Entry 4: Tell me a bedtime story...

The second part of our topic of the week, is personally a lot more interesting (but sadly, due to time constraints, this subtopic wasn't comprehensively discussed during the seminar). Why is it interesting to me? Maybe it's because I write reviews of Japanese animation as a hobby, and my reviews are regularly edited and revised by an Australian editor, Sorrow-kun (my editor's moniker).


Researches have shown that there are some common observations in the differences between English and Chinese narratives, and it's intriguing. Both exhibits the same structural template: an orientation, initiating and complicating events, a high point and a coda. The thing is, the delivery and presentation of a situation is particularly different in informative, narrative and evaluative senses:

1. English writers adopt a more specific and elaborate approach in character identification, whereas Chinese writers tend to use non-specific references and are restrictive in giving information (by this notion, I assume that English writers favours description and elaborative detail; Chinese writers favour generalisation and minimal details).
2. English writers use proper names to identify characters and explicit define relationships, whereas Chinese writers prefer using specific time orientation in narrating a story (emphasis on character development again for the Westerners).
3. English writers focus a lot on the action of the characters using active phrases to develop the storyline, whereas Chinese writers highlight overt temporal sequence using temporal connectors for the same purpose (I'd say that English writers use characters as "chess pieces"; they actively influence how the game (i.e. the story) shall progress. Chinese writers use them as "elements" of a chain of events; characters are just details.)
4. English writers compose texts which are implicitly presented, whereas Chinese writers compose them and incorporate moral statements often explicitly pointed out (I'd assume that English writers write to entertain the readers; Chinese writers write to impart messages of virtues.)
5. In general, English writers are writer-responsible in providing more information elaboration, whereas Chinese writers are more reader-responsible in providing less information elaboration (English writers write what they want to write; Chinese writers write what the readers should read. Do I sense a tinge of censorship from the Chinese writers, and a tinge of freedom of speech from their English counterparts?)

These findings are very intriguing, and I shall give instances to explain my opinions (I would take Japanese animation/anime as alternate visual version of narrative stories). I am an anime reviewer with considerably strong opinions in dissecting all anime to a certain degree, and I have a strong liking towards certain anime titles with a good storyline and great characters. Seeing as how English writers emphasise on character development in point 1), this is essential to me because characters drive the story. Weak characters are those I can't relate in person; I can't see how a story with minimal description can render a story great. This also explains for point 3); characters directly influence the story for them, and I see it under the same light as well.

For point 4), I'd insinuate that English writers write as a way to express themselves liberally. English writers tend to make a lot of controversy because of this; they don't write to please the readers. In fact, controversy is actually good because it sets the readers thinking and voicing out their counter-opinions. This may not be true for Chinese writers; they write, bearing in mind the readership that ensues post-publishing their work. Controversy isn't favoured for Chinese writers and readers (in fact, in Asia as well) because with controversy comes tension, and it's deemed undesirable.  For point 5), English writers elaborate because the key here is visualisation through words. Think Twilight, written by American English writer Stephanie Meyers. Here's a sample of her writing style:

And then Edward stepped out from the trees, his skin faintly glowing, his eyes black and dangerous. He held up one hand and beckoned me to come to him. The wolf growled at my feet. I took a step forward, toward Edward. He smiled then, and his teeth were sharp, pointed.

Bella Swan, Twilight, Chapter 7, p.131

Meyers' writing style is known to be copious with vivid descriptions and active phrases, and she uses characters as the main driving force in developing the story. Meyers displaces herself from the story and lets protagonists take charge of it. Another famous author Stephen King has even rubbished her superfluous writing style by saying the following:

"It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they're not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet." 

Her active, descriptive style is distinctive because readers don't just read her story; they actually watch it because her descriptive writing enables them to. It wouldn't have worked if she had adopted the Chinese narrative style.

Point 5) is also something for one to ponder over. Writers aren't restricted only to paper; think about writers of movies. Randomly pick a Chinese movie (i.e. movie written by a Chinese writer with a Chinese background). Chances are, you'll find that the movie would contain some sort of moral statements. Think Hero, Little Red Flowers, Fearless and even the upcoming Confucius. Now, think of an English movie (i.e. movie written by an American/English writer with a Western background). Chances are, you'll likely find a movie that's for merely entertainment. Even if it has a moral statement, it's masked so that it's intepretative.

Take Avatar, for instance. There are so many ways to intepret Avatar; some see it as lavish entertainment, while other take it for something even deeper. The message(s) present in the movie is undeniable but subliminal. So many people from different bodies have criticised the movie for various reasons: the "White Messiah", ironic environmental issues (the movie is about saving Mother Nature, but the movie is rumoured to have created a lot of pollution in the process), and even sexist allegations. This controversy is actually desirable; just look at how much money the movie is raking in, even now!


I'm pondering on whether I should write for the topic on "Listener Responses". This is another topic that I feel like discussing in a separate entry.

Entry 3: Hello, who's there?

This week, we talk about spoken discourse which personally isn't easy to differentiate from last week's topic, speech events? We have discussed what a speech event is, but then what is spoken discourse? Is it any different from speech event? Dr. Deng has explained that a spoken discourse isn't speech event because of a few "boundaries" that distinguishes itself from other cross-communication topics:


1) Any spoken discourse is governed by "rules".


2) Going against the rules may make one appear rude.


So, what are these so-called "rules", and who make them? Well, to be honest, finding out who make these rules would be going off-topic but it is observed that different cultures follow different discourses because of the influence of these rules. For instance, a simple phone call actually exemplifies this phenomenon. To an average viewer, it may bear no importance but there have been "patterns" that people follow, either consciously or unconsciously. American sociologist Schegloff have conducted an extensive research on the differences between a typical American and Dutch phone call, and have proposed a conclusion: The caller is the initial greeter, and the recipient will subsequently direct the course of the phone conversation. In Holland however, it's very much the opposite: The recipient will self-identify, followed by self-identification by the caller.


Hard to believe? To be frank, I had no idea that this is the "pattern" Dr. Deng was talking about. What about you? What do you do when you make the phone call? For me, I'd usually wait for a few seconds for the recipient to say "Hello?" first. If I receive no response, then I would ask "Hello?". This is how I would typically make a phone call (and this also applies when I speak to my Japanese friends over the phone):



Me: (calls someone)
Recipient: Hello?
Me: Hello, (recipient's name)?
Recipient: Oh, it's you! How are you?
Me: Fine. Where are you?
...


Is it rude not to self-identify in a phone call? Actually, it can be. I've observed that people from the earlier generation dislike callers who don't self-identify, labelling them as "rude". I can empathise with their sentiments; in a normal face-to-face conversation between strangers, would you ask for the person's name without introducing yourself? According to conventional etiquette, people should self-identify before seeking the other's name, but has anyone pointed out that it is necessarily rude for people not to self-identify oneself? Think about it; I rarely introduce myself and yet, nobody has pointed out how rude I am. If no one has pointed it out, then who's to say that it's rude in the first place?

Now we come to the second part of spoken discourse in a phone call. It has been observed that a typical Chinese phone call includes other-oriented inquiries; it's about the recipient's well-being. That's common for me too, although who makes the other-oriented inquiry first may vary (usually, it's the recipient in my case). Here's what Harfiz, Sarah and I have been observing in a typical Malay phone call: We like to ask "where are you?" as our other-oriented inquiry. Harfiz has explained it in his entry: Your recipient's whereabouts serve as a course marker on assumptive grounds. If the recipient is at his workplace (school inclusive), he's probably busy and as a caller, I may change the topic. If the recipient is at home, he's possibly free or bored.


Why do the Chinese generally emphasise on other-oriented inquiries or relation-oriented comments? My assumption is, doing so symbolises thought and consideration for the recipient. By not doing so, the caller may appear selfish or inconsiderate for calling the recipient merely to fulfill the caller's needs without sparing a thought. It's somewhat the same for Malay phone calls, but the sheer amount of either one of them may be different. Saying a single line of either an other-oriented inquiry or relation-oriented comment is enough; more of it may seem long-winded and aimless. Perhaps, this is the same for Western phone calls. After all, Singapore is an Asian country with Western influences.


This week's topic is rather vast, so I'll split this week's entry into two. This is the first entry that deals with a phone call, and my second will deals with narratives and backchanneling. Hurr, how verbose can I be? I wonder if I'm like this on the phone too...?

Entry 2 (part 2): To Bargain or Not to Bargain?

The topic for week 3 was about speech acts, and an instance to illustrate act sequence, one of the important aspects of analysing a speech event, is the typical Southern California marketplace talk. Basically, it is found that the typical act sequence for such a speech event would go like this: The vendor begins the event by appealing or offering service (e.g. "Wanna try some apples?"). The customer continues the conversation by making the order or selecting the goods (e.g. "Sure, I'll have some/How much for 4 apples?"). The vendor then finishes the conversation by complying or declaring the price (e.g. "Certainly/$3 for 4 apples"). This typical speech event would have some variations but the general pattern remains the same.

After the lecture, I wanted to have some real input by asking a "test subject", and I decided that that "test subject" would be someone who frequents a marketplace. That person is none other than my mother, who somewhat has a love-hate relationship with the wet market (she complains about the prices and service there all the time, yet she keeps going there despite having other alternatives). In her case, would the typical speech event follow the same act sequence mentioned above? Her explanation was intriguing...

After the second act (vendor complying or declaring the price), her  conversation becomes something else. She bargains with the vendor to lower the price. Almost always. In fact, she explained to me that bargaining isn't easy but it's important (note that the word is in italic because she stressed this aspect) for the customer-vendor relationship. I asked her "Is bargaining something bad to you?". She replied that she doesn't think so. She didn't admit that; instead, she readily replied (you won't admit something if you never denied anything in the first place (｀-´)> ).

Before I explain why she thinks bargaining is important for both the customer and the vendor, I'll explain the "rules" she follows when she bargains for anything. The "rules" are as follow (be reminded that this is my mother's methodology):

• Bargain at wet markets.

Although bargaining isn't restricted to wet markets only, they are the best place to do so. She explains that bargaining is impossible in say, supermarkets. Well, that goes without saying; who would you bargain with at the supermarket, anyway? The cashier?? Bargaining is all about direct interaction, and this is doable in wet markets.

• Bargain for small items.

You'll be amazed by my mother's adeptness in bargaining. I found out that my 10-year old mattress was bargained even though it originally costed more than S$100 back in the day! However, bargaining for smaller items is relatively easier for obvious reasons. Bigger items are naturally more expensive, and vendors are more normally reluctant towards bargaining for something more costly.

• Bargain for selected food items.

If the setting is the wet market, then this "rule" is very applicable. The common food items to bargain for are fruits, vegetables and fish, and according to my mother, they're easy to bargain. Fish are more strongly recommended to bargain for than fruits and vegetables because they're much easier to criticise. The easier to criticise, the easier to bargain for the compromised quality. Criticise as much as you can about a fish: the gills, the eyes, the scales, the colour... every aspect makes money. Chickens however, are hard to bargain for some reason. Perhaps it's because a lot of factors come into play in the pricing.

• Bargain for unrounded-priced items.

The prices for certain food items may not be rounded off to the nearest dollar. For example, some apples can be priced at $2.50 for 4. Bargain for items like these; try to ask for $2 instead. Plus, bargaining based on rounding to the nearest dollar is the easiest form for both the customer and the vendor in terms of mental computation, anyway.

• Bargain often, but never always.

The universal notion applies: "Too much of something isn't always a good thing". If you bargain too much, you'll be seen by the vendor as a gross opportunist. In the end, you'll go against the original objective of building a relationship with the vendor. Remember, bargaining is supposed to be a win-win situation (a compromise); the customer isn't supposed to be the only winning party and the same goes for the vendor too.

Now comes the important question: Why does my mother believe that bargaining is about establishing a close relationship with the vendor? Think of it this way: When my mother bargains with a vendor for something, she's also including a "fine print", and the vendors should know how to read between the lines. The fine print is somewhere along the line of "If you lower the price, I'll be your regular customer because I know I can bargain with you again after this. If you don't, I can always go to other vendors for the same thing. I get the item at a lower price, and you get yourself good business by having me as another regular customer!". See the mechanics involved in the conversation? My mother is unlike many of those who bargain: they do so for the money, but my mother does it both for the vendor and the money Σ(゜д゜;)


Edit:


Now, my mother also introduced several strategies for the undesirable outcome; in other words, if the vendor doesn't comply with your first bargained price. They are:

• Take note of the environment.

This is very applicable in the wet market. It's very likely that there's more of one shop of a certain type; for example, there are bound to be more than one fruitseller in a wet market. If the first fruitseller doesn't comply with you, deftly intimidate them: "That other stall is selling it for a cheaper price, you know!". Don't blatantly lie about the existence of the "other stall"; make sure that "other shop" does exist for credibility and integrity purposes.

• Make a deal with the vendor.

When you're bargaining with a vendor, you're also connoting something in your dialogue (covered in the previous paragraph). The vendor may not comply because he/she didn't get the drift. Explicitly tell the vendor that you'll be frequenting the place if he/she complies with the bargained price. That way, you clear up any misunderstanding.

• Badmouth... to a small extent.

This strategy is a two-man operation and my mother would use this when I'm following her to the market. She would comment how expensive the item turns out to be or how stingy the vendor is, to me in Malay. She may do this either as frustration (normal) or with an ulterior motive (clever). If she does it with an ulterior motive, she comments to me in Malay in a deft attempt to incite a counter reaction from the vendor to respond to the explicit complaint. This strategy is not advisable because you're compromising yourself as someone who's indiscreet enough to ironically complain behind people's back, in front of them. However, my mother have experienced how some vendors remain nonchalant because my mother wasn't the only customer, anyway.

Is bargaining a bad thing in the first place? This is a tough question to answer. Firstly, you must know if bargaining is a common practice nowadays, and if it is, where is it normally practised. Is it something exclusive to Singapore as a branch of "kiasuism" (i.e. the phenomenon of not wanting to lose out in any situation, by any means necessary)? Is it an Asian trait? For some reason, bargaining isn't something common in Western countries because it may deemed unethical. Bargaining, in a way, makes the customer look like a cheapskate and it's worse when the customer uses bargaining to label the vendor "stingy" if he/she doesn't comply. After seeing how bargaining not necessarily a bad thing, I'd conclude that bargaining is a double-edged sword. It can be used to establish or enhance the customer-vendor relationship, or simply make things worse by labelling the customer and vendor "cheap" and "stingy" respectively.

To end off the post, I'll share with you readers a speech that epitomises the concept of irony. At one time, she didn't get something from a fruitseller at a bargained price. I can't remember what the item was, but for something that costed as little as $4.50, bargaining for $4 shouldn't seem to be a big deal. Disgruntled, my mother walked away with me and grumbled in Singlish, "Aiyah, 50 cents also want to count. Cannot bargain. So mengire (Malay for "counting"; penny-pinching). Here's my poser: Who's the real penny-pincher here （´-`）.｡oO( ... ) ?


P.S. I want to give generous compliments to my economically sage mother for her invaluable insight on bargaining. Her explanation had me intrigued enough to write this post, and I hope that readers can relate this post with their own past experiences.

And no, I'm not being sarcastic at all.

Entry 2 (part 1): Think before you speak!

This week, our topic focuses on speech events, which are very much related to speech acts in certain ways. By definition, a speech event is "a structured activity governed by rules of the use of speech". Sounds vague, you say? To be truthful, this topic isn't easy to understand because the "boundaries" to define and identify a particular speech event is not apparently defined. To be more specific, it's very difficult to analyse a particular speech event because a lot of factors come into play and more importantly, a speech event can be seen as isolated cases. Dr. Deng has extensively explained the different factors that influence a speech event. They are as follow:

1. Genre
2. Topic
3. Purpose/Function
4. Setting
5. Key
6. Participants
7. Message Form
8. Act Sequence
9. Rules of Interaction
10. Norms of Intepretation

Genre speaks about "any speech event which has fairly predictable sets of speech acts, participants, topics, settings or other regularly occurring and conventional forms". Simply put, ask "What is the speech name event?". Is it a lecture/seminar? Is it a formal dinner conversation? Is it a phone call that involves kidnapping? When one identifies the genre, he/she can therefore predict what type of conversation, topics, etc. is expected in the event. itself. Topic is more or less, "the agenda influencing the actions and conversations exchanged in the event". Think "What is it about?". If you're in a project group meeting, what shall the topic be on, apart from the project itself? Would it include asking about each other's problems pertaining to the project's module? Usually, in any project group meeting, disgression is normally involved. It's not something bad or wrong per se, but too much digression does render the event lacking sense of direction. This is why some events can go "off-topic", because some people may detract to random topics.

The purpose or function, explains for itself: "Why is this event happening?". If a formal meeting is happening, what's the purpose or objective? By understanding the purpose, the people involved would know how the speech event is going to progress. Setting is about the place for the event, which includes geospatial concepts, meteorological aspects, cultural beliefs, etc. For instance, take two different speech events: a lecture and a tutorial in NUS context. As lectures are commonly held in lecture halls, ask yourself this question: Why is the venue structured in such a way that all listeners are facing the podium (the place for the speaker to discuss to the listeners)? Do lectures have to necessarily be structured that way? Then, what about tutorials? Why are our tutorial classes arranged in such a way that people are facing each other rather than all facing towards the conductor of the class?

Tutorial rooms can be structured in generally two ways: people facing each other, or people facing towards the front. Tutorial rooms or lessons where people are facing each other are structured like so because in this case, participation between the people involved are encouraged. The conductor of the lesson still orchestrates the lesson, but the rest have more sense of involvement and authority to direct and decide the lesson's outcome. Tutorial rooms or lessons where people are facing towards the front, are structured like so because the conductor takes more authority in directing the course of the lesson at hand. This can be commonly in NUS context, particularly the difference between tutorials between School of Computing (SoC) and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS).

Key is the "ambiance, tone or mood for a speech event". If one is at a particular event, say, a funeral meeting, what is the key of the event? Is it solemn, jocular or sarcastic? Then, what about the difference between a Chinese funeral and the Malay funeral? In Chinese funerals, crying is strongly encouraged due to their cultural beliefs I'm not aware of (to be covered soon), and this renders the occasion fairly noisy (no disrespect intended). In Malay funerals however, loud crying is strongly discouraged and there's an explanation for it. In Islamic context (I think), people pass away when it's fated to be so. By crying out loudly, it symbolises the person's strong reluctance in letting go of the departed, and this act of reluctance is deemed unacceptable.

Participants is simply "the people directly involved in a speech event". The participants' age, gender, social status or other relevant categories do affect how they speak to each other. In the Japanese business context, especially in a event involving people of different social rankings, the phenomenon called keigo (敬語, Japanese honorifics system) comes into play. Keigo is commonly used between people of different social status, and it can be branched into kenjōgo (謙譲語, humble honorifics) and sonkeigo (尊敬語, respectful honorifics). There are a lot of phenomena in terms of the Japanese language and how different types of participants may influence the speech event, but I shan't go further than this.

Message form is all about "the spoken and non-spoken messages exchanged in the speech events". What language (keigo is also related in this case), writing style, body language and medium is used? Act sequence is "the flow of speech acts". It is found that in the Southern California marketplace, a typical market speech event would go like this:

1) Vendor appeals/offers service

2) Customer makes an order or select the goods

3) Vendor may either comply or declare the price of goods

Of course, variations are to be expected for this speech event. This example is hard to analyse because aspects of this example are similar and only the order will be changed. However, here's a conspicuous observation: In a typical North American dinner party, the order is usually as follows - short meet-and-greet with the people, then dinner, and finally, the main evening's entertainment. In a typical Cantonese dinner party however, people leave as soon as they have their meals. Entertainment are normally held before dinner itself.

Rules of interaction is about a few things: what are socially or morally accepted in a event? How should people conduct themselves? For instance, would you talk about the departed's circulating rumours during his funeral meeting itself?  Should you speak about supernatural beings during particular timings? Then, this leads to the last factor, the norms of interaction. In other words, why is it so? Why are the Chinese encouraged to cry loudly during a Chinese funeral? In contrast, why are the Malays discouraged to cry loudly during a Malay funeral?

The topic on speech events is a difficult but intriguing one. I have past experiences on certain speech events and after this week's seminar, it puts a lot of them into prospective. I originally chose to take this GEM because I want to be culturally aware on what's going on around me, and this is one of the first steps towards reaching my objective.

NOTE: I shall be posting something concerning the poll above, soon. Stay tuned.

Entry 1 (part 2): Speechless in Speech Acts

Dr. Deng focused heavily on the differences between responding to a compliment by the American (English) and Chinese speakers on the 29 January seminar. As mentioned in the previous post, the style of responding to a compliment can be generally (but certainly not always) categorised into four strategies: accepting, rejecting, returning and deflecting. Extensive research have shown some eye-opening observations on how American and Chinese speakers would commonly respond to an innocent, honest compliment. Here's the conspicuous difference: American speakers may adopt any of the four strategies if they receive a compliment, whereas Chinese speakers may adopt one of only three strategies, namely rejecting, thanking and denigrating (humbling), and accepting. Furthermore, I also listed the strategies commonly adopted by Chinese speakers for a reason: it's listed based on the most common observation. The most common strategy to respond to a compliment by the Chinese speakers is indeed rejecting it, followed by thanking and denigrating, and finally, the least common strategy, accepting.

I'll take a step further by explaining in detail how different the rejection of a compliment by American and Chinese speakers truly are. American speakers would only use the rejection strategy as a last resort it seems, by disagreeing with the compliment and further humbling himself/herself e.g. "I don't think I look that much different." The Chinese speakers however, would likely reject the compliment in three ways: By rejecting and denigrating oneself ("No, I know I don't look nice. In fact, you look much better than me."), by expressing embarassment ("No, don't say that. I'm embarassed"), or by explaining ("No, I was too busy and didn't spend as much time on it as I should have."). It's hard for some people to swallow this fact, but I can actually understand this since I've had similar experiences before (by similar, I mean how some people would denigrate oneself). My mother frequently speaks with our neigbour, a Chinese-Singaporean senior citizen who lives with her grandson, and they tend to speak about each other's children. I observe how their conversation would normally go, spoken in bits of English, Malay and Chinese (Hokkien):

Senior citizen: "Who's that? Your bigger son?" (points at my direction)

Mom: "No, my number two son." (my younger son)

Senior citizen: "Wah, so big! He's working now?"

Mom: "No, (he's) studying at NUS."

Senior citizen: "So smart, some more! Not like my son, so lazy and never listens to me. Very hopeless one..."

Here's the big question: Why the big difference in how they would respond to a compliment? What's the rationale behind them? Differences in responding to a speech act almost always have an underlying reason or two that influence their reactions. From the onset, we can generally agree that the American speakers favour agreement and more importantly, they emphasise the importance of confidence and self-esteem in how they conduct themselves. The Chinese speakers however, are strongly in favour of humility and modesty, values which are quite common in the Asian context. For American speakers, to denigrate equates to denting one's self-esteem and coincidence. For the Chinese people, accepting a compliment is deemed as somewhat arrogant. Now, this begs another question: Are the Chinese (or perhaps, Asians) more introverted than the Americans, with this serving as a conspicuous example? Personally, I think that there's some truth in this notion, but lately we're observing another trend: the Chinese are gradually adopting Western values. In the Xi'an province of China, back in 1993, only 4% of the people surveyed would accept a compliment, with landslide of 95% rejecting it. The latest findings have shown that now, over 64% of the people surveyed in Xi'an accept a compliment, with a small percentage rejecting to it. This reversal of response style may highlight how (my personal opinion) the Chinese population are slowly taking certain Western values into their own stride, possible as an important step towards globalisation and economic development. Here's a side note: how would I describe Singapore in terms of culture and values? Singapore is a generally conservative society based on a foundation of traditional eastern values, but we are gradually embracing western values.

Here's another food for thought: Do responses necessarily reflect a person's character and cultural influences? What if a person fakes his/her response (i.e. rejecting a compliment just so that he/she can "fish" for more compliments from the speaker)? This situation sounds comical to be seriously but if it's something people do, it's something worth pondering as well. What you say and what you think are completely two different things. I don't think this is something related to cultural background; it's something to do about one's sense of honesty. Plus, too much modesty is paradoxically a form of arrogance. I admit that even I occasionally reject a compliment because I want the speaker to go on complimenting and flattering me ( - -)v

Entry 1 (part 1): Speechless in Speech Acts

A speech act is "an utterance conceived as an act by which the speaker does something".

That's how Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics defines a speech act. Surely, a number of people may not be able to grasp the meaning of this, unless instances are given. This was where things got very intriguing because here, we got to share our experiences and thoughts about this extensive topic. The main reason behind "intercultural miscommunication", as I hope many would agree, is the lack of understanding of how different people (i.e. people of different backgrounds) perceive the same speech act differently. Some differences in perception are too little to be harmful, but there are those that really rub people entirely the wrong way. Understanding this phenomenon would naturally clear up any misunderstandings but personally, I was more interested in comprehending why certain cultures behave in such a way to a certain speech act.

Dr. Deng has explained that the study of speech acts is divided into three general categories: "cross-cultural variations", "interlanguage variations" and "sociopragmatic variations". Besides the importance of knowing these categories for the sake of my research paper due later this term, it's difficult to distinguish among the three merely from the onset. I'll make things easier to understand by giving examples: In the context of "cross-cultural variations", think a single speech act e.g. paying a compliment to someone. Now, imagine that there are two people from the US and two people from China. How would the two Americans pay compliments to each other and respond accordingly? How would the two Chinese people do the same thing? More importantly, what are the differences the two groups bear, despite doing the same thing? That's "cross-cultural variation". Then, what about "interlanguage variations"? Imagine two people; one from the US and the other from Chinese. Both are studying the same language, say, the Chinese language. Given how each of them has different understandings of their own native language, how will this affect their perception on the common language (in this case, Chinese)? Then, there's the interesting category, "sociopragmatic variations". How will a speech act differ if different social factors come into play between two people? I absolutely mean no offence by this, but how does a college student speak compared to an educationally underprivileged (economic factor)? How would a speech act differ between genders (transgender)? How would a speech act differ between people of different cultures (sociocultural factor)?

The topic on sociopragmatic variations is an intriguing one; it's interesting enough for me to even go around asking people on their take for a certain speech act on my own accord. I can recall my National Service (NS) days where I had the opportunity to interact with people with different social backgrounds. These people include ex-convicts (yes, ex-convicts who has been imprisoned for various reasons, some are empathetic while others are downright ridiculous), former drug addicts, educationally gifted and those from financially strapped households. Mixing with these people, mainly made up of hokkien pengs and mat rempits (Malay term for Malay bikers) was utterly enjoyable because not only they know how to have fun - making improvised flamethrowers, telling off unreasonable superiors without flinching and even talking about random topics in the wee hours - they seem to have a common understanding: they particularly hate judgemental behaviour. That's why they would sometimes violently respond to certain speech acts that are ambiguous to the point of being deftly insinuating. Of course, another common observation is how they speak in a lowbrow expression; they like to liberally use English words in their dialogue to impart nuances that are otherwise not expressible in Malay. English words such as "power" and "steady" are loosely used in certain speech acts for various reasons, one being to create a casual ambiance for two people to be comfortable in.

Here's a thought: Can an educated individual speak to another educated individual in a lowbrow expression? I don't see the harm in doing that, personally. Can an educated individual speak to an educationally underprivileged in a lowbrow expression? I actually think he should. Can an educated individual speak to an educationally underprivileged in a highbrow expression? I actually think he shouldn't, because by doing that, the speaker may be sending the listener the wrong signals. By wrong signals, I mean unintentionally making one look cocky, or worse, putting the listener in a condescending light. Why do I think this way? Personally, I think it's easier for an educated individual to speak in a lowbrow expression than an educationally underprivileged to speak in a highbrow expression. Of course, one must bear in mind that not all educationally underprivileged individuals speak in a lowbrow expression; the same goes for educated people speaking in a highbrow expression.

Here's another instance of sociopragmatic variation that deals with transgender issues. I did some unofficial social experimenting by asking some of my female friends on their frank responses to a certain flattering compliment, and how different social factors may result differently. My compliment is on their looks; in other words, I complimented on how attractive they are (whether they are or not was out of the question, obviously). The candidate gave different kinds of responses, and then I tweaked the situation to see how their responses would change even for the same speech act. For example, I gave a flattering compliment about their looks. Female candidate A responded by being grateful and even adding in a joke. Female candidate B returned my compliment by complimenting me on something else. Female candidate C deflected my compliment topic by asking me for the rationale behind my compliment. Female candidate D turned down my compliment, humbling herself in modest (or coy?) fashion. Then, I altered the speech act by asking how their responses would have differed if say, I was a girl or a Western foreigner instead. It was intriguing to see their opinion on this speech act, some I could fully understand while others were seriously bewildering. To my amusement, some have cared to explained how a poorly executed compliment would easily result in sexual harassment.

What do the different ways of responding to a compliment mean? Well, they can be categorised into four strategies: "accepting", "returning", "rejecting" and "deflecting". The popular trend nowadays when receiving a compliment is to accept it, although it's not necessarily the right thing to do. Accepting a compliment is a form of agreement and gratitude, and I think this is why people are gradually adopting this strategy as the norm. Returning a compliment is also somewhat like accepting it, but it emphasises on adding something further on top of the compliment, probably as a way of putting both of them on the same level of flattery or humility. Rejecting a compliment means disagreeing to it and further denigrating/humbling oneself. Deflecting a compliment is an interesting strategy because not only does it mean giving an explanation based on the received compliment or doubting it, it can also be an artful way of either accepting or rejecting a compliment (or maybe, neither one). Case in point: I have a Japanese female friend from the Asia-Pacific University (APU) who came to Singapore for an intensive English programme. I complimented about her looks on Skype, saying how she is a spitting image of one of my favourite celebrities. Her frank response almost threw me off my chair in laughter: lit. "Actually, a lot of my friends have claimed how I look like a number of celebrities, so I don't really know who I look like in the end." This was most definitely an act of deflection, but did it connote a sense of acceptance or rejection? If you think about it, it can go either way; it's an acceptance because my compliment was something she has similar experiences before, and she was grateful about it. It could also be a rejection because it's a deft response of indifference; in other words, she shrugged off my compliment by claiming how it wasn't something unprecedented. So, did she accept or reject my compliment? Out of personal consolation, I'd just want to think that she accepted it because honestly, if I think that it was a rejection, then I'll be giving myself a big blow to my self-confidence and effort （・Ａ・）

I actually have a lot more things to comment pertaining to speech acts, but for the sake of my readers, I've decided to split this extensive post into two parts, one concerning my personal experiences and the other on my personal opinions on the differences between the responses to a compliment by the English and Chinese speakers. Please follow up with my second post accordingly.