Interactional Sociolinguistics: Tools for Analyzing Language and

Communication in Cross-Cultural Training

Dr. Anna Marie Trester & Sonia Checchia

Linguistics Department, Georgetown University

M.A. Program in Language and Communication

Sociolinguistics

� The study of language in its social context.

� Sociolinguists are interested in how language

impacts society, and conversely in how

society may have an impact on language.

� We look for patterns!

Anna’s background

� Dissertation research with Washington Improv Theater.

� Interactional Style of Improvisational Theater performers– Ethnography to uncover aspects of conversational style

– Their way of using language says something about what they value (careful listening, wordplay, storytelling, creation of characters) contributes to a sense of belonging for group members.

“Language of Diversity” panel

� Discussion for diversity practitioners (AARP, CIL, NY Times Company, Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute)

� Began by asking participants to address the following questions:

a) What is a new emerging term dealing with diversity in the workplace?

b) What is a term you no longer hear or shouldn't hear in today's workplace?

Referring Expressions

� referring expressions vs. address terms (“those people,” “old guys”)

� Issues of power and solidarity

(“the girls” “kids”)

� finding terms that “put the person first”(“wheelchair”) – (Castania 2003)

� Presupposition / Deixis (“reverse discrimination” “disabled”)

What a Linguist Brings to the table

� Expose underlying assumptions

� Insight into how power and worldview are produced and reproduced through language

� Raise awareness of the ways that language can embed our own perspective

What we hope to accomplish today

� Add some critical and analytical tools for analyzing language to your toolkit

� Introduce some interactional sociolinguistic concepts– Reference

– Contextualization Cues

– Speech acts

– Discourse Markers

� Demonstrate how these concepts can enhance our understanding of language and social interaction

Introductions

� But before we get too far into today’s workshop, we want to know a little bit about you all

� Could we go around the room and have you each briefly introduce yourselves?

What we “saw” as we were “listening”

� Intonation

� Transition Relevance Place

� Topic

� Discourse Markers

� Awareness of Frame – “what is going on here” (Erving Goffman)

� Speed

� Volume

� Aka “Contextualization Cues”

Contextualization Cues

� When we speak, we provide cues for the context in which our utterances should be taken.

� They signal how talk is meant to be received by the listener.

� Contextualization cues signal things ranging from interpersonal contexts (I am being friendly) to aspects of speech events (this is a joke).

Intonation

� Lists (Schiffrin 2006)

� “positive politeness marker to emphasize speaker-hearer solidarity & to assist in the cooperative management of talk” (Britain 1998).

Interactional Sociolinguistics

� John Gumperz Discourse Strategies

– pioneered analyses of sources of

misunderstanding in cross-cultural encounters

� Focus on forms of language that are not

often explicitly studied (e.g. intonation,

assumptions about context)

Clip @ Bank from Crosstalk

� Intonation as a Contextualization Cue

� For Gumperz, we are NOT just following pre-existing rules for situations, we use language to actively signal our relationship to our talk and our interlocutors (even if it is unconscious)

� Gumperz used this paradigm to show how cultural misunderstandings occur and suggests that if more people understand these differences in contextualization cues, then discrimination will be lessened (social justice issue)

Takeaway

� Every communication must simultaneously

communicate two messages, the message

and the “metamessage” (Bateson 1972)

� Metamessage: a second message, encoded

and superimposed upon the basic, which

indicates how someone is supposed to

interpret the basic message

Tannen (1995)

� “Communication isn’t as simple as saying what you mean. How you say what you mean is crucial, and differs from one person to the next, because using language is learned social behavior: How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experience” (pg. 243).

� The danger is that we often assume that our way of making requests, etc. is the “natural way,” the “best way,” or the “right way.”

Speech Acts

� How we accomplish things through language.

� Performative Speech Acts

� Declarative Speech Acts

� Commands

� Compliments

� Requests

Declarative Speech Acts

� For example, saying "I now pronounce you husband and wife," is called a declarative speech act because it is the act of uttering these words that actually accomplishes the act of marrying two people.

� Anna attended a wedding this past summer where the minister had not yet actually finished her ordination, so she had to say "I now ANNOUNCE you husband and wife" because she did not yet have the power to PRONOUNCE them.

Compliments

� Another type of speech act is a compliment. Interestingly, the meaning of compliments can vary culture by culture. For example, in India, politeness requires that if someone compliments one of your possessions, you should offer to give the item as a gift, so complimenting can be a way of asking for things. An Indian woman who had just met her son's American wife was shocked to hear her new daughter-in-law praise her beautiful saris. She commented, "What kind of girl did he marry? She wants everything!" (Source: LSA

website - Tannen: What is Discourse Analysis? http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-discourse.cfm )

Requests� Think about some of the many ways that

requests get accomplished around you (and that you accomplish them yourself). Typically you will find that requests can be made directly or indirectly (or “on-record” vs. “off-record”).

� Sifianu Greek example, an indirect way of requesting the remote control for the TV might be to say “have you seen the remote?” Note that the requestor did not say directly “please bring me the remote” but depending on your expectations (and those of your listener) about requests, this more indirect “have you seen the remote?” might be heard as such.

Scenario

� You live in an apartment building in DC and you are rushing off to work one morning. You realize that you have no cash and have no time to go to the ATM for your bus fare. You knock on your neighbor’s door to ask for a dollar.

� What do you say?

Takeaway

� Misunderstandings can often arise out of different cultures’ expectations about directness vs. indirectness.

� While neither style (direct or indirect) is BETTER, you will find that people tend to have a strong preference (of which, they are likely unaware).

Discourse Markers

� Little words like oh, well, so, but, then, and,

or, you know, I mean.

� These “little words” break our speech up into

parts and show the relation between parts.

They help organize the sequence and

relationship between utterances, give

information as to the speaker’s attitude to the

hearer, to the information, and to the world.

1. <phone ring>2. Frank: Hello2. Anna: hi Dad?3. Frank: hi4. Anna: how are ya?5. Frank: how ya doin’?6. Anna: good, what are you up to?7. Frank: oh, working, uh studying, 8. Anna: oh yeah?9. Frank: writing some papers10. Anna: Do you have just a minute for me?11.Frank: Sure.12. Anna: Do you remember the Zimmerman stories?13. Frank: Yeah.14. Anna: Could you tell me them again?15. Frank: …You need it now?

Discourse Markers in eliciting a story

16. Anna: Uh…if you don’t have time we could do it later.17. Frank: Uh…how come you need it again?18. Anna: Uh…we just have to record it again.19. Frank: Oh.20. Frank: Well, let’s see <sigh>,21. I guess I could.22. Anna: Only if you have time.23. Frank: Yeah.24. Anna: OK.25. Frank: Are you ready?26. Anna: Yeah.27. Frank: You got your tape recorder

and everything?28. Anna: All set!29. Frank: Ah, ok.30. Anna: Thank you.31. Frank: OK,

oh

� Schiffrin: oh a “marker of information

management”

� Heritage: oh a “change of state” token

1. Josh: um uh anyway um I uh

2. grew up in Columbus, Ohio

3. Anna: oh you’re kidding

Successful conversational discourse

� “Requires that the participants not only maintain cohesion or relevance, but that where there are breaks in the cohesion, they go back and repair them” (79).

� “One has and feels the obligation to maintain a smooth and coherent discourse, and if one has been responsible for a break, it is taken as a disruption of good interpersonal relationships” (79).

Smooth Discourse

� “depends so strongly on shared knowledge that when there is a break or disruption, the most immediate reaction is that the culprit must be a member of a different group” (79).

� Most of us are quite conscious of different pronunciations or of different words used by members of other groups, but in day-to-day practice it is cohesion in discourse which provides the strongest and most emblematic forces for group identity” (79).

Promoting smooth discourse

� Using interactional sociolinguistics to coach a speaker on:

– Turn - taking

– Pause length

– Transition relevance places

� <please refer to back of handout>