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New Directions in Language Acquisition: Miscommunication

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New Directions in Language Acquisition: Miscommunication Review of the Air Force Academy No 3 (27) 2014 NEW DIRECTIONS IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: MISCOMMUNICATION Daniela NAGY “Henri Coanda” Air Force Academy, Brasov Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a contrastive analysis of two articles relative to the matter of “miscommunication”. In this respect, Jenny Thomas’s “Cross-Cultural Discourses as ‘Unequal Encounter’: Towards a Pragmatic Analysis”, from a revised paper presented at First Annual Workshop on Pragmatics and Second Language Acquisition, Toronto , Canada, March 1983 and Srikant Sarangi’s “Accounting for Mismatches in Intercultural Selection Interviews”, from Multilingua 13, 1-2, 163-194, 1994 will be focused on. Mention should be made at this point that manifestations and evidence of ‘miscommunication’ in both articles involve only non-native speakers, in their social encounters with native users of English. The chronological distance between the years of publication of these two articles may, again, be of relevance when judging the authors’ standpoint towards the topic of “miscommunication”. Key words: miscommunication, metapragmatics, intercultural communication, discourse analysis 1. INTRODUCTION. SUMMARIES OF These are the Illocutionary force Indicating ARTICLES Devices, the Metapragmatic comments and the ‘Upshots’ and ‘Reformulations’. 1.1. Jenny Thomas: Cross-Cultural The common point of these features is Discourses as ‘Unequal Encounter’: Towards that, by using them, the dominant participant a Pragmatic Analysis. Jenny Thomas, in the impedes interlocutors from having any beginning of her article, makes reference to two possibility of taking refuge into the “pragmatic of her previous strands of research, respectively, ambivalence”, that is, leaving the illocutionary the first dealing with the pragmatic aspects intent of the utterance ‘diplomatically’ unclear of cross-cultural miscommunication, and the (Thomas: 227). second with the language of asymmetrical The coined phrase of ‘unequal encounters’ discourse (‘unequal encounters’). includes, in Thomas’s perspective, discursive The author argues that the pragmatic force relationships between a dominant participant of a non-native speaker’s utterance may not be and a dominated one: for example, between what the speaker intended if he or she adopted a teacher and a pupil, a police officer and a forms which, in English, are used by dominant suspect, a judge and a trialed person etc. speakers only. Furthermore, Thomas focuses The inappropriate use of illocutionary force particularly on the way English is used by indicating devices and metapragmatic acts may Soviet citizens who have little contact with be an indicator of pragmatic failure when a non- native speakers of English and who, despite native speaker uses in L2 a structure which is their good command of the language, appear semantically or syntactically equivalent to the domineering due to some discursive features L1 structure but has different pragmatic force existent in the Russian language. in L2 (Thomas: 231). Three metapragmatic acts are then This would explain why utterances intended identified by the linguist in the speech of Soviet to be requests for information about the linguistic speakers of English, which may explain their meaning of a native speaker’s utterance might ‘dominance’ in speech acts. be taken as challenges by the latter. 129 New Directions in Language Acquisition: Miscommunication In conclusion, the existence of unmarked He mentions on the other hand that forms in L1 risk to appear as marked for ‘+ ‘intercultural communication is as much about power’ forms in English due to misinterpretation miscommunication as it is about communication of L1 illocutionary force indicating devices and that researchers should continue to account and/or metapragmatic acts. for mismatches and breakdowns since they 1.2. Sarangi, Srikant: Accounting for offer insight in the process of intercultural mismatches in intercultural selection interviews. communication. In this article the author examines the strengths and weaknesses of two explanatory frameworks: 2. CLAIMS Levinson’s (1979) ‘activity type’ and Gumperz’s (1978, 1982) ‘discourse strategy’. The author The claims of these two articles appear to compares these two analytical frameworks to be both theoretical and empirical, given the show the differential treatment of evidence fact that the articles are dual in their nature. of miscommunication. His standpoint differs The theoretical feature owes to theoretical slightly from the cited linguists in that he references employed by both authors in their considers that while one framework (activity attempt to justify a new or different position type) does not take into account the cultural relative to the topic in discussion whereas component and the individual choices, the the empirical characteristic is awarded due to other framework (discourse strategy ) pays research made by authors and their findings as little attention to the rule-governed nature of a result of this research. the immediate communicative situation. In his Consequently, Thomas claims that ‘unequal attempt to demonstrate the role which cultural encounters’, in terms of dominant and dominated background plays in mismatches occurrences, participants, exist due to a misinterpretation or Sarangi focuses his attention on the selection ignorance of cultural manifestations in L1, while interviews in the intercultural settings. Sarangi claims that mismatches in intercultural selection interviews occur due to superficial Examples are provided to illustrate his engagement in understanding L1 users, on the viewpoint. part of the interviewers, on the one side, and an In the next part of the article, the author unawareness of the interviewees with regard to examines linguistic breakdowns caused by both their ‘rights’ and their commitments. The different cultural assumptions (for example, common point of these claims would be the role the Asians’ way of answering questions in an of the cultural features in the native – non-native indirect manner, starting from the general and encounters and the existence of the dominant going to specific information, since a very direct position assumed by the native speakers in their answer is considered inappropriate or impolite relationships with non-native interviewees. in their culture). In Sarangi’s acceptance, nevertheless, cultural difference should not be 3. PERSPECTIVES ON CONCEPTS used as an excuse for deviated answers. The authors believes that the interviewees’ Thomas and Sarangi share a common consciousness related to the formal framework viewpoint with regard to the importance of of an interview taking place in a setting taking into consideration L1’s cultural and different from their native one should be taken pragmatic features. Both authors attempt to into consideration at all times and it should be justify their new perspective on the topic of the non-native responsibility to become aware ‘miscommunication’ starting from a general, of such realities. theoretical framework – citing the works of The author concludes by saying that in both other authors involved in the same endeavor, frameworks ‘culture’ is perceived as a fixed and later on making reference to their empirical entity, despite of the dynamic aspect of the finding and illustrating their assumptions with ‘culture mix’. conclusive examples (samples of interviews are provided for illustrations). 130 Review of the Air Force Academy No 3 (27) 2014 The difference in perspectives is given Gumperz’s view of ‘rhetorical strategies’ mainly by the focus of the authors’ approaches will be further considered in Sarangi’s detailed towards intercultural mismatches: for Thomas, discussions of ‘shared rhetorical strategies’ in the pragmatic aspect of L1 is more important, the job interview setting (Sarangi:189), and whereas for Sarangi, the analytical apparatus will open up “a hitherto neglected aspect of researchers use to identify occurrences of intercultural communication studies for further miscommunication and how precise their scrutiny: intercultural communication is as argument is as to what linguistic and contextual much about ‘miscommunication’ , as it is about factors contribute to that miscommunication counts more. Again, both authors add their ‘communication’” (Sarangi:190). personal interpretation or findings to the already existent theories in the area of 5. METHODOLOGY miscommunication. As mentioned previously, in this paper, both 4. POSITIONS IN RELATION TO articles under analysis combine the theoretical OTHER AUTHORS consideration with empirical findings. Nevertheless, although there is indication of Jenny Thomas continues her theoretical the methods used to collect data, specifically, assumptions expressed in her previous papers, interviews and videos of interviews, there is relative to the pragmatic failure (Thomas not a clear indication in terms of number of 1981, 1983a, 1983b). She agrees with the interviews, number of participants involved in findings of the researchers at the University of interviews, which is, information regarding the Lancaster engaged in the treatment of ‘unequal encounters’. However, different from them, sample to be analyzed. Readers of these two Thomas concentrates her attention on “those articles may imply that, both authors (already pragmatic discursive strategies employed by known in the area of linguistics and pragmatics) the “powerful” participant in an interaction are cognizant of the research requirements and which seem to enable him or her with
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