16.2192, Review: Discourse/Socioling: Kiesling & Paulston (2005)

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Subject: 16.2192, Review: Discourse/Socioling: Kiesling & Paulston (2005)

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Date: 16-Jul-2005
From: Laura Callahan < lcallahan at ccny.cuny.edu >
Subject: Intercultural Discourse and Communication 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:57:47
From: Laura Callahan < lcallahan at ccny.cuny.edu >
Subject: Intercultural Discourse and Communication 
 

EDITORS: Kiesling, Scott F.; Paulston, Christina Bratt
TITLE: Intercultural Discourse and Communication
SUBTITLE: The Essential Readings
SERIES: Linguistics: The Essential Readings
PUBLISHER: Blackwell Publishing
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2625.html


Laura Callahan, The City College of New York

OVERVIEW

This collection contains a preface, twenty papers, and an index. Two of 
the papers were written for this volume and the remaining selections first 
appeared between 1976 and 2003. They are distributed among four sections: 
Approaches to Intercultural Discourse, Intercultural Communication: Case 
Studies, Cultural Contact: Issues of Identity, and Implications. Each 
section has a brief introduction by the editors, and is followed by three 
to ten discussion questions. The preface and section introductions offer 
suggestions for students and instructors, including titles of introductory 
textbooks to use with this volume.

SYNOPSIS

Part I: Approaches to Intercultural Discourse
1. Dell Hymes. (1986). Modes of the Interaction of Language and Social 
Life: Toward a Descriptive Theory. Hymes gives the rationale for and 
outlines the ethnography of speaking, in which primacy is given to the 
community, rather than to the variety. In Hymes' words: "Speech community 
is a necessary, primary term in that it postulates the basis of 
description as a social, rather than a linguistic, entity. One starts with 
a social group and considers all the linguistic varieties present in it, 
rather than starting with any one variety" (p. 6).

2. Alessandro Duranti. (1989). Ethnography of Speaking: Toward a 
Linguistics of the Praxis. Duranti further elucidates the terms presented 
by Hymes, such as speech community, speech event, speech act, speech 
situation, etc. His paper offers a concise version of the SPEAKING model, 
which stands for the sixteen components of communicative events. Both 
authors emphasize distinctions between the ethnographic approach and not 
only Chomskyan linguistics but also sociolinguistics. Duranti also 
discusses conversation analysis, pointing out similarities and differences 
between it and the ethnography of speaking.

3. John J. Gumperz. (1982). Interethnic Communication. This chapter covers 
Gumperz' analyses of miscommunication between speakers of South East Asian 
and British varieties of English, which he attributes to differences in 
the participants' expectations and conversational style. In one case, 
Indian and Pakistani cafeteria servers were perceived by their British 
customers to be rude, due to the former's use of falling intonation at the 
end of a question, where the latter expected to hear rising intonation.

4. Rajendra Singh, Jayant Lele, and Gita Martohardjono. (1988). 
Communication in a Multilingual Society: Some Missed Opportunities. Singh, 
Lele, and Martohardjono contribute a critical examination of studies such 
as those presented by Gumperz in the preceding chapter. The authors point 
out that much work has focused on miscommunication involving members of 
groups that labor under a large power differential. Furthermore, these 
accounts have had a tendency to be unidirectional, reporting on the 
misconstrual of the intentions of speakers who have the least power by 
speakers who have the most power. It is suggested that interethnic 
miscommunication that has been ascribed to intercultural differences might 
be interpreted as mere violations of the cooperative principles of 
discourse, were it to take place between members of groups with more 
similar sociocultural backgrounds. 

5. Gabriele Kasper. (1997). Linguistic Etiquette. Kasper provides an 
overview of theoretical perspectives within the study of linguistic 
etiquette, covering key areas such as politeness, the Cooperative 
Principle, face and self, and universality versus cultural variation. The 
paper's extensive references, nearly ten pages, make it a valuable 
resource for those embarking on an investigation into any aspect of 
politeness strategies.

6. Elinor Ochs. (1993). Constructing Social Identity: A Language 
Socialization Perspective. Ochs shows how speakers establish social 
identity via the performance of social acts and the display of stances. 
Intercultural differences in social identity construction can be traced to 
what acts and stances are normally used to construct certain identities. 
Ochs gives the example of how middle class North American caregivers' 
accommodative stance toward children contrasts with Western Samoa, in 
which the same type of accommodative acts, such as speaking in a 
simplified register, are used, but not toward children, who themselves are 
expected to accommodate to adults and make their speech intelligible to 
caregivers.

7. Scott F. Kiesling. (2003). Norms of Sociocultural Meaning in Language: 
Indexicality, Stance, and Cultural Models. Kiesling discusses the complex 
associations between shared norms and social identities, showing how 
various levels of indexicality are established, which connect context with 
language. The discussion is illustrated with a glimpse of a case study 
involving the use of -in and -ing by fraternity brothers at a North 
American university. 

Part II: Intercultural Communication: Case Studies
8. Janet Holmes. (1998). Why Tell Stories? Contrasting Themes and 
Identities in the Narratives of Maori and Pakeha Women and Men. Holmes 
highlights differences of focus in narratives by New Zealanders of 
indigenous and European origin (Pakeha). A qualitative analysis finds 
gender and ethnicity to have an influence on aspects such as individuality 
versus group identity, female subservience, and self-praise. Holmes sees 
Maori narratives as foregrounding ethnicity, whereas "[b]eing Pakeha is 
simply experienced as 'normal' and unmarked" (p. 115).

9. Deborah Tannen. (1981). New York Jewish Conversational Style. Tannen's 
case study of New Yorkers of Eastern European Jewish heritage shows how 
conversational styles different from one's own may be interpreted as 
character defects. Talking at the same time as one's interlocutor and 
taking turns with no pause in between is perceived as showing interest in 
the conversation by those who share this style; by those who do not, it is 
perceived as rude. Conversely, individuals who listen in silence until one 
speaker has finished, and perhaps allow a few seconds to elapse before 
taking their turn, may be perceived as aloof or even dull-witted by those 
who have been socialized in the higher involvement style. Tannen observes 
that "the comfort of interaction in a setting in which one's home style 
predominates goes far to explain what often appears as clannishness-the 
preference for the company of those of similar ethnic background" (pp. 145-
146). 

10. Ake Daun. (1984). Swedishness as an Obstacle in Cross-Cultural 
Interaction. Daun proposes "to show how the Swedish culture-the Swedish 
mentality-can create special obstacles in cross-cultural interaction, and 
how the Swedish culture itself presents difficulties for immigrants in 
adjusting to life in Sweden" and maintains that "[I]t is not merely 
immigrants' cultural values and traditions which create difficulties" (p. 163).
He highlights elements of the host culture that are particularly 
problematic for immigrants to Sweden. One such element is the segregation 
of private from public life, which means that immigrants whose only 
contact with Swedes is in the workplace have a difficult time achieving 
intimate friendships with them. A negative valorization of emotional 
displays outside the home leads to the characterization of Swedes as cold 
and unfeeling. Likewise, an immigrant who expresses strong emotions in the 
workplace, whether positive or negative, is subject to scrutiny.

11. Penelope Harvey. (1994). The Presence and Absence of Speech in the 
Communication of Gender. Harvey examines the factors behind Quechua 
women's silence and less use of Spanish in a Peruvian town. She researched 
the multifaceted relationship of Spanish, Quechua, and male and female 
roles in the area, finding that women speak much less Spanish despite 
their access to the language and recognition of the power it affords the 
speaker. Female characters portrayed by men in ritual dramas maintain 
silence, which Harvey concludes represents aspects not only of gender but 
also of the indigenous person's racial identity in the face of colonial 
domination. 12. H. Samy Alim. (Commissioned for this volume). Hearing 
What's Not Said and Missing What Is: Black Language in White Public Space. 
Alim cites examples from his Northern California fieldwork to show how 
Black linguistic practices are misunderstood in school and other public 
places. Empirical evidence of a young man's style-shifting ability is 
given, which contradicts a teacher's assessment of her pupils as speakers 
with limited repertoires. Ignorance of the sociopolitical situation that 
privileges some language varieties at the expense of others hampers the 
teacher's ability to respond when students ask why they shouldn't speak 
African American Vernacular English in the classroom.

13. Christina Bratt Paulston. (1976). Pronouns of Address in Swedish: 
Social Class Semantics and a Changing System. This paper delineates the 
rules of an address system in flux. Paulston was able to discover how 
usage of the formal and informal pronoun varied due to different 
connotations for each according to social class. For example, the informal 
pronoun, du, signaled intimacy for upper class speakers and solidarity for 
members of the working class. The formal pronoun, ni, could indicate the 
speaker's dislike of an addressee. Similar to the situation in other 
European countries at the time, in Sweden a shift to the informal pronoun 
was in progress, which was attributed to a political ideology favoring 
egalitarianism.

14. Maria Sifianou. (1993). Off-record Indirectness and the Notion of 
Imposition. According to received politeness theories, requests entail 
imposition on the hearer, and making the request in an indirect, off-
record fashion reduces the threat to the addressee's autonomy. Sifianou 
questions the universality of this notion by showing how Greek social 
structure renders the imposition null. Intra-group rights and obligations 
include mutual favors, and requests are not perceived as an imposition. 
Rather, indirectness functions as a way to let the addressee demonstrate 
generosity, allowing him or her to take the initiative of fulfilling off-
record requests.

15. Suwako Watanabe. (1993). Cultural Differences in Framing: American and 
Japanese Group Discussions. Using a group discussion task with students at 
a university in the U.S., Watanabe shows how North American and Japanese 
speakers hold different expectations about interactions in this speech 
event. The Japanese students first decided the order in which group 
members would speak. Their contributions to the discussion took the form 
of storytelling, with each person presenting the main point at the end of 
his or her turn. The North American students made their contributions in 
brief, reporting style. Watanabe discusses the negative perceptionsthese 
contrasts in style can cause.

Part III: Cultural Contact: Issues of Identity
16. Karen Ogulnick. (2000). Learning Language/Learning Self. Ogulnick 
reflects on her experience learning Japanese in Japan and in the 
process "acquiring a role, and knowing how to act according to that social 
definition" (pp. 253-254). The opportunity to be a participant-observer in 
the target language country increased her perceptiveness of both its and 
her own culture.

17. Benjamin Bailey. (2000). The Language of Multiple Identities among 
Dominican Americans. Bailey studies how Dominican American teenagers 
resist the imposition of a binary Black/White classification, at times 
using their Spanish-speaking ability to differentiate themselves from 
African Americans. Multiple social identities and strategies surface, 
including the use of English to distinguish oneself from recent 
immigrants, and the use of African American Vernacular English to align 
oneself with African Americans.

18. Christina Bratt Paulston. (1992). Biculturalism: Some Reflections and 
Speculations. Paulston reminds us that becoming bilingual does not 
automatically make one bicultural. She concludes that some aspects of 
culture can be taught, while others must be chosen by individual language 
learners, who for this process need to have access to models of the 
culture in question. 

Part IV: Implications
19. Susan U. Philips. (1983). A Comparison of Indian and Anglo 
Communicative Behavior in Classroom Interaction. Philips documented 
differences in communicative patterns between Indian children from the 
Warm Springs Reservation, in the state of Oregon, and their Anglo 
classmates. The disparities most often discussed involve competing for the 
floor and answering questions directed at individual students. In the 
children's home community calling attention to oneself is not encouraged, 
and speakers have more control over when and how long to speak. Hence, in 
comparison to their Anglo peers, the Indian children raise their hand less 
to answer questions directed at the entire class, and when called upon 
might pause a long time before speaking or not respond at all. 

20. Diana Eades. (Commissioned for this volume). Beyond Difference and 
Domination? Intercultural Communication in Legal Contexts. Eades warns of 
the potential misuse of information on intercultural differences in 
communication strategies. Lawyers cross-examining three Aboriginal 
plaintiffs in a police abuse case took advantage of an Aboriginal 
pragmatic pattern known as "gratuitous concurrence" (p. 305), in which an 
individual expresses agreement with a statement, independent of actual 
agreement or even comprehension. This paper raises issues over the 
linguist's role in society, since it was a handbook of Aboriginal English 
that purportedly informed the lawyers of these aspects of Aboriginal 
communicative style.

EVALUATION

As a collection, this volume will definitely be of interest to 
researchers, instructors, and students of intercultural communication. 
Within this focus, it also offers some papers of particular interest to 
second language acquisition, and to studies of politeness. As the editors 
point out, "the 'complete' list of essential readings [on intercultural 
communication] would fill an entire, ever-expanding bookcase" (p. xii). 
Kiesling and Paulston have successfully met the challenge of deciding what 
to include. The selection and especially the sequencing of the work is 
well motivated. Foundational readings are offered together with a few more 
recent pieces. In a couple of instances articles that either extend or 
refute each other's arguments appear in tandem. In several of the essays 
traditional perspectives are challenged, in particular the 
conceptualization of individuals as possessing characteristics solely by 
virtue of their membership in a certain group. There is a strong focus on 
the creation and maintenance of identity through social interaction. 

Care has been taken to include essays that concentrate on presenting 
issues from the perspective of speakers from a less dominant group. The 
most notable example is by Singh, Lele, and Martohardjono; others come 
from Alim, Daun, Eades, Harvey, and Holmes. This raises the subject of the 
researcher's bias. Holmes, for example, states that her interpretation has 
undoubtedly been influenced by her own ethnic affiliation, even after 
discussing her analysis with members of the other group. Whether it is 
possible for the researcher to escape his or her own frame of reference is 
an old question; failing this, scholars can be clear about the sources of 
their potential subjectivity.

An important issue raised in this volume is the need for awareness of the 
larger perspective, or, in Eades' words, "the wider power struggles" (p. 314).
The dynamics that contribute to the evaluation of certain speech 
varieties as standard and others as non-standard, with the attendant 
advantages and disadvantages to their speakers, are often accepted without 
question or even comprehension, as Alim's paper shows. He proposes that 
knowledge of this system of linguistic inequality be used for a discussion 
about our collective and individual implication in its maintenance.

Similar views have been expressed in the disciplines of Spanish for 
Spanish-speakers in the U.S. (Leeman 2005; Martinez 2003; Villa 1996, 
2002) and English as a Second or Foreign Language for Academic Purposes 
(Turner 2004). Critical pedagogues advocate teaching students to recognize 
the wholly non-linguistic reasons for which so-called standard, or 
prestige, varieties exist-at the same time agreeing that students need to 
acquire such a variety. The question remains as to how, or if, it is 
possible to "eradicate linguistic supremacy" (Alim, p. 195), regardless of 
how much awareness everyone may have of the power relations that feed it, 
as long as the use of certain varieties ultimately continues to be 
mandatory in academic and other gatekeeping encounters. 

REFERENCES

Leeman, Jennifer. 2005. Engaging Critical Pedagogy: Spanish for Native 
Speakers. Foreign Language Annals. 38-1: 35-45.

Martinez, Glenn A. 2003. Classroom Based Dialect Awareness in Heritage 
Language Instruction: A Critical Linguistic Approach. Heritage Language 
Journal. 1-1. Available http://www.international.ucla.edu/lrc/hlj

Turner, Joan. 2004. Academic Literacy in Post-colonial Times: Hegemonic 
Norms and Transcultural Possibilities. In Alison Phipps and Manuela 
Guilherme, eds. Critical Pedagogy: Political Approaches to Language and 
Intercultural Communication. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 22-32.

Villa, Daniel J. 1996. Choosing a "standard" variety of Spanish for the 
instruction of native Spanish speakers in the U.S. Foreign Language 
Annals. 29-2: 191-200. 

Villa, Daniel J. 2002. The Sanitizing of U.S. Spanish in Academia. Foreign 
Language Annals. 35-2: 222-30. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Callahan is Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the City 
College, City University of New York (CUNY), and Research Fellow at the 
Research Institute for the Study of Language in an Urban Society (RISLUS), 
at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her interests include interethnic 
communication, language and identity, and heritage language teaching.





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