The Role of Sociolinguistics in 

The Development and Conduct of Federal Surveys 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yuling Pan 

US Census Bureau 

4700 Silver Hill Road, Mail stop #9100 

Room 4-3211 

Washington, DC 20233 

Yuling.pan@census.gov 

1. Introduction 

With the ever-increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the United States, the Census Bureau is facing 

the need to obtain high quality data from non-English speaking households. In Census 2000, the Census 

Bureau recognized the necessity for data collection instruments in languages other than English and 

provided the translation of the census questionnaire in five languages other than English. However, 

obtaining high quality data from households where English is not the home language requires more than 

just having a correctly translated data collection instrument. It requires the understanding of respondents’ 

cultural expectations in communication and behavioral norms so that we can better communicate with 

respondents and gain their cooperation. 

The process of collection data through surveys involves at least three modes of communication: filling out 

a survey questionnaire (either on paper or on the internet), face-to-face interview, and telephone interview. 

Each of these modes entails communication in one or more languages and visual as well as aural modes. 

Thus answering a survey questionnaire is a communicative event that involves the use of language and the 

understanding of language in its cultural environment. When dealing with surveys, respondents who speak 

languages other than English may not necessarily possess the same set of communication norms and 

interaction skills as English speakers. This affects item response and response rates for non-English 

speaking populations. We need to incorporate research in other disciplines to find ways to address barriers 

in data collection associated with respondents' language use and cultural differences so as to increase 

survey participation and reduce non-response rate, as well as to ensure high quality data. 

This paper examines the communicative process underlying surveys from a sociolinguistic perspective. 

Sociolinguistics studies the interaction between language use and socio-cultural factors and the social 

function of language, and to identify interaction patterns in a social setting and different ways of language 

use. It also provides insights on how linguistic and cultural issues influence the way speakers of different 

languages communicate. By analyzing surveys as a communicative event, I show that sociolinguistic 

notions can be applied to understanding the interactional aspect and the underlying communicative process 

of surveys. I begin with the notion of answering a survey questionnaire as a communicative event, and the 

interactional components of such an event, and then discuss cross-cultural differences in communication 

styles in each stage of an interaction, and their implications for survey participation among non-English 

speaking populations. The main purpose of this paper is to raise some cross-cultural issues for 

consideration in the development and conduct of federal surveys. 

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2. Answering a survey questionnaire as a communicative event 

Surveys have been viewed as both cognitive and social processes (Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996). 

Typical cognitive models of the response process focus on the respondent’s internal stages of answering a 

question (Cannell, Miller, and Oksenberg, 1981). Social models study the interaction of interviewer’s 

demographic characteristics and task characteristics on respondent behavior (Sudman and Bradburn, 1974.) 

With the increase of cultural diversity in survey population, cultural factors, including cultural value 

systems and social circumstances of personal experience, have been recognized as a strong influence on 

survey quality and survey participation. However, much of the discussion of cultural factors is confined to 

the immediate interaction surrounding question and answer. Issues under discussion include how cultural 

norms, values, and experiences influence the processing of the four tasks of the response process (Johnson 

et. al. 1997), how cultural saliency of events has an effect on memory and reporting, and how cultural 

context affects question interpretation (Braun, 2003; Schwarz, 2003). These elements have a powerful 

influence on respondent behavior, but are not the only factors that condition and shape cross-cultural norms 

of survey participation. Cultural differences in communication styles have received little attention as a 

major causal factor in the survey process. There are clear cross-cultural differences in communication 

styles and other communicative dimensions in a particular social setting (Saville-Troike, 1989). Survey 

interaction is no exception. It is, therefore, important to investigate cultural influences on the interactional 

aspect of the survey process. 

2.1 Communicative event 

A communicative event is a bounded entity of some kind with the purpose of communicating a message. It 

consists of the following salient components (cf. Saville-Troike, 1989, Scollon and Scollon, 2001) as 

illustrated in Figure 1: 

• scene (setting, topic, purpose, genre) 

• key (tone or mood) 

• participants (who they are, roles they take) 

• message form (speaking, writing, other media) 

• message content (what is communicated about) 

• act sequence (order of communicative acts) 

• rules for interaction and norms of interpretation (common knowledge, cultural knowledge, shared 

understandings) 

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Figure 1. Components of a communicative event 

Communicative Event 

(use language for 

communication) 

 Scene 

Message 

Form 

Key 

(tone, mood) 

Rules for interaction & 

norms of interpretation 

Message Act sequence 

content 

Participants 

These components interrelate to and influence each other. For example, the message form of a greeting is 

influenced not only by the season, time of day, and physical location, but the age, sex, and role-relationship 

of the participants, and the purpose of the encounter (Saville-Troike, 1989: 157). These components 

provide one type of contextual frame within which meaningful differences in interaction behavior can be 

discovered and described. 

Answering a survey questionnaire in any mode (mail, telephone, face-to-face interview or internet) can be 

viewed as a communicative event because it uses language to obtain information from respondents. This 

event involves a particular social setting (respondent’s home, office, or questionnaire assistance center), 

participants (interviewers and respondents), message form (mode of data collection), message content 

(subject matter of a survey), act sequence (question-answer), and shared understanding of roles and 

interaction norms in a survey. In order for a communicative event of answering a questionnaire to 

successfully take place, participants need to share not only the language, but also rules for interaction in a 

survey interaction and cultural knowledge of the social context of surveys. 

2.2 The social context of federal surveys 

The Federal survey itself is a special kind of communicative event that encompasses a set of definitions and 

interaction norms. These definitions and norms define the roles of participants and the information 

gathering process and are open to cultural variation. 

As a communicative event, federal surveys have the following characteristics in terms of social interaction. 

First there is an unsymmetrical power relation between survey respondents and the assumed government 

voice embodied in a survey. Second, there is the need to communicate to the respondent the legitimacy of 

sponsorship and authenticity of a survey. Third, there is the need to establish shared purpose of 

communication, the purpose of questions asked or the validity of the questions asked in a survey. If this is 

not established, the event does not take place or misleading information will be provided. Fourth, there is 

the need to convey to the respondent the idea of “reciprocity”, or benefits of participating in surveys. 

Ethnographic studies (Gerber, 2001, Gerber 2003) show that a respondent’s decision to answer a survey 

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questionnaire and specific questions is based on the situational judgment of who is asking the question and 

whether an interview is legitimate, and their assessment of the consequences and benefits of giving 

information. 

In addition, the legitimacy of an interview requires an additional personal assessment of the interviewer, 

based on the interviewer’s behavior and bearing. As a result, “respondents’ search for authenticity in 

sponsorship became more personalized” (Gerber, 2001, p6). This implies that interviewers’ communication 

styles can be the very first sign for personal assessment by respondents. Since survey transactions are 

interactions between strangers, participants rely heavily on communication styles to make a judgment of 

the situation and assessment of the other person. Mismatch in communication styles can lead to a misread 

of signals and mistrust. Understanding cultural differences in communication styles thus can help 

interviewers to turn an anonymous relationship into a personal one and to gain cooperation from 

respondents. 

2.3 Communication styles and their effects on survey interviews 

Communication styles refer to different ways of using language in social interaction. These different ways 

of language use include knowledge and expectation of who may or may not speak in certain settings, when 

to speak and when to remain silent, to whom one may speak, how one may talk to persons of different 

statuses and roles, what appropriate nonverbal behaviors are in various contexts, what the routines for turntaking are in conversation, how to ask for and give information, how to request, how to offer or decline 

assistance or cooperation, how to give commands, and so on (Saville-Troike, 1989:21). This knowledge 

and expectation, together with language ability, comprises communicative competence in a communicative 

event. Cultural differences in communication styles can be observed in the three interactional components 

of a survey interview. 

3. Interactional components of a survey interview 

Given the aforementioned social context of federal surveys, from a social interaction point of view, there 

are three key components in a survey interview: 

1) opening an interaction 

2) obtaining/giving information 

3) maintaining an interaction 

Opening an interaction sets the stage of an interview as a social encounter. The interviewer’s role and the 

respondent’s role are negotiated, defined and developed as the interviewer engages the respondent in the 

interaction. After the relationship and topic are defined in the opening stage, the interview can proceed to 

the next stage of obtaining/giving information. The third component of maintaining an interaction consists 

of use of verbal and nonverbal cues to ensure smooth interaction between the interviewer and the 

respondent. 

However, each culture has its own set of norms or conventions that influence individual behaviors. When 

respondents participate in a survey interaction, they bring with them their cultural knowledge and behavior 

norms of how to act at each stage of the interaction. According to Behling and Law (2000), social norms 

and conventions that have significant impact on respondent behavior include the way in which strangers are 

treated, the openness with which particular topics are discussed, and the manner in which ideas are 

expressed. These social norms and conventions are reflected in language use in the three interactional 

components of a survey interview. The following section will examine how verbal and nonverbal features 

signal different communication styles. 

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3.1 Opening an interaction 

Sociolinguistic research (e.g., Scollon, 1998) shows that a social encounter follows a three-step pattern in 

opening an interaction: attention to channel, attention to relationship, and then attention to topic (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Three-step pattern in opening an interaction 

Attention to channel 

Attention to relationship 

Attention to topic 

That is, the participants need to first open a channel for communication (e.g., telephone, face-to-face, or in 

writing), then define or develop the role that each participant is going to take in the encounter, and then 

introduce the topic of the interaction. A survey interaction follows this pattern too, but cultures differ in 

their preferred way of giving attention to relationship and topic in a social encounter. The following two 

examples illustrate how cultural differences can be observed at the opening stage of an interview. 

Interaction 1 

In a middle class neighborhood in the Los Angeles region a Chinese-English bilingual field interviewer 

knocked on the door of the first household. A middle-aged white woman answered the door. The field 

interviewer started the conversation. 

1. FR: “Hello, how are you? 

2. R: “I’m fine.” 

3. FR: [shows badge and name card] “My name is Lily Wong. I’m from the Census Bureau. We are 

conducting a survey on current population. We would like to ask you for help.” 

Interaction 2 

At the second household in the same neighborhood, a middle-aged Asian woman opened the door. The 

field interviewer started the conversation. 

1. FR: “Hello, do you speak Chinese?” 

2. R: “Yes.” 

3. FR: [switches to Chinese] “I’m from the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau is conducting a survey on 

current population. We would like to ask you for help. By the way, my name is Lily Wong.” [shows badge 

and name card] 

These two interactions are the first segment of an interviewer-respondent interaction. In terms of structure, 

they are similar: the interviewer initiates the conversation by greeting the respondent, the respondent 

answers the interviewer’s greeting. Then the interviewer explains the purpose of her visit. But a linguistic 

analysis of the three initial turn exchanges shows the inherent differences in the opening of an interaction in 

the two interactions: In Interaction 1, the interviewer started by a formulaic greeting of “How are you?” 

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The respondent answered by following the formulaic: “I’m fine.” Then the interviewer showed her ID card 

and stated her name, the organization, and purpose of her visit. In interaction 2, the interviewer started by 

asking if the respondent spoke Chinese. When the respondent answered “yes”, the interviewer switched 

into Chinese and stated the name of the organization that she worked for and the purpose of the visit. She 

stated her name at the last utterance of the turn. 

Two cultural norms are being observed here. When meeting for the first time, Americans tend to volunteer 

to introduce themselves first by stating their name: “I’m so-so, from such-and-such organization.” The 

individual’s identity is important for the opening of an interaction. In interaction 1, the interviewer 

followed this norm in immediately providing her name and stating the purpose of the visit. 

On the contrary, it is relatively rare for people from a collectivist society, such as Japan, China or Korea, to 

volunteer to introduce oneself at the first meeting. They will wait for the third party to introduce them to 

one another. If there is no third party, they ask the listener’s name and where he/she is from before they 

reveal any information of themselves. They almost never engage in a conversation with a stranger because 

there is relatively greater social distance between strangers as compared to that of American society, and it 

is harder to cross the ingroup and outgroup boundary. 

In Interaction 2, the interviewer didn’t state her name first. She asked if the respondent spoke Chinese and 

then switched to Chinese. This code-switching has the function of closing the social distance, because 

being able to share a language indicates something in common between the two strangers. After a common 

ground was established, the field interviewer went on to provide the information of the organization and 

stated that the Census Bureau was conducting a survey. She gave her name at the very end of the turn with 

a phrase of “by the way” to indicate the insignificance of her self-identity. By doing so, she emphasized the 

importance of the organization and the survey, which gave her a legitimate reason to interact with a 

stranger. 

Different societies treat strangers, especially strangers asking questions, in different fashions. Pareek and 

Rao (1980) identify three norms governing responses to strangers. First is the reticence norm, which is the 

tendency of individuals to express ideas and opinions only to those they know well. Strangers are viewed 

with closed-mouth suspicion in some societies. Second is the hospitality norm. Many societies have 

traditions of hospitality in greeting strangers. Respondents are likely to be open with strangers, but may 

give answers that they believe will please the questioner rather than expressing true feelings or beliefs. 

Third is the mischief norm. Some societies see strangers as fair game. Individuals in such societies may 

take considerable pleasure in “playing game” with strangers (see also Behling and Law, 2000, p6, p46). 

These cultural norms in treating strangers have an impact on respondents and field interviewers as well. For 

respondents, they may simply refuse to participate in a survey because they don’t want to talk to a stranger. 

For interviewers, they will have to learn how to deal with respondents with these different behavioral 

norms. This can be a special concern for bilingual interviewers. We learned from our field observation in 

the Los Angeles region that it is very difficult to keep bilingual interviewers on the job. Many bilingual 

interviewers quit after a short time, especially those who grew up in countries outside the US. One of the 

main reasons is that those field interviewers find it hard to act and interact in behavioral norms that are 

different from what they are accustomed to. For example, knocking on the door and talking to a stranger 

may not come naturally for Americans, but it can be even harder for Asian-origin field interviewers, 

because there is a clear distinction between inside and outside groups in Asian cultures. People generally do 

not interact with outsiders and therefore lack communication strategies or interaction skills to deal with 

strangers. Since the job nature of a field interviewer can very well be just the opposite to the cultural norms 

of communication for many bilingual field interviewers, it is essential to provide training to address this 

specific concern. 

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3.2 Obtaining/giving information 

One of the important functions of surveys is to gather information. Surveys are based on the assumption 

that people can express their opinions and preferences openly and directly. Questions are designed to elicit 

direct response from respondents. Americans take direct expression of opinions as being honest and 

sincere, and believe that everybody is equal and has the right to say what he/she thinks. However, this 

belief and assumption may not be shared by all cultures. In terms of communication styles, cultures differ 

in the dimension of directness and openness in expressing opinions. 

• Directness vs. indirectness 

According to Storti (1999), whose work draws heavily on Hall’s (1959, 1976) concept of high-context and 

low-context culture, cultures can be placed on a continuum of directness and indirectness in expressing 

opinions (Figure 3). 

Figure 3. Cultures and Continuum of Directness 

Continuum of Directness 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G 

|

Direct 

US F 

R 

|

S 

UK

I ME 

M 

|

A, C 

SEA J

| 

Indirect 

Key: 

A - Africa C - China F - France G - Germany I - India J - Japan M - Mexico 

ME - Middle East R - Russia S - Spain SEA - Southeast Asia UK - United Kingdom 

US - United States 

 

_______________________ 

(Based on Storti, 1999:99) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this we can see that people from Western cultures tend to be direct in expressing their opinions while 

Asians and Africans tend to be indirect. Thus it can be very uncomfortable for respondents from these 

cultures if they are forced to give direct answers. The data collected are less likely to be reliable. 

Directness and indirectness also has an effect on pretesting questionnaires in other languages too. We need 

to consider if respondents are willing to directly tell us what they really think. For example, during 

cognitive interviews on the Census 2000 Chinese form, Chinese respondents first ask: “Who wrote this 

question? Did you write this question yourself?” They want to know this information because Chinese 

often do not separate a person from his or her actions or opinions, and thus opposing an idea is in effect 

criticizing the person expressing that idea. They would feel uncomfortable critiquing survey questions in 

front of a researcher. When being probed for their own interpretation of questions, they often just repeat 

the question word-by-word without using their own words because it is relatively difficult for them to 

express their opinions directly. 

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• Introduction of main point 

Directness in expressing one’s opinion is reflected in the ways of presenting one’s main point as well. 

Successful communication depends on knowing what your conversation partner is talking about and 

making sure your conversation partner knows what you are talking about. That is, to understand each 

other’s main point. There are two patterns of presenting one’s main topic/point: deductive and inductive 

patterns (Scollon and Scollon, 2001). 

A deductive pattern of topic introduction gives the main point first and then develops the argument by 

providing details and reasons. The most important information is provided upfront; supporting information 

is given afterwards. This is the pattern preferred by Americans in speaking and writing: tell others your 

main point first, then add the relevant supporting details. 

An inductive pattern of topic introduction refers to the message structure of putting supporting details or 

reasons first before reaching the main point. The background information of the main point is laid out first 

and the main point (or topic) is deferred until sufficient backgrounding of the topic has been done. This 

pattern also lets the speaker receive the listener’s reaction before he/she goes on to the main point. 

The deductive pattern is often perceived as being direct and linear, while the inductive pattern as indirect 

and circular. As a general practice, the deductive pattern is preferred in Western cultures while the 

inductive pattern is the preferred norm in Eastern cultures. 

Survey questions are designed based on this Western preference of direct communication. It is expected 

that respondents follow the deductive pattern in giving a “yes” or “no” answer without “beating around the 

bush”. However many cultural groups, such as Arabs and Asians, may prefer the other style. The 

straightforward answer sounds too abrupt and arrogant to respondents from these cultural groups that they 

prefer the inductive pattern of presenting information. They may say something that seems irrelevant and 

then come to the point of the question. This can cause confusion and will lead to item nonresponse as the 

interviewer may not capture the respondent’s main point. 

3.3 Maintaining an interaction 

During a survey interview, it is equally important for field interviews to keep the interaction going by 

building a rapport with respondents. In a communicative event of survey interview, participants rely on 

verbal and nonverbal cues for smooth interaction, and at the same time, applying appropriate politeness 

strategies to rapport building. We will consider some aspects of verbal and nonverbal cues relevant to 

survey interaction in this section. 

• Verbal cues 

Verbal cues include a range of linguistic strategies that participants of a communicative event employ to 

signal meanings and messages. Of importance to survey interviews are turn-taking practice and linguistic 

politeness. 

Turn-taking means the practice of how each person participates in a communicative event, such as when to 

speak and how long to speak. There are clear differences in turn-taking practices across cultures. For 

example, certain American Indian groups are accustomed to waiting several minutes in silence before 

responding to a question or taking a turn in a conversation, while the native English speakers may be 

talking to have very short time frames for response or conversational turn-taking, and find silence 

embarrassing (Saville-Troike, 1982). Studies show that among African Americans conversations may 

involve several persons talking at the same time, a practice that violates White middle-class rules of 

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interaction (Abrahams, 1973). Even among native speakers of English there are regional differences. 

Tannen (1986) shows that New York people have a tendency to speak at a fast pace while California 

speakers tend to talk at a slower pace. 

Differences in turn-taking practices across cultural groups may affect how participants in a communicative 

event feel about the interaction. If two people do not share the same turn-taking practice, the person with 

the fast pace will dominate the conversation, leaving the other participant little chance to contribute. During 

one of our field observations, we noticed that the field interviewer spoke at a fast pace. When he finished 

reading the question, the respondent was silent for a second. The interviewer then immediately repeated the 

question, thinking that the respondent had difficulty understanding the question. The respondent might have 

been just about ready to answer the question when the interviewer repeated it. When the respondent was 

formulating the answer, talking at a slower pace, the interviewer started to take over the speaking turn by 

clarifying the respondent’s answer or by adding something to what the respondent was saying. The 

respondent may feel that he/she was being cut off by the interviewer. 

Another kind of verbal cue is politeness strategy used by participants in a social encounter in order to 

ensure smooth interaction. Although the general principles of politeness are universal, each culture has its 

specific way of signaling politeness. What is the considered polite way of saying things in one culture may 

not be polite in another culture. How to signal politeness seems a simply question, but actually it involves 

deep cultural values and social norms that govern the use of politeness strategies. 

In American culture, the use of “please” and “thank you” is the normal and standard way to show 

politeness. These two phrases are used more often than other polite hedges. Does it always work to insert 

“please” and “thank you” in a sentence that we want to use and make it polite? 

One example to illustrate this comes from a consultation session with an American telecommunications 

company (c.f., Pan, Scollon and Scollon, 2002). A consultant on Chinese language and culture was called 

upon to monitor the professionalism and politeness of the Chinese-speaking sales representatives in a 

telecommunications company. The training manager of the company was trying to get their Chinesespeaking sales representatives to use markers of politeness such as the equivalents of English "Please" and 

"Thank you" in making their sales pitches. The sales representatives were given a Chinese script translated 

from the English script. According to the script, the sales representatives were supposed to state their full 

name first and use “please” and “thank you” at every possible point in the conversation where it would be 

appropriate in American English. 

During the three days of the monitoring, 10 Chinese-speaking sales representatives were monitored. Most 

of them got 0 point in the item of politeness level because they failed to use “please” and “thank you” in 

their conversation with their customers. As a result they failed in their performance evaluation, because 

their politeness level was not up to the company’s standard. However the calls monitored were very polite 

by Chinese standards, and most of the sales representatives succeeded in signing up their customers for the 

company’s service. Yet by the manager's rating scale they received 0 point. The sales representatives were 

very frustrated with the training program. 

In many languages including Chinese, it is not customary to use expressions like "please" and "thank you" 

in daily conversation. These terms are used mostly on very formal occasions. The use of ‘please’ and 

‘thank you’ may sound too formal to the extent that it enlarges, instead of closing, the social distance 

between the participants. When used excessively in interviews, it sounds fishy and gives the feeling of 

setting up a trap to get customers to buy some service. In Chinese conversations politeness is indicated by 

other linguistic features, including repetition of a verb (e.g., “see, see”, “read, read”) or adjective phrase 

(e.g., “fine, fine”), a tag question (e.g., “Is that OK?”), prosodic features (tone of voice, intonation, rate of 

speech, or pauses), and other discursive features (Pan, 2000). 

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This shows that while to be polite and nice is a universal desire in social interaction, how to signal 

politeness differs from culture to culture. It is naïve to assume that our way is the best way and most 

effective way to show politeness. We need to be aware of other ways to show politeness and adjust our 

strategies to match the expectations and general practice of the cultural group with whom we are dealing. 

• Nonverbal cues 

Nonverbal cues are as important as verbal cues for successful interaction. Three types of nonverbal cues are 

of importance to cross-cultural communication: kinesics (gestures, body movements, facial expressions, 

and eye contact), proxemics (personal space), and chronemics (concept of time). People learn nonverbal 

cues as part of their communication competence when they grew up and may not have a clue how to 

interpret nonverbal cues of other cultures. 

For example, patterns of eye contact learned in childhood seem to be relatively unaffected by later 

experiences (Jandt, 1995). Americans are taught from childhood to maintain eye contact while talking to 

people to show honesty and sincerity. Arabs, Latin Americans, and Southern Europeans focused their gaze 

on the eyes or face of their conversational partner, whereas Asians, Indians and Pakistanis, and Northern 

Europeans tend to show peripheral gaze or no gaze at all (Harper, Wiens, & Matarazzo, 1978). In Korean 

and Japanese cultures, direct eye contact means challenge and disrespect to the addressee. 

Proxemics refers to personal space and positioning of self in a communicative event. Each culture has some 

implicit rules and conventions for this practice. Cross-cultural research shows that Americans tend to sit 

across the table, and face-to-face when talking to each other. They prefer to have relatively a large personal 

space, while Asians tend to have a smaller personal space, and tend to sit side-by-side. For Asians, seating 

arrangement is based on the hierarchical order among participants. So in a survey interview, paying 

attention to the proxemics practice of the target population can help to create a positive impact on 

respondents. Skillful interviewers adjust their personal space and positioning according to the 

circumstances. For instance, a Spanish-English bilingual field interviewer doing a Current Population 

Survey interview in the Los Angeles region sat side-by-side with a Spanish-speaking woman on a sofa, 

very close, while conducting the interview. In the next household, she sat face-to-face across a table with 

an English-speaking female respondent. This subtle change in positioning indicates her cultural sensitivity 

to the environment and the respondent. 

Knowing the general principles of how nonverbal cues work in cross-cultural settings can help field 

interviewers quickly identify cues that signal the appropriate behavior and then use the comparable 

nonverbal cues to build a rapport with the respondent. 

4. Conclusions and implications 

This paper gives an overview of sociolinguistic principles and discussed the application of these principles 

to survey research. Discussed in this paper are two concepts central to describing cultural differences in 

survey design and implementation process, namely, communicative event and communication style. I 

showed that surveys are inherently a communicative event, which involves three interactional components. 

Cultural differences can be observed in every stage of the interaction process of answering a questionnaire, 

therefore, more research needs to be done to identify influential cultural factors in interview events that 

mediate the conditions of respondent survey participation and response quality. 

The second concept discussed in this paper is communication styles. It is very likely that respondents from 

different cultural groups have different communication expectations and communication styles from survey 

designers. However it is important to note that communication styles discussed in this paper, including 

directness, indirectness, deductive and inductive pattern of topic introduction, turn-taking practice, 

politeness strategies, and nonverbal cues, are present in all cultures, but the manifestation and the 

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significance attached to them differ from culture to culture. This is why communication can break down 

even if people are using the same language. 

The concept of communication styles has practical implications for field interviewer training. Given other 

requirements of the interview situation like the need to control the interview and the need to limit time, 

training in cross-cultural communication will provide field interviewers with techniques and strategies to 

handle language and cultural diversity. In order to be successful in dealing with people from other cultures, 

we need to understand our own communication styles and be aware that there are different ways of 

communicating. While it is impossible to cover communication norms of all cultures, the training can focus 

on general principles of differences in communication norms relevant to survey interviews. This kind of 

training will benefit both monolingual and bilingual field interviewers. Monolingual field interviewers need 

to understand communication norms of respondents from cultures other than their own, even when they 

speak the same language. Bilingual field interviewers need to understand that while it is important to be 

able to speak another language, being able to adapt to the cultural expectations of respondents is crucial to 

get cooperation from respondents. It is also essential for bilingual field interviewers of other country 

origins to receive training about communication norms in American society, so they will be not only 

bilingual, but also bicultural. 

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