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by tunesmith
4251 days ago
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"His style of answering questions was very American -- very direct." I'm interested in more expanded thoughts on the above. In what way are non-Americans less "direct" than Americans? Is about politeness/rudeness, or something else? Wouldn't that make miscommunication more probable? |
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First, this is not an issue that's purely "American vs non-American". It's a US compared to Chinese. As a contrast, Russians tend to be very direct even though they are very much non-American.
In this specific case, it has to do with his speech acts and his audience. This is a _huge_ topic, so I will only scratch the surface.
A simple and clear example would be how he answered the "Why are you studying Chinese?" question.
Mark answers with a touching story about his wife and his wife's grandmother. To an American audience, this is very personable, and it is very plausible.
My brief take on a "Chinese-style CEO" answer would be something like this: "Well, Chinese is important for everyone to know. It has a long and storied history, and it is undoubtedly the most important language for people to know today and moving ahead into the future. As the CEO of a large American company, I think that it is only prudent that I learn the language of one of our most important audiences." I don't think a Chinese-style answer would even bring Priscilla's heritage into the response for a number of reasons (e.g., they already know, it's personal not business, etc.).
For reference, my hypothetical response is a kind of DST (search for "DST LOL") that is common in some cultures, even if it is blatant DST.
Note that speech acts are important in all cultures, and that my Chinese example could easily be used in an American context. The important thing to ask is "What am I trying to say in the big picture?". Engineers tend to go for the direct answer, but it's not always the most appealing for a given context.