scholarly journals Turn-Taking and Disagreement: A Comparison of American English and Mandarin Chinese

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Weihua Zhu ◽  
Diana Boxer
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
American English ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Strong Disagreement ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Abstract This study compares turn-taking and disagreement behaviors in spontaneous conversations in American English and Mandarin Chinese. The English and Chinese speakers observed some turn-taking rules and employed weak disagreement, but differed in the deployment of extended concurrent speech and strong disagreement. Analysis of the Chinese speakers’ reactions reveals nothing negative. This was confirmed by the Chinese speakers’ viewpoints that were explicitly stated in follow-up interviews, which signal that they perceived the practice of extended concurrent speech and strong disagreement in the collected conversations as politic. Furthermore, the similarities and differences between the speakers’ turn-taking and disagreement behaviors appear to be constrained by contextual factors. This discloses the interplay of context, practice, and perception. These findings can raise our awareness of potential issues that might occur in intercultural encounters and the importance of understanding cross-cultural pragmatic differences to avoid miscommunication.

Face-keeping strategies in reaction to complaints

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh R. Eslami
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
American English ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
Face Saving ◽  
American English Speakers

This paper discusses a number of differences between English and Persian in the area of speech acts and links them with different cultural values and norms. The Persian speakers’ use of face-keeping strategies in reaction to complaints was compared with American English speakers’ performance. The most frequent face- saving strategy used by both groups in reaction to complaints was the apology speech act. Therefore, a cross-cultural comparison in the realization patterns of the apology speech acts between the two languages was performed. A detailed analysis of the use of the illocutionary force indicating device (IFID) strategies and supportive strategies revealed important differences in communicative styles of the two groups which can give us insights into understanding different cultural values, norms, and assumptions concerning interpersonal use of language in a Western and a non-Western language. It is shown that Persian speakers are more sensitive to contextual factors and vary their face-keeping strategies accordingly whereas English speakers mostly use one apology strategy and intensify it based on contextual factors.

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaori Idemaru ◽  
Peipei Wei ◽  
Lucy Gubbins
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
First Language ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Speakers

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Strong disagreement in Mandarin and ELFP

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zhu Hua ◽  
Diana Boxer
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Cultural Contact ◽  
First Order ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Strong Disagreement

This paper calls for the integration of first order and second order approaches in (im)politeness studies. Most previous research on the (im)politeness of Chinese speech behavior has been based on researchers’ interpretations and second order investigations. However, this study included a first order approach by examining Chinese participants’ lay conceptualizations of the appropriateness of the strong disagreement behavior that appeared in spontaneous mundane conversations. A close analysis of both the participants’ responses to strong disagreement in ongoing conversations and follow-up interviews revealed that the participants’ strong disagreement was perceived as politic and acceptable within their communities of practice. This challenges the general belief of strong disagreement as impolite and that of Chinese native speakers being indirect in communication. The finding indicates the importance of embracing first order investigation of the conventional views/norms that might cause communication misunderstanding in cross-cultural contact.

Nonverbal aspects of turn taking in Mandarin Chinese interaction

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Yang
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Nonverbal Cues ◽  
Chinese Universities ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Turn Taking

This paper examines the nonverbal aspects of turn taking system in Mandarin Chinese talk-in-interaction. Based on the audio and video data collected from real conversational settings in Chinese universities, this project uses conversation analysis (CA) theory to analyze how university-educated Mandarin Chinese speakers utilize various nonverbal resources with reference to turn yielding, turn up-taking and turn maintaining strategies to achieve effective interpersonal communication . The research results show that the current speaking party (SP) and listening party (LP) use nonverbal tokens such as hand drop in yielding turns, gaze and touch in taking up turns, and non-gaze, thinking face and finger count in maintaining turns. Understanding of these nonverbal cues employed can help prospective intercultural communicators interact with Mandarin Chinese speakers more effectively and successfully.

The use of listener responses in Mandarin Chinese and Australian English conversations

Pragmatics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deng Xudong
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Listener Responses ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Australian English ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Speech Events

In recent cross-cultural studies of pragmatics, we have witnessed a rise in interest in the comparative study of phenomena beyond the level of single and decontextualised utterances encompassing those on the level of speech events such as casual conversations. The underlying premise for such studies is that different cultural groups may have different rules for participation in and interpretation of conversation X that conflicts related to these rules are a major source of cross-cultural miscommunication. This study examines the use of listener responses by Chinese speakers in Chinese Mandarin conversations and by Australians in Australian English conversations. Following X prior framework by Clancy et al. (1996), the study examines similarities and differences in the use of listener responses by these two groups of people in terms of frequency of use, types of listener responses, and the positions of listener responses with respect to transition relevance place. Results show that Australian and Chinese speakers do exhibit quite different conversational styles as evidenced in their use of listener responses. Specifically, while Australians use more listener responses, use a higher percentage of lexical expressions as their listener responses and tend to place their listener responses at a possible completion point, Chinese speakers use fewer listener responses, favour the use of paralinguistic vocalic forms as their listener responses and tend to place their listener responses during a turn. These findings may suggest a culture specific way of turn taking and of what it means to be polite in conversational behaviour.

scholarly journals Examination of Heterogeneous Societies

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiko Kano Glückstad ◽  
Mikkel N. Schmidt ◽  
Morten Mørup
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Relational Model ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
World Value Survey ◽  
Applied Model ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Cultural Data

The recent development of data analytic tools rooted around the Multi-Group Latent Class Analysis (MGLCA) has enabled the examination of heterogeneous datasets in a cross-cultural context. Although the MGLCA is considered as an established and popular cross-cultural data analysis approach, the infinite relational model (IRM) is a new and disruptive type of unsupervised clustering approach that has been developed recently by cognitive psychologists and computer scientists. In this article, an extended version of the IRM coined the multinominal IRM—or mIRM in short—is applied to a cross-cultural analysis of survey data available from the World Value Survey organization. Specifically, the present work analyzes response patterns of the Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ) representing Schwartz’s 10 basic values of Japanese and Swedes. The applied model exposes heterogeneous structures of the two societies consisting of fine-grained response patterns expressed by the respective subpopulations and extracts latent typological structures contrasting and highlighting similarities and differences between these two societies. In the final section, we discuss similarities and differences identified between the MGLCA and the mIRM approaches, which indicate potential applications and contributions of the mIRM and the general IRM framework for future cross-cultural data analyses.

“Subject-predicate predicate sentences” in modern Mandarin Chinese: A Cardiff Grammar approach

Linguistics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei He
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Syntactic Structures

AbstractThis study investigates “subject-predicate predicate sentences” (“S-P P sentences”) in modern Mandarin Chinese from a Cardiff Grammar approach with the aim of answering three main questions: (i) What is/are the functional syntactic structure(s) of the sentences to be considered in the study? (ii) What is/are the semantic motivation(s) for the structure(s)? (iii) What is/are the contextual constraints on the structure(s)? The study is guided by three basic principles: (a) language is multifunctional; (b) meaning is primary while form is the realization of meaning; and (c) different strands of meaning are realized by a single syntactic structure. Further, the study utilizes the concepts of Theme and Subject within the Cardiff Grammar in order to analyze and discuss the generally acknowledged seven types of “S-P P sentences”. The results show that only one type is truly S-P P and another type only in one sense, whereas no other types can be categorized as such. All the syntactic structures are conditioned by a different set of distinctive semantic features and contextual factors.

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