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indirection

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Making a request without directly asking

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What is one point of indirection?

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To avoid putting people into potentially embarrassing situations

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What is one difficulty with indirection?

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Not every group of speakers uses it or understands how it works

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In what situations is indirectness common in?

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situations where the speaker doesn't want to hurt the hearer's feelings

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context

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the cultural and social situation

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Why are translations hard?

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Because translation is more than just substituting the words from one language for words in another language. You need to understand context in which the words are being used in order to understand what is being said - you need to understand both the culture and the situation in order to know what a person really means.

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Linguistic competence

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A speaker's underlying ability to produce (and recognize) grammatically correct expressions.

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Describe a speaker with linguistic competence

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An ideal speaker-listener living in a completely homogeneous community of speakers and having perfect knowledge of the language of that community. This meant that the ideal speaker would not be distracted by anything in his or her environment when speaking or judging actual sentences. Linguistic competence is all about grammatical correctness

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What is the difficulty with the concept of linguistic competence?

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Language varies a lot from speaker to speaker and from situation to situation

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Give example of difficulty of linguistic competence.

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A linguistically competent person would know how to put the correct verb forms with the correct pronouns (vous voulez vs tu vous), but anyone speaking the language knows that it involves the relationship between the individuals speaking to one another (vous with acquaintances, tu with friends)

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Communicative competence

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A more inclusive way to think about and describe the way people use language in real situations - refers to a speaker's ability to speak a language well in a variety of social situations

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Describe someone who has communicative competence.

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- knowing how grammar and vocabulary and even accent can change depending on who you are speaking and in what situation. - Knowing about status and power relationships and how they affect what you can say and how you can say it. - Knowing how your ideologies (your taken-for-granted ideas and stereotypes about language, gender, ethnicity, etc) can affect the way you speak to and listen to the people around you

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How does developing communicative competence in a language empower you?

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- Helps you understand how to make your voice heard in a conversation, in such a way that people will attention, acknowledge your contribution, and give you credit for you ideas - Helps you to know how to address friends as well as strangers and to greet people appropriately - Helps you to learn how to ask for favours and how to accept or reject invitations

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Why is communicative competence an important tool?

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Important for understanding and describing how real people use and attend to real language in real situations

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Symbolic capital

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A form of linguistic "wealth" that provides access to linguistic and social power; related to communicative competence

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How is symbolic capital related to communicative competence?

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Symbolic capital (communicative competence) "buys" you position and power in social and cultural and political contexts. More communicative competence = more power; having a lot of symbolic capital means people will assume that you have the right to be listened to in a conversation and that what you say actually matters.

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How do you get symbolic capital?

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- Demonstrate communicative competence, or the ability to speak acceptably and "correctly" in any given social or cultural situation

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Linguistic community

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A group of people who share a single language variety, and the rules for using it in everyday communication, and who focus their identity around that language

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Example of linguistic community

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People who speak Basque and focus their identity on the speaking of Basque. (Although many Basque speakers also speak Spanish as well as other languages, to the extent that they identify themselves in terms of Basque they form a linguistic community of "Basque speakers".

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Speech community

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A group of people who share one or more varieties in everyday communication

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speech community vs linguistic community

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Linguistic emphasizes its monolingual status, while a speech community can be multilingual and multidialectal

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dialect

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a specific variety or subdivision of a language; a way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular group of people; the dialects of a single language are mutually intelligible

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Community of practice

answer

A group of individuals who interact regularly, developing unique ways of doing things together

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How can groups like this (community of practice) develop?

answer

They may develop around specific activities, such as a choir group that rehearses together regularly or the members of a team who play together . They exist in which individuals establish ways of speaking or signing together (or writing to one another), at least for a time, and that it is important to understand and to be able to describe and analyze language use within such communities, as well as within the larger speech communities that such individuals also belong to.

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Ethnography of speaking

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An ethnography (an anthropological study of a culture) that focused on describing and analyzing the ways that people use language in real situations

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ethnography of communication

answer

an ethnography that focuses on describing and analyzing the ways that people use language in real situations

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What did Hymes's methodology of the ethnography of communication inspire?

answer

To go beyond the dictionary and grammar approach to learning languages and to pay attention to how language was use din everyday situations in different cultures and different settings

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How do linguistic anthropologists learn the basics of communicative competence in a new speech community?

answer

By doing fieldwork, by living with a group of people and learning not only how to pronounce words and string them together into meaningful sentences but also the situations in which those words and sentences make sense or are appropriate.

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

answer

in the ethnography of communication, Setting/situation Participants Ends Act sequence Key Instrumentalities Norms Genres

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What does the SPEAKING model enable you to do?

answer

Exploring the depth and range of each of those areas should give you a good sense of how language is used in specific speech communities

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Setting/situation

answer

refers to the place in which the conversation is occurring, including the overall psychological feeling of the place

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Example of setting/situation

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Where are we? I a house, in a noisy bar? All of this will make difference in how we speak

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How does setting make a difference in how we speak?

answer

In each possible location, a speech community will have specific and unwritten ideas about what is "normal" conversation or discourse, what can be said, what is appropriate or not appropriate, who should be granted entry into the location, who can speak, etc.

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Example of North American classroom

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- The professor will lecture or engage the students in a discussion - The students will not interrupt the lecture or each other; nor will they shout obscenities in the middle of the lecture

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Participants

answer

refers to who can or should be involved in various speech events or conversations and what is expected of the various individuals

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How do Participants affect how we speak?

answer

Who is speaking, as well as who is being spoken to, may affect the conversation.

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North america & adult conversation

answer

Children, even when are present, are generally expected not to contribute to adult conversations. Also, adults are often careful about what they say when children are in the room, not so much to avoid offending the children as to avoid having the chidden repeat what they hear in other contexts.

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Ends

answer

refers to the reasons for which the speech event is taking place, or the goals that people have in speaking in a particular situation.

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Example of Ends

answer

In some cases a shopper might try bargaining for the purpose of getting a lower price, but in plenty of cases bargaining can be a way of establishing a social contact between shopper and seller - establishing an actual purchase price may be a secondary consideration

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Direction - example of differing Ends

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When asking for directions, New Yorkers might not want to seem ignorant so they give you directions though they don't really know the way. Your goal may be to get information but their goal may be to look knowledgeable. The ends in this situation are very different for the different participants

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rapport style speech

answer

Individuals are talking to establish rapport - people may insert words of encouragement throughout or end one another's sentences to convey how much "in tune" they are with each other. When they tell each other similar stories, they do so to provide encouragement to one another

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report style approach

answer

Individuals take separate turns to speak. They rely on eye contact to know when each turn to speak begins and ends. When they tell each other similar stories, they do so in a somewhat competitive environment

question

Differing ends of speech style & consequences

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report style speakers tend to feel interrupted by rapport style speakers and don't understand why the stories all sound like "more of the same". Rapport style speakers miss the encouraging insertions and don't quite understand why the stories seem designed to be "better" than theirs.

question

Competitive-seeming reprot style is more characteristic of __ speech in the US

answer

men

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Others argue that reports type is associated more generally with individuals who..

answer

have, or attempting to gain, access to power and status

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Act sequence

answer

refers to the actual sequence of events. What words are used? By whom? Who begins? Who continues? How are turns taken? What exactly is said?

question

Professor & act sequence example

answer

Professor says "Good morning" vs "Ladies and gentlemen.."- If the audience does not respond loudly enough when prof says Good morning!, the speaker will repeat the treating several times, coaching the audience on the "proper response"

question

speech acts

answer

specific utterances that people make; some classify speech acts with reference to the intentions of the speaker (command, promise, apologize)

question

Examples of speech acts

answer

do your homework; eat your veggies. I'll eat my veggies if you eat yours.

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speech event

answer

one or more speech acts involving one or more participants and can include everything from exchanging greetings to making apologies, telling jokes, delivering speeches, ordering meals, having conservations, and more.

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speech situations

answer

the entire setting or situation in which people speak

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example of speech situation

answer

a classroom, a conference, a party, a graduation ceremony, a rafting trip

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The degree to which one is expected to follow the formulas depends on what?

answer

the situation and the culture

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Key

answer

the mood or spirit in which communication takes place

question

example of Key

answer

In a funeral in the US, it is hushed and solemn with people speaking in low tones. In funeral in high land Ecuador, they involve loud wailing and crying. While in eastern Europe, professional mourners are hired to sing the loud wailing cries that give the funeral the appropriate tone

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Instrumentalities

answer

the channels that are used (speaking, writing, signing, signalling with flags) as well as the varieties of language that speakers use (language, dialect, register, etc)

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How can you differentiate a "language" from a "dialect"?

answer

A test for mutual intelligibility

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Mutual unintelligibility

answer

If two or more way of speaking are "mutually unintelligible" - if the speakers can't understand one another - then they are considered to be different languages.

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Example of mutual UNintelligibility

answer

If I speak French to you and you speak Italian to me and we don't understand one another, then we can be said to be speaking different languages.

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Mutually intelligible

answer

If speakers can understand one another - then they are said to be dialects of a single language

question

Example of mutually intelligible dialects

answer

If I speak NY English to you and you speak Californian English to me, and we understand one another, then we can be said to be speaking the same language. The two are varieties of English "dialects" of English.

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Dialects

answer

mutually intelligible varieties of that language

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How do people act towards language vs dialects

answer

Act as if languages are real entities and that dialects are lesser varieties of those entities, spoken primarily by splinter groups, lower classes, uneducated individuals, or some other group that varies in some way from "the norm"

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What is "the norm" considered as?

answer

the "standard" way of speaking - all other variants are called "dialects". Members of the outgroup can speak and understand the variety that is considered standard, while members of the in group claim not to understand any variety that is deemed nonstandard.

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Registers

answer

A variety of a language that is appropriate in specific situations

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Example of registers

answer

A language may have a formal register, to be used in making speeches, and an informal register to be used in ordinary conversation

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What does word choice signal?

answer

Differences in status identity, to display symbolic capital, or to signal something about the situation you find yourself in

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Example of word choice

answer

In Java, people are expected to choose their words according to their social status, as well as the social status of the person they are speaking with. There are words of thigh , middle, low status speech.

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Norms

answer

refer to the expectations, and the ideologies, that speakers have about appropriateness of speech use

question

Example of norms

answer

In some kinds of religious settings, it is most appropriate to worship in silence, for example, while in others, responding to the preacher with shouts of encouragement is appropriate and expected

question

Example of taboos

answer

Many cultures taboo words referring to sexual functions an body parts; some cultures taboo the use of words for supernatural beings, the name of a person who has died.

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Genres

answer

refers to the different kinds of speech acts or events.

question

Examples of genres

answer

lectures, conversations, gossip, performances, sermons, jokes, lies, proverbs

question

Hale vs hadisi in the Comoros Islands

answer

Both are kinds of stories, but hale are old stories that have animal characters in them, often involve imaginary or fantastic events, and generally have morals at the ends. Hadisi are stories about historical or near historical events and generally have human or heroic characters

question

conversation analysis

answer

The close study of a actual conversational exchanges - it focuses on the act sequence of Hymes's model

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What is the focus of conversation analysis?

answer

on how people take turns in a conversation, and much of the work is done by analyzing tape recordings of actual conversations to discover the most common turn-taking strategies in a language as well as to uncover power relationships between individuals who are conversing.

question

What do contemporary conversation analysts do?

answer

record and transcribe actual conversations to study act sequences and the ways that people use them

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Discourse analysis

answer

Takes into account everything that an ethnography of communication might study - it takes real language in real situations as its focus and emphasizes understanding how authority and power are distributed and negotiated in verbal exchanges

question

What is the goal of discourse analysis?

answer

The discovery of the rules that help to legitimate particular conversational practices as well as the linguistic ideologies that help to reinforce those practices

question

What do discourse analysts research?

answer

A wide range of subjects, including sounds and intonation, gestures, syntax, words, style, meanings, speech acts, etc

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Rich point

answer

the kind of moment in which things "go wrong" in a speech situation

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Who is liable to encounter rich points?

answer

Anyone who moves between speech communities

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Rich points depend largely on what?

answer

the contrast between the cultures in question and between the expectations or linguistic ideologies of the speech communities involved

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How do people react to rich points?

answer

Some ignore them, others assume that the other person is behaving incorrectly and that nothing needs to be done, except perhaps for the other person to learn how to communicate better

question

Example of rich point

answer

If you are in a culture where it is necessary to use formal grammar when addressing someone of high status, but in you're culture you use informal grammar with everyone, regardless of status. Eg. in French you say, "vous voulez" when addressing a teacher, but you're using "tu vous" (informal)

question

How do you analyze rich points?

answer

Mistake Awareness Repair

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Mistake

answer

Recognizing that a rich point has occurred - something has gone wrong and communication has broken down somehow

question

Awareness

answer

recognizing that different expectations or linguistic ideologies have caused the rich point to occur

question

Examples of expectations

answer

Expectations may involve ideas about settings, participants, ends, act sequences, keys, instrumentalities, norms, genres, or anything else that is covered in the range of communicative competence in a particular speech community

question

What does awareness make possible?

answer

Makes it possible for you to recognize your own speech community's ideologies adjust one as a range of possible ways of seeing things.

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Repair

answer

Developing new sets of expectations or new linguistic ideologies to use in communicating

question

How do you repair?

answer

Experiment with your own repertoire of expectations, adding new ones to your set of communicative skills, and trying new ways of communicating - try new speech styles, thinking in terms of different ideological approaches

question

Example of MAR

answer

White Anglo-Saxon interviewers vs. Germany/New York raised candidate Mistake - In an interview, the interviewers weren't getting their questions answered because it seemed like the candidate wasn't allowing them to talk Awareness - difference pause style. They expected longer pause styles, while he expected questions in the short pauses he was giving them. Repair - The interviewer switched into tiny-pause style to ask him more questions

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