Re: English for Asian readers

[Stewart Lindsay <slindsay -at- WATARTS -dot- UWATERLOO -dot- CA>]

On Tue, 21 Dec 1993, Karen Kay wrote:

> for you to do so. (The old 'nigger' question.) I wouldn't say that it's
> very rude; not as rude as, say, blowing your nose. But it *DOES* reflect

Even blowing your nose and the like being impolite is context dependent. I
cannot count the number of times I saw (and most definitely heard) people
work up a good spit in China (I spent 3 years there). And these were not
just "country bumpkins--my former mother-in-law, a university professor,
would drop one on her living room floor (cement) and I saw several well
dressed people do the same on the carpets of high-class tourist hotels.

And as for refering to "you", my experience was that direct
"confrontation" is generally avoided. I often saw people seemingly talking
into thin air on the trains in Japan; on closer inspection, they were
conversing with the person next to them, but rarely ever faced them.
I did a paper on contrastive rhetoric last year and used the example of
the expression of love to compare Eastern and Western ways. Where we might
say "I love you", in general, the Chinese would more likely use something
like "Our love...". Rather than "confront", they opt for inclusionary,
more indirect language. (And on this matter, I do speak from personal
experience. ;>

> centric geographic terms. Check out the "Far Eastern Economic Review".
> It's sort of an Asian "Newsweek", published in Hong Kong. They are very
> good in the way that they refer both to the area and the people involved.)

The FEER is one of the best magazines I've yet to read. More than
Newsweek, it's like a region specific Economist, with often quite biting
humour.

Cheers,

Stewart Lindsay
Language & Professional Writing
University of Waterloo
Canada