Tag: (E) close person

(2020) Chinese (Cantonese), English – Ethnopragmatics


Wakefield, John C.; Winnie Chor, Winnie; & Lai, Nikko (2020). Condolences in Cantonese and English: What people say and why. In Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis (pp. 35-58). Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_3

Abstract:

This study uses the ethnopragmatics approach to examine the cultural-based knowledge that guides Cantonese and Anglo-English speakers when offering death-related condolences, or what we refer to here as ‘condolence routines’. The data come from discourse completion tasks, the existence of cultural key phrases, and the authors’ native-speaker intuitions. The authors examine condolences that are offered to a good friend who has recently lost someone close to him or her. They present cultural scripts that are proposed to account for the linguistic contrasts in Cantonese versus English condolence routines. The Cantonese script is entirely new while the English script is revised from a previous study.

Based on our analysis, we conclude that the primary contrast is that Anglo-English condolences typically focus on expressing that the condoler feels sad because of the bereaved’s loss, while Cantonese condolences typically focus on telling the bereaved not to be sad and to take care of his- or herself. Knowledge of this contrast in sociopragmatics is not only a meaningful contribution to the study of pragmatics; it is also of practical help to people in regular contact with Cantonese and/or Anglo-English speakers. It can help one understand how to avoid saying something during a condolence routine that may sound inappropriate, or even insensitive, to speakers of these two languages.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2017) English, Japanese – Ethnopragmatics


Wakefield, John; Itakura, Hiroko (2017). English vs. Japanese condolences: What people say and why. In Vahid Parvaresh, & Alessandro Capone (Eds.), The pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 203-231). Berlin: Springer.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55759-5_12

Abstract:

This paper uses the ethnopragmatics approach to discover the sociopragmatic knowledge that influences what English and Japanese speakers say when condoling bereaved people who have recently lost someone close to them. Linguistic data are drawn from previous studies on English and Japanese condolences, discourse completion tasks, movies and the authors’ native-speaker intuitions. Analyses from the literature on condolences contribute to the discussion. Cultural scripts — one for English and one for Japanese — are presented as hypotheses to account for the observed verbal and non-verbal behaviour of English and Japanese speakers when offering condolences. It is proposed that the social closeness between the deceased and the bereaved affects what all condolers say, but that this effect is different for English and Japanese speakers. Another key difference is that the perceived role of the condoler is different between the two languacultures: Japanese speakers sense a greater responsibility to share in the mourning process.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners