Dialogue and Culture

Dialogue Studies (DS)

Dialogue Studies takes the notion of dialogicity as central; it encompasses every type
of language use, workaday, institutional and literary. By covering the whole range of
language use, the growing field of dialogue studies comes close to pragmatics and
studies in discourse or conversation. The concept of dialogicity, however, provides
a clear methodological profile. The series aims to cross disciplinary boundaries
and considers a genuinely inter-disciplinary approach necessary for addressing the
complex phenomenon of dialogic language use. This peer reviewed series will include
monographs, thematic collections of articles, and textbooks in the relevant areas.

Editor
Edda Weigand
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Editorial Advisory Board

Adelino Cattani Marion Grein Anne-Marie Söderberg
Università di Padova University of Mainz Copenhagen Business
School
Kenneth N. Cissna Fritjof Haft
University of South Florida University of Tübingen Talbot J. Taylor
College of William and
Světla Čmejrková John E. Joseph
Mary
Czech Language Institute University of Edinburgh
Wolfgang Teubert
François Cooren Werner Kallmeyer
University of Birmingham
Université de Montréal University of Mannheim
Linda R. Waugh
Robert T. Craig Catherine Kerbrat-
University of Arizona
University of Colorado at Orecchioni
Boulder Université Lyon 2 Elda Weizman
Bar Ilan University
Marcelo Dascal Geoffrey Sampson
Tel Aviv University University of Sussex Yorick Wilks
University of Sheffield
Valeri Demiankov Masayoshi Shibatani
Russian Academy of Sciences Rice University

Volume 1
Dialogue and Culture
Edited by Marion Grein and Edda Weigand
Dialogue and Culture

Edited by

Marion Grein
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz

Edda Weigand
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam / Philadelphia
 TM
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dialogue and culture / edited by Marion Grein, Edda Weigand.

p. cm. (Dialogue Studies, issn 1875-1792 ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language and culture. 2. Biolinguistics. 3. Dialogue analysis. 4. Intercultural
communication. 5. Speech acts (Linguistics) I. Grein, Marion, 1966- II.
Weigand, Edda.
P35.D46    2007
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isbn 978 90 272 1018 0 (Hb; alk. paper)

© 2007 – John Benjamins B.V.

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 Preface to the Series

Dialogue Studies is an interdisciplinary series that takes the notion of dialogicity

as central to the understanding of language; it starts from the classical view of
‘language as dialogically directed’ and encompasses every type of language use,
workaday, institutional and literary.
By covering the whole range of language use, the growing field of dialogue
studies comes close to pragmatics and studies in discourse or conversation. The
concept of dialogicity, however, provides a clear methodological profile and
allows us to structure the pragmatic ‘perspective’ and the ‘pan-discipline’ of
discourse. It focuses on methodological premises such as: action and reaction; the
integration of the human abilities of speaking, thinking and perceiving; dialogic
interaction as the intentional effort to pursue definable goals and interests.
The series aims to cross disciplinary boundaries and considers a genuinely
interdisciplinary approach necessary in order to address the complex phenomenon
of dialogic language use. All disciplines that deal with the human ability of
dialogic interaction from different perspectives, in everyday interaction as well as
in institutional contexts, are addressed: linguistics, philosophy, psychology,
sociology, rhetoric, anthropology, applied linguistics, culture sciences, the media
sciences, economics, jurisprudence.
The current state of research in science in general is characterized by a
turning point from closed rule-governed models to open models of probability. In
this sense, Dialogue Studies aims to support new ways of theorizing and opens up
innovative cross-disciplinary advances in the complex. The series will be of
interest to existing theoretical approaches to competence as well as empirical
approaches to performance and bridges the gap between competence and
performance by focusing on human beings and their competence-in-performance.
Contributions to this peer reviewed series are invited for monographs,
thematic collections of articles, reference books and introductory textbooks in the
relevant areas.

Münster, August 2007 Edda Weigand

 Table of Contents

Introduction IX

PART I
Language, Biology and Culture: The crucial debate

Minds in Uniform 3
How generative linguistics regiments culture and why it shouldn’t
Geoffrey Sampson

The Sociobiology of Language 27

Edda Weigand

PART II
Theoretical Positions

Some General Thoughts about Linguistic Typology 53

and Dialogue Linguistics
Walter Bisang

Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 73

Svĕtla Čmejrková

The Speech Act of Refusals within the Minimal Action Game 95

A comparative study of German and Japanese
Marion Grein

Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American English 115

Dialogues
Caroline E. Nash

Quantity Scales 141

Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms
Elda Weizman
VIII Table of Contents

PART III
Empirically Oriented Studies of the ‘Mixed Game’
Specific action games, politeness and selected verbal means of
communication

Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 155

An analysis in healthcare multicultural settings
Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 177

Sebastian Feller

Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 191

Cultural differences between Korean and German
Yongkil Cho

How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 213

The unwritten rules in a language: An analysis of spoken Sinhala
Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 227

Ksenia M. Shilikhina

Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 239

Michael Walrod

General Index 257

List of Contributors 261

 Introduction

The core of this volume is made up of a strict selection of contributions to an

IADA workshop on “Dialogue and Culture”, organized in September 2006 by
Walter Bisang and Marion Grein at the University of Mainz. The selection of the
papers is guided by a unified conception pursuing a double goal, namely to cover
the issue in general as represented in the research discussion and to focus in
particular on one group of approaches which starts from the interaction of
different components in what might be called ‘the mixed game’. In order to
present such a concept it was advisable to invite some contributors who did not
participate in the workshop.
There are today approximately 6900 languages spoken in our world. Dialogue
across the boundaries of languages, countries and cultures has become an
unavoidable necessity of our life in the 21st century. Cross-disciplinary research is
called upon to tackle the big questions of how human beings come to grips with
the complex challenge of various types of dialogic interaction in ever-changing
surroundings. Looking at the state of the art in the field of ‘dialogue and culture’
we might be baffled by the multiple and in part extreme and controversial
positions taken. At the centre we are faced with what has been called the
‘language-instinct debate’, a debate between two extreme positions, the nativist
and the empiricist, concerning the issue of what determines language. This debate
is dealt with in the first part of this volume by Sampson’s radical position, on the
one hand, and Weigand’s mediating position of sociobiology, on the other hand.
These two contributions set the framework of the discussion about ‘dialogue and
culture’.
In Part II the focus is on different theoretical positions, and some more
empirically oriented studies are presented in Part III. All of these papers,
theoretical as well as empirical, belong, to some extent, to an approach which
focuses on the interaction of components in the mixed game.
The ‘theoretical positions’ in Part II include the following: Bisang weaves
language typology into the study of intercultural dialogue. Čmejrková investigates
the relationship between culture and academic discourse by providing an
intercultural perspective on writer/reader dialogical communication. She maps the
situation in Slavic languages, Czech and Russian, and compares it with English.
Grein applies the so-called minimal action game, an enhancement of Searle’s
speech act theory, and demonstrates differences between the speech act of refusal
among German and Japanese speaker. Nash incorporates nonverbal components
into her research and reveals interesting facts about the relationship between
language and culture. She limits her scope to certain hand and head gestures and
X Marion Grein & Edda Weigand

some gaze behaviour patterns among French, Japanese and Americans. Weizman
re-interprets culture-dependent discourse norms and examines them in terms of
Grice’s maxim of quantity. She refers to discourse in American and Australian
English, Canadian French, Israeli Hebrew and Japanese.
Part III presents empirical studies of the ‘mixed game’ which focus on
specific action games, on the action component of politeness and on selected
verbal means of communication. Baraldi & Gavioli carry out research on
institutional talk in naturally-occurring encounters in Italian healthcare settings
involving speakers of different languages and an interpreter providing translation
service. The study is based on the analysis of 110 encounters, 60 involving
English and Italian and 50 involving Arabic and Italian. The institutional
representatives are Italian, the patients are from North and Central Africa or from
the Middle-East countries. Feller compares, using a number of different exam-
ples, the verbal greeting behaviour of members of the Peruvian, the Californian
and the German cultures, applying the approach of the minimal action game.
Further empirical studies are merged under the headings of ‘politeness’ and
‘selected verbal means of communication’. Cho presents an empirical study on
the speech act of rejection among Germans and Koreans and focuses on the
category of honorifics and different functions of politeness. Premawardhena
shows how politeness and cultural values are reflected in Sinhala, the major
language spoken in Sri Lanka, taking examples from existing corpora. She also
demonstrates how these linguistic values are transferred to Sri Lankan English.
Shilikhina illuminates communicative mistakes in dialogues between English and
Russian speakers and separates them into pragmatic and cultural mistakes. It
would, for instance, be a pragmatic mistake to interpret the Russian use of
imperative constructions in a situation of a request as straightforward while in
English the conventional form requires the question form of asking a favour. On
the other hand, it would be a cultural mistake to show negative emotions in
public. Drawing on data from Ga’dang, Walrod illustrates how diverse the
external linguistic forms employed in the action game can be. Walrod claims that
the design principles of the overall environment in which human communication
takes place need also be considered when seeking to explain similarities among
languages.
The contributions thus shed light on how human beings as cultural beings act
and behave in the mixed game of dialogic interaction. They contribute to a view
of dialogue as culturally based interaction which comes about not by the addition
of parts but by the interaction of components in the mixed game. The concept of
culture emerges as an internal concept inherent to human beings in general as well
as being individually shaped, and as an external concept evident in habits and
cultural conventions.
Finally, there remains the pleasant duty to thank all those who helped to make
the workshop and the publication of the papers possible. We would like to name
the University of Mainz for providing the facilities required for the organization
 Introduction XI

of the workshop, Anke de Looper and the John Benjamins Publishing Company
for accompanying the publication process with useful advice and encouragement,
Oliver Richter, Bérénice Walther and Sonja Lux for helping to facilitate the
formatting process.

Mainz & Münster, August 2007 Marion Grein & Edda Weigand
 PART I

Language, Biology and Culture

The crucial debate

 Minds in Uniform
How generative linguistics regiments culture, and why it shouldn’t

Geoffrey Sampson
University of Sussex

Linguistic theory is often seen as ethically neutral. But it provides apparent justification
for a fashionable model of cognition which threatens the flourishing of the human spirit.
According to Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky, language evidence shows that genetics
constrains the structure and contents of thought as rigidly as the shape and functioning
of the body. This idea harmonizes with recent legal and political developments, under
which distinctive cultural norms evolved by independent societies are being swept aside
in favour of enforcement of aprioristic systems. The Pinker/Chomsky model of
cognition is baseless. It rests chiefly not on empirical observation but on surmises about
language behaviour; now that corpus data are allowing us to check these surmises, they
turn out to be wildly wrong. If our genes do not constrain our ideas, we cannot assume
that the belief-system of Western societies anno 2007 is the last word in human
intellectual development.

1. Trivializing cultural differences

Practitioners of theoretical linguistics often think of their subject as exempt from

the ethical implications which loom large in most branches of social studies.
Publications in linguistic theory tend to share the abstract formal quality of
mathematical writing, so people imagine that linguistics is as ethically neutral as
maths. They are wrong. One of the most significant functions of modern
generative linguistic theory is to create a spurious intellectual justification for a
poisonous aspect of modern life which has become widespread for non-
intellectual reasons: the trivialization of cultural differences between separate
human groups. People nowadays do not merely see the cultures that exist today as
fairly similar to one another (which, because of modern technology, they often
are), but they fail to recognize even the possibility of deep cultural differences.
They do not conceive of how alien to us, mentally as well as physically, the life of
our predecessors was a few centuries ago, and the life of our successors in time to
come may be.
Most people with this short-sighted outlook hold it out of simple ignorance.
But generative linguistics is creating reasons for saying that it is the correct
outlook. Cultures really are not and cannot be all that diverse, if we believe the
4 Geoffrey Sampson

message of Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct”, and of the linguists such as
Noam Chomsky from whom Pinker draws his ideas.

2. An earlier consensus

It is ironic that the linguistics of recent decades has encouraged this point of view,
because when synchronic linguistics got started, about the beginning of the 20th
century, and for long afterwards, its main function was – and was seen as –
helping to demonstrate how large the cultural differences are between different
human groups. The pioneer of synchronic linguistics in North America was the
anthropologist Franz Boas (1932:258), who was explicit about the fact that
cultural differences often go deeper than laymen at the time tended to appreciate:
… forms of thought and action which we are inclined to consider as based on human
nature are not generally valid, but characteristic of our specific culture. If this were not
so, we could not understand why certain aspects of mental life that are characteristic of
the Old World should be entirely or almost entirely absent in aboriginal America. An
example is the contrast between the fundamental idea of judicial procedure in Africa and
America; the emphasis on oath and ordeal as parts of judicial procedure in the Old
World, their absence in the New World.

It is indicative that, in Britain, the first chair of linguistics to be established was

located at the School of Oriental and African Studies, an institution which had
been founded to encourage study of the diverse cultures of the non-Western
world. Standard undergraduate textbooks of linguistics emphasized the
significance of structural diversity among languages as a mirror of intellectual
diversity among cultures. For instance, H.A. Gleason (1969:7-8) wrote:
In learning a second language … [y]ou will have to make … changes in habits of
thought and of description of situations in many … instances. … In some languages,
situations are not analyzed, as they are in English, in terms of an actor and an action.
Instead the fundamental cleavage runs in a different direction and cannot be easily stated
in English.

And this idea that human cultural differences can run deep was widely accepted
as uncontroversial by educated people whose special expertise had nothing
particularly to do with anthropology or with linguistics. To take an example at
random from my recent reading, when the historian W.L. Warren discussed the
12th-century Anglo-Norman king Henry II’s dealings with the neighbouring
Celtic nations of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, he found it important to begin by
explaining fundamental conceptual differences between Celtic and post-
Carolingian-European world-views.
Institutions (such as kingship) which look at first sight familiar were in fact differently
put together and informed by different traditions and habits. We are so accustomed to
seeing social institutions closely integrated with political institutions … that it is difficult
to comprehend the development of a far from primitive and reasonably stable society in
which political institutions were of comparatively minor importance. … [In England and
 Minds in Uniform 5

Continental Europe] Political order was … made the groundwork of social stability and
progress. But this pattern was not inevitable. The Celtic world found an alternative to
political peace as the basis for an ordered social life (Warren 1973:151-152).

At the turn of the millennium, we all know that there are many ways in which our
modern circumstances make it difficult for people to understand the possibilities
of cultural diversity. Because of technology, people increasingly live clustered
together in towns – I believe the majority of human beings in the world are now
urban- rather than rural-dwellers, for the first time in human history – and modern
media are tending to link the populations of the world together into a single
‘global village’. Youngsters in different countries, whose parents or grandparents
might have had scarcely any cultural reference points in common, nowadays often
spend much of their time listening to the same pop songs and watching the same
films. In the past, the chief way in which educated Europeans encountered the
details of civilizations radically different from their own was through intensive
study of the classics; you cannot spend years learning about ancient Greece or
Rome and still suppose that modern Europe or the USA represent the only
possible models for successful societies, even if you happen to prefer the modern
models. But in recent decades the number of schoolchildren getting more than (at
most) a brief exposure to Latin or Greek has shrunk to a vanishingly small
minority in Britain, and I suspect elsewhere also.
Perhaps most important of all, the internet and the World Wide Web have
brought about a sudden foreshortening of people’s mental time horizons. While
the usual way for a student to get information was through a library, it was about
as easy for him to look at a fifty- or hundred-year-old book as a two- or three-
year-old one. Now that everyone uses the Web, the pre-Web world is becoming
relegated to a shadowy existence. Everyone knows it was there, any adult
remembers chunks of it, but in practice it just is not accessible in detail in the way
that the world of the last few years is. And when Tim Berners-Lee invented the
Web in 1993, urbanization and globalization had already happened. So,
nowadays, it really is hard for rising generations to get their minds round the idea
that the way we live now is not the only possible way for human beings to live.
If this is hard, then so much the more reason for academics to put effort into
helping people grasp the potential diversity of human cultures. After all, even
someone who is thoroughly glad to have been born in our time, and who feels no
wistfulness about any features of past or remote present-day societies, surely
hopes that life for future generations will be better still. I do not meet many
people who find life at the beginning of the 21st century so wonderful in all
respects that improvement is inconceivable. But how can we hope to chart
positive ways forward into the future, if we have no sense that there is a wide
range of alternatives to our current reality? If external circumstances nowadays
happen to be making it difficult for people to understand that cultures can differ
widely, then explaining and demonstrating this becomes a specially urgent task
for the academic profession.
6 Geoffrey Sampson

3. Generative linguistics as a theory of human nature

Unfortunately, generative linguistics is doing just the opposite of this. Linguists

like Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky have been giving us spurious, pseudo-
intellectual reasons to believe that human monoculture really is inevitable. And
although, scientifically speaking, their arguments are junk, our modern external
circumstances have caused them to receive far more credence than they deserve.
For a full justification of my statement that the generative linguistic theory of
human nature is junk, I must refer readers to my book “The Language Instinct
Debate”. Pinker and other generative linguists deploy a wide range of arguments
to make their point of view seem convincing; in “The Language Instinct Debate” I
go through these argument systematically and analyse the logical fallacies and
false premisses which in each case destroy their force – but I have no space to
recapitulate all that here (though I shall discuss some particularly interesting
material below). What is more important here is to explain how the generative
linguists’ account of human nature relates to the question of cultural diversity.
On the face of it one might not see much link between a technical theory
about structural universals of language, and ideas about the nonexistence of
genuine cultural diversity with respect to vital areas such as law or government. A
typical finding of generative linguistics is that grammatical rules in all languages
are what is called “structure-dependent” (cf. Chomsky 1968:51). So for instance,
a language might have a grammar rule which turns statements into questions by
shifting the main verb to the beginning, as many European languages have: the
German statement Der Mann, den du eingeladen hast, bleibt in der Küche (“The
man you invited will remain in the kitchen”) becomes the question Bleibt der
Mann, den du eingeladen hast, in der Küche? (“Does the man you invited remain
in the kitchen”) – where the concept ‘main verb’, which picks out the word bleibt
(“remains”) in this case, is a concept that depends on the grammatical structure of
the whole sentence. But (the claim is) no human language has – or could have – a
rule that forms questions by moving the first verb of the statement, so that instead
of asking Bleibt der Mann, den du eingeladen hast, in der Küche? (“Does the man
you invited remain in the kitchen”) you would ask Hast der Mann, den du
eingeladen, bleibt in der Küche? (“Has the man you invited remain in the
kitchen”). From an abstract, computational point of view, identifying the first verb
is a much simpler operation to define than identifying the main verb, so you might
think it should be a commoner kind of rule to find among the languages of the
world. But identifying the first verb in a sentence is an operation which is
independent of the grammatical structure into which the individual words are
grouped; so, instead of being a common type of rule, according to generative
linguistics it never occurs at all.
Many people can accept this idea that there are universal constraints on the
diversity of grammatical rules, as an interesting and possibly true finding of
technical linguistic theory, without feeling that it threatens (or even relates in any
 Minds in Uniform 7

way to) humanly-significant aspects of cultural diversity. Grammar in our

languages is like plumbing in our houses: it needs to be there, but most people
really are not interested in thinking about the details. The humanly significant
things that happen in houses are things that happen in the dining room, the
drawing room, and undoubtedly in the bedrooms, but not in the pipes behind the
walls. Many generative linguists undoubtedly see themselves as cultivating a
subject that is as self-contained as plumbing is: they themselves are professionally
interested in language structure and only in language structure.
But the leaders of the profession do not see things that way at all. For Pinker,
and for Chomsky, language structure is interesting because it is seen as a specially
clear kind of evidence about human cognition in a far broader sense. The fact that
grammar is a rather exact field makes it relatively easy to formalize and test
theories about grammatical universals. Other aspects of culture, which may have
greater human significance, often have a somewhat woolly quality that makes it
harder to pin them down mathematically or scientifically. But the value of
generative linguistics, for the leaders of the field, lies in the light it sheds on these
broader areas of cognition and culture.
So, for instance, Chomsky used linguistics to argue that the range of
humanly-possible art forms is fixed by our biology: if a lot of modern art seems
rubbishy and silly, that may be because we have already exhausted the
biologically-available possibilities, leaving no way for contemporary artists to
innovate other than by “Mockery of conventions that are, ultimately, grounded in
human cognitive capacity”, as he wrote in (1976:125). And similarly, Chomsky
felt, the general human enterprise of scientific discovery is limited to trying out a
fixed range of theories which our biology makes available to us, and which can by
no means be expected to include the truth about various topics – he wrote
“Thinking of humans as biological organisms … it is only a lucky accident if their
cognitive capacity happens to be well matched to scientific truth in some area”
(Chomsky 1976:25).
Likewise, although the bulk of Pinker’s book “The Language Instinct” is
obviously about language, what it leads up to is a final chapter, ‘Mind Design’,
which uses what has gone before as the basis for a far more wide-ranging account
of the fixity of human cognition and culture. Pinker refers at length to a book by
the social anthropologist Donald Brown (1991) “Human Universals”, in order to
argue that alongside Chomsky’s ‘UG’ or Universal Grammar we need to
recognize a ‘UP’, or Universal People – behind the apparent diversity of human
cultures described by anthropologists lie hundreds of cultural universals, which
Pinker specifies via a list of headings that stretches over several pages. In an
important sense, human beings don’t really have different cultures – in the picture
Pinker presents, human beings share one culture, but with superficial local
variations (just as, from Chomsky’s point of view, we do not really speak
different languages – for Chomsky it would be more accurate to say that we all
speak essentially one language, though with superficial local differences, cf.
8 Geoffrey Sampson

Chomsky 1991:26). And having established his reputation with “The Language
Instinct”, Pinker in his most important subsequent books, “How the Mind Works”
(1997) and “The Blank Slate” (2002), moves well beyond language to develop in
a much more general way this idea that human cognitive life is as biologically
determined as human anatomy.
Furthermore, it is clear that it is these broader implications which have
allowed generative linguistics to make the impact it has achieved on the
intellectual scene generally. We often hear findings that, by this or that measure,
Noam Chomsky is the world’s most influential living intellectual (most recently,
for instance, an international survey published in October 2005 by the magazine
“Prospect” www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/intellectuals/results). No-one could
conceivably attain that status merely via analysis of grammatical structure, no
matter how original. In Chomsky’s case, of course, his status derives in large part
from his interventions in concrete political affairs, which are arguably a rather
separate matter from his theoretical positions. But Steven Pinker himself attained
a very respectable 26th position in the same “Prospect” poll, and Pinker is not
known for political activities. So far as the general public is concerned, the
importance of generative linguistics has to do with much more than just language.

4. Cognitive constraints and cultural universalism

Once one grants the idea that biology makes only a limited range of cultural
possibilities available to us, it is a short step to saying that a unique set of optimal
social arrangements can be identified which in principle are valid for all humans
everywhere. We can’t expect that primitive, economically-backward human
groups will have found their way to that optimal ideal, because their
circumstances are not conducive to exploring the alternatives that do exist. But
the picture which Chomsky (1976:124-125) offers, when he discusses biological
limits to the ranges of possible scientific theories or genres of art, is that once
society grows rich enough to allow people to escape
the social and material conditions that prevent free intellectual development … Then,
science, mathematics, and art would flourish, pressing on towards the limits of cognitive
capacity.

And he suggests that we in the West seem now to have reached those limits. Third
World tribes might live in ways which fail fully to implement the universally
ideal human culture, but we Westerners are in a position to be able to identify the
right way for humans to live – the way that is right for ourselves, and right for
Third World tribes people too, though they don’t know it yet.
Certainly, the idea that there is no unique optimal way of life, and that
humans ought to be permanently free to experiment with novel cultural
arrangements in the expection that societies will always discover new ways to
progress, has historically been associated with the belief that the contents of
 Minds in Uniform 9

human cognition are not given in advance. The founder of the liberal approach in
politics, which holds that the State ought to limit its interference with individual
subjects as narrowly as possible in order to leave them free to experiment, was
John Locke; and, classically, Locke (1960:II, §1.6) argued that:
He that attentively considers the state of a child, at his first coming into the world, will
have little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the matter of his
future knowledge. It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them.

Logically it makes sense for those who believe in biologically-fixed innate ideas
to place a low value on the possibilities of cultural diversity and innovation.
The trouble is, in reality there are no biological constraints imposing specific,
detailed structure on human cognitive life. And someone who believes in
cognitive universals, in a situation where none exist, is almost bound to end up
mistaking the accidental features of his own culture, or of the dominant culture in
his world, for cultural universals.

5. ‘Universal grammar’ means European grammar

In the case of linguistics this mistake is very clear. From the early years of
generative grammar onwards, sceptics repeatedly objected that generative
linguists were merely formalizing structural features of English, or features shared
by most Indo-European languages, and assuming that they had identified
universals of language structure. Generative linguists often denied this, and
argued that the initial over-emphasis on English was just a temporary
consequence of the theory having been born in an English-speaking country. But,
even though by now a far wider range of languages are regularly discussed in the
generative literature, the sceptics’ charge remains true. Exotic languages are
observed through English-speaking spectacles.
Sometimes this emerges from the very terminology of the field. Consider how
generative linguists discuss the incidence of subject pronouns. In North-west
European languages, such as English, German, and French, it is roughly true that
every finite verb has an explicit subject – even when the identity of the subject
would be obvious from the context alone, a pronoun has to appear. But we don’t
need to go beyond the Indo-European language family to find languages where
that is not so: in (Classical or Modern) Greek, for instance, the verb inflexion
shows the person and number of the subject, and it is fairly unusual to include a
subject pronoun as well. Generative linguists call languages like Greek ‘pro-drop
languages’. The implication of ‘pro-drop’ is transparent: in ‘Universal Grammar’
(or in other words, in English) verbs have subject pronouns, so a language like
Greek which often lacks them must be a language in which the pronouns that are
universally present at an underlying level are ‘dropped’ at the surface.
In the case of Greek and other European pro-drop languages, this Anglo-
centric view of the situation is at least consistent, in the sense that normally these
10 Geoffrey Sampson

languages do contain features showing what the subject pronoun would be, if it
were present. But if we go beyond Europe, we find languages where even that is
not true. In Classical Chinese, verbs commonly lack subjects; and there is no
question of inferring the identity of missing subjects from verb inflexions,
because Chinese is not an inflecting language. A European who hears this might
guess that the difference between Classical Chinese and European languages is
that our languages use formal features to identify subjects explicitly, while
Chinese identifies them implicitly by mentioning situational features from which
verb subjects can be inferred. But that is not true either: often in Classical Chinese
the subject of a verb cannot be inferred. A standard puzzle for Europeans who
encounter Classical Chinese poetry is ambiguity about whether a poet is
describing events in his own life, or actions of some third party. Because our own
languages are the way they are, we feel that there must be an answer to this
question; when a Chinese poet writes a verb, let’s say the word for see, surely in
his own mind he must either have been thinking I see or thinking he sees? But that
just forces our own categories of thought onto a language where they do not
apply. To the Chinese themselves, asking whether the poet meant I see or he sees
is asking a non-question (cf. Liu 1962:40-41). In English we can say He saw her
without specifying whether he was wearing glasses or saw her with his naked eye.
In Classical Chinese one could, and often did, say saw her without specifying I
saw or he saw.
How can the implications of the term pro-drop be appropriate, if there are
languages whose speakers not only frequently do not use pronouns but frequently
do not even have corresponding concepts in their mind?
Pro-drop is only one example of the way that generative linguistics mistakes
features that happen to apply to the well-known languages spoken in our
particular time and part of the world for features that are imposed on all human
languages by human biology. But the point is far more general.
David Gil (2001:102-132) discusses a local dialect of the Malay or
Indonesian language, spoken on the Indonesian island of Riau. 1 When native
speakers of this dialect are talking casually and naturally, their grammar has
features that make it difficult to map on to the alleged structural universals
discussed by generative linguistics. But when the speakers are challenged to think
consciously about their language, for instance by translating from English into
Malay, they switch to a formal version of Malay which looks much more like the
kind of language which textbooks of theoretical linguistics discuss. One might
imagine that this formal Malay reflects speakers’ true underlying linguistic
competence, while the colloquial dialect is a kind of reduced, distorted language-
variety relevant only to studies of performance (On the concepts of linguistic
‘competence’ versus ‘performance’, see Chomsky 1965:4). But according to Gil it
is the other way round. The colloquial language-variety represents the speakers’
1
Note that ‘Malay’ and ‘Indonesian’ (or ‘Bahasa Indonesia’) are alternative names for the same
language, spoken in Malaysia and in Indonesia; I shall refer to it here as Malay.
 Minds in Uniform 11

real linguistic heritage. Formal Malay is a more or less artificial construct, created
in response to the impact of Western culture, and containing features designed to
mirror the logical structure of European languages. So, naturally, formal Malay
looks relatively ‘normal’ to Western linguists, but it is no real evidence in favour
of universals of grammar – whereas colloquial Riau dialect is good evidence
against linguistic universals. Speakers use the formal variety when thinking
consciously about their language, because politically it is the high-prestige
variety; but it is not their most natural language.
I believe analogous situations occur with many Third World languages, and
that generative linguists tend systematically to study artificial languages created
under Western cultural influence under the mistaken impression that they are
finding evidence that alien cultures are much the same as ours.

6. Honest and dishonest imperialism

What generative linguistics is doing here is describing the diverse languages of

the world as if they were all variations on a pattern defined by the dominant
language or language-group – but at the same time pretending that this does not
amount to Anglocentrism or Eurocentrism, because the fixed common pattern is
defined not by a particular language or language-family, but by a hypothetical
innate cognitive structure shared by all human beings. In a similar way, 21st-
century internationalists are doing at least as much as 18th- and 19th-century
imperialists did to impose their particular preferred cultural norms on people to
whom those norms are alien; but the modern internationalists pretend that this
does not count as cultural imperialism, because the favoured norms are presented
not as arbitrary preferences, but as principles allegedly valid for all peoples at all
times (even though many of them were thought up only quite recently).
The empire-builders of the 19th century did not think or speak in those terms.
They were well aware that different peoples had genuinely different and
sometimes incompatible cultural norms, and that there were real conflicts to be
resolved between the principle that indigenous cultures should be respected, and
the principle that government should guarantee to alien subjects the same rights
that it guaranteed to members of the governing nation. The well-known example
is suttee, the Hindu practice of burning a dead man’s widow on his funeral pyre.
When the British took control of India, they tried to avoid interfering with most
native customs, but as an exception they banned suttee. On one famous occasion a
group of (male) Hindus protested about this to Sir Charles James Napier (1782–
1853), who is reported to have replied:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when
men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your
funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom.
And then we will follow ours.
12 Geoffrey Sampson

Notice that there was no suggestion here of suttee violating some universal code
of human rights, which the Hindus could in principle have known about before
the British arrived. It wasn’t that at all: Napier saw Hindu and British moral
universes as incommensurable. Within the Hindu moral universe, burning widows
was the right thing to do. Within the British moral universe, burning anyone alive
was a wrong thing to do. The British had acquired power over the Hindus, so now
the Hindus were going to be forced to play by British rules whether they agreed
with them or not.
We can reasonably debate and disagree about where the right balance lies
between respecting alien cultures, and seeking to modify those cultures when they
involve systematic oppression or cruelty. But to my mind the bare minimum we
owe to other cultures is at least to acknowledge that they are indeed different. If
powerful outsiders tell me that aspects of the culture I grew up in are unacceptable
to them, so they are going to change these whether I like it or not, then I shall
probably resent that and try to resist. But I believe I should be humiliated far
worse, if the outsiders tell me and my fellows that we had not got a genuinely
separate culture in the first place – the patterns they are imposing on us are the
universal cultural patterns appropriate to all human beings, and if our traditional
way of life deviated in some respects that was just because we were a bit muddled
and ignorant. That is the attitude which present-day internationalism implies and
generative linguistics supports.
Of course, there is no doubt that Noam Chomsky in particular would
indignantly deny that. He is frequently eloquent in denouncing imperialism. But
his comments on specific political issues, and the logical consequences of his
abstract theorizing, are two very different things. What is really poisonous about
the ideology that emerges from generative linguistics is that it creates a rationale
for powerful groups to transform the ways of life of powerless groups while
pretending that they are imposing no real changes – they are merely freeing the
affected groups to realize the same innate cultural possibilities which are as
natural to them as they are to everyone else, because we human beings all inherit
the same biologically-fixed cultural foundations.

7. Vocabulary and culture

It seems obvious that the institutions a society evolves for itself, and the kinds of
fulfilment its members seek, will have a great deal to do with the structure of
concepts encoded in its language. Consider for instance the central role of the
concept of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’ in European life. The history of European
political thought, from the classical Greeks to today, has been very largely about
how best to interpret the ideal of freedom and how to maximize the incidence of
freedom. When Europeans assess the quality of their individual lives, they tend to
do so in significant part by assessing how much freedom they enjoy. Europeans
were able to assign this central role to the concept of freedom, because they spoke
 Minds in Uniform 13

languages which encoded the concept from a very early period. Latin liber, and
Greek ἐλεύθερος, both derive from the same Indo-European root, which
originally meant ‘people’ (as the German cognate Leute does today). The
semantic transition from ‘belonging to the people’ to ‘free’ originally came about
because those born into an ethnic group were free men while those brought in as
captives from elsewhere were slaves. The fact that this same transition shows up
in both the Italic and the Greek branches of Indo-European implies that the
‘freedom’ concept dates back before the historical period, most of the way to
Proto-Indo-European. 2 Because the concept of ‘freedom’ corresponded to a
common word familiar to any speaker, no doubt originally in a relatively down-
to-earth, unsophisticated sense, it was available for thinkers from Greeks in the
Classical world through to Dante, Locke, and many others in recent centuries to
invest with the much greater weight of significance and emotional importance that
we associate with it today.
We can see how culturally conditioned this development was, if we compare
Europe with China. Chinese civilization is older than ours, and for most of the last
3000 years, until the Industrial Revolution, I believe any neutral observer would
have had to judge Chinese civilization as more complex and sophisticated than
that of Europe. But, as it happens, the large battery of concepts which the Chinese
language made available to its speakers included no root at all comparable to our
word free. When Chinese intellectuals began to examine and translate Western
thought in the 19th century, they had to adapt a compound term used in a
distantly-related sense, tzu yu 自 由, to stand for the European concept (cf. Huang
1972:69); and I believe that Chinese readers had difficulty in grasping that
Europeans saw this idea as positive – for the Chinese a good society was one in
which individuals subordinated themselves to the collectivity. Philosophy in
traditional China was predominantly political philosophy, but Chinese political
thought was not concerned with individual freedom, and individual Chinese who
assessed the quality of their lives did not use that measure. Arguably, this contrast
remains highly relevant for understanding the differences between China and the
West today.
This interdependence between vocabulary and social institutions seems a
familiar, uncontroversial idea. But generative linguistics has no room for it. The
generative view of vocabulary is explained in Pinker’s “Language Instinct” by
reference to Jerry Fodor’s (1975) theory of a ‘language of thought’. According to
Fodor, we understand utterances in an ordinary spoken language by translating
them into an internal ‘language of thought’ which is fixed by human genetics; and
because the language of thought is inherited biologically rather than evolved

2
English free and German frei, together with Welsh rhydd, represent a similar semantic transition
in a different Indo-European root, and again the fact that the transition is reflected both in
Germanic and in Celtic suggests that the ‘freedom’ sense is old – though in this case there is
apparently an argument that one subfamily may have borrowed it from the other after Germanic
and Celtic had separated.
14 Geoffrey Sampson

culturally, it is universal. The languages of different societies do not truly differ in

their vocabularies: they all encode the same innate set of concepts. If European
languages all have a word for ‘free’ and Chinese traditionally had no such word,
Fodor might explain that by saying that the European languages happen to use a
single word for a compound of universal concepts which traditional Chinese
would have needed to spell out via a paraphrase – rather as German has a single
word Geschwister for a concept which English has to spell out as a three-word
phrase, ‘brothers and sisters’.
Here I am putting words into Fodor’s mouth: Fodor does not actually discuss
specific cases of vocabulary difference, which is perhaps quite wise of him.
Pinker (1995:82) does, though. Indeed, he gives the specific example of ‘freedom’
as an instance of a concept which all human beings possess, whether or not it is
encoded in their language. But if one insists that members of a major world
civilization, which over millennia neither used a word for a particular concept nor
adopted institutions which reflected that concept, nevertheless had the concept in
their minds, then surely we have left science behind and entered the realm of
quasi-religious dogma. If Fodor and Pinker are right, vocabulary differences
would be superficial things. They would not amount to reasons for societies to
equip themselves with significantly different institutions, or for their members to
pursue significantly different goals.
Incidentally, even if we did accept Fodor’s and Pinker’s idea that vocabulary
is innate, it would not follow that it is universal. It might seem more plausible that
vocabulary should vary with individuals’ ancestry. Chinese might not only lack
some concepts that European languages contain, and vice versa, but yellow men,
or black men, would be unable to learn some white words even when exposed to
them, and white men would be unable to learn some yellow words or black words.
After all, it is clear that the human brain did not cease to evolve biologically after
the time when our species began to diverge into distinct races, and indeed we
know now that it has continued to evolve in recent times (cf. Lahn et al. 2005); so
why would the brain modules responsible for the ‘language of thought’ be exempt
from biological evolution? I have seen no hint of this concept of racially-bound
vocabulary in the writings of generative linguists, but the most plausible reason
for that is merely that they fear the personal consequences of taking their ideas to
this logical conclusion. The generative linguists want to be influential; they want
to dominate their corner of the academic map, so that the research grants and
attractive jobs keep coming. You do not achieve that by raising the possibility that
coloured people might be genetically incapable of fully understanding English.

8. Universalist politics

If all human minds shared the same biologically-fixed stock of concepts, then it
might make sense to say that there is one system of social ideals which can be
deduced by studying our innate cognitive mechanisms, and which is valid for all
 Minds in Uniform 15

human beings everywhere and at all times, whether they realize it or not.
Increasingly, we find that politics these days is operated as if that idea were true
(on this development cf. Phillips 2006:63-78).
For instance, very recently we in the European Union narrowly avoided
adopting a Constitution whose text laid down a mass of detailed rules covering
aspects of life (for instance, labour relations, housing policy, the treatment of the
disabled, etc.), which traditionally would have found no place in a constitution. A
normal State constitution confines itself to specifying basic rules about how the
organs of the State interrelate, what the limits of their respective powers are, how
their members are chosen and dismissed, and so forth. Detailed rules about
relationships between private employers and employees, say, would evolve over
time through the continuing argy-bargy of political activity within the unchanging
framework of the basic law. But, if human culture is built on the basis of a limited
range of concepts that are biologically fixed and common to all human beings,
then perhaps it should be possible to work out an ideal set of rules for society in
much more detail, in the expectation that they will remain ideal in the 22nd and
23rd centuries – after all, human biology is not likely to change much over a few
hundred years.
We escaped the European constitution, thanks to the voters of France and the
Netherlands – though the mighty ones of the European project seem still to
believe that the constitution was a good idea, and seem to be quietly attempting to
revive it. But there are plenty of other examples where laws are being changed in
the name of hypothetical universal principles, although the laws in question have
worked unproblematically for long periods and the populations affected have no
desire for change.
Thus, consider what has been done over the last few years to the island of
Sark, which is a constitutionally-separate dependency of the British Crown a few
miles off the northern coast of France. Sark is one of the world’s smallest States,
with a population of about 600, and politically it has been up to now a remarkable
feudal survival, with a constitution that must have been on the old-fashioned side
even when the island was settled in the 16th century. Two or three years ago Sark
was forced by European Union pressure to remove the provisions in its laws
which prescribed the death penalty for treason, although the Serquois population
protested loudly that they believed treason should remain punishable by death.
And now a couple of rich newcomers have found that the laws of Sark do not suit
them, so they are using the European Convention on Human Rights to get the
constitution overturned and transformed into a standard modern democratic
system.
Until a few decades ago, we in Britain had the death penalty for more crimes
than just treason, and debate continues about whether we were wise to give it up.
The USA retains the death penalty today. Surely it is obvious that this is the kind
of issue on which we can expect different cultures to differ, not one that can be
settled in terms of hypothetical universal principles? It is understandable that the
16 Geoffrey Sampson

Serquois take a more serious view of treason than we English do: they had the
experience within living memory of being invaded and occupied by enemy forces,
something which England has happily been spared for almost a thousand years.
Of course, if one believes in detailed universal principles underlying human
culture, then local accidents of history may be neither here nor there. But, for
those of us who disbelieve in a detailed biologically-fixed substratum for culture,
it is expected that differences of historical experience of this kind will lead to
differences in present-day cultural frameworks, and it is right and proper that they
should be allowed to do so.
As for the constitution: the fact that the Serquois would prefer to keep it does
not matter. The fact that in a face-to-face society of 600 men, women, and
children there are better ways available to individuals to register their opinions
than marking a cross on a slip of paper once every few years doesn’t matter. The
culture of Sark is going to be changed over the heads of the Serquois; but instead
of being presented as a case of two powerful people selfishly forcing 600
powerless people to change their ways, which is the truth of it, we are asked to see
it as a case of the Serquois finally achieving rights which have been unjustly
withheld from them for centuries.
I could give other examples from more distant areas of the world which are
much more serious (though perhaps not quite as absurd) as the defeudalization of
Sark. 3 The general point is that we are moving at present from a world in which
everyone recognizes that cultures are different, though powerful cultures
sometimes impose their will on weaker ones and modify them, to a world where
that still happens but the powerful nations or groups pretend that the basic
principles of culture are everywhere alike, so that if they interfere with alien
cultures they are not essentially changing them – merely allowing them to be what
they were trying to be anyway, although in some cases they didn’t realize it.
Politicians do not often state their assumptions at this level of philosophical
abstraction, but our outgoing Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has recently made
explicit remarks on the topic, in a valedictory essay on the lessons of his ten years
as premier. Justifying his foreign policy, he wrote:

3
Consider for instance the way in which Britain has recently been eliminating the residual
dependence of ex-colonial West Indian jurisdictions on the English legal system, and setting them
up with fully-independent legal frameworks of their own, but in doing so has been careful to
provide the newly-independent legal systems with entrenched rules against outlawing homosexual
activity. It is clear that cultures are very diverse in their attitudes to homosexuality, which was a
serious criminal offence in Britain itself not many decades ago. We have changed our views on
this, but many African-descended cultures seem to have a specially strong horror of homo-
sexuality. If we are serious about giving other peoples their independence, we have to accept that
their cultures will embody some different choices from ours on issues like this. But instead, the
new internationalists announce that alien nations are required to conform culturally to a set of
principles which are alleged to be universally valid – and which, just by coincidence, happen to
match the principles embraced at the moment by the world’s most powerful nations. Setting
people free, but requiring them to use their freedom in approved ways, is not setting them free.
 Minds in Uniform 17

There is nothing more ridiculous than the attempt to portray ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’
as somehow ‘Western’ concepts which, mistakenly, we try to apply to nations or peoples
to whom they are alien. There may well be governments to whom they are alien. But not
peoples. ... These values are universal (Blair 2007:30).

The Prime Minister is in error. The concepts of democracy and freedom are
specific cultural creations, in the same way that the game of chess or the Apple
Macintosh operating system are. They may be excellent ideas, but they are not
‘universal’ ideas. If the political leaders of the English-speaking world are taking
it for granted now that only tyrannical governments stand in the way of culturally-
remote populations realizing essentially the same structure of political ideals as
ours, because that structure is innate in everyone, this may explain a great deal
about recent overseas interventions and their unhappy outcomes. I have dealt with
the non-universality of the freedom concept in the previous section. In the case of
democracy, one might have thought that a general awareness of European
intellectual history would have been enough to show how culture-specific the
concept is.
There is a clear parallel between this new imperialism of universal rights, and
the generative-linguistics concept of universal cognitive structure. Obviously, I do
not suggest that the sort of people who decide to impose adult suffrage on the
island of Sark are doing so because they have been reading Noam Chomsky’s
“Syntactic Structures” and got a bit over-excited. Probably they have never heard
of Noam Chomsky or Steven Pinker. But the link is that intellectuals such as
Chomsky and Pinker are creating a philosophical climate within which the new
imperialism of the 21st century becomes justifiable.
Without that philosophical climate, the new imperialism is just a product of
ignorance. Because people these days learn so little about cultures that are distant
from our own, they genuinely fail to appreciate that human cultures can be
extremely different; and consequently, when they spot something somewhere far
away from Western metropolises which looks out of line, they take it to indicate a
pathological deviation that needs to be normalized. That attitude could be cured
by better education.
But, if most of the principles of human culture are determined by the shared
genetic inheritance of our species, then where there are cultural differences it
becomes reasonable to infer that one of the cultures really is pathological in the
relevant respect. And, since it is difficult for any member of an established,
successful culture to believe that his own familiar way of life is diseased, the alien
culture is assumed to need curing – for its own good.

9. Abandoning the touchstone of empiricism

The ideology which is emerging from generative linguistics does not only involve
new and surprising ideas about the biological determination of cognition. It also
embodies new and surprising ideas about how we decide what is true.
18 Geoffrey Sampson

If a set of popular ideas are factually mistaken, traditionally we expect that

sooner or later they will be given up, because people see that the evidence refutes
them. In the case of generative linguistics, though, this routine safety-mechanism
of scientific advance is not working, because one component of the generative
approach is an explicit claim that empirical evidence is not relevant. Because
linguistics is about things happening in speakers’ minds (the generativists argue),
if you want to find out how the grammar of your language works, what you
should do is look into your mind – consult your intuitions as a speaker, rather than
listening to how other people speak in practice. How people actually speak is
linguistic ‘performance’, which the generativists see as an imperfect, distorted
reflection of the true linguistic ‘competence’ within speakers’ minds. Besides, a
linguist’s intuition gives him access to information about the precise construction
he happens to be interested in at the time – even if this is in fact a good
grammatical construction, one might have to listen out for a very long time before
one was lucky enough to hear a speaker use it in real life. Most of us corpus
linguists know about the famous occasion when the generativist Robert Lees
responded with amazement to the news that Nelson Francis had got a grant to
produce the Brown Corpus, the world’s first electronic language corpus:
That is a complete waste of your time and the government’s money. You are a native
speaker of English; in ten minutes you can produce more illustrations of any point in
English grammar than you will find in many millions of words of random text (Biber &
Finnegan 1991:204).

We have been here before. In the Middle Ages, people used intuition to decide all
sorts of scientific questions: for instance, they knew that the planets moved in
circular orbits, because the circle is the only shape perfect enough to suit a
celestial object – and when empirical counter-evidence began coming in, they
piled epicycles on epicycles in order to reconcile their intuitive certainty about
circles with the awkward observations. Since Galileo, most of us have understood
that intuitive evidence is no use: it misleads you. The planets in reality travel in
ellipses. And even though language is an aspect of our own behaviour rather than
a distant external reality, intuitive evidence is no more reliable in linguistics than
it is in astronomy.
Some of the mistakes that generative linguists have made by relying on
intuitive evidence have been breathtakingly large. Let me go back to the issue I
discussed earlier about the ‘structure-dependence’ of the rule for forming
questions in English or German. This is actually a crucial case for the generative
theory of innate cognitive structure, because it is the standard example they use in
order to argue that children get the grammar of their mother-tongue right without
exposure to relevant evidence from their elders’ speech. German and British
children grow up using structure-dependent forms of question rule, because they
are born knowing that grammar rules are always structure-dependent. The
generativists claim that they must be born knowing this, because few children will
ever hear examples which show that it is correct to ask Bleibt der Mann, den du
 Minds in Uniform 19

eingeladen hast, in der Küche?, and incorrect to ask Hast der Mann, den du
eingeladen, bleibt in der Küche?
Noam Chomsky has been outspoken about the impossibility that children
could learn this kind of thing from experience. He said in 1975 that examples of
this kind “rarely arise … you can go over a vast amount of data of experience
without ever finding such a case”; “A person might go through much or all of his
life without ever having been exposed to relevant evidence” (cf. Piattelli-
Palmarini 1980:40 and 114-115). These are large claims, for which Chomsky
quotes no evidence at all; but they are easy claims to test.
To be fair to Chomsky, thirty years ago they were less easy to test – if we are
discussing how people speak in casual, natural conversation, then recording
quantities of that kind of material, transcribing it, and putting it into a form that
researchers can conveniently study is a demanding task. In 1975 it had not really
been done yet. Perhaps Chomsky did not anticipate how soon it would be done. In
Britain we have had the British National Corpus available for more than ten years
now, and its 4.2 million words of ‘demographically-sampled’ speech makes it
easy to check a claim like Chomsky’s. 4 If we translate Chomsky’s “much or all of
a person’s life” as a period of fifty years, my calculation based on the British
National Corpus is that, just for one particular subtype of relevant evidence, the
average Briton would hear on the order of 1700 examples in that time – one every
week or two (cf. Sampson 2005:81). 1700 is a lot more than zero. So what
happens to the generative argument that children must be born knowing about
structure-dependence?
If you allow science to rely on individual scientists’ intuitions rather than on
interpersonally-observable data, you have a problem when different scientists
report conflicting intuitions about the same facts – how to resolve the conflict, if
the neutral test of empirical observation has been abandoned?
Perhaps the only way to do it is to treat certain individuals as having a special
privileged status, so that their intuitions prevail in cases of conflict. William
Labov has documented in detail how Chomsky uses just this strategy. When
Chomsky finds that his own judgments about the grammatical status of some
sequence of English words disagree with those of another linguist, he describes
his own judgments as ‘data’ or ‘facts’, which a theory about English grammar is
required to capture; the conflicting judgments he calls ‘interpretations of facts’, or
‘factual claims’, which Chomsky will ignore if they cannot be fitted into his
theory (cf. Labov 1975:99-101). It is difficult to see what alternative strategy
intuition-based linguistics has to this personal approach to evidence testing, but it
means returning to a form of the mediaeval ‘argument from authority’: the
guarantee of truth is, not correspondence with observation, but the name on the
cover of the book.

4
For the British National Corpus, see www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk
20 Geoffrey Sampson

10. Intuition-based politics

Now let’s turn away from linguistics and back again to human culture in the wider
sense. Again and again in the contemporary world we find political decisions
which crucially affect people’s ways of life being made on a basis of intuition,
when empirical evidence is available but is ignored.
A good example is foreign aid. To many people in the present-day West it
ranks as an unquestionable axiom that the best way to help African and other
Third-World societies out of grinding poverty is to step up the level of aid
payments which our governments hand over to their governments.
In reality, there has been abundant argument based on hard evidence, from
economists like the late Lord (Peter) Bauer in England and William Easterly in
the USA, that foreign aid doesn’t work (cf. Bauer 1981, Easterly 2006). It is a
good way of politicizing recipient societies and diverting the efforts of their
populations away from developing successful independent and productive ways
of life towards striving to become unproductive government clients; and it is a
good way of turning Third World governments in turn into clients of Western
governments, so that the direct control of the age of empires is replaced by a
looser, less public form of imperialism. But as a method of making the average
African less poor: forget it.
We know what would genuinely improve the lot of the average African: free
trade, which would allow individual Africans to build up businesses producing the
agricultural goods which their economies are ready to produce, and selling them
to Western markets free of tariff barriers such as the scandalous European
Common Agricultural Policy, which at present actively prevents Third World
residents from making a living in the only ways that are realistically open to many
of them. Free trade is not enough – poor countries also need decent government –
but it is a necessary condition. Free trade would permit the growth of genuinely
independent societies in the Third World, shaped through the inhabitants’ own
initiatives and choices.
But that is not going to happen, because we in the West intuitively know that
foreign aid is the answer. It hasn’t achieved much over the last fifty years, and the
economic logic suggests that it never could – but who cares about empirical
evidence and argument, when the thought of our tax money going in foreign aid
gives us a warm, virtuous glow inside ourselves, and that is what counts?
Commercial trading relationships feel intuitively like a cold-hearted area of life,
not something that we ought to be imposing on people as poor and powerless as
the residents of sub-Saharan Africa. The current Doha Round of international
trade negotiations was intended among other things to give Third World countries
freer access for exports to the EU and the USA; but as I put this paper together in
the summer of 2006, the Doha Round is collapsing with little achieved, and how
many in the West have even noticed? Few, I think.
 Minds in Uniform 21

Foreign aid is one area where public policy is nowadays based on intuition
rather than on empirical evidence, to an extent that I believe would not have
happened fifty or a hundred years ago. Let me give one more, smaller-scale
example: the recent fate of foxhunting in England.
For hundreds of years, riding horses to follow dogs hunting foxes has been a
central component of the culture of various rural parts of England. Not only does
it provide glorious exercise for all ages and both sexes in winter, when other
outdoor possibilities are few, but the organizations created to manage local hunts
have also been the focus of much other social activity in remote areas; the dances
where the girls have the best opportunity to dress up and show themselves off are
typically the Hunt Balls. In 2004, in the face of passionate objections by members
of hunting communities, foxhunting was made illegal, with no compensation for
the thousands of hunt servants and others whose livelihoods were abolished at a
stroke, by Members of Parliament most of whom are town-dwellers and scarcely
know one end of a horse from the other. The true motive for this legislation was
that hunting is associated with features of rural society that our current governing
party instinctively dislikes – a local Master of Fox Hounds will often (though by
no means always) be an aristocrat living in a large old house. But that sort of
thing could not be openly stated as a reason for legal interference with people’s
longstanding way of life, so instead it was argued that hunting is unnecessarily
cruel. This is a testable claim. Foxes in a farming area are pests whose numbers
have to be controlled somehow, and it is an open question whether hunting with
hounds is a specially cruel way to do it. The Government set up an enquiry under
Lord Burns to answer the question; rather to Government’s surprise, I think, the
Burns Report published in 2000 found that banning foxhunting would have no
clear positive effect on the incidence of cruelty (it might even increase cruelty),
and it would have other consequences which everyone agrees to be adverse. 5
So the empirical evidence was there: how much influence did it have on the
parliamentary process which led to the ban? None at all. The people who made
the decisions were not interested in empirical evidence. Foxes look like sweet,
cuddly, furry creatures, and parliamentarians intuitively knew that hunting them
was wrong. Many country folk had the opposite intuition, but how seriously could
one take them? Faced with a choice between a peasant type in cheap clothes and a
rural accent, versus a well-spoken Member of Parliament in an expensive dark
suit, it is obvious which one has authoritative intuitions and which one has mere
personal opinions.
Likewise, if we in the West with our comfortable houses and air-conditioned
cars know intuitively that foreign aid is the way to rescue Africans from poverty,
isn’t it clear to everyone that our intuitions are more authoritative than those of

5
www.huntinginquiry.gov.uk/. In July 2006 a survey on the practical effects of the Hunting Act
appeared to show that its consequences for fox welfare have indeed been negative, with many
foxes now wounded by shotguns rather than cleanly killed (Daily Telegraph 28 Jul 2006, p. 13).
22 Geoffrey Sampson

some African living in a thatched hut and wearing a grubby singlet, who might
prefer the chance to find wider markets for his cash crops?
Well, to me it isn’t clear. But then I am one of those eccentrics who still
believes in empirical evidence.
I have offered two examples of the way in which decisions that crucially
impact on people’s ways of life are these days being made in terms of intuition
and arguments from authority, rather than in terms of hard, reliable evidence.
Obviously I am not suggesting that this is happening because of generative
linguistics. Most people who are influential in decisions about foreign aid,
foxhunting, or many other current-affairs issues that I could have used as
illustrations, will be people who have never given a thought to generative
linguistics or to the picture of human cognition which is derived from it. But what
that theory does is to provide an intellectual rationale for these political
developments. While people in political life were moving purely as a matter of
fashion away from reliance on empirical evidence toward reliance on intuition
and argument from authority, one could point out how irrational this fashion is.
Even those who were caught up in the tide of fashion, if they understood what
they were doing, might with luck be persuaded to turn back to the firm ground of
empirical evidence; they would have found no explicit arguments to justify the
fashionable trend. What generative linguistics has been doing is supplying those
missing arguments. It has begun to create a climate of intellectual opinion in
which people can openly say in so many words, “Yes, we are basing decisions on
intuition rather than on evidence, and we are right to do so. Empirical argument is
outdated 20th-century thinking – we are progressing beyond that.”
But moving from reliance on empirical science to reliance on intuition and
arguments from authority is not progress. It is a reversion to the pre-
Enlightenment Middle Ages. That is why it is so important to explode the false
claims of generative linguistics.

11. New evidence for language diversity

Happily, if we treat generative linguistics as a scientific theory rather than a

matter of blind faith, then it is easily exploded. I have said that I cannot rehearse
all the detailed arguments in my 2005 book – if I had done that here, there would
have been no space for the proper topic of this paper. But a few of the most recent
findings by non-generative linguists are so very destructive for generative theory
that the older and more technical debates become almost beside the point.
Until recently, the consensus among linguists of all theoretical persuasions
was that known human languages seem to be roughly comparable in the
expressive power of their grammars. Languages can differ in the nature of the
verbal constructions they use in order to express some logical relationship, but we
did not find fundamental logical structures that certain extant languages were just
incapable of expressing. And that is crucial for the generative theory of human
 Minds in Uniform 23

cognition. If our cognitive structures are biologically fixed, then all our languages
should be equally capable of clothing those structures in words. A sceptic might
respond that there is another possible explanation: all the languages we know
about have emerged from a very long prehistoric period of cultural evolution, so
there has been ample time for them to develop all the constructions they might
need – simpler, structurally more primitive languages must once have existed, but
that would have been long before the invention of writing. Still, the generative
camp might have seen this as a rather weak answer.
It began to look a lot stronger, with the publication in 2000 of Guy
Deutscher’s “Syntactic Change in Akkadian”. Akkadian was one of the earliest
written languages in the world, and Deutscher shows that we can see it developing
in the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000–1500 BC), under the pressure of new
communicative needs, from a state in which it contained no subordinate comple-
ment clauses into a later state where that construction had come into being. If the
general grammatical architecture of human languages were determined by human
biology, it is hard to see how a logical resource as fundamental as the complement
clause could possibly be a historical development. It ought to be one of the
universal features common to all human languages at all periods.
Then, in 2005, Daniel Everett published a description of the Pirahã language
of the southern Amazon basin. Pirahã seems in a number of respects to be quite
astonishingly primitive, lacking not only all types of subordinate clause and
indeed grammatical embedding of any kind, but also having no quantifier terms
such as ‘all’ or ‘most’, no words for even low numbers, and many other remark-
able features. If the structural features of language were truly determined by
human biology, then one might have to conclude that the speakers of Pirahã are a
separate species from Homo sapiens. But that would be quite absurd – in reality
the Pirahã are closely related ethnically to a neighbouring South American group
which is largely assimilated to the Portuguese-speaking majority culture.
In face of findings like Deutscher’s and Everett’s, it seems indisputable that
early-20th-century scholars such as Franz Boas or H.A. Gleason, whom I quoted at
the beginning, were right about language diversity, and scholars like Pinker or
Chomsky are just wrong.

12. Conclusion

The truth is that languages are cultural developments, which human groups create
freely, unconstrained except in trivial ways by their biology, just as they create
games, or dances, or legal systems. I do not believe that the game of cricket is
encoded in an Englishman’s genes, and nor is the English language. Linguistics
gives us no serious grounds for believing in a model of human cognition
according to which we are limited culturally to realizing one or other of a fixed
range of possibilities. We are free to invent new cultural forms in the future, just
as we have so abundantly done in the past.
24 Geoffrey Sampson

We owe it to ourselves, to our descendants, and perhaps above all to our Third
World neighbours to reject any ideology that claims to set boundaries to this
process of ever-new blossoming of the human spirit. Just as our lives have risen
above the limitations which constrained our ancestors, so we must leave those
who come after us free to rise above the limitations which restrict us.

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Blair, Tony. 2007. “What I’ve Learned”. The Economist 2 Jun 2007.
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Brown, Donald E. 1991. Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Easterly, William. 2006. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have
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Linguistics ed. by Robert Austerlitz, 77-113. Lisse: Peter de Ridder.
Locke, John. 1694/1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo, ed. 1980. Language and Learning: The debate between Jean Piaget
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Penguin Books.
 Minds in Uniform 25

Pinker, Stephen. 1997. How the Mind Works. New York: Norton.
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 The Sociobiology of Language

Edda Weigand
University of Münster

The issue of what determines language and dialogue, nature or culture, has been
repeatedly discussed over the last decades. It is the core issue of the so-called ‘language
instinct debate’ which is a debate between two extreme positions, nativism and
empiricism. The paper reviews the arguments involved and takes a mediating position
that considers human competence-in-performance to be determined by the interaction of
biology and culture. The Mixed Game Model is proposed as an open holistic model
which aims to describe human competence-in-performance by means of Principles of
Probability. Examples are given to demonstrate how human nature and culture interact
and shape human behaviour and action.

1. The puzzle

Looking at the field of research on language and culture, we are on the one hand
confronted with a puzzle of different positions, among them extreme and contro-
versial ones single-mindedly presented and pushed forward. The counter-position
is often simply ignored, not mentioned at all. On the other hand, looking at
science in general we can fortunately notice a burgeoning tendency to promote the
integration of diverse disciplines which are investigating the same complex object
by starting from different points of view (Fischer et al. 2007). Neuroscience has
eventually confirmed by experiments what our common sense already told us if
we were not burdened by methodologically restricted theories. The period of the
black box at least seems to some degree to belong to the past now that hidden
processes in the brain and body are becoming visible. The outcome, after all,
human beings’ amazing capacity to perform in ever-changing surroundings
should not be surprising. It can now at least in part be explained by the interaction
of human abilities (e.g., Damasio 2000). Language does not function as a rational,
disembodied system. It is not sufficient to declare that the sign system of language
is somehow influenced by but detached from language use. Nor does language
use or dialogue function as a rational, disembodied system. The sign system of
language or rational systems in general are artificial systems which have nothing
to do with performance. When scientists recognize that it is worthwhile to leave
the ivory tower and to face real-life settings, the central reference point for any
discipline in the humanities will be human beings and their complex ability of
28 Edda Weigand

competence-in-performance in tackling the challenge of life. What science needs

is a new way of theorizing, a way pursued long ago in other disciplines, e.g.,
physics, but not yet fully accepted in the humanities. Backed by neuroscience we
can finally feel strong enough to address the complex by starting from the
complex, i.e. take up the adventure in the complex not only of the universe
beyond our planet but also of the universe of meanings in our minds.
The positions presented in the humanities demonstrate a striking feature: they
are mostly named by combining two disciplines each of which has a different
scientific interest and different methodology: ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, and now even biolinguistics. The position I am going to advo-
cate seems to be of the same type: the sociobiology of language. I would however
like to emphasise a decisive difference: it is the object ‘language’ which is
complex and needs to be addressed by the interaction of sociological and
biological methods. On the other hand, we have a term for a discipline, e.g.
psycholinguistics, that is the result of bringing together two disciplines in some
sort of ‘cross-discipline’. How this is to be achieved, what ‘cross-discipline’
really means, however remains in the dark.
To my mind, we can draw two conclusions from such a puzzle-like situation:
first, we should make sure we do not change what is a weakness into an apparent
advantage. The puzzle disturbs and confuses and does not open up a fascinating
perspective at all. The puzzle needs to be reshaped into a mosaic. The question is
where do we think we can find the mosaic. The mosaic can only come about as a
mosaic of a complex object, not as a mosaic of different disciplines or theories. It
is the complexity of the object ‘language’ that needs to be investigated by the
joint effort of different disciplines, i.e. by crossing disciplinary boundaries.
Different disciplines may deal with the same object language; they are different as
disciplines because they pursue different points of view, different questions. Their
scientific interest has first to be elucidated. Contributing from different disciplin-
ary points of view to the same complex object makes up genuine interdisciplinary
work. This does not mean that we need to become pan-scientists. Speaking for
myself, I will always remain a linguist, having a linguistic interest which in any
case will be directed towards the object ‘language’. As this object turns out to be a
complex object, I will inevitably have to address it by going beyond narrow
disciplinary boundaries and by taking account of the complex interplay between
components that, in isolation, may be assigned to another discipline. In this sense,
language, dialogue and culture are intrinsically connected. Culture shapes any
human behaviour and action.
The second conclusion which is important for me relates to my view of
scientific progress. Genuine progress is not achieved by ignoring counterpositions
but by the power of arguments. Genuine progress aims at achieving a position
which is more than an airy hypothesis or a methodological claim. We need to
justify our assumptions and to face an open debate between diverging views. It is
 The Sociobiology of Language 29

a debate on claims to truth about an issue not a matter of claims to power for
scientific circles.

2. Diverging views

The open debate has to deal with the positions put forward in the so-called
‘language instinct debate’ which is marked by two extreme positions: the
biological and the cultural or empiricist one. Both positions address the issue:
What determines language? Human genes or the environment, biology or learning
in cultural surroundings? Fortunately, there has always been the common sense
position that human beings’ abilities are influenced by nature as well as culture
(e.g., Fuller 1954, Ridley 2004). Pinker (2002), one of the leading figures in the
debate, in the meantime also favours a coevolutionary approach but has to beg the
crucial question of ‘how the mix works’.
Beside there seems to be a revival of so-called ‘culture studies’ which deal with aspects
of culture more or less separated from language. I therefore will not dwell on them but
concentrate on the crucial debate.

2.1 The biolinguistic position: language determined by human nature

Recently an article appeared by Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) which
demonstrates that the old Chomskyan hypotheses are still alive as if we never had
the pragmatic turning point. The question is the central linguistic question: “The
faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?” The article
repeats the position Chomsky took five decades ago: language is a recursive
system. This position is presented as if it were now backed by developments in
neuroscience. However closely considered, the arguments are not experimentally
proven but simple speculative hypotheses which are even explicitly marked as
such, e.g., by we hypothesize, this hypothesis suggests, obviously in the hope of
evoking scientific rigour by uncompromisingly calling it by name. We are thrown
back into the beginnings of generative syntax (p.1571, italics EW):
We assume, putting aside the precise mechanisms, that a key component of FLN [the
faculty of language in the narrow sense] is a computational system (narrow syntax) that
generates internal representations and maps them into the sensory-motor interface by the
phonological system, and into the conceptual-intentional interface by the (formal)
semantic system; …

The only difference is the fact that now terms such as ‘intentional’ are added to
give the impression that pragmatics has been taken account of. ‘Language in the
narrow sense’ is considered to be “the abstract linguistic computational system
alone, independent of the other systems with which it interacts and interfaces”.
With respect to ‘language in the broad sense’, i.e. to language as a communicative
system, interaction in this sense between otherwise independent systems is the
30 Edda Weigand

only concession the Chomskyan line is prepared to make. The core of the
computational system of ‘language in the narrow sense’ is – as it was five decades
ago – recursion or the “potential infiniteness” of the system. This strong hypo-
thesis is not supported by any substantial argument only by authoritative
arguments such as “all approaches agree that a core property of FLN is recursion”
or “has been explicitly recognized by Galileo, Descartes, …”. By the way, what
Galileo and Descartes recognized had nothing to do with the form of grammar
Chomsky seeks to promote.
One of the points that long ago caused a sensation among linguists was
certainly Chomsky’s explanation of the ‘potential infiniteness’ of the system by
his type of a ‘recursive rule’ which makes possible the infinite use of a finite set
of elements. As was the case with the concept of the sign system we took his
recursive rules as a fact. We were not able to question his way of presentation,
which impressed us as being an elegant theory, but which was nothing other than
a set of hypotheses. Meanwhile after decades of rethinking what theorizing about
real-life phenomena – and the use of language is such a real-life phenomena –
could mean, we begin to doubt that the open-endedness of language use is rooted
in such a simple rule of syntactic recursion. The argument that it is a rule of
language competence can no longer convince us because Hauser, Chomsky &
Fitch (2002) try to relate FLN to FLB, the faculty of language in the broad sense,
i.e. language as a communicative system. No one would accept the clumsy style
of speaking which arises out of recursion. Human beings’ exciting capacity to
tackle the open-endedness of dialogue can in no way be explained by the
continual addition of new embedded sentences. On the contrary, it is based on the
infiniteness and open-endedness of the universe of meanings human beings have
in their minds and which they try to negotiate with other human beings.
What however interests us more with respect to the relationship of dialogue
and culture is not so much generative grammar as a recursive system but how it is
backed up by other hypotheses referring to its innateness. We are told that this
recursive form is in the end innate, based on human nature. In its general abstract
form, which is not restricted to grammar, it might indeed be conceived of as an
innate cognitive technique because it ultimately means that repetition might be
endlessly continued or that a rule can be endlessly repeated. This is nothing other
than what underlies our mathematical system of numbers which always allows
addition of one more item up to infinity. In its concrete form, however, namely as
the thesis that we are born with genes that determine a rather precise universal
grammar of the recursive type, it is nothing other than an unlikely thesis. Again
the argumentation is completely based on speculation (p.1572, italics are mine):
Given the definitions of the faculty of language, together with the comparative
framework, we can distinguish several plausible hypotheses about the evolution of its
various components. Here, we suggest two hypotheses that span the diversity of opinion
among current scholars, plus a third of our own.
 The Sociobiology of Language 31

Neither the starting definition of language as a recursive system is justified by any

substantial argument nor can the conclusion of its innateness be convincing. The
innateness of a recursive system in the form of universal grammar however makes
up the core of the biolinguistic position.
The same speculative and artificial view of language was defended by Pinker
(1994:455) in his early years when he discussed what he called ‘the language
instinct’, i.e. the innate Universal Grammar:
Though languages are mutually unintelligible, beneath this superficial variation lies the
single computational design of Universal Grammar, with its nouns and verbs, phrase
structures and word structures, cases and auxiliaries, and so on.

Culture for him meant one universal culture with superficial local variations in
different languages. In the meantime however this radical picture has been
moderated. In “The Blank Slate” (2002) he starts from the common sense view
that human behaviour is based on nature and culture or on nature and nurture and
argues quite reasonably for a mix (2002:vii):
It seems highly likely to us that both genes and environment have something to do with
this issue.

However, when confronted with the issue “What might the mix be?” he takes a
position that does not correspond to recent insights from neurology at all (see
below):
We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does
not yet justify an estimate.

2.2 The socio-empiricist position: Language determined by culture

The ‘language instinct’ thesis has been transformed into a ‘debate’ by Sampson
(1997), who puts forth the opposite position, namely that language is not
determined by biology but by culture. One might understand Sampson’s harsh
criticism as a reaction to “The Language Instinct”; but even in the second edition
of 2005, which appeared after “The Blank Slate”, his radical position has hardly
been moderated. He can now support his empiricist position with corpus linguistic
research and recent empirical findings. His contribution to this volume, which I
am going to take as my reference point, once again presents his view.
Sampson’s position can be summarized by his thesis (p.3): “Our genes do not
constrain our ideas”. Why is it necessary to counter Chomsky’s radical nature
position by taking the other extreme position? Why should our ‘cognitive life’ not
be rooted to some extent in our biology? Sampson, in contrast, asserts (p.9):
“there are no biological constraints imposing specific, detailed structure on human
cognitive life”. Everything depends on what ‘specific’ and ‘detailed’ is intended
to mean precisely. Sampson’s position indeed seems to be what Pinker (2002:xi)
called “the modern denial of human nature” or “the taboo against human nature”.
32 Edda Weigand

What uncharged intuition can tell us, has eventually been proven by neurology:
there are no separate areas, cognition versus empirical observation, nature versus
learning; human behaviour is the result of the interaction between heredity and
environment. How we fashion our ideas, how we perceive and recognize the
world depends on our abilities and, in the end, on the way our genes allow us to
think.
We cannot deny that there are different ways of thinking in different cultures.
Rationality cannot be taken as a cognitive human universal. Everybody who has
experienced in real-life situations how cultural differences of thinking are firmly
rooted in our minds, will arguably doubt whether they have been completely
acquired by living in certain environments. They might be thought of as some sort
of imprint. If they are learned as we usually learn, it should also be possible to
abandon them. Efforts to change cultural identity, however, will only be
superficially successful. The idea of a “culturgen, the basic unit of inheritance in
cultural evolution” seems to prove well-founded (Lumsden & Wilson 2005:Ixvi).
To my mind, the crux of Sampson’s argumentation lies in his concept of
language. He does not precisely distinguish between expressions and meanings.
Obviously, biology does not determine expressions. Missing words are not yet
proof of missing concepts. Biology, however, determines human needs, which are
the driving force for human action and behaviour. Basic meaning concepts thus
ultimately derive from our biology. We might be free to invent new expressions
but not totally free to invent new meanings and functions.
Thinking about what might be the origin of culture I am strongly inclined to
attach most importance to the human ability of evaluation. From the very outset
we evaluate what we perceive. From the very outset we try to give sense to our
life. Evaluation and sense-giving can be considered a human universal in general
which is nonetheless individually shaped. Human beings are social individuals,
everyone lives in his/her own world which however is at the same time part of the
common world. From different evaluations different cultures emerge. Thus
culture derives from nature, or as Pinker (2002:viii) puts it:
Culture is crucial, but culture could not exist without mental faculties that allow humans
to create and learn culture to begin with.

And so the continuous process of interaction between nature and culture is started.
Not only Sampson’s concept of language but also his concept of culture
seems to concentrate on forms downgrading their meaning. We are free to invent
new cultural forms as Sampson proclaims in his conclusion:
We are free to invent new cultural forms in the future, just as we have so abundantly
done in the past.

These cultural forms are forms for meanings and social functions and have to
become conventionalized to a certain degree. Insofar as social functions are
dependent on temporary ideologies, they can be changed. Nonetheless, they are
 The Sociobiology of Language 33

based on social needs that ultimately derive from human nature and circumscribe
the range of variation and change.
In Sampson’s view forms, words, vocabulary play a special role. The
existence of a concept presupposes the existence of a word, i.e., the concept has to
be encoded in language. He thus argues that the Chinese have a different or no
concept of freedom because the Chinese language does not have a word for ‘free’.
In principle, the same view is taken by Levinson (2006a:43): for thinking we need
language, “a developed vocabulary helps us to think” (see below). Before entering
this debate on language and thought, we need to rethink the notions of language
and thought. In our post-cartesian times, there is no longer an independent object
language, no longer an independent object thought. It is too simple to conclude
that a rich vocabulary helps thinking. Vocabulary is a verbal means, and the
generativists are therefore right in calling vocabulary differences ‘superficial
things’. Before arguing for the “interdependence between vocabulary and social
institutions” and speaking about “racially-bound vocabulary” (Sampson in this
vol. p.13f.), we have to clarify the role of lexical semantics. In pragmatics, the
lexical unit is no longer the single word but the phrase (Weigand 1998a). Everett
(2005:643), who takes a decisive empiricist position (see below), is also more
cautious in this respect: “Thought need not be reflected directly in language.”
Piaget (1980:167), like Chomsky, turns the argument round: “language is a
product of intelligence rather than intelligence being a product of language”.
There is another point in Sampson’s paper which is not quite convincing,
namely his remarks on ‘intuitive versus empirical evidence’ (p.18). Before
declaring “intuitive evidence is no use”, one should have dwelled on the notion
‘evidence’. There is no evidence as such. ‘Empirical’ evidence means justifying
‘intuitive’ assumptions, possible regularities and principles by what can be
observed or measured.
Everett (2005), who Sampson refers to, presents an empirical study on Pirahã
which seems to demonstrate that culture constrains grammatical structures.
Members of the Pirahã culture avoid talking about knowledge that ranges beyond
immediate experience. Conclusions as to whether their thought might be
correspondingly restricted are however to be taken very cautiously. To my mind,
Everett’s concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘language’ (p.622) do not really measure up to
the complexity of the phenomenon since he seems to consider language to be “the
form of communication” and culture “the ways of meaning” without fully taking
into account the complexity of these notions and their interrelationship.
Enfield (2002:3) also aims to demonstrate that “grammar is thick with
cultural meaning”. It is however very problematic to restrict the analysis of
grammatical categories, e.g., the category of honorifics, to semantics. Obviously,
pragmatic studies which go beyond the limits of semantics can achieve impressive
new results (e.g., Premawardhena in this vol., Cho 2005 and in this vol.). What
counts is semantics of use or pragmatics.
34 Edda Weigand

2.3 Variants mediating between the extremes

There are a few studies which recognize that life is not a matter of extremes but of
a complex interplay of heredity and culture. Among them, Levinson (2006a) takes
a primary role. On the one hand, he calls Chomsky’s position “simple nativism”
and prefers to advocate some sort of coevolution of language and mind. On the
other hand, his notion of coevolution is not precisely equivalent with Wilson’s
concept of sociobiology or of coevolution of genes and culture (1975). Levinson
does not really focus on genes and culture and their part in determining language;
the role of culture is only marginally touched upon. Levinson’s focus is on
changing the direction. Instead of considering language to be determined by our
genes as is maintained by nativists, he argues that we should take the direction
from language to thought. In this respect he takes a position similar to Sampson: it
is vocabulary and the structure of language that determines the way we think.
Again words are the reference point. In arguing against biolinguistics he
states (Levinson 2006a:26):
There is no biological mechanism that could be responsible for providing us with all the
meanings of all possible words in all possible languages – there are only 30,000 genes
after all (about the number of the most basic words in just one language), and brain
tissue is not functionally specific at remotely that kind of level.

and summarizes his position in the conclusion (p.37)

That, yes, the ways we speak – the kinds of concepts lexically or grammatically encoded
in a specific language – are bound to have an effect on the ways we think.

It is however not only the direction from words to thought which is questionable.
The other critical point in Levinson’s position is the same as in many other
approaches: language is taken as an autonomous separate object. Thus the starting
point of argumentation is already wrong. Language as a separate system in which
concepts are “lexically or grammatically encoded” does not exist: it is an artificial
construct. There is no level of ‘ways of speaking’ and another level of ‘ways of
thinking’. There is the human ability of speaking which is always used inte-
gratively with other human abilities, those of thinking and perceiving.
Nonetheless, Levinson’s position is a position on the right track insofar as he
accepts “two distinct types of information transfer across generations, genetic and
cultural, with systematic interactions between them” (p.26). His “alternative
coevolutionary account” however is again severely hampered insofar as he
considers “the biological endowment for language” as “a learning mechanism”
which, in the end, means that only a general faculty of learning is biologically
determined (p.27).
Levinson thus arrives at conclusions such as (p.41ff.):
− Languages vary in their semantics just as they do in their form.
− Semantic differences are bound to engender cognitive differences.
 The Sociobiology of Language 35

At first glance, such conclusions are trivial. At second glance, they are based on
orthodox distinctions: there are no ‘languages’ as such nor ‘semantics’ as such nor
a level of ‘cognitive differences’. ‘Language forms’ are verbal means used by
speakers in interaction with other means, perceptual and cognitive ones.
Levinson’s final statement (p.43): “Linguistically motivated concepts are food for
thought.” might therefore have some effect as a metaphor but as a claim to truth it
is misleading. He is right that “simple nativism ought to be as dead as a dodo”
(p.42). His arguments against it can, however, also be used against his own
position.
It is ‘Descartes’ error’ which still runs through large parts of present research.
Language and mind are still dealt with as if they were separate entities. The
studies in Gentner and Goldin-Meadow’s book on “Language in Mind” (2003)
unsurprisingly therefore do not give us any straightforward guidelines on this
issue. There is no yes-or-no answer, the editors have to summarize the result
(p.12). Levinson’s direction from language to thought is, for instance, contra-
dicted by Tomasello (2003:56): “Language does not affect cognition; it is one
form that cognition can take.” From my point of view the partly contradictory
results of Gentner and Goldin-Meadow might be interpreted as resulting from and
thus confirming the interaction of complex subsystems. Gentner and Goldin-
Meadow are on the right track when they presume in their introduction “Whither
Whorf” that the answer depends “on how we define language and how we define
thought” (p.12).
Whereas Levinson (2006a) deals with the relationship between language and
mind, Levinson (2006b) focuses on the ‘evolution of culture’. His characterization
of his goal as “to deal frontally, and speculatively” (p.1) with the “big questions”
about the evolution of human culture sounds rather strange since what we expect
from science can hardly be speculation. The big question in the end is for him
“how to construct an explanatory framework for the origin of culture” (p.2). He is
well aware of what is called the ‘new synthesis’ but does not acknowledge
experimental results at all, ignoring, for instance, those achieved by Lumsden and
Wilson (2005). He rather derogatorily refers to the “twin-track” theories of gene-
culture evolution as “various brands on the market” and reviews them by dealing
with a “number of immediate challenges to this picture” (p.4). ‘This picture’ is
simplified since he considers that cultural evolution relies “simply on ideational
innovations” (p.4). The environment does not seem to play a role. He suggests
that ‘cooperation’ and ‘mind reading’ are the crucial ingredients for culture (p.35,
with reference to Tomasello 1999). What such an assumption in the context of
‘altruism’ is intended to mean remains – at least for me – in the dark, apart from
the fact that no reference is made to dialogic interaction. Moreover, he totally
underestimates animal capabilities when he asserts that “cooperation and trust of
this order are rare or non-existant in nonhuman animal behaviour”. It is therefore
not surprising that his final remarks fade away on a completely vague and
substantially empty level (p.36): “cognitive complexity may have been driven
36 Edda Weigand

both by the cooperation that underlies culture and the need to protect it”. No
examples are provided.
The coevolutionary view of genes and culture is also the basis of some other
approaches, a few of which I can only briefly mention, first of all Piaget (e.g.,
1980) in his classical debate with Chomsky, i.e. the debate between Piaget’s
constructivism and Chomsky’s innatism (cf. Piattelli-Palmarini 1980, Mehler
1980). Even if Piaget’s program is anti-empiricist from thought to language, it
nonetheless has a strong affinity to processes of language acquisition and
learning. His position of ‘constructionism’ and ‘coordination’ could be interpreted
in Wilson’s coevolutionary sense.
The ‘connectionist perspective’ pursued by Elman et al. (1998) in “Re-
thinking innateness” also emphasizes the interaction of genes and learning. The
same is true of Jackendoff who in his early publication of “Patterns in the Mind”
(1994) as well as in his recent publication on “Foundations of Language” (2002)
takes an interactionist view, however with some bias towards the biological basis.
He emphasises “the sense of global integration” (2002:429) and consideres “the
ability to speak and understand a language” as “a complex combination of nature
and nurture” (1994:7). To some degree, Cosmides et al. (1992) might also be
considered as being on the right track in tending towards coevolution and
adaptation, however again with a strong bias towards Pinker and Chomsky’s
view.

To sum up: The complex issue of language, mind and culture is addressed by
different and in part controversial approaches. Common to all of them is the
acceptance of some relationship between these concepts. The views however
differ in the issue of how to design this relationship. Any direction seems
possible:
− from mind to language (e.g., Pinker)
− from language to mind (e.g., Levinson)
− from culture to language (e.g., Sampson)
− from a mix of mind and culture to language (e.g., Piaget)
The critical points of the debate are, to my mind, the following:
− The extreme positions focusing either on biology or culture are problematic
and extremely unlikely.
− So-called explanations represent simple hypotheses or explicit speculations.
− It is not at all clear what culture is and where it comes from.
Such a picture is highly surprising as there are experimental results which cannot
be ignored. These results favour the interaction of the genes and the environment
in the evolution of language and dialogic interaction. Learning by imprint is
included in this interactive process:
 The Sociobiology of Language 37

language as dialogue

biology culture

Figure 1: Interaction of biology and culture

The issue is no longer ‘nature-versus-nurture’, but ‘nature-via-nurture’ as Ridley

(2004) puts it. “Genes are designed to take their cues from nurture” (p.4). “They
are both cause and consequence of our actions” (p.6).
The interaction between biology and culture takes place in human beings and
is individually shaped by evaluation. Consequently, even if some progress has
been achieved by introducing a concept of coevolution, the starting point of the
approaches mentioned above needs to be changed. It is not the mind or culture or
language as such but human beings and their behaviour which has to be the
starting point. It can be observed as behaviour that combines thinking, speaking
and perceiving and includes an evaluative component. In order to describe it,
Wilson’s general concept of sociobiology (1975) is elucidating and can be
developed further into a concept of ‘sociobiology of language’.

3. Sociobiology of language or language in the mixed game

The challenge we are confronted with requires us to transform the puzzle of

pieces and facets investigated in the literature into a mosaic, i.e., to redesign in
theory what human beings do in practice. Any part has to be put into its proper
place in the complex whole. Several decades ago Simon (1962), in his general
model of “the architecture of complexity”, defined the whole as a complex
hierarchy with complex subsystems in interaction with each other. The complex
whole is more than the sum of all the interactions of the subsystems. The Theory
of Dialogic Action Games or the Mixed Game Model (MGM) which I developed
in recent years claims to be a holistic model capable of dealing with the
complexity of dialogic interaction. Not least thanks to neurology, we now have a
rough idea about how the mix works. I am going to focus on some essential points
(for more details cf., e.g., Weigand 2000a, 2006a, b).
The model starts with premises about the complex object which aim to
circumscribe the whole and indicate the key to opening it up. Among them, the
following are of primary importance:
− Human beings live IN the world. There are no separate objects ‘world’ or
‘language’. There is the human ability to speak which is always integratively
used with other abilities such as thinking and perceiving. Speaking, thinking,
perceiving belong to the complex subsystems which in their interactions
contribute to the whole.
38 Edda Weigand

− The ultimate reference point for any theory is human beings, since the world
is perceived and recognized through the eye of the observer. There is no
system, no theory, no truth, independent of human beings and their abilities.
− Human beings are social individuals. Due to their double nature their abilities
and interests are dialogically orientated. The minimal autonomous unit for the
description of human communicative action is the unit in which dialogue
comes about, that is the unit which comprehends all the variables that
influence ‘how the mix works’. I called this unit the dialogic action game or
the mixed game.
Using premises of this type we can comprehend our complex object which is
neither rational competence nor ever-changing empirical chaos but human beings’
ability to cope with the complex by their competence-in-performance. The first
step of a holistic theory means grasping the complex object without damaging it
by methodological exigencies. Methodology has to be derived from the natural
object in a second step.
In the literature there seems to be some feeling that it is no longer sufficient to be left
with empirical details. In recent approaches terms such as ‘ensemble’ or ‘genre’ have
become fashionable since these are intended to establish some order in performance. As
they are vague they do not impose strict conditions on theoretical consistency and are
therefore a temptation for some researchers to use them. On the other hand, as they are
vague, they are of little analytic value.

Language in the mixed game means ‘language as dialogue’, i.e., a concept of

language for which dialogic use is an inherent feature (Weigand 2003). It is an
open concept that copes with ever-changing empirical performance as well as
with rules and conventions. Human beings first try to structure complexity by
regularities but are able to go beyond them when regularities come to an end.
Having circumscribed the complex whole, we have to find a key to opening it
up. The key cannot simply be defined arbitrarily but has to be justified. Genuine
justification of human behaviour has to be compatible with evolution. It will
therefore in the end be evolutionary criteria that can justify the theory. The key to
human behaviour will arguably be a dominant feature and will depend on the
view we have of the individual human being. To my mind, human beings are
purposive beings. The key to their action and behaviour is basic universal needs
from which goals and purposes derive. From the very outset, purposes are
dependent on individual perception and evaluation of the environment.
The methodology underlying our competence-in-performance must make it
possible for human beings to cope with conditions of uncertainty in ever-changing
environments. Consequently it will consist of Principles of Probability and not of
eternal rules. Also rules and conventions are applied provided that the individual
wants to apply them, i.e., their scope is conditioned by probability.
 The Sociobiology of Language 39

To my mind, we can distinguish between three types of principles:

constitutive, regulative and executive ones. Dialogic interaction comes about by
the constitutive principles of action, dialogue and coherence.
In order to describe human action, Searle (1969) paved the ground by
introducing the formula F (p) which tells us that in every speech act we have a
purpose F that is related to the world p. In this way, dialogue and world are
connected from the very beginning. The formula however needs to be
complemented in order to cope with performance. Human beings do not only act
at the level of purposes. They have specific interests, mostly concealed behind
openly expressed purposes. I therefore complemented Searle’s formula by intro-
ducing the basic force of interests (Weigand 2006a):

interest [F (p)]

Figure 2: Functional basis of action

We thus achieve a representation of the basic meaning structure of human beings’

action which contains different types of meaning: interests, purposes, and the
propositional types of referring and predicating.
Meaning in my view constitutes the primary step in analysing human action
insofar as it is meaning which selects the means. It is the correlation of meaning
and communicative means that constitutes action:

interest [F (p)] communicative means

Figure 3: Action Principle AP

The Action Principle AP inherently contains a dialogic component insofar as

there is no single act that is communicatively, and i.e. dialogically, autonomous.
Every speech act is dialogically related, be it forwards as initiative speech act or
backwards as reactive speech act. ‘Initiative’ and ‘reactive’ are functional
qualities that change the type of action. Initiative speech acts make a claim,
reactive speech acts fulfil this precise claim. The minimal dialogically
autonomous unit thus consists of action and reaction. The correlation between
them is created by the Dialogic Principle proper DP, i.e. a principle based on
expectation. The speaker having issued a certain initiative speech act can, with a
certain probability, expect a specific reactive speech act:

action reaction
making a claim fulfilling this very claim

Figure 4: Dialogic Principle proper DP

40 Edda Weigand

Based on human beings’ nature, communicative means rely on different human

abilities which are integratively used. We can therefore no longer look for
coherence exclusively in the verbal text. We have to integrate cognitive and
perceptual means. Addition is not yet integration. In the end, coherence is
established by the interlocutors in their minds (Weigand 2000b):

interest [F (p)] communicative means

verbal, perceptual, and cognitive
means in interaction

Figure 5: Coherence Principle CohP

On the basis of these Constitutive Principles, Regulative Principles RP mediate

between different human abilities and interests, e.g., between reason and emotions
and between self-interest and social orientation. Regulation depends on the view
specific cultures have of the individual human being. In a broad sense, culture-
specific principles of emotion and politeness can be considered as rhetorical
principles insofar as they influence the effectiveness of dialogic action.
Beside Constitutive and Regulative Principles human beings use specific
Executive Principles EP which can also be counted among rhetorical principles.
They mainly represent deliberate cognitive strategies. Strategies, in my view, are
techniques which are considered to be efficient in achieving one’s purposes and
interests such as, e.g., the techniques of insisting on or repeating one’s claim or
the techniques of ‘hiding the real purpose’, ‘evading an explicit response’ or
‘surprising the opponent’. We can also use ‘presequences’ in order to make our
interlocutor feel more favourable towards our dialogic claim.
Dialogue on the basis of principles goes beyond the view of codes, definitions
and patterns and allows indeterminacy of meaning and different understandings of
the interlocutors. It is based on negotiation of meaning and understanding in a
game that is best characterized as a ‘mixed game’.

To sum up: Language as dialogue is not an independent object but an ability of

human beings which interacts with other abilities, among them the ability of
thought, and is influenced by various parameters, among them culture. Dialogic
interaction on the basis of competence-in-performance with language as a crucial
component is thus determined by biology as well as culture:
 The Sociobiology of Language 41

competence-in-performance

biology culture

interaction of abilities: shapes general biologic preconditions

speaking, thinking, perceiving
evaluating resulting in different abilities: language,
emotions, reason perception, thinking, evaluation
purposive beings, interests and strategies
regulation of human beings’ double nature resulting in different conventions and
self-interest habits
social concerns

Figure 6: Competence-in-performance as determined by biology and culture

All these features of biology and culture are reflected in the various Principles of
Probability: The AP deals with purposes and interests and with the different
abilities used as communicative means. The DP is related to the double nature of
human beings, the CohP addresses the interaction of the communicative means.
RP mediate between different abilities such as reason and emotion or different
interests, and EP set up guidelines for strategic behaviour.
Culture shapes everything, from internal abilities to different value systems
and ideologies and different external habits or legalised conventions such as in
law. Human beings are dialogic beings. By their very nature, they have emotions,
reason and other abilities which are all differently shaped by culture. We mostly
become aware of cultural influences in cases where different cultures meet. The
pending question of the origin of culture finds an answer in the fact that
evaluation as well as the desire to give sense to life are inherent parts of human
beings’ nature from the very outset. It is in the end evaluation where culture starts,
evaluation which depends on the individual and the specific environment.
In this way, the image of the individual human being and his/her relationship
to the community is differently shaped insofar as specific parameters, e.g. age, are
differently evaluated. Culture therefore mainly influences regulative principles of
politeness and rhetoric and executive principles of power insofar as living
together is biased either towards striving for harmony or towards strategies of
confrontation. Culture selects the arguments which back our positions, and not
only the way how we express them. It tells us how to deal with our emotions,
whether to expose them or to hide them. Evaluations become visible in habits and
actions such as customs of marriage and other festivities.
The puzzle of pieces and aspects thus changes into a mosaic. There are no
separate systems or codes. If they seem to exist, they are established by human
beings and their application is dependent on human decisions. There is no need
for speculation. All the features attributed to biology in figure 6 are experimen-
42 Edda Weigand

tally proven by neurology (Damasio 2000, Lumsden & Wilson 2005, Weigand
2002). Already the mirror neuron, the seeming simple, reveals itself as complex
as it is not only a biological entity but from the very outset an entity that
functions, that unites biology, mind and social orientation. Bickerton (1990:4)
from a quite different point of view already suspected: “Indeed, it is questionable
whether there is or ever can be such a thing as a ‘spare’ neuron (that is, a neuron
that is not, initially at least, committed to any specific function).” On the other
hand, all the features attributed to culture can be empirically observed in their
consequences for action.

4. How culture shapes action

Let me now illustrate with a few examples how human action is influenced by the
interaction of biology and culture. In the MGM, culture is not a separate
component but a variable that influences human action at any time and any place.
The unit of the action game is already a cultural unit, and acting and reacting
human beings are cultural beings. Culture thus has an external and an internal
meaning as it influences human action from the outside and inside of the
individual. Beside the mechanisms of physical evolution expounded by Darwin
there are mechanisms of mental evolution or some sort of cultural genes. Human
competence-in-performance intrinsically includes an element of evaluation, the
source of cultural differences. Consequently, every principle of the mixed game
should turn out to be influenced by culture.
The Action Principle correlates communicative purposes and interests with
communicative means. It is self-evident that the means vary from culture to
culture. We not only encounter different languages or verbal means and different
gestures or perceptual means but also different expectations that shape cognitive
means. It is mainly different values that lie at the heart of our associations and
expectations and determine different meanings. In the Italian culture, e.g., the
utterance

(1) La mia famiglia mi aspetta.

“My family is waiting for me.”

is meant and understood as a very strong indirect speech act ‘I have to visit them’
which can almost be considered to be a conventional direct speech act. Cross-
cultural conversations may result in problems of understanding as, e.g., for
someone belonging to Northern European cultures the utterance simply means
what it says, maybe with a faint indirect meaning ‘perhaps I should visit them’.
What is positive and what is negative is not yet fixed but depends on culture-
specific evaluation (e.g., Rapaille 2007). This will be massively clear, e.g., with
speech acts of compliments. To give a few examples (cf. Grein forthc.):
 The Sociobiology of Language 43

(2) Germany: Du hast abgenommen! Steht dir gut!

“You’ve lost weight! It suits you.”
China: Du bist aber dick geworden!
“You gained weight!”
Ruanda: Dein Gang gleicht dem einer Kuh.
“You walk like a cow.”
Kamerun: Sie sind ein alter Kochtopf.
“You are an old cooking pot.”

You have to know the culture-specific value system and the conventions of the
utterance form if you want to make a compliment.
In the same way, the Dialogic Principle is inherently influenced by culture.
The way we react strongly depends on the balance of self-interest and social
concerns. Thus not only the way compliments are expressed but also how they
have to be reacted to is culturally shaped. There seem to be cultures, e.g. the
Samoan, which, according to Holmes (1988:448), request that the object of the
compliment has to be given to the person who makes the compliment (cf. also
Grein forthc.):

(3) Was für eine außergewöhnliche Kette. Sie ist wunderschön. – Bitte nehmen Sie sie!
“What an unusual necklace. It s beautiful. – Please take it!”

There are also differences as a result of individual attitudes in reacting to a

compliment. Some people tend to reject compliments or play them down whereas
others accept them with joy.
Even the basic principle of a positive versus negative reply, which we
considered to be universally valid, seems to depend on culture. In times when we
still constructed models restricted to rationality, we considered it to be a logical
fact that an initiative speech act is followed either by a positive or negative reply
or by a speech act of postponing the decision:

positive reply
initiative speech act negative reply
postponing the decision

Figure 7: Basic types of reaction

However, living in Italy I was baffled by problems of understanding when I got

the reply ne parliamo or ne parleremo in conversations such as:
44 Edda Weigand

(4) Dovremmo cooperare per risolvere questo problema. Sei dei nostri? – Ne
parleremo.
“We should cooperate to solve this problem. Are you on our side? – We are going
to talk about this.”

First I took the response as I would take it in German, namely in its literal
meaning, and tried to clarify this point by insisting:

(5) Ne parleremo. – Quando?

“We’ll talk about it later. – When?”
Ne parleremo. – Ma dimmi quando?
“We’ll talk about it later. – But tell me when?”
Ne parleremo.
“We’ll talk about it later.”

Receiving the same answer several times, I became to some degree frustrated. In
German or English we also sometimes say wir reden noch darüber, we’ll talk
about it later, which however will be made more definite if the interlocutor insists
on his/her claim:

(6) Wann fahren wir also? – Wir reden noch darüber.

“When are we leaving then? – We’ll talk about it later.”
(7) Wir haben nicht mehr viel Zeit. Wann reden wir? – Morgen, in der Pause.
“We haven’t got much time. When will we talk about it? – Tomorrow, in the
break.”

Finally I recognized that in Italian ne parleremo means something else, obviously

a reaction which Germans have difficulty in understanding, namely the refusal to
decide or the wish to leave the issue open, in the air. The universal figure 7
therefore has to be modified:

positive reply
negative reply
initiative speech act
postponing the decision
leaving it in the air

Figure 8: Culturally modified types of reaction

I think there are still many cultural differences which are hidden, even very
important ones, which are waiting to be discovered by an analysis of cross-
cultural problems. It is not problems related to non-understanding, but problems
to do with unease which are not so easily detected and analysed.
 The Sociobiology of Language 45

Culture also influences the third constitutive principle, the Coherence

Principle. The Coherence Principle means that we interactively use different
abilities and cannot do anything else even if we wanted to. We speak and perceive
and think simultaneously. Coherence is therefore in the end not established in the
text but created in the mind. Evaluations, the core and root of cultural differences,
are included in the cognitive means. They enter the meaning of words. What, for
instance, punctual means is different in different cultures. They shape our
preferences and habits of life and determine conventions of language use. To take
one example: What we consider our private sphere in Northern European
cultures, i.e. what we do not share with strangers, is freely displayed and opened
up in other cultures, for instance, in the United States. For instance, while walking
in a park in New Orleans, we passed a man sitting on a bench phoning. Hi, he
addressed us, I am talking with my brother, and then followed the whole private
story of his brother. Such behaviour is quite unusual to people from Northern
Europe who would never start a conversation with complete strangers by telling
private stories except perhaps in a pub after a few glasses of beer. What ‘private’
means seems to be completely different.
In general, what is explicitly said and what remains implicit, varies from
culture to culture and strongly influences the indirect ways in which we speak
(see above example 1). Also the perceptual means greatly differ as we all know
when comparing, e.g., gestures in different cultures (see Nash in this vol.). There
are cultures which use few gestures, mostly conventional ones with clear
meanings such as nodding or shaking the head, and other cultures which make use
of multiple gestures and love using them, such as in Italian or French language
use. One might characterize cultures with few gestures as closed or introverted
and cultures exhibiting various gestures as open, extroverted cultures and thus
relate visible signs to so-called ‘culturgens’ (Lumsden & Wilson 2005:Ixvi).
It is self-evident that the way we think influences the way we expound our
thought in texts. In doing this our ‘rational’ capacities certainly play an important
role. Being rational has been considered a universal salient and distinctive feature
of human nature (Bickerton 1990:255, also Simon 1987:vii). However everybody
who has to collaborate with fellow beings from remote cultures will face
difficulties if they presuppose a common ability of rationality. What we consider
to be ‘rationality’, turns out to be a western feature. It would be highly interesting
to find out what ‘rationality’ means in cultures of the Far East.
Let us now address the Regulative and Executive Principles. Regulative
Principles of politeness and emotion are by their very nature highly sensitive to
cultural differences as they depend on how the role of the individual in the
community is evaluated. Human beings as social individuals have to mediate
between their individual self-interest and social concerns. How they will proceed,
where they will put the emphasis, depends on how the relationship between the
individual and the community is assessed in their culture (see, e.g., Prema-
46 Edda Weigand

wardhena and Shilikina in this vol., also Grein 2007). In general, internal
regulative principles are externally shaped as rhetorical principles.
Western cultures proclaim individual freedom, cultures of the Far East stress
the value of the invididual for the community. The balance between self-interest
and respect for other human beings defines what politeness means and shapes the
way dialogic claims are expressed in initiative and reactive speech acts (see above
example 3). In recent times, cultures of the Far East seem to be moving closer to
western goals and benchmarks. It is not only pronouns of politeness in western
languages that have lost their meaning, specific categories in far eastern languages
such as honorifica also seem to be losing significance (cf. Cho in this vol.).
Politeness in western cultures can be totally formalised in routines which are used
to push the speaker’s own interests. Describing politeness in terms of ‘face
redress’ (Brown & Levinson 1987:91ff.) only accounts for part of the phenom-
enon and not even the essential part. Should we think of the human species as an
aggressive species always in fear of their ‘face’? Politeness is not a negative
phenomenon to be dealt with primarily in terms of ‘avoiding face-threatening
acts’. At its core, it is a positive value, that of respecting the other human being.
That is precisely the essential part: respecting the other human being is a dialogic
feature that goes beyond the “highly abstract notion of ‘face’”. The ‘positive’ as
well as ‘negative face’ of Brown and Levinson (p.13) are both defined
monologically, i.e. self-reflexively towards the speaker, as the “desire (in some
respects) to be approved of” and the “desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions”
and are not conceived of dialogically with reference to the interlocutor as the
desire to respect the other human being.
The dialogic balance between respect and self-interest has to do with the use
of power. Power appears in many different guises, it might be the positive power
of encouragement and support or the negative power of suppression and force.
Germans are considered – whether rightly or wrongly – to be people who push
their own interests, whereas we are told that other cultures, among them cultures
from the Far East, believe that to argue in one’s own interest is impolite.
Regulative Principles not only shape the balance between self-interest and
social concerns but also refer to the way we rhetorically deal with our emotions.
Emotion and reason can no longer be considered separate faculties. Emotion
influences reason, and reason tries to control emotions. There are rhetorical
Principles of Emotion (Weigand 1998b), based on cultural habits and con-
ventions, which tell us how to deal with emotions in dialogic interaction, whether
they are to be freely demonstrated or to be hidden in public. A striking example,
e.g., is the way mourning is demonstrated openly by wailers in southern cultures.
The third category of Principles of Probability, Executive Principles, depends
also on basic evaluations or cultural ideologies. Culture, as emerging from eval-
uation, is, in the end, based on some form of ideology. Executive Principles
represent rhetorical principles since they are deliberately used by the interacting
people. The interlocutors may follow ideological conventions or decide on their
 The Sociobiology of Language 47

individual evaluation. Humanity may represent a value for them or it may be

individually ignored. They may use cooperative practices or prefer competition
and confrontation, even suppression. But we are not totally free in our decisions.
We live in modern societies and feel obliged to take account of their conventions
and practices, for instance, of competition, if we want to be successful in our
society.

5. Concluding remarks

I think it has become obvious that human actions and behaviour are the result of
both our biology and the environment we live in. Extreme positions such as the
nativist versus the empiricist position can help in profiling the issue but are, in
principle, not capable of settling it. It is the interaction of language, genes and
culture or the sociobiology of language that determines how human beings
interact in different cultures.
The world is perceived differently in different cultures. As the Mixed Game
Model is based on a view of human beings as social individuals, the question
arises how far cultures can be circumscribed in general, in a conventional way,
i.e., how far we can speak of cultural identities. To my mind, accepting
individuality does not mean ignoring cultural conventions. In any case, dialogue
presupposes some common ground. Cultural identities can be based on history, on
values proclaimed in the past. However, societies develop, new alliances are
created. We might feel we are Europeans and profess certain values which have
played a role in Europe’s past. Reflecting on the past however cannot be
everything. Sometimes cultural identity has to be consciously constructed and
requires us to take account of possible future developments.

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 PART II

Theoretical Positions
 Some General Thoughts about Linguistic Typology
and Dialogue Linguistics

Walter Bisang
University of Mainz

Functional linguistic typology deals with universal patterns of cross-linguistic variation

and looks at grammatical structures with their fixed meaning. Dialogue linguistics is
based on the assumption that the concrete meaning of an utterance is indeterminate and
depends on a number of factors within concrete speech situations. Given the rather
divergent focuses of these two disciplines, one may wonder where there is any common
ground and in what way they may profit from each other. The present paper is written
from the perspective of a typologist and thus concentrates on the question of what
typologists can learn from dialogue linguistics and how dialogue linguistics matters for
typology.

1. Introduction

The present paper is written from the perspective of a typologist and thus
concentrates on the question of what typologists can learn from dialogue
linguistics and how dialogue linguistics matters for typology.
For dealing with these questions, I will structure my paper as follows: in
chapter 2, I will introduce some basic issues about linguistic typology, its methods
or strategies (2.1), its findings in terms of language universals (2.2) and its
functional explanations for these universals (2.3). In the last chapter (2.4), I will
show that functionalists must account for the indeterminacy of meaning if they
want to understand how individual speakers use language and how they integrate
capacities such as the epistemic, the logical, the perceptual and the social
capacities (Dik 1997).
Given the importance of language use, I will concentrate on pragmatics in
chapter 3. I will briefly sketch the question of universals in pragmatics and
Levinson’s (2000) distinction between the universals-based layer of utterance-
meaning and the situation-based layer of speaker-meaning. While there is no
question that dialogue linguistics significantly contributes to the understanding of
speaker-meaning, I will argue that its applicability to cross-linguistic and cross-
cultural comparison may help understanding where universal pragmatics ends and
non-universal culture-specific pragmatics begins.
54 Walter Bisang

In chapter 4, I will illustrate the tension between the rigid rules of grammar
and the speaker’s needs in specific situations. I will argue that rigid grammatical
rules can either lead to exceptions within the grammatical system or reduce the
usefulness of a marker for certain intentions of the speaker. In both cases,
dialogue linguistics is at the very roots of grammar. The existence of exceptions
will be illustrated by the phenomenon of finiteness (4.1). Obligatory categories
that mark finiteness such as tense or person can force the speaker to make a
commitment to the contents of that category which is incompatible with what she
wants to say in a certain speech situation. This leads to the development of
specific constructions that can be used like independent clauses but do not refer to
the grammatical category associated with finiteness. The case of reduced
usefulness of a grammatical system will be illustrated by the example of
politeness marking in Japanese (4.2). Due to its obligatoriness, the Japanese
politeness system is no longer available to the speaker for explicit polite
behaviour. The language has developed other more expressive means for polite
linguistic behaviour that are at least as important for a successful communication
as grammaticalized politeness.
In the fifth and last chapter, I will try to provide a more systematic account of
how dialogue linguistics matters for typology. For that purpose, dialogic
linguistics will be looked at from three perspectives:
− integrative functionalism (Croft 1995, 2000)
− grammaticalization and inference and
− the concept of a tertium comparationis.

2. Language typology and cognitive/functional explanations

2.1 The typological strategies for discovering structural patterns – an example

Language typology deals with structural variety across languages. It tries to find
out to what extent languages show structural variation and where they have to
follow universal patterns. For that purpose, typologists start from a certain
semantic (or pragmatic) concept and look at how this concept is expressed
morphologically and syntactically in the world’s languages. Croft (2003)
describes the typological method of exploring linguistic universals in terms of the
following three strategies:
Croft’s three research strategies (Croft 2003:14; this quotation omits the bold
prints of the original, WB):
− Determine the particular semantic(-pragmatic) structure or situation type that
one is interested in studying.
− Examine the morphosyntactic construction(s) or strategies used to encode that
situation type.
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 55

− Search for dependencies between the construction(s) used for that situation
and other linguistic factors: other structural features, other external functions
expressed by the construction in question, or both.

2.2 Some universal patterns

To illustrate how universal patterns become visible from the application of these
strategies, I will briefly look at the two cognitive domains of possession and
clausal modification. Possession can be roughly defined as a relation between a
possessor and a thing possessed. Morphosyntactically, the possessor is realized as
a genitive (Gen), the thing possessed as a head noun (N) (cf. Croft 2003:31-48 for
a more detailed account). The morphosyntactic encoding of possession involves a
lot of different criteria. For the sake of brevity, I will only look at word order, i.e.
at the two possible sequences of [possessor-possessed] (GenN) and [possessed-
possessor] (NGen). As we can see from the examples below, both orders are
possible in English (NGen/GenN), while Japanese only has GenN and Yoruba
only has NGen:

(1) English:
NGen: the car of my father
GenN: my father’s car

Yoruba:
NGen: mợtò bàbá mi
car father I

Japanese:
GenN: titi no kuruma
father GEN car

If we look at clausal modification as reflected by relative constructions (the most

detailed typological study of relative clauses still is Lehmann 1984) from the
perspective of word order we find the two possible word-order patterns of [clausal
modifier-head noun] (RelN) and [head noun-clausal modifier] (NRel).

(2) English:
NRel: the car [I bought]

Yoruba:
NRel: mợtò tí mo rà
car REL I buy

Japanese:
RelN: [watasi ga kat-ta] kuruma
I NOM buy-PST car
56 Walter Bisang

Each of the above cognitive domains provides a parameter consisting of two

values or types (NGen/GenN and NRel/RelN). If one combines both parameters
with their types into a tetrachronic table and tries to see empirically which
combinations of types are attested, one gets a very interesting correlation
illustrated in Figure 1 (the plus sign means that this combination is attested, the
minus sign that it is not attested): The combination of a postnominal genitive plus
a prenominal relative clause (NGen & RelN) does not seem to occur in any
language.

Table 1: Tetrachronic table

NGen GenN
NRel + +
RelN - +

Since the above pattern is parallel to implications in propositional logic and since
it holds universally in the world’s languages, it is called an implicational
universal. The first who introduced implicational universals was Greenberg with
his seminal paper of 1966. In the formulation of Hawkins (1983, also cf. 1994),
the universal reflected by Table 1 is described as follows (G = genitive):

Universal (IX‘): NG  NRel

If in a language the genitive follows the noun, then the relative clause follows
likewise.

Other parameters of word order within the noun phrase are the position of
numerals (Num), demonstratives (Dem) and adjectives (Adj) relative to the head
noun. If these parameters are related to the parameter of prepositional/
postpositional, we get an even more complex universal pattern called
Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy (PrNMH, Hawkins 1983, 1994, 2004):

Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy (PrNMH):

If a language is prepositional, then if RelN then GenN, if GenN then AdjN, and if
AdjN then Dem N/Num N.
Prep  ((NDem / NNum  NA) & (NA  NG) & (NG  NRel))

Universal patterns of this type are not arbitrary. As will be shown in the next
chapter, they can be accounted for by a number of explanations.

2.3 Functional explanations

Typologists understand language as an instrument of communication in a broad
sense which also covers the whole situation (speaker, hearer, third), the
information that is activated in the speaker and the hearer and the intentions of
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 57

speaker and hearer. Thus language is embedded into more general cognitive
processes such as reasoning and conceptualization and into cognitive systems
such as perception and knowledge. From such a communication-based
perspective, universal patterns are not the product of an innate Universal
Grammar (UG), they are motivated by the following factors:
− Cognitive motivations: parsing, iconicity, economy
− Motivations from the speech situation: discourse, pragmatics.
The cognitive motivations will be briefly discussed in this chapter. Pragmatics
will be the topic of the next chapter.
Hawkins (1983, 1994, 2004) explains the Prepositional Noun Modifier
Hierarchy presented above in terms of parsing, i.e. as a product of the properties
of the human parser. One important property of the parser is that it prefers shorter
processing domains to longer ones in combinatorial and/or dependency relations.
A very straightforward example from English is the following from performance:

(3) a. The man VP[waited PP1[for his son] PP2[in the cold but not unpleasant wind]].
1 2 3 4 5

b. The man VP[waited PP2[in the cold but not unpleasant wind] PP1[for his son]]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The domain that is needed to recognize the overall constituent structure of the VP
in (3) with its elements V PP1 and PP2 is much shorter in (3a) than in (3b). The
relevant domain represented by the curved bracket consists of five words in (3a)
and of nine words in (3b). Given the preference of shorter processing domains,
utterances of the type in (3a) are more frequent in English. This is due to the more
general principle of Minimize Domains (Hawkins 2004: 31):
The human processor prefers to minimize the connected sequences of linguistic forms
and their conventionally associated syntactic and semantic properties in which relations
of combination and/or dependency are processed. The degree of this preference is
proportional to the number of relations whose domains can be minimized in competing
sequences or structures, and to the extent of the minimization difference in each domain.

Minimize Domains also applies to the Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy.

This can be illustrated by comparing structure (a) with structure (b):
58 Walter Bisang

(a) PP (b) PP

P NP P NP

X N N X

Figure 1: Minimize Domains and Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy

Category X represents a Numeral (Num), a demonstrative (Dem), an adjective

(Adj), a possessor (Gen) or a relative clause (Rel). Relative clauses tend to be
longer and often more complex than possessive phrases, possessive phrases tend
to be longer than adjective phrases and adjective phrases tend to be longer than
demonstratives and numerals. If the constituents represented by X follow their
head noun as in (b), the processing domain for the recognition of the overall
structure of the PP is always minimally short. Thus, structures following (b) are
very suitable to the parser. If X is preposed to its head noun as in (a), the length
and the complexity of the processing domain increases from Num/Dem to Adj to
Gen to Rel and parsing becomes more and more expensive. This increase of effort
for the parser is exactly reflected by the Prepositional Noun Modifier Hierarchy.
The two other cognitive motivations to be discussed briefly are iconicity and
economy. Iconicity is based on the assumption that there is a certain similarity of
the sign with the concept it denotes. Thus, iconicity implies an isomorphism
between a concept and the way in which it is expressed – language structure
reflects structures of experience (cf. Haiman 1978, 1980, 1983, 1985). In
language, iconicity is based on conceptual distance. Haiman (1983:782) differen-
tiates:
− The linguistic distance between expressions corresponds to the conceptual
distance between them.
− The linguistic separateness of an expression corresponds to the conceptual
independence of the object or event which it represents.
− The social distance between interlocutors corresponds to the length of the
message, referential content being equal.
A good example is again possession. This time, it is the distinction between
alienable and inalienable possession. If we look at utterances such as my head and
my computer, there does not seem to be much of a difference since the same
construction is used in both cases. In spite of this, there is a considerable semantic
difference with respect to the tightness of the relation between the possessor and
the thing possessed. In the case of head, we are dealing with a possession which
cannot be undone, i.e., the possessor cannot take her/his head and pass it on to
somebody else. Of course, this is different with computer. Some people may not
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 59

like giving their computer away to somebody else – nevertheless, it does not
belong to them in the same way as their head. The case of my computer reflects
alienable possession, the case of my head stands for inalienable possession. There
is a number of languages across the world which use different grammatical
structures for the expression of alienable vs. inalienable possession (cf. e.g.,
Chappell & McGregor 1996). In Yabêm, an Austronesian language spoken in
Papua New Guinea, there are two different sets of markers for alienable vs.
inalienable possession. The singular forms are given in (4) and illustrated by (5):

(4) Yabêm (Dempwolff 1939):

Inalienable possession: suffixes:
-c ‘1.SG’, -m ‘2.SG’, -ø ‘3.SG’
Alienable possession: free pronouns:
ngoc ‘1.SG’, nêm ‘2.SG’, nê ‘3.SG’

(5) Yabêm
Inalienable possession:
ôli-c “my body”, ôli-m “your body”, ôli-ø “his body”
Alienable possession:
ngoc àndu “my house”, nêm àndu “your house”, nê àndu “her/his house”

A cross-linguistic analysis reveals that there is a parallelism between the cognitive

experience of the tightness of the relation between possessor and possessed and its
formal expression. This correlation can be expressed as follows:
The conceptually more distant alienable relation is more marked or equally marked as
the conceptually closer inalienable possession.

Economy is the last cognitive motivation to be described. It reflects the desire of

speakers and hearers to perform ‘the least effort’ or ‘to do things in the simplest
way’ to express a certain concept (cf. Haiman 1983). Economy of expression is
linked to familiarity. More familiar concepts are expressed with less morpho-
syntactic effort:
Loss of marking, and consequent formal reduction, is not so much an icon of lesser
complexity [sic], but an economically motivated index of familiarity, which is culturally
determined and variable, rather than intrinsic and absolute. Whether the motivation for
reduction in such cases is essentially iconic or economic is perhaps less significant than
the fact that the end result of reduction in all of the examples discussed is an increase of
opacity, and a loss of motivation, or of iconicity (Haiman 1985:3-4).

A good example of economy is the use of reflexive marking with introverted and
extroverted verbs in English (Haiman 1983, König & Vezzosi 2004). Verbs
whose lexical meaning generally implies that the agent performs an action on
her/his self are called introverted, an action performed towards others is called
extroverted. With introverted actions in their reflexive use, the reflexive pronoun
60 Walter Bisang

can be omitted (Max washed [himself]). This is not possible with extroverted
verbs (Max kicked himself but *Max kicked).
The two motivations of iconicity and economy lead to mutually opposing
results. While iconicity supports maximal distinction of different cognitive
domains and subdomains, economy maximally reduces these distinctions. In
terms of Optimality Theory (cf. e.g., Kager 1999), one can also say that iconicity
leads to faithfulness constraints, while economy enhances markedness constraints
(use unmarked candidates!). Many typologically universal patterns are the result
of the two competing motivations of iconicity and economy.

2.4 The aim of functional approaches – some problems

Since it is impossible to describe the considerable number of different functional
approaches, I will concentrate on Functional Grammar (Dik 1997) as a prototypi-
cal example. The basic interest of this approach can be summarized by the
following questions:
How does a natural language user (NLU) ‘work’? How do speakers and addressees
succeed in communicating with each other through the use of linguistic expressions?
(Dik 1997:1).

Natural language users are not simply ‘linguistic animals’, they have a number of
capacities which contribute to linguistic communication and which need to be
adequately integrated into a functional approach (Dik 1997:1-2):
− linguistic capacity: correct production and interpretation of linguistic
expressions
− epistemic capacity: derivation of knowledge from linguistic expressions
− logical capacity: derivation of knowledge from rules of reasoning monitored
by deductive and probabilistic logic
− perceptual capacity: use of perceptually acquired knowledge in producing/
interpreting linguistic expressions
− social capacity: knowledge of how to communicate depending on the situa-
tion and the partners involved.
Natural language users deploy their capacities in actual situations of
communication, i.e. in verbal interaction (Dik 1997:8-10). Verbal interaction is
based on an enormous amount of pragmatic information of what the speaker
assumes to be present in the addressee and vice versa. This pragmatic information
forms the point of departure for dealing with semantics and with syntax:
[P]ragmatics is seen as the all-encompassing framework within which semantics and
syntax must be studied. Semantics is regarded as instrumental with respect to
pragmatics, and syntax as instrumental with respect to semantics. In this view, there is
no room for something like an ‘autonomous’ syntax (Dik 1997:8).
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 61

Similar to other functional approaches, Dik’s (1997) generalizations about

language are based exclusively on linguistic structures as means for the
expression of a certain function within a certain pragmatic and sociolinguistic
context. The problem with such an approach is that linguistic structures certainly
do have their semantic and pragmatic properties but these properties can never
fully determine the concrete meaning of these structures in a concrete situation
with the social status of the participants and the information activated in them. Of
course, the capacities listed above are based on the properties of linguistic
structures but capacities like the epistemic, logical, perceptual and social
capacities interact with these properties and produce specific, context-induced
interpretations that are not predictable from them. If a functional approach wants
to understand these processes, it must integrate findings from other fields. In the
next chapter, I’ll try to look at pragmatics and the role of dialogue linguistics
within it.

3. The limits of universals in pragmatics and the role of dialogue linguistics

The last chapter (2.4) ended with the statement that linguistic structures and their
properties (almost) never fully express the meaning they have in a concrete
speech situation. The reason for this is related to what Levinson (2000:6, 27-30)
calls the ‘articulatory bottleneck’. Human speech encoding is by far the slowest
part of speech production and comprehension-processes like prearticulation,
parsing and comprehension run at a much higher speed. This bottleneck situation
leads to an asymmetry between inference and articulation which accounts for why
linguistic structures and their properties are subject to context-induced
enrichment: “[I]nference is cheap, articulation expensive, and thus the design
requirements are for a system that maximizes inference” (Levinson 2000:29).
In standard theories of communication, the bottleneck problem usually leads
to the division of two layers: A level of sentence-meaning as reflected by a theory
of grammar that includes linguistic structures and their properties and a level of
speaker-meaning that is explicated by pragmatics. However, this bipartite division
is not sufficient if one wants to ask the question of universals in pragmatics
“because it underestimates the regularity, recurrence, and systematicity of many
kinds of pragmatic inferences” (Levinson 2000:22). For that reason, Levinson
(2000) introduces a third layer which he calls ‘utterance meaning’ or ‘statement-
meaning’. This level is situated between the other two levels and is characterized
by Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), while speaker-meaning is
characterized by Particularized Conversational Implicatures (PCIs) (on the
introduction of GCIs and PCIs cf. Grice 1975:56-67). The three layers of meaning
according to Levinson (2000:21-24) are:
− Sentence-meaning: grammar in a broad sense
− Utterance-meaning/statement-meaning: Generalized Conversational Implicatures
− Speaker-meaning: Particularized Conversational Implicatures.
62 Walter Bisang

Thus, Levinson (2000) distinguishes two pragmatic levels, a universal one

(utterance-meaning/statement-meaning) and a particularized one (speaker-
meaning). The two types of implicatures associated with these two levels can
roughly be defined as follows (Levinson 2000:16):
− An implicature i from utterance U is particularized if U implicates i only by virtue of
specific contextual assumptions that would not invariably or even normally obtain.
− An implicature i is generalized if U implicates i unless there are unusual specific
contextual assumptions that defeat it.
An example like (6) triggers the GCI that ‘not all of the guests are already
leaving’.

(6) Some of the guests are already leaving. (Levinson 2000:16)

This inference is universal and does not depend on any specific context. In
contrast to GCIs, PCIs are derived from concrete contexts. Thus, (6) may mean It
must be late if it is an answer to the question What time is it?. It could also mean
Perhaps John has already left in a context in which a speaker wants to know
where John is.
Levinson’s (2000) theory is exclusively about Generalized Conversational
Implicatures. It is thus possible to understand his approach as a contribution to
what can be seen as systematic and universal knowledge in pragmatics. If this is
the case, two out of the three layers of meaning are amenable to descriptions in
terms of systematic knowledge, i.e. the layer of sentence-meaning and the layer of
utterance-meaning:
− Sentence-meaning: Grammar: Typological Universals
− Utterance-meaning: Universal principles of inference (GCIs)
− Speaker-meaning: No systematic principles
Levinson’s (2000) approach has been criticized by Sperber and Wilson (1986),
who claim that implicatures are a side effect of relevance, a mental automatism
that derives maximal inferences from an utterance with minimal psychic effort.
Since the inferences looked at by Sperber and Wilson (1986) belong to the type of
nonce or once-off inferences that are characteristic of Particularized
Conversational Implicatures, Levinson (2000:12) rightly argues that theories of
this type “simply cannot handle the phenomena that are focal to a theory of
GCIs”.
From a typological perspective that looks for universal properties of
language, it is necessary to look for those fields of pragmatics that follow such
principles and Levinson (2000) has certainly presented the most thorough theory
of universal principles in pragmatics. Thus, the stipulation of his third level of
utterance-meaning is sufficiently justified even though the general question of
how much of pragmatics can actually be covered by a universal approach is still
unclear. Levinson’s (2000) claim of the universal validity of his approach is often
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 63

criticized in the literature as being culturally biased. If that turns out to be true the
relevance of universals and the relevance of the utterance-level in pragmatics may
be even smaller than assumed by Levinson himself, whose GCI theory “attempts
to account for one relatively small area of pragmatic inference” (Levinson
2000:22).
The above discussion concentrated on pragmatics and its universal and non-
universal aspects as reflected by utterance-meaning and speaker-meaning,
respectively. To conclude this chapter, let’s briefly look at the role that dialogue
linguistics may play in that context. Dialogue linguistics does away with the
language myth (Harris 1981, Weigand 2002), i.e. with the idea of fixed codes and
fixed meanings. In each utterance, there is always a certain indeterminacy of
meaning depending on the individual user and the probability with which she may
apply certain rules and conventions. This is illustrated by the following example:

(7) When will you clean the toilet?

Depending on the context and the speaker’s intentions within that context, (7)
may either be understood as a real question asking for the time when the hearer
will clean the toilet or as a request to the hearer to clean the toilet. The meaning of
an utterance must always be evaluated in the context of a dialogue and the
processes of negotiating that take place within it. In that context, Weigand (2003)
developed the dialogic action game as a minimal communicative unit (Weigand
2003) which always consists of two sequences whose meanings are mutually
dependent: an action by a speaker A and a reaction by a speaker B. The initial
action (speaker A) is characterized as an act of making a specific claim which
determines the expected specific reaction as fulfilling that claim (speaker B).
Depending on the property of the claim and on the question of whether a separate
reaction is necessary, Weigand (2003) distinguishes different categories of speech
act types (REPRESENTATIVE, DECLARATIVE, EXPLORATIVE, DIRECTIVE; cf. chapter
5 for some more details). The probability with which certain linguistic means will
be used depends on the speech-act types and on the socio-cultural properties of
the speech situation. The above example (7) may be interpreted as an EXPLORA-
TIVE or as a DIRECTIVE speech-act type.
From what has been said so far, dialogue linguistics can certainly contribute
to the understanding of speaker-meaning. It explicitly understands meaning as the
product of the probability with which an individual speaker selects certain
linguistic means and it provides a framework consisting of speech-act types and
properties of the speech situation which determine that probability. Since the
same framework can be applied to different languages and cultures (cf. e.g., Cho
2005 on politeness in Korean and German, Grein 2007 on politeness in Japanese
and German), dialogue linguistics can also be used for cross-linguistic and cross-
cultural comparison. From such a perspective, one may think of using the dialogic
method for finding out to what extent Levinson’s (2000) universal approach to
64 Walter Bisang

utterance meaning is culturally biased. I thus see a considerable potential of

dialogue linguistics to contribute to the question of where to draw the borderline
between universal and non-universal pragmatics.

4. Grammar and the speaker’s needs in specific situations – two examples

4.1 Finiteness
As can be seen from a recent volume edited by Nikolaeva (2007), the universal
status of finiteness and its definition is a matter of controversial discussions. In
spite of this, there are languages in which the distinction between dependent and
independent clauses is formally expressed. Such languages make use of certain
grammatical markers as indicators of sentencehood, i.e., as markers of clauses
that can be uttered independently. In my own work (Bisang 2007), I looked at
grammatical markers of tense, person, illocutionary force and politeness. As soon
as these markers become obligatory, the categories they mark have to be present
in independent clauses and we get a markedness asymmetry between finite and
non-finite clauses. In languages like English or Japanese, the category that
crucially distinguishes between finite and non-finite clauses is tense. In (8), the
finite verb is in the past, while the gerundial or converbial form of the verb in -ing
is not marked for tense. Similarly, the finite verb in Japanese (9) is tense-marked,
while the converb in -te has no tense marking. The non-finite clause in -te takes
its past-tense interpretation from the finite clause.

(8) Smok-ing a cigarette, he read the newspaper.

(9) Tabako o sut-te, sinbun o yon-da.

cigarette ACC smoke-CONV newspaper ACC read-PST
“Smoking a cigarette, he read the newspaper.”

A category is obligatory if a speaker has to select an overt marker that represents

a value of that category (for a similar definition cf. Lehmann 1995:139). Thus, a
speaker has to select one of the tense markers from the set of markers expressing
tense in a language like Japanese or English. The obligatoriness of a finiteness-
related category creates a reliable indicator of finiteness that is crucial for the
human parser to recognize the independent status of a clause. This is an advantage
for the parser but it may turn out to be a problem for the language user if she
wants to utter an independent clausal structure without committing herself to the
semantic value expressed by the finiteness-related marker. What can happen in
such a case will be illustrated in the rest of this chapter with examples from
German.
In German, finiteness is associated with tense and agreement with the
nominative NP. The function of finiteness can be described in terms of Klein’s
(1994, 1998) semantic definition:
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 65

Assertion of the validity of a state of affairs p for some topic time (whereby topic time is
the time span for which the speaker makes a claim). Assertion functions to link the state
of affairs or entity denoted by the predicate of the utterance to its topic.

Even though finiteness is an obligatory category in German, Lasser (2002:775)

shows that some 3% of independent sentences with a verb uttered by German
adults in her corpus are not marked for finiteness. What we find in these cases are
root infinitives and finite complementizer clauses (also cf. Evans 2007 on
insubordination):

(10) Ich mit dem ins Kino geh-en?

I with that.one to:DEF cinema go-INF
“Me go to cinema with that guy?”

(11) Aufpass-en, dass du es nicht verlierst!

take.care-INF COMPL you it NEG lose:PRS:2.SG
“Take care that you don’t lose it!”

(12) Dass du noch 100 Jahre alt werdest!

that you yet 100 years old become:CONJ:2.SG
“May you become 100 years old!”

What is typical of these examples is that they are uttered in situations in which the
speaker cannot or does not want to assert the validity of the state of affairs she is
referring to.
The contexts in which we find root infinitives and finite complementizer
clauses are strictly determined – we find them with hortatives, rhetorical
questions, counterfactuals, anecdote registers (Lasser 2002). Thus, finite marking
is as highly grammaticalized in German as the use of nonfinite forms in certain
independent clauses. The speaker is not free to abandon the assertion of the
validity of an independent clause whenever she may feel like it but there are
certain constructions with their specific meaning that can be used in certain
situations. At this point, dialogue linguistics is coming in. Synchronically, it
provides the tool for exactly describing the situations in which root infinitives and
finite complementizer clauses can be used. Diachronically, it may help to develop
plausible scenarios for the development of constructions like root infinitives or
finite complementizer clauses.
66 Walter Bisang

4.2 Politeness in Japanese

The grammatical system of politeness in Japanese combines two different axes in
the speech situation, the speaker-hearer axis and the speaker-third person axis
(Shibatani 1990). Speaker-hearer politeness refers to the social status of the hearer
in comparison to the speaker. It is called teineigo in Japanese and is formally
expressed by the suffix -mas-u (POL-PRS)/-masi-ta (POL-PST) and by the copula
forms des-u (COP:POL-PRS)/desi-ta (COP:POL-PST). Thus, the suffix -masi- in
the following example roughly indicates that the hearer is of higher status than the
speaker:

(13) Japanese: Speaker-hearer politeness (Shibatani 1990):

Taroo ga ki-masi-ta.
Taroo NOM come-POL-PST
“Taroo has come/came.”

Speaker-third person politeness is based on the social status of third person

participants relative to the speaker. This type of politeness is divided into two
separate categories depending on the grammatical status of the third-person
participant (Shibatani 1990). The subject-honorific form (in Japanese: sonkeigo
“form of respect”) is used if the third-person participant is in the subject position.
If it is in the object position, the object-honorific form (in Japanese: kenjoogo
“form of modesty”) is selected. In example (14), the subject is sensei “teacher”, a
participant whose status is higher than that of the speaker. Thus, the verb is in the
subject-honorific form (in bold print):

(14) Japanese: Subject-honorific form (Shibatani 1990):

Sensei ga o-warai-ni nat-ta.
teacher NOM HON-laugh-POL-PST
“The teacher laughed.”

In example (15), the noun sensei “teacher” is in the object position and the verb is
marked by the object-honorific form (in bold print):

(15) Japanese: Object-honorific form (Shibatani 1990):

Taroo ga sensei o o-tasuke-si-ta.
Taroo NOM teacher ACC HON-help-HON-PST
“Taroo helped the teacher.”

In the next example, speaker-hearer politeness and subject-honorific form are

combined. This implies that the social status of the speaker is lower than that of
the hearer as well as lower than that of the participant expressed in the subject
position:
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 67

(16) Japanese: speaker-hearer politeness plus subject-honorific form (Shibatani 1990):

Sensei ga o-warai-ni nari-masi-ta.
teacher NOM HON-laugh-HON-POL-PST
“The teacher laughed.”

The use of this system is obligatory. It is pervasive and its command is a

precondition for making career in Japan. In spite of this, a look at how it is used in
dialogic action games reveals that its function in an actual dialogue is relatively
small. The fact that the speaker has to use highly grammaticalized markers like
the Japanese politeness forms in a given situation makes them rather inexpressive.
This shows up very nicely in Grein’s (2007) work on the speech act type of
DIRECTIVE – REFUSAL in Japanese. For the purpose of the present paper, I just
mention one example in which a director asks one of his employees to work for
him over the weekend (action by speaker A). The answer of his employee
(reaction by speaker B) looks as follows:

(17) Japanese (Grein 2007:331):

Zannen nagara, yotei ga hait-te ori-mas-u.
I.regret appointment NOM have-CONV AUX:HON-POL-PRS
“I regret, I have an appointment.”

In the above example, the politeness system of Japanese is fully deployed. The
suffix -mas- stands for speaker-hearer politeness and the auxiliary or- stands for
the form of respect (kenjoogo). But these forms hardly contribute to the speaker’s
intention of appropriately rejecting a request of his superior. What is much more
important are hedges, tag-questions, idiomatic forms, explanations, markers of
modality, etc. Two of these additional tools for socially appropriate and polite
linguistic behaviour are attested in (17): the idiomatic form zannen nagara “I
regret” and the explanation (“I have an appointment”). If a learner of Japanese
only learns the grammaticalized forms for polite linguistic behaviour she will fail
to communicate successfully. Of course, command of the grammatical politeness
system is mandatory but what really makes an utterance suitable to a given social
constellation are the additional markers mentioned above. And these markers can
be discovered within the framework of dialogic action games.
Dialogic action games cannot only be used to make evident linguistic tools
relevant for appropriate linguistic behaviour, they also provide a framework for
cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison. It is well-known that Brown and
Levinson’s (1987) concept of politeness in terms of positive and negative face
was criticized for its cultural bias. Matsumoto (1988, 1989, 1993) for instance
argues that negative politeness is irrelevant in a group-oriented society because
the recognition of a human relationship is more important than the reduction of
the imposition of doing a face-threatening act. It is not the purpose of my paper to
evaluate the adequacy of the face concept developed by Brown and Levinson
(1987). What I would like to point out is that the dialogic action game can reveal
68 Walter Bisang

cross-cultural differences on an empirical basis. Thus, one of Grein’s (2007, cf.

this vol.) findings in her comparison of DIRECTIVES and REFUSALS in Japanese and
German shows that in refusals the elaborateness of the explanation varies between
the two cultures. In Germany, the most indirect rejection with a maximally
elaborate explanation is used for the director. In Japan, the most elaborate
explanation is addressed to acquaintances and friends. While elaborateness
increases with social distance in Germany, it decreases with social distance in
Japan. This fact can also be observed in example (17) in which the speaker only
offers a standard explanation to her/his director. The reason for this is that
members of the same inner group (the uti “inside”) need more careful treatment
than people belonging to the outer sphere (Grein 2007:408). First of all, one
would not expect a directive one would not be willing to do from a member of the
inner sphere because such a member is supposed to have an intuitive feeling of
what can be asked for. If such a directive is articulated at all it calls for an
elaborated rejection.

5. Conclusion: How does dialogue linguistics matter for linguistic typology?

After a short description of linguistic typology (chapter 2), I have tried to situate
dialogue linguistics in the debate about universals in pragmatics (chapter 3) and I
have shown what happens if speakers with their specific needs in specific
situations have to cope with rigid grammatical rules (chapter 4). At a relatively
early stage in this paper, I have also shown that a functional approach which
wants to understand how a natural language user works must be interested in
dialogue linguistics (2.4). With this background, it is now time to show more
coherently in what way dialogue linguistics matters for typology. For that
purpose, I would like to look at dialogue linguistics from the following three
perspectives:
− Integrative functionalism
− Grammaticalization
− tertium comparationis
As Croft (1995) points out, existing linguistic theories can be divided into three
types: formal linguistics, external functionalism and integrative functionalism:

− Formal Linguistics: existence of an innate syntax-oriented lan-

guage capacity (Universal Grammar, UG)
− External Functionalism: non-existence of an innate UG, but syntax and
other aspects of grammar are self-contained
− Integrative Functionalism: syntax and other aspects of grammar are not
self-contained, they are open to language
external factors
 Typology and Dialogue Linguistics 69

Formal linguists assume the existence of an innate purely syntax-oriented

language faculty, i.e. Universal Grammar (UG). This syntactic system is self-
contained. External functionalists deny innateness and they have a broader
concept of grammar which goes beyond syntax. What they share with formal
linguists is the assumption that grammar is in some way self-contained. Elements
that belong to that self-contained system are properties of the human parser or
principles of iconicity or economy (2.3). Integrative functionalists don’t share the
assumption of self-containedness with formal linguistics and external functiona-
lism. They start out from the existence of language-internal variation for
expressing one and the same content and assume that individual speakers select
the variant they are going to use in a given situation according to sociolinguistic
criteria, i.e. according to grammar-external criteria. Croft’s integrative functiona-
lism is ultimately situated in an evolutionary context (Croft 2000, also cf. Bisang
2004, 2006) in which sociolinguistic factors are responsible for the outcome of
language change. If this is true, grammatical structures as we find them in a
language are not only the result of cognitive properties of the human brain
(parsing, iconicity, economy), they are also due to social factors. A look at
dialogue linguistics shows that the selection of linguistic forms does not only
depend on social criteria but on specific intentions of the speaker (e.g., claim to
truth, claim to volition in terms of Weigand’s 2003 model). Thus, the findings of
dialogue linguistics fit very well into the approach of integrative functionalism.
The development of constructions beyond finiteness in the German language
community (4.1) and of additional, more expressive markers of politeness in
Japanese can both be seen in the light of the selection and the successful diffusion
of innovations. Since the selection of appropriate linguistic structures to achieve a
certain communicative aim also depends on cultural factors and since these
cultural factors are covered by dialogic approaches, dialogue linguistics may pave
the way for a new discussion of how culture takes influence on language
structure.
Research on grammaticalization roughly describes the development from
lexical words to grammatical markers and the further development of these
markers from one grammatical function to another one. Thus, diachronic
processes of grammaticalization play an important role for the grammatical
structures as they are observed synchronically and as they are integrated into
typological studies. In that sense, dialogue linguistics matters for typology if it
can contribute to the understanding of processes of grammaticalization. Since the
beginning of these processes is characterized by pragmatic inference for many
researchers (Hopper & Traugott 1993, Bybee et al. 1994), there can be no doubt
about the relevance of dialogue linguistics as described in chapter 3 on
pragmatics. In fact, its detailed analysis of speech situations and communicative
purposes has the potential to unearth a vast number of initial stages that trigger
processes of grammaticalization. Also at a later stage when a grammatical system
is fully developed as in the case of politeness marking in Japanese (4.2), it
70 Walter Bisang

contributes to the finding of specific situation-dependent inferences which lead to

the use of more expressive markers that may in turn develop into more systematic
grammatical markers at a later stage.
As was shown at the beginning of this paper (chapter 2.1), the discovery of
cross-linguistic patterns is based on a tertium comparationis. A dialogic approach
such as the one presented by Weigand (2002, 2003) offers such a tertium
comparationis, too. As was pointed out in chapter 3, her dialogically oriented
speech-act types are based on the principle of action and reaction. Her main
speech-act types are then classified according to the following criteria:
− Is a separate reaction necessary?
− If so, does the speaker want to make a claim to truth or a claim to volition?
− If the speaker makes a claim to volition, is this claim directed to knowledge
or not?
On the basis of these criteria, we get the following speech act types (the first type
corresponds to the action, the second to the reaction):

REPRESENTATIVE ACCEPTANCE
[+separate reaction necessary] [+claim to truth]

DIRECTIVE CONSENT
[+separate reaction necessary] [+claim to volition] [-knowledge directed]

EXPLORATIVE RESPONSE
[+separate reaction necessary] [+claim to volition] [+knowledge directed]

DECLARATIVE CONFIRM
[-separate reaction necessary]

Figure 2: Dialogic speech act typology

Whether such a tertium comparationis will reveal typological patterns needs to be

seen. It certainly is a good basis for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison
of speech behaviour and of the use of grammatical markers in dialogue.

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Glossary
1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
ACC accusative
Adj adjective
AUX auxiliary
COMPL complemetizer
CONJ conjunctive
CONV converb
COP copula
DEF definite
Dem demonstrative
Gen genitive
HON honorific
INF infinitive
N noun
NEG negation
Nom nominative
Num numeral
POL polite
PRS present tense
PST past tense
Rel relative clause
SG singular
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse

Světla Čmejrková
Czech Language Institute, Academy of Sciences, Prague

In this article, I examine the relationship between culture and academic discourse by
providing an intercultural perspective on writer – reader interaction in academic texts. In
the introductory section, I will briefly outline the question of the relationship between
culture and academic discourse; in the second part I will focus on the assumption that
cultures orient their discourse in different ways, as far as the relationship between the
author and the reader is concerned; in the third part I will map the situation in Slavic
languages, Czech and Russian, and compare it with English; in the concluding sections I
will discuss the fact that communication across languages and cultures poses extra
objectives on this relationship.

1. Introduction

The interest in the cultural variation of academic discourse has developed in

contrast to the belief that the rhetorical structure of scientific text is universal.
Widdowson (1979:110), in his “Explorations in Applied Linguistics”, offered a
strong form of a universalistic hypothesis, claiming that scientific discourse
represents a way of conceptualizing reality and a manner of communication
which must, if it is to remain scientific, be independent from languages and
cultures.
He assumes that the concepts and procedures of scientific inquiry constitute a
secondary cultural system independent of the primary cultural systems associated
with different societies. So although, for example, the Japanese and the French
have different ways of life, beliefs, preoccupations, preconceptions, and so on
deriving from the primary cultures of the societies of which they are members, as
scientists they have a common culture. In the same way, he assumes that the
discourse conventions which are used to communicate this common culture are
independent of the particular linguistic means used to realize them (1979:51-52).
Scientific exposition is structured according to certain patterns of rhetorical organization
which, with some tolerance for individual stylistic variation, imposes a conformity on
members of a scientific community no matter what language they happen to use
(Widdowson 1979:61).
74 Svĕtla Čmejrková

1.1 Linguistic turn

In the climate of the linguistic turn, the assumed universality of scientific text has
been challenged:
– The language of science is no longer seen as a transparent vehicle of
knowledge; it is ascribed an important role in giving meaning to the
phenomena of reality and in the construction of reality.
– A growing awareness of the role of language, communication and rhetoric in
constructing discourse communities has appeared. Scientific discourse is
interpreted as a dialogical negotiation between the writer and the discourse
community he/she addresses (Duszak 1997).
The shift in the interpretation of academic discourse becomes evident when we
compare the treatment of the so-called scientific style in traditional stylistics, e.g.,
in that of the Prague Functional-Structural School on the one hand, and the socio-
functional treatment of academic discourse in recent functional theories on the
other. Czech structuralist and functionalist stylistics treated the so-called scientific
(scholarly or expository) functional style in its opposition to the other four
language styles (common, institutional, journalistic, and artistic), ascribing the
following constituent distinctive features to it: regarding the parameters of spoken
vs. written, scholarly discourse is conceived of as primarily written, and as
regards the distinction between monologue and dialogue, it is attributed with the
features of the monologue. Scientific style is defined as a public style, and
opposed to those that have a close or well-known addressee. Public design should
not be understood as the comprehensive intelligibility of a scientific text, since
scholarly discourse, due to its exacting and demanding nature, is not intended to
address everyone. Aimed at an unknown and distant addressee, public design is to
be understood as a type of formal design. In addition, scientific style is opposed to
journalistic style from the point of view of persuasiveness, which is ascribed to
the latter but not to the former. The macrostructure of a scientific exposition is
considered to follow from the nature of the matter under analysis, from the ‘the
internal needs of the topic development’, i.e. not from external factors, such as
situation or reader (Mistrík 1974).
In later functional treatments (Halliday 1978, 1985), scientific discourse is
ascribed social characteristics and interpersonal features. The parameters of text
organization are reinterpreted in interactional terms and correlated with
underlying social values. The author’s discursive strategies are described in terms
of his or her involvement and detachment, employment of power and solidarity,
face, politeness, modesty, firmness, shyness, boldness or willingness to negotiate
(Duszak 1994, 1997, Vassileva 1995, 1997, Ventola 1994, 1997).
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 75

1.2 From social view to cross-cultural studies of academic writing

Academic writing viewed in communicative terms made it possible to also view it
in a cross-cultural perspective. Contrastive cross-linguistic studies have begun to
map differences in academic texts written by scholars from different speech
communities. The first stimuli came from the writing pedagogy and Kaplan’s
works were followed by other intercultural studies (Connor 1996, Clyne 1987,
Čmejrková 1994, 1996, Čmejrková & Daneš 1997, Daneš & Čmejrková 1997,
Duszak 1994, 1997, Mauranen 1993a, 1993b, Vassileva 1995, 1997, 2000,
Ventola 1992, 1994, 1998, Ventola & Mauranen 1996, Yakhontova 1997, 2002
and others).
These studies show that cultures develop writing styles appropriate to their
own histories and the needs and values of their own societies with many cultural
variables and that there may be various intellectual styles that combine with
specific patterns of discourse organization and discourse expectations (cf. Duszak
1994:291).
Rhetorical variation is to be expected not only between languages and
cultures, but also between disciplinary cultures, and just as importantly, among
individual scholars. Academic writing is not homogeneous and it is difficult to
talk about norms of academic writing in general, dissociated from specific
research areas, particularly from the distinction between the natural and social
sciences. Even if we admit that individual writers have different habits and even if
we do not lose sight of genre variation, differences between languages and
cultures are perceived. The sensitivity to the way scientific knowledge is
formulated by the members of other national scientific communities surprisingly
exists even among scholars. An American reviewer of a European volume states
in his review: “Though the writer writes in the manner of an Austrian academic,
this is a readable volume” (quoted from Kretzenbacher 1995).
Intercultural studies of academic discourse have a specific motivation – the
growth of academic English. There is no doubt that English has become the
world’s predominant language of research and scholarship, and an increasing
number of scholars – who are aware of the cultural variation of academic
discourse – are confronted with the question: what should the non-native English
writer adopt and what should he/she abandon in order to make himself/herself
understood and to meet the international community’s expectations? Or should
the scholars preserve their native language writing habits?
Wolfgang Raible claims in the handbook “Writing and its Use” that scientific
writing fosters national traditions:
French scientists knew and know that they write in a way different from their German
colleagues, comprehensible scientific writing has a different standing in anglophone
science and in the corresponding German-speaking tradition (Raible 1994: 9).

As early as in the 1980s, Johan Galtung (1981:820) outlined differences between

the Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Gallic, and Nipponic academic communities, their
76 Svĕtla Čmejrková

scientific goals and norms. The Anglo-Saxon style appears to Galtung as being
very strong in the description of reality. There are clear rules for establishing what
constitutes a valid fact and what does not; faiths and beliefs enter into data
collection to a lesser extent than into other intellectual activities: one can be for or
against a theory, but not for or against data – “theories divide, but data unite”.
Scholars are against “sweeping generalizations” and produce rather “a set of small
pyramids gathered in the landscape with no super-pyramid overreaching them”.
The opposite is true of the Teutonic and Gallic intellectual settings, which are
very strong in theory formation and weak in reality description, as Galtung states.
The differences between Anglo-American and German academic discourse
have been mapped in many contrastive works, e.g., by Michael Clyne. As Clyne
(1987:238) argues, texts written by Germans are less designed to be easy to read.
Their emphasis is on providing readers with knowledge, theory, and stimulus for
thought and it is the readers who have to make an extra effort to understand the
texts. In English-speaking countries, most of the onus falls on writers to make
their texts readable, and as a result, English academic texts are closer to non-
academic ones. In a similar way, reader-responsible languages are contrasted to
writer-responsible English in Hinds’ (1987) works. The intrinsic difference
between predominantly cooperative, writer-responsible and reader-oriented
English and reader-responsible and writer-oriented German writing style is often
discussed and assessed in cross-cultural studies. The former has been shown to be
text-constructive and to incorporate dialogue, whereas the latter is shown to be
dominated by the primary function of Wissensdarstellung (“presentation of
knowledge”) and establishing of authority in the discipline.
At the same time, intercultural studies suggest that the features characteristic
of German writing culture can also be identified in other European academic
settings and writing cultures, including Slavic ones. Johanna Nichols (1988) states
that whereas English academic texts are based on a dialogical contract between
the writer and the reader, in Russian academic setting, the scientific discourse is
textualized as a depersonalized and highly objectivized claim of truth.
How should we understand the notion of a dialogical contract between the
writer and the reader? The manifestations of such a contract are undoubtedly
numerous in both the macrostructure and microstructure of a scientific text. If the
production of a research text is viewed as being controlled by the writing ego that
makes choices with regard to the reader’s expectations, allusions to the common
background knowledge and invitations to cooperate in the construction of new
knowledge can be traced. Interpersonal elements imply the relationship between
the author and the readership, they can express the author’s attitudes and the
degree of certainty and signal attitudes towards persons involved in the discourse.
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 77

2. The authorial self-presentation in scientific text

Academic discourse, viewed as an instance of social interaction between authors

and their audiences, poses the question of how academic writers present
themselves to the readership in order to create a particular impression of
themselves as well as to indicate the target audience and to control the
communicative situation according to their goals. They have at their disposal, in
addition to a number of other devices such as modals and various (meta)textual
means of expressing attitudes, such transparent tools as forms of self-reference,
forms of address, and their combinations. These forms are often conventionalized
in individual languages and their respective cultures. Their active constructive
role in written texts has been explored mainly in literary narratives, especially in
those written in the 1st person singular and based on the interplay between the
writer and the narrator of the story, and, occasionally, also on addressing and
positioning a fictitious reader.
For scientific texts, the Latin rhetorical tradition recommended the so-called
pluralis modestiae or pluralis auctoris as an appropriate linguistic means of self-
presentation of the writer, conveying his modest and non-imposing approach to
the reader. The authorial presence in a scientific text ranges nowadays from
his/her full invisibility to his/her marked prominence. Whereas e.g., academic
writers of Slavic cultural background still adhere to the we textual self, in the
English academic setting this habit has been abandoned – in many instances – in
favour of the more responsible I presentation (as shown in Duszak 1997,
Cecchetto-Stroinska 1997, Vassileva 2000, Yakhontova 1997, 2002 and others). 1
The English preference for the I involvement can be perceived as a direct impact
of English manuals for academic writing:
…we reject the idea that academic writing is objective and impersonal… Taking
responsibility for your ideas commits you to truthfulness. The I makes you write your
ideas, thoughts and convictions (Ivanič & Simpson 1992:144).

As can be seen,
– it is universal, and devoid of human characteristics, since facts speak for
themselves,
– it is culture-specific, and speaker-marked, since it is the speaker who
constructs the communicated facts.

1
However, even in the Anglo-American setting the I presentation is a novum in the development
of scientific discourse. Kretzenbacher (1995:27) quotes an interesting comment on the usage of the
I perspective: Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the founder of fractal geometry, “wurde von
amerikanischen Naturwissenschaftlern zwar als fachlich brilliant anerkannt, wegen des häufigen
Vorkommens der ersten Person Singular in seinen Schriften aber als besonders arrogant
angesehen” (“was considered a brilliant specialist by American natural scientists, but, due to his
frequent usage of the first singular personal pronoun, was considered especially arrogant”).
78 Svĕtla Čmejrková

Both assumptions go back to the Greek rhetorical tradition: Aristotle’s rhetoric

was conceived as the art of “giving effectiveness to truth”, in contrast to Sophistic
rhetoric, which developed as an art of “giving effectiveness to the speaker”
(Baldwin 1928:3).
In order to reconcile the two contradictory assumptions, and to meet
Aristotle’s claim to ethos, the organizing role of the writing scholar is to be given
“an appropriate interpretation”, as in Latour and Woolgar (1979) and in Hunston’s
(1994) formulation (cf. also Livnat 2006):
The result of the construction of a fact is that it appears unconstructed by anyone; the
result of rhetorical persuasion in the agnostic field is that participants are convinced that
they have not been convinced (Latour and Woolgar 1979:240). In other words, to be
convincing, what is persuasion must appear to be only reportage (Hunston 1994:193).

The chief linguistic means of an objective report are verbs that locate agency in
the 3rd person (data show) as well as various impersonal, passive and reflexive
constructions, modals, generic forms (one, man), etc. which indicate the human
subject only indirectly. Some scholars manage to eliminate everything that may
be considered subjective, above all any reference to themselves and to their
epistemic and deontic doings, i.e., “the locus at which the subject of enunciation
organizes its own performance, foresees obstacles, and passes tests” (Greimas
1990:30). These authors shift themselves to the background, seemingly “giving
effectiveness to truth” (their indirect presence in a text is discussed in Cecchetto
& Stroińska 1997). Other scholars refer to themselves either as members of a
scientific community (employing the we perspective in presenting facts), or refer
directly to themselves (employing the I perspective).

3. Material and methods

In order to reconstruct possible motivations for the authors’ choices, I have

analyzed:
– linguistic articles written by 18 Czech linguists, both male and female,
published in a Czech linguistic journal, “Slovo a slovesnost”, in 1996-2002 (a
total of 314 pp).
– linguistic articles written by 18 Russian linguists, both male and female,
published in a Russian linguistic journal, “Вопросы языкознания”, in 1998
(a total of 304 pp).
My statistical findings confirm the preliminary hypothesis that both Czech and
Russian linguists generally prefer the we perspective in their scientific writing.
Czech authors, at least some of those who have contributed to the journal
analyzed, employ the I perspective more often than Russian authors; in fact, the I
perspective appeared in only two of the Russian articles.
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 79

Table 1: Occurrences and percentage of I/WE perspective in the Czech and Russian articles

Czech Russian
I (já, я) 174 21% 36 5%
WE (my, мы) 635 79% 610 95%
Number of occurrences 809 646

I confined the corpus of Czech and Russian texts to approximately 300 pages in
order to produce data comparable to those provided by Vassileva (2000) for five
languages: English, German, French, Russian and Bulgarian. Her corpus
consisted of research articles also written in the field of linguistics (300 pages for
each of the respective languages), cf. Table 2 (Vassileva 2000:55).
Table 2: Percentage and overall number of occurrences of either the I or the we perspective

English German French Bulgarian Russian

I 69% 47% 40% 6% 0,5%
We 31% 53% 60% 94% 99,5%
Occurrences 526 227 153 203 300

As for Russian texts, my findings are in harmony with Vassileva’s, despite the
fact that the overall number of the I and we statements in her material is different
from mine. The higher number of I statements in my Russian material results
from the fact that one of the two Russian authors in whose articles the I pronoun
appeared used it repeatedly (32 occurrences as opposed to 4 occurrences in the
other article). The projection of the Czech data onto the Table 2 shows that they
are closer to the Slavic pole of Table 2, but, equally far from Russian as from
French.
The fact that the I perspective clearly dominates in English and is very rare in
Russian corresponds to the general intuition that whereas Western culture tends
toward individualism, Eastern culture tends toward collectivism (cf. Connor
1996). The English writers’ preference for the 1st person singular formulations of
their scientific claims has been described in several contrastive studies of
academic writing (Cecchetto & Stroińska 1997, Čmejrková & Daneš 1997,
Yakhontova 2002 and others). There may be various reasons why Russian authors
prefer the we perspective: this habit is either a part of their own writing awareness
or may be required by the norms of the editorial board of the journal,
recommended by the reviewers, etc. In any case, the we practice is very typical of
the Russian writing norms.
In Czech and Russian, like in other Slavic languages, the I and we verb forms
are marked by the inflectional endings of finite verbs, e.g., myslím, я думаю (“I
think”) vs. myslíme, мы думаем (“we think”). The difference between Czech and
Russian consists in the absence vs. presence of the surface subject: whereas Czech
is a pro-drop language and the surface subject is non-obligatory, in Russian,
indicative verb forms are accompanied by a pronoun (мы отметим) and these
80 Svĕtla Čmejrková

forms prevail over the forms отметим, допустим, characteristic of imperative

and conjunctive.
Observing the occurrences of the 1st person pronouns, we perceive that the
writers use singular or plural forms exclusively, or they combine these two
perspectives in different sections of texts and/or with different performances and
goals pursued throughout. The exclusive use of the I perspective is very rare.
There was no Czech article in my material which used the I perspective
exclusively, however, six articles used the we perspective exclusively; preference
was given to the mixed form of presentation, which appeared in 12 Czech articles.
For Russian authors, the I perspective was peripheral and appeared only in two
articles while all the 18 authors used the we perspective systematically throughout
their texts.

Table 3: Czech and Russian articles in which only I or WE is used and in which both are used

Czech articles Russian articles

I 0 0
WE 6 16
mixed (both I and WE) 12 2
Total 18 18

3.1 The we acts in Czech and Russian research articles

The discursive practice of writing on behalf of the collective we (pluralis
communis) has several motivations. The we acts in scientific texts may perform –
in terms of functional linguistics (Halliday 1971:332) ideational, interactional or
textual functions.

3.1.1 Ideational functions

Some of the we statements found in scientific texts perform ideational (re-
presentational) functions. The collective we relates the issue under study to the
shared, common theoretical or practical knowledge. In linguistic texts, and mostly
in those which tend toward philosophical considerations, the collective we refers
to the members of a group under consideration, be it human beings, language
users, communication partners, speakers of a given language, etc. The linguist
presents himself/herself as a member of this group. As such, he/she perceives
himself/herself as a part of the community under consideration, as an object of
his/her introspection, etc.
We is used in statements about the nature of human language and its relation
to thought, i.e. in general linguistic considerations:

(1) Эта особенность нашего мышления (грубо говоря, непременная его

предпосылка типа „мир есть лишь постольку, поскольку в нем есть тот,
кто о нем размышляет и говорит“), очевидно, и обусловливает те бе-
сконечные „напоминания“ о говорящем и его акте речи-мысли, то есть тот
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 81

субъективный компонент, который входит в содержание всего, что мы

говорим и о чем думаем. (Гуревич)
“This specific nature of our thinking (or more simply put, the requisite assumption
of the type “the world exists only insofar as someone who thinks and speaks about
it exists“), undoubtedly also conditions numerous ‘allusions’ to the speaker and his
act of thinking-speaking, i.e. the subjective component which is a part of every-
thing we say and think about.” (Гуревич)

(2) Když myslíme věc jako věc, vždy ji nějak pojmenováváme, ba mohli bychom říci,
že právě oním pojmenováním … se věc věcí stává, že ji pojmenování konstituuje.
(Vaňková)
“When we mean a thing as a thing, we always name it somehow, we could even
say that by that very naming, … a thing becomes a thing, that the naming
constitutes it.” (Vaňková)

Quite often, we is used in general remarks about common communication prac-

tices, shared by speakers of different languages:

(3) Mluvíme-li za někoho, promlouváme jakoby jeho - cizím - hlasem, ovšem opět
s příměsí hlasu vlastního. Mluvíme-li za někoho, vždy se v tom projevuje náš
postoj k druhému člověku..., a také samozřejmě naše znalost druhého člověka…
(Čmejrková)
“If we speak for someone, we speak like his – foreign – voice, of course again with
a tinge of our own voice. If we speak for someone, in it there is always the exertion
of our position toward the other person…, our knowledge of the other person…”
(Čmejrková)

We is used in statements about the structure and semantics of a particular

language, synonymously with such statements as “the Russians say” (по-русски
говорят, на русском языке имеется конструкция), “the Czechs say” (česky se
řekne, v češtině existuje konstrukce):

(4) Мы говорим: посуда стоит на столе ... Мы говорим: обувь стоит под
вешалкой... (Рахилина)
“We say: the dishes are lying on the table … We say: the shoes are lying under the
coat rack…” (Рахилина)

(5) Zatímco v češtině odpovídáme nejčastěji Nevím nebo Já nevím (s tím, že v běžné
mluvě krátíme dlouhé í a vyslovujeme Nevim), v němčině čteme i slyšíme často
“Ich weiß es nicht” s anaforickým es (Já to nevím). (Štícha)
“While in Czech we most often answer with Nevím – (I) don’t know or Já nevím –
I don’t know (and in ordinary speech we shorten the long í, and pronounce it
Nevim), in German we often read and even hear ‘Ich weiß es nicht’ with the
anaphoric ‘es’ (“I don’t know it/that”).” (Štícha)
82 Svĕtla Čmejrková

In other contexts, we is used for remarks about members of a given (ethnic,

cultural etc.) discourse community and their shared cultural knowledge, habits,
norms:

(6) Na jejich (tj. konotací) obecném sdílení je pak možno předpokládat, že všichni
rozumíme i takovým kontextům, v nichž jaro neoznačuje roční období (nebo stav
přírody, chceme-li), ale např. vnitřní stav člověka. (Vaňková)
“In their common sharing (i.e. through the connotation) it is then possible to
assume that we all understand even such contexts as those in which Spring does
not denote a season (or a state of nature, if we will), but, for example, the inner
state of a person.” (Vaňková)

(7) При этом в подавляющем большинстве случаев при чтении словарной

статъи неоднозначной вокабулы мы интуитивно воспринимаем некую
общность, свойственную разным ее значениям... (Перцов)
“At the same time, in the most of the cases when reading the dictionary entry of an
ambiguous word we intuitively perceive a certain common base belonging to all of
its meanings…” (Перцов)

The discourse practice of writing on behalf of the collective we is sometimes

imposing or risky, as the author’s assertions may be disputable, when related to
the whole, unspecified community, consisting of followers of different metho-
dologies, trends, schools.

(8) Přes velký význam toho, čemu se pak říkalo Chomského revoluce, jsem přesvědčen,
že de Saussurův program dosud plníme. (Sgall)
“In spite of the great significance of what was then called the Chomskyan
Revolution, I am convinced that we continue to fulfil de Saussure’s program even
now.” (Sgall)

And what is crucial, the author’s expectations of consent may be false when
related to speakers of different languages or members of different social,
professional, and ethnic communities. In such instances, the employment of the
collective we is a challenge to territorial, cultural, ideological and other variation
of the readers’ background knowledge (cf. Daneš & Čmejrková 1997).
However, in Slavic languages, it seems important to the writer “to seek the
audience’s co-operation in the more abstract, theoretical areas of knowledge and
analysis” (Vassileva 2000:79). Similar procedures for displaying the topic by
means of relating assertions to the shared and (potentially) generally known facts
are typical of Czech and Russian articles in many fields of the social sciences and
humanities. The formulations are based not only on verbs in the 1st person plural,
but also on the possessive pronoun our (in Czech náš, in Russian наш), e.g., in
our country, our history, our language, our consciousness, etc. This manner of
expressing group membership and common attitudes (and sometimes stereotypes)
has been focused upon only recently. In linguistics texts, the practice of we
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 83

statements is very frequent as they address the audience ‘speaking the same
language or sharing basic assumptions about this language’ and acquainted with
its structural and semantic features and cultural context. This fact is responsible
for the unrestrained usage of the collective we in ideational (representational)
speech acts:

(9) A vzpomeňme si tu např. i na jednu známou semaforskou písničku: Naraž si

bouřku ještě více do čela/ Aby ti vráska z čela zcela zmizela// Nešťastná láska
vrásky vždycky nadělá/ a obarví ti černý vlásky do běla... Význam slova „vráska“,
jak ho spolu sdílíme, utvářejí právě takovéto kontexty. (Vaňková)
“And let us recall here, for example, a well-known song from the Semafor Theater:
Push your derby even further down onto your forehead/So the wrinkles on your
forehead disappear entirely//Unrequited love always wreaks havoc/ And colors
your black hairs white... The meaning of the word ‘wrinkle’ as we share it, is
formed by these very contexts.” (Vaňková)

The last example, namely the address let us recall, leads us to the next function of
the we acts.

3.1.2 Interactional functions

The we acts perform conspicuous interactional functions in a text. The most
frequent authorial intrusion into the speech event in research articles is the explicit
invitation of the reader to participate in the process of reading and reasoning: the
we perspective unites the author (as a writer) and the reader. Interactional
functions are also responsible for the frequent employment of the we acts in
English research articles. The pronoun we used in imperative acts is “the less
imposing counterpart to the prototypical second person imperative” (Swales
1990:107). This inclusive we together with an interpersonal function, also serves,
as we will see, an important textual function, initiating a new topic, beginning an
explanation, an argument, etc.:

(10) Возьмем пример, уже использовавшийся в литературе. (Перцов)

“Let us present an example which has already been used in the literature.”
(Перцов)

(11) Předveďme si malou ukázku toho, co dokáže v dané souvislosti rozlišit i relativně
malý a ne plně reprezentativní počítačový korpus mannheimského Institutu pro
německý jazyk. (Štícha)
“Let us present a small exhibit of what the relatively small and not fully
representative computer corpus of the Mannheim German Language Institute
manages to discern in a given context.” (Štícha)

The invitation of the reader often anticipates the introduction of examples.

However, it may also initiate acts of reasoning and posing questions:
84 Svĕtla Čmejrková

(12) Предположим, ваш знакомый входит к вам в комнату и говорит… (Перцов).

“Let us assume that your acquaintance enters your room and says…” (Перцов)

(13) Dejme tomu, že při studiu partikulí v textech narazíme na jev jejich kombinatoriky.
(Štícha)
“Let us suppose that while studying particles in texts, we run into a feature of their
combinatorial properties.” (Štícha)

The employment of the we perspective is very frequent in the acts of

hypothesizing and argumentation, e.g., expressed in if clauses:

(14) Попробуем изменить время глаголов в приведенной цитате ... и мы

почувствуем разницу между оригиналом и его модификацией: в первом
случае мы как бы присутствуем в соответствующем месте в соотв-
етствующее время и непосредственно вместе с автором воспринимаем
изображаемый пейзаж … (Перцов).
“Let us attempt to change the verb tense in this quotation … and we will sense the
difference between the original and its modification: in the first case it is as if we
were present in a given place and time and, together with the author, we’re
perceiving the landscape depicted at that moment …” (Перцов)

(15) Podíváme-li se do běžných jazykovědných příruček, zjistíme, že frazeologie je

disciplína zkoumající nepravidelná, ustálená spojení slov. (Klötzerová)
“If we take a look into ordinary linguistic handbooks, we learn that phraseology is
a discipline which investigates the irregular, stabilized connection of words.”
(Klötzerová)

The examples show that the explicit hinting at the reader by means of the acts of
invitation as let us present, let us take, let us consider, let us recall, let us pose the
question, let us attempt, let us devote attention to, let us assume – uveďme,
vezměme, uvažme, připomeňme, položme si otázku, pokusme se, věnujme pozor-
nost, předpokládejme, упомянем, напомним, приведем, скажем несколько
слов, остановимся на вопросе, проанализируем, укажем, рассмотрим,
обратимся к, обратим внимание, подчеркнем, оговоримся has its close
counterpart in the acts addressing the reader only implicitly, by means of we
assertions. The author expects the reader to share his/her understanding,
interpretation and evaluation of linguistic situations, his/her way of seeing things.
Again, the expectation of the readers’ consent may be imposing, particularly
when the reader finds the author’s assertions debatable.
The we referring to the writer who organizes the text and makes its structure
explicit signals topic maintenance and topic shifts and is not explicitly inclusive,
though in some contexts, it at least potentially addresses the reader:

(16) Zde se už dostáváme k otázkám poměru centra a periférie a další možné

strukturovanosti obou těchto jazykových pólů… (Štícha)
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 85

“Here we are approaching the relationship between the center and the periphery
and further possible types of structuredness of both of these linguistic poles…”
(Štícha)

The inclusive or exclusive reading of the we pronoun depends on whether the

verb employed covers the reader’s activity or not: while jak jsme viděli, как мы
видели (“as we have seen”) indicates common textual experience of the writer
and the reader, jak jsme uvedli, как мы показали (“as we have shown”) rather
excludes the possibility of the reader’s direct cooperation.

(17) К эвристической природе собственно лингвистических построений мы

вернемся в разделе… (Перцов)
“We will return to the heuristic character of purely linguistic constructions in
section … “ (Перцов)

(18) Zatím jsme se zabývali především dvěma hlavními typy konverzačního diskurzu:
salónním “krásným hovorem” (nazývaným někdy také ‘party talk’) a běžnou,
drobnou konverzací každodenní (‘small talk’)… (Hoffmannová)
“Up to now we have dealt primarily with two main types of conversational
discourse: ‚salon talk’ (sometimes called ‘party talk’) and ordinary, light, everyday
conversation (‘small talk’)…” (Hoffmannová)

The interpersonal function of the above utterances interferes with their textual
function. It is this employment of the we that could be called, in my view, the
‘authorial we’ (pluralis auctoris), as the text here is considered to be a shared
discursive practice of both the author and the reader.

3.1.3 Textual functions

Most often, the we acts perform textual (metatextual, organizational) functions in
Russian and Czech research articles. Though some Czech authors employ the I
perspective to comment on their text processing, many of them still adhere to the
we perspective. When reporting on the organization of their successive steps,
Russian authors (with the exception of one author in the corpus analyzed)
employed the we perspective exclusively.
By means of we statements, the authors formulate their aims, topics, focuses,
methods, and use the we perspective in both advance and back organizers, as well
as in conclusions:

(19) Мы будем рассматривать только время личнъх форм глагола в русском язъке,
оставляя в стороне причастия и деепричастия. (Перцов)
“We will analyze only a part of certain verb forms in Russian, leaving aside
participles.” (Перцов)

(20) Zaměříme se přitom na kombinace tří partikulí v bezprostřední posloupnosti,

například Já tedy vlastně ani nevím. (Štícha)
86 Svĕtla Čmejrková

“At the same time, we focus on the combination of three particles in immediate
succession, for example Já tedy vlastně ani nevím („Well I don’t even really
know”)”. (Štícha)

This practice corresponds to the Latin rhetoric tradition of the so called pluralis
modestiae or pluralis auctoris as an appropriate linguistic means of self-
presentation of the writer.

(21) Итак, мы описали исходное состояние семантики, которое будем называть

первым уровнем мотивации. (Монич)
“We have thus described the initial state of semantics, which we will call the first
motivational level.” (Монич)

(22) Úroveň výzkumu tedy, shrneme-li, vyžaduje vytvoření explicitní pojmové soustavy,
důkladnější a adekvátnější než byly dřív…(Štícha)
“The level of research, then, if we summarize, requires the creation of an explicit
conceptual scheme, more thorough and adequate than before...” (Štícha)

While in Czech the textual we appears to be gradually yielding to the textual I

perspective, especially with younger authors who have been exposed to the
English academic discourse and its norms, Russian research articles still teem
with the textual we acts performing organizing and cohesive functions and
enhancing the reader’s attention: мы претендуем, мы ставим перед собой
задачи, мы рассмотрим, мы стремимся, мы хотели бы продемонстриро-
вать, мы имеем дело, мы обозначим, мы находим, мы исходим из, мы не
будем коментировать, мы усматриваем, мы имеем в виду, мы не
предпринимаем попытки, мы постараемся, мы пытаемся, мы затрагиваем,
мы выделяем, мы посчитали целесообразным, мы посвящаем, мы не можем
избежать, мы будем оперировать, мы постараемся дать, мы строим здесь
свои рассуждения и выводы…, or in a developed form: сразу заметим,
попутно отметим, предварительно скажем …

Due to the belief that scientific style should be devoid of any subjectivity and
individuality, many Czech and Russian writers express their opinions by means of
we acts and do not hesitate to use the we perspective with verbs of thinking. The I
perspective is a comparatively new development in Czech academic writing and
many authors adhere to a more objectivized way of formulating their texts, as they
are aware of the established conventions in their communities:

(23) Nezastíráme, že u LF přináší značná nesamostatnost a častá polysémie jejich

komponentů problémy při určování míry anomálie. Domníváme se však, že je
možné tyto obtíže překonat pečlivým srovnáváním jednotlivých tříd derivátů.
(Klötzerová)
“We do not pretend that with LP and the pointed lack of independence and
frequent polysemy of its components do not bring about problems in determining
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 87

the degree of anomaly. We assume, however, that it is possible to overcome these

difficulties through the careful comparison of individual classes of derivates.”
(Klötzerová)

(24) Máme na mysli zvláště rovinu lexikální (ovšem nevylučujeme výskyt

frazeologických rysů ani na rovině fonetické). (Klötzerová)
“We especially have in mind the lexical level (of course, we do not exclude the
possibility of the occurrence of phraseological characteristics, even on the phonetic
level).” (Klötzerová)

And again, in Russian linguistic texts, we acts are totally conventionalized: мы

полагаем, мы предполагаем, мы отказываемся, мы считаем, мы склонны
считать, решение, к которому мы присоединяемся, нам представляется,
нам думается, нам видится, нам приходится, нам кажется очевидным, нас
интересует, нам импонирует, на наш взгляд, по нашему мнению, по нашему
исчислению, предположению, по нашим наблюдениям…

(25) Однако, в семантике той лексики… довольно отчетливо, как нам кажется,
вырисовываются следующие реалии. (Монич)
“However, in the semantics of the this lexical item … the following reality is, as it
appears to us, sufficiently clearly projected .” (Монич)

(26) Последнее название нас не вполне удовлетворяет, но более удачного

придумать не удалось. (Перцов)
“The final title does not entirely satisfy us, but it was not possible to find a more
appropriate one.” (Перцов)

Though in the above examples the we perspective can be interpreted as a

manifestation of the non-imposing authorial we, it paradoxically sometimes
resembles the royal we (pluralis majestiae), when used for self-reference in the
narrow sense of the word.
It is not unusual in a scientific text, particularly with Russian authors, to use
the we perspective when reporting on one’s own results and referring to one’s
own publications:

(27) В качестве материала ... мы выбрали соответствующим образом

стилизованные главы из романа ... (Добровольский)
“For material … we chose correspondingly stylized chapters from the novel…”
(Добровольский)

(28) Celkem jsme shromáždili a popsali 1808 lexikálních frazémů ... (Klötzerová)
“We collected and described a total of 1808 phrasemes...” (Klötzerová)

The we statements in scientific texts may sometimes refer to the author alone,
while in other instances they have more a complicated reference which accommo-
dates a larger number of subjects, among them the author of the text.
88 Svĕtla Čmejrková

4. Discussion

In Slavic languages, which are obviously under the impact of international norms
of academic communication, the change is in the direction of gradual movement
from the more generalizing academic style and the more ambiguous 1st person
plural form of exposition to the more transparent form of presentation, framed in
the 1st person singular. This is particularly true of the textual operations of the
author: When the author guides the reader through the text, or expresses his or her
convictions referring to himself through the we perspective (e.g., In our article we
use exclusively the term…, we would now like to discuss…, before we begin to
describe…, we do not conceal that…, we believe…), it is quite easy to change
such a habit and to adopt the I discourse practice, as many Czech examples
show. 2
In other contexts, we statements concern the topic. Employed in an ideational
(representational) function, the we perspective refers not only to the writer, but
embraces the speech or discourse community (we as human beings, members of
social and cultural groups, scholars, linguists, speakers of Czech or Russian,
readers of Czech or Russian texts etc.), assuming that members of the community
understand the significance of an issue similarly. With the I and we perspective,
the author presents different contents and beliefs: we acts frame collective truths,
while I acts frame an issue that others may see differently (Tracy 2004).
The we authors’ conviction that what they formulate as a state of affairs is
‘objective’ seems to dominate their writing. It does not mean, however, that they
present themselves as bold and self-assured writers. On the contrary, their we
statements are richly hedged through modal verbs and particles and proclivity of
conditional mood. Their texts teem with the acts of hypothesising through if and
then clauses (Čmejrková & Daneš 1997) and the authors honestly rely on the
readers’ cooperation and consent with their epistemic and deontic doings.

(29) Budeme-li postupovat tradiční metodou introspekce, můžeme usoudit, že struktury

se vztažným co, tranzitivním slovesem a jeho akuzativním objektem jsou elementem
syntaktického systému čestiny a jde tedy o struktury gramatické a přijatelné.
Pokročíme-li dále, můžeme znejistit: platí totéž o strukturách se vztažným komu a
dativním objektem? Jsou tedy struktury typu Komu pomáhal, (to) byly děti
gramatické struktury a přijatelné věty? Pokročíme-li ještě dále ke strukturám typu
Kam pojedeme letos na dovolenou, (to) bude Řecko můžeme je považovat již za
nepřijatelné, a tedy i negramatické. Budeme-li ovšem všechny uvedené příklady
pokládat nikoli za specifické struktury derivované z téže obecné relační báze, nýbrž
pouze za různá lexikální obsazení totožné struktury, nebudeme se podobnými
otázkami trápit; řekneme pak, že věta Kam půjdeme, je do kina. je sice gramatická,
ale neobvyklá a stylisticky nevhodná. (Štícha)

2
The I perspective in Czech academic texts is discussed in Čmejrková 2006, in Russian texts in
Čmejrková forthcoming.
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 89

“If we proceed using the traditional method of introspection, we can deduce that
structures with the relative co (what), a transitive verb and its accusative object are
an element of the syntactic system of Czech and are thus grammatical and
acceptable structures. If we continue on, we can become unsure: is the same true of
the structures with the relative pronoun komu („to whom”) and a dative object? Are
structures of the type Komu pomáhal, (to) byly děti (“whom he helped, (it/that)
were children”) grammatical structures and acceptable sentences? If we continue
on even further to structures of the type Kam pojedeme letos na dovolenou, (to)
bude Řecko („Where we’re going on vacation this year, (it/that) will be Greece”),
we can consider them unacceptable and thus ungrammatical as well. Of course, if
we consider all of the examples presented not as specific structures derived from
the same general relational base, but rather, as merely various lexical
configurations of the same structure, we shall not bother ourselves with similar
questions; we shall say, then, that the sentence Kam půjdeme, je do kina (“Where
we’re going, is to the movies”), though grammatical, is unusual and stylistically
inappropriate.” (Štícha)

It is this general assumption about academic discourse that triggers the usage of
the we perspective, hedged by modals. Using Galtung’s (1981) words, we could
say that the we authors believe that not only data, but also their interpretations and
theories, unite.
The authors whose texts employ the I perspective, on the other hand, use it in
order to frame their issue, to restrict the field of investigation and to relate their
assertions to the conditions of a speech situation, mentioning the size of their text,
the focus of their interest, and decision to use a particular method. Instead of
constructing a vast pyramid (here, I refer to Galtung again) visible to the whole
community, behind which the textual ego of the writer is nearly invisible, the I
writers prefer to build small pyramids, constructing their textual ego consciously.
It is as if the we writers were dissolved in their texts, as they are a part of the topic
under investigation and try to understand themselves, their own manner of speech
behaviour, their own use of language, while the I writers are consciously above
their text, not losing themselves in the complexity of language matters. Hence the
impression that they are less modest and that they are bold in committing
themselves fully to their claims (Duszak 1997).
The change from the we to the I perspective is thus also related to the shift in
academic genres: the I pronoun is undoubtedly the best solution with case studies
and successfully frames the author’s reporting on his or her material, methods and
findings drawn from the data:

(30) Protože český korpus nebyl k dispozici, uchýlil jsem se k nouzovému způsobu
dosavadní lingvistické práce a provedl soustavnou excerpci (trvala mi několik dní
na rozdíl od asi tak půlhodinové práce u počítače) sebraných her Václava Havla,
knihy Miroslava Horníčka „Dobrý den socho“, románu Josefa Škvoreckého
„Prima sezóna“ a povídkové knihy Ivana Klímy „Moje zlatá řemesla“. Ze všech
těchto textů, zahrnujících román, povídky, dramata a žánrově nespecifický text
90 Svĕtla Čmejrková

Horníčkův, jsem získal 65 odpovědí obsahujících slovo nevím s hovorovou

variantou nevim. (Štícha)
“Because the Czech corpus was not available, I resorted to an alternative method
from previous linguistic work and performed a systematic excerption (this took me
several days as opposed to about a half an hour of work at the computer) of the
collected plays of Václav Havel, the book “Hello, Statue” by Miroslav Horníček,
the novel “The Swell Season” by Josef Škvorecký and a book of short stories by
Ivan Klíma “My Golden Trades”. Of all these texts, including a novel, short
stories, plays and Horníček’s non-genre-specified texts, I gathered 65 answers
containing the word nevím (“I don’t know”) with the colloquial variant nevim (“I
dunno”).” (Štícha)

Here, the I perspective refers to the process of data collection and description of
the author’s efforts. However, when the same author makes hypotheses, claims
and theoretical conclusions in other parts of his article, he invites the reader to
participate in these activities by means of the we involvement which highlights
the audience and creates solidarity.

(31) Dejme tomu, že při studiu partikulí v textech narazíme na jev jejich kombinatoriky.
Zaměříme se přitom na kombinace tří partikulí v bezprostřední posloupnosti,
například Já tedy vlastně ani nevím. Můžeme přitom postupovat tak, že sestavíme
matici všech možných trojkombinací českých partikulí a budeme zjišťovat jejich
výskyt v korpusu. Můžeme přitom očekávat, že zjistíme velmi rozdílnou frekvenci
těchto trojkombinací a jejich značně nerovnoměrné rozložení v různých typech
textů, například rozdíl mezi jazykem psaným a mluveným, ale i mezi krásnou
literaturou a publicistikou atd., a tím i rozdílný komunikační status jednotlivých
kombinací. Můžeme ale také očekávat, že při jistém množství dokladů zjistíme
jejich analýzou ty či ony distribuční podmínky a restrikce výskytu jednotlivých
kombinací. (Štícha)
“Let us suppose that while studying particles in texts, we come upon a feature of
their combinatorial properties. At the same time, we focus on the combination of
three particles in immediate succession, for example Já tedy vlastně ani nevím
(“Well I don’t even really know”). At the same time, we can proceed in such a
manner that we set up a matrix of all possible combinations of three Czech
particles and we find their prevalence in the corpus. Meanwhile, we can expect to
find a very different frequency of these combinations of three and their
considerably uneven distribution in various types of texts, for example the
difference between written and spoken language, but also between belles-lettres
and journalistic writing, etc., and thus the different communication status of
individual combinations. But we can also expect that given a certain number of
examples, we discover, through their analysis, these or those distributional
conditions and restrictions on the occurrence of individual combinations.” (Štícha)

5. Conclusion: The we perspective in intercultural communication

While within his/her own academic community, whose members are expected to
understand and evaluate the state of affairs similarly, the author may (to a certain
 Intercultural Dialogue and Academic Discourse 91

extent) rely on ‘sharing knowledge’ and employ procedures based on this belief,
an intercultural setting challenges any such belief: at this moment, I would like to
quote Widdowson, and this time affirmatively:
The negotiation of meaning which is both accessible and acceptable, therefore, involves
the reconciliation of two potentially opposing forces: the co-operative imperative which
acts in the interests of the effective conveyance of messages, and the territorial
imperative which acts in the interests of the affective well-being of self (Widdowson
1990:108-109).

The intercultural setting, which takes a larger range of others as an audience,

demands a more explicit argumentative stance, with a conspicuously outlined
authorial background and clear position (Tracy 2004:737). Cross-culturally, the
author’s assertions may be with a greater probability regarded as contentious, and
that’s why a larger range of methodological issues are to be argued as positions
and decisions requiring justification. Thus, a more visible and responsible
authorial stance is consistent with a valuing of different cultural perspectives.
European intellectual discourse was deeply rooted in the Aristotelian tradition
of rhetoric, conceived as the art of ‘giving effectiveness to truth’, in contrast to the
Sophistic rhetoric developed as an art of ‘giving effectiveness to the speaker’. The
Aristotelian tradition could survive till the search for truth was declared as a
major goal, and this characteristic often applied to scientific discourse. In
Aristotelian tradition of rhetoric, the task of the author was to behave as invisibly
as possible. In the epoch of the Linguistic Turn, the idea of transparency of the
language of science has been challenged in many ways, beginning with the
breaking of Ich-tabu (“I-tabu”) norms and acknowledging the organizing role of
the writing scholar.

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 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game
A comparative study of German and Japanese

Marion Grein
University of Mainz

By means of a comparative analysis of the speech act of refusal within the languages of
German and Japanese, it will be elaborated that the dialogic usage of language is
understood as sequences of active and reactive speech acts. Basic reference point is the
human being who crucially determines the choice of communicative means on his
perception of the setting of any communicative action game. The perception itself is
affected by culture. Language and culture are integral parts of the dialogic action game.
Out of the more or less indefinite choice of utterances, it is the cognition of a human
being that opts for a specific communicative form. The analysis reveals that there are
identical perceptions concerning interpersonal constellations and thus the choice of
communicative means among Germans and Japanese, but also major differences.

1. Introduction

Language is the basis for communication and communication can only be

successful when the meaning of each utterance can be grasped. The meaning of an
utterance, however, is not comprehensible by merely understanding the itemized
words or the sentence as a whole. In order to grasp the meaning of an utterance,
the listener has to consider the situation, in which the utterance is made, the social
distance between the speakers, the previous utterances, nonverbal factors, the
cognitive skills of the speakers, and their cultural imprint.
The fundamental category of language usage is the speech act (cf. Searle
1969). Weigand (2003) modified Searle’s approach by combining the active and
reactive speech act into a dialogic principle, where active and reactive speech act
constitute a unity, calling it the minimal action game (Weigand 2000, 2002, 2003,
cf. this volume). Integrated into her approach is the cultural imprint of each
human being. Perception and cognition are, thus, invariably culturally determined.
The objective of my research is the analysis of the minimal action game
presented in Figure 1.
96 Marion Grein

active speech act: DIRECTIVES reactive speech act: refusal

(requests, orders, invitations, proposals)

Figure 1: Minimal action game directive – refusal

Here, I lay stress on the reactive speech act, i.e. the refusal. The person uttering
the directive and the person, who refuses to act as demanded, negotiate with the
means of language about their position. The amount of quasi-equivalent forms of
utterances, which realize the specific function (here: refusal) are principally
indefinite. The speakers refer to linguistic rules and conventions if they provide a
basis for comprehension, and they go beyond those conventions when under-
standing can only be achieved by the means of particular or individual techniques.
The choice of the communicative means is subject to several interactive
principles of probability. Each individual chooses his/her communicative means
depending on his or her very own perception of the situation, his/her evaluation of
the utterance, his/her cognitive rating of the interpersonal constellation (hierarchy
and social distance), the previous experiences in similar situations, his/her
socialized politeness principles, his/her cultural imprint (cf. Liang 2001:66), and
finally the intentions he/she wants to pursue.
In other words: based on the verbal and nonverbal knowledge of the persons
involved, each utterance is processed and evaluated. The implications of this
evaluation-process are on the one hand very individual; on the other hand they are
culturally determined and culturally conventionalized (cf. Forgas 1985:2).
The objective of any communicative approach is to reveal the principles, or
according to Weigand (2003:6) the principles of probability, which guide
meaning and understanding of verbal interaction. Linguistics, then, is the science
of language and the interacting language user. Language, perception, cognition
and sociological assumptions constitute a unity.
As mentioned, the objective of this article is to disclose a few results of the
contrastive analysis of the reactive speech act of refusal in German and Japanese.
The contrastive analysis includes a comparison of indirectness, the paradigm,
politeness markers (hedges, tags, routines, impersonalisation, excuses and
statements of sympathy) all differentiated with reference to the circumstances and
social distance between the speakers. The detailed theoretical and methodological
background information is to be found in Grein (2007).
In the following chapter, I shall sum up the applied theoretical approaches.
Chapter 3 will summarize research assumptions. In chapter 4 various results are
listed, among them a look at the illocutionary functions, the paradigms, politeness
strategies, the use of excuses and gender differences. The last chapter sums up the
results of the data analysis in respect to the theoretical approaches.
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 97

2. Theoretical approaches

Four theoretical approaches are incorporated:

(a) In accordance with Weigand’s (2003) minimal action game, I presume the
basic principle of communication and understanding given in Figure 2.

socio-cultural imprinting socio-cultural imprinting

individual imprinting, perceptive individual imprinting, perceptive and
and cognitive competency cognitive competency
linguistic skills linguistic skills
emotions emotions

specific interest / aim responding to the expressed aim

(intention) (here: refusal)

negotiation about their positions

Figure 2: Minimal action game directive – refusal in cross-cultural communication

Whenever two people are ‘playing’ the minimal action game of directive and
refusal, they negotiate about their positions on the basis of their own socio-
cultural and individual imprint, their cognitive and linguistic skills and their
emotions. Within this minimal action game of refusals, both speech acts, the
initiative and the reactive, have an illocutionary function (cf. Weigand 2003:28,
57). As a basis for comparison, I disclose the secondary illocutionary function of
the reactive speech act. The major functions are DIRECTIVES, EXPLORATIVES and
REPRESENTATIVES (for details cf. Weigand 2003).
(b) Following research on refusals done in the range of Interactional
Pragmatics and Second Language Acquisition, I apply the approach of Blum-
Kulka et al. (1989) and their Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project
(CCSARP). By means of a discourse completion test, the CCSARP aims at docu-
menting and comparing various speech acts in numerous languages in invariable
situations. Major aim is to elicit the effect of social variables on the realization of
speech acts. Within my research, I designed my own discourse completion test
with the help of a diary study. Altogether 13 role-play situations were taken out of
the diary study and handed to 200 Japanese and 200 German test persons. I thus
gained a set of 5200 refusals. In each minimal action game two initiative
directives were given:
98 Marion Grein

Example of a minimal action game:

You enjoy a cozy dinner with your partner. He/she asks you to accompany him/her to
a social event (12 people). At the event, there are going to be two guests you really
dislike. You don’t feel like going. How do you refuse?

Set H Set G

Partner: Darling, next week we are gonna Oh, next week we are gonna have the
have the party at Mutzers place again. party at Mutzers place again. You got to
Won’t you join me, even though Krotzer diarize it!
and Wulbik are gonna be there, too?

You: _____________________ You: _______________________

Japanese version:

あなたは家族もしくはパートナーとくつろいで夕食の席についています。
彼（彼女）が、あなたがあまり好んでいない二人も参加することになってい
る パーティに 同伴 してほしいとお願いして います。あなたならどのように
断りますか?

Set H Set G

パートナー；ねぇ,来週また田中さん宅 パートナー；来週の田中家でのパー
でパーティーが あるのだけれど ティだけど、木村さんと山田さんが
一緒に 来てくれませんか? ただあの 来る けど、 一緒にきてくれる
木村さんと 山田さんも来る のだけれ よね！
どね。

あなた: _____________________ あなた: ________________________

Concerning the speech act of refusals, the CCSARP sets up the possible
paradigms comprising of excuse, refusal, reasoning/justification and alternative.
With the combination of the minimal action game and the gained paradigms
of the CCSARP, a more detailed instrument of analysis is established. Next to
specifying the paradigm (i.e. <reasoning + alternative>, <excuse + reasoning>), a
more substantial break down into assertion (ASSERTIVE), information
(NUNTIATIVE), ascertainment (CONSTATIVE), announcement of emotions (EX-
PRESSIVE), counter question expressing a new claim (EXPLORATIVE), counter
request (DIRECTIVE) or excuse (DECLARATIVE) is possible.
(c) Concerning politeness strategies and the verbalization of politeness, the
face-concept oriented politeness approach was chosen. Fukushima (2002:59)
outlines the constituents of face as shown in Figure 3:
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 99

the desire to be approved by the desire to conform to social

others conventions

(positive face)

the desire to be unimpeded by

others

(negative face)

Figure 3: Face-concept

The strategies used and taken into account are given in Table 1:
Table 1: Politeness strategies

positive politeness assignment to both negative politeness

ƒ statement of sympathy ƒ hedges ƒ indirectness
ƒ statement of solidarity ƒ tag-questions ƒ impersonalization
ƒ justification ƒ excuses
ƒ set phrases

(d) As for the cultural imprinting, some basic cultural concepts – mostly based on
face-concepts – are taken into consideration. In Japan, cultural values play a
major role and are passed to the young generation from the very beginning of
their socialization. Among those interaction principles, the so-called ‘harmony
principle’ is – beyond doubt – the most effective principle. Concerning communi-
cative means, German children are taught linguistic techniques to persuade the
listener, whereas the harmony principle demands to pass on techniques which
avoid any form of disharmony.
The applied techniques, however, are dependent on the social distance of the
people involved. The interpersonal relationship assigns the communicative
behaviour. Intimate friends and close family members are treated with directness
and demonstration of emotions (honne and amae), with more distant friends,
acquaintances, further relationships and strangers different rules of language
behaviour have to be applied (tatemae) (cf. Moosmüller 1997:43ff., Wierzbicka
1997:238-242, Doi 1971:7, Coulmas 1993:35, Clancy 1990). Maynard (1993:263)
states:
Among in-group members in Japan, a reciprocal amae relationship allows members to
express emotion and feelings directly, even sometimes in a manner considered rude by
outsiders. In this warm, all forgiving environment Japanese typically use direct discourse
with little awareness of the addressee as the “other” opposing one’s self.

When talking to any one except for intimates, neither directness nor the
demonstration of emotions is considered appropriate.
100 Marion Grein

In social interaction, Japanese people generally are expected to restrain, if not suppress,
the strong or direct expression of emotion. Those who cannot control their emotion are
considered to be immature as human beings. Strong expressions (verbal or nonverbal) of
such negative emotions as anger, disgust or contempt could embarrass other people
(Honna & Hoffer 1989:88f.).

3. Further research assumptions

In this article only a few assumptions will be specified. These will include
hypothesis concerning social distance and indirectness, and the usage of
politeness strategies.
Social distance is reliant on frequency of contact, years of acquaintance, level
of familiarity, like-mindedness, sympathy, familiarity and social resemblance (cf.
Fukushima 2002:82, Spencer-Oatey 1996:7). Following Wolfson’s bulge-theory
(1988), the allocation given in Figure 4 was presumed.

indirect
refusal

direct
intimates strangers
Figure 4: Wolfson’s bulge-theory

Wolfson (1988) put forth her “bulge” theory of social distance and speech behaviour,
claiming that we do the most interactional work in the middle of the social distance
continuum, that is to say, with friends, acquaintances, colleagues and potential friends
(Boxer 2002: 21).

Thus, face-work is of less importance with intimates and strangers. The speaker
can easily determine the social distance with intimates and close friends. Thus,
face-threatening is minimized, since the interactants know each others face-wants.
With strangers, most people do not really care about possible face-wants. Face-
work is of most importance with acquaintances. Their face-wants are not yet
known to the speaker, but might turn out important for any future contacts. These
consolidating findings hold true for refusals as well. Holmes (1995:189) notes,
that „it is interesting to note that refusals are most elaborate and negotiated with
friends and acquaintances, most brief and direct with intimates and strangers”.
Concerning Japanese, Mayfield (1999:27) writes: “I found that refusals between
married couples occurred often and tended to be brief“ (cf. Beebe, Takahashi &
Uliss-Weltz 1990, Boxer 2002:183).
Concerning social distance, directness and the usage of politeness strategies,
the results given in Figure 5 were expected.
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 101

negative politeness +
indirectness

refusal
positive politeness +
directness
intimates acquaintance
social closeness social distance

Figure 5: Social distance, directness and politeness strategies

Socially close persons are refused directly, applying positive politeness strategies,
socially distant people are refused indirectly, applying negative politeness
strategies.

4. Results of the comparison

First, we shall take a look at the illocutionary functions of the reactive speech
acts. Secondly, we will compare the applied paradigms. Thirdly, we will contrast
the politeness strategies, taking the social distances into account. The cultural
value of harmony, dependent on the social distance of the speakers involved, too,
will be integrated into the analysis according to Wolfson’s (1988) bulge-theory.
Finally, we take a look at the interaction of social distance and the use of excuses,
the initiative speech act, the usage of an initial ‘no’, and politeness and gender
differences.

4.1 Illocutionary functions

The minimal action game features the secondary illocutionary functions offered in
Figure 6. In the majority of refusals, the Japanese formulate NUNTIATIVES
(31,4%), which inform the requester about the reason for refusing (i.e., I have to
keep an appointment with the dentist). When no details are given, they are often
softened by means of hedging and the usage of a set phrase like:

(1) ちっと予定が詰まっていて
chotto yotei ga tsumatte ite
a bit plan SUBJ have:CONV
“I have a bit of plans.”
102 Marion Grein

Conditional
Desiderative
Directive
Expressive
Explorative
Declarative
Constative
Assertive
Nuntiative

0 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Japanese German

Figure 6: Illocutionary functions

Second most frequent in the Japanese language is the DECLARATIVE (24,6%), in

all cases an apology. There is a great variety of excuses, the choice depending on
the interactant. Germans favour NUNTIATIVES as well (23,7%). CONSTATIVES are
equally frequent in both cultures. CONSTATIVES (i.e., I don’t feel well today, I have
a terrible headache) have an advantage over other speech acts in so far that they
can hardly be contradicted. ASSERTIVES, however, are frequent with Germans
(19,3%), but are avoided (only 8%) by the Japanese. Formulating assertions (i.e.,
Going to the museum is boring) is a face-threatening act for the Japanese, since
the speaker emphasizes a lack of like-mindedness with his communication
partner. Furthermore, assertions evoke contradiction, again a speech act that
easily entails disharmony. A further difference is the usage of EXPLORATIVES:
whereas Germans refuse by means of a counter-question (i.e., why don’t you do it
yourself?), Japanese avoid EXPLORATIVES.

4.2 Paradigms
In German, the most frequent paradigm is <refusal + justification> with 27,5%. In
Japanese the paradigms <justification> (20,7%) and <excuse + justification>
(19,7%) are the basic paradigms of refusal (see Figure 7). In Japanese, however,
the content of the justification is highly dependent on the interpersonal
constellation. There is no justification with intimates, a comprehensive
justification with friends and merely a set phrase with distant acquaintances or
superiors. The differences are summarized in Table 2.
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 103

EXC + REF + JUST + ALT

EXC + JUST + ALT
EXC + REF
REF + ALT
ALT
REF + JUST + ALT
JUST + ALT
EXC + JUST
REF
JUST
REF + JUST

0 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Japanese German
Figure 7: Paradigms

Table 2: Contents of justification

German Japanese
intimate honest justification no justification needed, otherwise
honest justification
friend mostly honest justification (our unspecific justification (holiday plans
notions about a perfect holiday differ) have been terminated by now)
relative mostly white lies, without specific lengthy justification and alternatives
contents
child no justification or short justification lengthy justification
acquaintance lengthy justifications and alternatives unspecified justification + extended
excuses
superior very specific and lengthy justification excuse + set phrase justification
(mostly family affairs) (circumstances are a little bit
unfavorable).
colleague specific justification unspecific justification
(I have another important date)
stranger set phrase set phrase

Justifications without further adjuncts have the same frequency in both cultures.
Mere refusals are infrequent in both languages. As main differences we can
resume that Germans verbalize refuses more frequently than the Japanese do,
whereas the Japanese tend to use more excuses. The adjuncts of refusal are given
in Figure 8.
104 Marion Grein

79,7%

76,2%
80%
70%
60%
36,4%
50%
40%
30% 24,7% 16,2%
20%
20%
10%
0
Justification Alternative Excuse

Japanese German

Figure 8: Adjuncts of refusal

4.3 Politeness strategies

We shall look at negative politeness strategies first.
Table 3: Negative politeness strategies

German Japanese
indirectness 40,9% 54,4%
set phrases 10,3% 17,1%
impersonalization 7,3% 86,9%
hedges 22,7% 14,7%
tags 3% 13,7%

Germans are more direct. Yet, the difference is less crucial than expected. Also
the usage of set phrases does not differentiate as much as anticipated. The analysis
of impersonalisation has turned out to be a questionable criterion since Japanese
speakers constantly avoid personal pronouns. In German, hedges are more
frequent than in Japanese. Most hedges are, however, used by women. Further-
more, there are differences in both languages depending on the interpersonal
constellation.
German Japanese
partner 23,6% 15,2%
friend 25,3% 16,5%
relative 18,6% 25,6%
colleague 28,0% 12,5%
acquaintance 30,1% 15,9%
superior 24,6% 14,2%
stranger 9,8% 2,5%
child 16,9% 12,2%
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 105

35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0
relative friend acquaintance stranger
child partner colleague superior

Japanese German
Figure 9: Use of hedges

Japanese interactants use hedges more often than Germans only when refusing a
relative. To refuse a directive uttered by a relative is considered to be a severe
face-threatening act in Japanese – as was noted by many test persons.
Tags are infrequent in German on the whole; only children are at times con-
fronted with tags. Japanese speakers, most notably women, complete their refusal
towards children in the majority of cases with a tag-question.
acquaintance
colleague

superior
relative
partner

friend

friend

child

Japanese
tags
women 22,5% 28,7% 11,2% 18% 18,4% 2,1% 3% 78,3%
men 5,5% 5,6% 2,2% 2% 3% 1% - 45,6%
14,0% 17,2% 6,7% 10% 10,7% 1,6% 1,5% 62%
German
women 4,5% 6% 3,2% 1% 5% - 1% 22,5%
men - - 1% 1% 1,6% - 0,5% 5,5%
2,3% 3% 2,1% 1% 3,3% - 0,8% 14%
106 Marion Grein

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0
friend acquaintance relative stranger
child partner colleague superior

Japanese German
Figure 10: Use of tags

We will now turn to the positive politeness strategies. Since the usage of personal
pronouns is a questionable criterion for Japanese, only the usage of declarations
of sympathy and solidarity is considered. In German 21,7% declarations of
sympathy and/or solidarity (i.e., You are my best friend, yet …) were employed all
together. In Japanese, there were only 12% of sympathetic declarations.

German Japanese
partner 35,8% 9,5%
friend 23,6% 12,7%
child 13,0% 4,4%
relative 18,8% 16,6%
colleague 20,5% 20,0%
acquaintance 29,3% 22,4%
superior 13,4% 3,2%
stranger 4,5% -

As expected, declarations of sympathy to ones partner are very common in

German (35,8%), whereas the Japanese avoid them when talking to their intimates
(9,5%).
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 107

40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0
acquaintance colleague superior stranger
partner friend relative child

Japanese German
Figure 11: Declaration of sympathy

4.4 Social distance and indirectness

As expected, most interactional work, as measured by indirectness, is done in the
middle of the social distance continuum. Strangers and intimates are refused most
directly. Yet, there are some astonishing findings.

90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
stranger stranger
partner friend relative child acquaint. superior coll.
(d) (ph)
Germans 32,3% 37,2% 46,5% 46,0% 55,8% 65,9% 33,5% 21,0% 12,0%
Japanese 29,0% 59,0% 38,0% 82,0% 67,0% 69,0% 61,0% 31,0% 26,0%

Figure 12: Social distance and indirectness

Whereas Germans refuse the child’s request predominantly directly (54%), the
Japanese are most indirect with their refusal when talking to the child. Obviously,
children possess a different status in the Japanese society. Thus, it is not
interactional work that evokes indirectness here, but the belief that children have
108 Marion Grein

to acquire communicative virtues (cf. Marui 1996) and that they are most
effectively acquired when using most polite and honorific forms of language.
In German the superior is refused most indirectly. The partner – in accord-
ance with our hypothesis – obtains mostly direct refusal in Japanese.
In both cultures, the refusal is most direct with the salesman on the phone
without any face-to-face communication. Yet, in Japan the partner is refused more
directly than the door-to-door salesman.

4.5 Social distance and excuses

As a yet unobserved negative politeness strategy, we have the utterance of an
excuse. Here, the overall excessive usage of excuses in Japanese can be
manifested again. Moreover, we can record that the interpersonal assignment is
mostly identical in both languages. Again, the most observable difference is to be
found in the interaction with the child, which does not receive an excuse in any
German minimal action game. As to be seen in Figure 13, the colleague is treated
differently, too. Surprisingly, Germans as well as Japanese use few excuses
towards their relatives.

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
child partner friend coll. relative acquaint. superior stranger
Germans 1,0% 3,3% 19,3% 11,5% 22,5% 43,0% 29,5% 12,0%
Japanese 25,5% 12,0% 34,0% 41,5% 38,0% 55,2% 55,0% 24,5%

Figure 13: Social distance and excuses

4.6 Social distance and the initiative speech act

Subject to the type of initiative directive (invitation, suggestion and offer), the
data given in Figure 14 again show a similar tendency in both languages. Offers
are refused with more directness than suggestions, suggestions more directly than
invitations. Requests – except for the child’s – show the same distribution of
indirectness in both cultures, too (cf. Figure 15).
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 109

acquaintance invitation

colleague invitation

friend suggestion

partner suggestion

salesman door offer

salesman phone offer

0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Trend Jap. Trend Germ.

Figure 14: Social distance and initiative speech act

Concerning requests, we can observe the same tendencies with Japanese and
Germans – with the meanwhile well-established difference towards the child.

child

superior

acquaintance

relative

friend

partner
0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Japa ne se German

Figure 15: Social distance and requests

4.7 Social distance and initial ‘no’

A refusal can be opened with a direct ‘no’ (or varieties). As assumed, the
Japanese mostly refrain from using an initial ‘no’. Only towards strangers,
partners and friends a ‘no’ can be uttered. In German an initial ‘no’ is most
110 Marion Grein

infrequent with acquaintances and superiors and most frequent towards strangers,
intimates and colleagues.

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0
partner acquaintance relative superior
stranger friend child colleague

Japa nese German

Figure 16: Social distance and initial ‘no’

These findings correspond to the previous ones, showing again that face-work or
interactional work is done in the middle of the German social distance continuum.
In Japanese, people refrain from using no in mostly all minimal action games.

4.8 Politeness and gender

In Grein (2007) all data were differentiated according to gender. Here, only a few
data shall be summarized. First, gender differences between Germans, than
between Japanese will be presented.
4.8.1 German and gender
Both genders use the same speech act types and favor the paradigm <refusal +
justification>. Men refuse more directly (64%) than women (54,3%). Concerning
the adjuncts, both genders use the same amount of justifications. Yet, women
offer more alternatives (30%) than men (19,3%). Furthermore, excuses are more
frequent with women (22,3%) than with men (15,6%). Hedges are predominantly
used by women (35,6% vs. 9,8% men). The sporadic usage of tags is particular
female as well (women 5% vs. men 1%). The use of solidarity conveying personal
pronouns (we) is more frequent with women (7,8%), too (men 4,3%).
4.8.2 Japanese and gender
In Japanese, there are differences concerning the speech act type. Women utter an
initial excuse in approx. 30% of their refusals, compared to men with 20%.
ASSERTIVES are predominantly used by men (11,8% vs. 4,2% by women). As
mentioned, ASSERTIVES are a face-threatening act since they emphasize a lack of
like-mindedness and are subject to contradiction.
 The Speech Act of Refusal within the Minimal Action Game 111

In Japanese, there are gender differences concerning the paradigm as well.

Whereas men favor the paradigms <justification> and <refusal + justification>,
women prefer the paradigm <excuse + justification>.
Concerning the adjuncts, both genders use approximately the same amount of
justifications. Yet, again, women offer more alternatives (20%) than men
(12,2%). Excuses are with out doubt a female device (44,7% vs. men 28,2%).
4.8.3 Summary politeness and gender
The so-called ‘theory of two cultures’, where women and men are considered as
members of different cultures (cf. Maltz & Borker 1991), can be confirmed.
Dialogues between the different sexes can be interpreted as a type of cross-
cultural communication (cf. García 1992, 1993 with similar results for speakers of
Spanish). In fact, the analysis – concerning politeness strategies – features more
intracultural than intercultural differences. Gender differences, thus, need to be
considered when comparing languages.

Table 4: Politeness and gender in German and Japanese

German Japanese
women men women men
arithmetic mean politeness strategies 28,8% 21,2% 30,9% 23,6%
indirectness 45,7% 36% 55,3% 53,5%
hedges 35,6% 9,8% 21,9% 7,5%
tags 5% 1% 21% 6,3%
solidarity personal pronouns 7,8% 4,3% 1,5% 0,7%
declarations of sympathy 22% 21,3% 13,3% 10,7%
excuses 22,3% 15,6% 44,7% 28,2%
justifications 78,2% 74,4% 81,5% 78%
alternatives 30% 19,3% 20% 12,2%
set phrases 12,2% 8,8% 18,8% 15,4%

5. Summary

Dialogic usage of language is understood as a sequence of active and reactive

speech acts, integrating the individual and cultural imprint of each human being.
Basic reference point is, thus, the human being. The choice of communicative
means is crucially determined by the interpersonal constellation. Each individual
chooses his/her communicative means depending on his/her very own perception
and cognition of the situation, i.e. the social distance, familiarity, status relation-
ship, like-mindedness, affection and so forth. He/she wants to achieve his/her very
own interests, and is bound to the cultural values and rules of his/her culture.
Furthermore, human beings have a need for affiliation and acceptance and are
aware that their communication partners are in need of acceptance and affection,
too.
When a person is confronted with a request (DIRECTIVE), he/she evaluates the
situation. The evaluation, then, assigns the verbal and nonverbal reaction to the
112 Marion Grein

request. In most cases, this is merely a routine: the interaction of the particular
factors and principles has been acquired during socialization and is basically
internalized. The choice of the adequate reaction is difficult in those cases, when
social distance, status relationship or other factors are not apparent.
Yet, if the principles of language usage are to be disclosed, and, moreover,
are to be compared among different languages, the underlying factors of cognition
have to be taken into account. In order to discover the underlying factors of
perception and cognition, cultural values and the culturally diversified concepts of
face have to be taken into consideration. Cultural values and face-concept are
interdependent: The face-concept appoints the cultural values, and the cultural
values affect the face-concept. To give an example: modesty is, without doubt, a
cultural value of the Japanese. This cultural value is, then, a part of the individual
Japanese face, since modesty is a more basic face-need than for instance
assertiveness. If the individual face calls for modesty, the cultural value modesty
will play a major role in the mind of the Japanese culture.
The analysis has demonstrated that language and culture are integral parts of
the dialogic action game. Out of the more or less indefinite choice of utterances, it
is the cognition of a human being that opts for a specific communicative form.
Thus, we are not confronted with set rules, but probability principles. The analysis
has revealed that there are identical perceptions concerning interpersonal
constellations in Germany and Japan, but also major differences: sympathy with
intimates is communicated among German interactants, but avoided with
Japanese. The so-called ‘our-face concept’ among intimates in Japan makes overt
sympathy demonstration redundant or even inappropriate. There are different
perceptions of the appropriate manners with relatives. Moreover, children are
perceived with extraordinary difference: whereas politeness strategies are
annulled in Germany, language use towards children is especially polite (using
many honorific forms) in Japan. Any research done in the field of language usage
needs to implement the human being as a basis for significant analyses.

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 Gestural Regulators
in French, Japanese and American English Dialogues

Caroline E. Nash
Louisiana State University

Studies in dialogue analysis incorporating the nonverbal component reveal important

facts about the relationship between language and culture. We cannot interpret what is
actually said without interpreting the gestural activity in conjunction with the verbal
utterances since much of our ‘communicative intent’ is revealed through our body
language. In English, the ‘nod’ is a regulator used by the addressee to signal to the
speaker that s/he is listening, following, and/or is in agreement with the speaker’s
opinions, comments, and/or topic. This gesture maintains the conversation flow and
conveys ‘positive attitude’. Regulators perform other functions such as convey negative
attitude, request or reject further information, control the addressee’s attention and
understanding, accept or reject the speaker’s topic and so forth. This paper presents
findings on the identification, usage, and functions of regulators in French, Japanese and
American English, limiting the scope to certain hand and head gestures and some gaze
behavior patterns.

1. Introduction

Studies in dialogue analysis incorporating the nonverbal component reveal

important facts about the relationship between language and culture. We cannot
interpret what is actually said without interpreting the gestural activity in
conjunction with the verbal utterances since much of our ‘communicative intent’
is revealed through our body language. Hence, gestures play a crucial role in
accounting for those mechanisms that are employed in communicating more than
is actually said. The use of gestures in a natural and interactive conversation
requires observable contextual phenomenon as well as assumptions or inferences
about the speaker’s beliefs and intentions.
The well-known studies of nonverbal behavior in linguistics have been in the
area of conversation analysis, focusing primarily on negotiating the turn in the
talk-interaction. Duncan and Fiske (1977, 1985) identify the ‘speaker gesticu-
lation signal’ performed during the speaker turn to maintain the turn and the
‘speaker state signal’ performed at the beginning of a speaker turn. Lindenfield
(1971:231) reveals body movement bridging a syntactic boundary as a means of
maintaining speaker turn at a possible turn-transition place (transition relevance
place (TRP) as defined by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974)). Iizuka (1993)
116 Caroline E. Nash

conducted a cross-cultural study in an effort to describe some of the cultural

differences between the use of regulators in Japanese and Americans in
conversation. In addition to the head nod, he includes gaze and body movement in
general.
Exhaustive studies have been done on gaze behavior and on the role of ‘gaze’
in its dialogic function in the talk-interaction and the nature of its behavior in the
‘turn’ of turn-taking in American English (Duncan & Fiske 1977, 1985, Goodwin
1981, Kendon 1967, 1990, Scheflen 1964, Schegloff 1984). Certain findings on
gaze behavior have been reported such as the notion that the display of addressee
aversion of gaze indicates lack of interest or disapproval of speaker topic (Argyle
& Cook 1976:121) and that mutual gaze lasts less than one second (Beattie 1978b,
1979:28). In recent years, we have seen a decline in studies in mutual gaze
behavior patterns outside the realm of psychology (i.e. interpreting social
emotions such as in the work of Adams and Kleck 2003).
Although studies on gaze behavior describe observed patterns of pre-
dominantly American subjects, studies on culture-specific gaze behavior have
been conducted since the early 20th century that reveal distinct cross-cultural
differences in certain patterns of gaze behavior between interlocutors engaged in
interactive conversation. Most notably, Whiffen (1915:254), who conducted
studies on gaze behavior of American Indians, attested that Indians do not look at
each other while speaking – neither the speaker at the listener, nor the listener at
the speaker. LaFrance and Mayo (1976) and Erickson (1979) also conducted
comparative studies in conversational gaze behavior of African-Americans and
Anglo-Americans. The reported findings for African-Americans are the reverse of
those that have been reported for Anglo-Americans, i.e., African-American
speaker-gaze is higher than addressee-gaze. Hence, differences in gaze behavior
patterns are attributed not to language, but to cultural differences. Yet, ethno-
centric studies still dominate kinesic research and the constructed models and
postulated rules for American English gaze behavior patterns are often
generalized to apply to the social behavior and organizational structure across
languages and cultures.

2. Study, methodology and data

This paper presents findings on a study of the identification, usage and functions
of regulators in French, Japanese and American English, limiting the scope to
certain hand and head gestures and some gaze behavior patterns. I performed a
quantitative analysis of gaze direct behavior among these groups of speakers that
specifically address the following:
− mutual gaze time during the conversation,
− speaker gaze time during speaker turn and
− addressee gaze time during speaker turn.
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 117

This study seeks to answer the following questions:

− How does the speaker signal that he or she is not yet willing to relinquish his
or her turn to an active participant?
− Which gestures are used by a self-selecting speaker?
− Which gestures are used by the current speaker to yield the floor?
− Which gestures express ‘negative attitude’ on both the part of the speaker and
the listener?
− How does the listener convey disagreement with the speaker’s opinions,
comments or selected conversation topic?
− How does the speaker or listener convey that he or she no longer wishes to
continue the current topic or the conversation?
− How much do mutual gaze and gaze direct patterns between French and
Japanese speakers vary in terms of frequency and duration of mutual gaze
display during an interactive conversation?
− Since we expect culture-specific patterns to emerge, how then do French and
Japanese gaze behavior patterns compare to those exhibited by American
English interlocutors, and further, how do these different patterns play a role
in the negotiation of the turn across cultures?
The data for this study were collected via video recordings of native French
speakers residing in various regions throughout France, Japanese native speakers
residing in Japan and in California, Japanese Francophones residing in Paris,
native Japanese tourists visiting Paris, American English native speakers residing
in California, bilingual French-Japanese speakers residing in Paris and both
American English-French and American English-Japanese bilinguals residing in
California. The subjects are of five different sociolinguistic groups:
− French speakers 30-65 years of age,
− Japanese speakers 30-65 years of age,
− Japanese speakers 20-25 years of age,
− American English speakers 30-65 years of age and
− American English speakers 20-25 years of age.
The results on gaze behavior were calculated based on the mean of three
randomly extracted 6-minute conversation samples (18 minutes) from each of
these five sociolinguistic groups.
All participants were taped in mostly dyad pairs while engaged in natural
interpersonal and interactive conversations with social acquaintances. The
subjects were not at any time aware of the nature of the study and the specific
topic of research prior to or during the taping. Only at the conclusion of the
filming segments did I inform the participants of the target features of my project.
118 Caroline E. Nash

3. The hand

3.1 The hand: Turn-holding and silencing the addressee in French

A regulator used by the French speaker to signal that it is still his or her turn to
speak and that he or she is not yet willing to yield the floor to another participant
at a transition relevance place, comprises the index finger vertically placed in
between the speaker and the listener with the arm bent at a 45° angle, elbow
forward and slightly raised, as shown in Image 1.

Image 1: Turn-holding gesture: finger

In Image 2, example (1), a lady hotel proprietor is telling her friend about how
strict control regulations are becoming at the hotel and other establishments, and
that restaurants now have to reduce the weight of each ingredient used to prepare
a dish. When her husband (initially a bystander hence not pictured in the image)
interjects and attempts to take the speaker-turn, she holds up her index finger to
silence him and maintain her turn.

(a) (b)

Image 2: Turn-holding gesture: finger

 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 119

(1) S: maintenant, on est imposé sur la quantité que vous donnez à manger. Y a cent...
eh... oui, oui, y a 130g. de légumes et cent... 120g. de viande… oui, oui parce
que si vous donnez de trop, vous avez un contrôle fiscale. On vous dira
[interjection by husband: « Tu exagères » ] (a) on dira... on vous dira:
« Mais vous avez servi deux repas. Vous n’en avez déclaré qu’un. Donc,
vous volez l’État! »
maintaining gesture

“Now, we’re prescribed the quantity that we give to eat. There’s 100.. uh… yes,
yes, there’s 130 g. of vegetables and 100… 120 g. of meat yes, yes because if you
give too much, you’re audited. They’ll tell you [interjection by husband: « You exaggerate… »]
(a) they’ll say… they’ll tell you:
«But you served two meals. You only declared one. So you’re stealing from the
State! »”
maintaining gesture

Husband interjects:
Tu exagères! Peser tous... chaque chaque...
“You exaggerate! Weigh all each… each…”

Wife (S) (Still holding up index finger): Il y a eu un restaurant…

“There was a restaurant…”

The speaker wants to silence her husband and hold the floor in order to provide an
example. At the end of her story, she holds up her index finger once again to
indicate that she wants to maintain the floor in order to provide another example
to illustrate her point (Image 3). The addressee, anticipating the termination,
makes a forward move but does not take the turn.
S continues:

Image 3: Turn-holding gesture: finger

(2) Une dame .... (maintaining gesture)

“A lady…”
120 Caroline E. Nash

In Image 4, example (3), the speaker is addressing a participant who is not shown
in the frames. The addressee has just finished her speaker turn when the
participant on the right begins to speak. The person on the left is a silent
participant during this exchange.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Image 4: Turn-holding gesture: finger

(3) S: (a) Mais, mais en France, en France, le mot «manga» c’est la bande dessinée
(b) [addressee interjects to take the turn] japonaise
(c) ET [addressee is silenced] les dessins animés
(d) japonais, donc, tout ce qui est dessein japonais c’est devenu «manga» en
français.

“(a) But, but in France, in France, the word «manga» is comics

(b) [addressee interjects to take the turn] Japanese
(c) AND [addressee is silenced] cartoons
(d) Japanese,, so, everything that’s Japanese cartoons/ comics became manga in
French.”

In example 3, the addressee, anticipating a turn transition relevance place follow-

ing the NP bande dessinée, and unaware that the speaker was going to qualify the
noun with the adjective japonais and another NP, interjects to take the turn.
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 121

However, the speaker silences the addressee by displaying the gesture at ET to

hold and maintain her turn at talk.
These gestures (Duncan & Fiske’s ‘gesticulation signal’) are held across syn-
tactic boundaries i.e. at Sacks’ transition relevance places, supporting the findings
reported by Lindenfield suggesting that in order to indicate that the speaker is not
willing to yield the floor even though a possible turn-transition place is marked
syntactically, the speaker may position his body movement so that it bridges a
syntactic boundary.

3.2 The hand: Turn-taking and silencing the speaker in French

In the dynamics of talk-interaction among French speakers, the participants
typically do not maintain a marked distance from one another. Physical contact is
frequently made with the fingers and hands. A self-selecting French speaker
taking a turn positions the upper torso forward towards the current speaker,
penetrating the speaker’s personal sphere. In the preceding section, the vertical
finger is a speaker turn-holding and addressee-silencing marker that does not
penetrate the addressee’s personal sphere. This same gesture also functions as a
device by the listener to silence the current speaker; however, it does penetrate the
speaker’s personal sphere and often touches the addressee as shown in Image 5.

Image 5: Turn-holding gesture: finger

The index finger display always precedes an interjection. The listener is silencing
the speaker and self-selecting his or her turn with the intention to address and
contribute to that which has just been uttered by the speaker (Duncan & Fiske’s
speaker-state signal, though the speaker-state signal is not defined as a silencing
gesture).

(4) S1: On parle de Caroline… la synthèse de la femme

- justement c’est les cheveux, et puis le regard, effectivement, …
S2: Les cheveux de synthèse,
les cheveux … ce sont les cheveux de synthèse…oui, et le regard, une bouche…
122 Caroline E. Nash

Image 6: Turn-holding gesture: finger

Les cheveux de synthèse, …les cheveux …

[S2 (right) lifting index finger up to touch the speaker’s arm]

S1: “‘We’re talking about Caroline… the synthesis of the woman

- exactly, it’s the hair, and then the look…”

S2: “the hair of synthesis, the

hair…. it’s the hair of synthesis… yes, and the look, a mouth…”

A variation of the speaker-silencing regulator is the open palm held vertically

between the speaker and the listener, the palm facing the speaker. There is,
however, a distinction between the two markers. The open palm functions to
silence the speaker with no intention on the part of the listener to take the
immediately following turn-constructional unit as shown in Image 7.

Image 7: Speaker-silencing gesture: palm

If the self-selecting speaker is the next one to speak, the turn is allocated by both
participants after a pause as in Image 8, example (5).
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 123

(5) S1: Si tu veux être décontractée, il faut fumer le bédo, tous les deux
S2: [palm up and open

S1: et tu seras plus comme ça (gesturing hands trembling motion).

S2: gesture ] Après! Après!
(after a 3-second pause…)
S2: Si tu veux, après… après les examens, si tu veux… mais avant, non.

S1: “If you want to distress, you have to smoke the bedo, the two of
S2: [palm up and open

S1: us together and you won’t be like this (shaking) anymore.”

S2: gesture ] “After! After!”
(after a 3-second pause) …..
S2: “If you want, after… after my exams, if you want… but before, no.”

Image 8: Turn-taking wish

S1: et tu seras plus comme ça

S2: gesture

Speaker 2’s intention was not to take the turn and make a contribution to what
speaker 1 had just uttered but merely to silence him. Speaker 1 did not choose to
continue the turn and speaker 2 addressed the suggestion after a discernible pause.
Members of certain social and/or age groups in the U.S. use this open palm
gesture (‘talk to the hand’) preceding the utterance, Whatever! to convey to the
speaker that she or he wants the speaker to stop talking, due to the fact that there
are irreconcilable differences of opinion. This gesture is performed by a twist of
the wrist and circular hand motion, partially extending the arm towards the
speaker’s face, positioning the tense open hand between the interlocutors. If the
participants are sitting side by side, the gesture inevitably penetrates the speaker’s
personal sphere, blocking the speaker’s head or face from view, thus hindering
efforts of further communication.
124 Caroline E. Nash

Image 9: Talk to the hand: whatever

3.3 The hand: Turn-yielding in French

The open palm, either palm down or facing inward with the fingers pointing
towards the addressee and the arm horizontally extended, is a regulator used by
the French speaker to yield the floor and signal a designated participant to take the
speaker-turn. The palm up gesture and the pointing index finger gesture are
deictic markers of location and person found to be used in many languages. As
such, when used as a turn-yielding gesture, the second person pronoun is usually
used in conjunction with the gesture, or the gesture yields the floor with an overt
linguistic cue such as an imperative to speak.

Image 10: Palm down gesture

 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 125

Image 11: Pointing index finger

Image 12: Palm up gesture

Image 13: Pointing index finger

(6) S: Une question, comment tu as appris de gros mots comme ça?

S: “A question, how did you learn bad words like that?”
126 Caroline E. Nash

(a) (b)
Image 14: Palm up gestures

(7) (a) Maintenant, parlez de la cuisine japo (b) naise! (Imperative)

[open hand palm up]
“Now talk about Japanese cuisine!”

4. The nod

4.1 The nod: Turn-holding in Japanese

One regulator with which the Japanese negotiate turn-taking and convey
speaker/listener attitude is variations of the ‘nod’. Iizuka (1993:207) describes the
nod as an addressee continuation cue. The addressee uses frequent nods – much
more frequently than the French or American addressee – to signal that he or she
accepts the speaker’s topic, is actively listening and following, and is in
agreement with the speaker’s comments. In the back-channeling nod, as shown in
Image 15, the head bends forward slightly in short, quick and very frequent
movements.

(a) (b)
Image 15: Variations of the head nod

I find that the nod is also used by the Japanese speaker to hold the floor. The
characteristics of the turn-maintenance nod are short and tense and occur at syn-
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 127

tactic boundaries (PPs, AdvPs, VPs, clause-finally, etc.). This gesture at critical
syntactic points signals to the addressee that the speaker is not yet willing to
relinquish his or her turn.

(8) S: Kayoobi kara, zuutto matte te, Orusei mo shimatte iru shi, mushi atsui shi tote-
[nod] [nod] [nod] [nod]
mo tsukaremasu ne! Pari wa Nihon yori atsui desu ne!
[nod] [nod]
“Since Tuesday (nod), we’ve been continuously waiting (nod), even Orsay is
closed (nod), it’s hot and muggy (nod), it’s so tiring isn’t it (nod)! Paris is hotter
than Japan, isn’t it (nod)!”

The nod is gesticulated simultaneously with the utterance of the particle shi. Shi
functions to mark clause boundaries when the clauses compose an itemized list.
The speaker is linguistically marking the anticipation of the following clause, and
in conjunction with the nod gesture, signals that he or she is still holding the floor.
There is a clear transition relevance place between ne! (“isn’t it”) and Pari
(“Paris”); however, the nod maintains the speaker turn. The use of the
exclamation mark instead of the question mark is due to the fact that the tag
question in conjunction with the nod does not request confirmation but rather
functions solely to hold the speaker turn.

4.2 The nod: Turn-yielding in Japanese

The turn-yielding nod which signals that the speaker is relinquishing the turn, is
held longer than the turn-maintenance nod (about one to 1½ seconds longer) and
is displayed in sentence-final position.

4.3 The nod: Marker of topic change or end of conversation in Japanese

A tense nod held 2 to 3 seconds by the addressee, conveys to the speaker that the
addressee wants to change the topic or terminate the conversation. Attempts on
the part of the speaker to continue the conversation are usually futile. The same
gesture performed sentence-finally by the speaker, conveys to the addressee that
the speaker wants to change the topic or terminate the conversation. In effect the
speaker in Image 16 is saying, I am having the last word on this topic and now it’s
the end of the conversation! [nod].
128 Caroline E. Nash

Image 16: End of conversation

Iizuka (1993:207) reports that the addressee’s nods occur frequently after the
speaker’s utterances with the particle ne (“isn’t it?”) “which sounds as if they
were soliciting the addressee’s response”. In Japanese, the utterance of con-
firmation-seeking question words such as deshyo? (“it is, right?/right?”), ne?
(“right?”), jyanai? (“it is, is it not?”), does not always convey to the addressee
that the speaker is requesting confirmation or expecting a response. The data
collected for this study suggest that the nod plays an important role in interpreting
the speaker’s intention. In the absence of other response soliciting gestures (such
as the upward head tilt), with certain intonation patterns, without the nod, the
speaker is in fact, seeking confirmation from the addressee as shown in examples
(9) through (11).

(9) S1: Akiko no deshyo? [no nod]

“It’s Akiko’s (your turn), right?”
S2: Mnnn... ee? soo?? Moo wakannai! (S2 responds)
“Uh-huh, huh? It is? I don’t know anymore!”

(10) S1: demo kodomo no hon… otona no hon jyanai ne? [no nod]
“but a child’s book it’s not an adult’s book right?”
S2: non, non, … pour otona, il faut… (S2 responds)
“no, no,… for adult, there has to be…”

(11) S1: Eigo dattara, doo iimasu ka?

“If it was English, how would you say it?”
S2: Argot deshyo? [no nod]
“It’s argot (slang) right?”
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 129

Addressee (S3) replies:

S3: Eigo de“fucking thief” jyanai? [no nod] (S3responds to S2)
“In English… it’s “fucking thief”, isn’t it?”
Speakers (S1 & S2) reply:
S1: Ah! Oui, oui, oui! C’est ça! « Putain de voleur »! (S1responds to S3)
“Oh! Yes, yes, yes! That’s it! “Putain de voleur”! …”
S2: Oui, oui, oui! … (S2responds to S3)
“Yes, yes, yes! …”

On the other hand, in conjunction with the nod, these question words do not seek
further information or confirmation. Rather, the question words serve to monitor
the addressee’s attention and ensure that the addressee is maintaining a ‘positive
attitude’ towards the speaker and the speaker’s topic since the back-channeling
nod, in effect, responds to the question nod.

(12) S: Mitsuko-san, itsumo kuru deshyo?, dakara futsuu wa, nanka ageru jyanai?,..
[nod] [nod]
“Mitsuko always comes, right(?), (nod) so normally, you’d give (her) something,
wouldn’t you(?), (nod).”

(13) S: pour otona, il faut des des sukebenai toka ne?, de nihon no manga wa
[nod]

hotondo otona no manga de sukebe no shiin ga ooii jyanai?, dakara

[nod]
“for adults, there has to be some … some porno or the like right (?) (nod) and
Japanese comics are for the most part adult comics so there are a lot of porno
scenes [isn’t that] right (?) (nod), therefore…”

There is no verbal response from the addressee following the tag questions
deshyo? and jyana?, in (12) and ne? and jyanai? in (13). The addressee gestures a
back-channeling nod accompanied by the utterance mn in both examples. As
previously mentioned, the turn-maintenance nod has been observed clause-finally
and in other syntactic boundary positions. Therefore, since this nod maintains
speaker’s turn, the fact that the question is not seeking a response conforms to the
behavior of the turn-negotiating strategy.
The addressee may also back-channel with confirmation markers such as soo
desuka? (“is that so?”) with or without the nod, and with or without rising intona-
tion, depending upon whether he or she intends the interjected question to be
answered by the speaker.
In the following examples, soo desu ka? has rising intonation. (Context: 20
years ago, the term for both cartoons and comics was manga. Since then, the term
anime was borrowed from ‘animation’ to denote cartoons, while manga was
reserved for comics. S1, who hadn’t been back to Japan in 20 years was not aware
that a distinction is now made between the two concepts linguistically, while S2,
130 Caroline E. Nash

who did not live in Japan 20 years ago, was not aware that the distinction is
relatively new.)
(14) S1: anime jyanakute, manga wo mitetano, terebi de.
“it wasn’t animation, but cartoons, that we were watching on TV”
S2: soo desuka? [nod]
“is that so?”

S1: Mahootsukai Sari toka soo yuuno...(S1 does not confirm.)

“like Mahootsukai Sari and stuff (cartoons) like that...”
(S1 does not respond to S2’s yes/no question in conjunction with the nod.)

(15) S1: pas 500 balles, ben... 300 francs à peu près.
“ not 500 bucks, ... 300 francs about.”

S2: soo desuka? [no nod]

“is that so?”

S1: mnnn... oui.

“mnnn... yes.” (S1 confirms in response to S2’s question + absence of nod)
1
(S continues to talk about the problem of trying to return the article of clothing.)

5. The head tilt

5.1 The head tilt: Expressing disagreement and turn-taking in Japanese

A side head tilt performed by the addressee conveys to the speaker that the
addressee is not in agreement with the speaker’s opinion, comment, or topic. If
the speaker yields the floor at the head tilt display, then the addressee has
succeeded in taking his turn. Otherwise, the head tilt is held longer and firmer
until the addressee is successfully able to take his turn. The initial head tilts may
be unaccompanied by verbal utterances, or pre-verbal followed by the utterances,
mnn..., saa... (expression of doubt) or demo ..., (“but …”).

Image 17: mnn Image 18: saa

 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 131

5.2 The head tilt: Expressing partial disagreement and justification in French.
The French addressee tilts the head to the side to convey partial disagreement.
The head tilt in conjunction with expressions such as alors, là (“now that
there...”); ben, écoutes... (“oh now, listen....”); pas forcément... (“not necessari-
ly...”); oui, mais... (“yes, but...”), responds to what a speaker has said and
precedes an explanation or justification thus the addressee takes the turn. The
following images show the head tilt in conjunction with expressions of disagree-
ment.

Image 19: non! Image 20: mais

Image 21: mmn Image 22: non

In Image 23, example (16), when S2 asks S1 about the stuffed tomato, It comes
from Provençal, no?, S1 gestures the head tilt saying, Not particularly ... but ...,
and goes on to explain the preparation of the dish, conveying that in fact, if the
stuffed tomato is prepared properly or in a certain way, then it’s the Provençal
stuffed tomato. Hence, the head tilt cues a forthcoming specification on the topic.

(16) S1: Les tomates farcies -- moi, j'adore la tomate farcie.

S2: Ça vient de Provençal, non?
S1: [Head tilt] Pas spécialement … mais c'est, c'est donc, la tomate farcie, si on l’a
bien préparée, oui.
132 Caroline E. Nash

S1: “Stuffed tomatoes – I adore stuffed tomatoes.”

S2: “It comes from Provençal, no?”
S1: [Head tilt] “Not particularly… but it’s, it’s, so, the stuffed tomato, if it’s well-
prepared, yes.”

Image 23: Head-tilt: forthcoming specification

6. Gaze behavior

6.1 Cross-cultural characteristics of gaze direct in French and Japanese

I believe that in Western cultures, we accept as fact that the most important facial
expression in terms of communication is eye contact. It is known that there are
more nerves in the eye than in any other part of the body, rendering the eye the
most sensitive communicative stimulator and receptor that humans possess. It is
also a fact that during a conversation, eye contact between interlocutors creates
anxiety and the tension of the anxiety is broken by averting the gaze at regular but
undefined intervals throughout the conversation. Yet, the French seem to deeply
‘engage’ each other with an uninterrupted and intense gaze throughout lengthy
segments of discourse. Thus when one speaks of le regard français as intense and
an anxiety-inducer to Americans, it is from the recognition that the French do not
exhibit the same type of gaze behavior as do speakers of other languages. The
gaze is not broken as frequently among the French as it is among Americans, and
certainly they break the gaze much less frequently than the Japanese who appear
to rarely gaze into each other’s eyes during a conversation.
In my observations of Japanese bilinguals engaged in French conversation
with French native speakers, those who have acquired French as their second
language to the level of native fluency ability but still maintain their dominant
Japanese culture, exhibit similar gaze behavior patterns as do native Japanese
speakers engaged in Japanese conversation. These Japanese-French bilinguals
tend to avoid eye contact during their communicative exchange. According to
Lebra (1976:48),
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 133

a culture that emphasizes intuitive communication is unlikely to encourage direct eye-to-

eye communication. If people are inordinately sensitive receptors of social stimuli, as
the Japanese are, the information sent and received by the eyes may be over-whelming.

This apparent discord in the salient features of the language-culture duality would
suggest that even though communication is achieved between the Japanese
francophone and the native French speaker, albeit hindered, the conflict arises in
the pragmatic functions or communicative intent that is in large part manifested in
our nonverbal behavior.

6.2 Gaze direct patterns

6.2.1 Mutual gaze
An examination of mutual gaze direct behavior reveals significant cultural
differences which are not merely differences across language groups but also
differences in behavior patterns across cultural sub-groups within one
homogeneous group whose members speak the same language. The data reveal
dramatic differences in gaze behavior patterns across generations in Japanese
speakers. The data also reveal similar patterns among young speakers across
languages. The graphs below depict the gaze behavior of our five sociolinguistic
groups as follows:
− French (mixed-sex) speakers 30-65 years of age (middle-aged French);
− American English (SAE) (mixed-sex) speakers 30-65 years of age (middle-
aged Americans);
− American English (SAE) (mixed-sex) speakers 20-25 years of age (young
Americans);
− Japanese (female) speakers 20-25 years of age (young Japanese) and
− Japanese (mixed-sex) speakers 30-65 years of age (middle-aged/older
generation or traditional Japanese).
Figure 1 indicates the percentage of the conversation where mutual gaze is ex-
hibited by each of the five sociolinguistic groups in this study. Figure 2 depicts
the duration in seconds of mutual gaze display by the interlocutors of these groups
during the conversational exchange.
134 Caroline E. Nash

100

Percentage of Conversation
80

60 51
42 43
40
24
20
0,1
0
MFrench MSAE YSAE YJap MJap

Figure 1: Mutual gaze during conversation

The results of this study show that the French have, as predicted, relatively high
engagement of mutual gaze during the conversation in proportion – 51% of the
conversation – as well as in duration – from 2 to 9 seconds, while the traditional
Japanese have very low engagement at only 0.1% of the conversation and at less
than 1 second in duration. The middle-aged category of American English
speakers perform mutual gaze much less than do the French at approximately
mid-way between the French and traditional Japanese at 24%.

MJap 1
0,5

YJap 4
0,5

YSAE 4
0,5

MSAE 4
0,5

MFrench 9
2

0 2 4 6 8 10
Seconds

Average Shortest Duration Average Longest Duration

Figure 2: Duration of mutual gaze

An interesting finding resulting from this analysis is that the younger generations
of both Japanese and American speakers exhibit almost identical mutual gaze
behavior at 43% and 42% of the conversation respectively as well as identical
length of gaze hold at 0.1 to 4 seconds in duration. What is perhaps more
revealing is that the young Japanese exhibit mutual gaze closer to that of the
French, though the average threshold is only 4 seconds. The 0.5 to 4 seconds of
mutual gaze hold is observed in three of the five speaker groups.
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 135

6.2.2 Speaker and addressee gaze during the speaker turn

Our data show variation across speaker groups in duration of speaker-addressee
gaze during the speaker turn. While most speaker groups do conform to previous
findings on speaker-addressee gaze, i.e., that the addressee gazes at the speaker
more than the speaker gazes at the addressee, two speaker groups clearly do not.
Percentage of Speaker Turn

100 85
80 67 71 66
64
54
60 47 50
37 32
40
20
0
MFrench MSAE YSAE YJap MJap

Speaker Gaze Addressee Gaze

Figure 3: Speaker and addressee gaze

Figure 3 shows the duration of speaker gaze and addressee gaze during the
speaker turn. The display of speaker gaze by young American and Japanese
speakers during the speaker turn, 64% and 66% respectively, is as frequent and as
steady as that of French speakers which is 67% of the French speaker turn. On the
other hand, the duration of addressee gaze during speaker turn is significantly
lower for the young Japanese participants at 54% compared to 85% for the
French, while young American participants perform addressee gaze closer to that
of the French at 71% of the speaker turn. The similar patterns exhibited by young
Japanese and American adults suggest that members of this age group share
common features in the dynamics of face-to-face interaction that are significant to
their social interaction across cultures.
A significant finding in this study is the characteristic pattern of all Japanese
speakers across generations: the display of speaker gaze is higher than the display
of addressee gaze which is contrary to the expected behavior pattern of addressee
gaze i.e., addressee gaze is more prevalent in conversation than is speaker gaze.
The young Japanese speaker gaze during speaker turn is 66% while their
addressee gaze is lower at 54% of the speaker turn. Similarly, the traditional
Japanese speaker and addressee gaze is 37% and 32% respectively. Thus in
Japanese speaker and addressee gaze behavior patterns, we see a reversal of the
current model and contrary findings to those that have been found in previous
studies on gaze behavior.
With respect to frequency of gaze direct display, the overall findings of
speaker and addressee gaze during speaker turn for both French and American
136 Caroline E. Nash

English speakers conform to those that have previously been reported in gaze
behavior studies in conversation. The rule posited by Kendon and others, that the
addressee gazes at the speaker more than the speaker gazes at the addressee, does
apply to the French and American English speakers; however, the rule does not
apply to either group of Japanese speakers.
6.2.3 Gaze direct and confirmation-seeking utterances
Kendon (1967:40) suggests that the looks of the speaker toward the addressee
occur at the ends of phrases, thus functioning to signal a response from the
addressee. Although the context in which he observes this specific type of gaze
direct is in the sequential organization of the turn-at-talk, this function of gaze
direct is found when signalling back-channeling responses that respond to
requests for confirmation, verification, or approval from the addressee, such as in
conjunction with tag questions and other confirmation-seeking utterances in
French, Japanese and American English.
In French, as in Japanese and American English, this usage of gaze direct
functions to monitor the addressee’s attention on the content of the speaker’s
discourse and to seek the addressee’s collaborative attitude. Displays of speaker
gaze direct in conjunction with phrase-final utterances such as tu vois? (“you
see?”), n’est-ce pas? (“isn’t it?”), pas vrai? (“not true?”), etc., solicit either
agreement ‘as fact’ regarding what the speaker is conveying, or some indication
from the addressee that they share similar attitudes, philosophies or emotional
sentiments.
The latter purposes are usually the reasons for displaying gaze direct and
confirmation-seeking utterances in a conversational exchange. Often, the
addressee does not necessarily agree with the truth value of what the speaker is
saying, but tends to have as the principal objective, the desire to convey to the
speaker that he or she is making a cooperative effort in maintaining the natural
flow of the conversation and as such, is actively and positively following the
speaker’s discourse. The addressee responds with oui, oui!, si, si!, tout à fait!,
etc., affirming their collaborative attitude and active participation, and only
secondarily, confirming the truth of what the speaker has said.
In American English, we find the same conditions for the usage of gaze direct
in conjunction with phrase-final confirmation-seeking utterances such as you see,
you know?, right?, isn’t it? and other tag questions, expressed to monitor the
addressee’s attention and to seek the addressee’s collaborative attitude. The
addressee responds with phrases such as yeah!, uh-huh!, and right!, to affirm
his/her collaborative attitude and his/her active participation, and again, only
secondarily, confirming the truth of what the speaker has said.
In Japanese, the utterance of confirmation-seeking question words such as the
particle ne? (“right?/huh?/isn’t it?”), deshyo? (“it is, right?/right?”), and jyanai?
(“it is, is it not?”), performs the same functions as the utterances in French and
American English that request confirmation by the speaker and of which the
responses affirm collaborative attitude by the addressee. An additional feature
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 137

particular to Japanese participants is that they place high value on group solidarity
such that the addressee oftentimes repeats the confirmation-seeking question word
to show both confirmation and solidarity with the speaker. In Image 24, the
addressee is not only back-channeling with the utterance, ne?!, repeating the
speaker’s question word ne?, but she is also repeating the gesture displayed by the
speaker to indicate solid agreement with what the speaker has just said. In these
back-channeling occurrences, the addressee is affirming the truth value of what
the speaker has just said.

Image 24: ne!?!

Gaze direct displayed phrase-finally, functions cross-linguistically to signal a

back-channeling response from the addressee. The response which shows appro-
val, confirms, affirms, supports, and/or corroborates, responds to tag questions
and other confirmation-seeking utterances in French, Japanese and American
English.

6.3 The role of gaze behavior in the turn-taking sequence

According to Kendon, in the process of turn-taking, just prior to the termination
of speaker turn, the speaker begins to gaze towards the addressee anticipating the
termination of the turn and role switch to the addressee. As speaker-turn roles are
reversed, there is a gaze shift as the addressee who begins the speaker turn gazes
away from the participant who just ended the speaker-turn. This model suggests
that gaze direct functions to yield the turn to an addressee, while gaze avert
functions to take the turn as new speaker. Goodwin, Schegloff, Scheflen, Duncan
and Fiske all find the same distribution pattern in their studies on gaze and its
function in organizing the turn-at-talk. While the data from this study reveal
results consistent with Kendon’s model for American English speakers, these
patterns are not at all universal in that I find very different gaze behavior patterns
in the turn-taking sequence in Japanese and French dialogues.
138 Caroline E. Nash

6.3.1 Gaze behavior at the turn: Japanese

In Japanese conversation, we find that gaze avert at the beginning of the speaker
turn is displayed by some speakers and not by others. Even those speakers, who
do avert the gaze at the beginning of their turn, do not do so with consistency.
Further, the traditional Japanese subjects tend to maintain steady gaze avert
during the role transition from addressee to speaker. We cannot, therefore,
identify gaze avert as a turn-beginning regulator. However, both the younger and
older generations of Japanese speakers consistently display gaze avert at the end
of their speaker turn, completely reversing the stipulated rules in Kendon’s model.
This suggests that gaze avert may in fact be for the Japanese, a turn-
yielding/ending gesture rather than a turn-taking/beginning gesture.
6.3.2 Gaze behavior at the turn: French
Since there is high mutual gaze during speaker turn, there is no support in our
findings to suggest that French speakers use gaze as a primary strategy in
regulating speaker turn in the talk-interaction. The regulators that play a much
more significant role in negotiating the turn are hand signals such as pointing or
touching, head and upper body movement and eyebrow raising.

7. Conclusion

Effecting successful dialogue requires mutually-shared background information

of the speaker and addressee, which depends to a great extent on their cultural
background and crucially, adherence to the same principles and parameters that
govern the display of nonverbal behavior. Speakers and addressees across cultures
do not use the same techniques in gaze behavior patterns and other bodily
gestures to regulate and maintain the conversational flow. Speaker-addressee gaze
behavior relates directly to the speaker-addressee personal sphere as gaze
penetrates the personal space of the interlocutor. Personal sphere dimensions vary
greatly across speaker groups from a cultural point of view as well as from a
linguistic point of view. The boundaries that are set around our bodies are
culturally and socially determined; moreover, languages reflect these differences
of personal sphere as perceived by speakers of the languages by the grammar of
whole-part relations (cf. Nash 2001).
What is clear is that there are differences in nonverbal behavior patterns
across languages and cultures. What is not yet clear is the nature of these
differences and the degree to which cross-cultural patterns differ. The subjects
under study have for the most part been predominantly American English
speakers and very few cross-cultural analyses have been done. In an attempt to
characterize certain language and culture-specific patterns, this study revealed
distinct patterns of the use of regulators and gaze behavior among native speakers
of three unrelated languages: French, Japanese and American English. The results
from this study reveal, moreover, that different sociolinguistic patterns emerge
even within a single language and culture.
 Gestural Regulators in French, Japanese and American-English Dialogues 139

Expanding the scope of research to account for all nonverbal behavior

patterns in all cultures is clearly a daunting if not impossible endeavour.
Arguably, the ultimate goal in linguistic studies is to uncover the underlying
structures that are universal patterns and as such, account for certain human
tendencies that are manifested during face-to-face interaction among speakers of
many if not all languages. Speakers and addressees across cultures do not use the
same techniques to regulate dialogue; however, the gestural component is crucial,
particularly with certain verbal cues. Clearly, this topic of research warrants
further investigation in terms of going beyond ethnocentric studies and
conducting more cross-cultural and cross-linguistic studies in nonverbal com-
munication. Moreover, if most of our communicative intent is manifested in our
nonverbal competence, as it is so claimed, then we need to incorporate this very
significant component into models of both talk-interaction and second language
acquisition.

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 Quantity Scales
Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms

Elda Weizman
Bar-Ilan University

This paper argues for a reading of cultural variation in terms of degree of

informativeness. Based on empirical cross-cultural data, I suggest that each language be
located on a quantity scale, indicating its relative informativeness within a set of the
languages under study. The quantity scales may serve as a unifying principle of
comparison, with the aim of providing an integrated culture-specific profile for each
language as compared to other languages. Integrated profiles in terms of quantity scales
might also serve as a sound basis for a systematic examination of the universality of
Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Based on Gricean notion of quantity I propose an
interpretation of two discourse patterns – Requestive Hints in spoken discourse and
conveying reservation through the verb claim in the written press – each in a different
set of languages. Reported findings indicate that Hebrew is located near the informative
end of the scale in both cases.

1. Introduction

This paper argues for a reading of cultural variation in terms of degree of

informativeness. It is suggested that in cross-cultural studies, for each discourse
pattern, the languages explored are to be located on a quantity scale, indicating
their relative informativeness vis-à-vis each other. The quantity scales may serve
as a unifying principle of comparison, with the aim of providing an integrated
culture-specific profile for each language as compared to other specific languages.
As is well known, Grice’s Cooperative Principle determines that speakers
have a tacit agreement whereby contributions will be made “such as is required, at
the stage at which [they] occur, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which [they] are engaged” (1975:45). Speakers are thus committed to
maintaining four principles, formulated in the form of four maxims, one of which
is the Maxim of Quantity:
– Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes
of the exchange.
– Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
142 Elda Weizman

Grice is mostly concerned with deliberate, blatant floutings of the conversational

principle, since his purpose is to account for the generation of conversational
implicatures. From his perspective, speakers of a foreign language would not be
assigned to deduce intended indirect meanings through the mechanism of
conversational implicatures, in as much as they are not expected to share with
natives speakers the same intuitive feeling of what counts as ‘cooperation’ and
‘flouting’. It follows then that languages might differ in the implementation of the
Conversational Principle and its maxims. The point I would like to make here is
that languages differ systematically in the implementation of the Maxim of
Quantity. It is further suggested that analyses of cultural variations in terms of
degree of informativeness might provide us with a coherent, integrated bird’s-eye
view of the specificity of the languages under study. More specifically, it is
argued that as far as indirectness is concerned, languages differ in terms of the
quantity requirement, such that for each pattern of indirectness, each language is
characterized by a preferred level of informativeness as compared to other
languages. I understand ‘informativeness’ as ‘informational load’ or ‘quantity of
information’ in the Gricean sense.
The very notion of quantity is relative; consequently, values such as ‘high’ or
‘low’ are necessarily relational, and can only be determined by comparison. In
this respect, the discussion is somewhat related to the study of ‘voids’ (Dagut
1978) in traditional theory of translation. The very assumption that the translation
product is at the crossroads of the source language, target language and other
relevant translations (Toury 1977, 1980, 1995, Weizman 1986) presupposes a
comparison between the languages involved. Thus, Catford’s (1965) linguistic
approach to translation makes a distinction between textual equivalence
(effectively manifest in a translated text as compared to its source text) and formal
correspondence (between categories in the source- and target languages); and
Toury’s (1995, 2000) distinction between obligatory and non-obligatory shifts
draws on a differentiation between linguistic specificity at the level of language
structures (which entails obligatory shifts) versus differences in stylistic, text-
dependent preferences (which entails non-obligatory ones). This line of thinking
gives way to discussions of ‘voids’ (also labeled ‘lacunes’, cf. Vinay & Darbelnet
1958, ‘blank spaces’, cf. Rabin 1958, and ‘gaps’, cf. Ivir 1977, 1987), i.e. entities
in a given language which have no equivalences in another. Accepted typologies
refer to grammatical voids, including morphological ones (e.g., the lack of
definite article in Russian), syntactic (lack of past perfect in Hebrew), lexical or
semantic voids caused by differences in the physical environment (Fjord) and
cultural worlds (resurrection).
Typologies abound, but for our purpose it is sufficient to point out that voids
have no independent existence; they are relational by definition, and it is in a
similar sense that ‘preferences for high or low quantity’ or for ‘high or low
informativeness’ are discussed henceforth: the degree of informativeness of a
given discourse pattern in a given language can only be calculated as compared to
 Quantity Scales: Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms 143

the same patterns in another language, or to another pattern in the same language.
Therefore, the analysis of quantity scales requires a horizontal comparison within
the same language, and a vertical comparison between languages.
Accordingly, in this paper I propose a Gricean interpretation of two discourse
patterns – Requestive Hints in spoken discourse and conveying reservation
through the verb claim in the written press – each in a different set of languages.
Since for both patterns Hebrew is compared with other languages, the analysis
may provide us with a partial sense of how a ‘culture-specific profile’ may look
like.

2. Requestive Hints

2.1 Introducing hints

As noted above, I find it particularly interesting to explore the claim of ‘quantity
scales’ in patterns of indirectness, which inherently represent the lower end of
informativeness, when compared with directness and conventional indirectness.
By ‘patterns of indirectness’ I refer to such pragmatic functions as irony,
illocutionary force, challenges, etc., whereby the meaning conveyed by the
speaker differs from the utterance meaning: while the latter resides in the
semantic value of lexical, morphological and syntactic units complemented by
contextual information conventionally activated by indexicals and comparatives,
indirect speaker’s meanings are detected through the combined use of textual,
extra-textual and meta-textual cues, which highlight the existence of a gap
between the computed utterance meaning and available contextual information,
and trigger the search for candidate speaker’s meanings (Dascal 1983, Dascal &
Weizman 1987, Weizman & Dascal 1991).
Requestive Hints are indirect, non-conventional requests, such as I can’t
stand closed places when used as a request for H to open the window. If a speaker
S wants to ask hearer H to open the window, a number of strategies are available
to her, ranging from the most direct to the most indirect. The interpretation of the
most direct ones relies on their syntactic form (example 1) or on a performative
verb (example 2):

(1) Open the window (please).

(2) I am asking you to open the window.

The interpretation of conventional indirect requests relies on conventions of

means, which determine the semantic value of the utterances used as requests, and
conventions of forms, pertaining to their specific wordings (Clark 1979); and
although languages differ from each other both in the nature and distribution of
request strategies available to the speakers (Blum-Kulka 1989), all conventionally
indirect requests have some affinity with the felicity conditions required for their
realization (Searle 1969). The conventional requests below, for instance, are
144 Elda Weizman

related to the preparatory condition ‘H is able to do A’ (example 3) and to the

sincerity condition ‘S wants H to do A’ (example 4):

(3) Could you open the window?

(4) I’d like you to open the window.

Unlike direct and conventionally indirect requests, the interpretation of hints is

secured neither by directness nor by conventionality. For instance, the assertion It
is hot in here will be heard as a request for H to open the window only under
specific circumstances, and there is little in its form which may indicate its
illocutionary force or its propositional content.
Requestive Hints are not homogeneous. In my previous work (Weizman
1985, 1989, 1993), I argued that hints represent a heterogeneous category which
includes various sub-strategies, and that the nature and use of opacity is better
understood if these sub-types are viewed as maintaining scalar relations on two
opacity scales: the illocutionary and the propositional. Thus, a hint is considered
more or less opaque on the illocutionary scale depending on the contextual
information required for the interpretation of its requestive force; and it is
considered more or less opaque on the propositional scale depending on the clues
exploited for the interpretation of its propositional content. Each hint may thus be
defined according to its location on both scales. Empirical findings indicate
(Weizman 1989) that when hints are considered more situationally appropriate
than direct or conventionally indirect requests, speakers opt for the relative
opaque hint sub-strategies. Based on this preference for opacity, as well as on
findings indicating that in contrast with claims made by Brown and Levinson
(1987) and Leech (1980, 1983), hints are not universally interpreted as face-
saving (Blum-Kulka 1987, House 1986). I argued that opacity is not conceived as
the lesser of two evils, which should be compensated for. Rather, it is
intentionally exploited in order to preserve a high deniability potential, “getting a
requested act carried out as a result of the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s
requestive intent, while at the same time pretending that no such intent exists”
(Weizman 1989:93).
Whereas the reported research focused on the functions of hints, in the current
discussion I propose to examine hints as a specific case of low informativeness, in
the framework of a wider claim on culture-dependent variation.

2.2 Quantity scales

As noted above, the strategy of Requestive Hints consists of several sub-
strategies, varying in terms of propositional content and illocutionary force.
Whereas I previously considered them in terms of degree of transparency, I now
prefer to view them as ranging in degree of informativeness. This modification
will enable us to make the generalization necessary for enlarging the paradigm so
as to include other discourse patterns.
 Quantity Scales: Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms 145

Judged by their propositional content, hints include three sub-strategies (the

examples below should all be read as requests that H opens the window):
– Reference to related components:
(5) I don’t understand why the window is always closed in here.
– Reference to hearer’s involvement:
(6) You’ve left the window closed, as usual.
– Reference to requested act:
(7) I can’t open the window, it is too high for me.

As can be seen, if the utterances in (5)-(7) are read as requests that H opens the
window, then the propositional content of (7) is the most informative, since it
includes a specification of the requested act (open) and its object (the window).
Example (5), on the other hand, is the least informative, since only the object is
explicitly referred to, while the requested act can only be inferred. The
propositional content of (6) is in mid position in terms of informativeness, as it
refers to both the object of the request (window) and to the hearer’s involvement
(you’ve left [it] closed), but does not name the requested act. The sub-strategies
represented by (5)-(7) thus range from least to most informative.
The same goes for the degree of informativeness of the illocutionary force.
Here, too, we are presented with three sub-strategies, ranging from the least to the
relatively most informative:
– Stating potential reasons for the request:
(8) I feel sick in closed places.
– Questioning feasibility of requested act:
(9) Is this window too high for you?
– Questioning hearer’s commitment:
(10) Are you going to give me a hand?

The sub-strategies represented by examples (8)-(10) correlate, one way or the

other, with two felicity conditions required for a successful performance of
requests (Searle 1969): the sincerity condition ‘S wants H to do A’ (example 8),
and the preparatory conditions ‘H is able to do A’ (in 9) and ‘it is not obvious to S
that H will do A in the normal course of events’ (in 10). These connections,
however, underlie hints at the level of implied speaker’s intentions, and unlike
conventionally indirect requests (can you/could you/would you etc.), they are not
embedded in their utterance meanings (i.e. in their wordings and grammatical
structures). Consequently, all hints, including the least opaque ones (examples 7,
10), operate at the level of low-informativeness, but there sub-strategies still
occupy different places on the quantity scale.
146 Elda Weizman

2.3 Cultural variation

Having argued for a re-reading of the use of hints based on the degree of
informativeness, let us see how it applies to cultural differences in their
realization in Australian English, Canadian French and Israeli Hebrew (Weizman
1985, 1987, 1993), Japanese and English (Rinnert & Kobayashi 1999), and
Turkish (Marti, personal communication, following Marti 2006). 1
A comparison between Australian English, Canadian French and Israeli
Hebrew, made in the framework of the CCSARP project and based on a
discourse-completion test administered to students in eight languages (Blum-
Kulka, House & Kasper 1989), demonstrates a clear-cut preference for the use of
the least informative sub-strategy on the illocutionary scale, namely that of
potential grounders, i.e. reasons for the request (77.1%, n=64 in Australian
English, 35.4%, n=16 in Canadian French, 44.6%, n=33 in Israeli Hebrew)
(Weizman 1989:89). Within this general tendency, Fisher’s exact test indicates
cultural variation as follows: Hebrew differs significantly from English
(p<0.000035), Canadian French differs significantly from English (p<0.000014),
but surprisingly the differences between Hebrew and Canadian French are not
significant (p=0.4419). These findings confirm that within the general tendency
towards low informativeness as represented by shared preference for the least
informative of all hints sub-strategies, a quantity scale may be established
whereby Australian English is the least informative, and Canadian French and
Israeli Hebrew follow.
A similar preference for the least informative of all hints sub-strategies has
been noted in Japanese and in American English, 2 explored through ethno-
graphically collected data in a university administrative office (Rinnert &
Kobayashi 1999). Based on Weizman’s (1989) typology, a comparison between
Japanese and American English highlights a fourth sub-strategy, less informative
than the ones described above: labeled ‘zero’, this sub-strategy consists of
Requestive Hints lacking any statement of illocutionary intent, such as Here is the
mail as a request for H to take the mail to the mailroom (Rinnert & Kobayashi
1999:1188). Similarly to the three languages referred to above, both American
English and Japanese share the preference for relatively less informative hints, but
here a clear distinction is observed, whereby Japanese tends toward the ‘non-
informative zero’ (31,1%, n=14), ‘potential grounders’ being its second choice
(28.9%, n=13), and American English tends towards potential grounders (47.2%,

1
Comparable data for Chinese will hopefully be provided by Jinsha Xie of Anhui University
(personal communication), who analyzes Requestive Hints in the discourse of Chinese
international business practitioners, based on a refined version of Weizman’s (1989) coding
scheme for propositional components.
2
No such tendency has been observed in Cuban Spanish. Based on a less refined distinction
between strong and mild hints, whereby the latter is the least informative of the two, Ružičková
(2007) establishes that in her spontaneous recorded data hint sub-types manifest very similar
frequencies.
 Quantity Scales: Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms 147

n=17), zero illocutionary force being its second choice among hints (11.1%, n=4).
Fisher’s exact test indicates that cultural variation for this study is significant
(p=0.034). Native speakers of Turkish, on the other hand, show preference for the
more informative type. In a study based on discourse-completion test
administered to students (Marti 2006), drawing on the less refined distinction
between strong hints and mild hints initially proposed in the CCSARP coding
scheme (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989), Marti (personal communication)
observes that 92 respondents in ten request situations chose to use strong hints in
87 cases, as opposed to a single mild hint by the same population.
To sum up the findings so far, we get a quantity scale ranging from the least
informative to the relatively more informative, as follows:

- informative

Japanese
American and Australian English3
Canadian French
Israeli Hebrew

+ infomative

Figure 1: Quantity scale: Requestive Hints

3. Conveying reservation through the declarative verb claim

Compare the three statements below:

(11) [Nassrallah] claims that it [Hezbollah] has over 20000 rockets.

(Haaretz, a gloss of the Hebrew source, 22.9.06)

(12) [Nassrallah] says [Hezbollah] has over 20,000 rockets.

(Haaretz, English translation, 22.9.06)

(13) [Nassrallah] a affirmé que son mouvement a plus de 20 000 roquettes.

(Le Monde 22.9.06)

The three utterances report the same event – a declaration made by the leader of
Hezbollah. Each statement uses a different declarative verb. In English (12) the
hypernym say is used, signifying nothing more than the act of speaking; the

3
The findings in these two languages draw on different research methodologies, and therefore
hardly lend themselves to a unified statistical analysis. Nevertheless, their relative places vis-à-vis
other languages in their respective sets seem to justify their vicinity on the scale proposed here.
148 Elda Weizman

French verb a affirmé (13) seems to add to the act of speaking a semantic compo-
nent signaling formal circumstances. The utterance in (11) is a gloss of a Hebrew
sentence, which uses the Hebrew equivalent of claim, thus conveying the
journalist’s reservations towards the propositional content of Nassrallah’s words.
This reservation resides in the semantic component which distinguishes between
say and claim and which conventionally implicates (Grice 1975) that the validity
of the reported saying needs to be confirmed. The nature of the required
validation, however, differs according to the type of speech event it is embedded
in. A claims that in courtroom discourse implicates the need for legal proof, in
scientific discourse it implicates the need for scientific evidence, and in political
discourse it might implicate the speaker’s disbelief or her reservations.
This seems to be the case in (11): by using the verb claim, the journalist
conveys his reservations towards the facts reported by Nassrallah (i.e., that
Hezbollah has indeed 20000 rockets).
From this analysis it follows, then, that claim is more informative than say, as
it consists of an additional semantic component, pertaining to the speaker’s
reservation, or at least to some kind of distanciation.
Despite this difference, in the published English translation of the daily
Haaretz, the Hebrew verb ta’an (“claim”) is translated into said. Why would the
translator reduce the informational load? The theory of translation proposes an
interesting answer. Studies of translation universals show that translators tend
towards a ‘normalization’ of their translations, such that translations are adapted
to typical stylistic norms of the target language (Laviosa 2002). In other words, if
the decrease in informational load when translating the Hebrew equivalent of
claim into the English say is motivated by the search for ‘normalization’, then we
may assume that the translator sees the less informative option as more acceptable
in this register in English. All the more so, since preference for reducing
informativeness by translating the Hebrew verb ta’an (“claim”) into the English
say is systematically practiced in journalistic translations. Extract (14) is a case in
point. Here, the journalist discusses the tension between the Israeli government
and advocacy groups representing holocaust survivors. When reporting the latters’
stance on the involvement of the Claims Conference which is supposed to
represent their own interests, the journalist uses the Hebrew equivalent of claim,
thus conveying a certain degree of reservations on his part towards the content of
the reported saying. The English translation substitutes say for claim:

(14) Nearly $200 million intended for improving the lives of Holocaust survivors in
Israel have gone in recent years to building hospital departments, old-age homes
and nursing facilities. These investments alleviate the plight of hospitalization and
serve the general Israeli public, including Holocaust survivors. But survivor
advocacy groups say (ta’an, “claim” in the Hebrew source) it is preposterous for
the Claims Conference to do the Israeli government's job while tens of thousands
of Holocaust survivors are in need of help (Amiram Barkat, Survivors get tiny slice
of Holocaust compensation, 13 July 2007).
 Quantity Scales: Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms 149

The following example is even more striking. In an article discussing the response
of Israel President Moshe Katsav to accusations of alleged sexual offenses, the
verb ta’an (“claim”) and the noun ta’ana (“a claim”) are used 14 times to refer to
statements made by all parties concerned. In the English translation, occurrences
of ta’an are either avoided (omitted, rephrased) or replaced by verbs unmarked
for the journalist’s stance:

(15) However, Katsav’s statements (Hebrew ta’anot, “claims”) were not entirely
accurate or true (Roni Singer-Heruti and Yuval Yoaz, Televised tirade was riddled
with inaccuracies, false accusation, Haaretz, 26.1.07).

(16) Haaretz’s probe, for example, led to women who testified (Hebrew ta’anu,
“claimed that”) directly and indirectly that they had been assaulted by Katsav
(ibid.).

(17) For example, Yedioth Ahronot reported that five of the first complainants’
previous employers said (Hebrew ta’anu, “claimed that”) she had tried to
blackmail them as well (ibid.).

The translator thus opts for the less informative possibility, most probably based
on his awareness of cultural variation in the distribution of the verbs in question.
This difference is further confirmed by comparing closed corpora. Thus, for
example, between the dates 10-12 July 2007, chosen at random, ‘ta’an’ (“claim”)
is manifest in 119 Op-Ed columns published in the Hebrew daily “Ha’aretz”; its
English equivalent claim features in 15 articles of the “Herald Tribune”4 and the
French equivalent prétendre occurs in 21 articles in “Le Monde”.
Based on this analysis, we get a quantity scale whereby Hebrew is located at
the relatively most informative end as compared with both American English and
French.
- informative

American English
French
Israeli Hebrew

+ informative

Figure 2: Quantity scale: declarative verb

4
The verb claim is more frequent in reports of the news-agency “Associated Press”, which
represents a different genre than the one discussed here.
150 Elda Weizman

4. Culture-specific profiles

A culture-specific profile can only be established if the interpretation of various

discourse patterns is based on a unifying principle. In the view suggested here, the
principle of quantity scales is well adapted for this purpose. Since only Hebrew is
represented in the two sets of data analyzed here, let us undertake carefully the
first steps towards outlining its profile, without thereby neglecting to mention that
more data are required in terms of discourse patterns and discourse types. Not
withstanding these methodological limitations, the cross-cultural analysis
presented here for the two discourse patterns seems to suggest that Hebrew is
located at the relatively more informative end of the quantity scale as compared to
the languages under study. It is also important to emphasize that ‘high quantity’ is
not to be equated with directness, and hence, the suggested profile for Hebrew is
not to be confused with the inclination of Hebrew towards preference for
straightforward Dugri Speech (Katriel 1986, 2004). It is essential for the
interpretation suggested here to acknowledge that the quantity scale is applicable
even within the realm of indirectness.

5. Implications

The analysis proposed here suggests that a re-reading of cultural variations in

discourse styles in terms of quantity scales provides us with a unifying principle
which accounts for apparently non-related discourse patterns. The two discourse
patterns discussed in this paper – Requestive Hints and the use of claim to convey
reservation – have no apparent connection between them, nor are the speech
varieties – spoken discourse and the language of the daily press − related to each
other in any obvious way. Nevertheless, applying the principle of quantity scales
to each of them separately seems to provide a basis for the hypothesis that
Hebrew is located near the informative end of the scale in both cases. Extending
comparative research as well as re-interpretations of existing findings along the
same lines may help us draw a culture-specific profile for each language as
compared to a given set of other languages.
Culture-specific integrated profiles in terms of quantity scales might also
serve as a sound basis for a systematic examination of the universality of Grice’s
Cooperative Principle. Specifically, they may be conducive to a tentative answer
to the question: is the implementation of Gricean Maxim of Quantity governed by
culture-specific norms? If indeed, as we assume, consistent specificities are
highlighted by large-scale data, the answer to this question will be positive:
languages differ in terms of what is considered by its native speakers to be “as
informative as is required”.
 Quantity Scales: Towards culture-specific profiles of discourse norms 151

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 PART III

Empirically Oriented Studies of the ‘Mixed Game’

Specific action games, politeness and selected means

of verbal communication
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation
An analysis in healthcare multicultural settings

Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

The complexity of the interpreter’s cultural task as a dialogue coordinator has been
acknowledged in recent studies on dialogue interpreting. Interpreters may facilitate or
inhibit expressions of personal interest and perceptions by participants, active listening
and appreciation of the participants’ contributions. Interpreters can thus help in
promoting distribution of active participation, addressing participants’ interests and
needs. In this paper, we look at data recorded in hospitals in Italy involving African and
Arabian patients, Italian doctors and bilingual interpreters. We note that doctors’
expressions of personal interest or appreciations of participants’ experience may either
be directly responded by the interpreter, or ‘translated’ for the patients. This leads to
different functions of dialogic actions in the intercultural interaction: while support and
appreciation are expressed by interlocutors towards each others’ actions and
experiences, a failure to translate such support and appreciation leads to construction of
distance between doctor and patient.

1. The meaning of dialogue interpreting

A type of interaction that is acquiring increasing interest in studies on translation

and intercultural communication is institutional talk involving speakers of
different languages and an interpreter providing translation service. Such type of
talk is referred to as ‘interpreter-mediated interaction’ (following Wadensjö
1998:6) or ‘dialogue interpreting’ (Mason 1999). The complexity of the inter-
preter’s cultural task as a translator and also as a mediator has been widely
acknowledged in the literature on dialogue interpreting. Analyses of recorded and
transcribed data show that interpreters are active participants in the interaction:
they select information to translate, ask and provide clarification, give support to
the interlocutors (Angelelli 2004, Baker 2006, Mason 1999, 2006, Wadensjö
1998).
In order to explain the type and amount of work that interpreters do in the
interaction, Wadensjö (1998:145-150) suggests that interpreters play a double role
in the conversation, they translate and they also coordinate the talk activity.
Wadensjö (1998:110-140) further distinguishes between ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’
coordination: she argues that while interpreters do coordinate talk even simply by
156 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

translating and taking turns in the one or the other language (‘implicit
coordination’), there are also interpreter’s actions which are explicitly aimed at
coordinating the interaction. These actions are included by Wadensjö in a
category called ‘non renditions’, that is to say they have no counterpart in turns in
the other language. As examples of explicit coordinating activity, Wadensjö lists
requests for clarification, requests for time to translate, comments on translations,
requests to observe the turn-taking order, invitations to start or continue talking,
and the like.
Such coordinating activity is aimed at making the interaction between the
participants of different languages possible and successful and it is concerned
with the promotion of their participation and understanding. It allows a linguistic-
cultural bridging which makes effective the voice of the interpreter’s co-
participants and makes their cultural expression possible. It also aims at
participants’ reciprocal understanding and sharing of information. Specifically,
interpreters can mediate “a form of cross-cultural encounter between immigrants
and agents of institutions of the First World” (Davidson 2000:381), and in this
sense Wadensjö observes that they “cannot avoid functioning as intercultural
mediators” (1998:75).
The integration between translation and coordination is, then, a complex one
and while, on the one hand, sole translation does not seem sufficient to assure
reciprocal acceptance of cultural expressions, what interpreters actually do, in the
interaction, as intercultural coordinators is still a matter of inquiry (Gavioli &
Baraldi 2005). While interpreter’s coordination activity has been, at least partly,
examined in its cognitive function of asking or providing clarification about
linguistic or cultural interactional problems, there are other aspects of
coordination which are less explored.
In expressing her/his understanding of what is going on in the interaction, the
interpreter may (or may not) introduce a direct, affective support of other
participants’ expressions of feelings or attitudes into the conversation. The
interpreter’s support maybe very important to make the emotional expression of
co-participants relevant in the interaction and to promote participant’s acceptance
and understanding. In dialogue interpreting (Baker 2006), as in any other
communication process (Luhmann 1984), an important premise of interaction is
given by expectations about interlocutors’ expectations. Emotional expressions
can enhance affective expectations. Affective expectations are expectations that
interlocutors expect, expressions of concern and support in response to some
previous interlocutor’s action (Baraldi 2006a). These expectations allow personal
emotional involvement of participants in the interaction, which integrates or
substitutes the institutional role performances which are traditionally required in
institutional contexts.
In this paper we explore dialogue interpreting in hospital settings and we
focus on the construction of affective support and expectations through the
interpreter’s coordinating activity. We maintain that affective support and
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 157

expectations may be key-factors in the coordination of reciprocal acceptance and

in the construction of intercultural mediation.

2. Affectivity in dialogue interpreting: the case of medicine

In medical interaction the construction of reciprocal acceptance between doctors

and patients may be very important for the successful outcome of the interaction.
An important part in such constructions is probably played by the possibility that
the patient has to express her/his problems not only in terms of physical
conditions, but also in terms of feelings and worries. In medical encounters,
patients and healthcare providers may give voice to their worries, concern,
appreciation and reassurance. Following a mechanism of “next positioning”
(Goodwin & Heritage 1990), these initiatives project the interlocutors’ responses
in terms of affective expressions of concern and support. So affective sequences
may occur where the patients, the healthcare providers and the interpreters
express their emotional involvement and this can enhance affective expectations.
In the age of ‘golden medicine’ (Heritage & Maynard 2006), that is in the
Fifties and in the Sixties, emotional expressions and affective expectations were
banned from the interactions between healthcare providers and patients. These
interactions were characterized by a ‘doctor-centred perspective’, or the ‘voice of
medicine’, asserting the primacy of (1) medical role performances, based on
scientific knowledge and technical competence, and (2) expectations concerning
patients’ acceptance of medical diagnosis and adaptation to medical prescriptions
(e.g. Parsons 1951, Mishler 1984). In recent contributions concerning doctor-
patient interactions, instead, affectivity is considered a key factor for both, the
relational effectiveness and the success of medical therapies (Arora 2003, Barry et
al. 2001, Charles et al. 1999, Epstein et al. 2005, Heritage & Maynard 2005, 2006,
Mead & Bower 2000, Robinson 2001, Zandbelt et al. 2005, Zandbelt et al. 2006).
In such patient-centred medical approach, the patients’ emotional expressions and
the doctors’ affective involvement in the interaction are considered a primary
achievement: the patient’s emotional expression of her/his life-world is
encouraged (Barry et al. 2001), while doctor’s affiliation substitutes medical
control of patient’s adaptation to the voice of medicine (Kiesler & Auerbach
2003). In this perspective, the cultural authority of medicine is balanced by the
necessity of doctors’ accountability, as patients’ dissatisfaction with their medical
care “may outweigh the exercise of clinical judgement” (Heritage 2005:99).
According to a patient-centred perspective, the healthcare providers are invited to
observe illness with the patient’s lenses and “treat the patient, rather than just the
disease” (Heritage & Maynard 2006:355). This approach focuses on the patients’
goals and decisions, but its main concern is about the patients’ emotional
expressions. Affective expectations, then, are what primarily characterize a
patient-centred medical approach.
158 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

In our research we look at medical interaction in a bilingual and bicultural

setting involving an interpreter. Interpreters participate in the interaction by
providing linguistic help and bridging those cross-cultural differences which may
hinder communication. The questions we pose here are: if emotional and affective
sharing is a key factor in patient-centred medicine, how are emotional expressions
treated in interactions involving an interpreter? In which conversational
conditions may the affective expectations be accomplished in interpreter-mediated
interactions inside a medical system? Which forms of dialogue interpreting
promote affective expectations? And, can intercultural mediation be enhanced by
the interpreter’s contribution?
The ‘problematicity’ of handling emotional expressions in interpreter-
mediated interaction inside the medical system has been observed in data-based
studies by Bolden (2000), Cambridge (1999), Davidson (2000) and also
Pochhacker and Kadric (1999) and Tebble (1999). They note that the concerns of
patients are not fully reported by the interpreters to the doctors as interpreters tend
to summarise in ‘medical terms’ what is expressed by the patients, thus enhancing
the ‘voice of medicine’. In other words, emotional expressions ‘get missed’ in
reduced renditions which focus on medical problems and treatments. In this way,
the affective expectations are not accomplished in the interaction, and interpreters
assume the role of gatekeepers (Davidson 2000, 2001, see also Bührig and Meyer
2004) of the golden age medicine, that is of asymmetric power relations between
doctors and patients.
This literature reproduces the widely spread idea that by excluding the
patient’s life-world voice, interpreter-mediated interaction favours doctor-centred
medicine, which is not functional to effective medical diagnosis and treatment.
However, in interpreter-mediated interactions, this may not be the only relevant
aspect. Interpreting as mediation is considered fundamental for its function of
giving voice to cultural minority groups, consequently the function of interpreter-
mediated interactions is not only that of supporting the requirements of medical
systems, but also that of promoting participation of those patients who can neither
speak the institutional language, nor share the institutional culture.
This means that interpreter-mediated interactions add to non-mediated doctor-
patient interactions a second function, which is also a primary reference for their
assessment. The meaning of this function is that of creating an effective form of
intercultural communication (Baraldi 2006b), giving voice to cultural diversity in
the interaction, through the inclusion of both the patients’ voice and the voice of
medicine. This is viewed as creating reciprocal acceptance and cross-cultural
adaptation (Kim 2001). The double function of interpreter-mediated interactions
inside medical systems (of both favouring medical treatment in the form of
patient-centred approach and of promoting cross-cultural adaptation) is a primary
reference for our analysis. These two functions are coherent, as patient-centred
medicine gives voice to patients’ cultural diversity, while the emergence of
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 159

cultural diversity highlights the specific meaning of patient-centred medicine in

intercultural settings.
Keeping this double function in mind, in this paper, we focus on the patients’
emotional expressions in interpreter-mediated talk inside medical systems and the
way they are treated in the interaction. Our analysis concentrates on those
conversational sequences where an emotional status of worry, embarrassment or
appreciation is expressed by the patient and on how such contributions are treated
in the interaction. Our result is that patients’ emotional expressions are responded
to in different ways in the interpreter-mediated interaction, which not always lead
to sharing understanding and acceptance of all participants’ experience.
Differences in the form and organization of affective sequences have relevant
consequences for the participants’ involvement.
One of these consequences is that different meanings and functions of
dialogic interpreting are constructed in the interaction: while support and
appreciation are expressed by interlocutors towards each others’ actions and
experiences, a failure to share such support and appreciation leads to distance
between healthcare providers and patients and eventually to the construction of
differentiated in-group cultural identities (institutional identity and minority
identity). It has been recently noted that cultural minorities show scarce active
participation in doctor-patient interactions (Gordon et al. 2005, Meeuwesen et al.
2006) and it is likely that the lack of direct access to the doctors in interpreter-
mediated interactions does not favour the patients’ self-expression (Bolden 2000,
Davidson 2000, 2001). For this reason, we chose to analyse patient-initiated
affective interactions: we believe that focussing on the patients’ initiation of
affective sequences provides better insights into the ways in which dialogue
interpreting can influence the emergence and the neglecting of cultural diversity
and the patients’ affective expectations.
Our attempt here is to show that dialogue interpreting may be achieved in
different ways with different consequences in relation to the accomplishment of
different expectations inside different turn sequences. This leads to the
identification of forms of dialogue interpreting which may or may not empower
the participants’ involvement in the interaction and help improving our
understanding of the interpreters’ mediating activity in the interaction.

3. The data

The data analysed in this study are recordings of naturally-occurring encounters in

Italian healthcare settings. They are talks between healthcare providers (doctors
and nurses) and patients speaking different languages and communicating with
the help of an interpreter. The study is based on the analysis of 110 encounters, 60
involving the English and the Italian language and 50 involving the Arabian and
the Italian language. The institutional representatives are in all cases Italian, the
patients are from North and Central Africa or from the middle-East countries.
160 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

There are four interpreters, two English-Italian speakers and two Arabic-Italian
speakers. The anglophone interpreters are both Nigerian, the arabophone inter-
preters are one Giordan and one Tunisian.
The settings involve surgeries in or connected to four main hospitals, in three
cities in northern Italy. Most surgeries deal with the care or prevention of
gynaecological diseases and pre- or post-maternity follow-ups and the patients are
women. The interpreters are all women; the doctors and the nurses are both men
and women.
Transcription was carried out by researchers occasionally with the help of the
interpreters. The Arabic language was transcribed by using the Latin font type-set,
as commonly used in international chat lines. Transcription of Arabic posed some
problems because of the variety of dialects used by the patients. In some cases,
the transcriber understood the sense of the utterance but could not transcribe it
precisely. In those cases an approximate translation of the turn is provided.
Translation of all Arabic and Italian turns is provided below the corresponding
turn. Translations of untranscribable Arabic are provided in double brackets.
Transcription conventions are those commonly used in Conversation Analysis
(developed by Jefferson 1978, see also Psathas and Anderson 1990). All personal
details that are mentioned in talk have been altered in the transcription to protect
participants’ anonymity. Due to the sensitiveness of the situation, we were
authorised to collect audio, not video, recordings, which did not allow observation
of nonverbal action produced through gaze, gesture, facial expression, body
posture, etc. A list of the transcription conventions is provided in the Appendix.

4. Dialogue interpreting as dyadic affective interaction

In our data, patients express their worries towards their health problems, embar-
rassment for taking a particular medical procedure, appreciation or criticism
towards their previous experiences with Italian healthcare institutions. Such
emotional expressions are very often not translated and are responded to by the
interpreter who provides feedback and reassurance to the patient. Here are two
examples. In extract 1, turn 1, the interpreter asks the patient if she wants to fix a
coil. In turn 3, the patient does not answer the interpreters’ question and expresses
her worry (people have told me is not too much dangerous). In turn 4, the
interpreter repeats her question and the patient answers (the coil eh? – yes, turns
4-5), and in turn 6 the interpreter reassures the patient that the coil is not
dangerous. In turn 7, the patient tells the interpreter more about her worry (before
I was afraid about that) and the interpreter provides further reassurance, first in
turn 8 and then in turn 10.
(1) Extract 1
1 I You want to fix coil?
2 D Perchè qua stanno (?dando) solo progestinico.
“Because here they are (?giving) only progestinics”
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 161

3 P Why people have told me is not too much dangerous. So I want to try.
4 I Yes:, the coil eh?
5 P Yes.
6 I Yeah, it’s not dangerous.
7 P Before I was afraid about that.
8 I It needs that you normally come for control, that’s all.
9 P O:k.
10 I No, ((sweat voice)) don’t worry.

In extract 2, the patient has been given a paper which allows her to get free pow-
der milk from the pharmacy. In turn 1 she introduces her worry that the paper will
not be recognized by the chemist and that the chemist may ask her to pay for the
milk. The interpreter in turns 2 and 4 reassures the patient saying that the chemist
will recognise the stamp from the hospital and in turn 6 tells the patient to get
back to the hospital if she has any problem. In turns 7 and 9 the patient asks for
further reassurance that the chemist will recognize the hospital stamp and the
interpreter, in turn 10, confirms that the chemist will. In turn 11 the patient
expresses a further worry that she does not want to get embarrassed and the
interpreter in turn 12 reassures her again.

(2) Extract 2
1 P Er: wouldn’t wouldn’t there be any problem with that?
2 I [No.
3 P [The pack (?)
4 I No there’s no problem. we have the stamp. before there was no stamp.
now there’s stamp. do you understand?
5 P Mh.
6 I (?)(?) so you take it the whole letter. If there’s any problem let me know.
7 P Ok. (They know stamp?)
8 I Mh?
9 P (?) I just want to know
10 I No no, the paper they know it’s from the hospital
11 P (?) (?) you know (?) (?) I don’t want to be get embarrassed.
12 I If there’s any problem just let me know eh? (?) (?)

In expressing their feelings and worries, the patients seem to pursue not only
understanding but also affiliation and support from the interlocutor. This is visible
in both the extracts above where signals of cognitive understanding (see e.g. turn
4 in extract 1 and in extract 2) do not lead to the closing of the sequence and the
sequence is eventually closed with the provision of affiliation and reassurance for
the patient’s worries.
This is the most recurrent organization of talk following the patients’
emotional expressions in our data. In all cases this organization of talk leads to
dyadic affective sequences: the patient’s emotional expression projects the
interpreters’ affective support/reassurance. This interaction involves the patient
162 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

and the interpreter and the healthcare provider does not take part in the
(monolingual) conversation. In extract 1, the doctor intervenes in turn 2 but his
contribution is not treated as relevant in the interaction.
The continuations of extracts 1 and 2 confirm the doctor’s lack of involve-
ment. In the continuation of extract 1, the interpreter does not translate the
patients’ emotional expressions and simply tells the doctor that the patient wants
to fix a coil (turn 12). The response of the doctor in turn 13 signals that he did not
understand what went on between the interpreter and the patient (ah so why did I
write that she wants the pill) and the interpreter’s summarized rendition does not
mention any of the patient’s worries (no, now she told me that she wants the, turn
14). The doctor acknowledges the interpreter’s contribution with a news receipt
marker (ah she wants the coil, turn 15) and prescribes a particular type of coil
(okay Novatin, turn 15). The doctor makes a final attempt to get back to the
patient in turn 15 (was everything fine –) which is not taken up by the interpreter
who provides no further details and simply answers with a confirmative mhm
(turn 16).

(1) Continuation of extract 1

10 I No, ((sweat tone)) don’t worry.
((the baby sneezes))
11 D ((to the baby)) questo è qualcosa di speciale eh?
“this is something special eh?”
12 I Uh:: salute! (eh) dottore Alberto, lei vuole la cosa, eh:: la spirale!
“Uh:: bless you! (eh) doctor Alberto, she wants the thing eh:: the coil!”
13 D Ah allora perché ho scritto: che vuole: la pillola?
“Ah so why did I write: that she wants: the pill?”
14 I No, adesso mi ha detto che vuole la::
“No, now she told me that she wants the::”
15 D Ah! Vuole la spirala – la spirala (.) bene, Novatin. Andava tutto bene –
“Ah! She wants the coil: – the coil (.) good, Novatin. Everything was
fine –”
16 I Mhm.

In the continuation of extract 2, the encounter is closed by the interpreter who,

after reassuring the patient, introduces a greeting sequence. The doctor says she
was distracted by listening to something other than the interpreter-patient talk (no
I’m listening to–) and responds to the greetings (turn 13). More greetings follow
and the encounter is closed.

(2) Continuation of extract 2

12 I If there’s any problem just let me know eh? (?) (?) Bye bye now(?) (?)
Grazie dottoressa. (2) Ciao dottoressa! ((ride)) [eh eh.
“Thank you doctor. (2) Bye bye doctor!” ((laughs))
13 D [No sto ascoltand–
“No I’m listening to–”
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 163

Niente. Ci vediamo dopo!

“Nothing. See you later!”
14 P Grazie.
“Thanks.”
15 I Grazie, ok va bene.
“Thanks, okay fine.”
16 P Ciao dottoressa.
“Bye bye doctor.”

The exclusion of the doctor, in the extracts above, does not compromise the
success of the medical prescriptions, but cancels the patient’s voice of life-world
from the institutional interaction, compromising the doctor’s involvement in the
accomplishment of affective expectations and consequently the creation of an
affective relationship between the institutional representative and the patient.
As we can see in the extracts above, the patients’ emotional expressions
pursue and are responded to with reassurance and support. Provision of affective
support encourages the patient to further express their emotions and worries and
eventually leads to reassurance. Non provision of affective support either leads to
a delayed provision (see extract 1) or to dropping the topic in the conversation.
There are very few examples of the latter type of occurrence in our data, but the
following may give an idea. In extract 3, the patient is advised to stop smoking
(see doctor’s turn 2 translated in interpreter’s turn 3). In turn 4, the patient
expresses her own feeling about smoking saying that she loves it. In the following
turns, the doctor and the interpreter provide information about the patient’s check
up (turns 5-9). The emotional topic is dropped and the expectations of medical
role performance are maintained.

(3) Extract 31
1 I Vuole pulire i polmoni –
“She wants to clean her lungs –”
2 D Prima di tutto bisogna smettere di fumare (.) la prima cosa (.) va bene?
“First of all she must stop smoking (.) the first thing (.) okay?”
Proprio smettere di fumare
“Really stop smoking”
3 I bitulak uuil hagia timilha tbahal tadkin ((laughs))
“She says that first of all you must stop smoking”
4 P ((laughs)) bs ena (03) bahib adakn –
“I love (03) eh (smoking) –”
5 D Poi facciamo una mantoux2
“Then we do a mantoux test”
6 I binimil (..) hone (.) mantoux
“We do (..) an injection (.) mantoux”

1
We wish to thank Viola Barbieri, Nur Nasser Abdul Wahib and Malika Kachou for working with
us on the transcription, translation and the analysis of the Arabic-Italian data.
2
The Mantoux test is a diagnostic tool for tuberculosis.
164 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

7 D Torni venerdì a farlo vedere

“Come back on Friday to have it checked”
8 I Akid mush maugiud andak (.) bs–
“Certainly you don’t have it (.) but–”
9 D Hai la tosse anche?
“Do you have a cough too?”

These data suggest that affiliative responses following the patient’s expression of
emotion makes such expression relevant in the interaction and eventually leads to
the patient’s reassurance. In extract 3, where such affiliative response is not given,
the patient’s expression of feeling in turn 4 (I love smoking) is treated as non
relevant in the interaction and even if the interpreter provides some reassurance in
turn 8 (certainly you don’t have it) this does not take up the patient’s emotional
contribution.
While affiliative responses to the patients’ expression of feelings seem
relevant in carrying out affective sequences in medical interpreter-mediated
interaction, they are in none of the cases above ‘translated’ for or ‘passed’ to the
doctor. Thus even while feelings and worries are expressed and responded to in
the data making affective sequences relevant, such sequences do not, in most
cases, include the doctor who consequently has no access to the patient’s
emotional expression and affective expectations. This observation converges in
confirming the results by Davidson (2000, 2001) and Bolden (2000) who note that
expression of patients’ feelings and attitudes is problematic in doctor-patient
interpreter-mediated talk and that the interpreter-mediator works as a gatekeeper
preventing the understanding and sharing of emotional expressions in talk. Those
authors suggest that interpreters’ choices in translating the patients’ turns lead to
cut information of an affective type focussing on information of a cognitive type.
In our data, though, there is an important difference. While there are few
occurrences where the interpreter treats the patient’s emotional contributions as
non relevant in the interaction, in most cases interpreters show affiliation and take
up the patients’ affective contributions, as in extracts 1 and 2. These occurrences
are interesting because they tell us more about the interpreter’s contribution to
medical talk. Interpreters’ affiliative responses provide reassurance and support,
treat the patient’s expression of feelings and worries as relevant in talk and in so
doing they enhance affective expectations in the interpreter-patient dyadic
interaction. Similarly to what is noted in the literature, though, interpreters cut the
patient’s affective contribution from the rendition and thus prevent the
involvement of the third party (the doctor) in the affective interactional sequence.
So while the interpreter’s affiliation seems to prevent a loss of emotional
expressions, which is, instead, observed in the literature, insofar as the
interpreter’s affiliation leads to separate dyadic sequences involving the
interpreter and the patient, there is a loss in the rendition and there is no
observable sharing of emotional expressions of the three participants’
involvement, with no triadic affective interaction. In our data, the interpreter’s
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 165

provision of support and reassurance with no reiteration in a translation sequence

leads the interpreter to take the interactional role of the healthcare provider. Such
role-substitution has two consequences. First, there is a failure in giving voice to
the patient inside the institutional interaction. Second, the patient-centred
interaction is paradoxically excluded in interpreter-mediated talk: the interpreter
substitutes the healthcare provider thus impeding de-facto doctor-patient contact.

5. Triadic affective interactions as intercultural mediation

While the one described above is the most recurrent sequential pattern involving
patients’ affective contributions in our data, there are occasions where different
types of affective sequences are constructed. We show two examples of these
different sequences. In extract 4, the patient’s complaint about bell pain (I have a
pain in my bell, turn 1) is followed by translation and cognitive alignment by the
interpreter who asks more about the type of pain the patient complains about (did
you have contractions? turn 2) and provides feedback (mh mh beginning of turn
4). Later in turn 4, the interpreter translates the patient’s complaint and the doctor
acknowledges the translation with a news-receipt (ah again? turn 5). In turn 7, the
patient tells about the therapy she received at the emergency department. This is
met by affiliation by the interpreter in turn 9.
In turn 10, the doctor expresses concern for the patient (why you look so
suffering?). This is followed by a short dyadic sequence (turns 11-14) involving
the interpreter and the patient where the interpreter first translates the doctor’s
question, mitigating her expression suffering with tired, and then affiliates again
to the patient’s expression of fear and worry, checking her motives and
consolidating affective expectations. The doctor interrupts the sequence again in
turn 15, rebating her concern and calling for the interpreter’s attention, in the
spirit of patient-centred medicine. Here the interpreter formulates her own
understanding of the patient’s worry in Italian (a bit frightened because, let’s say
for her bell, turn 16), through a reduced rendition which also introduces a
projection of an affective reassurance, and the doctor affiliates providing an
indirect reassurance (turn 17). Finally, the interpreter translates the doctor’s
reassurance and provides support to the patient’s emotional status (turn 18).

(4) Extract 4
1 P rhuti almasha (.) ((Arabic untranscribable)) –
“I went to the emergency department (.) ((I had pain in my bell –))”
2 I ehm dolori forti crampi (.) igiaki iluagiaa?
“strong pain, cramps (.) did you have contractions?”
3 P mhm uagiaa
“Mhm yes”
4 I mmh mmh è andata al pronto soccorso perché ha avuto del dolore –
“Mmh mmh she went to the emergency department because she had
pain –”
166 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

5 D ah un’altra volta?
“ah again?”
6 I sì
“yes”
7 P atatni mitl ilkabra
“she gave me a powder”
9 I ehm (..) ah Khir inshalla
“ehm (..) ah hope everything is fine”
10 D ti volevo chiedere (.) come mai hai la faccia così sofferente?
“I wanted to ask you (.) why you look so suffering?”
11 I lesh uigihik hek tabaan bain aleki
“why is your face so tired?”
12 P ((Arabic untranscribable))
((“Partly for this pain”))
13 I fi hagia muaiana mdaiktk fi hagia uiani mdaiik blbit mushkila muaiana
“Is there anything wrong that worries you at home?”
14 P [la (.) khaifa
“No (.) I’m frightened”
15 D [no (.) mi sembra a me che abbia la faccia sofferente
“No (.) it seems to me that she has a suffering face”
16 I hh un po’ spaventata perché diciamo per la pancia
“hh a bit frightened because let’s say for her bell”
17 D e:h ma è bellissima la tua pancia!
“E:h but it’s wonderful your bell!”
18 I btul shi tabii btiilik ma tilaii
“Everything normal she tells you everything is fine”

In extract 5 (turns 17 and 19), the doctor is about to conclude the visit. In turn 21
she offers to visit the patient if the patient feels there is something wrong but
suggests there is no necessity. The interpreter translates in turn 22. In turn 27, the
patient introduces a possible re-start (now-). Such re-start is immediately
responded to by the interpreter who echoes the patient’s turn encouraging her to
go on (turn 28). In turn 29, the patient says she’s okay now and in turn 30 the
interpreter translates what the doctor said in turn one (if everything is alright and
your period is normal you don’t need doing any control). In turn 31, the patient
says that she has not had her period yet this month and the interpreter again
echoes the patient’s statement and encourages her to go on (turn 32). Here too, a
dyadic affective sequence is constructed where the patient is encouraged to
express her worries and concern. Echoing the patient, the interpreter supports her
tentative emotional expressions with feedbacks (turns 28, 32), helping her to go
on. In contrast with what happens in extracts 1 and 2 above, where the interpreter
provides reassurance and the encounter is closed without involving the doctor, in
turn 34 the interpreter shifts language and formulates, for the doctor, what is her
understanding of previous talk with the patient. In this way, the interpreter’s
affective support is made relevant in the rendition which (re)involves the third
party in the interaction.
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 167

Paradoxically, these renditions are non-renditions because they introduce the

affective support to the patient’s implicit worries more than a translation of the
patient’s explicit assertions about it. Technically, the interpreter is substituting the
patient’s voice, however her intervention transforms the dyadic affective sequence
in triadic affective communication, giving voice to the patient’s emotions in the
interaction with the doctor. This leads to the doctor’s involvement (turns 35 and
37) and a triadic affective communication is constructed which eventually makes
it relevant for the doctor (not the interpreter) to provide reassurance (turn 39) and
the interpreter to translate it (data not shown).

(5) Extract 5
17 D Allora (.) se lei sta bene (.) non ha dei problemi (.) le mestruazioni
vengono normale: –
“Now (.) if she’s alright (.) doesn’t have problems (.) her period is
normal: –”
18 I Mmh
19 D Normale (.) ok (.) possiamo anche non fare niente
“Normal (.) ok (.) we can also stop here”
20 I Ok
21 D Se invece lei vuole che la guardo (.) ok (.) volentieri (.) ho tempo la
posso anche controllare
“If instead she wants me to see her (.) ok (.) willingly (.) I have time I
can control her”
22 I Byiillk inti halla bishak aam fi andk hagia mushkila mdaiiktik? Haagia
ualla iani bkher ma indik aiia hagia? Lian btuul ida ma indik aiia
mushkila lianu bilaada lamma btrakkib iluihda illaulab takriban kul
sana btmil il kontrol
“she asks you now are you alright or you feel something? Because she
you got any problem? Normally when one fixes a coil about every year th
check up”
23 D perchè se no è verso luglio agosto (.) insomma quest’esate
“because alternativley it’s July August (.) I mean this summer”
24 I Eh
25 D dopo un anno
“after a year”
26 I Iani inti lamma ibtimili shattar sabbaa fiki tistanni lashattar sabbaa
akhar illam ilmukbl hatta nimil il kontrol il sanaui.
“You wait for the seventh month to do the yearly control”
27 P ((Arabic untranscribable))
((“Now – ”))
28 I (( Arabic untranscribable))
((“Now – ”))
29 P ma hindi hagia
“I haven’t got anything”
168 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

30 I hasa isa kan kulshi bikher uma indik mit lamma btihbutun minnik ildam
bnsafi una assa halic saiitha btuul ana ma fi daii inni ammillik ilfahs
“if everything is fine and your period is regular you don’t need doing
any control”
31 P kida ilshahar ubaki ma giatnish
“now it’s a month and I haven’t got it”
32 I shahar uma giatkish
“a month and you haven’t got it”
33 P shahar
“precisely a month”
34 I Dice che dolore (.) qualcosa di strano non c’è (.) dice che sta bene
“She says that pain (.) something strange there isn’t any (.) she says
she’s alright”
35 D Ah
36 I Ha le mestruazioni abbondanti (..) l’unica solo cosa forse è per questo
che è venuta
“her period is alright(..) the only thing probably this is the reason why
she came here”
37 D Mmh
38 I Che la mestruazione questo mese non è venuta (..) (sorridendo) e lei è
un pochino preoccupata
“That she hasn’t got her period yet this month (..) (smiling) and she’s a
bit worried”
39 D Allora (.) al limite facciamo una cosa (.) le facciamo fare un test di
gravidanza
“So (.) probably let’s do this (.) let’s do a pregnancy test”
40 I Ok

In the continuation of the extract the turn organization noted above is repeated:
the interpreter affiliates with the patient, making expression of the patient’s
feelings and worries relevant in the interaction and encouraging her to express
more (turns 120, 122) and then provides a summary translation providing what is
her understanding of such patient’s worry (see in particular turn 130). This is met
with doctor’s affiliation tell her that when she gets the appointment for the pap
test not to worry (turns 131, 133) and reassurance there will be no problem (turn
135).

(5) Continuation of extract 5

119 P giatni iluarka u ma mshit nibki infahimhum al amalia
“they sent me a letter and I don’t want to go because I have to explain
that I had an operation”
120 I ah (.) fittimt aleki
“ah (.) I understand you”
121 P ((Arabic untranscribable))
((“I was waiting to ask about that”))
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 169

122 I khiffti inik tigi –

“You are afraid that –”
123 P ((Arabic untranscribable))
((“Yes that they do control and they move the coil or something (.) so
it is better if you give me a letter saying that I had a surgery so they
control – they visit my womb”))
124 I ah uislitik iluarka ilkhadra addar?
“Ah did you receive the green form at home?”
125 P giatni giat liia umshit nhar uahid ushriin andhum
“I received it and I lost it so I went and fixed an appointment this
month (.) I go there on the 21st”
126 I min had ilsheher ueen hon andhum hon fi hada ilmakan
“where here at theirs, in this place?”
127 P la mush non, fi Guiglia3 (.) ((Arabic untranscribable))
“no, in Guiglia (.) ((if you give me a letter I explain them))”
128 I Il ventuno di questo mese (.) può darsi (.) ha un appuntamento per il
pap test
“On the twentyfirst of this month (.) is that possible (.) she has an
appoint-ment for the pap test”
129 D Può darsi (.) ci guardiamo
“maybe (.) let’s look at that”
130 I perchè l’aveva già prima poi non è andata perchè (.) non voleva
andare così senza che loro sanno chi è e non riusciva a spiegare qual è
il suo problema (..) perché sempre lei quando le mettono la spirale
loro non lo sanno (..) magari la tirano via (.) è un po’ preoccupata per
questa cosa
“Because she had already got it but se didn’t go because she (.) didn’t
want to go there like this (.) without them knowing her history and then
she couldn’t explain (.) her problem (..) because she always she got a
coil and they don’t know that (..) maybe they move it (.) she’s a bit
worried for this thing”
131 D ah (.) allora tu le dici che quando arriva l’appuntamento per il pap test
(.) [adesso vediamo quand’è=
“ah (.) so you tell her that when she gets the appointment for the pap
test (.)[let’s see when it is=”
132 I [il 21
[“on the 21st”
133 D =di stare tranquilla perchè glielo facciamo noi qua
“=not to worry because we do that here”
134 I a Guiglia
“in Guiglia”
135 D o a Guglia (.) va su dall’ostetrica (.) quando noi mettiamo lo speculum
noi vediamo che c’è la spirale e non succede niente
“or in Guiglia (.) she goes there at the midwife’s (.) when we fix the
speculum we see the coil and there will be no problem”

3
Guiglia is a small town in the vicinity of the town where the hospital is.
170 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

136 I Ok
137 D anzi lo deve (.) è meglio che lo vada a fare eh?
“indeed she should (.) it’s better she does it eh?”
138 I ok (.) bitullik uiani inhar maiigilik il mauiid misham timili illi iimila
kul ilnisaa
“She says that when the appointment is fixed–”
((talk continues))

In the extracts above, then, the interpreter’s formulations of affective under-

standing involve the doctor in the affective exchange and promote a shift form a
two-party to a three-party interaction.
This seems in line with what was observed in a study by Heritage (1985) on
the function of formulations in news-interviews. Heritage (1985:100) notes that a
formulation consists in “summarising, glossing, or developing the gist of an
informant’s earlier statement”. Formulations project a direction for subsequent
turns by inviting responses insofar as they
advance the prior report by finding a point in the prior utterance and thus shifting its
focus, redeveloping its gist, making something explicit that was previously implicit in
the prior utterance, or by making inference about its presuppositions or implications
(Heritage 1985:104).

In our extracts 4 and 5, the interpreter proposes formulations summarizing,

glossing or developing the interlocutor’s (the patient’s in these cases) emotional
statements through translation. In these cases, the gist of the prior utterance is
developed focussing on its emotional point and this gives the possibility to the
third party to share and get involved in the affective dimension of talk.
The literature shows (see Davidson 2002) that dialogue interpreting cannot be
reduced to straightforward turn-by-turn translating sequences and includes non
renditions, zero renditions and reduced renditions of prior reports. In particular,
reduced renditions may be observed as formulations in Heritage’s terms.
Unavoidably, the interpreter summarises the gist of an earlier statement and in
this way she/he shifts its focus, redeveloping the gist. This action may be
considered highly risky in close translational terms, it however seems to have a
very interesting and effective function in intercultural mediation, that of
enhancing an affective redeveloping through translation.
In case of an emotional gist, the interpreter may make explicit something that
was implicit in the prior statement, as in turns 36-38 and 130 in extract 5 above.
What she does is very similar to what Heritage (1985) notes as characterizing
reformulations, she in fact:
− develops and emphasizes an emotional implicit expression,
− selects what in the prior report permits to infer the patient’s emotions, and
− re-presents the emotional gist of this report in conversation in order to permit
its focusing, topicalization and elaboration in the doctor’s next turn, and
possibly in the subsequent interaction.
 Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation 171

Similarly to formulation sequences that take place in other settings, then, the
interpreter elicits talk for third parties. What is different in our data is the affective
structure of formulation which implies the interpreter’s emotional affiliation,
challenging the affective neutrality which is observed in talk involving other
settings (Heritage 1985:115).
This kind of affective formulation is not completely unusual. In a recent
study, Hutchby (2005) shows that formulations are used by counsellors in order to
get in affective touch with children, showing affiliation in the interaction. In
Hutchby’s data the consultant asks a question, the child answers and the
consultant proposes a re-formulation of what was said. Hutchby observes that
“whatever the response, the formulation reveals its producer not a neutral conduit
but an active interpreter of the preceding talk” (Hutchby 2005:310). As a
consequence of the bilingual characteristic of dialogue interpreting, in our
interpreter-mediated data, formulations are generally embedded in a different type
of sequence: the talk they are preceded by is in a language different from that
used in the formulation and involves those two parties that speak such language,
the interpreter and the patient. Similarly to what was observed by Hutchby,
though, they reveal its producer (the interpreter in this case) not as a neutral
conduit but as an active interpreter of the preceding talk. In particular, the
interpreter’s active participation concerns the patient’s implicit, difficult, and
embarrassed emotional expressions, providing a way for inclusion of such
expression in the triadic sequence and for its treatment in a patient-centred
interaction involving the doctor.
In our sequences the interpreter does not translate patients’ expressions of
emotions turn by turn, but affiliates with the patients encouraging them to express
more. In formulating her understanding of previous talk for the doctor, a triadic
affective mediation is achieved, both including the doctor in an affective triad and
reassuring and supporting the patient through this involvement.

6. Conclusion: Empowerment through dialogue?

As suggested by Wadensjö (1998), the interpreter has a double role of translator

and coordinator in the interaction and these roles overlap. While the literature has
given emphasis to the study of interpreters’ contribution as translators and as
coordinators of the talk activity, it seems to us it has overlooked a further very
important function of the interpreters, that of responders. As a responder the
interpreter gets an access to the emotions of the interlocutors and is thus in a
position to provide her/his own understanding, support and confirmation of them.
Combining the roles of responder, translator and coordinator the interpreter is in
the position to promote affective expectations and communication in the
interaction, enhancing the participants’ involvement and mediating between them.
In this way the interpreter can be viewed as a dialogic mediator.
172 Claudio Baraldi & Laura Gavioli

Dialogue interpreting does include interpreters’ third-turn receipts, both

directly and indirectly (passing the gist of prior utterances through translation)
and redevelopments of the interaction. In this paper, we focussed on affective
redevelopments. We first explored how interpreters’ affiliation to the patients’
emotional expressions confirms affective expectations in conversation and makes
emotional expressions relevant. This function is very important to facilitate the
emotional expressions from the participants, but it risks excluding the third
participant from the interaction with the consequence of non-sharing emotional
expressions and affective expectations in the triadic interaction. Interpreters’
formulations through translation promotes triadic affective interactions, fulfilling
two key functions in intercultural mediation, that of giving voice to the patients’
emotions and that of supporting a patient-centred medical interaction.
In our analysis of medical talk, interpreters contribute to dialogue
management in at least two ways: (i) as responders, affiliating with the patient in
a two-party interaction; (ii) as translators/coordinators affiliating with the patient
and then formulating the affective gist of the interpreter-patient talk for the
doctor. Dyadic affective sequences, followed by a zero rendition in translation,
separate the cultural identity created in the dyad (interpreter/patient who share an
ethnic identity) from the role identity in the institution (the doctor), favouring an
asymmetric relationship between institutional culture and minority culture,
underlining unequal power distribution and indirectly promoting a doctor-centred
approach which recalls the dead ‘golden age’ of medicine. Dyadic affective
interactions, though, also favour the expression of emotions based on the affective
in-group interaction. By responding to the patients, interpreters have an
opportunity to check and echo the patients’ perceptions and emotions, actively
listen to and appreciate their expressions, provide positive feedback and express
personal concern for them, a type of contribution that is considered functional in
the achievement of dialogic actions (e.g. Baraldi 2006a, 2006b, Gergen,
McNamee & Barrett 2001, Gudykunst 1994, Kim 2001, Littlejohn 2004, Pearce
& Pearce 2000, 2003).
In a more complex interaction, this can be an important step in the
interpreter’s function of intercultural mediation: the interpreter’s renditions of
emotional expressions through formulations lead to accomplishment of affective
expectations and promote reciprocal involvement between patients and doctors, in
a patient-centred perspective. Conversely, the interpreter’s affective support risks
getting unaccomplished and becoming ineffective if there is not a second step
towards a triadic affective communication. The analysis of triadic management of
affective expectations suggests that dialogue interpreting can empower the voice
of either the patients (by making expression of their emotions relevant) or the
healthcare providers (by making their affiliation relevant), thus constructing and
enhancing intercultural mediation.
Working on their role of responders in the dyadic affective sequences and
formulating their understanding and support in the triadic affective sequences,
 Dialogue Interpreting as Cultural Mediation 173

interpreters can involve and empower the parties in the interaction, promoting
their participation and cross-cultural adaptation. This we believe is a step towards
a better understanding of the interpreters’ mediating activity and different dialogic
ways of interpreting and mediating in multicultural settings.

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Appendix
Transcription conventions
Participants:
I Interpreter-mediator
D Doctor
P Patient

Other symbols
(text) tape unclear; tentative transcription
(??) tape untranscribable
(.) short pause (less than one second)
(..) longer pause (less than one second)
(n) long pause (n= length in seconds)
= latched to the preceding turn in the transcript
[text spoken in overlap with aligned [text
text stressed syllable or in loud voice
te:xt: lengthening of previous sound or syllable (number of colons indicates extent of
lengthening)
text- syllable cut short
text – tone group interrupted
“text” translations
((text)) transcribers’ comments
.,?! rough guide to intonantion
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting

Sebastian Feller
University of Münster

In the present article, I will give a definition of the speech act of greeting on the basis of
Weigand’s theory of the Dialogic Action Game (e.g., 2000). Together with a critical
discussion of various interpretations of the term ‘culture’, this will serve as the
theoretical foundation for my comparative study of the verbal greeting behaviour of
Californian, German and Peruvian native speakers. Eventually, I will argue for a change
of perspective in the study of intra- as well as intercultural communication. As I consider
both, language and culture to be mainly influenced by the single individual, I think it
necessary to leave behind those oversimplified concepts such as ‘the American culture’
and put more emphasis on what Rodriguez (2000) labels ‘culturing beings’.

1. Introduction

In recent years, linguistics has turned more and more into an interdisciplinary
subject which is no longer restricted to purely linguistic domains alone but also
takes into account findings of other disciplines such as anthropology, psychology,
philosophy, biology and the like. In the light of this new movement, many
linguists have finally rejected the Saussurean definition of language as an
autonomous, artificial calculus; on the contrary, language is seen more and more
as a complex human faculty which is used by human beings to communicate with
each other. Special attention will therefore be given to the relationship between
dialogue, culture and mind. Here, one of the primary questions is to what extent
language is actually determined by human biology and how much of it is moulded
by culture. Of course, this new perspective has already caused disagreement
among linguists. The ‘language instinct debate’ is certainly one of the best-known
instances of the recent discussion at the center of which Steven Pinker (1995) and
Geoffrey Sampson (2005) argue over the degree to which culture determines
language acquisition.
In accordance with Weigand (e.g., 2002), I myself hold language to be
mutually dependent on the speaker and his abilities as a human being. Further,
taking into consideration the basic arguments of sociobiology (cf., e.g., Wilson
1978), the development of human beings is largely influenced by the co-evolution
of genes and culture. Consequently, language understood as a means for human
communication cannot possibly be separated from cultural influences. Hence, I
178 Sebastian Feller

consider language always to be connected to mind and culture at the same time.
The separation of any single factor in the linguistic investigation necessarily
results in artificial constructs which are remote from what is really going on in
ordinary language use.
The following investigation is based on Weigand’s theory of the ‘Dialogic
Action Game’ (DAG) (e.g., 2000). The minimal communicative unit of the DAG
is the culturally shaped unit of the action game. While the action game is based
both on action and reaction, i.e. the initiative and the reactive speech act, my
analysis concentrates primarily on the initiative speech act, i.e. in the present case,
the initiative speech act of greeting.
After giving a basic introduction to Weigand’s DAG, I will take a close look
at the term culture. Though frequently used in all kinds of linguistic debates, the
term does not have a commonly agreed meaning. As I am about to investigate
greeting behavior within different cultural groups, I consider it indispensable to
scrutinise the term closely. In chapter 2.2, I therefore critically discuss various
interpretations that represent what I think to be the most influential views of the
term. Thereafter, the focus will be on the speech act of greeting. I will basically
delineate its main role in language use by drawing upon its communicative
functional properties. This forms the theoretical foundation for contrastive
analysis of the initiative speech act of greeting in California, Germany and Peru.
Finally, the results of the empirical study will be interpreted using the basic
assumptions developed in the theoretical foundation. The main focus will
therefore be on an understanding of language which takes as its starting point the
speaker and his human abilities as well as a definition of culture which, similarly,
departs from the oversimplifications of former reductionism and centers on the
individuals’ interpretations and meanings of the world they live in.

2. Theoretical foundation

2.1 The Dialogic Action Game (DAG)

The starting point of Weigand’s DAG is the speaker and his natural abilities (cf.,
e.g., 1998:32, 2000:6, 2002:64, 70). Besides verbal expressions, both cognition
and perception form the foundation on which the speaker acts in the course of
dialogically orientated communication (e.g., Weigand 2000:7, 2002:65). Weigand
connects these basic human abilities with the so called ‘action principle’ (e.g.,
2000:8ff., 2002:67) consisting of the speaker’s aim which is to achieve
communicative purposes with the help of specific communicative means. The
integration of the several types of means in communication can be illustrated as
follows (Weigand 2000:9):
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 179

dialogic purposes dialogic means

(state of affairs) making and verbal, cognitive, perceptible
fulfilling pragmatic claims means
Figure 1: The interrelation between dialogic purposes and dialogic means

Taking the human being as the starting point of the linguistic investigation, it is
evident that language cannot possibly be described in terms of a strictly rule-
governed algorithm; on the contrary, the linguist’s object of study is now
language-in-use which needs to be accounted for in its full complexity, i.e. as “an
open system integrally combining order and disorder, determinacy and in-
determinacy, and interactively accepting problems of understanding” (Weigand
2002:65). Language use is not absolutely predictable. Rather it has to be evaluated
against probability measures. Where rules and conventions come to an end, the
speaker is free to find new ways to communicate.
In the context of these assumptions, the DAG is primarily based on the
following three vital principles (cf., e.g., Weigand 2000:7ff., 2002:67ff.):
− As mentioned above, the first principle is the ‘action principle’ which
compares language-in-use to the carrying out of actions. The speaker thus
uses specific communicative means to serve his communicative purposes.
− Second, the ‘dialogic principle’ generally attributes a dialogic nature to
language, i.e., communication is basically describable on the basis of action
and reaction.
− Finally, Weigand names the ‘principle of coherence’ which, as discussed
earlier, characterizes language-in-use on the basis of the speaker’s concurrent
usage of cognitive, perceptive and verbal means to achieve his communi-
cative goals. The interlocutors engage in a reciprocal process of negotiating
meaning and understanding that definitely goes beyond the consideration of
the verbal text alone (see Figure 1).
In addition to these three basic principles, a variety of corollary principles comes
into play, such as the ‘principle of rationality’, the ‘principle of emotion’ and the
‘principle of supposition’ (e.g., Weigand 2002:77ff.). Each of these principles
needs to be taken into account in order to arrive at a complete description of
language-in-use.

2.2 What is ‘culture’?

In “Culture’s Consequences” (1980), the Dutch management researcher Geert
Hofstede uses the term ‘culture’ to refer exclusively to national groups and thus
defines it in terms of a homogenous static object. He describes it basically by
means of the following four opposites:
– ‘power distance’ (small/large) ‘uncertainty avoidance/anxiety’
– ‘individualism vs. collectivism’ ‘masculinity vs. femininity’
180 Sebastian Feller

‘Power distance’ defines the role authority plays within a community of people. It
informs about the extent to which less powerful individuals tolerate an unequal
distribution of power. ‘Uncertainty avoidance/anxiety’ weighs up an individual’s
need to enjoy a peaceful and secure life against his willingness to take a risk.
Next, the structure of the social network, i.e. the characteristics of the relation-
ships between the single individuals, is accounted for in terms of ‘individualism
vs. collectivism’. Do people primarily act for themselves or do they predominant-
ly act as members of a larger group? ‘Masculinity vs. femininity’ delivers insights
into whether masculine or feminine values play the central role within a specific
cultural value system. Masculine cultures, for example, traditionally favor
competitiveness or the accumulation of wealth, whereas feminine cultures are
more interested in the quality of life or harmonic relationships.
In contrast to dynamic understandings like, e.g., Gullestrup’s (2002, see
below), Hofstede regards culture as a stable point of reference which helps the
individual to orientate himself within an overwhelming social context. Cultural
norms and traditions provide a set of basic rules which remain more or less
unchanged in the course of time. They thus serve as an intellectual compass
within the running stream of life. Hofstede’s paradigmatic foundation certainly
leans on an overall static conception, which I would label ‘national culture’ or
‘macro culture’.
However, looking at the realms of life, it is obvious that such a homogenous
and stagnant definition is too much of an oversimplification to possibly account
for the complexity and multiplicity found in human communities. We therefore
need a much more dynamic model that allows for the continuous change of the
world we live in.
In this sense, I would like to focus on the theoretical foundation of Hans
Gullestrup. He (2002) builds his concept of ‘culture’ around the following three
basic dimensions:
– ‘horizontal cultural dimension’
– ‘vertical cultural dimension’
– ‘dynamic cultural dimension’
The ‘horizontal cultural dimension’ describes the framework of the social reality
human beings live in. Here, ‘culture’ is defined against the backdrop of specific
social systems helping human beings to come to grips with the overwhelming
variety of environmental conditions. At the heart of this dimension, Gullestrup
names a set of vital cultural segments such as, among others, technology,
economic and social institutions as well as language and communication.
The ‘vertical cultural dimension’ concentrates on the value system of a
culture. Here, Gullestrup foregrounds ethically motivated traits which are
structured around the core concepts of a set of idealistic norms, namely “the
partially legitimating values”, “the generally accepted highest values” and “the
fundamental philosophy of life” (Gullestrup 2002:12). According to him, this
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 181

entire value system underlies a society’s visible surface, i.e. the individuals’
observable behavior including society’s artifactual outcome. As such, it provides
a solid foundation which the members of a society act on.
Within the ‘dynamic cultural dimension’, Gullestrup emphasizes the constant
cultural changes forced by either internal as well as external determinants.
Regarding these he argues (2002:14):
Thus, any culture is in a kind of double relationship towards nature. On the one hand
nature forms the framework to which the culture – i.e., the total complex of cultural
segments and levels developed by a group of people over time – will have to adapt; on
the other hand, this culture at the same time, for better or worse, is involved in changing
that very nature.

Gullestrup’s conception thus resembles a multi-layer compound of institutio-

nalized structures like technology or politics centred around a solid but still
malleable core of values and norms which are continuously prone to change due
to cultural as well as culturally external, i.e. natural forces. All in all, this
understanding of ‘culture’ is obviously much closer to reality than that by
Hofstede discussed earlier.
Finally, I would like to point to Amardo Rodriguez’ understanding of the
term. Not only does he connect with Gullestrup’s idea of a ‘dynamic cultural
dimension’ but even lifts it to a completely new level of importance. Here, we are
no longer dealing with culture as an overarching constant holding out against the
sickening see-saw of human life but are rather concerned with ‘culturing beings’
(2002:1) who try to cope with the world’s overwhelming variety and uncertainty
they face. As each individual comes up with his own individual meanings and
interpretations of the world, culture necessarily breaks down into a multiplicity of
subsystems. As Said (2001) puts it:
There isn’t a single Islam: there are Islams, just as there are Americas. This diversity is
true of all traditions, religions or nations even though some of their adherents have
futiley tried to draw boundaries around themselves and pin their creeds down neatly.

Hence, Rodriguez emphasizes that culture as an ‘organic system’ (2002:2) formed

by ‘culturing beings’ is necessarily involved in a never-ending process of
adaptation by nature. Defined as such it completely loses any kind of fixed point
characteristics. It is now understood in terms of a dynamic multi-directional
development pressed ahead by each single individual. Human beings are engaged
in a never ending process of interpreting the world they live in. Culture becomes
now a malleable mass that is used by ‘culturing beings’ to deal with the dialectic
and discontinuity of their environment. Thus, Rodriguez actually captures an
essential aspect of human life, namely relativity. Meanings and interpretations of
the world are always prone to change. Therefore, without doubt, a conception of
‘culture’ as a homogenous static entity needs ultimately to be overcome.
To my mind, Rodriguez’ interpretation of ‘culture’ as an open-ended concept
which naturally adapts to the changing needs and requirements of the individuals
182 Sebastian Feller

that create it is a promising starting point with a view to come to a better

understanding of intercultural communication. When people interact in dialogue,
it is necessary to see that their interactions cannot be judged against the backdrop
of clear-cut categories; on the contrary, human interaction is essentially bound to
the interlocutors’ personal preferences and experiences. As Gadamer (1975)
pointed out some decades ago, one’s understanding is dependent on one’s horizon
of experience. Also Weigand emphasizes that we need to withdraw from static
analyses of competence models in order to come to a full understanding of
dialogic communication. Instead we should focus on what she labels ‘Kompetenz-
in-der-Performanz’ (“competence-in-performance”) (e.g. Weigand 2003:3, 173,
233) which consequently implies the acceptance of probability measures; claims
of absolute certainty are unmasked as illusions.

2.3 The speech act of greeting

Having arrived at a satisfactory concept of ‘culture’, let us now turn to another
theoretical essential for the empirical investigation in my paper, the speech act of
greeting. In order to compare the verbal greeting behavior of native speakers from
different cultural backgrounds, a definition of ‘greeting’ is obviously essential.
At this point the following two questions arise:
– What does the speech act of greeting consist of?
– How can it be detected in conversation?
In accordance with Weigand (2003), I suggest looking for an answer on the basis
of a proper theoretical foundation. As proposed by the DAG, we need to start
from the basic functional units of communication such as the interlocutors’ claims
to truth and volition in order to arrive at an adequate description of the expression
side of a language. Only after having analysed the functional side of language-in-
use does it become possible to structure the communicative means. In the title of
his famous monograph “How to do things with words” (1962), Austin also points
to the functional level of language-in-use. Accordingly, Weigand (2003:129)
defines ‘greeting’ as follows:
“Die illokutive Funktion [des Grußes] ist die des Weltschaffens, hier des Schaffens einer
sozialen Beziehung, die propositional als Gruß, als Erkennen und Anerkennen des
Angesprochenen spezifiziert ist”. 1

Otterstedt takes a similar view. She sees the functional aspects of ‘greeting’ as
being rooted in the natural need of social beings to introduce themselves to others
(1993:16). She further interprets standardized greeting behavior as avoiding
conflict and promoting friendship. The minimal communicative pair consisting of
action and reaction or, in other words, ‘greeting’ and ‘re-greeting’ normally forms
1
“The illocutionary function [of ‘greeting’] is equal to an act of creation; in this case, it is the
creation of a social relationship which is propositionally specified as an act of greeting, i.e. the
recognition and acceptance of the addressee.” (own translation)
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 183

the basis for any further communicative interaction between the interlocutors
(Otterstedt 1993:39). Firth (1972) emphasises three major aspects of ‘greeting’:
the production of intention, the identification of the interlocutor and, in
accordance with Otterstedt, the reduction of anxiety in social contact. In addition,
Goody (1972) accentuates functions such as beginning a series of communicative
acts, defining and affirming identity rank and manipulating a particular
relationship to achieve particular ends. This is closely related to Brown and
Levinson’s (1978) findings where ‘greeting’ can be used by the speaker to
introduce politeness strategies into the discourse. While positive politeness meets
the speaker’s need for approval and belonging, negative politeness reduces face-
threatening acts to a minimum.
In the end I think that all of the above-mentioned aspects play an important
role for ‘greeting’. Nevertheless, the main functional concept certainly consists in
its declarative nature, i.e. the establishment of some sort of social relationship
between two or more interlocutors as, e.g., employer vs. employee, teacher vs.
student, doctor vs. patient and also between friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc.
The particular characteristics of each relationship might additionally be defined
through the propositional content of the specific speech act. In Korean, for
instance, social distance can be indicated by the use of honorifics (cf. Cho 2005).
In German, the speaker can mark social distance by the use of Sie in the form of
address. Du on the other hand normally indicates closeness between the dialogue
partners. In this sense, each language provides the speaker with a set of different
linguistic means, including verbal as well as nonverbal means, to express the
particularities of the social relationship of the dialogue partners (for details see
chapter 3.1).

3. The empirical investigation

3.1 The design of the analysis

This investigation is not based on representative data. It is to be understood in
terms of a pilot study which is primarily designed with a view to exhibit
tendencies of cultural idiosyncrasies in greeting behavior.
In the course of the investigation, I asked English, German and Peruvian
native speakers to fill out a data entry in English, German or Spanish including
sixteen descriptions of different greeting situations (DCT). Each situation depicts
an ordinary setting which can be expected to be common ground in terms of day-
to-day communication. Hence it was assumed that all participants were familiar
with the given situations.
Each single situation focuses on interpersonal encounters between the
participants themselves and a variety of different people. The participants read
through the description of each situation and noted down the initial greeting
formula that they would spontaneously use. The situations were designed along
the lines of the following social parameters:
184 Sebastian Feller

– social distance vs. closeness

– period of time the interlocutors haven’t seen each other
– familiarity of the environment
Accordingly, one situation, for instance, depicts a family reunion with your
parents invited for dinner at your home. The parents have already been around a
couple of times during the current week. In another situation, the participants are
to imagine that they pick up their parents from the airport, when they return from
a three-week vacation. Other situations center around friends. For example, after
having not seen each other for a couple of weeks, you run into a friend in a
restaurant by coincidence. Then there are typical situations which occur at your
workplace: a typical encounter with the boss in the morning or on the first day
after an extended vacation, finding your colleagues in the office in everyday
situations.
For the exact design of the data entry, the reader may be referred to the
appendix. Due to limitations of space, I have only attached the English form.
However, both German and Spanish are structured along the same lines.
Concerning the method used, it is obvious that a possible distortion of the
results cannot be fully excluded. In this survey, we are not dealing with purely
authentic material; however, in accordance with Weigand (2004), I think that
authenticity should not be raised to a fetish. As mentioned above, this analysis is
meant to be a pilot study which aims to reveal tendencies in terms of culture-
specific greeting behavior. Deeper analysis into the matter need to be postponed
to future empirical research.
Another important point has to be discussed with reference to the problem of
interpretation. The collected data itself does not reveal anything about the ques-
tions at stake. In order to draw any conclusions at all, the scientist has to start
from a proper theoretical foundation. As Weigand (2004) has pointed out, empiri-
cal evidence as such does not exist. Scientific reasoning can only take place on
the basis of prior theoretical reflection (cf. also Popper 2002:90). Accordingly, my
investigation follows Weigand’s model of the DAG which was explained in detail
in Chapter 2.1.
Besides the data from the survey, I have also drawn upon my own communi-
cative competence as a German native speaker and as a foreign speaker of English
and Spanish in order to contribute to the analysis. The analysis is further enriched
with my own private experience of people from each of the three cultural back-
grounds.
Given the limited scope of the analysis, I restrict myself primarily to the
investigation of verbal greeting behavior; nevertheless, I am very much aware of
the fact that human beings integrate their abilities in communication. Besides
verbal means, cognition and perception have a major part to play in language use
as well.
For instance, gestures certainly play a crucial role when dialogue partners
start to communicate. This becomes especially noticeable through the comparison
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 185

of speakers from different cultural backgrounds. For instance, in most

Mediterranean and South American countries, people typically kiss each other on
the cheek and hug when they meet. In many parts of Asia, besides the use of
verbal means, the interlocutors open up the dialogue scene by bowing. In Western
Europe on the other hand people usually shake hands without any further physical
contact.
Only on the basis of an overall picture of the integrative communicative
means can linguists come to grips with actual language use. For reliable insights
into the characteristics of communication, it is therefore essential to extend the
investigation to the other communicative means, i.e. perception and cognition.

3.2 Comparing the verbal greeting behavior among Californian, German and
Peruvian native speakers
The material gained from the survey has made explicit that the selection of the
greeting formulas in all three languages seems to be largely dependent only on the
first social parameter mentioned above, namely ‘social distance vs. closeness’.
Accordingly, in what follows, I will focus on this parameter exclusively; never-
theless, the investigation on the exact influence of each parameter, i.e. ‘social
distance vs. closeness’, ‘period of time the interlocutors haven’t seen each other’
and ‘familiarity of the environment’, needs to be left open for future represent-
tative studies. Thus, the following can only be taken as tentative remarks on the
actual greeting behavior of the cultural groups under investigation.
Taking a close look at the verbal greeting behavior of most Californians that I
have met so far, one specific characteristic has always struck me immediately.
Differently from in Germany, where, in informal situations, one is normally
greeted by a simple Hallo! (“Hello!”) or Guten Tag! (“Good Day!”), Californians
seem to prefer to begin the communicative interaction with What’s up? or How is
it going? In accordance with Knuf and Schmitz (1980), I believe that here we are
dealing with ritualized greeting formulas rather than with sincere inquiries about a
person’s well-being. Nevertheless, one cannot deny that such a conversational
start is much more context-sensitive and thus more susceptible for emotional traits
than the German openings. In Peru, too, people normally come into contact by
using formulas in the form of ¿Cómo está? (“How are you?”) with older or
hierarchically higher interlocutors and likewise ¿Cómo estás? or ¿Qué tal?
(“What’s up?”) when addressing close acquaintances or younger people.
Although these formulas should also not be taken at face value since they are not
primarily an actual enquiry about one’s well-being, the usage nevertheless
suggests that the relationship between the interlocutors in California and Peru is to
a certain degree more mutual and co-orientated than in Germany (a detailed
account follows below).
To a certain extent, these differences relate to Edward T. Hall’s (1966)
general distinction between what he calls ‘distance culture’ versus ‘contact
culture’. In informal settings, e.g., within the family, Peruvian speech behavior
186 Sebastian Feller

additionally underscores the aspect of ‘contact’ in the use of special nouns of

address. When addressing other family members, the speakers of a Peruvian
family that I happen to know frequently use the diminutive. The following
expressions are thus commonly applied: Hijito/a (“little son”), papito (“Daddy”),
mamita (“Mommy”), abuelito/a (“Granny”), hermanito/a (“little brother”), etc.
From my experience, I can say that in Germany the diminutive is not as
commonly used as it is in Peru, at least not with forms of address like Papa
(“Dad”) or Mama (“Mom”) although forms like Papi (“Daddy”) or Mami
(“Mommy”) do certainly exist; however, it is more common to modify proper
names in this way, so that, for example, Hans is often transformed into Hänschen
or Hansi (“little Hans”). In California, the situation appears to be similar to that in
Germany. Although forms such as ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mommy’ do exist, they are not
used as frequently as by Peruvian speakers. In addition, the idiosyncrasies in
lexicalization of each language hint at the underlying culture-specific definitions
of the various social relations. For instance, in English, the non-existence of
diminutive forms like the Spanish hermanito or hijito is striking. The English
speaker needs to find his way around the missing forms and use the bulkier little
brother and little son respectively. On the other, the rich supply and frequent use
of diminutive forms in Peruvian Spanish suggests that the expression of emotional
traits in the fashion of affection and togetherness is much more prominent in
family life here than among Germans and Californians. Despite the fact that
nowadays these formulas might most of the time be nothing other than ritualized
and idiomatic expressions, their frequent use points to a behavioral heritage 2 with
a strong emphasis on social values promoting concern and care for one’s fellow
human beings.
In California, another special form of address among male speakers also
seems to rely closely to togetherness and equality. In informal situations, male
speakers often draw upon wordings such as What’s up, brother? or How is it
going, brother?, e.g., when visiting a friend. These forms might even be used with
total strangers and suggest that the speaker sees himself on an equal level with the
addressee. They consequently liberate the dialogue partner from any kind of
formal etiquette.
On the other hand, it is quite interesting to notice that among native speakers
of all three cultural backgrounds the expression of unity and equality is brought to
an immediate halt as soon as older people that do not belong to the family are to
be addressed. Instead of using Hallo, What’s up? or ¿Qué tal?, speakers then tend
to use more formal formulas such as Guten Tag!, Good afternoon! or Buenos
días! (“Good day!”) to which Herr/Frau (“Mr/Mrs”), Sr/Sra (“Mr/Mrs”) or
‘Mr/Mrs’ plus the addressee’s last name can be optionally added.
Also in formal speech situations, a more or less uniform picture emerges.
Members of all three cultures investigated seem to apply a similar strategy when

2 This assumption is supported by traditions such as, for example, the día nacional de la familia
(“the national day of the family”), which is celebrated every second Sunday of September in Peru.
 Cultural Differences in the Speech Act of Greeting 187

interacting with communication partners that they see in a somehow higher social
position than themselves, for instance, when beginning a conversation with their
boss. While in Germany one would probably say no more than Guten Tag!, 3 plus,
in some cases, Herr/Frau and the addressee’s last name, likewise a Peruvian
would greet with Buenos días! and add, if wanted, Sr/Sra plus the name. In
California, the employee also usually greets his supervisor with a formal Good
morning, Sir/Ma’m! Likewise, Sir/Ma’m can be replaced by Mr/Mrs and the boss’
last name.
Despite the considerable overlap between the greeting behavior in formal
settings, Peruvian native speakers still show an interesting idiosyncrasy. Even
when talking to their boss, after a formal opening, they frequently tend to use
formulas in the style of ¿Cómo está? or ¿Cómo le va? (“How are you?”). As such
the greeting formulas become more personal compared to those used by Germans
and Californians. Hence, once more, it is obvious that the communicative
interaction in Peru promotes a stronger feeling of togetherness compared to that in
the other two countries. This is even maintained in the interaction with people in
higher positions. As already discussed above, the frequent use of this kind of
personal formulas points to a behavioral heritage highlighting socially motivated
values like togetherness and care for one’s fellow human beings. On the other,
their absence could be interpreted as just the opposite, i.e. people’s high regard of
solitude, distance and privacy.

4. Conclusion

As I pointed out at the beginning, these findings are to be understood against the
background of a dynamic, i.e. relative, concept of culture. In accordance with
Rodriguez (see chapter 2.2), I prefer to talk about ‘culturing beings’ and do not
believe in general statements about ‘the culture’. As each human being creates
their own personal history, it does not make sense to talk about ‘the German’, ‘the
Peruvian’ or ‘the American’. Although some apparently more or less constant
components certainly exist within societies such as value systems or traditions,
each person forms their own traditions, customs and values through a never-
ending interpretational and creative process. Despite the fact that the outcome of
the present analysis hints at some culture-specific functions of ‘greeting’ such as
‘the promotion of togetherness’ in Peruvian Spanish and, in part, in Californian
speech behaviour or ‘the appreciation of one’s privacy’ and ‘high regard of the
individual vis-à-vis the group’ by German speakers, these functions are much too
coarse-grained to deliver a detailed picture of what is really going on in actual
language use. These functions are, in the end, not defined by some sort of
enduring cultural system but, on the contrary, by each single individual. In other

3 The following formulas do all depend on the time of day. Subsequently, in the evening, for
instance, the wording changes to Guten Abend!, Buenas tardes! (“Good evening!”), etc.
188 Sebastian Feller

words, they only come into existence through human beings who always give
them their own personal touch. They are never understood in exactly the same
way by each member of a specific culture and are constantly re-interpreted or
even totally given up in day-to-day communication.
For this reason, I believe that in the future cultural and intercultural studies
should be orientated more towards the individual, i.e. the single human being, in
order to come to grips with on-going real life communication, and that they
should reject any kind of oversimplification which abstracts from the complexity
of human life.

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Appendix: Questionnaire

Please take a minute to fill out the entry below. Each of the listed points (1.-16.) depicts a
possible greeting situation between yourself and people of different contexts. Just note
down what you would usually say in the depicted situations in order to greet the other
party. Of course you can formulate your greeting quite differently, as you might also
extend it to a few sentences (see example 1). If you want to address somebody by their
first or last name you can choose the names at will.

1. You pick up your parents from the airport. They have been on vacation for the last
three weeks. What is the first thing you say when you meet them at the arrival terminal?
Thus, a possible solution to 1. might be:
Hi, you two. Good to have you both back here. I have already begun missing you.

2. Your parents return from their three-week vacation. You are waiting for them at their
house, as you could not pick them up from the airport yourself. How do you welcome
them at the moment you meet each other?

3. Your parents went away for a day to visit your uncle who lives some distance away.
They took the train and ask you to pick them up the same day at night. What do you say
when you pick them up from the train station?

4. Your parents come over to visit you at your place. They have been around three times
before this week. What is the first thing you say when you open the door and see them?

5. You haven’t seen one of your good friends for a couple of weeks. Tonight you meet
him/her in a restaurant. When you enter the club you see your friend sitting at the bar.
You go up to him/her. What do you say now that he/she has noticed you?

6. You haven’t seen one of your good friends for about two weeks. Now he/she comes to
see you at your place. The doorbell rings and you open the door. What is the first thing
you say?
190 Sebastian Feller

7. You meet one of your good friends in the supermarket. In the last couple of days, you
have seen each other quite a lot. Just the night before, you were together at another guy’s
birthday party. What do you say now that you meet your friend once again?

8. You share your apartment with your friend, which means that you see each other
almost every day. What do you say when you come into the kitchen and your friend is
already there having breakfast?

9. You see your neighbour who is a) younger than you, b) the same age as you, c) older
than you almost every day outside your apartment when you come home from work.
What is the first thing you say when you meet him/her? (Please answer a)-c) separately if
formulas vary.)

10. You have been on vacation for around three weeks. When you arrive at your
apartment you run into your neighbour who is a) younger than you, b) the same age as
you, c) older than you. What do you say? (Please answer a)-c) separately if formulas
vary.)

11. It’s another working day. You enter the office as usual. Your colleague is already
sitting at his desk. What do you tell him/her as you pass by?

12. You have invited your colleague for dinner on a Friday. The doorbell rings and you
open up. How do you welcome him/her?

13. You haven’t been to work for two weeks, as you were on vacation. As you enter the
door to the office, your colleague is already there. What do you say?

14. You go to work as usual. On the way to your office you run into your boss. How do
you greet him?

15. You have invited your boss for dinner on a Friday. The doorbell rings and you open
up. How do you welcome him/her?

16. You haven’t been to work for two weeks, as you were on vacation. As you enter the
door to the office, your boss is already there. What do you say?
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games
Cultural differences between Korean and German

Yongkil Cho
University of Seoul

The present article provides the reader with new insights into the use of politeness in
dialogue. On the basis of directive action games at Korean and German workplaces, I
will show how the speakers negotiate effectiveness and respect in the refusals of various
directive speech acts such as, among others, orders and requests. The analysis is further
structured along the lines of specific situations with a view to reveal the effects of
situational determinants on the selection of expressions. I will finally conclude with a
contrastive analysis of Korean and German refusals from a data survey in order to
discuss the culture-specific implementation of politeness in dialogue.

1. Introduction

During recent years, politeness as a communicative phenomenon has taken center

stage in public and scientific interest. In times of intensive intercultural contacts,
the strong need for detailed analyses of foreign behavior and manners such as,
among others, politeness becomes immediately evident (cf. e.g., Byon 2003,
2004, 2006). However, most investigations into politeness are restricted to single
speech acts, i.e. directives such as requests or petitions. Here, the main aim is to
analyse in what ways these speech acts express politeness and what that reveals
about cultural idiosyncrasies. Nevertheless, such reductionism obscures the view
and does not allow for an adequate investigation into the complex phenomenon of
politeness.
As we know, it is not sufficient to look at the initiative directive speech act
alone to come to grips with communication in general, so that in terms of
politeness one needs to take into account the responsive behavior of the dialogue
partner as well. As a consequence, investigations into politeness are bound to start
off from dialogic sequences of speech, i.e. directive action games. In this context,
the reactive speech acts of refusal turn out to be highly interesting, as they are
used within politeness strategies that vary from one culture to another.
Within the tradition of anthropologic-behavioristic studies, politeness has
mostly been constructed around Goffman’s concept of so-called ‘face-work’
(1955, 1967). Here, politeness is exclusively used to save the dialogue partner’s
192 Yongkil Cho

‘negative face’1 (e.g., Brown & Levinson 1987). This ‚concept of politeness’ is
simply inadequate to come to grips with the phenomenon in its full complexity.
Politeness not only concerns the negative face but also the positive face of a
person. Yet it turns out to be insufficient to restrict the investigation to ‘face-
work’ alone, as this is only one functional aspect among others that can be carried
out with polite speech acts. It is often the case that polite refusals are used in
terms of mere flowery phrases or with a view to achieving one’s own
communicative goals, where the protection of face only plays a less important
role. Consequently, in dialogic interaction, we are dealing with a gradual concept
of politeness which, at the one end, can be described as something that is applied
more or less out of habit, whereas, at the other end, is used in a way to pay respect
to one’s communication partners. In order to arrive at an adequate description of
the directive action game, we need to add the ‚concept of effectiveness’ to the
picture. As communication is generally directed towards effectiveness, it becomes
necessary for the speaker to negotiate the pursuit of his communicative goals with
the need to show respect. The exact nature of the proportion largely depends on
socio-cultural and individual factors.
Considered from a comparative linguistic point of view, the idiosyncratic
negotiation of effectiveness and respect is a highly interesting phenomenon. The
following study thus tries to shed light on the culture-specific strategies in
negotiating these two factors. At the center of the analysis, Korean and German
forms of refusal such as justifications and apologies are looked at in order to get
an idea of how the speakers of either culture actually negotiate effectiveness and
respect. As a result, the cultural differences revealed in the forms of refusal
display the cultural idiosyncrasies in terms of the negotiation. The basis material
for this analysis is taken from utterances of action games which usually take place
at German and Korean workplaces. The first step is to discuss the conception of
refusals within directive action games. Then, I will describe a set of subtypes
which will help me to finally explain the role that politeness plays in refusals.

2. Theoretical foundation

2.1 Refusals in directive action games

In order to understand the concept of refusal, we first need to examine the make
up of directive action games. In general, directive action games are dialogic action
games that are introduced by an initiative directive speech act, e.g., orders,
petitions, requests, etc. (cf. Grein this volume).

1 ‘Face’ is generally defined in terms of the observable self-perception of the dialogue partner. It
can be further divided into either ‘negative face’ or ‘positive face’. The former consists in the
individual’s right of freedom of action. It is further concerned with the provision of cover against
intruders into one’s personal life with a view to prevent any kind of emotional damage. The latter
focuses on the individual’s need to convey a positive self-image, i.e. the wish to be accepted and
appreciated by others.
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 193

A minimal directive action game thus always consists of two speech acts, i.e.
the initiative directive and the reactive acceptance or refusal. As such the
initiative directive conveys the speaker’s claim to volition towards the behaviour
of the dialogue partner (Weigand 1991:440). Back to back, the dialogue partner
takes up the initiative claim and either accepts or refuses it. The acceptance does
not necessarily need to be expressed verbally; on the contrary, the immediate
carrying out of the requested action can do just as well (Weigand 2003:89).
Figure 1 illustrates the interconnection of both action and reaction in minimal
directive action games:

minimal directive action game

‘directive’ ‘acceptance/refusal’
initiative speech act reactive speech act
Figure 1: Communication: the minimal directive action game

The minimal directive action game is sometimes extended to a more complex

sequence. Thus it might be the case that between the initial directive and the final
acceptance and refusal respectively sequences of clarification or insistence,
among others, are further inserted.

(1) A1: Kommst du heute Abend mit ins Kino?

“Do you want to come to the movies with me tonight?”
B1: Was läuft denn?
“What’s on?”
A2: Indiana Jones und der letzte Kreuzzug.
“Indiana Jones and the last crusade.”
B2: Super, ich komme mit.
“Cool, I’ll come.”

Concerning the utterances, according to Weigand (2003), three different types can
be distinguished: direct, indirect and idiomatic. Indirect utterances are used
predominantly in polite speech. Compare the following examples:

(2) A1: Ich brauche noch Informationen aus dem Internet über die derzeitige
Börsensituation.
“I still need information from the internet about the current situation in the
stock-market.”
B1: Ich bin gerade noch mit dem Projekt X beschäftigt.
“I am still busy with project X.”
194 Yongkil Cho

A2: Das hat Zeit. Ziehen Sie die andere Sache vor.
“That can wait. First you have to deal with the other task.”
B2: In Ordnung.
“Alright then.”

(3) A1: Ich brauche Börseninformationen. Am besten aus dem Internet.

“I need information about the stock-market. Preferably from the internet.”
B1: Bis wann?
“By when?”
A2: Am besten gleich.
“Preferably right now.”
B2: O.K.
“Okay.”

Both examples also illustrate the insertion of sequences of clarification and

insistence. In (2), the employee does not immediately indicate whether or not
he/she accepts the claim of the initiative directive. Rather he/she begins some
kind of negotiation which centers on the modification of the original deadline.
This brings about the boss’s insisting, so that the minimal action game is extended
to a four-sequence dialogue. In (3), the employee initiates the employer’s
clarifying move by his inquiry.
This already shows that in directive action games a person’s claim to volition
can be treated very differently, which to a great extent is bound to culture-specific
values and beliefs (Cho 2005:73). For example, people in Korea show much more
restraint when refusing the claims of employers or co-workers than Germans do
(see below 4.). Consequently, directive action games are dialogic action games
which are to a great extent influenced by their specific cultural setting. This
definition influences how the speech act of refusal is dealt with.
Refusals are dialogically orientated actions in a specific cultural setting which
refer negatively to the pragmatic claim of volition of the initiative speech act by
pointing to the nonfeasance of the promoted claim. In order to describe refusals
systematically, a differentiation into subtypes according to different claims of
volition and speech situations proves necessary.

2.2 What are the subtypes of refusals?

First of all, it is important to see that initiative and reactive speech acts are in a
reciprocal relationship, i.e., they define each other. Therefore, refusals can be
systematically defined in terms of the specific conditions predetermined by the
initiative directive. The differentiation into subtypes thus goes along with the
specification of the preceding directive speech act (cf. Weigand 2003:106).
Directives with a claim to fulfillment can be separated into orders and
requests. These two illocutionary types are distinguished by their conditions of
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 195

cooperation. So, e.g., orders ground on a certain position of power of the speaker
allowing him to sanction the hearer in the case of non-acceptance of the initial
claim. Requests, on the other hand, rest on cooperation between coequal dialogue
partners where the speaker does not have the possibility of using sanctions against
the hearer. Directives lacking any claim to fulfilment belong to the illocutionary
type of petitions. Petitions can be further divided into small ones and big ones
(Cho 2005:74).
Thus, the differentiation of the directive speech act allows for the separation
of refusals into the following four subtypes:
– refusal of an order
– refusal of a request
– refusal of a ‘big petition’
– refusal of a ‘small petition’.
They include the medium of face-to-face communication versus written commu-
nication as well as specific types of the setting.
This classification needs to be further specified with respect to the situational
conditions of the directive action game, e.g., refusals within the family are
differently realised than those at one’s workplace. In all, there are four major
social settings:
– one’s family
– one’s workplace
– the public space
– one’s circle of friends (cf. Cho 2005)
In the course of my study, I will exclusively deal with ordinary, spontaneous
refusals at the workplace in face-to-face communication. A specific type of
situation correlates with each subtype of refusal, as illustrated by Figure 2:

‘refusal’

‘refusal’ of a ‘directive’ ‘refusal’ of a ‘directive’

with a claim for fulfillment without any claim for fulfillment

‘refusal’ of ‘refusal’ of ‘refusal’ of ‘refusal’ of

an ‘order’ a ‘request’ a ‘big petition’ a ‘small petition’

situation 1 situation 2 situation 3 situation 4

Figure 2: Subtypes of refusal

− Situation 1: According to his work contract, the employee has to deal with
stock-market related issues. His boss asks him to gather reliable information
196 Yongkil Cho

about the current situation in the stock-market. However, he/she cannot

immediately fulfill this claim, as he/she is busy with other important things at
the moment.
− Situation 2: One of the employees asks his coequal colleague to send
documents for a symposium next summer via email. The colleague has
always done such tasks. The colleague does not have to do this, as there is
nothing stated about this kind of work in his contract; nevertheless, he/she
feels obliged to do so, since teamwork is highly valued in the company.
− Situation 3: One of the employees cannot come to work the next day, as his
relatives come to see him unexpectedly. Therefore, he/she asks his colleague
to change shifts, which is a common thing in the company.
− Situation 4: A coequal employee wants to go on vacation for one week in
summer. He/she knows that his colleague bought a digital camera a couple of
days ago. He/she asks him if he/she could borrow the camera for the trip.

2.3 Refusals and politeness

Before we can continue the analysis, we have to put the concept of politeness
under close scrutiny. In the pertinent literature, politeness is mostly equated with
paying respect to somebody else, whereby respect is understood in a multiplicity
of different ways. Traditional structuralist approaches define respect in terms of
paying homage to somebody based on the appreciation of the other’s higher social
rank. In many pragmatic interpretations based on Brown and Levinson (1978,
1987), politeness is understood as a strategy to avoid conflict (cf. Arndt & Janney
1993:17ff.). At this point, the question should be posed whether or not politeness
is always restricted to function with a view to respect somebody else or avoid
conflict or whether there is much more to it which is excluded by such restrictive
views as discussed above. To come up with an answer, I will first of all put
forward my own personal view of the matter and describe how I think politeness
is put to work in language-in-use. Just as language has evolved out of the basic
need of social human beings to communicate with each other, politeness is rooted
in the basic need to live in harmony with one another. Harmony is especially
valued in the Korean culture. In Korea, the individual is traditionally seen as part
of a larger group (cf. Cho 2005). Since human beings are both individual and
social beings at the same time (cf. Weigand 2006), they have to negotiate their
own interests with the interests of others around them. In dialogue, politeness is
thus used with a view to combine both effectiveness and respect while pursuing
one’s own communicative goals. An employer’s order, for instance, is most of the
time primarily directed towards effectiveness through short but subtle wordings.
On the other hand, when refusing a good friend’s petition, one puts much more
emphasis on face-work. Here, it is important to reduce the face-threatening act to
a minimum. This communicative ability to keep the balance between effective-
ness and respect is part of what Weigand calls ’Kompetenz-in-der-Performanz’
(“competence-in-performance”) (e.g., Weigand 2003:3). In the end, its main
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 197

function consists in the establishment and maintenance of a positive social

relationship between the dialogue partners. Thus, I think, we are well justified in
leaving behind the reductionism of earlier approaches mentioned above in order
to move on to a more complex picture which will be discussed in more detail in
the following.
The question that has to be posed now is what respect and effectiveness mean
in terms of refusals. As discussed earlier, refusals are dialogically orientated
communicative actions, which express a negative reaction towards the speaker’s
initial claim to volition. Most of the time, this is to be considered a face-
threatening act which, in addition, might burden the relationship of the
interlocutors. Accordingly, respecting the other when refusing his claim means
compensating for his loss of face. On the other hand, effectiveness refers to the
speaker’s efficient pursuit of his own communicative goals. Here, the speaker
concentrates on the effective display of his negative response through using
primarily effective communicative means centering on his own success and the
creation of a positive image. At this point, the concerns of the dialogue partner
play only a subsidiary role. The difference between respect and effectiveness is
illustrated by the following example (A: colleague 1, B: coequal colleague 2):

(4) A: Kannst du das vielleicht schnell für mich kopieren?

“Could you copy that for me real quick?”
B1: Du, ich hab’s total eilig, tut mir leid.
“Well, I am really in a hurry, sorry.”
B2: Oh, tut mir leid, ich hab’ jetzt echt keine Zeit. Ich muss diese Unterlagen
ganz schnell kopieren und beim Chef einreichen. Der hat heute wieder
ganz üble Laune. Und du weißt ja, wie er dann drauf ist.
“Oh, I am sorry, but I really don’t have time for that right now. I got to
copy these documents and hand them in to the boss. He is in a bad mood
and you know how he gets then.”

Both B1 and B2 can be regarded as polite refusals, as the petition of the colleague
is rejected indirectly through the justification and the apology. Nevertheless,
taking a close look at both utterances, one can detect slight formal and functional
variations between the two: whereas the first refusal is realized by a short flowery
phrase, the latter is marked by the emphatic repentance oh, tut mir leid (“oh, I am
sorry”) and a much more complex justification. These formal differences are
reflected in the functional properties of the utterances. B1 simply wants to
communicate his negative reaction towards the speaker’s claim. Paying respect to
the hearer is thus only a secondary concern. The utterance by B2 works the other
way around. Here, the speaker emphasizes the face work, i.e., he/she endeavours
to minimize the face-threatening act of the hearer that might result from his
negative reaction towards A’s initial claim. At this point, it is obvious that when
dealing with refusals effectiveness and respect are both major functional com-
198 Yongkil Cho

ponents which need to be taken into account in the linguistic investigation. Their
proportion in language-use is largely determined by the cultural and individual
context of the speaker. I will get back to this in more detail in chapter 4.
Having arrived at an adequate functional description of refusals, one can now
pose the question how to structure the different linguistic forms which are
frequently used to express refusals. Figure 3 illustrates a possible structure:

‘negation’
‚direct’ ‘pointing to the impossibility of
fulfillment’
‚head act’

‚indirect’ ‘justification’
forms of ‘assertion’
politeness

‘apology’
‘suggestion’
‚adjunct’ ‘justification’
‘alternative’
‘empathy’
‘promise’

Figure 3: Different forms of politeness in refusals

Each terminal node in the structure denotes a specific action function that can be
used to carry out a refusal. These different functions are realized either by what I
call a single ‘head act’ or a ‘head act’ plus an ‘adjunct’. As ‘head act’ I define the
central part of an utterance; in contrary, the ‘adjunct’ correlates to the marginal,
accompanying part of the utterance. For instance, in Tut mir leid, das geht nicht
(“I am sorry, I cannot do this”) the latter part das geht nicht (“I cannot do this”) is
the ‚head act’ and the initial part tut mir leid (“I am sorry”) the ‘adjunct’. Here,
the ‘head act’ immediately indicates the non-acceptance of the initial claim; in
contrast, the ‘adjunct’ plays only an accompanying role.
As Figure 3 shows, the ‘head act’ can be separated into ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’.
‘Direct’ is further divided into ‘negation’ and ‘pointing to the impossibility or
difficulty of fulfillment’. The former, which is normally realized by a simple nein
(“no”), cannot be considered polite at all without the use of additional speech act
sequences such as apologies or justifications. As for the latter, although it might
by itself count as a polite form, the speaker usually provides additional reasons for
not being able to serve the speaker’s claim as, e.g., in Das geht leider nicht, weil
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 199

ich im Moment mit anderen Sachen viel zu tun habe (“I cannot do this because I
am busy with other things right now.”).
Also the ‘indirect’ node correlates with two distinct functions. On the one
hand, there is ‘justification’ that mainly consists in offering plausible reasons why
one cannot react in a positive way towards the initial claim. On the other,
‘assertion’ refers to commonly accepted rules within social groups. Here, most of
the time, refusals take the general form Das darf ich nicht, das verstößt gegen die
Regeln (“I am not allowed to do this. It is against the rules.”).
Among ‘adjuncts’, the most important function is apologizing, as, e.g., in Tut
mir leid, ich habe viel zu tun (“I am sorry, but I am very busy.”). Suggestions and
justifications are also used with a view to emphasize the polite character of the
refusal: Das geht leider nicht, weil ich jetzt sofort Außendienst tun muss (“I
cannot do it because I have to work in the field right now.”) (‘justification’).
Leider muss ich jetzt die anderen Sachen erledigen, darf ich es nachher tun? (“I
have to get the other things done first. Can I do it later?”) (‘suggestion’). In
addition, the speaker may use other subsidiary sequences such as alternatives or
promises: Heute habe ich wirklich keine Zeit, aber morgen kann ich dir helfen
(“Today I really do not have time for this, but I could help you tomorrow.”)
(‘alternative’). Ich bin jetzt sehr müde, ich mach’s wirklich morgen (“I am very
tired right now. I will do it tomorrow, for sure.“) (‘promise’). Finally, the speaker
has the possibility to express his empathy towards the dialogue partner. Hence,
speakers often tend to use expressions in the form of Deine dringende Situation
kann ich vollkommen verstehen, aber heute habe ich wirklich keine Zeit (“I really
do understand your urgent situation, but I really do not have time today.”)
(‘empathy’).
As we have seen so far, refusals can be realized by different sequences of
speech acts and a variety of differing expressions. In addition, politeness might
also be expressed by morphological particles. For instance, in German, the
particle leider (“unfortunately”) might be used to express the speaker’s
repentance; echt and wirklich (“really”) emphasize the truth of the refusal’s
justification: Das geht leider nicht, ich habe jetzt echt/wirklich keine Zeit (“Un-
fortunately, it does not work out. I really do not have time right now.”).
In Korean, there are the following translation equivalents for these German
particles: yukamsulepkky (“unfortunately”), cengmallo (“really”). In addition,
Korean contains a number of suffixes at the end of a sentence such as -(n)untey,
which express a retentive justification and thus emphasize the speaker’s aim of
being polite. As a similar means, the Korean might use elliptic expressions with a
view to stressing retention. In the end, in Korean, politeness is always based on
the use of honorifics, i.e., all of the discussed forms of politeness demand a
honorific particle such as, for example, -yo at the end of each sentence.
In the following chapter, we will take a look at how these different forms of
politeness depend on the cultural and situational contexts they are applied in.
200 Yongkil Cho

3. Methodology

3.1 Data collection

The investigation of politeness in refusals requires an adequate corpus. In the
pertinent literature on corpus linguistics, empirical investigations focus on the
importance of the authentic text (cf. Sinclair 1991, Hunston & Francis 2000).
However, the authentic text (whatever that is) can never fully grasp complex
phenomena such as politeness, as it is not realized by verbal means only, but by
the integrated use of a variety of communicative means such as, among others,
cognitive and perceptual means. The limited scope of the investigation of the
verbal means alone becomes clear when one tries to determine the specific
politeness function of a certain utterance. Hence it is often the case that only the
interlocutors know whether an utterance is directed more to paying respect or to
achieving one’s own communicative goals. The empirical data by itself does not
reveal anything about these matters.
Thus only a theoretical foundation can work as a starting point for the
empirical investigation. Empirical evidence is only revealed to the theorist who
approaches the object of study on the basis of a set of theoretical considerations
(cf. Weigand 2003:3).
Following these ideas, polite refusals have thus to be understood as strategies
which integrate verbal, cognitive and perceptual means. In addition, according to
Weigand’s competence-in-performance, politeness cannot be restricted to a
merely rule-governed linguistic phenomenon, but is to be understood on the basis
of probability measures. When rules come to an end, the speaker is able to go
beyond the ordinary any time he/she wants to.
Taking all this into account, I have decided to do a comparative survey that
allows for a contrastive linguistic analysis. The participants were asked to work
out dialogues in several given situations (DCT). This test design results in a high
degree of comparability between the speaker groups (Cho 2005:78). However, it
is also clear that the material gained cannot be considered authentic, as the
participants have not really communicated in a ‘natural’ situation but have only
pretended to do so. Besides, the test design throws up the problem of inter-
pretation, i.e., how the derived data should be evaluated in terms of its functional
properties. As mentioned above, the data itself gives no evidence about its
communicative function. In order to correlate the expression side with the
functional side, I draw on my own competence as a Korean native speaker. For
the German, in case of doubt, I have consulted German native speakers.
A total of 40 people participated in the survey, 20 Koreans and 20 Germans.
The survey is structured along the lines of the distinct types of refusals discussed
in chapter 2.
Each single type is set in an appropriate speech situation. Each situation
consists of a minimal directive action game including an initiative directive
speech act and a corresponding refusal. Whereas the initial directive was given,
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 201

the participants were asked to note down spontaneously their refusal. I have thus
gathered twenty refusals per language.
Despite the fact that from a corpus linguistic perspective the data gained
cannot be considered representative at all, it is sufficient to draw conclusions in
terms of a comparative analysis of politeness between Korean and German.

3.2 The design of the analysis

The analysis is designed to shed light on how politeness is implemented in
refusals with regard to specific speech situations. The refusals are analyzed along
the lines of the action types of their specific sequences (‘head act’ vs. ‘adjunct’)
and the idiosyncrasies of the utterance forms. In this context, the use of particles
plays also an important role. The analysis concentrates on the complexity of the
applied refusals, i.e., if and to what extent the speaker makes use of accompany-
ing sequences (‘adjunct’). On the basis of their formal properties, the ratio of the
functional aspects of the utterances, namely effectiveness and respect, will be
evaluated. This will display some of the situational as well as cultural differences
between Korean and German.

4. Results

The results of the survey are presented in separate charts for the German and the
Korean participants. The charts are structured on the basis of the distinction
between ‘head act’ and ‘adjunct’. Due to space limitations, I decided to include
only some illustrative examples. The percentage on the far left gives information
on how many times the indicated speech act sequence has been used in the
survey. The sum total is sometimes less than 100%, as I included only the most
frequently used examples in the charts.
The sequences and examples are hierarchically ordered, i.e. from the most
commonly to the least used.
Situation 1: According to his work contract, the employee has to deal with
stock-market related issues. His/her boss asks him/her to gather reliable
information about the current situation in the stock-market. However, he/she
cannot immediately fulfill this claim, as he/she is busy with other important things
at the moment.
202 Yongkil Cho

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ Ø
35 e.g., Ich bin aber gerade noch mit dem Projekt X beschäftigt..
“But I am still busy with project X.”
‘justification’ ‘apology’
e.g., Tut mir Leid, aber ich habe gerade eine dringende Aufgabe zu erledi-
25 gen, die ich in zwei Stunden fertig haben muss.
“I am sorry, but I have to perform an urgent task right now which needs to be
finished in two hours.”
‘justification’ ‘suggestion’
e.g., Gerade habe ich keine Zeit, muss dringend etwas anderes fertig
15 machen. Kann ich es später tun?
“I do not have time at the moment. I have to finish something else. Can I do
it later?”
‘justification’ ‘apology’ + ‘suggestion’
e.g., Tut mir Leid, im Moment bin ich gerade sehr beschäftigt und habe eine
10 Deadline einzuhalten. Darf ich das nachher tun?
“I am sorry, I am very busy right now and have to meet the deadline. May I
do it later?”
‘justification’ ‘apology’ + ‘alternative’
e.g., x,y,z sind leider hier noch zu tun,. Ich werde die nächsten Tage leider
10 nicht dazu kommen. Wir könnten mal q fragen, vielleicht kann er Ihnen
schneller helfen.
“Unfortunately, I still have to do x,y,z. For the next few days, I will not have
time to do it. We could ask q, maybe he can help you sooner.”

Figure 4: Refusals of an order in German

In terms of orders, it is characteristic that the employee is unable to refuse the

employer’s initial claim outright without fearing conflict or sanctions. Being
aware of the employer’s position of power, the employee thus puts forward a
number of arguments against the immediate acceptance of the employer’s claim.
He or she, for instance, refers to the difficulties or even the impossibility of
executing the order; as a consequence, he/she initiates a negotiation discourse,
which, to my mind, does not count as a full-fledged refusal but rather as
something like a partial refusal. Its utterance form mostly consists of a carefully
worded justification including official reasons, which is combined with accompa-
nying polite expressions such as apologies, suggestions or alternatives. However,
particles are rarely used for amplifying the polite character of the utterance. As we
will see now, this is totally at odds with the refusals in Korean:
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 203

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ + suffix (-ketun at the end ‘apology’ + ‘suggestion’ +
of the sentence) + honorifics (-yo at the honorifics (-pnita at the end of the
end of the sentence) sentence)
40
e.g., coysonghapnita. cikum talun cwungyohan illul kuphi hayya haketunyo.
nacwungey hatulimyen Antoyllkkayo?
“Excuse me, please, but I am busy with something else right now.”
‘justification’ + suffix (-ketun at the end ‘apology’ + honorifics (-pnita at
of the sentence) + honorifics (-yo at the the end of the sentence and -nim
25 end of the sentence) in the form of address)

e.g., coysonghapnita, sacangnim. cikum talun cengpo kemsayk cungiketunyo

“Boss, excuse me, please. I am looking for the other information now.”

‘justification’ + suffix (-ketun at the end

of the sentence) + honorifics (-yo at the
Ø
end of the sentence and -nim in the form
20 of address)

e.g., sacangnim, cikum kuphakey caksenghayyahal pokoseka issnunteyyo

“Boss, now I have to write the report. It is urgent.”

‘justification’ + suffix (-ketun at the end

of the sentence) + honorifics (-yo at the ‘suggestion’ + honorifics (-yo at
end of the sentence and -nim in the form the end of the sentence)
10 of address)

e.g., sacangnim, cikum oykunul nakaya haketunyo. nacwungey hamyen

antoylkkayo?
“I have to go to work in the field. May I do it later?”

Figure 5: Refusals of an order in Korean

Different from German, refusals in Korean always imply the use of morphological
suffixes at the end of the sentence (e.g., -ketun or -nuntey). These suffixes indicate
the speaker’s retention (cf. Park 1999). The implementation of honorifics (e.g.,
-yo at the end of the sentence) is also a typical feature. As pointed out earlier, the
indication of the social relationship of the dialogue partners by means of such
linguistic devices is mandatory and serves the maintenance of the social order and
harmony (cf. also Günthner 2000, Ide 1989). In Korean culture, harmony is
considered one of the key values of a well functioning society (Cho 2005).
Another difference to German includes the intensity of regret in terms of the
apology. Whereas German speakers tend to use expressions such as leider
(“unfortunately”) or Es tut mir leid (“I am sorry”), Koreans draw on forms like,
e.g., coysonghapnita “excuse me, please” emphasizing the speaker’s regret. In
addition, Koreans make much more use of suggestions in refusals than Germans
204 Yongkil Cho

do. All in all, one can conclude that, in German, refusals are realized by short and
concise expressions, whereas in Korean the speaker puts much more emphasis on
retention through the use of suffixes at the end of the sentence. These are often
combined with suggestions and apologies with a view to express the speaker’s
regret. These formal differences shed a light on the culture-specific functions of
the expressions used: if, in German, the employee is able to provide official and
objective reasons for his negative reaction, he/she does not need to express
retention. The employee simply tries to make clear why he/she cannot fulfill the
initial claim without causing additional conflict. In contrast, in Korean, refusing
an order from one’s employer requires the explicit expression of one’s retention
despite the fact that the speaker might have official reasons to do so. If the
employee refuses the employer’s order without retention this is normally
considered impolite. Hence, in Korean, the speaker is primarily concerned with
saving the employer’s face. One of the reasons for this is certainly that the
maintenance of a harmonious relationship with one’s employer is of much more
value than in Germany.
Situation 2: One of the employees asks his/her coequal colleague to send
documents for a symposium next summer via email. The colleague has always
done such tasks. The colleague does not have to do this, as there is nothing about
it in his/her contract; nevertheless, he/she feels obliged to do so, since teamwork
is highly valued in the company.

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ ‘suggestion’
40 e.g., Ich habe jetzt viel zu tun. Kann ich das nachher erledigen?
“I have a lot to do right now. Can I do it later?”
‘justification’ ‘apology’ + ‘promise’
25 e.g., Du, ich hab’s total eilig, tut mir Leid. Ich schicke Dir das nachher.
“I am sorry, but I am in a hurry right now. I will send it to you later.”
‘justification’ ‘promise’
15 e.g., Ich muss aber jetzt los. Ich mach das nachher.
“I have to go now. I will do it later.”
‘justification’ Ø

10 e.g., Im Moment bin ich gerade sehr beschäftigt und habe eine Deadline
einzuhalten.
“I am very busy at the moment and have to meet a deadline.”
‘justification’+ particle leider
‘suggestion’
“unfortunately”
10
e.g., Ich hab’s leider sehr eilig. Kann ich das nachher?
“Unfortunately, I am in a hurry. Can I do it later?”
Figure 6: Refusals of a request in German
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 205

Other than in connection with orders, requests cannot be brought forward with the
possibility of sanctioning the dialogue partner in the case of a negative reply.
They rather rest upon a claim for fulfillment rooted in specific conventions at the
workplace. Although the speaker does not need to be afraid of being sanctioned,
refusing his/her colleague’s claim turns out to be quite difficult as well. In this
sense, the employee normally cannot directly refuse his/her colleague’s request
without endangering their good relationship. In order to avoid further trouble, the
speaker thus frequently makes use of justifications in combination with sugges-
tions and promises. There are almost no differences to refusals of orders. For
instance, the justification is realized by clear and short expressions. The only
divergence consists in the fact that, with requests, a combination of justifications
and suggestions predominates.

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ + honorifics (-upnita at ‘suggestion’ + honorifics (-yo at
the end of the sentence) the end of the sentence)
30
e.g., cikum pokose caksengulo emcheng pappupnita. nacwunge hamyen
antoylkkayo?
“Now I am busy with writing the report. May I do it later?”
‘justification’ + honorifics (-upnita at ‘promise’ + honorifics (-yo at the
the end of the sentence) end of the sentence)
30
e.g., cikum X mwuncelo cengsini epsuppnita. nayil poney tulilkkeyyo
“I am very busy with X right now. I will send it to you tomorrow.”
‘justification’ + honorifics (-yo at the ‘apology’ + ‘promise’+ honorifics
end of the sentence) (-yo at the end of the sentence)
20 e.g., mianhayyo. cikum emcheng pappayo. kupaci anhumyen nayil poney
tulilkkeyyo
“I am sorry, but I am very busy right now. If it is not urgent, I will send it to
you tomorrow.”
‘justification’ + honorifics (-yo at the
Ø
end of the sentence)
10 e.g., kupi cheli hayya hal illi issese cikumun com kollanhayyo
“Because I have a lot of things to do right now, this is a little difficult at the
moment.”

Figure 7: Refusals of a request in Korean

In Korean, we find similar expressions in refusals: the justifications are also

realized by concise and short wordings and are often combined with suggestions
and promises as well. Besides the use of honorifics, there are thus no major
differences between the two languages in this respect. The conventionalized
flowery phrases put to work in the refusals do not center around ‘face work’; on
206 Yongkil Cho

the contrary, the speaker wants to refuse his/her colleague’s claim effectively
without causing further conflicts. Hence, in this case, the primary function of the
refusals concentrates on effectiveness in both languages.
Situation 3: One of the employees cannot come to work the next day, as
his/her relatives have come to see him unexpectedly. He/she therefore asks his/her
colleague to change shifts, which is a common thing in the company.

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ ‘apology’
40 e.g., Tut mir Leid. Ich habe morgen einen dringenden Arzttermin.
“I am sorry. Unfortunately, I have an urgent appointment at the doctor’s.”
‘apology’ + morphological
‘justification’
particle (wirklich “really”)
25
e.g., Es tut mir wirklich Leid. Ich kann morgen nicht.
“I am really sorry. I do not have time tomorrow.”
Direct refusal (pointing to the
impossibility of fulfillment) +
‘justification’
morphological particle (leider
15 “unfortunately”)
e.g., Das geht leider nicht. Ich habe morgen einen wichtigen Termin.
“Unfortunately, I cannot do it. I have an important appointment tomorrow.”

Figure 8: Refusals of a small petition in German

Here, the comparatively low claim for fulfillment of the speaker’s petition is
presupposed. The speaker does not have the possibility of sanctioning the
interlocutor in the case of a negative reply. All they can do is ask their colleague
for a favor. In comparison to the refusal of requests, the speaker tends to make use
of much simpler expressions. As the refusal of a small petition can easily be
carried out, some speakers even use direct expressions. As we will see in detail
below, in Korean we can find similar instances.
The Korean speakers also draw upon concise conventional phrases, i.e.
justifications in combination with apologies. For instance, the wordings
mianhayse ecceciyo and mianhayse ettekhaciyo (“I am sorry, but what can I do?”)
are most of the time not used to express an intensification of the speaker’s regret,
but are rather mere flowery phrases2. In the context of small petitions, the
morphological suffix -nuntey is also reduced to a stereotyped meaning, i.e., it thus
no longer refers to the speaker’s retention.

2 In my PhD thesis (Cho 2005:189), I understood these kinds of apologies to be used by the
speaker to intensify the expression of regret. Nevertheless, I now want to revise my opinion, as I
have come to the conclusion that nowadays they are used in rather stereotyped meanings.
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 207

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ + suffix (-nuntey at the ‘apology’ + honorifics (-yo at the
45
end of the sentence) end of the sentence)
e.g., mianhayse ecceciyo. nayil imi senyaki issnunteyo
“I am sorry, but what can I do? Tomorrow I already have an appointment.”
‘justification’ + honorifics (-yo at the
Ø
end of the sentence)
25
e.g., nayil cwungyohan yaksoki issese himtul kes katayo.
“Because I have an important appointment tomorrow it is difficult to do.”
‘apology’ + suggestion +
‘justification’ + honorifics (-yo at the
honorifics (-yo at the end of the
end of the sentence)
sentence)
10 e.g., mianhayse ettekhaciyo. nayil cwungyohan yaksoki isseseyo. talun
salamhantey hanpen muleposeyyo.
“I am sorry, but what can I do? I have an important appointment tomorrow.
Please, ask somebody else.”

Figure 9: Refusals of a small petition in Korean

The Korean speakers also draw upon concise conventional phrases, i.e. justifica-
tions in combination with apologies. For instance, the wordings mianhayse
ecceciyo and mianhayse ettekhaciyo (“I am sorry, but what can I do?”) are most
of the time not used to express an intensification of the speaker’s regret, but are
rather mere flowery phrases3. In the context of small petitions, the morphological
suffix -nuntey is also reduced to a stereotyped meaning, i.e., it thus no longer
refers to the speaker’s retention.
In any event, the correlation between the communication functions and the
expressions analyzed can only be determined by considering the specific speech
situation. In the present case, the situation naturally points to the use of more
direct expressions. Employees often want to change shifts and there is, thus,
nothing extraordinary about being asked to do so. Accordingly, one does not need
to express intense retention. The simple justifications, which are predominantly
put to work in both languages, indicate the speaker’s minimal retention.
Effectiveness is thus obviously in the foreground of the interaction.
Situation 4: A coequal employee wants to go on vacation for one week in
summer. He/she knows that his/her colleague bought a digital camera a couple of
days ago. He/she asks him/her if he/she could borrow the camera for the trip.

3 In my PhD thesis (Cho 2005:189), I understood these kinds of apologies to be used by the
speaker to intensify the expression of regret. Nevertheless, I now want to revise my opinion, as I
have come to the conclusion that nowadays they are used in rather stereotyped meanings.
208 Yongkil Cho

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ (long) Ø
e.g., Oh, die Kamera brauche ich auch. Wir feiern am Wochenende mit der
30 Familie und da muss ich die Kamera benutzen.
“Oh, we will also need the camera. We are celebrating with the family at the
weekend and I need to use the camera then.”
‘apology’ + morphological
‘justification’ (long)
particle wirklich (“really”)
e.g., Tut mir wirklich leid. Mit dem Ausleihen von Kameras habe ich
20
schlechte Erfahrung gemacht und möchte die Kamera ungern verleihen.
“I am really very sorry. I have had some bad experiences with lending my
camera to other people and I only give it away reluctantly.“
‘justification’ (long) + morphological
‘alternative’
particle (leider)
e.g., Wann brauchen Sie sie denn? Ich kann Ihnen leider nicht versprechen,
15 dass ich sie in der Zeit nicht brauche, aber der Herr Schmidt hat auch eine,
vielleicht kann der Ihnen helfen.
“When do you need it? Unfortunately, I cannot promise you that I will not
need it then. But Mr Schmidt has one, too. Maybe he can help you.”
‘apology’ + morphological
‘suggestion’
particle wirklich (“really”)
10
e.g., Tut mir wirklich leid, aber ich darf meinen Wagen nicht verleihen.
“I am really sorry, but I am not allowed to lend my car to somebody.”
‘justification’ ‘apology’
10 e.g., So etwas kann ich nicht verleihen, sorry.
“I cannot lend somebody something like this. Sorry.”

Figure 10: Refusals of a big petition in German

As shown in Figure 10, big petitions are normally refused by means of more
complex justifications. Hence, in German, most of the time we find a variety of
long justifications, as, e.g., Oh, die Kamera brauche ich auch. Wir feiern am
Wochenende mit der Familie und da muss ich die Kamera benutzen (“Oh, we will
need the camera too. We are celebrating with the family at the weekend and I
need to use the camera then”). In addition, the justifications are further supported
by apologies and alternatives. The apologies are often intensified by the use of the
particle wirklich (“really”). In contrast, assertions and simple justifications almost
never appear. This might be due to the fact that, here, we are dealing with ‘big
petitions’ as against ‘small petitions’.
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 209

This is similar to what we find in Korean.

% ‘head act’ ‘adjunct’

‘justification’ (long) + suffix
(-nuntey and -ketun at the end of the ‘apology’ + morphological particle
sentence) + honorifics (yo at the end (cengmal “really“)
of the sentence)
25
e.g., cengmal mianhayyo. nato nayil kamera ssullili issnunteyyo.
chinkwutulkwa yehayng kakilo hayssketunyo
“I am really sorry. I need the camera tomorrow. I have promised a friend that I
would travel with him.”
‘justification’ (long) + suffix
(-nuntey and -ketun at the end of the
Ø
sentence)+ honorifics (-yo at the
end of the sentence)
20
e.g., nato nayil kamera sseya toynunteyyo. sasilun chinchektuli pangmwun
haketunyo
“I will also need the camera tomorrow. To be honest, my relatives are coming
to visit me.”
‘justification’ (long) + suffix
(-nuntey and -ketun at the end of the ‘apology’ + honorifics (-yo at the end
sentence) + honorifics (-yo at the of the sentence)
end of the sentence)
15
e.g., mianhayse ecceciyo, nayil oykun nakase kameralul kkok sseyahaketunyo.
Yuchiwuen mechkeylul ccikeyahayyo
“I am sorry, but what can I do?! I have to work in the field tomorrow and I
need the camera for that. I have to take pictures of some kindergarten.”
‘justification’ + honorifics (-yo at ‘apology’ + honorifics (-yo at the end
the end of the sentence) of the sentence)
15
e.g., mianhayse ecceciyo?! Talun salamhantey imi pilleycwuesseyo
“I am sorry, but I have lent the camera to somebody else.”

Figure 11: Refusals of a big petition in Korean

Here, the refusals are also realized by complex justifications combined with the
concomitant use of apologies. In addition, the morphological particle cengmal
(“really”) is often used with a view to stressing the apology. In contrast to
German, the Korean refusals are often formed with suffixes like -nuntey at the end
of the sentence expressing the speaker’s retention.
It is obvious that the speakers of either language choose longer and more
informative expressions when refusing ‘big petitions’. The speakers are more
concerned with reducing face-threatening acts for the interlocutor than with their
own interest in communicating effectively. The maintenance of a good relation-
ship is most important, so that saving the interlocutor’s face turns into a priority
for the speaker.
210 Yongkil Cho

5. Conclusion

Up to this point, I have analyzed refusals as they usually appear in directive action
games at German and Korean workplaces with reference to situational and
cultural conditions. Apart from some similarities, a few fundamental differences
have cropped up. First of all, it has become evident that in most of the cases the
speakers used indirect expressions such as justifications in combination with
accompanying expression like, e.g., apologies. In contrast, direct refusals are
almost never applied, maybe because, at the workplace, politeness plays a more
important role than in other contexts. In terms of the speech act sequences, it
became obvious that refusals of a requests and ‘small petitions’ are mostly
realized by short and concise justifications. In contrast, when refusing a ‘big
petition’, the speaker normally draws upon longer and more complex justifica-
tions.
Looking at the cultural facets of the refusals analyzed, the use of honorifics in
Korean definitely stands out. Another idiosyncrasy consists in the application of
suffixes such as -nuntey at the end of the sentence. These express the speaker’s
retention and are primarily used when refusing ‘big petitions’ or orders. In
German, the speaker does not indicate his/her retention in such a way. Another
difference to German is the use of the accompanying apology. When refusing the
employer’s order, Korean speakers tend to use apologies more frequently than
Germans do. These characteristics of the expression combine with the situational
and cultural properties of the specific functions of politeness. Pertaining to
refusals of requests or ‘small petitions’, both Korean and German speakers focus
on effectiveness and this is evident by the use of short and concise justifications.
On the other hand, refusals of ‘big petitions’ are largely concerned with paying
respect to the interlocutor, as the longer and more complex justifications in
combination with the apologies clearly show.
Looking at the functional side, the only cultural difference consists in the fact
that the German speakers refuse the employer’s order more outright and
straightforwardly than the Koreans. In Korean, the refusal of an order is usually
realized by complex expressions that indicate the speaker’s retention. In contrast,
in German, effectiveness has priority.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that, in regard to the function, there are also many
similarities between both languages. In both languages, refusals of ‘small
petitions’ and requests center on effectiveness, whereas ‘big petitions’ call for
more respectful expressions.
The findings in the course of the analysis can be explained on the basis of the
distinction between ‘cultural tradition’ and ‘cultural beings’. Each culture has its
own traditional understanding of the individual’s role in society. Whereas in the
German tradition, the individual is mostly defined in terms of an autonomous
person, in Korea, people are always seen as part of a community (Cho 2005:190).
Accordingly, different concepts of politeness have developed over time. Hence,
 Refusals and Politeness in Directive Action Games 211

German speakers are sometimes more concerned about the effective pursuit of
their own communicative goals; in contrast, Koreans tend to focus on the respect
of the interlocutor’s social status and the establishment of a harmonious
relationship with the other people around. Refusals in Korean are thus more
directed to showing retention. Speakers care more about saving the interlocutor’s
face, as the maintenance of a harmonious relationship to one’s colleagues and
one’s employer is of higher importance than in Germany (Cho 2005).
However, nowadays, this traditional value of ‘paying respect’ is losing much
of its traditional significance. This is also due to the strong individualization in
Korean society. Today, in Korea, parallel to the German understanding of it, the
individual defines him-/herself more and more as an autonomous being and not so
much as a part of a bigger group anymore. This eventually results in the fore-
grounding of effectiveness as against respect and this can already be observed
with the more straightforward refusals of requests and ‘small petitions’.
My work is based on some basic reflections on language use which are
derived from an intensive study of the model of the Dialogic Action Game as
developed by Weigand in a variety of publications. These reflections primarily
concern the problem of concepts of politeness which define politeness exclusively
in terms of respect. My findings have shown that politeness cannot be accounted
for adequately without taking into consideration the complex interplay between
both effectiveness and respect in the context of culture-specific conditions. Thus,
politeness is to be seen as a traditional, culturally bound concept regulating
human interaction in a way which, in its core, should remain directed towards a
positive interpersonal relationship.

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Sebastian Feller for valuable comments on an earlier version of this
paper.

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 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be?
The unwritten rules in a language: An analysis of spoken Sinhala

Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

Sinhala is a diglossic language with the spoken variety mainly used in daily life. Social
values and norms influence and determine the communicative behaviour. Sinhala
speakers tend to make similar linguistic choices in order to constitute group identity. The
maintenance of harmony is obligatory, and thus, confrontational conversational style is
to be omitted. A refusal or rejection for instance is not expressed directly due to the
unwritten rule of showing respect and courtesy to the addressee without ever offending
him. As a result, even if a foreigner uses English as a medium of communication with a
bilingual Sinhala native speaker, he may not understand the underlying rules transferred
from Sinhala to English by the speaker. This paper will show how diplomacy and
politeness are reflected in the language, using authentic examples derived from spoken
Sinhala. Furthermore, it will show how these cultural values are transferred to other
languages spoken in the country as in the case of Sri Lankan English.

1. Introduction

Sinhala, a member of the Indo-European language family, is the majority

language spoken in Sri Lanka. For at least 74% of the 20 million people living in
Sri Lanka, Sinhala is the native language. Tamil is spoken by around 18% of the
population (cf. Sri Lanka Socio-Economic Data 2006). Whereas Sinhala and
Tamil are first languages, English predominantly enjoys the role of the second
language – apart from the Dutch, British and Portuguese descendants, called
‘Burghers’ whose first or native language is English. Altogether, almost 2 million
inhabitants of Sri Lanka speak English as a second language (cf. Becker &
Bieswanger 2006:33)
The majority of Sinhala native speakers are Buddhists. Communicative
behaviour in Sri Lanka has a historical Buddhist tradition, and there is ample
evidence in the language of the influence of religion in daily life of the Sinhala
native speakers. Their ways of thinking, lifestyle, customs and norms very much
reflect the Buddhist philosophy (cf. Disanayaka 1993, 1998, Ch. Premawardhena
2002a). In the social hierarchy, Buddha and associations with Buddhism,
including Buddhist monks and the Buddhist temple, occupy the highest rung
214 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

followed by parents and teachers placed at one and the same level. This vertical
differentiation is displayed in language usage.
The examples cited in this paper focus on spoken Sinhala, since this is the
variety mainly used in everyday discourse. Furthermore, the intricacies of
diplomacy and the unwritten rules of politeness and inference are more significant
in spoken discourse. The examples are drawn from my own corpus and further
secondary data. Additionally, this paper will give a few examples from Sri
Lankan English, since socio-cultural aspects of Sinhala have undoubtedly been
transferred to this variety of the English language.
Being a language of Asia, inference plays a major role in spoken Sinhala (cf.
Ch. Premawardhena 2002a, 2002b, Foley & van Valin 1984). Social factors, like
socio-economic status, group membership, gender and age, are as important as the
syntactic, semantic or morphological rules in the language. Each speech act is,
thus, dependent on situation, interpersonal constellation, ethnic group member-
ship etc. According to the specific situation, different degrees of respect,
diplomacy and politeness coding are obligatory. Moreover, the importance of
language in national identity formation should be taken into account: to
demonstrate ethnic unity, Sinhala speakers tend to preserve language and culture
traditions.
The customs and norms of Sinhala native speakers in greeting, taking leave of
someone, starting a conversation, refusal and offering, thanking and apologising
will be the focus of this study. In this context, both, verbal and nonverbal
communication play a significant role, thus making the task of a new comer to the
language even more difficult in grasping the ‘finer points’ and the unwritten rules
of the language. There is no Knigge (“etiquette training”) for Sinhala as in the
case of German.
The rules of diplomacy and politeness are indeed unwritten and apart from
Disanayaka (1998) and Ch. Premawardhena (2002a, 2002b 2003, 2006b) very
few studies on Sinhala have been conducted on the subject in recent years.
The Sinhala diplomacy is laced with a lot of intricacies that goes to such
length of confusing the addressee unless he/she is familiar with inferring the
unsaid. With the accepted rule of not offending the addressee by refusing or
rebuking straight away, the native speakers tend to use different terms which are
taken as positive responses at face value, albeit aimed at conveying the negative
(see example 6).

1.1 Unwritten rules of politeness and diplomacy

Informal greetings which may seem meaningless to an outsider to the language
are essential to complete the social act in spoken Sinhala. Thus, greetings such as
vedata yanavada / kadee yanavada? (“Are you going for work / to the store?”) are
common occurrences to keep one’s good will by asking the obvious even if one
knows exactly where the addressee is going.
 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 215

Further, refusing or saying no is extremely difficult for the Sinhala native

speaker. He/she will express him-/herself so diplomatically that a stranger to the
language is left wondering for a long time whether the speaker means yes or no.
Similarly, one also does not state the reason of one’s visit or a phone call at
the outset as it does not sound polite. Thus, one hears the utterance nikan aawa (“I
came for no particular reason”) even if one has a burning issue to discuss
(Disanayaka 1998).
Due to similar unwritten rules, traditions and norms, acquiring competency in
spoken Sinhala is a hard task for a non-native speaker. Furthermore, these values
and the Sinhala way of thinking bear an impact on English used in Sri Lanka. As
a result, even if a foreigner uses English as a medium of communication with a
bilingual Sinhala native speaker, he/she may not understand the underlying rules
transferred from Sinhala to English as discussed in chapter 4.1. Thus, foreign
language learners and visitors to the country may encounter difficulties to
‚understand‘ native speakers and the underlying rules even if they speak the
‘same’ language.

2. Significance of the study

However complicated and intricate the rules of expression of politeness and

diplomacy in Sinhala are, there have been very few studies conducted on the
subject. This could be attributed to the lack of availability of authentic data on
spoken Sinhala. Data available from the first Corpus of spoken Sinhala compiled
by the author and co-researchers have been the main database for the analysis in
this paper. Secondary data, mainly from studies of Disanayaka (1993, 1998, 2005)
and Ch. Premawardhena (2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2005, 2006b), have also been
considered. The informants were adult Sinhala native speakers of different age
groups, levels of education, urban and rural backgrounds, monolinguals,
bilinguals and foreign visitors to Sri Lanka.
For empirical data it is imperative to make objective statements, thus, not
providing room for subjectivity based upon hearsay or one’s own perceptions.
Due to lack of studies on politeness strategies, diplomacy, verbal and nonverbal
gestures, there has been many an instance where visitors to the country found
themselves in difficult if not embarrassing situations when dealing with the native
speakers of Sinhala.
Thus, acquiring competency in the structural aspects of a language, i.e.
syntactic and morphological rules as well as semantics alone, has proved to be
insufficient. In our day, in which a lot is expected from research on intercultural
communication, studies of this nature will indeed contribute to promoting cross-
cultural understanding. The demand for relevant work on Sinhala has mostly
come from the fields of marketing, tourism and second or foreign language
learning. There is, in fact, an increasing interest in Sinhala as a foreign language.
216 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

3. Socio-cultural aspects reflected in the language

Diplomacy, politeness, courtesy and degrees of respect are significant in all

languages of the world (Brown & Levinson 1987, Watts 2003). Yet, each
language has its own rules of politeness and adequate language behaviour. Similar
to other Asian languages (e.g., Japanese), where the ‘concept of deference’ is
considered as an integral part, Sinhala native speakers are also “obliged to make
appropriate choices in planning, formulating and articulating utterances” (House
2005:14).
Mastering these underlying rules is an art in itself. When analysing the
available data on everyday conversation, the following areas could be listed as
significant in terms of diplomacy and politeness:
− reference devices and use of honorifics for first, second and third person
− indirectness
− assertion and negation
− saying the opposite of what is meant
− means of persuasion
− reluctance to accept refusals
− saying the obvious
− urge to say something by way of greeting.
The examples given in chapters 3.1 and 3.2 indicate how nonverbal and verbal
communication functions in spoken Sinhala. While common ground (Clark
1996a, 1996b) provides a platform for native speakers to understand each other
with ease, a non-native speaker will obviously find it a hard task to identify and
interpret the unwritten rules.

3.1 Nonverbal communication

Communication can be realised through verbal, nonverbal and the combination of
both means. Gestures, body language, smiles, frowns or grimaces are important
ways of conveying one’s message. “No answer is an answer, or perhaps a smile, a
frown, a sneer or merely turning one’s back on the speaker is a powerful way to
communicate” (Abu Jaber 2001:49). Some common means of nonverbal
communication of the Sinhala speech community may be unintelligible to the
non-native speakers leading to misinterpretation or helplessness as to how to
react.
One of those gestures is the ‘gesture of worship’ which signals respect and
gratitude towards the addressee. Here, the ‘performer’ prostrates before the person
that is to be worshipped. This is often performed in front of Buddha images and
Buddhist monks but also towards all those people who owe respect, like parents,
teachers and elderly people. The person ‘worshipped’ is supposed to keep
standing and to touch the head of the person who worships him or her. Touching
the head signals blessing. The person worshipped is not supposed to repeat the act
 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 217

with the one worshipping. Repetition, which is usual when bowing or shaking
hands, is inadequate. A more common gesture is the one of greeting: placing
one’s palms together in front of the chest and bowing the head slightly is widely
practiced. Another very common gesture is the smile, an undoubtedly powerful
means of communication in Sri Lanka. Apart from welcoming or greeting
someone, showing happiness, embarrassment or helplessness, the smile conveys
the message of gratitude, too. First-time visitors to the country always tend to be
somewhat confused by strangers smiling at them wherever they go. On many an
occasion, one does not hear the words thank you (borrowed from English) or
istuutiy in Sinhala; instead a lengthy and warm-hearted smile substitutes the
verbal thank you. In fact, the word istuutiy is considered an artificial expression
and is not commonly used unless in formal speech acts. The English borrowing
thank you is more frequent, yet, the smile is most appropriate.
Furthermore, the smile can substitute a verbal greeting. One is always
compelled to greet someone known at least with a smile. However, depending on
the situation and personal constellation, a smile alone may not be sufficient, as
seen in chapter 3.2.1.
Last gesture to be mentioned here is the shaking or nodding of the head. As
Rana observes, “when an Indian shakes his head from side-to-side in a slightly
rolling motion, he/she is expressing emphatic agreement, not dissonance. For
disagreement he/she has a sharper side-to-side headshake” (2001:113). These two
gesture are similarly found among the Sinhala native speakers. As a sign for
agreement, the Sinhala speaker is shaking his head from side to side, just like
many Western cultures do when gesticulating a distinct no.

3.2 Verbal communication

Sinhala speakers tend to make similar linguistic choices in order to constitute
group identity or social solidarity. The maintenance of harmony is obligatory and
the unwritten rules of verbal politeness begin with the means of greeting.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the minimal form of greeting is a
smile. Showing no sign of recognition is considered as committing an offense.
Depending on the interpersonal constellation and social distance between the
interlocutors, a further verbal exchange is inevitable. The verbal greetings differ
according to situation and language status of the speakers. Whereas bilingual
speakers use morning in the morning and hallo, kohoma-da (“Hello, how are
you”) during day and night-time, the native speakers, mostly of rural areas, greet
each other with koheda yanne? or beerak-da? (“Where are you going?”). This
wording often appears too inquisitive to urban Sinhala speakers. Further greetings
include:

(1) kettu welaa

“You’ve lost weight”
218 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

(2) mokada asaneepen hitiyada

“Were you sick?”

In addition, especially for the maintenance of harmony, greetings are frequently

composed of questions asking for the obvious. For instance, when one is rushing
to work in the morning, one is repeatedly greeted with the same phrase:

(3) vedata yanawa-da?

“Are you going to work?”

Formulating questions that can be affirmed holds up harmony between the

interactants. Leech’s (1983) Maxim of agreement (“minimize the expression of
disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement
between self and other”) and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) positive politeness
strategies of ‘seek agreement’ and ‘avoid disagreement’ might explain the posing
of obvious questions. A few more examples are to follow:

(4) badu ganna aava-da?

“Did you come to buy something?”
(Common question in supermarkets)

(5) pot ganna aava-da?

“Did you come to buy books?”
(Common question at a book fair)

(6) kadee giyaa-da?

“Did you go to the store?”
(Question when one meets someone laden with goods)

In rural areas, people still go to the river or to a bathing well for a bath. When one
carries a bucket, towel and a change of clothes, one often hears the following
greeting:

(7) naana yanawa-da?

“Are you going for a bath?”

The greeting in (7) seems to be very frequent – seen by the fact that even a parrot
‘living’ in a house on the path to the river keeps greeting passers-by with naana
yanawa-da? When now a possible communication partner is having his or her
bath in the river, the following greeting is appropriate (Disanayaka 2005):

(8) naanawa-da?
“Are you having a bath?”
 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 219

These greetings or rather the answers can be considered as ‘preference structures’

(Levinson 1983:336): the first part of the adjacency pair, the greeting formulated
as a question, and the preferred second part, the agreement. The first part is
typically made in the expectation that the second part will be agreement. These
adjacency pairs facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for confrontation
and can, thus, be considered as a linguistic means of politeness.
Second strategy used in order to constitute group identity or social solidarity
is the ‘use of pronouns’ emphasising the we-identity of the interlocutors. The key-
construct of the Sri Lankan face is collectivistic, thus, there is an emphasis on the
so-called we-identity as opposed to the individualistic I-identity (cf. Ting-Toomey
1999). Thus, there is an overall tendency concerning self-reference: first person
plural pronouns are used instead of first person singular ones. Thus, api (“we”)
and apee (“our”) are often used instead of mama (“I”) and magee (“my”). As
mentioned, the usage of these plural forms signals group identity and inter-
dependence and is not used as a linguistic means for displaying referent or
addressee honorifics.

(9) api ennan

“We will come” – although the speaker refers to himself only

(10) apee gedara enna

“Come to our house” – although ‘my house’ is meant

First person singular is even avoided when referring to family members:

(11) apee mahattaya

“our husband” instead of magee mahattaya (“my husband”)

(12) apee noona

“our wife” instead of magee noona (“my wife)
(cf. Ch. Premawardhena 2005, 2006b)

A further major area of difficulty in relation to intercultural communication is the

Sri Lankan ‘speech act of directives’. Requests, invitations and offers and their
acceptance (or refusal, rejection) are adjacency pairs again: the preferred second
part being the acceptance, the dispreferred second part being a refusal or rejection
(Becker/Bieswanger 2006:175). Both are usually associated with characteristic
verbal and nonverbal features. Yet, expressing either acceptance or – if possible –
a refusal adhere to culture-specific principles. In many cultures (cf. García
1992:237), the speech act is comprised of two, three or even more stages:

invitation/offer – response: refusal/rejection

insistence (1) – response: refusal/rejection
insistence (2) – response: refusal/rejection
220 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

insistence (n) – response: refusal/rejection

insistence (n+1) – response: acceptance

The ‘speech act of insistence’ constiutes a politeness strategy. Garcías

(1992:234) evaluation for Peruvian, in which she evaluates that insistence is a
cultural expectation holds true for the Sinhala speakers as well.
The speech act sequence continues till finally the acceptance is verbalized.

(13) A: Ø bath tikak kamu

Ø rice Adj eat:PRES
“Come and have some rice.”
B: epaa epaa. dæn bada pirila
NEG NEG Adv N Adj
“No, no. Now I’m full.”
A: cuttak kamu
Adj V
“Come on, eat a little.”
B: anee epaa
P NEG
“Please, no.”
A: ehenan api tarahay
CONJ 1PL Adv
“Then we’re (I’m) going to be angry.”
B: haa, ehenan Ø poddak kamu
AFF CONJ Ø Adj eat:PRES
“Ok. Then (we’ll) eat a little.”

Example (13) shows that when a listener actually wants to accept an invitation or
an offer, he or she is inclined to refuse it first. However, a ‘matter-of-fact’ refuse
is almost impossible. Possible strategies would be (cf. Grein 2007:117):
− an expression of regret
− a direct refusal
− an excuse or explanation
− an alternative
Dependent on the relationships between the speakers involved, their social
distance and the context of situation (cf. Gass & Selinker 2001), it is often
impossible to refuse an invitation. Otherwise, the proper reaction is an evasive
answer:
 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 221

(14) balamu
“We’ll see”

(15) balanna oona

“We’ll have to see”

Formulating a refusal is a severe face-threatening act. Many speakers rather agree

and change their schedules in order not to offend anyone. Example (16) is a
frequent explanation within the corpus:

(16) Chitra invite karaa eegollan-ge gedara-ta ena satiye.

Chitra invite PAST 3PL:POSS-GEN N-LOC Adj N
“Chitra invited me to her place next week.”

bæhæy kiyanna bæri hinda man haa kiwwa.

NEG say:PRES V CONJ 1SG AFF say:PAST
“I agreed because I couldn’t say no.”

One finds the routine I couldn’t refuse, so I agreed not only very often in the data
from Sinhala, but in Sri Lankan English as well.
Requests themselves are mostly formulated indirectly, using further miti-
gation strategies, like using anee (“please”) or hedges like kohomahari (“some-
how”) or softeners like the subjunctive puluwan-da? (“could you?”). Yet,
irrespective of the magnitude of the request or degree of imposition (cf. Fuku-
shima 2002:84), Sinhala speaker often introduce their request with asking for a
podi/cuuti udawwak (“small favour”). According to Brown and Levinson (1987),
requests are intrinsically face threatening. While a request may be realized by
means of linguistic strategies such as on record (e.g., direct and unmitigated) or
off record (e.g., hints, irony), a compromise is using indirect requests. According
to Searle (1975:60f.) in indirect speech acts
the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on
their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and non-linguistic,
together with the rational powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.

Thus, in order to minimize the threat and to avoid the risk of losing face, there is,
as indicated before, a string preference for indirectness in Sinhala to smooth the
conversational interaction.

3.3 Degree of respect

As mentioned, the communicative behaviour in Sri Lanka has a historical
Buddhist tradition with common Buddhist hierarchies. Each speech act is, thus,
dependent on situation, interpersonal constellation and ethnic group membership
of the interlocutors. According to these factors, different degrees of respect,
diplomacy and politeness coding are obligatory and play a major role in discourse
222 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

(cf. Ch. Premawardhena 2002a, 2002b). These are also reflected in honorifics and
kinship terms. Contrary to the usage in Europe where only the immediate family
members are addressed with kinship terms, even strangers are referred to by
kinship terms (cf. Ch. Premawardhena 2002a, 2002b, Disanayaka 1998, 2005).
As discussed in detail in Ch. Premawardhena (2002a, 2002b), the choice of
reference devices available to Sinhala native speakers is immense. These include
personal pronouns as well as nouns which mostly denote disrespect. For instance,
superiors are often addressed and referred to with the honorifics Sir, Madam, Miss
– borrowings from English. Miss is used mainly to address or refer to female
teachers. The following examples give an insight into the choice of references the
speaker could use depending on his emotional status and attitude towards the
referent.

(17) man gihin Ø2 Sir1-ta kiyannan.

1SG go Ø2 boss-DAT say:FUT
“I will tell the boss (about the matter).”

(18) man gihin Ø2 Ø1 kiyannan.

1SG go Ø2 Ø1 say:FUT
“I will tell (the boss) (about the matter).”

(19) man gihin Ø2 unde-ta kiyannan.

1SG go Ø2 3SG-DAT say:FUT
“I will tell the fellow (about the matter).”

(20) man gihin Ø2 o:ka-ta / u:-ta kiyannan.

1SG go Ø2 3SG-DAT say:FUT
“I will tell him (pejorative) (about the matter).”
(Ch. Premawardhena 2002a:169)

While (17) uses the honorific to refer to the boss, in (18) the reference is omitted.
(19) and (20) use reference devices which denote the negative attitude of a
speaker towards the referent. Thus, the degree of respect decreases from (17) to
(20) showing the attitude of the speaker towards the referent. The Sinhala native
speaker has the ability and an ample choice of linguistic devices to shift from
diplomacy, politeness and courtesy towards disrespect and insult by omitting an
honorific or replacing it with another reference device.

3.4 Gender differences

A transcript of a dialogue in spoken Sinhala will often give hints to the gender of
the speaker by the use of certain expressions which are gender-specific.
The following are some of the speech features of female speakers:
− Heavy use of particles anee (“please”), ayyoo (exclamation), pavuu (ex-
pression of sympathy)
 How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? 223

− Adjectives with prolonged vowels or consonants as a form of emphasis:

cuuuttak vs. cuttak (“very little”), podiii udavvak vs. podi udwwak (“very
small favour”), lassssana potak vs. lassnana potak (“very beautiful book”)
− Reference: use of familiar second person singular reference: oyaa (“you”,
familiar)
− Imperative: use of particle -ko to denote requesting/pleading: enna-ko
(“please come”), yan-ko (“let’s go”)
Some features of male speech are:
− Reference: use of informal second person references umba, macan instead of
informal oyaa used by female speakers; heavy use of third person pronouns
uu, eeka to refer to humans (these pronouns are generally used to refer to
animals and considered as derogatory when used by females, however neutral
when used by male speakers with reference to peers (derogatory however, in
reference to superiors –see (17d)).
− Imperative: considered derogatory when used by women – varen vs. neutral
form enna (“come”) palayan vs. neutral form yanna (“go”), kaapan vs. kanna
(“eat”)

4. Transfer of Sinhala diplomacy to Sri Lankan English

English enjoys the role of the second language in Sri Lanka with all schools
teaching the language from school entrance till graduation. The Sri Lankan
variety of English claims to have its own identity (Ch. Premawardhena, 2006a,
2006c, Gunasekera, 2005). Some of those features definitely have seeds in
cultural transfers from Sinhala, like
− Taking leave of someone: I/we will go and come denoting the Sinhala way of
saying good bye where it is considered inauspicious to say I will go (and not
return).
− Use of solidarity pronouns: you know, our mother is in hospital, our child is
in school now (see examples (9) to (12))
− Imperative: use of particle -ko with English verbs to persuade: come-ko
(“please come”), go-ko (“please go”)
− Opening a conversation: I just came/ I just called with emphasis on just
indicating the indirectness in approaching a subject/reason for one’s visit/call
− Third person reference: translated from choice of Sinhala reference devices,
i.e. that one, that woman, this one, this woman
− Greetings: So how? After a long time, no? Came shopping? Came to buy
books? Going for work?
− Zero anaphora: got wet? came now?
− Tag-question word no: heavy rain, no? from Sinhala –ne?
224 Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena

5. Conclusion

Analysis of authentic data from spoken Sinhala clearly indicates the different
degrees of respect, politeness and diplomacy conveyed by the speakers. Social
factors determine how to express oneself without offending the addressee. These
norms are as important as the syntactic, semantic or morphological rules within
the language. According to the very specific situation, different degrees of respect
and politeness encoding are obligatory. Both, verbal and nonverbal communi-
cation plays a significant role. Heavy use of zero anaphora, honorifics and kinship
terms is common in spoken Sinhala to denote respect, e.g., addressing parents and
elders. A refusal or rejection is not expressed directly due to the unwritten rule of
showing respect and courtesy to the addressee without offending him/her. Some
of these values and ways of thinking are transferred to Sri Lankan English, which
may cause difficulties in understanding even to a native speaker of English.
Despite the hi-tech age, not much change is evident in the socio-cultural aspects
reflected in the language today as the speech community tends to preserve and
carry forward the cultural values from one generation to the other.

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Glossary
Ø zero anaphora
Adj. adjective
Adv. adverb
AFF affirmative
CONJ conjunction
DAT dative
engl. English
FUT future tense
GEN genitive
LOC locative
N noun
NEG negation
V verb
P particle
PAST past tense
PL plural
POSS possessive
PREP preposition
PRES present tense
SG singular
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse

Ksenia M. Shilikhina
Voronezh State University, Russia

Language has long been studied as a system of signs and the speakers who actually use
language were not of interest to linguists. Systemic description of language subsumed
some sort of ideal speaker who produced only grammatically perfect sentences.
However, for non-ideal speakers language is not only a semiotic system, rather, it is a
very important cultural practice. The often-cited cases of misunderstanding in cross-
cultural communication show that people tend to choose different patterns of
communication and this suggests that their choice is motivated by the norms and
traditions that each particular culture offers. These rules and values form hierarchies
with most important elements on top. Hierarchies are not universal, rather, they are
culture-specific. The hierarchical model can be applied to our everyday discourse as it
can explain why people from different cultures prefer different patterns of communi-
cation in identical situations.

1. Introduction

There are two mainstream approaches to language in modern linguistics: formal

and functional. The difference between these approaches starts with the kind of
language user implied or modelled by the linguists. Those engaged in formal
studies construct their models of language having in mind some sort of an ‘ideal
speaker’ who never makes mistakes and whose sentences are always grammati-
cally correct and thus acceptable to other ideal speakers. Formal models are
necessary to communicate with a computer, and this is probably the only ideal
speaker that exists today.
However, in our everyday communication acceptability (or appropriateness)
and grammatical correctness are not the same thing. Many sentences we produce
in our everyday communication are far from being grammatically correct. Yet,
they are quite understandable and perceived as acceptable by other non-ideal
speakers. It is this kind of speaker who exists in the mind of a functional language
researcher.
The functional approach further implies that language is not only studied as a
system of signs, but also includes the study of language and culture as a unity.
From this point of view, successful use of language requires more than knowing
vocabulary and grammar. The analysis of everyday discourse shows a numerous
number of sentences produced by non-ideal speakers, some of them grammati-
228 Ksenia M. Shilikhina

cally incorrect. Yet, this incorrectness does not necessarily lead to misunder-
standing. At the same time, grammatically perfect utterances may cause mis-
understanding and sometimes even lead to conflict or negative stereotyping.
Linguistics has to give some sort of an explanation for such situations.
Formal models of language fail to explain why grammatically perfect
utterances do not lead to a desired outcome. Some problems language usage can
not be explained by internal properties of language as a system.
To understand why grammar rules do not guarantee successful communi-
cation, we have to turn from Saussurian language as a system of signs to
something external we call ‘culture’.

2. The notion of culture

The notion of culture seems to resist definitions, though hundreds of them exist
today. A useful survey of attempts to define culture can be found in Duranti
(1997). Duranti shows that a number of approaches to culture can be closely
related to the concept of language as a means for expressing and creating our
experience. Interestingly, most theories connecting language and culture were put
forward by non-linguists.
The most cited approach to culture is known as ‘nature vs. nurture’
dichotomy (cf. Pinker 2004). When culture as something we learn is contrasted to
nature, language becomes part of the culture as it helps us categorize the world.
Another widespread approach is relating culture to cognition. In order to function
within a particular culture, an individual has to possess both, propositional
knowledge and procedural knowledge. Consequently, language is usually
described as a set of propositions about the world.
In the field of anthropology, it was Anthony Wallace (1961) who viewed
culture as socially distributed knowledge necessary for organization of diversity.
According to Wallace, it is not uniformity that unites people within the same
culture, but their ability for predicting each other’s behaviour.
There are other approaches to culture which take into account our ability to
communicate. For example, in theories that treat culture as a process of
communication, language becomes a tool for translating ideas and for establishing
symbolic relationships between objects of the world.
For poststructuralists, culture is a system of practices through which people
construct reality, and language plays a very important role in this process.
What unites all these approaches is their attention to language as a
phenomenon functioning within culture and necessary for any culture to exist.
How do linguists treat language and culture? The question of their relation
has a long history, and today we can contrast existing theories against the type of
speaker discussed earlier. Formal approaches assume that languages are systems
of signs, independent from both speakers and cultures. As a result, they study
languages ‘off-line’, and their ideal speakers are excluded from culture.
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 229

Functional studies treat languages as ‘online’ systems, and that includes

social and cultural environment.
Let us for a moment step aside from linguistics and look at ordinary language
users. How do they relate the language they speak and the culture they live in? It
turns out that there are different stereotypes people like to follow. The most
popular stereotype is spread through second language teaching, where to study a
language equals to study a grammar of a language.
When people assume that language is a system of rules, they do believe that
one can become a perfect speaker if one learns all the language rules and applies
them when communicating. People want to produce only grammatically perfect
sentences because this can bring them closer to a long-desired ideal.
Yet, when one starts using the second language, it becomes obvious that
grammar is not sufficient for successful cross-cultural interaction. Language
becomes more than just a system of grammar rules and vocabulary; rather, it turns
to be a very important cultural practice.
This suggests that we recognize not only existence of a language within a
particular culture, but also their mutual influence. The idea of language
influencing our perception was best expressed by Sapir (1993) and Whorf (1956),
but the influence is not unilateral. Language provides us with various techniques
to express our thoughts and feelings. Theoretically, the number of options can be
endless, but then, how can we make a choice from such a variety? There must be
something external that helps us make our choice, something that limits the
number of options. Every culture has a set of implicit communicative norms,
values and traditions. They set guidelines for our everyday verbal and nonverbal
interaction. These norms are very important, as they help us predict our mutual
behaviour and determine patterns of communication.
Description of communicative norms and values is always problematic
because they can not be captured and expressed explicitly as easily as language
rules. We can not write ‘a grammar of communication’ the same way linguists
produce grammars of languages. Another problem with communicative norms is
that people are unaware of them until they are violated (i.e. when somebody’s
behaviour falls short of our expectations) or in cross-cultural communication,
where two (or more) sets of norms and values come into contact.

3. Communicative mistakes

Because communicative norms and values are implicit, people do not think about
their influence on communication until these norms are violated. The speaker’s
grammar can be absolutely perfect, but the interaction can be disrupted because of
communicative mistakes. There are at least two types of communicative mistakes:
pragmatic and cultural mistakes.
230 Ksenia M. Shilikhina

3.1 Pragmatic mistakes

The first type are pragmatic mistakes. These mistakes are mostly procedural,
because a speaker uses procedural knowledge (‘know-how’) when choosing a
particular strategy, i.e. making a decision HOW something is going to be
expressed. An illustration of pragmatic mistakes is a situation of cross-cultural
communication when a speaker uses his/her second language but applies
strategies or patterns from his or her native language. For example, when
Russians use English as their second language they might seem to be too pushy or
even aggressive to native speakers of English. The impression of straight-
forwardness is created when the Russians use grammatically perfect imperative
constructions when uttering a request while in English, speakers would normally
not use a bare imperative (cf. Comrie 1984, Wierzbicka 2003:77).
In the Russian language imperatives are quite conventional in a request, and
native speakers of Russian assume that the same strategy will work in other
languages and cultures as well. It is the pragmatic strategy that goes wrong and
creates negative stereotypes about Russian people, not the grammar of English.
To help non-native speakers of English avoid such effect, one of ESL
textbooks even proposed “Tips for making English less direct”.
Another example of a pragmatic mistake is the reverse situation when non-
native speakers of Russian use the construction Would you like X? when offering
something (so-called ‘whimperatives’, cf. Sadock 1970). In Russian it is not
conventional to use subjunctive for an offer. The sentence

(1) Ты бы хотел сейчас что-нибудь

Ty by khotel seichas shto-nibud’
you PART:KONJ would.like:PST:SG:HON now anything
выпить?
vypit’?
to drink:INF

which is a word-for-word translation of the English sentence Would you like

something to drink? sounds particular and somewhat funny to a Russian ear.
These examples show that pragmatic mistakes are mostly about form, not content
of communication. Whenever a speaker makes a mistake of this kind, the listener
might ask himself/herself the question Why is he/she talking like this?
There is another kind of communicative mistakes that become clear mostly in
cross-cultural communication. Let us call them ‘cultural mistakes’. They are not
pragmatic in nature and their production involves a different type of knowledge:
propositional (or declarative) knowledge (‘know-what’). When such a mistake
occurs, the listener might ask the question: Why is he\she saying that at all?
Cultural mistakes are not about the form, but rather about the content of
communication. And this is where culture comes into our everyday discourse.
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 231

3.2 Cultural mistakes

Culture influences our communication in a way which is not chaotic but quite
systematic. There are norms and values which are more important and rules that
have smaller impact on our linguistic choice. These cultural values are reflected in
our speech acts (cf. Wierzbicka 2003:47-130). The hypothesis is that communi-
cative norms and values form hierarchies in every culture – with more important
values on top. The hierarchical model of organization explains how people make
their choice of what to say and how to say it. Whenever two norms contradict
each other, a speaker chooses the more important one at first.
Hierarchical models also explain why people from different cultures prefer
different styles or patterns of communication in identical situations and why it is
sometimes difficult to predict somebody’s behaviour. These hierarchies are not
universal, rather, they are culture-specific. The sets of values may be very much
alike in many cultures, but they can form different hierarchies. This is what makes
cultures different. Within the same situation, there are different optimal choices
for speakers from different cultures and different strategies for discourse
interpretation (cf. Wierzbicka 2003:67).
Wierzbicka (2003:69), calling this mode ‘cross-cultural-pragmatics’ resumes
the main ideas as follows:
(1) In different societies, and different communities, people speak differently.
(2) These differences in ways of speaking are profound and systematic.
(3) These differences reflect different cultural values, or at least different hierarchies of
values.
(4) Different ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained and
made sense of, in terms of independently established different cultural values and
cultural priorities.

How can we define these values and norms and construct their hierarchies if they
are not self-evident? We can use the so-called ‘negative data’ – situations where
the norms are violated and people talk about it openly and often emotionally.
Analysis of everyday communication shows that these norms are indeed quite
important to people and the more important a value is in a particular culture, the
more people mention it and the more emotional they get when the norm is
violated.
In my research, I analysed dialogues where Russian speakers expressed
negative emotions caused by addressee’s verbal or nonverbal behaviour. The aim
was to find out which norms and values are important for Russian people, and
what amount of negative emotions Russian culture allows to express openly.
232 Ksenia M. Shilikhina

4. Data analysis

The analysis of everyday interactions shows that Russian culture allows to

express negative emotions openly in various situations. The data, furthermore,
show that most often people get emotional and speak up when the general implicit
behavioural stereotypes and norms are violated or when explicit etiquette norms
are broken. Linguistic strategies for expressing one’s negative emotions vary from
neutral to offensive and very aggressive. In altogether eight situations values or
norms of Russian culture are presented.

Situation 1: Two women are engaged in a conversation. A girl aged 9 wants to say
something. Her mother immediately reacts:

(2) Когда старшие разговаривают, тебе лучше

Kogda starshie razgovarivajut, tebe luchshe
when adults:PL talk:PRS:3PL you:DAT better:COMP
помолчать.
pomolchat’.
be silent:INF
“When adults talk you’d better be silent.”

In Russian culture children are considered as human beings with a lower social
status. Thus, they are expected not to interfere into adults’ conversations, to be
quiet in public places, etc. When a child misbehaves, adults react showing their
negative emotions explicitly, as can be seen in situation 2 as well.

Situation 2: In a public place a little boy starts crying. His mother reacts:

(3) Что ты орешь! Видишь –

Chto ty oresh! Vidish –
why you:NOM scream:PRS:2SG look:IMP:2SG
все сидят тихо!
Vse sidyat tikho!
everyone:NOM sit:PRS:3PL quiet:ADV
“Why are you screaming? Don’t you see – everybody is sitting quietly!”

In both situations, the speakers, as parents, have higher social status than their
children. Yet, expressing negative emotions is possible among strangers as well.
The following conversations were transcribed on overcrowded public buses. All
participants expressed their negative emotions explicitly, believing that the other
party had taken too much personal space.
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 233

Situation 3: In a public bus

(4) A: Че ты меня толкаешь?

Chet ty menya tolkaesh?
what:COLL you:NOM me:ACC push:PRS:2SG
“Why are you pushing me?”
B: Никто тебя не толкает!
Nikto tebya ne tolkaet!
nobody:NEG you:ACC not:NEG push:PRS:3PS
“Nobody is pushing you!”
A: Я тебе сказала, зараза,
Ya tebe skazala, zaraza,
I:NOM you:DAT tell:PRF:SG:FEM some times

перестань толкаться!
perestan’ tolkat’sya!
stop:IMP:SG push:INF:REFL
“Hey you, I’ve told you to stop pushing!”
B: Да кто ж тебя толкает!
Da kto zh tebya tolkaet!
EMPH who:NOM EMPH you:ACC push:PRS:3SG

Такая теснота, что даже толкаться

Takaya tesnota, chto dazhe tolkat’sya
such:DEM tightness:NOM that even push:PRS:REFL

негде здесь!
negde zdes’!
nowhere here
“Who’s pushing you! It’s so crowded here, there’s no space for pushing!”

Situation 4: In a public bus

(5) A: Женщина, что вы толкаетесь все время?

Zhenshchina, chto vy tolkaetes’ vse vremya?
woman:VOC what you:2PL:HON push:PRS:2PL all the time
“Hey, lady, why do you keep pushing me?”
B: Ишь какая! Сидит, раскапустилась
Ish kakaya! Sidit, raskapustilas’
watch that sit:PRS:3SG straitjacketed:PRF:FEM:REFL
на весь троллейбус, и еще не толкайте ее!
na ves’ trolleybus, i eshcho ne tolkaite ee!
in whole trolleybus and further not push:IMP:PL her:ACC
“Look at her! She’s sitting like a cabbage in a trolley bus and don’t you push
her!”
234 Ksenia M. Shilikhina

Both conversations follow the same pattern: the first speaker starts with a question
which is actually an implicit reprimand. Because the speakers possess equal social
statuses, in both situations, the right to criticize is denied by the addressees. The
utterances are aggressive, especially as all speakers use ty (you-singular) forms of
address and in Russian culture it is impolite to use this form of address to an adult
person one doesn’t know. Both addressees show their negative reaction towards
aggression by also choosing aggressive ways of talking.
Another reason for speakers to express negative emotions openly is violation
of the etiquette norms. These norms are explicitly described in etiquette books,
they are learned consciously and generally people are expected to observe the
etiquette rules. When they are broken, people very often choose to speak up, as in
situation 5, where a University professor reproaches a student wearing a hat in the
University hall.

Situation 5: At the University hall

(6) Молодой человек! В помещении головной убор

Molodoi chelovek! V pomeshchenii golovnoj ubor
young man:VOC PREP indoors:LOC headdress:ACC
принято снимать!
prinyato snimat’!
be adequate:PART take-off:INF
“Young man! One should take off his hat indoors!”

For Russians, the speaker does not sound aggressive, though his utterance
threatens the addressee’s negative face. He states the etiquette norm explicitly and
by doing so in a public place he demonstrates his higher social position and
thereby violates the addressee’s privacy.

Situation 6: A 7-year old girl is eating with her hands. The grandmother reproaches
her.

(7) Как ты ешь! Ну никто не

Kak ty esh! Nu nikto ne
how you eat:PRS:SG! EMPH nobody:NEG not:NEG
есть руками!
est rukami!
eat:INF with his hands:INS
“Look how you are eating! No one eats with her hands!”

The intonation and emphatic particles used in the utterances show annoyance of
the speaker. Data shows that Russian elderly people are particularly fond of
criticizing young people. Even in situations where no rules or norms are violated,
elderly people believe it to be administrable to share their life experiences with
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 235

the younger generation. Situation 7 is the example of this type of interaction. In

the street a senior woman reproaches a young lady who is walking with her young
daughter. The senior believes that the child is dressed inappropriately.

Situation 7: In the street

(8) Что ж ты ребенка так легко

Chto zhe ty rebenka tak legko
what EMPH you:NOM child:ACC that light:ADV
одела! Замерзнет она!
odela! Zamerznet ona!
dress:PERF:SG:FEM get a cold:FUT:3SG she:NOM
“Why have you dressed your child so lightly! She’ll get cold!”

Seniors often believe to be the upholders of moral standards. Their age gives them
the authorization to interfere, like in situation 8 as well. On a public bus, a young
man wants to angle for a young girls attention. An elderly lady sitting nearby is
offended by his behaviour and reproaches him:

Situation 8: In a public bus

(9) Lady: Молодой человек, оставьте девушку

Molodoj chelovek, ostav’te devushku
young man leave:IMP:PL:HON girl:ACC
в покое.
v pokoje.
in peace:LOC
“Young man, leave the girl alone!”
Man: А что я сделал?
A chto ja sdelal?
and what I do:PRF:SG:MASC?
“What’s wrong with this?” (=“And what have I done?”)
Lady: Вам сделали замечание.
Vam sdelali zamechanije.
you:DAT:2PL:HON do:PRF:3PL reprimand:ACC
Вы должны были его воспринять
Vy dolzhny byli ego vosprinyat’
you:2PL:HON should – PRF:PL:HON it:ACC take:INF
и замолчать.
i zamolchat’.
and keep silent:INF
“You’ve just got a reproach. You should have listened to it and shut up.”
236 Ksenia M. Shilikhina

Seniority is a very important value in Russian culture. It gives elderly people the
right to reprimand people or give them advice regardless of their social position.
Various cultures with an anglocentric perspective would consider the above
given examples as impolite because of their directness. Yet, if somewhat strange
and offensive-acting behaviour “can be explained, and made sense of, in terms of
independently understandable cultural values” (Wierzbicka 2003:69f.), Russian
can be categorized as direct, which, however, does not automatically imply
impoliteness. Yet, people tend to evaluate other people through their own
‘cultural glasses’ and, thus, foreigners who stay in Russia for some time and are
confronted with this dialogues, account that they feel a lack of personal space and
privacy in communication.
In accordance with Brown and Levinsons (1987) face-concept, this feeling
can be explained by the fact that most Western cultures value ‘negative face
wants’ more than Russians do. Adhering to etiquette norms has higher priority to
Russians than their desire to remain autonomous or to be unimpeded by others.
The desire for autonomy, independence and privacy is leading to a non-intrusive
speech behaviour in many Western cultures, in Russia however, observing the
norms for instance, is more important than the need for privacy. Additionally,
seniority is a crucial value in Russia.

5. Conclusion

Every culture exhibits very specific basic values which serve as guidelines
whenever members of a given culture interact. We apply these norms or concepts
when we have to choose linguistic means. These norms and concepts, thus,
influence our modes of verbal behaviour and interaction. Their impact on the
process of interaction becomes evident when we find ourselves in a situation of
contrast, when different sets of values collide. We have to acknowledge: different
cultures have different modes of interaction. As mentioned above, we are all
wearing our ‘cultural glasses’ and we need it to find our way around in our own
culture. Yet, whenever cultures get into contact, when they interact, the
interlocutors have to learn to use the ‘cultural glasses’ of the ‘foreign’ culture as
well.

References
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1978. Politeness. Some universals in language usage.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1984. “Russian”. Interrogativity: A colloquium on the grammar, typology and
pragmatics in seven diverse languages ed. by William S. Chisholm. 7-46. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Formanovskaya, N.I. 2002. Kultura obshchenija i rechvoj etiket. Moscow: IKAR.
Kasyanova, K. 2003. O russkom nacionalnom kharaktere. Moskow: Akademichesky Proekt.
Kramsch, Claire J. 1998. Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Cultural Values and their Hierarchies in Everyday Discourse 237

Pinker, Stephen (2004) Why nature & nurture won't go away. http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
/articles/ papers /nature_nurture.pdf. Dædalus. (August 10th 2007)
Prokhorov, Ju E. & I. A. Sternin. 2006 Russkije: kommunikativnoe povedenie. Moscow: URSS.
Sadock, Jerrold. 1970. “Whimperatives”. Studies presented to Robert B. Lees by his students ed.
by Jerrold Sadock and Anthony Vanek, 223-238. Edmonton: Linguistic Research.
Sapir Edward. 1993. Izbrannye trudy po yazykoznaniu I kulturologii. Moscow: Progress.
Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1961. Culture and Personality. New York: Random House.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding Cultures through their Key Words. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 20032. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. The semantics of human interaction. Berlin
& New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Worf Benjamin Lee. 1956. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee
Whorf ed. by John B. Carroll. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Glossary
1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
ACC accusative
ADV adverb
COLL colloquial
COMP comparative
CONJ conjunctive
DAT dative
DEM demonstrative pronoun
EMPH emphase
FEM feminine
FUT future tense
HON honorification
IMP imperative
INF infintive
INS instrumental /5th case
LOC locative/6th case
MASC masculine
NEG negation
NOM nominative
PART participle
Part particle
PL plural
PREP preposition
PRF perfect
PRS present tense
PST past tense
REFL reflexive
SG singular
VOC vocative
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication

Michael Walrod
Canada Institute of Linguistics, Trinity Western University

What are the relationships between language and thought, language and the brain,
language and culture? These relationships are included in discussions of Nature versus
Nurture, or Nativism versus Empiricism. Even a good description of any one of these
relationships is still too narrow to deal with the complexity of language in society.
Rather, an interdisciplinary and integrational perspective is required. Language is best
viewed not as a decontextualizable object, but as the ongoing dialogue of society,
integrating language forms with cultural meanings and also with social functions. But
even if we refute the tradition of decontextualization of language from society (i.e.
treating it as autonomous formal code), it is still inadequate to view society as the entire
context. There is a larger context, the world we live in, the total environment. This paper
presents linguistic phenomena which give evidence or support for the integrational
approach to language study. Some of these are verb morphology, the lexicon, discourse,
discourse markers, and metaphor.

1. Introduction

There are ongoing debates about the relationships between language and the brain
(in biology, neuropsychology, neurolinguistics), language and thought (in
psychology and psycholinguistics), language and culture (in anthropology,
ethnography, and ethnolinguistics), language and politics (in sociology and
sociolinguistics). We have become familiar with certain rubrics for these debates
(which typically span more than one of these relationships), rubrics such as
Nature versus Nurture, or Nativism versus Empiricism, or the Language Instinct
Debate.
Even a good description of any one of these relationships is still limited and
narrow for dealing with the enormous complexity of language use in society, the
so-called “dialogic action game” (Weigand 2000). To focus on just one of the
relationships is like adopting the perspective of one of the proverbial blind men
describing the part of the elephant that he is touching. Language is best viewed
from an integrational perspective, not as a decontextualizable object, but as the
ongoing dialogue of society.
Is there much at stake, apart from defining the boundaries of a particular field
of academic inquiry? Sampson (in this volume) believes there is a great deal at
stake. For the reasons he has stated, and some others, I agree. It makes a
240 Michael Walrod

difference regarding what qualifies as data for study, and what impact on society
our study might have.
Sampson cites Pinker and Chomsky as proponents of the notion that genetics
constrains the structure and contents of human thought. Their ideas of the
language instinct, and universal grammar, appear to align with that notion. These
ideas have been adequate to support current research as commonly practiced in
schools of formal linguistics where analyzing sentences is the most common
methodology. Such approaches to linguistic inquiry have left many dissatisfied,
and that dissatisfaction has been growing. Even typological studies have not
always addressed this dissatisfaction, since they accept and try to elaborate on the
nature of universal grammar.

2. Alternative views

Several authors have challenged the accuracy or value of the innate Universal
Grammar conception of language. Croft (to appear) is eloquent in this regard,
articulating some of the best developments in the area of emergent grammar and
cognitive linguistics. Scholz and Pullum (2006) recognize that extreme positions
of nativism (innateness) or empiricism (learning) are both too simplistic, even
when the concept of ‘triggering’ is offered as a possible refinement to the nativist
position. Weigand, in this volume, explores the interaction of biology and culture,
and the role of that interaction in determining human linguistic behavior, defined
as competence-in-performance. (Weigand presents other alternative views as well,
some of which are quasi-integrational, and have merit in that they look at
language in a larger context.)
Recognizing the interrelatedness of culture (nurture) and biology (nature) in
the dialogic action game is a move toward contextualization. But nature involves
more than human biology. That part is innate, i.e. our language capacity (not to be
confused with the so-called innate universal grammar). We need to place that
relationship (of language in biological and cultural context) in a still larger
(maximum) context, that of the environment, physical and metaphysical, in which
we exist. Language use in society involves many aspects of dialogue, such as
speakers and hearers, writers and readers, videographers and viewers. Language
mediates between us as individuals, our society as a whole, and the universe in
which and about which we communicate. Beyond biology (innate language
capacity), both culture and the environment exert influences, even constraints, on
the dialogic action game. They are the constraints of our finite interaction with
society and the world, such as the limits of our sensory apparatus, and our
attention and memory, all of which govern our ability to perceive and
conceptualize our environment.
Levinson (2003:322) discusses these ideas, introducing as an alternative to
the “innate conceptual structure” the idea of “inevitably available concepts” (in
our interaction with our environment):
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 241

This body of constraints and biases grounded in the organism and its relation to the
immediate physical world provides the strong universal base for frames of reference
[…]. But what is against the treatment of frames of reference as ‘innate ideas’ is
precisely that they seem to emerge from a complex interaction between perception,
internal neuroanatomy, ecology and cultural tradition.

Our environment operates on principles to which we have common access, even

though we may interpret differently the data of perception. Our culture teaches us
where to focus our attention, and how to prioritize the data of perception.
These influences and constraints – our minds/consciousness, our
world/environment, and our culture which guides and informs our perception,
cognition, and attention – form the rules of the game. We are conscious
individuals, existing in a cultural and environmental milieu. We experience (at
some level of consciousness) time and the passage of time, space, objects, events,
and attributes of all of these, such as relative size, weight, texture, speed, and
temperature. We recognize animate and inanimate. At times our attention focuses
on our own consciousness, our cognitive processes, intuition, and imagination.
We also perceive other individuals in society as conscious and intentional and
communicative. And as humans we intuitively recognize purpose and value. We
look for design rather than chaotic randomness. We ask “why”. We evaluate. We
make value judgments. Even radical determinists and behaviorists often smuggle
value judgments in through the back door. They may urge us to believe certain
things or behave in certain ways. The concepts of value, of should and ought, are
at least implicit, and tend to surface at regular intervals.
We have a sense of destiny, a sense of connectedness to something larger,
outside of ourselves. Chafe (1994:9) describes the essence of human under-
standing as “the ability to interpret particular experiences as manifestations of
larger encompassing systems”. This inevitable bent of humans to look for design
and purpose in our larger context is a major factor in the way language is used in
society. It affects our emergent grammar and lexicon, our text and metaphor
creation, and our language processing or sense-making, our judgments of
relevance. Our search for relevance is connected to our sense of connectedness to
a larger context. Indeed, it is clearly implicit in Grice’s maxims (cf. O’Grady et al.
2001:276) summarized as follows:
– Relation: Be relevant.
– Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
– Quantity: Do not make your contribution more or less informative than
required.
– Manner: Avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be brief and orderly.
These maxims have been discussed almost exhaustively, but rarely do we see
discussion of what seems most obvious to me, namely that they are thoroughly
normative and value-laden. The concept of should or ought underlies his whole
agenda. Granted, these are principles of communication, and one could say that
there is nothing more at stake than success or failure of some particular attempt at
242 Michael Walrod

communication. That reply would ignore the ponderous weight of the shared
value system that forms the larger context of Grice’s (and many others’) work,
namely the study of language or dialogue within a society.
Sperber and Wilson (1986, 1995) focus on the maxim of relevance, and
rightly so, since the other parameters are quite negotiable in human commu-
nication. Relevance seems to be required for communication to succeed. It is a
feature of dialogue, but it points toward a greater context and connectedness. It is
determined within the ongoing dialogue of a society. It is a function of the social
group, which exists in and interacts with an environmental context.

3. Emergent grammar, cognitive linguistics, integrational approaches

All of these approaches to the study of language are committed to the concept that
language is language only if it is in context (Longacre 1983:xv, 2004:33).

3.1 Emergent grammar and cognitive linguistics

A promising alternative to traditional formal approaches to language (more
accurately, to syntax) is the cognitive linguistics approach, which includes the
work on emergent grammar. Hopper (1987:141f.) suggests:
[grammar] must be viewed as a real-time, social phenomenon, and therefore is temporal;
its structure is always deferred, always in a process but never arriving, and therefore
emergent […]. The notion of Emergent Grammar is meant to suggest that structure, or
regularity, comes out of discourse and is shaped by discourse as much as it shapes
discourse in an on-going process. Grammar is hence not to be understood as a pre-
requisite for discourse, a prior possession attributable in identical form to both speaker
and hearer. Its forms are not fixed templates but are negotiable in face-to-face
interaction in ways that reflect the individual speakers' past experience of these forms,
and their assessment of the present context, including especially their interlocutors,
whose experiences and assessments may be quite different. Moreover, the term
Emergent Grammar points to a grammar which is not abstractly formulated and
abstractly represented, but always anchored in the specific concrete form of an utterance.

3.2 The integrational approach: Maximum context

Malinowski set the agenda for integrational studies of language.
It will be obvious to anyone who has so far followed my argument that isolated words
are in fact only linguistic figments, the products of an advanced linguistic analysis. The
sentence is at times a self-contained linguistic unit, but not even a sentence can be
regarded as a full linguistic datum. To us, the real linguistic fact is the full utterance
within its context of situation (Malinowski 1935, reprinted in Nye 1998:254).

Toolan (1996:13) was one who perpetuated the holistic tradition: “The essential
tenet of an integrational linguistic analysis is that language is always contextually
embedded and that this contextualization is always open to change.”
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 243

Cognitive and integrational approaches to linguistics look for regularities that

emerge in actual, situated discourse. In Lamb’s terms (1999), our linguistic
capacities are functions of our neurocognitive relational networks. The
interconnections are redundant and flexible, and are subject to continuous
creation, modification, and augmentation, as text and meaning are created in the
ongoing dialogue of a society (Walrod 2006a:76). An integrational neurocognitive
perspective includes biological (neurological), psychological, sociocultural, and
environmental factors. Croft refers to one principle of cognitive linguistics which
differentiates cognitive semantics from formal, logic based, truth-conditional
semantics. The principle is that “meaning is encyclopedic […] all that the speaker
knows about the real world experience denoted by the word or construction plays
a role (however small) in its meaning” (Croft forthc.).
My suggestion takes this line of thought a little further. It is not just ‘all we
know’ about the real world that influences or constrains human communication. It
is the existence and immanence of that world, as a part of the total context of
situation in which human communication occurs. This extends the relevant
context. It is not just ‘all we know’ but also all we can potentially perceive and
conceptualize, based on linguistic inputs and interaction in social and
environmental context. New meaning and knowledge can emerge through
communicative interaction. “One thing is clear: every language-act has a temporal
determinant. No semantic form is timeless. When using a word we wake into
resonance, as it were, its entire previous history” (Steiner 1998:24). Meanings are
negotiated and created, and are then added to our cognitive history and
experience, and are available for subsequent communication and meaning
creation. According to Harrison (1997:107), the integrational neurocognitive
model allows that
elements of meaning can be ‘emergent’ in the sense that they need not be directly
specified by any of the lexemes in a string, but arise as a result of the coactivation of two
or more lexemes in a given context. They thus belong to the whole usage event, rather
than any of its parts taken individually.

Some mainstream formal approaches to linguistics examine language in relation

to itself only, as if it were an autonomous decontextualizable object (Toolan
1996:3). More interdisciplinary approaches to language are willing to include
considerations of psychology and biology, but these are still focused inward,
toward the language users. Including sociology is a step in the right direction,
considering the use of language in society, but it is still potentially bounded by the
minds of the individual language users in society, and the influences or
constraints imposed by specific societies.
Consideration of the Total Context looks at something larger, something
outside of ourselves, as also being relevant to the subject of language use in
communication, in the dialogic action game. The structure of the physical
environment bombards our senses, our perceptions. We cannot perceive what is
244 Michael Walrod

not there. Our experience is limited to what is there. Our intuition and imagination
may try to stretch and reach beyond, but at least to the extent that we can
communicate those efforts, the expressions will be bound by environment and
experience.
Thus, it is not necessary for us to posit a universal grammar to explain the
degree of regularity that we can observe in the languages of the world. The
common ground could also be explained by virtue of the ‘common ground’, the
physical and metaphysical universe that we experience, and that we interact in
and communicate about. We all experience the phenomena of physical objects,
space, and the passage of time. We are influenced or constrained by this
environment even during actual communicative events, and even more so in the
recollection and recounting of events which were experienced over a longer
period of time than is needed to retell them.
Our particular worldview stance toward the data of the phenomenal world,
how we perceive these in relation to each other and to us, may determine what we
see primarily as things or events (which we may categorize as nouns or verbs) or
as attributes of things or events (adjectives, adverbs). And it may influence or
constrain our choices about what to attend to, and what narratives to create, and to
add to the ongoing dialogue of our society.

4. Celebrating the differences

4.1 Parts of speech and syntactic categories: Are the categories universal?
The morphosyntactic categories such as noun, verb, adverb, etc., are meta-
linguistic, the products of analysis and theory construction, and therefore, may at
times be an awkward fit for the actual language data. The metalinguistic
categories are not the primary data. Haspelmath (2007) insists that pre-established
categories do not even exist. He is not arguing that languages do not have
regularities that can be categorized by linguists, but rather that the categories are
far more language-specific than has been recognized by language typologists, and
the categories are not universal or a priori.
In the Ga’dang 1 language, which is representative of languages of the
Philippines, nouns and verbs can be hard to distinguish. A verbal prefix, ma
(combined with lengthening of the initial consonant) changes the meaning of the
object to a specific activity associated with the object. A pronominal nominative
suffix can also be added.

(1) taddung mat-taddung mat-taddung-ak

‘hat’ v.p.-hat v.p.-hat-I
“hat” “to wear a hat” “I am wearing a hat”
1
The Ga’dang are a group of about 10,000 in and around Mountain Province in the northern
Philippines. The author lived there with his wife and family for most of two decades (1973-1989,
and 2003).
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 245

(2) tuttud mat-tuttug-ga

‘seat’ (chair, stool, bench) v.p.-seat-you
“seat” “(You) sit”

(3) balibal mab-balibal-ak

‘lunch’ (made to be carried away from home) v.p.-lunch-I
“lunch” “I am ‘brown-bagging’”

The English idiom brown-bagging implies taking or carrying a lunch, no matter

what sort of container is actually used. Note that in English, we abscond with the
noun referring to the container in order to create a verb meaning to bring food
with us away from home. In Ga’dang, the ‘noun’ stem refers to the food (but
specifically, food that has been selected or designated to be carried from home),
and the verb form refers to packing or carrying the food (but not yet eating it).

4.2 Verb morphology, case and voice

Rundell Maree (2007) explains in some detail the difficulty of selecting
metalinguistic terms for the regularities he observes in the Ibatan language. The
difficulty stems from the fact that many linguists disagree on what the categories
are in Philippine languages, and there is not even general agreement on whether
they are nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive languages. Those debates
will not be resolved in any single paper, so here we just present Ga’dang language
data and point out some of the fascinating interaction between form, meaning, and
larger context.

(4) Sanneno balibalanku?

sanna-ino balibal -an -ku,
what-subject-marker lunch-vb.suffix goal focus 1stPers sg., genitive
(non subject)
a) “What will I lunchify?”
b) “What will I use to make my brown-bag lunch?”
c) “What lunch will be made by me?”

The curious English free translation in (4a) What will I lunchify? is offered to
mirror as closely as possible the actual semantics of the Ga’dang expression,
calling attention to the ambivalency of the noun-verb balibal in Ga’dang, and also
to the fact that there is a clause level construction in Ga’dang which can only be
approximated in English. Often it is assumed that a free translation will overcome
the difficulties of unavailable formal and semantic equivalents. But all three of the
proposed free translations skew the meaning in some ways. (4a) apart from being
very unnatural, puts I into a subject position. It has a higher prominence than the
lunch. (4b) creates a kind of embedding or recursion that does not exist in the
Ga’dang example (even implicitly), and we end up with two verbs that are not
even present in the Ga’dang clause. (4c) makes the noun lunch and the verb to
246 Michael Walrod

make. None of these three accomplishes what the goal-focus affix on the verb
accomplishes in Ga’dang. A fourth alternative, even more bizarre in English than
the others, comes closest to addressing all the translation problems: What will be
lunchified by me?
We can make a similar point with the same example at the level of syntax. In
Ga’dang, ino introduces the subject NP (the NP in focus), so we can see that the
verb balibalan (balibal with a verbal suffix) is functioning like a noun in this
syntactic construction.
A response to the question in (4) is:

(5) Balibalannu ino pampang nga manok.

Balibal-an -nu ino pampang na manok
Lunch-GlFoc -gen.2nd sg. SM remainder of chicken
“[You] have the leftover chicken for lunch.” (Lunchify the leftover chicken)

The same ambivalency could possibly be argued for the English brown-bag
versus brown-bagging, but the same options for goal-focus do not exist in
English. The closest would perhaps be the chicken is being brown-bagged by me,
but in contrast to the Ga’dang, this is very unnatural. Furthermore, the English
could then imply that it’s me versus someone else making the lunch, and that is
clearly not what the Ga’dang communicates.

4.3 Negation
Continuing with consideration of lexical differences, the English generic negative
no has no exact equivalent in Ga’dang. If the following three questions are to be
answered in the negative in English, the word no will serve the purpose in every
case.

(6) Is there rice? No (i.e. there is none)

Is that rice? No (i.e. it is not rice; it is something else).
Do you want rice? No (i.e. I don’t want any rice).

In Ga’dang, there is no generic negative available to answer those three questions.

(7) Wara tudda? Awan.

“Is there rice?” “none/there is none”

(8) Tudda yan? Bakkan.

“Is that rice?” “not/it is not”

(9) Anggam mu tudda? Ammek (ammay+-ak, negative+I)

“Do you want rice?” “no/I reject”
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 247

In Cantonese, there is a morpheme that indicates negation, that normally takes the
shape of a syllabic nasal (m-), preceding the word that it negates. (The Mandarin
equivalent is bu-). This is another case where the English generic no does not
have an exact equivalent. The Chinese negated forms are best translated “not X”
in English.

4.4 The lexicon

In the examples above, we did not address the issue of the English generic rice.
There is no generic equivalent in Ga’dang.

(10) Pay is rice that is harvested but not threshed, i.e. still on the stalk.
Irik is rice that is harvested and threshed, but not milled, i.e. still in the hulls.
Baggat is rice that is harvested, threshed, and milled, but not cooked.
Tudda, as in the examples above, refers to cooked rice.

Similarly, there is not a Ga’dang equivalent to the English generic verb rain. In
English, rain may describe precipitation that is very weak or very strong, or of
any duration. Even a light drizzle can be called rain. But in Ga’dang, the verb
form for ‘light drizzle’ is mararet, and for normal rain it is muran. Rain that is
strong and constant is mungung. But that still does not describe all the worldview
differences regarding precipitation. If one asks another whether it is going to rain
today, the reply could be muran nu anggamma, “it will rain if it wants to”. We do
not have a concept of volitional rain in English, to my knowledge.
Malinowski (1935) recognized the inevitable cultural and contextual em-
beddedness of language:
Words from one language are never translatable into another; that is, we cannot equate
one word to another. If by translation we mean the supplying of the full range of
equivalent devices, metaphorical extensions and idiomatic sayings – such a process is of
course possible. But even then it must be remembered that something more than mere
juggling with words and expressions is needed. When we pass even from one European
country to another we find that cultural arrangements, institutions, interests and systems
of values change greatly. Translation in the correct sense must refer therefore not merely
to different linguistic uses but often to the different cultural realities behind the words
(Nye 1998:256).

That different languages have different lexical inventories is self-evident. What is

often overlooked is that words which seem to have counterparts in another
language are rarely, if ever, equivalent. The history of usages or collocations of
the two similar terms will necessarily be different. And the place that the concept
occupies in the respective cultural systems of knowledge and norms will also be
different. These differences account for many cross cultural miscommunications,
when people may believe they have chosen the right term (based on their
knowledge of appropriate uses of the similar term in their own language), but they
are unaware of some of the significant “semantic and cultural periphery” of the
248 Michael Walrod

term in the neurocognitive relational networks (Lamb 1999:381ff.) of the speakers

of the other language.
A case in point could be the Ga’dang word atal, which would normally be
translated “shy” or “ashamed”. But it is much more. It refers to a cultural value of
paramount importance in the Ga’dang community, namely, an appropriate sense
of reserve and respect. If a newcomer to the Ga’dang community were to learn the
phrase awan a atalla “he/she has no atal”, they might think the phrase could be
used of someone who was extroverted, not bashful. But to describe someone in
that way would be very insulting. And to direct at someone awan a atallu “you
have no atal” would likely produce tears or extreme anger. It is like accusing
someone of the ultimate discourtesy or disrespect (like walang hiya in Tagalog).
This paper emphasizes differences between worldviews and languages,
notwithstanding Wierzbicka’s assertions (1996:15) that what underlies her book is
the “strongest universalist hypothesis” concerning semantic and lexical uni-
versals. The contention here is that the apparent semantic universals could also be
explained on the basis of “inevitably available concepts” (cf. chapter 2), and that
the semantic organization of knowledge in society is separated from the universal
reality by at least one level of abstraction. This view welcomes the discovery of
semantic and grammatical nuances that are unique to each language and culture.
This view can accept an approach of ethnosyntax such as Newman’s treatment of
culture and cognition (2002:76) in which he deals with “relatively specific
linguistic structures which seem more likely to be the result of broader non-
linguistic phenomena rather than the other way around”. Chafe’s work on
Northern Iroquoian languages (2002:99ff.) seems also to accentuate differences
rather than common ground or universals. He finds, for example, that Seneca and
English differ significantly, “both in the thoughts they express and in the ways
they express them” (Chafe 2004:37).

4.5 Discourse structure related to timeline or eventline

One of the aspects of the organization of discourse in the ongoing dialogue of a
society is the experience of the passage of time (our experience of and interaction
with our physical environment), and our culturally constrained perception of the
passage of time, with whatever ancillary beliefs that involves. The Aymara people
of Bolivia and Peru are reported to view past time as being in front of them, and
the future as being behind them (Núñez & Sweetser 2006).
Foley (1997:188ff.) describes research done by Hollenbach on Copala Trique
of Mexico. The metaphors referring to the passage of time use body parts, with
“foot” of the year being the beginning of the year, and “head” of the month being
the end of the month. These and other examples seem to imply that the Trique
envision past time as below, and future time as above. A fascinating extension of
this conceptualization is that “feet-of” can refer to something that has a causal
relationship to what follows, i.e. is the cause of or the ‘basis’ of something. The
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 249

vernacular expression which is literally translated “feet of that” conveys the

meaning ‘therefore’.
There is a somewhat similar concept in Ga’dang, although there is no
necessary correlation with physical space or direction. There is, however, a
correlation to temporal space, or passage of time. The word gafu means
‘beginning’ or ‘origin’. There is a Ga’dang folktale entitled “Gafu na uwaw”, “the
origin of the monkey”. The use of the term is extended to that of logical cohesive
device connecting propositions, or larger chunks of discourse. Antu gafu na …
means ‘That is the source/origin of …’ or ‘That is the cause of …‘ (i.e.
‘therefore’). Gafu se … can be translated as “because” or “since!”. Both English
since and Ga’dang gafu se can include both temporal sequence and causality in
their semantics.
All of this helps us interpret Longacre’s proposed parameter of Contingent
Temporal Succession, which he suggests is a feature of narrative and procedural
discourse genre (Longacre 1983:3ff.). At least in our perception of the world we
live in, we recognize not just events happening sequentially in a randomly ordered
universe, but we perceive causality as well. Contingency may be causal as well as
temporal.
Ga’dang narrative discourse (Walrod 1979, 1984) clearly has a backbone or
mainline of development that is made up of events in temporal sequence.
Strategies exist for signaling discontinuities in the time line, such as a flashback,
or a time interval between episodes. Plot is developed and signaled through
various surface structure devices, but one of the most striking is what I called
Maximum Deletion, a device used to mark the peak or climax of the story. In the
peak episode of one typical folktale, the ratio of verbs to non-verbs in the
sentences was 1:3, whereas the ratio was 1:8 in the low tension parts of the story,
and about 1:6 as the average. This device is clearly not universal, however.
Longacre (1983:27) reported that in the Hebrew text of the Flood Narrative, a
great deal of paraphrase is employed, to call attention to the climax of the story by
stretching it out. Similar phenomena (very long sentences) were observed in peak
position in Wojokeso (New Guinea) narratives (Longacre 1976:223).

4.6 Discourse markers or particles

Discourse markers or particles in dialogue are like trump cards. They have a
disproportionate functional load in shaping the emergent text-level meaning of
utterances or texts. They very often serve to add emphasis or intensity (e.g. really,
totally, right on), or they may minimize or refute (e.g. no way, as if). Others can
be used for mitigation, or expressing uncertainty (e.g. possibly, apparently,
maybe).
In Ga’dang, the following particles can virtually govern the emergent text-
level meaning in dialogue, guiding (at times even overriding) the interpretation of
the lexical elements of the text.
250 Michael Walrod

– attuy (“wow”)
– iruy (surprise, mildly scandalized, mild pejorative: “you showoff/flirt”)
– innuy, nnuy (“you can’t be serious!”)
– antom, ntom (“yeah, right!”)
– innay, nnay (“you are pushing the limits”; “that’s borderline/inappropriate”)
– waddade (“I despise/reject what you say, or how you are putting on airs”)
– idde (“back at you”, angry response to waddade)
– idde tufek (idde + “spit” onomatopoeia)
– sah! (“You ain’t all that!” Particle used by women)
– allay, alla’ay, alle’e (“oh man!” Very ubiquitous particle in men’s speech)
– awweh (“now you tell me!” “Now you mention it!” E.g. response to a statement that
comes too late to be useful or pertinent, or an offer to help that comes after the work
is done)
– offoy (incredulity and skepticism combined, mildly offended/incensed)
– ara mantu (“okay then” to agree somewhat reluctantly)

(Some of these, and many examples from Ga’dang and other Philippine lan-
guages, can be found in Walrod 2006b.)

5. Metaphor and text

Metaphor is a universal phenomenon of cognition and communication (meaning

creation), but also a highly culture-specific conceptual map of the culture-world.
Foley (1997:191) states that “The effect of metaphor is pervasive in language,
even the scope of grammatical categories does not escape it.”
Lakoff and Johnson (1980:211) claim, “Metaphor is one of the most basic
mechanisms we have for understanding our experience”. Kövecses (2005:3ff.)
asserts that “bodily experience may be selectively used in the creation of
metaphors [but] bodily experience may be overridden by both culture and
cognitive processes”. This is integrational already, but he goes on to list eleven
“parts, aspects, or components that interact with each other” in the constitution or
creation of metaphor. The parts or aspects could all be subsumed (with some
overlap) into our categories of language, biology, culture, and environment, which
we propose to be the contextual constraints on communication. What is emerging,
therefore, is the suggestion that metaphor, language, and communication, have a
common explanation. This is consistent with Ricoeur’s claim that a single theory
can account for text (production/interpretation) and metaphor (Reagan & Stewart
1978, chap.10).
Kövecses’ (2005:3ff.) eleven components of the cognitive linguistic view of
metaphor are: 1. source domain; 2. target domain; 3. experiential basis; 4. neural
structures corresponding to (1) and (2) in the brain; 5. relationships between the
source and the target; 6. metaphorical linguistic expressions; 7. mappings; 8.
entailments; 9. blends; 10. nonlinguistic realizations; and 11. cultural models.
This sounds suspiciously like the same list of phenomena that are needed to
account for language in general, according to an integrational neurocognitive
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 251

perspective. All of these would come into play in text production and
interpretation, as well as metaphor creation (with the possible exception of 1 and
2, which seem to be carried over from the traditional definitions of metaphor).
Metaphor creation involves new juxtapositions that create new meanings. Text
production involves new juxtapositions that create new linguistic meanings. Both
the creation and the interpretation of metaphor and text are processes of inference
generation, in the interactional negotiation of meaning in dialogue.
The following are examples of metaphorical expressions in Ga’dang.

(11) Nagattat ino anga’na.

“His breath snapped. (i.e. He died.)
(like a string being broken)”

(12) Napatu ada na.

“He has hot blood.” (i.e. He is hot-tempered.)

(13) Nala’bat ada na.

“He has cold blood.” (i.e. He is even-tempered/cool.)

(14) Makatal ada na.

“He has itchy blood.” (i.e. He is covetous.)

(15) Ulaggayu.
“You are snakes.” (i.e. You creep up on people quietly.)

(16) Awan a tulangngeno bifingnga.

“He has no bones in his lips.” (i.e. He does not control his speech.)

(Other Ga’dang idioms or metaphors are presented in Walrod 2004.)

Expanding on the Ga’dang term baggat introduced in (10), “the actual grain
of rice, inside the hulls”, there are metaphorical usages. Nabbaggat, an adjectival
form meaning ‘grain-filled’, refers to rice that is heavy with grain, as opposed to
kupat which means ‘empty’, in reference to rice plants that did not develop grains
of rice inside the hulls, (e.g. due to drought). But it is possible to describe
someone’s utterance as nabbaggat, meaning ‘profound’ (similar to the
metaphorical weighty in English). Still another metaphorical extension of baggat
is the phrase ino baggat neno nakamma “the grain of his mind”, which entails not
just his thoughts, but also his motives or purpose in thinking/saying/doing
something.
At the risk of undermining the value of the examples cited in this section, I
need to ask whether these are metaphors at all? Certainly they qualify, according
to the traditional definitions of metaphor. But at the very least they are dead
metaphors, not living ones. Ricoeur has pointed out that there are no live
metaphors in a dictionary (1976:52). Once a particularly creative expression has
entered the shared lexicon, it has become a standard expression, and that
252 Michael Walrod

metaphorical process or event that occurred upon the creation of the expression
(and the simultaneous creation or emergence of new meaning) has now become a
standard meaning association in the cognitive history or cognitive environment of
the members of the speech community, and may now belong to the category of
idioms.

6. Contextual and cultural constraints versus universal grammar

All of the examples above may not in themselves disprove the Universal
Grammar concept, but they provide evidence that the UG concept could influence
us to analyze or interpret data in order to serve the theory, rather than to focus on
and appreciate the uniqueness of cultures and the complexity of linguistic
communication and its function in the dialogic action game. In a similar vein,
Everett’s (2005) examples and generalizations regarding cultural constraints on
grammar and cognition may be subject to reinterpretation, and may not prove his
contentions as firmly as he suggests. But they do support the position that
languages are culturally and contextually embedded and complex, and must be
understood from a thoroughly integrational perspective. The attempted rebuttal of
Everett’s conclusions, by Nevins et al. (2007), is subject to the same evaluation,
namely that it claims more than it proves. For example, in their response to
Everett’s “Immediacy of Experience Principle” (IEP), they state
To the extent that speakers of these other languages [they cited several] participate in
cultures that do not share the supposedly ‘surprising’ features of Pirahã culture, we are
left with no argument that there are any grammatical peculiarities of Pirahã that require a
cultural explanation.

But that is a stronger conclusion than is warranted from their arguments. It may
be that all of the languages require some explanation of cultural or environmental
constraints that could have led to their respective regularities of syntax or lexicon
(cf. Levinson’s “inevitably available concepts”). Similarly, they express
skepticism of Everett’s assertions concerning Pirahã culture, and the “alleged
inability to learn other languages.” But Everett did not make such an allegation.
Rather, he pointed out that the people “ultimately do not value Portuguese (or
American) knowledge but oppose its coming into their lives” (2005:626). This is
in the context of explaining their resistance to learning mathematics, literacy, or a
second language.
Nevins et al. (2007:4) also challenge the relevance of Everett’s assault on the
concept of UG. They say that Universal Grammar “is nothing more than a name
for the human capacity for language, an aspect of our genetic endowment”. But
the very next sentence talks about how UG can circumscribe an individual’s
linguistic experience, and a following paragraph describes how the Principles-
and-Parameters research tradition “explains this common experience as a
consequence of particular limitations on linguistic variation provided by UG”.
 Cultural and Contextual Constraints in Communication 253

Clearly UG does appear to be more than a name for the human capacity for
language.
Inevitably this argument about the reality of UG seems to hinge on the
assumption that there could be no other explanation for perceived similarities
between languages, for phenomena that at least at first glance appear to be the
same ‘building blocks’. My response is twofold. First, there could well be another
explanation which is external rather than internal, or a combination of external
influences or constraints and internal cognitive capacity. And that explanation is
the perspective of the integration of language, biology, culture, and environment.
Second, there could be more differences than appear on the surface (such as
lexical and syntactic inequality across languages, and the difficulty of translation).
In significant measure, different languages are different, inherently creative
counterproposals to the constraints, to the limiting universals of biological and
ecological conditions. They are the instruments of storage and of transmission of
legacies of experience and imaginative construction particular to a given community.
We do not yet know if the ‘deep structures’ postulated by transformational-generative
grammars are in fact substantive universals. But if they are, the immense diversities of
languages as men have spoken and speak them can be interpreted as a direct rebellion
against the undifferentiated constraints of biological universality. In their formidable
variety ‘surface structures’ would be an escape from rather than a contingent
vocalization of ‘deep structures’ (Steiner 1998:300).

In any case, Haspelmath (2007) argues very well that the pre-established or innate
categories of grammar do not exist, so we can focus more on Steiner’s emphasis
on linguistic diversity, than on his suggestion that humans might have needed to
rebel against biological constraints to achieve the diversity.

7. Conclusion

This paper refers to Malinowski, Longacre, Hopper, Chafe, Lamb, Toolan,

Levinson, Croft and others who reject formalist approaches to language as
decontextualizable code. Language is language only in its cultural and situational
context. (And I did not even invoke the names of Sapir and Whorf, but should
have, in this discussion.)
Rather than taking an extreme empiricist position (even while arguing
strongly against the extreme nativist ‘language instinct’ position), this is an
integrational approach in which genetic design or innate language capacity is
engaged with the cultural and the larger (cosmological) environment. Human
experience in time and space informs memory and imagination, and helps to
account for the degree of regularity we see in human languages. There is no need
to posit an innate universal grammar to explain these regularities. It is in the
context of our culture and our environment, our learned systems of knowledge
and beliefs, as well as all inevitably available concepts, that we can succeed in
communication, negotiating and creating emergent linguistic meanings through
254 Michael Walrod

metaphor and text. Humans have creativity, individually and collectively, and this
accounts for the ability to innovate, and the remarkable dissimilarities between
speech communities (cf. Levinson 2003:317), in the sound systems, syntax,
lexicon, text and metaphor. While linguistic conventions and regularities are
necessary in order to account for our ability to communicate, innovation and
emergence (of syntax, lexicon, and text) are better explanations for our desire to
do so.

References
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conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chafe, Wallace 2002. “Masculine and Feminine in the Northern Iroquoian Languages”.
Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture ed. by Nick J. Enfield, 99-109. Oxford &
New York: Oxford University Press.
Chafe, Wallace. 2004. “Discourse Effects of Polysynthesis”. Discourse across Languages and
Cultures ed. by Carol L. Moder and Aida Martinovic-Zic, 37-52. Amsterdam & Philadelphia:
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 General Index

A communicative means 39ff., 95f., 99, 111,

academic 178f., 182, 185, 197, 200
discourse 73-77, 86, 89 competence-in-performance 27f., 38, 40ff.,
writing 75f., 77, 79, 86 182, 196, 200
action 4, 27f., 32, 37ff., 41f., 46f., 59, 63, complex, the 28, 37f.
67, 70, 95, 143, 155f., 160, 172, 178f., connectionist perspective 36
183, 192-194, 197f., 201 constitutive principles 39f., 45
action principle 39, 42, 178f. constraints 240ff.
affective constructivism 36
expectations 156-159, 163ff., 171f. context 62f., 115, 143f., 185, 198f., 220
interactions 159f., 165, 172 contextual embeddedness 242, 253
affiliation 111, 157, 161, 164f., 168, 171ff. decontextualization 239, 243, 253
American English 115ff., 133-138, 146f., conventions 7, 32, 38f., 41, 43, 45ff., 63, 73,
149 86, 96, 99, 143, 160, 179, 205, 230
appreciation 155, 157, 159f., 187, 196 conveying reservation 141, 143, 147-149
architecture of complexity 37 cooperative principle 141, 150
Australian English 146f. courtesy 213, 216, 222, 224 Æ see also:
authorial self-presentation 77 politeness
cross-cultural
adaptation 158, 173
B communication 97, 111, 226, 229f. Æ
biolinguistics 28, 29ff., 34 see also: intercultural communication
biology 7f., 10, 15, 23, 27, 29, 31f., 36f., comparison 67, 70, 75f., 132, 150
40ff., 47, 177 differences 68, 116, 132, 138, 158
Blank Slate 8, 31 studies 75f., 116, 139, 141, 150
Bulgarian 79f. cultural
difference 3f., 17, 32, 42, 44f., 116,
133, 146, 158, 177ff., 191f., 201,
210
C diversity 5ff., 9, 158f.
Canadian French 146f. evolution 23, 32, 35
Chinese 10, 13f., 33, 146 genes 34, 36, 42, 177, Æ see also:
claim (speech act) 39f., 44, 63, 69f., 90, 98, culturgen
179, 182, 193-206 identity 32, 47, 159, 172
claim (verb) 143, 147-149 imprint 95f., 97, 99, 111
coevolution 29, 34, 36f. mistakes 229-231
coevolutionary approach 29 norms 3, 11, 180
coevolutionary view of genes & culture universals 7ff., 9
36 values 99, 101, 111f., 180, 213, 224,
cognition 3, 7, 9, 17, 22f., 32, 35, 95f., 227, 231, 236
111f., 178, 184f., 228 variation 73, 75, 141f., 146f., 149f.
cognitive 7ff., 11, 14, 17f., 23, 30ff., 34f., culture-specific profile 141, 143, 150
40, 42, 45, 54-60, 69, 95ff., 156, 161, culturgen 32, 45, Æ see also: cultural gene
164f., 179, 200 Czech 78-82, 85f., 88ff.
coherence principle 40f., 45, 179
258 General Index

D genes 3, 23, 29ff., 34, 36f., 42, 47, 177

degree of informativeness 141ff., 145f. Æ see also: cultural genes, culturgen
Descartes’ error 35 German 6, 9, 13f., 18, 44f., 64f., 68f., 75f.,
Dialogic Action Game 37f., 63, 67, 95, 112, 79, 95f., 99, 102-111, 177, 183-188, 191f.,
177ff., 182, 184, 192f., 194, 211, 239f., 202-211
243, 253 Æ see also: Minimal Action gestures 42, 45, 115ff., 120-127, 128f., 137,
Game, Mixed Game 160, 216
Dialogic Principle 39, 43, 95, 179 grammar 6f., 9f., 18f., 30f., 33, 54, 60f.,
diplomacy 213-224 64ff., 68f., 139, 227ff.
directive 63, 67f., 70, 95-98, 105, 108, 111, grammatical categories 33, 54, 64, 66
191-195, 200, 210, 219 grammaticalization 54, 65, 67ff.
directness 99ff., 108, 143f., 150, 236
discourse markers 249
doctor-centred 157f., 172 H
doctor-patient interaction 159ff., 164 habits of life 45
dyadic 160f., 164-167, 172f. Hebrew 141ff., 146-150
holistic model 27, 37
honorifics 33, 46, 66f., 108, 112, 183, 199,
E 203, 205ff., 209f., 216, 219, 222, 224
economy 57-60, 69 human nature 4, 6, 27, 29-33, 45
emergent grammar, emergent meaning
240ff.
emotional expression 156-164, 166, 170f. I
emotions 40f., 46, 99f., 164, 167, 170ff., iconicity 57-60, 69
185, 231f., 233f. ideology 12, 17, 24, 46
empiricist 29, 33, 36, 47, 239f., 253 imperialism 11f., 17, 20
environment 29, 31f., 35f., 38, 41, 47, 99, implicature 61f., 142
180f., 184f., 229, 240-243, 248, 250, 252f. indirectness 96, 99f., 104, 107f., 111, 142f.,
epistemic capacity 60 150, 216, 221, 223
evaluation 32, 37f., 41ff., 45ff., 84, 96, 111 innate 9, 11f., 14f., 17f., 30f., 36, 57, 68f.,
evidence 3, 7, 11, 18-22, 31, 33, 148, 213 240f., 253
empirical evidence 18, 20ff., 33, 184, integrative functionalism 54, 68f.
200 integrational 239f., 242f., 250-253
evolution of culture 35, 48 Æ see also: interaction
cultural evolution of heredity and environment 32, 34
executive principles 40f., 45f. of biology and culture 27, 37, 42
intercultural
communication 90, 155, 158, 177, 182,
F 215, 219 Æ see also: cross-
face (concept) 46, 67, 74, 98ff., 102, 105, cultural communication
110ff., 144, 183, 191f., 196f., 204f., 206, mediation 155, 157f., 165, 170, 172
209, 211, 219, 221, 234, 236 interpreter 155-172
French 9, 45, 73, 79f., 115-126, 131-139, interpreter-mediated interaction 155, 158f.,
146, 148ff. 164
Formal Linguistics 7, 9f., 68f., 227f. involvement 74, 77, 90, 145, 148, 156f.,
Functional Linguistics 53ff., 60f., 68f., 74, 159, 162ff., 167, 171f.
80, 227, 229 Italian 42, 44, 159, 165

G J
Ga’dang 244-251 Japanese 54f., 63f., 66-69, 73, 95-112, 115-
gaze behavior 116ff., 132-138 138, 146f., 216
 General Index 259

K P
Korean 183, 191-211 parsing 57f., 61, 69
patient-centred 157ff., 165, 171f.
perceiving 34, 37, 41
L perceptual
language capacity 53, 60f.
as dialogue 37f., 40 means 35, 40, 42, 45, 200
instinct 4, 7, 13, 31, 239f., 253 Peruvian 183, 185-188, 220
instinct debate 6, 27, 29, 177 physical evolution 42
layers of meaning 61f. Pirahã 23, 33
learning 4, 29, 32, 34, 36, 215 politeness 40f., 45f., 54, 64, 66f., 69, 74, 96,
linguistic turn 74, 91 98-101, 104f., 107, 110ff., 183, 191f.,
logical capacity 60 196-201, 210f., 213-222, 224, 236
power 12, 15f., 20, 22, 41, 46, 74, 158, 172,
179f. 195, 202
M Principle of Emotion 40, 46, 179
Malay (Bahasa Indonesia) 10f. Principle of Probability 27, 38, 41, 46, 96,
maxim of quantity 141f., 150 112
medical
interaction 157f., 172
system 158f. Q
mental evolution 42 quantity scale 141, 143-150
metaphor 241, 248, 250-254
mind 3, 7f., 10, 14, 18, 28, 30, 32, 34-37, 40,
42, 45, 112, 177 R
Minimal Action Game 95-98, 101, 108, 110, rationality 32, 43, 45, 179, 221
112, 194 Æ see also: Dialogic Action recursive rule 30
Game refusal 44, 67f., 95-112, 191-211, 213f.,
mirror neuron 42 216, 219ff., 224
mix, the 29, 31, 36ff. regulative principles 39ff., 45f., 46
Mixed Game Model 27, 37f., 40, 42, 47 rejection Æ see: refusal
Æ see also: Dialogic Action Game, relevance 241f.
Mimimal Action Game request 43, 63, 67, 96, 98, 107ff., 111f., 143-
147, 191-211, 219, 221, 223, 230
Requestive Hints 141, 143-147, 150
N respect 46, 66f., 191f., 196f., 201, 210f.,
Narrative 244, 249 213f., 216, 221f., 224
nativism 27, 34f., 239f. Rhetorical principle 40, 46f.
negotiation 30, 40, 63, 74, 91, 96f., 100, rules 6, 18, 30, 38, 54, 60, 63, 68, 76, 96, 99,
117, 126, 179, 192, 196, 202 111f., 116, 138, 179f., 199f., 213-217,
neurocognitive 243, 248, 250 224, 227ff., 231, 234
neurology 31f., 37, 42 Russian 73, 76, 78-82, 85-88, 142, 230-236
neuroscience 27ff.
nod 45, 115f., 126-130
nonverbal 95f., 100, 111, 115, 133, 138f., S
183, 214f., 216f., 224, 229, 231 self-interest 40f., 43, 45f.
semantic 13, 29, 33ff., 54, 57f., 60f., 64, 81,
86f., 142f., 148, 214f., 224
O social
origin of culture 32, 35, 41 Æ see also: capacity 60
culture concerns 41, 43, 45f.
260 General Index

distance 58, 68, 95f., 99ff., 107-112, Turkish 146f.

183ff., 217, 220 turn-taking 116, 121-124, 126, 130f., 137f.,
sociobiology 27f., 34, 37, 47, 177 156
speaking as a human ability 34, 37, 41 types of reaction 43f.
speech act 39, 42f., 46, 63, 67, 70, 83, 95- typology 54-60, 68ff., 146
98, 101f., 108ff., 177f., 182f., 191f.,
193ff., 198ff., 210, 214, 219ff., 231
conventional direct speech act 42, 143f. U
conventional indirect speech act 143- uncertainty 38, 179, 181
145 universal
Sinhala 213-223 constraints 6
Sri Lankan English 213f., 223f. grammar 7, 9, 11, 30f., 57, 68f.
strategies 40f., 53ff., 74, 96, 98-101, 104ff., needs 38
111f., 143-146, 183, 191f., 200, 215, 218, patterns 53-57, 60, 137, 139
220f., 230ff. principles 15f., 62
universals 6f., 9f., 47, 53ff., 61, 63, 68, 148

T
tertium comparationis 54, 68, 70 V
theorizing 12, 28, 30 verbal means 33, 35, 42, 179, 183ff., 200
thinking 11, 32ff., 37, 41, 213, 215, 224 vocabulary 13f., 33f., 226f., 229
thought 3f., 10-14, 33ff., 40, 45, 80, 229 and culture 12ff.
time 241, 244, 248f., 253
translation 142, 148f., 155f., 165, 167f.,
170ff., 199, 230 Y
theory of 142, 148 Yabêm 59
triadic 164f., 167, 171f. Yoruba 55
 List of Contributors

Prof. Dr. Claudio Baraldi & Prof. Dr. Sebastian Feller M.A.
Laura Gavioli Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio Münster, Fachbereich 9, Arbeitsbereich
e della Cultura, Università di Modena e Sprachwissenschaft, Bispinghof 2B,
Reggio Emilia, Largo Sant’Eufemia 19, 48143 Münster
I-41100 Modena Germany
Italy [email protected]
[email protected]

Prof. Dr. Walter Bisang PD Dr. habil Marion Grein

Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz,
Department of English and Linguistics, German Department – German as a
General Linguistics & Language Foreign Language, 55099 Mainz
Typology, 55099 Mainz Germany
Germany [email protected]
[email protected]

Dr. Neelakshi Chandrasena Assoc. Prof. Dr. Caroline E. Nash

Premawardhena Louisiana State University, Department
Department of Modern Languages, of French Studies, 416 Hodges Hall,
University of Kelaniya, Dalugama, Baton Rouge LA 70808
Kelaniya USA
Sri Lanka [email protected]
[email protected]

Dr. Yongkil Cho Prof. Dr. Geoffrey Sampson

Seongdong-Gu Haengdang-Dong 17, Department of Informatics, University of
Hanyang University Seoul, Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ
Department of German Language and England
Literature, Postcode 133-791, Seoul [email protected]
Korea
[email protected]

Prof. Dr. Svĕtla Čmejrková Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ksenia M. Shilikhina

Czech Language Institute, Letenská 4, Voronezh State University, Department
118 51 Prague 1 of Lingusitics and Stylistics, Universitets-
Czech Republic kaya pl.,1, Voronezh, 394006
[email protected] Russia
[email protected]
262 List of Contributors

Prof. Dr. Michael Walrod Prof. Dr. Elda Weizman

Canada Institute of Linguistics at Trinity Bar-Ilan University, Translation
Western University, CanIL/TWU, 7600 Department, 52900 Ramat-Gan
Glover Rd., Langley, BC, V2Y 1Y1 Israel
Canada [email protected]
[email protected]

Prof. Dr. Edda Weigand

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Münster, Fachbereich 9, Arbeitsbereich
Sprachwissenschaft, Bispinghof 2B,
48143 Münster
Germany
[email protected]