<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Like others who’ve posted to this forum, I’m very excited to have
the technological means to interact with EC scholars outside of our typical f2f
conferences (btw, a save-the-date for 2017 is coming soon). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Having been inspired by the inclusion of references in these posts
about past and present EC scholarship, I wanted to remind folks that over the
past year and a half several of us undertook an effort to compile some current
research about digital and/or mediated uses and extensions of EC in the volume:
<i><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498506137/Communicating-User-Experience-Applying-Local-Strategies-Research-to-Digital-Media-Design">Communicating
User Experience</a></i>. It includes research conducted within a variety of mediated
settings/scenes and addresses some of the issues raised in this forum. For instance, to address Katriel’s call for
further applications of encoding, I want to point out one of the most relevant
chapters that does this very thing. Tabitha Hart explicitly uses speech codes
theory to explore the problems that occurred for users (and trainers) of an
online platform for language learning.
What she found were four categories of <i>procedural knowledge</i> that seemed to be at the root of many of the
problems. To partially quote her
findings, these included:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">1)<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt">Initiation
and participation procedures</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">2)<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt">Navigation
procedures</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">3)<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt">Task
procedures</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">4)<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt">Troubleshooting
procedures (Hart, 2015, p.48)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">These findings were assembled through a systematic EC
analysis of the act sequences within the interactions. Furthermore, her conclusion echoes many of
the comments here, including that many of these types of procedural knowledge <i>develop over time</i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Several other threads from Leeds-Hurwitz’s response also run
throughout this volume, including a focus on <i>internationalization</i> (especially in Poutiainen and Sandel & Ju’s
articles about cell phone use in Finland and Macau respectively). In another chapter, Katie Peters discusses
the difference <i>location</i> makes when
some meeting participants are engaged remotely (echoing some of the ideas
raised by</span> <span style="font-size:11pt">Lydia Reinig in this forum)</span><span style="font-size:11pt">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Despite Gerry Philipsen’s optimism for moving forward, I’d like to
raise a cautionary flag based on some additional questions that we grapple with
when we seek to expand EC. Some of these
limitations are artificial and constructed by other disciplines who do not want
us to encroach on their territory, others are self-defined. I offer them in the
spirit of moving forward:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">1) The use of a variety of other terms than EC in our studies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">When we describe our research methods
as <i>speech codes theory</i>, <i>cultural discourse analysis</i>, and <i>local strategies research</i>, to name a
few, scholars outside EC may not recognize the centrality of EC and the
relationship between these different branches (to continue the tree metaphor).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">2) Relegating EC to a method for data collection (as opposed to a
theory or method for data analysis) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">This perception may be due to the
relative absence of explicit mention of Hymes’ categories. In fact, recently I
discovered that these categories are still considered a relatively “new” way to
view certain contexts (</span><span style="font-size:11pt">Kalou &
Sadler-Smith, 2015</span><span style="font-size:11pt">).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">In addition, EC scholars’ use of
other analytic tools in their research reports (i.e. speech acts, genres, and
conversational sequencing/CA) may contribute to confusion about a central set
of analytic tools.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">3) The issue of how EC scholars demarcate the context they are
examining</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">As Leeds-Hurwitz mentioned in her
response, Hymes’ term <i>speech community</i>
has become loosely coupled from the practices we study (and in fact, this term
is seldom used within the field of communication any more). Overlapping boundaries make it more difficult
to pin-down specific norms for interaction since there are multiple settings, scenes
and participants in any given interaction (and this may also become a challenge
for those who have to gain IRB approval for their research).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.25in"><span style="font-size:11pt">4)<span style="font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt">A
movement towards applied studies and designed interactions</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">Stemming from what Katriel & Leeds-Hurwitz
have both described, I’d like to describe a trend I’ve noticed that moves from
simply applying a theory or methods to new practices. The so-called “maker-movement” is elevating
agency to new levels. It seems to
suggest that students, researchers, and other participants all come to consider
themselves as <i>designers</i>. This transformation from observation to
creation pushes the theoretical boundaries of social construction to ask us to consider
how new objects and processes are initiated and EC scholars’ role in those
creative endeavors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="font-size:11pt">One project that comes to mind is how
becoming a researcher in a nascent organization (or start-up) illustrates the
complex roles that a participant-observer plays in creating that organization’s
structure and norms. Other examples
include our role as instructors, designing learning interactions in our
classrooms, and especially when we teach online (see the chapter, “</span><span style="font-size:11pt">Taking the <i>collegial</i>
out of educational communication: Tracking change in organizational culture
with the introduction of a new instrument for communication” in Wilkins & Wolf,
2014; and Mackenzie & Wallace’s, 2015, discussion of online intercultural
training</span><span style="font-size:11pt">).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">References</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Hart, T. (2015). Analyzing
procedure to make sense of users’ (inter)actions: A case study on applying the
ethnography of communication for interaction design purposes. In T. Milburn
(Ed.), <i>Communicating User Experience:
Applying Local Strategies Research to Digital Media Design</i>. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Kalou, Z. & Sadler-Smith,
E. (Oct. 2015). Using ethnography of communication in organizational research. <i>Organizational Research Methods</i>, 18 (4),
629-655. doi: 10.1177/1094428115590662</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt">Wilkins, R. & Wolf, K.
(2014). <i>Culture in Rhetoric</i>. Series:
Language as Social Action - Volume 19. New York, NY: Peter Lang.</span></p></div>