Expectations

To tell you the truth, I came into this class not expecting much but it turned out that I had to go beyond my comfort zone! Setting up a blog is one such example as I’m pretty IT illiterate and quite a private person haha. But I hope through this blog, I can share my experiences and stories where I can intentionally pick out cross-cultural communication and discourse events/ situations – whether big or small and identify and apply what we’ve learnt in class each week.

It is indeed very interesting learning about speech acts, especially compliments, with cross-cultural, inter-language and socio-pragmatic variations during our second class with Dr Deng. Common speech acts include promises, threats, invitations, praises, compliments, criticisms and apologies. Believe me, I never knew such things could be studied as I thought they were pretty minor, insignificant and will usually brush it off. However, I learnt that even a single speech act may vary greatly across speech communities and a lack of knowledge may lead to intercultural miscommunications. Such speech acts are very common and is part-and-parcel of everyday communication. Truly amazing, isn’t it?((:

From our class activity, I also realized that a single person may vary his/her response in a particular speech act depending on the context, environment and language spoken. It is particularly interesting to find out that we had pretty different responses for situations spoken in English and Mandarin.

I have a story to share, enjoy!((:

I’ve a friend who used to work for a British law firm as an intern in Shanghai, China. On his second last day of work, he wanted to treat his whole department to a farewell luncheon to thank his colleagues and superiors for the goods times and working relationships they have fostered during his time working at the firm. He thought his departure was also a good excuse to get out of the office during lunch time and have a good meal and fellowship together with his colleagues.

Hence, he went around the department informing them about his plans and inviting them to join in the lunch. What was interesting were the various responses from some of his colleagues and superiors. Some responded with a simple word of thanks and confirmed their attendance; some commented it was unnecessary but will be joining in; while some said that he shouldn’t be doing this as he’s just an intern.

My friend did not really know how to respond to those who rejected his invitation and told him not to do it. Was he going to tell the rest who accepted his invitation that he was going to cancel his luncheon treat?

What are your views on their responses and how would you respond if placed in that position?