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.