Hymes speaking model

Context of Situation We act through language.  We do things through language.  Through words, we get others to do things for us – language is used to perform function/meaning e.g. to apologize.  The meaning that speakers carry is the intention. 

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The analysis of utterance production begins with observing a talk in context rather than an isolated sentence.

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Participation structure - When people talk, they have a ‘joint’ activity where they alternate and collaborate in talking.

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CONTEXT (Ervin-Tripp, 1993) –  is known before speech occurs,  affects what is to be said  how it is said  how it is understood.

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Context (Hassan 1996) The nature of the social process  The nature of the relationship  The nature of the mode for message transmission.  Aspects of the environment. 

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CONTEXTUAL FEATURES AFFECTING SPEECH (Ervin-Tripp, 1993) Situation – setting, personnel, activities  Participant status  Participant’s social relations  Shared environment & knowledge 

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SITUATION – Setting  

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Civil inattention – when other people ignore the speaker Focused interaction – where people cooperate with a common focus of attention e.g. people’s attention is immediately directed towards a person calling for help.

Standing behavior patterns – regulated expected actions for a role in a setting e.g. a classroom can be turned into various settings like a party or courtroom, and our talk changes to suit such setting.

Conventional situation (norms) – situations with names e.g. seminar, lecture, football match which lead to a planned / formal discourse. Complex.

Familiar situation – a situation where participants come to recognize shared goals. E.g. phone conversations.

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Activities Determine whether talk is possible or necessary.  Establish roles for participants  Set up goals in order to maintain relevance.  Maybe verbal or non-verbal e.g. chatting / cooking. 

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Overlapping situations – 2 types of activities occurring with the same people e.g. talking and eating during a meal.  Joint activities  Contextualization – we look for cues – posture, vocal indicators, topic, register, language . 

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PERSONNEL Status of participant – ethnicity, nationality, social class, education level etc.  Social relationships – talking with close friends is different than with strangers.  Shared knowledge – talk with friends is more emotive and vivid. talk with strangers more formal and complex. 

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Participation structure Turn-taking in a conversation - exchanges and sequences in speech by participants (adjacency pairs) - organized timing in conversation, minimal overlap.

- clues and cues control turns ď Ž WHAT KIND OF CUES AND CLUES? ď Ž

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Conversation Competence both speakers pay attention to what the other is saying and make appropriate replies. Show common interest, respect, acknowledge.

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DIMENSIONS OF CHOICE IN DISCOURSE (Ervin-Tripp, 1993) Topic  Action  Social features  Key  Text  Genre 

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Topic Topic control in conversation.  Topic uptake – is a from of compliance in getting others to support one’s topic. (don’t you agree, don’t you think so)  Topics are initiated, ,supported, changed  Participants must have a shared belief to achieve mutual comprehension 

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Action Conversational engagement expressed through adjacency pairs and exchanges. (how are you? – I’m fine, thank you)  Sequences of moves in a dialogue  Manage turn by turn.  Must cooperate in order to achieve communication goal and negotiate understanding. 

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Preferred response e.g. saying thank you when receiving compliments Dis-preferred response e.g. making excuses to an invitation (Well…., actually…)

Closing e.g. goodbye, farewell, all the best.

Pre-sequences – being indirect e.g. Are you busy this Tuesday?

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Social Features 

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Address terms e.g. nicknames are used if the person is close to you. You don’t address the vice chancellor with a nickname when you talk to him.

Politeness – relates to appropriate verbal and non-verbal behavior in certain contexts, e.g. you don’t go to a funeral and chat with your friend about your latest shopping spree.

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Key Tone or mood in order to interpret meaning. e.g. How to know someone is serious or joking? ď Ž

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Text  

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What we finally hear in the text of the conversation.

Register – variety of language used in a certain social context, with different vocabulary and pronunciation. e.g. baby talk is different from a judge’s speech.

Code-switching from one language to another according to setting, e.g. BM and English.

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Genre A class of communicative events in the target discipline’s discourse community. e.g. a sermon or prayer in the mosque, church, A lawyer’s courtroom speech, 

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Hymes (1974) SPEAKING Model S – Setting / scene P - participants E – ends, goals, purposes A – act sequence, order of discourse K – key, cues in tone, manner or attitude.

I - instrumentalities, forms/styles of speech.

N – norms, social rules, appropriacy.

G – genre, speech act .

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