Last Lecture

At the end of the module, all I could say is Wow!.. As a science student, it is not my thing to write. In Science, language is more use in short form and chemical equation. Here in this module, I was required to write weekly and never before I spent time to look through a thesaurus trying to write better English till now. One thing that I truly learn and understand is that when you are supposed to write an essay or anything, and got no idea, just start off with any writing and just continue to write and sooner or later, ideas will start to come.

Lesson has been fun it is an enjoyment to take part in the tutorial section as all of us would interact and share idea and also share personal experience in relevance to the tutorial topic given.

This module is kind of unique. Of all other module that I’ve taken so far, this module has got the most interaction between student and lecturer. Maybe it’s a small lecture group. Nevertheless, this module is interesting. I really like the video shown about cultural misunderstanding during week 6. It explains why such action are at it is and it opens up understanding within cultural group.

The hard part of this module is the research paper. It requires me and my group to go down and get data for the topic we choose. We really have to crack our head to write a better report since there is more student who are from Arts and language and writing is their forte. The report data collecting also have provided me with additional skills, that is, ways to approach and interact with public when you want something from them. The presentation part, also provide me with self confidence to stand in front and talk.

Overall the 3 months spent have been fun and I’m glad to have taken this module and it has benefited me a lot. I would like to say Thank you to you Dr Deng and all the student for giving a great presentation and participation in the class.

Week 9. (Cross-Gender Interaction)

From my own observation, women and men communicate in different ways whenever they are in their own gender group conversation. From the tutorial activity 2 exercise, reading the topic itself, we can tell whether it’s a woman-woman or man-man conversation. The types of interest for both gender differs.
Men like to talk about cars, sports. Mostly actions pack stuff. For women, like my younger sister, she talks about fashion; shoes, bags and she love to talk about TV sitcoms and like wanna predict what’s going to happen next, she simply talks a lot. These types of conversation I would find it weird and seems to be in the wrong channel of communication.
During lecture we found out that the fact is, we do tend to believe that women talk too much, but research shows that men on average talk more than women. For me, I think men talks a lot or have a long conversation when they are in a group and share a common interest or talk about past history. Take myself as an example, my group of friends can really talk very long when we recall back our NS days and it never seems to expire or when we talk about soccer matches. We also like to argue, like he recent Man Utd and LVP match, we argue on whose gonna win or player who are on top form.
Even though society is changing, but gender interaction within same group will not change much.

Week 8. (Computer Mediated Communication)

When compare communication 10 years ago and now, lots have change. Previously, when we communicate, we only have our home phones or public phone, sending written letters and by means of “pagers”. Communication in previous years maybe very costly, say when you want to make an overseas call through your home phone or maybe one can communicate at a cheaper cost, which is by mail.

Now with the development of technology and internet, communications have been made easy and cheap. We can now even make direct calls, chat through means of MSN; windows live messenger and even video conferencing. Now in Singapore, it’s difficult to find a public phone booth unless you’re at the MRT. This in because, almost every Singaporean own his/her own mobile phone also nowadays, phone are equip with 3G function (Video calls).

With the culture and system that we have here, everything is fast ready available. This fast paste that we are currently having is affecting everything. People are starting to be inpatient and want everything to be done fast, even when chatting through msn, facebook, twitter and many more.

With this, people develop a new hybrid language “netlingo” eg, brb = be right back. This is a kind of language that people use to cut shot of actual sentences and also to communicate fast.
Nevertheless, with the development of a hybrid language, actual proper language will not be affected in terms of quality. People here know how to adapt to different environment and situation and communicate according to such. You will not find writing in a school composition with “netlingo” or sms language. You will also will not find anyone when doing a presentation communication with lor, or hor.

In summary, people will communicate according to different environment, this is because, they want to fit in the group and the use or writing of proper language is not affected.

Week 7.(Face and Politeness)

Oh my, this week review almost slips my mind.
Hum... Politeness... Where do I start.....
Politeness is a must for us to portray at the right time and place required. Through our face expression, one can tell if we are being polite or not.

I believe that all of us when face with any difficult situation, we would want to resolve it as peaceful and as polite as we can in order not to agitate the other person . Eg, when in a movie cinema and the person in front or at the side is talking on the phone. You would not say out something rude or say something off the record like “Humm, i wonder where the noise is coming from” as you know something bad will happen afterwards. Instead, you reply with a negative politeness, like “Sorry to bother you, could you lower down your volume please” with the sorry look on your face.

Week 6.(Component & Representation)

This week, cultural misunderstanding is shown clearly in the video. It is really funny when you look and analyse it. In Singapore where it is a multi racial country you will definitely see some cultural actions. E.g. my grandpa is an Indian and whenever he answers yes or no, he will have this slight movement of a head gesture. For the Muslim Malays, whenever they meet, they won’t say hello but “Peace be upon you” in Arabic. I hope you understand what I mean. Different culture groups will have their own signature cultural action.
Following on to Individualism and Collectivism; In Singapore, to me, I think it depends on where you are located. Say example in the city (Orchard Road or Raffles Place) where it is CBD area and people are always busy with individual work. No time to eat; no time for this that; everything is in a rush. If something were to happen, a man to fall in the streets. Not a single person will come up to give a helping hand; instead surrounding people will stand and stare. I saw this situation my own eyes and I came up to the man from far to help. Once I came to the man, everything goes back to normal. If you were in a neighbourhood area, people are more collectivism. Another example of which I’ve seen is a young school girl’s purse being stolen by a thief. The moment she shouted “help thief” immediately you can see people of all races chasing down the thief. If this situation were to happen in the CBD area, I might think that maybe just 1 will go after the thief as the rest will just stand to watch. People are so busy that they don’t have the time to catch thief and if they do, they will be late for work.

Week 5.(Written Discourse)

Written discourse

Last lecture, it was made known that different culture will exhibit different way of writing. If you are good at recognizing they way the sentence is structured or identify the sequence, one can tell whether the text was done by a certain culture group.

What I’ve learned is that, in class was that these different ways of writing started way back since primary school. Different teachers will input different knowledge to the student on how to write.

Also, mention during lecture by me, different writing style may also come from the way we read. Eg, I’m currently taking Bahasa and it requires me to read a lot of literature. Previously for my first few early compositions, I tend to write it like how I would normally write for Malay Language style. I really thought that I did a good writing because I have yet to get a B grade since way back, but turn out to be poor. Then I realised that I lack some sequence in my writing. I realised that I left the descriptive part of out. This I realised only after reading a few short Bahasa Stories. The way Indonesian writes, contains lots of descriptive context. So now I’ve change my style and my grade have improved.

Initially when I took up this module, I thought that the Malay and Bahasa would be similar, but turn out to be different. Although both are from Malay culture group, but still differ in some ways, like Spoken and Written.

Week 4.( Spoken Discourse)

Last Friday lesson got me thinking back on a phone call which I made to a new friend.

Currently I’m taking Bahasa Indonesia 5 and there is an exchange student in this class. His name is Mark and he is from Germany. I’m currently attached together with him for a Class project presentation. For our current project, it requires me to call and meet up with him whenever free for some discussion. For the past 5 weeks, we have been meeting once a week on Friday

So, most of the time, our phone call will be something like this;
Summons: Ringing (Me calling Mark)
Mark (Answer) : Hello, Mark here
Ghaff : Hey dude, it’s me. You free later at 2pm?

Summons: Ringing (Mark calling me)
Ghaff (Answer): Hello
Mark : Hello Ghaff. Mark here
Ghaff : Hey, what’s up
Mark : Nothing. Just the usual (means meeting up later). By the way, how’s your day
Ghaff : Stressful like always
Mark : I see, you should relax a bit. So you free later at 3pm?

Here’s the thing, I didn’t realise that there was something out of the ordinary until last lecture. Whenever I called Mark, the first sentence is always self identify. I then replied ‘It’s me” assuming he know me by my voice also because his HP has got IDD. I would normally go straight to the topic without any greetings because it’s Friday and I want to be quick in arranging a meeting and would like to go home early.

For Mark, when he calls, he would usually identify me and then himself. For most of his calls, he would usually have a greeting by asking me how my day was.

It is his way or culture I would say to always self identify and identify the person he is calling. He would also have a greeting before he goes to topic. Unlike me, like many of my other phone calls, I do not identify myself nor would I identify the person I’m calling to. Unless his voice is not familiar to me then I will be thinking that I might have dialled the wrong number. The reason I don’t identify myself is because the person I’m calling to would have my IDD saved in the phone so that person would know I’m calling.

Last lecture gave me awareness that this is a spoken discourse. I suddenly realised that I might have been rude for not identifying myself whenever Mark calls and have not provide any greetings whenever I call. Mark might not understand why I answer phone call or make a call in such a way because it my culture or the way I do it here. From the way I’m seeing it, he’s answering and making calls the same way as in Germany. After last lecture, from now onward whenever I call Mark, I would identify myself and at least have a nice greeting before I go straight to the topic.

Be True To Your Culture

Hey, check this funny commercial that I found at YouTube.
It’s about a group of four Indian friends who meet up, behaving like the American Hip-Hop culture and trying to have a conversation with a group of girls. They were interrupted by one of the guy’s grandma.
The commercial ends with
"The world is changing but we should always be proud of who we are"

Week 3.(Speech Events)

Last Friday lecture was quite attention-grabbing, speech event which make up from a series of speech acts. Event such as job interview, market transaction, canteen vendors, wedding proposal and others

A particular cultural group will operate differently from other in the same speech event. One example given during lecture was the Speech Events of a Japanese Marriage Proposal. It came to my attention that when the man proposes to the lady, her reply for yes is; no reply at all, instead its non verbal. The lady would stand silently her with head down. During this lecture section, I suddenly recall back my cousin who is married to a Japanese lady. During the wedding ceremony, he mention about not understanding his wife culture.

When he proposed to her, she too kept quiet, seeing this action he dare not ask for an answer as he assumed that she is not ready yet. Few days have passed and during a normal conversation, his wife asks him “so have you picked a date?” My cousin was surprised, he replied, “when did you decided to marry me?” she says, “The day you proposed.” In the end it work out well and the wedding occasion was a joyful one. This is an example of a cross cultural communication breakdown where one person is not aware of the others culture and the way they respond.

Let’s have an insight of a typical Malay culture marriage proposal. The Genre, topic, purpose and setting is just the same like any other Marriage proposal except for the act sequence.

Let me give you an example,
M: Holding Woman’s Hand
Siti sayang (Dear). We have been going out for 2 years already. What say you if we get engage?
W: Bursting out of enjoyment
Really! You sure?
M: Yes I’m sure... (followed by giving reason for wanting to get married)
W: So when can your parents come over?

Rules of interaction
The man must get ready the reason for engagement when ask

Norm of interpretation
· Usually the men do not ask “will you marry me” instead “let’s get engage”
· Also, it normal for the woman to ask why because she want to be convinced that she is going to get married to the right man
· The part where the women ask when the man’s parents are coming over is usually asked. This is because, in the Malay culture the couple usually cannot get married unless both parents agrees and also the couple do not set the date of marriage but both parents will set on a date of marriage.

Different cultures have different ways of speech act for a particular speech event. One must be aware and attentive to the surrounding, verbal tone and non verbal gesture to better understand the situation.

Week 2.(Speech Acts)

Friday 28th August 09,

It has been 2 lectures so far, and this module is something more than I expected. Initially I thought of it to be something like understanding other cultures whose native language is not English and how they communicate with others using English Language. It seems like there are more to it, terms like Intracultural, Intercultural, Cross-Cultural Communication and Discourse. The Research requirement seems to be quite demanding with readings, proper references to it and attaining credible data to support your research. Nevertheless, the lecture is interesting and I never knew that Communication can be categorised for speech act, speech events, spoken discourse and written discourse. To me communication is about 2 people having a common conversation.

Last Friday, the topic covered was Speech Acts. The interesting part of the lecture was when we compared between American speakers to the Chinese speakers on how they respond to compliments.

Data given shown that most American’s will respond to compliment given by thanking them whereas most Chinese will reject compliment by disagreeing and denigrating. In my opinion, the American’s are portraying a sense of confidence and arrogant due to the long history of nation dominant over the world affair such as economy, whereas the Chinese are in a negative mind state and low self esteem. I think it’s within a culture group and time period where people give different respond to others. Also this data was collected in 1993. I think with Chinese now being able to build their own manned space flight using home grown technology and having their 1st astronaut Yang Liwei in space, together with the success in hosting the Beijing Olympics’, this change of event have made a big cultural change.

At this time, if an American were to compliment any Chinese, say: “Wow the Chinese are getting more advance by the day”. The Chinese speakers won’t be saying, “No, we are not. Your Nation is far greater then ours”

Instead they will respond by accepting and thanking; “Well, Thanks. I’m glad you feel that way” This is because they have achieve so much over the decade and am proud of it.

My claim is not yet credible; research is needed to be made in this current time and culture. Like mention during class, culture communication is ever changing. Be it as in a developing nation or being in a group of different education level, all will have their own way of responding to compliment with the change of time.