English and Malay Text Messages and What They Say about Texts and Cultures

Abstract

This study of the pragmatics of cross-cultural text messages throws light on the evolution of new hybrid forms of literacy and on the complex ways that culture is expressed and mediated in second language/ second culture contexts. An investigation was carried out into the pragmatics of apology in first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) short messaging service text messages of adult Malay speakers who are proficient users of English, living and studying in an English-speaking university environment; and into L1 English users’ text apologies in the same context. Research questions included whether these proficient L2 English users would perform differently from L1 English users in this high-stakes speech act, and from their own L1 Malay use; and whether apologies in what has been called a hybrid medium would differ from those previously studied in writing, in speech and in other electronic media. Twenty-six native speakers of English and 26 native speakers of Malay responded via text messages to discourse completion tests (DCTs) in L1; the DCTs represented either high or low levels of offence calling for apologies. The Malay native speakers also responded to apology situations in L2 English. Data were coded using an adapted version of Cohen and Olshtain’s (1981) coding scheme. Analysis of the messages sent by participants revealed clear signs of a hybrid type of text that is differently conceptualised by the two communities. It also showed that the Malay users’ second language literacy was shaped in a complex way that sometimes accommodated the second language/second culture and sometimes retained first language/first culture values.

Share and Cite:

Marzuki, E. & Walter, C. (2013). English and Malay Text Messages and What They Say about Texts and Cultures. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 3, 295-304. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2013.34037.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Afghari, A. (2007). A sociopragmatic study of apology speech act realization patterns in Persian. Speech Communication, 49, 177-185.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2007.01.003
[2] Aijmer, K. (1996). Conversational routines in English. Convention and creativity. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited.
[3] Ancarno, C. (2005). The style of academic e-mails and conventional letters: Contrastive analysis of four conversational routines. Iberica, 9, 103-122.
[4] Badrul Redzuan, A. H. (2006). New media language: “Txtgda trickster talk”. In L. S. Chin, & T. K. Hua (Eds.), Composing meanings: Media text and language (pp. 41-59). Bangi: UKM.
[5] Baron, N. S. (2000). Alphabet to email: How written English evolved and where it’s heading. London: Routledge.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203194317
[6] Baron, N. S. (2004). Rethinking written culture. Language Sciences, 26, 57-96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2003.06.001
[7] Bataineh, R. F., & Bataineh, R. F. (2008). A cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 792-821.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.01.003
[8] Bharuthram, S. (2003). Politeness phenomena in the Hindu sector of the South African Indian English speaking community. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 10-11.
[9] Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
[10] Bohnke, C. (2001). On the acquisition and learning of linguistic-pragmatic competence exemplified by the speech act “apologizing”. Moderna Sprak, 95, 165-191.
[11] Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language use: Politeness phenomena. In E. N. Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness (pp. 56-289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[12] Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[13] Chang, W. (2008). Australian and Chinese perceptions of (im)politeness in an intercultural apology. Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication, 1, 59-74.
[14] Clyne, M., Fernandez, S., & Muhr, R. (2003). Communicative styles in a contact situation: Two German national varieties in a third country. Journal of German Linguistics, 15, 95-154.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1470542703000278
[15] Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1981). Developing a measure of sociocultural competence: The case of apology. Language Learning, 31, 113-134. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1981.tb01375.x
[16] Cohen, A. D., & Shively, R. L. (2007). Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. Modern Language Journal, 91, 189-212.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00540.x
[17] Collot, M., & Belmore, N. (1996). Electronic language: A new variety of English. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspective (pp. 13-28). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
[18] Crystal, D. (2005). How language works. London: Penguin Books.
[19] Crystal, D. (2008a). Texting. ELT Journal, 62, 77-83.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccm080
[20] Crystal, D. (2008b). Txtng. The gr8 db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[21] Danet, B., & Herring, S. C. (2007). The multilingual internet: Language, culture, and communication online. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195304794.001.0001
[22] Ely, R., & Gleason, J. B. (2006). I’m sorry I said that: Apologies in young children’s discourse. Journal of Child Language, 33, 599-620.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000906007446
[23] Gains, J. (1999). Electronic mail—A new style of communication or just a new medium?: An investigation into the text features of e-mail. English for Specific Purposes, 18, 81-101.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(97)00051-3
[24] Gimenez, J. C. (2000). Business e-mail communication: Some emerging tendencies in register. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 237-251.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(98)00030-1
[25] Goddard, C. (1996). The “social emotions” of Malay (BahasaMelayu). Ethos, 24, 426-464.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/eth.1996.24.3.02a00020
[26] Goddard, C. (1997). Cultural values and “cultural scripts” of Malay (BahasaMelayu). Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 183-201.
http://dx.doi.org/10.106/S0378-2166(96)00032-X
[27] Grieve, A. (2010). “Aberganzehrlich”: Differences in episodic structure, apologies, and truth-orientation in German and Australian workplace telephone discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 190-219.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.05.009
[28] Hatipoglu, C. (2004). Do apologies in e-mails follow spoken or written norms? Some examples from British English. Studies about Languages, 5, 21-29.
[29] Hobbs, P. (2003). The medium is the message: Politeness strategies in men’s and women’s voice mail messages. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 243-262.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00100-5
[30] Holmes, J. (1989). Sex differences and apologies: One aspect of communicative competence. Applied Linguistics, 10, 194-213.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.2.194
[31] Intachakra, S. (2004). Contrastive pragmatics and language teaching: apologies and thanks in English and Thai. RELC Journal, 35, 37-62.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/003368820403500105
[32] Kampf, Z., & Blum-Kulka, S. (2007). Do children apologize to each other? Apology events in young Israeli peer discourse. Journal of Politeness Research, 3, 11-37.
[33] Kasanga, L. A., & Lwanga-Lumu, J.-C. (2007). Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana. Journal of Politeness Research, 3, 65-92.
[34] Kim, H. (2008). The semantic and pragmatic analysis of South Korean and Australian English apologetic speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics 40, 257-278.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.11.003
[35] Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.
[36] Ling, R., & Baron, N. S. (2007). Text messaging and IM: linguistic comparison of American College Data. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26, 291-298.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261927X06303480
[37] Linnell, J., Porter, F. L., Stone, H., & Chen, W. (1992). Can you apologize me? An investigation of speech act performance among non-native speakers of English. Educational Linguistics (University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education), 8, 33-53.
[38] Maros, M. (2006). Apologies in English by adult Malay speakers: Patterns and competence. The International Journal of Language, Society and Culture, 19, 1-14.
[39] Mey, J. L. (2001). Pragmatics: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
[40] Mulamba, K. (2009). Social beliefs for the realization of the speech acts of apology and complaint as defined in Ciluba, French and English. Pragmatics, 19, 543-564.
[41] Nakano, M., Miyasaka, N., & Yamazaki, T. (2000). A study of EFL discourse using corpora: an analysis of discourse completion tasks. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 4, 273297.
[42] Nureddeen, F. A. (2008). Cross cultural pragmatics: Apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 279-306.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.11.001
[43] Olshtain, E. (1989). Apologies across languages. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp.155-173). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
[44] Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A. (1983). Apology: A speech act set. In N. Wolfson, & E. Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (pp. 18-36). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
[45] Park, H. S., Lee, H. E., & Song, J. A. (2005). “I am sorry to send you SPAM”. Cross-cultural differences in use of apologies in email advertising in Korea and the U.S. Human Communication Research, 31, 365-398.
[46] Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 27-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100001029
[47] Sabate i Dalmau, M., & Curell i Gotor, H. (2007). From “Sorry very much” to “I’m ever so sorry”: Acquisitional patterns in L2 apologies by Catalan learners of English. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4, 287-315.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/IP.2007.014
[48] Scher, S. J., & Darley, J. M. (1996). How effective are the things people say to apologize? Effects of the realization of the apology speech act. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 127-140.
[49] Shardakova, M. (2005). Intercultural pragmatics in the speech of American L2 learners of Russian: Apologies offered by Americans in Russian. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2, 423-451.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/iprg.2005.2.4.423
[50] Shively, R. L., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). Development of apologies and requests during study abroad. Ikala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 13, 57-118.
[51] Sugimoto, N. (1997). A Japan-U.S. comparison of apology styles. Communication Research, 24, 349-369.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009365097024004002
[52] Supyan, H. (2006). The features in Malay SMS Texts. In L. S. Chin, & T. K. Hua (Eds.), Composing meanings: Media text and language (pp. 61-73). Bangi: UKM.
[53] Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage pragmatics. Requests, complaints and apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110885286
[54] Warga, M., & Scholmberger, U. (2007). The acquisition of French apologetic behavior in a study abroad context. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4, 221-251. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/IP.2007.012
[55] Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
[56] Wierzbicka, A. (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[57] Woodfield, H. (2008). Problematising discourse completion tasks: Voices from verbal report. Evaluation and Research in Education, 21, 43-69. http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/eri413.0
[58] Wouk, F. (2005). The language of apologizing in Lombok, Indonesia. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1457-1486.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.011
[59] Yang, T.-K. (2002). A study of Korean EFL learners’ apology speech acts: Strategy and pragmatic transfer influenced by sociolinguistic variations. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 6, 225-243.
[60] Zhang, H. (2001). Culture and apology: The Hainan Island incident. World Englishes, 20, 383-391.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-971X.00222

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.