Week 5: Spoken Discourse

I found last week's topic super funny. Spoken discourse in telephone calls! I mean seriously, who would have the time to analyse phone calls of every day life if we weren't doing a course on it.

I have never given much thought to this subject and simply assumed most people would start off with a hello from both parties, whichever first is not important. Next, they will go straight into the topic and finally, end off with a 'bye' from each side. It never occured to me that the ringing tone is also considered part of the discourse. But what Dr Deng said made perfect sense to me. The ringing is actually a metaphor for an actual person calling out to another person. If there is no response from the intended recipient, the ringing would just go on and spoken conversation would not be able to start off! Brilliant!

Then, came the funny parts. How would you know that the other party is hinting for a closure? Or how do you even end the phone call? All sorts of tactics you can think of. Some would ask a family member to call them, so they can pretend to be busy. Some just wait for the 2 'OK' signal. Some even pretend to be profound and try to end off philosophical, with 'Hm.. ya that's life.'

As i'm listening to all this examples, i just naturally recalled all the different times when i had to apply these different 'techniques'. It was simply hilarious! My favourite is the philosophical one. The next time someone tries to complain to me over the phone, I'd just repeat 'ya that's life' until he/she gets annoyed and stop complaining. Hahahah..

Towards the end, I learned about some key differences in Chinese and English written discourse. Never mind about who likes to include what kind of description in their paragraphs, the conclusion spelled out what i've always been trying to identity between these two style of writing, but could never really point a finger on. Chinese writers ALWAYS expect you to understand what they are writing about. If you don't, they assume you're too shallow. This pretty much sums up my life learning higher chinese back in my secondary school days. Some of the passages are so difficult to understand, i take 3 hours just to finish reading one page. Yet, I never risked telling my classmates, who are obviously more language inclined, in fear that they will judge me.

English language, on the other hand, depends a lot on the writer to convey messages clearly. Thus, if there is anything that is too hard to comprehend, my teacher would just brush it off as a badly written passage with correct grammer, but poor expression. Now that i am a part time tutor, i find myself unconsciously saying the same things to my tutee as well. Clear expression is always very much appreciated.

To end off, i have a tip for anyone who wants to identify an old person. Whether you would like to offer a seat to them or address them respectfully as aunties/uncles, please look out for their white hair to be certain. Yes, you wouldn't want to risk having your char kway teow LADY add extra chillies to your meal by addressing them too respectfully, or get punched in the face while trying to do a good deed. Don't say you were not warned.