SPE 384K: Reading the
Ethnography of Communication

COURSE SYLLABUS for Fall 1997

    TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. Course information
  2. Meeting time and location
  3. Instructor
  4. Description
  5. Required texts
  6. Graded Assignments
  7. Attendance policy
  8. Ethical standards

Reading the Ethnography of Communication

Unique number: 07345.
Course number: SPE 384K.
Description: A course in using discourse analysis in the ethnography of communication.
Prerequisite:graduate standing.

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Meeting time and location

Days: Wednesdays.
Time:4:30-7:40 pm..
Place: CMA 3.108.

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Instructor

Name: Madeline M. Maxwell, Ph.D.
Office: CMA 7.120. Jesse H. Jones Communication Center
Office hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 3:30 - 5:00 and by appointment. E-mail seems to work well for messages and arranging appointments. Or leave a message on the bulletin board on my office door, on my telephone voice mail or in my department mailbox in CMA 7.114 and I will get back to you. I expect to have several individual discussions with each of you about your work for this course.
Phone & voice mail: 471 1954.
mmaxwell@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

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Description

Ethnography is the description of behavior in a particular culture, typically resulting from fieldwork. The ethnography of communication is then the description of communication in a particular culture. The writing is in the form of an essay, an article or monograph about a particular people, institution, or practice. It is an example of interpretive science, based on a selection of data made more or less explicitly within a theoretical framework. An ethnography addresses a problem and answers it. An ethnography is not an item of journalism or documentary; it is not a depiction: the problem, interpretation, and evidence are organized into an argument.
"Ethnographic description is by no means the straightforward, unproblematic task it is thought to be in the social sciences, but a complex effect, achieved through writing and dependent upon the strategic choice and construction of available detail. The presentation of interpretation and analysis is inseparably bound up with the systematic and vivid representation of a world that seems total and real to the reader" (Marcus & Cushman, 1982:29, in Jacobson, 1991:4).
Interpretation involves Geertz' notion of "thick description" and discovery of the cultural categories people use in their informal logic. It may also include "an understanding of behavior that might differ from that of the people involved and would permit comparison of behavior in different societies and cultures" (Fortes, 1970, in Jacobson, 1991:5). According to Fortes, in a description, observations are grouped together as they actually happen, while analysis involves grouping them into theoretically based categories such as rights and duties.
Perhaps the hardest notion to grasp is that the purpose of an ethnography is not to describe in the sense of deriving generalizations for behavior - for that purpose you need other methods. The purpose is to provide a coherent representation of human action, that is, to draw a conclusion through interpretation based on certain descriptive facts. Thus it depends on the selection and presentation of facts. The first selection happens in the fieldwork - what you see while you are there, based on your own quirky self and the theories that interest you - or what the people let you see or what seems important to them. A second selection comes when some record from the fieldwork provides evidence for some interpretation. Often at this stage of the process, the researcher goes in search of enlightening theory, since what is actually learned may well lead away from the original purpose. "Ethnographic arguments consist of claims (conclusions, assertions, propositions, explanations, interpretations) about people's behavior (or about a culture or a society) and data (grounds, facts) that constitute evidence for or against them [and what Toulmin (1979) calls] warrants, the steps that link the conclusions and the data through the form of "If these data, then these claims" (Jacobson 1991:7-8).
While there are many "types" of ethnographies, recent innovation involves the inclusion of discourse interaction. How does one draw ethnographic ideas from interactional data? In this class we will study a number of ethnographic studies to develop criteria for critiquing ethnographic work, with a focus on discourse analysis. Various authors have used different methods of discourse analysis in ethnographies of communication. Our emphasis will be on these discourse methods, i.e., on using close transcription of talk in interaction, to support ethnographic claims.

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Required texts

  1. Moerman, Talking Culture
  2. Agar, Language Shock
  3. Bauman, Story, Performance & Event
  4. Farnell, Do you see what I mean?
  5. a packet of articles
  6. 1 ethnography of communication using close transcription analysis that is of interest to you individually for a critique
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Assignments

5 homework assignments, 1 article/chapter critique, 1 essay, & 1 critique of a book-length study

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Attendance policy

Regular attendance is required at all class meetings.

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Ethical Standards

Students at the University of Texas at Austin are expected to demonstrate the highest ethical standards about their intellectual work and their scholarly participation. Scholastic dishonesty will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent. You are expected to have read and understood the current issue of General Information Catalog, published by the Registrar's Office, for information about procedures and about what constitutes scholastic dishonesty.

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Fall 1997 
[Home| General| Teaching| World] 
21 April 97
Department of Speech Communication,
College of Communication,
University of Texas at Austin
Send comments or inquiries to Madeline Maxwell
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