This Week:

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This Week

• Language and Dialect
• Pragmatics

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Speech communities
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• The idea of a speech community allows us to do
  two things
• 1) Focus on a smaller social unit than all the
  speakers of a language.
• 2) Get away from the idea that one language
  one culture
• Can we belong to more than one speech community?

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Competence

• Communicative competence refers to what we know
  when we really know a language. It means that we
  can recognize and use a broad range of registers,
  and that we know the meanings of different
  communicative practices used by most people in a
  given speech community.

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Ethnography of Speaking

• The ethnography of speaking focuses on describing
  features of different speech communities
• includes descriptions of explicit norms for
  communication
• details verbal, nonverbal and social expectations
  surrounding interaction
• focuses on particular contexts and types of
  speech events, and how language changes in
  different situations

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

• Ottenheimer discusses this as a classic approach
  to doing ethnography of communication (pp.
  97-111)
• Setting (physical surroundings)
• Participants (who does what?)
• Ends (goals of interaction)
• Acts sequence (order of events)
• Key (cues that establish tone of event)
• Instrumentalities (styles/registers)
• Norms (social norms for the event)
• Genre (fairy tale knock-knock joke)

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• Members of a speech community SHARE ideas about
  appropriate conduct in different speech
  situations
• When two people come from different speech
  communities and dont share ideas about
  appropriate conduct, miscommunication often
  occurs.

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Miscommunication

• miscommunication - a misinterpretation of
  intended meaning failure to achieve
  communication
• Miscommunication occurs all the time within
  speech communities, but across speech communities
  miscommunication often occurs at regular points
  where rules and norms are different in the two
  communities

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Bailey article

• Example of ethnography of communication
• About miscommunication across ethnic lines
• Focuses on interactional styles the basic ways
  people organize their interactions with one
  another based on expectations for those
  interactions

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Politeness strategies or styles

• involvement strategy express approval and
  emphasizes solidarity (African-American)
• restraint strategy emphasizes unwillingness to
  impose on others (Korean)

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Social Consequences of Miscommunication

• Each side engages in inappropriate behavior by
  the standards of the other
• The service encounter breaks down
• Cultural stereotypes and animosity are reinforced

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Norms and expectations

• Koreans business encounter should not be
  personal should focus on business and involve
  minimum of speaking
• African American business encounter should be a
  social encounter that emphasizes a relationship
  between participants

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• According to the information Bailey gives, do
  Koreans and African Americans in LA belong to
  different speech communities?
• Understanding how norms for communication differ
  across communities can help ease
  tensions/stereotypes

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Register

• register is a term that describes how language
  varies across situations
• Ottenheimer (pg. 105) varieties of a language
  that are considered appropriate to specific
  situations formal informal babytalk
• Agar examples Scuba divers, junkies

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Ways of Speaking

• Registers can be described as ways of speaking
• The way you speak to an older person
• a baby
• when you are
  joking

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Register features

• Registers exist WITHIN dialects.
• However, registers usually involve variations in
  vocabulary, pitch, pacing, and sometimes
  phonology and intonation.
• e.g. most formal registers in English have less
  pitch variation than informal ones, plus a
  distinct vocabulary, and pacing that may be
  slower or faster than casual ones

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Pragmatics
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• Pragmatics studies language from the point of
  view of speakers, esp. the constraints they
  encounter in using language in social
  interaction.
• Pragmatic constraints control complex linguistic
  choices such as register and dialect switching,
  vocabulary choice, intonation, and so forth.

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Example Communicating Focus

• How many different ways can you say
• I dont want to go.
• Ty bachyla zelenu tashku?
• you saw green bag

English communicates focus through volume/stress
Ukrainian communicates focus through intonation
and word order
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What do pragmatic cues do?

• Orient us to context (what is going on?)
• Orient us to appropriate behavior
• For example register, loudness, topics,
  turn-taking rules
• Orient us to the attitude and intentions of the
  other person
• What happens when two people dont share the same
  set of pragmatic cues?

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More miscommunication

• At a British airport, South Asian cafeteria
  servers would say to customers Gravy. to ask
  whether a person wanted gravy.
• Why did this result in miscommunication?

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Some examples of pragmatic cues

• Gaze where you are looking
• Speed of speech
• proxemics/kinesics
• tone of voice

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Pragmatic cues communicate

• intention
• e.g. respect, disrespect, sarcasm
• whether we want to include or exclude someone
  from the group/conversation
• our social roles and where we stand with one
  another

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Example of pragmatic miscue

• An American professor says Hi, how ya doing? to
  a foreign visitor to the university.
• The foreign visitor starts to talk about his
  problems, but the American just keeps walking.

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Collusion
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What is collusion?

• Collusion comes from the Latin word meaning to
  play together
• Outside of anthropology, it has a negative
  meaning similar to conspire
• Is collusion good or bad?

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Collusion in conversation

• Conversation, like many other kinds of social
  situations, requires collaborative achievement of
  consensus about what is going on
• For smooth social interactions, the participants
  must be on the same page as to what kind of
  interaction is taking place and what the goals of
  the interaction are share the same SPEAKING
  model.

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S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G and collusion?

• In order to collude, we need to be on the same
  page as to each of the elements in the SPEAKING
  model
• Examples of NOT colluding
• Participants have different ideas of the setting
• Participants have different ideas of roles
• Participants have different goals for the event
• Participants have different norms for the event

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Agar example 164-168

• Miscommunication between Anglos and
  Athabaskans due to differences in expectations
• What were some differences that led to
  miscommunication?
• How power relationships are expressed differently
• Speaker turnover
• Exit strategies

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Agar says

• The interpretation one has of the other isnt
  just that a problem occurred, that the talk isnt
  working right and its the others fault. The
  interpretations are that the other is deficient
  in some way, that he or she lacks the qualities
  that hold people inside the boundaries of normal
  behavior. pg. 167

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Assignment 3

• Assignment asks you to find and discuss an
  example of collusion
• Read the explanation, then do the assignment.
  Please dont record conversations or use peoples
  real names in your discussion
• Due Thursday, October 18th in class

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Agar on Frames

• Frames are culturally recognized situations in
  which certain kinds of behavior, including
  linguistic behavior, are considered culturally
  normal and expected
• Agar gives the example of a restaurant frame in
  the US (pg. 131), where there are particular
  rules and expectations that guide our
  interactions.
• Because we have that frame available, we can
  invoke it in other situations as part of verbal
  play by saying things like May I take your
  order? Do you want fries with that? or Dont
  forget to leave a nice tip.

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Garfinkeling (Agar pp. 168-170)

• Harold Garfinkel, sociologist
• How can we reveal the hidden social expectations
  that frame the way we look at the world? By
  deliberately violating those expectations and
  looking at peoples reactions

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Virtual reality

• Part of Agars point is that conversational
  genres or situations exist ONLY in so far as
  we recognize and interpret them as such.
• For example joking, telling secrets, giving
  directions, coming clean, hanging out
• What happens when participants have different
  ideas of what is going on?

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Non-linguistic example

• Collusion is like merging onto the highway
• Both you and other drivers must recognize that
  you want to merge
• You need to adjust your speed
• Other cars need to adjust their position relative
  to you to give you a spot

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Interactional examples

• When you are having a conversation with someone
  over food, you naturally coordinate your turns
  around eating activities like chewing, bringing
  food to your mouth and so forth.
• When you are having a conversation with an
  acquaintance, you may not acknowledge that the
  person is adjusting a bra strap or wiping his or
  her nose.

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Linguistic examples of collusion

• Excuse me, what time is it?
• Five to seven. (standard, expected answer)
• Time to make the donuts. (turns it into a
  joking interaction)
• Time for you to get home to your wife. (Turns
  it into a pick-up situation)
• Group laughter
• (Excludes the asker from the group through
  ridicule)

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The good side of collusion

• Collusion makes communication efficient we can
  help each other understand what is going on, and
  what our intentions and goals are for the
  interaction
• Collusion helps us gain that feeling of having
  connected with someone with a familiar person
  or group, communication seems effortless

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The dark side of collusion

• Collusion can lock us into social or linguistic
  roles
• Women do the shitwork in conversation
• Family interactional roles can be difficult to
  change
• Cultural background can limit mobility into
  management positions you dont know how to be a
  leader, take charge

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Is collusion good?

• Collusion allows us to function as if we all
  understand the world in basically the same way,
  share basic values
• Collusion creates experiential glue that bonds
  people together with a shared sense of identity,
  community, and being understood through shared
  pragmatic cues.

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Our word churched

• How does collusion contribute to the spread of
  new slang expressions?
• What does it mean to know the latest slang? How
  is social power involved in this?

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Doing Things with Words
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Language as Social Action

• What kinds of things can we do with words that
  have real social consequences in the world?
• Examples
• labeling/name-calling
• spreading rumors

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Study of British Tabloids

• Kate Clark Suns reporting of sexual assaults.
• Blonde divorcee vs. Divorced mum of two
• Hubby kicks no-sex wife out of bed
• Sex-starved man strangled blonde, 16 Love ban
  by teenage wife.

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Terms of Address

• Terms of address are ways of addressing (speaking
  to) someone
• Name, nickname
• Title, honorific or derogatory term
• Kinship term
• Terms of reference are ways of referring to
  (speaking about) someone

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Naming in English

• Nickname
• First name
• Kin term (Grandma)
• Kin term plus first name (Aunt Thelma)
• First and last name, first last and middle name
• Last name
• Mr., Mrs., Ms, Miss first name
• Mr., Mrs., Ms, Miss last name
• Title plus first name (Judge Judy, Dr. Phil)
• Title plus last name (Dr. Brown)
• Title only (Doctor)

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Reciprocal vs. Non-reciprocal

• Reciprocal you and the person you are talking
  to use the same format
• (First name First name)
• Non-reciprocal you give one kind of name and
  receive another kind of name
• Grandma Sally
• Doctor - Fred

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Characterizing relationships

• Ottenheimer (pg. 108) points out that conventions
  for terms of address vary a great deal across
  cultures
• Reciprocal usage means
• closeness
• distance, respect
• students use first names doctors may call each
  other Dr. Smith and Dr. Brown
• Non-reciprocal usage means
• inequality in status
• You may say Prof. Brown and she calls you by
  your first name You may call your boss Mr. or
  Doctor and he may call you by your first name

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Registers and names

• Situation has a lot to do with which name you
  choose for someone.
• In some registers, such as a legal register,
  certain kinds of names (nicknames, first name
  only) may not be used
• Switching name types can signal a change in the
  register you are using.

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Terms of address characterize relationships

• Terms of address can actually make or break a
  relationship
• In many languages, there are different pronouns
  that can be used to address or refer to someone
  based on your relationship to them.

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European languages T vs. V

• Most European languages have two forms of the
  second person singular pronoun (see Ottenheimer
  pp. 95-6)
• you (informal) and You (formal)
• Using the French forms tu and Vous this is called
  a T/V system

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Choosing pronouns

• Because choosing between formal and informal
  pronouns is SOCIALLY, not GRAMMATICALLY
  motivated, it is a good example of LANGUAGE AS
  SOCIAL ACTION
• By choosing the T or V pronoun, you are choosing
  to represent your relationship to another person
  in a particular way

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T-V, V-V, T-T

• T-V non-reciprocal. One person has higher
  status than the other. V is offered as a sign of
  respect T is offered as a sign of affection
• V-V formal reciprocal. Reflects distance and
  respect, equality
• T-T informal reciprocal. Reflects equality and
  closeness

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Switching

• Lovers may use V-V in a professional context, but
  switch to T-T in private
• Parents and children might use T-T, but switch to
  V-V to signal a break in the relationship
• Schoolteachers might use T toward students until
  they reach high school, when they begin using V
  to them.

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Language and social change

• English used to have both forms, You and Thee,
  but gradually eliminated Thee
• Russian aristocracy adopted the T/V system from
  French, and it trickled down
• In China, the used of the formal pronoun nin (a
  V form) has declined and instead the informal
  pronoun ni is used when addressing one person

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Japanese I

• watakushi ordinary, formal
• watashi ordinary, female speaker
• atashi female speaker, informal
• boku male speaker, informal
• washi aged male speaker, informal
• chin emperor
• ore male speaker, casual, intimate
• atai young girls of lower class

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A more complex case Thai

• http//www.into-asia.com/thai_language/pronouns/i.
  php

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Speech acts
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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words
will never hurt me

• BUT
• Philosophers of language John Austin and John
  Searle argued that many kinds of language are
  SOCIALLY AND CULTURALLY RECOGNIZED AS REAL
  ACTIONS

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In other words

• The idea behind speech acts is that language
  allows us to accomplish goals.
• For example, we can state, assert, promise,
  persuade, argue, forbid, etc.
• These are kinds of speech acts that are
  recognized in our culture and have names in our
  language.

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Bourdieu

• Bourdieu points out that AUTHORITY plays a big
  role in who can perform certain kinds of speech
  acts.
• I now pronounce you husband and wife
• Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,
  and nothing but the truth? I do.
• I lay a curse on this house.

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Language and social action

• Issues like Who has authority? or What does
  saying this mean? are CULTURAL.
• The kinds of things you can accomplish socially
  with words depends on the culture youre
  operating in, and your position in it.

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Cultural Power of Words

• Ottenheimer (pp. 89-91) gives many examples of
  indirectness in communication
• Stalking with stories Basso article discusses
  storytelling as a means of indirect social
  critique
• In Bassos example, telling a mythological story
  can be a powerful social act in Western Apache
  culture

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Basso article

• Metaphors stories are arrows land is like a
  relative that reminds us to live right
• How do stories shoot people like arrows?
• How does the land remind the Western Apache of
  who they are?

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Western Apache stories

• Tied to the landscape so when you see a
  landscape feature, you are reminded of a myth
  that has a moral to it.
• These myths have contemporary meaning they
  remind people to live right
• Pointing out a landscape feature is a way of
  reminding a person of their social obligations
  and reprimanding them for not living right.

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Main points

• In order to understand Western Apache culture,
  Basso had to learn about the landscape, place
  names, and the stories tied to them
• Language, in the form of stories, is used in this
  culture to perform specific social actions
  influencing the behavior of group members

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Do we do this in English?

• How can you exert subtle social pressure on
  someone who is acting in a way that is not
  proper?
• Do we tell stories with moral evaluations in
  them? Are they tied to the landscape?
• Words as weapons Thuongjang (Dinka) saying The
  statement stabbed me English biting words
  cutting statement tongue lashing it was a slap
  in the face