Title
Author(s)
Citation
Issued Date
URL
Rights
Researching intercultural communication: Discourse tactics in
non-egalitarian contexts
Lin, A
Researching intercultural communication: Discourse tactics in
non-egalitarian contexts. In Streeck, J (Ed.), New Adventures in
Language and Interaction, p. 125-144. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010
2010
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/140954
Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License
Researching Intercultural Communication:
Discourse Tactics in Non-egalitarian Contexts
Angel Lin, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
E-mail: angellin@hku.hk
Lin, A. M. Y. (2010). Researching intercultural communication: Discourse
tactics in non-egalitarian contexts. In Jurgen Streeck (Ed.), New adventures
in language and interaction (pp. 125-144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Abstract
In this chapter key sociological traditions forming the theoretical backdrop
of current discourse-based approaches to intercultural communication
research will be discussed and John Gumperz’s contribution to highlighting
the interactional nature of everyday communication and language use will
be outlined. Then I shall introduce the central thesis of this chapter: that
discourse-based approaches to intercultural communication provide helpful
frameworks for understanding how power is fluid and mediated through
discourse and meaning-making, and how different social actors located in
differential, hierarchical social positions, and coming from different cultural
backgrounds, can negotiate through discourse for more advantageous
positions for themselves. This thesis will then be delineated through
1
drawing on positioning theory, (Davies and Harré 1990; Harré and
Langenhove 1999), a discourse-based social identity theory, to analyse two
examples of intercultural/inter-group communication.
Interaction Analysis and Discourse-based Approaches to Intercultural
Communication
What is our conception of interaction analysis and on what notion of
interaction can it be based? It seems that the notion of interaction cannot be
essentially defined. A broad range of phenomena or activities can be seen
as interaction by different people engaged in different forms of life
(Wittgenstein’s notion, see Sluga and Stern 1996). At one extreme of the
continuum, any human (some would also argue machine) meaning-making
activity can be seen as a form of interaction. One can conceive someone
finding a fruitful way of seeing “reading” as a form of interaction (the
reader making meaning of/interacting with the text and indirectly interacting
with the invisible/non-physically present author; or to stretch the argument a
bit, the computer “reading” some input and making certain responses to the
input) (similar arguments can be made for watching TV, movies or
watching an exhibition). However, stretching the notion to that far end will
not be too useful for the practical linguistic anthropologist interested in
everyday human interaction. I shall therefore focus my analysis on the
range of activities that involve some form of bi- or multi-party, face-to-face
2
meaning-making, which is embedded in some shared forms of life or ways
of living engaged in by the interactants. And “face-to-face” is to be
understood broadly, i.e., can be mediated via some form of technology, e.g.,
phone talk, net talk, e-mail talk, etc.
Interaction analysis thus has as its aim the uncovering of the kinds and
nature of the meaning-making, interpretive processes involved and the
semiotic resources drawn upon to enable the achievement of some mutual
sense of inter-subjectivity (i.e., the perception on both/all parties that they
achieve the sharing of certain perspectives with each other/one another).
How is this sense of inter-subjectivity achieved? What is happening when
this is not achieved (e.g., in cases of perceived communication barriers or
breakdowns)? What is it that can bring about the overcoming of the
communicative barriers or breakdowns?
Under an interactional conception of language, language should not be seen
as a reified object of study by linguists and language as a bounded concept
is an ideological, theoretical and social construct—born of the activities of
armchair linguists and/or political, national unifying/segregating agendas.
The analytical focus should be on how languages as (continuously changing)
systems of semiotic resources (among other semiotic systems of resources)
are recruited and utilized for, and at the same time also transformed, during
interaction.
3
While the above brief summary will be familiar to those working in the
interpretive traditions of discourse analysis, scholars working in the broader
field of communication and/or intercultural communication might, however,
need a brief introduction to discourse-based approaches. In the next section,
key sociological traditions forming the theoretical backdrop of current
discourse-based approaches to intercultural communication research will be
discussed and John Gumperz’s contribution to highlighting the interactional
nature of everyday communication and language use will be outlined. Then
I shall introduce the central thesis of this chapter: that discourse-based
approaches to intercultural communication provide helpful frameworks for
understanding how power is fluid and mediated through discourse and
meaning-making, and how different social actors located in differential,
hierarchical social positions, and coming from different cultural
backgrounds, can negotiate through discourse for more advantageous
positions for themselves. This thesis will then be delineated through
drawing on positioning theory, (Davies and Harré 1990; Harré and
Langenhove 1999), a discourse-based social identity theory, to analyse two
examples of intercultural/inter-group communication.
4
Symbolic Interactionism (SI), structuration theory, and discourse-based
approaches
Symbolic interactionism (SI) or that branch of sociology that focuses on
human meaning-making and interpretive processes evolving around the use
of symbols, or semiotic resources, has its roots in the pragmatist
philosophers such as John Dewey, Charles Horton Cooley, and George
Herbert Mead. The SI perspective puts an emphasis on human interaction
and communication via the use of symbols for meaning-making, and human
interpretive processes which are central to interaction and communication.
SI studies the interaction order of everyday life and focuses on the social,
interactional, and discursive construction of self and others. Concepts such
as power, social relations, contexts, self, and identities are seen as fluid,
always open to negotiation and re-negotiation, and interactively coconstructed via discourse and other semiotic resources. In sum, the SI
perspective emphasizes human interaction and communication as mediated
by the use of symbols, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of
one another's actions (Blumer 1986).
While Anthony Giddens seems to have developed structuration theory
(Giddens 1984) quite independently of SI, structuration theory and SI are
compatible with each other. The SI perspective sees people as active social
agents, quite different from the solitary, rational, Cartesian individual (or
5
subject). People are seen as social actors--constantly actively adjusting,
interpreting, and organizing and re-organizing their ways of speaking and
their ways of being (e.g., ways of dressing, looking, thinking, viewing,
feeling, interpreting, hearing, etc.) to adjust to others in social interactions.
The self is created through such on-going social interactions, and it is a self
that is fluid, and constantly negotiating with and adjusting to others. The SI
concern is with how the social order (macro forces and structures) is
constantly being created, reproduced, or contested and transformed.
Similarly, structuration theory provides a solution to overcome the
sociological macro-micro, structure-agency theoretical divide by seeing the
macro and micro, social structures and agency, as mutually constitutive and
shaping. Giddens (1984) thus attempts to provide an overall theoretical
framework to deal with two major sociological issues: (i) the division
between the conscious subject and social structures, and (ii) agency or
praxis and collective forms of social life (i.e., the agency/structure problem).
Giddens (1984) sees social action and interaction as tacitly enacted social
practices and discusses how they become institutions or routines and
reproduce familiar forms of social life:
The basic domain of study of the social sciences, according to the
theory of structuration, is neither the experience of the individual
actor, nor the existence of any form of social totality, but social
6
practices ordered across space and time. Human social activities, like
some self-reproducing items in nature, are recursive. That is to say,
they are not brought into being by social actors but continually
recreated by them via the very means whereby they express
themselves as actors. In and through their activities agents reproduce
the conditions that make these activities possible. (Giddens 1984: 2).
With structuration theory, Giddens attempts to integrate human social action
with the larger systems, structures, and institutions of which we are a part. It
is the continual repetition of social action and interaction in more or less
routines or repeated practices that constitute what may appear to be the
larger social forms or systems. Under structuration theory, structure is not
outside of and imposed on social action, but is both constituted/structured
by and shaping/structuring social action.
Structuration theory thus seems to attempt to overcome the structuralist
determinism that is sometimes attributed to social theorists who emphasize
too much the reproduction tendency of social structures. Under
structuration theory, precisely because structures and social actions are
mutually constitutive and shaping/structuring, there is the possibility of
transformation of larger social structures through situated social actions,
which often involve discursive practices. This perspective is especially
important to the central argument of this chapter: that in interactional
7
contexts where power relations figure predominantly, social actors can draw
on discourse tactics to attempt to transform the larger social forces (more on
this later).
Both SI and structuration theory thus seem to have formed the sociological
backdrop of discourse-based approaches to research on intercultural
communication (e.g., Scollon and Scollon 1995; Carbaugh 2005). Recent
readers in intercultural communication (e.g., Gudykunst 2005; Holliday
Hyde and Kullman 2004; Kiesling and Paulston 2005) also provide entries
on discourse-based approaches. While Giddens (1984) does not focus on
discussing language and discursive practices, many current discourse
analysis frameworks have in one way or another drawn on Giddens’
structuration theory in seeing social actions as predominantly mediated
through language and other semiotic resources (e.g., Gee 1999). The
ethnography of communication started by Dell Hymes and John Gumperz
(Gumpez and Hymes 1986) also appeared in around the same period of time
as SI and structuration theory. Gumperz’s work on intercultural/inter-group
interaction is important as not many intercultural communication studies
focus on non-egalitarian situations. Below I shall discuss John Gumperz’s
contribution to theorizing about intercultural or inter-group communication,
especially in non-egalitarian contexts.
8
Gumperz’s contribution to an interactional conception and analysis of
language
Gumperz’s research has made great contribution to de-centering language as
a research and analytical focus in his privileging of communicative practice,
or the everyday communicative event embedded in mundane everyday
activities as the central analytical focus, and in his constantly stressing the
importance of situating the communicative event (the interaction) in its
larger sociocultural and institutional context including the larger context of
power relations. One might see him as a pioneer in critical sociolinguistics
(although he might not like to attach such labels to himself and his work).
His rich work in developing theories of intercultural, inter-dialectal, intergroup communication is also a major contribution which few will dispute
about.
Although Gumperz seems to hold reservations about the methods and
procedures of conversation analysis (CA), the methods and procedures
developed in conversation analysis, though considered to be clinical by
some, do seem to offer some useful empirically grounded and practical
research tools to interaction analysts, especially if they are used flexibly and
not subscribed to religiously. Gumperz seemingly asserted that
conversation analysts have apriori, static assumptions about groups,
communities or group membership. An examination of Harvey Sacks’ early
9
lectures on conversation as well as subsequent work in CA, however, does
not warrant such an assertion. Nevertheless, it is important to take
Gumperz’s warning about not taking “community” or “membership” as
static, given categories but as something negotiated, constantly evolving in
interactions. CA methods can and need to be more applied to the analysis of
interactions at “borderland places”, i.e., cross-cultural, cross-group, crosscommunity (if you want), and cross-position interaction (more on this
below), and one can see such analytical projects a bit on the minority side in
mainstream CA studies—projects that will take as its central analytic goal to
uncover and describe how sense-making “methods” and “procedures” come
into sharing by participants (e.g., cross-cultural, cross-generation, crossgender, etc.), who might generally be seen as not sharing much in common.
To borrow a metaphor from developmental psychology, one can say that we
need to develop CA analytical projects that are more “developmental” or
“longitudinal” than “cross-sectional”.
What are the analytical categories that an interactional analyst should take
as the most relevant ones at the present time, and what should be the shortterm and the long-term objectives of an interactional analysis approach? It
seems that a good unit of analysis is a speech event that is ordinarily
recognizable as such by interaction participants. One should also take what
is recognizable as communication barrier and communication breakdown as
a focus for analysis. Gumperz compares this approach with the
10
grammarian’s approach: while grammarians analyse grammatical and
ungrammatical sentences and compare them to yield grammatical insights,
an interactional analyst should analyse both successful communication
events and instances of communication barriers and breakdowns. The longterm objective is to uncover the methods and procedures that people (e.g.,
coming from very different backgrounds or with very different memberships)
can possibly use to co-construct common methods/procedures of sensemaking, of achieving some perceived (provisional) sense of intersubjectivity. This is a theoretical project with important implications for a
number of disciplines and for practical challenges facing us now in an
increasingly globalized world of incommensurable discourses (with both
processes of homogenization and fragmentation taking place).
Communication after 911 takes on different meanings—is communication
or sharing some form of consensus possible only among “members”? How
do “non-members” (e.g., coming from radically different positions,
backgrounds, be it linguistic, racial/ethic, religious, social, gender, sexuality,
generational) become recognizable to one another as “fellow members” (of
shared humanity)—i.e., recognizable to one another as sharing some
common methods and procedures of meaning-making and co-inhabiting
some shared forms of life (including methods and procedures for resolving
conflicts of interests and cultures), no matter how provisional it is?
11
Issues in contemporary studies of interaction
A major issue in contemporary studies of interaction seems to be related to
the tendency of researchers to hold a dichotomous micro-macro view of
human interactions, especially in conducting interaction analysis. There
seems to be a traditional dualistic view in sociolinguistics (e.g., in terms of
micro-interactional sociolinguistics vs. macro-sociolinguistics) which
Gumperz readily speaks against and shows in his work how unhelpful such
a perspective is. This dualistic division reflects a lack of ability on the part
of the analyst to overcome Cartesian dualism in theorizing human
phenomena. This is also reflected in some general criticism sometimes
directed towards CA: e.g., the accusation that CA is too “micro” oriented.
In this regard I want to quote Harvey Sacks in his “micro” analysis of an
introduction sentence in a group therapy session (Spring 1966, Lecture
04a—An introduction sequence, collected in Gail Jefferson (Ed.) 1992):
One thing we can come to see is that producing the introductions in
the form of a sentence might specifically be done to make available
to Jim that ‘a group’ is being presented. That is, we want to
differentiate between Jim being introduced to ‘three people’ in close
order, and Jim being introduced to ‘the group,’ one by one. In that
regard, it seems to follow that sentence-making is to be conceived as
12
a kind of social institution in perfectly conventional ways. I suppose
we don’t ordinarily think of the use of grammar as a social
institution for demonstrating organization. Courses in social
organization don’t have, I suppose, sections on the way you can
build sentences to present a group, where you use the resources of
the grammar to do that. But it might not be a bad idea. It isn’t, then,
that we have sentence-making on the one hand and social structures
on the other, and one can study their relationship by, e.g., studying
dialectics. …. (Sacks 1966/1992: 288)
Thus, the micro-macro analytical division is unproductive (as the discussion
of structuration theory above shows) and tends to divide theoretical and
research work into the work of critical social theorists and the work of
micro-(socio)linguists. Whereas a more productive analytical stance would
be to see, as both Gumperz and Sacks do, the marco (e.g., social structures)
as being enacted, maintained, reproduced, taking shape, or being contested,
being transformed…etc., through and through in the micro interactional
event (e.g., sentence making in introducing someone to a group). This
seems to be the most challenging and yet most interesting task for the
interaction analyst; i.e., not to leave social theory to the social theorists, as
argued by Gumperz himself (2003).
13
Another issue, which will also form the thesis of this chapter, is the relative
lack of theoretical and methodological attention to analysis of interculturalcommunication-situated-in-non-egalitarian-contexts. While there does not
seem to be any dearth of research findings on intercultural communication,
they tend to fall into the trap of linguistic and cultural essentialism; e.g.,
making claims like: people from the background of Language A and Culture
A make and respond to compliments in these ways while people from the
background of Language B and Culture B make and respond to
compliments in those ways, etc.). Also, there is a need for more study on
conflicts or oppositional practices in intercultural communication located in
non-egalitarian contexts. Gumperz’s famous studies of the job interview
and the research student ‘pleading’ to the professor (2003) are among the
few classical and pioneering studies in cross-group communication marked
by hierarchical power relationships. And we must also note that Gumperz
understands intercultural communication in a broad sense as inter-group (or
in what I would call: inter-location or inter-position) communication; i.e.,
communication between people coming from different languages, cultures,
dialects, social networks or classes, etc. Stretched to the extreme it can be
said that all communication shares in some features (albeit to hugely
varying degrees) of some inter-group or inter-position communication. This
is also what Bakhtin means by saying that we need to acknowledge the
“otherness” inherent in any dialogic encounter (Gardiner 2004).
14
In this chapter, I would like to continue in the tradition started by Gumperz
in focusing on analysis of inter-group communication situated in larger
sociopolitical, non-egalitarian power matrixes, and in understanding the
tactics used by non-powerful participants to make the best out of a bad
situation. Michel de Certeau discussed and described the everyday tactics
used by non-powerful people and pointed out that tactics are ‘weapons of
the poor’ (1984). Understanding the discourse tactics used by the nonpowerful in inter-group communicative events will contribute to
understanding the discourse strategies that Gumperz has devoted much
attention to studying. In the next section, I shall draw on the analytical tools
of positioning theory and storyline analysis (Davies and Harré 1990; Harré
and Langenhove 1999) to analyse interactional examples from two case
studies, each marked by a different configuration of power relations among
the interactants.
Drawing on Positioning Theory and Storyline Analysis to Understand
Discursive Tactics in Inter-group Communication in Non-egalitarian
Contexts
In this section I shall draw on the analytical resources of positioning theory
(Davies and Harré 1990; Harré and Langenhove 1999) to analyse discursive
tactics in two examples presented in this section. In typical colonial
15
encounters, the colonizer discursively positioned the colonized as a cultural,
ethnic and linguistic ‘other’, establishing binary separation of the colonizer
and the colonized and asserting the naturalness and primacy of the former
(Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1998). In both our daily conversations as
well as public discourses such discursive construction of self and other and
of different subject positions for self and other routinely occurs. Positioning
theory (Davies and Harré 1990) proposes that such subject positions are
linked to our discursively constructed storylines which are constantly being
negotiated by different parties:
One speaker can position others by adopting a story line which
incorporates a particular interpretation of cultural stereotypes to
which they are 'invited' to conform, indeed are required to conform if
they are to continue to converse with the first speaker in such a way
as to contribute to that person's story line. Of course, they may not
wish to do so for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they may not
contribute because they do not understand what the story line is
meant to be, or they may pursue their own story line, quite blind to
the story line implicit in the first speaker's utterance, or as an attempt
to resist. Or they may conform because they do not define
themselves as having choice, but feel angry or oppressed or
affronted or some combination of these. (Davies and Harré 1990: 7)
16
The construction of storyline is central to the establishment and articulation
of collective and personal identities, which involves assigning different
subject positions (or ‘characters’) to different people in a certain context
according to a storyline projected by one’s discourse. By ‘giving people
parts in a story’, a speaker makes available ‘a subject position which the
other speaker in the normal course of events would take up.’ (Davies and
Harré 1990: 5). Below we shall quote Davies and Harré (1990) to delineate
the key concepts of positioning theory for analyzing discursive tactics
through analyzing the kinds of subject positions and storylines being both
enabled and contested in discourse by different parties:
We shall argue that the constitutive force of each discursive practice
lies in its provision of subject positions. A subject position
incorporates both a conceptual repertoire and a location for persons
within the structure of rights for those that use that repertoire. Once
having taken up a particular position as one's own, a person
inevitably sees the world from the vantage point of that position and
in terms of the particular images, metaphors, story lines and
concepts which are made relevant within the particular discursive
practice in which they are positioned. (Davies and Harré 1990: 3)
In projecting storylines, people routinely draw on culturally available
stereotypes (or recurring storylines) as resources to position themselves and
17
others. In addition, different storylines are linked to different moral orders,
with different sets of norms about what counts as right, legitimate and
appropriate to do (Davies and Harré 1990).
It is in light of the conceptual framework and analytical tools offered by
positioning theory that we shall understand “non-egalitarian contexts”. By
“non-egalitarian contexts”, I do not mean a static, fixed, essentialist context
out there. Instead I want to describe the larger power structures in which the
interactants are located and the ways in which the different interactants draw
on these structural resources to bring into shape, to reproduce (e.g., by the
relatively “more powerful” party—powerful as defined by her/his location
in larger sociopolitical structures) or to contest and subvert such a move to
create a non-egalitarian context (e.g., by the relatively “weaker” party—
weaker as defined by her/his location in larger sociopolitical structures).
Thus, while interactants are differentially located in larger social structures
and occupy differential positions in the larger power matrixes, the local
context is being discursively constructed (reproduced or contested,
negotiated and subverted and so on) in situ by the interactants (e.g., through
the different storylines and subject positions being projected by different
parties in conversation). For instance, while one party starts off by trying to
shape the context as a non-egalitarian one (by putting him/herself in a more
powerful position through a particular storyline being projected), the other
party might contest and subvert the effect of such a move by using discourse
18
tactics (e.g., through negotiating a different storyline and thus invoking
different subject positions and a different moral order).
In the following case study of Carman Lee (pseudo-name), a Hong Kong
business executive and her US client on the phone, we seem to be
witnessing such tensions in the negotiation of a less or more egalitarian
context. Then in Case Two, we shall look at the discourse tactics of ‘Long
Hair’, a grass-root, leftist, democracy fighter in Hong Kong, and how he
negotiates a more egalitarian discourse context when interacting with
powerful middle class politicians and party leaders in public.
Case One: a business executive in Hong Kong
Carman Lee works in a medium-size gift and premium company in Hong
Kong. Her company manufactures and trades gifts and premiums, plastic
products, both generic and tailor-made. They have a factory with 200
workers in China where the manufacturing takes place, and a marketing and
sales office in Hong Kong where designing of products and negotiations
with clients take place. Their clients come from the Middle East, Europe
and their biggest clients are from the US. However, these US clients seldom
come to Hong Kong and they communicate with them mainly through email.
The clients she comes into face-to-face contact with are mostly from the
Middle East (e.g., Dubai), and these are diasporic ethnic Indian and Pakistan
19
business executives who are very hardworking and very willing to travel.
Some clients are from Europe (e.g., Italy), and when they come she will
speak a few words such as Italian and they will be very happy to hear them;
they will also learn a few phrases in Chinese, such as “Ni hau ma?” (How
are you?).
English to her is easier to learn than Mandarin Chinese although she is
ethnic Chinese, because to her Mandarin Chinese comes in a more formal
style than Cantonese, which is her mother tongue (e.g., “go haak hou yiukau” in Cantonese; in Mandarin Chinese, one should say: “go haak yiu-kau
hou yim-gaak”—a more formal, elaborate style needs to be used).
Her job responsibility lies mainly in sales and marketing; solving the
problems of clients, e.g., helping them to do promotion; e.g., a big
pharmaceutical company wants to use their company logo to design a
stationery holder plus a clock; her job focuses on communication with them;
e.g., explain the design, negotiate the price, and the schedule, etc.
Now with e-mail in very common use, she mostly uses e-mail to
communicate with overseas clients. Thus, more written English than
spoken English is used, especially when they are in the same time zone. On
socializing with clients: she mainly needs to socialize with long-term clients
who have become personal friends; when they come she will take them to
20
lunch; these clients are frequent visitors to Hong Kong and have visited HK
for over 10 years; so, they are very familiar with the places in Hong Kong;
and in dinners with them they will talk about things such as different
education systems in different places.
The following are excerpts from the interview exchanges conducted in June
2004 between the author and Carman on intercultural communication
experiences (the interview was conducted in both Cantonese and English
and both parties code-switch naturally in the interview; the following is an
English translation of the exchanges):
Carman: Yes, we have a Hong Kong accent. I care about it a little
bit; I feel that it’s not nice to hear; I’ll learn by imitation;
e.g., paying attention to the English on TV; sometimes
when I hear some Hong Kong people speaking English on
TV with a distinctive Hong Kong accent I would feel a bit
uncomfortable;… Anson Chan’s (the former Chief
Executive in Hong Kong, an ethnic Chinese educated in the
University of Hong Kong) English is okay; and Uncle
Tung’s (the current Chief Executive of Hong Kong)
English is not bad either. But I don’t have any problems
communicating with my clients.
21
Lin: If you have children, which accents of English do you want
them to learn?
Carman: Well, I don’t care much about that; as long as they can
communicate, it’s okay. Because, even within the same
country, people have different accents and you cannot say
which ones are the best or more superior. My former
colleague in the bank, when she spoken English we can tell
she’s a Hong Kong person but she is someone who’s
speaking rather good English. ….
I think I can handle them (English-speaking foreigners) in
my job domains; so I can speak English in certain domains
only, e.g., some jargon related to their culture, which I’m
not familiar with; sometimes we guess each other’s
meanings but we can communicate alright. ….
Lin: Have you ever come across any communication difficulties with
your clients?
Carman: In particular I have an Italian client, and he’s very happy
when I speak Italian to him, but my Italian is limited (to
several sentences) and English is not his mother tongue and
22
sometimes he’d say, sorry, my poor English; but we can
understand each other alright; speaking is more difficult,
because of loss of meaning or misunderstanding; so before
each meeting his secretary will e-mail the agenda to me
first and then after the meeting he or his secretary will give
us the minutes, or we’ll e-mail him to confirm what has
been discussed, to do this, just “for sure”.
I have an Engineering colleague who writes very well in
English, and he’s very good in using simplified English to
express technical details and people can understand his
writing clearly.
One incident of difficulty in communication: one time in a
very noisy environment, a long-distance call from a US
client, and the topic is rather complicated and I experienced
some difficulties in communication with him. And I used a
strategy: I said to him: it’s very noisy here; please let me
go somewhere and talk to you again; actually it’s a strategy
to get him to say the things again.
Americans do not “jauh neih” (Yale transcription of
Cantonese words meaning “accommodate you”), i.e.,
23
accommodate you; they just speak as if you speak English
as your mother tongue, and they will have sounds omitted
and so on; those who speak English as a mother tongue will
not articulate every sound, e.g., they will not say “I will”,
but will shorten it; whereas second language speakers of
English (e.g., those clients from the Middle East) will
articulate every sound clearly and so it’s easier to
understand their English.
Some clients are very arrogant and will not speak to you if
you speak slowly; e.g., some clients on the phone will start
with the sentence: Is there anyone who speaks English. I’d
answer him or her: where are you from? What can I help
you with anyway? I’ll answer them directly in English.
On the whole, in the industry or in HK, our colleagues
might not be confident to speak English and especially
when the clients speak fast and our colleagues will become
diffident and hesitate to speak English even further. But I
won’t be like that, e.g., I’ll ask them to spell their names,
e.g., spell it please, and then I’ll say it’s strange, as it is not
a common name.
24
We can see from Carman’s remarks that she is a very confident speaker of
English and she uses English in intercultural communication with other
second and foreign language speakers of English, such as ethnic Indian and
Pakistani clients from the Middle East or clients from Europe. With these
clients she communicates comfortably in English—a language that does not
belong to them as a mother tongue but a useful communication tool that has
forged their business relationships and sometimes personal friendships.
Such intercultural communication is characterized by egalitarian mutual
respect. For instance, an Italian client would admit to her, “sorry, my poor
English,” but she accommodates him by using her limited Italian with him,
while he will also use some Chinese phrases to show his good will. In this
sense, both parties show willingness to use the other’s language, if only as a
symbol of respect and interest in the other’s language and culture.
The storyline being co-produced in conversation between Carman and her
Middle-East and European clients is thus one that projects subject positions
which are more horizontally related rather than vertically related to each
other; e.g., no speaker claims her/himself to be occupying a subject position
higher than the other. Also, English comes in not as the superior
communication tool, but just as a useful tool for intercultural
communication between egalitarian, mutually respectful parties occupying
near-peer subject positions. No one claims the subject position of an
expertise speaker of English. Also, their creative use of multiple
25
communication strategies to ensure communication of important business
information (e.g., e-mailing agendas in advance and written records of
meetings afterwards) proves that successful communication does not depend
on only one channel and second/foreign language speakers of English can
use English fruitfully for intercultural communication without invoking the
notion of the need for native-speaker-defined “good” English. In the
storyline co-produced in their intercultural communication, it is a world and
a moral order under which both conversation participants bear equal
responsibilities to make oneself intelligible to each other and to try one’s
best to appreciate each other’s efforts in communicating across cultural and
linguistic boundaries without expecting any one party to lopsidedly make all
the efforts for making oneself intelligible to the other party.
The mutuality and egalitarian atmosphere that characterize Carman’s
interactions with clients from non-English countries (e.g., Middle-East,
Europe) stand in sharp contrast with the kind of attitudes shown by some of
her US clients. For instance, some US clients will start a phone
conversation by saying: ‘Is there anyone who speaks English?’ The
storyline being projected by this US client’s question presupposes a world
and a moral order that has at least two inter-related ideological
underpinnings: that it is entirely the responsibility of the other party to
accommodate the US client linguistically, and that the burden of successful
intercultural communication rests entirely with those who need to mater
26
English to communicate with those who already speak English as a first
language.
In this utterance we see the reincarnation of the storyline in imperialist
literature, e.g., Robinson Crusoe, the legacy of imperialist and colonial
mentalities (see analysis by de Certeau 1984). This brings us to the
witnessing of another practice of Carman, which can be seen as subversive.
Instead of answering this client in a subservient way, she asked in her own
variety of English: ‘Where are you from? What can I help you with
anyway?’ By responding to a question not with an answer but with a
question, she turned the tables and showed her agency and confidence in
answering back to the voice posing as a colonial master. In her defiant act,
she answered with a voice that belongs to a self-respecting, empowered
agent who does not subscribe to the master-primitive imperialist storyline
and resists the first party’s attempt to define the context as a hierarchical one.
She is projecting a totally different storyline in her reply. In this storyline
the subject positions are reversed: she is someone who demands to know the
background of the caller; i.e., she is the one who has the right to demand
information from the caller in the first place. In the storyline that she
counter-projects with her reply, she is an equal partner in this business and
professional relationship with her US clients, not a linguistic or cultural
inferior. For instance, she will handle them quite confidently; e.g., by
asking them to spell their names when the pronunciation is not clear. In
27
doing this, she indicates to the other party that the burden of intercultural
communication rests with both parties, and not only on her side and she
successfully used her discourse tactics to negotiate a more egalitarian
intercultural communication context through projecting a different storyline
with more egalitarian subject positions linked to a moral order under which
both parties share equal responsibilities for making the communication work
rather than expecting one party to lopsidedly accommodate the linguistic
demands of the other party. In the next section we shall use positioning
theory and storyline analysis to analyse discourse tactics used by people of
the marginalized.
Case Two: ‘Long Hair’: a defiant, outspoken, grassroot, democracy fighter
in Hong Kong
‘Long Hair’ is the nickname of Leung Kwok-hung, a leftist, outspoken,
grassroot, political activist in Hong Kong for many years. He was elected a
Legislative Councillor in Hong Kong on 12 September 2004. His winning
of the election was mainly due to the support of young voters, mainly
disenfranchised youths in Hong Kong who are discontent with the education
system, high unemployment rates and the increasingly stratified society
along social class lines. Many university student associations also invited
him to give talks right after his successful election. My discourse data
consists of his public televised debates with powerful right-wing business
28
leaders who are also powerful party (e.g., Liberal Party) leaders in Hong
Kong before and after the election. Due to limited space here, I shall quote
only one excerpt from one such debate in a public forum shortly after the
election (20 Septermber 2004, City Forum, televised live by Radio
Television Hong Kong; the event was recorded by the researcher for
analysis). I shall briefuly describe the context of the excerpt and then
present the excerpt of the exchanges between James Tien (a powerful
business leader and also the Chairman of the Liberal Party in Hong Kong)
and Leung Kwok-hung (Long Hair).
When James Tien Pei-Chun, Chairman of the Liberal Party then, is debating
with Andrew Cheng of the Democratic Party, Leung Kwok-hung (Long
Hair) interrupts and speaks to James Tien in an assertive tone (The original
Cantonese utterances are transcribed in Chinese characters, with English
glosses tabulated next to them in the table below):
Cantonese utterances
1.
梁 : 少,
English translation
唔會再要你對
道
Leung: Young Master Tien, I will not
request you to apologize to me
歉,你唔使驚
again, you don’t have to be afraid.
2.
:你對
咁友善,
點會驚
Tien: You are so friendly to me, I will
not be afraid.
29
3.
梁:不過
段報紙 有段新聞比
大家睇,就係
北俊公司被
Leung: But see the news report, a
news report for all of us to see, is
the reporting of the incident of
爆欠薪
說時拿出剪報給現
wages owed by James Tien’s
場觀眾看
你為打
仔著
company (Leung pulls out a
想,你竟然間搞
咁!
初
newspaper cutting and shows to
時以為你係清潔先生,你有
the audience). You are
野講?欠
人百幾萬!個
個人都好老下架喇,做
咁
considerate towards the workers,
you did something like this! I at
first believe you are Mr Clean,
耐幫你
you have anything to say? Owing
people a million dollars or so!
That person is quite old, and have
served you for so long.
4.
:依個係
Tien: This is one of my joint
一個合資公司=
ventures…=
5.
=梁:你係
=Leung: Are you poison in the honey?
口蜜腹劍?
(literal translation: honey-mouth
and sword-stomach)
6.
既
Tien: This is a joint venture, it’s a case
情形,宜家仲響度打緊官司
in mainland, now it is engaging in
:依個係合資公司,響國
a lawsuit=
=
30
7.
=Leung: That means you don’t
=梁:即係你唔知?=
know?=
8.
=
:
唔係好詳細了解,但係
details, but I will be responsible.
會負責既
9.
=Tien : I don’t quite understand the
梁:你到宜家都唔知呀?你有無
Leung: You still don’t know now?
Have you ever cared about that
關心過個個人呀?
person?
10.
一臉為難,想開口時梁又搶著 Tien looks embarrassed, Leung again
說:宜家好簡單,
就唔會
再攞 d 野過黎比你睇架喇!
interrupts before Tien can speak:
Now it is simple, I won’t take any
more thing out and give it you to
有首詩送比你,你有無
see! I have a poem as a present
你識唔識水滸傳,水滸傳度
for you; have you, do you know
有首詩
Water Margin, there is a poem in
Water Margin.
11.
Tien jokes: You are just like Wu
笑說:你好似武松吖!
Song.
12.
梁不理他,續說:叫苦熱歌,苦 Leung ignores him, and continues: It’s
熱歌
赤日炎炎似火燒,野
called Bitter-Hot Song, Bitter
Song. Hot red Sun is burning like
禾稻半枯焦,農夫心
如
fire, crops are half-withered.
湯煮,皇孫公仔把扇搖
Farmers’ hearts are like boiling
31
說時真的拿出扇子在搖
嗱!你,依把扇就送比你,
soup, the royals are fanning.
(Leung takes out a real fan and
fans himself with it.) See! You,
第日你搖下搖下,睇下香港
this fan is for you; on the other
咁多人失業,三
萬人失
day you fan and fan, seeing how
業,你
你都話你自
有
many people in Hong Kong lose
既!七年以黎,董建華禍港
jobs, 300,000 people are
央民,斗零救窮人,二千億
unemployed, you, you still say
港市,你係
you have your contribution!
搖住扇響度
Seven years from now, Tung
睇?你響行政會議...
Chee-wah caused disasters to the
country and its people, 50¢ to
save the poor, $200 billion for the
Hong Kong market, are you
fanning and watching? In the
Executive Council, you…
13.
笑著反問:今日係
呀
經?係
好過舊年 Tien smiles and asks back: “Isn’t
你把扇多少撥
today much better than last year?
Is that your fan fanning stuff for
倒 d 比窮人呢宜家?
the poor?
14.
梁:你係
搖
扇?你話你係聽
依個居民既心聲,你落
,
32
Leung: Have you fanned the fan? You
said you are listening to the
你知唔知翠華餐廳一杯齋啡
一個菠蘿油係幾錢?你淨
people’s voice at heart, you
visited the community, do you
know how much a black coffee
係識紅酒既價格,你主張紅
and a pineapple-bun-with-butter
酒減稅!
cost at Tsui Wah Restaurant? You
only know the price of red wine,
you proposed red wine taxreduction.
15.
:以前
係唔識,依排
都知
Tien: I didn’t know in the past, but
now I know there are set-meals A,
道係有 ABC 餐
B and C.
16.
17.
:
18.
梁:
19.
20.
Leung: How much then?
梁:幾多錢呀?
五蚊倒啫
Tien: Like around 15 bucks.
五蚊?!
Leung: 15 bucks?!
Tien: Set-meals A, B C!
:ABC 餐喎!
梁:
啡
話比你聽,係二
菠蘿油,翠華係
蚊,齋 Leung: Let me tell you, it’s 20 bucks,
港最
a black coffee with a pineapplebin-with-butter. Tsui Wah is the
多人食既餐廳
most popular restaurant in Hong
Kong.
21.
:咁你食得貴
好多喇長毛!
33
Tien: So you dined more expensively
than I did, Long Hair!
22.
梁:嗱!紅酒減稅,你地就講到
好優惠喇自
黨,當係政績
咁講
你有無諗過 D 人,連
食過
五蚊既餐都無,你講
Leung: See! Red wine tax-reduction,
you guys claiming a good offer
(by) the Liberal Party, saying it
like a contribution. Have you ever
thought of the people, not even
得啱喇!
having eaten a 15-buck-meal; you
have said so right!
In this exchange, we can see that Long Hair is very skillful in using quick,
witty, discursive tactics to position his interlocutor, his debating opponent,
James Tien, as a rich family’s son not knowing much about the living
conditions and suffering of grassroot people. James Tien, being well-known
in Hong Kong society as coming from a rich family, is often addressed to as
‘Tien-siu’ in public media (literally: Young Master Tien). In the Chinese
language, ‘personal name + siu’ is an address term reserved for young
masters, usually used by servants to address their young masters (‘siu’ being
a word to attach to the name of the young master; ‘siu’ means ‘young
master). In public media in Hong Kong, sons of wealthy families are often
referred to as X-siu (X is the name of the person). Long hair (Leung), by
using this membership category term (Jayyusi 1984; Hester and Eglin 1997)
right from the beginning of the exchange, is positioning Tien as someone
34
coming from the rich upper classes, and as someone who does not share the
lifeworld of the majority of people in Hong Kong.
Then Leung pulled out a newspaper clip to show that one of Tien’s
employees was treated unfairly (with wages unpaid to him). By showing
concrete evidence and by cornering Tien about his ignorance of the plight of
his own employee, and then juxtaposing/equating Tien’s ignorance with his
lack of concern (Turn 9), Leung is launching a powerful accusation against
Tien in Turns 3-9. Being caught unexpectedly by Leung on this incident,
Tien (apparently without any assistant beside him to brief him on this
incident) acts in a role that Leung seems to have both expected and
positioned him to act in the storyline projected in Leung’s discourse: That
Tien-siu (Young Master Tien) is uncaring and unkind even to his own
employee (or servants who have served him—his company—for so long;
see Turns 3 and 9).
Having cornered Tien with this concrete incident showing Tien’s lack of
concern and care for his own employees, Leung immediately recited a
Chinese ancient poem (‘as a present’ to Tien) which talks about the plight of
poor people under a cruel government in the Sung Dynasty. The poem was
taken from the famous Chinese classical novel, Water Margins, which
depicted the story of a group of disenfranchised people who were forced to
rebel against an oppressive, uncaring, corrupt government which let the rich
35
and the powerful bully poor, powerless, ordinary people in the Sung
Dynasty of China. It must be pointed out here that while Leung is from the
grassroots, he is widely-read in the Chinese classics and can recite Chinese
classical poetry and essays at ease. Compared with Leung, Tien is shown to
be not only an uncaring rich son (due to family wealth), but also someone
who is unfamiliar with Chinese classics. Leung’s fluent recitation of this
ancient Chinese poem in one of the most famous Chinese classical novels,
has again, given Leung an upper hand. By reciting this poem from Water
Margins, Leung is also evoking the collective memory of the storyline of
Water Margins: how decent, honest people were forced to become antigovernment rebels to fight for justice.
After travelling on the time line from the present (Tien’s apparent unfair and
unkind treatment of his employee) to the ancient (reciting the poem from
Water Margins to evoke the storyline of an unfair and unjust ruling elite),
Leung again takes Tien back to the present by interrogating him about his
knowledge of the living conditions of the grassroot people in Hong Kong
(Turns 14-20): asking Tien how much it costs to have a common meal in
Hong Kong). Again, Tien’s knowledge is shown to be inadequate, and Tien
is further positioned as a typical member of the rich not knowing the plight
of the poor.
36
Leung’s discursive tactics are systematic, almost like well-planned, and he
has cleverly drawn on popular cultural and discursive resources: news
reports, ancient Chinese classical stories, Chinese poem depicting the plight
of poor people, and everyday streetwise knowledge (of the living conditions)
of grassroot people.
When reciting the poem, Leung fans a traditional Chinese paper fan, which
serves as a hook to anchor the audience’s imagination (those watching this
debate in front of the television) in Leung’s storytelling—his projecting of a
storyline not too dissimilar to that of Water Margins.
Tien is thus put on the defensive, but given his lack of Chinese cultural and
discursive resources (Tien was Western and English-educated, not familiar
with Chinese classics), his rebuttal seems so ineffective in front of Leung’s
consecutive attacks, the last of which being the accusation of Tien as only
knowing and caring about the reduction of red wine tax (Turn 22). Again,
the middle class symbol of red wine (in Hong Kong, red wine consumption
is associated with a middle and upper class life style) is invoked by Leung
to position Tien as a bona fide middle class person, neither cognizant of, nor
caring about, the life conditions of the grassroot people in Hong Kong.
37
Long Hair has always been well-known for his eloquent, outspoken, defiant
discourse style and this is precisely why some young people and many
working class people like him. They like his upfront, straightforward, nononsense discourse style and his consistent voicing out of the economic
difficulties of the grass-roots and his direct attacks on the non-democratic
political structure of Hong Kong. When a well-known rich guy, James Tien,
who was also Chair of the Liberal Party representing business interests, was
in the debating show, Long Hair deployed his discursive tactics skillfully to
position Tien in a negative light: as someone who does not know about, and
cannot, and will not care about grassroot people in Hong Kong.
Has Leung been unfair to Tien in cornering him with his superior Chinese
cultural and Hong Kong streetwise knowledge and linguistic resources?
Has he been not interacting in a rational way? Recent critiques of
Habermas’s ideal communicative situation, where interactants interact in a
constraint-free, egalitarian context, have pointed out how unrealistic it is
when the interactions are between people located in different power
relationships (e.g., Crossley and Roberts 2004). Gardiner (2004) has even
pointed out that subscribing to such rationality norms will bring more
damage to the already marginalized in such a context. In the above analysis,
I attempt to show how Leung (relatively powerless in terms of wealth and in
the existing governing structure of Hong Kong) skillfully deploys his other
kinds of cultural and linguistic capital (e.g., his familiarity of Chinese
38
classical stories and street knowledge of Hong Kong) to position an
otherwise much more powerful person (Tien) in a negative light. Tien is
shown to be of a lesser statue given the moral order projected by Leung’s
storyline. Such a (re)presentation of the world (and the moral order and
accompanying rights and obligations sets linked to it) gives Long Hair the
moral high ground.
Coda
Having looked at the two examples above, it seems to us that intercultural or
inter-group communication is more likely to be (at least provisionally)
successful if both parties are willing to make the effort to overcome
communication barriers, to mutually respect each other’s language and
culture (e.g., Carman and her European and Middle-East clients), and to
mutually share the burden of intercultural communication. In their
conversation both parties co-produce a storyline which offers relatively
more egalitarian subject positions for both parties. However, in nonegalitarian contexts (which are in fact not static and are open to negotiation
and re-negotiation through discourse), intercultural communication does not
always resemble the well-intentioned, civil, good-mannered interactive
styles of interactants in other intercultural communication contexts, and
‘weaker’ parties might draw on discourse strategies or tactics; e.g., returning
39
an arrogant question with a question, turning the tables, and counterprojecting a different storyline with a more empowered subject position for
self (as in Carman’s example when interacting with an arrogant U.S. client)
to subvert the power relations and to negotiate for, and reconstitute the
context into a more egalitarian context for interaction. Such discourse
tactics often do not subscribe to rationality, appropriateness or politeness
norms as these discourse tactics (or strategies, in Gumperz’s terms) are
‘weapons of the poor’ (de Certeau 1984). The use of positioning theory and
storyline analysis seems to be a promising direction to help intercultural
communication researchers understand how different social and cultural
groups located in different positions in the larger social structures,
nevertheless, attempt to project a different social and moral order under
which they can mitigate their structural disadvantage and create a discursive
context where more egalitarian subject positions are discursively made
possible, if only momentarily, thus, attempting to change the context and
larger social forms, norms and structures through in situ social actions and
discourse tactics (see earlier discussion of structuration theory). This paper
represents a preliminary attempt to analyse two examples of such intergroup communication in non-egalitarian contexts and it is hoped that further
research in this area will help us understand the different discursive
resources (and constraints) leading to both the challenge and the degree of
(im)possibility of achieving intersubjectivity in inter-group/intercultural
communication in adversarial situations.
40
Acknowledgement
The author is indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their useful
comments and suggestions for revision on an earlier draft of this paper.
References
Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen. 1998. Key Concepts in
Post-colonial Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
Blumer, Herbert. 1986. Symbolic Interactionism. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Carbaugh, Donal. 2005. Cultures in Conversation. Mahwah, New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
City Forum. Televised live on 20 September 204 by Radio Television Hong
Kong.
Crossley, Nick and Roberts, John M. 2004. After Habermas: New
Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Oxford: Blackwell.
Davies, Bronwyn and Harré, Rom. 1990. Positioning: “The discursive
production of selves”. Retrieved from
www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/position/position.htm.
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
41
Eerdmans, Susan L., Prevignano, Carlo L. and Thibault, Paul (eds). 2003.
Language and Interaction: Discussions with John J. Gumperz.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.
Gardiner, Michael E. 2004. “Wild publics and grotesque symposiums:
Habermas and Bakhtin on dialogue: Everyday life and the public
sphere”. In After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere.
Nick Crossley and John M. Roberts (eds), 29-48. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gee, James P. 1999. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and
Method. London: Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory
of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gumperz, John J. 2003. “Response essay”. In Language and Interaction:
Discussions with John J. Gumperz. Susan L. Eerdmans, Carlo L.
Prevignano and Paul Thibault (eds), 105-126. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands: John Benjamins.
Gumperz, John J. and Hymes, Dell (eds). 1986. Directions in
Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gundykunst, William B (ed.). 2005. Theorizing about Intercultural
Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Harré, Rom and Langenhove, Luk V. 1999. “The dynamics of social
episodes”. In Positioning Theory. Rom Harré and Luk V. Langenhove
(eds), 1-13. Oxford: Blackwell.
42
Hester, Stephen and Eglin, Peter (eds.). 1997. Culture in Action: Studies in
Membership Categorization Analysis. Washington, D.C.: International
Institute for Ethnomethodology.
Sacks, Harvey. 1966/1992. “Lecture 04a—An introduction sequence”. In
Lectures on Conversation. Gail Jefferson (ed), 288. Oxford: Blackwell.
Holliday, Adrian, Hyde, Martin, and Kullman, John. 2004. Intercultural
Communication. London: Routledge.
Jayyusi, Lena. 1984. Categorization and the Moral Order. Boston:
Routledge.
Kiesling, Scott F. and Paulston, Christina B (eds.). 2005. Intercultural
Discourse and Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sluga, Hans, and Stern, David G (eds.). 1996. The Cambridge Companion
to Wittgenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzanne Wong. 1995. Intercultural
Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
43