Wierzbicka - Cross-Cultural Pragmatics

I

i Chapter 3 Cross-cultural pragmatics amd different culturaU values

Anyone who has lived for a long ume m two different countries knows ! that in different countries people spealc m different ways - not only

because they use d i e r e n t li~lguistic codes, involving different lexlcons and differelit gramnars, but also because thelr ways of uslng the codes are different. Some of these differences are so stable and so systematic that one cannot always draw a line between different codss and different ways of nslng the code; or between different 'grammars' and different 'ethnographies of spealung' (cf. Hymes 1962).

The extent of the differei~ces between different societies and differenl language communities m the11 ways of spealclng 1s often underestimated in the literature dealing with language use. In particular, theories of speech acts and of conversat~onal logic associated with, or foliowmg from, the work of philosophers such as John Searle (1969, 1979) and

! Paul Grlce (1975; 1981) hase tended lo assume U~at the ways of sped<- lilg characteristic of mainstream white Amerlcan English represent 'the normat human ways of speaiting', and that, apart from minor variations, they can be expected to be the same as those prevalent in any olher numa11 society. But Ulls is of course an ethnocentric illusion.

The search for universals ~n language usage at the expense of culture- specifics 1s also a feature of the influentla1 study of 'politeness phenomena' by Brown - Levmson (1978; revised editlon 1987). There would of course be nothing wrong m focussing on ulliversals rather tllan on culture-specific aspects of language usage - if the search for universals is undertaken from a iruly universalist, culture-independent position. But as a number of recent studies have shown, the basic coi~ceptuai tools introduced and relied on by Brown and Levlllson (in particular, the ilotion of 'face') have in fact a strong anglocentnc btas (cf. for example iMatsumoto 1988; ICairiel 1986; Tannen 19843 Wierzbiclra 1985% b).

Brown - Levinson see two pnnclples as the most iinportant ones in numan interaction: 'avoidai~ce of imposition i 'negat~ve face') and 'approval of the other person'. which they exemplify with the English coinpliinent Virizal iovel]' roses! ('positive face'). But thelr very cholce

of rllese particular parameters reflects clearly the autliors' culture- specific (anglocentric) perspective.

The same charge of anglocentrism can be made witli respect to various other supposedly universat 'maxims' and pi-inciples of human conversa- iionnl behav~our aiia interaction, which have been ad\,anced in the literature. Consider, for example, Leech's (1983:132) maxims oS 'moosst)" and of 'approbatloii'

.kpprobation maxim ia) Minimise dispraise oS orller; [(b) Ivlastmise praise of or/~ei-.] lslodesty maxim (a) h'linimise praise of seK [(b) .Maxtmise dispraise of self.]

Leech is aware that tile weig!lt of maxims such as these may vary from cultilre to citliure, but lie assnrries that apart from quanlitatirv! differences they ;!re in essence universally valid. In fact, however. empirical t-o~dence suggests that tliis is simply nor m e .

170r example. ICocl~man (1981) tias shown that in Black American cuiiure the norm or mode sty^ does not apply, and that self-prnise is nor viewed negzilively at all. ICochman mentrons in [Ids connection the utlr of biohammed -ilii' surobiogaphy: I an! rile gl-earesr, ana he discusses the stgnificance of Blacl:. folk categories such as 'rappingi, 'grandstand- ing: and 's!io~uboating' (I return to illis matter in section 1.5 below).

Similarly, :\,Iizutani - Mizutani (1987) sliow that 'approbation. or praise of otlier is not encourageu in Japanese culture; and they aevote a ivhole section (1957:45-46) to "refrain~ng from direct praise" Liliewise, Monna - lioffer (1989:74) potr?t out fiat 'praise of other' is seen as zirrogant and presumptuous in Japanese culture, wliere "even wi~en [<he speaker] has io or \\(ants to express his praise for persons wiihin his circle. lie often begins ivith a phrase such as ' I don't really mean to praise ...' or 'I lcnow i t is too presumptuous to praise . . . I B), so doing lie tries to give me impression rhat he is not really an arrogant person."

It is not u-ue. then, that all human societies v ~ e w 'praise of self' iieganvely, zitd 'prarsc of otlier' positively.

The same applies to die supposedly universal maxtms of harmony: "minimiss disagreement, rnasimise agreemetit" (Leech 1983:132). For esarnple, as Schifirin (1984) has shown, Jewish culture dispiays a clear preference for disagreement: in this culture, people show their involvement with otller people and their lilterest in otlrcr people by saying 'no. rather rh;m 'yes In Jeviisii culture, argument 1s valued as a form of

L L \ ' I? -<

sociability, and i t is disagreement rather than agreement ihat is seen as something that brings people closer together (see section 2.1 beiow).

It is, then, an angiocenrnc illusion ro tliini: Illat all cultures value agreement more than disagreement, discotirnge self-praise, encourage praise of other, ana view 'imposltlon' as the main sln in soc~al interaction.

Tlie lasr decade has wiulessed a growing reaction against t h ~ s kind of misguided universalism. a reaction which has led to rile emergence of a new fieid and a new direction in language studies associated xvit11 the term 'cross-cultural prngmatmsi (cf. for example Abrahams 1976: Ameka 1987; Eades 1982; Goddara 1985; Har1:ins 1988; Hijinda - Soiin 1986; Icatnel 1986: ICochman 1981; Mizutani - Mizutani 1987; Ocns 1976; Sclliffrin 1984; Sohn 1983; Tannen 1981a; Wierzbicka 1985a. b). The main ideas which have informed and illumrnatea thls new dii-ectton in the study of language are these:

(1) In different societies, and different communities, people speak differently.

(2) These differences in waps of speal:ing are profound and systematic.

( 3 ) These differences reflect different cultural values, or at least different iiierarchies of values.

(4) Different ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained and made sense of, in terms of Independently established different cultural values and cullural Priorities.

These four points are; in my view: of fundamentai Importance - not only from the point of view of our icowledge and understanding of tile world, but also from a practicai, social point of view; and in particular, from the polnt of view of cross-cultural understanding in a multi-ethnic society such as ihe United Stares or Australia.

Consider, for example, tile situation of Australians of Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Celt~c baclcground who note that some immigrants behave \,eraally In what appear to be suange, unfamiliar ways. For example. they seem to shout and scream for no reason at all, they interrupt otlier people, they start heatea arguments for no apparent reason, they spenlc in what is perceived as a blunt, dogmatic and bossy way, they flatly assert their opinions and fluti), contradict other people, and so on.

If 'strange' and possibly offensive behaviour of this kind can be explained, and made sense of, in terms of independently understandable

cultural values, serious social and interpersonal problems can be resolved, and serious conflicts prevented or alleviated. Of course, not all problems can be solved in this way: if there is a real conflict m uitderlylng values, mere expiaitung will not Iielp. But m many cases, perhaps in most cases, what is mvolved is not a real conflict in values but a difference in Ule hierarch), of values; and when this is the case, explaining can help.

It can only help, however, if it is done in a way which is mtelligible to the target audience. And this is, I believe, rvhere cross-cultural prag- matlcs often fails. Even the most enlightened studies in cross-cultural pragmatics (such as for example Icochman 1981; Sohu 1983; Lebra 1976) tend to explain different cultural prlonties associated with different languages (or different dialects and sociolects) in ways which are not, and which cannot be, comprehensible to people of different cultural backgrounds. The crux of the matter lies 1n the language 1n which the explanations are couched.

What usually happens is that researchers m cross-culturai pragmallcs try to e1;plam differences in h e ways of speaking m terms of values sucll as 'directness' or 'indirectness', 'solidarity', 'spontaneity', 'sincerity', 'social harmony', 'cordiality', 'self-assertion'. 'intimacy', 'self-expres- sionSj and so on. without explaining what they mean by these terms, alld using them as if mey were self-explanatory. But if one compares the ways in which different wrlters use these terms, it becomes obvious Ulat they don't mean the same things for everyone. In fact, the mtended meanings are often not only different but mutually mcompatihle. As a result, the same ways of speaking are described by some authors as 'direct' and by others as 'indirect'; as a manifestation of 'self-assertioni or an absence of 'self-assert~on'; as an expression of individuality or suppression of individuality. This leads to total confusion, and to an absence of any consensus, even on the most basic pomts.

For example, 1n the literature on Japanese culture and society, Japanese ways of speaking are often described as 'indirect' and are contrasled with the English ways of speakmg, which are supposed to be more 'direct'. It is also claimed, or even assumed, that English ways of speaking are characterised by a high degree of self-assertion, wliereas in Japanese self-assertion is avoided and suppressed. It is also sald that English ways of spealang reflect high regard for sincerily and spontaneity, whereas Japanese ways of speaking discourage sincerity and spontaneity, preferring to them courtesy and consideration for others.

Cross-crcliaral pragwailcs a11d diflere~lr ceiiio-al walues 7 1

On the other hand, m the literature on (Amencan) Blaclc English, the 'standard' (white) English is presented in the opposite way. Here, it is said, and even assumed, that standard English is 'indirect' rather than 'direct'> that it avoids self-assertion, and that it discourages siocerlty and spontaneity. It is Blaclc English which 1s said to be 'directis ana to favour self-assertion, sincerity and spontaneity. Similarly, in the literature on Jewish culture, on the Yiddish language and also on Israeli Hebrew, Yiddish and Hebrew are presented as 'direct', as bent on self- expression and self-assertion, and as favouring sincerity and spontaneity. wliereas English is presented as associated with the suppression of all these values.

At first, one might thinlc that conflicting assertions of this icind are due simply to differences of degree: perhaps English (that is, standard white English) is more 'direct' or more 'self-assertive' than Japanese but less so than Blacli English or than Israeli Hebrew. But when one examines the data adduced in support of the conflicting generalisations, one discovers that this 1s not the case, and that in fact the differences referred to are qualitative rather than quanhtative. For example, what is called 'self-assertion' in the studies of Black English is not the same thing that is usually meant by Uus term m the studies of Japanese; and the same applies to 'self-expression', 'smcerity', 'spontaneity'. 'solidarity and so on.

I conclude froin this that labels of this icind am simply not helpful 1n the elucidation of cultural differences. Labels of this land are semi- teclinical and obscure at the same time. They are used diffei-ently by different writers because they have no clear or self-evldent meaning. They are also highly anglocentric, as they have no exaci equivalents m otl~er languages. For example, Japanese has no words cotiespoildiilg to srticerrty. The two Japanese words which are usu8illy translated as 'smcenty', magoicoro ancl makoto, mean in fact sometlung very different from srilcerriy, as Ruth Benedict (1947) among others has clearly demonstrated. Nor does Japanese - or, for illat matter, Polish, Italian, French or Russian - llave a word for self-asseri~on.

It seems obvious that if we want to compare different cultures in terms of their true basic values, and if we want to do it in a way that would help us to understand those cultures, we should try to do 1t not in ternls of our own conceptuai artefacts (sucli as the English terms self-asseraoi~ or srncerliy) but in terms of concepts which may be relevant to those other cultures as well - that is, in terms of concepts which are relatively, if not absolutely, universal. We should also tly to do it in

terms o i concepts wllich are lntuitlvely clear and lntultlvely verifiable. and whtch therefore will not be used differently by different schoiars ant1 in differeni cultural contexts.

Tlns ma)' seeii? a ta l l oruer, bur I submit that 11 can be done if we rely on such slrnp!e and untversal or near-universal concepts as ivalli, say, 1:1ioio, riti~r!;, ::ood and bad. In this chapter I shall try to demonstrate tlie explanatory value of this approach by examining a number of parameters whtcll are widely relied on in the literature, seeking to clarify the sources o i confurton. and to reveal the real differences between languages obscured by rne use of confusing and inconsistently applied labels.

From a Japancsc i)olnt of vt<:w, Western culture in general and Anglo- Anlertcan culliire in p:irtlcular can be seen as dominated by 'self-asscr- tion' For example, Lebra ii976:257) contrasts "the Western model based on rhe cotnples of individuality, autonomy, equality, rattonaliry, aggres- sron, and seli-assertion" with "tlie traditlonai [Japanese] compies of collectt\~ism, interdependence, superordination-subordination. empathy; sentimentality. rnrrospectlon, and self-denial"

Similarly, Suzu!;i i i986) emphaslses the Jao:inese tendency to avotd self-assertionr and the difficulrtes wliich tills creates for the Japanese

in contact \\win \T"csrerners:

We, used to iissimilntion and dependency, expect to project ourselves onro [lie oriisi, and expeci liim lo emaathise with us. We iiave great difficulty nszlh 1111 idea rlii!t so Ion: as our addressee is not Japanese me can't expect :o have aai posirian ilniicrstooo riwtliout srrong seif-asserrion. But esrab- lisliing our 0%'- rie\t8oo~nt or pos~rron before our addressee 112s unoersiooo is nor our iorii: ... So \r*lten Japanese, wiio aren't good ar foreign languages. don'i show iliexi r i u s ability in ~niernnrionai conferences and rci,olarly nieenngs. l i 15 less because of tlie~r ianguagc stills i ~ a n because of the !\seal: dsveiapmcnt of me mill to express rhemseirres lingu~sncally to suffi- clsnr degree. I1 lies furthemore in ttie underdeveloped abiiiry to stand :!par( from tile posltlon raten by anorller and at lensr assert oneself to 111s extent oi saying. 'This is ivhere 1 stand at rliis momenr.' (Suzuki i936:157)

On the other hand, when Kocl~man (1981:29) compares "the capacr- ues and inclinattons of whites and hlacl;s [in Amer~ca] to assert themselves" he sees the whites (that is, the members of the mainstream

Angio-.American culture) as less able, and iess ~ n c l i n e a , ro asserr themselves. According to ICochman, "black cuiture allows its members cons~derablp greater freedom to assert and express themselves than does white culture" H e illustrates thls ciaim, among other things, the different attitudes of v~hite and black cuiture towards boasting and bragg~ng: "White boasting and braggtng also contrasts with black prac- ttce with respect to the etiquette governtng self-assertton. As white

1 culture restricts individual self-assertron generally, i t requlres th:it ~ndivtduals be governed by tne norms of modesty \%,hen charactertstng the11 performance" (1981:69).

Thus, according to ICocliman, xvhite Anglo-Amencan culture restr~cts tndividual self-assert~on, whereas according to .Lebm or Suzul:~, rhe same white Angio-Amencan cuiture strongly encourages indivtdu;il self-assert~on. Who is right and who is wrong? M y vlew is that both stdes are nght in wt.nat they are trying to say, but that they both fail to say ~t clearly and unambiguously. Both stdes use the same iabei 'self-asser- tlon'. but tlley don't define ti, and in fact they mean something qulre different by 11.

The main difference between Japanese and mainstream English in the area under discussion can be represented in terms of certatn clearly specifiable underlying conceptual snuctures. These structures re; above all; tiiese two:

J a p n ~ ~ e s c don'r say: 'I want thlsi, 'I don't want rhts' r i~tgio-An~er~can do say: 'I want Illis'; 'I don't want thls

Japanese culture discourages people from saying clearly vihat tile). want and wllat they don't !Sant, wiiereas Angio-Saxon culture, on the contrary, encourages them to do so.

In a similar vein, Japanese cuiture discourages people from csprcssing clearly rhelr wishes, thelr preferences, and their deslres (what they wouid or wouldn'r 1il;e or \\,ant), whereas .4nglo-Saxon culture encourages them to do so:

Japanese don't say: 'I would/wouldn't iike (\vmI) 1111s' ii?i.qlo-An~encari do say: 'I wouid/wouldn't like iwant) this

Furthermore, Japanese culture, in contrast to Anglo-American culture, discourages clear and unequivocal expression of personal oplruons:

Ja,panese don't say: 'I thinlt t b s I I don't thinK tlus Anglo-Anierlcail do say: 'I thinlc this / I don't think Ulis'

As pointed out by Srmth (1983:44-45), "the Japanese are at pains to avoid contention and confrontation ... much of the definltlon of a 'good person' involves restraint in the expression of personal desires and opmions". This restraint manifests one of the greatest Japanese cultural values, called emyo, a word usually translated as 'restraint' or 'reserve'. "One way to express eniyo is to avoid giving opinions and to sidestep choices when they are offered. As a matter of fact, choices are less often offered in Japan than m the Unlted States." (Smith 1953:83-54) Smith quotes in this connection Japanese psychiatrist Talceo Doi's account of tlle strain he experienced on a visit to the United States. where he was constantly offered choices:

Anothcr thing that made me nervous was the custom whereby an American host will asic a guest, before a meal, whether he would prefer a strong or a sofi dnnK. Then, if the guest asks for liquor, he will ask him whether, for example, he prefers scotch or bourbon. When the guest has made this aeclsion, he next has to glve Instructions as to how much he wishes to dnnk, and how he wants i t sewed. With the main meal, foitunately, one has only to eat what one is served, but once it is over one has to clloose \vhether to tatre coffee or tea, ano - in even greater derail - whether one wants it w~th sugar, milk, and so on. ... I could not have cared less. (Do1 1973:12)

Smith comments:

The slrain musl have been considerable, for in Japan, by contrast, the host, havlng carefully consrdered wllat is most lilrely to please tltis particular guest, will slmply place before him a succession of an ovenvhelmlng number of items of food ano annit, all of which lie is urxea to consume, in . the standard phrase, 'without o~ryo ' It is incumbent on the guest to eat ano drlnk at least Dart of evervthine ofierea him. wnether or not he likes the . u

partlcoiar item, in order not to give offence by appearing to rebuke his host for mlscalculatlng wilat would please him. (Smith 1983:84)

Since Japanese culture places a taboo on direct expression of one's wants, 11 is also culturally lnapproprrate to ask other people directly what they want Mizutan~ and Mizutani explain:

Asking someones wishes directly 1s also impolite m Japan. Saying things like

'"Naizi-o inbefar-desn-no. What ao you want to eat?) *Na?ii-ga iioslrii-desn-/<a. What do you want to have?)

should be limlted to one's family or close friends. ... To be polite, one should ask for instructions rather than directly inqulre knto s0meone.s wishes. Thus, saymg:

Mudo-o okeinasl2oo-ko. (Shall I open the wlndow?) IS more appropnate than

'5Vlodo-o okefe-~~~ol~al ra-des~~-kn. i\?'ould you lilre nit to open the wlndaw?) (IvIizutani - Mizutanl 1987:49)

The same cultural constraint prevents people m Japan from clearly stattng their pieferences, even m response to direct questions. Many Japanese, when asiced about their convenience, decline to state it, saying instead, for example:

ils~c-denio kelcl<oo-desir. (Any time will do.) Dolco-de17zo kelcicoo-desa. (Any place will be all right with me.) Nan-demo ican~armasen. (Anything will be all right with me.) (Mizutam - Ivfizutani 1987:117-118)

"In actuality one cannot always agree to what another persoil wishes, and one will men have to state one's own convenience anyway, but i t is regarded as childish to mimediately start staong one's own convenience when asked." (1957:115)

What appiies to uie expression of one's wants applies also the expression of one's opmions. This, too, comes under the value of ertqo. Lebra (1976:7-9) wntes: "Pressure for conformity often results in a type of self- restraint called eriiyo; refraining from expressing disagreement with whatever appears to be the rnajonty opmion." But "the virtue of enryo, 'self-restrainti, is exercised not only to respond to group pressure for conformity but to avoid causing displeasure for others, regardless of their group membership ... The imposition of self-restramt to avold hurting Alter's feelings ... can reach an extreme that reveals immaturity

even to most Japanese. The individual may acquiesce in the face of an intrusion on his rights or autonomy only because he is reiuctant to offend another person by claiming his right." (Lebra 1976:41-42)

I believe that the English concept of self-assernoii is lust as confusing and unhelpful when applied to Japanese culture, as the Japanese concept of eilryo would be if applied to Anglo-Amencan culture. On the other

iiand, tile concept of eiiryo provides an essential Ley to understanding Japanese culture. Bui to be able to use tllis key, n ~ e must first understand what this concept really means; and nee cannoi understand i t by trying to translate i t into Enslish cultural concepts sucli as reserve, restraint; modesty, or self-effacement. We can only understand it if we translate ir Into culrure-lnoependent. llnlversal or near-unioersal concepts such as ii,onr, i/iiii/:, so>'. good or had. This can be done in the following way:

e,irjzo S thri1i;s:

I can'i say lo this person: I \\,ant this, I don't want thfs I think this, I don't think this

someone can feel something bad because of this S doesn'l sag ?I because of this X doesn't do some things because of thls

Difficulties zspericnced b y the Japanese in dealings with Americans (of [lie l:inu described by Doi) liigiilight the fact that no similar value is embodied in,.Aiiglo-Arnericai1 culture. 011 the contraig, in English one is espected to say clearly and unequivocally uihar one wants; wilat one \..'auld Iilce, or ?vliiit one lhinks. If that is wliat is meant by 'self-asser- [son', tlleii uninhibltec self-assertion is indeed 3llowed and encouraged in mainstream Anglo-American culture - as long as i t doesnl come into conflict mith ;inother chertshed value of tile culture. illat is, personal nutononiy. This means tllat wliile one is allo!veU to say, in principle, ' I \-!ant X'; one is nor alIo\ved to sag freely:

I nJ;iiir goo to do X

since in this case; tile speaker's right to 'self-asseriion \vouid come into conRicr !r;itli tile zddressee's aght to personal autonomy. This is ,\~:h:~ in Eilglish the use of the bare imperative is very limited, and why directives tend 10 mke an mteirogative or semi-interrogattve form in 7- cnglish.

This means t!iat m English there is a strong cultural constrnint on saying to ocher people something tllai would amount to 'I Ivan1 you ro do X' Instead, one is expected to combme rliis component arirh some other coinponeiits. u2i\ic1~ ii*ould recogmse tlie addressee's personal nutonom!,, for example:

I want you ro do X I don't i;no\v if you will do i t I !isant you to say if you \\,ill do 11

This or a similar combination of components can be realised in English by means of interrogative-direcnve devices (sometimes called 'wliim- peratives') such as:

1Voirld gorr do S? Ii'iii go11 do X?

i Coirid yo11 do X? Cmi yoir do X?

I ! TT/liy doii'r you do X?

and so on. By contrast, in many other ianguages, for example Polish (Chapter 2 above), Russian (Comrie 1984a). Hebrew (Blum-ICulk~ - Olsntain 19841 Blum-Iculka - Danet - Gherson 1985). Italian (Bares 1976), and Hungarian iHollos - Beeman 1978), the bare imperat~ve is used mucii more freely, and the use of interrogative structures in directives is mucii niore limited.

In fact, even in Japanese, the use of interrogative srructures in directives is more limited tl~an in English (see for example Matsumoto 1988). This does not mean mat Japanese encourages the use of the bare impers- rive any more than English does. But in Japanese, the important thing is to show deference and to acknowledge one's dependence oil otller peopie rather than to avoid imposition. As Matsumoto (1988) ngiitly points our, non-imposition based on individual rights 1s an Anglo-Saxon (or An:io-Amencan), not a universal value. For esample, in Japatlese i t

is very polite to start mteraction w~til other people by uttering 'direct' requests, such as

Doozo yorosl~ikfi oiiegarsr~nnsir. (lit.) 'I ask you ro please treat me well.' hlirsro~~e o doozo goros/~il:ir onegaisinrasir. (lit.) 'I ask you to please treat/tai<e care of my daughter !\,ell.

Matsumoto (1988:410) observes that in utterances of this !;ind the speakers "in indicating that they, or someone closeiy reiated to them. are someone \\rho needs to be taken care of by the addressee, humble theqselves and place themselves in a lower posltlon. This is certainly typical of deferent~al behaviour. The speech act in quesaon, however, is a direct request: thus, an fmposltion. ... 11 is an honour to be asiced to

take care of someone in that it indicates that one is regarded as holding a higher position m the society."

This means that, in many sltuahons, it is easier to say 'I want you ; !

to do X' than 'I want to do X' - as long as one acltnowledges one's dependence on the addressee:

I want you to do X I know that you don't have to do it I say: it will be good for me if you do it I thinic: you will do it because of this

111 English, if one wants the addressee to do something, it is important to aclcnowledge tlie addressee's autonomy by invitmg them to say whether or not they will comply with the request. Hence, the prolifera- tlon and the frequency of 'whimperatives' m English. In Japanese, mterrogative directive devices or 'wmmperatives' exist, too, but theu scope is much narrower than in English (cf. lvlatsumoto 1988; Kageyama - Tamon 1976). Instead, there is in Iapanese a proliferation of devices acknowledging dependence on other people, and deference to other people. Hence, the basic way of making requests in Japanese involves not 'whimperatives' (i.e. quasi-mterrogative structures) but dependence- acknowiedging devices (usually combined with expressions of respect):

lf-re kudasai. 'Give me (please) the favour of domg V.' 'I feel respect towards you.'

Even speaking to a child one would usually phrase a request in terms of 'favours although the expression of respect would be omitted:

11-1e Ic~tj-e. 'Give me (please) t'he favour of doing V.'

3.2. iSelf-asseriion' in biaclc and white American English

When we turn to the comparisons between what have been cailea biacli and while speech styles m America, we see that the tern 'self-assertion' sranas here for rather different features of verbal behavlour than those to whrcll it usually refers in the literature contrasting English with Japanese. For example, ICochman writes:

Black culture values individuvlly regulated self-assertion. it also values spontaneous expression of feeling. As a result, blaclc cu1tur;il events typically encourage and even require individuals to behave in an asserti\~e/ expressive manner, as m sucn black speech events as roppirrg and s,giiib- ~tlg ... and, as I am cta~ming here, argument. (ICocnman 1901:29-30)

Similarly, when whlte American culture is described m terms of 'self- restramt'; tills word doesn't stand for the same Uiing for \vliich i t stands in the literature on Japanese culture. Another example from ICoclmlail:

White culture values the a5ility of individuals to rein in their impulses. White cultural events do not aliow for indivtdualiy inltivted self-asseroon or the spontaneous expression of feeling. Rather, self-assertion occurs us a soclal entttlement, a prerogauve of one's higher status or, as wlth ~. . tum-taking, something granted and regulated by an empowered autliorlty. And even when granted, it is a low-Keyed assertion, showing detachment. modesty, undersiaiemeiit. ... 'Show~ng off'; which would represent ~ndividuvlly iniuvted lunuuthcnsed) self-asseruon and more unresiralned self-expression, is viewed negauveiy wlthin white culture. Biaclr culture, on the other hand, views showmg off - in blacit idiom s1)~lh' our, s/lou~boailng, grortdsiaildii~g - pos~uveiy. ... Because white culture requlres that individuals check those tmpulses that come froin witliin, whites become able practitioners of self-restraint. However, this practice has an mtdbiting effect on their ability to be spontaneousij, self-assertive. (ICochman 1981:30)

Clearly, 'the ability of individuals to rein in their impulses. is something quite different from the ability to say clearly what one tlunks, what one wants to do, or what one's preferences are. If the Japailese self- restramt' consists manly in reframing from saying 'I %want :('; the white Anglo-American r self-restraint' consists largely m I-efrainlng from saying now What I want now and from saying what I Uiinlc the moment ! tiiinlt it.

The very principle of turn-taking, regarded as fundamental in Anglo- Amencan culture, forces the individual speaxers to 'rein ins their impulses to some extent. In blaclc culture - as in Jewisli culiure (cf. Tannen 1981b) -different speakers are allowed to speaic all at once, to overiap with one anotller and to interrupt one another, lo share in tliis way excitement, mterest, and mt~tuai involvement: and to maintain a conrinuous flow of unmhibited communication and self-expresston. But this is not a difference between saymg and not saying 'I viant X' Rather, it 1s a difference between saymg it at once and saying it at what one sees as an appropriate moment.

1.3. Spontaneity, autonomy, and turn-taking: Englislt vs. Japanese

This doesn't mean that rvliite Anglo-American culture generally discourages sponnneous self-expression, Raiher; n discourages i t to the estent to wliicii spontaneous self-expression might come Into conflicl with the principle of everyone's personal autonom)': one can express oneself spontaneously, i i this doesn't inkings on \%,hat 1s seen as other people's rtght ro speal; ntithour interruptions and wtthout interference from oti1er people.

Ir is inLeresting lo note in this connection tila1 in the literature compnr- ins Japanese culture rr'tth mainstream Anglo-Amencan culture, the latter is iisually s a d to encourage rather tliari discourzige 'spontaneity' For e:<ample, Ihe auihor of a study comparing Japanese and Ainerican educationai materials writes:

li :he cxncsrson of sponraneous ieelings encouraged or discournzed? ... Jaonnese rcachcis are aavised to discourage students from expressing impu!sl\'c thou~lir and emotional opimons ... Tile result may ue the esmb- lisli,ng o i iwo iiienritier, one iunctlonlng on the communtcatir~e level and rite orlic!- i:now!i only to ezo. A damper is oared on the potentla1 ioi shared csciiemcnr. Tilere arc. oi course, inhibitors in the United Stares. Tile dirfei-cncc is a imntrsr oi degree. (Lanham'iDS6:294)

But I don i tlitnic it is a matter of degree. Rather, i t is a matter oi' different cultural prionnes. In Japanese culture, the overriding cultural prirlc~pic seems to be constant caution not to offtiid or not to hurt oilin. people i;ind also to avord embarrassment for oneself wliicl~ could folio!u froom tiltsi: that is, an altitude n,lllch can be porlrayed as follows:

ii 1 60 I someone could feel sometnlng bati because or rhls 1 don'! ..van1 this

The Anglo-.4mericnn prtncrple of personal autonomy can be representea as follo!%~s:

everyone can sap: '1 \\,ant thisi, 'I don't want tills' 'I think this': 'T don't think this'

one cnn'i say to someone: 'you nave to do X because I want i t '

'you can'r do X because I don't !!>ant t i '

The Angio-.American principle of tum-ralcing can be seen as a manifesta- t1on of this more general principle of personal nutonomy, and of a more

general respect for ihe rights of every individual. The principle of tum-taking can be represented as follows:

someone is saying something no\\, I can't say somethmg at the same time I can say something after this

It is interesting to note that Japanese culture doesn't observe the same principle of turn-taktng. On the contrary, smce Japanese culture vahtes interdependence more highly ihan autonomy, in Japanese conversation utterances are expected to be. to a large extent, a collecti\~e worlc of the SpeaBer and the addressee, or, more generally, of different speakers. This is done. in parttcular, by means of 'response words'; that is, of whal IS

called in Japanese arzirciri~ a word which likens Japanese conversation to the work of t\vn s\vordsmiths hammering a blade in turn. Mizutani - Mizutani (19S7:lS-19) write:"The word ol means 'doing something together' ... . rs!rc/ii means 'a hammer' ... Two people talking ond frequently eschanglng response words is thus lilcened to tile way two sviordsmiths hammer on a biade. In Japanese conversation, the listener constantly helps the speaker with alzirclii ... - rlie roles of the speaker and the listener are not completely separated." Mizutant and Mizuroni stress that orzrrciii are absolutely essential to Japanese conversation and they support this wtth a startling statistic: 'The average number of oirirchi per minute is ... from 12 to 26, according to the study made by one of the authors." (1987:20)

This is a striking mnnifesration of the Japanese \)alue or interdepeod- ence, which is just the opposlte of the Xnglo-Amencan prtnctpie of personal autonomy. The same applies to the Japanese conversational ptlncipie of leavtng sentences unfintsiied so that the addressee can complete them. a s Mizutani - Mizutani (198727) describe i t , in Japanese, "leaving a part of the sentence unsaid so that me lisrener can supplement i t 1s often more considerate and polite ihan just going ahead and completing one's own sentence. ... aiways completing one's o\vn sentences can sound as if one is refusing to let me other person participate in completing a sentence which might better be completed by two peopie"

The attitude reflected In Japanese conveisational style can be por- trayea as follows:

I want to say something now I thini: you know what I want to say I thin!;. you wouid say the same

I t h i i l ~ I can say part of it, you can say another part of it I think thls will be good

Thus, if the Anglo-American conversational prtnclple of turn-talung reflects the cultural value of personal autonomy, the Japanese conversauonal principle of 'collective sentence produchon' reflects the Japanese cultural values of interdependence, co-operatlon, and 'groupism

1.4. 'Spontaneous self-assertion' vs. 'reguiated self-assertion': black English vs. white English vs. Japanese

Returning now to black English, we note that although it too rejects the turn-taking model, it doesn't reject it in favour of the conversational co-operatlon and interdependence character~stlc of Japanese. On the con- traqJi it rejects it m favour of what Ilochman (1981) calls spontaneous or impulsive self-assertion and self-expression, that 1s to say, in favour of some values whlch are contrary to the Japanese ethos. It is interesting to note that Ilocliman describes the contrast between black English and whlte English in this respect using the same pair of terms that, for example, Bamlund (1975b:35) uses to describe the contrast between whlte English and Japanese: 'regulated' vs. 'spontaneous' Thus, according to ICochman, black English is 'spontaneous' and white Englisli 'regulated', whereas according to Barnlund, Japanese 1s 'regulated' and Engiisli (that 1s to say, white English! is 'spontaneous' But this means that the same white Englisn that from a Japanese perspective IS seen as 'spontaneous' and 'not regulated', is seen from a black perspective as 'regulated' and 'not spontaneous'.

The 'regulated' character of wlilte English means, roughly spealcing, that while one call express one's thoughts, wants, and feelings, one is expected to observe certaln rules in doing so; in partlcular, one 1s expected not to interrupt other people, and not to speak at the same time as other peopie. This constrains one's spontaneity, to some extent; but ~t doesllit constrain one's freedom of self-expression.

On the other hand, in Japanese one is expected to he much more circumspect m expressing one's thoughts, one's wants, and one's feelings. It is not only a question of when to express them, but whether one should express them at all; Japanese discourse can be s a d to be 'regulated' wlth respect to what to say, notjust when to say it. When the Japanese self is described as a "guarded self' (for example by Barniund

1975b:112), reference is made, m the first place, to what is said, and in partlcular, to the care Japanese spealcers take "to prevent overexposure of inner selves" (1975b:112). Bamlund illustrates thls restraint' in self- disclosure wlth s t r i ldg statistical data, showing enorlnous differences between Americans and Japanese in Uie range of topic tlley are prepared to tall< about, and also In the range of persons to whom they are prepared to reveal [hell. thoughts and tlien opmions.

As for when, Ule important thing is not so much not to overlap wit11 other people, as to premeditate what one is going to say in order to avoid saying something which could hurt or offend somebody, or wliicli could embarrass the spealcer liim/berself. Thus, Bariilund

1 (1975b:131) describes Japanese communication as "a three-act play: 'Premeditation', 'Rehearsal', and 'Performance"' One can see why the

1 terms 'regulated' and 'non-spontaneous' can come to mind in illis connection, but ciearly t h s cannot be the same thing as ICoclirnan has In mlnd when he describes wlilte Amerlcan English as 'regulated' aild 'non-spontaneous'. This shows, once agam, that labeis sucli as 'regulated' or 'spontaneous' are not self-explanatory, just as 'self-assertion' and 'self-expresslon' are not self-explanatory, and are used by different wrlters to apply to different phenomena, and to different cultural norms. On the other hand, semantic formulae coucned in ternls of unlversal Semanhc prlmltlves can be both precise and self-explanatory. f propose the following:

Blacli Ame~-ica,z ci~lrn~-e I want/thi~Utlfeel something now I want to say i t ('self-assertion', 'self-expression') I want to say it now ('spontaneity')

Wliiie Anglo-Aii~erzcnn culture I want/thinlr/feel something I want to say it ('self-assertion', 'self-expression') I cannot say it now because someone else is saying something now ('autonomy'; 'turn-talung')

J~lpnnese C I L ~ ~ I L I I

I can't say: I wantfi thinltfi feel something someone could feei something bad becauseof t l ~ s if I want to say something I have to think about it before I say it

1.5. .Self'-assertion as personal display: blacl~ Englisli vs. n.liite English

i t t ie ! I l l self-assertiveness', attributed by Iclochman and others to Aniericnn bl;icl; cultore, has other features, \vllicli are reflected in characteristic b1331( styles and g e m s such as s ~ l i i ~ ' oirr, sliol~~booriri:, and griiiii~iii' [gi-a~!dsiii:irIiiig) (1;ochman 19S!). Each of these concepts de- serves deiniled analysis. which cannot be undertalcen here. All that I can (10 in ilie present contest is to point out to some characieristic cultiirat fenitires whici, are n~~ni ies ted in these and orher similar foil;-concepts.

The b!ncl: so-called self-assertion consists largely in an uninhibiieu desire lo ma\?. allention 10 oneself, and to behave, verbally and non- verbally, in i1,ags i~!hich would ensure tliis. .As a first approximation, tiiis cnn be icpresented as follows:

i \,!ant people io think about me nom 1 \,.'ant 10 do something because of 1111s non,

111 addit?on.io Illis general desire for attention, ho\vever, there is also the more specific desire for admiration; or rather, for ndmiring atrention - n desire IVIIICII 111 biaci: culture is positively, not negatively. This is cleiirl)' !~isibie, for example, in biaci; boasting. bragging, and over1 erultatioii and ]ubilation over one's success. For exampie, Iiocliman (19S1:72) cites a rclevision inten2ie\v ivith some blacl; bas1:etball players; ir.'lio liaa just \iroii n championship basketball game. "One of the main players of me te:lm, aslcea to comment on their opponents, was serious ai first, talking aboiir playing llard and matching us height for height', etc. 1-Iolvever; he ended up with rlle exulfant and self-congratuiato~ 'But we were jusr too zoo0 for rhem!' "

As n first npprosimation, we could portm). this attitude as follows:

I kilO\\~ i can (lo good mings otller people can7! do tlie same

I feel something good because of this I \van[ people to tlilnl; good things about me because o i this

I1 is important ro recognise, however; that in black culture seli-aggran- disement of 1111s Kind has a some\vhar theatrical quality, and that i t is mean1 partly :is public entertainment. To reflect tliis \'ital aspect of blact: self-aggmndisement' one import:int component i~iis to be added to the iornlula s1:etclied above:

I lalo\\, I can do good things other people can I do the same

1 feel something good because of this I want people to th1nK good things about me because of rills I say rhis because I want people to feel something good

1:ochman (!98!:73) points out that in black culture, boasting is interpreted "not as an unwarranreu and uncouth claim to superiority but ns humour" or as Reisman (1974:60) puts 11, as "tile assertion of oneself, the maKing of one's noise, \vi~ich depends not so mucli on tlle specific content of the boast as on the fact that it is made - loudip - at ;ill" The expression 'assertion of onesel? appears liere again, but, again, the contest makes i t clear tliat i t is not the same 'assertion of oneseli' mhich tlie literature on Japanese language and culture attributes to mainstream Anglo-American culture.

1.6. 'Self-assertion' and <good interpersonnl relat~ons'

One mlgilt nypothesise that all cultures clierifi and seek to promote 'eood relations' among people. But different cultures Interpret this goal differently, and tlicy seek to impiement i t in different ways; and these diffkent interpretations are reflected in different 'ethnogra~hies o i speaking'. In Japanese culture, the prevailing conceptual formilla 1s this:

if I do/say something someone could feel something bat1 becau\e of thlS

I don 1 want this I have to tilink about i t before I do it

This is wi~y Japanese culture can be seen as a 'culture of anticipatory perception' and a 'culture of consideration' (Suzui:~ 1986:!57), a cuiture bent on preventing displeasure. Lebra (1976:41) remarks: "One should note hot, often in speecll the Japanese refer to the need not 10 cause ~~ieiisakri, 'trouble'; for another person, not to be in his way, and nor to hurt his feelings. In actual benav~our, too; they tend to be circuinspecl and reserved. so as not to offend other peopie."

In blact: American culture there is no srmilar emphasis on preventing

displeasure. and, consequently, there is no emphasis on 'seli-restrain! On the contrary, blacl: culture encourages uninhibitecl spontaneous seii-

expresslon. At the same time, however, i t IS a culture where self-expression and self-display n seen as conducive to 'good feelings', not only in the speaker but also in other people; and as a means to promote shared e?;cltemeilt, shared fun, shared interest, and shared 'colour' A black English derogatory term for white people is 'grey'. white people are seen as 'grey' not only because of the colour of their shin, but because of what is perceived as their 'lifelessness'. thew 'moderate ~mpnssioned behavlour, Uleir lack of spontaneous emotionality, their 'rething in of their irnpnises' (Johnson 1972:144-145)

In white Anglo-Amer~can culture, the main enlphasls 1s not on pre- venilng displeasure, or on spontaneous and umnhibited self-expression, or on generating good feelings among one's 'audience', hut on personal autonomy (for everyonej, on non-imposition, and non-mterference. It is a culture which encourages everyone to say freely - at the nght time - what they want and what they think, and (in a charactenstic phrase) to 'agree to disagree'

Thus, while one can presume that all cultures' cherish and seeK to promote 'good relations' among people. it is not true that, for example, both American culture and Japanese culture cherish 'warn1 and cordial' relations among people, as asserted, for example, by Lanham (1936:293). A cnitllral emphasis on Interpersonal warmth (in private relations! can be said to be characteristic of Russian culture (cf. for example Smith 1983). but nor of Amemcan or Japanese culture. Such an emphasis is reflected, for example, in the extraordinary wealth of Russ~an expressive derlva- tion, and in particular, m the abundance of hypocorist~c forms of Russian naines (see Wienbiclca, to appear, chap. 7).

Japanese culture can be said to encourage empathy, consideration, and avoidance of hurting others, but not warmth or cordiality, as is shown by the extraordinary wealth, and wide use. of devices encoding 'apoiogies', 'quasi-apolog~es', 'preventive apologles'. 'gateful apologles', and so on (see for example Mizutaui - Ivlizutani 1987; Coulmas 1931). The vu- tual absence of linguistic devices encoding 'warmth' (in sharp contrast witll the wealth of devices encoding 'respect'; 'deferencei. and the like), points in the same direction. The relatnfely small degree of physical contact and physical Intimacy between people in Japanese soclety provides further evidence for this (cf. Barnlund 1975b:106-103).

Amzmcan culture encourages a generalised friendly attitude to people, including strangers. But this, too, is different from the personalised affection displayed, for example, in Russian hypocoristic names. The An~erican generaiised friendliness can be seen m the common phrase

Hose a mce dug! (often addressed to complete strangers, soinetimes even displayed on badges on the uniforms of shop asszslants, or on taxi windows).

These three different cultural emphases in the interpretat~oii of 'good

I Interpersonal relauons' can be represented as follor~,s:

i 'IVu,?tlth'. of the kind assoclczted u?tll RUSSLOII or Polisil culrl(l1-e: ! I feel someihing good towards you I

'Cons~deruroless and en~parlij~, of the lcrnd associared with Japuriese culture:

I don't want someone to feel something bad

'Ge~ieral frrnldiir~ess'. of the lciizd ussociared 117irh Anzer~can culture:

I I want everyone to feel something good

! Needless to say, the formulae slcetched above.are not meant to capture all the different aspects of different cultural attitudes to emotBons. For example, for Japanese culture we mlghl also pos~t the followzng rule:

I don't want to say what I feel

whereas for Russian or Polish culture we m~ght postulate the opposite norm:

I want to sag what I feel

On the Other hand, it would not be justified to posat for Japanese cultul-e the rule which seems to prevail in Javanese society, especially among the Javanese gentry (prijnji):

I don't want people to lmow what I feel

For example, Geertz (1976:247) wntes of the Javanese: "One often hears peopie say in praise of someone that 'one can never tell how be feels inslde by how he behaves on the outside' ": and he spealcs of "the nearly absolute requirement never to show one's feelings directly, especially to a guest" (1976:246). (See section 2.4 be1ow.j

In Japan Uie norm seems to be different: not 'I should conceal what I feel' but 'I should not verbalise what I feel'; that is, not 'I don't want peopie to icnow what I feel' but 'I don't want to say what I feel' The whole Japanese emphasls on empathy, on ojnolyaf-i(cf. Lebra 1976:33- 49) shows that Japanese culture does not discourage an interest in other people's emotions: quite the contrary. But it does discourage verbal

expression oi emotions. We coiild formuiate, tlierefore. tile following, firller, set o i 1ap;inese cultural norms related to emotions:

(1) I don't arant someone to feel something bad (2) i don'! to say \\,hat I feel (3:) I should lanow what this person can feel

1111s jlerson doesn't nave to say i t

2. 'Directness'

The terms directness' anti 'indireciness are often used in linguistic rlescriprions as if rliey mere self-espianiitory. In fact; however. they are applied to iotally different phenomena, \~,htch are shaped by totally different values.

The conftision wiiich sunounds this notlon 1s linked wldi the rvidely accepted disrinction oetrveeii so-called 'directr and 'indirect' speech acts. and ?n poriicuiar. beI\\,een imperatives and the so-called whimperatlves. Thus, i t is ~ v ~ d e l y assumed that if one says to somebody Close rite door-! rllis is a 'direct' speecil act, whereas if one says Coriid yo11 close rile door? or il'orrld yoit 17:rnd ciosrrrg rlle door? this is an 'indirect' speech act. But ai~hougli tiiese particular examples may seem clear, it is by no means clear liow the distinctton in question should be applied to other plienomena :ind to orller languages. Thus, in many languages, for esample; in Russlan. Polish, Thai, or Japanese, the tmperattve is often comuined \vttti various parhcies, some of them somewhat impatient, others rather friendly, some of them described as softening' the directive, others as, on the contrary, making it harsher or more peremptory and so on. . i re such combinattons of the imperattve wttli a particle 'direct' or 'indirecr speech acts? There is no general principle v~llich ~voold ailov/ us to answer tl~is question.

I suggest, tilerefore, that the wnoie distinct~on between 'direct' and . . indirect' speech acts shoulii be abandoned - at least until some c!ear

definitton of these terms 1s provided; and also, that the distinction be- iween 'direct' ano 'indirect' ways of spealdng in general should be abandoned, and tllat the different phenomena associated with these labels shou1d be tndividualiy examined. I believe that when this is done. the confusion stirrounding these concepts can be cleared, and some clear

cultural ewianattons for the cioss-ltngul~ttc differences associated with i;

ulese terms can be provided

2.1. American culture vs. Israeli culture

According to Blum-Iculka - Danet - Gherson (1985:133), "steweri from a cross-cultural perspective, the generai ievel of directness in Israeli society 1s probably reiativeiy very high" What exactly is meant by thts 'hlgh level' of 'directness'? One clear example is provided by the wide use of bare Imperatives in social interaction. iticluding public interaction:

(Passenger to driver: on the bus) Passenger A: pray ei iiadeler, lreha,o

(Open the door, drtver.) (No response.) Passenger B: izesag, deier oxorrr.

(Driver, rear door.) (Compliance.)

(Blum-ICullca - Danet - Gherson 1985:124)

Presumably, m Englih, an tnrerrogative-directive device (coi~ld you or wonid yorr) would be used in a similar situahon, and the autliors appear to regard this as a clear case of direclness vs. indirectness. In asking directions from a stranger on the sneer, the standard procedure for English is an 'attention-gerter' (E.rcirse nte ... ) and the form Canlcotrid )'or( re// rne ... ? (Blum-Kullra 1982:46). But in Hebrew, the standara procedure is a 'direct request for informallon' ('Where is the railway station?').

What does 'directness' mean in cases of this !and? I minl; 11 means that m Hebrew one can say miher freely something that means:

I tvant you to do (say) X

whereas in Englisii, generally spealcing, one is not expecled to say this without at the same ttme acknowledgtng the addressee's personal autonomy:

I want you ro do X I don't lmow if you will do It

90 CJ- or^-crrirrwai prngisaitcs and differenr cuiriirai i,alses

Ilence the combination of the imperative with some interrogative features in common English directives.

Why should the American and the Israeli cultures differ m this way? According to the above-mentioned source:

One possible explanation for this high level of directness is an ideological- historical one: The early settiers of Paiesune were guided by an ideology of eg;llitarism, which frowned on all manifestations of possible discrimma- tion between people, including a show of deference in speech. ... It IS

against this baclcground that one should consider the directness of present- day Israeli soczety ... (Blum-1Culka - Danet - Ghcrson 1985:133-134)

But this expianation is hardly convincing, given the egalitarian ethos of North America: surely, American culture doesn't encourage manifestations of discrimination among people, or ' a show of deference', either (cf. de Tocqueville 1953).

The same authors (1985:137) &so offer another explanation: "... these findings can be Interpreted as reflecting the disttnct, culture-specific interactional style of Israeli soclety. The low value attached to social distance, manifested m language by a relauvely high level of directness, suggests that the interactionai style of this society is basically solidanty politer~ess oi.teiited." I think that this observation is more to the point in comparing Hebrew with English, but, unfortunately, terms such as 'social distance' or 'solidanty politenessi are no! self-explanatory either. Trying to really understand the cultural values m question, we couid propose for Israeli Hebrew the following formula:

we can all say to one another: '1 want you to do this' we will not feel something bad towards one another because of this

Since m Israeli Hebrew one can also freely express one's 'diswants' (for example, in refusals, disagreements, and so onj the formula above should probably be expanded so as to inciude 'I don't want' as well as 'I want'. For example, Blum-Kulka observes in an earlier worlc:

Generally spe&ing. Israeli soctety seems to allow for even more directness In socrai interacrron than tlte Amencan one .... It is not uncommon to hear people around a conference table in Israel disagreeing with each other bluntly (suylng things like aia io'e 'You're wrong', or lo ttaxorr! 'Not true!'). Such directness in a s~milar setting In American society would probably be considered rude. Similarly, refusal is often expressea in Israel by a curt 'No'. the Same lo (no) can also be tleard as a response to requests

'Di~.ecoiess' 9 I

phrased as requests for informauon ('Do you have such alia sucll?') In shops, hotcls, and restaurants, a habit that probably contributes to the popular view about Israelis' 'laclc of politeness'. (Bium-1Cuika 1932:30-31)

We can portray the Israeli attitudes in question as follows:

we can all say to one another: 'I want this', 'I don't want this'; 'I thinlc this'. 'I don't thinic

this' we will not feel something bad (towards one another?) because

of this

In Anglo-American culture, too, one can say fairly freely what one wants, what one doesn't want, and what one thinlcs, but one 1s not expected to be similarly 'blunt' about it, because it is as important in this culture to acknowledge everyone's nght to independence and personal autonomy as to exercise one's own right to self-expression, Furthermore; In Anglo-Amencan culture there is no emphasls on 'we' (corresponding to the cultural value of 'solidarity'' in Israeli culture); rather, there is a strong emphasis on every individual's separate and autonomous 'I' This is sometunes described in terms of 'rugged individualism' as opposed to an 'ethos of solidarity' (cf. for example Arensberg - Miehoff 1975); but there are many ways to be 'individualisuc' and many ways to be 'non- individualistic' or 'anti-mdividualistic'. For example, the Israeli ethos of 'solidanty' (cf. ICatriel 1986) IS different from, though related to, Ule Australian ethos of 'mateship' (cf. Wierzbicka 1986b); and it is cerlalnly different from the Japanese ethos of 'dependence' and 'grouplsm' (cf. for example Lebra 1976; Smith 1983). Here as elsewhere, therefore, in spelling out cultural values it is safer to rely on explicit semantic formulae than on undefined and protean global labels such as 'diiect- ness'; 'individualism', 'solidanty' or 'collectivism'. Wr can portray the Anglo-American cultural assumphon in question as follows:

I thmk: 1 can say: 'I want this", 'I think this' I Icnow: other people don't have to want the same/think the same no one can say: 'I want you to want this'. 'I want you to think

this'

I have not mcluded m this formula the component 'I don't want this' because Anglo-American culture does impose certain inhibitions on the expression of 'diswants' and doesn't encourage open confrontation. In Hebrew, and in Jewish tradition m general, open confrontation is

encouraged nnd cllenshed, as a reflection of spontaneity, closeness and mutu:iI irusl. As tile ie!\,ish wnrer Sliolom Aleichem put i t (quoted In blyernoff l97S:ISS): "We iight to keep 5.\rarn~. Thai's holv we sur\,tve." jcf. also Sclirilfrin 19883). In Anglo-Amencan culture, however, 'direct conirontation is a\,oiaed in the tnterests of social harmony between independent ~ndiv~duais. In vie%\, of the emphas~s on individualism and on everyone's Dersonal autonomy, 'cioseness' is cherished in this culture less tlian 'I1arrnon)r

In saylng th~s , I Tim contradicting the view of maup Japanese scholars, wtio sce J;ip:~nese culture as a culture of 'harmony' and Anglo-American ciillure as one which positiveiy encourages 'direct contention and con- fronmtion But this just shows, once again, that global labeis such as 'harmony arc useo by different wnters in different senses. The fact of tile matrei- is tilac. as pointed out by Blum-Rulka (1982:30-31) or by Levenston (11)70), in England or in iirnenca 11 is not common to hear people around a conference table disagree with one anorher by saying 'you're wron_e' or 'that's not true'; in fact, 11 IS not common to use sucli phrases in-everyday conversation either. Anglo-American tradit~on encourages people to say 'I don'r think soi rntlier than 'you are wrong' Japanese culiure discourages people even from snylng 'I don'r think so' Rut !ve canriot accurately account for all such differences in terns of labels such as 'haimony', 'direcrnes~'~ or 'confrontauon'

Blum-I<ull;a (1982:30-31) mentlons that i t is not common in Englisli to express refusal by saying 'No' as one does in Hebrew, or to say 'No' In response to a request for information (for example in shops, hote~s. and restaurants): 'Do you have such and sucll?'. In English, wnen someone indicates that tliep mant something from.us we are free to say no^; but not to say lust 'No' The label 'directness' is not helpful m describing [his aspect of me Anglo-nmencan ethnography 01 speaking, though one can use here. more illuminatingiy, the label 'bluntness'. (It should be noted. iiowei'ei, that 'bluntnessi, though clearer here than 'directness' is nor self-explanatory either, and that for example Geertz 11976:2835) attributes 'hiuntness' to Anglo-Amencan culrure, connast~ng it in this

~vitii Javanese culture.) 'Bluntness' in saylng n o ' is vleweo posi- rlvely in Israeli culture but not in Anglo-Amencan culture. These different attitudes to 'bluntness' in saying 'No' can be represented as follows:

iiizg/o-An~e~-ica~i cirlftrre I say: No

I doll't \T2anr you to feel sonlethlng bad because of this I will say something more about i t becau'se of this

Israeli crliriire I say No

I I thinit I don t have to say anything more about i t

In Japanese cuiture, the norm seems to be to avoid saying 'No' aito- gether (in part~cular, to refuse an offer or a request, to express disagreement, and so on). Thus, Naiiane (1970:35) notes: " ... one would prefer to be silent than utter sucn words as 'noi or 'I disagree, The avoidance of sl?cll open and bald negative expressions IS rooted in the fear that it intght disrupt tile harmony and order of the group" Thls norm can be represented as follows:

Japanese cirlrlire I can't say: No I will say sometlling else because of this

Bamiund (197jb) explicitly compares the Japanese with the Americ~ms in this respect:

Anyone who has observed groups of Japanese or Americans talking together is aware at once ol certaln pecuIianlics m thex habits of speecli. In one group everyone bows and exchanges personal caros. When ihcy spcai: me)' do so qu~etly, often i n the form of understatements. Rarely iloes one hear u Delli~crent or unequivocal 'Xo. ... In [he otner group, rhcy all shaiie hands ns hey bzgm a conversation. 'Noi is heard a t least as often or more often than ' Y e s ... Arguments are heated. Issues often poianseo. (Barnlund 1975b:26-27)

Bur if the difference between rhe Americans and the Japanese is presented in such a polarlsed manner, i t ts hard to see hovi the same Amen- cans can appear to the Israelis as people !vho_ in contrast to themsel\'es, avoid saying 'No' It seems to me that the semantic fornlulae proposed here allow us to paint a clearer and more coherent overall prcrure.

2.2. 'indirectness' in Japanese

According to Mizutani - Mizutani (1987), Honna - Hoffer (1989). and many other writers on Japanese language and culture, i t is exrremel), important when taking politely in Japanese 'to sound indirect'. But rvhar does one do in Japanese 'to sound indirect'7

First of all, one doesn't say what one wants: instead, one sellds , . implic~t messages', expecting that the addressee will respond to them:

The spealcer thus often makes rndirect requests, and the listener also iespontts to implicit messages: this maltes me Indirect development of speech possible. For Instance, a man, usually a superior, will come Into tile room and say:

Kyoo-itra iya-,it arsru-nee. (It's awfully hot today, isn't it?) .And one of his men will say har ['yes'. respectful], and lhurry to open the wlndow or turn on ihe air conditioner. He may even apoioglse saying:

Doonlo Id-gn rs~rkiozaseit-de ... (I'm sorry I didn't notice.) ... many Jopanese seem to find pleasure in oelng with somcone who under- stands them very well and so will sense their wlshes and act to realise them '~vithour belng asked. (Mizutan~ - Mizutanl 1987:36)

The attltude manifested in speech behavlour of this!lcind can be represented as follows:

! I want something i don't want to say tlus I will say somethlng else because of this : I thinb this person will know what I want

K different phenomenon, also described in the literature ln terms Of 'indirectness', has to do with deliberate laclc of precision and lack of specific~ty m the ldentificatlon of referents, or m uslng numbers:

In soclat sttuauons the 3apanesc like to refer to numbers or amounts m n non-si)ecific way. For instance, when buylng apples they will often say:

illirrsrr-hodolgt~railboliar~ krrdasar.(Please grve me aoout three of them.) lnsread of saylng

Mitisu Rlldasni. (Mizutani - IvIizntant 1987:33)

Furtlier~nore, 111 making proposals or suggestions, the Japanese tend to refer to thlngs wlth indirect expressions like dento and nado (and others). For example:

Octla-derno l~onllnlasell-l;n. 'How about havlng some tea?' [lit 'or somethlng?'] E~ga-aenro in~n~ashoo-ba

'How about gotng to a movie?' [lit. 'How about seelilg a movie or somethmg?'] (ivlizutani - Mizutani 1987:34)

Similarly:

A: 1Mndn jikait-ga ant-11-desu kedo. 'I have some tlme to lull.'

B: Ja, zassl~i-demo yorldara doo-desn-/<a. 'Then, why don't you read a magazine or somethmg?'

(Mizutani - fi4iztitanl 1957:34)

In such situations, oclm-denlo or eega-denlo are preferred to oclta-o or eega-o because they let the listener choose among several possibilities.

T h ~ s deliberate use of non-specific reference and non-specific numeral expressions can be portrayed as follows:

I say: I would want something iiice thls I don't want to say: 'I want this'

It is not difficult to recognise here again the Japanese value of eilryo, discussed earlier - a value whlch is quite different from the Anglo- Amerlcan value of personal autonomy. But if all the different plienomena in question are described by mearls of the same label 'indirectness' then the different cultural values involved cannot be revealed, and the generalisat~ons made in individual works devoted to comparisons of two cultures do not seem to malce sense in a broader cross-cultural perspective.

As a parucularly s t r i h g example of the resulung confusion I now turn to the qnestlon of 'which culture encourages more "indirectness" - Greek or Amertcan?'

2.3. Greek culture and American culture

Consider first the following statement, fairly chaxacterlstic of the way the concept of 'indirectness' tends to be used in the literature on cross- cultural pragmatics:

Though languages provide thew speakers wtih explicit, direct ways for acliievlllg commun~cntlve enos, in day-to-day communlcat~on speaicers seem to prefer ~ndirect ways. In malting n request to a secretary, for

example, peo~ie are more likely lo say ihings like 'Could you do !ri or 'Would goi! mind domf i t ' rh:m tl>e slmple 'Do it'. iBlum-ICulka 1982:30)

The writer of the above Knows very well that the generalisation in questlon applies nor to 'people in general' but mainly to Anglo-Saxons; and thnt, for esample, i t doesn't apply to the Israelis. Bu! inis doesn'r preveilt her from formulating i t as if it in fact applied to -people in general'

Furtilermore. the illustration provided malies i t ciear that what the author Ins iii mind is rlle plienomenon of 'wlumperanves, directives pilrased interrogariveiy; but me generalisation is couched in terms of indirect ways of spealring' - as if it were enough to mention tile whimperativesi to explain \vhat one means by 'indirect ways of speal:.

i n g in general. Blum-I<u!!;a (i982:30) proceeds then to make the important and; I

think, perfecrly valid point that "one major factor that can influence tlie application of such principies can be the general 'ethos' of one society as compared to another one" But having said this, she says something ramer startiing, that is, Lilac "Greek social norms, for example iTannen /19Gla]); require a iliucn higher level of indirectness in social interactioii tlian American ones" (Bium-I<ulka 198230).

This statement might leiid one to believe that if in Israel one tends to say 'Do it!' more 171ideIy than one does in America, in America one tends to say 'Do it!' more widely than one does in Greece; and that, converseiy. if iii rLmenca one tends to say 'Would youi or 'Could youi In many siruarions in rvliich in Israel one would say simply 'Do it!'. iii Grsece one rends to say 'Would you' or 'Could you' in many situations i n ~vhicli in America one wouid say simply 'Do it!'

But is this believable? Surely not. In fact, a claim of thls kind molild seem to go ngninst cvergthing one 1;noivs about ivfediterranean culture generally, and about the Greek; culture more specifically. In particular, the ciiaractensat~on o i Greel; culrure as 'indirect or as 'more indirect' lilan Amei-ic;in cuilure, seems to be mcompatibie with the results of iichnviournl studies de\'oted specifically to the Greek national character, and 01- behaviouml differences between Gree1;s and .Americans3 such 3s Trianclis - Vassiliou (1972). For example, according to this study, 1~'pical Greei; bell3!'lOL1r S I ~ O W S charactenstics that an American !\rill interpret as arrogance. Uogmatism, and artempts to appear all-lmowing anc! aii-po\:.er!~ti!.

The cliaracterisation of Greek culture as 'indirect' also goes against the expectation that Greece and Middle East (including Isr3eI) might share some cultural vaiues, and some features of their ethnograph)' of speaking (cf. Tannen - Oztek 1977; Matisoff 1979) rather than being at the opposite poles of a scale, with Anglo-Saxon \ ~ a ) ~ s of speaidng in the middle:

'direct' Israel 'intermediate' England and North America 'indirect' Greece

One cat1 only ~ironder where Japan wouid appear on a scale of this I:ind? Below Greece, perhaps? And (Amencan) black English? Above Israel?

I believe that here as elsewhere, scales are misleading and confusin~ if they are nor preceeded by rigorous qualitative anaiysis. If one exam- lnes the data in Blum-I<ulka's source of information on Greel; cultui-e (Tannen 19Sla), it transpires that the so-called Greek 'indirectness' applies to phenomena quire different from the use of whimperatives; an0 the wllole puzzling story of 'Greek indirectness' Versus 'American directness' begins to make sense.

What Tannen did was to present a number of informants (some .4mencans, some Greeks, and some Greek-Americans) with a Ivntten quesnonnaire, nihicll begins by presenting an exchange between a wife and a husband:

Wife: Jo/i i~ 's i1a1~111g a pori)'. Cifn~iiia pol Husband: Okay.

T ~ v o paraphrases are then presented, and respondents are asked to tndi- cate which they believe the husband meant wilen he said okay:

(i-I) h#ly \vife mants to go to this party, Since she aslied, I'll go to maee her happy. ['indirect']

(I-D) My wife is asKing if I want to go to a party I feet like going, so I'll say yes. ['direci'l

Tannen's results are ciear ana interesting: "A cornpanson of tile percenl- age of responoenrs in die three groups who opted for paraphrase 1-1 tunis out looliing much like a cont~nuum, with Greelis the most likely to tattz the indirect interpretation, Americans Lhe least likely, and Greeli- Americans !n the middle, somewhat closer to Greelcs." (Tannen 19Sla:229).

98 CI-oss-csltrrr.ol pragrnoitcs and different cirlr,ti.al vnlue~

Although Tannen herself describes her study as dealing with 'modes of indirecmess', she is generally careful to point out that she is dealing only with one specific context: a negotiation between husband and wife about whether to go to a party. Nonetheless, some of her comments could be seen as inviting the kind of over-generalisatlon expressed m Blum-Kulka's account of her study. For example, she reporb ulat "an Amencan-born woman of Greelc grandparents ... commented that she tends to be indirect because she piclced it up from her mother, who Was influenced by lier own mother (i.e. the grandmother born m Greece)" (Tannen 1981a:235). Similarly, she quotes another personal testimony which she calls "most eloquent": "tliat of a professional man livlng in New Yorlc City, whose grandparents were from Greece. He seemed fully assimilated, did not spealc Greek, had not been raised m a Greek neigh- bourhood, and had few Greek friends. In filling out the questiomalre, he chose 1-1, the initla1 indirect mterpretatlon. In later discussion he s a d that the notlon of indirectness 'rang such a bell'." (1981x235)

This really could lead one to believe that Greek culture is somehow generally 'indirect', certainly more so than American culture. But what does this really mean? All that Tannen has really shown is that Greek coupies seem to be inore attuned to one another's unexpressed wishes than hmer~can couples are, and more ready to guess one another's unexpressed wishes, whereas American coupies seem to rely more on explicit verbaiisations of wishes. In fact, some of Tamen's comments suggest that in Greelc culture it 1s the woman who is generally expected to guess, and to comply with, her father's, or her husband's, unexpressed wishes:

For example. a Greek woman of about 65 told me that before she had manlea she had to ask her father's permlsston before doing anything. She noted that of course he never explicitly denied her pemlsslon. If she asked, for example, whether or not she should go to 2 dance, and tie answered.

i l ) A n rhes, pus. ('If you want, you can go.') she knew that she could not go. If he really meant that she could go, he would say,

(2) Nc. Nn "us. ('Yes. You should go.') ... This informant added that her husbvnd responds to her requests m the same way. She therefore agrees to do what he prefers w~thour expecting hinl to express his preference directly. (Tannen 1981a:224-225)

But if this is all there is to it, is it enough to draw the conclusion that "Greek social norms ... requlre a much higher level of indirectness nI social interaction than American ones" (Blum-Kullca 1982:30)? It seems

to me that a conclusion of this kind is unwarranted and mlsieading. On

i the other hand, Tanhen's data suggest the follow~ng cultural norm. ! which seenis to be quite credible, clear, and meamngful: ,

I want something I don't have to say this

i I thinic this person will lcnow what I want ! I think she will do i t hecause of this

It is particularly interesting to note here the difference between the Japanese general e n v o ('reserve, self-restra~nt'):

! I want something I don't want to say this

and the Greeic [male, typically) self-confidence: I I want someth~ng i I don't have to say this

(I thmlc she will do it anyway)

It IS also relevant to mentlon the importance of the division between . . m-group' and 'out-group in Greelc culture, and the great intlmacy and cioseness prevailing within the 'in-group' Triandis - \~assiliou (1972:304) spealc in this conllection of the existence of an "extremely tightly kmt family and an 'ingroup' that provides protection, soclal Insurance, and a warm and relaxing envlronment; in short, a haven from the larger wo11d" In a warm, intlmate envlronment of this Innd One doesn't have to rely on overt, verbal expression of one's needs, wlshes and desires.

As for Anglo-Amencan culture, Tannenis findings are perfectly consistent with the general Anglo-American emphasls on everyone's personal autonomy and on the individualism prevailing even within the family: Anglo-American culture encourages people to say, clearly and explicitly, what they want and what they thinic. Apparently, American spouses, too, rely less on wordless communication, and more on clear self-expression. Possibly, this implies less of a feeling of 'oneness' between the spouses, and a greater emph:isis on each spouse's individuality, unpredictability, and personal autonomy. All this is consistent w~tii what we otherwise lcnow of Anglo-American cultural values. Tlie term 'indirectness' doesn't really- help us here. In fact; i t is rather an obstacle to understailding.

2.8. 'Indirectness' and 'dissimuiation' in ,Tavanese

According io Geertz (1976:214), indirectness or 'indirection' is a major theme of J;ir,anesc beilavtour. Geertz illustrates this feature with the proverb ' to look north and iiit sourn H e 3150 rnenrtons the fact that old-time k i jd i s (!<orantc teachers) never expiicttly tnformed people the!; were iviong, but told little stones from wilicii the listeners could get tile p01nt less pa?nfuiiy. "One must get the i-asa of whar people are saying, the real conleni. informants are alrvags emphasistng, because aliis peopis (i.e. crvilised people) often don'r like to say whar is on tlietr minds."

'Indirectness as described above is closely related to another Javanese ctlltitrai norm, that is; to what Geertz calls 'dissimulat~on or pretenct5. or whar the Javanese themselves call ~ r o f c - ~ r o / ~ . "The cliarac- rerlstxc qiialiry of 4ioi:-irol:. in contrast to our patterns of dissemblance, is nor merely that 11 is far more prevalent and that it 1s largely approved ... but illat i i need not have any obvtous justification, belng merel)' gratuitous: ... In general, polite Javanese avotd gratulrons truths." (1!?75:245-2/15). Thus, Geertz quotes <he follon~ing defininon of Ero1:- ;ink, offered by an informant:

He said: Suppose I go off sourh and you see me go. Later my son asxs you: 'Do yo11 1:now where my father \\sent?' And you ray no, grot-rlol: you uon'r 1:noiv. I nshed him wiig sliould I 8roi:-rlok, nr lheie seemed ro be no icnson lor !y!na, and he said, '011, yoa just 2rni:-2iol:. You don'r have io have n reason.' (Geei-rz 1976246)

Tliis geno..?l cultural nom1 of concealment, o i nor saylng, nor telling peoplc Ziny gmtui tous truths', applies in parttcular to the truth about one's personal feelings:

The same sori o: pattern i s involved in the neariy absolute requirement never lo rlioiv ones real feelings directly, cspecraliy to a guest. Any kind 01' negative feeling towards another must be diss~muiated. ... Srrong pos~rivc i-lings are :itso supposed to be hidden except in very tnrimare situations. The sffoir is ro keep a steady ievei of very mild poritlve nfiec: in intzr~siro!lal rci~rions, an Pfok-8101: ivarmih behind !vliicli all real feelings c;!ri bz eficctiveiy concealed. (Gcertz 1976:216)

What applies to feelings applies d s o to \\#:shes: one should conceal one 's n~rslles and one's tntenltons, partlcularl). if they are 111 cotlflici with other oeople's wlsnes or desires. For ekample:

... onc must call out to any passerby one knows inviting him lo stop in . even lnougi, he may or the last person on carti, you wtsh to see. One must refuse iooa !unless the liosr pcrststr tn offenng 11) even if one is dying of hunger ... One shouid never refuse outnght peopies reouests to do some- Illing for them: raiher, one merely agrees even if one has no tntznllon of going through Wiih whatever it is. and tlien one never gets around to doing 11, purrrng the pettrioner off wrtb various Proi-&or excuses, until lie realises o t last that one was nor serious in the first pince. (Geertz 19763246-247)

Apparently, what applies to feelings and to wtshes, applies also to ihoughts. Geertz (1976:217) quotes a village polit~cian on this pomt, who began his speech as follows: "No one ever says what he reallg tinnks. People always era/:-etof: when dealing with other people. I too never say whar I reallg thtnlc. and you can't tell holx, I feel about things bg what I say."

The reluctance to espress one's feelings, wants, and thoughts links Javanese culture with Japanese cuiturai norms described earlier; bur the element of concealment, of conscious 'disstmulatton', seems to be specificallp Javanese. We can portray this 'disstmuiation' as follo\\,s:

I don'r want to say: I feel X / I want X / I think X / I icnow X I don'r want people to l<nnw what I feel/want/thtnk/l:no\v

The inore specific norm proscribrng explicit requesrs can be porrm)'cd as follows:

I can r say to someone: 'I want you to d o X' someone could feel somethtng bad because of rhrs I have ro say somerhing else

The norm proscribing explicit refusals can be portrayed aloiig s i n ~ i l a ~ lines:

if someone says to me:'I want you to do X' I can ' t say: 'I don't want to d o it' someone could feel something bad because of this I have to say something else I don't nave to do it because o r this

The a\foidance of prov~ding 'gratuitous informatiuni can be represented as follows:

i i someone says to me: yon i a o w sometrung

102 Cross-culiio.al pi.agnioncs mid different cultural values

'I want you to say it' I can"t say: 'I don't want to do lt. I can say something else I don't have to do 11 because of thls

The general priilc~ple of erok-4tok can perhaps be formulated as follows:

I don't want to say what I t h i n k h o w I don't have to say this I can say something else

In Western culture, saying what one thmlcs tends to be seen as everyone's right, and saying what one knows, as everyone's obligation (alihougil there are of course l im~ts to this). Generally spelcing, then, questions can be freely asked and answers c m l o t be freeiy w~thheld (cf. Eades 1982 and the references quoted by her). These attitudes can be portrayed as follows:

(1) I can say what I think (2) i can say to people:

'you icnow something' 'I want to lcnow it'

(I can think: they have to say it) (3) if someone says to me:

you lcnow something' 'I want to icnow 11'

I have to say it

In many non-Western cultures, however, and In partlcuiar In Javanese culture, a different norm prevails, wtuch can be portrayed as follows:

if someone says to me: 'you lcnow something' 'i want to know it'

I don't have to say it

As shown by Eades (1982), in ~ n s t r a l i a n Abor~ginal culture one wouldn't even assume that one has the rlght to aslc; on the contrary, Ule opposite norm prevails:

I can't say to people: 'you lcnow somethmg' 'I want to lcnow it'

Many writers have tned to explaln cultural differelices of this Bind, poiotlng to different cultural attitudes to Icnowledge, questloils, and in- formarlon (cf. Eades 1982; Ahrahams 1976; Sansom 1980; Iceen 1978; Hams 1984; Goody 1978). While accepting thelr explanations, I would like to add to them an addit~onai one: diffsrent cultural attitudes to truth.

European culture has tradit~onally placed a great premlum not only on 'lcnowing' but also on saying what one knows, that is. what is lcnowabie (01- true). Other cultures may v l u e lcnowledge wlthout valuing verbal articulation of knowledge. For example, Japanese culture 1s s a ~ d to value intultlve lcnowledge and to mlstrust verbalised, articulated 1:nowledge lcf. for example Barnlnnd 1975b: Lebra 1976). It is lnterestlng to note in this connection that while all ianguages appear to have a word corresponding to blow, many languages do not llave a word corresponding ta rrae (cf. Hill 1985j. Some languages have a word for something like lyrng (to another person), w~tllout havlng a word like lrue which combines m its meaning 'knowmg' and 'saying' (that IS, 'saying what one can h o w ' ) , without any reference to ~nterpel-sonal relations, as in the case of 'lying' (cf. Lutz 1985:73).

In fact, even ui English the word lriirh didn't always hase the irnpzr- sonal and objective nng which it has now. .4s Hughes (1988:61-62) observes, "The central and fascinating polnt in the semantic history of trirth 1s that it evolves from being a prlvate commitment to a publicly assessed quality. The form of word even changes, so that trot11, the private form, can, by the proof of arms, be asserled abo.ve even the claims of evldence or tesumony, if need arises. (This mediaevaiised form of tnrrh is, of course, virtually the opposite of the modern notlon, which 1s factual, demonstrable and essentially impersonal.)"

European culture, however, elevated the truth (first the pnvate, personal 'trutll', and then the public, impersonal truthj to a past~c~~rariy high place among generally accepted ideals; and 'truth' call be seen as opposed to both 'lying' and 'concealment', to both saying what one lino\ss IS not true and not saylng what one lcnows is true. The culturai norms ID question can be represented, roughly, as foliows:

it 1s bad to say what 1s not true it 1s good to say what is true

It might be added that modern Anglo-Amencan culture appears to be more 'pragmaoc' xn 11s attitude to &uth than European culture. This IS reflected, for example, m the concept of ' a wh~te lie'j wlilch doesn't seem to have any equivalents in German, French, Italian, or Poiisli

! 1 i (see sseciion 3.5 below). Cultural attituaes to conscientiousness. i punctualiiy, or reli:rbiliiy may indeed differ along the lines suggested

by Max Weber (\:er)~ roughly. bei\\~een Protestant tlort~lern Europe, plus i 1

! its Amerlcnii extension, and the Catholic rest; cf. Weber 1968); but the attliudes to pragmatic, w h i t e lies may be divided along rather different lines. i\,itii, i-ougiii). speaking, continental Europe on one side of the dividing line ant1 the more 'pragmatici Angio-American culture on the otiier. This modifieti, inglo-Amerlcan arutuae lo tiutb can be represented, very roughly. as follo\vs:

ii is llsliaiiy bad io say what is not r u e sometimes i t is good to say ~ v l ~ a t is nor true

11 notlling bad can happen to anyone because of thls

-4s oile early Anglo-Saxon put it: "Use not to lie. for tllat is unhonest; speak not euery truih. Tor that is unneedful; yes, in time and place, a ilarmless !ie is a great deal better than 11 hurtful trutll." (Roger Ascnam, !550, qooter! by Stevenson 1946:2058). Bui the norm discouraging ilot- irutll (i%~hztlisr in an 3bSOiUte or in o modifieo, pragmatic' form) is by no means unil'ers.?i. In particular, tile Javanese principle of eiok-irok allo\vs one oorii noi io say what one lcno\i~s is true and also to say what one

i !:nonrs IS not tme. Perceived cultural advanrages inl'olvea In sucll an

/ atiliude may inciudc tranquill lit)^', 'harmon),. smoorh and peaceful inter-

i pcrsonal relations ('I don't wan1 to feel sometlimg bad', 'I oon t want

i someone to feel sornetliing bad'), and so on.

3. Further illustrations: same labels. different values

In this sect~on, I discuss in a more summary way the use of five other global labels, ivllicli are genemllp believed to stand for identifiable cultural v;iiues; bui which in fact are used to refer to different atrxtudes and different ivays of speaking. I try to uncover ilie real differences in cultural values. concealed and obscured by such incons~stently and arbi- trarily applied terms. The Iabeis in question are: 'intimacy', 'closeness- (contrasted \~/itll 'distance'), 'infomalit)" (contrasled with 'formality'), 'harmony', and 'sincerity'

3.1. 'Intimacy'

It is widely believed that different culrures differ in the importance they gi\w to "intimacy' as a social value. For example; according to Iiijirida - Sohn (1956:390) American culture gives this value a high priority.

whereas in Japanese and Korean culture otlier values (for example. respect for rank and smtus) by far 'overrule' lntimacy as a cultural nornl. The claim that in American English 'intimac~' overruies mnic or soclal status. \vIiereas the opposite is true of Japanese and Icorean, is perhaps not ilard to believe, even viithoul any preclse definition of 'intimacy' Bur when the authors make a more genera! claim, attributing to Ameri- cans an "extreme sensitivity toward the mnmacy vanable" (1986:391). we cannot go aiong with tiiis without asKing what exactiy is meant by 'intimacy; and how ttiis 'seuslti\~ity to intimacy' 1s assessed.

In fact, in my own analysis of Anglo-American culture as compared with Polish culture (cf. Wierzblclca 1985b; see also Chapter 2 above! or with Russian culture (cf. Wierzbicka, to appear), I iiave reaclied conctu- sions very different from tliose suggested by Iiijirida ano Solm. From a Polisli, or Russian- point of vlew, Anglo-American culture is not 'sensitive to intimac)' at all. What, then, xs 'intimacy'?

If we were to rely on the everyday meanlng of tne ruord inrinlacy (and !\,hat else can we rely on?), we couid define the concept as follows: Intimacy refers to a readiness to reveal to some particuiar persons some aspects o i one's personality and of one's inner world that one conceals from other peopie; a readiness based on personal uusi an0 on perso~ial 'gooa feelings'. Tlus last proviso is necessary because althougii one mlght disciose one's secret fears or womes to a doctor or to a psycllo- analyst this doesn't qualify as 'intimacy, to count as intimacy, self- disclosure llas to be based on an assumption of personal good feelings. Thjs can be represented as follows:

rririlliac)~ X tfiinks: I fee! something

I \i.ant to sap it to someone I can say it to Y I feel somethxng good towaras Y Y feeis something good towards me I can say it to Y because of this I can't say it to other people

X says n to Y because of *is

106 Cross-c~~llarnl pragtnancs o18d differertr c~rllrrral vallles

Barnlund (1975b), who as we have seen has shown that Ameilcans are more prone to self-disclosure than the Japanese, has concluded from this that the former value inhmacy more than the latter:

The Amertcans will tend to culuvate physlcal as well as verbal tnumacy. Since the axm is lo seek more complete expresston of the tnner self, Amen- cans may not only disclose more fully verbally, but may Lry to utilise as many channels of communicatton as possible. For this reason they may display greater physlcal arumatton and engage in a higher frequency of pliyslcal contact durtng conversatton. Touch, as one of the more tntimate forms of Interaction, may be more encouraged and more accepted. (Barntuna 1975b:38)

But even touch ceases to be 'inkmate' if it 1s applied mdiscnminately. A handshake may incleed be more revealing than a bow, but it is not necessarily more intimate. If intimacy could be reduced to self-disclosure, the claim that Americans are more given to inttmacy than the Japanese could be sustained. But although intimacy is indeed related to self-disclosure, it cannot be reduced to it. To count as intimacy, self-disclosure has to be selective (in ternls of the: addressee), and this selectiveness has to be based on personal affection.

In my view, a culture where one basic term of address, 'you', 1s used indiscnmtnately to everyone, cannot be regarded as one which attaches a great importance to the value of intlmacy. If anytlling, it is extremely difficult to be intimate m English, because of this universal 'youZ, that is, because of the absence of any 'intimate' forms of address.

There are of course ntclmames, and so-called affectionate nlclcnames (for example Bob and Bobby for Roberr, [Care and ICafie for ICafller.~ne); but are Ihese truly instruments of inhmacy? Hijinda - Sohn (1986:391) thinlc that they are. They wnte: "The tendency of Americans to upgrade address forms (from FN to TLN) toward a person they are angry at, suuctural differentiatton of FN Into FFN, Nn, and ANn in E[nglish] and the productive use of them ali reflect the extreme sensitivity Americans have toward tile intimacy vanable."

But I don't tllinl; this is right. It is not 'inkmate' In English to call somebody Joltit rather than Dr. B ~ O I Y I ~ , and 'nicknames' such as Bob or Tin1 are no more intimate than Joltn. As for so-called affectionate'mclc- names, such as Bobby or Timnty, they are not intimate but child-oriented; lhey can be affectionate, but affection is not tne same thing as inttmacy, particularly if i t is an affection associated wtth the adult-child style of interaction. (For fuller analysts of forms of address and names see Wierzbicka, to appear, chaps. 7,g.i

Fztr.fher iiilurralio,rs: sanje labels, differetit ,railtes 107

I conclude that there is no lingulsttc evidence for the c l am thal English is particularly sensitive to lnhmacy. On the contrary. English, with its absence of any 'intimate' form of address, seems to be particularly insensitive to it. On the other hand, there is massive evidence for the importance of intimacy tn Slavic languages. This evidence takes the form, above all, of enormous differentiation of expresstve forms of personal names, such as, for example, ICdtja, Iilite~t'l<a, ICo~jilSen'l:a, ICdretlca, Ifdrik and so on for ICarerinti, or I/i!ifa, Vdlietka, VanjdSa, lfanjziika, Vanjdse?lio, and so on, for Ivan (see Wierzbiclca, to appear).

With respect to Polish. one can argue that the value of Intimacy is even enhanced by the wide use of tities and other ling~itsttc dev~ces Iceyed to rank and status, since this increases the differentiation of personal relattons. Hijirida - Soh11 (1986:389) state that "botlt Japanese and Koreans, being extremely status-conscious, are eager to give and receive powerladen titles in daily interpersonal encounters". and they link this with the low value of intimacy III Korea and Japan. But Poles, too, are extremely status-conscious, and are eager to give and recelve titles in daily interpersonal encounters; they also value a degree of formality and ritualised courtesy. At the same time, nowever, Poles place a high value on mtimacy, and the wide range of possibilittes between, say, Pan: Professor ('1Mrs Professor". with a third person form of the verb) and various tntimate forms of expresswe dertvat~on of names. enhances Ule value of intimacy enjoyed witll those special people wit11 whom one chooses to share it.

I t is an illuston, then, to thituc that an egalitarian ethos, such as that prevailing in Anglo-American culture, leads necessarily to an Increase in Intimacy, or that a culture sensttive to Status disttnctions is necessarily inlmical to intimacy. Once agan, termtnoiogtcal confusion leads here to conceptual confusion, ciearly visible, for example, in the following passage from an otherwise subtle and insightful study:

Of the three socletles under comparison, Amencaii IS least sensrtlve to power variables, as evidenced in both the patterns ana usages of honorifics. This seems to be due lo their egalitaitan value onentatton. As a result, solidarity var~vbles like tnttmacy and casualness prevail, although groupness [SIC] solidant!: ts the last rhing for Amencans io gtve tteea to due probably to them strong individualistic value orientation, (Hijirida - Sohn 1986:383)

Amencat1 society is described here as one domtnated by 'solidarity variables like inttmacy and casualness', although at the same time

solidarity is said to be 'tlie last thing for Amencans to give heed t o ' This is confusing and self-conlradictor)~. We can clear this confusion if we stop using undefiiied ighels such as 'intimacy', 'solidantyi or 'casual- -- ness ; and st:irt using instead precise and self-esplanatory Semantic iorrnul3e couclied in rerms of universal semantic ~rimitives.

Speai;ing mcmphoncally, innmacy implies closeness - another variabie which often comes up in discussions devoted to cross-cultural pragrnat- I . But i t s closeness' in interpersonal relations and how does one 2ssess ii? Sac131 psycii0log)t lias developed various measures that can be used to assess 'social distance' (cf. for example Triandis - Triandis 1960; Bogarcius 19331, bur these have to do with reiations between groups, not between mdividuals, and cannot be transferred to the study of interpersonal relations.

The concept of 'distance in interpersonal relations is heavily relied on by a number of writers on linguistic pragmatics, and in particular, by Brown - Levinson (1978); but i t is never defined, and i t is treated as if it was self-espianatory. At best, it is eiucldared by means of examples. For esample, Brown and Levinson assert tiiat:

oiily Dfistanccl varies in Ibe follor3vrnq two sentences: (1) Excitre i i i e , ivoirid yoir by mty c1,ance iini,r cite iinie? (2) Go; riic n,,ie, ,,io;c,? Our inru~r!ons arc ihai (1) would be used ivlierc (in S's perception) S[peni:er] and lircarerj were distant (strangers from different parrs, say). and 12) \vheie S and 1-1 were close leither known lo each oilier, or percepii- bly 'similar' in soc1:11 terms). D; then. 1s tile only variable i n our formulii rhn t cllanqes Froni 11) to (1) ... (Brown - Lev~nson 1978:85)

But this is bafflirig and unhelpful. Two university professors are presumably 'simiiar in sociai terms', but i t ooesn'r follow from ttiis iliat they would bc likely to eschange phrases like Go1 rile rrlne, more? On the other hanu, two young male nitcnhikers may well address one another in tliis way wen if rney are 'strangers from different parts'

Similarly baffling and unhelpful is the furtlier claim that 'D' is held constant in me following utterances:

(3) E.~cine oie, sir. ivoilld ii be nll r~gili f l srnol;e? (4) ~Wi~id ijl s?rrol:c? (Brown - Levinson 1978:84)

To justifj' this claim, Brown and Levinson appeal to their 'intuit~ons': but this just shows how unreliable and idiosyncratic such 'intuitions' about abstract and semi-teclmical concepts like'dismnce' may be.

It seems to me tllat if we are to reiy on the everyday use of the word ciose Las applied to human relaoons) we would have to say that closeness lias to do with interpersonal 'lcnowledge' as well as interpersonal feelings: two people are said to be 'ciose' if they ]mow one another very well, and have 'good feelings' for one another. This is similar to intimacy, but it is not tlie same fhmg. For example, a mother can be said io be inerj, 'closei to her daughter, but it would be a little odd ro say that a mofher is 'intimate. with her daughter. A mother \lFho is

! 'close' to her daughter l;no\vs a great deal about the daughter - about her 'hidden' tlioughts; fears, hopes, desires, and so on.

Speech doesn't seem essentiai to the idea of 'closeness'; but mutual Knowiedge, and the willingness to let one another icnow what is happen- ing inside us, does seem to be essential. Somenmes, 'closeness ma)! even reduce the need for verbal self-disciosure:.if two people are very 'closei they may each 1;novi liom the ouler person feels without overr

! speech, by a iund of empathy. But not all 'empathyi manifests 'closeness'; 'closeness being a permanent (long-term) feature of a relation-

! ship, based on mutual good feelings. Tentatively:

cioseliess ('X and Y are close to one another') X and Y know: we feel someihing good towards one anomer because of this each of them thinks of the other:

I want to lmow what this person feeislthinfislwants 1 I want this person to know what I feel1thinl;iwant

because of thls, each of them can know what the other feels/ thinkslwants when other peopie can't

To let someone become close to us means to trust them enough, and to feel enough affection (or 'good feelings') for them, to allow them to h o w us really well - betrer tllan other people i:now us. This may be seen as dangerous; because lcnowing us so well the other person \\,ill probably be able to hurt us. There will also be more opportunities for clashes, for mutual hurt, for open conflict. It may be safer nor to get too 'ciose' - if one values peace, harmony, absence of conflict and absence of mutual hurt.

Ro.rIler. illrrstrano~ls: sati~e labels. d~~ere i i r aalacs 11 i

Not all cultures, therefore, encourage closeness, certainly not to the

i same degree. For example, if I think something bad about you (for example that you look awful, or that you have done something bad) I have the option of telling you this or of concealing this thought from

I, you. If I do tell you you may be hurt or offended, but at least you i will Know what I thinlc, and you will know that I am Interested in your

I actions and your appearance. Telling you could promote our closeness.

1 Not telling you is more likely to promote harmony. In a situation iiice i this Polish culture, or Russian culture, would tend to opt for telling (that

/I is, for closeness), and Anglo-Amencan culture, for not telling (that is,

i for harmony). Or suppose that I have done, or want to do, something that I think you

! would disapprove of..Sliould I tell you or not? I£ 1 tell you, this will promote our closeness, but it will disrupt our harmony and peacefulness.

! ' You may feel something bad because of this, you'may feel angry, you may express your disapproval, and you may malceme angry and upset. If I don't tell you, there will be no ill-feeling, but we will not be close.

1: Again, in a situation like this, Polish culture, or Russian culture, would

I: probably opt for telling, and Anglo-Amencan culture for not telling. The attitude of a person who cherishes and seeks closeness with another

i: person can be portrayed as follows:

i . I want you to m o w what I feel/thinic/want I know that you can feel somethmg bad because of this

1 8 I know lhat I can feel something bad because of this j , I want you to ~cnow it 1. I

because I know that you feel something good towards me 11: I think you Know that I feel something good towards you

'I If one wanted to put a global label on this attitude, one might suggest

i self-disclosure', or 'openness'; but this would be misieading. As we

1: have seen, Barnlund (1975a) interprets his findings concerning Amencan I culture in terms of 'self-disclosure', but clearly, the attdude he is taking I about is quite different from that portrayed here. In the 'self-disclosure' i discussed by Barnlund, the stress is on 'self'; on 'I' on saying what I :

thinlc. In the 'closeness' discussed here the stress is on the relationship between 'I' and 'you'; on good feelings between 'I' and 'you', and on ! a deslre to continue and to promote a special relauonship between us two; even at the cost of hurt and conflict.

Needless to say the 'closeness' portrayed here has little to do with the attitude reflected in utterances such as

Got tlie trri?e, mare? Mirid $1 snioke?

Utterances of this kind could be described as inforu~al or casual (among other thmgs), but if they were said to reflect either 'iiltirnacyi or closeness', one would have to say that the words 'intimacy" and 'closeiless' are being used in some technical sense, not in the everyday sense, and that without clear definihons such Llse of these words obscures. rather than clarifies, the athtudes involved.

Informality is a cultural athtude which, as we have seen, is frequently confused with intimacy or closeness. In Australia, when one rings a travel agency, one will often hear a response including the travel clerk's first name, for example:

Anrencan E.!press, Caf/?y speaking.

If one were to believe Hijirida - Sohn (1956) one migilt conclude that this travel clerlc expresses intimacy or closeness towards her customers. I have argued, however, that intimacy involves a 'special relationship' between two people, which certanly does not apply m the present case: die travel cierlc cannot be claiming a 'specla1 relahonship' with every anonymous caller. Nor can she be cla~mmg deep personal lu~owl- edge of the addressee, associated, as I have argued, with 'ciosenessi Wltat is signalled by her self-presentation, then, is neither 'intimacy' nor 'closeness', but rather characteristic Australian 'infoinlality' - the same informality which, for exampie, Australian university students express by addressing their lecturers by their first name, or which Australian public servants express'by address~ng their colleagues, and most of thelr superiors, by their first names.

What is the meanmg of this near-universal Australian 'infornlalit)~"? I think the essence of 'informalityi (at least as practised in Australia) lies in the purposeful rejection of any overt show of respect, with implications of familiar~ty, friendliness, and equality. Thus, by saymg Catiiy speoKillg the travel clerk is inviting the anonymous callers to treat ller as if they !mew her well, to assume that she 'feels something good

to\vards all callers, tlle present caller included', and rhar there 1s no need to show overt respect to\rJards her (for example. by calling rier ildiss, iZ.ii-s, or Ms). A university lecturer or a branch head wi~o lnvttes his or tier sludents or subordinates to address him or !ier as Bob or .iamze conveys a similar attitude. Very roughly:

(a) you don't have to 'show overt respect for me' (b) I want you to speal; ro me as people do when they aim<: (c) we !:no\\, one another well (d) me fee! something good towards one another (2) me can speak to one another in the same way

Component ici of tiiis explicat~on implies familiartty, component (d), inutual -good feelings'.. and component jej, egalirariamsm. Component (b) shows 1Ii:lt the spe:ii:er doesn't really have to lcnow the addressee, to have personal good feelings towards the addressee, or to claim full equality and full symmerry in his or her relation with the addressee ifor example, <he travel clerl: may well call the addressee ~Idrs Broivii or Dr S~iiirli xvhil< [calling herself ~Corilg). By using one's first name, or the addressees iirst name; the speal:er IS evol;tng a certatn prototype of human reiatlons (spelled out tn the components (c), (d), and (e)), and diis is, I suggest, the essence of 'informalit),' In addition, however, 'informality has to be opposed to 'formality': this is reflected in the followmg, additional componeni:

(0 I know: people can't always speak like this to other people

'Formality is not always associared with hierarchical human relarlons and ~\,itli anti-egalitariantsm. For example, in Australia, at formal meet- ings of a universtt)' faculty, everybody speal:s in a very 'formal' xvay. \vithour dissociating ihemselves thereby from the Australian ethos 01 super-egalitariamsm.

In Polisll culture, titles of respect are used \+,idel)', and mutually: 'informality' is not valued tn the \sap t i is in Australia; yet illis relative 'ionnalily' is linked i-!tin a democrattc, relanvely e,oaliranan etilos icf. Davtes 198?:331-336). On the other hand, in 'vertzcal' societtes such as I<orea or Japan (cf. Nalcane 1972), the value placed on social hierarclip is closely iinlced witli value placed on 'formality Hence, from a Korean or Japanese perspeclive, the 'infornialityi of the Australian or American culture ma)' seem to be linked to thetr egalitanantsm even more closely &an it really is.

In fact, ' inf~rmalit)~' does rend to be linked witix egalitariamsnl, and 'hierarchyi does tend to be limed wtth 'formality', but none of these linlis is straightforward, and none of them can be understood ourstde the whole complex of other cultural norms and vaiues of a given sociery. Above all, the norms themsel\res have to be well understood and carefiilly d e h e d .

3.1. 'Harmony'

In i!ie discussion of 'closeness' I have used repeatedly the word 'harmony' -another 1:ey word used wtdeiy in discussions of cross-cuiturai pragmatics. But of course 'Iiamonp' is no more self-expianator)' than 'self-assertion', 'indirectton', 'inttmacy' or ' c l ~ s e n e s s ' ~ and if one doesn't say what one means by 11 in a particular context. i t can be as misleading as <he ofher wideiy used global labels. In the literature, this word, too; has been used in many different and mutually incompatible senses. For example, nshiie both Anglo-Amencan and Japanese culrures can be satd, and have been said, to value 'hai~mon)~', i t ts clear the Anglo-Amertcan culture doesn'r a m at 'harmony' in me sense in which Japanese culture does; in particuiar, i t doesn't aim at sameness, OF

npparent sameness, of tnougl~ts. Patricia Clancy 'describes this Japanese vlew of harmony as follows:

The Japanese reliance upon mdirect~on is consistent ivith tllelr attitude tnmsrds vcrhnl conflict. As Rarnlund points out, in Japan conversation is 'a \$ray of creatlng and reinforc~ng tnc emotional ties that bind pcoplc together with ihe aim of social harmony. Therefore, overt espresslon of conflict>ng op~nions 1s taboo. Even conference partlctpants ... ; In conirast to tiierr argumentative Amencan counterparts. rend to express rlierr vie\vs ienratlveiy. In antictputzon of possible rctract~on or qualificauon denending upon how they are rcceived they try ro feel out the positions of rneir collcngues. see1;ing a common ground for establishing unanlmlry (Bnrnlund 1975lbI; Doi 1971).

... Individuals may hold their own r21ew, bur, in the rnterests of group harmony, should not express i t if it conflicts i.irth the opinion oi orbers. [Clnncy 1986:215)

The following comment offered by Clancy (with reference to Do1 1974) sums up the Japanese approach to narmony tn a parricutarly stril~ing way:

Since Japanese 1.5 a left-oranching verb-final language, with negauon appearing as a verb suffix, speakers may negate a sentence at the last moment, depending upon the addressee's expressloe. (Clancy 1986:214!

This attitude, wnlch IS certainly different from the Anglo-Amencan ~ d e a of harmony, can be portrayed as follows:

when someone says something I can't say: 'I don't tl~inic the same' someone coulrl feel something bad because of this wnen people say: 'we ail think fhe same' it 1s good

As Clancy mentlons above, Barnlund (1975b) links the attitude portrayed here wtth the atm of 'creatmg and relnforcmg the emotional lies that bind people together'. This sounds rather l i e tne Polis11 or lluss~an ideal of 'closeness'. In fact, however, the attitudes involved are almost diametrically opposed. In Slav~c culture, saying 'I don't th'tdc the same" 1s seen as promotmg rather than ~eopardising 'closeness'; and 'causing people to feel somethlng bad' (now) can be seen as promoting ~closeness' 1n the long run.

Anglo-Amencan atttludes to 'harmony, and 'closeness' are different again. When constdered from a Slavtc or East European point of vlew, Anglo-American culture must be said to be onented to 'harmony' rather t'nan 'closeness'., but certainly not to the kind of 'harmony' sought In Japanese culture. Obviously, Anglo-Amencan culture does not discourage people from saying 'I don't think the same ' It does, nowever,

i discourage them from saying 'what you thmk 1s bad', 'I don't want you

I! to think thts', 'I UII* somethine hlA about you". and so on. Furthermore. 11 doesn't enrn--- -' ilngs wnich are likely to cause the

1 ; t even temporarily, m the Interests ., I I nity and 'harmony' were spelled

11. s- 2 r '2

f o ~ 5 .: Da\,~es 1% .6 " '

Icorea or Ja, 0 ."h 0 "n

IS closely linkeL-; 3 or Japanese persp~.s culture may see111 to-L ti~an 11 really is

3 because of this)

;enessZ are epltomlsed In the

Fs,?ltei. illrurror!oris: sarrze labels, di$fezier-en1 imalttes i 15

Ifro S L ~ cilrbr [en s ip ltlbl. 'People who peck one another on the head (like iighung blrus) like one anomer.'

As thts proverb suggests, it is not only diffe~ence of oplnlolls whlcll ts valued in Polish culture, but a fotcefully, pointedly, and pmnfully expressed difference. Thls attitude can be portrayed as foilouts:

I want to say what I thtnlc I lcnow you can feel somethlng bad because of tllls I don't want not to say it because of Ulls I want yoti to linow what I UllnL;

Once agam, we must conclude that global labels sucn as 'harmomy or 'distance' obscure rather than ciarify the real differences between different cultures and differenl ethnographies of spealung.

3.5. 'Sincerity'

The problem of 'closeness' in interpersonal relations is closely relalea to the problem of smeer~ty. It has often been s a ~ d that 1n modem Weslertl culture slncerlty has emerged as one of the core values. For example, Trilling wrttes:

If slscenty 1s the avoidance of being false to any man tnrough belog [rue Lo one's own self, we can see that this state of personal exlslence 1s nol lo Dc attamed wlthout Uie most arduous effort. And yet at a cerlaln polnl In

history cerraln men ana classes of men conceived that the nlalung of this effort was of supreme lmportanct 111 the moral life, and the vaue rney attached to lhc enterprise of sincerity became a salient, perhaps a defimtive, characterlstlc of Western culture for some four hundred years. (Trilling 1972:s-6)

This may be so - but what does t h ~ s cructal norm of 's~ncerity' really mean? Trilling (1972:2) offers the followtng definit~on: "The word as we now use it refers primarily to a congruence between avowal and actual feeling" We could translate this definition into the foilowlng formula:

if I don't feel X I shouldn't say 'I feel X'

Is it true that the norm spelled out above 1s an Important feature of Western culture? More specifically, is it true that 11 1s an tmportant feature of Anglo-Amencan culture?

11 is interesring ro nore that tine subjecrlve experience of Easrern- European irnnl1gmnts in Elglisti-speaking countries often leads rhem ro the oppositc conclusion. hi particuiar, Eastem European imm~granrs ofren complain abolit what they perceive as the 'insincer~t)" of Englisll con!~ersational routines, above all, of conversarionai openings such as Haib~ 01-E )voii?, Nice lo see goit, Loiaelj' d o ~ i , ini'i i t . and so on. (Cf. Drazdauslaene 1981 j.

The perceived insmcent)" of the 'Iiow are you?' routine consists Is botli i n the belief that the speaker doesn't really \\,ant ro lcno\v ho\-v me

addressec feels and is expecting the addressee to reply positively ('Fine. tnanl; you , 'Very \\'ell_ thank you: 'Iu'ot too bad') regardless of how the addressee renlly feels. Consequently, common positive answers ('Fine, tiianl: you') are felt ro be generally insincere; and the rvhoie game is perceived ;IS an c!:ercise in shared insincerity. I can add to this my personal testimony as an imm~grant and a bilingual: After seventeen years of living 111 Ausrmlia, l still find the pseudo-quest~on Hole are )'or[? :: pelplzslng one, since my olvn cultural impulse is to try to reply sincerely, i\8hicil I lcnon~ 1 am not supposed to do. When I recenrly failed ro reply proinpriy io this question, helplessly searching for woros, my inter~ocutoi- Iaugi~ed at me: 'Come on, this is not sucli a difficult quesriotl Bur lo nlc, I! is a difficult quesoon, and I laon* that I share rlils difficuiiy n,i!li thousands of other East European immigrants in Austsalia and in Ainenca.

1 can't beiievc. tlierefore, rhat Anglo-American culrure really cher- islies and promotes the norm that Trilling attributes to it: 'if I don'i ! . reel S I sliouidnSr say "I feel X"' On rhe contrary, I think that Slavxc I :~ntl Eastern European culture promotes this norm, and tliat b)' doing so I

8 i t coines into conflicl uiitll Anglo-American culmre. Eui tli~s is not ro say that I aon't recognise the validity of nllat

Trilling is ii-ying to sap about Western culture (as opposeo to what rle aclur.liy does say). Clearly, what he had in mind was not slncenty (or olIler\i'~se.! 01' conversatrnnal fomiulae, bur sincerltg of certazn lands of / \ self-disclosure. Trilling (1972:j) quotes in this connection hlatthew Arnold's "n~isrful st:ilemcnt of the difficulty, perhaps even impossibiity, of locating tile own self '

Belaa' the surioce-rrrcam, shallow and light, Of what 4-c s3y ~ V C feet - beloit, the scream, As iighi, of tvliar \re ihirii: we feel - tliere flows With no~scless current strong. obscure and aeep, TIE cznii-;ii rrrcnm oi tvhn! we ieel indeed.

c-P, . . . . . . - --

*I

1 hiatthew Amold called the hidden self the ' b s t self'. but, Trilling

aslcs, 'is i t the own self?' In Tri1ling.s 11972:j) new, if there is anything aeep down In =vhich corresponds to 'the archetype of human being';

.now that is, to the ~man1;lud's best self'; this is not my sole self: "I I' that it coexists with another self which is less good in the public moral way but which, by very reason of its culpability, mlght be regarded :IS more peculiarly mine. So Hawrhome ihouglit:'Be true! Be true! Be true! Shn\v freely to the world, if not your worsr, yet some trait by whtch tlie worst may be inferred.' "

This brings us; I mink, much closer to the real meaning of 'sincerity' in European culture. It 1s not a questlon of never saylng mar one feels

\ something that one doesn't feel; rather. l t is a question of m n g what

n bao about one really feels (including feelings that reveal somethin, _ oneself) and of being able to m e those real ieelings (especially those which show something bad about oneself) 'to tile world' Every

3 human being is 5nyu_ee, and u ~ q ~ l y ~ t e r ~ t i n g because of tllis. We shouldn't try ro appear 'good' to other people. zainer, we should try to reveal 'to tlie world' our u&a,geEez, and this involves3 above all else. our 'badness' because 0111 'badness' ~- - - is more ---- original, and more intere!;r- --- ing, than our Lgoodness'

-The culurai injunctions in question can be formuiarea as follo!%,s:

I don't imow wiiat I feel I wan1 to lcnn\v It

\!,hen I Icnoiv I! I want ro say it I want people to h o w i t I tllinic rhat people can think sometlung bad about me because

of this I d_qn't want n o s o s y II- bepu? of$$ -. .- 7 -

I believe that the attltude speit out above may indeed be, as Trilling savs, 'a salient, perhaps a definitive charactenstic of Western ~ u l t u r e ' ~ linked closely with the blrth of with me emergence and growing significance of iarles, autobiographies, 'confessions', Introspection, and so on. My point is that we canna1 capture, or identify, this cnaractensric by means of some global term SUCII as 'smcenry'

Contemporary Anglo-American culmre doesn't seem to place any premium on 'neijer saying rliat one feeis something that one doesil'i feel'. On the contrary: the routines of human interaction reflected in ihe Engiish language encourage saying that one feels something good when

one doesn't feei anything good. Thls 1s manifested, in a spectacular way, not oiily in the Hoiv are you? routlne, but also m the convenuons of letter-wnting: the opening phrase Dear Sir expresses a good feeling towards an addressee who may be a complele stranger, and so does the ciosing phrase Y01li.s suicerely. Phrases of this kind cannot be used in otlier European languages, certainly not in Slavic languages, vihich do not allow any formalised expression of clearly non;exlstent 'good feelings' (and which encourage expresston of exlstlng 'bad feelings').

Trillirtg (1972:3) opens his discuss~on of 'sincer~ty' in Western culture with a quote from Hamlet:

Thts above all: to thine own self be true And lt doth follow, as the nlght the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

A It would appear, however, that in modern times the idea of 'being tiue to oneself' has become disassociated from that of 'never bemg false lo aiiy man ' This may be linked with the shift of emphasis From 'smcer-

+ ity' to 'auti~enticity', whlch as Trilling points out, has taken place in &- modem times.

A very considerable onglnabve power had once been clatmed for s a , but llothing to match the marvellous generauve force that our modern judgment asslgns to-zty ... Still, before aurhenuclty had come along lo suggest the deficiencies of sincerity and to usurp 11s place in our esteem, sincenry stood high m the cultural fimameilt and had dominton over men's rmagination of how they ought to be. (Trilling 1972:lZ).

It seems to me that m modern times the two Ideas 1inl:ed by Shakespeare in the passage froin Hamlet have become dissociated: the idea of 'bemg

7 true to oneself' developed Into something like that 'authenticity' dis- '-, cussed by Trilling, whereas the Idea of 'not being false to any man' 1 has given way to a modem Anglo-Amencan virtue of social harmony,

1 based on 'distance' and on avotdance of interpersonal clashes.

The vlrtue of 'authentic~ty' has to do wtth the notion of 'self', and of a true, genuine, and unidiibited expression of one's self. It does not ID- V O ~ V ~ the relation between 'I' and 'you'. As far as the relation between 'I' and 'you' is concerned the emphasis seems to have shifted from 'sincerity' to the avoidance of clashes, to smooth, well-greased, hanno- nlous soclal interactlon. Conventional expressions and conventional routlnes such as Dear iiir X, Hoiv are you?, Losely lo see yorc, Nice ro lmve tiler you, Loijely day, rsn~i it. and so on, provide the oil for such harmonious social interactlon. The expansion of such expressions fits

In logically wlth the modern Anglo-Amencan constraints on direct confrontation, direct clashes, direct criticisms, direct 'personal remarks - features whlch are allowed and promoted in otlier cultures, for esample, m Jewish culture (cf. Schiffrin 1984) or m Black Amexkcan culture (cf. for example ICochman 1981), in the Interest of cultural values

i such as 'closeness", 'spontaneity'. 'anlmat~on', or 'emotional intensity wliich are given m these cultures priortty over 'social harnlony'

8

! This 1s why, for example, one doesn't say freely in (white) English; 'Yon are wrong". as one does tn Hebrew Lcf. Schiffrin 1984) or 'You're crazy', as one does in Black English (cf. ICochman 1981:46). Of course some 'Anglos" do say fairly freely things like Rubbisl~! or even Bullsl~~i!. In particular, B~~lishir! (as well as You bastard!) is widely used in con- versatlonal Australian English. Phrases of thls Bmd, however, derive

i their force and their populmtp partly from the sense that one is vlolaung a social constraml. In using phrases of this kind, tlie spealcer defies a

1 soclal constraint, and explolts it for an expressive purpose; indirectly, ti~erefore, he (sonietimes, she) acltnowledges tile exlstence of this constraint In the societp at large.

Generally spealung, m mamstream Anglo-American culture one has to be rather careful as to what one says aboot @because one prefers to avoid confrontation, preserve h a r E avoid the irnpresslon of imposing or interfering, and so on); at tlie same time. one can be Less circumspect in saying things a--1though here, too, there are various constraints and restrictions. such as the constraint on 'bragging' or the constraint on the expression of one's bad feeiings towards the addressee, or tlie constramt, on 'emotional displays'

The general nonn, then, can be portrayed as follows:

I can say what 1 think/want/feel other people can say wnat they thl~llO'w~ultlfeel

i Some of the constraints on this general norm can be formulated as

i follow^:

I (1) I can't say: 1 am good I can do thlngs that other people can't (people would thinl: something bad about me because of this)

(2) I can't say: I feei sometlimg bad towards you I thinic something bad about you

( 3 ) I can't sap: I winr you to do something that you don't \qJant to do

(4) I can't always say whar I feel (people could think somettiing bad about me because of this)

( 5 ) I can't say things ~viien someone else is saying sometlung

One rnigllt say, then, that a curious paradox is in\~olved in the position of 'sincerity as a cutrural value in modem Anglo-Amencan culture. On tlie one il.~nd, as Trilling says, the very word si?icei.e(l),) has come to have an air of insincerity about i t - and, yet, as Goldstein - Taniora 11975) palilt our, 'Anglos' (in contrast to tlie Japanese) go to great troubie to sound sincere. T o achieve tiiis, they seek to espress their feelings in a personalised way, in contrast to the Japanese, who rely on slandard fomls and Uo no1 \,lew 'clich&s' or ready-made fomuiae in $1

negative way: I i

To the Anlei-lcan, rhe Japanese method of srandard messages, such ns i 'Congraruiul~ons' !%'r.lIh only a name, the presentanon of a gift with a standard ~ h i n s e , a refuse! rvirh a standard phrasc before acceprance ... may seem very bare lndeecl and perhaps somewhat ttisi,rcere. (Goidstem - Tamurn 1975:91j lernphas~s added]

The limerlcan gursr espresslng tilan1:s to his llost :ir ihc end of dinner iias no ... sranriard form: bul iarher makes use o i a vnnely of possibiliries generoliy enipiiasising rile siiccess o i the men!, \i,irh or w~thour ail exnresslon of rh:inl:s, such as 'Thank you for tile dcliclous dinner' or 'What a dclic~ous meal that was' (more informal) or 'Boy, tnar was great!' (colloquiai-slang). each said with npproprrarc inronaoon ro express si,,cer.- !ry. (Goldstein - Tamurn 1975:72j /emphasis added1 1

/ This search for n personalised exprecqror) o f . m p 2 - ' , e

feelinms, seems to reiiecr a tension bet\veeri tne value of authenticity, -7-7-- 01 'berng rruc to oneself' and the search for friend]-mus a a t i o n s ~v l th other people: between the desire to exoress one's ' r ~ a i sell' ('this is what I i'eeliwantltliink') and the deslre tQha.ye friendly i n t e r p ~ e r S o ~ ~ r s l a r i o n s with other people and to f e e l s s o m e t l i ~ n ~ rood' .- - -

Tiie d e s ~ r e to liave friendly relations with otlier people may lead one to sag things LI'IIICII do not correspond to what one really feels and thinks. Tiie amareness of this, an0 the value placed on both 'harmony' and self- expression, may lead to an attitude m h ~ c h can be portrayed as follows:

(a) I sap: I feel something 1b) 1 say this because I feel this (c) I i;no\v: you can think that I say thrs

because I tl i im I should say it (d) I don't want you to ihinl; this (e) I say thls because 1 feel this

In Japanese culrure, mere is 110 room for this liind of attitude because [lie emphasls is very largely on saylng whar one thinl<s one should say, not on saying what one really feels. Hence, there is no perceived need to use

... rlle Amencan spearer mares a personal connectLon to i h e r lsici wnile at h e same time expressing his own personality in the arrangemcnl of words he chooses lo use. The Japanese speaker, havjng rile form al his disposal. snows chiefly his awareness of his obligar~on by uslng the verbal form at the appropirate ier,e! at the appropriate [me. (Goldstein - Tnmura 1975:80)

4. Different attitudes to emotions

Different cultures take different attitudes to emotlons and these different attitudes to emotions influence, to a considerable degree, the \r,ays people speak. (See for example Lutz 1986, 1988; .Wierzblcl;a. to appear.) Differences of this kind cannot be satisfactorily expla~ned by means of any global iabels such as 'emollonal' or 'anti-emotional', 'express!~'e' or 'non-expressive' They can, however, be made clear by means of semantic explications. In \\,hat follows, 1 will try to present thumb-nail si~etches of several cultures, considered from the poilit of view of their characterist~c attlrudes to emotions.

4.1. Polish cul ture

Like other Slavic cultures, Polish culture vaiues what might be called uninhibited elnotional espression:

I want to say what I feel

D(ffere~zt attitudes 10 entorrorzs 123

This includes both good feelings and bad feelings:

I feel somethlng goodbad I want to say ie

As mentioned earlier, 11 values m particular expression of good feelings towards the addressee:,

I feel something good towards you (I waot you to Imow it!

and it offers for this purpose a wealth of linguistic resources, such as a very rich system of hypoconstic forms of personal names, and also a rich set of terms of endement . The latter point 1s illustrated by Polisli terms wldely used in everyday speech, partlculariy m speech directed at children: piaszlcii 'dear little bud', kotliii 'dear little cat', stoneczlco 'dear little sun", iabko 'dear little frog', skar'bie 'lreasure'. itotko 'dear littie gold', and so on (cf. 'WierzbicKa, to appearj.

Many othel features of the Polish ethnography of speaicmg call be explained m terms of this cultural attitude. For example, cordial imperatives and 'imposltives' ('have some more',, 'you must have some morei, 'you must stay a little longer', and so on) are clearly related to it (cf. Chapter 2 above).

Polish principle of 'cordialify' I feel something good towards you I want good things to happen to you I waot to be w ~ t h you

4.2. jerv~sh culture

Emotional self-expression was also hlghly valued in traditional (East European) Jewish culture, as described, for example, by Matlsoff (1979). In this culture, however, good and bad feelings were generally expressed by means of good and bad wishes. Hence the tremendous importance of curses and blessings in Yiddish speech. Thls characterlstlcally Jewish style of emotional expressiveness is well illustrated in the follow~ng passage:

There are as many types of curses as there are people cursing, but the hardest ro explam is the mother cursing iier child. Tlle child may be crylng

because he is hungry. The mother bursts out, 'Eat, eat, eot. All you want to do is eat. May the worms eat you. May the earth open up and swallow you alive.' This mother loves her child, she is only pounng out the bitterness that's in her heart in the only way she icnows. But m translat~on she sounds lilce a monster. (Butwm 1958:9)

A few further examples of Jewlsh 'wtshes' espresslng the speai<er's feeling (see mati is off 1979):

Governor Reagali, IIlfly he be erased, i a l ' r giving airy r-aise t11ls year to niy SOIL the professor, a Realtli ro trbn.

A blacli year on her, all day lojig she clie~eed nty ear off. wit11 trivia.

My 11iotlter-in-law, nloy a lamelit be lciio~~n to he{-, liar a iv~clced tongue.

M j ~ rvfe - mtut she live? - gave rt away to iiim for 12otl1~1ig

Matisoff (1979:86j offers the following comment, w111ch I believe expresses a deep insight: "Especially m the case of curses, the formulas may serve a purely therapeutic function. They are convement, con- ventionaiised ways of letting off steam - releasing bursts of psyclllc energy whicil mlght otherwise remain hopelessly bottled up ..." Follow- tng this insight, we can represent the pragmahc principle m questlon as follorvs (the braclieted component is optional):

Jer~nsii expressive cirrses X thmnks of person Y (X thlnics: person Y did something bad) X feels somethlng because of thls X wants to say sometiung because of thls X says: I want someihing bad to happen to Y

4.3. American black culture

Unlnhibited emotional self-expression is also charactenstic of Amencan black culture, as opposed to white culture. In tnls culture, however, thel-e 1s no emphasis on 'good feelings towards the addressee, and there 1s no tradition of expressive wlshes. Among several characteristlc features of this culture which emerge from the rich literature on the subject I will single out the 'intense': 'emotional' character of black speech: the

'animation' thc 'heated tone' of discussions, the 'Iacl~ of detachments in staring one's opinlons and expressing one's mougiits; even on abstract. inrellect~ial topics: tlic distrust of a deliberntely dispassionate and ,detached mode of discussion favoured by \sliite Anglo-Amerlcan culture. Rocnman ivrites:

Bur they ibiac!:sl I > : i v nnorlier reason lo mzsinrerprcr (nna distrust) ihe dispasslonaii 2nd dst:~cned mode that whites use to engage in debnre. It resembles !lie mode tktr blacks tn<:rnselves use when [hey are/,.o,rrirzg: lhai is, consciously suppressme whar tliey rmly feel or uelieve. As one black student put I!. 'Tlinr's whsn I'm tyln'.' Front~nn generally occurs in blacK1 \viiirz encouiitsrs \i*hen bIac1:s pcrcclve n risk factor and rhey decide 11

would lie more prudenr ro Keep sileni rbnn lo speai;. (Koclirnnn 19S1:12)

Ylacl: culture values, then. and promotes the folln\~fing attitude:

i riiini: sometning I feel something because of this I iiJant to say I I

i?'iiite Anglo-~i~i ier ican cuiturc values and promotes \%,hat one might call loosely tlie opposirc attitude:

I thine solnething I \\,ant to say ir I don'i feel anything because of it

The iwo cultural norms in quesnon could aiso be represented ns folloivs:

Giack ilinericui; X thinl;.s sonietliing X xvanrs to say it one c:iil see Illat X feels someihlng because of tliis people lllint:: rllls is good

Anglo-.i~~?er-icni~ X thinlcs something :< \wants to say it one can ' t see that X feeis anything because of this peopie tnini:: iliis is good

Furiiiermore, for blaclcs, views are ~nseparable from values and values are closely linked mitli emotionai involvement. Consequently, "blacks present their views as advocates. They take a posltion and snow that rhey care about this position" iI<ochman 1951:20) - and they care about

; '. it because they thlnl: i t is good. By contrast, wliites tend to present tlleii ideas as spol:esmen, not advocates. "How deeply a person cares about or believes in the idea 1s consrdered irrelevant to its fundamental value. ... Whites beliese that canng about one's own ideas, like the infatuation of scienrists \slth their own hypothesis, will make then1 less receptive to opponng ideas." 11981:21). I<ochman speaks in this connection of the separation of 'truth' and 'belief' in Anglo-Amencan culture, and lie linl:!: 44 I the norms of dispassionate, neutral objectivity, and of detachment from 1 one's ideas n'iih Ule desire to discover 'the real truth' (which I S seen as involving only sentences, not people). He points out that in this culture the merits of an idea are seen as intnnslc to the idea itself. and that emotional involvement with ideas is seen as something that can only prevent people from being able to assess their ~ntrinsic \#slues.

Blnci Al?ler-zcan I think something I feel something because of this I think it is good to think this I want other peopie to think this

A~~glo-ritnei.icn~i I think something I don't feel anything because of this 1 other peopie don'r have to think the same I u2anr to say what I tilink I want other people to think about it . a out i t I want to knorv what other people tlllnl 6

The con~flicnon that our ideas are good and the attitude of emotionai attachment to them leads in black culture to what I<ocnman (1981:23) calls 'dynamic opposition', an attitude which is perceived as a uniiying rather than a divlsive force. "Whites attempt to minimise dynamic opposition wtthin the persuasive process because such confrontation, or struggle; is seen as divisive. Blacks, however, see such struggle as unifying ... It signifies caring about something enough to want to shuggie for it." I think that to account for this 'dynamic opposition' and for its 'unifying force' we could add to the formulae si;etchcd above the follow~ng components:

Block A?~ierrca~i I icnow that you don'r think the same

I tlllnl; this is bad I feel sometlung because of tlns

-:-I want us to tlunlc the same

Anglo-Antericait I know that you don t thlnlc the same I don't thidc this is bad 1 don't feel anything because of this I thmK. we don't have to thinlc the same

4.@. Japanese culture !

In Japanese culture, as we have seen, the prevailink norm with respect to emotions is thls:

I don'i want someone to feet something bad

This is manifested In countless ways m the Japanese ethnography of spealcing, but perhaps most spectaculariy in the omnipresence of apologies and quasi-apologtes m Japanese speech (cf. Conlmas 1981: cf. also Mizutani - Mizutani 1987). The importance of apologies in

Japanese culture is epitomsed m the fact that in the Japanese version of Little Red Riding-Hood the wolf has to appear at tile end with tears in his eyes aslung for forgiveness (Lanham 1986:290). The theme of indebtedness which pervades Japanese soctd Interaction is related to this omnipresence of apologies, and also to the lack of boundaries between acts which from a Western perspective would be mterpreted as ap0logleS and thanks. Roughly:

(1) 1 did something ithat was bad for youj I thinic you could feei someuling bad because of this I feel sometlung bad because of this

(2) You did something good for me I didn't do something like fhis for you 1 feel sometlling bad because of this

Thus. both the constant fear that someone may feel Something bad because of us and the constant awareness of unrepaid good tlltngs that other people have done to us lead to the humble expression of our uwn 'guilt'.

.. ---- I didldidn't do something (tnlfor you)

1 Different airlrrides ro enzonoits 127

I feel something bad because of this

In addition, Japanese clllture places very high value on empathy, on anticipamg what other people might feel. It is thls high sensitivltj, to other people's (unexpressed! feelings that causes the Japanese to 'masic' and conceai thelr feelings:

In soclal interaction, Japanese people generally are expected to restrun, if not suppress, the sirong or direct expression of emotron. Those who cannot convol their emouon are considered to be immature as human beings. Strong expression lverbal or nonverbal) of such negative emotions as anger, disgust, or contempt couid embarrass other people. Direct cxpresslon of SOTTO\V or fear couid cause feelings of gnsecunty in other people. Expression of even happiness sllould be controlled so that i t does not displease otlier people.

The best way to coinply wifh this social code of bel>avior 1s to utilise masking techmques. Thus, Japanese people, although unaware, frequenuy display apparent iack of a meaniiigful faclal expressloo. often referred to as 'inscrutable' by Western peopte. It is an attempt to neutrvlise strong emotions to avoid displeasure or embarrassment on ille part of other peopte. (Honnu - Hoffer 1989:88-90)

This can be represented as follows:

I don't want to say what I feel someone could feel somethtng bad because of this

Thls focus on empathy 1s manifested not only In the constant attenlpts to avoid anything Ulat might hurt or offend the addressee, but also in the attempts Lo antlclpate and guess other people's unexpressed needs and wishes (cf. Lebra 1976).

The Japartese principle of 'enlpatli)~' and 'coilsldef.ario~i' X thinks: if I do something (Y) this person can feel something badlgoou because of this I \-fill not/will do it because of this inis person doesn't have to say anything

This stress on empathy is linlced to the Japanese reluctance to verbal- rse feelings at all - due largely to the fear that by domg so one may hllrt or offend other people, but also to the convlciion that feelings

.\- should be expressed, and understood, without words; and furthermore, ,.i that feelings cannot be really expressed by words. Goldstein and Tamura

coniment in inis connectton: In general. ... Amciicans ... rend more to the feeling t1131 tltey can express senrimenis dii?etlu and personally through the medium of language. ... To tlic Liponese, on the other hand, 'No word conveys sorroiv; you must iooe ;it i!,e color of lhe eyes' (Goidstcto - Tamura 1976:02-93)

The attitude epiiornised In this proverb can be ],ortrayed. roughly, as r01loivb

I dotisr mant ro sag what I feel one canz! sax. what one feeis

.As we have seen earlier, not saytng what one feels is also higilly valued in Javanese culture. Here, ho\vevcr_ the motivations seem to ue rather different tiiiin in Japan: t i is not so much rne belief that feelings cannot be expressed tn \vords, o r the preference for wordless empathy, or the consideratioit for other people's feelings, but rather, a deslre to protect one 's own equanimity and peace of mmd, w k c i l couid be tltreatened a?

-

an overt expression of feeling. Thus Geestz.writes: ~. _- - '

I i one can calm one's mosr mward feelings (by being ri.l,,io, sabar, and ii;las). ... one can build a mall nround them: one will be able both lo conceal them iiom orliers and to protect ihem From outside disturbance. The refinement of inner feeling has thus t \~ .o ~spects: the direct inrernnl attempt ro control one's cmonons represented by irt,nn, sobor, and ikios: and, secondly. an external atlempi to build n wall around rhem Lila1 u%sill protect rilem. 00 the one hand, one cngager in an inward disc~plinr, 2nd on tlie other !it an outwaro defence. (Geerrz 1976:241)

This can be reflected in the formula:

I don ' i want people to know wh;it I feel

It would seem; then, that while n e ~ t h e r the Japanese nor the Javanese ivani to say \\,hat they feel. the Javanese, in addition, don ' t even want others to i;now wt1ai they feel; and tiley want to restrain not only the externa! expresston of feelings, but also lnternal emottonal expel'ience an attttude remintscent of the Stoic apar l~ern 'freedom from emotional

disturbance' , see Wierzhicl;a, t o appear, chap. 6).

The management of one's emooonal economy becomes one's primar). concern, in terms of whicli all else is ulllmateiy rarionalised. The rpfritu- all), enliglitened man guards his psycholog~cal equilibrium \\,ell and inages a constant effort to maintain its placid stability. His proxrmatc a m is cmot~onai quiescence, for Dassion is 1:asor feelin$, fit only for cliildrcn.&--- animals, peasants, and foreigners. His ult~mate aim, mlticb this quiescence mal:es nossible. IS gnosls, the direct comprehension of the ultimarc raso. To feei all is to understand all. Paradox~cally, it is also to feel norhing ... Emorlonnl equnmmrty, a certain flatness of affect. IS, rile"; the prlzea psycl~ological state, the mark of me truly allis Irefinedl chzractei. (Geertz 1976239-240) -, i l l

15.%Jdl This would suggest an a t t~ tude which can be portrayed as follows:

I want to feei ihe same all tile time I think if I do something thts will happen 1 thinl: I can do tilts

5 . Conclusion

For tntzrcultural understanding, "More than mere contact is essenttal. People must become capable of empathy, of being able to project t h e m seives into the nssumptive world, the cultural unconscious; of an alien culture. Yet this is a formidable task unless there are ways to introduce people to the assumpttve world of others" (Bamlund 1975b:140).

I have vied to show that there are w a r s to do tnis. W e cannot enter the 'assumpttve world of o t h e r s if w e try to rely on culture-specific. complex, and obscure concepts such a s ' d i r e c t n e s ~ ' ~ 'self-asserttoti' 'solidarity' or 'harmony'. but one can d o it if we rely, instead, o n lextcai universals such as ivani, rhirik, say, o r knolr!.

Ruth Benedict (quoted in Bamlund 1975b:110) wrote:

One of the llandicaps of the twcnlretlt centur)8 is that we still liave the vaguest 2nd most biased notions. not only of what makes Japan :I natson o: Japanese but of rvhar makes the Untied States a nunan of Americans, France a nation of Frenchmen, and Russia a nation of Russians. Lacking this l;no\\,ledgc; each counnp misunderstands the other. (Denedict 1947:13)

What applies to different natlons, applies also to different ethnic groups i n a multieihntc society. What makes Japan a nation o f Japanese. o r

Russla a nation of Russians 1s reflected - more clearly than anywhere else - in the ways the Japanese or the Russ~ans speak. And the ways in which they speak can be summarlsed 111 clearly and universally accessible formulae'couched in the natural semantic metalanguage.

Chapeer 4 Describing coni~ersational ranantines

It IS a uuism to say that different cultures, and subcultures, have different conversauonal routines, and that it is Important that those different routines should be carefully studied, analysed and described. But the ways ~n which this self-evldent program of research should be Imple- mented are by no means clear or generally agreed upon. In this chapter I shall argue that desplte the considerable effort which has gone Into the descnptlon of conversat~onai routines, much less has been achieved 111

this lmportant area than might have been - because not enough thought has been given to the vital question of a metalanguage in wllich such analysis can be fruitfully carrled out.

To show how a suitable metalanguage can facilitate the descnptlon and comparison of conversationai routines, I examine a number of generaiisauo~ls suggested, or hinted at, in Anlta Pomerantz's (1976) lnterestlng paper on responses to compliments. I try to show why in the present form these generalisauons are neither cleas nor verifiable, and I propose ways of refnrmulat~ng them which could make them clear and verifiable. I try to show how the use of the proposed metalanguage makes such reformulat~on possible, and how it enables us to describe conversational routines used in different socletles in a way which can be illuminatmg, r~gorons and free of ethnocelltric bias. (For another attempt along ~imiiar lines, see Amelca 1987.)

I. Conversational analysis: linguistic or naona-DingaoEstEc pragmatics?

Many conversational routines m many cultures are lexlcalised andlor grammatlcaiised, that is to say, they conslst in utterlng in certaln situations certain phrases, or using certam constructions, which encode certain language-specific interactional meanings. It seems clear that

Russia a natlon of Russlans is reflected - more clearly than anywhere else - in the ways the Japanese or the Russlans spealc. And the ways In wll~ch they speak can be summarised in clearly and universally

I accessible formulac couched in the natural semantlc metalanguage

Chapter 4 Describing conversational routines

It 1s a trulsrn to say that different cultures, and subcultures. have different conversational routines, and that it 1s Important that those different routlnes should be carefully studied, analysed and described. But the ways in which lhis se1f:evident program of research should be imple- inented are by no means clear or generally agreed upon. In this chapter I shall argue that despite the considerable effort wl~ich has gone into the descr~pt~on of conversational routmes, much less has been achieved 111

this important area than might have been - because 1101 enough thougilt has been given to the vital quesuoa of a metalanguage in which such analysis can be fruitfully carried out.

To show how a stiltable metalanguage can facilitate the description and comparison of conversatronal routmes, I examine a iiulnber of geileralisat~ons suggested, or hinted at. in An~ta Pomerantz's (197s) Interestmg paper on responses to compliments. I try Lo show why in the present form these generalisatlons are neither clear nor verifiable, and I propose ways or reformulating them whlch could malie them clear and verifiable. I try to show how the usc of the proposedmetalanguagc malies such reformulauon possible, and hoiv it enables us to describe conversational routlnes used m different societies in a may rvhlch can be illuminating, rigorous and free of ethnocentric blas, (For mother attempt along slmilar lines, see Ameka 1987.)

i. Conversaiionai analysis: !ingl?islic or raon-linguistic pragmatics?

Many conversational routines in many cultures are lcxicaliszd and/or grammatlcalised, that 1s to say, they consist in uttering i n cerialn SitUationS certaln phrases, or using certain constructlous, which encode certaln language-specific interactional meanings. It seems clear thai

devices can be stated in rigorous and yet self-explanatory semantic formulae. 'Radical pragmatics' is rejected as a blind alley, and an integrated approach to language structure and language use is proposed, based on a coherent semantlc theory, capable of representing 'objective' and ' S ~ b j e ~ t l ~ e ' aspects of meanlng m a unified frarneworlc.

Chapter I 1, 'Conclusion: semantics as a key to cross-cultural pragmatics'., recapitulates the m a ~ n features of the approach to the study of human lnteracuon advanced m the present book, stressmg in particular its universal, 'culture-free' perspective, and its 'mult~cultural', culture- specific, content. It highlights the theoretical and methodological novelty of the book, its empirical orientation, and its potentla1 for use in language teaching and m the teachmg of cross-cultural understanding and cross-cultural communication.

I Chapter 2 DifXea-en& cuklianres, different !angaagesq different speech acts

i I

From the outset, studies in speech acts have suffered from an astonlshiilg ethnocentnsm, and to a considerable degree they continue to do so. Consider, for example, the following assertion: "When people make requests, the)' tend to make them mdirectly. They generally avold imperatives like Tell tize the trine, which are direct requests, in preference

i for questions like Carl yori tell ?Tie the tinze? or assertions like I'nz trylag

1 tofitzd out what tmze it is, which are indirect requests." (Clark - Schunk 1980:lll)

It is clear that tliese authors have based thelr observations on English alone; they take it for granted that what seems to hold for the speakers of English must hold for 'people generally' Another author writes:

The focus of this chapter is on the situat~onal conventions that influence how people make, understand, and remember requests. I will argue lhat people's icnowledge of particular social situations results m certaln requests being seen as conventional. ... My starting potnt will be to show how social contexts conslraln the ways in which people comprehend indirect requests. ... I will sketch ;I new proposal that specifies how the structure of social situations directly determines Uie surface forms used by speakers m making requests. (Gibbs 1985:98)

This author seems to be quite unaware that there are people other than spealcers of English; consequently, he doesn't even suspect that 'surface forms used by speakers in malung requests' may differ from language to language, and that if they do differ then they cannot be 'directly' deter- mined by 'social situations'

Throughout this chapter, I will try to show that statements such as those quoted above are based on an ethnocentric illusion: it is not people in general who behave m the ways described, it is the spealcers of English.

Presumably, the ethnocentric bias characterlst~c of speech act studies is largely due to their origin m linguislrc philosophy rather tlrair m linguistics proper (see below, section 5). Nonetl~eless, statements mlstdc-

. - - ~ -

semantic formulas - for performing a given speecli act. ... 81 request, for exampie: in one ianguage by asking the liearer ability to do the aci (Call )'oil do riinr?), by expressing one's tile hewer to do the act ( I ' d rerilly a~ppl.eciare $'yoif'd do rhar),

hcse same semantic formula:; - strategies - are asailable to ers of every other ianguzge." (Fraser - Rintell - Waiters 19). These author:: are nor unaware of some crosslinguist~c :s in rllis respect, but they dismiss them as 'miniinal' reconceptions could probaoiy be seriousiy dented by reference any language. Here, I sliall be drawing mainly upon illustrative rom Polish and iiom Australian English. :n i f one limits the tasl; ail: hand to companng selected speech

only I\VO ianguages? rile topic is still vast and couldn'r be :hausrivelg in any one woric. The cultural nomls reflected in is differ no1 only from one language ro another, but also from ~ilal and soc~a! variety io another. There are considerable es between Australian English and American English. mainstream American English and American Black English, middle-class En,oiish and worliing-class English, and so on. liso a great deal of vanation within Polish. Nonetheless: tliere rzmar1:able amount of unifornniy within English, as there IS

lish. \r~ithout saying rliat the differences between English and Polish in this chapter could, and sliould, be studied in a much more

and systematic way than tins been done here. But to do so, one re to devote a \vhole boolr to the subject, or one mould have to s field of vision to a strip so narrow that one would have no or reaching the generalisations which in my view explain :a o i the kind discussed here. The present overview was com- pilot study. I believe, however, that even m its present fomi i t ?,onstrates that different cultures find express~on in different i speech acts, and that different speech acts become ennenched, me extent, codified in different languages.

'1 --. At a meeting of a Polish organisation in Australia a distinguislied Australian guest is muoduced. Let us call her Mrs. Vanessa Smith. One

!

of the Polish hosts greets the visitor cordially and offers her a seat of honour 17~1th these words:

ib11.s. TJanessa! Please! Sir! Sir!

Tlie word Mrs. is used liere as a substitute for the Polish word paiii, which (unlike illrs.) can very weil be combmed with first names. IVhat is more interesting about the phrasing of the offer is the use of the short Imperative Sir!, which makes the utterance sound like a command, and in fact like a command addressed to a dog.

The phrase Sir down! would sound less mappropriare, but in the context 111 question it would not be very felicitous either: it still \vould not sound like an offer, let alone a cordiai and deferential one. K very infommi offer could be phrased as Have a sear, with imperati\le mood. but not with an action verb in imperative mood. More formal offers would normally take an interrogaave form:

Pi7ill yozr sir doiviz? i'i'oil't yo11 srt doilal? ~70i!ld you like ro sir doiun? Sir doiz~n, ivon't yoif?

In fact. even very informal offers are often performed in Engltsh by means of sentences m the interrogative form:

Sirre yoif 11~01fldfi'r like n beer? (Hibberd 1974:218) Like a sx~~tg nr the niiik? (Hibberd 1974:213)

Significantly, English has developed some special grammatical devices in which the interrogative form is normally used not for aslung but for mahng an offer, a suggestion or a proposal, especially the form Hoiv nbo~lr a AJP7.

Hen, aboirr a beer7 (Buzo 1979:64) HOII, aboifr a borrle? (Hihberd 1974:187)

In Polish, HOJI' aboitt utterances have to be rendered in a forni indis- tinguishable from that of genuine questions (except of course for the intonation):

28 Differorr crclirrres, differe~ir Iofrglmges, differenr speech acis

~LIoze sic czegoi napijesz? 'Perhaps you will dr1111i some(bing12

A further difference between Polisfi an0 English 'concerns me literal content of interrogative offers. In English, a teiitative offer (even a very lnformal one) tends lo refer to the addressee's deslres and opimons:

Like a s>slg a? llie nrilk? (Hibberd 1974:213) Siire you a~onldiiii like a bnsh a t sonre? (Hibberd 1974:214)

The pliraslng of such offers implies that the speaker is not trying to impose his will on the addressee, but 1s merely trying to find out what the addressee himself wants and thinlis.

In Polish, literal equivalents of offers of ihls kind would sound inappropriate. The English questlon Are yorr sure?, so often addressed by hosts to the11 guests, sounds comicai to the Polish ear: it breaks the unwritten law of Polish hosp~taiity, according to whicil the host does not try to establish the guest's wishes as far as eatmg and d r d n g is concerned but tnes to get the guest to eat and drink as mucll as possible (and more). A Ilospltabie Polish host will not take 'No: for an answer; he assumes that the addressee can have some more, and that it would be good for him or her to have some more, and therefore that his or her resistance iwhich is likely to be due to politeness) should be disregarded.

A reference to the addressee's desire for food is as inappropriate in an offer as a reference to his or her certamty. Sentences such as:

il.lialbys ocl~oig na pr~va? 'Would you like a beer?'

would be interpreted as questions rather than as offers. It would not be good winners to revealto the host that one feels like having a beer; the soclai convention requues the host to prevail upon the guest, to behave as if he or she was forcing the guest to eat and dnm, regardless of the guest's deslres, and certainly regardless of the guest's expressed desires, which would be slmply dismissed. The typlcal dialogue wouid be:

PI-osif bardzo! Jeszcre ?i.oszke! Ale jrii irre nrogf! .hie koruecstrle!

'Please! A little more!' 'Bui I can't!' 'But you must!' (literally: 'But necessarily!')

What applies to offers applies aiso, to some extent, to inv~tations. For example, in English a man can say to a woman:

Worcld yor~ like lo co~rre to the prcb lo~~ to r ro~v rr~ghr ivrlh me arrd Davo? (Buzo 1979:60) E'ould yorr like to come oil? arrii me one ~rrghi ?iris ~veek? (Hibberd 1974:214) Hey, yo~r ivorrld~r'i like lo cante ro dinner roilight, ieould )~ori? (Hibberd 1974:193)

In Polish, iiteral transIatlons of such utterances would make very poor mvltatlons. A sentence in the frame:

Ci), niialabgi oclrofe ... 'Would you like to ... ?'

sounds like a genuine question, not like an lnvltation or a proposal. If a man wants to asli a womail out, 11 would sound presumptuous for him to express overtly an assumption that she 'would like' to do it. Rather, he should show that he would like to go out with her, and Seek her consent. One would say:

kfozebysnly poszli do kina? 'Perhaps we would go to the cinema?' (implied: if I asked you)

rather than:

Ciy n~ia(aby,yS ocllore o6jif ze emnp do Iiirra? 'Wou~d you like to go to the clnema with me?'

A tentative and self-effacing invitation such as the following one:

Say, all, I don't siippose yoir'd like to conie and /rave lurici~ lvi?lr me, ntould you? (Buzo 1974:44)

could not be translated literally Into Polish wlthout losing its intended illocut1onary force:

Po~vredz, hm, nre przypr~szczanr, zebyS nrlata ocl~ore zjeSC lu~rch i e nrnp, co?

The sentence sounds blzarre, but if it could be used at all it would be used as a genlilne questlon, not as an invitation or proposal. A question of this land could of course be interpreted as a prelude to an invitation, but it would have to be reported as he aslied me n~hetl~er, not as he invtted i71e lo. Clearly, one factor responsibie for Ulis difference is the

)rinciple of 'polite pessimism'; characteristic of Anglo-Saxon culture ci. Brown - Levinson 1978:134-133, but absent from Polish culture.

2. :interpretive hypothesis

If course, Polish is not alone among European languages in differing i-om English in the xvays indicated above. On the contrary, it is English vhicll seems to differ from most other European languages along these ines, ivIany of me observations made in the present chapter rvould also #?pi): to Russian. Serbo-Croatian. Spanish and many other languages. It s English whicli seems to have developed a particuiarly rich system o i levices reflecting a characteristicall), Anglo-Saxon cuitural tradition: tr:idition wh~cil places special emphasis on the rights and on the auton-

,m)' of every individual. \vhich abhors interference in other people's tff:iirs (If's rioiie of niy ~ ~ ( S I I I ~ S S ) , ~ h i c l i is tolerant of individual idiosyn- ,rasles and peculiaritii:s, whicli respects everyone's privacy, wliicli tpproves of compromises and disapproves of aogmatism of any kina.

The heavy restrictions on the use of the imperative in English and the vide range of use of interrogative forms in performing acts other tnan iucsuons, constirule striking linguistic reflexes of this socto-culturai ttirude. In Enolisli, the imperative is mostly used in commands and in - srders. Other kinds of directives (i.e., of speech acts through mhich the pa"ler XtempIs to cause tlle addressee to do something), Lena to avoid 11s imperative or to combine 11 with an interrogative andlor conditional orm. (For certain lniportaut qualifications to this overall tendency. see ,al;off 1972; Ervin-Tripp 1976.)

.At least this is how English strikes natxve speakers of a language like 'olisn; where the bare imperative is usea on a much wlder scale. It is iiteresting to note that from a different cultural perspecttve English may ,e seen as 3 ianguage favouring, rather than sliunmng, the use of impere- !vc. Tills 1s; in particular. bow English appears to spca:ers of Japanese. ,or example, Higa (197253) notes the wide use of the imperative in he English adveriising language and points our that, for example, the npanese sign correspondiiig to the ubiquitous English Drink Coco-Colo! ~?ou!fl read Cocn Coio o 1701n11?iaslr6! (Ltterallv. 'We ill drink Coca

an imperative mould be avoided, whereas in English recipes or tnstruc- tlons it is quite common.

It should be noted, however, that advert~sements and recipes are; first. anonymous, and second, directed at an imaginarp.addressee, not at a particular individual. What Anglo-Saxon culture abhors is the impression that one individual is trying to Impose his or her will upon another individual. In the case of 'public speech acts' such as advertisements or recipes this danger does not arise, and Ole imperative is not felt to be offensive. In Polish, however, 'pr~vate' speech acts, directed from one person to another, can also-use the imperative, and the), do not rely on interrogative devices in this area either.

In what follows, I will consider a number of areas where Polish, and other languages, differ from English along the lines suggested here, specifically: advice, requests; tag questions, opinions, and exclamations.

3. Case studies

3.1. Advice

In a language like Polish, aovtce 1s typically offered in tlie foim of an imperative

Jn ci radzp poisledr mu prait~dg. 'I advise you: tell h ~ m the truth.

In English advice would normally be formulated more tentatlvel)':

If I ivere yoil I isoi~/d re11 Iiim rlie tri~rli. Tell ~iim the 11-itril -I ~t'onld. IlJiiy do,lSr yori tell him tile rncfli? I fliinl: r t ~vo l~ id be besr. ilVz), 1101 fell iiim flie rriirli? I riiinh- rliar mlgl~r be best. iLlaybe yo11 oagiir ro fell iiirri rlle irllril? Do ],or, ihir~k i r nirgiir be o good idea 10 tell liini r11e rrilili?

All these utterances could be reported in English uslng the verb adiuse (Sire advised me ro fell ltitn rlie rrirfli). But their literal Polish equivalents would not be reoorted using the verb radzid 'advise'. Normally, only - .

.'oi:1!') rather tnan the imperative Coca Cola o ~iollre! Similarly, ~latsumoto (1988:420) polnts out that in Japanese recipes or lnsnuctions

32 Differeitt culrercs, differeirr languages, differe~lr speech acts

Radze ci, iebyS nrrr powiedzral pi-awde. 'I advlse you to tell hun the truth.'

It is also worth notlng that the English verb advise is seldom used performatively in ordinary speech: the phrase I advrse yorr sounds very stiff and formai; by contrast, its Polish equivalent ja ci !.adze sounds perfectly colloqu~al and is frequently heard in everyday conversations.

3.2. Requests

In English, if the speaker wants to get the ilddressee to do something and does not assume that he could force the addressee to do 11, the speaker would normally not use a bare imperative. Speech acts whlch could be reported by means of the verbs request or ask (to) frequently have an interrogatlve or an interrogattve-cum-conditional form, as in the following examples (ail from Green 1975:107-130):

bl'ill )'on close tile door please? IVilf ),OIL close rlii window please. Will you please take 0111' all~iiirnirii~l cans to file Recyclirlg Celure. Clrorllri poll rake or~r rlre garbage piease. bl'oilld you Set me a giass of water. IT'orfld yorr inrnd clos~ng. rile &virrdolv. IVoronld yorr like tto- set rlie fable now. Woir't yoir close the wrndow please. Do yorc war11 to set rile table IIOIIJ? U'iiy don't you cleari up rhar mess. Do yorr tvarrr to ger me a scorch. Wi~y don't yolr be i~rce to yorrr brotller for a cllarige. Wily don't yorr be quiet. 1,TJ/1)3 dorin'r yorr be a Ilone)~ and starr dinner irols.

Not a singie one of these utterances could be translated literaiiy into Polish and used as a request. In particular, literal equlvaients of sentences m the frame Wiry don't you would be interpreted as a combina- tlon of a qiiest~on and a critic~sm, rather like utterances based on the modal CVIi), do it are in English (Wliy parrir yorrr /rouse purple?) (See Gordon - Lakoff 1975:96; cf. also Wierzbiclca 1988:28.) In.fact, a sentence such as:

Dlaciego nre zarlrknresi olina? (Literally) 'Why don't you close the wmdow?'

would lmpiy unreasonable and stubborn bellavlour on the part of the addressee ('why haven't you done what was obviously the right thing Lo do - you should have done it long ago; I can't see any excuse for your failure to have done it'). The corresponding English sentence could also be lnterpreted m this way, but it does~i'f have to be. In parttcular, as pointed out to me by Jane Simpson (p.c.1, the contracted from Why'n'rcha suggests a request rather than a question.

It is worth noting 111 this connection that English has developed some special devices for expressingrequests and other d iec t~ves in a partly interrogative style, especially the expresslon Wlry doriit you be (AD.T),

i which can hardly be used for genuine questions. As pointed out in Green (1975:127), the sentence W71y aren'r you qiriec? can be a genuine question, but Uie sentence Wlty don't you be ourer?! cannot. Thus, the constructlon Why don't you be ( A m ? has an interrogative foim, and an Interrogative component in its meaning, but is speciaiised In speech

I acts other than questions. Charactensbcally. Polish has no similar constructions. Since in Polish

the use of interrogatlve forms outside the domain of questions is very limited, and since the interrogative f o m ~ is not culturally valued as a

! means of performing directives, there was, so to spealc, no ciiltural need to develop specmi interrogative devices for performing speech.acts other than questlons, and in parttcular, for performing directives.

As for literal equivaleilts of sentences in the frame Mron'r you, such as:

)Vie iainkiiresz okira? 'Won't yon close Uie window?'

they would be Interpreted as surprised questions (not necessarily critical questions, but surprised questlons). They would Invite both an answer and an explanation ('You are not going to do it? That's strange; I wonder why?').

The difference between English and Polish In t h ~ s respect becomes particularly clear in cases of transference. For example, my daugliters. who are bilingual, but wlio live in an English-spealcing envlrormient, often phrase the11 Polish requests interrogatively (or did when they were younger):

filarno, czy podasz in1 ctiusteczke? 'Mum, will you glve me a ICleenex?'

This sounds very add lo me, and I rend to conect them, urging them to use the iinpemiiuc (with the v,rOrd p r o s z ~ 'please') instead. To an English spealzer, this might look like an attempt to teach one's child to be impolite. But in Polish, politeness is not linked wit11 an avoidance of imperative, 2nd n,irii tlie use of interrogatir~e devices, as i t is in English.

The expression Ii'oi~ld yo11 rr~ilid has simply no equivalent in Polish. I ao not wisii to impip, however, that Polish never uses tiie inteiTogative rorm in requests. It does, but in cornpanson with English, the possibilities are heavily restricted. Thus, one couid perfonn requests, or acts closely relared to requests; by ostensibly 'as1:ing' about (he addressee's ability to do something, or about his or her goodness (or icindness):

Czy 11iog!6,~s . . . ?

'Could you ... 7 '

Czy 6~lib~'f la/; riobr),, zeby . . . 7 'Would yo11 be so good as to ... 7'

CZJ~ Li,~!ja)D)' Partii) iasi;ni~,(a) . . . 7

'Would you be so lcindigracious as to ... 7 '

But one couid not ask people to do something by using literal Polish eqiilvalents of the phrases li/orrld gou do it, I170n'r gort (lo it, IITii), doll'! yoit do i r , Do go11 ivorit to do it or Tl'oirld gori lilce to do it. Pseudo-quesnons mlitch ostensibly inquire about tiie addressee's desire and which in faci are to be interpreted as requests (Il'or~id yoit like to, Do you illarir f@) Seem particuiarlg odd and amusing from a Polish point of vie\v. as 1r:mspsrent acts of what loolcs like naive hypocrisy.

But i t is no1 just ilie range of acceptable interrogative devices \Vllich distingmshes Polish directives from the English ones. Differences in tiiuction are at least 3s sirilcing. Thus, in Polish interrogative directives Sound rormal and elaboratel)o polite. They are also tentative, lacicing in confidence. One \~'ould use them when one is geiiuiiielp not sure whether the addressee would do what is requested. Moreover, they could not be used in anger (unless sarcastically) and they are incompatible \\~irfi the use of s!Vear words. In Australian English, Iiowever, both the mterroga- rive 2nd the intenogative-cum-conditional forms are frequently used ti?

speecli acts uihicll could be reported bj' means of tlie verbs 01-der to, comniand or tell to, and they are perfectly compatible !~nith verbal abuse and verbal \,iolence, as the following enampies demonstrate:

Carl'! yoir siiiir rm? (Hibberd 1974:22S)

1Vliy do;?'! yoir stiirr yoiri- niotrtli? (Hibberd 1974:228)

1Vill sorrieorie piit rile fifcking rdiot oirr of his miser:,'? (William- son 1974:46)

1Yiii yoir bioody ,uell iiirr,). im! (Williamson 1974:56)

For. Ciirrst's soke, i<till yoir get lost. (Williamson 1974:191)

1Vliy dori't gorc sliict irp? [Buzo 1979:37)

Andrew (to Irene, very angry): Will )'air please go ro bed? iWil- liainson 1974:197)

Coiild yoir rr), arid firid rile soiri-ce of rliat smell liefore rheri, aiid coilid yo11 possibly piti yoilr apple cores and orailge Peel I n rile bin for. tire next feie da)'s? (After a pause, loudly) Hiid coirtd goii bloody ivelI siiir iri tile iioie for. a change? (Williamson 1974:7)

In fact, the interrogative form in English llas reached the stage of being so tlioroughly dissociated from the language of courtesy and respect that i t can well be used in pure swear phrases, \vhere the speaker

! forceiully expresses his feelings apparently without attempting to get the addressee to do anything, as in the following example:

1Vhy dori't you all go to lieli! (Hibberd 1974:199)

This shows particularly clear1)I that the Englisli predilection for tiie interrogative form in human interaction, and the heavy restrictions which

i English places on tlie use of the imperauve, cannot be explanied simply

I in terms of politeness. .4fter all, Polish, too, tias its polite and cstm-

1 polite ways of speaking, and has developed a repertoire of politeness devices. TVliat is at issue is not politeness as such, but the interpretation of what is socially acceptable in a given culture. For exampie, Australian culture is htghly tolerant of swearing. Swear words are ofteii used to express strong feelings and not only negative but also positive feeiiilgs, as in the follou,mg examples:

Stori:: Not bloodp bad, is ir? Clyde: It's a oloody bearrq~. (Williamson 1974:18)

Bloody good nirrsrc! (Buzo 1979:30)

36 Different culirires, different lnfzgrmges, different speeclr acts Case srrrdics 37

There is no longer any widely shared taboo against swear words m 'polite conversatlon', for example in conversation witli ladies about music. On the other hand, there is evidently a strong reiuctance to use bme imperatives - not only m polite conversation, but even m not-so- polite conversatlon. The implicit cultural assumpuon reflected in English speech seems to be fils: everyone has the nght to then own feelings, their own wishes, thelr own opmions. If I want to show my own feel- Ings, my own wislies, my own opmions, it is all G h t , but if I want to lnfluellce somebody else's actions, I must aclcnowledge the fact that (hey, too, may ha\,e their feelings, wishes or opmions, and that these do not have to comcide with mine.

It is interesting to note that the flat imperative, which in English cultural tradition can be felt to be more offensive than swearing, m Polish consututes one of Me milder, softer options in issuing directives. When the spealcer gets really angry with the addressee, the spealcer will often avoid the imperative and resort to 'stronger' devices, m particular the bare infinitive:

Nie poicazyivac irii st? iitiaj! 'Not to show oneself to me here!' (i.e. 'You are not to come here.')

bVyiynoslc sif stpd! 'To get away from here!' (i.e. 'Get away from here!')

Zabierac sie stpd! 'To take oneself off from here!' (i.e. 'Off with you!')

In the examples above (talcen from Andrzej Wajda's film "Moralno6i pant Dulslcrej", based on a number of Gabriela Zapolslca's plays), the verbs chosen (ivyiiosif sle, zabierac stej are offensive and pejorauve, but especially offensive is the impersonal syntacuc construction, with the infinltrve Used instead of the more neutral imperative. The impersonal infiniti\,e seems to annihilate the addressee as a person (the absence of a mention of the addressee m the sentence being an icon of hisher 'non- existence'): it implies that the addressee is not worthy to be addressed as an individual humail being, and that the speiker does not wish to establish any 'I-you' relationship witli himiher. In particular, the spealcer excludes the possibility of any reply from the addressee. The infinitive signals: 'No discussion' ('there is no person here whom I would regard as a potentla1 interlocutor, for example, as someone who couid refuse or decline to do as I say').

By contrast, the English interrogative directives explicitly invite a verbai response, as well as a non-verbal one (Okay, All right, Slir-e, and the like), and tlius indicate that the spealcer views the addressee as an autonomous person. with his or her own free will, who can aiways decline to comply. The imperative is neutral in this respect: i t neither precludes nor invltes a verbal response. Partly for this reason, no doubt, it is favoured m Polish and disfavoured in English.

I would add that the mfirutive construciion is by no means restricted to contexts where the spealcer is angry. I t can also be used simply to assert one's authority: for example it can be used by parents who wisli to sound stern. as m the following example:

Macie parasol? I S prosto - rue oglpdad sip. PartitgraC: skrontnoif - skarb dzrewczecia. (Zapolslca 1978:30) 'Do you have the umbrella? (To) go straight - not to loolc around. (To) remember: modesty is a gul's treasure.

When the speaker wants to be more polite while still wishing to signal coidness and a lack of intimacy, the infinitive can be used m combination with a performatively used verb:

Prosre sip do tego rue niieszni.. (Zapolslca 1978:1031 'I ask not to mterfere.'

Proszp - urosig powiedziei., proszg sip ,lie krepoi~lac. (from the film "MorainoSC pan1 Dulslciej") 'I ask -1 ask to say, I ask not to be embarrassed.

In a sense, Uie infinitive direcuve functions as a distance-building device in Polish, just as an interrogative directive does in English. But in Anglo-Saxon culture, distance is a positlve cultural value. associated with respect for the autonomy of the individual. By contrast, in Polish culture it is associated with hostility and alienation.

3.3. Tags

The deep-rooted habit of aclcnowiedging possible differences between indiv~dual polnts of view is particularly clearly reflected in lhe Englisll tag questions. Seen from a Polish point of view, English speech is characterised by an all-pervasive presence of tag questions, highly diversified in form and function. Essentially, Polish has only five or

six ivords mhrch can be used as tags: praivda? 'true?', ?lie? 'no?'. fa/:? 'yes'!' co? 'wllat?', dobrre? 'good', and riiepraiudoi? 'not mre?'

I jsligl~tly archa~c). These are comparable to rile English rags okop?: riphi?, and eii? (tills last one frequently eilcountered in .Australia).

If tllese iive or six Polish words were used nearly as often as English tag questlons are, Polish speech \vould sound grotesquely repetitive. The English strategy of uslng ausiliarp verbs - an)' auxiliary verbs, in ally combrnanons of moods; tenses and persons - as tags, ensures great fomiai variery of Lag questions. Espressions such as did iie, ivas sire,

[ !

iini'e you. oreii'f riiey and so on may all have the same function, bul the slicer varlet)' of their form allows them lo be used much more frequently illan the live Polisli tag words could be used.

I But rlls differences bet\veen the English and the Polish systems

I of tag questlons go much further than that. The topic is vast and obviously cannot be treated eshaustiveiy here (see Chapter 6; secuon 5

1 on lcie illocutionary force of tag questions). l e t me simpiy make a few observanons. 1

As has ofren been noted, English imperatives allorr. not one tag but several, eacli wit11 a slighli), different funcoon:

Clove the door, tvill yolr? CIore ole door. it~ori'i yozi? Close riie door, coirld yon? Close rile dooi-, cail'r )?OIL? Close rhe doot-, ishg doil't yon? Close rile door, ivii), con'r yoir? Close rife door, ~t~ollld goii?

In Polish, a11 these different tags would have to be rendered by means i of a single one: dobne? *\veil (good)?' i

!

Semantically, the Polisli rag corresponds mosr closely to the English iidll )'err, tile tag n,111cli assumes and expects compliance. The sentence Sir i1oi1'11, ildii )'oil? Is inore confident, more self-assured than Sii doivil,

I i:~oirii gorr?, and tlle sentence Shirr rip. i ~ ~ i l l yon? sounds much more natural than Shfir UP. ison'r goif? Siint rip, iao~i'i goii couid of course be used sarcastically, bur the sarcasm would exploit the effect of the semantlc and stylistic clash between the forcefulness of siirrr tip and the tentativeness of it~on'r you.

b\ S- --.

In contrast to ii,on'! yoir, ivill gori can be used very widely, for example in orders and commands, as well as in requests, and r r is compatible with the use of swear words:

Look oi !/?is bloody ring, ii'iil p a ? (Williamson 1974:58)

So jxsr nroi'e our, 11~iIl yori? (Buzo 1979:73) (sald by a viife throwing her husbano out of their house)

In Polish m similar c~rcumsrances a bare Imperative would normally be usen, unembellished by any tag whatsoever,

There are Inany other kinds of contests where a tag questlon would be used in English hut not in Polish. In particular. English negative questions with an opposlte polarity would normally be translated lnto Polish without a rag:

I don't s i lppse yorr'\ae seer1 Haninio nror~nd, have poi,? (Buzo 1979:79) Nie ivrdzfalei przypodkieni Harir~i~o? (literally: 'You haven't seen Hammo by any chance?')

1'011 are nor havilrg a go ai me, are )loll? (Buzo 1979:ll) Czy rysle prr~~padkielli re rnlile irie nabijasz? (literally: 'You are not havlug a go at me bp any chance?')

Yoir im\reri'i heard ai~yiirbig aborlt nie. Iiai'e yoir: Any sori of ... riinioiirs, iralre j'ofr? (Buzo 1979:64) Nie sQsreliScie grrypadkiem czegoi o rnnie? Jakiclrs ... plorek? Oiterally: 'You haven't heard anything about me, by any chance? Any rumours?')

Another situation where a tag questron sounds plairsihle in English but not in Polish can be illustrated with the follo\v~ng utterance:

I've nrade a bloody fool of niysef, iioveii'r I? iWilliarnson 1974:48)

The, speaker discovers something about himself that he supposes the addressees have been aware of all along. In Polish, a plausible thing to say in a case like this wouid be i4~rdr~ 'I see', wltllout a tag:

Widzg, re sic ~aclioii~alem jak dare<! (?co, ?prawda, ?rok, ?me. etc.) 'I see I have acted like a fool!' (?what, ? w e . ?yes, ?no, etc.)

40 D$Jer.er?r cultrtres, different lo,lganges, differen! sneeclt acrs Cnse srudies 41

Aga~n, I am not suggesting that tag questlons are always usen in English out of conslderauon for other people or out of pohteness. In fact, they can be comh~ned wlth accusations, tnsinuatlons and abuse, as in the Eollowing examples:

Weil. We have become a sorlr old stlck, Ilal~en'r we? (Williamson 1974195)

IVl~ar? Yorive changed yorrr rllind again, /rave yon? (Williamson 1974: 198)

Yo11 at-e a smarr little prick, aren't yorr. (Williamson 1974:192)

Yor6'ee engineered iltis ivhoie deal, 11aven'i yon? (Williamson 1974:193)

You'd ratller 1 was sriil over there, il~orrldtit you? (Williamson 1974:157)

In cases like these, one would not use a tag In Polish. In Polish Ule use of tags is, by and large, restricted to situations when the speaKer really expects confirn~atlon. In English, however, tag questlons have come to be so ubiquitous, and they have deveioped Into such a complex and elastic system, that thelr links with politeness. cooperauon and soclal l~armony have become qulte tenuous. Often, they are used as a tool of confrontation, chailenge, putdown, verbal vlolence and verbal abuse. The very fact that tag questlons have come to play such a major role 111

English seems to reflect tile same cultural attitudes which have led to the expansion of lnterrogatlve forms elsewhere, and to the restrictions on the use of the imperative, the same emphasls on possible differences of opinton. of point of view. Basically, tag questions express an expectation that the addressee will agree with the speaker, but the very need to voice t h ~ s expectation again and agaln signals constant awareness of a possibility of differences.

The range of contexts and sltuatlons where speakers of Polish would mvlte confirmation 1s not nearly as wlde, precisely because Polish cultural tradition does not foster constant attention to other people's 'voices', other people's polnts of view, and toierates forceful expression

of personal vlews and personal feelings without any consideration for other people's vlews and feelings. In fact, the baslc Polish tag, pi-awda? 'true?'. presents the speaker's pomt of vlew not as a point of vlew bui as an objective 'truth': and it doesn't seek agreement but an aclcnowledgement of thls 'truth'

Needless to say, it would be good if Uie observations ventured above could be supported w t h text counts. So far; I have not undertalcen any large-scale counts of thls icind. But to give the reader some idea of the order of differences let me say, on the basis of a perusal of a large anthology of Polish piays and of several volumes of Australian plays by different authors, that one can easily get throngl~ fi£ty or more pages of Polish plays without encountering a single tag, while in Australian plays one can seldom get tluough five pages wlthout encountering one, and often one finds several on one page.

I would lilce. to stress, however, that apart from quantitative differ- I i ences suggested here, which requlre stailstlcal validatlon, there are also I some indubitable qualitative differences. A a particularly clear example

I wouid mentlon chains of tag questions, characteristic of English conversation but ~mpossibie in Polish. I quote a dialogue whicll I heard not iong ago at a bus stop In Canberra:

A: Lovely shoes, aren't they? B: Aren't they rlrce?

! A: Lovely, arerr'i Nrey?

One migilt say mat in exchanges of tius kmd the interlocutors are no longer seelung confirmation, but rather are, so to spealc, celebratmg a rltuai of social harmon)' based on antl.dogmat~sm and religiously respected freedom of judgement and rlght to one's own opmlon.

Similarly, the difference between the 'opinion-onented' English tag ('I think you would say the same; I don't lulow if you would say the same') and the 'truth-oriented' Polish tag ('true?') IS a matter of stsuc- lure, not of frequency, and needs no stausbcal validatlon.

3.4. Opinions

In Polish, opinions are typically expressed fairly forcefully, and m everyday speech they tend not to be distinguished formally from statements of fact. One tends to say:

To dobne. To nredobrze. 'That's good.' 'That's bad.

as one says: 'That's white', 'That's blaclc'. In situations where ln English one would say: I like et, I don't like !it, or even I riii~zk i like ~ i r .

As menttoned above, this difference is manifested in the structure of Polish tag questions, One saps in Polish. literally:

'She is nice (terrific), true?'

;is if bemg nics or terrific or not were a matter of truth. In English, one rnigni say:

She is Iiaiio>r, i.rg/ir?

bur hardly

?Sire is iirce, rigllr? "?Slie is rerrijic, rigit!?

But In Polish, the same rag, praivdn 'true'; would be used in hot11 cases. In Polish, one seldom presents one's opinions as ~ u s r opinions (.rather

ihan as 'lhe truth'), and one seidom prefaces them ujiih expressions r:uch as I rii~~zk, I belieiie or in ~ n y i ~ i e ~ ~ ) . Ex,oressions of this kind esist of course (in spd;~, ja lnj,S/p, nio11,r ?danie~~i, jo itivaiant), but their use is much more restricted than the use of their English equivalents. In particular, Polish has no word which would correspond to the English ivord rrcl~orz, wliicli is used very widely in worlcing class speecli, especially in liusrralia, m not>-intellectua~ contexts; and which has no intellecrual pretentlons. Translating utterances with I recka~i into Polish one !'~ould often have to leave it out, s1nt:e all the conceivable Polisli eqitivaients !vould sound too intellectual, too cerebral, and simply wouid not fit the contest. For example:

Gibbo: I reckolr if's fire spugherrl iliey eor. Drives i i ie~~i rolrnd rlie berid offer n itdiil<. (Buzo 1974:37)

Jaclco: (smiling) I'orr k~ioiv. Robbo, I reckon yoil'd lrose ro be nbo~rr !!rree lirr~rdr-ed ro have dolie nll !ire tlihigs goit i-ecko~i yoir'idr done. (Buzo 1974:jl)

Polish expressions such as spdzt, ntySIf or eit~azn~it would sound as inappropriate in these contests as the expressions 1 beliei'e or rli injb iverv mould be in English. Similarly, the expression I gtress, commonl!' used in Amerrcan English, is \serj' colloquial, and it has no similarly c ~ l l ~ q ~ i a l counterparts in Polish. In situations when in English one says. for example:

1 giress ;r's n.;ie.

in Polish one would say simply:

To prniudn. 'This is true.'

Drazdausl;~ene (1981) notes that expressions such as I thilii:, I beliei~e, I srlppose or I don'r rlibik are used much more often in English than they are in Litliuaman. She suggests, basically correctly, I think, that the)' signal "diminished assurance and therefore courteous detachment and optionill treatment of the subject matter" (1981:57), and a desire not to put one's vlew bluntly, and not to sound roo abrupt or quarrelsome.

I don't agree, however, with her interpretation of this difference: "This leads to a conciusion of the principal differential feature of English and Lithuanicn which is that in the familiar register English 1s verbally more courteous and less straightforrvard than Lithuanian." (1981:60-61). Iii my view, 11 is ethnocentric to say ihat LiUluanlan is less courteous than English (or, for a Lithuanian author, ethnocentric a rebours): simply, the ruies of courtesy are different in each language. Furiherniore, the significance Of the English norm in question should be seen as a reflection of a deeper cnlturai attitude. English speakers tend to use expressions such as I rlri?il,- or I reckon even in those situations in which they evident~v don't wish to be courteous; as in the following exchange:

Gibbo: Slioiss how 1nrlc11 yoir knoiv. Tiiose back room bojss ivorfi I~arder rlrait arty of 11s. Jacko: Ar blrlls. I rech-011 rr'd be a pretty sofr cop berrrg o bocii r o o ~ ~ i boy. iBuzo 1974:20)

As a different manifestarion of the same cultural difference I would mention the English preference for a hedged expression of opinions and evaluations, and the Polish tendency to express opinions in strong terms, and w~thout m y hedges whatsoever. Consider, for example, the fo l lo~ ing exchange:

Norm: ifieil. yo11 see, Ahmed, I'm all olone now, since niy good Beryl passed aivay fo Nie heaven nboire.

Ahmed: I'ni very sorry ro hear rhar, Norm, yoli musr feel ror11e1- lotiely. (Bnzo 1979:15)

In Polish, one would not say anything like 'rather loneiy'. Instead, one would say bardm sarnorriy 'very lonely' or srraszziie surnorny 'terribly loneiy' Similarly, if someone's wife should icicle him out of iheir house, to live there with another man, it would be very odd to comment

on thls situation m Polish uslng a term such as ratllej., as m the follow- lng passage:

Richard: Tell 111e. Itow's yoltr iovely w$e? I Bentley: I doii'r kilow. She.s living wrtl~ Sin~ina 111 our horzie irillt. Richard: Bad luck. Bentley: Yes, rr IS, ratiter. (Buzo 1979:64)

In E~lgiish, hedged oplnions go hand m hand wlth hedged, Indirect questions, suggestxons or requests. People avoid malcing 'direct', forceful comments as they avold asklng 'direct', forceful questions or malting 'direct', forceful requests. They hedge, and an expression such as rathel. or sort of often fulfills a functlon similar to that,of conditional and lnterrogatlve devlces. In fact, lexlcai hedges of this kind often co-occur wilh grammatical devlces such as the conditional ahd the interrogative form, as m the following examples:

Richard: (to Sandy) Could )toll sort of ... ptic III a good ii~ord ro Sir?lnlo abollt me? (Buzo 1979:42) i

! Jaclco: Oh, Pomnlyis a I I I C ~ eno~fgl~ kid i n her own way. B~rt yon'r-e sol-r of differei~t. I ~ n e a i ~ , there's a lot niore ro yoir, I'd say. 1 nleaii, itoiv d0ll.i get nie n!rong. I'iil not tr)'iiig . . . ,veil, all I said was, how about coi?llng to lrrncl~? (Buzo 1974:W)

Translatmg this last passage Into Polish, one would have to leave out several of the hedges. There 1s no way of saylng I iilean in Polish, m any case no way of differentiating I iiteait from I'd sa)"; there is no particle in Polish wvhich would correspond to $veil (cf. >Vierzbicka 1976); and there 1s no etluivalent for sort of (except perhaps for jakaSljakoS, out this 1s closer to somehow than to sort oj? the emphasls 1s on the speaker's Inability to describe the quality in question, not on a laclc of full commitment to what IS said).

Thus, English is fond of understatement and of hedges; by contrast, Polish tends to overstate (for emphasls) rather than understate. When I translate my own wrltings from Polish Into English, I: find myself remowng words such as totally, tirrerly, extrerilely or alivays, or replacing them wltli words and expressions such as ratller, somewhat, lends to, orfrequei~tly; and vice versa.

The nouon that English 1s fond of understatement 1s of course common- place. Sometimes, however, the validity of this nouonls disputed. For example, it was questloded by Drazdauslciene (1981:66), who notlced that strong poslttve stereotyplcal exclamatlons such as HOW loiiel)l! or Is?irt it lovely! are much more common m English speech than they are m Llthuanlan speech. I would say that the same observation would apply to Polish: Polish, like Litlluanian, m a e s frequent use of negative (cntlcal) exclamations but not of posltlve, enthuslastic ones.

I would p a n t out, however. that the English understatement applies to spontaneous opinions and feelings, not to oprnlons or feelings which are presumed to be shared. The stereotyplcal exclamat~ons discussed by Drazdauskiene typically express entnus~asuc appreclatlon for something which Ule speaker presumes to be shared by the addressee. They often sound exaggerated and mslncere, and they certalnly don't sound dogmatic. The speaker is not bluntly statlng hlslher own view, disregarding any potentla1 dissent; on the contrary, he (or, according to the stereotype, she:) is eager to agree wlth the addressee. It 1s of course highly significalil that, as mentioned earlier, the stereotyplcal exclamatlons often take an interrogahve fonn (Isil't tlrat loveiy?) or are followed by a symmerrlcal questlon asking for confirmation (How ivondeifu[! Isri't tilaf ivo/:deiful?)

Drazdausklene suggests that the difference between English and Lithuanian wlth respect to the use of stereotyped posltlve exclamations may be related to the fact that Lithuanlans are reserved and resiralned (and this view: expressed by a Lithoanian. certalnly agrees w ~ t h the Polish stereotype of Llthuantans!. But Poles, unlike Lithuanrans, are not regarded as restrmed or reserved, and yet in this parucular respect tiley seem to be closer to Lithuanlans than to spealters of English. I suggest that exclamatlons under discussron do not point to any lack of emotional restraint on the part of tne speakers of English. On the contrary: they are a conventtonal deVlCe a~med at 'hetng mce' to the addressee rather than any spontaneous and umestrained outburst of the heart.

In Englis'n, exclamatlons can talcc not only an affirmative and posltlve form, as m:

Howl it~ce!

but also (especially In what tends to be regarded as more typically feml- nine speech) an interrogat~ve-negative one, as in the utterance:

ls i i ' r !ti. fnaroriioiis! (Buzo 1979:Jl)

Thus. the functlon of such exclamat~ons is similar to that of tag questions with an opposite polarity:

Negative-interrogati\!e exclamations do not always nave an interroga- rive intonanon, and do not alrvays invite confirmation. Often, tlley are used s~mply io express tlie speaker's feeling, and are followed by n posltrve statement from the speaker rather than by a pause to be filled by the addressee:

Bentiey: Isn'r $112 o .rioeetie? a real dariiiig. (BUZO 1979:45)

Sundra: Ilinsii'i rt,arfilnny? Tirat ivas the fit~ri~iesr tlriiig I've ever. iieard. (Buio 197~!: i 14)

Sundra: Is,l'r tl~nl ntce of fiilerl~? 1 fhirll: rizat'~ 13eq' nice of tlle,)r. (Buzo 1974: l l i )

~ u n d i a : Is,r'i thar ii.onderfi,l? I rlliril~ r!iar's ivonderfiri. (Buzo 1974:l 15:)

l.iowever, even wlien interrogattve-negative exclamations are not used as a truiy dialogic d e r ~ c e tney still signal (at least in a perfunctory way) an interest in what the addressee would say; they aclnowledge the possibil-

t~iat the addressee could say the opposite (even though the spezker regards this :Is unlikely! and symbolicallp seek confirmation. The spealcer expects agreement; but does not take tnis agreement for gmnred, and 'graciously' leaves the addressees the opportunity to express tlleir point of view, too. All this may of course be purely perfunctory. purely convent~on,~l. but the convention is there. and it has its own culmral significance.

Cnaracterrstically. in Polish there is no similar convenoon. Exclama- tions always tale a positive form:

Jaf: gtirpo! 'How stupid!'

Il'spanrale! 'Wonderful! '

Tile intcrrogariae form lvould be interpreted as a genuine quesnon.

4. Culturai values reflected in speech acts

1 4.1. Lexical evidence I I I

The cultural differences between English and Polish discussed here have

i also innumerable iexical reflexes. I will mention two of tllem here. I One is the presence in the English lexicon of the word priilacy, \vhich

I has no equivalent in Polish, nor, apparentiy, in other European languages. In fact, tile concept of privacy seems to be a characteristically Anglo- Saxon one. The word prisac), IS a very common one, frequently used in ! everyday ipeecn, and it clearly reflects one of the central values o l

I ~nglo-Saxon culture. To lia1.e priiiacy means, roughly, 'to be able to do certain things unobserved by other people, as everyone would want to

1 and need to' The cultural assumption embodied in this concept is very ! characteristic: it is assumed that every individurrl would want, so to

speak, to have a little wall around himfher, at least part of the tlme, and that this is perfectly natural, and very important.

! One is tempted to speculate, in this connection, that tile absence of

I an intimate T-form of address (in the sense of Brown - Gilman 1972), which sets English apart from other European languages, is a reflex of the same attitude. The English goir is of course very democrat~c, i t is a meat social equaliser, but it can also be seen as a distance-building device. This is not to say that the meaning of the English word gorr is anaiogous to that of a V-form in a language which does have a T-V contrast. Bur I think inat in the absence of such a contrast rhe forni ?OIL 1 can't convey the intimacy signalled by the choice of a T-form. .4n

i intimate form allows the speaker to get psychologically close to the I addressee, to penetrate the wail surrounding each individuai. The Eiiglish

yoii keeps everybody at a distance. In Anglo-Saxon culture non-sexual body contact is heavily restricted, as compared, for example, with SIa\,ic ana Mediterranean cultures: people seldom touch one another, hug one another, kiss one another, or seldom even shake hands (see Triandis - Triandis 1960). They also physically Keep at a considerable distance from one another, as compared, for example, w i u ~ Slavs (cf. for example Monahan 1983). The absence of an intimate T-form reflects and iosters the culturally expected psychological distance between individuals, tlic general need for psychological and physicai 'privacy'

One mlgllt add that the cultural taboo on 'personal remarits' characteristic of Anglo-Saxon culture, and the existence in English of the sel

expression personal remarl~s, with its iiegative mpIicaUons, can be see11 as another strategy for building a little protective wal l arouiid every indiv~dual. There is no similar expresslon m Polish, and there is no similar taboo ~n Polish culture.

Of course Englisli doesn't have the elaborate distance-building deferential devlces of Far Eastern languages such as ,Japanese, Icorean. Javanese or Thal, elther. It is Interesting to note that from the perspective of languages of this Kind English may appear as a language lughly sensitlvc to intimacy. (Cf. for example Hijirida - Sohn 1986:391.j

But tliis is an illusion. American (and generally English) address forms sucli as Bob, Jim, Toni or Kate, have nothing to do with intimacy. It is true thai they imply less 'distance' than, for example, Dr Sniith, but they don't come anywhere near the potential mtimacy of the Polish fy, or the Frsnch lu, or even tile Japanese (ZSG) kil>ii. They impiy informality and friendliiiess, not intimacy. Intimacy implies an especially close personal relationship between the speaker and the addressee; and English has no devices to convey that. For example, at an Australidn nmversity a head of department, or a dean, may send a memo to all the members of the department or the faculty, signlng it wlth a first-name form: Bob, or Bob Jolinson; and at a meeting of a university committee, the members from different departments may introduce themselves to each other as Bob (Johnson) and Kate (Brown), and start addressing each other as Bob and !Cote, from the very fust meetmg. This has nothing to do wlth ultimacy. They can be friendly, informal, and familiar, but they are not claiming, in ulls way, any 'special reiauonsh~p' with Uie addressee. (For further discussion, see Chapter 3, sectlon 3.)

The universal English yorr is of course less 'distant' than tlie deferential Japanese m r d person forms of address such as sensei 'teacher", or than the deferential Polish third person form of address sucli as Pall Profesor- 'Mr Professor'; but it is also far less 'intimate' than the Japanese liinli or the Polish ry. Being tile great equaliser, the English yorr keeps el'erybody at a distance - not a great distance, but a distance; and it doesn't allow anybody to come really close.

The second lexlcal difference between English and Polish that I would . . ilke to comment on concerns the concept embodied in the Engiisn word compromise (in the sense of mutual concessions) and its Polish counterpart, I~on~promis. In English, the word is essentially neutral, and if it has any value connotations they would tend to be positive rather than negative. By contrast, the Polish word tends to be used witll negative connotations. In any case, lexical and phraseoioglcal derivates

of l~o~npi.oiizrs unquestionably embody value judgments. Thus, pl j ic ?la lio!i?pl.on~is 'accept a compromise' suggests a moral weakness, a deplorable lack of firmness, a sell-out of values, The adjective bezko?npi.omisowy 'w~tnout compromise' ( sad of someone wlio would never accept a compromise) is emphatically poslttve: it 1s a word of high praise, like heroic, liable or rllimaculale.

Thus, in the Polish culturai tradit~on, Lioldilig fim11y: to one's beliefs and makmg no concessions to those of others is a Valued and deslrabie attitude. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition, similar attitudes would be regarded as dogmatlc and mflexible, and would be vlewed with disapproval. hi fact; tile word inflesible a id its Polisll literal counterpari n r e n ~ r ~ t y provlde another example of the same lclnd: the English word has negatlve connotations, whereas the Polish one is ' highly positive. Polish has also the word nreiloniily 'unbrealcable' which is also a term of pralse and has no equivalent m English. (For further discussion see Wierzbicka, to appear, chap. 6.)

4.2. Objectivisln as a cultural value

The complex of cuituxal attitudes w l c h conditions every individuai to be constantly aware of other people, other voices, other points of view; to see oneself as one individual among many, all of them equally entltled to their psychological space, then autonomy, their own peculiarities and eccentncltles, leads to objectlvlsm and antl-dogmatlclsm bang regarded as important social and cultural values.

I would venture to suggest that this ObJectlvism may be reflected IU

peculiarly English ways of r e f e m g to oneself, and to one's own country, as it were from an external point of vlew. This can be illustrated with the cllaracterlstic expresslon Ntis coulttr.~~ (commented on in Doroszewslci 1938:120). In Polish, it would be inconceivable to refer to one's own native land, one's ojcz)~zna 'fatherland' as ten lwaj 'tills country', as if it were one among many countries, where one just happens to be at a paI'UcuIar time. The Polish expression ten Icraj could oniy be used w ~ t h respect to a foreign country; if it was used wiui reference to one's own country it would mark the speaker as a psycnologlcai emigre.

Similarly, in English it 1s possible to refer to one's own nation as tizis nation, especially m an elevated rhetorical style. In Polish one would say in slmilar cucumstances rzasi tiardd 'our nation' (cf. Nasz nardd ,a/< laieo, i i i~~er i ch r~ zrnll?a I niarfii'a, sucha I plugawa, 'Our nation IS like

lava, at the surface cold and lifeless, dry and repellent,' hlicl.' \ie\vicz 1955:210). To say ro l 1iard.d 'tills nation': would indicate a complete Iacic of identificat~on wlth one's nation: to use this expression one wotud llave to psycho logic all!^ leave one's o!irn nanon. As a furrher example, conslder the English expression iiiie) same ilel-e, referring to oneself, as in the following dialogue:

Micliael: i nligilr jirs: liai~e a sniall clare:. Carmel: San~e here. (Williamson 1974:Ijj-156)

In Poiish, the literal transiatlon of same iiere or ille sanle here would be simply incomprehensible (as a way of identifying the speaker).

It seems to me thar this inclination to look at oneself from outslde, to be conscious of me existence of many different points of view, ail of them equally valid (at least potentlallyj; fits in veqr well witii the other cnaracterisric features of English speech described here.

4.3. Cordiality as a cultural value

Throughout this chapter, tne emphasis has been mainly on Anglo-Saxon culturn! values, reflected in the Englisli language. Polish has been presented mostly in negative terms, as laclcing certain devices characteristic of English. I ~vouid like to say a few words to redress the balance. It would be ridiculous to suggest that English speech acts reflect certain ctiitural values \\,hereas Polish speech acts reflect nothlng but an absence of those values. It goes without saying that in fact Polish reflects values characterisrlc of Polish cuiture. From an English spealcer's point of view, Polish ways of spealclng may appear to reflect dogmarism; laci; of considerat~on for other people, inflexibility, a tendency to be bossy, :I tendency to interfere; an6 so on. On the other hand, from a Polish speaiier's point of view, English mays of spea!:ing may be seen as reflecting a laci: of warmth, a inck of spontaneity, a lad; of sincenty.

The central place of warmth: of affection, in Slavic as well as in Mediterranean cultures, is reflected, among other things, in the ricli systems of expressive derivation, and in particular In the highly developed systems of diminutives, invoiving not only nouns, but also adjectives nlid adverbs. By conrrast, in Englisll, productive diminutive denvation hardly exlsts at ail, despite the existence of isolated baby h rms such as lm~rdies, doggie or birdie (one can say girlie but not "'~?~rnllile: a i~~rr i r bur not S'irnciie, irorsre but not "'gonrie. and so on).

! The central role of 'rvarmth, of affection, in Polish culture (and in Slavic culture in general) IS evidenced above all in the expressive derivatlon of personai names (which goes much further than anyrlling

I one can find, for example, ln Italian or Spanish). The toplc is vast, and i cannot be discussed here in detail. Let me just mentlon that one personal

I name, for example Atiiia or d-laria, can have in Polish as many as ten different derivates, all commoniy used with respect to the same

! person, each of them implying a slightly different emotional attitude,

j and 'emotional mood' For example:

! Anria: rlr~ra, Aiika, ,411ec.-&a, ~nr r s t a , Anrdka, Anlrsreilka. Anrrlka, A~ii~c/~lia; Ar~iis~piko ~llaria: Marysia, ~VJarysrerika, iWarySka, A4arys1irc/1ria, hlarychria,

1 d-lar)~~, A4arysi11lko, 1l4ar),cha, Marysrprko i ! I This is quite apart from a variety of forms such as Maryla. Marlro. ! il-laryrirn, ~Walynn, ctc. (all from ~Warra), which are usually chosen from, ! for a particular person, on a more permanent basis. (For a detailed

discussion of the semanocs of expressive forms of names in Polish and i I in Russian, see Wierzbicka, to appear, chap. 7.)

I would suggest that there are many subtle ways in which expressive 1 derivation interacts with speech acts. The toplc desenges a separate study.

In this chapter, I will mention just two examples of this interacllon.

j In Polish, warm hospitality is expressed as much. by the use of dimmu- tives as it 1s by the 'hectoring' style of offers and suggestions. Character- ~stically, the food items offered to the guest are often referred to by tile

I host by their dimmurive names. Thns, lnsteao of asking:

A'oilld $011 like some ,,lore f ro-r~r~g? Are yon sllre?

I one might say in Polish:

I IVei jeszcze Sledzika! Konzecznre!

i 'Take some more dear-little-hernng-(DIM)! You must!'

! Tlie diminutive praises the quality of the food and minlmlses tine quanrity pushed onto the guest's plate. The speaker insinuates:'don't resist! i t is a

I small tiling I'm asking you to do - and a good thing!' The target of tile praise is m fact vague: the praise seems to embrace the food_ tlie guesl; and tlie action of the guest desired by the host. The dim~nutlve and the

I imperative wori: hand In hand in the cordial, solicitous attempt to get tire guest to ear more. Certamly. the cultural style of such offers is very

1 different from that of IT'otiid yoir like some more?, but the difference

cannot be described m temls of politeness. Rather,'tt has to be described In terms of different cultural traditions. and, uitlmately, different hleiarchles of values.

If one's own view of what 1s good for another persoil does not coinclde with the vlew of that person, Anglo-Saxon culture requlres that one should rather respect the other person's wishes ( i s . , autonomy) than to do what we think IS good for the. person; Polish culture rends to resolve the dilemma in the opposite way.

A similar dilemma is tnvolved m leave-takmg behaviour: if the guests ~ndicate that tiley are about to ieave, should one let them go or should one try to prevent them from leaving? In Anglo-Saxon culture, one usually lets them go,.acknowledglng in this way their autonomy and 'self-determination' In Polish culture, however, such behaviaur would be seen as cold and uncaring; usually, tilerefore, one tries to prevent the guests from leaving, since a display of warmth towards the addressees 1s perceived as more important than a display of respect for their autonomy. An Anglo-Amencan or Australian host, lherefore, would normally thanlt the guests for coinlng and let them go, whereas a Polish host would insist that the guests must stay longer, and would shower them wlth 'you must's and wlth warm diminutives at the same time:

Ale jesicze wosrecik~! Ale ko~zreci~r~e! 'But [stay] a little-DIM more! But you must!

As a thlrd example of the interaction between diminutives and illocu- ilonary strategies I will mentlon requests. In Polish, a request formulated in the imperative mood would often be softened by means of a dimmu- tive. Tbus, while it would be more natural for a wife to use an lmperatlve than an lnterrogatlve-cum-condit~onal request when speaklng to hez husband, she would be likely to soften that imperative by a double dimlnutlve form of his name (as well as by mtonation):

Jnreczictc, daj mi papierosa! 'George-DIM-DIiM, give me a cigarette!'

An imlirect lnterrogatlve request would be less appropriate in this sltuatlon because 'interrogativlty' in directives 1s a distance-building devlce: there 1s an lmpliclt conflict betweell lntlmacy and affection on the one hand and complete mutual independence on the other. (If I aslc you to do something for me, and if I thmk we are close, I will assume that you will do what I want you to do; to show that I don't know if

Clcitural i,olaes reflected ik s),eecil acts 53

i you'll do it is to aclrnowledge your independence, but also, your 'distance' from me.)

Similarly, in speaking to a child one would be unlikely to use an interrogative request (corrid you, would you be so good a s to). Dloin~ally, one would use an imperatlve. But mls imperatlve would be likely to be softened not only wlth a multiply diminutive form of the name, but also wlth llumerous other diminutlves, on nouns, adjectives, adserbs, and occasionally some other parts of speech:

1 Mo~~isrefiko, Jedz zrtpke' 'Mon1ca-DUv-D1M, eat you1 soup-DIM!'

Jedz p~-~cr~rfiio! 'Eat quickly-DII\4!'

Zjedi i+iriySciiitlco! 'Eat it all-Dm1 up!'

Rich systems of dimmut~ves seem to play a crucial role in cultures in wluch emotlons in general and affection in particular is expected to be

I shown overtly. Anglo-Saxon culture does not elicourage unrestrained

display of emotlons. In adult English speech diminutlves (even those few diminutives ufhtch English does have) feel out of place, just as non-erotlc lrissmg and hugging feels more often than not out of place.

! It is fascinating to note, m this connection, Lhat in cornparlson with

say Japanese culture, Anglo-Saxon culture m general and American culture in particuiar emerges as one whlch greatly encourages physlcal expressiveness. Barnlund (1975a:445) reports a "drarnatlc contrast

i between the [American and Japanese] cultures" tn thls respect. "Touch- mg behavior 1s reported nearly twice as often In all categories and wlth all persons by Americans as by Japanese." (1975a:452). On tlie otlher hand, Amencan students of Russ~a and things Russian are amazed by the amount of touching, Irissing and hugging wh~ch visibly takes place among the Russlans (cf. Smlth 1976:136; Monahan 1933).

From a Polish perspective. Anglo-Saxon culture in generai (including American culture) seems as I-estralned in physlcal expressiveness as

T e e that Japanese culture seems to Americans. Most observers seem to a, the Poles are not qulte as effuslve as the Russians, but. for example, kissing, hand-Kissmg and iland-shalrmg in greetlngs take place on a daily basls.

The overtones which the word efliofiofral has acqlllred in Ei~glish are a good illustration of the disapproval of public display -of emotlons,

charactenstic.of Anglo-Saxon culture. Frequently tiiis word is used wirli negative connotations, but even when it is not it implies at least 'an onexpectea and somewhat embaTassing display of emotions'

Foi- cxaiiiple, when an abducted baby was returned; after two days, to his mother, n~ho rllought she would never see lnm again, the Australian reporter (ABC News, 24.8.1983) described the m0ther.s behaviour as 'emortonal' ("Tile baby was reumted wifh his emotlonai mother"). In this particular context, the word eniorioliol is not used as a criticism, slnce the mother's 'emotionai stare' is apparently seen as sometiimg that can be understood and excused. Nonetheless, from a Polish speaker's point 1 of vie1v, [lie very need to mention and to excuse the mother's emotlon would seen1 odd: 11 \vould not occur to one that a motner could do otiier

I than sIio\lJ elnorion In a sltuatlon of that kind.

As pointed out by Lutz (1986:290-301) the "afidely shared American land; I would add, Anglo-Saxon in general - A.W.] ethnotiieory o i bas~caliy Protestant European, middle class bac1:ground" identifies I "emotion priinarily with irrationality, subjectlvlty, the chaotic and othcr negative characteristics" "One of the most pervasive cultural assump- tlons about the elnotional is that i t 1s anrltlierical to reason or ratlonality"~ 1 "emouons are fundamentally devalued ... as inatlonal, physical, unin- rentionai, ivenic, biased, and female"; "emonons rend predomlnarely lsic'l to lead to erroneous Judgement.; and hence senseless or mationat actions. ... people lend to see emotion as a disruption of, or uarrier to; the ratlonal understanding of events. To iabzl someone emotional is ofteii to ~uestion the validity, and more, the ver)$ sense of what they are saying." !

Not so in Polisll culture. In the romantic poetry \vliich played a iunda- mental role in shaping Polish national ethos, sexe 'heart' is opposed to the scientist's sz!:ieiko I olro 'magnifying glass and eyesi as a source of 'live irutli' versus the domain of 'dead truthsi, and this opposition has retained an inp port ant piace in the Polish erhnotheorp. The fact that the I Polish counterpart of the English word e~nol io~ia l~ that is; icniicioi~~y, 1 113s posltiv~ connotations, reflects this. Uczucro~~y does uoi designate i

someone wlio S ~ O \ ~ J S emotzon (because there is no cultural expectation that feelings would or snould nor be sho\~rnj, but rather someone who possesses rich and strong emotions (seen as 3 'good thing').

It must be stressed, ho\vever, that the Anglo-Saxon taboo on 'emotions' does nor concern all feelings to the same degree. For example, as mentioned earlier, in .Australian ctilture i t is quite all r~ght to swear, tiiat I

1s to show 'strong'.. 'masculine' feelings. What is not all right is to show. ~vitllout restraint. '\veal;'. 'soft', 'feminine' emotions. sucli as tenderness.

* 7 (: -

Lutz (1986:299) points to the Anglo-Saxon Ishe says, American) distinction uetween emotions seen as typical of; and forgivable in. women, and those which can be expected of men. "American cultnra~ belief does not deny that men may become emotional; i t does, however, engender espectahons that men \!,ill expenence only certain types of emotion, notably anger. \Vomen are expected to experience Ilie entire range of emotions more frequently and deeply, witn the possible escep- tion of anger"

In Australian culture, whreh hlghly values 'roughuessi and anti- sentimentality, and rvhere the word bioodj? is the main veliicle for expressing emotions (both negative and positive ones), any display of 'soft', 'femlnme' emotions is particularly abhorred. (CF. \X'ierzbiclca, to appear, ciiap. i1.j

It is .ivordl noting In this connectlon that cllaracteristicalig Australian abbreviations, such as rnorzres (mosquitoesj, ~n~isliies (mushrooms), Drerzies (presents), bnrbie (barbecue), lipple (lipstick), or slllilires (sun- glasses), which are often referred to as dimmulives, in fact are not really diminutives and have a function quite different from the maln function of diminuti\res (although it is of course a simplification to speak o i diminutives as if they had only one functionj. Formally, Uiey differ from English diminutives because they are abbreviatlons: baby words such as bi!.die, flsiiie or doggie add a diminutive suffix to the full fornl of the base word, but words such as borbie or lippte add a suffix to a truncated form of the base word. Semanncally, they differ from diminutives in expressrng, essenoally, not endearment but good humour. The core meaning of true diminutives (such as doggie) can perhaps be represented as follows (cf. WierzbicKa (1980, 1984 to appear):

doggte =>' I thinl:: tills .is something small like you are someone small I feet something good towards you because of this, when I say sometiling about thls to )I011

I feel something good towards if

The core meaning of Australian abbreviatlons with the suffix -ie is dii- ferenr. I would represent it as follows (cf. %lierzbiclca 1984; to appzar):

inozaies => 1 thinlc: this is something small I think: you think the same when I say something about this to you I feel something good

56 Differerrt cultures, differoir larlgoages, different speecii acts

Thus, calling mosquitoes rnozzres, Uie speaker is good-humouredly dismissmg the problem; he th~nks of mozzrrs as small (but not endear- ing), and expects that tlie addressee would share this attitude. As I have suggested elsewhere, the semantlc complex explicated abO\'e reflects many characteristic features of the Australian ethos: anti-sentimentality. Jocular cynicism, a tendency to knock tl~ings down to size, 'mateship', good-natured humour, love of informality and dislilce for 'long words; (Slavic or Romance diminutives are typically much longer thari the base words, but Australian abbreviattons are normally shorter than the base words, and Australians feel that this formal brevity is somehow functional).

As another linguistic reflex of the same Australian attitudes, and in particular of the Australian non-sentimental good humour, I wouid mention me quintessentially Australian expression no rvor-ries, which permeates Australian speech and which serves a wide range of iilocu- tionary forces. The casual opttmism encapsulated m this expression and also in the Australian abbreviations is something quite different from the warmth of Slavic diminutives.

4.4. Courtesy as a cultural value

I think it is important to add that while Polish culture shares one major tlieme of Slavic culture m general, cordiality, it combines it with a different one: courtesy, in the sense of a somewhat ceremonial show of respect for every individual person (and especially for women). There is m Polisn culture, alongside cordiality and spontailelty, an element of ceremony, of somewhat ritualised courtesy and chivalry. The Polisli custom of iusslng a lady's hand (by men) is a charactenshc example of thls: vlgorous warm iclsses on both cheelts signal cordiality, but' one I<iss on a lady's nand signals both cordiality and ceremonial courtesy. Courtesy is not in conflict with cordiality, but i t imposes on i t certain ritual forms; a certain ceremoniality.

The courtesy aspect of tlle Polish savoir vivre is manifested particularly ciearly m forms of address.' As mentioned ealier, in English every- booy (except perhaps the Queen) can be addressed in the same way, as j'oic. In Polish, one always distinguishes the mtimate 0, 'thou. from the courteous ~anlpaii i ' s i r ' 'madam' (will1 the verb m third person singular). The English yoti is democratic, the same for everyone; ~t lacks

both the (potenual) mttmacy of the Polish form ly and Uie courteousness of the Polish forms pa~ilpanl.

This link between courtesy and cordiality is interesting to note because it seems to be, typologically, rather unusual. Ceremony and ritual may seem to be antithetical to spontaneity and 'emotionality', and cul-

l tuxes which favour the former usually restrict the latter. The Japanese and Javailese cultures are cases m point (see Benedict 1947; Lebra 1976; Smith 1983 on Japanese culture; Geertz 1976 on Javanese).

But Polish culture distinguisi~es sharply between spontaneity ano emotionality on the one band and informality on'tlle other. Like Japanese, Polish is very fond of titles, and the list of tltles cornmoot)' used goes far beyond the 'Doctor'; 'Professor' or 'Father", commonly used in English. For example, one says commonly Pariie Dgi-eliiorie

I 'Mr. Director', Pariie Naczeiriikrl 'Mr. Head: Parire I!~rynlel.ze 'Mr. Engmeer', Parlle !bfaglsirze 'Mr. MA-holder' (usually said to a phasna- cist, who holds an MA in pharmacy), Pariie iMecei~asre 'IvIr. Barrister';

j and so on. But unlike in Japanese, m Polish the 'language of respect' doesn't involve humility and self-abasement: one pays respect to the status and rank of the addressee without ever Lowering oneself. Further- more, this respect for the addressee is commonly combined in Polisli wiui cordiality and affectton.

The compatibility between courtesy and cordiality is best seen in forms of address or of personal reference which combine formal titles pan 'h'Ir.', par11 'Mrs.' and parirza 'Miss' with affectionate diminutive forms of personal names, such as Panie il.lareczku 'Mr Mark-DIM' or Parii Basiehko 'Mrs Barbie-DIM'. Polish dislikes informality (whicli is so characteristic, for example, of Aushalian English), and it encourages tbe use of titles even between 'equals' who itnow each other very well, and who have lcnown each other for years (for example, betweeil woric- mates). At the same time, however, the formality of such forms of address does not prevent the snow of emotron, and affectionate dimmu- tives of first names are freely combined with titles, as they are with hand-kissing.

Poiisli differs in tlus respect from Russian, which has also a wealth of devices for showing emotion, but which is not similafly ncn in devices for showmg courtesy, and which links affection with informality. To sliow respect, courtesy, and non-mtlmacy one uses m Russian a combination of full first name and patronymic, and nom~aliy the patronymic cannot be combined with an affechonate diminutive. (Cf. Wierzblclia. to appear, chaps. 7,8.)

Apart froni names and names with patronymics, Russian has tmo basic forms of address: I), 'thou'' and 1,)' 'you' (PL), one of which signals 'intimacs" and the other 'distance' But the Russran form ly doesn'i correspond exactly ro the Polish forms pa~llpani, because i t signals only 'disunce' !lor courtesy. In Warsaw shops one sometimes encounters Russian woinen tourists, delighted and amused to be addressed ns pan1 'Ivladam - 3 Eom \vhicli they perceive as quaintly courteous and iincieii regtrn~'.

The absence of n special courtesy value in the Russian form 13)~ malies i t s~iitabie for use among party apparat and police as well as among ordinary people. In communist Poland, police and party apparar avoided tile fonns parilpoiri, \\,hose 'aura' didn't fit rile communist ideology. Charactenstic:~lly, die communist regime in Poland attempted for many years to eradicate tllese forms, replacing them T1.*ith 1vy (on the Russian model). iCf. Davies 1981, 2581.) These efforts, however, proved futile. TIie fact mat in the documentary iilm 'Wor1:ers 1980' the representatives of the Government. talk~ng to Lech Waipsa and otiler representatives of tile tvorlmrs. used publicly the forms par?lpar?i. \\,as widely commented on in Polanti, as a 61nd of symbolic recogniuon of me defeat of efforts :liming at eradicating tlie Polish tradition of courtesy.

Following on Brown - Gilman i1972), different forms of address silch as ty vs. ~ m i i l ~ a ~ ~ i in Polish are usually described in terms of 'power and solidarity" (see. hon,ever, Ervin-Tnpp 1974). I would suggest, liow- ever, tiiat as Far 3s Polish IS concerned, it is more illuminating to refer here to cultural vaiues such as intimacy and courtesy. The forms pall/ Pant differ from the so-called \'-forms of languages such as Russian in hasing positive courtesy built into them. The form 1v)' (second person plural); iavoured by the commumst regime, carrled with i t implicatrons of impersonal equality, as well as distance. To the Polish ear; it sounded cold, impersonal and discourteous. It de-emphasised personal ties (eitlier lntlmate. signalled by p, or based on mutual respect; signalled by pall/ nairi) In favollr of equality denved from membership in a collectivit),. Pcrlipa~ii. on the other hand, is non-intimate, out i t is also courteous and personal. I presume that the 'personal' character of panipaili is due partly lo its singular form; and possibly aiso to its sex differentiailon, whereas the 'impersonal' character of tlie form 113' is due partly to its plural and genderless form. Polish courtesy stresses respect for every indivtdual as an individual, and is higiily sex-conscious. The collectivist and genderless nng of the form 113' is jarring, in that tradition.

One might add that, in communist Poland, the officially-supported form 1 ,y co-occurred ~viih 'collectivist' vocatives and appellatives such as to i t~ar~)~s?i~ , roitiarzysz 'comrade', and, to a lesser extent. obgii~aielrc, oby~varel 'citizen', and was no doubt interpreted in conjunction wldl, or against the backgIouno of, Soviet-style forms. The appeal to Soviet- style equality conveyed by the official ivy was backed by an explicit or lmplicir reference ro a collecti\~ity o i 'comradesz. that is, ideoiogically committed equals.

In Polish dialects, the fonn iv), has a different origin and a differeni function: 11 is opposed to N only (not to ry on the one band and to pn111 pall, on [lie otller), and it expresses not equality but respect. Signifi- cantiy, it d0esn.r co-occur there with any collectivist and ideoiogically loaded forms of address such as iowor;y;ysz 'comrade' Rather, it co- occurs with terms referring to the addressee's personal status, such as 'mother' or 'unclK., or with first names, usually in a 'dignified'. non- diminutive form.

I xvould add that [lie contrast between the courteous, Polish-st)'le form pflnlpo~~r and the impersonal, Soviet-style form ivy IS something th:lt Poles are acutely alvare of and often comment on. To illustrate this general awareness o i the semantic implications of the TWO forms, I quote a characteristic passage from an essay which was published in tlie lead- ing Polish emigrC monthly, Kilitirl-a:

When the Russians speak of us iron~cally as Ie poiskie ffnrt)' i'illose Polish gentlemen'], the connotaoons are of culture rather than class. The gentrv as a clnss has long since ceased to exisi, bur we are still 'gentry' because we didn't subrnlt to Sov~er attempts at 'Gleichscnaitungi, at 'comiadisrn_ri us. and the form ivy ['you PL'] didn'i m6e. In commumst Poland (he only contrast really felt is that between Po?ro\ore ['genwy', but also 'mlsters'i and those who are _generally referred to as on) 3.e. tllc regrme people, ine new ruling classl. (Schrstr 198-':7)

5. Theoretical implications

In ihe literamre on speech acts; English conversational straregies discussed here are frequently interpreted as a manifestation of a universal 'natural logic' (Gordon - Lakoff 1975). a universal 'logic of conversation' (Grice 1975) or universal rules of politeness (Searle 1975). In the

and the general mecllanisms themselves are culture-specific. (Cf, Hollos - Beemnn 1?78:353-354.)

This is noi io den). that the generalisatinns suggested in worl;s such as Grice (1975). Gordon - Lal:off (1975) or Searie (1975) provide useful insights into inecllanisms of language use. It is important. no!\!- ever. that generalisations of this kind should not be seen as absolute. 'Natural logic provides a considerable range of options. The cliorces embodied in individual languages reflect not only 'natural logic', and not only n combiiiarion of 'natural logic' with nistoncai accidents. Tiiey reflect also what Gumperz 11962:182) aptly calls 'cultural logics Searle insists that interrogaii\,e English sentences such as:

Coil >'or( pass the salt(?) Tl'oiiid you poss ine the salr(?) I/;// goit pnss i?ie rile salt(?)

are not iimbiguous (between quesoon and request), but that by virtue of their meanliig they are simply questions (even when they are uttered with intonatioti cliaracteristic of directives, cf. Searle 1975:69). If they are interpreted as requests, that 1s by virtue of the iiearers' "general powers of rationality ant1 inference" (Searle 1979:176).

But to sag uiis is to imply that speakers of languages such as Polish are sadly laclang those 'powers of rationality and inference' Poles learmng English must be rauglit the potential ambiguity of i/oiild goii sentences, or II'iiy doii'i >'OIL sentences. just as they must be tanglit the polysemy of the word bnnic. Searle might say tnat what they have to be t:iuglit IS not meaning but 'conventions of usage' lcf. Searle 1975:76). But this distinct~on between meaning and conventions of usage becomes meaningless if the ignorance of the relevant 'conventions of usage' leads not just to un-idiomatic speech but to simpie misunderstanding of what Sear12 himself rvoiild recognise as meaning. For example. if Polish newcomers to Australia interpret sentences such as:

HOIV nbortt a beel-? II'ilp doil'r yo11 come arid iiai,e liiricli ~ v i f l i iu?

as genuine cjuesrions_ rather than as an offer and an invitation, rhey are milking a sem;intic elnor lust as much as when they interpret the utterance H o w do )'oI! do? as a genuine question.

It is essentml to recognise that w;at is involved is not any differences In 'powers of rationality and inference'? but differences in 'cultural logic'; encoded in language:

The fact rlial tii80 speal<el-s \<,hose sentences are qultc nrammat~cni cnn differ mdicnlly in their inlerpretnnon of each othcr's veibai strategies

indicates tnar conoeisat!onal management does iesl on lingulsric Icnorvl- edge. But lo find out what that 1:nowledge is we must abandon the exlsring v!ervs of commumcnnon lrfhich draw n baslc distinctloo between cullurzl or social knowledge on the one hand and linguisiicsignalling processes on the otiier. We cannot regaia meaning as the output of non-linear procers- ing in which sounds are mappea Into morphemes, clauses and sentences by application oi the grammnticai and semantic rules of sentencc-level

Iingurstlc analysis, and 1001; at social norms as extralingurstlc forces wnicii merely determine ho\is and under \<that condit~ons such rneanlng units are used. (Gumpen 1982:185-186)

I would add that descriptions of 'cutturai 10gic'~ to be heipful, must be done in fairly specific terms. It is worth noting in riiis connection that in numerous studies written by Western schoiars and coricerning non- Western cultures epithets such as 'direct' or 'blunt' are used to refer to tile Anglo-Saxon cultural norms, whereas, by contrast, rhe other cultures studied often appear to value 'indirectness' (cf. for example Geertz 1976; Eades 1982). In the present study, the reverse is ihe case: by comparison witii Polish; the English ways of speaking appear to be highiy 'indirect" This shows, however. that terms such as 'directness' or 'indirectness' are much too general, much too vague to be really safe in cross-cultural studies, unless tne specific nature of a given cultural norm is spelt out.

The present study shows that English cultural norms (as compared mi111 Polish norms) favour 'indirectness' In acts aming at bnnging about an action from the addressee. On the other hand, studies such as Eades (19821, Sansom 11980) or .4brahams (1976) show that Anglo-Saxon cuitural norms (as compared with Australian Aboriginal norms; or with Black American norms) encourage 'directness' in seeking information froin the addressee. Evidently, the Anglo-Saxon principle of non-inter- fcrence, which accounts for the heavy restnctions on the use of the imperative, doesn't extend to questions (I don't mean 'personal questions', but questions in general) - presumably, because infomiation is seen in Anglo-Saxon culture as a free and public good. In fact, rlie restnctions on the use of the imperative seem to be compensated by ;I

lremendous expansion of interrogative devices. Similarly, Geertz (1976:230-248) stresses the 'indirection' and 'dis-

simulation' characteristic of Javanese culture* and contrasts these features with ihnse characteristic of Amencan culture. According to Geertz's classical study, Javanese culture favours "beating about the

64 D$fct.enr cultures, diferenr langitages, difcreirl speecl~ acts

bush" "no1 saying wllat.is on one's mmd', "unwillingness lo face issues iil their nalced tmtll"; "never saying what one really thinlcsVj avoiding "gratuitous truths", "never showing one's real feelings directly" and so on. Clearly, all these forms of 'indirection' are rather different from tilose cultivated ln Anglo-Saxon culture (especially, the dissimulation of tmth).

It seems to me, therefore, that 11 is very important to try to l in l~ language-specific norms of interaction wlth specific cuitural values, such as autonomy of the mdividual'and anti-dogmaticism m Angio- Saxon culture or cordiality and warmth in Polish culture. The Issues involved are of fundamental importance, and they ment a more general discussion; I attempt to undertake such a discussion in Chapter 3.

6 . Practical implications

In a multi-et'hnic country like Australia, or like the United States, the problem of speech acts and of their cultural significance is not a purely academic one. It is a probiem of immense pracucal significance.

As long as it is wideiy assumed that English conversationai rouunes reflect what is 'ordinary'. 'normal', 'natural' and 'logical', the prospects for cultural understanding between immigrants and the Anglo-Saxon population are not particularly bngllt. Anglo-Saxon institutions such as schools, courts or government departments, as well as the streets and 'marltei places, are, inevitably, an arena of culturai clashes and cultural misunderstandings. If immigrants who spealc passable English tend to utter flat imperaaves, they are likely to be seen as rude or boonsll. If they fail to respond to pieces of elaborate 'indirection'. they are likely to be seen as uncooperative, or dumb. Elaborate indirectness accompa- nied by juicy swearing can be as confusing to an ~mmigrant as the directness, forcefuiness and 'emotionalityi of some immigrants can be offensive and irritating to an 'Anglo'

Anglo-Saxon doctors and nurses (as Jane Simpson has pointed out to me) are accustomed to thinKing that pain should be borne ~tolcally, and that one sllould only cry in real extremity. Therefore they are unsympathetic to people who complain, cry and scream at pains which can he considered mtnor, behaviour acceptable to Italians and Greeks. This can lead Lo very unsympati~ehc treatment by doctors and nurses, and to a

general idea that Mediterranean peoples are cowardly because they complain about things that only hystencal cowardly Anglo-Saxons would mentlon. I have heard sunilar comments from Australian nurses, dur~ng two seminars on linguistic problems of immigrants W ~ I C I I i gave to nurses in two Canberra hospitals in 1983. A number of nurses commented on the unsympathetic attitude of Anglo-Saxon doctors towards unmtgrant women screaming m childbirth, and on the fact that often injections are adinmistered merely t o stop the screaming. An immigrant woman who screams, crles or complains, is seen as hystencal or unbalanced. The taboo on showmg pain is clearly related to the taboo on showmg emotions.

Obviously, cultural clashes of this kind cannot be compietelp eliminated, but they can be minimised by eniigillened, well-planned n~ulticultural education. It seems clear that a liuguistic study of culture- specific speech acts and speech styles has a great deai to contribute in Ulls domam.

Documents

Wierzbicka - Cross-Cultural Pragmatics