Entry 3 : Spoken Discourse

Dr Deng's latest lecture on Spoken Discourse raised a couple of interesting points which have provided me with plenty of food for thought. The first is that of typical phone openings in America and in The Netherlands. The Americans have a penchant for voice sampling, which refers to them saying hello first upon picking up the phone. However, the Dutch on the other hand identify themselves. This is probably due to the fact that the Dutch believe in efficiency.

I believe that Singaporeans cater their phone openings according to the situation. At work, we tend to pick up the phone by self identification. An example is as follows:

"ABC Company, Jean speaking. How may I assist you today?"

This is done in a bid to help the caller ascertain if the call has reached or been transferred to the right party. Moreover, it sounds more professional also when the call is answered in this way, as opposed to a vague "Hello".

However, other situations call for different phone openings from my point of view. For example, if our mobile phone were to ring and with technology being so advanced these days, we would be able to determine who the caller was before picking up. If the person was our friend or relation, we would tend to just answer the phone with a simple "Hello". Self identification would seem a little too formal for such a conversation.

On the other hand, I have encountered people who do not say Hello or Self-Identify themselves when they pick up a phone call. Imagine this:

Summons: (Ringing)
Answer: (Silence even though the recipient has picked up)
Caller: Hello? Hello? Anyone there?
Answer: Yes?

I personally feel that it is pure phone etiquette to acknowledge that the phone call has been picked up regardless of whether it is done through voice sampling or through self-identification as in this way, more pointless conversations of the sort depicted above can be minimized. It also does seem rather intuitive to at least say something or other when the phone is picked up! Or rather, it does to me at least (and maybe I shouldn't impose my views on other people!)

Another thing which I would like to discuss would be listener responses and the various types. I’m the sort of person that appreciates listener responses in a conversation as it makes me feel as if the other person I'm speaking with is being actively engaged. However, if I was relating a story or an experience and the other party just remains quiet or doesn’t make eye contact with me, I tend to feel that I am most probably boring the socks off the person. Either that or I'm pretty much the worst conversationalist ever! Imagine this (sad) situation:

Me: And so I was just telling him that he should stop worrying so much about every little thing and just get on with his life, he's spending way too much time obsessing over the whole situation!
Listener: (silence, looks past me into the background, scratches eyebrow absent mindedly)
Me: (faltering) Yeahh...so that's just what I think.....
Listener: (silence)

However, after attending last week's lecture, I am now privy to the fact that listener responses do not come naturally to all cultures. Thus, what I might interpret as disinterest on the listener's part due to a lack of listener response, might just be simply that, a lack of response with no other deeper meaning. Moreover, it seems that the quantity and quality of listener responses vary across the cultures. For example, research has shown that Chinese speakers tend to be more passive in terms of listener responses compared to the Japanese or the Australians. (With reference to my previous blog entry, maybe it’s not so bad living in Japan then! At least I’ll get plenty of listener responses!) But this shows that even though there might not be a lot of listener responses, it does not necessarily equate to a lack of attention being paid.

In conclusion, the culture one is in tends to mould the way one responds to another in a conversation regardless of whether it’s the phone opening, phone closing or listener response.

Entry 2 : Speech Events

After attending last week's session, I must admit I am rather relieved that I was not born a Japanese! Firstly, I believe that I am not someone who takes to silences very easily and I do not often subscribe to the phrase silence means consent. To me, silence can actually be a pregnant pause where a person deliberates how to decline or refuse a request in a polite and elegant manner. That is probably just my whole Singaporean mindset in play though. However, in Japan that appears to be the exact opposite. Silence is evidently taken to mean consent as can be seen by the Japanese Marriage Proposal which we discussed in class. Upon popping the question to the woman, acceptance is depicted by silence and her "standing with her head down". This taken in the Singaporean context, however, would mean a refusal.

This "silence" is in fact expected by the Japanese male as this signals their "quiet future" ahead and the consolidation of his position as the "head of the household". Moreover, the proposal was a mere formality as he fully expected her acceptance. This comes as new to me as I view situations and scenarios from a more westernised point of view where women are treated on an equal footing as their male counterparts and are fully entitled to their own views and opinions. To have to be subservient, obedient, little females is probably as foreign to most Singaporean women as Greek and Latin are. However that said, and Singaporean mindset aside, there are a whole variety of cultures which subscribe to different beliefs in terms of marriage proposals and more broadly, speech events.

The components for a similar speech event can be poles apart in different countries simply due to the fact that each country is governed by their own cultures, traditions and beliefs. Thus when viewing a particular speech event, we have to contextualise it and take into account the cultures in play which influence each individual's body language and speech.

Another interesting point which was brought up in the last class was how the Chinese often react to an invitation. We have a tendency to first reject, reject again despite insistance and finally to accept. After attending that class, I made a conscious effort to take note of my own reactions to an invitation and I realised that I had subscribed to the same patterns. I must have been doing it all along and I never realised! The reasons behind such a speech pattern was due to the need to ascertain how genuine the invitation truly was as it could have just been lip service.

I shall conclude this post by putting up this video of only the most awesome marriage proposal to date. Watch and learn! =]