Contextual Components:
Outline of an Ethnography of
Communication
Chapter 4
Language in Context
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Context = cultural and social situation
How does context affect language?
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Malinowski (1884-1942)
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Translation requires knowledge of context
Context can shift meanings
Indirection
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Saving Face.
Communicative Competence
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Ability to speak a language “well”
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Ability to use your language “correctly”
In a variety of social situations
Compare with Linguistic Competence
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Ability to produce (and recognize)
grammatically correct expressions
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Chomsky’s “ideal speaker”
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Not distracted by environment.
Some Environmental
“Distractions”
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When ‘bad’ means ‘good’
When is not appropriate to respond honestly
Different words/expressions among
cultures/subcultures
Greetings and address terms
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‘Hello’ / ‘Hi’ / ‘Sup!’
Usted vs. tu, vosotros/vois
How do you learn these “rules?”
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Ethnography of Speaking….
Ethnography of Speaking
Developed in 1960s by Dell Hymes
 Focus on language in total cultural
context
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How people use language in real situations
Communicative competence
The importance of fieldwork
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What are the rules for speaking?
For not speaking?
How do children learn the rules?.
Ethnography of SPEAKING
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Setting/Situation/Scene
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Participants
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Where?
Who are the speakers?
Who can speak?
Who should speak?
Ends:
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What are the goals?
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Bargaining
Asking for (and giving) directions
Report-talk vs rapport-talk.
Ethnography of SPEAKING
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Act Sequence
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Exactly what gets said?
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Speech Acts
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Speech Events
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Exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches
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Status and type or order of greetings
Speech Situations
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Promises, commands, apologies
Classrooms, conferences, parties, ceremonies
Key
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Tone of voice, manner of delivery
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Mourning, joking, irony, teasing.
Ethnography of SPEAKING
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Instrumentalities
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Languages & dialects
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Mutual intelligibility
Politics and attitudes: languages and their speakers
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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
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Norms
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Expectations
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Speaking vs silence
Directness vs indirectness
Lying vs politeness
Taking turns and interrupting
Taboos and avoidances
Genres
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Kinds of speech acts or events
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Lectures, Poetry Readings, Joking, Gossip.
Speech Communities
Linguistic Communities
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A speech community is
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A group of people who share
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A linguistic community is
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A group of people who share
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One or more varieties of language
And the rules for using them in interaction
A single language variety
And who identify with that language variety
A community of practice is ???.
Language Across Cultures
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Different communities = different rules
Easy for misunderstandings to occur
Rich Points
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Moments of misunderstanding
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Corn pudding
Interviewing for a job
Asking for a ride
Signal differences in rules
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Ways to say ‘no’
Ways to take turns
Indirectness.
Communicative Interactions
Chapter 5
Structural Properties of Conversation
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Speakers have options of ways to express
themselves.
Conversational interaction
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Turn-taking
Influence of context
Sensitive to status of participants
Turn-constructional units
Adjacency pairs
Tag questions
Turn-entry devices
Active Listening
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Eye-contact
Paraphrasing
Acknowledgement
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Using I vs. You messages
Function?
Politeness
Cross Cultural Repairs
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Michael Agar’s ‘MAR’
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Recognize/acknowledge ‘Mistake’ in using
rules
Develop Awareness of different rules
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Ethnography of Communication as a method
Repair understanding of rules
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Finding appropriate ways to say ‘no’
Learning to take turns without ‘interrupting’
‘Hearing’ and responding to a request for a ride.