Language as Action in Cultural Context s I From words to discourse Agar s theory of Rich points Rich points in speech acts Why these matter in icc II What kinds of languacultural skills are needed to do things with words Chomsky grammatical competence vs Hymes communicative competence IV How do we know what our words have done are doing How to compliment What to compliment about How to receive a compliment consequences for doing this wrong V Other speech acts in our daily lives VI Examining social life through speech Dell Hymes ethnography of speaking Paper topics due on moodle 10 6 Exam next Tuesday review sheet on Moodle 1 Language AS social action 2 Speech Acts People use language to do things with each other not just to refer and describe Talk as action or speech acts 3 Lying as a culturally specific speech act and a rich point 4 Other speech act rps Agar mentioned Jokes Dinner table conversation Self promotion in interviews Asserting opinion 5 You need more than grammar and the dictionary to interpret and perform these 6 The same utterance can have multiple functions Referential Function Meaning Picks out an object and or describes a state of affairs characterizable as true or false People analysts and participants tend to overemphasize this function Pragmatic Function Meaning what talk does beyond reference description This is the source of most interactional troubles 7 Intercultural Communication Pragmatics Speech Acts Language matters most in intercultural communication because of how people use language differently to perform speech acts not because of differences in grammar and vocabulary 8 Rich points speech acts stereotypes When there are rich points in our speech acts we often judge and stereotype 9 How speech does action What counts as a lie Referentially Referential def not enough Today is Friday I like your haircut Other examples Pragmatically 10 How to do things with words J L Austin 1962 Direct speech acts JL Austin Searle Utterances that do perform what they say Exs I now pronounce you legally wed I hereby dismiss class 11 12 In class writing Write down an example of a sentence that does what it says 13 But we perform speech acts all the time even when our words don t explicitly describe the act S they perform Indirect speech acts Exs It s cold in here Ugh I feel really sick Other examples 14 Indirect Speech Acts speech acts are usually NOT transparent speech is ambiguous subject to interpretation We may not share frames for how to perform interpret speech acts 15 Indirect Speech Acts are more Common We perform speech acts even when our words don t explicitly describe the act S they perform https www youtube com watch v 1xbYD79 g98 16 Indirect Speech acts http www youtube com watch v Yy3neW FzA 17 Cultural Competence and Speech Acts How do people ever manage to jointly produce and understand speech acts as appropriate and effective No small feat of culturally specific communicative competence 18 Speech Acts and Cultural Competence All speech is some kind of action i e it does something Cultural competence needed to perform and interpret speech acts appropriately and effectively 19 Communicative Competence Dell Hymes There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless We have to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical but also as appropriate He or she acquires competence as to when to speak when not and as to what to talk about with whom when where and in what manner vs Chomsky s notion of grammatical competence 20 Requests as speech acts Asking me for an extension Asking your sibling roommate to turn down music 21 Speech acts relevant in your daily lives Your family School work With friends 22 Speech acts in Intercultural Communication Speech acts often work differently in different contexts and groups How to know what your words are doing have done in an intercultural situation good intentions alone don t make you an appropriate and effective communicator 23 Compliments as speech acts What did Wolfson find 24 Compliments studied x culturally Wolfson What counts as a compliment in the US vs Indonesia vs Japan vs Jordan vs Iran vs France Common forms in US US English adjectives and verbs used Multiple functions of compliments in US 25 Compliments are often part of a two part sequence Common ways of receiving a compliment US and elsewhere 26 backhanded compliments https www youtube com watch v LrtpRNsdfYs 27 Examples of Failed compliments 28 Examples of failed compliment receipts 29 Compliments Why is this funny and what does that reveal about compliments http www youtube com watch v ByW0 vuD fzk 30 Megaphone compliments Would you feel complimented Why Why not http www youtube com watch v bWBbXA5 8PKI 31 Compliments US vs Germany Andrea Golato Sample American Compliment exchange 2 A That s beautiful It really is B Thank you 32 Sample Compliment exchanges in Germany A aber heute abend hier war s sch n bei but it was nice this evening here at euch your place 13 B sch n that s nice A ich sach ihr habt ja so en sch nes 14 i said you have such a nice zwiebelmuster hier onion pattern here B joa ye s A brigens das fleisch exzel lent by the way the meat excel lent B super ne super right A exzellent excellent B joa 16 yeah 33 What might you predict when Germans and Americans interact 34 Sample German American interaction 25 Fr hst ck in Texas Tape 1 B063 1 D that s the best tea i ve i think i ve ever had D gazes at C with puzzled look 2 C great right 3 4 D uh that lemonny kinda yeah it s quite nice 5 C smile voice yeah we like it too 6 0 2 7 A what was the exact name of it it s just called orange tea 8 C lemon tea it s zitronentee 35 Ethnography of Speaking the difficulty is that we have tried to relate language described largely as a formal isolate to culture described largely without reference to speaking Speaking like language is patterned functions as a system is describable by rules Dell Hymes1962 Ethnography of Speaking 36 Dell Hymes Speaking is a cultural activity in its own right The norms for speaking are culturally and situationally variable Studying another culture involves learning the norms for speaking ethnographically What categories of speech events and acts are recognized in a given group 37 Ethnography of Communication applied https www youtube com watch v cniJ6TIjyg Y 38 Many intercultural problems arise around differences in speech acts You ve been hired to improve