Contextual Components: Outline of an Ethnography of Communication

Chapter 4

Language in Context

Context = cultural and social situation How does context affect language?

Malinowski (1884-1942) Translation requires knowledge of context Context can shift meanings

Indirection Saving Face.

Communicative Competence

Ability to speak a language “well” Ability to use your language “correctly” In a variety of social situations

Compare with Linguistic Competence Ability to produce (and recognize)

grammatically correct expressions Chomsky’s “ideal speaker”

Not distracted by environment.

Some Environmental “Distractions”

When ‘bad’ means ‘good’ When is not appropriate to respond honestly Different words/expressions among

cultures/subcultures Greetings and address terms

‘Hello’ / ‘Hi’ / ‘Sup!’ Usted vs. tu, vosotros/vois

How do you learn these “rules?” Ethnography of Speaking….

Ethnography of Speaking

Developed in 1960s by Dell Hymes Focus on language in total cultural

context How people use language in real situations Communicative competence

The importance of fieldwork What are the rules for speaking? For not speaking? How do children learn the rules?.

Ethnography of SPEAKING

Setting/Situation/Scene Where?

Participants Who are the speakers? Who can speak? Who should speak?

Ends: What are the goals?

Bargaining Asking for (and giving) directions Report-talk vs rapport-talk.

Ethnography of SPEAKING Act Sequence

Exactly what gets said? Speech Acts

Promises, commands, apologies Speech Events

Exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches Status and type or order of greetings

Speech Situations Classrooms, conferences, parties, ceremonies

Key Tone of voice, manner of delivery

Mourning, joking, irony, teasing.

Ethnography of SPEAKING

Instrumentalities Languages & dialects

Mutual intelligibility Politics and attitudes: languages and their speakers

Ideas about “Standard” and “Non-standard” Cousin Joe and the performance of identity thru dialect ‘warsh’ ‘fouath flouah’ ‘pahking the cah’ “A language is a dialect with an army and navy.”

Ethnography of SPEAKING

Norms Expectations

Speaking vs silence Directness vs indirectness Lying vs politeness Taking turns and interrupting Taboos and avoidances

Genres Kinds of speech acts or events

Lectures, Poetry Readings, Joking, Gossip.

Speech Communities Linguistic Communities

A speech community is A group of people who share

One or more varieties of language And the rules for using them in interaction

A linguistic community is A group of people who share

A single language variety And who identify with that language variety

A community of practice is ???.

Language Across Cultures

Different communities = different rules Easy for misunderstandings to occur Rich Points

Moments of misunderstanding Corn pudding Interviewing for a job Asking for a ride

Signal differences in rules Ways to say ‘no’ Ways to take turns Indirectness.

Communicative Interactions

Chapter 5

Structural Properties of Conversation

Speakers have options of ways to express themselves.

Conversational interaction Turn-taking Influence of context Sensitive to status of participants Turn-constructional units Adjacency pairs Tag questions Turn-entry devices

Active Listening

Eye-contact Paraphrasing Acknowledgement

Using I vs. You messages Function?

Politeness

Cross Cultural Repairs

Michael Agar’s ‘MAR’ Recognize/acknowledge ‘Mistake’ in using

rules Develop Awareness of different rules

Ethnography of Communication as a method Repair understanding of rules

Finding appropriate ways to say ‘no’ Learning to take turns without ‘interrupting’ ‘Hearing’ and responding to a request for a ride.