Willingness To Communicate - WTC in Chinese Contexts

WTC in Chinese Contexts

In their article “A Chinese Conceptualisation of Willingness to Communicate in ESL,” authors Wen and Clement attempt something of a cultural anthropology of Willingness to Communicate in Chinese students. They conclude that the reticence to verbally engage is rooted in “two aspects governing interpersonal relations: an other-directed self and a submissive way of learning.” (p. 19)

The “other-directed self” is based on the idea that Chinese culture, like many other Asian cultures, values the collective over the individual. This value is traced back to the founding values of Chinese culture:

only in the presence of the other, will the self be significant. For Confucius, the self did not exit as a single entity. It’s existential reality is dialectically related to the family, the community, the nation and the world (Chai & Chai, 1965). Self is relational, and it is defined by the surrounding relations (Gao, 1998). In Chinese culture, the social and moral process of ‘conducting oneself’ is to be aware of one’s relations with others. Chinese people can never separate themselves from obligation to others. (p. 20)

The value placed on relations to others defining the self relates closely to the concept of “face.” Face is lost when one behaves badly in class. This has an inevitable effect on WtC “it seems likely that Chinese students would be even more sensitive to the judgment of the public upon their language behaviors and, therefore, lesses likely to get involved in classroom communication.” Not incidentally, Wen and Clement identify a cultural trait that places value on resisting “outsider culture,” which may result in additional difficulty in adapting to different norms of verbal participation (p. 21-22).

The second major factor detailed in this study is submission in learning:

The tendency of Chinese teachers to play an authoritative role and of Chinese students to submit to authority in the process of learning goes back to Confucianism and the teaching of Confucian Classics. In Imperial China, ‘the whole process of learning and education was oriented to the mechanical memorisation of ideals of antiquity, principally the Four Books and Five Great Classics’ (Pratt, 1992: 302) (p. 22).

To perhaps oversimplify, rigid adherence to infallible ancient teachings was believed to result in virtuous behavior and wisdom. Submission to canonical texts and to the teachers who had mastered them was then valued more than individuals’ participation and questioning.

Submission in learning deeply shapes how Chinese students engage in the American ESL classroom. The teacher is seen as the source of all knowledge, so Chinese students will not value partner and small group work as highly. This also accounts of “the enthusiasm for grammar, the ‘law’ of the English language.” Accuracy is valued much more than fluency. The resulting lack of fluency further diminishes students’ willingness to communicate (p. 23).