Why “no”?

Yiling

According to Van Herk, “People evaluate an interaction and decide which way of speaking is the best suited to it, and change their language (and expectation) accordingly. Sociolinguists use the term styleto describe this kind of intra-speaker(within the speaker) variation.” (p104)

During the class activity with our guest lecturer, when I received a text message from Fangzhe, inviting me to skip my class on Thursday and go to a hockey game with him, my impulsive answer was “no”, which was literally what I typed back. Would I have replied differently to a different person? Or would I have replied differently if he had asked me in person or by phone? Sorry, but NO. I would have replied the same in different contexts and to different people. This is my language styleto my friends, which is rooted in my personality and also reflects the degree of closeness between me and my friends. 

For one thing, language style is part of personality, which refers to the dispositions like “I’m a direct and straightforward person”. And this disposition is reflected in my language style. In other words, my speech follows my mind, and I articulate what I think. In this case, I can’t go to the hockey game so my answer is “no”. Yes, as simple as that. For another, language style is also dependent on the closeness or intimacy between the interlocutors. Usually we don’t need to make excuses to refuse our close friends. We tell them we can’t make it and also the real reason why we can’t make it, which they’ll understand. Would I have replied differently if asked by a female friend? No. Other factors like gender and age, etc. do have their impact on language style (I admit that my reply would have been different if asked by someone older than me), but according to my observation, not as strong as that of personality and interrelationship. 

Another question arose is why I texted back “no” instead of the Chinese character “不”? Is it because that it’s easier to refuse someone in English than in Chinese, as people suggested? Honestly, I don’t agree. It makes no difference to me to say “no” or “不”, which literally mean the same. Then why did I reply “no” instead of “不”? I should say it’s the impact of multilingualism and English has long been part of my language repertoire, which I speak on a daily basis, and my speech shifts among different languages every day. “No” instead of “不” is my subconscious and impulsive answer, which bears no planning or intention.  If this example of “no” instead of “不” counts as part of one’s language style, surely it’s affected by one’s language repertoire. 

Reference

Van Herk, Gerard. (2012). What is sociolinguistics? Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.