Australians AND Americans Talking
MICHAEL HAUGH
DIVIDED BY A COMMON It is commonly thought that although we LANGUAGE? share a common language with Americans, just like Americans and British, there are The United States has had an enormous significant differences in the way in which influence on Australian society and our we communicate.2 We are, as the infamous relationship with the world. The US has quote goes, ‘divided by a common language’.3 been and continues to be one of Australia’s In some ways that should not be surprising. key trading partners.1 Australia has had an The US and Australia have very different enduring strategic military alliance with histories, and very different mixes of ethnic, the US, and the US is also a key source of linguistic and cultural backgrounds in their cultural influence through film and television, respective populations. However, it is also broadcast and social media, and the import true that at least some of us also share of other technological innovations over many common roots with respect to the use of the decades. Where the US goes, Australia (mostly) English language, even if categories such as follows, it seems. It would be fair to say that in ‘Anglo-Americans’ or ‘Anglo-Australians’ are recent years the influence of the US has been (necessarily) contested. And although we are challenged by the rise of China on the world not solely English-speaking societies—it is stage, and as Australia’s preeminent trading much more diverse than that in the case of partner. However, as I am a linguist, I am not both countries—English is for better or worse here to debate political and cultural influences the primary lingua franca in both societies, or or what might lie ahead. I will leave that to my at least the lingua franca that counts in terms erstwhile colleagues in political science and of social mobility. Given we share a common cultural studies—who, incidentally, seem to language that dominates in both societies, have their work cut out for them in this new then are we really so different? age of (social) media-driven politics. Instead, Popular and academic discourse alike I would like to touch upon a seemingly more would suggest we are. Australians are said intangible, but nevertheless important part to be ‘laid back’ and ‘irreverent’ and fond of of the relationship between Australia and the ‘taking the piss’ of themselves and others, US, namely, how we communicate and get for instance, while Americans are claimed to on with each other at an interpersonal level. be more ‘serious’ and to enjoy ‘talking about After all, economic and political relationships themselves’ in a (mostly) positive light.4 Such are ultimately built on relationships claims seem to resonate with the way in between people. MASTHEAD IMAGE: which we respectively talk about ourselves G. COSGROVE
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 21 that the participants do not know anything about the other person they are talking with means they inevitably rely on what they perceive to be relatively common or shared ways of getting to know someone.6 They are also relatively high stakes interactions because first impressions count for a lot in many cases (although thankfully not always). We thus proceeded to record initial interactions in which Australians and Americans were ▲ American and in discourses on national identity, and we no getting acquainted, as well as ones in which Australian flag doubt can all think of examples from our own Australians were meeting Australians for the handshake interactions in which we have seemingly found first time, along with initial encounters in IMAGE: THORSTEN SCMITT evidence to support them. However, on close which Americans were meeting Americans.7 ID: 1097994956, SHUTTERSTOCK.COM examination, while we do indeed sometimes What then did we find? What do (Anglo-) find such things are true to a point, they are Australians and (Anglo-)Americans do in not always true in the way we think. I thus these sorts of initial encounters? Research on embarked on a collaborative project with initial interactions to date has argued that they Professor Cliff Goddard and Professor Donal mostly involve people asking questions about Carbaugh, funded by the ARC, to investigate the other person and talking about themselves just that: are there really differences in the in order to find common topics.8 Naturally, ways in which Australians and Americans talk we also found these kinds of sequences in our and relate?5 data as well. But we also found participants do much more than just that in initial encounters. AUSTRALIANS AND AMERICANS GETTING ACQUAINTED In the following excerpt from a conversation between Connor, an American electrician in his One of the first questions we faced in our fifties, and Mary, an Australian student in her quest to better understand Australian and mid-twenties, Mary has previously been talking American communication styles was to about how she has worked in her family’s consider what kind of data would ensure we dental clinic over the study breaks. Connor’s were comparing like with like. While talk in question here orients to the possibility that workplaces and other professional settings working in a ‘proper’ job has meant Mary has is clearly an important site for studying how been able to move out of home.9 Australians and Americans talk and interact, a whole range of factors can influence how ( 1 ) we talk in such settings, including the specific Conner: Do you st- do you still live at home or? ‘cultures’ we find developing in different Mary: No I don’t. I’ve been out of home for workplaces, and the histories of interactions about six years now, we have with different people. Our primary Connor: Mhm. aim was to try and compare Australian and Mary: five to six years. American ways of interacting and relating, Connor: You don’t look that old (laughs) not the inevitable influence of a host of other factors. We therefore settled on a particular Mary: (laughs) genre of talk that is arguably both a rich site Mary’s response is taken as an opportunity for cultural comparisons and also rather high for a quip by Connor and shared laughter, stakes, namely initial encounters in which and subsequently further joking and laughter participants who have not previously met are in that interaction. In our data this kind of getting acquainted for the first time (or what conversational humour was not uncommon. linguists like to call initial interactions). Such Both Australians and Americans frequently interactions are culturally rich, because the fact joked, and perhaps surprisingly, also sometimes
22 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 teased each other in these initial encounters.10 about themselves, at least in comparison to the They even (jokingly) flirted with each other in a Australians in our dataset. few cases, although not, I hasten to add, in the Consider the following conversation interaction above.11 between two Americans, John and Elizabeth, Australians and Americans also engaged who are in their early twenties. Just prior to in other forms of talk besides talking about this excerpt, they have been talking about themselves or asking about the other person. riding really large rollercoasters in theme parks They talked about troubles, complained around the US.16 12 and offered advice, made offers and issued (2) invitations,13 criticised and disagreed with 14 John: It sounds so insane. I’m definitely, I’m a the other person, and even sometimes kind of adrenaline junky, so I’d be so stoked 15 took offence, albeit somewhat delicately. to do that, but I dun//no I haven’t. Given both Australians and Americans do all Elizabeth: //But you ski. these things (and probably more) in initial I’ve never skied. encounters, what then, if anything, is different John: Exactly yeah. I //ski that’s like the closest in how they talk in such settings? Elizabeth: //I wanna try that. John: thing I get to my kicks. You know skiing ◄ Is fun, but uh yeah there’s no snow Australian– American in Florida so //(laughs) conversation Elizabeth: //No. IMAGE: I’ve only ever lived in Florida, so G. COSGROVE I’ve never lived where there’s been snow.
In the course of talking about rollercoasters and skiing, and subsequently beaches in the US and Australia, both John and Elizabeth repeatedly respond to prior self-disclosures from the other participant (e.g. ‘I’m an adrenaline junky’) with self-disclosures of their own (e.g. ‘I’ve never skied’). In doing so, IT’S ALL IN HOW YOU RESPOND they ‘personalise’ their contributions with When comparing initial encounters between respect to their own background experiences. Australians and Americans one thing that As argued by Donal Carbaugh, ‘Americans we consistently struck was that it is not so believe that one should express one’s self, much in what participants do, but in how with very few constraints being placed they respond to prior talk, that we see different upon that expressiveness … Such speaking patterns of talk emerge. Here I will outline often elaborates one’s personal experiences, just two of these patterns: responses to ‘self- thoughts, and feelings.’17 disclosures’ (that is, talking about yourself), Australians, on the other hand, were found and responses to ‘self-deprecations’ (that is, to more frequently ask questions that prompt putting yourself down). self-disclosures from the other person or prompt them to expand upon talk about Self-disclosures themselves. Notably, when such questions were While it may come as a surprise (to Australians not forthcoming, the person not asking enough at least), we did not find that Americans talk questions was sometimes implicitly, or even about themselves more than Australians in explicitly, sanctioned. these initial interactions. So why might it feel The following excerpt occurs around eight like that on occasion? We would argue that it minutes into an initial interaction between is because Americans more often respond to two Australians in their mid-thirties, Natalie self-disclosures by self-disclosing something and Gary. Up until this point, Natalie has
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 23 been asking Gary a lot of questions. He has self-deprecations, while self-deprecations by not up until this point, however, reciprocated Australians stand on their own. with questions that allow Natalie to talk Consider the following conversation between about herself.18 two Americans in their early twenties, Ian and
(3) Rebecca, who have been talking about different 20 Natalie: Feel free to ask me some questions now. languages. That’s //the way conversations work (4) Gary: //No you s- you sho- Ian: The thing that that interested me was um you know you should talk to the other interviewers actually. Germans call themselves ah the Germans right, but you know we call the Dutch like the, you know Natalie: I’m not the interviewer. This is supposed to be a what I’m saying? conver//sation. Rebecca: //Yeah. Gary: //Oh right. Ian: //So it’s like why? This is an instance of what ethnomethod ologists call a ‘deviant case’, namely, what Rebecca: Yeah, Dutch people are from Holland. happens when someone does not do what is Ian: Right, right, but, generally expected of them in conversation. Rebecca: Originally I thought it was Hollandish. This can prompt admonishments and Took me about a year to figure that one out. expressions of exasperation, as well as Ian: (laughs) I never heard it referred to as that, but yes, accounts for that behaviour from the person I dunno, just typical American, I’m poor with geography and, being admonished.19 In this case, Gary claims like, don’t know a whole bunch. he thought it was an interview, although he subsequently goes on to say that he does In this excerpt, Rebecca’s self-deprecatory not have any questions to ask her, which admission that she used to think that the draws further sanctions from Natalie. What language spoken in Holland is Hollandish, is this illustrates is the expectation (amongst initially greeted with laughter by Ian, but he Australians) that one should ask questions subsequently self-deprecates, claiming he’s and not let talk about oneself dominate an ‘poor with geography’ himself. It appears, then, initial encounter. that cultural discourses amongst Americans which favour positive self-presentation, that is, Self-deprecations ‘putting one’s best foot forward,’21 mean that self- It may also come as somewhat of a surprise deprecations are treated as something requiring that Australians do not self-deprecate any ‘balancing out’ through reciprocation. Amongst more frequently than Americans in initial Australians, however, the same stricture does interactions. Indeed, we found that Americans not seem to apply, as there are alternative self-deprecated just as frequently. This does cultural discourses that favour not taking oneself not, on the surface at least, seem to accord too seriously.22 Self-deprecations can, therefore, with the general view that Australians are stand on their own. exhorted to not take themselves too seriously. What then can account for this finding? We A CAUTIONARY TALE would argue that it is because Americans We have already noted that despite their more often respond to self-deprecations not reputation, Australians do not joke or tease only by laughing, but also by self-deprecating more often than Americans, at least not in the about themselves. Australians, on the other case of initial interactions. So why might it feel hand, tend to just laugh in response to like they do? We would argue that it is because self-deprecations. What this means is that both Australians and Americans experience self-deprecations by Americans occur in more trouble going along with jocular quips— a different type ofsequential environment that is, playful comments on or responses to compared to those amongst the Australians. just prior talk—produced by non-Australians In short, self-deprecations by Americans beget and non-Americans, respectively. In other words,
24 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 jocular quips are more ‘successful’ when they (6) are made with speakers from the same cultural Sophia: So you’re studying Italian? background. From an Australian perspective, Gina: Yep, it’s a double major so it’s then, it may seem like Americans are not Italian and linguistics. making as many jokes in initial interactions, Sophia: Oh cool. in part because we may not recognise them as Gina: So I just //s- jokes, or at least do not treat them as ‘funny’ Sophia: //What do you wanna do with that? through laughter and the like. Gina: Um, I didn’t really think very far ahead when I picked the course. (laughs) ◄ Young man and Sophia: Yeah. woman in discussion. Gina: It was more just what do I enjoy IMAGE: ARTFAMILY ID: 439748779, what am I good at? SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Sophia: Yeah.
Gina quips that she did not think about what she would do with a degree in Italian and linguistics. However, Sophia does not respond with laughter or even by smiling, but simply prompts Gina to keep talking. In both cases, asking what someone is going to do after their studies prompts a quip. However, it is only in the case of the interaction between participants from the same culture that the Consider the following two excerpts.23 In other party responds with laughter. excerpt (5), Cole, an American in his early One might, of course, protest that this forties is responding to an earlier question is just one case. However, we found that from Sarah, another American, who is in her this pattern was repeated across our larger early sixties, about what he intends to do after dataset. Both Australians and Americans finishing his MBA studies. were less likely to go along with jocular quips (5) through laughter and banter when they were Cole: I’m thinking uh, maybe if the MBA works out, talking with someone from the other culture. and I feel good about it, maybe working on a Conversely, both were more likely to go along PhD in economics. with the quip when it was made by someone Sarah: And then what you wanna do with that? from the same cultural background. In short, Cole: Oh retire, you know, like, people from the same cultural background Sarah: (laughs) are more likely to respond positively to jokes Cole: I don’t know, write, teach. I don’t know, whatever like, in initial interactions. We would suggest that this is because such quips generally rely on Sarah: Mhm. sharing in particular mocking, critical attitudes, Sarah’s question about what he wants to do and in intercultural settings, participants may with his MBA initially prompts a non-serious feel more uncertain about this. The point in quip (‘Oh retire, you know’), which elicits the case of initial interactions, however, is laughter from Sarah, followed by a serious that this applies equally to both Australians response from Cole. and Americans. However, in excerpt (6), a jocular quip in response to the same question in an THE UPSHOT interaction between an Australian (Gina) and There are some potential lessons here for an American (Sophia), both of whom are in Australians when getting to know Americans their early twenties, does not elicit laughter, as in interpersonal settings. When an American we can see below.
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 25 self-discloses, think about self-disclosing in the extent to which these findings can be response rather than always asking follow-up generalised further to initial interactions questions. When an American self-deprecates, amongst Australians and Americans from think about self-deprecating in response rather a broader, much more representative set of than simply laughing. In the case of jokes, backgrounds. Any claims that purport to be just because they do not always go smoothly about all Australians and Americans should be it does not mean that Americans are overly treated with due scepticism without grounding serious or do not ‘get’ humour. In fact it goes in larger datasets. Making such broad claims both ways. Australians do not always get has certainly not been the aim here. Instead, quips by Americans in initial interactions. the aim has been to illustrate how we can use Going along with jokes often requires not only a different lens to examine potential cultural shared background knowledge, but very often differences in the way in which we talk and shared membership in a particular group. relate to others. That is inevitably harder when you come from While uncovering cultural differences in different societies and you are meeting for the communication styles is indeed challenging first time. work, especially when one is aiming to understand what people actually do, not simply what they say they do, it is also … while we frequently focus on what rewarding work. Understanding how we people do when they are talking, in talk and relate to others, and how it may be similar and different to others in the world some cases examining how people is important. Without an appropriate level of respond to talk can be more instructive. self-awareness about our own ways of talking and relating and understanding that of other There are also some broader lessons with cultures, things can sometimes go drastically respect to how we think about cultural ‘others’ wrong.24 However, it is not just about avoiding and the ways in which they communicate. The misunderstandings. It is also about continuing aim of studies like these is to help us bridge the to improve our relationships and standing gap between our intuitions about how language in the world today. In searching for a deeper is used based on our own personal experiences, understanding, then, what better place to and the ‘seen but unnoticed’ sets of practices start than at the beginning, namely, our initial that underpin patterns of language use that are encounters with cultural others? ¶ recognisably Australian and American. In this case, it also shows that while we frequently Acknowledgments focus on what people do when they are talking, I would like to thank my two highly esteemed collaborators, in some cases examining how people respond Professor Cliff Goddard (Griffith University) and Professor Donal Carbaugh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), to talk can be more instructive. for their insights and ongoing support for the sub-project What happens in workplaces and other on initial interactions that informs this paper. I would institutional settings is, of course, a whole also like to thank my research assistant at the time, Lara different ballgame, one about which we still do Weinglass, who has since gone on to doctoral studies about humour in Australian workplaces, and Dr Nathaniel Mitchell, not yet know enough. It is also important to who was my PhD student at that time and is currently a bear in mind that this study focused only on a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland, for their particular subset of Australians and Americans contributions to analyses I undertook along the way. Any respectively. It thus remains an open question errors or infelicities in this article, are, of course, my own.
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5. ARC DP120100516, ‘Australians and Americans MICHAEL HAUGH is Talking: Culture, Interaction and Communication Professor of Linguistics Style’, with Cliff Goddard (Griffith University) and and Head of the School of Donal Carbaugh (University of Massachusetts Languages and Cultures at Amherst). the University of Queensland. 6. Such data also, incidentally, had an added advantage Spanning pragmatics, for us in understanding what was going on in these interactions, as the whole history of their conversation analysis, relationship up until that point was recorded and intercultural communication available for inspection. The participants, therefore, and humour studies, his major did not know anything more than we (as analysts) publications include Understanding Politeness (CUP, could observe—a distinct advantage as anyone who 2013, with Dániel Kádár), Pragmatics and the English has analysed talk will know. Language (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, with Jonathan 7. Our total corpus consists of more than eighty initial Culpeper), and Im/politeness Implicatures (Mouton interactions: thirty-one Australian–American, de Gruyter, 2015), and he has authored numerous twenty-seven Australian–Australian and twenty-four articles and book chapters. He led the establishment American–American pairings. Same and mixed- gender recordings were made. The participants of the Australian National Corpus
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 10 · 2019 27 of assistance in interaction’, Pragmatics and Society, 20. Michael Haugh and Donal Carbaugh, ‘Self- 8 (2017), 183–207 (pp. 191–92). deprecation and reciprocity in initial interactions’, 14. Nathaniel Mitchell and Michael Haugh, ‘Agency, Paper presented at the 21st Sociolinguistics accountability and evaluations of impoliteness’, Symposium (2016), University of Murcia, Spain, Journal of Politeness Research, 11 (2015), 207–38; 15–18 June. and Natalie Flint, Michael Haugh and Andrew 21. See Donal Carbaugh, Talking American: Cultural John Merrison, ‘Modulating troubles affiliating in Discourses on Donahue (Westport, CT: Ablex, 1988); initial interactions: the role of remedial accounts’, and Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong-Scollon, Pragmatics, 29 (2019), 384–409. ‘Athabaskan-English interethnic communication’, 15. Michael Haugh, ‘Impoliteness and taking offence in in Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact, initial interactions’, Journal of Pragmatics, 86 (2015), ed. by Donal Carbaugh (New York: Psychology Press, 36–42. 1990), pp. 259–86. 16. For a more detailed analysis of this excerpt, 22. Cliff Goddard, ‘‘Early interactions’ in Australian see Michael Haugh and Donal Carbaugh, ‘Self- English, American English, and English English: disclosure in initial interactions amongst speakers Cultural differences and cultural scripts’,Journal of of American and Australian English’, Multilingua 34 Pragmatics, 44 (2012), 1038–50. (2015), 461–93 (pp. 477–80). 23. For a more detailed analysis of these two excerpts, 17. Donal Carbaugh, Cultures in Conversation (London: see Haugh and Weinglass, pp. 546–49. Routledge, 2005), p. 45. 24. Consider, for instance, how the infamous, ‘Where 18. For a more detailed analysis of this excerpt and the bloody hell are you?’ campaign was (negatively) the broader context in which it arose, see Michael received around the world: Angela Ardington, Haugh, Im/politeness Implicatures (Berlin: Mouton de ‘Tourist advertising of Australia: Impolite or Gruyter, 2015), pp. 160–66. situation appropriate? Or a uniquely Aussie invite lost in translation’, in Situated Politeness, ed. by 19. Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology Bethan Davies, Michael Haugh and Andrew John (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967). Merrison (London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 253–69.
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