The Cultural Implications of Silence Around the World (2020)
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A tip I stole from someone else (can’t remember who otherwise I’d credit) when asking a question in research interview is to stay silent until you’re feeling uncomfortable, and then count slowly another 3 seconds before asking a follow up prompt.
The majority of the time, people do have useful things to say if you are willing to give them the space to speak.
"Bahasa" literally just means "language", the Indonesian language doesn't have eponyms, so to say "He is Australian" you have to include the noun "person", so "Dia orang Australia" (Sound familiar? "orang utan" means "jungle person"). Same deal with language/bahasa.
People saying "I speak Bahasa" sounds to me like people saying "I speak Sprache" to say they know German or "I speak langue" for French. It's eye-rollingly obnoxious.
Spiced tea is a bit more specific than tea tea, but not much more
It's like "literally" in English has _changed_ its meaning. Yeah of course it originally meant non-figuratively, but it is clear to all that value language as a medium of communication (rather than a measure of intellectual status) that it now has another meaning as an intensifier.
The second part could be indicative of this being usage only acceptable for 'insiders' to employ, and the first part could mean but does not have to mean that outsiders / speakers of other languages / in other countries could and should use those very words. For example, in an American context one often hears "this country" to mean the USA, but that cannot be transported into contexts based outside the USA. Similarly, there's 우리나라 /uri nara/ lit. 'our country' > "Korea" in Korean but you wouldn't say "I'm flying to Urinara" or "I'm flying to Our Country" when you're about to board a plane to Seoul. In Japanese and Taiwan, the Japanese language and the Chinese language are often referred to as 國語 lit. 'national language' > "Japanese" or "Chinese" (depending on the language used). Of course you can't normally say "我不會講國語" in Chinese to mean "I don't speak Japanese" except when the context is clear and the listener can be expected that 國語 may mean Japanese in Japanese.
So Indonesians using "bahasa" in Indonesian doesn't necessarily license using that word in English.
Besides, the original commenter denied it’s used at all. Gp implies otherwise.
Broadly speaking, this whole business of trying to “own” words on an identity basis is poisonous, corrosive and an abuse of the tool of language.
Neither person in the discussion above claimed bahasa means “our language”. The positions were “bahasa=language(generic)” vs “bahasa=also colloquially used to mean Indonesian”.
It was your assertion/conjecture that it actually means “our language”. The (seemingly) native speaker posting the original comment did not make a similar claim.
I didn't get your point about "this country". The only thing I know is how it's inappropriate outside the USA, or in a global context, to use America to mean the USA, as of course the rest of the Americas also exist.
Let's say you don't speak German but keep hearing Germany referred to as "Vaterland" in the media. You might deduce that the word "Vaterland" is synonymous with Germany, and start using it yourself to refer to the country, but that would be wrong, because the word (without additional context) simply means "homeland", typically the speaker's homeland, whatever country that is.
The author mentions Japan but doesn't mention aizuchi, a constant backchanneling that signals attentiveness that I'd classify as the opposite of silent pontificating [3].
[1] https://youtu.be/iGLzWdT7vGc?t=1794
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/...
"The findings reveal that backchannels of several types are displayed far more frequently by Japanese listeners."
I observed the opposite. When I speak Chinese to Chinese people in Toronto, Canada - friends/family/business - I find that they speak faster, are more likely to interrupt or talk over me, and tend to push their viewpoints instead of waiting to hear yours.
I've interacted with Chinese vs. Canadian bankers, salespeople, doctors, etc., and the contrast is noticeable for me.
This isn't a statement about whether one way is better (e.g. I find the Chinese are more straightforward with their intentions, whereas Canadians leave more things implied); this is just an observation about tendencies.
Japanese and Koreans speak in a very indirect and polite fashion. Us Nordics tend to be very blunt and direct. But we share this with the Dutch and Germans.
For me the main dividers are between direct and indirect speakers.
Like Americans like to keep things a bit fluffy and casual until they know you better or have sort of warmed up in the conversation. We are often opposite. We like going straight to the point and do the fluffy stuff last as way of ending a conversation.
The Western European and Scandinavian cultures are often used as the classic example of low context cultures and asian and middle eastern ones as the classic as high context cultures.
Look up the art of Yang Liu and the "Ost triff West" project ( http://www.thedailytop.com/24-infographic-shows-differences-... )
Though, even within a culture, there are graduations of context. Rural tends to be higher context than urban (pull up https://www.bigtop.org/tentshowradio.html and listen to the last minute of the podcast... "well, I suppose..." - that's rural midwest US - and there are different high/low context cultures across the US - http://robslink.com/SAS/democd83/us_regional_cultures_map.ht... ).
This can show up in some odd spots:
* https://webdata-solutions.com/en/2018/08/01/why-you-should-c...
* https://langsolinc.com/cross-cultural-communication/
There's a lot of other material on this that is rather interesting.
When thinking of that as not the default, in a cultural comparison, “how are analogous-role conversational elements expressed differently” is the most salient. So compared to a culture in which you don't ask that so cheerily, obligatorily, without-‘really’-meaning, yes, it totally is fluffy.
(Speaking as someone who's theoretically American but culturally ambiguous, who's recently been suggested by someone reviewing my social skills in a professional capacity to inject more low-content happy-mood pleasantries into my conversation—they may have actually used the word “American” in the process, and I hardly disagree with the connection. Of course, that's papering over a lot of intra-American variation too.)
It's a deliberate short circuit to a real human problem - the problem of two compatible people (whether friends or lovers) being artificially delayed on connecting with each other because of "customarily enforced" protocol on how quickly they're allowed to be familiar. That problem is bad enough that it's a staple trope in rom-coms and buddy cop films - and it frequently leads to tragedy because of how short life is, and how opportunities don't last.
It feels like there are a lot of people in the american cultural milieu who've picked this up from other groups of americans (america's a huge country with tons of different culture groups), but … are missing the absolutely CRITICAL ingredient of taking it at face value.
It is exactly what it looks like; it's not facetious, it's not fake, and anyone who treats it like that is kinda cargo-culting it.
That's a gross oversimplification; the particular question used as an example may or may not be a genuine question and whether it is or isn't varies from person to person and, even for the same person asking, often by who they are asking and the context.
Treating it as a non-question to be blown off with a ritual “fine” can be anywhere from the correct formulaic response to an acceptable way of indicating you don't really want to discuss specifics to a significant insult.
For contrast, in Northern Europe a cashier would greet you with the local version of "Hi", "Hello" or "Good morning". And them not verbally greeting you would be socially acceptable too!
My (soft) heuristic towards engagement in meetings is to call on others and ask their thoughts. Sometimes I get a squeamish non-answer but sometimes I get a answer worth it’s weight in gold.
There are some who engage in a hard speaking culture, too. My heuristic operates to hear from everyone, when practical and possible.
6th century BCE, attributed.
Many times, as an introvert, I sometimes like to be silent myself, even if I'm enjoying the moment. As the article say, this doesn't tend to be a problem in Latin America, because people are always talking over each other (and that's fine!), so anyone keeping quiet works ok.
But in the US, you're expected to talk, so keeping quiet means something is wrong. I finally got tired of people asking "what's wrong? why aren't you saying anything?" (and not understanding when I answer that nothing is wrong and that yes, I'm having a good time). So I started making a point of saying something of no value every now and then, to fill my quota. This seems to make everyone happy.
While I've mostly enjoyed the pandemic-induced remote meetings via Teams/Zoom, et al, one thing that's annoyed me is people's unwillingness - when they don't turn on their cameras, which is 95% of the time in my org - to compensate for the fact that no one can see anyone else.
So someone will ask a question like "Does anyone have any questions?" In pre-pandemic days the questioner could scan the faces of those in the room and see people shaking their head "no". In virtual meetings with cameras off that's not possible. To me, that's awkward, and not in the good way that Uma's character in Pulp Fiction means[0]. Are people even paying attention? Did they hear me? Are they checking their email or otherwise multi-tasking?
So I've begun responding verbally to such questions and to otherwise fill the void that's left when no one wants to turn on a camera.