How Do Chinese Bilinguals Respond To Variations of Interviewer Language and Ethnicity?

Abstract

Do Chinese bilinguals change their non-verbal behaviours when they are speaking English as opposed to Cantonese and speaking with Americans as opposed to fellow Chinese? In order to answer these questions, 64 female English majors at the Chinese University were video-taped during a standardised interview in either Cantonese or English by an interviewer of American or Chinese ethnicity. Measures of self-perception and perception of the interviewer were also taken to illuminate the meaning of the potential changes in non-verbal behaviour. The language and ethnicity variables had functionally different impacts on the non-verbal behaviours: the higher speed, less frequent use of filled pauses, and increased gazing when using Cantonese are suggestive of its greater redundancy relative to English; the lesser talking combined with increased smiles and torso shifts emitted with the American interviewers were compatible with the higher potency and greater informality with which the Americans were perceived by these bilinguals. The American interviewers were relatively less fluent using Cantonese than were interviewers in the other conditions. Perceiving this lesser skill, the interviewees accommodated by downgrading their self-ratings of second language fluency and by increasing their frequency of filled pauses while answering.