English across Cultures. Cultures across English: A Reader in Cross-cultural Communication [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110848328, 9783110118117

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English across Cultures Cultures across English

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

53

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

English across Cultures Cultures across English A Reader in Cross-cultural Communication

edited by

Ofelia García Ricardo Otheguy

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1989

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

English across cultures, cultures across English. (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 53) Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. English language — Variation. 2. English language — Social aspects. 3. English language — Foreign countries. 4. English language — Study and teaching — Foreign speakers. 5. Intercultural communication. I. Garcia, Ofelia. II. Otheguy, Ricardo, 1 9 4 5 - . III. Series. PE2751.E529 1989 420'.1'9 89-3215 ISBN 0-89925-513-2 (alk. paper)

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

English across cultures: cultures across English : a reader in cross-cultural communication / ed. by Ofelia García ; Ricardo Otheguy. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 53) ISBN 3-11-011811-4 NE: García, Ofelia [Hrsg.]; G T

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© Copyright 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30. AU rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm or any other means nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. — Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. — Binding: Mikolai, Berlin. — Printed in Germany.

Para nuestros hijos, Eric Anthony, Raquel Alicia y Emma Adelaida, para que algün día nos lean, y nos recuerden.

Foreword

That languages spread to new populations is a historical commonplace, as is the fact that, as a result, they are often spoken by groups whose culture is very different from that of the original users. At least since Boas (1911), we take it as a given that in many settings there will be little congruence between language and ethnicity. It is therefore relatively unremarkable that the English language, on the one hand, and English, or even British ethnicity, on the other, should be found together in an increasingly small proportion of the total number of speakers of the language. A new collection of articles that dealt simply with the spread of English, or even with linguistic diffusion in general, might thus be difficult to justify. After all, that people adopt new languages and new cultures is the stuff of which the disciplines of Linguistics and Anthropology were long ago first made. Moreover, the transfer of a linguistic system to a new place and a new society has been studied not only diachronically, but also as an unfolding synchronic process. The fields of dialectology and historical-comparative linguistics testify to our thorough familiarity with the outcome of the process of language diffusion. And advances in the field of creolization, bilingualism and language contact bear witness to our growing understanding of what happens to spreading linguistic systems — and to others they meet — as the process of expansion takes place. But if both the diachronic outcome and the synchronic dynamics of spreading linguistic systems have received, and continue to get, the attention they deserve, there has been considerably less study of the daily language exchanges in which the users of these diffusing systems must have engaged, and engage still today. The spread of any language soon gives rise to conversations in that language between pairs of interlocutors who are very differently situated with respect to both linguistic and cultural norms. In many instances, one of the participants in the conversation speaks the language natively, the other one as a second or foreign language. In other cases, both of them speak it natively, but bring to the encounter very different communicative norms, the process of diffusion of language having outpaced that of culture. It is these conversations that sorely need detailed study. At present,

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Foreword

we know little about the interactive successes and failures experienced by pairs of interlocutors caught in the midst of language expansion. Such interlocutors are using a language that at least for one of them is very likely to be either (a) a language of recent acquisition, or (b) a language acquired long ago, perhaps from birth, but nevertheless of still — perhaps strongly felt - foreign identity, or (c) one that is spoken while relying on communicative norms based on, and for the purpose of getting across messages derived from, a culture originally associated with another, perhaps very different language. Students of, say, Romance linguistics know much about the historical outcome of the diffusion of Latin, and it comes as no news to them, for example, that time came when most speakers of Latin in Hispania were not of Roman ethnicity. But they have a much more limited knowledge of the nature of the encounters in Latin between Romans and Iberians or Romans and Euskareans; of what this form of crosscultural communication was like, of where it succeeded, or of the points at which it failed; of where the areas of comfortable understanding lay, or of what pitfalls and misunderstandings marred it. When the period of expansion of a language has past, the nature of the novel interactions that a spreading linguistic system brings about become obscured. Though not impossible, it will be difficult to learn about the Latin-related problems of the interlocutors mentioned above. (And this not simply because these conversations took place so long ago; just as importantly, the difficulty arises because, as time has passed, the cultural gaps across which the novel interchanges took place have tended to close.) But languages whose period of expansion is recent or still current afford us a valuable opportunity to study the nature of these encounters first hand. English is clearly one of the languages that today provides us with such an opportunity, one which researchers have started to take advantage of only recently (Pride 1985). It is the purpose of this volume, then, to study cross-cultural interactions between people who have come to have access to the same English language system, but whose cultural and conceptual system have not yet reached high levels of convergence. One should note, parenthetically, that it is of course an oversimplification to refer in such a facile manner to "the same linguistic system," even when both interlocutors are native speakers. That these interactions across cultures created by the spread of English are sometimes also across what have become, and are likely to remain, at least partially different systems of English also occupies

Foreword ix some of the writers in this volume (see, for instance, the papers by Algeo and by Kinloch). To study these problematic interactions, we have brought together authors from Britain, Ireland, and continental Europe, as well as from North America, the Caribbean, India, Sri Lanka, and several areas of Africa, the Pacific, and the Far East. Although we have carefully edited their papers, and have standardized the formal apparatus of sections, footnotes, and references, we have studiously refrained from any attempt to impose uniform usage or diction. The richness and variety of English across cultures is thus exemplified by the contributors themselves. Our authors study the problems of crosscultural communication in English in settings whose specific characteristics arose during several periods of the history of the language. They do not go back to the time of English expansion through Britain — or to its continental roots — for that would defeat the purpose of seizing the opportunity of relatively recent contact. But they do study problematic interactions still taking place in what Kachru (1986b) has called the inner circle of English — Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — whose formation started more than three hundred years ago; and they also study interactions whose roots he in the push of British empire during the last century, as well as interactions that have come about because of United States territorial and commercial expansion during the last two centuries, as well as because of the recent rise of Australia and New Zealand to the status of economic powers. A word is needed about the title of this volume, whose Janus-like quality derives from suggestions by John Pride (for the first half, English across cultures) and by J.L. Dillard (for the second half, Cultures across English). As English has spread, it has taken over new expressive functions; extended to new domains; come to rely on new systems of belief and behavior; and become significant for new interlocutors: English across cultures. But the new expressive functions overtaken by English have themselves taken it over. In order to make sense of exchanges in English today, researchers and interlocutors alike must now come to some understanding of its new domains; they must develop an appreciation for the systems of behavior and belief that are now relied on by its speakers; and they must come to apprehend the significance for English of those very interlocutors for whom English has become significant: Cultures across English. The research models and the detailed empirical studies presented here

χ

Foreword

are motivated by the belief that only by understanding cultures across English can there be communicative success in, and theoretical understanding of, the interactions that are now so prevalent in English across cultures. The editors of this volume — across whom English has been, and who hope to have put something across it too — have much to thank John Pride. As part of a project to expand his Cross-cultural encounters: Communication and mis-communication (1985), it was Pride who first proposed the volume and who initially asked for some of the contributions which now appear here. We have expanded his initial theoretical framework and have invited many other contributions. We remain indebted to him for all the initial work of conceptualization and actual preparation of this book, which would not have been possible without his initiative and effort. The editors also wish to acknowledge the help and trust of the Series Editor, Joshua A. Fishman, who over the years has been a most generous colleague and inspiring teacher. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him and to benefit from his intellectual stimulation, dedication, and energy. Finally, the editors wish to acknowledge the support of the National Academy of Education of the United States in the form of a Spencer Fellowship to Ofelia García, and of the City College of New York through a sabbatical leave to Ricardo Otheguy. Both editors wish to acknowledge as well the support given to them by the School of Education of the City College of New York. Ofelia García Ricardo Otheguy

The Authors

JOHN ALGEO is Professor of English at the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia, U.S.A.), where he has served as department head and as director of the linguistics program. During the academic year 1986-1987, he was a Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Research Scholar at the Survey of English Usage, University College London, investigating grammatical and lexical differences between British and American English. He has coauthored Origins and Development of the English Language, authored On Defining the Proper Name, and served as editor of American Speech for ten years. He is currently editing "Among the New Words" for American Speech and preparing a Dictionary of Briticisms in collaboration with Allen Walker Read. CELIA ALVAREZ is a New York born Puerto Rican. She has been a member of the Language Policy Task Force of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (CUNY). Her research interests include sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking, bilingual education and women/gender studies. She attended the Summer Institute in Women Studies at the University of London (1987) and coordinated the workshop on women of color in the U.S. at the UN Decade of Women Symposium, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1985. She is presently teaching in the Bilingual-Bicultural Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. WALTER S. AVIS was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1919 and died in Kingston, Ontario in 1979. After completing a doctorate at the University of Michigan, he joined the faculty of the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston Ontario where he remained for his teaching life. He was a founding member of the Canadian Linguistic Association and served as its President from 1968 to 1970. His many writings on Canadian English brought him international fame as an authority on that subject. His masterpiece was Λ Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (1967). He was awarded the Centennial Medal in 1967 and the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978. COURTNEY B. CAZDEN is Professor of Education at Harvard, Cambridge, U.S.A. She has been a primary school teacher and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. In 1985

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The Authors

die was President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. She spent 6 months in 1987 as a Fulbright scholar in New Zealand. The author of numerous articles on the development of children's verbal abilities and the functions of language in educational settings, her most recent book, Classroom Discourse : The Language of Learning and Teaching, was published in 1987. KEITH CHICK is currently Head of the Department of General Linguistics and Communication at the University of Natal, South Africa. His teaching and research interests lie within the fields of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and the teaching of English as a second language. PAULINE CHRISTIE is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Use of English at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. For some years she has been a member of the Examining Committee for English Language in the examinations administered by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). J.L. DILLARD, Professor of English at Northwestern (Louisiana) State University, U.S.A., is author, editor, or collaborator on eleven books dealing with dialect variation or historical change, especially in non-traditional varieties. VIV EDWARDS is a lecturer in the Department of Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck College, University of London, U.K. Her main publications include The West Indian Language Issue in British Schools (Routledge 1983) and Language in a Black Community (Multilingual Matters 1986). Her main areas of research are language in education and language variation. She is currently co-director of a research project on British Dialect Grammar. CHITRA FERNANDO was born in Sri Lanka and educated in Sri Lanka and Australia. She has been teaching in the School of English and Linguistics, Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) since 1968 and currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Linguistics. Her major research interests are in the areas of bilingualism and discourse analysis. She is also a writer of short stories and has written for both children and adults.

The Authors xiii JUDITH KEARINS was born in New South Wales, Australia. She trained and worked as an occupational therapist before studying psychology at the University of Western Australia, where she obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1977. She lectures in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Australia (Nedlands). Since 1974 she has studied the ability and performance of Aboriginal children. A.M. KINLOCH, a native of Scotland, received his doctorate from the University of Saint Andrews. After teaching at the University of Hull and the University College of Wales, he came to the University of New Brunswick in 1959, retiring in 1986. He was President of the American Dialect Society in 1983 and 1984 and is currently (19871988) President of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association. He was Associate editor of American Speech from 1969 to 1984. He has written a number of articles on various aspects of Canadian English, among other things. He is currently carrying out research on the English of the Province of New Brunswick. JO ANNE KLEIFGEN is assistant professor of linguistics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests are primarily in the area of interactional sociolinguistics. She has examined classroom interaction between children of various language backgrounds and experienced as well as novice teachers, and is currently exploring the nature of communication in computerized educational environments. She has papers and reviews published in Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Capstone Journal of Education, Text, and World Englishes, as well as papers in edited series on topics in second language acquisition. Her teaching experience is extensive, including elementary and secondary school instruction in the U.S., Mexico, and Switzerland. KOENRAAD KUIPER teaches linguistics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has published a number of studies of oral formulaic speech, as well as work on the theory of the lexicon and literary theory. IAN G. MALCOLM is Head of the Department of Language Studies and of the Institute of Applied Language Studies in the Western Australian College of Advanced Education (Mount Lawley, Western

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The Authors

Australia). He is also Associate Head of School, Community and Language Studies at the same institution. He has studied communication problems in the Aboriginal classroom. He has co-authored English and the Aboriginal Child, Communication and the Teacher and authored many scholarly papers on Aboriginal English, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. In 1986-87 he was Visiting Expert at the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages, China. PAUL MBANGWANA was born in Bamenda in the English-speaking part of Cameroon. Since 1983 he has served as Head of the Department of English at the University of Yaounde, Cameroon, where he is an Associate Professor. He completed an M.A. in the University of Leeds, England. His doctorate is from the University of Yaounde. R.R. MEHROTRA taught English in Bañaras Hindu University since 1959. He is presently Pro-Vice-Chancellor of North-Eastern Hill University in Aizawl, Mizoram. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, and has lectured in the United Kingdom, West Germany, Austria, Soviet Union, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. He is the author of Sociolinguistics in Hindi Contexts, Sociology of Secret Language, and numerous papers on sociolinguistics and Indian English. He has just completed a book on Indian English and is currenly working on Indian Pidgin English. JOYCE PENFIELD is Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is interested in sociolinguistic research related to bilingualism, intercultural communication, and the politics of language. She is coauthor of Chicano English: An Ethnic Contact Dialect (1985), editor of Women and Language in Transition (1987) and author of Communicating with Quotes: The Igbo Case (1983) and The Media: Catalysts for Communicative Language Learning (1987). DAVID PIPER studied English at Cambridge University, education at London University, and linguistics at the University of Reading, before taking his Ph.D. in linguistics and educational psychology at the University of Alberta. He has also had experience teaching English as a second language on both sides of the Atlantic. His current research interests include writing development in multiethnic classrooms and foundational research in the teaching and learning of English. He is

The Authors

xv

an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. JOHN PLATT is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has published extensively on the indigenisation of English, multilingualism and language policies, particularly in relation to Singapore and Malaysia. His publications include: English in Singapore and Malaysia (1980) with Heidi Weber, The New Englishes (1984) with Heidi Weber and Mian Lian Ho and the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1985) with Jack Richards and Heidi Weber. SHIRLEY A. RIVERS, who has an M.S. degree and a Specialist's Certificate from Northwestern (Louisiana) State University, has been a student and graduate assistant of J.L. Dillard. She grew up among the Cajuns (Acadians) of south Louisiana, U.S.A., took an undergraduate degree in French, and has a continuing interest in both the French and English of the Cajun people. MURIEL SAVILLE-TROIKE is Professor of Educational Psychology, Division of English as an International Language, and Linguistics, and Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are primarily in Navajo and related Athabaskan languages, first and second language acquisition, and the ethnography and sociolinguistics of communication. She has published extensively in all these areas, including The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction and Foundations for Teaching English as a Second Language, and has edited Linguistics and Anthropology (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1977) and, with Deborah Tannen, Perspectives on Silence. She is continuing her research on the processes of communication, first and second language development, and language loss among speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Spanish. WILLIAM A. STEWART is professor of Linguistics at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He is the author of numerous works in the areas of creolization and language contact and has done pioneering work on Black English vernacular. He is

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The Authors

well known for his expertise in the areas of sociolinguistics, lexicography, dialectology and African survivals in the languages of the New World. DAPHNE TAN GEK LIN received her Masters degree in linguistics from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She was born and presently lives in Singapore. LORETO TODD was born in Ireland where he completed his B.A. and M.A.. In England he received an M.A. in Linguistics and a Ph.D. He is currently Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds, England. He has published fifteen books and over one hundred articles on the subjects of English Language, Folklore, Linguistics, Literature, Pidgins and Creoles. JEF VERSCHUEREN is a Research Associate of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research. He obtained a licentiate in Germanic Philology from the University of Antwerp in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Pragmatics (North Holland) and Editor of Pragmatics & Beyond (John Benjamins). He is presently Secretary General of the International Pragmatics Association at the University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium. His recent publications include: What People Say They Do With Words and International News Reporting. He has co-authored A comprehensive Bibliography of Pragmatics and co-edited The Pragmatic Perspective: Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference. R.T. WILLIAMS was bom and educated in the United States. Since 1975 he has taught courses in applied linguistics and psycholinguistics at Western Australian College, Mount Lawley, where he is presently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Language Studies. The summer of 1986 he was appointed Honorary Research Fellow at Birmingham University, England, where he carried out research on the perception of accented speech. His published work has dealt primarily with crosscultural communication, functional aspects of language, and communicative language teaching.

The Editors

OFELIA GARCIA is Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education of the City College of New York. Her publications are in the areas of the sociology of language and the education of language minorities. She has conducted joint research with Joshua A. Fishman on Spanish in the United States and on biliteracy in ethnic schools. During the preparation of this volume she was the recipient of a Spencer Fellowship from the National Academy of Education of the United States. RICARDO OTHEGUY is Professor of Linguistics and Education at the Graduate School of the City University of New York and at the City College of New York. He has also been a visiting Fulbright scholar in the Department of Linguistics at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay. His publications are in the area of Spanish grammar and semantics and in the field of language contact. He has also worked in the area of African survivals in New World Spanish. GARCIA and OTHEGUY have co-authored a number of articles on language contact and on the sociolinguistic and socioeducational situation of language minorities in the United States.

Contents

Foreword Ofelia García and Ricardo

Otheguy

The Authors

xi

The Editors Introduction Ofelia García and Ricardo

vii

xvii Otheguy

1

PART 1 : ENGLISH ACROSS CULTURES Section One. The impact of differences in socio-cultural backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English : Socio-pragmatic constraints Some types of communicative strategies across cultures: Sense and sensitivity John Platt

13

English as object and medium of (mis) understanding Jef Verschueren

31

The (mis) identification of regional and national accents of English: Pragmatic, cognitive and social aspects R.T. Williams

55

Culture and language in classroom communication Muriel Saville-Troike and Jo Anne Kleifgen

83

English for academic purposes: A hidden curriculum in ways of speaking Courtney B. Cazden

103

Invisible culture in the classroom: Minority pupils and the principle of adaptation Ian G. Malcolm

117

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Contents

Section Two. The impact of differences in socio-political realities on communication in English: Macro-societal constraints Intercultural miscommunication as a source of friction in the workplace and in educational settings in South Africa Keith Chick

139

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada. Implications for cross-cultural communication in English David Piper

161

English as problem and resource in Sri Lankan Universities Chitra Fernando

185

They speak English, don't they? Judith Kearins

205

PART II: CULTURES ACROSS ENGLISH Section Three. The impact of differences in socio-linguistic backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English: Ethno-linguistic constraints British-American lexical differences. A typology of interdialectal variation JohnAlgeo

219

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean examinations Pauline Christie

243

Structural mimicry in decreolization and its effect on pseudocomprehension William A. Stewart

263

Cultural congruence and conflict in the acquisition of formulae in a second language Koenraad Kuiper and Daphne Tan Gek Lin

281

Dialectology in our time? The English of the Cajuns J.L. Dillard and Shirley A. Rivers

305

Contents

xxi

Flexibility in lexical usage in Cameroon English Paul Mbangwana

319

Cultures in conflict: Varieties of English in Northern Ireland Loreto Todd

335

Section Four. The impact of differences in socio-psychological identity of interlocutors: Identity constraints Patois and the politics of protest: Black English in British classrooms Viv Edwards

359

Code-switching in narrative performance: A Puerto Rican speech community in New York Celia Alvarez

373

Social and linguistic parameters of prosody in Chicano English Joyce Penfield

387

Central Canadian English and Received Standard English. A comparison of pronunciation A.M. Kinloch and Walter S. Avis

403

Indian literature in English R.R. Mehrotra

421

Bibliography

441

Author Index

473

Subject Index

479

Introduction 1. The study of cross-cultural communication As part of a series on the Sociology of Language, this volume attempts to examine verbal exchanges through the use of English when the communicative act has been organized and given meaning according to conflicting community norms. The papers gathered here owe much to all the different perspectives that look at how language functions in social life. The four sections of the book contain work that falls roughly into the four main categories of the study of language and society. The reader will find here papers that focus on features of discourse and the communicative situation, the area that has been variously, and more or less felicitously, called pragmatics (Cole and Morgan 1975), conversational analysis (Gumperz 1978), or the ethnography of speaking (Hymes 1974). There are also papers that come under the category of the sociology of language (Fishman 1968). And there is also work covering aspects of the tradition of dialectology (McDavid 1946, Read 1938) and sociolinguistic variation (Labov 1966). Finally, there are articles that deal with aspects of social psychology (Giles and Powesland 1975). Irrespective of the intellectual tradition to which we may assign them, all papers focus on the culture-specific character of all communication, and on the overriding importance of differing cultural norms for conversations carried out in a common language. Although many other texts have attested to the spread of English (Fishman, Cooper and Conrad 1977;Greenbaum 1985, Kachru 1986a), and many have described the different varieties of English spoken today (Bailey and Gorlach 1982, Greenbaum 1985, Kachru 1986a, Pride 1982, Quirk and Widdowson 1985), there have been few that have addressed the communication problems encountered by different kinds of English speaking interlocutors. Communicative synchrony between interlocutors, which is difficult to achieve even in the most culturally homogeneous settings, becomes still more difficult in inter-ethnic encounters. All the papers included here address the complex sociolinguistic situation that results when English facilitates communication, on the one hand, but produces what Stewart (this volume) has called pseudocomprehension. Several theoreticians of language, both in and out of linguistics,

2

Introduction

have emphasized the active role that hearers play in all communication through language (Chick, this volume, Diver 1975, Kirsner 1979, Widdowson 1984). Linguistic sentences do not encode complete messages that are transmitted whole from speakers to hearers. On the contrary, what happens in a conversation is that speakers offer up material that is denotative incomplete until a hearer, engaging in an affirmative inferential act, fills in conceptual gaps and rounds off complete thoughts that were only inchoate in the utterance. In this view, messages are not conveyed; they are sketched by speakers and constructed by hearers (Reid 1974, 1987). With this in mind, it becomes clear that linguistic exchanges must, by their very nature, rely on myriad speaker-hearer sociocultural understandings. The erosion of these understandings due to cultural distance can seriously threaten the very basis of successful communication through language. In examining the inherent strains of cross-cultural communication it is not enough to be reminded of this constructivist view of language, with its emphasis on the participant's necessarily active — and necessarily socially conditioned — role in communication. We must also be reminded of one of the foundational ideas of Western European and American linguistics, namely that languages are not simply different nomenclatures for universal conceptual sets (de Saussure 1915, Sapir 1929). Rather, each language serves to express its own, to some degree unique, ideational universe (Culler 1976). Sapir, in particular, stressed the social nature of this uniqueness, emphasizing that: "No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same worlds with different labels attached" (1929:162). The use of English by interlocutors who hail from varying cultural backgrounds, and who not long ago spoke, and perhaps still today speak, another language in addition to English, is bound to bring Sapir's different "social realities" to the fore. The interaction of these realities, and their frequent conflict, adds another dimension to the tensions of intercultural communication. As our authors show, a serious consequence of the spread of English has been that it has created a false sense of mutual intelligibility. As English resources are deployed relying on the various cultural norms of different speakers of English, problems arise for many of its hearers, who often go on to improvise inferential solutions — to construct the final message — based on divergent sociocultural realities.

Introduction 3 It is at this point where much inter-ethnic miscommunication takes place. When the linguistic codes of hearers and speakers are the same, the hearer feels entitled, indeed compeled, to interpret, even though he or she may in fact lack even the most rudimentary elements with which to infer an interpretation, the mere possession of a common language being, as the authors here abundantly demonstrate, not nearly enough. This is in contrast to the much simpler situation that arises when the linguistic codes do not match, which allows the hearer to explain the difficulty, and to resolve the impass, by simply acknowledging that he or she does not understand. Ironically, then, it is precisely the shared language that causes the communication breakdown. The interactions of same-language, different-culture interlocutors thus play out the dual character of English as this language serves to both promote and impede inter-ethnic communication (Verschueren, this volume). Even though many writers have stressed the role of English as a medium of political and cultural domination (Kachru 1985, Wolfson and Manes 1985), the fact remains that English as a lingua franca has also facilitated political and cultural understanding across societies, as well as served as a medium to expose injustices perpetrated on powerless ethnolinguistic groups (not infrequenly, by the English speaking powerful). The role English has played in the political, social and cultural oppression of groups is balanced by the key role it has also played in the efforts to understand the different realities of our international world. But even in this more benign role the situation is replete with irony. For as English has become necessary in successful inter-ethnic communication, the differences in English discourse modes have created inter-ethnic communicative difficulties. For as we will see in many of the papers, as the possibility for interethnic communication increases, so too is there an increase in the pace and magnitude — and subsequent danger — of inter-ethnic misunderstanding.

2. The organization and content of the volume The papers in this text address the communicative interference (Wolfson 1983) created by four sociolinguistic situations: 1. Differences in socio -cultural backgrounds of individual interlocutors.

4

Introduction

2. Differences in societal structures and socio-political realities. 3. Differences in sodo-linguistic backgrounds of interlocutors. 4. Differences in socio-psychological identity of interlocutors.

Part I : English Across Cultures Section 1 : The impact of differences in the sociocultural backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English: Socio-pragmatic constraints All six papers in section 1 provide micro-analyses of how the interlocutors' knowledge of each other's socio-cultural backgrounds affects inter-ethnic communication. AU papers suggest that there is a topdown or conceptually driven effort in the sense-making process of communication rather than a bottom-down or data driven effort. Thus, it is the match between the interlocutors' schema or structures of expectations that determines, to a considerable extent, successful inter-ethnic communication. The first three papers in Section 1 (Piatt, Verschueren, and Williams) introduce the reader to some of the basic concepts in studying communication difficulties between speakers of different sociocultural backgrounds. Piatt provides a general overview of differing communicative strategies in establishing interpersonal relationships. His examples are drawn from interactions among many different types of interlocutors. Verschueren likewise presents examples of miscommunication due to the different sociocultural backgrounds of speakers and hearers. His examples are also general, and are drawn from international news reporting. Although Williams focuses on accent perception, his article examines some of the pragmatic, cognitive and social factors that come into play when inter-ethnic communication takes place. The other three articles in this section (Saville-Troike & Kleifgen, Cazden, and Malcolm), all involve interactions in the classroom, the most fertile domain for inter-ethnic communication studies. SavilleTroike and Kleifgen's paper presents convincing evidence that shared cultural knowledge is often more necessary in inter-ethnic communication than a shared language code. Cazden discusses discourse structures that are expected in the classroom. Like Saville-Troike and Kleifgen, she looks at how knowledge of the specific classroom discourse mode is more important in classroom communication than a

Introduction

5

shared linguistic code. Finally, Malcolm's paper discusses how participation structures and interactional routines in cross-cultural classrooms prevent minority pupils from learning. He suggests ways in which these classroom discourse patterns that have become normative in English-speaking areas might be changed. Section 2: The impact of differences in socio-political realities on communication in English: Macro-societal constraints Section 2 includes papers that focus on macro-societal constraints that affect communication among different English speakers. Apartheid in South Africa (Chick), language policy in Canada (Piper) and in Sri Lanka (Fernando), and economy and life-style in Australia (Kearins), have created conditions of communicative asynchrony among the different groups. These papers can be seen as a variation of the theme presented in the first section. Although their emphasis is on identifying how these macro-societal constraints have affected inter-ethnic communication, the analyses which are included are frequently based on the differences in cultural knowledge and interactional style created by these societal constraints. Chick's paper provides the transition between the micro-studies of intercultural communication in section 1 and some of the studies of macro processes that affect intercultural communication in section 2. His paper addresses the relevance of research on differences in communicative strategies between two groups in a society in need of structural change, discussing specifically the different interactional styles created by the apartheid system in South Africa. Both Piper and Fernando address the impact of language policy on language use and language learning. Piper argues that the Official Language Policy in Canada has differently impacted the nature of communication between anglophones, on the one hand, and francophones, natives and immigrants, on the other. Fernando outlines how changing the status of English in Sri Lanka from an official state language to a foreign one, coupled with English taking over prestigious societal functions, especially as an academic language, has led to a socioeconomic division based on language. Kearins discusses how the different economy and life style of white and Aboriginal Australians have created differences in child-rearing practices that are responsible for misunderstandings in the classroom.

6

Introduction

Part II : Cultures Across English Section 3: The impact of differences in socio-linguistic backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English: Ethno-linguistic constraints All papers in this section deal with how different groups attempt to express their different sociocultural realities in English, and how the resulting different varieties of English constrain inter-ethnic communication. The papers address how what appears on the outside to be the same form of English is reflective of very different cultures and suggestive of very different messages. The papers show how successful communication between speakers and hearers can only occur if both interlocutors share cultural and linguistic background. In a sense, these papers are also variations of those in Part I. But whereas papers in the first part considered the communicative act to be the interplay of social, cultural, linguistic, and psychological factors, these papers attach more importance to the role of linguistic factors in inter-ethnic communication, although of course, the nonlinguistic factors are likewise considered. We can say that these papers look at the same problem from a different angle. Whereas papers in Part I looked at difficulties in inter-ethnic communication when English was used across cultures, these papers look at what happens to communication when cultures (and other languages) come across English, giving it, at times, the same linguistic forms deployed for the purpose of suggesting very different messages. Algeo offers a fine typology of lexical differences that are created, in part, by referential differences. Although his typology is mostly illustrated by British-American examples, it presents a model of interdialectal lexical variation that can also be applied to the examples given in this same section by Christie and Mbangwana. Christie describes intra-regional variation in Caribbean English as well as differences between the anglophone Caribbean as a whole and other varieties of English. She then considers the efforts of the Caribbean Examinations Council to avoid cases of communicative asynchrony that occurred when only the British standard was accepted in examinations. The rest of the papers in this section discuss how the English spoken by African-Americans in the United States (Stewart), Singaporeans (Kuiper and Tan), Cajuns in Louisiana (Dillard), anglophones in

Introduction

7

Cameroon (Mbangwana), and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland (Todd) makes use of English forms to parallel familiar messages normally transacted in the non-English language. Stewart discusses how structural mimicry in decreolization can lead to the kind of miscomprehension which he labels pseudocomprehension. Likewise, Kuiper and Tan show that politeness formulae of Singapore English are loan translations of Hokkien Chinese. They show how only knowledge of Singapore Hokkien Chinese culture would make communication possible between Singapore English speakers and speakers of other varieties of English. Dillard argues for the use of folk typologies in identifying overlays such as that of French in Cajun English. Mbangwana describes how French, competing varieties of British and American English, and African sources have influenced English in Cameroon. Finally Todd shows how in Northern Ireland a combination of features of pronunciation, structure or simile reveal a speaker's linguistic background and thus his religion. All these papers attempt to show that the variety of English spoken by the different linguistic groups is only homophonous, at times, with other kinds of English. Only knowledge of the specific cultural and or linguistic group would result in successful inter-ethnic communication. Section 4: The impact of differences in socio-psychological identity of interlocutors. Identity constraints These papers focus on how identity consciously determines the language form chosen for communication (whether that form is a marked or unmarked variety of English, or even English over a nonEnglish language). Aspects of inter-ethnic communication are then considered. Although the inter-ethnic communicative situations presented here are also a result of cultures (and languages) across English (rather than English across cultures), they differ from those in section 3 in that the interlocutors consciously choose specific forms. Whereas in section 3 speakers may use differing English forms unconsciously in an attempt to get across messages from dissimilar cultural realities, in section 4 they choose divergent English forms consciously because they want to differentiate themselves from others. Whereas the papers in section 3 focus on how the different referential sets of different cultural and/or linguistic groups determine English forms, these papers focus on how the speaker's psychological identity con-

8

Introduction

sciously shapes the choice of English or the English variety chosen. Edwards (for blacks in Britain), Alvarez (for Puerto Ricans in New York City), Penfield (for Chícanos or Mexican Americans in the Southwest United States), and Kinloch (for Canadians) present ethnic identity (and in some cases linguistic background) as the reason for the particular discourse mode chosen. Finally, Mehrotra addresses the choice made by several Indian writers to write in English. The ability to code-switch between standard English and what the members of the group themselves call Patois (Edwards) or between English and Spanish (Alvarez) leads to miscommunication when other English speakers do not understand the nature of bidialectism or bilingualism. Likewise, different prosodie patterns (Penfield) or different pronunciations (Kinloch) may also lead to pseudocomprehension between interlocutors. In choosing English as a medium of expression, the Indian writer helps create the sort of communicative interference that arises when readers and author are ignorant of each other's social, political, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds (Mehrotra). These papers then focus on ways in which speakers and hearers bring conscious asynchrony to the communicative act, because of their need to give expression to different socio-psychological systems of values and beliefs.

3. Future directions in the study of cross-cultural communication As we will see, most of the problems of inter-ethnic communication affect the non-dominant English speaking group adversely. The powerful impose communication norms and the powerless are asked to follow them. Interlocutors who are socially, racially, politically, linguistically, or culturally marked in a given society are judged by the standard imposed by the dominant group. The nature of language should make miscommunication equally possible among interlocutors of the same social, racial, political, linguistic and/or cultural group. Yet, instances of miscommunication among matched interlocutors are much less frequently reported (although the editors regularly see numerous cases at faculty meetings). Although miscommunication obviously occurs among matched groups, it does not have any social meaning. When speakers of the same background do not understand each other's intents, the effects are often

Introduction

9

harmless. Miscommunication at faculty meetings, for example, often result in confusion. The corollary of this confusion is usually nonaction. The hearer rarely blames the speaker for the miscommunication. Often, he/she assigns blame to other sources of error: not hearing right, not paying attention. In fact, the hearer often blames him/herself for the confusion. In inter-ethnic miscommunication, however, the dominant interlocutor always blames the minority one for the confusion. Usually the fault is not even assigned to this interlocutor's individual characteristics (the fact that he/she is not a good communicator), but to his/her membership in a different and stigmatized social group. Judgment is passed and communication is effectively impeded. In communication between matched interlocutors, the miscommunication is assigned either to the medium or to interferences in the channel. Thus, ideas get across, even if only imperfectly. In interethnic miscommunication, however, the main idea that is transmitted is that the minority interlocutor is inept. Gumperz (1978) has said that this type of miscommunication increases the stereotyping of the speaker as belonging to a different social group and thus impedes further communication. This book itself suffers from a limitation that has been determined by the nature of social interaction. Although problems in cross-cultural communications are exposed, they are most often judged from a dominant-group point of view. Most of the papers focus on what happens when oppressed groups have to communicate with dominant populations. Problems dealing with the lack of knowledge that each of these groups has of each other are detailed. However, most of the papers do not directly address what happens when dominant populations have to communicate with oppressed groups. This, however, has been previously determined by the nature of social interactions, since oppressed groups need to make themselves understood to dominant groups, whereas the reverse is seldom the case. Inter-ethnic communication needs to be also judged from a minority point of view. We need to examine not only what we, the consumers of sociology of language, know about the oppressed, but what they, often the victims of social circumstances, know about us. Edwards, in this volume, ends by saying: "It is essential that Patois should be approached within the framework of a language awareness programme in which all children are given the opportunity to explore and share their own language use in an atmosphere in which they — and not

10

Introduction

their teachers — are the experts." [our italics] As work on inter-ethnic communication continues, minorities need to be given a greater voice, for they, as Edwards says, are the experts. Given the social structures generally prevailing in the English speaking world, minorities have little opportunity to do this at present. It remains, however, as a task that sociologists of language working on inter-ethnic communication should see as a worthwhile goal for the future. By then, it is hoped that the excellent contributions of the authors presented here, and of others like them, will have helped to pave the way for a greater, and more complete, understanding of the process of inter-ethnic linguistic interaction, and of the more general process of human communication of which it forms part. Ofelia García Ricardo Otheguy

ENGLISH ACROSS CULTURES

Section One The impact of differences in socio-cultural backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English: Socio-pragmatic constraints

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures: Sense and sensitivity1 John Piatt Abstract One of the functions of communicative strategies is the establishing of interpersonal relationships and this is often as important as the other function — the transmitting of a message. Communicative strategies differ from one culture to another, and problems may arise in communication between those for whom English is a native, foreign, second or indigenized language. Six problem or 'sensitivity' areas of communication are discussed and illustrated, namely engaging, disengaging, requesting, acceding to a request, positive responding (to an offer or invitation) and negative responding (to an offer or invitation). It is shown that in all cases communicative differences may be misinterpreted as due to insincerity, rudeness, inquisitiveness, or indifference.

As important as the role of communicative strategies in transmitting messages is their role in establishing interpersonal relationships. Since communicative strategies differ from one culture to another, problems in communication often arise between speakers who share, at least to some degree, the same language system but not, or at least not to the same degree, the same cultural system. I shall discuss here the problems that arise due to the different communicative strategies of speakers for whom English is a native, foreign, second, or indigenized language. In the analysis of discourse, terms such as discourse strategies, communication strategies, and communicative strategies are frequently used although not always referring to the same concepts. My use of the term communicative strategies in this discussion is closer to Gumperz's (1982) discourse strategy than, for example, to Canale's (1983) and Tarone's (1983) communication strategies. By communicative strategies I mean verbal and/or non-verbal rulegoverned behaviour in interpersonal exchanges which, on the one hand,

14

John Piatt

serves to convey a message, taking 'message' here in its widest sense, and, on the other hand, serves to establish or re-establish interpersonal relationships. It is understood that by 'rule-governed' I refer not only to the rules of a linguistic system but also to a wider system of communication based on the interlocutor's socio-cultural background. In this discussion I intend to focus on the second main function of communicative strategies, namely that of establishing interpersonal relationships. There are many instances of verbal interchange where the relationships between the interlocutors are as important as the transmitting of the message. Often they are vital. If we wish to request another person to do something or persuade him/her to espouse our view on a particular matter, it is essential to have or to establish, even if temporarily, the right relationship with this person, i.e. a balance of status positions or a degree of intimacy, whatever may be necessary. In other words, it is of great importance that the other interlocutor should perceive our ego in the way that we want him/her to perceive it and that we convey to him/her our appropriate perception of the alter ego. We may consider that there are different systems involved in interpersonal communication which supply the interlocutors with rules for norm-governed verbal or non-verbal behaviour in a given situation. Berger and Bradac (1982), referring to Miller and Steinberg (1975), mention three levels of communication which may all be operative in the one transaction, i.e. the cultural, sociological and psychological levels, where at the cultural level "we communicate with others on the basis of shared cultural norms and conventions" and if we fail to meet the cultural expectations of the others "the consequences can be negative. Failing to greet a person or to reciprocate a greeting may induce the other person to feel rejected or slighted and will most probably lower the attractiveness of the person committing the communicative sin" (Berger and Bradac 1982:10). Rather than looking at separate systems which shape communication, I prefer the concept of an all-embracing communicative system with a number of sub-systems, e.g. linguistic, cultural, social, psychological, which are closely interrelated and which supply the appropriate rules and norms in any interpersonal exchange. Interlocutors called upon to operate in a language other than their own would be governed by the communicative systems at their disposal. And if their communicative system in their L2, e.g. English, was limited, at least in several areas, they would fall back on the com-

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures

15

municative system of their LI, which is more familiar to them. Wolfson (1983:62), when discussing phenomena where "people transfer rules of their own native speech communities to what seems to them to be a corresponding situation in a new speech community," uses the term communicative interference (suggested to her by Hymes). I shall deal here with some of these communicative interferences and their resulting interpretations by the other interlocutors, or rather by other types of interlocutors, concentrating on communication between speakers of the more established varieties of English, e.g. British, American and Australian English, on the one hand, and speakers of English as a foreign or second language as well as speakers of indigenized Englishes on the other hand.

1. Types of interlocutors As I have pointed out on various occasions (e.g. Piatt and Weber 1982, Piatt, Weber and Ho 1984), language systems resulting from English language acquisition can be placed along a communicative axis from English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to English as a Native Language (ENL). Naturally, there are no clear-cut divisions but I should like, for the purpose of this discussion, to refer to four types of interlocutors, with the proviso that there are many borderline cases: (1) E-interlocutors: speakers of more established varieties of English with their own Ε-system of communicative rules related to their cultural, social and educational background. (2) EF-interlocutors\ speakers of English as a Foreign language, with a fully developed system of communicative rules related to their own cultural and social background, and having in addition an Ε-system of communicative rules, which is rarely complete and usually based on the upper social and educational norms of an E-group. (3) ES-interlocutors: speakers of English as a second language. All of these would be using English in at least one domain of their every day activities, e.g. in the workplace, but often in more than one domain. The typical ES-interlocutor is an immigrant to an Ecountry, e.g. a Chinese immigrant to Australia. The constellation of communicative competence systems would be similar to that of the EF-type but if the Ε-system of rules has not been acquired formally, it may be based on lower social norms.

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John Platt

(4) NE-interlocutors : These would be members of a speech community which uses an indigenized English, a New English (NE) (cf. Platt, Weber and Ho 1984, Pride 1982) as one of their codes. For some of them the NE has become a native language, being used for all everyday needs. These NE-interlocutors could have three or more communicative systems, e.g. one or more systems relating to local languages and cultures (L-systems), one NEsystem, more or less developed according to their socio-economic and educational background, and sometimes an Ε-system, partially acquired through education, usually based on upper social norms. More often than not the communicative Ε-system of these interlocutors is incomplete although their NE system is fully developed. The L-systems as well as the NE-system relate to local cultural backgrounds but these may not be identical. For example, an English-medium educated Singaporean Chinese may have an Lsystem based on Chinese culture whereas his/her NE-system of communicative rules is based on a 'new culture system' developing among the younger generation of Singaporeans, which is to some extent influenced by a rather stereotyped view of US culture.

2. The decoding of non-Ε strategies by E-interlocutors If EF-, ES- or NE-interlocutors use, in verbal interaction with E-interlocutors, communicative strategies which are based on the rule system of their own cultures, reactions of the E-interlocutor would depend on several factors. Two important ones are: (1) (2)

the Ε-interlocutor's attitudes to the ethnic group of the other interlocutor and/or his/her culture and whether or not the E-interlocutor recognizes the other as an interlocutor not usually operating within an E-system.

The first factor has been discussed by various researchers (e.g. Giles 1977). I shall concentrate here on the second one. If the other interlocutors' overall competence in English is very noticeably non-native, e.g. lack of fluency, strong accent, or if their way of dressing and non-verbal behaviour are noticeably different, the E-interlocutor may membership them immediately as 'outsiders' and judge all their verbal and non-verbal behaviour essentially positively

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures 17 or negatively depending on his/her own attitude to this particular culture. Communicative strategies employed by these interlocutors would generally be judged by the E-interlocutor as being outside the Ε-system of communicative rules. Either they would be considered strange and 'incomprehensible' or an attempt would be made to interpret them, if the E-interlocutor possessed some knowledge of the other's culture system. However, there are many instances when strategies which are based on another communicative system are interpreted by an E-interlocutor as belonging to an Ε-system and are decoded by the rules of this system. There are several reasons why this occurs. It may be that the speaker's physical appearance does not signal that he/she is a non-E interlocutor, or, even if it does, it may be that he or she dresses and behaves in a typical E-interlocutor way. Such appearance is usually linked with a way of speaking English that is close to an E-system. Therefore the E-interlocutor wrongly memberships the other one and automatically decodes all his/her verbal behaviour by the rules of the Ε-system. As mentioned earlier, an overall communicative system consists of a network of sub-systems. Because of communicative interference, non-E-interlocutor may use communicative strategies that are dictated by the rules of his/her own cultural subsystem but these may be interpreted by an E-interlocutor not by the cultural norms of his/her system but rather by social and/or psychological norms. An example is an area of communication where in the E-system verbal behaviour is required whereas in some of the L-systems verbal behaviour and even non-verbal behaviour is severely restricted. In some cultures, e.g. many Asian cultures, it is not the custom to open presents in front of the giver and give effusive thanks. It is often more appropriate to smile slightly and put the present aside unopened. Thanks may be expressed on a later occasion. An E-interlocutor, using the E-system to decode these strategies, may apply social norms, e.g. "that person has no breeding" or norms bearing on personal relationships, e.g. "that person doesn't like me or doesn't care to receive a present from me".

3. Sensitivity areas A considerable part of interpersonal behaviour is to establish and reestablish temporary role relationships vis-a-vis the other interlocutor

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John Piatt

as well as to establish a degree of 'closeness' or 'intimacy'. Each interlocutor has a degree of 'closeness' or 'intimacy'. Each interlocutor has a concept of his/her own ego which he/she wishes to project to the other interlocutor. There is also an endeavour to keep up, or at least to pretend to keep up, the other's concept of his/her ego in order to establish a reasonable ego — alter ego relationship. In successful communication between equals, for example, there is a need, with most interlocutors, to keep a proper balance between not lowering one's own ego too much and keeping up the alter ego sufficiently without raising it too high. Brown and Levinson (1978:65), looking at the same problem from a slightly different aspect, have developed their complex theory of the concepts of negative and positive face and they maintain that "it will generally be to the mutual interest of two MP (their 'model persons') to maintain each other's face." There are a number of areas in communication where this balancing of interpersonal relationships mentioned above is of particular importance. I shall refer to them as sensitivity areas and I shall deal here with six of them — naturally there are others — and, in particular, with the use of inappropriate (or 'other-system') strategies as well as inappropriate interpretation of such strategies. Table 1 shows six sensitivity areas and possible problems in balancing personal relationships. (1) Engaging One of the most important areas of interpersonal interaction is probably at the point when two or more interlocutors start some sort of verbal exchange. Communicative strategies here would include greeting routines (Ervin-Tripp 1964, Schegloff 1972) and also the decision whether or not to engage at all. There are situations where it is necessary, particularly in an E-system or a social or regional variety of such a system, for someone to initiate a verbal exchange. In Australian suburbs, and even more so in rural areas, for example, it is commonly expected, particularly by members of an older age group, that someone passing a property where the owner is in the front garden should initiate a verbal exchange, usually only a greeting, even if both interlocutors are strangers or know each other only by sight. This would typically be impossible in some Asian culture systems. Australians, judging by their Ε-system, have stated

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures Table 1

19

Six sensitivity areas and possible problems in balancing personal relationships

sensitivity area

possible problems

(1)

engaging (starting a verbal exchange)

first presentation of ego; placement of alter ego by ego; effecting the placement of ego by alter ego

(2)

disengaging (ending a verbal exchange)

a deliberate withdrawal automatically puts ego higher than alter ego, cushioning effect is needed

(3)

requesting something from someone or requesting someone to so something

putting ego in 'vulnerable' position (e.g. alter ego may refuse request) but also involving threat to alter ego

(4)

acceding to a request

placement of ego and alter ego

(5)

positive responding to an offer or invitation

balancing problem — don't want to push ego up or down excessively

(6)

negative responding to an offer or invitation

balancing problem — don't want to push alter ego down excessively

that Chinese and Vietnamese neighbours are "rude", "cliquey", and "surly" and had no desire to make contact when, in fact, the others felt that their cultural norms forbade them to act otherwise. Frequently, the non-Ε interlocutor may use inappropriate engaging strategies, judged by the Ε-system. For example some ES- and NEinterlocutors, using a routine from their Chinese communicative system, are at times inclined to greet their Ε-interlocutors with Have you eaten yet? which, apart from being inappropriately interpreted by the recipients as an invitation to lunch or dinner, may also cause temporary communicative breakdown, e.g. NE-speaker A greeting colleague Β (of equal status) in the corridor 10 minutes before B's lunch hour was due to start.

20

John Platt A: Hello. Have you eaten yet? B: (angrily, on the defensive): 'Course not! I've been very busy all morning. Actually I only came out to get a drink of water.

Β had, in fact, wanted to start lunch early. He felt 'caught out' and also angry that A, who is not his superior in rank, should, as he felt, "question him in this fashion." Concepts of 'privacy' vary between cultures. Hu (1985) remarks that "questions about a person's age, salary or the price of an item are perfectly acceptable in Chinese culture, but they are not in Western culture." ES-speakers of a Chinese background may use engagement strategies such as 'Where are you from?', 'Are you an Australian?', 'Where are you going?' and, particularly after an initial greeting routine, they may use such strategies as 'Ah, I like your watch. How much you pay for it?' as a friendly approach. Similar strategies may be used by ES-speakers from Indonesia, where you may ask strangers about their families, number of children, age of children, etc. Indonesians who meet a friend in a hospital waitingroom would ask questions such as 'Who is ill?' or at an airport 'Who are you waiting for?' whereas an equivalent strategy used by E-interlocutors would be more indirect, e.g. 'Fancy meeting you here!' or simply 'Hello!' (with a rise-fall intonation), with the expectation that the other one will supply the reason for being in that particular place. In the culture of the ES-/NE-speakers, the more direct strategies are meant, according to these speakers, to be "a friendly concern", "trying to be polite by showing an interest in the other one," etc. Ε-interlocutors who were the recipients of the ES-speakers' direct question strategies usually interpreted them by their Ε-system rules and judged them as (a) an attempt at 'upping' of the alter ego, e.g. "What does he think he is, questioning me like that!" or (b) an attempt to increase the degree of intimacy, e.g. "too pushy", "I hardly know him!", "None of her business — she's not a friend of mine". In the context of Chinese culture, it appears unnecessary, when meeting the same person several times in the same day, to indulge each time in a greeting routine before coming to the topic (Ho 1985). This convention is frequently applied by ES-/NE-speakers in an E-context, even if meetings are spaced out. Ε-speakers, who generally use a brief greeting routine, verbal or non-verbal, such as a smile or a nod, are inclined to judge someone who suddenly lurches into the topic more negatively than the intention of the interlocutor warrants, e.g.

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures

21

Door to lecturer's office is open. Student, who has an appointment enters and starts: I've had a problem with my data . . . The Ε-lecturer, decoding this behaviour, judged the omission of any greeting routine and the direct approach as (a) rather rude and (b) a disregard of fixed status relationships. In an interpersonal exchange the first move may be non-verbal. In certain service encounters, e.g. in some shops, at the enquiry desks of some offices, the customer comes up to the counter and, by the approach, signals the beginning of an engagement. Unless the one approaching initiates the verbal exchange by stating his/her business, the first verbal move would be up to the person behind the counter. The usual, expected strategy in an Ε-system would be a polite question such as 'What can I do for you?' 'May I help you?', etc. In some NE-systems, e.g. Singapore, the usual reaction is often a brief 'Yes?' with a sharp rise in pitch. This is uttered by basically friendly individuals and is intended as a strategy to "get down to business quickly without wasting words." It is part of a general pragmatically conditioned communicative system which measures time by money and ignores, to some extent, subtle interpersonal relationships. NE-speakers, who do not expect more, interpret it as "an acceptable opening routine"; Ε-interlocutors, however, are inclined to reject it as (a) wrong treatment of the customer, i.e. an attempt to push down their ego and (b) lack of courtesy on a personal level, i.e. an unnecessary distancing by the alter ego. An example of where genuine attempts of courtesy and politeness are misinterpreted is the use of styles when starting a conversation. NE-speakers, e.g. Singaporeans and Malaysians, often feel that a more formal style will assist in signalling respect to the outsider, the Espeaker, although this E-speaker may be an acquaintance or a friend. This is done even when the E-interlocutor initiates the conversation with an informal greeting strategy: E-speaker: Hi Doris. How are things? NE-speaker: Oh, it is nice to meet you again, Monica. I sincerely hope you had a very pleasant journey. To the E-interlocutor this answer appeared as a deliberate distancing strategy by the alter ego.

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John Platt

(2) Disengaging By initiating the termination of a verbal exchange the ego automatically puts him/herself higher than the alter ego. In Ε-systems, strategies are usually employed to 'cushion' this effect, e.g. by giving reasons for the termination: I really must push off now, because . . . Oh, look at the time! I should be . . . or by showing (apparent) concern for detaining the other one: I really must let you get on with your work . . . I mustn't keep you . . . In Australian shops, particularly in smaller shops, weather conversation may be used as disengagement strategies. It usually occurs after the money has changed hands and is initiated by the shopkeeper or assistant to signal that he/she was not only after the sale but also wants a friendly relationship with the customer, e.g. Sales Assistant: Hasn't been too bad today. Customer: No — rather a nice day. or SA: Still nippy outside? C: Yea, rather. The final disengagement routine in many shops and department stores in Australia is an exchange of 'thank you', which seems to have partially replaced other forms of farewelling, such as 'goodbye'. In an investigation of 50 verbal interchanges in large stores and smaller shops in Melbourne, Australia,2 the most common disengagement routine was found to be A: Thank you/thanks B: Thank you/thanks This was used in more than 50% of cases. Other, lesser used routines were: A: Thank you/bye B: Bye or

Some types of communicative strategies across cultures

23

A: See you later B: Righto The results show that once the transaction had concluded, conversation initiated by the shop assistant was more likely to occur in smaller shops than in larger stores (32% as compared with 4%). Pre-closing strategies (cf. Schegloff and Sacks 1973) varied from topic related to weather related, e.g. SA: I'm sure you'll be satisfied. If you can't remember what to do, just come back. C:

Yes, I will, thank you.

or SA: It's been a beautiful day. C : Yes, it has. A group of 20 NE-speakers (Singaporean Chinese) with whom these disengagement strategies were discussed in interviews all considered them excessive and unnecessary. They claimed that in their culture system, once a transaction was over, there was no need for further words. This is borne out by the behaviour of Singapore shop assistants, whether in large stores or smaller shops, who move on to the next customer immediately the transaction is finished or, if there are no further customers, just turn around or move away. However, 16 of the 20 NE-speakers with whom we discussed these disengagement strategies interpreted the 'thank you' routines at the end of the exchanges as a genuine "giving of thanks" and stated that these Australians appeared to be very polite because they were thanking each other all the time, even in cases where it was quite unnecessary, e.g. on leaving a shop. The four other speakers felt that it was not genuine and therefore that it was insincere. ES- and NE-speakers also occasionally inappropriately interpret Ε-system disengagement routines such as 'See you later', 'We'll keep in touch', 'See you soon' as genuine statements and judge the speaker as insincere if what they interpret as a promised event does not eventuate. Wolfson (1983:75), when discussing invitations in an American context shows that there are certain cues which distinguish genuine invitations from those which she considers as often being "statements of good intent . . . initiating a possible negotiation for an invitation." However, in the Ε-system of Australian speakers a number of utterances

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that refer to rather vaguely framed invitations and visits are really disengagement strategies that avoid an over-abrupt ending to an exchange or meeting and are designed to cushion the 'putting down of the alter ego', particularly if the speaker attempts to get rid of his interlocutor fairly speedily. As part of a larger investigation, Santha Thanasingam (1985) asked a group of Singaporean and Malaysian who were students in Australia, all NE-speakers, their reactions to a number of communication strategies commonly used in Australia, e.g. How are you? See you (later)! Are you (all) right? (engagement strategy by sales assistants to customers in certain shops instead of 'May I help you?') How'd you like it? (asked by bank teller before handing out money) She had interesting responses, particularly to the last two strategies. Are you (all) right? 70% of the interviewees admitted that they had been puzzled at being asked this question. They had decoded it as an inquiry about their health or their ability to find their way around in Australia. None of those questioned had recognized it as possibly indicating the shop as being of a lower status as compared with the more polite strategy "May I help you?' How'd you like it? More than 70% of the interviewees admitted that they had been puzzled when they were asked this question. They had decoded it as either an inquiry about how they liked Australia or as being in some way connected with liking money. This routine question is not in their NE-system, as Singaporean and Malaysian bank tellers do not give customers the opportunity to choose what denominations of currency they would like, e.g. fives, tens, fifties. (3) Requesting Asking someone a favour may make one's ego more vulnerable as the other person may refuse. However, requesting may also involve a 'threat' to the alter ego. This is more strongly felt in many Asian

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cultures. Richards and Sukwiwat (1983:121) comment that "in the case where A wants a favour from B, the preferred strategy for a Thai is to hint and talk around the topic." The same type of strategy is used in Chinese and Indonesian cultures. When practised by ES- and NE-interlocutors in an Ε-setting, it may cause inappropriate interpretations. The reaction of a number of Ε-interlocutors seems to be negative, e.g. "it is devious", "I always think it's an attempt to manipulate me", "I was getting irritated — she was so longwinded — just to ask for a small favour", "I was so busy, he was taking up too much of my time." However, in some NE-settings where new communicative subsystems are evolving, e.g. in Singapore, Asian conventions are giving way in certain situations to a more direct approach, far more direct than those used typically by Ε-interlocutors, e.g. Singaporean student to lecturer (without preamble) : You have to sign this form for me — here! In the Singapore NE-system, orders are used frequently where the Ε-system would usually require indirect requests, e.g. Bank teller to customer: Sign here! Customer to waitress in lounge of large international hotel: Give us. .. NE-speaker to visitor, telling her which way to proceed: Come, come! Reactions of Ε-speakers are often negative, e.g. interpreting it as the speaker's attempt to push up his ego and downgrade the other one or judging the speaker as belonging to a lower social class or being rather rude and not very pleasant. An investigation into cross-cultural communication in a Melbourne hospital between ES- and Ε-nurses and nursing aides (Officer 1985) found similar negative reactions, usually irritation, by E-interlocutors when ES-speakers of equal rank used direct imperatives instead of indirect requests, e.g. Get the tea trolley! You will do tea. That is your duty today. But in many of these cases the inappropriate strategy appeared to be due to lack of fluency in English rather than to a different communicative system.

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(4) Acceding to a request Ε-systems usually require that someone who is requested to do something should verbalise his/her agreement, to some extent at least, e.g. OK Righto Don't worry, I'll do it straight away! Just getting around to it. This is particularly the case if an action is requested where the one requesting has to wait or the 'requestee' has to absent him/herself temporarily from the place where the request was made, e.g. I'll get him. Just take a seat! I won't be a moment. It may take about ten minutes. Would you care to wait? It is in this area where NE-speakers of some cultures, e.g. Singaporeans, do not consider that it is necessary to verbalize their willingness or ability to execute the request or to inform the requester of the approximate time it will take to carry out the task. This nonverbalizing has no connection with low competence in English. In all cases observed the interlocutors were fluent speakers of NE, in this case Singapore English. The reason was that the NE-interlocutor feels that words are unnecessary as long as the task is satisfactorily completed. For example: (A) (In a Singapore office) E-interlocutor: I'd like some of these pages photocopied, please. Girl at the counter, silently and without a smile, takes the pages, walks off and returns five minutes later with the photocopies which she hands over silently. (B) (At a Singapore solicitor's office) E-interlocutor (to girl who is sitting near the counter typing): I'd like to speak to Mr Bannerji please. Girl: Sorry, Mr Banneiji out for lunch — back after two. E-interlocutor returns at five minutes past two. As he approaches the counter, the girl gets up silently and moves off into an adjoining room. After some time she returns with Mr Bannerji.

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The E-interlocutor had been puzzled and uncertain. Had the girl remembered him and had she gone to fetch Mr Banneiji? Or had she not remembered him and had just gone somewhere else? The girl, on the other hand, had felt it quite unnecessary to talk to the caller again. She knew whom he wanted and as the person was in, she went as quickly as possible to get him. These are not isolated examples but it is common for Singaporeans operating within an NE-system to use non-verbal behaviour where some sort of verbal strategies would be expected within an E-system. (5) Accepting an offer or invitation In the area of accepting offers or invitations, various strategies operate. Most invitations have as one of their properties "a request for a response" (Wolfson et al 1983:116). I feel there is also, based on the situation and the fixed status relationships of the participants, a band of acceptability within which the ego and alter ego may opérate in their balancing of interpersonal temporary role relationship and intimacy negotiations. When the invitation is given, for example among equals, the giver slightly lowers his ego and lifts the alter ego. Strategies which are used in the acceptance of an offer or invitation are designed to restore the balance by slightly lowering one's own ego and raising the alter ego, e.g. accepting with thanks, indicating pleasure at the invitation (verbally and by facial expressions), mildly foreshadowing anticipated pleasures. However, an excessive lowering or raising of the ego would serve to disorient the other interlocutors. ES-speakers of a Korean communicative system are sometimes inclined to transfer their own cultural strategies to an E-situation. That is, they set their acceptance into an elaborate framework, pretending at first to refuse: You should not have done it It is too much work It is too expensive and then gradually accept. This often puts the Ε-interlocutors in a somewhat embarrassing position. They feel their ego is raised unnecessarily by the other person and, as one E-interlocutor stated: "It makes you wonder whether they're just having you on and whether they want to come at all." The Indonesian culture system, on the other hand, stipulates that

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one should not sound over eager when accepting invitations as it may appear rather greedy. This sometimes results in ES-speakers of this culture accepting friendly invitations in a rather off-hand way. Because of these strategies, Ε-speakers may judge the ES-speakers as unfriendly or not wanting to have a close social relationship with the inviter, as in the case of the Indonesian who, applying his traditional communicative system, searched for a suitable Ε-equivalent for his traditional insya Allah (God willing) and came up with "Hopefully". His E-interlocutor was not amused! (6) Negative responding to requests, offers or invitations Even more sensitive than acceptance situations are those in which offers or invitations need to be refused for one reason or another. Here, the alter ego must not be pushed down excessively by the refusal and various 'cushioning' strategies are necessary. In many Asian cultures, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, it is considered rude to give a straightforward 'no' to invitations and offers. Strategies would be to talk around the subject and to avoid a direct refusal, if at all possible, or to avoid refusing, at least on that occasion, and to give a negative reply later on. Some of these strategies, when used in ES-/NE-interactions with Ε-interlocutors may cause considerable confusion and inappropriate decoding. For example, some ES-/NEinitial strategies which may eventually lead up to negative replies to invitations: Yes (meaning: Yes, I have received your message) Thank you (meaning: Thank you for inviting me) Silence and a smile (meaning: Thank you for inviting me) All three would usually be inappropriately interpreted by the E-inviter as an acceptance of the invitation. Other strategies would be: (a)

an involved and sometimes rather improbable reason for the invitee's inability to accept. However, nowhere in the narrative would there be a downright refusal, although an eventual refusal is intended. (b) a rather non-sequitur account of something else that appears to have no bearing on the invitation — often in an attempt to sidetrack the inviter.

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A Second, more explicit and urging invitation by the E-interlocutor is then necessary to obtain a reluctantly given refusal from the ESor NE-speaker. In many cases, the E-interlocutor, who judges by his own E-system, decodes these strategies as "insincere", "devious" and "inconsiderate". Some ES- and NE- speakers, however, are often offended by the apparent rudeness and bluntness of the Ε-speaker's direct refusal of well-meant offers and invitations. They feel that their ego is unnecessarily lowered and that the E-interlocutor seeks to avoid any type of relationship with them by doing so.

4. Conclusions In the above discussion of sensitivity areas in a cross-cultural perspective a general interference pattern seems to emerge that shows a use of communicative strategies which is contrary to the other interlocutor's expectations and which, nevertheless, the other interlocutor interprets according to the norms he/she would have applied to the expected strategies, had they occurred.

Notes 1. Some of the research was supported by ARGS grant No.A28015239.1 also wish to thank Bahren U.Siregar, Edelweiss Symons, Imogen Y.C. Chen, I Nengah Sudipa, Vanitha Saravanan, Zulkifli and Jae Jong Song for their advice on various aspects of this paper. 2. I wish to thank Bev Hansen for standing patiently at many shop and store counters in order to collect this data.

English as object and medium of (mis)understanding

Jef Verschueren Abstract The author argues that the view according to which the pervasive use of English as a language of wider communication is a major source of communicative inequality, tends to divert attention from some fundamental issues of crosscultural understanding. Without ignoring the facts on which that view is based, a more balanced picture is presented of a world in which English is both medium and object of understanding and both medium and object of misunderstanding. Illustrations are adduced from the area of international news reporting.

December 1984. Mikhail Gorbachev, already regarded as likely successor to the supposedly ill Chernenko, visits London. The first comments on his meetings with British statesmen have hardly been published when the BBC television news offers a comparison of press reactions in London with those in Moscow. According to British papers the talks had been 'friendly,' while the Soviet press reports a 'businesslike' atmosphere. The BBC's interpretation of the discrepancy: the Kremlin signals its intention to remain at a distance. Some insight in the functioning of lexical meaning, and a vague familiarity with British and Russian life-styles and culture are sufficient to cast doubt on the validity of the BBC's conclusion. 'Businesslike' may indeed sound negative if opposed to 'friendly.' But the opposition, and hence the resulting connotation, did not occur in the Soviet sources and derived its existence solely from the comparative activity in the British reporter's mind (which bridged the 1,500 miles and the vast cultural gap between London and Moscow). Moreover, 'businesslike' must have been a translation for the Russian delovoj — which happens to be a quite complimentary term: people are delovoj if they show a good deal of practical sense and energy, and if you can

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count on them; talks are delovoj if they are efficiently conducted and to the point. Certainly, this attribute does not exclude English-style friendliness, for which the requirements are restricted to a courteous attitude, a half-visible smile, and some well-intentioned humor. It is not unlikely that this very friendliness communicates standoffishness to Russians used to exuberance in the expression of emotions. There is no better illustration than Hedrick Smith's account of reactions to the screening of Doctor Zhivago in a Russian home: What stuck in my mind was the moment when everyone, foreigners and Russians alike, broke out laughing at the meek, milquetoast welcome given by young Zhivago and his step-parents to his stepsister returning to Moscow by train from Paris. It was abrupt and cool, a quick, flat, unemotional Western peck on the cheek and a handshake, obviously directed and acted by people unaware of the effusive, emotional outpouring that occurs when Russians greet or part at a railroad station. (1976:136-137) In view of such considerations, one may safely assume that friendly and delovoj were both accurate descriptions of the same property of the interaction that had taken place. Thus there was no discrepancy to be explained.

1. The dialectic of language inequality The introductory anecdote is somewhat disturbing. The rather innocent communication error in question depends solely on the relatively simple level of culture-related word meaning, which may lead to the loss of semantic features and the emergence of new connotations in translation — especially in a translation taken out of context. If this easy-to-understand process produces interpretive blunders even among the BBC's knowledgeable experts in international communication, problems resulting from subtler — and less noticeable — habits of communicative style, or even in traits of cultural or ethnic identity, must be legion. The chain of communicative processes which constitute international news reporting represent only one of the areas of human interaction susceptible to intercultural interpretation problems. Obviously, international relations and diplomacy are influenced — and here we touch the problem of the century: modern weapons of mass destruction,

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both conventional and nuclear, narrow the gap between human civilization and the realm of the dinosaurs; whether, and how, humanity will survive into the 21st century, will depend largely on our ability to cope with the quicksands of intercultural and international communication. Especially in urban areas — but not only there — everyday life is full of occasions where members of different cultures and citizens of different countries meet and depend on each other for the successful performance of their daily duties. Thus business is affected not only at the executive level, but also at the level of face-to-face interaction between employees within companies and between management and employees. And education is increasingly confronted with communicative incompatibilities, not only because of its growing internationalization (certainly in higher education), but also due to the irreversible diversification of urban population centers. 1 This is the well-known context in which internationally and intranationally used languages of wider communication, with English as primus inter pares, are required to function and can often be observed — inevitably — to malfunction. The rough edges — or outright failure - of the resulting social intercourse are often blamed on the language rather than on the complexities of the interaction itself. Thus English has become liable to a certain degree of contempt based on the view that it is a tool for the licentious exercise of imperialist inclinations. The quasi-universal use of English, the argument goes, produces communicative inequality. All non-native speakers are at a disadvantage. Not only are they obliged to spend their precious time trying to acquire proficiency in a foreign language. They will always be swimming in a raincoat, whether engaged in business negotiations or in a scientific discussion during an international conference. 2 No doubt, the promotion of English as a world language does fit in with certain geopolitical visions. It is not the intention of this paper to dispute some of the basic facts that have spurred anti-Western resentment. The paper is intended, however, as a dialectic footnote to the grounds for this resentment, as applied to English as the major language of wider communication. The gist will be that the application of this resentment to English — though quite understandable — moves in concentric circles around a single aspect of the truth, to the neglect of others, and diverts the attention from the fundamental, many-sided (rather than just Pentagon-shaped), issue of crosscultural understanding. To begin with, criticism nearly always centers around English as a medium of misunderstanding — as in the introductory anecdote.

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It tends to be oblivious to the fact that the actual geographical and functional spread of English3 accords this language the status of an extremely useful medium of understanding across cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries. It is by virtue of this status that business negotiations, diplomatic missions, cultural exchanges, and the distribution of scientific knowledge and technological know-how are as efficient as they are today. And it is by virtue of its being a powerful medium of understanding, heavily relied on for many purposes and under many circumstances, that English has become a medium of regrettable misunderstandings as well. A more elaborate illustration, pointing at the hidden dangers of unreflective reliance on English to describe events to be interpreted in terms of non-Anglo-American cultural premises, will be offered in section 3. Being a native speaker of English is indeed a tremendous advantage. The comfort involved in being able to find people one can talk to in one's own language on a global scale can hardly be exaggerated. There are, however, some drawbacks too. First, the dark side of comfort is a loss of adaptability or flexibility. This may make those speakers of English who have never been in a position to function in a different language particularly prone to misjudgment. Second, misunderstanding may be as detrimental to the interpreting as to the misunderstood party. Third, speakers of English are generally deprived of the power that goes with the ability to exclude others from communication. Such power is actively used, for instance, by some Japanese managers in their interaction with local employees in establishments of their firms abroad: Fourth, not having a language to hide in, English-speaking communities attract an inordinate amount of attention as universal objects of understanding and become, by the same token, common objects of misunderstanding. It is this rarely studied process that I want to turn to in the following section. Note that the topic of this article is not as symmetrical as its title and this brief introduction of the key notions would suggest. In talking about English as a medium of (mis)understanding the language itself is focused upon in its capacity of mediator between an interpreter and an interpreted state of affairs, event, society, or culture. As object of (mis)understanding, the language is approached as an inseparable aspect of the interpreted socio-cultural reality, not just as the instru-

English as object and medium of (misunderstanding 3 5 ment mediating interpretation (though, of course, it still fulfills this function as well). This is why the discussion may at times be in terms of the (mis)understanding of events or societies directly, rather than of the language as such. This is also why, in this paper, English is assigned to the category 'object' of (mis)understanding only in cases where English is the native or predominant means of communication in the interpreted world or context.

2. Rocks—just layin' around The Anglo-American dominance of the world news, and of the media in general, is often attributed exclusively to aggressive imperialist attempts to force media products onto the rest of the world. Critics tend to ignore that at least two other factors play a decisive role: the remarkable — maybe unique — degree of openness of American society, also reflected in the contents of the media (though this, of course, does not free them of bias); and the actual spread of English which makes the Anglo-American media more widely accessible than any of the others. The resulting inequality in the flow of information, blamed mainly on the first of these three factors, has led to UNESCO's well-known and disputed media declaration in 1978. No doubt this inequality favors English-speaking communities. What happens in them is more thoroughly covered, and since the reporting is primarily directed at an English-speaking audience (and only indirectly at the global community), the world view prevailing among them is — inevitably — voiced more forcefully. Without trying to detract from the advantages involved for speakers of English in the status of their language as a quasi-universal object of understanding and the related dominance of the Anglo-American media, it would be hardly justifiable to turn a blind eye to the reverse side of the medal. Given the wide distribution of English media products, one would expect English-speaking communities to be better understood than most others. Yet even in Western Europe, where the distribution is probably the most efficient and the linguistic and cultural barriers are the smallest, the number of misconceptions, especially about Americans, remains impressive. Particularly striking is the frequently expressed European view of American culture as either non-existent or shallow, and of Americans as superficial. This

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judgment, however, is based on whatever products of American society are readily accessible to Europeans. And accessibility is largely determined by a mechanism aptly captured in Toynbee's dictum that the power of a cultural phenomenon to spread is inversely proportional to its depth. But since consumers are at least partly responsible for their choice of products, superficiality should reflect as badly on the consumers as on the producers. Inattention to such a basic truth is a sure sign of shallow thinking. A further exploration of this phenomenon would lead us too far afield. Here I would like to focus on a different, though related, aspect of English as an object of misunderstanding. Due to the widespread understanding of English, social-communicative events taking place in English-speaking (sub)cultures acquire extra visibility, making them susceptible to various forms of intercultural and international misunderstanding. A common source of interpretive trouble is the fact that those events are approached with knowledge of some standard educational form of English as a foreign language and with a stereotypic pattern of cultural expectations, which allow neither for the fundamental implications of linguistic variability,4 nor for the existence of markedly different, often ethnicity-based, cultures and subcultures. Knowledge of English accompanied by insufficient knowledge of English-speaking societies and cultures, may add to the danger of crosscultural misunderstanding by creating an illusion of easy intelligibility. In the following pages, this will be illustrated in detail with reference to European reactions to Jesse Jackson's political speech style. In January 1984, the Belgian Radio and Television broadcasted a Swedish newsreel (in its "Panorama" program) devoted to the election campaign of the black democratic candidate Jesse Jackson during the American presidential primaries.5 For forty minutes, the Flemish audience was able to follow his trail from town to town, from state to state. Alternately, fragments were shown from interviews, press conferences, and political speeches and rallies. As always in the Netherlands and the Flemish part of Belgium, the original sound track — which did not contain any commentator's remarks, but only documentary data of the types mentioned — was kept intact, and the English was accompanied by Dutch subtitles. One year later, a video recording of the program was shown to a number of Flemish students, after which their reactions were tested. The students were all third- or fourth-year undergraduates in the

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humanities and (exceptionally) social sciences, with a proficiency in English ranging from good to excellent. They were all enrolled for a course on cross-cultural communication, an option betraying at least some degree of openness to aspects of ethnic-cultural variability. The reactions were tested with the help of a five-page questionnaire containing purely attitudinal or evaluative questions (to be answered in terms of scalar values between opposite poles) in addition to questions concerning the interpretation of certain passages and more open-ended questions. In general, responses showed a clear pattern of uneasiness with Jesse Jackson as a presidential candidate. Details of the students' judgments looked as follows. Personality traits were described almost exclusively in positive terms. Thus Jackson appeared to be decidedly friendly, sensitive, strong, energetic, and lucid; rather trustworthy, intelligent, wise, and tolerant; but also somewhat aggressive (not necessarily intended as a negative trait given the context in which aggressiveness is spoken about as a positive force or even a necessity), and somewhat arrogant. Also his linguistic usage was characterized positively as compelling and enjoyable; as rather rich, beautiful, elevated, stylish, and pleasant; but also as exaggerated rather than well-balanced. In connection with individual passages, students were predominantly of the opinion that they were not boastful or pretentious, that they were not threatening, honest rather than demagogical, and that the used imagery was relevant rather than empty. In spite of such positive impressions, in spite of the high leadership qualities that were attributed to him, and though as potential president the tendency was to find him good rather than bad, trustworthy rather than dangerous, Jesse Jackson would not have obtained a majority of the votes among this group of students. How do we explain the discrepancy between the expressed attitudes and the voting behaviour? A striking aspect of this 'contradiction' was, for instance, that in assessing his qualities as a possible president, Jackson appeared — though predominantly trustworthy — less trustworthy than in judgments of his personality traits; yet the opposite pole offered on the presidential scale was 'dangerous', while on the personality scale it was the much weaker 'untrustworthy.' The general problem is this: How do we account for the clearly transparent sense of uneasiness with the prospect of seeing Jackson as the head of state of a powerful nation in the face of the over-

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whelmingly positive opinions about the candidate as a person, about the quality of his performances, and about the content of individual passages from his campaign speeches and from interviews? Or, what is the remaining uneasiness based on if it cannot be pinned down on attitudinal particulars? An explanation emerges from the reasons presented by students for their voting behavior. Abstentions were justified with reference to a measure of distrust: "I would like to know more about him." Also yes-votes were almost always accompanied by an expression of doubt. In some cases, the doubtfulness was wrapped in a negative motivation: "Things cannot get worse than they are"; or "He seems like the only alternative to Reagan that does not look too much like a jellyfish." Sometimes it is expressed unambiguously: "He looks a little too demagogical, able to manipulate — which can be dangerous"; or "If I were a white American, I would feel a bit threatened." Doubt also radiates from its negation: "My hesitation about Jackson, the impression that he might be an undiluted demagogue like Hitler, who used similar language, was undone by the pictures showing him at Martin Luther King's side." Note that, whereas individual passages were mainly judged to be honest rather than demagogical, suggestions of possible overall demagoguery are voiced even by some of those who would have voted for Jackson, and even a first-slight comparison with Hitler is volunteered. The motivations given for votes against speak for themselves: The habit of making the audience repeat his words seems rather dictatorial. I would never vote for someone who bases his election campaign largely on the hypnotizing rhythm of a certain type of music and slogans. Jesse Jackson may be an impressive figure — but he and his 'followers' give me the creeps. He appears to be an able leader, but of the same type as Baghwan - for a group of people who have abandoned everything and desperately want to believe in a leader who thereby becomes a dangerous force. I do not deem Jackson competent enough to engage in politics at the highest level. I guess that he lacks the organizational talent and the degree of imperturbability necessary to be a good president. Jackson is a man of emotions and ideals. In a sense he is too 'lyrical' and lacks, according to me, a basic pragmatic attitude.

English as object and medium of (mis)understanding 39 A final question, asked at the very end of the session to ensure that it would not bias other responses in any way, was intended to gauge the students' opinions triggered by the following remark (made by an American of German descent, after seeing pictures of Jackson's campaign speeches): "We've had Hitler already; so, who needs Jesse Jackson?" Only a couple of students thought the comparison was preposterous. A majority was largely in agreement with its content, though the need was felt to point at a difference in ideology. Those who tended not to agree, also felt the need to express reservations which, for them, made it quite intelligible why someone could make such a remark. Briefly, almost everyone saw valid points of comparison between Jesse Jackson and Hitler with regard to demagogical properties and rhetoric. Here is an anthology from the reactions: A certain degree of aggressiveness appears from Jackson's speeches, and his use of language is manipulative; he seems like the kind of figure many people would follow blindly. There are parallels: mass hysteria, stirring up with slogans, emphasizing one's own centrality, the accompanying aggressiveness, etc. The way in which he makes people repeat his words reminds me of Hitler. Understandable, since Jackson — just like Hitler — seems capable of stirring up the masses and manages to make them shout, sing along, etc. Jackson is comparable to Hitler with respect to the agitating use of language, the Übermensch idea, the idea of his cosmopolitan calling, the initiating of a kind of mass hysteria. The average black American has not yet reached the stage in which the danger could become acute. But it is potentially there. Why this elaborate report of the impression made by a political figure such as Jesse Jackson on an audience of students? Because that impression seems typical for the average intellectual in Flanders. A similar distrust, and an identical judgment of demagoguery, is suggested by the "Panorama" team of the Belgian Radio and Television network, in its introduction to the Swedish newsreel. Thus Jackson is described — already in the title of the program — as een kleiirrijk

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kandidaat 'a colorful candidate' (read: certainly fascinating, but a little out of place) with a considerable dose of 'oratorical talent.' Further: Met typisch Amerikaanse predikantentruuks lingen in vervoering te brengen.

weet

hij zijn

volge-

"With typically American evangelistic tricks, he manages to bring his followers to a state of ecstasy." The formulation may be softer, but in fact — as in the judgment of the students (who had, of course, not been allowed to listen to the introduction by the "Panorama" reporter) — this alludes to a form of 'mass hysteria' brought about by means of 'demagogical trickery' reminiscent of the rhetorical style of religious cult leaders. One should wonder, however, whether such a characterization is at all suitable. The question is threefold. First, are we confronted with typically American evengelistic tricks? Second, are we justified in talking about evangelistic tricks? Finally, are we really witnessing the use of tricks'? Even a superficial analysis imposes a tentative 'no' in response to the first part of the problem. Considering the variety of English spoken by Jackson, we note that sometimes he clearly uses a version of Standard American, and sometimes a typical form of Black English. His code-switching from Standard to Black is a textbook example of how the alternate use of different codes can serve a clearly symbolic function to reinforce his identification and solidarity with the black community. We further note that exactly those passages which lead most strongly to visions of demagoguery show most properties of Black English. Hence we cannot avoid the issue of whether those views were not partly induced by a defective familiarity with stylistic, if not linguistic, properties of language use common among black Americans. In any case, it becomes immediately doubtful whether one is justified in speaking of typically American rhetorical practices. The tentativeness of this response is removed by the realization that what passes for Jackson's evangelistic style in fact represents an ethnic style. As shown by Kochman (1981) and many other researchers, a system of culturally determined norms and conventions separates the norm of Afro-American language use from that of the white majority (though, strictly speaking, they communicate in the same language and many can code-switch successfully between

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varieties). Expressivity and vitality are of primary importance for most black Americans. Moreover, stylishness is an absolute requirement for the expression of thoughts and emotions, as for other forms of behavior (such as sports, clothing, etc.). Speech is practiced as an art. As a result, conversations among blacks tend not to be dull and many speaking turns betray a form of sharp-wittedness. Imagery and hyperbole are omnipresent. And two types of tall talk ('boasting', as a source of humor, and 'bragging', to attract attention) are culturally defined and completely accepted verbal means. The language of black preachers in its most typical form, is but one instance of this ethnic communicative style, enriched with rhetorical properties derived from an age-old tradition. Therefore it is hardly surprising that a comparable style characterizes political rhetoric, whether the politician is himself a religious leader or not. The tradition in question, as described by Gumperz (1982: chapter 9), shows more similarities with the religious rites among blacks throughout the Caribbean and Brazil than with those of white fundamentalist Christianity in the South of the United States, and has its roots in West African rites still performed among the Yoruba and Akan populations. The basic character of the event, both originally and in the form of the modern Afro-American 'sermon,' is "a dramatic interchange between speaker and audience" (Gumperz 1982:189). By systematically modulating his performance, sometimes alternately singing and speaking, or, more frequently, shifting style, the minister speaks with, alternately, his own voice, that of the Lord, and that of the congregation. (189-190) In all this, the active participation of the audience is of the utmost importance and "can materially affect the course of the service." (190) The most visible aspect of the black orator's modulation of his speech is the symbolic switching from (prosodically distinguishable) styles using Standard American to a Black English 'folk style' (phonologically, lexically, grammatically, and prosodically distinct). Partly because the broadcast on Jesse Jackson's campaign did not show any speech completely, and partly because the emphasis was entirely on the most captivating passages in a typical 'folk style', the symbolical value of the switching could not be appreciated by the average viewer. As a result, the black ethnic character of Jackson's style became even less conspicuous than it would already have been otherwise for an

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audience insufficiently familiar with its intricacies. It is quite understandable why such an audience, without compelling reasons to regard Jackson's communicative style as anything other than 'typically American' rhetoric, would judge his performances in terms of values prevalent in mainstream western cultures. Interpreting his style of performance in the light of the foregoing remarks, however, we must conclude that it can hardly be called 'typically American', and that the ethnic basis and the old tradition from which it derives are done an injustice by referring to it as an 'evangelistic' style. We are left with the question as to whether we can talk in an unqualified manner of 'trickery' and demagogical means. There are at least two important aspects of a communicative style frequently found among blacks which cast doubt on the suitability of this description. First, there is the already mentioned interactive nature of the religious and (closely related) political public performances. The audience participates in the event. That participation — contrary to some students' impressions — rarely takes the form of mechanical repetition, unless in the case of a clear and meaningful motto (e.g. "I am somebody" - I may come from the ghetto, but I am an equally worthy human being), or for the sake of a humoristic effect (as when Jackson asks all those who have registered to vote to raise their right arm and to repeat: "I — (state your name) — swear — that I am — a registered voter; — if — I am lying — I hope - that my right arm — will never come down."). Spontaneous comments from the audience are very frequent. Though the recordings were not at all aimed at registering those interventions, they were constantly heard: "That's allright"; "Now, did you, really?"; "Think of that!"; "Big thing!"; etc. As long as interventions would have to express agreement, the interactive nature of public performances would not form a guarantee against manipulation. A second feature of the communicative style frequently found among blacks (described at length by Kochman 1981) may be decisive: its fundamental antagonism. In discussions about 'serious subjects' between blacks and whites, often conflict situations emerge which can be reduced to a type of stylistic incompatibility. The behavioral norm for white westerners (to which the actual behavior, of course, does not necessarily conform) is generally a certain detachment from the subject matter, resulting in a rather cool, quiet, and abstracting style of discussion. For American blacks, however, involvement is frequently a requirement, leading to a more emotional, louder, and

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essentially confrontational style of argument. Typically, they do not accept the right to be silent; the expression of one's opinions, especially when in disagreement, is mandatory (or at least more so than among white Americans). This antagonism, often interpreted as hostility in interethnic conversation, is also the principle regulating interventions during public speeches. Within the ethnic-cultural group, sanctions against the voicing of opinions are not in the general line of expectation. Being situated in this tradition, it would be rather thoughtless to simply brand Jackson's performance behavior as essentially manipulative. At least, when taking a close look at the rhetorical strategies and their cultural context, there is a glaring contrast with what we witness in, for instance, Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.6 Finally, we may ask whether there would be any good reasons for whites, as one student put it, 'to feel threatened.' In a most gripping campaign speech in Bakersfield, California, Jackson refers to Ronald Reagan as 'the Goliath of this day.' He continues: "[he] won Illinois in 1980 by 300,000 votes - there were 800,000 unregistered blacks rocks, just layin' around." After a lengthy enumeration of similar facts, always ending in the same-words, and showing an ever-mounting degree of excitement, he concludes: "Pull your head high Bakersfield — pick up your slingshots — use your rocks — let's sling them — rocks, rocks, rocks, just layin' . . . " Whereas this passage is so clearly metaphorical that no one would want to accuse Jackson of having threatened Ronald Reagan's life, the students' judgment was nurtured by comparable episodes in which the veil of metaphor was lacking. Yet, how much justification was there? We have already hinted at forms of verbal behavior (such as 'boasting' and 'bragging') which get a culture-dependent interpretation and are regulated by culture-specific norms. Again following Kochman (1981), verbal threats can be part of a 'fight' in which also physical violence occurs among members of the white majority, whereas this is rarely the case among blacks. Utterances which whites feel to be threatening (such as "Hey, white boy, you're in the wrong part of town!", uttered in the middle of a black ghetto) are not called 'threats.' They are instances of 'woofing,' and often they function as an explicit indication that the 'hostility' will remain at the level of words. For many American blacks, 'threatening' usually involves bodily movements: coming closer at an inappropriate moment, slipping a hand into one's pocket, etc. Though words are constantly used to air antagonistic

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feelings, within the black ethnic-cultural context it is perfectly sensible to say, as in a case reported by Kochman, "All I did was talk to her — now, how can that be threatening?" Gumperz (1982: chapter 9) documents a case of political rhetoric in which the failure to understand the ethnicity-specific nature of exactly such speech acts, combined with ignorance about patterns of code-switching and variability in lexical meaning (in particular Standard American 'kill', vs. the almost exclusively metaphorical Black English 'kill'), actually led to the speaker's being indicted for threatening the life of the American President. Without having to decide whether there were, or were not, good grounds for the well-educated European's relatively poor opinion of Jesse Jackson as a presidential candidate, we can safely conclude that those reasons they were able to make explicit reveal a fundamental lack of preparedness to cope with the task of evaluating a socialcommunicative event taking place in an English-speaking community — in spite of their good or excellent knowledge of the English language. Though the pitfalls of interpretation would have been less obvious, the fact of English as an object of misunderstanding would also have emerged from a confrontation with certain events involving members of the white majority in the U.S., or even in England. Briefly, the point of this section is that even in cases of considerable familiarity with English, a lack of familiarity with English-speaking societies and cultures, can very much add to the danger of crosscultural misunderstanding by creating a false sense of easy intelligibility.

3. Who exploded that land mine under the conference? The wide spread of English bestows extra visibility upon events in English-speaking communities, carrying along specific risks of being misunderstood. But by contributing to the global dominance of the Anglo-American media, it also makes events in non-English-speaking societies susceptible to various forms of misunderstanding mediated through the use of English to describe them. English as a medium of misunderstanding has received more attention than English as an object of misunderstanding. Much of the attention, however, has been misguided, while the problem runs much deeper than is usually recognized. Ideology-oriented linguistics sinks its teeth into the fact that the international news media tend to reflect

English as object and medium off misunderstanding 45 the dominant Anglo-American view of the world. This observation, as criticism of the media, draws a red herring across the trail of a skunk. It is misguided because it fails to appreciate the parallelism between the ideological background assumptions of media reports and the easily detectible common ground in everyday conversation, of which conversational analysts have learnt that it is indispensable to bring about communication. It is shallow because it does not require detailed investigations but is predictable from the structural properties of news reporting in a free press tradition. 7 It is misguided and shallow because it falls short of uncovering the means and processes determining those aspects of the actual content, plain or hidden, of the media message which may lead to international and intercultural misunderstanding. In this section I want to report the major findings of a study (presented at length elsewhere; see Verschueren 1985 s ) demonstrating how unreflective reliance on the medium of English to describe the communicative behavior of the political protagonists in an international political-communicative event betrays and may induce intercultural misunderstanding — with grave diplomatic consequences. The event was the political incident following the shooting down over Soviet territory of an American U-2 spy plane on May 1, 1960. The study analyzed all The New York Times reports related to this event and its consequences from Friday, May 6 (when the first reports were published, the day after Khrushchev's public announcement of what had happened) to Friday, May 20 (a few days after the resulting abortive four-power summit in Paris). Focus of attention was the set of metapragmatic 9 terms and expressions (especially those of a metaphorical nature) employed by The New York Times to describe the language used by Soviet and American government officials, including Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower, in their verbal shaping of the incident. Briefly summarized, the framing of the incident as a political-communicative event looked as follows: On the first day after Khrushchev's announcement that an American plane had been shot down over Soviet territory, the metapragmatic framing of the events tends to indicate that The New York Times attached less credibility to the details of Khrushchev's announcement (according to which the plane had willfully violated Soviet air space for reasons of espionage) than to the U.S. explanation that a NASA weather-observation plane of the U-2 type might have strayed across

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the Turkish-Soviet border after having reported trouble with the oxygen equipment. This lower degree of credibility is partly established by the newspaper's factual (content-centered) and detailed reporting of the official Americans explanation (in which neutral linguistic action verbs such as said, denied, observed, explained, etc. figure prominently), and partly by its choice of linguistic action verbs focusing on emotionality, hostility, and bad manners when reporting on Khrushchev's reactions. Thus there is a tendency to side with Senator E.L. Bartlett's quoted judgment that Khrushchev's remarks were crude, rude, and provocative. Facing this attitude, America is said to have reacted with restraint, thus implying that there might have been good reasons for an angry, unrestrained, response. On the second day of newspaper coverage, a new element is introduced. Emotion-oriented descriptions of Khrushchev's utterances are framed in such a way as to suggest demagogical calculations behind them rather than expressive value. Not only does the reporter of one article explicitly mentions as in (1), that "Moscow encouraged the Soviet people [. . .] to express their 'wrath'". But set the public tone in (2) presents the same information more implicitly. And so does deliberate in (3) suggesting that the expression of anger is merely strategic rather than spontaneous. (1)With the summit meeting less than a fortnight away, Moscow encouraged the Soviet people today to express their "wrath" over the incident in which it was charged that Soviet territory was violated by an unarmed United States plane May 1. (2) Premier Khrushchev set the public tone for his Government yesterday in a bitter speech to the Supreme Soviet. (3) More deliberate but still angry comment about the incident was given today by most of the seventeen speakers who followed him to the rostrum. Thus the revelations are presented by The New York Times as a presummit manoeuver. On the third day, after the U.S. admission of spying (prompted by the Soviet announcement that the pilot of the plane, Francis G. Powers, had been captured alive and that the wreckage had been found), details of Khrushchev's revelations are no longer cast in a doubt-provoking mold. But his style of message delivery becomes the focus (especially an aspect of exaggeration which underscores the possibility of manipulative intent), thus diverting the attention

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from the American fabrications on the previous days. Just consider (4). (4) Mr. Khrushchev made his account a story of high drama and low skulduggery interspersed with bitingly sarcastic remarks about Washington's contention that the pilot was on a regular weather reconnaissance mission and had probably gotten lost during a blackout due to the failure of his oxygen equipment. (These implications, however, are counterbalanced by an article by James Reston which clearly offers the U.S. Government's duplicity as a distinct possibility, not only with respect to the first official statement, but even with reference to the new version disclaiming President Eisenhower's personal responsibility.) This general picture remains unchanged until the summit in Paris. The main new fact is an announcement by President Eisenhower in which he takes full reponsibility for the espionage activities. This message is metapragmatically provided by the newspaper with a frame of emotionlessness and rationality, as in (5) and (6). (5) In a carefully worded statement read at his news conference the President said that the Soviet "fetish of secrecy and concealment" was "a major cause of international tension and uneasiness." (6) There was neither regret nor apology in President Eisenhower's statement of the case nor in the firm, measured tones with which he read it. Meanwhile, the defense of espionage activities (as in (5)) is given close attention, and on occasion American duplicity is slightly palliated by presenting the U.S. as the victim of Soviet scheming: (7) The United States Government, many members of Congress and much of the press had been mouse-trapped into premature denials. But there is a clearly critical stance, not so much against the fact of espionage (except for the timing of the abortive flight — just two weeks before the summit conference, and on the Soviets' major holiday) but against the government announcements. Finally, there is the communicative exchange, in Paris, which constitutes the climax of the conflict. Consider the following descriptions. (8) (Front-page title) U.S.-Soviet clash disrupts summit talks. (9) President de Gaulle made a speech of welcome and then Premier Khrushchev embarked on his tirade.

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(10) Mr. Khrushchev's savage attack was responsible for this transformation [from criticism directed against Eisenhower to sympathy for him]. (11) Nikita S. Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union, had leveled a charge of "treachery" against the President of the United States. (12) The Soviet Premier bluntly told the United States President that he would not be welcome if he went to the Soviet Union on his proposed visit next month. (13) His denunciation of the United States and his imposition of conditions were capped by his brutally frank announcement that in the circumstances General Eisenhower's visit must be postponed. (14) After Mr. Khrushchev threw out his thunderbolt at the Elysée Palace this morning, [. . .]. (15) Some form of internal pressure may have compelled the Premier to come to Paris and explode this land mine under the conference, British diplomats said. (16) At the end of his blistering speech, the system of high-level consultation and negotiation seemed wrecked. (17) Mr. Khrushchev's speech was a devastating and explosive performance. (18) The reaction of a few experienced and detached diplomats who were not blown over by Mr. Khrushchev's storm [. . .]. Thus the exchange at the opening session of the summit meeting (during which Khrushchev demands condemnation of the U-2 flights, their immediate cancelling, and punishment of those reponsible) is presented as a clash for which the Soviet Premier's hostile attitude and bad manners are held entirely responsible. Metapragmatic metaphors are heavily relied on to establish this impression. Though the other partner in the exchange, Eisenhower, is said to have exploded with fury in private after the meeting, during the meeting he kept his temper in check and responded in a "statesmanlike and restrained manner." British Prime Minister Macmillan is quoted saying that he thought his 'old friend' had "reacted with disregard for 'face' that one would not find in lesser men coming from lesser countries." Hence the burden of guilt is clearly placed on Khrushchev's shoulders: he is the one who exploded a land mine under the conference. It is a sensitive issue whether acquiescence in a governmental lie is itself tampering with the truth. But apart from this question

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(prompted by our present certainty that at least some people on the staff of The New York Times had known about espionage missions by means of high-altitude planes flying across Soviet territory) the paper's standards of accuracy in its reporting of the U-2 incident were high. There was certainly nothing untruthful about depicting Eisenhower's style as restrained and detached — the absolute antipode to Khrushchev's almost proverbial tirades. Also with respect to the interpretation as to why Khrushchev behaved the way he did, especially at the opening of the Paris summit, The New York Times can hardly be blamed. The explanations (found in articles by James Reston and Harrison Salisbury) based on speculations about a power struggle in the Kremlin between Khrushchev and those who thought he was too mild on the West have since remained essentially unchanged. But going beyond an interpretation of Khrushchev's behavior in the immediate context of a newsworthy event to a real understanding of the Soviet sentiments and motives involved seemed much harder to do within the confines of the news reporting tradition. It is difficult to decide without further comparative investigations whether the tradition in general is to blame, or whether the nature of the conflict to be reported (with the reporter as a member of one of the participating nations) precluded a deeper analysis. Anyway, only one article (in the May 18 issue) probes into underlying motives which are said to be found in the Soviets' desire to be recognized as an equal to the United States. Thus the mere suggestion that the U-2 overflights could be continued without their being able to do anything about it (a suggestion implied by the explicit statement that the overflights were absolutely necessary for American national security, by the absence of any pre-summit indication that the flights would be stopped, and by statements to the effect that the U-2, so far, had been absolutely immune to Soviet defense systems), was about as insulting as spitting in their face. In such a context, a basic diplomatic failure on the part of the U.S. could have been pointed out (if understandingoriented reporting had been given more attention): a complete 'disregard for face,' not in Prime Minister Macmillan's sense, but in the sense of a disregard for the Soviets' face. From this point of view, it could have been shown, Khrushchev's demand for a formal apology was not at all unreasonable. Eisenhower's (unfortunately purely hypothetical) apology would not have implied a condemnation of all espionage activities. It would have served the function of any ordinary apology, a device to restore the addressee's 'face' after it has been

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threatened. The face-threatening activity in this case was the U.S. decision, as Khrushchev put it in one of his speeches, to simply open the Soviet skies for themselves after the Soviets had rejected an American 'open skies' proposal. It may not be a newspaper's task (not even in its editorials) to dictate a course of action. However, a further understanding-oriented analysis of the events could at least have demonstrated that Eisenhower's refusal to apologize was not the only (and maybe not the best) alternative available to him. Note that the foregoing considerations are centered around the interpretation of a type of speech act. Unfortunately, The New York Times' lack of disagreement (or unexpressed agreement) with Eisenhower's understanding of the communicative value of an apology, is only symptomatic of the way in which communicative interaction in general is left behind at the level of objective reporting, without further attempts to open them interpretatively to the point of real understanding. It is not at all clear that this would be a matter of unwillingness. Rather, an overconfident and unreflective reliance on English as medium of description, necessarily carrying along a wide range of socio-cultural norms, seems to be involved. As pointed out, the metapragmatic framing of Khrushchev's and Eisenhower's verbal behavior does not violate standards of accuracy. However, it completely disregards the fact, usually not so much neglected where other types of human conduct are concerned, that the same surface activities (in this case utterances) may carry different weights in different societies. In particular, aspects of speaking style are presented as subject to universally valid norms. Though this universality is not asserted, it is heavily implied by neglecting to draw attention to variability. Thus, when Khrushchev is reported, quite accurately, to have 'exploded' in public, such behavior is likely to be judged by the readership of The New York Times in terms of their own culture-specific standards of behavior which dictate that explosions are permissible in private but not in public. Those standards shape the typically Western concept of diplomacy in which only unemotional, detached debating and negotiating is acceptable — irrespective of what one may feel. Therefore, Eisenhower is clearly evaluated as a 'real' diplomat because he kept his temper in check, even though he exploded with fury in private and though his emotions may have been visible in different ways during the meeting; in fact, Bohlen (1973:468) notes that

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As Khrushchev talked, Eisenhower's bald head turned various shades of pink, a sure sign that he was using every bit of will to hold his temper, adding that When Eisenhower spoke, he gave no sign of the intense anger that he had obviously felt a few minutes before. Clearly, there is the sharpest possible contrast between a detached debating style and an openly antagonistic one. But the point is that the difference is mainly a matter of style. Unfortunately, it is a common western presumption that the former is, by nature, superior to the latter. 10 That is why only Eisenhower is viewed as having behaved in a 'statesmanlike' fashion and why Macmillan is approvingly quoted saying that the President's reaction to Khrushchev's tirade at the summit was such as "one would not find in lesser men coming from lesser countries." The reporter's acquiescence in culture-specific visions of universally valid norms of verbal interaction, in terms of which 'objectively' reported exchanges are likely to be interpreted (because these norms, prevalent in English-speaking communities, are inevitably associated with the English descriptive terms), may contribute to serious misunderstandings. In this case it is at least partly responsible for the possibility of viewing Khrushchev as entirely responsible for the failure of the summit. And since it reflects an evaluation of Khrushchev's communicative behavior as unworthy of any statesman, it can only be expected to have reinforced Soviet sensitivity to suggestions of inferiority in comparison with the United States. Khrushchev had held high hopes for the summit, founded on a fundamental sympathy towards Eisenhower. He had also expected Eisenhower's planned visit to Moscow, shortly after the summit, to add to his own prestige at home. Therefore the anger and disappointment which he voiced in connection with the President's responsibility for the U-2 espionage missions were genuine. And at the same time the incident played into the hands of Khrushchev's political opponents who could now 'prove' that his confidence in a western leader had been misplaced. Thus English as a medium of misunderstanding in diplomacy and international news reporting may have contributed to the demise of Khrushchev's policy of peaceful coexistence and to — as George F. Kennan (1972:143) put it — "the shattering of the

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political career of the only Soviet statesman of the post-Stalin period with whom we might conceivably have worked out a firmer sort of coexistence and to the replacement of his dominant influence by that of a coterie of military and police officials far more reactionary and militaristic in temper [. . .]."

4. Questions of responsibility The primary design of this article has been to demonstrate the functional complexities involved in the status of English as the major language of wider communication. Views of English as the universal benefactor which will ultimately overcome the curse of Babel by eliminating problems of communication across linguistic and cultural barriers, or as the universal villain promoted for the sake of western or, more precisely, Anglo-American cultural — if not political — imperialism, have both been shown to be simplistic. As a corollary, there cannot be any simple solution (of the linguistic engineering type) to problems of crosscultural and international communication. Nor can there be simple answers to questions about the responsibility for intercultural and international communicative failure. Quite naturally, responsibility has to be shared. The key issue seems to be sensitivity to linguistic and cultural variability, not only among speakers of English (who would be well-advised not to neglect the teaching and learning of other languages in spite of the near-universal currency of their own mother tongue) but also among all others (who would be rather pretentious if they thought that greater powers of understanding would automatically be bestowed on them by virtue of their having learnt another language), not only among politicians and diplomats but also among regular members of the electorate, not only among business executives and managers but also among employees (especially in urban areas with diversified populations), not only among journalists and foreign correspondents but among all international news consumers, etc. No doubt, education is central to bringing about the required level of awareness. But education itself cannot avoid stereotypes unless it is based on profound knowledge gathered by means of penetrating scholarship. This is what I see as one of the major application-oriented tasks of fundamental research in linguistics today.

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Notes 1. See, for instance, the papers on higher education of Fernando and Chick in this volume. — Ed. 2. For further discussion, see Tsuda (1986). 3. Various aspects of the spread of English are thoroughly documented in, for instance, Bailey & Görlach (1982), Conrad & Fishman (1977), Fishman, Cooper & Rosenbaum (1977), Pride (1982), Smith (ed.) (1981), and Todd (1984b). 4. The diversity of Englishes is well enough attested in the literature. English is probably the best example to illustrate what happens to a language that spreads widely. Since language may be the only commodity which, in a very real sense, is every user's property, it necessarily diversifies the more widely it is used. This shows the paradoxical nature of the very idea of a universal language (in the Esperanto sense): the more universal, the more diversified and non-universal it will be. (See Verschueren 1984). 5. The program in question was the "Panorama" broadcast (BRT 1) of January 16th. I acknowledge my gratitude to the BRT information service for making a videotaped version available for this study. 6. Triumph of the Will is a 1936 documentary film dramatizing the power of the Nazi movement. 7. For a further elaboration of these points, see the first two chapter of Verschueren (1985). 8. Thanks are due to John Benjamins Publishing Company for permission to reuse sections from the final chapter of Verschueren (1985). What was reported in this earlier publication was itself a case study undertaken in preparation of a wider, interdisciplinary, research project concerning U.S. reporting on the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev years, to be carried out with Timothy McDaniel (Department of Sociology, University of California at San Diego). For the contents of that monograph and the present observations, however, only this author is to be held responsible. 9. A terminological footnote: 'Pragmatics' is the study of language use, language as an instrument of social interaction, the functionality of language. AU language users are aware of this functionality. This awareness is called 'metapragmatic awareness'. And all terms and expressions, employed by regular language users, which explicitly indicate this level of awareness, are 'metapragmatic terms and expressions.' This category includes, for instance, all verbs of speaking (such as say, talk, tell, promise, order, apologise, etc.). 10. Such a view is explicitly defended by Glenn (1981). For a review of the issues involved, see Verschueren (1984).

The (mis)identification of regional and national accents of English: Pragmatic, cognitive and social aspects

R.T.

Williams

Abstract This paper examines some of the pragmatic, cognitive and social factors that are involved when a speaker is assigned (or mis-assigned) by a hearer to a particular group on the basis of accent. The results of several case studies on the perception of different English accents are reported in the paper. The paper suggests that research on accent perception is highly relevant to the study of cross-cultural communication.

1. Introduction The past fifty years have seen a number of changes to the make-up and organisation of modern societies: political upheavals, geographical and social mobility, and high-speed travel have caused nations that were once mono-cultural and localised to become more cosmopolitan and multicultural. This has resulted in corresponding changes in the patterns of social interaction, producing an increase in cross-cultural contacts where participants bring differing linguistic and cultural assumptions about how the encounter is to be realised communicatively (Williams 1985). That such differences are likely to create problems and even breakdowns in communication has been recognised for some years now, and various approaches have been taken to analyse these difficulties. For example, interpretative sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982) has been fruitful in highlighting the linguistic and communicative processes involved in inter-ethnic contact; and the social psychology of language (Scherer and Giles 1979) has contributed to our understanding of multicultural relations by examining the connections between social attitudes and the cognitive mapping of speech markers. With regard to accent perception, much of the research done by

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social psychologists of language has up to now dealt with gauging social attitudes towards ethnic speech, and has tended to see the process of speaker categorisation through accent as standing outside the flow of face-to-face communication. (See, however, Brown and Levinson 1979). It will be one of the aims of this paper to suggest that, contrary to this trend, research on accent perception can be relevant to the study of cross-cultural, face-to-face communication, serving to confirm, highlight and add to our understanding of the problems that are inherent in such communication. This paper 1 examines some of the pragmatic, cognitive and social factors that are involved when a speaker is assigned (or mis-assigned) by a hearer to a particular group on the basis of accent. The discussion will be limited to native speakers of English whose speech differs from the interlocutor's by virtue of its being a regional or national variety 2 ; for example, Lancashire English, Australian English or Singaporean English. This perspective would seem particularly useful in light of the development of English as an international language and of the increasing migration that is occurring between English-speaking countries. The results of several case studies on the perceptions of English accents are reported in the paper. These reports are preceded by an extensive presentation of the theoretical framework on which the case studies are based. The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 will deal with the indexical nature of speech, providing a background to the process of accent identification and speaker categorisation, which is seen to be an act of correlating various speech markers with particular cognitive categories of group membership. Section 3 will briefly examine the work of social psychologists of language who have been instrumental in establishing the link between speech markers and social attitudes. In section 4 the discussion will turn successively to the pragmatic, cognitive and social cognitive factors that figure prominently in the process of accent identification; it will show that this process involves more than mere attention to vocal cues 3 , and that it is rather part of a more general cognitive ability through which people make sense of their environment. In section 5, three case studies will illustrate several of the areas discussed in previous sections. Finally, section 6 will briefly highlight the insights that a study of accent (mis) identification can bring to the understanding of cross-cultural communicative breakdowns.

The (mis identification of regional and national accents of English 57

2. Speech markers and indexical features The differences in ways of speaking English discussed above were described as "accent," which Abercrombie (1967) defines as the material embodiment or substance, the vehicle or carrier (along with writing, braille, and so on) of a dialect, variety or language. It will be useful to regard accent as separate from other aspects of the linguistic system. Laver and Trudgill (1979) consider pronunciation variables as occurring more frequently than lexical and grammatical variables, and see more possible conscious suppression of lexical characteristics than those features that relate to accent. They regard accent as perhaps the outstanding indicator of regional affiliation and social class. The advisability of separating accent from the rest of the linguistic system is also suggested by such facts as the capacity of many adults to assume a new dialect or variety, or to learn a new language, compared to their near complete inability to adopt the accompanying native accent. Two very different types of meaning can be expressed by selecting items from, on the one hand, the linguistic system (phonemic, lexical and grammatical) and, on the other, pronunciation. For example, if we choose /E/ rather than /i/ from the phonemic system, we can express a contrast in meaning between led and lead. In other words, /ΕI and /1/ stand in meaningful opposition to each other in the linguistic system. However, if we select the voiced [z] rather than the unvoiced [s] for the pronunciation of s in greasy, different meaning will not be expressed. That is, [grirsi] and [gri:zi] do not contrast in meaning, at least not in English. Instead, they correlate respectively with the categories "belonging to northern areas of the United States" and "belonging to southern areas of the United States." (It would, of course, take many such correlates to characterise a particular accent.) In the case of [s] and [z] in greasy, then, the speech is indexical because it conveys information about the speaker's regional or geographical origins. Thus, a speaker communicates referential meaning (the message), but at the same time communicates information about his or her individual and social identity and category membership. Such twin channelling is a more efficient communicative design than would be one where a discrete system alone (like interrogation) would be used to uncover this information. Moreover, twin channelling allows the hearer to evaluate the referential meaning expressed by the speaker in light of inferences about the speaker's background.

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Williams

Speech, then, can convey several kinds of information about a speaker: social class, age, sex, ethnicity, occupation, education, national origin, emotional state, and certain other personal characteristics. A study by Norman Lass and his associates (1982) showed that even when speakers tried to disguise their voices a panel of linguistically unsophisticated judges was able to accurately identify their sex and race. This suggests that there are enough perceptual cues (indexical features) in the human voice to allow hearers to infer the sex and race of speakers. A person's affective state is also indexed by certain vocal cues: we can tell when someone is aroused with anger or fear, or when they are nervous, fatigued, excited, and so on. Couples who have been married a long time are able to distinguish very fine shades of emotion and feeling in their partners through "tone of voice." Laver and Trudgill (1979), following Abercrombie's typology, have developed a semiotic inventory of the indices, called markers, that make up a speaker's pronunciation. (1) Group markers are those that indicate membership in regional, national or social groups. (2) Individuating markers are those that characterise the speaker individually, for example, sex, age, state of health and other physical characteristics. (3) Affective markers are those that indicate the ever-changing physical and psychological states of the speaker, for example, fatigue and emotional feelings. Laver and Trudgill (1979:28) provide the following description of the hearer's task of locating a speaker in an interaction: 4 Being a listener to speech is not unlike being a detective. The listener not only has to establish what it was that was said, but also has to construct, from an assortment of clues, the affective state of the speaker and a profile of his identity. Fortunately, the listener's task is made a little easier by the fact that the vocal cues marking the individual physical, psychological and social characteristics of the speaker are numerous.

3. Accent perception: the social psychologists of language But there is much more involved in the process of assigning individuals to groups on the basis of accents than the indexical nature of speech. The social psychologists of language, under the leadership of Howard Giles and his associates, have developed the idea that each of us

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possesses an implicit personality theory through which we evaluate and make judgments of other people's speech. We construct our impressions of others not only on the basis of the indexical features in their speech but also on the basis of other information-bearing clues such as gestures, bodily appearance, facial expressions, age, sex and intelligence (Giles and Powesland 1975, Sebastian and Ryan 1985). The experimental procedure frequently used to elicit evaluative responses to people's speech is the matched-guise technique (Giles and Powesland 1975, Lambert 1967). In the matched-guise technique, linguistically naive listeners are presented with a series of recorded voices of (apparently) different speakers who speak a certain dialect or language or have a certain accent. The listeners are asked to evaluate the speakers on various personality traits, for example, intelligence, dependability, kindness, sense of humour, leadership and self-confidence. In reality, however, the voices are produced by the same person who affects the guise of the accent, dialect or language to be heard on the recording. By using a single voice in this way, such idiosyncratic variations as volume, nasality, throatiness and breathiness, which could themselves become cues for evaluation, are eliminated. Likewise, to discourage evaluation of the topic or content of the passage, the same neutral passage is read by all the speakers. Thus, since the matched-guise technique controls all variables except for accent, dialect or language, investigators can assume that the judges have evaluated the speech on the basis of the social stereotypes shared by the social group to which they belong. However, the matched-guise technique has been criticised for its lack of realism. In actual face-to-face encounters, hearers do not listen to and evaluate a series of disembodied voices repeating the same verbal material. And, with regard to the stereotypes evoked by the voices, A. D. Edwards argues that the listeners in matched-guise experiments "may reveal not their 'more private feelings'.. . . but their knowledge of stereotypes that might not influence them at all in their direct contacts with 'representatives' of the category" (1976:29). To meet this criticism, Giles and his associates have attempted to create more realistic versions of the matched-guise technique. For example, in one English study reported by Giles and Powesland (1975), the investigator, posing as a university staff member, visited a local secondary school where he spoke to two groups of 17 year olds about psychology and asked them to write down their thoughts about this

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subject. When the visitor addressed the students in his Received Pronunciation guise, or standard British accent, the students wrote more on the topic than when he addressed them in his Birmingham guise, or urban, non-standard accent. Moreover, those students who heard him speaking in his Received Pronunciation guise rated him as more intelligent than those who heard him in his Birmingham guise. From the experimental results of such work Giles and his colleagues have developed a theory of speech accommodation that sees a person's speech as converging to, or diverging from, that of his or her interlocutor's according to a complex set of interconnecting social, cognitive, affective, and motivational factors (Thakerar, Giles and Chesire 1982; Ryan and Giles 1982; Beebe and Giles 1984; Coupland 1984). For example, Americans living in Australia might converge their speech toward Australian English for reasons of social approval, whereas Australians living in the United States might converge theirs toward American English for reasons of linguistic comprehension.

4. Accent identification: pragmatic, cognitive and social-cognitive aspects The ability of hearers to place speakers into certain mental categories like "belonging to regional group X" or "belonging to national group Y" on the basis of the indices in the speaker's speech as filtered by the hearer's evaluation of accents constitutes the process of speech perception. But this does not simply involve low-level auditory perception and processing. Rather, speech perception is part of a higher order sense-making faculty that, together with semantic and pragmatic knowledge, forms a part of human cognition. This sense-making faculty can be seen as operating simultaneously in two directions. First, it informs communicative competence or abstract cognitive ability (Gumperz 1982), which enables the individual to use language in context. Second, the sense-making faculty can be seen as having itself created the rational, systematic world that allows communicative competence to operate in the first place. 4.1 A rational world: ethnomethodologists and pragmaticists In this section this rational, systematic world is described from the point of view of the ethnomethodologists and the pragmaticists.

The (mis)identification of regional and national accents of English From their perspective, people function in a world that is regarded as rich in sense-making possibilities, a world that is stable, orderly, and reasonably predictable because people agree implicitly to make it so. In other words, this rational, systematic world creates the sort of cognitive and social conditions that serve the hearer in exploiting the full potential of his or her cognitive ability, whether this means using language in communicative contexts or identifying accents and assigning speakers to particular categories. According to the ethnomethodologists, a central feature of social living is that people tacitly agree to see their world as operating according to principles such as the following: (a) Since trust is crucial to social living, we must believe that others will not deliberately set out to deceive us. (b) Everyday life is orderly, rational, and consistent; and if our behaviour is consistent, rational and cooperative, other people will grant us the same. That is, we are a willing party to an agreement to accept others' reasonableness, consistency, rationality and cooperation, (c) The world is as it appears to be and we must agree not to probe beneath its surface of appearances, even if contradictions, inconsistencies or uncertainties occur. If they do occur, there must be a rational explanation for them and, therefore, we can make sense of them (Wardaugh 1985). Taking a social phenomenological approach, the ethnomethodologists have suggested other ways in which ordinary people interpret and make sense of their world and impose order on it. For example, Harvey Sacks (1972, 1979) has examined the means by which people identify themselves and assign others to particular categories. It is through a shared knowledge of these categories, according to Sacks, that speakers and hearers comprehend and interpret each others' meanings. Categories and classification become a method by which people are guided in their sense-making procedures. The pragmaticists have formulated stated principles based on the rational, cooperative behaviour that interactants reveal in communication. According to the pragmaticists, we are able to interact and achieve common goals in conversation because we recognise and adhere to these principles. Thus, H.P. Grice's (1975) cooperative principle and its four maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner refer to the implicit agreement that participants share about the nature of speaker contributions during an interaction. The significance of Grice's maxims lies in their encapsulation of the need for a reasonable consistency, certainty, predictability and rationality in the everyday world.

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In their work, then, the ethnomethodologists and the pragmaticists have highlighted two significant features that mark the interactive behaviour of speaker and hearer, features that, as we shall see below, have significance for identification of accent. First, interactions are reasonably stable and predictive. Second, speakers and hearers bring their sense-making abilities to bear on social interactions. These two features, summed up in principles (a) — (c) above, both reflect and depend on the rational behaviour and the perception of social reality of speaker and hearer. 4.2 Accent identification: cognitive aspects In addition to the definition of the world as rational, to the activation of a system of categories, and to the presence of evaluative reactions that may affect a hearer's perception of speech markers, there are a number of important cognitive factors involved as well in the process of accent identification. There has long been interest in the ability of the human mind to make sense of its environment. Among the first to examine human cognition were the 18th century philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Hume, for example, saw that "causation" was a mental construct that was imposed on what is no more than a sequence of events (Bruner and Feldman 1986). Kant conceived of a specific activity schema that constructed a particular reality from sensory data (Rumelhart 1980). Piaget (1953) similarly used the notion of schema to suggest cognitive structures that are used in the sense-making process. The term schema is used differently by researchers according to whether they are investigating auditory-visual perception, memory recall, or cognitive processing. (See, for example, Bobrow and Norman 1975, Chafe 1977, Hochberg 1978.) However, for all researchers a schema : (a) consists of an internalised structure that provides efficient perception and memory for events; (b) enables one to encode and generate (or reconstruct) more information than is retainable from individual items; (c) generates expectations about a specific event so that missing elements can be filled in; (d) can selectively retain or modify the mental representation of an event on the basis of what was originally perceived; (e) determines that people's prior experience will influence their perception, comprehension and remembering of new information (Brewer and Treyens 1981). The central function of a schema, according to David Rumelhart

The (mis)identification of regional and national accents of English 63 (1980), is that it constructs interpretations of objects, events and situations and, therefore, helps us make inferences about these things when they are unobserved. Indeed, as Rumelhart points out, "once we have determined that a particular schema accounts for some event, we may not be able to determine which of our beliefs are based on direct sensory information and which are merely consequences of our interpretation" (1980:38). This phenomenon is illustrated below in Case Study 3, where one of the subjects assumed that, because the investigator was from Australia, his accent was Australian, when in fact it was not. Schema research has suggested two basic types of interpretative processing: top-down or conceptually-driven processing and bottomup or data-driven processing. In top-down processing, certain schemata may be activated which lead us to expect that we will be able to account for the input data. For example, certain expectations about a person may be generated so that when we are confronted with particular markers in his or her speech we know how we are to interpret them. In bottom-up processing, on the other hand, the sensory input itself can lead ultimately to overall conceptualising. For example, in listening to an accent, we might hear particular group markers that lead us to identify the accent by referring to available schemata. It is likely, however, that both types of processing are brought into play simultaneously. Thus, as the hearer starts to process the markers, certain interpretations may be generated (top-down); these are likely based on previous experience with the accent in question. But full interpretation may not be arrived at immediately. As more group markers are heard repeatedly, particular schemata are activated, evaluated, and refined, or they are discarded, until an over-all interpretation is reached (bottom-up). In this sense, the process of accent identification is like the construction of a theory: vocal cues are perceived auditorily, various schemata are suggested as being appropriate for interpretation of the cues, and so on. Although schemata may contribute to the development of accurate percepts, they may also cause distortion by generating expectations of what something should be and producing, in consequence, a misidentification of accent. Deborah Tannen (1979) prefers structures of expectations as a more useful concept than schema and, in the sense that schemata are likely to produce expectations, it is probably a more accurate description of the process involved. Tannen argues the importance of the role of expectations in the procès of sense-making: people cannot treat

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each new person, object, or event as an unique and separate entity. One way of dealing with the multitude of sensory impressions is to see connections between them so as to reduce them to a manageable proportion. People approach the world . . . as experienced and sophisticated veterans of perception who have stored their prior experience as "an organised mass," and who see events and objects in the world in relation to each other and in relation to their prior experience. This prior experience or organised knowledge then takes the form of expectations about the world, and in the vast majority of cases, the world, being a systematic place, confirms these expectations, saving the individual the trouble of figuring things out anew all the time (Tannen 1979:144). The power of these structures of expectations was strikingly revealed in research by Bransford and Johnson (1972) in which the following passage was given to subjects to read: A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill, but it's easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance. The researchers found that without a title to identify the lexical referents or the sequences of action in the text, subjects were not able to recall or comprehend the text as well as when the title This paragraph is about making and flying a kite preceded it. That is, the readers had been forced to rely on bottom-up processing only and therefore had no schema to direct their interpretation of the text. However, when the readers were given the title before reading the passage, certain expectations were generated so that they were able to fit the unfolding sequence of events into familiar experience as well as to identify the lexical referents. Similarly, in Case Study 1 below, the interviewer uses a top-down processing strategy, but to a different effect. There the interviewer, having initially categorised the interviewee as "belonging to a Chinese

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group" and as being therefore "an English as a second language speaker" (top-down processing), interpreted the interviewee's speech markers in terms of this category, even though the interviewee's native language was actually English. This suggests that categorisation itself is a type of schema which can either direct interpretation of vocal cues or be the goal to which the processing of vocal cues leads. 4.3 Accent identification: social cognitive aspects In the process of accent identification that is made possible by the indexical nature of speech, and which involves, as we have seen, the evaluation of speech and the activation of cognitive schemata within the overall pragmatic assumption of an orderly world, there is a need to consider as well factors having to do with social cognition. The field of social cognition studies the relationship between human cognition and social interaction. In cognitive terms, social interaction can be problematical, especially when interactants encounter each other for the first time. For example, they may have difficulty in reducing cognitive uncertainty about the other person. Social psychologists consider the cognitive activity of categorisation an important means (along with expectations) of dealing with cognitive uncertainty and of reducing the sensory input of a complex environment to a manageable level. As Henri Tajfel (1978) has pointed out, categorisation forms a link between the processes of perception and conception, between how we see the world and how we think about it. What is the role, then, of accent identification in this categorisation process? Several studies in the social psychology of language have proposed a theoretical framework to explain the assignment of individuals to particular categories on the basis of their speech. For example, Giles et al. (1979), drawing upon various theorists in phenomenological and cognitive sociology, characterise the process this way: (1) People gain control over their environment through such means as understanding the various relationships within it, such as those of cause and effect. (2) People categorise others as members belonging to particular groups in order to reduce the complex social environment to more manageable units; it is more efficient to interact with the social environment if one can sort other people into categories, as otherwise one would need to deal with a detailed biography of each person encountered. (3) Interactants, especially those meeting for

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the first time, experience high levels of uncertainty about what to expect from the other person, what the person thinks and believes and how one is to act appropriately. Uncertainty reduction is achieved through the ability to predict these things. Prediction, which occurs early in the interaction and relies on input cues from the other person and from the situation itself, enables the individual to select the behaviour that is thought most appropriate to the other person (Berger 1979). (4) A possible means for categorising a speaker is to use dress, grooming, skin colour, gestures, bodily appearance and vocal cues as the basis for categorisation. Vocal cues, in particular, are instrumental in enabling the hearer to place the speaker on his or her cognitive map. 4.4 Accent identification: an overview The foregoing considerations have three important implications for the categorisation of speakers on the basis of their speech. These implications need to be spelled out before turning to the presentation of the case studies. First, contributing to cognitive uncertainty are the changes in the patterns of social interaction that were mentioned above. With societies moving from the mono-cultural to the multicultural, cross-cultural encounters are much more frequent than they once were. Furthermore, during a period of mono-culturalism, when interactants were more likely members of the same community, hearers would have probably categorised their interlocutors on the basis of individuating or affective speech markers. But now there is more likelihood for interactants to categorise each other on the basis of group markers in their speech, or on the basis of other such differentiating features as skin colour and ethnicity. Second, several studies have argued for the importance of initial contact in the identification of speakers. For example, in a study of speech cues and social evaluation, Sebastian and Ryan (1985) stress initial contact as enabling the hearer to infer the speaker's membership in one or more social categories. "Upon first meeting others, a number of sources of information about them are relatively accessible. An individual's sex, race or ethnicity, age and physical attractiveness are some of the more salient personal characteristics which are available for immediate processing" (1985:112). And Trosset (1986), in a study of the difficulties that non-Welsh learners of Welsh

The (mis)identification of regional and national accents of English 67 have in being categorised as "Welsh speakers," argues that "learners [of Welsh] must become able to take charge of the linguistic negotiation of identity that takes place at the beginning of conversations" (1986:174). That this initial contact is an appropriate time for the hearer to interpret the various cues available is reinforced by the notion of phatic communion, speech which serves to establish and maintain social contact between people. It is language that, according to Malinowski, binds "hearer to speaker by a tie of some social sentiment or other" (1966:315). Furthermore, phatic communion joins people in a relatively innocuous manner and allows them to exchange noncontroversial background information that is unlikely to create conflicts between interactants. Few people, for example, would consider opening a conversation by announcing their yearly income or their attitudes towards abortion (Berger and Roloff 1982). And since the language used to realise initial social contact tends to be low in cognitive complexity, the hearer can attend to the available speech cues more easily. Thus, phatic communion, especially in its role of establishing initial social contact, enables interactants to carry out accent identification and categorisation by creating an environment that is rich in social and auditory information; unfortunately, the traditional linguistic view of phatic communion as social "chit-chat" has obscured its importance in creating this environment. Third, categorisation profoundly influences a person's perception of other people. Once cognitive categories have been established, they tend to have a biasing and filtering effect on an individual's perception so that successive information received from the environment will be made to fit existing categories (Tajfel 1978, Tajfel and Forgas 1981). Put another way, categorisation helps to generate expectations about the person being categorised into a group. These expectations can be formed even before the person's behaviour has been observed (Wilder 1981). The power of this process of categorisation was strikingly revealed by Frederick Williams (1973) who performed an experiment in which student-teachers, serving as judges, were tested on their attitudes towards ethnic dialects. Williams dubbed the same standard English speech onto three videotapes, each of which presented a white, Black and Mexican-American child, respectively. Since the videotapes depicted the children in sideviews, the mismatch between the sound track and the movements of the children's mouths was not observed

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by the subjects. In spite of the fact that the speech on the sound track could have been perceived auditorily as identical for all three children, it was not. The students rated the speech sample differently according to whichever ethnic guise was being presented: the speech of the Black and Mexican-American children was rated as more "ethnicstandard" than the speech of the white child, and the speech of the Mexican-American child as more "non-confident" than the speech of the other two children. Thus, the student-teachers could be seen as having categorised the children according to certain visual cues. This process then generated particular expectations of how such children should sound. These results suggest that the act of categorisation, with the expectations it produces, may override auditory cues in the process of accent identification. A hearer who has already categorised a speaker may not detect any new group markers which emerge in his or her speech. For example, a speaker of "southern British English" who emigrates to Australia would normally be categorised by Australians as "belonging to (southern) England". Having categorised the speaker as such, Australian hearers might not hear the speaker's convergence towards Australian English. Any newly acquired vocal cues which appeared in the speaker's varietal inter-language might be overlooked and the speech still interpreted as "belonging to (southern) England".

5. Case studies The following case studies illustrate some of the features of accent identification and categorisation of speaker discussed above. The studies present several types of empirical evidence: a naturalistic study (Case Study 1); anecdotal material (Case Study 2); and an observational study (Case Study 3). 5.1 Case Study 1: Cross-cultural employment interview A research study carried out in the early 1980s at the Western Australian College, Perth, investigated the kinds of communicative breakdowns that occurred during cross-cultural employment interviews where the interviewer was a monolingual Australian and the interviewee a recently-arrived immigrant. As part of this research, a number of authentic and simulated job interviews were video- or audio-taped

The (mis ¡identification of regional and national accents of English and analysed (McGregor and Williams 1984; Williams 1985). In one of the simulated interviews recorded, an Australian interviewed a young Chinese women (L), who had arrived from Singapore a few months before the conversation took place, for the position of secretary in one of Perth's building societies. Although the young woman was Chinese and had a Chinese surname, her first language was in fact English. She spoke the Singaporean variety of English, more specifically, a mesolectal subvariety of it. Examples of the group markers in her speech that would classify her speech as "mesolectal Singaporean" included the following (adapted from Piatt and Weber 1980): (a) Deletion of final consonant of a cluster: mon(th) and a half·, quotations)', prospect(s); Texas instruments). (b) Devoicing of final voiced consonant: In such words as was and jobs. (c) Substitution of stop for initial dental fricative: tree for three ; dat for that,den for then·, tirty for thirty. (d) Substitution of labial for dental fricative: wif for with. In addition, lexico-grammatical differences marked her speech, as follows: (e) Different use of lexis: It was advertised in the newspaper so I applied and I had it\ my ambition from young was to be a secretary ·, transcribe for transcription·, customary orders for customer orders·, corresponding for correspondence. (f) Different aspectual and tense system: I had (have) no experience in audio work', after a while when I learn all about it, it jus' seem y'know, stagnant to me, I enjoy it, especially when you had training on it , and I workfed) for the public relations department and I'm (was) responsible to the public relations manager. These markers, which did not appear consistently in L's speech, are generally stigmatised in Singapore (relative to standard British English). However, the interviewer did not appear to know this. Indeed, in a post-interview discussion, the interviewer said that she had assumed throughout the interview that L was Chinese and had learned English as a second language at school in Singapore. This, in spite of L's telling the interviewer during the interview that English was her first language. L revealed this fact near the end of the interview:

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I: Erm. What languages do you speak, L? L:Only English. I: English. Erm. And you've got here (referring to the application form) Malay as a second language? You speak Malay, too? L: Yes. Just a little bit. The interviewer also remarked that had the interview been authentic, she would have given L the job. She gave two reasons for this: first, she considered L to be a well-groomed young woman who exuded self-confidence; and second, she perceived L as having an excellent command of English (that is, for a native speaker of another language). Further discussion revealed that the interviewer had had little experience with Singaporeans and had only visited Singapore as a tourist. She had, as a result, few, if any, expectations to guide her evaluation of L's speech. Nor was this the sort of basis on which she evaluated job candidates. Rather, she considered their ability to present themselves in a positive, self-assured and confident way. Therefore, her judgments of L's suitability for the job were based largely on L's efficient appearance, cooperative attitude, and interactive skills. As she said after the interview: "L knew where she was heading." Thus, her prior experience (or lack of) with Singaporean speech and her expectations of what constituted a good verbal performance may have caused her to overlook the group markers in L's speech. Having categorised L as "belonging to a Chinese group" and, therefore, "non English-speaking", the interviewer seemed to regard any variation in L's speech as being due to interference from Chinese. Indeed, her belief that L had learned English as a second language may have caused her to evaluate L's verbal performance even more highly. The significance of prior experience in the identification (and evaluation) of accent was clearly demonstrated in a study in Wales (Giles and Powesland 1975) in which the guises of several French Canadian dialects were played to subjects who were totally unfamiliar with the French language. Lacking any prior experience with the dialects, the subjects (a) were unable to differentiate between the dialects on aesthetic grounds and (b) did not attribute any more prestige to the European French speaker than to the French Canadian speaker. Yet, in another study (Giles and Powesland 1975) French Canadian speakers were found to perceive European French speakers as being more intelligent, ambitious and likeable and regarded their own dialect as aesthetically less pleasing than European French.

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5.2 Case study 2: David Lange, the"American" In October 1985, the Australian news programme 60 Minutes featured an interview with the New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange and his wife Naomi in a report entitled, "David vs Goliath". One of the many stories to be told during the course of the interview was one that related how the Prime Minister met his wife. The story has Mr. Lange visiting a church social in England where he meets Naomi, the girl he will later marry (I: Interviewer; NL: Naomi Lange): I:

When you first met David in those Methodist Church circles, did you imagine in your wildest dreams that you would find yourself the wife of the New Zealand Prime Minister? NL: No I didn't, no. He reckoned that when we were going out in London together that he sort of said he would be involved in all sorts of things. Well, I was 20 at the time . . . I mean I couldn't understand a word of it and didn't sort of believe him. That was all beyond me. I: You probably thought, who does this New Zealander think he is? NL: I thought actually he was an American, can you believe that, when I first heard him speak. I mean, I had never met a New Zealander before. This story illustrates several points made earlier about schema and speaker categorisation. In section 4.3, we said that the process of categorisation fulfilled the cognitive need for reducing uncertainty and for systematising information from the environment. The categorising activity would presumably operate with whatever schemata were available; the fewer available, the less refined the categorisation, and the more available, the more refined the categorisation. Now most British people are less familiar with English varieties from the Southern Hemisphere than those from the Northern Hemisphere; most would find it difficult, for example, to distinguish between Australian, New Zealand and South African accents. However, most Britons are familiar with American accents, either through personal contact with Americans or through watching American programmes on British television. Many British people would even be able to distinguish between the various regional dialects in America and many would be able to distinguish between American and Canadian English. Therefore, someone like Mrs. Lange who had little prior experience

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with the varieties of English outside the Northern Hemisphere (Mr. Lange speaks an "educated" dialect of New Zealand English) might deal with an unfamiliar accent of English in the following way: "These particular speech markers are not referable to any of the local varieties or dialects of English (for example, Scots, Irish, Welsh and Lancashire); therefore, 'belonging to America' is the next most familiar category to which they can be referred." It is unlikely that categories involving the varieties and dialects of English spoken in the Southern Hemisphere would be referred to at all, since they are the least familiar of the categories available to a British hearer. Thus, such a hearer might, in the first instance, infer the category of the speaker as "not belonging to Britain or Ireland"; therefore, it is to be inferred as "belonging to America". Lack of appropriate schemata may also lead hearers to other types of mis-categorisation. For example, a hearer may not recognise the speech markers of an accent and may, therefore, not attribute them to any particular social group at the outset. Now assuming that in spite of this the hearer would wish to reduce the "uncertainty" about a potential interactant who possessed an accent (see 4.3), the hearer would be forced to rely on other available sources of information about the speaker, say, some particular social information. However, if this information were misinterpreted by the hearer, as it would likely be given the situation, mis-categorisation of the speaker would result. Such a case was observed by the author in the course of his research at Birmingham University (see Case Study 3 below). During the weeks leading up to the observational study, the author met a number of the graduate students who were to participate in it. One of the students in the group was a middle-aged woman whom the author had on several occasions overheard telling others about her life in Israel (for example, she was heard to say, "In Israel, we . . ."). Although the author had not actually met the student, he inferred from the social information overheard that she was an Israeli. And, because the student spoke in an accent with which he was not familiar, he interpreted it to be "Hebrew-influenced English". However, when the author and student finally met, she told him that she had been born in South Africa, but had emigrated to Israel as a young woman. With this new social information, a new category "belonging to South Africa" was created and all prior social and sensory information was reinterpreted through the filter of the new category. That is, the speech

The ( mis¡identification of regional and national accents of English markers were located retrospectively as "South African" and the speaker's "life in Israel" could now be seen, relatively, in terms of her status as "immigrant to Israel". Likewise, all sensory and social information gained from any future encounters would be interpreted in light of this new category. The fact that the investigator had had little contact or experience with Israelis or South Africans caused him to have few expectations regarding Israeli or South African accents of English. Therefore, his strategy in locating the student's accent and assigning her to a group had amounted to using whatever social information was available at the time; by accounting for her accent in whatever way possible, uncertainty was reduced and inconsistencies were resolved. Lack of specific and appropriate schemata may not invariably lead to mis-categorisation; un- or under- differentiated categorisation may also result. For example, Giles et al. (1979) point out that individuals with few international contacts, and presumably with little or no experience with foreign languages, are not required to make fine distinctions in categorisation and may, therefore, base their categorisation of foreign language speakers on the very obvious speech marker of whether the speaker speaks the same language or not. "Such individuals may go so far as not to distinguish among foreign languages. Such an English speaker might place all speakers of Russian, Spanish, French, German, etc., under one abstract and underdifferentiated category: 'different' or 'foreigner'" (1979:354). With increased international contacts, however, the individual would have the need for more refined categories and accurate categorisation; at the same time, the increased contacts would also result in the experience and the language schemata that are involved in more sophisticated categorisation. This can also be seen to operate in a dialectal setting. A Bostonian is likely to differentiate to a fine degree the variations in speech in the northeastern region of the United States and would undoubtedly perceive the speech of this region as being grossly different from the speech in other parts of the United States. However, an Australian or New Zealander would be unlikely to categorise American speech to such a refined degree and may, in fact, assign all American speech to one group. 5.3 Case study 3: Observational study An observational study was conducted in order to determine the sorts of cognitive strategies a group of listeners might employ in identifying

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an unknown speaker of a national variety of English. The study was defined as "observational," since no statistical analysis was to be performed; in particular, the results gained from the study were seen to suggest the direction that future research might take. Thirty subjects were used in the investigation. All were students doing the Master of Arts in Applied English Linguistics at Birmingham University in England, during summer term, 1986. All but four of the students were British (these four were from South Africa, the United States, New Zealand and Switzerland), and nearly all held teaching jobs in schools and universities outside Britain. As a result of their academic work and their teaching, they brought a high level of linguistic sophistication and wide linguistic experience to the investigation. The circumstances surrounding the author's presence at the University were generally known to the students: all knew that he was a visiting research fellow from Australia and several students knew his family situation. However, none of the students were told that he had been born in the United States nor that he had emigrated to Australia eleven years before. During these years, the author's speech had diverged somewhat from his native North Midland American speech and had converged towards a "Western Trans-Pacific English". (See Shockey 1984). That is, his "varietal interlanguage" was marked by features from both American English and "Educated Australian," a social dialect equivalent to standard British English. The subjects were divided into three groups: Group 1 (13 subjects); Group 2 (7 subjects); and Group 3 (10 subjects). The following procedure was carried out for each group. The subjects were given a booklet containing instructions to follow and space in which to write. Each group then listened to a taped three-minute monologue in which an 11 year-old Australian child related several anecdotes about his pet cat "Blackie" (an independent panel of judges had earlier identified the child's voice as "Australian"). After the tape was listened to, the subjects, following the written instructions in the booklet, were asked to write down whether they thought the child was Australian or American. (The choices were limited to these two so that a more direct comparison could be made of the strategies employed to reach identification of the group markers present in the child's speech.) Then, following a detailed set of instructions, the subjects were asked to "introspect" and to describe, as fully as possible, the means by which they had reached their decisions. These descriptions were like-

The (mis)identification of regional and national accents of English 75 wise written in the booklets. As might be expected from such subjects, the introspections were complete and detailed. For Groups 2 and 3 a variable was introduced: before listening to the tape, the subjects in these two groups read a brief biographical sketch (245 words) which purportedly gave background information on the child whose recorded voice they listened to. The sketch covered the child's birth, his school attendance and sports interests, his father's occupational history, the domestic life of the family, and the family's leisure time activities. In fact, the text had been concocted and bore no relationship whatsoever to the child heard by Groups 2 and 3. The texts given to each group were identical except for the following differences: for Group 2, the life-events were described from an Australian perspective by using Australian place names and lexical items from Australian English. For example, the boy's father was shown as thinking that Inverell is nothing but a "two bowser town"; for Group 3, these events were described from an American perspective by using American place names and lexical items from American English. For example, the boy's father in this version was shown as thinking that Plattsburgh is nothing but a "one horse town." The words "Australia," "Australian," "America," or "American" were not mentioned either in the texts or by the recorded voice, nor was any reference made to these countries throughout the study, except for the request to identify the child. Apart from the prediction that the subjects would correctly identify the speaker as "Australian" (based on their personal, academic and work experience), no other specific predictions were made. The general aim of the investigation was to provide answers to the following questions: (1) The subjects in Group 1 received no text to read and, therefore, no expectations would have been generated by particular schemata related to the text. Therefore, would the subjects in this group rely mainly on vocal cues to make their identification? Were there any schemata available for cognitive processing of the cues? Were these schemata informed by prior experience with Australian speakers? (2) Since the subjects in Group 2 received the "Australian" text before listening to the tape, they would have presumably built up certain expectations about the speaker they were to listen to. Therefore, would they deal with the group markers heard as evidence which confirmed these expectations?

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(3) Since the subjects in Group 3 read the "American" text first, they would have presumably formed certain expectations regarding the speaker. How then, would they deal with evidence which disconfirmed their expectations? In short, what would be the strategies used by the subjects to reach their decisions? Although there was no attempt to equate the elicited strategies with actual strategies employed in authentic communicative settings, the strategies described by several subjects in Group 1 as having been used in their location of accent might well be seen as involving actual strategies used in such settings. The results were surprising in several ways: Group 1 : As anticipated, all the subjects correctly identified the speaker as Australian. However, the strategies varied considerably with respect to how the available information was used. As might be expected, most of the subjects (11 out of 13) based their decisions on information provided by lexis, phonology (mainly vowels) and prosody. Three subjects used negative evidence. For example, Americans would not have said "Bagpuss" (name of a cat in the monologue); or "district" would have "neighbourhoodif the boy had been American·, or the rate of delivery was too fast to be an American. Seven other subjects compared what they knew from prior experience about American and Australian English to the vocal cues heard on the tape. In other words, these subjects used a matching strategy. Still others (3 subjects) described a complex process of hypothesis construction and testing in which they used particular markers (for example, vowel sounds) to confirm or disconfirm their evolving hypothesis. However, a most interesting strategy, one that was unexpected, was the strategy employed by six subjects who, as it were, went outside the experiment for information. Their strategy can be summed up as: The investigator is Australian. Therefore, I deduce that the child on the tape must be Australian. The various links between these two propositions included such things as The investigator has an 11 year old son, The investigator is interested in Australian speech patterns, and so on. Most interesting of all, from the perspective of what was said earlier about the author's origins, was the comment by one subject that the vowel sounds of the child were similar to those in the speech of the researcher, therefore, the child must be Australian. The strategies employed by the six subjects who relied on "outside"

The (mis)identifìcation of regional and national accents of English social information illustrate several points raised in sections 4.2 and 4.3, for example, that expectations can have a powerful effect on a hearer's auditory perception of an individual's speech, in particular expectations that have been created by social information. Group 2 (7 subjects): This group, which operated in a confirming condition, that is, they read the "Australian" text first before hearing the child on the tape, all correctly identified the child as Australian. All but one of the subjects specifically mentioned that the text created expectations that the child would be Australian and the tape therefore served as. confirming evidence. (The one subject who did not mention this claimed to rely on the strategy of recalling various Australian films and matching the accents of the actors with the child's on the tape.) As mentioned above, the texts for Groups 2 and 3 were constructed artificially and bore no actual relationship to the taped monologue. However, one subject perceived an apparent link between the content of the tape and that of the text. By seeing a link, the subject was able to claim that the boy did, in fact, speak Australian English. The link was established in the following way: in the Group 2 text, the father was said to have moved the family from Inverell to Sydney shortly after the boy was born; and in the taped monologue, the boy mentioned that when his family moved house three years earlier (that is, when the boy was eight), the family had great difficulty in getting the cat to go with them. The subject assumed, therefore, that these two events were the same and that the boy on the tape was Australian, because he was the same boy in the "Australian" text. Group 3 (10 subjects): This group, which operated in the disconfirming condition (that is, they read the "American" text first before hearing the Australian child on the tape), had somewhat more difficulty identifying the speaker as Australian. Six subjects out of ten correctly and unequivocally identified the speaker as Australian. However, four subjects felt uncertain. The "not certain" responses included a native German speaker from Switzerland who had never heard Australian speech before, but who had met many Americans. Two of these hesitant subjects resolved the conflict between the text and the vocal cues on the tape in the following way: one subject inferred that the family was Australian, but had lived in America for many years; another thought that the father was American, but that the mother was Australian. The strategies employed by the six subjects who cor-

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rectly identified the child's accent relied mainly on speech markers: pronunciation (for example, vowels and lack of post-vocalic /r/), lexis and prosodie patterns. Those in the "not sure" category also mentioned having relied on these features. Seven subjects out of the ten in the whole group specifically mentioned relying on a matching process, that is, they matched what they heard on the tape with what they knew about American and Australian English. Finally, one subject said that since there was no apparent connection between the speaker on the tape and the child in the text, the investigation was a "set u p " and, therefore, not authentic.

6. Implications of accent perception research for cross-cultural communication studies In summary, this paper has tried to demonstrate the centrality of speaker categorisation through the perception of accent to the process of cross-cultural communication, and the key role it plays in our understanding of how such communication can succeed or fail. The following is a summary of the major points and a discussion of possibilities that further research might develop. (a) A recurring theme in the presentation has been how particular schemata may cause the hearer's expectations of what he or she will hear to override objective auditory perception. However, as we saw in Case Study 1, accent misidentification and speaker mis-categorisation does not invariably lead to negative evaluation of individuals, at least in "gate-keeping" encounters like the employment interview. The job interviewer's misinterpretation of vocal cues was largely due to the lack of schemata related to Singapore and Singaporeans, and the strong impression made by the candidate's self-confidence and grooming. Moreover, as Case Study 3 suggested, social information can play a major role in creating expectations of what an individual thinks he or she will hear. In light of this, it would be a valuable exercise to re-examine the research evidence which suggests that when ethnic individuals are able to establish solidarity with the gate-keeper in gate-keeping encounters, they are likely to be evaluated positively (Erickson 1975; Williams 1985). Fewer communicative breakdowns, therefore, would be expected from such evaluation.

The ( misidentification of regional and national accents of English

79

(b) The tendency for consistency and predictability which was seen to underlie the process of accent identification and speaker categorisation (see 4.0) may itself create cross-cultural communicative problems. Thus, once a schema or framework regarding an individual is established, information which is inconsistent with it will be rejected, discounted or distorted in order to maintain consistency (Robinson 1985). This phenomenon can be illustrated by many examples, of course, but two stand out: (i) participants in an interaction develop certain schemata through which various aspects of the interaction will be interpreted and if any do not match the expected interpretative framework, they will be made to do so. This is suggested by the mis-identification which occurred in Case Study 1. Once the job interviewer established the schema "belonging to Chinese-speaking Singapore" as the candidate's membership category, the interviewer overlooked the social information provided by the candidate that she was, in fact, Englishspeaking. (ii) Participants' desire for consistency and predictability may push them to resolve inconsistencies at all cost. Thus, on several occasions in Case Studies 2 and 3, hearers and listeners attempted to locate accents, but misinterpreted vocal cues (even though their identification itself may have been correct), because of their indiscriminate reliance on social information and because they employed incorrect deductive reasoning. Still, such action did remove inconsistencies for them. (See Robinson 1985 for several examples of crosscultural communication problems that can be attributed to "maintenance of consistency".) (c) Since the initial stages of an interaction are extremely important in the negotiation of cultural, social and individual identity, the traditional notion of phatic communion as the kind of "chit-chat that people engage in simply in order to show that they recognise each other's presence" (Hudson 1980:109) should be reconsidered. In particular, cross-cultural communication research - whether theoretical or applied — should closely examine phatic communion in its role of providing social information that is used to identify and gain first impressions. In her study of cross-cultural understanding, Gail Robinson (1985) takes up this last point: "first impressions . . . tend to be made quickly, on the basis of very limited information. However, once first impressions are made, they are difficult to change . . . These first impressions affect not only how people perceive others, but also how they behave toward them" (1985:54). Several questions,

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then, warrant further investigation: How are first impressions arrived at in cross-cultural communication? How is social and individual identity negotiated? What is the role of phatic communion and accent perception/speaker categorisation in these processes? We have covered a considerable distance in this paper: from an examination of (mis) identification of English regional and varietal accents to an examination of the problems of cross-cultural communication. Society itself has covered a similar distance over the past fifty or so years. In earlier times, gentlemen collectors of accents could boast, as Shaw's Professor Higgins does in Pygmalion, that through the "science of speech . . . you can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles of London. Sometimes within two streets" (1951:19-20). Nowadays few of the millions of people who must live in cosmopolitan and multicultural societies would see the point of surreptitiously recording and collecting others' accents. Rather, for those who live in such societies, accent identification as a form of cross-cultural communication is a fact of social living.

Notes 1. I would like to thank the staff and students in the English Language Research unit at Birmingham University for cheerfully contributing their time to the observational study described in this paper and for offering their comments on various aspects of the paper itself. Quite naturally, they are not to be held responsible for any defects contained in the paper. I also wish to thank Mr Cliff Neville, Supervising Producer of 60 Minutes, for kindly providing the transcript of the David and Naomi Lange interview. 2. This paper considers dialect to be a regional, geographical or social form of a language, for example, 'Yorkshire English' or 'Cockney English'; variety to be a national form of a language, for example, 'American English' or 'South African English'; and language to be a form of linguistic communication which, in hierarchical-fashion, embraces dialect and variety. Therefore, 'English' encompasses 'English English', which in turn includes 'Yorkshire English'. Such classification of language and dialect is, of course, overly-simplistic and creates some of the problems described in Trudgill (1980). Equally, the division between variety and dialect is not clear-cut and any such division may differ according to whether one is basing it on linguistic or social perception criteria. For example, Giles and Powesland (1975) refer to G.L. Brook's view that the Scottish and Irish dialects enjoy greater prestige in England than the dialects of the North of England because they are national varieties, not merely regional dialects.

The ( mis)identiflcation of regional and national accents of English

81

3. Although this paper deals primarily with the role of vocal cues in the identification of accent and the categorisation of speaker, it acknowledges the role of many other types of mutually-informing cues, for example, such visual cues as skin colour and physical appearance (See Scherer and Giles 1979). 4. An attempt has been made in this paper to distinguish between 'hearer', a person who participates in the role of interactant in a communicative setting and 'listener', a person who is used as a subject in a research study which deals with the perception of speech markers. Laver and Trudgfll (1979) use the term 'listener' in the former sense.

Culture and language in classroom communication1

Muriel Saville-Troike

and Jo Anne

Kleifgen

Abstract This study analyzes instances of both positive and negative transfer in interaction between English and non-English speakers. A hierarchy of cognitive and linguistic knowledge and skills is proposed, with interacting levels of scripts, structures, and codes. A predominantly topdown processing strategy is documented, with commonalities in higherlevel scripts often allowing for interpretation of meaning even with minimal shared knowledge of a lower-level linguistic code. Within the classroom settings considered here, shared cultural knowledge is found to be necessary and, indeed, often sufficient in itself for communication to succeed.

Studies of cross-cultural communication have generally focused on instances of miscommunication, and on 'negative transfer' (or 'interference') from speakers' first language in their use of a second. This focus on negative aspects has resulted in part from the fact that linguistic deviations and communication problems are more readily observable, and in part from the view that they shed light on the learning process, and that their identification may lead to possible means of overcoming them. It is only recently that we have begun to pay attention to the extent to which positive transfer takes place across languages and contexts of learning, and to recognize the extent to which that transfer is not only linguistic but social and cultural as well. Our intent in this study is to examine instances of both positive and negative transfer in communicative events between English and non-English speakers, with the aim of elucidating how interactants draw upon a hierarchy of cognitive and linguistic knowledge and skills in their efforts to achieve particular goals. We hope to show that the recognition of such a hierarchy, and attention to speakers' strategies in applying it, enables us to better understand how they

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may succeed in communicating even in the absence of a common linguistic code, and why their efforts may sometimes fail in spite of the best of intentions. The setting from which we draw our examples is a Midwestern U.S. public elementary school serving large numbers of students from other countries who are the children of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois. While all of the children are of a relatively homogeneous social status, coming from middle class educated families, most know little or no English on arrival, and thus must go through a period of adjustment and language learning, during which they share a minimal amount of linguistic code with their monolingual English speaking teachers and peers. Our choice of this setting was motivated in part by the realization that communication among members of the same speech community typically involves common linguistic, sociocultural, and experiential norms of interpretation, and that, as long as these various elements are shared among participants, it may be difficult to identify the respective contribution that each of them makes to successful instruction and communication. For this reason, we wanted to study a situation that involved communication among participants who did not share a common language or culture, so that we might be able to isolate some of those elements that entered into the successful negotiation or breakdown of communication. Thus we sought a setting within which the role of linguistic code could be factored out, or at least controlled for, while other elements in the interactional context could be held fairly constant. In Saville-Troike and Kleifgen (1986), we present an inventory of elements which we have been able to distinguish as clearly affecting the negotiation of meaning in communication, and which we believe must be considered as operating at least potentially in any communicative interaction, even between members of the same cultural and linguistic community. At the same time, we propose a framework of 'levels' within which we can study the interrelation of these components. Ultimately, we believe that an adequate theory of communication must account for such elements or components in an integrated way. The framework we propose for the analysis of communicative interaction encompasses three levels, which are seen as hierarchically related from 'top' to 'bottom':

Culture and language in classroom communication 85 1. Scripts 2. Discourse structures 3. Codes The discussion below takes each of these levels in turn, beginning with the lowest level, that of code, and progressing through discourse structures to the highest level, that of scripts. Our use of codes refers to both verbal and nonverbal linguistic features; discourse structures to how features are organized in relation to type of interaction and to communicative intent; and scripts to the extralinguistic knowledge that is brought to a specific situation or event. It should be emphasized that while these levels are treated separately here for analytical and expository purposes, in actual communication, symboling and interpretive processing may involve any or all levels simultaneously. Our examples, as indicated, come from the cultural context of formal schooling, and represent naturally occurring communicative events oserved within that context. We will show that individuals in this context for the most part depended heavily on 'top-down' processing as a comprehension strategy: i.e., meaning generally relied on scripts which were brought to bear, or extralinguistic knowledge. 2 This is consonant with the results from reading research (e.g. Meyer, Brandt, and Bluth 1980; Rumelhart and Ortony 1977; Spiro 1979), which suggests that the interpretation of lower-level units is often determined by the prior application of higher-level understandings. We will further provide evidence to support the claim that these levels of communication are hierarchically ordered in terms of their importance for both expression and understanding. However, examples are also included showing that the 'computation of sense' sometimes involves interaction between levels, or depends critically upon successful 'bottom-up' interpretation.

l . T h e database Our 'focal' subjects were 30 limited English proficient children at the primary level (kindergarten through fifth grades), who were observed and videotaped as they interacted with their teachers and peers. Nearly half of the pupils in the school come from homes where the mother tongue is not English. These pupils' parents have received a generally high level of education in their home countries. The limited

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English proficient pupils are enrolled along with native English speaking peers in regular English-medium classrooms. In addition, the school provides special services for these children comprising 'pull-out' classes for English as a Second Language and native language instruction. We equipped the primary subjects with wireless radio microphones and videotaped them in various situations throughout the school day over a period of several months. The resulting data base includes more than one hundred hours of videotape, focusing on a total of thirty pupils from eight different native language backgrounds. In the following illustrative examples, we designate the native language of each pupil with a single letter: A = Arabic, C = Chinese, H = Hebrew, I = Icelandic, J = Japanese, Κ = Korean, Ρ = Polish, and S = Spanish. Additional interpretive data were collected by interviewing children, teachers, and parents in their native languages, in some cases in conjunction with playback procedures using the classroom videotapes (Kleifgen, 1986, 1988). 3

2. Analysis 2.1 Linguistic code Surface-level production deviations in grammar and pronunciation have to date received the most attention in second language research, probably at least in part because they are the most obvious and most easily observed aspect of communicative behavior. Paradoxically, however, perhaps because they are also generally obvious to other participants in a communicative event, we have found that they appear least likely to interfere with successful communication in any serious or prolonged way. This finding, which contradicts the expectations implicit in much previous research, will be illustrated in some of the following examples.

Grammar. Although deviations in grammar may yield interesting insights into some of the developmental processes involved in second language learning, our data indicate that such deviations in and of themselves rarely result in miscommunication in actual face-to-face interaction. In fact, we were unable to identify ANY instances where lack of understanding could be attributed to grammatical factors.

Culture and language in classroom communication Even in fairly extreme cases of deviant grammatical structures, participants seemed able to process the intended information and respond appropriately. In (1), for instance, a third grade Japanese boy was describing shopping with his mother. In spite of the ungrammatically of his utterance resulting from the transfer of Japanese syntax into English, his teacher (T) had no difficulty interpreting the message. (1)

J: T:

If I go my mother-with shopping and my mother didn't shopped my like-things,. . . but I don't like. What if your mother said "you choose"? They then proceed to discuss what he would select.

Fairly complex meanings can be conveyed even with one-word sentences, as in (2), where a second-grade Korean boy augmented his single English words with gestures in order to successfully complain to the teacher that another child had thrown a pencil at him. (2)

K: K:

K:

T:

Teacher. Teacher The teacher goes over to him. Taki. Pencil. He makes a throwing motion. Taki. Un . . . he. He makes a throwing motion again. Taki, please don't throw pencils.

Phonology. Differences in pronunciation can potentially cause more problems, but were also seldom found actually to cause misunderstanding in the heavily context-embedded settings of natural language use. In (3), for instance, a Korean kindergarten student pronounced 'eraser' as /arasha/, but such errors rarely had any apparent effect on communication, and were almost never corrected. (3)

K:

Arasha. Teacher. The teacher hands her the eraser

In cases where the context does not provide enough information to allow interpretation of a word as it is (mis) pronounced, a simple

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Muriel Saville-Troike and Jo A nne Kleifgen

gesture often repairs the situation. In (4), a Japanese child was leading his kindergarten class in a game of 'Simon Says', which called for them to follow his verbal directions. Since there was no number 'four' visible in the setting, they are momentarily confused by his utterance. (4)

J: Τ: J:

Simon says, touch your four. The other children look around uncertainly. Did you hear him ? Four. (He points to the floor.) All of the children respond by touching the floor.

Words which are phonologically similar or identical and can occur in the same context were not surprisingly the most common source of misunderstanding at a surface level in our data. In (5), for instance, a third grade Chinese girl confused 'daughter' with 'doctor'. In this case she checked her perception with another Chinese-speaking child (in Chinese) and was corrected. (5)

T:

You are your mother's daughter. Can you say 'daughter'? CI : Daughter. T: You are your father's daughter. Say the word 'daughter'. C2: Daughter. T: Daughter. Do you understand 'daughter'? C2 (to CI ): Yisheng, dui bu dui? ('Doctor, right?') Cl shakes her head negatively. CI (to C2): 'Daughter'shi nage nuer. ('Daughter is that daughter.') The teacher listens as CI explains to C2 in Chinese.

Phonological similarity in words across languages sometimes caused confusion when one participant attempted to interpret a word in the wrong code. In (6), the teacher was displaying a picture of a house and discussing different rooms and their contents. The children called out names of objects they recognized, and a Korean speaker mentioned chimde, which is Korean for 'bed'. (6)

K:

Aa, keureonig'a keugae chimdae indae. ('Ah, I mean . . . That is, . . . near the bed.')

Culture and language in classroom communication 89 Τ : I don't understand. K: Eh, chimde, chimde, chimde. ('Um, the bed, the bed, the bed.') T: Chimney? There's no fireplace. At the same time as these examples illustrate misunderstanding, however, they also illustrate the willingness of the teachers we observed to attribute meaning to any word that sounded close to one in English that was in the same semantic domain as the topic they were discussing. This was particularly characteristic of those who had had several years experience teaching limited English speakers, and was much less so of teachers who were new to this type of situation, showing the effect of experience in this type of communicative setting on their interpretive skills (see also Kleifgen 1985, 1988, in press; Saville-Troike 1987).

Lexicon. While teachers, as we have noted, generally ignored deviations in grammar and pronunciation in their efforts to understand the children, it was interesting to find that they immediately corrected errors in vocabulary use. Participants frequently failed to recognize misunderstandings, however. As illustrated in the Chinese example above, our own recognition of miscommunication depended in many cases on data from ex post facto translations of the children's conversations with one another in their native language, which the teachers of course could not understand. The children's conversations also sometimes reveal lexical confusion on their part based on phonological misperception as well as on folk etymologizing. Both effects are embodied in (7), in which Japanese students attempt to assign an interpretation to the Fri- of Friday. (7)

T: J1 : T: J2:

Today is Friday. This is when . . . (she waves her arms, like flying). That's 'fly'. Fly. Today is chicken Friday. Today lunch Friday. T: Fried chicken? J3 : Urn . . . lunch, lunch fry. The teacher shrugs her shoulders.

90

Muriel Saville-Troike and Jo Anne Kleifgen The children discuss the meaning of 'Friday' among themselves in Japanese and decide it means 'fried chicken day'.

In this case the teacher never did recognize the nature of the children's confusion, and indeed contributed to it. Their interpretation was supported by the regular but coincidental scheduling of fried chicken in the school cafeteria for Friday lunches, and the teacher's response Fried chicken probably reinforced this interpretation. The example nicely illustrates the process by which contextual information is used in the interpretation of linguistic forms, even if the results are in error.

Orthography. An additional source of interpretive problems for children who were already literate in their native language was their prior knowledge of orthographic forms and conventions. These include different number shapes for European and Latin American children who have learned to distinguish between 1 and 7 by crossing the latter, and for Arabic children who have learned that a dot indicates a zero place marker for tens (corresponding to the 0 in our system) and that a 0 represents five. The form of long division problems also creates difficulties for children who have learned to enter their calculations above, rather than below the answer. A fourth grade Icelandic girl evidenced additional confusion in (8) when presented with the indication that the letter 'R' in the quotient stands for 'left over'. In this case her knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences, as well as the different answer format, blocked understanding. The teacher and an English speaking peer tutor (E) were successful in communicating an interpretation for 'R' only after the word 'remained' was finally introduced. (8)

T: I: T:

What's left over? Uh, one. One left over. She writes R1 at the end of the answer. I: 'R'? T: Uh-huh. I (to E): I don't know what. . . urn . . . this 'r'. E: It's exactly same thing to this. She points to the R1 in the answer.

Culture and language in classroom communication 91 I: E:

What can I say 'r'? 'R ' said the remained, the left over.

English sound/meaning to symbol correspondences were also questioned by a second grade Hebrew speaker in (9). He was puzzled that words with the same root are not spelled with the same letter. (9)

H: Τ: H: T:

H: T: H: T:

What is'kitten'? 'Kitten ' is a baby cat. she writes the word on the chalkboard. But why doesn't 'kitten' start with a 'c' and 'cat'start with a 'c '? That's a good question. I dont't know why. 'C'and 'k'can both have a /k/sound. Yeah, but 'c' is 'cat', and 'k' is like is different, different kind of word. That's a good idea, but English is not always logical. What is a baby dog? Puppy.

English letter shapes were also confusing to children from different orthographic traditions. The third grade Chinese girl in (10), for instance, could not understand why upper and lower case letters were not interchangeable. (The following is an English translation of what she said to another Chinese speaker.) (10)

C l : I thought I should write this h (draws a lower case h on the table with her finger), but the teacher said I should write this H (draws an upper case h). C2 : Which h did she tell you to write? CI : She told me to write this H (H). Besides, I like to write this h (h), okay?

In (11), the same girl could not understand why the last word in a sentence was not what was at the 'end'. In transferring concepts from Chinese writing conventions, the placement of the punctuation mark was not recognized. The sentences being discussed are 'This is a dress' and 'These are boots'.

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Muriel Saville-Troike and Jo A nne Kleifgen T:

What do you need to put at the end . . . of your sentence? What is this called? C: Dress. T: Period. Say that. C: Period. T: So we have to have a period at the end of our sentence. So what do we need here at the end of this sentence? C: Boo. Boot. T: That's boots. That's the word. What do we put at the end of boots? C sighs and says 'boot' again softly to herself.

Nonverbal code. The most common surface-level barrier to communication in our data is the children's limited English vocabulary, but even this was seldom a serious obstacle in face-to-face communication when participants understood the speaker's intent and shared norms for interpretation. Nonverbal tactics were commonly used by both adults and children to bridge the lexical gaps. In (12), for instance, the teacher used a gesture to explain to the children why their classmate was absent from school. (12)

T: J:

He went to have a shot. What is 'shot'? The teacher gestures as if giving herself an injection in the arm. Several children yell O w ' and 'Ah' in understanding.

In (13), a second grade Icelandic girl elicited English terms for the bedroom furnishings in her home by drawing on the chalkboard, another common nonverbal tactic in this setting. (13)

T:

K: T:

Do you have a bed? The girl doesn't know the word for what she wants to say and goes to the board to draw a picture. Hi (Misidentifying what she has drawn as that letter.) She has an h?

Culture and language in classroom communication 93

T:

T:

Bunk bed. For two people to sleep. The girl nods and draws something on top of her picture of a bunk bed. It can be three things. It can be a mattress, a sheet, or a blanket. The girl adds flowers to whatever it is. It has flowers on it? I think that's a blanket. The girl appears to be satisfied and sits down.

Our data, then, give strong evidence that in face-to-face interaction, surface-level deviations in grammar and pronunciation cause few misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. Even gaps in vocabulary knowledge are successfully overcome as participants negotiate the communication of meaning through nonverbal means. Misunderstanding of surface linguistic forms is much more likely to occur when forms contrast with a deeper-level systemic concept about how language works (such as how sounds, meanings, and symbols should correspond), or when they are similar to another form which the listener expects (or finds reasonable in the context) to hear.

2 . 2 Discourse structures Successful interaction between teachers and their limited English speaking students appeared to be heavily dependent on shared structures of communication, including mutual recognition of the tripartite Initiation-Response-Feedback cycle that is characteristic of 'teacher talk' (see Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). That discourse structure is so strong that a teacher's feedback is likely to consist of the standard acknowledgement and evaluation move whether or not she understands the content of the child's response. For instance, (14) (taken from Saville-Troike 1987) shows the teacher reacting appropriately from a structural point of view to a comment in Chinese, even though the reaction was not accurate in terms of the semantic content of the child's response. (This type of communication between two speakers, neither of whom understands the other's language, was termed 'dilingual discourse'.) In this exchange the teacher -was holding an egg in front of a small group of children which included both English and Chinese speakers.

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(14) Τ E Τ E Τ C Τ: C:

Τ:

Do you know what this is? Egg. This is an egg. An egg. And what do we do with an egg? You crack it. In a bowl. You crack it. In the bowl. Women chi nage. ('We eat that.') Right. And we call this an egg. Jia shi jeige bu yong bing xiang, na jeige jiu hui yige xiao niao chu lai. ('If we don't use a refrigerator, there can be a little bird come out.') Right. That's an egg.

Awareness of the discourse structure of 'teacher talk' was demonstrated in the children's role-playing activities, and in their teasing. In (15), for example, a second grade boy stood in front of the class before the teacher arrived, straightened imaginary glasses (the teacher wore glasses), and tapped on the board. He then humorously imitated her opening instructional routine. (15)

K: K:

What day? He pretends to write on the board. Be quiet. Be quiet. He sits in the teacher's chair and pretends to write in her book, then falls out of her chair. The other children applaud his display.

In (16), a sixth grader mocked his younger brother's art work by imitating a comment that their teacher might have made, using exaggerated intonation and an elongated vowel. (16)

K:

That's ve.ry, ve.ry nice.

Classroom discourse structure was learned very quickly, and the only evidence we have found for failure to recognize and adhere to the constraints of this structure occurred early in the kindergarten year with children who had had no prior school experience. In (17), for instance, a Japanese child appeared to take the role of questioner from the teacher in violation of the appropriate turn-taking sequence and role-relationship. The teacher cooperatively responded and then

Culture and language in classroom communication 95 immediately recaptured control of the interaction by asking another question.4 (17)

Τ : What color is your sweatshirt? S: Black. T: Black. Very good. J (to T) : What color is your shirt? T: My shirt is white. What color are your shoes?

Most of the children in this study were also videotaped in classes conducted in their native languages which they attended for a brief period each day. Many similarities were observed in the interaction patterns of teachers and students from different countries. A few differences were noted which contrasted with the patterns found in English-medium classrooms taught by American teachers, however. The Arabic teacher (who was from Egypt), for instance, directed the children to the written questions rather than formulating them herself, and children read both question and answer verbatim from the textbook. If the passage they read did not correctly answer the question, they were told that they were wrong but not corrected; instead, another child was asked to answer the same question. There was no reacting move at all by the teacher if they were right, but in that case another child was simply asked to read and answer the next question. The Korean teacher, on the other hand, provided frequent backchannel responses of eung ('yes') as the children were reading aloud, to the extent that it sounded quite disruptive to an American ear. Our limited sample of foreign teachers makes us cautious in generalizing about such differences, but native speakers who have viewed these videotapes do not consider the lessons atypical (except for the smaller class size). Misinterpretations of a speaker's pragmatic intent are most easily identified when mismatches occur in contingency sequences, or when the hearer produces an inappropriate response to an utterance. For example, the children in our study were well acquainted with repetition as a language teaching procedure, and recognized it as an expected interactional structure. Presumably because of this they sometimes mistook the teacher's intent in asking a question, and repeated the question rather than giving the answer, as in (18). (18)

Τ: K:

What day is it today ? What day is it today?

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In other cases, a child recognized a question form and responded, but failed to comprehend the speaker's pragmatic intent, as in (19). Only after the teacher repeated the 'question' several times did the child in this example appeared to realize that something more than a yes/no query of his desires was intended. T:

J: T: J: T: J:

Why don't you start cutting out the kittens. You want to color them first? Do you want to color the kittens? No. No? Yes. No. No color. Do you want to color them now? (Emphasizing) Ok. He goes to get crayons.

This use of repetition was a frequent device employed by speakers to force a reanalysis when it became clear that the hearer had misinterpreted the original utterance. Most of the time, however, children recognized when they were being asked a question or given a directive and succeeded in responding appropriately to it, even if they did not understand the linguistic code. Sometimes recognition of a single word in context was the key, or meaning was correctly inferred from nonverbal cues alone. When they were part of a group, limited English speaking children observed their English speaking peers' reactions to question or directive forms and imitated the appropriate behaviors. The strategy of searching for a key word is illustrated in (20). The Spanish speaking child in this episode had arrived in the United States only a few days before and knew very few English words: the numbers one to ten, a few color terms, and the names of basic shapes. His recognition of the word 'shape' in this example, plus his appropriate interpretation of the teacher's intent, account for his success. He had been gluing together an elaborate pyramid of toothpicks when the teacher approached him and admired his work. (20)

T: S:

What. A beautiful pyramid you've What geometrical shape is that? Triangle.

constructed.

Culture and language in classroom communication 97 When questioned, our subjects appeared to be quite conscious of the tactics they and their teachers were using to communicate with one another. We used a 'playback' technique to investigate their interpretation of various events. Some of the children were shown segments of videotape from their English-medium classroom, which had been filmed a day or two previously. They were then interviewed in their native languages to determine what they perceived to be happening and how much they understood in the videotaped scenes, in order to explore the basis for their interpretation (Kleifgen 1986, 1988). Part of a playback interview between a Korean adult (KA) and a first grade child is given in English translation in (21). It illustrates how much the child could comprehend even without language, and how the information about her metacommunicative awareness contributes to our understanding of the processes involved in interpreting communicative intent in the absence of a common linguistic code. (21 ) KA: What were you supposed to do? (She is referring to the videotaped classroom activity that had just been replayed.) K: To make partners together. KA: How did you know? K: I didn't know. KA: Did you know from what the teacher said? K: I knew it from seeing the teacher move her fingers like this. She puts too fingers together. I didn't know (words), but seeing her hands move, I knew. KA: What did the teacher tell you to do? (She is referring to another segment of videotape.) K: She asked how it is called the thing which is like this horizontally and the thing which is shaped like this (showing shapes with hand movements). KA: What did the children answer? K: And we told her the things shaped like that. KA: The names of things? K: No, we told her what the shapes are. KA: What English words did you understand? Κ shakes her head negatively.

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KA: None? Κ laughs. Predictability in the structure of classroom interaction across language groups seems to provide an important scaffold for the negotiation of meaning between English speaking teachers and limited English speaking students, in large part because it constrains possible interpretation of speaker intent. We have found that even where intent is recognized, communication is not always successful, but that communication is never successful where it is not. 2.3 Scripts Pupils who have had prior school experience enter English-medium classrooms with a knowledge base for making inferences and predictions about the meaning of events that will occur there. We have called this complex of underlying expectations 'scripts for school' (see SavilleTroike and Kleifgen 1986 for a more extended discussion of this concept). These include such elements as the following: 1. The physical setting (architecture of the building, decorations, arrangements of desks in classrooms). 2. Roles and responsibilities (allowances for parent and peer involvement, assumptions about participation associated with gender and age). 3. Activity organization (whole-group vs. concurrent small groups and individualized use of materials). 4. Curriculum sequence and content (type and ordering of subject matter, topics for reading instruction). 5. Rules/expectations for behavior (appropriate noise level, movement, and student participation). Because script knowledge is implicit cultural knowledge, it cannot be so easily isolated for examination as can overt language forms and nonverbal code. Nor is it always possible to infer this knowledge from context, as we have been able to do for pragmatic intent. Rather, we conducted analysis at this level contrastively, first by interviewing pupils, parents, and teachers from other language backgrounds. We asked them what they thought to be different about American schooling. Secondly, we filmed children during their native language

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lessons taught by teachers of their own ethnicity and using curricular materials from their home countries. There were many commonalities in school experiences in different cultures, but also significant differences. Several major differences are summarized below. Children were generally quite positive about the different physical setting of school in the United States, including its bright pictures on the walls and its desks and tables scattered around the room instead of lined neatly in rows. Parents were not as positive, however, expressing concern that the bright pictures were a distraction from learning, and that the informal arrangement of furniture was 'unschoollike' and thus could lead to inappropriate pupil behaviors. Some children were uncomfortable with American teachers not having a defined place in the classroom, such as the raised platform where teachers in Korea and China stand to instruct, and with teachers' movement around the room and close proximity. There were common misunderstandings about the nature of teacher versus parent responsibilities, and about parent and peer involvement in teaching/learning. Many parents took responsibility for their children's learning at home, helping with homework that the teachers expected pupils to do independently, or creating homework tasks beyond the limit an American teacher felt appropriate for children. When pupils needed help in school, teachers often involved another child as a peer tutor, especially if that child were bilingual and could provide explanations in the native language; parents believed teachers who enlisted the help of children were neglecting their own responsibilities, and that children who tutored others were wasting their own learning time. Some conflict additionally occurred among children as they encountered different norms of social organization, as when relative status within a peer group or sibling pair (which had been accorded by a child's age) was no longer recognized, and when boys and girls who had not experienced co-education were expected to interact socially. Parents and pupils who were accustomed to classes that were taught as a single large group initially perceived the American pattern of individualized and small group instruction as 'chaotic' and 'without structure'. Many parents also felt that differential assignments according to pupil ability discriminated against slower learners, and they considered out-of-school learning experiences (such as field trips) a serious waste of school time. The most obvious differences in school curricula could be seen in

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the content of reading texts which were being used in the English and native language portions of the schedule. In English, children were typically reading adventure stories about humans or animals, while stories in other languages were about filial piety, moral values, and patriotism. The scripts for less formal reading were commonly shared across languages and cultures, at least among the well-educated families that our sample represents. All pupils recognized Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters, for instance, and folktales had analogues in several of the native languages. Misunderstandings occurred frequently when the curriculum content included events which were unique to the American context. For instance, all teachers in our sample had great difficulty trying to convey the meaning of Thanksgiving. Many of the pupils who had prior experience with a rather rigid system of discipline seemed to be overwhelmed at first by the hustle and bustle of an American classroom. Most soon adjusted to an appropriate level of noise and movement, but some did not recognize the actual rules that were in effect and erroneously interpreted the difference to mean 'anything goes'. Conflicting expectations for classroom behavior between pupils and teachers accounted for the most serious instances of miscommunication that we observed. Prior experience also led some pupils to be obedient and to remain respectfully silent until told what to do. While this was not considered 'misbehavior', to be sure, it proved to have less positive transfer to the American context than did prior experience which had encouraged pupil initiative and active classroom participation. Silence and passivity in class was misinterpreted as indicating a 'slow learner'; where we observed these behaviors, little tended to be expected of a pupil and little was achieved. For all of these elements, where we found commonalities in scripts between teachers and pupils, interpretation of meaning was possible with minimal understanding of linguistic forms. Conversely, where there were cultural differences in scripts for school, communication was impeded.

3. Conclusion To summarize, we have examined factors contributing to or interfering with the negotiation of meaning in classrooms. These factors appeared

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to operate on three hierarchically interrelated levels, with code operating at the bottom level of the hierarchy, discourse structures at the middle level, and scripts at the top level: Scripts Discourse Structures Codes In a predominantly top-down strategy for interpretation, participants were likely to appeal to higher components in order to resolve conflicting signals. Whenever expectations at higher levels were shared, verbal forms were often correctly decoded, even with very limited language proficiency. In turn, understanding of verbal forms often served as cues or scaffolding for interpreting intent, recognizing larger discourse structures organizing the communicative event, and drawing on the background knowledge necessary for understanding. Because of similarities in social class background, family educational level, and shared conventions of formal schooling, the teachers and pupils in this study were able to draw upon a large fund of congruent knowledge and assumptions regarding scripts, discourse structures, and intentions to communicate successfully with little or no comprehensible linguistic code in common. This picture contrasts instructively with the examples of unsuccessful communication documented in Pride (1985) between Aboriginal and White Australians, where large cultural as well as linguistic differences were involved. Thus, a relatively high level of positive transfer of non-linguistic elements enabled children to function in a new school setting while having but limited proficiency in the language of instruction. What is particularly striking, in fact, is that these children, in spite of their lack of English ability, were often able to function more successfully in the school setting than native English speaking students from a less affluent and less well educated social class background. The present findings reinforce the recognition that the Westernization of elites in various countries and the spread of formal schooling have created an international middle class culture and school culture which, despite national differences, shares more across national borders than with traditional and working class cultures within the same country (in-

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eluding the U.S.). We may conclude from all of this that a shared linguistic code is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful communication, while — at least within certain settings/situations — shared cultural knowledge is both necessary and often sufficient for communication to succeed. Obviously, the domain of formal schooling has certain constraints and characteristics which will not generalize directly to other settings, but we may at least expect certain paradigmatically parallel conditions to obtain elsewhere, and the framework for research and analysis used here should apply productively in other circumstances. It is our hope, indeed, that such research might be done, so that our categories might be tested, refined, expanded, or added to in the process of arriving at a truly general theory of communication. In the meantime, the formulation presented here should be regarded as in the nature of an empirical hypothesis, and subject to verification.

Notes 1. While we strongly subscribe to the anthropological perspective which views language as part of culture, it nevertheless proves useful at times to counterpose them, especially with respect to formal linguistic code, including the symbolic representation of cultural content in lexical form. 2. It would clearly be a mistake, as those who focus on sociocultural or linguistic norms often do, to assume all individuals are alike in their abilities or processing strategies. This would require further controlled research to verify, but see Fillmore, Kempler, and Wang (1979), Rumelhart and Ortony (1977), SavilleTroike (1984), and Spiro and Tirre (1980) for further discussion. 3. Several previous publications have examined other aspects of this research. These include: Kleifgen (1985, 1988, in press), Saville-Troike (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988); Saville-Troike and Kleifgen (1986); Saville-Troike, McClure, and Fritz (1984). 4. This may, however, have been intended by the child as a joke, and thus not really constitute an example of misunderstanding, but rather one of competence. This research has been supported in part by the Bureau of Educational Research and the Research Board of the University of Illinois. We are particularly grateful for the collaboration and assistance of Mary Fritz, Erica McClure, Charlotte Blomeyer, Jie Cao, Rey-Mei Chen, Ya-Mei Chen, Atteya El Noory, Soonai Ham, Ana Jenkins, Keiko Koda, In-Myung Lee, Ook Whan O, Hyun Hee Oh, James Stanlaw, and Khadija Zizi, and for the extensive cooperation of children, parents, and teachers.

English for academic purposes: A hidden curriculum in ways of speaking

j|(

Courtney B. Cazden Abstract In any classroom there is a hidden curriculum of ways of speaking — criteria by which the form of student talk (in addition to the correctness of the content) is evaluated by the teacher. Examples of this hidden curriculum may include standard syntax, appropriate timing, more decontextualized and explicit explanations, use of specific language for particular school subjects, and seemingly arbitrary definitions of relevance. Particularly in classrooms with students from multiple-speaking communities, it is important for teachers to reflect on their own criteria of evaluating ways of speaking, consider the intellectual or political justifications for them, and then discuss them explicitly with their students.

In a Humanities class in a London comprehensive secondary school, pairs of students often held peer conferences about their writing. In one such conference, between Kevin (whose family came from Montserrat in the West Indies) and Sunday (whose family came from Nigeria) we catch a glimpse of one students idea about the kind of language expected in school. At one point in his composition, Sunday had written, "What I mean is . . . " Kevin suggests two alternative phrases: What I'm trying to say is — And you could add What I'm trying to express in word terms . .. When Sunday says, "No," Kevin justifies his suggestions: Those big words could make you, right. You could look at O-level [a school-leaving exam] that way. In the end, Sunday accepts Kevin's first alternative, and changes What

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I mean to What I'm trying to say. (Transcriptions from Alex McLeod, personal communication, 11/86.) We may disagree with Kevin's particular suggestions, but he is right that there are special forms of language — oral and written — that teachers expect in school. These ways of speaking can be considered features of a student-talk register — not how students do talk, but how some teachers seem to want them to talk, at least for academic purposes in classroom lessons. The criteria of acceptability that regulate this speech register need to be learned as special ways of speaking in the classroom. To the extent that these criteria are implicit rather than openly acknowledged, and the special ways of speaking expected but not explicitly taught, they are part of the hidden curriculum of the entire school day. In some ways, the forms of teacher-student interaction that have become common in western-type education around the world are new, not only for language-minority children like Kevin and Sunday, but for all children. In the classroom, the group is larger than even the largest families gathered at meals, and so getting a turn to talk is much harder. When one does get a turn, acceptable topics for talk are more restricted and more predetermined by someone else. And the criteria by which teachers evaluate pupil talk (in addition to factual correctness) will be new for most students as well. In other ways, cultural differences will affect how easily they learn to conform to the new expectations. I was first alerted to a hidden curriculum of ways of speaking through my own university teaching. One fall, I gave my Child Language course to two different groups of students: two mornings a week to a class of graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and one evening (as a double-length class) at Harvard University Extension. The latter is a low-tuition adult education program whose older-than-college-age students are either working for a college degree through part-time evening study or taking single courses for personal or professional interest. My Extension class had a mixture of the two groups — degree candidates like the tuna fisherman from California who was working as a bartender while progressing slowly toward law school, and teachers in local day care centers and public schools. Each class knew of the other's existence, and students were encouraged to switch when convenient — as an evening makeup for the morning class, or the chance to experience "real Harvard" for the Extension students.

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One evening, I noticed two Black students from the graduate class in the Extension class. Instead of sitting in a far corner, they were near the front. Instead of remaining silent, they participated frequently in the evening's discussion. Finally, the man spoke publicly about his perceptions of the difference in the two classes. I paraphrase his unrecorded comments: In the morning class, people who raise their hand talk about some article that the rest of us have not read. That shuts us out. Here people talk from their personal experience. It's a more human environment. Reflecting on this incident later, I remembered a similar contrast reported to me two years earlier by a Tlingit (Native American) woman graduate student from Alaska. She described discussions in another course during her first semester at Harvard. Here the contrast was not only between ways of speaking, but how these ways were differentially acknowledged by the professor. Again I paraphrase: When someone, even an undergraduate, raises a question that is based on what some authority says, Prof. X says, "That's a great question!," expands on it, and incorporates it into her following comments. But when people like me talk from our personal experience, our ideas are not acknowledged. The professor may say, "Um-hm," and then proceed as if we hadn't even been heard. She was saying that, in an important sense, contributions to class discussion based on narratives of personal experience did not "get the floor." (The phrase is from Philips 1982.) Evidently there is a subtle and implicit, or hidden, curriculum in some classrooms to denigrate such narratives, and press for the substitution of other forms of explanation and justification. The classroom status of intra-conversational narratives of personal experience exemplify a teacher's dilemmas about multiple simultaneous goals. On the one hand, narratives can instantiate general ideas in a way that greatly aids their comprehension. Here is Hymes' example of narratives functioning cognitively in just this way: [A student] Joanne Bromberg-Ross had recorded consciousnessraising sessions of a women's group, and presented a portion to my seminar. One session in particular contained a marvelous demonstration of interdependence between two different modes of clarifying

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meaning. The topic was what was meant by "strength" in men and women. Discussion began with discussion of terms. An unresolved back and forth about terms was followed by a series of personal narratives. Suddenly definitional discussion returned, stated in a way that made it clear that there had been no break in metalinguistic focus. Narrative had solved the problem of differentiating two kinds of "strength" (one good, one bad), when direct definition had floundered. The second mode of language use continued the purpose of the first, coming successfully to its rescue (Cazden & Hymes, 1980:126). On the other hand, teachers often insist on more decontextualized expressions of meaning, as we shall see below. And, more pragmatically, there is the problem of limited classroom air-time: narratives simply take longer to tell. What follows are additional examples of ways of speaking expected in many English-speaking classrooms. They were recorded at different grade levels by different researchers. Most come from classes in the United States. I hope they will stimulate readers to listen to teachers and students, and reflect on implicit evaluation criteria, in other national and cultural contexts.

1. Standard syntax One criterion of appropriateness that many teachers feel responsible for enforcing is the use of Standard English syntax. The following example comes from a high school mathematics class in the Philippines in which English is the students' second language. What the teacher wants the student to say is that, "The sentences in group A [on the blackboard] are number sentences, while the sentences in Group Β are set sentences" : T: Ro: T: Ro: T: Ro : T: Ro :

Ro The group — the group A The sentences — The sentences — sentences— in group of group in in group A is a number sentence

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T: are Ro: are — number sentence — T: see Ro : sentences — while the — set Β — is set — set — T: (chuckles) who can say it again? (Four more children are called on to produce the answer, only one of whom does it without error.) (Campbell 1986: 169-170)). To this teacher, learning mathematics seems to mean learning not only to use mathematical terms in particular ways, but also to use them in syntactically correct English sentences. The trouble is that such attention to language form can interfere with students' learning of curriculum content. Corrections of nonstandard syntax are found not only in second language classrooms, but also in classrooms where students are native speakers of a nonstandard dialect of English. Formally or informally, many teachers take on the job of language standardization. In either situation, the standard version can be provided in the form of a correction that effectively stops the thematic action and focuses attention on form, as above; or it can be provided less intrusively, and with intonation that affirms rather than criticizes, as in the following example from a British classroom. The topic is the function of sea creatures' shells: T: S:

S: T:

What does protection mean? Any idea, Carl? Sir, to stop other things hurting it. Now if it came out of its shell, and waggled along the seabed, what would happen to it? Yes? It might get ate. It might get eaten by something else, yeah (Edwards 1980: 242).

The contrast in the teacher's utterances in these two examples parallels the contrast between the corrections and expansions with which middle-class American parents often respond to the utterances of very young children. Suppose that while looking at a book, a child comments, "He fall down." Say to yourself the following alternative responses: Correction: Expansion:

No, he fell down. Yes, he fell down.

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The correction shifts attention from meaning to form; the expansion maintains focus on meaning while supplying the preferred form, whether deliberately (as a teacher might) or as a serendipitous part of a confirming response (more typical of parents). But there is an additional influence in the classroom: the too-often overlooked existence of a dual audience for the students — teacher and peers. In an extensive review of two decades of sociolinguistic research, Bell (1984) sets forth "a unified theory of intraspeaker linguistic variation" based on "audience design." Of particular importance to the classroom is his analysis of the seemingly simple concept of audience. Many speech situations, including classrooms, include more than the speaker and a single addressee. Also present are 'auditors' — not addressed directly but officially present as listeners; and sometimes also 'overhearers' — neither addressed nor officially ratified as listeners. In the classroom, the students not being directly addressed are ever-present auditors, and they exert an influence on the teacher and student speakers. For the student speaker, the audience includes the teacher (usually the official addressee) and peers (as auditors in group lessons, or overhearers when supposedly doing their own individual work). Except when engaged in a truly private conversation, student speakers in the classroom always have this dual audience of teacher and peers, and have to cope somehow with the dilemma posed by their different expectations. One public acknowledgement of this dual audience is a brief autobiographical comment by Roger Shuy: There is a natural conflict between acceptability by teacher and acceptability by peers even within the classroom. Personally I can remember very clearly my school conflicts between peer pressure and teacher expectations. One strategy to avoid this conflict is to give the right answer to the teacher but to do so in either nonstandard or informal English (1981:170-171). Shuy calls these dual demands of teacher and peers 'vertical' and 'horizontal' acceptability, respectively. In oral lessons, a student example would be, "La Paz ain't the capital of Peru." And, when reading aloud, the good reader who wants to avoid being considered the teacher's pet may find ways to read the correct words but in an informal, peer group, style (Shuy, personal communication, 1985). Another example of this conflict in expectations is reported by

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Milroy while she was recording the speech of adolescents in northern Ireland. In an initial group interview, one boy shifted his speaking style to fit the formality of the interview situation, but he was laughed at by his peers. "On the next occasion, he shifted his speech style markedly in the direction of the [peer] vernacular. Obligations to the group were powerful enough to override the influence of the recording equipment and outside interviewer" (reported in Romaine 1984:183).

2. Timing In order to be heard as appropriate, a student has to speak not only the right words, but say them at the right time. Many observers of classroom discourse have commented on this feature of the communicative competence that teachers expect. One example comes from Lemke's study of high school science lessons. Janice correctly answers the teacher's question about a diagram on the blackboard before being called on, but her answer is not acknowledged until it is produced in its proper slot, after T's nomination: T:

Hydrogen would have one electron — somewhere in there — and helium would have? S: Two electrons. T: Two. This is 1 S, and the white would be? Mark? Mark: 2S. T: Two S. And the green would be? [Janice says 2P twice, and then is called on.] Τ: Janice? Janice: 2P. Τ: 2P. Yeah the green one would be 2Px and 2Py (Lemke 1986: 3-4). Lemke comments: [The teacher] is trying now to enforce the rule that students should wait to be called on before answering, even though he does not enforce this rule all the time. When Janice repeats her answer again, it is less loud and clear than before, and the teacher in fact doesn't bother to wait till she has finished but overlaps her speech with his

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own confirming repeat of '2P'. Both these features suggest that Janice and the teacher know that her last repeat was purely pro forma (i.e. a mere formality), since her earlier answer had been clearly heard by everyone. The teacher has sacrificed the efficient development of the science themes here to an enforcement of order in the interaction pattern, a particular order that gives him the power to control who will speak when (1986:19: see also Mehan 1979 for extensive discussion.) In addition to being an example of the importance of timing, the teacher's nomination of Janice after he must have heard her volunteered answer is also an example of what Lemke calls "structural recontextualization": The teacher's nomination publicly reinterprets Janice's answer as a bid, thus making it acceptable in his preferred terms.

3. Decontextualization and explicitness Language use in school is often characterized as decontextualized. It is not hard to find examples of teacher evaluations of student speech that fit such a characterization - and the related attribute of explicitness: The first example of decontextualization was observed by a Harvard graduate student, Gail Perry, in a preschool. In a discussion of "different places we see water in," Sharanda offered a specific lake — Lake Fairfax — instead of the more generic 'lakes'. And like the narratives of personal experience, her contribution never got the floor and remained unacknowledged in the teacher's summary: T: What are some different places we see water in? S: The ocean. T: The ocean, and what else? S: Swimmingpools. Τ : Swimming pools. S: Sea. S: Lakes T: Sea, lakes. Sharanda: Lake Fairfax. Nathan: Rivers. Sharanda: Lake Fairfax.

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[inaudible on tape] Right . . . Rivers, oceans, swimming pools. Where else do you find water? . . . (Unpublished term paper, 1985).

There is no developmental evidence that children have more trouble with common names (lake) than with proper names (Lake Fairfax). But Sharanda may not realize that the former, less contextualized, alternative sometimes has a privileged status in school. A second example comes from a metalinguistic discussion of word meanings in a kindergarten. When teachers request a definition, they may reject a contextualized answer (given by the first child, CI ) and press for the classic Aristotelian form conventional in dictionaries (given by C2). T: CI: T: C2 : T:

What is a lullaby? It helps you go to sleep at night. But what is it? It's a song. That's right (Edwards 1980:182).

Sometimes, student speech is evaluated not for the choice of individual words but for the explicitness of an entire proposition. The following examples come from a second grade reading group lesson. The text was a basal reader story about an early space flight that sent up monkeys and, whether by coincidence or careful plan, the lesson took place on a day when a manned space flight was actually being launched. Twice during the discussion of the story the teacher requests more explicit formulation of a student answer. (1) T: Ok Janine, what about this rocket ride? Is this the one that the astronauts are going to be taking today? Is it the same kind? (Janine shakes head "no.") How is it different? J : Monkeys are in it. T: Monkeys are in it. What will be in the rocket that's going up today? The space shuttle. J: Astronauts. T: There'll be astronauts instead of monkeys. Good. Ok. (45 sec. interlude during which 3 children working at their seats are reprimanded for talking and another child is helped in finding a book.) Ok, are we all looking at page 129?. Ss: Yes.

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Τ: And Janine has just told us that the difference between today's space shuttle and this rocket ride was what, Janine? (4 second pause) Who's going up today, and who went up in this story? J : Astronauts. T: Tell me about that. J : The astronauts went up today. T: And in this story — (said as if speaking for Janine, telling her how to continue) J : In this story the monkeys went up. T: Ok very good. Monkeys went up instead. (2) T: Ok, can you tell us about their coming back to earth? Tell us about that part. How do they do it? How do they get back? (3 second pause) They're way out there in space, travelling at a very high speed. Paul, how do they get back? P: They used their parachute. They went down into the water. T: Tell me more about that. You mean they put a parachute on the monkeys? P: They used the parachute on the, on the rocket and went, went down into the water. T: Very good (Michaels & Cazden 1986:144-134). Although the students demonstrate correct understanding of the story and its relationship to the events of the day through their elliptical answers, the teacher presses for more syntactically elaborated statements.

4. The language of science Some ways of speaking are specific to particular school subjects. Two examples come from science teaching. In one, students have not adopted the school way of speaking; in the other, they have learned it but perhaps too well. The inappropriate speech comes from a C (lower stream) biology class in a British comprehensive secondary school. In a footnote to an article on "Classroom knowledge," Keddie (1971) reports: There is probably also a problem for teachers in how C pupils actually phrase their comments or questions. When I reported

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to the humanities department on the research, I gave as [one example] of pupils asking questions from their own commonsense views of the world . . . from the key lesson in which pupils were shown slides of the foetus in the womb, when a C boy asked about the foetus: How does it go to the toilet then? This latter question, which seems to be an intelligent one, probably could not be asked more precisely without a concept of the body's 'functions.' When I gave [this example] . . . one teacher said the boy 'must have been joking'. At the least he implies that [this] question [is] not appropriate to the business of learning. Keddie suggests that one of the important differences between Aand C-stream students is their prior familiarity with, or willingness to adopt, the teacher's definition of the lesson situation and what counts as knowledge — and, I would add, ways of talking about it. Readers familiar with the work of British sociologist Basil Bernstein may read some of my examples as illustrations of his ideas. The C-stream student's speech can be seen as a violation of the boundary between the sacred (science) and the profane (bathroom). Teacher press for more decontextualized language use can be formulated in Bernstein's terms as a press for 'universalistic order of meaning.' And the hidden curriculum of ways of speaking is what he calls "invisible pedagogy." (See Atkinson 1986 for further discussion.) The example of appropriate scientific talk, at least according to one view of school science, comes from Lemke's (1986) study of high school science lessons. Here students as well as teachers have come to expect that science will be talked about in certain ways: A diagram is a 'representation' of an atom, not a 'picture,' and nothing is said about who first conceived this kind of picture or why. Evolution 'occurs,' but nothing is said about who first made sense of some bits of evidence in this way. In general, the all-important human agency has disappeared from view. Instead of scientists doing and deciding, there is only 'it is.' When the teacher reintroduces the human agency by means of stories, Lemke found that the students were particularly attentive. But he also found that both teachers and students indicated by their laughter, or joking tone of voice, that such stories were not part of the real business of the lesson.

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5. Relevance and conciseness Two criteria on which considerable variation is possible are relevance to the lesson topic as the teacher defines it, and conciseness in expression. As part of research on children's functional language competence at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Griffin and Shuy (1978) asked primary school teachers to rank their pupils on the effectiveness of their language use, without defining what 'effectiveness' meant. Then in oral interviews they gave the teachers statements such as "acts as leader," "acts on instructions," "gets point across," and asked them to name children who did those things all of the time, sometimes or hardly ever. Of all the statements offered to the teachers, ability to get points across was the most predictive of ranking as a highly effective language user, and several teachers specifically mentioned conciseness, in contrast to going on too long, as important in all classroom talk. In many adult-child conversations outside school — around the dinner table, driving in a car, while working in the kitchen — there is no such pressure to get to the point as quickly as possible. Where being concise is valued in the classroom, it is probably as much because of situational pressures on the teacher, as she worries about the attention of the rest of the group or thinks about all the other children who need a chance as well, as because she is trying to teach children a particular way of speaking. While there may be situational reasons for the press on children to speak relevantly and to the point, there are both developmental and cultural reasons why it may be difficult for children to meet such expectations. Most adults have had the experience of waiting for a chance to speak in a discussion only to find, when the chance finally arrives, that the topic has shifted and what we wanted to say may not be heard as relevant at all. But, unlike children, we have verbal remedies, ways of marking our contribution as 'out-of-place' but worth hearing anyway. To introduce a comment that is not related to immediately preceding talk, we can say, "By the way, . . . " or "Speaking of . . . " or, even more specifically, "I want to go back to what X was saying a few minutes ago." Children do not use such metalinguistic connectors — whether because of lack of awareness of the problem or unavailability of potential solutions, and so are more apt to be ruled out of order. Philips's research on discussions in one Native American community

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suggests cultural differences in assumptions about relevance. In General Council meetings on the Warm Springs Reservation, she noticed that responses were often widely separated, by as much as half an hour, without explicit tying. She comments: "It may be worth noting that with this approach to sequencing, conflict between persons can be muted and obscured" (Philips 1982:54.) Teachers will differ on the tightness of their control of lesson topic. In an analysis of high school lessons in England and Australia, McHoul (1978) found that teachers did not permit students the conversational practice of changing topics. They dealt with attempts to do so by what Mehan (1979) calls 'bounding o f f : treating such a student attempt as a side-sequence to the main events of the talk. We have to be sympathetic to pressures on teachers to get through their lesson plans and cover the curriculum. But it is also important to remember the arbitrariness of any definition of relevance, and consider the legitimacy of different practices and expectations.

6. General comments These examples of an expected student-talk register do not form a homogeneous set. The feature of timing is part of the sequential (syntagmatic) structure of discourse - when an utterance is supposed to be spoken. The others are part of the selectional (paradigmatic) structure — forms of 'English for academic purposes.' The early work of Barnes and his colleagues in England focused on "the language of secondary school teaching." Barnes categorizes the vocabulary of this language of instruction in several ways: subjectspecific or more general; explicitly explained or not; and whether it has a conceptual function in making important referential distinctions or simply a socio-cultural function in identifying the speaker in a certain role. As Barnes points out, it is difficult to distinguish between the conceptual and socio-cultural functions, because the distinction may not be made in the same way by speaker and hearers: From the point of view of the teacher, everything he says has for him a more or less important socio-cultural function in supporting his roles as teacher and as teacher-of-mathematics; yet everything he says could also (in theory) be placed on a scale for its conceptual

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function, according to how far it is also being used to organize the subject matter of the lesson. But this is only for the teacher; for the pupil it must be different. Each new item must first appear to have a socio-cultural function - that is, to be 'the sort of thing my physics teacher says' — and then, in so far as the pupil is able to use the item in talking, thinking or writing, it will take upon itself a conceptual function (Barnes et al 1969:59). In a comparison of working class and middle class speech styles, Labov (1972) makes a related distinction between 'pretension and precision.' And in an unusual ethnographic guide to academic writing in the university, Becker argues that "classy locutions" (like Kevin was suggesting to Sunday in the London Humanities class) function only "ceremonially, not semantically" (1986:31). None of these researchers claim there is no value to specialized ways of speaking. They only ask, as do I, that we distinguish between forms that have such value and forms that don't, and be prepared not only to make expectations explicit, but also to explain the intellectual, situational, or more broadly political justifications for them. Unless we do this, we will further disadvantage students from non-dominant speech communities — working-class students, those from linguistic and cultural minorities, and any who are learning varieties of English as a second language.

Note * Adapted from Cazden (1987), Chapter 10. Previous versions were presented at the Regional English Language Center in Singapore, April 1986; and published in English Education 1987. Copyright 1987 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

Invisible culture in the classroom: Minority pupils and the principle of adaptation1

Ian G. Malcolm Abstract This paper is concerned with the communicative behaviour of children from minority groups in classrooms. There is a growing body of data from various parts of the world indicating that such diverse groups as Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Hawaiians in the United States, Maoris in New Zealand, West Indians in Britain, various minority groups in South-East Asia, and Aborigines in Australia employ similar strategies of communication avoidance and modification in classrooms. Illustrations from Australian Aboriginal classrooms are used to exemplify such behaviours, and also to show that in some classrooms they do not occur. It is argued that the most powerful determinants of minority children's classroom interactional behaviours may not lie within their cultural background, but rather within features of the structure of the communicative situation in the majority classroom. The principle of creative adaptation of classroom interaction patterns based on a receptive attitude on the part of the teacher is offered as a means of effecting change.

1. Introduction Most nations are multicultural and multilingual, yet most educational systems are essentially monocultural and monolingual. Diversity in classrooms is not, of course, necessarily problematic, and there is no doubt as to the capacity of children to make rapid adaptations across vastly different cultural and linguistic systems. However, sometimes cultural differences are associated (either in fact or in perceptions) with domination, so that the cross-cultural classroom becomes a place where ethnic diversity is pervaded by diversity of access and opportunity (Wolfson and Manes 1985 :vii).

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It is in this situation that educational inequality and communicative breakdown commonly occur. Typically, the teachers are associated with the culturally dominant group, while some or all of the pupils come from dominated or minority groups, though, as Haugen has reminded us, these may not be in the minority at all, but may simply be groups lacking in autonomy and power ( 1985:6). Cross-cultural classrooms, then, in the sense in which I shall be considering them in this paper, are classrooms that include pupils from at least one minority group which (whatever its numerical strength) has, or is perceived to have, inferior access to power within the society, compared to that enjoyed by the education-providers. Such classrooms are likely to be characterized by differences of language, rules of speech use, and underlying semantics, all of which may be invested with symbolic significance. Because they adhere to mainstream norms, the teacher and the system may appear to be culturally unmarked, yet the culture they assume is no less real than that of the minority group, even if it seems "invisible" (Philips 1982). The cross-cultural classroom has been fairly intensively researched, especially in the United States, where there has been a constant demand for data on the educational consequences of forced school desegregation. An examination of research reported on major data banks shows that the most frequently-researched topics have been the organization of integrated versus segregated classrooms (with findings favouring integration); the patterns of inter-pupil friendship and interaction in integrated classrooms (with cross-ethnic communications being much more common than cross-gender communications, and more commonly initiated, at least in the United States, by Black than by White students); teacher attitudes; and evaluations of many educational programmes that have been introduced to improve race relations. Interestingly, the presence or absence of communication between culturally different students has been researched much more than the nature of that communication, and the attitudes of teachers and thenpupils have been researched more than the details of what and how they communicate.2 Research on cross-cultural classrooms has thrown up a number of concepts that have been of heuristic value for the study of communication problems and that have also formed the basis of strategies for overcoming some of these problems. A fundamental concept is that of participation structure or task structure (Philips 1972, Nickerson and Prawat 1981). The patterns of organization of a communicating

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group determine the options open to the participants, and it is apparent that different groups are culturally predisposed to certain kinds of organization rather than others. A repeated finding is that whole-of-class communication is inhibiting to many members of minority groups, and that small groups provide them with greatly enhanced communicative and learning possibilities. This has been reported for Chicano and Indian learners in the United States, for Maoris in New Zealand, for Aboriginal children in Australia, and for South East Asian students (Arfah 1981, Graves 1974, Malcolm 1979, Nickerson and Prawat 1981, Philips 1972, Ramiah 1981). Another useful concept is that of balance of rights (Au and Moson 1981, 1983). This refers to the control over the participation structures to be used. It has been argued that, in the cross-cultural classroom, the teacher should not be the only one to determine the participation structures to be used, but should balance the right to make such determinations with the students (Au and Mason 1981:143). Where imbalance exists, the students may well work to redress it if the teacher does not. An associated notion is that of cultural congruence. By this is meant the deliberate effort on the part of the teacher to modify interaction patterns in the classroom so that they will come closer to those that obtain in the culture from which the learners come. Much classroom time may be wasted in attempting to impose patterns of communicative behaviour rather than in working on the content of learning. Using culturally congruent participation structures may release time for learning and improve performance (Au and Mason 1983, 1981: 148). Study of classroom discourse reveals the existence of recurring patterns, or routines (Malcolm 1979). Minority children's discourse patterns may be different from those of the teacher. And they may also vary vastly depending on the routine employed by the teacher. Several principles have been proposed to explain cases where the minority children's routines — the participation structures and patterns of organization of discourse — deviate from those of the majority culture. The three main principles proposed are: deficiency, difference or adaptation. We shall argue in this paper that the principle that is likely to throw the most light into the cross-cultural classroom is that of adaptation. Our argument will be supported by a detailed presentation of discourse patterns in several Australian settings and by a comparative examination of such patterns in minority groups in other areas, primarily within the English-speaking world.

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2. Communication in the Australian classroom. Aboriginal students and their teachers My own involvement in the study of classroom communication comes from my attempts to understand the nature and causes of communication failure between Aboriginal pupils in Australian primary schools and their teachers. In Western Australia, where my studies were carried out, Aboriginal people form about two percent of the population, and they are found in varying concentrations in all parts of the state. Their teachers are usually white, inexperienced and unfamiliar with Aboriginal cultural and linguistic patterns. There is a long history of communication problems between teachers and Aboriginal pupils. (See Malcolm 1979, chapter 1). But there is also little clear documentation of what actually goes wrong. I travelled widely throughout the state interviewing teachers and members of Aboriginal communities. The problems, they told me, were not so much with language (though many Aboriginal children spoke a nonstandard variety of English) as with overall communicative behaviours. It was reported that Aboriginal children in the classroom were shy, reluctant to initiate communication with the teacher, very hesitant in answering, embarrassed at being singled out either for praise or reproof, and prone to excessive peer communication and to calling out when not nominated. I was told they had poor concentration, and were incapable of keeping still or remaining in their seats for any length of time. (See Malcolm 1979, chapter 8). Recording and observing lessons in over 100 classrooms, I proceeded to analyse them into speech acts and routines. I found it necessary to identify a range of speech acts that constituted the realization in discourse of the kinds of communicative problems that had been identified, and of the teachers' ways of responding to them. I would like to illustrate some of these from actual transcripts before examining how they related to other studies. The sequence which follows in Transcript 1 below was recorded in a Special Aboriginal School on the edge of the Western Desert. The class consisted of 20 Aboriginal children, a majority of whom dwelt in camps and were familiar with the traditional, semi-nomadic lifestyle. In their homes, Aboriginal languages, predominantly Pitjantjatjara and Mantjiltjarra, were in constant use. They were in their first year in a school in which 93 percent of the pupils were Aboriginal but the teachers were all white. The teacher of this class too was in her

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first year and had had no previous contact with Aboriginal people. After reading the children a story about a girl with an injured pet, she sought to get the children to extend the story, but they did not respond. So she decided to change tactics and get them to give a name to the story. The following conventions are followed in the transcripts, (a) The numbers on the left hand side refer to successive speech acts, (b) Where the identities of participants are known they are named, though not necessarily with their actual names. Where they are not known, they are referred to by X, Y, Z, etc. (c) Non-verbal information, where relevant, is indicated in parenthesis, (d) Categorizations in the righthand column represent speech acts according to the system detailed in Malcolm (1979). (e) Simultaneous utterances are represented thus: Mrs. W. Bertie

Dangerous, are they? )s They not in Australia. )

TRANSCRIPT 1 1.

MissK.

2.

let's think of a name for the story we've already g o t . . . What do you think we could call the story that we've got here?

3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

All right then, if you don't want to do that,

X Miss K.

"Lisa." Lisa.. Well we could call it "Lisa", but a . . . oh, I think we could call it something else. What abo . . . what about you, Shane, what could we call the story? Don't forget it's got a kitten in it, an' it's got a little girl in it, an' it's got Mum an' Dad an' all the little butterflies n' t h a t . . .

TD 13 Marking Boundary TD1 Directing

TE2 Check Eliciting CRI Replying TA5 Relaying TA6 Modified Relaying Τ A3 Qualified Accepting TN6 Nominating TE2 Check Eliciting

TN4 Prompting

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11.

Shane

(no reply )

12.

Miss K.

What d'you think we could call the story,

13. 14.

Pamela

15.

MissK.

16.

Pamela? (Michael is playing with books) (no reply) Put those books away (he doesn't) Michael... (he still doesn't) (non-verbal bid)

17.

Tracy

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

MissK. Tracy Miss K. Darren

Yes, Tracy (inaudible request) No! Michael, put it away!

23. 24.

MissK.

Darren, what do you think we could call the story?

25.

Darren

(no reply)

26. 27.

MissK.

Kado, what d'you think we could call the story?

28.

Kado

(3 seconds silence, then indistinct answer)

29. 30. 31. 32.

Miss K. Kado MissK.

Pardon? Call it "Butterflies". Butterflies. Is it about butterflies?

33. 34.

Y MissK.

No. What's it about?

35.

(3 seconds silence) Denise!

CR5 Declined Replying TE2 Check Eliciting TN6 Nominating CR5 Declined Replying TD1 Directing TN6 Nominating CB2 Unsolicited bidding TN6 Nominating CEI Eliciting TRI Replying CN1 Nominating CD4 Relayed Directing TN6 Nominating TE2 Check Eliciting CR5 Declined Replying TN6 Nominating TE2 Check Eliciting CR3 Deferred Replying TE 11 Looping CRI Replying TA5 Relaying TE2 Check Eliciting CRI Replying TE2 Check Eliciting TD 10 Retrieving audience attention

Invisible culture in the classroom 36.

Sit up straight, everyone. Come on . . . you're all falling

37.

all over the floor . . . Quick!

38.

Cross your legs . . .

39. 40.

Class MissK.

(children do so) Fold your arms.

41. 42. 43. 44.

Class Roderick MissK.

(children do so) I can leave the room? Now Roderick I don't want to hear any more from you . . . except about the story. Now, what d'you think we could call it,

45.

46. 47.

Rebecca

Rebecca? (2 seconds silence)

48.

MissK.

Who was it about,

49. 50.

Rebecca

Rebecca? (3 seconds silence)

51. 52.

MissK.

53.

Oh, come on! You couldn't have listened very hard . . . Now who was it about,

54. 55.

Roberta? A what?

56.

Roberta

(2 seconds silence)

57. 58.

MissK. Tracy

Tracy? (3 seconds silence)

59.

MissK.

Who was in the story?

60.

There was a little girl and a . . . ?

123

TD3 Regulating audience posture TD7 Regulating Time TD3 Regulating audience posture CR13n Reacting TD3 Regulating audience posture CR13n Reacting CEI Eliciting TN6 Nominating TD9 Disallowing communication TE2 Check Eliciting TN6 Nominating CR5 Declined Replying TE7 Multiple Eliciting TN6 Nominating CR5 Declined Replying TN3 Coaxing TN5 Evaluating Participation TE2 Check Eliciting N6 Nominating TN9 Response Slotting CR5 Declined Replying TN6 Nominating CR5 Declined Replying TE2 Check Eliciting TN8 Response Slotting

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61.

Ζ

62.

Miss Κ.

What was the cat's name?

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

A Β Miss Κ.

68.

69. 70. 71.

Cat. And a cat.

Nerina Miss Κ.

Black. Blackie. Blackie. So what do you think we could call the story? Nerina? (reply inaudible on tape) Blackie. We could call it Blackie.

72.

What about Lisa and Blackie..

73.

or what a b o u t . . . we could call it something else. What happened to Blackie?

74.

What happened to Blackie?

75.

Sit down!

76. 77.

C Miss Κ.

78. 79. 80.

Sore leg. He got a sore leg, and we could call it "The Cat with the . . . "?

Several Miss Κ.

Sore leg. Sore leg.

CRI Replying TA6 Modified Relaying TE2 Check Eliciting CRI Replying CRI Replying TA5 Relaying TE5 Linked Eliciting TN6 Nominating CRI Replying TA5 Relaying TA6 Modified Relaying TE3 Suggestive Eliciting

TE3 Suggestive Eliciting TE2 Check Eliciting TD3 Regulating audience posture CRI Replying TA6 Modified Relaying TN9 Response Slotting CRI η Replying TA5 Relaying

This is hard going for both teacher and pupils. If we focus on what the children are doing, and how this affects the teacher's strategies, we find that the most noticeable feature of this extract is the passive resistance exercised by the pupils. They neither make bids to respond to the teacher's elicitations nor, when she seeks to overcome their reluctance by nominating individuals, do they make any response to nomination. This non-response, which is in itself a way of responding, can be seen in Acts 11, 14, 25, 47, 50, 56 and 58. I call it Declined Replying. A less extreme expression of reluctance is Deferred Replying,

Invisible culture in the classroom 125 which is seen in Act 28. Here the child does answer, but only after a pause long enough to make many teachers move on. It is noticeable, too, that the answer is too soft for the teacher to catch. This is another expression of reluctance to communicate. Another interesting behaviour on the part of the children is illustrated in Acts 21-22. Here we see an example of child-child communication in the interest of classroom order, yet contravening the "teacher control" basis on which the lesson is being managed. The offending child is implicitly reproved by being made the object of the teacher's next nomination (Act 23). The children's non-verbal behaviours are also worthy of note. Michael, as we have seen, is playing with books, away from where the children are supposed to be gathered, and he resists the teacher's efforts to bring him into the group (Acts 15-16). Tracy (Act 19) and Roderick (Art 42) try without success to get permission to leave the room (something the teacher interprets as an avoidance strategy), and the whole class, in the teacher's estimation, is "falling all over the floor" (Act 36). The behaviour of the pupils generates a range of actions by the teacher. Since the children do not bid to respond, the teacher engages in Nominating (Acts 8, 13, 18, 23, 26, 46, 49, 54, 57, 68); since they do not respond to her nominations, she engages in Prompting (Act 10) and Coaxing (Act 51), and she tries to make her intention easier for the children to guess at through Suggestive Eliciting (Acts 72, 73) and Response Slotting (Acts 55, 60, 78); since the responses she does receive are often inexplicit, she builds them into the ongoing discourse for the rest of the class (as well as checking her own reception of them) through Modified Relaying (Acts 6, 62, 71, 77); since the children are constantly moving around, she engages in acts of Posture Regulation to make her classroom orderly (Acts 36, 38, 40, 75). We have here an extreme case of ineffective classroom communication. But it is not an isolated one. Nor are the behaviours of the pupils all explicable on the basis of their camp background, or their youthfulness, or the inexperience of the teacher. The extract in Transcript 2 below was recorded in another part of the state in a class of Year 6/7 pupils, a majority of whom were white, and with a very experienced teacher. What is constant is the classroom setting, the presence of minority group members, and the discourse pattern in which the teacher controls the interaction, selecting pupils to interact with him in the hearing of the class. The same communication minimisation strategies on the part of the children prevail:

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TRANSCRIPT 2 1. Mr. C.

3. Nicky 4. Mr. C.

5. Nicky 6. 7. Mr. C. 8. Nicky 9. 10. Mr. C. 11. 12.

13. Nicky 14. Mr. C. 15. 16. Clifford 17. 18. Mr. C.

Nicky, if you were going to fly one of those helicopters, which one would you prefer to fly, (pause, 1 second) if you were the p i l o t . . . (silence, 4 seconds) Would you rather fly the great big one or the little one? (Whispering) Little one, sir Pardon? The little one, sir. The little one. What, what were the little ones doing that you'd like to do? I saw a job that they were doing that p'raps you would . . . you would be interested in there . . . (no reply) What about you, Clifford? which one would you like to fly? Big one, sir. The big one.

21. 22. Nicky

Now, you'd like to fly the big one, and Micky'd like to fly the little one. Why would you like to fly the little one, Nicky? (silence, 3 seconds)

23. Mr. C.

Any reason?

19. 20.

TN6 Nominating

TEI Eliciting CR3 Deferred Replying TE7 Multiple Eliciting CR2 Whispered Replying CN1 Nominating TE 11 Looping CRI Replying CN1 Nominating TA5 Relaying TE2 Check Eliciting

TN4 Prompting CR5 Declined Replying TN6 Nominating TEI Eliciting CRI Replying CN1 Nominating TA6 Modified Relaying T17 Summing Up TEI Eliciting TN6 Nominating CR5 Declined Replying TN4 Prompting

Invisible culture in the classroom 24. Nicky

(silence, 4 seconds)

25. Mr. C.

You be thinking of why you'd like to fly the big one, Clifford. All right then, what about the job, which one of those jobs would you like to do if you were flying one of those little helicopters... Which would you find the most fun?

26. 27.

28.

29. Nicky 30. 31. Mr. C.

Doin' the crops, sir. Doing the crop work.

32. Nicky 33. 34. Mr. C.

(whispering) 's Sir. Mhm.

35.

38. Clifford

That was a little one, it was a fairly fast one, too, wasn't it, coming right across the top of the crops. A h . . . and Clifford . . . Which of the jobs would you like to do if you were flying a big helicopter? The passengers?

39. Mr. C.

Flying the passengers . . .

40.

Would anyone like to've flown that big helicopter that w a s . . . bringing the beam down on top of the tower . . . Is there anyone here who would like to've done that job?

36. 37.

41.

42.

It was fairly scarey, wasn't it?

127

CR5 Declined Replying TD16 Foreshadowing TN6 Nominating

TEI Eliciting TE7 Multiple Eliciting CRI Replying CN1 Nominating TA6 Modified Relaying CRI Replying CN1 Nominating TAI Acknowledging

T13 Extending TN6 Nominating

TEI Eliciting CR8 Interrogative Replying TA6 Mofidied Relaying

TEI Eliciting

TE7 Multiple Eliciting T12 Commenting

128 43.

44.

45.

46.

Ian G. Malcolm Even the men who had to stand up underneath the helicopter girls -

and undo the ropes, they were so far up above t h e . . . water . . . that one little slip 'n they could've gone straight down, couldn't they? I don't think I would've liked that sort of job. I don't think you . . . would have to be a person who didn't mind heights . . . heights would never have to worry you, because . . . you'd be fairly scared-

T i l Informing (TD 10 Retrieving audience attention)

TR2 Unsolicited Replying

Til Informing

What I would like to draw attention to here is the continuity — a continuity of interactional patterns, despite the different participants, circumstances and subject-matter of the interaction. Unlike the children in the last extract, Nicky and Clifford are town-dwellers, familiar with white society and with years of primary schooling behind them. Yet, placed under the constraints of the same basic interaction pattern they respond to it the same way — with Deferred, Declined and Whispered Replying and utterances of from one to four words in length. Between Acts 1 and 33, Mr. C. expends 150 words and offers the floor to Nicky 8 times, with the end result of four utterances and a total of 13 words on Nicky's part. After this point, the lesson virtually becomes a monologue. Is Aboriginal classroom interaction always like this? I want to use one more extract, Transcript 3 below, to illustrate that it is not. This time we shall not only shift location but also change the participation structures. The school is in a prosperous farming area and has a 12 percent Aboriginal population. A part-time remedial teacher has been employed to work on a withdrawal basis with Aboriginal pupils who, as a whole, are unresponsive and achieving poorly in class. The teacher is in a disused storeroom with groups of four children at a time. The teacher has an educational agenda and she makes it explicit, yet, unlike the other teachers, she adopts the passive and receptive role with regard to the interaction. A totally different pattern emerges.

Invisible culture in the classroom 129 TRANSCRIPT 3 1. Mrs. W.

Okay

2.

this morning I want you to write a story about your pets.

3. 4. Wayne 5. Mrs. W. 6. Wayne 7. 8. Mrs. W. 9. Wayne 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Nicky Mrs. W. Nicky Mrs. W.

15. 16.

TD13 Marking Boundary

Well you could tell us about t h a t . . . (non-verbal bid) Yes, Wayne? Miss Walker can I do one o' those 'um little things? Which little things? That one like you said . . . ) )s I caught a snake too, ) Miss Walker. Mm? I caught a snake. You caught a snake. You can do one of those, Wayne, when you've finished ) the story. )s

) )

17. Nicky 18. Wayne

'Bout that long it was Yeah I'll do a story.

19. Mrs. W.

Was it?

20. Nicky

22. Wayne

Was a-one o'them- what they call it- little brown stripes stripes on. What sort was i t . . . you d i d n ' t . . . Piper snake.

23. Nicky

No,

24. 25. Wayne

tiger snake, I think. Tiger, yeah.

21. Mrs. W.

TD16 Foreshadowing TD1 Directing CB2 Unsolicited Bidding TN6 Nominating CN1 Nominating CEI Eliciting TEI Eliciting CRI Replying Cl 1 Informing CN1 Nominating TE 11 Looping CRI Replying TA6 Modified Relaying TRI Replying

TN6 Nominating CI1 Informing CAI Acknowledging TAI Acknowledging

C l l Informing TEI Eliciting CR6 Unsolicited Replying CA7 Contradicting CRI Replying CA5 Concurring

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26. Nicky

27. 28. 29. 30.

Mrs. W. Wayne Nicky Mrs. W.

Black'n, black 'n yellow.

) )S

Yeah. Dangerous! Dangerous, are they?

)

31. Bertie 32. 33." Nicky

They not in Australia. Tigers not in Australia Tiger snakes, they are!

34. Bertie 35.

They not in Australia, Miss Walker, are they?

36. Nicky

They are so!

37. Bertie

Are they?

38.

My, my uncle, 'e was walkin' along 'n 'e was at a stump 'n 'e ) looked . . . )s You never seen one yellow . . . ) Too many people talking at once, one at a time.

39. Nicky 40. Mrs. W.

) )s

)

C l l Informing TEI Eliciting CRI Replying CRI Replying TAI Acknowledging CI 2 Commenting CI2 Commenting CA7 Contradicting CEI Eliciting CN1 Nominating CR6 Unsolicited Replying CAI Acknowledging

Cl 1 Informing CI2 Commenting TNI Setting up

This interaction gives no evidence of reluctance of minority group members to communicate. There is no Deferred, Declined or Whispered Replying on the part of the children, and no Coaxing, Prompting or Response Slotting on the part o f the teacher. The children all talk more than the teacher but she is still fully engaged in what is going on. A range of new acts emerges in which an active communicative role falls to the child: Informing (Acts 10, 10, 26, 38), Commenting (Acts 31, 32, 39), Contradicting (Acts 23, 33) and Concurring (Act 25). Miss K. in the first extract wanted the children to talk about pets, so the topic of that interaction is constant with this. But this interaction bears little other resemblance to that. There we had a linguistic power struggle; here we have the kind o f real communication that makes up everyday life. Of course, like most everyday communication, it is characterised by unpredictability and overlap. The teacher is tolerant of this. In the sequence of 4 0 acts there is only one in which she attempts to impose structure on the discourse. The teacher does not regard herself as the only source of knowledge, and the children

Invisible culture in the classroom 131 are learning from one another. The minority group is having some say in its own learning.

3. Minority culture and classroom communicative patterns We have observed so far that there may be continuity of communicative patterns when the children are of different ages and degrees of school socialization, and that there may be discontinuities despite similarities in cultural background. The question arises: how significant is the culture of a particular minority group in determining the communication patterns of its members in classrooms? There are remarkable similarities between classroom behaviour patterns of minority groups in different settings. Research data are far from complete on any cultural group, but scattered documentation exists that enables us to make some observations about the behaviours of five main groups: Polynesian, including Hawaiian (Graves 1974), American Indian (Darnell 1985, Dumont 1972, Philips 1972), American Black (Gay and Abrahams 1972), Hispanic (Smith 1981) and South East Asian (Chamberlain and Llamzon 1982, Dumont 1972, Ramiah 1982, Salleh 1981, Tan 1976). In discussing the data, I shall take as my reference point some of the behaviours we have commented on with respect to Australian Aboriginal classrooms. What we might call the "shyness syndrome", that is, guarded and taciturn behaviours in the presence of teachers and/or members of the dominant culture, has been reported of Polynesians in New Zealand, various American Indian groups, including Warm Indians, Sioux and Cherokee, Hispanics in the United States, American Blacks, and South East Asians. In all of these groups, what I have called Declined Replying has been observed. In addition, what I have called Whispered Replying has been observed among the Cherokee and in South East Asia. Hispanic and South-East Asian students have been reported to be slow to respond to invitations to bid, and Deferred Replying occurs in American Indian and South-East Asian classrooms. At the same time, "calling out," or what I have called Unsolicited Replying in Aboriginal classrooms, has been reported as well in Polynesian and American Indian settings (Boggs 1972:301, Philips 1972:376). Like the children in Miss K.'s classroom, pupils in American Indian and American Black classrooms are prone to wander around the classroom. Another non-verbal behaviour, the avoidance of eye

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contact with the teacher, has been observed among American Indian, Black, and Hispanic pupils (Byers and Byers 1972, Smith 1981) as well as with Australian Aboriginal children (Malcolm 1979). Admittedly the data are incomplete, but the trends are interesting. There is certainly evidence of similarities in classroom communicative behaviours of minority groups in widely-scattered parts of the world. How are we to account for this fact? As we have mentioned, three main explanatory principles may be invoked with respect to deviation from communicative norms Oust as with respect to deviations from linguistic norms): deficiency, difference or adaptation. Most of the teacher explanations of Aboriginal speech patterns discussed above derived from a deficiency view of these behaviours. The Aboriginal pupils were viewed in terms of what they couldn't or wouldn't do. The teacher's expectations of classroom communicative patterns provided the norm, and if these expectations were not met, there was something seen to be wrong with the pupils who did not meet them. However, the deficiency explanation falls down on two counts. First, we have shown that it is only under certain circumstances that Aboriginal pupils opt out of communication. They can exhibit markedly different communicative behaviours when the terms for participation are changed. And secondly, there is evidence from a range of cultures that the classroom communicative norms are resisted at the same points by members of minority groups all around the world. This means either that all these groups are in some way deficient, or that the norms that teachers expect to prevail in classrooms are suspect. Another way of accounting for deviations from classroom communicative norms is on the basis of cultural difference. The classroom behaviour of the minority group members can be seen to be culturally determined. Thus, for example, in order to explain the peer-learning orientation that causes such groups as Polynesians, American Indians, and Australian Aborigines to resist the authority of the adult teacher, many of the authors mentioned above invoke the cultural feature of sibling caretaking. There is no doubt much validity in such an argument. Many of the groups whose classroom behaviours are similar also share typically non-Western traits such as group orientation, indirectness with respect to questioning and criticizing, active audience behaviours, and strong authoritarian associations with learning. (See

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Boggs 1972, Christie and Harris 1985, Darnell 1985, Gay and Abrahams 1972, Gibbs 1978, Graves 1974, Harris 1980, Malcolm 1982, Matluck 1978, Salleh 1981, Smith 1981). However, as a complete explanation of minority groups' deviations from classroom communicative norms, cultural differences are not sufficient. In a comparative study of Anglo, Negro and Hispanic student behaviours in a Year 3 classroom in the United States, Susan Smith set out to answer the question: to what extent do these students' behaviours fit the general patterns identified for their cultural groups? Here is her conclusion: While there is some variation, in general, the observations did not produce the kinds of incidents expected from the literature review. For example, the literature suggests that Black children who often have more responsibilities at home at an early age, have difficulties adapting or interacting in a class where they have little responsibility and must raise their hands before speaking or acting. Black children in the third-grade classroom observed, however, were the ones most frequently involved in interactions where they raised their hands and were called on (Smith 1981:41). Similarly, we have observed in the data from Aboriginal classrooms that the most powerful determinants of Aboriginal children's classroom interactional behaviours may not lie within their cultural background but rather within features of the structuring of the communicative situation. We are left with our third possible explanatory principle for the deviation of minority groups from the communicative norms of the classroom: adaptation. Following this principle we might postulate that, just as a normative linguistic system like English in a language acquisition situation is reduced by the learner to an interlanguage, the same may apply to a normative communicative system like formal classroom interaction. The new users of the system will not take it over completely straight away, but will adapt it to their purposes so that it achieves their immediate communicative goals. Whether or not the transition system becomes "fossilized" for a group of learners may well depend on social and psychological factors. Where serious communication problems persist for minority groups in classrooms, the reasons may well be affective rather than linguistic or cultural. Boggs noted in his observations of Hawaiian classrooms that "individually directed questions inhibit response in the child addressed,

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whereas expressions of receptivity by the adult encourage response" (1972:307). This could have been written as a commentary on the three extracts we have looked at from Aboriginal classrooms. A receptive attitude on the part of the teacher, one that values the need for meaningful input from the minority group members above the need for the maintennance of normative structures, will lead to creative adaptation of classroom interaction patterns at least in the short term. In the long term, such an attitude may enable more functional classroom interaction patterns to become normative.

4. The principle of adaptation The implications of accepting the adaptation principle with regard to classroom interaction across cultures could be far-reaching. To begin with, we should stop looking for single-basis explanations of minority children's classroom behaviour (just as we should avoid linguistic, cultural or any other kind of determinism) and should look more closely at what is going on inside classrooms. We are underestimating teachers when we consider them to be captives to the "invisible culture" of the classroom, and we are underestimating pupils when we consider them to be captives to their own cultural patterns which contradict it. Every multicultural classroom is a laboratory of cultural adaptation, and teachers and pupils alike are the investigators who experiment with means of changing what they find there. Of particular significance is, as we have seen, that there is so much in common in the classroom behaviours of minority group members in many different societies. The nature of the classroom discourse patterns that have become normative in many parts of the world, particularly in English-speaking areas, is such that the same pressure points reveal themselves in the system irrespective of whether the minority children in question are Aboriginal Australians, Black Americans, Maori New Zealanders, or American Indians. But just as the unconforming classroom behaviour patterns are common to many minority cultural groups, so too may be the ways of effecting change. A climate of receptiveness and the setting-up of participation structures and interactional routines that will embody this attitude of openness and receptivity will likely effect dramatic change.

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Changing classroom structures and routines can mean changing the quality of learning. There is evidence to suggest that classroom interaction factors may be significantly correlated with achievement, and that interactional approaches benefit learning, especially in culturally mixed classes (Au and Mason 1981, Ellis 1984, Rodgers 1985). If change is to be effected, where it is necessary, some practical steps need to be taken. Multicultural classes should be smaller than monocultural ones, and teachers of such classes should be trained or in-serviced to make them capable of adapting participation structures and communicative routines to facilitate the meaningful involvement of minority group members. We should not underestimate the amount of help that teachers need here. First, their awareness needs to be raised as to the inadequacy of prevailing deficiency notions of communicative deviation. Next, they need to be enabled to see the patterns of communication they are adopting and their consequences. Then dysfunctional strategies must be identified and overcome. All this must be done in the context of an appreciation of the right and the need of the learner to negotiate terms for interaction and to express his/her meanings.

Notes 1. In its original form, this paper was delivered to the Regional Seminar on "Patterns of Classroom Interaction in Southeast Asia" at the SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, Singapore, in April 1986. My participation in this seminar was funded by the Australian Development Assistance Bureau. 2. These observations derive from a survey of 256 articles on cross-cultural classroom communication revealed by a Dialog search. The most commonly-reported areas were, in descending order: 1. Segregation vs integration 10.24% 2. Inter-pupil friendships/interactions across races 10.24% 3. Teacher attitudes 8.78% 4. Education programmes to improve race relations 8.29% 5. Resources for multicultural education 6.34% 6. Procedures for cross-racial interaction 5.85% 7. Intervention techniques to modify negative racial attitudes 5.85% 8. Pupil attitudes about race difference in multiracial schools 3.4 % 9. Culturally-determined patterns of classroom interaction 2.92% 10. Proxemics and kinesics of multiracial classrooms and schools 2.92% 11. Analysis of systems/instruments 2.92% 12. Cooperation vs. competition 2.43%

ENGLISH ACROSS CULTURES

Section Two The impact of differences in socio-political realities on communication in English: Macro-societal constraints

Intercultural miscommunication as a source of friction in the workplace and in educational settings in South Africa*

Keith Chick Abstract Because, in South Africa, cultural differences have often been used as a rationale for segregation and discrimination, research on intercultural communication is often viewed with suspicion. Such a research interest is sometimes taken as evidence of an ideological bias in favour of segregation. Alternatively the researchers are seen as diverting attention from the need for structural change by suggesting that an improvement in intercultural communication is a substitute for change. As a response to this criticism, an account is given of how such research can contribute to the goal of moving towards an integrated society. Differences in language, in frames of reference, in listening behaviour, in turn-taking and in politeness behaviour are discussed as barriers to effective intercultural communication. The paper shows how friction and subsequent prejudice and stereotyping are generated in various interactional settings, and how such results feed into a negative cycle of socially created discrimination which underpins the apartheid society.

1. Introduction There is in South Africa an understandable suspicion of attaching cultural labels to the behaviours of people and, in particular, of the focusing on differences between people from different racial groups such as one inevitably finds in research on intercultural communication. Too often in the past the culture of indigenous people in that country has been labelled as primitive, and cultural and other differences used as a rationale for segregation and discrimination. Indeed, because of the advantages to the dominant group of such labelling,

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there have been attempts on the part of authorities to re-tribalize, i.e. to refuse to accept evidence of changing and merging of cultures, particularly in urban areas. Critics often assume, therefore, that the decision to involve oneself in such research is in itself evidence of ideological bias. The strong version of this criticism is that the researchers exaggerate both the extent of differences in culture-specific communication conventions and their contribution to miscommunication in order to provide a rationale for segregation. That is, if communication between people from different cultural groups is so problematic it is in the interests of all to reduce the need for it by keeping them apart. The weak version is that the effect of this type of research, if not its objective, is to shift the focus of attention from the urgent need for major structural change, by suggesting that improvement in intercultural communication is a substitute for the removal of discrimination in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of South African society, and thereby avoiding confrontation with the status quo. This is a criticism levelled not merely against studies of intercultural miscommunication in South Africa but, more generally, against the research of social scientists who, in attempting to explain social phenomena, focus on the microcosmic settings of everyday interactions. These researchers tend to see social reality as constantly being created by human beings through negotiation with others, rather than merely historically-given. Accordingly, they do not see social practices like racial discrimination as being explained by means of large-scale surveys and statistical measures that suggest causal relationships between social and linguistic variables. Rather they see the explanation as being achieved by means of fine-grained, qualitative analyses of sound and video recordings of a small number of interactions. The goal of this task is the identification of the interactional mechanisms contributing to the misinterpretation and misjudgement of motive and ability, which, in turn, lead to prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Karabel and Halsey (1977:58), for example, criticise the micro approach to the explanation of minority school failure. They observe that "teachers and children do not come together in an historical vacuum; the weight of precedent conditions the outcome of 'negotiation' over meaning at every turn. If empirical work is confined to observation of classroom interaction, it may miss the process by which

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political and economic power sets sharp bounds on what is 'negotiable'." Ogbu (1981:11) too, while acknowledging that "data and insights from microethnographic studies can be used as a basis for remedial efforts," argues that "they cannot lead to any significant social change that would eliminate the need for such remedial efforts in subsequent generations of minority-group children." In presenting the strong version of the criticism, namely that researchers, for ideological reasons, exaggerate the strength of culturespecific communication conventions and their contribution to miscommunication, the critics reveal themselves, however, to be somewhat parochial and myopic. For one thing, they lose sight or are unaware, of the fact that intercultural miscommunication, as this volume gives witness, is a phenomenon recognized as a problem and studied in many parts of the world. My own research in this area, and that of my colleagues and students, draws heavily on interactional sociolinguistic research carried out in urban areas of the U.K. and the U.S.A. (see, for example, Erickson and Schultz 1982 and Gumperz 1982), which attempts to account for the discimination experienced by minority ethnic groups in terms of differences between their frames of reference and communicative conventions and those of the dominant group. The survival of these culture-specific frame and conventions in "open" societies, where people from different ethnic groups have many opportunities to interact, gives us a rational basis for assuming that they are likely to exist even more in a society that is segregated to an extent which has no parallel elsewhere in the world. Furtheremore, while such research does focus on the differences in the communication conventions of different ethnic groups, no assumpation is made that the conventions of minority groups are deficits. Indeed the findings of this research suggest that intercultural miscommunication is usually mutually accomplished by all interlocutors, and cannot be ascribed to the incompetence of members of minority groups only. The critics also reveal themselves myopic in not seeing that recent political events in South Africa have made the debate about whether segregation or integration offers the best solution to South Africa's problems something of an anachronism. Increasingly the issue seems to be less whether integration is desirable and more how it can be accomplished as painlessly as possible. It is in responding to this question that I believe that interactional sociolinguistic research has a particular contribution to make. Before one can improve the quality of intercultural communication one needs to identify the barriers to

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effective communication. Partly as a further response to the strong version of the criticism, and partly as an indication of what such research can contribute towards the goal of moving to an integrated society in a relatively painless way, I outline in the first part of this paper some of the principal barriers to effective intercultural communication and discuss how these barriers contribute to misinterpretations of intent and misevaluation of attitudes and ability. I will illustrate from data collected in the workplace and in educational settings, but draw also, where this is helpful, from research findings from outside the country. In response to the weaker version of the criticism, namely that this research serves to divert attention from the need for major structural change, I argue in the second half of the paper that there is an intimate relationship between what takes place in millions of everyday intercultural encounters and the larger, historically-given, structural forces that have contributed to racism, which in turn has found expression in apartheid. In other words, I try to show that it is helpful to make use of and show the relationship between the findings of both large scale quantitative studies that identify factors at the macro level of social life (which constrain what takes place in the microcosmic settings of everyday interactions) and those of finegrained qualitative studies of these micro settings. Building on the account of the barriers and their effects given in the first part of the paper, I provide an explanation of how the negative consequences of intercultural miscommunication combine with these larger structural forces to achieve a negative cycle of socially created discrimination. This explanation suggests that communication is not, in comparison with the larger structural forces, a relatively trivial matter, and, furthermore that it does not make sense to see structural change or improvement in intercultural communication as alternative courses of action. I will argue that both feed into and reinforce one another, and that therefore both are required rather than one or the other.

2. Barriers to effective intercultural communication 2.1 Language differences Cultural differences often coincide with language (or dialectal) divisions, and lack of knowledge of the language, in the sense of knowing

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the denotative meaning of words and the rules for their permissible combination in sentences, is clearly a barrier to effective communication. Thus a person who says They were gulfing in lectures or Listening in they were lectures when she/he means: They were listening in lectures is likely to be misunderstood. Because of the inadequacies of education for blacks in South Africa, including the poor quality of the teaching of English, the medium of instruction in most black schools, and also because of the neglect of instruction in the indigenous languages in white schools, the lack of knowledge of language in this narrow sense is a very serious barrier that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. However, ironically, miscommunication from this source is often less problematic than from the other barriers that I will outline. This because this barrier is usually recognized by the people interacting for what it is (i.e. a language problem) and not mistaken for a deliberate attempt to mislead, confuse or convey negative attitude. 2.2 Different frames of reference What many people are unaware of is that communicative meaning is not just a projection of what words denote either in isolation or in combination. To illustrate this point, Widdowson (1984:203) uses the following example: The liquid passed down the pipe. He asks why it is that most of us would understand the pipe as referring to a length of tube, rather than a device for smoking tobacco or a musical wind instrument, which nothing in our knowledge of the grammar or vocabulary would rule out. The answer that he provides is that, in communicating, people make sense of one another's utterances by drawing on, and relating their knowledge of the language to, their knowledge of the world. In the case of the example he

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provides, the alternative possibilities do not come to mind because the association of pipe and liquid activates a familiar frame of reference or schema. (See, for example, Tannen 1979). These frames of reference or schemata are socio-cultural sets of expectations based on experiences with similar situations, and contribute to the successful negotiation of meaning in conversation by, for example, enabling people to work out what activity they are mutually engaged in (giving and listening to a technical report, chatting about the weather, telling a joke, negotiating an increase etc); to anticipate how the interaction is likely to unfold; to identify what parts of the message are particularly significant; and to read and listen between the lines, i.e. fill in information not made explicit. However, since these frames are the product of past experience and learning, people from different cultural backgrounds often use different ones in interpreting messages, with unfortunate results. A case in point is a telephone conversation I had recently with a Zulu friend. I said: So Mavis [his wife] was not personally affected by the disturbances in KwaMashu?, to which he replied: Yes, leaving me somewhat mystified as to whether or not she had escaped. Lanham (1965:199) comments on the same phenomenon and calls it an instance of mother tongue interference. It is clear from his explanation, however, that the source of the problem is not differences in the languages but in the frames of reference that Bantu language speakers of English and South African English speakers call on to fill in information left implicit in a "yes" or "no" response. In terms of the frame of reference which the Bantu language speaker calls on, a negatively stated question such as mine queries the accuracy of the statement (Yes, what you say is true), whereas in terms of the frame of reference called on by the South African English (henceforth S.A.E.) speaker, it queries whether the state of affairs referred to in the question accurately reflects reality (No, Mavis was not personally affected by the disturbances in KwaMashu).

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In our teaching and research we have found a number of examples of mismatches of culture-specific frames of reference contributing to miscommunication. For example, in a post-examination meeting an S.A.E.-speaking academic and a Zulu/English-speaking student talk past one another for about ten minutes and fail to make any progress with either of their goals, because the academic is guided by a frame of reference in which the academic and the student jointly review the student's examination preparation retrospectively, analytically and evaluatively, while the student is guided by a frame in which the academic itemizes the strengths and weaknessess in the candidates' performance. The mismatch in frames of reference is evident in the following extract from the transcription of this interview: 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

Academic: alright. . . now well let me give this information er your question 1 was a very bad answer in our terms whereas your question 2 Student: yah Academic: was a pass you passed question 5 Student: yah Academic: you passed question 2 but you failed question 1 rather badly Student: oh I I see the reason now with question 1 I think I said something about performance . . . although (Student continues to speak unclear) Academic: do you yah you know you spoke a b o u t . . . sorry can I cut in there

For almost the first time in the interview the student becomes more voluble in lines 73 and 74. Prior to this, most of the student's contributions are monosyllabic. This suggests that the student, here, sees the academic as, for the first time, conforming to his (the student's) expectations of the activity, namely, to provide his view of the strengths and weaknesses of particular answers. The academic, however, instead of building on this contribution, breaks into it (line 75), thus preventing the student from developing his theme or topic further. It is also significant that, although the academic shows that he is aware that his breaking in may be perceived of as rude, by using the politeness strategy of apologizing, and then asking permission (lines 75 and 76),

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he does so only after the student struggles to hold the floor. This suggests that the academic does not, at first, see his attempt to break in as rude. Possibly because the student's contribution is irrelevant to the theme that the academic believes the student has implicitly agreed to develop, namely the evaluation of the student's examination preparation, the academic does not see his breaking in as a denial of the student's right to a fair share of the floor, particulary as the pause that follows "performance" is long enough, in terms of S.A.E. norms (though not Zulu-English norms), to suggest that the student has possibly completed his turn. Significantly, the experience probably contributes to the perception of the academic by the student as an unsympathetic, possibly aggressive, person (when asked to suggest what the student probably thought of the academic at the end of the interview one Zulu informant said: "Son of a bitch!"). It also contributes to the academic's perception of the student as incompetent. Widdowson (1983:55) suggests that there are two kinds of frames of reference operating in interaction. The first kind refers to knowledge of the world. Widdowson calls these ideational schemata. In the case of the exchange discussed above, relevant frames of this kind would include the academic content of the examination questions. The other kind refers to knowledge of a range of socio-culturally conventional communication routines (chatting about the weather; negotiating a raise; explaining a causal relationship). Widdowson calls these interpersonal schemata, while Gumperz (1982:131), to stress that it is "not a static structure but a dynamic process which develops and changes as the participants interact" calls them speech activity types. Given the fact that both kinds of frames are the product of past experience and learning, it is not surprising to find that differences in the frames of reference of white academics and black students in what, because of the apartheid policy, have been predominantly white institutions, are a rich source of miscommunication. In the case of frames of reference that reflect knowledge of the world (rather than routines) our experience is that our black students have fewer problems with the new-subject knowledge and more with the socio-cultural knowledge in which lecturers and tutors, in an attempt to make it accessible to their students, embed the new knowledge. (This, interestingly, is consistent with the experience of Hutchinson & Waters (1981) with overseas students in the U.K.). New knowledge may be almost as unfamiliar to white students as to

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black. However, black students are likely to be even more at a disadvantage when the lecturer or tutor, in an attempt to make the new information comprehensible, draws on what s/he considers general background. Thus, for example, a lecturer trying to explain the innate capacity for language learning might refer to human beings as programmed to learn the language and leave most of his/her black students mystified. As with the first kind of frame of reference, there are a great number of communication routines peculiar to the academic sub-culture that all students, irrespective of race, have to learn in order to succeed at university. However, white students in South Africa will inevitably be at an advantage over their black peers in this respect. This is because whereas most of the former will have been taught in relatively small groups (25-35) by degreed teachers, who to some extent, have made the university sub-culture their own, most of the latter will have been taught in large classes (30-80) and chiefly by non-degreed teachers. The extract from a post-examination interview discussed above is a clear case of miscommunication stemming from a a mismatch of communication routines. Turning from an educational setting to the workplace, we have evidence of mismatch of culture-specific frames of reference as a source of friction between Afrikaans-English (henceforth A.E.) and S.A.E. speakers. This is apparent in the following extract from an interview between a S.A.E. speaker who is seeking investment advice and an A.E.-speaking banker: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Academic: Is that not safe Banker: No it is safe but a I think you have more flexibility if you stay with the more (unclear) . . . Academic: I mean are you not a a is your bank into the share the share market at all I mean are you not advising me to to avoid that because that's no business for your bank Banker (smiling): No certainly I'd like to keep your business with myself Academic: ya Banker: so I must

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bring you back into a fixed interest investment with ourselves Academic: I see . . . but I (quickening up) mean are you thinking principally of your interest or my interest in this (unclear) . . . Banker (smiling) : No obviously the client's interest is paramount so I must give you the best package which I believe is a

In the part of the interview preceding this extract, the banker advises a fixed interest investment with the bank. The client queries the wisdom of this advice on the grounds that tax may be punitive, and asks whether investment in the stock market through unit trusts would not be preferable, but the banker responds with the observation that, as a layman, the client would be out of his depth. What the client seems to be saying lines 5-9 and 17-19 is that the banker has not conformed to his (the client's) expectation that the banker (even if only hypocritically) follow a routine of putting the client's interests before those of the bank, and present alternative courses of action (including possibly investing outside the bank). Though, in both cases, with typical indirectness, the client uses the interrogative form, thus leaving his hearer the face-saving option of interpreting the utterance as a question, rather than as an accusation, most S.A.E. informants felt that it is the latter illocutionary force that is intended. It is, therefore, interesting to note the banker's response. The options to someone accused are to admit guilt or deny it and, at face value, he seems to admit guilt (lines 10-11) and then deny it (lines 20-13). Significantly, though, in both cases, he does so while smiling, which means that he is either showing callous disregard of the face threat involved in accusations, denials and inconsistency of responses to repeated accusation, or he feels that less potential loss of face is involved than most S.A.E. informants, including the client, felt there is. This is supported by his written observations about the interview when asked to reflect on his behaviour and that of the client: "I allowed the client to feel comfortable and that he was in charge of the conversation i.e. to freely challenge me", and "the client did not become agitated when I disagreed with his views and ultimately accepted my views." The second observation, significantly, is at odds

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with the client's observation that he was completely unconvinced by the banker's argument, and that he was offended by what he perceived as an attempt to force him into an investment which was in the bank's interest rather than his own. Such encounters, I suggest, carry the seeds of negative cultural stereotypes. Similar misunderstandings in the workplace involving Asian and British job interviewers in the U.K. are reported by Gumperz et al. (1979). They produce evidence to suggest that these immigrants do not have access to the frame of reference that the interviewers draw heavily on. This frame incorporates the assumption that the work seeker needs to display a commitment to the particular post and to the firm offering it. Job applicants who do not have access to this frame fail to respond appropriately to questions such as "What attracts you to this particular job?" and "Why do you wish to join this particular firm?", and are therefore perceived as showing insufficient interest in the job. We have anecdotal evidence that S.A.E-speaking job interviewers are similarly reliant on this frame, and that most black work-seekers do not have access to it. (Evidence supplied by H. Griessel based on her observation of simulated job interviews conducted as part of a work orientation programme for black work seekers, which she developed for the Career Information Centre, Durban). The frame is grounded in the experience of having a wide range of posts to choose from, and being able to assess how one's talents match up to the requirements of and opportunities presented by the post, and to further career advancement available in the firm. Such is usually not part of the experience of many Asian immigrants to Britain or of most blacks in South Africa, for whom the major problem is to secure any job rather than to choose between jobs. The inability to access this frame of reference may also explain the perceptions by white employers and supervisors in the Durban area that black newcomers to industry have unrealistic expectations of the workplace (Griessel & Schlemmer 1985:12) and "are unwilling to start at the bottom, and (that) they frequently behave as if they have arrived." This behaviour is understandable in people whose primary motivation is to secure any job, and who are unable to draw on the experience of following a strategy of careful career development. This account of the source of culture-specific frames of reference reveals that these frames should not be seen as static mental sets. Changes in the life experience of members of cultural groups are usually accompanied by the modification of existing frames of

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reference and the generation of new ones. Moreover, every intercultural encounter has in it the potential for a convergence of culture-specific frames. Indeed, according to Widdowson (1983:40), all communication involves some alignment and adjustment of the participants' frames so that they are brought sufficiently into correspondence so as to feel they have reached an understanding. Nevertheless, because people, especially in South Africa, usually communicate more frequently intraculturally than interculturally, and because intercultural communication is so often unsuccessful, frames that had their origins in the life experience of the groups, sometimes many generations in the past, survive, albeit in modified form. For the same reasons, where modifications of existing frames and generation of new frames takes place, these often diverge further from the frames of other groups rather than converge with them. To sum up, culture in the sense in which I use it in this paper is both historically-given and constantly in the process of being created. People's world views are shaped by their contemporaneous life experiences, and, in interacting, they confirm conventions by conforming to them, and establish new ones by finding new ways of thinking and doing things together. 2.3 Differences in listening behaviour Erickson and Schultz (1982) explain that the presence or absence of listener responses such as "u huh", "yes" and head nods and their timing are mechanisms for regulating speakers' speech. Speakers infer from these responses whether a listener is attending and understanding what he hears. As speakers and listeners do not maintain gaze all the time, what is as crucial as the absence or presence of such behavior is its timing. A speaker's looking up at listening-relevant moments needs to coincide with a listener's response for the latter to have any effect on the course of the interaction. When listeners provide correctly-timed appropriate responses, speakers tend to move on to the next point, but when they provide the "wrong" response and/or provide it at the wrong time, the speakers usually attempt repair by reiterating the same point, often more simply or clearly, or by making some sort of metacomment: "You're not with me" or "Do you get my point?" This rhythmically coordinated speaking-listening behaviour is but one instance of a pervasive phenomenon in interaction referred to in the literature as conversational synchrony. Video recordings have

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shown that the spatial positionings, postures, gestures, facial expressions and verbal behaviour of conversationalists are, more often than not, synchronized in complementary and reciprocal ways (see Erickson and Schultz 1982:72). Thus they may cross their arms or lean forward or rise at the end of a conversation within a split second of one another, or a point of emphasis in a speaker's utterance may coincide with a feedback signal from the hearer. This rhythmic synchrony contributes to successful communication by making the participants feel they are in rapport, and allowing them to coordinate their behavior in developing a theme and negotiating meaning. Erickson and Schultz, amongst others, have been able to show that where there is a mismatch of culture-specific communication conventions this rhythm is difficult to establish and maintain. What is then experienced is conversational asynchrony, a kind of "interactional stumbling" in which participants look, sound and feel clumsy and often miss one another's signals because they occur at unexpected moments. Erickson found that because of difference in ways of listening between white counsellors and black students in two junior colleges in the U.S.A., the counsellors frequently incorrectly inferred that the students were not listening or did not understand. The subsequent reiterating of the points was perceived by the students as insulting "talking down". Thus in the context of these mutually stressful, asynchronous encounters, both parties ended up misevaluating one another's abilities and attitudes. In a pilot study involving the analysis of a Biology lecture given by an S.A.E-speaking academic to a heterogeneous group of Zulu, Tswana, Xhosa and Sotho students for whom English was a second language (henceforth L2 students) and a group of Asiatic and Coloured students for whom English was a first language (henceforth LI students), Senekal (n.d.) identified differences between the listening (including note-taking) behaviour of the LI and L2 students and, in particular, between the expectations of the lecturer and the listening behaviour of the L2 students, as sources of the asynchrony evident in it. Of particular interest in this study is that the repair strategies adopted by the lecturer (a high frequency of short pauses) and by the L2 students (instead of providing feedback cues that they are both attending and following the argument, providing "cues" that they are attending only) had the effect of making things worse rather than better.

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2.4 Different ways of regulating turn-taking Another source of asynchrony in interactions is different ways of regulating turn-taking in conversation. While people, universally, seem to hold themselves and other participants accountable in some way(s) to the basic conversational rule that "at least one and only one person should speak at a time" (see Sacks et al. 1978), different cultural groups seem to differ in their application of the rule. For example, there are apparently differences between S.A.E speakers and Zulu speakers in respect of the "at least one" part of the rule. Whereas S.A.E. speakers tend to be uncomfortable with even short breaks in conversation and tend, therefore, to quickly take the turn, Zulus, who tend to value behaviour that proceeds at a steady, measured pace, do not see pauses of short duration as a signal that an appropriate turn change moment has arrived. To add to the confusion, S.A.E. speakers, unlike Zulu speakers, tend to rely very heavily on intonation to signal information about turns. Since low pitch at a syntactic boundary is a very reliable turnchange cue in S.A.E. (see Genrich-de Lisle n.d.), S.A.E. speakers frequently interrupt Zulus at places where they do not intend to surrender the floor, thus apparently violating the rule referred to above. The consequences of this mismatch in what Gumperz (1982) refers to as contextualization cues is evident in the following continuation of the extract from the interview between the S.A.E.-speaking academic and Zulu/English-speaking student referred to earlier. 76. Academic: can I cut in there 77. Student: yes 78. Academic: erm you know you spoke about er your 79. preparation 80. Student: ye 81. Academic: can I ask you you remember 82. we gave you the outline here 83. Student: yes 84. Academic: can I ask you how you set a b o u t . . . 85. preparing that question 86. Student: I . . . I . . . (unclear) my problem was

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88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

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Academic: what did you do Student: er reading material to cover the topic Academic: yes Student: yes Academic: you mean you . . . you didn't have the reading . . . or you didn't know what the reading was Student: (starts to speak)

The student seems unsure even at this stage of the interview how to interpret the academic's recycled invitation to review his (the student's) examination preparation (lines 84-86) but then gives a reply consistent with the theme he tried to develop in lines 72-73 but was prevented from doing by the academic's interruption. Significantly, though, when, this time, the academic uses a fall-rise intonation cue in line 89 to invite the student to continue, the student apparently interprets the academic's "yes" not as meaning "continue", but as a sort of preclosure, meaning "I see". Similar problems arise in lines 92 and 93. Partly because he is beginning to reply subsequent to "reading" (line 92), and partly because he does not share the academic's prosodie conventions, the student sees the academic as repeating the same point in line 92, rather than asking the student to indicate which of two explanations is correct. This demonstrates the cumulative negative effects of asynchrony in intercultural communication. Because the second alternative comes "at the wrong time" (cf. Erickson 1978), namely when the student has already started to speak himself, and because he does not share the academic's prosodie conventions, he either does not hear or does not recognize the significance of the academic's accentuation of "know". The dislocation and interactional stumbling occasioned by these different ways of regulating turn-taking contain the seeds of negative stereotypes of S.A.E. speakers as always interrupting, and of Zulus as having very little to say for themselves. 2.5 Differences in politeness behaviour A further source of friction is differences in politeness behaviour. According to Brown and Levinson (1978) politeness behaviour contributes to the smooth flow of interaction (to synchrony) by enabling

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interlocutors to avoid the loss of face involved when one either feels imposed upon (negative face), such as when someone takes advantage of one's generosity, or feels rejected or not appreciated by one's group (positive face) such as when one's jokes are not laughed at. Scollon and Scollon (1983) build on the Brown and Levinson account by distinguishing between: (a) Difference politeness strategies in which the speaker tries to offset the sense of imposition by indicating that s/he respects the hearer's needs not to be imposed upon (I'm so sorry to worry you but would you mind awfully if . . .)· Another deference strategy is to say very little. (b) Solidarity strategies in which the speaker tries to offset the sense of imposition by emphasizing the closeness of their relationship through terms of endearment (love, pal, darling, buddy), teasing or banter, humour and being open and voluble. Which of these strategies is chosen depends on the speaker's assessment of the relationship between speaker and hearer. Thus if s/he feels the hearer is a stranger or that the hearer's status is higher than the speaker's, s/he is likely to use deferential politeness. By contrast, if s/he feels they are intimates or that either s/he has higher status than the hearer or is the hearer's equal, s/he is likely to use solidarity politeness. From this explanation it is possible to see why the choice of the wrong strategy is so unfortunate, for the speaker is likely to be perceived as too forward or too cold, arrogant or servile. Unfortunately what is considered an appropriate strategy usually differs from culture to culture, with the result that "wrong" choices of strategy occur very often in intercultural communication, and lead to misunderstanding of attitudes and eventually to negative stereotypes. There are a number of reasons for these "wrong" choices. One reason is that different cultures develop preferences for different politeness strategies. Thus in cultures in which status differences are not emphasized, speakers and hearers tend to use similar politeness strategies irrespective of who is the superior, the particular strategy chosen depending on whether value is placed on distance or not. Thus for example, according to Brown and Levinson (1978:250), in the Western USA where people tend to emphasize the closeness of relationships, speakers and hearers tend to prefer solidarity politeness. In the UK where the maintenance of distance is more highly valued, speakers and hearers tend to prefer deference politeness.

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In such differences, as Scollon and Scollon (1983) observe, we see the source of negative stereotypes of Americans as loud and overbearing and of American children as precocious, and of British as cold and aloof. In cultures where status differences tend to be emphasized such as in Zulu culture, the more powerful of the interlocutors tends to use solidarity politeness (speaking "downwards") and therefore tends to be voluble, whereas the less powerful of the interlocutors tends to use deferential politeness (speaking upwards) and therefore says little or nothing. Thus Zulu employees with a grievance frequently express deference by working through a third party and sometimes even by leaving without notice rather than risk the face loss of a confrontation with an employer. Since S.A.E. speakers tend increasingly to favour the western USA pattern in many situations (such as job interviews and university tutorials) the potential for misinterpretation is great. The use of solidarity strategies by S.A.E. speakers is often perceived by Zulus, in terms of their own pattern, as power play e.g. banter or teasing is frequently misinterpreted. By the same token, when Zulus show deference where S.A.E. speakers are expecting solidarity, they are often perceived as silent, withdrawn and insufficiently assertive. Since in trying to repair such situations S.A.E. speakers usually opt for further solidarity and Zulus further deference, the asynchronous effect is often cumulative. This account suggests a partial explanation for the perceptions of white supervisors in the Durban area of their black employees (see Griessel and Schlemmer 1985:10) that a) b) c) d) e) f)

they find it difficult to give instructions to whites; they behave towards whites in a deferential way (i.e. "like children"); they do not relate on a person-to-person level to whites; they lack a sense of humour (solidarity behaviour); they do not mix socially; they do not question superiors. (It often becomes clear that black employees do not understand instructions, yet they hardly ever query instructions or give feedback in the communication process.)

Further misunderstanding arises from the fact that these preferences reflect conventional behaviour rather than what is actually felt. Thus, for example, foreigners visiting the western USA are often offended

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when, after having been treated almost like intimate friends at the first meeting, little attempt is made on the part of the Americans to follow up the "friendship". Similarly, Zulus often confuse S.A.E. speakers when in later encounters they refuse to be "treated as doormats" (as their deferential behaviour in earlier encounters seems to invite), or submit resentfully. This is a source of stereotypes of Zulus as unreliable or illogical. Another reason for these wrong choices of strategy is that cultures differ as to what is considered an imposition and how much of an imposition (how face-threatening) it is perceived to be. For example, whereas in the UK and USA offers are easily accepted, in Japan an offer as small as a glass of water is face-threatening, occasioning, as it does, a great sense of debt. Similarly, S.A.E. speakers tend to feel imposed upon (to be offended) when asked for details about salary and cost of newly acquired goods, while amongst Xhosa peoples this is treated very lightly (Gennrich-de Lisle n.d.:72). This is often a source of friction between S.A.E. employers (who often feel guilty about disparity between their incomes and those of blacks) and their Xhosa employees. A third reason for wrong choices of strategy is the different pace at which people from different cultures drop customary politeness and start behaving as they actually feel. This can readily be seen in the use of address terms (cf. Brown and Gilman 1961). For example, academics from most cultures would start by addressing one another as Prof . . ., Dr . . . or Mr. . . ., but Americans tend to shift to Ann, Bob or Kurt quicker than S.A.E. speakers, the latter quicker than Afrikaans-speakers, and Afrikaans-speakers quicker than, say, Germans or Zulus. Such differences can cause misunderstanding, because if one party changes before the other feels it is appropriate, s/he is likely to be seen as presumptuous or forward, whereas if s/he changes later, s/he is likely to be seen as excessively formal or cold. Before leaving the discussion of differences in politeness behaviours, I need to emphasize that what we have identified in our research is trends. We are not claiming that all Zulus or S.A.E. speakers or members of any other of the groups will behave in the ways we have identified, or that the members of the groups will continue to behave in this way in the future. For one thing there is always the possibility of movement in what a particular group considers "good" behaviour at any one times. Also the personal interactional style of any individual is likely to be more or less typical of the group norms.

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To return to the argument I outlined in my introduction, this survey of barriers to effective intercultural communication was intended, in part, as a response to the strong version of criticism of intercultural communication research in this country, namely, that the extent of the contribution of culture-specific communication conventions to miscommunication is exaggerated. Ultimately, to satisfy himself or herself as to whether this criticism is valid or not, a critic would need to examine the methods of data collection, the data itself and the method of analysis, but this is beyond the scope of this paper. I trust, though, that in outlining some of the findings of this research, I have shown that some culture-specific conventions do contribute significantly to miscommunication. A still more convincing case could have been made by showing in detail how, in a particular encounter, two or three of these barriers contribute jointly to asynchrony, i.e. uncomfortable interaction in which the participants misinterpret and misunderstand one another and how, where there is asynchrony, repair is difficult to affect.

3. The relationship between micro and macro processes The weak version of the criticism levelled against studies of intercultural communication in South Africa, and against micro studies generally, is that they divert attention from the need for major structural change. The essence of my response to this criticism is that I see improvement in intercultural communication not as a substitute for major structural change in South Africa, but as an essential accompaniment to it. My argument is that the consequences of asynchronous intercultural encounters, some of which I have illustrated above, combine with larger, historically-given and structural forces to create and sustain a negative cycle of socially created discrimination. This I will attempt to explain, briefly, with the help of Figure 1. Historically-given structural forces such as material interests, nationalism and ethnicity have contributed to an ideology of separation that has been translated into the structures of our society through the legal system of apartheid (Schlemmer 1977). This ensures that the various racial groups are distanced from one another not only physically (separate schools, residential areas, recreational facilities) but in terms of socio-economic status and power. What this means is that few people have the opportunity to establish long-lasting personal

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IDEOLO j Y OF SEPARATION

Li ÌGAL SYSTEM

PHYSICAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DISTANCING

, DISCRIMINATION

Î

IGNORANCE OF INTERACTIONAL STYLES OF OTHER GROUPS

STEREOTYPES

MISINTERPRETATION ' O F MOTIVES AND ABILITIES

Figure 1

ASYNHCRONOUS INTERCULTURAL" ENCOUNTERS

Negative cycle of socially created discrimination

relationships with members of other racial groups which, according to Gumperz (1982:209), are necessary if they are to learn the interactional conventions of the other groups. This means that intercultural encounters between members of different cultural groups are frequently characterized by asynchrony, which contributes to negative perceptions by the participants of one another's motives and abilities. Such communication failure often has serious consequences for Blacks, since their ability to improve their lot depends on successful communication with Whites who control most of the gatekeeping positions i.e., who determine who is going to get the greater or lesser share of resources and opportunities. In this way, asynchrony arising from a mismatch of culture-specific interactional styles contributes directly

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to discrimination and the reinforcement of the inequity in the socioeconomic system. However, this is not the whole picture. Repeated miscommunication of this kind generates, over time, negative stereotypes of groups. These further reduce the effectiveness of communication by predisposing people to selectively perceive whatever reinforces the stereotypes and ignore what does not. Once generated, the stereotypes are passed on from generation to generation without the need for the reinforcement of repeated communication failure. Moreover, by providing a rationalization for discrimination, they reinforce the ideology of separation and so contribute to the forces that segregate peoples and keep them ignorant of one anothers' styles of interacting. This explanation suggests that improvement in communication, rather than something trivial by comparison with structural change, is vital if we are to break into this negative cycle. In other words, various measures such as the scrapping of influx control, designed to restrict the numbers of blacks living and working in areas reserved for whites, and integration of racially exclusive educational systems are unlikely to result in complete equality of educational and economic opportunity unless people responsible for the evaluation of individuals (teachers, employment officers and others in gatekeeping roles) are simultaneously made aware of the potential for misinterpretation and make allowance for it. Without such insights, gatekeepers, however well disposed, are likely to unconsciously discriminate against people from other ethnic groups, as a consequence of misinterpretation and misevaluation.

4. Conclusion What I have attempted to demonstrate in this paper is that an interest in intercultural communication is not evidence of an ideological bias in favour of segregation and that effects of research that focuses on the micro level of social organization do not necessarily divert attention from the need for structural change. I have further tried to show that this research has an important role to play in showing how friction and subsequent prejudice and stereotyping are generated in the workplace, in educational settings and in other spheres of South African society, and how such results feed into a negative cycle of socially created

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discrimination that underpins the apartheid society. More positively, I have attempted to identify some of the important barriers to effective intercultural communication, an awareness of which, I believe, is essential to those in evaluative roles in the workplace and educational settings as South Africa becomes progressively more integrated.

Note * The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful criticisms of Ralph Adendorff and Judith Iindfors.

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada: Implications for cross-cultural communication in English

David Piper Abstract In Canada, the presence of an Official Languages Policy has encouraged research on bilingual English-French language acquisition and immersion education. There is evidence, however, not only in the area of communication between the two official language groups, but also in the domains of native-dominant culture and immigrant-dominant culture interaction in English, that English language learning and use are inseparable from issues of cultural identity. It is argued that macro-level ideological and socio-political constraints that are inherent in Official Language policy and which, further, reinforce the Canadian "vertical" ethnic mosaic, continue to have effect upon feelings of individual identity and, concomitantly, upon the nature and extent of English learning and communication in English in the three groups discussed in the paper: speakers of one of the two official languages, native people and immigrants.

In Canada, as in the other English-speaking western democracies, patterns of migration over the past three decades have given rise to numerous varieties of cross-cultural encounter. In addition to those aspects of cross-cultural communication in English having to do with the sets of culturally-relative expectations which speakers bring with them to communicative encounters, exchanges in the Canadian context are always affected by the presence of an Official Languages Policy establishing English and French as the two "official" languages of the two "founding races." This policy has impact not only upon cross-cultural learning and communication within the domain of French-English bilingualism but also, since the policy is so predominant

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in questions of educational funding and cultural politics, upon communication across other cultural boundaries. Explorations of crosscultural encounters in English in Canada must take into account this dual influence of cultural background and official language planning. Given the relatively large size of Quebec's French-speaking population, together with its concomitant political power, it should come as no surprise, perhaps, that the question of French and English language rights continues to be a predominant one in Canadian political and educational circles, nor that a great deal of research and analysis has been focused on the question of French-English bilingualism. Canadian research into the merits and demerits of immersion programming following the work of Lambert and Gardner (e.g. Gardner and Lambert 1959) is now well-known internationally, and it has provided valuable insights into the processes of second language acquisition. There is a continuing danger, however, that this emphasis on official languages may divert attention away from other important arenas of cross-cultural communication in Canada; in particular, those of communication between the dominant English-speaking culture, on the one hand, and native people and immigrants to Canada, on the other. In short, there appears to exist in Canada a particular kind of tension surrounding Official Language policy, a tension resulting from the everyday ramifications of such a policy for social interaction and educational planning relating to groups of speakers other than those whose first language is English or French. One particular source of tension lies in the many apparent anomalies to be found in Canada, moreover, concerning fundamental issues of language rights: in many areas of Western Canada, for instance, more funding is available for the learning of French than for the education of immigrants who need English for survival in the Western Canadian workplace, and in environnants where French is naturally spoken by a lesser number than languages such as German, Russian, and Italian. The right to learn to speak two official languages, then, often supersedes the right to learn either one of them, a fact that seems to be in some conflict with the principles of equality so sincerely embraced in the recent constitution. For these reasons, there seems at present in Canada to be a somewhat uncomfortable relationship between official FrenchEnglish language policy on the one hand, and multicultural ideology, with its public insistence on the equal value of all (aboriginal, immigrant and "founding") cultures, on the other. Perhaps due in part to the salience of official language policy,

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together with the natural magnetism it has for research funding, it is not possible at present to review a large number of detailed ethnographic or discourse-analytic studies undertaken in Canada which explore cross-cultural encounters in English. What seems clear, however, is that such encounters take place in a political and ideological context which has a strong influence on feelings about cultural identity and thus, to the extent that such feelings are related to the processes of learning and use of second languages, on the quality of intercultural communication. The general tone of this ideological and political context is set, at least in part, by the predominance of official language issues and by the hierarchical structure of cultural and linguistic identity that this structure entails. The ascendancy of official language planning, indeed, an ascendancy which has taken place in parallel with (and, to some extent, as a political response to) French-Canadian nationalism can reasonably be viewed as the latest major phenomenon to bolster what Porter (1965) called the "vertical mosaic" of Canadian society — a mosaic that is "vertical" due to ethnic stratification. While many of the inequalities between what Porter called the "charter groups" (i.e. those of British Anglo-Saxon and French ethnic origin) have been and continue to be rectified, the gradual political equalization of these two groups seems to some extent merely to have changed the shape, rather than to have disintegrated the vertical mosaic. It appears that other ethnic groups in Canada now fall into vertical position with two groups, rather than with one (British Anglo-Saxon) at the apex. Political recognition of the two "charter" or "founding" races with their two distinct languages, then, continues to reinforce vertical ethnic stratification in Canada. The essential characteristics of the vertical mosaic as it has developed through history are captured well in an analysis of Canadian class structure by Forcese (1975) as follows: The English and the French charter groups . . . have constituted the major and most visible components of the 'vertical mosaic.' As Canada attracted immigrants from other nations, other ethnic groups found niches in the Canadian stratification hierarchy. As successive waves of immigrant peoples reached Canada, they tended to be associated with distinguishable regions of Canada. Thus, added to the Scots of the Maritimes, the English of Ontario, and the French of Quebec, came German settlements in the Maritimes and Ontario, and middle-European populations such as the Ukrai-

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nians on the Canadian Prairies. And always at the bottom of the class order, the 'non-people,' the Indians and Métis, (p. 46) There is good reason to believe, then, despite its claim to multicultural nationhood, that Canadian society continues to reflect such stratification, and that official language policy does much to reinforce the status quo. An attempt will be made here to outline three prominent domains of cross-cultural communicative interaction in English in Canada, each of which is affected significantly by the socio-political and ideological context briefly alluded to above, as well as by more widely recognized aspects of first-cultural schemata and expectations. The first domain is that of communication in English between Frenchand English-Canadian cultural group members, the second is that of communication between Native and English-speaking groups (where "English-speaking" signifies competence in what is considered to be the "standard" English dialect of the dominant white Anglo-Saxon ethnic group), and the third is the domain of interaction between this latter group and immigrant learners of English as a second language. Before looking more closely at these three communicative categories, however, it is necessary to provide some further justification for the assumption that socio-political context, identity, and language use are indeed inextricably interrelated.

1. Language and cultural identity From the time of the initial studies on motivation for learning a second official language (e.g. Gardner and Lambert 1959), there has been a recognition in Canada of the close relationship between how learners perceive their own cultural identity and the levels of their willingness to communicate in the relevant second language. The terms instrumental vs. integrative motivation (terms which purport to signify, respectively, individuals' drives to speak a second language in order to secure economic or other personal gain, or their drives towards social integration in the second culture) have long played a part in Canadian (and other) discussions of second-language acquisition (see Stern 1983:375-379). But while Jakobovitz (1970) suggested that integrative motivation was also "intrinsic" (in that its source lay within the individual) and that instrumental motivation was essentially "ex-

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trinsic" (reflecting responses of individuals to external stimuli), others (Stevick 1976) have criticized this alignment on the basis that both integrative and instrumental motivation can be reasonably interpreted as reflecting interest in external (extrinsic) goals, namely, those goals either of social or vocational self-improvement. Lambert himself has recognized in a recent published interview (see Earn and Towson 1986:220-232) that the categories should not be considered watertight: individuals are typically more mercurial in nature than the dichotomies suggest, and motives can be both changeable from one situation to the next and interactive with each other. It is also true that the terms themselves have not been universally accepted as appropriate for the description of the feelings and motivations of language learners. (See, especially, the strong criticism of their use by Finocchiaro 1982). A further influential dichotomy introduced by Lambert and Gardner (Lambert 1975, Gardner 1979) has been that between second language learning which is additive to an individual's cultural and linguistic repertoire, and learning that is achieved only at the cost of subtracting, or extinguishing, first language and culture. This distinction clearly strikes at the core of the question of cultural identity, and there has been recognition that educational settings in which attempts are made to force cross-cultural communication in English, attempts having little or no regard for the first-language and first-cultural backgrounds of students and which represent an assault on individuals' security of identity are destructive both to learning and to social development (Piper 1985a). All of these terms have helped to focus thinking about the close relationship of cultural identity to cross-cultural communication. Discussion of these terms, however, continues in parallel with a general tradition of thinking about the close relation between communication and identity in Canada. In discussing adaptation by immigrant children in Canada, for example, Akoodie (1984), drawing on the work of personality theorists such as Lewin and Rogers, compares the social position of these children to that of children in the dominant culture as follows: Children from the dominant culture have the fortunate advantage of having their morality, culture, norms, and social patterns widely represented in the schools, government, business, and media. Their environment reinforces a healthy self-concept and identity. Im-

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migrant children, on the other hand, are working against loaded dice, and our constant comparison of them with the majority children may be perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Research should be directed toward the development of programs that would enhance each child's self-concept and nurture in each a pride in his or her own culture . ... (p. 262) Two areas of research promise to bring further direction and reinforcement to the investigation of the identity-communication relationship. The first is that of research on culture shock as it has been reviewed, for example, by Furnham and Bochner (1986), and the second is the growing body of ethnographic research on cross-cultural communication and literacy as it has been described, for example, by Gumperz (1982) and Cook-Gumperz (1986). In the framework of their analytic review of theory and research on culture shock, Furnham and Bochner draw direct analogy between personal response to different cultural situations and the processes of language learning and communication. They emphasize, first, the influence of various types of individual reaction to second-cultural contact, including passing, by which some individuals "pass themselves o f f ' as members of the dominant community, exaggerated chauvinism which, in contrast, refers to the tendency of some individuals to reject all second-cultural influence, marginality, referring to individuals who are unable to unable to establish identity in either culture, and mediating, where genuine bicultural and bilingual identity is achieved. Second, they emphasize the influence of migrational type on a spectrum between forced migration (as is the case with many refugees) and free choice, a spectrum which also relates to length of expected sojourn in the second culture. Third, they emphasize the relation between the problem of identity occurring in culture shock and mental health (see, especially, Furnham and Bochner 1986:31-32; 54-57; 63-66). The position taken by Gumperz and his co-workers (1982) can be summarized briefly in the following three extracts: The key point . . . is that social identity and ethnicity are in large part established and maintained through language. (Gumperz 1982:7) Even where the original native language is lost the new discourse conventions tend to persist and to be taken over into the group's use of the majority language. In fact these conventions come to

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 167 reflect the identity of the group itself and can act as powerful instruments of persuasion in everyday communicative situations for participants who share its values, (p. 6) What relevant (ethnographic) studies show is that . . . linguistic conventions signaling communicative tasks, particularly the interplay of contextualizing and content signs, are much more sensitive to the ethnic and class backgrounds of the participants than one might expect, (p. 13) It appears, then, that what has been observed to be true about second (official) language learning in Canada and, more recently, about the crucial effects of cultural identity on cross-cultural learning and communication, is entirely consistent with recent developments in the analysis of culture shock and in ethnographic investigations of cross-cultural interaction, developments which, in turn, are likely to merge with and to clarify future Canadian research questions. The Canadian "vertical mosaic" also lends itself to description in terms of a distance model such as that discussed by Schumann (1978), wherein increasing social and psychological distance between two cultures is held to correlate with decreasing motivation for language learning and cross-cultural interaction and, further, to analysis in terms of the interlanguage model proposed by Selinker (1972), wherein arrested second language is explained in terms of the "fossilized," or unchanging, language forms that are intermediate between the first and second languages of given learners. What remains to be explored here in more detail is the general character of cross-cultural categories as it is affected by the framework of vertical stratification. As suggested, some preliminary observations of these interactions in each of these categories promises to provide a useful basis for later and more detailed analysis of cross-cultural discourse, including analysis in terms of the distance and interlanguage models.

2. English as a second "official" language While there has been, as mentioned above, a significant equalization between English and French cultural and political influence in Canada over the past two decades, there yet remains a legacy of friction between the two major cultural groups. Some of the continuing complexity of the relations between Canada's two official languages is revealed by Heller (1982), who reports that

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[s] omething strange is going on in Montreal. Every encounter between strangers, however casually, especially in public places . . . has become a political act. (p. 108) Heller provides an example of the difficulties of choosing the appropriate language code as follows: I walk up to the counter, intent on buying some socks. "Bonjour," says the woman behind the counter, smiling. "Est-ce-que je peux vous aide?" "Oui," I smile back. "Je voudrais acheter des bas comme ça." I point to some socks on display in the showcase. "En beige, s'il vous plaît." "Yes, of course, Madame," she responds in English. "What size?" "Er . . . " I pause, "nine and a half, please." (p. 108) What exchanges such as this reveal is that the socio-political changes in Canada over the past two decades and, specifically, the rise of Official Bilingualism, have led to a new self-consciousness about ethnic and cultural identity, a self-consciousness which leads to subtle negotiations in cross-cultrual conversation that are enacted in order to establish and maintain such cultural identity and, concomitantly, to express particular beliefs about the status of one official language in comparison to the other. Heller believes, for example, that the woman behind the counter in this exchange may be letting her know by way of her code-switch into English that she approves of federally-condoned bilingualism, as opposed to French separatism (this is so since, given Heller's good French, there was no semantic or informational reason for the switch). This shows, then, a clear connection between the speaking of English (or not) on the one hand, and social identity as influenced by official policy and ideology, on the other. Heller's analysis probes further into the social rules underlying these code-switches, and she points out that in an English-speaking hospital in Montreal, for example, there is a complex of underlying assumptions held by interlocutors, namely, that since the hospital is an English one, "staff should expect to speak English among themselves," that political views should not be allowed to interfere with communicative difficulties, that since the languages of work in Quebec are French and English, all staff should be bilingual, and that since the majority language in the province is French, "all communication should be in French, unless it has been established that the interlocutors are anglophone and choose to talk in English" (pp. 111-112). Heller adds that it is possible for an individual to hold the first three

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 169 of these views at the same time. In Quebec, then, using English — especially in cases where patent code-switching takes place — naturally brings with it an assertion about the socio-political allegiances of the speaker or, at least, evidence of a conflict or a conflict of feelings related to such identity which is in need of a negotiated resolution within a given exchange. The central point to emerge from all of this is that the use of English in majority French-Canadian environments is value-laden, and is inextricably linked to conscious (and sometimes self-conscious) reactions to the socio-political environment ; the use of English signals identity. It is also reasonable to expect, moreover, that future discourse analysis will demonstrate the cultural signaling contained in heavily accented English-French interlanguages. Some further revelations about the status of English in the context of official bilingualism are to be found in the submissions of some young Canadian writers in a recent national competition directed towards the expression of their feelings about living in an officially bilingual country (see Minister of Supply and Services Canada 1986). In a short story entitled "Waiting for Claudine," for example, a twentyone year old Anglophone living in Vancouver discusses with Claudine, a young woman from Quebec, attitudes towards English and French. Claudine asks her English-speaking host whether she likes French. A conversation ensues: "Do you like French?" she [Claudine] asked as we reached the sand. "How do I know? I can't understand it." "No. I mean do you like the sound of French?" "No." "But why?" She was extremely surprised by my response. "It's too fast. You run all your words together." "It's not true! French is beautiful. It is music. It's smooth . . . English is so rough." "If you don't like English, why are you here?" I retorted, almost too quickly for my own liking. "To be anyone in this world one must speak English. You are lucky to live here." I had never considered myself lucky before. "Why don't you move here then?" The idea was distasteful, but I was her host, so I kept the conversation going, and asked. "Oh, it's not my place, I'm French, not English."

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"What difference does it make? "All the difference. We are opposite." "Opposite?" "Yes. You are on top and I am on the bottom. But we French make up for that in other ways." I was dumbfounded by her words. She, the raven, felt that I was on top. "What are your ways?" "We have our own dance and music. We have invented a unique language. On St-Jean-Baptiste Day we drink and eat tourtière and we praise the Virgin Mary that we are French and we are family." (p. 25) The exchange realistically identifies elements of the mutual cultural threat felt by many English and French Canadians and, further, it shows how these feelings of threat may have impact on communication in English. For Claudine, use of English is viewed as a concession that must be made for functional (i.e. instrumental) reasons, but it is the French language that symbolizes and expresses her fundamental identity. The cultural antagonism between English and French culture and language — this time in the form of an Anglo-Canadian comment on the learning of French — is also concisely expressed in a stanza from a poem submitted by an eighteen year-old living in Toronto: In English schools, French is laid out on the black slab, Like well polished soapstone in highway boutiques, without craft. It is spoken once a day, slowly Like a prayer or a spell. Many say it should be spoken Other than it is. Do not believe it. Were this true, then we are better sculptors, Better players in our chalk dust, Than God. (ibid. p. 53) If the above extracts demonstrate a degree of self-consciousness in Canada about bilingualism and bicultural identity, the following treatment of the Canadian Official Languages Act satirizes the whole notion that federal language planning will achieve the legislation of language use: Language Status: The English and French language shall henceforth be known as the official languages of Canada, with equal weight placed on each

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in the Parliament and Government of Canada and in certain subsidiary offices, the express purpose of which is to confuse the French, inconvenience the English and "tick o f f ' all those seeking aid in said offices. "Franglais" or any derivative thereof will not be recognized by the Parliament or Government of Canada . . . and any individual caught attempting to converse in said language of languages will be apprehended and prosecuted for the cruel and disgusting use of the official languages of the nation. Phrases, such as "Le Big O" (referring to Le Stade Olympique/ Olympic Stadium) are not recognized under this Act, and are judged to be a poor reflection on the people of any county, district, city, town, or village in the province of Quebec. Individuals caught using said phrases in the stadium will be immediately prosecuted and forced to perform thirty consecutive "Waves" in the stands, (ibid. p. 28) Although satirical, this nonetheless exemplifies a more general level of Canadian public awareness about the official language situation, and this awareness at least partly determines how the two official languages are used across cultures. One reasonable hypothesis arising from these observations is that this metacognitive level of awareness can be found to have effect on the degree of conscious monitoring of language learning and communication across the French-English boundaries in Canada, a phenomenon which, consistent with the views of Krashen (e.g. Krashen 1981) may work against the achievement of full communicative competence in English or French as a second language. It is important to realize that the particular tension found in Canada between the cultures and languages of the two "founding races" centers upon the historical and continuing socio-political antagonisms between them and in the conscious assertion of membership in each of these two groups, rather than in any purely linguistic or communicative barriers perse.

3. Native people and English as a second dialect (ESD) In describing the vertical mosaic, Porter (1965) identified three levels of ethnic stratification. The highest and most privileged level of Canadian society is comprised of the English and French "charter"

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populations, the next level is comprised of later immigrant populations from Europe, and the third level, having lowest status and least sociopolitical power, is comprised of Indian, Inuit, and Métis aboriginal populations. Porter also observed the persistence of this vertical structuring over time, following the original usurpation of territory by French and English colonialists and the emergence of cultural hegemony over aboriginal populations. Given the apparently immutable post-colonial circumstances of aboriginal populations in Canada, then, it should come as little surprise that recent developments in the establishment of official French-English bilingualism should appear to aboriginal activists as instances of further consolidation of the French-English hegemony. Rejection by aboriginal leaders of the Meech Lake Accord which is currently being debated in Canada, by way of which French Canada has been finally brought into the constitutional framework as one of the two "founding races" (as opposed to "nations") has been predictable, and it stands as the latest evidence of ethnic stratification. Official language policy and its historical concomitants, then, both reflects and perpetuates the hegemonic order of things, an order which, in the framework of considering crosscultural communication, tends to augment both social and psychological distance between official-language and native-language speakers and, therefore, following the general of model of Schumann (1978), to have negative ramifications for communication between these groups. The political tension that exists between aboriginal and the dominant culture-language groups is, of course, of a complex kind and, in substance it centers upon claims for "special status." A concise review of the situation is provided by Kallen (1982:204-205). Proposals predicated on the concept of special status derive from aborigines' claims that they are the 'original peoples' of Canada whose 'aboriginal rights' (collective rights based on continuing land occupancy and use) provide the quasi-legal basis for aboriginal land claims. The intimate association between aboriginal peoples, their cultures and their lands from time immemorial, in turn, provides the basis for aboriginal claims to nationhood based on collective, national group rights. Finally, on the basis of massive, incontrovertible evidence of institutional and structural forms of racial discrimination against all categories of aborigines, leaders of the Aboriginal movement advance strongly documented claims based on categorical rights.

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 173 All of this makes it clear that cross-cultural communication between aboriginal and dominant-cultural group members is likely to be strongly affected by feelings about cultural identity on both sides. It is within the context of educational planning (and in actual classrooms), however, that linguistic issues have become most sharply focused. The following representative position on language was taken in a policy paper issued by the National Indian Brotherhood (1972; quoted in Mallea and Young 1984:131 -149) : Language is the outward expression of an accumulation of learning and experience shared by a group of people over centuries of development. It is not simply a vocal symbol; it is a dynamic force which shapes the way a man looks at the world, his thinking about the world and his philosophy of life. Knowing his maternal language helps a man to know himself; being proud of his language helps a man to be proud of himself. The Indian people are expressing growing concern that the native languages are being lost; that the younger generations can no longer speak or understand their mother tongue. If the Indian identity is to be preserved, steps must be taken to reverse this trend, (p. 141) While governments are reluctant to invest in any but the two official languages, funds given for studies in native languages and for the development of teaching tools and instructional materials will have both short and long term benefits (p. 142). These statements suggest that the relationship of mother-tongue language to cultural identity is perceived to be as strong, if not stronger, among native language speakers than it has been by Canadian Francophones over the period of struggle for linguistic and cultural equality. It appears that both historical circumstances and the absence of conquistadorial tendencies within aboriginal cultures, however, have led to quite different contemporary positions: whereas official language policy consolidates cultural sovereignty and identity in Francophone Canada in a way which facilitates French-English bilingualism, it works against satisfaction of similar needs voiced by native groups. The place of official language policy in all of this, and in its interaction with cultural support and funding is further described by Burnaby (1984:198-199): The federal government has a definite national policy on language and culture. Through the Official Languages Act it pledges to do

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business with any citizen in either French of English. And it supports linguistic and cultural diversity in the country through its multiculturalism policy. The Canadian Bill of Rights also protects speakers of any language in the course of certain official transactions through a provision for interpreters. But there is a difference between the kind of support given to bilingualism and to multiculturalism. The government takes the initiative and the responsibility to provide services in English and French. For support of multicultural and non-official language matters, however, the initiative must come from those who want it. As has been argued earlier, though, the present state of official language policy is merely the most recent indication of a diachronic process which has done little to further the causes either of fluent Native language-English bilingualism or of the learning of English as a second dialect. In order fully to understand the contemporary context for the learning of English and for communication in English by native people, it is necessary to examine the historical circumstances in more detail. There can be few better examples of ideologically driven attempts to extinguish or "subtract" first language competence in the interests of establishing a second language and culture than that provided by the treatment of native languages in Canada by nineteenth and twentieth century colonialists. Ashworth (1979) quotes from government policy documents and from transcribed interviews with native people who still remember the enactment of such policies. In 1895, the Federal Superintendent of Indian Affairs argued as follows: . . . If it were possible to gather in all the Indian children and retain them for a certain period, there would be produced a generation of English-speaking Indians, accustomed to the ways of civilized life, which might then be the dominant body among themselves, capable of holding its own with its white neighbors; and thus would be brought about a rapidly decreasing expenditure until the same should forever cease, and the Indian problem would have been solved. (Quoted in Ashworth 1979:27) As a result of these policies, the principal of the Squamish Mission School in British Columbia was able to write in 1937 that Not forty years ago, when first their school was opened, not a child spoke a word of English; today the only language you hear among

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them (exception made for the old people) is English. Many among the rising generation do not even know their own language. This great change has been wrought through the Squamish Indian School. All honor and praise to its able and devoted teachers. (Quoted in Ashworth 1979:28) Despite the apparent satisfaction that such extinction gave to administrators, however, a native Indian living in British Columbia further recalls that her grandparents were becoming very disappointed in me going to school and would rather that we stop going to school so that we didn't lose our language. She was very disappointed every year we came back and were getting worse and worse, not remembering our language. (Quoted in Ashworth 1979:31) This policy of linguistic and cultural suppression continued during and after the second world war, and it continues to have profound effect upon the learning and use of English by native people today. The dual pressure resulting, on the one hand, from the need for continuity with the past and, on the other, from the need to speak English, leads naturally to crises of cultural and linguistic identity that in turn lead to forms of cultural marginality. Many native adults and children, sensitive to the political framework in which attempts at suppression were made, and to their historical consequences, naturally avoid full commitment to the learning of what is defined by the majority culture as "standard" English, an avoidance which leads to the formation of interlingual dialects and to pidginization. It is clear, moreover, that the case of learning "standard" English from this dialectical platform is qualitatively different from that of learning English as a second language from the platform of a secure first language. But despite recognition that the factors of motivation, identity, and language in native education require special educational treatment if the effects of colonial suppression are to be overcome, the assumption among administrators that English as a second language and English as a second dialect are much the same (in that they can both be successfully dealt with in the same framework of immersion education) continues in practice. As Burnaby (1984) points out, there are a variety of educational settings in Canada in which English is taught, and a variety of options for educators. As she also indicates, however, the options of immersion schooling and classes in Native

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languages as second languages are the most common options "since they are the easiest" (Burnaby 1984:212). In this, there is a failure to recognize the all-important distinction between immersion and submersion (a distinction of great relevance also to the field of second language acquisition discussed in more detail in 4 below). As suggested at the outset, the current political framework for cross-cultural communication must be considered in addition and in relation to those features of cultural identity which are relative to particular cultures and which are likely to affect comprehension and production in a second language. Something of the complexity of the interactions between the two influences can be understood by looking at the quality of cross-cultural exchange in English between Native people and the dominant English-speaking majority. In describing their research on Athabaskan-English inter-ethnic communication in Northern Canada and Alaska, Scollon and Scollon (1981) provide both valuable insights and direction for more detailed studies. The following two ideas are central to their research. First, interethnic communication in English between Athabaskan natives and members of the dominant English-speaking society has typically led to frustrations on both sides that result from miscommunication. And, as Scollon and Scollon point out, "[a]s miscommunication increases, racial and ethnic stereotyping begin to develop and to impede further communication" (p. 11). Second, they argue that it is not the grammatical system of English which lies at the heart of the problem, not what is said, but why it is said. As they point out, discourse systems are learned early within the context of first cultures, and they are "closely tied to an individual's concept of identity" (p. 12). In describing aspects of Athabaskan cultural identity which have affect on interethnic communication, Scollon and Scollon further identify the following categories. First, there is the matter of "presentation of self," of how participants present views of themselves to their listeners. Concerning the presentation of self, Athabaskans, according to this research, tend to think that English speakers talk too much, while English speakers typically view Athabaskans as taciturn. Second, interethnic communication is influenced by the power relations between the two groups (relations, of course, which are reinforced by the political and linguistic status quo). While English speakers typically link the role of spectator with the superior position in an encounter, and the role of exhibitionist with the subordinate position, Athabaskans' expectations are quite different. Athabaskan

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 177 children, for instance, expect the dominant member (for example, a teacher) to be the exhibitionist and, correspondingly, that they (the children) will be the spectators. These differences in expectations about dominance and subordination between the two cultures affect many aspects of communication. Third, all such Athabaskan-English "gatekeeping" encounters (socalled, since they are characterized by someone's being given the right and authority in face-to-face encounters to make decisions for — to open and close gates for — the other person) naturally involve misunderstanding due to how expectations of success are treated. While according to Scollon and Scollon, the Athabaskan considers it inappropriate or "bad luck" to display oneself in a good light or to be unduly optimistic about the future, the English interviewer expects the Athabaskan to display himself in the best possible light. Fourth, talk in English between Athabaskans and majority culture speakers is distributed differently: the latter are more likely to have control of the topic and, accordingly, to elaborate it to a greater degree. Fifth, conversations are affected by different expectations about turn-taking: Athabaskans allow longer pauses between utterances than majority culture English speakers, a characteristic which results in Athabaskans finding that they "can never get a word in edgewise" (p. 25). Athabaskan speakers are therefore likely to be interrupted by their English-speaking interlocutors, and to be denied the opportunity to express ideas completely. Scollon and Scollon state that all of this means that "true dialogue rarely occurs," and that "[t]he result is again stereotyping of the English speaker as egocentric and the Athabaskan as having no ideas of his own" (p. 26). Sixth, there is a global difference between the experience and use of prosodie features in the linguistic backgrounds of Athabaskans (including those who do not speak any Athabaskan language fluently) such that, while much metalinguistic information is contained in stress, intonation, and tone of voice in English speakers, information is concentrated and conveyed in segmental forms by Athabaskan speakers of English. This kind of transfer of linguistic expectations in Athabaskans is responsible in large measure, according to Scollon and Scollon, for musunderstandings about why something is being said, rather than about what is being said. Seventh, the organization of narrative structure is different: Athabaskan narratives are organized in structural patterns of two, as opposed to the three typical of western English narratives, and this, Scollon and Scollon argue, has implica-

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tions for how well narrative discourse is understood and remembered. Athabaskan speakers, they claim, and English speakers, may well remember very different things to have occurred from a descriptive conversation because of the different expectations about thematic organization (p. 35). In combination, then, all of these seven contrasting features (together with others not reviewed here) seem likely to have extensive implication for cross-cultural communication between Athabaskan and majority-culture speakers of English and, to the extent that Athabaskan natives are representative of the larger native population, implication for a wide range of native-majority culture encounters. Overall, the point to make in this cross-cultural domain, is that cultural and communicative distance between the two groups is likely to covary with the presence or absence of these discoursal attributes, and that improvement in such communication is likely to result only from greater understanding on both sides about such attributes within an atmosphere of what Scollon and Scollon elsewhere call "the valued assumption of difference" (1983:186). But it is in the larger context of socio-political influence, of course, where this latter assumption is most likely to be perceived as being violated by the recent developments in official language policy and constitutional legislation with their continuing marginalization of aboriginal people. Wyatt (1978:20), further, indicates that there are contrasts in learning styles in native vs. dominant culture communities such that [i]n the native community, the usual way for a child to learn a skill from an adult is to observe carefully over long periods of time, and then begin taking part in the activity. A number of skills, such as fishing, hide tanning, basketry and carving are all learned in this manner. Unlike the school situation, learning is by demonstration without detailed verbalization. Narratives told in many native communities, moreover, are unconstrained by time and may go on for hours, in contrast to the twenty-minute sessions typical in the school setting. Wyatt (1978:21) comments that [t] he community learning pattern is thus quite different from what goes on in most classrooms, where the essence of learning is the articulation of information and skills in verbal and written form according to a pre-determined timetable. It is clear, then, that cultural expectations about education and about time, too, are likely to influence interethnic communication. What is

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 179 significant here is that the learning of English at the segmental level (i.e. at the grammatical level of morphophonemic and syntactic structure typically represented in many English as a second language and dialect classrooms) in no way precludes the possibility of misunderstandings and of cultural stereotyping signaled at higher prosodie and discoursal language levels. Since educational planning and curriculum development for English as a second dialect are deeply embedded within the overall political and historical framework previously alluded to, it seems clear that aspects both of cultural relativity and of distance resulting from such a framework continue to have joint impact upon everyday dialogue between dominant and native group speakers as well, of course, as upon the continuing historical dialectic concerning cultural identity and human rights. Once again, language learning, communicative style, and socio-cultural identity are inextricably linked within this second Canadian intercultural domain.

4. Canadian immigrants and English as a second language Several research studies have been conducted on the relation of firstculture schemata to the second language learning of immigrants as they struggle to achieve identity within second cultures. Piper (1985b), for example, explored the effects of such first-cultural schemata upon reading in English as a second language by adult Vietnamese immigrants to Western Canada, finding that expectations both about the content and the form of narratives had effect on how western cultural stories are read by these students. Piper (1985c) further discussed the educational implications of these findings, findings suggesting that the reading process in English as second language may be to some extent facilitated by developing textual materials on a spectrum ranging from accordance to first-cultural content and form to accordance with western content and form typical in English. Prior studies have established the effects of various first-cultural schemata on processing in English. When native English-speaking students, for instance, were asked to summarize and recall narratives that were characterized by unusual second-cultural rhetorical patterning, such as the different temporal-causal sequencing found in Apache stories, their recall was found by Kintsch and Greene (1978)

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to contain various kinds of inaccuracy. A study by Steffensen, JoagDev, and Anderson (1979), comparing recall by Asian Indian vs. North American students of descriptions of weddings from each culture, further suggests that readers typically reconstruct events in memory in order to make them accord with their first-cultural expectations — in this case about how weddings are organized and about the roles of the participants. Just as in the cases of French-English and Native-English bilingualism reviewed above, in the area of English as a second language the relation of macro-level socio-political constraints to cross-cultural learning and use of English are of paramount importance. As an example of how directly the policies and ideology of official bilingualism contrast with those of multiculturalism, it is currently the case in the province of Alberta that, whereas monolingual English-speaking students in the school system are entitled to funding for core French for as long as they need it, funding for ESL education in the schools is only for two academic years. Basic adult ESL education is generally available free of charge only to persons designated as "heads of households", a policy which seems to be in blatant contradiction to the multicultural and, indeed, constitutional, ideal that all Canadian citizens have right to expression and legal recourse in one of the official languages. The special irony in this situation — that immigrants to Western Canada may secure funding to learn French rather than English as a second language and that they may be better off moving to Quebec — has not gone unnoticed. There is good reason to believe that immigrant learners of English as a second language are highly sensitive to the social framework in which their motivation to learn develops and subsequent language learning takes place. Unlike members of francophone or native groups learning and communicating in English, almost all immigrants have to deal with culture shock. Immigration typically involves, moreover, a vortex of self-analysis devoted to questions of how far assimilation into a new culture is possible or necessary and, concomitantly, of how many bridges must be burned in leaving the first culture and language behind. In her exploration of the thoughts and feelings of immigrant women into a Western Canadian city (Calgary, Alberta), Warren (1986) emphasizes that "the loss of language can mean a loss of the sense of self." She continues: For such women, the loss of shared symbols must be particularly acute. Thus it seems as important for their mental health as for

Socio-political influence on cultural identity in Canada 181 practical reasons that such women have ready access to English as a Second Language programs as well as opportunities to practice the English in sympathetic settings, (p. 13) Warren's transcripts (what she calls "vignettes" of the lives of women immigrants) dramatically reveal the complex relation in immigrants experiences between motivation, sense of identity, and learning and communication in English, as do the following comments which appeared in a document published by the Vietnamese Canadian Association (1983:8-12): Without the language, the whole Vietnamese community cannot socialize and make itself understood to erase the image of being eternal aliens in the larger society, cause for racial discrimination and unrest. Without the language, none of us would dare to chart one's future although we know the future is there, very close and within reach. So instinctively, we try to seek refuge in our past. But from our past, we are also isolated. Given this sensitive recognition of the place of language in the successful development of secure second-cultural identity, then, it is clear that immigrants are highly vulnerable to political and economic constraints which are placed upon opportunities for second-language learning. The opportunities here for cross-cultural misunderstanding, and for social withdrawal, followed by the eventual pidginization and fossilization of immigrants' second language are clear. One policy in ESL education that echoes the suppressive policies described above in the domain of native education, and which has attracted much critical attention, is that of submersion (see e.g. Genesee 1979; Piper 1985a). "Submersion" refers to the premature mainstreaming (i.e. the total language immersion in all content areas) of ESL secondary level students immediately or shortly after their arrival in Canada, a practice that is apparently founded upon an overgeneralization of immersion programs beyond the context of EnglishFrench education to that of English as a second language. While attempts to replicate the immersion programs with immigrant learners have met with success at the elementary school level, there are several reasons to believe that the analogy between the two educational situations (elementary and secondary) is a false and dangerous one when it comes to considering Canadian high school programs. First,

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in contrast to the case of the official language immersion program, submersed immigrant language learners do not naturally receive support for their first languages in peer group interactions out of the classroom. Second, no prestige or social reinforcement comes with the bilingual fluency of these students. Submersion provides, in Lambert's terms, then, a context only for subtractive bilingualism. Third, submersion denies to the immigrant learner the opportunity to receive intelligible input. In this regard, Mohan (1982) has emphasized the basic educational rights of immigrant students to attend lessons in which teachers make conscious attempts to analyze their language needs. Despite the apparent appeal of immersion programming to Canadian administrators, the policy of submersion should be recognized, perhaps, as one of the greatest threats to successful cross-cultural communication in English in the future, since it reduces opportunities for the dual development of secure second-cultural identity and language growth. The results of continued submersion in English of immigrants of secondary school age are likely to result in cultural marginality, increased cultural distance and pidignization and fossilization of their second language.

5. Conclusions As is the case between cultures and languages in general, many factors combine to affect the nature and quality of cross-cultural communication in English in the Canadian context. In particular, background experiences and the structures of first languages themselves are known to affect communication in English, as they are known also to affect the processes of English language learning. The particular nature of interaction in Canada, however, can only be characterized by relating all of these well-recognized cultural and linguistic phenomena to historical and political circumstances that are currently dominated and symbolized by the specter of official languages policy. An attempt has been made to characterize the influence of official language ideology and policies upon English learning and communication in three cross-cultural domains and it has been suggested that such ideology and policies in many ways impede the development of multicultural egality. There is good reason to believe, moreover, that the reinforcement of the "founding race" hegemony implicit in official bilingualism may do more to perpetuate rather than to dissolve the

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"vertical mosaic" that has been repeatedly identified in Canada over the past two decades. One of the objectives of future discourse-analytic work in Canada must be to account for how the macro-level socio-political influences that have been described here affect everyday discourse. A consideration of the Canadian scene suggests that official language policy, both in its tendency to reinforce vertical ethnic stratification and in its constraints on funding and opportunities for other types of secondlanguage learning continues to influence individual feelings about cultural identity and, thereby, affects the levels of personal and cultural investment made in cross-cultural communication. Finally, it must be recognized that an attempt to characterize some of the macro-level influences on the communicative interaction of particular ethnic and cultural groups in Canada runs the risk of perilous overgeneralization. Within each of the groups discussed here there exists, of course, a range of individual responses to the forces described. There are significant individual differences between members of minority cultural groups, for instance, ranging across a spectrum from personal belief in social preservation to belief in total assimilation within the dominant social group. This means that macro-level forces such as those tied to the linguistic and ideological matters discussed here must be considered at the more detailed level of micro-level discourse in terms of their interaction with individual variables. It has been the objective here to suggest, nevertheless, that some betweengroup generalizations are possible, and that they will be of value in establishing a framework for the more detailed analysis of cross-cultural communication between individuals in the future. In Canada, the inseparable macro-level variables of political, cultural, and linguistic categorization will continue to be a rich source for hypotheses about particular characteristics of language comprehension and use at the segmental, prosodie, and textual levels of description.

English as problem and resource in Sri Lankan Universities

Chitra Fernando Abstract Lankan learners of English as a Foreign Language often find that their native languages (Sinhala and Tamil) have not been traditionally used for the discourse of science, technology and social science. These Lankan EFL learners have to master not only a new language system, but also a new set of language functions in order to handle a different cultural paradigm associated with fundamental socio-economic changes in the post-colonial period. As a result of the differences in speech functions of their LI (Sinhala/Tamil) and L2 (English), most Lankan graduates tend to be consumers of knowledge rather than researchers, a disadvantage shared with all Third World fellows.

1. Introduction English in Lankan universities is both a problem and a resource; and it is one or the other to greater or lesser extent for different sectors of the university-going population. This circumstance is partly explained by the different institutionalized functions that English and the vernaculars have in Sri Lanka, partly by the sociolinguistic history of English in the country. The introduction of English into Sri Lanka in 1796 added to the island's linguistic diversity. Apart from a bilingual minority made up of both natives and colonials, the Lankans at the beginning of the British period were monolingual, speaking one or the other language of the two main indigenous ethnic groups: Sinhala or Tamil (a language also spoken in south India). In addition, Portuguese or Dutch, or both, were spoken by the former colonizers. And finally, the native classical languages were associated with the literati: Sanskrit with those of Hindu culture; Pali, and Sanskrit to a lesser degree, with those of Buddhist culture.

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Language diversity need not be a problem, but in actual fact it often is when one language, especially if it is foreign, comes to assume functions previously fulfilled by others. English added to the complexity of the Sri Lanka language situation by appropriating for itself the legislative, judicial, administrative, and educational roles previously filled by the vernaculars. The take-over by English of these vernacular functions resulted in a new type of socio-economic division among the native population: those who knew English and those who did not, thereby paving the way for an alien cultural paradigm competing with, and attenuating, the traditional ones. The new interdependence of language and socio-economic status had not existed in pre-British times. Traditional Lankan society was built on a fundamental socio-economic inequality arising from a hereditary caste system that was, however, unrelated to language. Under the British, class distinctions linked to language were superimposed on, and often cut through, caste. The upper and middle classes came to comprise an Anglicised elite whose members were linked through language, and in some cases through religion as well, with British culture. Before 1948, colonial Sri Lanka had a network of English speakers belonging to three broadly different groups, each with its own social and cultural identity: (i) British colonials who were monolingual speakers of English; (ii) Eurasian, Sinhalese, and Tamil bilinguals who were acrolect speakers of English as a first or second language (acrolect being the standard or variety of highest prestige), and who used a variety of Modified Standard English, also known as Educated Lankan English; (iii) members of these same groups but who were basilect speakers of English as a foreign language (basilect being the variety of lowest prestige or most deviant from the standard), which they used for limited purposes, such as, for example, in work as office boys, waiters, or domestics. (It is difficult to identify a mesolect group in this period.) After 1948, the post-colonial Lankan situation is considerably more complex, chiefly as a result of the declaration of Sinhala as the official language in 1956, and its establishment as the national language, along with Tamil, in 1978. For the first time we began to have in Sri Lanka a mesolect group (mesolect being an intermediate variety in terms of prestige and deviance from the standard between the acrolect and the basilect), which arose as a result of the State making English a compulsory second language from third grade upwards in all Sri Lankan

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schools. The mesolect can be distinguished from the acrolect by pronunciation, by minor differences of grammar and idiom, and by control of a narrower range of language functions in English. In addition to the mesolect, and to the previously existing acrolect and basilect speakers, we have also now another group, the largest: learners of English as a foreign language, closest to basilect speakers in their weak control of the language system. For this new group, which will be the focus of this paper, English serves mostly an academic purpose, most crucially at the tertiary level. The proficiency courses this group is obliged to follow illustrate more dramatically than anything else the change in the socio-political status of English in Sri Lanka from an official state language to a foreign one. The change drastically reduced the functions of English in comparison to colonial times. The most important role played by English today, though not its only one, is to provide access to international scholarship and technology. This is a limited but, nonetheless, key role in which neither Sinhala nor Tamil, not being world languages, can ever hope to compete. Local literati, be they consumers (undergraduates) or producers of knowledge (researchers) find English indispensable. Though officially English is now a foreign language, it cannot, because of its having been the official state language from 1802 to 1956, really be regarded as a foreign language in the same "way as French, German, Russian, etc. During the British period, English was the first language of the Anglicised elite already referred to, and it still is for such persons, now the older generation. The children of this older generation are fluent bilinguals (English and Sinhala/Tamil), as English still remains one of their home languages. For certain professional disciplines (law, medicine, and engineering), study at tertiary level is obligatory in English. English is still the de facto language of the judiciary (the Language of the Courts Act, 1961) since case law introduced in colonial times and still prevalent, has to refer to precedents in English. Sinhala and Tamil have only a restricted currency in the courts, despite being national languages. Banking and all overseas commercial transactions were carried out in English in colonial Sri Lanka and still are, though internal banking transactions are now also carried out in the vernaculars. What emerges from the foregoing account of the domains of English use is that it still performs important functions in Lankan society. In purely linguistic terms, the most important consequence of

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English having been the official language for one hundred and fifty years in Sri Lanka is the rise of a local variety of English, Educated Lankan English. The spoken English of Lankan acrolect speakers, one of whose home languages is English, is perceptually uniform regardless of the racial origins of its speakers. Minor differences in vocabulary and grammar arising from contact with Sinhala and Tamil appear in speech and in informal written English (e.g. personal letters) or creative literary English (e.g. dialogue in drama or fiction). The recognition of Educated Lankan English as a legitimate variety of English, the best local type, and, therefore, the most practical alternative to Standard British English is evident in its being taught as the most suitable spoken form at secondary and tertiary levels. Modifications of Standard British English appear in the Lankan variety most systematically at the level of pronounciation (e.g. the substitution of pure vowels for diphthongs due to the absence of these in the vernaculars). Transfer of this sort could result in ambiguity in English minimal pairs like snow/snore if context failed to disambiguate their respective meanings. Similar problems could arise from differences in English and Sinhala/Tamil stress patterns. (For further details relating to pronunciation differences between British Standard English Speakers and Educated Lankan English speakers, see Fernando 1977). As far as lexis and grammar, the educated spoken form shows stylistic variation determined by the context of situation. A speaker will tend to introduce local idiom more readily into informal peergroup interactions than he would into formal ones with superiors, strangers, or even peers, as illustrated in (1). ( 1 ) — Didn't you get yesterday's Daily News? - Got, got, got The speaker is quite capable of using the British form I've got it, but his interlocutor in the informal situation in which the text was recorded was a friend asking a question about an everyday occurrence. He, therefore, adopts a local locution originating in Sinhala grammatical usage, which allows a single verb to function as an independent utterance. The following examples come from Parliamentary debates as they have been recorded in the Sri Lankan Hansard (the official printed report of Parliamentary proceedings), and illustrate not only local idiom, but also the special rhetorical flavour of Lankan English discourse.

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(2)

Today people cannot go on the road. The other day a person from my organization went to Kandy. He travelled by the 11 o'clock bus. When the bus neared Kegalle about 25 to 30 people came on the road, the driver drove the bus fast. Then further on about two hundred to three hundred people came, the driver could not move and he had to submit. These people went into the bus . . . (Hansard, 18 August 1977:469).

(3)

- They distributed land among themselves. — I deny that also — You deny (. . .). I will reveal how you distributed land among yourselves. — I am awaiting your revelations. (Hansard, 22 August 1977: 466)

(4)

— Where were you then? You were hiding under a bed. Now you can talk. (Hansard, 19 May 1978:2028).

Present in these extracts are several lexical and grammatical peculiarities characterizing Lankan English, such as direct object omission in you deny, particularly evident among mesolect and basilect speakers but occasionally present even among acrolectals; the converse unidiomatic retention of the direct object in he drove the bus fast·, local idioms like neared for approached, came for came out, went into for got into, now you can talk meaning "to be wise after the event" and had to submit for to give way. What comes across at the discourse level is the markedly local flavour of the polemical rhetoric: reprimand via a detailed anecdote, as in (2), and challenge via a gibe realized in a local idiom, as in (4). While Lankan English in its written form is most evident in personal letters and literary work, the academic register of the fluent bilingual is indistinguishable from Standard British English, as illustrated in (5): (5)

In Sri Lanka conspicuous consumption has currently become a prevalent feature during the past few years: Christmas cards advertised at Rs 120/= each, Christmas hampers with prices ranging from Rs 350/= to Rs 3,500/=, New Year's Eve dances at Rs 500/= per couple, the shops filled with imported luxury goods — Toblerone, frozen pudding, remote control toys, perfumes . . . (Year 4, English medium student, Sociology Honours, Colombo University).

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Though Lankan English has been accepted as the local standard, educationists still think of it as norm-dependent, looking to the normproviding variety, Standard British English, as a regulator of local usage. (For the term norm dependent, and the related one, norm developing, see Kachru 1985:16-17; for opposing points of view on the issue of a Lankan standard, see Kandiah 1979, 1981 and Walatara 1981.) The rejection of Lankan English as norm-developing is usually based on the desirability of easy intelligibility in the international area. Still, a significant indicator of acceptance of Lankan English as the local norm, albeit dependent on its parent, is its formal study as part of English linguistic courses in universities. The study of Lankan English has necessarily to be carried out in the light of sociolinguistic theory. This necessity relates such study to language functions, to social change and the needs of local populations, giving it a social relevance that other areas of English study may not have to the same degree.

2. Academic English in Sri Lankan universities: Macro-problems For those students coming from homes where English is one of the languages of domestic and social intercourse, or from the better urban schools, English is either no problem or is less so than for the majority of students who come from lower income groups and attend rural schools. Such schools are poorly equipped with resource materials, and are staffed by teachers whose English is often only a little better than that of their pupils. In these circumstances, the chances are slight that the learner will acquire English, in such a way and in sufficient quantity that s/he can understand and generate language which is situationally appropriate, this being what Stephen Krashen has identified as "the fundamental goal of (language) pedagogy" (1981: 102). An additional subtractive factor in Lankan educational institutions is the lack of student motivation, either integrative or instrumental. Post-Independent Sri Lanka offers little motivation or opportunity for integrative bilingualism. English no longer has the same socio-economic leverage it once had. Though still prestigious, it does not enhance a person's self-esteem by acting as a clear-cut class indicator; nor does identifying with British culture bring anybody any special gain. From the instrumental point of view, for the majority

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who do not look for "gate-keeper" positions, or for entry into professions such as medicine, law, international commerce and tourism, a high level of English is not essential for employment. In short, learning English provides very little nourishment for a person's "language ego" as it is not necessary for his/her social security or identity and, therefore, does not lead to the self-actualization discussed by Douglas Brown (1981:122). The affective factors present in most Lankan English language classrooms, especially those in rural areas, are mostly of a negative sort, a circumstance that hardly makes for effective language acquisition. The instrumental value of English becomes more evident to the school-student turned undergraduate who is enrolled in English proficiency courses. The problems facing the tertiary student are, however, rather different from those besetting him in primary or secondary school. The two faces of English as problem and resource really emerge only at this level of the educational hierarchy. There are several educational problems facing the learner at tertiary level directly reflected in the study of English in present-day Sri Lanka. These arise from two major interconnected factors, pedagogical and cultural. The cultural factor being the more salient of the two, I shall deal with it first. What the British introduced into Sri Lanka over the one hundred and fifty years of their rule was a new cultural paradigm, the most important consequence of which was to effect a change in the kinds of knowledge traditionally valued in the country, one of the predictable outcomes of culture contact. Traditional higher learning in Sri Lanka had been closely associated with Buddhist monks by the Sinhalese, and with Hindu priests by the Tamils, a link which made learning essentially religious in character. The focus of this kind of high culture, insofar as it emerges in extant writings, gives us insight into the major intellectual pursuits of its chief creators and transmitters. With regard to Buddhist culture, the one I am most familiar with, these pursuits may be grouped as follows: (i) the Pali Canon (the Scriptures) brought to the Island, along with Buddhism, around 300 B.C. in oral form, and written down circa 100 B.C.; (ii) commentaries on the Pali Canon and sub-commentaries on these writings, works which exemplify the exegetical tradition of Lankan Buddhist scholarship; (iii) written historical chronicles, virtually histories of the Sasana or Buddhist church; (iv) written works, in both prose and verse, on the life of Buddha, panegyrics on his virtues or on his relics; (v) written stories,

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again prose and verse compositions, on the previous lives of Buddha (jataka); (vi) written works on language: Pali, Sinhala and Sanskrit grammars, Pali and Sanskrit hardword glossaries (gatapada), verbatim Sinhala paraphrases of Pali and Sanskrit works (satines), and words on poetics and prosody (Paranavitane 1959, 1960). The intellectual abilities that the creation, reading or listening to such works tended to foster were, predictably, those of exegesis, grammatical description, narrative recitation and poetic rhetoric. Curiosity regarding natural surroundings, the chief spur to the development of science through continued empirical investigation of the material world in the light of new hypotheses, was absent here. The one exception was in the domain of ayurvedic (indigenous) medicine, an interest which links up with the Buddhist and Hindu emphasis on the connection between sound health and the proper functioning of the mental faculties, as well as with the encouragement given by Buddhist rulers to the establishment of charity hospitals. However, over-all, Katherine Gough's point regarding literacy and culture in ancient India is also applicable to the higher culture of Sri Lanka: "The search for truth continued to mean primarily spiritual truth to be found through meditation and right living" (1975:74). The ideas of Lankan high culture shaped traditional education up to the beginning of the British colonial period. Even in this period, educational institutions transmitting the high culture (pirivenas or monastic universities) existed alongside the educational institutions established by the British to disseminate their own culture in the arts and sciences. But 1948, the year which ended British rule in Sri Lanka, marked the beginning of a period of basic socio-economic changes in the structure of Lankan society, the most fundamental being that the effects of the Industrial Revolution began to be felt on a truly national scale. Yet the local student had no models in his own culture expressive of the intellectual skills that, largely as a result of the socio-economic changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Europe, had come to be valued in the West. What the highest Lankan intellectual tradition offers him as its most prized products are narratives larded with figures, and exegetical works hardly expressive of the linguistic routines favoured by contemporary Western academic discourse. In postIndependent Sri Lanka, therefore, the traditional high culture has ceased to be the most vital shaping force on the moral and intellectual life of society. Knowledge associated with the physical and social sciences is increasingly valued more than that associated with spiritual

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life. In the past twenty-five years, there has been a proliferation of British-style tertiary institutions as well as the further development of the cultural paradigm introduced by the British along with one of its associated ideologies: the need to seek scientific truths to improve man's material lot in preference to the need to seek spiritual ones to help him cope with life's transience. In these circumstances, access to international scholarship and technology, most easily obtainable via a world-language like English, is essential for Lankans. However, the opportunities for such access are not equal. Weak bilinguals, now in the majority at universities, are especially disadvantaged. They have not only to improve their knowledge of a foreign language, but also to master an intellectual dialectic alien to them. I have dealt with what I see as the main culturally-derived intellectual problem confronting present-day Lankan students. The other, a pedagogically-derived one, arises from the tendency in rural and smaller urban schools to set the learner tasks, whatever the subject, that are orientated to fact-gathering rather than problem-solving. This practice is particularly evident in the humanities, though it is not absent in the sciences by any means. In the former, description is the mode the learner feels most at home in, not analytical exposition or argumentation. Learners from big urban schools (e.g. in Colombo, Jaffna and Kandy), especially those established in colonial times under the British grammar school tradition, are better off in this respect. Additionally, students in these schools belong to a higher socio-economic group, and a large number of them use English as one of their home languages. Home, school and university are on a continuum for such fluent bilinguals; for weak bilinguals they are not. Weak bilinguals from the lower middle and working class receive no adequate English language teaching at school nor do they receive an adequate intellectual training which will prepare them for tertiary education. This assertion is borne out by examples of compositions such as (6), which was written by a fluent bilingual, and (7) which was written by a weak one. The writer of (6) is known to me. He attends one of the most prestigious schools in the island, established by the British in the last century. Essay (7) comes from a batch of compositions by weak bilinguals, mainly from rural areas, following an English proficiency course at Kelaniya University. (6) Buddhism is Unique The moral and philosophical system expounded by the Buddha

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is called the Dhamma and is popularly known as Buddhism. Strictly speaking Buddhism is not a religion in the sense in which it is commonly understood, for it is not a system of faith and worship. It is a course that guides a disciple through pure living and pure thinking to the gain of supreme wisdom and deliverance from all evil. Through Buddhism, a sound system of ethics was built up upon psychological foundations, defining and raising the standards of human conduct and heightening the value of human life, efforts and experiences. . . . Buddhism no doubt accords with science, but both should be treated as parallel teachings, since one deals mainly with material truths whilst the other confines itself to moral and spiritual truths. The subject matter of each is different. . . (Student in year 11, Royal College, Colombo) (7 ) The Sinhala ' New Year The Sinhala New year falls on the 13th and 14th of April. The Sinhala and Tamil people celebrate the Sinhala New year. The males earn a lot of money. They repair their houses and clean their gardens. They clean the windows, furnitures, roof, doors, and other things. They paint and colour wash their houses. These days all houses are beautiful. All the family members help to the work. Adults go to the market and they buy some goods. These goods are like new pots, provisions, new clothes, crackers. They buy a lot of things to make sweet meats. These days we saw [sew] new dreses. Women make sweet meets. There are milk rice, kokis, Aluwa oil cake, and other sweets . . . (Student in English Beginners' Course, Kelaniya). The difference between the two compositions lies not only in the linguistic superiority of (6) over (7), clearly evident in sentence construction, vocabulary and the sequencing of ideas, but also in the relative ability the writer of (6) displays in handling abstract concepts and generalizations; the writer of (7) simply describes. What is significant is that this latter student is not required to do anything other than describe in the English proficiency course he is enrolled in. (A request for expository-analytical compositions from the course coordinator at Kelaniya University brought the following reply: "As our students write only descriptive essays, I am unable to send you

English as problem and resource in Sri Lankan Universities 195 samples of essays of the type you need"). This limitation could be partly due to the poor English of university entrants, partly due to these courses having comprehension as their primary goal, this being the most urgent need of Lankan undergraduates, for whom speaking and writing are secondary objectives. We could also argue on the basis of quality and of socio-economic background differences between urban and rural schools, that fluent bilinguals will be more adept at handling academic discourse not only in English, but even in the mother-tongue. In this regard, Hussein Dhaifs point that pedagogy based on the assumptions and methodologies developed in one culture may not facilitate learning in another is very relevant to the Lankan situation: " . . . learning strategies developed by learners are usually deeply rooted in their cognitive repertoire and are, therefore, difficult to alter overnight through the English language class. They are also the by-product of a set of cultural and educational factors" (1985: 224). Dhaif's comment reflects a relatively new trend in education with special applications to language teaching where cultural factors are "almost an inevitable part of the foreign language curriculum" (Politzer 1981:30; Hymes 1980). A more explicit two-way understanding of the part ethnographic factors play in the educational process could help Lankan course designers and teachers to reduce the problems facing students trying to cope with both a British-style university curriculum and a foreign language. I have already pointed out that the weak bilingual needs English proficiency courses to use the library, or to follow lectures. He also needs these courses for a less obvious reason (one which has implications not only for English language proficiency, but also for his education in general), namely as training in how to respond to a new set of language functions realized in the medium of academic English. Discourse types such as articles, reports, reference works and theses incorporating experimental, statistical or other data (e.g. interviews and responses to questionnaires) as an integral part of a distinctive propositional organization and characterized by a specific academic rhetoric are not found among the works of the traditional Lankan literati. The models for contemporary academic discourse in the vernaculars come from a relatively small number of texts, either translations of English works or vernacular works modelled on English ones. In a situation where so little is available in the vernacular, the student needs, at least in principle, ready access to English academic works. How far such needs can be fulfilled in practice because of his

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poor English and poor intellectual training is another matter. The weak bilingual also faces additional problems relating to literacy levels in the mother tongue. Sri Lanka has a very high rate of mothertongue literacy as shown by the figures in Table 1, which cover a period of ten years. Table 1

Over-all Rural Urban

The Population of Sri Lanka, Census Monograph, 1971 in Gair 1983-56 All

Male

Female

78.1 75.9 85.6

85.2 83.8 87.5

70.7 67.6 81.5

However, though mother-tongue literacy in Sri Lanka is very high by world standards quantitatively, we have no reason to believe that it is also qualitatively so. Newspapers have very high sales and a wide circulation, but being able to cope with journalism neither indicates equal competence in comprehending academic or other types of discourse nor an equal interest in buying serious works, a conclusion supported by what I observe to be the very small number of local publishers and the low retail sales of books. For poor students, and the majority of Lankan students are poor, books are a luxury. The popularity of radio (and more recently television), both media lending themselves to communal listening or viewing, far exceeds that of silent reading, a necessarily private activity; while communal oral recitation is common in Sri Lanka, communal reading aloud is not. Gair notes: "As a Marga Institute survey (The Sinhala Reading Public, 1974) showed, the large Swabasha (vernacular)-educated public, once they have emerged from the schools, have precious little in the way of serious works for general reading available to them" (1983:50). For the reasons given above, whether such a dearth of works in the vernacular is caused by lack of writers or readers, is a "chicken-or-egg" type of question. Whatever the answer, the problems of the weak Lankan bilingual, differ, for example, from those of the Frenchman, Russian or German learning English for academic purposes. Since no Lankan university has an English proficiency "exit" exam for its arts students, most students can get by with "barely minimal skills in English" (Hanson-Smith 1984:27). The implications of such a possibility are that Lankan students do not really read for a degree; they virtually graduate on their lecture notes.

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There is no significant difference in the over-all educational performance of students entering different Lankan universities. Nor is there a crucial difference in the objectives and methodology of English proficiency courses offered across universities. (There are, of course, differences in the selection and content of these proficiency courses in different universities, so that, for instance, components of the grammar-translation method may not be present in all these courses.) The differences exist, predictably, in the specific academic orientation of each course as determined by its takers, e.g. Law Proficiency, Science Proficiency, General Proficiency etc. Professionally oriented English language courses such as those for law, medical, and science students are more academically specific in terms of grammar, vocabulary and comprehension than are those for arts students. The first three groups of students tend to come, though not exclusively, from urban schools; additionally, since selection for non-arts faculties, particularly for medicine, is on a more competitive basis, high achievers tend to be more numerous among non-arts students. Though in recent years, the social sciences loosely grouped, along with traditional arts subjects (languages, literature, philosophy and history) have also been attracting high achievers, traditional-type arts students comprise the majority in Lankan universities. The fact that the arts are now less prestigious than they used to be, apart from being an international trend, is also an indicator of the new cultural paradigm that is taking over in Sri Lanka, the "westernization" of the Lankan ethos. Despite the broad differences among the disciplines within Lankan universities, the major problems facing all English proficiency students are similar: "The problem is that most students start at the lower end of Level 1, and it takes them three to four years to complete their course by which time they are about to graduate. Also, the average student who secures a "Level III Proficiency" on the course is only just ready to start reading authentic texts. A further year of reading under guidance is needed to enable him to acquire confidence, speed and mature skills. Such students have to learn English with a view to enhancing their prospects after graduation rather than for helping them with their degree studies" (Wickramasuriya 1981:30). Low proficiency levels even at the end of several years of English language study are not special to Sri Lanka. Escorcia (1985:229) refers to a similar situation in a university in Colombia (South America), though the causes of the students' poor English there are not all the same as those affecting Lankan students.

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The course of action, or inaction, taken by Lankan university students with regard to English proficiency courses stems from the exigencies of their situation. The difficulties of grappling with knowledge presented via an unfamiliar dialectic and language, the learning of which cuts into the time they need for their chosen fields of study, is very burdensome; unless they have the powerful instrumental motivation of professionals reading law or medicine, they adopt the principle of least effort. In over-all educational terms, this has the effect not only of reducing the number of potential researchers in Sri Lanka, but also of restricting the rank of researchers to those who are fluent bilinguals, excluding weak bilinguals who may also have the potential for the research.

3. An English proficiency course: Micro-problems What I shall now do is to look more closely at general English proficiency courses in Lankan universities (i.e. for arts students), as these reflect the most acute nature of the language problems facing students. For ease of analysis, I shall concentrate on the Proficiency in English Beginner's Course given at Kelaniya University, 1985. The Kelaniya course aims at giving the student who has little or no experience in speaking, reading and writing English, basic skills in these areas. Its ultimate objective in academic terms, an objective not immediately apparent in the earlier course units, is to familiarize the learner with the basics of English grammar and "vocabulary items from textbooks and technical terms of study," the targets being to enable him/her "to follow a lecture in English in [his/her] chosen field of study," "to read and comprehend a simple prose passage" etc., "to write answers to questions based on simple prose passages," "to write a composition of about 250 words" etc. The primary target in speech skills is to "initiate and sustain a simple conversation," using "the pronunciation of educated speakers of Lankan English." The passmark in this course stands at a relatively low 40 percent. The proficiency level of learners following these courses in the area of composition has already been illustrated in (7) above. The proficiency level of these learners in reading-comprehension is indicated by the following exercise set at the second term examination (1986):

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(8) Read the following passage and answer the questions. (1) The Eskimos are hunters. (2) They live in the Tundra. (3) The summer is short there but the Eskimos are very busy during this season. (4) During the summer the Eskimo lives in a tent. (5) He fishes in the sea in a kayak. (6) A kayak is a small boat. (7) The Eskimo makes kayaks with driftwood and skins. (8) He hunts many animals e.g. seals and walruses. (9) The women and children too procure food. (10) They fish with nets, hooks and harpoons in streams and lakes. (11) They catch birds and collect eggs. (12) The Eskimo hunts in autumn too. (13) During autumn the caribou migrates towards the south. (14) The Eskimos hunt them too. (15) In winter the Eskimos usually build houses (igloos) with blocks of ice. (16) However some Eskimos now spend the winter in stone houses. The propositional simplicity of this comprehension text, essentially an enumeration of facts, complemented by a comparable simplicity of discourse organization, inevitable in the absence of subordinating conjunctions, raises an important question, especially relevant in view of this being a university course: is such a choice of text dictated solely by the exigencies of "a proficiency-situation," i.e. the student's weak grasp of grammar and vocabulary, or is such a choice, additionally, a covert concession to the relatively weak literacy skills of the rural undergraduate when it comes to coping with academic texts, whatever the language? As I have already pointed out, there are only a very small number of academic works in the vernaculars on subjects relevant to the cultural paradigm introduced by the British, i.e. texts on the physical and social sciences, law, medicine, and the humanities, especially those giving new ideological interpretations to traditional areas in the case of the last. What this means is that for most learners there is little or no carry-over from the vernaculars when it comes to literacy skills in academic English in terms of responding to a distinctive propositional organization. The questions that accompany the comprehension passage above are of a traditional type: a choice between true/false statements and a · set of questions that cover the propositional content of the passage by focussing on the life-style of the Eskimos in terms of when, how, with, what and where. The answers to such questions constitute a form of guided composition since the student is able to give the correct

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answer by quoting almost verbatim from the text, e.g., one student chose to answer the question When are Eskimos very busy? with The Eskimos are very busy during summer, replacing the original this season with summer. This same student answered the question, Where do Eskimos live in winter with They live in stone houses in winter and was marked right despite his having overlooked the semantics of some Eskimos (sentence 16) and of usually (sentence 15), both indicating that the majority of Eskimos still live in igloos. While the tick for the above answer may simply indicate an oversight on the marker's part, it could also indicate what factors are focussed on in language teaching and testing. Since the focus is on sentence grammar, the kind of prepositional modifications the reader may make on the basis of the global semantics of the text, as well as those at the intersentential level are relatively neglected. There is no attempt, therefore, to test the learner's inferential strategies, particularly at points where such interpretative strategies hinge on the correct understanding of structural elements e.g. conjunctions, conjuncts, quantifying adjectives embedded in anaphoric phrases and other sorts of cohesive ties. The two-year Certificate in English Course (Kelaniya University, 1985) has a syllabus aimed at "students with a good knowledge of the four language skills in English, especially those who can express themselves in writing." The difference in the proficiency level of students taking the Certificate Course leads us to expect comprehension exercises of a different type from those associated with the proficiency courses referred to above. However, a look at a Certificate Course comprehension exercise shows a teaching and testing focus similar to that of the Beginners' Course, with the propositional organization of the comprehension text only slightly different from the one on Eskimos, despite the superior English proficiency of the students. Such a choice of text appears to indicate once again the absence of advanced literacy skills of the sort normally assumed in tertiary education, even in the linguistically more competent Certificate students: (9) Place a hair from your head on your hand and examine it carefully. You are looking at something quite extraordinary, something which has inspired poets and painters for centuries and is the daily concern of more ordinary mortals. We probably devote more time and money to hair than to any other constitute of the human anatomy. We cut, shave, tint and curl it, and industries worth one hundred million dollars result.

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In the past decade, medical research has uncovered more facts about hair than at any other previous time. Hair has some remarkable attributes. It is as strong as aluminium. If the hair on your head were woven into a slender rope, it could support a suspended weight up to two thousand pounds — more than that of a small car. 1. According to this writer what has inspired poets and painters for centuries? "According to this writer that poets and painters have been inspired by hair for centuries." 2. According to this writer, industries worth one hundred million result from some of the things humans do to their hair. What are these? "People spend much money to keep hair lovely and healthy. They cut, tint, curl and shave the hair and with of this activities is one hundred million result from something that human beings do to their hair." 3. How does the writer show the strength of human hair? "The writer shows the strenth of human hair sayin as strong as alluminium and the hair can suspend the weight of two thousand pound." The psycholinguistic skills that a university proficiency course with comprehension as its primary objective should seek to develop in the learner are of two types: the ability to assimilate facts and the complementary ability to group these facts into conceptual patterns (e.g. definitions, contrasts and comparisons, cause-and-effect relationships, justifications, explanations, generalizations etc.) leading to a text's global meaning, its main point. Such skills, both the low level one of "immediate apprehension of information" and the more sophisticated "discrimination of this information into patterns of conceptual significance" are heuristic procedures (Widdowson 1979:180). Such procedures call into play what Christopher Candlin terms "interpretative competence", the reader's capacity for "comparison inference/prediction" (1981:185). The student needs to extend his knowledge; the mastery of procedures or strategies such as comparison and inference are necessary for such an objective. But if the student's knowledge is to be extended so that he adds to his conceptual repertoire, he needs "epistemologica! procedures" not simply heuristic

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ones (Widdowson 1979:180). Are the conceptual repertoires of English language students in Lankan universities extended in a way commensurate with their undergraduate intellectual status? Judging by the answers quoted above from a paper classified as a good one, the learner appears to understand the text and accompanying questions. However, whether such understanding leads the learner to acquire language structure and to extend his/her conceptual repertoire in any real way is doubtful. In terms of Krashen's Input Hypothesis, language acquisition occurs when the learner "understands input that contains structures a little bit beyond his or her current level of competence (i + 1) and when . . . [the] Affective Filter permits the input to 'strike deeply'" (Krashen 1981:102). Neither the reading text cited above nor the questions that accompany it extend the student in this way, not only because of the simple nature of most of the questions asked, but also because passages of this sort do not of themselves satisfy the requirement needed in order to achieve an i + 1 input. "It is unlikely that a single paragraph will contain i + 1. It is quite likely, however, that i + 1 will be contained in abundance in a short novel that a student can read for pleasure" (Krashen 1981:105). What is unlikely is that the students enrolled in the courses cited above are of a sufficiently high level of linguistic proficiency to read for pleasure in English. They are certainly not linguistically equipped to read English academic texts in order to extend their conceptual repertoire; more significantly, it seems doubtful, in view of their relatively low literacy skills, that they are really intellectually equipped to do so even in the mother-tongue. High level literacy skills are necessary for the epistemological extension Widdowson refers to. Such an extension will depend "on what the reader already knows and what he wants to find out in his reading" (1979:180). The subject knowledge that the average student taking English language courses at Lankan universities can have is limited by the dearth of books in the vernacular, especially in Sinhala, with its relatively small speech community (eleven million speakers according to the 1981 census). In these circumstances, the student's limited topic knowledge works both against the adequate functioning of heuristic procedures that result in conceptualization, and epistemological procedures that add to the store of knowledge. Given this situation among students in English proficiency courses in Sri Lanka, especially those following Arts courses, my argument is not unreasonable that the intellectual skills favoured by Western style academic institutions (e.g. hypothesizing; the identification,

English as problem and resource in Sri Lankan Universities 203 assertion, explanation and solution of problems, etc.) tend to develop only among a minority of fluent bilinguals. This point is well illustrated with a further extract from the essay on conspicuous consumption already quoted in (5) above: (10) Conspicuous consumption became a prevalent feature in western society as a direct result of industrialization . . . Conspicuous consumption has become a current trend in Sri Lanka many decades later due to the same factors. A wealthy man could step into the street dressed in cloth and coat knowing full well that he would be recognized and treated with due respect by the villagers then; but now for a man, who is among a host of strangers due to urbanization the one method of soliciting respect is to dress in such a manner or to travel in such a vehicle such as to display his wealth. (Year 4, English medium student, Sociology Honours, Colombo University). A student like the writer of the extract above is likely to become a researcher. However, such producers of knowledge, even among fluent Lankan bilinguals, would be far fewer in relation to those in First World countries due to factors such as a scarcity of local funds and journals, and, most significantly, as we have seen, due to the fact that Westernstyle research, which has its own dialectic and rhetoric (Swales 1985a, b), has not been a feature of traditional Lankan high culture. The consequent disadvantages and inequalities affecting the weak Lankan bilingual in relation to his fluent counterpart have not gone unrecognized nor unresented. It is clear to the weak bilingual that English as a resource is most accessible to the fluent bilingual. For the weak bilingual, English is only a resource in principle; in actual fact, it is a problem most dramatically symbolized by its personification as kaduwa (sword), the traditional symbol of aristocratic power, of inequality, locally in terms of class-membership, internationally in terms of Western cultural hegemony.

4. Conclusion The primary role of English in present-day Sri Lanka is an instrumental one: a means of access to international scholarship and technology. But for vast numbers of Lankans, English is still a foreign language

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in which they would need considerable instruction before being able to use it for sophisticated communicative tasks such as technological research. If we look at the current Lankan situation from a historical perspective, something of the dilemma Lankans find themselves in becomes apparent. The nationalist takes almost fierce pride in the past glories of Lankan culture (especially in art, architecture and in the engineering achievement represented by ancient reservoirs), all of which were expressed in the indigenous languages. Yet the economic necessity of transforming an agrarian society with a religious ethos into a semi-industrialized, technological one reliant on the expertise and skills of the West, chiefly available via English, further erodes the basis of that prized traditional culture. No Lankan wants to turn the clock back in material terms; in cultural terms he suffers for it. The dilemma is compounded by the fact that it is one or the other of the indigenous languages that remains the dominant one for large numbers of university students. The practical difficulties of teaching English adequately to all those who need it diminish its usefulness as a resource for the majority of Lankans who struggle to learn it. Consequently, fluency in English continues to be associated largely, though not exclusively, with a privileged minority.

They speak English, don't they?

Judith Kearins Abstract This paper considers non-linguistic misunderstandings between white Australian teachers and their Aboriginal students. These misunderstandings, reported by Aboriginal adult survey respondents, all concern cultural differences unknown or poorly known to teachers. Respondents considered that teacher training should include considerable information on cultural differences, and that teachers should interact more with parents of school children. An analysis of differences in child-rearing practice between hunting people such as Australian Aboriginals (reared for independence, self-reliance and assertiveness) and agricultural people such as white Australians (reared for compliance and conservatism) follows. The rearing patterns of Aboriginal people which encourages freedom from restraint causes many problems for Aboriginal children in the school system, especially when teachers are not familiar with Aboriginal child rearing practices.

1. Introduction The Aboriginal people of Australia are thought to have inhabited the continent for perhaps 40,000 years. These people (now called by the comprehensive term "Aboriginal", but clearly not viewed collectively by the people themselves before white settlement in 1788) lived in a semi-nomadic hunting and gathering life-style. Those who lived in fertile, well-watered regions were less nomadic, and were subject to earlier and more complete lifestyle disruption, than those living in remote and/or semi-arid regions. Fertile regions occur over much of the near coastal area of Australia, especially on the whole of the Eastern seaboard and in the south-western corner, and these regions also contain most of the urban centres. The northern coastal and hilly regions are also fertile, but are tropical, and have generally not been subject to intensive agriculture by the white settlers, who

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have also developed few towns and cities there. Western Australia, occupying approximately one third of the continent, contains probably 40,000 people of Aboriginal descent. Since the term "Aboriginal" may be used by all who claim some Aboriginal inheritance and who habitually identify with Aboriginal groups, the majority of these people are of mixed Aboriginal/European or Aboriginal/Asian inheritance. Those who live in the tropical north or in the inland desert regions of Western Australia are more likely t o be fully or predominantly of Aboriginal inheritance than those of the Perth metropolitan region, of the south-west or central coastal regions. About a quarteT of the total Aboriginal population of Western Australia lives in the north, where some semi-traditional groups may speak one or more Aboriginal languages. In addition they speak the local English (Kimberley Kriol), a non standard English spoken generally throughout the region by all other Aboriginal people, many of whom are of mixed ancestry. In the central desert regions of Western Australia, where approximately 10% of the Aboriginal population lives, some semi-traditional groups are also bilingual. These people speak a non-standard English (not the same as Kimberley Kriol) as well as one or other dialect of the desert language. Most people of the region, however, like most of the Aboriginal people of Western Australia, speak only English, which may be non-standard to differing extents, and standard English is almost exclusively the language used in education, administration and commerce.

2. The study This paper considers non-linguistic musunderstandings between white Australian teachers and Aboriginal pupils in Australian schools, as they were seen by Aboriginal adults, (178 men and women) scattered throughout Western Australian who took part in a survey of Aboriginal attitudes to their children's education. 1 All of the Aboriginal adults spoke English, and almost all spoke no other language, although most spoke the local non-standard English at home. Interviews were conducted by several people, who, apart from myself, were also Aboriginal. All but one interviewer (who acted as research assistant throughout) 2 worked in their home districts. Pressure on minority group children to learn a dominant language

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assumes, perhaps, that this is the only pre-requisite for educational success within the dominant group. While such language competence may be necessary to educational and later economic success, its acquisition seems not to be sufficient to guarantee that its use will be understood. Indeed, where life-style differences between groups are large, intolerance of these differences may be greater where the same language is spoken than would otherwise be the case, especially if expectations of common practices and beliefs are engendered by a common language. Non-linguistic misunderstandings may strongly influence the educational experiences of minority group children in schools where they are taught by adults of the dominant culture. Responses to a single survey question are considered here, this question being: "What don't teachers know about the home lives or problems of Aboriginal children that they should know if they are to understand and help them?" A number of responses referred to poverty and its effects, and could have come from any relatively poor, but proud, group of people whose children were taught by the more materially advantaged. People complained that teachers, being mostly middle-class, did not understand poverty, or that poverty caused children to go to school hungry and ill-clad, or to stay away for these reasons. Some complaints testified to children's struggle to attend, despite family poverty, or to their wish to attend. For example: Many Aboriginal children come to school hungry, they have no breakfast, they lack strength and seem tired. Children often have no lunch or clean clothes because the families have problems. I noticed a lot of kids here want to go to school but haven't got any clean clothes. Some kids don't have good clothes to come to school — families were living in poor conditions, but children were expected to come to school in good clothes. Apart from poverty, however, many causes for complaint have clearly stemmed from the widely dissimilar backgrounds of the two groups, particularly from the differences in child rearing practice. All people seem to feel strongly about the way children should be treated, presumably for a mixture of reasons involving both emotion

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and cultural conditioning. And since strongly held views can be expected to lead to equally strong disapproval of conflicting views, child-rearing practices which differ markedly from one's own might be expected to arouse strong disapproval. This does not mean, of course, that the existence of difference is understood, either by the disapprover or the disapproved. Rather, the different practices of others may be seen, by disapproves of both sides, as dereliction of duty, as neglect of the welfare of children, and as bad parental behaviour. Where one group is in the minority, as are the Aboriginal people of Australia, and the larger group has control of all social institutions, disapproval of minority practices may have consequences for many facets of life in both the individual and the group.

3. Differences in child rearing practices between Aboriginal and White Australians At the time of British settlement of Australia, large differences in economy and life-style characterized the two conflicting groups. The resident people were hunters and gatherers, involved in a seminomadic and mostly small-group life-style, without noticeable hierarchical structure, class division, or cash or barter economy. The newcomers, on the other hand, came from an agriculturally based and newly industrial economy which had long experience of the indirect acquisition of goods, of settled living, of specialization of labour and of a strongly hierarchical system. Given these wide differences it cannot be expected that children would have been treated similarly within the groups, since all groups must rear children to fit expected adult roles. But neither can it be reasonably expected that a dominated people would quickly reject the child rearing practices of their forebears and adopt those of the newcomers. Apart from their reluctance to do so (involving as it may the adoption of many previously disapproved customs), there is the matter of identifying the differences. Most mothers, of all human groups, must learn about the rearing of children from the previous one or two generations within their immediate, and mostly kin, circle. They are unlikely to learn in this way what others consider "correct", nor even that their own methods differ. Without such information from outside, virtually unchanged general methods might be approved over many generations.

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In Australia, therefore, it seems likely that the traditionally approved child rearing practices of their Aboriginal forebears would at least partly be retained by present day Aboriginal people, even those living in urban areas, since contact with Western culture has been brief (160 years at the most for people of the west) and has in most cases left virtually unaffected the lives of pre-school children, almost exclusively cared for at home. In our survey it should therefore not have been surprising to find that the Aboriginal people complained of a lack of school understanding of their children. Their complaints, although often not specific, indicated some awareness of cultural difference, and thus of reasons for teacher disapproval. Aboriginal people complained that teachers (mostly White Australian) did not know their children or their way of life, implying in some cases that understanding would follow such familiarity. They said, for example: If teachers knew about them they'd be able to help them. (Teachers) should be taught to communicate with the life-style of Aboriginal children. And of their children's characteristics, they said: Most are very shy; They are sensitive children and lovable; They are friendly to anyone who is kind to them or friendly. They thought that teachers might get information from parents, for example: They should make it their business to go and meet children's parents and find out for themselves. Teachers should go visiting around the camp to get to know the parents and their way of life. Parents and teachers should discuss any arising problem whenever there is a misunderstanding at school. Teachers don't try to find out why they are not attending or why they're late, sometimes never know the real problems behind it all. Some of the Aboriginal parents indicated an awareness of difference in the reinforcement systems practised by Western teachers and

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Aboriginal adults, making suggestions for increases in child motivation, or commenting negatively on teacher control. For example: Aboriginal parents do not force their children to do things that they don't want to. Children are more free in their movements at home. I reckon they should give them a good go. If someone did something wrong they should not punish them too severely — it will only make them go worse. They should know the way Aboriginal parents punish their children, the things that warrant punishment.. . making the kids do as they're told, that's foreign to our children. Aboriginal children like to be praised for their work, and not just told to be tidy. They come from a closely knit background of caring for each — other — things hurt them that won't hurt a white child, e.g. hard words — they are very sensitive. They should be more patient with them. Teachers should know that if they are told off, they shut themselves off to their offenders. Some spoke of likely differences between the groups in child interaction with and responsibility towards kin — for example: Children stay home because Mum or Dad is ill. But when they go back to school, teachers don't believe them. If there's trouble or death at home the child suffers too. . . . teachers should know how the relations fit in with the direct family. A few indicated an awareness of the effects of broader cultural difference and its survival: It's a matter of a completely different life-style, teachers can't fully grasp what it's like on the other side, they can't imagine it. . . . teachers need to know the differences in the value system and the way that Aboriginal children are brought up.

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Most teachers don't know anything about them, really, they don't know their culture. They might learn about their tribal way and about living in the bush, but they don't know about them now. Some were simply bitter or resigned - for example: They think they know everything but they know nothing. They don't want to know anything, nor do they care. What sort of differences in the early treatment and subsequent behaviour of White Australian and Aboriginal children might have led to such varied complaints and pleas for understanding? Although most day-by-day difference has not yet been quantified, large general differences between people of disparate economic backgrounds were suggested by Barry, Child and Bacon in 1959. These researchers analysed ethnographic records from 114 different groups to assess possible effects of economic style on child rearing practice. They concluded that hunting, gathering and fishing people, at one end of the economic continuum, tend to rear children towards independence and self reliance, while, at the other, agricultural people rear more for compliance and conservatism. These divergent characteristics are presumably required for success within the markedly different economic systems. The crucial factor, according to Barry, Child and Bacon, may be the extent to which food is accumulated — either on the hoof (as in animal husbandry) or in storage (as in agriculture). Where there is high food accumulation, its continuing availability depends upon strict adherence to known routines. Both herd tending, on the one hand, or cultivation and storage, on the other, should lead to such adherence, since the penalty for unsuccessful innovation may be high. Hardship and possible starvation for many months into the future would follow crop failure, the spoiling of stored grain, or the death or failure to thrive of herd animals — which consequences may attend new and untried methods. Therefore methods known to work are likely to be followed, and innovations to be mistrusted, by people dependent upon animal husbandry or agriculture. And these people can be expected to require their young to follow established practices, thus shaping their children towards conservatism. Compliance, necessary to such shaping, and necessary also to teamwork in large enterprises, is seen as a further characteristic of these children. Although this analysis made no attempt to describe particular childrearing practices required to produce compliant and conservative

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children, many of the elements of traditional Western child rearing may be aimed at such characteristics. Verbal control, for instance, is a useful means of directing another — and verbal shaping begins early in Western families. Infants, taught first to respond to the word "No", may then be controlled through this and later verbal prohibition, command and encouragement - and so learn to comply with the wishes of others. They are taught, also, to signal compliance by their own verbal behaviour (and verbal defiance or non-compliance is frowned upon.) Verbal control may be reinforced by physical punishment or threat of punishment, these being seen as legitimate means of enforcing compliance. In the adult world these means are institutionally employed for offences against the many laws laid down for people to obey, and institutionally enforced. Conservatism, as well as compliance, must be expected to develop within such a system, since children are trained to look on a large number of approved methods as morally "right." White Australians, as might be expected of people come recently from Western agricultural and animal husbandry backgrounds, conform generally to the pattern suggested. In the school situation children are expected to comply with the legitimate wishes and express commands of adults, not to "disobey", and mostly to follow where adults lead, their early childhood shaping having foreshadowed these expectations. Australian Aboriginal children, on the other hand, even those of the city, come to school with different experiences. Reared within an Aboriginal group, where, as in all groups, approved methods of treating children pass from one generation to the next, the day-byday treatment they receive from adults may not differ greatly from that of traditionally reared children. According to the suggestions of Barry, Child and Bacon, children should have been reared traditionally for independence, self-reliance and assertiveness. Since the hunting and gathering economy does not depend on food accumulation, say these authors, innovative methods (of snaring game, for example), are unlikely to be disapproved. If such methods fall, the loss is relatively small and immediate, while success may bring rich rewards. And since self-reliance, rather than group dependence, is needed by members of small hunting and gathering groups, this characteristic is encouraged. Assertiveness is seen as an associated characteristic. Leaving aside the complexities likely to be caused by factors of social regulation, including kin affiliation, the rearing patterns of Aboriginal people seem generally to conform to the above formulation.

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The general freedom from restraint, verbal or physical, enjoyed by Aboriginal children has been remarked upon by many writers (for example, Meggitt 1962, Berndt 1972, Harris 1980, Kearins 1984). Malinowski (1963:245) quotes comments made by Matthew last century in New South Wales "The children are never chastised, either by the father or the mother. But they are nevertheless obliging and kind" although "Their wills are never resisted." More recently, Hamilton (1981:12) found similar absence of restraint in northern people: "I rather thought I was 'permissive', but I had never thought it possible for children to have so few restraints and their parents so few anxieties about them as occurred in Amhem Land." This freedom from restraint, implying as it does a child autonomy not encountered in the Western world, must cause many problems for Aboriginal children in the school system. Such problems were reflected in many (previously quoted) interview responses, where for example, children were said to be "more free in their movements at home" and "making kids do as they're told" was seen as "foreign to our children." The conviction that such freedom does not lead, as Westerners might assume, to badly behaved children, is also reflected in responses, for example, "They are friendly to anyone who is kind to them or friendly"; "They are sensitive children and lovable." Freedom from restraint implies, also, the comparative absence of verbal shaping of children, and a necessary view of them as capable independent learners, decision makers and judges of their own capabilities, who are therefore able to be trusted to grow up relatively unsuppressed. When they reached adulthood in traditional times, but not in the twelve or more important first years, young people were expected to begin to assume fairly heavy responsibilities, and to conform to the traditional expectations of their society. Such a pattern differs greatly from the Western pattern where relatively severe control begins in infancy and where there seems to be a strongly held belief that children need constant adult supervision and direction in order to survive and flourish. Kin affiliations clearly differ between the groups, too, and differences in rearing can be seen to affect these strongly. If children are seen as relatively autonomous, their interactions with adults are likely to involve greater equality than is the case with Western children; and they will also have greater freedom to form associations for themselves outside the nuclear family. Their treatment as more or less social equals does not mean only the keeping of adult hours or attendance

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at group gatherings — it means also that they are not shielded from adult woes or from personal hurts. It means, as well, that parents and children are likely to help each other equally, rather than only that parents will help children, as is more common in Western homes. The sickness or death of kin is not softened for children, who attend funerals as a matter of course. They will stay home voluntarily "to help a sick mother", whose need they personally assess - but, as one of those interviewed has pointed out, they may later not be believed at school. Such disbelief reflects part of the other view of childhood, in which children depend upon adult decisions in such matters, and do not properly make their own — and in which the extra "privileges" of adulthood entail moral responsibility for the interests of children (in a kind of adult-child "noblesse oblige"). According to such a view, parents, whether sick or not, should put first the interests of their children, and therefore send them to school.

4. Schooling of Aboriginal children The school education of Aboriginal children may be strongly affected, therefore, by a style of child rearing not experienced by, nor known to, many teachers. Interviewed Aboriginal adults realized this, and complained that teachers did not understand the further problems caused by lack of parental education. They said, for example: They should know that some parents don't know how, or never went to school, to help their children. They don't know parents' education standard. That by law their parents were not allowed to go to school, they cannot help their kids with homework and that's where you see the decline. Lots of children don't like doing homework, they think they only have to do it at school. Aboriginal children don't have libraries or books that white children have and some parents can't read or write. The kids don't know where to go with their problems they're having at school.

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For Aboriginal children, absence from school may be due, for instance, to unusually heavy family responsibilities, including those caused by sickness or death. But also, where children have found unhappiness or serious misunderstanding at school, and little that is rewarding, they may stay away because they have themselves decided not to attend. Most Western teachers would consider this either unlikely or improper (for all children, since it would be so for Western children), and that "good parents" would see a duty to enforce their children's attendance. Good parents rearing according to hunting and gathering traditions, however, would presumably consider paramount the development of a child's own judgement, and the individual to be properly his or her own person. A decision not to attend school would therefore be respected, although these days some persuasion may be tried. Especially where children speak only or mainly English, and therefore may be seen as essentially similar to themselves in outlook and experience, teachers without knowledge to the contrary cannot be expected to understand how such defection is possible. But, as Aboriginal adults have said, their children are friendly and of goodwill, and thus may willingly do for understanding teachers, or out of aroused interest, what they would not do under compulsion. Understanding, in this case, involves both other cultural knowledge and acceptance of the notion that there is more than one "correct" way to raise children. While it may be true that life within the Western system is easiest for those raised to it, and thus that Aboriginal children would suffer less if their rearing experiences changed, there are at least two reasons against sweeping change. The first is the unlikelihood of any such immediate change, since it has not happened in 150 to 200 years of contact. The second concerns advisability. The broad pattern of childrearing practice now common to Westerners mostly living in cities is likely not to have arisen in response to urban demands, but to those of the somewhat different rural lifestyle. Perhaps because child-rearing practices change very slowly, Western people may have clung, like others in changed circumstances, to some practices which are now less than useful. An examination might profitably be made of reasons for their continuation, and of whether, for instance, children should have many day-by-day decisions made for them by others, or whether learning should be seen to accompany compulsion rather than only interest and goodwill. It is possible that elements of the two rearing styles, rather than either of the divergent styles discussed here, might

216 Judith Kearins better serve all Australian children. But since parents of young children might not be inclined to experiment, the school system might try to analyse and assess the success of its traditional approaches of compulsion and conservatism. Even those approaches now considered, within the Western milieu, to be permissive, could be examined in the light of this other child-rearing approach. Children of both groups might greatly benefit in their adult lives from change, if it is the case, as suggested here, that the childrearing practices now used by White and Aboriginal Australian groups no longer lead to the adult life-styles for which they were apparently developed. In the meantime, Aboriginal children in school may continue to be misunderstood for reasons having little to do with the kind of English they speak.

Notes 1. The research was funded by the Australian Commonwealth Schools Commission. 2. Judith Butters was research assistant to the project, while the main interviewers were Mrs Evelyn McAdam, Mrs Florence Hansen, Mr Lyoyd Garlett, Mr Rex Garlett, Mr Philip Watson; without this assistance the survey could not have been made.

CULTURES ACROSS ENGLISH

Section Three The impact of differences in socio-linguistic backgrounds of interlocutors on communication in English: Ethno-linguistic constraints

British-American lexical differences: A typology of interdialectal variation

John Algeo Abstract British and American English, like all dialects of the same language, differ from one another in complex ways. The usual method of comparing such dialects is by the parallel list — pairing features of the two dialects that are thereby asserted to be equivalent forms of expressions. That simple technique of comparison is incapable of accounting for or accommodating the various complexities that in fact distinguish such dialects. This essay at a more adequate typology considers whether referents (things to be named) and forms (the names given to things) are in common to both dialects or limited to one of them or somehow restricted in one of them. It also considers whether there is a one-to-one match of referent and form, or multiple forms for a single referent (synonymy), or a single form for multiple referents (polysemy), or multiple forms for multiple referents (homonym and analogy). The typology is exemplified by twenty classes of correspondences, although a more delicate description could increase that number significantly. The twenty classes are illustrated primarily by British-American lexical examples. The principles, however, are applicable to all interdialectal differences, whether lexical or grammatical and between any set of dialects.

Collecting differences between dialects is both a sport and an art. There is an element of competitiveness, as in all sports, and the players include both amateurs and professionals. But such collection is also art-like, since there are classical models and even a distinct art form, the parallel list.

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1. Attitudes of dialect speakers toward each other As a sport, dialect-difference collecting is played by everyone who travels from one land into another. The players may start the game as a consequence of culture shock, or perhaps as a defense against it. Brits and Yanks, for example, speak the two largest, oldest, and best known of national varieties of English. Nowadays, they visit each other more and more, either in person or via television, movies, books, and other channels of the information explosion. As they listen to each other talk, they are amused or bemused at what their linguistic cousins across the Pond have managed to do with and to the language they each think of as their own. Typical Britons regard English as something belonging peculiarly to them, though misappropriated and misused by others, especially Americans. The latter seem intent on ruining the speech of Shakespeare, Milton, and Dr. Johnson with their nasal twang, inability to articulate a / in medal made of metal, grotesque neologisms like healthwise and medication, quaint archaisms like gotten, misunderstanding of proper English words like guy, and general linguistic bumptiousness. In turn, typical Americans regard English as something belonging especially to them, though tolerantly allowed to Britishers, who, while having gotten the language going in the first place, have never quite known what to do about it afterwards. To American ears, there are three kinds of Englishmen: Colonel Blimp, whose speech is an inarticulate compromise between a foghorn and a donkey's bray; Reginald, whose fluty-fruity voice regularly hovers just under a frequency audible only to hounds; and 'Arry, who produces a voluble flow of glottal stops diversified by an occasional tetraphthong combining all the cardinal vowels in a single nucleus. Such mutual attitudes of amusement and scandal spur the citizen/ subjects of each nation to gather outrageous examples of what the others are doing to English. The sport is to see who can collect the biggest and grossest display of linguistic incredibilities. The effort to gather such florilegia leads to the art, which consists in the way the collections are displayed.

2. The parallel list as art form Collectors of dialect differences, such as those between British and American, have developed a distinctive art form for displaying the

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fruits of their labor — the Parallel List. It is a genre whose AngloAmerican history has been livingly traced by Allen Walker Read in a paper he read in 1984 at the Library of Congress. The genre seems to have begun with an essay on "The English at Home" in the June 1872 issue of The Galaxy magazine, which included a list of corresponding terms. The genre is still going strong. New lists make their appearance yearly, all conforming to the archetypal pattern of two parallel columns of linguistic forms: words, phrases, spellings, pronunciations, grammatical structures, or what have you. One column proposes to list typical British forms, and the other their American equivalents, line by line, item by item. Parallel lists are, of course, no new thing. As a way of treating lexical contrasts between two languages, they doubtless go back to the first literate and civilized person to realize that the neighboring barbarians talked funny. Such lists are an art form that can serve either a serious scholarly purpose or merely sporting ends. In either case, however, most of them share a common weakness. Simple equivalences between languages or dialects are more nearly the exception than the rule. Yet such simple equivalences are what the parallel list shows most successfully and in practice are almost the only thing it shows. Dialects are actually related to each other by a complex interplay of partial, overlapping, mutually influencing, and occasionally even simple and direct equivalences. What is needed is a typology of correspondences between dialects — a typology that will come closer to allowing for the full range of complex relationships between dialects than the parallel list does.

3. Two approaches to a typology We may approach the making of a typology of dialect differences in two ways, by focusing on either linguistic forms or the referents of those forms. That is, we may ask of a given word-shape whether it occurs in two dialects and, if so, what it means in each. Or contrariwise, we may ask of a given thing, action, quality, etc. whether it is named in both dialects and, if so, what those names are. The two approaches are, of course, complementary. The one we choose to take, however, will direct our attention especially to certain aspects of language. If we start with forms, we will need to talk about

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polysemy (the many meanings a word may have) and pay attention to homonymy (the fact that some different words are pronounced or spelled alike). On the other hand, if we start with referents, we will need to deal with synonymy (the several names that can be used for one thing) and analogy (the fact that two similar but different cultures like the UK and the US have institutions, such as Parliament and Congress or university vice-chancellors and presidents, which, though distinct, fill analogous slots in the two cultures). To be sure, all these aspects need to be considered for a complete statement of how any two dialects correspond, regardless of which approach we start from. However, polysemy and homonymy involve a sameness of form and a diversity of meaning, whereas synonymy and analogy involve a sameness or at least similarity of things and a diversity of names for them. Therefore, if we begin with a word, we naturally attend to the former two; and if with a thing, to the latter two.

4. Problems in typology making Whichever approach we take, we will encounter certain inevitable problems that spring, not from the way we look at the language material, but from that material itself. Real language is fuzzy and inconsistent. The following list of problems is based on a somewhat shorter list compiled by Morton Benson, Evelyn Benson, and Robert Ilson (1986:34-36) and on several discussions by Allen Walker Read from 1938 and 1955. This list, like the typology that follows, is illustrated mainly by British-American differences, but it is applicable to any pair of dialects. For the purposes of this essay, British and American are taken as the primary illustrations of dialects that differ because they are the two that the author is currently investigating. Other dialects are cited occasionally to show that the British-American case is not a lusus naturae. The first problem in establishing correspondences between dialects is that it is sometimes difficult to know just what a word means — exactly where its semantic boundaries lie. At what age does a boy (in the sense 'immature human male') become a man? What precisely is the difference between luggage and baggage? The language may defeat us in attempting to answer questions like those, not because

British-American lexical differences 223 we don't know enough, but because there is not enough to be known. That is, the questions are more precise than the things they ask about. Language is often imprecise, with fuzzy meanings, imprecise semantic boundaries between words. If we cannot say exactly what words mean, it is very difficult to talk about exactly how their meanings vary across dialect boundaries. Second, there is a difference between active and passive command. Britons may not call a pigsty a pigpen, but they are unlikely to be greatly puzzled by what the American term means. Americans may not call a comic strip a strip cartoon, but they can guess the meaning of the Briticism easily enough. On the other hand, Americans will not only never talk about a free house, they will probably fail to understand what it is until the meaning is explained as 'an independent pub, not tied to a brewery, and hence free to sell various brands'. Similarly, the Briton will be nonplussed at being told that a particular house is three blocks down the street, particularly if there are no British blocks ('large office or apartment buildings') in sight. Third, there may be uncertain dialect identifications. It is usually said that "shawn" is the British pronunciation of shone. And so it is, in a sense, except that some Americans pronounce the word that way too. Aren't I? is often called a Briticism; yet many Americans use it as the only possible colloquial contraction for am I not? and have no sense of its being in any way un-American. Postman is supposed to be British for American mailman, but a quite American play was called The Postman Always Rings Twice. Chesterfield, for a type of sofa, is often said to be Canadian, but it occurs freely in California and sporadically elsewhere in the United States. In fact there is a continuum ranging from terms that are shared fully and equally by all varieties of English (and they include the core of the vocabulary) to terms that are used and understood only in one variety, being completely unknown and unintelligible in others. Between those two extremes lies a cline, a continuous gradation, of terms that are more or less (un)known and (un)used in one variety or another. Most differences fall somewhere on that cline, but short of either extreme. Fourth, very often a word's place on the cline of dialect difference is simply a matter of its frequency. British and American both use the word proper and use it in exactly the same sense, but Britons have a fondness for using it which Americans parcel out among various synonyms, such as regular, decent, honest, and real. Proper is common

224 John A igeo English by virtue of its shared form and meaning, but is a Briticism by virtue of the frequency of its use. Fifth, languages have a disconcerting way of not staying the same, but rather changing constantly. Dialects are ever in the process of becoming something different from what they were. An état de langue is a convenient fiction, not a reality. Heraclitus was right: the only reality is diachronic. That fact creates a problem for all recorders of synchronic structure — lexicographers and grammarians alike — but a special problem for those who describe interdialectal differences. Major national varieties like British and American are innovating constantly by coining and borrowing new words. All other varieties innovate as well. Sixth, dialects not only introduce new forms into the language, they also abandon old ones, but do so variously. Fortnight has been an English word for a long while, going back to Anglo-Saxon feowertyne niht. Yet Americans gave up using it, so it is now a Briticism. Guess in the sense 'think, suppose' is called an Americanism or Canadianism by British dictionaries; and so it may be in contemporary usage, yet it is found in Chaucer. Does that mean that the Well of English Undefiled used Americo-Canadianisms? Fortnight and guess 'suppose" were both originally common English. When did the first become a Briticism and the second a North Americanism? It is much harder to establish the fact of disuse than that of use. Seventh, dialects not only change independently, they also continually influence one another. Americanisms ostentatiously invade Britain and are resentfully accepted into British usage. Briticisms much less obtrusively invade America and are accepted, usually unconsciously, into American usage. Although Britons are aware, sometimes painfully so, of influences from the US, Americans seldom think about the UK as a source of language change, but simply take what they find useful. Most Americans associate smog with California and are surprised to discover it was a Briticism coined for London weather. Each national variety influences the other. As a consequence of the mutual influence between British and American, the boundary between them is fluid, constantly giving way in both directions, as the two varieties exchange their features. By the time a list of British-American correspondences can be drawn up, there are new Briticisms and new Americanisms, which had not existed before, and old nationalisms have crossed the water from one country to the other to become common English.

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A special problem is that caused by words like polo. Allen Walker Read has noted that the word, along with the thing, was borrowed into British English from north India in the late nineteenth century. The first record of the word is from 1872; in that same year an American writing in Hearth and Home noted the game and its name. By 1875-76 the game had been imported into the US. Shall we then say that for three or four years, polo was a Briticism, but not afterwards? Or because the name was reported in American sources from the beginning, shall we say that polo has always been common English? As the two major national varieties influence each other, they obviously influence all other varieties of English too. And those other varieties exert a counterinfluence on British and American, thus constantly expanding and increasing the riches of the general English store of options. Australian walkabout, originally a designation for an aboriginal's period of wandering as a nomad to get back in touch with traditional culture and worldview, has been happily adopted into British use for a pedestrian excursion by royalty, politicians, or other such celebrities to meet "the people". Eighth, within every national variety there is also subvariation: social, regional, temporal — dialects and registers of various kinds. And all of those subvarieties are also fuzzy, changing continuums. In comparing Briticisms and Americanisms, for example, we must be sure that they are comparable in dialect and register, as well as in semantics. When H.L. Menchen drew up his comparative lists, he played an elaborate joke by sometimes comparing extremely colloquial or dialectal Americanisms with extremely formal Briticisms. British You're a long time dead does not equate stylistically with You only live once, though the catch phrases are roughly equivalent in meaning, nor Be a devil with Go on, live dangerously. Conversely, American live high off the hog is not stylistically the equivalent of be affluent. British have an audience of is limited to the register of the Court Circular and so is not stylistically the same as have an audience with. British cock-up is not on quite the same taboo level with either foul-up or fuck-up. Semantic equivalents frequently cannot pragmatically substitute for each other. Problems like the eight just mentioned compromise the reliability of any language description. Because of them, descriptions will always be neater than the realities being described. To describe is to simplify and thus to falsify. But despite that caution, we must describe,

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simplify, and thus far falsify, if we are to give any account of language, and particularly a typology for dialect differences.

5. A referentially based typology Of the two approaches to making typologies, the first — that of beginning with the word and moving to the thing — has been adopted in the typology developed by Benson, Benson, and Ilson in their Lexicographic Description of English. Their typology sets up just ten classes of correspondences, though the principles by which those classes were defined could easily have produced many more. In keeping with the approach underlying their typology, it incorporates the concept of polysemy into the basic principles of the classification. Here another sort of typology is explored. It focuses on things, on referents or meanings, and asks what forms are used in various dialects to denote them. Because of that approach, it does not take polysemy as a major descriptive factor, although some attention is given to polysemous relations. However, several concepts from the Benson, Benson, and Ilson typology (notably referential gap and lexical gap) are adopted here, and some of their examples are also cited. This typology is a formalized and fuller version of some classes proposed in my essay on "The Two Streams" in the Journal of English Linguistics (1986). First a matter of terminology. The typology proposed here is concerned with "forms" and "referents". A form is generally a word in this discussion; it might just as well be a phrase, pronunciation, spelling, or grammatical construction. A referent is whatever the form denotes. Forms and referents can be either "general" or "limited". General forms are used throughout the English-speaking world, or at least in two dialects under examination. Limited forms are used in just one of two varieties being compared, or are used in both but with different frequencies. General referents are found in both of two dialect areas, or alternatively are found in neither area but might be talked about by speakers of both dialects. Limited referents occur in one of two areas and not the other, or at least not in both in the same way. The typology that follows is constructed in the first place by matching forms with referents and noting whether they are general or limited. This process defines the classes listed for the typology, among others. Some of the classes (specifically, 1, 5, 9, 16, and 19)

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are not relevant to interdialectal differences, but are included for the sake of completeness and to demonstrate simple relationships of meaning, uncomplicated by dialect variation.

6. An outline of the typology An overview of the typology is given in the following outline, which serves as a guide to the succeeding discussion. Each type of relationship is named, exemplified, and referred to the corresponding numbered discussion section below. A. Single form and single referent simple form-referent correspondence in common English: doorman (1) referential gap: Big Ben (2) lexical gap: fortnight (3) cultural gap: airing cupboard (4) B. Multiple forms and single referent synonymy : right¡correet (5) equivalent terms = interdialectal synonymy: exdirectory /unlisted (6) overlapping terms = one-sided dialect synonymy: autumn/fall(7) equivalent terms plus a common term: Brit/Britisher/Briton (8) C. Single form and multiple referents polysemy: iron (9) interdialectal polysemy: robin (10) one-sided dialectal polysemy: chapel (11) interdialectal polysemy plus a common sense: chancellor (12) interdialectal diversity: to table (13) more/less inclusive terms : staff ( 14) D. Multiple forms and multiple referents, with interdialectal agreement and diversity. interlocking terms: baggage/luggage (15) E. Multiple forms and multiple referents, with identically shaped forms homonymy : yard (16) interdialectal homonymy: t a f f y (17) one-sided dialectal homonymy: gyp (18)

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F. Multiple forms and multiple referents, with situationally equivalent referents analogy : mortarboard/top hat (19) interdialectal analogy: muesli¡granóla (20) A. Single form and single referent 1. The simplest of all form-referent relationships is that in which a general form denotes a general referent, as a doorman is 'one who attends the door of a building' quite widely among English speakers. This class involves no variation between dialects, and therefore is of no further interest here. Its members belong to common English rather than to particular varieties. 2. A general form may denote a limited referent, for example, Big Ben as the 'clock, bell, or tower at the Houses of Parliament in London'. English speakers everywhere are likely to know Big Ben as a symbol of reliability, an archetypal clock, but the referent is limited to England. Tepee is another word widely known internationally, but the referent is more likely to be encountered, either directly or through allusions, in the US. Apartheid is familiar throughout the English-speaking world, but its referent is distinctively South African. Petty apartheid (separate entrances, seating, etc. for whites and nonwhites) has been practiced elsewhere, though not under that name; however, grand apartheid (the establishment of separate African homelands for nonwhite ethnic groups) is uniquely South African. Such terms are examples of a REFERENTIAL GAP. In one of two places, the referent is missing. It is arguable whether the terms of this class should be called dialect terms (Briticisms, Americanisms, South Africanisms) rather than common English, since the limitation is on the thing, not the word. However, because other English speakers do not have as close contact with the clock as Britons are likely to, the term Big Ben can be called a Briticism for that reason if none other, and so also with the other examples. However, the argument may be academic. It is probably always the case that the term for the limited referent is used more frequently in the country to which the referent is limited. Big Ben is more likely to be mentioned in the UK than elsewhere, and Americans are more likely to talk about tepees or South Africans about apartheid than

British-American lexical differences 229 other English speakers are. Therefore, strictly speaking, this class may be empty. Terms that seem to belong here may properly be examples of class 4 instead. They are mentioned again in the discussion of that class. 3. A limited form may denote a general referent, for example, British fortnight, American block, and Jamaican born-day. All human beings experience sequences of fourteen days, but in some cultures that period of time is culturally relevant as a block of time. In particular, Britons are accustomed to talking about fourteen-day periods and to using them as a unit of time measurement, either exact or approximate; Americans do so also, but to a significantly lesser extent. Consequently, British has a term for the purpose, fortnight, and uses it frequently. Americans do not use the term often, if at all. When they need to talk about fourteen-day periods, they are likely to call them two weeks or a couple of weeks. American block 'urban land area bounded by streets' is a similar example. In its purest form, the American term applies to a city layout consisting of straight streets that intersect at right angles, but that regularity is not essential to the term, which Americans use in giving distances ("go right for three blocks, then turn left") and to identify the neighborhood where they live ("Everybody on our block came to the block party"). For such uses, the Briton might have instead "crossings" and "in our road" but in fact lacks both the term and the concept of an American block, although the thing physically is present in British cities in at least an irregular form. Jamaican born-day denotes 'the day of the week on which one was born'. In all cultures that use the week as a unit of time measurement, children are born on some day of the week; but in most such cultures there is no general term for that day. In Jamaica, however, as in several other black cultures derived from the Ashanti, children are given a name reflecting the day of the week on which they are born. Consequently, a general term to denote that day is useful and came into being. Such terms are examples of a LEXICAL GAP — one dialect has a term for a thing or experience that is common to the speakers of several dialects, but for which the other dialects lack a name. Because varieties influence one another, lexical gaps tend to get closed. Thus trendy 'very fashionable, up-to-date in style' was originally a Briticism but has been widely adopted in American use with little or no con-

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sciousness of a British origin. It is now what Benson, Benson, and Ilson call a "variety-favored" term, being more frequently and generally used in British than in American. It denotes a meaning for which no other single term is available; the closest, faddish, is more negative in connotation (at least for American use) and suggests following aberrations in style, whereas trendy suggests the "cutting edge" of fashion. So trendy has spread to fill a need. It is a partially limited form, because of its still greater British frequency, but if the spread continues and eventually equalizes its use in the two nations, it will have moved from this class to class 1. 4. A limited form may denote a limited referent, for example, British airing cupboard or voluntary-aided school, American Florida room or junior college, and Canadian middle ice. Houses in the UK are sometimes constructed with an airing cupboard — a closet heated or near the furnace, in which linens or damp garments can be hung to dry. Voluntary-aided schools are run, for example, by churches such as the Roman Catholic, but receive some government support to finance their operation. The US lacks both the architectural feature and the type of educational arrangement, and moreover American has no forms with which to name those referents. Conversely, British lacks Florida room and junior college, just as the UK lacks the referents of those forms. Canadian has a term, middle ice, for a large field of ice in the middle of Baffin Bay; other dialects have little need to talk about that referent, and so have developed no term for it. Such limited terms for limited referents are examples of what may be called CULTURAL GAP (a combination of referential and lexical gaps). Cultural gaps may also be incomplete, resulting from partial limitations on a form and its referent. Thus Americans are familiar with kilts — both the word and the garment. They may be worn and talked about, for example, at Highland Games, held in portions of the eastern US that were settled from Scotland and where Scottish ethnicity is still nostalgically remembered. However, kilts have a strong aura of "fancy dress" about them. They are certainly not so common anywhere in the US as they are in the UK, especially those parts where they are indigenous, and consequently neither is the word kilt so common in American as in British. Big Ben, tepee, and apartheid, mentioned under class 2, are somewhat similar and might be assigned to this class instead of that one.

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Classes 1 (common English) and 2-4 (referential, lexical, and cultural gaps) are on a continuum, so whether a given expression is regarded as common English or as a dialect term is, to some extent, an arbitrary decision, depending on how widely known and generally used the form and referent may be. These first four classes exhaust the types of correspondence involving a single form and referent — not counting the continuum of partial limitations, which can be formalized only arbitrarily. The remaining classes all involve more than one form (synonymy and analogy) or more than one referent (polysemy and homonymy). These more complex classes are, however, merely combinations, in various patterns, of the preceding four basic classes. B. Multiple forms and single referent 5. SYNONYMY is the denotation of one referent by two or more forms, for example, right and correct as adjectives describing an answer to a test question. Probably no two forms are ever completely synonymous in the sense that they can replace each other freely in any situation. However, synonymy is still a useful concept for several forms that can sometimes be used of the same referent. With respect to interdialectal correspondences, there are three types of synonymy, discussed under classes 6-8 below. 6. Two (or more) forms limited in different ways (that is, at least one form limited to one dialect and another form limited to a different dialect) may denote a general referent. So British ex -directory and American unlisted are both terms for telephone numbers not published in the telephone book. This class (which is a doubling of class 3 with limitations of the two forms to different dialects) is the type of correspondence that is usually assumed by parallel lists — mutually exclusive terms for the same thing. It is a correspondence of EQUIVALENT TERMS. Both of the forms may be only partially limited. Thus package and parcel are used in both British and American, but British favors parcel and American package. Each term is sufficiently limited to be accounted a nationalism of one variety, although it is known and used in the other as well. Alternatively, only one form may be partially limited, while the other is fully limited. Thus mailman is fully limited, being practically

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restricted to the US, whereas postman is partially limited, being a British form with some use in American. If, however, postman is regarded as a normal, although rarer, form in American Gust as autumn is normal, though rarer than fall), this pair of words belongs in the next class rather than here. The classification of pairs like mailman/ postman depends on the frequency with which the limited form is used and on how it is regarded by speakers of the variety in which it is minority use. When more than two dialects are considered, the possibilities become more complex. New Zealand English uses the term talkback for a radio program on which listeners participate by telephoning in questions or comments. In Britain the usual term is phone-in, which is also used in the United States alongside the more frequent call-in. 7. Two (or more) forms, of which at least one is general and one limited, may denote a general referent, for example, general autumn and American fall or general dump truck and British dumper truck. Because one form in each pair is used by both nations and the other by only one, it is inevitable that the general form must be less frequent in the national variety that also has its own limited form with the same meaning. However, because that difference in frequency of the general form is a consequence of the pattern of use, rather than an independently motivated variable, we can say that it alone is not enough to make the general term into a nationalism. Thus fall as a season name is an Americanism, because the British gave up using it some while ago. But autumn is not a Briticism, even though more, often used in the UK than in the US. Americans divide the work load between the two words and, although preferring fall, look upon autumn as a perfectly normal option, in no way unAmerican. Dust devil is a common English term for a kind of whirlwind that collects dust and refuse. Although it seems to have begun as an AngloIndian word, it is now generally distributed. Australian, however, has a limited synonym, willy-willy. If it is decided that postman is a common English word with incidentally rare use in the US, the pair postman and American mailman is another example of this class, rather than of class 6. When one of the forms is clearly limited, the extent to which the other form is partially limited or general determines whether the pair is assigned to classes 6 or 7.

British-American lexical differences 233 A form may, however, be only partially but acknowledgedly limited. For example, general expensive has the synonym dear, which is partially limited to British English. Dear in the sense 'high in cost' is now rather old-fashioned in American use, or deliberately British in effect. An American woman might refer punningly to "dear little shops," in which the choice of the British-flavored "shops" reinforces the Britishness of dear. On the whole, it seems preferable to call dear 'expensive' a Briticism with some use in the US — a partially limited form. This class (which is a combination of classes 1 and 3) consists of OVERLAPPING TERMS. 8. Three (or more) forms, one of which is general and two limited to different dialects, may denote a common referent. For example, general Briton, British Brit, and American Britisher are such a set. The class (a combination of classes 6 and 1) is also exemplified by synonyms for white man, which frequently derive from native languages and unflatteringly oppose European settlers to native populations. Jamaican and Southern American English have buckra (from Efik); New Zealand English, pakeha (from Maori); South African, umlungu (from Ngoni); and so on. Theoretically the patterns of classes 5-8 could be repeated, but with the substitution of a limited referent for the general one. That is, a thing found only in one dialect area might be named by several forms distributed variously between two dialects and common English. Examples of those theoretical classes are not numerous. C. Single form and multiple referent 9. The opposite of synonymy is POLYSEMY, in which one form denotes two or more referents. An example in common English is iron 'the metallic element Fe' or 'an implement for pressing fabrics' (among other senses). 10. Polysemy can exist also between dialects. In such cases, a general form denotes two referents limited differently, for example, one in the UK and the other in the US. An instance is robin, which in British denotes 'the European thrush, Erithacus rubecula' and in American 'the North American thrush, Turdus migratorìus\ When the early settlers from Britain encountered things in the New World that resembled things from the mother country not found in America,

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they often applied the old, but now unneeded, names to the new things. The process of using old names for new things created a number of correspondences of this sort. In other cases, a new term was invented and applied to different referents in different dialects. A cherry-picker in Canadian is a caterpillar tractor used for loading logs onto trailers. In American it is a movable crane with a basketlike container at the top of the boom, large enough to hold a person, used for repairing telephone lines or trimming trees. The senses are similar, but quite distinct. 11. A general form may denote two (or more) referents, at least one of which is generally distributed and another limited to one area. An example is chapel, which has the general referent 'place of worship in a larger building' and the British referent 'nonconformist church' (among others). Another is swag, which has the general meaning 'loot' and the specifically Australian meaning 'bundle of personal belongings of a traveler'. 12. A general form may denote three (or more) referents, at least one of which is found generally distributed, one limited to a particular area, and one limited to a different area. An example is chancellor, which means 'the chief minister of state in some European countries, such as West Germany' in common English, 'the honorary or titular head of a university' in British, and 'the chief executive officer of a state system of higher education' in American (among other senses). This term is an example of the perils of international lexicography. Of five British dictionaries that make a stab at defining American senses of the word, none get this one right, doubtless because the lexicographers have failed to understand the Byzantine complexities of the administration of American higher education. As with earlier classes, there may be partial rather than full limitation — in this case, of referents — to either of two areas. Theoretically, the forms in question may also be limited to one of two dialects. However, since polysemy is of lesser interest in this typology, the realization of these various other possibilities is not investigated. 13. Another sort of variation, however, is worth nothing. A general form may have two referents that also exist generally, but may be associated with one referent in one area and with a different referent in another area. Thus, bimbo (probably from the Italian word for

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'baby') has had slang use in American since the 1910s as a term for an incompetent person and more recently in the sense 'dumb blond viewed as a sex object'. In Australian, however, it refers to a male homosexual. The referents are universal, but the term, though shared by the two dialects, is used differently in them. An unusual example of this type is to table 'bring up for discussion at a meeting' in British and 'remove from discussion at a meeting' in American. Both Britons and Americans bring subjects up for and remove them from discussion at meetings. But they use the verb table in opposite ways for those two actions — a fact that makes the word a curiosity among British-American correspondences. 14. Another special case is that of MORE/LESS INCLUSIVE TERMS, in which a general form has a semantically more restricted referent in one dialect and a wider referent in another. Staff means approximately the same thing in British and American, but has a wider range of referents in the former. In British, staff is a close synonym of employees. In American, staff has a slightly different range of meaning. On the one hand, it tends to be used chiefly of public service employees: a hospital has staff, as does a university; a hotel, especially a large one of the better sort, also has staff. However, to speak of the staff of a seven-eleven store sounds slightly odd — a little presumptuous - and a small hotel or other business in the US would hardly put a hand-lettered sign on its door reading "Staff Required" without seeming comic. Only important and relatively large American organizations have staff. Moreover, British staff in a university is the equivalent of American faculty, whereas American university staff typically excludes the faculty and applies instead to secretaries, clerks, grounds- and building-maintenance personnel, and any nonacademic employees. Thus the American referents of staff are a subset of the British. Similarly, yard has the general sense 'grounds around a house'. In Jamaican, however, it may refer also to the house itself; so the expression a yard means 'a home'. In Jamaican, yard is a more inclusive term than in other dialects. D. Multiple forms and multiple referents: Interlocking terms 15. A still more complex situation is that which might be called INTERLOCKING TERMS. British and American share the two forms

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baggage and luggage, which are used to denote referents also in common to both nations. Although the two varieties agree in using each form for certain referents, there is a third group of things that are called baggage in one variety and luggage in the other. Thus it is usual for both British and American to say buy luggage luggage shop personalized luggage pack a piece of luggage luggage space (in a car) luggage rack (on a train, bus, or car) hand luggage carry-on luggage reclaim luggage (at an airport) Similarly, in both varieties one may talk about reclaiming baggage (at an airport) baggage-claim area (of an airport) baggage-handler baggage compartment (of a plane) excess baggage fee baggage carousel In the following cases, however, British prefers luggage and American baggage:

luggage receipt baggage check luggage van baggage car register luggage check baggage left-luggage office baggage room From the foregoing distribution, some generalizations can be drawn: Empty, and therefore also new, suitcases are luggage. Small cases tend to be luggage. At an airport, suitcases tend to be baggage. Otherwise, British prefers luggage and American baggage. The distribution, however, both among referents and across national boundaries, is complex and difficult to predict. In many contexts, a count noun (suitcase, bag, etc.) is preferred to either of the mass nouns luggage or baggage. That preference is especially strong in American.

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E. Multiple forms and multiple referents: Homonymy 16. HOMONYMY is the existence of two sets of form-referent correlations in which the forms have identical shapes, phonologically or orthographically. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is a difficult one, and can be made on various grounds — either historical or synchronic, and in the latter case either semantic or grammatical. Historically, a yard around a house (from OE geard) and yard as a unit of measurement (from OE gierd) are examples of homonymy because they come from different etyma. By contrast, a foot on a leg and foot as a unit of measurement are examples of polysemy because they are historical developments of the same etymon (OE fot). Synchronically, we might say that an ear of corn and an ear for hearing are examples of polysemy since the former can be taken as a metaphor based on the latter. Historically, however, they are examples of homonymy since they have different etyma (ear of corn from OE ear, cf. OHG ah ir; ear for hearing from OE eare, cf. OHG ora). Conversely, we are very likely to say that flour and flower are homonyms (specifically, homophones) despite the fact that they are developments of the same etymon (ME flour from OF flor) because they have so greatly diverged in meaning and that divergence has been reflected in the orthography. Whether eye 'organ of sight' and eye 'look at' exemplify homonymy or polysemy depends partly on how important grammatical categories are taken to be, as well as semantic differences and history. The distinction bétween homonymy and polysemy, if it is not historical, is to some extent arbitrary. 17. Homonymy across dialect boundaries involves a limitation of one or both pairs of form-referent correlations. That limitation can take a large number of forms, of which only two are illustrated here and in the next numbered section. American t a f f y is a candy made of molasses or brown sugar, boiled and pulled until it is porous; the origin of the term is uncertain, but it is perhaps from a term for rum. British Taffy is a nickname for a Welshman, probably a distorted pronunciation of Davy, a common Welsh name. Despite the identity of pronunciation, the two forms are different words by almost all criteria. Another example of the same type is cotch. In Louisiana Black use

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(probably from a dialectal pronunciation of catch), it denotes a kind of card game. In South African use (from Afrikaans kots), it is a vulgar term for 'to vomit'. 18. An interdialectal homonym may also have one form-referent correlation in common English and the other limited to a single dialect. An example is the common gyp 'cheat' (from Gypsy) and the British gyp 'severe pain' (of unknown origin, but perhaps from the call to horses gee up). Because homonymy, like polysemy, is of secondary interest here, other possibilities are not considered. F. Multiple forms and multiple referents: Analogy 19. The opposite of homonymy is ANALOGY. Within common English, we have little reason to be concerned with this semantic relationship, and so it is seldom noted and has no generally agreedupon name. The term used here is adopted for the purpose as a fairly transparent bit of terminology. Analogs are things that differ from each other and have different names, but fill analogous positions in different systems. Examples in common English are a mortarboard (hat) and a top hat. Both objects are ritual headgear appropriate to different occasions, for example, a degree ceremony and a wedding. Both are parts of a complex costume (gown and hood versus striped trousers and tailcoat) and cannot properly be worn apart from the rest of their respective costumes or outside the situations to which they belong. Thus they are analogous things in different situational contexts. 20. Although analogy is of little, if any, interest within the common language, it is a useful concept for comparing dialects, especially national varieties. Cultural differences between the UK and the US entail linguistic differences. Cultural differences are, indeed, a major cause of linguistic variation between dialects. It frequently happens that in corresponding situations two dialects have different objects or events with different names but analogous functions. For example, a typical breakfast food in the US is granóla, and in the UK muesli. The foods are similar to each other, consisting of a mixture of grains, nuts, and dried fruits. They are both typically eaten with milk at breakfast time. They differ mainly in that granóla includes a sticky sweetening agent, such as molasses, which causes its other

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ingredients to bind together in small lumps. Muesli lacks such a binding agent and therefore is dry and powdery by comparison. Granóla is an Americanism (although the thing and to some extent the word are known in the UK). Muesli is a Briticism (ultimately from Swiss German), which has recently appeared in the US as a trade name, Mileslix. However, to record those two facts independently of each other is to miss a significant connection, namely, that granóla and muesli are in s sense equivalent things within the two national cuisines. That connection is captured by the concept of analogy. The number of analogs between dialects like British and American is very large. Analogs are, however, problematical in several ways. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether corresponding words are examples of this relationship or of equivalent terms (class 6). The decision depends on how much alike the referents are. Thus British biscuit and American cookie may be cited as equivalent terms. But the referential scope of the British term does not coincide with that of the American one. British biscuit corresponds to cracker as well as cookie and this is more inclusive than either American form. But cookie covers a wider range of edibles than British biscuit; British sweet biscuits are typically hard or crisp, whereas cookies may be like that or instead soft and lightly raised. The question is then whether biscuit and cookie are equivalent terms or British biscuits and American cookies are analogs. Foods are subject to a good deal of interdialectal variation, and so food terms are a rich source of analogy. Such terms frequently fail to correspond neatly because the referents are similar but not identical. For example, British breads include things like crepes, crumpets, drop scones, muffins, pancakes, and scones; American breads include biscuits, crepes, English muffins, muffins, and pancakes. But the terms do not line up neatly, because the things they name are similar, but not identical. A British pancake is more like a crepe than it is like an American pancake, being thinner and often rolled and filled like a crepe. An American pancake is more like a British drop scone, although typically larger in diameter. An American biscuit, although compared with a muffin in some British dictionaries, is more like the British scone. The British muffin is roughly similar to what American calls an English muffin. An American muffin is a usually yeastless bread baked in a cupcake

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shape; although defined in some British dictionaries as a sweet bread, it need not be so - corn muffins (made from corn meal) being not notably sweet. This food has no close British analog. The British crumpet likewise has no near American analog, being a small round of yeast bread, very porous on the top side, eaten toasted and buttered. Because these British and American foods do not correspond exactly, there are no exact equivalences among the terms, but only analogies. The concept of analogy can be extended very widely to pairs like those in the following list, in which the first column is British and the second American: Congress Parliament Senate House of Lords House of Commons House of Representatives Queen plus PM President The City Wall Street British Library Library of Congress British Museum Metropolitan Museum Oxford and Cambridge Harvard and Yale M (motorway) I (interstate highway) TUC AFL/CIO NAAFI PX Prívate Eye National Lampoon Derby "Dahby" Kentucky Derby "Durby" Terry Wogan Johnny Carson British Rail Amtrak (but only remotely) the West End Broadway And so on. In compiling such lists of analogs, we have unlimited scope for imagination and playfulness. They are, indeed, the best examples of the parallel list as both art form and sport.

7. Conclusion At its best, the parallel list is imaginative and playful. But if it is to be also informative and reliable, simple lists of equivalents between dialects are inadequate, for the obvious reason that differences between dialects — whether of grammar or lexis, whether of sounds, forms, or meanings — are usually more complex than a simple statement of

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correspondence can capture. Those differences need to be sifted by a finer-meshed typology. The typology proposed in this paper is not very fine-meshed, but it, like that of Benson, Benson, and Ilson (1986), is an effort, modest in this case, to make more detailed distinctions and to make them more rigorously than has been the custom. The practical application of such typologies, in lexicography or pedagogy, is a matter for consideration. To understand how dialects differ, we must surely know the patterns of their differences. However, the main purpose for making such typologies is not to apply them as a matter of technology, however worthy such applications may be. What typologies of interdialectal differences show is how subtle are the distinctions that divide us, how manifold the ramifications of minor cultural differences, how delicate the semantic lacework that edges the dialects of the English-speaking world. A typology of interdialectal differences can help us to be aware of the diversity that overlies the unity of English and to understand the ways in which English varies across cultures. To help in that awareness and understanding is purpose enough.

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean examinations

Pauline

Christie

Abstract In the Caribbean, the replacement of traditional British-based examinations by examinations entirely designed and administered by Caribbean personnel has implications for the model (s) of formal spoken and written English to be accepted generally in the region. This paper examines the possible significance of differences between educated Caribbean usage and the traditional British model on the one hand and, on the other, that of intra-regional differences within the Caribbean. Problems related to the development of a Caribbean Standard, including possible miscommunication at this stage are discussed in the specific context of English language examinations.

1. Introduction It was inevitable that the spread of English throughout the world as a by-product of colonialism should have resulted in its increasing diversity, so that today usage in the former colonies differs from place to place and in all of them it differs to a greater or lesser extent from generally accepted Standard English. Spoken language is, of course, far more variable than its written counterpart. The written English of an Australian, for example, is usually more or less indistinguishable from that produced by, for example, an Englishman or a Canadian. His spoken usage, however, will immediately cause him to be identified. The loosening of formal ties with Britain following the achievement of political Independence by almost all the former colonies within the past forty years or so has led to accentuation of differences. This is especially marked in areas where some other language can be identified as the first language of most of the population, as is the case in the Anglophone Caribbean. English performs a range of

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functions in such societies, but it is usually learned mainly in school. The notion that 'new Englishes' have arisen in some of these societies is gaining support (see, for example, Kachru 1982; Pride 1982; Piatt et al. 1984). This notion, however, owes as much to the search for national identities and to the related changing attitudes to external norms of different kinds, as to linguistic changes per se. Thus, it is not surprising that the identification of new varieties has been accompanied by the suggestion that these might serve as new models or standard languages for their users. This paper discusses emerging standards in the Caribbean and intraregional differences in relation to these standards, especially in the area of lexis, and the potential contribution of Caribbean-based schoolleaving examinations to the acceptance of new models. The relevant territories are scattered over a wide area stretching from Jamaica and Belize in the north to Guyana on the South American mainland in the south. Differences in their colonial and demographic history have had linguistic consequences. For example, English has not been subject to the same influences in all cases. In Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and St Lucia it has been in contact with lexically French Creoles. Indeed, even now, lexically French Creoles are widely spoken alongside creolized English in Dominica and St Lucia. In contrast, Barbados, until its Independence in 1966, had been a British colony without interruption for well over three hundred years and had consequently been settled more or less exclusively by speakers of some variety of English, insofar as the European connection is concerned.

2. The search for standards Samarin (1980:214) has identified two ways in which standardization of a language can emerge, that is, from consensus or by fiat. Acceptance of a regional standard of Caribbean English and/or of local standards (Jamaican, Trinidadian, etc.), seems unlikely to be achieved by the latter means since at present there is no strong political support for it. Consensus, of course, takes a very long time to achieve. What is at stake in the Caribbean is the legitimizing of varieties which are currently used by large numbers of people, including some highly educated and respected members of the relevant societies. These emergent varieties reflect communicative needs of Caribbean peoples to a large extent. Relative consensus can be achieved without excessive

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 245 delay if efforts are channelled in the desired direction through influential agents such as the schools, newspapers and books. As Milroy and Milroy (1985:22) put it, standardization is motivated in the first place by various social, political and commercial needs, and is promoted in various ways . . . . According to Le Page (1985:191), a standard can be seen as a norm and at the same time as a "prescriptive yardstick against which things and people are measured." As he further points out, where language is concerned, 'standard' has come to be associated with prescriptiveness through the intervention of such agencies as education and examinations systems. In modern societies, however, variation, in language as elsewhere, has become respectable and more than one norm may be recognized in the same society. Appropriateness has replaced the notion of correctness as the relevant criterion for acceptance. Acceptance of a Caribbean-wide standard is not at all incompatible, either, with acceptance of intra-regional variation within that standard. Indeed, there is an extensive core of agreement, especially with regard to syntax. A similar observation might be made concerning the compatibility of Caribbean Standard English and British English or any other appropriate external standard. Links with the international community, for example, cannot be threatened by general acceptance, within the region, of language varieties which already exist, de facto if not de iure. Besides, the international community currently tolerates both British and American varieties without any noticeable serious communication difficulties. At the same time, just as British Standard English has been influenced for some time by American English, so it is likely that local varieties within the Caribbean will influence each other and will continue to be influenced by external varieties with which they may come in contact. In practice, a set of norms for informal spoken usage usually exists alongside another which applies to written usage and to formal spoken usage, though only the latter is generally regarded as the standard language. The traditional association of standard and written language is perhaps unavoidable, since written language, being less variable than the spoken medium, can more easily serve as a focussing agent. The distinction between two sets of norms is often ignored in discussions concerning 'new Englishes'. For example, many of the examples of Jamaican English listed by Piatt et al. (1984) are characteristic of spoken usage only, even if it is true that some of them are finding

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their way into the written language of some educated Jamaicans. Besides, a significant proportion of the features mentioned by these authors would not be considered by Jamaicans themselves as even possible candidates for inclusion in a Jamaican variety of Standard English. The caution urged by Stubbs (1982:141) is well worth considering in this connection. While agreeing that the process of standardization is under way in parts of Africa and Asia, he states: Varieties such as West African or Indian English may be fully standardized, but the competence of individual speakers clearly differs greatly. We have to distinguish between the variety and the individual's knowledge of it. At the same time, there is a case for standardization of the vernaculars in the Caribbean alongside English. Caribbean peoples are conscious of two codes operating in their societies, even if in practice it is not always easy to determine to which of them specific usage should be assigned. The co-existence of two quite different standard languages within the same society is not without precedent. It need not even be associated with diglossia, as the example of Norway makes clear. According to Trudgill (1974:150), in that country Nynorskand Bokmal have equal status. He states: All official documents are in both standards; children have to learn to read and write both; and both are extensively used in radio and television. Such a situation is unlikely to develop in the Caribbean in the foreseeable future, but the principle need not be discarded on that account. Where there are co-existing languages in a society, one inevitably influences the other. The polarizing effect of each standard, however, could ultimately bring it about that the Caribbean codes become more clearly demarcated than they are at present. This would not, of course, mean an end to their mutual influence. For . . . absolute standardisation of a spoken language is never achieved (the only fully standardised language is a dead language) (Milroy and Milroy, 1985:22). The task of gaining support for new norms in respect of written and formal spoken English in the Caribbean should be greatly facilitated by the fact that a large proportion of the current population of the

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region is less than twenty years old. The attitudes of these young people have been formed within the context of the very social changes that have coincided with the greater use of regionalisms in formal spoken and written language. The sense of belonging to a Caribbean entity (or Caribbean entities) is likely to be stronger than in their parents' case, their attachment to the traditional British model less firm.

3. English in the Anglophone Caribbean: The general situation English is the official medium of communication throughout the region under consideration, although the first language of the bulk of the population is a Creole or, in some cases, a creolized variety of English. Even in Dominica and St Lucia where the Creole spoken by the majority has a lexicon derived mainly from French, there is a growing proportion of speakers whose first language is creolized English. In all the relevant territories, the only language normally expected wherever a written variety is necessary is English. Thus, all newspapers, books and documents are in English. English is the accepted language in the classroom, in the Law Courts, in Parliament and in the churches. It is normally required at all official ceremonies. More and more, however, actual usage for both oral and written purposes falls short of the traditional model, British English, more often than not, unintentionally. Despite consciousness of two different norms within each of the relevant territories, there is, in reality, no simple juxtaposition of unrelated language varieties in any of them. The continued influence of English throughout the years has blurred the distinction between what must once have been more easily separable varieties. This renders the question of what exactly is meant by 'English' particularly difficult to answer in this context. Serious research into the formal spoken and written English of educated persons in the region, roughly defined here as those who completed at least seven years of secondary education and/or have had professional training, has so far been concerned only with the area of lexis. The University of the West Indies, along with the University of Guyana and some governments in the region, has sponsored a dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. The preparatory research for this work involved investigation of both spoken and written usage

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throughout the region. When completed, the dictionary should be a guide to educators and others, not only with regard to the forms used, but also to their status (Allsopp 1978). Unfortunately, publication has been somewhat delayed, owing, in part, to the complexity of the task. A Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cassidy and Le Page 1967, 1980) has been in publication for some time now, but many of its entries are obsolete or obsolescent. A more recent publication is the Dictionary of Bahamian English (Holm and Shilling 1982). These developments represent a bourgeoning recognition of the fact that English within the Caribbean sometimes differs from generally accepted Standard English. It should be noted, however, that the Bahamas is not among the territories under special consideration in this paper as its nationals do not take part in regional examinations. It was not by accident that conscious efforts to gain acceptance for Caribbean English have begun with plans for the publication of a dictionary. The most striking differences between usage in the region and the traditional standard involve lexis. So, too, do the majority of intra-regional differences. Where phonology is concerned, there is not really a problem of acceptance since Caribbean pronunciations have been taken for granted in the region for a long time, except for a few stigmatized features, such as the use of initial /h/ by some Jamaicans in words which in generally accepted Standard English would have an initial vowel. Even these features, however, are becoming less socially unacceptable than they once were, if only because more highly educated people are 'guilty' of them. At the level of syntax, however, it has traditionally been assumed that formal usage in the Caribbean is hardly any different from what might be heard elsewhere. This may indeed be largely the case, but there is a growing awareness of differences at this level, too, and of a need for research into these. Syntax is, of course, the level at which entrenched attitudes are likely to be strongest. Persons brought up on the kind of prescriptive grammar that was traditionally put into textbooks are not likely to be easily convinced that rules they have been taught are subject to variation and change. For example, whereas whom as direct object is obsolescent in some varieties of English, as is indicated by Huddleston (1984:393-4), some persons in the region, as elsewhere, remain so conscious of the traditional rule that hypercorrection, illustrated in, for example, The man whom they said had stolen the cow is not infrequent. Conservatism, at least in principle, has also resulted in an often stated preference for, for example, bigger than I over bigger

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 249 than me. Yet it is at this same syntactic level that the gap between principle and practice is widest. Other rules which have long been considered basic and which have been consistently drilled into Caribbean pupils, are violated more and more frequently. Significant among these is the rule governing subject-verb concord. It is not being advocated here, of course, that such unsystematic linguistic behaviour should be considered part of a new standard. There are doubts even about the possible inclusion of certain structures which appear to signal the development of new rules, for example, the marked tendency for verbs to agree with the immediately preceding noun, regardless of whether or not that noun is the subject of the sentence. This is seen, for example, in (i) Too often misconduct by members are overlooked. (ii) Men like Blookfield is particularly important here. This trend is not, of course, confined to the Caribbean, but such examples are relatively frequent in this region. There are, however, certain regionalisms which occur in the area of syntax that might be accepted, with relatively little resistance, in a proposed regional standard. These are not generally recognized as foreign to generally accepted Standard English. Some of them, indeed, are associated with informal levels in British or American English, but others are not. They include some instances of repetition and fronting, as illustrated by the following: (i) She was tired, tired (ii) It's old that she is old (iii) That girl, her mother works in a factory

'She was very tired'. Old, that's what she is'. 'That girl's mother works in a factory'.

Other regionalisms are identified as such because verbs appear in frames in which they would not normally be used outside the Caribbean. Thus, for example, the verb scratch may take a subject which has a non-animate referent (cf. itch), as in: My hand is scratching me

'My hand itches'.

Similarly, the verb care is used transitively throughout the Caribbean and this usage is well illustrated in a slogan recently directed at schoolchildren in Jamaica. Care Your Books

'Take care of your books'

250 Pauline Christie In still other cases, it is word order that is significant, as in: Last year this time

'This time last year'.

At other times, sentences which formally correspond to what might be heard generally elsewhere are given interpretations in the Caribbean that would be ruled out for generally accepted Standard English. Thus, It's ten years since I've been here might mean Ί was last here ten years ago' to a Caribbean listener, rather than /as well as 'I've been here for ten years'. At the same time, for the same speakers, the latter meaning is sometimes expressed by It's ten years since lam here a construction which is ungrammatical from the standpoint of the traditional standard. Regionalisms are, as was indicated earlier, far more numerous in lexis than at the syntactic level. Lexical regionalisms in the Caribbean include: (i) a) b) c)

words which have generally known Standard English counterparts such as those singled out in: The corns on my foot-bottom are painful, (foot-bottom = 'sole') Show me your hand-middle and I'll tell your fortune. (handmiddle = 'palm') She cried living eye-water at the sad news. (eye-water = 'tears')

(ii) words used with meanings additional to, or different from, those associated with their British Standard English counterparts, such as those singled out in : a) She has her left hand in a sling. (hand = 'arm', 'hand') b) The child fell and broke his foot, (foot = 'leg', 'foot') c) The tail of her dress has come loose, (tail = 'hem') d) The owner of the house ran the intruders, (run = 'drive away') (in) forms belonging to different grammatical categories from their British Standard English counterparts, such as those singled out in: a) The woman grudges me my big house, (grudge = 'envy . . . for') b) Tom is a very coward boy. (coward = 'cowardly') c) The joke sweets him. (sweet = 'give pleasure to')

Questions of standards arid intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 251 (iv) fixed collocations which appear to be Caribbean formations, such as those singled out in: a) I don't want margarine. I must have best butter, (best butter = 'butter') b) John's girl-friend is the one with tall hair. (tall hair = 'long hair') c) Irish potatoes are expensive this week. (Irish potato = Euronean 'potato' (v) idioms, such as those singled out in: a) That child always drops asleep in my class, (drop asleep = 'fall asleep') b) Since my parents work out, I go to my aunt's house after school, (work out = 'work outside the home') c) John kept a party at his house on Friday, (keep a party = 'have a party') The inclusion of a form here does not necessarily mean that it never occurs with the characteristics mentioned, outside the Caribbean. It should also be noted that reference to British Standard English is made solely in view of the fact that this is the traditional model in the Caribbean.

4. Intra-regional differences The features which signal intra-regional differences reflect, for the most part, particular colonial and/or demographic histories. This can be illustrated even with reference to syntax, as is shown by those features which are confined to territories in which lexically French Creole is, or was, spoken. Thus, for example, in Trinidad and Tobago, it + 'have', like lexically French Creole i ni, has existential meaning, as in: It had many other vendors

'There were many other vendors'.

Two other features which can be similarly traced are the use of 'be' + -ing (a) generally with perceptive verbs, as in: My hand is smelling of ginger

'My hand smells of ginger'

and (b) to express habitual meaning with action verbs, as in: They are baking bread every day

'They bake bread every day'.

These reflect uses of the nonpunctual marker ka in lexically French

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Antillean Creole. On the other hand, the use of does with habitual meaning, as in: They does bake bread every day

'They bake bread every day'

which is widespread throughout the Eastern Caribbean but is not found in Jamaica, seems to have originated in Barbados and to have spread from there to other territories (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985:164). In the area of lexis, the most obvious intra-regional differences relate to the flora and fauna of the territories and to the cultural practices which sometimes distinguish them. For example, the tree known as saman in Trinidad and Tobago is called guango in Jamaica and the naseberry of Jamaica is the same fruit referred to as sapodilla elsewhere in the Caribbean. The same form might have different meanings in different territories or groups of territories. For example, ackee in Jamaica refers to a different fruit from the one indicated by the same term in Barbados. In another area of lexis, a narrow street may be called a trace in Trinidad and Tobago, a gap in Barbados and a lane in Jamaica. An unspecified short distance may be referred to in Jamaica as a chain, an archaism not encountered in Trinidad and Tobago or Barbados, for example. As regards items which have more direct cultural significance, kadooment is a name used, in Barbados exclusively, for an annual festival marking the end of the cane-cutting season, while carnival has specific associations for persons in Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica which would be rather unfamiliar to Jamaicans and Belizeans, for example. Callaloo in Trinidad and Tobago is a popular stew in the preparation of which different leafy vegetables and crab meat are thoroughly blended. In Jamaica, on the other hand, it is a particular spinach-like plant and the soup for which its leaves form the main ingredient. Other lexical differences reflect differences in the racial mix of the territories. For example, in Trinidad and Tobago as well as Guyana, terms such as dougla 'of mixed Indian and Negro blood', reflect the high percentage of Indians in these countries. Not all intra-regional differences involve nouns, however. For example, the form lime, associated with Trinidad and Tobago, though used as a noun meaning 'talk-session', is also used as the corresponding verb, i.e. with the meaning 'to hold a talk-session'. It is illustrated by: a) b)

We had a lime last night The boys want to lime in your room.

'We held a talk-session last night' 'The boys want t o hold a talk-session in your room.'

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 253 Also specific to Trinidad and Tobago, it seems, is the use of the verb study to mean 'take . . . into consideration', as in: These children don't study what I say to them. Other expressions which appear to be restricted to specific territories are given below. It cannot be categorically stated that they never occur outside the territories named in each case, but they have been attested for those only. 1. Barbados An undressed policeman came up to me. 'plain-clothes policeman')

(undressed policeman =

2. Guyana In my small days my family lived in Berbice. (small days = 'childhood') 3. Belize The schoolchildren like to bang hookie. (bang hookie = 'play truant') 4. Jamaica John is a real samfle man. (samfle man = 'trickster') 5. Trinidad and Tobago They came by me last night (by me = 'to my house')

5. English in the education system The model of English that has traditionally been encouraged in Caribbean schools is, not surprisingly, a British one. Cambridge Overseas Examinations, set in England, based on syllabuses designed in England and often taught by British-born and/or British-trained teachers, have constituted the apex of the system for a very long time. The fact that relatively few entrants into the system could ever get to the point of taking the examinations, in view of the dichotomy in education which made it very difficult for children of poor parents to gain admission to secondary schools, did not lessen their influence on the entire system. The model of Standard English advocated in all schools has thus been the one prescribed in grammar books written in Britain in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, or copied from these. It has been associated with 'good' literature, nearly always, until recently,

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the work of British-born writers. Even if the examination system was not itself the source of this phenomenon, it provided reinforcement for at least half-a-century. The ability to use language approximating to what was perceived as the British standard has been the mark of an educated person. If the possibility of any other model was ever raised, this was in connection with the possible merits of an American one, rather than of some Caribbean variety. The very suggestion that such a model might be possible would have been dismissed by nearly everyone as ridiculous. One significant index of the social changes which have occurred recently in the Caribbean is the changed attitude to the place of Caribbean writers on school syllabuses. As late as the 1960s, the introduction of Caribbean literature into the classroom was a controversial issue. Language was one of the factors responsible for this. As Jean D'Costa (1983:256) emphasizes, The Ministry of Education would not introduce any text containing the smallest trace of nonstandard into any school or school library. She goes on to add, The censorship of the adult, authoritarian group (parents, teachers, civil servants) was absolute. In fact, most Caribbean novelists tend to use language that would not generally be stigmatized within the region. Many have been acclaimed on the international scene. All, of course, make use of the vernacular in dialogue where their characters would have been likely to use it in real life. Caribbean literature, as was indicated earlier, could be a useful agent for promoting acceptance of a Caribbean Standard English. It now features prominently on the CXC syllabus for English literature, CXC being the name by which the new regional examinations are popularly known.

6. The Caribbean-based examinations The need for serious consideration of what might constitute a realistic model for written English in the Caribbean has been brought to the the forefront within the past decade. Since 1979, the Cambridge Overseas Ό ' level examinations have been gradually replaced by others set and marked within the Caribbean under the aegis of the Caribbean

(Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 255 Examinations Council (CXC). These new examinations, too, are normally taken after five years of secondary education. They cater for a relatively wide range of candidates drawn not only from the 'high' schools inherited from the colonial system, but also from a growing number of less traditional secondary schools. Throughout the region, access to secondary education now depends mainly on the results of an examination which is open to primary schoolchildren in the ten to twelve age-group. Students are therefore drawn from a wider spectrum of social backgrounds than was traditionally the case. The gap between rich and poor is particularly noticeable in some territories. At the same time, some territories as a whole are more developed than others. Although the association between language and social background is far more complex than was the case even twenty years ago, it remains true that the only language varieties controlled by the vast majority of poor people in the region are those relatively far removed from Standard English. The higher one goes up the socio-economic scale, the greater the proficiency in Standard English that can normally be expected. Thus, it is not surprising that many of the forms and structures identified as errors in the examinations would be considered such, regardless of the accepted model of English. The errors reflect, to a significant degree, ignorance of basic English structures and their presence underscores the fact that English is virtually a foreign language for many Caribbean children. This does not, however, make the search for an appropriate model any less relevant. The CXC examinations offer a wider variety of subjects than did the examinations they replaced. The subjects include, alongside traditional ones like English, History, Geography, Mathematics, others such as Social Studies, Principles of Business, Agricultural Science and Technical Drawing. The syllabuses have all been designed by panels of educators resident in the Caribbean and the focus, in each case, is on Caribbean settings, Caribbean culture and Caribbean life-styles. A Caribbean perspective provides the starting-point. Thus, for example, Caribbean history provides the background against which European history is studied, rather than vice versa as was formerly the case. As was mentioned earlier, works of Caribbean writers form a central part of the English literature syllabus, and so on. This very different orientation naturally has linguistic implications, particularly in view of the language situation that characterizes this region. Besides, since the questions in the examinations, and many of the textbooks now

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used, are devised by Caribbean educators and are specifically aimed at Caribbean children; they necessarily reflect Caribbean usage to a certain extent. It is not usually the case, however, that conscious attempts are made to depart from the traditional model, British Standard English. Two levels of Proficiency are offered by the Council. One of these, General Proficiency, was intended for candidates who might wish to pursue further academic training. It is, in this respect, roughly comparable t o the GCE (General Certificate of Education) Ό ' level. The other, Basic Proficiency, was meant to prepare candidates more directly for entry into the world of work. As it happens, approximately 80 percent of the candidates who register for English language each year register for General Proficiency. The examinations are not assessed on a Pass/ Fail basis. Candidates are awarded one of five possible grades on the basis of their over-all performance, along two or more profile dimensions. The relevant profiles for the English language examinations are Understanding and Expression. The Expression profile is the more heavily weighted at General Proficiency, but the reverse is true at Basic. At both proficiencies, of course, regional features affect the candidates' performance with regard to both Understanding and Expression. The vast majority of candidates taking the examinations are drawn from the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago and from Jamaica. These t w o units alone accounted for over 70 percent of the total number of candidates registered for English language between 1983 and 1987. Trinidad and Tobago provided more than half of this percentage. At the other extreme, Barbados and a varying number of smaller islands together accounted for a relatively small number. Figures for each of these years are given in Table 1. The designers of the CXC English language syllabus have aimed at encouraging, among other things, (i)

a lasting appreciation of the diversity of purposes for which language is used. (ii) the ability to use the language with precision, clarity and grammatical correctness. (iii) the ability to give effective articulation to experience (real or imagined) in speech or writing. (CXC English Syllabus) Some problems arise from the very nature of the syllabus. For example,

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. Table 1

257

Candidates registered for CXC English language examinations (basic and general proficiencies) 1983-1987, according to territory of origin

Territories

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

Trinidad and Tobago

17,018 (34%)

23,859 (47%)

22,962 (46.8%)

21,178 (45.2%)

22,943 (46%)

Jamaica

15,253 (30%)

15,555 (30%)

14,235 (29%)

13,169 (28.1%)

13,705 (27.5%)

Guyana

5,554 (11%)

4,783 (9%)

4,564 (9.3%)

4,571 (9.8%)

4,644 (9.3%)

Barbados

3,123 (6%)

3,306 (7%)

3,137 (6.4%)

3,238 (6.9%)

3,427 (6.9%)

3,676 [9] (7%)

4,141 [11] (8.4%)

4,701 [12] (10%)

5,131 [12] (10.3%)

Others (numbers 9,814 [10] in brackets) (19%) Totals

50,762

51,179

49,039

46,857

49,850

Caribbean children's appreciation of the "diversity of purposes for which language is used" cannot be fairly judged in an examination which purports to be a test of Standard English, whether it is geared towards a Caribbean model or towards the traditional one. Nor can it be fairly tested in an examination which calls for written language exclusively, as has been the practice up to now. In practice, at least one compromise has had to be made, that is, examiners have been obliged to accept, for written dialogue, language clearly not intended by its users to represent Standard English, but which is highly appropriate to the situations being portrayed by the candidates. A narrower syllabus could avoid this by focussing on situations for which Standard English is essential in the Caribbean, that is, on relatively formal situations. This would be more realistic. It would also facilitate the definition of a regional model of Standard English. At the same time, a test of communicative skills is an attractive idea, but it would require a separate examination with a quite different label from the one now used. One of the difficulties with the implementation of the CXC syllabus relates to the contrast between its broad aims and the narrow prescriptive attitudes of many teachers. Teachers' assessments of responses are often prejudiced by the great importance they attach to specific grammatical or vocabulary details. Thus, the use of items deemed to

258 Pauline Christie be nonstandard can cause a conservative teacher to underestimate an otherwise excellent response. At the same time, however, that same teacher might unwittingly have ignored other nonstandard words and/or grammatical structures since the line between the traditional model and regional variation from it is not always clear even to those who are expected to pass judgement. Markers' notions of what is/is not acceptable are often revealed on observation of grammatical forms which they underline as incorrect and ungrammatical ones which they ignore. For example, there is a strong preoccupation on their part with getting the verb form correct. Thus, in one case where a candidate had written, in a narrative with past time reference, the following: Usually at afternoons we go to the beach one marker underlined the word go as incorrect, in recognition of the fact that the unmarked form of the verb had been used for past time reference, as in Creole, while at the same time ignoring the use of at which, though not unusual in this context in the usage of some Caribbean territories at all levels, is nevertheless ungrammatical from the point of view of the traditional standard. Similarly, in the following: While taking a suntan, up walks this attractive young man a marker underlined the verb walks which was, in fact, correct, while ignoring the ungrammatical dangling participle at the beginning of the sentence. In other cases, British usage is not recognized where it differs from Caribbean usage, despite the claim that the former is the model. For example, in British English, bath is used as a verb with the meaning 'take a bath', whereas in the Caribbean, as in North America, the equivalent verb is bathe in all contexts. It is very unlikely that the marker who underlined bath in the following as incorrect, was aware of these facts. The child had written There we would share the same bedroom, bath together and play games. Again, in British usage, but not in Caribbean usage, drunk may be used as a noun, as in: Her mother was a drunk.

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. 259 The word was nevertheless underlined as incorrect by one marker when this sentence appeared in a script. Variation in what might be considered Standard English affects what takes place in the context of examination marking as well as the everyday classroom situation. Where the former is concerned, too, the markers are normally practising teachers. They are taken from all over the region. The question of one territory's usage being accorded greater prestige in principle than another's does not, however, arise. For, despite varying degree of awareness that some lexical features, and even some syntactic features, are associated with individual territories or with a group of territories, the majority of markers have no concept of Jamaican English, Trinidadian English, Barbadian English, etc. as distinct varieties of English. Their judgement in specific instances is governed by familiarity, to such an extent that differences between the traditional model and familiar usage often go unperceived, as was illustrated earlier. This might affect even the most conservative observer. In other words, standards are ad hoc and variable in many cases, likely to be influenced by the teacher's social class background, age, sex, personality, exposure to British and/or American English, exposure to different Caribbean varieties, educational experience, professional training, etc., no less than country of origin. These factors are all of course, interrelated and many operate in different combinations. Even markers from the same territory might therefore react differently to the examples given earlier and also to the regionalisms illustrated by the following: (i) Auntie Anna offered to give me a drop {drop = lift in a car) (ii) I went to sleep in a rather miserable mood (miserable = badtempered) (iii) I told her not to worry with the things that I had wanted, {worry = do something about). The CXC marking exercise itself serves as a means of increasing teachers' awareness of, and familiarity with, varieties other than those they themselves use. This is especially the case where the same teachers participate in the exercise year after year, as many of them do in fact. The scripts they are called on to mark might come from any of the participating territories. Besides, since teachers from all over the Anglophone Caribbean are brought together at designated centres, new friendships are formed which provide even further opportunities for exposure to new varieties.

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7. Miscommunication as a factor in the examinations Strong potential for miscommunication undoubtedly exists where these examinations are concerned. Regional and/or intra-regional differences might account for a) candidates' misinterpretation of whole questions or parts of questions. b) markers' misinterpretation of candidates' responses. c) markers' misinterpretation of the marking schemes provided by the Examining Committees. However, without systematic research, such as has not yet been possible, one cannot be certain at this point about the extent to which miscommunication actually takes place, or about the extent to which what actually takes place reflects intra-regional variation as distinct from differences between Caribbean usage as such and the traditional model, British English. Besides, the fact that many responses are judged holistically makes it difficult, in most cases, to identify the relevant details. Nevertheless, there have been observed cases where candidates' difficulties with given questions appear to be traceable to language differences of the sort which have been discussed in this paper. For example, when asked to comment on the appropriateness of a comparison between leaves looking in at a window and people at a play which appeared in a set poem, several candidates wrote that movement and noise characterize both situations. It seems, from this and other evidence, that some of these had interpreted play as 'game', an interpretation common in, for example, Jamaica (see Cassidy and Le Page 1980:354), and had therefore missed the poet's point. Of course, cultural factors might also have been involved, since some candidates who clearly recognized the more usually accepted meaning of play, seem to have felt that audiences are usually noisy, a view for which there might be some justification if based on their own experiences of Caribbean audiences. The close link between language and conceptualization is also evident from some other responses. For example, comments about an unnamed bus company in a set passage were interpreted by some candidates as referring to particular transport systems operating in their own territory. Thus, in their responses they used acronyms by which the companies more familiar to them are known, or referred to the buses

Questions of standards and intra-regional differences in Caribbean exam. mentioned in the passage as minibuses, although that term had not been used in the text. Some other examples of miscommunication surface when markers are informally comparing notes after marking. Thus, one marker stated that a Belizean candidate who had written about tigers in his country had been unnecessarily fanciful, not realizing that there are animals in that country known locally as tigers. These would be referred to generally elsewhere as jaguars. Indeed, some markers who were aware of this fact, nevertheless objected to the candidate's use of the word tiger in this context, claiming that it failed to correspond to "Standard English" usage. This view supports some of the statements made earlier in this paper about resistance to the acceptance of regional usage. The following examples, taken from actual scripts, as were those given earlier, illustrate other usages which might be differently interpreted and/or assessed by markers from different territories. For reasons already mentioned here, it is not known how these were actually treated by the teachers who marked the relevant scripts. a) The place was looking as if no one had ever walked on it before. I was beginning to get scared, hearing the screeching of birds, especially as I was seeing no one. b) When we ran down the corridor, we were not studying that the man would be there. c) It should be a mixture like a good callaloo. d) Although he does work very hard, he still can't enjoy himself as much as he wishes to. e) Meanwhile, my father was washing his car under the house. The use of progressive 'be' . . . -ing with perceptive verbs in Trinidad and Tobago, for example, was mentioned earlier. It is illustrated in (a) by was looking, was seeing and in (b) by were . .. studying. In the latter example, the word study has the meaning 'take . . . into consideration' which was mentioned earlier. The interpretations given not only to examples (a) and (b), but also to (c) and (d) by, for example, a marker from Trinidad and Tobago might be different from those that would be given by a Jamaican, for example. As regards (c), the difference in the meaning of callaloo in Trinidad and Tobago vs. Jamaica was pointed out earlier, as was the fact that does as habitual marker, illustrated in (d), is not used in Jamaica. A Jamaican marker would therefore be likely to interpret does in this context as having emphatic meaning, although this meaning is not common in Caribbean

261

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Pauline Christie

usage especially among children. Difficulty with (e) is related to cultural differences. To those markers who are unaware that in some parts of the region, for example, Guyana and, to a lesser extent, Trinidad and Tobago, it is not unusual for houses to be built high off the ground, the sentence at (e) might appear nonsensical. It is, of course, nothing of the sort, since the space left under the house in such cases is quite large enough to accommodate a car.

8. Conclusion To sum up, evidence has been provided in this paper that, despite an extensive common core particularly at the syntactic level, Caribbean English is not identical with internationally recognized varieties of English. The main concern here has been with the fact that the distinguishing features can no longer be officially ignored since, not only are they becoming more and more common in the formal usage of persons from all levels of Caribbean society, but they have also coincided with a change of attitude, especially on the part of young people, towards the traditional model, British English. Similar changes have been occurring in other spheres of activity and they can all be traced to the growth of a regional identity which has involved the re-examination of old values and a search for new standards. The point has been made, however, that official recognition of Caribbean English as a variety in its own right need not mean rejection of those traditional varieties which are relevant for those users who must establish and maintain contacts with the outside world. Finally, the potential of the recently instituted Caribbean Examinations as an important agency for promoting acceptance of the new variety, despite initial problems such as those arising from intra-regional differences and entrenched attitudes, has been discussed at some length.

Structural mimicry in decreolization and its effect on pseudocomprehension*

William A. Stewart

Abstract Linguistic models of decreolization have tended to emphasize its more successful strategies and outcomes. Yet standard-dialect acquisition problems are typically epidemic within decreolizing and post-creole populations, suggesting that there must be something about the decreolization process that makes it somewhat treacherous. Many decreolization strategies are candidates for blame, but perhaps none more so than structural mimicry. It can give rise to miscomprehension and performance problems at the same time that it conceals their causes. A typology of structural mimicry in creolization and decreolization is illustrated from Gullah and Black English.

1. The emergence of a xenolect At the midpoint of the nineteenth century, even as European maritime and colonial expansion was nearing completion, European scholarship was beginning to develop an interest in the social consequences of that expansion. Not least among these consequences was the evolution of new forms of the major western European languages, eventually to be known by linguists as pidgins and creóles. Different structural characteristics of these language varieties soon began to be noticed. Perhaps the most salient attribute, especially for the earlier, non-natively spoken pidgin varieties of Portuguese, English, French, Dutch, etc., was the relative structural simplicity of these vis-à-vis their European relatives, and this was at different times seen as due to the infantilism, primitivism, or illiteracy of the speakers or, more sensibly, as either the effect of foreign language learning under conditions of limited access to native-speaker models of the language being learned or perhaps deliberate "foreigner talk" created

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William A. Stewart

by the Europeans themselves. But less easy to explain in simple terms was another noticeable characteristic of pidgin and creole varieties of European languages: structural deviation, by no means always in the direction of simplicity, away from their European relatives. Simple mislearning was a possible explanation, but the regularity of the structural deviations suggested that something more than this was involved. To more sophisticated nineteenth and early twentieth century observers, an explanation was to be sought in a special kind of mislearning which, viewed from another perspective, was not so much mislearning as incomplete learning: reliance, in matters of pronunciation and sentence structure in attempting to speak the new language, on the phonology and syntax of the native language. The intellectual appeal of this explanation of the non-European structural characteristics of pidgin and creole varieties of European languages was twofold: it was supported, albeit in a less dramatic way, by the foreign accents with which the major European languages could be heard spoken at every turn by other Europeans; and it was fully in accord with and perhaps even a modern proof of the notion of substratum which had achieved such popularity in Indoeuropean philology. One of the first — and clearest — articulators of this account pidgin (and, by implication, creole) language structure was Charles G. Leland who, while neither a linguist nor philologist in the professional sense, was nevertheless a man of letters with a great deal of linguistic sophistication. Of Chinese Pidgin English he said, ". . . real Pidgin-English is, after all, only Chinese, both as to structure and sound, with English words. . ." (Leland 1876:6). Yet, while Leland had been exposed directly to Chinese Pidgin English (mostly through the knowledge of it acquired by his father-in-law while a merchant in China), he apparently had almost no knowledge of any variety of Chinese. How, then, did he arrive at this theory of Chinese Pidgin English structure? In part, it would seem, he took his father-in-law's word for it, and that of a number of prominent British scholars of Chinese (such as Herbert A. Giles), together with the evidence furnished by a number of Chinese-authored manuals for the learning of Pidgin English printed in Chinese characters. But the primary source of Leland's notion of Chinese Pidgin English as English in lexicon but Chinese in phonology and syntax seems to have been his earlier work on the Anglo-Romany dialect of British Gypsies (Leland 1873). In one sense, Anglo-Romany was the converse of what Leland claimed to be the case with Chinese Pidgin English, in that it consisted of Romany words pronounced in

Structural mimicry in decreolization 265 accordance with English phonology and used with English morphology and syntax. But the basic phenomenon of the vocabulary of one language used with the structure of another was there. Within a decade following Leland's statement about Chinese Pidgin English, the notion of mixed languages in this sense had entered the linguistic literature in a comparative treatment by a French linguist of Caribbean and Indian Ocean Creole French, claiming that the former consisted of French words with African language structure and the latter of French words with the structure of some Malaysian language (Adam, 1883). As late as 1936, the same claim was being made for Haitian Creole: Nous sommes en présence . . . d'une langue éwé à vocabulaire français. ["What we have here is . . . a Kwa language with a French vocabulary."] (Sylvain 1936:178) but by then such statements sounded dated and over-simplified. For substrate theory had long since fallen into disfavor in historical linguistics, and, where pidgins and creóles were concerned, not only structural deviations from lexically-related European languages but structural similarities between lexically-diverse pidgins and creóles were beginning to be accounted for in universal terms. Soon this led to a reassertion of the simplification notion in a more sophisticated form (Hjelmslev 1939) and, quite recently, in a proposal that creole language characteristics represent the innate universal grammar of an inherited "bioprogram" (Bickerton 1985). In the interim, strong substrate claims concerning pidgin, creole, and postcreole language structural characteristics have increasingly been limited to scholars on the periphery of pidgin and creole studies, such as the anthropologist Melville Herskovits (Herskovits and Herskovits 1936; Herskovits 1941) and the linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner (1949), whose major interest was the tracing of African linguistic survivals in the speech of New World black populations. So strong, in fact, has been the move away from the notion of linguistic mixing that even its much weaker variant, structural interference in non-Creole second-language use (Weinreich 1953) has fallen into disfavor among linguists. Here, too, the trend has been toward explaining second-language acquisition features in terms of universal processes and strategies. But, somehow, an essential truth has been lost (perhaps deliberately misplaced) in this rush toward universal accounts of pidginization, creolization, and interlanguage: the notion of foreignness. Universale of second-language learning and innate

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William A. Stewart

universal-grammar bioprograms notwithstanding, Haitian Creole sounds very different from French. Indeed, to many linguistic third parties it sounds, at least at a distance, like a West African language. And most Haitians do not only sound un-French when speaking Creole, they also sound un-French when speaking French. Yet they sound more or less like each other, in the same way that, say, French people speaking English sound like what they are and unlike Germans or Italians or Russians or Japanese speaking English. Clearly, something decidedly non-universal must be going on in second-language acquisition and use, probably something very much like the phenomena described as structural interference. Yet one reason interference theory fell into disrepute was that, in tracking through actual cases of secondlanguage acquisition, first-language structural characteristics turned out to have only limited direct influence on interlanguage characteristics. How does one resolve this seeming conflict between the strong impressionistic evidence of structural interference and the sometimes negative evidence for it in second-language acquisition studies? One possibility is that structural interference may exist, and may assert itself in very specific ways, but that these ways may at times be indirect. Spanish phonology would predict that a Spanish learner of English would have trouble with English vowel contrasts of the type bit.beat, and would be likely to confuse them, and this indeed often occurs. But Spanish phonetics would predict that something more like the English vowel in beat would be used than like the vowel in bit, yet the opposite often turns out to be the case. Regardless of how the issue of structural interference in secondlanguage acquisition is resolved for the learning of language X by speakers of language Y in a case where X is the dominant language (in which case one might expect the learner to be under constant pressure to eliminate structural interference from Y in using X), there are situations in which X may be learned by Y-speakers under conditions where Y, not X, is the dominant language. Here, the pressures to reduce interference from Y may be considerably less; indeed, a Yinfluenced X may become the accepted local variant of X and interference potential from Y may actually increase over time through the gradual elimination of non-Y-influenced varieties of X. Examples of such a possibility abound for the European languages of colonial and former-colonial administration (excluding from consideration, for the moment, pidgin and creole varieties), such as Indian English, West African French, or Suriname Dutch. In such cases, it may be

Structural mimicry in decreolization 267 appropriate to speak of structural interference only in a historical sense; what is actually the case is that X/Y bilinguals may at some levels or in some structural domains be using a single system for both languages. And since that system is likely, for historical reasons, to be derived from language Y (the traditional one of the region or population), one may with some justification describe the result as language X being spoken with (whatever) structural features of language Y. (This is certainly reminiscent of Leland's statement about Chinese Pidgin English, and the matter of pidgins and creóles will be taken up again shortly; but for the moment the discussion will be limited to non-pidgin and non-creole varieties of language) What is happening, in a sense, is that something close enough to the surface form of language X is being mimicked (here in the sense that a moth's wing may mimick the color and texture of the bark of a tree, or a leaf) by the structural features of language Y, as in Indian English the British English alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ are mimicked by using the Indian retroflex stops / t / and /d./, and the English diphthongs /ei/ and I ou/ are mimicked by the Indian long (hence raised /ee/ and /oo/. Thus in Indian English one is likely to hear /dee/ for British Idei/, day, Indeed, where some individuals make eventual adjustments in their Indian English to the non-Indian phonetic details of British English, the adjustment may carry over to their use of the particular Indian language — another indication that single structural elements are being used for both languages. Thus, those Indian English speakers who make an effort to shift the articulation points of their / t / ' s and / γΤ m

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416

A.M. Kinìoch and Walter S. Avis

Kurath et al. 1939-1943 it will be impossible to decide whether CCE [o] is an allophone of /o/, an allophone of / » / , or an independent phoneme /o/. 6 On CCE back vowels in general As with the front vowels, Eric James, writing in Léon and Martin 1979:19-34, notes that there is a tendency for back vowels to be less closed in Toronto speech than they are in British English. CCE /ai/ = RP /ai/; CCE /air/ = RP /aia/, /α/ Like RP /ai/, the CCE phoneme /ai/ is ordinarily realized as a phonetic diphthong with a lower low central vowel as its nucleus, followed by a glide ending in the high front or high central area. There is an important exception to this, however: when CCE /ai/ precedes a tau tosyllabic voiceless consonant such as /{/, /0/, or /s/, the nucleus will usually be an upper low central vowel, or even schwa. Thus a common CCE pronunciation of knives is [ n a ' v z ] , while knife is pronounced [na 1 f ] . This is one of the aspects7 of the phenomenon called 'Canadian Raising'. The effect of this phenomenon is to give to the words it affects a pronunciation more akin to that which they have in Scottish English than to that which they have in RP. When two words frequently occur together, as in the phrase high school, for example, Canadian Raising will often have force enough to operate across the morpheme boundary, and the resulting pronunciation of the phrase just quoted will be something like [ha 1 + sku u l]. On the other hand, it should be noted that, writing of 'that (sc. regional variety of /ai/) with a centralized first element', Allen says (1976:25), '. . . Since, even in the speech of the Canadian infs. (i.e., informants), it occurs before both voiced and voiceless consonants, it lacks the contextual contrast.' So, too, Chambers (1973, 1980) and Michael Warden in Léon and Martin (1979:35-47) question the permanence of this phenomenon at least in the Toronto area. In distribution, the CCE phoneme /ai/ occurs both in checked and in free position. In checked position it is the vowel of words such as thrive, writhe, prize, and side, as well as of the last syllable of genuine. With the alternation of pronunciation noted above, it also provides the vowel of words such as knife, sights, price, etc. In free position, CCE /ai/ is the vowel of words such as buy, pry, and

Central Canadian English and Received Standard English 417 high, with the occasional exception noted above of phrases such as high school. The CCE phoneme /ai/ also occurs before /r/ and in this position it occupies the lexical domain that RP allots to the triphthong /aia/. Here, CCE /air/ provides the pronunciation of words such as fire, pyre, tired, wire, etc. When RP monophthongizes /aia/ to la/ (See for example Gimson 1984:48-49 and O'Connor 1973: 167-68), this part of the lexical domain of RP /a/ is occupied by CCE /air/. Naturally, such monophthongization does not take place in CCE: in CCE, fire remains /fair/ and does not become */far/. In words in which /ai/ occurs before /I/ in a syllable with only secondary stress, CCE often uses /a/ in place of /ai/, thus possibly preserving an older British pronunciation (Scargill 1974:80-81). CCE /au/ = RP /au/; CCE /aur/ = RP /aua/, /a/ Like RP I au/, the CCE phoneme /au/ is ordinarily realized as a phonetic diphthong with a lower low central vowel as its nucleus, followed by a glide ending in the high back area. As with CCE /ai/, however, there is an important exception to this. When CCE /au/ precedes a tautosyllabic voiceless consonant such as /f/, /Θ/, or /s/, for example, the nucleus will usually be an upper low central vowel, or even a mid central vowel; that is, the nucleus may be [e] or even [λ] . Thus, while house (verb) will be [ha u z], house (noun) will be [he u s], or even [hAUs]. This is the second aspect of the phenomenon called Canadian Raising and again it gives to the words it affects a pronunciation more akin to that of Scottish English than to that of RP. On this aspect of the phenomenon, Allen writes (1976:27), "The higher variety, mid-central [3u], is especially characteristic of Canadian speech, where it yields to a phonological rule restricting its occurrence to a position before a voiceless consonant." In the accompanying Figure 11 (p. 26), Allen shows [3u] or [au] alternating with [eu] in down in the speech of one of his informants and shows [bu] in mountain in the speech of two others. In distribution, the CCE phoneme /au/ occurs both in checked and in free position. In checked position it is the vowel of cowl, down, loud, mountain, and sound', with differing realizations, as noted above, it is also the vowel of bout, lout, pout, and spout. In free position it is the vowel of words such as how, now, etc. The CCE phoneme /au/ also occurs before /r/, and in this position it occupies the lexical domain that RP assigns to the triphthong /aua/, since CCE /aur/ pro-

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vides the vowel of words such as tower 'building'. When RP monophthongizes I sua I to /a/ (see Trudgill and Hannah 1985:11, for example), this part of the lexical domain of RP /a/ is assigned to CCE /aur/ as such monophthongization naturally does not take place in CCE. Words such as flower, hour, lour, our, ours, power, shower, and tower retain /au/ as their vocalic in CCE. CCE /oi/ 8 = RP loil Like RP /oil, the CCE phoneme /oij is a phonetic diphthong. It has a vowel in the lower mid back area as its nucleus, the following glide moving towards the high front area. It is the writer's impression that the nucleus of this diphthong is often lower and less rounded than that of its RP counterpart: that is, the nucleus of the CCE diphthong aften approaches [D]. On the other hand, it is a striking fact that Avis reports (1973:64-65), "Finally, it is probably true also that the phoneme /oi/ behaves in much the same way (sc. as /ai/ before voiceless consonants); that is, [ei], a 'fast' diphthong, occurs in such words as Boyce [ b e i s ] , quoit [ k w e i t ] , and point [ p o i n t ] , and [oi] in such words as boys [boiζ], boil [boíl], and boy [boi]." Like the RP phoneme ¡oí/, the CCE phoneme /οι/ occurs in both checked and free position. In checked position, it provides the vowels of boil, joint, noise, oil, poison, soil, and spoil. It may also occur before /r/, as in coir. It is common in free position as the vowel of words such as boy, coy, toy, etc.

6. The vowel systems of CCE and RP In summary, the vowel system of CCE is much simpler than that of RP. The CCE system demands only fourteen vowel phonemes, namely j i i e ε ae 3-3 Λ u Υ o D ai au oi/ as against the nineteen vowel phonemes /i Ι e ε aea 3-A Λ u Υ 9u(o) O D ai au oi is ε A us/ recorded for RP in O'Connor ( 1973:153) and in Gimson ( 1980:101-46).

Notes * The phonetic values of the symbols used herein are those given and described in Kurath et al. 1973:12246. Their phonemic values are, for the consonants,

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those described in Kinloch 1983. The symbols used for the vocalics have the following values: CCE peat, peal peer pit pate pet pair pat part pert putt pool pure pull pole port, court caught pot pile pyre pout, lout, spout lour spoil coir

m

RP

ni

/ir/ hl /e/ /ε/ M

lisi

M

M M

I* ¡I /3-a/ /Λ/

M /ur/ Ivi

H

hi /e/,/ei/

Ν /ce/ /3>»/ M/

M M M H,

M

M M M

/ai/ /air/ /au/ / aur/ /oi/

/al/ /aia/ /au/ /aua/ /OI/

/or/ Ivi

M

1. What Gimson actually wrote was, ". . . there is no reason to suppose that Americans find it difficult to understand a 'BBC accent' however strange or objectionable they may find it" (1981:64). 2. Walter S. Avis, ob. 1979, left an unparalleled record of published research on Canadian English. His work must be taken into account in any serious study of Canadian English, and this present article is really based on his work. Needless to say, however, Avis is in no way responsible for the views expressed herein ; these are the responsibility solely of the first author, as are any blunders this article may contain. 3. The lexical domain of a phoneme is the first author's term for those words in which the phoneme is represented in speech. 4. A very few speakers of CCE retain /x/ as a phoneme in their pronunciation of the proper name McEachem, for example; but even in such names /x/ is usually replaced by /k/. 5. As Burchfield observes (1986:145), 'All words with medial -t- would need to be respelled with -d- in the United States and parts of Canada.' This is already happening: Canadian children have been known to write Oddawa for Ottawa and the first author has seen a high school graduate write peddle for petal. 6. Since Avis died in 1979, the information in McDavid et al. 1980 was not available to him. It was, however, available for Kinloch 1983, and there is little excuse for his not having used it therein.

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7. The other is the similar treatment of CCE /au/, which is described in the comment on that phoneme. See also the quotation from Avis 1973:64-65 in the comment on CCE / DI /. 8. Avis 1973 and elsewhere used the symbol /oi/ for this phoneme.

Indian literature in English

R.R. Mehrotra Abstract This paper examines the form and function of English as a literary language in India using insights from the sociology of language and social psychology. The language of Indian writing in English bears ample evidence of the pivotal role played by non-linguistic factors in the choice of lexical, syntactic and stylistic features that characterize it and contribute to its enrichment or disfigurement. It is postulated that most Indian literature in English is written with a western audience in view. This paper brings to focus communicative problems arising between the use of English in Indian writing and its western audience.

1. Introduction English occupies a unique position and enjoys a special privilege in India, where nearly 2,000 speech varieties (some popularly labeled languages, some dialects) are spoken in a multiethnic, multicultural setting. Hindi, the official language, and English, the associate official language of the Union of India, also serve as languages of wider communication in different parts of the country. Although accessible to only 2.4 percent of the population, English has been used in the largest variety of registers, and in places that are very remote from one another both geographically and culturally. Over the years English in India has played three major roles: (i) as a medium of instruction; (ii) as a link language; and (iii) as an international language. Following independence in 1947, regional languages have replaced English as vehicles for instruction in most schools. However, English continues to be the teaching medium in higher education (with the exception of instruction in certain subjects, particularly in arts and social sciences). There is provision for the teaching of English up to the Masters level in nearly every university

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in India, a privilege that can be claimed by no other language in the country. Furthermore, English continues to be used for purposes of administration, trade, industry, law, parliamentary affairs, and interstate communication. The language that began to be used in India with the creation of the East India Company of London in 1600 has evolved into a distinct variety known as Indian English, taking its mould from both the contextual spectrum of its speakers and the prolonged contact with the languages of the region. English in India is also used as a medium for creative writing. In fact, more people learn English and use it for creative writing in India today than when it was under British rule. (A list of literary works referred to in this paper appears at the end). It is this use of English for literary purposes that we will explore here. This paper has a twofold objective. Firstly, it applies some of the concepts of the sociology of language and social psychology to the analysis of literature and literary language. Secondly, the paper will highlight various kinds of miscommunication that can result from an author's insecure command over a second language that is used as a medium for creative writing, as well as from the unfamiliarity with the local setting on the part of a reading public abroad. All illustrations will be drawn from Indian writing in English. There is need for studying language varieties in literature from both the linguistic and non-linguistic points of view. The sociology of literary language being postulated here as a broad cover term will take into consideration the interplay between semantic components, pragmatic functions and contextual features that determine the linguistic and stylistic choices in a work of literature. Such an inclusive use of language in the domain of literature finds a forceful expression in the words of William Walsh, "Literature in the end is only — only — the most powerful, the most human, the subtlest and the most inclusive use of language" (Walsh 1982:101).

2. The use of English in Indian creative writing. Linguistic and sociocultural limitations. Often serious doubts are expressed regarding the Indian's competence in using a foreign language as a medium for creative writing. Kantak finds Indian writing in English in a state of perpetual curse: "An unfriendly spirit (incarnate as a mocking bird) hovers over all efforts

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at creative writing in an alien tongue" (Kantak 1977:223). As early as 1937 Yeats, too, dissuaded Indian authors from writing in English: "I begged the Indian writers present to remember that no man can think or write with music and vigour except in his mother tongue" (Yeats 1973:23). Over a hundred years ago a reporter of The Times (London) remarked that a "thoughtful Englishman" would think of Indian writing in English in the same fashion as "Cicero would probably think of much of the Ciceronian Latin that is written at our schools and universities" (The Times, 1982, April 11:8). And recently, Pandeya has remarked: "Of all the non-native English writers in the Commonwealth countries the Indian novelist is probably the most deficient in his handling of the language" (Pandeya 1983:174). All these comments on the language of Indian writing point to the author's insecure command over English. In addition to the linguistic factor, Indian writers have been dissuaded from producing literature in English by patriotic fervour which, they believe, demands loyalty to one's mother tongue. Interestingly, this realization often dawns upon these writers after producing excellent works in English which bear testimony to their competence to use the language creatively. More than a hundred years ago Michael Dutt, one of the earliest Indian poets in English, felt impelled to switch over to Bengali, and advised others to refrain from writing in an alien language: "Let those who feel they have springs of fresh thought in them fly to their mother tongue" (Quoted in McCutchion 1977:6). The same ideological consideration drove Manmohan Ghose away from English to Bengali creative writing. In our own time R. Parthasarathy having whored after English gods finally decides to settle down with Tamil as he realizes, albeit belatedly: "The language a poet writes in must, necessarily be his own, and it must mean everything to him" (Parthasarathy 1982:71). Resolutions such as these spring from a strong desire to go back to one's roots, to the stump of one's feelings, and to protect one's cultural heritage at all costs. Adoption of a foreign language for creative purposes is considered a potential threat to the development of indigenous language and culture. However, the clarion call of these writers to give up writing in English has failed to attract others to their fold. The wind bloweth where it listeth. The Indian writer in English has often claimed to have discovered in it "a second natural voice" (Walsh 1973a:2). In fact, many Indian writers could not have written creative literature in any language other than English; not even in their mother tongue.

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3. Indian English in creative writing Characteristics Indian English has come to be recognized as a viable, vigorous and "self-generating" vehicle for the expression of Indian sensibility in literature, sensibility in the present context being "that special combination of thought, feeling, value and assumption, that particular flavour of taste and sentiment, characteristic mode of action which reveals the nuance and crystalises the tone and temper of a period" (Walsh 1982:105). The standard variety of British or American English would perhaps not have served this purpose. The language of Indian writing in English is the natural product of an alien medium in interaction and interference with native languages and native cultures. The Indianness of Indian literature in English lies in the typically Indian slant, local colour, the peculiar flavour of the subject matter and setting on the one hand; and the words and phrases, sentences and proverbs, images and metaphors, rhythm and tone, patterns of naming and terms of kinship, modes of address and terms of endearment on the other. The Indianness of Indian writing in English is a complex and variegated phenomenon, like the socio-cultural reality it represents, and therefore one should not expect to find a consistent level, type or intensity of Indianness in all Indian writings in English. For instance, creative literature is more prone to Indianness than journalistic writing or news broadcast from All India Radio; creative literature fiction is more susceptible to Indianness than other genres; fiction works of certain authors like Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and Bhabani Bhattacharya are more Indian than those of Manohar Malgaokar, Kamala Markandeya and Naysantara Sahgal; and in the case of a single novelist, Raja Rao's Kanthapura is more Indian than his The Serpent and the Rope. Allan Wendt, referring to this last named novel, has gone to the extent of claiming that "it is surely not an Indian novel" (Wendt 1978:97). It is therefore important to postualte kinds and degrees of Indianness in Indian writing in English. What are then the pieces of evidence identifying the Indianness of much of our writing in English, that draw on the sociology of language, social psychology and anthropology? First, lexical aspects reveal the Indianness of certain writing. Words are, by common consent, a repository of culture. They have rightly been described as the carriers of sociocultural genes. When a writer in Indian English finds

Indian literature in English 425 it difficult to convey certain concepts in an alien medium and also when he wants to convey the flavour of the raciness of his mother tongue, he feels impelled to borrow words from an Indian language. The use of Pariya naga, and maharaj by Raja Rao; guru, sala, siapa, sarkar and karma by Mulk Raj Anand; babu, hase en, baniyan and deo by Khushwant Singh are illustrative examples of exoticism. No amount of explanation in English can convey the subtle nuances, reverberations and cultural associations of these words. This is evident from some attempts made by the authors themselves to give what they think to be the English equivalents side by side the Indian words, as for example, Kalyug "the dark age" and nar-admia "he-man" in Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan. Similarly in the outburst by a character in Anand's The Road, "Maro Sale Ko kill him," touches only the fringe of the flood of emotions released by the phrase "Maro Sale Ko," (meaning "kill the rascal," lit: the brother-in-law). The author's attempt to give English translations betrays the foreign reader he is writing for. It may be noted that Indian words of all form classes figure in Indian writing in English, and that wherever necessary these are subjected to morphosyntactic changes to conform to the requirements of English grammar. One may note in this context Anand's use of certain words as verbs: salaams, salamed, and choon-chooing (in Between Tears and Laughter), buk as in "don't buk" (in Untouchable) and gitmitted (in Seven Summers). Sometimes in his enthusiasm for Indianizing the code an author takes undue liberty with the language when there seems little justification for it. One wonders what purpose is served by Anand's interpolating in the structure of an English sentence Hindi words for which well-known equivalents in English are available, such as khabardar "beware!," jao "go!," motor gari "motor car" (in Two Leaves and a Bud)·, bhago "run!" (in The Village)·, and thappar "slap" (in The Sword and the Sickle). Here there is no necessity for the use of Hindi words. Likewise jibba "pocket," which appears in the phrase "jibba side pocket" in R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma serves no purpose. Commenting on the use of thappad in this way, Cowasjee (1978) remarks: "The word thappad will intrigue a foreign reader. When by the aid of a dictionary or by some other means he finds out that thappad simply means a slap, he is sure to ask what is achieved by inserting this particular Hindi word in an English sentence. Certainly nothing Indian has been created" (Cowasjee 1978:417). The

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author simply excites the exotic interest of the foreign reader by means of such local colour devices. One of the Indianizing lexical devices in Indian writing in English is to invest a common English word or phrase with special, extradictionary meaning not to be found in the other native and non-native varieties of the language. The meanings of number ten "notorious" in the sentence "Jugga is a bumash number ten" or of four twenties "cheats" in "They are a face of four twenties" (in Train to Pakistan) and of warm as in the phrase "warm the hand of chaprasi," meaning roughly "grease the peon's palm" (in Anand's Two Leaves and a Bud), have been transferred from their Hindi equivalents and are not to be found in an English dictionary. Among other items of the kind one may note family meaning "wife," colony meaning "residential area," and place signifying "residence." Such words create an insurmountable problem of intelligibility for foreign readers. Sometimes an Indian writer is guilty of stylistic impropriety and registrai confusion. For instance, the use of granny is restricted to colloquial dialectal contexts in British English, but in R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma the word has been used where grandmother would have been the proper word to use, more so when not a single character in the novel ever resorts to the colloquial or dialectal variety. Likewise the word urchin which has a pejorative shade has been used in this novel in the non-emotive sense of "a small child or boy." Similarly, his use of the word nickel for a fifty-paise coin may be considered inaccurate. For nickel is a five-cent U.S. coin, and the word is not used in India for a fifty-paise coin (Pandeya 1983:213). Thus, even the most celebrated Indian writers in English are not free from solecisms and confusion of registrai and stylistic values at the lexical level, as just exemplified. Indian writing in English is, however, remarkable for its use of phrases and collocations that are embedded in Indian culture and for which there are no equivalents in British or American English. Raja Rao's phrase kitchen queen (in Kanthapura) is a case in point. The word queen does not collocate with kitchen in British English, which has kitchen knife, kitchen towel, kitchen wardrobe, kitchen garden and kitchen maid, but no kitchen queen. Kitchens in British households do not possess the sanctity they have in traditional Indian homes, nor are they monopolized by women who spend much of their time there as is often the case in India. Some other phrases full of social meaning are cow-worship, flower-bed, and leaf-pots.

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427

It is generally believed that the divergence of Indian English from Standard British or American English is maximum in phonology and minimum in syntax. Although the basic sentence patterns in Indian English are the same as in British English, there are variations caused either by the pull of the author's mother tongue or by the exigency of the context of the situation. Firth has this to say about the English sentences written by Indians: "They have not learnt the habitual economy of the native in social situations and their sentences are often much too long, too complete, sometimes too grammatical" (Firth 1964:176). Consider the structure of this long convoluted sentence from Raja Rao's Kanthapura: But he has disappeared into the bamboo bush; and Paria Siddayya, who has been in these estates for ten years and more, says never mind, and explains that cobras never harm anyone unless you poke your fuel chip at them; and seating himself on a fallen log, he tells you about the dasara havu that is so clever that he got into the Sahib's drawer and lay there curled up, and how, the other day, when the Sahib goes to the bathrooms, a lamp in his hand, and opens the drawer to take out some soap, what does he see but our Maharaja nice and clean and shining with his eyes glittering in the lamplight, and the Sahib, he closes the drawer as calmly as a prince; but by the time he is back with his pistol, our Maharaja has given him the slip (Raja Rao, 1974:69). This sentence consists of six clauses, five of which are complex sentences, the first being a simple one. Grammatically, all the six clauses are independent sentences. The second and the third sentences have two embedded clauses in each, the fourth has as many as six embedded clauses and the fifth and the sixth have one embedded clause in each. The embedded clauses are linked by various kinds of subordination. There are ten occurrences of "and" besides the other linkers. This kind of structure with so many embedded clauses may appear garrulous but not very conducive to fluency. It thus questions the validity of Raja Rao's claim in his foreword: "We in India think quickly, we talk quickly and when we move, we move quickly. There must be something in the sun of India that makes us rush and tumble and run on" (p. vi). Speaking of Raja Rao's style, Allan Wendt (1978:95) says: "Raja Rao seems like a Baby who has not sufficiently mastered his medium, and thus presents the very Indian material in an indigestible form."

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Another significant deficiency among many Indian writers is their inability to convey indigenous speech rhythm, tone and colloquial nuances in English, as when they introduce in their works the speech of peasants and petty merchants. The kind of Indian English one often comes across in such contexts is "founded on writing and learning, rather than speech and ordinary life" (Walsh 1973b:xviii). G.V. Desani's All About H. Hatterr (1948) may be said to be an exception in this regard, and very few Indian writers in English can claim to have reached his level of attainment. In the following illustration from Nissim Ezekiel's "Night of Scorpion", we find that the sentence structure reflects the Indian experience and ethos: With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in mother's blood, they said. May he sit still, they said. May the sins of your previous birth be burned away tonight, they said, May your suffering decrease the misfortunes of your next birth, they said. Here the poet has made a significant use of an Indian formula of magic to alleviate the sting of the scorpion. The genuinely magical repetition is done in the syntax and the optative mood of the poem. A significant and little explored dimension of the language of Indian writing in English is represented by the patterns of naming, addressing, greeting and abusing the characters in interpersonal interaction situations. A complex of sociocultural, political and psychological factors comes into play in connection with this linguistic phenomenon. Names have great indexical value. In Train to Pakistan Singh makes the following comment about the name Iqbal: "He did not have to say what Iqbal he was. He could be a Muslim, Iqbal Mohammad. He could be a Hindu, Iqbal Chand, or a Sikh, Iqbal Singh" (p. 32). In Rao's Kanthapura the rattling names of characters like Papamma and Lakamma, Siddayya, Chandrayya, Ramayya, Chennayya, Puttayya and Dasappa tell us about their South Indian identity and sociocultural affiliations. Still further information is conveyed to the readers by nicknames such as Waterfall Venkamma, Nose-scratching Nanjamma, Fronthous Akamma, Temple Rangappa, and Gold-bangle Somanna. The descriptive adjectives are supposedly translations of expressions from Kannada.

Indian literature in English 429 An analysis of forms of address in Indian writing in English can give us valuable insights into the stratificational pattern of the highly segmented Indian society. In Romen Basu's novel A House Full of People, Bengali kin terms Dada and Mesda have been used for addressing the eldest brother and second eldest brother respectively. Such a distinction denoting the order of birth among brothers or sisters is not important in Western society and hence there are no terms in British or American English to denote these. The prevalence of such terms in Indian literature indicates the importance Indians attach to the joint family system. The study of a single novel can often reveal various modes of address in relation to the situational context. Thus in Train to Pakistan we get a glimpse of a whole system of address operating in India. Interlocutors are addressed in the following ways: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

By kinship terms — chacha, bhaiji, bey bey. By name — Juggat Singji, Jugga, Juggia. By occupational title (with or without honorific) — bairah, lambardara, brother policeman, magistrate sahib. By religious title — sardara. By honorific — babu sahib, sir, huzoor, government, king of pearls. By words of abuse — you swine, ass, bastard. By interjection — oye.

An interesting case of Indianism is found in the mode of address "Mr. Manik-Das" in a one-act play Indo-Anglicans in India by Krishna Gorowara. The use of the title Mr. with first name is un-English, although, interestingly enough, the addresser in the play is Mr. Bryce, an Englishman (Gorowara 1964). Expletives or violent exclamatory expressions are perhaps the most authentic indicators of the speaker's sociolinguistic identity. In moments of excessive agony, happiness or surprise, a multilingual speaker cannot help uttering expletives of his own mother tongue, even in a situation in which he is habitually using the second language. And these meaningless particles defy all attempts at translation. The Indian writer in English is therefore justified in using indigenous expletives which, besides suggesting the identity of the speaker, add natural Indian flavour to the speech. The use of Ayyo-Ayyoo, Are-Are, and Bale-Bale (in such works as Kanthapura, Gauri, and Train to Pakistan) illustrate the point. Among other Indian exclamations figuring in

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R.R. Mehrotra

Indian literature in English mention may be made of Ya Allah, Hey Wah Guru, Hare Ram, Hai, Hai-Hai, and Toba-Toba. An Indian writer in English finds special delight in using ornamental language. He speaks in images deeply rooted in and smelling of the cultural soil of the country. Indian creative writing in English is exceptionally rich in similies evoking concrete images based on the Indian milieu. Thus in Rao's Kanthapura we find "young boys bright as banana trunks." And when the mood is different and night disturbed, we find in Anita Desai's Cry, the Peacock "the moon when it rose out of the churn of my frenzy . . . it was not the gentle moon of love ballads and fairy revels . . . It was the mad demon of Kathakali ballets, masked, with heavy skirts swirling, feet stamping, eyes shooting beams of fire . . . ." In sharp contrast to these there are a few Indian writers who use imported western imagery as is illustrated by Shiv K. Kumar's poem "An Indian Mango Vendor" (1974:30): This old man's leery eyes idle birds pecking at the mango-nipples Buy something, man — Or move on to the crypt where Death's ferrous fingers will pull the remaining stray hair from your green skull. The poet here uses a Western cultural image (crypt) which is nonexistent in India. This may be attributed to his frequent visits to the Western countries and his study of Anglo-American books. Similar "second hand" images drawn from English literature may be seen in Venkataramani's novel Murugan The Tiller (1927). It is for this reason that these works fall short of Indianness although they deal with the Indian themes and have a strong local colour. What gives Indian writing in English a peculiarly Indian character is the wide variety of situations describing typically Indian morals, manners, customs, beliefs and taboos. One such situation is that of dining, in which a person is coaxed in a very persuasive and intimate tone to have something to eat or drink. Consider, for example, the following from Kanthapura: "Take only this much milk, just this much," or "Take it Bhattare, only one cup more, just one." Or, consider the following exchange between two characters in Train to Pakistan (pp. 88-89)

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"I will not eat anything. I have had my tea". "If you do not eat, I won't eat either". "You must eat. You had nothing last night". "If you eat, I will eat. If you do not, I will not either." "All right, if you insist. We will both eat. Come and sit with me." In Western culture this kind of insistence would not be considered proper. A similar situation is that of wishing something very special for someone being blessed by the speaker. In Train to Pakistan an old woman says: "May your pen write figures of thousands, many hundreds of thousands" (p. 26). In Kanthapura we come across a still more fascinating form: "May she have a hundred male issues." An English reader from abroad and sometimes even an Indian reader of today cannot fully appreciate the implications of this statement, which is based on our cultural traditions of saying bahu pu tra labham "May you have numerous sons." When a girl called Nooran is being teased by Juggat Singh in Train to Pakistan, she protests with the words, "Have you not mother or sister in your home?" Nooran here is saying what every girl in India in a similar situation says or is supposed to say. This again is a typically Indian response. At a later stage in the same novel when Nooran is at a loss as to what explanation she should give her father for her absence from home at night, Juggat Singh's advice is "Just say you had gone out. Your stomach was upset or something like that." Going out when the stomach is upset is typical of rural India where indoor toilets are rarely available. Khushwant Singh's reference to the custom of emptying one's bowels in the open is devoid of any social criticism. However, in his poem entitled "Poona Train-Window" A.K. Ramanujan (1976) sees men defecating near the railway track and refers to it as a matter "of the symmetry of human buttocks." Without being agitated by the sight, Ramanujan adopts an ironic mode in which one can discern the conflict between age old tradition and forces and concerns of modernism. The imagery employed here is an exquisite example of the marriage between art and social criticism. It is customary in Indian languages to avoid the use of the second person pronoun in favour of some honorific title when face to face interaction occurs between a person and his menial servant or someone of similar low status. In Train to Pakistan a bearer addressing his boss says: "Sahib's bed has not been laid yet . . . would huzoor like to

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sleep on the Verandah" (p. 77). In Anand's Gauri, an aged character makes an appeal in a typically Indian fashion "I beg you with my white hair" (p. 177). Begging "with white hair" is inconceivable in the western world. In Kanthapura a reference is made to Ramaiyya saying "a thousand and eight Ram-Ramas" as the number "a thousand and eight" is believed to have great religious sanctity among Hindus. In the same novel one of the kins is described as: "He is my wife's elder brother's wife's brother-in-law," as there is no term in English to describe this relationship. In all these instances, the English language has been exquisitely assimilated to Indian thought and feeling. The Indian sensibility has found new means of expression in the English language. A certain type of Indian writing in English is characterized by a grand style of verbosity and pompousness and the use of learned, literary words and allusions. This is apparently due to the study and emulation of the great classics in English literature. The following prose shows that the essayist cannot resist the temptation of using literary allusions and citations, even in the non-literary and mundane context of a vendor selling grams and singing songs in its praise. The song he recited with such shrill throated ease was an humble one, talking neither of old, unhappy, far-off things, nor of battles long ago, but simply of the glory called 'chana', and its mannalike magic and marvel. I must say the man carried a magic about him. He sang the song as if his music could have no ending, to which we, at first, listened motionless and still, and later responded in recitative frenzy. It was not the light so much as the magic of the singer's eye — in the fine frenzy rolling — and holding us in thrall like 'the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner' (Malhotra 1967:10). Phrases, ideas and images have been taken from the poetry of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats to describe chana-jor-garam, the song of the gram vendor. Here is a glowing example of Matthew Arnold in a sari and, what is more important, the sari shows no signs of wear and tear. Even the domain of English literary criticism in India is not free from such grandiloquent lyrical style, as will be evident from a perusal of the following extract from a book of criticism meant for Indian students:

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Carlyle was a potent of tremendous explosive force which shattered a host of Victorian illusions and tore asunder the veil of complacency to reveal the rotten, cowering, shrunken soul shivering behind the pompous facade of the proud society. A man of rugged strength brought up under the severe discipline of adversity, Carlyle was a singular figure, rugged, gnarled and eccentric, with the burning wrath of the Old Testament prophet, clothed in the uncouthTeutonic jargon, alternating with the simplicity, beauty and picturesqueness of the Biblical passages of limpid grace of purity. He was an iconoclast of grammar and syntax, a poet as bold as Donne and Hopkins in whose hands the hard crust of language became a lump of kneeded clay to receive the full impress of all the angularities of his complex nature (Rai 1967:348). One often notices a parochial attitude towards Indian writing in English. It is generally believed that Indian literature in English is confined to authors who are born in India and are of Indian parents. Thus, Ruth Praver Jhabvala has not been recognized as an Indian writer. Born of Polish parents and brought up in Germany, Ruth Praver Jhabvala portrays Indianness in her novels with greater depth and authenticity than most Indian writers in English. In addition, there has been a tradition of Indian English produced, not by Indians, but by Europeans, and reflecting varying degrees of Indianness. At the turn of the last century, F.W. Bain expressed in his novels unparalleled Indianness. Thomas Anstey Guthrie's Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. is an excellent piece of Indian English prose written by a non-Indian in the 19th century. The tilted, idiomatic and ornamental writing with high-sounding polysyllabic words that is characteristic of many Indian languages is present in this book, as shown in the opening and closing paragraphs of the introductory letter: Venerable and Ludicrous Sir Permit me most respectfully to bring beneath your notice a proposal which I serenely anticipate will turn up trumps under the fructifying sunshine of your esteemed approbation. Remember that the slightest act of volition on your part can exalt my pecuniary status to the skies as well as confer distinguished and unparagoned ennoblement upon your cacoithes scribendi. I remain, respected Sir, your most obsequious servant

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Hurry Bungsho Jabbeijee, B.A. (Anstey 1897, p. ix, p. xii). Penchant for the literary is manifest in our fondness for the literary words, figurative use of language and abundance of adjectives, even if we ignore the malapropisms which inadequate mastery of the language often results in. Kipling's poem "Gunga Din" achieves remarkable success in presenting the typically Indian image of the regimental Bhishti (water carrier) supplying water with his goatskin waterbag. The poem also offers a beautiful instance of code-mixing, as when complete Hindi sentences (e.g. "hitherao panee lao") are introduced in the text. In the sentence "You put some juldee in it or I'll marrow you," the phrase "I'll marrow you" is an interesting example of the communicative use of a Hindi verb in accordance with the rules of English grammar. "Put some juldee in it" is a case of unusual collocation. Paul Scott and Rushdie have also written novels using Indian English. It seems appropriate to broaden the horizon of Indian writing in English so as to include even non-Indian writers on India in Indian English.

4. The use of English in Indian creative writing A sociolinguistic choice It will be evident from the foregoing discussion that the insights from sociology of language, social psychology and social anthropology can be of immense use in understanding and interpreting literature in English worldwide. Nearly all the Indian creative writers in English are bilingual. Some writers in India have earned a reputation for producing creative work both in English and their mother tongue. We may mention in this context the names of Michael Dutt, Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, V.K. Gokak, K.B. Baid and Kamala Das, among others. An Indian bilingual choosing English as a medium for creative writing makes a sociolinguistic choice. Educated mainly in English and nourished primarily on the models of British literature, he bestrides two cultures and inherits two expression systems. The possession of two languages enables a writer to exploit the potentialities of both of them with interesting results. Consider, for instance, the following extract from Khushwant Singh's short story, "Mr. Singh and the Colour Bar":

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No women like Indian women you know! Indian women are like devis and we are like devils. We should try to prove ourselves worthy of them". When the author failed to find an appropriate antonym of devis ("goddesses" in Hindi), he picked up "devils" from English to bring out the contrast in meaning with similarity in sound. The humour, if any, resulting from the fusion of the two expression systems can be appreciated only by one who is conversant with both English and Hindi. The obvious danger of blending of this sort is that it reduces the number of responsive readers in the English speaking world. Traugott and Pratt have observed: "Literature itself imposes limits on linguistic realism, in the sense that the more languages one uses in a work, the more one limits the audience that will have access to the work" (1980:377).

5. Communicative problems arising between the use of English in Indian writing and its Western audience This raises a pertinent issue concerning the competence of Western readers to understand and appreciate literature written in a country where English is a second language. For whom does a writer in a nonnative context write in English? Does he/she write for his own countrymen, for the readers overseas, or for his own contentment? Most Indian writers in English crave for a Western audience. Only a few, like K.A. Abbas, do not have Western audiences in mind. Ruth Jhabvala, a very prolific writer, has confessed in The New York Times (April 20, 1975) that she writes "not for Indian but for Western readers." Most of the well known works of fiction in English, Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope by Raja Rao, I shall not Hear the Nightingale and Train to Pakistan (also known as Mano Majra) by Khushwant Singh, Remember the House by Santha Rama Rau, Like Birds Like Fishes and The Householder by R.P. Jhabwala, Too Long in the West by Balchandra Rajan, Untouchable and Coolie by Mulk Raj Anand, Nectar in a Sieve, Some Inner Fury and A Silence of Desire by Kamala Markandeya, The Guide and The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R.K. Narayan, Nude Before God by Shiv K. Kumar, among numerous others, were published either in London or New York. Furthermore, the characters in The Serpent and the Rope are Wester-

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nised to the core. Translations of phrases and idioms from Indian languages, explanatory notes and glossaries given by several writers in their works further confirm that the literature they write is primarily meant for those not conversant with Indian languages. Shiv K. Kumar's recent novel Nude Before God, according to a reviewer, is "Obviously written with an eye on readers in America" (Singh 1985:8). Indian fiction in English has thus become "an important trade item" in the Western market. It may also be noted in this context that no Indian writing in English has had any influence on literature written in an Indian language and it has seldom been translated into an Indian language. What are, then, the implications of producing creative literature in India for a Western audience? The consciousness of a Western audience often brings an artificiality to the work. Often there is wide divergence in the assessment by Western and Indian critics in respect to Indian works in English. Khushwant Singh, for instance, is considered a minor writer in India, but in the West he has been praised as a major novelist. The Observer declared him to be "a born story teller." Anthony Burgess described him as "a formidable novelist" (Burgess 1971:163), and above all, he figures in the prestigious "World Author Series" by Twayne Publishers. The reason for the discrepancy in evaluation is not difficult to understand. One of the objectives of Indian writers in English is to present India to a Western audience as an "exotic plant," as a land of the occult and the life hereafter, of unusual abuses and forms of address, monkey dance and cock-fight, cow-worship and rope-tricks. Even the most celebrated and seasoned among writers have allowed themselves to be carried away by these subjects. For example, the second half of R.K. Narayan's novel, The English Teacher, is devoted primarily to the description of the occult. American readers rate The English Teacher as the best of all Narayan's novels. To take another instance, here is a glimpse of Khushwant Singh's India in Train to Pakistan : "We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith . . . We do the rope trick in all spheres of creative life. As long as the world credulously believes in our capacity to make a rope rise skyward and a little boy climb it till he is out of the view, so long will our band of humbug thrive" (p. 150). The East continues to be mysterious to western audiences, even in the jet age. It is paradoxical that most Western readers for whom the bulk of Indian literature in English is written are generally incompetent

Indian literature in English 437 to understand and appreciate it. The problem has now become all the more acute and disturbing because this literature is now required in several universitites overseas. Western readers have acknowledged their deficiency in very plain terms. Witness Walsh: As readers of the Indian novel we in this country have our deficiencies. It is hard for us to take up the references — to the Indian scene, the agricultural tradition, the vast distances, the terrible poverty, the profoundly significant religion. We live in utterly different conditions where nobody's grandmother could hand down to her grandchildren as a legacy an image of the God Nataraja, which had been found in a packet of saffron — as happens, for example, in Narayan's novel, Mr. Sampath. As readers we are almost certainly in the position of the young man Srinivas in the same novel and "grasp the symbols but vaguely" (Walsh 1973b:57).. The major handicaps that the Western reader experiences are the ones caused by ignorance of Indian myths and allusions, cultural norms and socio-political movements, and the indiscriminate use of words, phrases, idioms and proverbs from Indian vernaculars, sometimes translated literally and crudely as illustrated in this paper. One may consider in this context Rama's exile, the Radha-Krishna legend and Advaita Vedanta of Shankara in The Serpent and the Rope. Or, the following sentences about Benares, also called Varanasi: "Benares was indeed nowhere but inside oneself". "In Benares death is illusory as the mist in the morning." "The cows have such ancient and material looks." Similarly, the Gandhi novels - Raja Rao's Kanthapura, Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable, and R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma — demand from a Western reader a thorough understanding of India's freedom movement, social reform movements and Gandhian ideology. Naturally therefore, a Western reader either misinterprets a work or fails to grasp the underlying subtleties and cultural nuances. The mystic syllable OM which means so much to a Hindu in the East turns out to be a meaningless BOUM or OU-BOUM in Forster's A Passage to India. One of Ramanujan's poems has been entitled "The Hindoo: He doesn't hurt a Fly or a Spider either". The word "Hindoo" has deliberately been spelt with a double "oo" in the western fashion, "obviously implying irony against the foreign view of the Hindu which can't even spell the word" (Ezekiel 1983:51). What an Indian writer

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in English expects but seldom gets from a Western audience can best be summed up in the words of G.V. Desani: "I need readers with soul, and a very special sensibility to understand Hali and its very special idiom" (Desani 1978:406).

6. Conclusion The approach as exemplified in this paper has demonstrated that a number of items in Indian writing were accounted for by the complexity of the material to be communicated and also by the author's awareness of the foreign reader's possible ignorance of the cultural nuances he was struggling to put across. Sometimes the Indian writer has been successful in forging an idiom to serve his purpose, sometimes it has been motivated by sheer exoticism. Languages and cultures in contact have inevitable effects and repercussions which are too complex and variegated to be touched upon in a single article such as this. However, the foregoing discussion will reveal that a study of relationship between writer-reader owing allegiance to different cultures can be amply rewarding provided we have an occasional mirror-on mirror encounter: The second culture (and the second language) often dominates the first, and gives it a metalanguage to think about itself . . . . Thus one inevitably sees a culture or literature through what we bring to it, especially through this metalanguage that half perceives and half creates what we see. We become aware of it when we watch other watchers. India-watchers are amusing and instructive, as we Indian watchers of India-watchers are too. Such mirror-on-mirror encounters tell us a good deal about ourselves and the others" (Ramanujan 1982:123).

Notes 1.1 wish to express my gratitude to Dr. John B. Pride and Manfred Görlach for their very valuable suggestions in recasting an earlier draft of the paper.

Selective list of authors and literary works referred to : Mulk Raj Anand

Untouchable (1933)

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Coolie (1936) Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) The Village (1939) The Sword and the Sickle (1942) Seven Summers (1951) The Road (1961) Gauri (1976) Thomas Anstey Gurthrie Baboo Jabben'ee, B.A. (1897) Romen Basu A House Full of People (1968) Anita De sai Cry, the Peacock (1963) G.V. Desani All about H. Hatten (1948) Nissim Ezekiel "Night of the Scorpion." In Parthasarathy, R., ed. Ten Twentieth-century Indian Poets. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 30-31. Shiv K. Kumar "An Indian Mango Vendor." In Cobwebs in the Sun (1974) Nude Before God (1983) M.L. Malhotra "The Glory called Grams: Chana-Jor-Garam". In Straws in the Wind (1967) P.K. Narayan The English Teacher (1945) Waiting for the Mahatma (1955) My Dateless Diary (1960) The Man Eater ofMalgudi (1961 ) Raja Rao Kanthapura (1938) The Serpent and the Rope (1960) A.K. Ramanujan Selected Poems (1976) Khushwant Singh Train to Pakistan (1956) I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (1959)

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Author Index

Abbas, K.A., 435 Abercrombie, D., 57 Abrahams, R.D., 133 Adam, L., 265 Akoodie, M.A., 165 Algeo, J., 6,219-241 Allen, H.B., 405, 406, 409, 415, 416, 417 Allsopp, S.R.R., 248 Alvarez, C., 8,373-386 Anand, M.R., 424, 425, 426, 432, 435,437 Ancelet, B., 307, 308,309 Anderson, R.C., 180 Anstey Guthrie, T., 433 Arfah A.A., 119 Ashworth, M., 174 Attinasi, J., 374,384 Atkinson, P., 113 Atwood, E.B., 315 Au, Κ. Hu Pei, 119 Avis, W.S., 403-420 Babington, M., 307,315 Bacon, M., 211,212 Bagley, C., 362 Baid, K.B., 434 Bahr, D., 405 Bailey, B.L., 1, 53 n.3,305,405 Bain, F.W., 433 Barnes, D., 115 Bart, M., 362 Barry, H., 211, 212 Basu, R., 429 Becker, H.S., 116 Beebe, L.M., 60 Bell, Α., 108 Beltramo, Α., 364 Benson, E., 222, 226,230, 241 Benson, M., 222,226,230, 241 Berger, C.R., 14, 67 Berndt, R., 213

Bhattacharya, Β., 424 Bickerton, D., 265, 275 BÜls, G., 389 Bloch, Β., 406 Bloomstein, S., 392 Bluth, G.J., 85 Bobrow, E.G., 62 Bochner, S., 166 Boggs, S.T., 133 Bohlen, C.E., 50 Bolinger, D., 391 Boyle, K„ 335 Bradac, J.J., 14 Brandt, D.M., 85 Bransford, J.D., 64 Brasch, I.W., 274 Brasch, W.M., 274 Bream, C., 406 Brewer, W.F., 62 Britton, J., 115 Brooke, R., 403 Brown, C., 361 Brown, H.D., 191 Brown, M. Williams, 404 Brown, P., 18, 56, 153, 154, 284, 288, 295, 297, 302 Brown, R., 156 Bruner, J., 62 Burchfìeld, R., 405, 409 Burgess, Α., 370,436 Burnaby, R., 173, 175 Byers, H., 132 Byers, P., 132 Campbell, C., 107 Canale, M., 13 Candlin, C.N., 201 Carby, H„ 370 Carlock, 391 Cassidy, F.G., 260 Cazden, C.B., 4,103-116 Chafe, W.L., 62

474

Author Index

Chafe, W.L., 62 Chamberlain, Α., 131 Chambers, J.K., 405,406,416 Chesire, J., 60 Chick, J.K.,2,5, 139-160 Child, I., 211,212 Chitre, D„ 434 Christie, M., 133 Christie, P., 4,243-262 Cohen, Α., 364 Cohen, P., 385 Cole, P., 1 Conrad, A.W., 1, 53 n.3, 375, 385 Conrad, G.R., 309 Cook-Gumperz, J., 166 Cooper, R.L., 1, 53 n.3, 375, 385 Coulmas, F., 282, 283 Coulthard, R.M., 93 Coupland, Ν., 60 Cowasjee, S., 425 Culler, J., 2 Cummins, S., 411 D'Amico-Reisner, L., 27 D'Costa, Jean, 254 Daniel, W„ 361 Darnell, R„ 131 Das, K„ 434 De Granda, G., 374 Desai, Α., 430 Desani, G.V., 428 Dhaif, H„ 195 Dillard, J.L., 270, 305-317 Dillon, M., 353 n.l Diver, W„ 2 Dormán, J.H., 309 Dorrill, G., 306 Dorrill, T.T., 406,409,415, 419 n.6 Dow Turner, L., 265 Driver, G., 363 Drysdale, R.J., 405, 410, 412, 415, 419 n.2 Dubois, B.L., 389 Dumont, R.V. Jr., 131 Dunn, S., 342, 345 Dutt, M., 423,434

Earn, B., 165 Edmonds, Α., 310 Edwards, Α., 107, 111 Edwards, A.D., 59 Edwards, V., 8,9, 359-372 Elias-Olivares, L., 388 Ellis, R., 135 Erickson, F., 78, 141, 150, 153 Ervin-Tripp, S.M., 18 Escorcia, Β. Α., 197 Ezekiel, Ν., 428 Feldman, C.F., 62 Fernando, C., 5, 185-204 Fillmore, C.J., 102 n.2 Finocchiaro, M. 165 Firth, J.R., 427 Fishman, J.A., 1, 53 n.3, 375, 385 Flores, Ν. de la Zerda, 353 n.l, 390 Fonion, Β., 320 Forcese, D., 163 Forgas, J.P., 67 Forster, E.M., 437 Fraser, M. 342 Fuller, M., 363 Furnham, Α., 166 Gair, J.W., 196 Gardner, R.C., 162, 164,165 Gay, G., 133 Genesee, F., 181 Genrich de Lisle, D., 152, 156 Ghose, M., 423 Gibbs, J.T., 133 Giles, H„ 1, 16, 55, 58, 59, 60, 65, 70, 73,80 n.2, 81 n.3,264 Gilman, Α., 156 Gimson, A.C., 404,408 Glenn, E.S., 53 n.10 Gondinez, M., 389 Gokak, V.K.,434 Goodenough, W., 281 Gorlach, M., 1,53 n.3 Gorowara, K.,429 Gough, K., 192 Graves, N.B., 119, 133

Author Index Greenbaum, S., 1 Greene, D., 350 Greene, E., 179 Gregg, R.J., 340, 405, 406, 407, 410, 412,415, 419 n.2 Grice, H.P., 61 Griessei, H., 149,155 Griffin, P., 114 Gumperz, J., 1, 9, 13, 41, 44, 55, 60, 141, 146, 149, 152, 158, 166, 306, 391,393,400 Hadden, T., 335, 353 Haggo, D.C., 282,285,286 Halsey, Α., 140 Hamilton, Α., 213 Hanley, M.M., 406 Hannah, J., 405,418 Hansen, M.L., 406 Hanson-Smith, E., 196 Harris, S., 133,213 Haugen, E., 118,387 Hawkins, E., 370 Heller, M.S., 167, 168 Herdt, G., 282 Hernández-Chávez, E., 364 Herskovits, F.S., 265 Herskovits, M.J., 265 Hewitt, R., 367 Hjelmslev, L., 265 Ho Dao-kuan, 20 Ho, M., 15,16,244 Hochberg, J.E., 62 Hoffman, S., 374,384 Holm, J., 248 Hopper, R., 353 n.l, 390 Hoyle, S, 369 Hu Whenzhong, 20 Huber, L., 27 Huddleston, R., 248 Hudson, R.A., 79 Hughes, Α., 405 Hume, Α., 62, 341 Hutchinson, T., 146 Hymes, D., 1,15, 106, 195 Ilson, R., 222,226,230,241

475

Jakovitz, 164 James, E., 412,416 Jefferson, G., 152 Jhabwala, R.P., 435 Joag-dev, C., 180 Johnson, M.K., 64 Johnson, W., 326 Joos, M. 405 Jupp, T., 149 Kachru, B., 1,3,190, 244, Kallen, E„ 172, 173 Kaltman, H., 391, 393,400 Kandiah, T., 190 Kant, I., 62 Kantak, V.Y., 422,423 Kaplan, E., 392 Karabel, J., 140 Kearins, J., 5, 205-216 Keddie, N., 112 Kempler, D., 102 n.2 Kennan, G.F., 51 Kibberd, D„ 353 n.l Kinloch, A.M., 8,403-420 Kintsch, W., 179 Kipling, R„ 434 Kirk-Greene, Α., 331 Kirsner, R., 2 Kleifgen, J., 4, 83-102 Kochman, 40,42,43 Kolatkar, 434 Krashen, S., 171,190, 202 Kuiper, K., 6,281-304 Kumar, S.K., 430,435,436 Kurath, H„ 406 Labov, W„ 1, 116, 272, 273, 278, 305,383, 385 Lambert, W.E., 59,162,164, 165,182 Language Policy Task Force, 375, 376, 385 Lanham, L., 144 Lass, W., 58 Laver, J., 57,58,81 n.4 Lawton, D., 372 n.3 LeCompte, N.P., 307, 311, 314, 315 Le Page, R.B., 245, 252, 260

476

Author Index

Lehn, W., 405 Leland, C.G., 264 Lemke, J„ 109,113 Leon, P.R., 405 , 406, 408, 411, 412, 416 Levinson, S., 18, 56, 153, 154, 283, 284,288, 295, 297,302 Llamzon, T., 131 Longfellow, H.W., 308 Lougheed, W.C., 405 Lowman, G.S., 406,409,415, 419 n.6 Ma, R„ 375, 385 Mabey, C., 362 MacCarthy, P.A.D., 405 Malcolm, I.G., 4, 117-135 Malgaokar, M., 424 Malhotra, 432 Malinowski, B., 67,213 Mallea, J.R., 173 Manes, J., 3, 117 Markandeya, K., 424, 435 Martin, P., 405, 406, 408, 411, 412, 416 Mason, J.M., 119,135 Matluck, J.H., 133 Matute-Bianchi, M.E., 390 Mbangwana, P., 6, 7,319-333 Mbassi-Manga, F., 321 McConnell, R.E., 405 McCurdy, P., 392 McCutchion, D., 423 McDavid, R„ 1, 306, 406, 409, 415, 419 n.6 McGregor, A.L., 69 McHoul, Α., 115 Meggitt, M., 213 Mehan, H., 115 Mehrotra, R.R., 8,421-439 Menang, T., 321 Metcalf, Α., 389 Meyer, B.J.B., 85 Michaels, S., 112 Miller, G.R., 14 Milner, D., 363 Müroy, J., 245 Müroy, L., 109, 245

Mohan, Β., 182 Moodie, S., 403 Morgan, J.L., 1 Narayan, R.K., 425,426, 435, 436, 437 Neufeldt, V.E., 405,410, 412, 415, 419 n.2 Newman, J., 391 Ngangnang, J.N., 320, 326 Nicholson, B., 404 Nickerson J.R., 118, 119 Norman, D.A., 62 O'Cain, R.K., 406, 409, 415, 419 n.6 O'Connor, J.D., 405,417,418 Officer, Ζ., 25 Ogbu, J., 141,390 Orkin, M.M., 405 Ornstein-Galicia, J., 388, 389 Ortony, Α., 85, 102 n.2 Pandeya, S.M.,423,426 Paradis, C., 405 Paranavitane, S., 192 Parthasarathy, R., 423 Pawley, Α., 282 Pederson, L., 305 Pedraza, P., 374,376, 384 Peeples, E.A., 273 Penfleld,J., 8, 387-401 Philips, 105,114, 115, 118, 119 Piaget, J., 62 Picard, M., 405 Pickford, G.R., 306,307 Pierson, L. Shun, 391 Pike, Κ., 393,400, 401 Piper, D., 5, 161-183 Platt, J., 4,13-29, 244, 245, 285, 287 Plowden, B., 362 Politzer, R.L., 195 Pope Sir J., 404 Poplack, S., 374, 375, 376, 377, 384 Porter, J„ 163, 171 Pousada, Α., 375 Powesland, P.W., 1, 59, 65,70, 80 n.2 Pratt, M.L., 435 Prawat, R.S., 118, 119

Author Index Pride, J., 1, 16,53 n.3,101,244 Priestley, J.B., 403

477

Rai, V., 433 Raja Rao, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 430,435,437 Rajan, Β., 435 Raleigh, M., 370 Rama Rao, S., 435 Ramanujan, A.K., 431,437,438 Ramiah, Κ., 119, 131 Rampton, Α., 362, 363, 370 Read, A.W., 1,221,222 Reid, W., 2 Richards, J.C., 25 Richmond, J., 369 Rickford, J., 306 Rivers, S.A., 305-317 Roberts, C., 149 Robins, C., 385 Robinson, G.L., 79 Rodgers, T.S., 135 Roloff, M.E., 67 Romaine, S., 109 Rosen, H., 115,370 Rosenbaym, Y., 53 n.3 Rumelhart, D.E., 62, 63, 85, 102 n.2 Rushdie, 434 Ryan, E.B., 59,60,66

Schlemmer, L., 149, 155, 157 Schultz, J„ 141, 150 Schumann, J.H., 167, 172 Scollon, R„ 154, 176, 177, 178 Scollon, S.B.K., 154, 176, 177, 178 Scott, P., 434 Scotton, C., 365 Sebastian, R.J., 59, 66 Selinker, L., 167 Senekal, I., 151 Shilling, Α., 248 Shuy, R., 108,114 Simo Bobda, Α., 324, 325, 326 Sinclair, J.,McH.,93 Singh, K„ 425,428,431, 434, 435,436 Smith, D.I., 361 Smith, H„ 307, 314, 361 Smith, L.E., 53 n.3,133 Smith, S.M., 131 Spiro, R.J., 85,102 n.2 Steffensen, M.S., 180 Steinberg, M., 14 Stern, H.H., 164 Stevick, E.W., 165 Stewart, W.A., 1,6, 263-280, 305 Stone, M., 363, 370 Stubbs, M., 246 Sukwiwat, M., 25 Swales, J., 203 Syder, F., 282 Sylvain, S., 265

Sacks, H., 23,61,152 Sahgal,N.,424 Salkey, Α., 361 Salleh, Maarof bin Haji, 133 Samarin, W, 244 Santha Thanasingam, 24 Sapir, E., 2 Saussure, F. de, 2 Saville-Troike, M., 4, 83-102 Sawyer, J., 389 Scargill, M.H., 405, 406,407, 408,410, 412,415,417,419 n.2 Scarman, Lord, 361 Schegloff, E.A., 18, 23, 152 Scherer, K.R., 55,73, 81 n.3

Tabouret-Keller, Α., 252 Tajfel, H., 65,67 Tan, C., 131 Tan Gek Lin, D., 6, 281-304 Tannen, D., 63, 64, 144 Tarone, E., 13 Taylor, D.M., 73 Thakerar, J.N., 60 Thomas, Α., 408 Tillis, F., 456 Tirre, W.C., 102 n.2 Todd, L., 7, 53 n.3, 320, 335-355 Tomlinson, S., 362 Townsend, HER, 362 Traugott, E., 435

Quirk, R., 1

478

Author Index

Towson, S., 165 Treyens, J.C., 62 Trosset, C.S., 66 Troyna, B., 361 Trudgill, P., 57, 58, 80, 81 n.4, 246, 405,406,418 Tsuda, Y„ 53 n.2 Turner, L.D., 270 Valdés-Fallís, G., 389 Vanderslice, R., 391 Varo, C„ 374 Venkataramani, 430 Verschueren, J., 3,4,31-53 Wakelin, M.F.,405 Walatara, D., 190 Wald, Β., 389 Walker, D.C., 405 Walsh, W., 423,424,428,437 Walters, Α., 146 Wang, W.S-Y, 102 n.2 Wardaugh, R., 61 Warden, M., 416

Warkentyne, H.J., 405,408 Warren, C.E., 180 Weber, H., 15,16, 244 Weightman, J., 369 Weinreich, U., 265 Wells, J.C., 405,413,414 Wendt, Α., 424,427 Wickramasuriya, C., 197 Widdowson, H.G., 1, 2, 143, 146, 150, 201,202 Wilder, D.A., 67 Williams, F., 67 Williams, R.T., 4, 55-81 Wolfram, W., 385 Wolfson, N., 3,15,23,27,117 Wong, J., 362 Wyatt, J.D., 178 Yango, F., 321 Yeats, W.B., 423 Young, J.C., 173 Ze Amvela, 325 Zentella, A.C., 374

Subject Index

Aborígenes in Australia, 205-216 in Australian classrooms, 120-135 in Canada, 171-179 rights of, 172 Acadian, 307-308 accent, 55-81 perception of, 4, 55-81 acrolect in Lankan English, 186,187,188,189 in Singapore English, 287, 289, 294, 297,298,302,303 acronyms in Cameroon, 327-328 adaptation of minority pupils in classroom, 133135. See also classrooms, address terms use of in South Africa, 156 adstrata in Cajun English, 315 affective filter in L2 acquisition, 202 African Americans, 6,37-40,151,365 classroom behavior, 105, 118, 131, 133,274,275 Afrikaans-English, 147,156 Afrikaner, 337 Afro-Caribbean English Creole, 360,362 363 Afro-Caribbean French, 372 n.2 Alaska, 105 All about H. Hatten, 428 allomorph, 273 alter ego, 21,22,23,24,27,28 analogy, 222,238-240 Anglo American children, 155 culture, 35,155,156 English, 6, 40, 41, 60, 73, 75-77, 219-241, 249, 254,328-331,406, 409,424,427 media, 44-45

Anglo Irish, 340, 345, 347 Anglo Romany dialect, 264 Anglo Saxons in Canada, 164 in Ireland, 342 anti-racist teaching, 370 Apache stories rhetorical patterns in, 179 apartheid in South Africa, 5, 139-160, 142, 146,157,160,228 in Northern Ireland, 342 Ashanti, 229 Asian culture, 17,18, 24, 25,28 in Great Britain, 149 Indians, 180 assimilation, 180,183 Athabaskans, 176-179 attitudes of British blacks toward white, 364 audience design, 108 Australia, 5, 18, 22, 25, 68-70, 1 ΠΙ 35,205-216 Aboriginal children, 119-135, 205216 communication between Aborígenes and whites, 101 English, 23, 24, 60, 68, 74-77, 225, 232,234, 235 Kimberley Kriol, 206 Western Australia, 120,205-216 ayurvedic medicine, 192 Baboo Jabberjee, ΒΑ., 433 Bahamian English, 248 balance of rights, 119 Bangladesh immigration to Great Britain, 360 Bantu language speakers, 144 Baptist missionaries in Cameroon, 320 Barbadian English, 252,259

480

Subject Index

basal reader. 111 basilect in Lankan English, 186,187,189 in Singapore English, 287, 289, 294, 297,302 Belizean English, 252,253 Bengali, 423,429 Bernstein, Basil, 113 Beti languages in Cameroon, 331 Between Tears and Laughter, 425 bicultural identity, 166,170 lack of in Singapore, 281 bidialectism, 8 in Great Britain, 359 bilingual community, 281 dialect, 387 education, 374 fluent and weak in Sri Lanka, 193-196 identity, 166 bilingualism, 8 French/English, 161-183 in Southwest U.S., 387-390 in Sri Lanka, 185,186,187 language dominance, 377 native language/English, 174 official in Canada, 168-170,180,182 subtractive, 174,182 writers in India, 434 bioprogram, 265,266 black Americans, see African Americans Black English Vernacular, 4043, 68, 270-279, 306 creole origins of, 270-279,306 Black English in British classrooms, 359372 blacks in Great Britain, 8,149,359-372 in South Africa, 143,149,155 bounding off, 115 Bristol, 362 British English, 6, 60, 68, 188, 219241, 245, 247, 249, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 262, 321, 324, 328331,332,363,404,412,424,427 Brixton, 362

Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka, 185,191 Cajuns, 307-308 English, 6,7, 305,317 Caló, 388 Cambridge Overseas Examination, 253 Cameroon English, 7, 319-332, 335-336 North American influence in, 321 Canada, 5, 8,161-183 native people 162 immigrants, 162 English, 164,223, 234,403-420 Official Language Policy, 5,161,162, 170,172-173,178,183 Canadian Raising, 405,416,417 Caribbean Anglophone, 243-262 English, 6,243-262,247 Examination Council (CXC), 255 examinations, Caribbean based, 254262 intra-regional differences in English, 251-253 literature, 254 caste minority, 390 hereditary, 186 cataphoric devices, 392 categorisation, 65-68, 71, 78 Catholics in Northern Ireland, 337-353 child rearing styles in Australia, 207-214 Celtics in Ireland, 342 Center for Puerto Rican Studies,374,376 Central Canadian English, 406-420. See also Canada English Charles I, 341 charter races in Canada, 163,171,172,182 Chicanos 8,68,119,306,387-393 English, 387-401 Chinese 91 communicative system, 19, 20,25

Subject Index Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, 337 in United States, 374 classroom, 4,83-102,103-116,117-135 Australian, 128-135 anti-racist, 370 auditors in, 108 behavior, 105-118, 131-133, 274275 British, 359-372 code for, linguistic, 86-93 communication in, 83-102, 103-116, 117-135 cross-cultural, 117,118,119 decontextualized language in, 106, 110,112,113 discourse in, 98-98, 103-116, 133135,140 dual audience in, 108 ESD, 179 ESL, 179 English medium, 95,97,106,108 Hawaiian, 133-134 hidden curriculum in, 103,104,105 language awareness activities in, 370, 372 learning styles in, 178 minority pupils in, 133-135 miscommunication in, 145-147,206216 multicultural, 135 multiracial, 360 overhearers in, 108 parental involvement in, 99 peer tutors in, 99 repetition in, 95,96,249 scripts in, 85,98-100 speech acts in, 120 concurring, 130 contradicting, 130 commenting, 130 declined replying, 124,131 informing, 130 modified relaying, 125 nominating, 125 posture regulation, 125 prompting, 125

481

response slotting, 125 suggestive eliciting, 125 unsolicited replying, 131 timing in, 109-110 ways of speaking in conciseness, 114-115 decontextualization, 110-111 explicitness, 111-112 relevance, 114-115 science, language of, 112-114 standard syntax, 106-109 correction of, 107-108 timing, 109-110 withdrawal, 128 coaxing, 125 Cockney dialect, 275 code mixing in Indian English literature, 434 code-switching, 4041 in Canada, 168,169 in Great Britain among Blacks, 364 in United States among Chícanos, 388 among Puerto Ricans, 373-386 intrasentential, 384 metaphorical, 384-385 narrative structure difference, 379384 sex difference in, 377-379 colonialism, 243 commercial transactions in English in South Africa, 147-150 in Sri Lanka, 187 Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups, 362 communication. See also communicative and miscommunication asynchrony in, 5, 6, 8, 78, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158,401 barriers to, surface level, 86-93 behavior, 120 cross-dialect, 280 cross-cultural, 2, 8,9, 25, 36, 37, 56, 78, 79, 80, 83, 161,162. See also inter-cultural and inter-ethnic

482

Subject Index

culture specific, 141 educational settings, in, 146, 147, 103-116 in Caribbean examinations, 243262 in South Africa, 143-147, 150153 in Sri Lankan Universities, 185204 with Aborigene students in Australia, 117-135, 205-216 with Black students in Great Britain, 359-372 with Black students in United States, 274-275 with ESL speakers, 83-102, with minority pupils, 117-135 inter-cultural, 139, 140, 141, 142, 157, 160, 163. See also crosscultural and inter-ethnic inter-ethnic, 3, 4,5, 6 , 7 , 8,9,10,55, 400-401. See also cross-cultural and inter-cultural Aborigine-White, 101 Anglo Canadian-French Canadian, 163,173,182 Athabaskan-Canadian, 176-179 Australian-Asian, 18-21, 27, 28, 29 Chicano-Anglo, 400 Singaporeans-E-speakers, 21, 25, 26,281-304 interpersonal relationships, of, 17-29 sensitivity areas, 17-29 acceding to a request, 13, 2627 disengaging, 13,22-24 engaging, 13,18-21 negative respondings, 13, 28-29 positive responding, 13, 27-28 requesting, 24-25 intra-ethnic among Chícanos, 390 meaning, of, 143 minimisation strategies, 125 norms, 8 patterns of organization, 119

problems, 328 strategies, 13,18 synchrony, 153 communicative. See also communication and miscommunication competence, 109 convention, 141 differences, 13, 31, 33 interaction, 84 interference, 3 , 8 , 1 5 , 1 7 meaning, 143 skill, 257 socio-culturally communicative routines, 146 strategies, 4, 5 , 1 3 , 1 6 pre-closing, 23 solidarity, 154-155 style, 42 conservatism, 248 contextual information, 90 contextualization cues, 152 contours pre-contours, 394-399 final contours, 394-399 conversational analysis, 1 conversational asynchrony, 5, 6, 8,152, 151, 153, 155, 157, 158. See also communication and miscommunication. Coolie, 435 Creole, 247, 263-279 Afro-Caribbean English Creole, 360, 362,363 in classrooms in Great Britain, 369372. See also patois Caribbean Creole French, 265 English, 247 French Creoles, 244, 247, 251262,308 Haitian Creole, 265 Indian Ocean Creole French, 265 Jamaican, 364 Cromwell, 341 Cry, the Peacock, 430 cultural contact, 166, 438 congruence, 119

Subject Index differences, 132,238, 309 gaps, 229,230 hegemony, 172,203 identity Canada, in, 163 language, and, 164-167 knowledge, 98,102,215,283 learning, 304 lexical coding of, 281,282 marginality, 175 paradigm, 191 relativity, 179 schema, 164,179 culture Anglo American, 35,155,156 Asian, 1 7 , 1 8 , 2 4 , 2 5 , 2 8 Buddhist, 185,191 high, 191-192 Hindu, 185,192 Indonesian, 2 5 , 2 7 , 2 8 invisible, 118 Korean, 27 Russian, 31,32 shock, 166,167,180 Thai, 25 Xhosa, 156 Davies, Sir John, 337 decreolization, 7, 270, 271, 273, 274, 276,277 deference behaviour, 297 defferential politeness. See politeness deficient behaviour, 132,141 deictics, 347 dialects, 80 n.2,219,220 asymptotic structural relationship, 277 British and American, 219-241 Indian, 421 parallel list, 219-221 Patois in classroom, 370 social, 306 regional, 306 dialectology, 1, 305-307, 309, 315, 316 prosody in, 392 social, 306

483

diglossia, 246 dilingual discourse, 93 discipline, 100 discourse analytic studies in Canada, 163, 179 macro-level influences on, 183 modes of Puerto Rican, 375-376, 384 paradigmatic structure, 115 strategies, 13,166, 376 structures, 4, 85,115,195 discrimination, 139, 140, 141, 157, 159 disengaging, 13,22-24 distance model, 167 Doctor Zhivago, 32 dominant group, 139, 207 Canada, in, 162 children, 165-166 Douala, 331 dual audience, 108 E-systems, 16,17,21,22 East Africa, 360 East Harlem. See El Barrio educational. See also communication, classroom policy in Canada, 173 process Aborígenes in Australia, 117-135, 205-216 Blacks in US, 274-275 Sri Lanka, in, 185-204 programs immersion, 162,175,182 language awareness activities, 370, 372 remedial, 141 small group instruction, 99,119 submersion, 176,181-182 ego, 18,19,22, 24, 25,27 Eire, 337 El Barrio, 374 engaging, 13,18-21 The English Teacher, 437

484

Subject Index

English, varieties of Afrikaans-English, 147,156 American English, 6, 40, 41, 60, 73, 75-77, 219-242, 249, 254, 328, 331,406,409,424,427 Australian English, 23, 24, 60, 68, 74-77,225,232,234,235 Bahamian English, 248 Barbadian English, 252, 259 Belizean English, 252,253 Black English Vernacular, 4043, 68, 270-279,306 creole origins of, 270-279, 306 British English, 6, 60, 68, 188, 219242, 245, 247, 249, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 262, 321, 324, 328-331, 332, 363, 404, 412,424,427 Chinese Pidgin English, 264 Cajun English, 6,7,305-317 Cameroonian English, 7, 319-332, 335-336 Canadian English, 164, 223, 234, 406420 Caribbean English, 6,243-262,247 Chicano English, 387-401 Creolized English, 247 Guyana English, 262 Hiberno English, 340, 345, 347. See Irish Indian English, 8,246,266,267,270, 424434 Jamaican English, 229, 233, 235, 244, 245, 246, 248, 249, 252, 253,256,259,260-262 Lankan English, 186,188,189,190 Louisiana Black English, 238 Malaysian English, 21,24 Middle English, 411 New Zealand English, 71-72, 232, 233,304 Northern Ireland English, 335-355 Old English, 336 Pidgin English, 320,331,332, Puerto Rican English, 386 Scottish English, 416,417

Singapore English, 6, 7, 16, 21, 2327,69,281-304 Sri Lanka English, 188-190 South African English, 72-73, 144147, 149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 238 Tobago English, 251, 252, 253, 256, 261 Trinidadian English, 244, 251, 252, 253,256,259,261 West African English, 246,267, 331 English academic purposes, for, 187 foreign language, as, 13, 15, 36, 37, 186-187 in Caribbean, 255 in Sri Lanka, 203 indigenized language, as, 13,15 language of wider communication, 31,33,52,193,421 medium of misunderstanding, as, 33, 44-52 medium of understanding, as, 34 native language, as, 13,15 New, 16 object of misunderstanding, as, 3644 object of understanding, as, 34, 35 official language, 185-188 second dialect, as, 171-179,175 second language, as, 13, 14, 8693,106,151,175 in Canada, 164,179,181 in Indian creative writing, 422 in Sri Lanka, 186 learning, 116 teaching, 193-202 testing, 254-262 spread, 1, 53 nn.3,4,243 epistemological procedures, 201 equivalent terms, 231 ethnic diversity, 117 groups, 131,141 identity, 7, 8, 390 loyalty, 390 minority group, 141

Subject Index stratification, 163, 171, 172, 183. See vertical mosaic ethnography. See also microethnography of speaking, 1 studies in Canada, 163 studies of cross-cultural communication, 166,167 studies of Puerto Rican community, 375 ethnomethodologists, 60,61 exclusion function of linguistic choice, 367 exegesis, 191,192 expansion, 107 expectations first cultural, 179-180 face, 18, 49, 50, 283, 284, 287, 288, 289,302 negative, 154, 283, 284, 295, 296, 298,300,301 positive, 154,283,284, 301 saving, 148 threatening act (FTA), 156, 284, 297,298,300 Federal Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 174 folk etymologizing, 89 typologies, 7, 308,316 foreign language English as, 15 learning, 263 foreigner talk, 263 formulaic expressions, 282,283 before meal formulae, 296-300 chance encounter greetings, 287-291 reply formulae to before meal formulae, 300-301 wedding greetings, 293-296 fossilization in second language, 167,181,182 founding races. See charter races frames of reference. See schema franglais, 325 French in Cameroon, 319, 320, 321, 322-

485

328,332 in Louisiana, 308 West African, 266 fronting, 249 Gaelic, 336, 337, 340, 345, 350, 354 n.3 gallicisms, 322, 327 gatapada, 192 gatekeeping, 78,158,159,177,191 Gauri, 429,432 General Certificate of Education, 256, 328,332 glides, 394-399 grammar, 86-89,188-189 Grassfield languages, 331 Great Famine, 337 greeting routines, 18 The Guide, 435 Gullah dialect, 270, 271, 276, 279, 280 Gumbo, 308. See also Creole, French "Gunga Din", 434 Guyana English, 262 Gypsies, British, 264 Handsworth, 362 hearer, 81 n.4 Hebrew, 91 heuristic procedure, 201 Hiberno English, 340, 345, 347 hidden curriculum, 103,104,105 high culture, 191,192 Hindi, 421,434,435 Indian-English Hindi, 267 words in English literature, 425 "The Hindoo: He doesn't hurt a fly or a spider either",, 437 Hindu culture In Sri Lanka, 185,192 Hispanics in the United States, 131 Hokkien Chinese, 7, 285-302. See also Singapore Hokkien homework, 99 homonymy, 222, 237-238 horizontal acceptability, 108 A House of People, 429

486

Subject Index

The Householder, 435 hybrid compounds, 322 I shall not hear the nightingale, 435 Icelandic, 90,92 ideational schemata, 146. See also schema idiolect, 406,407,408 immersion programs, 162,175,182 immigrants to Canada, 163,165,166,179-182 to Great Britain, 359, 360 mental health of, 166,167 imposition. See face threatening in-group marker. See ethnic identity Indian children, 362 immigrants to Great Britain, 360 Indian English, 8, 246,266,267,270 424-434 "An Indian Mango Vendor", 430 indigenous languages in Sri Lanka, 204 people of Cameroon, 320,321 individualized instruction, 99. See also classroom, educational Indo-Anglicans in India, 429 Indonesian culture, 25,27, 28 Industrial Revolution, 192 inequality racial in Great Britain, 361, 362, 371 influx control, 159 informing, 130 Inner London Education Authority, 362,370 input hypothesis, 202. See also second language acquisition intelligibility, 316, 426 interactional routines, 134,158. See also participation structures interactional sociolinguistic research, 141 interdialectal variation, 219-242, 229, 230 referential gap in, 228 interference, 83

English of immigrants, 389 structural in L2 use, 265 interlanguage, 167,265,267 interlocking terms, 235-236 interlocutors E, 1 5 , 1 7 , 1 9 , 2 1 , 2 5 , 2 6 , 2 7 , 2 8 , 2 9 EF, 15 ES, 1 5 , 1 9 , 2 0 , 2 3 , 2 5 , 2 7 , 2 8 , 2 9 NE, 16, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29 interpersonal communication of, 13,17-29 relationships, 13,17,21 schemata, 146 interpretative competence, 201 sociolinguistics, 55 intonation, 393-400. See contours Inuit, 172 invisible culture, 118 invisible pedagogy, 113. See also hidden curriculum Irish, 80 n.2. See Anglo Irish, Hiberno English and Scotch Irish isoglosses, 340,341 Japanese, 87, 88, 89,156 jataka, 192 Jamaican English, 229, 233, 235, 244, 245, 246, 248, 249, 252, 253, 256, 259,260 James I, 341 James II, 342 judgment samples, 314 Kannada, 428 Kanthapura, 424, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430,431,432,435,437 Kimberley Kriol, 206 Korean, 87 culture, 27 L-systems, 16,17 LI, 15 L2,14. See also second language.

Subject Index language awareness activities, 370,372 command, active and passive, 223 contact, 373,387, 392,438 context-embedded, 87 constructivist view of, 2 decontextualized, 106,110-112,113 diversity, 142,186 dominance, 377 influences, cross-, 268 identity, and, 369,371 learning, 5,84,175,281 foreign language, 263 in Canada, 163,179,183 in Singapore, 303,305 in Sri Lanka, 190-204 monitoring, 171 second dialect, 278,280 marked vs. unmarked, 365 planning, 163 policy, 5 minorities, 9 , 1 0 , 1 0 4 motivation in learning, 164,190 instrumental, 164,165,190,191 integrative, 164,165,190 rights, 162 science, of, 112-114 spread, 35 standardization, 107,244-245,246 teaching, 197 in Sri Lanka, 193-202 testing, 254-262 written, 245,246 Language of the Courts Act, 187 Lankan English, 186, 188. See also English learning styles. See classrooms Lewin, Kurt, 165 lexical domain, 411 gap, 226,229,230 meaning, 31,44 lexicon, 78,247,89-92 of American English, 219-242 of British English, 219-242 of Cajun English, 207 of Cameroonian English, 321-332

487

of Caribbean English, 248, 250-251, 252 of Educated Lankan English, 188190 of English Indian writing, 424-425, 431 of New Zealand English, 232,233 Like Birds Like Fishes, 435 limited English speakers, 89,93 lingua franca, 3, 320 Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States / , 305,306,316 Linguistic Atlas of New England, 305 linguistic. See also language choice, 366,368,371 code in classroom, 86-93 identity, 163 prejudice, 275 prestige norms covert, 384 overt, 384 repertoire, 365 Linguistic Minorities Project, 360 listener, 81 n.4 listening behavior, 150-151 literary records, 315 loans, 325 loan blends, 324 loan homonyms, 322 loanshifts, 325 loan translations, 7, 286-287, 302, 323-325 loan words, 315 Louisiana Black English, 237-238 Macdonald, Sir John Α., 404 Malaysian English, 21, 24 The Man-Eater ofMalgudi, 435 matched-guise technique, 59 matrilect, 269,275,276,277,278 matrix system. See matrilect mesolect, 69,186-187,189, 297 metacommunicative awareness, 97 metalinguistic connectors, 114 metapragmatics, 45,47,48, 50, 53 n.9 Metis, 172 Mexican War, 388

488

Subject Index

microethnography, 140, 141, 157, 159, See also ethnography strong criticism of, 140,141,157 weak criticism of, 140,142 Middle English, 411 mimolects, 270-273, 274, 276, 277, 278 miscommunication, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 17, 31, 33, 83, 86, 88, 89, 139, 140, 141, 142-160, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 176, 181. See also communication Anglo-Chicano, 390,400 Athabaskan-Anglo, 177 in Cameroon, 324,328, 332 in Caribbean exams, 260-262 in educational settings, 14,100,101, 120,145-147,205-216 in Indian English writing, 422 in interpersonal relationships, 17-28 in Ireland, 335, 336 in work setting, 147-148,155,159 misunderstanding. See miscommunication mitigating action, 283 modified relaying. See speech acts mother tongue, 173 in Sri Lanka, 196 in India, 429 motivation. See language learning Mr. Sampath, 437 "Mr. Singh and the Colour Bar", 434 multicultural, 373. See also multicultural classroom Canada, 162, 164, 174, 180, 182, India, 421 Murugan the Tiller, 430 narrative structure, 177 National Association of School Masters, 363 National Indian Brotherhood, 173 Native Americans, 114-115 classroom behavior, 119,131 Tlingit, 105 Native Canadians, 171-179 Nectar in a Sieve, 435

negative responding, 13, 18-29. See also sensitivity Network English, 316. See also standard English New Englishes, 244 New Zealand English, 71-72,232, 233, 304 Maoris, 119 news reporting, 31, 3 2 , 4 4 , 4 5 , 4 9 Nigeria, 103 "Night of Scorpion", 428 nominalizations, 341-342,354 n.9 nominating, 125 norm dependent, 190 norm developing. See norm dependent Norse, 336 non-standard English, 120. See also standard English non-verbal code, 92-93 Northern Ireland, 7, 335-355 schools in, 342, 345 similes in, 352 Sinn Fein, 339 Norway, 246 Nude Before God, 435,436 O Neill, Conn More, 336 Official Language Policy, 5, 161, 162, 170,172-173,178,183 Old English, 336 orthography, 90-92 overlapping terms, 233 overlays, 7,306, 308, 309,316 Pali, 185,192 Canon,191 participant observer, 394 participation structures, 118,134,158 A Passage to India, 437 Patois, 8,9, 359-372 education as explanatory variable, 364 exclusion function, 367 symbolic function, 366 Pennsylvania Germans, 306 performance error, 272,273 phatic communion, 67, 69

Subject Index Philippines, 106 phonemic domain, 407 phonology, 87-89 of Caribbean English, 248 of French speakers in Louisiana, 307, 314-315 pidgins, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269,270 Chinese Pidgin English, 264 Pidgin English, 320, 331-332 pidgnization, 175,181-182 pirivenas, 192 pitch, 393-399 playback technique, 97 politeness behaviour differences, 153-157 formulae, 7, 145, 283, 285, 288, 295 negative, 297 solidarity, 154,155 polycompetence, 276 polysemy, 222,226,233-236 "Poona Train-Window", 437 Portuguese, 320 positive responding, 13, 27-28. See also sensitivity areas post-creole. See decreolized varieties pragmatics, 1, 4, 55, 65, 95, 96, 285, 286,287,302,376 pragmaticists, 60, 61 pre-closing strategies, 23. See sensitivity areas prejudice, 140 linguistic, 275 prompting. See also speech acts pronunciation, 8,78,87-89,188 Central Canadian pronunciation, 403420 Received Pronunciation, 60, 403420 prosody, 8,78,153 aphasie speech, and, 392 Asian Indian, 391 Athabaskan, 177 Buffalo, N.Y., 391 Chicano, 387-401 Hawaiian, 391

489

Protestants in Northern Ireland, 337-353 proverbs in Northern Ireland, 352 pseudocomprehension, 1, 7, 8, 279280. See also miscomprehension and comprehension psycholinguistics, 201 Puerto Rico, 373-374 English of, 386 in New York, 8, 306, 373-386 Pygmalion, 80 Quebec, 162,180 racism, 142, 363, 370. See also inequality, racial Rampton report, 363, 370 rancheros, 398 Received Pronunciation, 60, 403-420 redressive action, 283,297 referential gap, 226,228 regionalisms, 247,249, 259 relexifications, 322 religion, 313 in Northern Ireland, 335-355 Remember the House, 435 requesting, 13,24,25. See also sensitivity areas research. See also ethnography and microethnography interactional sociolinguistic, 141 participant observation, 394 qualitative, 142 quantitative, 142 Western style, 203 retribalize, 140 rhythm unit. See contours rising glides, 394-399 The Road, 425 Rogers, Carl, 165 sannes, 192 Sanskrit, 185,192 Sasana, 191 schema, 4, 62-63, 64, 71, 73, 75, 78, 79, 141, 143-159.

490

Subject Index

bottom-down, 4, 63 first cultural, 164, 179 ideational, 146 interpersonal, 146 mismatch in, 145 top-down, 4, 63, 86, 101 schemata. See schema school, 84, 85, 86. See also classroom and educational in Northern Ireland, 342, 345 Schumann, 167 Scottish dialect, 80 n.2 English, 416, 417 scripts, 85, 98-100 second dialect learning, 278-280 second language acquisition, 162, 164, 191-204 learning, 5, 84, 163, 164, 165, 175, 179, 183, 190-204, 281, 303, 304 testing, 254-262 segmentals, 179, 392 segregation, 139, 159. See also apartheid self-actualization, 191. See also second language learning semantic differences, 237, 325 domain, 89 equivalents, 225 sensitivity areas, 17-29 acceding to a request, 13,26-27 disengaging, 13, 22-24 engaging, 13, 18-21 negative respondings, 13, 28-29 positive responding, 13, 27-28 requesting, 24-25 The Serpent and the Rope, 424, 435, 437 Seven Summers, 425 shires, 336 shyness, 131,176 A Silence of Desire, 435 similes, 352 Singapore, 283 English, 6, 7, 16, 21, 23, 24,25,26, 27,69,281-304

Hokkien, 285-302 Sinhala, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 202 Sinn Fein, 339 socioeconomic status, 206-207, 211, 346 social cognition, 65-66 meaning, 8 networks, 364 psychology of language, 1, 8, 55, 5860,65-66,422 sociolinguistic identity, 429 interactional, 141 variation, 1,190 sociology literary language, of, 422 language, of, 1 , 9 , 4 2 2 solidarity, Chicano English, function of, 390 Patois, function of, 366, 371 strategies, 154,155 Some Inner Fury, 435 South Africa, 5,139-160 culture, 156 English, 72-73, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149,152,153,155,156,238 South East Asia classroom behaviour, 131 students, 119 Southwest United States 387-390 Spanish in United States, 96,374-390 speech accommodation, 60 activity types, 146. See also schema, interpersonal acts, 378 in classroom, 120 commenting, 130 concurring, 130 contradicting, 130 declined replying, 124,131 deferred replying, 124-125,131 informing, 130 modified relaying, 125

Subject Index nominating, 125 posture regulation, 125 prompting, 125 response slotting, 125 suggestive eliciting, 125 unsollicited replying, 131 indexical features of, 57-58, 65 markers, 57, 58 perception, 60 styles, 116 middle class, 111 working class, 116 spread, English of, 1,243, 53 nn.3, 4 Sri Lanka, 5,185-204 bilingualism in, 193-196 British in, 186 Buddhist, 185,191 classical languages in, 185 commercial transactions in, 187 English, 188-190 indigenous languages in, 204 Hindu, 185,192 judiciary, 187 Hansard, 188 language learning, 190-204 universities in, 185-200 standard English, 3,4, 5, 6,7, 8,9,106, 164, 175, 243, 248, 249, 253, 257, 259, 261, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 278, 279, 280, 316, 321, 345, 363, 369, 370, 388, 389, 391, 392, 401, 424,427 standardization 107, 244-245,246 Statues of Kilkenny, 336 status quo, 164,176 stereotypes, 140,149,176 blacks in Great Britain, 363, 365 Chicano English, 397, 398 negative, 155,156,177,370 stress, 391, 392 Chicano English, 399-400 structural change, 142,157 deviation, 264 mimicry, 7, 267-270, 273, 276,277, 278

491

recontextualization, 110 structures of expectations, 63-64. See also schema Stuarts, 341 student-talk register, 104 students, 118. See also classrooms substratum, 264,315 suppression, linguistic and cultural, 175 Suriname Dutch, 266 Swabasha, 196 The Sword and the Sickle, 425 synchrony in communication, 153. See also communication and miscommunication synonymy, 222,231-233 syntagmatic, 115 syntax, 106-109 Canadian English, 248-251 Indian English, 427428 Tamil, 185,186,187,188,191,423 teacher. See also classroom and educational attitude, 360 talk, 93-94 teaching anti-racist, 370 limited English speakers, 83-102 Thai, 25 Tobago English, 251, 252,253,256,261 Too Long in the West, 435 Train to Pakistan, 425, 426, 428, 429, 430,431,435,436 transfer, positive and negative, 83 Trinidadian English, 244,251,252,253, 256,259,261 Toxteth, 362 Tudors, 337 turn-taking, 145,152,153,177 Two Leaves and a Bud, 425,426 Ulster, 336,338,339-353 Ulster Scots, 340, 347 uncertainty reduction, 66 unintelligibility, 324, 332. See also miscommunication and communication

492

Subject Index

universals, of language, 265, 266 Untouchable, 425,435,437 variability, linguistic and cultural, 36, 44, 50, 52 variant, stylistic, 326 variety, 1, 80 n.2, 230. See also English varieties national, 224, 238 verbal shaping, 212,213 vernacular, 246, 254 vertical acceptability, 108 vertical mosaic. See ethnic stratification videotape, 95,97,151 Vietnamese Canadian Association, 181 The Village, 425 Waiting for the Mahatma, 425,426, 437

Walsh, William, 422 West African English, 246,267, 331 West African French, 266 West Indies, 103, 359, 360, 361, 363. See also Caribbean westernization, 101 William of Orange, 341 Wilson, Justin, 309, 311 working class speakers, 116, 346 world atlas, 306, 307 written language, 245-246 xenolect, 263-269, 271, 272, 275, 276, 277 Xhosa, 156 Zulu, 145,146,152-153,154,155,156, 337

m Jeffra Flaitz mi The Ideology of English Perceptions of English as a mi French World Language m 1988. 14,8x22,8 cm. XIV, 226 pages. With 9 illustrations

m m m m m m m

and 53 figures. DM 108,- ISBN 311011549 2

(Contributions to the Sociology of Language 49] This research monograph examines French perceptions of the relationship between the English language in its role as a world lingua franca and the cultures and ideologies of native English speaking peoples (particularly Americans]. The work addresses the spread of English in France on the basis of both original research and secondary sources. French legislative attempts to curtail the expansion of American culture and linguistic "colonization" on French soil are also discussed. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and instruments was used in this sociolinguistic or "politicolinguistic" study.

m m m m m m m

mouton de gruyter Berlin · New York

mouton de gruyter Berlin · New York

MULTILINGUA Journal of cross-cultural and interlanguage communication Editor-in-Chief: Richard J. Watts, University of Berne, Switzerland MULTILINGUA was first published in 1981. As of 1987, Volume 6, the journal has been reconstituted under a new editorial board redirecting its scope to cross-cultural and interlanguage communication. MULTILINGUA is an international, interdisciplinary journal aimed at the enhancement of cross-cultural understanding through the study of interlanguage communication. To this end it publishes articles and short notes in fields as diverse as cross-cultural differences in linguistic politeness phenomena, variety in what is traditionally regarded as one culture, conversational styles and the linguistic description of nonstandard, oral varieties of language, strategies for the organization of verbal interaction, intracultural linguistic variety, communication breakdown, translation, information technology, and modern methods for managing and using multilingual tools. MULTILINGUA considers contributions in the form of empirical observational studies, theoretical studies, theoretical discussions, presentations of research, short notes, reactions to recent articles, book reviews, and letters to the editor. MULTILINGUA is published in four issues per volume (approx. 448 pages). Subscriptions and single or back issues can be ordered from your local bookseller or any subscription agent or directly from MOUTON DE GRUYTER (a Division of Walter de Gruyter) at either of the following addresses: For North America Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 200 Saw Mill River Road Hawthorne, NY 10532 USA

For all other countries Walter de Gruyter & Co. Postfach 1102 40 D-1000 Berlin 11 Federal Republic of Germany