Ethnography of communication

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The ethnography of communication (EOC), originally called the ethnography of speaking, is the analysis of communication within the wider context of the social and cultural practices and beliefs of the members of a particular culture or speech community. It comes from ethnographic research [1] [2] It is a method of discourse analysis in linguistics that draws on the anthropological field of ethnography. Unlike ethnography proper, though, EOC takes into account both the communicative form, which may include but is not limited to spoken language, and its function within the given culture. [2]

Contents

General aims of this qualitative research method include being able to discern which communication acts and/or codes are important to different groups, what types of meanings groups apply to different communication events, and how group members learn these codes, in order to provide insight into particular communities. This additional insight may be used to enhance communication with group members, make sense of group members’ decisions, and distinguish groups from one another, among other things.

Origins

Dell Hymes proposed the ethnography of communication as an approach towards analyzing patterns of language use within speech communities, in order to provide support for his idea of communicative competence, which itself was a reaction to Noam Chomsky's distinction between linguistic competence and linguistic performance. [3]

Originally coined "ethnography of speaking" in Dell Hymes' eponymous 1962 paper, [4] it was redefined in his 1964 paper, Introduction: Toward Ethnographies of Communication to accommodate for the non-vocal and non-verbal characteristics of communication, [1] although most EOC researchers still tend to focus upon speaking as it is generally considered "to be a prominent - even primordial - means of communication." [5]

The term "ethnography of communication" is meant to be descriptive of the characteristics that an approach towards language from an anthropological standpoint must take. Namely, according to Dell Hymes, it must 1) "investigate directly the use of language in contexts of situations so as to discern patterns proper to speech activity" and 2) "take as context a community, investigating its communicative habits as a whole." [1] In other words, rather than divorcing linguistic form from its function, the analysis of a culture's or community's communication, linguistic and otherwise, must occur with respect to the sociocultural context of its use and the functions of the meanings conveyed. As Deborah Cameron puts it, "If you are mainly concerned with the way a certain speech event fits into a whole network of cultural beliefs and practices, you will spend more time describing things that are external to the talk itself: who the speakers are, where they are, what beliefs and customs are important in their lives." [2]

Usage

In their book Qualitative Communication Research Methods, communications scholars Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor explain, "Ethnography of communication conceptualizes communication as a continuous flow of information, rather than as a segmented exchange of messages." [5] According to Deborah Cameron, EOC can be thought of as the application of ethnographic methods to the communication patterns of a group. [2] Littlejohn and Foss recall that Dell Hymes suggests that "cultures communicate in different ways, but all forms of communication require a shared code, communicators who know and use the code, a channel, a setting, a message form, a topic, and an event created by transmission of the message." [6] "EOC studies," according to Lindlof and Taylor, "produce highly detailed analysis of communication codes and their moment-to-moment functions in various contexts. In these analyses, speech communities are constituted in local and continuous performances of cultural and moral matters." [5]

EOC can be used as a means by which to study the interactions among members of a specific culture or "speech community," which is any group of people that creates and establishes its own speaking codes and norms. Gerry Philipsen explained, "Each community has its own cultural values about speaking and these are linked to judgments of situational appropriateness." [7]

The meaning and the understanding of the presence or absence of speech within different communities will vary. Local cultural patterns and norms must be understood to analyze and interpret the appropriateness of speech act within specific communities. Thus, "the statement that talk is not anywhere valued equally in all social contexts suggests a research strategy for discovering and describing cultural or subcultural differences in the value of speaking. Speaking is one among other symbolic resources which are allocated and distributed in social situations according to distinctive culture patterns." [7]

Hymes also used EOC to argue against the strong view of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that one's language determines one's cognitive ability. While Hymes believed that one's language affected one's world view, he argued that the extent of that effect depended "on the circumstances of its acquisition, and its place in the linguistic repertoire of a person and a community." [3]

The SPEAKING model

A model that Hymes developed as a framework for the analysis of a speech event within its cultural context is the mnemonic SPEAKING model. The model consists of sixteen components, which Hymes believed were necessary to consider in order to accurately and satisfactorily describe any particular speech event: message form, message content, setting, scene, speaker/sender, addressor, hearer/receiver/audience, addressee, purposes (outcomes), purposes (goals), key, channels, forms of speech, norms of interaction, norms of interpretation, and genres. These sixteen components are organized into eight divisions to form the acronym SPEAKING. [3]

While the SPEAKING model is a valuable model to EOC, as well as the descriptive framework most commonly used in ethnography of communication, Cameron cautions that Hymes' model should be used more as a guide than a template, because adhering to it too narrowly may create a limiting view of the subject of its study. Ethnography of communication, according to Cameron, should strive not only to "address such 'descriptive' questions as 'what speech events occur in such-and-such a community?' and 'what are the components of speech events X, Y, and Z?'", but also to explain "why particular events occur and why they have particular characteristics." [2]

Notable studies

Several research studies have used ethnography of communication as a methodological tool when conducting empirical research. Examples of this work include Philipsen's study, which examined the ways in which blue-collar men living near Chicago spoke or did not speak based on communication context and personal identity relationship status (i.e. whether they were considered to be of symmetrical or asymmetrical social status). [7] Other examples include Katriel's study of Israeli communication acts involving griping and joking about national and public problems, [8] as well as Carbaugh's comparative studies of communication in a variety of intercultural contexts. [9] These studies not only identify communication acts, codes, rules, functions, and norms, but they also offer different ways in which the method can be applied. Joel Sherzer's Kuna Ways of Speaking investigates the ways of speaking among the Kuna of Panama. [10] This is a landmark study that focuses on curing ways, everyday speaking, puberty rites, and gathering house speech-making. It was the first monograph that explicitly took an ethnography of speaking perspective to the whole range of verbal practices among a group of people.

See also

Related Research Articles

Dell Hathaway Hymes was a linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist who established disciplinary foundations for the comparative, ethnographic study of language use. His research focused upon the languages of the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics". The terminological shift draws attention to the field's grounding in anthropology rather than in what, by that time, had already become an autonomous discipline (linguistics). In 1972 Hymes founded the journal Language in Society and served as its editor for 22 years. He was accused of sexual harassment in the later years of his tenure at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.

Ethnography Systematic study of people and cultures

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. In contrast with ethnology, ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research involving the examination of the behaviour of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behaviour.

Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages, and has grown over the past century to encompass most aspects of language structure and use.

Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communication is a related field of study.

Anthropological linguistics is the subfield of linguistics and anthropology, which deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures. While many linguists believe that a true field of anthropological linguistics is nonexistent, preferring the term linguistic anthropology to cover this subfield, many others regard the two as interchangeable.

Nacirema is a term used in anthropology and sociology in relation to aspects of the behavior and society of citizens of the United States of America. The neologism attempts to create a deliberate sense of self-distancing in order that American anthropologists might look at their own culture more objectively.

Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense, it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them.

Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of any ethnopoetic text is to show how the techniques of unique oral performers enhance the aesthetic value of their performances within their specific cultural contexts. Major contributors to ethnopoetic theory include Jerome Rothenberg, Dennis Tedlock, and Dell Hymes. Ethnopoetics is considered a subfield of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, stylistics, linguistics, and literature and translation studies.

Narrative inquiry

Narrative inquiry or narrative analysis emerged as a discipline from within the broader field of qualitative research in the early 20th century. Narrative inquiry uses field texts, such as stories, autobiography, journals, field notes, letters, conversations, interviews, family stories, photos, and life experience, as the units of analysis to research and understand the way people create meaning in their lives as narratives.

John Joseph Gumperz was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching in Norway, and on conversational interaction, has benefitted the study of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and urban anthropology.

Speech codes theory refers to a framework for communication in a given speech community. As an academic discipline, it explores the manner in which groups communicate based on societal, cultural, gender, occupational or other factors.

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In sociolinguistics, SPEAKING or the SPEAKING model, is a model socio-linguistic study developed by Dell Hymes. Hymes developed this model as part of a new methodology referred to as the ethnography of speaking. This model is a tool to assist the identification and labeling of components of interactional linguistics that was driven by his view that, in order to speak a language correctly, one needs not only to learn its vocabulary and grammar, but also the context in which words are used. In essence, the learning the components of the SPEAKING model is essential for linguistic competence.

Alessandro Duranti is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and served as Dean of Social Sciences at UCLA from 2009–2016. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

LGBT linguistics is the study of language as used by members of the LGBT community. Related or synonymous terms include lavender linguistics, advanced by William Leap in the 1990s, which "encompass[es] a wide range of everyday language practices" in LGBT communities, and queer linguistics, which more specifically refers to linguistics overtly concerned with exposing heteronormativity. The former term derives from the longtime association of the color lavender with LGBT communities. "Language", in this context, may refer to any aspect of spoken or written linguistic practices, including speech patterns and pronunciation, use of certain vocabulary, and, in a few cases, an elaborate alternative lexicon such as Polari.

Metaphorical code-switching refers to the tendency in a bilingual or multilingual community to switch codes in conversation in order to discuss a topic that would normally fall into another conversational domain. "An important distinction is made from situational switching, where alternation between varieties redefines a situation, being a change in governing norms, and metaphorical switching, where alternation enriches a situation, allowing for allusion to more than one social relationship within the situation." For example, at a family dinner, where you would expect to hear a more colloquial, less prestigious variety of language, family members might switch to a highly prestigious form in order to discuss school or work. At work interlocutors may switch to a low prestige variety when discussing family.

Situational code-switching is the tendency in a speech community to use different languages or language varieties in different social situations, or to switch linguistic structures in order to change an established social setting. Some languages are viewed as more suited for a particular social group, setting, or topic more so than others. Social factors like class, religion, gender, and age influence the pattern of language that is used and switched between.

American anthropology

American anthropology has culture as its central and unifying concept. This most commonly refers to the universal human capacity to classify and encode human experiences symbolically, and to communicate symbolically encoded experiences socially. American anthropology is organized into four fields, each of which plays an important role in research on culture:

  1. biological anthropology
  2. linguistic anthropology
  3. cultural anthropology
  4. archaeology

Gerry Philipsen, Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of Washington is an American academic and ethnographer of communication. Philipsen's research treats communicative acts as occurring within cultural, social and small group settings. He is most noted for developing speech code theory a framework for communication in a given speech community. Speech code theory explores the manner in which groups communicate based on societal, cultural, gender, occupational or other factors. Philipsen received recognition for his lifetime achievement from the National Communication Association. Philipsen was born in Portland, Oregon in 1944.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hymes, Dell (1964). "Introduction: Toward Ethnographies of Communication". American Anthropologist. 66 (6): 1–34. doi: 10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00010 .
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cameron, Deborah (2001). Working with spoken discourse. London: Sage Publications. pp. 53–67. ISBN   978-0761957737.
  3. 1 2 3 Hymes, Dell (1976). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach (8th ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   978-0812210651.
  4. ↑ Hymes, Dell (1962). "The ethnography of speaking". In Gladwin, Thomas; Sturtevant, William C. (eds.). Anthropology and Human Behavior. Washington, D.C.: Anthropology Society of Washington.
  5. 1 2 3 Lindlof, Thomas R.; Taylor, Bryan C. (2002). Qualitative Communication Research Methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. ISBN   0761924949.
  6. ↑ Littlejohn, Stephen W.; Foss, Karen A. (2011). Theories of Human Communication (10th ed.). Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN   978-1577667063.
  7. 1 2 3 Philipsen, Gerry. "Speaking "like a man" in Teamsterville: Culture patterns of role enactment in an urban neighborhood". Quarterly Journal of Speech. 61 (1): 13–22. doi:10.1080/00335637509383264.
  8. ↑ Katriel, T. (1990). "'Griping' as a verbal ritual in some Israeli discourse". In Carbaugh, D. (ed.). Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 99–114.
  9. ↑ Carbaugh, Donal (2005). Cultures in conversation. Mahwah N.J.: L. Erlbaum Assiociates. ISBN   0-8058-5234-4.
  10. ↑ Sherzer, Joel (1983). Kuna ways of speaking: An ethnographic perspective. Austin: The University of Texas Press.
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