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Phatic politeness
http://www.lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3919		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  John Fairbairn [ Thu May 26, 2011 5:21 am ]
Post subject:  Phatic politeness
There are enough German, Brit and American people on this forum, and enough past discussion, to make the following link to a BBC story of some interest. Despite the title, it seems that Americans are being lumped in with Brits (as in "we have a problem, Houston"). Would the Dutch or anyone else see themselves as close to the Germans?

The phatic language described is also a very strong feature of Japanese and Korean, which perhaps makes Brits and Anericans more disposed to accept their way of looking at things, even though there is still a big gap (we don't normally go as far as saying yes for no, for example).

I was fascinated to see there is a Journal for Politeness Reasearch (or am I lying?).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386
Author:  flOvermind [ Thu May 26, 2011 5:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
John Fairbairn wrote:
Despite the title, it seems that Americans are being lumped in with Brits (as in "we have a problem, Houston"). Would the Dutch or anyone else see themselves as close to the Germans?


Many Austrians would be offended when being lumped together with Germans (which happens quite often because the language is more or less the same ;) ). Objectively speaking, we're probably closer to them than we'd like to admit :P

I also don't really understand the lumping together of Americans and Brits. But that's probably because I have a lot of contact with foreigners. Others probably just see just see them as "those guys who speak a language I don't really understand".
Author:  Joaz Banbeck [ Thu May 26, 2011 7:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
If you Europeans don't mind, I'm going to move this to the off-topic forum.
Author:  emeraldemon [ Thu May 26, 2011 7:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
Image
Author:  daniel_the_smith [ Thu May 26, 2011 7:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
I suppose Americans, on the whole, are probably more like the British described in the article than the Germans.

But, it's pretty hard to lump the whole country together that way. There are plenty of Americans that "don't get British humor" (or humour, for that matter), and I think we are probably more direct than that article claims you guys are.

(Trying to base this off of the "normal" people I know-- the software engineers I know (including me, if I'm not making a conscious effort) would get lumped in with the Germans. Although that same group of people is substantially more likely to enjoy Monty Python than your average American...)
Author:  Numsgil [ Thu May 26, 2011 10:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
Linguistically America has inherited a lot of the "empty verbiage" the article talks about, but in non linguistic circumstances I think it's closer to the opposite. We don't have a whole lot of pageantry and etiquette rules compared to other cultures (I'm thinking ceremonial things in day-to-day life), which are sort of non-verbal phatic communication.

Certainly there's a stereotype of Americans being rude and arrogant when they travel. And Americans have a stereotype of British (and Canadian) people being overly polite (or at least not overly abrupt).

Historically I think there are about as many Germans as English in America, so I would be quite surprised if American culture wasn't an amalgamation of the two.
Author:  daal [ Thu May 26, 2011 10:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
John Fairbairn wrote:
Would the Dutch or anyone else see themselves as close to the Germans?
I'd venture to say that the Austrians or the German speaking Swiss might qualify.
Quote:
The phatic language described is also a very strong feature of Japanese and Korean, which perhaps makes Brits and Americans more disposed to accept their way of looking at things...
"More," as in "more than the Germans?" While small talk proficiency is perhaps an endearing quality at which Germans do not excel, an advantage in phatic language doesn't necessarily tip the cultural affinity scales against them.
Author:  perceval [ Fri May 27, 2011 5:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
daal wrote:
I'd venture to say that the Austrians or the German speaking Swiss might qualify.

never say to his face to a swiss german that they are like Germans....

On the other hand they are probably worse in this respect .. :mrgreen:
(of course that is a tongue in cheek generalisation and there a are just as many nice people there as elsewhere, but it is a bit hard to enter in contact).

I've seen this kind of difference first hand: We are french and i lived for 6 month in sunny san diego (what a blast), and people would freely speak to you on the park, on the street, stops to tell you your kid are wodnerful , you would feel that you have met wonderful friends.
But then nothing remained as soon as we went away.
On the other hand i had a american colleague that came for 6 month on our Paris office, and she found the French incredibly cold. it took her a couple of month to adjust
i moved away a bit form the subject of small talk to the subject on social interaction in general i realize.

I live in french speaking swiss now it takes about 2 years for your neighbor to say hello to you on the elevator, and you stay "the new guy" for probably 10 year (we are not there yet).
Never lived in Zurich but everybody agrees that they are even more difficult to approach

Its not being rude but just different social conventions

On the subject of tourist all tourists are considered rude by the local population in general i feel, the bigger resentment going to the most represented country in the tourist flock
Author:  gowan [ Fri May 27, 2011 5:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
John Fairbairn wrote:
There are enough German, Brit and American people on this forum, and enough past discussion, to make the following link to a BBC story of some interest. Despite the title, it seems that Americans are being lumped in with Brits (as in "we have a problem, Houston"). Would the Dutch or anyone else see themselves as close to the Germans?

The phatic language described is also a very strong feature of Japanese and Korean, which perhaps makes Brits and Anericans more disposed to accept their way of looking at things, even though there is still a big gap (we don't normally go as far as saying yes for no, for example).

I was fascinated to see there is a Journal for Politeness Reasearch (or am I lying?).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386


Re the Journal for Politeness Research, I'd be interested to see how the phrase their rejection letters :)

Re the phatic language in the USA, it seems to vary regionally. For example, I think the general behavior in the Northeastern part of the US is probably more direct, while the central part of the country is more "nicey-nicey".
Author:  jts [ Fri May 27, 2011 6:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
"Language X has no word for Y" is interesting when it's true, but such claims are nearly always, well, phatic. In this case, das Gerede is German for "small talk". (Indeed, the best analysis of small talk ever written is by a German.)

In my experience, Gowan, people from the midwest and south are vastly more direct about some things (for example, how they feel about minority groups and poor people), but also vastly more indirect about other things (for example, they've elevated the false smile, the false laugh, and the "Oh well I'm so pleased to meet you" to an art form). I suspect that this is pretty broadly true - the lump sum of polite misdirection and litote probably isn't that different from culture to culture, but the differences in where the politeness surfaces will shock people who aren't prepared for it.
Author:  flOvermind [ Fri May 27, 2011 6:55 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
jts wrote:
"Language X has no word for Y" is interesting when it's true, but such claims are nearly always, well, phatic.


I would claim that it's true for almost any word, except a few obvious examples, like, e.g. "Apple" = "Apfel" :P

jts wrote:
In this case, das Gerede is German for "small talk".


I disagree.

If I really had to translate "Gerede" (see above disclaimer), I'd say it's nearer to "gossip", which is very different from "small talk".
"To make small talk" could probably be translated with "plaudern". But again, see above disclaimer, that's only a very rough translation. "Plaudern" is a lot nearer in meaning to "reden" than "small talk" is to "talking".

But then again, I'm an Austrian, so German is only officially my native language. A more accurate description would be that it's my first foreign language ;). It's not so unlikely that people from Germany will disagree with me in language matters :P
Author:  John Fairbairn [ Fri May 27, 2011 7:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
Quote:
the lump sum of polite misdirection and litote


Is there a posh word for underspelling as well?:)
Author:  daniel_the_smith [ Fri May 27, 2011 7:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
"No word for X" is nearly always false, and even when it isn't, you can still express the concept with slightly more words.

See: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1081
Author:  jts [ Fri May 27, 2011 8:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
John Fairbairn wrote:
Quote:
the lump sum of polite misdirection and litote


Is there a posh word for underspelling as well?:)


I have no idea what you mean.
Author:  kirkmc [ Fri May 27, 2011 8:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
perceval wrote:
snip...


Off-off-topic.

Is Perceval your real name? My son is named Perceval (we live in France), and we've never come across another. Just curious...
Author:  Mnemonic [ Fri May 27, 2011 10:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
daniel_the_smith wrote:
"No word for X" is nearly always false, and even when it isn't, you can still express the concept with slightly more words.

See: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1081

I'd be curious to know the English word for "Schadenfreude" :mrgreen:
Author:  daniel_the_smith [ Fri May 27, 2011 10:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
It's "schadenfreude", we borrowed it... :mrgreen:

If that seems like cheating, the second part applies: "...you can still express the concept with slightly more words".

Often when people say a language has no word for X, they're trying to claim that the speakers of the language lack the corresponding concept, which is usually pretty silly.

Of course, there is the one south american tribe that genuinely seems to have no numbers in their language...
Author:  jts [ Fri May 27, 2011 11:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
daniel_the_smith wrote:
It's "schadenfreude", we borrowed it... :mrgreen:

If that seems like cheating, the second part applies: "...you can still express the concept with slightly more words".

Often when people say a language has no word for X, they're trying to claim that the speakers of the language lack the corresponding concept, which is usually pretty silly.

Of course, there is the one south american tribe that genuinely seems to have no numbers in their language...


This comes too close to begging the question. Presumably people find it interesting to know whether or not a certain culture has and uses the concept of X, and use the availability of a word for X as a good heuristic. So, for example, can you express "radio wave" in Latin? Sure, no problem. Language is versatile. Just the other day I was listening to someone talk about TV game shows in Latin. But nonetheless, the Romans had no concept of radio waves, and that affected the way ordinary Romans lived, and the way elite Romans thought about the world. Finding a clumsy, but adequate, way to express "radio wave" in Latin doesn't avoid the fact that the lack of a Latin word for radio wave is a good proxy for an actual lack of a concept.
Author:  hyperpape [ Fri May 27, 2011 12:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
I think you'd find that people speaking English knew that people enjoyed watching others suffer before they used the word Schadenfreude. So it's a pretty weak proxy.
Author:  jts [ Fri May 27, 2011 12:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Phatic politeness
hyperpape wrote:
I think you'd find that people speaking English knew that people enjoyed watching others suffer before they used the word Schadenfreude. So it's a pretty weak proxy.

Right, that's getting closer to the appropriate refutation. I was objecting to the argument, not the conclusion. (But note that even so, you'll note that the structure of your argument doesn't really work. Compare, "I think you'll find that people speaking Latin suffered from viral infections. So of course they had a concept of viral infections.")
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