BAB 4. Interactional sociolinguistics
1. introduction
The approach to discourse that I am calling “ interactional sociolinguistics ” has the most diverse disciplinary origins of those discussed in this book, it is based in anthropology, sociology, and linguistics, and shares the concerns of all three fields with culture, society, and language. The contribution to interactional sociolinguistics made by the linguistic anthropologist John Gumperz provides an understanding of how people may share grammatical knowledge of a language, but differently contextualize what is said – such very different messages are produced an understood. The contribution made by the sociologist Erving Goffman provides a description of how language is situated in particular circumstances of social life, and how it reflects, and adds, meaning and structure in those circumstances. The ideas of both these scholars have been applied extensively within linguistics, e.g. by Brown and Levinson ( 1987 ), Schiffrin ( 1987a ), and Tannen ( 1989a ).
2. defining interactional sociolinguistics
In this section, I describe the basic ideas of interactional sociolinguistics. I begin with the work of Gumperz (2.1) and go on to goffman (2.2) in section 2.3, I briefly summarize how the ideas of these two scholars can be combined.
2.1 The contribution of anthropology : Gumperz
In the introduction to his most recent collection of essays ( discourse strategies ), Gumperz ( 1982a : vii ) states that he “ seeks to develop interpretive sociolinguistic approaches to the analysis of real time processes in face to face encounters.” After briefly describing some of Gumperz’s work prior to the 1982a collection, I describe to concept and methods that Gumperz has developed foe the achievement of his goal.
Dil ( 1971 ) is a collection of Gumperz’s essays through 1971; the dual focus of this volume – language and dialect diversity, language usage and social interaction – reflects the themes that continue ( and become even more unified ) in the 1982a collection. The research reported in Dil ( 1971 ) is all grounded in an assumption basic to social and cultural anthropology : the meaning, structure, and use of language is socially and culturally relative. The importance of this assumption is illustrated through studies focusing on a variety of different issues. For example, Gumperz’s work in India – on regional and social language differences, on Hindi – Punjabi code – switching, and on linguistic convergence – focuses not just on linguistic structure, use, and social groups also underlies Gumperz’s ( Dil 1971 : 114 ) classic definition of the speech community as “ any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal sign and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage.”
Let us take an example ( from Gumperz 1982a : 147 ). The example illustrates the use of rising intonation as a contextualization cue.
TEACHER : James, what does this word say ?
JAMES : I don’t know.
TEACHER : Well , if you don’t want to try someone else will. Freddy?
FREDDY : Is that a “p” or a “b”?
TEACHER : ( encouragingly ) it’s a “p”
FREDDY : Pen.
The teacher’s response ( well, if you don’t want to try someone else will ) indicates her interpretation of Freddy’s I don’t know not only in terms of its literal meaning, but also as an indication that Freddy did not wish to try to answer the question. Gumperz notes, however, that I don’t know had final rising intonation, understood in the African American community of which Freddy was a member as conveying a desire for encouragement ( cf. “ I need some encouragement” ). Thus we might say that the teacher didn’t retrieve the contextual presuppositions needed to accurately interpret Freddy’s message from his use of rising intonation.
2.3 Language, culture, and society as “ situated “
Despite the different sets of interest reviewed above – one stemming from concerns about language and culture, the other from concerns about the self and society – there are two central issues underlying the work of Gumperz and Goffman that provide a unity to interactional sociolinguistics: the interaction between self and other, and context.
3. sample analysis : “ speaking for another ”
Interactional sociolinguists always draw upon naturally occurring interactions for data. Many scholars follow the tradition initiated by Gumperz and focus upon language used by speakers from different cultural backgrounds often in institutional setting in which those backgrounds ( and the difference n communicative style for which they may be responsible ) have important long term consequences ( see, for example, the papers collected in Gumperz 1982b ). Interactional sociolinguists also draw upon naturally occurring conversations among friends ( Tannen 1984 ). Finally, interactional sociolinguists pay a great deal of attention to transcription of features of talk likely to serve as contextualization cues ( see appendix 2 ).
3.1 Speaking for another : “ she’s on a diet “
In chapter 3 we spent a great deal of time analyzing the speech acts in a particular interchange. I begin with a segment of that same interchange – Zelda’s remark She’s on diet – reproduced as line (c) in (1) below :
In chapter 3, we said that She’s on a diet is both an expansion ( a sequentially dependent unit which adds information supplementary to a prior unit ) and an account ( an explanation for Irene’s rejection of Henry’s offer ). Both expansions and accounts are relational acts : expansions add information to a prior act, and accounts provide reasons and/or motivations for a prior act that has been marked (e.g. inappropriate, impolite, insulting ) in some way.
3.2 “ Speaking for another “ as situated meaning
One of the key insight of interactional sociolinguistics is that meaning is situated ( section 2 ). As shown by Bennet ( 1978 ) and Tannen (1989b ), for example, the turn taking structure during which one person’s utterance ( or part thereof ) is simultaneous with another’s can be labeled in two quite different ways : it can be labeled as “ interruption “ ( with negative connotations ) or “ overlap “ ( with neutral or even positive connotations ). Which label it receives ( i.e. which meta message is conveyed ) depends on how that turn taking structure is contextualized by speech activity, participant, and so on. “ Speaking for another “ is an act whose meaning is also interactionally situated. This section examines three different levels at which the meaning of spaking for another can be lopcated. I begin with the temporary interactional alignments negotiated during talk in order to view speaking for another as a discourse strategy that is used to create either solidarity or distance ( 3.2.1 )
3.2.1 Alignments : “ chipping in “ or “ butting in “?
Speaking for another has little inherent meaning in and of it self : it can be interpreted in either a positive sense as “ chipping in “ or a negative sense as “ butting in.” the former gloss is consistent with an interpretation of this act as a display of positive politeness ( Brown and Levinson 1987 ) and as a presentational ritual ( Goffman 1967b ) one shares so much with another that she is able to take her position in conversation ( cf. “ you know me so well you can me read my mind !”). the latter gloss, on the other hand, is consistent with an interpretation of the act as a violation of negative face ( Brown and Lavinson 1987 )
3.2.2 Social actions : providing accounts for self and other
In chapter 3, we discussed how Zelda’s she’s on a diet and Irene’s story about her diet both provide an account for Irene’s rejection of Henry’s offer of candy. But we had to defer our discussion of why accounts can supply a third part to offer rejection sequences simply because the reasons have less to do with the constitutive rules of speech acts themselves than with what those rules imply about social relationships and social interaction. In this section, we illustrate how an interactional approach to discourse can help to explain the social coherence underlying this particular speech act sequence thus suggesting that the basis for sequential coherence between speech acts lies in the social and interactive world in which speech act are created. At the same time, we see that the social meanings of acts and their relationships to one another provide another context in which utterance meaning is situated.
3.2.3 Micro and macro identity displays : alignments and gender
In this section, we recontextualized she’s on a diet yet again : we consider it within the context of who is speaking ( male or female ). In so doing, we will not only consider how speaking for another can display one’s identity, but also how speaker identity provides another facet of context in which to discover utterance meaning. Our discussion will be helped by a brief comparison with other participant realignments among the same speakers.
Here is the relevant segment again.
(1) HENRY : (a) Y’ want a piece of candy ?
IRENE : (b) No. [ I don’t
ZELDA : (c) Z She’s on a diet.
DEBBY : (d) [ Who’s not on [ a diet.
IRENE : (e) I am on a diet.
(f) and my mother [ buys =
ZELDA : (g) [ you’re not !
IRENE : (h) = my [ mother buys these mints =
DEBBY : (i) [ oh yes I amhhhhh !
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