LING1901 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Impersonal Verb, Indirect Speech, Ingroups And Outgroups
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
LING1901 LECTURE 20
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE
-Co workers in Melbourne
•Béal studied differences in the way French and Australian coworkers behaved in requesting and how the two
sets of sociolinguistic rules could clash
-Threat to negative face
•Differences
-Which politeness strategies are preferred by speakers when making requests?
•In French, negative politeness accomplished mostly by the use of an impersonal verb such as ‘il faut’ (lit.
‘It has to be + past participle”)
-Seen as a request by the ‘company’ for the benefit of the ‘company’
•In English, one would typically use an indirect speech act such as ‘Could you possibly (do such and
such)?”
-Newly arrived French employee in trouble
•“Honestly I don’t understand what I did wrong, I said ‘this has to be done immediately”
•English habit of asking “Would you mind doing this for me?”, regarded as acknowledging a personal debt
(negative politeness) annoyed the French because in the workplace making requests personal seemed
inappropriate
-Some of the French co-workers interpreted ‘for me’ as a case of ‘me and the system versus you’
•French employees
-More likely to use positive politeness strategies
•Use of in-group terminology, directness, turn overlap to emphasise shared group affiliation
•Likely to focus on the self image of the individual and the group
-Likely to interpret conventionally indirect requests from Australian employees as attempts to keep social
distance
-Different expectations in intercultural business encounters
•Marriott reports findings for her case study of a Japanese businessman and Australian businessman meeting for
the first time
•Parties have different expectations of the particular phase of the negotiation and end up miscommunicating.
•Both assume that the negotiation will take place in certain -but different - ways according to the norms of each
culture
•Video recording of business encounter between
-J, senior Japanese representative of a Japanese company in Melbourne
!1
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Document Summary
Co workers in melbourne: b al studied differences in the way french and australian coworkers behaved in requesting and how the two sets of sociolinguistic rules could clash. In french, negative politeness accomplished mostly by the use of an impersonal verb such as il faut" (lit. Seen as a request by the company" for the bene t of the company". In english, one would typically use an indirect speech act such as could you possibly (do such and such)? . Some of the french co-workers interpreted for me" as a case of me and the system versus you": french employees. More likely to use positive politeness strategies: use of in-group terminology, directness, turn overlap to emphasise shared group af liation, likely to focus on the self image of the individual and the group. Likely to interpret conventionally indirect requests from australian employees as attempts to keep social distance. J, senior japanese representative of a japanese company in melbourne.