Professional Communication: Collaboration between Academics and Practitioners

Hong Kong University Press thanks Xu Bing for writing the Press’s name in his Square Word Calligraphy for the covers of its books. For further information, see p. iv.

Hong Kong University Press

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Hong Kong University Press is honoured that Xu Bing, whose art explores the complex themes of language across cultures, has written the Press’s name in his Square Word Calligraphy. This signals our commitment to cross-cultural thinking and the distinctive nature of our English-language books published in China. “At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square word Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed.” — Britta Erickson, The Art of Xu Bing

Contents

Preface

vii

Contributors

xi

Introduction

1

1. Intercultural Professional Communication: Approaches and Issues Kenneth C. C. Kong and Winnie Cheng

3

Part One: Methodological and Conceptual Issues

17

2. Business Communication across Cultures: A Theoretical Perspective Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini

19

3. Professional Communicative Competences: Four Key Industries in Hong Kong Winnie Cheng

31

Part Two: Professional Communication in the Asia-Pacific Region

51

4. A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions in Hong Kong and the United States of America Ammy Yuen Yee Chan

53

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Contents

5. Gender and Professional Communication: The Role of Feminine Style in Multilingual Workplaces Hiroko Itakura

71

6. Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence Yeonkwon Jung

93

7. Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings Kenneth C. C. Kong

113

8. Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports Priscilla Leung

131

9. Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations Jinjun Wang

149

Part Three: Professional Communication in Other Regions

171

10. Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents: A Combined Academic and Professional Approach Jan Renkema

173

11. Politeness, Power and Control: The Use of Humour in Crosscultural Telecommunications Hans J. Ladegaard

191

Notes

211

References

215

Index

239

Preface

Professional communication is an emerging area of investigation in many disciplines such as applied linguistics, communication studies, education, and psychology. While these approaches share similarities, researchers working in those traditions tend to downplay the works of colleagues in other disciplines. This is unfortunate, given the fact that each discipline has its own strengths and contributions that allow researchers to investigate a particular issue. This book takes a discourse approach to professional communication. It allows flexibility for researchers in integrating insights from cognate disciplines, without difficulty, because discourse analysis deals with how language is mediated by context, taking into consideration many factors which are shared by most of the disciplines pertaining to professional communication. Taking a discourse approach to professional communication, we are interested in the role of language in forming, shaping and reproducing the practices, identities and even problems in various professional contexts, from academic settings to business negotiations. Discourse analysts are interested in not only the outputs of textual productions but also in the processes through which the products are negotiated. The understanding of these processes is as important as the understanding of the products they create. Current research in professional communication, especially in communication and organizational studies, tends to be biased towards the outputs and has focused less on how those outputs are negotiated and mediated in situ. The voices of professionals themselves may also be taken into consideration, such as in followup interviews. This book has a deep-seated belief that the understanding of professional communication can be enhanced by the studies conducted by the professionals themselves, because they are the insiders in their professions. The difficulty lies

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in the fact that many professional practitioners do not have appropriate background in analyzing discourse or, more precisely, in talking about their research in a way which is recognized in this ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger 1991). In this book, we are fortunate to be able to solicit papers written by researchers who are also practitioners in their own professions. It is for this reason that the book is titled Professional Communication: Collaboration between Academics and Practitioners. Another uniqueness of this book is its diverse representation by different contexts and regions. This volume explores current research in professional communication by presenting a range of research studies in different professional contexts across different regions, from Danish multicultural companies to Hong Kong academic institutions, from Dutch government to Chinese courtroom. Despite having different focuses, all chapters share a common theme of professional communication by drawing on discourse analytic framework and offering insights into how certain institutional practices are maintained and reproduced. Some of the chapters have direct implications for improving communication in the workplace, while others may be more focused in understanding the social construction of professional discourse.

Who should read this book? This book is intended for: • Researchers who are interested in the linguistic, social and cultural aspects of professional communication, and who want to keep abreast of current developments. This book can also serve as a guide to the different frameworks of discourse analysis for those who are new to the area. • Students and educators in professional communication from different disciplines such as applied linguistics, communication studies, and organizational studies. This book provides a spectrum of ideas to inspire students and stimulate their thinking so that they can formulate their own research plans. Professors can also use the chapters to illustrate to their students the main concerns and current developments in professional communication. • Practising professionals who would like to know how their professions are influenced by the language they are using. The chapters allow professionals to reflect on what they have been used to as ‘common practice’. After reading this book, they will have a better understanding of the role of language in perpetuating certain institutional ideologies and practices and will be in a better position to understand, challenge and even change those practices.

Preface

How this book is organized This book consists of three parts: Part One: Methodological and Conceptual Issues, Part Two: Professional Communication in the Asia-Pacific Region, and Part Three: Professional Communication in Other Regions. Part One deals with the methodological and conceptual issues in studying professional communication. It includes three chapters: Chapter 1: Intercultural Professional Communication: Approaches and Issues, by Kenneth C. C. Kong and Winnie Cheng Chapter 2: Business Communication across Cultures: A Theoretical Perspective, by Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini Chapter 3: Professional Communicative Competences: Four Key Industries in Hong Kong, by Winnie Cheng Part Two presents case studies of professional communication in the AsiaPacific Region. It includes six chapters: Chapter 4: A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions in Hong Kong and the United States of America, by Ammy Yuen Yee Chan Chapter 5: Gender and Professional Communication: The Role of Feminine Style in Multilingual Workplaces, by Hiroko Itakura Chapter 6: Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence, by Yeonkwon Jung Chapter 7: Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings, by Kenneth C. C. Kong Chapter 8: Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports, by Priscilla Leung Chapter 9: Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations, by Jinjun Wang Part Three presents case studies of professional communication on the European continent. It includes two chapters: Chapter 10: Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents: A Combined Academic and Professional Approach, by Jan Renkema Chapter 11: Politeness, Power and Control: The Use of Humour in Cross-cultural Telecommunications, by Hans Ladegaard

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Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini is a senior research fellow in the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Politeness Research and has published articles on face and politeness, and politeness in the workplace. Her current research interests are business discourse, organizational research methodology, intercultural communication, and exploration of new areas of multidisciplinary research. Ammy Yuen Yee Chan is a college affairs executive in the College of Business and Finance at the School of Professional and Continuing Education, the University of Hong Kong. She is responsible for the development of the institutional planning projects. Winnie Cheng is a professor and the director of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English in the Department of English, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her main research interests are corpus linguistics, conversational analysis, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics, discourse intonation, intercultural communication in business and professional contexts, and outcome-based education. Hiroko Itakura is an assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Her main research interests are gender, identity, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and intercultural communication. Yeonkwon Jung has held numerous visiting appointments at Thames Valley Univeristy in London, University of Michigan — Ann Arbor, and Helsinki School

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of Economics. His research work has appeared in Korean Journal of Communication Studies, Genre Variation in Business Letter Writing, and Asian Business Discourse(s). Kenneth C. C. Kong is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the Hong Kong Baptist University. His main research interests include discourse analysis, intercultural pragmatics, multimodal analysis, English for specific purposes, functional linguistics, and language education. Hans J. Ladegaard is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the Hong Kong Baptist University. His main research interests are global and intercultural communication, language attitudes and stereotypes, language and gender, and attitudes and motivation in foreign language learning. Priscilla Leung is an information technology professional working for the Hospital Authority, Hong Kong. She has developed an interest in linguistics as her career has progressed, along with the demand on various forms of communication. Jan Renkema is a professor of discourse quality at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His current research interests are discourse studies, discourse quality, and structuring of information. He is the author of Introduction to Discourse Studies. Jinjun Wang is a professor in the English Department of the School of Foreign Languages at Yunnan University, Yunnan, China. Her research interests cover systemic-functional linguistics, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics.

Introduction

1 Intercultural Professional Communication: Approaches and Issues Kenneth C. C. Kong and Winnie Cheng

As a result of globalization and the internalization of trade and information, intercultural communication has become an increasingly significant topic. This is especially the case in professional communication, because participants in professional communication have to draw on more sophisticated and transdisciplinary frameworks in order to get their jobs done. Even the communication among professional peers themselves is far from smooth and straightforward, and is mediated by participants from different cultural backgrounds with different assumptions. As Gottis (2004, 10) notes in an introduction to a monograph on intercultural professional communication, ‘domain-specific languages are prone to the pressures of intercultural variation, as it is not only the sociocultural factors inherent in a text but also the interpretive schemata which deeply affect its realization and interpretation within the host community . . . intercultural communication is often made more complex by the locutors’ need to make their texts as adaptable as possible to contextual features and pragmatic purpose’. The use of a ‘lingua franca’, i.e. English, does not make the issue less complicated; instead, it can even be argued that the use of a language that is not the native language of both the speaker and the hearer can create more problems in the construction, use and interpretation of texts.

Research studies in professional communication A quick review of professional communication research in the twenty-first century has shown not only the growing importance and value of these studies but also the wide-ranging professions that have been investigated. Examples of professions are business and financial services, construction and engineering, health care,

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law, tourism, and trading. In financial accounting, Rutherford (2003) examines the social negotiation of meaning, focusing on the construction of financial statement elements from the schemes developed under the UK government Private Finance Initiative. Heldenberg and Scoubeau (2005) survey the views of company managers in a Belgian financial market regarding the importance of financial communication. Cheng, Li, Love and Irani’s (2001) study investigates the communication between different parties in a construction project and proposes a communication mechanism for successful construction alliance. Andersen and Rasmussen (2004) compare how manufacturers from Danish companies and their subsidiaries in France solve language and communication problems. The purpose of Yamaguchi’s (2005) study was to discover the interrelationship between effective communications and different work-related variables in Japanese companies, including information-seeking behaviour, perceived procedural justice, and the reduction of job-related uncertainty. Rogerson-Revell (2007) discusses some of the communication difficulties encountered by participants in business meetings in a European professional organization in an English for International Business (EIB) context, and how the participants perceive the use of EIB in international professional communication. In health care, Peräkylä and Vehviläinen (2003) study different relationships between the research results generated from conversation analysis and other theories and models that describe professional-client interaction in institutional settings: medical care, therapy, counselling and education. Colón-Emeric et al. (2006) compare the medical and nursing staff working in two nursing homes according to the communication patterns and organizational consequences relating to four dimensions: the quality of information flow, cognitive diversity, self-organization, and innovation. Leenerts and Teel (2006) conducted a pilot study which describes the communication skills used by an advanced practice nurse in creating partnerships with caregivers. In the legal discipline, Candlin et al. (2002) review fifty-six legal writing textbooks which are available on market to discuss how suitable they are for use in English for Academic Legal Purposes (EALP) contexts. By proposing three approaches for designing and developing suitable written EALP materials, Candlin et al. discuss some crucial issues related to EALP theory and practice. Compared to the legal profession, more research has been conducted in the tourism and hotel industry; for example, Gilbert and Terrata (2001), Peters (2005), Moskowitz and Krieger (2003), Russell and Leslie (2004), and Dolnicar (2005). In Hong Kong, Vijay Bhatia (2004) is well known for his critical genre analysis multidimensional and multi-perspective framework, as well as the international research efforts in the legal genre (e.g. Bhatia 2006). Evans and Green (2003) report on survey results relating to the patterns of English use by Chinese professionals at different levels in five key occupational fields in the public and

Intercultural Professional Communication

private sectors after 1997: business services, community/social services, construction/real estate, engineering and manufacturing. Specifically, their survey examines different text types and situations in which English is used in professional settings. Flowerdew and Wan’s study (2006) is a genre analysis of tax computation letters collected from an international accounting firm in Hong Kong. More recently, Cheng and Mok (2008) describe the discourse processes and products that are characteristic of one of the largest surveying consultancy firms in Hong Kong.

Defining culture The next issue is what we mean by culture. Culture has been a very problematic concept and means something completely different to different people. One of the most common interpretations of culture is high culture, which refers to the paintings, music and other artistic artifacts of a particular group of people. Taking this notion a bit further, we may talk of the history and development of a place or country. In this sense, culture is equated to civilization. This is why we may have British culture, Chinese culture, German culture, Vietnamese culture, etc. Another common meaning of culture may refer to individuals. If we say one is cultured, we mean the person has a sophisticated level of intellectual ability; in other words, the person is educated. In this chapter, these notions of culture are not as useful as the anthropological notion of culture, which refers to ‘any aspect of the ideas, communications, or behaviours of a group of people which gives them a distinctive identity and which is used to organize their internal sense of cohesion and membership’ (Scollon and Scollon 2001, 140). Scollon and Scollon’s definition of culture touches on the crux of the current debate on culture. Is culture simply a system of shared symbols (Geertz 1973)? If it is more than a system of symbols, what functions does it have? A pioneer in communication studies, Edward Hall (1959), argues that culture is communication and communication is also culture. This means that culture is not just a template of rules and ideas. We also build our culture through communication (Berger and Luckman 1966). This is underscored by the distinction between large culture and small culture, made by Holliday (1999). Large culture is ‘essentialist in that it relates to the essential differences between ethnic, national and international entities’ (Holliday 1999, 240). The main goal of large cultures is prescriptive, i.e., to identify what is desirable or acceptable in a certain culture. In contrast, small culture is ‘non-essentialist in that it does not relate to the essences of ethnic, national or international entities. Instead it relates to any cohesive social grouping without necessary subordination to large cultures’ (Holliday 1999, 240). To Holliday, large cultures are reified small cultures taking up the idea from Berger and Luckman (1966). In other words, small cultures are

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everyday constructions regardless of what is prescribed as normal and unmarked values in the mainstream social cultures grouping. Although the terms small and large cultures are misleading, they are very useful in understanding how our professional identities cut across different cultures in daily life. When a Swiss engineer gives a presentation to a group of Chinese professional peers, what distorts communication could be more their different corporate identities than their ethnic identities, given the fact that engineering as an international profession has a rather stable set of norms of making presentations for instance. Also, different companies may have their own culture or uniqueness because of their own history, development, etc. What is at stake is the phenomenon that our cultural identities are more than our ethnic identities. The way we speak may be influenced by a composite of factors such as our gender, the company we belong to, the generation in which we were born, or even the area of the country we live in. This is why a more flexible approach to intercultural communication is more useful to researchers in professional communication rather than taking intercultural communication as just interethnic communication or intergender communication. Sarangi (1994, 414) expounds a ‘discourse-centred approach . . . [in which] discourse has to be considered as the concrete expression of the language-culture relationship because it is discourse that “creates, recreates, focuses, modifies, and transmits both culture and language and their interaction”’. Scollon and Scollon (2001, xii) define interdiscourse communication as: a term we use to include the entire range of communications across boundaries of groups or discourse systems from the most inclusive of those groups, cultural groups, to the communications which take place between men and women or between colleagues who have been born into different generations. In interdisocurse analysis we consider the ways in which discourses are created and interpreted when those discourses cross the boundaries or group membership. We also consider the ways in which we use communication to claim and to display our own complex and multiple identities as communicating professionals.

In brief, replacing intercultural communication with interdiscourse communication can allow us to avoid the ambiguity of the term culture in our analysis and to consider more prototypically ‘non-cultural’ factors such as degree of institutional attachment and language proficiency. In the following, we explain how a discourse approach to intercultural professional communication can be informed by several fields of scholarship: communication studies, interactional sociolinguistics, speech act theory, genre analysis, politeness studies and multimodality.

Intercultural Professional Communication

Communication studies In the field communication studies, a distinction is often made between crosscultural communication and intercultural communication, although both refer to communication across cultures. The main purpose of cross-cultural communication is to compare communication patterns across cultures, whereas intercultural communication involves ‘communication between people from different cultures’ (Gudykunst 2003, 1). When the focus of discourse approach is to examine the actual discourse produced by speakers or writers, most discourse analysts interested in culture are doing what would be regarded as intercultural communication. Most of the intercultural analyses in communication studies are quantitative and have an emphasis on hypothesis testing, examination of macro-categories (Bargiela-Chiappini in this volume; Gudykunst 2002), and a tendency to make predictions (Jensen 2005). Culture in communication studies has usually referred to ethnic, racial or national culture. As Jensen (2005) argues, ‘Intercultural communication research has by definition been related to the understanding of national cultures as the fundamental principle’. Despite some recent developments in calling for more attention to other cultures (Gudykunst 2003; Jensen 2005), the mainstream concern is still restricted to communication patterns of different national cultures. In a new edition of a popular reader on intercultural communication consisting of eight sections (Samovar and Porter 2007), only one section concerns itself with ‘co-cultures’ such as gender culture. Most of the other chapters concern the cultural patterns of different nations, ethnicities or regions. The best-known and most frequently cited study of culture in communication studies was conducted by the Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede (2001). About 100,000 questionnaires were sent to employees in about 60 countries. The questions or statements, which subjects had to answer or rank on a fivepoint scale, included (cited in Renkema 2004): (1) How important is it to you to fully use your skills and abilities on the job? (2) How satisfied are you at present with your fringe benefits? (3) Competition among employees usually does more harm than good, and (4) How important is it to you to work in a department which is run efficiently? Hofstede, based on the findings, argued that there are five basic dimensions which can explain the cultural differences between different national cultures: (1) individualism versus collectivism, (2) power distance, (3) uncertainty avoidance, (4) masculinity versus femininity, and (5) long-term versus short-term orientation. Different countries are given an index according to different dimensions. For example, in the individualistic-collectivistic dimension, the US (having a score of 200) is much more individualistic than Hong Kong (-72), whereas Japan lies somewhere between the two countries/ region (12). The higher the score, the more individualistic the country or region.

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Hofstede’s conceptualization of cultures as different polar dimensions has inspired and fueled a huge number of studies looking for more differences or testing the validity of those dimensions identified by Hofstede. For example, Ting-Toomey et al. (1991, cited in Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2003, 135) focused on the conflict styles in five cultures and found ‘US Americans, mainland Chinese, and Taiwanese Chinese reported using dominating styles more than Japanese and Koreans’. It was also reported in their study that ‘Mainland Chinese and Taiwan Chinese reported using obliging styles more than US Americans, Japanese, and Koreans’. The strength of communication studies to intercultural communication is their etic orientation to cultures. Like many other quantitative researchers, the scholars in communication studies can provide an overview of culture from ‘a position outside the system and can also examine many cultures by comparing them using structure created by the analyst’ (Berry 1980, 11–12). The most obvious weakness is that fuzzy concepts such as ‘culture’ cannot be easily pinned down, categorized and classified. This is why the theories and macro-categories should also be examined and verified from an emic perspective. Cheng’s (2003) recent intercultural study of English conversations between Hong Kong Chinese and English speakers is a good example of fine-grained emic analysis of culture. Her findings of conversational features — preference organization, compliments and compliment responses, simultaneous talk, discourse topic development, and discourse information structure — refute such cultural stereotypical assumptions as individualistic-collectivistic orientation in English and Chinese cultures, and confirm the need to examine intercultural communication as situated in specific contexts of interaction.

Interactional sociolinguistics Intercultural sociolinguistics is focused on how context is brought along and brought about in a situated encounter (Duranti and Goodwin 1992; Sarangi and Roberts 1999). The contexts that can be brought along include the setting in which the interaction takes place and the behavioural environment, including body language or the use of social space. The context that can be brought about has two dimensions: the language as context, i.e., how language can create and provide further contexts for interactions, and extra-situational context, which draws on even broader social, political and cultural frameworks. Although culture cannot be equated to context, the participants’ set of assumptions and values is definitely one of the most important contextual elements that the participants bring to an interaction. As Gumperz et al. (1982, 12) argue, ‘what we perceive and retain in our mind is a function of our culturally determined predisposition to perceive and assimilate’.

Intercultural Professional Communication

The most important goal of interactional sociolinguistics (particularly influenced by the works of Gumperz) is to examine how interactants contextualize or emphasize certain structures differently in real interactions, even though, for example, they may have a shared understanding of a grammatical structure. Gumperz et al. (1982, 28) makes extensive use of examples from Indian English to illustrate his ideas: ‘Indian speakers of English frequently, and apparently systematically, differ from native speakers of English, in the devices they use to signal “communicative intent” through lexicalization, syntax, and prosody.’ While lexicalization, according to the use of particles (which are absent in English) and the use of different word order to signal special meanings, may sound odd to native speakers of English and cause confusion, the use of different intonation is the most problematic. As Indian speakers have the resource of particles to highlight, emphasize or topicalize in their original language, they may substitute this lack in English by putting stress on words more frequently. For example, when an Indian subordinate in the workplace asks his boss if he could have a day off, he might put prosodic emphasis on the word ‘off’. This is certainly odd pragmatically to a native English speaker. Having no intention to be offensive or impolite, the Indian just uses word stress to signal meaning differently from the way English speakers do. The result of this misunderstanding can be serious because of the creation of stereotypes and finally inequality in the workplace. A further interesting example of different contextualizing work in the workplace context is given in another paper in Gumperz’s collection (Young 1982). In business meetings, Chinese speakers of English tend to delay the main point of their arguments by using a lot of prefacing strategies such as giving a number of reasons before the main point. This may sound odd to native speakers of English and cause misunderstanding, giving an impression that Chinese speakers are always indirect and inscrutable. Again, the misunderstanding may be due to the different interpretations of an inductive versus a deductive pattern of languages (Cheng and Mok 2006; Cheng 2007b). The examples above capture a very useful notion of interactional sociolinguistics, that is, certain devices are very important in contextualizing certain beliefs, identities and cultures. This contextual information would be considered something ‘brought about’ because the devices are external to the conversation itself. These devices are known as contextualization cues, which are highly culturally dependent. Contextualization cues can be defined as ‘the speakers’ and listeners’ use of verbal and non-verbal signs to relate what is said at any one time and in any place to knowledge acquired through past experience, in order to retrieve the presuppositions they must reply on to maintain conversational involvement and assess what is intended’ (Gumperz 1992, 230). The concept of contextualization cues highlights the fact that we may have very different interpretations of the same cue or feature although we may seemingly

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share the general usage of it. This is particularly important for intercultural professional communication in which English is often used as the lingua franca. People may take it for granted that every word we utter is transparent and unambiguous, since we are using the same language.

Speech act theory Proposed by John Austin (1962), a philosopher of language, speech act theory examines how we achieve various goals by using language. Language does not simply state or describe but also acts. By using language, we can perform various functions. Speech acts have been classified according to their lexical/syntactic realizations or their specific functions. Austin (1962) developed a classification of speech acts based on illocutionary verbs. This more intuitive attempt was later modified by Searle (1975). He argued that speech acts should be classified according to illocutionary point, speaker’s psychological state, and propositional content, resulting in five categories of speech acts: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. In the professional world, we tend to use some speech acts more often than others. For example, directives — asking someone to get something done — have almost become routine within and across institutions. Commissives are also frequently used in meetings and negotiations. Declarations are more restricted and may only be used in certain personnel situations, such as appointing and resigning. The most obvious strength of speech act theory in professional discourse research is that it provides a feasible unit of analysis. Negotiation is too large as a unit of analysis, but a particular linguistic item is too small. Speech acts have been extensively studied across and within cultures. Blum-Kulka et al.’s CCSARP (Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project) (1989) is a good example of research which analyzed the interlanguage and cross-cultural realizations of different speech acts, such as requests and apologies. A large number of research studies along this line have been done since then. For example, Japanese has been regarded as an indirect, modest and non-confrontational culture, and previous studies have identified differences between Japanese and native English speakers who have different preferences when making complaints and responding to them (Murphy and Neu 1996; Rinnert et al. 2006). In Hong Kong, different studies have investigated the speech acts of disagreement (Cheng and Warren 2005a), giving an opinion (Cheng and Warren 2006a), checking understandings (Cheng and Warren 2007) and interrupting (Cheng 2007a) in the Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English (HKCSE), and compared the corpus findings with the way in which English school textbooks in Hong Kong present and teach these speech acts.

Intercultural Professional Communication

In summary, the precise meaning of a linguistic item cannot be determined unless the contextual variables are known. Speech act theory (Searle 1975) is a very useful tool in explicating this complex relationship between what is said and what is meant. Speech act theory also contributes to our better understanding of the function of language in shaping our identities in the workplace. Nevertheless, the theory should be applied with caution. Speech acts may be realized not only locally but globally. In other words, a letter of apology may contain other speech acts, such as asserting and promising. Attention should also be paid to the complex interplay of macro- and micro-realizations.

Genre analysis The distinguishing characteristic of a genre is its communicative purpose(s) (Bhatia 1993). The reason why two texts belong to the same genre might be that they share the same purpose of action although they may come from two different domains. Bhatia (1993), for example, argues that business sales letters and job applications can be regarded as the same genre because both of them have the communicative purpose of promoting something. In the case of business sales letters, it is the product or service that is promoted, and in the case of job application letters, it is the applicant. Promotional genres, including sales letters, job application letters, promotional leaflets, and company introduction on a web page, and even personal advertisements, may draw on similar structural and linguistic resources to perform their acts. In schematic structure, promotional genres usually begin with some means of establishing credentials (highlighting the reputation of the company, for example) before they introduce the offer. They are usually closed by an offer of incentive and use of some pressure tactics (Bhatia 1993). Promotional genres share similar structure because participants tend to use familiar resources they have used in certain recurrent situations. Richards and Schmidt (2002, 224) define genre as ‘a type of discourse that occurs in a particular setting, that has distinctive and recognizable patterns and norms of organization and structure and that has particular and distinctive communicative functions’. Martin (1984, 25) defines it as ‘a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture’. The use of the word culture in Martin’s (1984) definition assumes that there may be cultural differences in using and organizing genres. In fact, the idea of genre variation has been discussed in many studies comparing genres in different cultures (almost predominately referred to as national or ethnic cultures). There is a wide range of genres that have been compared in previous studies, for example, student essays in Arabic and English (El-Sayed 1992), court documents in Swedish and English (Fredericson 1996), business request letters in Chinese and English

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(Kong 1998a), research article introductions in Polish and English (Golebiowski 1998), check-out service encounters (Cheng 2004a), grant proposals in Finnish and English (Connor and Mauranen 1999), book reviews in Spanish, French and English (Salager-Meyer and Ariza 2004), letters of CEOs in Italian and English (Garzone 2004), and sales promotional letters in Italian and English (Vergaro 2004). Most of the intercultural studies of genres conclude that there are significant differences in the structure and lexico-grammatical realizations of moves, reflecting the different cultural norms of discourse communities. Although genre analysis has yielded some very useful findings about how language is structured and realized in professional settings, it is also facing an increasingly common problem of co-occurrence of genres. Bhatia (2005, 220) argues that ‘of all the genres which have invaded the territorial integrity of most professional and academic genres, “advertising” clearly stands out to be the most prominent instrument of colonization’. However, there are different views on whether this mixing is consciously done by the writer or not. The impetus for arguing that intertextuality is a conscious activity springs from the view that genre is a ‘class of communicative events’ (Swales 1990, 45). The embodiment of actions and events in a genre highlights the active agency of language users in employing what is regarded as an ideal and effective choice in a given situation. However, it has also been argued that language users are not conscious of using a particular genre. As Hasan (2000, 43) argues, language users are ‘simply to fashion their language according to the ongoing context’. Fairclough (2003, 69) takes a similar view by arguing that genre is not a class of communicative events because ‘actual events (texts, interactions) are not “in” a particular genre, they do not instantiate a particular genre — rather they draw upon the socially available resources of genres in potentially quite complex and creative ways’. Another development in genre analysis is how genres are connected in a network. Instead of treating genres as discreet items for analysis, we have to take into consideration how different genres are used and related. This is what is known as genre chain and network. An example given by Paltridge (2006) is the genre chain of a job application. In order to understand how a job application letter is constructed, we also need to understand what comes before and after it. For example, a job advertisement should appear first. Then the applicant writes an application letter and a resume. A job interview may be arranged afterwards. If the applicant is found suitable, an offer letter of appointment may be issued, followed by some negotiation of the offer. This is why Swales (2004, 22) argues that in order to have a better understanding of genres, we should take into consideration ‘the totality of genres available in the particular sector’. In other words, the sequence, hierarchy and connections of different genres in a related setting have to be examined as well.

Intercultural Professional Communication

As mentioned, most intercultural studies of genres focus on the national or ethnic cultures without paying enough attention to other cultures. This is surprising given the fact that the genre analysis is interested in studying the conventions and constraints that shape a particular instance of discourse, and these conventions and constraints are by no means restricted to a nation or a region. In a recent article by Tse and Hyland (forthcoming), an attempt is made to compare the use of metadiscourse used by male and female scholars in academic book reviews in philosophy and biology. They also examine how scholars reviewed scholars of the same and different sex. It was found that males and females tend to use interactive (such as use of conjunctions) and interactional (such as use of boosters) metadiscourse. Nevertheless, there are more similarities within disciplines than across disciplines; as they argue, ‘The ways men and women use a language, in other words, are not determined by their gender but constructed, negotiated, and transformed through social practices informed by particular social settings, relations of power, and participation in disciplinary discourses’ (Tse and Hyland, 15).

Politeness studies The publication of the Journal of Politeness Research in 2005 heralded a landmark in the study of politeness behaviour, which is mature enough to develop into a field of enquiry on its own. No account of politeness research is complete without referring to the seminal work on politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987). Based on Goffman’s (1967) notion of positive face (the need to be accepted and even liked by others) and negative face (the need to make our own decision without the influence of others), Brown and Levinson’s framework proposes two related politeness strategies in dealing with the two needs: positive politeness and negative politeness. Positive politeness includes the use of solidarity markers such as the use of first name and inclusive we, emphasis on seeking agreement, use of jokes, etc. Negative politeness refers to the strategies through which someone’s independence is emphasized. It may include the use of formal titles, use of apologizing act, giving of options to the hearer, etc. In addition to positive and negative politeness strategies, there are bald-on-record strategies (without any face-redressing strategies), off-record strategies (a meaning that can only be inferred, for example) and the option of not performing the face-threatening act at all. The strategies can be measured by their directness level. According to the level of directness, bald-on-record is considered the most direct, followed by positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record strategy, and lastly the option of not making an act at all. The choice of which strategy to use depends on three factors: social distance, power difference and size of imposition. Basically, the

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greater the social distance, power difference and size of imposition, the more indirect the strategy will be. Brown and Levinson’s idea of politeness is so influential that no work on politeness would be considered complete without some mention of it. However, the model has been criticized for its several weaknesses. First, the notion of face is problematic. Negative face in Brown and Levinson’s model may not be a facewant at all (Spencer-Oatey, 2000, see below). Face also has multiple dimensions. For example, a professional may have at least two dimensions of face: his or her own face as an individual, and the face of a professional representing his or her institution (Charles 1996; Kong 2003). Second, the factors which are argued to be important in determining the use of strategies can be manipulated by interlocutors (Kong 1998b). Lastly, speech act theory focuses on realizations of politeness at speech act level, ignoring the fact that politeness can be realized at a level higher than single speech act. For example, a person can use more negative politeness at the beginning and more positive politeness at the end of a discourse to give a more balanced handling of positive and negative face. There are two major developments in politeness research. The first is what Watts calls the politeness as a politic behaviour (Watts 2003). According to Locher and Watts (2005), politeness is a subjective issue which cannot be determined linguistically, because the judgement of what is polite or not rests on the interpretation of the recipients of a message, not on the linguistic realizations. Politeness is only part of the larger picture of relational work, which is a ‘discursive struggle in which interactants engage’ (2005, 9). Spencer-Oatey (2000) is another recent model which broadens the notion of politeness by incorporating elements other than face needs into relationship negotiation. In fact, Spencer-Oatey argues that politeness or face work is not the most appropriate term; rather, she argues, rapport management should be the framework to understand politeness. Face is subdivided into personal level and social level. Face at personal level is very similar to the positive face-want in Brown and Levinson’s model, and face at social level is more closely related to one’s profession, job, role and institutional affiliation. The most important modification to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model is the introduction of sociality rights, and division of face needs and sociality rights into personal and social perspectives. What is considered to be negative face in Brown and Levinson’s model is regarded as sociality rights in the new framework proposed by SpencerOatey. At personal level, equity rights refer to a ‘fundamental belief that we are entitled to personal consideration from others, so that we are treated fairly’ (Spencer-Oatey 2000, 14). At social level, sociality rights are considered to be association rights, and we have a ‘fundamental belief that we are entitled to an association with others that is keeping with the type of relationship we have with them’ (Spencer-Oatey 2000, 14).

Intercultural Professional Communication

Multimodality Although it is important to examine the discourse variations in different cultures, linguistic realizations of discourse are only part of the picture. Genre should not be restricted to words alone. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of visuals as a meaning-making system (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006). There are many visual elements such as typographical and pictorial representations which are as meaningful as their verbal counterparts. This revolutionary shift from the prime focus on written language to the mixed mode of written and visual language cannot assume that the complex phenomenon can be understood according to the existing theories of language or visuals alone. Kress (1998) succinctly argues that visuals have taken up some of the functions that written language used to perform, whereas written language is mainly used for reporting and narrating. Yet the ‘display’ function of visuals needs to be explored, especially in relation to the narrating and reporting function of words. As Kaltenbacher (2004) argues, the most important issue in the research of multimodal documents is whether they can communicate meanings that traditional documents cannot. In other words, we need a more systematic and sophisticated network that can allow practitioners and analysts to understand the increasingly complicated verbalvisual connections. In studying multimodality interculturally, a recent study comparing the use of visuals in manual instructions in English and Japanese (Bateman and Delin 2004) argues that many typographical and pictorial elements have meaning-bearing functions and are used more frequently in Japanese culture. Nevertheless, more empirical research is needed to understand the different use of multimodal resources in different cultures. Kong (2006) provides a taxonomy of relations between visuals and words, which can be applied to compare the intercultural realizations of visual-verbal relations in quantitative terms. Another important meaning-making system is discourse intonation (Brazil 1997) which has been extensively studied in recent years, especially in intercultural professional communication in Hong Kong (Cheng 2004a, 2004b; Cheng and Warren 2005a, 2005b, 2006b; Lam 2006). In Brazil’s (1997) discourse intonation, speakers can select from four independent systems: prominence, tone, key and termination within a tone unit. Each of the independent systems is a source of ‘local meaning’ (Brazil 1997, xi), by which Brazil seeks to underline that these are moment-by-moment judgements made by speakers based on their assessment of the current state of understanding that operates between the participants. In other words, Brazil’s system eschews the notions that intonation conveys fixed attitudinal meanings or is associated with particular grammatical structures.

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Issues in intercultural professional communication Intercultural professional communication studies have been guided by a wide range of concepts, taxonomies, theories, models and frameworks generated from and expounded by different communication and linguistic approaches. A range of interest groups and stakeholders, including governments, professionals, organizations, learners and teachers of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), and researchers, stand to benefit from these studies. As remarked by Cheng (in press): Many of these studies thus beg the question: would the contribution to knowledge and the impact on the business world have been much greater if the business discourse and communication projects had formed alliances with the industries concerned from the outset? Would these studies of business discourse have been broader in scope and much more comprehensive if they had incorporated as many methodologies and had examined as many features and phenomena as possible?

Some of the major issues for the consideration of researchers, academics, educators, and professionals alike include how and to what extent intercultural professional communication studies have succeeded in making their way into the different levels of communication and language use in professional settings; to what extent these studies have impacted the professional policies and practices in the respective organizations; and last but not least, the mechanism by means of which the research findings could most effectively be explored with respect to the practical implications for curriculum design and materials writing for ESP or LSP, and for informing professional communicative practices, locally and internationally.

Acknowledgements The work described in this chapter was substantially supported by a grant from the Faculty Research Grant of Hong Kong Baptist University (Project No. FRG/ 05–06/II-76), and a grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. B-Q02J).

Part One Methodological and Conceptual Issues

2 Business Communication across Cultures: A Theoretical Perspective Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini

The challenges of intercultural encounters, especially in professional and business settings (Roberts, Sarangi and Moss 2004, Roberts, Moss, Wass, Sarangi and Jones 2005; Spencer-Oatey and Xing 2003; Poncini 2004; Tanaka 2006), demand a re-examination of taken-for-granted concepts and frameworks which, individually taken, are inadequate to interpret often complex interactions. In recent years, research in intercultural communication in business has continued to grow within and beyond Europe (e.g. Poncini 2004; Neumann 1997; Grindsted 1997), as witnessed in the work of Clyne (1994) and Marriott (1997) in Australia; of Yamada (1997), Emmett (2003) and Tanaka (2006) in Japan; Nair-Venugopal (2001, 2003) in Malaysia; and a pan-Asian project showcasing research from six countries (Bargiela-Chiappini and Gotti 2005; Bargiela-Chiappini 2005, 2006a, 2006b). The appreciation of the situated nature of discursive practices is a distinctive feature of a number of recently published research studies on professional communication (e.g. Candlin 2002; Pan et al. 2002; Sarangi and Roberts 1999). The ambitious aim of many applied linguists working on intercultural communication remains that of enabling the reader ‘to discover through his or her own resources how to be most effective in such complex international settings, as well as how to interpret the behavior and communication of other colleagues in these settings most effectively’ (Pan et al. 2002, 2). The route of standardization of professional communication — possibly achievable through the adoption of a dominant Western model of communication (e.g. American) — has wisely been considered untenable (see Pan et al., 3), not least because it would have to deal with the burning question of which English should be adopted in international business communication (Bargiela-Chiappini 2006b).

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One practical solution to smoother communication is the exchange of ‘bestcases’ among professionals on an international scale (Pan et al. 2002). The prerequisite for setting up collections of such cases, or Communication Display Portfolios (CDPs), is that ‘the participants [should] become reflective about what they are doing and how, and the learning process can begin’ (Pan et al., 7). The construction of CDPs relies on an analytical model based on interactional sociolinguistics which emphasizes the importance of the physical context of the interaction. Thus, non-verbal elements such as kinesics and proxemics are included in the analysis of real professional interactions. The emphasis on ‘getting closer to practice’ in professional communication (e.g. Sarangi and Roberts 1999) characterizes also situated discursive approaches to business communication (cfr. Poncini 2004; Tanaka 2006). As far as I am aware, none of these studies has sought to question the conceptual basis of intercultural discourse. In the light of empirical findings on professional and business communication across cultures, the time is ripe for revisiting foundational concepts such as discourse and culture, with a view to offering new insights into intercultural interaction that would benefit practice as well as research. The next section is a brief introduction to the field of intercultural business discourse (IBD), an approach to intercultural communication which attempts to capture the interactional and situated nature of encounters between cultures. The chapter acknowledges the debt of IBD to cross- and intercultural business communication but also seeks to move the field on towards richer notions of ‘culture’, ‘discourse’ and ‘context’. The chapter argues that this is the conceptual cluster that stands at the heart of the meta-theoretical notion of ‘interculturality’. Interculturality, defined as the process and the condition of cultures-in-contact, is a novel conceptualization of intercultural interaction based on a linguistic anthropological understanding of language as the ‘principal, exemplar medium, and site of the cultural’ (Silverstein 2004, 622).

The inter- and cross-dimensions of cultural communication Before launching into the discussion, it is useful to introduce the terminology which is often associated with IBC and which can be the cause of some confusion. Two sets of terms come readily to mind: intercultural and cross-cultural,1 and multidisciplinary. This chapter uses only the first term of each set to describe the kind of research that pertains to IBD, and with the following meanings: (1) intercultural refers to comparison of cultures in contact; (2) crosscultural refers to comparisons of different cultures in situations of non-contact (and intracultural describes behaviour within a culture) (Gudykunst 2002a).

Business Communication across Cultures

The sixties marked the official birth of intercultural communication in the US. By that time, North America had experienced waves of immigration that fed a multicultural workforce and stimulated the need to address practical issues of communicative competence and miscommunication (Gudykunst and Mody 2002; Goldstein 1997). Similarly, immigration has characterized the Australian workplace, another ideal ground for intercultural communication research that has concentrated on the influence of cultural differences and preferences (Clyne 1994, 2003; Goldstein 1997). On the wake of the discursive turn, the eighties witnessed the emergence of original, discourse-base, micro-analyses of intercultural communication in Europe (Ehlich and Wagner 1995; Trosborg 1995; Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris 1997a; Nickerson 2000). In the last few years, research from southern Europe and Latin America has considerably broadened the geographical spread of IBD by adding less-studied languages such as Turkish (Akar 2002), Italian (Poncini 2004; Bargiela-Chiappini and Turra 2006) and (Argentinean) Spanish (Gimenez 2002). A welcome development in intercultural communication in business settings is the growing interest shown by Asian scholars. In the nineties, Japanese tended to dominate as the language of contrast with English (e.g. Yamada 1997; Marriott 1997; Takeshita 2000), but recently other languages (and cultures) have come to the fore, e.g. Chinese (Lee-Wong 2002; Li et al. 2001; Yeung 2003; Xing 2002) and Malay (Nair-Venugopal 2001; Ting 2001, 2002). A multiple publication project called ‘Asian business discourse(s)’ (Bargiela-Chiappini and Gotti 2005; Bargiela-Chiappini 2005, 2006a) has been launched to encourage intercultural dialogue between scholars, both within Asian traditions and between East and West.

Rethinking discourse, culture and context To encourage the start of a dialogue across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, this section offers some reflections on three foundational concepts in intercultural (business) communication, each of which has been the focus of ongoing debates. IBD is defined as culturally situated, and therefore context-dependent, discourse, in which ‘discourse’ is cultural knowledge that ‘lives and dies in textual occasions’ (Silverstein 2004, 634). In an earlier article, we suggested a framework for the analysis of business discourse that incorporates three levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro) and an understanding of ‘culture’ as pervasive of all levels (Bargiela-Chiappini 2004; Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 2002). A critical appraisal of the model led to the alternative label of ‘overlapping dimensions’, a more fitting description of the fluid workings of cultural discourse.

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In spite of the limitations inherent in any simplified representation of human interaction, the model seeks to convey the notion of business discourse as social action embedding interpersonal, intergroup and interorganizational interaction. In this sense, discourse is raised to the epistemological status of a powerful socioanalytical category. Its core is linguistic, and its manifestation is situated verbal and non-verbal interaction. The coexistence in the original model of multiple analytical dimensions points to the need for multidisciplinary research. Linguists increasingly need to be aware of how insights from social, cognitive and cultural psychology can contribute to a richer understanding of discourse as an organizing concept. Discourse cuts across organizational levels; thus, ‘internal’ and ‘external’ communication in organizations is realized in one-to-one (or to multiparty), and face-to-face (or mediated) verbal and non-verbal interaction. Insights from theories of self and identity as well as understanding of group behaviour can aid interpretation of these prototypical forms of interaction. Semiotics discloses the role and importance of non-verbal, ‘contextual’ communication and tantalizingly extends the concept of discourse to include semiotic forms other than language. The approach to discourse and culture in linguistic anthropology is perhaps the most attractive to IBD in that the process of discourse is seen as ‘the locus of the language-culture relationship’ (Sherzer 1987, 305–6). Culture is not merely cognitive but socially constructed, and language is the interpretative lens for sociocultural knowledge, values and beliefs. This perspective corresponds to ‘the third paradigm’ in linguistic anthropology. Originating from within social theory, the ‘third paradigm’ seeks to bridge the micro-macro gap: ‘the elusive connection between larger institutional structures and processes and the textual details of everyday encounters’ (Duranti 2003, 335). Interestingly, a similar move is afoot in sociolinguistics, in which predefined social categories such as gender, class and race, and the variationist methodology, are being re-examined in the light of social theory, with a view to integrating micro- and macro-analyses (Sealey and Carter 2001; Coupland 2001). Within IBD, the adoption of a strong notion of ‘discourse’, pivoting on the understanding that ‘very interactional text . . . mobilizes cultural signs to discursive effects’ (Silverstein 2004, 625) renders predefined cultural categories redundant. This approach also avoids the dualisms of language-culture and language-society, and bridges the micro-macro analytical gap. Further, in linguistic anthropology, interdependence of discourse and context engenders a notion of interaction as ‘a denotational text-in-context’ (Silverstein 2004, 631): interaction mobilizes cultural signs through, for example, deictics and other indexicals. An intercultural encounter would fit uneasily within a social context in which the definition of communication is reduced to a two-way exchange between speakers sharing a linguistic code. Instead, ‘[I]t is at the interface of any sociocultural linguistic

Business Communication across Cultures

performance where social, linguistic and cognitive contexts meet’ (Fetzer and Akman 2002, 400) that we are more likely to unearth the rich notion of social context that interculturality requires. In intercultural exchange, the social context is partly determined by a process of pragma-linguistic negotiation and accommodation within the interactional context. In fact, I would argue that the three contexts (social, linguistic and cognitive) identified above are to be seen as dynamically shaping the interaction rather than operating as distinct dimensions within it. Yet one step further, a holistic approach to context would maintain that context and meaning are interdependent: thus, the meaning of an object depends on its relationship with the setting. In fact, ‘to speak of context . . . is already to indicate that there is something presented as meaningful within that context . . . The ‘’within’ of contextuality is not the ‘within’ of simple containment, but is indicative of a relation of meaning’ (Malpas 2002, 409). To talk about meaning in context is therefore a tautology, since meaning is always produced in a context. As well, ‘meaning, like context, is a web of interconnections from which particular meanings can only ever be partially untangled’ (Malpas 2002, 415). This definition seems to throw new light on the nature of a concept that has long occupied scholars in pragmatics, semantics, semiotics and hermeneutics. Sociolinguists will feel uneasy about the loss of deterministic analytical categories; similarly, interculturalists will need to question the role of static (Western) cultural categories applied to multicultural analysis. Researcher and ‘researched’ are contextualizing agents. Contextualizing emerges from joint action: ‘the structure of context is itself exhibited as a function of the concrete engagement of an agent within an environment or locale that includes specific objects as well as other agents’ (Malpas 2002, 417). Thus, isolating elements of contexts as primary determinants of meaning is an artificial exercise that could even lead to misrepresentation. This is the risk of an expanded notion of contextualizing that goes beyond discursive strategy to refer to social practice with performative force. Here, the neutrality of contextualizing is highly contestable: in certain locales in particular, contextualizing becomes a highly political activity. If one subscribes to the view that all social action is potentially political, then foregrounding certain elements of context is a process of power. Silverstein (2004, 640) observes that inherent in micro-contextual discourse is a macro-social ‘order of discursivity’ which ‘takes us into political economies and even franker politics of signs no less than into their grammar’. In (often) asymmetrical situations like intercultural business encounters, the challenge of identifying ‘the conditions under which meaning is attributed to a stretch of language, and indeed how those conditions give sense to it’ (Dilley 2002, 442) is complicated by the interplay of the cultural and the interpersonal with economic and political dimensions that may not be transparent at the time

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of the interaction. One possible way of approaching this incommensurable aspect of context is to welcome the shift from a concept of culture that covers people’s actions, words and thoughts, to one of culture as the context for the interpretation of people’s actions, words and thoughts. This way, culture and context are collapsed into one and only one construct. According to this understanding of context, which is current in social and cultural anthropology, context no longer represents an item of knowledge, but ‘it is a condition which shapes knowledge’ (Dilley 2002, 442). This position opens the door to a critical approach to the otherwise paralyzing notion of an infinitely expandable context that focuses on ‘relations between knowledge, context and power that seem to fix some meanings and interpretations rather than others as predominant or even hegemonic forms’ (Dilley 2002, 454). A discipline that is concerned with ‘capturing the elusive connection between larger institutional structures and processes and the textual detail of every day encounters’ (Duranti 2003, 323) is linguistic anthropology. Traditionally, the study of language from an anthropological perspective has involved treating language as a component of culture. (Unlike social psychology, linguistic anthropology considers culture not as a cognitive but as a social construct.) In the paradigmatic shift of the 1990s within linguistic anthropology, which originated from social theory, language has become a powerful means to understand social phenomena. Consistently with this new emphasis, the conceptual vocabulary of linguistic anthropology has been enriched by new entries such as temporality, performativity, identity, embodiment and ideology, all of which bring linguistic anthropology within the sphere of influence of social theory, psychology and critical discourse analysis. The link between intercultural communication and linguistic anthropology is a potentially strong one. I say ‘potentially’ because both disciplines share a foundational concern for culture and could conceivably seek to share interpretative practices if they agreed on an understanding of cultural meanings as activated or made relevant in interpersonal interaction. This latter assumption would undermine reliance on deterministic cultural categories that have dominated much research in intercultural and cross-cultural communication for decades. Through its ‘pragmatic poetic turn’ (Silverstein 2004, 623), linguistic anthropology has moved towards the formulation of an analytical approach that reveals the ‘cultural’ in language. The socio-historical ‘situatedness’ of culture in the ‘contingency of eventhood’, ‘presumed upon in the course of that very praxis, even as it is always potentially transformed by people’s very doings and sayings’ (Silverstein 2004, 622), is an attractive analytical perspective for interculturalists, and one that makes linguistic anthropology a natural partner in the multidisciplinary future of IBD. According to Silverstein (2004, 621), cultures are ‘properties of population’, they are ‘historically contingent’, values and

Business Communication across Cultures

meanings expressed through genred (patterned) interactions; yet they are also ‘ideational or conceptual in that language in use displays evidence of (creation and transformation of) knowledge, feeling and belief’ (622). Sociocultural concepts therefore are primarily accessed through ‘text in context’. In its denotational capacity, words and expressions invoke not only things and states of affairs but also index participants’ social relations. Each interaction is a node in the network of interdiscursivities that constitute institutional, macro-social ‘orders of interactionality’ which, like individual events, are historically contingent and structured. The meaning and significance of the semiotic forms deployed in specific events derives structural and value significance from ‘ritual centres of semiosis’ (623). The importance of the ‘ritual’ permeates Silverstein’s argument to the extent that he proposes analyzing everyday discursive interaction as the ritual event through which participants achieve ‘intersubjective coherence’ through role alignment with cultural beliefs (627). In its more ‘strict’ manifestation, participation in official ritual requires the production of semiotic modalities according to a ‘poetic’ form that Silverstein defines as highly ‘metricalized’, a sort of orderly space-time participation slot (626). Following this characterization, interculturality could be defined as the performance of cultural alignment through language-in-use; it is also the situated reification of the ‘cultural’ as an interactional achievement. Thus, interculturality is not predicated on limiting evaluative criteria of communicative efficiency or effectiveness; rather, whenever diverse knowledge, value and beliefs systems come into contact interactionally, there is the locus of interculturality. Its full potential as a theoretical construct emerges from the analysis of denotational text. For, as Silverstein (2004, 631) writes, ‘all cultural study is hermeneutic (and dialectic) in nature, seeking to interpret the interactionally significant (i.e. efficacious) “meaning” of denotational text’.

Theories, methods, and a hint of interdisciplinarity This chapter has only briefly mentioned the potential contribution to IBD of some related disciplines such as cultural psychology, social psychology, crosscultural communication and intercultural communication. Almost taken for granted is the contribution of another cluster of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, pragmatics, (critical) discourse studies and conversation analysis. One could imagine IBD as the centre of a Venn diagram intersecting all these disciplines with varying degrees of overlap according to relevance and synergetic potential. Any attempt at multidisciplinary research presupposes the willingness of researchers to listen to and learn from each other. Dialectic exchange among disciplines is not an unattainable aim for deluded academics. But neither is it

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helpful calling ‘multidisciplinary’ a form of mono- or multidisciplinary work that sometimes mis-employs concepts and methods from cognate disciplines. It has been correctly observed that, in order to be able to carry out sound multidisciplinary research, one needs to be well versed in his or her own discipline first.2 However, sound (mono)disciplinary competence is not sufficient. The field of organizational communication, to quote but one example, has sought to integrate insights from various disciplines but has come under attack for being atheoretical and producing fragmentary research (Postmes 2003). Moreover, disciplines are often conflicting and contradictory. For example, conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis and speech act theory all have something to contribute to the analysis of discourse, but they start from very different and often contradictory principles which cannot actually be resolved without giving priority to a particular (disciplinary) approach. Even if one is very well versed in all three, unresolved tensions remain the case and have to be addressed. Sociologists, for example, tend to take interview discourse at face value, as providing direct access to the thoughts, values, etc. of interviewees, a position which no linguist could accept as valid.3 The Discourse and Rhetoric Group at Loughborough University (UK) have published an article online that examines instances of objectionable analytical praxis. They write from the perspective of social psychology, but their observations are also relevant to the (mis)use of discourse analysis by other disciplines. Singled out in their article is the tendency to under-analyze through: summary, side-taking sides, quotation misuse or ‘false survey’, as well as the circularity of identifying discourses and mental constructs (Antaki et al. 2003). The conclusion that ‘[discourse] analysis means a close engagement with one’s texts or transcripts, and the illumination of their meaning and significance through insightful and technically sophisticated work’ (Antaki et al. 2003, 23) could introduce the methods section of a research programme for IBD. At the same time, there is no shortage of theoretical constructs and frameworks from related disciplines that researchers may find relevant to the still unwritten research agenda of IBD. In this section I consider only three of the most promising, which have been the object of extensive research in the social sciences: social identity, self and face. The attractiveness of social identity theory is that it offers a conceptual bridge between individual action and social structure, a central concern of social theory and, recently, of sociolinguistics (Coupland et al. 2001). Social identity, being construed as ‘the social internalised by the self’ (Postmes 2003, 86), accounts for the social influences on individual thought and action. Communication is seen as essential to the development and expression of social identity: indeed, social identity and language are interrelated. Moreover, as the facet of self that derives from group membership, social identity contributes to the understanding of phenomena such as conformity, stereotyping, prejudice,

Business Communication across Cultures

leadership and group decision-making (Hogg 2003, 474). These are all relevant topics in intercultural business communication, e.g. in intercultural negotiations and in multicultural organizations. Complex dynamic constructs such as social identity do not naturally lend themselves to direct application in the workplace. Management trainers who have sought to repackage social identity theory for programmes aimed to enhance organizational identification have often opted for a(n) (unsatisfactory) reductionist approach that selectively uses and interprets single hypotheses. Applying social identity as a training tool to improve performance has meant replacing its original dynamic core for a stable set of individual differences that can easily be manipulated (Ellemers et al. 2003). Intercultural business discourse is not immune from the risk of oversimplification through application: the tension between applying theoretical imports from other disciplines to current practical concerns within intercultural communication programmes is real and not easily resolved. Interculturalists may still be tempted by judicious application of social identity theory, which could lead to a better understanding of, for instance, group membership in so-called collectivist societies, in which the explanatory power of the ‘individualist v. collectivist’ dualism is nearing exhaustion. A complementary line of research that has been flourishing in the West is the study of self and personality. The self construct cuts across cognate disciplines that often do not communicate, such as social cognition, psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, sociology and philosophy (Mischel and Morf 2003). The characterization of the Western self, as an individual with full agency power and in control of one’s destiny, is apparently quite alien to the predominantly interdependent self of many non-Western societies. It is therefore a pertinent topic for IBD to assess the influence of clashing self-views, for example, in multicultural business negotiations. To this effect, it helps to consider the self not only as a single construct but also as a process system that shapes and is shaped by social environments (Mischel and Morf 2003); in other words, a system that is culture sensitive. This self-system must eventually incorporate the emotional and motivational systems linked to it, which are responsible for its attentional, cognitive and regulatory aspects (Leary and Tangney 2003). Thus far, social and behavioural scientists have contributed useful insights on the self construct which are awaiting translation into empirical research and large-scale theory development. An exception to this state of affairs that pre-dates and partly anticipates current debates on self and ‘face’ is the seminal work of Erving Goffman. In his understanding of self as socially constructed, Goffman pointed to the importance of relational and collective aspects of the self and their interplay. Moreover, Goffman’s interest in the Chinese concept of ‘face’ and its possible relevance to

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Western identities has been fundamental to Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness, in spite of some noticeable oversimplification (see discussion in Bargiela-Chiappini 2003). Alongside the self, ‘face’ is a key construct for research in intercultural business settings, where it remains largely unexplored (but see Early and Randel 1997). It is also a unique opportunity for collaborative research with Asian scholars, whose sophisticated constructs of ‘face’ are embedded in a web of hierarchical, interpersonal relations with ramifications beyond the verbal dimension. Progress in this under-investigated area of intercultural communication depends on a shift from an exclusive socio-cognitive to a sociocultural understanding of the self. It has been argued that the cultural shaping of the self begins with familiarization with the philosophical and religious heritage: witness the analytical view of the world that we in the West have inherited from the ancient Greeks (Cross and Gore 2003). Compare this with the holistic and interpersonal sense of being of a member of an Asian society, whose social identity depends much more on social roles and positions, hence the difference between Western and Eastern motivational and affective systems (Cross and Gore 2003). In the West, we sit quite comfortably with theories of identity that privilege the group, or the collectivity, or the individual. This situation leaves unresolved the issue of the ontological gap between the individual and the social (the micromacro gap). Sociolinguists who have begun to listen to social theorists in an attempt to reconnect the micro with the macro (Coupland et al. 2001) seem inclined towards an understanding of society in which structure and agency coexist in a dynamic tension (see the work of the sociologist Anthony Giddens). Thus social actions generate social structures but also occur within those same structures (Stets and Burke 2003). In this social psychological perspective, multiple role identities are attributed to the interactional self, one or more of which becomes salient at different points of the interaction. Role identity bridges the gap between structures and individuals through the enactment in group interaction of different identities in response to structural influences (Stets and Burke 2003). Even if interculturalists may be understandably reluctant to embrace this perspective unconditionally, they should be commended for striving to theorize the fundamental relationship between the individual and the social that conditions thinking on interculturality and intercultural communication. A dynamic agent/ structure relationship avoids the extreme position of the ontological inseparability of society and individuals4 while emphasizing their interdependence. A diverging sociocultural perspective maintains instead that, in order to succeed in empirical work, it is necessary to retain this analytical dualism while at the same time subscribing to ‘weak’ disciplinary inseparability (Sawyer 2002), whereby psychologists collaborate with sociologists and anthropologists.

Business Communication across Cultures

The future of business communication across cultures Blommaert (1991, 26) argues that a linguistic theory of intercultural communication should be an interactional theory and should contain macroconcepts that enable the generalization of findings. The advantages of such a theory would include the adoption of culture as a micro-macro concept manifested through discourse and leading to the collapse of the traditional levels of analysis. As well as its key concepts and theoretical issues, a first paradigmatic description of a new field of study such as IBD would include a definition of goals and the choice of analytical units and of methods of data collection. Within cross-linguistic analysis, Clyne (2002) lists a number of topics that are also relevant to IBD: speech act realization, systems of address, small talk, communication breakdown and interactional patterns (e.g. turn-taking and silence). Methods used in earlier research range from the collection of large corpora of recorded spontaneous interaction to role-played situations, interviews and participant observation. Research by Janet Holmes and her team (Holmes et al. 1999; Holmes and Stubbe 2003) in New Zealand’s institutional settings demonstrates the usefulness of a socio-pragmatic approach to situated language research. Conversation analysis and ethnography have generated some of the best-known studies of workplace interaction (e.g. Drew and Heritage 1992; Boden 1994; Schwartzman 1989). Sarangi and Roberts (1999) contrast the focus on the interactional order of conversation analysis and sociolinguistics with the sociological analyses of the workplace that concentrate instead on the institutional order at which ideologies and rationalities operate. The two orders have been linked in critical sociolinguistics (e.g. Heller 2001), which combines social analysis, ethnography and discourse analysis. The tendency persists among researchers to hold to their own epistemological ground while borrowing piecemeal from other disciplines. Multidisciplinarity poses serious challenges to collaborative research among individuals who cannot be expected to command competence and experience in several disciplines. The idea of ‘partnership research’ (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 2001) is the first step in a dialogue on the nature of shareable constructs and epistemological compatibility. 5 Intercultural business discourse is a distinctive discourse environment, which ideally lends itself to such a project. In common with workplace research, the business component of IBD will concern itself with issues involving decision-making and problem-solving and the constitution of professional identities. The research agenda for IBD is complicated by culture-related issues which require re-conceptualization in the light of advances in cultural and social psychology. In the previous section I mention ‘self’ and ‘face’, but there is an array of foundational cultural constructs, some of which we apparently share

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across cultures (e.g. honour, shame and guilt), and some others which are more salient in non-Western cultures. Therefore, the emergence of Asian native psychologies can be expected to make a distinctive contribution to, for instance, the regulating influence on interpersonal relationships of the core value of harmony. This, in turn, points to the difference between the Eastern and Western concepts of control: it has been found that Asians will attempt to change themselves rather than their environment and will prefer collective control to individual control, because agency resting with the individual is seen as threat to harmony (Yamaguchi 2001). In light of the above, prescribing a first agenda for IBD is an ambitious task, not least because this chapter has only selectively introduced some of the relevant issues and challenges. A tentative ‘priority list’ might include the following steps: (1) exploration of cognate disciplines for analytical constructs and frameworks which are epistemologically compatible with the constructs of discourse and culture outlined earlier, with a view to formulating a common basis for possible collaborative research; (2) critical reassessment of the ontological and epistemological foundations of intercultural business discourse in the light of non-Western philosophical and anthropological studies; (3) evaluation of ethical issues arising from collaboration with individuals and business organizations of different nationalities. Wherever our starting point is on this selective list, the enterprise should be inspired by the awareness of the cross-disciplinary dialogue in which research in intercultural business discourse necessarily partakes. As a recent call for papers put it: ‘Human natural languages are biologically based, cognitively motivated, affectively rich, socially shared, grammatical organized symbolic systems. They provide the principal semiotic means for the complexity and diversity of human cultural life. As has long been recognized, no single discipline or methodology is sufficient to capture all the dimensions of this complex and multifaceted phenomenon, which lies at the heart of what is to be human’ (Linguist List 2003).

3 Professional Communicative Competences: Four Key Industries in Hong Kong Winnie Cheng

As a result of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China on 1 July 1997, the government of Hong Kong SAR has changed its language policy to ‘develop a civil service which is biliterate in English and Chinese and trilingual in English, Cantonese and Putonghua’ (Bolton 2002, 35). Starting in the 1998 school year, over 70 percent of the government and government-aided secondary schools in Hong Kong were required to adopt mother-tongue (Cantonese) teaching. English, however, is still preferred as the medium of instruction by many people and still enjoys a higher status as the working language of commerce and business in Hong Kong (Evans and Green 2003). Business and professional communication in English is essential to Hong Kong. The importance of this communication is supported by the Hong Kong Workplace English Campaign (WEC) launched by the government in 2000. WEC helps increase people’s awareness of the importance of English proficiency in the workplace and enhances business English skills among personnel working in key sectors of the local economy (SCOLAR 2005a). WEC aims to cover all work sectors where English communication skills are important, for example, tourism, retail, trading, banking and finance (SCOLAR 2005b). In the case of tourism, although the employment figure as of December 2005 is not large (28,400), tourism promotes other sectors such as retail, business services and catering. Trading, banking and finance have a combined workforce of 626,700 (Census and Statistics Department 2006a). The importance of trading is underscored by its human resources (510,400) and the increase in communication demand due to globalization. From the perspective of the gross domestic product (GDP), two kinds of service contribute substantially to economic activities, at 27.5 percent and 21.3 percent respectively. The first kind is made up of wholesale, retail, import and export trades, restaurants and hotels; and the second is finance,

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insurance, real estate, and business service (Census and Statistics Department 2006b). Research studies have been conducted to analyze different business discourses in Hong Kong, all of which, in one way or another, contribute to our understanding of competent professional communication in Hong Kong. Examples of these studies are the metadiscourse in the letters of CEOs (Hyland 1998); the impact of culture and language use on topic management strategies and turn-taking behaviour (Du-Babcock 2006); the exploitation of linguistic resources in network marketing directors’ messages to construct realities and identities (Kong 2001); the use of accounts as a politeness strategy in internal email in a business firm in Hong Kong (Kong 2006); the impact of the new media on the discourse structure of online sales letters (Cheung 2006); cultural preferences for rhetorical patterns in business writing (Cheng and Mok 2006); the use of pragmatic speech acts of disagreement, giving an opinion and checking understanding, and discourse intonation in a corpus of business discourse (Cheng and Warren 2005a, 2005b, 2006); the discourse of check-out service encounters in a hotel (Cheng 2004); the structure and language of tax computation letters written by accountants (Flowderdew and Wan 2006); and business and legal discourse (Bhatia 2005; Bhatia et al. 2008). However, no studies have been conducted to ascertain the nature and components of communicative competences in professional and business contexts in Hong Kong.

The present study This chapter reports on the first stage of a study that aims to characterize communicative competences among professionals and practitioners in Hong Kong, by means of reviewing the web-based information about the professionals and organizations in the four key industries in the Hong Kong economy: Financial Services, Tourism, Trade and Logistics, and Professional Services and Other Producers Services. Constituent organizations and professional associations of the four key industries, as delineated by the Information Services Department and Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong SAR, can be found in the Appendix to this chapter. Regarding the fourth key industry, Professional Services and Other Producers Services, the present study examines only Professional Services and excludes Other Producers Services, to limit the fields studied here. These four key industries have been the driving force of Hong Kong’s economic growth, providing impetus to the development of other sectors and creating employment across Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Development 2006a, 2006b). The goal of the main study, through determining the perceived

Professional Communicative Competences

attributes that are unique to individual industries and those that are shared across the four key industries in Hong Kong, is to construct a descriptive Taxonomy of Professional Communicative Competences (TPCC) that will have applicational value to professionals and organizations not only in Hong Kong but also elsewhere.

(Professional) communicative competences The term communicative competence was first coined by Hymes (1966), inspired by Chomsky’s (1965) distinction between competence and performance, in which competence is an idealized capacity associated with linguistic competence or whether a sentence is grammatical or not, and performance refers to actual events of the production of utterances. In Hymes’s (2001, 60) social rules of language use model, competence is about ‘when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner’, and communicative competence depends on both tacit knowledge and the ability to use language appropriately (Hymes 1971). Communicative competence was later refined by van Ek (1986, 35–65) in his model of communicative ability, comprising six competences: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic, sociocultural, and social. Linguistic competence refers to the ability to produce and interpret meaningful utterances in accordance with the rules of the language, which carry conventional meaning. Sociolinguistic competence is the awareness of the ways in which the choice of language forms is determined by factors such as setting, interpersonal relationships and communicative intention. Sociolinguistic competence requires an understanding of the relationship between purely linguistic signals and their contextual meaning. Discourse competence means the ability to use appropriate strategies in the construction and interpretation of texts. Strategic competence is the ability to find ways of getting the message across, or of finding out what somebody means, when communication is problematic. Sociocultural competence refers to a certain degree of familiarity with the sociocultural context in which language is situated. Social competence is concerned with both the will and the skill to interact with others, which involves motivation, attitude, self-confidence, empathy and the ability to handle social situations (van Ek 1986, 35–65). In this study, culture refers to both ‘large culture’ and ‘small culture’ (Holliday 1999). Large culture indicates ‘concrete, separate, behaviour-defining ethnic, national, international groups with material performance and clear boundaries’ (Holliday 1999, 242). Small culture refers to ‘cohesive behaviour in activities within any social grouping’ (Holliday 1999, 237). Others, such as Trenholm and Jensen (2004), define communicative competence as the ability to communicate in a personally effective and socially

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appropriate manner, and as comprising five processes: a process of coding (message competence), a process of perceiving (interpretive competence), a process of adapting (role competence), a process of self-presentation (self competence), and a process of planning (goal competence) (Trenholm and Jensen 2004, 10). As implied in these views, communicative competence is context bound and socially situated. To date, research studies in communicative competences have mostly focused on educational and cross- and intercultural contexts; and the context-specific standards of effectiveness and appropriateness are evident. Wiseman, Hammer and Nishida (1989) conceptualize intercultural competence (ICC) as a multidimensional construct which includes culture-specific understanding of other, culture-general understanding, and positive regard for other. Spitzberg (1991, 354) defines competence as ‘An impression that message behaviour is appropriate and effective in a given context’, with context comprising four levels: ‘culture, relationship, place, and function’ (Spitzberg and Brunner 1991). In Spitzberg’s (2000, 375) systems model (individual, episodic, and relational systems) of ICC, ‘Communication in an intercultural context . . . is competent when it accomplishes the objectives of an actor in a manner that is appropriate to the context’ (Spitzberg 2000, 376). The ICC model examines the process of dyadic (two-party) interaction as a function of two individuals’ motivation to communicate, knowledge of communication in that context, and skills in implementing their motivation and knowledge. Byram (1997) proposes an ICC model that deals with the skills, attitudes, knowledge and critical awareness seen to constitute intercultural communication, offering objectives for each component and suggesting modes of assessment for each one. The qualities required to be a competent intercultural communicator are knowledge, attitudes, skills and education (Byram 1997, 50–4). Byram revises three of van Ek’s (1986) six competences (linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse), and instead proposes intercultural competence and intercultural communicative competence to better describe intercultural communicative competence. In recent years, research into English in intercultural and international business and professional communication has been gaining interest. Bhatia’s (2004, 146) notion of ‘professional expertise’ comprises disciplinary knowledge, professional practice and discursive competence. Discursive competence can be influenced by ‘local structures of contexts such as a setting (time, location, circumstance), participants and their various communicative and social roles (speaker, chairperson, friend, etc.), intentions, goals or purposes, and so on’. Douglas (2000) proposes the notion of specific purpose language ability, which comprises language knowledge, strategic competence and background knowledge. Language knowledge is made of grammatical, textual, functional and sociolinguistic knowledge. Strategic competence ‘serves a link between the

Professional Communicative Competences

external situational context, or the specific purpose language use situation, and the internal knowledge that forms the wherewithal for communication’ (33–4). The last component, background knowledge, associated with discourse domains, refers to the framework of references, or past experience, that the language users base on to make sense of the present and to predict the future. In marketing communication, Underwood and Ozanne (1998) propose a normative framework for increasing the communicative competence of product packaging, which suggests that a set of norms (i.e. of truthfulness, of sincerity, of comprehensibility and of legitimacy) can guide the complex task of designing good product packaging and is of benefit to public policymakers, manufacturers, marketers, and consumers. In the tourism industry, Martin and Leclerc (2004) surveyed three nationality groups (French, German and American) and found significant differences among tour guides in their perceptions of important communication competences, which consist of four non-verbal dimensions (approachability, poise, attentiveness, and touch) and three verbal dimensions (language adaptability, interpersonal inclusion, and assertiveness). Cheng (2004) analyzed the generic structure, pragmatics, and discourse intonation of ‘checking out’ discourses in a five-star hotel in Hong Kong, and discussed the findings in relation to ESP language learning and teaching, language awareness training, and wider issues pertaining to the hotel’s overall philosophy and how this is conveyed by its staff. In engineering, Ravesteijn, Graaff and Kroesen (2006) present a historical perspective of the capabilities that engineers should possess to do their work, which underpins the importance of communicative competence. This competence requires a good understanding of the social dynamics of technology and the ability to communicate on the level of facts, values and emotions, with a focus on the skills of orientation on the future and the abilities involved in dialogue and cultural differences. The review so far shows that previous studies have examined and described how communicative competences in particular professional and business settings are conceptualized, defined and achieved, but they have not yet investigated whether or not, and to what extent, the construct of professional communicative competences is a universal phenomenon. The present study examining the situation in Hong Kong represents the first attempt at just such an investigation.

Methodology The first stage of the present study investigated the four key industries in the Hong Kong economy according to what constitutes communicative competences in their professions, as well as how the organizations in these industries define each of the professional communicative competences. Table 3.1 shows the results of surveying 497 organizations (31 in Financial Services, 15 in Tourism, 419 in

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Trade and Logistics, and 32 in Professional Services), from a list provided by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s website. Of the 497 organizations, websites were found for 264 (26 in Financial Services, 15 in Tourism, 198 in Trade and Logistics, and 25 in Professional Services). A careful review of the web materials of these organizations was conducted from December 2006 to March 2007, with a focus on information relating to (professional) communicative competences. The review covered such sections as organizational mission/ objectives, code of ethics or principles of practice, and continuing professional development (CPD), and such documents as annual reports, newsletters, bulletins, and services for members or the public at large. Table 3.1 Distribution of organizations Financial Tourism Trade and Professional Services Logistics Services

Total

Number of organizations

31 (6.2%)

15 (3%)

419 (84.3%)

32 (6.4%)

497 (100%)

Number of organizations with websites

26 (9.8%)

15 (5.7%)

198 (75%)

25 (9.5%)

264 (100%)

Findings and discussion A review of the web materials shows that the notion of ‘(professional) communicative competences’ rarely occurs. Of the fifty-two organizations which do include it, very few actually use the term communicative competence or professional communicative competence. Professional associations usually specify such membership requirements as work experience, education, qualifications, and even age, but only two make reference to requirements of the level of (professional) communicative competences of their members or staff. The exceptions are Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragon Air, both of which require proficiency in English and Cantonese/Mandarin as well as excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Fifty-two of the 264 organizations were found to contain information about, or imply, (professional) communicative competences, primarily under the sections of Code of Ethics/Guidelines for Practice, and CPD, and some in other sections. Table 3.2 shows that, across the three groups, the number of instances which mention or imply (professional) communicative competences in Code of Ethics/Guidelines for Practice (N=296 in 23 organizations) is similar to that in CPD (N = 283 in 32 organizations). The third category amounts to only eight occurrences.

Professional Communicative Competences

Table 3.2 Distribution of (professional) communicative competence occurrences in 52 organizations Frequency of occurrences

Number of organizations

Code of ethics, Guidelines for practice

296

23

Continuing Professional Development

283

32

Other sections

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8

Code of ethics/guidelines for practice Most of the organizations and professional associations in the four key industries have individual codes of ethics or guidelines for practice applicable to their members. The codes or guidelines usually stipulate desirable norms of attitudes and conduct for members in different situations, or suggest procedures for accomplishing a certain task. Of the twenty-three organizations which mention or imply (professional) communicative competences, none actually use the term. However, their codes or guidelines describe specific professional communicative contexts and stipulate behaviours and attitudes that are expected of their members in those contexts. For instance, Example 1 shows three instances in which the Hong Kong Journalists Association stipulates conditions and expectations with respect to dissemination of information, rectification of and action in cases of inaccurate information being communicated, and the use of information by journalists. The verbs used to describe the communicative acts are disseminate, rectify, and afford . . . reply. The expected appropriate conduct includes ‘fair and accurate’, ‘avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact and falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation’, ‘promptly’, ‘ensure that correction and apologies receive due prominence’ and so on. One of the instances (Point 11) couches the expected behaviour in a negative statement: ‘A journalist shall not take private advantage of information gained in the course of his/her duties, before the information is public knowledge’. Example 1 HKJA Code of Ethics 3.

A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate, avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact and falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation.

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4.

A journalist shall rectify promptly any harmful inaccuracies, ensure that correction and apologies receive due prominence and afford the right of reply to persons criticized when the issue is of sufficient importance.

... 11. A journalist shall not take private advantage of information gained in the course of his/her duties, before the information is public knowledge. (Hong Kong Journalists Association)

Example 2 contains two mentions of (professional) communicative competences, in which the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong stipulates the proper way in which advice to the client should be given, as well as the professional responsibility borne by members when communicating advice to the client. Example 2 Relationship with the Client – Advice to the client must be unaffected by interests other than those of the client. – A member must ensure it is clear that he is professionally responsible for any advice which he gives and that he can be identified as the source of the advice. (The Actuarial Society of Hong Kong)

Example 3 shows that members of the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong are obliged to explain the implications of any advice to their clients in ‘suitable terms’. They need to include in their reports or certificates information as to the scope, terms of reference, assumptions, methods, and data used. Appropriateness to the circumstances is highlighted. Example 3 Formulation of Advice The implications of any advice which is given must be explained in suitable terms. A member should include in any report or certificate information, appropriate to the circumstances, as to its scope and terms of reference, the assumptions made and the methods and data which were used. (The Actuarial Society of Hong Kong)

Example 4, drawn from the Hong Kong Association of Banks, contains five stipulations of (professional) communicative competences: availability and preparedness of banks with respect to communicating terms and conditions to

Professional Communicative Competences

customers, establishment of complaint procedures, availability of information about how to invoke complaint procedures, ensuring staff awareness of complaint procedures, and giving correct information to customers about these procedures. Example 4 Part II Recommendations on Banking Practice Chapter 1 – Relationship between Banks and Customers Institutions should make readily available to customers or prospective customers written terms and conditions of a banking service. Institutions should be prepared to answer any queries of customers or prospective customers relating to terms and conditions. Institutions should establish procedures for handling customer complaints in a fair and speedy manner. Details of how to invoke complaint procedures should be made available to customers and other interested parties. Institutions should ensure that all their staff who deal directly with customers are made aware of the complaint procedures and are able to help customers by giving correct information about these procedures. (The Hong Kong Association of Banks)

Example 5 is extracted from the Direct Selling Association of Hong Kong and shows seven instances of (professional) communicative competences. They are all found under ‘Conduct Towards Customers’, stipulating expected, desirable conduct under the sub-headings ‘Prohibited Practices’, ‘Identification’, ‘Explanation and Demonstration’, ‘Answers to Questions’, ‘Order Form’, ‘Verbal Promises’, and ‘Literature’. The first example, ‘Direct Sellers shall not use misleading, deceptive or unfair sales practices’, implies communication of sales information to consumers. Other examples that are considered relevant to competent professional communication include ‘shall truthfully identify themselves’; ‘shall make clear the purpose of the occasion’; ‘Explanation . . . shall be accurate and complete’; ‘shall give accurate and understandable answers to all questions’; ‘A written order shall be delivered . . . which shall identify . . . All terms shall be clearly legible’; ‘shall only make verbal promises concerning the product which are authorized by the company’; ‘shall not contain any product description, claims or illustrations which are deceptive and misleading’; and ‘shall contain the name and address or telephone number of the company or the Direct Seller’. It is interesting to note that many ‘aspects of employee communications’ described in the extract (see words underlined by the author) quite nicely conform to Grice’s (1975) co-operative principle, consisting of four maxims, which forms

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the basis by which all human beings interpret language. The co-operative principle is ‘make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged’ (Grice 1975, 45–6). The maxims of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner detail what participants in conversations do in order to converse in a co-operative, efficient and rational manner. Example 5 Conduct Towards Consumers 2.1 Prohibited Practices Direct Sellers shall not use misleading, deceptive or unfair sales practices. 2.2 Identification From the beginning of the sales presentation, Direct Sellers shall, without request, truthfully identify themselves to the prospective customer, and shall also identify their company, their products and the purpose of their solicitation. In party selling, Direct Sellers shall make clear the purpose of the occasion to the hostess and the participants. 2.3 Explanation and Demonstration Explanation and demonstration of the product offered shall be accurate and complete, in particular with regard to price and, if applicable, credit price, terms of payment, cooling-off period and/or return rights, terms of guarantee and aftersales service, and delivery. 2.4 Answers to Questions Direct Sellers shall give accurate and understandable answers to all questions from consumers concerning the product and the offer. 2.5 Order Form A written order form shall be delivered to the customer at the time of sale, which shall identify the company and the Direct Seller and contain the full name, permanent address and telephone number of the company or the Direct Seller, and all material terms of the sale. All terms shall be clearly legible. 2.6 Verbal Promises Direct Sellers shall only make verbal promises concerning the product which are authorized by the company. 2.9 Literature Promotional literature, advertisements or mailings shall not contain any product description, claims or illustrations which are deceptive or misleading, and shall contain the name and address or telephone number of the company or the Direct Seller. (Direct Selling Association of Hong Kong)

Professional Communicative Competences

Example 6 shows extracts taken from the website of the Employers’ Federation of Hong Kong, under ‘Employee relations’, and ‘Communicating with employees’, which refer to expectations regarding communication with employees. Similar to Example 5, words that conform to Grice’s four maxims are underlined. Example 6 Employee relations c. Employers should have a clear policy, preferably in writing and communicated to employees, on any surveillance of internet use, emails or telephone calls of their employees. Communicating with employees Employers who communicate regularly, openly and honestly with their employees suffer from fewer labour problems and greater productivity than those that communicate infrequently, badly or not at all. This section covers some aspects of employee communications. a. Employers will reduce employee queries and complaints by preparing, issuing and updating an employee handbook that provides in clear language details of terms and conditions of employment, facilities for employees and other details that employees will find helpful. If possible this should be available on the employer’s intranet if one exists. b. Employers should communicate as fully and as regularly as possible the relevant information about the company’s financial and growth progress and prospects. While in publicly listed companies there may be regulatory constraints on the timing and content of market sensitive information, all employers will benefit from their employees knowing and trusting in the truth. c. Every manager should be made aware of and accountable for his or her role in the communication process with employees. A procedure for dealing with grievances may rarely be used if managers communicate effectively but should be in place in any case for the reassurance of employees and in case of need. d. Many employers have found benefit from including representatives from different levels of the organisation (and official union representatives) in their management and planning committees. Apart from the added insights they receive from wider decision-taking, employees feel they have at least some say in and knowledge of their employer’s direction and strategy. e. Many employers also find benefit from organising staff social functions and entertainment from time to time when economic conditions permit. (Employers’ Federation of Hong Kong)

Example 7 shows descriptions of competent communication by the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong. Of the eight rules of professional ethics, nearly

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half are directly (ii and iii), or indirectly (i and iv) concerned with professional communication. Example 7 4. Compliance of professional ethics Tourist guides shall: i. be dutiful, sincere, courteous and attentive; ii. speak and act cautiously, discreetly, and be objective in their attitude; iii. be knowledgeable about Hong Kong and provide visitors with accurate information; iv. respect the religious belief, customs and habits of visitors; v. be punctual when performing duties; vi. not smoke in front of visitors and drink alcohol when working; vii. not gamble when working; and viii. not sell illicit items to visitors or recommend them to buy such items. (Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong)

Example 8, taken from the Hong Kong Institute of Registered Financial Planners, includes three rules which describe expected behaviours in professional communicative contexts of recommending/selling a service or product to the client, with the use of such verbs as ‘recommending/selling’ (Rule 203), ‘shall inform’ (Rule 402), and ‘recommending or selling . . . shall fully disclose in writing’ (Rule 403). Example 8 Principle 2 — A member shall act in the client’s interest Rule 203 — When recommending/selling a service or product, a Member’s sole concern should be the client’s best interest. Principle 4 — Conflict of Interest Rule 402 — A Member shall inform a client of any business, connections, affiliations, and interests of which the client might reasonably expect to be informed. Rule 403 — When recommending or selling a service or product, a Member shall fully disclose in writing to the client any conflict of interest the Member may have, or any fees, commissions or profits the Member may receive regarding the service or product recommended. (Hong Kong Institute of Registered Financial Planners)

Example 9 is taken from the Guidelines for Practice of the Hong Kong Press Council. Photojournalists, when taking photos, have the duty to ‘report the truth’

Professional Communicative Competences

(c.f. Grice’s maxim of quality) and ‘show concern about the feelings of victims and their families when photographing accidents and their aftermaths’, both of which are effective guidelines for appropriate professional communication by the council’s members. Example 9 Photojournalism 1.

2.

3. 4.

It is the prime duty of photojournalists to report the truth. Photojournalists should take photographs from the actual scene of a news event. They should not participate in designing or directing re-enactment of news events for exaggerated and inaccurate reports. Photojournalists should show concern about the feelings of victims and their families when photographing accidents and their aftermaths, so as to avoid and/or minimize the damage to and impact on the feelings of the victims and their families. Photojournalists should respect the privacy of people being photographed. Photojournalists — including photographers and picture editors — should handle with caution pictures that are gory, violent, disgusting and pornographic. Before using this type of photographs, photojournalists should consider: – whether they are necessary for better understanding of a news event; – the impact on the society; – the impact on the people involved and their families. (Hong Kong Press Council)

Continuing professional development The second category in which information pertaining to (professional) communicative competences was found is CPD. A number of organizations and professional associations in the four key industries organize various CPD programmes for their members. For example, the Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers requires all insurance intermediaries to participate in ten CPD hours every year to ensure continued development of professional competence and to assure standards in providing advice and service to policyholders and potential policyholders. Members of the Institute of Financial Planners of Hong Kong are required to complete a minimum of fifteen credits of continuing education (CE) every year, in order to keep up with current developments in financial planning and better serve clients. Many of these programmes involve language or communication topics. In Example 10, the Institute of Crisis and Risk Management offers Professional Certificate in Certified Risk Planner (CRP) and Certified Risk Trainer (CRT)

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programmes for their members. In the first instance, ‘communications’ is used, and in the second, it is implied in ‘management skills’, which enable participants to enhance their ‘personal competences, career and development’. Example 10 The Certified Risk Planner (CRP) programme . . . will provide a strong foundation of knowledge, and skills that will help you structure your way of problem solving, decision making and managing your strategic planning, communications, and reputation. In order to be recognized as the Certified Risk Trainer in risk and crisis management, individual [sic] must . . . Learn the risk and crisis management skills and technologies and enhance your personal competences, career and development . . .

In Example 11, the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong offers their members ‘Distinctive Programs’, many of which involve communicating competently in various professional, interactive contexts. Example 11 Distinctive Programs 1. China Business Operation Series Putonghua for Business 6. Management Skills Enhancement Courses Sales Technique Customer Relationship Management Performance Management Negotiation skills 8. Management Consulting Services (The Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong)

Example 12 shows that the Hong Kong Computer Society offers courses with a focus on IT professional skill development, one of which is ‘Language and Communication skills’. Example 12 d. Language and Communication skills A true professional should be able to convey and report ideas clearly. Training that enhances spoken and written presentation and reporting skills are [sic] examples of training in this category. (Hong Kong Computer Society)

Professional Communicative Competences

Training in language and communication is also a specific focus in the Tourism Industry. The Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong offers the Preservice Tourist Guide Training Course to provide vocational training for people who intend to become tourist guides. The content of the course includes tourguiding skills, tourist behaviour and cultural characteristics, professional ethics of tourist guides, and so on. The tour-guiding skills involve presentation skills, how to communicate with tourists, language skills (especially Putonghua), how to welcome tourists and bid them farewell, self-introduction, and so on. Members who have completed the course can take the examinations under the Tourist Guide Accreditation System and apply for a Tourist Guide Pass if they pass. Other than certificate programmes and training courses, organizations in the four key industries organize for their members regular seminars and workshops, some of which are related to acquiring communicative competences. The Quality Tourism Services Association, for example, provides various seminars on customer service skills to its members. Example 13 contains three such seminars: handling complaints, internal communication on rewarding system, and appropriate communication and service skills. Example 13 Complaint Handling through EQ Management Seminar . . . this seminar also shared tips on how to respond to customers’ and tourists’ complaints more appropriately, promptly and with flexibility. Besides, the trainer applied many lively examples and role plays to discuss on [sic] different types of customer complaints . . . HR seminar series ‘People Management for Better Service’ . . . emphasized the importance of the internal communication on the relevant rewarding system . . . Multicultural Seminar ‘Understanding International Visitors & Servicing to Excellence’ Understand of using appropriate communication and service skills to achieve visitors’ satisfaction. (Quality Tourism Service Association)

Example 14 is extracted from the website of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. It contains information about training courses in Mandarin; interviewing and selection techniques; skills that aim to enhance the level of service; handling complaints and difficult people on the telephone; business writing skills for executives; and grammar for the workplace.

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Example 14 Training Courses: Mandarin Speaking Group for ‘EXPATRIATES’ (Intensive Course) This is a 12-session course of 2 hours per session, starting with the use of Chinese phonetics (Putonghua Pinyin). Accelerated Practical HR Series Module I — ‘Hiring the Right Talents & the Well-Fitted? — Brush up the Interviewing & Selection Techniques’ Service Excellence for Everyone! Particularly for receptionists, secretaries, administrative assistants & any frontline staff engaging in daily contacts with external parties. 1. Customer Services Becoming a Part of Life 2. Effective Communication 3. Handling Difficult Situations 4. Role-Play and Group Discussion Handling Complaints & Difficult People on the Telephone This workshop will focus on complaints handling on the telephone. Participants will be provided with both professional skills and suggested strategies to handle complaints on the telephone. They will undergo role-play sessions to actually ‘rehearse’ handling complaints and difficult customers. Business Writing Skills for Executives This course is designed for those of an intermediate and above English proficiency. The course is heavily business English focused and assignments will be set to encourage attendees to write work-related communications. Grammar at Work Suitable for elementary & lower intermediate level learners who want to improve their English grammar in handling day-to-day work. (The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce)

The findings have so far shown that some organizations surveyed offer language and communication courses at different levels. The most popular language courses are English writing, business or industrial English, and Putonghua. Communications courses are also popular, and the content includes customer service skills, negotiation skills, social skills and presentation skills. These courses aim to enhance the spoken and written presentation and reporting skills of their members. The study has also noted that communicative competence is seen as an important element in acquiring professional expertise, especially in the sales and marketing, tourism, financial services, and insurance industries, which require effective communication with others.

Professional Communicative Competences

Other sections In this third category, ‘Other Sections’, instances of (professional) communicative competences are related to publications and consultancy services, which were obtained in sections other than Codes of Ethics/Guidelines for Practice and CPD. For example, the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers publishes a bimonthly journal, Banking Today, and updates their website regularly, for their corporate members to improve their communication skills. The institute also has its own library which provides banking professionals and students a collection of materials on various aspects of banking and finance, as well as books and articles in the areas of language and general studies. Consulting engineers in the Association of Consulting Engineers of Hong Kong provide advisory services to the public. Based on their engineering knowledge, experience and judgement, consulting engineers give professional opinions on management, valuations, production, inspection, testing and quality control, and provide assistance in resolving contractual disputes. They also give expert engineering evidence to courts, commissions, boards and other judicial bodies. Some organizations handle complaints and disputes. The Hong Kong Journalists Association and the Hong Kong Press Council receive complaints from the public to enhance professional and ethical standards. The Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre provide information and services on dispute resolution between members and the public. In particular, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre is equipped with facilities for translation, and therefore disputes can be resolved in any language or languages chosen by the parties concerned. A few generic communicative competences have been identified across the fifty-two organizations, although they are implied in the web materials and therefore deduced. In descending order of importance, they are sociocultural (both large and small culture), social, strategic, and discourse competences (van Ek 1986; Byram 1997; Holmes 1989; Holliday 1999). Members’ communication and interaction with clients are described according to the understanding of the specific communicative events and contexts, use of appropriate and effective language (Grice’s four maxims), having the right attitude and empathy, finding out the needs of the clients to get the message across, and using strategies to construct and interpret texts. However, the other two of van Ek’s (1986) competences, linguistic and sociolinguistic, are found to be only marginally emphasized. Basically, language knowledge, with respect to phonetics, phonology, lexico-grammar, and language variation, is very rarely provided in the CPD programmes. An interesting finding is that some of the information communicated is not verbal or linguistic, for example, photos as in the case of the Hong Kong Press Council, and so ‘linguistic’ competence is not an adequate notion.

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Conclusion A number of conclusions can be drawn from the study. First of all, the examination of 264 organizations and professional associations in the four key industries in the Hong Kong economy shows that only very few organizations (19.6 percent) contain, explicitly or implied, information about (professional) communicative competences, and this can be a cause for concern. Given that communication is integral to all business and professional practices and contributes to professional expertise (Bhatia 2004), it is suggested that organizations address this gap of information as a matter of urgency. The fifty-two organizations which stipulate communicative types, events and contexts, as well as evaluative criteria, norms and expectations describe such information in their Codes of Ethics or Guidelines for Practice or CPD. This study argues for a much more explicit and prominent weighting accorded to the construct of professional communicative competences in all the texts. The third, and the most important, conclusion to be drawn is that four of the six communicative competences of van Ek (1986) are found to be generic across the fifty-two organizations. The suggestion is, therefore, that there is much room for linguistic competence and sociolinguistic competence to be promoted. Related to this, the term linguistic competence needs to be modified to, for instance, multimodal, to include other media of communication. The next stage of the study is, by means of surveys, ethnographic methods and textual analysis, to explore manifestations of these generic communicative competences in different business and professional contexts of interaction in organizations. The situated and qualitative data, combined with the findings of this study, will more fully inform and illustrate a TPCC that has applicational value to any professional organizations. In recent years, research studies of business and professional communication around the world have varied with regard to their goals and nature; their range of theories and approaches that underpin the methodologies adopted; the various linguistic, paralinguistic, pragmatic, and communicative features examined; the range of disciplinary perspectives taken; and the array of authentic contexts of communication. A range of interest groups and stakeholders, including governments, business people, business organizations, learners and teachers of ESP and LSP, and researchers, stands to benefit from these studies. Many studies have focused on specific features or phenomena, be it register, genres, turntaking, rhetorical style, discoursal structure, lexico-grammar, communication strategies, communicative competences, politeness, or the description of a variety of professional English, and produced credible and informative results. What would be equally valuable is a comprehensive study which employs a diversified research methodology to investigate the notion of professional communicative competence, and how the notion is manifested in a range of business and

Professional Communicative Competences

professional communicative settings. The findings so derived would then be explored with respect to the practical implications for curriculum design and materials writing for ESP or LSP, and for informing professional communicative practices, locally and internationally.

Acknowledgements The work described in this chapter was substantially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (Project No. 87N1).

Appendix 3.1: The four key industries in Hong Kong (1) Financial Services – Banking – Insurance (i) Life insurance (ii) General insurance – Foreign exchange market – Money market – Stock market – Futures market – Debt market – The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society – Regional centre for portfolio management activity – Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) system – Other financial services (e.g. stock brokerage, fund management, finance leasing and investment and holding companies) (2) Trading and Logistics (a) Trading – Trade and Industry Department – Wholesale trade – Import and export trade – The manufacturing sector – The services sector (b) Logistics – Freight transport and storage services – Postal and courier services

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(3) Tourism – Tourism Commission (TC) – Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) (a) Inbound – Retail trade – Hotels and boarding houses – Restaurants – Cross-boundary passenger transport services – Other personal services (b) Outbound – Travel agents and airline ticket agents – Cross-boundary passenger transport services (4) Professional Services (a) Professional services – Legal, accounting and auditing services – Architectural, surveying, project engineering services; engineering and technical services; and business management and consultancy services – Other professional services (e.g. information technology related services, advertising services) Sources of information: Information Services Department, http://www.info.gov.hk/hkfacts/finserv.pdf [6 December 2006] http://www.info.gov.hk/hkfacts/tourism.pdf [6 December 2006] http://www.info.gov.hk/hkfacts/t&i.pdf [6 December 2006] http://www.info.gov.hk/hkfacts/tech-e.pdf [6 December 2006] Census and Statistics Department, http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hong_kong_statistics/four_key_industries/index.jsp [6 December 2006]

Part Two Professional Communication in the Asia-Pacific Region

4 A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions in Hong Kong and the United States of America Ammy Yuen Yee Chan

Strategic planning in both private and public sectors is very important. It is ‘a process of collective and informed decision making that (a) helps management and leadership teams position their enterprise for lasting competitive success and (b) helps these teams intelligently implement changes to their processes, systems, and structure’ (Mazza 2003). It is a process designed to support leaders in being intentional about their goals and methods. The main purpose of strategic planning is to provide a basic overview of an organization’s vision and mission, future business plan and a set of goals to be achieved in the coming years (Allison and Kaye 2005). Why does higher education need strategic planning? According to Allison and Kaye (2005, 3), strategic planning for the higher education institution is a tool for the university to set out its vision and directions so as to identify its prominent competitive advantages in response to a changing environment and to ensure that members of the university are working towards the same goals. This chapter explores the strategic plans of five universities in Hong Kong (HK) and five universities in the United States of America (US). All data were obtained from the Internet. In HK, of the eight government-funded higher education institutions, five top universities were chosen according to the ‘Ranking of Universities in Hong Kong in 2004’ by Education18.com. In the US, five universities were chosen based on the Top 200 World University Rankings of The Times Higher Education Supplement published in October 2005. The selection process started with the first-ranked US university to see whether a strategic plan was available for external users. If the plan was not available, the next highest ranked university was selected. This process was repeated until the strategic plans of five top US universities were identified. The ten universities examined in this study are:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

The University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology City University of Hong Kong The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Stanford University Johns Hopkins University The University of Pennsylvania The University of Wisconsin-Madison The University of Maryland, College Park

The US and HK are two completely different places in history, culture, size, population, economy, and educational system. The five selected universities in HK are funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC), a non-statutory advisory committee responsible for advising the government on the development and funding needs of higher education institutions. It plays a proactive role in strategic planning and policy development and steers the higher education sector towards satisfying the diverse needs of stakeholders (UGC website 2007). The document Hong Kong Higher Education: To Make a Difference, To Move with the Times, published by the UGC in January 2004, takes a strategic approach in proposing role differentiation among institutions and ways of achieving international competitiveness. HK universities started strategic planning in the last decade or so, after the government had cut funding to higher education. However, the concept of strategic planning is rather new, and HK universities are inexperienced in constructing strategic plans. US universities are famous for their frontiers of knowledge and cuttingedge research. According to the Voice of America’s website, the Association of American Colleges and Universities reported around 2,618 colleges and universities operating privately or as part of state governments. The large number means that it is difficult to formulate guidelines on strategic planning to be implemented across the board. Nevertheless, the US Department of Education published its strategic plan in March 2002, which provides the roadmap on how to improve the quality of education and raise the expectations of what students can accomplish.1 This strategic plan is not only for higher education but serves as reference material for educators in schools and colleges in their pursuit of strategic directions in the twenty-first century. However, universities still enjoy flexibility in constructing strategic plans based on their strengths and unique roles. By investigating and comparing the move-structure of the strategic plans of five HK and five US universities, this study aims to achieve a thorough understanding of the communicative purposes of the university strategic plans

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

as genre, as well as the drive and commitment in strategic planning which lead to the universities’ continuing success in academic and research excellence.

Genre analysis Swales (1990, 58) defines a genre as comprising ‘a class of communicative events and the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the members of the discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style.’ If the strategic plan is an exemplar of a genre, the plan should exhibit patterns of similarity in structure, style, content, form and intended audience. These similarities should be recognized by members of the discourse community who are all expert members of academic professions (Swales 1990, 58). According to Johnstone (2002, 155), genres are ‘recurrent forms or recurrent actions’. She suggests that ‘genre is the categories of texts which a person has to learn to recognize, reproduce and manipulate in order to become a competent member of a particular community’ (2002, 156). When organizations need to legitimize themselves by acting like similar organizations, genres may become relatively standardized and inflexible (2002, 157). As discussed in Bhatia (2004, 5–11), the research work in genre analysis to date has been the result of a systematic development of discourse analysis which has gone through three main stages: textualization of lexico-grammar, organization of discourse, and contextualization of discourse. The first stage of textualization of lexico-grammar concerns the efforts to focus on the surface level of specialized texts. The second stage of organization of discourse emphasizes regularities of discourse organization by structural elements and relates the discourse structures to the communicative purposes of the genres. The third stage of contextualization of discourse widens the role of context to include social context, to establish identities, to communicate ideologies, or to influence and maintain social processes, social structures and social relations. The present study focuses on the second stage of organization of discourse, i.e. move-structural analysis, which is crucial to reveal preferred ways of communicating intentions in specific areas of inquiry (Bhatia 1993, 29); in other words, to interpret the regularities of the textual structure in order to understand the rationale for the genre (Bhatia 1993, 32). Bhatia (2004, 9) stresses that discourse structures are not simply interpreted according to schematic patterns but also by the ‘moves’ that most members of a professional community use to construct and interpret the discourse specific to their professional cultures. The identification of obligatory and optional moves can hence demonstrate why members of specific discourse communities construct, interpret and use the genre

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to achieve their communicative goals, and why a certain genre is organized in that particular way. The aim of the study is hence to describe and compare the generic move structure of the strategic plans of universities in Hong Kong and the US, in order to reveal various patterns of similarity and difference which will help to identify the shared vision and goals among university members and stakeholders.

Communicative purpose(s) As Swales (1990) states, each genre has a communicative purpose that it tends to serve. Each move also serves a typical communicative intention or function which is always subservient to the overall communicative purpose of the genre. Bhatia (1993, 21) states that communicative purpose represents the typical regularities of organization, and these regularities must be cognitive in nature, as they reflect the strategies that members of a professional community use in the construction and understanding of that genre to achieve specific communicative purposes. Bhatia (2004, 23) also remarks that genres are recognizable communicative events, characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by members of the professional or academic community in which they regularly occur. The communicative purposes of the university strategic plans are the most important messages that the senior academics of the university would like to convey to stakeholders. Any major or minor change in the communicative purpose(s) may result in a different genre or a sub-genre (Bhatia 1993, 13). The strategic planning team is usually made up of senior academics with expertise in identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the institution, in order to reshape the strategic directions of the university concerned.

Discourse community Swales (1990, 24–7) describes six characteristics for identifying a group of people as a discourse community: a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, use of its participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, use and hence possession of one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, acquisition of some specific lexis, and a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. Discourse community in this study refers to senior academics, deans and senior administrative staff. The intended audience of strategic plans are the stakeholders such as staff, students, alumni, funding agencies, benefactors, and the community at large. The senior academics responsible for the strategic

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

planning have deep institutional knowledge, historical and cultural background, knowledge of the rules and policy of the institution, an understanding of decisionmaking powers and boundaries, and a shared sense of the need for change. The contents and language used in the strategic plans may involve conventional purposes and terminologies which members of the academic community may have greater knowledge of understanding (Bhatia 1993, 14–5).

Genre integrity Bhatia (2004, 114) finds that every genre has its own individual integrity which has the potential to enhance our understanding of the role and function of genres through language. A strategic plan also has its own integrity, such as the writer of the plan, the audience, the communicative purposes, historical and sociocultural issues, and strategic planning process. Most importantly, a strategic plan charts the course for several years, a course which may change due to internal factors such as change of curriculum, or external factors such as new challenges. Generic integrity comprises two categories: text-internal and text-external (Bhatia 2004). Text-internal refers to factors generally related to the construction and interpretation of the text in question, whereas text-external refers to the wider context of the disciplinary community and culture in which the text is used and interpreted. Text-internal indicators are of three major kinds: contextual, textual and intertextual. The three main types of text-external factors are discursive practices, discursive procedures and disciplinary or professional culture.

Genre colonies Genre mixing and embedding has become increasingly common (Bhatia 1995). Bhatia (2004, 58) introduces genre colonies as a process involving the invasion of the integrity of one genre by another, often leading to the creation of a hybrid form. Genre colonies represent a grouping of a number of genres within and across disciplinary domains which largely share similar communicative purposes that each one of them tends to serve. Typical examples are promotional genres such as philanthropic fund-raising and academic introductions, and reporting genres such as company reports and audit reports. Bhatia (2004, 95) compares the philanthropic fund-raising genre with the commercial advertising genre, the primary aim of which is to raise money. Philanthropic fund-raising is to raise money for non-profit social and welfare purposes, while commercial advertising is to accumulate profits for corporate purposes. Bhatia (2004) identifies four obligatory moves in both genres:

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establishing credentials, introducing the cause, soliciting support, and expressing gratitude. One distinctive feature that differentiates philanthropic fund-raising from commercial advertising is that the society has self-interest and selfresponsibility in the establishment and maintenance of community values. The communicative purposes are to raise funds and use the funding to help the community. Past achievements of the organization will help to attract individuals and big corporations to donate for philanthropic activities. Celebrity endorsement is used to emphasize the honest intention of the fund-raising activity (Bhatia 2004, 99). In the past, universities were able to maintain their special status and dignity in society because of their excellence in specialist areas of knowledge creation and consumption. However, due to the severe competition environment, universities nowadays have to find additional ways to maintain their privileged status of excellence. As a result of an increasing number of students pursuing higher education, the universities are gradually coming closer to the concept of marketplace, where everyone has to compete with everyone else for clients’ attention (Bhatia 2004, 84). Fairclough (1995, 141) emphasizes that ‘universities are required to raise an increasing proportion of their funds from private sources, and increasingly to put in competitive tenders for funding . . . Nevertheless, institutions are making major organizational changes which accord with a market mode of operation, such as introducing . . . using “managerial” approaches, e.g. institutional planning, staff appraisal and training’. Both Fairclough (1995) and Bhatia (2004) are of the view that universities nowadays need to make changes in order to meet emerging challenges. A strategic plan is constructed to help the university revisit its vision, mission and strategic directions so as to guide it on its path to excellence. During the construction process, the professional community will choose the appropriate and relevant generic elements and information to decide whether the genre will mix with other genres or embed itself in other genres. Genre mixing and embedding has become increasingly common (Bhatia 2004, 88). As such, external resources from fundraising and donations to achieve the goals made clear in the strategic plan are commonplace for the university to find its competitive advantage within the environment. The strategic plan may be used as promotional material to engage benefactors in sharing the vision and mission of the university. If this is the case, the strategic plan may be regarded as a mixed genre, partly information-giving and partly promotional. Accordingly, it is worthwhile to compare the genre of university strategic plans with other genres, to achieve a better and informed understanding of the communicative purposes of strategic plans.

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

Findings Strategic plans are the main source of data of this study. They were analyzed according to obligatory and optional move elements in order to reveal the preferred way of communicative patterns and intentions in the genre. Table 4.1 summarizes the moves identified in the strategic plans of HK and US universities. The asterisk indicates sub-moves or steps subsumed under obligatory moves. These sub-moves themselves can be obligatory or optional. Table 4.1 Comparison between move-structure in Hong Kong universities and US universities Obligatory Moves in HK Universities (100%) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

Name of strategic plan Strengths of the university Aims/needs of strategic planning Directions and priorities of strategic initiatives Academic excellence Research excellence Internationalization • Collaboration/partnership with institutions* Partnering and strengthening relation with mainland China on student recruitment, research and teaching Improving Human Resource Policy Campus Development • Improving environment and facilities*

Obligatory Moves in US Universities (100%) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

Name of strategic plan Roles/responsibilities of university Strengths/status of the university Aims/needs of strategic planning Directions and priorities of strategic initiatives Academic excellence • Undergraduate education enhancement* • Postgraduate education enhancement* Research excellence • Encourage new/multidisciplinary research programs* • Promote multidisciplinary and i n t e rd i s c i p l i n a r y re s e a rc h collaboration* • Attract more high-quality graduate students/scholars to join the program* Diversity • Diversity of more women and underrepresented minorities to join the programs* • Strengthen the gender and ethnic diversity of professoriate* Internationalization • Recruit and retain most talented staff* Campus development • Improve environment and facilities* Financial management (continued on p. 60)

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More or Less Obligatory Moves in HK Universities (80%)

More or Less Obligatory Moves in US Universities (80%)

1. Challenges in 21st century 1. University’s vision • Develop technological education* • Undergraduate education enhancement* • Develop humanities and cultural programs* • Postgraduate education • Enhance collaboration/partnership enhancement* with industry/business* • Language proficiency (English and • Increase international students* Chinese)* • Administration* • Applied research development* • Strengthen staff development* • Increase research funding* • Resources redeployment* • Collaboration/partnership with • Fund-raising including endowment* industry/business* 2. M a n a g e m e n t a n d g o v e r n a n c e • Secure funding from federal government* enhancement • Establish appraisal mechanism* 3. Financial management Optional Moves in HK Universities (60%) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Optional Moves in US Universities (60%)

University’s mission 1. Achievements of the university Roles/responsibilities of university 2. Future achievements/commitments Expectations of the university 3. Process of strategic planning Achievements of the university • Encourage life-long learning* Past achievements • Promote part-time and nontraditional Future achievements/commitments programs* • Life-long learning* • Provide competitive employment • Promote interdisciplinary research packages* collaboration* • Enhance campus buildings or Serving the community expansion* Relations development • Enhance information technology* • Develop relations with university • Raising revenue from new members* programs* • Develop relations with alumni* Enhance community relations with the university Recruiting and retaining talented staff Enhancing campus buildings or expansion Enhancing communication technology Resources redeployment Fund-raising (continued on p. 61)

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions (Table 4.1 continued)

Highly Optional Moves in HK Universities (below 40%)

Highly Optional Moves in US Universities (below 40%)

1. Develop professional and continuing education programme 2. Nurture talented young researcher 3. Develop commercialization of research projects 4. Increase international students 5. Teaching 6. Administration 7. Strengthen internal communication 8. Strengthen staff development 9. Strengthening high-valued programmes • Follow-up action/feedback* 10. University’s motto 11. University’s value 12. Weaknesses 13. Opportunities 14. Threats 15. Challenges • Present challenges* • Future challenges* 16. Process of strategic planning 17. Higher diplomas and associated degrees 18. Listing specific areas of excellence

1. University’s vision 2. Reasons for success of the university 3. Past achievements • Promote distance learning* • Establish appraisal mechanism* 4. Follow-up action/feedback 5. University’s mission 6. History of the university 7. Challenges in 19th century 8. Challenges after 911 crises 9. Opportunities 10. Areas of excellence 11. Table of contents

Comparing moves and sub-moves that occur 100%, the study finds eleven obligatory moves shared by the ten HK and US universities. These are ‘Name of strategic plan’, ‘Strengths of the university’, ‘Aims/needs of strategic planning’, ‘Directions and priorities of strategic initiatives’, ‘Academic excellence’, ‘Research excellence’, ‘Internationalization’, ‘Collaboration/partnership with institutions*’, ‘Improving human resource policy’, ‘Campus development’, and ‘Improving environment and facilities*’. There is only one obligatory move in the HK universities which is not obligatory in the US universities, ‘Partnering and strengthening relations with mainland China on student recruitment, research and teaching’. The reason for this is clear, as Hong Kong SAR became part of mainland China after the handover on 1 July 1997. There are, however, many more obligatory moves and steps (a total of seventeen) that are unique to the US universities, some of which reflect the cultural contexts and associated ideologies and behaviours in which the

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universities are situated, e.g. ‘Diversity’, ‘Diversity of more women and underrepresented minorities to join the programmes*’, and ‘Strengthening the gender and ethnic diversity of the professoriate*’. Table 4.2 shows that in the five strategic plans of HK universities, there are thirteen obligatory moves (ten obligatory and three more or less obligatory) out of forty-five moves, i.e. 29 percent, reflecting a low level of structural similarity. Table 4.2 Number of moves and sub-moves of Hong Kong universities Category of Moves

Number of moves

Total

Frequency of Occurrence

Moves

Sub-moves

Obligatory (100%)

10

2

12

20%

More or less obligatory (80%)

3

7

10

16%

Optional (60%)

14

4

18

30%

Highly optional (below 40%)

18

3

21

34%

TOTAL

45

17

61

100%

The findings show a structural move pattern in higher education strategic plans in Hong Kong, through which a series of communicative purposes are identified and communicative intents are constructed by the discourse members, i.e. the senior academics, deans, senior administrative officers, and so on, who have experience in the academic fields and expertise in management within the university context. These discourse members are familiar with the policies and statutes of the university. As such, obligatory moves such as ‘Strengths of the university’ and ‘Directions and priorities of strategic initiatives’ are present because senior academics understand that the stakeholders need to know more about the university’s abilities, difficulties, needs, and its future directions to reshape its vision. For instance, a benefactor who is thinking about donating money to support the research and development of medicine will be interested in comparing different universities by their research profiles and aspirations, as described in the moves of ‘Strengths of the university’ and ‘Directions and priorities of strategic initiatives’. As described, HK universities are primarily government funded, and many of the policies, even strategic planning, are restricted and monitored by the UGC. In Hong Kong Higher Education: To Make a Difference, To Move with the Times (2004), some strategic directions such as teaching, research, and collaboration are addressed, and the UGC proposes that the eight funded universities follow

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

the strategic directions based on their unique areas of strength, to add value to the overall higher education sector. Accordingly, each university will pursue the UGC’s set of criteria as a framework, within which the university continues to enjoy freedom to develop and act upon its strategic directions in its own way. This corresponds to Bhatia’s (2002, 7) remark that ‘genres serve typical socially recognized communicative purposes, yet we often find genres being exploited to convey private intentions’. For example, universities that emphasize applied research, such as the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, are keen to enhance technology transfer and conduct high-impact research projects. Bhatia (2002, 6) states that genre is versatile and dynamic. Although HK universities follow the UGC’s framework when preparing their strategic plans, universities may change their strategic goals when the UGC changes directions. For example, the UGC stated in the 2004 document that ‘The higher education system needs to recognize and take up the challenge of the mutually beneficial relationship between HK, the Pearl River Delta and mainland China.’ The UGC raised this issue probably because of China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Consequently, the five HK universities have included ‘Strengthening partnership with Mainland China’ in their plans, e.g. developing exchange programmes and joint university programmes in order to create networking and strengthen international perspectives for students in Hong Kong and mainland China. This reflects the notion that genre is continually developing and changing, subject to internal or external factors, and its move-structure, as well as content, form and language, will likely be changed as a result of political, social and economic changes. Discursive procedures usually involve more than one participant, and involve ‘who’ contributes ‘what’ to the construction and interpretation of specific generic actions, and ‘participatory mechanisms’ which indicate ‘at what stage’ and ‘by which means’ (Bhatia 2004, 128). For example, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University includes ‘Process of strategic planning’ in its strategic plan, as the procedure helps the management decide what strategic goals and communicative purposes should be incorporated. Discursive procedures help to introduce interdiscursivity in genre construction (Bhatia 2004, 128). When the university professional community constructs a strategic plan, it has embraced the appropriate and relevant generic knowledge and information. It may also include other genres. Table 4.3 shows that across the five strategic plans of US universities, there are twelve obligatory moves (eleven obligatory moves and 1 more or less obligatory move) out of 26 moves, i.e. 46%, representing a medium level of structural similarity. This supports the move-structure characteristic of the generic nature of university strategic plans.

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Table 4.3 Number of moves and sub-moves of US universities Category of Moves

Number of Moves

Total

Frequency of Occurrence

Moves

Sub-moves

Obligatory (100%)

11

9

20

39%

More or less obligatory (80%)

1

9

10

19%

Optional (60%)

3

6

9

17%

Highly optional (below 40%)

11

2

13

25%

TOTAL

26

26

52

100%

Given the vast number of public and private universities in the US, it is a little surprising to find a relatively high level of structural similarity. A couple of reasons are offered. The first may be related to twenty-first century challenges. The US regards itself as the world leader through its scientific and engineering research excellence. Many elite universities are research-led universities, and they have responsibilities in producing new knowledge, and nurturing future leaders, scientists and engineers. It is crucial for the universities to realize the vision of becoming world-class research universities. In preparing the strategic plan, every university will therefore have a tendency to include the move ‘research excellence’ to attract talented scholars and establish interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities to raise its research excellence. The second reason may be related to pressure from peer universities to move towards particular strategic directions. As such, any genre is ‘versatile and dynamic in nature, essentially explanatory rather than purely descriptive, narrow in focus, but broad in vision, and has a natural propensity for innovation and exploitation’ (Bhatia 2004, 6). Discursive procedures are essential, as they both constrain the procedural aspects of genre construction and introduce interdiscursivity in genre construction (Bhatia 2004, 128). For example, in its strategic plan, Johns Hopkins University says that Strategic Study Groups were established to pursue in depth the challenges and issues in eight areas. More than 100 faculty, students and staff members were involved in the planning discussions. Additional community input was obtained from open forums, survey data and meetings with representatives of the Alumni Council. The genre is shared by the professional community and it is part of the activity of Johns Hopkins University. Table 4.4 compares the structural moves of the strategic plans in universities in HK and the US. In Hong Kong universities, 29% of the moves are obligatory, and in US universities, 46% are obligatory.

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

Table 4.4 Comparison between the total number of obligatory moves in Hong Kong and US universities Total Number of Moves

Total Number of Obligatory Moves*

Frequency of Occurrence of Obligatory Moves

HK

US

HK

US

HK

US

28

26

13

16

46%

62%

* Including all obligatory (100%) and more or less obligatory moves (80%)

Accordingly, the frequency of occurrence of obligatory moves of US universities is 17% more than in HK universities. There are a number of similarities and differences of generic moves found in the strategic plans of HK and US universities. Hong Kong and the US are two different places with a great disparity in size, history, culture, politics, number of universities and student population. Any similarities and differences in generic structural moves do not imply any merits or demerits, as these strategic initiatives are influenced by the historical, cultural, political and external factors.

Discussion and conclusion From the above findings, we see that the higher education strategic plans in both Hong Kong and the US constitute a genre. Based on the analysis of the eleven shared obligatory moves, both HK and US university strategic plans are conventionalized constructs and characterized by a set of communicative purposes which are shared and understood by the leading group of the university that has greater knowledge than do outsiders. Discursive practices and discursive procedures are important elements in strategic planning, as modes of communication and procedural aspects are decided in genre construction. In the process of strategic planning, the leading group of the university decides the interdiscursivity of the genre, i.e. whether the strategic plan is information-giving or promotional or mixed. As genres are viewed as conventionalized constructs, they may include private intentions. In this study, private intentions are found within the constructs of recognized communicative purposes. Another indicator is that strategic plans are dynamic and keep on changing and developing based on the internal or external environment. Lastly, strategic plans reflect disciplinary and organizational cultures. Modern universities today, locally and internationally, are remarkably different from those of earlier decades. The changes derive partly from the way in which universities carry forward their mission of teaching and research. Other changes are driven by the external environment, including political, social and

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economic changes. There are three significant elements that universities encounter at the heart of the changed environment: the growing demand for higher education, the discovery of high-impact technology and transmission of knowledge, and the severe competition among universities for staff, students, resources and standing. Against this background, universities have to pay attention to revisit their vision, mission, strategic priority setting and focused goals. Strategic planning is a tool to help universities achieve these goals. However, strategic planning needs resources to support and develop. As governments decrease higher education funding, universities must engage actively in broad-based philanthropic fundraising activities to boost their income, particularly for support of research. All universities in Hong Kong used to receive funding from the government. As a result of the cutback of resources by the government, universities must work with individual donors and companies to secure private sources of funding. Unlike US universities, HK universities may not have too much experience in fund-raising. Equally significantly, the leading group of universities should involve themselves actively in developing a philanthropic fund-raising culture. In addition to funding, an issue that HK universities face is how to embrace a highly competitive environment with planning restrictions as stated in the 2004 document. Universities nowadays need to attain status and standing in this competitive environment, and global visibility is an important strategic initiative. Although the strategic planning mechanism may be constrained by the UGC restrictions, HK universities have to continue exploring opportunities to strengthen the quality of teaching, the eminence of research and the advancement of their standing and reputation. The strategic plans of HK universities have a unique obligatory move of ‘strengthening relations with mainland China’. Because of the increased mutually beneficial relationship between Hong Kong, the Pearl River Delta and mainland China, HK universities should grab hold of this great opportunity to develop deeper collaboration with institutions and industry/ business in mainland China so as to create more employable opportunities for graduates. The US system of education is very different from the HK system. In the US, there are 2,618 private and public colleges and universities, and there are fewer guidelines to restrict strategic planning of higher education. The findings indicate that the frequency of occurrence of obligatory moves of US universities is 34.8% more than HK universities. This fact shows that US universities have more common obligatory moves even though they have fewer guidelines to construct their strategic plans. US colleges and universities respond and adapt swiftly to changing social and economic needs. One of the reasons is that they have flexibility to move forward in this new information era and global economy. Also, because of the

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

support of the federal government, it is not surprising that schools, colleges and universities, private or public, enjoy flexibility in constructing their strategic plans. Many elite US universities are leading research universities and are well known for their frontiers of knowledge and cutting-edge research. It is the dedication of these top-tier universities to be engaged in fundamental research, teaching mission and the commitment to produce graduates who are prepared to be future leaders. In the US, private universities prosper by offering distinctive curricula, more attractive campus environments and the prestige of their degrees. Private higher education therefore tends to be more innovative, entrepreneurial and values-driven. In order to sustain and remain in the forefront, these elite US universities, private or public, need to keep pace with increasing challenges. A university’s strategic plan is an overarching document to guide the thinking of the leading group of the university so as to focus its efforts. Accordingly, the US university strategic plans have been found to share some core moves. Philanthropic fund-raising is an established culture of US universities. The culture has taken many years and even decades to develop in this direction. US universities also have a tradition of regarding their alumni as an important part of the university family. Many alumni of those prestigious universities are eminent politicians, scientists, leaders or CEOs. It is the hope of the university that all alumni remain involved with the university throughout their lives so as to provide continued support to the university. One form of support is financial. Fundraising is important, as universities, private or state and federal, depend on huge endowment funds for their operation. Another remarkable feature of US higher education is the degree to which it is market driven rather than centrally directed. There is severe competition for high-calibre faculty, administrative talents, research and foundation grants, alumni support, and so on among institutions, large or small, public or private. Therefore, universities tend to be more dynamic and responsive to social or economic changes. This is exactly what Bhatia (2004, 6) observes: ‘genres are versatile and dynamic in nature’. Bhatia (2004, 100) finds that the philanthropic fund-raising genre usually introduces the cause for seeking funds with descriptive explanations and indicates the potential value of solicited support. In university strategic plans, universities elaborate the need for strategic planning with a series of strategic goals to achieve in the future. Every individual goal is defined clearly with various operational priorities. These strategic goals are conventionalized constructs shared by the professional community and implemented through discursive practices and discursive procedures. In the philanthropic fund-raising genre, the concept of community participation is important, and fund-raising is a moral action. The communicative

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purpose of the university strategic plan genre is to inform the stakeholders of the university’s strategic directions and how these strategic initiatives can help the university advance its excellence. According to the research conducted by ICF Consulting, a global consultant, universities today play an important role in educating and training the teachers, researchers, scientists, leaders, entrepreneurs and other skilled workers that fuel innovation in high technology and the knowledge industries that are the primary drivers of successful regional economies and are predicted to be the drivers of the global economy well into the future. Universities make essential contributions in providing communities, companies and governments with highly skilled workers, advanced technology, unparalleled knowledge and practical know-how to different disciplines such as medicine, economics, engineering, and legal services. In view of the significant responsibilities, universities intend to include both past achievements and future commitments in their strategic plans to attract stakeholders’ attention and outdo peer universities. In the philanthropic fund-raising genre, it is vital to solicit support from the community at large. As expressed by Bhatia (2004, 101), ‘promotional efforts are never considered complete without soliciting support which is the main communicative purpose of the activity’. Similarly, by means of strategic plans, universities establish relations, and often make ongoing efforts to keep lifelong relations, with university members, alumni and different kinds of community, with the purpose of seeking their support and securing loyalty. Indeed, universities treasure the relations with their university members and alumni to create mutual trust, understanding and support, so that the members remain intellectually and emotionally engaged in the life of the universities. Expressing gratitude is a useful gesture in the philanthropic fund-raising genre for acknowledging donors’ support as well as anticipating their continuous support. Different from the philanthropic fund-raising genre, it has been observed that the university strategic plans do not clearly express gratitude to stakeholders for their support. A university will include an ‘executive summary’ or ‘overview’ delivered and signed by the president or vice-chancellor on the front page of the strategic plan to express thanks to the stakeholders for their continued support. The findings show that the university strategic plan genre not only gives information but also contains a promotional message that what the university promotes is not just money. What the university asks for is support from stakeholders in endowments, support of research, student scholarships, collaboration opportunities etc. This concurs with Bhatia’s (2004, 25) remark, ‘although we often identify and conceptualize genres in pure forms, in the real world they are often seen in hybrid, mixed and embedded forms’. It seems that the promotional messages are more explicit in the US strategic plan genre. The contents of the US strategic plans are more thorough, including a comprehensive

A Genre Analysis of the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions

foreground, e.g. achievements of the university, challenges the university is facing, strengths of the university, responsibilities of the university, need for planning, process of strategic planning, directions and strategic initiatives and careful descriptions of every particular move and its operational priorities. Such promotional messages can be viewed to attract donors’ attention because private universities in the US depend heavily on endowment funds, while state or federal universities also need extra resources to run the universities. Compared to their counterparts in the US, HK university strategic plans have more implicit promotional messages. Universities generally do not include detailed information about how they develop their strategic initiatives. The strategic plans of some universities are too brief and lack persuasive power for the purpose of promotion. The primary reason might be that HK universities still depend much on government funding, and philanthropic fund-raising has a long way to go in this regard. The implication of this study is to contribute to an understanding of both the structural move patterns of university strategic plans and ways to adapt, where necessary, the strategic plans to better serve information-giving and promotional purposes.

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5 Gender and Professional Communication: The Role of Feminine Style in Multilingual Workplaces Hiroko Itakura

Since the pioneering study on women’s language by Lakoff (1975), a great number of studies have been conducted on women’s style of speaking and the difference from men’s, especially in relation to English. One general claim widely made in the 1980s and 1990s was that women were more co-operative conversationalists and more sensitive to the face-wants of others (Maltz and Borker 1982; Coates 1996; Holmes 1995; Tannen 1990). While there has been controversy as to whether there is such an entity as ‘women’s language’, spoken by all and only by women, the notion of women’s language has become a popular belief held by the general public. And, as women’s language represents a normative form of how women are expected to speak, it acts as a symbolic ‘meaning resource’ (Cameron 1997, 2000; Ochs 1993). In other words, the meaning potentials associated with women’s language provide speakers, within a particular community of practice, with a resource that they can draw upon to produce and interpret utterances. In this chapter, linguistic and prosodic characteristics typically associated with normative women’s ways of speaking are referred to as feminine style of speech or feminine speech. Following the social construction paradigm (e.g. Crawford 1995; Hall and Bucholtz 1995; Kendall and Tannen 1997; Johnson and Meinhof 1997), a feminine style of speech is viewed as a resource or strategy that many women tend to employ for specific ends. By creating a particular persona through the use of feminine speech, speakers create alignments with others to get things done. Within this perspective, individual speakers are seen as active producers of gendered identities rather than as passive reproducers of fixed gendered behaviour (Kendall and Tannen 1997, 94–5). A feminine style of speech in English invokes complex, often negative, associations such as demureness, deference, and a lack of power or influence

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(Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003; Lakoff 1975). Feminine style therefore often poses problems in professional contexts. For example, a broad pitch range, often seen as characteristic of women’s speech, is associated with qualities such as being overemotional and lacking in authority. It was therefore avoided by Margaret Thatcher, for example (Cameron 2000, 443). However, more recent studies have shown that a feminine style of speech can in fact be a useful means of conducting professional communication, given different professional roles and contexts. For example, a study by Cameron (2000) on language used by service workers in seven call centres in Britain demonstrated that linguistic and prosodic features typically associated with women’s ways of speaking (e.g. a broad pitch range, questions showing empathy, and frequent use of backchannels to show understanding) provide a useful resource for projecting warmth, sincerity, excitement, friendliness, helpfulness, and confidence. Projection of these affective qualities is felt by service workers to be important for the fulfilment of role expectations. Additionally, Holmes and Schnurr (2006) have examined interactions in white New Zealand workplaces. They found that feminine style as evidenced by, for example, the frequent use of hedges and mitigations, can be an effective linguistic device in specifically ‘feminine workplaces’. That is, it facilitates professionals who directly deal with clients, social issues or education in workplaces which are people-oriented. Indexing femininities such as ‘considerate’ and ‘affective’ in such communities of practice is seen as conducive to fulfilling certain professional roles such as that of manager. However, using a feminine style is said to be likely to evoke a less positive response in ‘masculine workplaces’ which are more task oriented, for example IT companies and manufacturing organizations. Recent research has therefore suggested that the feminine style of speech invokes certain kinds of femininities. However, while an increasing amount of research is being conducted on the role of a feminine style of speech for professional communication, its scope tends to be limited to English and to monolingual contexts. Relatively little is known about languages other than English or multilingual contexts. Piller and Pavlenko (2001) pointed out that there has been widespread monolingual bias in the research field of language and gender. They emphasize the need for placing language and gender studies within multilingual contexts to enable researchers to bring new dimensions to the interplay between gender and other social factors. For example, such a move may uncover complex ways in which gender is interrelated with power, social status, native/non-native speaker status, a speaker’s degree of proficiency in the more prestigious language, or the degree of acculturation to the majority culture (Piller and Pavlenko 2001, 32–7; see also Piller and Pavlenko 2004).

Gender and Professional Communication

The present chapter, therefore, explores the role of a feminine style of speech for professional communication in an Asian language in a multilingual context. Specifically, it investigates the role of a feminine style of Japanese by female Hong Kong professionals who use Japanese in intercultural work contexts. Of particular interest is whether the desire to index femininities is the main goal of speakers, or whether other factors are involved in influencing the use of a feminine style of speech in multilingual professional contexts.

Japanese women’s language The most salient characteristics of a feminine style in Japanese are the morphological choices, including sentence-final expressions, referential terms, and politeness (Jorden 1983a, 1983b; Kindaichi 1988; Loveday 1986; Mizutani and Mizutani 1987; Shibatani 1990). For example, ‘gentler’ sentence-final particles such as -wa and -wa yo (for emphasis) and deshoo (to express probability) are expected to be used by women. In contrast, ‘rough’-sounding -ze and -zo (for emphasis), and daroo (to express probability) are traditionally expected to be used exclusively by men (Maynard 1997; Okamoto 1995; Ozaki 1999). Besides the masculine and feminine forms, there is a category of expressions that both women and men can use, that is, a neutral area (Abe 1995; Mizutani and Mizutani 1987; Shibamoto 1985). However, it is often believed that neutral forms are the preserve of men (Kindaichi 1988) and that women are discouraged from using these forms because they sound too masculine or impolite in most situations (Reynolds 1990). For example, kane (money) is a noun that can in principle be used by both men and women. However, women are expected to put the polite prefix o- with the word, resulting in o-kane. If kane is used by women without the polite prefix, it is likely to be taken as impolite. Another prominent characteristic of ‘polite’ feminine style is the greater use of honorifics (Ide 1979; Jugaku 1979; Kindaichi 1988; Mizutani and Mizutani 1987; Shibamoto 1985). Different levels of formality can be expressed through the choice of ‘plain form’ or ‘polite form’. For example, ik-u (to go, plain form) is more formal than ik-imasu (to go, polite form). Beyond this choice of verb form to express formality, Japanese honorifics generate another set of devices to express social deference by using ‘respectful’ and ‘humble’ forms. Respectful forms are used to address or talk about someone whose social status is relatively higher than that of the speaker, while humble forms are used to talk about the speaker’s own action. For example, irasshaimasu ([you] go) is a respectful form of ik-imasu, whereas mairi-masu ([I] go) is its humble form (Maynard 1997; Okamoto 2004). Needless to say, Japanese women are encouraged to use respectful forms in combination with honorific forms.

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In addition, a high-pitched voice is commonly perceived to be an integral part of feminine style in Japanese society (Horii 1992; Loveday 1986). Van Benzooijen (1995, 1996) points to a preference in Japanese culture for women’s use of a high-pitched voice, which is linked with an expression of culturally desired femininity as weaker, more indirect, and more modest. While a feminine style of speech in Japanese may thus constrain many Japanese women within cultural norms of feminine speech and demeanour, a set of studies has demonstrated that actual women’s speech in fact deviates from the norms of feminine style of Japanese (Inoue 2004; Itakura and Tsui 2004; Miyazaki 2004; Matsumoto 2004; Ohara 2001, 2004; Okamoto 1995; Okamoto and Sato 1992). For example, analyzing the language of middle-aged Japanese women, Matsumoto (2004) has argued that the traditional masculine and feminine forms of Japanese are used strategically by women as a resource for challenging traditional gender norms and constraints in order to construct their preferred identity. A feminine style of speech in Japanese is thus also a symbolic resource (Cameron 1997, 2000; Ochs 1993) on which speakers can draw in order to perform an idealized female persona. In contrast, its avoidance or the use of masculine Japanese by women offers speakers a resource for contesting such idealized female characteristics.

Feminine style and professional communication in Japanese A feminine style of Japanese has been associated with a stereotypical feminine demeanour said to be polite, gentle, soft-spoken, non-assertive, and empathetic (e.g. Ide 1979, 1982; Reynolds 1990). Lebra (1984, 42) relates feminine speech to the ‘femininity training’ imposed on young girls in Japan. This involves a requirement for reticence, softness of voice, a polite or feminine style of speech, and covering the mouth when talking or laughing. Another aspect of feminine speech in Japanese is its association with Japanese women’s social inequality and powerlessness (e.g. Abe 1995, 2000; Ehara et al. 1984; Endo 1990; Itakura 2001; Lebra 1976; Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith 2004; Reynolds 1990; Reinoruzu-Akiba 1993; Siegal 1994; Smith 1992; Washi 2004). The association of feminine Japanese with subordinate femininity has been contested by an increasing number of Japanese female professionals. For example, Mori (1997) describes how, when working as a university lecturer in the US, she resented using feminine Japanese because it defined her as submissive and ‘second best’. However, if she did not use it, she would be sanctioned.

Gender and Professional Communication

Talking seems especially futile when I have to address a man in Japanese. Every word I say forces me to be elaborately polite, indirect, submissive, and unassertive. There is no way I can sound intelligent, clearheaded, or decisive. But if I did not speak a ‘proper’ feminine language, I would sound stupid in another way — like someone who is uneducated, insensitive, and rude, and therefore cannot be taken seriously. I never speak Japanese with the Japanese man who teaches physics at the college where I teach English. We are colleagues, meant to be equals. The language I use should not automatically define me as second best. (10–12)

Similarly, Japanese feminine speech is avoided by Japanese women in positions of authority, due to the associated powerlessness. For example, Smith (1992) has suggested that female Japanese professionals working as superiors of male subordinates need to forsake a feminine style of speech and invent various linguistic devices to get their jobs done effectively. This includes giving commands to their male subordinates in the form of a ‘Motherese Strategy’, which simultaneously evokes the full authority of the Japanese mother and the solidarity common to mother-child interaction. In addition, Abe (1995) has analyzed speeches of Japanese women in different professions and has found that the feminine speech may be avoided and the masculine form may be employed when they need to be assertive. Ohara (2004) has conducted fundamental frequency analysis of ‘rejections’ and ‘requests’ uttered by Japanese male and female professionals in the Hawaiian context. Her results suggest that the Japanese women consistently raised their pitch level when dealing with customers, as opposed to when interacting with acquaintances, and that this was done in order to project a feminine image. These studies have found that the Japanese feminine style of speech tends to project a powerless femininity and therefore tends to be avoided by professional Japanese women in positions of power. However, it is accepted by female Japanese professionals in subordinate positions, for example, serving customers. Nonetheless, there is little research on its role for professionals who are not native speakers of Japanese.

The study The present study addresses the following questions: 1. What individual goals and contextual explanations can be found to explain the use or non-use of a feminine style of Japanese in intercultural work contexts?

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2.

Is a desire to index femininity the main motivating factor in the use of a feminine style of Japanese-as-a-foreign language in this multilingual professional communication context?

The data of the present study were taken from semi-structured face-to-face interviews with four female Hong Kong Chinese professionals. The participants were originally recruited from a group of twelve postgraduate students taking a course in Japanese culture of which the author was one of the tutors. Of the twelve, five stated that they used feminine Japanese in their workplaces, six stated that they did not, and one stated that her use or avoidance depended upon the nature of her job. This study focuses on two of the five who responded that they used feminine Japanese in the workplace and two of the six who stated that they did not. All four participants speak Cantonese as their mother tongue. In Hong Kong, professionals are required to be multilingual (able to operate in the mother tongue of the vast majority, Cantonese, and in Putonghua and English). Spoken Cantonese has the status of an official language. It has considerable covert prestige but does not confer the economic and social benefits traditionally associated with English and, latterly, with Putonghua (Hyland 1997; Poon 2000). During the colonial period, from 1842 until 1997, English remained the most prestigious language, used as a ‘high’ language by a small group of elitists (Luke and Richards 1982). Since the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, English is no longer regarded as the colonial language but remains the language of higher education, business and international commerce. A relatively high standard of English is essential to a successful career and hence confers prestige on those who have acquired it (Poon 2000). In addition, Japanese is the most widely learned foreign language in Hong Kong, due to Japan’s strong economic presence and the influence of its popular culture. It is also considered one of the important languages, after Chinese and English, in the areas of international business (see Yue 1995; Shih 1996; MiyazoeWong et al. 2003; Humphreys et al., in press). The initial interviews were conducted in the participants’ mother tongue of Cantonese or English, depending upon their preference, by a research assistant. Follow-up interviews were conducted by the author by email or face-to-face in English or Japanese. The purpose of the follow-up interviews was to ask the respondents to clarify or elaborate on some of the answers they gave in the initial interview. Each initial interview lasted for approximately sixty to ninety minutes. (See Appendix 5.1 for sample questions.) The data from the initial and follow-up interviews were transcribed and translated from Cantonese and Japanese into English. Below I analyze the interview data from two participants who accept the use of feminine Japanese for their workplace communication, followed by the analysis of data from two participants who reject it.

Gender and Professional Communication

Reasons for accepting feminine Japanese for intercultural professional communication In this section, I focus on Dianne and Esther to examine ways in which feminine Japanese is viewed as playing a positive role for performing their professional roles. Before presenting the analysis, I briefly describe the backgrounds of the two participants. At the time of the interview, Esther was in her mid-thirties. She had studied Japanese for approximately ten years, mainly at private Japanese language schools and through evening courses offered by different Hong Kong universities. She had obtained Grade 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.1 She had worked for more than ten years as a personal secretary for a male Japanese manager and as an office assistant at different Japanese companies in Hong Kong. She used Japanese mainly to communicate with her male Japanese boss and other members of staff. Her duties also involved talking to clients of her company, including arranging appointments for her boss and providing information about the company. Dianne was in her early twenties. She had studied Japanese as one of her subjects for three years at a Hong Kong university. She obtained Grade 2 of JETRO.2 At the time of the interview, she had been working for a large Japanese electronics company as a senior clerk for approximately one and a half years. Prior to this, she had worked for another Japanese company as a secretary for about one year. Her opportunities to use Japanese were mainly limited to speaking to her boss (a Japanese male) in order to receive instructions, speaking with male Japanese clients of her company, and dealing with enquiries on the phone.

Enacting Japanese Femininity Asked to give examples of feminine Japanese that they used at work, both Esther and Dianne mentioned a soft and high-pitched voice, honorific and polite language. Their descriptions of Japanese women are that they wear nice makeup, are beautiful, gentle, kind, and considerate, but that their social status is low. The speaking style of Japanese women is soft and gentle. With regard to work, both view feminine Japanese as useful in serving their male Japanese superiors since it projects Japanese femininity. For example, Esther comments on the importance of speaking in long sentences and using honorific and polite expressions. Esther: When I pick up the phone, always sitting next to my boss, I shouldn’t say things like ‘Moshimoshi. Hai, X san irasshaimasu’ (Hello. Yes, Mr X is right here). As a woman, I should be saying things like ‘Ah

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moshimoshi. Ano Esther desu ga. Eeto hai, X san irasshaimasu’ (Er, hello. Erm, this is Esther speaking. Er yes, Mr X is right here). Otherwise, he will form a bad impression of me . . . (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Esther attempts to increase the length of her sentences by adding phrases (e.g. Ano Esther desu ga) and by using hedges to conform to her perception of Japanese women’s speech, so that her boss will form a positive impression of her. She further elaborates on her desire to create the impression of being elegant. (Continued from above) . . . He might forgive me as I am from Hong Kong after all, but Japanese women speak elegantly, and say things like ‘Moshimoshi. Naninani san wa irassharu no deshou ka? (Hello, may I ask if Mr So-and-so might be there?). I also want to give such an elegant image when I deal with phone calls from our clients. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

The honorific and polite expressions, for example, irassharu (exist, respectful form) and deshou (to be, polite form), which are longer than non-honorific and plain forms, are seen as conducive to the creation of a good impression in relation to the handling of phone calls from clients. In a similar way, Dianne views a soft voice and polite expressions as ‘creating a soft and comfortable atmosphere’, and comments on the importance of this in communicating with her managers. She sees this as an important aspect of the Japanese female way of talking, together with gesture and facial expressions. Dianne: When I pick up the phone, I’ll speak in a high-tone, polite way to make the conversation run smoothly and I think aisatsu (greetings) is very important to communicate well with my managers, so I always say ‘Hi’ and ‘Good morning’ to them in a Japanese female-like way, with high pitch, nodding, with soft voice, gestures and facial expressions. (Follow-up interview; original in English)

Dianne portrays the style of Japanese secretaries, based on her experience of a female Japanese secretary who works in a different branch, as follows. Dianne: I think when you listen to Japanese females talking on the phone, you will see that they lower their positions. When I find that the caller is an important man, I will also immediately bow while I am

Gender and Professional Communication

talking, and say ‘Hai hai ohayou gozaimasu’ [Yes, yes, good morning], not like ‘Hai moshi moshi. Dianne desu’ [Yes, it’s Dianne speaking] so that my sentence will become longer and respectful to others. That’s what I feel about Japanese women’s language. The finishing expression of ‘Hai shitsurei itashimasu’ [Yes, good-bye] sounds so soft and caring . . . (Follow-up interview; original in English)

Here Dianne observes that the female Japanese secretary’s way of speaking reflects her lower rank. Dianne appears willing to express her subordinate position by using feminine Japanese and bowing. In other words, she switches to honorific expressions, for example, gozaimasu (to be, honorific form) from desu (to be, non-honorific form), as soon as she realizes that the caller is superior to her. The feminine style of Japanese creates qualities such as ‘subordinate’, ‘respectful’, ‘soft’ and ‘caring’, which are viewed as appropriate for talking with such an interlocutor. Another important effect of feminine Japanese in office communication for Esther and Dianne is that it pleases their male Japanese superiors. For example, Esther comments that, if she uses a soft voice when she talks with her senior staff members (Japanese males), ‘they will be pleased’ and ‘they will feel more comfortable and intimate being with me’ (follow-up interview; original in Japanese). Similarly, Dianne reflects upon her experience of attending a training course on Japanese manners, which taught her and other female Hong Kong professionals the importance for their career prospects of pleasing their male superiors by smiling, bowing and praising. Dianne: What I expected from the instructor* was to teach us how to deal with telephone calls, other business Japanese, gestures, etc. However, what she actually taught was just to say, ‘Ohayou gozaimasu’ (Good morning), several times, how to smile, how to bow to our boss, how to admire our boss, how to say good words to them, like ‘Your tie is so nice today’ , or ‘Oh your shirt’s colour is good’ or something like that. She basically taught us that, if we wanted a promotion, salary increase or more holidays, we have to say good things to our boss, especially male bosses. (Interview, original in English) * The instructor on the training course was a Japanese female.

For these two participants, one of the most prominent functions of feminine Japanese is the projection of good ‘impressions’ and ‘images’ of themselves. That is, feminine Japanese is an important resource for projecting ‘elegant’, ‘subordinate’, ‘respectful’, and ‘caring’ personae. These qualities created by the

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feminine speech, that is, via a soft and high-pitched voice and honorific/polite expressions, are understood as being valued by both clients and the male Japanese superiors they serve. At the same time, feminine Japanese plays the important function of ‘pleasing’ or ‘flattering’ the male Japanese superiors. Its use is felt to be crucial for maintaining good interpersonal relationships and thereby gaining professional advantages. It is therefore an effective means of impression management and influencing interlocutors (Goffman 1959).

Performing Japanese Identity Another function of feminine Japanese felt to be important for Esther and Dianne appears to be the projection of a Japanese identity. By using feminine prosodic features and polite expressions, Esther and Dianne attempt to present themselves as possessing native speaker-like linguistic competence and cultural knowledge of Japanese; in other words, they align themselves with a Japanese ethnolinguistic identity (Blommaert 2005; Giles and Byrne 1982). Two factors appear to be particularly relevant in their strong desire to perform Japanese identity: (1) professional benefits and (2) a low level of attachment to their original identity. (1) Professional benefits. Esther believes that a soft voice and honorific language are useful for communication with clients of her company, as those features of feminine language enable her to project a good image of her company as being resourced with ‘good-quality staff’. Esther: If I use the feminine language with my Japanese clients, I will be able to project a good image of my company, as they would think that our company has good-quality staff. (Follow-up interview: original in English)

The projected image of ‘good quality’ appears to be derived from a Japanese linguistic identity associated with near-expert use of feminine Japanese, rather than with Japanese femininity for its own sake. Esther: By using an appropriate joseigo,3 Japanese will have a good image of me because my Japanese is more like Japanese than that of other typical Hong Kong female speakers of Japanese who fail to use it. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Gender and Professional Communication

Here, too, Esther characterizes feminine Japanese as an important means of projecting an image; that is, her portrayal of self as an advanced speaker of Japanese. Esther further links her identity as a near-native speaker of Japanese constructed by feminine Japanese with the projection of a more trustworthy and competent professional. Esther: Internally, if I speak the women’s language, my Japanese proficiency will be rated highly. They will trust me and have more confidence in me, so I will gain the privilege of being given more important tasks such as those related to business transactions with Japan. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Dianne views the use of feminine Japanese as symbolizing Japanese culture as well as Japanese femininity. She highly appreciates her previous Japanese employer’s decision to have her and her Hong Kong female colleagues receive training in Japanese manners, which she describes as partly training in femininity (see above). This involved learning how to smile, put on make-up, do hair, bow to and praise male senior bosses, serve tea or coffee, and so on, as well as how to speak in a feminine manner with a raised pitch and polite language. Dianne valued this training in femininity, as it enabled her and her colleagues to appear more like native speakers of Japanese. She perceives the adoption of an identity as a native Japanese speaker as a means of gaining the trust and confidence of native speakers of Japanese in her workplace. Dianne: If Japanese clients observe that Hong Kong staff members are like Japanese with good manners and polite attitudes, they will think that they can trust your company and will be willing to form a good business relationship with your company. Maybe my previous company’s boss thought that it was very important to train his Hong Kong staff to be able to behave politely so that our Japanese clients would have confidence in our company. He probably thought it was a very good investment to send me to such a course. (Interview; original in English)

In Dianne’s view, adopting a soft voice and using polite expressions are closely linked to Japanese cultural identity. Moreover, each functions as a resource which helps to make her a valued member of staff and allows her to contribute to her company. Feminine Japanese may be seen as granting non-native speakers an entry to Japanese linguistic and cultural groups, because the mastery of cultural norms

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of speaking and possession of cultural knowledge, including gender norms, is considered attainable only by advanced learners of Japanese. Thus, the use of feminine Japanese by non-native users may be seen as indicating that they possess a near native-speaker level of linguistic and communicative competence (Hymes 1972), which therefore qualifies them for in-group membership with native speakers of Japanese. This, in turn, may imply that such non-native speakers are more trustworthy than those who do not share the norms of the target culture and therefore remain members of an out-group (Giles 1979). (2) A low level of attachment with L1 identity. Another factor that may be relevant in encouraging Esther and Dianne to adopt a Japanese identity is their lack of insistence on maintaining their original ethnic (Hong Kong) identity when crossing into the other culture and language. For example, Esther comments that, for her, identity is ‘not necessary’. She is willing to leave her own identity and adopt a Japanese identity. Interviewer: Some people may wish to become a native speaker, while others may not. Esther: I see. Perhaps it has something to do with their identity. Interviewer: What about you? How do you feel about your identity? Esther: I don’t need my identity. Interviewer: What do you mean? Esther: Well, people are different. But for me, I project myself into a Japanese person when I speak Japanese. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Esther explains how she wishes to transform herself into a Japanese woman. Esther:

If other Hong Kong people hear my Japanese and think Esther’s Japanese is different, that Hong Kong woman’s Japanese is Hong Kong Japanese. But Esther’s Japanese is like Japanese women’s language. Interviewer: Would you like to hear that? Esther: I’d prefer that. If I got comments like that, I’d be happy. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Esther’s eagerness to identify with Japanese culture and women is partly derived from her view of how to improve her proficiency in the foreign language. Esther: I really want to copy the image of Japanese women, their whole image, and their manners and gestures. I observe them very carefully. Er, I

Gender and Professional Communication

believe that if we don’t understand the culture, we won’t be able to improve our Japanese, no matter how hard we study. (Follow-up interview; original in Japanese)

Dianne’s use of feminine Japanese appears to be an automatic reaction to Japanese input rather than a conscious decision. This acceptance of feminine Japanese indicates that, like Esther, she does not insist on maintaining her ethnic identity. Dianne: When I hear her (a president’s secretary in a different branch of her company) speak perfect women’s language with a soft voice, polite words and special intonation, my Japanese will be adjusted automatically and I will soon find myself following her pace of speaking, ways of speaking and politeness. (Follow-up interview; original in English)

The relatively low level of attachment with their ethnic identity might also have been facilitated by their more positive views of Japanese femininity compared to their view of Hong Kong femininity (see above).

Rejecting feminine Japanese for intercultural professional communication In the following sections, I analyze data from two participants, Rachel and Victoria, to discuss factors related to negative attitudes to using feminine Japanese for professional communication. Rachel had studied Japanese intensively for a translation programme for three years at a Hong Kong university. She obtained Grade 1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. At the time of the interview, Rachel was in her midthirties and was working as a part-time teacher of Japanese. Prior to this, she had held different jobs, including marketing and sales. Most recently, she had worked as a manager of a small company, which had business relationships with Japanese companies. In her present job, Rachel’s opportunities to use Japanese with native speakers of Japanese are mainly limited to speaking to her Japanese colleagues who are also part-time teachers of Japanese at the same institution. In her previous job, she used Japanese to make business deals with Japanese counterparts. Victoria was in her late twenties. She had studied Japanese as one of her subjects for three years at a Hong Kong university. After graduation, she had been to Japan to study Japanese at a university for one year. She possessed Grade 2

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of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. At the time of the interview, she had been working for two years as an assistant merchandiser and translator at a Japanese electronics company in Hong Kong. Prior to this, she had worked for a year as a salesperson at a small toy company and for three years in sales at another Japanese company. She used Japanese mainly to communicate with her male Japanese boss and other members of staff, and to translate during meetings between Japanese and Hong Kong staff members.

Enacting Japanese femininity Asked to give examples of Japanese women’s language, Rachel and Victoria mentioned sentence-final particles such as -wa and attachment of o- before nouns (see above) as well as a soft voice, a high pitch and honorific/polite language. Rachel and Victoria describe Japanese women as gentle, polite, and beautifully dressed. However, they also hold the view that such Japanese linguistic features can be ‘superficial’ and ‘insincere’. Unlike Esther and Dianne, Rachel and Victoria do not view feminine Japanese as a valuable resource for impression management or for their professional communication in general. Their negative attitudes towards the use of feminine Japanese may be related to their professional roles. For example, Rachel and Victoria hold more ‘substantial’ professional roles than do Esther and Dianne. That is, Rachel and Victoria’s professional duties include making business deals and handling business negotiations. Projection of an image of subordinate femininity during business transactions via the use of feminine Japanese would therefore be considered detrimental by them (see Rachel’s comments below). A context dependency for the effectiveness of the Japanese style of femininity for professional communication is evidenced by Rachel’s comments. While Rachel held negative views of the use of feminine Japanese in her previous full-time job as manager of a small company, she accepts it for her present job as part-time teacher of Japanese. She contrasts her present acceptance and previous resistance. Rachel: When I meet my colleagues — I mean colleagues whom I meet on my part-time work are mainly Japanese females — well, I use women’s language. But in the past, I resisted using women’s language for my work. Now I don’t resist it. I am in a different mood, because I’m doing part-time work. (Interview; original in Chinese)

While feminine Japanese is acceptable to her in a part-time profession without a career path, and for her communication with female Japanese on the job, it was detrimental for her in her previous full-time profession.

Gender and Professional Communication

Rachel: At present, I won’t resist using feminine Japanese in the same way as I used to. Ultimately, my current job is part-time and it’s not necessary to build a wall between my female Japanese colleagues and to tell the rest that ‘I’m a Hong Kong female. I’m different from you’. At present, I don’t make an effort to draw a line between me and my colleagues . . . Now that my job is part-time, I don’t care about career paths and all that. I do what I want to do and speak in anyway I like to speak ... (Interview; original in Chinese)

Here, Rachel observes that the Japanese style of femininity was detrimental for performing her role as a manager. In that position, she felt a need to draw a line between a Hong Kong woman and a Japanese woman; projection of Hong Kong femininity was believed to be more acceptable than a Japanese style of femininity. In Rachel’s view, the common expectations for Hong Kong women are that they are professionals as well as caretakers of domestic chores. They are pressured to work three times as hard as men in order to be recognized as competent professionals. Rachel: Hong Kong women have many responsibilities. In my own experiences in different companies, if a female wants to climb up to the top post or to be recognized professionally, she has to pay double price compared with males. So I think it is tiring to be a female. (Interview; original in Chinese)

She gives an account of her experience of getting criticism and being called ‘lazy’ when she quit her full-time job for a part-time job. Rachel: Like me, when I got married and quit my full-time job to take some rest, my acquaintances immediately asked me, ‘You stopped working at such a young age?’ Some of them, especially older people, thought I was lazy. I felt social pressure because people around me, I mean, most female friends and acquaintances studied, worked, and got married. But even after they got married and had their children, they continued to work. The whole society is like this. (Interview; original in Chinese)

The social expectation for Hong Kong women is that they should continue to pursue their careers after marriage. Rachel’s perception of professional Hong

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Kong women is that they strive hard to stand on an equal footing with male professionals. Her views on Japanese women are quite different. Rachel: (In Japan) Men are responsible for working to make an income and women are responsible for the domestic side . . . There is a clear division of work.

Rachel’s acceptance of the Hong Kong style of femininity and rejection of the Japanese style of femininity may therefore be related to these differences. That is, the Hong Kong females are perceived as striving to be recognized as competent professionals equal to males, while the Japanese females are perceived as more confined to the domestic domain. Rachel’s rejection of the Japanese style of femininity in competitive business fields may also be related to her observations of Japanese female professionals during her residence in Japan for two years as a student. While studying Japanese, she also did some part-time work in some companies and observed that female Japanese professionals were placed in subordinate positions, asked to pour tea, do the cleaning, and clear away rubbish. They were not given a chance to do more important jobs (interview data; original in Chinese). According to Rachel, the disadvantages of portraying a Japanese style of femininity are that it presents her as less competent and reduces her professional opportunities. She therefore felt that she had to avoid feminine Japanese. Rachel: . . . Formerly, I really did build a wall. Interviewer: Was it because of the nature of your job? Rachel: Yeah, yeah. Formerly, working was just like fighting in a war . . . I needed to get across the message (to Japanese dealers), ‘Don’t treat me like a girl’ or ‘don’t give me less work. I can do it. Let me do it’. I wanted to show that I was capable of doing the work. I didn’t feel good about showing my feminine identity. (Interview; original in Chinese)

Business efficiency Victoria is similar to Rachel in that she views feminine Japanese as detrimental to her work. However, unlike Rachel, the main reason for her rejection is not that it constructs subordinate femininity; rather, it interferes with business efficiency. As the following excerpt illustrates, several reasons are involved in Victoria’s reservations about using feminine Japanese.

Gender and Professional Communication

Interviewer: Victoria: Interviewer: Victoria:

Do you use Japanese women’s language at work? Not very much. Why? I’m not sure. Perhaps it is because most of the people that I have become acquainted with through my previous workplaces after I graduated were male. So I haven’t heard much women’s language. When I used it, I was not very confident as to whether or not I was using it correctly. I also feel as if it is the kind of language that we can live without. (Interview; original in Chinese)

As this excerpt illustrates, her reservations about using feminine Japanese were linked with at least two reasons: (1) her lack of exposure to feminine Japanese in her various workplaces and resultant unfamiliarity with it; (2) a sense that it is unnecessary to learn or use it. As I discuss below, these ideas appear to be related to other factors such as her instrumental motivations for learning the Japanese language. First, Victoria’s reservations about using feminine Japanese are linked with her unfamiliarity with it due to the lack of Japanese female staff members in her Japanese workplace in Hong Kong. Although there were about twenty-five staff members in her department, including two Japanese male managers, there were no Japanese females. Second, for Victoria, getting business done appears to be felt much more important than spending time trying to follow sociocultural norms, including gender differentiated forms of speaking Japanese. Feminine Japanese is not worth investing her time in during business transactions. It is in fact detrimental. Victoria: I won’t force myself to imitate their way, because the main purpose of a conversation in a business context is to express oneself as efficiently as possible. So if I keep on reminding myself to imitate the Japanese way of talking, I might not be able to take care of something that’s actually more important than that. (Interview; original in Chinese)

As discussed below, the rejection of feminine Japanese by Victoria and Rachel is also closely linked with their attachment with their original identity.

Attachment with L1 identity Another factor related to the negative attitudes towards using feminine Japanese in professional contexts is that, unlike Dianne and Esther, both Rachel and Victoria

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are more persistent in regard to maintaining their original (Hong Kong) identity. They appear to be more reluctant to adopt the ‘other’ cultural identity. As with Dianne and Esther, feminine Japanese is viewed by them as symbolizing a cultural identity of Japanese. For example, Rachel appears to hold the view that her use of feminine Japanese may entail her accommodation to the sociocultural norms of communication of Japanese. This, in turn, is felt as leading her to forsake her ‘original’ identity and to become a native speaker of the ‘other’ culture. For example, asked why she rejected feminine Japanese in her previous job as a manager of a small company, Rachel commented that she did not want to be seen as a Japanese person and that she wanted to be treated as her real self. Rachel: Because women’s language gives the impression of a Japanese person. I thought people who use women’s language looked like Japanese people. I thought if I spoke women’s language, I would be seen as Japanese, not as myself. (Interview; original in Chinese)

This suggests that Rachel also views feminine Japanese as symbolizing Japanese cultural identity as a broad category. She rejects feminine Japanese, as she wishes to maintain her Hong Kong identity. If she uses feminine Japanese, this may lead Japanese people to treat her as Japanese. Rejection of feminine Japanese is therefore a means of constructing her as a foreign language speaker of Japanese with a Hong Kong identity. Similarly, Victoria expresses a strong allegiance to her native culture and language. She is reluctant to speak and behave like a native Japanese speaker. She fears that adopting the cultural norms of Japanese would be tantamount to losing her Hong Kong identity and acquiring a foreign identity. Victoria: When studying Japanese, if I really try to become one hundred percent Japanese, not only in language but also in other aspects of the Japanese communication style, then I would easily lose my identity as a Hong Kong person. This would be a major disadvantage, as I think after all I am a Hong Kong person, so there is no need to lose myself to become a foreigner just because I want to learn the language well. (Interview; original in Chinese)

Apart from a fear of letting the ‘other’ language control her native ethnic identity, Victoria’s rejection of feminine Japanese may be related to the way she values learning a foreign language. For Victoria, Japanese is ‘only a tool’ to conduct

Gender and Professional Communication

business. Therefore, emulating the ways of speaking of native speakers of Japanese, including women’s language, is ‘unnecessary’, except for basic politeness. Victoria: The Japanese language is only a tool to assist me in achieving some tasks in business. If I make myself Japanese to speak the language, this would be tantamount to letting the language control me. Except for basic politeness, I don’t need to behave like a Japanese person to speak Japanese. Other things, like stereotypical Japanese culture, for example, ‘women should speak softly’ or ‘women should walk three steps behind men’, I won’t follow. As a female in Hong Kong, unlike a woman in Japan, I feel there should be gender equality. Since Japanese staff members are now living in Hong Kong, I think it is unnecessary for me to follow Japanese ways, unless it affects work. (Interview; original in Chinese)

Victoria’s views of learning a foreign language contrast sharply with those of Esther and Dianne. For Esther and Dianne, a native-like knowledge of the Japanese language is a means of gaining access to the ‘other’ culture. This in turn provides them with an opportunity to construct a new identity. They embrace this, as it enables them to gain professional advantages or to continue to improve their Japanese. By contrast, for Victoria, a foreign language is ‘just a tool’ to convey a message. It further needs to be separated from its cultural aspects, due to a fear that they may control her. Victoria is concerned that the use of feminine Japanese would lead to an adoption of Japanese identity and potentially encroach upon her ethnic identity. In addition, Victoria’s comments suggest that she is unwilling to accommodate to Japanese norms of communication on the basis of location. In other words, Victoria expects the Japanese people with whom she interacts for business to accommodate to Hong Kong norms of communication when they are in that country.

Discussion and conclusion The analysis presented in the preceding sections has suggested that the role of a feminine style of Japanese in intercultural professional contexts shows both similarities and differences when compared with a feminine style of English and with a feminine style of Japanese in monolingual contexts (see above). I discuss some of the major similarities and differences below. First, the analysis has suggested that a feminine style of Japanese is associated with a certain range of femininities among Japanese non-native speaking foreign professionals. Some of them are similar to those attached with a feminine style

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of English and Japanese in monolingual contexts. They include powerlessness, demureness and deference (see Abe 2000; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003; Ide 1982; Lakoff 1975). The analysis has also suggested that, like a feminine style of English or Japanese in monolingual contexts (Cameron 1997, 2000; Matsumoto 2004; Ochs 1993), a feminine style of Japanese acts as a symbolic meaning resource in multilingual professional contexts. Second, as discussed in previous sections, recent research has shown that the effectiveness of using a feminine style of English or of Japanese in monolingual contexts depends upon professional roles and contexts (Abe 2000; Cameron 2000; Ohara 2004). The present study has shown that this may also be applicable to feminine style of Japanese in multilingual contexts. For example, enactment of submissive feminine qualities is perceived to be useful to perform professional roles as secretaries or clerks and to please male Japanese superiors. However, the submissive femininities are considered detrimental for making business deals and handling business negotiations. For example, Rachel feels that they will encourage Japanese interlocutors to position her as incompetent and not serious about her career. The decision to use or avoid the feminine style may also be formed on the basis of comparison of different femininities and women’s roles between their L1 and the other language. The present analysis has also indicated that different femininities may be valued as a means of constructing professional identities and maintaining work relations in English and Japanese. For example, elegance and gentleness may be more closely associated with a feminine style of Japanese than is English. In addition, powerlessness or subordination may be more valued among Japanesespeaking professionals than among English-speaking professionals. Expressing feminine qualities such as being submissive or flattening have been found to be appreciated by the female Hong Kong participants in the present study. However, no research has suggested that those qualities are appreciated among English-speaking professionals. This may reflect greater power differences between male and female staff members in Japanese-speaking work contexts. Multilingual contexts may point to power relations between male native speakers and female non-native speakers (Piller and Pavlenko 2001). Another difference is related to the projection of Japanese cultural identity. Previous research on gendered speech and professional communication in relation to monolingual contexts (English or Japanese) has tended to indicate that the main factor involved in its use is the projection of particular femininities. However, the present study has shown that in multilingual professional contexts, a feminine style strongly projects the broader cultural identity of Japanese or a Japanese national group (‘big culture’, Holliday 1999) as well as a Japanese femininity, compared to ‘small culture’ (Holliday 1999).

Gender and Professional Communication

The cultural identity, in turn, may encourage or discourage the non-native speaking professionals from using the feminine style. For example, a Japanese cultural identity is accepted when it is considered a useful device to enter into an in-group of Japanese culture and thereby gain professional benefits. However, it is rejected when it is felt to be encroaching upon the speaker’s original ethnic (L1) identity. The present study has indicated another factor which may be specifically relevant to influencing the attitudes towards the use of feminine speech in the intercultural work context, that is, the level of attachment to the foreign professional’s ethnic identity. To the extent that the feminine style symbolizes the ethnolinguistic identity of the ‘other’ culture, non-native speaking professionals’ attitudes towards its use depend upon the extent of their willingness to acculturate into the other culture compared to the fear of losing their own identity in the process of learning and using the ‘other’ language. Moreover, the study has raised the possibility that the use of a feminine style of speech in multilingual contexts may depend upon the amount of time and effort that foreign professionals consider worthwhile investing in learning the foreign language. This appears to depend upon their understanding of the role of language in achieving their business goals efficiently. Their attitudes also appear to be potentially influenced by the nature of their motivation to learn the foreign language (discussed above), that is, whether to integrate into the ‘other’ culture, or to learn it as a tool for business. To conclude, the present study demonstrates the importance of a feminine style of speech and its projected femininities in constituting roles and relations. It shows the context dependency of these roles and relations by providing evidence from the use of an Asian language in intercultural work contexts. It also provides empirical evidence for different ways in which gendered language may influence professional communication in contexts, and in which professional roles may influence the use of gendered language in multilingual contexts. In multilingual contexts, feminine speech appears to be intricately related to attitudes towards the cultural identity of the ‘other’ language, the levels of attachment to L1 and L2 identities, a comparison of different femininities in different cultures, and motivations to learn the foreign language. Gender combines with these categories in complex ways to influence professional communication in intercultural contexts which are shaped by the larger socioeconomic and power relations between the two countries involved. The present study was conducted on a small scale and was based on interview data only. A larger study based on natural speech data awaits. Nonetheless, it is hoped this study offers some useful findings on the role of gendered speech in intercultural professional communication.

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Appendix 5.1: Sample questions asked during the interviews 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

As a woman in Hong Kong, how do you feel? Is there any advantage or disadvantage in being a woman in Hong Kong? (For example?) What about the situation in your workplace? (e.g. Are there any advantages or disadvantages in being a woman in your Japanese company in Hong Kong?) As your native language is Cantonese, do you think there is any difference between men’s Cantonese and women’s Cantonese? What image do you have of Japanese women? What do you know about Japanese women’s language? What do you think about it? Do you use Japanese women’s language at work? If so, can you give examples? If you don’t, why not? Do you like using Japanese women’s language? Why?

6 Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence Yeonkwon Jung

Politeness is of crucial importance in performing a goal-oriented activity, such as business (e.g. in looking for a buyer, making the buyer respond favourably to sales letters, or having the buyer purchase the product for sale). If a seller is not polite to a buyer, the buyer is unlikely to react in a favourable way to what the seller requests. Furthermore, politeness may help both parties build trust and respect in order to maintain long-term business relationships. In this respect, politeness is seen as a necessary avenue for establishing a productive business atmosphere. The present study investigates how Korean business professionals use politeness strategies in Korean business correspondence to achieve a goal successfully. In particular, the study concentrates on politeness strategies for requests, in that requesting is the most common and essential speech act performed in a business context. Probably that is why much attention has been given to the speech act of request in written business communications across cultures (Akar 1998; Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris 1996; Pilegaard 1997; Yli-Jokipii 1994, among many others). A request is made in business contexts when the requested act is desirable to continue business. The content of requests may support this claim. The contents of some requests in my corpus are a request for shipping, a request for replacing damaged stock, a request for paying the amount receivable, etc. In these cases of making requests, unless the requested acts are performed, business cannot be continued. Therefore, these requested acts are necessary conditions to be able to continue business and so they are for the benefit of the company, not only the person who writes the request letter. For example, in the sentence, kwisauy napkiil cwunswulul tasi hanpen yochenghapnita ‘We once again ask you to meet the payment deadline’, without performing the requested act (meeting the payment deadline), business cannot be continued. Likewise, the requested act (miswukum

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cenaykul ipkum wanlyo ‘paying the full amount receivable for the transaction’) in Onyen Owel Oilkkaci miswukum cenaykul ipkum wanlyohaye cwusimyen kamsahakeysssupnita ‘I would appreciate it if you pay the full amount receivable for the transaction by O’, is a necessary condition to continue business. Therefore, pursuing a successful business goal can depend to some extent on how the requester makes a request. That is the main reason why this study investigates how Korean business professionals use politeness strategies in making a request in Korean business correspondence to achieve a goal successfully. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness is adopted for data analysis because it explicitly provides how facework is reflected in politeness strategies used particularly in the performance of requests. Four strategies in their model are considered in ascending order based on their indirectness, from the least indirect (bald-on-record) to the most indirect (off-record). The following sections provide a review of the literature on Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness and an overview of the corpus of Korean business correspondence.

Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness (1987) Brown and Levinson (1987) investigate politeness phenomena and establish the relationship between the principles governing language usage and the principles governing social relationships. By taking up Goffman’s (1967) ‘face-want’, Brown and Levinson (1987, 61) propose that every competent adult speaker in a society (i.e. a Model Person, MP) has face, which is the ‘public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’. The concept of face is central to Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness. Face is composed of two aspects: positive and negative. Positive face is defined as ‘the want of every MP that his wants be desirable to others’. Negative face is defined as ‘the want of every MP that his actions be unimpeded by others’. They name certain kinds of acts that challenge face-wants ‘the face-threatening acts (FTAs)’. Some acts (e.g. requests, orders) impose on the hearer’s negative face by showing that the speaker gets the hearer to do something. Other acts (e.g. disagreements, complaints) threaten the hearer’s positive face by indicating that the speaker does not share the hearer’s wants. Brown and Levinson establish five strategies for linguistic politeness, which are ranked from the least indirect (bald-on-record) to the most indirect (don’t do the FTA): 1. Bald-on-record, 2. Positive politeness, 3. Negative politeness, 4. Off-record, and 5. Don’t do the FTA. The bald-on-record strategy involves performing the FTA in the most direct way without redress. The circumstances for this strategy include cases when the speech act is used for emergency or efficiency. Positive politeness is oriented toward the hearer’s positive face wants. Positive politeness strategies tend to imply that the speaker is a co-operator or seeks common ground with the addressee.

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

Brown and Levinson (1987, 130) claim that negative politeness may be qualified as ‘the stuff that fills the etiquette books’, since it is oriented toward the hearer’s negative face-wants to be unimpeded by others. Off- record strategy is used to perform a non-conventionally indirect speech act. Brown and Levinson’s last level of strategy, Don’t do the FTA, is just to keep silent, without performing any speech act.

Data The data for this study comprise 149 Korean business texts of internal (62 email messages) and external (87 formal letters) correspondence collected from two Korean business companies: a food company (company A) and a pharmaceutical company (company B). Email messages and formal business letters are selected as representative of internal and external correspondence respectively, because they are used relatively frequently for internal and external communications. I collect business correspondence conducted between same-status and differentstatus parties to examine the pattern of speech act strategies realized by samestatus and different-status parties. The age of the senders and receivers ranged from the mid-twenties to the late fifties. Since this is a synchronic study, the total period during which the texts are written covers the years from 1996 to 2000. The requested data were released based on the understanding that the contents would be treated with proper discretion, so all names in the letters were omitted for reasons of confidentiality. I followed the Yale romanization system in transcribing Korean examples. Morpheme boundaries are marked by a hyphen.1 If necessary, the preceding text or following text is added to each example in order to avoid the ambiguity of an isolated utterance. This study adopts a qualitative data analysis method. Of Brown and Levinson’s superstrategies, excluding ‘Don’t do the FTA’, four strategies are sequentially considered from being least indirect (bald-on-record) to most indirect (off-record).

Politeness strategies in making requests in the Korean data Bald-on-record strategy Since written business communication is a goal-oriented activity, the bald-onrecord strategy can be used for maximum efficiency by letting the reader know the urgency based on mutually shared knowledge. Due to the goal-oriented characteristic of a company, the writer’s wants or needs are able to override face concerns about the reader in order to achieve the corporate goal. Therefore, the writer chooses to observe the ‘C(larity)-B(revity)-S(incerity) style’ (cf. Scollon

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and Scollon 2001, 106) rather than the requirement of politeness in business context by using bald-on-record utterances. Performative verbs, such as yochenghata or yokwuhata ‘request’ in Korean, are used with no redress in order to make a request baldly, as shown in examples 1, 2, and 3. (1) iey kyengwise-lul yocheng-ha-p-ni-ta this full particulars-AC request-do-AH-IN-DC ‘I request the full details of what happened.’ (2) iey tayhan chaykim-iss-nun hoytap-ul yokwu-ha-p-ni-ta this about responsibility-is-RL answer-AC request-do-AH-IN-DC ‘We request a responsible answer on this.’ (3) kwisa-uy napkiil cwunswu-lul tasi han-pen yocheng-ha-p-ni-ta your firm-’s payment date meet-AC again one-time request-do-AH-IN-DC ‘We once again ask you to meet the payment deadline.’

Positive politeness strategy The writer can share common ground with the reader by using certain devices or language to express in-group identity and membership. By using this positive politeness strategy, solidarity is present between interactants. ‘Use in-group language’ is subdivided into two specific groups of strategies: (1) code-mixing and (2) use of slang. The code is distinctively mixed in the use of specific knowledge such as jargon in business settings to claim in-group membership with the reader or to produce the shared associations between the writer and the reader for achieving common goals. Since business partners can be in-group members from a global view, mixed codes are used in external communications. In particular, codemixing is heavily used in the external communications of company B, as shown in examples 4 and 5. Presumably, the people in company B not only want to establish solidarity between both unfamiliar parties but also want to protect selfface through code-mixing. That is, the user of English technical terms endeavours to show his or her professional work ability to the unfamiliar reader. (4) L/C at sight hokun T/T advance-lo cinhayng-haye cwu-l-kes-ul pwuthak-tuliL/C at sight or T/T advance-to proceed-do give-will-thing-AC request-givep-ni-ta AH-IN-DC ‘We request proceeding to L/C at sight or T/T advance.’ (5) kumpen silcey sencek-khoca ha-si-nun lot-kwa tongilhan lot-uy saymphul-ul this time in fact ship-intend do-HON-RL lot-with same lot-’s sample-AC cuksi songpwu-hay cwu-si-ki pala-p-ni-ta

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immediately send-do give-HON-NOM hope-AH-IN-DC ‘I hope you will immediately send a sample with the exact same type that you actually intend to ship.’ To some extent, mixed code can also serve an emphatic purpose in that it is visually differentiated, and so a code mixed within the other code can easily be emphasized. Although the use of Korean jargon is unmarked or natural in a certain standard situation (e.g. business context), using English professional terms within the Korean texts is highly marked and a strategic choice. Although there are equivalent terms in Korean, by using English business terms within Korean texts, participants can do business much faster and more easily, because they can avoid miscommunication. In this respect, the function of code-mixing is also pertinent to what Pan (2000) describes as ‘pragmatic code-switching’, which functions to facilitate the business transaction or to avoid miscommunication. Similar examples of code-mixing in business writing are also found in Connor (1999). Connor finds that English-Norwegian (e.g. mandel fisk ‘almond fish’) or English-Estonian (e.g. nahaga ‘with skin’, nahata ‘without skin’) code-mixing occurs in fax communication between an English broker and his Norwegian and Estonian suppliers in order to clarify communication, to have fun, or to create solidarity (1999, 122). Slang terms are used as an expression of in-group identity. In general, slang terms are used between intimates, as shown in the examples below. Slang serves the cohesive social function of reinforcing in-group membership and strengthening solidarity between interactants (Holmes 1995). Using slang is unlikely to be a politeness strategy in formal business texts. Due to the informality of slang, therefore, it is strictly used for internal correspondence. The use of slang makes more solidarity between intimates than the use of formal words. In example 6, making a request does not threaten the requestee’s negative facewants, because the request is not solely made for the benefit of the requester in this case. In this context, a request made by an intimate acquaintance of the requestee can be coded as common heartfelt congratulations to the requestee on something good that happened to him (i.e. sungcin ‘promotion’). Therefore, requests can save the requestee’s positive face without damaging the requestee’s negative face. The use of slang serves to support this convivial speech act in this instance. (6) sungcin-thek encey nay-lken-ci-yo? promotion-treat when pay-will-SUP-POL ‘When will you treat me to celebrate your promotion?’ Interestingly, slang terms used in the corpus of business writing manifest the influence of oral language features on the written text (cf. Chafe 1992; Akar

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1998; Nickerson 2000). The most common phonological feature for emphasis in Korean is the tensification of a lax consonant in that tensed consonants tend to symbolize ‘smaller, tighter, more solid, faster and more intensive and urgent actions or states’ (Sohn 1994, 497). Word initial consonant clusters indicating stress are also found in slang terms, telta → ttelta ‘deduct’, as in example 7; that is, consonants are clustered word initially to signal stress on consonants or for emphatic purposes. The initial consonant cluster is mimetic of casual pronunciation. (7) niney-ccok-eyse tel-eya-hay → niney-ccok-eyse ttel-eya-hay your-side-from deduct-must-do ‘You should deduct yours.’

Negative politeness strategy Because politeness is a necessary condition both for successful communication and for facilitating interpersonal relationships, and because one of the strong motivations for using indirect speech acts might be the need for that politeness, there should be a relation between indirect speech acts and politeness. As far as conventionality is concerned, Searle (1975, 77) claims that ‘In order to be a plausible candidate at all for use as an indirect speech act, a sentence has to be idiomatic. But within the class of idiomatic sentences, some forms tend to become entrenched as conventional devices for indirect speech acts’ (emphasis added). In my data, sentences are idiomatized according to the two lexical items of ‘want statements’ and ‘conditional appreciation’. Conventionally indirect requests are realized through the semantic device ‘want statements’ (i.e. palapnita ‘I hope’) as in examples 8 and 9. Want statements mostly occur at the end of texts, as do many other requests in the Korean data. By formulating his requests in ‘want statements’ to be indirect, the writer expects that the reader is willing to accept his request. Conventionally indirect requests realized by ‘want statements’ in Korean seem to be closely linked to formality. Their formality is marked by the formal deferential ending, pnita, which signals the most deferential level of politeness in Korean. (8) ciwen-ccok-ey hwakin hay po-si-ki pala-p-ni-ta support-side-to check do see-HON-NOM hope-AH-IN-DC ‘I hope you will check it with the support team.’ (9) cenayk ipkum-ha-ye cwu-si-ki pala-p-ni-ta full amount pay-do-by give-HON-NOM hope-AH-IN-DC ‘I hope you will pay the full amount.’

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

In the strategy of conditional appreciation, the writer mitigates the illocutionary force of his request by claiming his indebtedness to the reader. In example 10, a request with an appreciation is made with the phrase, myen kamsahakeysssupnita ‘I would appreciate it if . . .’ to be conventionally indirect.

(10) tangsa-uy ipcang-ul kolye-haye kicon kelaycoken-ul our firm-’s situation-AC consider-do existing dealing condition-AC kyeysok yuci-haye cwu-si-n-ta-myen kamsa-ha-keyss-sup-ni-ta continue maintain-do do-HON-IN-DC-if thank-do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘I would appreciate it if you would consider our situation and continue to comply with the terms of the existing contract.’ The writer uses an if-clause in order to hedge the illocutionary force of his request. Additionally, it shows that the indebtedness expressed by the writer is conditional and is entirely dependent on the completion of the reader’s action described in the if-clause. By letting the reader know that the expression of indebtedness is conditional and is solely dependent on the reader’s intention or future action requested, the writer shows respect to the reader’s negative face wants because he gives the reader the option to choose. The writer sometimes claims his debt in causing the reader the difficulty, by encoding explicitly the notion of difficulty as shown in examples 11 and 12 (i.e. elyewusitelato ‘difficult it is’).

(11) elyewu-si-te-lato O-nyen O-wel O-il-kkaci difficult-HON-PRS-even though O-year O-month O-day-until miswukum cenayk-ul ipkum wanlyo-haye cwu-si-myen an amount receivable-AC pay complete-do give-HON-if kamsa-ha-kyess-sup-ni-ta thank-do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘I would appreciate it if you pay the full amount receivable for the transaction by O, even though it is difficult for you to do.’ (12) elyewu-si-te-lato pon phwummok-uy cwumwunchwiso-lul pata difficult-HON-PRS-even though this item-’s order cancellation-AC receive cwu-si-n-ta-myen kamsa-ha-keyss-sup-ni-ta give-HON-IN-DC-if thank-do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘I would appreciate it if you would consider our situation and allow us to cancel the order for this item, even though it is difficult for you to do.’

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Unlike highly conventional devices, such as ‘want statements’ or ‘conditional appreciation’, fewer conventional mitigating devices can be used to reduce the force of illocutions in many different ways (Labov and Fanshel 1977). For example, although each hedge has a conventional form, hedges vary in form depending on their functions in different situations. Those mitigating devices can be used to modify the force of request. In this section, mitigating devices include ‘hedges’, ‘apologies’, and ‘give overwhelming reasons’. Hedges are politeness strategies to minimize the force of speech acts. They act as one of the most important communicative devices used for reducing damage to the relationship between interactants. As Hyland (2000) claims, hedges also convey the writer’s modesty and respect for the reader’s opinion. In other words, besides communicating ideas, hedges function as a medium to signal the writer’s attitude to the reader. In this respect, suffice it to say that hedges play a crucial role in doing successful communication in a modesty-high-value society, such as Korea. In Korea, modesty is one of the most important components of public self-image, which is ‘face’. By showing the uncertainty of the writer’s proposition through hedges, he denigrates himself. Self-denigration for the sake of modesty does not damage the writer’s self-esteem at all in Korea. In turn, displaying humility or modesty can be an effort to enhance his own face (Leech 1983). Hedges include: (1) the quantitative hedge cokum/com ‘just, a little’, (2) delimiter particle -man ‘only’, (3) if-clause expression -ta-myen ‘if’, and (4) the benefactive auxiliary verb cwuta ‘do for’ (lit. give). By using quantitative hedges such as cokum/com ‘just, a little’, the writer tries to mitigate the illocutionary force of his request. In other words, the quantitative hedge functions to avoid direct confrontation with the reader, as in examples 13 and 14. By mitigating the degree of imposition or showing that the reader is just partially imposed on, the writer reduces his imposition on the reader’s negative face-wants. Probably, the writer’s intention to minimize the burden or debt on the reader can also save his own positive face by fulfilling his goal properly (i.e. the reader’s acceptance of his request).

(13) kak tamtangca-kkeyse cokum sinkyeng sse cwu-sye-se ilceng-ey each person in charge-NM a little attention pay give-HON-by schedule-in chacil-epsi cinhayng-toy-l swu isskey pwuthak-tuli-p-ni-ta problem-no proceed-be-will way to ask-give-AH-IN-DC ‘I ask each person in charge to pay a little bit more attention to meeting the schedule.’ (14) com pwa-cwu-sey-yo a bit save-give-HON-POL ‘I ask you to please consider my situation a bit more.’

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

Likewise, a delimiter particle, -man ‘only’, plays a similar role in reducing the writer’s burden on the reader. It tones down the illocutionary force of request, as in example 15. By downsizing a request through the hedge (i.e. a request for a slight delay of the shipping date), the writer may minimize damage to the reader’s negative face-wants. The writer can also save his positive face by justifying his request through reducing the size of the request.

(15) sencek ilca-lul hyenci saceng-ulo inhay ilcwuil-man shipping date-AC on the spot circumstance-as because one week-only nucchwu-eya hal kes kath-sup-ni-ta delay-have to do thing seem-AH-IN-DC ‘It seems that the shipping date should be delayed for a week only because of the circumstances on the spot. ’ Another hedging device is the if-clause. The writer uses if-clauses to mitigate the force of negative FTAs. In example 16, if-clauses (i.e. -ta-myen) are used to minimize the force of request.

(16) khun mwuli-ka eps-usi-ta-myen, sencekmwullyang-ul big problem-NM no-HON-DC-if, shipping quantities-AC nullye-cwu-si-n-ta-myen kamsa-ha-keyss-sup-ni-ta increase-give-HON-IN-DC-if thank-do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘If there is no problem, I would appreciate it if you could increase the quantity of shipments.’ Interestingly enough, the writer in example 17 mitigates the force of his request by promising to offer something of equal value or proposing a concrete way or means to pay back the debt incurred by his request (i.e. amend the established L/C). Furthermore, the promise to pay off such a debt is expressed as an if-clause using the future tense, in order to save the reader’s negative face by respecting the reader’s freedom to choose. To some extent, this strategy seems to be related to the theory of ‘reciprocity’. In order to compensate for requests, the writer can convey co-operation and involvement between participants by specifying the reciprocal rights or mutual commitments. Therefore, by claiming a reciprocal relationship between the reader’s response to the writer’s request and the writer’s compensation to the reader, the writer tends to negate or lessen the debt.

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(17) cwunglyang-ul helak-hay-cwu-si-n-ta-myen, kicon-ey increasing quantity-AC allow-do-give-HON-IN-DC-if, existing-in kaysel-toye iss-nun L/C-lul kotpalo amend-ha-tolok ha-keyss-sup-ni-ta establish-be is-RL L/C-AC immediately amend-do-to do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘If you allow me to increase the quantity, I will immediately amend the established L/C.’ Another hedging device is the benefactive auxiliary verb cwuta ‘do for’ (lit. give). A bald-on-record utterance, implying a command, turns into a request with redress after adding the benefactive auxiliary verb cwuta (cf. Cho 1982). This hedging device makes the writer the recipient and the reader the giver of the speech act. Accordingly, the writer considers the reader of higher status by putting himself in the position of the recipient, to give the reader a choice or rights to accept or reject the writer’s request, as in examples 18 and 19. By respecting the reader through the benefactive auxiliary verb cwu, the writer may be able to mitigate the illocutionary force of his request.

(18) kumcwumal-kkaci-nun pantusi ceychwul-hay cwu-si-ki end of month-till-TOP definitely submit-do do for-HON-NOM pala-p-ni-ta hope-AH-IN-DC ‘I hope you definitely submit it by the end of this month.’ (19) sangki miswukum-ul O-nyen O-wel O-il han above the amount receivable-AC O-year O-month O-day by cenayk ipkum-ha-ye cwu-si-ki pala-p-ni-ta full amount pay-do-by do for-HON-NOM hope-AH-IN-DC ‘I hope you will pay the full amount receivable for the transaction by O.’ In making requests, the apologizer makes an apology for his imposition by admitting the impingement or conveys his reluctance or lack of intention to impose on the addressee to mitigate the illocutionary force of his request. Apology in this case may not be a normal functioned apology (e.g. an apology made to a complainer) to accept his fault, but a so-called ‘pseudo-apology’ functioning only to mitigate the force of performing the FTA for politeness concerns. In example 20 the writer admits the impingement on the reader’s negative face. In general, Koreans use apologies infrequently. Moreover, a superior is much less likely to make an (overt) apology to an inferior in Korea. Furthermore, due to the strong tendency to avoid overt apologies, apologies can be made indirectly in numerous ways in Korean (e.g. admit impingement, [promise to] offer, acknowledge

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

responsibility, etc). In this sense, example 20 does not show overt meanings for apologies to mitigating the force of requests, as in ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you because you are busy at the moment but’. But even only acknowledging the superior’s imposition on the inferior (i.e. each person in charge) through understanding and acknowledging the reader’s current difficult situation (i.e. pappun epmwu ‘busy work’) also implies an apology in the context in Korean. Therefore, it can be interpreted as an apology.

(20) pappun epmwu-ey-to kak tamtangca-kkeyse cokum sinkyeng sse busy work-in-even each person in charge-NM a little attention pay cwu-sye-se ilceng- ey chacil-epsi cinhayng-toy-l swu isskey give-HON-by schedule in problem-no proceed-be-will way to pwuthak-tuli-p-ni-ta ask-give-AH-IN-DC ‘In spite of the busy work, I ask each person in charge to pay a little bit more attention to meeting the schedule without any delays.’ Like apologies, reasons for requests can act to reduce the force of the negative face-threatening speech acts (cf. Trosborg 1995). When supportive reasons given by the writer are understandable and reasonable to the reader, they act as mitigators for requests. Therefore, in making a request, the action can be assessed for its underlying motive or reason for politeness purposes. By providing evidence, the writer can ‘justify his/her accusation or reprimand so that it appears convincing’ (Trosborg, 329, emphasis in the original). Therefore, by giving overwhelming reasons to reduce damage to the reader’s face, the writer can also save his own face by justifying his unavoidable FTA through his explicit explanation of difficult situations incurring the FTA and the implication that he has made every effort to avoid the FTA. In examples 21 and 22, the writers provide the readers with convincing explanations or reasons (i.e. sayngsanlain katonghwu kyelceng ‘decision made after operating the production line’; commission pendingi simhapnita ‘There is a major commission pending’) to show that making requests is inevitable and unintentional.

(21) sayngsanlain katong-hwu kyelceng-ha-n sahang-i-oni tasi kemtho production line operate-after decide-do-RL matter-is-since again investigate pwuthak-tuli-p-ni-ta request-give-AH-IN-DC ‘Since the decision was made after operating the production line, I request that you conduct an investigation again.’

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(22) a. commission pending-i simha-p-ni-ta commission pending-NM serious-AH-IN-DC ‘There is a major commission pending’ b. cosokhan songkumcochi pwuthak-tuli-p-ni-ta quickly pay request-give-AH-IN-DC ‘I ask you to pay commission as soon as possible.’ Negative politeness strategy can be realized by defocusing the agent/patient involved in the FTA. Since Jenkins and Hinds’s (1987) seminal work on crosscultural business letter writing, several investigations have been made to explicate strategic choices of subject pronouns in conveying propositional information where volition or intention exists (cf. Akar 1998; Nickerson 2000; Yli-Jokipii 1994). As ‘orientation devices’ (Jenkins and Hinds 1987), subject pronouns may reflect organizational culture because, to a certain extent, it manifests the relationships between power (non-) equal participants. In a similar vein, pronominal choices may also be associated with the theory of ‘face’, in that they can be chosen strategically to make solidarity or distance between participants. In Korean, there is an exclusive/inclusive distinction in the first person plural pronoun. Inclusive we is typically used to present the writer as a member of the group, which includes the reader, and to reaffirm the in-group relationship between the writer and the reader. In contrast, the exclusive we occurring in the Korean data is closely associated with Brown and Levinson’s so-called business we to a certain extent. Brown and Levinson (1987, 202) contend that ‘there is also the widespread phenomenon of “we” used to indicate “I” + powerful which is a corporate identity’ (emphasis added). That is, the exclusive we signals that the company rather than simply the individual is responsible for the utterance (Neumann 1997). The function of the exclusive we pronoun is directly linked to ‘defocalization’ (Haverkate 1992), whereby the writer tends to make distance from the FTA by using the we pronoun. In a normal Korean communicative context, self-disclosure is uncommon, due to the collective nature of the Korean language and society (Hofstede 1994; Mulholland 1997). This observation may be consistent with Bernstein’s (1971) statement on the distinction between closed and open communication systems. That is, in social groups with closed communication systems (e.g. Korea), the interests of the group (we-orientation) supercede those of the individual (I-orientation). In this respect, the primary function of using the exclusive we seems to be motivated by rhetorical considerations. That is, by making distance between participants through the collective subject we, the writer renders the correspondence more formal. Despite the low frequency of the we pronoun in the corpus of Korean business letters, tangsa ‘our firm’ is used to present the writer as part of a powerful group

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

to the reader. By adopting a writer-oriented noun phrase such as tangsa ‘our firm’, the writer tends to support and strengthen both an organizational identity and the writer orientation already established through the use of exclusive ‘we’ emphasizing ‘we + powerful’ over ‘I + powerful’ (Akar 1998). Example 23 shows explicitly how heavily tangsa ‘our firm’ is used within a single text. In addition to the single use of tangsa ‘our firm’ as a subject, the possessive forms (i.e. tangsauy sakyu ‘our firm’s regulation’; tangsauy ipcang ‘our firm’s situation’) are used to underscore the writer orientation.

(23) a. kumpen yocheng-ha-si-n kyelceycoken 120 days-nun tangsa this time request-do-HON-RL settlement condition 120 days-TOP our firm sakyusang swuyong- i elyepta-nun cem allye-tuli-p-ni-ta regulation accept-NM difficult-RL point inform-give-AH-IN-DC ‘I inform you that, because of our firm’s regulations, it’s difficult to accept the settlement condition of 120 days that you requested.’ b. ilpancekulo tangsa-nun D/A coken-ul pwulheha-na, kwisa-wa-nun in general our firm-TOP D/A condition-AC reject-but, your firm-with-TOP yeyoycek-ulo D/A coken 60-il kyelceycoken-ul exception- as D/A condition 60-day settlement condition-AC swuyonghay on pa iss-sup-ni-ta accept doing way is-AH-IN-DC ‘We generally reject D/A conditions but we will make an exception and accept the D/A 60-day settlement condition proposed by your firm.’ c. kulena, 120 days-louy yencang-un tangsa-lose-nun tocehi swuyong-ha-ki but, 120 days-to extension-TOP our firm-as-TOP at all accept-do-NOM elyewun ceyan-i-oni tangsa-uy ipcang-ul kolye-ha-ye difficult proposal-is-since our firm-’s situation-AC consider-do-by kicon kelaycoken-ul kyeysok yuci-ha-ye cwu-si-n-ta-myen existing dealing condition-AC continue maintain-do-by give-HON-IN-DC-if kamsa-ha-keyss-sup-ni-ta thank-do-will-AH-IN-DC ‘But, since an extension of 120 days is difficult to accept at all, I would appreciate it if you would consider our situation and continue with the existing contract.’ In the Korean data, the use of the you pronoun is strongly avoided because of its negative function of increasing the force of the request. In general in the

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Korean data, reference to the reader in making a request is avoided even in the possessive forms. Since the you pronoun can increase threat to the reader’s face more seriously than the use of the I pronoun in making a request, the writer tends to avoid direct reference to you and uses an occupational term, as in example 24 (e.g. ticaine ‘designer’).

(24) ticaine-kkeyse cakep-si silswu-ha-si-n kes-inci hwakin-ha-si-e designer-NM work-when mistake-do-HON-RL thing-if check-do-HON-and cokuphan cochi pwuthak-tuli-p-ni-ta quick action request-give-AH-IN-DC ‘I ask you to take quick action after checking if you, the designer, made a mistake in your work. ’ Although a verb itself is a word for describing some kind of action, the action can be defocused or obscured and the tense of the action prototypically omitted by nominalizing the verb (Kollin 1996). Nominalization converts an action that pertains to an agent into a nominal construction without agent so that the sentence becomes more abstract and formal. In this respect, formality is increased in the sentence by nominalization. Therefore, nominalization is a convention for constructing formal prose, such as business correspondence. In Korean, nominalized constructions are made with the nominal suffixes -ki, -ci, and -(u)m. In example 25, by ending the sentence with a nominalized verb (yomangham), it becomes a more official or bureaucratic sentence than a deferential declarative sentence with formal deferential ending -pnita (yomanghapnita ‘to request’).

(25) onul-kkaci pantusi cheli-ha-ko toykun-yomang-ha-m today-until definitely process-do-and leaving work-request-do-NOM ‘Leave your work after you completely finish this assignment today.’ Brown and Levinson contend that ‘the more nouny an expression, the more removed an actor is from doing, or being something’ (1987, 208). Yli-Jokipii (1994, 236) also maintains that ‘removing the perspective from the writer and the reader to an “alien” item in the discourse helps the writer to “play it safe”’. In other words, the writer can save negative face by maintaining his distance from the utterance and increasing formality using nominalized verbs. However, one thing that we have to remember in considering Korean nominalization with respect to politeness is that, although formality is expressed in the nominalized sentence, normally the agent is not placed immediately before the nominalized items. Nominalization in Korean does not require a possessive construction.

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

The subject of a nominalized possessive construction and the genitive particle -uy are omitted altogether. Furthermore, a nominalized clause in Korean is normally embedded within the sentence where it is subordinate, as in example 26 (i.e. caykemthohay cwusiki ‘reconsider’).

(26) kakyek insang-ey tayhay caykemtho-hay cwu-si-ki-lul pwuthak-tuli-nun price increase-to about reconsider-do give-HON-NOM-AC request-give-RL pa-i-p-ni-ta way-is-AH-IN-DC ‘I ask you to reconsider a price increase.’ Therefore, nominalized items themselves are not inherently placed in the subject position but move relatively freely (see Akar 1998 and Yli-Jokipii 1994 for ‘Communicative Dynamism’). In this sense, nominalized constructions in Korean do not seem to have anything to do with the subject pronoun or its position. Therefore, Brown and Levinson’s claim about dropping the subject pronoun in FTA events as negative politeness does not seem to be applicable to Korean nominalization. Only in the sense that nominalization does create an impression of formality and distance between the writer and the reader may it be considered Brown and Levinson’s negative politeness.

Off-record politeness strategy Efforts have been made to understand the relationship between indirectness and politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987; Lakoff 1973; Leech 1983; Searle 1975). Researchers argue that a higher degree of indirectness increases politeness. Indirect illocutions increase the degree of optionality, and when an illocution is more direct, its force needs to be more diminished and tentative for politeness concerns (Leech 1983, 108). Off-record strategies allow the speaker to produce utterances that leave it to the hearer to interpret its meaning by speaking non-conventionally indirectly. Therefore, the degree to which the meaning of an utterance is understood is determined by the hearer’s pragmatic competence. Without shared knowledge between interlocutors, the hearer cannot properly comprehend the true meaning of the speaker’s utterance. Because off-record utterances are ambiguous, they imply more than one meaning. For example, consider sentence 27, which is basically a request (for price reductions). That is why the delimiter particle -man ‘only’ is used to minimize the force of making a request. It also represents the giving of bad news, because the business was not conducted successfully due to disagreements with the reader on the current price of an item.

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(27) manyak kwisa-eyse kg-tang US$2-man kakyekinha-hay cwu-si-n-ta-myen, if your firm-in kg-each US$2-only price reduction-do give-HON-IN-DC-if, pon ken-i sengsa-toy-l swu iss-ul kes-ulo salye-toy-p-ni-ta this job-NM succeed-be-will way is-AC thing-as think-become-AH-IN-DC ‘If you reduce prices by only US$2 per kg, I think that it may succeed.’ In this section, I follow the model formulated by Weizman (1989, 1993) to explicate the opacity of off-record utterances. Types and degree of opacity for two dimensions (propositional content and illocutionary device) can be encoded into non-conventionally indirect speech acts. Propositional content contains three categories: zero, component, and act. Zero does not refer to the reader, the act or its components. Component refers to the component of a request. Act refers to the act and its components. Illocutionary device contains four categories: zero, questioning hearer’s commitment, questioning feasibility, and stating potential grounder. Zero does not state any illocutionary intent. Questioning hearer’s commitment checks if the hearer is willing or commits to do some act for the benefit of the speaker. Questioning feasibility checks some pre-condition for the act. Stating potential grounder gives a reason why the act is necessary. In this study, off-record strategies are divided into two types: ‘reasonableness’ and ‘act in question’. Giving reasons is one hinting strategy. Writers indicate the reason to indirectly do the FTAs without explicitly expressing the illocution (Zhu 2000). For example, in sentence 28, the writer non-conventionally and indirectly makes a request by showing a reason. That is, the writer uses a statement of ‘potential grounder’ (which gives a reason why the requested act is necessary) as an illocutionary device. The writer does not refer to the hearer, the requested act, or any components of requested act. The reason why his request is made off-record by only using the ‘grounder’ strategy has something to do with the use of ellipsis. One way to construct a non-conventionally indirect speech act in Korean is to omit the main clause (Sohn 1999, 418). By omitting the main clause which carries the writer’s assertions (thereby avoiding a direct confrontation, i.e. kulenikka ppalli ponaycwe ‘Therefore, send them to me soon’), the writer can mitigate the illocutionary force of his request. Therefore, politeness, to a certain extent, can be motivation for adopting an off-record strategy.

(28) chwusek-i o-ki-cen-ey yengepso-ey kacye-ka-. Thanksgiving Day-NM come-NOM-before-in a sales office-to bring-goya ha-ketun need do-since ‘I need to bring them to the sales office before Thanksgiving Day.’

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

Besides giving reasons, one of the common ways of indirectly making requests is the ‘question’. If the act in question is not done yet, the utterance aims to request that the reader do the act. Furthermore, questioning whether the act in question has been performed serves as a function for checking the ‘pre-condition’ for request (Haverkate 1984; Trosborg 1995). It also implies that the reader is supposed to be committed to carrying out the act in question (Weizman 1989; Trosborg 1995). Requestive questions do not necessarily solicit information or opinion. Their typical aim is to let the reader know or to remind the reader of the information, which is conveyed indirectly without telling the truth directly or trying to obtain an answer. For example, in sentences 29, and 30, by adopting the strategy ‘component + questioning hearer’s commitment’ (Weizman 1989, 1993), the writers try to mirror the lack of clarity for politeness reasons. In particular, by formulating those requests as questions, the writers try to enable the readers to interpret the intent of their indirect requests. In contrast to ‘reasonableness’, it seems that ‘act in question’ is more like a ‘mild hint’ (BlumKulka and House 1989), in that the requestive hint is formulated conventionally.

(29) a. i-pen-tal makam acik an kkuthna-ss-eyo? this-time-month closing yet no finish-PST-POL ‘Has this month’s closing balance been calculated?’ b. onul-kkaci-nun pantusi kkuthnay-sey-yo today-until-TOP definitely finish-HON-POL ‘Finish it definitely by today.’ (30) a. nayil-kkaci forecast ceychwul-hay-ya ha-nun ke al-ci? tomorrow-until forecast submit-do-should do-RL thing know-Q ‘You know that you should submit forecast by tomorrow?’ b. onulohwu-kkaci kkuthnay-la this afternoon-until finish-IM ‘Finish it by this afternoon.’ Because they are not genuine questions to obtain answers from the reader, without common or shared knowledge, the reader cannot understand the true intent of asking such a question. However, in most cases, since knowledge is supposed to be commonly shared between participants in a conventional situation (e.g. an office), the writer using the question tactic directly refers to ‘components’ (i.e. makam ‘closing balance’ in 29; forecast in 30) of the requested act as a signal of presupposing shared knowledge. Regardless of status differences, using questions within the organization is the writer’s attempt to establish solidarity with the reader whose status is lower and to signal in-group identity. Probably,

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that is why the off-record strategy of act in question is most frequently used in internal communications when distance is small between interactants, as we can see in the above examples. Similar findings are reported in Nickerson (2000). She claims that more questions are used in the British-English messages than in the Dutch-English messages because of the small degree of corporate distance between the British writers. This finding suggests that the use of questions is appropriate ‘only if the participants involved are in close proximity to each other within the organisation’s social system’ (Nickerson, 2000, 175). In spite of the obligation to comply with requests because requests through questions are made by people from higher to lower status in business settings, we can avoid the possibility of being ignored or rejected by the requestee. This potential for deniability supports the idea that requestive hint statements given through questions can be pre-requests. As mentioned, these questions occurring in the Korean data do indeed immediately precede requests done baldly (i.e. onulkkacinun pantusi kkuthnayseyyo ‘Finish it definitely by today’ in 29; onulohwukkaci kkuthnayla ‘Finish it by this afternoon’ in 30); and therefore they can be grounder or pre-requests for authentic requests. As pre-requests, requestive hints allow a requester to ‘check out whether a request is likely to succeed, and if not to avoid one in order to avoid its subsequent dispreferred response, namely a rejection’ (Levinson 1983, 357). Likewise, they function as devices to secure ‘a high deniability potential’ (Weizman 1989, 94). That is, pre-requests realized in the form of questions serve to check the possibility of getting a favourable reaction to the writer’s request.

Conclusion This study investigated how politeness strategies are used to maintain interpersonal harmony in making a request in Korean business correspondence. We found that requests are not always considered as a threat to the addressee’s negative face but are sometimes a way of creating solidarity in Korean culture (e.g. example 6). It is also interesting to note that examples of prosodic features mainly employed in spoken communication are also found in written business communication in Korea in realizing politeness strategies, e.g. tensifying lax consonants for emphatic purposes in the use of slang terms (positive politeness). In addition to certain characteristics of spoken communication, properties of written communication in using politeness strategies are found in the corpus of Korean business correspondence, e.g. nominalization (negative politeness). Furthermore, the idea of making solidarity (i.e. positive politeness) and avoiding conflict (i.e. negative politeness) by using the same strategy (i.e. off-record) constitutes a new concept other than positive and negative politeness.

Indirect Requests in Korean Business Correspondence

Politeness strategies for requests employed in Korean business correspondence reflect cross-cultural differences. For example, anticipation statements (i.e. kitayhata ‘look forward to’) in the Korean data do not express the anticipation of the requested act but express the anticipation of the reader’s future act which is directly relevant to the reader’s wants (e.g. tewukte khun palcenkwa hwalyakul kitayhakeysssupnita ‘I look forward to the greater prosperity and increased business for your firm’). In my data, sentences are idiomatized for indirect requests according to the two lexical items of ‘want statements’ and ‘conditional appreciation’. However, some other semantic devices, e.g. Searle’s (1975) query preparatories such as ability (could) or willingness (would), are not used as conventionally indirect request strategies in the corpus of Korean business letters. The writer may use the we pronoun in place of you to mitigate his or her propositional content and to make solidarity with the reader (Nickerson 2000). However, there are no examples of the use of we for you in my data. We also found that politeness is a contradiction in that saving self-face is as important as saving other-face in many cases. For example, code-mixing can help protect self-face in that it shows the speaker’s professional work ability to the unfamiliar reader. Hedges in FTA situations can also be self-face protective devices, because performing the FTAs is as serious a threat to the FTA doer’s face as the damage done to the face of the other. Furthermore, if the writer does not reduce the force of his or her FTA to the reader’s negative face, the reader will certainly pay the writer back by performing more serious and harsh FTAs to the writer later on. Although requestive hints are given to attenuate the force of an FTA, they can also function as pre-requests to reduce or avoid the possibility of the writer’s request being rejected.

Acknowledgements Major corrections to the chapter were made as I conducted research at Helsinki School of Economics. Special thanks go to Professor Mirjaliisa Charles for her academic encouragement.

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7 Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings Kenneth C. C. Kong

Q: What do you do? A: I teach at City Poly. Q: Oh, what do you teach? A: I teach English. The same conversation can go in another direction: Q: A: Q: A:

What do you do? I teach English. Oh, where do you teach? At City Poly. (Scollon and Scollon 2001)

The two short conversations above highlight the complexity of our identities in interaction: we can belong to both an institution and a profession. This multiple membership causes confusion at times, not only at the level of our daily lives but also at the level of analysis and methodologies involved in considering so-called ‘professional discourse’ and ‘institutional discourse’. Professional discourse has always been taken as language used by ‘professionals’, such as lawyers, doctors, and engineers. However, this definition should be extended in light of the current need to give meaning to contemporary professions. Gee et al. (1996, 1) call this need the ‘new work order’, whereby workers are ‘empowered’ by concepts and ideas from other disciplines, such as religions, business and charity, to increase their motivation to work. This issue highlights two problems in analyzing professional discourse and has an important implication in the analysis of professional communication. Professional discourse should not only concern those who are traditionally labelled as professionals but also many others, such

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as teachers, clerical officers, telephone operators, and so on. In other words, any profession or job is a ‘discourse system’ (Scollon and Scollon 2001) that gives participants a sense of membership because certain ideologies, socialization, face systems and discourse forms are involved. Institutional discourse has been conceptualized as the interaction between professionals and laypeople (Agar 1985). Added to these dimensions is ‘business discourse’, which is usually defined as language used by individuals ‘whose main work activities and interests are in the domain of business and who come together for the purpose of doing business’ (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 1999). Many so-called professionals who were once institutionally affiliated are now self-employed. For example, increasingly more doctors are entering private practice even though they may still have a profit-sharing relationship, whether with a government, a hospital, or a clinic. As mentioned, many institutions now make use of voices from other disciplines. ‘Commodification’ (Fairclough 1992) or the intrusion of business voices into other practices, such as human relationships and education, has become the norm rather than an exception. Within this complexity and confusion, the question that follows is whether it is now possible to distinguish the three constructs (professional discourse, institutional discourse and business discourse) at all. Theoretically, it is possible to identify what constitutes a particular form of discourse. But in practical terms they have become so enmeshed that it has become less meaningful to investigate how professional genres are created than to understand how they are constructed ‘for whom, for what needs and why they have been formed the way they are. We must also analyse the continuous construction and reconstruction process taking place in the various social practices’ (Gunnarsson et al. 1997, 3). The purpose of this chapter is to identify how professional, institutional, and business discourses overlap ,by using notions such as ‘intertextuality’, ‘interdiscourse systems’, and ‘hybridity’. A model for the study of intertextuality is given, and examples are drawn from various contexts to illustrate how different discourses can converge.

Types of professional communication Linell (1998) argues that studies in professional discourse can be divided into three categories: (1) Intraprofessional discourse, i.e. discourse within specific professions (2) Interprofessional discourse, i.e. discourse between individuals from or representatives of different professions, at workplaces, in meetings and conferences, in public debate (e.g. in the media), etc. (3) Professional-lay discourse, i.e. when professionals meet and act with, speak with, or write for, laypeople. Some examples of encounters involving

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

co-presence and spoken interaction are doctor consultations, court trials, lessons in class, employment interviews, counselling talks, and psychotherapy sessions. These three categories, however, seem to be too rigid, and I will instead focus on how voices can be exchanged and incorporated across professional, institutional, and business discourses.

Recontextualization and intertextuality According to Linell (1998), recontextualization is ‘the dynamic transfer-andtransformation of something from one discourse/text-in-context (the context being in reality a matrix or field of contexts) to another’ (145). Although the prefix re is used, it has nothing to do with when ‘something is first deprived of all kinds of context and then put back into a context’ (155). Indeed, Linell argues that the term transcontextualization can be an alternative, highlighting its dynamic nature. In other words, recontextualization is an interactive phenomenon through which texts or discourse can be relocated and embedded. The term initially appeared in the work of Bernstein (1990), who argues that discourse can be relocated, resulting in changes such as selective reordering, relocation and refocusing. With a focus on explaining pedagogical discourse, Bernstein (1990) also argues that recontextualization not only relocates discourse but also transforms it in a sophisticated manner: [Recontextualization] selectively appropriates, relocates, refocuses, and relates other discourses to constitute its own order . . . In this sense, pedagogic discourse cannot be identified with any of discourses it has recontextualized. In this sense, it has no discourse of its own, other than a recontextualizing discourse. (184)

This is equally relevant when applied to the juxtaposition of discourses in contexts other than education. When something is relocated, its meaning will never be the same. This is why recontextualization is used here instead of its predecessor, contextualization. Linell (1998, 145) lists examples of things that can be contextualized: ‘linguistic expressions, concepts and propositions, facts, arguments and lines of argumentation, stories, assessments, values and ideologies, knowledge and theoretical constructs, ways of seeing things and ways of acting toward them, ways of thinking, and ways of saying things’. This is a rather long list and no framework can tie in nicely with all of the concepts. Nevertheless, I propose that evaluation is a good candidate, because many of the resources listed are triggered by it. As long as we have a comprehensive framework for tracking

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evaluative discourses and the mechanisms by which they work, we are closer to understanding this complex issue. Recontextualization has intratextual, intertextual, and interdiscursive dimensions (Linell 1998). Intratextual recontextualization, as the term suggests, happens in the same text or discourse in which a segment of text or discourse refers to something already mentioned. Technically, anaphoric reference can be regarded as a category of intratextual recontextualization, but that is a more local phenomenon that is of less concern here. Instead, I am interested in the last two types of recontextualization: intertextual and interdiscursive. Fairclough (2003, 51) defines intertextuality as ‘a matter of recontextualisation — a movement from one context to another’, which differs from his earlier definition of ‘the constitution of a text from diverse discourses’ (1995, 135). The latter definition can be regarded as focusing on texts or discourses that take the prime role of juxtaposition. The more recent definition, following the line of argument of recontextualization, aligns the focus on the context, highlighting the almost unlimited number of contexts that can be invoked for crossing and mixing. The new definition also projects language as having a greater ability to constitute contexts in a more dynamic way. Linell (1998, 147), based on Fairclough (1992), defines intertextual recontextualization as ‘relating different specific texts, discourses and conversations, each anchored in its specific contexts’ and interdiscursive recontextualization as ‘occurring at a more abstract and global levels and concerning relations between discourse types (communicative activity types, genres, etc.)’. These two terms are broadly equivalent to what Fairclough calls sequential intertextuality and embedded (or constitutive) intertextuality. An example of intertextual recontextualization is direct speech in a news report, through which a journalist can embed other people’s voices at certain stages. A perfect example of interdiscursive recontextualization is an advertisement (Text type A) embedded in the configuration of a news report or editorial (Text type B), which is known as an advertorial. However, as illustrated by the analysis below, the distinction between intertextual and interdiscursive recontextualization may not be as clear as it seems. Although intertextuality (including both intertextual and interdiscursive recontextualization) is agreed to be a common feature of everyday discourse, there are differing opinions about whether it is a conscious choice of speakers or writers. The impetus for arguing that intertextuality is a conscious activity springs from the view that genre is a ‘class of communicative events’ (Swales 1990, 45). The embodiment of actions and events in a genre highlights the active agency of language users in employing what is regarded as an ideal and effective choice in a given situation. Bhatia (2005) argues that ‘of all the genres which have invaded the territorial integrity of most professional and academic genres, “advertising” clearly stands out to be the most prominent instrument of colonization’

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

(2005, 220). The ideas of integrity and colonization clearly establish the notion of boundaries (although in the process of collapsing) and awareness of language users as ‘invading’ and ‘maintaining’ certain boundaries. Cook (2000) maintains a similar view by referring to the fact that discourses exist through other discourse types, in the form of attachment, co-occurrence and imitation as ‘parasite texts’. In this view, ‘advertising is an extreme example of a tendency apparent in all discourse’ (34). Cook also points out the fact that advertisements carry so many features of other discourses that they are at risk of losing their distinguishable identity. However, he adds that the imitation itself should not be regarded as destructive. Nevertheless, it has been argued that language users are not conscious of using a particular genre and their concern. As Hasan (2000) mentions, they are ‘simply to fashion their language according to the ongoing context’. She goes on to argue that ‘the metaphor of genre combination as also that of hybridity appears less desirable, since both imply an unfortunate reification of the process of register, as if what is happening is simply a co-location or fusion of two (or more) already existing recognisable objects. Registers/genres are not peaches and plums that can be hybridised into nectarines’ (43). Fairclough (2003) takes a similar view by arguing that genre is not a class of communicative events because ‘actual events (texts, interactions) are not “in” a particular genre, they do not instantiate a particular genre — rather they draw upon the socially available resources of genres in potentially quite complex and creative ways’ (2003, 69). He argues that Swales’s view of genre may be applicable in some genres that are genetically less complex, such as journal articles. I adopt Fairclough’s view and argue that intertextuality or recontextualization is a dynamic process through which participants draw on available voices to negotiate with the listeners or readers in an ongoing fashion.

How can intertextuality be studied? A proposed model Intertextuality can be realized at different levels, from more explicitly to more implicitly and from more intertextual to less intertextual. The notions of explicitness and dialogism can be co-related, because a more intertextual item is usually achieved by a more explicit marker. The most explicit options of intertextuality are quotes (assertions with the explicit acknowledgement of an information source) or modalized assertions (assertions that are mitigated by modals such as may and could), which are more open to disagreement and other possibilities. Non-modalized assertions are the least dialogical compared with quotes or modalized assertions, because they have no room for other possibilities. Nevertheless, assertions of any kind are inherently more dialogical and explicit options than are assumptions. Despite their different levels of dialogism and

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explicitness, both assertions and assumptions are used to neutralize oppositions and highlight commonality. The less explicit items of intertextuality are assumptions that can be regarded as a feature of intertextuality or dialogism because they highlight the presence of potential differences and oppositions in readers’ minds (Fairclough 2003). Assumptions are different from assertions because they are not made explicit until inferencing is involved. In other words, there is a mechanism through which readers can infer the underlying meaning. This is exactly what people do when they deliberately violate or flout a conversational maxim (such as the maxim of quality, of quantity, or the maxim of relation) to create an implicature (Grice 1975). There is also a type of assumption related to logical implication that is triggered by the use of connectives or tenses. Fairclough (2003) gave the following examples. The sentence ‘I have been married for twenty years’ implies ‘I am married’. The sentence ‘He is poor but honest’ implies ‘poor people are expected to be dishonest’. In other words, the contextual presuppositions that Gumperz argues to be important should be considered as ‘assumptions’ that can be triggered directly (presupposition through certain lexical items) or more indirectly (implicature through the violation of conversational maxims). Between these two are logical implication. Figure 7.1 shows the explicitness and level of intertextuality of different linguistic options. Most dialogical/ intertextual • • • • • • Least dialogical/ intertextual

Most explicit

Quoted assertion (quotation marks, quoting verbs) Modalized assertion (may, could) Non-modalized assertion Presuppositions (existential, propositional, etc.) Logical implications (connective, tenses) Implicature (i.e. violation of maxims) Least explicit

Figure 7.1 Degrees of dialogism and explicitness in assertions and assumptions (based on Fairclough 2003)

In fact, every utterance we speak is dialogical or intertextual if one follows Fairclough’s line of argument. It is a matter of whether we suppress or highlight the differences (the examples above, of course, point to the former) and whether it is more or less explicit. The last category, implicature, needs more explanation. Implicature is defined as the underlying or hidden message through the violation

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

of maxims in the co-operative principle (Grice 1975); it can incorporate many linguistic items that have not been discussed. A good example is evaluative language. Evaluation can also be conceptualized as a ‘device’ for recontextualizing appropriate frames or activities for negotiation, leading to a range of possibilities. Some evaluative items are more explicit or dialogical/intertextual and can be easily related to a particular frame. Other evaluative items may take on a more hidden agenda and can only be uncovered with some inferencing after which the implicit assumptions can be worked out (as explained above). There is another advantage of examining evaluation as a device for achieving a more global goal: an analyst can work out what constitutes evaluation and its function more precisely in a text with the guidance of a global activity of what the text is trying to do. As Thompson and Hunston (2000, 14) put it, a ‘lexical item . . . gives us an indication that evaluation of some kind is going on, and we then use interpretative procedures to establish what that evaluation is and how it relates to the goals . . .’ In the following, I illustrate how voices can be exchanged and appropriated in academic settings. This is divided into three parts, among which the levels of explicitness and intertextuality vary: (1) how the voices of academics as a profession can be appropriated and recontextualized in the performance appraisal discourse of a university, (2) how institutional voices of control are embedded in a professional academic journal, and (3) how business voices of promotion and persuasion are used in an university advertisement.

Recontextualization of academic voices in institutional discourse The first case of recontextualization to be examined is the institutional discourse of a university. Institutional discourse has attracted enormous research attention recently. It is generally recognized as a complex phenomenon that is underscored by an interplay of social and cultural factors, in addition to institutional influence (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 2002). One of the important facets of institutional influence is the way in which control is regulated in an organization. An important task of post-modern institutions is to reconcile their goals and the personal goals of individuals. Traditional bureaucratic control measures are inadequate to satisfy the needs of meaning-driven professionals today. Institutions are characterized by the shift to what Du Gay calls the ‘entrepreneur of self’ discourse (1996), in which workers are encouraged to be autonomous and selfregulating individuals. This has been argued to be more powerful and effective than the traditional control that is imposed on workers. Language plays a very crucial role in this regulatory control, which can be illustrated by an extract from the performance-appraisal handbook prepared by a university for its academic staff.

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Staff performance appraisal guidelines are an important genre of regulatory control in any organization, because they allow staff members to understand what criteria are considered important when their performance is reviewed for salary increments, promotions or substantiation of their employment. They also serve as a set of objective rules with which personnel or management can evaluate staff. Universities are no exception to this scenario, because bureaucratic control would not be effective with most employees being professionals who emphasize the need for freedom to express their ideas and views. Academics belong to a discourse system with specific elements. For example, freedom of expression seems to be the single most important ideology. Nevertheless, an academic’s ideas must be supported by good reasoning, evidence and possibly the opinions of academic peers. Publications in journals and books can thus be regarded as the most important form of discourse, whereby academics convey their ideas to each other; they are certainly one of the important criteria by which individual performance is evaluated. One of the distinctive features of academic publications is their extensive use of citations or quotes from other academics to support the ideas stated, which can be accomplished in at least in three ways: (1) Attributed direct quotes As Chatman (1978) reminds us, ‘the ideal reader is a position not a role.’ (Source: Macken-Horarik 2003) Failure to do so for the Western culture would carry with it ‘great risk’ (Hall and Ames 1987, 299). Source: Jia (2000) (2) Attributed indirect quotes Weeks (1995) argues that all new sexual movements are characterized by two moments: transgression and citizenship. Source: Langdridge and Butt (2004) The protolanguage phase has chiefly been of interest to developmental psychologists and functional linguists in terms of the communicative functions of the infant’s sounds and gestures. (Blake 2000, Ch. 2) Source: Painter (2003) (3) Unattributed quotes Sometimes it is thought that there are serious differences between theories of discourse that turn on the role of cognition in the theory. Source: Levinson (2006) It is believed that the moisture that is inherently present in nondried woodfibers adversely affects the cell morphology of plastic/wood-fiber. Source: Rizvi et al. (2002)

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

Attributed quotes are far more commonly used in the academic profession than are unattributed quotes, which are usually found in abstracts or in less serious academic writing because they lack the credibility exhibited in attributed quotes. Even if they are used in the body of academic work, more elaboration of the idea is expected. Another point worth noting is that most of the unattributed quotes follow a fixed grammatical pattern of ‘it is . . . that’. Let us now turn our attention back to the issue at hand: how professional voices are incorporated in an institutional discourse of control. Interestingly, unattributed quotes are extensively used in the performance review handbook of a university in Hong Kong: It is believed that ‘teaching’ is not limited to classroom delivery alone . . . It is expected that effective teaching shall include the following traits . . . It is recommended that the evaluation of teaching could take into consideration a teacher’s performance in instructional delivery . . .

In these sentences, the phrases ‘it is believed that’, ‘it is expected that’ and ‘it is recommended’ can be omitted without changing the intended meaning. The difference lies in the mitigating effects of the expressions. Although the source or agent (Who believes? Who expects? Who recommends?) is unclear, the messages are softened by these expressions, or what Scollon and Scollon (2001) call ‘the independence politeness strategy’, because they first render the statement as a general rule applicable to anyone and then dissociate the agent from each message, making it more impersonal. In other words, the personnel management of the university is appropriating a strategy used among academics to persuade them to comply with certain guidelines or rules set by the university. Nevertheless, this can be only considered as a partially successful strategy because unattributed quotes alone lack creditability in the academic profession and are only used as introductory statements subject to further elaboration or validation. The handbook also includes attributed quotes, though most of them are in a hybridized direct and indirect form: In general terms . . . ‘good scholarly work’ would share the following six characteristics (Diamond 1993): [a list of characteristics follows]

Most of the attributed quotes can be found in the introduction to the handbook, and their function is to establish a better footing with the audience, the academics, to justify the value of performance reviews before they read on:

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Centra (1993, xiv) in Reflective Faculty Evaluation, considered that “self-reflection is critical in improving professional practice” and “true professionals in any field” should be “constantly thinking about what they are doing and how effective they have been.” [bold and italic in original] Roe, McDonald and Moses (1986, 146) in Reviewing Academic Performance, observed that the purpose of documentation is to “minimize the contribution of . . . accumulated casual judgement and maximize the contribution of actual, identifiable evidence of performance, objectively judged without preconceptions.” [bold and italic in original]

Interestingly, the citations are always incomplete and there is no reference section to provide the details of each work cited, as would be expected in an academic article or book. This deficiency renders the propositions less than credible. The academic voices are recontextualized at a superficial level.

Recontextualization of institutional voices in academic discourse Now that I have explained how academic voices can be moved into institutional discourse, I will explain the second phenomenon, i.e. how institutional voices can be embedded in professional discourse. This type of recontextualization can be found in the interaction between academics and another institution, the publisher. Institutional voices are mixed and embedded in professional discourse. Research articles as a genre have received enormous attention in recent years, partly because they are the major channel through which academics express and exchange ideas. While the focus has been on the structure of research articles (Swales 1990) and the functions of metadiscourse in writer-reader interaction, not much attention has been directed at the interaction between academics and the publishers that make their work visible. This important relationship between a profession (academics) and an institution (the publisher) is well illustrated by the rules or requirements that contributors have to follow when preparing their manuscripts for submission to journals, the so-called ‘Notes to Contributors’ that embed a number of voices in a single genre. Most of the sentences in the Notes to Contributors in Appendix 7.1 serve the directive function of instructing potential contributors to format their manuscripts in specific ways: Contributions should be in English. Authors whose native language is not English are asked to have their article carefully checked by a native speaker. Four copies of all manuscripts and an electronic file on disk must be submitted to the Editor; these cannot be returned.

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

In this example it is clear that the editor is trying to instruct potential on peers how to prepare their manuscripts for publication. But instead of using the usual ‘bald-on-record strategies’ i.e. the imperative sentences (Brown and Levinson 1987) that appear in instructional texts such as technical manuals, rules, and regulations, most of the statements in Notes to Contributors are mitigated by the so-called negative politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson 1987) or independence politeness strategies (Scollon and Scollon 2001) such as stating something as a general rule by thematizing the PATIENT (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004) instead of the ACTOR, who is the contributor and is usually omitted. Footnotes

should be kept to an absolute minimum.

THEME

RHEME

This can also be regarded as the strategy of dissociating participants from the discourse because the actor and requester are not mentioned. Nevertheless, the most interesting aspect of Notes to Contributors is the use of modals, which are found in almost every directive: there are twenty-six modals in the text. The frequency of each modal as follows: Table 7.1 Frequencies of occurrence of modals in notes to contributors Modals

Occurrence (%)

Should

14 (54%)

Must

8 (31%)

Will

2 (8%)

Cannot

1 (5%)

Obviously, the two modals of obligation, should and must, are the most frequent and account for 85 percent of modal use. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), these are ‘high obligation modals’. Nevertheless, compared with the quotations mentioned in the last section, modalized assertions are less dialogical because they can be ‘reworded as a statement of possibility, that would at least be dialogically open to other possibilities’ (Fairclough 2003, 46). Notes to Contributors is a site of contestation for two ‘discourse systems’ (Scollon and Scollon 2001). Because the notes are constructed within professional and institutional parameters, the editors have to balance two ideologies and negotiate an appropriate relationship with the intended audience, their professional peers. Editors are also academic professionals, which means they

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have peer relationships with journal contributors. Yet they are gatekeepers that maintain certain standards, which means they are superior to contributors in their expertise and the power invested in them by an institutional authority, the publisher. This dual membership of a profession and an institution results in a very complex interplay of different discourse systems in the interaction between a higher-level academic and a presumably lower-level academic that is made possible by an institution. To make the situation even more complicated, most academic publishers are profit-making private enterprises or self-financed academic units. In other words, cost reduction is an important consideration. Some contributors these days are even asked to pay to publishers before their papers can appear, or are asked to do so if higher costs of production are involved in manuscript production, such as expenses incurred in proofreading or colour printing: Authors are asked to check their manuscripts very carefully before submitting them in order to prevent delays and extra costs at the proof stage . . .

Recontextualization of business voices in institutional discourse Advertisements, as a form of promotion, have been regarded as the colonizers of other genres that are increasingly promotional, such as those that take a hardsell approach by adopting advertisement-like language and style. One of the ‘colonized’ genres is the news report, which increasingly integrates the promotional elements of advertisements, to increase the desire of the audience to consume. News reports are seen to benefit less from this colonization than advertisements, because they have to adopt an advertisement-like style but the same is not true vice versa (Ungerer 2004). Advertisements have also ‘invaded’ many genres in academic settings, such as university admission advertisements, which are increasingly market-driven. This is particularly the case for selffinancing programmes, especially at the postgraduate level and those targeted at overseas students. To compete for students, such programmes have to highlight their distinctiveness. The following are some of the statements found in the recent admission advertisement of a postgraduate programme at a Hong Kong institution (Appendix 7.2): FLEXIBLE STUDY MODE allowing programme to be completed in one or two years. REASONABLE TUITION FEE calculated in accordance with the number of modules taken . . .

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

These statements achieve the promotional purpose by using an evaluative lexis such as flexible and reasonable. Evaluation is a focus in linguistic studies (see Hunston and Thompson 2000) and recently in the study of visuals in web pages (Lemke 2002), and in a more general manner (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001). Appraisal theory (Martin 1992, 2000; Martin and White 2005; White 2001) is one of the recent attempts to study evaluation, identifying three main elements: affect, judgement, and appreciation. Another framework was developed by Greenbaum (1969) and Lemke (1998) and has recently been modified to study evaluation more holistically (Kong 2006). The evaluative lexis above can be regarded as evaluating the ‘desirability’ of elements, particularly the nature of the academic programmes. By claiming the programme is flexible, it is assumed that: A flexible programme is DESIRABLE. An inflexible programme is UNDESIRABLE.

By the same token, it can be assumed that: A programme with reasonable tuition fees is DESIRABLE. A programme with unreasonable tuition fees is UNDESIRABLE.

It can be further deduced that some programmes have inflexible structures and charge unreasonable tuition fees. The meanings above could even result from violations of maxims of relevance. In other words, readers could come to either of the conclusions by inferring the reasons for apparently irrelevant statements being made. To conclude, business voices are also found in academic programme advertisements, which were once unrelated to the business discourse of profit-making. The recontextualization of business voices, however, is achieved in a more implicit/indirect way than the recontextualization of academic voices in institutional discourse and of institutional voices in academic discourse.

Discussion and conclusion I have shown that recontextualization does not manifest itself evenly across academic settings. The most dialogical or direct form of recontextualization that I have described is in the staff performance handbook prepared by a personnel department. To appeal to academics, it makes use of the academic voice and academic practices in the most explicit manner, in the form of quotations, to appear authoritative and unchallengeable. A more implicit level of recontextualization can be found in instructions to potential contributors to journals. Directives in Notes to Contributors are partly realized by modalized

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statements, a more implicit realization of intertextuality than quotations. They are not as strong as imperative commands (Do this; Don’t do this), which offer no other possibilities, but they can invoke the collegiate obligation of the academic community, as Giannoni (2001, 333) notes: Instructions to Contributors are highly strategic . . . since it ensures the uniform quality standards that make a text acceptable to the disciplinary community it targets. While they share many features of other directive genres, such as laws and regulations, editorial instructions also incorporate the norms of academic writing, with its emphasis on the collegiate, cooperative ethos of western scholarship.

The most implicit blending of voices can be found in the advertisements of academic programmes. This is easy to explain if it is considered in the context of the current practice of academic competition for students and resources. The dilemma for an academic institution is that it cannot be perceived to be a profitmaking enterprise, but at the same time it must finance itself. In other words, these institutions have to promote their programmes in the most implicit manner, at least in the eyes of the public. The level of intertextuality in academic settings can be illustrated in Figure 7.2. Admission Advertisement Implicit

Notes to Contributors

Performance Handbook Explicit

Figure 7.2 The level of intertextual implicitness/explicitness of genres in academic settings

The more dynamic role of intertextuality in renegotiating or recontextualizing a new reality is usually downplayed by assuming that one of the genres is superimposed and the other is embedded and parasitic. In this connection, intertextuality should be seen as ‘a matter of recontextualisation — a movement from one context to another’ (Fairclough 2003, 51). Intertextuality is neither a matter of who gains more or less, nor which genre is a colonizer or colonized, but it is a more interactive phenomenon through which a text producer and recipient engage in the making of meaning. As I have shown by analyzing selected texts from different academic settings, the boundaries of professional, institutional, and business discourse are not closed and intact. Rather, they can be negotiated and invaded strategically for specific communicative purposes. For example, business discourse has always been defined as language used in business settings for commercial purposes, but the idea of business should not be restricted to

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

such settings, because many modern non-business institutions also have business elements. As Rasmussen (1998) points out, language in business is not the same as business language: Business language and actions are thus produced interactively in response to situational constraints, at work in the wider context: the identities of the participants . . . the section of the institution they represent . . . and those aspects of the local context, namely the activity they are about to construct. (97)

Acknowledgements This research is supported by a grant from the Faculty Research Grant of Hong Kong Baptist University (Project No. FRG/07–08/I-43).

Sources of data Hong Kong Institute of Education. 2007. Programme advertisement in South China Morning Post, 20 Jan. Jia, W. 2000. Chinese communication scholarship as an expansion of communication and culture paradigm. In Chinese perspectives in rhetoric and communication, ed. D. R. Heisey. Stamford: CT: Ablex. Langdridge, D. and T. Butt. 2004. A hermeneutic phenomenological investigation of the construction of sadomasochistic identities. Sexualities, 7: 31–53. Levinson, S. 2006. Cognition at the heart of human interaction. Discourse Studies, 8 (1): 85–93. Macken-Horarik, M. 2003. Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative. Text, 23 (2): 285–312. Painter, C. 2003. Developing attitude: An ontogenetic perspective on appraisal. Text, 23 (2): 183–209. Rizvi, G. M. et al. 2002. A novel system design for continuous processing of plastic/wood-fiber composite foams with improved cell morphology. Journal of Cellular Plastics, 38: 363–87. Text, 14 (3) ‘Notes for Contributors’.

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APPENDIX 7.1: Notes for contributors

Interactions of Professional, Institutional and Business Discourses in Academic Settings

APPENDIX 7.2: Advertisement

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8 Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports Priscilla Leung

This chapter aims to explore the issues of writing a successful text. To qualify for the claim, writers of professional discourses have to achieve their communicative purposes, which function to describe, inform, instruct or persuade. Are writers unself-conscious? Is there any interrelationship between the writers’ choice of lexis and grammar and their stance expressed in the texts? How is the stance expressed? Are readers of different text-types more attracted to certain lexis and grammar? If the stance is related to specific linguistic features, can a writer tune some of the texts to be better received than the others? As we move towards a knowledge-based era, we are more concerned about our communities. We expect to know more about public administration and actively express our opinions. In Hong Kong, this phenomenon is well reflected in the increasing demand for independent investigation of major incidents. In the past few years, the Hong Kong government has published a number of reports written by independent investigation commissions. Written discourses in the form of investigation reports have played an increasingly important role in recent years in addressing issues that cause significant social impact. These reports provide the public with information such as facts, lessons learnt and recommendations. The report that first caught the public’s attention was the one in 2000 regarding the enquiry arising from the article ‘Pressure to stop opinion polls not welcome’, under the name of Dr Chung Ting-yiu. This marked a shift in the public’s expectation of the way government or public bodies handle controversial issues. On 1 July 2002, the accountability system for Principal Officials was introduced in Hong Kong. Since then the public have been more critical of the government’s performance. This trend was again exemplified on 15 February 2007 by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR Government, Mr Donald Tsang, who appointed a

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Commission of Inquiry to look into recent allegations on improper interference by government officials with academic freedom and autonomy of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIE). On the basis of the findings, the Commission will recommend how legitimate government advice may be given to the HKIE in future. The most profound and controversial investigation report to date is the one published by the Hong Kong SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) Expert Committee in October 2003. In the spring of 2003, SARS caught the world by surprise. Epidemics respect neither geographical nor national boundaries. As we live in a more interconnected world, the outbreak of SARS has had a universal effect. The lack of knowledge, experience and co-operation among local and international communities caused great tragedies. SARS lasted for 144 days and spread to 29 countries, leading to 8,098 cases of infection and 774 deaths. As the epidemic subsided, responsible governments admitted that something had to be done. Both Hong Kong and Canada set up expert panels in May 2003 to look into past actions and recommend a course of action for the future. Each published a report on the event in October 2003. A review of the literature shows that investigation reports have not been studied by researchers. Matthiessen (1993), for instance, examined the language of a range of text-types but did not include that of investigation reporting. The list of text categories for the Freiburg-Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen (FLOB) Corpus, a one-million-word structured set of sample written British English texts for linguistic analysis, for instance, does not include text category for investigation reports. This study intends to identify the relationships between the linguistic features and the writer’s stance in investigation reports, with a view to improving the receptiveness of the reports to the readers.

Stance and linguistic features Stancetaking (Englebretson 2003) is one of the most fundamental and multifaceted human activities accomplished through language. Humans evaluate the world around them; express emotions, beliefs, and desires; claim or deny authority; and align or disalign with others in social interaction. These are primary activities of speakers in everyday interaction, and therefore a functional approach to language would expect stancetaking to likewise motivate and shape language structure. Biber and Finegan (1988) describe stance as the lexical and grammatical expression of attitudes, feelings, judgements or commitments concerning the propositional content of a message. At the 15th Sociolinguistics Symposium held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, in April 2004, the title of one of the panel discussions was ‘Stance in social and

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

cultural context’. As described by the convener, Alexandra Jaffe (2004), stances may express multiple or ambiguous meanings. He discusses linguistic data for stance research studies: Studies of stance have been based on a broad range of linguistic data, including evidentials, discourse markers, modality, the use of reported and indirect speech, affect, indexicals, repetition, reduplication, and prosody. Research on stance has also been variously grounded in the study of grammar, information and argument structure, code choice and switching, variationist studies of phonology and grammar, performance and language ideologies. Speaker stances are also performances through which speakers may align themselves with and/ or ironize stereotypical associations with particular linguistic forms.

Irvine (2004) considers stance ‘agent-centered’, which is used ‘to emphasize the individual speaker’s knowledge and intentions in talk’, and ‘a speaker may try to design his/her talk for a particular audience’. However, Irvine (2004) also thinks that ‘the speaker’s control of audiences and interpretations is hardly watertight. Audiences may have unforeseen members, and interpretations may be based on ideologies and contexts of which the speaker is unaware, or for which s/he did not plan.’ This study examines stancetaking in texts by looking into four linguistic features discussed in Biber (1995) — modality, hedging, negation and nominalization — which writers commonly use to express their stance. Modality, hedging and negation are hypothesized to be used to express certainty, commitment, distance and indirectness. Nominalization is hypothesized to express distance and indirectness. The relationship of the linguistic features and stance to be examined is presented in Table 8.1.

Table 8.1 Relationship between linguistic features and stance Stance Linguistic Feature

Certainty

Commitment

Distance

Indirectness

Modality









Hedging









Negation









Nominalization









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Modality Modal expressions are related to the interpersonal level of language, and they may reflect the roles of the participants and convey the speaker’s attitude concerning, for example, the acceptability of an event or the certainty of knowledge. Modality is defined by McCarty and Carter (1994, 102) as ‘the speaker/ writer’s stance towards the message communicated’ and this association can be found in many English language grammars (Collins COBUILD Student’s Grammar 1991; Biber et al. 1999). De Haan (1997, 1) thinks that ‘modal expressions reflect the way writers see the world, whether it is something that can be known with certainty, or whether the picture they are giving of the outside world is only an approximation’. Vihla (1999) claims that disciplinary texts are produced within professional communities and tend to emphasize the interpersonal aspects of language by showing politeness to their readers in order to increase the social cohesion of the professional community. Politeness can be indicated through the use of modal expressions and hedges to redress a bald-on-record statement which could be face-threatening (Brown and Levinson 1987; Myers 1989; Simpson 1990). With modal verbs, it is possible to reinforce the speaker’s commitment by adding what Halliday (1970, 331) calls ‘harmonic combinations’, or to reduce it by ‘hedges’. Examples are respectively ‘I am sure you must’ and ‘It seems to me that you must’. Perkins (1983) also proposes that, in certain contexts, noncommitment is a form of linguistic politeness in which the modal auxiliaries may be used to soften the force of an assertion or a directive. At the same time, De Haan (1997) believes that modal expressions can be used to show politeness towards the reader and to indicate that the writer allows the reader to disagree, and to ‘indicate the conventions, values and background knowledge of the group to which the writer belongs’ (De Haan 1997, 1). Halliday (1994, 356) refers to modality as ‘the area of meaning that lies between yes and no’. He classifies modality into modalization and modulation. When the commodity being exchanged is information, the modality is called modalization, which relates to probability (how likely it is to be true) or usuality (how frequently it is true). When the commodity is goods and services, the modality is called modulation, which relates to obligation (permissible/advisable/ obligation) and inclination (ability/willingness/determination) (Thompson 1996). Modal expressions are grouped differently by various linguists. In this study, for the purpose of analyzing the two investigation reports, they are grouped as follows (Yates 1996): • Modals of obligation (must, need, should); • Modals of ability and possibility (can, could);

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

• •

Modals of epistemic possibility (may, might); and Modals of volition and prediction (will, shall).

Hedging Hedging is grouped under modality by Hyland (1998) and as a lexical class by Biber (1995). Hedges are mostly used as politeness, indirectness, vagueness and understatement. Common examples of hedges are kind of, sort of, I think and would. Lakoff (1972) associates hedges with conveying purposive vagueness, and describes hedging as ‘words whose job is to make things more or less fuzzy’. Hedging is the process whereby the author reduces the strength of a statement (Zuck and Zuck 1986), and a manipulative, non-direct sentence strategy of saying less than one means (Markkanen and Schroder 1989). Hyland (1998, 3) classifies hedging as one part of epistemic modality, which indicates an unwillingness to make an explicit and complete commitment to the truth of propositions. Epistemic modality is concerned with ‘the speaker’s assumptions, or assessment of possibilities, and, in most cases, it indicates the speaker’s confidence, or lack of confidence in the truth of the proposition expressed’ (Coates 1987, 112). Brown and Levinson (1987) believe hedging is used to mitigate face-threats or disguise deficient knowledge or vocabulary. Lyons (1977, 452) suggests that it concerns the ‘opinion and attitude of the speaker’. Through a corpus-based study, Prince et al. (1982) look into the use of hedging in a professional spoken context. They notice that the most salient linguistic feature in a physician-to-physician talk, in frequency, is that of hedges, and that there is more than one hedge in every fifteen seconds.

Negation Tottie (1991, 7) describes negative words as ‘formally and semantically negative expressions’, and include no, not, n’t, never, neither, nor, no one, none, nowhere, nobody and nothing; the words containing the negative prefixes in-, un-, dis-, a-, and non-; words containing the suffix -less; and the word without. The notion that negation may be semantically ambiguous was first introduced by Russel (1988). However, other authors argue against this notion and presume that negation is pragmatically ambiguous (Horn 1989), uninformative (Leech 1983), vague (Atlas 1977), underdetermined (Leinfeller 1994), or not ambiguous at all (Carston 1996; Iwata 1998). The ratio of positive to negative clauses in the Bank of England Corpus is approximately 9:1 (Halliday 1993). Double negation in language serves a different purpose from that in logic. For example, ‘He is not unhappy’ is not identical in meaning and pragmatics to ‘He is happy’. This study investigates the following two differences between A and not unA stipulated by Horn (1991):

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• •

Quality: Speaker is not sure A holds, or is sure it does not; and Politeness: Speaker knows or strongly believes A holds but is too polite, modest, or wary to mention it directly.

Nominalization Nominalization is a form of grammatical metaphor (Halliday 1994) in which ‘Grammatical metaphor means substituting one grammatical class for another’ (Stubbs 1996, 81). Action typically realized by verb is realized by noun. The main advantage of nominalization is that it gives more choices of grammatical functions and possible modifications. The writer can ‘thematize’ what would be expressed congruently in the verb. But the information conveyed in this may be ambiguous, because nominalized constructions do not make explicit many of the semantic relationships clearly recoverable from the congruent clause structure. Information presented is thus backgrounded instead of foregrounded, and seems to be taken for granted or not at issue (Halliday 1987). Nominalizations ‘serve to create distance between writer and reader, to depersonalize the discourse and give it a spurious air of being rational and objective’ (Halliday and Martin 1993, 84). Thompson (1999), in his analysis of doctor-patient consultations, finds that the speaker tends to use nominalizations to mark his status and creates a register of authoritative expertise. Not all texts contain the same degree of nominalization. It is strongly associated with the written medium (Chafe 1982; Halliday 1987). Chafe (1982) observes that the occurrence of nominalization in written medium is 11.5 times of that in spoken medium.

Design and method of study This study analyzes two SARS investigation reports, one from Hong Kong and the other from Canada, as follows: Region

Report Title

Issued by

Issued on

Hong Kong

SARS in Hong Kong: From Experience to Action

SARS Expert Committee

2 Oct 2003

Canada

Renewal of Public Health in Canada

National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health

7 Oct 2003

The two reports were downloaded from the web and then converted from Acrobat format into two text files using the Acrobat software as input texts to

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

WordSmith Tools. Hard copies of the two reports were also obtained from the District Office of Hong Kong and Health Canada. The Hong Kong report comprises a full report of 295 pages, 88,901 words, and a summary report of 66 pages, 18,043 words. The Canadian report is 234 pages, 154,650 words. Based on a survey of previous research, Biber (1995) identifies sixty-seven potentially important linguistic features in analyzing English. This study looks into four — modality, hedging, negation and nominalization — in the two reports as the special features in expressing the stances of certainty, commitment, distance and indirectness through language. Modality, hedging and negation are hypothesized to be features to express all the four stances while nominalization is for expressing distance and indirectness. The expressions of stance by the writers were analyzed quantitatively using the WordSmith (Scott 1999) program as a set of tools for looking into the word frequencies and concordance lines. FLOB was selected as the reference corpus. The frequencies of some chosen words or phrases related to the four linguistic features were compared to FLOB in order to highlight their keyness in the reports. A word or phrase which is positively key occurs more often than would be expected by chance in comparison with the reference corpus. A word or phrase which is negatively key occurs less often than would be expected by chance in comparison with the reference corpus. These words in one report were compared to those in the other report in order to discover the similarities and differences in the two reports. Concordances were made on words or phrases representative of the four linguistic features to examine the word collocations to account for the meanings in context (Halliday 1999). Textual evidence is quoted to support the findings.

Discussion of findings: Relationship between linguistic features and stance Modality The comparative result of the use of modality for this study is listed in Table 8.2 Should is found to be the most frequently used modal verb in both reports. Would ranks second, and must and may rank third in the Canadian report and Hong Kong report respectively. The top three modal verbs in FLOB are would, will and can. The top three in the British National Corpus (BNC), a 100-million-word collection of samples of written and spoken British English, are will, would and can (Leech et al. 2001). The Canadian report uses about the same percentage of modal verbs as FLOB (1.18% vs. 1.22%) but the Hong Kong report uses about one third less (0.8% vs. 1.22%).

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Table 8.2 Frequencies of modals in the two reports and FLOB Modal Obligation must need to should Sub-total

Hong Kong Frequency %

Canadian Frequency %

FLOB Frequency %

0.02% 0.05% 0.34%1 0.41%

178 61 434 673

0.12%3 0.04% 0.28%1 0.44%

810 191 1119 2120

0.08% 0.02% 0.11% 0.21%

Ability/possibility can 34 could 59

0.04% 0.07%

169 182

0.11% 0.12%

1998 1573

0.20%3 0.16%

Epistemic possibility may 68 might 22

0.08%3 0.02%

163 63

0.11% 0.04%

1102 642

0.11% 0.06%

Volition/prediction will 63 shall 4

0.07% 0.00%

171 46

0.11% 0.03%

2263 197

0.23%2 0.02%

Hypothetical would

99

0.11%2

359

0.23%2

2296

0.23%1

712

0.80%

1826

1.18%

12191

1.22%

Total

17 46 300 363

Note: 1, 2, 3 denote frequency ranking.

The number of words in the Hong Kong SARS investigation report is 88,901. The number of words in the Canadian SARS investigation report is 154,650. The number of words in FLOB is 1,000,000. The sum of the three modals of obligation, must, need to and should, is significantly more frequent in the two texts, particularly the Canadian report, and double that of FLOB. This is found to be a linguistic feature of the investigation reports, as they serve to discover the past obligations that have not been carried out and in turn propose obligations for the future. Should and must are frequent modals in these two reports. According to Boyd and Thorne (1969), the difference between should and must lies in the fact that it is not necessary for an obligation expressed with should to occur, while it is necessary for the obligation expressed with must to occur. Should is generally seen as a weaker obligation than must, but necessity is still present. Must is six times as frequent in the Canadian Report as in the Hong Kong Report (0.12% vs. 0.02%). Must expresses a certain, committed, bald, forceful and direct stance of the writer. Textual evidence is:

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

Provinces and territories in turn must fund, support, and coordinate local activities through their own agencies and ministries. (C, 5)1 The work to improve the public health system and prepare the clinical services system must begin apace. (C, 21) This cycle must end. (C, 64) This work must move ahead promptly. (C, 103)

The Hong Kong Report, in contrast, uses the weaker obligation modal should three times more than FLOB (0.34% vs. 0.11%), while the Canadian report uses it about 2.5 times more than FLOB (0.28% vs. 0.11%). Examples from the text are: The Bureau under the leadership of SHWF should consider what changes are necessary to ensure that the necessary systems to coordinate the activities and responsibilities of . . . (HK, 165) Social Welfare Department should assess the needs of the families of deceased SARS patients and offer follow-up support as appropriate. (HK, 172)

The non-commitment indicated by modal expressions is likely to be strategic. It increases the reliability of the text by acknowledging the variability of phenomena. This is presumably one of the communicative purposes of the Hong Kong report. The findings support Vihla’s (1999) claim that texts produced within the professional communities tend to emphasize the interpersonal aspects of language by showing politeness to their readers in order to increase the social cohesion of the professional community. It is also possible that the text-type tends to show politeness to the readers and to indicate that the writer allows the readers to disagree (De Haan 1997).

Hedging Hedges in the context of reporting investigation, as exemplified by the two reports in this study, are used to maintain solidarity and to downtone the assertiveness and directness of the asymmetrical interaction. Table 8.3 shows the result on selected nouns, adjectives and adverbs in expressing hedges. The two reports use less hedging than FLOB, 0.25 percent in the Hong Kong report and 0.24 percent in the Canadian report, compared to 0.36 percent in FLOB. The findings are contrary to those of Prince et al. (1982) that show that hedging is the most salient linguistic feature in a physician-to-physician spoken context. This difference could be attributed to the formality of the investigation report text-

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type, as compared to FLOB, since frequent words like perhaps and seem in FLOB would significantly diminish the authoritative status of the writers and the credibility and force of the reports. Table 8.3 Frequencies of verbs, adjectives and adverbs expressing hedges Hedge

Hong Kong Frequency %

appear consider felt generally hear likely most/mostly overall perhaps possibly probably relatively seem Total

Canadian Frequency %

FLOB Frequency %

39 67 10 15 20 20 53 20 1 59 57 2 6

0.04% 0.08% 0.01% 0.02% 0.02% 0.02% 0.06% 0.02% 0.00% 0.07% 0.06% 0.00% 0.01%

60 89 28 45 9 13 144 43 20 56 53 26 22

0.04% 0.06% 0.02% 0.03% 0.01% 0.01% 0.09% 0.03% 0.01% 0.04% 0.03% 0.02% 0.01%

337 557 319 113 319 240 1178 83 389 545 283 86 781

0.03% 0.06% 0.03% 0.01% 0.03% 0.02% 0.12% 0.01% 0.04% 0.05% 0.03% 0.01% 0.08%

218

0.25%

377

0.24%

3585

0.36%

Hedging is used to express the degree of certainty, commitment, politeness and indirectness in the two reports. In the Canadian report, the word perhaps is used to express the writer’s attitude, or purposeful vagueness: SARS had perhaps its largest impact on continuing education for qualified health professionals and health researchers. (C, 128) Second, public health costs are modest — perhaps 2–3% of health spending, depending on how one defines numerators and denominators. (C, 212) [indicates vagueness or approximation]

Textual evidence found in the Hong Kong report shows uncertainty, lack of commitment, politeness and indirectness: He reflected that he tended to be very technical in attempting to explain the issue and that, with hindsight, he should perhaps not have commented on whether there was an outbreak in the community, but should simply have described what was actually happening at the hospital. (HK, 74)

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

The only perhaps found in the Hong Kong report shows the writer’s unwillingness to commit completely and explicitly to the truth of a proposition (Hyland 1998, 2001), intention to maintain solidarity, and downtoning assertiveness in a situation of high power difference between the speaker and the reader. It redresses a bald statement which could be face-threatening (Myers 1989; Simpson 1990; Brown and Levinson 1987). The statement made by the World Health Organization is also heavily hedged: the phrase seems highly likely reduces commitment (Halliday 1970) to the validity of the cause of the event, achieving purposeful vagueness: It seems highly likely that an unfortunate sequence of environmental and health events happened simultaneously and contributed to the spread of the SARS-related coronavirus in the Hong Kong residential estate of Amoy Gardens. (HK, 75)

Other examples of hedges for downtoning or reducing the strength of the statement (Zuck and Zuck 1986) are: Here, there appears to be some progress in F/P/T collaboration . . . (C, 91) Respondents observed that these issues appeared to be a source of debate between the OMHLTC and Health Canada. (C, 143) It also appears to be a deficit at all levels, from primary training and the undergraduate curriculum, through to continuing education. (HK, 140) There appears to be a lack of population-based thinking in health protection, with two important consequences. (HK, 148) Private doctors and hospitals offered to assist in looking after nonSARS cases, but this capacity appears not to have been fully utilised. (HK, 151)

Consider is used in the two reports, mainly in the recommendation chapters (C, 211–20; HK, 165–72). This use is found to be typical in investigation report text-type as the panel members do not have the authority to make any changes to the systems. Their role is to propose recommendations for consideration by their appointing officials.

Negation Table 8.4 lists the comparative frequencies of use of some negative words. Overall percentages of these negative words are lower in the two reports than in the

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general English corpus FLOB, the frequencies being slightly higher in the Canadian report. Limited is significantly higher in the Canadian report, 0.05 percent, compared to 0.01 percent in FLOB and in the Hong Kong report. Compared to other negative words being compared, the frequency of the prefix un- is closer to that in FLOB. Table 8.4 Frequencies of negative words Negative Word

Hong Kong Frequency %

Canadian Frequency %

FLOB Frequency

%

no not unwithout little limited

84 268 116 22 14 10

0.09% 0.30% 0.13% 0.02% 0.02% 0.01%

158 484 275 46 45 82

0.10% 0.31% 0.18% 0.03% 0.03% 0.05%

2080 4725 1974 508 643 103

0.21% 0.47% 0.20% 0.05% 0.06% 0.01%

Total

514

0.58%

1090

0.70%

10033

1.00%

No is used more than twice as much in FLOB than in the two reports, while not is used about 50 percent more in FLOB. These words are used to express the degree of certainty, commitment, distance and directness. In the Canadian report, the meanings expressed through no and not are certain, bald and direct. The no excuse quoted below demonstrates baldness and certainty. But the greatest lesson of SARS in Canada is arguably that there is no excuse for tolerating systems so imperfect that bad things happen unnecessarily to good people. (C, 97) As a developed country with an acclaimed health care system, Canada has no excuse for its inability to develop an epidemiologic analysis of SARS. (C, 184)

Other examples of no and not are: We therefore have no hesitation in offering recommendations that bear on health care and local/provincial public health matters. (C, 161) [shows commitment] Those contacted for this study indicated that they have no relationship with Public Health and received no communication from their local public health unit. (C, 151) [shows directness] However, simply creating more training positions will not suffice. (C, 136)

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

These minimal expectations are not being met. (C, 211) [indicate certainty and directness]

In the Hong Kong report, however, the meanings expressed by no and not are uncertainty, non-commitment, distance and indirectness. No excuse and no hesitation are not found. There are twelve instances of no evidence compared to two in the Canadian report, indicating a strong attitude of uncertainty and indirectness. Textual evidence is found on pages 18, 64, 74, 210, 223, 234, 248, 254, 263, 269, 278 of the Hong Kong report. Two examples are quoted as follows: There is no evidence to suggest that this debate in any way lowered public alertness to the public health threat of SARS. (HK, 74) At present, no evidence exists to suggest that these wild animal species play a significant role . . . (HK, 278)

Without is used as a lexical variety to no to express indirectness in both reports. Examples are: The best current evidence is that without effective public health measures, SARS would have eventually sickened millions . . . (C, 42) Without a pre-existing mechanism to share resources within the system and no surge capacity, Toronto was overwhelmed. (C, 147) If an outbreak is managed by various organisations without proper coordination, both public health and public confidence are undermined. (HK, 87) . . . with a view to raising alertness and promoting proper prevention, without causing panic. (HK, 151)

In both reports, the predominant meaning of little is uncertainty. The public health system, unlike the clinical or personal health services system, tends to operate in the background, little known to most Canadians unless . . . (C, 19) However, it appears to have had little lasting effect on federal or provincial spending in public health. (C, 52) There was little at that time to indicate that cases from the community outbreak in Amoy Garden would soon escalate exponentially . . . (HK, 55) Little was known about the new disease . . . (HK, 70)

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The word limited is used five times more in the Canadian report than in the Hong Kong report and FLOB. It is used to express constraints. Examples are: Linkage of already limited epidemiologic data to laboratory test results became even more challenging. (C, 8) The federal capacity to support one or more provinces facing simultaneous health crises is limited. (C, 20)

In both reports, the prefix un- is used to indicate constraint (unable, unavailable and unfunded) and uncertainty (uncertain, unclear, undefined, unexplained, unknown, unpredicted, and unusual). See Table 8.5. Table 8.5 Frequencies of words with prefix unNegative Words

Hong Kong

Canadian

Constraint unable unavailable unfunded Uncertainty uncertain unclear undefined unexplained unknown unpredicted unusual

8 1 0

17 5 10

6 10 0 11 19 0 13

15 16 2 4 23 8 18

Total

68

118

The Hong Kong report has more double negations than the Canadian report does, indicating the meaning in the Hong Kong report is more indirect. The activism of public health in individual- and family-level interventions was not without occasional territorial tensions. (C, 44) Without urgent implementation of a public health human resources strategy, that aim cannot be achieved. (C, 136) The public was urged not to panic or believe in rumours, and to avoid unnecessary worry. (HK, 13) She reassured the community that Hong Kong had not identified any unusual pattern of influenza-like illness . . . (HK, 15)

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

No abnormal pattern of illness was observed in in-patients of ward 8A. (HK, 25) . . . that there was no unusual increase of pneumonia cases in the community. (HK, 28) No major irregularities were detected at the time. (HK, 45) Conversely, there was general agreement that private hospitals could not have coped with SARS without assistance from HA. (HK, 78)

The findings concur with Thomas’s (1985) claim on the relationship between social distance and the degree of indirectness. Horn’s (1989, 1991) arguments that negation is pragmatically ambiguous and that the speaker knows or strongly believes A holds but is too polite, modest, or wary to mention it directly apply to the Hong Kong report. The meanings expressed by the writers of the two reports are influenced by their communicative goals (Morris 1946; Thomas 1985; Horn 1991; Trosborg 1997). In particular, the reports support Trosborg’s findings that the expressed intent of the authors may not be the real intent. In many cases in these overlaps, one of the aims is dominant and the other is a means (Trosborg 1997). Examples of such are found in the Canadian report, which baldly points out the weakness of the public health system with an aim to revamp it. The Hong Kong report, by contrast, recommends improvements as well as redresses the findings to avoid public outcry.

Nominalization Quantitative findings using WordSmith Tools show that the Hong Kong report ranks the highest in the use of nominalization, 0.55 percent against the total number of words in the report. The Canadian report ranks second with 0.40 percent, while the FLOB has 0.30 percent of occurrences. Both reports were written by clinicians. The findings support Thomas’s (1985) claim that status influences indirectness, and Thompson’s (1999) argument that clinicians tend to mark their status and create a register of authoritative expertise. Textual evidence is as follows: Research into the cause of SARS, the characterization of the agent, the development of diagnostic tests, and generation of initial clinical descriptions . . . (C, 9) . . . limited by the lack of a delineated role in an organizational structure, lack of data for outbreak investigation, and absence of business process agreements . . . (C, 31)

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The Committee considers that the absence of . . . involvement of DH staff . . . were not conducive to the management of the outbreak. (HK, 71) In mid-March, with the emergence of SARS and the issuance of the global alert . . . (HK, 133)

The quantitative analysis reveals that obligation modals are commonly used in these two investigation reports, as the report writers are mandated to look into past shortcomings and propose obligations for the related parties. By using a weaker obligation modal, should rather than must, the writers of the Hong Kong report express a completely different stance from that of the writers of the Canadian report. The Canadian report writers are committed, bald, forceful and direct, whereas the Hong Kong report strategically displays non-commitment in order to increase the reliability of the text by acknowledging the variability of phenomena. The Hong Kong report also aims to increase social cohesion by using redressive hedges as politeness. The findings by Prince et al. (1982) that hedging is the most salient linguistic feature in a physician-to-physician spoken context do not apply to these two written reports. This difference can be attributed to the fact that the two reports are formal and written, and hedging is often used by the writers to indicate uncertainty and vagueness. Other functions served are to maintain solidarity and to downtone assertiveness and directness in the asymmetrical relationship with the readers, as there would inevitably be some unknowns in the event under investigation. The investigators and the addressees usually have different status, and they would like to maintain solidarity in the community by avoiding unfolding the shortcomings assertively. Negation is the other common linguistic feature found in both texts. Interestingly, through the use of negation, the stances expressed in the Canadian report and in the Hong Kong report are significantly different, as a result of different collocations. With the use of phrases like no excuse or no hesitation, the Canadian report demonstrates baldness, certainty and directness. With the use of no evidence or not known, coupled with the use of double negation, the mood of the Hong Kong report further creates a sense of uncertainty and indirectness. Negation, as shown in the two reports, can also help to illustrate constraints and uncertainty with the use of little and un-. Lastly, the findings also support the frequent use of nominalization in formal written reports. A stronger stance of distance and indirectness is expressed in the Hong Kong report, the one that has more frequent use of nominalization.

Linguistic Features and Writer’s Stance in Investigation Reports

Conclusion This study illustrates the role of linguistic features in the expression of stance in a text. Four features — modality, hedging, negation and nominalization — hypothesized to be the characteristic features for this text-type, were examined to investigate their impact on the writers’ stance of certainty, commitment, distance and indirectness. Even though the two reports aim to achieve similar objectives in comparable situations, by using different lexis and grammar, the report writers express quite different meanings. The writers of the Hong Kong report are relatively less certain and less committed in stating the propositions, demonstrating a wider distance between the writers and the readers. Writers of the investigation reports do not have to be unself-conscious. They could try to gain the support of their readers by applying the appropriate linguistic features to express their stance, however, knowing the choice of lexis and grammar is not the recipe to success. Who are the readers? Are investigation reports descriptive, informative, instructive or persuasive? Would such a classification be universal to all texts under this text-type? Should the writers tune the text to the rhetorical preferences and knowledge of the readers? Unlike readers of many other text-types, the reader community of individual investigation reports can be quite distinct. Yet the readers of the SARS investigation reports could be heterogeneous. Due to the immense impact of SARS, they include both local and worldwide medical practitioners, citizens, government officials as well as victims who share varying degrees of knowledge and sentiment. It is therefore difficult for the writers to match their disparate preferences. Investigation reports not only serve to examine and review but also to identify areas for improvement and make recommendations. The text should be persuasive as well as informative. The reports could be better received if the writers strike a delicate balance between the need of the readers and their own authoritative expertise.

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9 Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations Jinjun Wang

Questions have long been recognized by linguists as a potentially powerful device in casual conversation and, in particular, in institutional dialogue. Although linguists have realized questions and power relations, no literature has been concerned with the theoretical exploration of questions as a possible powerful tool in conversation and dialogue. This chapter undertakes to discuss questions and power relations from three theoretical orientations: social semiotics, social cognition and psychology, and systemic-functional linguistics. It is shown that, in social semiotics, questions are regarded as social semiotic acts and the context of questioning conveys power and solidarity. In social psychology and cognition, the question/answer sequence is the effect of shared knowledge and cognitive schema. The expectation of answers aids in the production of orderliness, which signifies power and solidarity. In systemic-functional linguistics, a question as an initiating speech function is able to realize unequal social status. The chapter focuses on the theoretical exploration of questions and power relations and supports its argument with data analysis. The collected data, which are mainly from film scripts, works of fiction, textbooks, magazines, audio materials and the Internet, are concerned with six speech genres: courtroom cross-examination, news interview, medical encounter, classroom encounter, service encounter, and child and parent/adult talk. Although most of the collected materials are not naturally occurring recording data, they are representative of and bear great similarities to natural spoken data.

Question and power relations This section offers a brief explanation of the relationship between question and interrogative, the concept of power, and the research on questions and power relations.

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Question and interrogative In a commonsense way, questions and interrogatives are usually interchangeable. Yet it is possible to distinguish one from another from three different perspectives. When a question is regarded as a grammatical category, it is usually called an interrogative in form. Close (1975), Crystal (1987), and Biber et al. (1999) classify questions in English syntactically into three kinds: A question is a sentence with the subject and first verb in the verb phrase inverted, i.e. a Yes/No question, e.g. (1) Did he say that? A sentence starting with a question word, i.e. a Wh-question, e.g. (2) What did he say? A sentence ending with a question, i.e. a tag question, e.g. (3) He said that, didn’t he?

According to their definition, a question is an interrogative in form. When a question is regarded as a semantic category, it expresses a desire for more information, usually expecting a reply from the listener. Quirk et al. (1972, 806) describe three major classes of question according to the answer they expect: Yes/No questions are those ‘that expect affirmation or negation’, e.g. (4) Do they often travel? Wh-questions are those ‘that typically expect a reply from an open range of replies’, e.g. (5) Who else was John looking for? and alternative questions are those ‘that expect as the reply one of two or more options presented in the question’, e.g. (6) Does she like to eat apples, or pears? When a question is regarded as a discourse category in systemic-functional linguistics (SFL), it is typically or congruently1 realized by the interrogative mood2 in seeking new information as in (7) ‘How can I get there?’ In SFL, mood choices can realize speech function categories. The interrogative mood affords a typical or default realization of questions. Additionally, however, this mood can carry out speech functions other than questions, such as an offer in (8) ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ or a command in (9) ‘Pass me the salt, will you?’

The concept of power in discourse Power is rather difficult to define, as power is investigated in various disciplines, such as religion, politics, philosophy, linguistics, cultural studies and so on. In this chapter, power is considered in discourse. Althusser and Foucault were among the earliest theorists to describe power as a discursive phenomenon. Althusser (1971) describes power as a discursive phenomenon and holds that power operates through discourse by constructing

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

particular subject positions for people to occupy. Foucault (1980) regards the concept of power as a complex and continuously evolving web of social and discursive relations. The attitudes of Foucault and Althusser towards power have a decisive influence on critical discourse analysis (CDA). Critical discourse analysts, e.g. Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1995) and van Dijk (2001), tend to approach power in discourse by examining how powerful social members reflect, reinforce and reproduce power through the language they use or their discursive practices. They believe that discursive power is implicated and implemented by means of discursive practices and is often shown by powerful participants controlling and constraining the contributions of less powerful participants. In other words, the powerful have the privilege of accessing and controlling discourse. Discursive power is closely related to status and dominance. Status is often considered as a person’s position in the structure of social relationship with respect to others. One’s position may be determined in a number of ways, such as by education, wealth, age, sex, knowledge, or by possession of specific mental or physical abilities. Status is crucially involved in systems of social hierarchies which help to determine who possesses greater power in social activities. As status can be high or low according to the resources one controls, power is often exercised on the basis of higher status. Power is also connected with dominance, the ability to control or to constrain the actions of others. Dominance can be understood as an explicit expression of power over others by the hierarchy of status relationships. Power is built on ideology. Ideology, as a mediating factor between power and discourse, provides the interpretive frame through which discourse practices are endowed with meaning. In Thompson’s (1990, 56) words, ideology is in the service of power, and ‘to study ideology is to study the ways in which meaning serves to establish and sustain relations of domination’. Therefore, the distribution and the exercise of power reflect ideology, and in turn ideology guides and serves the distribution and the exercise of power. Discursive power is contextually produced and contextually relative (Thornborrow 2002). Power can be seen as a contextually dependent resource, because activities that speakers undertake and speech acts that they produce all depend on their speech roles and the specific speech situation they are in. Thus, power is realized in discourse both through the turn and exchange structure that speakers get access to and through effective interaction between speakers. As a matter of fact, discursive power can be easily detected in some highly conventionalized situations, but on most occasions such as in close-knit family discourse and talks between friends, it is hard to scrutinize, because discursive power is always an undercurrent, negotiable and frequently negotiated.

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Questions as a potentially powerful means in talk The function of questions as a potentially powerful resource has been recognized in institutional dialogue and casual conversation. Sacks (1995), in one of his early lectures, observes that a questioner seems to have first rights to perform an operation on the set of answers and if one is in the position of asking a question, partly she or he is in control of conversation. So to Sacks, questioning in conversation affords a kind of power or the ability to control. Watts (1991) believes that in family discourse between members of a close-knit network, questions of immediate concern are raised as positions, which is equivalent to showing initiative. If one is supported when initiating, his or her status is further enhanced. Linell (1990, 153) also holds that ‘asking questions is a matter of trying to condition the other’s contributions more or less strongly, whereas simply answering questions may amount to little more than just complying with the other’s conditions’. Wang (2006) expounds that questions are regarded as a pervasively latent powerful device in casual conversation as a result of the immediate allocation of turn-taking and the resulting temporary topic control, whereas questions are presumed to be a prominent means of exercising power in institutional dialogue. Comparatively speaking, power tends to be covert in casual conversation and overt in institutional dialogue. Many researchers have considered questions a powerful tool in different institutional contexts, such as classroom encounter, medical encounter, courtroom cross-examination, police interview, news interview, and so on. Harris (1984) has made a statistical analysis on questions in British magistrates’ courts and generalizes the function of particular types of question patterns as a powerful means of discursive control. Wodak (1985) explores the interaction between judges and defendants in Austrian courts on the basis of psychological and sociological parameters. Archer (2005) discusses questions by judges and answers by defendants in the early modern English courtroom between 1640 and 1760. Examining news interviews, Kress and Fowler (1979) hold that questioning is the main linguistic device for an interviewer to control an interviewee’s contributions to conversation, which confines the interviewee in answering. Heritage and Greatbatch (1991) and Greatbatch (1992) claim that news interview follows the sequences of interviewers’ questioning and interviewees’ answering and the question-answer sequence is pre-allocated and controlled by interviewers. The reason is that they nominate a newsworthy topic by way of questioning, and they frequently get responses that develop the nominated topic to a greater or lesser extent. Mishler (1984), West (1984), and Ainsworth-Vaughn (2001) hold that doctor-patient talk is often biased due to doctors’ handling of question/answer sequences as their primary instrument of interactional control. Thornborrow (2002) discusses questions and control in

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

police interviews and radio phone-in programmes. Mayr (2004) makes a detailed linguistic analysis of the language use of prison officers and prisoners, especially question/answer sequence, and focuses on the shifting power relations of control and resistance between prison officers and prisoners. Holmes and Stubbe (2003) explore power and politeness in the workplace and focus on questions, their use and purport. Much literature has shown that, both in casual conversation and institutional dialogue, questions have been recognized as a potentially powerful means to control and dominate. The following sections elaborate three theoretical interpretations of questions and power relations.

The interpretation of questions and power relations according to social semiotics Social semiotics, which is based on the work of Halliday (1978), emphasizes the ways in which language functions in our construction and representation of our experience and of our social identities and relationships, and highlights the combination of semiotic analysis with power and ideology. Social semiotics accounts for the fact that context of questioning conveys power and solidarity.

Questioning as social semiotic act Social semiotics is a method of semiotic analysis from a social and ideological perspective. According to Hodge and Kress (1988), social semiotics is concerned with human semiosis as an inherent social phenomenon and focuses on social meanings, which have been constructed through all kinds of semiotic forms, semiotic texts and semiotic practices in human society at all periods of human history. Under the social semiotic framework, meanings are jointly made by participants to some social activity structure, and they are made by construing semiotic relations among patterned meaning relations, social practices, and physical-material processes which social practices organize in social semiosis (Thibault 1991). In other words, meanings are produced under social context and reflect social relations and processes. Social semiotics suggests that semiotic analysis should take social analysis of power and ideology into consideration and should be situated within the context of social relations and processes, in that ‘social relations in semiotic acts and in social formations are constituted by relations of power (order and subordination) and solidarity (cohesion and antagonism)’ (Kress and Hodge 1988, 266). As a matter of fact, social semiotics benefits considerably from Marx and Engels (1970) and Voloshinov (1986). Marx and Engels (1970) assume that

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intercourse (communication) corresponds to consciousness, which can be understood as the full range of semiotic process from the social and material world, and forms of communication correspond to particular forms of social organization, which is characterized by unequal distribution of power and goods. A struggle between the dominated and the dominant is a constant semiotic structure, and its process should reflect a power struggle. Voloshinov (1986) also expounds that the study of human language cannot be detached from social existence in time and space and from the impact of socio-economic conditions. To Voloshinov (1986, 10), ‘every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation’. The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. Everything ideological possesses semiotic value. Voloshinov’s viewpoint on sign foregrounds its relation with ideology and social reality. In the light of social semiotics, questions, as social semiotic acts, subject to ideological value, have to be analyzed under the wide social context and can represent social identity and reflect social relations, which are associated with power and solidarity. Consider the following dialogue between Sylvia, the Mother (MOT), and Conor, the Child (CHI) of four: (10) Mother talks with Son about his activity at the school. 01 So what’d you do at school today? 02 xxx play with it. 03 the what? 04 the blocks. 05 Did you play with the blocks? 06 Yeah. 07 And does Greta have to do everything you want her to do? 08 She didn’t play with me. 09 No? 10 I was off on my own. 11 You played on your own? 12 yeah.

MOT CHI MOT CHI MOT CHI MOT CHI MOT CHI MOT CHI

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

13 MOT What about Jack and Brian? 14 CHI Well I’m # Jack’s friend # and # and I # and nobody sat beside me. 15 MOT Oh my goodness did the xxx. 16 CHI huh? 17 MOT I wouldn’t say you were telling the truth. There’s other boys and girls in the class. 18 CHI xxx and she # and she went # ran away. 19 MOT She ran away to &pl do what? 20 CHI play the ## the other &th &th the Playdoh (http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/eng-uk/, 8 Jan 2004)

The casual conversation is between a child of four, Conor, and his mother, Sylvia, who belong to the upper working class. Because adults see it as their task to socialize children and make them behave in the ways that are generally accepted by adults, talk between parents and children is often one-sided and parent-centred, and parents control the structure and content of family conversation. Adults and parents have the prerogative to ask questions. It is evident that the dialogue gives prominence to the mother’s questioning and the son’s answering. The son asked only one abbreviated question, “huh?” in Turn 16 when he could not understand what his mother said. The powerful mother foregrounds herself as the dominant and leading participant by way of asking a series of questions to socialize her son. In this talk, questions as social semiotic acts represent social identities of two participants, i.e. mother as a questioner and son as an answerer, and reflect the social relations between them, that is, the mother’s control of the structure and content of the family conversation and the son’s subordination to his mother.

Context of questioning conveying power and solidarity In social semiotics, the basic logic is that of contextualization (Thibault 1991), according to whom no semiotic form, material entity or event, text, or action has meaning in and of itself. The meanings are made in and through the social meaning-making practices which construct semiotic relations among forms, material processes and entities, and social actions.

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Context as a semiotic structure transmits social and ideological meanings and expresses power and solidarity. Hodge and Kress (1988, 40) hold that ‘the context of semiosis is itself organized as a series of texts, with meanings assigned to categories of participants and relationships’. They further claim that not only the behaviour of participants signify status, power and solidarity, but also participants in semiosis transmit a great profusion of messages about the status of the exchange of their own and others’ roles. In Hodge and Kress’s words, ‘every semiotic act has an ideological content’ (1988, 40). From the social semiotic perspective, traffic lights are not simply traffic signals but rather social signs constructing a specific context. Traffic lights transmit particular instructions and authority. Behind traffic lights, there exists a police force and a set of rules connected to the legal system. Those who break the traffic law will be fined or penalized. Accordingly, the context of questioning is associated with power and solidarity. First of all, a component of the context (the material situational setting of the questioning) transmits power and solidarity, such as the established location and arrangement of participants, the objects relevant to the enactment of the social process, the established time frame, and so on. Secondly, the contents of questions and answers transmit power and solidarity. Thirdly, participants in the verbal interactions, for example, questioners and answerers, transmit the messages of status and roles. Take an example of a courtroom interaction. Many elements convey power and solidarity in a courtroom: the physical existence of the courtroom, the role relationship between participants in the courtroom, and the verbal and nonverbal actions of participants. A courtroom is a place where lawyers interrogate defendants and provide evidence to the judges, who pronounce verdicts accordingly. Maley (1994) emphasizes ideology implied by the physical settings of a court: Semiotically, the strongest meanings communicated by the physical setting of the room and behavior of those in it are those of hierarchical power. The physical layout of the room expresses, as it is intended to, a ‘symbolic recognition of the authority of the court’ (Goodrich, 1988, 143). The judge or magistrate occupies a dominant, focal position, usually sitting under an insignia-topped canopy which marks their position as a representative of sovereign justice. (Maley 1994, 32)

The following scene from a play script indicates that the physical setting and the behaviour of the participants in a court reflect the hierarchical power relations.

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

(11) The scene of court cross-examination between the counsel Drummond and the witness Bannister. Court is in session, fans are pumping. The humourless JUDGE sits at his bench; he has a nervous habit of flashing an automatic smile after every ruling. Cates sits beside Drummond at a counsel table. Brady sits grandly at another table, fanning himself with benign self-assurance. Hornbeck is seated on his window ledge. Rachel, tense, is among the spectators. In the jury box, ten of the twelve jurors are already seated. Bannister is on the witness stand. Davenport is examining him. Judge: Mr. Drummond, you may examine the venireman. Drummond: Thank you, Your honor. Mr. Bannister, how come you’re so anxious to get that front seat over there? Bannister: Everybody says this is going to be quite a show. Drummond: I hear the same thing. Ever read anything in a book about Evolution? Bannister: Nope. Drummond: Or about a fella named Darwin? Bannister: Can’t say I have. Drummond: I’ll bet you read your Bible. Bannister: Nope. Drummond: How come? Bannister: Can’t read. (Shumlin and Jones 1960, 33–4)

The court scene presents the hierarchical power relations in accordance with the seating of participants (the italicized parts) in the court. In other words, Judge is at the peak of power; counsels — Cates, Drummond and Brady — are at the second level of power, and witness Bannister is at the bottom. Judge exercises power over the counsel Drummond through directing him to examine the witness Bannister, and in turn Drummond exercises his power over the witness through his questioning. It is quite clear that the setting of a courtroom demonstrates power, authority and gravity. The different positioning of judges and defendants or witnesses indicates the power differences among them. The attire of judges and lawyers also conveys power and authority. Judges’ and lawyers’ questioning is empowered by the legal system of the nation. In order to obey the law, defendants or witnesses must answer questions raised by judges and lawyers. Answering questions becomes the obligation of defendants and witnesses, as is also imposed by the national law. Behind the questioning and answering, there is a legal system. Questions by judges and lawyers display control and dominance, and answers by witnesses and defendants embody deference and subordination.

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It is the same case in doctor/patient encounters, teacher/student interactions, news interviews, parent/adult and child talks, police interrogations and so on. The following dialogue is an extract from the film script Notting Hill. The main character, William Thacker, an unsuccessful Notting Hill bookstore owner, has been invited by Anna Scott, a famous film star, to attend her new film release conference without having been informed in advance. As a result, William is unexpectedly appointed to interview a well-known actor, and he has no recourse but to pretend to be an interviewer. (12) The interview between William as the temporary interviewer and the Male Lead as the interviewee 01 MALE LEAD: Pleased to meet you. Did you like the film? 02 WILLIAM: Ah . . . yes, enormously. 03 MALE LEAD: Well, fire away. 04 WILLIAM: Right, right. Ahm — did you enjoy making the film? 05 MALE LEAD: I did. 06 WILLIAM: Any bit in particular? 07 MALE LEAD: Well, you tell me which bit you liked most — and I’ll tell you if I enjoyed making it. 08 WILLIAM: Ahm right, right, I liked the bit in space very much. Did you enjoy making that bit? (Data from the film script of Notting Hill)

As a temporary interviewer without any previous experience, William did not have any preparation for the interview, and obviously he was in the inferior state when the interviewee, a well-known actor, asked the first question, ‘Did you like the film?’ in Turn 01 and controlled the topic and the turn-shift. However, when William realized his condition as an interviewer, he began to make himself an interviewer and asked the Male Lead questions in Turns 04 and 06. The Male Lead followed the sequence and made a reply. William was confronted by the interviewee’s question in declarative form in Turn 07. Then William answered the Male Lead’s question and forwarded his questioning as an interviewer. It can be seen that power and solidarity exist in the extract. The Male Lead asked William questions due to his fame and higher status and exercised power over William, an inexperienced interviewer; and William as an interviewer asked questions to exercise his power over the interviewee.

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

The interpretation of questions and power relations according to social cognition and psychology Theories of social cognition and psychology contribute to proving that, in verbal interactions, the question/answer sequence as an effect of shared knowledge and cognitive schema can lead to orderliness, which is associated with power and solidarity.

The question/answer sequence as the effect of shared knowledge As a psychological and cognitive notion, shared knowledge has attracted considerable attention from psycholinguists. Lee (2001, 3) assumes that ‘shared knowledge explains how people are able to communicate effectively in everyday rapid conversation’. Clark (1985, 183) holds that ‘shared knowledge refers to what participants in interaction mutually know, believe, and suppose’. In fact, shared knowledge is the key that enables people to establish common understanding in apparently effortless day-to-day interactions. Shared knowledge plays an important part in participants deciding what to say in an interaction. Gibbs (1985, 98) argues, ‘in an empirical talk both speakers depend on their shared knowledge of the particular social situation, and it is this knowledge that regulates what each says and how they comprehend each other’. In addition, the situational conventions enable speakers and hearers to co-ordinate what they know about each other’s plan and goals in order to facilitate communication. Under shared knowledge, participants in verbal interactions can regulate what each wants to say and co-ordinate each other’s goals to achieve successful communication. Actually, shared knowledge is a key element for participants aiming to fulfill effective and successful communication in different conversational settings. Shared knowledge can also be understood as a system of individual and social representations that discourse moves (questions, answers and so on) can operate on and transform. As a result, lawyers interrogate witnesses, interviewers ask interviewees questions, police officers question suspects, and so on, while hearers have to respond as required,3 whereas the reverse situation rarely occurs. Likewise, in casual conversation, on most occasions when one asks a question (except a rhetorical question), there is always a response if the addressee likes to interact.4 The right to ask and the obligation to answer is constituted by the norms of the particular situation or institution, which establish criteria for evaluating specific actions, such as verbal interaction, and for deciding when norms are to be violated. Consider the following dialogue between an intern and a patient:

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(13) The medical interview between the intern and the patient Intern: Patient: Intern: Patient: Intern: Patient:

Intern: Patient: Intern: Patient:

What brings you into the clinic today? I’ve been having trouble with my water. For how long? About seven or eight months. What kind of trouble have you been having? It takes me quite a while to start my stream, and I’ve got to really strain to get it going. But it’s gotten bad recently. In what way? Well, I get a lot of burning. Is this burning present throughout the stream? Yes, it is. (Special English Medicine 1981, 210–2)

In the medical interview, all questions are asked by the intern on the symptoms that the patient has, and all the answers are provided by the patient, as both parties know well their own social roles in the interaction and conform to the situational convention to produce appropriate speech acts. It is the traditional medical interview between doctor and patient. The following dialogue takes place between two friends Dianna (DIA) and Grace (GRA). (14) Dianna (DIA) talks with Grace (GRA) about their plan this summer. 01 *DIA: so Grace, what are you doing this summer? 02 *GRA: umm # I dunno, I, I think I might go to the U of Dreams, the um program, you know the one I was telling you about? 03 *DIA: yea. 04 *GRA: ju, are you gonna go there? 05 *DIA: mumbles # I might, I dunno. 06 *GRA: really? 07 *GRA: oh like. 08 *DIA: did you get your phone interview yet? 09 *GRA: no I haven’t actually, they’re supposed &t they sent out this email. (http://xml.talkbank.org: 8888/talkbank/video/talkbank/ Conversation/, 8 Jan 2004)

Quite different from the talk between Intern and Patient, this talk shows a close relationship between two friends. After Dianna asks Grace a question in Turn 01, Grace willingly answers the question and asks Dianna a question in Turn 02. Then the roles of questioning and answering are exchanged. Their

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

successful interaction originates from their shared knowledge of their appropriate speech acts in the present social situation and from their co-ordination with each other during the interaction.

The question/answer sequence as orderliness In cognitive psychology, schema is another crucial factor in the success of a conversation. It enables us to associate the question/answer sequence with orderliness, which signifies power and solidarity. Cognitive psychology indicates that shared knowledge is organized in a fixed way as a complete unit of knowledge in memory rather than in a scattered collection. The organization of shared knowledge in memory in a fixed order is called schema. Schema represents an organized mass of knowledge or orderliness. By virtue of schema, people can process incoming information in the light of sequential steps. In fact, people perceive the world by its regular, repeated features, and they notice and learn from anomalies. Schema explains the way people speak and what to speak when people communicate in various settings. The question/answer sequence is the classic adjacency pair in conversation analysis, which shows the identifiable regularities in the ordering of the two turns. In this sense, the question/answer sequence can be regarded as a kind of schema. Under the guidance of a schema, when one asks a question, the other will respond if she or he wishes to interact. In some institutional settings, the schematic sequence of questioning and answering is very salient. Participants know well the schemas in institutional dialogues and follow the routine and the orderliness. Orderliness refers to ‘norms of conversational interaction, that is, turn-taking sequences, adjacency pairs and the like, through which speakers engage in talk’ (Thornborrow 2002, 39), and orderliness in talk is accomplished by participants. In the light of Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) account, orderliness is characterized as the sense of participants that things keep going normally, a sense which is evident from the coherence of interaction, meaningful turn-taking, and generally appropriate and expected discursive behaviour from the participants’ perspective. For Fairclough (1995, 28), ‘the “orderliness” of an interaction is the feeling of participants in it (which may be more or less successfully elicited, or inferred from their interactive behavior) that things are as they should be, i.e. as one would normally expect them to be’. Orderliness means that participants take turns and speak in an expected or appropriate way. The orderliness of discursive interaction is shaped and defined by ideological discourse formations (IDF), which are ordered as to dominance and solidarity (Fairclough 1995). Therefore, the orderliness of discursive structure encompasses power relations and serves to maintain them.

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Orderliness exists in all social interactions. In casual conversation, as a general rule when one asks a question (except rhetorical questions), there is always someone to respond if she or he likes to interact. In institutional dialogues, orderliness becomes salient and discernible. Institutional orderliness is derived from two ways. One way is that some participants have the right and the freedom to ask questions. The other is that some participants are aware of their limitation of asking questions and know their obligation to respond. Therefore, the rights of questioning and the obligation of responding constitute the orderliness, which implies power and solidarity. Successive questions asked by some participants, such as lawyers, news interviewers, doctors and the like, request their counterparts to make a series of corresponding answers. No matter whether questions are coercive or challenging, the counterparts (such as defendants, interviewees and patients) have to respond and follow the orderliness, by not asking questions or asking questions when invited. Consider the following extract: (15) Two police officers, Speakers B and D, interviewed the complainant, Speaker A. B: after all this happened who was the first person you cl-complained to about rape? A: I told my boyfriend. B: What time did you tell him? A: When he came home from work. B: Yeah we- what time’s that six five four? A: bout quarter to (.) six B: [quarter to six what time did you get away from these fellas? A: er I’ve no idea (.) I went into the job center it must have been about= D: =(xxx) why didn’t you say anything to somebody in the job center(.) surely rape A: [I just (did) Are there ]? D: rape is the next th- as far as a woman is concerned. Rape is the next thing to death, isn’t it? (Thornborrow 2002, 47)

Plainly, the extract is not common talk between friends. Speaker B and Speaker D dominate the dialogue by asking a series of questions to clarify time concerning the rape suffered by Speaker A. Speaker A follows their questions to provide corresponding answers. To our common understanding, a woman would not like to disclose the exact details of suffering from rape. Yet Speaker A counters common knowledge. In this dialogue, Speaker A follows the orderly discursive structure dominated by the questions of the two police officers and complains about what she does not like to let others know.

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

The interpretation of questions and power relations according to systemic-functional linguistics Systemic-functional linguistics provides a theoretical interpretation of questions from the functional and the systemic perspectives. The systemic-functional approach to questions highlights the factor of social context. Therefore, in the systemic-functional model, questions can realize social status and social role relations between participants.

Halliday’s functional-systemic model of questions Halliday (1985, 11) points out that a dialogue is a process of exchange involving two variables: (1) a commodity to be exchanged: either information or goods and services; (2) the roles associated with exchange relations: either giving or demanding.

In the process of exchanging commodities, people serve as two rudimentary speech roles: giving and demanding. When a speaker acts in a role of giving or demanding, she or he naturally assigns a complementary role to the person whom she or he is addressing. When a speaker asks a question, she or he acts the role of seeker of information and simultaneously requires the listener to take the role of information supplier. In accordance with Halliday’s account of a dialogue, the two variables decide four basic initiating speech functions — offer, command, statement and question — which are typically realized by four mood types.5 Halliday’s model of dialogue gives us a systemic-functional interpretation of questions. Firstly, a person who asks a question is assigned a speech role or a social role, requesting information or goods, and expects another person to act in the role of giving. Secondly, a questioner in a dialogue functions in a role of initiating a dialogue and requests a listener to act in a responding role. In other words, a question as an initiating speech function requests an answer as a responding speech function. Thirdly, the speech function of question is realized with the congruent mood type of interrogative. Fourthly, a process of exchange between a question and an answer constitutes a dialogue. What is more important is that questions, as an initiating speech function, are taken into account in a social context or a context of situation, in which questions are associated with the realization of social status and social roles.

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Questions as an initiating speech function6 realizing unequal status According to Halliday (1973, 1978), the three contextual variables, field, tenor and mode, respectively correspond with three strands of meanings, ideational, interpersonal and textual. Interpersonal meanings concern meanings about social and personal relations and roles, including all forms of a speaker’s intrusion into a speech situation and speech acts. Because tenor is realized by interpersonal meanings, which are realized by mood and modality, interrogatives as a kind of mood type surely can realize interpersonal meanings and the tenor of a dialogue. Because the tenor of a dialogue is concerned with who is taking part, what kinds of social relations there are among participants, and what speech roles participants take on, it is assumed that questions, as an initiating speech function, are realized by interrogatives and can realize social status and social relations between participants. Halliday (1978) has defined the contextual variable of tenor as social role relations or social relations. Hasan (1977) holds that social relations can be measured according to the level of social distance and the degree of hierarchy. According to Hasan (1977, 1985), social distance is determined by the frequency and the range of previous interaction, and is a continuum with maximal and minimal end-points. A maximal social distance is obtained when the persons involved know each other through infrequent encounters in some institutionalized activities, and their dyadic status is distinguishable due to their correlative roles. Moreover, social relations can be classified in light of the degree of hierarchy. For Hasan (1985), ‘hierarchic’ is equal to being dominant or powerful. She states that ‘if the dyad is hierarchic, one agent will have a greater degree of control over the other; if it is non-hierarchic, then we have relations of peer-hood, such as those of friendship, rivalry, acquaintanceship, and indifference’ (1985, 57). On some occasions social relations are nearly equal and social distance is minimal. Martin (1992) and Poynton (1985) have extended Hasan’s (1981) social relation system and argue that tenor is concerned with social relations in three dimensions: status, contact and affect. Status is equivalent to Hasan’s (1985) social hierarchy, and contact concerning the degree of involvement among participants is oriented to Hasan’s social distance. Martin (1997, 12) remarks that ‘tenor is concerned with social relations, as these are enacted through the dimensions of power and solidarity’. The most notable work to interpret the relation between status and semantic choices has been undertaken by Poynton (1985). Poynton (1985) observes that each of the three tenor dimensions seems to activate different sets of linguistic choices by way of the characteristic patterning of realization. She stresses that ‘for the power dimension, the characteristic

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

realisational pattern is interactional, in terms of the extent of reciprocity of linguistic choices made’ (1985, 79). According to her statement, power is realized primarily by linguistic choices in the discourse stratum and at clause level within lexico-grammar according to the equality or inequality of participants as indicated by the extent of reciprocity7 of those choices. The greater the equality between participants, the more likely they are to behave linguistically in parallel or symmetrical ways. For example, participants have equal rights to interrupt one another, to nominate new topics, or to take on the role of questioner or answerer. In contrast, the greater the inequality between participants, the more likely it is that their linguistic behaviour will be non-reciprocal. For instance, powerful participants have rights to interrupt, to nominate topics, etc., which the less powerful do not have. Poynton (1985) further argues that the critical element in the research of status and power is the reciprocity of semantic choice. Reciprocity of semiotic choice suggests that interlocutors of equal status can get access to the same kinds of meanings, whereas interlocutors of unequal status make non-reciprocal semantic choices. Equal status between participants is realized by reciprocal kinds of semantic choices, whereas unequal status is realized by non-reciprocal choices. Martin (1992, 528) expounds that ‘among the different choices, grammatical choices are of most importance, in that the realization of status tends to foreground grammatical options’. Therefore, mood choices are a key resource to enact and construct status and power relations. In other words, reciprocal mood choices indicate functional equality of roles, while non-reciprocal mood choices reveal status and power differences between participants.

Data analysis A data analysis follows, concerning six speech genres — courtroom crossexamination, news interview, medical encounter, classroom encounter, service encounter, and parent/adult and child talk — which are considered hierarchic in Hasan’s social role system or unequal in Poynton’s description. The purpose is to test the hypothesis proposed here: if interrogatives are a non-reciprocal mood choice intended to realize unequal status, then questions as an initiating speech function that are realized by interrogatives are also non-reciprocal and can likewise realize unequal status between participants. The data8 concerning courtroom cross-examination come from a play called Inherit the Wind and two film scripts, Kramer vs. Kramer and The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. The collected data mostly comprise scenes of cross-examination between judges and witnesses/defendants, and between defence lawyers and defendants. The data from news interviews are concerned with six interviews from audio material entitled Crazy English, fifteen magazine interviews from

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thirteen volumes of Newsweek, and seven news interviews with prominent figures, downloaded from the Internet. Eighty-eight medical encounters were obtained from two textbooks, Medicine English 900 and Special English Medicine. The data on classroom encounters include ten recorded segments downloaded from a talk bank and sixty-seven classroom encounters from a textbook entitled Active Speakers in and out of the College English Classroom. Service encounters, totalling 118 came from a textbook titled Purchasing abroad in English Fluently. The data concerning parent/adult and child talks are mainly from the talks between Tom Sawyer and Aunt Polly in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Jonah’s talks with his father, his father’s girl-friend and the heroine Annie in the film script of Sleepless in Seattle, and four talks between Conor, age four, and his mother, Sylvia, from a data bank. The percentages of interrogatives used by participants in each speech genre are shown in Table 9.1. Table 9.1 The relation between social roles and the choices of interrogatives9 Speech genres Courtroom cross-examination News interview Medical encounter Classroom encounter Service encounters Parent/adult and child talk

Social roles Judge/lawyer Defendant/witness Interviewer Interviewee Doctor Patient Teacher Student Customer Salesperson Parent/adult Child

Interrogatives (%) 91.9 8.9 96.1 3.9 94 6 56 44 57.4 42.6 71 29

It is evident that the interrogative percentages of two parties in six genres are unbalanced, or non-reciprocal. The intensive use of interrogatives is dominated by some social roles — judges/lawyers, interviewers, doctors, teachers, customers, and parents/adults — whereas their counterparts have a rather low or comparatively lower use of interrogatives. In particular, in courtroom crossexaminations, news interviews and medical encounters, there exists a drastic difference of interrogative percentages between the two parties, 83 percent in courtroom cross-examination, 92.2 percent in news interview and 88 percent in medical encounter. The difference between parents/adults and children takes second place, at 42 percent. It is obvious that parents and adults dominate the use of interrogatives. The differences in interrogative percentages in classroom

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

and service encounters rank third, 12 percent and 14.8 percent respectively. In these two genres, teachers and customers have higher proportions of interrogatives than students and salespersons although their percentages are lower than those of judges, lawyers, interviewers and doctors. Generally speaking, judges/lawyers, interviewers, doctors, teachers, customers and parents/adults have higher status than do their counterparts, due to their higher frequency of using interrogatives; thus, they exercise power over their counterparts. The statistics show the non-reciprocity of interrogatives in these six genres, which indicates the existence of unequal status between participants. As interrogatives are non-reciprocal in these six genres, questions as a speech function realized by interrogatives are also non-reciprocal and can likewise realize unequal status between participants. Therefore, the proposed hypothesis is viable. Because questions are viewed as an initiating speech function or an initiating move, the higher percentages of questions by some participants entail the participants’ dominant role in initiating a dialogue. For Eggins and Slide (1997, 194), ‘an initiating move indicates a claim to a degree of control over the interaction’. The higher percentages of questions by judges/lawyers, interviewers, doctors, teachers, customers, and parents/adults display verbal dominance and control over talks in three senses. First, the dominant participants in these six genres, i.e. judges and lawyers, interviewers, doctors, teachers, customers, parents and adults, control initiating moves by way of their more frequent questions and force their counterparts to accept responding moves. Therefore, questions as initiating moves exercise control over talks. In medical encounters, news interviews and courtroom crossexaminations, doctors, interviewers, judges and lawyers overwhelmingly dominate initiating moves by asking questions in that the difference of interrogative percentages is drastic. In courtroom cross-examination, questioning is a primary communication strategy for judges and lawyers to exercise power and control over witnesses and defendants. Likewise, doctor-patient talk is often biased as doctors handle question/answer sequences as their primary instrument of interactional control. In news interview, interviewers use questioning as the main linguistic device to control interviewees’ contributions to conversation. However, what is different from medical encounter and courtroom crossexamination is that interviewers have to keep a neutral stance. In comparison, parents and adults mostly control the initiating moves due to their prominent interrogative percentages. Parents and adults often use questions to socialize children or to elicit children’s correct answers in pedagogical activities. Similarly, teachers and customers play a superior role in controlling a dialogue through higher percentages of questions. Teachers frequently use questions they already know the answers to, in order to guide students to the correct answers.

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Second, the more frequent questions of the dominant participants also control turn-taking in the process of exchange. Although initiating and responding are two different turns, it is always an answer as a responding turn that follows a question as an initiating turn. Third, the more frequent questions control both local and global topics in talking. The more frequent questions of the dominant participants specify, ratify and select sequential topics and finally control conversational topics. As a result, questions are an initiating speech function realizing unequal status between two people conversing. The non-reciprocity of questions reflects the existence of unequal social relations, that is, inequality of power and status in society. It can be concluded that unequal social relations exist, and different social roles have their own typical semantic choices. In other words, social roles constrain grammatical choices and in turn grammatical choices reflect social roles.

Conclusion This chapter explores questions and power relations from three theoretical orientations, i.e. social semiotics, social psychology and cognition, and systemicfunctional linguistics, on the basis of data analysis, and intends to establish questions and power relations theoretically. In addition, questions as a potentially powerful means can be further discussed in a practical way. For example, how questions exercise power in casual conversation and institutional dialogue can be explored on the basis of different linguistic strata, such as intonation patterns of questions at the phonological level, appraisal lexis of questions at the lexicalgrammatical level, and discourse moves of questions at the levels of conversational structure and generic structure. Due to space limitations, the article does not take gender and race into consideration. In fact, much remains to be done in the exploration of questions and power relations from the perspectives of gender and race differences.

Sources of data The data for the present study are collected mainly from film scripts, works of fiction, textbooks, magazines, audio materials and Internet, due to the difficulty in recording naturally occurring data in China, where English is learned as a foreign language. Although most of the collected data are not naturally occurring spoken data, they have great similarities to the speech that is normal in the situations presented. The data sources are as follows: American English Services. 1981. Special English medicine (Trans. S. Liang, S. Wang and J. Tao). Shijiazhuang: Hebei People’s Publishing House.

Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

Crazy English. Vol. 28, 2001; Vol. 32 and Vol. 37, 2002. Guangzhou: Guangdong Audio-Visual Languages Press. Data bank on child/parent talk. http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/eng-uk/. 8 January 2004 Benton, R. Kramer vs Kramer. http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/kramer. shtml. 8 January 2004 Li, H-H. and H. Li. 2002. Purchasing abroad in English fluently. Beijing: The Machine Industry Publishing House. Liu, S. 2002. Medicine English 900. Beijing: China Book Publishing House. Newsweek. 2000. Six volumes from 1 May to 19 June and 7 volumes from 23 October to 18 December. Curtis, R. Notting Hill. http://www.stationfive.com/movies/Scripts/NottingHill. txt. 15 December 2003. Shumlin, J. and J. Margo. 1960. Inherit the wind. New York: Bantam Books. Arch, J. Sleepless in Seattle. http://www.lib.ncu.edu.tw/auvi/newhome/ln_f_mov/ sleepless%20in%20Seattle script.doc. 15 December 2003. Talk Bank. http://xml.talkbank.org:8888/talkbank/processfile. 8 January 2004. Berrigan, D. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. http: //www.geocities.com/ Hollywood/Cinema/3761/catonsville9.html. 8 January 2004. Twain, M. 1966. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Bantam Books, Inc. Xu, S. 2001. Active speakers in and out of the college English classroom. Xi’an: The Publishing House of Northwest Engineering University.

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Part Three Professional Communication in Other Regions

10 Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents: A Combined Academic and Professional Approach Jan Renkema

Governmental miscommunication does not necessarily occur more often than miscommunication in institutions like law or health care (Martindale et al. 1992; Sarangi and Slebrouck 1996; Renkema 2003). However, governmental problems with officialese and bureaucratese seem more serious, because all members of a society are confronted several times a year with official documents; hence the popularity of actions like plain language movements and the many attempts to redesign governmental forms and letters. But until now, the results of governmental attempts at plain language have been more or less disappointing. For example, over the past twenty years, in The Netherlands, at least twenty official attempts have been made to clarify official documents (for more information about the research in The Netherlands, see the papers collected in Janssen and Neutelings 2001). A remarkable fact is that the Dutch government decided in 2007 that all governmental forms and letters should be readable for all citizens, without giving a clear framework for the implementation of this major decision. In this chapter I provide a framework that can be used in this endeavour, not only in The Netherlands but also where governments have not yet succeeded in producing clear or plain documents. The notions of document design and document quality are elaborated on from the perspective of governmental communication, before introducing this framework for design and quality research. Two examples of its use in research conducted in collaboration with professionals active in governmental departments follow. The first example is research into tax forms and the second has to do with official letters. Strategies for new research and a plea to combine academic insights and professional experience conclude this chapter. Professionals, especially those with long experience in civil service and legislation, are usually not very enthusiastic when confronted with proposals for

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improving documents. In their view, minor changes at sentence and word level will be insufficient to make a document readable, so in many cases the restyling has, as a side effect, content changes. For them, the real problem is not the language but the content: the documents have the same level of intricacy as the society. However, other professionals, those with long experience in public relations and counselling, argue that even minor changes can help or encourage citizens to cope with the intricate content of forms and letters. This controversy means that in research on redesign, it is not enough to look only at the formulation. The content level also has to be taken into consideration. Another intriguing problem is the following. Applied research on institutional communication has resulted in many lists of advice concerning writing good documents. But employees faced with handbooks about style and structure are very rarely in situations that allow them to implement all of this advice in their writing. Even if it was possible to agree about what makes a well-designed document, it remains unclear how to transfer this knowledge to writers in the civil service. Many managers in governmental departments are painfully aware that bad writers will never become good writers. This is the reason that the quest for easy-to-apply rules is never-ending. Thus rules like ‘Always use always “inbetween” headings in a long letter’ or ‘Use pictures whenever possible’ can be considered as a sort of document ‘make-up’. But poorly written documents may need such make-up. If they look better with some in-between headings and pictures, perhaps the improved look gives readers some support as they attempt to cope with the content. From these two problems it can be deduced that in redesigning documents, content, structure and presentation each play a role in document design. One of the most challenging research problems is determining how these levels interact with the level of formulation. Redesigning documents is one thing, but the redesign is of little use if it does not improve understanding. Over the past decades, research on document quality has focussed mainly on text evaluation. For example, readers might be asked to fill in seven-point scales or to be videoed thinking aloud while filling in a form. However, text evaluation is only one aspect. Research into real understanding seems more important: how many mistakes are made while filling in the old versus the new version of a form? A form with a photograph, for example, could be evaluated as more attractive than a form without pictures, but if the new version allows as many mistakes as the old version, how can the extra costs for the design of a renewed document be justified? Furthermore, document quality cannot be defined only from the perspective of the receiver. If producing better documents costs the sender more time and money, then the possible benefits for the receiver could be neutralized by the drawbacks for the sender. Hence, research into document quality cannot be

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents

confined to only ‘assessment research’. Economic research is also needed, for example, to question whether a renewed document results in more or fewer phone calls or face-to-face contacts in which citizens ask for more information. It could easily be the case that plain information prompts citizens to ask further, detailed questions. The extra costs for the sender could neutralize the benefits to the receiver. A commonly neglected aspect of document quality is the image of the sender. Even when a renewed document does not result in a better evaluation and understanding, or fewer mistakes or phone calls, a new document could be preferred if it helps create a better image of the government. If readers judge the government to be more reliable or less bureaucratic after reading a renewed document, this could encourage them to make an extra effort when filling in more difficult forms in future.

A framework for design and quality research The CCC model On the basis of comments made by experts and laypeople in discussions on document quality, the CCC model has been developed (see Renkema 2001) in which fifteen evaluation points are presented within a coherent, hierarchical whole. Table 10.1 The CCC model as a general framework Correspondence

Consistency

A. Type

1. Appropriateness

B. Content

4. Sufficient information 5. Agreement between facts

C. Structure

7. Sufficient coherence

D. Wording

10.Appropriate wording 11.Unity of style

E. Presentation 13.Appropriate layout

2. Purity of genre

Correctness 3. Application of genre rules 6. Correctness of facts

8. Consistent structure 9. Correct linking words

14.Layout adapted to text

12.Correct syntax and choice of words 15.Correct spelling and punctuation

This model is based on three criteria: correspondence, consistency, and correctness. The first criterion, correspondence, is the most important. Good ‘correspondence’ means that the sender achieves a goal and the document fills a need for the receiver. That goal could be presenting information, presenting a

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good image, diminishing mistakes in forms, having lower costs in contacts with clients, etc. And of course, the needs of the reader could be getting information, hearing arguments for or against something, being directed (through an operating instruction), etc. Therefore, the quality of a document is to a great extent based on the interplay — the correspondence — between sender goals and receiver needs. When searching for the balance between sender and receiver, we have various choices. This explains the second criterion: consistency. The quality of a document is also affected by the sender’s ability to maintain the choices made (e.g. a principle of structure, a manner of wording, layout, etc.). The third criterion, correctness, requires the document to contain no mistakes, whether in content or in form; for example, the document should not contain any false information or incorrect word choice(s). The three criteria are applied to the five levels that can be distinguished in document analysis: document type, content, structure, wording, and presentation. The CCC model thus contains fifteen evaluation points that can be used with any document type. The evaluation points have to be worked through from top to bottom and from left to right, to reflect their organization according to the relative weight they have in a ‘default’ communication situation. This means, for example, that if a response letter turns out not to be the appropriate means of communication, evaluation after the first point of evaluation under document type is useless, and if the letter is lacking in quality of content, then evaluation of the wording will have to be postponed until the content has been improved.

The CCC model at work For the purpose of illustration, here is a short explanation based on a general and well-known type of document, the response letter. A. Type 1. Appropriateness A response letter is only appropriate if a letter is really needed. If the question is not clear or if further consultation is necessary, a response by telephone is to be preferred. 2. Purity of genre If a letter contains a lot of background information that is of only secondary importance to the question, a short response letter with reference to enclosures or other documents would be a better solution. 3. Genre rules A letter has to contain a salutation, a signature, Internet address, etc. and a phone number for further contact.

Figure 10.1 The CCC model, implemented for a response letter (continued on p. 177)

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents (Figure 10.1 continued)

B. Content 4. Sufficient information The letter should adequately answer the questions that were asked, and should not contain irrelevant information. 5. Agreement between facts The letter should not be self-contradictory. 6. Correctness of facts The answers given should be correct. C. Structure 7. Sufficient coherence If the ordering of paragraphs is illogical, or if the connection between sentences is unclear, the letter scores low on coherence. 8. Consistent structure A letter should not change structure halfway through (e.g. consistent use of one paragraph per question). 9. Correct use of linking words For example, if therefore is used, the link with the previous sentence should be clear. D. Wording 10. Appropriate wording Sentence structure and choice of words must be neither too difficult nor too easy. Also, a middle course has to be steered between too much terseness and longwindedness, between too formal and too familiar. The quality of a document is also negatively influenced if the author fails to strike the proper tone. Addressing the reader patronizingly or arrogantly has repercussions for the transmission of information. 11. Unity of style Once the author has decided on a certain style (e.g. formal wording), no words should be inconsistent with that style (e.g. a very informal word). 12. Correct syntax and choice of words The document should not contain sentence fragments or run-on sentences, incorrectly used prepositions, etc. E. Presentation 13. Appropriate layout Because receivers are exposed to an abundance of information these days, the way a message is presented is becoming increasingly important. The quality of a document is negatively influenced if the layout of the document fails to support the goal of the sender or if the receiver’s attention is distracted from the main content. 14. Adaptation of layout to document The layout is maladapted to the document if, for instance, extra blank lines or tables do not support the content. 15. Correct spelling and punctuation The document should be spelled and punctuated correctly.

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The CCC model and the fixed order of five times three evaluation points results in a systematic and well-reasoned framework for document design and quality research. This is an important improvement over more subjective and unsystematic analyses, in which it is very often unclear according how documents have to be (re)designed.

The function of the model In the CCC model, the quality assessment of a document is based mainly on the correspondence between sender and receiver. Not only are the goals of the sender important but also the needs or expectations of the reader. In a response letter, the sender’s goal is, of course, that the questions are answered adequately. The time this takes is part of the quality of the interaction. In other words, effectiveness is more than just ‘sufficient information’ or ‘clear wording’ but provokes the appropriate response. Thus effectiveness can also mean that the document is worded in such a way as to show that the institution sending the document is reliable, provides room for negotiation, or makes clear that in future the client will have other opportunities to contact the sender. Thus the term effectiveness connects to many different aspects of what is vaguely referred to as ‘communicative quality’. This has many aspects, and the CCC model provides only a framework for a reasoned overview of those that might affect effectiveness. The most important factor in effective communication is ‘type’ or ‘means of communication’. For instance, if a brochure is considered sufficient to achieve a change in attitude, or if management thinks a short information film will suffice when a merger lies ahead, it makes almost no sense to consider any other means of communication. If in those instances one were to consider other means of communication, the norms for effective communication would be sinned against ‘on the highest level’. The model also makes it clear that content is in fact much more important for effective communication than its structure or presentation. If research into effective communication is limited to comprehensible or attractive wording or good presentation, then only the exterior of the message is considered. It goes without saying that communication will become less effective if the presentation is deficient or if the wording is less than ideal, but such imperfections are much more superficial, and therefore easier to correct than, for example, faulty content. The CCC model makes it possible to check which factors can influence effectiveness per document type or means of communication. For a response letter, for instance, evaluation point 3, genre rules, not only means that the letter has to meet the general demands of the genre, but it should also indicate how quickly an inquirer should receive an answer. Similarly, evaluation point 4, sufficient information should include which information the receiver should

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents

get, etc. The CCC model in fact serves as a checklist in which all the different aspects of effectiveness are related to one another. However, the CCC model does not solve the problem of quality assessment. The model only points out the factors that have to be focused on in quality research. In the most important column, the column of correspondence, the evaluation points contain such words as sufficient or appropriate, without mentioning the criteria used to determine whether something is sufficient or appropriate. An external measure to determine effectiveness is therefore still needed. For evaluation point 4, concerning content, such an external measure could be formed by the judgement of the readers (on whether the questions that were asked have indeed been answered) and, with respect to the question of whether all necessary information has indeed been given, by the judgement of experts. Thus the CCC model serves as a general framework for design and quality research; its application to two research projects is described below.

Improving a tax form In many societies the national tax department is criticized for ‘inefficient’ or ‘overly difficult’ forms. Often, attempts are made to improve these forms. A good example is a tax form in The Netherlands through which elderly people have the possibility to reduce their payments because of special expenses related to chronic illness. Following is one example of such a possibility.

Expenses for clothing and linens Did you have extra expenses for clothing and linens as a result of an illness or disability in the past calendar year? If this illness or disability lasted longer than a year, you can declare a fixed amount, also if your expenses were less than this amount. For a whole year this amount is 310 per person. But if the expenses you incurred were higher than 620 you can declare a fixed amount of 775. You can declare an amount for your spouse as well if he/she was ill or disabled for longer than a year.

Figure 10.2 Excerpt from a Dutch tax form

The form designers of the tax department wanted to make this form more accessible. They added information (the content level) and a photograph (the presentation level). The added information contained a general example based on the situation of an ‘average taxpayer’. This information concluded with a question, answered by the person in the photograph. This redesign was inspired by the new communication style of the Dutch tax department, focusing on an image with the key concepts nearness and familiarity.

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Table 10.2 A section of the tax form, with example and photograph Extra expenses for clothing and linens as a result of a long illness Example

photograph

Mrs. Tamminga: ‘In April 2006 I became seriously ill. I’m much better now, luckily. But from the beginning of 2007 up to and including May I was in a wheelchair. Because of that I spent 235 on alterations and wear of my clothes. Can I declare these expenses?’

Anja Tulp of the TaxPhone: ‘Mrs. Tamminga was ill for more than a year, five months of which was in 2007. In that period, she had extra expenses. She can declare a fixed amount for these expenses. This amount is 310 per year per person. In Mrs. Tamminga’s case it concerns five months. So: 5/12 ✕ 310 = 0130.’

Did you have extra expenses for clothing and linens as a result of an illness or disability in 2007? If this illness of disability lasted longer than a year, you can declare a fixed amount, also if your expenses were less than this amount. For a whole year this amount is 310 per person. But if the expenses you incurred were higher than 620 you can declare a fixed amount of 775. You can declare an amount for your spouse as well if he/she was ill or disabled for longer than a year. The fixed amount for extra expenses for clothing and linens in 2005, for you and your spouse: ___.00

The real functioning of a form In this research (for a fuller presentation, see van Wijk and Arts, 2008) four versions of a form were used: (a) the original version, (b) a version with only examples added, (c) a version with only photographs added, and (d) a version with examples and photographs added. Each version was presented to eighty people belonging to the target group of the form (elderly people). They were asked to fill in an enquiry containing questions about their attitude to tax forms, the image of the tax department and several other questions, in order to make it possible to link results to characteristics of respondents. One of the most important tasks for them was to use one of the four versions of the form to help them answer a question about a special case. This case (see Figure 10.3) had been designed in collaboration with form designers and tax employees, all professionals who agreed that the case was easy to handle.

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents The case As of last summer, Mr. and Mrs. Pieters had been married for 36 years. Mr. Pieters is 67 years old and enjoys his retirement; Mrs. Pieters is 57 years old and has been happily working for many years in the office of a sawmill. In January 2006, she had to undergo complicated thyroid gland surgery. Because of complications, her recovery took much longer than expected. All in all, she was on sick leave for more than a year. She was not able to work in the first three months of 2007 but she did work the remainder of the year. In the first quarter of 2007, Mrs. Pieters spent 240 for extra clothing and linens. Assignment Determine for the question on the form about ‘Extra expenses for clothing and linens as a result of a long illness’ which amount Mr. Pieters should declare.

Figure 10.3 The case and assignment

After handling this case the respondents were asked to fill in a questionnaire and to rank the document’s overall quality, informativeness, attractiveness, and need for information. Before starting this research, professionals (tax employees, form designers, PR consultants) were asked about their expectations. Their responses were: 1. Content quality About 70 percent of the respondents will give the right answer ( 77.50) for the case. 2. Overall quality The report marks will be higher for the added versions than for the original one, and about two percentage points higher for the full version (d). 3. Informativeness The versions with added examples will be judged higher on informativeness than the version without examples. 4. Attractiveness The versions with added photos will be judged higher on attractiveness than the version without photographs. 5. Need for information The versions with added examples will have a lower score on need for information than the versions without examples.

Form testing The first and most important question was whether citizens were able to give the right answer in a case the professionals saw as easy. The results (Table 10.3) are shocking. All versions performed far below the estimated 70 percent. If we have a closer look at this part of the form (see Table 10.2), we can see that the

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information that was meant as additional is, in fact, necessary to give the correct answer: it is not the total amount of 310, but only three months, i.e. a quarter of this amount, 77.50. But even with the example, the percentages of correct answers are only 24 and 29 percent. The original and redesigned versions show no difference in the percentage of totally wrong answers. Table 10.3 Content quality: Answers to the case related to versions (percentages)

Correct Almost correct Understandably wrong Totally wrong

Text only

Text and example

Text and photo

Text plus photo and example

3 0 44 53

24 0 15 61

3 0 49 48

29 0 17 54

In fact the basic question posed in this research could be answered with this finding, but there were even more interesting results. The professionals expected readers to prefer the versions with photo and example and so give these a higher mark than the original one, about two points higher for the full version. This did not happen. It is remarkable that adding an example or a photo had no effect at all, and that adding both created only a slightly significant difference. It is probable that readers saw the example alone as ‘more of the same’ and the photo alone as irrelevant. Table 10.4 Overall quality: Scores related to versions (min. 1, max. 10) Text only

Text and example

Text and photo

Text plus photo and example

6.07

5.93

6.29

6.88 *

Note: * means significant difference based on paired comparison

To our amazement we found no significant differences for informativeness (Table 10.5). All versions produced an evaluation just above the middle of the seven-point scale. It is possible that the layout of the form (see Table 10.2) is responsible for this result. Citizens who must fill in this form start reading somewhere. If they start with the example, the reaction possibly could be, ‘Oh, this does not refer to my situation’, and they consider the example as something that can be skipped. Hence evaluation of informativeness is mainly based on the comment below the example, and the photo.

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents

Table10.5 Informativeness: Evaluation on three aspects related to versions (min. 1, max. 7)

Useful Handy Clear

Text only

Text and example

Text and photo

Text plus photo and example

4.53 4.65 4.05

4.63 4.85 4.17

4.66 4.66 4.31

4.57 4.81 4.43

The fourth question on attractiveness also produced interesting results (see Table 10.6). Adding a photo did not have the expected effect, significantly lower scores on ‘tedious’ or ‘boring’. There was only an effect on ‘colourful’. The addition of an example alone had no effect. This can be explained in the same way as before: the examples were probably skipped in filling in this form. However, if the example was made more interesting by adding the photo, then there was an effect, not only in comparison with the version without example and photo but also in comparison with the version with only an example. These results suggest that a combined approach of adding information with an example and adding some personalization in a photo could be a method for achieving higher attractiveness. Table 10.6 Attractiveness: Evaluation of ‘vivacity’ (min. 1, max. 7)

Colourful Varied Tedious Boring

Text only

Text and example

3.54 3.60 4.13 4.36

4.00 3.79 3.98 4.35

Text and photo

Text plus photo and example

4.30 * 3.80 3.95 4.12

4.81 * e 4.70 * e p 3.21 * e p 3.53 * e

Note: Significance is based on paired comparison. * marks significant difference compared to original version (no photo, no example), e marks a significant difference from versions with an example, and p with a photo.

The last question refers to the need for information. It was expected that the versions with examples had a lower score on the need for extra contact. The respondents answered this question both before and after filling in the form. Thus, in the pre-measurement, the question refers to a general attitude, and in the post-measurement, to possible differences as a result of that version of the form. The scores in Table 10.7 indicate the difference between ‘yes, before’ and ‘no, after’.

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Table 10.7 Need for information: Differences between post- and pre-measurement (in percent)

To fill in the form I need extra information

Text only

Text and example

Text and photo

Text plus photo and example

-8.5

-4.9

-30.0

-31.1

Remarkably, the photo, but not the example, has an effect. After a version with a photo, the percentage of respondents that need extra information decreases by about 30 percentage points. It may be that adding a photo has a reassuring effect. This research indicates that even the redesigned version is insufficient although it does have some effect on overall quality and attractiveness. This research also shows that adding information may not have the expected effect on the need for information.

Improving an official letter In developed societies, citizens receive during their life many official letters concerning a variety of topics: extension of a passport, dealing with household garbage, regulations on parking lots etc. For our next project, we researched ten such letters but in this chapter present only the results of one, a passport renewal letter (see, for further information, van Wijk and Arts, 2008). The letter about passports starts like this: Dear Mr/Mrs . . . , It appears from our records your passport or identity card will expire on February 1, 2007. You need a valid document (passport or Dutch identity card) in order to travel abroad or to prove your identity. A passport or identity card is valid for a period of five years. For considerable time it is not allowed to travel abroad with an expired passport or identity card. Also you are obliged to deliver your expired travel document(s) at the council. In case of loss always an official report signed by the Dutch police must be submitted.

Figure 10.4 Original letter

The letter with this opening was considered too wordy by the professionals. The rewritten version starts like this:

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents Dear Mr/Mrs . . . , On February 1 2007 your passport or Dutch identity card will expire. You need this document for travelling or identification. Therefore, apply for a new document in due time! A passport or Dutch identity card is valid for five years. If you want to apply for a new document you have to show your current travel documents and identity cards.

Figure 10.5 Revised letter

The differences between these two versions are striking. However, is the new version better than the old one? Why would a city council spend money to use plain language in a situation in which it is unclear whether it is successful? And how do we measure success? These questions were the trigger for the second research study.

The real functioning of a letter As in the previous example, in this research four different versions were used: (a) the original version, (b) a version with headings, (c) the rewritten version, and (d) the rewritten version with headings. The reason for inserting headings was a practical one. If headings alone would result in a higher quality, why would officials spend so much time and money in improving a text on the level of wording? In addition, there was a more theoretical question. Inserting headings is a kind of ‘text make-up’, a change at the lowest level of the CCC model, ‘presentation’. We wanted to see how influential changes at this level would be. Because the main aim of letters like the passport letter is to be understood, we measured possible differences in understanding, and evaluated the differences in wording. Apart from these topics, there was a specifically local concern. Many city councils in The Netherlands want to establish (or improve) their image, and have been investing in ‘house style’ (creating consistency in document appearance and projecting an overall image) and communication projects. They generally believe that there is a positive relation between citizen compliance and the image of the city council. Probably the most important reason to improve communication is economic: a good letter should diminish requests for further information, thus reducing phone calls and visits to the city hall. For us, this meant five questions had to be answered: 1. Text understanding: Do the four versions differ in text understanding? 2. Overall quality: Do the four versions differ in report marks? 3. Wording: Do the four versions differ in evaluation of style? 4. Image: Do the four versions differ in image?

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5.

Need for information: Do the four versions differ in need for further information? Professional expectations were not unanimous. Some employees believed the differences were too small to have any positive result. Others believed that text make-up alone (i.e. adding headings to the letter) would have the same effect as differences in wording. The research was conducted following the same design as the first study. Each of the four versions was presented to eighty citizens living in the city which produced the letter.

The results of letter testing In order to test their understanding, respondents had to answer yes/no questions about the letter, including ‘A citizen can get a new passport five days after request’. An answer was coded +1 if it was correct and the respondent was sure about the answer, and -1 if the answer was false and the respondent was sure about the answer, and responses were averaged (see Table 10.8). Table 10.8 Text understanding: Correctness of answers (min. -1, max. +1) Original version

Original with headings

Reformulation

Reformulation with headings

0.82

0.85

0.63

0.76

The average scores for the different versions showed no significant differences: the question was answered rather well for all versions. Thus, the difference in wording did not result in better understanding. This suggests that reformulation was in fact not needed, and that a better layout (with headings) had no effect. However, research into overall quality showed that differences in wording did have an effect (Table 10.9). Table 10.9 Overall quality scores (min. 1, max. 10) Original version

Original version with headings

Reformulation

Reformulation with headings

6.20

6.91 *

6.74 *

7.24 * r

Note: Significance is based on paired comparison. * means difference with original version; r means difference with the reformulation.

The reformulation increased overall quality by about half a point. Remarkable here is that only adding headings also gives a significant difference, even between the two reformulated versions. This overall assessment can be disaggregated by the third question on wording (Table 10.10).

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents

Table 10.10 Wording: Evaluation of the style related to versions (min. 1, max. 7)

Clear Orderly Vague Messy

Original version

Original version with headings

4.31 4.08 3.68 3.62

4.80 4.82 * 3.63 2.94

Reformulation

Reformulation with headings

5.09 * 4.78 * 3.10 3.34

5.35 * 5.50 * oh r 2.87 * oh 2.41 * r

Note: Significance is based on paired comparison. * means difference with original version, oh means difference with original plus headings, and r difference with reformulation.

The reformulation affected clearness and orderliness, despite not being considered less vague or messy. Not surprisingly, adding headings also has an effect on orderliness. The effect of combining both wording and presentation was remarkable. The fourth version shows differences in all four aspects. Adding headings to the reformulation was more effective than adding them to the original version: there were more differences between this version and the original with headings and the reformulation. To measure how the document might affect the goal of the city to be seen as more helpful, we asked respondents to fill in the same questionnaire before and after reading the letter. Because interpreting these results meant comparing them to some standard, they were compared with the results obtained in the first research: the Dutch tax form (see Table 10.11). Table 10.11 Image: Scores for image (min. 1, max. 7)

Client-centred Reliable Bureaucratic

Pre-measurement

Comparison pre-post

Comparison Tax Office

4.66 4.68 5.14

-.12 -.11 -.06

+26 * -.43 * -.27 *

Note: * means a significant difference *next to number

The most important result, not shown in this table, was that in image, there were no differences among the four versions. It is most likely that the differences between the versions of only one letter were not extreme enough to change the image of a municipality. The pre-measurement showed a rather positive outcome for client orientation and reliability, and a slightly negative result for bureaucracy. After reading the letter, in any version, the image remained more or less the same. Compared with the score of the tax office, the municipality had a higher score on client orientation and a lower one on reliability. The lower score on

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bureaucracy means that the tax office is considered to be more bureaucratic than the municipality. Our last research question refers to the need for further information. Unlike our first study, the respondents were asked after reading a version about the degree of likelihood in making a phone call for information (Table 10.12). Table 10.12 Need for information: Likelihood of making contact related to version (0 = certainly not, 1 = yes, certainly)

I will call for extra information

Original version

Original version with headings

Reformulation

Reformulation with headings

0.42

0.41

0.19 * oh

0.30

Note: Significance is based on paired comparison. * means difference with original version; oh means difference from the original version with headings.

Here, the likelihood of asking for more information diminishes remarkably with the reformulation, by about twenty percentage points. The headings seem to have no influence here. However, a combination of reformulation and headings results in an insignificantly higher chance on making contact. So, if a municipality wants to reduce time-consuming contacts with citizens, the headings could be deleted.

Conclusion What can be concluded from these two examples of quality research into governmental documents? Let us first go back to the framework of the CCC model. In this model, the level of content is estimated to be far more important than the levels of structure, wording and presentation. This was the reason that understanding the content was made the cornerstone in both projects. The documents in this research were too short to investigate structural variety, but the levels of wording and presentation could easily be dealt with: the formulation of the passport letter and the presentational variants with photos in the tax form and headings in the passport letter.

Content research In testing redesigned documents, the ultimate proof of quality is in their efficiency. For forms, this means the ease with which they elicit correct answers; for letters

Improving the Quality of Governmental Documents

it means understanding the message. Both projects show that redesigning had no effect on this level of content. For the tax form, the number of correct answers was amazingly low. Our advice based on this research was to rearrange the information in the tax form at the structural level. This project was especially interesting because the redesigners had put in more content but obviously more ‘bad content’ or content that tended to be ignored (the examples). A reformulation is only successful if more readers can get the information they need. In the case of the passport letter, the reformulation could be questioned because understanding of the letter was not improved. Once one is certain that the right type of document has been chosen, research into document quality has to start with the content.

Effects of redesign In both projects, respondents were asked to rank the document they had just read on a scale, without the possibility of comparing the current document with one they have already seen. The changes in rating show that the designers are on the right track: adding examples or photos or improving the style resulted in a higher mark. However, if the original versions receive a high score, then the conclusion could also be that the original version was not that bad. A better procedure could have been to first pre-test the original document in order to detect the exact problems. Then, maybe, adding an example in the tax form would not have been necessary, or reformulation alone in the passport letter would have been seen as only a superficial change to increase attractiveness.

Levels of changes In both projects, changes on a higher level in the CCC model — the content (in the tax form) and the formulation (in the passport letter) — were combined with changes in the level of presentation: adding a photo or a heading. In both cases, changes had more effect in combination. This means that ‘text make-up’ is a strong factor. This result also offers ammunition in discussions about the superficiality of layout, since even changes at this ‘lowest level’ can improve documents to a certain extent.

Economic aspects In both projects, respondents were asked about their plans to make contact with the government after reading a document. This aspect of our research could gain considerable importance in the debate about the pros and cons of redesign. Opponents have argued that the costs of adding photos or restyling documents

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are too high if citizens also have the opportunity to ask for extra help. From the point of view of the sender, a new document is only more effective if it can reduce the need for expensive infrastructure for giving help or advice by telephone or face-to-face contact. In both projects, it appears that the need for additional information diminished by about twenty percent. Financial experts in the municipality calculated the possible savings this represents. The average costs of a phone contact between a citizen and an employee (in Dutch society) is about 4.50. The passport letter in this municipality alone is sent yearly to about 100,000 citizens. If a new, reformulated version of the passport letter reduces the estimated chance of making a phone call by about twenty percent, then the savings could be as high as 90,000 annually. This type of research can only be conducted in a creative collaboration between academics and the civil service. The starting point was the problems of government employees. Based on an academic approach with a fully fledged apparatus for testing forms, the research questions could only be dealt with in an infrastructure in which the government made it possible to conduct ecologically valid research with respondents belonging to the target group of the document. The case for the tax form could only be developed with tax experts, and the economic aspects could only be put in focus through the work of financial experts. This combined academic and professional approach is a promising one to improving the quality of governmental documents.

11 Politeness, Power and Control: The Use of Humour in Cross-cultural Telecommunications Hans J. Ladegaard

Humour serves a variety of functions in discourse. The obvious function is sheer entertainment: people incorporate in their discourse humorous elements — such as jokes, or puns, riddles or funny stories —in order to amuse and entertain. Research on same-sex talk, for example, has found that young male speakers often use ‘competitive humour’ (current speaker has to outdo previous speaker in telling jokes or narratives which are perceived as funnier), the function of which is to entertain and compete for the upper hand in the group (see Holmes 2006; Ladegaard, forthcoming a). Another obvious function of humour is solidarity; humour is used in a group to maintain a feeling of solidarity among ingroup members and to mark the group off from possible outgroups. This is one of the reasons why humour is so context-bound. Humorous remarks, which are considered hilarious and lead to amusement and laughter in a group, may appear obscure — and not funny at all — to outsiders, because they play on social routines and cultural norms and conventions which are unique for a group. Linstead (1988) argues that the use of humour is complex and paradoxical and reflects many of the difficulties we experience in other areas of social life. It can be seen, for example, as ‘a device utilised by individuals for coping with uncertainty, exploring ambiguous situations, releasing tension or distancing unpleasantness’ (123). He further argues that, through the many functions it performs, and through the symbolic alignments it makes possible, humour is an intrinsic part of organizational life. In one of the early studies of the use of humour in the workplace, Turner (1973, 43) identified uses of the ‘joking mode’ in the industrial subcultures he studied as a way to ‘test the atmosphere, to disarm accusations of failure or stupidity, and to deliver unpalatable or potentially unpalatable messages with a softened impact’ (cited in Linstead 1988, 125). And in a more recent study of the use and functions of humour in the workplace,

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Holmes (2000, 159–60) argues that humour can be an important management strategy. It can be used as ‘a way of attenuating or reinforcing power relationships. Humour can be used to reduce inequalities between those of different professional status, alternatively it can be used to emphasize power imbalances, or even to license challenges to status hierarchies.’ Research on the use and importance of humour in the workplace has been burgeoning in recent years, and there is ample evidence to show that humour in workplace settings is truly multifunctional. Much of the research demonstrates — from a sociological and/or psychological perspective — the general benefits of using humour in the workplace; it shows that humour, through a variety of functions, serves as a lubricant which makes work processes, intercollegial negotiations, and even production run more smoothly. Numerous studies have demonstrated that humour has a positive effect on maintaining a good relationship among colleagues, i.e. as a way of ‘doing collegiality’ (see, for example, Brown and Keegan 1999; Holmes 2000, 2006). Other studies have established a relationship between humour and increased productivity (see, for example, Caudron 1992). Humour has also been seen as an essential tool for effective leadership (see, for example, Cooper 2002; Holmes 2007). Other studies have shown that humour has an effect on job satisfaction (e.g. Decker 1987; Susa 2002), and it has been seen as an effective means of avoiding or resolving conflicts among employees (see, for example, Fry 1992; Dzodin 1998; Smith et al. 2000). It is remarkable, however — at least from a sociolinguistic perspective — that relatively little research on the use and functions of humour in the workplace is based on recordings of authentic interactions in professional contexts. Only recently have we seen researchers turn to recordings and systematic analyses of workplace interactions (see, for example, Holmes 2000, 2006, 2007; Vuorela 2005; Rogersen-Revell 2007), whereas an overwhelming amount of humourresearch is based on self-reported data such as questionnaires and interviews (e.g. Cooper 2002; Susa 2002; Miczo and Welter 2006 ), or analyses of simulated situations such as role-plays (e.g. Dzodin 1998; see also Fant 1992 for a discussion of the use of simulated situations for research purposes). However interesting these studies may be, they rely on employees’ (or students’) beliefs about humour, and how they think they and other people use it. Therefore, we need to direct more attention to analyses of humour in authentic, real-life situations and contexts, including cross-cultural contexts. This chapter offers an analysis of the use and functions of humour in crosscultural telecommunications. The data for the analysis consists of an audiorecording of a teleconference between employees in the headquarters of a global business corporation in Denmark and their colleagues in the company’s subsidiary in the UK. The employees have a joint project, run by the company’s HQ in Denmark, and the purpose of the telephone conference is to discuss the status

Politeness, Power and Control

and progress of the project, focusing on how the project findings can be implemented on the British market. Strategies in relation to sales, logistics, finance, and change management are being discussed during the meeting. Humour is used rather frequently, and the purpose of the analysis is to identify the various functions of humour in this cross-cultural context. First, the chapter provides a brief review of the literature, focusing on the use of humour in cross-cultural contexts. Second, we present and discuss some of the excerpts from the telephone conference where humour plays a significant role in the employees’ negotiations. Finally, we discuss how humour can be used constructively in cross-cultural business communication.

Humour in cross-cultural communication Husband (1988, 149) points out that ‘the stimuli which are potentially humorous and, indeed, the significance attached to the possession of “a sense of humour” clearly vary with culture’. If we follow Husband’s argument, we might expect that humour is not a predominant feature in cross-cultural communication. Professional communicators, for example, may refrain from using humour because they suspect that members outside their own national culture may not understand the hidden implications of a humorous remark and thus miss the communicative intent. However, recent research suggests that humour is by no means absent in cross-cultural communication. Rogersen-Revell (2007), for example, recorded and analyzed authentic business meetings in an Asian airline involving Western and Chinese staff. She found that humour was used extensively, and she argues it serves the function of a ‘double-edged sword’ which can be used to both positive and negative effect. Humour is used to ‘mark solidarity and cohesion, signal self-depreciation, enable people to contest their superiors, and bridge cultural differences’, but it can also be used to mark ‘exclusion and superiority, signal mockery and ridicule, mask criticisms, directives and aggression, and be culture-bound’ (Rogersen-Revell 2007, 24). The author is particularly concerned about the negative aspects of the use of humour in the intercultural workplace, i.e. how humour can be used by a powerful group (in this case, groups of Western male employees) to exercise power and control more legitimately and thus become more influential in meetings. Vuorela (2005) also found that the interrelationship between power and humour was an important issue in the multicultural business negotiations she recorded and analyzed. She compared sellers’ internal strategy meetings and sellers’ negotiations with potential customers, and she concluded that humour (which was employed much more frequently in the strategy meetings) seems to have strategic potential for negotiations. It was used to diffuse potential tension and mitigate offences and to introduce problematic issues. Individual team

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members used it to pursue their own goals. Joking about the national characteristics of the Finns (the parent company is Finnish), the project they are involved in and the selling activity were among the most common topics, and ironic exaggerations the most common type of humour. Irony, however, was used more cautiously. Bell (2007) studied the importance of humour in interaction between native and non-native speakers of English. She hypothesized that, because humour often carries implicit negative messages and therefore is potentially dangerous in intercultural communication, it was expected that attempts to be humorous might fail and cause offence. This turned out not to be the case, however. Humour did not seem to be a cause of conflict, because speakers made the appropriate adjustments and made situated interpretations of meaning. Taboo topics and other ‘risky’ forms of humour were avoided, and native speakers of English reported that they were careful about the vocabulary they used. Both groups appeared to appreciate the significance of the intercultural context and were willing, for example, to accommodate and to adopt an attitude of leniency. Davies (2003) reached a similar conclusion in her study of humour as collaborative discourse in cross-cultural communication. She also analyzed interaction between native and non-native speakers of English and found that joking was a joint activity between the participants. A prerequisite for successful outcome of the interaction was extensive scaffolding (Ellis and Roberts 1987) and interactional sensitivity, mutual focus of attention and shared context, and in effect, ‘a shared culture in microcosm which can then be used for extension of the joking frame’ (Davies 2003, 1381). In other words, humour is jointly constructed in discourse and constitutes a negotiated accomplishment between native and non-native speakers of English, and something which, ultimately, leads to a successful outcome of the interaction. We now turn to a brief outline of the study from which the data used in this chapter has been taken.

The study The telephone conference used for analysis in this chapter is part of a large-scale empirical project in which Danish business organizations and researchers collaborate on analyzing aspects of global communication.1 The idea behind the project is that companies identify authentic problems in their everyday global communication, and researchers observe, record and analyze these examples of real-life data in order to help solve specific communication problems, suggest improvements for the development of the company’s communication, and, ultimately, develop existing and new theoretical perspectives on global communication.

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The study was conducted in one of two IT support units of a large global company. The research group behind the Global Communications project approached a number of global business corporations in Denmark and enquired about their possible interest in participating in the project. The present company volunteered and suggested that the IT support unit would be the most appropriate place for data collection because of the employees’ heavy engagement in global communication. The company has sales companies in nearly forty countries and production companies in ten countries, and it employs some 8,500 people worldwide. Any request for IT support in subsidiaries across the world will go to one of the two IT support units. The Service Center where this study was conducted answers service calls from predominantly European subsidiaries, but frequently the employees participate in projects which involve communication with subsidiaries worldwide. This means we may characterize the employees’ communication as internal (because it is within the same company), as well as external (because it is international and cross-cultural) (see Ladegaard 2007 for a more detailed analysis of global communication in this company). The Global Communications Project IT Service Center consists of five types of data: an online questionnaire distributed to everybody in the department (requesting employees to describe the nature of their global communication, including possible problems); ethnographic observations (two fieldworkers spent about four weeks in the workplace, observing, talking to people, and taking extensive field notes); two focus group interviews (to give the respondents a venue for informal discussions and for sharing their work experiences); and finally recordings of meetings (including SameTime and teleconferences), interviews with selected members of staff, and analyses of randomly selected email messages. In this chapter, only one piece of data is analyzed: a teleconference between members of a project group in the Danish IT Service Center and a group of colleagues in the company’s subsidiary in the UK.

The participants There were ten people participating in the teleconference: six in Denmark and four in the UK. The project manager, Leo,2 who is also part of the management team of the Service Center, is in Denmark, and so is the project co-ordinator, Bo. The other project members in Denmark each represents one of the following areas: sales (Lukas), logistics (Jim), finance (Diana) and change management (Susan), and in the meeting, the participants go through each one of these areas of responsibility and report to the rest of the group what has been accomplished since their last meeting, and suggest possible problems for discussion. Five of the team members in Denmark are Danish, and one is from Eastern Europe.

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The four team members in the UK appear to be more all-round as far as their responsibilities are concerned. Three of the participants in the meeting are British; one (Jon) is Danish. He is normally part of the team in Denmark, but at the time of the teleconference, he was visiting the UK team to help them sort out particular problems in the roll-out process. The four UK team members are Neil, Irene, George and, at the time of the recording, Jon. The meeting is a so-called status-meeting between team members. The Danish team and the UK team are doing a roll-out project together in the UK market, and the purpose of the meeting is to update everybody on the progress that has been made and to discuss possible problems, procedures and future directions. The meeting lasts fifty-two minutes, and it is chaired by Leo, the project manager. Apparently, there is no written agenda, but Leo asks each project member to give an update to the rest of the group, outlining what has been accomplished since their last meeting. Possible problems are being discussed and future directions determined. The meeting was transcribed using the CHILDES transcription system. In the remaining part of this chapter, the data are presented and analyzed, focusing on the use and functions of humour.

Analysis of data Before we begin our data analysis, we propose a tentative definition of humour, as well as determining how instances of humour were identified in the data.

Definition of humour Defining humour is by no means a simple task. Studies of the mechanisms of humour and laughter are frequently categorized into two general groups. One group is related to the notion of Superiority Theory. People laugh at the errors committed by others because it gives them a feeling of superiority. The other group is related to Relief Theory, which argues that people laugh to get rid of accumulated nervous energy, a sort of release to repressed emotions (see Apte 1985 for a more detailed account; see also Grindsted 1997). Other studies identify essential components of humour, for example that it involves some degree of cognitive dissonance (e.g. incongruent relationships or meanings) (see, for example, Duncan and Feisal 1989), while other researchers focus on the speaker’s intentions, i.e. if she or he intended something to be funny, it is identified as an instance of humour (e.g. Pizzini 1991). Other studies focus on the hearer’s perspective, i.e. auditory clues such as laughter, and visual clues such as smiling, are taken as an indication that something is considered to be humorous (e.g. Norrick 1993).

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Holmes (2000) argues that another important factor, which is rarely considered in the literature, is the role of the analyst. In other words, the analyst’s identification of instances of humour, based on cues provided by the participants — such as laughter and tone of voice, but also other responses such as echoing, contradicting or joining in — constitutes and important component in the analytical process. For the purpose of this analysis, we therefore adopt the definition of humour proposed by Holmes (2000, 163): Instances of humour included in this analysis are utterances which are identified by the analyst, on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic and discoursal clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some of the participants.

The last part of Holmes’s definition — that humour must be recognized as amusing by at least some of the participants — means that attempts to be humorous which, for some reason, are not perceived as being humorous, or at least the humour is not recognized or acknowledged by other participants, for example in the form of laughter, will have to be excluded from our analysis. Excerpt 11.1 gives an example of a remark which was clearly intended by the speaker to be amusing but not recognized as such by the other participants. EXCERPT 11.1 (All the excerpts are quoted in verbatim.)3 Context: It has been decided by the company HQs that letters sent out by subsidiaries worldwide must have a new layout; this involves adopting a new format and using smaller envelopes. Using smaller envelopes, as Neil (UK) points out, is a problem for the British subsidiary because they have just produced a huge quantity of big envelopes which they cannot use. The topic of discussion is what they do with the old envelopes. Bo (DK) is the project co-ordinator, and Lukas (DK) and Susan (DK) are in charge of sales and change management respectively (the ‘he’ in lines 1 and 3 is presumably the CEO of the British subsidiary). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Neil: Bo: Neil: Lukas: Neil:

you’re on when he gets angry (.) yeah yeah (1.5) he gets very cross if we have to throw envelopes away (0.4) do you have a big stock of the big envelopes? (0.1) yeah (…) (5 turns left out) Susan: they can pay salaries with envelopes (0.8) Lukas: yeah (0.3)

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Susan’s remark in line 7 is clearly an attempt to be humorous; we know that, because the 5 turns left out are mainly humorous remarks (this passage is analyzed later) when Neil makes ironic suggestions about ways to get rid of the big envelopes. Susan joins in suggesting that the British staff can be paid in envelopes. It is not clear why Susan’s remark is not acknowledged as humorous. Susan is in Denmark, and it is possible that the UK participants cannot hear her clearly; this does not explain, however, why her colleagues in Denmark do not acknowledge her attempt to be humorous. Another example of humour which will be excluded from our analyses is illustrated in Excerpt 11.2. In this example, only the speaker laughs, but none of the other participants seem to appreciate the joke. EXCERPT 11.2 Context: Jim (DK), who is in charge of logistics, is explaining to Irene (UK) how new packing instructions should be implemented in the UK subsidiary. 1. Jim:

then we have some outstanding about packing instructions for PR 2. materials (…) 3. Irene: right okay (2.5) and there is a test scenario for that or? 4. Jim: no not yet (1.2) 5. Irene: but one will appear// I hear [laughing] 6. Jim: //yep it will appear 7. Irene: okay

It is possible that Irene’s remark is not meant to be funny at all, and that the laughter which follows is to be seen as a sign of embarrassment. Irene is performing a face-threatening activity (Brown and Levinson 1987), asking one of her superiors for a test scenario, which perhaps he should have developed by now. To soften her (indirect) criticism, she uses laughter as a mitigating device. The other possible interpretation of Irene’s remark is that she is challenging Jim. It is suggested in another part of the meeting that Jim is not always on time, and it may be that Irene is trying to joke about this, in which case her attempt fails because none of the other participants laugh or in other ways recognize that this should be a humorous remark. We now turn to an analysis of the examples of humour in the teleconference. The examples are analyzed using predominantly two approaches to discourse analysis: politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987) which focuses on facework and how face-threatening activities are avoided or mitigated, and discursive psychology (Potter and Wetherell 1987), in which the focus is on identifying social psychological phenomena in discourse, such as intergroup relationships, stereotypes and prejudice, and power relationships.

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Analysis: The functions of humour in a cross-cultural teleconference Linstead (1988) makes a distinction between two forms of humour: the standardized or ‘canned’ joke (more or less the same story, riddle or joke reappearing in many different contexts), and the situational or ‘spontaneous’ joke (the humour is not preplanned but occurs spontaneously out of the situation). As we might have expected, only the situational, spontaneous humour is found in our teleconference. The first couple of excerpts we look at are examples of humour which occurred spontaneously because of the medium of communication. EXCERPT 11.3 Context: At the very beginning of the meeting, the team members discussed some of the financial aspects of the project, and they are moving on to logistics, asking Jim (DK) to bring them up-to-date with the most recent developments. Leo (DK) is the project manager and Irene (UK) works for the UK office. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Leo: Jim: Leo: Jim: Lukas:

so can we take logistics then Jim? yeah sure okay hej (Danish for ‘hi’) hej [general laughter] Lukas: okay Leo: are [sic] Irene there now? Irene: are you okay? Leo: I’m great [general laughter]

The joke in this instance appears spontaneously, and the explanation is probably linguistic as well as technological. The Danish word for hi is pronounced /hai’/ (as opposed to the English pronunciation /ha:i/), and it is likely that Jim intended to greet his colleagues in the UK. Because his pronunciation sounds more Danish than English, Lukas, who is sitting right next to him in the meeting room in Denmark, greets him back in Danish. Lukas indirectly mocks his colleague’s pronunciation of English, and by greeting him back in Danish he makes a point of Jim’s mistake. This is an example of the multifunctionality of humour: it is used to signal solidarity and fun between colleagues, and it is used to contest and criticize (cf. Holmes 2006; Rogersen-Revell 2007). This is also supported by Grindsted (1997), who found that other-ridicule occurred very frequently in her analyses of Danish and Spanish negotiations. She argues that ‘we laugh from sudden glory at the errors committed by others because they enhance a feeling of superiority’ (162).

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The other possible explanation for the humour in Excerpt 11.3 is that the confusion is caused by the technology. The fact that this is a teleconference and the participants cannot see each other inevitably creates some confusion, and what we see in the conference is that the employees sometimes joke about this technological confusion. The fact that the UK office does not respond to Jim’s initial greeting causes Leo to ask specifically if Irene is there, and — possibly because of all the laughter — Irene’s initial response is not a greeting but a more concerned ‘are you okay?’ (line 9), suggesting that she has no idea what is going on. The next excerpt is also an example of a spontaneous humorous incident which might be caused by the medium. EXCERPT 11.4 Context: Lukas (DK), who in charge of sales, is explaining new procedures to the UK team, and Neil (UK) who is in charge of logistics in the UK responds. Leo (DK) is the project manager. 1. Lukas:

2. Neil: 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Lukas: Neil: Lukas: Leo: Lukas: Leo: Neil:

UMS: Lukas:

but it runs separately eh: (0.2) we don’t have to check the logistics steps eh: and the finance steps eh: again we’ve done that (1.7) there are a few people smiling over here when you said that (1.3) why? (0.6) [laughter] we don’t have to test it again [laughing] [laughing] no not the logistics steps and //the finance steps //but perhaps it’s a good idea to logistic test ‘cause (xxx)// //I didn’t say everyone was smiling I just said there were a few people smiling [general laughter] keep smiling hahaha keep smiling yes [general laughter]

Neil’s comment in line 3 about colleagues in the UK smiling when they were told they did not have to do logistics and finance tests again is clearly a result of the medium they are using for communication. Because the participants cannot see each other, it becomes necessary to provide visual cues orally. It is also interesting to see how Leo, the project manager, apparently disagrees and suggests they should do at least the logistics test again (lines 10–11). Neil uses another

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humorous remark — ‘I didn’t say everyone was smiling; I just there were a few people smiling’ (lines 12–13) — presumably to save face but also not to let the Danish colleagues win in this game of contestive humour. Lukas and an unidentified male colleague join in the fun in lines 15–16, and their final remark in this exchange ‘keep smiling’ can be seen as the Danish colleagues’ attempt to get the last word. They know that the rules are set by the Danish parent company, so this last remark could be seen as somewhat patronizing. This exchange is an example of employees ‘doing collegiality’ (Holmes 2000, 2006) but at the same time using contestive humour to ‘challenge, disagree with, or undermine the propositions or arguments put forward in earlier contributions’ (Holmes 2006, 33). In the next example, it becomes clear again who is in charge, in the project and in the company as such. EXCERPT 11.5 Context: Bo (DK), the project co-ordinator, is explaining new procedures for invoice quotations, and he is complaining that there is information missing from the UK office. He mentions that he sent a spreadsheet a month ago, but he still has not received the information he needs. Neil (UK) reassures him that he will get whatever he needs as soon as possible. Next, Irene (UK) joins the discussion, pointing out that there were problems with the files they received from Denmark. Leo (DK) is the project manager and Jim (DK) is in charge of logistics. 1. Irene: Bo could you send me the updated file please because I know the 2. original one that you sent about a month ago it did actually have some 3. errors in it you know there was some confusion about printer names 4. and so on so I think there has been some changes since then but if you 5. could// send me the most up-to-date one you have we’ll (xxx) 6. Bo: //yes 7. Leo: and I have one high request (0.3) don’t touch the printer at (xxx) 8. Irene: [laughing] 9. Leo: then they// will k 10. Irene: //we promise we //won’t [laughing] 11. Leo: //they will definitely kill me this time 12. Jim: yeah (0.2) 13. Irene: [laughing] 14. Jim: maybe we should then [laughing]

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15. Leo: 16.

then I’m out of here [general laughter]

Excerpt 11.5 is another example of the use of contestive humour, which other studies of humour in the workplace have documented (see, for example, Holmes 2000; Rogersen-Revell 2007). Irene, who works for the UK subsidiary, criticizes Bo, who works for the parent company and, furthermore, is the project coordinator. According to Irene’s initial comment (lines 1–5), Bo has sent her a file and ‘it did actually have some errors in it you know’ (lines 2–3). The mitigation (actually, you know) suggests that what Irene is doing here is potentially facethreatening, and Bo’s very brief response — ‘yes’ (line 6) — suggests that he might in fact be embarrassed. Leo’s remark in line 7 looks like an attempt to rescue Bo and at the same time get back at the UK team, here represented by Irene. The reference to high request is part of the register they use in the company: service requests to the company from employees worldwide can have low, medium or high urgency in regards to how quickly the requests should be dealt with. When Leo uses the term ‘high request’, he is saying that this should be taken seriously and be dealt with straight away. The stress on I, and on each of the words don’t, touch and printer, adds to the seriousness of the request, and the remark probably refers to a previous incident in which the UK team made a mistake with a printer, by the sounds of it a rather serious mistake since Leo points out he will be killed if it happens again (line 11). This exchange is a typical example of much workplace humour which, according to Holmes (2000, 169), ‘reflects shared background knowledge, experience and understandings’. The employees ‘reinforce their shared ingroup status with such exchanges’; they all know what Leo is talking about, as Irene’s response in line 10 clearly shows. Irene’s laughter could be seen as her attempt protect her own face in this potentially very face-threatening situation; humour becomes a sort of a self-defence or a coping strategy (Ziv 1984). Leo’s strategy, to use an ironic statement like ‘they will definitely kill me this time’ (line 11), is a common way for superiors to reduce the unacceptability of the face attack act he is involved in. Leo’s criticism or mocking of the UK team’s past mistake becomes acceptable because ironic humour is used ‘to attenuate a directive between people with unequal power’ (Holmes 2000, 172). Jim’s remark in line 14, ‘maybe we should then’ gives the exchange a surprising turn. So far, the employees have oriented themselves very much along the lines of ingroup and outgroup allegiances (cf. Tajfel 1982), i.e. the UK team versus the DK team, but in this excerpt, Jim seems to reside with his British colleagues against his boss. Again, humour is used to soften the blow in a face-threatening act — or, in this case, even an insult — and is a legitimate way for an inferior to challenge the

Politeness, Power and Control

power of his superior. The humour, carefully veiled in the comment ‘maybe we should then (i.e. touch the printer)’, provides a cover for a remark which would otherwise be considered highly inappropriate. Leo’s final remark ‘then I’m out of here’ (line 15), shows that he is playing along and again uses humour, in this case presumably as a face-saving strategy. In the next excerpt, we see a continuation of the power play, the use of contestive humour in an attempt to ‘do power’ less explicitly in a situation of power asymmetry. EXCERPT 11.6 Context: Irene (UK) has just given her state-of-affairs report and mentions that she needs to finish as soon as possible because today is her last day at work. This remark is picked up and questioned by Leo (DK), the project manager, in line 10. Lukas (DK) and Jim (DK) are in charge of sales and logistics respectively. 1. Irene: hopefully we’ll ah: settle it ah: finally ah: before (0.2) ah: ‘cause I’m 2. not in the office on Thursday and Friday tomorrow is actually my last 3. day here (0.2) 4. Lukas: okay 5. Irene: so I’m kind of hoping to have it finished by tomorrow night if I can 6. Lukas: yeah (0.2) yeah I know [name of colleague] is working on it ah: right 7. now (0.2) ah: but there is a slight difference ah: in the way that we are 8. going to run this ah: solution compared to ah: Germany and France 9. Irene: okay (0.4) 10. Leo: wait a just a moment you said this was your last day (1.0) 11. Irene: ah just for a couple of days I’m just taking a couple of days holiday but I mean 12. Leo: nåh: okay 13. [general laughter] 14. Leo: don’t give me this kind of surprises 15. [general laughter] 16. Irene: I don’t have any plans to go anywhere 17. UMS: don’t worry [laughing] 18. Jim: it’s the first time since the ah: summer party a couple of years ago I’ve 19. seen Leo get that pale 20. [general laughter]

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In this excerpt, Leo is again ‘doing being boss’. Irene says she is going away, and apparently Leo has not been informed of that. Irene’s initial turn (lines 1–3) suggests that she is in fact not particularly confident about revealing this information to the group; she uses hesitation markers (‘ah:’) excessively in this turn, and this is not at all typical for her style. In line 10, Leo is clearly questioning Irene’s unannounced leave — probably because he is worried about how she will fulfill her obligations to the project if she is leaving. When Irene reassures him it is just a couple of days, he is relieved and says — in Danish — ‘Nåh:’ (which, in this context, is a sign of relief which means something like ‘Oh, is that all’). His use of Danish here is clearly quite spontaneous, and the roar of laughter that follows could be either because Leo’s ‘doing being boss’ has failed — Irene is not leaving but just taking a couple of days off — or because his use of Danish here is unmotivated, obviously wrong, and maybe even embarrassing. As we saw in Excerpt 11.3, making mistakes (like using Danish pronunciation) is something that does not pass unnoticed. The employees make a point of mocking each other if they make language mistakes, even if it is the boss who is making the mistake. However, Leo is quickly focusing the attention on Irene again and gives her a very blunt directive, ‘don’t give me this kind of surprises’ (line 14). Again he is using humour to soften the blow. Jim concludes this exchange by, yet again, mocking his boss in lines 18–19. The humour appears to be bantering, but again, there is also an element of challenging Leo’s power by ‘gently’ humiliating him by referring to a summer party at which he also got very pale (possibly because he was drunk). Thus, again we see the multifunctionality of humour in the workplace. In the next example, we see how the employees cope with their inferior position by using humour to voice their protest and criticism. EXCERPT 11.7 Context: Same as in Excerpt 11.1. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Ne