Since I speak both English and Japanese, basically I belong to two speech community. Moreover, because I am taking Chinese class, although it is a short period, I also join Chinese speech community. But the basic communities are English and Japanese. Most of the day, I need to speak English to communicate, and the main topic is about the classes and the contents we learn in the classes. Since most time I speak with people of the same age, I use casual words in my speech.
The conversation I observed was about the boy who speaker likes. The speaker was explaining how she was happy when she could be the same group with him for the group project.
Also, I paid attention when I heard people talking to catch the forms of address. People used many kinds of address, such as: First name, nickname, generic terms (buddy, guy[s], girl[s]). Although there were many ways of address, obviously people were using them to show their friendship.
I did my observation at the dining hall on February 5th. The conversation took place during the speaker and listeners were eating lunch. Four girls, one was the speaker and others were the listeners. They seemed to be playful and excited.
-Key
In the beginning of the conversation, both speaker and listeners' tone, pitch, and loudness were normal. However, as the conversation advanced, their tone became higher, pitch became faster, and volume of the voice became louder. It was because they became excited with the content of the conversation.
-Ends
The purpose of the conversation was to tell how happy the speaker was, and to tell how she could be the same group with the boy.
-Norms
People usually know that interrupting the speaker is not good. However, because of the purpose of the conversation, when the listeners got excited, they often interrupted the speaker and asked her to tell more about the content. Although the speaker was interrupted many times, she did not seem to be angry with that. Also, all of them were frequently making eye contact. From this example, although there is a basic norm which people need to follow during the conversation, I think norm can be changed by the case.
There is a clear order in the conversation when both speaker(s) and listener(s) are in same speech community. However, it can be chaotic when speaker(s) and listener(s) have different speech community because it is hard to understand each other since they do not share same language. Also, if people do not have or lost the ability to speak or the ability to understand the language (like Genie did not have chance to develop her language ability during her critical period), the whole world may be chaotic because this world is strongly connected to the language.
Your project was definitely interesting, especially since you belong to so many language groups. I understand when you say that it might be chaotic.
ReplyDeleteI thought that it was amazing when we were told about the experiments where children actually died because they could not have a social experience. Stories like that are truely tragic.
I absoulutely understand you as a foreign student. I am also taking Chinese with you!!
ReplyDeleteI agree that it might be chaotic. Korean, English, and Chinese have different grammars and tones. However, learning language is exciting.
I definitely understand you, basically we belong to English and sour language.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree with you and Juhae.
We learning different language, so it might be chaotic. But it is really interesting.
As children we are always told not to interrupt because it is rude. It is funny how when we are within a specific situation and with close friends some rules are eliminated. The changing of rules seem chaotic but in the situation, to the speakers, it is ordered and normal.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that when you are talking rules get eliminated, when ever I am talking with a certain group of friends we interrupt and talk over each other all the time. We often get outsiders asking how we understand each other when we talk like that. It may seem chaotic to other people but to us we understand perfectly.
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