Coherence

1
Coherence
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Example of Collusion

• Hi, this is Prof. Dickinson in Anthropology.
• Oh, hi this is Laurie
• Laurie, yeah
• Orders video
• -Would you like anything else with that?
• -Uh maybe a large fries?
• -laughs Yeah I realized that sounded kind of
  strange.

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Variation

• In U.S.
• We answer the phone Hello?
• Preference is for speaker recognition, Hi, its
  me.
• In Netherlands
• Answer the phone with Hello first name
• Preference is for speaker self-identification

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Repair

• Macaulay p. 115
• Self-repair fixing what youve said
• Other-repair fixing what someone else has said
• fill-ins contributing a word when a speaker
  hesitates

5
Coherence

• Macaulay points out use of Well (pg. 116)
• Used to link ideas together when their connection
  is not immediately clear, or to signal moving on
  to the next part of a narrative.
• What did you do after the war?
• Well, I was married by that time.

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Coherence in narratives

• Children must learn how to tell stories
  coherently
• Young children often dont give enough coherence
  signals, making their narratives seem disjointed
• Coherence signals in English include Then,
  So, Thats why, Because

7
Narrative order

• In American storytelling, we usually identify a
  beginning, then move forward chronologically.
• Other storytelling traditions may not put the
  same priority on chronology

8
Cultural frames

• Agar says that culture provides frames of
  reference that make sense out of cultural
  knowledge and behaviors. (pp. 136-139)
• Frames place limits on how far culture can be
  bent before you are not acting within the bounds
  of that culture.

9
What do you need to know about language to get
this joke?

• Why do women live longer than men?
• Men get tired of the complaining and give
  up.

10
How do frames work?

• a frame is a culturally understood speech
  situation that is defined by certain features.
• Example A lecture frame is defined by the
  orientation of the participants to each other,
  and by the turn-taking and turn-allocation
  patterns

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Opening and Closing Frames

• opening Okay everyone, lets get started
• closing Alright, thats it for today.
• opening The weirdest thing happened to me
  today
• closing I mean, isnt that crazy?

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Example Rap battles

• MC says Kick that shit
• Super MC in the house!
• Yo, yo
• Rap

13
Breaking a frame

• Frames can be broken if you step out of what
  you are doing
• For example, youre reading Hamlets soliloquy
  and you stop and say Wait, how do you pronounce
  that?

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What do frames do for us?

• Frames help us click into the right set of
  responses for the type of interaction were
  having.
• We might know more about what register to use,
  rules about eye contact and touching, etc.

15
Competence

• Noam Chomsky wanted to define linguistic
  competence as having the knowledge of a native
  speaker. You are a competent speaker without
  learning anything in school or from books. His
  idea of competence focused ONLY on grammar.
• This is a classic inside the circle approach

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Communicative Competence

• Dell Hymes, a linguistic anthropologist working
  with Native American peoples (Chinook speakers),
  felt that we need to know a lot more than grammar
  to be competent, socially able speakers of a
  language.
• He called the social knowledge you need to have
  to communicate like a member of a community
  communicative competence.

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Acquiring competence

• As we learn language, we learn socially important
  rules for how to speak.
• Some rules might be explicitly taught to
  children, like You call him Uncle, not Mister.
  or What do you say to the nice lady?

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Language socialization

• As children learn appropriate ways of speaking,
  they also learn important cultural values and
  ideals of personhood. They learn to act like
  someone of their social position, gender, ethnic
  group, etc.

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Lifelong Socialization

• As we move into new social contexts, we learn new
  ways of speaking and relating to people we may
  learn new frames
• Enter college, joining a frat, or moving into a
  new job are all language socialization situations

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Peer socialization

• Socialization by members of your own group (your
  peers) is one of the primary ways that children
  over the age of 5 and adults are socialized
  through language

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Cameron article

• Study of a conversation among five while.
  middle-class 21 year olds
• Cameron focuses on how much these men talk about
  other men and other mens gayness as a way of
  defining their own masculinity

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• pg. 281 In these speakers understanding of
  gender, gay men, like women, provide a contrast
  group against whom masculinity can be defined.
  This principle of contrast seems to set limits on
  the permissibility of gossip for these men.

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More socialization

• fat talk
• Girls are socialized in their groups from a young
  age to engage in fat talk
• Im so fat.
• No youre not.

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Peer socialization

• When children go to school, peers become the main
  vehicle for their socialization into particular
  roles (e.g. developing ideas of being a good
  friend)
• Child peer groups often span several years at a
  time (through siblings, neighborhood friends,
  etc.) allowing for games and verbal art to be
  passed down from generation to generation.

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Acquisition and Socialization

• Language acquisition refers to the process of a
  child/baby acquiring language for the first time
• Language socialization refers to the process by
  which a child gains communicative competence and
  is socialized into a group through language

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• Children are socialized INTO a linguistic and
  cultural system, but children are also socialized
  THROUGH language into social roles and models of
  behavior

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• Language acquisition is sometimes treated by
  child development researchers as a mechanical
  process of activating an innate capacity that is
  minimally accessible to cultural influence.
• BUT culture surrounds child language learning,
  including the significance of learning language,
  rules for appropriate use, and so forth.

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What are kids really learning?

• Example Ochs research on dinner-table
  conversation in California
• Conversation focuses on childrens activities
• Mom does all the conversational work to guide the
  story
• Everyone turns to Dad for a moral judgment at the
  end.

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Becoming Human

• What is the first question we ask about a
  newborn? Are babies human?
• Ochs and Schieffelin compare 3 cultures with
  regard to ideas about babies and language
  development (US middle class, Samoa, Kaluli)

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U.S. White Middle Class

• Infants are treated as a social being.
• Child is directly addressed. Caregivers may
  answer for the child.
• Adults accommodate to children. (e.g. baby talk,
  baby-proofing)

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Kaluli

• Babies are soft and have no understanding
• Caregivers speak for babies dont modify
  speech much to accommodate
• Child does not begin to harden until it says
  mother (naw) and breast (bo)

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Samoan

• As small infants, babies are talked about, but
  not to until they begin to crawl.
• Toddlers are called willful and need to be
  disciplined/ordered what to do. Given commands,
  but not expected to talk back
• First word is widely reported as tae (shit)
  considered assertive
• Social stratification incorporated into language
  learning a young child asks mother for
  something, mother will say something to older
  sibling. Older sibling will address baby
  learning order

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• Many rules for interaction are not explicitly
  taught. Children learn them through experience.
• Eye contact
• Interruption patterns
• How to get a turn speaking
• When to stop speaking
• What topics are discussed and what arent
  discussed, and with whom

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Politeness and collusion

• See MacCaulay Chapter 10 (53-57)
• In order to make many situations go forward, you
  must be polite.
• BUT being polite often involves placing yourself
  in a certain role in the hierarchy.

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Positive vs. Negative Politeness

• Positive politeness oriented towards a persons
  desire to be well regarded
• Negative politeness oriented towards a persons
  desire not be imposed upon.

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Positive Politeness examples

• You look nice today!
• Its always such a pleasure to see you.
• What an honor to finally meet you.
• More examples?

37
Positive Politeness and collusion

• By accepting positive politeness, you are
  colluding in the idea of what constitutes a
  compliment (in other words, what it means in your
  culture to be well regarded.
• Example A Korean woman told an American
  acquaintance I havent seen you in so long! You
  look fat! and was slapped in the face.
  collusion broke down

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Negative Politeness examples

• I know youre really busy, but could you take a
  look at this?
• Could you do me a big favor?
• Someone needs to organize this project and
  produce the pamphlet.
• More examples?

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Negative Politeness and Collusion

• Many examples of negative politeness include
  being indirect, and also accepting that there is
  some exaggeration going on, and also recognizing
  whether you are in a position to turn down a
  request.
• Can I ask you for a big favor?
• Yes, of course. Anything to help out.
• I know youre really busy, but can I ask you for
  a favor?
• Sorry, I really am too busy.
• Oh, uh. Well, I really need you to do it, since
  Bob is swamped with the Anderson account.
• Oh, okay.

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Film World of Differences

• How can cultural differences cause
  miscommunication at different levels of language
  (vocabulary, gesture, physical space etc.)?
• If people come from different cultural
  backgrounds, how can they develop collusion over
  time, or within a single conversation?