Emma Coles

Just like the video above shows how communication differs across cultures, so do the strategies used for politeness in intercultural interactions. Janet Holmes gives us this scenario to consider:

Tino, a young Samoan boy who had recently arrived in New Zealand, was summoned to the office of the school principal for being repeatedly late for school. He knocked on the door of the principal’s office. When he was told to come in, he walked in with hunched shoulders, scuttled over to a chair and sat down without being asked to do so by the principal. In response to the principal’s questions, he either said nothing or he muttered I don’t know.He looked down at the floor throughout the interview and never met the principal’s eyes.

Janet Holmes. Politeness in Intercultural Discourse and Communication.

This communicative behaviour from Tino could be seen as problematic by his principal, as their expectations of culturally appropriate norms differ. For Tino this is an appropriate response to being summoned into the principal’s office as it is a traditional Samoan expression of respect but to the New Zealander principal, Tino seemed evasive and showing a lack of respect with his hunched stance. Issues often arise in intercultural encounters such as in this example, as both Tino and the principal had their own set of interactional norms to follow which instinctively they apply. When it comes to being polite, we make judgments about others on how polite or impolite they may be but we forget to consider that norms and strategies for politeness differ inter-culturally.

Holmes makes the distinction between cross and intercultural communication, detailing that where cross-cultural communication is a comparitive look into the practices of distinct cultural groups, intercultural communication differs as this focuses on the interactions between two distinct cultural groups.

When talking about politeness, researchers generally agree that politeness is a contextual judgement, not everyone agrees to what is and isn’t polite.

“No sentence is inherently polite or impolite”

Spencer-Oatey, (2000)

Our understanding of politeness ranges across cultures, so intercultural politeness is an interesting topic to study. Spencer-Oatey and Xing (2003) analysed two business meetings which took place in Britain to welcome members of a Chinese delegation with whom they had a business relationship. The meetings were recorded and the participants were then interviewed to gain insight into their opinions and interpretations of the meetings.

Whilst the British hosts responded with satisfaction to both the meetings, the Chinese delegates were very frustrated and offended by the second.

In an example where the British hosts had to rush a second meeting due to time constraints, the British participants found this interaction to be perfectly adequate in the circumstances but the Chinese delegates found this to be offensive as they felt a lack of respect had been shown to them.

This is a key example of where politeness differs between cultures and in intercultural interactions. Intercultural politeness is all about keeping the peace and making sure everyone in the interaction feels respected and at ease. Whilst being polite may feel second nature, sometimes we have to rethink what it means to be polite.