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.