From our readings the “terms for talk” framework asks ethnographers of communication to examine indigenous terms for communicative acts, events, styles and their respective social uses. An interpretive analysis of these terms reveals participant understandings of personhood, sociality and communication. Drawing on your fieldwork observations and interviews explore terms used to describe either an act of speech, a speech event, or a speech style that says something about the community of speakers in which it is found. Use the SPEAKING mnemonic to describe a context within which the term for talk is found. What does the term for talk say about the communication that is produced (mode, structuring, key, efficaciousness), the dimensions of sociality that it creates, and a model of personhood associated active in the talk?
For each of the journal entries you are asked to conduct an ethnographic study of language use in interpersonal communication. The lectures and readings are designed to give you a framework for conducting these studies. Each journal entry consists of three separate, but complimentary parts: (i) a review and summary of the relevant literature; (ii) data collection and its presentation; and (iii) an analysis of the data that examines features of a culture at work in communication. Here are some additional ideas that you might consider in relation to these three moments of inquiry.
(i) A review and summary of the relevant literature (2-3 pages)
Presented in this class is a general theory of communication in culture and more specific activity theories of facework, speech acts, person-referring forms, relational dialectics, cultural terms for talk, norms and rules, and narrative. In your paper discuss, at a theoretical level, what any of these theories of communication are. Use the readings assigned to that specific section of the class to help with your review—you may go outside of the class readings should you wish to. Cite your sources!
(ii) Data collection and its presentation (1-3 pages)
The data you will collect in this class will be conducted primarily through participant observations and interviews. Simply put, you will observe and document communication in its naturally occurring context. Document a short transcript of a conversation (it need not be any more than 3-4 exchanges in an ongoing piece of interaction). The primary tool for organizing and presenting your observations is through the Hymes’ (1972) SPEAKING mnemonic. Note in your presentation of the transcription the setting or the scene, the participants, their ends or goals in view, the sequencing of the interaction, the key or emotional tone, the instruments or medium of communication (spoken, mediated, nonverbal, etc), the associated norms or rules, and whether or not the interaction was part of a larger genre for communication.
(iii) An analysis of the data that examines features of a culture at work in communication (2-3 pages)
Use the orientation you have developed in (i) to make a systematic analysis of this data in (ii). Ask yourself how the data reveals a culture at work? By culture we can mean any number of things: nationality, ethnicity, regionality, social class, gender (and all of its non-binary forms), sexuality, patterns of power, intimacy, solidarity, deference, etc. If your observation is one of intercultural communication how might the phenomena play into a sense of conflict, or breakdowns in communication?
