SOCIOLINGUISTICS
MASTERS OF ARTS IN APPLIED LINGÜSTICS FOR ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHING
Ms. Jennifer Elizabeth Megee MA.
Belinda María Franco Canales
03/03/2013
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
(Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching)
J.Keith Chick
This chapter of “Sociolinguistics and Language Teacher” ( Sandra Lee McKay and Nancy H.
Hornberger) intend to analyze the answers given to some frequent research questions about how
communication among people from different schematic and- systemic knowledge and through
the ethnography analysis of this different contexts could be affecting such communicative
process.
What are the sources of Intercultural miscommunication?
What are the social effects of such miscommunication?
What can be done to improve intercultural communication?
According sociolinguistics researchers, intercultural miscommunication is about different value
systems and dominant ideologies of cultural groups. Such dimensions of the social context shape
communicative conventions thereby giving them their culturally specific character.
Wolfson (1992,p.205) had found that in certain kind of cultures, people tend to thank, apologize
and even compliment on, in order to evaluate or being evaluated by members of different social
groups, for instance: status-equal friends, coworkers, and acquaintances in middle-class urban
American society to the configuration of social relations in that society.
Speech act studies and intercultural communication
Studies of speech acts constitute a subset of what Carbaugh to distinguish them from intercultural
communication studies terms cross cultural communication studies that studies that focus on a
particular feature of communication within and across cultures, (e..g., speech act performance,
choice of address terms and turn-taking conventions.
Conversely and according to Carbaugh, Intercultural communication studies are concerned with a
number of features of two cultural systems as they are used in a particular intercultural
encounter.
Here the author examines selected speech act studies and to illustrate how sociolinguistics
transfer can be a source of intercultural miscommunication first he explains what is Sociolinguistic
Transfer by giving this example: This Sociolinguistic transfer can occur in interactions in which one
or more of the interlocutors is using a foreign/ second language but employing the rules of
speaking of his or her native language; and this may occur even between people with the same
native languages but belong to different speech communities. (British and Americans for instance).
Some other examples of miscommunication are provided by Saville-Troike which are very similar
to this one.
In this study the author compliment responding behavior suggests that, quite apart from
differences in the overall or gross frequencies of performance of particular speech acts by
different cultural groups, different frequencies of choices of different strategies for realizing such
speech acts are potential sources of intercultural miscommunication.
According to the author and his objectives the study were to establish whether Herbert´s finding
about the responses of white middle-class South Africans are generalizable beyond the University
of the Witwatersrand campus were his data were collected. Herbert (1985, p.80) reports that he
coded such responses on the basis of “perceived intention” .
The author tried to replicate Herbert method of data collection and analysis as far as possible.
The results revealed, amongst other things, significant differences in the frequency of use of
response strategies by different panethnic groups (so-called white, Indian, and black South
Africans) . A table given for the author of this study provides some other interesting information
about this significant differences for example the distribution of compliment responses type for
each panethnic group when interacting intraculturally.
Another potential source of intercultural miscommunication suggested by the results is the
difference in the frequency of choice of the compliment response strategy of
no
acknowledgement which represents the absence of response.
In this particular study another source of miscommunication found was a mismatch of
interpretative frames of reference because of the ethnically diverse origin of the students.
Interactional Sociolinguistics and Intercultural communication
All the studies analyzed in this chapter allows researchers to be aware of a variety of finding about
trends or patterns in sociolinguistic behavior over a great number of encounters and to make
generalizations about how such behavior varies across societies. These studies allow s to trace
connections on the one hand between patterns of sociolinguistic behavior ideologies and societal
structures and on the other hand between these patterns and negative cultural stereotypes that
may arise from intercultural miscommunication. However such studies for the most part allow
researchers to identify only what might be a source of intercultural communication; they do not
show usually allow researchers to identify what actually are the sources of such
miscommunication in any one intercultural encounter. But they do not show the cumulative
effect of multiple sources of intercultural miscommunication. So, this is where interactional
sociolinguistic studies of intercultural communication play a useful complementary role.
Interactional Sociolinguistics attempt to reduce idealization of data as much as possible by
analyzing, in fine detail, only a limited number of conversations or substantial episodes within
conversations. This is to avoid imposing personal categories but trying to find interpretative or
inferential processes of the interlocutors by playing recording (previously taken) to the
interlocutors and to informants who share the cultural background of the interlocutors and then
eliciting their interpretations about progressively finer details of the discourse.
In her investigation the author mention as another source of miscommunication was mismatching
of interpretative frames of reference among native South African English speakers and another no
native speakers group.
Critique of sociolinguistic studies of intercultural communication
As in the most of the topics there are always critiques. In this case controversy about whether, on
balance, such research contributes to positive social change or whether it re-enforces the status
quo.
Fairclough, comments on the “general insensitivity of sociolinguistics towards its own relationship
to the sociolinguistics orders it seeks to describe” (1989, p.8) and the danger that such description
may serve to legitimize the facts and the social relations of power associated with them. What
presumably makes this danger particularly real is that the “objective” stance taken by
sociolinguistics imparts authority to their observations.
Singh, Lele and Marthohardjono (1988, p.51) note that nearly all sociolinguistic studies of
intercultural communication focus on minority speakers being misunderstood by majority hearers,
and they argue that “the fact that the construals of the dominated minority are almost entirely left
out of their accounts suggests quite strongly that they are not only tolerant of the expectations of
the powerful but are also willing to obligate them by justifying them with what they call linguistic
evidence” .
This criticism suggest that if sociolinguistics wish their studies of intercultural communication to be
used for emancipatory rather than hegemonic purposes, they need to emphasize, more than they
have tend to do in the past, relationships between sociolinguistic conventions and the social order
(especially social relations of power).
Towards more effective intercultural communication.
Even some may think sociolinguistics have been slow to address important questions, all the
studies provides important useful guidelines that would help and benefit teachers and learners as
well.
However, while ruling out the teaching of the sociolinguistic rules, it is argued that these rules can
be learnt in an ongoing process. As an example of this, it is suggested to facilitate learning, to
involve both learners and native speakers in evaluative discussions of interethnic encounters in
which they have participated, in order to raise their awareness of their own contributions to
miscommunication.
To move beyond these suggestions provided by sociolinguistics and to profit from the critique of
sociolinguistics studies referred to earlier, the author states that it is necessary to foster not
merely awareness but also critical awareness.
Learners need to be aware that such conventions reflect assumptions about social relations and
values, and that one of the ways in which groups establish and maintain their dominance is
through getting their sociolinguistic conventions (and so, too, the social relations and values
associated with them) accepted as “appropriate” in particular domains.
Application in everyday life.
Regarding sociolinguistics in this particular view of the intercultural communication, the first
thought comes to my mind is: how to have a better understanding of another different language. I
am a learner of English language and it is really important for me to understand how culture has to
do with my own understanding of the world in “English” . It is really important to know how
people think in other different places, how they understand the world in order to understand
them and their own world. In my view knowledge is a kind of magic power and even when this
expression may seems a kind of malevolent, for me is the key to have a better communication
with people. We have misunderstandings not only because we are speaking a not native
language, we have a lot of miscommunication or misunderstanding troubles because we ignore
how people think and how they perceive the world. As much knowledge we could achieve about
how our society works we have a better opportunity to interact with it.
In other words, people interact and communicate and when this process is effective people
learn.
I love to learn.
References
Chick, J. K. (1995) Intercultural communication. Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, 10
(329-348)