Presented by: Ms. Joy M. AvelinoMA Ed-ELT

Ethnography

Varieties of Talk•Marshall (1961)•Basso (1972)

•Frake (1964)

•Fox (1974)•Reisman (1974)

The Ethnography of Speaking

According to Hymes (1974)

• An ethnography of a communicative event is a description of all the factors that are relevant in understanding how that particular communicative event achieves its objectives.

SPEAKING

Ethnomethodology

- Ethnography is alternately both a research methodology  and a way of writing up research. (1)- the study of single group through direct contact with their culture.

Speech is used in different ways among different groups of people. Each group has its own norms of linguistic behavior.

Marshall (1961)• Marshall has indicated how the !Kung have certain customs which help them either to avoid or reduce friction and hostility within bands and between bands.

• According to Marshall, speech among the !Kung helps to maintain peaceful social relationships by allowing people to keep in touch with one another about how they are thinking and feeling. 

Basso (1972)• The Western Apache of East-

Central Arizona choose to be silent when there is a strong possibility that such uncertainty exists.

• They are silent on ‘meeting strangers’ whether these are fellow Western Apache or complete outsiders; and strangers, too, are expected to be silent.

Fox (1974)• Fox (1974) has described

how the Roti consider talk one of the great pleasures of life - not just idle chatter, but disputing, arguing, showing off various verbal skills, and, in general, indulging in verbal activity.'

• Silence is interpreted as a sign of some kind of distress, possibly confusion or dejection. So social encounters are talk-filled. 

Reisman (1974)• In Antigua, people speak

because they must assert themselves through language. They do not consider as interruptions behavior that we would consider being either interruptive or even disruptive.

• Reisman says that in Antigua ‘ to enter a conversation one must assert one’s presence rather than participate in something formalized as an exchange. 

Frake (1964)• Subanun of the Philippines, who

employ certain kinds of speech in drinking encounters. Such encounters are very important for gaining prestige for resolving disputes.

• Frake (1964) has described how to talk, what he calls ‘drinking talk’, proceeds in such encounters, from the initial invitation to partake of drink, to the selection of proper topics for discussion as drinking proceeds competitively, and finally to displays of verbal art that accompany heavy, ‘successful’ drinking.

(S) Setting and Scene EXAMPLE

Setting refers to the time and place. (the concrete physical circumstances in which speech takes place).

The living room in the grandparents' home might be a setting for a family story. 

Scene refers to the abstract psychological setting, or the cultural definition of the occasion.

 The family story may be told at a reunion celebrating the grandparents' anniversary. At times, the family would be festive and playful; at other times, serious and commemorative.

(P) Participants EXAMPLE

- Speaker and audience.

- Participants include various combinations of speaker-listener, addressor-addressee, or sender-receiver.

At the family reunion, an aunt might tell a story to the young female relatives, but males, although not addressed, might also hear the narrative.

(E) Ends EXAMPLE

Purposes, goals, and outcomes.

The aunt may tell a story about the grandmother to entertain the audience, teach the young women, and honor the grandmother.

(A) Act sequence EXAMPLE

- refers to the actual form and order of the event.

 The aunt's story might begin as a response to a toast to the grandmother. The story's plot and development would have a sequence structured by the aunt. Possibly there would be a collaborative interruption during the telling. Finally, the group might applaud the tale and move onto another subject or activity.

(K) Key  EXAMPLE

Key refers to the tone, manner, or spirit in which a particular message is conveyed: light-hearted, serious, precise, pedantic, mocking, sarcastic, pompous, and so on.

 The aunt might imitate the grandmother's voice and gestures in a playful way, or she might address the group in a serious voice emphasizing the sincerity and respect of the praise the story expresses.

(I) Instrumentalities EXAMPLE

Instrumentalities refers to the choice of channel, (e.g., oral, written, or telegraphic).

 The aunt might speak in a casual register with many dialect features or might use a more formal register and careful grammatically "standard" forms.

actual forms of speech employed, such as the language, dialect, code, or register that is chosen.

EXAMPLE

Norms of Interaction refers to the specific behaviors and properties that attach to speaking

  In a playful story by the aunt, the norms might allow many audience interruptions and collaboration, or possibly those interruptions might be limited to participation by older females. A serious, formal story by the aunt might call for attention to her and no interruptions.

 

Norms of Interpretation how these [behaviors] may be viewed by someone who does not share them, e.g., loudness, silence, gaze return, and so on.

(N) Norms 

(G)Genre  EXAMPLE

Genre refers to category of event .

(e.g. poems, proverbs, riddles, sermons, prayers, lectures, and editorials.)

 . The aunt might tell a character anecdote about the grandmother for entertainment, or an exemplum  as moral instruction.

Leither (1980, p. 5) states, ’the aim of ethnomethodology is to study the processes of sense making (idealizing and formulizing).

Ethnomethodology is a branch of the social science which is concerned with exploring how people interact with the world and make sense of reality. (3)

Commonsense knowledge refers to a variety of things. It is the understandings, receipts, maxims, and definitions that we employ in daily living as we go about doing things.

Common Sense

Practical reasoning refers to the way in which people make use of their commonsense knowledge and to how they employ that knowledge in their conduct of everyday life.

Practical reasoning

OTHER REFERENCES

(1)http://my.ilstu.edu/~jrbaldw/372/Ethnography.html

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes

(3) http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-ethnomethodology.htm

Thank you!