Talk As A Social Practice

Question 1

How is talking used by people?

Answer 1

• carried the meanings of words and the forms of sentences
• conveys a sense of who the speaker is and how he/she conceives an audience
• pleasure

Question 2

Define Argots

Answer 2

sublanguages organized by member of social groups engaged in activities that mark them off from other groups

Question 3

Importance of Argots

Answer 3

• sense of membership in a group
• sense of group identification
• marks group boundaries
• instil group pride
• makes up social reality and knowledge of a group
• sense of sharing common interests
• setting members apart from outsiders
• commitment and elite status

Question 4

What is an Account? (Scott and Lyman 1968)

Answer 4

A linguistic device employed whenever an action is subjected to value inquiry

• a talk intended to reveal why a person did something he/she was not supposed to do

Question 5

Two typed of Accounts

Answer 5

Excuses & Justifications

Question 6

Define Excuses

Answer 6

Socially approved vocabularies for mitigating or relieving responsibility when conduct is questioned

Question 7

Define justifications

Answer 7

An account where one accepts responsibility for the act in question, but denies pejorative quality associated with it

Question 8

What are the 4 types of excuses?

Answer 8

Appeal to accidents, appeal to defeasibility, appeal to biological drives, scapegoating

Question 9

What are the 4 types of justifications?

Answer 9

Denial of injury, denial of victim, condemnation of condemners and appeal to loyalties

Question 10

How is “appeal to accidents” used?

Answer 10

• try to talk their way out of unpleasant consequences or the negative responses that comes from others
• dissociate themselves from the meanings of their actions

Question 11

How is “appeal to defeasibility” used?

Answer 11

He or she arranges commonsense knowledge according to assumptions people make about the mental elements that make up the world.
“I didn’t know”

Question 12

How is “appealing to biological drives” used?

Answer 12

Pointing to features of what is understood in our culture about fatalistic or natural aspects of life
“Boys will be boys”

Question 13

How is “scapegoating” used?

Answer 13

A person will allege that his behaviour is a response to the behaviour or attitude of another

Question 14

What is the difference of excuses and justifications?

Answer 14

A justification asserts that the consequences of the act were in fact positive or at least not as they appeared while excuses are talks that polishes fractured situations

Question 15

How is “denial of injury” used?

Answer 15

Saying it was okay because no one was hurt

Question 16

How is “denial of victim” used?

Answer 16

Argues that the injury to another resulting from one’s own actions was somehow deserved.
“Asked for it”

Question 17

How is “condemning a condemner” used?

Answer 17

Points out that the others did worse acts and the others are either not caught, not punished or even praised.

Question 18

How is “appealing to loyalties” used?

Answer 18

One’s actions were permissible or even right because they served the interests of another to whom one owed an unbreakable allegiance of affection.

Question 19

What are the 5 styles of discourse?

Answer 19

Intimate, casual, consultative, formal and frozen

Question 20

Define the Intimate style

Answer 20

Using specialized words or phrases to communicate whole ideas or emotional states.

• language of the couple

Question 21

Define the Casual style

Answer 21

Similar to intimate but with with a larger number of speakers
- language of peer groups

Question 22

Define the Consultative style.

Answer 22

“Technicality”

• verbal form ordinarily employed when the amount of knowledge available to one of the interactants is unknown or problematic to others

Question 23

Define the formal style.

Answer 23

An audience too large to permit one to one exchange.

• presentation style to hold the attention of his audience.
• “lecture” (Goffman 1981)

Question 24

Define the frozen style

Answer 24

An extreme form of the formal, used by those who are simultaneously required to interact and yet remain social strangers.

Question 25

What are disclaimers?

Answer 25

A way of talking that can ward off and defeat in advance doubts and negative typifications which might result from intended conduct.
- We use them when we know something we are about to say or do might offend or embarrass someone

Question 26

What is “hedge”?

Answer 26

Preface remakes by impugning my own identity.

Question 27

What is “credentialing”?

Answer 27

I must know that what I say will offend her but still remain strongly committed to saying it.

Question 28

What is “sin license”?

Answer 28

Wards off critical response by it’s recognition that criticism will be seen as boorish or irrelevant, but I don’t care how the person might react, I simply have my say

Question 29

What is “cognitive disclaimer”?

Answer 29

Pointing out something about the unique way I see the world, that might account for what I am about to say.
ex. “This may seem strange to you…”

Question 30

What is “suspension of judgement”?

Answer 30

Common purpose

- the person’s action might negatively affect our common goal

Question 31

What is Language?

Answer 31

Language is a systematic, rule-governed competency a person displays mostly through vocal performances.

Question 32

Goffman’s 3 characteristics of everyday communication

Answer 32

Ritualization, participation framework and embedding

Question 33

Define Ritualization

Answer 33

Unintended yet regularized movements, looks and vocal sounds we make when speaking and listening

Question 34

Define participation framework

Answer 34

Full range potential listeners and speakers for a given instance if talking

Question 35

Define embedding

Answer 35

The existence of inherent messages in our sayings over, above and within their strictly formal or linguistic content

Question 36

T or F. The primary intention of a lecturer is to format a text

Answer 36

True

Question 37

T or F. A person must dominate a conversation

Answer 37

False. We do not normally chat with the focus on a single person as a source of information

Question 38

A lecture includes… To make the speaker alive, energetic and personal.

Answer 38

Memorization, reading aloud and fresh talk

Question 39

Define Memorization

Answer 39

To commit to memory what is to be said, allowing the speaker to give off the impression of a person “who knows the material”

Question 40

Define “reading aloud”

Answer 40

Verbally holding up the text for all to see.

Question 41

Define Fresh talk

Answer 41

Must take care not to be seen too distinctly from the content of their speech

Question 42

Describe footing (Goffman 1981)

Answer 42

How lectures align themselves with the underlying identities of the occasion
- involves devices for work that goes on prior to the performance etc

Question 43

Define “face wants”

Answer 43

Politeness is concerned with face which is a public self image that every member wants to claim

Question 44

Compare positive face wants and negative face wants

Answer 44

Positive face wants are desires to be approved of and negative ones are desires to be impeded in one’s actions

Question 45

What are the three strategies of face wants?

Answer 45

Positive politeness, negative politeness and off record politeness

Question 46

What is positive politeness?

Answer 46

Talking so that the speaker recognize each other’s desire to have their positive face wants respected.

Question 47

What is negative politeness?

Answer 47

Talking that conveys the speakers desire not to be imposed on that recognizes the participants’ right to autonomy.

Question 48

What is off record politeness?

Answer 48

Indirect talk to avoid making any explicit imposition on the hearer

Question 49

What are “hypercorrections”

Answer 49

Those in subordinate positions in an interaction realize that such identifications invariably distort their intentions and interests and often they attempt to correct for this

Question 50

T or F. Talk and gender identities are interrelated as are identities of social rank.

Answer 50

True