The ethnography of communication

Sociolinguistics

Sara Pacheco

Source:Saville-Troike,M. (1996) in S.L. McKay and N. Hornberger (Eds.) (1996) Chapter 11: The ethnography of communication.

The ethnography of communicationBasic terms, concepts and issues

Patterns and functions of communicationSpeech communityLanguage and cultureCommunicative competence

Linguistic knowledge Interaction skills Cultural knowledge

Doing the ethnography of communicationUnits of analysisThe act of analysis

Findings and applications to language learning and teaching

The ethnography of communication

Basic terms, concepts and issuesPatterns and functions of communication

o The relationship of language form and use to patterns and functions

Rules for appropriate language use in specific contexts

An ethnography of communication approach typically, tough not exclusively, looks for strategies and conventions governing larger units of communication and involves more holistic interpretation. |Ethnometodology

Societal level Societal level Categories of talkAttitudes about languages and their speakersThe use of rules to affect social and cultural outcomes

Anthropology

Linguistics

Descriptive

Prescriptive

Expectations

Regular patterns and constraints

Language function

Creating and reinforcing boundaries which unify member s of one speech community while excluding outsiders from intragroup communication

The ethnography of communication

Basic terms, concepts and issuesSpeech community

Not homogeneous communicative repertoire Codes (different languages or significantly

languages varieties)Speaker’s choice Styles (varieties associated with sociocultural dimensions:

age, sex…)

Registers (varieties associated with settings or scenes)

Being a member of a speech community has been defined as sharing the same language (Lyons, 1970), sharing rules of speaking and interpretation of speech performance (Hymes, 1972), and sharing sociocultural understandings and presuppositions with regard to speech (Sherzer, 1975).

Some bilinguals change not only code but rules of speaking, non-verbal behaviors and other strategies for interaction

Native speakers learn at some point a schooled variety of their language and learn when to use it.

L2 learners differs from FL learners when acquiring rules of communication as they are in a process of acculturation.Speaking the same language is sufficient for some

degree of participation but perhaps not for full membership.

The ethnography of communication

Basic terms, concepts and issuesLanguage and cultureDevelopment of general theories of communication Description and analysis of communication within

specific speech communities. Vocabulary index

of the way the speakers categorize experience

Many words do not mean the same thing as their translation equivalents in other languages.

The grammar of a language may reveal the way time and space are organized, convey beliefs about animacy and the relative power of beings, and imply a great deal of other information by conventional presupposition.

Part of the potential application of the ethnography of communication to language teaching comes in understanding the nature and content of the language-culture relationship in both the specific contexts of communication in which students are likely to want or need to participate and their contexts of learning — and in determining what aspects of culture need to be, can be, and should be taught.

The ethnography of communication

Basic terms, concepts and issuesCommunicative competence

Language code + What to say +Linguistic knowledge

Interaction skills

Cultural knowledge

How to say it appropriately in any given situation

The ability to discriminate between variants which carry social meaning by serving as markers of social categories and those which are socially insignificant and the knowledge of what the social meaning of a variant is in a particular situation. (Foreign talk)

Social conventions which regulate the use of language and other communicative devices in particular settings. Language as it occurs in its social context an emergent and dynamic process.

Total set of knowledge and skills which speakers bring into a situation. No topicis universally forbidden; linguistic taboos relate integrally to culture. Shared knowledge explains shared presuppositions and judgments of truth value undergirdings of language structures and contextually appropriate usage and Interpretation

The ethnography of communication

Doing the ethnography of communication

Unit of analysisThe communicative situation

The communicative event

The communicative act

ObservingAsking questionsParticipating in group activitiesTesting validity against intuition

No anticipation

Cross-cultural knowledge and comparison

Naturalistics settings

The context within which communication occurs. (a church service, a trial, a class in school…). A single situation maintains a consistent general configuration of activities and the same overall ecology, although there may be great diversity in the kinds of interaction.

An unified set of components: beginning with the same general purpose, the same general topic, and the same participants, generally using the same language variety, maintaining the same tone or key, and using the same rules for interaction, in the same setting.

It is generally coterminous with a single interactional function, such as a referential statement, a request, or a command, and may be either verbal or nonverbal.

The ethnography of communication

Doing the ethnography of communicationThe act of

analysisDescription static dynamic process

Analyzing communication does ultimately require inferences to be made about the intentions and effects of interactions, although such inferences should be grounded wherever possible in an understanding of the perceptions of those who are participants in an event.

A final characterization that can be made of most ethnographicresearch in classrooms is that it is open to new questions that may arisein the course of data collection and analysis and that it attempts toaccount for the full range of communicative phenomena which occur inthe social context of interaction.

The ethnography of communication

Findings and applications to language learning and teaching For Hymes, research and application involve a two-way sharing of knowledge - the investigator contributing scientific modes of inquiry and participants providing the requisite knowledge and perspective of the particular community contexts.

The methods of the ethnography of communication can be profitably applied by teachers in observing and analyzing the situation in their own classroom and in heightening their awareness of their own interaction patterns with students

Heath goes beyond description to suggest ways in which educators can make use of knowledge from the ethnographies of communication to build bridges between communities and schools and develop ways to accommodate group differences in language and culture.

Knowledge of the ways in whichcommunicative structures and strategies differ across cultures will help teachers better understand the reasons for students' deviations fromstandard and native language norms. Understanding why students might make certain choices in language use can lead to more tolerant and appreciative attitudes toward students' full range of communicative resources.