PART 1: SPEECH ACTS INSIGHTS
- Speech Acts: How to Do Things with words, including giving and responding to compliments.
I found out that most of the time, I tend to deflect compliments! Perhaps it must be due to my chatty nature.
Anyway, one interesting observation during group discussion: All of us had one trend in common.
When it comes to receiving compliments on our APPEARANCE, we tend to say "Thank You!" and leave it as that. But when it comes to compliments on PERFORMANCE, we tend to deflect more than accept. It's a Singaporean thing!
So say for example:
A: Wah, you scored 98/100 on your linguistics test!
B: No lah, its okay lah. Not that great.
A: So modest.
I blame it on the "It's okay, lah. I'm not that great"-mindset of Singaporeans.
Modesty has become key when compliments are performance related. Why? We don't want to show off our abilities, precisely because we're being watched in a society that places high emphasis on excellence in everything you do!
This is our typical reaction:
PART 2: THE STUFF RESEARCH IS INTERESTED IN
- Variations of Speech Acts
1) Cross-cultural variation
(eg. How Americans and Vietnamese differ in eliciting favours in the English language.
2) Interlanguage Variation
(eg. Measuring, on a continuum, a learner's language against the proficiency of a native speaker. With 0-----> 100 (beginners--> Advanced).
3) Sociopragmatic Variation
(eg. measuring variations in language use across one culture group, manipulating one variable, let's say socioeconomic status).
So in the case of Singapore, the ba-si-lect (basic), me-so-lect (middle variation) and ac-ro-lect (most sophisticated use) of the English language was found to vary across sociocultural status. For example, Singlish is somewhere in the mesolect whereas, perfect English use would be somewhere in the acrolect.
That has implications on how different types of Singaporeans use the English language!
If you wanna know more, check this out: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t395-45.htm
PART 3: A PROBLEM
FINALLY, I must say I have AN issue with what is being taught. Just one.
It seems to me that in this module, we tend to assume that a certain culture would speak/discourse/react to speech acts in the same way. We pigeon-hole communities. In essence, "Singaporean vs American". But do all Singaporeans speak the same way? Does the response of one American reflect that of their entire community? Even if we zoom in on a particular race let's say "Indian Singaporeans vs Indian Americans", we are looking at the helicopter picture without delving into possible variabilties in INDIVIDUALS.
Then again, we're interested in overall trends in discourse, not individuals.
What do you think? Leave A Comment!
Lastly, don't forget to participate in my POLL on compliment responses below!
