Abstract
Now in its second edition, this valuable primer on interpersonal communication brings together an international array of scholars representing various theoretical perspectives. The readings in this volume have been selected with three goals in mind, namely toprovide a theoretical orientation for the ethnographic study of interpersonal communication; to propose a cultural approach that emphasises the importance of sociocultural content for situating any communicative event; and to offer a range of case studies exemplifying the type of research the reader might want to carry out. For this purpose, the editors have compiled 42 chapters, spread across an introduction, five themed sections and two appendices. In addition to the carefully-chosen readings, the editors’ introductory comments on each chapter are an enormous help to the reader, outlining their historical and conceptual background and providing insightful discussion questions. The new edition includes updates to each themed section which reflect the role of digital media in communication in casual conversation, social belonging, intimate relationships and identity formation.
Part I, entitled ‘Ethnographer’s Toolkit’, provides a useful introduction to the conduct of ethnographic studies of interpersonal communication. The chapters in this section introduce a toolkit of resources, concepts and terms utilized throughout the book, including power, performance, culture and thick description. These opening chapters represent classic works by some of the most important theorists in the field, including Geertz, Agar and Bauman. For instance, Monaghan’s chapter on Hymes’s ethnography provides an essential guide to some of the basics of ethno-linguistic studies.
In Part II, ‘Applying the Ethnographic Toolkit’, the authors provide the reader with examples of how the ethnographic toolkit from Part I is used to understand interpersonal communication in a variety of historical moments and locations. In an interesting, extended ethnographic study on the use of silence among the Apache, for instance, Basso (Chapter 12) reports on the contexts in which this socially organized speech was the expected communicative behaviour. There are also chapters which include examples of transcriptions of actual conversations. These chapters are highly likely to be of most interest to readers as they will broaden their understanding of the challenges they face in transcription.
Part III, ‘Ethnography of Talk: From Language Form to Social Solidarity’, begins by paying meticulous attention to the organization of language and then moves into broader questions of solidarity and social identity. This part addresses three important elements of language, namely meaning, form and function. The reader will explore how people utilize all three elements to achieve their goals in their daily lives, from requesting a simple favour to advocating the innocence of a victim of violence, to cursing. The readings in this part illustrate how talk plays an important role in the ways people establish relationships and negotiate status hierarchies. For example, Chapter 13 by Robinson analyses the social stakes involved in greeting others in an online virtual world, which she calls ‘emergent’ (p. 87). Monaghan’s chapter on Hymes’s SPEAKING model seems inappropriately placed here, and would perhaps have been more at home in Part II.
Part IV, ‘Communication and Social Groups: The Work of Belonging’, sets out to explore interpersonal encounters in the context of larger social groups and communities. The first two chapters, by Carbaugh (Chapter 26) and Goffman (Chapter 27), provide the basic definitions of terms, including social groups, encounter and speech community. The following chapters were all chosen to investigate different ways in which groups of college and high school students use language and other communicative practices to construct affiliations of various kinds. Kuiper, for instance, investigates how language works in group formation. His ethnographic data show that group solidarity among two all-male sports teams was created through the use of sexual humiliation that had the potential to damage the face of a teammate. In addition, drawing on the framework of face work, Kuiper claims that face-saving and face-threatening strategies can be utilized to build solidarity within a group. However, it could have been more engaging if the authors of the chapters on face work (Chapters 31 and 32) had discussed more explicitly how strategies are related to face work, for the new reader in the field.
Part V, ‘Interpersonal Communication in Institutional Settings: Structure, Agency and the Exercise of Power’, examines how interpersonal interactions are formed by and help to create and maintain particular institutional practices. Drawing on case studies, the authors in this part investigate questions pertinent to institutional processes, practices and policies that take the reader into a Deaf Christian Church, a law-school classroom and a cultural association in Paris. In each of these chapters, it is obvious that the practices and values of larger institutions are mediated by interactions, and that interpersonal communication is an important dimension of communication within institutions.
Overall, this volume is an excellent compendium that representatively defines the field of interpersonal communication in theory and practice. Its readership, therefore, transcends the editors’ intended audience of students. While some of the republished papers would only suit the research interests of students and scholars, the editors’evaluative input will offer good readings to professionals in different fields, including linguistic ethnography, sociology and linguistics.