The bicultural pragmatics of English as an international language

Chi n l
c ngo i ng trong xu th h i nh p

Tháng 11/2014

CÁC DỤNG PHÁP SONG VĂN HÓA CỦA TIẾNG ANH
VỚI TƯ CÁCH LÀ NGÔN NGỮ QUỐC TẾ
Roland Sussex
Tr
ng Đ i h c Queensland, Úc
Tóm t t: Tiếng Anh với tư cách là ngôn ngữ quốc tế

(EIL) has become the default channel for international

(EIL) mặc nhiên trở thành một kênh giao tiếp quốc tế.

communication. However, competence in English

Tuy nhiên, năng lực ngữ âm, ngữ pháp và từ vựng

sounds, grammar and vocabulary is not enough for

tiếng Anh không ñủ ñể ñảm bảo giao tiếp thành thạo.

competent communication. While speakers may be

Trong khi người nói có thể chuyển tải thông tin bằng

making messages in English words, their pragmatic

ngôn từ tiếng Anh, nghĩa văn hóa và dụng học thường

and cultural meanings are often transferred directly

ñược chuyển tải trực tiếp từ ngôn ngữ và văn hóa bản

from their first language and culture. An apparent

ngữ. Bởi vậy, năng lực tiếng Anh tốt vẫn chưa thể ñảm

competence in English language can therefore result in

bảo giao tiếp thành công.

substantial miscommunication.

Bài viết này xem xét bản chất của EIL dưới quan

This paper explores the nature of English as an

ñiểm sự phù hợp giữa hình thức ngôn từ và dụng học

International Language from the point of view of the fit

văn hóa. Một số biểu thức ngôn từ với từng người nói

between language forms and cultural pragmatics.

khác nhau lại có vai trò dụng học văn hóa khác nhau,

Some language forms can have different cultural-

và vai trò dụng học văn hóa có thể ñược biểu ñạt khác

pragmatic roles for different speakers, and some

nhau tùy mỗi người nói. Ở một số biến thể EIL, một số

cultural-pragmatic roles can be differently expressed by

vai trò dụng học văn hóa không có hiện thực ngôn từ

different speakers. Some cultural-pragmatic roles have

trực tiếp.

no direct linguistic realization in some varieties of EIL.

Sự ña dạng văn hóa dụng học này khiến chúng tôi

This cultural-pragmatic plurality of English prompts

ñặt câu hỏi vậy EIL thuộc loại ngôn ngữ nào trong mối

us to ask what kind of a language EIL is in relation to

liên hệ với các ngôn ngữ quốc gia, chuẩn, và ñã ñược

conventional, and especially highly codified, national

lập mã chặt chẽ. Bài viết này tìm hiểu các nhân tố từ

languages.

mô hình giao tiếp liên văn hóa của Hofstede ñể xác

Hofstede’s models of Intercultural Communication to

ñịnh một số ñặc ñiểm trọng yếu của giao tiếp dụng học

develop some key characteristics of cultural-pragmatic

văn hóa EIL.

communication in English as an International Language

I

will

explore

several

factors

from

Abstract: English as an International Language

THE BICULTURAL PRAGMATICS OF ENGLISH
AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
INTRODUCTION

English as an International Language (EIL) has
become an international factor of our
communicative context, and is spoken, in one
form or another, by somewhere between 1.5 and 2
billion speakers world-wide. There is a
corresponding emphasis on English language as a
first foreign language across the globe, and
education systems rigorously examine the
grammar and vocabulary, and in some cases also

the phonetic performance, of students at various
points in their educational careers. There are
substantial benefits for those who have superior
English, and can use these in professional and
interpersonal contexts. English is the default
language of communication where speakers do not
otherwise share a common language.
Nonetheless, two other aspects of English
competence are accorded far less emphasis:
pragmatics and cultural values. Pragmatics, or the
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Ti u ban 1: Đào t o chuyên ng

competence in using the forms of language for
interpersonal communication, involves a wide
range of speech acts, and body language acts,
from questions to greetings to compliments to
warnings to statements, and many more. The

cultural values which underlie these speech acts
are not infrequently taught as part of the formation
of our education systems, but are also
insufficiently related to their expression in our
mother tongues, and in particular, to the ways in
which we use languages other than our mother
tongue for communication, both at home and
abroad. Textbooks and scholarly studies of
intercultural communication, as well as scholarly
publications like the Journal of Pragmatics, give
ample evidence of the richness of the material that
exists across languages. What has been less
studied is the ways in which they come together,
and sometimes fail to collaborate, in the exercise
of English in international space.
In fact, the capacity for multi-cultural, multipragmatic competence in English is likely to be
significantly enhanced for people who do not
come from an English-speaking background. The
most significant factor behind this claim is the fact
that English-speaking countries currently do not,
as a whole, have a reputation for promoting
LOTEs (Languages Other Than English) in their
education systems. A major educational policy
announcement in Australia in 2014, for instance,
was the press release from the Federal Minister for
Education, Mr Chris Pyne, that by the year 2020
he wants 40% of Australian school students in
final year to be studying a foreign language. In the
context of recent policy-making in Australia this
is a bold and innovative step, though it leaves

Australia still some distance behind the education
systems of Asian countries, and especially those
of smaller European countries, where trilingualism
is common. The absence of exposure to nonAnglo pragmatics and cultures in first-language
English speakers means that they do not have the
opportunity to learn how non-native cultures can
be encoded in English discourse. This contrasts
strongly, for instance, with the appreciation of the
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cultural role of thanking in Singapore in English
(Wong, 2007), or the treatment of compliments in
languages like Vietnamese (Pham, 2011)(see
below). From this point of view the non-native
speaker of English has a distinct cultural and
pragmatic advantage when using English, even if,
as argued by Hino (2012), the properties of
English – formal, cultural and pragmatic – have
selectively been shifted by the instructor in the
direction of the students' L1.
THE
LANGUAGE
<
>
CULTURE/PRAGMATICS DISLOCATION
It is not difficult to identify communicationally
critical examples in the usage of International
English.
The first involves the apparently universal act
of thanking. This is a ritual where forms of

language are used to acknowledge that the other
person has rendered some valuable service or
action. The issue is how valuable or weighty that
service or action need be. This question was
brought to my attention by my Singapore students,
who asked why Australians thank the bus driver.
To Australians this is simply a matter of cultural
habit and good manners. But as Wong (2007)
shows, in Singapore one thanks when the other
party has rendered a service which requires
substantial effort, time, expense or inconvenience.
That is not the case with the bus driver in
Australia, who is paid to do a job. As a result
Singaporeans in Australia can sound surly, while
Australians in Singapore, saying thank you very
frequently, can appear superficial and insincere. A
further complication is that Australians often say
“thanks” when other varieties of English would
say “please”. For instance, when asked if you
would like a drink, Australians will say either “yes,
please” or “yes, thanks”, even before the drink is
delivered. The role of “thanks” in this context
acknowledges the offer rather than the provision
of the drink itself, but is confusing to nonAustralian uses of English, even those for whom
English is a first language.
There is also the question of acknowledging


Chi n l
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thanks. All European languages have a formula
which is obligatory and polite usage, and indicates
that the act was not too onerous, for example in
German:
Receiver: “Bitte” (“thank you”)
Giver: “Bitte schön” (lit. “don't mention it”)
Until recently in British and Commonwealth
English one did not usually say anything in
response to statement of thanks. Now, however,
perhaps under the influence of European
languages, perhaps because of American influence,
it is becoming customary to say something:
“you're welcome” (American), “no worries”
(Australian), or even “cheers” (in numerous
countries). This has brought Australian English
into line with European and increasingly
international practice. It was not that Australian
English was formally less polite, except in another
context of English usage where some verbal
acknowledgement of thanks was expected. But it
does indicate a difference between a culturally
appropriate pragmatic act of thanking, and its
linguistic expression.
The second example involves valedictions, or
saying farewell. The standard pattern in European
languages is to invoke some expectation of the
next time you see the person you are farewelling:
“until the seeing”
Spanish: hasta la vista, Czech: na shledanou,
Polish: do widzenia

lit. “until the again seeing”
French: au revoir, Italian: arrivederci, German:
auf Wiedersehen
In English, on the other hand, the standard
formula is “goodbye”, which originally derives
from "God be with ye". There is no expressed
expectation of the next encounter. It is not known
exactly how this arose, but in Australian English
there is now a standard way of saying goodbye,
“see you later”. This formula is used even when
farewelling someone who is leaving through the
gates of an international departure lounge at an

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airport, and where it is obvious that the next
seeing is unlikely to be “later". But this formula
has in one respect brought Australian English
back into line with European languages, and
involves a wish that one is looking forward to the
next visual encounter. As a result, saying merely
“goodbye” in Australia can sound a little formal
and distant, except in contexts where one is
speaking more carefully. Interestingly, in Chinese
zaj jian means literally "until seeing”.
In both these examples a single pragmatic act,
of thanking or of farewelling, shows differing
linguistic performance: sometimes zero (as in the
former acknowledgement of thanks in British and
Commonwealth countries), sometimes differing

linguistic formulations. Others examples are not
far to seek. Saying “no” to someone's face is
culturally difficult in Confucian culture is like
Japan and Korea. But a frank statement of “yes”
or “no” is expected and standard in Hebrew.
Israelis and Japanese communicating in English
are therefore immediately faced with a
diametrically opposed interpretation of frankness.
The balance between frankness and politeness,
in fact, is also highly relevant to languages which
share as long a cultural and historical path as
English and French. In French the cultural value
of “frankness” is superior to that of “politeness”,
to the point where the French word “politess” has
a narrower range of use than its English
counterpart “politeness”, and the French phrase
“savoir vivr”, meaning approximately “knowledge
of how to liv”, is both more frequent and more
highly valued. The French can see the British as
being less than honest because they are avoiding
and uncomfortable truth; conversely, the British
can see the French as rude and insensitive as they
practise their standard variety of interpersonal
interaction, and all of this can happen in English.
Again, frankness is valued by the French in
refusing an answer to a dinner invitation. In
French is quite appropriate, and sufficient, to say
merely “thank you, sorry, I can't make it”. In
English, in contrast, it is expected that one will
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Ti u ban 1: Đào t o chuyên ng

produce some kind of excuse, as plausible as
possible, even if one is otherwise able to accept
the invitation. In French such an excuse can sound
contrived, insincere and unnecessary. And it will
sound even more so if that French person is
speaking English (Béal, 1994).
In other instances a single linguistic act can
have different pragmatic and cultural values,
depending on the cultural background of the
interlocutor. Such an example is a simple
compliment: “what good manners your little boy
has”. In Anglo societies the conventional response
to receiving such a compliment is to smile, thank
the complimenter, and accept the compliment
gracefully. In Confucian cultures like Vietnam, on
the other hand, compliments can be embarrassing,
and accepting them can imply an excess of pride.
The conventional response is to deflect the
compliment, return it for instance to the little boy
of the interlocutor, or to find ways of politely
declining it. I have witnessed a number of such
encounters in English between Anglos and
Vietnamese, when the Anglo offered a
compliment in good faith. There was no hint of
lack of courtesy or good will on either side. But it
was evident that the compliment had provoked

tension and discomfort.
EIL
AND
COMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGE

CULTURAL
MODELS
OF

Profiles of English as an International
Language have so far tended to concentrate
principally on the formal properties of the
language, and which parts of “standard” English
can afford to be ignored in international
communication: for instance, Jenkins' (2000)
discussion of the marginal status of the two “th”
sounds [θ] and [ð]. From a cultural and pragmatic
point of view, however, the operative principles
are far less defined, and are often more likely to
be discovered in use, especially between speakers
who come from differing cultural backgrounds. In
this context it is valuable to consider research on
Intercultural Communication by scholars like
242

Hofstede (2001), and their attempts to establish
some cultural commonalities of communication
irrespective of the base language.
Two of Hofstede's criteria which work in

substantial collaboration are Power Distance and
Individualism. Here the Anglo-speaking countries
form a group which is low on power distance and
high on individualism: this means that
interpersonal communication tends to have rather
less observance of power and seniority, but also
that the individual has a higher perception of their
own identity, over and above that of any social
group to which they belong. At the other end of
the graph are, inter alia, the countries of East Asia,
where we find high power distance and traditional
respect for seniority and authority as well as age;
and low individualism, which implies that the
social group and its interests take precedence over
those of the individual.
These criteria pose immediate issues for the
effective exercise of communication in
International English, especially when it concerns
speakers from the opposing ends of the spectrum.
Not only does English have a relatively poor
repertoire of forms for expressing respect – for
instance, in contrast to the pronoun system of
Vietnamese – but the forms for expressing respect
which it does possess are used rather less, and in
different contexts, from those which would be
appropriate in an East Asian context. Australians,
for instance, use formal titles only very sparingly,
especially face to face. This is intercultural
communication at work within a single language,
or perhaps, more accurately, with in a single

language code. Canagarajah (2007) has called this
“Lingua Franca English” to distinguish it from
English as an International Language, highlighting
the fact, as happens with a lingua francas, that
much of the meaning which they achieve is
established in practice and on-the-fly, and may
remain uncodified. But unlike a lingua franca, the
contexts in Asia in which English are used more
stable, and more structured in terms of culture and
pragmatics. They will tend to reflect deep traces
of the speaker's L1, as well as their C1 (native
culture) and P1 (native pragmatics). An


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interpenetration across language / cultural barriers
like this is also obvious with native speakers of a
language who have spent substantial periods
overseas in another culture. When they return
home their use of their L1 is no less competent,
though it may be a little outdated; but their
interpersonal behaviour may well exhibit features
of the culture in which they have been resident.
The second operative factor from Hofstede's
analysis
involves Uncertainty Avoidance.
Uncertainty avoidance is found in cultures which
tend to be high in ritual and formality, and tend to
rely more on established patterns of social

interaction, ritual, rules, and factors which
contribute to the creation of unknown and
workable interpersonal dynamic. Anglo societies
tend to tolerate uncertainty more, and so operate
in a less structured and more unpredictable way.
This has obvious implications for the activation of
language, culture and pragmatics.
English, particularly in countries like Australia,
ranks rather low on the scale of ritual behaviour,
and conversations are often relatively unstructured.
Interpersonal relations are established by
negotiation in real time, but also against a
background where Australians have an unusual
tendency – unusual, that is, in terms of
international norms – to address each other by
their first names. This can be used educationally
as a deliberate destabilising strategy. In our
classrooms at the University of Queensland,
where we teach Applied Linguistics to classes
which are 85% international, principally from
Asia, and principally graduates, we took a
decision to encourage our students to address us,
the teachers, by our first names. The strategy was
specifically designed to encourage students to
become proactive independent contributors to
classroom discussion and exploration. For many
students from Asia this was culturally and
personally quite painful. But they acquired this
practice over a couple of months, and our
classrooms became vibrant places of exploration

and argument. This, if you wish, is manipulating
cultural values of International English for
educational purposes. I can vouch for its efficacy,

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but also for the implications which it has in
helping students become more acute and effective
observers and interpreters of these cultural and
pragmatic behaviours, and to train them in ways
of negotiation and accommodation in order to
achieve effective channels of communication with
the people that they will increasingly meet
speaking English in international spaces when
they return to take up teaching positions in their
home countries.
Interestingly, when I meet these students again
in their home context in Asia, I am conscious that
while I may use their first names to them in
private, I will tend to do this much less in public,
particularly when they are in the presence of their
peers and superiors.
CONCLUSION
I have written elsewhere (Sussex & Kirkpatrick,
2012) about the key properties of “communicacy”
in the international arena of English. These
include tolerance of variation, readiness to engage
in inter-language switching, competence in repair
and recovery when communication breaks down,
skill in negotiation, readiness to engage in

accommodation or adaptation to the other speaker,
and the importance of emotional intelligence
(Goleman, 2000).
English as an International Language presents
us with specific difficulties. If one of two speakers
is a native speaker of English and the other is not,
then the native speaker will be aware that the
other speaker is not a native, but will probably be
less aware of the possible cultural differences
between their performance in English. The nonnative speaker will perceive that the native
speaker is such, and may assume that that person
is operating within the cultural and pragmatic
context of the first-language speaker of English;
but that is an assumption which may be wholly, or
partially, mistaken. One's linguistic competence,
then, can be an initial clue, at least of native or
non-native status of the language and its forms.
But it may be not very much help when it comes
to determining the cultural and pragmatic
competence on both sides.
On the other hand, if two non-native speakers
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Ti u ban 1: Đào t o chuyên ng

of English meet and communicate in English, they
will be aware that the other is not a native speaker,
though they may not know precisely which
language they come from. They are likely to be

more aware of the possibility of cultural and
pragmatic difference, because they are operating
outside the security zone of their own first
language. But there is still a great deal of
negotiation to be undertaken in order to arrive at a
common understanding – what Kecskés and
Zhang (2009) call “common ground” – in cultural
and pragmatic terms.

focus on the kinds of speech-acts that may not be
what they seem - and that this interpretation will
differ depending the culture of the speaker, the
culture of the hearer, and the extent to which each
understands, and can accommodate to, the
understanding of the other - in English.
REFERENCES
1. Béal, C. (1994). Keeping the peace: A cross-cultural
comparison of questions and requests in Australian
English and French. Multilingua, 13 (1-2), 35-58.
2. Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua Franca English,
multilingual communities, and language acquisition.
Modern Language Journal, 91, 923-939.

These questions are both urgent and
demanding. The increasing use of English for
international purposes in all kinds of domains is
placing growing demands not only on
communicative effectiveness and clarity, but also
on cultural and pragmatic competence. In a
country like Vietnam, which has taken such

vigorous steps to enrich the English competence
of its students and population, and where a rapidly
growing economy is bringing Vietnamese
business and culture into contact with peers who
are also using English, it is particularly important
for us to investigate the notion of intercultural
inter-pragmatic competence in English. In the past
I have sometimes called this “being bilingual in
English”. But the aim of this paper is far more
than that. The time has past when it might have
been possible to insist that international speakers
of English follow, say, either a British or an
American model in their cultural and pragmatic
performance. English is becoming so much of an
adopted indigenous code of communication, and
in so many cultures, that it inevitably picks up and
carries elements of the pragmatic and cultural
values of these countries. Our task as educators is
therefore to identify how varieties of English may
differ in terms not only of competence in sound,
grammar and vocabulary, but especially in
pragmatics and culture. We need to add a course
on cross-cultural pragmatics in English, with a

3. Goleman (2000). Working
intelligence. New York: Bantam.

emotional

4. Hino, N. (2012). Negotiating indigenous values

with Anglo-American cultures in ELT in Japan: A case
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5. Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an
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6. Kecskés, Z. & Zhang, F. (2009). Activating, seeking,
and creating common ground. Available at:
7. />king_and_creating_common_ground_a_sociocognitive_approach, Accessed 29 October 2014.
8. Kirkpatrick, A. & Sussex, R. (eds). (2012a).
English as an international language in Asia:
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Macao International Forum. ISBN 978-94-007-4577-3,
ISBN 978-94-007-4579-0 (eBook).
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with Vietnamese in intercultural communication
contexts: Insights into Vietnamese values. Hanoi:
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In A. Kirkpatrick and R. Sussex (eds), pp. 175-190.
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with