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.