COMMRC 0300 WEEK 1
Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel)
Study of common-sense knowledge and range of procedures by which ordinary members of society make sense of , find ways about in, and act on circumstances in which they find selves (Ways people use knowledge & context to make sense out of life)
Pragmatic
The ability to use communication to achieve various functions of communication: ask questions, inform, etc.
Why study culture?
The best answer is the world is not nearly as "big" and we are not nearly as isolated as we once were.
Hidden Curriculum
The informal and unofficial aspects of culture that people are taught in school or simply living in the culture, lifelong process (Social cues & Body Language)
Symbol System
The organized and particular ways symbols are arranged to make sense in culture.
Demonstration 1: Breaching the Congruence of Relevances (Garfinkel Example)
The subject was telling the experiment, member of the subject's car pool, about having had a flat tire while going to work the previous day. (s): "I had a flat tire." (e): "What do you mean, you had a flat tire?" (assuming someone know what you are talking about)
Rules only govern ___________ never thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.
behaviors
Children's success in learning the complex communicative system is integrally related to their ________________ development.
cognitive
Rules are contextual. They do not ___________________________.
function in all situations
2 Ways to Study Culture
• Emic approach (interpretative, from within) • Etic approach (as observer)
Reasons for Increased Intercultural Exchange
• New Technologies • Globalization of the Economy • Change in immigration patterns
Semantic
Refers to the minimal units of meaning, morphemes
Demonstration 4: Breaching the Grasp of "What Anyone Knows" to be Correct Grounds of Action of a Real Social World (Garfinkel Example)
Challenging medical student's view of an medical interview
____________ can be broken; ______ cannot be broken.
Rules; laws
Definiton of Culture
"An historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which (human) communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life."
Family of Rules (i.e. "Be nice") The Rule: The Counter-Rule: Rule about Qualification and Exceptions: Consequences of breaking the Rule: The Rule that tells how the Rule us to be Implemented:
1. Be nice 2. Be bad 3. Except to people who are unkind to you 4. We punish people go around making trouble 5. Speak softly
Characteristics of Culture
1. Learned (not innate) 2. Created 3. Rule Governed (not law governed) 4. Comprise of symbol systems (verbal and nonverbal codes) 5. Changing 6. Distinctive (specific to time and place) 7. Constraining / Ethnocentric
Ethnography
A description of people's culturally distinctive patterns of comm, including use of artifacts, rules, stories, rituals, etc.
Rules
A followable prescription that indicates what behavior is obligated, preferred, or prohibited in certain contexts
Cultural Dichotomies
Distinctions or Differences between Cultures: • Elaborated Codes vs Restrictive Codes • Individualistic vs Collectivists • Low Context vs High Context
Ethnocentrism
Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one's own culture.
Demonstration 2: Breaching the Interchangeability of standpoints (Garfinkel Example)
Experiment enters a store and selects a customer then treats customer as a clerk without giving recognition that the subject was any other person than what the experimenter took him /her to be without indicating that experimenter's treatment was anything different than reasonable and legitimate.
Demonstration 3: Breaching the Expectancy that a Knowledge of a Relationship of Interaction is a Commonly Entertained Scheme of Communication (Garfinkel Example)
Experimenter treat a situation as something that it "obviously" and "realy" was not.
Example of Symbol System with a flag:
Flag represent a nation or group, but the flag at half mast, drape on a coffin or displayed in a triangular case means different things.
What is an example of Culture at any particular time varies from place to place?
Plural of you (you, yous, yinz, y'all) Saying water
Anthropologically Strange
Premise in ethnography that things must be seen as if for the first time.
Phonologic
Refers to learning to perceive and produce phonemes, the minimal sound unit of meaning: speech sounds, sound patterns, and rules of sound organization
Semantic Competency
Refers to the ability to perceive and use the vocabulary of the language and increase with the child's development
Syntactic
Refers to the grammar of language; mastery occurs in developmental stages
Symobol
Verbal and non-verbal codes - the words, actions, and artifacts used by a culture.
Elaborated Codes vs Restrictive Codes
o Elaborated Codes: Explicit, Explain things and less on context o Restrictive Codes: Implicit, Relying on context for its meaningfulness
Characteristics of Rules
o Followable o Prescriptive o Behavior-specific o Contextual
Low Context vs. High Context
o Low context: Explicit communication and information o High context: Implicit communication and nonverbal cues. low context culture- ppl are expected to be direct and say what they mean high context-taught to speak in a less direct way. speech is more ambiguous