Title Details

Ron Scollon (1939-2009) was a Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. His publications include Professional Communication in International Settings, co-authored with Yuling Pan and Suzanne Wong Scollon (Blackwell 2001), Discourses in Place: Language and the Material World co-authored with Suzie Wong Scollon (2003), and Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet co-authored with Suzie Wong Scollon (2004).

Suzanne Wong Scollon is an independent researcher in the North Pacific Rim. She has written extensively on intercultural communication, holding academic positions in North American universities as well as in Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. She also acted as a consultant, along with Ron Scollon, with over fifty governmental and corporate organizations in North America, Asia, and Europe.

Rodney H. Jones is the Associate Head of the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. He has published widely in international journals and is co-editor of Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis (with S. Norris 2005), Advances in Discourse Studies (with V. K. Bhatia and J. Flowerdew 2007), and author of Noticing, Exploring and Practicing: Functional Grammar in the ESL Classroom (with G. Lock 2010), and Discourse Analysis: A Resource Book forStudents (2012).

Series Editor’s Preface xiii

Preface to the First Edition xiv

Preface to the Second Edition xvii

Preface to the Third Edition xviii

1 What Is a Discourse Approach? 1

The Problem with Culture 2

Culture is a verb 5

Discourse 7

Discourse systems 8

What Is Communication? 10

Language is ambiguous by nature 11

We must draw inferences about meaning 14

Our inferences tend to be fixed, not tentative 15

Our inferences are drawn very quickly 15

Interdiscourse communication and English as a global language 16

What This Book Is Not 17

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 18

Four processes of ethnography 19

Four types of data in ethnographic research 20

Choosing a site of investigation 21

Discussion Questions 23

References for Further Study 24

2 How, When, and Where to Do Things with Language 25

Sentence Meaning and Speaker’s Meaning 27

Speech Acts, Speech Events, and Speech Situations 27

Grammar of Context 29

Seven main components for a grammar of context 30

Scene 31

Key 34

Participants 35

Message form 36

Sequence 37

Co-occurrence patterns, marked and unmarked 38

Manifestation 38

Variation in context grammar 39

“Culture” and Context 39

High context and low context situations 40

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 42

Using the “grammar of context” as a preliminary ethnographic audit 42

Discussion Questions 43

References for Further Study 44

3 Interpersonal Politeness and Power 45

Communicative Style or Register 45

Face 46

The “self” as a communicative identity 47

The Paradox of Face: Involvement and Independence 48

Politeness strategies of involvement and independence 49

Linguistic strategies of involvement: some examples 51

Linguistic strategies of independence: some examples 51

Face Systems 52

Three Face Systems: Deference, Solidarity, and Hierarchy 53

Deference face system (-P, +D) 54

Solidarity face system (-P, -D) 54

Hierarchical face system (+P, +/-D) 55

Miscommunication 56

Variations in Face Systems 59

Social Organization and Face Systems 60

Kinship 61

The concept of the self 62

Ingroup–outgroup relationships 64

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft 65

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 66

Exploring the interaction order 66

Discussion Questions 67

References for Further Study 68

4 Conversational Inference: Interpretation in Spoken Discourse 69

How Do We Understand Discourse? 70

Cohesive Devices: Lexical and Grammatical 71

Reference 72

Verb forms 72

Conjunction 72

The causal conjunction “because” 73

Cognitive Schemata and Scripts 74

World knowledge 75

Adjacency sequences 76

Prosodic Patterning: Intonation and Timing 77

Intonation 77

Timing 79

Metacommunication 82

Non-sequential processing 84

Interactive Intelligence 86

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 88

Collecting and analyzing spoken data 88

Reconfiguring default settings 89

Discussion Questions 90

References for Further Study 90

5 Topic and Face: Inductive and Deductive Patterns in Discourse 92

What Are You Talking About? 92

Topic, Turn Exchange, and Timing 94

The call–answer–topic adjacency sequence 94

The call 95

The answer 95

The introduction of the caller’s topic 95

Deductive Monologues 96

The Inductive Pattern 97

Inside and outside encounters 98

Hierarchical relationships and topic introduction 98

The false east–west dichotomy 99

Face: Inductive and Deductive Rhetorical Strategies 100

Topics and face systems 101

Face Relationships in Written Discourse 103

Essays and press releases 104

The press release: implied writers and implied readers 105

The essay: a deductive structure 106

Limiting Ambiguity: Power in Discourse 106

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 107

Collecting and analyzing written data 107

Discussion Questions 109

References for Further Study 109

6 Ideologies in Discourse 110

Three Concepts of Discourse 110

The Utilitarian Discourse System 113

The Enlightenment: reason and freedom 114

Bentham and Mill’s Utilitarianism 115

Forms of discourse in the Utilitarian discourse system 117

The Panopticon of Bentham 118

Face systems in the Utilitarian discourse system 120

Internal face systems: liberté, égalité, fraternité 120

The institutions of the Utilitarian discourse system 121

Outside discourse 122

Multiple discourse systems 123

The Confucian discourse system 123

“Conversations” 126

What “Counts” as an Ideology? 128

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 130

The relationship between small d discourse and big D Discourses 130

Discussion Questions 134

References for Further Study 134

7 Forms of Discourse 136

Functions of Language 136

Information and relationship 136

Negotiation and ratifi cation 137

Group harmony and individual welfare 138

Clarity, Brevity, and Sincerity Revisited 139

Theories of communication in the Utilitarian discourse system 139

Kant’s view of the “public” writer 147

Plagiarism and ideology 148

Modes, Media, and the Materiality of Discourse 152

Mode 152

Media 154

Emplacement 156

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 157

Discussion Questions 158

References for Further Study 159

8 Socialization 161

The Individual and “Culture” 161

Socialization 162

Education, enculturation, acculturation 162

Primary and secondary socialization 163

Socialization as legitimate peripheral participation 164

Theories of the person and of learning 165

Socialization in the Utilitarian Discourse System 168

Education vs. socialization 168

Socialization and face systems 169

Socialization and the “Historical Body” 171

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 173

An outline guide for the study of discourse systems 175

Discussion Questions 176

References for Further Study 177

9 Corporate and Professional Discourse 178

Voluntary and Involuntary Discourse Systems 178

Five key discourse systems in corporate and professional life 179

The Corporate Discourse System (Corporate Culture) 180

Ideology 181

Socialization 186

Forms of discourse 192

Face systems 198

The size and scope of corporate discourse systems 201

Professional Discourse Systems 201

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 203

Discussion Questions 204

References for Further Study 205

10 Generational Discourse 206

Involuntary Discourse Systems 206

The Ideologies of Individualism in the United States 208

Six generations of North Americans 210

The shifting ground of U.S. individualism 225

Communication between generations 226

Six Generations of Chinese 227

The changing nature of collectivism 227

The shifting ground of Chinese collectivism 236

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 237

Discussion Questions 238

References for Further Study 239

11 Gender and Sexuality Discourse 240

Gender and Sexuality 240

Gender Discourse Systems 241

Directness or indirectness? 242

Who talks more? 244

Forms of discourse; functions of language 245

Face systems 247

The origin of difference: ideology and paradox 248

The maintenance of difference: socialization 250

Problems with the “difference” approach 251

Compromise: “communities of practice” 252

Sexuality 253

Sexuality and gender 255

Performativity 256

Discourse systems and imagined communities 256

“Gay Culture” and the Utilitarian Discourse System 257

Ideology 259

Face systems 260

Forms of discourse 260

Socialization 260

The “Tongzhi Discourse System” 261

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 264

Discussion Questions 265

References for Further Study 266

12 Doing “Intercultural Communication” 267

Discourse Systems and the Individual 267

Intersystem communication 270

Cultural ideology and stereotyping 271

Negative stereotypes 273

Positive stereotypes, the lumping fallacy, and the solidarity fallacy 274

Othering 276

Differences Which Make a Difference: Discourse Systems 276

Intercultural Communication as Mediated Action 278

Avoiding Miscommunication 279

Researching Interdiscourse Communication 281

Discussion Questions 283

References for Further Study 283

References 284

Index 298

“Overall, the paradigm presented throughout the now three iterations of this book remains a remarkably insightful way to conceptualize factors influencing communication, or, in the authors’ own terms, factors mediating communication.  By focusing on common denominators of all human life (ideologies, forms of discourse, socialization, and face systems) Scollon, Scollon, and Jones successfully arrive at a culture-neutral heuristic that can be used in any instance of interpersonal (and thus, intercultural) communication.”  (LinguistList, 8 January 2013)

"A true classic, the intellectual wealth of which still remains insufficiently explored. This third edition makes it even more compelling and brings it even closer to the reader." – Jan Blommaert, Tilburg University, The Netherlands