ABSTRACT
Siva gets up in the morning and prays to all his Hindu Gods before he goes to the village market to open his vegetable stall. He prays most of all for negotiation strategies. He has to negotiate not only the price, but the languages of those who come to the market from neighboring villages. As he opens his stall, he sees a white-skinned man walking toward him. He prepares himself for some very intense negotiations, as this man probably brings language and values he has never encountered before. He tucks up his sarong and looks with anticipation at the foreigner. He observes the foreigner looking at the bananas. So, he asks “paLam veeNumaa?” 1 . He points to the bananas when he says paLam. The foreigner reaches into his pocket, takes out a book, and hastily checks a few things. Then he says “paLam price enTai?” as he takes out a couple of rupee notes from his other pocket. From his gestures, Siva figures out what the word “price” meant. However, he was confused by the foreigner’s use of the Tamil word enTai. The word means “my.” From the context, Siva assumes that the foreigner probably wanted to say enna, which means “what” (i.e., to mean “What is the price of the fruit?”). Siva knows that in these contact zone encounters one has to be supportive and collaborative. If one is obsessed with issues of language correctness, he/she faces the danger of damaging the interaction and probably losing the transaction. Besides, Siva knows how to use ecological resources to make meaning in translingual contexts. He can combine clues such as gestures, objects, setting, topic, and other features to help in intelligibility and communicative success.
