I'm just going to pen down (or rather, type out) my honest thoughts. No long-winded reviews of previous lectures, no pictures and videos, no pretty graphs and models. Just me and my blatancy.

To sum it up, I've learned two important things in this 13 weeks.

Firstly, magic.

- Before Sunrise

Above's a quote from one of my favourite movies of all time (has anyone watched it?) But the point I'm trying to make, is that this module is really just trying to make sense of how different individuals and groups of people interact, understand one another, and share a part of themselves with the people around them.

Be it analyzing a simple speech act like apologies, or comprehending complicated theories of written and spoken discourse, I have learned to appreciate cultural and group differences in the way they attempt to communicate and express such magic.

It's like we're all in our tiny worlds, and in different settings and situations, we'll bump into one another. Sometimes there will be horrific cultural clashes if the worlds are too different, but if we bother to educate ourselves and be more sensitive, there can be beautiful encounters. =)

Moving on! *snaps out of idealistic thoughts*

The second thing I've learned, is about learning itself.

Yes, this module took away 987 points (which is more than some of you!), this module took away a lot of time and effort, but this module also seemed to have given me so much more intangible things. All the lectures, class interactions, weekly reflections and the unforgettable project were really enjoyable - which is the true essence of learning!

It's not just about grades in University. No wait, it's never about the grades. I've always believed in the process of learning, and the enjoyment of this process. This module gave me exactly that. And such modules are rare, as most of you would agree.

So, here's a shout out to Dr Deng and all you Friday classmates: thanks for being with me through this special, 'magical' journey!

It seems like I've missed out on an interesting lecture!

I remember asking my parents when I was a little girl, why countries and 'Mother' Nature are 'female', while almost everything else is 'male'. They gave me their standard reply: "You'll know when you grow up." And indeed, years later I did find the answer - sexism. Its pervasive nature is reflected not just in the way different genders are perceived and treated, but also in our everyday usage of language.

So why do we conform to these labels and talk/behave in gender-stereotypical ways?

Being a psychology major, this would be a familiar topic of course. Starting from an early age, children are found to frequently mix around with peers of the same gender, and they will attempt to talk/behave similarly among their groups. Parents and teachers encourage this further by rewarding and punishing boys and girls differently, according to how they 'should' behave.

It's no wonder that over a long period of time, languages have incorporated sexist concepts under the huge societal pressure.

Even the media encourages females and males to talk differently by exaggerating the differences. Below's a funny clip from the TV drama Friends, on how an all-girls group and an all-guys group react in drastically different ways to the same event.

Well, this 1kg monster is my window to the world. And communication is really made much easier with each wave of technological advancement - new inventions and features continue to marvel me every day.

But compared to the more traditional modes of communication (eg. speaking face-to-face), there are important differences in this virtual bubble which humans have created.

There's the possibility of remaining an anonymous character in forums, chat rooms, multi-player online games, and even blogs. In fact, most people are often advised not to reveal too much personal information through these avenues - it's the most important rule in Internet Safety 1101.

How does this affect communication then?

Irregardless of our cultural backgrounds and physical appearances, we have an equal power to choose a 'virtual identity'. We can choose which characters to play in online games, we can design their appearances, we can select which avatars (virtual representations of self) to use in forums and instant messaging devices, we can even lie and pretend to be people we are not.

Outcasts in reality can suddenly feel included in an online community, while stereotyped groups can break free from the evaluative gaze of others in real life. Suddenly, we are free from judgments based on our appearances and the way we behave in front of other people. While this sounds positive, there are important problems to note: How do we know the other party is saying the truth when we cannot even see them? Can we trust them when their words are all in short-forms, exaggerated with capitalizations and punctuations, and full of typo errors?

And finally, how do we reconcile differences between our 'virtual self' and our 'reality self', if any? It's food for thought...

Another big difference in computer-mediated communication, compared to traditional forms, is how it always seems to make communication easier, yet discourages people from meeting up with one another physically.

Can online interactions replace face-to-face conversations?

I doubt so. Even with the latest video conferencing tools available, there's still something lacking without the physical presence of your friend sitting 1 meter across the table from you.

Technology is supposed to aid us in communicating with people who are far away from us, but it is slowly becoming the major mode of communication, even among family members staying in the same house.

There's even an extreme case of a young Chinese boy committing suicide to be "reunited with fellow cyber-players in heaven", leaving behind his family and friends.

(http://play.tm/news/5928/chinese-suicide-shows-addiction-dangers/)

Perhaps it's worthwhile to look into the dangers of gaming/internet addictions and study how this can impact our relationships with people in real life. This is especially pertinent because a recent finding suggested that on average, Singaporean teenagers play 27 hours of MMO games every week, which works out to be 1/7th of their time.

(http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/27759/singapore-teens-play-mmos-27-hours-week)

tat is juz 2 scawy, duncha tink? =S

It's funny how parents, teachers and moral education textbooks spend years telling us, "Oh, you have to be polite to others because... well, because it's a nice thing to do," then we'll feel so proud when we're being praised for being polite, thinking that we're really nice people who put others before ourselves.

But wait a second.

When you de-construct the entire concept of politeness and examine its purpose, there are really lots of self-serving reasons involved amidst all the 'niceness'.

To have a better public image. To maintain harmonious relationships with others. To feel less guilty when imposing on others. To feel good about oneself. To protect ourselves by minimizing potential negative reactions from people we care about. To elicit positive reactions from others in return. The list goes on...

Looking at it this way, politeness is indeed a series of strategies which we employ constantly, sometimes without even noticing the reasons why we say these things in the first place. It's the way societies have evolved and it usually serves a good function, although politeness might be expressed in drastically different ways in different cultures.

I doubt there's any culture with absolutely no politeness in their language and interaction patterns. Evolution would have killed them, no?

Imagine if all men are incredibly impolite to women - surely females will be reluctant to settle down with any guy, and the human race will face the risk of extinction! (Of course there are crude and insensitive guys who still manage to find girls, for some unknown mysterious reasons.)

So, let's apply what we've learned!

Q: Would you still love me if I'm fat?

A: Of course, you're a... huge presence in my life.

On a side note, people with certain personalities do get away with being impolite - I get amused by those who are chronically sarcastic in a smart, witty way. Then again, maybe it's just me. Because I feel that in some situations, it's better to be straightforward than to be overly-polite when you don't mean it. It's hinging on being hypocritical, isn't it?

These are just some of the concepts covered in class last week, some of which I found familiar while others are completely new to me. Even though they may risk the problems of over-generalizing people within a cultural group and encouraging stereotypic thinking, I felt that these terms provide a fair over-arching view of behavioral patterns across cultural groups.

They may be looking at different aspects and subsequently creating arbitrary divisions among various cultures, but Hofstede and Hall (and many other prominent researchers in this field) seem to be repeatedly pointing out one thing: there appear to be fundamental differences in the way cultural groups perceive, think, feel and behave.

It's almost like we're different people from different worlds.

And it's not surprising at all, given each nation's distinct historical backgrounds, cultural practices, social norms and the idiosyncratic behaviors of their citizens. These are self-perpetuating habits which are unlikely to be eliminated by globalization. Sure, we may be increasingly subjected to Western influences, but I'm very certain that they won't replace or drastically alter the characteristics which contribute to the true essence of Singapore culture.

Given that cultural groups are different, it would make sense to argue that the distinction between normality and deviancy is pretty much dependent on the context. A person's action may be labelled as 'abnormal' and 'inappropriate' in a collectivistic nation, but he or she might fit in better in an individualistic country instead.

There's no absolute right or wrong, normal or abnormal. It really depends on the situation, isn't it?

I guess the best we can do is to try and find out as much as we can about a particular cultural group, and take note of the appropriate behavior/communication methods when interacting with members of that cultural group.

Understanding and respect can go a long way. =)

That being said, I really admire cross-cultural couples who manage to have long-lasting relationships. Imagine the extra amounts of patience and effort required from each one of them!

Hope everyone's enjoying their recess week so far! (Although I think most of us are pretty much drowning in work... hmm.)

While we were discussing Chinese letters of request last week, I kept getting reminded of the countless 公函s (formal Chinese letters) I had to write back in secondary school. We were taught to follow a particular strict format (similar to the one discussed in class) irregardless of the actual letter content, so it was a matter of time before most of us learned to blindly plug in memorized "facework phrases" to every letter we wrote.

It seems difficult for letter recipients to distinguish between sincere and generic compliments. If I'm one of the Radio Australia producers, I would probably quickly glance through the first section of all request letters without genuinely believing that all of them are "extremely loyal" fans.

Perhaps when writing in Chinese, we need to go the extra mile to make the recipient feel our sincerity, instead of just dishing out compliments as though they are meaningless greetings. Maybe an eloquent writing style will make a big difference.

Also, I found the different discourse types among different cultural groups really interesting. If I were to receive love letters written in different languages (assuming I can understand all of them), I would probably be impressed by the Oriental circular style and their beautiful analogies, as well as the rhythmic balanced style of Arabic writings.

The linearity and explicit writing style of English letters would, in contrast, kill the romance immediately.

Then again, I suspect love letters would have its own written discourse structures, different from the ones we talked about in class. Wouldn't it be interesting to examine that across different language groups? =)

For English teachers, they emphasized details and the famous "5Ws, 1H" - who, where, when, what, why, and how. Whereas Chinese teachers taught me to capture the essence of the essay with idioms and abstract notions, without dwelling too much on mundane details.

As for oral examinations (there's this component where students have to describe a picture verbally), we were taught to use elaborate descriptions of facial features and activity verbs for the English exam, but we always have to provide moral statements for the Chinese exam.

They're definitely way more complex than the mere adding up of speech acts, but they provide a systematic and deeper way of unraveling the whole range of discourse patterns we observe and participate in everyday.

By intuition, most people might think that our utterances are totally random and will hence not follow any rules, while others might believe that most of our discourse can be neatly classified and described with prototypical act sequences. For me, I take the less extreme view - for a specific speech event, I believe there are rules and generic structures involved, but these are heavily influenced by a myriad of variables both within and across cultures.

Take job interviews, for example.

In America, it might be crucial for the interviewee to express his or her ambitions, and be confident and proactive in the conversation, but employers from other cultures (maybe Chinese?) might instead be looking out for qualities of modesty, respect and courtesy instead. This will probably result in different rules for this particular genre of speech event in the context of different cultures, although basic act sequences are probably similar (eg. interviewer asks questions, interviewee answers questions, and it repeats).

Within the same culture, there will still be other factors (eg. company culture, job requirements, job position, industry type, etc.) that affect how the speech event will typically unfold. For instance, my sister once rejected an interviewee's application for a boring admin job because he appeared too ambitious and eager - she claimed these were undesirable traits for that job. However, wouldn't it be drastically different if the person was applying for, say, a position for regional manager?

Hence, the same type of speech event (eg. job interview) can have participants having different dress codes, presenting themselves in different manners (be it verbal or non-verbal), depending on various factors.

To end off, here's a funny advertisement on a very extreme way of getting your dream job. =)

That was how most of us reacted to the translations of Teochew and Hokkien sentences shown in class last Friday. And that was also what struck me the most - the art of translation.

Where did the hilarity arise from? Was it from the different syntactic structures, or the fact that certain phrases cannot be meaningfully expressed in another language?

When I was young, I once thought of becoming a diplomat or a language specialist who can help people translate different languages. It was rather amusing to imagine how dreadful situations can become if the translator intentionally does a bad job - a contestant competing for Miss Universe could give the most eloquent speech in her native language, only to have it translated into simple, awkward lines of English. On a larger scale, wrongly translated phrases at significant international conferences could lead to grave misunderstandings and perhaps, even lead to major conflicts between nations.

Moreover, I'm beginning to realize that even if a phrase is translated directly and without deliberate errors, the process is still fraught with difficulties and potential confusions. Even among people using the same language, we often misunderstand each other's intentions due to contextual influences or the ambiguity of certain words and phrase structures. Comparatively, wouldn't it be massively more difficult for people from different cultures to communicate with one another?

It is no wonder that human beings and even entire nations are often having arguments and wars. Just like the video shown in class, it is perhaps worthwhile to think about starting small and learning to communicate effectively within each household, before we think about achieving world peace.