Concepts Week 10 Flashcards
3 components of human communication
sender, message, receiver
What is the function of communication?
To build and maintain social relationships
Examples of classic phatic rituals in UK
Small talk, weather talk, smiling
What does phatic communication do?
Keeps the channel between sender and receiver open and emphasises their interpersonal relationship
What is non-referential phatic communication?
Referring to nothing outside of language, eg. Intonation
Front stage vs Backstage
Goffman 1959 how you behave depending on whether or not you have an audience
What affects levels of politeness?
Context (front vs back stage), Participants, power differences and social distance
Power and social distance
Difference between speakers influences politeness, Brown and Levinson 1986
Examples of face-threatening acts
Requests, commands, disapprovals, criticism and warnings
What is the cost of imposition?
The seriousness of a face threatening act
What is the purpose of politeness?
To avoid disturbances within a social situation
How do we fine tune our politeness?
By measuring power, social distance and cost of imposition of a face-threatening act
Sociolinguistic transfer
The rules of speaking and behaviour of one’s own culture being applied to interactions with members of another culture
Intercultural communication research
Tries to understand what happens in multicultural communications and tries to overcome misunderstandings
What are the 4 dimensions that people attend to in terms of norms?
- Power distance
- Individualism/collectivism
- Masculinity/Femininity
- Uncertainty avoidance
Uncertainty avoiding cultures
- feel uncomfortable in unstructured situations
- strict laws, rules and regulations
Uncertainty accepting cultures
- more tolerant of different opinions
- fewer rules
- less expected to express emotions openly
Hofstede’s study
- Looked at IBM employees
- Power distance, individualism, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance
- Comparing Arab world and UK
Issues with Hofstede’s study
- Only IBM employees
- Mostly male
- Working in the same sector
- Danger of essentialism
Big-C culture examples
British culture, Japanese culture, American culture
Essentialism viewpoint
- Takes for granted construction of big-C cultures
- Each culture homogenous (the same)
- Culture associated with a nation/language
- Culture is a noun
Constructivism viewpoint
- Critiques big-C cultures
- Cultures can flow and mingle
- Culture is a verb
- People can belong to many cultures
Small culture examples
- Colleagues in an office
- Students on a module
- Netball team
- Commuters on a train
Holliday 1999 Large cultures
Large cultures are consequences of stereotyping and essentialism
Cultural norms about silence
- Speak only whenever possible; silence uncomfortable
- Speak whenever you want to speak
- Only speak when you have something pressing to say
- Only speak when called upon
Turn taking
Britain:
- a good conversation has little gaps between speech and few overlaps/interruptions
Other cultures:
- Japan, Greece silence or interruption can be a marker of politeness, respect and understanding
What are Jakobson’s 6 functions of language?
- Referential
- Conative
- Emotive
- Phatic
- Metalingual
- Poetic
Individualist methods for more successful intercultural communications
- Indirect and tactful speech
- Maintain face and avoid public embarrassment
- Be tentative and avoid conflict, let it go
Collectivist methods for more successful intercultural communications
- Be direct and assertive
- Provide verbal feedback
- State your opinions
