20
Speaking and Writing in World Englishes

YAMUNA KACHRU

1 Introduction

English is used in the Three Circles for various purposes — as a home language and a medium of education, in professions, media, diplomacy, trade, commerce, and literary creativity. For achieving success in all these areas of activity, users of English have to perform various acts through the language, such as imparting information, negotiating, persuading, agreeing, disagreeing, demanding, apologizing, etc, in different contexts. These “speech acts” (Austin 1962; Searle 1969) are performed in the spoken mode in face‐to‐face interaction; they are also performed in the written mode using strategies and conventions different from those in speech (Reynolds 1993). This chapter examines the ways in which interlocutors from different Circles of English speak and write English to express their meanings to each other using a shared medium with different sociocultural conventions of language use and different cultural messages (B. Kachru 2002); it reviews research in speech acts, politeness, conversation analysis, and cross‐cultural rhetoric. The conventions differ across varieties because all users of English in the Outer and Expanding Circles are bi‐/multilingual. The different messages come from cultural values of the communities and conventions of language use, largely based on concepts of polite and appropriate behavior. The topic of cultural values is beyond the scope of this chapter; what is in focus is the conventions of language and language use.

2 Speech Acts

Although there is a large body of research available on speech acts across languages, not much has as yet been published comparing speech acts across varieties. A beginning has been made in a few studies, for example, Adegbija (1989), Bailey (2000), Y. Kachru (1998), Kang (2003), Morgan (1998), Silva (1998), and Sridhar (1991). Studies in conversation analysis, business and commercial negotiations, and professional encounters also give insights into how acts are performed through speech (e.g. Firth 1995, Stubbe & Holmes 1999). A number of studies have compared conventions of conversation across cultures, and some have examined how such conventions are reflected in interaction among participants from different groups within the same or across different Circles of English (Firth 1995; Liao 1997; Meyerhoff 1999; Rampton 1998; Stubbe & Holmes 1999, among others). There still is a need to investigate whether there are culture‐specific speech acts that are not shared across languages and cultures, for example, the speech acts of signifying and marking in African‐American English (Mitchell‐Kernan 1972).

2.1 Cross‐cultural speech act research

Research on cross‐cultural speech acts of the past three decades has raised serious questions about the universal applicability of several theoretical notions of pragmatics (Green 1989; Levinson 1983), including speech acts themselves (Searle 1969), Gricean maxims (Grice 1975), and politeness principles (Brown & Levinson 1987). Unlike theoretical discussions, where an implicit assumption is made that speech acts refer to the same social acts in all cultures, Fraser, Rintell, and Walters (1980: 78) explicitly claim that, although languages may differ as to how and when speech acts are to be performed, every language “makes available to the user the same basic set of speech acts … the same set of strategies – semantic formulas – for performing a given speech act.” In contrast, Wierzbicka (1985) claims that speech genres and speech acts are not comparable across languages and cultures; Wolfson, Marmor, and Jones (1989: 180) suggest that “just as different cultures divide the color spectrum into noncorresponding overlapping terms, so the repertoire of speech acts for each culture is differently organized.” Matsumoto (1988, 1989) questions the adequacy of the theoretical notions of conversational implicature as proposed by Grice and “face” as postulated by Brown and Levinson (1987) to account for the politeness phenomenon in Japanese conversational interactions. Wetzel (1988) concludes that the notion of “power” as discussed in Brown and Gilman (1960) is culturally bound, and therefore not applicable to a discussion of verbal interaction in Japanese. Y. Kachru (2003) argues that the cooperative principle, the politeness principle, rules of politeness, and politeness strategies operate differently across speech communities, and also that they operate quite differently in various social situations among diverse social classes within the same speech community (see Blum‐Kulka & Kasper 1990; Y. Kachru 1998; Matsumoto 1988, 1989; Silva 1998, 2000; Sridhar 1991, among others). Meyerhoff (1999) asserts that positive and negative politeness are not scalar opposites, but two sides of the same coin.

The problems in the applicability of the speech act theory in the analysis of conversation have been identified in Schegloff (1988) and Schmidt (1983), who point out the limited applicability of the theory because of its inability to handle the sequentiality and temporality of conversational exchanges. Moreover, since speech act theory is based on speaker intentions, it neglects the crucial role that interactions between speakers and hearers play in conversations. Furthermore, such research has utilized only a limited range of variables, for example, those of social distance and dominance (Blum‐Kulka, House, & Kasper 1989), and even those are not well defined (Rose 1992). Additionally, Y. Kachru (1999) points out that the notions of distance and imposition are too simplistic to be applicable across cultures.

As regards the data for empirical research on speech acts, only a limited number of studies have employed an ethnographic method of observation and analysis of utterances produced in real‐life interactions. Some empirical studies that do utilize such data are those on compliments in American English by Manes and Wolfson (1981), compliments in American compared with South African English by Herbert (1989), invitations in American English by Wolfson et al. (1989), requests in Hebrew by Blum‐Kulka, Danet, and Gherson (1985), apologies in Bislama in Vanuatu by Meyerhoff (1999), and in New Zealand English by Holmes (1990), and politeness strategies in Korean and African‐American service encounters in Los Angeles by Bailey (2000). The bulk of speech act research, including crosscultural investigations, has been conducted using either role play or written questionnaires that direct the participants to perform discourse‐completion tasks. Furthermore, only a limited range of speech acts have been researched, the most commonly studied ones being requests and apologies, as in Blum‐Kulka et al. (1989), Y. Kachru (1999), Silva (1998, 2000), and Sridhar (1991).

In spite of the limitations mentioned, the available research on speech acts, conversation analysis, and verbal encounters in various contexts has yielded valuable understanding of the interactions of sociocultural values, conventions and language use, and linguistic structure within and across communities. These insights are worth recapitulating and building upon for further understanding of how world Englishes are used across languages and cultures.

2.2 Linguistic politeness

One of the main reasons cultures differ in the conventions of their language use in real‐life situations is to be found in consideration of politeness. Politeness in using language to do things in the Western context has generally been discussed in term of discourse strategies. A number of major Asian languages such as Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Thai, however, have grammaticized devices at the phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic levels, in addition to discourse strategies, to signal respectful and polite verbal behavior.

One of the grammatical phenomena described in detail in the grammars of languages such as Hindi and Korean, among others, are the sets of honorific pronouns, verbal endings, and lexical sets that indicate respect for specific addressees or referents.¹ What makes the systems complex is that a choice from one set constrains the choices from other sets. For instance, honorific pronouns do not co‐occur with nonhonorific endings, and, similarly, nonhonorific pronouns do not co‐occur with honorific endings. In addition, an honorific or nonhonorific context determines choices from the lexicon, that is, which nouns and verbs may or may not be used. Examples of parallel items from the honorific and nonhonorific sets of grammatical and lexical items are given in 1–3 below²:

Grammatical choices: Hindi

Honorific Nonhonorific/Familiar Intimate

2nd‐person pronoun āp tum tū

Present imperfect ending ‐E h ‐E ho ‐A hai

Choices from the honorific and nonhonorific set are constrained such that the following arrays are ungrammatical:

*āp V‐A hɛ
*tum V‐A hɛ

*āp V‐E ho³

*tū V‐E ho

*tum/tū V‐E h
Lexical choices: Korean (Hwang 1990)

Honorific Plain Gloss

Cinci pap ‘meal’

Sengham ilum ‘name’

Capswu‐si‐ta mek‐ta ‘to eat’ *meku‐si‐ta

Cwumwu‐si‐ta ca‐ta ‘to sleep’ *ca‐si‐ta

The complexities of such honorific versus non‐honorific systems have been described in detail in works such as Martin (1964, Japanese and Korean), Moeran (1988, Japanese), Hwang (1990, Korean), Y. Kachru (1980, Hindi), Srivastava and Pandit (1988, Hindi), and Singh (1989, Maithili).

In fact, it has been suggested for both Japanese and Korean that the relevant concepts for linguistic interaction may be discernment (Ide 1989) and deference (Hwang 1990), respectively. Discernment refers to “the almost automatic observation of socially‐agreed‐upon rules” (Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki, & Ogino 1986) that characterizes Japanese verbal and nonverbal behavior. Deference has been defined as “power as a social fact, established a priori by the differential positions of individuals or groups within the social structure” (Treichler, Frankel, Kramarae, Zoppi, & Beckman 1984: 65). Although the two concepts are defined differently, one in social behavioral terms and the other in ideological terms, their linguistic manifestations take the same form: grammaticization of honorific forms.

Politeness, on the other hand, is defined in terms of cognitive psychological notions of self‐images of speakers and addressees.⁴ This dichotomy, however, is problematic. As the descriptions of polite verbal behavior in Matsumoto (1988) and Moeran (1988), among others, suggest, both discernment/deference and politeness are useful concepts in discussing Asian polite behavior. (They are equally applicable to African contexts.) It is, however, noteworthy that whereas discernment/deference has been lexicalized and grammaticized in languages such as Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and many others, strategies of politeness in all languages generally make use of choices from within the general lexical and grammatical devices available to speakers, even in the absence of such forms. What this means is that a number of languages have a complex dual system of signaling politeness, based both on devices to indicate discernment/deference and on strategies to express politeness.

Compared to the systems of languages such as Hindi, Japanese, and Korean, English seems much simpler and more egalitarian, as it does not have systemic choices based on discernment/deference, but only strategies based on politeness considerations.

2.2.1 Discernment/deference and politeness in speech

The framework suggested in Brown and Levinson (1987) makes crucial use of the concept of face. It posits two aspects of politeness in verbal interaction: positive face (presentational) and negative face (avoidance). Positive face indicates a want or need to be desirable to others; therefore, it functions as a strategy of friendliness or camaraderie. Negative face indicates a want or need not to be impeded by others; therefore, it functions as a distancing strategy of formality. All members of a speech community use positive and negative politeness strategies to save, maintain, and enhance face. Brown and Levinson (1987) describe a number of strategies and their linguistic realizations that maintain and enhance positive and negative face of interlocutors in conversation.

In Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework, all potential verbal and nonverbal communicative acts are characterized as face‐threatening acts (FTAs). Some acts threaten the interlocutors’ positive face, others their negative face. For instance, criticism, disagreement, expression of violent emotions, irreverence, bringing bad news, raising divisive topics (e.g. politics, religion), noncooperation in an activity (such as interruptions in talk), and use of address terms in initial encounters threaten the hearers’ positive face. Orders, requests, suggestions, advice, reminders, threats, warnings, offers, promises, compliments, and expressions of strong emotion toward hearers threaten their negative face. Apologies, acceptance of compliments, breakdown of physical control (e.g. stumbling, falling), self‐humiliation, confession, and lack of control over emotion (e.g. laughter, tears) threaten speakers’ positive face. Expressing thanks, acceptance of hearers’ thanks, excuses, accepting offers, responses to hearers’ faux pas, and unwilling promises and offers threaten their negative face (Brown & Levinson 1987: 65–68).

This characterization of FTAs does not take into account the tension between the two systems of discernment/deference and politeness in Asian languages, nor does it recognize the complexities introduced by speaker‐addressee interactions. For instance, in the scheme suggested above, several interaction strategies would be considered face threatening in Western contexts, whereas they would be perceived as face enhancing in Asian contexts.

In the Japanese context (Matsumoto 1988), for example, there are conventionalized expressions for showing deference which do not constitute a negative politeness strategy of minimizing an imposition on an addressee’s action, as Brown and Levinson would suggest. One such expression — doozo yoroshiku — is translatable as “I ask you to please treat me well/take care of me.” This phrase is used when the speaker is introduced to someone; it is an expression of the desire on the part of the speaker that the ensuing relationship between the two parties be a good one. A speaker may choose to say this not only for him‐/herself, but also on behalf of someone closely related to the speaker, for example his/her wife/husband, son, daughter, etc. Using an exactly similar expression, not only for oneself but also on behalf of one’s children or relatives or intimate friends is common in India, too. Such expressions are used to enhance the addressee’s face, and enhancing someone’s face is a positive politeness strategy, although the direct request sounds like an imposition – an FTA – in a western context.

These systems are now undergoing changes under the influence of English in some sections of Asian societies. Conversely, as is natural in any language‐contact situation, the varieties of English used in Asian societies have assimilated some of the deference strategies of the languages of those cultures. This phenomenon of bidirectional accommodation of politeness strategies is worth serious investigation. Examples of such convergence in conversations and in written texts in world Englishes are discussed below.

Valentine (1995) describes a coexistent agreement‐disagreement pattern which is unfamiliar to other English speakers in interactions between women speaking Indian English. According to Valentine (1995: 243–244), utterances in which both partial agreement‐disagreement are expressed are more acceptable if the sequence of expression is Yes, but…. It is unexpected in other varieties of English to have a sequence such as No,…but yeah, which does occur in Indian English data:

fA: Do you think it [wife abuse] is common?
fB: In India? In rural families this is common.

fC: No, it’s common. Very much common even in very literate families.

The female addressee B responds by agreeing with the interviewer, A’s, question. The other participant in the conversation, C, first says no, but then agrees by saying, it’s common.

This pattern is a familiar one to Hindi speakers, who not infrequently start by saying na… ‘no’, but then go on to express agreement.⁵

Young (1982: 76) points out the different rhetorical strategies of interaction between American and Chinese interlocutors in professional settings by citing the following example. After a talk given by a Chinese visiting professor of nutrition from Beijing, an American in the audience raised a question. The following exchange took place:

Postlecture discussion session

American:
How does the Nutritional Institute decide what topics to study? How do you decide what topic to do research on?

Chinese:

Because, now, period get change. It’s different from past time. In past time, we emphasize how to solve practical problems. Nutrition must know how to solve some deficiency diseases. In our country, we have some nutritional diseases, such as x, y, z. But, now it is important that we must do some basic research. So, we must take into account fundamental problems. We must concentrate our research to study some fundamental research.

Inner Circle listeners and readers of the transcription of this exchange would feel frustrated as they process a series of statements that do not seem to answer the question. The Chinese professor is, of course, following a rhetorical strategy that he is familiar with, in which one must first provide the background, which generally consists of the history of the endeavor, and then slowly unfold the main point of what one is trying to convey. The linkers in boldface above, the because and the so, are the markers of these transitions; the statement (given in italics) which constitutes the answer‐as‐such to the question comes at the end. Inner Circle speakers would, particularly in a formal academic context, be much more likely to begin such a response with the “straightforward” or “direct” answer.

Young (1982) analyzes a number of examples of this pattern of interaction in settings related to business and finance; many of these contain both the linkers, and most of them contain so to mark the transition to the crux of the matter, as exemplified in (5) above.

In nonacademic professional contexts, too, Englishes differ in the strategies they follow to convey meanings; for example, Liao (1997: 107–108) cites the data in (6) to show how bosses convey their dissatisfaction to their employees for substandard job performance in American (AmE) and Taiwanese Englishes (TE).

Boss telling employee his/her job performance is unsatisfactory (Liao 1997: 105–108):

AmE:

I am concerned about your performance.

I have been extremely concerned about your work performance lately.

I don’t feel that you’re working to your full potential.

TE:

I don’t like your performance.

I am not pleased with your performance.

I am not satisfied with your performance.

The author observes that 50% of AmE speakers give constructive instructions to employees to improve their job performance, while over 50% of TE speakers do not do so.

2.2.2 Silence as speech act

While discussing speech acts and conversation, it is easy to forget that silence, as well as speech, has an important place in interaction. For instance, Nwoye (1985) describes the most appropriate strategy for conveying condolences in the Igbo community of Nigeria. According to him, the most appropriate way of expressing sympathy to the bereaved following a loved one’s death is to leave them alone for at least four days, then visit them by going straight to them in their home, standing before them for a short time, and sitting down for a while with other mourners in silence. When the visitors feel they have stayed long enough, they again stand in front of the bereaved so that their presence is noted, then leave as silently as they came. In this case, not saying anything says everything: that the mourner shares the grief of the bereaved family and sympathizes with them. In Igbo society, it is felt to be inappropriate to increase the bereaved people’s sorrow by talking about the loss of their loved. Obviously, silence has a different meaning in the Igbo context than it does in Anglo‐American, European, or Asian contexts (see Tannen & Saville‐Troike 1985 for different perspectives on silence as a code).

Thus, what may seem superficially to be taciturnity or unwillingness to engage with an interlocutor in intercultural conversational exchanges may have other explanations across various Englishes, as discussed in Bailey’s (2000) study of Korean retailers’ interactions with their African‐American customers. The African Americans feel that the Korean store owners’ unwillingness to engage in small talk reveals a lack of respect for them as black people. The Korean retailers, for their part, feel that the exuberant speaking style of African‐American customers during business encounters shows lack of “education,” in the sense of conforming to appropriate social behavior. Neither group of participants is aware of the sociocultural norms of interaction of the other; the Korean immigrants are not familiar with the convention of small talk (lighthearted remarks about weather or current affairs, etc., which signal involvement for the African Americans, and the African Americans have no knowledge of the Koreans’ idea of serious, taciturn behavior being a sign of well‐brought‐up, appropriately socialized adults expressing deference toward their interlocutors.

The examples illustrate the linguistic and sociocultural factors that are responsible for acculturation of Englishes in different regions and for giving conversations a different “flavor” in the Outer and Expanding Circles. One good source of sensitizing speakers of one variety to conventions of other varieties is to encourage familiarity with English literatures (see Nelson 1991), and performances (plays, music) and audiovisual media (films, TV).

In addition to overarching conventions, minor variations in the uses of single words or particles carry great import. For example, the semantic extensions of items such as ‘sorry’ (Meyerhoff 1999), ‘OK’ (Adegbija & Bello 2001), and ‘no’ (Valentine 1995), or the introduction of discourse markers from indigenous sources, such as eh in New Zealand English (Meyerhoff 1994) and meh, la, and know in Malaysian‐Singapore English (Ler 2001; Pakir 1992; Wee 2003; Wong 2004), are context specific; interpretation of such items becomes essential for ensuring success in verbal interaction across the three Circles.

3 Rhetorical Strategies in Writing

Rhetorical strategies are also motivated by considerations of sociocultural appropriateness. A study by Kamimura and Oi (1998) illustrates this assertion. The study investigates rhetorical appeals, diction, and cultural influences in the writings of Japanese college students and American high school seniors who wrote essays on their opinions of capital punishment. The findings were that:

American student writers generally offered thesis statements at the beginnings of their essays, supported them with details, and summarized their positions and support at the end.
The Japanese writers typically used one of two other patterns, either specific to general, with a thesis statement at the end of the essay, or with no thesis offered. The US writers maintained consistent positions, while the Japanese writers tended to present both sides of the argument.
46 of 55 “appeals” or bases for persuasion by US writers (83.6%) were identified as “rational,” compared with 36 of 55 (65.5%) used by the Japanese. Only 9 US appeals (16.4%) were “affective,” compared with 19 (34.6%) of the Japanese appeals. The Japanese writers showed a stronger tendency to try to evoke empathy in the reader’s mind, in contrast to the Americans’ assertive stances and use of reasoning.
The US writers tended toward expressions that emphasized the importance of their arguments by using modal verbs and other elements, for example, should/must; totally; no doubt; the + superlative structures. In contrast, the Japanese writers used “softening” or “downgrading” devices, such as I think; perhaps; sad; sorrow.

Thus, though the students used the same medium — the English language — their messages were quite different. The American students presented rational arguments in a linear fashion, the Japanese writers evoked empathy and tried to present both the perspectives with regard to capital punishment.

Such rhetorical differences are not only a feature of student writing, they surface in other genres widely used by English‐using communities at large as well, as is illustrated in the fragments of sales letters written by American, British, and Indian firms in examples 7–9 (Frank 1988). The letters were sent to the same recipient, a native speaker of American English, by companies in India (7), Britain (8), and the US (9) which were engaged in the publication of “Who’s Who Directories” (Frank 1988: 26):

We come back upon the correspondence resting with the inclusion of your biographical note in the forthcoming volume of our “Biography International” and thank you much indeed for your esteemed cooperation in sending to us the same.
Your name has been put forward for biographical and pictorial inclusion in the Twelfth Edition of Men of Achievement, and you are respectfully invited to complete the questionnaire overleaf and return it to our editors so that they can prepare your detailed biography and send you a typescript for proofing.
Enclosed is a copy of your sketch as it appears in the 44th edition. Please proofread it carefully. Make any necessary additions and corrections. Then, even if no changes are needed, sign the sketch where indicated and return it to me within the next 15 days.

Comparisons among these fragments are instructive. The long sentence in (7) may seem overly complicated to Inner Circle readers, whose expectations are satisfied by a simple statement such as “Thank you for your response to our invitation.” The notion of “high style” in the Indian context, however, would not be fulfilled by such “bald” statements. In the American style of writing (9), it is appropriate to use direct imperatives with the conventional politeness marker please; in the British style (8), however, more indirect request strategies are considered appropriate, for example, you are … invited, and an extra marker of politeness, respectfully, is used. In the Indian letter, thank you is followed by two intensifying expressions, much and indeed, and a modifier, esteemed, is used before cooperation to express an extremely deferential attitude toward the addressee. One other noticeable feature is the linking of the two clauses with and; to an Inner Circle reader, it appears strange to introduce the two unrelated episodes — the correspondence regarding a biographical note with the addressee and expression of gratitude by the writer of the letter — in this manner. From the Indian point of view, the reference to the correspondence implies receipt of a biographical note from the addressee, for which an expression of thanks is appropriate, and the two events are thus related.

Research in textual rhetoric suggests that Asian traditions of writing have not included what has been characterized as “essay‐text literacy.” Essay‐text literacy is a relatively recent development in the Anglo‐American tradition of rhetoric also and is characterized by a heavy emphasis on explicit, decontextualized, impersonal language (Gee 1986). While the western tradition of writing has evolved during the past half‐century, in part as a result of technological innovations, modernization of nonwestern societies has happened as a result of contact with the West, and English has been the most salient instrument of this contact. There is a wealth of material available on linguistic socialization, literacy, bilingualism, and language acquisition that points to the fact that bilinguals have access to unique and specific linguistic configurations that are different from those of monolinguals in either language in their repertoires, in the same way that a hurdler is neither a sprinter nor a high jumper but something completely different, as Grosjean (1989) puts it. Bilingual and multilingual scholars have adopted and adapted the literacy practices of the Anglocentric West, including those of “essay‐text literacy,” with adaptations to their own cultural practices. The following (10–11) are examples of such adaptation. The passages are from formal letters of request, the first (10) written by an Indian man to a female addressee asking for some information, and the second (11) by a Japanese male to a non‐Japanese male addressee asking for permission to use some material.

Letter from an Indian scholar (male) to an Indian addressee (female)
Madam,…

Now coming to the crux of the matter, … I request you very humbly to enlighten me of the following points.…

So, with folded hands I request you to help me by supplying the needed information and names of any devotees and fans of E. I am writing to B.S. today. If you want anything from my side just let me know. Waiting very anxiously for your reply,

Yours sincerely,
Letter from a director of a medical institute (male) to an academic addressee (male)
Dear Mr. X,

Explanations of Kangri of Kashmir are written in some medical books in Japan and we know it literary (sic), but there is almost no people practically booking (sic) at the real Kangri. I would like to use to demonstrate kangri while teaching in postgraduate medical students as well as for researchers working on Kangri cancer.

I wrote to Consulate General of India, [City], Japan, so Mr. Y sent me your writing [Title of Book] with figure of Kangri, [Date]. I would like to have your permission to reproduce the figure of Kangri to my writing.

Of course, I will explain the reproduction from your text.

Your kind consideration on this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Whereas (10) follows the conventions of Indian letter writing, (11) is more like a direct request written in an Anglo‐American context.⁶ This is to be expected, given the biliterate competence of highly educated professionals in Asia. They develop differentiated literacy skills and are able to use them in contextually sensitive ways. Since the first letter was written for an Indian to another Indian, it follows the Indian politeness strategies of prefacing the request by some general observations and ends with an offer to reciprocate the anticipated favor. The second, however, was in English for someone in an English‐speaking country and follows Anglo‐American norms of letters of request, including stating the request in direct terms and not using the kinds of affective elements that (10) exhibits.

Such adaptations and accommodations, however, do not mean that all Outer and Expanding Circle academics are happy to conform to the expectations of ELT (English language teaching) professionals and follow “the straight‐edged geometry of Western rhetoric” (Lisle & Mano 1997: 16). The western classical rhetorical triangle which isolates speaker, message, and audience does not make as much sense to people from cultures in which oral traditions remain strong (Lisle & Mano 1997: 18). The digressions that the ELT professionals find so distressing in non‐Anglocentric writing have their sources in the oral‐literate continua of other traditions. This, however, is a topic that deserves a more detailed discussion than is possible here.

It is reasonable to suggest that considerations of politeness also figure in the generic structure of academic writing in non‐Inner‐Circle contexts. In creative literature, the synthesis of oral and literate traditions and strategies of drawing in the audience have produced spectacular results in, for example, African, Indian, and Southeast Asian English writing and writing in English by recent immigrants in the Inner Circle. Such breakthroughs in academic publishing are possible only if the gatekeepers of the industry shed some of their prejudices. The relationship of scientific or academic discourse to the generic structure of that discourse is not organic; it is based on conventions. As Y. Kachru (1997) has shown, mathematical problems can be posed in verse, and so can philosophical arguments, as they were in the Indian tradition of scholarship (see also Dhillon 1998).

Y. Kachru (1997: 61–62) identifies four features of non‐Inner Circle writing. The first is indirectness, as illustrated by Kamimura and Oi’s (1998) study discussed above. The Japanese students preferred to present both sides of the argument. The Indian tradition of deliberative essay (Kachru 1997) also advises writers to all sides of an argument so that readers may be led to arriving at a well‐reasoned conclusion themselves. Second, nonwestern writers are said to tend toward a “high style,” employing “stylistic embellishments, quotations, idioms and metaphors.” Third, extensive quotation from previous work is highly valued, whereas mere “appeal to authority” is not considered strong argumentation in the West. Such citations are used not only for the purposes of the argument directly, but because “[i]t is considered good manners to acknowledge one’s gratitude and display one’s respect for predecessors.” Finally, while a cliché western evaluation of nonwestern work is to label it derivative and unoriginal, Y. Kachru observes (1997: 62) that “it is a misconception to think that originality necessarily lies in novelty.” She cites the Indian tradition of written commentaries on previous philosophical and literary works, which form traditions in their own right and are valued as “original” works. In fact, the best of the commentaries use the earlier works as points of departure and propose their own ideas and arguments to augment, elucidate or critique aspects of the originals. As Moore (1967: 8) observes about the rich commentary literature of ancient India:

[It] produces, in the guise of mere commentaries, a wide variety of points of view—at times virtually new systems—that reveal the originality and creativity of mind and thought possessed by these commentators, many of whom are commentators only in what might be called the polite sense of the word.

Consideration of politeness in writing is illustrated by a study (Taylor & Chen 1991) that compared introductions to scientific papers written by three groups of physical scientists: Anglo Americans writing in English, Chinese writing in English, and Chinese writing in Chinese. The study revealed several significant differences between the Anglo‐American and Chinese texts. One is the Chinese preference for a simple instead of elaborated structure for introductions, and another is lack of critical reviews of literature, irrespective of whether the Chinese‐produced texts were written in Chinese or in English. The Anglo‐American introductions were 1.7 times longer than the Chinese introductions on average, almost 50% of the Chinese introductions opted out of any critical review of literature, and the Chinese texts had almost 57% fewer references than the American texts. The authors rule out a developmental explanation of shorter introductions and the missing reviews of literature and paucity of references. That is to say, it was not the case that the Chinese scientists had less competence in the English language. Instead, Taylor and Chen suggest that “the Chinese scholars find it less acceptable to identify by name and to summarize the works of others whom they will then proceed to ‘expose,’ as it were” (1991: 331). Such a treatment of their predecessors is contrary to the Chinese notions of politeness in writing.

It is not the case that the characteristics noted above are attested only in Asian regions. In Arabic rhetoric, verbal artistry and emotional impact are the primary measures of persuasive power: rhythm, sound, repetition, and emphatic assertion carry more weight than factual evidence, and organization may depend more on metaphor and association than on linear logic (Lisle & Mano 1997: 17). This analysis is supported by Sa’adeddin (1989: 38–39), who makes a distinction between two different modes of text development: aural and visual. The former is characterized by recurrent and plain lexis, exaggeration, repetition of syntactic structures, loose packaging of information, a lack of apparent coherence, etc. – that is, a style that signals informality and solidarity, highly valued in the Arabic tradition. The visual mode, on the other hand, has the features of linearization, progressive development of a thesis, logical coherence, and syntactic cohesiveness, all of which are highly valued in the western tradition.

Similarly, indirection and circumlocutory rhetoric are a part of African discourse strategies, as well. “By ‘stalking’ the issues, a speaker demonstrates skill and arouses hearers’ interest. The person who gets directly to the issues is said to have little imagination and even less flair for rhetorical style” (Asante 1987: 51).

In addition to the sorts of cultural preferences mentioned above, research has shown that not all languages and cultures share the text types described or posited in English (Y. Kachru 2001). For instance, recipes and instruction manuals for manufacturing, weaving, sewing, knitting, etc., are not familiar text types in many cultures, even those with long traditions of literacy (e.g. South Asia).

4 Conclusion

The concepts of speech acts, rhetorical strategies, conversational organization, politeness, and the strategies that manifest politeness are not the same in pluralistic societies as they are in the kind of idealized monolingual, monocultural society assumed in theoretical discussions on these topics. In the contexts of the Outer and Expanding Circles, contact between English and local languages has, on the one hand, resulted in nativization of English, and on the other, in Englishization of indigenous languages. As a result of linguistic and cultural contacts, traditional ways of expressing respect and intimacy are changing, even though they are not resulting in complete Anglicization of Asian or African societies. The kinds of data from these plural societies discussed in this chapter point to a greater need for fresh thinking on the theoretical concepts of speech acts, rhetoric, and politeness, and more empirical research on how Englishes are used across nations for various purposes, including literary creativity.

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