ASAA e-journal of asian linguistics & language teaching

http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/languages/asaa_ejournal ISSN 1445 0992

Issue #3 (December 2002)

Proposing an Ethnographic Approach to Teaching Business Chinese

Yunxia Zhu <zyunxia@unitec.ac.nz> UNITEC, INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Abstract Based on a discussion of current issues in teaching business Chinese, this article proposes an ethnographic approach for the teaching of business Chinese. Specifically, it highlights the imperative for the ethnographic approach and details the components of this approach. In the discussion, reference is made to the research findings in contrastive rhetoric, ethnographic research and genre analysis as major sources of literature. The author claims that the ethnographic approach to teaching is composed of five processes of teaching, including teaching sociocultural contexts, teaching persuasive orientations, using authentic data, incorporating experts views and teaching persuasive strategies. All of these processes are illustrated in detail in the teaching of Chinese business faxes.

2002 The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)

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1. Introduction Business Chinese is becoming increasingly important as more and more people are doing business with China. It is therefore imperative to develop an appropriate approach in order to help students acquire professional knowledge in business. Cameron (2002) also highlights the need to enhance communication skills in business and corporations for language learners. Numerous in-depth studies have been conducted in genre study such as in the analysis of discourse community and communicative purposes (Swales 1990) and multi-modality (Candlin, 2002). However, these research results may not be adequately translated into the teaching of business Chinese as the research mainly focuses on English professional and academic genres. As a consequence, there appears to be a gap between business Chinese teaching and genre analysis. In order to bridge this gap, we need to develop an ethnographic approach for the understanding of the discourse community and conventions shared by the community. In a similar light of ethnographic research, Nickerson (2002) proposes the need to study corporate culture in relation to genres. This article will further promote the ethnographic teaching in business Chinese. An ethnographic approach can prove effective in teaching relevant business Chinese texts or genres. Specifically, this paper will, first of all, raise the issue in the teaching of business languages. Secondly, it reviews the relevant literature in the area of ethnographic teaching and persuasion. Finally, an ethnographic approach is proposed followed by the implementation of this approach in teaching business faxes. 2. The Issues Relating to the Teaching of Business Chinese A discussion of the issues in teaching business Chinese will highlight the need for an ethnographic approach and it will also help determine the components for this ethnographic approach. The first issue is related to using a recipe approach in the teaching of business Chinese. A typical example can be found in our focus on teaching the prescribed rules for idealised texts. The second issue, which is also related to the first, is that business texts are often taught as a product rather than as a process. There have been some studies on these areas in teaching ESL and their findings can be applied here. For example, Leki (1991) explains that with result-oriented approach, it is assumed that schemata can be taught directly. With processoriented approach, however, schemata would be introduced indirectly and gradually. A typical example of the result-oriented approach is often found in class when readings are presented as models for successful communication. With the process-oriented approach readings taken from the target language are used to generate ideas. Students are often encouraged to reflect on the readings and report their impressions about the readings. In business Chinese teaching, we tend to apply the result orientation, as the textbooks are designed and prescribed with sample texts covering the main features of a text or genre. Students are asked to learn the text in terms of the structure, characteristics and idea development of a certain type of a text. This approach represents some problems in the knowledge students learned: To them, good writing is composed of such characteristics as prescribed in the sample texts. In contrast, the process-oriented classroom focuses on student contribution and students are asked to reflect upon and describe the conventions underlying the structure of the text. It is, therefore, imperative to promote the teaching of international business Chinese towards the direction of process orientation. Using the ethnographic approach is the first step towards
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this. This remainder of the paper will focus on proposing a model towards this approach and apply this model in the teaching of business faxes as an example. 3. Theoretical Framework This section provides a literature review on ethnographic research and persuasion orientations. Both areas are essential for the development of an ethnographic model. The ethnographic research methods derived from anthropology and linguistics, and in particular, from Dell Hymes ethnography of communication. Hymes (1974) stresses the importance of examining language rules and norms in close relation to the social context and the larger culture and identifying the emic rules of language use within a social group. The approach relating to ethnography of communication has been widely used in discourse analysis (Hymes, 1986; Saville-Troike, 1984), research of learning and teaching (Hammersley, 1985; 1992), and contrastive rhetoric (Liebman, 1988; Leki, 1991; Li, 1996). Relevant research findings in ESL pedagogy are discussed here in or to identify appropriate components for an ethnographic model. In his research on good writings, Li (1996) describes a study where two Chinese and two American writing teachers evaluated six student personal narratives. Li names his approach multi-vocal ethnography, and it is thus named because it involves a number of perspectives. Firstly, the teachers involved in the study were given the role of interpreting the narratives in a multi-vocal manner. Secondly, all the teachers evaluations relating to good writing were discussed from a sociocultural perspective. Thirdly, all the narratives were authentic texts written by native speakers, which give a glimpse about the writing in the relevant cultures. All three areas give some insight towards the development of an appropriate ethnographic model for teaching business English. The ethnographic approach can also be seen as related to Lekis (1991) research on process-oriented teaching. Leki gives an account of a Chinese student learning different rhetorical expectations. Lekis research clearly points out the need to develop understanding for these expectations across cultures. These expectations can be closely related to persuasion across cultures, which needs to be discussed in detail here. The dominant influence in the West mainly derives from Aristotles (1932, 1.1.1354) artificial/artistic, which is defined as using those forms of proof that the speaker creates including ethos, pathos, and logos. They are also named persuasive orientations as well (Zhu, 2001). Fundamentally ethos can mean the credibility which the speaker brings to the speech situation. The speaker has to maintain a moral linkage between himself and his content. Pathos as an artistic proof focuses on using the emotions as a supplement to a speakers other means of persuasion. Logos refers to the logical, rational, evidential underpinning of a speakers argument. These three elements are also named persuasive orientations elsewhere (Zhu, 2001). Similar persuasive orientations are also in existence in classical Chinese rhetoric, in which Confucian rhetorical represents a dominant influence. However, Confucius stresses persuasion based on relations. Confucian rhetoric is based mainly on ren dao or the way of humans and the moral codes he prescribes in his teachings. To him, ren (benevolence) is seen as the highest standard of moral perfection. In order to achieve these virtues, Confucius sets the highest standards for adequate conduct in these five key role relationships between ruler and subject, neighbour and neighbour, father and son, husband and wife, and brother and brother. These relations are related to pathos and are often advocated as important forms of effective persuasion in Chinese culture. Mencius, in the vein of Confucian philosophy,
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further develops the concept of ren (benevolence) and xin (heart), which can be seen as a combined approach of both logos and pathos. Affective, cognitive and logical functions are thus closely intertwined and equally valued (Garrett, 1993; Lu, 1998). And they are expressed very much in the modern terms of qing (feelings or emotions embedded in the context) and li (reasons or facts) (Li, 1996). Li advocates that qing has great persuasive power and compliments li. Good writing should be excellent in both qing and argument. Qing and li can thus be seen as the essential element in Chinese persuasion and will also be used in the teaching of Chinese faxes. Based on the above discussion, the ethnographic approach can be realised in these processes of classroom practice: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Teaching the sociocultural contexts Teaching persuasive orientations and communicative purposes Using authentic materials Incorporating experts views and perspectives Teaching persuasive strategies

The first process will give some background knowledge about the business texts or genres students are learning. The second process will enable students to learn the persuasive orientations and communicative purposes and the former underpins the latter. The third process offers students the opportunity to have access to authentic texts so that they can have a preliminary understanding about the business writing practice. The fourth process incorporates the expert members (for instance, the business managers) views on the texts they are learning. Since the managers are experts and ethnographers their view will reflect the relevant stock of knowledge of this professional discourse community. The final process provides a guideline for the students to learn various strategies employed by writers. This process should be learned in relation to previous processes as a textual realisation of persuasive orientations and communicative purposes. All five processes are detailed in the following section. 4. Illustrating the Five Processes in Teaching Business Faxes This section uses Chinese business faxes as an example to illustrate the five teaching and learning processes. The genre of business faxes is chosen as an example for two reasons. First, this genre is becoming increasingly popular in the business transactions. Second, this is also a new genre that started being used in China after the economic opening-up in 1978. Besides, faxes as a whole have a relatively short history as a technology-mediated form of communication. A business fax written by a Chinese corporation is included in the discussion and the details about this fax are given later in this section in the relevant processes. 4.1. Process 1: Teaching Sociocultural Contexts The first process is related to the teaching of relevant sociocultural contexts. Sociocultural contexts are also an essential element stressed by the ethnographic theorist (such as Hymes, 1986). These contexts will provide background knowledge about the use of specific language. References in this regard can be found in Li (1996) and Zhu (1999) in their studies of genres in a particular context. Zhu (1999), for example, gives detailed accounts of the various business-writing practices in China since the economic opening-up in 1978. There seems to
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be a strong link between the sociocultural contexts and the use of genres, and this also applies to fax writing since faxes became popular in business only in the late 1980s. With the economic opening-up, China is developing rapidly towards the market economy. Accordingly, essential marketing strategies are employed by business circles in business writing practice. Business orientation is more and more stressed in business correspondence as well. On the other hand, business is also related to the Chinese cultural protocol. The writer tends to establish a friendship or personal link (guanxi) with the reader in addition to the seller-buyer relation. Relationship-building is a typical Chinese cultural value and can be explained in the light of Hofstedes (1991) collectivist culture. According to Hofstede (1991), individualistic cultures, such as in the United States, value self-concept and individual achievements. In collectivist cultures, such as the Chinese and Japanese, individuals are seen as related to the group or the collective to which they belong. Harmony and relationshipbuilding are important concepts in these cultures. Therefore, the teacher needs to let the students see the above two major features of the Chinese business contexts. 4.2. Process 2: Teaching Persuasive Orientations and Communicative Purposes The second process is to study the persuasive orientations and communicative purposes. In Zhus (2001) study of English and Chinese sales letters, it was found that English business letters tend to stress a logical approach which can indicate a difference from Chinese letters. Campbell (1998) also found that cultures such as Japanese and Chinese tend to have an emotional approach in persuasion. Persuasive orientations can be discussed in class by asking students to brainstorm over this issue and provide their understanding first. Then the teacher can sum up student findings and provide some guidelines, and theoretical bases such as Confucian persuasion can also be used to back up the teaching here. These qing-li or patho-logos persuasive orientations can be used to help students identify the communicative purposes of the genre. At this point, students are asked to go over the text and brainstorm the purposes they think relevant. These purposes can be used as a guideline for the students: Promoting business transactions Establishing long-term contacts and relationships Encouraging further communication Promoting business can be seen as a major purpose while the other two are complementary to this one. It needs to be noted in class that these purposes are also in alignment with the sociocultural contexts besides persuasive orientations. 4.3 Processes 3-4: Using Authentic Data and Incorporating Managers Views The two processes of using authentic data and incorporating managers views are discussed together in this section for ease of discussion. Research has been done in the teaching of business Chinese. For example, Kirkpatrick (1991) uses authentic request letters for the teaching of business Chinese, and Zhu (1999) also highlights the importance of using authentic texts in teaching business Chinese and business English. In teaching faxes, the students should be provided with authentic texts of effective communication.

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In this study, the data collection procedure consisted of two steps. Firstly, five effective faxes from the corpus were chosen on the basis of a pilot research study conducted in China. Subsequently, these five faxes were given to one hundred Chinese managers in mainland China (specifically, in Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Nanjing and Zhuhai), who were asked to rate the effectiveness of the faxes. A rating scale of 1 to 5 was used, with 5 considered most effective and 1 least effective. The fax translated below, with the highest mean score of 3.05, was identified as the most effective of all five faxes.

Salutation Greetings Business Progress

ATTN: Mr [recipients full name], How are you (H)?1 Happy New Year! Wishing you prosperity! 1. I have recently received Contract AS-6589 signed by your (H) company. Thank you for ordering 60x58 cotton shopping bags. We are extremely grateful to you for your cooperation and support at the beginning of the New Year. In order to guarantee the time of delivery we are currently making adequate arrangements to design samples and prepare materials according to your order. You (H) can trust our commitment to collaboration. 2. At the same time, our company sent over 104,000 cotton bags and the delivery number is CVC/B 98055. We have not received your payment yet. According to Mr Zhang, the payment of US$35,490 was sent on November 30. However, we consulted with Henan Branch, China Bank and found that no payment had been made by your (H) bank so far. We kindly ask Mr Lian [the addressee2] to help check on this at your earliest convenience because delayed payment may affect directly the carrying out of our sales orders. Please think about the possible further collaboration between you (H) and us. Hope that you can help Mr Zhang sort out this issue.

Good wishes Signature

Thank you for your cooperation! Happy New Year! [senders full name] (shang)

The headings on the left-hand column indicate the possible moves found in the text and can be used as a guideline for teaching. Moves are used as an important textual unit as they reflect the intent of the text (Swales, 1990).

The expression you (H) is used here as a translation for the honorific nin, which is the polite form of you in Chinese. 2 This is the authors explanation to show that the fax writer addresses the recipient in the third person, Mr Lian (Lian xiansheng), in order to show respect and politeness.

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The next process is to incorporate experts views into teaching. According to Swales (1990), a discourse community is composed of expert members who share similar level of understanding of the knowledge required by this community. Students will benefit greatly if they can have access to the expert members views. The managers views should be solicited before class. For the teaching of faxes, these views, collected from ten Chinese managers, can be incorporated into teaching: 1. In general, this fax is formal in style, but effective in persuasion. The writer is polite and also stresses long-term collaboration throughout the message. 2. To start a letter with warm greetings is quite important. That is to make a good impression, and it is also a part of our lijie (politeness rituals). 3. It is also good to make some promises relating to collaboration in order to indicate the sincerity and seriousness towards business. 4. This letter is characterised by a humble tone in writing and the writer uses quite a few honorific forms. This can also help the writer achieve his/her objectives. These comments offer an insiders perspective into the understanding of effective persuasion of business faxes. They also offer students an opportunity to test their own understanding of the texts learned so far and identify the gap in knowledge between them and the discourse community. 4.3. The Final Process: Teaching Persuasive Strategies The final process is to teach the persuasive strategies employed by the text, and deserves more discussion since it involves the major content of the text. The abovementioned moves can be taught in close relation with other processes discussed above, in particular to the sociocultural factors, persuasive orientations and managers comments. Only with this in mind can students identify significant descriptions of the text. As Mannersley (1992) points out, the focus of ethnographic learning should be placed on identifying insightful descriptions in relation to the nature of the text. In this way, they will understand that the genre and text conventions as part of the deep semantics (Bakhtin, 1986) and as relevant social stock of knowledge (Schutz & Luckmann, 1974). Altogether there are five moves in the text, as shown in the fax. The following will only focus on the discussion of significant moves and strategies. Greetings are used as an important strategy to establish relationship with the reader, and this is also stressed in the managers comments. The most commonly used greetings include: Nin Hao! or How are you? The writer in this case uses three greetings because the letter was clearly drafted around Chinese New Year. The second move notifies the recipient about the progress of his companys order. This is the most important move in this fax and is composed of two items organised in numerals. This format can be seen as an influence of modern technology and resembles a memo form although still a letter in content. The first item is to inform the receipt of the contract. However, the writer associates thankfulness with the New Year, and continues the discussion of a smooth collaboration. Both the business purposes and the feelings (qing) are thus mixed until the writer makes the promise that you can trust our commitment to collaboration. Words such as trust (xinren) and be reassured (fangxin) are frequently found in Chinese faxes. According to the Chinese managers comments listed earlier, these promises are

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necessary in order to gain the readers trust. However, the teacher needs to warn students not to make too many promises and this is only one way of building trust. The other item is more complicated as it involves two speech acts informing the recipient of the delayed payment and making a request to check this up. The first speech act begins with detailed information about the payment which has been delayed. The request, however, is more interesting and both qing (feelings) and li (reasons or facts) are mixed together once again to achieve persuasion, and the request is also repeated. The first request goes: We kindly ask Mr Lian to help check on this at your earliest convenience because delayed payment may affect directly the carrying out of our sales orders. As shown in this example, the request is made by the writer using the very polite form of kindly ask (fanqing). The use of the third person namely, Mr (Xiansheng) in addressing the recipient makes it even more polite. In this way, the qing in this request is achieved, followed by adequate reason or the possible consequence of the delay. In order to further reduce the impositive force of the request, or to make the request more polite, the writer reiterates the request and associates it with collaboration, which is also the theme throughout the fax. More persuasion is included here by asking the addressee to think about the further collaboration ahead, which also indicates a long-term strategy. The fourth move, Good Wishes, is also closely related to collaboration and relationship-building. The signature is written in a humble tone and is followed by shang, which is used in Chinese letter-writing by a person of a junior position writing to a senior person. Here it is only used to indicate a humble tone. As shown in the managers comments, this is also a persuasive strategy in business writing. In sum, the above discussion illustrates the use of the proposed ethnographic model and reflects the whole of the teaching and learning processes, during which the students can have an in-depth understanding of the text. It is in-depth because their understanding is mostly based on real-life business writing practice and also on the managers views. 5. Conclusion This article has highlighted the need for an ethnographic approach for the teaching of business Chinese based on a number of issues arising from the result-orientated teaching practice. Accordingly, it developed a model towards an ethnographic approach and identified specific processes for teaching business Chinese. As indicated in the discussion of teaching Chinese faxes, the five processes can enrich student knowledge about the genre, as well as about the professional discourse community. This model can also be further applied to the teaching of other business Chinese texts or genres. We will find this model worthwhile and rewarding for both students and teachers alike if we insist on the major objective of finding news ways of looking at business Chinese teaching. Further research, however, can be conducted to incorporate research results in teaching English as well as other business languages in order to come up with other effective ways of teaching.

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References Aristotle 1932. The rhetoric of Aristotle (L. Cooper, Trans.). New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Bakhtin, M.M. 1986. The problem of speech genres. In C. Emerson and M. Holquist (Eds.), Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans.), pp. 60-102. Austin: University of Texas Press. Cameron, D. 2002. Globalisation and the teaching of communication skills. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalisation and language teaching, pp. 67-82. London: Routledge. Campbell, C.P. 1998. Rhetorical ethos: A bridge between high-context and low-context cultures? In S. Niemeier, C.P. Campbell & R. Dirven (Eds.), The cultural context in business communication, pp. 31-47. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Candlin, C. 2002. Speculating on futures drawing on current accounts. Keynote speech at the ABC Europe Convention, Arhus, Denmark, May 22-25. Garret, M. 1993. Classical Chinese conceptions of argumentation and persuasion. Argumentation and Advocacy, 29, 105-115. Hofstede, G. H. 1991. Cultures and organisations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hymes, D. 1974. Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hymes, D. 1986. Models of the interaction of language and social life. In J.J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of speaking, pp. 35-71. New York: Basil Blackwell. Hammersley, M. 1985. From ethnography to theory. Sociology, 19, 244-259. Hammersley, M. 1992. Whats wrong with ethnography? : Methodological explorations. London: Routledge. Kirkpatrick, A. 1991. Information sequencing in Mandarin in letters of request, Anthropological Linguistics, 33, 2, 183-203. Leki, I. 1991. Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing pedagogies. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 1, 123-142. Liebman, J. 1988. Contrastive rhetoric: Students as ethnographers. Journal of Basic Writing, 7, 2, 6-27. Li, X. 1996. Good writing in cross-cultural context. Albany: SUNY.

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Nickerson, C. 2001. The relevance of the corporate context for the teaching of business English: Taking real life business practices into account. Teaching English for International Business, 1, 1, 4-12. Lu, X. 1998. Rhetoric in ancient China, fifth to third Century B.C.E. University of South Carolina Press. Saville-Troike, M. 1984. The ethnography of communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Schutz, A. & Luckmann, T. 1974. The structures of the life-world (R.M. Zaner & T.H. Engelhardt, Jr., Trans.). London: Heinemann. Swales, J. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhu Y. 1999. Business communication in China. New York: Nova. Zhu Y. 2001. Comparing English and Chinese persuasive strategies in trade fair invitations: A sociocognitive approach. Document Design, 2, 1, 2-17.

Biographical Reference Zhu Yunxia is Associate Professor in International Communication, at UNITEC, Auckland, New Zealand. Her research interest lies in genre study, pedagogy of business languages and cross-cultural pragmatics. She has published in international journals such as Text, Discourse Studies, Journal of Business Communication, Business Communication Quarterly, Document Design, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, and presented papers at international conferences. Her book Business Communication in China was published in 1999 by Nova, New York.

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