SEONGHA RHEE (HANKUK UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES)
KULTIDA KHAMMEE (University of Phayao)
SUNHEE KANG (Kyungbook National University )
HONGLIAN JIN (GUANGXI NORMAL UNIVERSITY)

EAST MEETS WEST IN THE AIR: INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF ENGLISH AND ASIAN IN-FLIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS : INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND GLOBAL COMPETENCIES

[Background] Language reflects the culture and thus English and Asian languages are different as much as the English-speaking culture and Asian cultures are different. In-flight public announcements (PAs) constitute a unique genre because they are highly purposeful, communicating information critical for the safety of passengers, yet manifesting distinctive features due to the discourse-pragmatic conventions of the respective cultures. [Objectives and methods] This study explores in-flight PAs in three Asian languages, i.e., Chinese, Thai and Korean, in comparison with English, and attempts to identify the linguistic, discourse-pragmatic and rhetorical differences. These differences between Asian languages and English are investigated and discussed from intercultural and crosslinguistic perspectives, drawin upon bilingual PA texts used by the airlines in the three countries. [Findings] English PAs in the three countries are remarkably similar, but a comparative analysis of English and Asian language texts reveals aspects carrying theoretical significance. All Asian language PAs, in contrast with English PAs, exhibit a strong tendency towards the use of (i) the distancing strategies for formality, deference and politeness (‘negative politeness’, Brown & Levinson 1987) vis-à-vis neutral, egalitarian language; (ii) the communication frame of commercial transaction between the service providers and their clientele, vis-à-vis the frame of cooperative performance of a task in English; (iii) decorative, affect-oriented language vis-à-vis unembellished, information-oriented language (‘feelers’ vs. ‘thinkers’, Rhee 2023); (iv) collectivist language, backgrounding the speakers and addressees vis-à-vis individualist language, foregrounding the speakers and addressees; (v) language often involving redundant expressions vis-à-vis terse language without logically redundant and situationally superfluous expressions.

Seongha Rhee is Global Talent Initiative Professor at Faculty of Liberal Arts, Mahidol University, Thailand and Professor Emeritus of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin. The area of his primary research interest is grammaticalization from crosslinguistic, typological perspectives.

Kultida Khammee earned her Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Mahidol University, Thailand and has been teaching at University of Phayao, since 2012. She has published research articles in various international journals. Her primary research interests include developing teaching methodology and materials in TESOL, cultural studies, cognitive linguistics, and grammaticalization.

Sunhee Kang received her MA in Linguistics from the Three Gorges University and PhD in Linguistics from Kyungpook National University. Her research interests include Chinese literature and linguistics, with special focus on language change, cultural studies and intercultural pragmatics.

Honglian Jin received her Ph.D. in International and Comparative Education from Beijing Normal University and heads the Korean program at Guangxi Normal University. Her research interests are comparative education, teacher education, comparative-contrastive linguistics, intercultural communication and education policies.