FARIDHA SIGMAYANA

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TBI A
3. Interactional sociolinguistics

Interactional sociolinguistics is concerned with how speakers signal and interpret meaning in
social interaction. Focus on how people from different cultures may share grammatical knowlwdge of
a language, but differently contextualize what is said such that very different messages are produced
(Gumperz, 1982).

Interactional sociolinguistics attempts to bridge the gulf between empirical communicative foms
-eg. words, prosody, register shifts - and what speakers and listeners take themselves to be doing with
these foms Methodologically, it relies on close + discourse analysis of audio- or video-recorded
interaction. Such methodology is central to uncovering meaning-making processes because many
conventions for signaling and interpreting meaning in talk are fleeting, unconscious, and culturally
variable.
 Interactional sociolinguists typically make use of the detailed tools of conversation analysis, paying
careful attention to turn-taking behaviour, hesitations, pauses and paralinguistic behaviour (e.g. sighs,
laughter, in-breaths, etc.)

Based on the reading of interactional sociolinguistics, what will we pay attention to in a interaction?
“such aspects of interactions as turn taking rules, conversation for indicating acknowledgment and
agreement. The making of utterance as particular kinds of speech arts or as containing important
information are also ‘variables’ that is, used different contexts or by different kinds of speakers.
Example

1. Jac : do you want me to come as well?

2. Call : um hmm [laughs]

3. Dud : don’t wear a don’t wear an Asher tie

4. Barr : [laughs] yeah you can go incognito

5. [general laughter]

6. Jac : hide in the back row

7. [general laughter]

8. Barr : just don’t say anything . . .

a. Contextualisation cues

Roughly speaking, a contextualization cue is any feature of linguistic form that contributes
to be the signaling of contextual presuppositions. Contextualisation cues signal contextual
presuppositions, i.e. knowledge that the speaker assumes the listener has already or information
that they can work out for themselves by paying attention to features of the context.
Contextualisation cues thus allow participants to infer the most likely interpretation of an
utterance. Contextualization cues include verbal, nonverbal, and prosodic signals as well as the
manipulation of artifacts. Why should we know about "contextualization cues"?
The importance of contextualization cues
1) an importance source of information;
2) are central to understanding the transmission and construction of meaning
If we do not know "contextualization cue", misunderstandings like cross-talk
misunderstanding and up-talk misunderstanding
 Example

[Capitals indicate higher volume and underline indicates strong stress.]

Woman commenting on a gymnastics performance she has seen at her son’s school

I went to the gymnastics display last night. It was GOOD .

Falling intonation may indicate that the speaker is providing defi nitive information in
answer to a question.
Woman director to older male subordinate.

Miya : you know the ventilation fan? I’m thinking that we should leave it on
during the daytime. The switch is inside the building. Then sorry to bother, but when
you leave

Tomi : yes I [got it]

Miya : um [turn off] the switch

Miya succeeds so well in setting up the shared context and aligning herself with
Tomi, her addressee, that he anticipates her directive and overlaps her articulation of it.
Her supportive moves thus cue the up-coming directive and ensure he interprets her
intent accurately.
 Non-verbal behaviours such as facial expressions, head nods, gestures and silences also provide
very important contextualisation cues which are valuable when analysing video data. A raised eyebrow
can give a very clear indication of how an utterance has been interpreted though its precise meaning
may differ between cultures. In Polynesian culture, for instance, a raised eyebrow serves as a greeting
whereas in British culture, a raised eyebrow generally conveys surprise or even disbelief.
b. Miscommunication
• Cross-cultural: interaction with persons of different cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, sexual
orientation, religious, age and class backgrounds.
• Cross-cultural communication
 process of exchanging, negotiating, and mediating one's cultural differences through language,
non-verbal gestures, and space relationships.
 process by which people express their openness to an intercultural experience. (Clarke and
Sanchez, 2001)
• examines causes of misunderstandings
 Example
In a British cafeteria, an Indian woman, Roopa, serving behind the counter spread doom and gloom,
and aroused customer resentment, simply because of the way she served the gravy. The customers heard her
as peremptorily stating that they should have gravy, whether they wanted it or not. When the customers’
complaints were reported to the woman she expressed surprise. She claimed she had been offering them
gravy not pushing it on them!

When people from different language or even different dialect backgrounds interact, clashes
between discourse norms are possible, with a risk of miscommunication. Using an interactional
sociolinguistics approach, we can look for clues to help interpret what speakers intended to communicate in
the specifi c context of their talk. The problem in example involved a misinterpretation of contextualisation
cues. Influenced by her native language, Roopa’s variety of English led her to use strong stress and falling
intonation on the word gravy when offering it to customers. These prosodic features were interpreted by
speakers of other dialects of English as indicators of an assertion rather than an offer. The contextualisation
cues were misread because of a clash between dialect features.
Ideology and CDA
CDA researchers aim to expose the hidden messages and especially the taken for granted
assumptions that underlie much of our everyday discourse. Because advertisers make use of
discourse to infl uence our behaviour typically to persuade us to buy their product adverts are one of
the most obvious targets of CDA. Adverts appeal to their audience’s emotions, their desires and
fears, and to their often unexamined attitudes and beliefs. Another focus of CDA has been discourse
which is apparently neutral and informative, but which on closer examination turns out to be
manipulative and even distorting. Even more interesting, because less obvious, are the subtle ways
in which our responses are manipulated in contexts which are supposedly sources of ‘information’,
such as newspaper reports, or even textbooks contexts where we are perhaps less aware of the
underlying orientations and goals of the writers or speakers
Example 44
(a) Surgery is also indicated when…hormone treatment has failed to control the symptoms…Since many
women erroneously believe that following hysterectomy…obesity is usual, the physician must explain
that removal of the uterus has no side-effects.
(b) Alternative treatments include radiation and birth control pills, but these are considered controversial
and can cause serious complications… If your doctor suggests any of these treatments, be sure to get a
second opinion.

Both sentences use educated, technical vocabulary, but they address different readerships. The main
clue to this is the stance expressed through the choice of grammatical structures. In (a), the use of the
passive voice ( is also indicated ) removes any reference to the actor or agent, i.e. the doctor or physician,
thus enabling the writer to avoid allocating explicit responsibility to the physician for the decision to
undertake surgery as well as conveying an impression of clinical objectivity. And though this is a book
written for medical students, they are not addressed as ‘you’, but rather the physician is referred to in the
third person and presented as an expert who must correct the erroneous assumptions of many women.
By contrast (b) treats the women target readers as intelligent agents rather than passive, ignorant objects
of surgery. They are addressed in the second person ( your doctor), giving the impression of friendliness
or solidarity. Moreover, the information provided is empowering rather than didactic: the reader is
presented with alternatives, and evaluative comments, and recommended to seek a second opinion. This
is a very different approach from (a) A CDA approach seeks to identify ways in which readers or
listeners are manipulated through choices of particular words and constructions to take a particular
position in relation to the topic of discussion. Pronoun choices, for example, can quickly and effectively
position a reader as one of ‘us’, observing the behaviour of ‘them’, thus including the reader or listener
in one group while objectifying another group and distancing the reader or listener from them.