PROJECTS
Culture and Communication (Stross)
Project
(6-9 pages)
Pick one
of the following for each of the two projects (ie. that doesn't include the informal
writing assignment).
1. Gossip - Collect naturally
occurring samples (with a tape recorder or well taken notes) of what you call
gossip (based on some operational definition of your choice, such as
"conversation about an absent third party") from family, friends, or
roommates in conversations in which you are present but not participating. Look for patterns that characterize this
kind of talk, such as a set of possible openers (e.g. "can we talk?";
"I hate to gossip, but..."; "have I got something juicy for you,
about..."), non-verbal behavior that could be indicative, and/or perhaps
some elements of structure in the gossip, and other relevant aspects of the
context (time, place, participants, message channel, message form, etc.).
2. Our Changing
World - Changes in our own culture (some brought about by technology) have
transformed some of the ways that we communicate (the forms, styles, contexts,
and amounts). Among other things we are
experiencing blurring and breakdown of established rules, standards,
categories, distinctions, and boundaries; new and augmented media for
communicating ideas, for storing them and disseminating them. Urban America includes media-saturated
people on-the-move who must manage new, shifting, and multiple identities,
multiple voicings of messages depending on place and context, and new
technology that shapes and is shaped by our contemporary needs. Please identify five important factors that
you can think of that have had an impact on our communicative interactions with
one another and devote about a page to describing the characteristics and
impact of each. Think about times and
places that we communicate differently from before, and channels of
communicative interaction that are recent, and what new kinds of messages
(information) are sent, and why the changes in these elements of the speech act
have changed.
3. Select and visit a setting in Austin
primarily oriented towards one ethnicity, nationality, or language (e.g.
Lebanese, Greek, Czechoslovakian, German, Thai, Chinese, Japanese Latin
American, Asian, Spanish, Arabic) such as a store, restaurant, bar, dance hall,
or church. Describe the setting,
particularly from a communication standpoint.
Pay special attention to the organization of space, the individuals
present and what they do, the languages spoken, other aspects of the setting
related to its function (buying and selling, eating, drinking, dancing,
worshiping etc), and communicative styles that you think might be related to
the orientation or grouping that you selected.
Suggest some of the ways that the information contained in your
description suggest cultural presuppositions that might impact communication
between members of the chosen group and members of some other group that you
know well.
4. Attend a meal
with more than 5 persons present, including yourself. Carefully describe the communicative interactions taking place
around you, and I do mean carefully.
Do your best to to attend to and describe non-verbal communicative clues
to meaning as well as linguistic and paralinguistic features of the
speech acts (or discourse events).
5. Americans traveling abroad are sometimes struck by communication
problems that they encountered in particular societies, and some of them have written
about these problems in books and articles.
Foreigners in the United States have had similar experiences, and
likewise some of them have written books, articles, or internet web pages
describing difficulties in communication between themselves and Americans. Pick a nationality (or ethnic group) about
which some communication guidelines, or insights about communication problems,
have been written by someone of a different nationality (or ethnicity), and
collect these insights as the data for your project, presenting them as found
and citing their source (in a book or books, articles, or internet sites), then
discuss aspects of the national or ethnic character that you can derive from
these insights. So long as the data is
presented as found, you may have some latitude in making inferences and even
speculating (so long as speculation is labeled as such).
6. Watch the following link, a 10
minute exposition of an interaction on YouTube that illustrates several different forms of communication
revolving around ethnic discrimination.
Analyze the cultural and communicative aspects of this film, do a
critical review of the film, or simply comment intelligently on what you saw
and how it fits into a course on culture and communication.
Below, an
elaboration of number 2, in answer to a question that I got by e-mail -
Many changes
have taken place in our culture over the years, and maybe most of them have
been influenced in one way or another by the technological revolution that has
urbanized us, made us more mobile and less accountable, that has allowed the
growth of bureaucracy, that has facilitated a money and then a post-money credit
economy, and that has broadened the range of communicative media while changing
communication patterns. The things you
mentioned have indeed affected our forms, contexts, amounts, and styles of
communication, and there are many more, and they don't have to be directly tied
to technology per se.
For example
with increased sensitivity to an ideal of gender equality (facilitated by a
host of factors including technology), one can see effects on communicative
styles, on what kinds of things can be and/or are said in different
combinations of gendered interactions, on what is appropriate and what is
not. Another example might be the
kind of speech heard in homes and around playgrounds all over (that is often
incomprehensible to many of us) about pok-e-mons for example (a few years
ago). This kind of speech has
developed a whole new vocabulary (sometimes, but not necessarily, quite
large). Also, with all the body
piercing we find of recent years, we notice the development of new ways of
talking about the different piercing sites, formats, styles, functions, and
their consequences, as well as the introduction of new technical vocabulary for
these things.
With respect to
technology, only a few years ago you wouldn't be in a restaurant and overhearing five different cell phone
conversations at once as you might be now.
We have seen the development of some kind of etiquette of cell phone use
in public.. Talking in cars, in doctors'
offices, and walking on the sidewalk with cell phones is one of the developments
of a new context for verbal interaction as another example.
Nowadays, with
the recent development of cheap micro-radio stations (and earlier with public access stations on cable tv) individuals
have great opportunities to "perform" to a wider public and to air
their opinions, certainly with some consequences.
Getting to the
actual meat of the assignment, identify five factors that you think
might have had an impact on our communicative interactions in the past few
years, and try to develop ideas about how that impact has been felt. You don't absolutely have to be right about
it (after all how could that be proven one way or the other). Just think of any five and try to spin out
some thoughts on the ways in which these factors have affected our
communicative interactions. There are
lots of ideas, lots of possibilities, and you've mentioned a few. Go with whatever you'd like to think more
about. Finding a common thread to
unite them, beyond the fact that they all have impacted our communicative
interactions, might be a useful exercise but is not necessary.
Aspects of the
speech act as spoken of in class are likely to be affected by the factors that
you will be mentioning. Figuring out
how those factors affect the components (and functions) of the various kinds of
speech acts could constitute much of the fun of this assignment. Relating the factors to the components and
functions of the speech act could be one useful way of responding to the
assignment, but I don't really want to limit your creativity here, so if you
have other ways of responding to this particular assignment, feel free.
(If you have
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