Verbal Communication (2)

1. Verbal Communication (2) English and Chinese Languages

2. Cultural Differences in Verbal Communication In this part you are expected to understand some commonly observed differences between English and Chinese verbal communication and learn to make cross-cultural comparisons and analysis in the following aspects: • Cultural differences on lexical level • Cultural differences on syntactic level • Cultural differences on discourse level • EFL and language transfer • Cultural differences on pragmatic level

3. Cultural Differences on Lexical Level

4. 1. Types of Lexical Meaning • 2 types: denotation and connotation. • Denotation: the conceptual meaning of the word that designates or describes things, events or processes, etc. It is the primary, explicit meaning given in the definition of a word in a dictionary. • Connotation: the emotional or stylistic associations that a word or phrase suggests in one’s mind. It is the implicit, supplementary value which is added to the purely denotative meaning of a word or phrase.

5. Denotation and Connotation • Denotative meaning of the word “mother” is “the female parent”. • Connotative meaning of the word “mother” is the associations we usually have with the word — “maternal love”, “care”, “tenderness”, etc. • So we can have the sentence “the young teacher is like mother to the kids”.

6. Meaning of Words • Personal. E.g. “ESL”, “EFL” • Cultural. E.g. “snow”, “moon cakes” • Cultural differences in lexical meaning occur on both levels of denotative meaning and connotative meaning.

7. 2. Cultural Differences in Denotative Meaning • Absence of referent in the speaker or listener’s language • “炕”，“节气”，“经络”，“大字报”，“三讲”，“关系”，“太极拳”，“黄梅戏”，“三纲五常”，“玉皇大帝”，“嫦娥奔月” • “privacy”, “Thanksgiving Day”, “parliament” • For the sake of clarity and accuracy, adequate explanation can be added in translating such words.

8. Overlapping of denotative meaning

9. 3. Cultural Differences in Connotative Meanings • Words with same denotation but different connotations e.g. color words, animal words • Words with connotations in one language but none in the other e.g. plants like pine tree, bamboo, plum blossom e.g. numbers

10. Cultural Differences on Syntactic Level

11. 1. Paratactic Structure vs. Hypotactic Structure • Parataxis (意合) and hypotaxis (形合) are two grammatical terms describing the ways sentences are built up. • Parataxis: the arranging of clauses one after another without connectives showing the relation between them. • Hypotaxis: dependent relation or construction.

12. Chinese—paratacticEnglish—hypotactic • 明早还赶路呢，睡去吧。 • Go to bed now as you’ll set out early tomorrow. • 快点儿，迟到了会挨说的。 • Hurry up! You’ll be criticized if you are late. • 生活费用不断上涨，许多人拿不出这笔开支。 • The cost of living is rising and therefore many people are having a hard time in paying their bills.

13. Chinese—paratacticEnglish—hypotactic • 听到有人说话，他赶紧将文件放回抽屉，拿起桌上的报纸，疾步回到沙发上，假装读起来。 • Hearing someone talking outside, he hurriedly put the file back into the drawer, picked up a newspaper from the table, and hastened back to the sofa pretending to read it.

14. A Chinese Poem 枯藤，老树，昏鸦， Crows hovering over rugged old trees wreathed with, rotten vine—the day is about done. 小桥，流水，人家， Yonder is a tiny bridge over a sparkling stream, and on the far bank, a pretty little village. 古道，西风，瘦马， But the travelers has to go on down this ancient road, the West wind moaning, his bony horse groaning, 夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯。 trudging towards the sinking sun, farther and farther away from home.

15. 2. Bamboo Structure vs. Tree Structure • English—tree structure • The notion of the tree structure suggest that: • There is a basic structure • All other constructs sprout out from this basic structure • The expansion of the branching constructs does not affect the basic structure

16. SV SVO SVC SVA SVOO SVOC SVOA They are running. Our parents love us. They worked very hard. She was watching TV in the living room. My friend sent me a New Year’s card. I found the book very interesting. We shall finish the work as quickly as we can. English—tree structure7 types of sentence patterns

17. Chinese—bamboo structure • Chinese sentences are constructed like an up-going bamboo, which means that: • There is not a basic structure or framework • The Chinese sentences are built up by placing one word upon the other, one phrase upon another or one clause upon another • Without the rigid control of a basic framework, the structure may change as the sentence extends.

18. Chinese—bamboo structure • 下雨了，快走吧，又该迟到了。 • It’s raining already. Let’s go right away; or we’ll be late again. • 处处都有热心人。 • You can meet kind-hearted people everywhere./There are kind-hearted people everywhere. • 这件事我现在脑子里一点印象都没有。 • I do not remember anything about it.

19. 3. Left Expansion vs. Right Expansion • As a result of the parataxis structure and hypotaxis structure, the Chinese and English sentences take different patterns in their expansion: • The Chinese sentences tend to expand from the right to the left with an open beginning and a closed ending. • The English sentences tend to expand from left to the right with a closed beginning and an open ending.

20. 书 • 给我买的书 • 我姐姐给我买的书 • 我过生日时我姐姐给我买的书 • 那是我过生日时我姐姐给我买的书 • This is • This is the book • This is the book that my sister gave me • This is the book that my sister gave me on my birthday.

21. CTP difference • The basic or remote reason for this difference of left expansion and right expansion is the CTP difference (Cultural Thought Pattern). • E.g. 第二次世界大战后，由于科学和技术发展进入新时期，我们的生活发生了很大的变化。E.g. Our life has been greatly changed thanks to the new age of science and technology since the Second World War. • Chinese—Background information + major information • English—major information + background information

22. Cultural Differences on Discourse Level

23. 1. Different Emphasis on Form • English writing put emphasis on coherence and cohesion. (overt coherence) • Chinese writing put more emphasis on the connection of meaning between sentences and paragraphs; the formal connection could be overlooked if the meaning is well expressed. (covert coherence)

24. 2. Different Style Preferences • Chinese students have been taught to use many descriptive words and phrases, especially four-character idioms, quotations from well-known people, various kinds of figures of speech, etc. to add strength and beauty to their writing. • But simple language and plain style is what English readers and writers take for good writing in English except for literature creations.

25. 3. Different Ways of Organization • Chinese. Influenced by the Chinese holistic and cyclical pattern of thinking, the Chinese people usually approach their themes from general coverage to specific discussions. • English. Characterized by the linear and rational way of thinking, the native English users do not develop their writing in a round-about way, instead they get to the point at the beginning, starting with the introduction of a topic or thesis, which is developed by closely related supporting details.

26. Different Ways of Development • English essays follow a linear development which is a forward movement of ideas from the general to the more detailed. • Chinese essays develop cyclically, moving in a circle, tending to come back or moving around the first level instead of moving forward to more specific details. Normally we resort to the historical review, supposition, philosophical aphorism, personal experiences, instead of on truth, facts, evidence and statistics. This way of development is usually regarded by native speakers as underdeveloped or illogical and confusing.

27. Men used to think that earth was flat, but it is a great ball. ①It is not like a great tray but a huge sphere sailing through the wide spaces of the starry heavens. ①If you walk on its surface, it looks flat, but this is only on its surface, it looks flat, but this is only an illusion because you can not see enough of the surface to see that it is really curved. ①If we could see the earth all at once, we would see that it is really spherical, or rather more like an orange flattened at the two ends that are the poles,

28. Although the writer of the above paragraph is good at wording, he cannot make the paragraph move forward to specific details. His topic sentence does not rest on the solid factual base, but on supposition. The problem of inadequate development is repetition and supposition, with most sentences circling around the first level. The diagram of the paragraph is like this: ①→① →①→①. By contrast, the same paragraph should be well-developed by facts and evidence, as in the revised version below:

29. Formerly, the earth seemed to men to be flat, it seemed to stretch to the horizon and then stop suddenly. ① Hence they thought of the earth as a huge table on which hung the sky like an inverted bowl. ② Scientist, however, noticed that when a ship disappeared from the horizon, first its hull, then its decks, and finally its masts were lost to view. This seems to show the earth was at any rate curved. ③ Then it was seen that it eclipses of the moon, the earth’s shadow which passed across the moon was always circular in shape. ④ Finally, in the sixteenth century navigation sailed round the world and did not fall off the edge hence men came to the conclusion that earth was really a great sphere.

30. The development of the revised paragraph is indicated in the following diagram: • ①General • ②Less general • ③Facts (analysis) • ④Evidence (specific example)

31. Different development in terms of reasoning • Chinese—subjective • English—objective • The public opinion pendulum appears to be swing in a direction beneficial to the field. In a 1988-1989 survey of 430 U.S. students, almost one-quarter saw many perceived public attention as more beneficial than harmful in it’s effects. In survey of 1257 scientists, in 1995, most of them are found more optimistic, with more than half viewing public attention as beneficial to the field overall, fewer than one-fifth seeing more harmful than beneficial effects.

32. Indirectness vs. Directness • Chinese like to resort to the review by history instead of directly developing the topic. • English speakers do not talk about history and give comparison of the past and the present.

33. Different development in the structure used • Parallel structure • Taking part in sports can also help improve study efficiency. It can give a rest after a day’s hard work. It can make you relax when you feel tired and broken-down. It can relieve the pressure you have in studies. If you take part in sports regularly, your study efficiency will surely be improved.

34. Revised version: • Taking part in sports can also help improve study efficiency. One study shows that people who take regular exercise suffer less from anxiety and are able to work harder. According to a medical report, 83 percent of the freshmen who had trouble with studies were in bad physical shape. And when they put into a physical fitness program, their grades picked up more or less.

35. Different Ways of Development— A brief summary • Paragraph development is a difficult and often neglected part of both Chinese EFL teachers and students. They pay special attention to how a paragraph is organized instead of how a paragraph is developed. • In fact, paragraph development is very important as it is closely related to clarity, unity, coherence of the writing as a whole. • To achieve clarity, unity and coherence, one needs to stay away from the influence of first language discourse patterns on writing in a foreign language

36. EFL and Language Transfer

37. Language Transfer • Language transfer: the use of rules of speaking of one’s own native speech community when speaking or writing in a second language. • Transfer can be further divided into two kinds: positive transfer and negative transfer. • The former helps one understand the target language and culture, working as a facilitator; the latter working as a barrier interfering the writer with the using of the target language and understanding the target culture as well.

38. 1. Semantic transfer • Transfer the rules of word-formation of Chinese into that of English • 雪花—snow flower • 学习知识—study knowledge • 谈恋爱—talking love • 马马虎虎—horse horse tiger tiger

39. 2. Syntactic transfer • Four-character phrase structure • Chinese use parallel or repetitive structures that are characterized by the second part repeating the first part both linguistically and semantically. • E.g. 清白无辜，家喻户晓，勾心斗角，改头换面，趾高气昂，四面八方，功成名就 • While English speakers prefer phrases of none repetitive structure.

40. 2. Syntactic transfer • Verb phrases • E.g. 增加活力—strengthening the vitality • vitalize • Double-verb phrase • E.g. 发展壮大—grow and develop • grow

41. 3. Discourse transfer • The first difference • English—direct, deductive or linear • Chinese—indirect, inductive or circular • The second difference • English—simple style • Chinese—flowery phrases or artistic style in the form of metaphorical or proverbial figures

42. Definitions • Language transfer: Referring to the use of rules of speaking from one’s own native speech community when speaking or writing in a second language. • Semantic transfer: Transform both the form and the meaning of the native vocabulary into the lexical use of the target language. • Syntactic transfer: Referring to the transfer that goes beyond the lexical level. It takes place at the sentence level. • Discourse transfer: Referring to the transform of discourse patterns of native language into the target language.

43. Cultural Differences on Pragmatic Level

44. Cultural Differences on Pragmatic Level • Addressing people • Invitation • Apology • Compliments

45. 1. Addressing people • The first difference: names

46. 1. Addressing people • The usage of the surname and given name in English and Chinese can be summarized as follows:

47. 1. Addressing people • The second difference: addressing family members

48. 1. Addressing people • The third difference: • Chinese prefer to address others by using their titles, or occupation, such as 宋局长(Director Song), 高经理(Manager Gao), 刘老师(Teacher Liu) in which the surname comes last in order to show respect for the person concerned. • However, this custom is not totally applicable in English in that only a few occupations or titles are used before a person’s last name: Dr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., Mr., Judge, Governor, Mayor, etc.

49. 1. Addressing people • The final difference in addressing people lies in the ways of getting the attention of a stranger, or a person whose name we may not know. • Chinese:同志，师傅，大哥，叔叔 • English: Excuse me, Pardon me, etc.

50. 2. Invitation • 3 features of “false” invitations in American English: • Indefinite reference of time • No inquiry or immediate reply or decision • Usually marked with model verbs like “must”, “should”, and adverbs indicating emphasis of uncertainty of time like “really”, “definitely”, “soon”, “one day”, “some time”, etc.