1. Chapter 6 Language in Action
The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
Chapter 6 Language in Action

2. Language in Action Beyond language to speech Language in context
Ethnography of Communication
Communicating across cultures

3. Language in Context Context = cultural and social situation
How does context affect language?
Malinowski ( )
Translation requires knowledge of context
Context can shift meanings
Recognizing indirection:
Asking for a ride
Ukrainian no

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 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

9. Ethnography of SPEAKING
Instrumentalities
Languages & dialects
Mutual intelligibility
Politics and attitudes: languages and their speakers
Ideas about “Standard” and “Non-standard”
Cousin Joe and the performance of identity thru dialect
‘warsh’ ‘fouath flouah’ ‘pahking the cah’
“A language is a dialect with an army and navy.”

10. Ethnography of SPEAKING
Instrumentalities (cont.)
Registers
Situation-specific
Prestigious, formal, scientific, academic, colloquial
Politics and attitudes about registers and their use
Speech levels in Java
Implicit speech levels in the US
epic vs. splendid

11. 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

12. 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 single language variety
And who identify with that language variety
A community of practice is ???

13. 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

14. Language Across Cultures
Different communities = different rules
Easy for misunderstandings to occur
Rich Points
Moments of misunderstanding
Corn pudding
Interviewing for a job
Asking for a ride
Signal differences in rules
Ways to say ‘no’
Ways to take turns
Indirectness

15. 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

16. 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?

17. Creating a Language: Politeness
Create a greeting
Create a farewell
Taboo one of the words in your lexicon
Why did you taboo this word?
Create a euphemism for it
Why did you choose this euphemism?

18. Next: Writing and Literacy Read: Prepare to do: Textbook Chapter 7
Workbook/Reader:
Ottenheimer (pp )
Prepare to do:
Writing/Discussion Exercises (W/R pp )
Practice with Languages (W/R pp )
Language Creating (W/R p. 155)
Conversation partnering (W/R p. 156)