Reflections 3 (Spoken Discourse)

I do have some disagreement with SUN's reasearch on chinese telephone opening. I think the sequence should be "greeting, identifying, then addressing". Maybe because we are in different culture group ( China each place has its own local culture ). Let me give one example, for the long distance call my friend and i make usually comes with beginning like ( W refer to we stay in singapore, R stand for relative in China.)

W: Hello
W: Mum? ( Dad? Elder Sister?)
R: Ei, XXX?

You see Mum? Dad? Elder Sister? could not be under addressing, it has question mark, the tone is asking. Indeed, when you call somebody in long distance, you are unsure whether he/she is the correct one you are reaching, especially when you calling the house phone. Sometimes i call my uncle, aunt pick up or my cousin pick up may even be picked up by a friend visiting the house. Thus identifying is more important and must come first before addressing, must address differently according to different people. However, i do agree with SUNS other points. Chinese do have a lot of question after you. For example, how are you recently? How is your study? How is parents' health? etc. It is asian culture to show concerns and bond between family members.

Living in Singapore, i also received quite a number of calls everyday. Never noticed before, but now after this lesson, when i think it through. Singapore commercial calls usually comes with "Greeting, addressing, then identifying", for example, i receive a credit cart marketing call like

A: Good Evening(greeting), sir(addressing)!
A: Can i speak to Mr Dai(identifying)?
ME: Hi

which is quite exactly same as the SUN'S research. Anyway, this is a fun lesson.