17.1510, Review: Socioling/Writing/East Asian Lang: Zhu (2005)

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Subject: 17.1510, Review: Socioling/Writing/East Asian Lang: Zhu (2005)

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1)
Date: 11-May-2006
From: Daniel Kadar < danielkadar at yahoo.co.uk >
Subject: Written Communication Across Cultures 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 17:08:23
From: Daniel Kadar < danielkadar at yahoo.co.uk >
Subject: Written Communication Across Cultures 
 

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-3427.html 

AUTHOR: Zhu, Yunxia
TITLE: Written Communication across Cultures
SUBTITLE: A sociocognitive perspective on business genres
SERIES: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 141
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2005

Daniel Z. Kadar, Department of Linguistics, Gate of Dharma University 
of Buddhist Studies, Hungary; Department of East Asian Studies, 
Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary

OVERVIEW

The book compares Chinese and English business genres -- sales 
letters, sales invitations, and business faxes -- from a sociocognitive 
perspective. It is consisted of nine chapters. 

Chapter 1 is an introduction. First the author summarizes the 
framework which she applies to compare Chinese and English (E/C) 
business genres. This summary helps the reader relating the work to 
research trends that study genres from cross-cultural perspectives 
(even though the author claims that she applies a synthesised 
theoretical framework rather than relying on a specific area). In the 
next section the author introduces the rationale, aim, and research 
questions of the book. An outline of the contents closes the chapter. 

In order to provide theoretical background for the comparison of E/C 
business genres, Chapter 2 discusses several cross-cultural research 
areas like: 
(a) Contrastive rhetoric -- Kaplan's (1966) study on the in-/directness 
of (argumentative) thought patterns in cultures, and its critiques, can 
help understanding cultural differences in writing styles. 
(b) Contrastive study of persuasive traditions in Greek and Chinese 
rhetorical traditions -- such a research can provide insights into the 
cross-cultural examination of written business discourses, because 
it ''examines rhetoric beyond the level of argumentation'' (p. 12).
(c) Intercultural communication -- Hall's (1976) ''high vs. low-context 
cultures'' theory and Hofstede's (1991) intercultural theory (cf. the four 
cultural variables of ''individualism-collectivism'', ''power 
relations'', ''uncertainty avoidance'', and ''masculinity/femininity'') are 
mentioned as possible research concepts. 
(d) Cross-cultural pragmatics -- cross-cultural politeness research, in 
particular face issues, is of potential relevance for the comparison of 
business genres.
(e) Cultures -- the normative notion of ''culture'' in communities of 
practice can be effectively utilized for a cross-cultural genre study.

In the concluding section the author notes that she will ''establish a 
sociocognitive contrasting system that employs these cross-cultural ... 
dimensions'' (pp. 24-25). 

Chapter 3 elaborates the conceptual framework of the study. In order 
to offer a dual perspective, the author reviews sociocognitive genre 
research that has been developed in the ''West'' on the one hand, and 
Chinese genre studies, on the other. The sociocognitive research of 
genres is surveyed according to the concepts of:
(a) Genre as social stock of knowledge -- this fundamental theory in 
sociocognitive genre research claims that language users (re)
construct given genres according to schemata based on their stocks 
of knowledge.
(b) Genre and the sociocultural contexts -- communicative genres are 
historically and culturally specific; hence it is necessary to rely on 
the ''ethnography of communication'' when studying the characteristics 
of ''stocks of knowledge''.
(c) Genre practice and the discourse community -- discourse 
communities have to be also studied in order to successfully map 
genre knowledge, because ''a discourse community requires its 
members to exhibit a general level of knowledge structures as a 
prerequisite for membership'' (p. 35). 
(d) Genre as communicative events -- the realization of 
genre ''knowledge stocks'' can be viewed as ''communicative events'', 
and so examining ''communicative purposes'', ''rhetorical structures'', 
and ''intertextuality'' can aid genre analysis.

After surveying sociocognitive genre research, the author attempts to 
give an overview of Chinese genre studies. First she outlines Chinese 
genre systemization: business genres (a) typically belong to the so-
called 'yingyongwen' ('practical writing') domain of written language; 
(b) in this domain emotions have less role than logic (but they have 
considerably more importance than in ''Western'' business writings); 
(c) the Chinese further categorize business genres according to the 
superior/equal/subordinate relationship between the writer and the 
reader as 'shangxing' (lit. 'up direction')/'pingxing' (lit. 'equal 
direction')/'xiaxing' (lit. 'down direction') types. Later on the author 
briefly introduces the history of Chinese genre research and its 
present state in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Finally, the 
Chinese research of 'practical writing' genres is introduced, which is a 
new scholarly area in the PRC. In the closing section of the chapter 
the author introduces her model for cross-cultural genre study, which 
is based on intercultural theories, sociocognitive approaches to 
genres, and Chinese genre theories. The model compares E/C 
business genres according to (a) sociocultural factors, (b) persuasive 
orientations/communicative purposes, (c) rhetorical 
structures/intertextuality, and (d) professionals' views of cultures 
involved (p. 58). 

Chapter 4 ''gives an overall view of the research design and details of 
the research method, data ... of the analysis'' (p. 61). The research 
method is ''interpretive'' (i.e., the author interprets the empirical results 
of the analyses) and ''contrastive'' (i.e., the results are based on cross-
cultural comparison). The data is drawn from authentic business 
writings, as well as from questionnaire and interviews. The 
participants of the latter data collecting method are managers from 
China and New Zealand (NZ). 

Chapter 5 ''applies the framework proposed in Chapter 3 and 
compares E/C sales letters'' (p. 71). First the author examines the E/C 
sociocultural contexts for the writing of business genres. Due to the 
fact that ''the free market economy has been a dominant feature in the 
West for many century'' (p. 72) English business genres are written for 
an individualistic, low-context culture: their writers primarily pay 
attention to achieving immediate goals. In the PRC, on the other 
hand, ''free-market economy is accepted together with traditional 
cultural protocols'' (p. 75), and ''relationship ('guanxi') building is 
considered a key to business success'' (p. 75). After mapping 
sociocultural differences, the chapter compares the communicative 
purposes and persuasive orientations of the E/C sales letters. The 
analysis points out the fact that the E/C letters apply by-and-large 
identical ''logical approach'' to sell the goods, but -- in contrast to the 
English sales letters -- in the Chinese letters ''the influence 
from ... 'emotional' approach is quite evident ... by having one extra 
purpose of establishing a long-term relation with the reader'' (p. 78). 

In the next section the author compares the texts of the E/C sales 
letters: first she examines intertextuality in the studied texts, then she 
outlines the rhetorical structures of the E/C sales letters and compares 
the different moves employed by the authors of these texts. The 
findings of the textual analysis reflect the different backgrounds of E/C 
business cultures -- while both cultures stress the logical approach as 
an important persuasive orientation, the differences between E/C 
intertextuality/rhetorical moves refer to an individualistic vs. communal 
opposition in the perception of business interactions. I.e., while the 
English sales letters tend to use a more direct style and apply 
embedded intertextuality/rhetorical moves to ''press'' the consumer to 
acquire the given goods, the Chinese letters have a deferential style 
and utilize intertextuality/rhetorical moves to express respect. (E.g., 
the English writers attach postscripts to their letters in order to stress 
the benefits that the reader can have from the business, while the 
Chinese writers insert typically non-equal, deferential ('shangxing') 
genre elements into their letters.) Furthermore, the writers of the 
English letters aim to achieve immediate goals, thus they give very 
detailed accounts on the given goods; the Chinese writers, on the 
other hand, avoid giving detailed descriptions, exactly because their 
primary aim is to build long-term relationships with the customers. 
Finally, the author examines those E/C sales letters which were found 
to be the most effective by the interviewed managers in NZ and the 
PRC, and she also surveys the managers' evaluations of the most 
effective E/C letters. The evaluations of the ''professional 
communities'' are in accordance with the aforementioned findings of 
cross-cultural genre differences. Generally, he NZ managers 
appreciate directness/effectiveness in the English letter and criticize 
the Chinese letter because of its indirect structure, while the Chinese 
managers find the English letters too direct and of ''cold'' tone. 

Chapter 6 compares E/C sales invitations in similar manner indicated 
in Chapter 5. The data is composed of forty authentic sales invitations 
to trade fairs in Australia, NZ and the PRC. First the author discusses 
the sociocultural contexts of E/C sales invitations. While the 
sociocultural background of English invitations is similar to that of 
sales letters, in Chinese cultural context the act of invitation goes far 
beyond a business partnership, and invitations typically belong to the 
so called 'liyi xin' ('letters of social etiquettes') genre -- hence the 
Chinese inviters apply particularly deferential register in order to 
properly build interpersonal relationships. In the subsequent section 
the author compares the communicative purposes and persuasive 
orientations of sales invitations. The English sales invitations apply a 
logical approach (a) to persuade readers to attend the trade fairs and 
(b) to achieve positive image. The Chinese letters, while applying 
resembling logical approach to invite the readers/gain positive image, 
also try to achieve a collaborative/respectful image and build a host-
guest relationship with the readers. 

After studying persuasive orientations, the author examines 
intertextuality in the studied E/C sales invitations. In the English texts 
intertextuality (e.g. regular reference to Internet) serves informative 
goals, while in Chinese letters it serves the attaining of ''a higher level 
of politeness'' (p. 107). Beside intertextuality the author also studies 
rhetorical structures. Similarly to sales letters, the English invitations 
are direct and their aim is to invite the reader for one definite 
occasion; the Chinese ones are more deferential in style, and their 
twofold aim is to (a) invite the reader's organization and (b) build up 
long-standing relationships. For example, Chinese authors tend to 
repeat invitations at the closing sections of the texts, which cannot be 
observed in the English invitations. In the final part of the chapter the 
author compares NZ and Chinese managers' views on the most 
successful sales invitations. As it turns out from the comparison, the 
Chinese managers find the most successful English letter somewhat 
more acceptable than vice versa. This difference is supposedly rooted 
in the fact that the Chinese managers ''had no problem understanding 
the English letters'' (pp. 121-122), while the deferential/ritualised style 
of the Chinese invitations ''may water down the real intent of the 
invitation relating to sales'' (p. 122) for the NZ managers. 

Chapter 7 compares E/C business faxes, a written genre that have 
become increasingly popular in business communication. This 
comparison is not only challenging because it is based on a 
sociocognitive theory (cf. Chapter 5 and Chapter 6), but also the 
cross-cultural analysis of business faxes is a regrettably understudied 
topic, hence its examination is of a pioneering character. First the 
author introduces the data of the analysis, then she discusses the 
technological and sociocultural contexts for fax writing. Interestingly, 
while researchers like Louhiala-Salminen (1999) predict that faxes 
may be transitory and short-lived as a form of business writing in 
Europe because of the increasing use of e-mails, in Australia, NZ and 
the PRC fax writing will be prospectively remain an important means of 
communication. In Australia and NZ, companies of reasonable sizes 
still prefer using faxes to e-mails, while in the PRC ''e-mails have never 
become as popular as faxes'' (p. 127). In the next section the author 
introduces fax as genre. Fax writing is an independent genre in both 
English and Chinese cultural contexts, but also it has mixed 
characteristics: e.g. English faxes have the generic features of memos 
and letters, while Chinese faxes ''appear to share some formal ... 
features as well as personal letters'' (p. 129). 

In the subsequent section the author examines the persuasive 
orientations and communicative purposes of business faxes; she 
claims that ''the persuasive orientations discussed in earlier chapters 
still apply to business faxes'' (p. 130), i.e., Chinese faxes tend to 
indicate both the emotional and logical approaches, and also they try 
to attain long-term relationships with the readers, while English faxes 
have a clear stress on logos. The examination of intertextuality in the 
texts supports this finding: e.g., the Chinese faxes regularly apply 
referential intertextuality related to 'guanxi' or 'connections'. In the 
next section the author compares the rhetorical structures of E/C 
business faxes. Again, the rhetorical differences support the above 
notion of cross-cultural differences between persuasive orientations. 
E.g., the Chinese writers prefer inserting greetings and traditional 
Chinese good wishes into their faxes (to attain close relation with the 
readers), while the English writers tend to avoid using such ''overtly 
personal'' rhetorical elements and they focus on the concrete deal. Or, 
in the case of business complaints, the English writers use a very 
direct tone to express complaints, while the Chinese writers cautiously 
avoid direct criticism, and they tend to refer to their ''disappointment'', 
which can be harmful towards relationship building (i.e. they apply 
the ''emotional'' approach). At the end of the chapter the author 
compares the E/C business faxes that were evaluated as most 
effective by the interviewees, and also she compares the managers' 
views on them. The NZ managers value directness, clear focus and 
logical structure in the most effective English fax, while the Chinese 
managers criticise it because of its non-deferential style and lack 
of ''human kindness''. The Chinese managers like the formal/ritual 
style, warm tone, and the skilful mixing of messages of the most 
effective Chinese fax, while the NZ managers criticize it because of its 
humble tone and ambiguous message. The managers' views reinforce 
the aforementioned E/C cultural differences in persuasive orientations. 

Chapter 8 ''aims to apply research findings of earlier chapters to genre 
teaching across cultures'' (p. 155). The author first overviews the state 
of cross-cultural genre teaching and raises the notion of generic 
competence. Because textbooks (particularly those that teach 
business genres) are prescriptive, i.e., they only teach the form of 
genre, it is difficult for language learners to attain a high-level 
competence when they can write effectively without conscious efforts 
(cf. the notion of ''unconscious competence'' on p. 158). Hence the 
author tries to apply her sociocognitive model for the teaching of E/C 
business genres, in order to involve students ''in the processes to 
understand genres beyond the text'' (p. 161). The proposed model 
consist of the following processes: 
(a) Learning sociocultural contexts across cultures -- the students first 
learn the sociocultural background of the studied genre.
(b) Learning persuasive orientations and communicative purposes -- 
this process ''enable students to acquire basic theoretical 
understanding about persuasion'' (p.165).
(c) Learning to write texts and incorporating peripheral participation -- 
in this process theories are linked with practice.
(d) Incorporating authentic data and managers' views -- teaching 
these helps students becoming involved in the professional practice of 
the studied genre.
(e) Learning implications for intercultural generic competence -- ''the 
final process aims to raise students' awareness of the implications of 
studying genre for cross-cultural generic competence'' (p. 173). 

The author tests this model on Chinese students who learn English 
business writing. The outcome of the experiment supports the 
effectiveness of the sociocognitive teaching methodology.

Chapter 9 surveys the findings of the work and lists their possible 
implications for genre research and intercultural competence. In 
addition, the author lists some areas where further research can be 
carried out on the basis of this study.

EVALUATION

Zhu Yunxia's book is a high-level scholarly work, which is a must for 
every reader who is interested in the research of Chinese business 
communication and intercultural issues. 

The following positive characteristics of the study have to be pointed 
out.
(a) The reader gets insight into an interesting data. A problem in the 
research of business discourses is that it is often difficult to ''access to 
sensitive and confidential boardroom discussions, management 
meetings and certain types of negotiations ... though linguistic 
evidence based on such settings is crucial to our understanding of 
international business communication'' (Bargiela-Chiappini & Harris 
1997: 3). In the case of modern Chinese business discourses data 
collection is particularly difficult, because one needs extensive 'guanxi' 
(relationship) network to get access to business circles. Yet the author 
successfully manages to collect a large amount of real life data from 
Chinese managers, which is a valuable contribution to business 
language research.

(b) The author provides a detailed introduction of the 
Chinese 'yingyongwen' ('practical writing') in Chapter 3. It is necessary 
to mention that 'yingyongwen' constitutes one of the most difficultly 
accessible areas of written Chinese, because the style of 'yingyong' 
genres is strongly archaising and so their writing/reading requires 
preliminary studies in traditional Chinese culture and a strong 
command of Chinese language; this is why the Chinese tend to 
publish a large quantity of 'yingyongwen' teaching materials for native 
speakers. Although studying 'yingyongwen' is unavoidable to properly 
understand Chinese professional/official written genres, this topic is 
neglected in Chinese linguistics. So the author's detailed description 
of 'yingyong' genres is not only important for the research that is 
carried out in the work, but in the long run it blazes a trail for the 
linguistic research of Chinese written genres. 

(c) The author utilizes a remarkably complex research methodology 
for cross-cultural genre analysis, which is constituted from modern 
linguistic research areas, traditional genre studies, as well as (cross-)
cultural views on successful business. Yet the reader can comprehend 
the working of this methodology, due to the detailed introduction in 
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. 

(d) The author applies her research findings/methodology for the 
practical aim of cross-cultural genre teaching, which makes her work a 
valuable source work for lecturers of E/C written languages. Many 
textbooks, which teach E/C written genres for non-native speakers, 
are of prescriptive nature, i.e. they induce memorization instead of 
understanding. The author's sociocognitive approach to cross-cultural 
genre teaching/learning, on the other hand, provides a methodology 
that helps students to understand written genres beyond their formal 
characteristics. 

As regard to critiques, the following points can be mentioned.
(a) There are misspellings in the 'pinyin' transcriptions of the Chinese 
words (like 'lianxi' ('contact') is written as 'laixi', p. 145). Generally 
these do not raise difficulties for the reader, but e.g. in the case 
of ''the most effective Chinese business fax'' (pp. 148-149), the 
addressee, whose name is Liang Jianwei (see the Chinese text in 
Appendix 1), occurs as ''Mr. Wang Jiawei'' and then as ''Mr. Liang'' in 
the translation, which makes difficult to properly understand the 
English text.


(b) In the author's account on ''Chinese written discourse and the 
division of genres'' (pp.45-47) ''literature'' and ''practical/profession 
writing'' occur as two basically separated domains of written Chinese. 
This, however, is a debatable point, since according to researchers 
like Cai (1999), or Yu (2002) some Chinese literary genres serve the 
goals of 'practical writing'. E.g., the genre of antithetical couplets 
(or 'duilian') is categorised as 'yingyongwen' in most of the studies. At 
first sight the relation of ''literature'' and ''practical writing'' seems to be 
a marginal issue, but in fact its clarification would be of importance to 
understand why modern Chinese 'yingyong' genres are rich in literary 
elements, compared to ''Western'' professional/practical genres.

(c) The author defines the presence of honorific expressions in 
business genres as ''genre mixing''. In other words, she claims that 
modern Chinese business relations are equal, i.e., business genres 
belong to the 'equal' type of 'practical writing' ('pingxing' genres), and 
so authors mix genres when they apply honorific (self-denigrating and 
interlocutor-denigrating) expressions, which typically belong 
to 'shangxing' genres (where subordinates write to superiors). The 
author uses this argumentation to support the notion that Chinese 
business genres are in the period of formation, which results in the 
strong mixture of genres. Although the reviewer agrees with the latter 
notion, the claim that the use of honorifics was genre mixing in 
Chinese business writing is questionable. First, according to 
many 'yingyongwen' theorists (see above and also Lü 1979 or Huang 
2001) the use of honorifics is not the only a property of 'shangxing' 
(from-subordinate-to-superior) genres, but honorifics can also occur 
in 'pingxing' (equal) and casually even in 'xiaxing' (from-superior-to-
subordinate) genres. This questions the validity of the statement that 
the regular use of honorifics in business genres was the ''mixture'' 
of 'pingxing' and 'shangxing' elements. Second, in Chinese linguistic 
politeness honorific expressions have fundamental role (cf. Gu 1990), 
which suggests that in every written genre that require deferential 
register (because of certain interpersonal power relations) the use of 
honorifics is unavoidable (cf. Kadar 2005). I.e., the managers 
supposedly apply honorific expressions because business interaction 
is an activity which necessitates deference, or the interpersonal power 
relation between sellers and buyers in China necessitates a 
deferential tone. This is implicitly supported by the fact that all of the 
author's examples contain a large quantity of honorific expressions, 
i.e. the use of honorifics seems to be a generic characteristic of 
Chinese business letters. 

It is necessary to emphasize that the above-mentioned critical remarks 
do not decrease the overall high scholarly value of Zhu's work, which 
is an important contribution to the fields of both business language 
research and intercultural pragmatics. 

REFERENCES

Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca & Harris, Sandra J., eds. (1997) The 
Languages of Business. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University press. 

Cai, Diqiu (1999) Yingyongwen Biaogan (Standard Practical Writing). 
Tainan: Wenguo shuju.

Gu, Yueguo (1990) Politeness Phenomena in Modern Chinese. 
Journal of Pragmatics 14, 237-257.

Hall, Edward T. (1976) Beyond Culture. Garden City, New York: 
Anchor. 

Hofstede, Geert H. (1991) Cultures and Organizations: Software of 
the Mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Huang, Xiangyang (2001) Yingyongwen (Practical Writing). Taibei: 
Hongye wenhua shiye youxian gongsi.

Kadar, Daniel Z. (2005) The powerful and the powerless -- On the 
classification of the Chinese polite denigrating/elevating addressing 
terminology. Acta Orientalia Hung. 58, 421-443. 

Kaplan, Robert B. (1966) Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural 
education. Language Learning 16, 1-20.

Louhiala-Salminen, Leena (1999) From business correspondence to 
message exchange: What is there left? In M. Hewings & C. Nickerson 
(eds.) Business English: Research Into Practice (1-27). London: 
Longman. 

Lü, Xinchang (1979) Zuxin Yingyongwen Huibian (A Collection of the 
Most Modern Practical Writings). Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan.

Yu, Kaijun (2002) Xin Shiyong Yingyongwen (New Practical Writing for 
Use) Tainan: Dafu shuju. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER 


Daniel Zoltan Kadar's (Ph.D.) research interests include traditional 
Chinese (im)politeness, institutional discourses in imperial China, 
politeness in Chinese written genres, and universal theories of 
honorific language (with special focus on honorific vocatives). 
Recently he works on the research of linguistic (im)politeness in old 
Chinese institutional discourses, like business, courtroom, medical 
interactions. His publications include books, like "Terms of (Im)
politeness -- On the Communicational Properties of Traditional 
Chinese (Im)polite Address Terms" (in press, to appear in "Budapest 
Monographs in East Asian Studies Series", Budapest: Eotvos Lorand 
University Press), and research articles in English and Chinese, 
like "Power and Profit -- The role of elevating/denigrating forms of 
address in pre-modern Chinese business discourse" (in F. Bargiela-
Chiappini and M. Gotti (eds.) "Asian Business Discourse(s)", 
Bern/Oxford/New York: Peter Lang, 2005).





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