Page 202 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

180 Helga Kotthoff

While such trends seem to be firmly established in the West, in Caucasian
Georgia, where neither the meals are small nor the talk that accompanies them, a
much different use of formal style can be found. The following sections exam-
ine ritual and style in the construction of social encounters with guests. I com-
pare such situations in Georgia and Kazakhstan with ones in Germany.

5. The toast ritual and its style

5.1. The Georgian ceremony “supra” and the genre of toasts

Guests from the West taking their seats for food and drink at a Georgian table
seldom know that they are entering a situation dramatically different from com-
parable ones in their native country (Kotthoff 1991b). They are immersed in a
ceremony, the ancient “supra” or table ceremony, that has little in common with
the informal chatting between dishes and drinks familiar to them. The frame-
work of meals shared with guests is something that varies greatly among cul-
tures, and it activates different knowledge schemes. The enacting of a supra is
an indispensible act of honoring the guest. But even within close groups like
families and neighbours there are many occasions for ceremonial banquets, e.g.,
marriages, birthdays, examinations, births, returns from trips, funerals and their
anniversaries – and everyday visits from neighbours. According to the occasion,
“happy” banquets (lxinis supra) are distinguished from “sad” ones (viris supra),
distinctions that are also enacted through the choice of foods and the topics of
toasts. But even an ordinary evening spent with friends is formalized insofar as
a communicative genre comes into play and sets the frame for the evening’s in-
teraction, the toasting genre (see Günthner in this volume on genres).
After the Georgian wine has been poured, the central communicative piece
of the supra scenario can begin, the canonical sequence of toasts. No wine is
drunk until a toast has been uttered. Thus, with the alcoholic drink, a non-verbal
element is incorporated into the structure of the genre sad˙regrZelebi (Chatwin
1997).
The toasts, the sad˙regrZelebi, are generally offered by a man, the tamada,
1
who has been assigned this task beforehand or was specially chosen by the
group for this function. Often it is the host himself or a friend of the house who
plays the part of the tamada. The tamada ensures that each draught of wine con-
stitutes a gesture of honoring a person. Simply drinking without this function is
regarded as impolite.
The toasts follow a variable set of canonic themes, but the canon is adapted
to the situation. In this way the conversation is formalized to a high degree and
is fitted to a specific temporal structure.