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
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?
Me, too. Not IT savvy and not used to sharing on the internet (except for academic publications). We learn together. I suppose that there is also this online culture that we need to learn.
ReplyDeleteAs to the scenario you described, I would just thank those who declined for their response and wish them all the best. At the same time, I would carry on with the planned lunch with those who said yes to the invitation.
yeah, i also agree w dr deng that i will still carry on with the lunch since the invitation had been accepted. its up to the individual to accept or decline the invite but for those who had told me that i should not have organized the lunch, i would let them know that this is my way of thanking the colleagues in the office who had helped and guided me during the internship, just an appreciation.
ReplyDeleteActually I guess it was a different culture back in Sweden and in Shanghai. When I was an intern in Hong Kong, knowing the Chinese culture of predominantly rejecting luncheon invitations, I never invited my colleagues for lunch. Instead, to overcome that problem, I bought typical gift foods for the company (like moon cakes cuz I left around the moon cake festival) and they cannot reject cuz it'll be rude to! :D
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