Politeness in the Hartley Library

I want to discuss politeness in the library. Do you actively seek to be respectful of others and follow library rules? Or are you one of those people who leave the library in a mess?

Its peak exam season and Hartley Library is rammed. You need to be in there by 9am to have a seat, 8.30am if you want a seat with a plug. Everyone is feeling stressed out and inevitably this can lead to grouchiness, but one should never take that out on your fellow students; I mean they are in the same predicament as you.

When you are in the library day after day, week after week in exam season it can be easy to be annoyed by the smallest things. Whilst in the library yesterday I interviewed some students the things they find as impolite in the library.

   1)   Alex: The most impolite thing is definitely leave the toilets a mess. The girls toilets are always disgusting, I mean there are only like two toilets on a floor as it is, so we need to keep what we have clean.

   2)   Natasha: I get annoyed when the person next to be is constantly looking at what I am doing. We all when we first sit down, have a sneaky look to see what subject the other person is studying, but constantly looking over is just rude and distracting.

   3)   Tashan: When someone has saved a seat for either their selves or a friend. Fair enough when you have a lecture or lunch and you are back within two hours tops. But some people leave seats for the whole day, whilst others really need to space to do some actual work.

If you see someone saving a seat, how could you go about asking them if you can have it? Brown and Levinson (1987) came up with an influential theory- Face Threatening Acts (FTA). This was part of a wider theory in the area of linguistic politeness. 

This theory had three main notions: face, face-threatening act, and politeness strategies. The theory examines the options one has to express a question/demand and tries to gauge the reaction of the respondent.

You can either ask the person for the seat or not.

1) Yes- You engage in FTA

2) No- You do not engage in FTA

So if you have asked, how do you do this?

-      - One the record: ‘Hi, could I please have that seat as it isn’t being used’

-      - Off the record (ambiguously): ‘Oh, I have a lot of work to do and nowhere to sit’

-      - On the record, baldly without redress: ‘I am going to sit here and work’

-      - On the record with redress: ‘I was wondering if I could possibly sit here and do work, but only if you don’t need it, don’t worry otherwise’

The on the record, baldly without redress would probably not be your first choice as it is quite abrupt and rude, especially as it is a peer in society, you cannot tell someone what to do when you don’t know them, in this type of situation it is quite ‘socially inappropriate’.  A family elder or boss in a work environment can maybe use this form of FTA as that is more appropriate.

The student you may be asking may be from another culture, like China, where social norms are different. They will need a way to be able to refuse politely while ‘saving face’. The student may also be British, but still also need a non-threatening way of being asked as on the record, baldly without redress can be quite intimidating. 

Thus accommodation is important; we must understand that people are different. H Giles in his 2009 work The process of communication accommodation said “In most instances, it is desirable- even necessary – to converge, to adjust our language patterns towards those of our conversational partners” suggesting we should be understanding of the people we talk to and adjust ourselves appropriately.

Whilst revising yesterday evening in the library, a friend who was sat close by turned to me as the guy in the seat next to her left to go home, and said “Wouldn’t it be nice as if you’re leaving to go, you look at the person sat next to you and you say ‘Good luck in your exams, hope everything goes well’”  I laughed and agreed with her, it would be nice, but in today’s day and age, you don’t really talk to people you don’t know. Gone are the days of walking past a stranger in the street and nodding your head with a ‘Good morning’, we all keep to ourselves and our circles now and I am not sure whether that’s more polite or less.

Source:

. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness : some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press. 

. Giles, H. (2009). The process of communication accommodation. In N. Coupland & A. Jaworski (Eds.), The 

new sociolinguistics reader (pp. 276-286). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Tweet Tweet

As someone who doesn't have Facebook yet has Twitter, I am constantly teased by my friends as to the reason why. I tell them having never really had Facebook, I don’t understand the need for it- You can’t miss what you've never had. Twitter on the other hand seems more useful to me, I can follow who I want and connect with/hear from those I need to. My friends are ‘Facebook friends’ with a whole bunch of people they don’t ever talk to and when I ask what the point is- they just shrug nonchalantly and reply that’s just how it is. 

Although Facebook and Twitter share many of the same useful characteristics like connecting instantly without the need for physical closeness, it seems to me that twitter has the upper hand –it’s more of a communication service than a true social network because it focuses on creating a stream of information that resembles a conversation, rather than just grouping friends together. There’s no better way to find out fast, what if anything is happening in the world, from anywhere in the world. Or communicate with those you need to regardless of location. When I went to Dubai last year I struck up a close friendship with this photographer from Canada and occasionally tweet each other today to see what we’re up to and arrange meetings. 

Some social medias come and go, think MySpace, Hi-5 and Bebo, but I don’t think Twitter’s time will ever pass, it doesn't need to constantly evolve like its competitors in terms of aesthetics, that’s because the content that fuels twitter constantly changes.

Source:
. https://twitter.com/

MSN

MSN has really catered to their multi-lingual customers.

Here is the UK version http://uk.msn.com/

The Japanese version http://jp.msn.com/

The UAE version http://arabic.arabia.msn.com/

A company with a good multilingual website(s) should take into consideration placement of texts and images, colour, translation, keywords and usability. Different cultures read in different ways so placement of text and images is very important to the overall usability, acceptance and conversions of a site. Western cultures read left to right, whilst Middle Eastern cultures read right to left and Pacific cultures read top to bottom. The UK version had lots of pictures and links to extra stories. The UAE (Arab) MSN site is very user friendly I found.  The text flowed from right the left. The site was actually in Arabic rather than a few words translated here and there like I have found on other sites, there are fewer pictures than the UK version, but the site that was the most text focused was the Japanese version, very text orientated with little pictures.  Once again MSN have done a brilliant job in catering for their Japanese customers by making it totally Japanese with no English apart from names like Outlook, Twitter, and Facebook. Colour holds very different meanings in different countries, so it’s important to understand the meanings. MSN have kept all three sites looking very neutral using very little colour on the backgrounds.

One criticism would be that when on the English and Japanese site, I could not find how to switch from one language/country to another. On the Arab UAE version of the site, I could see there was the option to change to the English, KSA, North-Africa or Egypt versions of the site. But no wider range. MSN could perhaps add a drop-down bar with languages and flags to choose from to get rid of this problem.

Funny or Racist?

When does a stand-up routine stop being funny and just become plain racist? How does one decide when the comedian goes too far? Comedy isn’t one of those black and white areas, where it’s easy to judge if something is right or wrong, its complicated and so that’s probably why there’s a lot of debate over it.

Comedy can be a very effective tool to break down racism. It’s a great way of getting rid of cultural barriers without the awkward ‘Am I being racist?’ Political correctness can at times be a pain in the arse.

Yet there are have been obvious times when comedians have crossed THAT line. A famous example of this is Michael Richards’s stand-up act in 2006. He shouted racial abuse and epithets at the audience that had nothing to do with his act. 

Here’s the video.

 

It was an incident that shocked many because he was pretty famous and up until the quite respected. 

However not every race-centred joke turns into a massive debate. Loads of comedians see stand-up as a way to open doors and allow dialogue to flow about race. One example of this is Russell Peters, he is an excellent comedian who has the ability to address serious topics involving race but in a hilarious way. 

Here’s a video of him doing some stand-up. Enjoy :)

Dirac's

Here is the traditional Somali dress worn by most women- Dirac's.  I only started wearing them this year when I became more interested in my culture.My mum gave me a variety of dirac's to take to university and wear around the house. My housemates have also started wearing them and have asked for me to get them some. It was interesting to explain to them part of my Somali culture through the story of the dirac.

Chinese Americans

After an interesting lecture about China and Confucius, I had a look at some videos about China and their diaspora. Here is a video about the surprising reverse emigration taking place. Enjoy

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is now a TV series that most of you will have heard about if not seen. But before it was made into a TV show it was a fantasy fiction series- A Song of Ice and Fire. Which ever way you have encountered George R. R. Martin's story, I'm sure that you will agree that it is refreshingly different from most stories out there today. Now being a huge fan of the books, I was worried and skeptical of whether a TV show could convey the plot complexities or do the books any justice at all. I held out from watching the TV version until my house mate convinced me to watch it.

GRRM has created an entirely new and complex world. It’s widely spoken of as being one of the most influential fantasy fiction series, ranked amongst the likes of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. He is an author who has no qualms about killing off your favourite character. No one is truly ‘good’ or ‘bad’ which for me made it such a compelling read and more similar to real life than any other fantasy book I’ve read. The plot consists of a power struggle for the throne of the seven kingdoms.
Ps...I have changed the name of my blog....after a friend of mine pointed out my surname would be the perfect pun. Culutre-Ali....get it?

Wants....

In a world where humans always want more, here are some things I want/love......

These are the pinstriped trousers I originally wanted, but I managed to get a pair for only £9!