Page 44 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

22 John J. Gumperz and Jenny Cook-Gumperz

applicants receive is also to a significant extent due to the fact that, based on
their communicative background, interviewers and applicants draw different in-
ferences from what they see and hear, and taken together these inferences cumu-
latively lead to different outcomes. Miscommunications of the above type can
be detected after the fact through close analysis of the extent to which moves are
coordinated in interactional exchanges. We can identify highly cooperative
exchanges where listeners readily respond to speakers’ moves, where inter-
ruptions and repairing or correcting what was said are relatively infrequent, and
thematic shifts are smoothly negotiated. The linguistic-pragmatic evidence for
cooperation can be found at two levels: a) in the interpretive relationships or
semantic ties among successive moves, and in the degree to which second
speakers are successful in making the expected inferences from a first speaker’s
indirect speech acts; b) in the rhythmic synchrony of the conversational ex-
change (Erickson 2004). Analyses of such inferential processes can provide evi-
dence to show how such differences depend on recognition of contextualization
cues (Gumperz 1982).
The potential for miscommunication is a function of differences in taken-
for-granted, culturally specific knowledge acquired in the course of sociali-
zation experiences and differences in discourse conventions. While grammar
plays a role in discourse, it enters into the communicative phenomena we have
discussed only inasmuch as it affects our ability to understand what the com-
municative intent is at a particular point in an utterance. Indexical signs are
also essential to discourse level understanding. This suggests that, contrary to
what applied linguists and anthropologists have tended to assume, the mere fact
that native language differences exist does not necessarily have serious conse-
quences for understanding and the maintenance of conversational cooperation.
Both participants in the above example had lived and worked in Western indus-
trial settings for much of their adult lives, but they had brought with them dif-
ferent linguistic and cultural background experiences that continue to resonate
in these encounters.

6. Interactional sociolinguistics’ contribution to
intercultural communication

The contribution of interactional sociolinguistics to inter-cultural communi-
cation involves the unraveling of instances of interpretative ambiguity at the
level of discourse like those that have been discussed in this chapter. The aim is to
find plausible interpretations, i.e., solutions that are plausible in that they show
how constituent actions cohere in the light of the event as a whole, and the as-
sumptions in terms of which we assess its significance. This is of course quite
different from determining the truth or falsity of specific interpretations. The