Dr. Anna Marie Trester and Sonia Checchia from Georgetown University's Linguistics Department discuss sociolinguistics and its application to cross-cultural training. They explain key concepts from interactional sociolinguistics like contextualization cues, speech acts, discourse markers and referencing expressions that can enhance understanding of language and social interaction. The presentation demonstrates these concepts and how they reveal cultural assumptions. It aims to add analytical tools to help recognize how power and perspective are communicated through language.

1. Interactional Sociolinguistics:
Tools for Analyzing Language and
Communication in Cross-Cultural Training
Dr. Anna Marie Trester & Sonia Checchia
Linguistics Department, Georgetown University
M.A. Program in Language and Communication

2. Sociolinguistics
The study of language in its social context.
Sociolinguists are interested in how language
impacts society, and conversely in how
society may have an impact on language.
We look for patterns!

3. Anna’s background
Dissertation research with Washington Improv
Theater.
Interactional Style of Improvisational Theater
performers
– Ethnography to uncover aspects of conversational style
– Their way of using language says something about what
they value (careful listening, wordplay, storytelling, creation
of characters) contributes to a sense of belonging for group
members.

4. “Language of Diversity” panel
Discussion for diversity practitioners (AARP,
CIL, NY Times Company, Defense Equal
Opportunity Management Institute)
Began by asking participants to address the
following questions:
a) What is a new emerging term dealing with
diversity in the workplace?
b) What is a term you no longer hear or shouldn't
hear in today's workplace?

5. Referring Expressions
referring expressions vs. address terms
(“those people,” “old guys”)
Issues of power and solidarity
(“the girls” “kids”)
finding terms that “put the person first”
(“wheelchair”) – (Castania 2003)
Presupposition / Deixis (“reverse
discrimination” “disabled”)

6. What a Linguist Brings to the table
Expose underlying assumptions
Insight into how power and worldview
are produced and reproduced through
language
Raise awareness of the ways that
language can embed our own
perspective

7. What we hope to accomplish today
Add some critical and analytical tools for analyzing
language to your toolkit
Introduce some interactional sociolinguistic concepts
– Reference
– Contextualization Cues
– Speech acts
– Discourse Markers
Demonstrate how these concepts can enhance our
understanding of language and social interaction

8. Introductions
But before we get too far into today’s
workshop, we want to know a little bit
about you all
Could we go around the room and have
you each briefly introduce yourselves?

9. What we “saw” as we were “listening”
Intonation
Transition Relevance Place
Topic
Discourse Markers
Awareness of Frame – “what is going on
here” (Erving Goffman)
Speed
Volume
Aka “Contextualization Cues”

10. Contextualization Cues
When we speak, we provide cues for the context
in which our utterances should be taken.
They signal how talk is meant to be received by
the listener.
Contextualization cues signal things ranging from
interpersonal contexts (I am being friendly) to
aspects of speech events (this is a joke).

11. Intonation
Lists (Schiffrin 2006)
“positive politeness marker to
emphasize speaker-hearer solidarity &
to assist in the cooperative
management of talk” (Britain 1998).

12. Interactional Sociolinguistics
John Gumperz Discourse Strategies
– pioneered analyses of sources of
misunderstanding in cross-cultural encounters
Focus on forms of language that are not
often explicitly studied (e.g. intonation,
assumptions about context)

13. Clip @ Bank from Crosstalk
Intonation as a Contextualization Cue
For Gumperz, we are NOT just following pre-existing
rules for situations, we use language to actively signal our
relationship to our talk and our interlocutors (even if it is
unconscious)
Gumperz used this paradigm to show how cultural
misunderstandings occur and suggests that if more people
understand these differences in contextualization cues, then
discrimination will be lessened (social justice issue)

14. Takeaway
Every communication must simultaneously
communicate two messages, the message
and the “metamessage” (Bateson 1972)
Metamessage: a second message, encoded
and superimposed upon the basic, which
indicates how someone is supposed to
interpret the basic message

15. Tannen (1995)
“Communication isn’t as simple as saying
what you mean. How you say what you
mean is crucial, and differs from one person
to the next, because using language is
learned social behavior: How we talk and
listen are deeply influenced by cultural
experience” (pg. 243).
The danger is that we often assume that our
way of making requests, etc. is the “natural
way,” the “best way,” or the “right way.”

16. Speech Acts
How we accomplish things through language.
Performative Speech Acts
Declarative Speech Acts
Commands
Compliments
Requests

17. Declarative Speech Acts
For example, saying "I now pronounce you
husband and wife," is called a declarative
speech act because it is the act of uttering
these words that actually accomplishes the
act of marrying two people.
Anna attended a wedding this past summer
where the minister had not yet actually
finished her ordination, so she had to say "I
now ANNOUNCE you husband and wife"
because she did not yet have the power to
PRONOUNCE them.

18. Compliments
Another type of speech act is a compliment.
Interestingly, the meaning of compliments
can vary culture by culture. For example, in
India, politeness requires that if someone
compliments one of your possessions, you
should offer to give the item as a gift, so
complimenting can be a way of asking for
things. An Indian woman who had just met
her son's American wife was shocked to hear
her new daughter-in-law praise her beautiful
saris. She commented, "What kind of girl did
he marry? She wants everything!" (Source: LSA
website - Tannen: What is Discourse Analysis?
http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-discourse.cfm )

19. Requests
Think about some of the many ways that
requests get accomplished around you (and that
you accomplish them yourself). Typically you will
find that requests can be made directly or
indirectly (or “on-record” vs. “off-record”).
Sifianu Greek example, an indirect way of
requesting the remote control for the TV might
be to say “have you seen the remote?” Note
that the requestor did not say directly “please
bring me the remote” but depending on your
expectations (and those of your listener) about
requests, this more indirect “have you seen the
remote?” might be heard as such.

20. Scenario
You live in an apartment building in DC
and you are rushing off to work one
morning. You realize that you have no
cash and have no time to go to the ATM
for your bus fare. You knock on your
neighbor’s door to ask for a dollar.
What do you say?

22. Takeaway
Misunderstandings can often arise out of
different cultures’ expectations about
directness vs. indirectness.
While neither style (direct or indirect) is
BETTER, you will find that people tend to
have a strong preference (of which, they are
likely unaware).

23. Discourse Markers
Little words like oh, well, so, but, then, and,
or, you know, I mean.
These “little words” break our speech up into
parts and show the relation between parts.
They help organize the sequence and
relationship between utterances, give
information as to the speaker’s attitude to the
hearer, to the information, and to the world.

24. Discourse Markers in eliciting a story
1. <phone ring>
2. Frank: Hello
2. Anna: hi Dad?
3. Frank: hi
4. Anna: how are ya?
5. Frank: how ya doin’?
6. Anna: good, what are you up to?
7. Frank: oh, working, uh studying,
8. Anna: oh yeah?
9. Frank: writing some papers
10. Anna: Do you have just a minute for me?
11.Frank: Sure.
12. Anna: Do you remember the Zimmerman stories?
13. Frank: Yeah.
14. Anna: Could you tell me them again?
15. Frank: …You need it now?

25. 16. Anna: Uh…if you don’t have time we could do it later.
17. Frank: Uh…how come you need it again?
18. Anna: Uh…we just have to record it again.
19. Frank: Oh.
20. Frank: Well, let’s see <sigh>,
21. I guess I could.
22. Anna: Only if you have time.
23. Frank: Yeah.
24. Anna: OK.
25. Frank: Are you ready?
26. Anna: Yeah.
27. Frank: You got your tape recorder
and everything?
28. Anna: All set!
29. Frank: Ah, ok.
30. Anna: Thank you.
31. Frank: OK,

26. oh
Schiffrin: oh a “marker of information
management”
Heritage: oh a “change of state” token
1. Josh: um uh anyway um I uh
2. grew up in Columbus, Ohio
3. Anna: oh you’re kidding

27. Successful conversational discourse
“Requires that the participants not only
maintain cohesion or relevance, but that
where there are breaks in the cohesion, they
go back and repair them” (79).
“One has and feels the obligation to maintain
a smooth and coherent discourse, and if one
has been responsible for a break, it is taken
as a disruption of good interpersonal
relationships” (79).

28. Smooth Discourse
“depends so strongly on shared knowledge
that when there is a break or disruption, the
most immediate reaction is that the culprit
must be a member of a different group” (79).
Most of us are quite conscious of different
pronunciations or of different words used by
members of other groups, but in day-to-day
practice it is cohesion in discourse which
provides the strongest and most emblematic
forces for group identity” (79).

29. Promoting smooth discourse
Using interactional sociolinguistics to
coach a speaker on:
– Turn - taking
– Pause length
– Transition relevance places
<please refer to back of handout>