Thanks Mike for this interesting article .. probably all languages have expressions that are understood best without logical. My favorite AI language interpreter joke is: "The British are coming! The British are coming!" .. By land or by sea? "Yes!". And my Russian priest, when dissing others' theological opinions: и кто является Вами? (and who are you? best by emphasizing _YOU_) but he was not asking who they were. I'm sure not unique to Russian. There are zillions of words that we use in ordinary English, perfectly well understood but whose link to logic is long gone ... top of head: we all know "chairman" .. though the word's logic comes from medieval England where chairs were special and rare. Russians also use double negatives which are, technically, illogical.
========================== John W. Kulig, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Coordinator, Psychology Honors Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 ========================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> Cc: "Michael Palij" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2014 10:39:25 AM Subject: [tips] What Do You Mean? In some respects, monocultural people are like fish who don't realize that they live in water, that is, they assume that everyone else is more or less like them, and will share the same assumptions (unless there is a clear indication that they are "outsiders" on the basis of perceivable cues such as skin color, accent, physical attributes, etc.). I point this out because such assumptions make daily life much easier to navigate through, especially in social interactions and in conversations with others. For example, asking "How are you?" presupposes that one will get a response such as "Fine." because the question is assumed to be a social ritual and not really a serious question (i.e., the person asking "How are you?" has no interest how the person actually is). This is like the sociolinguistic phenomena of "indirect requests" where it would be considered rude to make a direct of someone, so one asks a question "Such as 'Can you open the window?' -- the question isn't about whether the person has the skill or strength to open the window, it's whether they will open the window for you. However, getting a response of "Yes" but without the person opening the window would be considered rude even though the person's question was answered (Marty Braine, a mentor of mine, who studied both language and logic once used the example of his wife asking him "Do you want some tea or not?", to which he would respond "Yes" which he would point out was a logically correct because it answered the obvious question but with the added benefit of annoying the hell out of his wife Lila -- Marty was weird that way). This may become obvious when speaking to a person from another culture who does not engage in such rituals and has an unexpected, even negative response to the situation. I raise this issue because of an Op-Ed in the NY Times that tries to provide Americans some guidance about how to talk to Russians (NOTE: read if you're going to the Sochi Olympic games). The Op-Ed can be accessed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/the-how-are-you-culture-clash.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140120&_r=0 I quote from the article: |The question in question is, “How are you?” | |The answer Americans give, of course is, “Fine.” But when |Russians hear this they think one of two things: (1) you’ve been |granted a heavenly reprieve from the wearisome grind that all |but defines the human condition and as a result are experiencing |a rare and sublime moment of fineness or (2) you are lying. | |Ask a Russian, “How are you?” and you will hear, for better |or worse, the truth. A blunt pronouncement of dissatisfaction |punctuated by, say, the details of any recent digestive troubles. |I have endured many painful minutes of elevator silence after |my grandmother (who lived in the Soviet Union until moving |to the United States in her 60s) delivered her stock response: |“Terrible,” to which she might add, “Why? Because being old |is terrible.” Beat. “And I am very old.” Movie fans will recognize a similar situation in the movie "Groundhog Day" where the woman running the bed and breakfast that Bill Murray is staying in asks Murray about the weather and he goes into a detailed description of what will happen over the next 24 hours. This produces a puzzled and confused look on the BnB woman's face because she was just engaging in a social ritual and not really interested in the weather. To nail the point, Murray asks: |"Did you want to talk about the weather, or were you just making |conversation?" To which the woman awkwardly acknowledges that she was just making conversation. This is the tactic I use when someone in administration passes me in the hall and asks "How are you?" I then count how many seconds it took for them to get out of the conversation. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] . To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454&n=T&l=tips&o=32921 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-32921-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=32950 or send a blank email to leave-32950-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
