Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T12:45:21.952Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Intercultural miscommunication in South Africa

from Part II - Language contact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

J. Keith Chick
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Natal, Durban
Rajend Mesthrie
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter I will be reviewing a selection of intercultural and cross-cultural studies of communication in apartheid South Africa. My purpose in doing so is, first, to distinguish between cross-cultural and intercultural communication studies in terms of the theories that inform and the research methods that are used in them. Second, it is to explore what each type of study has contributed to an understanding of the sources and consequences of intercultural miscommunication in South Africa and, more generally, of how dominant ideologies and power relations associated with them affect, and are affected by, the quality of such communication.

In sociolinguistics, as elsewhere, the terms ‘intercultural’ and ‘cross-cultural’ tend to be used interchangeably. However, following Carbaugh (1990: 292), I distinguish between them, reserving the term ‘cross-cultural’ for studies that explore particular features of communication (e.g. compliments, refusals, apologies, turn-taking) across two or more cultures. I use the term ‘intercultural communication’ to refer to studies that, by contrast, focus on particular intercultural encounters, and attend to whatever communication features are salient in them.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Among the communication features most extensively investigated crossculturally are speech acts. Researchers who investigate cross-cultural diversity in the rules for the performance of speech acts (refusals, promises, accusations) or speech-act sequences (invitations–acceptances/ rejections) have drawn eclectically from the philosophic tradition of linguistic pragmatics, from the anthropological tradition of the ethnography of communication and from the sociological tradition of conversational analysis. Linguistic pragmatics contributed a number of theoretical understandings.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beebe, L. M. and M. C. Cummings 1996. ‘Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data’. In S. M. Gass and J. Neu (eds.), Speech Acts across Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 65–86
Carbaugh, D. 1990. Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum
Chick, J. K. 1987. ‘Linguistics, language and power’. In D. Young (ed.), Festschrift in Honour of Len Lanham. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, pp. 115–31
Chick, J. K. 1990. ‘The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa’. In Carbaugh (ed.), pp. 225–52
Chick, J. K. 1996. ‘English in interpersonal interaction in South Africa’. In de Klerk (ed.), pp. 269–84
Clyne, M. 1995. Inter-cultural Communication at Work: Cultural Values in Discourse. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press
Cohen, A. 1996. ‘Speech acts’. In S. Mackay and N. Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 383–420
Kadt, E. 1985. ‘The cross-cultural study of directives: Zulu as a non-typical language’. South African Journal of Linguistics, Supplement 27: 45–72Google Scholar
de Kadt, E. 1998. ‘The concept of face and its applicability to the Zulu language’. Journal of Pragmatics, 29: 173–91CrossRef
de Klerk, V. 1996. Focus on: South Africa. Varieties of English around the world GS. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Dore, J. and , R. P. McDermott 1982. ‘Linguistic indeterminacy and social context in utterance interpretation’. Language, 58, 2: 374–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson, F. 1978. ‘Timing and context in everyday discourse: implications for the study of referential and social meaning’. Paper presented at a conference on children's oral communication skills, University of Wisconsin
Erickson, F. and J. Shultz 1981. ‘When is a context? Some issues and methods in the analysis of social competence’. In J. L. Green and C. Wallet (eds.), Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings. Advances in discourse processes 5. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex, pp. 147–60
Gumperz, J. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Herbert, R. K. 1985. ‘Say “Thank you” – or something’. American Speech, 61: 76–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, R. K. 1989. ‘The ethnography of English compliments and compliment responses: a contrastive sketch’. In W. Olesky (ed.), Contrastive Pragmatics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Herbert, R. K. and , H. S. Straight 1989. ‘Compliment-rejection versus compliment-avoidance: listener-based versus speaker-based pragmatic strategies’. Language and Communication, 9, 1: 35–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaschula, R. H. 1994. ‘Cross-cultural communication in a north eastern Cape farming community’. South African Journal of African Languages, 9, 3: 100–4Google Scholar
Kaschula, R. H. 1995. ‘Cross-cultural communication in Eastern Cape with particular reference to law courts’. South African Journal of African Languages, 15, 2: 9–15
Mehan, H. 1979. Learning Lessons. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
Pomerantz, A. 1978. ‘Compliment responses: notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints’. In J. Schenken (ed.), Studies in the Organisation of Conversational Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Scollon, R. and S. Scollon 1981. Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex
Singh, R., , J. Lele and , G. Martohardjono 1988. ‘Communication in a multilingual society: some missed opportunities’. Language in Society, 17: 43–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, J. 1983. ‘Cross-cultural pragmatic failure’. Applied Linguistics, 4, 2: 91–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×