Uncovering Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

Understanding Polite and Impolite Small Talk in BIPA Immersion Programs in Indonesia

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-376-4_63How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Culture shock; immersion; response; small talk

ABSTRACT

Living in Indonesia as part of an immersion program, Bahasa Indonesia untuk Pembelajar Asing (BIPA/Education of Bahasa Indonesia for Foreigners) learners are inevitably involved in communicating with local communities, including getting to know new individuals. Small talk is a tool to start conversations and build relationships during these meetings. However, BIPA students often experience culture shock when small talk questions or expressions that do not match their cultural background arise. This research aims to describe (1) polite small talk expressions, (2) impolite or strange small talk expressions, and (3) responses elicited by inappropriate small talk expressions. A qualitative approach was used for this research, and data was collected through questionnaires completed by fifteen BIPA students participating in an immersion program in Indonesia. The findings in this research are integrated with Hall’s intercultural communication theory (1976). The findings reveal that (1) BIPA students perceive polite small talk expressions as greetings and questions that are commonly used to start a conversation, (2) small talk expressions that are considered impolite or unusual by BIPA students often involve questions related to privacy that cause discomfort and (3) BIPA learners’ responses to impolite small talk vary between aggressive actions and acquiescence, depending on their respective cultural backgrounds.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Vania Maherani
AU  - Yulianeta Yulianeta
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/02/26
TI  - Uncovering Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (ICOLLITE 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 473
EP  - 479
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-376-4_63
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-376-4_63
ID  - Maherani2024
ER  -