Rapport Management at the Table by YIBEI YANG

Rapport Management at the Table by YIBEI YANG https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x Seminar 1 - Group 2 Juzaili Rasis Jalaludin - 1144513 Wenjie Sun - 1099438 Wenwen Yu - 1244510 Yibei Yang - 1188480 en-us 2021-10-04 12:21:14 UTC 2026-02-16 00:02:11 UTC hello@padlet.com THE TEXT: Mr. Baseball at the table yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789395787 Background information:
The text is a 2-minute video clip capturing an American man named Jack having dinner with the father and grandparents of Japanese girlfriend named Hiroko. The transcultural etiquette encounter involved three generations with a high power difference regarding their positions in the given context in a 'private' zone. The interaction at the table was carried in the form of multimodal non-verbal communications, including intonation, gaze, squint, postures and facial expressions.

A gentle reminder: Please watch the video first and then go straight to the right

]]> 2021-10-04 12:29:31 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789395787 Scene 2 - Pouring the alcohol yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789431781 Hiroko’s father raised his empty cup in front of Hiroko, giving a sign to his daughter that he wanted her to fill up the cup. When Hiroko was preparing to pour alcohol for her father, Jack did the same thing as the father momentarily.

The host family is socialized in a way that the younger generation prioritizes the elders in pouring drinks to show respect, while Jack did not perceive his behavior as disrespectful as he did not share the same conventions or styles with the host family. When these different behavioral expectations fail to be reached, the threat to their rapport construction occurred because Jack and the host family held differing views on the nature of rights and obligations. The contrast between Jack expecting to be treated equally with other members of the host family and the host family expecting Jack to be served after the elderly member of the family leads to a rapport management failure. Power can be drawn upon to interpret the rapport threatening behavior. The father, the elder member of the family, has legitimate power that empowers him to expect Jack to self-pick certain etiquette. Rapport orientation may interpret Jack's rapport-threatening act in a different way. Instead of failing to self-pick certain etiquette rules, Jack is assumed to have a rapport-challenge orientation to deploy threatening strategies to claim equal standing or a positive self-image or repay the previous face-threatening event under which no one in the host family provided him, an out-group member, with etiquette instructions on having noodles properly.

]]> 2021-10-04 12:41:50 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789431781 KEY CONCEPTS: yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789440331 A series of transcultural incidents occurring in the video are primarily aligned with a concept in transcultural communication called rapport management (Spencer- Oatey, 2008), including its three factors: (1) identity face, (2) socialty rights and obligations, and (3) interactional goals.

(1)Face
Face is concerned with people's sense of worth, dignity and identity, and it is associated with issues such as respect, honor, status, reputation and competence (Spencer-Oatey, 2008). Generally speaking, face is the negotiated public image, mutually granted each other by participants in a communicative event (Scollon et al., 2012).

(2)Interactional Goal:
The goal of the interaction can be transactional, relational, or both. The different ways to deal with these depend on cultural, personal, and background factors (Fletcher, 2017). Managing interaction to achieve interaction goals varies from culture to culture, and when cultural differences are not recognized or poorly managed, they may threaten rapport (Fletcher, 2017).

(3) Sociality rights and obligations
People believe that they have a series of social rights and obligations. They usually realize these rights and obligations based on contractual agreements and requirements, explicit and implicit conceptualization of roles and positions, and behavioral conventions, Style, and agreement. People may feel offended when their expectations of what constitutes normal behavior in a particular interactive environment are not met. (Spencer-Oatey, 2008).

Power and Rapport orientation are the two key factors to strategy use in rapport management. Power refers to inequity in the given role relations. French and Raven (1959) presented legitimate power, referring to the inequalities in a context with one person having the rights to prescribe or expect certain things from another person. Rapport orientation guides rapport strategy use for a person to converge or diverge, involve or distance in a given context (Spencer-Oatey, 2008).

The rapport management is drawn on to interepret a non-verbal transcultural interaction. Non-verbal language conveys meanings and have a direct effect on how the parties conduct themselves during the interaction by showing distance or closeness, power or intimacy in the relationship (Riggio & Feldman, 2005)

]]> 2021-10-04 12:44:39 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789440331 MOTIVATION: yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789447763
We particularly chose this video as our text because initially we were hard-wired to overgeneralize and stereotype cultural differences between Japan and the USA when seeking an explanation for what occurred in the video. However, with the concepts of rapport (mis)management and the relevant strategies that may be employed for the (mis)management, we can come into an in-depth interpretation of the text. ]]> 2021-10-04 12:47:02 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789447763 Scene 3 - Chopsticks standing up in his bowl of noodles https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789545723 Jack stuck his chopsticks vertically in his bowl of noodles, which is a ritual reserved to honor the dead. This behavior elicited a mass angry rant from the Japanese family who felt insulted with no verbal explanation except that the man’s Japanese girlfriend muttered: ‘bad luck’. This reaction left Jack in a puzzle, asking ‘what!?’. The content of the message Jack signalled was interpreted as offensive and impolite, which threatens the Japanese family’s identity face and sociality right to expect that their table manners are to be acknowledged and upheld.

Two main factors were behind this sociopragmatic failure. The first factor concerns rapport orientation. Both parties presented no cooperative orientation but rapport neglect and challenge orientation. The Japanese family seemed to lack interest in the quality of relations with Jack but focused on their ‘self’ social values. They may intend to rebuff Jake and the girl’s romantic relationship. No remedial management strategy following the encounter can also be regarded as a lack of cooperative orientation. The second factor refers to power and distance. In the context of the scenario, the family possessed higher legitimate symbolic power embodied in their cultural norms, which explains why the family expected Jack to comply with their social values. Their expectation on Jack was presented in a intense way through shouting and angry expressions.

]]> 2021-10-04 13:15:05 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789545723 CONCLUSIONS https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789598136

Based on the analysis of the three non-verbal scenarios, positive rapport between Jack and the host family was threatened in two main ways through face-threatening and through right or obligations bidirectionally (Spencer- Oatey, 2002).

From the power perspective, the legitimate power regarding rites possessed by the host family underlies the multimodal non-verbal messages involved in the video (Bourdieu, 1992). The embodied power allowed the family to ignore Jack’s difference in socialization and to overemphasize their identity and social rights to expect the table manners of their communities to be upheld.

From the community of practice perspective, Jack attempted to be approved to switch from a newcomer to an insider (Wenger, 1998) though imitating what the host family do at the table. This attempt was intentionally or unintentionally hampered by the Japanese family’s failure to meet Jack’s positive face needs and embrace his difference in socialization. Rapport orientation the two parties hold can explain the failure practice for rapport management. The ‘making slurping sound’ part showed that Jake’s initial mindset was to be involved in the community he wished to join, meaning that he held a rapport enhancement orientation initially. On the other hand, the two parties may both hold rapport neglect or challenge orientation, having no intention to maintain the positive rapport in the three scenarios (Spencer-Oatey, 2002).

Since little attention was paid to rapport management in contexts other than workplace settings, the analysis of the non-verbal interactions may have opened up further study on what constraint rapport management strategies are used in a transcultural household across different generations and how to enhance or maintain their rapport management. Apart from power and rapport orientation playing as factors to strategies used, there is also room for future study regarding other factors to decoding non-verbal interactions with implicit features (Wharton, 2009).

]]> 2021-10-04 13:28:45 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789598136 CONTEXTUAL FACTORS OF THE VIDEO CLIP: yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789640934 2021-10-04 13:39:07 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789640934 Scene 1 - Eating noodles with "noise" yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789672900 The highlight here is Jack slurping while having noodles after an observation of the host family who made some sounds in constant rhythm like "zoo zoo". Jack showed a confused expression initially. However, when Jack started to imitate the other's behavior, he ate it too loud and with long noise.

Three factors of rapport management theory could be used to explain this scene. Initially, the positive face needs of Jake and the host family were both threatened. Jake overemphasized his positive face needs by showing strong desire for approval which took him to simply copying others' behavior. This imitation elicited confronting non-verbal messages from the host family members. They stared and squinted at Jake, feeling their identity face was threatened by an out-group member.

The second factor, sociality rights and obligations, also explained the behavior. For example, Jack and the host family hold different views on eating noodles with noise as they are socialized into groups sharing different cultural values regarding etiquette. However, Hiroko's family did not consider Jack's difference related to how he was socialized into table manners, infringing Jake's right to be treated equally.

Regarding the third factor which is interactional goals, it could be inferred that Jack's goal is to make a good impression on his girlfriend's family and build a positive rapport. However, judging from the reaction of Hiroko's family, their "wants" remain as non-verbal messages are featured with implicitness. Therefore, one explanation could be that the family held a rapport challenge orientation to test whether Jack has the qualities to be a son-in-law.

]]> 2021-10-04 13:47:21 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789672900 INTERPRETATION & ANALYSIS: yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789681371 The video is divided into three parts (scene 1, 2, 3) based on three highlights over the dinner for further analysis (as follows).]]> 2021-10-04 13:49:14 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789681371 Discussion questions wensun1 https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789722829 Welcome to add your response and comment here:

Have you ever had such an experience that made you feel that you don’t know how to maintain rapport in a similar context?
What could Jake’s girlfriend scaffold for him to gain social capital in the context? (Jake's girlfriend is the only person who can speak English in the family)

]]> 2021-10-04 13:59:54 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1789722829 WELCOME TO OUR EXHIBITION!!!! yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1791593059 2021-10-05 03:13:11 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1791593059 yibeiy https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1791597958 2021-10-05 03:14:57 UTC https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1791597958 References https://padlet.com/yibeiy/7wf3g5gakeqyr75x/wish/1791754483
Bourdieu, P. (1992). Language and symbolic power. Harvard university press.

Fletcher, J. (2017). Rapport management. In The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 77-88). Routledge.

French, J., & Raven, B. (1959). The Bases of Social Power. In Studies in Social Power. MI: Institute for Social Research.

Riggio, R. E., & Feldman, R. S. (2005). Applications of nonverbal communication. Psychology Press.

Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008). Culturally Speaking Second Edition: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory (2nd ed.). Continuum.

Wharton, T. ( 2009). Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication. Cambridge University Press

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge University Press.

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