The main findings of this research are proposed in this chapter, which are briefly introduced through finding framework first (Figure 4.1.) and elucidated with details in the following sections. To gain meaningful results, the research materials went through the coding and analysis process on the basis of the theoretical framework presented in the Chpater III (Figure 3.1.) and concluded with new findings as presented in Figure 4.1. The main findings were classified into three dimensions which responded to two research questions. The first two dimensions were about inter-linguistic communication strategies and intercultural communication strategies (Figure 4.2.). In relevant literatures, communication strategies in second language learning settings were discussed. To recognize differences between strategies used in learning settings and at workplace, the inter-linguistic communication strategies replaced the original term and referred to communication strategies applicable in communication between different languages at workplace. The last dimension was about the rationales for Cultural Facilitators’ selections of certain strategies.
Figure 4.1. Finding framework
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Figure 4.2. Strategy map
Inter-linguistic Communication Strategies
The main findings regarding inter-linguistic communication strategies included four types – paraphrase, appeal for assistance, double check, and manipulation (Table 4.1.).
Table 4.1.
Inter-linguistic Communication Strategies
Strategy Specification Applicable Group
Paraphrase Circumlocution 2 3
Literal translation 2 3 Appeal for Assistance Consulting the expert 1 2 3
Consulting the key person 1 2 3
Double Check Double check 1 2 3
Manipulation Manipulation 2 3
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Note: Research participants were classified into three groups according to the language which Cultural Facilitators primarily used to communicate with international ensemble (Table 3.1.).
Paraphrase
Circumlocution and literal translation were both found applied widely by Cultural Facilitators in festival, which were classified separately in different main strategies – paraphrase and conscious transfer. Circumlocution meant the communicator paraphrased sentences with more explanations and details. On the other hand, literal translation meant that the communicator used simpler language to communicate instead of focusing on delicate languages and technical terms. Tarone (1977) proposed these two main strategies separately.
However, in this research, they appeared hand in hand most of the time. Therefore, paraphrase was adopted referring to the combination of circumlocution and literal translation. In other words, Cultural Facilitators tried to introduce, explain, and interpret for international ensembles with more details in a simpler language. Lucas and Fe, Facilitators for Mexican ensemble said,
When we needed to communicated the technical needs on the stage for the ensemble and local technicians, we used simpler Spanish and tried to explain more details rather than giving technical terms. Sometimes, we also used some gestures to express ourselves.
To help the intercultural communication between international ensembles and local people, Facilitators had to interpret local cultures which were usually difficult to translate. To complete interpretation, Facilitators usually gave stories behind the culture instead of the term of it. Alyssa, the Facilitator for Turkish ensemble, mentioned, “We did not simply translate the name of traditional troupes”. She emphasized, “Meanings and stories behind traditional troupes really mattered”.
Circumlocution combined with literal translation gave the audience more explanations and descriptions in a simpler way. Facilitators for Slovakian, Russian, Korean, Nepali, Japanese, Mexican, Turkish, Bulgarian, Philippine and Serbia ensemble all had experiences of applying these two strategies, except for Facilitators for Singaporean ensemble whose native languages included Chinese.
The application of paraphrase even facilitated the intercultural interaction and mutual understandings. Natasha, the Facilitator for Slovakian ensemble, explained, “We could only give our Slovakian friends more explanations, descriptions and stories behind things they questioned or were interested in.” When local people received international ensembles, they
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always served best food they could get. However, what was good in one culture was not necessarily the same in another culture. For example, Slovakian had strong concern for food in their meals. Natasha explained, “In order to solve the problem, we must tell them the material making the food and even stories behind certain traditional food”.
Echoing with Natasha, Stacy, the Facilitator for Nepali ensemble, also encountered similar situation. When Nepali ensemble was served with Taiwanese traditional food, zòng-zi, girls were not interested in it. To invite them to try zòng-zi, Stacy told girls the story of it. She explained, “I tried to tell them the story of Qū-yuán (an ancient Chinese great poet), and the material used to make it”.
Sometimes contents to be translated involve cultural implications which were difficult to be perfectly translated. The application of both circumlocution and literal translation help Facilitators give audience enough information to gather the intended meanings. Furthermore, after learning meanings and stories, international friends would become more willing to taste the foreign cultures. As a matter of fact, the combination of circumlocution and literal translation, classified as paraphrase, brought to cultural entities closer to each other.
Appeal for Assistance
Appeal for assistance, according to Tarone (1977), referred to the strategy that communicators consult any kind of experts in an inter-linguistic communication. In the main findings of this research, there were two sub-strategies in appeal for assistance, including consulting the expert and consulting the key person. The latter one was classified as an intercultural communication strategy as well and was discussed in this section.
Consulting the Expert
The expert could refer to human or non-human experts. For example, when a communicator had difficulties articulating certain words and thus looked up the words in a dictionary, this behavior could be seen as consulting the expert. The dictionary here was regarded as an expert. Although Facilitators were all mastering in certain languages, they consulted experts sometimes. Jacob, the Facilitator for Serbian ensemble, recalled when he was introducing the glove puppetry, he had difficulties translating every detail about the puppetry. Finally, he still accomplished translation work. He said, “Fortunately, there was one Taiwanese expert of glove puppetry who also spoke English so I turned to him whenever I needed to translate special terms”.
The experts could not only help with translation but also comfort international friends in certain situations. Stacy, the Facilitator for Nepali ensemble, said,
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One girl in Nepali ensemble was sick and sent to the hospital during the festival. I went to the hospital with her and the manager of the ensemble. The girl was so nervous and uncomfortable at the first place because I could only communicate with her in English but she was not good at English. To calm her down, I translated everything including what nurses said to the manager and the manager translated my translation into Nepalese.
Hearing the native tongue, she felt better later.
Both Facilitators for Korean ensemble and for Slovakian ensemble, Janet and Natasha, resonating with Stacy, said, “….we delivered messages to the manager first and then he translated it into their native language to ensure the correct delivery of message”.
Besides the “human” expert, the “non-human” experts were quite helpful as well. As previously mentioned, a dictionary could be an expert. However, nowadays due to the advancement of the technology, high-tech products were more commonly used. Iris, the Facilitator for Japanese ensemble, said,
My partner, Federer, always took out his iPad to search for information needed. In fact, the iPad really helped a lot because it helped with translation and tourist information. It worked pretty well especially for Federer whose Japanese ability was not that advanced.
The Facilitators for Mexican ensemble also had experiences of using hi-tech products when they visited an elementary school in Tainan. School faculty introduced various kinds of flowers and extracts from flowers but both Lucas and Fe had little knowledge of it. “The only way to solve the problem was to use our iPhones and google those flowers”, stated Lucas.
In addition to high-tech products, during conversations, communicators were also applying “consulting the expert” when they directly referred to or showed the object. Sophia, the Facilitator for Slovakian ensemble explained,
When we were taking the boats, visiting the ancient canal in Tainan, we had a tour guide on the boat who introduced the scenery and the history in Chinese very fast. We did not have enough time to recall our memories of certain terms, so we simply pointed at the objects such as a special bird at the side and keep translating.
As an interpreter or translator, it was still suggested to translate everything on his or her own. This kind of “consulting” was better applied in emergency. However, if the
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communication could be better facilitated or communication problem could be solved, it was acceptable to consult the high-tech products and human expert,
Consulting the Key Person
The key person was not necessarily to be a language expert but an influential person. For example, a manager or a teacher in an ensemble could be influential. To deliver important messages or tasks, talk to the key person first would be very efficient and effective. Maggie, the Facilitator for Serbian ensemble, explained, “You could found out the key person after working with the ensemble for a couple of days”. After the key person was identified, when Facilitators wanted to deliver important messages, Maggie suggested, “Communicate with the key person first, for it would be more efficient and effective”.
The manager or the teacher was always the key person in the group according to Facilitators’ experiences. Most Facilitators stated,
Communicate with the manager or the teacher first because they knew how to manage and interact with members. You could get the first-handed information about the ensemble form them. If you encountered problems when communicating with members, you could also turn to the manager.
Jophia, the Facilitator for Singaporean ensemble, quoted from a Chinese old saying, “To catch bandits, first catch the ringleader”. She explained that if you could get well with the key person, things became much easier. On the other hand, these key persons were the experts of their mother culture so they were more likely to know how to interacted and communicated with their people. Due to the nature of this strategy, it was classified in appeal for assistance and regarded as a useful intercultural communication strategy as well.
Double Check
Double check simply meant that the communicator repeated or rephrased the sentences to confirm that the message was understood as the counterpart intended to express. Although Facilitators mastered the language in which they communicated with international ensembles, they were not always confident about their understanding. Thus, if they were not so sure about the meaning, they double checked with the counterpart to confirm their understandings.
Maggie, the Facilitator for Serbian ensemble, explained, “We repeated important announcement and double checked their understanding”. Sophia also resonated with Maggie, saying,
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If you were not sure, just ask and check with them. Do not pretend that you understand everything even though you actually didn’t. Misunderstandings might happen as a result.
Janet, the Facilitator for Korean ensemble, also said, “I tried to repeat or rephrase the sentences according to my understanding to make sure that the manager and I were on the same page.”
In daily lives, repeated double checks might be time-consuming and annoying.
Nevertheless, in intercultural and inter-linguistic communication at workplace, to deliver the correct message was essential and double check was considered an easy way to ensure the correctness of messages.
Manipulation
Manipulation referred to the strategy which manipulated or modified the content of message when Facilitators were doing translation. In other words, Facilitators tried to be flexible in translating process under certain circumstances. Although manipulating the contents was not ethical and potentially problematic, most of the Facilitators applied the strategy frequently. The precise and umbiased translation was not their main focus but the smooth communication. Zoya, the Facilitator for Bulgarian ensemble insisted, “As a master student of translation, I tried my best to translate everything I heard for the audience.”
However, she also admitted that in some occasions, Facilitators could not translate everything word by word because it might lead to serious conflicts. She explained,
For example, when I did the translation and negotiated with the local technicians on the stage for the Bulgarian ensemble, some local technicians were quite impulsive and communicated in a very rude way. At this moment, I could not translate those impolite words which might irritate my international friends, leading to a worse situation.
Therefore, I manipulated the translation and told my friends that everything was under control.
Natasha, the Facilitator for Slovakian ensemble, resonated with Zoya, saying, “Rude words or impolite expressions could not be translated of course”. The reason for not translating everything was that Facilitators should “play the role of a negotiator between cultures” to avoid potential misunderstandings and conflicts.
As a matter of fact, white lies were necessary according to the Facilitators. Fe and Fiona, Facilitators for Mexican and Bulgarian ensembles, mentioned, “The white lies was necessary
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in some occasions”. Lucas, the Facilitator for Mexican ensemble, said,
A local person told a Taiwanese joke which could be fun only if the audience understood Taiwanese. However, my Mexican friends did not understand it at all but local people were expecting to see how the Mexicans would response. To facilitate the intercultural communication, I changed the joke into a Mexican joke so that my Mexican friends responded as expected.
In fact, Facilitators were taking advantages of the language barrier between local people and international ensembles to facilitate intercultural communication and to complete their tasks.
If the purpose of manipulation was for facilitating intercultural communication and brought no negative influence on anyone, the manipulation of translation was a useful strategy when communicating different culturally and linguistically diverse parties.
Summary
Paraphrase and manipulation were about modifying messages in the second language, and therefore these two strategies were not considered by the first group of Facilitators, who communicated with international ensembles in native language. Double check was commonly seen in all the international ensembles, which was regarded as applicable at all groups.
As for appeal for assistance, two sub-strategies were classified differently. Consulting the experts and consulting the key person were found applicable in any group. However, if consulting the experts was further divided into consulting human and non-human experts, differences were found. The human expert was not available in the first and second group because the Facilitators in these two groups were usually the language expert. On the other hand, non-human experts such as smart phones or internet were available to everyone. Thus, consulting the human experts was found used in the third group while consulting the non-human experts in all the three groups.
Among all the inter-linguistic communication strategies, in accordance with responses from interviewees, manipulation was found most practical and useful strategy.
Intercultural Communication Strategies
In this section, the main findings regarding the intercultural communication strategies were discussed. There were three main strategies which were being mission-oriented, explaining by comparing cultures, and touching the culture (Table 4.2.).
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Table 4.2.
Intercultural Communication Strategies
Strategy Specification Applicable Group
Being
Explaining by comparing cultures 1 2 3
Touching the Culture Drinking together 1 2 3
Learning the language 1 2 3
Showing the interest 1 2 3
Being Mission-oriented
Being mission-oriented referred to the attitude that a Facilitator or an interpreter should work with in an intercultural context. A Facilitator should focus on completing the mission or task assigned and meanwhile taking care of interaction between international ensembles and local parties. To be mission-oriented, a Facilitator should be professional and flexible, which were illustrated carefully below.
Being Professional
“Be professional”, Federer, the Facilitator for Japanese ensemble, emphasized,
When international friends asked you questions, sometimes they were uncertain about the situation. If you did not show your profession and was not certain about your response, they would feel panic and could not fully trust you. When the uncertainty remained and the Facilitator was not trusted, misunderstandings and conflicts might occur.
International friends were usually unfamiliar with Taiwan and some of them might felt uncertain and unsecure in a new environment. If a Facilitator could answer questions with certainty, they would see you as a professional Facilitator and know they could rely on you.
Iris and Lassie, the Facilitator for Japanese and Korean ensembles, both highlighted, “Only when you clearly know your tasks and schedules could you communicate with international ensemble.” Galina, the Facilitator for Russian ensemble, echoing with them, saying,
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When you need to negotiate for two cultural parties, confirm all the issues, questions, problems or the situation first. Then, you could start to communicate for them. Being clear and certain of the situation showed your profession as a Facilitator.
If a Facilitator performed appropriately, showing the profession, international ensembles would feel less anxious and the relationship and trust between Facilitators and them were establish gradually.
Being Flexible
Although Taiwan is a country with multiple races living in, some people still have stereotype or prejudice toward certain countries. For example, Facilitators for Japanese and Korean ensembles encountered local extremists during the festival. To handle the conflict, Facilitators tried to be flexible, bridging the gap. Federer, the Facilitator for Japanese said,
Due to the dispute over the sovereignity of Diaoyutai Islands, some local people did not welcome Japanese ensemble. One of our bus drivers was an anti-Japanese extremist and kept on criticizing Japanese. To make things go more smoothly, I pretended that I stood in his side and tried to explain to him that these Japanese were only high school students and were professional performers. They were not involved in political issues.
This strategy was applied by many Facilitators who encountered similar situations. Zoya, the Facilitator for Bulgarian ensemble said, “When you communicated with different kinds of people, you should ‘customize’ your communication style and sometimes you even needed to choose one side”. The reason for customization was to complete the mission without escalating any serious issue to conflict. “Be flexible” was helpful when dealing with political extremists particularly. Do not take anything personal and be flexible when standing in two cultures as a communicator. These suggestions revealed how a Facilitator should play their role when serving in the international event.
Explaining by Comparing Cultures
When western people met the eastern culture, not everyone could be able to understand or be willing to experience the exotic culture. Sometimes it resulted from unfamiliarity of another culture. Therefore, to facilitate the intercultural communication, the Facilitator would try to explain the local culture by comparing it to the culture of the international ensemble.
For example, the deities in Daoism were new concept to international ensembles. To help
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them gain a better understanding of this traditional culture. Felisa, the Facilitator for Mexican ensemble, said, “I introduced Mā-zǔ (the Goddess guarding the sea) by comparing it to the Mexican’s religion and told them the story of this Goddess.” To introduce our own culture by comparing it to the counterpart’s culture made sense to international friends. Similarly, Maggie, the Facilitator for Serbian ensemble, illustrated,
When the Serbian ensemble performed in the plaza in front of the temple, the
When the Serbian ensemble performed in the plaza in front of the temple, the