Socio linguistics

1. ETHNO-METHODOLOGY
Ethno-methodologyisamethodof sociological analysisthatexamineshow individualsuse everydayconversation to
construct a common-sense view of the world. It was introduced by Harold Garfinkel (an American Sociologist) in
1954. The subjectmatterof Ethnomethodology ismethodsandpracticesthroughwhichpeoplemake sense of their
world.
Ethnomethodologistsare interestedinthe processesandtechniquesthat people use to interpret the world around
them and to interact with that world. They are interested in trying to discover the categories and systems that
people use inmakingsense of the world.Therefore,theydonotconduct large-scale surveys of populations, devise
sophisticated theoretical models of social organization, or hypothesize that some social theory or other will
adequately explain social organization. Instead, they focus on the phenomena of everyday existence.
As Leiter states, “the aim of ethno-methodology . . . is to study the processes of sense making (idealizing and
formulizing) thatmembersof society... use to construct the social world.” Ethnomethodologists are interested in
such mattersas howpeople interact,solve commonproblems,maintain social contacts, perform routine activities,
and show Ethnographiesthattheyknowwhatisgoingonaround themand communicate thatknowledge to others.
We can use a simple linguisticexample toshowthatwe cannot hope to understandothersif we donot share certain
background assumptions with those others. Only when there is such sharing is communication possible. In
unpublishedwork,Sacksgivesthe followingexample of atwo-sentence sequence to illustrate this point: ‘The baby
cried. The mommy picked it up.’ How do we understand these two sentences from a child? How do they
communicate? We understand that mommy in the second sentence refers to the mother of baby in the first, but
there is nothing in the structure of the sentences themselves to tell us this. All we have is a connection between
babyand mommyachievedthroughmentioninsuccessivesentences.Sacksclaimsthatinsuch cases there are what
he calls membership categorization devices which allow us to assign certain meanings to words like baby and
mommy.Inthiscase, we putthe words into a set like baby, mommy, daddy rather than one like baby, child, adult;
consequently, we understand that it is the baby’s mother who is involved in the second sentence.
Note that we interpret the following relationship quite differently: ‘The baby cried. The adult picked it up.’ One
assumptionwe apparentlyshare withothers whouse suchsentences(andwiththe childwhousedthe original pair)
is that the world is ordered in such a way that there are certain categories of relationships that are expressed
through language. To interpret particular sentences or sets of sentences, we must have some knowledge of the
categoriesthatspeakers findrelevant(Sacks,1972a, 1972b). Thisknowledgeof membership categorization devices
is socially acquired. It is also the kind of knowledge in which ethnomethodologists are interested.