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How Are You, Auntie Elizabeth?

Melinda Edwards
Pázmány Péter University, Hungary

Level: Intermediate and above, students with a common first language

Time: 15 minutes

Resources: Dialogues in the students' mother tongue, written or collected by the teacher before class

Goals: To have students become more fluent in using and understanding basic greetings and leave-takings in brief "small talk" encounters and to discuss pragmatic differences between the students' mother tongue and English, with special attention to openings and closings

Description of the Activity
In preparation for the class, I wrote a short dialogue in Hungarian that posed different pragmatic problems, such as different forms of greeting, leave-taking and forms of address. In class, I introduced the topic to the students and told them that they were going to translate a dialogue from Hungarian into English. It was made clear that the dialogue might appear to be simple and "exaggerated," but the point was to bring up a range of problems and issues. The class then was organized into pairs, and students were given slips of paper with the dialogue. They were asked to work in pairs for about 5 minutes. Following this, one pair was asked to perform their dialogue, while other students listened and noted problems and alternative solutions.

The situation and the literally translated dialogue are presented here:

An elderly woman and a man in his 30's meet in the street. They have known each other for some years, but very superficially. Translate the following simple dialogue and think about how it would be different in English.

A: Good morning, Auntie Elizabeth!
B: Good morning, John!
A: How are you?
A: I'm not too well. I've been struggling with backaches recently… and you know my salary is quite low; we can hardly make ends meet at the end of the month.
B: Oh, well. I think this is all the government's fault. Other politicians would do a much better job…
A: Hmm, maybe. Well, here is my bus. I have to go. Bye.
B: Hello.

Short and simple as this dialogue may seem to be, it provided a very good opportunity for a thorough discussion concerning the pragmatic differences and problems between the two languages. In the discussion the following issues were brought up:

• In English, How are you? is usually considered a greeting, not a genuine question.
  
  
• Topics of financial state, health and politics are usually considered taboo in English unless close friends are involved. Bringing up these topics, a Hungarian speaker may seem rude to an English-speaking person, though the fact is that the person speaks English with the grammatical rules and vocabulary of England, but the pragmatic rules of Hungarian.
  
  
• Hello is not a leave-taking in English.
  
  
• You cannot address anyone as "auntie or uncle" unless you are a child or the person is a family member. In Hungarian and other languages a similar form is possible. As English does not have formal and informal forms, politeness has to be expressed by other means.
  
  
• In English you are required to shut down the topic and use preclosing when ending a conversation; in other languages speakers may finish a conversation more abruptly.
  

An interesting remark in the discussion was when students pointed out that, although grammatically there were not any problems with the dialogue, it still "wasn't English." This pointed to the fact that language proficiency cannot be complete without knowing the appropriate pragmatic rules of the target language.

Procedure

1. In preparation for the class, the teacher writes a simple dialogue in the students' mother tongue or, for authenticity, uses an authentic opening or closing collected through note taking, tape recorder, or transcription of TV or a movie. The dialogue can be any containing greeting and leave-taking between two or more participants.
   
   
2. As a lead-in activity, the teacher can ask students to brainstorm cultural differences that exist between their mother tongue and English in regards to degrees of politeness, greeting and leave-taking (formal and informal forms, the use of pre-closings or lack thereof, etc.)
   
   
3. The teacher tells the students that they will get a dialogue in their mother tongue, which they will have to translate into English. The teacher asks students to pay attention to the pragmatic issues they have just discussed.
   
   
4. Students work in pairs for about 5 minutes.
   
   
5. The teacher asks one or two pairs of students to perform their dialogue; other students jot down the differences, problems, and comments.
   
   
6. A discussion follows during which students share their observations with the class. This is also the stage when the teacher can raise students' awareness about overlooked problematic issues.
   

Rationale
Many pragmatic studies have been conducted involving advanced learners of ESL (for an overview see Bardovi-Harlig, 1999). These studies have found that advanced ESL learners generally have unsatisfactory pragmatic competence. In an EFL context, where there is even less natural target language input than in an ESL setting, providing this input is essential.

This activity can draw EFL learners' attention to pragmatic differences between their mother tongue and English which they might not have been aware of. Concerning greetings and leave-takings, there are some issues that this activity can focus on, depending on the students' mother tongue. The usage of How are you?as a greeting, for instance, may be a source of misunderstanding for EFL students. In other languages this phrase may communicate genuine interest in the other speaker's well-being, and the EFL student might be surprised or-- worse yet--insulted if not given adequate time or attention to describe his/her health problems.

Another issue might be that English phrases, such as greetings, take on a different role than they do in other languages. In Hungarian, unlike English, hello is used both as a greeting and as leave-taking. One can see many astonished English speakers' faces when Hungarian acquaintances say "goodbye" with "hello." Translating the dialogue in pairs, performing it, and discussing the problems may give students first-hand experience in these issues and deepen their understanding of pragmatic differences.

Alternatives and Caveats

1. In a multilingual class, students with the same mother tongue can work together in groups to come up with solutions. Students of different mother tongues can then compare their observations.
   
   
2. Although the activity can be done at lower levels, advanced students often lack the necessary pragmatic knowledge to match their high linguistic competence. For this reason, even advanced learners and teacher trainees have found this activity challenging.
   

Reference
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1999). Exploring the Interlanguage of Interlanguage Pragmatics. Language Learning, 99, 677-713.

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