ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

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ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

• As a domain of inquiry, linguistic anthropology
  starts from the theoretical assumption that words
  matter and from the empirical finding that
  linguistic signs as representations of the world
  and connections to the world are never neutral
  (Duranti, 192002 5).

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Sociolinguistics and Linguistic Anthropology

• Quantitative methods
• Urban environments
• Developed in the 1950s and 60s
• Connected to sociology

• Qualitative methods
• Small scale societies
• Subfield of Anthropology
• Developed by Frank Boas (early 1900s)

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Influenced by Ethnography of Communication

• Dell Hymes (1960s and 1970s)
• Linguistics in the widest possible way folklore,
  international linguistics, cognitive
  anthropology, sociology, etc

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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 by members of a culture to
various speech styles
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Concern with

• Segmentation of a speech communities class,
  gender, race, age, and ethnicity
• Alternative means utilised by speakers to obtain
  goals
• The roles of speakers as social actors
• The function of speaking as a social activity

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Speech event and Context

• Would you be so kind as to pass me the salt?
• Gimme the salt!

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Communicative rules

• Exist in all cultures
• Define acceptable behavior
• Give directives
• shape behaviour and help in evaluating others
• May change from context to context
• Cultural specific

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The most important aspects of a communicative
interaction are

• Settings
• Participants
• topics
• Goals
• They are interconnected
• Two types of communicative interactions formal
  and informal

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Formal University Class

• Setting a fixed arranged local, A university
  classroom
• Participants are defined students and teachers
• Topics fixed math, history, anthropology, etc
• Goals to teach and learn, etc.

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Setting

• Arena for action
• Define events
• Culturally defined formalities

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Universal Aspects of Formality (Irvine, 1979)

• Increased structuring rules of etiquette
• Consistency of co-occurrence choices stylistic
  choices
• Emphasis on positional identities of
  participants play of multiple roles or
  identities
• Emergence of a central situational focus
  constrains on choice of topic

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Participants

• Speakers, addressees, and audiences
• Choice of speakers
• --pronunciation
• --prosodic features
• --syntax
• --choice of words
• --nonverbal cues

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Terms of address

• FN,
• Title Last name (TLN)
• Reciprocal FN and TLN
• Non-reciprocal FN-TLN and TLN-FN
• Pronouns T and V from the French Tu and Vous
• Honorifics markers that signal respect

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Nahuatl degrees of respect

• I. intimacy and subordination prefixes between
  intimates of similar age and status to signify
  closeness
• II. Neutrality and distance prefixes employ
  among strangers
• III Honour to address older woman and men
• IV Restricted to people who are in a compadrazgo
  relationship

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TOPICS and GOALS

• TOPICS
• Preference of co-participants
• Disapproval of violations of rules
• GOALS
• Individual and collective
• Expressed in a variety of forms
• Formal or informal language

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SUMMARY

• Sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology
• Dell Hymes Ethnography of Communication
• Language and context
• Alternative linguistic means to achieve goals
• Language functions

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