This is not the end ...

It is finally the last lecture for the semester. To sum it all up, I must say the past 12 weeks have been nothing short of great learning opportunities and interesting interactions with Dr. Deng and my fellow classmates.

In particular, I especially enjoyed the lectures on Spoken Discourse and CMC. For the latter, it was truly fun to understand how and why males and females may interact in different ways. In addition, it helps to rationalise similarities and differences in the use of language across gender.

Next, the idea of breaking up into groups for discussion was a good way to get everyone in the class to mingle and interact with one another. Although I am a bit reluctant to get out of my comfort zone sometimes, it was through such activities every week that I got to know my classmates a lot better. Weekly online reflections may seem to be a hassle and an additional workload at first. However, I do appreciate how it “forces” me to reflect on the lecture taught every week and helps me to document my learning journey for the entire semester.

And how can I not mention the highlight of the module – the final project! It was definitely not easy with my chosen topic of Chinese physician and patient interaction in Singapore. The data collection was very tedious and time-consuming as I am required to conduct in-depth interviews. Overall, I have not regretted taking this module. Special thanks to Dr. Deng for his guidance and patience and to my fellow classmates, thank you for being such lovely people in the class! All the best for the exams and remember to wave or smile if you see me on campus. Add everyone on Facebook too!

=)

Communicative Situations 1: Computer Mediated Communication

大家好,

In today’s seminar, we were taught about computer mediated communication (CMC), whereby people interact or communicate via the use of computers. For myself, I feel that there are indeed many advantages that CMC may provide to facilitate the communication process. For example, as compared to face-to-face meetings, CMC is more task-oriented and helps reduce socio-emotional communication. In this way, it decreases the likelihood of one party dominating the meeting and encourages more “equal” member participation.

Furthermore, while some may comment that CMC lacks a “human touch”, we can also see how emotions may be presented in CMC setting although we are unable to see the facial expression or body language of the person that we are having a conversation with. For example, this may be presented by typing in CAPS to emphasise on a word/expression or using emoticons which are more engaging in showing how you feel.

At the same time, while it is true to say that CMC does help people to communicate more effectively especially when face-to-face communication is not possible, it also brings with it certain issues such as the impact on language use, advantages & disadvantages of anonymity and the use of CMC to avoid face-to-face confrontations etc.

I believe the case of CMC’s impact on language use is fairly evident in our everyday lives through the use of instant messenging and SMSes. Take for example, a phrase such as ‘Do you want to go for the lecture tomorrow?’ in a proper language use style may have been presented as ‘Do u wanna go 4 lect tml?” in a CMC scenerio. In this example, we can see how keystrokes have been cut down and simplified in such a way which will definitely be unacceptable in the context of proper language use.

Next, the issue of anonymity also present a case in mind which may affect the use of language in a CMC setting. For example, someone who may be very polite in real life might use more vulgar language in a CMC setting because he may choose to remain anonymous or use a fake identity. Hence, the type of language used, word choice, sentence structure etc may not be the same in CMC and real life.

Communicative Situations 2: Cross-Gender Interaction

Selamat Malam~

I was not able to attend last week seminar as I need to attend an internship interview at the company, Pfizer. However, I can really imagine the exciting debates between the ladies and the gentlemen in the class. As such, I took some time off to read up the lecture notes and try to understand why languages can be sexists and what makes men and women to speak differently.
I have noted that no matter whether is it the kinds of topics discussed, the ways ideas are expressed or the choice of words, both gender groups do it differently and the fundamentals of the interaction styles of men and women are quite distinctive.

Take for example of a social gathering between friends. I have always notice that in the beginning, people will always engage in more general topics e.g. updates about life etc as a group. But thereafter, the kinds of topics discussed will move into more specific ones. On one hand, the guys will talk about army (trust me, we guys can talk about the same old army stories, forever), career, cars, soccer, investments etc. On the other hand, the ladies will start to chat about fashion, gossips, boyfriends, travel plans and the like. When this happens, the big group will usually be divided into 2 smaller groups with the guys in one group and the ladies in another. However, this always work quite well because it is quite difficult to establish a common topic that will interest everyone who is present especially when it is fairly evident that the guys and ladies place different emphasis and interests in different topics.

Next, I also find that men and women express their ideas and emotions differently. On one hand, when it comes to the situation about bringing ideas and opinions across, the men often adopt a more open and aggressive approach. Sometimes, they may also take on a defensive stand when their ideas are being challenged. For the ladies, they are more likely to adopt a softer and peaceful approach in their expressions and try to avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings. However, when it comes to expressing their emotions, the men often try to hide how he actually feels. Yet for the ladies, they are more open in expressing their emotions sometimes even in public. At the same time, unlike for the men, the women will often relate their problems to their friends.

Of course, there are still many aspects of interaction styles between genders. However, to get a deeper understanding, we will probably have to write out a long research paper on the topic. However, as we exposed ourselves to what have been covered in the lecture and take note of how we interact with members of the opposite sex, it is fairly easy to come up with more examples of similarities or differences on interaction styles between genders.

Cultural Systems 2: Face and Politeness

Sawatdi krap~!

In today’s seminar, we learnt about politeness in terms of linguistic expressions rather than actions. I believe this week’s seminar content is extremely useful in our daily interactions with people as a mean to establish and maintain positive relationships. In these interactions with the people around us, what you say and how you express your intentions is an “art”, as I would call it, to achieve your goals and to avoid misunderstanding.

Personally I use the Approbation and Modesty Maxim mainly when I speak to most people around me. For example, some friends are upset about certain matters and talk to me about it. I'll be using the Approbation Maxim and say things like "You are just different and so don't let that affect you" or "You are merely trying something new which is good!", depending on what the situation calls for. I think these Maxims are certainly very useful in analysing how others are speaking to you and how a conversation should be carried out.

And then, there's the Negative and Positive Politeness Strategies. I find myself using these two strategies often at times! Like for example, when I’m asking my usual group of friends out for dinner and when one of them says that he/she is not free, I'll be using the positive politeness strategy and try my best to tell the person who's going, where we are heading to, how long have we not met up etc to try and persuade the person to come. As for Negative Politeness Strategy, I do use them when I meet up with people who I am still not very close to or I’m trying to ask for help from people I’m not familiar with, feeling afraid that I might impose too much on him/her.

But in the context of Singapore, when you see no one give up their seats to a pregnant lady on buses or train, would you go up and help the pregnant lady to ask for a seat? How would you ask politely? I’m sure most would say that they would help, but how many have u seen so far? At least till now I didn’t see anyone doing there yet, mostly people would just pretend to be sleeping or busy doing other things. To become a more gracious society, there is still much more for us to work on. So I thought, politeness comes hand in hand with not only the actions and the use of words, but it definitely means much more when it comes from the bottom of your heart.

Communication Systems 1: Components and Representation

Bonjour~!

For this week’s seminar, we are discussing on components and representation. It is actually about the concepts for intercultural communication, be it in personal communication or business communication. I would say that different cultures would definitely lead to different forms of inter-personal communication. Today’s seminar have been really enriching as we examined how the different cultural traits and values that people hold may influence their behavioural patterns. At the same time, it allows me to better understand the various interaction styles across different cultures.

Take for example, I always had the impression that the people in China place a lot of emphasis on one’s status in society, thus reflecting on the importance of hierarchies and power distribution among the people. While initially I do attribute such a phenomenon to that being part of a “China’s culture”, Hofstede’s dimension of Power Distance seem to provide a better explanation.

In this case, we may regard China to be a high power distance culture where the Chinese people recognise a hierarchy system in the society in which they consciously or subconsciously adhere to. In this regard, different people may enjoy varying levels of power or authority in which those higher up in status are able to openly assert their power. For instance, I have a Taiwanese friend and what she told me was that even among the school mates, junior students seldom address the senior students by name. Instead, they will address the older students as “seniors” or “学长”, reflecting on how the people show great respect for authority and seniority.

On the other hand, a low power distance culture such as Australia may offer a different scenerio. In Australia, the people place minimum emphasis on social status and power structure. They treat everyone as equal and their behavioural and interaction styles does not differ much when communicating with people from all backgrounds. For example, in schools, students are allowed to question the teachers when in doubt and they may also address their teachers by their first name. Similarly, children also tend to call their older siblings or even their parents by their name.

Therefore, we can see how Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural variability and Hall’s high & low context cultures offer us a scholarly explanation on how people may communicate across different cultural settings. This is especially useful when there may be opportunities for us to interact with people from other cultures, both in school and work in the future. Thus, being able to understand why and how people behave in a communication setting would help us to interact better with others and avoid misunderstandings.

Communication Systems 4: Written Discourse

Annyong Haseyo ~

For today’s seminar, we were taught about the different writing discourse from different cultures. Before today, I thought that the way of writing is universal and everybody would adopt similar way of writing style. However, I was wrong. The way of writing is still very much determined by the social and cultural values of the writer. Although I have gone through many years of formal education in Singapore where I was taught about structured writing manner, I still do not consider myself a good writer and often face the challenge of expressing myself in words.

This week’s Activity 2 on the comparison of an English and Chinese writing style is a good example of how writers from 2 different cultural backgrounds present their ideas in a written form. For text A, we may see how ideas are presented in a linear manner which allows the reader to understand the passage in a very straight-forward way. The presentation of the arguments is logical and direct to the point where the readers are able to grasp the gist of the passage easily.

On the other hand, text B’s presentation of the ideas were made in such a way that readers must decipher the meanings themselves. That is to say, the ideas are not as straightforward as text A where the readers may easily understand the meanings within the passage. In text B, readers are expected to pick up what the writer wish to bring across through the expression of ideas/arguments in descriptive forms.

In my opinion, I believe cultural values do play an important part in determining how people express themselves. For the Chinese people, we are often taught to be humble and respectful. As in the example of a Chinese-speaking student writing a letter to Royal Australia, the student first introduce himself/herself and later carried on to commend the programme before making any request and ended in a very polite way, feeling afraid that he/she might impose too much on the programme’s producer. However, an Australian student wrote in such a straight-forward way which, in my opinion, is kind of rude as he did not even bother to state his intention and think that the producer is obliged to send him what he requested.

Combining what I have said, I feel that we usually avoid direct confrontations and misunderstandings by using other subjects to express our true meanings. One logical reason for such a phenomenon would be in the past, people are taught not to speak ill of the Chinese government in public. Therefore, scholars and poets would express their resentments against the government through the use of descriptive poems which, to many people, may just sound like a piece of writing that speaks good about flowers, animals and the like. I also feel that it is killing two birds with one stone as not only the poet can avoid any unnecessary trouble with the government, he can also gather like-minded people for a greater purpose, e.g. overthrown of corrupted authority, as we can see from countless examples in China’s history.

Communication Systems 3: Spoken Discourse

Moshi moshi ~?

For today’s post I would be discussing about spoken discourse. I feel that talking on the phone is sort of becoming a part of our daily life and no one would take much consideration about how one would start and end a call. However, from today’s seminar, we did find out that in different cultures, the way of opening and closing is very much in differences. As in the examples between American and Dutch phone openings, the Americans would identify the other party through voice recognition while the Dutch would self indentify themselves to the other party. This would be true in the early generation of phones but as technology keeps improving and with the use of value-added services like the Caller-Identification (Caller-ID), it would be as easy as A-B-C to indentify the other party by looking at the number displayed without any identification.

Next, I’m just wondering whether you guys ever received any calls from banks or insurance companies which kept calling you now and then to tell you to go to their place for a seminar on a new product or ask you to buy insurance or sign up a new credit card? If your answer is YES to any above, fret not! I have worked as a telesurveyor before and I knew how people reject such calls and I have actually come up with a few strategies to counter the banks and insurance companies.

Say Yong as SY
Bank/Insurance Companies as BIC

Strategy 1: Identify yourself as a Police Department

Phone ringing…
SY: [Picks up the phone and before I could say anything…]
BIC: Good morning! I’m calling from ABC bank and…
SY: [Before she could finish her sentences…] Hi good morning, this is Bedok Police Division, how can I help you?
BIC: Errrr…police department????
SY: Yes this is Bedok Police Division, how can I help you madam?
BIC: Are u sure…..errrr…
SY: Are you making a prank call madam? Do u know… [Want to tell her about the seriousness of making prank call]
BIC: That would be all. Byebye.
SY: [Can’t stop laughing]

SY 1 - 0 BIC

Strategy 2: Make the person your long lost friend

Phone ringing…
SY: Hello
BIC: Good Morning Mr Toh! I’m calling from DEF bank and…
SY: Wait! Are you John???
BIC: Errrr…no..actually i…
SY: Hey you are John right? How are you?! So long never hear from you already!
BIC: No Sir…actually I’m calling…
SY: Why didn’t you attend our last gathering??!
BIC: errr…I will call u back again…byebye.
SY: [Can’t stop laughing]

SY 2 - 0 BIC

Strategy 3: Be a bad customer

Phone ringing…
SY: Hello
BIC: Good Morning Mr Toh! I’m calling from DEF bank and…
SY: Who are you? How did you get my number?
BIC: oh actually we are…
SY: Is this a scam? I want to speak to your supervisior!
BIC: No no! Please hear me out…
SY: Not interested! [Hung up]

SY 3 – 0 BIC

Although some people may disagree with the methods highlighted above, but I am sure at some point in time, some of you may have even tried them before. But of course, you cannot use such strategies in all types of conversations or with anyone. As highlighted in the lecture, “contextual factors such as the degree of social distance between the participants” also played a significant role in the participants’ choice of responding. The above methods are commonly used on people you are unfamiliar with. On the other hand, if you are talking to someone who you are familiar with or another person of higher authority, you will certainly not use the above methods as they may seem to be overly random and sometimes too offensive.

Lastly, let me end this post by wishing Dr. Deng, Yiqiang, Jean, Zhifei, Guangyi, Andrea, Lim Hong, Joseph, Jonathan, Feizhen, Yong Ernn, Xianling, Kenneth, Lydia, Zhihan and James a very Happy Tiger Year ahead and, Hafiz, Nazrul, Priscilla and Sarah a happy holiday! :D

Communication Systems 2: Speech Events

Hello readers,

For today’s topic, we would be discussing on speech events. Speech events is rather interesting and insightful as it enables us to look at how speech is performed as part of a structured activity in various settings. Before this, it has never occurred to me that a simple speech act can be broken down into many other smaller components, and it’s not just 1,2 or 3 but 10 different components! It does sound quite puzzling and challenging at first as I do not see how and why people will take the trouble to decipher messages exchanged at a speech event. But after exploring further into the topic, it is actually quite interesting as I try to compare the similarities and differences across speech events in various settings. For example, if u compare a jocular key in wedding and a serious key in a funeral, no doubt the similarities between the two contrasting events would be starting off with a greeting, but what comes after would be totally different. For wedding, friends and relatives would express their congratulations while for the wedding, heartfelt condolences would be given.

Another example given in the notes under the Act Sequence for the study conducted at the Southern California marketplace. The speech event in this scenario was fairly straightforward and does not involve many stages of interactions between the vendor and the customer. The tone and mode of the conversation were very informal and basic manners were followed. This may be partly due to the fact that in the western culture, people are more mindful of their mannerism and will try to be as polite as possible no matter what the situation is.

To compare with the different culture settings, this time with the marketplace in the west, I would raise an example I have encountered in Hainan Island, China. I was on a vacation and once I was at this coconut plantation where they sells coconut product and to the exit would be a single way where all the tourists would have no choice but to walk along and take a look at their products. It would be inevitable that the potential buyer would want to browse around and take some time to consider whether they want to buy or not. However, for the seller, it seems to them that since u touch it, you must buy it! So I was just looking at a handmade souvenir and the seller keep enticing me to buy it but after I put down and shake my head with a smile, the seller was mumbling something like “Don’t want to buy then don’t touch and block my business”. Well, it seems that although the act of transaction is the same anywhere in the world, the process is very big in differences. In the west I have mentioned that they are more mindful about their manners and the policy of “Customers always right”, but this might not be the case in the east, the Asian cultures in goods transaction are relatively fast-paced as everyone would want to make full use of the time and maximize their profit, and providing services is not a priority to them.


(This is a picture i took of the typical marketplace at Hainan Island, China)

For the example raised in the lecture notes on Japanese marriage proposal, the man would take silence for an answer but in my humble opinion, I wouldn’t think a Singaporean man would accept silence as a form or “Yes” but rather we would take it as a “No”, since we would think that the girl is in silence because she is still considering about settling down and on her mind now is thinking about how to reject the proposal! So it seems true that although the genre, topic, purpose etc. might be the same, but the rules of interaction and norms of interpretation might be totally different in different cultures. So ladies, if it’s a yes, open your mouth and say it, we are not mind readers :p



Therefore, when we want to consider the rules for interaction for any speech events, we cannot simply judge the process or outcome of a speech event without taking into considerations the cultural traits or behaviour of a certain group of people from a culture different from ours. Hence, it is quite evident that some behavours may work in some cultures but are definitely not acceptable in others.

Communication Systems 1: Speech Acts

Hello to all readers,

Today I would be discussing on the first topic on communication systems: Speech Acts. Prior to the lecture, I had completely no ideas about what is a speech act? And what constitute a speech act? But we soon learnt that even the words we speak carry a lot of weight and meaning and it would lead to an action. As an example stated in the lecture notes, if a boss said “you’re fired!” to an employee, although it’s just a speech, but it is an action too because the employee need to start packing up and leave the place! This is what we called performative utterances. I’m not sure if I had interpreted the meaning correctly as I felt that this is like a kind of “order” which was given to you by a higher authority. For example, your mother asked you to “CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM!” and you would follow her instruction to carry out the tidying.

We also learnt that language is actually a very power~ tool of communication and every different language has its own way of performing a speech act. Basically the study of speech acts can be divided into three broad categories, namely: cross-cultural variation (between different languages), interlanguage variation (between native and non-native speaker of a given language) and lastly sociopragmatic variation (between people of different social profile of a specific language). From the example given in the lecture about how American response to a compliment in English and how a Chinese response to the same compliment in Mandarin, we can clearly see the different as the American are more prone to accepting the compliment while a Chinese would be fast to reject it.

Why is there a different?

I personally feel that it is actually due to the kind of society that we are living in and the kind of social values that we are taught in school. In the western country, they are more of an open society and they are taught to accept compliment and criticism gracefully. However in the east, such as in Singapore, our thinking are more traditional and conservative such that when facing a compliment, we would try to reject it and be modest but in actual fact we might be 1) having low self-esteem or 2) trying not to be hao lian(hokkien for arrogant) and make people think negatively of you.

There are still a lot of other studies that we can carry out to further analyse how people of different languages and cultures respond to different kind of scenarios like making a request, refusal or an apology. We still see the big differences between how American and Chinese respond to compliments but I foresee that the differences might get less drastic as I feel that through the use of technology, people get to mix around more. The world is just like a global village now where everyone link up to one another instantly. So with the mix of ideas and cultures, people will tend to blend in all and come up with another kind of behaviour that is “between” all the different values. A good example was the statistics that we took in class as we can clearly see that the percentage of accepting and rejecting is relatively similar. This might be due to the fact that Singapore is a central hub where the ideas and values of East and West meet and mix, and so that might explains why the result wasn’t as drastic as between American and Chinese and also it sort of coincide with my postulation that the differences might get less drastic with the flow of ideas and information but it would definitely take quite some time to achieve.

In any case, I like it how I was able to link what I have learned from GEK1036 to many of the knowledge I have gained from other modules. Please provide me with feedback so I can further improve my subsequent posts and let me end here with a funny video and hope everyone enjoy your weekend :)

A brief introduction of myself...

Hi Dr. Deng and all my classmates in Gek1036,

This shall be my blog for the weekly entries on the lectures that we have gone through. This is the first time that I’m having a blog and I’m sure that this shall be my last time too :)

So for the first post i just want to introduce myself again since I think the first time we met everyone still couldn’t really remember each other.

So here goes, my name is Say Yong and I’m currently year 2, majoring in applied chemistry at science. I’m in recreational windsurfing and canoeing and hoping to take up wakeboarding soon J I took this module because firstly I need to clear an arts gem and since that I would be going on industrial attachment for one whole semester next sem, I need to start clearing modules which made me took 6 modules this sem and so I need to have a non-examinable mod to lighten my workload for the final exams. And secondly I heard good reviews from friends who took this mod before and so I thought why not? :)

Please forgive me if I do something wrong here because I really know nuts about blogging and this site might go really boring and dull but I will definitely do my best so please take a look here whenever you are free and give me some feedbacks to improve! :)

And lastly I’m still looking for a group to join for the project so if anyone thinks you can take me in please let me know too or else I would be doing alone :(

So please stay tune for the first official entry on speech acts. Will be up soon! :D

Regards,
Say Yong