Session strategy

Author: John Gumperz, translated by Xu Daming et al.
Translator: Xu Daming, Gao Haiyang
Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-04-01
Features: In the initial stage of the investigation, the research focused on the study of the local dialect. Through the field data elicitation techniques commonly used in linguistics, researchers aimed to understand the phonological and grammatical systems of the local Slovak and German variants. Two children in their early teens, with the help of their families, became the main phonetic collaborators. They answered the questions of the linguists, corrected their imitations of local pronunciation, and later learned to transcribe and evaluate the audio materials with the assistance of linguists. As a sociolinguistic study, the researchers paid special attention to investigating the different linguistic features and the indicators of linguistic variation across generations to identify possible ongoing language changes. However, they never directly asked how these linguistic variables were used or in what kinds of social contexts. The basic information about language use was obtained through the observation of interactional behavior or opinions expressed by the locals in casual conversations. Our linguistic research was conducted on the basis of previous ethnographic investigations. Previous studies had focused on land tenure, kinship, ethnicity, and other social structures (Brudner 1969). These provided background knowledge about the local history and interpersonal relationships for our research. The linguistic research project itself included a preliminary investigation of two months and an in-depth investigation of fifteen months after a year. During the investigation, the researchers attended many local gatherings, including religious, political, and other types of social events; worked with the locals on farming and household chores, participated in their recreational activities, and strove to achieve a comprehensive observation of their daily lives and affairs. After a period of mutual familiarity, the core group of participants, including the main phonetic collaborators and their relatives and friends, had become accustomed to the presence of the linguists and their recording devices. Only then did we obtain various oral communication data. After analyzing the audio recordings and field notes, the linguists were able to systematically elicit and validate related linguistic content. How can these specific observational materials be applied to predict broader trends of change? Ethnographers are always able to derive conclusions about larger populations from observations of face-to-face interaction events. They note that if the contacts of an individual are recorded over a period of time, these records reflect the individual's entire social network. Moreover, we find that an individual typically interacts more frequently with some people than with others. Systematically analyzing these regular interactions allows us to obtain a "social network of relationships" (or simply "social network"). The concept of social networks allows us to connect groups of individuals with their interaction experiences. The combined social networks of many individuals constitute a particular domain of social structure, varying depending on the specific context—such as kinship, friendship, religious, or occupational group networks. The position of an individual within these networks indicates their status within these social units (Barnes 1954, 1972). Based on factual investigations, network analysis examines both internal and external connections. Internal connections refer to individuals with similar social backgrounds, while external connections refer to those with different social backgrounds. In fact, it is possible to establish quantitative indicators of the closeness or overlap of social networks. These indicators reflect the degree of similarity in social backgrounds among different network members, or the openness of the network, representing the social cohesion of a community or group. The higher the overlap of social networks within a group, the stronger the internal cohesion of the group, and the clearer its boundaries become. Conversely, the lower the overlap, the harder it is to define the boundaries of the group. Changes in social cohesion under changing socio-economic conditions are a common indicator of social structure changes. Specific research objectives can help determine how to define social networks and identify the number of networks to be studied. We can even move beyond the general scope of social relationships and define social networks based on behavioral patterns and communication models such as interaction goals and cooperative methods. When we conducted a language use survey in northern Norway, we adopted the aforementioned classification principles. We categorized local merchants into two groups: one group engaged in large-scale business, selling equipment, supplies, clothing, and goods to farmers on credit and buying agricultural products and locally produced canoes in return. These individuals generally maintained long-term, even intergenerational, relationships with their customers. The other group consisted of small-scale retailers who typically conducted cash transactions. These two groups had different family backgrounds and linguistic usage conventions (Blom & Gumperz 1972). When network relationships reflect a cooperative partnership aimed at achieving common goals and completing the same tasks, these relationships tend to foster behavioral norms and communication conventions that are closely tied to the activities they engage in and serve as specific markers of these activities. In terms of language, these markers are the special linguistic variants discussed in sociolinguistic literature, such as jargon, slang, code-switching, argot, and caste speech, among others. The reason these variants have not been eradicated is precisely because they serve the function of marking institutionalized activities. The people involved in these activities often share similar family and ethnic backgrounds, and only these languages describe their unique skills and techniques. Certain specific vocabulary and grammatical markers in these variants often attract the attention of linguists, but little research has been conducted on the overall process of their use. Many German dialectologists have pointed out that political, commercial, and religious social networks play a role in spreading lexical and grammatical changes (Ebert, Fringset al. 1936). Gerl (SusanGal 1979), who conducted a quantitative analysis of language shift in a specific Austrian area, also adopted this stance. Milroy's (1980) study of language change in Northern Ireland applied Labov's variable rules to network analysis of change diffusion mechanisms. Social relationship networks are highly sensitive to political and economic forces and often transcend national and ethnic boundaries to spread linguistic changes. Language change diffusion is often not achieved through migration but through institutionalized skills and activities. A frequently cited example of language change diffusion is the spread of alveolo-palatal affricates into palato-alveolar fricatives across Europe. This change originated in Southern Europe (the Low Countries) and then spread to northern France and adjacent German-speaking regions, later following the Hanseatic trade routes to Denmark. Many urban areas in Sweden and Norway also adopted this pronunciation. It continues to spread in many regions of Switzerland. Moreover, as we know, it remains in flux in Austria today, acquiring different social meanings in various localities. Although the sociological network approach to language change is no longer novel, the role of network communication norms in facilitating interpersonal cooperation remains understudied. As noted in the introduction to this book, when interpreting the intended meaning of a conversation, listeners rely on inferences that go far beyond the literal meaning of the utterances. This is particularly true in institutionalized contexts, where a short sentence may represent a series of unspoken actions. Many apprentices know that learning jargon is as important as learning the trade itself. For those familiar with professional communication, using jargon or technical terms can enhance communication efficiency and facilitate cooperation. For outsiders, the lack of such communicative knowledge constitutes an obstacle to learning the trade. Below, we will explore how network communication conventions are reflected in interaction events. The various functions of code-switching listed above do not exhaust all possibilities but have enumerated the most common types. The interpretation of code-switching goes far beyond the speaker's simple "code A" and "code B" dichotomy. The meaning conveyed depends on the context and the specific content of the utterance. However, under the same linguistic and social conditions, the same functions and roles tend to recur. The normative function of code-switching is a prerequisite for our study of code-switching. The classification function of code-switching mentioned above is convenient for our analysis. This provides us with categories to discuss interpretation issues in the context of code-switching, as bilinguals who use code-switching generally lack the vocabulary to describe their switching phenomena and interpretive processes. If speakers share the same understanding of an utterance containing code-switching, we can assume that this shared understanding is based on the same linguistic perceptual content. We can then identify contextual cues that create these perceptual contents. However, a list of switching functions alone is insufficient to explain the listener's linguistic perceptual content and the associated interpretive process. It is always possible to propose some extralinguistic social factors that influence switching and list some background knowledge as explanations. In recent sociolinguistic-oriented discourse analysis studies, this approach has been adopted (Ervin-Tripp & Mitchell-Kernan 1977). However, establishing reliable linguistic usage rules that can explain and predict code-switching remains a formidable task. Let us first examine code-switching in nominal citations. It is clear that not all citations use the language of the cited source. In example (15), a Slovak bilingual uses German to quote a monolingual German speaker, but in example (16), a Slovak villager also uses German to quote a fellow Slovak neighbor. We can establish the following rule: a speaker retains the original language code when citing; examples (15), (16), (17), and (18) conform to this rule. Example (21) seems to further illustrate this rule, where the speaker uses English to report a conversation and then switches to Spanish to express a direct quote. However, note that in example (21), Spanish is used for both direct and indirect quotes. Additionally, in example (19), the speaker uses "code B" to narrate their trip to Agra, switches to "code A" to talk about their conversation with their brother, and then returns to "code B" to include a quote. In this case, the quote retains the original language code, but it does not explain why "code A" was used to introduce this quote. A further analysis of the entire conversation that includes example (18) can illustrate the complexity of the issue. The connection in topic between turn 4 and turn 5 is reflected through a series of stressed keywords ("then," "now," "now," "came"), which also mark the four stages of the debate. B's stressed "then" aims to indicate that the content discussed earlier was "then." The stressed "then" is immediately followed by a falling boundary tone, signaling that more was to come, and the subsequent content would be of comparable weight. B then says, "That's not now," with the stressed time adverb "now" and a rising-falling tone, marking the phrase heard as corresponding to "but that's then." A, in turn 5, uses the same sentence structure as B to rebut. A hears a phrase where "now" is stressed but changes it to a falling-rising tone, making "now" not the end of the phrase but the beginning of a statement. In turn 5, A uses an implicit rebuttal, indicating that she implies "then." She does not explicitly say "then" because her parallel structure already clearly signals her intention, and she also stresses "came" (the past tense of "come"), making the past time clear. In this dialogue, speakers use prosodic means to emphasize topic relevance, thereby highlighting the rhetorical structure of the passage. Both debaters use simple but quite abstract language. For example, the first half of turn 4, "That's then," the word "that" here has the "discourse meaning" mentioned by Traugott (1979) without a clear lexical meaning. The discourse meaning of "that" in this sentence is not just one-layered. "That" refers to "what you said," encompassing both (1) the words actually spoken and (2) the propositional content of what was said. Additionally, saying "that" implies the existence of a corresponding "this," i.e., "what I am about to say." This indicates that the speaker has something to say next, and what is said will be related to the preceding context.