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2.3 Cultural Differences in Daily Conversation
2.3.1 Ways of Addressing
Teachers should help students understand appropriate communication, such as making requests that show respect; for example, “hey you come here?” may be a linguistically correct request, but it is not a culturally appropriate way for a student to address a teacher. Students will master a language only when they learn both its linguistic and cultural norms. A student reports: “Some students call the family name of foreigners directly without any titles before them just as they call the name of their Chinese friends.” One British teacher remarks, “On a social level, perhaps curiously, that the most infuriating error is the persistent use of my surname as a means of address. While there are many possible forms, from the formal to the highly familiar, in spoken English, the use of the surname alone is never correct when addressing a woman.” A Canadian teacher says: “Many students are unable to greet a foreigner or bid farewell in a casual manner.” An English teacher says that he often finds his students unable to disengage themselves when it is time for them to leave. The use of “Where are you going?” or “Are you going to…” as a form of greeting it is a common mistake among beginning students that it does not require any comment here. In recent years, the trend of many English-speaking people has been to address others by using the first name Tom, Michael, Linda, Jane etc, rather than calling the person Mr. Summers, Mrs. Howard or Miss Jones. This is especially common among Americans, even when people meet for the first time; this applies not only to people of roughly the same age, but also of different age. It is not a sign of disrespect. It is not at all uncommon to hear a child call a much older person Joe, Ben, May etc. This may even include the child’s parents or grandparents. This, of course, is quite counter to Chinese custom. One can imagine the reaction of adults if a child were to call a grandparent by his or her first name or a student to do the same in calling a teacher. A quick reprimand and possibly even a spanking for the child would be sure to follow.