Let's just not say anything, and we won't offend anybody.

In our class discussion of spoken discourse, we talked a lot about spoken responses. These responses were sounded. What about silences though? Silences is a common response. Can it be considered a kind of response when discussing spoken discourse?

I ask this because I'm sure we've all had encounters of awkward silences in conversations. For me, it was a rather disastrous one which was interpreted very wrongly. It was a long time ago, my first lesson with a new teacher, an American:

Teacher (T): I think perhaps this part should be played like this.
Me: -silence- (Totally disagreed because it sounded bad but still nods head)
T: What do you think?
Me: -long silence- uh huh.

This is a scenario that repeated itself for months until my teacher couldn't stand it anymore. He asked why I was always so quiet, and never questioned the way he interpreted music even when I thought it sounded bad. He thought that I was simply being rebellious. It was then that I realized he was intentionally trying to make me respond with all those ridiculous interpretations. But being Chinese and having had Chinese teachers all my life, I was used to following the teacher's instructions, accepting it as correct and never to outwardly go against the teacher in a master-disciple relationship. What I thought was polite behaviour was actually perceived as rebellious!

This particular teacher has a teaching studio of around 20 Asians. At first, he always used wonder why Asians were so unresponsive, like "stone people". He would always wonder aloud why we were so talkative along the hallways but so frustatingly quiet in front of him. He used to interpret this silent behaviour as arrogance, rebelliousness, or that we were terrified of him. In time though, we changed and he eventually came to understand this Asian reticence as a form or respect for the teacher.

I was always told to keep quiet when I'm not sure what to say, this way I will never say anything wrong or offend anybody. This has proved to be a fallacy. Silence is actually already a form of response. and it could be a wrong reflection of our intentions, depending on who we are talking to.

Speech Events: Encouragements

Music lessons have always been solely about music; playing the piano, learning while having fun. After last Friday's class though, I tried perceiving them as speech events, and some interesting recollections came to mind.

I've had piano lessons with many teachers. Some interesting encounters were with teachers from Europe, America, Singapore and China. Every teacher has tried to encourage me at one point or another, but all with different methods.

The European teacher I studied with was extravagant with praises. "Phrasing is beautiful", "ahh emotion is simply perfect", "it's amazing that you did all the by yourself", "bravissimo, really bravissimo" are some of the more vivid lines I remember him using. It felt good to be praised, for I must admit I felt special. But doubt nagged at me more than anything else. I used to think: I can't be that good... he's just being nice.

The American teacher I studied under was extremely direct and honest. He used to say things like, "Yeah you made a mistake there but who cares? The rest was absolutely kickass!" There was always something good to say for every bad point mentioned. I never felt like he was exxaggerating the truth. I didn't feel as special as in the above situation, but at least I wasn't left in doubt.

The Singaporean teacher was quite critical and seldom praised me. "Good, but not quite there yet... this part could be better, and that part could be better..." The word 'good' did not really mean good, it was more like an offhand remark that had to be said to lessen the negative impact of the following 'not quite there yet'. I used to feel quite frustrated because I was always 'never there'. Yet I suspect the teacher intended to spur me on by holding back praises.

The teacher from China not only criticised. She used to compare me to others, for example, "someone else is practicing 12 hours a day, if you practiced as hard you could be as good or even better because you are no less talented." Though I was not made to feel any lesser, I again felt that I was 'not there yet'. This time, however, there was an added component of competition to motivate me.

I do not mean to diminish any of the above teachers with these flashbacks. I learnt a great deal from each. Yet, the differences between the encouragements I've received from these various teachers are very apparent. Furthermore, I have colleagues in school who have had similiar experiences; Asian teachers tend to be much more critical and unforgiving about mistakes than their Western counterparts. Could it have to do with their cultural identities? Or would that simply be a groundless generalization?

On speech acts...

Today's lesson on speech act was rather perplexing because we were studying it without taking into account intonation.

We were first asked to complete a sample questionnaire that collates our responses to various compliments. I found this task difficult because I was responding to a visual representation of a compliment on a piece of paper. However, the possible real life re-enactions one can imagine are abound.

For example, one of the compliments in the questionnaire was: "What a nice sweater! You look great in it".

I was stunned when thinking about how I could possibly respond. The ideal situation would of course be if the person placed natural stresses on the words "nice" and "great". I would take that to be a well-meaning, sincere compliment.

But, what if it were said thus: What a ... [hesitation] nice sweater! You look... ... [even more hesitation] great in it!

Is that still a compliment? If it were said to me I'd be really doubtful!

Worse still, what if it were: What a ... [hesitation, and continuing in a noticeably higher pitched voice] nice sweater! You look... ... [even more hesitation, continuing with an even higher pitched with voice weakly fading away] great in it [ending the sentence with an upward bend in pitch as if asking a question].

That is simply dripping with sarcasm and certainly can't be regarded as a compliment, can it?

A speech act is defined as an act a speaker performs when making an utterance. The words "act" and "perform" clearly imply that the speaker's intention is being taken into consideration. However, as the above two examples clearly illustrate, the speaker's intention is portrayed more intensely in his or her intonation as compared to the words that are used. So, can we really accurately study speech acts without giving any thought to intonation?