View Content #29146

By Madi Collins, CASLS Graduate Student Worker

This activity was designed to increase Novice learners’ awareness of social distance in relationships between speakers and its effect on what and how people communicate in the target language. Instructions were written with the learner as the intended audience.

Learning outcomes:

Learners will be able to:

• Demonstrate understanding of the meaning of social distance
• Consider how social distance impacts communication choices
• Exemplify knowledge of social distance through a sample conversation

Mode(s): Interpersonal

Materials: IPIC Series Social Distance video, Social Distance (Language for Specific Purposes) video, paper or digital document for brainstorming, recording device

Procedure:

1. First, review the IPIC Series Social Distance video, as well as the Social Distance (Language for Specific Purposes) video.
2. Now that you’ve reviewed concepts of social distance and strategies to account for this, let’s try it out! Think about one of your superiors at work or school, and write or draw your answers to the following guiding questions:
   • How close is your relationship? Are you closer to or farther from them, relationally, than a friend or close family member?
   • How do you maintain this relationship through the ways that you talk to each other? Are there specific titles, words, or phrases you use with them? How might you address them or discuss topics differently with them than with a friend?.
3. Then, repeat your brainstorm, this time thinking about someone you are close to, like a friend or family member. Use the questions from step 2 to guide your thinking, and write down or draw out your answers.
4. Now, imagine you want to have a conversation in the target language with each of these people, where you request more time to complete a task. Think about what your request would look or sound like with the person you are socially closer to, and what it would look or sound like with the person you are more distant from.
5. Now, write down or illustrate some key phrases, vocabulary, and/or other strategies that you might use for each situation. After you write these down, compare the two: what differences do you notice between these two requests? What commonalities do you notice?
6. Once you have a list of these patterns and strategies, write a sample script of a conversation where you request extra time to finish a task from another person. Decide whether social distance is high with this person (e.g., a supervisor you just met) or social distance is low (e.g., a supervisor with whom you have developed a close friendship).
7. Now that you have your script, set up a recording device such as a phone or laptop and first record your side of the conversation, and be sure to pause  (for ~15 seconds or so) between each line of your dialogue!
8. Once you have recorded your side of the conversation, save that recording. Now, set up a new recording and repeat that same process, this time with the other side of the dialogue.
9. Now you have both sides of the conversation to practice with! Try listening to one side of the conversation and then saying the other out loud in response. Once you’ve done this a few times, feel free to edit the recording to adjust the timing to make it feel more natural.
10. Once you’ve practiced both sides of the conversation several times, think back on how this went. Did this conversation feel natural in how it signals the closeness/distance of the relationship between speakers? Would you change anything about the choices you scripted? Remember that real life conversation is dynamic, and you can change your approach and shift strategies as you need to!
11. Keep track of these notes and these recordings, and come back to these conversations to edit them and practice more as your knowledge grows!

Notes:

• Though the context for communication is defined in Step 6, learners may update the task according to their needs. For example, they may want to think about how to engage in small talk at an interview (social distance is likely high) versus how to engage in small talk with a colleague with whom they have a long relationship (social distance is likely low).
• Novice learners can complete this activity thinking about interactions in their L1, rather than in the L2. However, if working in the L2, finding a word or phrase bank for each type of relationship/request can help with the comparison in Step 5, and a scripted model can be used in Step 6.
• A possible extension activity would be to repeat Steps 6-11 in a conversation that embodies a distinct social distance between the two speakers and compare it to the original.
• The script writing (Step 6) is included as a scaffold for Novice learners (and other learners who may struggle with verbal processing). This step could be removed for more advanced learners and replaced with outlining a conversation in preparation to have it.