32.2612, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Goebel (2021)

Tue Aug 10 20:13:20 UTC 2021

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-2612. Tue Aug 10 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.2612, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Goebel (2021)

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Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:13:02
From: Piotr Węgorowski [piotr.wegorowski at glasgow.ac.uk]
Subject: Reimagining Rapport

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-486.html

EDITOR: Zane  Goebel
TITLE: Reimagining Rapport
SERIES TITLE: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Piotr Węgorowski, University of Glasgow

SUMMARY

The elusive concept of rapport plays an important part in any ethnographic
work. The tacit understanding of the importance of rapport among many
ethnographers has not been matched with a critical questioning of the very
concept. The collection fills therefore an important gap, both in terms of
theorizing the concept as well as suggesting some methodological approaches to
investigate it. The book is aimed at ethnographers working in different
traditions, including anthropology, linguistic anthropology, or
sociolinguistics, but its appeal extends to the wider social sciences.

The volume opens with an introductory chapter ‘Reimagining Rapport’ by Zane
Goebel, in which the key rationale for the book is stated, along with some of
the key terms. Rapport is seen here primarily through Agha’s (2005) notion of
role alignment as well as acts of belonging. In Chapter 2 ‘Rapport in the
Anthropological Imagination’ Zane Goebel traces the history of the term
‘rapport’, demonstrating its beginnings in Malinowski’s writings. Rapport
tends to refer to positive social relations, both in classical anthropological
work as well as a range of more recent linguistic anthropology tradition.
Goebel calls for more detailed accounts of interactional constructions of
rapport, noting some recent attempts to do so. 

Ben Rampton offers a more linguistic focus in Chapter 3 ‘Sociolinguists and
Rapport: On Linguistic Ideology and Fieldwork Practice’, problematizing the
notion of rapport as a rather instrumental way to gain informants’ trust to
collect linguistic data. Instead, the practice of playback, common in
interactional sociolinguistics, is shown as an example of activity which
disrupts the notion of rapport as a simple prerequisite of fieldwork, but
rather enables researchers and participants to build relationships in the
stage of analysis. 

In line with previous chapters, rejecting rapport as a simple question of
positive social relations or co-presence, Chapter 4 ‘Rapport with God’ by Joel
Kuipers demonstrates a multitude of ways in which rapport between Javanese
Muslims and God can manifest itself. Drawing on the analytical and theoretical
concepts of role alignment and belonging, explored as well in the introduction
to the volume, Kuipers how specific semiotic resources can be used in local
practice to constitute rapport. 

Chapter 5 ‘Intimacy through Time and Space in Fieldwork Interviews’ by Sabina
Perrino engages with both theoretical and methodological approaches to
rapport. By anchoring her analysis of interviews with participants in Senegal
and northern Italy in the theoretical notion of chronotope and through
adopting stance as a methodological tool, Perrino’s contribution further
challenges the idea of rapport as something required in advance of carrying
out research in favour of the dynamic intimacy that keeps being
co-constructed. The chapter therefore provides a useful example of how close
attention to interactional development of rapport can inform current debates
on the topic.

Aurora Donzelli, the author of Chapter 6 ‘Hardly Speaking: Ethnographic
Rapport and the Ordinary Ethics of Host-Guest Interaction in Upland Sulawesi’,
reflects on the pragmatics of her own language use during fieldwork. She
suggests that in Toraja, Upland Sulawesi, Indonesia, norms of interaction
around hosting are not as reliant on talk, but rather revolve around food and
drink. Local practices surrounding making and accepting offers of food and
drink turned out to mediate social relationships and thus greatly contribute
to social relations in general and rapport in a researcher-informants
relationship in particular. 

In Chapter 7, ‘A Confrontation on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands: Interviewing,
Local Language, and Rapport in Anthropological Fieldwork’, by Nicholas
Harriman and Monika Winarnita the absolute possibility of even need for
rapport is called into question. Harriman describes a chance encounter with a
member of the community, which did not fit neatly into the positive social
relations conceptualisation of rapport. Moreover, sharing a language with
informants, another often tacit assumption of rapport, is challenged, as
Harrinam and Winarnita describe how younger participants refused to answer in
Cocos Maley, preferring instead to converse in English.

Reconceptualizing rapport by recognizing the rights and obligations imposed on
interactants is the topic of Chapter 8 ‘Alignment and Belonging in the
Sociolinguistic Interview: Research Assistants and Negotiated Rapport’, by
Howard Manns. The chapter, in a similar vein to Perrino’s contribution, pays
attention to nuanced ways in which rapport is constructed in interaction.
Moreover, Manns demonstrates how rapport can be mediated by a research
assistant, problematizing the researcher/researched dichotomy. Discussing a
project in Malang, Indonesia, the chapter showcases the importance of a
research assistant as a broker who becomes responsible for portraying
participants in terms of belonging that the researcher and participants could
share. 

Chapter 9 ‘Rapport to Fit In-Rapport to Stand Out: The Dynamics of Role
Alignment during Group Interaction’ by Michael C. Ewing continues the focus on
interactional phenomena. Based on data from a project investigating youth
language practices in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, Ewing shows how
repetition, code mixing, vocatives, and question sequences can be used in
rapport management practices. This is an important point in the chapter, as
rapport is not seen as something that is simply built, but rather managed, as
rapport involves managing both positive as well as disharmonious elements of
interactions.

The closing chapter, entitled ‘Coda: Reimagining Rapport Theoretically,
Meta-Methodologically, and Methodologically’ by Zane Goebel, synthesises the
contents of the volume and emphasises the key points, both theoretical and
methodological. Firstly, rapport is conceptualised not as something that
simply emerges at a given point, or even before, fieldwork, but rather it is a
dynamic concept that is actively managed throughout the process, or even well
after the research has taken place. Methodologically then, the edited volume
offers a range of approaches that allow researchers to scrutinize the nuances
ways in which rapport is managed.

EVALUATION

The edited collection provides an important contribution to the hitherto
understudied concept of ‘rapport’. The work is a result of a symposium held at
La Trobe University in July 2015, and, as noted in the acknowledgements, the
present volume adds to one already published (Goebel 2019). It would have
perhaps been useful to fully set out how the two collections differ in focus
and scope. Similarly, some more explicit engagement with the already published
work would have been welcome. Having said this, the current volume offers
great coherence, and the editorial decision for inclusion of the specific
contributions has clearly focused the discussion of rapport in terms of theory
and methodology. In particular, the theoretical ground in role alignment comes
through clearly throughout the volume.

While addressing the central issue of rapport, the range of studies cited
illustrates well the many different ways in which rapport can be
conceptualised and analysed. The editor addresses a potential issue of lack of
geographical diversity head on and encourages readers to see this as a
strength, as having several chapters from one country, Indonesia, makes it
possible to dispense with the older views of language boundedness and its
relationship with a nation state (p. 11). Many different approaches, including
more interactional as well as conceptual ones, attest well to this point. On
the other hand, the introductory chapter also suggests a reconceptualization
of rapport to include its embodied and intersemiotic nature. It is something
that comes through most clearly in contributions by Kuipers and Donzelli, and
it is a very welcome inclusion, but perhaps there is still scope to expand
theoretical and methodological discussions in this regard.

One area that has been attended to well is the interactional aspects of
rapport. The introductory chapter by Goebel, as well as contributions by
Perrino, Manns, and Ewing, show clearly how rapport is managed in interaction.
It is a topic that merits more research, in the context of (linguistic)
anthropology, as well as other settings (see for example discussion of rapport
in police interviews described by Rull and Baker 2020), and the book makes an
important step in opening up a future discussion of rapport. Nearly all
chapters deal with rapport in often highly multilingual settings, and as such
often involve implicitly or explicitly questions of language learning and
translation, and theorizing and analysing rapport in other examples of
ethnographic work, in more traditionally ‘monolingual’ settings, could have
added to the volume even further. Having said this, it is perhaps an exciting
additional line of enquiry for future research.

The edited collection offers a timely and well thought out starting point in
reimagining the critical yet understudied notion of rapport. While one of the
main strengths of the book lies in its theoretical contribution as well as
some wider methodological points, and it is not aimed to provide a ‘how-to’
manual relating to fieldwork, the collection will nevertheless be useful to
anyone embarking on an ethnographic project. It is highly recommended for
scholars and researchers with interest in ethnography.

REFERENCES

Agha, Asif. 2005. Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic
Anthropology 15(1). 38-59.

Bull, Ray & Bianca Baker. 2020. Obtaining Valid Discourse from Suspects
PEACE-fully: What Role for Rapport and Empathy? In Mason, Marianne & Frances
Rock (eds.). Discourse of Police Interviews. Chicago: Chicago University
Press. 42-64.

Goebel, Zane (ed.). 2019. Rapport and the Discursive Co-Construction of Social
Relations in Fieldwork Encounters. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Piotr Węgorowski is a lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of
Glasgow. His research interests include linguistic ethnography, particularly
in institutional and professional contexts, as well as multilingualism.

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