The ethnography of SPEAKING and the structure of conversations Theme 2
Jan 11, 2016
The ethnography of SPEAKING
and the structure of
conversations
Theme 2
The ethnography of SPEAKING
The etnography of speaking
=
The ethnography of communication
What is it?
Studies the norms and rules for using language in
social situations in different cultures, nonverbal
aspects of communication, e.g. distance between
speaker and hearer, eye contact, etc.
Important for cross-cultural communication and to
account for its relation to communicative
competence.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
Deals with aspects such as the different
types of language to be used under different
circumstances.
how to make requests, grant permission,
ask a favor;
how to express opinions or interrupt your
interlocutor;
how and when to use formulaic language
(greetings, thanking, etc. ), etc.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
The ethnography of speaking:
An approach
A theoretical perspective
A method
To/in the study of culturally distinctive means
and meanings of communication.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
Uses of the approach
To produce research reports about locally
patterned practices of communication, and
focus attention primarily on the situated uses
of language.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
The approach is concerned with:
The linguistic resources people use in context
(the socially situated uses and meanings of
words, their relations, and sequential forms of
expression)
The way verbal and nonverbal signs create and
reveal social codes of identity, relationships,
emotions, place, and communication.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
As a theoretical perspective, it offers a
range of concepts for understanding
communication in any possible scene and/or
community.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
As a method it offers procedures for
analyzing communication practices as
formative of social life.
The methodology involves:
participant observation in the contexts of
everyday social life
interviewing participants about
communication in those contexts.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
Ethnography of Communication
The study of communication in its widest
cultural and social context, including rules
of language, norms of appropriate
language use in particular settings, and
evaluations given to various speech styles
The ethnography of SPEAKING
What are the central questions guiding the
ethnography of communication?
What are the means of communication
used by people when they conduct their
everyday lives?
What meanings does this
communication have for them?
The ethnography of SPEAKING
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.
What kind of ´implicit´ knowledge do speakers
need to have in order to make their choices?
The ethnography of SPEAKING
o The cultural rules for appropriate
interaction - What should and should not
be said in particular contexts
o Information about the speakers - class,
gender, race etc.
o Code used by speakers
o Setting or context of the speech event
The ethnography of SPEAKING
o Form (conversation, tale, debate)
o Topics
o Attitudes
o The function of the speech event (the goals of
the speakers)
o cultural messages of shared values and
expectations and presuppositions
The ethnography of SPEAKING
hats the effect of the implicit knowledge
mentioned above on the speakers?
They use the guidelines to shape their own
behaviour and to evaluate the actions of
others
The ethnography of SPEAKING
How to use the ethnography of speaking or
communication as a method to analyze
speech events?
EOC can be used as a means by which to
study the interactions among members of a
specific culture speech community
The ethnography of SPEAKING
The model devised by Hymes can be best
explained as ´SPEAKING´
The ethnography of SPEAKING
S: What are the setting and scene of the
communication practice
o This component explores two aspects of
context: the physical setting in which it
takes place, and the scene, i.e., the
participants’ sense of what is going on
when this practice is active.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
P: Who are the participants in this practice?
o Communication is conceptualized as an
event in which people participate, moving
away from typical encoding and decoding
models (senders and receivers of
messages.)
The ethnography of SPEAKING
E: What are the ends of this practice?
o This asks about two ends: the goals
participants may have in doing the practice,
and the outcomes actually achieved.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
In the event of joke–telling, many of us are
familiar with an off–color joke, the goal of
which was to entertain, with the outcome
offending.
Communication practice, generally, may target
some goals, yet attain other outcomes
(intended and not).
The ethnography of SPEAKING
A: What act sequence is involved in and for this
practice?
o The order of events that take place during the
speech
o A careful look at the sequential organization of
the practice, its message content, and form is
important (telephone conversation).
The ethnography of SPEAKING
K: How is the practice being keyed?
o The overall tone or manner of the speech.
o What is the emotional pitch, feeling, or
spirit of the communication practice?
The ethnography of SPEAKING
e.g. funerals are mostly keyed as reverent and
serious. Others can be keyed as more light–
hearted.
The ways practices are keyed, and the ways
the key can shift from moment to moment, are
questions raised and analyzed with this
component.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
I: What is the instrument or channel being
used in this communication practice?
The form and style of the speech being given.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
o The oral mode may be necessary, or it could
be prohibited in favor of a specific gesture or
bodily movement.
o Is a technological channel preferred?
o Should the practice be conducted in print or
via a face–to–face channel?
The ethnography of SPEAKING
N: What norms are active when
communication is practiced in this way and
in this community?
What is socially acceptable at the event?
The ethnography of SPEAKING
o This component distinguishes the two
senses of norms that may be relevant to a
communication practice: what is done
normally as a matter of habit, and what is
the appropriate thing to do.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
norms for interaction norms of
interpretation
Norms for interaction framed as a rule for how
one should properly interact when conducting
the practice of concern: e.g., silence
The ethnography of SPEAKING
Norms for interpretation formulated as a rule
for what a practice means: e.g., sitting in
silence with an elder counts as respecting
that elder.
Both norms are analyzed through this
component.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
G: Is there a genre of communication of which
this practice is an instance?
o Might involve identifying the practice as a
type of a formal or informal genre such as
verbal fighting, or a riddle, or a narrative.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
Summary
1. What can you say about the norms of linguistic
behavior?
Speech is used differently by different groups of
people, so each group has its own norms of
linguistic behavior.
The !Kung (Importance of talk)
Western Apache (The meaning of silence)
The ethnography of SPEAKING
2. What does Hymes offer in his SPEAKING
formula?
A reminder that talk is a complex activity, and
that any particular bit of talk is actually a piece
of ‘skilled work’.
It is skilled in the sense that, if it is to be
successful, the speaker must reveal a sensitivity
to and awareness of each of the eight factors
outlined before.
The ethnography of SPEAKING
3. What’s the major value of the ethnography
of speaking to sociolinguistics?
To set up an approach to language that goes
far beyond the attempt to account for single
written or spoken sentences.
It widens the scope to include all aspects of
the speech event (the structure of
conversations)
The ethnography of SPEAKING
What’s the purpose of conversations?
According to Brown and Yule (1983)
conversations have two main purposes:
Transactional vs Interactional
The structure of conversations
Transactional – spoken language used to
obtain goods or services – also referred to
as service encounters;
Interactional – spoken language used to
allow people to interact with each other –
which features a phatic use of language
whose purpose is to establish an
atmosphere and allow people to socialize
The structure of conversations
Macro and micro structure of conversations
The structure of conversations
Macro structure of conversations
Opening section (sociability)
Main body or substance section (shifting
topical focus . topical organization)
Closing section (sociability)
The structure of conversations
Micro structure of Conversations
Made up of a number of features that make
up human conversation.
What features can we consider?
The structure of conversations
1. Turn-taking and turn allocation
2. Feedback
3. Turns: adjacency pairs
4. Insertion sequence
5. Error and repair
6. Overlap in speeches
The Cooperative Principle
The Principle of Politeness
- Tag questions
- Preferred/dispreferred responses
4. Insertion
The structure of conversations
1. Turn-taking and turn allocation
Turn taking mechanisms may vary between
cultures and languages.
• When the current speaker selects the next
speaker, the next speaker has the right to
and is obliged to commence the turn
The structure of conversations
• If the current speaker does not select the
next speaker, any one of the speakers has
the right to self-select and become the next
speaker
• If neither the next speaker selects the next
speaker nor the next speaker self-selects,
the current speaker may restart his or her
turn Sacks, Schegloff and Jeffeson (1974:704)
The structure of conversations
Turn Construction Unit (TCU) - the
fundamental segment of speech in conversation.
It describes pieces of conversation, which may
comprise an entire turn.
Transition Relevance Place (TRP -the end of a
TCU), marks a point where the turn may be go to
another speaker, or the present speaker may
continue with another TCU. The change of turn
occurs only in the TRP.
The structure of conversations
Transition Relevance Place
Change-of-turn points in discourse: TRPs differ
from social group to group
• TRP features: speakers 1. cooperate or
2. fight for floor
Floor: "the right to speak", who controls the
floor has the turn
The structure of conversations
Pauses:
• Enable elegant transition of turns
• Long pauses: 1st speaker hands over
turn, 2nd speaker: silent
• Short pauses overlaps
The structure of conversations
Overlaps:
• occur often initially (both speakers start)
• shared rhythm mismatch: repeated start-
overlap-stop pattern
• younger speakers: permanent overlap
signals closeness
• competing speakers: overlap seen as
interruption appeal to conversation rules
"Could I make this point, please?"
The structure of conversations
Two major types of conversational style:
1. high involvement style: active talk, almost
no breaks, some overlap
2. high considerateness style: slower rate,
longer pauses, no overlap, no interruption
The structure of conversations
2. Feedback
Participants show they are participating and
following the utterances of other participants
by providing feedback.
Can you think of the feedback you normally
give your interlocutor?
The structure of conversations
3. Adjacency Pairs
Pairs of utterances that normally occur together
and help structure a conversation.
A.P. contain an exchange of one turn each by
two speakers. The turns are so related to each
other that the first turn requires a range of
specific type of response in the second turn (a
sequence that contains functionally related
turns)
The structure of conversations
Question – Answer Pair Q. When will you be home
A. At 5 o’clock
Greeting – Greeting Pair G. Good morning Sam.
G: Good morning.
Request – Acceptance/Rejection R: Can I use your pen for one minute.
A: Yes, please have it/ R: I am sorry. It’s the only one I have
The structure of conversations
Inform – Acknowledgement I: You have to see the head of department before he leaves
for the Senate meeting at 4.
A: Okay.
Apology – Acceptance/Rejection App.: I am sorry, I could not make the appointment
Acc.: That’s okay, we can fix another time/ Rej.: You have no
excuse. You just kept me waiting.
Congratulations – Thanks C: Congratulations on your PhD. T: Oh, thanks
The structure of conversations
In an adjacency pair, the first pair part invites,
limits, and partially determines the meaning and
range of possible second pair part.
- Tag Questions
Play a special role in adjacency pairs. How a tag
question operates depends very much on
intonation and the context it is used in
The structure of conversations
Tag questions can indicate a desire for agreement
or support:
‘this is a nice colour, isn’t it?
They can also be assertive devices for prompting a
response or for directing what the response should
be:
‘you’re not leaving now, are you?
The structure of conversations
Tag questions can indicate a desire for agreement
or support:
‘this is a nice colour, isn’t it?
They can also be assertive devices for prompting a
response or for directing what the response should
be:
‘you’re not leaving now, are you?
The structure of conversations
Adjacency pairs are
normal in conversations,
but sometimes they do
not necessarily occur.
Do you know why?
The structure of conversations
Some instances may affect the flow of adjacency
pair. e.g. when a person decides to ask another
question after being asked a question, the flow is
disrupted.
This is called an insertion into what would have
been a normal sequence of conversation. This is
called insertion sequence.
The structure of conversations
4. Insertion Sequence
Conversations usually occur in pairs, for instance we
have question-answer, request acceptance/rejection,
invitation-acceptance/rejection, and so forth.
An insertion sequence is a sequence of turns
intervenes between the first and second parts of an
adjacency pair.
.
The structure of conversations
It is a kind of delay in which the response expected is not
given, rather, an entirely different, though related
response is given- e.g.
1. Sam: When are you traveling back to London?
2. Eve: Why do you ask?
3. Sam: I would like to send you with a parcel to my
auntie in Woolwich.
4. Eve: Okay, I will be going in a week’s time.
The structure of conversations
A: shall I wear the blue shoes?
B: you’ve got the black ones.
A: They’re not comfortable
B: Yeah, they’re the best then, wear the blue ones.
Insertion sequences occur in situations when
people do not want to provide a direct response to
an elicitation until they are sure of the intention of
the speaker as we can see in the conversation
pieces above.
The structure of conversations
- Preferred and dispreferred responses
Questions are expected to be complemented by an
answer. (preferred response)
Not to answer a question, or to answer at
inappropriate length, either too shortly or at
excessive length, or to answer a question with
another question, are considered dispreferred
responses and tend to interrupt the smooth flow of
a conversation.
The structure of conversations
5. Error repair Mechanisms
In conversation, we do not always say things the
correct ways we desire to say them. When we did
not say what we ought to say, we still have a way
of saying them. This is called error repair – used
by both participants to ensure:
- co-operation
- full understanding
The structure of conversations
6. Overlap in speeches
An overlap in speech occurs when two or more
interlocutors are talking at the same time. It can
also be described as occurrences of two or more
participants trying to take their turns at the same
time after the previous speaker had finished or is
about to finish his turn.
The structure of conversations
The real overlap occurs when the two
participants start their turns simultaneously and
none of them relinquishes the floor for the other.
This is not always the case in a normal
conversation.
The structure of conversations
Conversations are orderly, because speakers will
naturally take turns. An overlap in speech may
occur in any of the following situations:
• when a speaker deliberately comes in while
another speaker is having turn,
• when a speaker thought another speaker had
finished his/her turn and decided to come in.
The structure of conversations