech event and, thus, also include constraints on language use in different contexts.2 Three types of discourse framing are relevant to this study. These three types are socio-cultural framing (macro-level social frames), genre framing (meso-level social frames) and interpersonal framing (micro-level social frames).3 Socio-cultural framing refers to the influence of social class and culture on the use of language and includes aspects of gender, age and ethnicity. Genre frames “set meaning parameters around talk in relation to what contextual type or genre of talk (e.g. conversation versus set-piece

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performance, business talk or informal chat) is understood by participants to be currently on-going and relevant” (Coupland 2007: 113). Interpersonal framing refers to how speakers position themselves in an interaction with respect to issues of closeness and distance–and, hence, of power. The three levels of framing discussed above interact and influence the level of formality that is considered appropriate in a given context. According to Coupland (2007: 113), for instance: [A genre frame] might consolidate identities that are foregrounded in the wider socio-cultural frame, or it might contradict them or make them much less relevant at a given moment. Participants might find their identity options prefigured or constrained by the speech genre at hand, or the genre frame might edit away identity options that would otherwise apply. The same linguistic feature that would mark a social identity in the sociocultural frame might carry different resonance in the generic frame.

Tannen (1993: 22) similarly identified different levels of frames in an experiment in which Greek and American females were asked to re-tell the plot of a short movie they had watched to other females who, they were told, had not seen it. Tannen claims that “any speech event represents the overlapping and intertwining of many relations concerning the context as well as the content of communication”. She discusses interactional frames (the subjects of her experiment), genre frames (a storytelling frame in her experiment) as well as cultural frames (termed filmviewer frame in her speech event). To conclude, it appears that the frame that applies in a context is shaped by the interaction of the speech event, the participants involved and the cultural context, thereby combining aspects of socio-cultural framing, genre framing and interpersonal framing. Since culture influences the frame that applies in a particular context, frames are expected to be subject to cross-cultural variability as shown by Tannen’s (1993) study as well as the wide range of research conducted in the field of crosscultural pragmatics (e.g. Béal 1992, Blum-Kulka et al. 1989, Thomas 1983, 1984, Wierzbicka 1991). The results of the present study suggest that frames also apply to the level of formality that speakers choose in a speech event and cultural context. In particular, it will be proposed that formality is a cross-cultural issue and appropriate levels of formality may, thus, differ across different cultural speaking frames.

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2. Developing a frame for Australian employment interviews Since the employment interview speech event is highly institutionalised, and power relationships between interview participants (interviewer and interviewee) are strongly pre-determined, the notion of interpersonal frames is included in the discussion of genre framing below. Hence, an Australian job interview frame will be developed from the interaction between socio-cultural framing and genre framing.

2.1. Socio-cultural framing and genre framing Previous research suggests that informality rather than formality is valued highly in the Australian cultural context (e.g. Baker 1959, Horne 1964, Sussex 2004, Wierzbicka 1994). It has been suggested in these studies that the preference for an informal speaking style may be closely related to the notion of egalitarianism (Peeters 2004), which requires that class differences should be downplayed rather than highlighted. Goddard (2012: 116) describes this norm by means of a cultural script that requires speakers to avoid showing their “specialness”: Anglo-Australian cultural script discouraging feelings of “specialness”: it is bad if someone thinks like this: I am someone very good, I am not like other people

Thus, downtoning the pragmatic force of an utterance seems crucial in the cultural context of Australia in order to avoid implying superiority, i.e. power, as this may be perceived negatively. At the same time, the speech event associated with employment interviews requires interviewees to present themselves as the most suitable candidates in order to secure the position being offered (e.g. Campbell & Roberts 2007, Roberts & Campbell 2005, 2006, Roberts & Sayers 1987). Hence, it is important for interviewees to highlight their skills, which can be achieved by engaging in boosting. While the Australian cultural frame discussed above seems to highly value downtoning, the employment interview speech event frame requires boosting. Because of the interaction between cultural context and speech event (genre), downtoning as well as boosting are crucial in Australian employment interviews. This complex

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interaction between downtoning and boosting requires high levels of pragmatic competence of interviewees as they have to present themselves as competent without appearing boastful. These requirements regarding downtoning and boosting are presented in a (simplified) Australian job interview frame below. Speech event (genre frame) Present your skills

Socio-cultural frame Avoid presenting your ‘specialness’

Australian job interview frame Engage in boosting as well as downtoning when describing your ‘specialness’/ skills Figure 1: Australian job interview frame As can be seen from this model, it is expected that both downtoning and boosting are used in Australian job interviews, due to the interaction between speech event and socio-cultural frame. Below, we describe how these two notions relate to the concept of formality.

2.2 The relationship between downtoning~boosting and informality~formality The role of informal language with respect to the notion of mitigation, i.e. downtoning, has been referred to in previous research. Koester (2006: 93), for example, attributes a high frequency of informal items such as and things like that in unidirectional office discourse to an effect of mitigation that can be generated by informality: Because of the discourse imbalance in these genres (one speaker has a dominant role), and in many cases a power imbalance (e.g., boss-employer, server-customer), the risk of performing face threatening acts is higher than in collaborative discourse, where participants are on a more equal footing. As we have seen, vague language, particularly vague tags [e.g. and things like that], can be used to mitigate potentially face-threatening acts.

While Koester (2006) only briefly refers to this type of mitigation, Caffi (1999, 2007) provides a detailed account of informal lexemes and

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calls them bushes. She claims that, in the formal context she analysed, the use of bushes redefined the relationship and put it “on a more friendly basis” (Caffi 1999: 891-892). Hence, bushes function similarly to discourse markers such as I think and sort of which other studies have referred to by means of the term hedges (e.g. Fraser 1980, Holmes 1990, Hyland 2000, Lakoff 1973). In particular, Caffi (1999: 895) claims that by using non-technical language in formal doctor-patient interviews, it is “as if the doctor, by giving up his knowledge [i.e. due to the absence of technical vocabulary], also gives up his social role based on that knowledge: both seem temporarily suspended”. Hence, a speaker can use bushes to reduce the distance between speaker and hearer.4 I will use the term mitigationP (where P stands for “power”), to refer to this type of mitigation effect. Informality (Use of e.g. stuff, thing) MitigationP Power difference If politic Implicature: Closeness

If not politic Implicature: Distance

Figure 2: MitigationP: downplaying power differences As can be seen from this model, contrary implicatures (closeness vs. distance) can be generated when speakers use mitigationP (informal language). It seems that the type of effect generated when power differences are downplayed depends on what is considered politic (Locher 2004, Watts 1989, 1992) linguistic behaviour in context. An effect of solidarity is only generated when it is politic to use mitigationP. In contexts where such linguistic behaviour is not politic, the adverse effect arises. As discussed above, using informal language is politic in the Australian culture and, hence, its use is expected to generate implicatures such as closeness. While Caffi specifically focused on informality and its mitigation potential, Huang (2007) refers to formality/informality in general in his

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discussion of social deixis. He defines formality as socially deictic as it includes information about the status of speaker and hearer, their age, sex as well as their professional and ethnic background. This type of indexing has primarily been discussed in studies on pronouns and Japanese honorifics (Haverkate 1992, Hill et al. 1986, Levinson 1979, Matsumoto 1988), where lexemes can be used to indicate social distance (e.g. vous in French). Like Huang (2007), but unlike authors of studies on pronouns, Caffi (1999) compares the choice of lexemes other than pronouns belonging to different levels of formality, such as the Italian verb dare (‘to give’) as opposed to the verb prescrivere (‘to prescribe’). It thus appears that while informality can generate mitigationP, formality can introduce boostingP. That is, a use of formal language can index the fact that some social difference exists between interactants. Formality (Use of e.g. task, issue) BoostingP Power difference If politic Implicature: (Professional) Closeness

If not politic Implicature: Distance

Figure 3: BoostingP: strengthening power differences/social distance As can be seen from this model, the type of effect that arises when power differences are boosted, i.e. when formal language is used, also depends on what is considered politic linguistic behaviour in a particular context. In contexts where it is politic to use formal language, an implicature of (professional) closeness is generated, whereas speakers may feel distant in contexts where it is not politic to be very formal. To summarise, the level of formality speakers use can strengthen but also redefine the relationship between themselves and a hearer. Since informality is characteristic of equal power relationships, its use suggests closeness. Used in formal interactions, informal language thus downplays power differences. Formal language, however, has a (social) distancing

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effect as it primarily occurs in contexts where power differences exist between interactants or when interactants are not close friends. The choice of formal or informal language can thus generate different effects in discourse. These effects are closely linked to the notion of linguistic behaviour as politic since this determines the types of implicatures that are introduced in different contexts. Regarding the context analysed in this paper, it might initially appear that use of formal language is politic, as the speech event associated with employment interviews is characterised by an inherent power difference between interviewer and interviewee. However, since the Australian context attributes great importance to informality, it is expected that employment interviews will contain both formal and informal speech.

3. Methodology: Analysing formality quantitatively or qualitatively Early studies on formality in the research tradition of stylistics (e.g. Jakobson 1960, Joos 1961) describe formality as linear. Joos (1961), for example, identified different levels of formality: frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate. Since formality is viewed as linear, a quantitative approach was adopted in this field of research. Variationist sociolinguistics (e.g. Chambers & Trudgill 1999, Labov 1966, 1972a, Trudgill 1986) similarly opt for quantitative methods to investigate formality: Whether or not we consider stylistic variation to be a continuum of expressive behaviour, or a subtle type of discrete alternation, it is clear that it must be approached through quantitative methods … The remarkable fact is that the basic unit of stylistic contrast is a frequency set up by as few as ten occurrences of a particular variable. (Labov 1972b: 109)

However, while frequency is certainly important, it is equally true that the “single use of a single sociolinguistic variant can be socially meaningful” (Coupland 2007: 41). Therefore, the single instance of use of a linguistic feature also needs to be considered in research on formality. While this author agrees with the linearity of formality, only items from the most informal and most formal ends of the spectrum will be discussed. This approach has been adopted since defining cut-off points between informal and formal items along the formality continuum is ra-

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ther complex and to some extent arbitrary as some items can be used in informal as well as formal contexts. This difficulty in defining clear cutoff points for all lexemes may also explain why categorisations of formal versus informal language do not exist in the literature. Since this is the case, frequency counts comparing the overall use of formal as opposed to informal vocabulary in the two speaker groups cannot be provided. However, a quantitative analysis is included regarding the use of items such as I guess, I think and sort of, as much previous research has already discussed these items as typical of colloquial, i.e. informal, speech. Thus, the single unit of use, as discussed by Coupland (see above), is mainly investigated in this study, and a qualitative approach has therefore been adopted. In particular, in the data analysis, lexemes were identified as formal if a less formal synonym exists (e.g. issue = formal; problem = less formal). They were defined as informal if they show colloquial uses of language (e.g. guys, stuff) (cf. e.g. Baker 1959, Crystal & Davy 1975).

4. The data: Simulated employment interviews The data analysed in this paper stems from simulated employment interviews conducted in Australia with 25 L1 and 18 L2 speakers of English. The L1 participants were either trained in IT or accounting; all but one were employed in one of these two workplace areas. The L1 speakers were between 21 and 34 years old (median age 27). Five were IT professionals and 13 had accounting qualifications. Of the 18 L1 participants, 11 were male and seven female. The L2 speakers had migrated to Australia from different South-American, Eastern-European and Asian countries. Nine had accounting qualifications while 16 were IT professionals. However, in contrast to the L1 speakers, all L2 speakers were unemployed. They were between 25 and 45 years old (median age: 32) with 12 of them being female while 13 were male. The L1 and L2 job interviews lasted between 10 and 25 minutes and yielded an L1 corpus of about 40,000 words and an L2 corpus of approximately 35,000 words. An analysis of informal (mitigationP) and formal (boostingP) language used in this corpus of L1 and L2 employment interview responses is provided below.

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5. Informality (mitigationP) in L1 and L2 employment interviews In the analysis of the data, a wide range of colloquialisms (e.g. Australian; cf. Baker 1959, Baker 1978, Delbridge 1999) could be identified. They include nouns like guys, expressions such as we nutted it out as well as discourse markers such as you know and like (e.g. it’s like), which are also commonly found in informal discourse (Holmes 1986). Eight of the 25 L2 speakers used colloquialisms, whereas they occurred in 16 of the 18 L1 speaker interviews (see participant IDs in brackets). As the tables show, a wide range of phrasal verbs, colloquial expressions and informal nouns occurred in the L1 responses. Phrasal verbs and expressions Put their foot down (3A) Iron out (4A) Get on top of that (5A) Just roll with it (5A) Nutted it out (5A) I’ve picked up along the way (5A) Twiddling your thumbs (6A) Bounce ideas of them (7A) Going berserk (8A) Let’s attack this framework (8A) Pick up his work (9A) To do your bit (12A) Two heads are better than one (12A) Bossing everyone around (14A) Do it on the spot (14A) Taking a battering (15A) To hold my tongue (16A) I get a kick out of (16A) Jump over to another bit (16A) Jump on and help (16A) Muck around the issue (16A) Put my foot down (17A) Table 1: Colloquialisms in L1

Nouns The nitty-gritty (2A) This guy (4A) Hiccups and hurdles (4A) Shoestring budget (5A) Guy (5A) Stuff (7A) You guys (6A) Stuff (7A) Teething problems (7A) You guys (2x) (8A) Guys (15A) My mates (16A) It’s a huge stuff up (16A)

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In addition to these items, expressions such as sort of and I guess/I reckon were also found frequently in this speaker group (see Appendices A and B for quantitative comparisons of these expressions in both speaker groups). In the L2 data, fewer informal nouns, phrasal verbs and colloquial expressions occurred than in the L1 data (see examples in the table below). Phrasal verbs and expressions They are stuck (21) I had to quit that job (22)

Nouns That kind of stuff (14) Stuff (16) Guys (21) Teammates (21) Some teammates (3x) (33) All those stuff (33)

Table 2: Colloquialisms in L2 Regarding the use of discourse markers such as I think and sort of, the same trend could be observed between the two speaker groups, since these items also occurred less often in the L2 speaker group (see Appendices A and B). In addition to the lower frequency of informal items in the L2 data, there is also a difference regarding the types of items that occurred in the L1 and L2 speaker corpora. While the L1 speakers used colloquial phrasal verbs and expressions (e.g. put my foot down) rather frequently, such language was mostly absent from the L2 responses as this speaker group primarily used informal nouns such as teammates and stuff. In order to exemplify the use of mitigationP in both speaker groups, some responses will be discussed in detail.

5.1 MitigationP in L1 interviews L1 participant 7A uses the informal general extender and all that sort of stuff as well as further informal language such as things, sort of, you know in response (1) below.

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(1) 7A#5; L1 speaker Int: What do you think you have done particularly well in your job? 7A: I’d say picking up technical knowledge would actually be my forte at the moment. Yeah I find it quite easy to sort of dive into those sort of things, and just learn as I go. So those things are, those things are the easier ones. It’s always the time, you know, organisation and all that sort of stuff which I am finding hard but yeah. An accelerated pace in the phrase organisation and all that sort of stuff as well as pauses that interviewee 7A introduces while describing her weaknesses suggest that she feels uncomfortable answering this question.5 Her discomfort may be due to the challenges of describing skills in the Australian cultural context as discussed above. Hence, she may have used informality to generate an effect of mitigationP as this weakens potentially detrimental implicatures that the interviewee’s response can evoke. In particular, the frequent use of thing by an L1 speaker in a context where other more formal nouns could also have been used, suggests that this interviewee tried to avoid strengthening power differences. In addition, the use of nouns such as thing can express modesty since such basic level nouns do not index interviewees’ education, i.e. their class. Informal language also occurs in responses (2) and (3) of L1 interviewee 8A below. In particular, he uses the expression you guys twice when addressing the interviewer and the company the interviewer represents. This expression first occurs when interviewee 8A is asked to promote his suitability for the position advertised (8A#14) and re-occurs in the immediately following question (8A#15) that asks the interviewee to suggest a potential start date at his new workplace. (2) 8A#14; L1 speaker Int: Can you tell me why you are the best person for the job, why should we hire you? 8A: [laughter] as I said, there is a lot of things that I’ve got to say. But, um, basically I think I’ve got the right expertise for this particular job. Um, you guys are looking for, you know, a person who can communicate well, a person who can act work well in a team, um, a person who can meet deadlines, a person who’s, who’s adaptable to change, a person who’s got great

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technical knowledge in a particular area, in IT. Um, a person that’s, that’s committed a person who’s willing to work in a diverse environment. I think I’ve got all those skills to meet and I think I’d be a great asset to your particular team. (3) 8A#15; L1 speaker Int: When could you start working for us? 8A: Um, as soon as possible. Whenever you guys are ready. I am basically open to, to negotiations as to my start date. The nervous laughter as interviewee 8A answers question #14 (2), as well as pauses in answer (3), indicate the challenging nature of these questions. It appears that the use of you guys builds rapport with the interviewer due to mitigationP in both responses. In particular, the use of you guys, seems to generate a discourse of mateship (Marra et al. 2008). In answer (4), an L1 Interviewee also uses informal expressions in response to a question on making mistakes at work. This question is challenging since a speaker may, for example, be perceived as incompetent. It seems that interviewee 16A is aware of this threat and uses colloquial expressions (bolded in the response), such as to muck around the issue and it’s a huge stuff up, in order to generate an effect of informality and thus to mitigateP potentially detrimental implicatures i.e. negative perceptions of the interviewee by the interviewer. (4) 16A#10; L1 speaker Int: Tell me about a time when you made a mistake at work and how you reacted to it 16A: Yeah one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made at work was actually that we, we work with some, um, suppliers and we, we send them some data that basically lets them know how much they need to invoice us for. And one of two of the suppliers, um, have the same name and so I actually sent pricing information to one supplier that I obviously should not have. The recourse for that was that, basically that, I, I went directly to the supplier, and and rather than sort of trying to muck around the issue I said, this mistake has been made. Um, I met with that supplier met with the other supplier whose information I had sent to them and, um, and tried, and tried to appease all parties. Um obviously it’s, it’s a huge stuff up because it’s very sensitive information. Um, but, but I

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thought going directly to people and saying, this is what’s happened let’s deal with it was the best way to do it rather than trying to make sure it went away. […] The use of informal expressions in answer (4) again downplays power differences and generates effects such as closeness and friendliness as it is politic to use such language in an Australian context. Hence, potentially detrimental implicatures regarding the professional competence of the interviewee are weakened. To conclude, the qualitative analysis of informal items finds that the L1 speakers of Australian English indeed used informality for mitigation purposes in the employment interviews recorded.

5.2 MitigationP in L2 interviews The comparison of informal items above shows that L2 speakers used such items less frequently. Some L2 responses that exemplify the use of informal items in this speaker group will now be discussed in detail. In response (5), an L2 speaker uses the informal noun stuff once when describing his involvement in a team task at a previous workplace. Apart from the noun stuff, no further informal items that can generate mitigationP occur. Moreover, a falling intonation at the end of the clause containing the word stuff suggests that this informal noun is used as a concluding device rather than for mitigation purposes. (5) 16#8b; L2 speaker Int: Tell me about a time when you worked in a team, how many people were in the group, what was the task, what was your role? 16: Oh in our project there were 13 Nepalese and, um, four foreigners. One is from America one is from Canada one is from Australia and one is from, um, Switzerland and 13 are Nepalese. We 17 worked together and we did lot to change government bank into private bank. And that is really challenge and that is the evidence we work in the team and we could reduce the non-performing assets, non-performing assets means bad assets in the bank, we normally we reduce. We reduce non-performing assets from 76 to 26 or 25 or 26. That’s the great stuff we did in the team.

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The overall low frequency of informal items in this answer suggests that this interviewee may not be aware of the importance of mitigationP in the Australian context. Due to their low frequency, those informal items that do occur only generate a very weak mitigationP effect. The speech of L2 participant 2 in response (6) below also shows some use of informal language. In particular, he uses the informal adjective tough once in response to a question that asks him about his deadline management. However, he then immediately replaces tough with the less informal adjective hard. It thus appears that he does not consider tough to be a politic linguistic choice in this response. This is also indicated by a short pause which follows tough and the accelerated pace by which hard deadlines is introduced into the discourse. (6) 2#7a; L2 speaker Int: How about meeting deadlines, do you cope well with pressure? 2: Ah sometimes, sometimes yes, um, sometimes I had very very tough hard deadlines. And very, ah, short time to do, um, to eliminate some problem. Ah it’s because ah, our mobile network ah, is large network. We, we have a lot of, ah, customers, a lot of subscribers. And, ah, even when, ah, some of our service system doesn’t work within maybe half of hour, ah, we, we lost a lot of money. So I, I always, maybe not always, in 95 percents of cases I meet all deadlines. Apart from the word tough, few other informal items occur in this answer, which thus echoes the speaking style chosen by other L2 speakers discussed above. To summarise, the detailed discussion of the L2 examples above shows that informal items are very rarely embedded in a speaking style which relies on further items that can generate mitigation. Hence, mitigationP is weaker in the L2 than in the L1 data.

6. BoostingP in L1 and L2 employment interviews Given that the Australian job interview frame developed above requires a use of both mitigationP and boostingP, boostingP (formality) is now discussed in the two speaker groups. While mitigationP downplays

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power differences, boostingP confirms that interactants are not close friends and that a power difference exists between them. Both the L1 and L2 speakers used formal language frequently and, as a result, boostingP is strong in both groups. However, there is a difference with regards to the co-text of answers where boostingP occurred. These differences as well as examples of formal items are discussed below.

6.1 BoostingP in L1 interviews As shown by the examples of formal nouns and verbs below, a wide range of formal items were used in the L1 interviews. As discussed above, words were categorised as formal in the analysis if more informal synonyms exist for a lexeme. For instance, a phrase such as to deal with problems is less formal than to resolve issues, the phrasal verb to figure out is less formal than to determine, and the noun people is more informal than responsible entity. Overall, the formal language used in the interviews can be described as workplace language typical of business contexts. Nouns standard Windows XP (1A) the deployment (1A) resentment (1A) the responsible entity (2A) statutory reporting (2A) the priority topics (3A) renegotiation (4A) promotional tool (5A) service lines (6A) constant client contact (9A) people management (11A) their deliverables (11A) promotional span (16A) deficiencies (16A) my people skills (17A) the scope of the information (19A) Table 3: Formality in L1

Verbs deploying software (1A) resolve issues that may arise (1A) to determine the accounting side (2A) accomplish different tasks (4A) delegating my responsibility (5A) assisting our clients (6A) we can’t resolve we escalate (8A) they were tracking revenue (8A) is prioritising effectively (11A) try to delegate (12A) to consolidate all of those results (13A) to secure creditors (17A) we are not cooperating (18A)

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With respect to nouns, all of the following occurred in the L1 corpus: technical nouns (e.g. standard Windows XP), compound nouns (e.g. priority topics), formal workplace nouns (e.g. deliverables), and nouns which are related to the employment interview context (e.g. people skills). Interestingly, however, the discussion of some examples will show that in contexts where formal nouns generate boostingP, informal nouns (mitigationP) are also often used. In response (7), the L1 speaker, for example, uses formal items such as justified, overtime work, due to poor management and appropriate (see bold italics). His use of language shows that he and the interviewer are not close friends and, thus, indicates that some distance exists between them. (7) 4A#11; L1 speaker Int: How do you feel about working overtime, working on the weekend, working long hours? 4A: It depends on whether or not it’s justified and whether there is a good reason why, why some overtime work is needed. Then, then definitely, if it’s if it’s simply due to poor management or poor planning, or, or just people to squeeze more out of you than they need to, then well then they should then I don’t think it’s appropriate. While this interviewer uses a wide range of formal items, a highly informal expression also occurs: to squeeze more out of you than they need to. This use introduces mitigationP as it is language that is common of talk where little power difference exists. Hence, interviewee 4A engages in boostingP as well as mitigationP, thus following the Australian job interview frame developed in this paper. In response (8) below, a similar use of both formal and informal language can be observed. Interviewee 17A uses a wide range of formal items such as attention to detail, appropriate and encourage (see bold italics). (8) 17A#14; L1 speaker Int: Can you tell me why you are the best person for the job, why should we hire you?

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17A: My I think my CV speaks for myself. The qualifications, my references in there, my attention to detail and technical knowledge. But also I believe that I am the appropriate, I’ll fit in with the office environment. I won’t, I am not the type of person that will bear down on people unnecessarily. I get on well with most people. However I do understand that certain people need to be ah encouraged in their own certain ways. Some people like a lot of please and thank yous others likes to be praised others need a big stick to be to tell them to what to do. That’s how they, people act. You have to pick up on those people’s qualities and how they work under those. I believe I can improve the team’s qualities and move them forward to make a workload the whole office work appropriately. Much like interviewee 4A, interviewee 17A also uses rather informal expressions (underlined) which generate mitigationP. Therefore, he engages in boosting as well as downtoning. Similarly, interviewee 12A uses boostingP (bold, italics) as well as mitigationP (underlined) in example (9), hence also following the Australian job interview frame developed in this paper. (9) 12A#8c; L1 speaker Int: Is there anything that the group could have done better? 12A: I think communication is always the key in teamwork because sometimes people you delegate them tasks and they will get stuck into it and they will keep doing it until the they finish it. But they might hit some obstacles along the way and they forget to tell you. And you, they will just keep going at it and forget the other task that they have been allocated. So it’s important that you do catch up with everyone. But then you don’t want to overdo that sort of communication as well because people have to be mindful of the time that they have been allocated. So communication is the key. Responses that show speakers using both formal and informal language are common in the L1 data. While all L1 interviewees balance boostingP and mitigationP, it appears that male interviewees use more informal items than females. Some responses by female L1 interviewees, however, also show both types of influences on the pragmatic force as in response (10) below.

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While interviewee 2A uses formal language that generates boostingP (e.g. tended, dominate), she also uses language that introduces mitigationP (e.g. kind of, a little bit, sort of). It appears that she considers it more politic to use such expressions than highly informal words to generate a mitigation effect. This is also indicated by her repair work from the informal verb boss to the more formal dominate at the beginning of her answer. (10) 2A#8c; L1 speaker Int: Is there anything that the group could have done better? 2A: I suppose in some ways I tended to, I wouldn’t say boss, boss or dominate but I tended to maybe it was more me doing her work rather than she doing mine. So I tended to kind of overstep that a little bit I thought. And I mean the interests of just meeting the deadlines, you know, that was, that was ok for her. But I thought in a normal circumstance, if it was a truly collaborated team effort, then it would be sort of equal in input both sides. So she would equally do my task and I would do hers. This response again shows an L1 speaker of Australian English paying attention to both boosting and downtoning in her speech. It can be concluded from this analysis that the L1 speakers of Australian English who participated in the employment interviews, balance the use of formal (boostingP) language and informal (mitigationP) language and, thus, attend to speech event as well as cultural framing.

6.2 BoostingP in L2 interviews Formal items are frequent in the L2 corpus, which thus mirrors the L1 interviews. As in the L1 analysis, in the L2 data, words were categorised as formal if more informal synonyms exist for a lexeme (e.g. the use of queries (formal) as opposed to questions, finalise (formal) as opposed to finish, and distribute (formal) as opposed to hand out/give everybody. While the examples discussed below will show that formal language is as common in the L2 as in the L1 interviews, there are nevertheless differences with respect to the formality of the speaking style in these two groups.

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Nouns implementation (2) upgrades (2) queries (7) task (7) network design (8) assignment (9) financial system (11) site (13) regional resellers (14) banking operations (16) target (23)

Verbs to distribute (2) we should investigate (3) assigned (7) is located (8) delivering (9) finalise (12) configuring and implementing (13) negotiate with them (14) to migrate the accounting system (21) register all the information (23) I should cooperate (25)

Table 4: Formality in L2 In response (11), for example, L2 speaker 2 uses formal nouns/verbs frequently (see bold italics). In doing so he indicates that he is aware of the power difference that exists between himself and the interviewer. (11) 2#6a; L2 speaker Int: Have you had much experience dealing with customers? 2: Not so much but sometimes I contacted with with public. Maybe it was not, not really public but it was customers, customers representative who deal with our company who has some relations with our system. For example it was content provider who provides content service for our customers. And often they called me and asked me why this connection doesn’t work and we trying to find the problem and so on. On the other hand, in contrast to the L1 responses discussed above, L2 speaker 2 does not use informal language. Thus, unlike in the L1 responses, mitigationP does not occur. L2 speakers 12 and 13 (responses 12 and 13) similarly often use formal language (nouns and verbs; bold italics).

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(12) 12#6b; L2 speaker Int: Tell me about a situation when you had to demonstrate good communication skills 12: As I have to liaise with vendor whenever there is a problem for the payment. Or the, or there is problem in their invoice. So every time I either phone ring the vendor or write email to them and until finally resolve the problem. (13) 13#5; L2 speaker Int: What do you think you have done particularly well in your job? 13: I have a good communication skills when I am dealing with the clients. And then I listen carefully what they say and have very much patience, and then try to find out the main symptoms out of the problem they reported to us. And then so that I can use those main symptoms to troubleshoot. However, these responses show neither highly informal expressions that can generate mitigationP nor other expressions such as sort of and I guess that could also introduce a mitigation effect. These L2 speakers, therefore, only engage in boostingP in the responses shown above. While the majority of L2 answers follow the pattern described in these first three responses, some occasionally engage in mitigationP in addition to boostingP. L2 interviewee 33, for example, uses very formal language (e.g. infrastructure, assemble) which generates boostingP in example (14) below. At the same time, a wide range of informal items such as guys, tough and the, although non-standard, informal general extender all those stuff (and all that stuff would have been the correct expression) can also be found in this response. (14) 33#8b; L2 speaker Int: Can you tell me about a time when you worked in a group, what was the group task, how many people were involved and what was your role? 33: Yes we, my team back in university, we had to, to structure to make all the structure for our new IT laboratory. So we were in a team with five or six, five or six teammates to complete the tasks we had only one week to finish all the work. Um, I was the leader of the part of the infrastructure part. Um, I had to teach all those guys how to assemble cables, network

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cables and how we would pass the cables through the walls, and how we would, um, create the network architecture, and about the installation of software and operational systems. We were a team and we all knew what to do and how to do. So we divide the work, um, equally. I think each one took around 5 or 6 computers to, to install all the software and operational systems we had to use, um, both linox and windows. Yeah, I think that was really tough one week just to do all those stuff. Interviewee 33 is one of few L2 interviewees who use boostingP as well as mitigationP. To summarise, like the L1 speakers of Australian English, the L2 speakers frequently use formal language (boostingP). However, in contrast to the L1 speakers, mitigationP is rarely found in the L2 responses. The L1 and L2 speakers thus follow a similar speaking frame regarding the use of boostingP. However, their frames seem to vary with respect to the use of mitigationP. In particular, while the L1 speakers use both boostingP and mitigationP, the L2 speakers primarily engage in boostingP.

7. Discussion and conclusion As the analysis above shows, the L1 and L2 speakers of English who participated in this study followed different speaking frames regarding the use of formality in Australian job interviews. While the L1 speakers of Australian English adhered to a frame that values both mitigationP and boostingP, the L2 speakers rarely used mitigationP. Since mitigationP has been identified as part of the Australian cultural frame developed in this paper, it appears that the L2 speakers lack cultural pragmatic competence as their use of language does not show politic linguistic behaviour. By not using language according to Australian norms in this speech event, implicatures such as distance may arise. Given that it is crucial to build rapport (i.e. closeness) in employment interviews (e.g. Kerekes 2006, Lipovsky 2008), interviewees who do not use language that generates mitigationP in this cultural context may be disadvantaged when it comes to securing the advertised position. It is also interesting to note, and perhaps rather contrary to expectations, that the L2 speakers do not seem to encounter great difficulties

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using formal language. Informality seems, however, challenging. This may be due to such language being mainly used in face-to-face interactions. Hence, it is possible that some of the L2 speakers who had only very recently migrated to Australia were not aware of colloquialisms. However, the less frequent use of informal language was also found in those L2 interviewees who had spent more time in Australia. It is possible that those L2 speakers who should have known colloquial language did not use informal lexemes since this would not be politic in their L1 culture. Thus, they may not have used such language in order to avoid generating negative implicatures such as incompetence and outgroup membership. To conclude, the results of this study suggest that it is challenging to know what constitutes appropriate, i.e. politic, linguistic behaviour in employment interviews. This may partly be due to the fact that it is impossible for L2 speakers to learn about appropriate conversational frames by casually observing native speakers in job interviews. Furthermore, mastering the use of informal language may be more challenging than using formal language, as the former is language rarely taught at school and often regarded as “bad language”. It is therefore crucial that L2 speakers are explicitly taught the speaking frame that applies in Australian job interviews. In particular, the results of this study highlight the importance of raising awareness regarding the balance required in the use of informal and formal language in this speech event in the Australian context as speaking frames can vary cross-culturally.

Notes 1

At the time of going to print, the author was no longer affiliated with Macquarie University. However, the research on which this chapter is based was carried out at Macquarie University, and funded through an MQ Excellence Award. 2 For a detailed discussion of the notion of expectations in relation to framing, see Tannen (1993). 3 For an overview, see Coupland (2007, 113). 4 See also Yates (2000) for a similar claim on classroom discourse. 5 It is also interesting to note that the interviewee was only asked to describe her strengths, and volunteers information about her weaknesses freely, possibly for mitigation purposes.

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References Baker, S.J. 1959. The Drum: Australian character and slang. Sydney: Currawong. —. 1978. The Australian Language. Milsons Point, NSW: Currawong Press. Bakhtin, M. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. Béal, C. 1992. “Did you have a good weekend? or why there is no such thing as a simple question in cross-cultural encounters”. Australian review of applied linguistics 15. 23-52. Bhatia, V. K. 1993. Analysing Genre: language use in professional settings. London: Longman. Blum-Kulka, S.; House, J.; Kasper, G. (eds.). 1989. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: requests and apologies. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Caffi, C. 1999. “On mitigation”. Journal of Pragmatics 31. 881-909. —. 2007. On Mitigation. Oxford: Elsevier. Campbell, S.; Roberts, C. 2007. “Migration, ethnicity and competing discourses in the job interview: synthesizing the institutional and personal”. Discourse and Society 18. 243-271. Chambers, J. K.; Trudgill, P. 1999. Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coupland, N. 2007. Style: language variation and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D.; Davy, D. 1975. Advanced Conversational English. London: Longman. Delbridge, A. 1999. “Standard Australian English”. World Englishes 18. 259-270. Fraser, B. 1980. “Conversational mitigation”. Journal of Pragmatics 4. 341-350. Goddard, C. 2012. “Cultural scripts and communication style differences in three Anglo Englishes (English English, American English and Australian English)”. In B. Kryk-Kastovsky (ed.), Intercultural Miscommunication Past and Present. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 101-120. Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis. New York: Harper & Row. Haverkate, H. 1992. “Deictic categories as mitigating devices”. Pragmatics 4. 50-55. Hill, B.; Ide, S.; Ikuta, S.; Kawasaki, A.; Ogino, T. 1986. “Universals of linguistic politeness: quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English”. Journal of Pragmatics 10. 347-371.

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Holmes, J. 1986. “Functions of you know in women’s and men’s speech”. Language in Society 15. 1-21. —. 1990. “Hedges and boosters in women’s and men’s speech”. Language and Communication 10. 185-205. Horne, D. 1964. The Lucky Country: Australia in the sixties. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin. Huang, Y. 2007. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyland, K. 2000. “Hedges, boosters and lexical invisibility: noticing modifiers in academic texts”. Language Awareness 9:4. 179-197. Hymes, D. 1974. “Ways of speaking”. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 433-451. Jakobson, R. 1960. “Concluding statement: linguistics and poetics”. In T.A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 350-377. Joos, M. 1961. The Five Clocks. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Kerekes, J. 2006. “Winning an interviewer’s trust in a gatekeeping encounter”. Language in Society 35. 27-57. Koester, A. 2006. Investigating Workplace Discourse. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Labov, W. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. —. 1972a. Language in the Inner City: studies in Black English vernacular. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. —. 1972b. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lakoff, G. 1973. “Hedges: a study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts”. Journal of Philosophical Logic 2. 458-509. Levinson, S.C. 1979. “Pragmatics and social deixis: reclaiming the notion of conventional implicature”. In C. Chiarello (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. 206-223. Lipovsky, C. 2008. “Constructing affiliation and solidarity in job interviews”. Discourse & Communication 2. 411-432. Locher, M.A. 2004. Power and Politeness in Action: disagreements in oral communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Macaulay, R. 2001. “The question of genre”. In P. Eckert & J. R. Rickford (eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 78-82.

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Marra, M.; Vine, B.; Holmes, J. 2008. “Heroes, fathers and good mates: leadership styles of men at work”. In E. Tilley (ed.), Power and Place: refereed proceedings of the Australian & New Zealand Communication Association Conference 2008 (ANZCA08), Wellington, July 9-11. 15 pp. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://www.anzca.net/conferences/pastconferences/35-anzca08.html. Matsumoto, Y. 1988. “Reexamination of the universality of face: politeness phenomena in Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics 12. 403-426. Peeters, B. 2004. “Tall poppies and egalitarianism in Australian discourse: from key word to cultural value”. English World-Wide 25. 1-25. Roberts, C.; Campbell, S. 2005. “Fitting stories into boxes: rhetorical and textual constraints on candidates’ performances in British job interviews”. Journal of Applied Linguistics 2. 45-73. Roberts, C.; Campbell, S. 2006. Talk on Trial: job interviews, language and ethnicity. Norwich: Department for Work and Pensions. Roberts, C.; Sayers, P. 1987. “Keeping the gate: how judgements are made in interethnic interviews”. In K. Knapp, W. Enninger & A. KnappPotthoff (eds.), Analyzing intercultural communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 111-137. Sussex, R. 2004. “Abstand, Ausbau, creativity and ludicity in Australian English”. Australian Journal of Linguistics 24. 3-19. Swales, J. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tannen, D. 1993. “What’s in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations”. In D. Tannen (ed.), Framing in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 14-56. Thomas, J. 1983. “Cross-cultural pragmatic failure”. Applied Linguistics 4. 91-112. —. 1984. “Cross-cultural discourse as ‘unequal encounter’: towards a pragmatic analysis”. Applied Linguistics 5. 226-235. Trudgill, P. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell. Watts, R.J. 1989. “Relevance and relational work: linguistic politeness as politic behaviour”. Multilingua 8. 131-166. —. 1992. “Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: reconsidering claims for universality”. In R.J. Watts, S. Ide & K. Ehlich (eds.), Politeness in Language: studies in its history, theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 43-69. Wierzbicka, A. 1991. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: the semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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—. 1994. “‘Cultural scripts’: a semantic approach to cultural analysis and cross-cultural communication”. Pragmatics and Language Learning 5. 1-24. Yates, L. 2000. “Ciao, guys!”: mitigation addressing positive and negative face concerns in the directives of native-speaker and Chinese background speakers of Australian English. Unpublished PhD thesis, LaTrobe University, Melbourne.

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Appendix A Modifiers in L1 and L2 (use per 1000 words)

L1 L2

quite

pretty

2.5 0.9

0.7 0

sort of 3.5 0.03

kind of 0.6 0.3

almost

relatively

fairly

rather

0.08 0.5

0.08 0

0.3 0

0 0.2

Appendix B Parenthetical verbs in L1 and L2 (use per 1000 words) L1 L2

I guess 2.1 0

I suppose 1.4 0

I think 4.5 4.6

I believe 0.3 0.3

PART TWO CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS

CHAPTER THREE ITALIAN L2 ADDRESS STRATEGIES IN AN AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY SETTING: A COMPARISON WITH L1 ITALIAN AND L1 ENGLISH PRACTICE MAICOL FORMENTELLI UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DEL PIEMONTE ORIENTALE “A. AVOGADRO” [email protected]

AND JOHN HAJEK UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE [email protected]

Abstract The expression of social deixis by means of address strategies is pervasive in communication and reflects the culture and the ethos of a given speech community. For this reason, it is important that learners of a language know and abide by the rules at the basis of the correct use of address forms to be accepted as part of the community of speakers and avoid negative social sanctions. Recent studies suggest that the acquisition of the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic norms regulating the usage of address forms occurs late in the learning process and constitutes a hurdle even for advanced learners (DuFon 2010; on Italian as a foreign language, see Nuzzo 2009 and Nuzzo & Rastelli 2009). The present study reports on the initial findings of an ongoing investigation aimed at exploring the use of address strategies by English-speaking learners of Italian at an Australian university. Preliminary results show an overall pattern of address that favours familiarity and informality in class. This picture contrasts strongly with actual address practice in Italian university settings, in which reciprocal formal pronominal and nominal strategies are the norm and codify distance

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and formality in students-lecturers relationships. Our Australian results are more consistent, however, with patterns of address reported for the L1 English and appear to reflect to a large degree the transfer of Australian cultural values in favour of egalitarianism. We also seek to identify the factors that appear to influence the behaviour of respondents (students and teaching staff)–in Italian and English–in the Australian setting, and see that the expression of egalitarianism–in both languages–is tempered by local sensitivities to basic sociolinguistic parameters and explicit directions.

1. Introduction The complex mechanisms underlying the management of human relations through language have long been at the core of research in linguistics, not only for their sociocultural values, but also for the profound implications interpersonal exchanges have on society and everyday life. Address strategies, in particular, are deemed to be a crucial component of this process (Philipsen & Huspek 1985), as the speakers’ use of address terms in interaction produces interpersonal meanings that extend far beyond the content of the message. The choice of address forms enriches utterances with sociolinguistic and pragmatic meanings which help to codify the existing relationships among participants, their attitudes towards one another, the nature of the domain of interaction, and the overall organisation of the social environment in which exchanges take place. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that scholars have attempted to uncover and describe the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic norms (Leech 2011) governing address, focussing on single languages (and their varieties) or contrasting different linguistic types (cf. among others Brown & Gilman 1960, Braun 1988, Helmbrecht 2005, Schüpbach et al. 2007, Clyne et al. 2009, Peeters & Ramière 2009). In addition, in recent years studies have also been devoted to the acquisition of address norms on the part of learners (among others Dewaele 2004, DuFon 2010, Liddicoat 2006, Nuzzo 2009, Nuzzo & Rastelli 2009), showing that the full control over the address system in a foreign language occurs late in the learning process and constitutes a hurdle even for advanced learners. The present study aims to explore how terms of address are used by students and teaching staff involved in courses of Italian as a foreign language at an Australian university (specifically the University of Melbourne), comparing the results with the address strategies followed by Italian native speakers in university settings in Italy. Moreover, address practices in non-language courses (called “general courses” here) taught in English at the same Australian university are also analysed to identify

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possible patterns of cultural interference and transfer from English into Italian L2 classroom interactions. Even though the main focus is on groups of learners of Italian as a foreign language, this investigation is not an acquisitional study designed to assess participants’ proficiency levels. The approach is rather ethnographic in nature: by adopting an emic perspective to the phenomenon, we will attempt to describe established patterns of address in this community of practice and determine to what extent the Australian culture and local ethos may influence linguistic choices in Italian as second language.

2. Systems of address: English vs. Italian Terms of address are linguistic elements that people employ to refer to the interlocutor(s) and single them out as intended recipient(s) of a message. One intrinsic feature of address forms is therefore their strong deictic nature. Alongside the identifying function, terms of address are also endowed with a great interpersonal potential for the creation and management of relationships (Leech 1999). By means of address strategies individuals signal their intention to reduce social distance and increase solidarity, express respect and deference towards others, but also exercise their authority or even show aggressiveness and hostility in the exchange. This whole gamut of interpersonal meanings is traced back to the ambivalent, chameleon-like nature of address terms, which can be exploited by speakers to enhance either the consensual or the conflictual illocutionary force of speech acts (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2008). From a structural point of view, terms of address in English and Italian belong to the word classes of pronouns (e.g. the Italian Lei and tu, the English you) and nouns (including names, titles and honorifics), and to a lesser extent adjectives (e.g. the English vocatives dear, gorgeous). The class of verbs can also be involved in the linguistic manifestation of address. In Italian, for instance, the degree of formality associated with address forms is generally transferred to the verb through grammatical agreement codified in verbal declension, which is often the only piece of information available (Italian is a pro-drop language and personal pronouns in subject position can be omitted). One noticeable difference between English and Italian address systems concerns pronominal strategies. On the one hand, contemporary standard English has conflated the original binary distinction between formal (V) and informal (T) address pronouns into the sole second-person pronoun

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you (cf. Mühlhäusler & Harré 1990, Wales 1996, Wales 2004-05), which is generally regarded as a neutral, and often strategic, compromise between formal and informal address practice (Wierzbicka 2003: 47-48; on this point see also Clyne et al. 2009: 39). As a result, English lacks a pronominal codification of social deixis but resorts instead to lexical strategies such as vocatives to express interpersonal stance overtly. On the other hand, Italian displays a sophisticated repertoire of pronouns of address, including V-forms used to convey high social distance or formality, i.e. Lei, Voi, Ella (singular) and Loro (plural), and T-forms employed to express low social distance or informality, i.e. tu (singular) and voi (plural) (Maiden & Robustelli 2007, Molinelli 2002, Renzi 1995, Scaglia 2003). This complex repertoire of forms is affected by diatopic variation, mainly due to the substratum effect of local dialects still widely spoken alongside Italian, to the extent that regional varieties of Italian exhibit a different number of forms compared to the standard. In some parts of the centre and south of Italy, for instance, the use of tu tends to be generalised, as original dialects lack the opposition tu/Lei or tu/Voi (Renzi 1993: 356).1 A tripartite system including tu, Lei and Voi is currently employed in some southern regions whereas in the northern regions the V-form Voi is nowadays very rare and only possible in the domain of the family (cf. Parkinson & Hajek 2004). Overall, the Italian pronominal address system is gradually undergoing a process of simplification, reducing the number of V-forms available to speakers both in the singular and in the plural (cf. Sobrero 1999: 417-419). In particular, the occurrence of Ella is nowadays limited to highly formal contexts of interaction such as written bureaucratic communication, official written invitations, institutional speeches, while the use of the plural form Loro “is practically non-existent” (Danesi & Lettieri 1983: 330). As for use of the pronoun Voi, its use to address one person only is being progressively substituted by the more frequent Lei (Renzi 1993: 361) and is generally perceived as specifically regional or rural and/or antiquated. As a result, we can say that the pronominal address system in standard Italian still exhibits a T/V distinction, but the repertoire is for most speakers limited to two main forms in the singular, namely tu (T) and Lei (V), and only one form in the plural, namely voi (T). The other principal class of address terms includes lexical strategies known as vocatives, syntactically unbound nominal expressions characterised by independent intonation profile and flexible position within speech units (Zwicky 1974). Vocatives are especially pervasive in English where they have been classified into several subcategories according to their

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denotative meanings (cf. Biber et al. 1999): shortened and full first names, surnames, nicknames, personal and professional titles (e.g. Mr, Mrs, Professor), honorifics (e.g. sir, ma’am, gentlemen), kinship terms, familiarisers (e.g. mate, buddy, guys), endearments (e.g. love, baby, sweetheart). The same categories of address forms are available in Italian, e.g. the honorifics signore, signora, the titles professore, dottore, the familiarisers bello, amico, ragazzi, the endearments tesoro, amore (cf. Mazzoleni 1995), even though the variety of forms appears to be more limited, especially as far as familiarisers and endearments are concerned. Nominal address forms can be distinguished into T-like forms and Vlike forms just like pronouns of address. Honorifics and titles are generally associated with great social distance and respect, whereas names, kinship terms, familiarisers and endearments usually hint at familiarity and closeness. It is worthwhile to say, however, that it is the context of use that determines the actual connotation of vocatives and the interpersonal meanings they convey. For instance, a respectful term used with a jocular tone can foster solidarity among friends (Leech 1999: 112-113), as much as terms of camaraderie can express hostility among strangers (Formentelli 2007) or endearments can be diminishing and patronising (Wolfson & Manes 1980). Pronominal and nominal strategies of English and Italian address systems are summarised in Table 1 overleaf.

3. Address practice in English and Italian General consensus about interpersonal relations in English-speaking societies is the growing informality associated with address practice. This particular view seems to be validated in recent studies, which have attempted to provide an updated picture of the phenomenon. In a survey on the use of first names and titles plus last name in dyadic encounters in American English, for instance, Murray (2002) reports that the default address strategy used reciprocally by newly-introduced adults is first name, reflecting reduced social distance also among people of different ages and professional statuses. In Australia, the increasing solidarity and social egalitarianism in interpersonal relations is also reflected in the spreading use of the vocative mate on the part of men and young women to signal friendliness and casualness in all situations, including institutional domains and official settings such as Parliament House (cf. Rendle-Short 2009).2 Even in Great Britain, where an ethos of social

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egalitarianism is traditionally less pronounced, there is a rapid shift towards first names and other informal vocatives among unacquainted people,3 even though such practice is still perceived as inappropriate by older people and more formal strategies (e.g. honorifics and titles+surnames) remain the norm in some domains like job interviews, doctors’ surgeries, institutional exchanges.4 In British academic settings, address practice has also slightly changed, with more and more frequent shifts to reciprocal first names among students and teaching staff (Clyne et al. 2009: 99-100). The use of T-forms, however, is generally initiated by lecturers when introducing themselves and may be sometimes resisted by students (especially younger ones coming from secondary school), who do not feel comfortable with using their tutors’ first names and prefer to resort to avoidance strategies such as the neutral pronoun you or alternative summoning expressions (Formentelli 2009). PRONOMINAL STRATEGIES V-forms

Italian

English

NOMINAL STRATEGIES

T-forms

V-forms

Tu, voi (plural)

Honorifics (e.g. signore, signora) Titles (e.g. professore, dottore) Titles + surname

Lei, Voi

You

Honorifics (e.g. sir, ma’am) Titles (e.g. professor, Mr/Mrs) Titles + surname

T-forms First names Kinship terms Familiarisers (e.g. bello, amico, ragazzi) Endearments (e.g. tesoro, amore) First names Kinship terms Familiarisers (e.g. mate, buddy, guys) Endearments (e.g. love, baby, sweetheart)

Table 1: Italian and English address systems As for Italian, of major interest here is the opposition tu vs. Lei, which regulates most of everyday interpersonal relations. The pronoun tu is associated with casual relationships among friends, acquainted people and

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within the family, and is generally employed among colleagues of equal status and professional level. The pronoun Lei, on the other hand, marks social distance between unacquainted people, lack of familiarity, respect in service encounters and professional relationships with unequal distribution of power, and is frequently employed in formal and official exchanges. Whereas T-forms are used reciprocally in relationships characterised by reduced social distance (but some exceptions are found in family relations with parents-in-law and grandparents; cf. Parkinson & Hajek 2004), a certain degree of non-reciprocal address has instead been recorded in the use of V-forms among socially distant individuals. For instance, asymmetrical relations of power (linked to difference in age or social status) can be marked by the use of T towards the “inferior” party and of V towards the “superior” party. This address practice is accepted as normal in a few domains of interaction (e.g. in secondary schools), but is generally perceived as inappropriate and even abusive especially in the workplace and hierarchically structured institutions (e.g. hospitals, the Army, etc.), and therefore avoided. Reciprocal distancing address strategies (i.e. Lei/Lei) are preferred and in some cases even imposed by laws or through explicit internal regulations (cf. Renzi 1993: 373, 388-390). Finally, a gradual expansion of the use of tu has been observed in recent years in areas of everyday life where Lei was traditionally employed. The informal pronoun is getting more and more frequent in service encounters, in television advertisements, on ATM screens, in telephone calls from call centres, possibly under the influence of English (cf. Berretta 1999: 225-226). The prevalence of tu has also been identified in Computer-Mediated Communication (i.e. chat rooms, discussion boards, electronic letters), where participants’ social identities are less accessible than in face-to-face conversation and interpersonal relations are perceived to be more casual (Rebelos & Strambi 2009). Likewise, Suomela-Härmä (2005) records an increase in informal address among colleagues of both similar or superior ranks regardless of age, and among people who have met for the first time either in the street or at a friend’s house. Other findings, however, point in the opposite direction of maintenance of Lei, especially in institutional domains of interaction such as the school and the university, which leads Suomela-Härmä (2005) to conclude that young adults show no intention of abandoning formal Lei in favour of a generalised informal tu.

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It is clear, based on the summary presented here, that there is a significant mismatch between address practices in Italian in Italy and in English in English-speaking nations such as Australia. The reported shift away from more formal use of titles to first names and informal address terms in English is certainly the case over time in the Australian university setting. The second author recalls that during his time as a student at the University of Melbourne in the early 1980s the use of Title or Title+Surname by students to all teaching staff above the age of 40 or so, was entirely normal. Students were addressed by their first name or by first name+surname and could only shift to first name address on the specific invitation of an individual teacher. The shift to more informal practice (as is currently the norm - see below) at this and other Australian universities seems to have significantly taken root in the late 1980s.

4. The study The present investigation attempts to answer two main research questions: x How are Italian pronominal and nominal modes of address used by students (L1 = English) and teachers (L1 = English or Italian) interacting in courses of Italian as a foreign language in an Australian university setting? x To what extent is the choice of address forms in Italian courses influenced by the established address practice in English and, more generally, by Australian social and cultural values? To this aim, data were collected at the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2009 by means of questionnaires submitted to students of six courses of Italian as a foreign language. The sample of respondents includes 112 male and female students, all native speakers of (Australian) English with intermediate-advanced proficiency levels of Italian. Students’ age mostly ranges from 18 to 25 years (99 respondents), whereas only a few respondents are older than 30 or left their age unspecified (13 respondents). The questionnaire is organised in two parts: Part A, concerned with address strategies in Italian used by students and lecturers in courses of Italian as a foreign language; Part B, focussed on address strategies in English used by students and lecturers in so-called general courses taught in English at the University of Melbourne. Part A includes five multiple-

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choice questions on the pronominal and lexical address strategies employed in class (questions 1 to 5), and two open questions (questions 6 and 7) in which respondents are asked to provide some comments on the parameters that in their opinion influence address practice (e.g. age, professional status, gender, level of familiarity). One final question (question 8) asks students to report on the modes of address used in email correspondence with their lecturers. Questions in Part B parallel the ones in Part A and are devoted to lexical address strategies in English (questions 1 to 4), the parameters influencing the choice of the appropriate mode of address (questions 5 and 6), and address practice in email correspondence (question 7). An additional component of data comes from a previous investigation carried out at the University of Pavia, Italy (Formentelli 2008), in which a profile of address practice in Italian universities is provided by combining data from questionnaires and interviews with 27 students and 6 lecturers native speakers of Italian and a corpus of 252 emails written by 57 different students and lecturers. While these data were not collected in exactly the same way, it is still useful to compare distribution of address strategies in Italian academic interactions with the responses gathered at the University of Melbourne in order to determine patterns of convergence and divergence between the address practices of native and non-native speakers of Italian.

5. Results Results are presented in two main parts following the organisation of the questionnaire submitted to respondents. Firstly, responses regarding the use of Italian address strategies at the University of Melbourne will be analysed, both independently and with reference to the address practice of Italian native speakers as recorded at the University of Pavia. This part will also include a discussion of the sociolinguistic parameters reported to be at the basis of address choices by students and lecturers in courses of Italian as a foreign language. Secondly, our attention then moves to the responses provided on the address strategies generally employed in English in Australian academic interactions, integrating the analysis with respondents’ comments on the sociolinguistic parameters governing participants’ linguistic behaviour. Some final remarks on the phenomenon of pragmatic transfer from English into Italian in address practice conclude our discussion of results.

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5.1 Address practice in Italian courses taught at an Australian university Respondents were asked to report on the pronominal and nominal strategies generally adopted when addressing their lecturers in classes of Italian as a foreign language (questions 1 and 2), by ticking the appropriate options in the list provided in the questionnaire. Respondents were allowed more than one answer. Responses are summarised in Table 2. PRONOMINAL STRATEGIES Lei

Voi

Tu

Tu/ Lei

36 32%

0 0%

53 47%

23 21%

NOMINAL STRATEGIES Honorific, First Avoidance title, name strategies title+surname 14 62 28 13% 55% 25%

Table 2: Address strategies towards lecturers in L2 Italian courses Among pronouns of address, the informal tu is identified by the largest number of students as the preferred strategy to address their lecturers in class (53 respondents, 47%), followed by the formal pronoun Lei, reported by a smaller number of students (36 respondents, 32%). None of the students considered the pronoun Voi as an appropriate alternative to be used in class. This distribution of formal and informal address terms is confirmed in nominal strategies: T-forms (i.e. first names) qualify as the most frequent modes employed by students (62 respondents, 55%) whereas the use of V-forms such as honorifics, titles, and titles+surname is considerably reduced (14 respondents, 13%). As for email correspondence (question 8; data not in Table 2), first names and informal greetings (i.e. Ciao = Hi) are by far the most frequently used strategies (74 respondents, 66%), while honorifics and titles are only occasionally reported (15 respondents, 13%). The provisional picture one gets from these figures is the substantial degree of informality in the address practice towards lecturers in L2 Italian courses. The boundaries between different address options, however, are not as clear-cut as they look at first sight. As a matter of fact, two categories emerge from the questionnaires and reveal a rather large “grey area” (Clyne et al. 2009) in which the choice of the appropriate address strategy is not straightforward, namely the categories of Tu/Lei alternation and of

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avoidance strategies. The first includes responses that document the use of both formal and informal modes of address in class (23 respondents, 21%), while the latter groups together those students who avoid addressing lecturers explicitly and resort to neutral summoning expressions and gestures instead (28 respondents, 25%). A number of explanations can be proposed to account for these findings. As noted in the introduction, the complete mastering of Italian pronominal address system occurs very late in the learning process (Nuzzo 2009, Nuzzo & Rastelli 2009) and our respondents, who come with different proficiencies in Italian ranging from intermediate to advanced levels, may not be fully competent or consistent in the use of address forms, especially when social deixis is coded through verbal declension in the target language but not in English. This might partly justify the alternation of formal and informal pronominal forms in class, though no strong claims can be made without evidence from specific acquisitional tests aimed to measure speakers’ linguistic performance. A more plausible reason is to be found in lecturers’ explicit request to be addressed in one way or the other, which is found to vary considerably across different teachers. According to the 62 respondents who answered positively to question 3 (Have your lecturers ever told you how to address them in Italian?), most lecturers ask to be addressed formally through the pronoun Lei and titles, and to adjust salutations accordingly (Buongiorno = Good morning rather than Ciao = Hi); other teachers warn students that Lei would be the right form to use in Italian academic interactions, but allow students to use the informal tu in class; some other lecturers (including native speakers of Italian) introduce themselves by their first name and encourage the use of informal pronouns and vocatives. Students, therefore, do not have a univocal reference model for address practice in class and may end up using both strategies alternatively or not using any strategy at all. Less variability is recorded in respondents’ responses to questions 4 and 5, respectively on the pronominal and nominal address forms used by teaching staff towards students in Italian courses (Table 3).

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PRONOMINAL STRATEGIES Voi Lei Tu (plural) 10 67 68 9% 60% 60%

NOMINAL STRATEGIES Honorific, Full title + surname name 6 8 5% 7%

First name 109 97%

Table 3: Address strategies towards students in L2 Italian courses The formal pronoun Lei is mentioned by a few of the students (10 respondents, 9%), while the majority of them report being addressed by the informal pronoun tu and the collective plural form voi (67 and 68 respondents respectively, 60%). As for nominal vocatives, almost all respondents (109 students, 97%) report use of first name, regarded as the most natural way to be addressed by lecturers, and some of them also mention the occasional use of Italianised first names (including reduced forms) interpreted by students as signalling familiarity in class. Formal honorifics and titles+surname are rarely reported (6 respondents, 5%), and full names are said to be employed not for their increased formality, but only to distinguish students with the same first name (8 respondents, 7%). What emerges from students’ responses to the questionnaire is a general trend of informality in address practice in L2 Italian courses at the University of Melbourne, seen in an elevated use of T-forms, mainly the pronoun tu and first names. The degree of familiarity is not always reciprocal however, but is especially accentuated in the forms employed by teachers to address students, whereas more variation is reported in students’ address strategies towards lecturers. In fact, the formal pronoun Lei represents the main option for one student out of three, and almost one fourth of responses belong to the “grey area” of pronominal alternation and avoidance strategies. Given these results, asymmetrical patterns of address are also a feature of L2 Italian courses, in which some students may opt for V-forms towards lecturers but are more likely to receive Tforms in return.

5.2 A comparison with address strategies in Italian universities In this section the address practice in L2 Italian courses described above is compared with the strategies of address followed by Italian native speakers in Italian universities. Comparative data are provided in a recent study carried out at the University of Pavia (Formentelli 2008) and will be

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used as a reference point. Pronominal strategies were explored by means of questionnaires and interviews with lecturers and students, as well as through participant observation in class. The distribution of lexical strategies, on the other hand, is assessed in a corpus of 242 emails written by 57 lecturers and students (109 emails and 143 emails, respectively). Table 4 shows a summary of the responses on the use of the pronouns tu and Lei and the four possible combinations reported by respondents (reciprocal Lei, reciprocal tu, non-reciprocal Lei/tu, non-reciprocal tu/Lei).5 PRONOUN USED BY Students Lecturers Lei Lei Tu Tu Lei Tu Tu Lei

33 (100%) 5 (15%) 4 (12%) 0 (0%)

Table 4: Address strategies in Italian academic settings The default address pattern among lecturers and students in Italian universities is the reciprocal use of the formal pronoun Lei, described by all respondents (33 respondents, 100%) as the combination one would normally expect. By contrast, the percentage drops considerably with respect to reciprocal use of the informal pronoun tu (5 respondents, 15%), which is regarded by respondents as an exceptional address practice generally occurring after explicit invitation on the part of the lecturer and under specific circumstances, such as close collaboration (e.g. thesis supervision), career advancement (e.g. master’s degree, PhD), or small age differential. The shift to reciprocal informal address does not necessarily take place and in the majority of cases students and lecturers maintain formal social distance over the years. Non-reciprocal pronominal address is very unusual: only 4 respondents (12%) report the use of Lei towards lecturers and tu in return to students. The very same respondents comment negatively on this practice as it stresses the asymmetrical distribution of power in the dyad and may be interpreted as abusive by students. Finally, no one reported the opposite non-reciprocal address pattern (i.e. students using tu and receiving Lei), which is considered disrespectful towards lecturers. Let’s now consider the distribution of lexical address strategies in Italian universities. At the time of data collection in Italy (see Formentelli 2008), the use of nominal address in the classroom was not surveyed.

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Instead data were gathered through the analysis of email correspondence between lecturers and students. Results are summarised in Table 5.

Students to lecturers Lecturers to students

Honorific, title, title+surname 117 (82%) 72 (66%)

First name 26 (18%) 37 (34%)

Table 5: Italian nominal address strategies in student-lecturer email correspondence The distribution of V-forms and T-forms in emails parallels the responses provided on pronominal strategies and confirms formality and social distance in academic relations. The great majority of students (117 emails, 82%) open their email to lecturers with a greeting formula and a formal term of address (i.e. honorific, title, title+surname) to signal their deferential attitude. Accordingly, the pronoun of address used throughout the email is the formal Lei. Only a restricted number of students (26 emails, 18%) express familiarity through informal modes of address (i.e. first names). In this case, the recipients of the emails are mostly teaching assistants and, more rarely, younger lecturers. Moving to the correspondence sent by lecturers to students, the preferred strategies are again formal in the majority of emails (72 emails, 66%), though in a slightly lower percentage than before. Conversely, the percentage of emails involving the use of first names towards students is larger (37 emails, 34%). The higher frequency of first names in lecturers’ emails indicates the degree of scope for non-reciprocal address strategies in student-lecturer communication in Italian. An interesting pattern also emerges related to the lecturers’ use of address pronouns in the texts. The formal pronoun Lei is not limited to emails starting with lexical V-forms, but often occurs also when students are addressed by their first names. This apparently contradictory combination of address forms constitutes a strategic way at lecturers’ disposal to hint at growing familiarity in rapport, but does not necessarily denote greater informality. Going back to the comparison with address practice in L2 Italian courses in Australia, divergences seem to be further accentuated in the use of lexical strategies. Indeed, the distribution of lexical T-forms and Vforms is reversed with respect to Italian universities: in the Australian university setting use of reciprocal first name among lecturers and students in

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Italian classes is reported to be the most frequent address pattern, whereas the occurrence of honorifics and titles is very limited and regarded as exceptional. The use of first names on the part of both lecturers and students (in the classroom and also in emails) is particularly striking for native speakers of Italian, as it expresses a degree of familiarity normally considered inappropriate in Italian academic settings. The codification of interpersonal relations along informality and familiarity clearly departs from the conventional address practice in Italian institutions and rather seems to conform to established local norms and Australian social values. By comparing the use of pronouns of address among native speakers in Italian universities with address practice in L2 Italian courses in Australia, one notices considerable divergences. On the one hand, Italian students and lecturers in Italy address one another using the pronoun Lei and establish interpersonal relations based on formality and social distance. The reciprocal use of the informal pronoun tu is regarded as marked in Italy and is not often encountered by students during their academic career. The shift to informal address may sometimes occur after long-lasting collaboration or when age/status difference between the parties is reduced, and usually goes through an intermediate stage of asymmetrical address (initiated by the superior party). Non-reciprocal address involving pronouns is rare–unlike in the Australian university L2 Italian setting–although nonreciprocal lexical address (e.g. first name vs. title) is much more possible in the Italian university. Students and lecturers interacting in Italian courses in Australia, on the other hand, mainly favour the use of the pronoun tu from the very beginning, fostering familiarity in classroom relations. But while the use of tu may in general be reciprocal, it is often not the case: with teachers often sending tu but not receiving it in return. The use of the distancing pronoun Lei on the part of students is also reported, but as a less frequent option and generally on lecturers’ explicit request. Finally, some students report using both tu and Lei in class or resorting to avoidance strategies, more likely because they do not know what is the appropriate address mode to employ. The generalised informality of address in L2 Italian courses, along with the wide variation in students’ address strategies, is undoubtedly the outcome of pragmatic transfer from English and of the influence of cultural values of friendliness and solidarity typical of Australian society today, and modelled by some teachers who direct pronominal and nominal T to students and are happy to receive them in return. The fact that this informality is general but not overwhelming reflects the

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competition with the sociopragmatic norms of Italian illustrated in course books and described and taught by some teachers in class.

5.3 Sociolinguistic parameters regulating address in Italian L2 courses Part A of the questionnaire submitted to respondents at the University of Melbourne includes two open questions to determine the sociolinguistic parameters underlying the choice of address strategies in L2 Italian courses: x Question 6: Have you noticed any difference in the way you address the different teachers of your Italian courses (e.g. according to age, professional status, gender, level of familiarity)? x Question 7: Have you noticed any difference in the way different teachers of your Italian courses address you (e.g. according to age, professional status, gender, level of familiarity)? Unfortunately, the majority of respondents answered negatively and did not provide any comment (63 and 70 negative responses to question 6 and question 7, respectively), while a few respondents provided non-target responses (17 and 24 respondents for question 6 and question 7, respectively). The following observations are based on the comments of a restricted number of respondents, who responded positively to question 6 (32 respondents) and question 7 (18 respondents). Respondents’ comments have been classified according to the following parameters that emerged from the questionnaires: (a) level of familiarity (i.e. amount of time spent together and attitude); (b) age (based on participants’ physical appearance); (c) authority (i.e. explicit directions from teachers) and (d) professional status (i.e. academic positions of teaching assistant, lecturer, professor). As for the variables governing the choice of address terms towards lecturers (question 6), the level of familiarity between the parties seems to be the most prominent parameter, reported by 15 respondents who opt for informal T-forms with well-known teachers and prefer to use formal Vforms with newly acquainted ones, as is explained in extract 1. (1) With my teachers who I see every day I use a relatively informal address–e.g. first name basis and the tu form. With teachers I am not familiar with, I would use the Lei and signore/signora.

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Age is the second most frequently reported parameter (10 respondents) according to which younger teachers are addressed informally and older lecturers more formally (2). (2) Older teachers signore/signora; younger teachers by their first name. It seems worthwhile mentioning that at the time of data collection most L2 Italian teachers at the University of Melbourne were relatively young (late 20s-40s), which most probably reduces the impact of the parameter of age on address choice. The third parameter indicated by students is authority (8 respondents) and records the effect of teachers’ directions on address practice in class. Students acknowledge their lecturers’ leading role and abide by their rules, see (3) and (4). (3) Some (especially beginners teachers) allow us to use the tu form with them, but others say we should always use the Lei form. (4) It depends on how they address me–in one class I addressed my teacher by her name/tu, in another the teacher said he preferred to use Lei, because that is what they do in Italy. In some cases, on the other hand, students are not provided with explicit indications and converge on the address strategy adopted by their lecturers (5). (5) Yes. I find it is best to wait and see how they address you first, then respond accordingly. Comments (3), (4) and (5) also capture the inconsistency of instructions on address across different teachers, which is one of the reasons for the wide “grey area” of address variation on the part of students. Finally, the last parameter emerging from the responses to question 6 is professional status (4 respondents), linked to teachers’ occupational rank in the academic hierarchy (i.e. teaching assistant/tutor, junior/senior lecturer, professor). Students’ attitude towards lecturers’ professional status is summarised in comment (6). (6) Lecturer, more formal; tutor, informal, always first names.

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Detailed responses are also given by respondents on the parameters underlying the choice of address strategies to students (question 7). The level of familiarity is again reported as the most influential variable in address practice (9 respondents), said to favour the use of T-forms among acquainted people. Reduced social distance is not limited to professional relations during teaching activities, but might also extend outside the classroom pointing to a genuine interpersonal rapport among students and lecturers (7). (7) A couple of staff are really friendly and sometimes we all go out for coffee so it’s pretty informal. Age is another parameter taken into account in address practice (6 respondents). Comments foreground two main patterns followed by lecturers: firstly, younger lecturers tend to be more informal with students whereas older teachers are said to be more detached; secondly, very relevant is also students’ age, with mature students (i.e. middle-aged adults) being sometimes addressed with V-forms (8). (8) For younger students, always by first name. For mature aged students they sometimes use signore. Finally, other parameters such as professional status, gender and formality of the setting are mentioned by individual respondents in the questionnaires and therefore cannot be regarded as particularly influential variables. The limited number of parameters regulating lecturers’ choices of modes of address indicates that address practice towards students is more standardised and homogeneous across different teachers.

5.4 English modes of address in general courses at the University of Melbourne In this section, data collected in Part B of the questionnaire are analysed, focusing on address practice in English described by respondents with reference to general lecture-based courses from different disciplines at the University of Melbourne. Findings will be useful to determine to what extent English language and (Australian) culture may influence address practice in L2 Italian courses. In this type of course, teaching is often divided between one or more lectures and a tutorial which may be given by the lecturer or by another, often younger staff member, such as a postgraduate student working as a teaching assistant.

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Students are asked about the address modes employed towards members of the teaching staff, distinguishing between lecturers (question 1) and tutors/teaching assistants (question 2). Responses are classified according to the degree of formality of address terms (T-forms, i.e. first names, and V-forms, i.e. honorifics, titles, titles+surname) and grouped into four categories as summarised in Table 6.

To lecturer To teaching assistant

First name

Honorific, title, title+surname

56 50%

16 14%

First name & honorific, title, title+surname 13 12%

98 88%

4 4%

2 2%

Avoidance strategy 27 24% 8 7%

Table 6: Address strategies towards teaching staff in general courses taught in English As far as address to lecturers is concerned, the main strategy reported by respondents is the informal first name, which constitutes the preferred mode covering half of responses (56 respondents, 50%). Incidentally, comments to question 3 (Have your lecturers ever told you how to address them in English?) show that first name is the address strategy explicitly indicated by the great majority of lecturers when introducing themselves or implied in email correspondence to students. By contrast, despite the sophisticated repertoire of lexical V-forms available to speakers (e.g. sir, madam, miss, professor, Prof.+surname, Dr.+surname, Mr/Mrs+surname), formal terms of address to lecturers are only reported by a minority of students (16 respondents, 14%) and can be regarded as marked strategies. The third group of responses includes 13 respondents (12%), who declare the use of both first names and formal terms of address. This suggests a certain degree of variation in address practice, which is only partially due to speakers’ personal preference and more likely results from not yet stabilised social norms regulating the use of terms of address in class.6 This interpretation is also supported by the percentage of answers belonging to the category of avoidance strategies (e.g. summoning expressions, gestures, gazes–27 respondents, 24%) exploited by speakers to avoid codifying social deixis overtly, possibly because students do not know what is the appropriate stance to convey.

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Responses on the patterns of address towards teaching assistants/tutors are by far more consistent across respondents, who almost totally converge on first names as the preferred strategy (98 respondents, 88%). Conversely, the percentage of V-forms is very much reduced (4 respondents, 4%), as is the number of students reporting both formal and informal strategies (2 respondents, 2%). The appropriate form of address to be used with tutors appears to be very clear to students, as is also testified by the significant decrease in the frequency of avoidance strategies (8 respondents, 7%). The explanation to the differences in address practice to lecturers and teaching assistants appears to lie with two basic sociolinguistic parameters governing address choice already discussed above, i.e. likely differences in age and professional status between lecturers (older, more established) and tutors (typically younger, often postgraduate students) relative to their student interlocutors. Further evidence on the distribution of address forms in academic interactions is provided by respondents’ responses on address practice in email correspondence (question 7 in the questionnaire). The sample of data is more restricted, as only half of respondents (i.e. 57 students) indicated the mode of address used in their emails to the teaching staff. The majority of students (40 respondents, 70%) report first name as the main strategy of address in email correspondence, either introduced by a salutation (e.g. Hi, Hello, Dear) or on its own. Only 11 respondents (19%) usually start an email with a title or title+surname of the addressee, namely with a formal address strategy. Finally, 6 respondents (11%) would choose either an informal or a formal address strategy, depending on the level of familiarity in the relationship. Consistently with the findings on spoken interactions, the informal address strategy of first name qualifies as the preferred strategy used by students towards lecturers also in written correspondence. The picture of English language address practices at the University of Melbourne is completed by the responses on the vocatives used by lecturers to address students (Table 7).

Italian L2 Address Strategies in an Australian University Setting

First name

Honorific, title + surname

Guys

89 79%

12 11%

41 37%

97

Other (i.e. spatial deixis, physical description, pointing) 10 9%

Table 7: English address strategies towards students in general courses Informal strategies emerge as the most frequently employed modes in addressing students, both individually by means of first names (89 respondents, 79%) and collectively through the vocative guys (41 respondents, 37%). The recurrent use of the vocative guys in class is justified by the nature of general courses referred to by respondents, which are generally attended by a large number of students and therefore it is not always feasible to address people on a first name basis. Moreover, addressing the class collectively proves to be an effective strategy, as lecturers of such courses are unlikely to know the identity of all students. This interpretation is corroborated by respondents’ comments grouped under the category Other (10 respondents, 9%), which includes some of the alternative address strategies exploited by lecturers to single out unknown students, such as physical description and spatial deixis (“e.g. you in the pink, in the back row”–female student, 18-25 years old), hand gestures, pointing. Finally, a minority of students (12 respondents, 11%) report of being addressed by means of V-forms, mostly honorifics like miss, young lady/young man, though some of these vocatives nowadays does not necessarily indicate formality or respect and may be used with a sarcastic tone (Romaine 2001: 172-173). To sum up, courses taught in English at the University of Melbourne are characterised by a general trend of informality among students and the teaching staff instantiated in reciprocal first names and in the use of the collective vocative guys on the part of lecturers. Informal address practice is often explicitly promoted by lecturers to favour a relaxed atmosphere in class and is particularly consolidated in student-teaching assistant relationships, possibly because of the similar age. To a lesser extent, patterns of formality are also reported by a minority of respondents and mainly concern address towards lecturers. One may partially explain this finding by recalling the use of V-forms towards teachers in secondary school (cf. note 6), which might influence younger students’ address practice at the

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university. Finally, a certain degree of indecision on the appropriate mode of address to employ towards lecturers is recorded in the set of avoidance strategies reported by students, who consider gestures and neutral summoning expressions a valid option to avoid expressing social deixis overtly.

5.5 Sociolinguistic parameters regulating address in English at an Australian university In order to fully explore address practice in English in the Australian university setting, respondents were also asked two open questions on the sociolinguistic parameters governing the selection of modes of address in general courses. The two questions parallel the ones in Part A on address in L2 Italian courses and are worded as follows: x Question 5: Have you noticed any difference in the way you address in English the different teachers of your courses (e.g. according to age, professional status, gender, level of familiarity)? x Question 6: Have you noticed any difference in the way different teachers of your courses address you in English (e.g. according to age, professional status, gender, level of familiarity)? As for question 5, on a total of 112 respondents, 58 students (52%) responded negatively and some of them specified that all lecturers are addressed by their first name; 44 students (39%) answered positively and commented on the parameters influencing their choice of address terms; 10 students (9%) did not provide any responses. Three sociolinguistic parameters emerge from respondents’ comments as the main variables accounted for by students when addressing members of the teaching staff: (a) age; (b) professional status; and (c) level of familiarity. Age is considered to be the most influencing parameter (20 respondents). Students report that address practice and attitudes towards teachers usually get more formal as the interlocutor is older, and first names may be replaced by titles, see (9) and (10). (9) I suppose the older the lecturer the more I kind of try to be formal. (10) Yes, older teachers [I] use Mr/Mrs or excuse me, younger excuse me then first name.

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Professional status follows in rank (19 respondents). According to some students, teachers occupying a higher position in the academic hierarchy are likely to be addressed with formal modes of address (11) and (12), though the use of titles is regarded as infrequent by other students (13). (11) I generally speak more formally to lecturers than tutors. (12) Tend to be more casual with tutors than lecturers. (13) I may address someone with a doctorate with doctor, but not often. Age and professional status tend to co-vary since lecturers are usually also older than teaching assistants (mostly PhD students). Nonetheless, when the two parameters are in competition, the former outweighs the latter in terms of relevance, as can be deduced from the following comment (14). (14) Use first name for all, but again more hesitant with lecturers, especially if older. The level of familiarity between student and teaching staff is another central factor in academic interactions (13 respondents). As soon as participants have the opportunity to spend some time together and get to know each other, informal address becomes the preferred option (15). (15) There is one younger lecturer who teaches a small class. I have also spoken to him outside class. I am far comfortable calling him by his first name. This is however not always the case, especially in large classes where students often do not have the chance to get to know their lecturers personally, so that distancing strategies are at times used (16) and a certain degree of uncertainty on the appropriate address mode may also arise (17). (16) Level of familiarity: if unfamiliar to me, I prefer to address lecturers as “professor”. (17) Level of familiarity: I don’t know most lecturers so am generally unsure how to address them.

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With regard to sociolinguistic parameters governing address towards students, address to students is characterised, as seen in the previous section, by less variation and the great majority of respondents reported the use of first names and other informal strategies as the most natural address practice in class. This broad agreement is also recorded in responses to question 6. In fact, 77 respondents (69%) answered negatively commenting that academics are quite casual and always address students by first name. Only 19 respondents (17%) noticed some subtle differences in teachers’ address practice and provided useful information to identify the variables underlying the choice of address forms. Finally, non-target or blank responses were found in the questionnaires of 16 respondents (14%). The level of familiarity qualifies as the main variable influencing address (6 respondents), though familiarity in this case seems to be associated with the possibility to have access to students’ identities rather than to the sharing of personal information and the amount of time spent together (18). (18) If they know my name they will use it, but if not it is just a professional relationship and they address me in third person. The main reason for that is to be found in the organisation of the setting in which teaching activities are carried out. As emerges from respondents’ comments (5 respondents), general courses at the University of Melbourne often take place in big rooms and involve large numbers of students, which makes it very difficult to single out addressees by using their first name. The parameter of setting (i.e. size of the room, type of course, organisation of teaching activities) thus seems to affect address practice significantly, see (19) and (20). (19) If smaller class they address me by my first name. If larger, less individual address. (20) Commerce lecturers do not know students’ first names because classes are large. Italian lecturers, on the other hand, know all first names since classes are smaller.

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5.6 Final discussion and conclusions: differing norms, pragmatic transfer from English and the classroom context There is no doubt of the relative elevated degree of formality in interpersonal interaction in the L1 Italian university setting (as confirmed by our data from the University of Pavia) - which reflect wider social norms in Italy in favour of more formal address, especially in situations involving uneven power relations, such as between lecturers and students. In particular we notice the overwhelming use of distancing reciprocal Lei (100%), with very little use of reciprocal tu (15%) or of non-reciprocal address (12%). Where non-reciprocal address occurs, it is no surprise that students send formal Lei but receive informal tu in return. In the case of lexical or nominal address, the use of honorifics, titles and surnames remains the norm. There is some use of first names with teachers feeling freer to use them when addressing students, at least in written form. The limited use of reciprocal tu and of first names may appear consistent with the previously reported gradual expansion of informal address in Italian society. But even here, this apparent trend in the university setting needs to be interpreted with some caution since use of these two address elements is not statistically matched: there is greater accepted use of first names than there is of reciprocal tu, which means that formality and distance are still maintained by the use of reciprocal Lei. As previously noted, an increased emphasis on informality and social egalitarianism in the English-speaking world, including Australia, strongly favours non-formal nominal address, such as the reciprocal use of first names, in the university setting as elsewhere. The absence of a pronominal address distinction undoubtedly facilitates the sense of general informality–something often noted by L1 Italian speakers when arriving in an Australian university. Our results confirm a general pattern of informality in the L1 English classroom, marked by use of first names, albeit with some important nuancing: a strong tendency to pragmatic egalitarianism is tempered by sensitivity to important social factors. While teaching staff overwhelmingly prefer the use of first names when addressing students (79%), students respond to the perceived age and status of their teachers: lecturers, typically older and more established, may be addressed by first name (50%) but alternative strategies involving honorifics (26%) and avoidance (24%) are together equally as common. Tutors/teaching assistants, often younger and more likely to be students themselves, are overwhelmingly addressed by first name (88%).

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Overall it comes as no surprise then, as seen in our results, that the much greater use of informal tu in the L2 Italian classroom is more consistent with the Australian L1 English classroom. It is not the case however that they all adopt one strategy (pronominal or nominal) in favour of uniform informality–a finding which is consistent with input and behaviour in both L1 English and L2 Italian classrooms. A comparison of student-generated nominal address patterns in Tables 2 (L2 Italian) and 6 (L1 English) is telling: L2 behaviour is more consistent with the more formal address in English directed to lecturers, as opposed to teaching assistants/tutors in the same language. However, while age and professional status can account for greater formality with lecturers in the L1 English setting (as noted by 20 students each), these two factors have much less weight in the L2 Italian setting (10 and 4 students respectively). The effect in L2 Italian can instead be explained by the willingness of some Australian students to follow explicit direction to use formal Lei in Italian in the university setting, while most of their colleagues remain sensitive to the sociolinguistic parameters influencing their behaviour in L1 English.

Notes 1 The author specifies that the generalised use of tu on the part of speakers does not necessarily indicate familiarity. Distance and respect are generally conveyed through titles and honorifics in these regional varieties. 2 On social and linguistic elements of Australian egalitarianism, see e.g. Peeters (2004) and Wierzbicka (1986). 3 Cf. the wide use of the familiariser mate among colleagues in business settings (Formentelli 2007), the endearment love in service encounters (Holmes 2001: 271), the immediate use of first names in radio phone-in calls (McCarthy & O’Keeffe 2003). 4 Cf. Bargiela et al. (2002: 4-5) and Clyne et al. (2009: 59-61, 68-69). 5 The distribution of pronouns of address in Table 4 is extrapolated from the interviews with respondents, who commented upon the feasibility of each of the four possible combinations of pronouns between students and lecturers in class. For this reason, the reported percentages add up to more than 100%. 6 Some of the respondents are first year students and might be at ease with a slightly more formal address practice typical of many secondary schools in Australia, in which teachers are generally addressed by means of honorifics (e.g. Sir, miss) and titles+surname.

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References Bargiela, F.; Boz, C.; Gokzadze, L.; Hamza, A.; Mills, S.; Rukhadze, N. 2002. “Ethnocentrism, politeness and naming strategies”. Working Papers on the Web 3. Retrieved 30 May 2013 from http://extra.shu.ac.uk/ wpw/politeness/bargiela.htm. Berretta, M. 1999. “Morfologia”. In A.A. Sobrero (ed.), Introduzione all’italiano contemporaneo: le strutture. Fourth edition. Bari: Laterza. 193-245. Biber, D.; Johansson S.; Leech, G.; Conrad, S.; Finegan, E. 1999. The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman. Braun, F. 1988. Terms of Address: problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Brown, R.; Gilman, A. 1960. “The pronouns of power and solidarity”. In T.A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 253-276. Clyne, M., Norrby, C.; Warren, J. 2009. Language and Human Relations: styles of address in contemporary language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Danesi, M.; Lettieri, M. 1983. “The pronouns of address in Italian: sociolinguistic and pedagogical considerations”. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata 12. 323-333. Dewaele, J.M. 2004. “Vous or tu? Native and non-native speakers of French on a sociolinguistic tightrope”. IRAL 42. 383-402. DuFon, M.A. 2010. “The acquisition of terms of address in a second language”. In A. Trosborg (ed.), Pragmatics across Languages and Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 309-331. Formentelli, M. 2007. “The vocative mate in contemporary English: a corpus based study”. In A. Sansò (ed.), Language Resources and Linguistic Theory. Milano: Franco Angeli. 180-199. —. 2008. “Strategies of address in Italian and English universities: a case study”. Paper presented at the 41st SLE Conference “Languages in contrast: Grammar, Translation, Corpora” (Forlì, 17-20 September). —. 2009. “Address strategies in a British academic setting”. Pragmatics 19. 179-196. Helmbrecht, J. 2005. “Politeness distinctions in personal pronouns”. In M. Haspelmath, B. Comrie, M.S. Dryer & D. Gil (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 186-190. Holmes, J. 2001. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman.

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Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. 2008. “Le fonctionnement des termes d’adresse en français dans certaines situations de parole publique”. In C. Bosisio, B. Cambiaghi, M.E. Piemontese & F. Santulli (eds.), Aspetti linguistici della comunicazione pubblica e istituzionale: atti del 7° Congresso dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata [AitLA]. Perugia: Guerra. 67-88. Leech, G. 1999. “The distribution and function of vocatives in American and British English conversation”. In H. Hasselgård & S. Oksefjell (eds.), Out of Corpora: studies in honour of Stig Johansson. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 107-118. Leech, G. 2011. “Pragmalinguistic vs. sociopragmatic politeness: a wrong turning in (im)politeness theory?”. Paper presented at the 12th International Pragmatics Conference (Manchester, 3-8 July). Liddicoat, A.J. 2006. “Learning the culture of interpersonal relationships: students’ understandings of personal address forms in French”. Intercultural Pragmatics 3. 55-80. Maiden, M.; Robustelli, C. 2007. A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian. Second edition. London: Hodder Arnold. Mazzoleni, M. 1995. “Il vocativo”. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi & A. Cardinaletti (eds.), Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. Vol. III: Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole. Bologna: Il Mulino. 377-402. McCarthy, M.J.; O’Keeffe, A. 2003. “‘What’s in a name?’: vocatives in casual conversations and radio phone-in calls”. In P. Leistyna & C.F. Meyer (eds.), Corpus Analysis: language structure and language use. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 153-185. Molinelli, P. 2002. “‘Lei non sa chi sono io!’: potere, solidarietà, rispetto e distanza nella comunicazione”. Linguistica e filologia 14. 283-302. Mühlhäusler, P.; Harré, R. 1990. Pronouns and People: the linguistic construction of social and personal identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Murray, T.E. 2002. “A new look at address in American English: the rules have changed”. Names 50. 43-61. Nuzzo, E. 2009. “L’acquisizione della forma di cortesia in italiano L2”. ITALS–Didattica e linguistica dell’italiano come lingua straniera 3:8. 53-76. Nuzzo, E.; Rastelli, S. 2009. “Didattica acquisizionale e cortesia linguistica in italiano L2”. Cuadernos de filología italiana 16. 13-30. Parkinson, A.; Hajek, J. 2004. “Keeping it all in the family: ‘tu’, ‘Lei’ and ‘voi’. A study of address pronoun use in Italian”. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 18. 97-114. Peeters, B. 2004. “Tall poppies and egalitarianism in Australian discourse”. English World-Wide 25. 1-25.

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Peeters, B.; Ramière, N. (eds.). 2009. Tu ou vous: l’embarras du choix. Limoges: Lambert-Lucas. Philipsen, G.; Huspek, M. 1985. “A bibliography of sociolinguistic studies of personal address”. Anthropological Linguistics 27. 94-101. Rebelos, M.; Strambi, A. 2009. “Address pronouns in Italian CMC exchanges: a ‘good example’ for L2 learners?” Italica 86. 59-79. Rendle-Short, J. 2009. “The address term mate in Australian English: is it still a masculine term?” Australian Journal of Linguistics 19. 245-268. Renzi, L. 1993. “La deissi personale e il suo uso sociale”. Studi di grammatica italiana 15. 347-390. —. 1995. “La deissi personale e il suo uso sociale”. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi & A. Cardinaletti (eds.), Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. Vol. III: Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole. Bologna: Il Mulino. 350-375. Romaine, S. 2001. “A corpus-based view of gender in British and American English”. In M. Hellinger & H. Bussmann (eds.), Gender across Languages: the linguistic representation of women and men. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 153-176. Scaglia, C. 2003. “Deissi e cortesia in italiano”. Linguistica e filologia 16. 109-145. Schüpbach, D.; Hajek, J.; Warren, J.; Clyne, M.; Kretzenbacher, H.L.; Norrby, C. 2007. “A cross-linguistic comparison of address pronoun use in four European languages: intralingual and interlingual dimensions”. In I. Mushin & M. Laughren (eds.), Selected papers from the 2006 annual meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society. 12 pp. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/ view.php?pid=UQ:13126. Sobrero, A.A. 1999. “Pragmatica”. In A.A. Sobrero (ed.), Introduzione all’italiano contemporaneo: le strutture. Fourth edition. Bari: Laterza. 403-450. Suomela-Härmä, E. 2005. “Tu e Lei in giovani e giovani adulti italiani”. In M. Olsen & E.H. Swiatek (eds.), XVI Congreso de Romanistas Escandinavos. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitet. 16 pp. Retrieved 30 May 2013 from http://rudar.ruc.dk/bitstream/1800/8201/1/Artikel41.pdf. Wales, K. 1996. Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2004-05. “Second person pronouns in contemporary English: the end of a story or just the beginning?” Franco-British Studies 33. 172-85. Wierzbicka, A. 1986. “Does language reflect culture? Evidence from Australian English”. Languages in Society 15. 349-373.

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—. 2003. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: the semantics of human interaction. Second edition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wolfson, N.; Manes, J. 1980. “Don’t ‘dear’ me!” In S. McConnel-Ginet, R. Borker & N. Furman (eds.), Women and Language in Literature and Society. New York: Praeger. 79-92. Zwicky, A.M. 1974. “Hey, whatsyourname!”. In M.W. La Galy, R.A. Fox & A. Bruck (eds.), Papers from the tenth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. 787801.

CHAPTER FOUR ISSUES IN CONVERSATIONAL HUMOUR FROM A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: COMPARING FRENCH AND AUSTRALIAN CORPORA CHRISTINE BÉAL PRAXILING, UMR-CNRS 5467 UNIVERSITÉ PAUL VALÉRY MONTPELLIER 3 [email protected]

AND KERRY MULLAN RMIT UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract Previous research has shown that traditional folk categories such as jokes, anecdotes, wordplay or teasing are not readily suited to a discourse based crosscultural analysis of humour. This is because it is a complex area where many different aspects come into play simultaneously, and where the difficulty lies in separating these aspects (Attardo 2003, 2008, Charaudeau 2006, Norrick 1993, 2003, 2007, Norrick & Chiaro 2009, Priego-Valverde 2003, Raskin 2008). Several researchers have dealt with this difficulty by focussing on the discrete categories of humour, such as the forms and functions (Norrick 2003), the mechanisms (PriegoValverde 2003) or the semantic and pragmatic types of verbal humour (Dynel 2009). Our aim in this chapter is to revisit the analysis of conversational humour using a cross-cultural and interactional approach, and to argue that there are four dimensions involved concurrently:

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Based on this four-dimensional model, the chapter will demonstrate how humour is created interactionally by the participants over several turns, and a number of representative examples from the two corpora will be analysed by way of illustration. Similarities and differences in the way French and Australian English speakers use conversational humour will be examined, and the links to the participants’ respective underlying ethos and cultural values explored.

1. Introduction This study on conversational humour takes place within the framework of a larger project on social interaction in French and Australian English. Two comparable corpora of naturally occurring conversations during social visits among friends in France and Australia were analysed to investigate how speakers use humour spontaneously in the course of social visits in the two cultures. First, we describe the general theoretical background of our study and the data we are basing it on. Then we briefly discuss the specificity of analysing the type of humour that occurs spontaneously in conversation, with the added dimension of doing so from the perspective of a cross-cultural comparison, since we discovered that traditional folk categories such as jokes, anecdotes, wordplay or teasing were insufficient for our purpose. We then introduce our own alternative four dimensional model for analysis, and show how this is a useful tool for highlighting the similarities and differences in conversational humour in our two corpora. A number of representative examples are analysed by way of illustration, and cultural features are discussed.

2. A contrastive interactional approach 2.1. The objectives of the contrastive approach The purpose of analysing interaction is to determine how participants behave in certain encounters. To achieve this, an array (or combination) of theoretical and methodological approaches may be employed, such as

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pragmatics, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, all of which share the following core elements: they draw on naturally occurring data that is collected in various settings, and later transcribed; they rely mostly on a qualitative descriptive type of analysis and focus on the detail of interactional practices in a specific context; and their main objective is to show how all participants contribute in these practices. Analysing interaction from a contrastive perspective involves its own objectives, methodology and associated issues. From the even more specific point of view of a cross-cultural comparison, the objective is to illustrate how participants from different languages-cultures contribute in similar situations. The comparison may focus on: x describing how speakers construct interaction (i.e. conversation analysis), with the aim of considering whether the regular features identified in localised interactional phenomena also occur in cultures other than the culture in which they were first identified (e.g. Moerman’s work on repairs in American English and Thai, 1996); x identifying the linguistic and pragmatic preferential choices of speakers from different languages-cultures, e.g. speech acts, address terms and discourse particles (see, for instance, Béal 1998 for French vs. Australian English, Katsiki 2002 for French vs. Greek); x comparing the overall organisation of a given interaction type (e.g. social visits) to identify the activities that constitute the “building blocks” of a given type of interaction, the order in which they occur, and how they are acted out (Béal 1992, 1993, Cheng 2005, Traverso 2000, 2006); x contrasting communicative styles (Kallmeyer & Keim 2002, Tannen 1984), and unveiling the underlying cultural values that make up the communicative ethos (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1994) of different languages-cultures (see, for example, Béal 1999 and Peeters 1999 on Australian and French speakers, Bailey 1997 on African American and Korean in services encounters, Tannen 1981 on New York Jewish conversational style). In any case, this involves collecting comparable data suitable for the chosen objective(s). In this study, our main aim is to describe conversational humour during visits among French and Australian friends from a contrastive point of view. The findings will then be discussed in terms of communicative style and the underlying ethos and cultural values of the two cultures under examination.

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2.2. Data To ensure the validity of the analysis and the findings when comparing interaction in two languages-cultures, the first step is to collect data that meet specific criteria for comparability. This involves identifying a situation which exists in the different cultures under examination, translates into similar “interaction types”, (e.g. an invitation to dinner, a medical consultation) and contains enough similar interactional “activities”1 to warrant fitting under the same label. The situation chosen here for the contrastive analysis of humour was visits between friends, the defining features of which are as follows: one (or more) participant(s) come(s) to a friend’s house to spend time together; the participants take on the complementary roles of host and visiting friend (beyond, or in addition to, the range of other possible relationships between them); some activities are regularly acted out throughout the visit, and thus become an expected feature, e.g. welcoming the guests into the house, offering drinks, and making small talk (at least this was the case in the two cultures under examination here). The data for this study consist of audio recordings of naturally occurring interactions in visits between friends in Australia and France, transcribed using ICOR conventions.2 The Australian corpus (comprised of 12 visits and 16 speakers) was designed to be comparable to the existing French corpus (14 visits, 11 speakers) in terms of context and participants.3 The corpora were recorded in two urban environments (Melbourne and Lyon), each of them mostly in the same location, i.e. the host’s house. The participants are mainly young adults (aged between 30 and 45), most are tertiary educated and are from a similar socioeconomic middle class background. Although not all combinations of participants are represented in the examples discussed below, the interactions from both corpora consist of two, three or four participants, made up of same and mixed gender one-on-one interactions, and mixed gender couples. Approximately five hours of conversation were recorded in each corpus. While every attempt was made to ensure the corpora were as similar as possible, as is often the case, some differences were unavoidable. The visits were recorded a number of years apart; some of the French recordings involve siblings, while the Australian interactions include speakers from England and Scotland who had lived in Australia for eight years. However, none of these differences have been found to have any noticeable effect on our findings in this study. Indeed, regarding the question of homogeneity, the differences between these three types of English speakers are far

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fewer than the differences between French and English speakers (especially since many Australians are of British or Irish ancestry), and for the purpose of this study they have been treated as a homogenous group.4 That said, it must be acknowledged that the data sets are relatively small, and our findings should not be taken as representative of all French and Australian English speakers. (For this reason, gender and number have not been taken into account in the analysis of the humorous exchanges.) Approximately thirty examples of humorous exchanges from each corpus have been analysed here.

2.3. Framework of the analysis The second step in the comparison is to define the framework of analysis. Choosing similar “interactions” and similar–or at least comparable “activities”–involves identifying invariant features of the type of interaction considered. Once it has been established that similar activities are present, their various components are analysed at the following levels (as per Traverso 2006 a, b): the moment when a given component occurs in the playing out of the activity; what triggers it, i.e. any sequential organisation at work between the component under scrutiny and what precedes or follows it; details of linguistic formulation and gestural achievement of the component. In the case of visits among French and English speaking friends, a number of similar activities have been identified (see above) and some have already been analysed (Béal & Traverso 2010). Humour and humorous exchanges have also been identified as a recurring feature. Humour, however, cannot be considered as a clearly delineated activity in itself, but is more like a particular way of “framing” speech which can accompany almost any activity (see discussion below). For this very reason, instances of humorous linguistic behaviour defy easy classification for comparison purposes. This is one of the main difficulties encountered in analysing conversational humour cross-culturally and is discussed in the next section.

3. From humour to cross-cultural conversational humour In this section we review the various parameters that have to be taken into consideration when embarking on the analysis of conversational

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humour, with particular reference to the cross-cultural perspective, where necessary. Humour is not a genre or an activity, except when it is defined as such, mostly within the clearly identified context of entertainment.5 Conversational humour, however, can happen in various situations and within almost any type of activity/speech event, except for the most solemn ones.6 It can be seen as a “mode”, a “frame” or a “key” (Dynel 2009: 1286, 2011: 217) or “une certaine manière de dire” (‘a certain way of putting things’, Charaudeau 2006: 22). Unlike “humour as a genre”, it is spontaneous, context-bound and not “reusable”. In this respect, joke telling occupies an intermediate position, because, although jokes may happen in the course of conversation, they are to a large extent context free and reusable, hence the expression canned joke (Dynel 2009, Norrick 2003). Its being at the same time context bound and all pervasive is one of the aspects that make conversational humour especially challenging from the point of view of cross-cultural analysis. The definition of what qualifies as humour in conversation relies on a mixture of speaker intention and listener interpretation, based on a number of clues: “Utterances which are identified by the analyst, on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic and discursive clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some of the participants” (Holmes & Marra 2002b: 67). The analysis of what actually makes an utterance or an exchange amusing for the participants consists in bringing to light the kind of linguistic and/or discursive devices or mechanisms at work which produce the intended effect. It is generally accepted that, at the core of all humour, there is some kind of “vision décalée du monde” (‘a quirky, incongruous look at the world’, Charaudeau 2006: 23), although this quality may be more or less prevalent and take various forms, from humorous challenges to the social status quo (Holmes 2000) to the long and involved scenarios of true fantasy humour (Hay 2001: 62). Beyond the presence of a speaker and one or several recipients, the humorous utterance always implies a “focus” (Holmes & Marra 2002b) or a “target” (cf. Charaudeau’s 2006 cible), that is to say, someone or something at whose expense it is formulated. Finally, it is widely recognised that humour, beyond its main, overt purpose of entertaining the participants, may fulfil a number of pragmatic functions, such as contributing to solidarity, contributing to power,

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challenging existing power, attenuating face threatening acts (Shardakova 2012) and performs various interactional functions by helping to smooth out activities such as getting acquainted (Haugh 2011) or work meetings (Holmes 2000, Holmes & Marra 2002a) etc. In order to compare language phenomena, it is necessary to decontextualise them-at least up to a point-in order to classify them into “comparable” categories. The need to juggle all the above parameters when dealing with conversational humour makes it difficult to find a straightforward way of classifying humorous exchanges collected in two different crosscultural corpora. The seemingly obvious solution of using terms for which we already seem to possess discrete definitions as the basis for crosscultural comparison is not necessarily the best approach. This point is discussed in the next section.

4. The problem with existing categories Most of the existing labels for categories of humour are defined by one or a combination of the parameters discussed above. As a result, they do not provide a unified system for classification of a set of examples of spontaneous humour collected in authentic conversations. The following list shows the heterogeneity of the traditional taxonomy of humour. The terms used to describe different forms of humour tend to be defined by one or two of the following dominant characteristics: x a linguistic or discursive device or mechanism, as in wordplay, pun, witticism; many of these strategies do not automatically convey humour, although they are often referred to as types of humour: for example irony, allusion, personal anecdote; x the characteristics of the delivery, as in deadpan humour; x the target of the humorous utterance, as in the case of selfdeprecating humour (although all self-inflicted put-downs are not necessarily humorous), or the tease which is directed at the recipient; x the topic or subject of the humour, as in black humour, defined by its treatment of serious “off limits” topics like death or handicap; x the interactional dimension of humour, as in retort, repartee or banter, the latter involving an ongoing exchange of repartees; x the pragmatic dimension of humour, as in mockery, a delight in “pin-pricking the balloons of pomposity and self-importance” (Fox

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2004: 72) (or “cutting down tall poppies” in Australian English), or wisecrack and sarcasm (which can be based on puns). The above categories do not offer a single external yardstick that can be used to compare instances of conversational humour cross-culturally, nor are they sufficiently precise for this purpose: two instances of repartee, for example, may offer very little worth comparing apart from the fact that they are repartees. Furthermore, the different forms of humour these labels identify “naturally fade into each other in conversation and in literature as well” (Norrick 2003: 1338). The impossibility of establishing clear distinctions is an added problem, when clear cut criteria is exactly what is needed for the sake of classifying and comparing examples. In response to this potentially confusing taxonomy, new, more precise labels have been created and used successfully by researchers to meet their own needs. These are labels which include pragmatic and interactional considerations, and are appropriate for describing specific types of humour in particular well-defined contexts. Thus, Haugh (2011) discusses selforiented humour in getting acquainted amongst Australians, Haugh & Bousfield (2012) discuss mock impoliteness, jocular mockery and jocular abuse among male speakers of British and Australian English, Goddard (2006) analyses deadpan jocular irony in Australian English, Hay (2001) coins the term fantasy humour to describe the collaborative construction of humorous, imaginary scenarios or events, and Holmes & Marra (2002) investigate what they call subversive humour in the workplace. Although these labels provide an accurate description of clearly identified linguistic phenomena, they are too narrow and specific to be readily used for the overall classification of the type of cross-cultural data collected during social visits among friends, which presents a large variety of different forms of humour. This leads us in turn to develop our own model to allow us to focus on the cross-cultural comparison of conversational humour, a research area which has not previously received much attention.

5. Towards a four-dimensional model 5.1. Overall description and functions of the model In the previous sections, existing labels used for the classification of humour into types, whether traditional folk categories or specific research based single language categories, were shown not to be readily suited to

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the cross-cultural comparison of conversational humour. What is needed is a model that does not focus on narrowly defined categories but on wider parameters that can be combined to offer different angles for comparison. We argue that every example of conversational humour can and should be analysed from the point of view of four different dimensions, although one of them may seem more prominent (a characteristic which is reflected in some folk categories; see previous section). The four dimensions are: 1. The speaker/target/recipient interplay 2. The language dimension: linguistic mechanisms and/or discursive strategies used by speakers 3. The different pragmatic functions 4. The interactional dimensions These four dimensions can be used in two different ways. Focusing on one dimension at a time when comparing examples cross-culturally may help reveal preferential choices within each of the language-cultures (e.g., showing which is the most frequent type of target). Using all four dimensions at once provides a grid for the comparability of selected examples and can highlight the emergence of culture-specific configurations. We will now present each of the four dimensions in greater detail and show with examples how they can be used, separately and in combination, as an operational model for the comparison of cross-cultural conversational humour.

5.2. The speaker/target/recipient interplay The situation in which a humorous utterance takes place can be described in terms of a participation framework (Goffman 1981) consisting of a speaker, one or several recipients (or audience) and a target. In this context, the target is who or what is being made fun of. It can therefore be a third party or even an abstract entity (an institution, an ideology), or it can coincide with the speaker or the recipient/addressee. When the target coincides with the speaker, we use the term selforiented. This is a neutral term in relation to the other three dimensions, unlike traditional folk categories such as self-deprecating humour or autoderision, which imply some kind of linguistic strategy and pragmatic purpose. Discourse studies into self-oriented joking show that it is not always self-deprecating (as in the case of certain “humorous self-disclosures” with

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friends analysed by Lampert & Ervin-Tripp 2006). On the other hand, when the target does not coincide with the speaker, we use the term otherdirected, which can be sub-divided into recipient-oriented (Haugh 2011) and third-party oriented (Heinemann & Traverso 2009 on complaints). Analysing our two corpora from this first set of criteria is quite revealing: it shows that Australian and French speakers used the same amount of self-oriented humour (in 40% of examples), whilst the Australians showed a strong preference for recipient-oriented humour (46% of examples) and the French for third-party oriented humour (43% of examples). These preferences were even more significant when looked at from a comparative point of view, as only 17% of French examples were recipientoriented and 14% of Australian English examples third-party oriented. The following table sums up these findings:

Self-oriented humour Other-directed humour Recipient Third party

Australian English (35 examples) 14 (40%)

French (30 examples) 12 (40%)

16 (46%) 5 (14%)

5 (17%) 13 (43%)

Table 1: The speaker/target/recipient interplay There is obviously a link between the notion of target and face issues; therefore the pragmatic functions (dimension 3) need to be carefully looked at in conjunction with the speaker/target/recipient interplay (dimension 1). From this point of view, the frequency of recipient-oriented humour in the Australian English corpus seem to be in line with the prevalence of specific types of humour in Australian discourse that have already attracted linguists’ attention such as deadpan jocular irony (Goddard 2006), jocular mockery (Haugh 2010), and banter, jocular abuse and mock impoliteness (Haugh & Bousfield 2012). The somewhat counter-intuitive amount of self-oriented humour found in the French corpus7 (often considered a typically “Anglo” form of behaviour) can be explained by looking at the collected examples in conjunction with the other dimensions. It then appears that, although French speakers may not spontaneously initiate self-oriented humour quite as often as Australian speakers, they do use it in the same way as Australians in

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particular configurations: for example, in response to a self-deprecating comment or an indirect apology from the previous speaker, or in order to save their own face when teased by others. In other words, a more detailed analysis combining elements from the other dimensions reveals forms of self-oriented humour which usually go unnoticed, but also shows that similar discursive contexts tend to produce similar linguistic behaviour. The following two examples will illustrate this. We will begin with an example from the Australian corpus, where self-oriented humour is used in response to a self-deprecating comment from the previous speaker. (1) 1 2 3 4 5

Colin Fiona–Greet C so we’ve brought some happy snaps to bore you with/ K great C (???) so I didn’t go the whole thirty six G well we’ve got all of ours here K (???) to bore you to death with ours yeah

In this example, guests C and F are visiting friends, and C has announced that they have brought some photographs with them to show their hosts. As showing photographs can generally be considered somewhat of an imposition, especially when there are a large number of them, C refers to them diminutively as happy snaps to increase their attraction, and promptly declares that they will be boring. This illustrates that C is well aware of the face threat involved with this imposition and tries to diminish it by dealing with it up front with a self-deprecating comment. K responds in line 2 with great, which may or may not have represented her true feelings, but which aims to confirm that the hosts would like to see the photographs. The first part of line 3 is inaudible as C quickly goes on to reassure his hosts that he did not bring the whole packet of thirty six photographs. At this point, G’s self-oriented remark in line 4 introduces humour in response to C’s self-deprecating comment with the pragmatic function of reassuring C that showing photographs is not a large imposition, by implying that if C’s photographs turn out to be too boring, the hosts can take revenge by showing their guests their entire collection of photographs. The interactional dimension of escalation is in evidence in K’s comment in line 5, where she not only aims to clarify G’s meaning, but also announces that the guests could then be “bore[d] to death”. This reinforces the diminishment of the guests’ imposition, by emphasising that the hosts’ photographs would in fact be far more boring than the guests’.

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We see a similar use of self-oriented humour in response to an indirect apology from the previous speaker in the following example from the French data. (2) 1 2 3 4

D3T–Veste L j´ te laisse fermer la porte pa´ce que:/ S ouais c’est que´que chose que j´ peux encore faire L c´ toujours un peu étroit dans c´ couloir (1.1) S t´ sais chez moi j´ me cogne tout l´ temps en fait ((rire))

1 2 3

L S L

4 5

S

I’ll let you close the door ‘cos:/ yeah I can just about manage that it’s always a bit narrow in this corridor (1.1) oh look (.) at my place I’m always bumping into things ((laughter))

In this extract, L has just welcomed S over the threshold of her house, and due to the narrowness of the corridor is unable to close the door, and is obliged to ask her guest to close it for her. Her embarrassment at having to ask this is apparent in the way this is phrased in line 1: I’ll let you close the door–this request could be considered an inappropriate way to welcome someone into one’s home. S realises that his host L is embarrassed at having to ask him to close the door, and immediately tries to alleviate her embarrassment by using the linguistic device of hyperbole to exaggerate the size of the imposition, and targets himself by mocking his own ability to undertake the request (line 2). On L’s explanation for the request in line 3 (actually an indirect apology), S again uses himself as the target of the humour to compensate for the face threatening act (FTA) her host has imposed on herself, by claiming that he is always bumping into things in his own place, thereby suggesting that his abode is just as small as the host’s. The pragmatic function for the use of the humour here is clearly face work to alleviate the host’s awkwardness, and to minimise the imposition. The interactional dimension in this example consists of repartee (lines 2 and 4).

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5.3. The language dimension: humour devices The language dimension is what various analysts refer to in terms of humour mechanisms (Norrick 2003), humour resources (Norrick & Bubel 2009), discourse strategies (Holmes & Marra 2002b), or “procédés langagiers” (Charaudeau 2006)–in other words, it is what makes what is being said amusing. These various devices can be broadly separated into those which rely on playing with the language itself (linguistic play), and those which make use of various discursive strategies to produce that “vision décalée du monde” referred to in section 3, which seems to be at the heart of humour. Amongst linguistic devices, only a few are specific to producing humour alone: it is the case with play on words or “mots-valises” (‘portmanteau words’). Most other forms of linguistic play, such as polysemy or alliterations, can also be put to other uses, like poetry for example. Nonetheless, all linguistic devices share the feature that somehow humour is produced by playing with elements of the language, and they reveal a particular frame of mind, and a particular awareness of the “fabric” of language. For this reason, in our opinion “linguistic play” constitutes a separate sub-category among the various devices that can be used to create humour. Other discursive strategies include implicit references, the gap between the implicit and the explicit, allusions, incongruity, and the development of an internal logic, fantasy or absurd humour. These are dealt with in turn below. Conversational humour is characterised in part by its context bound nature, and indeed, it often relies on implicit references and the shared knowledge between the participants. Priego-Valverde (2003) distinguishes three sub-categories: the “histoire conversationnelle” (‘conversational story’) of the participants (what they all know about each other, their likes and dislikes, qualities and shortcomings, important events in their life), insinuations (implying something which is not stated upfront), and more general “intertextualité” (allusions to popular cultural knowledge such as famous lines from films or cult series, advertising jingles, well known sayings etc). Pretending to act like a character from a current TV series, for example, was an ongoing “in joke” between some of the interactants in the Australian corpus.

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Incongruity, which is also sometimes called “schema conflict” (Norrick 1986) or “association d’univers différents” (‘association of different worlds’, Priego-Valverde 2003: 82) is a very frequent ingredient of humour. It involves inventing a relationship between two elements (two objects, terms, concepts or values) which normally have nothing to do with each other. The nature of the unlikely analogy and the surprise when the addressees suddenly “get it” combine to trigger amusement and laughter. Example (4) below, in which a delicious smell is associated with cat food, is a good example of this mechanism. Another frequent source of humour is the creation of an alternative imaginary world in which the normal rules of the real world do not apply. These new “rules” are often outrageous, quite irrational, or even absurd, but they have their own logic within the scenario that is being created. Whether one calls it développement d’une logique interne (‘development of an internal logic’, Priego-Valverde 2003: 91) or fantasy humour (Hay 2001), this kind of humour is often collaborative, with the initial outburst of fantasy being supported by more fantasy, and sometimes turning into long and involved scenarios. Example (8) below is a good illustration of this kind of humour. Comparing our two corpora from the point of view of humour devices revealed some general trends in French and Australian English. There was a clear preference of the French for linguistic play (present in 58.5% of examples vs. only 20.5% for Australians), while Australians preferred the use of incongruity and fantasy or absurd humour.8 The findings are summed up in Table 2. Humour devices in general

Australian English 39 occurrences in 35 examples

French 34 occurrences in 30 examples

Linguistic play

8 (20.5%)

20 (58.5%)

Implicit references

8 (20.5%)

3 (9%)

Use of incongruity

15 (38.5%)

8 (23.5%)

Development of an internal logic, an alternative reality

8 (20.5%)

3 (9%)

Table 2: The language dimension: humour devices

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The following extracts illustrate typical examples of preferred linguistic devices from each corpus. We will begin with an example of wordplay from the French data: C is telling her mother about a gift of perfume called Poison which she received for her birthday. (3) Q4–Clodif 1 C et puis on m’a offert des Giono/ (0.8) S m’a offert 2 Poison:/ (0.6) maman nous sommes parfumées pareil 3 maintenant 4 M ah::/ nous sommes des poisons ((rire)) 1 2 3

C M

and I got some books by Giono/ (0.8) S gave me {a bottle of} Poison:/ (0.6) Mum we smell the same now ah::/ we’re both poisons ((laughter))

The humour is in the play on the word poison. The targets of the humour are both the speaker and recipient because of the double meaning behind the term poison. In French un(e) poison is a well-known oldfashioned term from the nineteenth century meaning ‘a nuisance’ or ‘a pest’. The pragmatic function of the humour here is simply to amuse the interlocutor by being witty and engaging in linguistic play, since there are no face issues to be dealt with (see below). Such examples of wordplay occur very frequently in the French data. The following example of incongruous or absurd humour is in turn equally typical of the Australian data. (4) 1 2 3

Sarah etc–Greet S fantastic oh it smells delicious K I think it’s next door’s cooking ((laughter)) G yeah (.) or the cat food

In this extract, S comes into the kitchen on arrival and compliments the hosts (K and G) on the food. K uses self-mocking humour to deflect the face threatening compliment by suggesting that the delicious smells are in fact coming from next door. K’s husband G immediately builds on K’s remark to suggest that on second thoughts, the smells might be from the cat food instead. The humour here comes from the use of incongruity, firstly by the image of the smells coming from next door, and then from the cat food.

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The pragmatic functions (cf. 5.4 below) for the use of humour in this example are also worth pointing out, since they relate clearly to Australian cultural values which have been discussed elsewhere in relation to humour (Goddard 2006, 2009). Firstly, the host is negotiating social rituals which can cause self-consciousness (in this case welcoming the guests), and the embarrassment created by the immediate compliment is amplified. Secondly, promoting egalitarianism and not “big-noting” oneself are core Australian values related to “cutting down tall poppies” (cf. Leech’s Maxim of Modesty 1983, Peeters 2004), and K’s deflection of the compliment fulfils this pragmatic function. By accepting the compliment, K would be acknowledging that she were a good cook, and this could be seen as bignoting herself. The interactional approach in this example consists of both repartee (line 2) and escalation (line 3), where G builds on K’s comment, to deflect the compliment further and bring in an element of incongruity into the scene.

5.4. The pragmatic functions As mentioned in part 2, it is generally accepted that, alongside the immediate aim of amusing recipients, humour can fulfil a number of other purposes from the point of view of interpersonal relationships. “Conversational joking allows participants to perform for their mutual entertainment with a consequent enhancement of rapport”, writes Norrick (2003: 1345). While this view is the most widespread, other analysts have also focused on showing how conversational humour can contribute to power, in other words, to controlling others, especially in hierarchical professional contexts (Heydon 2011, Pizzini 1991), or, conversely, can be used to challenge existing power relationships and subvert the status quo (Holmes & Marra 2002b). Using the distinction between power and solidarity, however, does not prove the most effective way of analysing humour between friends during visits, because, in this context, humour arguably contributes to solidarity as a rule. In one of our Australian examples, a child is being threatened with having a toy confiscated, and in this case, humour clearly helps underline which side the power is on, but this is an exception. Otherwise, examples of humorous exchanges in our corpora are best approached using the analytical tools of the theory of politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987), which allows us to tie individual speech acts to notions of face.

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The link between humour and face concerns is the most delicate to analyse when the target of humour is the addressee. We found it necessary to distinguish three different subcategories of pragmatic functions: x Humour that threatens the other’s face for the sake of humour i.e., the face threat is a “by-product” of humour: face concerns are temporarily ignored for the sake of making others laugh. Many of these threats actually fall into the “mock” categories: they are “mock challenges”, “mock imitations”, “mock impoliteness”. x Humour that is used to repair a real or potential threat to the other’s face, i.e. humour helps keep the interaction smooth although some form of face threat has occurred (an indiscreet question or a veiled criticism, for example, or a self-inflicted face threat from the previous speaker). x Humour that is used in self-defence as a response to a perceived face threat (humorous or not), i.e. humour allows the speaker to “counter attack” while not showing any hurt, therefore protecting his/her positive face. On the other hand, humour which targets a third party is a lot simpler to analyse from a pragmatic point of view, as its aim is almost always to create or reinforce complicity between the speaker and the recipient(s). As far as the analysis of our corpora is concerned, broadly speaking, the same pragmatic functions are found in the two sets of data. The following examples show this parallelism, where humour is used to keep the interaction smooth although an utterance which is potentially threatening to the other’s face is produced by one of the participants. The first example from the French data occurs when A, who is visiting L, notices on the floor a head made of polystyrene, with a piece missing. (5) 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9

T5–Navye A vous avez une drôle de façon d’traiter les têtes ((en riant)) dans c’te maison L non mais j’avais coupé [parce que] j’voulais essayer d’sculpter A [((rire))] L t’sais sculpter là-dedans dans c’te matière A ah L j’en ai pris un p’tit bout pour essayer Y du polystyrène

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

A L A L A L Y

you’ve got a funny way of treating heads ((laughing)) in this house no I cut {a bit out} [because] I wanted to try and sculpt [((laughter))] you know sculpt in it in this material ah I took a bit of it to try it out polystyrene

A wants to know what the polystyrene head with a missing piece cut out is doing on the floor, but asking about it directly could be taken as an intrusive kind of question, or even as a negative comment, so she does it in a humorous way, using a number of devices: she injects laughter into her voice, which signals her good intentions; she presents her enquiry in an indirect way through a statement about a general behavioural tendency, using the plural you (as in ‘you, the people in this house’); and finally, she chooses the incongruous expression treating heads, which further removes the statement from reality. The hostess/friend’s answer is a straightforward explanation, showing that she understood that the humour was a polite cheeky way of finding out what the dented head was all about. The example from the Australian data shows the use of humour to alleviate the self-oriented face threat from the previous speaker. C and F have arrived over half an hour late for dinner with their hosts. (6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Colin Fiona–greet K hello [how are] C hello [your tardy] guests are here K you ((laughter)) [that’s alright] we were just about to C [we’re sorry]/ K go to bed/ C [we were in Kensington half] an hour ago K [but we waited up for you]

C immediately signals their embarrassment at being late by announcing themselves as tardy guests. K uses humour to minimise the face threat by exaggerating the lateness of their guests’ arrival as being almost the hosts’ bedtime (lines 3 and 5), and shows that she accepts C’s apology in line 4 by conceding that they had been prepared to wait up past their bedtime for them all the same (line 7). While the target of the humour is the addressee in this case, the pragmatic function is clearly to minimise the

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face threat to the previous speaker through mock impoliteness and the use of hyperbole. It is only in combination with the target that we can see a quantitative difference emerge, with more examples of Australians threatening another’s face for the sake of humour and more examples of French speakers reinforcing complicity at the expense of a third party category (see Table 1). Examples (7) and (8) below illustrate these differences.

5.5. The interactional dimension The interactional dimension focuses on studying the dynamics of conversational humour as speakers take turns over whole humorous sequences. The analysis of our corpora from this sequential point of view leads us to distinguish three different types of unfolding: x Humour as a form of response to a previous turn (which may or may not have been humorous): these are cases where humour occurs in the second turn of an adjacency pair. It often coincides with existing folk categories which already imply such a position: retorts and repartees of course (Dynel 2009, Norrick 2003), but also to a certain extent quips (Holmes & Marra 2002b), wisecracks (Lampert & Ervin-Tripp 2006) and other witticisms (Dynel 2009). x Humour initiated in a first turn and the ensuing responses in the following turns (which may or may not be humorous): what we observe here is what kind of supportive strategies recipients are offering to the initial speaker to show their recognition, understanding and appreciation of the attempt at humour. They may, for example, laugh, contribute more humour, offer sympathy (as a response to self-deprecating humour), or fail to react (Hay 2001). x The construction of whole collaborative humorous scenarios that take on a “life of their own”. These may evolve from either of the two previous categories, but they are distinctive because they usually involve some form of escalation, with each speaker contributing more humour over several turns. If combined with the linguistic devices dimension, many of these scenarios can be classified under the label of fantasy humour, which Hay (2001: 62) describes as the “construction of humorous, imaginary scenarios or events”. The first two categories are very similar in our two sets of data, with many variations in the options speakers choose. The third category,

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however, is more prominent in the Australian corpus, even though some embryonic versions of it can be found in the French data. Examples (4) and (8) illustrate this use of incongruous or absurd humour with escalation.9

6. Two culture-specific examples Using the four dimensions separately allowed us to show similarities and differences along some general trends in the playing out of humour in the two cultures. The combination of several of these preferential choices in one particular instance can help us single out examples that can be considered as particularly representative from a cultural point of view. The following examples illustrate this. The combination of playing with the language to be cheeky and collude against a third party at the same time is quite representative of humorous exchanges amongst friends in the French corpus. (7) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

D4–Alex.Ved P bon bref (.) et: t’sais alors euh: j’me dis qu’y a toutes les chances pour que ça lui plaise pas L ho ben quand même ho P ouais mais en même temps t’vois: j’me dis: euh: qu’l’aquarelle c’est pas L c’est un art mineur P pour lui ouais: p’t’êt mais L ben ouais mais enfin (.) c’est pas non plus un artiste euh: majeur ((rires))

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

P L P L P L

well (.) and (.) y’know er: I tell myself there’s every chance he won’t like it you’ve got to be kidding yeah but at the same time you see: I tell myself er: water colours aren’t it’s a minor art for him yeah: maybe but yeah but come on (.) he isn’t an er: major artist either ((laughter))

In this example, P is talking to her friend L about a present of watercolours that she bought the day before for her boyfriend A. Before this

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extract she had confided in L, telling her that things were not going well between them at the moment, that he seemed to always be in a bad mood, and that everything she did seemed to get on his nerves. In the first turn, she expresses her fear that he will not like her present. Her friend protests loudly (line 3). P reiterates her misgivings, implying vaguely that watercolours may not be “good enough” for him, a statement that L reformulates clearly for her: he thinks that it is “a minor art”. P agrees but is nevertheless about to try and justify her choice (line 7) when her friend butts in, stating flatly that A is not a “major artist” (line 8), and opposing this statement clearly to the previous assertion that watercolours are “a minor art”. While the linguistic contrast between minor art and major artist makes both of them laugh, it is also very clearly a way for L to come to the rescue of her friend and create complicity against the grumpy boyfriend: if he is not a “major artist”, then her “minor art” present should be good enough for him. The following representative example from the Australian data illustrates the common use of threatening the addressee’s face for the sake of humour, at the same time creating an absurd episode to which all parties contribute, escalating the scenario further. R has stepped on something which is now embedded in his foot, but he will not let his wife D attempt to remove it. (8) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Denise Ron 2–greet D it’s all (.) the thing’s going to be festering he won’t let me operate K mmm R she does it with a carving knife K ((laughter)) can I watch? D ((laughter)) G I’ll have a go R ((inaudible)) K let’s all, actually let’s all try it ((inaudible)) D well I got it, got the piece of glass out last time R I had to go to the doctor’s and get a hundred stitches D yeah right K ((laughter)) but you have to get it out cause if it’s R well there mightn’t be anything in there K [but you need to know] D [well (you need to ???)] investigate there must be

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24

R D R D R

because it wouldn’t be festering = = maybe you could investigate look at her face light up no

it’s all ??? I reckon it will be puss-y tomorrow nu:rse D

D is explaining to the hosts G and K in line 1 that R will not let her “operate”. This sets the tone for the absurd scenario that follows, since D is not a nurse, but has referred to her assistance as operating. R builds on this incongruous image by mocking D in front of the others, claiming that she conducts her “operations” with a carving knife. K and G escalate the scenario in lines 5-9, initially by K suggesting that she would like to watch the “operation”, then by G who says he would also like to participate, then again by K, who suggests everyone should attempt the “operation”. This brings to mind an absurd image of three inept friends inexpertly operating on R with a carving knife. When D protests in line 11, by announcing that she successfully assisted R the previous time he had a similar problem, R responds immediately by claiming (clearly falsely) that he had to get a hundred stitches afterwards. There is a brief attempt to be serious about the situation in lines 14-18, before R mocks D once again in lines 19-20 and 22, implying that D takes pleasure in being sadistic towards him. D continues her protests in lines 21 and 23 however, in an attempt to defend herself. R concludes the scenario with a sarcastic reference to D as Nurse D. The speaker/target/recipient interplay is important here too. It is possible that R is to some extent playing out before the audience (which includes another male) his resistance to being controlled in public by his wife.10 What we see in these two examples are the contrastive uses of various dimensions of our model in play. We will address the four dimensions in turn, whilst also making references to the underlying ethos and cultural values of the two cultures under examination.

6.1. The speaker/target/recipient interplay We saw in section 5.2 that in our data, the Australians showed a marked preference for recipient-oriented humour and creating complicity with the other participants by threatening another’s face for the sake of humour (46% of examples). This “mock impoliteness” (or “rubbishing

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your mates”, Goddard 2006: 81-83) in Australian interaction in fact displays affection and familiarity and creates solidarity: it shows that the relationship can withstand teasing and recipient-oriented humour. In her book Watching the English: the hidden rules of English behaviour, Fox (2004: 401) claims that the central core of Englishness is “social dis-ease” (“a congenital disorder ... discomfort and incompetence in ... social interaction”), and that the all-pervasiveness of humour in everyday life and interaction is a reaction to this, and a way of dealing with social awkwardness and “fear of intimacy”. Whether Australians have inherited this English “social dis-ease” is a debate which will not be entered into here, but it cannot be denied that humour is just as prevalent in Australian interaction, and that recipient-oriented humour is frequently used as a means of creating solidarity.11 The French, on the other hand, used very little recipient-oriented humour (17% of examples), preferring to reinforce complicity at the expense of an absent third party via third-party oriented humour (43% of examples). This discrepancy can be explained in two ways. One is that a large proportion of the Australian examples where the target is the addressee are, in fact, instances of mock aggression, with the number of exchanges where the humour is actually associated to some form of real FTA being in the minority. It is the relative absence of the “mock aggression” form of humour in the French data which accounts for an overall smaller amount of recipient-oriented examples of humour. The other is that, as we have seen, this “mock aggression” is often a way for Australians to show their affection in an unsentimental way. It has been shown in the French corpus that the participants appear comfortable stating their affection for each other and indeed seem compelled to display it, as is clear in the effusive nature of the greetings and compliments on each other’s appearance, for example (cf. Béal & Traverso 2010). In this context, affection is expressed in a straightforward way and third-party oriented humour is used to reinforce the “mutual admiration society” aspect of the relationship. This seems a specific feature of the French corpus. Other examples of French humour collected in the workplace on the other hand, showed many occurrences of recipient-oriented as well as third-party oriented subversive humour (Béal 1994: 229-254). These culturally specific tendencies are evident in the above examples: in the French example, L creates complicity with P through her humoristic remarks about L’s boyfriend’s artistic ability; while in the Australian

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example, R uses an FTA to mock D for her lack of nursing ability and her supposedly sadistic tendencies, and K and G display solidarity with D, by suggesting they would like to watch and even join in with the “operation” on R.

6.2. The language dimension: humour devices The Australian preference for deadpan jocular irony (Goddard 2006) is also evident in example (8). The lack of laughter on the part of R is evidence of this deadpan delivery. The laughter in this extract comes from the other participants at all times. This tendency can be seen in most of the examples here, and is rather different from the examples in the French data, where laughter occurs more frequently, and usually accompanies the humorous remark, as in example (7).12 According to Goddard (2006: 8889), this deadpan jocular irony is designed to provide an understated and unemotional device for displaying solidarity (see 6.1 above), and to test the alertness of the recipient: will he/she realise that this is not intended as serious and respond accordingly? We noted earlier (Table 2) the preference of the French speakers in our data for linguistic play. There is a long tradition in French culture of appreciating cleverness with words, both in literature (cf. e.g. Cyrano de Bergerac), and in everyday life. This means that French linguists who examine humour spend a sizable amount of their research concentrating on the subtle differences between various “procédés linguistiques” (‘linguistic devices’), e.g. jeu énonciatif (‘enunciative play’), jeu sémantique (‘semantic play’) (Charaudeau 2006), jeu sur les signifiants (‘play on form’, ‘wordplay’), or jeu sur les registres de langue (‘play on register’) (PriegoValverde 2003). On the other hand, the Australians in our data prefer the use of incongruity and fantasy humour. Both of these preferences are found in the above examples. The wordplay on art mineur and artiste majeur (‘minor art’ and ‘major artist’) illustrates this in the French example, as does the absurd fantasy scenario created in the Australian example. Jones & Andrews (1988: 74) comment on this frequent element in Australian humour: “Alongside the bleak, reductive note in Australian humour is an element of fantasy and exuberance expressed in the exaggerations of the tall story”.

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6.3. The pragmatic functions .

As we saw in section 5.4, humour generally contributes to solidarity. The main difference in the pragmatic functions of the humour in the two examples lies in the speaker/target/recipient interplay (cf. 6.1). What we see in the Australian example (8) is an occurrence of humour threatening the other’s face simply for the sake of humour and to make the others laugh: R’s mock challenges and impoliteness towards D are to entertain and create complicity with the listeners. What is also in evidence here however, is the well-known underlying importance in Australian culture of not taking oneself too seriously (Goddard 2009), and the related egalitarian ethos which endorses the presentation of oneself as “ordinary” and not in any way special and more interesting or better than anyone else (Goddard 2009: 41). R uses humour to immediately deflect unwanted attention and any concern or sympathy for his foot. The solidarity and complicity in the French example (7) is created at the expense of an absent third party. It reinforces social cohesion: “La fonction ludique s’exerce aux dépens de ce qui est extérieur au système, elle constitue une force centripète qui tend à renforcer le système formé par les interactants” (‘The playful function takes place at the expense of everything in the out-group; it acts as a centripetal force which tends to reinforce the system created between the participants’, AndréLarochebouvy 1984: 175). Humour of this kind usually contains a real threat to the third party’s face, which is made acceptable in the name of witticism. This “us versus them” attitude can also be seen as one of the facets of “l’expression du moi” (Béal 2010: 364-380): in other words, the spontaneous outbursts of emotion and the expression of (even outlandish) opinions, which seems much more tolerated in French culture than in the English speaking world (cf. Mullan 2010, 2012).

6.4. The interactional dimension As we saw in section 5.5, there are three main types of sequential humour in interactions, with most culturally specific differences occurring in the Australian preference for co-construction of imaginary and absurd scenarios that escalate and take on a “life of their own”, where the participants contribute humour over several turns. While such examples do exist in the French data, the scenarios were never developed or escalated to the

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same extent as in the Australian data. This trend seems to be confirmed by other studies. In her entire corpus of conversations between friends, Priego-Valverde (2003: 177) found only one example of an extended scenario, which occurred around a question within a game of Trivial Pursuit, a context which lends itself to outbursts of silly behaviour. From an interactional point of view, French humour in our corpus more often than not takes the form of repartee. Example (8) above illustrates Australian co-construction throughout the entire extract, with an escalation within an escalation in lines 4-8. Jones & Andrews (1988: 63) attribute this preference for escalating absurd humour to what they refer to as bush tradition, where during the days of settlement, Australian bushmen were supposed to try their best “to tell a bigger outback lie than the best bush liar”, no matter how absurd or fantastical, although balanced with dismissive irony.

7. Conclusion We hope to have shown that existing theories and traditional complex and heterogeneous folk categories of humour such as jokes, anecdotes and wordplay are not suited to the type of discourse based cross-cultural and interactional analysis of humour required for our corpora. While useful for describing certain aspects of our analysis, these terms are more appropriate for well-defined contexts than for a comparative analysis of cross-cultural data collected during social visits among friends, which, as has been shown, presents a large variety of different forms of humour. Instead, we have proposed a model more suited to our needs, which does not focus on narrowly defined categories, but on wider parameters that can be combined to offer different angles for comparison. We have argued that all examples of conversational humour should be analysed from the point of view of four concurrent dimensions, although at any one time one of them may seem more prominent than the others. As illustrated in the analysis, these four dimensions are meant for use in two different ways. Focusing on just one dimension when comparing examples crossculturally reveals differences between the languages-cultures. Focusing on all four dimensions at once provides a grid for the comparability of the examples and highlights the emergence of culture-specific configurations. Using this four-dimensional model to analyse several examples from the corpora, we have shown how humour is created interactionally over

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several turns, and discussed a number of similarities and differences in the way French and Australian English speakers use conversational humour in social visits. The model shows some marked similarities, demonstrating that very similar discursive contexts tend to trigger similar responses and uses of humour in the two cultures. The model also reveals some more general cultural differences in the use of humour, due to the different underlying logic in the two systems. These include the Australian preference for mock aggressive recipient-oriented humour versus the French preference for third-party oriented humour, the preference of the French for linguistic play and the Australian preference for the use of incongruity and escalated absurd humour. The analyses were then linked to the respective underlying ethos and cultural values of the participants; for example, Australian humour can be linked to the general importance of not taking oneself too seriously, and the related egalitarian ethos which endorses the presentation of oneself as ordinary and no better than anyone else. On the other hand, French humour seems tied to the more general need in French culture to project a self-image as being sharp, witty, and opinionated, while at the same time chaleureux (‘warm hearted’), i.e. making a show of one’s positive feelings towards one’s friends even, if need be, at the expense of outsiders. On a final practical note, mastering another culture’s humour is one of the most complex, and yet vital, social skills second language learners have to acquire. We hope that this analysis has shed some light on the French and Australian approaches to humour, and may equip learners to better navigate the different interactional systems.

Notes 1 We use the notions of “interaction types” and “activity types” as defined in Kerbrat-Orecchioni & Traverso (2004): their “interaction types” are comparable to Hymes’ (1972) “speech events” or Levinson’s (1992) “activity types”; their “activity types” are characterised in reference to “genres” or “models of local activities”. For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between these models, see Traverso (2003). 2 See http://icar.univ-lyon2.fr/projets/ICOR/ICAR_Conventions_ICOR.pdf and transcription conventions at the end of this chapter. 3 French corpus: conversations between friends (Corpus Traverso); Australian corpus: conversations between friends (Corpus Béal/Mullan). 4 All Australian participants identify as “Anglo-Australian”, i.e. of Anglo-Celtic descent.

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Cf. Charaudeau (2006: 40): “Il peut s’ériger en genre lorsqu’il s’annonce et se donne à consommer pour tel: dans les recueils d’histoires drôles, dans les sketches humoristiques [etc.]”, i.e. ‘It can claim to be a genre only when it signposts and packages itself as such: a compilation of funny stories, stand-up comedy [etc.]’. 6 Humour can of course occur on solemn occasions, but would usually be considered inappropriate. 7 Shardakova (2012: 219) found that the Russian speakers in her corpus engaged in “copious self-deprecation”; an example of the importance of “playful whining” in Russian culture (2012: 223). 8 It must be pointed out, however, that two or more of the listed devices are often combined to create humour, esp. when an episode stretches over several turns. 9 Another example of this can be found in Béal & Traverso (2010: 24). 10 Our thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation. The reviewer also pointed out that there may be an additional layer of significance in this example: between marriage partners (such as D and R), the “mock insult” may represent more than simple teasing; it may indicate underlying issues of contested power and control. It was pointed out that humour also involves power and/or control: to this end degradation often forms part of Australian humorous exchange (cf. Davis 2009). In this example, R ridicules his would-be nurse partner by downgrading her previous work to using a carving knife (i.e. crude surgery) requiring 100 stitches to repair. This is mock impoliteness and ironic, but it also involves degradation. 11 Cf. also jocular mockery (Haugh 2010), banter, jocular abuse and mock impoliteness (Haugh & Bousfield 2012). 12 Cf. also Béal & Traverso (2010) for differences in the way laughter accompanies “threshold exchanges” in the French and Australian corpora.

References André-Larochebouvy, D. 1984. La conversation quotidienne. Paris: Didier-Crédif. Attardo, S. 2003. “Introduction: the pragmatics of humor”. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1287-1294. Attardo, S. 2008. “Semantics and pragmatics of humor”. Language and Linguistics Compass 2. 1203-1215. Bailey, B. 1997. “Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters”. Language in Society 26. 327-356. Béal, C. 1992. “Did you have a good weekend? or why there is no such thing as a simple question in cross-cultural encounters”. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 15. 23-52. —. 1993. “Les stratégies conversationnelles en français et en anglais: conventions ou reflet de divergences culturelles profondes?” Langue française 98. 79-106.

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—. (2009). “Not taking yourself too seriously in Australian English: semantic explications, cultural scripts, corpus evidence”. Intercultural Pragmatics 6. 29-53. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Fox, K. 2004. Watching the English: the hidden rules of English behaviour. London: Hoddon & Stoughton. Haugh, M. 2010. “Jocular mockery, (dis)affiliation and face”. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 2106-2119. —. 2011. “Humour, face and im/politeness in getting acquainted”. In B. Davies, M. Haugh & A. Merrison (eds.), Situated Politeness. London: Continuum. 165-184. Haugh, M.; Bousfield, D. 2012. “Mock impoliteness, jocular mockery and jocular abuse in Australian and British English”. Journal of Pragmatics 44. 1099-1114. Hay, J. 2001. “The Pragmatics of Humor Support”. Humor 14. 55-82. Heinemann, T.; Traverso, V. (eds). 2009. Complaining in Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 41. 2381-2578. Heydon, G. 2011. “Laughing at your own jokes: the use of humour in police interviews”. Presentation to the Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, 25 August 2011. Holmes, J. 2000. “Doing collegiality and keeping control at work: small talk in government departments”. In J. Coupland (ed.), Small Talk. London: Longman. 32-61. Holmes, J.; Marra, M. 2002a. “Having a laugh at work: how humour contributes to workplace culture”. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 16831710. Holmes, J.; Marra, M. 2002b. “Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends”. Humor 15. 65-87. Hymes, D. 1972. “Models of the interaction of language and social life”. In D. Hymes & J.J. Gumperz (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 35-72. Jones, D.; Andrews, B. 1988. “Australian humour”. In L. Hergenham (ed.), The Penguin New Literary History of Australia. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin. 60-76. Kallmeyer, W.; Keim, I. 2002. “Linguistic variation and the construction of social identity in a German-Turkish setting”. In J.K. Androutsopoulos & A. Georgakopoulou (eds.), Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 29-46. Katsiki, S. 2002. “Politesse linguistique et communication interculturelle: le vœu en français et en grec”. Actes du VIIIe Congrès de l’Association

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pour la Recherche InterCulturelle (ARIC). Fribourg: Université de Fribourg. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://www.unifr.ch/ipg/aric/ assets/files/ARICManifestations/2001Actes8eCongres/KerbratOrecchio niCTraversoVSymp.pdf. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. 1994. Les interactions verbales, vol. 3. Paris: Armand Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C.; Traverso, V. 2004. “Types d’interaction et genres de l’oral”. Langages 153. 41-51. Lampert, M.D.; Ervin-Tripp, S.M. 2006. “Risky laughter: teasing and selfdirected joking among male and female friends”. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 51-72. Leech, G.N. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman. Levinson, S. 1992. “Activity type and language”. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (eds.), Talk at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 66-101. Moerman, M. 1996. “The field of analysing foreign language conversation”. Journal of Pragmatics 26. 147-158. Mullan, K. 2010. Expressing Opinions in French and Australian English Discourse: a semantic and interactional analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. —. 2012. “‘I couldn’t agree more, but…’: agreeing to disagree in French and Australian English”. In N. Auger, C. Béal & F. Demougin (eds.), Interactions et interculturalité: variété des corpus et des approches. Bern: Peter Lang. 319-346. Norrick, N.R. 1986. “A frame-theoretical analysis of verbal humor: bisociation as schema conflict”. Semiotica 60. 225-245. —. 1993. Conversational Joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. —. 2003. “Issues in conversational joking”. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1333-1359. —. 2007. “Interdiscourse humor: contrast, merging, accommodation”. Humor 20. 389-413. Norrick, N.R.; Bubel, C. 2009. “Direct address as a resource for humor”. In N.R. Norrick & D. Chiaro (eds.), Humor in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 29-47. Norrick, N.R.; Chiaro, D. (eds.). 2009. Humor in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Peeters, B. 1999. “Salut! Ça va? Vous avez passé un bon week-end?” Journal of French Language Studies 9. 239-257. —. 2004. “Tall poppy stuff”. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & A. Kwiatkowska (eds.), Imagery in Language: festschrift in honour of Professor Ronald W. Langacker. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 613-623.

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Pizzini, F. 1991. “Communication hierarchies in humour: gender differences in the obstetrical/gynaecological setting”. Discourse and Society 2. 477-488. Priego-Valverde, B. 2003. L’humour dans la conversation familière: description et analyse linguistique. Paris: L’Harmattan. Raskin, V. (ed.). 2008. The Primer of Humor Research. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Shardakova, M. 2012. “Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Use of Humor by Russian and American English Speakers”. In L. Ruiz de Zarobe & Y. Ruiz de Zarobe (eds.), Speech Acts and Politeness across Languages and Cultures. Bern: Peter Lang. 199-237. Tannen, D. 1981. “The machine-gun question: an example of conversational style”. Journal of Pragmatics 5. 383-397. —. 1984. Conversation Style: analysing talk among friends. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Traverso, V. 2000. “Autour de la mise en œuvre d’une comparaison interculturelle: l’exemple des actes confirmatifs dans des émissions radiophoniques françaises et syriennes”. In V. Traverso (ed.), Perspectives interculturelles sur l’interaction. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. 33-53. —. 2003. “Les genres de l’oral: le cas de la conversation”. In C. KerbratOrecchioni & V. Traverso (eds.), Les genres de l’oral. Lyon: Laboratoire GRIC - UMR ICAR, Université Lyon 2. 22 pp. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://gric.univ-lyon2.fr/Equipe1/actes/Journee_Genre/ genres_vtraverso/Traverso.doc. —. 2006a. Des échanges ordinaires à Damas. Damas/Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon/Publications de l’IFPO. —. 2006b. “Repères pour la comparaison d’interactions dans une perspective interculturelle”. Carnets du Cediscor 9. 19-55.

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Appendix Transcription conventions Symbols / = [ ] (.) (1.1) : ??? ((laughter))

{ }

Meanings final intonation (continuing) latching speech overlapping speech short pause under 0.2 seconds pause over 0.2 seconds lengthened sound or syllable unclear or inaudible speech cannot be attributed to a single speaker particular vocal production researcher’s comments (to provide more context or background information useful to the reader)

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CHAPTER FIVE HOW DO PEOPLE GIVE ADVICE IN WU CHINESE? HUIMIN XIE TULANE UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract The present study is a sociolinguistic and discourse analysis of content and linguistic features associated with the speech event of advising on choice of college and major in Wu Chinese. The data are drawn from a corpus of thirty hours of recorded advising sessions involving recent high school graduates and/or their parents talking with their families, friends, teachers and other education experts, including the local director of educational placement. The conversations are primarily in Jinyun Wu Chinese, with some code-switching into Mandarin. The content and forms are considered in relation to the variables of social distance and power relationship, where social distance refers to the degree of intimacy between the speaker and the hearer, and power relationship to the speaker’s relative social status in the community. The results indicate that, in Wu Chinese, advice-giving in this context is not a face-threatening act in Brown & Levinson’s (1987) sense; the Chinese conception of face, lian and mianzi, rather than Brown & Levinson’s approach, provides a better tool to account for the data.

1. Introduction East-Asian ESL learners tend to give advice in areas native speakers of English consider to be private; they very often do so in a direct manner on topics that are unacceptable to native speakers (Hinkle 1994, Matsumura 2001). Hinkle (1994) suggests that this type of communication failure is due to pragmatic transfer, since in societies such as Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia etc., the aim of advice-giving (or at least one of the aims) is to display and to reinforce solidarity. However, there have been no in-depth

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studies on how advice is given in the above-mentioned languages, even though a few studies do touch upon advice-giving. Matsumura (2001), for instance, points out that Japanese ESL learners manage to acquire the norms upheld by native speakers when giving advice to advisees of either equal or lower status. The fact that, according to the author, they become more direct after having lived and studied abroad in Canada for eight months, suggests that, before their immersion, Japanese ESL learners are less direct in giving advice to addressees of equal and lower status than native speakers. This seems to be in direct contradiction with Hinkle’s (1994) observation that Japanese ESL learners tend to give unwanted advice directly, due to pragmatic transfer. Feng & Feng (forthcoming), on the other hand, focus on the factors that make advice-giving effective. Their findings indicate that the impact of content features on responses to advice (i.e. features such as the feasibility of the advice and the absence of limiting factors) is not consistently the same as that of source features (e.g. expertise, trustworthiness and likability of the advisor): while content features have a stronger impact on American college students, source features carry more weight for Chinese college students, which may be attributed to cultural differences, more particularly the trend towards individualism among Americans and towards collectivism among the Chinese. But how exactly is advice-giving realised linguistically in Japanese, Chinese and other East-Asian languages? Do people offer advice in a very direct manner in these languages? The present study provides in-depth analysis of the semantic content and the linguistic features of advicegiving in Wu Chinese, using data drawn from naturally occurring speech.

2. Background 2.1. Wu Chinese The following description of Wu (ྻ宕) is adapted from Omniglot, which describes itself as “the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages” (http://www.omni glot.com/chinese/wu.htm, accessed 15 July 2013):

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Wu is a variety of Chinese spoken by about 90 million people mainly in Zhejiang (ύỤ), Shanghai (ୖᾏ), southern Jiangsu (Ụ剷), and in parts of Anhui (Ᏻᚯ), Jiangxi (Ụす, and Fujian (⚟ᘓ). Major subvarieties of Wu include those spoken in Shanghai (ୖᾏ), Suzhou (剷ⶆ), Ningbo (ᏬἼ), Wenzhou ( ᕞ), Hangzhou (ᮺᕞ), Shaoxing (乵ℜ), Jinhua (㔠⋶), Yongkang (Ọᗣ), and Quzhou (⾯ᕞ), and there are considerable differences between these subvarieties. The Suzhou variety was traditionally the most prestigious of these, however the Shanghai variety of Wu, or Shanghainese (ୖᾏ䈍), has become the most prestigious variety as a result of the size and economic dominance of Shanghai, and Wu is often referred to as Shanghainese by non-specialists. Scholars prefer to use the term Wu (੤), which comes from the name of the ancient kingdom of Wuyue (੤蚱) in what is now Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang provinces.

 Wu and Mandarin, China’s official language, are mutually unintelligible. The primary differences with Mandarin are also observed in most other Chinese languages; they are phonological and lexical, although there are some grammatical variations as well (Chao 1976: 36). For example, there are four tones in Mandarin, whereas there are eight tones in Wu (Cao 2002: 100). Another distinctive phonological feature is the three-way contrast of initial stops, which can be voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and voiced, whereas Mandarin and all other Chinese languages only have two contrasts, viz. voiceless unaspirated and voiceless aspirated (Chao 1976: 36). The lexical differences are too numerous to illustrate here since, although Wu shares much vocabulary with Mandarin, it still has many different lexical items (Chao 1976: 283). As indicated by Omniglot, even within Wu, there is great regional variation. For example, Wu as spoken in Jinyun is a distinct variety, not mutually intelligible with varieties spoken in areas that are only an hour away. Even within Jinyun county, there is dialectal variation. Among the five major towns, Wuyun, Xinjian, Xinbi, Huzhen and Panxi, there are lexical differences: e.g. in Wuyun, Huzhen, Xinbi and Panxi, the first person pronoun is [ƾu], while in Xinjian it is [d‫ܧ‬ƾ]; the second person pronoun in Wuyun is [ni], the second person pronoun in Xinjian is [deƾ].

2.2. Advice-giving: a definition Despite, or perhaps because of, the number of studies on advising in the English language (e.g. Tripathi et al. 1986, DeCapua & Dunham 1993, DeCapua & Huber 1995, Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford 1996, Goldsmith &

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Fitch 1997, Leppanen 1998, Goldsmith 2000, Goldsmith & MacGeorge 2000, Locher 2006), there is no consistency in the definition of advicegiving. Searle (1969: 67) claims that the felicity of an illocutionary act of advising can be described in terms of a propositional content, preparatory conditions, a sincerity condition and an essential condition, as follows: Propositional content Preparatary conditions

Sincerity condition Essential condition

Future act A of H (= hearer) 1. S has some reason to believe A will benefit H 2. It is not obvious to both S [speaker] and H that H will do A in the normal course of events S believes A will benefit H Counts as an undertaking to the effect that A is in H’s best interest

DeCapua & Dunham (1989: 519) define advice as “opinions or counsel given by people who perceive themselves as knowledgeable, and/or who the advice seeker may think are credible, trustworthy, and reliable”. Heritage & Sefi (1992: 368) state that “advice-giving is an overtly memorable activity, in which a person describes, recommends, or otherwise proposes a preferred course of action”. In this study, in keeping with the essence of Searle’s definition of advising (“Future act A of H [hearer]”), while also taking into consideration the fact that a piece of advice could be “opinions and counsel”, as mentioned in Decapua & Dunham (1989), advice is defined as a single utterance or a set of utterances, made by a speaker, which directly or indirectly refer to a possible future act of a hearer with a view to handling a problematic or confusing situation for which there is no existing solution or set answer.

2.3. Advice-giving in English Having provided the definition of advice-giving adopted for the purposes of this investigation, I shall now review a number of previous studies that specifically look at the linguistic content and linguistic structure of advice-giving utterances and also at the face work that accompanies advice-giving situations, all of which are at the heart of my own research on Wu Chinese. The aim is to come up with a set of research questions and assumptions underlying the analysis that will follow.

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Existing studies on advice-giving in English indicate that advice is delivered differently in different contexts. Advisors play the role of a converser and remain passive and indirect in some contexts, but become more direct and more involved in problem solving in others. In DeCapua & Dunham’s (1993) study, the advisor in the radio call-in program plays the role of a converser who either helps to sort through the advice-seeker’s thoughts or to implement decisions that have already been made. In many cases, the advice that is given in the end is not a clear-cut piece of information on what one should do but “a complex process whereby hearers (a) help callers reach their own decision as to how this problem can be solved, and (b) offer global or encompassing advice that will serve to help not only the caller, but also anyone who may be in a similar situation” (DeCapua & Dunham 1993: 227). The advisors in Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford (1996) give highly mitigated advice. The imperative is not one of the seven suggestion types, which include (1) utterances containing the verb suggest; (2) the use of the verb have, which indicate the advisor as the authority, as in “I am going to have you do such-and-such”; (3) the use of an inclusive first person plural pronoun we, by means of which the advisor acts as a representative of the institution; (4) the use of can, through which the advisor gives permission or shows possibility; (5) the use of want, by means of which the advisor speaks on behalf of the advisee; (6) the use of need, as in “you need to do such-and-such”; (7) the use of an impersonal statement, as in “here is a possibility”. On the other hand, the nurses in Leppanen (1998) appear quite active and involved in problem solving. The advice given comprises three parts: “(a) a part that proposes a course of action, (b) a set of characteristic body movements, and (c) an account that supports the proposed course of action” (Leppanen 1998: 223). Syntactically, the nurses use four different forms when proposing particular courses of action: “(a) imperatives, (b) modal verbs of obligation, (c) presentations of proposed actions as alternatives, and (d) descriptions of patients’ future actions” (ibid.: 225). When the patients are aware that there are problems, the nurses use imperatives and modal verbs of obligation. In the opposite case, they give mitigated advice. In addition, Leppanen (1998) points out that there is no simple link between form and imposition; being direct may not necessarily be more impolite than using indirect forms, which could indicate unfamiliarity, hierarchy etc.

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The garden lady in Hudson’s (1990) radio call-in program is also quite direct. The syntactic structures of the advice-giving utterances she uses include “the prototypical non-subject imperative, the agent imperative with ‘you’ subject present, pseudo-cleft constructions, the I would projection, Other as Agent constructions, and conditionals” (Hudson 1990: 290). Imperatives are used in 58% of advice-giving utterances dependent on a non-conditional clause, and in 45% of advice-giving utterances dependent on a conditional clause. However, declaratives with modality (e.g. “... and then you’ll start working from the outside”, “You should treat as needed as the problem occurs”, “You want it to be right back to the main cane”) are also considered as imperatives by Hudson (1990). The advisors in Locher (2006) use imperatives in 37% of the advicegiving utterances, thus turning advice-giving into a quite direct, facethreatening act. However, the context is a written advice-giving column posted anonymously on the internet, where people become bolder and more direct than in face-to-face exchanges or in interactions where there is immediate feedback.

2.4. Research questions and assumptions On the basis of the literature review in the previous section, I will now formulate the following three research questions, all of which are to be addressed in this paper, with special reference to Wu Chinese: (1)

Which subtypes of advice-giving utterances exist in Wu Chinese and what is their semantic contents? (2) What are the syntactic structures of advice-giving utterances in Wu Chinese? (3) What kind of relational work is accomplished in the interactions? More specifically: a. Which upgraders and downgraders occur with the advicegiving utterances? b. What is the distribution of upgraders and downgraders across advice-giving subtypes? c. What is the distribution of upgraders and downgraders across syntactic structures?

In view of the fact that advice-giving is a face-threatening act (Brown & Levinson 1987: 66), we will in addition make the two following assumptions:

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(1) The more assertive the advice-giving subtype, the fewer upgraders and the more downgraders are used. (2) The more direct the syntactic structure, the fewer upgraders and the more downgraders are used. This is all very straightforward–but it’s not all. There is an additional variable in Chinese society, and indeed in many other societies as well. Speech styles vary significantly according to social distance and concomitant social power relationships between interlocutors (Liu 2004). This is not only true in the case of face-threatening acts; it applies across the board. There are distinctive differences in verbal behaviour between family members and non-family members. For example, politeness formulas are not as often used between nuclear, close and extended family members: saying “thank you” creates distance between family members since, within a Chinese family, requesting something or asking for a favour from a family member is not considered an imposition: it is a social convention that family members assume responsibilities for each other. Similarly, there is little sense of indebtedness when a favour is done for one family member by another. Between nuclear family members and close friends in general, verbal expressions of gratitude are normally unnecessary. Rather, some friendly gestures such as buying a small gift or inviting a person to dinner are more appropriate. However, with one’s coworkers, strangers or the general public, for example, polite address terms and polite formulas such as 䈧 qing ‘please’, 哫✖֐ mafan ni ‘[I] trouble you’ and 䉒䉒 xiexie ‘thank you’ etc. are more commonly used. This is confirmed by Liu (2004: 36), who makes the following observations: x Usually, in verbal communication between family members, polite expressions and honorary terms are used with very low frequency, emotional terms (love terms and nicknames) are used with high frequency. If, in verbal communication between family members, polite expressions and honorary terms start to occur frequently, this is either indicative of a problem in the relationship or the speaker intended to express implied meanings. x In verbal communication among family members, speakers normally come straight to the point once they start to speak, with no need to beat around the bush by first going through polite exchanges. If family members start a conversation with polite exchanges and/or with unnecessary redundant speech, this indicates that a serious topic is about to be broached, or the speaker has implied meanings.

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The above observations also apply to people who are close to each other, even if they are not related: in Chinese culture, and particularly in traditional Chinese culture, when two people become friends, they assume a high degree of responsibility for each other, as can be seen from idioms such as ⭏↫ѻӔ sheng si zhi jiao ‘life and death friends’ and ࠾亸ѻӔ wen jing zhi jiao ‘(lit.) cut neck friend; life and death friend’, which imply that one would give up one’s life for a friend if necessary; and also ᛵ਼᡻䏣 qing tong shou zu ‘friends who are as close as if they were brothers and sisters’. When politeness formulas are applied frequently between close friends, this means there is a problem in the friendship or the speakers are trying to express a hidden message. Existing studies on Chinese confirm that social distance affects speech style (Li 2007, Liu 2004, Lee-Wong 1994). Li (2007) states that Chinese society is collectivist in nature, with people behaving differently towards in-group and out-group members. For example, refusals are less direct when addressed to an in-group member than to an out-group member. However, analysing the choices test subjects made in a written role play / discourse completion task, Lee-Wong (1994: 13) finds that “the closer the relationship the greater the tendency to be direct and explicit”. Li’s finding contradicts the observations made by Liu (2004) and Lee-Wong’s (1994); however, all of them indicate that in-group and out-group interactions are marked by different and distinct speech style characteristics. Returning now to advice-giving, and keeping in mind the fact that the degree of imposition of a face threatening act changes in accordance with social distance (as manifested in Brown & Levinson’s (1987: 76) formula Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx), it is only natural to expect differences in the linguistic patterns associated with advice provided by people who are on different steps of the social power ladder in Chinese society. We will therefore make three more assumptions: (3) Advisors use relatively more assertive advice-giving subtypes in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant highlow power social relationship. (4) Advisors use relatively more direct advice-giving syntactic structures in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant high-low power social power relationship. (5) Overall, advisors are more direct in advice-giving in a close highlow power social relationship than in a distant high-low power social relationship.

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In what follows, only social power relationships between a higher placed advisor and a lower placed advisee will be considered in the analysis, since the number of advising episodes involving either equality or a lower placed advisor and a higher placed advisee is too small to lend itself to meaningful findings.

3. Methodology 3.1. Data Collection After comparing the different approaches to data collection in studies of speech acts, a choice was made to collect naturally occurring data, even though it is hard to collect a large sample of data and at the same time keep tabs on variables such as age, gender, social distance and power relationship, which are not always under the researcher’s control. This makes it hard to generalise the findings, since “human behaviour is not neat, with the influence of complex and dynamic social factors” (Wolfson 1986: 690). Nonetheless, there was a clearly perceived frequency of advising episodes in a short time period during which Chinese high school graduates have to make the decision of a lifetime: which university to go to, what major to choose, what future career to embrace. Every year, on June 8 and 9, high school graduates take the national college entrance examinations. Usually, after the exam, students start to talk about which universities they want to enter, asking for advice from mentors, fellow students, parents, parents’ friends, etc. Between June 24 and 27, they must fill out the official college application forms and provide information on their preferred universities and majors, based on their scores, interests and future career intentions. The universities are ranked at five different levels, based on their quality in teaching and research. Students can select three universities from each rank; for each university, they have the opportunity to choose three majors. Besides identifying their preferred universities and majors, students can also indicate whether they are willing to take majors and pick universities other than their top three choices. If they answer in the affirmative, they might end up in universities and majors they have not previously considered if they are not admitted by their universities of choice. This is an ideal occasion to collect naturally occurring data on advising, except that it is hard to overhear the relevant utterances, since advising usually takes place during serious private conversations rather than in public. Therefore, in this study, instead of training field workers to

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eaves-drop on conversations and take field notes, participants were trained to record conversations between themselves and other people regarding their college applications. The trainees were five high school graduates, five mentors in a high school in Jinyun and two local education authorities. To protect their privacy, pseudonyms are used in what follows. The five high school graduates are Xu Yi, Zhu Li, Zhao Xin, Zhang Lu and Xu Yu. The five mentors are Ho Liang, Zhou Li, Hao Jun, Fang Ping and Xu Zhong; they teach subjects such as maths, English, Chinese and political science. One of the education authorities, Ma Cheng, is the local director of educational placement, who has been collecting college information for years and is regarded as an expert in this field by parents and teachers alike. The other one, Xia Tian, is a principal of a local vocational school. He, too, is regarded as an authority in education by the local people. For the two education authorities, I was a participant observer during the advising sessions. After agreeing to participate in the study, the students were gathered and provided with training. During the training session, they were asked to sign a consent form and given instructions on how to operate the recorders, how to obtain the consent forms from the other participants in the conversation and how to complete the demographic sheets.1 The mentors individually received related instructions. As mentors, they were to stay in close touch with the students. Every day, during morning and evening self-study hours, they were required to go and visit the students. Mentors either give assistance or get in touch with parents or other teachers if and when problems occur in students’ lives. They play parental roles while the students are at school. The demographics of the recording subjects are listed in Table 1.

3.2. Data coding and analysis All recorded speech was screened carefully. Conversations in one sitting were usually considered as single episodes. If they were excessively long, they were divided into several episodes according to the topics covered. The advising episodes in Wu, or those whose matrix language is Wu, were transcribed using Chinese characters. If no appropriate Chinese characters were found to represent a sound, IPA symbols were used. Then, the

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Name Yi Xu Li Zhu Xin Zhao Lu Zhang Yu Xu Liang Ho Li Zhou Jun Hao Ping Fang Zhong Xu Shan Xia Cheng Ma

Age 18 19 18 18 18 35 42 32 33 35 60 50

Occupation Student, high school graduate Student, high school graduate Student, high school graduate Student, high school graduate Student, high school graduate Teacher & mentor Teacher & mentor Teacher & mentor Teacher & mentor Teacher & mentor School principal Local director of educational placement

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Gender Female Female Male Male Male Male Female Male Female Male Male Male

Table 1: The demographic features of the recording subjects utterances within each conversation were tagged in terms of their semantic content (simple exchange of information, exchange of perspectives, conversation fillers). Subsequently, the pragmatic functions of the utterances were ascertained; speech acts identified included advice-requesting, advice-giving, advice-response, analysis, help-seeking, plan-sharing, background-information-exchange, emotion-sharing and small talk. For reasons of space, this article focuses on the speech act of advicegiving, with a distinction being made between the head act (i.e. “the part of the sequence which might serve to realise the act independently of other elements”, Blum-Kulka et al. 1989: 17) and supportive moves, i.e. those utterances that precede or follow the head act and intensify or mitigate its illocutionary force. The syntactic structure of the head act was examined, to establish whether it was interrogative, declarative, conditional or imperative. The term imperative is used to refer to those utterances that convey an “authorative attitude to the situation in hand” (Yip 2004: 359) and adopt the (You) + Verb (+ NP) structure. Syntactic devices such as double verb structures and Verb/Adj + be + Verb/Adj were considered to act as syntactic downgraders. Lexical, phrasal and syntactic upgraders and downgraders, on the one hand, and discourse and pragmatic upgraders and downgraders, on the other hand, refer to those lexical, phrasal, syntactic, discourse and pragmatic devices that “gratify or mitigate the impositive force of advice-giving utterances” (Zhang 1995a: 55). Upgraders and downgraders were identified, and their number in each utterance noted. As for the distribution of upgraders and downgraders across advice-giving

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subtypes and syntactic structures, the percentage of utterances of a certain subtype or syntactic structure with the same number of upgraders and downgraders was calculated. Power differences were established with reference to an individual’s occupation and age. In this context, age is the deciding factor since seniority is well respected in Chinese culture and age differences are usually obvious to the interlocutors.2 If ages were perceived to be similar, roles in a relationship and differences in occupation were taken into consideration. An individual is said to be in an unequal relationship with another if he/she is under the leadership of the other in the workplace or if he/she is or has been under the direct authority of the other, e.g. in a student-teacher relationship. Establishing differences in occupation, on the other hand, is less problematic than it may seem, as we are dealing with a small community where everybody knows everybody else, and where people know each other’s occupation. In addition, it is not uncommon for people to make enquiries about the interlocutor’s occupation in their first-time encounter. Small business owners rank lower than those who serve in government owned enterprises such as banks, schools, hospitals etc. It is due to the influence of Confucian ideology that small business owners do not qualify for prestige or power and enjoy low social status, whereas government servants, whose jobs are still the desired career choices of current high school graduates, are associated with high social status: “When profit is not emphasised, civilization flourishes and the customs of the people improve … To open the way for profit is to provide a ladder for the people to become criminals” (Lieberthal 1995: 5). As for the role of social distance in advice-giving, five different social distance groups were identified. Participants who did not know each other prior to the advising event are classified as Strangers. Those who interact for the first time, but who share common friends, are Acq1 (where Acq stands for acquaintance). Those who know each other, but go no further than to say hi or bye to each other prior to and after the conversation, are Acq2. Those with close relationships (acquaintances in a former or current student-teacher relationship, former or current colleagues, former or current classmates, or simply close friends) are Acq3. Family refers to those people who belong to a nuclear or an extended family. To assess the overall (in)directness of a particular advice-giving utterance, different values were assigned to advice-giving subtypes, syntactic structures, upgraders and downgraders. The most assertive subtype, proposing solutions, was assigned the highest value (4), followed by

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giving instructions (3), offering suggestions (2) and giving opinions (1). Among syntactic structures, imperatives received the highest value (6), followed by should-statements (5), bare declaratives (4), may-statements (3), conditionals (2) and interrogatives (1). All upgraders, whether lexical, phrasal, syntactic, discourse or pragmatic, were assigned a value of 1; all downgraders, a negative value of -1. As the relationship between social imposition and linguistic forms is not straightforward (Goodwin 1990, Leppanen 1998), resulting overall values are merely intended to show overall trends.

4. Results 4.1. Semantic subtypes of the speech act of advice-giving The advice-giving speech act was divided into four types, based on semantic content: (A) giving opinions (OPIN); (B) offering suggestions (SUGG); (C) giving instructions (INSTR); (D) proposing solutions (SOLUT). Some of the advice-giving utterances comprise more than one type. Table 2 shows that SUGG stands out as the largest group (46.1%), OPIN comes second (26.7%), INSTR third (22.3%), SOLUT last (4.9%). N %

OPIN 55 26.7

SUGG 95 46.1

INSTR 46 22.3

SOLUT 10 4.9

Total 206 100

Table 2: Distribution of advice-giving subtypes (A) Giving opinions / OPIN This category refers to judgmental or evaluative utterances relating to a given situation, with a hint at a possible future action for the advisee.3 (1) ֐⿽ᛵߥ䈫ᵜ、 (Lit.) You type situation study four-year college 㾱䘋ࡠᵜ、ᱟ䳮ో䳮ో (Lit.) Want enter DI four-year college be difficult DEGR difficult DEGR ‘In your situation, it is very difficult to enter a four-year college’ Utterance (1) stems from a conversation between Xia and Li Ye’s family. When Li’s uncle asks what type of good schools Li might qualify for, Xia responds with an evaluation of Li’s chances of entering a four-year

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college based on his knowledge of college admission procedures, implying that Li should not consider four-year colleges. (2) ⭥ᆀؑ᚟䳮ᆖో (Lit.) Electronic information hard learn DEGR ‘Telecommunications is not easy to study’ Utterance (2) is taken from a discussion about choice of major between Lu Zhang and his parents. Lu’s father comments that telecommunications is a difficult major, implying Lu should not consider pursuing it. (B) Offering suggestions / SUGG This category refers either to utterances that tentatively point out a direction for the advisee; or to utterances from which an action can be easily inferred. They come in two major types: (a) suggestions on specific majors and schools; (b) suggestions on college application strategies. (a) Suggestions made on specific majors and schools (3) ᆖ५ᱟ੖ௌ⅒ d‫ܧ‬ (Lit.) Study medicine be not like (tag question) ‘She wouldn’t like to study medicine, would she?’ (4) Ӫ㊫䍴Ⓚ㇑⨶઒, 㾱੖ v‫ܭ‬, ᆖᐕ〻, ㇑⨶઒ (Lit.) Human resources administration QP, want not PP, study engineering, administration QP ‘Human resources, [let me think], what about studying engineering?’ In (3), advisor Xia Shan suggests medical school to the addressee, Cai’s daughter. In (4), the advisor suggests two majors, human resources or engineering. (b) Suggestions on college application strategies (5) 03 ᴹ୺, ⴻᣅẓ㓯୺ⴻᣅẓ㓯ⴱ࣋ l‫ܭ‬ (Lit.) 03 have PP, look at send-file line SUG look at send-file line save energy more ‘Oh, the 2003 admission score, right, look at the admission score, it saves you time’

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ᙫᣅ le ᖂ䎧, 03 ᒤᣅẓ㓯ⴻᆓ㧛, (Lit.) Should send CptM enter first 03 year send-file score look QT TNT, ‘The first thing is to make sure your score meets the school’s minimum requirement. First, look at ’03 admission score’ ㅜӄᢩ᮷、઒ (Lit.) The fifth rank liberal arts QP ‘A fifth ranking liberal arts school?’ In (5), advisor Cheng Ma suggests that the advisee should look at the minimum score requirement of a potential school rather than the mean score. (6) ֐㤕᧕䘁ోᴰྭᱟ㧛ປྭ l‫ܭ‬ (Lit.) You if close DEGR better be not fill better ‘If you are close, it’s better not to apply’ ᧕䘁ో㧛ປྭ l‫ܭ‬ (Lit.) Close DEGR not fill better ‘Close, better not to apply’. ‫ܧ‬എ‫ׯ‬ᱟᡁ⨝䟼њ਼ᆖ઒ܳܶњକକl‫ܧ‬ (Lit.) That time just be my class in QT classmate PP he QT brother PP ‘Last time, my classmate’s brother, who got 50 above the cut-off, ... ܳܶ઒䎵䗷࠶ᮠ㓯ӄॱࠐࡊࡊdzܶ⋑ਆкా༽䈫аᒤ (Lit.) He PP surpass score line fifty just be not admit DI DP re-study one year ‘... was not admitted, so he had to study for another year’ In (6), Dou Chang, a high school senior and a friend of Yu Xu’s, suggests that Yu Xu should not apply to schools where the admission scores are only a little lower than Yu Xu’s college entrance examination scores. (C) Giving instructions / INSTR This category refers to utterances in which the advisor defines, with great confidence and authority, a future action for the advisee. The authoritative tone in these utterances leaves almost no space for the advisee to refuse. (7) ௌ⅒ᆖ५, ራ५୺? (Lit.) Like study medicine, look for medicine AUTH ‘Like to study medicine, then look for medical schools’

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In (7), the advisor, the mother of the advisee, asks the advisee to opt for medicine since he likes to study this subject. The mood particle ୺ not only emphasises the proposition that “since you like it, go for it”; it also adds the sense that “I am the authority on this; do as I say”. (8) 䛓ᐸ㤳੖䈫‫ࡂׯ‬㩭‫ܧ‬, (Lit.) Then normal university not study then cross out AUTH ‘If you are not interested in attending a Normal University, then cross that out’ 㘱ཊཊ䛓㑱 v‫ܤ‬ (Lit.) Old many many like that troublesome MP ‘Isn’t it troublesome to put so many [normal universities] here...’ In example (8), Xu Yi’s mentor asks Xu Yi to cross out those normal universities since she is not really interested. The mood particle ‫ ܧ‬conveys the sense “What’s the point? Just do as I said”. (D) Proposing solutions / SOLUT This category refers to utterances that, in a clear manner, point out a future action for the advisee to take. (9) ቭ㇑䈫‫ܤ‬㊫ (Lit.) No matter what, study that kind ‘No matter what, study that [education major]’ In (9), after a long discussion between an advisee (Xiao), the advisee’s mother (Cai) and two advisors (Shan Xia and Li Li), Cai makes a clear decision and tells Xiao, her daughter, to “just take this [education] major”. (10) Պ䇑㧛ܳܶՊ䇑 (Lit.) Accounting no matter what accounting ‘That’s it, accounting!’ In (10), after lengthy discussion and deliberation, Shan Xia makes the decision for Qiang Xu that he should major in accounting.

4.2. Linguistic features of advice-giving subtypes This section looks at the linguistic features of advice-giving subtypes: (A) syntactic structure, (B) upgraders and downgraders, (C) distribution of

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upgraders and downgraders across advice-giving subtypes, and (D) distribution of upgraders and downgraders across syntactic structures. (A) Syntactic structure The syntactic structures occurring in advice-giving subtypes include imperatives (IMP), declaratives (DEC), interrogatives (INT) and conditionals (COND). Complex and compound structures and noun phrases are grouped together under “other”, given the small number of occurrences. Declaratives are further subdivided into should-declaratives (containing a modal verb meaning ‘should’), may-declaratives (containing a modal verb meaning ‘may’) and bare declaratives (no modal verb present). As indicated in Table 3, imperatives stand out as the largest group in all advice-giving subtypes, with the exception of OPIN utterances, where declaratives (and especially bare declaratives) are more commonly used. 89% of all OPIN utterances are declaratives. Among SUGG, INSTR and SOLUT utterances, almost half are imperatives (48.4%, 47.8% and 40%). IMP

Subtypes OPIN SUGG INSTR SOLUT Total

N % N % N % N % N %

0 0 46 48.4 22 47.8 4 40 72 35

DEC should bare 2 45 3.6 81.8 10 10 10.5 10.5 7 12 15.2 26.1 0 3 0 30 19 70 9.2 34

Structures COND may 2 3 3.6 5.5 4 8 4.2 8.4 0 3 0 6.5 0 3 0 30 6 17 2.9 8.3

INT

Oth

Tot

0 3 8 8.4 0 0 0 0 8 3.9

3 5.5 9 9.5 2 4.4 0 0 14 6.8

55 100 95 100 46 100 10 100 206 100

Table 3: The distribution of syntactic structures across advice-giving subtypes (B) Upgraders and downgraders All advice-giving subtypes use upgraders and downgraders, with the exception of the SOLUT subtype, which does not use downgraders. One distinct group of upgraders are mood particles, which represent 50% of OPIN upgraders, 52.4% of SUGG upgraders, 32.4% of INSTR upgraders and 24% of SOLUT upgraders. Mood particles are also the largest group of downgraders in the SUGG and INSTR subtypes (31.1% and 33.3%).

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OPIN upgraders include a) lexical upgraders: mood particles: confidence indicators l‫ܭ‬, le, ੳ ќ; degree indicator ో ma; b) phrasal upgraders: i) truthfulness indicator ᇎ䱵ᱟ sќdzќdzќ ‘as a matter of fact’; ii) possibility indicator 㛟ᇊ kenden ‘for sure’; iii) degree indicator ᆼ‫ ޘ‬yueque ‘completely’; iv) crucial information indicator 䛓l‫ܧ‬ nalэ; c) discourse upgraders: supportive moves–reasoning. Of the 24 upgraders, 50% are mood particles, 37.5% phrasal upgraders, 12.5% discourse upgraders. SUGG upgraders include a) lexical upgraders: mood particles: crucial information indicator l‫;ܧ‬ indicators ୺ a, ଖ o, ள ne; warning indicator ହ ei; confidence indicators lѓ, ੳ e, ઒ ne; b) phrasal upgraders: i) crucial information indicator 䛓l‫ ܧ‬nalэ; ii) truthfulness indicator ᇎ䱵 rќdzќ ‘as a matter of fact’, iii) final decision indicators ㇇㖇 sѓluo ‘that’s it’ and 䛓 na ‘then’; c) discourse upgraders: supportive moves, including supporting examples, expanders and reasoning. Of the 42 upgraders, 52.4% are mood particles, 21.4% phrasal upgraders, 26.2% discourse upgraders. INSTR upgraders include a) lexical upgraders: mood particles: emphasis indicator l‫ ;ܧ‬authority indicators ୺ э, ઒ ne, અ ou ,ହ ei; b) phrasal upgraders: degree indicator 〽ᗞ sovei ‘slightly’; c) discourse upgraders: i) supportive moves; ii) sentence repetition. The observed supportive moves include expanders, reasoning, reprimand, warning and grounding. Of the 34 upgraders, 32.4% are mood particles, 5.9% are phrasal upgraders, 61.8% are discourse upgraders. SOLUT upgraders include a) lexical upgraders: mood particles: degree indicator ో ma and decision indicator l‫;ܭ‬ b) phrasal upgraders: i) final decision indicator 䛓ᱟ nadzќ ‘that is’. Of the 4 upgraders, 25% are mood particles, 50% are phrasal upgraders and 25% are discourse upgraders.

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OPIN downgraders include a) phrasal downgraders: personal opinion indicators ᡁᱟ䇢 ƾu dzќ go ‘I would say’, ᡁ䇔Ѫ઒ ƾu niai wei ne ‘I think’, ᡁ઒㿱ᶕ ƾu ne jiele ‘I feel’, ᡁᜣ⌅ ƾu xiofo ‘my thinking’, ᡁᝏࡠ ƾu gede ‘I feel’; degree indicators สᵜ jibѓ ‘basically’, ∄䖳 bi go ‘relatively’; b) syntactic downgraders: Verb/Adj + be + Verb/Adj structure; c) pragmatic downgraders: leaving thought incomplete. Of the 13 upgraders, 77% are phrasal upgraders, with 38.5% being personal opinion indicators, 15.4% degree indicators, 23.1% uncertainty indicators. 15.4% are syntactic upgraders, 7.7% pragmatic upgraders. SUGG downgraders include a) lexical downgraders: i) degree indicator ᆓ ji ‘slightly, a little’; ii) starting indicator 䎧 qi ‘first’; iii) mood particles: 1) tentativeness indicator 㧛 mo; 2) pleading indicators ઒ ne and ୺ a; b) phrasal downgraders: i) uncertainty indicators 䇢ᕇᶕ go fѓ le ‘maybe’, ྭ‫ ۿ‬hќxio ‘seem’, ᴰྭ zenhќ; ii) double verb structure; c) pragmatic downgraders: laughter, address term and incomplete thought. Of the 61 downgraders, 63.9% are lexical downgraders, with mood particles being 31.1% of the total; 29.6% are phrasal downgraders, 3.3% syntactic downgraders and 3.2% pragmatic downgraders. INSTR downgraders include a) lexical downgraders: i) degree indicator ᆓ ji ‘slightly, a little’; ii) starting indicator 䎧 qi ‘first’; iii) mood particle: tentativeness indicator 㧛 mo; b) phrasal indicators: i) uncertainty indicator ⴨ሩᶕ䇢 xio dei le go ‘relatively speaking’; ii) ᴰྭ zanhe ‘had better’; c) syntactic downgrader: double verb. Of the 24 downgraders, 66.7% are lexical downgraders, with mood particles being 33.3% of the total; 12.5% are phrasal, 20.8% are syntactic. (C) Distribution of upgraders and downgraders across advice-giving subtypes Assumption (1): The more assertive the advice-giving subtype, the fewer upgraders and the more downgraders are used. Assumption (1) is not confirmed. As shown in Tables 4 and 5, the majority of advice-giving subtypes do not use upgraders or downgraders.

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Advisors do not necessarily use more upgraders with the less assertive subtype and more downgraders with the more assertive subtype. For instance, OPIN is the least assertive advice-giving subtype, yet only 40% of the utterances use upgraders, the same as for the most assertive subtype, SOLUT. SUGG, rather than SOLUT, has the highest percentage of downgraders. SOLUT has none at all. In addition, across all advice-giving subtypes, upgraders are more likely used than downgraders. Subtypes OPIN SUGG INSTR SOLUT

N % N % N % N %

0 33 60 55 59.1 25 49 6 60

Number of upgraders 1 2 3 1-3 20 2 0 22 36.4 3.6 0 40 34 4 0 38 36.6 4.3 0 40.9 20 4 2 26 37.3 9.8 3.9 51 4 0 0 4 40 0 0 40

Total 55 100 93 100 51 100 10 100

Table 4: Distribution of upgraders across advice-giving subtypes Subtypes OPIN SUGG INSTR SOLUT

N % N % N % N %

0 44 80 57 61.3 36 49 10 100

Number of downgraders 1 2 3 1-3 Total 9 2 0 11 55 16.4 3.6 0 20 100 14 18 4 35 93 15.1 18.3 5.4 38.7 100 7 7 1 15 51 13.7 13.7 2 29.4 100 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 100

Table 5: Distribution of downgraders across advice-giving subtypes (D) Distribution of upgraders and downgraders across syntactic structures Assumption (2): The more direct the syntactic structure, the fewer upgraders and the more downgraders are used.

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The results of an examination of the distribution of upgraders and downgraders across syntactic structures, as indicated in Tables 6 and 7, do not confirm assumption (2). Advisors do not necessarily use upgraders more sparingly in more direct syntactic structures. For example, 59.7% of all utterances using IMP, the most direct syntactic structure, contain upgraders. With no other syntactic structure, direct or indirect, are upgraders that commonly used. The distribution of downgraders, on the other hand, conforms to expectation: the more direct the syntactic structure, the more downgraders are used: 47.2% of IMP utterances use downgraders, 25.3% of DECs, 23.5% of CONDs, and 0% of INTs. Across syntactic structures, more upgraders than downgraders are used: 37.5% more in INTs, 23.5% more in CONDs, 12.5% more in DECs, 12.5% more in IMPs. It seems that advisors, in this context, are not trying to mitigate the imposing force of the advice-giving utterances when the syntactic structure they use is direct. Syntactic structure N INT % N COND % N DEC % N IMP %

0 5 62.5 9 53 61 64.2 29 40.3

Number of upgraders 1 2 3 1-3 1 2 0 3 12.5 25 0 37.5 7 1 0 8 41.2 5.9 0 47 28 5 1 34 29.5 5.3 1 35.8 38 4 1 43 52.8 5.6 1.4 59.7

Total 8 100 17 100 95 100 72 100

Table 6: Distribution of upgraders across syntactic structures Syntactic structure INT N % COND N % DEC N % IMP N %

0 8 100 13 76.5 71 74.7 38 52.8

Number of downgraders 1 2 3 1-3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 4 11.8 11.8 0 23.5 18 6 0 24 18.9 6.3 0 25.3 10 17 7 34 13.9 23.6 9.7 47.2

Total 8 100 17 100 95 100 72 100

Table 7: Distribution of downgraders across syntactic structures

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5. Social distance and advising 5.1. Social distance and advising subtypes Assumption (3): Advisors use relatively more assertive advice-giving subtypes in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant high-low power social relationship. Assumption (3) is not confirmed. In all relationships, 50% or more of all advise-giving utterances are assertive (either SUGG, INSTR or SOLUT) and refer to a future act of the advisee. The percentage is highest among Strangers (100%) and Family members (81.4%), i.e. interlocutors with a high-low power social relationship that is either maximally distant or maximally close. In Acq3, 72.3% of utterances fall under SUGG, INSTR and SOLUT, in Acq1 65.2%, and in Acq2 50%. Social distance N Strangers % N Acq1 % N Acq2 % N Acq3 % N Family % N Total %

OPIN 0 0 16 34.8 3 50 25 27.7 11 18.6 55 26.1

SUGG 1 10 28 60.9 3 50 44 48.9 19 32.2 95 45

Subtypes INSTR SOLUT 9 0 90 0 0 2 0 4.3 0 0 0 0 18 3 20 3.3 24 5 40.7 8.5 51 10 24.2 4.7

Total 10 100 46 100 6 100 90 100 59 100 211 100

Table 8: Social distance and advice-giving subtypes

5.2. Social distance and syntactic structures Assumption (4): Advisors use relatively more direct advice-giving syntactic structures in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant high-low power social relationship.

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Assumption (4) is not confirmed. Advisors do not necessarily use more direct syntactic structures in a close high-low power social relationship than they do in a distant high-low power social relationship. As indicated in Table 9, among Strangers, 90% of the utterances use relatively more direct syntactic structures, with 30% in imperatives and 60% in “should-declaratives”; imperatives and “should-declaratives” make up 48.9% of the utterances in Acq1, 16.7% of the utterances in Acq2, 43.4% of the utterances in Acq3, 44.7% among Family members.

Social distance Strangers

Acq1 Acq2 Acq3 Family Total

N % N % N % N % N % N

IMP 3 30 15 34.9 1 16.7 32 35.6 21 44.7 75

DEC

Syntactic structure COND INT

should

bare

may

6 60 6 14 0 0 7 7.8 0 0 20

0 0 17 40 2 33.3 30 33.3 22 46.8 72

0 0 1 2.3 0 0 5 5.6 0 0 6

0 0 0 0 1 16.7 10 11.1 4 8.5 16

0 0 3 7 1 16.7 2 2.2 0 0 9

Oth

Tot

1 10 1 2.3 1 16.7 4 4.4 0 0 13

10 100 43 100 6 100 90 100 47 100 211

Table 9: Distribution of syntactic structure across different social relations

5.3. Social Distance and Overall Directness Assumption (5): Overall, advisors are more direct in advice-giving in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant high-low power social relationship. The results do not confirm assumption (5). As indicated in Table 10 (overleaf), all advice-giving utterances among Strangers are clustered towards the direct end of the continuum and all those among Acq2 towards the indirect end. Among Acq1, 40.9% of all utterances are clustered towards the direct end, among Acq3 50%, among Family members 49.3%.

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Social distance Strangers Acq1 Acq2 Acq3 Family

N % N % N % N % N %

Directness of advice-giving 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-11 Total 0 0 8 2 10 0 0 80 20 100 2 25 18 1 46 4.3 54 38.7 2.2 100 1 5 0 0 6 16.7 83.3 0 0 100 6 39 37 8 90 6.7 43.4 41.1 8.9 100 4 26 22 7 59 6.8 44.1 37.4 11.9 100

Table 10: Overall directness of advice-giving across social distance types

6. Summary and discussion In spite of its limitations (partly brought about by a small sample of participants and insufficiently diverse backgrounds, especially in the social distance group referred to as Strangers), this study has shed some light on the linguistics of advising in Wu Chinese. More specifically, it has shown how Wu speakers give advice concerning choice of college and major, taking into account variables of social distance and power relationship. Based on the examination of 30 hours of recorded naturally occurring conversation, it was found that in the context of asking for advice on choice of college and major, Wu speakers give advice by (1) giving opinion on a given school, major or advisee’s choice; (2) offering suggestions as to what might be a good school or major for an advisee; (3) giving instructions to the advisee as to what path to embark on; (4) offering solutions after lengthy discussion and exchange of information. Suggestion-offering (SUGG) stands out as the largest group (46.1% of all advicegiving utterances). Opinion-giving (OPIN) is the second largest group (26.7%), instruction-giving (INSTR) the third largest group (22.3%) and solution-proposing (SOLUT) the smallest group (only 4.9%). In addition, advisors do not necessarily use fewer upgraders and more downgraders with the more assertive subtypes. In comparison with the advice-giving in DeCapua & Dunham’s (1993) radio call-in program, Wu Chinese advisors in an academic setting take a rather active role in problem solving since the majority (73.3% of the advice-giving utterances, as indicated in Table

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1) directly refer to a future act for the advisee to embark on, while in the radio call-in program the hearer or advisor sits back and lets the caller solve their own problems, with the ultimate advice, in many cases, not being a clear-cut indication as to what one should do but “a complex process whereby hearers ... help callers reach their own decision as to how [their] problem can be solved” (DeCapua & Dunham 1993: 327). In addition, the advisors in our sample are not afraid of sharing their own personal opinions, which is different from He’s (1994: 299) findings according to which the advisors refrain from “offering personal attitudes or feelings” and choose “not to make decisions for the students so that the students can develop their own decision-making”. The syntactic structures associated with advice-giving in Wu Chinese are imperatives, declaratives (either bare, or involving a should-like or a may-like modal verb), conditionals, interrogatives and a few compound and complex sentences and noun phrases. Imperatives and shoulddeclaratives make up almost half of the advice-giving subtypes except in opinion-giving. In addition, advisors do not necessarily use fewer upgraders and more downgraders with the more direct syntactic structures. Thus, from a linguistic perspective, advice-giving on choice of college and major in Wu Chinese is rather direct, compared to the study of face-to-face advice-giving in English carried out by Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford (1996), in which imperative sentences are not listed as a technique used to offer suggestions. Hudson (1990) and Locher (2006), on the other hand, did identify a relatively high percentage of imperatives in their data, but neither looked at face-to-face interactions, which may explain why their subjects turned out to be less adverse to speech of a relatively direct nature. In addition, as mentioned earlier, Hudson’s imperatives also included declaratives with a modal component. My own findings are consistent with Blum-Kulka’s (1987: 54) comment that there is no linear relationship between indirectness and politeness and that in societies which emphasise “group-bonding” rather than “non-involvement”, directness is not necessarily impolite, since being direct provides evidence of “sincerity and truthfulness in interpersonal relations”. As is well known, Chinese society is very much group-oriented. The use of hints is not common, since hints are considered to be a sign of hypocrisy; instead, as argued by Lee-Wong (1994: 13), “impositives are perceived as socially appropriate norms”.

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On the other hand, this research also suggests that advice-giving is not a face-threatening act, contrary to what is argued in Brown & Levinson (1987: 66), where it is claimed that advice “threatens the addressee’s negative face want by indicating that the speaker does not intend to avoid impeding H’s freedom of action”. The advisors in our sample do not hesitate to give direct advice even to strangers, thereby threatening the hearer’s autonomy, as 73.3% of the advice-giving utterances explicitly refer to a future act to be taken on board by the hearer (see Table 2). This, then, raises the question whether Brown & Levinson’s (1987: 61) conception of face, viz.: the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself, consisting in two related aspects: (a) negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction̢i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition; (b) positive face: the positive consistent self-image or “personality” (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants

applies in the context of advice-giving in Chinese society. The fact that advisors adopt relatively more assertive subtypes of advice-giving indicates that they are not consciously trying to avoid threatening the advisee’s negative face. Such a communicative strategy is contradictory to the precepts of Chinese culture and Confucian ideology, one of whose core teachings is “what you yourself do not desire, do not do to others”–not to mention its emphasis on maintaining social harmony (Goldin 2005), if indeed advice-giving is a face threatening act in Chinese society. This is in line with Gu (1990)’s observation that Brown & Levinson’s conception of face does not account for his Chinese data. The Chinese notion of face, represented by two words, 䶒ᆀ mianzi and lian, provides a much better fit.4 Mianzi stands for prestige or reputation, which is achieved through getting on in life (Hu 1944: 45) or conferred (or even imagined) by other members of one’s own community (Ho 1975: 869-870). Lian refers to “the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation”; it embodies “the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character” and it is “both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction” (Hu 1944: 45). When advisors do their best to give advice in a clear and direct manner and to the best of their knowledge, they are maintaining the face (mianzi) given to them by their community, of which the advisees are part; doing otherwise would be ђ䶒ᆀ diumianzi, i.e. result in a loss of face for the advisor, who would appear incompetent and unworthy of the trust of the 㝨

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community and the advisees. Furthermore, clear and direct advice is also beneficial to the advisee’s mianzi since it shows that the advisor genuinely cares about his or her concerns and tries to work out a solution for the problem he/she faces. Brown & Levinson’s (1987) notion of face, on the other hand, places too much emphasis on autonomy, i.e. on negative face. Hu’s (1944) 㝨 lian and 䶒ᆀ mianzi do not similarly emphasise autonomy. According to Hernández-Flores (1999: 38), who has studied advice-giving in European Spanish, politeness “should not just emphasize autonomy, but affiliation” and “can be used for enhancing and strengthening the interactants’ relationship in accordance with the particular ideology of the group”. My research shows that advisors are not necessarily more direct in advice-giving in a close high-low power social relationship than in a distant high-low social power relationship. This observation confirms Wolfson’s (1989) claim that directness is not positively correlated with social distance: in our sample, it is observed among either intimates or strangers, with indirectness being preferred among acquaintances. It is noteworthy, though, that such discourse behaviour is in direct contradiction with LeeWong’s (1994: 13) finding that “the closer the relationship the greater the tendency to be direct and explicit”. The contradiction may stem from the inherent limitations of our own study, and in particular from the smallish number of participants classified as Strangers. Of course, the fact that the advisors are delivering their advice in a clear and direct manner even to advisees who are strangers can also be attributed to Chinese society being a Renqing society, which “emphasizes the value of maintaining personal harmony and social order among persons situated in hierarchically structured relationships” (Huang 1987: 946). Jinyun is a relatively closed community, where most people know each other. Community members are closely associated with one another; even between two strangers, there might be potential common friends.

7. Implications and suggestions for further research The results of this study have strong theoretical implications for speech act theory, for the concept of politeness and its relation to indirectness, and for the connotations of face. First of all, the study indicates that advising is not as simple a speech act as Brown & Levinson (1987) would have it. Rather, it is a “complex speech act in which many sophisticated and culture-bound social, linguis-

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tic, and behavioural concepts come into play” (Hinkle 1994). As we have indicated, advising involves advice-initiation, advice-giving, adviceacceptance and advice-rejection, background information exchange, analysis etc. Secondly, in spite of its apparent similarities across cultures, the speech act of advising has different connotations in different cultures. In the context of academic advising in Wu Chinese, the speech act of advice-requesting is not face threatening towards the advisor; rather, it is face enhancing towards the advisor. Similarly, advice-giving is not a face threatening act towards the advisee, but a face enhancing one. Thus, the result of this study supports Wierzbicka’s observation that “studies in speech acts have suffered from an astonishing ethnocentrism” (1985: 145). However, whether this applies to situations other than this academic advising context is unsure; further research is called for. I would like to argue that a face threatening act in one culture may very well be a face enhancing one in another, and that this is a result of the conceptual differences of face in different cultures: face in the English speaking Indo-European culture, according to Brown & Levinson (1987), emphasises an individual’s right of autonomy; however, face in Chinese society, I contend, emphasises a person’s right of association and need of affiliation. Nevertheless, we cannot deny the existence of negative face in Chinese society, though, I argue, it is attached to a high social power granted by the society. Thirdly, this study highlights differences in the connotations of politeness and the means adopted when displaying politeness between English speaking Indo-European culture and Wu Chinese speaking culture. I argue that, in the former, politeness emphasises respecting a person’s individuality and right of autonomy, as manifested in Lakoff’s (1975) proposed definition of what is meant by politeness, viz. “Give option”, or in Brown & Levinson’s (1987) proposed strategies of negative politeness, some of which include “Don’t presume or assume” (ibid.: 144), therefore use “question and hedge” (ibid.: 145); and “Don’t coerce H [hearer]” (ibid.: 172), so “be pessimistic” (ibid.: 173), “minimize the imposition” (ibid.: 176) and “give deference” (ibid.: 178). In the latter, politeness emphasises a person’s right of association, the want to be acknowledged as a competent and decent individual by others, as manifested in this study. I further argue that, to display politeness, English heavily relies on indirectness at the utterance level, as manifested in the frequent adoption of “interrogatives” in performing speech acts such as requests, suggestions etc. In contrast, I contend that Chinese relies more on politeness markers such as

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mood particles, assistance verbs, polite address terms etc. Thus, indirectness at the utterance level does not register as a salient politeness indicator in the mind of a Chinese speaker. However, indirectness at the linguistic interaction level does, as manifested in the use of small talk (Zhang 1995b) and supportive moves (Hong 1997). Finally, this study identifies various pragmatic functions of mood particles in Wu Chinese–even though this is just a preliminary observation and not the focus of this study. More work is required to get a full picture of the pragmatic functions of mood particles in this language. My study also has practical implications for cross-cultural communication. The results can help native English speakers understand what is really happening when a Chinese speaker of English uses imperatives in the performance of speech acts such as requests, suggestions or invitations with either a softening tone or a tag question at the end, which might sound absurdly rude to a native speaker: they are simply transferring the politeness strategies typical of Chinese speakers. The use of an imperative is not intended to be rude or offensive. For the same reason, when Chinese speakers give unwanted suggestions, they are performing an act of caring and in-group friendliness, due to sociopragmatic transfer. As argued by Hinkel (1984), Chinese speakers of English tend to volunteer advice inappropriately. The seemingly problematic and inappropriate advice given by some Chinese speakers of English is caused by differences in context as to what is considered proper for giving advice in a given culture. A perfectly appropriate situation for a Chinese to volunteer advice in a Chinese speaking environment may not be nearly as appropriate in an English-speaking one. Cross-cultural comparison of what are the appropriate contexts to give advice to people of different social relationships is also an area for further study. The results will also help native speakers of Chinese understand what is happening when an English speaker uses what sounds like a question, when very often they are performing a different speech act such as a request or a suggestion; they are not seeking information. For the same reason, when an English speaker does not jump in and give advice or provide suggestions as expected, they are also being polite in their own way, respecting the interlocutor’s right of autonomy. However, in advising students of Chinese background in an English speaking country, it is important to let them know the rationale behind the practice, otherwise the

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advisor will be seen as irresponsible, not caring, which might cause difficulties in future advising events since advisors tend to take a more active role in helping with problem-solving in Chinese culture than in Englishspeaking cultures, as shown by DeCapua & Dunham (1993) and also by He (1994). Of course, cross-cultural communication may be confusing in many different respects, all of which call for further research to help bridge the cross-cultural gap.

Notes 1

The consent form is reproduced in appendix A. The “field worksheet” is in appendix B. For further training details, see the “recording training sheet” in appendix C. 2 There are two approaches with respect to age grouping, viz. etic and emic classification (Pike 1981). The etic approach classifies groups according to decades; the emic approach classifies groups according to some common background experience. In this study, the etic approach was adopted. 3 The abbreviations used to identify the particles are as follows: DI = direction indicator, DEGR = degree indicator, QP = question particle, PP = pause particle, QT = quantative marker, TNT = tentative marker, MP = mood particle. 4 Spencer-Oatey’s (2000) social rapport framework and Haugh’s (2006) metalinguistic approach are also worth mentioning in this context.

References Brown, P.; Levinson, S.C. 1987. Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bardovi-Harlig, K.; Hartford, B.S. 1996. “Input in an institutional setting”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18. 171-188. Blum-Kulka, S. 1987. “Indirectness and politeness in requests: same or different?” Journal of Pragmatics 11. 131-146. Blum-Kulka, S.; House, Juliane. 1989. “Investigating cross-cultural pragmatics: an introductory overview”. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (eds.), Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: requests and apologies. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 1-37. ᭪ᚿ⪗ / Cao, Z. 2002. ই䜘੤䈝䈝丣⹿✲ / Nan bu Wu yu yu yin yan jiu [Phonetics and phonology of Southern Wu Chinese]. ໭ி / Beijing: ၟ≉⌘Ḏ椮 / Shang Wu Yin Shu Guan [Commerce Press].

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Chao, Y.R. 1976. Aspects of Chinese sociolinguistics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. DeCapua, A.; Findlay Dunham, J. 1993. “Strategies in the discourse of advice”. Journal of Pragmatics 20. 519-531. DeCapua, A.; Huber, L. 1995. “‘If I were you…’: advice in American English”. Multilingua 14. 117-132. Feng, B.; Burleson, B.R. 2008. “The Effects of Argument Explicitness on Responses to Advice in Supportive Interactions”. Communication Research 35. 849-875. Feng, B.; Feng, H. Forthcoming. “Examining Cultural Similarities and Differences in Responses to Advice: a comparison of American and Chinese college students”. Communication Research. Published online before print 3 January 2012, doi: 10.1177/0093650211433826. Feng, B.; MacGeorge, E.L. 2010. “The Influences of Message and Source Factors on Advice Outcomes”. Communication Research 37. 553-575. Goldin, R.P. 2005. “Confucius and the Birth of Chinese Philosophy”. In V.H. Mair (ed.), Hawai’i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. 45-50. Goldsmith, D.J. 2000. “Soliciting Advice: the role of sequential placement in mitigating face threat”. Communication Monographs 67. 1-19. Goldsmith, D.J.; MacGeorge, E.L. 2000. “The Impact of Politeness and Relationship on Perceived Quality of Advice about a Problem”. Human Communication Research 26. 234-263. Goodwin, M.H. 1990. He-Said-She-Said: talk as social organization among black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gu, Y. 1990. “Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese”. Journal of Pragmatics 14. 237-257. Haugh, M.; Hinze, C. 2003. “A metalinguistic approach to deconstructing the concepts of ‘face’ and ‘politeness’ in Chinese, English and Japanese”. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1581-1611. Hernández-Flores, N. 1999. “Politeness ideology in Spanish colloquial conversation: the case of advice”. Pragmatics 9. 37-49. Heritage, J.; Sefi, S. 1992. “Dilemmas of advice: aspects of the delivery and reception of advice in interactions between health visitors and first-time mothers”. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (eds.), Talk at Work: interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 359-417. Hinkel, E. 1994. “Appropriateness of advice as solidarity strategy”. RELC Journal 25. 71-93.

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Hu, H.C. 1944. “The Chinese concepts of ‘face’”. American Anthropology 46. 45-64. Huang, K.K. 1987. “Face and favor: the Chinese power game”. American Journal of Sociology 92. 944-974. Hudson, T. 1990. “The discourse of advice giving in English: ‘I wouldn’t feed until spring no matter what you do’”. Language & Communication 10. 285-297. Lakoff, R. 1975. Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper & Row. Lee-Wong, S. 1994. “Imperatives in requests: direct or impolite? Observations from Chinese”. Pragmatics 4. 491-515. Leppanen, V. 1998. “The straightforwardness of advice: advice-giving in interactions between Swedish district nurses and patients”. Language and Social Interaction 31. 209-239. Lieberthal, K. 1995. Governing China. New York: W.W. Norton. Li, H.L. 2007. “A comparative study of refusal speech acts in Chinese and American English”. Canadian Social Science 3:4. 64-67. Liu, B. 2004. Chinese Culture and Pragmatics of Chinese Language. Guangzhou: Jinan University Press. Locher, M. 2006. Advice Online: advice-giving in an American internet health column. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Matsumura, S. 2001. “Learning the rules for offering advice: a quantitative approach to second language socialization”. Language Learning 51. 635-679. Pike, K.L. 1981. Tagmemics, Discourse, and Verbal Art. Ann Arbor: Michigan Studies in the Humanities. Searle, J.R. 1969. Speech Acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer-Oatey, H. 2000. Culturally Speaking. London: Wellington House. Tripathi, R.C.; Caplan, R.D.; Naidu, R.K. 1986. “Accepting advice: a modifier of social support’s effect on well-being”. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 3. 213-228. Wierzbicka, A. 1985. “Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts: Polish vs. English”. Journal of Pragmatics 9. 145-178. Wolfson, N. 1986. “Research methodology and the question of validity”. TESOL Quarterly 20. 689-699. Yip, P.C.; Rimmington, D. 2004. Chinese: an essential grammar. New York: Routledge.

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Zhang, Y. 1995a. “Strategies in Chinese requesting”. In G. Kasper (ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as Native and Target Language. Honululu: University of Hawai’i Press. 23-68. —. 1995b. “Indirectness in Chinese requesting”. In G. Kasper (ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as Native and Target Language. Honululu: University of Hawai’i Press. 69-118.

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Appendix A Consent Form ਼᜿Җ 䘉њ仈Ѫ”૘䈒о䰞仈䀓ߣ”Ⲵ䈮仈ᱟᡁѪҶᆼᡀঊ༛ᆖս䇪᮷ᡰ‫Ⲵڊ‬а њ⹄ウDŽ֐ᡰ৲оⲴ䜘࠶ᱟӔ䈸Ⲵᖅ丣઼㻛䟷䇯˄ᡆ㘵ਚᱟ㻛䟷䇯˅DŽ Ӕ䈸ᖅ丣䘉䜘࠶वᤜᖅ丣઼ປ㺘єњѫ㾱ԫ࣑DŽަᖅ丣޵ᇩѫ㾱ѪаӋ ത㔅儈ṑ䘹ᤙˈᘇᝯᯩੁⲴаӋሩ䈍ˈ∄ྲ䈤ˈ㘱ᐸоᆖ⭏ѻ䰤ˈᆖ⭏оᆖ ⭏ѻ䰤ˈᆖ⭏оᴻ৻ѻ䰤ˈᆖ⭏оᇦ䮯ѻ䰤ˈᆖ⭏оަԆᇦᓝᡀઈѻ䰤Ⲵሩ 䈍ˈㅹㅹDŽ൘ᖅ丣ѻࡽˈ֐ᗇ੺䇹൘൪䈤䈍ⲴӪˈ䈤䈍޵ᇩՊ㻛ᖅ丣ˈᖅ丣 ޵ᇩ䲔‫⹄ڊ‬ウཆн㜭֌Ԇ⭘ˈ㘼фᖅ丣޵ᇩᱟ‫؍‬ᇶⲴDŽྲ᷌ᴹӪнᝯ᜿㻛ᖅ 丣ˈ䛓Ѹቡн㜭ࣹᕪDŽ䲔↔ѻཆˈ䘈㾱ປ߉аᕐᴹ‫ޣ‬൘൪ӪઈⲴᒤ喴৺㙼ъ ㅹㅹؑ᚟Ⲵ㺘ṬDŽྲ᷌ᴹӪሿҾ18ઘ኱ˈҏн㾱ᖅӔ䈸޵ᇩDŽᖅ丣ᰦ䰤ѪӾ ‫ޝ‬ᴸॱӄਧࡠгᴸаਧDŽ൘䘉ᖅ丣ᵏ䰤ˈᡁՊ㔉֐ᢃ⭥䈍ˈ䈒䰞аӋᴹ‫ޣ‬ᖅ 丣ⲴᛵߥDŽᖃᮤњᖅ丣ᐕ֌㔃ᶏਾˈ䈧ᢺᖅ丣⻱ᑖо⴨‫Ⲵޣ‬㺘Ṭ᭮൘ᤷᇊⲴ ؑሱ䟼ሱྭᒦӔ䘈㔉ᡁDŽ 䟷䇯ᱟ⭡ᡁѫᤱˈо֐аሩа䘋㹼ˈ䟷䇯޵ᇩоᖅ丣޵ᇩ⴨‫ޣ‬DŽ䟷䇯޵ ᇩҏՊ㻛ᖅ丣DŽྲ᷌֐ਚᱟн৲оᖅ丣ᐕ֌ˈ䛓ᡁՊ㔉֐ᢃ⭥䈍ᆹᧂ֐Ⲵ䟷 䇯ᰦ䰤DŽ ᡰᴹᖅ丣޵ᇩ਼ᡰᗇⲴ㍐ᶀ䜭Պ㻛ѕṬ‫؍‬ᇶˈՊ㻛࿕ழⲴ᭮㖞ྭDŽ

৲о䘉њᐕ֌㓟኎㠚ᝯ˗ྲ᷌֐൘ԫօᰦ‫ى‬㿹ᗇн㡂ᴽˈਟԕ䲿ᰦ䘰 ࠪDŽ֐Ⲵ䘰ࠪнՊሩ֐ⲴᆖҐо⭏⍫䙐ᡀԫօᖡ૽DŽ ᴹ‫⹄ޣ‬ウ৲о㘵Ⲵᵳ⳺䰞仈ˈਟԕ਼ԕлঅս઼Ӫઈ㚄㌫˖ Coordinator of Research Compliance, Office of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, (765)-285-5070 [email protected]

******

ᡁˈ–––––––––––– ਼᜿৲࣐仈Ѫ”૘䈒о䰞仈䀓ߣ”Ⲵ⹄ウоᶀᯉ᭦䳶ᐕ֌DŽᡁሩ䘉њ䈮仈ᐢ㓿 Ҷ䀓ˈᡁⲴ⯁䰞ᐢᗇࡠ┑᜿ൠ䀓ߣоㆄ༽DŽᡁ਼᜿৲о䘉њᐕ֌ᒦㆮ㖢䘉ԭ ਼᜿ҖDŽᡁҏ᰾ⲭᡁՊᗇࡠаԭ਼᜿ҖⲴ༽ঠԦ⮉ᓅDŽ ––––––––––– ৲о㘵Ⲵㆮ਽ᰕᵏ

––––––––––––– ѫ㾱⹄ウӪઈⲴㆮ

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Consent Form The purpose of the study Consultation and Problem-solving is to see how Wu Chinese speakers interact with each other. The project is to partly fulfill the requirement for my Doctoral study in English with concentration on Applied Linguistics. For this project, you will be involved in one or both processes. During the first process, first you will be also asked to get written consent from the people who might be involved in conversations with regard to college application. Then, you will be asked to record conversations between you and other adults about your or their future career orientations during the period from June, 10 till the day when college application forms are due (around July, 1st). Before the potential conversations, you will have to fill out a sheet regarding the location, time, and participants of the conversation. You will be called and asked about the recording sessions after the first day. All the recorded data should be kept to yourself, not to be shared with other people. After you finish recording, the tape and demographic sheets will be returned to the researcher in a sealed envelope together with the tape recorder. In the second process, you will be given an interview, which will also be recorded, and in which you will be asked questions related to the conversations recorded. For those who are not in charge of the recording, you will be called to have interview time scheduled (your contact information will be asked and noted while the consent form is being signed). All data will be confidential. They will be appropriately located by the researcher. The foreseeable and ill effects from participating in this project are minimal. It might add a little stress to your daily life while you are trying to have a productive conversation with your friends, teachers and fellow students making (or help others) in making a crucial decision in your life. Your participation in the study is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw from the study any time for any reason without prejudice and penalty from the investigator. Please feel free to ask any questions of the investigator before signing the Informed Consent form and beginning the study, and at any time during the study. For one’s rights as a research subject, the following person may be contacted: Coordinator of Research Compliance, Office of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, (765) 285-5070, [email protected] ****** I, ___________________, agree to participate in this research project, consultation and problem solving. I have had the study explained to me and my questions have been answered to my satisfaction. I have read the description of this project and given my consent to participate. I understand that I will receive a copy of this informed consent form to keep for future reference.

________________________________ Participant’s Signature

_________________ Date

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Appendix B Field Work Sheet Recorder’s name and number (assigned by the researcher) ___________________ Recorder’s age: Recorders’ gender: Location of the conversation: ________ Date of the conversation: ____________ Under what circumstances does the conversation take place? Starting time: __________________ Participant 1: Gender: Age:

Occupation:

Ending time: ______________________ Education background:

Relationship to you: How close are you to this person? (Please circle one.) 1. I don’t know him/her personally, but through friends or work; 2. I know of him/her, but I don’t have much interaction with him or her; 3. I know him/her, we often talk together; 4. I know her and we are pretty close, we talk about almost everything; 5. He/she is a family member. After your recording, please answer one of the two questions: 1. If you gave someone else opinion or information, please choose one of the following: A. I only told him/her what I knew; B. I only gave some suggestions based on what I knew; C. What I knew is limited; it was up to him to make decisions; D. Other; and explanation: 2. If someone else asked about your college entrance application and gave you some opinion or information for reference, you feel: A. He/She was only curious; B. He/She was only showing off; C. It was just one of the conversation topics he/she picked up; D. He/She cared about me, I was very thankful; E. Others; and explanation:

How do People Give Advice in Wu Chinese? Participant 2: Gender: Age:

Occupation:

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Education background:

Relationship to you: How close are you to this person? (Please circle one.) 1. I don’t know him/her personally, but through friends or work; 2. I know of him/her, but I don’t have much interaction with him or her; 3. I know him/her, we often talk together; 4. I know her and we are pretty close, we talk about almost everything; 5. He/she is a family member. After your recording, please answer one of the two questions: 1. If you gave someone else opinion or information, please choose one of the following: A. I only told him/her what I knew; B. I only gave some suggestions based on what I knew; C. What I knew is limited; it was up to him to make decisions; D. Other; and explanation: 2. If someone else asked about your college entrance application and gave you some opinion or information for reference, you feel: A. He/She was only curious; B. He/She was only showing off; C. It was just one of the conversation topics he/she picked up; D. He/She cared about me, I was very thankful; E. Others; and explanation: Participant 3: Gender: Age:

Occupation:

Education background:

Relationship to you: How close are you to this person? (Please circle one.) 1. I don’t know him/her personally, but through friends or work; 2. I know of him/her, but I don’t have much interaction with him or her; 3. I know him/her, we often talk together; 4. I know her and we are pretty close, we talk about almost everything; 5. He/she is a family member. After your recording, please answer one of the two questions: 1. If you gave someone else opinion or information, please choose one of the following: A. I only told him/her what I knew; B. I only gave some suggestions based on what I knew; C. What I knew is limited; it was up to him to make decisions; D. Other; and explanation:

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2. If someone else asked about your college entrance application and gave you some opinion or information for reference, you feel: A. He/She was only curious; B. He/She was only showing off; C. It was just one of the conversation topics he/she picked up; D. He/She cared about me, I was very thankful; E. Others; and explanation:

Appendix C Recording Training Sheet 1. Read the consent form. Feel free to ask questions if you have any. Sign it if you still agree to participate in the study. 2. Instructions on when and what to record: (1) The recording period will be from today (June, 11th) till the day when “College Application form” is due. (2) Bring the recorders and the consent forms with you these days. Record conversations related to “college application” as well as your or other people’s future career choice. (3) Subjects will be given 10 consent forms and 10 envelopes and the 5 demographic sheets (If more is necessary during the process, it will be provided). 3. Instructions on getting the consent forms from other participants (1) Show the consent forms to your parents, your friends, or other family members who you think you might have conversations related to your future career choice during these days; for those people who you did not have a chance to talk about the research project in advance show the consent form and have it explained and signed before the potential relevant conversation starts. (2) Explain the project to them to your best of knowledge; if you couldn’t answer questions to their satisfaction, feel free to call me or have them call me at my cell phone–138-57062197 -- so that I can talk to them. (3) If they agree to participate in the study, have them sign the consent forms. (4) Put the consent forms in the designated envelopes (envelopes will be provided); at the same time, make a note of the person’s mailing address and phone number; bring them back when you return the tape-recorders and tapes; I will make copies of the consent forms and send the copies via regular mail. 4. Instructions on the demographic sheet: (1) Fill out your own demographic information during your spare time. (2) Make a note of the approximate conversation starting time; ask the people their ages and occupations; if anyone in the conversation is below 18 years old, please do not record their conversations. (3) After the conversation, take a note of the conversation ending time. 5. Subjects will be given the voice-recorders to test the equipments. (1) Brief demonstration on how to use the recorder.

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(2) I ask two subjects to join me and form a group of three to have conversation; then I will demonstrate the whole process of obtaining the consent form. Fill out the demographic sheets. 6. Give each participant consent forms and demographic sheets. Have the participants form a group of three and practice the whole process. Get feedback from participants. Discussion on how to make effective recording, such as put the audio-recorders in places, where the conversers will not have direct contact with. 7. The subjects’ contact information (phone number, email, mail address) will be collected; the subjects will be told that they could be contacted after day one to see how the process is going; they are also advised to call me whenever issues occur. ͺǤ The subjects will be told that they will be interviewed by me orally for about 20 minutes, which will be recorded. The interview will be scheduled. (A schedule sheet will be passed around).

PART THREE HELPING THE CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNER

CHAPTER SIX A CROSS-LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO TEACHING GRAMMAR MARIKA KALYUGA MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract According to cognitive linguistic studies, abstract concepts are conceptualised through metaphors in terms of more concrete concepts. Owing to this, the syntactic properties of a lexeme may be explained through the metaphor encoded in it. The present study examines possible ways in which the cross-linguistic comparison of conceptual metaphors can help in the comprehension of grammar and, therefore, can make learning a foreign language (in this particular case, Russian) easier.

1. Introduction In recent years, conceptual metaphors have increasingly been viewed as a new means of explaining vocabulary and grammar. It should not come as a surprise, then, that many scholars have emphasised the importance of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study of conceptual metaphors for foreign language teaching (Boers 2003, 2004, Charteris-Black & Ennis 2000, Csábi 2004, Deignan, Evans & Evans 1989, Gabrys & Solska 1997, Herrera & Hite 2000, Kondaiah 2004, Kövecses & Szabó 1996, Lazar 1996). According to researchers in cognitive linguistics, our conceptual system is largely metaphorical by nature. We structure one conceptual domain (the target domain) in terms of another one (the source domain). The present paper will analyse how the syntactic structures of a lexeme can be explained by a source domain that is mapped onto it. As an

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example, I will use Russian expressions for mental activities based on the location event-structure metaphor, on the one hand, and on the object event-structure metaphor, on the other hand (Lakoff & Johnson 1999: 196). Lakoff (1987) argues that many conceptual metaphors are universal or at least very widespread across cultures. Syntactic structures of Russian expressions can be explained to English-speaking students by showing similarities and pointing out the differences with respect to how certain notions are conceptualised and linguistically expressed in Russian and in English. Such explanations will help students understand the diversity of syntactic patterns of Russian lexemes and memorise their usage. The data have been collected from several electronic sources of Russian and English. The Russian data were mainly generated from the Russian National Corpus (hereafter RNC), which contains more than 300 000 words, largely from original prose representing standard 18th century to present-day Russian. The Russian virtual library (hereafter RVL; http://www.rvb.ru), which includes a large variety of literary texts (both prose and poetry) and covers the same time span, is used to complement the main source. The English data have been collected from the standard English reference tool, the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED; http://dictionary.oed.com), as well as the parallel text section of the Russian National Corpus (hereafter RNC; http://www.ruscorpora.ru).

2. Conceptual metaphors and syntactic structures According to the location event-structure metaphor, HAVING (INCLUDING HAVING AN UNDERSTANDING OF SOMETHING) IS BEING NEAR THE OBJECT OF POSSESSION.

The conceptualisation of having as being near the object of possession is very distinctive for Russian where ‘to have’ is commonly expressed by means of the preposition u (‘to’, lit. ‘near’), with a genitive case marker on the possessor and the verb for ‘to be’ in the required form, as in (1).

(1) U menia byla mashina. (Lit.) To meGEN there was a car ‘I had a car.’

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Russian is often described as a be-language (i.e. a language which has as its main possessive construction a construction involving the verb for ‘to be’) and is therefore different from the have-languages, such as English (where the main possessive construction involves the verb ‘to have’) (Isachenko 1974). However, in English ‘being near’ is also an important source domain of the conceptualisation of understanding, and having an understanding of something is interpreted as being close to or in the middle of it. For example, according to the OED, to understand originally meant ‘to stand in the middle of’. In terms of the object event-structure metaphor, the other common conceptual metaphor, HAVING IS HOLDING. This metaphor can be traced to the English to have, which originates in the Proto-Indo-European *kap‘to grasp or to take hold of’ and to the Russian imet’ ‘to have, to possess’, which goes back in its origin to the Common-Slavic *je޾ti ‘to take, to hold’. Considering that, in many languages, having is commonly conceptualised as holding, this explains why the Russian lexeme for having an understanding of something, poniat’, is etymologically related to imet’ ‘to have, to possess’. This section aims to examine the use of cases and prepositions in the expressions based on the location event-structure metaphor and the object event-structure metaphor.

2.1. The location event-structure metaphor According to this metaphor: x KNOWLEDGE IS A DESTINATION x HAVING UNDERSTANDING/KNOWLEDGE IS BEING NEAR IT x TEACHING OR EXPLAINING IS GUIDING OR LEADING TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING/KNOWLEDGE x ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE IS FOLLOWING A TEACHER OR MOVING TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE

x HAVING FORGOTTEN SOMETHING IS BEING AWAY FROM IT These conceptual metaphors can be illustrated with many examples in both Russian and English. The conceptualisation of teaching or helping to understand as directing or leading someone towards knowledge can be traced back to the Russian nastavliat’ (from the Old Russian nastavliati ‘to direct’, ‘to teach’) (Sreznevsky 2003: 335; see example 2), podvesti k ponimaniiu ‘to explain, (lit.) to lead towards understanding’ (see example

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3), priblizit’ k ponimaniiu ‘(lit.) to bring closer to understanding’ (see example 4), as well as the English to point out in the meaning ‘to guide one’s mind in some direction’ (see example 5), to train, which goes back to ‘to pull’ or ‘to draw’ (Skeat 1901: 151; see example 6), and in educate, from the Latin ƝducƝre ‘to bring out’ (see also example 6). (2) I reshil on: “Ne budu bol’she im nichego sovetovat’ i ne budu ikh uchit’ i nastavliat’”. (M. Zadornov, RNC) ‘And he decided: I am not going to give them any advice, nor to instruct or teach (lit. direct) them.’ (3) Vse éto ia govoriu dlia togo, chtoby podvesti auditoriiu k ponimaniiu istochnikov iumora, kotorym pronizany “Dvenadtsat’ stul’ev”. (V. Kataev, RNC) ‘I am saying all this to explain to the audience (lit. to lead the audience towards the understanding of) the source of humor that runs through “12 chairs”.’ (4) Éti issledovaniia priblizili nas k ponimaniiu protsessa postepennogo formirovaniia planet iz nekotorogo pervonachal’nogo gazopylevogo oblaka, okruzhavshego Solntse, kotoroe uzhe togda bylo dovol’no pokhozhe na sovremennoe. (I. Shklovsky, RNC) ‘This research brought usACC closer to the understanding of the gradual forming of planets from some dust cloud that surrounded the sun, which at that time resembled the modern one.’ (5) The same incorrigible medical forefinger pointed out another passage in the evidence. (Ch. Dickens, OED) (6)

Our artists are not educated at all, they are only trained. (P. Ga, OED)

When understanding or learning is metaphorically described as being guided, led or moved by some force, this force is marked by the nominative case and the learner by the accusative (7). The nominative is characterised as the case used to encode the active participant and initiator of the event or motion, the action of which is directed towards the other participants, while the accusative marks a passive experiencer who is affected by the action (Coles 1983, Janda 1990, Kemmer & Verhagen 1994, Langacker 1991, Smith 1994).

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(7) Real’naia interpetatsiia iskhodnykh dannykh, bezuslovno, privedet liudei k ponimaniiu deistvii gosudarstvennogo apparata. (Keshishev, RNC) ‘Undoubtedly, the realistic interpretationNOM of initial data will bring peopleACC to an understanding of the actions of the machinery of State.’ The metaphor ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE IS MOVING TOWARDS IT is reflected in the Russian postigat’/postignut’/postich’ ‘to comprehend’ (originally ‘to arrive, to reach’) (example 8), dobrat’sia do istiny ‘to get to the truth’ (9), doiti svoim umom ‘to comprehend by one’s own effort’ (lit. ‘to come upon using one’s own intellect’) (10), idti k ponimaniiu ‘to progress to the understanding’ (lit. ‘to walk towards understanding’) (11) and priiti k znaniiu ‘to come to knowledge’ (12). (8) Zhenshchiny dolzhny by zhelat’, chtob vse muzhchiny ikh tak zhe khorosho znali, kak ia, potomu chto ia liubliu ikh vo sto raz bol’she s tekh por, kak ikh ne boius’ i postig ikh melkie slabosti. (M. Lermontov, RNC) ‘Women ought to wish that all men knew them as well as I because I have loved them a hundred times better since I have ceased to be afraid of them and have comprehended (lit. reached) their little weaknesses.’ (9) I mne nado obiazatel’no dobrat’sia do istiny. (A. Vayner, RNC) ‘And I need to understand the truth (lit. get to, to arrive at the truth).’ (10) Net, ia svoim umom doshel do étogo. (M. Bulgakov, RNC) ‘No, I reached that conclusion with my own mind.’ (11) Ved’ iazycheskie filosofy mnogie veka shli k ponimaniiu takikh ob”ektov, kak Logos ili Kosmos, Khaos ili Apeiron. (S. Smirnov, RNC) ‘For many centuries, pagan philosophers progressed to (lit. walked towards) the understanding of such objects as Logos or Cosmos, Chaos or Apeiron.’ (12) Ia, milostivyi gosudar’, chelovek ne prostoi; ia khochu, chtob ne ia prishel k znaniiu, a ono menia nashlo. (M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, RVL) ‘Dear Sir, I am not a simple man; I do not want to come to knowledge, I want knowledge to find me.’ The English expressions for understanding or learning, such as to follow meaning ‘to understand’ (13) or to creep into knowledge (14), to be

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near understanding (15), to come to understand (16), to come to a full understanding (17), to arrive at an understanding (18), as well as to learn (19) (akin to the Old English leornian ‘to follow’ or ‘to find the track’; OED) and to study (20) (from the Latin studere ‘to be pressing forward’; OED) are also based on the metaphor ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE IS MOVING TOWARDS IT OR FOLLOWING A TEACHER. (13) “But I’ll learn in time.” She did not follow him. (J. London, RNC) (14) Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. (B. Stoker, RNC) (15) At that they gazed and wondered; but they were no nearer understanding it, when the first cold stars came out. (J. Tolkien, RNC) (16) In his work she would discern what his heart and soul were like, and she would come to understand something, a little something, of the stuff of his dreams and the strength of his power. (J. London, RNC) (17) But he was now coming to a full understanding of what Gilmore was doing. (M. Connelly, RNC) (18) On one side hung a very large oil-painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal cross-lights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. (H. Melville, RNC) (19) I learned it in the Boy Scouts. (S. King, RNC) (20) I never studied it, except what we sing in choir. (W. Miller, RNC) According to Lakoff & Johnson (1999: 190), purposes are often conceptualised as destinations, and the amount of progress is metaphorically understood as the distance crossed. In relation to the conceptualisation of trying to understand or learning, these metaphorical mappings can be illustrated by the following examples (21-26):

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(21) I togda on delaet eshche odin robkii shag k ponimaniiu svoei zadachi. (D. Glukhovsky, RNC) ‘And then he makes one more timid step towards the understanding of his task.’ (22) Takoi podkhod kak nel’zia luchshe priblizhaet k ponimaniiu opisannogo sluchaia. (A. Bikbov, RNC) ‘In the best possible way, this approach brings us to the understanding of the described case.’ (23) Deputat Serdiukov dalek ot ponimaniia finansovykh problem. (S. Romanov, RNC) ‘Delegate Serdiukov is far from the understanding of financial problems.’ (24) The relationship between disease and heredity is far from clear. (A. Hailey, RNC) (25) “What was it?” “Witches’ jelly, as far as I could understand”, Dick said and looked at me strangely. (A. Strugatsky, RNC) (26) As far as could be learnt it appeared that the poor young dog, still under the impression that since he was kept for running after sheep, the more he ran after them the better, had at the end of his meal off the dead lamb. (T. Hardy, RNC) Since trying to understand or learning are conceptualised as a motion towards knowledge, the preposition k ‘towards’ and dative are used (27). (27) V to vremia moi dukh ne mog osoznat’ étogo v polnoi mere, no vse blizhe i blizhe podvodil menia k ponimaniiu istiny. (Article in Landshaftnyi dizain, 15 September 2003; RNC). ‘At that time my soul could not understand it in its full extent but brought me closer to the understandingDAT of truth.’ In both languages, the speed of progress in acquiring knowledge is viewed as the speed of movement. A good learner is portrayed as the one who manages to move fast enough (28); a bad learner as the one who limps (29) or falls behind (30).

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(28) Uchilsia Iura khorosho, uspeval po vsem predmetam, no otdaval predpochtenie matematike, v kotoroi dobilsia nemalogo… (L. Zorin, RNC). ‘Iura studied well, made good progress (lit. moved fast enough) in (lit. along) all subjects but preferred maths, where he achieved a lot.’ (29) Teper’ on molodtsom–vypravilsia, a vnachale, chto nazyvaetsia, khromal po arifmetike; v moe otsutstvie s nim zanimalsia repetitorstvom moi sputnik Pshevik. (P. Kozlov, RNC) ‘Now he is a fine fellow–he has improved but at the beginning he, as we say, “limped” in (lit. along) arithmetic; while I was away, my companion Pshevik tutored him.’ (30) No u nas imelis’ odin-dva takikh tovarishcha, kotorye otstavali po matematike, i oni nas tianuli nazad. (N. Khrushchev, RNC) ‘But we had one or two guys like this who were behind in (lit. along) maths and they pulled us back.’ While in Russian a subject of study (e.g. arithmetic, maths) is interpreted as a path, in English it is interpreted as a container. Consequently, in Russian learning is conceptualised as movement along a path, which is marked by the preposition po ‘along’ and the dative, while in English it is conceptualised as movement inside a container and, therefore, the preposition in is used (31). (31) Iuliia Nikolaevna skazala, chto da, uchitsia takoi Sasha Sviridov, osobenno uspevaet po matematike, i pravda, mat’ u nego chasto boleet. (A. Likhanov, RNC) ‘Iuliia Nikolaevna said that indeed they did have such a student, Sasha Sviridov, he was especially good at (lit. along) mathsDAT and indeed his mother was often sick.’ Although in Russian gaining understanding or getting new knowledge is conceptualised as motion towards it, researching, investigating details or examining the particulars is viewed as motion into it (32-34). Instead of the path image-schema the container image-schema is used. (32) On izbral temu dissertatsii so znachitel’nym uklonom v oblast’ khimii. I pogruzilsia v issledovaniia. (A. Orlova, RNC) ‘He chose the thesis topic that was mostly concerned with chemistry. And he was plunged into his research.’

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(33) Shag za shagom ia sovershenno pogruzilsia v issledovaniia. (M. Butov, RNC) ‘Step by step I was completely plunged into my research.’ (34) Ia zval ikh na trapezy, i tut, ne uglubliaias’ v issledovaniia lichnostei, s kotorymi sud’ba menia stalkivala. (V. Meshchersky, RNC) ‘I invited them for meals and even there I did not become absorbed into the investigation of the personalities that Fate had brought to me.’ This explains why the verb vniknut’ ‘to understand the particulars of something complex’, which originates from niknuti ‘to bend, to fall’ and the prefix v ‘in’ (Shansky 1971: 86), is used with the preposition v ‘into’ and the accusative case (35). (35) Levin, zhelaia vo vse vniknut’ i nichego ne propustit’, stoial tut zhe v tolpe i slyshal, kak gubernator skazal: Pozhaluista, peredaite Mar’e Ivanovne, chto zhena ochen’ sozhaleet, chto ona edet v priiut. (L. Tolstoi, RNC) ‘Levin, anxious to grasp everythingACC (lit. to bend into everything) and not to miss anything, stood there in the crowd too, and heard the governor say: “Please tell Maria Ivanovna that my wife is very sorry she couldn’t come to the Home”.’ To help English-speaking students understand the usage of v ‘into’ + accusative with lexemes referring to an area of research, Russian expressions can be compared with the corresponding English expressions to research into (36) or to receive an insight into (37). (36) “And we will continue to lack the knowledge if research into the matter is forbidden.” “Is it forbidden?” Denison asked, with a faint note of surprise. (I. Asimov, RNC) (37) The boys met at the museum and were soon engaged in examining its extensive collection of curiosities, receiving a new insight into Egyptian life, ancient and modern. (M. Dodge, RNC) The Russian lexeme oblast’, meaning ‘area or field of science’ is used with the preposition v ‘in’ (38, 39) + prepositional case, and its English equivalents are combined with in (40-43). This reflects the conceptualisation of an area of science in both languages as a container or a boarded territory.

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(38) Parikmakher “P’er i Konstantin”, okhotno otzyvavshiisia, vprochem, na imia “Andrei Ivanovich”, i tut ne upustil sluchaia vykazat’ svoi poznaniia v meditsinskoi oblasti, pocherpnutye im iz moskovskogo zhurnala “Ogonek”. (I. Il’f & E. Petrov, RNC) ‘The hairdresser “Pierre and Constantine”–who, by the way, also answered readily to the name of Andrew Ivanovich–once again took the opportunity to air his knowledge in the areaPR of medicine, acquired from the Moscow magazine Ogoniok.’ (39) Linii uma i iskusstva davali pravo nadeiat’sia, chto vdova brosit torgovliu bakaleei i podarit chelovechestvu neprevzoidennye shedevry v kakoi ugodno oblasti iskusstva, nauki ili obshchestvovedeniia. (I. Il’f & E. Petrov, RNC) ‘The head line and line of brilliancy gave reason to believe that the widow would give up her grocery business and present mankind with masterpieces in the realmPR of art, science, and social studies.’ (40) There are two men who are experts in this field–Chollingham in Boston and Earnhart in New York. (A. Hailey, RNC) (41) The Vatican called CERN from time to time as a “courtesy” before issuing scathing statements condemning CERN’s research–most recently for CERN’s breakthroughs in nanotechnology, a field the church denounced because of its implications for genetic engineering. (D. Brown, RNC) (42) Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. (B. Stoker, RNC) (43) “He is a specialist in cult symbology”, Kohler sighed. (D. Brown, RNC) While researching, investigating details or examining the particulars is viewed as motion into something (31-35), knowing something well is interpreted as being inside it. For example, when ponimat’ developed the meaning ‘to have a good understanding of somebody or something’, it started to be used with the preposition v ‘in’ and the prepositional case (44), in the same way as its synonyms, including razbirat’sia (45), soobrazhat’ (46) and znat’ tolk (48) or byt’ svedushchim (49).

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(44) Neznaika, kotoryi okolachivalsia naverkhu i daval Tiubiku raznye nenuzhnye sovety, chtoby pokazat’, budto on mnogo ponimaet v zhivopisi, uslyshal donosivshiisia snizu shum. (N. Nosov, RNC) ‘Dunno, who kept dancing about Blobs and giving him all sorts of unnecessary advice to show how much he knew about (lit. in) paintingPR, heard a great noise downstairs.’ (45) Doktor gorazdo luchshe razbiraetsia v loshadiakh, chem v avtomobiliakh. (A. Fedorov, RNC) ‘The doctor knows about (lit. in) horsesPR more then about (lit. in) carsPR.’ (46) Kak-nikak, a ona vse- taki byla matratsevladelitsei i tonko razbiralas’ v zhizni. (I. Il’f & E. Petrov, RNC) ‘She was, after all, a mattress-owner and understood the subtleties of (lit. in) lifePR.’ (47) Naskol’ko ia ponimaiu, chtoby perevesti den’gi s odnogo bankovskogo scheta na drugoi, da eshche tak, chtoby ikh trudno bylo naiti, nuzhno, chtoby chelovek khot’ chto-to soobrazhal v komp’iuterakh! (T. Ustinova, RNC) ‘As far as I understand, to transfer money from one bank account to another, especially in a way that would make it difficult to find it, one should have at least some understanding of (lit. in) computersPR.’ (48) On, na moi vzgliad, znal tolk v kommertsii, nadelen byl osobym finansovym chut’em. (I. Kio, RNC) ‘I would say he knew something about (lit. in) commercePR and had some special commercial instinct.’ (49) Ono bylo bez podpisi, po soderzhaniiu svoemu pisano bylo ochevidno kakim-nibud’ litsom, ves’ma sveduiushchim vo vsekh proiskakh pol’skikh zloumyshlennikov. (Ia. Ozeretskovsky, RNC) ‘It was not signed but from its content, it was clear that it was written by someone who knew about (lit. in) all the intriguesPR of Polish conspirators.’ In the meaning ‘to have an opinion’, ponimat’ is used with the preposition o ‘about’ and the prepositional case (50), like the expression with a similar meaning imet’ mnenie ‘to have an opinion’ (51).

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(50) V svetskikh domakh, gde malo-mal’ski interesovalis’ “zagnannym sinodom” i koe- chto ponimali o Nechaeve–bolee po vnusheniiam, kotorye delal Murav’ev–priamo govorili, chto esli tol’ko Nechaev budet smeshchen, to “Andrei Nikolaevich–gotovyi ober-prokuror”. (N. Leskov, RNC) ‘In the houses of nobility, there was some curiosity about “cowed synod”, they had an opinion about NechaevPR, mostly from Murav’ev’s words, and they told straight that if only Nechaev was dismissed, “Andrei Nikolaevich would be a ready-made chiefprosecutor”.’ (51) Esli ia kazhduiu minutu, poka chitaiu, imeiu iasnoe predstavlenie o stepeni ee vnimaniia i o sile razumeniia, to ona v moei vlasti. (A. Chekhov, RNC) ‘If every moment as I lecture I have a clear vision of the degreePR of its attention and its power of comprehension, it is in my power.’ Similarly, the English to have a notion about (52) or to understand (in the meaning ‘to have knowledge about a particular subject’) (53) are followed by the preposition about. (52) I have this silly notion about English good looks. (J. Fowles, RNC) (53) And he’s been a Prize Hackney, too, in his time–that was the time before you knew him, but you can still tell it on him at a glance, if you understand anything about horses. (K. Grahame, RNC) In Old Russian, the preposition o with the prepositional case used to have the spatial meaning ‘in the region of’ (54). (54) Tsar’ … Makhmutɶ … stoial ob Oke reke. (Shmelev 1987: 6). ‘Tsar’ … Makhmut … stood near the Oka-riverPR.’ However, the English about still keeps its spatial meanings, including, for example, ‘in and around, in the vicinity of’ (55). (55) There were no tourists about the place except for the locals returning home on holiday from England or Scotland. (J. Doran, OED) Osmond (1997: 119) argues that “about brings to mind the idea of approximation rather than precision; of a range of things existing around a central situation”. If English in and its Russian equivalent, the preposition

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v ‘in’ with the prepositional case, evoke an idea of a precise area of expertise (56), the preposition about and o ‘about’ with the prepositional case imply that a person has knowledge “in the region of some area” (57). (56) On spetsialist v oblasti mashinooborudovaniia. ‘He was a specialist in power tools.’ (57) On znaet vse o mashinooborudovanii. ‘He understood all about power tools.’ While the process of achieving a purpose is conceived as a movement forward towards a destination (Lakoff & Johnson 1999: 191), the loss of what was achieved is a movement backward. Thus, if achieving an understanding of something is interpreted as being near it, forgetting should be viewed as being away from it. The origin of the English to understand reflects the conceptualisation of understanding as being near something and the origin of the Russian zabyvat’/zabyt’ ‘to forget’ reveals the conceptualisation of forgetting as being behind it. The lexemes zabyvat’ and zabyt’ go back in their origins to za ‘behind’ and byt’ ‘to be’ (58). (58) Ia shapku doma zabyl. (N. Nosov, RNC) ‘I’ve forgotten my cap.’

2.2. The object event-structure metaphor According to the object event-structure metaphor: x KNOWLEDGE IS AN OBJECT x HAVING AN UNDERSTANDING (OR KNOWLEDGE) IS HOLDING IT x LEARNING OR TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IS TAKING OR RECEIVING KNOWLEDGE

x TEACHING IS GIVING KNOWLEDGE x FORGETTING IS LOOSING KNOWLEDGE Numerous examples illustrate the conceptualisation of trying to understand or learning as “taking or receiving knowledge”. These metaphors can be seen in the Russian ob “iat’ razumom, lit. ‘to seize with the mind’ (59), vziat’ v tolk ‘to understand, (lit.) to take into one’s own understanding’ (60), ulavlivat’/ulovit’ smysl ‘to catch the meaning’ (61), vbirat’/vobrat’ znaniia ‘to acquire knowledge’ (62), poluchat’/poluchit’ znaniia ‘to receive knowledge’ (63), as well as in the English to take in

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notions (64), to acquire knowledge (65), to catch (66), to grasp (67) or to be in one’s grasp (68) and to pick out (69). (59) Zhit’–znachit ob”iat’ razumom vsiu vselennuiu. (M. Gor’ky, RNC) ‘To live means to seize with the mind the whole universe.’ (60) Ia, pravo, v tolk-to ne vos’mu. (N. Gogol, RNC) ‘I scarcely understand (lit. take into my understanding) what you mean.’ (61) Vprochem, mister predsedatel’, sidevshii riadom s nami, kak vidno, ulovil smysl rechi. (I. Il’f & E. Petrov, RNC) ‘However, it seems that Mister Chairman, who was sitting next to us, caught the meaning of the speech.’ (62) Tak chto prakticheski polzhizni on vbiral znaniia. (V. Rich, RNC) ‘Thus practically almost half of his life he was acquiring knowledge.’ (63) Étot sud predstavlial soboi khoroshuiu shkolu, gde milliony prostykh liudei poluchali élementarnye iuridicheskie znaniia i poniatiia o zakonnosti i svoikh pravakh. (A. Afanas’ev, RNC) ‘This court was a good schooling where millions of ordinary people received elementary legal knowledge and understanding about law and their rights.’ (64) Sluggish minds require time to take in new notions. (S. BaringGould, OED) (65) It was true, as he acquired knowledge and language, that he was drawing nearer, talking her speech, discovering ideas and delights in common. (J. London, RNC) (66) She would talk, a warm human being, in her quick, bright way, and, most important of all, she would catch glimpses of the real Martin Eden. (J. London, RNC) (67) Having beer once he said, You can grasp outset, You cannot understand termination. (V. Aksenov, RNC) (68) Bosch realized that after ten days the case was wholly out of his grasp. (M. Connelly, RNC)

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(69) Langdon’s art history had taught him enough Italian to pick out signs for the Vatican Printing Office, the Tapestry Restoration Lab, Post Office Management, and the Church of St. Ann. (D. Brown, RNC) The etymology of the verbs to comprehend (70) and to apprehend (71), which originate from the Latin prehendere ‘to grasp, to seize’ (OED), also points towards the same metaphorical conceptualisation of trying to understand or learning as taking. (70) The implications came too fast for her to fully comprehend. (D. Brown, RNC) (71) To apprehend distinctly the signification of a number, two things are necessary. (C. Davies, OED) In both languages, a rapid progress in understanding is pictured as quick grasping (72). (72) On vsegda vse khvatal na letu. (V. Gromov, RNC) ‘He always grasped everything on the wing.’ The syntactic properties of a lexeme can be explained through the concrete concept behind its meaning if this concept can be traced in its origin. For example, even though the verbs ponimat’/poniat’ ‘to understand the meaning or nature of or to grasp the idea of’ lost their original meanings, their syntactic uses still reflect the conceptualisation of trying to understand as taking or holding knowledge. Ponimat’/poniat’, like the verbs for taking or holding brat’/derzhat’, are transitive verbs. All are followed by the accusative case. Similar to the hands, the brain or the heart (73) are conceptualised as an instrument by which knowledge is taken or held, and they are denoted by the instrumental case. (73) Chitia tragediiu, ponimal umom vsiu gorech’ ego prozreniia, no, uvidev, ponial serdtsem. (Article in Sovetskii ékran, 1965; RNC) ‘While reading the tragedy he grasped all the bitterness of this new knowledge with his mindINSTR but when he saw it he understood it with his heartINSTR.’ A person from whom something is taken is marked by ot ‘from’ and the genitive case. The preposition ot with the genitive case indicates

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movement (away from) and, therefore, activity, while the preposition u with the genitive case refers to a static position (near something) and, therefore, to inactivity. This clarifies differences in the use of these prepositions. As noted by Apresian (1995: 604), verbs with the semantic component ‘take’ govern u with the genitive case if they refer to an active Recipient and a passive Source, and ot with the genitive case if they refer to a passive Recipient and an active Source. For example, taking and receiving/accepting differ in the degree of agent activity that is implied. Taking involves the action of getting something into one’s hand, while accepting only implies receiving what is given or offered by someone else. When the Russian verb priniat’ refers to ‘to take’, it is used with the preposition u and the genitive case (74), but when it signifies ‘to accept’, it is used with ot and the genitive case (75). (74) Ia prinial u nego chemodan. ‘INOM took a suitcaseACC from himGEN.’ (Archaic) (75) Ia prinial podarok ot nego. ‘INOM accepted a presentACC from himGEN.’ The Russian verbs brat’/vziat’ ‘to take’ govern u and the genitive case (76). (76) Ia bral/vzial knigu u nego. ‘INOM took a bookACC from himGEN.’ When they are combined with ot and the genitive case or, in other words, when both participants are presented as active, these verbs have the meaning ‘to take away by force’ (77). (77) Ia vzial rebenka ot nego. INOM took the childACC away from himGEN.’ The same tendencies can be found in the syntactic properties of the lexemes for taking/receiving knowledge. For example, nabirat’sia/ nabrat’sia or nakhvatat’sia, lit. ‘to accumulate’ (colloquial) can refer to ‘to acquire some knowledge or skill involuntarily’ and, therefore, govern ot with the genitive case (78, 79). Perenimat’/pereniat’ refer to ‘to pick up skills or knowledge by imitating someone’ and, therefore, these verbs are more often used with u rather than ot and the genitive case.

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(78) Ili otbirat’ u roditelei pri rozhdenii, daby oni ne nabralis’ ot nikh nechelovecheskiikh idei–i kuda devat’? (blog, RNC) ‘Or to take children away from parents after birth so they would not pick up from themGEN their inhumane ideas–but whom can we give them to?’ (79) Ia tak prekrasno nakhvatalsia ot Shury Plotkina, chto inogda ego mysli i soobrazheniia na tot ili inoi schet avtomaticheski nachinaiu schitat’ svoimi. (V. Kunin, RNC) ‘I have acquired from Shura PlotnikovGEN so much that sometimes I automatically consider his ideas and thoughts about something as my own. The preposition iz + genitive indicates movement from inside. This preposition and case are used when understanding information from a Source is viewed as taking something from a container (80). (80) S toi minuty, kak Aleksei Aleksandrovich ponial iz ob”iasnenii s Betsi i so Stepanom Arkad’ichem, chto ot nego trebovalos’ tol’ko togo, chtob on ostavil svoiu zhenu v pokoe, ne utruzhdaia ee svoim prisutstviem, i chto sama zhena ego zhelala étogo, on pochuvstvoval sebia stol’ poteriannym, chto ne mog nichego sam reshit’. (L. Tolstoi, RNC) ‘From the moment when Alexei Alexandrovitch understood from his interviewsGEN with Betsy and with Stepan Arkad’evitch that all that was expected of him was to leave his wife in peace, without burdening her with his presence, and that his wife herself desired this, he felt so distraught that he could come to no decision of himself.’ The conceptual metaphor TO FORGET IS TO LOSE can be found in the Russian expressions poteriat’ misl’ ‘to lose an idea’ (81) and vypast’ iz golovy ‘to slip one’s mind, (lit.) to fall out from one’s head’ (82), as well as in the English to slip one’s mind (83) or the verb to forget (etymologically ‘to lose one’s hold’; OED) (84). (81) V lirike éto sootvetstvuet sostoianiiu cheloveka, kotoryi nabrel na pravil’nuiu mysl’, uveren, chto ee vyskazhet, imenno poétomu boitsia ee poteriat’. (O. Mandel’sham, RVL) ‘In lyric poetry this corresponds to the mental state of a man who got the right idea and is sure that he can express it, and for this exact reason he is afraid to lose it.’

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(82) Tender natselilsia bylo im vsem ruchkoi sdelat’, no ia emu tak v bok dvinul, chto u nego srazu éti tseremonii iz golovy vyleteli. (A. Strugatsky, RNC) ‘Tender looked like he was about to wave at them, but I gave him such a jab in the ribs that he immediately dropped all ideas of such ceremonious bye-byes.’ (83) He said to Coleman, with a trace of unease, “I meant to tell you at the time. It slipped my mind”. David Coleman’s brain was now ice-clear. (A. Hailey, OED) (84) I forgot about it last night. (M. Connelly, RNC) The metaphor TEACHING IS GIVING KNOWLEDGE is at work in the Russian verb prepodavat’ ‘to teach’, which is akin to davat’ ‘to give’ (85), and in the expression davat’ znaniia (86), as well as in its English equivalent to give knowledge (87). (85) On vsegda khvalil proshloe i to, chego nikogda ne bylo; i drevnie iazyki, kotorye on prepodaval, byli dlia nego v sushchnosti te zhe kalozhi i zontik, kuda on priatalsia ot deistvitel’noi zhizni. (A. Chekhov, RNC) ‘He always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages, which he taught, were in reality for him galoshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life.’ (86) No dat’ znaniia, podgotovku patsanam, pomoch’ ostat’sia v zhivikh mogu. (T. Kuznetsova, RNC) ‘But I can give knowledge, skills to boys and help them stay alive.’ (87) However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. (J. Rowling, RNC) In the conceptual metaphor TEACHING IS GIVING, the learner is metaphorically seen as a Recipient and is marked by the dative case, while knowledge is seen as a Patient and marked by the accusative. Consider the similarities between prepodavat’ chto-to komu-to ‘to teach somethingACC to somebodyDAT’ and davat’ chto-to komu-to ‘to give somethingACC to somebodyDAT.

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The metaphor TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IS TAKING KNOWLEDGE is related to other metaphors that involve hands, such as MAKING CLEAR IS UNTANGLING OR UNROLLING and MAKING CLEAR IS SORTING OUT. Examples of lexemes that reveal these metaphors include the Russian rasputyvat’/rasputat’ ‘to disentangle, unravel, to puzzle out, (lit.) to untangle’ (88), razmatyvat’/razmotat’ ‘to unravel, (lit.) to unroll’ (89) and razlozhyt’ po polochkam ‘to distribute into neat little compartments, (lit.) into little shelves’ (90), as well as the English discern from the Latin discernere ‘thoroughly sift’ (Fortescue 2001: 21) (91) and to reside in compartments (92). (88) Bespomoshchnyi starets, skovannyi strazhnym nedugom, ne dvigaias’ s mesta, nichego ne chitaia, ni o chem ne znaia, raputal samoe tainstvennoe prestuplenie nashego veka! (M. Shaginian, RNC) ‘Helpless old man, chained by terrible illness and not being able to move or read or get information, he untangled the most mysterious crimeACC of our century.’ (89) Poslushal, pozhal plechami i, podoidia na tsypochkakh ko mne, chut’ slyshno prosheptal:–Ia étu chertovshchinu razmotaiu! (V. Beliaev, RNC) ‘He listened, shrugged his shoulders and, having come to me on his tiptoes, whipped just audibly: “I will unravel (lit. unwind) this devilryACC.’ (90) I byl u menia professor–prepodavatel’ kognitivnoi psikhologii, umneishii chelovek, i tak ves’ myslitel’nyi protsess po polochkam raskladyval–liubo-dorogo poslushat’. (D. Glukhovsky, RNC) ‘I used to have a professor–a teacher in cognitive psychology–he was the smartest man and he could explain (lit. distribute into little shelves) our thought processACC so well–it was a real pleasure to listen.’ (91) Incapable of discerning where their true interest lay. (M. Pattison, OED) (92) That’s how we gain their trust, and encourage them to speak up as well, I said, and realize that all subjects do not reside in neat little compartments, but are continuous and inseparable from the one big subject we have been put on Earth to study, which is life itself. (K. Vonnegut, OED)

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In the metaphors

and knowledge is metaphorically described as a Patient and, therefore, is expressed as a direct object marked by the accusative case (88-90). Similarly, the other metaphorical mapping that involves the use of hands is HAVING A GOOD UNDERSTANDING IS SORTING OUT OR SEPARATING (93, 94). MAKING CLEAR IS UNTANGLING OR UNROLLING

MAKING CLEAR IS SORTING UP,

(93) On khorosho sechet v komp’iuterakh. (V. Mesiats, RNC) ‘He understands (lit. cuts to pieces) all about computersPR.’ (94) Odnako umnye liudi na to i umny, chto by razbirat’sia v zaputannykh veshchakh. (M. Bulgakov, RNC) ‘Intelligent people, however, are intelligent in order to solve (lit. sort out) complicated problemsPR.’ In the meaning ‘to have a good understanding of somebody or something’, sech’ and razbirat’sia are used with the preposition v ‘in’ and the prepositional case since someone’s specialty is a metaphorical container and knowing something well is metaphorically viewed as being inside it (93, 94). The syntactic properties of a lexeme are not entirely stipulated by the source domain encoded in that lexeme. For example, the prototypical act of taking may include a person from whom something is taken–as in brat’ u/ot kogo-to ‘to take from someoneGEN’. Both trying to understand and learning are conceptualised as taking knowledge but only learning can be metaphorically viewed as taking knowledge from someone else. That is why, contrary to verbs for understanding, verbs for learning can be used with u/ot + GEN for the Source of knowledge (95, 96). (95) V pervuiu ochered’ potomu, chto na post naznachen ego uchenik, prezhii zamestitel’, kotoryi dolgo rabotal s nim vmeste, a znachit, perenial u nego chastitsu opyta. (Article in Delo, 15 September 2003; RNC) ‘Mainly because his apprentice and former deputy, who had worked together with him for a long time and therefore picked up from himGEN some of his skills, was appointed to the position.’

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(96) Potomstvennyi kuznets v chetvertom pokolenii, Grigorii Grigor’evich Zuev s 14-ti let pomogal ottsu kak podruchnyi i molotoboets v kuzne i v techenie semi let perenial ot nego vse premudrosti remesla. (Article in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 19 April 2004; RNC) ‘Being a blacksmith of the fourth generation and helping his father in their forge as a striker’s assistant since the age of fourteen, Grigorii Grigor’evich Zuev picked up from himGEN all the details of his craftsmanship during those seven years.’ Two different source domains may also clash with each other. For example, the use of the preposition po ‘along’ and the dative case for a subject of study (e.g. podognat’kogo-to po matematike ‘to help someone with maths, (lit.) to impel someone forward along maths’) corresponds to the conceptualisation of the speed of progress in studying something as the speed of movement along a path. Nevertheless, the same case and preposition are used consistently in the language to mark a subject of study even when they are not related to the source domain encoded in the expressions combined with them (e g. obladat’ znaniiami po matematike “to have knowledge in maths, (lit.) to have knowledge along maths) (97). (97) Dlia menia éto okazalos’ nelegkim delom, tak kak ia ne obladala nikakimi sistematicheskimi znaniiami po predmetam programmy shkoly. (N. Gershenzon-Chegodaeva, RNC) ‘It turned out to be difficult for me because I did not have any systematic knowledge of (lit. along) school subjectsDAT.’

3. Conclusion In this paper, I have shown that teaching can be metaphorically viewed as guiding, leading or giving knowledge, while the process of learning something new can be mapped onto traveling towards knowledge or following a teacher, as well as taking or receiving knowledge. Deepening one’s knowledge or investigating something thoroughly is interpreted as moving into a container, while having a good understanding or knowledge of something is interpreted as being inside a container. Since the way in which we conceptualise events influences how we express them, it is not surprising that many cases and prepositions are used with the lexemes for teaching, learning and understanding. Referring to the conceptual metaphors above and engaging in their crosslinguistic comparison may help explain the syntactic properties of lexemes and assist students in understanding a foreign language.

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References Apresian, Iu. 1995. Izbrannye trudy: integral’noe opisanie iazyka i sistemnaia leksikografiia. Moskva: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury. Boers, F. 2003. “Applied linguistics perspectives on cross-cultural variation in conceptual metaphor”. Metaphor & Symbol 18. 231-238. —. 2004. “Expanding learners’ vocabulary through metaphor awareness: what expansion, what learners, what vocabulary? A cognitive linguistic view of polysemy in English and its implication for teaching”. In M. Achard & S. Niemeier (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Foreign Language Teaching. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 211-232. Charteris-Black, J.; Ennis, T. 2001. “A comparative study of metaphor in Spanish and English financial reporting”. English for Specific Purposes 20. 249-266. Csábi, S. 2004. “A cognitive linguistic view of polysemy in English and its implications for teaching”. In M. Achard & S. Niemeier (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Foreign Language Teaching. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 233-256. Cole, P. 1983. “The grammatical role of the causee in universal grammar”. International Journal of American Linguistics 49. 115-33. Costello, R. 1990. Random House Webster’s College Dictionary. New York: Random House. Deignan, A.; Gabrys, D.; Solska, A. 1997. “Teaching English metaphors using cross-linguistic awareness-raising activities”. ELT Journal 51. 352360. Evans, R.; Evans, G. 1989. “Cognitive mechanisms in learning from metaphors”. Journal of Experimental Education 58. 5-20. Fortescue, M. 2001. “Thoughts about thought”. Cognitive Linguistics 12. 15-45. Herrera, H.; Hitem, M. 2000. “Cognitive linguistics and the language learning process: a case from economics”. Estudios ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 8. 55-78. Isachenko, A. 1974. “On have and be languages: a typological sketch”. In M.S. Flier (ed.), Slavic Forum: essays in linguistics and literature. The Hague: Mouton. 43-77. Janda, L. 1990. “The radial network of a grammatical category–its genesis and dynamic structure”. Cognitive Linguistics 1. 269-288. Kemmer, S.; Verhagen, A. 1994. “The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events”. Cognitive Linguistics 5. 115-156.

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Kondaiah, K. 2004. “Metaphorical systems and their implications to teaching English as a foreign language”. Asian EFL Journal 6. 42-57. Kövecses, Z. 2005. “Emotion concepts: from anger to guilt. A cognitive semantic perspective”. Cognitive Psychopathology/Psicopatologia cognitiva 2:3. 13-32. Kövecses, Z.; Szabó, P. 1996. “Idioms: a view from cognitive semantics”. Applied Linguistics 17. 326-355. Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: what categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G.; Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books. Langacker, R. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2. Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lazar, G. 1996. “Using figurative language to expand students’ vocabulary”. ELT Journal 50. 43-50. Osmond, A. 1997. “The prepositions we use in the construal of emotion: Why do we say fed up with but sick and tired of?” In S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (eds.), The Language of Emotions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 111-133. Shmelev, D. 1987. Slovar’ russkogo iazyka 11-17 vekov. Moskva: Nauka. Vol. 12. Shansky, N. M.; Ivanov V.; Shanskaia, T. 1971. Kratkii étimologicheskii slovar’ russkogo iazyka. Moskva: Prosveshchenie. Skeat, W. 1901. Etymological Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Smith M.B. 1994. “Agreement and iconicity in Russian impersonal constructions”. Cognitive Linguistics 5. 5-56. Sreznevsky, I. 2003. Materialy dlia slovaria drevnerusskogo iazyka. Vol. 2. Moskva: Znak.

CHAPTER SEVEN SELF-DISCOVERY THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY IN LANGUAGE-CULTURE EDUCATION (LC2) COLETTE MROWA-HOPKINS FLINDERS UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract The holistic perspective offered by ethnography has implications for developing cultural literacy in language classrooms. Within intercultural pedagogy (Byram & Fleming 2002), a distinction is made between uses of ethnographic methods as sources of descriptive insights, on the one hand, and uses of ethnography that directly affect the learning and teaching process and transform language students, on the other. The focus of this chapter is on the second of these aspects as I argue for the pedagogic value of an ethnographic process approach (Agar 2006) to intercultural understanding within the context of second languages and cultures (LC2). This approach emphasises the need to develop critical reflection (reflexivity) about one’s own cultural values and knowledge rather than relying on anecdotes, stereotypical knowledge and biased assumptions to account for cultural representations. It explores the ambiguity inherent in intercultural life (Abdallah-Pretceille 2006) and gives access to the deepest tacit cultural structures of the mind and emotions. This approach is not entirely new (Roberts et al. 2001) but finding ways of integrating this process of critical cultural awareness and reflexivity into a pedagogical enterprise that encourages learners to develop emotional readiness to deal with a new cultural environment is a challenge. This chapter addresses this challenge by reporting on an implementation of pedagogical tasks aimed at recognising cues to emotion communication (Mrowa-Hopkins & Strambi 2008) which can be used by learners to express their feelings and respond to interlocutors in ways considered acceptable by members of the target group. One of the anticipated outcomes is that learners will be brought to reflect upon their own identity and themselves as human beings while engaged in analysing culture as multiple and constructed.

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1. Introduction Besides acquiring language skills, one of the goals of language and culture education is to equip language learners with the ability to deal with intercultural encounters. This requires a certain level of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), a notion which in Europe is associated with the works of Byram et al. (1991, 1994, 2001, 2002) and Zarate et al. (2004). In Australia, the notions of Intercultural Language Learning (ILL) and Intercultural Language Teaching (ILT) have been promoted through the work of Liddicoat and colleagues (Crozet & Liddicoat 1999, Liddicoat 2002, Liddicoat et al. 2003) with a view to supporting a pedagogy aimed at helping language learners acquire intercultural awareness, or understanding. How much of this seeps through into our classrooms? Ironically, the relationship between culture and language in the language classroom is often seen as unproblematic (Sercu 2000, Kramsch 1993). Language teachers all too commonly limit themselves to comparing and contrasting Language-Culture 2 (LC2) with Language-Culture1 (LC1), treating them as though they were separate entities – separate, that is, from the individuals who live and breathe them. The impression one gets when going over the language teaching literature at large is that, even there, this is still a widespread view. There is talk of people who act in accordance with “cultural scripts” and are guided by “cultural expectations”. Related to these concepts, there are supposed to be culture-specific behaviours or styles to be appropriated by LC2 learners, and when that does not happen, the cultures “clash”. Not that this gets often mentioned in the classroom: Kramsch (2009) goes as far as to suggest that teachers could even be accused of covering up the many points of conflict, dissent and diversity which permeate all cultures. They do know that communication conflicts are bound to occur when people of different cultures come together, but they tend to minimise them and present them as the result of misunderstandings that need to be overcome in an effort to achieve successful communication. And that is about the only time when, as a general rule, the idea of intercultural awareness or intercultural understanding gets a foot in the door of the language classroom and is being promoted as a “solution”: in those rare instances when harmony is to be re-established and conflicts are to be resolved (Crozet & Liddicoat 1999: 117). But before intercultural awareness can become a solution, it, too, needs to be cultivated, like the language skills alongside which it often shines by

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its absence; and to cultivate awareness of others, we need first and foremost to cultivate awareness of ourselves. Indeed, awareness of others begins with awareness of oneself. Bakhtin (1981) maintains that our own cultural identity gets constructed through encounters with others in language and that the Self cannot define itself without the Other. This principle, which highlights the relational process of Self and Other, has inspired language educators such as Kramsch (1988, 1993), Liddicoat et al. (1999) and Byram & Moran (2004), who draw on Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism and other such post-structuralist ideas, to propose the concept of “thirdness”, defined as a new perspective that draws upon the self as it has been extended through and transformed by the encounter with the other. In order to go beyond the duality of most language teaching, which (as mentioned before) all too often limits itself to comparing and contrasting LCs that exist “out there”, separate from the individuals who live and breathe them, they suggest that tasks and assignments should be designed to promote self-reflective skills. This is what thirdness is all about. To make connections between their own culture and that of the target language community, learners must strive to develop a “third place”, a cultural position that mediates between the two others (Lo Bianco et al. 1999). They must acquire the ability to place themselves in the position of the other, to view themselves from “the outside” (Stier 2006), through the perspective of the other, and to alternate between that position and their own (by taking different roles as in play acting, for example). They must train themselves to become non-judgmental and receptive to cultural peculiarities. The development of cultural literacy triggers affective change: learners must come to terms with diverse feelings (shock, frustration, anxiety, fear, anger, disgust, etc.) triggered by unfamiliar cultural settings, and aim to understand, through a process of self-reflective learning, why these feelings occur. For some, this may be a challenge to their sense of identity. However, self-reflective skills are necessary in order to bring complex cultural issues into our awareness and to deflect stereotypes and prejudices, consequently enhancing our cross-cultural understanding. How, then, should thirdness be implemented effectively in the language classroom? It might be suggested that an ethnographic process approach (Agar 2006), which focuses on a close analysis of so-called cultural rich points observed through verbal communication as well as the non-verbal behaviours of participants involved in interaction, could help learners negotiate the limitations currently observed in much intercultural pedagogy. Thus, the central aim of this paper is to address the following question: what is

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the importance of ethnography in relation to language and culture learning? First, I shall argue that an ethnographic process approach can offer the foundation for developing strategies that encourage reflexivity, i.e. critical constructive reflection on one’s cultural knowledge and values, and I shall highlight two features of ethnography that can make a difference for LC2 education. I will then report on two pedagogical implementations that integrate an ethnographic approach, viz. abduction and rich points. The first case study takes place in a first-year French conversation class at university, as language learners are encouraged to engage in critical cultural awareness within the safe environment of the classroom. The second case study involves a more culturally diverse group of students enrolled in a Master’s program of TESOL as they discover how cultural differences influence interpersonal communication in everyday life. Testimonies of students from both programs will provide a kind of validation for the integration of an ethnographic approach in LC teaching and learning. The challenge of assessing the sociopragmatic competence of language learners in an Australian university has been addressed elsewhere in more detail (see Mrowa-Hopkins 2010). The issue of the evaluation of the program will therefore not be revisited in this chapter.

2. The importance of ethnography in relation to LC2 learning Discussions of ethnography in the context of intercultural pedagogy are not new. Since the publication of Byram & Esarte-Sarries (1991), they have been gaining ground, particularly in the context of the acquisition of Intercultural Communicative Competence and of study abroad programs where the language is used in the target language environment (Byram & Fleming 2002: 126). Nevertheless, the relationship between ethnography and LC2 learning is not well established, in marked contrast with the several links that exist between ethnography and sociolinguistics (Gumperz & Hymes 1986 [1972], Scollon & Scollon 2001), ethnography and Conversational Analysis (CA) (Koester 2006, Seedhouse 2005), and ethnography and pragmatics (see in particular Goddard 2006, who has coined the term ethnopragmatics). What these disciplines have in common is primarily a concern for understanding a communicative event from the perspective of the participants, that is, in terms of the values, beliefs, attitudes, social categories and emotions of the people involved. Moreover, in addition to the centrality of the subject, ethnography emphasises the centrality of context to human

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behaviour, which has been overlooked by both CA and pragmatics. This holistic perspective has implications in terms of the way ethnography conceptualises culture as multiple and constructed, which therefore validates its concern for documenting variation and cultural change across cultural groups. However, in relation to the language-culture nexus, what is at issue is that, within the above-mentioned disciplines, ethnographic methods are used as sources of descriptive insights rather than something that directly affects the learning and teaching process. In other words, ethnography is used as a tool when combined with other approaches, rather than as a process for discovery, learning and transformation (Nunan & Choi 2010). For example, studies in the teaching of pragmatics have examined a wide range of discourse, pragmatic and sociolinguistic issues, including speech acts (Olshtain & Cohen 1990) and discourse fluency (House 1996, Kasper 2001), with a view to developing sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence in the target language (Stern 1992). Unfortunately, what is presented to L2 learners, particularly within an outcome-based curriculum, overlooks the need to develop critical and constructive reflexivity. It has been pointed out that the main shortcomings of outcome-based curricula lie in a focus on forms rather than on meanings (Davis & Henze 1998: 400), or on learning outcomes rather than on a process approach to learning–see for example Liddicoat (2002), who argues that the content offered to language learners in classroom contexts reflects a limited range of uses and registers. Other scholars have pointed out the shortcomings of a focus on sociopragmatic norms and on “appropriateness” (Dewaele 2008), or have highlighted, among other things, the failure of language educators to pay due consideration to the fact that some cultural groups may value the direct expression of opinions and open disagreements, while other groups do not (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989: 24). These shortcomings in LC2 pedagogy, which have been widely documented, may be explained by several factors, such as the difficulty to teach notions one is not consciously aware of in one’s own native LC. Moreover, even teachers who are highly sensitive to the influence of cultural differences on communicative behaviour in everyday life find themselves at pains to explain how exactly communicative behaviour works, because of the blurriness of such notions as “politeness”, “respect” or “privacy”, which are encoded differently in different languages and carry culturally differentiated meanings for different cultures. One such example is the use of directness for making requests: when encoded in imperative forms, it is considered

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“rude” from the English language perspective. According to Wierzbicka (2003), these notions cannot be transferred across languages unless the referent is clearly explicated through the use of a clear and simple language that can be understood by everyone (such as her Natural Semantic Metalanguage). Finally, it could be added that language teachers differ from ethnographers in their professional training, in their interest in events or behaviour, and in their cultural biases towards what they consider “significant” topics. An ethnographic perspective, on the other hand, involves a processoriented way of knowing, “rather than a recipe or a particular focus” (Agar 2006: 57). Consequently, the aim is not so much to discover social norms and cultural values underpinning communicative behaviour, but “to have one’s value judgment enriched through an enlightened perception of the target culture” (Agar 2006). Along with Michael Agar, who contends that “LC2 learning and ethnography are the same thing”,1 what I am arguing for here is that ethnography be used in the language classroom as a transformative process that directly affects the language students rather than as a mere source of descriptive insights or as a recipe for adopting appropriate behaviours. This can be achieved, I believe, by collecting and analysing ethnographic data which can inform the language-culture nexus and may be used as a resource in the language classroom to teach cultural awareness through actual language use. An ethnographic approach conceptualises culture differently, not as bounded national or reified cultures, but small, local and everyday practices. This approach has already been strongly advocated by Roberts et al. (2001), albeit in the context of language learning as preparation for residence abroad. In their model, undergraduate language students undertake an ethnographic project prior to their year abroad as well as during their placement, to enable them to engage with the culture they are visiting. Students thus practice new ways of looking at the ordinariness of everyday life, developing an insider’s perspective and drawing out patterns from careful extended observation of cultural processes, reflecting on their own culturally-based judgments and challenging stereotypes.

2.1 Ethnography and “abduction” According to Agar (2006) and the American semiotician Charles S. Peirce (1898 [1955]), ethnography is “abductive”, in the sense of its Latin etymology ‘to lead away’. An ethnographic approach to intercultural

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teaching and learning “leads us away” from what we know, or from the behaviours we are comfortable with. And practicing ethnography to know another culture that will “lead us away” from our comfort zone can be a risky enterprise. As PEIRCE would have advocated, the purpose of ethnography is to go forth into the world, find and experience rich points, and then take them seriously as a signal of a difference between what you know and what you need to learn to understand and explain what just happened. People are said to be creatures of habit and seekers of certainty. Abduction turns them into the opposite. (Agar 2006: 64)

Like ethnographers, those of us who are involved in LC2 education take culture to be a process undergoing continual change on the grounds that it moves us into a realm of differences, contrasts and comparisons between LC1 (the culture I bring with me) and LC2 (the culture Iencounter in my learning of an L2). It leads us away from what we know, to discover uncharted territory. Understanding “culture learning” as a process that involves negotiation between LC1 and LC2, continually transforming human behaviour, is eventually more helpful than a reified and “manipulative” view of culture that is likely to accentuate the exoticism of the Other and is bound to result in a conflict view of culture. Looking at cultures in the language classroom has mainly been addressed from the viewpoint of cross-cultural comparisons, e.g. comparing and contrasting French and Australian cultural behaviours. However, this level of understanding is not sufficient to change the learners’ perspective, and the need to develop critical and contrastive reflexivity about one’s own cultural knowledge and values requires a focus on ethnography.

2.2 Ethnography and “rich points” Ethnography is also based on the belief that cultural practices need to be thoroughly documented, relying on rich descriptions which highlight cultural changes in a community (Davis & Henze 1998: 401). LC2 education needs to draw on ethnography as a process because both share numerous rich points, a term used by Agar to capture what is made visible through differences in the frames of reference. Rich points mark a boundary between LC1 and LC2 that raises stress and sometimes frustration about what a particular item means, how it is supposed to work, or what one is supposed to do with it. Cultural pragmaticians such as Wierzbicka, Goddard and Peeters give numerous examples of rich points where translation between LC1 and LC2 is just not good enough to resolve the

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problem. In a similar way, their approach also takes the same idea of rich points as a point of departure in the study of idioms (e.g. up the creek), phrases (e.g. not taking yourself too seriously, Goddard 2009), words (e.g. to shout)–the first three examples are taken from Australian English–or productive syntactic patterns in the target language (e.g., in French, the structure un X peut en cacher un autre, Peeters 2010) which are more “culturally-laden” than others and are particularly important and revealing in a given culture (Wierzbicka 1997: 15-16). Another interpretation for a rich point suggested by Agar is that [R]ich point is shorthand for the surprises that come up in ethnography, the moments when expectations are violated and an ethnographer wonders what that moment that he/she didn’t understand was really all about. … In Van Lier’s framework, rich points are a disturbance, a perturbation, in the LC1 ecology. Some new semiotic species appears in the environment to which the LC2 learner must adapt. (Agar 2008: 6)

Similarly, for Kramsch (2008), there are fractals, i.e. points of intersection between linguacultures, and the task of language teachers is to point out these contradictions between the source and the target LCs. This entails having to deal with the rich points as they come up. Consequently, this approach throws up in the air the notion of “appropriateness”, which still remains “at the heart of the definition of sociolinguistic competence”, as discussed by Dewaele (2008). Accordingly, in Agar’s words, “rich points are the foundation of the ethnographic enterprise”; they are also “foundational for LC2 learning” (2008: 6). Together with abduction, they are the intrinsic features of ethnography that serve to inform our practice.

3. An ethnographic process approach: pedagogical implementation Within an intercultural pedagogy, the aim of teaching critical awareness is not simply to develop greater tolerance towards other cultures,2 but to become aware that culture is the result of a dynamic and antagonistic flux which divides us between uniformity and diversity in a global world, and between the need for belonging and asserting one’s difference “in order to operate between languages” (MLTA of America 2007). Consequently, the teaching objectives in the LC2 classroom need to focus on expanding the learners’ world view, validating learners’ culture and helping learners develop emotional readiness to deal with a new cultural environment. In the light of the rationale briefly expanded above, I now

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wish to highlight, through a presentation of two case studies, how the ideas of “abduction” and “rich points” can be incorporated into a pedagogical enterprise that encourages learners to develop critical cultural awareness, behavioural flexibility and reflexivity. Abduction and rich points are both present in the LC2 classroom through the integration of three phrases, viz. observation/description, explanation and reflective evaluation. Each of these phases incorporates ethnographic methods which rely on strategies involving associations, connections, contrastive observations or putative relations (“What if?” or “How could it be otherwise?”) and comparative methods.

3.1 Case study one The first case study was piloted in 2006 and implemented in 2008 in a first-year French conversation class at Flinders University in South Australia. The relatively relaxed setting of this class gave me the opportunity to develop resources for teaching the sociopragmatic aspects of French language and culture, building on the work of Mrowa-Hopkins & Strambi (2005, 2008) on emotion in cross-cultural communication, involving feelings and affect among two cultural groups, viz. Anglo-Australian and French. The purpose of the project was to help language learners develop emotional readiness to deal with a new cultural environment through verbalising their emotions when encountering rich points in a range of contexts. The proposed activities to be implemented in a first-year French conversation class were based on short excerpts from contemporary films that highlight conflict signals in interactions involving native speakers of the target language. Excerpts were especially selected for drawing students’ attention to conflict signals such as disrupted turn-taking sequence, interruption and overlap, marked prosody, flouting of expected norms of behaviour, and so forth. The selected discourse signals had previously been coded to highlight the verbal and non-verbal pragmatic strategies used in different settings. They were deemed important because students from an English-speaking background are likely to find them unsettling when interacting with native speakers of French, and they can be the source of misunderstanding. Thus it is important to make students aware of them so they can learn how to manage them to minimise face threats. For example, focusing on a film excerpt involving a complaint at a newsagent, one of the situations presented a vendor reluctant to comply with a customer’s request. In a preliminary phase, students started reading a scripted version of the episode prior to viewing it. After being given

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some information about the context, they were asked to identify the phrases used to respond to the request and to give three examples of strategies that were likely to facilitate communication. These were elicited through questions such as the following: “Does the person provide a reason?”, “Does s/he offer an alternative?”, “Does s/he apologise or express regret?”, as these would be expected norms of behaviour in the LC1. Also included were questions about cultural expectations such as: “Does the customer comply with the vendor’s willingness or unwillingness to carry out the request?”, “What happens if s/he asks things out of the ordinary?”, “How do the participants close the interaction?”, and so forth. The aim of this task was for learners to discover the implicit rules of sociopragmatic behaviour in the target language-culture in comparison to their own. Following up on this, the second activity phase required students to practice reading the script during the remaining of the class. They then had a week to memorise the script and the following week they rehearsed it in class. It was left up to them to imagine how people would say it. For example, they needed to select the prosodic forms that are deemed appropriate in the social context and consistent with the discourse context. Thus, in discussing what options are available, learners practice the skills of metapragmatic awareness. Finally, students watched the film excerpt and commented on their own performance in comparison to the version presented in the target language. The ensuing discussion highlighted the differing signals identified between their LC1 and the language and culture of the target community. When discussing tasks in class, the instructor used explicit techniques of consciousness-raising activities such as word association questionnaires, viewing comprehension questions, as well as analysis of speech acts and metapragmatic explanations for analysing the reactions of the participants involved in the scenario (for example, clarifying the use of intensifiers). Immediately after the completion of this task, students were asked to write down in their diary what they had learnt. As an overall assessment, students were evaluated on the completion of three tasks: (1) weekly entries in their individual intercultural diary; (2) an interview involving target language speakers in the community; and (3) the performance of an original role-play based on the scenarios they had explored in class. These activities were an integral component of their semester’s work. The performance of the role-play was judged on several criteria including: presentation of a culturally coherent scenario;

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understanding and use of appropriate register and intensifiers to express a variety of feelings. The intercultural diary, in particular, provided the teacher with an opportunity to access students’ comments, made from an individual perspective, on socio-cultural phenomena that might otherwise have eluded them. I would now like to draw on students’ testimonies as evidence of the development of cultural awareness, identified by Byram et al. (1997) as one of the key competencies, along with behavioural flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity in the assessment of intercultural understanding. While commenting on a role-play based on a real event that occurred during a football match, one student wrote: Our ideas behind the role-play: – [We] tried to use the conditional in correct places + vous & tu forms. – [We] wanted to show formality of situation in courtroom compared with outside where the lawyers are friends. … There was no tolerance of ambiguity in the scenario and we wished to express this further by reference to how each football player viewed the situation: for M–[the incident was] just a joke and for Z–[it was] personal and hurtful. (Amy, 3 S2-2006)

While the students are able to demonstrate flexibility of behaviour as they move between two sets of sociolinguistic codes, they also display respect for others when they are putting aside their adversary in the courtroom in order to be friends outside the court, unlike the football players involved in the altercation. What this shows is that, for the students who are performing the role-play, it is important for harmonious relationships to be restored, as noted earlier, even if conflict is left unresolved. A follow-up stage in the teaching process then would be to focus on a discussion based on a comparative viewing of the endings of French films and Anglo-American films to clarify why the latter tend to favour so-called “happy endings”, while the former often prefer to leave matters unresolved. This highlights the need to bring into the students’ awareness the different sets of values displayed by the two cultural groups, based on the hypothesis that the audience’s pleasure and appreciation of the film is enhanced as they continue to talk about the film well after they have seen it. Based on observations gathered through an interview with a native French speaker, another student wrote in his diary:

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An individual effort to seek out further opportunities to enhance one’s understanding is suggested in the following comment: This week I bought a French cookbook to try some traditional French recipes and I found out some interesting things about the differences between Australian and French food … They seem to be a lot more adventurous with their tastes than the Australians. I didn’t even know you could use those things to cook with! We tend to just stick with our beef and pork. (Sarah, S2-2006)

The testimony below, taken from another student’s diary entry, reveals deeper reflective evaluation when thinking back of her time with her French host family and her experience with unexpected socio-cognitive norms: There were many revelations in this class. I went on exchange for two months and made a lot of assumptions about the way my host family acted and the way my friends acted which I now understand a lot better. For example, XX pointed out that they always react modestly to compliments. I always simply said “thank you” as dictated by my culture but that could be seen as arrogance. It also gave me insight into the way my actions would have been perceived. I made the huge mistake of calling my host mother by the tu form, thinking that it was appropriate since they were my “family” but I didn’t realise I actually needed permission to do this! I also offered often to help my host mother with the house chores which she always refused and I could never understand why because I was most happy to help. I think now that maybe I should have approached this in a different way because I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I think that may be I should have expressed my reasons for wanting to help. It was funny when we discussed humour and sarcasm as French and Australian humour are so different. I also didn’t realise we were perceived as so racist by other cultures because of our race-based jokes but once pointed out to me it’s quite clear and understandable. This lesson also made me appreciate the nuances of French culture, which admittedly I’d never even thought about before, for instance, their attitudes towards noise levels, lateness or things like manners. I was amazed at how much I learnt in just this one lesson that I didn’t even pick up when I was over there. (Amy, S2-2006)

Amy’s comments reflect a growing awareness of the Other perspective through a distancing process as she relates her newly acquired knowledge to her past experience, and interprets its significance in both her LC1

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and LC2. This example illustrates the transformative process of the ethnographic enterprise which is brought about through discovery, interpretation and meaningful connection with one’s own identity through reflective practice. The implication being that the Other’s “strange” or “surprising” behaviour is no longer conceived of as an obstacle to understanding, but that one is actually engaging in new ways of thinking and being. On the basis of new realisations derived from the scripts of the film excerpts, the following student also makes a connection with a previous experience, during which she found herself interacting with her host sister in France: I also finally understood what “ah ben” means “gosh”, all the times my host sister was being sarcastic with me and I thought she really cared. That just goes to show how the French will tell you what they really think, thank good [sic] for me being ignorant to their ways it saved me a lot of heart ache. (Liam, S2-2006)

Ironically, this misinterpretation helped the student avoid the negative attitude and emotional distress that could have resulted from understanding correctly in the first place. Without some kind of preparation, this discovery, when made in a real-life situation, could have been difficult to manage and emotionally distressing. This kind of comment is helpful as teachers can point out that adopting an attitude of familiarity towards an unusual practice can be turned into a strategy of acting “indifferent” or “cool” that may help smooth out negative feelings arising from potentially disruptive situations. Informal feedback from students during the piloting phase of the project was very positive. Combined with comments entered in their intercultural diary and the performance of their final role-play, an increase in their level of perceptiveness and reflexivity was noticeable. In relation to most of the tasks, however, from the language teaching perspective, assessing language learners’ sociopragmatic competence in pedagogical settings remains a challenge, especially if there are unrealistic expectations of progress towards the achievement of intercultural understanding within a semester period. Admittedly, the issue of the operationalisation of cultural awareness in relation to learning outcomes needs to be explored in greater depth. With regards to the focus of this present study, however, the value of the use of an ethnographic approach in the language classroom relates to the fulfillment of the conditions of ethnography, as outlined earlier:

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(1) the use of documentation from LC2 primary data in the form of film excerpts and their transcripts provides the rich points that encourage learners to question deeply held values, for example of what is considered polite in the source LC and may be considered insincere in the target LC, which may value a more direct expression of one’s opinion; (2) the verbalisation of the learners’ reflective practice carried out through contrasting one’s own cultural knowledge and values in class with teacher and peers, and through personal diaries, provides learners with an opportunity to be “led away”, thus fulfilling the “abductive” condition of ethnography. These conditions offer the possibility of acquiring metapragmatic awareness and developing learners’ emotional readiness to deal with a new cultural environment safely through talk in the classroom under the guidance of a teacher and with peers. Importantly, what this case study highlights is the integration of teaching cultural awareness and reflexivity together with the use of linguistic markers in which culture is encoded, as these are not normally the focus of formal classroom teaching. This holistic perspective offered by ethnography is further illustrated in the following case study, which admittedly revolves around a more traditional understanding of ethnographic practice.

3.2 Case study two As a further illustration of the pedagogical integration of an ethnographic process approach in curriculum materials for the study of intercultural competence, I now present a brief report on a topic that I teach within the Graduate Diploma/Master of TESOL. This topic attracts a culturally diverse group of students from multilingual backgrounds, studying in Australia, who wish to deepen their understanding of what it means to learn another language and how cultural differences influence interpersonal communication in everyday life. One piece of assessment requires students to conduct either an ethnographic field project in their cultural community, or a website ethnography. The latter was drawn from a web-based cross-cultural initiative, the Cultura Website, developed by G. Furstenberg and her team as early as 1997 at MIT, in the United States. It was designed to promote a dialogue between two culturally diverse groups of university students, one located in the US and the other in France, about cultural attitudes, concepts and ways of interacting cross-culturally. Its success relies on the live experience of juxtaposing students’ different perspectives and negotiating cultural understanding. This is prompted by the use of three simple questionnaires, viz. Word Association, Sentence Completion and Situation Reactions, which, according to the authors, are aimed at gaining

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a perspective into the way a person’s beliefs, values and experiences affect the meaning of words and the associations they have with different things, places and people. My own adaptation involved students in my topic to choose one of the questionnaires from the website and submit it to a minimum of 10 people of their choice. They needed to work out their criteria for selecting their participants, and these were often based on ethnic cultural groupings. Students were then asked to write a report summarising the responses, analysing their participants’ responses in terms of beliefs and values they had uncovered and commenting on the diversity or similarity of cultural viewpoints that emerged in comparison to their own cultural beliefs and values. Thus, in line with an ethnographic approach, through this assignment task, students develop and analyse their own data and are encouraged to critically evaluate their own discoveries. Melissa found, for example, that “the similarities between [her] response and the other responses indicate vast similarities in cultural beliefs and values” (Melissa, S2-2009). This led her to go on and formulate some hypotheses which brought her to the realisation that cultural values and beliefs become more and more blurred in a global world. Both similar and divergent trends were identified and noted down by students in the elicited responses, as these prompted further interrogations about stereotypes. It is interesting to note that some students focused on differences while others focused on similarities. For example, Hannah (S1-2009) reporting about the Situation Reaction questionnaire wrote: “There was a wide variety of responses from everyone, regardless of what culture they came from”. And another student wrote: The results in this study prove that even though the participants had different heritage backgrounds, cultural values and beliefs, they had similar ideas on how different social situations should be handled. (Kit, S1-2009)

Whichever perspective students adopted, their realisation about the futility of categorising people according to their national culture reflects a change in attitude which is succinctly summarised by this student’s comment: “The most exciting observation I made was that … stereotyping is impossible” (Anna, S1-2009). The alternative fieldwork ethnography assignment consisted in an observation task, which students conducted outside class. The choice of areas for investigation was left very much open, so as to suit particular students’ interests while at the same time taking into account practical considerations. Family structures, important events in the life cycle, rules

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of interpersonal interaction, rules of decorum and discipline, standards for food and hygiene, food preferences, education and teaching methods, perceptions of time and space, religious beliefs, perceptions of work, dress code and personal appearance, history and traditions, attitudes towards pets and animals, the arts and music values and tastes are some of the areas suggested for investigation. Students were required to note examples of language interaction and non-verbal behaviour that exhibited evidence of cultural values and beliefs in their daily environment (home, work, university campus, public places, the media). On the basis of these observations, students were to write a short report highlighting how these related to their personal values and beliefs. The reporting style required students to contextualise their observations rather specifically by giving some background information about their cultural group and that of the participants, by justifying why they chose this particular topic and how they went about it (observation, questionnaire/interview), by stating very briefly in one or two lines their immediate reactions, and, in conclusion, by extending their immediate reactions to draw some wider generalisations about cross-cultural contexts of interaction. The tasks were intended to deepen and extend students’ understanding of the complex interrelationships between language, culture and communication. Following an ethnographic research approach of inquiry “in the field”, students thus become empirical researchers themselves: they record their own observations, and analyse and write up their own research findings. In this process they put aside their usual taken-forgranted assumptions, which generally come with their socialisation in a particular culture, thus adopting the stance of Agar’s “professional stranger” and maximising their opportunities to reflect about their learning experience. In this class, students observed a variety of “everyday life” situations, ranging from a conversation between two male friends in a pub on a Friday night, a Sunday lunch ritual in a multi-ethnic family, lunch at a café that caters for retirees’ needs in a sea-side town, incidents between a Saudi family and two older Australians walking their dogs in a public park, a parent’s morning observation of one’s child classroom lesson, the training session of an all female soccer team, an end-of semester party involving international students, a visit to one’s German grandparents in a nursing home, greetings in service encounters in five different ethnic cafés.

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Observing her host family at dinner time and their interaction with the television set that acted as a participant in the conversation, one student had this to say: It could be argued that meal-time ritual is trivial, on its own that may be the case. In the context of the wider society however, such ritual can be seen as the foundation for communication within a culture, allowing for its many achievements, inclusive of technological advancement. … Television is facilitating new forms of communication. It may be pondered whether it is just as rapidly eroding once firmly established, older forms and their associated rituals.

Drawing on the students’ reports, the following testimonies show how these observations are transformed into enlightened perceptions about one’s own language and culture. They support the view expressed by Nunan & Choi (2010: xiv) that “language becomes a means of selfdefinition and transformation”. Understanding this communicative event in my family will help, at least to some extent, understand some aspects about the culture of my community and country (Saudi Arabia) as well. (Abdul, S1-2009).

Commenting about an observation into her multi-ethnic family during a Sunday dinner, Mei writes: “It is interesting to be able to see that cultural groups hold similar schemas, however, the form representation is different”. At the end of her observation task, she notes that it is possible for people holding different cultural scripts, or schemas, to re-negotiate them and create new understandings with each other. She continues on by referring to herself in this family encounter as a “mediator” between multiple cultures: These reflections are personally positive to me. … Perhaps the most enlightening aspect that I have discovered in doing this observation, which has not been discussed explicitly, is the power that mediators have in positively influencing understandings. Reflexively, it has made me realise that I have a role to play when it comes to providing cross-cultural communication and understanding.

These testimonials are clearly personalised and offer an excellent perspective on how students have responded to the material and the way they feel that their cross-cultural/intercultural understanding has been heightened. The genuine expression of feelings in these reports is best illustrated by one final student’s quote:

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Chapter Seven As I come from a first generation migrant family, I felt that this observation task could enable me to understand in more depth the extent to which our actions (language interaction and non-verbal behaviour) may be influenced by particular cultures and belief systems. (Mei, S2-2009)

Besides the two assignment tasks outlined above, another possible task that can easily be implemented in class for practicing observation skills in situ might consist in asking students to take turns at observing the class with a focus on how participants express pragmatic meanings as the class unfolds. After taking field notes to record their observations, students would then subsequently post them online. A follow-up discussion about the observation process is likely to raise issues of insider and outsider’s perspectives, and students’ reflections about the different interpretations of the events as perceived through the perspectives of different observers could be highly productive. An exploration of these issues through the lens of an ethnographic approach is, I believe, fundamental for language students who wish to deepen their understanding of what it means to learn another language and culture, and how cultural differences in ordinary everyday life become visible through using different frames of reference.

4. Conclusion The central thrust of this paper has been to argue for the value of an ethnographic process approach to intercultural understanding within the context of LC2 teaching and learning. It can be summarised as a pedagogical approach which aims to train learners to recognise what is implicit in everyday interactions and to interpret the acts displayed by speakers as they are involved in a specific situation in the target LC. It acknowledges the necessity to turn the attention of learners onto their own cultural practices and environment. One of the anticipated outcomes is that learners will be brought to reflect upon their own identity and upon themselves as human beings while gaining access to the deepest tacit cultural structures of the mind and emotions. Drawing on Agar’s analogy (2006) between ethnography and languageculture education, rich points occur in ethnography or in the LC2 classroom when suddenly learners notice that there is a gap between what they observe and what they assume to be the norm. By looking at familiar phenomena or observing everyday actions from an outsider’s perspective, LC2 learners become aware of the boundaries between cultural conventions, and this becomes an opportunity for them to try and mediate between two interpretations of a cultural practice.

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The two case studies briefly outlined within this chapter provide examples of pedagogical integration of ethnographic research methodology in the teaching and learning of LC2. The tasks and assignments I have reported were designed to promote self-reflexive skills which are necessary in order to bring complex cultural issues into our awareness, and consequently to enhance our cross-cultural understanding. They also demonstrate the way ethnographic methods can be incorporated successfully in an engaging programme. The evidence garnered from the students’ testimonies seems to support an ethnographic process approach as learners first describe their difficulties with finding differences among the culturally diverse groups they chose to interview. Interestingly, it is when they turn to themselves and the examination of their own LC1, rather than looking for the exotic Other, that they find the rich points of ambivalence and contradiction permeating their way of life. This realisation in turn can be used as a resource that provides students with a depth of understanding about cultural processes at play when interacting with others, whether they speak a different language or not. The evidence provided in this chapter admittedly relies on limited data, but nevertheless contributes to open fresh perspectives onto language and culture education. It supports the view that the incorporation of ethnographic methods in LC2 classrooms broadens the range of resources for understanding ourselves and others in today’s complex world of hybrid cultures and trans-cultural connections. If language teaching and learning is to be more than mere survival in foreign places, engagement with an anthropological understanding of culture through an ethnographic process approach should inform those of us involved in the pedagogic enterprise that the language classroom can be a place of continuing transformation. In sum, the argument I have put forward is not to present ethnographic dimensions as the answer but rather to call for their incorporation into language and culture education as a way of re-imagining the learner.

Notes 1

“and whatever else ethnography is about, it’s about an encounter with a different point of view, not a commitment to stay inside your own (frame of reference) at all costs” (Agar 2006: 88). 2 I am aware that this notion of “tolerance” is fraught with political overtones.

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3 Real names have been replaced with pseudonyms to preserve the anonymity of participants. I wish to thank the students involved in this project for allowing me to quote them. Errors and misinterpretations that remain are the sole responsibility of the author.

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Furstenberg, G.; Levet, S.; English, K.; Maillet, K. 2001. “Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: the Cultura project”. Language Learning & Technology 5. 55-102. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/furstenberg/default.html. Goddard, C. 2006. Ethnopragmatics: understanding discourse in cultural context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. —. 2009. “Not taking yourself too seriously in Australian English: semantic explications, cultural scripts, corpus evidence”. Intercultural Pragmatics 6. 29-53. Gumperz, J.J.; Hymes, D.H. (eds.). 1986. Directions in Sociolinguistics: the ethnography of communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Originally published in 1972 by Holt, Rinehart & Winston (New York). House, J. 1996. “Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language”. Studies in second language acquisition 18. 225-253. Kasper, G. 2001. “Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics”. In K. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 33-60. Koester, A. 2006. Investigating Workplace Discourse. London: Routledge. Kramsch, C. 1991. “Culture in language learning: a view from the United States”. In K. De Bot, R.B. Ginsberg & C. Kramsch (eds.), Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 217-240. —. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2009. “Third culture and language education”. In L. Wei & V. Cook (eds.), Contemporary Applied Linguistics: Language Teaching and Learning. London: Continuum. 233-250. Liddicoat, A.J.; Crozet, C.; Lo Bianco, J. 1999. “Striving for the third place: consequences and implications”. In J. Lo Bianco, A.J. Liddicoat & C. Crozet (eds.), Striving for the Third Place: intercultural competence through language education. Melbourne: Language Australia. 181-187. Liddicoat, A.J. 2002. “Static and dynamic views of culture and intercultural language acquisition”. Babel 36:3. 4-11. Lo Bianco, J.; Liddicoat, A.J.; Crozet, C. (eds.). 1999. Striving for the Third Place: intercultural competence through language education. Melbourne: Language Australia. MLA (Modern Language Association) Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages. 2007. “Foreign languages and higher education: new structures for a changed world”. Profession 2007. 234-245.

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Mrowa-Hopkins, C. 2010. “The challenge of assessing the sociopragmatic competence of language learners in an Australian university”. In F. Dervin & E. Suomela-Salmi (eds.), New Approaches to Assessing Language and (Inter)Cultural Competences in Higher Education. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 125-139. Mrowa-Hopkins, C.; Strambi, A. 2005. “How angry can you be in French and Italian? Integrating research and teaching for the development of pragmatic competence in L2 classrooms”. Fulgor 2:2. 48-62. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/deptlang/fulgor/volume2i2/ papers/fulgor_v2i2_mrowa.pdf. Mrowa-Hopkins, C.; Strambi, A. 2008. “La dimension émotionnelle de la communication en situation interculturelle: l’expression non-verbale de la colère chez des locuteurs anglo-australiens, français et italiens”. Cahiers de l’ACEDLE 3. 89-113. Nunan, D.; Choi, J. (eds.). 2010. Language and Culture: reflective narratives and the emergence of identity. New York: Routledge. Olshtain, E.; Cohen, A.D. 1990. “The learning of complex speech act behaviour”. TESL Canada Journal 7. 45-65. Peeters, B. 2010. “‘Un X peut en cacher un autre’: étude ethnosyntaxique”. In F. Neveu, V. Muni Toke, T. Klingler, J. Durand, L. Mondada & S. Prévost (eds.), CMLF 2010 - 2e Congrès mondial de linguistique française. Paris: EDP Sciences. 1753-1775. Retrieved 15 July 2013 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/cmlf/2010056. Peirce, C.S. 1955. Philosophical Writings of Peirce Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Justus Buchler. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover. Roberts, C.; Byram, M.; Barro, A.; Jordan, S.; Street, B. 2001. Language Learners as Ethnographers. Buffalo, N.Y.: Multilingual Matters. Seedhouse, P. 2005. “Conversational analysis and language learning”. Language Teaching 38. 165-187. Sercu, L. 2000. Acquiring Intercultural Communicative Competence from Textbooks: the case of Flemish adolescent pupils learning German. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Scollon, R.; Wong Scollon, S. 2001. Intercultural Communication: a discourse approach. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Stern, H.H. 1992. Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stier, J. 2006. “Internationalisation, intercultural communication and Intercultural competence”. Journal of Intercultural Communication 11. 11 pp. Van Lier, L. 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: a sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

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Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words: English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zarate, G.; Gohard-Radenkovic, A.; Lussier, D.; Penz, H. 2004. Cultural Mediation in Language Learning and Teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.

CHAPTER EIGHT LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL VALUES: TOWARDS AN APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS FOR THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM1 BERT PEETERS MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY [email protected]

Abstract It is important for all foreign language learners to acquire as soon as possible a relative awareness of the cultural values and the communicative norms which prevail in the linguaculture of those whose language they are learning. Immersion is usually the means recommended to achieve that end, as it is through immersion in a foreign culture that differences with one’s own culture come to the fore. The hypothesis on which this paper is built is that judicious exploitation of selected resources of a foreign language in the (advanced) foreign language classroom is likely to facilitate subsequent immersion. This is what applied ethnolinguistics is all about: five ethnolinguistic pathways will be defined to help the foreign language learner discover and/or gain a better understanding of the values upheld by those who have acquired the foreign language from birth. Applied ethnolinguistics aims at illustrating how the study of culturally salient words, phrases, productive syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours can lead to the discovery of putative cultural values which are then to become the subject of further investigation leading to either the confirmation or rejection of their assumed status; and also how, through detailed study of culturally salient words, phrases, productive syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours, cultural values typically associated with a particular linguistic community can be further corroborated.

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Introduction Miscommunication in native/non-native conversation, to quote the title of a famous and widely cited paper published almost thirty years ago (Varonis & Gass 1985), is often brought about by unsuspected cultural differences. To reduce the risk of misunderstandings arising when native and non-native speakers interact, it is important for all foreign language learners to acquire as soon as possible a relative awareness of the cultural values and the communicative norms which prevail in the linguaculture (Friedrich 1986) or languaculture (Agar 1994)2 of those whose language they are learning. Immersion is usually the means recommended to achieve that end, as it is through immersion in a foreign culture that differences with one’s own culture come to the fore. The hypothesis on which this paper is built is that judicious exploitation of selected resources of the foreign language in the (advanced) foreign language classroom is likely to facilitate and clear the path for subsequent immersion. This is what applied ethnolinguistics is all about: five ethnolinguistic pathways will be defined to help the foreign language learner discover and/or gain a better understanding of the values upheld by those who have acquired the foreign language from birth. Applied ethnolinguistics fits in well with other work in contemporary ethnolinguistics, which will be briefly commented on before some final remarks, which conclude the paper.

1. Misunderstanding (“Pragmatic failure”) When two or more individuals come together to talk, question, contradict or convince one another, to exchange ideas and share views etc., they are said to engage in verbal interaction. Ideally, they take turns: when one speaks, the other or the others listen. Most of the time, speakers do not speak unless they have something to say: their main duty is to make themselves understood, to convey a message. There must be an intention to communicate. The main duty of a listener, on the other hand, is to try and understand what has been said, to identify the communicative intent of the speaker with a view to reacting in an effective and appropriate manner. The effort typically required by this quest for meaning must not be underestimated, even though the hurdles on the road towards understanding are usually avoided without listeners even being aware of their existence. Some hurdles are not negotiated as easily as others: they are literally insurmountable or can only be overcome at considerable cost (cf. Peeters 2003a).

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The problems encountered during the quest for meaning–any quest for meaning–arise in endolingual as well as in exolingual situations. Following Porquier (1984), endolingual communication occurs when two individuals who belong to the same or a similar languaculture communicate in a language they share and have grown up with. All other forms of communication are exolingual; they are characterised “by a clearly perceptible asymmetry of competence between interlocutors as far as the language of communication is concerned and by the employment of strategies that enable verbal communication despite the limited language competence of some/one of the interlocutors” (Piotrowski 2011: 217). Hence, two native speakers of English who communicate in English engage in an endolingual speech event (even if, for instance, one of them is American and the other one Australian); on the other hand, a native speaker of English who addresses a native speaker of French in the latter’s language engages in an exolingual speech event (as would, for example, a native speaker of French who addresses a native speaker of German in English). Now, even though the same problems arise during the quest for meaning, irrespective of the nature of the speech event (exolingual or endolingual), listeners are likely to be less prepared for any hurdles that may arise in an exolingual situation. The reason for this is simple: as Wierzbicka (2003: 69) reminds us in the first of four premises in the realm of crosscultural communication, “in different societies, and different communities, people speak differently”.3 To ignore these differences is tantamount to exposing oneself to a possible failure of the quest for meaning, in particular because of a misunderstanding or of what has been referred to in the literature as a “pragmatic failure”. This term appears to have been coined by Thomas (1983, 1984). It is now widely used in a variety of contexts. Misunderstanding or pragmatic failure arises when a speaker is credited by a listener with a communicative intent that was not envisaged. As long as it is acknowledged that misunderstanding can also surface in endolingual situations, this could be further illustrated in an exolingual context by stating that it occurs when a native speaker is credited by a non-native speaker with a communicative intent that was in fact unintended, or vice versa. It has been customary, since Thomas (1983), to distinguish between sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic failures, even though the line is sometimes hard to draw (ibid.: 109). The latter type of failure unfolds when a non-native speaker lends an utterance a different intent from the one that native speakers convey through it. The non-native speaker will have to “unlearn” the misguided communicative intent and

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instead acquire the appropriate one. The incorrect usage of merci in French and thank you in English (further illustrated below) is a case in point and results in pragmalinguistic failure. Sociopragmatic failure, on the other hand, is harder to grasp and has more serious consequences: it occurs when crucial cultural differences are linguistically encoded and the difference in cultural coding is not unscrambled by the non-native speaker, who may even refuse to acknowledge the difference, which in turn leads to perpetuation of the communicative tension likely to result from such a refusal. A French person who declines to conform to the way in which requests are phrased in English risks exposure to sociopragmatic failure.4 Provided they are in possession of a sound knowledge of the cultural make-up of their speech partners, non-native speakers will generally be successful in averting the majority of misunderstandings which are likely to arise. They will manage to explain, without too much trouble and with an appropriate dose of diplomacy, why misunderstandings which did occur were unable to be averted. They will normally have a fair degree of savoir-faire at their disposal, which will enable them to weather the numerous challenges raised by intercultural communication: they will display considerable talent in failure management, including conflict resolution as well as steps to reduce any frictions resulting from misunderstandings which do not subside more or less spontaneously. Some misunderstandings may however have far-ranging social implications. Consider the case of a native speaker who feels the way he or she was spoken to was excessively rude. Native speakers in this category are unlikely to merely condemn the communicative behaviour, i.e. the lack of courtesy displayed at a particular point in time by their non-native counterparts. Instead of simply disapproving this behaviour and of objectively attributing the resulting tension to insufficient awareness of the culture encoded in the target language, they will often go a lot further. Rather than to take the misunderstanding that has occurred for what it is, i.e. a mere misunderstanding, they may view it as evidence either of a personal or a social shortcoming of the non-native speaker, or of an attitude which comes close to insolence or impertinence, which is proof of bad faith, poor education or a lack of sociability. In the worst-case scenario, a non-native speaker will face accusations of belonging to an aberrant or an inferior cultural group. To put it differently, the condemnation will focus on the individual rather than on a mere lack of linguistic competence, and will often be based on unhelpful prejudice and stereotypes.

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Attributing the reasons for a misunderstanding to a flawed knowledge of the target language is insufficient; explaining the reasons of a misunderstanding in terms of a cultural or national stereotype (“the French are arrogant”, “Australians lack sincerity”, “the Japanese are obsequious”, “Germans are abrasive”, etc.) is excessive. Stereotyping is common among those who stick to the norms of their own languaculture, who fall prey to unforgivable ethnocentrism, who perceive and seek to interpret foreign languacultures in terms of their own. Such fixation is not about to disappear and must be fought on all fronts and at all cost.5

2. Cultural differences There appears to be widespread agreement that the best way to acquire non-native cultural values and communicative norms is through lengthy immersion, i.e. daily contact during which non-native speakers are able to observe, assimilate and more or less successfully imitate the “foreign behaviours” they witness. Indeed, even after an extensive period of foreign language learning in a classroom setting, non-native speakers are at risk of having acquired no more than an approximate mastery of the norms and values of the associated culture. Communicative norms and cultural values are generally marginalised in language classes, and most language textbooks contain very few relevant indications.6 As native speakers themselves are ill-prepared when it comes to teaching or transmitting their values and norms to non-native speakers, the learner is compelled to develop a particular skill known in French as savoir-apprendre: a preparedness or a cognitive ability to familiarise oneself with new knowledge, to “acculturate”–independently, outside of any formal learning. “Savoir apprendre” (literally ‘to know how to learn’) is to be able to learn without being taught (Gremmo 1995-96). It is through immersion in a foreign culture that the realisation will come that “in different societies, and different communities, people speak differently”. This was referred to above as the first of the four basic premises formulated by Wierzbicka (2003) in the area of cross-cultural communication. Speaking differently is not just a matter of speaking different languages, with different sounds, a different lexicon and a different grammar; in the first of Wierzbicka’s basic premises, the focus is on different communicative behaviours. The existence of different communicative behaviours from one languaculture to another can never be sufficiently emphasised. The reason why ways of speaking, i.e. communicative behaviours, within one group contrast with those of other groups is

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ultimately due to the fact that the various groups adhere–or rather tend to adhere–to different communicative norms. Goddard (2000: 81) talks about the latter in very succinct and clear terms: In some parts of the world, for example, it is quite normal for conversations to be loud, full of animation, and bristling with disagreement, while, in others, people prefer to avoid contention, to speak in even, wellconsidered phrases, and to guard against exposure of their inner selves. In some societies, it is considered very bad to speak when another person is talking, while in others, this is an expected part of a co-conversationalist’s work. In some places, silence is felt to be awkward and people rush to fill up every spare second with talk, while in others, silence is welcomed.

Communicative norms are relatively stable and do not easily lend themselves to modification or to being cast aside under the influence of contradictory norms coming from elsewhere. Speaking in general terms, one might say that communicative norms prescribe some linguistic behaviours and proscribe others, or rather, as respect for the norms is by definition a matter of degree, that they encourage some behaviours and discourage others. That they are not absolutely binding is a point which has been forcefully made by Goddard (1997: 199), who claims that such norms (he calls them cultural rather than communicative) “may be followed by some of the people all of the time, and by all of the people some of the time, but … are certainly not followed by all of the people all of the time”. Nevertheless, any departures from existing norms are at the personal risk of the offender. Wierzbicka (2001: 210) has this to say about a widespread usage among Australians: If someone doesn’t like addressing colleagues and co-employees of the same institution by their first name, and being so addressed by them, he or she still needs to be aware of the prevailing norms in this respect, and of their meaning.

Thou shalt not whinge, Thou shalt not try to be better than others, Thou shalt not carry on like an idiot. Of the three “Australian cultural commandments” listed by McFadyen (1995), two are communicative norms craftfully expressed in deeply culture-laden language: the verb whinge, on the one hand (Wierzbicka 1997: 214-217; see also Wierzbicka 2001, 2003: 181-182, Goddard 2011: 153-154), and the idiomatic expression carry on like an idiot, on the other. The third so-called commandment (McFadyen’s second one) appears to cover a much broader area than communication: it belongs to a higher category, of which communicative norms could be considered to be a subset, and which might be called

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behavioural or cultural norms. Closer analysis reveals that, unlike McFadyen’s first and third commandments, the second (about trying not to be better than others) is not a norm that most Australians adhere to. A better formulation would be “Thou shalt not be a tall poppy”–where the term tall poppy is an Australianism which has already conquered New Zealand and is spreading fast to other areas of the English-speaking world. Not all high achievers are tall poppies: only those who brag about their achievements (a behaviour for which there is a negative communicative norm, as it is behaviour that is not condoned) qualify for this unflattering label, as do those who engage in (sometimes illegal) practices which they presume their elevated status entitles them to. In the Australian cultural landscape, tall poppy behaviour attracts general criticism, summarised in the saying that “tall poppies deserve to be cut down” (cf. Peeters 2004a, 2004b, 2004c). The second of the four Wierzbickian premises in regard to crosscultural communication deals with the nature of the differences: “These differences in ways of speaking are profound and systematic”. By pointing out that a difference is profound, one actually underscores its significance. It should not be ruled out that selected communicative behaviours in two languages, whether typologically or genetically related or not, are relatively similar to one another. However, as soon as the sample of languages taken into account is broadened, it will be easily seen that the differences become more obvious. Behaviours that are diametrically opposed will not be hard to find. As a matter of fact, they may be found even in languages which are neither typologically nor genetically very different at all, e.g. French and English. Take, for instance, the case of the non-native speaker who is being offered a drink. If we are dealing with a native speaker of French who, during a trip to an English-speaking country, is confronted with a second but unwanted cup of coffee (Vogel & Cormeraie 1996: 45), the reason is likely to be that the speaker said thank you, without realising that doing so in English when an offer is made normally implies that the offer is being accepted rather than turned down: our native speaker intended to say no, thanks, but used a routine which, in this particular context, means ‘yes, please’. If, on the other hand, we are dealing with a native speaker of English who, to no avail, is waiting for the petit cognac7 that was offered and that proved irresistible (Riley 2007: 193), the reason is likely to be that the speaker said merci, without realising that doing so in French when an offer is made normally implies that the offer is being turned down rather than accepted: our native speaker intended to say yes,

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please, but used a routine which, in this particular context, means ‘no, thanks’.8 Are the differences that we find systematic? Perhaps, in some cases, when there is insufficient evidence, doubt is permitted. However, even those who are inclined to say that there are differences which are profound but do lack systematicity will have to admit that the world’s languages have anything but yielded all of their secrets. It is entirely possible that there exists a high degree of systematicity which has not as yet been entirely uncovered. It is probably preferable to postulate systematicity, and to proclaim there is plenty of it, than to acknowledge–while waiting for the time to come when someone will be smart enough to gain a full understanding of the exact links that exist between the communicative behaviours prevailing in a languaculture–that arbitrariness reigns supreme. The former of these stands encourages further reflection; the latter is quite frankly defeatist. Having said that in different societies, and different communities, people speak differently, and that these differences are profound and systematic, Wierzbicka goes on to talk about cultural values. She links the divergence of communicative behaviours–irrespective of whether their systematicity has been proven or not–to a divergence of a different type, at a deeper level. According to her third premise, different ways of speaking (i.e. different communicative behaviours) “reflect different cultural values, or at least different hierarchies of values”. This is consistent with what Thomas (1983: 106) had said a number of years earlier: “In different cultures, different pragmatic ‘ground rules’ may be invoked”, and “Relative values such as ‘politeness’, ‘perspicuousness’, may be ranked in a different order by different cultures”. It should be added that, in addition, they may not entirely map onto one another: there is no such thing as a universal concept of politeness, or of perspicuousness, etc. Social psychologists define values, whether personal or shared, as general beliefs which determine how people assess real or imagined behaviour: which behaviours are appropriate, desirable, to be encouraged, on the one hand, and which others are inappropriate, undesirable and not to be encouraged, on the other hand. The Australian psychologist Norman Feather (1996: 222) provides the following clarification: The values that people hold are fewer in number than the much larger set of specific attitudes and beliefs that they express and endorse. Values are not equal in importance but they form a hierarchy of importance for each

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individual, group, or culture, with some values being more important than others. Values have some stability about them but they may change in relative importance depending on changing circumstances. They are not cold cognitions but are linked to the affective system. People feel happy when their important values are fulfilled; angry when these values are frustrated.

Cultural values are those that are widespread within a given culture or languaculture. They underpin the beliefs, the convictions, the attitudes and the communicative ways generally associated with it. They belong to what is commonly referred to as an ethos (Béal 2010), a shared set of high level beliefs that all those who belong to the same languaculture can–and mostly do–relate to, and may elude not only those who have at best an approximate idea of the languaculture that they help shape, but also those who live and breathe that languaculture. More than half a century ago, Hall (1959) expressed this very beautifully: “Culture hides much more than it reveals and, strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants”; or, in other words (Gitterman & Miller 1989: 162), “what is ‘well known’ is often least known”. Importantly, divergences with respect to cultural values can just as easily, even more easily, be ignored as, or than, divergences with respect to communicative behaviours; however, once again, non-adherence increases the risk of standing out. We are left with the fourth and last premise: “Different ways of speaking, different communicative styles can be explained and made sense of, in terms of independently established different cultural values and cultural priorities” (emphasis added). What is meant here is that it would be foolhardy to exclusively rely on the communicative behaviours observed within a culture to confirm once and for all the reality of certain cultural values. To lend the latter maximum credibility, it is necessary to come up with independent evidence; such evidence may come from different sources, both linguistic and non-linguistic. In what follows, I focus on linguistic evidence.

3. Learning catalysts The hypothesis at the heart of this paper is that selected vocabulary items, idiomatic expressions, syntactic patterns, even communicative behaviours, can act as catalysts for those who wish to get acquainted with ways of speaking and thinking that are different from those they are accustomed to. More specifically, the majority of values which must be known to achieve success in exolingual speech events can be matched up with words, phrases, syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours that

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have the distinct advantage of being a lot easier to recognise. All of them are what Agar (1994, 1996, 2000) has called rich points. There is an important proviso, though: the more instantly recognisable “stuff” that languages are made up of needs to be thoughtfully used, and the dangers of hasty generalisation need to be averted (as was the case above, when independent evidence was called for to back up the reality of any values solely arrived at on the basis of the observation of divergent behaviours). On the other hand, it will not hurt to reiterate that not all words, phrases, syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours carry relevant information. In this respect, a language is like a gold mine–and in gold mines one finds much more than just gold… Let us start off with idiomatic phrases: they are undoubtedly, in many instances, the most striking candidate catalysts. French expressions such as on va s’arranger, débrouille-toi, faire flèche de tout bois are numerous and common enough in daily usage to invite the hypothesis that débrouillardise (i.e. resourcefulness) is an important cultural value in the French languaculture. However, to conclude, once and for all, on the basis of these expressions, that débrouillardise is effectively a French cultural value would be presumptuous; it is at best a hypothesis in need of further corroboration, both linguistic and non-linguistic. As it turns out, relevant evidence is not hard to find (as demonstrated in Peeters forthcoming). With respect to the lexicon, it can be said that there are, in all of the world’s languages, a certain number of words–often referred to as key words, in the tradition of French lexicologist Georges Matoré (1953)– whose status differs from that of most other words in the lexicon. For us, they are quite simply words that are “more culturally laden” than others, words that assume, as it were, “more than their share of cultural work” (Jay 1998: 4), that are “particularly important and revealing in a given culture” (Wierzbicka 1997: 15-16). Some, like the term fair go in Australian English, are directly linked to a cultural value (Bigelow 1998: 40); many others, such as the word weekend, again in Australian English, are more muted, but nonetheless enlightening, signposts (Peeters 2007). How about communicative behaviours? The more they differ from the ones observed “at home”, the more likely they are to help the learner throw new light upon the cultural values of the speakers who indulge in them. The danger, here, is that of reaching the wrong type of conclusion. As pointed out earlier, when faced with behaviours that strike the observer as being morally inferior, at least from the point of view of the observer’s

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own communicative norms, the temptation to condemn what one observes, and to condemn in the same fell swoop the individuals that display the observed behaviour, is not one to be lightly dismissed. An example in point is that of the French who “rant and rave” (Drinkwater 2003: 279). They may well be among the world’s best ranters and ravers (the French word is râleurs; cf. Peeters 2013), but that does not mean that they are all the time unpleasant, aggressive and belligerent. They are just not good at taking things lying down, which is different. Finally, in spite of being typically less recognisable than culturally salient idiomatic phrases, words or communicative behaviours, some productive syntactic patterns can undoubtedly catch the eye of the language learner, either because they do not exist in the learner’s native language (or are significantly less common, which automatically enhances their salience in the foreign language) or because they function differently. One of the most spectacular examples I am aware of in the languages I have worked on is the French pattern “Un X peut en cacher un autre” (‘One X can hide another one’), which is derived from the well-known warning sign at level crossings throughout France (Un train peut en cacher un autre), but which, nowadays, is used in a virtually limitless way with a variety of nouns referring to people as well as to objects, situations and abstract ideas. In Peeters (2010), I formulate the hypothesis that this productive syntactic pattern is an immediate reflection of the French cultural value of méfiance (not so much ‘distrust’ or ‘mistrust’, as most translation dictionaries have it, but ‘wariness’, a virtue rather than a shortcoming), and I provide extensive additional, linguistic as well as non-linguistic, evidence in support of that hypothesis. It is not impossible that, in some instances, an examination of candidate catalysts does not lead to tangible results. This is because there are no objective strategies which facilitate the identification of catalysts, and also because there is no pre-determined number of catalysts per language. Using the example of the non-native speaker who is offered something to drink and who either accepts saying merci (whereas something like bien volontiers was required) or declines saying thank you (whereas a more appropriate formula to use would have been no, thanks), we can certainly consider merci and thank you to be potential learning catalysts. However, what lessons about French and English cultural values can be drawn from the different usage patterns of these two routines? In the current state of our knowledge (or at least in the current state of this writer’s knowledge), the answer is likely to disappoint: none whatsoever. As soon as someone

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will come up with a hypothesis, more evidence will have to be found, so that the hypothesis can be either confirmed, tweaked… or rejected.

4. Towards an applied ethnolinguistics for the foreign language classroom In the light of the previous remarks, we can now move on and identify a number of different pathways which could be deployed in the advanced foreign language classroom and will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the cultural values that appear to prevail among those who claim to belong to a particular languaculture (e.g. the French, the Tuaregs, the Japanese…). Each of the pathways will be given its own name; each illustrates a particular form of what shall be referred to as applied ethnolinguistics. Five different pathways are envisaged. x Ethnolexicology aims at studying culturally and linguistically salient lexical items, relying on linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin these items. Values which were previously known will thus be better understood; the reality of newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means. Defined in this way, ethnolexicology is a successor to what has been called (trans)cultural semantics (Peeters 2003b, 2004a) and also ethnosemantics (Peeters 2009). x Ethnophraseology (a term coined by Wierzbicka 1999) aims at studying culturally and linguistically salient phrases and idioms, relying on linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin these phrases and idioms. Values which were previously known will thus be better understood; the reality of newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means. x Ethnosyntax (a term coined by Wierzbicka 1979) aims at studying culturally and linguistically salient productive syntactic patterns, relying on linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin these patterns. Values which were previously known will thus be better understood; the reality of newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means. The productive syntactic patterns referred to here are comparable to what others have called lexicogrammatical frames

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(Moon 1998), constructional frames (Rasuliü 2010), idiom schemas (Moon 1998), idiomatic activation-sets (Langlotz 2006), idiomatic themes (Philip 2008), etc. x Ethnopragmatics aims at studying culturally and linguistically salient communicative behaviours, relying on linguistic as well as nonlinguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin these behaviours. Values which were previously known will thus be better understood; the reality of newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means. Defined in this way, ethnopragmatics is a successor to what has been called (trans)cultural pragmatics (Peeters 2003b, 2004a) and is entirely compatible with ethnopragmatics as defined by Goddard (2006).9 x Ethnoaxiology aims at corroborating the reality of hypothetical cultural values commonly thought of as being defining features of the languaculture they are usually associated with. The corroborative process is predicated on a search for linguistic as well as nonlinguistic data in support of a presumed value. Defined in this way, ethnoaxiology is a successor to what has been called (trans)cultural axiology (Peeters 2003b, 2004a). An ethnoaxiological examination will often be preceded by one of the other approaches, but may also be carried out in its own right, independently of any preceding investigation. Reliance on the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach associated with the work of Anna Wierzbicka, Cliff Goddard and others is a prominent trait of each and every pathway and therefore of applied ethnolinguistics at large. NSM is a culturally neutral, rigorous and maximally clear descriptive tool which, thanks to an empirically validated universal lexicon and grammar (translatable into the corresponding NSMs of other languages of the world without either loss or shift of meaning), allows to describe the meaning of culturally more specific words (including those that are the subject of ethnolexicology), but also other language phenomena such as phrases and idioms (ethnophraseology), productive syntactic patterns (ethnosyntax), communicative behaviours (ethnopragmatics), and so on. For more details, see e.g. Goddard & Wierzbicka (2002), Peeters (2006) and Goddard (2008). In what follows, we provide, for each of the pathways, a tentative structure and a list of indicative questions that might be usefully raised within each. The structures and the questions will however vary,

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depending on each particular assignment. The number of pathways itself is not deemed to be definitive. Applied ethnolinguistics is by its very nature work in progress.

4.1. Ethnolexicology: the study of culturally and linguistically salient lexical items Step 1: Search of tangible non-linguistic evidence for the cultural significance of the lexical item ¾ ¾

Are there any relevant accounts or assertions from either internal or external observers? Are there any other (non-linguistic) data pointing to the importance (i.e. the cultural salience) of the lexical item? Is it referred to in titles or slogans, in commercials, on posters etc.?

Step 2: Further corroboration based on primarily linguistic data ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾

Are there any lexical compounds or derivatives which underscore the importance of the lexical item in the language? Are there any relevant expressions, phrases, idioms, concepts etc. in which the lexical item appears? What are their meanings and how are they used? Are there any expressions, phrases, idioms, concepts etc. that can be otherwise associated with the lexical item? What are their meanings and how are they used? If the lexical item appears in specific concepts, are there any accounts within the community of the importance or even the objective reality of these concepts?

Step 3: Identification of the (previously known or unknown) cultural value(s) which appear(s) to underpin the lexical item Step 4: (may be replaced by a full-fledged ethnoaxiological study): Select list of other linguistic and/or non-linguistic evidence (to be subjected to subsequent rigorous analysis) in support of the cultural value identified in the previous step

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4.2 Ethnophraseology: the study of culturally and linguistically salient phrases and idioms Step 1: Search of tangible non-linguistic evidence for the cultural significance of the phrase or idiom ¾ ¾

Are there any relevant accounts or assertions from either internal or external observers? Are there any other (non-linguistic) data pointing to the importance (i.e. the cultural salience) of the phrase or idiom? Is it referred to in titles or slogans, in commercials, on posters etc.?

Step 2: Detailed linguistic analysis of the phrase or idiom and of its usage ¾ ¾ ¾

Is it possible to dissect the phrase or idiom in an attempt to better understand its conditions of use? How and when is the phrase or idiom used in linguistic interaction? Are there any optional “expansions” that may shed more light on the phrase or idiom?

Step 3: Are there any formally related phrases or idioms that are worth mentioning? Step 4: Identification of the (previously known or unknown) cultural value(s) which appear(s) to underpin the phrase or idiom Step 5: (may be replaced by a full-fledged ethnoaxiological study): Select list of other linguistic and/or non-linguistic evidence (to be subjected to subsequent rigorous analysis) in support of the cultural value identified in the previous step

4.3 Ethnosyntax: the study of culturally and linguistically salient productive syntactic patterns Step 1: Clarification of the origins of the syntactic pattern at the core of the investigation ¾

Is there a known phrase at the basis of the pattern? If so, what meaning did it convey?

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¾ ¾

If not, what else do we know about the historical roots of the pattern? What happened next?

Step 2: Search of tangible non-linguistic evidence for the productivity of the syntactic pattern ¾ ¾

Are there any relevant accounts or assertions from either internal or external observers? Are there any other (non-linguistic) data pointing to the importance (i.e. the cultural salience) of the pattern? Is it used in titles or slogans, in commercials, on posters etc.?

Step 3: Detailed linguistic analysis of the productive syntactic pattern and of its usage ¾

Is it possible to dissect the pattern in an attempt to better understand its conditions of use? ¾ How and when is the syntactic pattern used in linguistic interaction? ¾ Which parts of the pattern are fixed, and which others are variable, and to what extent? ¾ What are the consequences, if any, of the newly found productivity of the pattern? Step 4: Return to the original phrase (if known) ¾ ¾

Does the original phrase survive? Has its meaning and/or status changed?

Step 5: Identification of the (previously known or unknown) cultural value(s) which appear(s) to underpin the productive syntactic pattern Step 6: (may be replaced by a full-fledged ethnoaxiological study): Select list of other linguistic and/or non-linguistic evidence (to be subjected to subsequent rigorous analysis) in support of the cultural value identified in the previous step

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4.4. Ethnopragmatics: the study of culturally and linguistically salient communicative behaviours Step 1: Search of tangible non-linguistic evidence for the cultural significance of a perceived communicative behaviour ¾ ¾

Are there any relevant accounts or assertions from either internal or external observers? Are there any other (non-linguistic) data pointing to the importance (i.e. the cultural salience) of the communicative behaviour? Is it referred to in titles or slogans, in commercials, on posters etc.?

Step 2: Evaluation of the linguistic salience of the communicative behaviour ¾

Are there any relevant culturally salient words, idioms, expressions, proverbs etc. that directly refer to the communicative behaviour under analysis?

Step 3: Identification of associated norms based on the observation of everyday discourse ¾ ¾

Which underlying communicative norms appear to govern the communicative behaviour under observation? How do these norms relate to one another?

Step 4: Identification of the (previously known or unknown) cultural value(s) which appear(s) to underpin the communicative behaviour and the corresponding communicative norms Step 5: (may be replaced by a full-fledged ethnoaxiological study): Select list of other linguistic and/or non-linguistic evidence (to be subjected to subsequent rigorous analysis) in support of the cultural value identified in the previous step

4.5. Ethnoaxiology: the corroboration of cultural values Step 1: Reminder or search of tangible non-linguistic evidence for the status of cultural value

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¾ ¾

Are there any relevant accounts or assertions from either internal or external observers? Are there any social phenomena which underscore its importance?

Step 2: Further corroboration based on linguistic data and behaviours ¾ ¾ ¾

Are there any culturally salient words that may be positively linked with the presumed cultural value? Do any expressions, phrases, idioms, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms etc. either support the presumed value or highlight the undesirability of behaviours which are not in line with it? Are there any communicative norms that may be positively linked with the presumed cultural value?

5. Ethnolinguistics, basic and applied The “five ethnos” briefly presented above form a set of affiliated ethnolinguistic pathways. To refer to them in a relatively succinct way, I have, in previous publications in English (Peeters 2009a) and in French (Peeters 2011, 2012b), used the fairly unimaginative labels ethnolinguistic pathways model and ethnolinguistique. The latter label, or rather its English equivalent ethnolinguistics, has been used, with or without a qualifying adjective, by several other authors, including BartmiĔski (2009) and Underhill (2012).10 BartmiĔski and Underhill have each come up with their own approach to ethnolinguistics; neither uses Wierzbicka & Goddard’s natural semantic metalanguage, even though BartmiĔski explicitly refers to it. My own (applied) ethnolinguistics is therefore different from their models, but still quite close (as will be shown below) to BartmiĔski’s cognitive ethnolinguistics, which I only became aware of as late as July 2011. In more general terms, the thread linking Underhill’s work to that of BartmiĔski, and my work to theirs, is an overarching interest in the multiple and complex relations that exist between languages, cultures and thought. These relations do not necessarily evade other contemporary linguists, but it must be said that the importance they attach to them is variable, and that a fair few either attach no importance to them at all, or merely pay lip-service to them without allowing them to impact on their way of thinking in any significant fashion.11

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5.1 BartmiĔski’s cognitive ethnolinguistics (2009) Jerzy BartmiĔski is the founder of what, in an introductory chapter to the revised English translation of a number of his texts originally published in Polish (BartmiĔski 2009), Zinken (2009: 1) calls the Ethnolinguistic School of Lublin (cf. also Zinken 2004). For too long, BartmiĔski’s work and that of his collaborators, rich and varied though it may be, has been ignored by his colleagues in the West; the availability of an English translation will hopefully make a difference. An international journal called Etnolingwistyka, founded by BartmiĔski, has been appearing every year since 1988, but the first relevant research goes back all the way to the early seventies. The extensive parallels between the Lublin school and AngloAmerican cognitive linguistics (as defined by figureheads such as George Lakoff and Ronald W. Langacker) explain Zinken’s decision to title the collection of translated essays Aspects of cognitive ethnolinguistics. A reaction to Chomsky’s generative linguistics, cognitive linguistics, too, pays a lot of attention to the socio-cultural context speakers of a language find themselves in, i.e. their so-called socio-cultural situatedness or sociocultural embeddedness; however, because of the perceived importance to come up with new theoretical models, it generally does not come close to the empirical riches found in work produced within the Lublin school (Zinken 2009: 2). BartmiĔski (2009: 20) points out that the first references to his work as being cognitive in nature are probably to be found in Zinken (2004). He has himself used the label cognitive ethnolinguistics in the title of the second chapter in his book, loosely based on a 1986 essay titled “Czym zajmuje siĊ etnolingwistyka?” (‘What does ethnolinguistics deal with?’). The following justification is provided: When it [Lublin ethnolinguistics; B.P.] addresses the relationship between language and the mentality of the people who speak it, it draws near and even converges with cognitive linguistics. Hence, it has for some time now been called “cognitive” (…). (BartmiĔski 2009: 11)

At the same time, it is recognised that the whole of ethnolinguistics (which, for BartmiĔski, includes what English–and in particular American–sources refer to as linguistic anthropology or anthropological linguistics)12 is a cognitive enterprise. As such, the links that matter are not so much those between ethnolinguistics (broadly defined) and cognitive

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linguistics (à la Lakoff and Langacker), but rather those between ethnolinguistics and cognitive anthropology: The basic understanding of ethnolinguistics finds support in ethnomethodology, which focuses on the ‘subjective reconstruction’ of folk understanding of phenomena. It renders ethnolinguistics similar to cognitive anthropology, as well as justifying the use of the term cognitive ethnolinguistics in the title of this book. (BartmiĔski 2009: 8)

The main aim of work carried out within the Lublin School is to reconstruct the linguistic worldview–or worldviews–of the speakers of a language. A linguistic worldview is “a language-entrenched interpretation of reality, which can be expressed in the form of judgments about the world, people, things or events” (BartmiĔski 2009: 23). The plural worldviews is justified since a single language may encode more than one worldview. To pursue his aim, BartmiĔski sets out to discover the values that are thought to prevail among the speakers. They underpin their linguistic worldview and must be described in accordance with their perceptions and their ways of thinking: By values I mean that which in the light of language and culture people consider precious. … What I have in mind are characteristics of things but also things themselves, including concepts, states and situations, attitudes and behaviours, which function as « guiding ideas » motivating people’s actions. Thus, my understanding of values is that of folk philosophy. I would like to hypothesise here that linguistic worldview is derived from the overtly or covertly assumed system of values. Values are connected with the viewpoint and perspective in seeing the world … . They guide the construction of the image of reality by the experiencer and conceptualiser, i.e. by an individual or a community of speakers; they integrate the tradition-sanctioned worldview of that community. In effect, values constitute the cultural and social identity of the speaker. (BartmiĔski 2009: 39).

Zinken (2009: 2) provides the following insight into the variety of values studied by Lublin’s ethnolinguists since the 1980s (it goes without saying that he had to rely on English words to refer to these Polish values): This work has spanned terms referring to abstract values (such as responsibility and truth), human attitudes (such as equality or solidarity), social life (such as freedom or tolerance), individual and group behaviour (such as revolution or work), names for human communities (such as family or nation), names for political, social, and cultural institutions (such as church or state), names for persons and objects that are considered cultural values

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(such as father or bread), and names for objects that symbolise a value (such as the cross).

To define and explicate values, BartmiĔski relies on words, phraseological units, proverbs, morphology and syntax as well as other data drawn for instance from interviews, songs, questionnaires etc.

5.2. Ethnolinguistics according to Underhill (2012) Like BartmiĔski, James W. Underhill is fascinated by the study of worldviews. He has written three books (Underhill 2009, 2011, 2012), all of them with meaningful titles. The first one, called Humboldt, worldview and language, briefly refers to Boas, Sapir and Whorf, all of whom are very much indebted to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s philosophy of language, whose ideas are presented in much more detail. Underhill then proceeds with a much needed reformulation of Humboldt’s hypotheses on the link between languages and worldviews: he insists on the fact that the link is in fact bilateral. The second book, Creating worldviews: metaphor, ideology, and language, investigates the extent to which a speaker’s worldview is determined by the language or languages he or she speaks; Underhill shows how that worldview can be altered as a result of personal as well as ideological interpretations of the world. The most recent book is titled Ethnolinguistics and cultural concepts: truth, love, hate and war. The term worldview is no longer in the title but continues to be at the forefront of the author’s mind. Underhill (2012, x-xi) reiterates views that were already clearly present in his earlier work and exemplifies them with special reference to French and German (as opposed to English): Worldviews emerge within our own language, visions of the world, conceptual worlds, which oppose and contradict one another: incompatible ideologies which seek to exclude one another. But there is a worldview which is implicit in the deeper frameworks of the language system we speak. At this level, French and German shape the imagination, the understanding and the desires of the French and the Germans. Their sensitivity to the world, all of the conceptual connections which French and German people take for granted, appear to us curious, at times almost incomprehensible. Learning to navigate within their waters, we come to realize that we are entering another worldview.

What then, according to Underhill, is ethnolinguistics?

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Chapter Eight Ethnolinguistics is the study of the way worldviews construct the complex and flexible frameworks within which we think and feel. To say “within which” is already misleading: we are not “confined” to or by language. … Ultimately language is not a prison. But nor is it a mere tool, a means: it is an ongoing act of creation. Consequently, at one level we are as much the producers as the products of language. (ibid.: x) Recognising that languages are complex systems of conceptual and emotional patterning is part of the ethnolinguistic project. Recognising that languages pattern understanding differently, and that they thereby present slightly different worlds to us, is the crux of the ethnolinguistic approach. (ibid.: xi)

According to Underhill, ethnolinguists must engage in discourse analysis to gain a more detailed picture of the plurality of worldviews and their multifaceted ways of interacting. He shows the way by examining how truth, love, hate and war are talked about in English, French, German and Czech. Unlike BartmiĔski, who focuses solely on Polish, his approach is intrinsically contrastive. Dealing with a range of phenomena as diverse as metaphor, synonymy, antonymy, collocations and associations, Underhill progressively confirms that ethnolinguistics, by virtue of its interest in tools that are themselves political in nature (i.e. languages), cannot refrain from dealing with politics. He had already issued a warning in the first chapter: “ethnolinguistics itself is fundamentally political” [and] “will have much to say about politics, since all politics is carried out with words” (ibid.: 9).

6. Final remarks In an attempt to position my own brand of ethnolinguistics against others that bear the same name, I shall from now on rely on the adjective applied and refer to applied ethnolinguistics when talking about what I used to call the ethnolinguistic pathways model in Peeters (2009a) and ethnolinguistique in Peeters (2011, 2012b). As a label, applied ethnolinguistics appears to be less sought after than ethnolinguistics for short; it is therefore (at least for the time being) more readily available as an unambiguous descriptor for my work. Adding the adjective applied is entirely legitimate, as applied ethnolinguistics–as I understand it–is targeted in particular at relatively advanced language students. Of the three takes on ethnolinguistics explicitly dealt with above, mine is the most resolutely pedagogical. Applied ethnolinguistics aims at illustrating how the study of culturally salient words, phrases, productive syntactic patterns and

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communicative behaviours can lead to the discovery of putative cultural values which are then to become the subject of further investigation leading to either the confirmation or rejection of their assumed status; and also how, through detailed study of non-linguistic data on the one hand, and culturally salient words, phrases, productive syntactic patterns and communicative behaviours on the other hand, cultural values typically associated with a particular languaculture can be further corroborated. Within the NSM approach, which is a defining feature of applied ethnolinguistics, the term ethnophraseology has been used once or twice, the terms ethnopragmatics and ethnosyntax are firmly established, and the terms ethnolexicology and ethnoaxiology are new. This is not to say that, beyond the NSM approach, those terms that are already in use are understood as they are here: ethnopragmatics and ethnosyntax are relatively widespread labels that are commonly used elsewhere, be it in linguistics, or in areas such as psychiatry, psychology, anthropology or ethnology. Definitions had therefore to be provided. They show, among other things, that the five pathways naturally complement one another, so much so that nothing should prevent anyone from pursuing all of them in turn. One and the same individual can in turn be an ethnoaxiologist, an ethnolexicologist, an ethnophraseologist, an ethnosyntactician and an ethnopragmaticist, start and finish no matter where, switch as often as is necessary, and change directions anytime. None of the pathways are logically prior to any of the others, and none has preferred status (even though an ethnoaxiological study will often be preceded by one of the other pathways). As mentioned before, applied ethnolinguistics as defined here is work in progress; it is hoped that advanced language learners may find in it something of interest, and that it may facilitate their exploration of foreign cultural values through the medium of the language they are keen to acquire.

Notes 1

An earlier version of this chapter (Peeters 2009) was published in the e-journal Fulgor. Permission to reuse, update and expand the original material was kindly granted by the journal editors. 2 In what follows, I will use Agar’s term rather than Friedrich’s, as it is closer to the one which, following in footsteps of Galisson (1991), I adopt in my writings in French, viz. langue-culture. I acknowledge, though, with Gamaroff (1997), that linguaculture may be “easier to pronounce”. However, languaculture remains closer to its component parts: “whenever you hear the word language or the word

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culture, you might wonder about the missing half. … ‘Languaculture’ is a reminder” (Agar 1994: 60). 3 The other premises are listed and commented on below. 4 No matter how useful the distinction may be, adopting it (as I did in Peeters 1997) increases our chances of positing–quite unjustifiably (see below)–that some misunderstandings which come to the fore in intercultural communication are a priori non-cultural in nature. It is for this reason that I abandoned the distinction in Peeters (2003b) and remain undecided today. 5 Even though, in practical terms, it may be a hard distinction to make, it is important at a theoretical level to distinguish between the two main forms of communicative failure, viz. misunderstanding (the focus of our preceding remarks) and mere inability to understand. Native speakers who speak too fast, who use a dialect which is relatively impenetrable, who do not articulate properly, or who use too great a number of complex words have undoubtedly as much trouble to get their message across than do non-native speakers who express themselves with a relatively strong accent or who use the wrong vocabulary. In both cases, the danger of there being no understanding at all looms large–and the concomitant risk of embarrassment is considerable. 6 What Dewaele & Wourm (2002) said about this more than ten years ago remains very much the case today. 7 On the contribution made by the adjective petit dans un petit cognac, cf. Peeters (2012a). 8 On the French norm of thanking to refuse an offer, see also Mujdei & Van Hecke (2000). Darlington (2005: 402) remembers that “as a boy in Lille [he] did not realise that it [= Merci; B.P.] also means No thank you, and nearly starved in the midst of plenty”. 9 Goddard himself places the beginnings of ethnopragmatics in the mid-eighties, associating it with the publication of Wierzbicka (1985), but the term (as used in the NSM approach, on which see below) is his (Goddard 2002). 10 Riley (2007), too, talks about ethnolinguistics in a book which, in essence, explores how speakers, thanks to the communicative behaviours they engage in, create their own identity and that of others (both in-group and out-group, to use terms popularised by sociologist Henri Tajfel; cf. Tajfel 1981). Two rather different paradigms are brought to bear on one another in Riley’s work, viz. ethnolinguistics and the sociology of knowledge. 11 Many of those who profess an interest in the relationship between languages, cultures and thought work in the area of language teaching and second language acquisition. Others include researchers who have been inspired by Palmer’s (1996) Cultural Linguistics. In more recent years, Palmer’s work, too, has found its way into applied linguistics: one of the results is a volume (Sharifian & Palmer 2007) which includes Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard among its contributors (cf. Goddard & Wierzbicka 2007). For a very recent presentation of Cultural Linguistics, see Sharifian (2013). 12 This doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that the label ethnolinguistics is unknown in North-America. It does exist and is used above all with reference to the study of American indigenous languages.

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INDEX

abduction (Peirce), 212–3, 215, 220 absurd humour, 119–21, 126, 131–3 academic communication, 77–106 address strategies (Italian vs English), 77–106 advice, 141–79 affection, 129 affiliation, 167 aggressiveness, 79 anecdotes, 107–8, 113, 132 anthropological linguistics, 249 apologies, 14 applied ethnolinguistics, 231–59 appropriateness, 211, 214 association right, 167 Australian English, 107–39 authority, 79, 92–3, 158 auto-derision, 115 autonomy, 166–70 banter, 113, 116 black humour, 113 boosting, 47–73 bushes (= informal lexemes), 52 Cambridge First Certificate in English, 20 casualness, 54, 81–3, 100 classroom interaction, 77–106 closeness, 14, 49, 52–4, 60–3, 68, 81, 148, 155, 162–3, 167 cognitive ethnolinguistics, 248–9 colloquial speech, 20, 47–73, 77– 106 communication breakdown, 26 communicative competence, 13, 18, 40, 47 communicative ethos, 109 communicative leniency, 18, 33

communicative norms, 142, 165, 211, 215, 218, 231–32, 235–7, 241, 247–8 comparative fallacy, 17 complicity, 123, 125, 127–31 compliments, 122 conceptual metaphors, 183–205 conflict signals, 215 Confucianism, 152, 166 conversational involvement, 17, 33– 5 cultural ethos, 77, 79, 82, 107–39, 239 cultural scripts, 50 cultural values, 15–6, 78, 84, 92, 109, 122, 129, 133, 210, 212–3, 217, 220–2, 231–59 DCT. See discourse completion task deadpan humour, 113 deadpan jocular irony, 114, 116, 130 deference, 79, 90, 168 deicticity, 79. See also social deixis dialogism (Bakhtin), 209 diatopic variation, 80 directness, 145, 148, 152, 164–5, 167, 211 discourse completion task, 18, 37 disinterest, 17 distance, 20, 49, 52–4, 63, 68, 79– 81, 83, 89–91, 94, 99–101, 141– 79 downgraders (Wu Chinese), 146–7, 151–3, 156–61, 164–5 downtoning. See mitigation EFL. See English / English as a foreign language.

262 egalitarianism, 50, 78, 81–2, 101, 122, 131, 133 elaboration, 16, 30, 35 emic, 79, 170 emotional verbalisation, 207–29 endearments, 81 endolingual communication, 233 English / English as a foreign language, 11–45, 144–5, 183– 205. See also Australian English escalation, 117, 122, 125, 131–3 ethnoaxiology, 243, 247, 253 ethnocentrism, 168, 235 ethnography, 207–29 ethnography of speaking, 48 ethnolexicology, 242–4, 253 ethnolinguistics, 231–32, 242–4, 248–52. See also applied ethnolinguistics, cognitive ethnolinguistics ethnophraseology, 242–3, 245, 253 ethnopragmatics, 210, 243, 247, 253 ethnosyntax, 242–3, 245, 253 ethos. See communicative ethos, cultural ethos exolingual communication, 233, 239 eye contact, 12, 17, 24, 27, 31, 34, 36, 38 face, 11, 16, 19, 32, 51, 69, 83, 113, 116–8, 121–5, 128, 141–79 face enhancing act, 168 face loss, 14, 34, 166 face needs, 167 face threatening act, 16, 51, 113, 118, 121–125, 127, 129, 131, 146–8, 166, 168 falling intonation, 17, 60 familiarity, 77, 81, 83, 88, 90–4, 96–100, 129 fantasy humour, 112, 114, 119–20, 125, 130 FCE. See Cambridge First Certificate in English first language transfer, 14, 18, 37

Index first name (address strategy), 77– 106, 236 flat intonation, 17, 24, 31–2, 34–6, 38 formality, 14, 47–73, 77–106 fractals (Kramsch), 214 frames, 21, 32, 44, 48–51, 61, 63–5, 68–9, 242–3 French, 107–39 friendliness, 60, 81, 91, 169 FTA. See face threatening act genre, 28, 48, 50 grammar teaching, 183–205 grammatical accuracy, 13 grammatical knowledge, 13 gratitude, 14, 147 harmony, 166 head-act, 151 hedges, 52 high-context communication, 15 hints, 165 honorifics, 53, 77–106, 147 hostility, 79, 81 humour, 107–39 hyperbole, 118, 125 hypocrisy, 165 ICC. See Intercultural Communicative Competence ILL. See Intercultural Language Learning illocutionary force, 79, 151 ILT. See Intercultural Language Teaching immersion, 142, 231–2, 235 impoliteness, 131, 145, 165. See also mock impoliteness incongruity, 112, 119–22, 124, 126, 128, 130, 133 indirectness, 145, 165, 167, 169 individualism, 142 individualist cultures, 14 individuality, 168 inferential demands, 15, 33 informality. See colloquial speech

Index

263

intercultural awareness, 208 Intercultural Communicative Competence, 208, 210 Intercultural Language Learning, 208 Intercultural Language Teaching, 208 interlocutor perception, 11–45 interpersonal stance, 80 interviews (= data), 47–73 interviews (= technique), 11, 15–6, 19–24, 32–3, 38, 85, 216–7, 222 intonation. See prosody irony, 113, 132. See also deadpan jocular irony Italian, 77–106

minimal utterances, 16 miscommunication. See pragmatic failure misunderstandings. See pragmatic failure mitigation, 47–73, 145 mock aggression, 129, 133 mock challenges, 123, 131 mock imitations, 123 mock impoliteness, 114, 116, 123, 125, 128 mockery, 113. See also jocular mockery modesty, 58 mood particles (Wu Chinese), 156– 9, 169

Japanese, 11–45 jocular abuse, 114, 116 jocular mockery, 114, 116 jokes, 107–8, 112, 132

names, 29, 79, 81, 84, 86 Natural Semantic Metalanguage, 212, 243, 248, 253 nicknames, 81, 147 non-verbal communication, 18 norms. See communicative norms, pragmalinguistic norms, sociopragmatic norms NSM. See Natural Semantic Metalanguage

key words, 240 L1 transfer. See first language transfer lack of commitment, 15 lack of cooperation, 13, 16–7, 34 lack of interest, 12, 14–5, 27, 34–5 languaculture, 232–3, 235, 238–40, 242–3, 253 language-culture education, 207–29 lian (Chinese), 141, 166–7 linguaculture, 214, 232 linguistic anthropology, 249 linguistic play, 119–21, 130, 133 linguistic proficiency, 15 loss of face. See face loss low-context communication, 14, 16 mateship, 59, 81–2 maxim of quantity (Grice), 16, 34 metaphors. See conceptual metaphors metapragmatic awareness, 207–29 mianzi (Chinese), 141, 166–7 minimal response, 29, 34

observer effects, 20 oral interaction, 11–45 oral proficiency, 20, 32 other-directed humour, 116 paralanguage, 17, 35, 37 participation framework, 115 passivity, 15 pauses. See silence perspicuousness, 236 PET. See Preliminary English Test politeness, 122, 147–8, 165, 167–9, 141–79, 211, 238 politic behaviour, 52–4, 60–1, 65, 68–9 portmanteau words, 119 post-task verbalisation. See retrospective verbal reports

264 power, 19, 32, 47, 49–53, 58, 60, 62–3, 66, 83, 89, 101, 112, 122, 141–79, 188, 194 pragmalinguistic failure, 233–4 pragmalinguistic norms, 77–8 pragmatic appropriateness, 13, 35 pragmatic competence, 13, 18, 30, 48, 51, 68, 211 pragmatic conventions, 13–4, 16, 31, 35–6 pragmatic failure, 13, 19, 34, 209, 215, 232–5 pragmatic force, 50, 64 pragmatic inappropriateness, 12–3 pragmatic interference, 77–106 pragmatic problems, 11–45 pragmatic transfer, 30, 91, 141 prejudice, 232 Preliminary English Test, 20 prestige, 152 privacy, 211 professional stranger, 222 proficiency, 11, 16, 18–9, 32–3, 37– 8 prosody, 18, 24–5, 32, 37. See also falling intonation, flat intonation, rising intonation puns, 113 questionnaires, 12, 21, 23, 33–7, 85–6, 88, 92, 95–6, 221–22 quips, 125 recipient-oriented humour, 116, 128–30, 133 reflexivity, 210–4, 219 refusals, 14, 39, 148 repartees, 113, 118, 122, 125, 132 requests, 14, 212, 234 respect, 17, 79, 81, 83, 97, 211 retorts, 113, 125 retrospective verbal reports, 11–45 rich points (Agar), 209, 213–5, 220, 224–5, 240 rising intonation, 17 role-play, 12, 18, 38, 216–7, 219

Index Russian, 183–205 RVR. See retrospective verbal report sarcasm, 17, 114 schema conflict, 120 self-deprecating humour, 113, 115, 117, 125 silence, 12, 14–6, 24–8, 33–6, 38 self-mocking humour, 121 self-oriented humour, 114–8, 124 sincerity, 144, 165, 235 small talk, 110, 151, 169 social deixis, 53, 80, 87, 95, 98 social dis-ease, 129 sociolinguistic competence, 211, 214 sociopragmatic competence, 210, 219 sociopragmatic failure, 231–2 sociopragmatic norms, 77, 78, 92, 96, 101, 211 sociopragmatic transfer, 169 solidarity, 52, 79, 81, 91, 112, 122, 129–31, 141 speech acts, 18, 33, 79, 122 status, 14, 83, 92–3, 98–9, 142, 152 stereotypes, 209, 212, 221, 234–5 stylistic differences, 18 subversive humour, 114, 130 supportive moves, 151, 158, 169 surname (address strategy), 81–2, 84, 86, 88, 90, 95–6, 101 teaching-induced errors, 18, 36 teases, 113 thirdness (Bakhtin), 209 third-party oriented humour, 116, 129–30, 133 titles, 79, 81, 84, 86–8, 90–1, 95–6, 98, 101 truthfulness, 158, 165 under-elaboration, 12, 15–6, 24–5, 28–30, 34, 36, 38

Index upgraders (Wu Chinese), 146–7, 151–3, 156–61, 164–5 vagueness, 51 variationist sociolinguistics, 47–8, 54 vocatives, 79–82, 87–8, 96–7

265 wisecracks, 114, 125 witticism, 113, 131 wordplay, 107–8, 113, 120–1, 130– 2 worldview, 250–2 Wu Chinese, 141–79