1. Contrastive Pragmatics
Lecture 9

2. Introduction Language is accepted as part of culture
The use of language reflects culture.
A study of such non-native language use can give insight into the original cultural background
an analysis of two cultures in action.

3. Introduction
A great many factors play a role in determining how an utterance will be interpreted, among them the social status of the participants and their expectations of what others will do in certain situations.
Utterances may have more than one kind of meaning.
please, may

4. Introduction
An obstacle may occur when native speakers of the language used are monolingual, and cannot imagine that the intentions of their partners may be different than their own if they were to use the form and expressions the others use.
The result may be a conflict.
Different use of language may lead to a simple lack of understanding on the part of the native speaker or the non-native speaker.

5. Maxims and politeness
Brown and Levinson (1978:100) state that most conversations do not proceed in the brusque fashion that would be the expected result of the adherence to the cooperative principle, and that the reason they do not is because people are being polite.
This politeness is often communicated by the departure itself.

6. Maxims and politeness
Exchanges between native speakers are in many circumstances almost semi-automatic, and yet unintelligible to the listening non-native speaker.
As a participant, the non-native speaker is forced to make these assumptions almost consciously.

7. Maxims and politeness
Politeness is important in cross-cultural communication, for without a willingness to presume good intentions on the part of the partner, the communication will probably break down.

8. Maxims and politeness
Some codes of politeness require that an offer of food or drink first be turned down, to be accepted only after repeated offers. If the first rejection is accepted as such, and no repeated offer is made, both partners may be confused and hurt by the exchange.

9. Cross-cultural examples
The following examples stem from exchanges between native speakers of Western Apache and speakers of American English, where English was used as the language of communication.
A difference in the perception of the maxim of quantity is illustrated in the following example:
(1) She had a baby for him

10. Cross-cultural examples
An English speaker would consider She had a baby sufficient, and if he were to be brought into the statement at all, it would read ‘She had his baby.’
This usage of for him stems from the fact that Western Apache society is arranged in clans, clan membership being matrilineal. The clan of which one is a member is the clan which one was “born to,” whereas the clan of the father is the “born for” clan, and the “born for” relationship is also important.

11. Cross-cultural examples
Thus, (1) illustrates a culturally determined difference in the use of language, and is not a departure from the maxim in the Apache view.
The maxim of quality, be truthful and sincere, is a particularly difficult proposition, for the definitions differ greatly.
(2) We were just sitting around telling lies.

12. Cross-cultural examples
This statement was received with shock by an Apache.
Apaches take statements literally –– they do no use understatement, overstatement or irony (with few exceptions), and do not understand it in English as English speakers intend it to be understood. For them, the second maxim must be taken literally.

13. Cross-cultural examples
(3) A: How old are you?
B: I don’t know.
C: Oh, don’t be like that
In this exchange, an 11-year-old Western Apache girl was, with (3b), reprimanding a (non-Apache) adult for asking a direct personal question, and was in turn reprimanded by her brother with (3c).

14. Cross-cultural examples
Perhaps this illustrates an overlapping of this maxim and the “politeness” maxim, because the speaker of (3a) is not aware of having been impolite, and thus cannot see (3b) as the polite form of That is none of your business. However, because of this unawareness, the answer will be interpreted in accordance with the second maxim.

15. Cross-cultural examples
The maxim of relevance.
(4) When are you leaving?
This question is posed to newcomers in a culture with great regularity. The newcomer often does not, in fact, know what is being asked, namely, whether a stay is planned that will be long enough for it to be useful to members of the culture to form relationships with the visitor.

16. Cross-cultural examples
The maxim of manner requires that one be perspicuous.
(5) You need about 124 sticks.
(6) I guess that’s right.
These two examples illustrate attempts by native Apache speakers to introduce modal particles into English. The Apache language has a number of such particles which add nuances of politeness to a statement.

17. Pragmatic errors
“pragmatic errors are the result of an interactant’s imposing the social rules of one culture on his communicative behavior in a situation where the social rules of one culture would be more appropriate.” (Riley, 1989:234)

18. Pragmatic errors
Thomas (1983:99) defines and distinguishes pragmalinguistic and socio-pragmatic errors as follows:
pragmalinguistic failure.... occurs when the pragmatic force mapped by S onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2.

19. Pragmatic errors
Sociopragmatic failure.... refers to the social conditions [laced on language in use... while pragmalinguistic failure is basically a linguistic problem, caused by differences in the linguistic encoding of pragmatic force, sociopragmatic failure stems cross-culturally different perceptions of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behavior.

20. Pragmatic errors Englishman: “Can I help you with that?”
Japanese lady traveler (burdened with 2 suitcases, baby, etc.): “So sorry, so sorry, you are very kind”

21. Pragmatic errors
“‘Po moemu’ (in my opinion) and ‘kaztesja’ (it seems to me) are often used in Russian much as we use ‘I think’ in English. Normally these expressions are used to deliver considered judgments (“St. Sophia’a is, in my opinion, the finest example of Byzantine architecture in the Soviet Union .’ ‘It seems to me there’s someone at the door.” “In my opinion the film begins at eight.”) (Thomas 1983: 102).

22. Pragmatic errors
Hostess (to foreign visitor who has given her a small present):
“Oh, you really shouldn't have!”
Visitor (anxious and puzzled): “But I ... why not?”

23. sociopragmatic failure
A visiting professor from Japan entered the office of his British opposite number. After the briefest of introductions (shaking hands, sitting down) he said “How old are you?.”

24. sociopragmatic failure
Riley (1989:237) points out that there are at least two other categories of pragmatic error which should be taken into consideration.

25. sociopragmatic failure
One of these categories, which we might tentatively call inchoative, includes errors which are their result of a failure to appreciate the “true” value of discourse, in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
The relative status of silence and speech and the overall social role of discourse seems to vary considerably from one culture to another.

26. sociopragmatic failure
Obviously, there are marked, intra-cultural variations too: ‘strong, silent men’ may well find themselves married to ‘gossips’, and differences in role and personality also influence how much we say and how much attention is paid to it.

27. sociopragmatic failure
Scollon and Scollon (1980) studied the social and communicative relationships between English-speaking Americans and Athabaskan Indians. They drew the conclusion that the reciprocal negative evaluations were in large part due to rhetorical (‘inchoative’) differences: The English speakers “talk to strangers to get to know them,” whereas the Athabaskans “get to know someone in order to be able to speak.”

28. sociopragmatic failure
The French find an exchange of differing points of view stimulating and enjoyable, whilst for peoples as different as the Finns and the Japanese (Kunihiro, 1975) “language as an instrument of debate and argument is considered disagreeable and is accordingly avoided.”
In most European countries, precision and fluency of expression are signs of intelligence and high social status:

29. sociopragmatic failure
The other category of pragmatic errors is non-linguistic.
not all communicative behavior is verbal
there are times when “actions speak louder than words.”

30. sociopragmatic failure
The acts of passing the salt or opening the window, shaking hands, lifting one’s hat, holding a door open, picking up the phone are often subject to cultural variation.
sneezing or starting a meal,
gesture, facial expression, posture and proxemies, body adapters, etc.

31. Thank you for taking time to read these slides.