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An Ethnography of Communication. Speakers make choices as to the language they use based on class, gender, race etc. the context of the speech event, the topic of discussion, and their goals. Ethnography of Communication. To understand the choices people make we need to know.
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An Ethnography of Communication Speakers make choices as to the language they use based on class, gender, race etc. the context of the speech event, the topic of discussion, and their goals.
Ethnography of Communication To understand the choices people make we need to know • The cultural rules for appropriate interaction - What should and should not be said in particular contexts • Information about the speakers - class, gender, race etc. • explicit and implicit norms for communication detailing aspects of verbal, non-verbal and social parameters of interaction • Code used by speakers • Setting or context of the speech event • Form or genre (e.g. conversation, folktale, chant, debate) • Topics • Attitudes • The goals of the speakers • The function of the speech event – what are the goals of the speakers • cultural messages of shared values and expectations and presuppositions We use these guidelines to shape our own behaviour and to evaluate the actions of others
Formal Speech Events • formal speech acts often take place in specified settings, among expected participants and concern relatively fixed topics • Formal settings often have a structural design that separates various categories of participants and orients them in relation to one another • e.g. courts room proceedings • Participants speech behaviour is conditioned by their role. • judge controls communication • others have obligations to speak and others not to speak • specific discourse patterns are expected of each type of participant • lawyers ask questions and make opening and closing remarks, witness answer questions
topics are rigidly defined • all speech behaviour must be relevant to the issue • rights of participants to introduce or change topics are narrowly defined and limited and controlled by the judge • Goals vary depending on roles • Speakers choose words, tone of voice facial expression, gesture etc to accomplish this purpose • e.g. the judge must appear impartial, lawyers speak and act aggressively, defendants portray themselves as innocent, witnesses appear honest and reliable, and jurors remain silent but convey interest in the speech and behaviour of others
What are the design elements that structure the setting. • Who are the participants and what are their roles. • How do the roles of participants condition their speech behaviour? • What are the rights of participants to speak • What are the specific discourse patterns for each type of participant ? • What are the topics of conversation and how are they controlled? • What are the goals various speakers. Boardroom meeting
Semi formal • What are the design elements that structure the setting. • Who are the participants and what are their roles. • How do the roles of participants condition their speech behaviour? • What are the rights of participants to speak • What are the specific discourse patterns for each type of participant ? • What are the topics of conversation and how are they controlled? • What are the goals various speakers.
Informal Interactions • not as highly structured but are constrained by cultural norms of roles, rights to speak and ways of speaking • Rules are often followed unconsciously • We assume behaviour in these contexts is natural – but is culturally conditioned • Reactions by individuals to ongoing behaviour e.g. showing either approval or disapproval indicate cultural norms • We generally become most aware of informal communicative norms when they are violated, i.e. when someone speaks inappropriately • Then we can evaluate the mistake against our culturally shared models of appropriate behaviour • Speakers errors come from misjudging the relative importance of given components within speech events – that is misjudging the weight of settings, participants, topics, and goals in framing one’s speech style. Choice of words or non-verbal cues
Settings • settings help define events as particular kinds of occasions • In so doing they invoke certain behaviours both physically, socially, and linguistically • at the same time restrict others • Settings can be classified on a continuum of formality or informality
Settings • Formal Settings • increased structuring • Choices made are consistent from one event to the next • There is an emphasis on roles of participants • They have a central focus or theme • tend to focus on specific issues and happenings • reflected in constraints on topics and in restrictions on speakers rights to change or introduce elements
Settings • increased structuring of formal events is reflected in rules of etiquette that influence participants attire, demeanour and speech. • Markers of formality may include features of pronunciation, intonation, facial expression, grammar and vocabulary, with tendencies to use more prestigeful or correct speech and to appear serious • rights and participants to speak may be curtailed or directed into certain kinds of exchanges and turn-takings
Settings • People make choices consistent with the seriousness appropriate to the occasion. • People rarely make jokes, tease or swear in highly formal situations, although depending on the setting these themselves may be structured and bound by rules • Formal settings define people by their positional and public rather than their personal identities • By invoking such public roles, social distance rather than intimacy is stressed – formal forms of address often used
Settings • People make choices consistent with the seriousness appropriate to the occasion. • People rarely make jokes, tease or swear in highly formal situations, although depending on the setting these themselves may be structured and bound by rules • Formal settings define people by their positional and public rather than their personal identities • By invoking such public roles, social distance rather than intimacy is stressed – formal forms of address often used • as members of a particular society, we share expectations about how proceedings begin and end
informal settings • settings and activities that occur in them may be bounded physically, spatially and socially • norms of communicative behaviour more diffuse and flexible • although participants always assess speech and non-verbal actions according to cultural models of appropriateness. • Speakers select stylistic features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary based on their individual habits and preferences rather than on dictates of the situation
informal settings • Topics are different on different occasions • Topics dependent upon speakers’ interests and goals • social boundaries might include specific participants and topics considered appropriate • Regardless of setting communication needs to be negotiated and developed • people learn how to begin and end particular kinds of interactions following normative patterns
Participants • Include speakers, addressees and audience • Roles usually change during a given event • Even the audience may have a communicative role to play by making the appropriate responses • People make choices about language used based on characteristics of other participants in a speech event
Participants • Such choices include aspects of linguistics and nonverbal behaviour • Pronunciation: distinctiveness of articulation • Prosodic features of intonation: velocity (speed of speaking), volume (loudness, softness) • Syntax: complexity or simplicity of word order, phrase construction etc. • Choice of words • Non-verbal cues: facial expression, eye contact, touch, physical distancing
Speakers determine, usually unconsciously, which communicative features are most appropriate given the person(s) to whom they are speaking to • We speak differently to a priest, child, person whose first language is not English • Choice of topic also depends on speakers awareness of cultural and individual expectations • What do you talk to friends, acquaintances about - what topics are avoided?
turn taking, topic development, signals of listenership are attuned to specific relationships between speakers • employers speaking with employees are more likely to take longer turns, to control topics and to exert power through interruption than are workers when speaking to their employers
Terms of Address • How we refer to people or address them is a sensitive indicator of how we evaluate co-participants in a speech event • We can use personal names, titles, kinship terms, or personal pronouns • Most frequently used forms are • First name, (FN) • and title plus last name (TLN) • in 2-party interactions we can use reciprocal FN, reciprocal TLN and nonreciprocal FN-TLN. • the specific meaning of FN and TLN varies depending on who is being addressed
We select among the options depending on how we perceive the relationship with the person we’re speaking with • We evaluate socially meaningful characteristics of individuals and then make judgements about our status relative to theirs and then make decisions about the appropriate form of address to use. • Socially meaningful factors include: • Age • Gender • Class • Ethnicity • Occupation
Power relations Superior Equal Subordinate
To equal acquaintances reciprocal forms of address occur between status equals
To a superior stranger • non-reciprocal forms are typical of unequal relationships • Reciprocal TLN marks formality or politeness
To a close subordinate: a child • FN indicates intimacy if spoken by a friend or relative but shows condescension if used by a superior to a subordinate in non-reciprocal exchanges • We have full FN, (Thomas), shortened FN (tom) diminutive (Tommy) • Children are usually addressed by shortened and or diminutive names both by other children and by adults
Inequality reigns salesperson is subordinate to customer teacher is superior to student dentist is superior to patient • use of non-reciprocal TLN-FN requires a complex assessment by speakers of their position vis-a-vis addressees • occupational status and relative age are the most important factors in choice of form. • occupation whether as an ongoing relationship (e.g. employer=employee) or a situational contract (waiter –customer)
Solidarity relations Stranger Acquaintance Friend/relative • Navajo women typically used TLN when conversing with Anglos, even of the same age as themselves, whereas they usually use FN to age equals
To equal acquaintances TLN marks distance and deference
To a close equal: an old friend • ReciprocalFN tends to indicate intimacy or casualness i.e. lack of distance
Terms of address What contextual elements influence the form used? • Is the formality of the setting relevant? • Is the kinship relation or other social relationship relevant? • Is age or generation relevant in selecting the appropriate form? • Is relative status or rank relevant in selecting an appropriate term? • Is the gender of the speakers relevant
Forms of address • vary with the nature of the relationship between speakers • reciprocal use of first names generally signifies an informal intimate relationship • title and last name used reciprocally indicates a more formal or businesslike relationship between individuals of roughly equal status • nonreciprocal use of first names and titles is reserved for speakers who recognize a marked difference in status between themselves • this status can be a function of age (as when a child refers to her mother's friend as Mrs Miller and is in returned referred to as Sally) • or it can be along occupational lines as when as person refers to his boss by title and last name and is in return addressed as John
Does naming matter? • To the hearer: Yes. • To the speaker: Yes. • A wrong choice can offend or hurt. • Decisions are difficult. • The better you speak English, the more a wrong choice will offend.
Pronouns • In most European languages complexity of address is demonstrated in pronoun systems • Most have two forms of second person pronoun – you • European pronouns distinguish both number of hearers and relationship between participants • When speaking to more than a single individual, a speaker must use the plural pronoun, referred to as the V form (French vous) which has equivalents in all other languages) • When speaking to one person speakers chose either the T form or the V form • Choice of form is a sensitive indicator of personal relationships and societal values • Two semantic components operate when selecting pronouns: power and solidarity
When pronouns are exchanged reciprocally solidarity between participants is stressed • Nonreciprocal usage reflects an unequal power relationship i.e. a superior uses T and receives V • A subordinate use V and receives T • Differences in power due to class, occupational hierarchies, age and gender • e.g. adults address children with T but receive V • employers address workers with T and receive V • in former times class distinctions determined use of T and V • members of upper classes exchanged V and lower classes addressed each other with T • this difference among equals within classes was based on emphasizing mutual solidarity • because upper classes were used to receiving V from subordinates. They exchanged it among themselves • likewise lower class people were regularly addressed with T
Power Semantic • Determines which pronoun will be used on the basis of the difference in social status (or power) between the speaker and addressee. • wealth, age, sex, institutionalised roles in church, state, army, family • Use of vous in job interviews keeps relations distant and avoids confusion • The T of "intimacy" versus the V of "formality" (French tu or vous) • Based on an asymmetrical relation and is non-reciprocal. • With increasing social mobility and ideology that has a distaste for expression of differential power there has been a preference for mutual use of T • T was chosen because the V form was used by the upper classes speakers among themselves and associated with elite privilege inconsistent with ideology of equality
Kinship terms • by extending kinship terms (brother, sister, aunt) to non-kin (fictive kinship) we signal intimacy, solidarity or deference toward co-participants • Use of such terms creates images of the prototype • In China the most respectful term for addressing a man is bobo • Used to address an elder paternal uncle it implies both an exalted status for the addressee, and a humbling of the speaker • reflects cultural models of the valued relationship between benevolent older kin who take care of the younger ones, who reciprocate with affection and later in life with care. • Invocation of the kinship term • extension of sibling terms among members of political or religious groups signals solidarity
Honorifics • linguistic markers that signal respect toward an addressee • Can be nouns, pronouns and verbs, particular words or grammatical markings that express honour to one perceived as a social superior • The most common honorifics in modern English are usually placed immediately before the name of the subject. Honorifics which can be used of any adult of the appropriate sex include "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Ms.". Other honorifics denote the honoured person’s occupation, for instance "Doctor", "Coach", "Father" (for a priest), or "Professor". • Abbreviations of academic degrees, used after a person's name, may also be seen as a kind of honorific (e.g. "Jane Doe, Ph.D.") • Some honorifics act as complete replacements for a name, as "sir" or "ma'am", or "your honor". • Subordinates will often use honorifics as punctuation before asking a superior a question or after responding to an order: "Yes, sir" or even "Sir, yes sir."
Politeness • Some languages have anti-honorific or disrespective first person forms (meaning something like "your most humble servant" or "this unworthy person") whose effect is to enhance the relative honour accorded a second or third person. • In the Thai court the correct use of formal modes of addressing royalty with linguistic terms that exalted royalty and humbled those of lower status. • The first person pronoun used when addressing the king meant `I the slave of the Lord Buddha' • second person meant `the dust beneath the sole of your august feet' meaning that the speaker did not dare address the king directly but to the dirt on the floor. • The Thai person who addresses his comments to the dirt beneath the king's shoe is invoking a cultural image of `low status' but he is also indexing relative identity in the social interaction of discourse.
Japanese contains honorifics that signal the relative status of participants directly by marking the high status of an addressee, by indirectly lowering the speakers status relative to the addressee and a third class expressing respect to the addresses by deferential marking of an entire utterance • In order to use the honorific system appropriately, Japanese speakers must be aware of relationships between selves, their interlocutors, and the persons, entities and activities spoken about. • If an action is honourable then the sentence is marked with an honorific • Using the -san honorific with a name [ie. Usagi-san, Tsukino-san] denotes formality. (like Mr/Miss/Mrs.) Usually a younger person to older adult, classmates, or people unfamiliar/unclose with each other. oba-san Middle-aged woman, aunt. obaa-san Grandmother. oji-san Middle-aged man, uncle. ojii-san Grandfather ojoo-san Young girl, some else's daughter. okaa-san Mother. onee-san Older sister. onii-san Older brother. otoo-san Father. ouji-sama Prince oujo-sama Princess
in hierarchical relationships statuses are enacted through the words and actions of the lower status person • differentiation of high and low status appears to be instigated by someone of lower status than by holders of higher status • the lower status person must use honorifics and self-deprecating language • the response in ordinary language communicates message that others must defer to them. • Honorifics, forms of address etc. demonstrate the complexities of the interdependence of language and social knowledge • In order to speak appropriately, members of each culture must evaluate characteristics of co-participants before deciding on proper linguistic form.
Topics and Goals • On what do we base our choice of topics for discussion? • personal interest • sensitivity to preferences of co-participants • cultural norms • Settings/contexts What topics are taboo at the dinner table? How do we control inappropriate topics
Speaker’s Goals • What our goals in engaging in conversation • We want to express our personal interests and get others to talk about what interests us • We want to minimize potential conflict with others and appear agreeable, cooperative and polite • the latter goal is achieved in part by acting in accordance with culturally approved ways of speaking
We can use linguistic forms to achieve our goals and at the same time enlist the cooperation of others • “gimme the salt” (gimme gimme never gets) • Informal and impolite • Imperative – a direct expression of desire • May also use a “key” i.e. Manner of saying that indicates how the words should be interpreted • “would you be so kind as to pass the salt • Formal and polite • uses polite mitigating words: “be so kind” • Interrogative – an indirect expression of desire • The two expressions have different form and force and use different linguistic types • but their underlying intent is the same
How do we decide which one to use? • Depends on person stylistic preferences and assessment of settings and co-participants • May involve different assumptions about individual’s rights obligations and accepted norms of interaction
We can use different means to get what we want We can be polite and meek or we can be aggressive And the words and style of speech we use are the same But goal is the same good cop bad cop
the same linguistic form can also express different intents, depending on the setting, participants, and topics “I love you like my brother” “I love you like my brother” Same words, different context, different meaning
Narratives • Stories or framed segments of ongoing discourse that relate or report events in chronological sequence • Historical: recount events in history of a community or a people • Mythic: recount happenings in primordial times or supernatural realm • Personal: relate events in the speaker’s life or other person • personal narratives play a central role in almost every conversation • people talk about their experiences, past events that have meaning in their lives • included to dramatize a person’s feelings thoughts and opinions
Imagine you are the driver of the truck Tell the story of what happened
