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11. Discourse Features

The document discusses the significance of discourse features in intercultural communication, emphasizing that language is more than a mere communication tool and must be understood within cultural contexts. It highlights the complexities of discourse analysis, including various text types and the impact of cultural differences on writing styles and rhetorical conventions. Additionally, it outlines how different languages exhibit unique organizational patterns and reader/writer responsibilities, which can affect comprehension and communication across cultures.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
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11. Discourse Features

The document discusses the significance of discourse features in intercultural communication, emphasizing that language is more than a mere communication tool and must be understood within cultural contexts. It highlights the complexities of discourse analysis, including various text types and the impact of cultural differences on writing styles and rhetorical conventions. Additionally, it outlines how different languages exhibit unique organizational patterns and reader/writer responsibilities, which can affect comprehension and communication across cultures.

Uploaded by

lesilotti528
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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11. Discuss the role of discourse features in intercultural communication.

Illustrate your points by referring to concrete texts or text types.

1. Recap on Discourse:
- Bennett on being a fluent fool (1997)
o fluent fool = sees the surface elements, but not the underlying ones, they only
view language as a communication tool, nothing more
 languages are sets of words tied together by rules and easy to acquire
 not understand the social/philosophical content of the language
 can get into trouble and so might develop negative opinions
 to avoid: we need to understand more completely the cultural
dimension of language
- language is not just a tool of communication. If we regard it that, we’ll end up a fluent
fool unable to adapt to situations, understand values, etc.
- to avoid becoming a fluent fool we need to understand:
o cultural context of behaviour and language used in particular situations and the
way language represents contextual features,
o thinking and wording how language influences the way we experience
o Contextual features influencing language use can be
 content related: i.e., the socially/culturally condoned elements of
specific interactions. These depend on the genre, the specific
communicative purpose and situation, and the interactants
 structural: related to coherence, cohesion, text structure, grammar

2. Discourse:
- the text of a communication event; text in context
- Text types, Genres (formal – informal division in all of these):
o writing types: school writing, academic, professional, business, technical,
informative, creative, note taking, note making, etc.
o written genres: contract, letter (formal - informal), article, essay, report,
review, thesis, ….
o oral: monologues (presentation, lecture) or dialogues (chit-chat, conversation,
interview, discussion, negotiation)
o mixed genres: chat, social media, etc. using oral style in writing
- Discourse analysis examines:
o structure (organisation, coherence, cohesion, deixis, substitution, ellipsis, etc.)
o function (content, style, relevance, efficiency, appropriacy, etc.)
- it is a complex area of study and draws on numerous other disciplines, e.g.:
o linguistics (syntax, semiotics, cohesion,)
o applied linguistics (sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, stylistics,)
o social sciences (cultural studies, psychology, anthropology, media studies,)
- Types of analysis: Thematic analysis, Content analysis, Structural analysis,
Conversational analysis (the analysis of oral dialogic interaction), multimodal
analysis, etc.

3. Cross Cultural differences in creating discourse:


- Kaplan: fallacy = assumes that because a student can write an adequate essay in his
native language, he can necessarily write an adequate essay in a second language.
o foreign students who have mastered syntactic structures have still
demonstrated inability to compose term papers, theses, and dissertations.
o material is here, but it seems out of focus,’ or ‘Lacks organization/cohesion.’
o the foreign-student paper is out of focus because the foreign student is
employing a sequence of thought of their native language which violates the
expectations of the native reader.”
- every language is translatable, but there is always some loss involved
o an utterance that is completely natural in one language may be completely
unmanageable in another → language influences thought
o weaker version of the Whorfian hypothesis1 -> we share the same
conceptualizing capacity but not the same system
- logic (and thus rhetoric, too) is also not universal, but is culturally determined
o affected by canons of taste within a given culture at a given time

3.1. Contrastive Rhetoric:


 Establishment of the discipline of Contrastive rhetoric: Kaplan’s (1966) article
o basic assumptions: rhetoric is culturally determined + a pure (sentence-level)
linguistic analysis is not enough to analyze/understand text and writing → the
analysis should go beyond the sentence level to the discourse/text level
 an area of research in second language acquisition that identifies problems in
composition encountered by second language writers and, by referring to the
rhetorical strategies of the first language, attempts to explain them.
 Kaplan’s (1966, p.15) conception of the rhetorical conventions of languages
(paragraph development) = culture-specific patterns of organization
o Anglo-European: linear development (topic sentence + support);
1
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis/linguistic relativity = No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered
as representing the same reality.
strong version: the language we speak determines the way we think, and thus what we can think. -> NOT
TRUE: because then we would not be able to speak foreign languages
o Semitic languages: series of parallel coordinate clauses;
o Oriental languages: indirect approach, point only at end (writing in “circles”);
o Romance languages and Russian: permit a degree of digressiveness

 implications of Kaplan’s ideas:


o there may be differences in writing styles across cultures;
o the rhetorical conventions of the students’ L1 may interfere with their
ESL/EFL writing;
o be made aware of the rhetorical conventions of the SL/FL they are studying

3.2. Differences between languages:


 Reader vs. Writer responsibility (Hinds, 1987)
o reader-responsible text: requires the reader to make sense of the text by
recognizing its internal cohesion and infer some of the meaning.
o writer-responsible text: provides clear indications of coherence and meaning.
This makes the text easier for the reader to process.
 Some differences of text organisation (Connor, 1996):
o Arabic:
 preference for coordination (vs. subordination in English)
 preference for parallel constructions on the discourse level, too
 role of repetition (as an argumentative strategy) is very strong at all
levels of language: morphological, word, phrase, clause, discourse
 style is influenced by the forms of classical Arabic, found in the Koran
o Chinese
 characterized by the four-part pattern of the qi-cheng-jun-he (intro,
development, turn to a somewhat unrelated topic, conclusion)
 indirectness: they “suggest” → the subject is not discussed directly but
is approached from a variety of indirectly related views
 indirectness result from a culturally different conception of the self:
individualism (direct/free communication) is seen as problematic
 arguments are delayed, include narration, refers to historical texts,
proverbs = to enliven discourse (= distractions to the Western reader)
o Japanese
 characterized by the four-unit pattern of the ki-shoo-ten-ketsu
of the text ⇒ incoherent for Western readers
 ten part = material with connection but no direct association to the rest

 “reader-responsible” texts
 purpose of text is often implied and not stated

o Korean
 characterized by the four-unit pattern of the ki-sung-chon-kyul

conclusion) ⇒ may read incoherent for Western readers


(introduction, development, turn to a somewhat unrelated topic,

 mostly non-linear, thesis statement at the end of text ⇒ indirectness


o German
 favour digression (in contrast to the English linear development)
 focuses on content (over form)
 the reader is expected to make the connections → “reader-responsible”
o Finnish
 texts are organized inductively (main point made at the end)
 writers “suggest” ideas and do not spell them out directly → “reader-
responsible” ( = being reader respectful)
o Spanish: writers prefer elaborate and ornate language
o Czech
 German style influences Czech scholarly writing (syntactic complexity,
nominalizations, overloaded phrases)
 statement of purpose is generally delayed
 reader-responsible nature of texts (like in Finnish)

- Examples of differences between genre content – the use of different textual rituals:
o letter of complaint
 English: describe problem, ask for solution
 Hungarian: describe problem, ask for solution, refer to rights
o letter of apology
 English: express sorrow/sympathy, admit responsibility, offer remedy
 Hungarian: express sorrow/sympathy, offer remedy

4. Typical text structure in English:


- actual use of the ‘Introduction-Body-Conclusion’ structure is heavily genre-dependent.
- INTRODUCTION
o attention-getter (anecdote, rhetorical question, statistics, quotation)
o transition ("This reminds me of...", “It follows logically that…”)
o stating and defining the topic
o justifying the importance of the topic
o preview (logical grouping of ideas) [The TELL-TELL-TELL method: tell the
audience what you are going to tell them]
- BODY (tell them what you want to tell them)
o thesis (argument) + supporting evidence + illustration
o body should be clearly organised around the main points. Where relevant,
internal summaries and transitions should be used.
- CONCLUSION
o NOT: the solution, the last idea in the text, a simple line, such as: “That’s all I
have to say.”
o separate section in the text consisting of: summary (tell them what you told
them) + effective reinforcement + (leave-taking)

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