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Ke Li (1159860)  Wan-Yi Liu (1225769)  Hao He (1229359) Mengyi Sun (1125460)  Jiexin Du (1062729)

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In general, researchers tend to agree that politeness is related to the emotional aspects of the interaction as well as the facework (Holmes, 2012). Scollon & Jones (2012) also claims that any communication has a risk to face, and people who exclude others may increase their independence whereas decreases their involvement. In other words, involvement can also be called positive politeness while the independence aspect of face stress more on individuality and grasp minimal assumptions about others. More specifically, the difference between speaking (or communicating) and silence (or non-communication) stands for the extreme continuum of involvement and independence.

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Stereotypes and prejudice attitudes:
Interactional sociolinguistics indicates that talks interpret not only the surface meaning in the sentence but also reflect cultural knowledge implicitly (Bailey, 2015). In other words, it is easy to see stereotype belief through interactive conversations in workplaces. Emily’s colleagues often used the words “American” to present the cultural difference followed by negative labels like fat and obesity and thus resulting in embarrassment and offensive situations. Besides, this way also indicates the stronger power by insulting language to present the higher position in the conversation.

A detailed explanation will be discussed in the social constructionist approach via a conversation between Emily and Paul.

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1. What conflict plots will you arrange in the play if you are the screenwriter of Emily in Paris when Emily enters a completely unfamiliar working environment? (What other difficulties do you anticipate Emily will face?)

2. What strategies do you use to quickly integrate into a group when you enter a new learning or working environment with a different cultural background, confronted with situations in which others on the team are unwilling to communicate? Which tool or method of rapport management do you believe is most effective in reducing cultural conflicts?

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Based on the language barrier, stereotypes and prejudice attitudes Emily encountered in the first episode of Emily in Paris, we discovered the following from analysisng the concept of face and im/politeness and the theoretical framework of the social constructionist approach:

Any communication will involve risks—face and politeness (Scollon & Jones, 2012).  These two dimensions are further explained by independence and involvement, which influence each other. Emily actively shares ideas, hoping for a higher level of involvement and showed positive politeness in the new working environment. However, due to language barriers and stereotypes, Patricia shows negative willingness towards communication, grants herself the highest level of independence and displayed negative politeness. These challenges prompted the development of rapport management at a later stage.

Workplace small talk, according to the social constructionist approach, is always a mix of different functions. The social constructionist approach is a great framework for understanding workplace talk in context, focusing on the use of language and viewing it as a dynamic process of change and development of social identities, social categories, and power relations/boundaries (Holmes, 2005). For example, Emily's colleagues frequently used derogatory language to assert their superiority and high position ​in the conversation.

Future research should concentrate on practical strategies for using language or communication to effectively implement rapport management in the workplace.

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Language Barriers:
Language Barrier is the primary conflict between Emily and her French colleagues. Emily could not speak French but came to Paris for work. Those colleagues recognised her as having poor French competence, and thus, resulting in subsequent discriminations and the exclusion of a rapport relationship from her. Based on linguistic penalty, it evaluated the expectation of the institutional communication not only the proficiency in French but also implicit cultural knowledge (Kirilova & Jo, 2018).

Piller (2017) mentioned that the international company has three linguistic options, professional translators, other colleagues who can speak both languages, or another common language, to facilitate the communication (p129). Emily adopted online translators and relied on several colleagues who spoke English to conduct the conversation. However, still occurred embarrassing situations due to misunderstandings, interactional difficulties and different communicative styles.

It will be analysed in the concept of face and im/politeness by two clips.

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Cultural challenges: Language barriers and Stereotypes & Prejudice attitudes 

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Cultural challenges: Language barriers and Stereotypes & Prejudice attitudes 

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Bailey, B. (2015). Interactional sociolinguistics. The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction, 1-15.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.

Kirilova, M., & Angouri, J. (2018). You are now one of us–negotiating ‘fitting in’ in the workplace. In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (pp. 345-360). Routledge.

Holmes, J. (2005). Story-telling at work: a complex discursive resource for integrating personal, professional and social identities. Discourse Studies, 7(6), 671–700.

Holmes, J. (2012). Politeness in intercultural discourse and communication. In C. Paulston, S, Kiesling, & E. Rangel (Eds.), The Handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 205-228). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Scollon, R., Scollon, S. B. K., & Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural communication. [electronic resource]: a discourse approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008). Face, (im)politeness and rapport. In Spencer-Oatey, H. (Eds.), Culturally speaking: Culture, communication and politeness theory (pp. 11-47). London, England: Continuum.

Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh University Press.

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Similarly, when Emily being voluble and invites co-workers to have lunch with her, all of her co-workers adopt linguistic strategies of independence, replying less words and giving Emily the option not to invite them again to reduce more opportunities to communicate and know each other. The scenario showing people who excludes Emily have lunch together further proof that they want to add more distance with Emily or adopting independence strategies.

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How is it like working in a very different culture? Emily in Paris is a good example to refer to. This famous TV series tells a story of an American girl who is a creative online business advertiser, is sent to a subsidiary in Paris to work there for some time. Emily is confident and ambitious when she sets out though she could not speak French, while things are different from her expectation. The new colleagues are not friendly to her, what's worse, they do not trust the marketing methods Emily raised. This reflects typical problems in adapting to transcultural working. The misunderstanding between them, the deep reason of colleagues' attitude, and Emily's strategies to deal with the unfavourable situation, which are also inspirational to us, are analysed here using transcultural theories.

We choose two aspects to analyse the stereotype and prejudice attitudes, language barrier experienced by Emily. From the individual aspect, we use face and politeness (Scollon & Jones, 2012) to analyse the awkward communication between Emily and Patricia. From the aspect of interpersonal relationships, the social constructionist approach is introduced. The dimensions and approaches reveal the true colours of interpersonal relationships, inspiring us how to achieve rapport management in transcultural conditions.

The analysis is based on the story of this TV series. Though it is not a real story, it still helps to provide us with a context where a possible conflict in transcultural communications may happen and enables us to deal with it in these conditions.

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The first informal conversation between Emily and the founder of Savoir, Paul, after Emily’s arrival at the company can be interpreted by the social constructionist concept. In this scene, both of them first greeted each other in a friendly manner. But then Paul jokingly asked Emily if she was here to teach his company some American tricks. He used the word trick to express his doubts about Emily’s working capacity in marketing. In response, Emily defended her professionalism by saying ‘I’m sure we can learn a lot from each other’, in a modest and polite way. The atmosphere of this conversation was soon cleared up when Paul started to share his experience in Chicago, where Emily came from. It seems to be just for social purposes, but it turned out to be an example of a communication of their power relationship and business identity. Specifically, Paul told Emily that he still remembered the local food, deep-dish pizza, from Chicago. Since it is a famous food in Chicago, Emily immediately joined in and tried to lighten the atmosphere. However, beyond her expectation, Paul turned to criticize the food from a French taste. On a surface level, this scene is just a casual conversation between colleagues unrelated to the work content, but from a social constructionist perspective, Paul successfully built an imperial image of himself in front of Emily, expressing his position as a company leader by looking down on Emily and denying her repeatedly.

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According to Holmes (2005), workplace talk serves both social and transactionally-oriented functions at the same time. It is a simultaneously happening of both exchange of business information and fostering of collegial relationships. Accordingly, the social constructionist approach to the analysis of language in context understands workplace talk as a dynamic process of change and development of social identities, social categories and group boundaries. Holmes (2005) argues that people's identities are constantly being constructed in communications, and different words and ways of speaking express specific parts of their identities to others. Specifically, participants of a workplace talk are more likely to construct their power and position within the organization. According to Fairclough (1989), it is those who are in positions of power who decide what is correct or appropriate in an interaction, and they also have "the capacity to determine to what extent . . . [their] power will be overtly expressed" (p.72).

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Identity construction at work: social constructionist approach

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Identity construction at work: social constructionist approach

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Based on this scenario, Emily would like to share some ideas with Patricia, showing a positive attitude towards communication. Considering Patricia could not understand English, Emily translates English into French using a translator app. Making sure she could understand what Emily wants, she shows negative willingness towards communication by saying no in French and runs away to keep silent or further communication room with Emily. Patricia grants herself the highest level of independence by having no communication with Emily. Moreover, the strong independence of Patricia also threatens Emily's face in terms of her positive attitudes towards involvement.