Blue Paint and White Underwear: Miscommunication and Humour in Intercultural Contexts

Mabel Victoria: Blue paint and White Underwear

Blue Paint and White Underwear: Miscommunication and Humour in

Intercultural Contexts

Pre-publication draft. Not for citation and circulation. For citation, please refer to the final version

to appear in Singh, Jaspal, Argyro Kantara and Dorottya Cserző (eds.) (forthcoming) Downscaling

Culture: Revisiting Intercultural Communication. Newcastle" Cambridge Scholars.

Abstract

When two individuals from different cultural backgrounds fail to achieve mutual

understanding, the accusatory finger is almost always automatically pointed at ‘cultural

difference’. Indeed it is a commonly held notion that interactions between speakers from different

cultural backgrounds are susceptible to miscommunication. This paper seeks to put forward a

dynamic and multi-faceted view of intercultural miscommunication that forces us to re-evaluate

the role that culture plays in the interaction and second, to illuminate an aspect of

miscommunication that has often been obscured—that is, what happens after the

miscommunication episode. Methodological and analytic inspiration derives from linguistic

ethnography combining insights from discourse analysis and ethnography. The data suggest that

‘miscommunication’ between participants did not lead to a communication breakdown but instead,

created a productive site for negotiating relationships.

Intercultural Miscommunication Humour Culture Discourse

1. Introduction

The overarching aim of this paper is to suggest a dynamic and multi-dimensional view of

intercultural miscommunication. Using excerpts drawn from a data base of 150 hours of

audiorecorded interactions, the spoken data were collected via participant observation. The

research site was an adult education class for Canadian immigrants at a college in western Canada.

There were seven participants—from India, Jordan/Palestine, Bangladesh, Haiti, Congo and the

Philippines—from seven different linguistic backgrounds, so English as a lingua franca was used

as the language of communication. The specific excerpts analysed in this paper show the


participants in humorous interactions while they try to establish mutual understanding and resolve

miscommunication. I wish to put forward an argument that intercultural miscommunication,

depending on how the involved participants repair it, can be productive and lead to positive and

desirable outcomes (Linell 1995; Coupland, Wiemann and Giles1991). In line with this volume’s

theme of exploring the multiple scales of culture, a discourse-analytic approach is strategically

employed not only to examine the data but also to contribute in pushing the methodological

agenda of analysing intercultural communication.

Miscommunication has been conceptualised as a “potential breakdown point” or

“turbulence” in conversation (Mauranen 2006: 128), a type of “troubled or problematic talk”

(Banks, Ge and Baker 1991: 104) or any problem or misunderstanding in interaction (Coupland et

al. 1991). Miscommunication and misunderstanding, used synonymously in this paper, refers to a

“communication incident in which the listener interprets an utterance in a different way from what

the speaker has intended” (Chiang 2009: 380) resulting in “discrepancies between parties in the

interpretation or understanding of what is said or done in dialogue” (Linell 1995: 176-177). In

spoken discourse, misunderstanding can be triggered by a number of factors such as unclear

expressions, mishearing, misperception of an utterance, misattributions of intentions, divergent

interactional and topical management strategies, knowledge gaps, noise, and physical environment

(Linell 1995; Bazzanella & Damiano 1999; Tzanne 2000).

The undesirable and negative outcome of a misunderstanding can be “a matter of transient

annoyance or it can inhibit life-satisfaction” (Coupland et al. 1991: 3); it can also lead to

frustration, resentment and hurt feelings (Tzanne 2000). It can mean being rejected at a job

interview (Campbell and Roberts 2007), or being perceived as rude and impolite (Gumperz 1982).

Consequently, when one is misunderstood too often it could lead to diminished self-esteem

(Tannen 1984). The negative consequences of errors in understanding cannot be underestimated.

In intercultural studies, miscommunication is often viewed as an inevitable consequence of

cultural differences. A widely held notion is that since people have different ways of conveying

information and interpreting experiences, intercultural communication becomes very susceptible to

misunderstanding. As Liddicoat (2009: 116) points out, when speakers do not share the same

cultural assumptions in terms of how language is used in the construction of the social world,

misinterpretation is heightened. Along the same lines, Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez (2003:

301) posit that “the ability to interpret a message is a direct function of the listener’s home

background, his peer group experiences and his education. Differences in background can lead to

misinterpretation of messages.” The use of informal language in specific settings, for example,

may be seen as impolite and disrespectful in some cultural contexts; in others it may signal


friendliness and rapport. Arguably, since language is one of the principal means by which culture

is learnt, produced and reproduced, people from different cultures will likely have different ways

of how they ‘do’ things with words. Indeed, according to Gass and Varonis (1991: 122), when

interlocutors come from different linguistic backgrounds, for example in native–non-native

speaker contexts, the interaction can be “unstable if not downright shaky”. Other culturally-

mediated factors identified by scholars that contribute to the shakiness of intercultural

communication are differences in the interpretation of silence (Nakane 2006), differences in

pragmatic and sociocultural orientation (Gumperz 1982; Gumperz 2001; Gass and Varonis 1991;

Scollon and Scollon2001; Thomas 1984; Zamborlin 2007).

After a brief review of related studies on intercultural (mis-)communication, it is worth

clarifying how the notion of ‘culture’ is being deployed in this paper. I adopt Spencer-Oatey’ s

(2000: 4) view of culture as “a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs, behavioural conventions and basic

assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people, and that influence each member’s

behaviour and each member’s interpretation of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behaviour.” This is

a ‘working’ definition which is used with caution in this study and is being deployed here as a

starting point. This starting point takes it for granted that culture is both fixed and fluid; while

one’s cultural identity is not permanently fixed, it is argued that “specific structures of race and

culture, class and caste, gender and sexuality, environment and history” cannot be easily discarded

(Clifford 1999: 12). There is a constant and complex interplay between structure and agency in a

way that previously learnt practices and communication conventions from one’s cultural

background are not always necessarily reproduced; they are sometimes contested, manipulated,

adapted and discarded. In other words, individuals are not just passive bearers of a stable set of

characteristics and identities (Angouri 2010: 9).

1.1 Downscaling Culture

Singh’s theoretical note in the current volume has already presented various perspectives of

downscaling culture so I shall dispense with a review of literature on the various notions of

downscaling. In this particular study, ‘downscaling’ culture is approached in two ways. First, by

privileging the analysis of naturally occurring discourse between two or more participants, we are

able to scrutinise a dynamic and moment to moment view of the interaction. As such, culture, as

manifested (or not) in the talk cannot be fixed nor pinned down, and is continually in motion. The

turn-by-turn fine grained analysis foregrounds the interplay of variables such as the setting, the

speakers and their relationship with each other including their interactional history, the use of

“contextualization conventions” (Gumperz 1982) and so on. By not presupposing that cultural

difference is automatically the default explanation in the misunderstanding, we are able to arrive at


a more complex and comprehensive analysis. Second, downscaling is also considered in this paper

as ‘downplaying’ (see also Wilczek-Watson, this volume) which privileges a contextually situated

analysis so that the cultural difference between speakers is considered to be in constant interface

with aspects of a person’s identity repertoire such as example gender, age, socio-economic status,

educational attainment, marital status and religion. In other words, cultural difference may or not

be relevant in the interaction.

2. Data Collection and Research Context

The naturally occurring data in the form of spoken interactions were collected via

participant observation with audiorecording. The data collection process took place over a 12-

week period between September and November 2009. At the end of the ethnographically informed

fieldwork, the data gathered consisted of 150 hours of audio recordings of classroom interaction,

eight hours of participant semi-structured interviews, and research site artefacts (classroom

materials, handouts, textbooks, and a 255-page vademecum on Business English). There were

photographs and videorecordings taken by the students during the 12-week period, copies of which

were voluntarily given to me as part of the data base. I kept a research journal (67 pages of

electronic entries) and observation notes (seven 200-page spiral notebooks) throughout the data

collection period.

2.1 Research Site and Participants

The data for this study was collected in a western Canadian college which ran a

government funded programme called the Employment Preparation Programme for Immigrants

(EPPI, hereafter). The EPPI is an eight-month programme designed for immigrants who have post-

secondary education or skills training from their country of origin. Its main goal is to prepare

newcomers to the country to gain employment. It consisted of 12 weeks of classroom instruction

and 20 weeks of work experience placement, a type of on-the-job training. Classroom instruction

consists of job safety skills, interpersonal and intercultural skills, English for Employment, career

preparation, computer training and other job-related certificate courses. Data for this study were

collected from the classroom phase of the programme.

There were a total of seven participants; they were from the Republic of the Congo, Haiti,

Bangladesh, Jordan, the Philippines, and India (2 students). Participants were between 25 and 50

years old. All were non-native speakers of English and came from seven different linguistic

backgrounds – Lingala, French, Bangla, Filipino, Hindi, Punjabi and Arabic. Three teachers, all

born-and-bred in Canada, and a job placement facilitator, an immigrant from Colombia, were


involved in the programme delivery. Classes took place five days a week from 9:00 AM to 3:30

PM during the classroom component of the 12-week programme.

2.2 Methods of Data Collection

As a participant observer, I was embedded in the research setting. I shared an office with

two of the programme staff. I attended the classes with the immigrant participants. I was of the

same age group, a multilingual speaker (of Tagalog, English, Spanish and German) and was also

an immigrant to Canada from the Philippines, so establishing rapport was facilitated. Having some

commonalities with the participants helped me to gain their trust and to establish rapid intimacy. In

addition to attending the classes with the participants, I had serendipitous interactions with them

such as during lunch and coffee breaks and also while walking to the bus station together.

To record spoken discourse, I used two digital recorders, one placed on the teacher’s desk

and the other one close to me as a back-up. The audio recorded data has limitations. Firstly,

although the recording equipment produced high quality recordings, it obviously did not have the

capability to isolate parallel conversations. When the students worked in groups in the same room,

it was very difficult to understand sections of the recording, and oftentimes they made

understanding more challenging by frequent overlapping speech. Secondly, two of the participants

spoke very softly so it was difficult to make out some of the words they said. Fortunately, I was

able to ask them to listen to some of the more problematic sections (overlapping speech, unclear

expressions) of the recordings to confirm that I had transcribed them accurately.

I also conducted three interviews with the students and teachers. The first interview was

conducted in week four, and then in week eight and then during week 12 of the class. Interview

data were used to validate analysis and interpretation of classroom interactions.

2.3 Methodological Inspiration

My focus on the analysis of situated language in use is aligned with linguistic ethnography

(see Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra 2004; Rampton 2007; Tusting and

Maybin 2007; Rampton 2010) which draws from the combined insights of linguistics and

ethnography. Research rigor is maintained by combining the ‘formal, structured tools of language

description’ (Tusting and Maybin 2007: 579) and open-ended, contextually bound insights offered

by ethnography.

The level of transcription detail (see Appendix A for transcription conventions) used is

based on what was ‘good enough for the purpose at hand’ (Cameron 2001: 39). Although I did not

adopt the level of detail often used in Conversation Analysis (see Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson


1974), I produced a relatively fine-grained transcription, indicating features such as pauses,

overlapping speech and emphasis that informed my interpretation of utterances.

3. Data Analysis: Pun gone awry, ‘failed’ joke and misinterpreted joke

The participants of the EPPI programme, including the teachers, enjoy a good laugh. The

audiorecorded data contain many instances of joking, teasing and playfulness. From communities

of practice perspective (Lave and Wenger 1991), it can be claimed that humour was very much a

part of the EPPI participants’ repertoire of sustained mutual engagement and shared ways of doing

things. As a participant observer, this made me very curious because the perception of the funny-

ness of a situation is often predicated on shared knowledge and values (Brown and Levinson

1987). So, I decided to locate instances of humour that show the participants negotiating mutual

understanding.

Humour, in this study, refers to utterances “identified by the analyst, on the basis of

paralinguistic, prosodic, and discoursal clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and

perceived to be amusing by at least some participants” (Holmes and Marra 2002: 1693). Humour

across cultures can be particularly challenging. What might be funny for one culture might be

perceived as offensive or insulting for another. But most importantly, the success of humorous

utterances largely depends on the shared background knowledge and values between the

interlocutors (Brown and Levinson 1987: 124). Hearers and listeners need the same interpretative

framework or a common cultural script in order to ‘get’ the humour. For instance, formulaic

‘knock-knock’ jokes require that the second speaker needs to say ‘who’s there?’ in the next turn

for the interaction to work.

The examples analysed in this section show how the speakers’ attempt at humour can lead to

miscommunication. The first two excerpts show the interactants jointly working to achieve mutual

understanding after several turns of repair. The third excerpt is an example of how what was meant

to be a joke, was interpreted as an insult, thus leading to a conflict situation.

The interaction in the excerpt below is between Kate and Elias (Eli). Kate is the Canadian

computer instructor and a native speaker of English; Elias was born in Jordan and he grew up

there; his mother tongue is Arabic. The setting is in the computer class. Kate advised one of the

students to apply for a new password and she says, “when you get it changed you tell us okay?”

Elias makes a play on “tell us” to “Telus”. The transcription below starts off with line 22 because

it is a part of a longer interaction (that starts with line 1). Some sections that are deemed not

especially relevant to the focus of analysis are not included due to space limitations.


Excerpt 1 Tell us/Telus1: pun gone awry

[…]

22 Eli oh just I say - I would like to say (.) when erm whatever happens,

23 TELus or Rogers?2

24 Kate to what? (looks puzzled)

25 Eli wh-what happens Telus or Rogers?

26 Kate what happens to? (.) (xxx) - I didn't get it I'm sorry

27 Mab (laughs)

28 Eli you say, you say whatever happens, tell us, I say Telus or Rogers

29 Kate tell us, yes

30 Eli I say Telus or Rogers,

31 Kate okay, okay tell us (2.0)

32 Eli did you did you get it?

33 Kate tell us anyway?

34 Eli no, Telus or Rogers

35 Kate I- I- I don't understand the last word,

36 Eli ROGERS

37 Kate can you spell that for me?

38 Eli yeah! R-o-g-e-r-s!

39 Kate oh Rogers!

40 Eli yeah!

41 Kate okay, all right. (.) I don't understand but that's okay.

42 Eli (laughs quietly) okay, I explain to you,

43 Kate o::kay,

44 Eli so you said tell us,

45 Telus we have the company Telus and we have Rogers!

46 Telus! [so Rogers Telus]

47 Kate [o::h JOKE!]

48 Eli xxx? //

49 Kate // Telus, Rogers, oh FUNNY man! (laughs)

Elias initiates a play frame (Bateson, 1972) in line 22 suggesting a pun on ‘tell us’ and

‘Telus’. Kate signals a mishearing “to what?” in line 24. Elias responds with an attempted repair in

line 25 (wh-what happens Telus or Rogers). Kate obviously unaware of the word play on ‘tell us’

1 Telus is a telecommunications company in Canada.

2 Rogers is another telecommunications company which is a direct competitor of Telus.


reacts to Elias’s repair with a meta-comment “I didn’t get it I’m sorry” (line 26). In lines 28 to 41,

both speakers go through an exchange of clarification and requests for more clarification. Kate

says “okay, all right. (.) I don't understand but that's okay” in line 41 which might be interpreted

as an attempt to preserve rapport with Elias. Indeed, her continued requests for clarification might

be seen as a face-threat to Elias by implying that he is not very good at conveying meaning. The

asymmetrical relationship between teacher and student, between native speaker and non-native

speaker all contribute to the sensitivity of establishing mutual understanding. After several more

lines of collaborative negotiation of meaning, Kate finally realises the play on words in line 47

(“o::h JOKE!”), and then calls Elias a ‘FUNNY man’ in line 49. It seems therefore that Kate

finally ‘got’ the joke and is amused by it.

After the ‘tell us/Telus’ joke, Kate proceeded to check on other students and helped them

with their computer-related tasks. A few minutes later, she comes up to Elias with her own joke,

shown below:

Excerpt 2 Blue paint

[…]

97 Kate I have a good one for you Elias!

98 Eli yeah,

99 Kate what is (.) red and smells like blue paint?

100 Eli what is red, (coughs)

101 Kate what is red and smells like blue paint?

102 Eli what?

103 Kate BLUE paint.

104 Eli blue PINK?

105 Kate blue PAINT, paint you know when you [paint] (makes painting gestures)

106 Eli [yeah yeah]

107 PAINT, yeah PAINT!

108 Kate yeah.

109 Eli (3.0) e::rm er::m (looks up, as if thinking of the answer)

110 Kate (laughs) RED paint!

111 Eli (laughs) okay yeah

Kate initiates a humorous frame with Elias (line 97) and asks him “what is red and smells

like blue paint?” (line 99). Elias (line 100) reacts by trying to repeat the question, interrupted by

coughing, which could potentially “flag” (Wagner and Firth 1997: 325) a problem in

understanding. It is of course also possible that Elias simply needed to clear his throat so the


coughing does not necessarily have to be seen as discursively significant. Kate repeats the question

in line 101 but Elias still seems unclear (line 102, “what?”) so she clarifies “BLUE paint” in line

103. Kate’s stress on the word “BLUE”, said louder than the surrounding utterance, seems to have

been understood by Elias correctly. However, he then mishears “paint” for “PINK” (line 104).

Kate offers a quick and effective repair (“blue PAINT”, line 105) by putting emphatic stress on the

misheard work and by using an accompanying ‘painting’ gesture. It took several turns of repair for

Kate to clarify the mishearing before Elias finally demonstrates understanding and laughs after

Kate gives the punchline “RED paint!” (line 110). The word “RED” is given emphatic stress since

an uptake on the repair of the word “PAINT” has already been established by Elias in line 107.

In spite of the shakiness of the exchange, Kate and Elias were still able to enjoy each other’s

attempts at humour. In the next example, an utterance that was intended as a joke by the teller was

not perceived as such by the listener, resulting in hurt feelings. As Schegloff (1987: 203) points

out, “mistaking one action for another” can cause trouble in interaction. Utterances meant to be

non-serious/joking, for whatever reason, maybe interpreted by the hearer as serious, and can result

in a misunderstanding (ibid.). Indeed one of the most common causes of misunderstanding is

misattribution of intention (Sacks, cited in Schegloff 1987: 206).

The main speakers in the examples below are Elias (Eli) whom we met previously in the

“tell us-/TELUS “and “blue paint” excerpts. The other participant is Faisal (Fai) from Bangladesh,

who is a native speaker of Bangla. In the interaction below, Tom, the teacher had asked all the

students to give Faisal some tips on interviewing techniques as he was about to leave for a job

interview. Elias advises him to wear white underwear. It was intended to be a joke but it was

interpreted by Faisal as an insult.

Excerpt 3 White underwear

6 Eli I just erm I have an idea for (laughs)

7 Tom UH-o::h

8 Eli (still laughing) because

9 that he should know (.) wear a white underwear (2.0) (laughs)

[…]

15 Eli because it is medical (.) and supposed to be in WHITE in WHITE, okay

Elias, above, starts laughing (line 6) even before he finishes what he wanted to say. Tom’s

reaction in line 7 (UH-o::h) indicates that he probably inferred the forthcoming utterance from

Elias as non-serious. Since Faisal was applying for a laboratory facility, Elias assumed that he

would need to wear a white laboratory coat, thus the justification for the white underwear to match

the colour of the laboratory coat (line 15).


After the other students had had the opportunity to give interview tips to Faisal, the teacher

called for a 15-minute coffee break. As soon as he left the room, Faisal got up from his seat and

walked towards Elias. Throughout the encounter below, Faisal looked visibly upset, his whole

body trembled while he spoke and he wagged his index finger at Elias. The utterances by Faisal

below were said in a forceful, aggressive tone of voice. He stood in front of Elias who remained

seated in his chair.

43 Fai xxx, one fourth of the country you have to manage,

44 one FOURTH of the country, HERE we are NEW that’s our problem

45 but we have MA::NY ABILITIES

46 xxx and you know xxx it is very difficult to manage that (.) okay?

47 Eli Faisal (in a pleading voice) // (remains seated)

48 Fai // we are NOT a BOY, we are NOT a BABY! (.) (trembling voice)

49 Eli THAT is what I'm telling,

50 Fai We are not a BABY anymore (angry tone) //

51 Eli // that is what I'm telling

52 Fai xxx I have to make 1,000 questionnaire xxx, ONE THOUSAND!

53 Eli FAISAL - this - this is what I told this morning,

54 Fai okay? yeah?

55 Eli okay! //

56 Fai // I HAVE TO MAKE ONE THOU::SAND QUESTIONNAIRE!

57 Eli yeah, ONE THOUSAND, so xxx all the BEST for YOU

58 this is what I TOLD before //

Faisal’s lines 43-44 about managing one fourth of the country and lines 52 and 56 about

making one thousand questionnaires might be obscure to an outsider who does not know the

history of the group. Faisal was actually referring to his previous role as a high ranking

government official in his country where he was responsible for one fourth of the country’s

geographic area. His reference to ‘one thousand questionnaires’ is a short hand for evoking a story

he had told in class, part of his self-introduction in the first week. He reported that he managed a

survey that entailed the distribution and analysis of about a thousand questionnaires. The mention

of very loaded expressions can be considered as a form of intertextuality where the words uttered

evoke a history of use as the listener is forced to search for meaning in the ongoing interaction by

bringing to recall past interaction to interpret the present.

What are the affordances for Faisal in pointing out what he had successfully done before his

immigration to Canada? My interpretation is that he was creating an implicature which can be


recovered from his own words “we are NOT a BOY, we are NOT a BABY!” (line 48). In other

words, he might have been insulted being given a childish advice about what colour underwear to

wear, which is something not congruent with his achievements. The emphatic stress on NOT a

BOY and NOT a BABY supports this interpretation. Not to be overlooked is how Elias handled

the confrontation above (lines 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57 and 58). His utterances suggest a desire to

avoid disagreement and a convergence to Faisal’s view of the situation.

The following morning after the incident, Elias apologised to Faisal about the misunderstood

‘white underwear’ joke. It was a public apology as he did it in front of the whole class. After

asking permission from the teacher if he could say a few words, he proceeded to do some ‘damage

control’ (Holmes and Marra 2004).

Excerpt 4 I’m sorry

[…]

10 Eli so so just I want to mention that the erm ADVICE yesterday

11 erm maybe my DEAR (.) colleague here erm (.) Faisal

12 maybe he misunderstood me (.) it was

13 yesterday when I - erm maybe it wasn't so (.) good for me

14 when I made erm the recommendation, you remember,

15 when you start a new job xxx here I thought that erm

16 my FRIEND erm Faisal took it erm as personal

17 erm really I remember something

18 when I make some comments

19 maybe it was, but it wasn't meant (2.0) it wasn't really

20 it WASN'T meant and you know that

21 for me I'm so SENSITIVE (.)

22 I would like the people, to treat the people that exactly

23 that erm th-they treat me, I like sometime joking

24 but I'm so sensitive I don't like to hurt other

25 any feelings of anyBODY so if you (.) misunderstand

26 Fai [no, no] (in an embarrassed voice)

27 Eli [me] I don't -

Elias immediately admits his mistake (line 4) and clarifies that it was a joke (line 6). He

invokes in-group membership (line 11, “my DEAR colleague Faisal”) and line 16 (my FRIEND

Faisal), with emphatic stress on DEAR and FRIEND, as a conflict management device aimed at

invoking solidarity. Note that Faisal says ‘no, no’ (line 26) when Elias says, “I like sometime


joking but I'm so sensitive I don't like to hurt any feelings of anyBODYso if you (.)

misunderstand…” (lines 24, 25).Faisal’s utterance suggests a delayed preferred response to an

adjacency pair called “apology-minimization” in Conversation Analysis (see Sacks et al. 1974). In

an apology sequence, it is dispreferred if one replies ‘yes’ to a first part sequence of ‘I’m sorry.’

The preferred reply would be ‘No problem’ or ‘Don’t worry about it.’

28 Eli I DIDN'T mean I mean any, ANYthing to harm you

29 Fai [no, no no] (looks embarrassed)

30 Eli [and if] I did it I'm SORRY,

31 Fai no, no, [no] (smiling, looks a bit embarrassed)

32 Vely [it's good it's good, no no]

Above, Elias admits that he did not mean to harm Faisal in line 28 and apologises (line 30).

Line 32 by Faisal overlaps with Vely’s who provided him some friendly support. Vely, from Haiti,

sits beside Faisal. His ‘no no’ in line 32 appears to indicate that he did not want Faisal to stop Elias

from apologising. Some of the transcriptions are not included here in the interest of space

limitations, but his rather extended apology included references to the potluck lunches with the

group and the special relationship within the team. Elias then ends his apology with a piece of

advice – ask for clarification right away; do not wait till the next day:

[…]

61 Eli xxx if you misunderstand it's better not keep it until dark,

62 just ask for clari-clarification make it clear

In the end, miscommunication seemed to have been repaired and friendly relations

restored. Of analytic interest is how Faisal and Elias left out any explicit mention of the ‘white

underwear’ and yet they, including the rest of the class, understood what was being talked about.

In his apology, Elias evoked shared reference by simply referring to it as “that ADVICE

yesterday” (line 10). The emphatic stress on the word “ADVICE” suggests that what was said was

intended to be taken as a piece of advice, not as an insult, which was how Faisal interpreted it. It is

worth noting that giving advice has evolved into a form of showing care for the EPPI participants

(see Victoria 2011). In other words, Elias can be seen to be evoking the positive connotations of

the word “ADVICE”. A further interpretation is that he might be using an “off record” strategy,

which means to “say something that is either more general […] or actually different from what one

means” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 211). If this interpretation is correct then we may assume that

both Elias and Faisal were attending to each other’s face needs by leaving out information and

using ambiguous/indirect language to show respect (Goffman 1967: 12; Holtgraves 2002: 37).


This preservation of comity is an aspect of intercultural (mis)communication that is often

overlooked (Victoria 2014).

After what turned out to be an offensive joke, Elias made the apology without mention of

white underwear which was the source of the conflict in the first place. When Faisal confronted

him, he used supportive and solidary language to demonstrate his desire to avoid disagreement

(Aston 1993). He had to recover the most plausible interpretation for “1,000 questionnaires” and

“managing one-fourth of the country” by relying on previous interactional history with Faisal. The

use of “off-record” strategy and sophisticated use of indirect language suggest intent to minimise

face threat. Indeed, there is a need to look at what follows the misunderstanding to see if it has in

some ways ‘restructured’ social relations between interactants.

4. Concluding Discussion

4.1 Tell us/Telus and Blue Paint

The data extracts showed different levels of miscommunication. Excerpts 1 and 2 were

simpler cases of misunderstanding. They were minor glitches which were eventually resolved by

the participants through sheer persistence, patience and active collaboration. The interactions

between Kate and Elias can be seen as a case of ‘failed’ humour at least in the beginning of the

interaction. Both tried their hand at using language creatively through wordplay and a funny

riddle. Although the amusement and laughter were eventually achieved, the rather lengthy

exchange involving repeated requests for clarification give a shaky texture and unpredictable

quality to the encounter. This lends support to Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz’s (2007: 24)

observation that differences of discourse conventions make it difficult for interactants to

synchronise their interpretation of what is going on. According to Gumperz (1982: 1), speaker and

listener must know what type of ‘social activity’ is going on before they can jointly manage the

interaction. Is the activity intended to be a chat, a formal request for information or a humorous

frame? Humour relies on how speakers set up their actions as either serious or play; once the

hearers realise that the speaker is creating a play frame, then whatever the speakers say will likely

elicit laughter (Norrick 1993). If the interacting partners come from different cultural and

linguistic backgrounds, the lack of common social interaction norms needs to be taken into

consideration and in such situations, having the ability to sustain the interaction in spite of

ambiguity can be crucial. As the excerpts show, Kate and Elias were unfazed after the first attempt

with the “Tell us/Telus joke” as they engaged in the equally effortful second interaction in the

“Blue paint” episode.


While establishing understanding took an active and consistent effort on the part of both

instructor and student, the more noteworthy aspect of the interaction was the fact that they made a

joint effort to get to a point where they could enjoy a laugh, albeit delayed. Thus, if excerpt 1 “Tell

us/Telus” and excerpt 2 “Blue Paint” were to be analysed solely on the basis of

miscommunication, we would have overlooked some valuable insights on intercultural

communication. We might fail to notice the manner in which both speakers used accommodation

strategies – repeating misheard words, making ‘painting’ gestures, and requesting clarification – to

come to a point where they reached sufficient understanding to recognise the humour (Norrick

2007: 391). Just because a pun or a funny riddle was not delivered as intended does not mean that

the listeners did not enjoy or appreciate it (Bell 2007).

Humour across cultures may be especially susceptible to specific challenges (Bell 2006).

Failure to elicit laughter at humour can be face-threatening for the teller (Bell 2009) and

embarrassing for the listener who might feel humiliated for not understanding. Mishearing,

accents, limited linguistic proficiency and differences in previously learnt conventions on how and

when to set up a joke or the notion of what is funny/not funny can turn a supposed one-liner into a

lengthy negotiation of meaning. But despite the wobbliness of the conversation exchange, the data

suggest that the participants value the enjoyment they experience from interacting with each other

and were indeed willing to continue negotiating until mutual understanding was achieved.

4.2 White Underwear and I’m Sorry

Excerpt 3 was a well-intended and light-hearted comment that did not sit too well with the

person who happened to be the butt of the joke. Excerpt 4, a necessary sequel to excerpt 3, took

the form of an elaborate public apology. Is cultural difference to blame in the conflict talk that

followed the “white underwear” advice? Was there anything about being a Bangladeshi (Faisal) or

being Jordanian (Elias) that made the participants react as they did? This macro-context line of

analysis seems unproductive because it is based on the assumption that the two participants are

representatives of their respective cultures. We would have to take for granted that Elias who

introduces himself as a Palestinian was actually born and raised in Jordan and possesses a

Jordanian passport. Which macro-culture would he fall under – Palestine or Jordan? What about

Faisal? Although he was born and raised in Bangladesh, he actually spent a big part of his adult

life in Scotland and different countries in West Africa. Another question that probably begs to be

asked is the influence of the host culture, Canada. As immigrants, it can be argued that they might

favour the norms of the host country, depending on the knowledge they have of them. Thus, I

argue that it would not take the theorizing forward, if nation-based cultural differences take centre

stage in the analysis.


To use a macro-context and essentialised view of culture as a lens to scrutinise the exchange

between Elias and Faisal might obscure the similarities between the two actors: both worked for

the UN, both are married with children, both are Muslims, both have postgraduate degrees, both

are in their 40s, both are immigrants to Canada and, at the time of the data collection, both were

looking for employment. Indeed, it is indefensible to pursue a macro-‘intercultural’ analysis

without ignoring individual attributes (both similarities and differences) and the specific contexts

of the interaction. Faisal and Elias would “cease to be individuals in their own right” (Sarangi

1994: 211) and become caricatured representatives of their national cultures.

The point I wish to emphasise is that the misunderstanding that happened between Faisal and

Elias can just as easily occur in intracultural contexts, or interactions between individuals from the

same cultural background. Mistaking one intention for another is indeed a common cause of

problems in talk-in-interaction even in mono-cultural settings (Schegloff 1987). Instead of having

the spotlight linger on the conversational mismatch, I suggest that illuminating the part where the

misunderstanding was resolved is an equally valid focus of analysis. Misunderstandings do not

necessarily signal the breakdown of relations but rather the potential restructuring of individual’s

identities and social relations (Ochs 1991) as well as a redefinition of the situation (Coupland et al.

(1991).

Drawing insights from the data, it can be argued that misunderstandings can serve as a

“vitalizing force” (Coupland et al. 1991: 9) or a catalyst that could strengthen personal ties,

develop relational identity (Cupach and Imahori 1993; Lee 2006) and build team cohesion

(Tekleab et al. 2009). In the process of repairing a misunderstanding episode or negotiating new

meanings, participants from different cultural norms are forced to improvise and in the process,

create their own “heterotopic space” (Victoria 2014) where cultural practices and identities

become subject to negotiation. The conflict between Elias and Faisal, for example, provided the

class with an opportunity to improvise norms of interaction such as what types of jokes are

allowable, and how face damage should be repaired.

The analysis of the interaction between Faisal and Elias exemplifies the affordances of using

a multidimensional view of the intercultural encounter. I started the analysis with a detailed turn-

by-turn analysis of the exchange between the two speakers. I then zoomed out to try to build

national culture (Faisal as Bangladeshi and Elias as Jordanian/Palestinian) into the interpretation.

But this macro view was not sustainable and did not take the analysis too far. What made for a

more fruitful analysis was to scrutinize the utterances as embedded within a smaller culture

(Holliday 1999) of a closely knit group of Canadian immigrants attending an employment

preparation program. The resolution of the misunderstanding was most likely motivated by the

desire to preserve group harmony.


4.3 Methodological Insights

The analytic journey thus far taken emphasises movement—a toing and froing from a micro

linguistic analysis to the dyad-in-interaction to the small group context. As I have shown, this

process did not mean taking culture outright as a potential explanatory factor. It meant

downplaying it so that more in-depth and plausible interpretations are generated.

An important methodological point worth bringing up at this point is the role of the

researcher as participant observer. How is the observer to know whether or not something positive

has been brought about by the miscommunication? An analyst who only captures a particular

moment of the interaction and repair attempts may stop at the “exit” stage whereby the speakers

resume the topic under discussion before the miscommunication. In line with the guiding

principles of linguistic ethnography, it was important to pay close attention to the micro-details of

the interaction without ignoring its embeddedness in a particular social world. My role as a

participant observer enabled me to closely follow participant interactions over a period of time.

This role enabled me to build a common interpretative resource that the participants themselves

use as an “ad hoc frame of reference” (Janney and Arndt 2005: 38). Having spent time with the

participants in and out of the classroom gave me some access to their interpretative contexts. For

instance, because I had insider knowledge, I knew what Faisal was referring to when he mentioned

the “1,000 questionnaires” and “one fourth of the country”—utterances that would be obscure to

an outsider. Elias and I had to interpret the expression from our knowledge of previous interaction.

4.4 The cultural journey continues

This paper explored naturally occurring data in the form of transcribed recordings from

classroom interactions. Instances of intercultural miscommunication in an attempt at humour were

analysed using a fine-grained, discourse approach. The role that cultural difference played in the

misunderstanding was difficult to pin down. This is in line with Bae’s (2002) and Mauranen’s

(2006) studies that found no conclusive evidence that ‘national’ culture contributed to

misunderstandings. House (2002: 260) proposes a “cultural irrelevance hypothesis” claiming that

in some contexts (i.e. English as a Lingua Franca interactions, see also Kantara, this volume)

“culture-specific discourse behaviour is interactionally and communicatively irrelevant”. There are

those who believe that culture exerts a dominant force in intercultural encounters and those who

argue that the notion of culture (equated with nationality) is no longer valid or that it is simply

irrelevant (see Shaules 2007).

The findings of this limited study compel us to re-examine the widely held assumption that

cultural difference is automatically the likely culprit when misunderstandings across cultures

occur. More importantly, perhaps a more productive step forward should focus less on the fact that


a misunderstanding has occurred but more on the strategies that individuals use to repair it. As

Canagarajah (2013: 179) emphasises, it is important not to ignore the resources and the

“cooperative disposition” that individuals bring into the interaction.

How can “Blue Paint” and “White Underwear” help us continue our cultural journey? First,

as proposed by (Coupland et al. 1991: 3), there is an urgent need to “rescue miscommunication

from its theoretical and empirical exile, and explore its rich explanatory potential” in intercultural

contexts so that that “signals of uncertainty” (Faerch and Kasper 1983: 198) can be analysed as

signals of cooperation, not as disruption to the smooth flow of talk. Second, the findings suggest

the importance of re-directing the analytic spotlight from ‘what went wrong’ to ‘what went right

after what had gone wrong.’ Third, I should like to put out a call to combine linguistics and

ethnography in order to really see the contextualised use of language. It is potentially good armour

against the alluring temptation treating culture as the default explanation for intercultural conflicts.

While it would be unwise to ignore the potential influences of culture, it is imperative to avoid

viewing individual actors as cultural robots; as the data show, they are socially situated speakers

who have the ability to accommodate, collaborate and negotiate communicative norms. There is

much empirical research to be done in order to rescue intercultural (mis)communication from its

lonely exile. Is there a reward at the end of this cultural journey? It probably is the wrong question

to ask. Because there is no ‘end’, no ‘destination’ in the ordinary sense of the word. Culture may

be downscaled but it is much too complex and too elusive to be pinned down. Is the journey its

own reward then?


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APPENDIX A Transcription Conventions

(.) a brief pause

(3.0) number in parenthesis indicate timed pause in seconds

. falling intonation at end of tone unit

? high rising intonation at end of tone unit

, slightly rising intonation at end of tone unit

! animated intonation

- unfinished utterance, e.g., false start, self-correction

WORD Words written in capitals to indicate emphatic stress: e.g. VERY

xxx unintelligible text

(word?) guess at unclear text: e.g. I (apologise?) for the delay in shipment

:: noticeable lengthening of a vowel

A: o::h, I’m sorry.

[words]

[words] simultaneous speech indicated in brackets: e.g.

A: mm// Did you [read the report]

B: [didn’t have the] time

// latching, no perceptible pause after a turn

A: I’m going to be late //

B // me too

(laughs) description of current action, transcriber’s comments

[…] some text has been deleted

Blue Paint and White Underwear: Miscommunication and Humour in Intercultural Contexts

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