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Originally submitted in the course

LING 904: Pragmatics,

Master of Applied Linguistics,

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

August 1996.

E-mail: m487396@Rocketmail.com

In 1996 the Korean Ministry of Education introduced the requirement that all freshman university students receive instruction in English conversation from native speaking instructors. To meet this requirement, a new department was set up at Inha University and 16 foreign teachers were hired. In addition, four young bi-lingual Korean women were hired under the job title of "Teaching Assistant". They had formerly been employed by the university as classroom teachers of English and assistants to the Korean English teaching faculty. They are responsible for assisting the foreign teachers with scheduling, translation, and dealing with the administration. They are also responsible to the Korean faculty and administrators. While they are very willing to use their English skills and their background knowledge to assist the foreign instructors, they are also keenly aware of their loss of status as instructors, and resistant to being treated as "secretaries". Unfortunately, no clear job-description has ever been made available either to them or to the foreign instructors. While they all speak English with a relatively high degree of skill, they none the less speak it as a second language in a sometimes hectic environment. This, combined with ambiguity about their role and responsibilities, has caused some problems in communication. 

Since our teaching assistants are speakers of English as a second language, at first glance the solution seems to be to speak to them with language that is completely clear and free of ambiguity. However, I think this is a misleading approach for several reasons. Firstly, even if we could fashion such sentences for ideas more complex than "Please pass the stapler," or "Where's the coffee-machine?" we would not have time and neither would they. Secondly, this relies on a view of communication that treats language as a code. If a sufficiently accurate message is transmitted and received without intervening noise or distraction, then reliable communication will occur. (Sperber and Wilson 1986:4). This view takes no account of the communicator's use of background knowledge and inference. Thirdly, for reasons of politeness, it is not possible to speak "baldly, without redress" (Brown and Levinson 1987:69) all the time.

Naturally, the communicators will be guided by Grice's co-operative principle and make their utterances as true, brief, relevant, and clear (Cook 1989:29) as they can. But comprehension is more than just receiving a well crafted wording, recognizing what it refers to and unlocking its sense. It is also a matter of recognizing the speaker's intention or "inferring the speaker's plan" (Green 1989:14). The listener must somehow infer the perlocutionary force behind the speaker's wording (Coulthard 1985:18). To do this the communicators use various kinds of background knowledge and make inferences about each other's beliefs and intentions. (Green 1989:11).

We can use knowledge of this process to make communication easier. The first step is to maximize the amount of background knowledge that both parties in the communication process can use to draw inferences from. For successful communication to take place, the communicators must not only share background knowledge, but each must be able to estimate what the other knows or believes. As Green (1989:14) puts it, it is not enough for me to believe something, but for communication to take place "you must believe that I believe that you believe it". The communicators must be able to make reasonably reliable estimates of what information they can invoke for their addressees to make inferences from. The only way to do this is for the instructors and the assistants to talk to each other regularly about what ever things are relevant to them. Such things could include schedules, textbooks, culturally appropriate ways of handling problems, or who is going to be on vacation next week. If they have already talked about these things in non-pressure situations, then when communication needs to take place quickly, each is far more likely to be able to guess what the other is talking about, or to give appropriate cues.

Here is an example of a situation in which a message was misunderstood because of incorrect assumptions about background beliefs. A teacher invited the assistants to a surprise birthday party for another teacher after hours. The teacher assumed that all the correct pre-conditions were in place (i.e. mutually known) for his speech act to be interpreted as a friendly, non-binding, invitation (Coulthard 1985:22). He forgot, however, that their professional roles of instructor and assistants implied a status difference, and that in Korea, an invitation from someone of higher professional status implies a request. His speech-act was perceived as ambiguous due to conflicting background assumptions. A little comparing of assumptions to restore mutual understanding soon solved the problem.

In the sometimes hectic environment of a university department, especially for a speaker of English as a second language, there is a danger of information overload. Between working out the sense of our utterances, how those utterances fit in with previous discourse, and reconstructing our plans and intentions, our assistants are in danger of overloading their capacity to make inferences. It is obvious that we need to cut down on distractions when we communicate. This can be as simple as choosing the right time. When the assistant is translating and negotiating a problem between a teacher and a student over the telephone, it is not the time to approach her for complex scheduling information.

It is also important to check that foregrounded information is being perceived as such. Scollon and Scollon (1983:163-5) point out that aspects such as fore-grounding and contrast are not marked in all languages in the same way as they are in English, and that they effect which parts of the message the listener pays attention to and retains. What some teachers may perceive as inattention, or even evasiveness, may in fact be a difficulty in picking out the elements of the teacher's message that are being marked as salient, or in signaling which parts of their own message are most important or relevant. We need to use strategies like checking for comprehension and giving a summary of received information to make sure that we are getting the point and getting our point across.

An important aspect of this is to give both parties equal control over the discourse. Scollon and Scollon (1983:159-61) note how a speaker with a slower rate of turn exchange can be perceived as unsure or withdrawn. In our teaching assistants this is compounded by a predominantly deferential politeness style (ibid:168) which allows the teacher to retain topic control. In many cases the assistants have relevant information and opinions which are not introduced because they feel uncomfortable interrupting or changing the direction of the conversation. This naturally causes frustration on both parts and would be easily remedied by teachers slowing down, paying more attention to discourse signals, and asking for the assistants' opinions and information. The current arrangement sometimes places the assistants in the no-win situation of either leaving possibly relevant information unsaid, or using a blunt or bald, on-record (Brown and Levinson 1987:69) politeness style to get their point across.

What I am in fact arguing for is a shift in politeness style on the part of the teachers. The somewhat inflexible use of standard North-American solidarity politeness (Scollon and Scollon 1983:176) has its advantages. I am certainly arguing for an atmosphere in which threat of loss of face in communication is mitigated by relaxed, in-group like acceptance and mutual understanding. However, as Brown and Levinson point out (1987:73) it is dangerous to make the assumption of mutual wants and desires. As I have explained above, it is also dangerous to make other assumptions that go along with the presumed low power differential and low social distance of in-group membership. Coming from a society which assigns roles hierarchically, the assistants do not make the assumption of low power differential and low social distance. They take differences in role and status into account as shown by the problem with the party invitation. Due to the assistants deferential politeness style and having to operate in their second language, it is also dangerous for teachers to assume equal control over discourse aspects such as topic choice, or fore-grounding of information. There is also the danger that the teachers' use of solidarity politeness will create the kind of no-win situation explained by Scollon and Scollon (1983:177,185). If the assistants respond with deference they may be perceived in the teachers' minds as unsure or evasive. If they respond with solidarity they may break they own social rules for a teacher-assistant role relationship.

Following Scollon and Scollon (1983:186), I suggest that the teachers adopt a style based on deference strategies (ibid:168). They should minimize the face-threat of communication and encourage feedback and suggestion. They should not assume mutual background knowledge or that they and the assistants will see the same information as relevant. Rather, they should take the time to check and compare information and assumptions. They should give the assistants options both in control of the conversation, and in how and if they choose to act. They should assume, in fact, that in a Korean context, their Korean assistants probably know how to handle problems better than they do.

Being aware of the processes of using background knowledge and assumptions, making inferences about intentions, and negotiating mutual politeness by adopting a communicative style allows us to isolate the elements that contribute to successful communication. Looking at communication as more than just an exchange of surface forms and wordings allows us to go behind those forms and find strategies to make communication easier.

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Brown, P and Levinson S. 1987. "Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage."

Cook, G. 1989. "Why formal links are not enough."

Coulthard, M. 1985. "Speech acts and conversational maxims."

Green, G. 1989. "Belief and intention."

Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. 1983. "Face in interethnic communication."

All sources reprinted in Candlin, C.N. and Willing, K. 1996. Pragmatics: A book of readings. Sydney: Macquarie University, School of English and Linguistics, M. A. in Applied Linguistics.

Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.