There are some funny things that go on with the pronunciation of some French words in British-‘merican. Over here, I park my car in a garAGE and watch balLET and we eat fish filLET. It all sounds a touch poncey and affected to my British ear – though perfectly fine in ‘merican, of course. For more see here.
The recent snow storms meant flights to the US were cancelled to so at 3 am US time I called home to tell my husband that British Airways would be putting me up at the Renaissance Hotel in London. The poor guy dutifully did searches for a hotel called the René Sans.
Before I talk about my latest faux pas, a word about the E4BT (English for Business and Technology) conference in Brunei. It’s a unique mix of terrific teaching ideas from South East Asia, an abundance of exotic food and Brunei hospitality – all coming together to make it the friendliest conference I’ve ever known. Truly heart warming. It may become a biannual event so if you get a glimmer of a chance, go for it!
And you also get treated to Ritual (intentional capita R). There’s an opening ceremony, a closing ceremony, and a farewell dinner and lots of food in between. Amongst other things, the opening ceremony includes drums, honoured guests, a very honoured guest, a gong, speeches, fresh flowers, a prayer, lots of press and a master of protocol.
I totally screwed up on the protocol. I mistook my cue and leapt up and spoke ahead of time, throwing the whole order of events out of sync. Ah my. Dismay and consternation. Unknowingly I’d usurped the very honoured guest position and caused embarrassment left right and centre. Argh! And the irony was – I was speaking about ‘politeness theories’.
Notes to self: ‘Take it easy’. ‘Wait, wait, and wait until you are sure you have been called upon’. ‘Go say sorry – thankfully people can be very forgiving’. ‘E4BT is definitely one to return to if you can.’
you use all four fingers of your right hand palm down to beckon.
you used to be able to listen to Captial FM on the radio, so you could drive along at night, hearing about early morning traffic jams on the M25.
one travellers’ guide I just read recommended containing any sudden urges you might have to kick up a rumpus immediately after sunset on Thursday evenings.
And here’s your picture clue:
Answer: I’m in for a treat, because next week I will be visiting the beautiful Brunei, a Sultanate on the northwest coast of the Island of Borneo. I’ve been once before, and remember it encountering some delightfully exotic customs and rituals.
But I remember it as being more complex than that. Lower status conference attendees arrived early, then the more important ones came a bit later, then the VIP’s and then the very big VIPs were the last to arrive. With no written rules to guide them, folks understood their place in the pecking order and schedule and timed their entrances to precise perfection.
I messed up one evening. I mistook an invitation as being a sort of casual ‘come any time’ suggestion when it wasn’t. I found myself arriving at a formal dinner after the big VIPs. Big blushes. Who did I think I was? To make up for my faux pas, I thought I should mingle for a while after dinner, until a European lady realized I was a rookie and whispered in my ear: ‘You realize nobody can go home until you have left’. Horror of horrors! Behind me was a row of my hosts, standing in line to shake hands and bid me farewell.
Luckily they seem to have forgiven me (or perhaps tactfully chosen to forget?) because they are letting me come back. So if you’re free and in the neighbourhood this weekend, please come and say hi at the E4BT (English for Business and Technology) conference at the Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei Darussalam. And if not, I hope to return with some stories to tell.
I used to work in Japan where folks answer negative questions the other way round. I had conversations like this:
Me: Can I have everyone’s homework? <Hiroshi, looks flustered>Haven’t you done your homework, Hiroshi?
Hiroshi: Yes (meaning ‘Yes, I haven’t done it’)
Me: Oh good, can I have it then?
Hiroshi: <head tilted to the side and puzzled expression>
Me: Sorry? Didn’t you say you’d done it?
Hiroshi: Yes (meaning ’I didn’t say I’d done it’)
Me: Have you left it at home?
Hiroshi: <confused silence>
Hiroshi’s answers are compellingly logical – much more logical than mine if you think about it. Before I knew it, I was answering negative questions the Japanese way too. When I went back to the UK, it took me a couple of years to get my head back to a point where I could teach the English answers confidently in a classroom again.
Now the thing is, this was a structuring problem and it was pretty apparent to Hiroshi and myself that we had a problem here. But there are other things that can go on with negative questions to do with pragmatic force that are harder to spot.
For example, in the Slovak and Croatian languages (Slovak and Croatian speakers – please put me right if I’ve got this stuff wrong) they use negative questions a bit like we might use modals in British and American English to make a question more polite. We can do this in English too, as in a cooingly sympathetic ‘Oh, aren’t you feeling well?’. But more commonly we seem to use negative questions to express (mild) irritation or to indicate that something is not quite what we expect it to be. Eg compare the intent conveyed by ’Can you hurry up?’ and ‘Can’t you hurry up?’
In Slovak, I gather you’d use a negative question form to sound extra polite and friendly. So you might say things like ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’, and ‘Aren’t you ready yet?’ to enquire about someone’s progress when you want to sound extra pleasant. And obviously native English speakers hear this and think ‘Give us a chance!’ or ‘What are you breathing down my neck for?’
So there’s potential for some relationship damage here. If you don’t know what’s going on, it’s easy to conclude someone has a difficult personality or attitude.
Has anyone else got into trouble with negative questions?
My first teaching job was in Algeria. (For more on my first lesson, see here) It was a fantastic experience, but not without its hassles. I was an unveiled female in her twenties and when I did my shopping in the local market, I generally came back with a couple of bags of groceries and a dozen guys following me. They’d be calling things out to try to attract my attention and it wasn’t a very pleasant experience.
I was reminded of this when my daughter took me to Marrakesh last year. It was a wonderful holiday but my daughter is young and beautiful. She proved difficult to ignore so a stroll through the souk could be a bit trying.
One hot, dusty day we ducked into a shop. I was tired, feeling pestered and and bit irritable. The owner offered tea and made ready to engage in some haggling about a bag my daughter was interested in. I’d had some experience of Algerian hospitality and haggling and realised a refusal was – well, not quite right. But nevertheless I declined both offers. The shop keeper’s response was to patiently try to explain the customs to me and I felt a bit ashamed of myself.
Because haggling can be a fun rewarding game of course, if you’re in the mood and willing to engage. I wonder if it’s one that men are socialised to play more than women in the UK and US. (See here for an article that indicates it might impact on salaries.) So there may be gender differences and there are cultural differences, of course.
Haggling is essentially a conversational routine that’s built around a disagreement. I think something is worth X and you think it’s worth Y. Geoffrey Leech reckoned that politeness dictates that we:
‘Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.’
But there are two ways to look at disagreements. Yep, they can drive us apart, but they can also draw us together. It’s possible that through the process of argument and a bit of argey bargey, we can sometimes get to understand one another better and achieve a greater closeness.
And that can lead to a few culture clashes. At the risk of sweeping generalization, in Germany people may appreciate a long, frank exchange of views that enables them to become more informed of the issues. So a German team might want to thrash things out in greater detail than a French team, say, who might feel that agreeing to disagree is a more attractive solution.
Similarly, in Israel, disagreeing bluntly may build closeness and trust. The fact that one person can say disagreeable things to another can also signal solidarity – it indicates they think they are both the same kind of people and who want the same kind of things.
We know there’s tons of cultural variation in how people handle disagreements. In Brazil, a passionate argument may demonstrate healthy enthusiasm for an idea. In Singapore, emotional displays may be seen as a sign of weakness and a lack of control. In Japan, people may prefer to ask a string of questions rather than say they disagree.
But neverthless, on a hot, dusty day, haggling may be a conversational routine that much of the world would rather avoid.
I want to write about haggling and politeness. As time is pressing, I’m going to steal a leaf out of Ken Wilson’s book here and instead say: “Coming soon – something on haggling.”
And in the meantime, I have a taster to whet your whistles which is a lovely anecdote written by Chris. And I know this is getting to be a habit, but when Chris sends me inspirational anecdotes like this, it seems such a shame to leave them lolling about in the comments section. So here’s Chris on haggling:
My first big trip out of Europe was to Mexico and I found a really interesting guidebook before I went which was really a collection of anecdotes and stories rather than specific “go here do this”.
I decided that I wanted to buy a hammock during the trip and that I would need to haggle.
For months I researched everything there was to know about hammocks and identified the village way south where I would make the purchase and trained myself to recognise perfect weave, masterful technique and perfect balance.
My three month visit started in the North, after crossing the US border, and one idle afternoon waiting for a bus I found myself wandering in a small market and I decided to reinforce my knowledge of hammocks by looking at some examples.
I found some, fingered them, inspected them, separated fibres and then wandered off.
“Hey, gringo, you wanna but hammock”
‘No, gracias, it’s ok”‘
“I make special price..”
“No, it’s cool, I’m not interested, thanks.”
‘4oo pesos.”
“No, thanks, I’m really not interested.
“300 pesos’
“Thanks, it’s a really nice hammock but I don’t need it.’
“Ok, 200 pesos”
I really knew I was going to buy a hammock in the village that made the best ones in Mexico so I really wasn’t interested.
And I walked away.
“100 pesos”.
And I got on the bus.
And I sat there , looking out of the window, thinking about all the research I had done.
THAT hammock had ticked off against EVERY check that answered the question – is it the best?
Except – village.
I NEVER found another hammock even a bit close in the next three months of travel!
Thanks again Chris! And has anyone else had interesting haggling experiences?
Many thanks to Andy Hockley for sharing this lovely story:
I was once told by someone from one of the Baltic States (sadly I can’t remember which one), that it’s necessary in that culture to turn something down 3 times, and on the 4th go accept it. I probed into this as it sounded fascinating, and it appears that this number is fixed and you really really have to accept on the 4th go. So in fact it seemed to me that it was all an elaborate game with an unchanging outcome, but she assured me that it did work in practice. I still don’t really know how.
Fascinating indeed. I read somewhere about some Americans who had someone from Azerbaijan staying with them. Their guest seemed to settle in OK and she was very pleasant until it came to meal times. Whenever they offered her food or drink, she refused and they were getting worried. Did she not like their cooking or was it their company?
They later discovered that in Azerbaijan it’s customary practice to refuse an offer the first time it’s made. It’ll get repeated and you can accept it politely later. I’m not sure whether it was on a specific third or fourth time or just thereabouts, but clearly it’s a habit Azerbaijanis will want to lose fast when they’re travelling, or they’ll get very hungry.
I wanted to include the incident in a book, but finding an Azerbaijani accent was a bit of a challenge for the audio recording crew. A bit of invesitgation revealled similar things can happen in parts of China, but it seems to be associated with an older generation. And I gather similar things can happen in Iran too where it’s part of a broader system of T’aarof. But again, it’s disappearing with younger generations.
So if anyone knows of countries where this system is alive and well, please share. And I wonder, do you think younger generations in anglo English cultures might be getting more direct as well?
Knowing I’d love it, Chris Adams has kindly sent me this anecdote:
A friend, lets call him Geoff, who is a musician and lived at the time in Australia – a long way back. The Chieftans were on tour and somehow he met them and found out that the tin whistle player had lost, or forgotten his tin whistle – clearly a problem in a traditional irish band. Geoff is among other things a tin whistle player and said
“You can have mine if you like”
The Tin whistle player, brought up in anglo/irish/saxon politeness, said
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly”
Geoff brought up in Australian directness said.
‘Oh, ok.”
Ha! The intricacies of politeness confound again!
The politeness theorists reckon accepting an offer is rather like going into debt, and we seem to have all kinds of ways to handle it. Expressing gratitude is key, obviously, and building up the the value of the offer is a pretty common strategy. Treat them like they’re offering you an unacceptable million bucks rather than a penny whistle, and make them feel good. But it’s clearly a dangerous strategy in Australia.
When I was in Japan, I learnt a little phrase to use when I was giving my landlady gifts. It was a jolly useful thing to have up my sleeve after I’d transgressed. In fact it’s one of the few Japanese phrases I can remember today, and translated it went something like:
“It’s a humble little thing, but it’s for you.”
‘Humble’ and ‘little’ were appropriate descriptions for the gifts I was giving, but I gather the phrase was also employed with magnificent presents – so a Rolls Royce or diamond bracelet or something.
And there was a ritual that was supposed to go with it. As I recall (and readers in Japan – please correct me if I’ve got this wrong) the polite response from the receiver would be ‘Ee Eeya… Ee Eeya…’ while the gift-giver was supposed to say ‘Dozo… Dozo…’ . So there should be a kind of ‘No, I couldn’t possibly’ – But you must’ -type exchange, after which the gift would eventually be accepted with a ‘Domo arigato’.
My landlady was a wise woman who recognised the risks entailed in cross cultural communication. I may have learnt the phrase for offering the gift, but did that mean I would know the rest of the ritual? She never took chances. Each time I offered my gift, she said thank you and took it right away. I think she’d have thrived in Australia.
If you’re a company or government agency and your organization is having some communication problems, who do you call for help: a management consultant, or an occupational psychologist perhaps?
I’ve just come across a paper by Joanna Channell explaining why a linguist might be a better bet. She provides concrete examples of valuable help linguists have provided using approaches such as needs analysis, genre analysis, pragmatics, conversational analysis and corpus linguistics.
Joanna notes a culture gap between Language for Special Purposes practitioners and non-linguists:
Helpfully, she also suggests ways we might bridge the divide. Her advice seems very transferable to business English trainers, consultants and schools pitching to clients to me too. And as Joanna aptly puts it:
Learning to speak ‘merican is like trying to: catch the rain, nail jello to the wall, shoot pool with a rope, fold the New York Times in a high wind, leave New Orleans when a hurricane is coming, change the course of the Niagara Falls with a bucket…
However, one of the fun things about learning to speak ’merican is the metaphors. Here’s a lovely video in which James Geary points out that Elvis Presley was a master, along with some more serious stuff like:
Whenever we give a name that belongs to something else, we give it a whole network of analogies too, and these analogies influence the decisions we make.
AmE: American English.
BrE: British English.
- In the interests of brevity, I often use 'Americans' and 'Brits' to refer to the inhabitants of the USA and the UK. I beg the forbearance of South American, Canadian and British readers.
I was reminded of this when my daughter took me to Marrakesh last year. It was a wonderful holiday but my daughter is young and beautiful. She proved difficult to ignore so a stroll through the souk could be a bit trying.
If you’re a company or government agency and your organization is having some communication problems, who do you call for help: a management consultant, or an occupational psychologist perhaps?
