ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

1.Introduction

Communication is theoretically a neutral way of sharing knowledge or worldviews and of maintaining social relationships. Practically, some aspects of communication can vary according to geographical areas, social class, gender, age and level of education. Ethnography is a field of study that is concerned primarily with the description and analysis of culture, and linguistics is a field concerned, among other things, with the description and analysis of language codes (Troike, 2003). According to Crystal (2008) ethnography is a branch of linguistics that studies language in relationship to investigation of ethnic types and behavior.

Ethnography of communication relates ethnography, the description, and structural-functional analysis of society and culture, with the ‘language’ – a cultural behavior that navigates and helps to share knowledge, arts, morals, beliefs, and everything acquired by man as a member of society. The ethnography of communication is an approach, a perspective, and a method to and in the study of culturally distinctive means and meanings of communication. The approach can be use to produce hundreds of research reports about locally patterned practices of communication, and has focused attention primarily on the situated uses of language. It can also been productively applied to various other means and media of communication including oral and printed literature, broadcast media, writing systems, various gestural dynamics, silence, visual signs, the Internet, and so on.

To do it ‘language’, designed and structured by pattern of culture, acts as a communicative tool. Language carries and transmits social/cultural traits through generations. The role of speech behavior, one of the aspects of language, has always been significant in cultural anthropological research. Ethnography of Communication, the concept introduced by Del Hymes in late sixties, is an active action of human way of life. He and his associates constructed a model of ‘Speaking model while tried to understand society and culture of an ethnic group through communication process

2. Nature of the Approach

The approach is concerned with; (1) the linguistic resources people use in context, not just grammar in the traditional sense, but the socially situated uses and meanings of words, their relations, and sequential forms of expression; (2) the various media used when communicating, and their comparative analysis, such as online "messaging" and how it compares to face–to–face messaging; (3) the way verbal and nonverbal signs create and reveal social codes of identity, relationships, emotions, place, and communication itself.

Reports about these and other dynamics focus on particular ways a medium of communication is used, on particular ways of speaking, on the analysis of particular communicative events, on specific acts of communication, and on the role of communication in specific institutions of social life.

In addition to its focus on locally distinctive practices of communication, the ethnography of communication is also guided by a particular methodology and general concerns in theory development. As a theoretical perspective, it offers a range of concepts for understanding communication in any possible scene and/or community; as a methodology, it offers procedures for analyzing communication practices as formative of social life. The methodology typically involves various procedures for empirical analysis including participant observation in the contexts of everyday, social life, as well as interviewing participants about communication in those contexts.

3. The Origin of Ethnography of Communication

The ethnography of communication was founded by Dell Hymes In 1962. Hymes published a paper that called ‘a new area of study’, a kind of linguistics that explored language not just as a formal system of grammar, but as something culturally shaped in the contexts of social life. In 1964, Hymes and his colleague John Gumperz published a special section of the journal ‘American Anthropologist’, the basis of a highly influential reader on the subject, pioneering a general path for ethnographic studies of communication.

Some studies explored aspects of communication that were often ignored, such as gender role enactment, the social processes of litigation, marginalized styles, social uses of verbal play, and culturally distinctive styles of speaking. By the late 1980s and 1990s, a bibliography of over 250 research papers in the ethnography of communication was published, with another reader and several books appearing (e.g., Katriel 1986; Philipsen and Carbaugh 1986; Carbaugh 1990). These demonstrated how communication was a culturally distinctive activity while examining issues such as the ways communication varied by social agent and class, relationships between speaking and silence, as well as intercultural interactions.

4. Conceptualizing Basic Units of Communication

The ethnography of communication offers a system of concepts that can be used to conceptualize the basic phenomena of study, and a set of components for analyses of those phenomena in detail, however, the phenomena of study can be understood. Hymes introduced four concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication. They are (1) communication event, (2) communication act, (3) communication situation, and (4) speech community.

The concept of communication event has become a prominent starting point for these analyses; it draws attention to communicative action as formative of social processes and sequences. A communication event can be understood from the point of view of participants, an integral, patterned part of social life. Communication events typically involve a sequential structuring of acts, can be understood by formulating norms or rules about them, and involve culturally bounded aspects of social life which have a beginning and ending. Ethnographers of communication start their analyses by focusing on uses of the means and meanings of communication in particular socio–cultural lives. As a result, the locus of the study is on the practice of communication in contexts.

Communication events involve many kinds of actions. Events can be understood as the conduct of social actions, with communication act being the concept that brings together the performance of that action and its interpretation. One might say, e.g., "I enjoy hiking." This saying might perform many actions: it might be used to account for one's attire, to counter others with anti–hiking interests, and so on. The concept of communication act, then, ties ethnographic analyses to specific social interactions in order to understand the range of conduct and actions that is done by them. Communication acts are most typically parts of larger sequences of social actions and in this sense are often usefully conceptualized as integral aspects of communication events.

In any human community, there are many places where communication is expected or prohibited. These enter into ethnographies of communication as aspects of a setting in which communication itself occur. The concept of communication situation is used to identify specific settings and scenes for communication. For example, in some communities, communication situations involve the front porch, the television lounge, the bar, or a medical office. Unlike communication events, such as a church service, which are typically governed by a set of special rules and sequences, communication situations may involve activities with some particular limitation but without a strict sequencing of acts or activities.

A speech community is a group of people who share rules for using and interpreting at least one communication practice. A communication practice might involve specific events, acts, or situations, with the use and interpretation of at least one essential for membership in a speech community. The term "speech" is used here to stand in for various means of communication, verbal and nonverbal, written and oral; while the term "community," minimally involving one practice, usually involves many practices in general and thus used to embrace the diversity in the means and meanings available for communication.

As communities of people gather in communication, so do they conduct themselves in particular ways? It is these patterned ways of speaking (e.g., about politics, in worship, or in education that identify in which community one is, indeed who and where one is). In this sense, ethnographers of communication explore various ways of communicating, the situated variety in the events, acts, and situations of communicative life. Special interest are specific situations and events in which different cultural styles of communication are simultaneously active (Intercultural Sociolinguistics; Intercultural and Intergroup Communication; Intercultural Norms; Intergroup Contact and Communication).

5. The Ethnography of Speaking

People do not speak in uncontrolled manner. It means that there are factors which determine the production of utterances. Hymes (1974) proposed the term ‘SPEAKING’ to refer to the various factors which determine the do and the don’ts in the production of utterances. What Hymes offers is a necessary reminder that talk is a complex activity. In order to get successful communication, the speakers must reveal sensitivity to and awareness of each of the eight factors. Speakers and listeners must also work to see that nothing goes wrong. When conversation goes wrong, that going wrong is often clearly described in term of some neglect of one or more of the factors. Thus, in relation to the ethnography of speaking there are better speakers and poor speakers. A better speaker has special ability called communicative. Gumperrz (1972) stated that communicative ability is speaker’s ability to select from which appropriately reflect the social norms governing behavior in specific occasion.

SPEAKING is actually an acronym in which it consists of:

1. Setting and scene. Setting refers to the time and place while scene refers to the abstract psychological setting. Setting and scene will determine the choice of word in communication as it is made clear in the following example:

e.g. when Balinese come in into ‘griya’ (house of brahmana caste) they would likely use upper language instead of lower language. They will use ‘pewaregan’ instead of ‘paon’ even though they refer to the same concept that is kitchen. If the speakers do not use the upper class of language, they will be considered rude.

e.g. In relation to the scene, people are freely change scene for instance change of level of formality. These also influence the choice of words. As in change the level of formality is indicated by the words used. As in conversation Balinese commonly attended, when they say, for example ‘kene ne Man…’ the conversation will change from say joyful to serious. If this does not ignored by the listeners, the communication will collapse.

2. The participant. It refers to the people who are involved in communication. It includes various combination of speaker-listener, addressor-addressee, or sender-receiver. They generally fill the social specified roles. The relationship between the speakers-listeners limits the words used.

e.g. when parents talk to the children, they tend to avoid to use words that are considered taboo. Words such as ‘cai, leak, endasne or words denote private part of human body’ are avoided to use when speak to children.

3. Ends. Ends refer to recognized and expected outcomes of an exchange as well as to the personal goals that participant seek to accomplish on particular occasion.

e.g. this is commonly found in the drama gong (Balinese traditional drama play), Arja (Balinase opera) or puppet play which are aimed at amusing spectator. The actor generally uses words which denote physical deficiency such as ‘selem badeng kotot, endas talenan, gigi sambeng or etc. These words when are used in this occasion which are intended at amusing spectator will not give bad consequence but, when this kind of words are used in common conversation speaker may get punishment or may be considered rude.

4. Act sequence. Act sequence refers to the actual form and content of what is said: the precise words used, how they are used, and the relationship of what is said to the actual topic at hand.

e.g. what is said has to be relevant to the topic discussed. When talk about deity, Balinese will prefer to use words ‘lunga’ than ‘luas’ (these two words refer to the concept of movement to one place) or ‘mapakayunan’ rather then ‘nagih’(these two words refer to the desirability)

5. Key. Key refers to the tone, manner, or spirit in which a particular message is conveyed: serious, precise, sarcastic etc. The key may also be marked by certain kind of behavior, gesture, posture, or even deportment. When there is a lack of fit between what a person is saying and the key that person is using, listener are likely to pay attention on the key then to the actual content.

e.g. ‘nah’ when is used along with smile will indicate agreeing but, when ‘nah’ is said along with lurking aye and high intonation it indicate that the speakers are not with the listeners.

6. Instrumental. Instrumental refers to the choice of channel, e.g. written and oral and to the actual form of speech employed such as language, dialect, code that is chosen.

e.g. person who wants to be socially accepted, he may use dialect appropriate to the community attended. When go to Singaraja one may use ‘ake’, to Gianyar may use ‘cang’ or to Karangasem ‘tiyang’. These three words are first pronoun. When the uses of these pronouns are not considered speakers may be outed from the community. Do not even try to use word ‘ake’ in Karangasem because no one uses this word in Karangasem.

7. Norm of interaction and interpretation. Norm of interaction and interpretation refers to the specific behavior and properties that attach to speaking and also to how these may be viewed by someone who does not share them. However this norm may vary from social group to social group.

e.g. when directing Balinese usually use their right hand not their left hand. Balinese will say ‘ditu ye bedaja’ with their right hand pointing to the north.

8. Genre. Genre refers to the clearly divided type of utterance; such as things as poem, proverbs, riddle and lecture etc.

e.g. when you hear someone talk about ‘branangan, saet, saya, and ringgit’. From these words it can be concluded that he talks about cock fighting. Thus type of talk or genre of the talk can be identified by the use of specific words as indicated in the above example.

6. Data Gathering

First thing to note in conducting ethnographic research is that researcher should involve in every activities conducted by the member of the social community observed. The observation of a particular community is not attained from a distant and safe point but by being in the middle of things, that is, by participating in as many social events as possible. Researcher should at least be in the middle of community for about 6 moths.

Having understood with the basis nature of ethnography research, research should understand that they have to find certain commonalities among the members of the group, certain shared or mutually intelligible habits, social activities, ways of interacting and interpreting social acts. This is important, as generally community member will share the same knowledge among their group member.

In order to gather the data there some techniques used. They are:

1. Participant observation

In this technique, researchers intensively interact with other participant and might even get to participate in and perform the very activity they are studying. In the case of linguistic fieldwork, complete participation means being able to interact competently in the native language and even perform the verbal genres one is studying. Complete participation, when possible and ethically appropriate, gives researchers a great opportunity to directly experience the very processes they are trying to document. Though it is by no means equivalent to entering the mind and body of a native speaker, performing gives a researcher important insights into what it means to be a participant in a given situation and suggests hypotheses and further questions.

This technique has its weaknesses. The participation of the researcher in communities implies an attention to one’s role and one’s perception by others that can be very absorbing and, from the point of view of documenting what is going on, extremely distracting. Researchers should restrain themselves from complete participation. They have to stand and sit the least intrusive place. This is called blind spot. Other deficiency is that researchers have to find right demeanor for a given place. Sometimes this means that they must be immobile so as not to draw attention; other times, it means that they have to keep busy. There is also some occasion which is forbidden for stranger to enter.

2. Interview

Researchers are continuously asking questions and many of the questions they ask are about topics and issues they are trying to make sense of. In this sense, researchers’ questions are never useless even though any answers given are least informative, the answer might be quite informative for the researcher sometimes later.

Interview is good for obtaining background cultural information that is crucial for understanding particular speech exchanges researches are studying. The interview might be an occasion for getting a linguistic corpus for studying grammatical forms, stylistic variations, and attitudes toward the language (Hill and Hill 1986) in.

The weakness of this technique is that this technique is rarely providing the richness of information needed for culturally linguistic analysis. There are also differences among society about conceptualizing what interview is. Some societies believe that asking for personal motivation is not allowed. In relation to asking question, researcher should know about the ecology of asking question, that is who is allowed to question who, when and how.

Interview is differentiated as spoken interview and written questionnaire. Spoken interview is generally used for illiterate community while written questionnaire is usually used to eliminate the felling being interrogated.

3. Electronic recording

The introduction of recording machines such as the tape recorder and the video camera (or camcorder) among the field researcher’s tools has a number of advantages over the traditional method of participant-observation based on the researcher’s skills at listening, seeing, and (most importantly) remembering – whether or not aided by written notes. The ability to stop the flow of discourse or the flow of body movement, go back to a particular spot and replay it allows us to concentrate on what is sometimes a very small detail at the time, including a particular sound or a person’s small gesture.

The weakness of using electronic recording is that participant-observer paradox. To collect information researchers need to observe interaction, but to observe interaction (in ethically acceptable ways) we need to be in the scene; therefore, any time researchers observe they affect what they see because others monitor our presence and act accordingly.

4. Writing interaction

Ethnography can not be done without writing. Even though, the concept of writing interaction presents problem on the basis of accuracy of the record of a given expression, it is still needed as there is no perfect recording device that would reproduce the exact context of the recorded event. By writing researchers are expected to record what is other device can not record, for instance the data which occurs unexpectedly.

5. Identifying and using local language.

There is no question that researchers should try their best to become familiar with the language used by the people they study. This is important not only for the ability to conduct interviews without interpreters but also for understanding what is going on. The researchers attempt to speak the local language might sound; they symbolize a commitment, and show respect and appreciation for the cultural heritage of the people they study.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult for researchers to be already fluent in the local language before arriving at the field site.

Conclusion

It can be conclude that :

1. Ethnography of communication is the study of place of a language in culture and society.

2. Ethnography can be seen as an approach, a perspective, and a method.

3. Ethnography offers an account to conceptualize the basic phenomena of study, and a set of components for analyses of those phenomena in detail, however, the phenomena of study can be understood. Hymes introduced four concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication. They are (1) communication event, (2) communication act, (3) communication situation, and (4) speech community

4. People do not speak in unmannered ways. There is set of rule that governs the way people speak. Hymes refers to this rule as SPEAKING. It consists of S=setting, P=participant, E=end, A=act of sequence, K=key, I=instrument, N=norm of instruction and interpretation, G=genre.

5. In conducting ethnography research, there are some techniques that can be used to gather the data. They are participant observation, interview, electronic recording, writing interaction, and using local language.

References:

Duranti, alessandro. 1997. Linguistics anthropology. Cambridge university press. New york

Carbaugh, D. 2007. Ethnography of Communication. University of Massachusetts. Selected Work. [available at : http://works.bepress.com/donal_carbaugh/12] [ viewed on 1st December 2011]

Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth edition. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishing.

Saville-Troike, M. 2003. The Ethnography of Communication. Third edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.