Since World War II interethnic communication has emerged as a fact of the modern world. Pluralism in communicative style is found throughout world and national technological, business, legal and educational bureaucracies. This chapter looks at the distribution of talk or how speakers exchange turns at speaking and how the topic of a conversation is determined. It makes brief reference to the work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science which deals with frames, schemata, and scripts. The chapter elaborates most fully on the presentation of self or face. It argues that multi-ethnic communication is a fact of the modern world. It also argues that taciturnity reflects an assumption of deference politeness and volubility reflects an assumption of solidarity. The only way to untie the double bind of interethnic gatekeeping encounters is for the gatekeeper to voluntarily use strategies of deference. The global politeness systems reflect the overriding values on distance (D) and power (P) differences held by members of particular groups.
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