Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach

by Ron Scollon

Overview

This volume is both a lively introduction and practical guide to the main concepts and problems of intercultural communication. Viewed from within the framework of interactive sociolinguistics associated with Tannen, Gumperz, and others, the authors focus in particular on the discourse of westerners and of Asians, the discourse of men and women, corporate discourse and the discourse of professional organizations, and intergenerational discourse.

In this newly revised edition, the first chapter now includes a section that sets out the authors' distinction between cross - cultural communication and intercultural communication. Another section outlines the methodology of ethnography that is the practical basis of the authors' research. In the new final chapter, the authors return to this methodology and show how they and others have been able to use it and this book to do new research in intercultural communication and how this work has been used in conducting training and consultation programs.

While making use of research in pragmatics, discourse analysis, organizational communication, social psychology, and the ethnography of communication, this book presents students, researchers, and practitioners with a comprehensive and unified framework for the analysis of intercultural discourse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900470656401
Publication date:	01/03/2012
Edition description:	NE
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Ron Scollon (1939-2009) was a Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. His publications include Professional Communication in International Settings, co-authored with Yuling Pan and Suzanne Wong Scollon (Blackwell 2001), Discourses in Place: Language and the Material World co-authored with Suzie Wong Scollon (2003), and Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet co-authored with Suzie Wong Scollon (2004).

Suzanne Wong Scollon is an independent researcher in the North Pacific Rim. She has written extensively on intercultural communication, holding academic positions in North American universities as well as in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. She also acted as a consultant, along with Ron Scollon, with over fifty governmental and corporate organizations in North America, Asia, and Europe.

Rodney H. Jones is the Associate Head of the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. He has published widely in international journals and is co-editor of Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis (with S. Norris 2005), Advances in Discourse Studies (with V. K. Bhatia and J. Flowerdew 2007), and author of Noticing, Exploring and Practicing: Functional Grammar in the ESL Classroom (with G. Lock 2010), and Discourse Analysis: A Resource Book for Students (2012).

Table of Contents

	List of Figures	x
	Series Editor's Preface	xi
	Preface to the First Edition	xii
	Preface to the Second Edition	xv
1	What is a Discourse Approach?	1
	The Topic	2
	Professional communication	3
	Interdiscourse communication	4
	Discourse	5
	The Limits of Language	6
	Language is ambiguous by nature	7
	We must draw inferences about meaning	11
	Our inferences tend to be fixed, not tenative	11
	Our inferences are drawn very quickly	12
	What this Book is Not	12
	Language, discourse, and non-verbal communication	14
	Methodology	16
	Four processes of ethnography	17
	Four types of data in ethnographic research	18
	Interactional sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis	20
	What is Successful Interdiscourse Professional Communication?	21
	Expecting things to go wrong	22
	Two Approaches to Interdiscourse Professional Communication	23
	Increasing shared knowledge	23
	Dealing with miscommunication	23
2	How, When, and Where to Do Things with Language	26
	Sentence Meaning and Speaker's Meaning	28
	Speech Acts, Speech Events, and Speech Situations	29
	Grammar of Context	31
	Seven Main Components for a Grammar of Context	32
	Scene	34
	Key	36
	Participants	37
	Message form	38
	Sequence	39
	Co-occurrence patterns, marked and unmarked	40
	Manifestation	41
3	Interpersonal Politeness and Power	43
	Communicative Style or Register	43
	Face	44
	The "Self" as a Communicative Identity	46
	The Paradox of Face: Involvement and Independence	46
	Politeness Strategies of Involvement and Independence	48
	Linguistic strategies of involvement: some examples	50
	Linguistic strategies of independence: some examples	51
	Politeness (or Face) Systems	51
	Power (+P, -P)	52
	Distance (+D, -D)	53
	Weight of imposition (+W, -W)	53
	Three Politeness Systems: Deference, Solidarity, and Hierarchy	54
	Deference politeness system (-P, +D)	54
	Solidarity politeness system (-P, -D)	55
	Hierarchical politeness system (+P, +/-D)	55
	Miscommunication	57
4	Conversational Inference: Interpretation in Spoken Discourse	60
	How Do We Understand Discourse?	61
	Cohesive Devices: Lexical and Grammatical	63
	Reference	63
	Verb forms	64
	Conjunction	64
	The causal conjunction "because"	65
	Cognitive Schemata or Scripts	66
	World knowledge	68
	Adjacency sequences	69
	Prosodic Patterning: Intonation and Timing	70
	Intonation	70
	Timing	73
	Metacommunication	76
	Non-sequential processing	79
	Interactive Intelligence	82
5	Topic and Face: Inductive and Deductive Patterns in Discourse	86
	What Are You Talking About?	86
	Topic, Turn Exchange, and Timing	87
	The call-answer-topic adjacency sequence	88
	The call	88
	The answer	89
	The introduction of the caller's topic	89
	Deductive Monologues	90
	The Inductive Pattern	91
	Inside and outside encounters	92
	Hierarchical Confucian relationships and topic introduction	93
	The false east-west dichotomy	94
	Face: Inductive and Deductive Rhetorical Strategies	95
	Topics and Face Systems	97
	Face Relationships in Written Discourse	99
	Essays and press releases	101
	The press release: implied writers and implied readers	102
	The essay: a deductive structure	103
	Limiting Ambiguity: Power in Discourse	104
6	Ideologies of Discourse	106
	Three Concepts of Discourse	106
	The Utilitarian Discourse System	110
	Ideology of the Utilitarian discourse system	111
	The Enlightenment: reason and freedom	112
	Kant's view of the "public" writer	113
	Bentham and Mill's Utilitarianism	113
	Socialization in the Utilitarian discourse system	116
	Forms of discourse in the Utilitarian discourse system	118
	The Panopticon of Bentham	124
	Face systems in the Utilitarian discourse system	125
	Internal face systems: liberte, egalite, fraternite	126
	Multiple Discourse Systems	129
7	What is Culture? Intercultural Communication and Stereotyping	135
	How Do We Define "Culture"?	138
	Culture and Discourse Systems	140
	Ideology	141
	Face systems	142
	Forms of discourse	150
	Socialization	161
	Cultural Ideology and Stereotyping	167
	Negative Stereotypes	171
	Positive Stereotypes, the Lumping Fallacy, and the Solidarity Fallacy	172
	Differences Which Make a Difference: Discourse Systems	174
8	Corporate Discourse	177
	Discourse Systems	177
	Voluntary and involuntary discourse systems	179
	Five Characteristic Discourse Systems	181
	An Outline Guide to the Study of Discourse Systems	183
	The Corporate Discourse System (Corporate Culture)	185
	Ideology	186
	Socialization	191
	Forms of discourse	196
	Face systems	204
	The size and scope of corporate discourse systems	205
9	Professional Discourse	207
	The Professional Discourse System (ESL Teachers)	207
	Ideology	208
	Socialization	211
	Forms of discourse	213
	Face systems	215
	Other professional discourse systems	216
10	Generational Discourse	218
	Involuntary Discourse Systems	218
	The ideologies of American individualism	220
	Four generations of Americans	222
	The shifting ground of American individualism	234
	Asian Generational Discourse Systems	236
	Communication Between Generations	238
11	Gender Discourse	242
	Intergender Discourse	242
	Directness or indirectness?	242
	Different interpretive frames	245
	The origin of difference: ideology and paradox	250
	The maintenance of difference: socialization	253
	Messages and metamessages: forms of discourse	255
	The struggle for equality, the struggle for power	256
	Further Research on Gender Discourse Systems	257
	Discourse Systems and the Individual	258
	Intersystem Communication	261
12	Using a Discourse Approach to Intercultural Communication	266
	The Theoretical Framework	266
	Principle One	267
	Principle Two	272
	Principle Three	272
	From System to Action	275
	Projects in Intercultural Communication	276
	Methodology and Use	280
	Focus on a task, action, or practice	280
	Use the "Grammar of Context" as a preliminary ethnographic audit	281
	Use the "Outline Guide" to pin down the relevant discourse systems	282
	Change in Action or Interpretation?	283
	References	286
	The Research Base	286
	References for Further Study	290
	Index	302

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"There really is no other book on intercultural communication as deep, rigorous, and innovative as this one.  Already a classic, its third edition ensures that it will remain the key source in the area.  At the same time, it is one of the best books on discourse analysis available today." – James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literary Studies, Arizona State University

"A true classic, the intellectual wealth of which still remains insufficiently explored. This third edition makes it even more compelling and brings it even closer to the reader." – Jan Blommaert, Tilburg University, The Netherlands