linguistic anthropology language and culture. language in action beyond language to speech – –...
TRANSCRIPT
Language in Action
• Beyond language to speech– Language in context…
– Ethnography of Communication…
– Communicating across cultures….
Language in Context
• Context = cultural and social situation
• How does context affect language?– Malinowski (1884-1942)
• Translation requires knowledge of context• Context can shift meanings
– Recognizing indirection:• Asking for a ride• Saying “no.”
Communicative Competence
• Ability to speak a language “well”– Ability to use your language “correctly”
– In a variety of social situations
• Compare with Linguistic Competence– Ability to produce (and recognize) grammatically
correct expressions• Chomsky’s “ideal speaker”
– Not distracted by environment.
Some Environmental “Distractions”
• When ‘bad’ means ‘good’
• When two positives make a negative
• Greetings and address terms– Ty and vy, du and Sie
– ‘Hello’ / ‘Hi’ / ‘Sup!’
• How do you learn these “rules?”– Ethnography of Speaking….
Ethnography of Speaking
Developed in 1960s by Dell Hymes• Focus on language in total cultural context
– How people use language in real situations– Communicative competence…– S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G…– Speech communities…
• The importance of fieldwork– What are the rules for speaking?– For not speaking?– How do children learn the rules?.
Ethnography of SPEAKING• Setting/Situation/Scene
– Where?
• Participants– Who are the speakers?– Who can speak?– Who should speak?
• Ends:– What are the goals?
• Bargaining• Asking for (and giving) directions• Report-talk vs rapport-talk.
Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Act Sequence– Exactly what gets said?
• Speech Acts– Promises, commands, apologies
• Speech Events– Exchanging greetings, telling jokes, giving speeches
Status and type or order of greetings
• Speech Situations– Classrooms, conferences, parties, ceremonies
• Key– Tone of voice, manner of delivery
• Mourning, joking, irony, teasing.
Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Instrumentalities– Languages & dialects
• Mutual intelligibility
• Politics and attitudes: languages and their speakers– Ideas about “Standard” and “Non-standard”
‘warsh’ ‘fouath flouah’ ‘pahking the cah’ “A language is a dialect with an army and navy.”
– Registers• Situation-specific
– Prestigious, formal, scientific, academic, colloquial
• Politics and attitudes about registers and their use
Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Norms– Expectations
• Speaking vs silence
• Directness vs indirectness
• Lying vs politeness
• Taking turns and interrupting
• Taboos and avoidances
• Genres– Kinds of speech acts or events
• Lectures, Poetry Readings, Joking, Gossip.
Speech Communities Linguistic Communities
• A speech community is– A group of people who share
• One or more varieties of language
• And the rules for using them in interaction
• A linguistic community is– A group of people who share
• A single language variety
• And who identify with that language variety
• A community of practice is ???.
Rules in Speech/Linguistic Communities
• Are a part of the community’s culture
• Are different in different communities
• Can be learned/studied in the field.
Language Across Cultures
• Different communities = different rules• Easy for misunderstandings to occur• Rich Points
– Moments of misunderstanding• Interviewing for a job• Asking for a ride
– Signal differences in rules • Ways to say ‘no’• Ways to take turns• Indirectness.
Cross Cultural Repairs• Michael Agar’s ‘MAR’
– Recognize/acknowledge ‘Mistake’ in using rules• Can also think of ‘Mistake’ as ‘Miscue’
– Develop Awareness of different rules• Ethnography of Communication as a method
– Repair understanding of rules• Finding appropriate ways to say ‘no’
• Learning to take turns without ‘interrupting’
• ‘Hearing’ and responding to a request for a ride.
Creating a Language: Difference in Action
• Identify some different linguistic situations– formal/informal, teasing/serious
• Or identify a ‘difference’ in identity– male/female, Senior/Junior, major/non-major
• choose a way for your language to index (mark, indicate, signal) these differences– degrees of loudness?
– Specific words only used by one group?
– Specific words only used in certain situations?