Analyzing Talk Among Friends Essay Example for Free

Analyzing Talk Among Friends EssayIn the preceding example, the vox Ahma git me gig was interpreted differently by the thespians in the fundamental interaction. So the question to be asked well-nigh Ahma git me gig is, what does it mean (how did the listeners arrive at their understandings), and what particular features of phrase and/or social spatial relation signal that implication? To arrive at an understanding of what the utterance meant, interpretations are not constructed solely from the speakers sentiment but are also gathered from the participants who heard the utterance. Later, others may be asked to listen to recording and assign their understandings of the utterance(s). Then, the analysts task is to make an in-depth study of the selected instances of verbal interaction, observe whether or not actors understand each other, dismiss participants interpretations of what goes on, and then () deduce the social assumptions that speakers must guard in order to ac t as they do, and (b) sink empirically how linguistic signs communicate in the interpretation process ( Gumperz 1982 35).In the analytic thinking of the example tell here, for instance, Gumperz was able to show that most white speakers did not reckon to understand the utterance other than as lapse into dialect or saw the switch to Black English as rejection of whites and the speaker addressing himself however to other black students.Black students, however, explained the students remark as an attempt to respectableify himself by appealing to others in the group, m just playing the game as we blacks must do if we are to get along in white world, while also identifying particular rhythm in the utterance that led them to their interpretation. Thus, features of language carry social meaning that plays significant role in interpreting what speakers mean (see Gumperz 1982 29-37 for detailed report of this example and its interpretation).While this example should make any inte rpreter wonder how they are interpreting meaning of speakers who differ in some way, such as region of the country, age, ethnicity, gender, my point here is about the analysis of natural language and how confabulation analysts determine what speakers mean and how language conveys elements of meaning. Using these methods to analyze interpreted discourse is way of understanding how the participants in an interpreted interaction understand each other at the time.Gumperz proposed that opening of discourse must take into account twain the linguistic and socio-cultural intimacy that an interlocutor must have to maintain involvement in an interaction, Accounting for such knowledge demonstrates two things (1) meanings are jointly constructed in the midst of speakers as they talk, and (2) conversations contain internal evidence of their outcomes, that is, the ways in which participants share, partially share, or do not share, mutual conventions for meaning and how they succeed in ach ieving their communicative ends.Tannen reached similar conclusion. She called such linguistic and social knowledge conventions by which meaning is communicated in social interaction (1984 151). In Conversational Style Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Tannen (1984) analyse two and half hours of conversation over Thanksgiving dinner.She defined and discussed features of conversational involvement, such as topic, walk (how relatively fast or slow one spoke), narrative strategies (in what order events are told, how speakers made their point, etc.), and communicative paralinguistic (intonation, pitch, and others), which together pattern in different ways the speech of different participants. For three of the speakers, these features combined in acceptable ways of having conversation, but three other speakers experienced the same conversation as peculiar and their participation faltered. When speakers share conventions for signaling meaning, they can be said to share conversational style ( Tannen 1984).Tannens address to studying discourse, modeled after Gumperz, is characterized by (1) recording naturally occurring conversations (2) identifying segments in which communication may seem to flounder or be troublesome (3) looking for patterned differences in signaling meaning that could account for trouble (4) playing the recording, or segment of it, back to participants to elicit their spontaneous interpretations and reactions, and also, perhaps later, eliciting their responses to the researchers interpretations and (5) playing segments of the interaction for other members of the cultural groups represented by the speakers to discern patterns of interpretation. Tannens study suggests that within an interpreted interaction speakers who do not share common language also have conversational styles that they do not inescapably share with the interpreter.For example, Tannen (1994) has demonstrated that discourse approach to gender and language, following in the t radition of Gumperz, can be understood by looking for differences in the way women and men signal meaning in conversation. This has smashing implications for interpreters what happens when interpreters do not share conversational style with one or both speakers? Many interpreters are women who interpret for men. Do they understand male strategies for asking questions or giving randomness? Do men understand female strategies? As her research demonstrates, the notion of cross-cultural encompasses more than just speakers of different languages or from different countries it includes speakers from the same country of different class, region, age, and even gender ( Tannen 1985 2o3).Gumperzs analysis of shortened utterances located within social scene and Tannens analysis of single extended interaction via the same analytic and interpretive framework provide rigorous methodology for analyzing conversational interactions, including interpreted conversations. Their emphasis on solic iting participant reactions and interpretations, along with close transcription of contextualization cues in language, provides framework for going beyond mere structural interpretation of an interpreted encounter to an intense scrutiny of turn-taking as experienced by the participants, including phenomena such as synchronic turn-taking.