Kristine L. Fitch

A cross-cultural study of directive sequences and some implications for compliance-gaining research

Compliance gaining has been widely studied in communication research as a phenomenon central to interpersonal life. Yet the category of attempts to compel the actions of others, labeled as directives in pragmatics and ethnography, has received little specific attention, despite its close connection to actual spoken life. This essay presents an ethnographic examination of directive sequences in two speech communities, one in the U.S. and one in Colombia, with emphasis on the distinctive belief systems revealed by directive use. Data from several earlier studies of compliance gaining are then reexamined to show that patterns of results obtained in those studies are consistent with the cultural values of U.S. Americans and inconsistent with the values of Colombians. The likelihood that those patterns reveal cultural underpinnings in the constructs of personality, situation, and gender is then discussed.

The interplay of linguistic universals and cultural knowledge in personal address: Colombian Madre terms

A general question that communication theories seek to answer is what kinds of resources and knowledge must be drawn upon for communication to take place. This essay proposes that the question may usefully be pursued through investigation of personal address. It elucidates ten address terms in Colombian Spanish derived from the central term madre, “mother.” From the data, a functional model of personal address is generated which incorporates both universal resources for communication (the ubiquitous phenomenon of personal address, universal semantic principles that reflect basic human experiences, and metaphorical usage) and cultural resources (a particular set of address terms, a range of intention and interpretation that may be realized, and a system of cultural premises that organizes and makes sensible the terms and actions that constitute the system). Extensions of the study to other forms of personal address and other kinds of communication behavior are suggested.

Difficult Interactions between IRBs and Investigators: Applications and Solutions

This essay describes efforts by the University of Iowa administration and Human Subjects Office to adapt review procedures and interpret federal regulations in ways that were appropriate to the distinctive methodologies of social science and humanistic research, including applied research. Two moments of significant change in those procedures are described and several recommendations are offered for addressing the difficulties institutional review boards and applied researchers encounter when they interact: ask questions and be prepared to respond to them, in person when necessary; be reasonable and accountable and assume the other side is too; recognize that human subjects protection is complicated and that real risks are posed by procedures sometimes assumed to be risk-free by nature. The importance of an adequately funded, well-trained staff is emphasized as the precursor to all of those measures.

Culture, Ideology, and Interpersonal Communication Research

Traditional interpersonal communication research and theory are limited, first, by a culture-specific system of understandings of the nature of persons, relationships, and communication itself that creates scope conditions for theory that generally go unrecognized, and, second, by focusing on practices and processes of communication without detailed consideration of the culturally shared understandings that make them sensible. In overcoming these limitations, ethnography of speaking is used to describe a notion of interpersonal ideology as a system of beliefs within which people live out their interactional lives. Interpersonal ideology, from this view, is a set of premises about personhood, relationships, and communication that structure negotiation of meaning through language use within a speech community. This conceptualization of ideology is distinguished from a critical approach and illustrated by way of description of three broad categories of interpersonal communication/relationships in which such ...

Cognitive aspects of ethnographic inquiry

This article proposes that despite an explicit emphasis on language in use, the interpretive nature of ethnography (especially ethnography of speaking) and its commitment to examining cultural meanings from the native’s point of view requires inclusion of discourse presumed to relate to cognitive processes such as memory, belief, and imagination. An example of a difficult interaction is used as the basis for an argument that forms of metacommunication often elicited in ethnographic interviews, when unproblematically approached as talk similar to that found in everyday storytelling, are a common avenue for incorporating cognitive aspects of social interaction into such research.

DESIRE AND SACRIFICE: SEEKING COMPLIANCE IN DESIGNATED DRIVER TALK

Media campaigns introduced the term designated driver to United States discourse in an effort to persuade people to not drink and drive. This study explores implementation of the media campaigns objective in social interactions. We describe cultural premises related to drinking and driving, facework issues in designated driver talk, and relational resources relevant to designating a driver. Although people routinely attempt to designate a driver, interpretations of the term often diverge from the goal of eliminating drunk driving. The findings emphasize that designated driver talk is constructed through interaction sequences, and that problematic issues around face threats and cultural assumptions about drinking and driving should be addressed.

Core Research Traditions Within Language and Social Interaction

Research undertaken by members of the Language and Social Interaction Division of the ICA addresses diverse topics, often topics of interest to scholars in other divisions as well. But it is not the topics that particular studies address that distinguish and coalesce work in language and social interaction (LSI); it is what these studies contribute directly or indirectly to helping us understand. Work within the core traditions of LSI research gives primary emphasis to the discursive practices through which persons construct or produce the realities of social life (e.g., action, relationship, community, identity, conflict or cooperation, organization, power). And a further, more basic, commonality underlying work in LSI is that it contributes to our understanding of what persons do, on what basis, to produce socially meaningful action and achieve (or fail to achieve) mutual understanding. Following an initial overview of LSI research and its main traditions in these basic terms, this essay gives more detailed attention to the goals, methods, and topics in the two most populous areas of LSI research: the ethnography of speaking and conversation analysis.