Pragmatics in International Videoconferencing: Virtual Communication Encounters between Americans, Kenyans, Salvadorans and Colombians

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Language issues related to: student access, early literacy and virtual communication encounters

Proposal

Language is culture. How does culture, differences in World Englishes or English dialects and English Learner (EL) vs. native speaker status affect pragmatics in synchronous web conferencing communication? Specifically how are pragmatics in this type of communication affected? This paper examines the various aspects of pragmatics in international videoconferences between Native English speaking American college students, Native English speaking Kenyan college students and English Learners in El Salvador, Honduras, Japan and Colombia. The videoconferences were part of an ongoing project connecting secondary, undergraduate and graduate students and instructors since 2008.

Participants were modern languages and multicultural education undergraduates at a comprehensive university in the southeast United States, Communications major undergraduates from a private university in Kenya, secondary students in an American school and undergraduate EFL teacher education majors from a comprehensive university in El Salvador and secondary, undergraduate and adult EFL students at a private English school in Colombia.

Data were gathered through document review and participant observation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Recordings of web conferences from 3 years of our international videoconferencing project were reviewed for rules of conversation, felicity conditions, situational, social and linguistic contexts, Maxims of Quality, Quantity and Relevance, Maxims of Manner, flouting, drawing conclusions, presuppositions, speech acts and presuppositions (including truth values and conditions) (Department of Linguistics, 2011).Little research has been done regarding pragmatics as it applies to international videoconferencing for purposes of increasing cultural communication. This project contributes to the understanding of pragmatics in intercultural web-conference-based communication in a North-South framework.

Conversation participants assume certain things: that the other participants are intending to be cooperative communicators, that rules of conversation will be followed, that there should be mutual understanding of situational, social and linguistic contexts, that there is certain information the listeners will already know in order to interpret what the speaker is saying, will be able to infer meaning in context as needed, that speakers and listeners will recognize what belongs in the conversation and what does not, and that the speakers and listeners recognize various speech acts (questions, demands, requests and so on) that will be part of a conversation. Participants also assume that speakers will tell the truth, will contribute no more and no less than is needed for a productive conversation, will stick with the current topic or change topics in an accepted manner and will make a sincere effort to be polite (Department of Linguistics, 2011).

Since language is culture, whether or not the assumptions and expectations of participants are met depends on the cultures and cross-cultural knowledge of the participants (Tannen, 1984). I may also depend on the willingness of participants to seek clarification when miscommunication occurs. Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz (1982) indicate that “meanings and understandings, at the level of ongoing process interpretation of speaker’s intent, depend upon culturally specific conventions, so that much of the meaning in any encounter is indirect and implicit” (p.14).

We have found that various aspects of pragmatics were affected, differing by who the participants were in a particular conversation and whether or not an individual was acting as a cultural bridge within a particular session. For example, in sessions in which USA Female A participated there was extensive violation of the Maxim of Quantity. Cultural differences and differences in situational, social and linguistic contexts led to mistaken presuppositions. However, all participants were able to recognize the various types of speech acts and these did not cause confusion or miscommunication. Rules of conversation are culturally bound. Thus there were some difficulties in smooth flow of conversation when rules for the different participants did not match. Maxims of Manner (when to use direct and indirect speech) also differ by culture and so this was also a challenge for participants (Department of Linguistics, 2011). Analysis of the data in ongoing so there will be additional results to present at CIES.

References
Department of Linguistics. (2011). Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language
and Linguistics, 11th Edition, Ohio State University.
Gumperz, J. and Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982). Chapter 1: Introduction – language and the
communication of social identity. In Gumperz, J. (Ed.), Language and Social Identity, (1
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Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford
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Lincoln, Y., and Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park: Sage.
Tannen, D. (1984). The Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communication Applied Linguistics, 5(3),
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Liu, Y. (2016). Cultural Collision: The Interference of First Language Cultural Identity on
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Authors

• Laureen Fregeau, University of South Alabama

• Ukaiko Ojiambo, St. Paul's University, Nairobi, Kenya

• Suhana Chikatla, Independent Consultant

• William Cornejo, American School, Santa Ana, El Salvador

• Benjamin Schwartz, Asia University