YANBU UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Women’s Campus

Sociolinguistics

LING 303

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Definition:
– The *ethnography of a speaking is a description of all
the factors that are relevant in understanding how that
particular communicative event achieves its objectives.

*Also referred to as simply, “ways of speaking.”

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Dell Hymes came up with the concept of
communicative competence in which he states
that…
– Knowledge of a language is more than grammar rules.
– You have to know…
• whom you can speak to
• when you can speak
• how to choose what terms

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• SPEAKING is an acronym assigned by Dell Hymes,
an anthropological linguist, for the various factors
he deemed to be relevant to understanding a
communicative event.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• The Setting and Scene (S) of speech are important.
Setting refers to the time and place, i.e., the
concrete physical circumstances in which speech
takes place.
• Scene refers to the abstract psychological setting,
or the cultural definition of the occasion.
– The king’s hajj message has its own unique setting and
scene, as has the US president’s annual State of the
Union Address.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• It should be noted that within a particular setting,
participants are free to change the scene, as they
change the level of formality (e.g. going from
serious to joyful) or as they change the kind of
activity in which they are involved (e.g., begin to
drink or recite poetry).

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• The Participants (P) include various combinations of
speaker-listener, addressor-addressee, or sender-
receiver.
• They generally fill socially specified roles. A two-
person conversation involves a speaker and listener
whose roles change throughout the conversation.
• When there are no role changes it’s called a “dressing
down.” Political speeches involve an addressor and
addressees (the audience); and a telephone message
involves a sender and receiver.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Ends (E) refers to the conventionally recognized
and expected outcomes of an exchange as well as
to the personal goals that participants seek to
accomplish on particular occasions.
• A trial in a courtroom has a recognizable social end
in view, but the various participants have different
personal goals. Likewise, a marriage ceremony
serves a certain social end, but each of the
participants may have his or her own unique goals.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Act Sequence (A) refers to the actual form and
content of what is said: the precise words used,
how they are used, and the relationship of what is
said to the actual topic at hand.
– Public lectures, casual conversations, and party chatter
are all different forms of speaking; with each go
different kinds of language and things talked about.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Key (K) refers to the tone, manner, or spirit in
which a particular message is conveyed: light-
hearted, serious, precise, pedantic, mocking,
sarcastic, pompous, etc.
• The key may also be marked by non-verbal
behavior such as gesture, posture, or even
deportment.
– Think of the of the statement, “It’s not what you said,
it’s how you said it.”
• How we say something often says more than the
actual words we use.
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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Instrumentalities (I) refers to the choice of channel,
e.g., oral, written, or telegraphic, and to the actual
forms of speech employed, such as the language,
dialect, code, or register chosen. Formal, written,
legal language is one instrumentality.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Norms of Interaction and Interpretation (N) refers
to the specific behaviors and properties that attach
to speaking and also to how these may be viewed
by someone who does not share them, e.g.,
loudness, silence, eye-contact, and so on.
• For example, there are certain norms of interaction
with regard to religious services and conversing
with strangers. However, these norms may vary
from social group to social group.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Genre (G) refers to clearly demarcated (defined
limits/boundaries) types of utterances; such things
as poems, proverbs, sermons, prayers, lectures,
editorials, and riddles. All are marked in specific
ways in contrast to casual speech.
• While particular genres seem more appropriate on
certain occasions than others, e.g., sermons
inserted into religious services, they can also be
independent: we can ask someone to stop
“preaching.” We can recognize when an instance of
it occurs outside its usual setting.
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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• Considering the aforementioned information, it
can be said that “talk” is a complex activity, and
that any particular bit of talk is a piece of “skilled
work.” It is skilled in that if it is to be successful,
the speaker must reveal a sensitivity to and
awareness of the factors mentioned previously.
Speakers must also work to see that nothing goes
wrong. When it does go wrong, it can easily be
described in terms of some neglect of one or more
of the factors.
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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• There are unwritten rules handed down from
generation to generation in every society about
how language should be used.

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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• What are the defining characteristics of the
following:
– Gossiping
– Making a formal speech
– Passing the time with close acquaintances
– Refusing a gift
– Consoling someone
– Debating
– Asking directions in a city you’re visiting for the first
time
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 Ethnography of SPEAKING
• In the next class, we will look more closely at
conversations by examining the points previously
mentioned.

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