Dr. AbdelrahimHamid Mugaddam Speakers, Hearers, Audiences
Slide 2
Fact about how conversation emerges, text written.. Interpreted
influenced by who is involved. Who the speaker/writer is? What is
the relationship among speakers and hearers? Who else is
listening?
Slide 3
Traditional way of thinking about the participants in discourse
is to imagine the author/speaker: primary source of data, the one
who decides what to say, how and what others should take it to
mean. Other participants are passive decoders!
Slide 4
Other participants are always involved in shaping discourse in
3 ways: 1. Their reactions to it 2. The way it is designed with
them in mind 3. The ways in which their roles make the authors role
possible.
Slide 5
Power, solidarity, and community Power and solidarity are both
always at play in any relationship (Tanen, 1994) Power: has to do
with the respects in which relationships are asymmetrical, with one
person able to control the other. Solidarity: has to do with the
relatively symmetrical aspects of human relationships. Solidarity:
counter of power I human relations.. Only in context mutual
orientation to shared knowledge,, membership in common predefined
groupings, or joint activity do negotiations for control
arise.
Slide 6
Humans need ways to claim membership in a group and to show
that they are in symmetrical relation with the fellow group
members. Social groups play different roleshierarchically
stratified into subgroups.
Slide 7
Power plays a substantial role in organizing relation The
president has the power to declare war Chairman of a committee:
power to adjourn the committees meeting Priest : power to make
decisions in marriage.
Slide 8
Power is negotiable.. People compete for the ability to make
things happen, even in situations in which institutionally allotted
power might make such competition unequal. US politics, the
legislature can and does try to limit the presidents power to
declare war. Other committee member might suggest that the chairman
adjourn the meeting or they can make a de facto adjournment by
simply sand up and leave. If there is no power, there will be no
interaction.
Slide 9
Two types of power: Institutional & situational Example:
choosing a member for a position Darter: Um Ri:tchie may come off
like hes really a dumb ass everything but uh, he s like one of the
smartest people I know you know I went to high school with him And
he was like ranked fifth in our class Kim: He is Asian man what do
you expect?
Slide 10
Darter, a younger member who is relatively powerless in the
group argues for his choice, Richie. Since Darter knew Richie
previously in high school, he can make a claim to expertise that
the others lack. This gives him potential power to influence the
decision. Showing powerlessness: Use of hedges (unsure),
intensifiers (really unbelievably), conditional (would be a good
position for him)
Slide 11
Community! Enjoining in joint discourse activities such as the
meeting and decision-making is one of the things that makes the
collection of people a community. The activities show that those
involved are members of a common community. Communities: speech
communities, discourse communities, or communities of
practice.
Slide 12
Social roles & discourse roles People always create and
negotiates their relationships with each other in the process of
interacting, via discourse moves that makes claims to equality,
inequality, solidarity or detachment. There are fixed roles in
which people use and interpret in relatively pre-set way (how
students maybe using language, what is expected of hosts &
guests, people working in fast food restaurantswhat exactly to say,
in what order and what style)
Slide 13
Discourse role and social role can be keyed : use forms of
address (first name, surname, Dr. Ms, Reverend, your honor,
officer). Discourse roles are signaled and negotiated via choices
on every level, from which word to use to what sort of thing to
do.
Slide 14
(in school) well, today I thought wed do three quizzes. (in
casual conversation) well, today I thought wed talk about my
vacation to France. The first is fairly usual, the second would
probably strike people as odd and rude.
Slide 15
Audience, Politeness, and Accommodation Audience : a collection
of actual people or as an abstract image in the mind of the rhetor.
Passive listeners whose emotions and beliefs have to be analyzed so
that to be identified with what the rhetor is talking about. Active
participants in the making of the meaning. Audiences are considered
co-author
Slide 16
Linguistic politeness is a way in which discourse is shaped by
the audience. Politeness: refers to all the ways in which speakers
adapt (or decide not to adapt) to the fact that their
interlocutors, actual or imagined, have human needs like their own.
Politeness is one of the main reasons for which people are often
indirect, not saying precisely what they mean but implying it in
conventional ways.
Slide 17
Linguistic politeness (Lakoff 1973): human operate under a set
of very basic constraints in our behavior towards one another. 3
rules: 1. Formality (distance): Do not impose on others; be
sufficiently aloof. 2. Hesitancy (Deference): Allow the addressee
options about whether or not to respond and about how to respond.
3. Equality: (Camaraderie): Act as if you and the addressee are
equal; make the addressee feel good.
Slide 18
Positive face & negative face Asking for a loan: find
common ground (do you see how this hedge gotten out of control?)
Observing positive face: to reciprocate, pay back! Positive
politeness strategies: using markers of in-group identity;
expressing approval or sympathy, noticing and attending to the
hearers wants, interests, and needs, ; making offers and promises
and giving reasons.
Slide 19
Accommodation theory In other way in which audience shapes
discourse is with adapting their behavior to that of the people
they are actually talking to.. Accommodation theory (Giles &
Powsland, 1975, Street and Hopper 1982; Thakerar, Giles, and
Cheshire, 1982) Styles of speaking : converge (becomes similar to
the style of the interlocutors). Converge (becomes different from
that of the interlocutor).
Slide 20
Attributed Identities and situated Identifications Human deal
with other humans by categorizing them: Men, women, African,
American, German Categorization has no logical place for people
with mixed backgrounds and mixed identities. How do Hispanic
Americans behave in situation Z?
Slide 21
Agency & Self expression Features of discourse can be
related with social facts about speakers, audiences and other
participants. It is tempting to talk as if such facts what
discourse is like people talk, sign, write, and interpret in the
ways they do because they are authors or audiences; male or female;
because of features of ethnicity, region, class, need for
linguistic politeness, accommodation.
Slide 22
Participants in discourse are individuals who make decision and
these decisions are fundamentally creative even if the decision
were made before. 2 reasons a. No two people speak the same b.
Humans are individual moral agents(different people see the world
with different eyes).. Have different life stories and they tell
their stories to express their individual identities.
