HEY is a common and casual greeting used in western countries. It is an informal or slang way of saying Hi or Hello! Hey is also used when a person needs to attract attention. However, in some places, it is considered impolite to use hey as a greeting and should not be used in formal writings. So, how is this simple and seemingly harmless greeting causes cultural misunderstanding?
Years ago, we had an American visitor who greeted my mom by saying, “Hey, Sister!’’ My mom misunderstood that casual greeting and confronted our visitor. She told our American visitor that he was rude and impolite to call her hey! She frankly told him not to visit us again because he was disrespectful for calling her HEY! Our visitor was shocked! He then sincerely apologized and explained that he was just saying Hi to her and did not mean to be ill-mannered.
Simple phrases can be misinterpreted if people are not familiar with the culture and customs of other people. It is important to immediately settle the conflict or cultural differences by explaining oneself. It is safer to use formal and proper greetings if a visitor is new in the local society.
According to some people the affection or emotion gets intense when more Y’s are added to it. So be careful in how you send your HEYs. Therefore, the word hey has many forms, interpretations, and changes depending on the manner this word was conveyed.
As a future ESL teacher, it is significant to study different greetings. Moreover, ESL students should know the customs and cultures of the new place. They should be careful with their tone of voice and they better use formal greetings for first meetings. "The first impression lasts", so be careful with salutations. Salutations could either make or break new connections.
No comments:
Post a Comment