wk 2 - speech acts

well, feels like I'm back into poly days =) having to do reflection after every class. was still telling a good friend that I missed the RJs back in poly.

alright, speech acts, I really have not given much thought about the different kinds of speech acts before the class but after the class i realized there were different kinds of speech act and the different ways of studying speech acts as well as the different ways one accepting compliments. Equally surprising was the ways that I would reply to compliments in different situations. Although I might say Thank you and accept the compliment, say about my jacket in english, when it comes to speaking in chinese, my response will be a totally different one as I would reject the compliment and go "no lah". I have no idea why I would react differently, but I guess that if a very close friend who compliments me in english, I will also go "no lah" and go on joking about the state of my jacket; when I was answering the tutorial worksheet, I am thinking of the "more politically correct" answers, instead of other situations =P.

I think Laura Trice's video makes a lot of sense that praise, admiration and thank you and having to be specific and genuine. Who doesn't love that? I love compliments but sometimes i feel so embarrassed about receiving them, very contradictory huh? And about thank yous, I try to say thank you as much as I can, be it to the cashier returning me my change or someone who had just served me kuehs (like the lady yesterday) except those rude ones because I appreciate every thank you and I think that people would appreciate it too.
But I also find it weird that Trice's suggests that we ask for compliments and praises because in our society, if we ask for praises or compliments to be showered to us, the reaction would be "wah, so BHB (thick-skinned in hokkien, I think) ah?!" Haha...

Lastly, to note the about the field observation and recordings, don't we have to think about the ethical issues revolving the subjects, like privacy issues or what if we overheard some things we shouldn't have? And the presence of a recorder might alter the way the respondents response no matter how natural the other settings are and if we are to record the conversations, shouldn't we need to be getting permission from the people who are talking? But then again, I am thinking in terms of sociological research but this might not apply in this area.

Whoa, its getting too long, see u in class next week! =) peace out, and have a good wkend!! =]