Reflections on Spoken Discourse

After today's class, I managed to acquire a better understanding of the various culture-specific operations of speech events which involve the use of spoken discourse in the form of narratives, telephone openings, the use of listener responses in conversations etc. In addition, I have also learnt how to apply analytic strategies to the spoken discourses in my own culture.

I feel that in our Singapore context, the use of 'Singlish' enables both speaker and recipient the unique way to simplify or shorten their sentences. This is because 'singlish' is part and parcel, an integral part of their everyday conversations. Hence an interesting observation can be seen in Singaporean phone conversations in that openings and closings are done in a straightforward and direct way.

We also discussed about American phone openings. It is interesting that when calls are made, the person who answers the phone will usually be the one who will say 'hello' first, before the caller. In this sense, the 'ringtone' functions like a 'pat on the shoulder'; and the caller thus expects the other party to say 'hello'.

Next, in the subject of narratives, I learnt that even though similar stories may be told in English and Chinese contexts, these narratives are very different in their purpose or function. For instance, English narratives serve an entertainment purpose; as compared to Chinese narratives which have a moral/education purpose, to teach favourable character values/behaviors etc.

I also learnt that the extent of listener responses differs across cultures. For instance listening responses are frequently used in the conversations amongst people in Japan. The Japanese might even tend to emphasize, take note or comment on each other's listening responses.

Finally, on a lighter note, the session ended with an enjoyable and interesting activity in which we broke into groups to create and form our own narratives based on a series of pictures. It was indeed a creative and fun way to apply what we have learnt during the class.