Translating Cultures

Low Context communication means that all the communication is in the text.

Transactional / Interactional communication: when you take money out of a bank, that’s a transaction. How many

people are involved? How many feelings are involved? How personal is the action? When you’re at the hole in the wall

(ATM), do you talk to the ATM? No. Do you feel good or bad interacting with the ATM? Do you feel threatened in any

way, do you feel embarrassed? Do you feel like inviting the ATM out for dinner? Transactional communication is about

the transaction: feelings and emotions are not involved. It is emotional because you’re taking money out and this

might hurt, but between you and the machine is a transaction.

Interactional communication is not the same: is between people, is personal, it affects. You could get embarrassed, it

could be embarrassing, it could be nice, fun, it could be difficult. Everything related to the humans fear of

communicating. So the same thing: you want some money out of a cash machine, you just say 100, 50, 250… and you

just do that. So if I say 100 euros to a person and just press, is not the same. To get the money you have to interact

human-style. The language you use necessarily changes, because you’re not talking to a machine. The language of a

transaction doesn’t affect; the language of an interaction affects.

So what automatically comes into play when you have interactional communication? Politeness. You don’t feel the

need to say to the bancomat “Excuse me? Good morning. How are you? Did you sleep well last night? By the way, I’d

like to withdraw some money, please”. In the future we’ll start doing this: do you use Google talk on your phone? Do

you find yourself wanting to say “Hello, Google”? So, is becoming interactional. Google is interesting in its replays, it’s

prepared for impoliteness. And it’s fun in English.

Politeness is negative and positive. We don’t need it when we are dealing with a robot, but we need it when we do

something that involves a request, an invitation, feelings (there’s some subjectivity in it) and we know that it will

affect. So positive and negative.

Positive politeness: direct, straight in there.

Negative politeness: keeping distance.

Face threatening and Face saving action: if you’re communicating with a person, any communication is potentially

face threatening. Getting closer to somebody is potentially threatening. How do keep a positive face by using positive

or negative politeness? We all want a good face, to keep a good face you do things socially appropriate: in a doctor’s

waiting room or on a train, you sit next to somebody. What is the way to keep the other person’s face not threatened?

How do you made the other person happy, not threatened? There two different ways, that’s the joy of life:

•try to talk

•try not to talk

You’ve got two different ways of being polite, of saving somebody’s face:

•to include them and say “Lovely day. Have you been waiting long?” (Positive)

•to respect the distance and not get involved, and not say anything. (Negative)

With the negative you’ve got respect for these spaces; positive is respect for inclusion. You can feel threatened if

somebody talks to you and you can also feel threatened if they don’t talk to you: who are they? Why don’t they say

what they’re doing here? What don’t they acknowledge my presence? Positive and negative are both good according

to who you’re with, according to the culture, according to the situation as well. Sometimes the situation itself calls for

positive or for negative. More negative if there’s more hierarchy: you don’t automatically talk to the Queen. If you’re

with your family and you don’t talk, something very strange is going on. There are social situations, there are

hierarchical situations. If there’s an emergency, probably you need to be much positive, you need to include other

people. There are very many situations that dictate to be positive or negative, as well as cultures that prefers positive

or negative. In terms of language, negative and positive:

the most positive is called Bald on record, direct

the most negative is Off record, indirect. In business meetings means “fuori dal verbale”.

We have various ways to be bald on record or off record: excuse me, would you mind, I’m not sure if… we use these

forms and we call them what? How do you make something more negative, linguistically? What you add?

➢modals: it seems, it’s possible, could be rather than it is

➢third persons

➢honorifics

➢formal language

➢excuse me, hallo: fatics

➢passive forms: something has happened rather that you did something

Anteprima parziale del testo

Scarica Appunti "Translating cultures" e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!

Translating Cultures

Low Context communication means that all the communication is in the text. Transactional / Interactional communication : when you take money out of a bank, that’s a transaction. How many people are involved? How many feelings are involved? How personal is the action? When you’re at the hole in the wall (ATM), do you talk to the ATM? No. Do you feel good or bad interacting with the ATM? Do you feel threatened in any way, do you feel embarrassed? Do you feel like inviting the ATM out for dinner? Transactional communication is about the transaction: feelings and emotions are not involved. It is emotional because you’re taking money out and this might hurt, but between you and the machine is a transaction. Interactional communication is not the same: is between people, is personal, it affects. You could get embarrassed, it could be embarrassing, it could be nice, fun, it could be difficult. Everything related to the humans fear of communicating. So the same thing: you want some money out of a cash machine, you just say 100, 50, 250… and you just do that. So if I say 100 euros to a person and just press, is not the same. To get the money you have to interact human-style. The language you use necessarily changes, because you’re not talking to a machine. The language of a transaction doesn’t affect; the language of an interaction affects. So what automatically comes into play when you have interactional communication? Politeness. You don’t feel the need to say to the bancomat “Excuse me? Good morning. How are you? Did you sleep well last night? By the way, I’d like to withdraw some money, please”. In the future we’ll start doing this: do you use Google talk on your phone? Do you find yourself wanting to say “Hello, Google”? So, is becoming interactional. Google is interesting in its replays, it’s prepared for impoliteness. And it’s fun in English. Politeness is negative and positive. We don’t need it when we are dealing with a robot, but we need it when we do something that involves a request, an invitation, feelings (there’s some subjectivity in it) and we know that it will affect. So positive and negative. Positive politeness: direct, straight in there. Negative politeness: keeping distance. Face threatening and Face saving action : if you’re communicating with a person, any communication is potentially face threatening. Getting closer to somebody is potentially threatening. How do keep a positive face by using positive or negative politeness? We all want a good face, to keep a good face you do things socially appropriate: in a doctor’s waiting room or on a train, you sit next to somebody. What is the way to keep the other person’s face not threatened? How do you made the other person happy, not threatened? There two different ways, that’s the joy of life:

try to talk
try not to talk You’ve got two different ways of being polite, of saving somebody’s face:
to include them and say “Lovely day. Have you been waiting long?” (Positive)
to respect the distance and not get involved, and not say anything. (Negative) With the negative you’ve got respect for these spaces; positive is respect for inclusion. You can feel threatened if somebody talks to you and you can also feel threatened if they don’t talk to you: who are they? Why don’t they say what they’re doing here? What don’t they acknowledge my presence? Positive and negative are both good according to who you’re with, according to the culture, according to the situation as well. Sometimes the situation itself calls for positive or for negative. More negative if there’s more hierarchy : you don’t automatically talk to the Queen. If you’re with your family and you don’t talk, something very strange is going on. There are social situations, there are hierarchical situations. If there’s an emergency, probably you need to be much positive, you need to include other people. There are very many situations that dictate to be positive or negative, as well as cultures that prefers positive or negative. In terms of language, negative and positive: the most positive is called Bald on record , direct the most negative is Off record , indirect. In business meetings means “fuori dal verbale”. We have various ways to be bald on record or off record: excuse me, would you mind, I’m not sure if… we use these forms and we call them what? How do you make something more negative, linguistically? What you add? ➢ modals: it seems, it’s possible, could be rather than it is ➢ third persons ➢ honorifics ➢ formal language ➢ excuse me, hallo: fatics ➢ passive forms: something has happened rather that you did something

➢ vague language In general we call this Cushioning language , because it softens things. If you want to be more positive: ➢ imperative ➢ first person ➢ more direct ➢ more active forms ➢ possibly less formal language We looked this in the Quip emails, in the Saeco translation. In English and Italian we use different styles of communication: KISS and KILC KISS: keep it short and simple KILC: keep it long and complex (or complete) KISS has very much to do with positive politeness: direct, first person, transparency KILC has very much more to do with negative politeness because it’s longer, there’s more cushioning in it, usually. But KISS/KILC itself is not an indicator of high or low context: high context communication can be also KISS ( We are in SP7 , written on the blackboard). Generally KISS goes with low context, ideally, but there’s no reason why it should. We are in sp7 is so short, so direct that we need a lot of context to make it a message. If I wrote: “ STML 2, 8 o’ clock lesson in Sp7 maybe ” it’s more low context and KISS. The two things unfortunately don’t necessarily correlate. Acronyms, which are very kissy, are obviously often low context because the letters STML are not universally accessible. How many people outside this room know what STML means? Our friends. It won’t be known in Joannesburg, Auckland or Sidney. There might an STML which might be the Sidney Transport Lakes and Maritime organization. And you might go to Northern Italy and it is Società per il Trasporto Laghi e Mari. Everything depends on the context and the situation. In general KISS has to do with the language itself; generally KISS is more communicative but it could be so KISSy that is not communicative. KILChy language is going to be more complete, more formal, more third person, more detailed, the language got high register, more specialized language, because everything goes in there. You have to keep it long and complete, so you put in all the information. Kilciness in a Vietato Fumare sign in Italian: maybe there’s not clarity, but surely there’s completeness. TMI is very much an anglo concept: too much information. High/Low context : how much of the message is in the text and how much is in the context. Kiss/Kilc is really about the length of the sentence, the amount of words I’m going to use to talk about something. Positive/Negative politeness is how much I want to be bald on record or off record, due to a believe of how I react to somebody else presence. Transactional/Interactional: in transactional you tend to get Low context (UK, USA) and Kissy. It’s information focused, LCC; politeness isn’t involved, so positive politeness. In interactional, British English in particular, tends to be negative, Kilchy and high context. To complicate matter, you have two orientations (remember the email): what’s more important, the task or the rapport? Task and rapport are very closely related to politeness: in the task there are no people involved; rapport is people. If I’m thinking in terms of the rapport I’m going to be much more aware of being sensitive, diplomatic, I’m to be using a lot more negative politeness, more kilchy language. If I’m more task oriented I’m going to be clear, because there’s a problem and you created the problem, so I’m going to be very transparent about the problem and explain it very directly, so I’ll be positive. Contexting is about the message; the communication can be transactional or interactional: transactional is task oriented, interactional is rapport oriented. And we ourselves are more task or more rapport oriented and cultures are more or less task/rapport oriented. So in the Quip email that we did you discovered your writing style, how High or Low context it was. Faxes, India vs Uk: different discourse styles, different systems, the way in which I talk about what I want to talk about. Circling in from outside/circling out from inside: this is what I’m talking about and now I’m going to give you some extra details. Circling in from out : you give a lot of context before you give the text. Circling out from in : starts from the main point and then give more details. Starts much more with the task or starts much more with the rapport. When context is important you need to give the background before you get to the subject. If the question, the problem is more important, why I’m here, I will talk about the details later.

If you’re learning at a formal level, you’ll be learning where it’s appropriate to say something. How do you learn where it’s appropriate in your first language? You learn by hearing, by corrections. Orientation in environment : Inshallah, God willing. In terms of environment who’s in charge? Man or God. If you believe in God, then you believe that the environment is not controlled by you, but by a superior being. Two basic values: we can, man can go to the moon. No, there’s is a higher force. Orientation in time : in terms of time, there are different ways of understanding time, or reacting to time. If you’re guided by time, everything you do depends on the watch. If you’re not guided by time, you might be guided by flexible time. Time can be fixed or can be flexible. We can be lost in the past, thinking about the future or stack in the present (three circles): what time is important for you? Probably the future. What are you attracted from? New or tradition? Orientation to space : the British don’t like to be that close. The Italians leave very few space; Arabs even more. How much space is appropriate it depends on values of independence and you own space. Ideas of positive and negative politeness are involved there. Power relationship : there are certain language forms students use and certain forms professors use. Professors generally use with students the lei form, surname, sometimes. But when I got British students here learning Italian it was very complicated because when they spoke in Italian they used the tu form with the teacher, they haven’t learnt the importance of the lei form, they knew it (they’ve learnt the language) but they’ve not learnt the appropriatecy because of a power distance difference in British university where there is a much lower power distance between the student and the lecturer. In Britain my students call me David, but here it’s wrong. It’s not logical, but there’s a logicality within the culture. It makes sense within the culture: we like power distance, we enjoy the status. The system works very well that way and we accept it as a good system. It means that the people in power also take responsibility for us, we don’t have to think so much, we don’t need to be so independent. It helps to be interdependent, like a family structure. It works if we are happy within that structure. there’s also a difference in terms of things that can be done or not: the boss can do things that other people cannot do. We know what’s happening in America, Time’s Up. We want transparency and equality. The question is: why has this not happened in Italy today? Why don’t we have Time’s up in Italy and we have it in America and Britain? Why is not gone viral? It’s interesting: the reason is culture. Italy is not USA. In Italy it’s more difficult because there’s a high power distance. In a low power distance culture is easier (not easy) to make a difference from below. In a high power distance culture is much more difficult because people who make the decisions, make all the decisions. Men are on top also in American but the power difference is less. If cultures were the same, this movement had gone viral and Italians in film business, in institutions, in Parliament will be suffering in the same way as the States. They’re not because there’re different values. Individualism / Collectivism Individualism : the individual counts and the individual at the bottom doesn’t count as the individual on the top. Working in a team is always a problem because everybody has their own idea. It’s difficult to put people together and to work for a common good. Collectivism : I is not important; we are important. I can’t do things on my own because I want the group to work together, so my individual idea is less important than the group idea. But that’s not much an American, British or Italian way of doing things. We are all quite individualists and we create problems when we’re having dinner, it’s a mess. Universalism / Particularism It has to do with the rights of the individuals because they’re part of another group. A universalism system is where everything is the same for anybody. Everybody is treated the same. You say: this is a group of students. But, if you are a particularist you say: this group of students is different from that group of students. (Go to this restaurant because I’ve recommended it and the service will be better. Go to my medico di fiducia: the doctor is not part of a group of doctors, is part of my group). Competitive / Collaborative or Masculine / Feminine More aggressive or more harmonious. In general our societies (Britain, Italy and America) are competitive. Competitive societies do well in football, or sports in general. Uncertainty avoidance

The level of anxiety you have about the present and the future. How much you need to be certain about what’s going on. Tolerating ambiguity: if you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next half our how do you feel about it? Are you attracted to it? I don’t know or I need to know? Attribution / Reattribution theory  Attribution theory : I’m normal and everybody else isn’t. If I’m late it’s not because I’m late, it’s because the circumstances prevented me from acting normally. I attribute strange behaviour to something outside of me. However, other people, if they’re acting strangely, they attribute this to their personality and that’s a big difference. And this is a natural action for people: it’s not useful, but natural claiming that we are normal and other people aren’t. It’s a classic ethnocentric approach.  Reattribution generator goes through six stages and begins with trying to have a technical idea of what it’s going on. Well formed sentence describing the situation you’re reacting to and then you start thinking of what’s makes sense in this iceberg, how this strange behaviour takes place and why it might e logical and compare it with your own culture.

Appunti "Translating cultures", Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Documenti correlati

Anteprima parziale del testo

Scarica Appunti "Translating cultures" e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!

Translating Cultures