Language And Culture
Author: Brenda Townsend Hall

The native/non-native-speaking-teacher issues open a whole can
of worms of how standards are regulated. I still think the key
point about teacher selection is to find the best person for
the job. If the non-native speaker fits the bill, then surely
that's all that matters. As for regulation, well I agree that
students should be protected from sham schools that take their
money but don't offer a professional service. Each country, it
seems, has its own regulatory system, some stricter than
others. It does seem to be a case of 'caveat emptor' or in our
case, students beware.

I do a lot of work in the area of cross-cultural awareness and
I've been thinking about how language reflects culture. The way
we use language shows preferences for certain types of
communicative behavior while discouraging others. Culture will
affect, for example, the extent to which we speak loudly and
animatedly or quietly, whether we use lots of 'I' statements,
whether we choose very explicit language or whether we are
indirect and use understatement. Intercultural, or
cross-cultural, pragmatics is the contrastive or comparative
study of such communicative norms aiming to reach a better
understanding of the cultural values that underpin them and it
is a field we can all learn from.

When we teach English as an international language, we might
usefully consider the role of communicative styles as part of
the process. This awareness raising could usefully consider
both styles of communication and the communication patterns
associated with specific situations. For example, the very
explicit language used by low-context cultures—speaker-based
cultures, as opposed to the imprecise and ambiguous language
favored by high-context cultures—hearer-based cultures reflect
different communicative styles that have an impact on
understanding. Let me give some examples. A British English
speaker who talks about 'a slight problem' could mean a total
breakdown, but if the person receiving the message comes from a
low context culture in which language is very direct, they might
easily think the problem is trivial. Take euphemism as another
example. I heard a US American doctor talking about somebody
being in 'a state of negative existence.' It doesn't sound too
drastic put like that, but it meant of course that the patient
was dead.

Situation also dictates language choice. In linguistics various
terms have been coined for certain types of key expressions that
are related to specific contexts or situations. These
conversational routines/prefabricated expressions/politeness
formulae/situation-bound utterances could well be useful in
raising clients' awareness about the relationship between
language and culture. In essence they are expressions whose
linguistic meaning is distorted because of the role they have
in a specific situation: linguistic meaning versus use. When
British English speakers ask the question: 'how are you?' or
'how do you do?' they don't expect a lengthy reply about the
state of the respondent's health. If Americans say 'let's get
together some time', they may be saying no more than 'goodbye'.
If Japanese speakers says 'yes' in a meeting, it is as well to
understand that this is the politeness dictated by the
situation and in no way indicates agreement or an undertaking
to act.

Alerting learners to the potential for misunderstanding due to
the cultural norms of language use is surely an area we should
not neglect, especially if our students are going to use
English internationally.


About The Author: Brenda Townsend Hall, a contributing editor
to ESLemployment, is a writer in the fields of English for
business, cross-cultural awareness and business communications.
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