ETHNOGRAPHIES

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Ethnographies

Speech is used different ways among different group of people

Language is used to sustain reality

Varieties of Talk

!Kung: talk to resolve the kinds of tension and keep in touch

Western Apache: silence as communicate

Roti: talk as one of the great pleasures of life

What we need is some kind of general scheme to make systematic observations about the different ways people use to talk.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING

Communicative Competence: the ability to know how to use language in order to do certain things that people do with that language.

Communicative competence is the key component of social competence.

Ethnography of speaking: a description of all the factors that are relevant in understanding how that particular communicative event achieve its objective. 

Dell Hymes (1974) made a formula to identify the factors.

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

S Setting and Scene: Setting refers to time and place (physical circumstances) e.g.: living room: Scene refers to psychological setting (situation) or cultural definition of the occasion.e.g.: seriousness, happiness

P Participants: Speaker and audiencee.g.: speaker-hearer, addressor-addressee, sender-receiver.

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

E Ends: Purpose or goals of the utterances or communication event.

A Act Sequence: Form and order of the event.Different forms will have a different kinds of language and different things to talk about.

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

K Key: tone, manner in which a particular message is conveyed.Example: serious, sarcastic, mocking → know by the gesture, posture, etc

I Instrumentalities: the choice of channel.Channel: oral, written, telegraphic, and actual forms of speech employed → language, dialect, code, register, that is chosen.

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

N Norms of interaction and interpretation: Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reactions.Example: loudness, silence

 G Genre

: type or kind of utterancese.g.: poems, proverbs, riddles, prayers, lectures

S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G

SPEAKING formula is a very necessary reminder that talk is a complex activity.

To make the talk to be successful, the speaker must reveal the sensitivity and awareness of each of the 8 factors.

EthnomethodologyA branch of sociology -> concerned with talk viewed.

Interested in -> process and techniques people use -> interpret he world & interact with that world.

Focus -> phenomena of everyday existence.

Aim -> study the process of sense making (Leiter).

Such matters:

People interact

Solve problems

Maintain social contact

Routine activities

Show knowledge

Communicate that knowledge

Sharing certain background assumptions, communication is

possible.

Sacks:

“The baby cried. The mommy picked it up.”

Membership categorization devices.

-> assign certain meanings to word like baby and mommy.

To interpret particular sentences/sets of sentences, we must have knowledge of the categories that speakers find relevant (Sacks).

Categories knowledge -> the mommy must be the mother of the baby.

Ethnomethodology adopt phenomenological view of the world.

> human interaction much in verbal interaction, its attention is on how they use language in relationship to others.

Commonsense knowledge -> variety of things.

> understandings, recipes, maxims, definition employed in daily lives.

example: thunder followed lightning, how to make telephone call, houses are places to live in.

These types are to categorize what is ‘out there’ and interpret what happens out there.

These are acquired through experience. Different experience, different knowledge.

Commonsense knowledge also tells us that the world exists.

Situations and events re-occur, yesterday and today still valid today and will be valid tomorrow.

Practical reasoning -> the way people make use of their commonsense language in everyday lives.How they assume.How they select matters to deal with.What they never question.

Scribner (1977)Little or no formal education people -> solve problem based on experience, no ‘logical thinking’.

Each party had to know a lot about the other: topic, kind of exchange the conversation was, tolerate considerable inexplicitness in what was actually said.

Look at the exchange below

Husband

No, to the shoerepair shop

No, I stopped at the record store on theway to get him and stopped at the shoerepair shop on the way home when hewas with me.

Wife What for? I know of one reason why you might havestopped at the shoe repair shop. Why didyou in fact?

Husband

I got some newshoe laces for myshoes.

As you will remember, I broke a shoe laceon one of my brown oxfords the otherday, so I stopped to get some new laces.

Understanding develops as the conversation develops.

That understanding depends on the willingness of each party to work with the other to develop a common scheme of interpretation for what is being talked about.

The reaction of suspicion or hostility

On Friday night my husband and I were watching television. My husband remarked that he was tired. I asked, ‘How are you tired? Physically, mentally, or just bored?’

S: I don’t know, I guess physically, mainly.E: You mean that your muscles ache, or your bones?S: I guess so. Don’t be so technical.

(After more watching.)S: All these old movies have the same kind of old iron

bedstead in them.E: What do you mean? Do you mean all old movies, or

some of them, or justthe ones you have seen?S: What’s the matter with you? You know what I mean.E: I wish you would be more specific.S: You know what I mean! Drop dead!

People are in difficulties to act or pretend as they are not in to be.

In other word, we accept the world for what it is, we accept certain norms.

Ethnomethodology ?

People use language not only to communicate in a variety of ways but also to create a sense of order in everyday life.

Discussion

Varieties of Talk

Why do you greet each other? When do you greet? Who speak first?

What is the appropriate ethnography of speaking of it?

(choose one) asking for a date or giving bad news

Which one is ‘unusual’ or ‘abnormal’?

Bad service in a restaurant A bad day at the office Strange behavior on the street “what’s up with Fred today?”