Gerry Philipsen

A bibliography of fieldwork in the ethnography of communication

In 1962, Dell Hymes proposed the project he subsequently named the ethnography of communication (Hymes 1961, 1962, 1964b). Its central motive was to create a theory of linguistic communication which is grounded in the comparative analysis of many communities and their distinctive ways of speaking. Just as there is a comparative politics, law, religion, and so forth, he said, so should there be a comparative analysis of “studies ethnographic in basis and communicative in scope” (Hymes 1964b:9). Such studies would be “whole ethnographies focused on communicative behavior” (1964b:9) and would be guided by, and subsequently used to guide the revision of, a descriptive framework which itself is a model of sociolinguistic description.

Mayor Daley's council speech: A cultural analysis

This essay examines a speech by the late Richard J. Daley, then Mayor of Chicago, for its symbolic pattern, event structure, and underlying cultural code. The analysis reveals a meaningfulness in it which was not seen by contemporary critics. Implications are drawn for an understanding of Teamsterville culture and for methods of interpreting deeply cultured speech.

The effects of social interaction on group idea generation

The literature on small group problem solving provides strong support for the proposition that social interaction has a detrimental effect on idea generation by group members. The present investigation, like previous research, found that “real” groups vocalized fewer total ideas and fewer good ideas when they were required to “think out loud” than did individuals formed into “nominal” groups. However, when idea generation was measured by written performance, immediately after the vocalization task, the two kinds of “groups” were virtually identical. Results of the study suggest that social interaction does not have a detrimental effect on the ideational resources potentially generated by a small group.

Some Thoughts on How to Approach Finding One's Feet in Unfamiliar Cultural Terrain

Consider a person entering a scene or a social world where there is a culture that is initially unfamiliar to him or her. Is there good advice we can give the person as to how to do what Clifford Geertz (1973, p. 13) refers to as ‘‘finding one’s feet’’ in such terrain*so as to learn the culture(s) there sufficiently well to be able to be an intelligent, competent, and effective participant in the social world the person has entered? I answer as if responding to a caller at my door, basing my answer on two partially fictive versions of such occasions. The first caller is Reiko, recently arrived in the US from Japan and enrolled in a university undergraduate course where there is much use of classroom work in discussion groups. I had given a lecture in the course, and Reiko asked my advice in solving a problem she faced*her failure to achieve acceptance of her ideas and of herself, in her group of fellow students. The second caller is Rachel, who had lived in Seattle, Washington for two years. She is an American with an advanced degree in the humanities, is multilingual, and has lived and worked in several countries. In spite of her education and linguistic skill, she expressed puzzlement, indeed consternation, about the way some people in Seattle communicate on a daily basis, but could not, she said, ‘‘put her finger on’’ what it is about the local ways of speaking that troubles her. What can one say to Reiko and to Rachel? There are two prominent and popular approaches to the study of cultures and to culturally shaped ways of communicating that one might consider as resources for one’s advice. One of these is an approach that draws from the work of Edward T. Hall (and others) and involves two related ideas*individualistic versus collectivistic cultures and highversus low-context communication. These ideas have been developed and researched extensively by many scholars, including, prominently, Stella Ting-Toomey and her colleagues (see, for example, Ting-Toomey, 2005). According to this view, (1) societies can be contrasted along an individualistic-collectivistic axis, with those

Parent perceptions of early prognostic encounters following children’s severe traumatic brain injury: ‘Locked up in this cage of absolute horror’

Abstract Objective: Little guidance exists for discussing prognosis in early acute care with parents following children’s severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Providers’ beliefs about truth-telling can shape what is said, how it is said and how providers respond to parents. Methods: This study was part of a large qualitative study conducted in the US (42 parents/37 families) following children’s moderate-to-severe TBI (2005–2007). Ethnography of speaking was used to analyse interviews describing early acute care following children’s severe TBI (29 parents/25 families). Results: Parents perceived that: (a) parents were disadvantaged by provider delivery; (b) negative outcome values dominated some provider’s talk; (c) truth-telling involves providers acknowledging all possibilities; (d) framing the child’s prognosis with negative medical certainty when there is some uncertainty could damage parent–provider relationships; (e) parents needed to remain optimistic; and (f) children’s outcomes could differ from providers’ early acute care prognostications. Conclusion: Parents blatantly and tacitly revealed their beliefs that providers play an important role in shaping parent reception of and synthesis of prognostic information, which constructs the family’s ability to cope and participate in shared decision-making. Negative medical certainty created a fearful or threatening environment that kept parents from being fully informed.

The Early Career Rise of “Speech” in Some Disciplinary Discourse, 1914–1946

By 1946 the members of the Speech Association of America had found in ‘‘speech’’ a master term for naming the Association, its two journals, and academic departments allied with it. How did this come about? When the Association and its first journal were established in 1914 1915, the names were, respectively, the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking and the Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking . ‘‘Speaking,’’ a form of the word ‘‘speech,’’ appears and is modified by ‘‘public.’’ With ‘‘academic teachers of,’’ the Association’s name makes ‘‘speaking’’ an object of pedagogy rather than a subject in its own right. James J. O’Neill, the Association’s first president and the first editor of its Quarterly, reported from his informal survey that ‘‘public speaking’’ was at this time the name used for the ‘‘majority of our departments.’’ Three early actions advanced the career of ‘‘speech.’’ At its 1917 convention the Association approved a change in its name to the National Association of Teachers of Speech, and in the journal’s name to Quarterly Journal of Speech Education , changes implemented in 1918. At that convention it was voted (‘‘almost unanimously’’) that ‘‘our departments be named speech.’’ With the changes implemented in 1918, ‘‘speech’’ itself appeared in the names of the Association and the Quarterly, liberated from its gerundial form ‘‘speaking,’’ with ‘‘public’’ excised. In the Association name ‘‘speech’’ was still an object of a prepositional phrase, ‘‘teachers of,’’ and in the Quarterly name ‘‘speech’’ was one part of a compound word, ‘‘speech education,’’ thus in one name remaining in a semantic environment of pedagogy and in another joined with a pedagogical term. Although ‘‘speech’’ had arrived in important sites of naming, it did not yet stand alone. Decisions from 1928 to 1946 completed the elevation of ‘‘speech.’’ In 1928 ‘‘education’’ was excised from the name of the Quarterly. In 1935 the Association established a second journal, Speech Monographs , in whose name ‘‘speech’’ appeared*in first position, unmodified, and in a semantic environment of scholarship, not pedagogy. In 1946 the Association changed its name to Speech Association of America,