We looked at some aspects of this in Chapter 5, in examining how speakers vary their use of

accents, dialects or languages to communicative effect. Other aspects of language use have
also been of interest to sociolinguists, however: the way people talk to one another – how
they hold conversations, tell stories, make jokes, argue or tease one another – will vary in
different cultural contexts. Studies of these phenomena frequently adopt a qualitative
approach to the study of language, drawing on anthropological or ethnographic methods of
research.

‘Interactional sociolinguistics’ is associated particularly with the foundational work of John

Gumperz (1982a, 1982b), whose study of codeswitching in Norway you met in Chapter 5. It
is also used more broadly, however, for qualitative sociolinguistic research on language in
interaction. The development of ethnographic approaches owes much to Dell Hymes, whose
notion of communicative competence was discussed in Chapter 1 (pp. 4–5): Hymes was
concerned to establish models of the interaction between language and social life, or ‘the
multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning’ (1972: 39), and advocated,
as a starting point, detailed ethnographic accounts of the distinctive ‘ways of speaking’
evident in different communities.

‘Doing ethnography’ in another culture involves fi rst and foremost fi eld work, including
observing, asking questions, participating in group activities, and testing the validity of one’s
perceptions against the intuitions of natives. Research design must allow an openness to
categories and modes of thought and behavior which may not have been anticipated by the
investigator. The ethnographer of communication cannot even presuppose what a speech
community other than his own may consider to be ‘language’, or who or what may ‘speak’ it:

Ethnography by no means requires investigating only ‘others’: one’s own speech community
may be profi tably studied as well. Here, however, discovering patterned behavior which
operates largely unconsciously for the native investigator presents quite different problems
for ‘objectivity’. One of the best means by which to gain understanding of one’s own ‘ways
of speaking’ is to compare and contrast these ways with others, a process that can reveal
that many of the communicative practices assumed to be ‘natural’ or ‘logical’ are in fact as
culturally unique and conventional as the language code itself. A valuable by-product which
emerges from this process is an essential feature of all ethnography: a deeper understanding
of cultural relativism.

While formal linguistics may have paid scant regard to silence, other disciplines that have
informed sociolinguistics have recognised the importance of studying silence as an aspect of
human communication. Anthropologists, for instance, have studied patterns of speaking and
silence and how these vary in different communities. Of interest here is when, in a particular
community, it is deemed appropriate to speak, and when to be silent. The focus is not on
silence as an absence of speech, but as something that has communicative meaning
alongside speech.
Several studies have reported on ‘silent’ cultures, such as other Native American groups,
Inuit and Finns. Perhaps because of the relative loquacity of the (western-infl uenced)
research community, silent behaviour is often seen as remarkable – as something that needs
to be explained. It is also occasionally seen as undesirable. Jaakko Lehtonen and Kari
Sajavaara relate the acceptance of silence among Finns to traditional living conditions,
where people lived in separate houses (rather than villages) and there was little scope for
social interaction. They comment that increased international contact may bring about
changes to the Finnish culture: ‘if the result is a more communicative Finn, the development
is certainly not for Finnish proverbs and sayings on silence Listen a lot, speak little One word
is enough to make a lot of trouble One mouth, two ears A barking dog does not catch a hare
A fool speaks a lot, a wise man thinks instead Brevity makes a good psalm One word is as
good as nine (cited in Lehtonen and Sajavaara 1985: 193) M1730 - MESTHRIE TEXT.indd 186
21/4/09 16:16:52 Language in Interaction 187 the worse’ (1985: 200). In a later paper,
however, Sajavaara and Lehtonen (1997) also comment on the danger of judging behaviour
such as silence according to inappropriate (outsider) cultural norms. By way of contrast,
Gregory Nwoye (1985) discusses the role of silence as a marked form of behaviour among
the Igbo people in Nigeria. The Igbo place great importance on the art of speaking: greetings
are highly elaborate and protracted, even among total strangers. Nwoye argues that the
Igbo are characterised by ‘ebullient loquacity’. In this context, silence is an important form of
behaviour, meaningful because it contrasts with the more talkative norm. It is used as ‘a
means of managing highly-charged situations and relationships’ (p. 191): in the comfort of
bereaved friends, to reject a proposal of marriage and in certain ritual contexts, such as
sacrifi ces.

9. Abrupt topic-shifting (Tannen 1985: 102). Tannen suggests that the New Yorkers would
have been uncomfortable with silence in this context – they throw out topics to fi ll up the
conversational space, but are not offended if what they say is ignored. The non-New Yorkers
may have been operating to a different set of rules, according to which people spoke less
but expected what they said to be attended to. Tannen interprets her own research (and
other research on speaking and silence mentioned above) in terms of politeness theory:
silence, she argues, is often a form of negative politeness – not imposing on others. This can
occur in any culture, but would be unmarked in cultures such M1730 - MESTHRIE TEXT.indd
187 21/4/09 16:16:52 188 Introducing Sociolinguistics as the Athapaskans and Finns. Silence
may also, however, be perceived as an absence of positive politeness, by not satisfying the
needs of others for attention and involvement. This is likely to be the case in relatively
loquacious groups such as the Igbo and the New Yorkers studied by Tannen. Politeness
theory Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s model of politeness is based on the notion
of face. ‘Face’ refers to a person’s public self-image: it is derived, in part, from the everyday
use of the term in expressions such as ‘losing face’. Brown and Levinson distinguish two
aspects of face: ‘positive face’, the desire for appreciation and approval by others; and
‘negative face’, the desire not to be imposed on by others. In interacting, speakers need to
balance a concern for other people’s face with a desire to protect their own. Speakers will
draw on politeness strategies as a means of paying attention to another person’s face and
avoiding ‘face-threatening acts’: ‘positive politeness’ strategies involve the expression of
friendliness or approval (an example might be explictly including someone in a
conversation); ‘negative politeness’ strategies involve not imposing on others or threatening
their face (an example might be phrasing a request indirectly: ‘Could you possibly close the
door?’). The actual expression of politeness will depend upon several factors: • Concerns
about face may be overridden: for instance, in cases of danger or great urgency, speakers
may be less inclined to bother about indirect requests. • Some impositions are regarded as
greater than others. A request that is felt to be a considerable imposition may require
greater attention to (negative) politeness than a minor favour. • Relationships between
people (or, more precisely, how theseare perceived in context) are highly important. In
certain contexts, for instance, a speaker in a powerful position may feel able to impose upon
others in a less powerful position. • The kinds of politeness strategies that are felt to be
appropriate will also vary in different cultures. This model of politeness is discussed in Brown
and Levinson (1987). The notion of face comes from earlier work by Goffman (1967). There
are several more recent critical reviews of politeness theory, e.g. Eelen (2001). Politeness
theory has also been drawn on, sometimes critically, in studies of language and gender – see
Chapter 7. M1730 - MESTHRIE TEXT.indd 188 21/4/09 16:16:52 Language in Interaction 189
Tannen argues, like Basso (above), that such differences between speakers can give rise to
misunderstanding, or miscommunication, and also to negative evaluations of speakers by
others whose behaviour differs. Mainstream Americans, for instance, are likely to have
negative perceptions of the speaking style of American Indians (with its greater tolerance of
silence) and the speaking style of New York Jewish people (with its faster pace than the
‘mainstream’ style). The studies discussed in this section draw attention to differences in
speaking practices between different groups: they emphasise that not everyone interacts in
the same way, and that differences often have a cultural basis. A shortcoming of this kind of
work is that what is seen as being in need of explanation is behaviour that is marked – that
differs from a perceived (and not always fully acknowledged) norm. There is a danger, then,
in exoticising certain forms of behaviour. Such work also involves making generalisations
about societies and cultures: it may in part rely on, and contribute to, stereotypes about
human behaviour. While the studies discussed above focused on silence (or loquacity) as a
characteristic of certain groups of speakers, silence may also be studied as an aspect of any
interaction. For instance, in a study of reference to death in consultations between doctors
and elderly patients and their families, Nikolas Coupland and Justine Coupland (1997) note
that orientations to the quality of life and to death are ‘core aspects’ of these interactions,
but that ‘these orientations are systematically oblique, tentative and often mitigated’ (1997:
145). In talking with others we tend to present certain versions of events, and certain topics
or viewpoints may be foregrounded, played down, or ‘silenced’. Silence, in the sense of
pauses in speaking, is also an aspect of conversation management. Brief pauses, for
instance, may help to structure speaking turns, and longer pauses, even of a second or two,
may be interactionally meaningful. The use of pauses, or gaps in speaking, also varies across
cultures – a topic we refer to in section 6.4.

Narratives, in this sense, refer not just to more formal storytelling performances but also to
the routine accounts of incidents and events that permeate everyday conversation.

In telling a story, narrators need to make certain choices – about the inclusion of certain
episodes, the description of people and events, and in many communities the use of one (or
more) language varieties rather than others, as well as choices between different linguistic
forms and structures. Narratives cannot be regarded simply as neutral, factual accounts:
they are always representations, constructed by the narrator to make a certain point. The
choices made in narrating a story allow narrators to represent themselves in a certain light,
and to evaluate other people and events in the story

Narratives may contain additional elements: Labov argues that a fully formed narrative may
include the following: • Abstract, which summarises the events to come or offers a
preliminary assessment of the signifi cance of those events. • Orientation, which identifi es
the setting, characters and other background and contextual details relevant to the
narrative. • Complicating action, a series of narrative clauses, as illustrated above – the basic
details of the storyline. • Evaluation(s), which indicate the point of the story, or the reason(s)
why the

Narratives may seem like monologues, in that one person is talking for most, if not all of the
time, but Hill’s analysis, like Maybin’s, would suggest

that they are dialogic. Both researchers emphasise the importance of the interaction
between different voices within the narrative, and the cultural values represented by these.
A more general point is that any utterance may be seen as, in part, a response to previous
utterances from the same or earlier texts, and a forerunner of later utterances: to return to
Bakhtin, no speaker is ‘the fi rst speaker, the one who disturbs the eternal silence of the
universe’

s. Finally, the immediate audience plays an important part in any narrative: a narrative may
be elicited by something said by another speaker; the narrator will take account of (even
silent) listeners in deciding how to tell a story; and listeners may also contribute directly to a
narrative, as when Helen prompts Karen in ‘Selling Tiny’. Sometimes listeners may play a
more active role, acting as a ‘co-narrator’. Neal Norrick found Figure 6.1 Coda from a
narrative by Don Gabriel (Hill 1995: 108) Transcription note This coda marks the end of the
narrative and a return to the present: in line 272, ‘Some accident?’ takes the listener back to
an initial question asked by Hill (to check whether Don Gabriel had suffered any accidents in
his life) which elicited the entire story. Transcription conventions include: ] = units of the
‘voice system’. Letters after each bracket indicate the particular voice: P = evaluator voice; N
= narrator voice; T = intonational modifi cation of the voice: high-pitched, voice breaks; INT =
unglossed in the original but probably signifi es interviewer voice. . . . = noticeably long
pauses. Other symbols represent detailed pitch and intonational features. M1730 -
MESTHRIE TEXT.indd 194 21/4/09 16:16:52 Language in Interaction 195 this was a common
pattern in family narratives, where family members recounted well-known, shared
narratives. Such co-narration served to ratify family membership, producing ‘shared
memories, feelings and values’ (1997: 207). The next section looks more closely at the detail
of interactions, or conversations, and how these are organised: how speakers take turns in
conversation; how they carry out certain conversational activities, such as requesting and
giving information; and how they negotiate relationships with one another as they talk.