[Ethnocomm] CFP for an edited volume on speech codes theory

Sat May 4 00:12:44 UTC 2019

Dear colleagues, please read on for a call for chapter proposals for a new
edited volume on speech codes theory. The deadline for proposals (500
words) is June 1, 2019.

I am also attaching the CFP in pdf format. Please feel free to circulate it
to anyone you think might be interested.

Warm regards,
Tabitha

----

*Call for book chapter proposals: Refiguring Speech Codes Theory*

We are issuing a call for proposals of chapters to be included in a new
volume on speech codes theory. This book, which will be edited by Gerry
Philipsen, the originator of speech codes theory, and Tabitha Hart, a
scholar of speech codes theory, will update, expand, and improve upon the
theory. The book is intended to showcase a dozen or so original chapters,
written by each of the accepted contributors. Based on these, the book
editors will compose a synthesis chapter presenting a unified (re)statement
of speech codes theory.

*Speech codes theory: A participatory endeavor*

A speech code is “a system of socially constructed symbols and meanings,
premises, and rules, pertaining to communicative conduct.” (Philipsen,
1997, 126)  As it now stands, speech codes theory has the following six
propositions (the dates in parentheses are the year that the proposition
first appeared in print):

1.    Wherever there is a distinctive culture, there is to be found a
distinctive speech code (1992)

2.    In any given speech community, multiple speech codes are deployed.
(2005)

3.    A speech code implicates a culturally distinctive psychology,
sociology, and rhetoric (1992)

4.    The significance of speaking is contingent upon the speech codes used
by interlocutors to constitute the meanings of communicative acts (1992)

5.    The terms, rules, and premises of a speech code are inextricably
woven into speaking itself. (1992)

6.    The artful use of a shared speech code is a sufficient condition for
predicting, explaining, and controlling the form of discourse about the
intelligibility, prudence, and morality of communicative conduct. (1997)

Speech codes theory has always been a participatory theory—open to
modification, including expansion of scope and claims, through the
contributions of speech codes scholars. Over the 28 years of its existence
(since Philipsen 1992), it was modified in significant ways:

·      An increase from four to six empirically warranted propositions
(Philipsen, 1992; Philipsen, 1997; Philipsen, Coutu, and Covarrubias, 2005).

·      A more explicit treatment of meanings and codes as essentially open
to change, negotiation, contestation, and revision (Philipsen, Coutu, and
Covarrubias, 2005; Philipsen and Hart, 2016).

·      The foregrounding of the needs and concerns of the individual actor
who seeks to discover, use, and contend with the presence of codes in their
lifeworld (Philipsen and Hart, 2016).

·      Explicit stipulation that the word “speech” calls up all of the
means of communication in a particular lifeworld (Philipsen and Hart, 2016).

·      An explicit foregrounding of a central role for studies of codes
embedded in, and about, new technologies of communication (Philipsen and
Hart, 2016; Hart, 2017).

·      Responding to charges that the theory does not provide for attention
to power in social life, with clarification and demonstration of how SCT
provides for attention to power differences and dynamics (Philipsen, Coutu,
and Covarrubias, 2005; see also Philipsen (1986, 2000).

Our recent communication with fellow scholars indicates that there is
compelling work in progress that, if brought together in one volume, will
effect a striking refiguring of speech codes theory, giving it renewed
meaning and utility.

*A new refiguring of speech codes theory*

With the above in mind, we are working on a new, substantial and dramatic
refiguring of speech codes theory. This refiguring is inspired by our
appraisal of the present moment in the study of communication; the
published research of speech codes scholars throughout the world; critiques
of speech codes theory; and our recent survey of twenty established speech
codes theory scholars on the promising work that they are doing.

We propose refiguring speech codes theory by making advances primarily on
two fronts, which we describe as (1) the ecology of speech codes—where they
are located and how to find them, and (2) the meanings, use, force, and
dynamics of speech codes.

Other potential directions, themes and/or topics for refiguring speech
codes theory could include any the following (this list is suggestive of
possibilities, not exhaustive):

•       Sites and structures of connection beyond speech community and
speech network

•       Interfaces, platforms, devices, materialities

•       Affordances

•       Context and context collapse

•       Multiple codes in the same lifeworld

•       Relations of codes to each other: opposition, dominance
interdependence

•       Fluidity

•       Sojourner codes

•       Speech codes as sources of personal meanings—identities and
interactions

•       Speech codes as sources of meanings—interpretations of
communicative acts

•       Pragmatics as a resource for the interpretation of communicative
acts

•       Temporality—time and timing, episodes, *kairos *(the opportune
moment)

•       How interlocutors use speech codes

•       Speech codes as a resource for action, and action research

•       Cooperative speech

•       Contending speech

•       Critique and defense of speech codes

•       Negotiation of codes, code boundaries, meanings

•       How users re-shape codes

•       The discursive force of codes

•       Performance

•       How speech codes theory can help explain the force of codes in
social life

•       Codes of honor and dignity, visibility and invisibility

We are particularly interested in work that increases the number of
empirical propositions in the theory and/or that refines and develops its
underlying conceptual framework.

We are open to a variety of types of contributions, including, for example,
new empirical propositions, modifications of extant propositions, and/or
conceptual refinements, or other types of studies that can advance speech
codes theory.

If anyone is interested in authoring an overview and/or a meta-analysis of
published work on speech codes theory, this could also be proposed for
inclusion in this book, whether as a chapter in its own right or an
appendix.

*Instructions for Submission*

All chapter proposals should be 500 words or less.

If you plan to make a case for a new proposition to be integrated into SCT,
please provide a tentative wording of the proposition.

Please also include a working title for your proposed chapter, as well as a
very short (100 words or less) author bio.

Submit your materials via email to gphil at uw.edu and tabitha.hart at sjsu.edu
by end of day on June 1, 2019.

If you have questions about possible ways to participate in this project or
would like to sound out your ideas, please contact us as soon as possible.

Finally, if you would like electronic copies of published versions of
speech codes theory and a working SCT bibliography, please contact us and
we will share these with you. We are also happy to share feedback on style
or approach for your proposed chapter.

*References*

Tabitha Hart, “Speech Codes Theory,” in Young Yun Kim, Editor, *The
International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication* (John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 2017).

Gerry Philipsen, *Speaking Culturally: Explorations in Social Communication*
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). [4 principles,
corresponding to 1, 3, 4, and 5 above]

Gerry Philipsen, “A Theory of Speech Codes,” in Gerry Philipsen and
Terrance Albrecht, Editors, *Developing Communication Theories* (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1997). [5 propositions corresponding to
1,3,4,5, and 6 above].

Gerry Philipsen, “Speech Codes Theory: Traces of Culture in Interpersonal
Communication” (revised). 2nd edition of *Engaging Theories in
Interpersonal Communication*, Editors, Dawn O. Braithwaite and Paul
Schrodt, (Sage, Los Angeles, 2015, 293-304).

Gerry Philipsen, “Speech codes theory and traces of culture in
interpersonal communication.” In Leslie Baxter and Dawn Braithwaite,
Editors, *Engaging Theories in  Interpersonal Communication*, (Los Angeles:
Sage Publications, 2008, 269-280).

Gerry Philipsen, Lisa M. Coutu, and Patricia Covarrubias, “Speech Codes
Theory: Restatement, Revisions, and Response to Criticisms,” in William B.
Gudykunst, Editor, *Theorizing about Intercultural Communication* (Thousand
Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2005). [6 propositions, as stated
above]

Gerry Philipsen and Tabitha Hart, “Speech Codes Theory.” *Encyclopedia of
Language and Social Interaction*. Wiley-Blackwell and the International
Communication Association. 2015

-- 
Dr. Tabitha Hart
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Studies
San José State University
http://www.sjsu.edu/comm/
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