loving language

Garfinkel

2010-08-04T18:36:00.001-05:00

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Harold GarfinkelPROFESSOR EMERITUS at UCLAPh. D., Harvard UniversityClass WebsitesOffice: A83 HAINES Phone: 3108253328 Fax: 310-206-9838 E-mail: garfinkel@soc.ucla.edu Mailing Address:UCLA Department of Sociology 264 Haines Hall - Box 951551 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551 SubfieldEthnomethodologyResearch InterestsClassic studies of social order and ethnomethodological studies agree that the animal they are hunting is the production and accountability of the phenomena or order, reason, logic, etc. in, about, and as the great recurrences of immortal ordinary society, really, actually, evidently, distinctively, and in detail. A selected corpus of ethnomethodological studies offers evidence for locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, objective knowledge, evidence, detail, structure, etc., in and as of the unavoidable and irremediable haecceity of immortal ordinary society. These results are collected by and come to a head in ethnomethodological studies of discovering work in the natural sciences. The results are contrary to the classic policies, methods, claims, and findings of professional sociology and the world-wide social science movement.Selected Publications"The Work of a Discovering Science construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar," (with Eric Livingston and Michael Lynch), Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 11(2):131-158, 1981. "Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order*, Logic, Meaning, Method, etc., in and as of the Essentially Unavoidable and Irremediable Haeceeity of Immortal Ordinary Society: (I of IV) An Announcement of Studies," Sociological Theory '88, (6)1: 103-109, Spring 1988.
Harold Garfinkel (born 29 October 1917) is Professor Emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Garfinkel took his PhD in 1952 from Harvard University, where he was supervised by Talcott Parsons. His thesis was titled "The Perception of the Other: A Study in Social Order"; it remains unpublished but highly influential, especially on the early years ofethnomethodology.EthnomethodologyGarfinkel is the originator of the ethnomethodological approach to sociology and, alongside Aaron Cicourel and Harvey Sacks, he is often cited as having been a major contributor to its development, articulation and spread. However, these three progenitors have each carved their own path. Until his death, Sacks focused on conversation analysis, a strand which has virtually cut loose from its ethnomethodological roots to become a free standing sociological method. Cicourel pioneered what he termed "Cognitive Sociology".Early ethnomethodological work was initially distributed via mimeographs. Garfinkel’s groundbreaking monograph "Studies in Ethnomethodology" was not formally published until 1967 and contains a series of essays concerning a number of distinct research projects. These essays pursue the ethnomethodological theme of the production of social order. His subsequent development of ethnomethodology has followed this pattern in that it is best seen as programmatic rather than theoretical. Garfinkel does not articulate a social theory as much as a sociological stance.Although his work is a radical rethinking of how to do sociology, he has acknowledged his intellectual debt to the more traditional figures of Émile Durkheim and Parsons, as well as to the phenomenological approach of Alfred Schütz.[1] Through his understanding of phenomenology, Garfinkel has sought to "respecify" traditional readings of Durkheim’s aphorism. Durkheim suggested that "[t]he objective reality of social facts is sociology’s fundamental principle." In an alternate formulation, he suggested that social facts should be understood as sociology’s fundamental phenomenon. Garfinkel prefers this reading and suggests a move toward a recognition that sociological facts are "locally endogenously produced, naturally organized, reflexively accountable, ongoing, practical achievement[s]."[1]Garfinkel emphasizes the indexicality of language and the difficulties this creates for the production of objective accounts of social phenomena. However, his notion of indexicality is much broader than the philosophical or linguistic concept. For Garfinkel, all talk is indexical to the context in which it takes place and/or refers. Garfinkel rejects the representational view of language, preferring the more Wittgensteinian or Austinian account of speech act theory. This means that language, speech acts and social accounts are reflexive to the settings in which they are produced: they depend upon that setting for their meaning and the setting’s meaning depends on reflexive articulation. In recognizing this, Garfinkel’s concept of the incarnate accountability of social action can be seen. All social situations are accountable by, and to, its participants in that participation in the situation itself is to produce and respond to context relevant information and cues.Ethnomethodological studies come in a wide variety of forms, including the sequential analysis of conversation; the study of social categorization practices (membership category analysis); studies of workplace settings and activities (studies of work).InfluenceGarfinkel has had a major influence on the Social Studies of Science and Science and Technology Studies. In particular, his ideas have influences initial "laboratory ethnographies" and the work of such major figures as David Bloor, Steve Woolgar, Bruno Latour and Karin Knorr-Cetina. A major recent ethnomethodology in the field isMichael Lynch's Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science.Psychiatrist R. D. Laing cited Garfinkel's "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies" in several of his books; he considered the psychiatric interview to be an example of a degradation ceremony. This meant, in Garfinkel's terms, that the psychiatrist officially denounces (labels) a patient as mentally ill, which reduces the patient to a lower level in the scheme of social types, i.e., "separated from [and opposed to] a place in the legitimate [social] order."An excerpt from "Studies in Ethnomethodology" was included in the 1973 anthology Rules and Meanings: The Anthropology of Everyday Knowledge, edited by Mary Douglasand published by Penguin Books.Selected WorksMoon, B., ed (1946). "Color Trouble". Primer for White Folks (New York: Doubleday Doran): 269–286.(1956). "Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies".American Journal of Sociology 61: 420–424.(1956). "Some sociological concepts and methods for psychiatrists". Psychiatric Research Reports 6: 181–198.Harvey, O.J., ed (1963). "A conception of, and experiments with, 'trust' as a condition of stable concerted actions".Motivation and Social Interaction (New York: Ronald Press): 187–238.(1967) "Studies in Ethnomethodology". (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall)Shneidman, E., ed (1967). "Practical sociological reasoning: Some features in the work of the Los Angeles suicide prevention center" Essays in Self-destruction (New York: Science House): 171–186.Hill, R.; Grittenden, K., eds (1968). "Discussion: The origin of the term 'ethnomethodology'". Proceedings of the Purdue Symposium on Ethnomethodology(Institute Monograph Series #1): 15–18.With Sacks, Harvey (1970); McKinney, J.; Tiryakian, E., eds. "On formal structures of practical actions". Theoretical Sociology: Perspectives and Developments (New York: Meredith): 337–366.(1972). "A Comparison of Decisions Made on Four 'Pre-Theoretical' Problems by Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schultz" (first published in 1960).Sudnow, D., ed (1972). "Studies in the routine grounds of everyday activities". Studies in Social Interaction (New York: Free Press): 1–30 (first published in 1964).Manis, J; Meltzer, B., eds (1972). "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies"Symbolic Interactionism (New York: Allyn & Bacon): 201–208.(1976). "An introduction, for novices, to the work of studying naturally organized ordinary activities".(1981). "The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar". Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11: 131–158.(Spring 1988). "Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order, Logic, Meaning, Method, etc., in and as of the Essentially Unavoidable and Irremediable Haeceeity of Immortal Ordinary Society: (I of IV) An Announcement of Studies" (also known as "Parson's Plenum").Sociological Theory '88 (6) 1: 103–109.(2002). "Ethnomethodology's program: Working out Durkheim's aphorism" (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield).(November 2005). "Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action".(December 2008). "Toward a Sociological Theory of Information".(August 2010). Studies in Ethnomethodology: Expanded and Updated Edition.[edit]ReferencesHarold Garfinkel at UCLAPhotos of Harold Garfinkel at the conference "Orders of Ordinary Action" in Manchester, UK in 2001.

Mary Douglas (from Wikipedia)

2010-08-04T18:32:00.001-05:00

Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA(25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human cultureand symbolism.

Her area was social anthropology; she was considered a follower ofÉmile Durkheim and a proponent of structuralist analysis, with a strong interest in comparative religion.

Biography

She was born as Margaret Mary Tew in San Remo, Italy to Gilbert and Phyllis (née Twomey) Tew. Her father was in the British colonial service. Her mother was a devout Roman Catholic, and Mary and her younger sister, Patricia, were raised in that faith. After their mother's death, the sisters were raised by their maternal grandparents and attended the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton (laterWoldingham School). Mary went on to study at St Anne's College, Oxford from 1939 to 1943; there she was influenced by E. E. Evans-Pritchard.

She worked in the British Colonial Office until 1947, when she returned to Oxford to take up graduate study she had left. She studied with M. N. Srinivas as well as Edward Evans-Pritchard. In 1949, she did field workwith the Lele people in what was then the Belgian Congo; this took her to village life in the region between the Kasai River and the Loange River, where the Lele lived on the edge of the previous Kuba Kingdom.

In the early 1950s, she completed her doctorate, married James Douglas. Like her, he was a Catholic and had been born into a colonial family (in Simla, while his father served in the Indian army). They would have three children. She taught at University College, London, where she remained for around 25 years, becoming Professor of Social Anthropology.

Her reputation was established by her book Purity and Danger (1966). She wrote The World of Goods(1978) with an econometrician, Baron Isherwood, which was considered a pioneering work on economic anthropology. She published on such subjects as risk analysis and the environment, consumption and welfare economics, and food and ritual, all increasingly cited outside anthropology circles.

She taught and wrote in the USA for 11 years. After four years (1977–81) as Foundation Research Professor of Cultural Studies at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, she moved to Northwestern University as Avalon Professor of the Humanities with a remit to link the studies of theology and anthropology, and spent three years at Princeton University. In 1988, she returned to Britain, where she gave the Gifford Lectures in 1989.

In 1989, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. She became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992, and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen's New Year's Honours List published on 30 December 2006. She died on 16 May 2007 in London, aged 86, from complications of cancer, survived by her three children. Her husband died in 2004.

Contributions to anthropology

Mary Douglas is best known for her interpretation of the book of Leviticus, and for her role in creating the cultural theory of risk.

Douglas' book Purity and Danger is considered a key text in social anthropology.

The line of enquiry in Purity and Dangertraces the words and meaning of dirt in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place (Douglas takes this lead from William James). She attempts to clarify the differences between the sacred, the clean and the unclean in different societies and times. Through a complex and sophisticated reading of ritual, religion and lifestyle she challenges Western ideas of pollution, making clear how the context and social history is essential.

In Purity and Danger, Douglas first proposed that the kosher laws were not, as many believed, either primitive health regulations or randomly chosen as tests of Jews' commitment to God. Instead, Douglas argued that the laws were about symbolic boundary-maintenance. Prohibited foods were those that did not seem to fall neatly into any category. For example, pigs' place in the natural order was ambiguous because they shared the cloven hoof of the ungulates, but did not chew cud.

Later in a 2002 preface to Purity and Danger, Douglas went on to retract her initial explanation of the kosher rules, saying that it had been "a major mistake." Instead, she proposed that "the dietary laws intricately model the body and the altar upon one another" as of land animals, Israelites were only allowed to eat animals that were also allowed to be sacrificed: animals that depend on herdsmen. Thus, Douglas concludes that animals that are abominable to eat are not in fact impure, as the "rational, just, compassionate God of the Bible would [never] have been so inconsistent as to make abominable creatures." Douglas makes it clear in Purity and Danger that she does not endeavour to judge religions as pessimistic or optimistic in their understanding of purity or dirt as positive (dirt affirming) or otherwise.

In Natural Symbols (first published 1970), Douglas introduced the interrelated concepts of "group" (how clearly defined an individual's social position is as inside or outside a bounded social group) and "grid" (how clearly defined an individual's social role is within networks of social privileges, claims and obligations). The group-grid pattern was to be refined and redeployed in laying the foundations of cultural theory.

Works

The Lele of the Kasai (1963)
Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo(1966)
Pollution (1968)
Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (1970)
Rules and Meanings. The Anthropology of Everyday Knowledge: Selected Readings, edited by Mary Douglas (Penguin Books, 1973).
Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (1975)
Jokes, in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies (1975); edited by Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson
The World of Goods (1979) with Baron Isherwood
Evans-Pritchard (1980)
Risk and Culture (1980) with Aaron Wildavsky
In the Active Voice (1982)
How Institutions Think (1986)
Missing persons: a critique of the social sciences (1988) with Steven Ney
Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 1992).
In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (1993)
Thought styles: Critical essays on good taste (1996)
Leviticus as Literature (1999)
Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology(2002)
Jacob's Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (2004)
Thinking in Circles (2007)
External links
Mary Douglas Papers, 1948–1985, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois
Sketch from Univ of Pennsylvania as Honorary degree recipient in 2000
Mary Douglas at the National Portrait Gallery.
Bibliography
Obituary in The Guardian
Obituary in The Times
Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2007.
New York Times obituary available in Cache version
The Star Obituary
Commonweal Anthropology with a Difference
Mary Douglas interviewed by Alan Macfarlane, 26 February 2006 (film).
A web site exploring the continuing legacy of Mary Douglas, especially with reference to her Grid-Group typology.

It can come across as offensive.

2009-05-04T09:20:00.002-05:00

Ok what does that mean? What specifically will it do to your identity and your relationship with those offended? How would it alter the way those people interact with you? Would they relegate you to the status of tolerated acquaintance? Would it make them reluctant to introduce you to their significant other or their family or their boss?

Kyle, Susan, Allie, Whitney S. : China and Proxemics

2009-05-04T09:16:00.002-05:00

Really nice work on this discovery: women's interaction with women and women's interaction with men are most similar in American culture, and men's interaction with men is the most different, whereas in Chinese culture women's and women's and men's and men's are the most similar, where mixed interactions are the most different.

Calendar for Week 12: 4/13, 4/15, 4/17

2009-04-10T08:00:00.001-05:00

Still working on diagnostic

Read:
Stigma 66-104

Calendar for Week11: 4/6, 4/8, holiday on 4/10

2009-04-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

Apply your diagnostic with your informant and other subjects outside of class

Read:
Stigma 66-104

Friday: NO CLASS (:

Calendar for Week 10: 3/30, 4/1, 4/3

2009-03-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Due Monday: Report to class what you're doing for your diagnostic and submit to ee

Read:
1) Polite Fictions 41-59
2) Stigma 41-66

Calendar for Week 9: 3/23, 3/25/3/27

2009-03-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Focus on designing your own diagnostic

What aspects of each reading so far will you incorporate in your diagnostic?

Read:
Stigma 1-40

Sprink Break

2009-03-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

Spring Break March 16-20

Calendar for Week 8: 3/9, 3/11, 3/13

2009-03-06T08:00:00.001-06:00

Due Monday: Ist Informant Presentations 5-7 minutes

Read:
Polite Fictions 62-79

Wednesday: MIDTERM EXAM

Friday: Midterm returned

Peru Group: Tiana, BJ, Whitney C.

2009-02-28T15:13:00.000-06:00

1. Turn taking-Do you ever feel like you cannot keep up in a conversation in America?
2. Do Americans tend to interrupt you?
3. What kinds of visual signs/signals do you used to inform individuals and groups of when to start/stop talking or change the subject or anything else?
4. How is turn regulated/How do you know when to talk?
5. Who is allowed to talk to who in order to be socially acceptable?
6. Are there stipulations as to how do address someone or greet someone?
7. When someone talks at the same time as you, is one person assumed to step down?
8. How is this addressed by the rest of the group and how do they perceive it?

China Group: Martyn, Kimberly, Michael, Melora

2009-02-28T08:36:00.001-06:00

1. When listening to someone else speaking, how do you affirm that you are listening to what they are saying?
2. How big of a gap do you leave between speakers before you resume or begin talking?
3. Does your culture have any specific affixes/prefixes or titles (such as for family members) when addressing them? If so, when do you use them and where?
4. Who is it most proper to address first in a group of people (is it based on age, status, family, or whom you are most comfortable with)?
5. When answering a question, do you repeat the question when answering or rephrase the question in your answer?
6. Do you ever ask a question that is really a demand (imperative)?
7. Do you ever switch between polite/formal speech to informal speech in the same conversation?
8. How long does a relationship with someone have to be before you speak informally with them?
9. As you grow older, do you convey more politeness r take on more informal speech when speaking to your parents?
10. How do you respond to someone insulting themselves?
11. What do you say when you enter someone’s home as a guest?

Saudia Arabia Group: Sarah P. , Megan S.

2009-02-28T08:29:00.001-06:00

1. After inviting someone over, is it polite to serve them or appropriate to allow them to serve themselves?
2. When in the company of guests is it appropriate to be relaxes in manner or have more self-control and remain formal? If neither, what is appropriate?
3. In TV programs, if something is going wrong for the good guys, how would they react?
4. In a work scenario, is it appropriate to joke around? How would people react if people were joking?
5. In a high stress situation, like turbulence on a plane, how would people in your culture respond to humor?
6. How is dependency on others viewed in Saudi Arabia? In times of necessary dependence how is gender and age figured in?
7. When asking for a favor, in what manner of speaking should the request be presented—apologetic, act inferior, just use please/colloquial language? What if you are asking for something from someone you do not know (ie a University scholarship committee)?
8. When explaining things about yourself for applications is it more appropriate to give straight facts or to embellish your accomplishments? If neither, what is appropriate?
9. If something like an animal has a disability, in what way would it be viewed—would someone in your culture take it upon themselves to care for it or would just feel pity and move on?
10. If a friend lost a job and you wanted to comfort them, what would you say? Would you even want to comfort them? Does it depend on age or gender?
11. What would be the most appropriate way to approach someone who is grieving a loss?
12. If you are unable to complete a request for a friend, how does someone in your culture best deny this request?
13. If someone you know is about to take a test (admissions test for college or the like,if you wrote them a card what you it say? What would a parent’s card to a child say in this situation?

China Group: Allie, Kyle, Susan, Whitney S.

2009-02-28T08:24:00.002-06:00

1) Is it appropriate to discuss politics and religion with someone you just met?

2) Is it appropriate to oppose or condemn someone's religious preference?

3) Is it appropriate to talk about success in the workplace and monetary success with someone you just met?

4) What is the appropriate response to a greeting? If someone asks "how are you?" or its equivalent in the Chinese culture, is it appropriate to give a detailed response?

5) Is it considered rude to interrupt someone while they are speaking, or does interruption reflect eager involvement in the conversation?

6) What should be stated directly in conversation? What things should be stated indirectly? Does directness imply imposition?

7) Is it appropriate to accept something the first time it is offered to you?

8) Does a rising or falling intonation in speech reflect a question? How are questions stated?

9) How much information should be provided in order to create a sufficient context for your conversation? How much background is necessary?

10) What is a comfortable level of personal space in conversation? Is this dependent on the relationship between speaker and listener?

11) Is verbal aggressiveness considered threatening, confrontational, engaging, or something entirely different? Is the use of verbal aggressiveness depend on your listener?

12) What assumptions / expectations are associated with conversational overlap? Is overlap associated with imposition or involvement? Is this, too, contingent on the relationship between speaker and listener?

13) How do gender differences affect conversation? Does it affect personal space? Does it affect directness/indirectness? Does age play a factor? Does it affect word choice and intonation?

14) What is the appropriate amount of pause between turns?

15) Is it more appropriate to be aggressive or submissive in your culture? Is this contingent upon the audience?

16) Is it more acceptable to speak more quickly or more slowly in your culture? How is speed of speech perceived?

17) What does insistence and repitition imply in your culture? Is it considered rude and imposing? Does it emphasize what you are trying to say? Is it contingent on the situation?

18) After being asked a question, is it polite or rude to respond with a question? Does responding with a question reflect selflessness and produce a sense that the other person is valued more than yourself? Or does it reflect avoidance and apathy?

India Group: Tessia, Emily, Courtney Ginger

2009-02-28T08:23:00.001-06:00

1) In Indian culture, is it better to be self-deprecating in conversation, or self-promoting?

2) Is it polite to behave in ways that emphasize the status of a superior, or should you act like equals?

3) Are there different terms of address for older/younger men or women, and can you express more politeness by flouting or adhering to the appropriate term? (aka ma'am and miss) - value of age?

4) Is it more polite to admire certain qualities of people and not others, such as looks vs accomplishments vs possessions vs disposition?

5) Can you achieve the ends of politeness in convo. through ironic/sarcastic speech (specifically, saying something neg. about someone while pragmatic elements indicate the opposite or vice versa if talking about self), or is it better to keep meaning on surface level?

6) How important is it that you use the correct term of address to acknowledge someone's status?

Angola: Sarah C, Lauren, Abby, Daniel C.

2009-02-28T08:21:00.001-06:00

1) How did you interpret your first interactions with people when you moved here?

2) Has your view of Americans changed since you first moved here?

3) What types of rules govern your conversations with others?

4) Is it important to be very polite in order to respect others when you are talking to them?

5) Do you find Americans to be too personal with their conversations with you? Or not enough?

6) What do you consider the norm for personal space?

7) What defines politeness in your culture?

8) What is invading your personal space? w/ friends? strangers?

9) When you first meet someone, how do you feel about them in terms of respect?

10) What's your expectations of others in respecting you?

11) When you are with someone from a different culture, are you comfortable or do you feel intimidated?

12) Is it polite to use facial expressions - what do they mean?

13) What tones do you use w/ a friend vs. a stranger?

14) What tones do you use w/ an elder vs. a child?

15) How do you address people's names - do you give first/last name or just first?

16) How do you introduce yourself - first/last or just first?

17) Is it respectful to use Mr. and Mrs. when talking to someone?

18) Does social status determine your interactions?

19) Is social status the same in Angola as it is in the US?

20) In a convo, is building a relationship more important vs. distinguishing yourself?

Tunisia Group: Sarah W, Anthony, Katie, Madeline

2009-02-28T08:19:00.002-06:00

1) In a conversation is there a lot of overlap? Is it acceptable?

2) Does one person keep the "floor" longer because of his/her status?

3) Is it appropriate for two or more people to talk at the same time?

4) If it is not, is it considered interrupting?

5) Is there a difference in how often or how much you get to talk based on who you're speaking to? Man? Woman? Husband? Wife? Best friend? Employee? Boss, etc?

6) What is the appropriate way to talk, faster or slower?

7) Is the language you speak a faster language?

8) What is an appropriate amount of time to pause before someone else starts speaking? vs. English?

9) Are there different situations where the pace of a conversation is faster or slower?

10) Are there certain people that you talk to that affect the pace of a conversation? i.e. your boss, your husband (if you're a woman)?

11) Was it hard to adapt to America's conversation style as opposed to your own?

12) How about in Minnesota vs. Texas?
13) Is there a difference in pace, content, dialect, etc in different regions of your country? i.e. North, south, east...

14) Are conversations limited on how many questions you can ask per turn?

15) Is it common to switch between people in a conversation often? i.e. quick, quick, quick?

India Group: Janna, Alexa, Taylor, Stephen

2009-02-28T08:17:00.002-06:00

Assigned reading: The Technical Editor as Diplomat

(some of our questions aren't directly related to the article but came from tangents we went off on from more related questions or from certain things mentioned in the article...fyi)

1) Is there a polite or preferred method of correcting someone in your native language, in writing or conversation? How do you do it?

2) To whom is your speech or writing most direct? Can you give examples of directness of speech/writing in different relationships, situations, contexts...?

3) Have you ever felt threatened when being corrected in conversation in your native language? Who was correcting you, and why?

4) Do you feel threatened when your use of English is corrected? When and by whom? About what?

5) Do you ever feel the need to be defensive or hostile to get your point across in either language? Is it different when you are writing than when you are speaking?

6) In your native language, are there different methods of framing a request or suggestion? Is it dependent upon who you are directing this toward? Who it's coming from?

7) Is it polite in your culture to reject advice or suggestions, or to tell someone you don't want advice? Should one tell the advice-giver that they will not use the advice given? Should one act appreciative of advice or suggestions, or treat them with little acknowledgement, whether or not it is used?

English? Can you give examples of different times you have felt the need to be more direct or more indirect in your use of both languages?

9) Does difference in emphasis of words change the meaning of your statement or question in your native language? How does it compare to the use of emphasis in English? Have you struggled with the differences?

10) Is there a 'passive voice' in your native language and how/when/with whom would you use it? Is it usually considered polite or impolite to speak in this way? Have you encountered differences with this in English, and if so, what problems has it caused, if any?

11) In your native language, when are interrogatives used, with whom, and in what situations? Are there any times you've used interrogatives to imply suggestion? How is this interpreted by the person you are communicating with, and what kinds of responses are usual?

12) Are there words in your native language that have the same or similar concept as an English word, and if so, in what ways is their use different than their English counterparts? Does it change the way you use the English word?
(Ex: Does the word for 'love' in your language get used as broadly as in English, as in saying "I love you" to your spouse versus saying "I love pizza.")

13) How does your culture view the use of borrowed English words, if there are any? What are some examples of English words that have been incorporated into your native language? (i.e., new technologies, medical terms, foods?)

14) Is it more acceptable in your native language to use direct suggestion versus hinting at what you are suggesting? Can you give examples of contexts where one may be more appropriate than the other?

15) Is advice generally accepted in your culture, or is it seen as invasive? What types of advice? Is advice more acceptable coming from certain people than from others?

16) What types of questions are viewed as personal, and what types are seen as impersonal? Is there a difference in politeness between them? How does your relationship or comparative status with the person asking the question affect how it is accepted or answered?

17) Have you ever been offended or have you offended somebody when asking or being asked questions in English? In your native language, by a non-native speaker? What were these questions and what were the responses?

18) How do different authority figures interact with children in regards to giving instruction? Do different people (teachers, parents, siblings, etc.) have different methods? Is suggestive guidance more common or is there more of an authoritative or demanding attitude toward teaching/raising children? How does this vary in different contexts?

19) How is punishment used and viewed in your culture? Who punishes who and for what? Is punishment treated more as a way to learn from ones mistakes, or is it seen as a method of revenge/retribution? How is this different from American views of punishment that you have encountered?

20) Is advice seeking common in your culture? How does one ask for advice? Is it asked for directly or is it implied that advice or suggestions are needed? To whom do people usually look for advice, and what types of advice are commonly sought after?

21) In a business setting, is it acceptable to make suggestions, give advice to, or correct your coworkers? Your boss, or other 'higher-ups'?

22) Is advice given publicly or in private? Is it seen as an embarassment to receive advice in front of others?

German Group: Katie Y., Vicky and Daniel P

2009-02-28T08:03:00.005-06:00

1) Is there a certain age at which you assume the identity of your spouse?

2) To whom is it appropriate to give advice? Could you advise someone older? Younger? Of the opposite sex?

3) What is the appropriate way to decline an offer for dinner/a movie/hanging out? Do you accept and then just not show up, or do you decline from the start?

4) From whom is it appropriate to accept/decline a meal offer? Would you accept an offer to hang out from your boss?

5) How much alone time is socially acceptable?

6) Would it be acceptable to eat alone, see a movie alone? Could you sit alone in a café and read for pleasure? What about studying?

7) Do you refer to yourself in a group mindset, i.e. “We Germans”?

8) How much of “yourself” is acceptable to show in a social situation? Are there things you can and can’t do? (i.e. humming to yourself, talking to yourself, etc…)

9) When Germans watch TV or movies, do you watch for content of form? Are you viewing the actions of the characters and how they handle themselves or for what they actually do?

10)When dancing, do you dance however you want to dance, or are there set steps you do with a group?

11)When asked a question, is it acceptable to say “I don’t know” or must you have an opinion about the subject? With the lack of interaction Germans exhibit, would they even ask? Who would ask?

12)How do you go about disagreeing with someone’s opinion? Would you say something if you disagreed with your boss? Your grandma? Your spouse?

13)Would you ask someone why they felt the way they do about a subject? Would it depend on the people you’re talking with? What about the subject matter (i.e. touchy subjects)?

14)If your boss asks you a question about your political affiliations, would you respond truthfully? What if your spouse asked? How descriptive would you be? How much passion on the subject is acceptable?

15)If you know someone is embarrassed in a conversation, how do you go about saving their face? Would you redeem them or just ignore it?

16)When someone does decline an invitation, how much detail is usually given? Is it acceptable to probe into why the offer was declined?

17)What is the acceptable level of personal questions allowed? How far can a person delve into someone else’s psyche and ask what they think, feel and do?

Calendar for Week 7: 3/2, 3/4, 3/6

2009-02-27T08:00:00.001-06:00

Meet with informant last week or this (outside of class)

Read:
Modalities of Turn Taking

Calendar for Week 6: 2/23, 2/25, 2/27

2009-02-20T08:00:00.002-06:00

Meet with your informants outside of class this week or next!

Read:
Polite Fictions 41-59
Technical Editor as Diplomat

For Friday 2/20

2009-02-18T10:33:00.004-06:00

1) You will have to each sign off on affidavits for each other which I am sending you saying what you did for the project and how much time you spent on it.

2) Write up five do's and don'ts -amalgamated in one document. Phrase them accordingly-don't go shirtless in public, don't use your left hand to touch anything, etc. Don't make something that wasn't phrased prescriptively by the author, however, as if it were. Find the do's and don'ts that are presented that way.

3) Go through each 'rule' and say what kind of information is missing about the system of figuring out what exactly to do and say in a very particular context-what is th List e grammar of greeting in your target culture? How do gender, age, race, religion, closeness, power, etc. figure into the system? Right now you're not giving answers, you're just asking good questions.

4) Describe at least one significant framing difference about your target culture that you found in your literature.

5) Provide your bibliography for all the sources consulted and indicate which quotes come from which sources and which group member (initial them or type in who the contributor was). The bibliography should be alphabetised and amalgamated, obviously.

6) Also send me an electronic copy so I can put comments for everyone on the blog. Minimally face threatening ones. (:

Calendar for Week 5: 2/16, 2/18, 2/20

2009-02-13T08:06:00.001-06:00

Read for Monday 2/16 and the rest of the week:

Polite Fictions 21-40
Schema for Schema
Communicative Interactions

Due Wednesday 2/18 Preliminary Lit Review & 3 minute presentation on do's and don'ts

Due Friday 2/20 Write up of Preliminary Lit Review revised after presentation

Calendar for Next Week

2009-02-07T14:38:00.003-06:00

2/9 By Monday: Choose project groups, report to ee

Read:

1) Polite Fictions 1-20
2) Language & Culture (all), the article by Deborah Tannen

We'll be discussing these all week.

Looking forward! (:

You have a reading assignment for Monday

2009-02-07T10:32:00.000-06:00

so you should go buy your course pack today

Your Course Pack is Available! (:

2009-02-04T16:00:00.001-06:00

for just $11.15 at 2307 Texas Avenue South (just south of Target on the opposite side of the street) and go to the bookstore (Texas Aggieland Bookstore) which is attached to copy corner's building.

now, there are still going to be a few 'chaplets' i send you by email written by me for you, but they won't be too extensive or frequent.

Informant Criteria

2009-01-31T09:59:00.002-06:00

Your cultural informant for the semester must:

1) be able to meet with your whole group twice during the semester, preferably in College Station/Bryan, and yes, it must be face to face, no conference calls etc.

2) have lived in their culture of origin at least till age 17

3) have been in the U.S. and/or hanging out with Americans for at least a semester

4) not be an American who has lived or been raised abroad (theirs is a weird 3rd culture, also interesting, but not suitable for our purposes here)

Fred, Seth, and Crash

2008-11-19T17:24:00.006-06:00

So my friends Fred & Seth are from Ghana. They worked with the stock market in Tokyo when I lived there and were deacons in an international church. There is a lot of racial prejudice in Japan, as there is in the U.S. My Ghanaian friends experienced a lot of hateful treatment while they were there. All of our experiences color our schema and our Pragmatic Expectancy Grammar (Oller 1979)-- when we encounter a sign that looks like one we know, we automatically attribute the meaning that we know to that sign--normalizing in the direction of known schema as Bartlett (1932) says.

There has to be a certain amount of everyday information that has become part of our assumptions so that we don't have to check every chair, for example, to make sure it will hold us, check behind doors to make sure they're real doors and don't just open up to a brick wall, respond to a wave with a wave instead of interpreting it as someone's malicious desire to erase you. :) So we can't dispose with assumptions altogether. But if we had enough schema to anticipate likely or possible divergences from our own, we could recalibrate at potential hot spots and have more control over our interactions and over executing our interactional goals.

The gesture that beckons someone to you in Asia looks kind of like a Western wave, but a lot more like a "shoo, get out of here" gesture with the arm extended the hand facing down and all four fingers moving towards the user and away repetitively. In Ghana it is used only for shooing animals away. So when they approached a little old Japanese lady at her newstand on the street she beckoned to them with this gesture, inviting them to come over, but of course not having schema yet for this gesture, they thought they were being 'shooed' away, like animals.

It's exactly the kind of situation that drives the movie Crash. Misunderstandings caused by years of bad experiences and schema that miscues to the individual that this situation is yet another example of what we have come to expect from 'those people' in this context. And these misunderstandings keep accruing, building more and more ill will. If somehow we could become aware of these hot spots in current inter-group interaction, developing schema for the schema of others, we could start tearing down some of the walls which may have once been the product of true ill will among people before us, but so much of which are now the product of only imagined messages.

Pragmatic Homonymy and Polysemy: Bedrock of 307

2008-11-19T15:05:00.003-06:00

Basically this whole class and all of communication hinges on the problem of making sure that the signs you are using are being received by your addressee in the way that you intended them. When this is successful, you have achieved a high degree of intersubjectivity.

The beauty of the arbitrary nature of language is also the bane of communication-- any sign can represent any meaning. Unfortunately (?), it can only do so through the process of a convention--the agreement of two or more people that a given sign refers to the same meaning (thing, idea, verb, whatever).

The arbitrary nature of semiotics (all modalities of human communication, the system of symbols) means that a given sign (word, gesture, intonational contour, etc) can have an infinite number of different meanings applied to it by people across the world and centuries.

When a sign has two (or more) meanings it is pragmatically homonymous. When you and your hearer share schema for said sign, you can anticipate that it will be understood as you intended it. The problem is that schema is invisible and you can't stop at every word or utterance to ask, Do you know what I mean by 'ho'? Do you realize I am using the word 'bitch' to indicate that you are one of my best friends?? Moreover, any semiotic/utterance etc can have more than one meaning SIMULTANEOUSLY. In the example from Out of Africa, the word baroness served several functions at the same time. That is the polysemy of language.

There is not world enough or time to spell out every single thing you mean (defining each word for your hearer as you go). Most of the time you have to speak out in faith that the other person shares the required schema for understanding you rightly. This is also why we tend to spend most of our time with people who do share most of our schema--we are comfortable with them and don't have to be on our guard all the time for misunderstandings. They will still happen, but they will be far less frequent. It is a good argument for staying in your hometown all your life.

It takes a lot of energy to move to a new place and learn a new set of semiotics, a whole new schema for communication norms in that community, be it another region in the U.S. or a whole nuther country and language. :) If you have schema for schema and for the universals of positive and negative face needs, you will do a thousand times better than if you keep trying to just translate every word and action you normally would use in English into that other language. There are many things you say in English that no one would Ever say in that Other culture. This takes us to Pete Becker's notion of exuberances and deficiencies-- any translation of a word will simultaneously say a little more and a little less than the word you are translating. You have to stay on your toes to make sure this doesn't result in a troublesome misunderstanding.

About the uninvited guests

2008-11-19T14:26:00.005-06:00

Points from the example of me inviting Asian students to my home for dinner-

My negative face was violated when more people than I had invited showed up and no one called me to see if it was ok first. They were more concerned about the positive faces of their friends who would have to stay behind in the dorm.
One student asked for seconds. Normally we wait until we are offered seconds. I was especially irritated because I didn't have enough food for everyone now that the group was so much larger. My negative face violated again. He was undoubtedly appealing to positive face, solidarity in demonstrating his enthusiasm for the food.
My cherry pie was rejected as too sweet. My positive face was violated. I should have acquired more schema about that given the number of years I'd interacted with Asians in Japan and Chicago. I violated their negative faces by presenting them with a food they would not enjoy and putting them in the position of rejecting it.
Considering how little money I had at the time but had sacrificed in order to host them only to then have them bring uninvited guests that I couldn't provide for, I was livid when, after they had finished eating, someone said, Let's order pizza! Now they were saying from an American perspective, Your offering was insufficient. A huge slap in my negative face. As my Korean roommate later explained, however, it could be seen as a solidarity move that said, We're enjoying our time together and you have spent time and money for us and we want to continue enjoying time together and now we will help with the expense and not requiring anymore cooking from you.
Fortunately I didn't yell at them or anything and felt much better about the whole affair when my insightful roommate/informant helped to 'translate' their behavior for me.
MORAL OF THE STORY: It is always safest to assume the other person is being polite according to the rules they know, until you can verify through other native speakers of that language/culture, that in fact, even in their own culture that behavior is rude.

presentations of diagnostics

2008-11-19T13:50:00.008-06:00

Kudos to Liz's group for bravely going where no group had gone before and helping me to improve the specs.

1) Bring a handout for everyone! (the final write up that you turn in on CD is not your presentation)

2) Don't put too many words on a powerpoint slide because it's impossible/very difficult to process and/or stay focused

3) Only use interview video snippets if

they're going to say something you really need to say
they're easy to understand
they're really concise and to the point
you provide subtitles

4) Tell us at the beginning what you did for your diagnostic. Without this we have no schema for understanding/appreciating the rest of your presentation. What were you looking for, who did you include in your study, etc.

5) When you do your individual lines about what you liked best etc., BE CONCRETE. That would be the whole point of the class! If you just say something like, They value family more than we do, I will become violent. That doesn't tell us anything! What concrete behaviors are you talking about or concrete contexts for behaviors with concrete interactional functions that you can prove are not the norm in the U.S. ???? Touching the mother in law's feet is an excellent example of a concrete statement.

6) It would be better for you to have a video snippit of each member saying their sentences aloud than to have them printed out word for word on the screen. You could have it in subtitles though, accompanying the video snippit, which would probably enhance clarity.

7) When you finish, tell us what you think your diagnostic demonstrated--what did you conclude? You don't need extensive statistics, but it would be very helpful if you would point out something like 25 out of 30 Americans thought the people in the scene were being appropriately respectful to the appropriate other participants. Don't go crazy but a chart or something would be very helpful here.

And I remind you: Each beautiful sentence should be a work of art (and heart, hopefully).

Structuring Your (Final) Diagnostic Presentations

2008-11-05T14:44:00.005-06:00

Provide a bulleted handout and either a powerpoint or a video or some combination of thereof.

1) Begin by reminding us what your target culture is and who your informant is (basic age, gender, occupation, etc.) 2 sentences total!

2) What aspect of their culture did you find the most different/foreign from your own? Each member, 1-2 sentences!

3) What aspect was your favorite and/or you wish you could get Americans to adopt? 1 sentence per member

4) What aspect emerged in your interviews that you think would be the most difficult for Americans to adjust to? 1 sentence per member!

5) What aspect did you problematize in developing your diagnostic? In other words, what was it that you felt you needed to know more about in order to better understand the underlying system of the culture in this aspect. 3-5 sentences total!

6) How did you design and implement your diagnostic? Meaning, what did you do in order find out what you needed to about the problematic aspect of both cultures--show photos, video clips, sound clips, Garfinkeling, etc. 3-5 sentences total!

7) Show us whatever you showed your subject/informants. 2-3 sentences per member, tops!

8) Tell us what you learned about the Americans. 2-3 sentences per member, tops!

9) Tell us what you learned about the Americans. 2-3 sentences per member, tops!

10) Give us recommendations about contextualization cues, frames, scripts, adjacency pairs, etc. that are key to understanding the system for Americans wanting to communicate smoothly in your target culture as 'beautiful Americans.' 2-3 sentences per member, tops!

You should be be able to do this in 10 minutes, tops. Each beautiful sentence should be a work of art (and heart, hopefully).

Focusing Diagnostic Goals

2008-11-05T14:33:00.005-06:00

Keep in mind your goals and the incorporation of the course material in your work.

You have set out to identify important principles in your target culture that will help you and others to understand the underlying system regarding this aspect of their culture as differentiated from your own culture.

1) How are various forms being used differently by your culture and theirs? (Pragmatic homonymy and polysemy ala Tannen)

2) What contextualization cues seem to be miscuing Americans in the target culture for a different definition of the situation that trigger scripts from their own culture that don't 'translate' and vice versa (how is the informant miscued by American behavior in the U.S.)?

3) What are/would be the social consequences of erroneously acting out your own culture's script for that situation? Are we talking about vague confusion or discomfort, or about deal-breaking, game changing consequences? Discomfort or disaster? You might think about such cultural gaffs in terms of how 'expensive' they are in relationship to the individual's interactional goals.

Diagnostic Clarification

2008-10-20T18:14:00.004-05:00

you do realize yours doesn't have to be about angry, right?
you decide what you want to focus on.you can take anything from your do's and don'ts and make some kind of test/diagnostic to get at the underlying system.

and i'm leaving the design up to your creative genius. i know you each have enough brain power in your groups to do this well. i anticipate being amazed. (:

some comments about today's presentations (:

2008-10-16T19:10:00.004-05:00

hey, you guys did a nice job. i was proud on the whole. sorry the a/v equipment was a pia-welcome to my world (but i wish i could have prevented it for your sakes.)

For equatorial guinea, affection between men was a good point we should talk about more for all the cultures and our own. smiling too much as an indication of insincerity i thought was a wonderful insight and one i want to learn more about. also the provocative 'bird fluttering' hug. . . now we need some evidence.(: since EG is so isolated and has such a motley history, i'd really like to hear how you came by this informant and how he got here and why. it seems so mysterious and interesting--i've Never met anyone from there before. which i can't say about most countries! and what was the undrunk glass of wine about???? you have got to enlighten us! i loved how polished your presentation 'speeches' (for lack of a better word) were for each of your group members-that's the advantage of the preparing the CD ahead of time and you really used it well. you also really packed your information in to the specified time restrictions and that was excellent as well.

For Bangladesh, you seem to have a mature and knowledgeable informant. and your technology as far as the video was really nice too. (: i had a terrible time understanding his accent through the sound system of the room though, so it would be helpful to have more of that in writing (or recapped by one of you in speaking on your final presentation cd). i liked his observation/admonition about calling your friend's mother "Auntie" rather than using her name. that's a really nice way to deal with the respect/intimacy dimension in relationships like that and i can see how Americans could be really abrasive by not recognizing and adopting that behavior. i wondered as he answered questions if he wasn't suffering from so much exposure to western culture that he doesn't see the differences as sharply as he might have earlier in his life. of course the influence of the British in his country too would have a great impact on his perspective which in some ways might actually distort his perspective, but i have to think some more about this. next time i'd like to see a lot more of your group members and less of your informant (just pithy poignant quotes, possible with closed captions included (: ). On the whole though, you did a great job!

Malaysia, several very helpful insights. pretend that sex does not exist. (: we've all probably got family members somewhere on the family tree who act like that. i also can't say i'm wholy opposed to the placing of the teacher right under parents and God in the food chain. :) the significance of not leaving food on your plate was really counterintuitive to me,and is the kind of thing you'd really need someone to point out to you if you're American. it was a very nice touch doing the soundbites in the powerpoint. head touching was an interesting point and might be a good one for your diagnostic. how often do we actually touch other people's heads? in what contexts? clips from TV and film might be helpful. someone you are very very close to you might touch to pull something out of their hair or brush a loose strand away, much more acceptable among girls than guys, and it would be interesting to look into how often it is done between girls and guys who are not dating and how everyone feels about that. the fact that she had to make the point about head touching means there must be stuff we do that is not coming to my mind but which has obviously emerged often enough for it to be reportable. i'll talk about what framing is and isn't in a separate posting. on the whole, fine work. (:

Zambia, your informant seems great--really astute and articulate. i'm guessing that his youth helps him to have the contrasts still fairly clear in his mind. i think the older your informant is, if their age is proportionate to their experience outside their own culture, the harder it gets to recall the time when the new customs really struck you as 'foreign' and inscrutable. i liked that you were visible in the interview video too, not just the informant.
--i was also very interested in his point about how the wealthiest brother takes care of everyone else. i had several encounters with people from other parts of Africa that seemed to be operating under this rule too and i'd like to know more about it. remind me in class and i'll tell you some of the stories. also i have a zambian outfit i should remember to wear one day. that has a good story too. i was also interested by your/his point about sarcasm and (was it Angela?) how some of us can't imagine communicating without it! but we could use more information on this. what constitutes sarcasm? is there really Never a place for it? i can't really imagine a culture that doesn't use it at all. . . there must be domains and relationships where it is normative. this might be good for your delving-deeper-diagnostic (:

Guidelines for Developing Your Own Diagnostic

2008-10-16T06:46:00.003-05:00

In debriefing your interviews as a group, you need to come up with an aspect of that culture that you want to do some kind of empirical diagnostic for, which will involve some American guinea pigs, and then your informant in your second interview.

For example, your literature and/or informant may have said, don’t display anger. Well, displays of anger can be extremely relative to the culture and to the individual.

1) So you could find 5 or 10 still photos or video clips that display what you would interpret as displays of anger (and some you wouldn’t ) and
2) Show them to about 5 people (per each group member) and ask them what emotion/affective stance you think the figures in the photos/videos are expressing. If you can find samples from members of your target culture to include in your diagnostic that would be more excellent. (Lebanese people looking mad to you, etc)
3) After asking what emotion they think is being displayed, ask them what concrete clues in the photo (etc) they judged to be evidence of the affective stance they attributed to the nonverbal behavior.
4) Then take that same diagnostic to your informant in your second interview and ask them to do the same rating task (obviously without first telling them what the Americans you surveyed concluded).
5) Write up what you've been able to determine about the system of the target culture based on your findings
6) Include this in your final presentation

Critiquing the Do’s and Don’ts

2008-10-16T06:45:00.002-05:00

Analyze each cultural suggestion in your do’s and don’ts and point out what details are missing that you need in order to figure out the underlying system of the culture as I have done with some of the examples I posted on the blog.

These criticisms should lead you to an area that you’d like to probe further into by developing some kind of diagnostic that would help you determine what contextualization cues help members of your target culture to determine what choice of form for a given function they will choose in various contexts with various other participants.

Interview Questions for Your Informants

2008-10-05T17:25:00.002-05:00

(first posted 10/2/08 7:017)

Everyone in your group needs to contribute at least 5 or 6 good questions for your group to use with your informant
[ ] Identify which questions were yours. [ ] If you e-mail them to me before your interview I will try to give you some feedback in advance, but that’s totally optional.

You are designing questions that will help you to figure out the ‘grammar’ of their culture by targeting the components of interaction that we have covered in class so far. The list of terms I’m giving you for review, the stuff on the blog, the stuff in the readings are all good fodder for your questions and should be well represented. You obviously can't ask questions about every term or interactional function we've looked at, but make sure all of your questions are substantive and in include as much as you can in your 5 or 6 questions each.

Following are some examples of stuff you may want to ask about:

Don’t waste any of your questions on random stuff like how spicy their food is, etc—talks about cuisine will eat up your time and add little or nothing to your project. If you talk about eating what you want to know is interactional- who sits where? Where is the seat of honor? Who eats first? Who serves whom? Do you pray or say something before you all start eating? Can you talk at the table? Can you leave the table when you want? Can you talk with your mouthful? Clink your silverware? Smack? Burp? Praise the cook, criticize the food, leave food on your plate or eat every grain of rice (a grain of rice, the Japanese will remind you, takes a whole year to grow!) How do invitations to dinner work, how do you know when someone else is treating, who should treat-in some cases the older person is supposed to treat everyone else, etc.
You want to find out what kinds of actions and semiotics are viewed as respectful, friendly, kind, humble, offputting, etc—the positive and negative face strategies and face threatening acts that an American would not be prepared for.

Greetings. Introductions, e.g, when are you obligated to introduce someone and when should you NOT? In Asia an introduction comes with an obligation on the part of the people you are introducing. In some cases it is polite not to make an introduction so as not to impose such obligations on people.
Address terms for various people inside and outside of one’s family (Mr. Johnson, Todd, Professor, Dad, Grandpa)
Pronouns of power and solidarity- do you have different words for you and I the way Spanish and Japanese do? (tu/usted, boku/watashi/ore, etc.)
Compliments-what should you never compliment? When is a compliment rude?
Complaints, apologies, challenges, arguments, invitations, praise, explanations. . .
What is a lie? Have you ever felt lied to by an American? Has an American ever accused you of lying to them when the same behavior in your culture would not be considered a lie or a transgression of trust?
Expletives? What are the worst words or most taboo topics of conversation?

What do you think is the rudest thing you have seen Americans say or do?

The meaning of various colors. Are there colors men should not wear? Women? Children/adults? Weddings, funerals, religious ceremonies? Cars? Americans love red cars-Asians love White cars! And the always say it represents ‘purity’ but I still don’t really understand what they mean by that because it is clearly not what Americans often mean by that word which tends to be honesty and chastity

The meaning of various animals—Calling someone a pig means they are selfish or dirty in our culture, it might mean something very different in another culture. Calling someone a chicken here means they are cowardly, but in China it sometimes means someone is a prostitute, I have heard. Dragons are villains in Western literature by heroes in Asian lore.

Most of all, how does an American choose from the various forms and functions available to achieve her/his interactional goals in a given encounter with specific individuals in specific contexts. What are the elements of interaction that serve as cues/determiners for the right level and type of politeness? What are the relative values of each component? E.g., is age more important than length of acquaintance relative to the same relationship in U.S. culture? What would make members of this culture love and admire an American interacting with them?

Independence Strategies (Negative Face)

2008-10-02T19:15:00.004-05:00

Some Common Linguistic Strategies of Involvement/Intimacy/Interest:

1) Make minimal assumptions about H’s wants
2) Give H the option not to do the act:
3) Minimize threat
4) Apologize
5) Be pessimistic
6) Dissociate S, H from the discourse
7) State a general rule
8) Use family names and titles
9) Be taciturn (i.e. talk very little)
10) Use own language or dialect

Involvement Strategies (Positive Face)

2008-10-02T19:14:00.001-05:00

Some Common Linguistic Strategies of Involvement/Intimacy/Interest:

1) Notice or attend to H
2) Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)
3) Claim in-group membership with H
4) Claim common point of view, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, empathy
5) Be optimistic
6) Indicate S knows H’s wants and is taking them into account
7) Assume or assert reciprocity
8) Use given names and nicknames
9) Be voluble (i.e., talk a lot)
10) Use H’s language or dialect

Stuff to Review from Class Lectures (I may add to this)

2008-10-02T19:10:00.002-05:00

Semiotics (and a grammar thereof), (Saussure)
Prescriptive vs. descriptive rules (Saussure)
Structural components of language
Multifunctionality (multiple forms for one function, and vice versa)
Power & Solidarity Axis (also Dominance/Affiliation, Distance/Intimacy) (Tannen, Lakoff, etc)
Three power/politeness relationships:
Lakoff: Distance, Deference and Camaraderie
Polite Fictions about “unmarked face relations”
Face, The Double Bind, (Bateson)
Positive and Negative Face Needs (Goffman)
Positive and Negative Politeness, Involvement strategies, Independence strategies (Brown & Levinson)
FTA, FTA Management Strategies, On (including bald) and Off Record FTA mitigation strategies
Repair strategies
Conversational Style, pragmatic homonymy and synonymy (Tannen)
Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Grice’s Maxims
Lakoff’s Rules of Politeness

Rules of Alternation and Co-Occurrence (Ervin-Tripp)

Communicative Competence: (Canale & Swaine)
1. Grammatical Competence
2. Discourse Competence
3. Sociolinguistic Competence
4. Strategic Competence
Pragmatic Expectancy Grammar (John Oller 1979)
How language and culture are mutually constitutive

The role and value of chunks and formulaicity (Bolinger)
Metalanguage, Metadiscourse, Contextualization cues (Gumperz, Bateson)
Turn Taking cues: gaze, falling intonation, audible intake, leaning in, anacrusis, creaky voice, syntactic completion
Pause Inspection (Sacks)
Rhythm (Erickson), batoning (Birdwhistle)
Keigo in Japanese
Back channels (Garfinkel) also called attention signals (Kendon?)
Breaching experiments (Garfinkel)
Turn Sharks
Adjacency Pairs, First and Second pair parts

Tu/Vous Distinctions (ie, pronouns of power and solidarity)
Terms of Address and Reference, (Brown & Ford)
Frame, Footing, Schema, Script

Applying the first section of Phillips to your project

2008-10-02T08:35:00.001-05:00

what implications does your section have for your informant project?
give us a list of 5-10 points

if a term is introduced, be sure it is defined and in your list

if ideas are numbered in the text, that is a good indication that you should zoom in on that and include it in your summation

if a scholar is cited for an idea that is a good indication that the idea is significant

What to tell your informant

2008-10-01T18:36:00.000-05:00

1) We would like to learn about your culture.

2) We would like to get a look at American culture through your eyes.

3) The dates when you will need them to be available to interview

4) The need for at least two interviews

5) The need to record the interviews (extra credit for video taping)

Obviously you need to have your informant’s permission to record-no secret taping!

Peru Do's

2008-09-30T14:25:00.001-05:00

Learn to pronounce names correctly. Good.
Attempt to learn Spanish. Ok.
Work hard without complaint. Context? and without technically makes this a don't rather than a do.
Put family and personal relationships first. Probably critical, but what does that mean? We need something concrete. Give us examples. Give us contexts. What is putting them first?
Maintain control of emotions (especially men). This is interesting to me since we Americans (tech. estado unidenzos, Peru is part of the Americas after all) tend to think of Latinos as being fiery and effusive in their emotion. Which emotions, which contexts, which relationships? What constitutes control? Is a tear a tresspass? Watery eyes? Dancing for glee?
Show generous hospitality. Ok, what is general hospitality? And where did you get these do's?

Do's for Malaysia

2008-09-30T12:05:00.001-05:00

Dress modestly. See entry for Zambia below. You have to define modest culture by culture.
Use the thumb or whole hand to indicate something (wave down a taxi).
To indicate something? Like it's A-Ok, I approve, or to point out an item on a menu, as well as flag down a taxi? We really need more specificity here.
Learn to distinguish between Western handshake and Malay salams (a simple palm-to-palm touch).
Bargain when shopping. See Zambia entry.
Be extra careful about punctuality, as it is highly valued.
Use indirect eye contact. Grammars of gaze are very complex. Ask your informant to demonstrate this for you. Try a little role play or see if they can show you some Malay film or TV that demonstrates this norm. And/or show them a clip of American film etc. and ask them to critique the gaze behavior according to Malay standards.

Hold your hands close to your sides in crowded areas. As opposed to what? We need some visual assistance here.
Make excuses instead of direct refusal. Ok. What kinds of excuses are acceptable and how should they be made? We need to know about paralinguistics and extralinguistics here. Facial expressions? Is there an authenticity test?
Keep criticism private. We need to know what is considered criticism. This is very relative, even in our own culture. Try to get some anecdotes or demonstrations to help us understand this better. I'm sure a whole book could be written about norms for criticizing in Malaysia (as in any culture).

Some Do's for Cote d'Ivoire, Africa

2008-09-30T12:00:00.001-05:00

Show proper respect for people older and those in authority.
What constitutes proper respect? We need a script. How do you determine who is "older" enough to be treated differently? How do you know who is in authority and what kind of script would help you fulfill this expectation to everyone's satisfaction?
Dress modestly. Women should at least cover their knees. The image of soccer knee pads comes to mind. We need more specifics. Refer to the entry below for Zambia. Pictures might be very helpful.
Accept invitations to visit and dine at someone's house. Eat what is put before you, no questions asked. I'm assuming that if you have allergies or keep kosher you have informed everyone ahead of time.

Bring a present to give the host/ess. What kind of present? Wine? Chocolate? A chicken? Flowers? T-shirts from America? (That's often extremely welcome). What is the norm?

Arrive punctually for all social occasions. What is punctual?? 5 minutes before the stated time, 5 minutes after, 30 minutes after, exactly on the minute? Punctual is a relative term.

Ask people for permission before you take their picture! In some cultures people may feel that their soul is being sucked out of them when their picture is taken, find out if that is so for your target culture. Others might just be having bad hair days. How would you feel about a stranger taking your picture without asking? Here in the U.S., I mean. Would it be weird?

Speak French, or at least bring a basic phrase book. I'm assuming you don't mean just so you can wave it around inf ront of people but you really do make an effort to speak in a language your host culture is comfortable with, obviously French in this case.

Shank hands when you meet/greet someone. Is there anything different about their handshake? Firmer, lighter? Do they hold your hand for five minutes? If so, what do you do while they are holding your hand hostage? Is there any difference with gender? Do you shake the women's hands too? Can men shake women's hands or only other women? Since they are French speakers, is there no perfunctory double kiss on the cheek (but really into the air)?

Drink the coffee (they're the fifth largest producer in the world).

A Good Rule of Thumb

2008-09-29T23:00:00.001-05:00

If it doesn't have anything to do with positive and negative face needs, it probably doesn't belong in your group project.

Some Do's for Chinese Culture from Class Submissions

2008-09-29T21:35:00.001-05:00

So here's a list of some of the do's for China that one of the groups submitted last semester. I'll put some selected points in gold, and then in italics I'll add my comments (in the default color I can't remember).

When invited to someone's house, explain at length if you cannot go.
This is a very useful guideline, but now we could use some guidance about what 'at length' means and what kinds of explanations are acceptable.

Always take your shoes off when entering a Chinese home.
Good. Now we need to know what kinds of little micro-ettiquette is involved here. Must you wear socks? What if your feet stink? Are slippers provided? If so, is it rude to decline the guest slippers? How do you get out of your shoes and what do you do with them? In Japan there is a step up from the doorway, called the genkan. You can slip out of your shoes (and this is why it is not a good idea to wear laced shoes pretty much anywhere ever) and leave them pointing in and then the host/ess will later point them out for you so they're easy to get back into. I'm getting a little rusty on this, but the point is that there are details you need to know about. Is it ok to put your bare feet on their floor?

Always use an acquaintance's title and surname until invited to do otherwise.
Several questions. How do you know when an invitation is authentic and when it is a test? This makes me sound more cynical than I am (maybe) but new acquaintances from another culture are going to be trying to figure you out by your interactions. If they invite you to use first name and you just jump on that invitation without any reservation, you may be demonstrating that you do not understand the subtle and indirect nuances that are probably very important to them.

If the Chinese are trying to be polite to you by deferring to your custom of using first name, and you take that at face value (ironic pun acknowledged), you are demonstrating that you are willing to have them accommodate you without accommodating them in return. You may not get far in that relationship. You'll gain trust and respect if you defer, in most cases, to the other's culture as long and as often as possible. Better relationships, better business. But you need to have your informant consider these things very carefully and give his opinion of declining an offer to circumvent a Chinese interactional norm. Basically, given the general arrogance of Americans at large, every little bit that you offer in the way of acknowledging the preferences and the values of your Chinese interactants will be greatly appreciated and you'll get on swimmingly. (: You probably cannot go overboard in trying to accommodate their customs rather than assuming they will accommodate yours. Even if you're a jerk and don't care about respecting the other person, you should do this for the sake of good business.

When meeting the Chinese, greet the eldest person first as a sign of respect.
1) How do you know who is the eldest? 2) What if the eldest is a woman? 3) What kind of greeting are we talking about? Is there a bow? A formulaic phrase? Eye contact norms? 4) Do you then need to go around the room and greet each of the other participants in order of their age? I'm not trying to be goofy here, this is a real possibility.

Beckon someone or summon attention by turning your palm down and waving your fingers towards yourself. Excellent and very important.

Some Do's for Zambia

2008-09-29T21:30:00.001-05:00

Small talk is very important. Visitors who greet Zambians with a handshake and a how-do-you-do are considered extremely polite.
What constitutes small talk in Zambia? Can you talk about the weather? In some African countries the weather rarely changes and is not the stock conversation filler that it is in the U.S. Can you ask about family members? What kinds of inquiries are standard and what might be offensive? How long should small talk go on? Who initiates? Who brings it to a close?

Women should avoid wearing shorts or mini-skirts, as showing one's thighs can be considered extremely provocative (I wonder how many American women consider their thighs provocative, but I digress). What is a mini skirt? Anything above the ankle? We need to know. Pictures would help. If you showed your informant a series of pictures of women dressed in different ways and got them to respond and say how each woman would likely be viewed if dressed like that, you'd probably get something really useful for us. (: What is a low cut shirt? We need specifics-go after them.
Bartering with vendors and taxi drivers is an accepted (and often expected) part of the culture.
Ok, so you DO barter. How and when? Everywhere? In an air conditioned department store? See if you can get a script for this. How does the bartering begin? What's your first line? What's a reasonable alternate offer in the local currency? Is there a preference for paying in USD?
Visitors should never refuse gifts offered by Zambians, but (and) should accept the gift with both hands. This is interesting because most of Asia has the same custom, accepting with both hands. Africa is often considered part of the Orient and you will find lots of similarities in many customs.
What if you feel the offerer cannot afford the gift? Do you simply make sure that you give them a heftier gift later? How do you discern if a gift is a bribe? Is this not a problem? If it is, how would you respond? What exactly do you say when you receive a gift (Thank you, you shouldn't have. Oh, I couldn't. . . )

Harvey Sacks was a student of Garfinkel's

2008-09-03T19:10:00.005-05:00

Harvey Sacks, the founding father of Conversation Analysis, of the school of ethnomethodology within Sociology, was only 31 when he died, but left a huge impact on our understanding of face-to-face interaction and methodologies for investigating it.

Garfinkel and Goffman were both on Harvey Sacks' dissertation committee, but it is my understanding that Goffman could not agree on some parts and Sacks finally had to get someone else to replace Goffman on the committee. Harvey Sacks brought you the adjacency pair, which we'll talk about in more detail later in the semester.

He also wrote an article called, Everyone Has to Lie, and we talked about the variability and subjectivity of what is considered dishonest in social relations and what is just a required form that shouldn't be viewed at the surface level (how are you as a probing question about the details of your well being) but at the metamessage level (I'm greeting you because we are still on good terms, or whatever terms the tone of my greeting suggests, and not because we are so close that I think it would be appropriate for us to just let our hair down and tell each other all the gory details of our lives).

Harold Garfinkel

2008-09-03T18:48:00.006-05:00

Garfinkel, ethnomethodologist from UCLA, who brought you the back channel, phatic communion, and the breaching experiment.

Phatic Communion refers to the kind of communication that does not involve the actual exchange of information, at least propositional information. We talk about the weather because it is a way of showing our goodwill to the other person. You know, you're in the elevator, and you're kind of saying, I'm not planning to stab you or anything so thank you for not stabbing me either. The critical information that is being exchanged is about interactional goals and social intention (is that totally redundant? maybe). We are thus also debunking the mythical assumption that the purpose of language is to convey information, at least propositional information. We are using it to convey critical social information.

Garfinkel was always doing breaching experiments and getting his students to do them, whereby they would set out to find out whether a social norm was really a norm or not by breaking it. This is where the expression "the exception proves the rule" is very literally borne out. For example, he apparently went to work one day and determined that he would not say anything at all that was not about the business that needed to be done (in his office). Please do this, etc. It is reported that he had pretty much started WWIII by the end of the day. Phatic communion is really a vehicle for communicating to the other person: everything is ok with us.

"Back channels" is what Garfinkel calls the sounds we make to show that we are listening to someone. Uh huh. I see. Shut up! She did not! right, yeah, mm hm. . .

After thoughts (and aforethoughts) 9-2-08

2008-09-02T14:25:00.009-05:00

We talked about schema today and its role in figuring out how best to accommodate another person in interaction, esp. when that person comes from another culture with a very different PEG, Pragmatic Expectancy Grammar, which comes from John Oller (1979). If a Korean asks you if you have eaten, an American is likely to think they are suggesting that you go together to eat. In fact they just want to know if you've eaten. (: It is a way of saying that you are healthy and taken care of. Japanese often translate 'genki desuka' directly in English: are you fine? Sometimes I use that wording in English with a twist of humor, but sometimes I think I really forget that it's not a normal greeting in the U.S.

When a Japanese person offers you a refreshment at their home, you should generally decline the first two times and accept the third time. This provides a buffer, because just like in the U.S., sometimes you offer someone something because you feel obligated to but you'd really rather they didn't take you up on it. Eventually the social consequences of accepting an offer can be overwhelming to the adjusting westerner and she may no longer know What she wants! And when she comes back to the states and politely declines an offer, she is just out of luck if she really did want the drink, etc. So the assumption about how honest to be about what you want is a sliding scale with different norms for different situations in different cultures. And the returning American is likely to be hungry and thirsty for most of the first year back. (:

We also talked about the polite fiction in Japanese culture that the other person is higher on the food chain than we are until proven otherwise (in contrast to the pretense that you and I are equals in the U.S.). This gives rise to the significance of the business card, the meishi, which informs the other what your company and position are thus establishing your social status. You then need to worry about bowing lower and perhaps a little longer than the person who is more statusful (a challenge for your peripheral vision I assure you)
(:

Keigo, as you wrote down, is the whole set of language used for extra politeness in Japanese. It's extensive and fairly complicated and quite a memory load for the western student. However, because of the positively evaluated role of formulaicity in Japanese, once you learn the system the decision about exactly what to say in various contexts will be very straightforward. You'll know exactly what each other's relative status is and exactly what corresponding language and behavior are called for. When Japanese learn English and find there are no translations for this huge body of Japanese and there are no grammatical endings that acknowledge relative status of speaker and hearer in English, they understandably often conclude, English is not a polite language, therefore it clearly does not matter how I say whatever I need to say. Which is of course a really dangerous conclusion to make and wholey inaccurate.

The American system of politeness is far more subtle and graduated. The combinations of linguistic, paralinguistic and extralinguistic cues that are drawn upon for the perfect balance of friendliness and respect in a given situation require far more individual stress and scrutiny than does the Japanese system. Consequently a lot more people, I believe, are a lot poorer in their social skills and therefore their integration to their larger communities in the U.S. than in Japanese culture. So the stress for learning polite Japanese occurs at the study/ preparation stage, but for English at the execution in the specific situation that must be assessed and addressed.

Fred Erikson

2008-09-02T14:18:00.003-05:00

Erikson is the dude who says conversation is like climbing a tree that's climbing you back. It's something you have to make constant changes to as the other person makes moves you cannot anticipate and you respond, like dancing. I'm told. (: He was a musicologist and transcribes conversation in a kind of musical notation, finding that people very literally get out of rhythm with others sometimes at points where you find misunderstandings occurring. And they move their forks at the dinner table according to the conversational rhythm that their words are following too. Erikson went into educational anthropology very deliberately, feeling that it would be the best avenue to actually making a difference in the world in the lives of children. The term 'turn shark' comes from Erikson and work he has done on how some children learn the unwritten rules of turn taking and get more than their fair share of turns while those who don't quite get it, don't. He teaches at UCLA.

Group Specifications

2008-09-01T21:16:00.005-05:00

There must be 3 or 4 people in your group, not 2 and not 5. For illustrative purposes you may wish to consult the following instructional video about the exact number. . . (hint: john cleese was involved in its production)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk&feature=related

Motivation for Learning about Language and Culture

2008-08-27T15:08:00.002-05:00

I like to talk about language in terms of loving people better, but I realize some people break out in hives when they talk about things like "love" and "science" in the same breath. So for you who would like to ixne the ovele component, let me put it another way.

Regardless of your sincerity, the way you use language has an effect on your hearer, your relationship with your hearer, and yourself. If you want to achieve your interactional goals with someone (e.g., get them to like you, to lend you money, to leave you alone, to introduce you to someone you really want to meet, etc.) , you need to know how your language affects other people. What's going to make them feel respected, what's going to make them feel dissed, what's going to make them feel big, what's going to make them feel small, what's going to draw them to you and what's going to drive them away. So you can look at this from purely utilitarian terms, if you so desire. (Although some would question the juxtaposition of 'pure' and 'utilitarian' there). Studying the basics of language also helps you understand yourself and how your brain works, which should be of interest to everyone, right?

"School Supplies"

2008-08-23T15:05:00.011-05:00

1) Course Pack by ee
2) Stigma by eg
3) An informant--A "foreigner" over the age of 18
from a country where English is not the main language
4) A few bucks to pitch in and buy your informant a meal
5) A group and the names and e-mails of its members
6) Social skills for group participation
7) Access to a video recording device (someone in your group)
8) Access to someone who knows how to make video presentations
9) A smock. . . (ok i just like saying 'smock'--i didn't say i like talking smack, although i'm also not denying that i do)
10) The usual stationery accessories
11) A sense of humor
12) A favorite cast member of The Office or a suitable alternative. . .

You'll Laugh, You'll Cry

2008-08-20T20:43:00.011-05:00

You'll kiss 800 bucks goodbye, but they'll be some of the most well spent 800 bucks of your whole education.

In this class you will learn:

How to make people feel like crap
Or, how you already make people feel like crap
How to make people feel like a rockstar
Or how you already do so.

All kinds of dangerous gestures to make in other cultures.

How to decide what to call your mother in law.

Alternatives to the dead fish handshake.

How to pick up a guy at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

How expletives are pure poetry-really! I'm not even being metaphorical!

You'll learn how we are all "two-faced" but in a different way than the expressions suggests. . .

That your significant other is really an alien from another world culture altogether even though they seem to be speaking the 'same' language (e.g., English). Once you get a handle on 'their' culture, you'll have way fewer fights (although fights are good, which you will also learn).

What’s controversial about using ma’am.

Why your roommate's way of talking makes you homicidal.
Why yours makes her homicidal.

How to persuade the French that you are not just another arrogant monolingual American.

What women really mean when they ask if you're hungry (lots of women).

How to ruin the diplomatic relations between your country and another in the first five minutes of your time together.

What it really means to say that the Americans showed bad "form" when they arrived at the airport in Beijing wearing black face masks.

Whether modern cosmetic surgery is capable of fixing the 'ugly American.'

How to make eyes at the speaker and get a turn.

What women's 'intuition' really is.

How to really piss off a blind person.

What the tricky part about the Golden Rule is.

How to avoid making an idiot of yourself because you thought someone was inexcusably rude to you who was really trying to be nice to you . . .

The pros and cons of using a squat toilet in Japan. . .

What they really mean when they say, Nihongo o jozu desune?

How to use perfectly sanitized, "sanctified," allegedly dyed in the blood of the Lamb church lady English to cut somebody's heart into little bitty pieces and make hamburger of it.

How that quaint expression a smile is the same in any language is a big crock o' crap.

The surprising virtues of "f'ing English" (sometimes confused with 'French')

Manipulation and other exciting topics from 4-11-08

2008-04-11T15:30:00.003-05:00

So we had a quiz. And then we talked about some of the ideas from Yamada.

Recipient Design, Harvey Sacks' term, Alan Bell, Audience Design
Accommodation, Couplands

What is the difference between tailoring your talk to the conversational style, preferences, personality, schema, etc. of your hearers and plain old manipulation (Kim asks)? Most of us agreed that manipulation is used to describe a vice, not a virtue, where self-interest is the primary motivator, Regardless of the good of the other (hearer). Lyndsey sees the word as more neutral, to describe people with good negotiation skills, e.g., her father. ee wryly reminded her that meaning is collaboratively constructed-- even if it's arbitrary, you need at least two people to Agree on the meaning of a word/sign for it to have that meaning. So she's looking for another person to go live on a deserted island with. (: She thinks she'll recruit her dad. My pocket Oxford at home, however, defines manipulation as dexterous (esp. UNFAIR) use of influence. And I don't think that's what she means when she describes her father's superior language skills.

The fact is that we All Always have our interactional goals in mind every time we speak or engage in social interaction. We don't necessarily have our goals as paramount to anyone else's; we usually strive for equilibrium, where everybody wins as much as possible. I think it's an excellent question that comes up all the time. Being deliberate and careful about how you say something doesn't make you manipulative-we all spend time thinking about how to approach difficult subjects with others--that doesn't make us conniving and underhanded. We often spend that time worrying about violating the other's face and are trying to think of a way to achieve what we need to without offending or hurting the other person's feelings (negative and positive face, respectively). Maybe we’re trying to tell them why no one will go out with them, for example. Totally loving motivation, very dicey topic, mine field of potential hurt feelings.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding and axiom, The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turn's the head, was mentioned and appreciated. Segue about how many mothers give their daughters pre-marriage advice about making her husband "think it (whatever) was his idea." Frighteningly consistent advice. But having the other person's best interest in mind and not just one’s own seems to be the touchstone for non-manipulative talk. (And in the movie everybody had one another’s best interest in mind; it was very sweet).

To be fair, I think there probably are more manipulative women than men, but that’s probably also because men can use more overt forms of power to get what they want. Personally I respect women more who use language ‘dexterously’ but are also disclosing and transparent in their communication in general. I tease the men in class quite a bit, but let me correct that a bit. Far more men are left brain dominant and analytical in their thinking style, which is the basic foundation of science. Far more women are right brain dominant, dwelling more in the aesthetic and emotional aspects of language. And even though women have the advantage that both of their brains actually talk to each other, it’s also true that a dismazing number of women pretty much let their left brains die over the course of time. So even though their brains Could talk to each other, far too often they don’t. Moreover, most of the men in our class are exceptional as they have self selected to take a class about intercultural interactional communication, and most of the women are fairly exceptional because they’re taking a class that turns interaction into an analytical system to be investigated part by part.

Canale and Swaine, Communicative Competence:

1) Grammatical

2) Discourse

3) Sociolinguistic

4) Strategic (the competence of incompetence)

I'll add more later.

Some Notes on Class from 3-31

2008-04-10T12:44:00.008-05:00

Monday, March 31 What is the cultural significance of such prosthetics as wigs, hair plugs, etc. How taboo is it to put such things on record in talk? How do you know how off limits something prosthetic like this is for talk with a given individual?

Animal metaphors --how do you know what characteristics are attributed to various animals in a given culture? And then what aspects are being attributed to a person when you call them that animal? Pig: selfish, greedy, dirty, perverted (chauvinists?), China and Japan: just means 'ugly' Dragons are always the bad guy in Western literature, but in China they are the good, the mother of Chinese civilization? Chicken means prostitute in China, not coward as it does here.

What is the main problem for cross cultural communication in using animals as metaphors for various human personality characteristics? What other sources of metaphor might be subject to the same pitfalls? How would you go about eliciting information from a native of a particular culture that would circumvent misunderstandings based on animal (or other) metaphors?

Treatment of Animals, their role in society. . .How you treat animals, the Pomeranian that the Korean family I tutored for. What animals are considered a legitimate food source? What cultures share expectations for what animals can be pets and what the role of pets in a given family is? Dog soup in Korea, eating live monkey brains (Tracy, from China, brought this one up and described it), Philipinos served missionary family a feast on their return from furlough-- served them their own family dog, which I believe they dutifully ate, to demonstrate their appreciation for their hosts.

Hospitality, This leads from the role of animals in a culture to the importance and definition of hospitality in various cultures. Kimberly A mentioned anthropologists in - Somoa, a legend they are proud of, this man served his guests his wife for dinner, that's just how serious he was about hospitality.

The commitment in oriental cultures (which tends to extend to the Middle East and Africa) to serve strangers (who might be angels in disguise). OT stories of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis, and the Benjamites in Judges, where they offered their daughter, concubine in place of the angels when gangs of men wanted to abuse the travelers sexually. The sacrifices people make for their guests in other cultures. A chicken could be a month's wages for a family, then imagine if you didn't eat it! I ate the brain soup in Turkey. . . because I loved my hosts and I didn't want to be the selfish ugly American. And maybe because I didn't want to look like a wimp.

The temptation people so often have to laugh at others' customs; you really have to try to get inside the experience of the other--that's pretty much the crux of life in general. my sheltered Turkish student laughing scornfully what Christians believe in contrast to Muslims, not a good way to win friends and influence people. . .but kind of an automatic response for many people. . .The long road to intersubjectivity. . .

Anomie- alienation in community, the feeling you don't belong in your culture or your family (ever pray you were adopted?) (: Power/solidarity- distance/affiliation, independence and involvement Anomie can work for you if it makes you adjust to another language and culture more easily because you didn't feel at home in your own. If you are really well integrated in your home culture it may make it more difficult to integrate and adjust to another culture.

A huge frame conflict between Japanese and American companies: Japanese companies are organized like a big family.There are benefits and detriments to all sides. I doubt that there is any value in another culture that is completely nonexistent in all others. It's all a matter of ranking priorities of different values, using different forms for the same functions, doing those functions in different contexts.

Arranged marriages--not forced on you usually, even in Iran, Japan, etc. . . There is some value in having your family weigh in on big decisions. Africans have said that Westerners who marry for "love," put a hot pot on a cold stove and it grows colder, whereas Oriental cultures put a cold pot on a hot stove and it grows hotter.

This East West tension is a kind of tension between the rights and choices of the individual versus the collaborative decision making style preferred in oriental cultures. Do not both values exist potentially in each? Is the main distinction just a very strong, prevailing preference for one over the other in a given culture? What do you make of the fact that the cultures that prefer the "love" based mate choosing have astronomically higher divorce rates?

Review of Wednesday's class

2008-04-10T12:18:00.005-05:00

What is an adjacency pair? Where does the term come from? How was it first 'discovered'? What are its features? How does it relate to Chomksy (as noted in class)?

Formulaicity- what is it's social value in East vs. West cultures? Appropriateness, authenticity, creativity, etc. ?

What is the benefit of highly formulaic adjacency pairs in an Asian language? What seems to be the downside for Westerners learning Asian languages? What aspects of social interaction are more stressful in Asian interaction vs. American interaction? What is more stressful about American interaction? What misanalysis are Asian learners of English likely to make and to transfer to her interactional grammar in English language contexts? How does this relate to the specifically American cultural practice of buying and sending greeting cards?

What is pragmatic competence?
What does ee claim about "women's intuition"?
How does this relate back to formulaicity and the social meaning attributed to it?

What does Goffman offer as the motivation for greeting and closing rituals in human interaction? What does this have to do with face?
How does this relate to Garfinkel and phatic communion? What is small talk? What problems arise in conflicting expectations about formulaicity and phatic communion?

What impact does the fact that Japanese typically leaves out 74% of the subjects in sentences have on interactional interpretive processes? In other words, how does it relate to the collaborative construction of meaning in interaction?

What is the main problem for cross cultural communication in using animals as metaphors for various human personality characteristics? What other sources of metaphor might be subject ot the same pitfalls? How would you go about eliciting information from a native of a particular culture that would circumvent misunderstandings based on animal (or other) metaphors?

Semantic Pragmatic Disorder

2008-04-10T11:59:00.003-05:00

In class Wednesday we talked a little bit about people who seem to have a pragmatic disability in managing social interaction. Amanda found this on the web and it's pretty interesting. . .

http://www.hyperlexia.org/sp1.html
http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/spld.htm

Some Don'ts for Belarus

2008-03-25T21:24:00.001-05:00

Don't make the Ok sign x
Don't shake your fist. x
Don't sit with your legs spread apart or your feet on tables/chairs. x
Whistling inside of a building is bad luck. x
Don't be bothered by other people spitting indoors, but do not do it yourself. x

Some Do's for India (New Dehli)

2008-03-25T20:40:00.001-05:00

Be silent and listen.
To whom? Do you never speak? Find out what the parameters are. Women? Men?
Respond to questions concerning status, money, and family. What kinds of questions? We need to get details. Are there no inappropriate questions about those aspects of your life?

What kinds of responses are appropriate? Does relative power status matter?
Do dress modestly. Define modest in terms of concrete clothing and practices.
Eat with your hands, but don't take food from serving dishes with your hands (use a utensil). Everywhere? Restaurants? Cafeterias?
Keep your clothes clean and ironed and maintain very good hygiene. Clean is relative. Lots of Europeans wear the same skirt day after day, horrifying their squeaky clean shower and laundry obsessed American companions.
Apologize for inadvertent touching. Where? On the train? In a shop? On the street, in someone's home? What kind of touching? Paint us a picture (and by that I mean, get your informant to paint you a picture).
Exercise discretion when discussing poverty and the caste system. When might it be appropriate to raise this issue? You are likely to find that people bristle
Understand that family is very important. This is way too vague to be useful. In what culture would they Not say that family is important. We need illustrations of the kinds of practices in daily life, choices and decisions people make that show the importance of family to work, personal pursuits, religion, yada yada.
Try to blend in and acclimate. ??? That is the whole idea, yes, but it's kind of like saying, "Be a good Indian." You have no idea what that means. You need exact practices that will cause "blending in and acclimating" to occur.
Mind your temper. Again, is there any culture where this would not be advised? What we need to know is what makes people feel you have "lost" your temper? Voice, facial expressions, words or phrases, actions. . .
Ask people to clarify if something is unclear. Who when where why how? EVERY time you're not sure what someone means? Because you will likely tire your hosts in about 15 minutes if you have to ask about Everything that is Unclear.

Accept unspoken apologies. Ok, what is an unspoken apology?? How do you know one has occurred? How do you demonstrate your acceptance of it? What kinds of transgressions are to be taken lightly.?

Do's for the United Arab Emirates

2008-03-25T16:22:00.001-05:00

Ask permission before photographing anyone.
And how is this negotiated? How do you approach a person, what do you say? Esp. if you don't really speak Arabic
Avoid photographing Muslim women, government and military buildings and personnel.
Seems wise, I wonder what countries this would not be highly recommended behavior for these days.
Bargain while shopping especially when using cash.
Get a script. How do you start? How far do you vary? Do you smile, do you raise your voice, do you threaten to leave, end with falling intonation?
Decline twice when offered a refreshment.
This is nice and concrete. How do you politely refuse? Is there a danger of accidentally communicating that you really do Not want whatever is being offered? How would you investigate this aspect of a culture?
Tip supermarket baggers, bag carriers, and windshield washers at petrol stations.
Script? How do you know how much to give to whom? How do you make this transfer of cash? I can imagine many ways of giving money to a person that might be funny or offensive or stupid. . . what does this look like? Do women and men both tip both women and men?
Dress modestly. Women should cover tops of arms and their legs.
Nice concrete guideline, but but how much of their legs? Ankles? Feet? Knees? What constitutes covering-lace, light diaphanous linen, solid black totally opaque fabric?
Have clean feet and wear respectable socks.
good, but what is respectable? I assume no holes, but what about my lady bug socks with a pom pom at the heel? Are those respectable? Argyle? White socks with a dark suit? Toe socks? That's not as ridiculous as it sounds, construction workers in Japan wear socks that have the big toe separated for a kind of construction shoes almost flip flops. I know it sounds oxymoronic, but if you have to keep going in and out doors, and you have to take your shoes on and off. . .

Some Do's for Indonesia

2008-03-23T08:18:00.002-05:00

Respect silence, pauses in conversation.
How do you show your respect? How long do you wait, what kind of nonverbal cues do you give that you are respecting silence?
Smile. To whom? When? Gender aspects? Generational? Where and in what contexts, when is smiling Not polite?
Use the whole hand to motion people, and only your right thumb to point. Good concrete about right thumb, how do you use your whole hand? Palms up or down? How high is your arm and hand in relation to the body? This caution seems to be coming up in groups with quite a few different cultures in focus. Perhaps we could just start this adjustment now if we discover that it's kind of a universal outside of the U.S.
Avert your eyes. How? From whom or what?
Leave a bit of food on your plate when finished. Why? Is this because polishing off the whole plate suggests you are still hungry and expecting more food from your hosts?
Negotiate and bargain in the marketplace. Can you give us some language for this feat?
Speak slowly, clearly, and softly Both men and women? Adults and children? In the mosque and on the soccer field?
Take shoes off when entering a mosque or home, and cover shoulders, arms and legs (and head if you're a woman) Forgive my ignorance, but can non-muslims usually enter mosques? And if so, I'd imagine there's a lot more to the script that's going to be unfamiliar to them. . .
Wait until invited several times before eating or drinking. What do you say and do to pull off the polite 'decline'?
Wait to be directed to a seat and sit with good posture. Should you also decline a seat if it seems to be the seat of honor? In Japan and Korea this would seem to be the case. You'd have to decline a few times before yielding to pressure to take the seat of honor.
Maintain a clean and neat appearance because it is an extension of your inner self. This is a wonderful example of framing; it's defining the situation of cleanliness and how it relates to you and the people around you; it's not just a form fulfilling a function, it's a whole perspective . . .
Expect to socialize in groups. This, I think, is a good example of framing. You are saying, add to your schema of expectations the idea that a man and woman socializing outside of a group are up to no good, showing your moral character is done by avoiding being alone with the opposite sex. . . if that's what you mean.
Wear hair in a bun, if a woman. Do you not have to cover your head in public? And if so, why the bun? Is this for all ages? How about 17? 16? 12?
Be humble and downplay compliments. This is important, but what you have is a suggested function without giving us a handful of forms that will achieve that function in typical Indonesian culture. (That's kind of the crux of this whole project, not just this item on this group's list).
Greet people with the word "Selamat" (meaning 'peace') slowly and sincerely. Good. Which people? When you get on an elevator? Whoever you pass on the street? Shop owners when you enter?

Do's for Uruguay

2008-03-22T19:25:00.001-05:00

Offer a strong handshake. See entries below on specificities of handshakes.
Dress conservatively. Define your term, 'conservatively' and see comments in earlier posts about modesty.
Keep hands above table during a meal (as opposed to on your lap).
Kiss friends on the right cheek when greeting. No second, revolving door kisses? What about when departing?
Bring a gift of flowers if you are invited to someone's home (red roses are best). Always roses? Did the literature say this or your informant?
Generate conversations about food, soccer, and international affairs.
Feel free to eat, chew gum, or smoke in public.

ee's latest bumper sticker offering:

2008-02-14T10:56:00.003-06:00

Nice people don't make waves.
Good people sure as hell do.
(hell is pretty sure)