Communication as a resource for Latin American immigrant settlement in the United States: An ethnography of communication

In this dissertation, I investigate the uses and meanings (Hymes, 1972/1986) of various metacommunicative terms, or talk about talk (Philipsen, 1992, p. 72) of a speech community. This speech community is comprised of Latin American immigrants residing in the United States and the staff members who serve them at an immigrant support center (ISC hereafter). I apply Hymes\u27s (1962, 1972/1986, 1974) ethnography of communication to investigate the uses and meanings of the metacommunicative practices of the ISC speech community, which I treat as demonstrating communication practices available for speakers at ISC. In addition to investigating their metacommunicative practices, I also explore the relational alignments , or understandings of the self, other(s), and self and others (Covarrubias, 2002, p. 33) that manifest in ISC community members\u27 talk and mediate their use of various metacommunicative terms. To begin my investigation, I conducted a pilot study at ISC that included 2 months of participant observation of everyday talk at ISC, 7 in-depth interviews with ISC participants and staff, and the collection of public documents produced by ISC participants and staff (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). Building on the findings from the pilot study, I conducted the main study for the current research, which included five months of participant observation at ISC, in-depth interviews with 30 ISC participants and staff members, and collection of the public documents they produced. I apply Strauss and Corbin (1990) and Charmaz\u27s (2006) coding procedures to analyze the data and generate themes. To provide context for these themes, I draw from the literature concerning speech codes theory (Philipsen, 1992, 1997; Philipsen, Coutu, & Covarrubias, 2005), metacommunication (Carbaugh, 1989; Carbaugh, Berry, & Nurmikari-Berry, 2006; Carbaugh, Boromisza-Habashi, & Ge, 2006; Leighter & Black, 2010; Leighter & Castor, 2009; Katriel, 1986), communication and immigration (Amaya, 2007; Cheng, 2012; de Fina & King, 2011; Henry, 1999; Kim, 1977, 2005; Santa, Ana, Morán, & Sanchez, 1998; Sowards & Pineda, 2013), and Latin American immigration (Hagan, 1998; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994, 2003; Menjívar, 2000, 2003, Parrado & Flippen, 2005; Pessar, 2003). I identified 24 available communication practices for speakers at ISC, marked by the use of different metacommunicative terms. I apply Carbaugh\u27s (1989) theory of metacommunication to categorize each practice based on its level (act, event, style), describe the content transmitted via the practice, and identify its functions. Then, I identified six relational alignments (Covarrubias, 2002) that I treat as mediating, or making these communication practices meaningful for the ISC speech community. Given these findings, I propose that ISC staff members may leverage the uses and meanings (Hymes, 1972/1986) of these available communication practices for ISC community members, by creating programming that utilizes these communication practices. Furthermore, the relational alignments (Covarrubias, 2002) that ISC community members implicate through their talk can be fostered to assist in the utilization of the culturally relevant programming created at ISC. Therefore, increased knowledge related to the available communication practices and relationships through which these practices are meaningful can increase accessibility and thus the utilization of resources offered at ISC. Access and utilization of ISC\u27s resources assists Latin American immigrants in making lives in the United States. Furthermore, I propose that communication itself serves as a resource (Leighter & Castor, 2009) that provides more than an information giving and receiving function (Carbaugh, 1989) for its users and is therefore worthy of specific investigation

Performing the Circular economy: how an ambiguous discourse is managed and maintained through meetings

The circular economy (CE) is seen as a structural solution to society's sustainability problems. But with a large diversity of definitions, CE is also often portrayed as immature or in need of conceptual synthesis. Rather than treating the bemoaned ambiguity as a problem, in this article we analyse its implications on CE practice at the example of meetings aimed at popularising CE to businesspeople. To this end, we build on a grounded theory approach to analyse ethnographic and participant observations of CE meetings in Sweden from a performativity perspective. We identify four major communication norms that are enabled by ambiguity in the observed meetings, and simultaneously manage and maintain this ambiguity. The communication norms consist of implicit standards for how people ought to act, talk, respond, and reflect in the meetings. We contribute to CE scholarship by showing how ambiguity is not a sign of failure or immaturity, but an integral and productive part of CE discourse, as it enables diverse actors to congregate around shared aims. Our findings may help CE practitioners and scholars to make explicit the ambiguity of the CE concept in meetings, and ultimately to navigate in debates about what society and economy we want to live in

Classroom talk: a socio linguistic study

This study analyses aspects of teaching as a speech event, using naturalistic data collected by participant observation and audio-reocordlng in classroom settings. It uses sociolinguistic concepts to analyse teachers' talk) and uses the classroom as a focus for developing sociolinguistic theory on conversational data collected in a well-defined social setting. The work is explicitly interdisciplinary, integrating concepts from different academic fields

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation is a qualitative case study of organizing for sustainability, which is an ambiguous term that has been part of public discussion of environmental issues since at least 1987. A growing number of organizations employ sustainability officers responsible for communicating with internal and external audiences. Since this sort of work is becoming more common, scholarship investigating the intersections of sustainability, organizing, and communication is needed. This study followed the development of an office of sustainability at a large U.S. public university from the fall of 2007 to the spring of 2010. The author engaged in longterm participant observation, conducted 20 in-depth individual interviews, and two group interviews with employees and partners of the office of sustainability. This study's research questions focus upon lay theories of communication, organizing, and persuasion. The author develops a uniquely interpretive approach to reconstructing and assessing lay theories of communication. Employing this analytic framework, the author addresses participants' lay theorizing of intraorganizational advocacy, voice, and communication ethics. Findings show that study participants navigate at least three tensions when cultivating a collective environmental voice on campus, and theorize communication in ways that discourage or disparage overt influence and the direct engagement of communication ethics in discussions about sustainability. The study demonstrates the value of inquiry into sustainability advocates' metacommunication in addition to their communication strategies and practices

Interpersonal communication

Husband and wife, parent and child, priest and penitent, supervisor and employee, the \u27happy hour\u27 regulars at the corner pub - almost all of us communicate interpersonally every day. Important decisions can depend on success or failure in carrying out this process. Ultimately, it probably is of far more practical importance than mass media communication. But what do we really know about it? As the author of this issue points out, only three of the last forty issues of Trends have focussed on topics which can be labelled \u27interpersonal communication\u27. Most of the other\u27s have been devoted to various aspects of mass communication. While trying to rectify this neglect, we have to recognize some obstacles. Those studying interpersonal communication often are not able to define just where it ends and other categories of communication begin. The field is handled differently in different countries. In the United States it has been welcomed within the fold of communication science, although others, such as psychologists and anthropologists, have long been interested in it. In Europe and elsewhere it is most often a part of psychology. To describe the study of interpersonal communication on a worldwide basis therefore is a challenging task. We have elected, for the sake of coherence, to limit our survey to the North American perspective: interpersonal communication treated as a subfield of communication studies. The references, bibliography and current research sections do try to suggest the broader geographic and disciplinary range of relevant efforts, and hopefully a future issue of Trends will be able to deal with the same topic as it is more characteristically studied in other academic traditions

Discordant Place-Based Literacies in the Hilton Head, South Carolina Runway Extension Debate

In making a case for ecocomposition, Sidney Dobrin has claimed that writing, place, and environment cannot be separated. As Donehower, Hogg, and Schell and Deborah Brandt might argue, literacy cannot be separated from place either. But it might sometimes be separated from environment as an ecosystem that has value distinct from, and without the influence of, humans. In the Hilton Head, South Carolina airport runway extension debate, how stakeholders read, write, and speak of the land next to the airport is inherently connected to how they interact with that place and with each other. But they do not read and write of the land as a valuable ecosystem. Opposition to the runway extension has nothing to do with environmental impacts. The place is valued for economic, social, and historical reasons. As an environment, it is not much considered

A Model of Natural Language Dialogue

In this thesis I have a threefold purpose. Firstly, I will attempt to argue that the individual utterances agents make in natural language dialogue stem from specific beliefs, goals, and plans and that these interlock with those of other agents in the production of dialogue. I suggest that agents utilise syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and contextual knowledge in this process. Furthermore, that these elements contribute to the utterances speakers make and hearers interpret in the pursuit of their individual goals, and cannot be treated separately. I will suggest that utterances, being intentional behaviour, are sub-components of plans to achieve specific communicative purposes. Following from this, I will present a descriptive model showing how the beliefs and goals of agents contribute to the composing of a logical form for an utterance prior to its syntactic representation. It is suggested that the logical form of an utterance, is composed of elements relating to the agent's beliefs and goals, and includes pragmatic and contextual elements and that these are present prior to the utterance being made and predispose the choice of eventual syntactic components. I do not attempt to model the syntactic form of the utterances but limit the model of the agents to a display to each other of their logical forms and show how these might be interpreted and elicit responses from the hearer in furtherance of their goals. My third purpose is to present a hand-simulated process of this model, to demonstrate how a particular dialogue might be constructed by two agents. This is attempted by ascribing a set of beliefs to them and providing them with specific goals. In the final chapter, the achievements and inadequacies of this research are summarised, and possible improvements and developments suggested in the context of current and future directions

The Everyday Use of pretend in Child Language and Child-Directed Speech: A Corpus Study

This dissertation investigates the everyday use of the lexical item ‘pretend’ in child language and child-directed speech. More specifically, it analyses corpus data on the use of ‘pretend’ from the perspective of usage-based approaches, Cognitive Linguistics, and developmental psychology. Pretend play is of central importance in children’s daily lives. It has also been shown to be an important factor in children’s social and cognitive development as well as in their language development. (e.g. Bergen 2002; Quinn et al. 2018). In turn, language acquisition also has an important relationship with the complexity of pretend play (e.g., Quinn et al. 2018). Pretend play has also been shown to be an important context in which children learn how to share perspectives using language. It is therefore not surprising that, as Lillard (2007: 136) notes, “[l]inguistic cues to pretending are the most researched topic in the area of how pretend differs from real.” There have been numerous experimental and diary studies of children’s use of pretend language (e.g. Bunce & Harris 2008). The pretend lexicon of children is therefore of immense research interest. However, little is actually known about how children use these words in their everyday life (Bunce & Harris 2008: 446). In particular, we lack corpus studies investigating how the lexical item ‘pretend’ is actually used by children and caregivers in their everyday interactions. This dissertation represents such a study, using two CHILDES corpora: The Thomas-Corpus (Lieven et al. 2009) and the Manchester Corpus (Theakston et al. 2001), focusing on the use of the lexical item ‘pretend’. The study examines the distribution and use of the lexical item ‘pretend’. It also investigates the conceptual domains evoked by and associated with ‘pretend’ utterances using methodological tools from Cognitive Linguistics. The data show that pretend play utterances become more complex over the course of language acquisition, both in terms of the complexity of children’s utterances and in terms of the types of pretend play they engage in. In addition, as they grow older, children become more active negotiators and initiators of pretend play. Children thus express and negotiate increasingly complex perspectives on pretend play scenarios in interactions with their caregivers

Communication strategies in Edward Albee's and Martin Walser's work : a comparative study

This thesis is based on a comparative study of plays by two contemporary authors: Die Zimmerschlacht and Ein fliehendes Pferd by the German author Martin Walser and A Delicate Balance by the American playwright Edward Albee. Critics have stressed the emphasis which both playwrights lay on dialogue as the driving force of their dramatic art. Hence an analysis with pragmatics appears particularly pertinent. I demonstrate that methods and findings from linguistic pragmatics applied to ordinary language are equally relevant to critical analysis of dramatic action. My work draws in a broad but targeted way on pragmatic devices mainly from three different studies: G. Leech, The Principles of Pragmatics, P. B. Brown and S. C. Levinson, Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage and P. Watzlawick, J. B. Bavelas, D. D. Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication. A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes. I elaborate on how the tenets of pragmatics expose levels of meanings and character’s motivations not immediately derivable from the surface structure of utterances. I aim to provide pragmatic devices to explore a character’s behaviour and communicational targets and also focus on the level of communication between playwrights and audiences. Not withstanding their cultural differences both authors reveal similarities in their approach. They are concerned with social reality and its effect on human relations. Although not overtly political the plays by the two authors clearly denounce the refusal of individuals to engage beyond their own interests as social conformism thereby suggesting the necessity of embracing a more tolerant and empathetic attitude. Language is shown to illustrate the individual struggle between social demands, private desire and demands of contemporary society