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! =]