Present 一個 Project

The following are 5 dimensions regarding Hong Kong people's view on code-switching in the video

1. Self-presentation

Some people say that sometimes it is difficult for them to think of suitable Chinese words to express meanings, but what comes across their mind are English words, so they just say out some English words while engaging in a Cantonese conversation. Students do not deliberately say English words to show off. It is the fact that some of them receive education in a school that the teaching language is English. Even teachers, they sometimes say "做 project". As a result, students tend to use more English words to express meanings. It is faster for them to use English to present their ideas. In the video, students are asked to translate "present" and "project" into Chinese words. They need time to think of the suitable counterparts. Some students think that code-switching is not a problem. The main concern in the conversation is that speakers covey their meanings easily and listeners understand the intended meanings. However, I do not deny the fact that some students consciously use English words in a Cantonese-dominated conversation in order to demonstrate their English proficiency.

2. Face & Politeness Strategy

Some people think that using English while talking to Chinese is a kind of face threatening to the Chinese's positive face. To the one who wants to join a group that the conversation contains code-switching, it implies that he cannot join that group unless he has a certain English standard. Finally, he will not join that group if he believes that his English is not good enough. His positive face of desiring to be a member of that group is threatened.

3. Contextualization Cues & Frames

Some students think that the code-switching signals the change of topics. In a group of Chinese students, the spoken language switches from Cantonese to English, it may be because the topic (frame) changes from joking to academic issues. Besides, code-switching also appears when students are talking to their parents or grandparents. It is because English is commonly used in school, it is impossible for students to talk to parents or grandparents in Cantonese at all without any English terms. However, their family members may not understand those English terms such as "project", "semester", "gpa", "tutorial class", etc. Therefore, students will explain those terms in Cantonese. When code-switching appears in conversation with family members, it implies that there is a switch of frames from talking about school life to explaining English terms which are related to school life to family members.

4. Positioning & Cultural Storylines

Students think that code-switching people position themselves at a higher social status in the society. By switching codes, those people demonstrate that they have a higher education standard as they speak in English which is an international language. However, someone thinks that those code-switching users are not good at English and not good at Chinese. Therefore, they cannot express their ideas in English only or in Chinese only. As a result, two languages are needed in expressing ideas. Somebody believes that code-switching is found on people who study in an international school or have lived in western countries for a long time.

5. Conversational Style

Some students think that people switch languages in a conversation just because it is their own conversational style. To some people, code-switching in conversation becomes a habit. It is impossible to change their habit and ask them to speak in either Cantonese only or English only. We should not make the assumption that code-switching people want to show off. Besides, we should not assume that they study in an international school or they come back from western countries. We should not ignore the fact that code-switching is a conversational style. Why does this kind of conversational style exist? The reasons can be peer influence, parents influence or media influence. Some TV advertisements use code-switching to covey ideas. It is a way to impress audiences, so they will remember what the advertisements promote.

Online Interview

The interaction is done via msn. Melanie is a friend I meet in secondary school.
She is a graduate from City University Accounting Department of this year, she has just started working for a few months.


Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Which district do you live, Kowloon, New Territories or Hong kong Island?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*nt

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*How long have you lived in this district?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*15yr

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Can you specify the region you live within New Territories?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*FL

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Do you like this area?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*yes

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Why?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*fresh air

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Do you want to move to another area? if yes. why?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*yes, long working journey, want to live near my office

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*Where is your office?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*CWB

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*So you want to move to causeway bay?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*no, busy district, too crowded

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*What are factors that affect your choice of living location, apart from your work location?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*convenience
*environment

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*do you mean that the convenience in terms of transportation and shopping areas?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*yes, environment means that fresh air, not very crowded

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*now, what type of housing are you living in?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*villa

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*what is the size of your house?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*3200呎

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*how many people are you living with?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*7

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
do you have your own bedroom?

(li)Melanie(st) 說:
*yes

Ashley(R) Actually(R)ASHLEY 說:
*THX

The Link of 城市論壇 (City Forum)

城市論壇
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgzW0VMFl-A&translated=1

"The View" VS "城市論壇"(City Forum)

Introduction of城市論壇(City Forum)
It is held in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay on every Sunday. It is a platform for the public to express their opinion on Hong Kong current issues, including issues of politics, education, transportation, cultural development, medical system, etc. Besides, there are representatives of Hong Kong government and representatives from different associations to respond to the public’s opinion and enquiries.

Reason for choosing城市論壇(City Forum) for comparison
A lot of interaction can be found in城市論壇(City Forum), so I can find out more conversational features. “The View” is about the entertaining industry which contains much interaction among speakers. Although “東張西望” and “娛樂頭條” are television programmes about the entertaining industry too, interactions between speakers are limited.

Front (Setting, Appearance, Manner)

Front- Setting- Similarity
Both “City Forum” and “The View” contains chairs and a dome-shaped table. Besides, those speakers almost sit in alignment.

Front- Setting- Difference
“City Forum” is an outdoor talk show while “The View” is an indoor talk show. Besides, “City forum” has microphones on the table while “The View” has a cup of drink in front of every speaker on the table instead of microphones.

Front- Appearance- Difference
There are six male speakers in “City Forum”, some are dressed casually, but some are dressed formally in business tires. In “The View”, all the five women are not dressed in business tires. The way they dress is not absolutely informal. I think it is a dress code of “smart casual”. They all produce a tidy and neat image.

Speakers in “City Forum” don’t put on make-up while those in “The View” put on make-up. It is maybe because all speakers in “The View” are women while those in “City Forum” are all men.

Front- Manner- Similarity
Speakers of both “City Forum” and “The View” use a lot of hand gestures when they are talking. Besides, speakers in both talk shows speak faster and louder when they are emotionally instable.

Front- Manner- Difference
Speakers of “City Forum” are more emotional than those in “The View”, they sometimes talks really loudly to each other. It seems that they are shouting. Speakers in “City Forum” really care about finding out the wrong and right. As a result, the conversation is vigorous with more direct challenges to others. Speakers in “The View” just want to share opinion.

Politeness and Face- Similarity
In both talk shows, the involvement strategy is used, speakers are eager to speak. As a result, no pause is left between a speaker and the next speaker and overlapping often occurs.

Politeness and Face- Difference
In “City Forum”, speakers’ negative faces are threatened since they speak to each other in a direct and challenging way. The feeling of not being respected exists. In “The View”, even the involvement strategy is used, there may not be any face threatening act to speakers’ negative faces. It is because they are just expressing their own viewpoints about Susan Boyle. From the words they use, I can conclude that they don’t have the intention to criticize each other.

Turn-taking and Speaker-selection- Similarity
In both talk shows, there is one time that a speaker is selected by another person. In “City Forum”, the host as the 1st speaker on the most right hand side selects the man on the most left hand side as the 2nd speaker. In “The View”, near the end of the clip, Jennifer selects Barbara as the next speaker by calling her name. On both talk shows, during the rest of the conversation, speakers select themselves as the next speaker by start talking immediately after the speech of the previous speaker. Besides, speakers even select themselves as the next one by interrupting the current speaker. There is almost no pause.

Turn-taking and Speaker-selection- Difference
In “City Forum”, the interruption is a signal of expressing the desire of getting the floor. It is because speakers often have a non-stop speech during the interruption. In “The View”, the interruption only serves as the purpose of expressing opinion immediately on the current speaker’s speech. It is because the interruption often contains a few words or a sentence only.

In “City Forum”, there is the domination by the second speaker who is a guest. In his turn, he holds the floor for almost 1 minute. However, all the remaining speakers in their own turn only hold the floor for about 30 seconds. In “The View”, the length of each speaker’s turn is more or less the same. Every speaker holds the floor for a short period of time. There is no domination by anyone.

Blog 4 Conversation between Chandler and the Boss

C= Chandler B= Boss

C: Also I was the point person of my company's transition from KRS to GR6 system.
B:
C: That I did. That I did.
B: So let's talk a little bit about your doodies.
C: My doodies?..........alright.
B: You will be having the whole division, so you will have a lot of doodies.
C: ic
B : But there will be perhaps thirty people under you
C: Good to know.
B: We can go into detail
C: No No, I beg on you.
B: Alright, then I will have a definite answer for you on Monday.
B: But I think now I can say with some . You will be work here.
C: Really?
B: Absolutely. You can relax. You did great.
C: I got to say thank you. I was really nervous.
C: You shout out too many jokes and it is really hard to say doodies things.
C: Doodies.
C: Doodies?
C: Pull?
B: Pull?
C: Oh my God! Ok. The interview was over. That was the real Chandler being there, this is a crazy guy.
C: Come on security, here is a crazy guy.
B: Pull?
C: I look forward to your call.

4 Frames

1st: Interview frame: Chandler talks about his past experience and the boss talks about Chandler’s duties.
2nd: Clarification frame: Within the interview frame, Chandler questions “my doodies” since the boss pronounces “duties” as “doodies”. So Chandler wonders whether the boss is talking about “duties” or “doodies” ?
3rd: Feedback frame: The boss says that Chandler performs well in the interview.
4th: Joking frame: Chandler plays jokes on the boss.

Contextualization Cues in 4 Frames

In the interview frame, Chandler uses technical terms “transition from KRS to GR6 system” to impress the boss. He says “That I did. That I did”, it is called word repetition. It implies that he is confident. Before saying “ic” and “good to know”, there are pauses. It means that Chandler is thinking before saying out the words. Pauses can represent hesitation. Besides, he says “no no” in a loud and emotional way to show that he totally desires for not talking his doodies in detail. After ending the interview, Chandler releases a deep breath after the boss saying “absolutely”. It implies he feels relaxed due to the end of the interview.

In clarification frame, Chandler hopes a clarification of what he has heard (my doodies). Therefore, he questions “my doodies” by raising his voice a little bit. Besides, he shows a strange facial expression to the boss. He hopes the boss senses that he is confused, so a clarification is made immediately.

In the feedback frame, the boss's body language of putting his hand on the back of Chandler shows that he really thinks Chandler performs well in the interview.

In the joking frame, Chandler points at himself when he is saying “this is a crazy guy”. Besides, he shouts out loudly and looks at the left hand side when making a joke on calling the security.

Frame Shift

During the whole conversation, the use of “let’s talk a little bit about”, “alright”, “ok” indicates the frame shift. These words can be called discourse markers. When the boss stands up, it indicates the end of the interview frame. Chandler says alright after waiting for a few seconds for the clarification of his doodies. “Alright” is a symbol to state the end of the clarification frame. After the boss saying “you did great” to Chandler with hand-shaking, Chandler turns back and he walks towards the door. It is clearly the end of the feedback frame. The last sentence of the whole conversation is “I look forward to your call”. It states the end of the joking frame.

Field Blog 3

Two Percent (2%) VS Agnes b

Two Percent (2%)

When I entered Two Percent (2%), a shop attendant who stood near the entrance said “ hello” to me with a smile. It was the involvement (positive) politeness strategy that she showed concern for my visiting. She gave me a warm welcome. She satisfied my positive face need, my desire to be liked. I walked along every column in the shop to look for clothes that I liked. Another shop attendant said that she could get me the suitable size for a fitting. I replied to her that I would seek help from her when I really needed a fitting. That shop attendant adopted involvement politeness strategy to demonstrate that she was care about me. However, my reply showed my need for negative face, my desire to be given space and not to be interfered with. After that, I remained in the shop for about 15 minutes more. During that period, another shop attendant asked whether I needed help, but the previous shop attendant did not offer to help me. It meant that the previous one understood that I had the negative face need. I deliberately sought help from a shop attendant who was busy with serving a customer. In fact, what I did was a face threatening act which threatened that shop attendant's negative face. As a result, she found another shop attendant to serve me. When I left the shop, a shop attendant said “Bye bye, visit the shop again when you have time”.

Agnes b

When I entered and left Agnes b, a shop attendant greeted me as I experienced in 2. The difference was that the shop attendants either stood still or tidied up the goods. They did not approach me and ask me whether I need help. It seemed that they had a negative face. It also seemed that they ignored me. It was a face threatening act to my positive face that I desired to be paid attention. After a while, I asked a shop attendant who was not busy about the colour of the clothes. She replied me with a good attitude and with a smile. She demonstrated her involvement politeness strategy that she was cared about me as a potential customer.

Comparison in terms of P, D, W

Regarding the P, the relationship between customers and shop attendants is equal (-P) in the above 2 shops. It is because they are not in a relationship of supervisors and subordinates. There is no vertical hierarchical relationship. The distance (D) between customers and shop attendants in the 2 shops is distant (+D), since customers treat shop attendants as strangers and vice versa. Regarding the W, I deliberately seek help from a shop attendant who is busy with serving a customer in 2%. It implies that I cause much trouble to that shop attendant, so this situation should be (+W). In Agnes b, I ask a shop attendant who is not busy about the colour of the clothes. It implies that I cause little trouble to that shop attendant, so this situation should be (-W).

Social Experiment (Telephone Conversation)

S = My friend E = I (Myself)

(S) Hi, Ashley. How is your study in this semester?
(E) Do you mean whether I have lots of assignments or whether it is difficult to understand the content?
(S) I mean whether you are busy with assignments.
(E) Actually, I am not really busy in these two weeks. However, I know that I will be busy with assignments soon after glancing at five course schedules.
(S) I am very free this week since my semester has started for 1 week only. By the way, are you still busy with the club’s affairs?
(E) Which club are you talking about? I am the executive committee member of two clubs.
(S) I only know that you are the executive committee member of City U CHASS Buddies Club.
(E) I am recruiting new executive committee members for the club. This academic year, I am not the executive committee member anymore.
(S) Quitting the committee, so you can have more spare time for your part-time job.
By the way, is it a good job?
(E) What do you mean by “a good job”? What is “good” in terms of, high salary, relaxed working environment, friendly colleagues or all of the above?
(S) What’s wrong with you today? When I ask you something, you respond to me with a question! (It seems that my friend is puzzled by my response)


Throughout the conversation, my friend answers my questions, except for the last question. Finally, she feels that this conversation is not as usual as our previous conversations. She expects that we have shared knowledge, so I should know what she is talking about and I should respond by answering her questions instead of asking another question for confirmation. However, my responses are out of her expectation, so she is puzzled.

Entrance of City U Canteen at Night

It was about 8:30pm on 9th Sep. At the entrance of City University canteen, there was an interaction between customers and cashiers at the dome-shaped front desk.

Front (Setting, Appearance, Manner)

The setting involved in the interaction between customers and cashiers included the following items. They were the front desk, baskets for fruits, Octopus cards, machines for Octopus card, cash, cash drawers, receipts, etc. Cashiers were dressed in the same set of uniform, yellow clothing and orange hats. Some of them even put make-up. They smiled and talked to customers with a clear voice. When they were ready to take the order from customers, their hands inclined forward. That gesture was a signal to show their availability to potential customers.

Customers were dressed in casual wear of their own style. Some female customers put make-up. Regarding the payment for ordering food, customers either took out cash from their wallets or took out their Octopus cards. Customers often talked in a mono tone, I guessed they were tired at night. Besides, they didn’t smile while making an order.

Line

Cashiers displayed a friendly and approachable image since they signaled customers to make an order at front desk by hand gesture and smile.

Routine

Regarding cashiers, the routine included marking down customers’ orders, telling customers how much the bill was, asking customers the method of paying for the bill: cash or Octopus card, collecting the cash or asking customers to place the Octopus card on the machine, giving the excess money back to customers. Finally, cashiers gave receipts and said “thank you” to customers. For customers, the routine included reading the menu, queuing, ordering the food, making the payment by either cash or Octopus card, getting the receipt.

Different Regions

The area around the front desk was the onstage region of both cashiers and customers. All the people in the canteen could be the audience. The backstage of both cashiers and customers should be somewhere that no audience watched their interaction.

Team

The cashiers were in “withs”, they were in a team. They had the same dress code, yellow clothing and orange hats. The same uniform was the tie signal which displayed the membership. Most customers were the “single”. A few of them were in “withs” since they were discussing while reading the menu.

Incident

When someone stood near the front desk for a few minutes without the intention of ordering food. A staff who dressed in a black suit approached the one and looked into the matter. The staff tried to find out what was going on. She was afraid that the one would disrupt the performance of cashiers at front desk.