28.2934, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Semantics; Sociolinguistics: Jones (2016)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2934. Wed Jul 05 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2934, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics; Semantics; Sociolinguistics: Jones (2016)

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Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2017 09:51:21
From: Kerry Mullan [kerry.mullan at rmit.edu.au]
Subject: Spoken Discourse

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-3101.html

AUTHOR: Rodney H. Jones
TITLE: Spoken Discourse
SERIES TITLE: Bloomsbury Discourse
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Kerry J Mullan, RMIT University

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY
 
Rodney Jones introduces Spoken Discourse (2016) as being about “how people use
conversation to manage their lives – to get things done, to form and maintain
relationships with other people, to enact certain kinds of social identities
and to participate in social groups” (p. 1). He begins by analysing a short
excerpt of a telephone conversation in which a son ‘comes out’ as gay to his
father, an analysis that he refers to on several occasions throughout the
book. He uses this and many other examples of interaction to show how spoken
discourse “always involves people doing something” and how it involves
multiple actions and multiple social practices (p. 3), since things are done
differently in different societies. 

The author points out that studying and participating in spoken discourse is
imperfect since our knowledge of what was really meant in any interaction is
always incomplete and we therefore need to infer a great deal. For this
reason, it is important to consider how things are said, not just what is said
(e.g. silences / pauses), as well as other factors such as culture, context,
and the relationship between the participants (pp. 4-5). The main claim of the
book is that “all spoken discourse is mediated in some way”, for example
through the voice and body, physical setting and other objects, but also
through sets of rules and expectations around how particular interactions
should unfold (p. 11).  Jones refers to these practices as technologies since
they are man-made cultural artefacts. Jones introduces us at this point to the
concept of “circumferencing” (p. 12), by using the extract of the ‘coming out’
conversation to illustrate how our understanding of an interaction changes
when we have more or less information about it.

Jones concludes his introductory chapter by explaining the three meanings of
discourse he will be focusing on in his book (pp. 19-20):
- language above clause (structure)
- language in use (doing)
- social world / practice (power)
and how he will present a model of spoken discourse (mediated discourse
analysis) which accommodates these three aspects and shows how they work
together (p. 21).
 
Chapter 2 explains the interdisciplinary nature of the study of spoken
discourse and presents a survey of the approaches and work to date on spoken
discourse relevant to the author’s ideas. Jones explains how linguistics in
fact contributed less to the study of spoken discourse than some other
disciplines, since traditionally linguists studied language as a system
“independent of the contingencies of its use” (p. 26), although he
acknowledges the contributions made by Saussure and Chomsky to the study of
language in general. Jones proceeds to give a detailed account of the
contribution of various linguists (such as Sinclair & Coulthard, Labov and
Halliday) to the study of spoken discourse as we understand it today (p. 27).
He explains the role of philosophy and the study of rhetoric in ancient
Greece, in particular the relationship between speech style and the speaker’s
goals, and how speech influences how others see us (p. 28).  The contribution
of more recent philosophers such as Austin, Grice and Wittgenstein to this
field will be known to most readers, as will their respective contributions:
speech act theory, interactional logic, and the notion of language games.

The author clarifies the contribution to spoken discourse of anthropology and
of  important scholars such as Malinowski for his work on situating language
in context and culture, and Boas for his emphasis on language as inseparable
from social practices and social relationships (pp. 30-31); this work would
ultimately lead to the theory of linguistic relativism, also known as the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  In this section Jones covers other influential
anthropologists, such as Hymes (whose model of ethnography of communication
was directly opposed to Chomsky’s theory of generative linguistics), and Ochs
and Silverstein who developed the notion of indexicality. Jones introduces us
to the Palo Alto group – an interdisciplinary and important, yet
under-acknowledged, group of anthropologists, psychiatrists, information
scientists and cyberneticists who collaborated on what was probably the first
case of micro-analysis of a filmed spoken interaction (pp. 33-34). Bateson is
perhaps the most well-known member of this group; he introduced the concepts
of metacommunication and framing in discourse.

In the next section, Jones describes how sociologists such as Goffman and
Garfinkel have strongly influenced the study of spoken discourse through their
‘bottom up’ approach to the study of social life through interaction (p. 35). 
This led to the frameworks of conversation analysis (attributed to Sacks) and
interactional sociolinguistics. Jones points out that it is often forgotten
that conversation analysis (CA) was originally developed based on
technologically mediated communication (i.e. phone calls) not face to face
talk.  Gumperz is generally acknowledged as the founder of interactional
sociolinguistics.  Whereas CA is concerned with the orderliness of interaction
(p. 38), interactional sociolinguistics is more concerned with how social
concepts like ages, gender and ethnicity affect communication.  French
sociologist Bourdieu also contributed greatly to the study of discourse
through his work on how we habitually perform social actions and through his
notion of ‘symbolic capital’ (p. 39).  

In the section on critical perspectives, which he defines as “approaches that
acknowledge that the kinds of resources that are available to people for
social interaction, the kinds of ‘language games’ in which they deploy these
resources, and the ways that they are accountable to one another for how they
do so, are not ideologically neutral” (p. 39), Jones includes Foucault’s
‘orders of discourse’ (p. 39), Kristeva’s notion of ‘intertextuality’ (which
proposes that no text is completely original), and Derrida’s related notion of
iterability (or repeatability) (p. 40). In the following section, Jones
examines three areas of tension between the aforementioned approaches to
spoken discourse analysis: the ‘text/context’ problem; the ‘structure/agency’
problem; and the ‘macro/micro’ problem (p. 42).

Jones then introduces the framework he will use throughout the rest of the
book to analyse spoken discourse: mediated discourse analysis (p. 44),
developed by Scollon and colleagues.  This framework offers a way to combine
aspects of all the approaches to spoken discourse analysis and to address the
three areas of tension referred to above.  Greatly influenced by Vygotsky’s
theory of cultural-historical psychology (p. 44) and Bakhtin’s concepts of
heteroglossia and dialogism (p. 45) which emphasise the social connectedness
of what we do and say, mediated discourse analysis consists of five key
concepts which can “help us to understand how our everyday engagement with
spoken discourse both situates us in the societies in which we live and
creates opportunities for us to change those societies for the better” (p.
46).  These are mediation, action, interaction, identity and community.

Jones explains that mediation includes semiotic and physical means: languages,
gestures, genres, styles of speaking etc., as well as computers and telephones
(pp. 46-7).  He refers to these as ‘technologies of talk’ (idem), subject to
affordances and constraints which amplify or limit the potential for action
(p. 47). Mediated discourse analysis takes a slightly different approach to
action, in that it examines the role of discourse in the accomplishment of
action at a particular ‘site of engagement’ (pp. 48-9) where actors have
constructed a social situation in which the conversation takes place. 
Interaction as used here in a broad sense refers to multiple forms of
interaction: that between speakers and listeners, that between technologies of
talk, that among the speakers’ different social groups, and that among the
sites of engagement (pp. 49-50).  It also embodies the notions of dialogism
and heteroglossia referred to earlier to incorporate the connectedness of the
interaction to previous speaker’s utterances. Mediated discourse analysis
deals with identity as interactional rather than philosophical (i.e. the
notion of a core ‘self’ and/or a social role in a certain situation), how we
negotiate our identities in interaction, and how these negotiations in turn
contribute to the ongoing evolution of these identities in a particular
community) (pp. 50-51). This concept of community focusses on how certain
groups are imagined (e.g. around ways of talking such as dialects, or as
speech genres and social practices), and how they become tools for people to
take social action and build communities and societies (pp. 51-2).

In the next five chapters, Jones uses the five key concepts of mediated
discourse analysis to analyse various extracts of discourse.  Chapter 3
(Technologies of Talk) examines in detail the different physical and semiotic
tools used in spoken discourse and the social actions they make possible, and
applies these to the analysis of a filmed interaction between two friends
where one ‘comes out’ as gay to the other.  The rest of this chapter deals
with speech genres and social languages and how they govern certain
interactions.  Jones adds a final section on technologies and
technologisation, where technologies are “tools that become associated with
bodies of knowledge and collections of techniques as to how to use them” and
technologisation is the “process by which tools come to be associated with
techniques for using them” (p. 72). 

In Chapter 4 (Talk in Action), Jones explores the two ways to conceive of the
relationship between discourse and action: discourse as action; and discourse
in action.  He does this primarily through the analysis of a graduation
ceremony at Hong Kong Baptist University and two further instances of ‘coming
out’, all of which are complex scenarios, able to be fully understood only by
applying both discourse as action and discourse in action, and by
acknowledging the role of past actions in making future ones possible (p.
102).

Chapter 5 (Talk in Interaction) looks at how participants manage interaction
in spoken discourse, and at the broader concept of the interaction order (the
unspoken rules and expectations that govern interactions) (p. 106).  Jones
uses a selection of examples to illustrate how these rules differ, and how
interactants use them to achieve certain outcomes, for example turn taking,
topic changes, openings and closings (pp. 112-120). The final section in this
chapter deals with participation, i.e. who can participate in an interaction
and in what way, through Goffman’s notions of ‘participation frameworks’ and
‘production formats’ (p. 121), and concludes with another reference to the
bigger picture: how all interactions are connected to past discourse and are
part of a larger conversation (Gee’s ‘big C Conversations’, p. 132).

In Chapter 6 (Talk and Identity), Jones explores how participants reveal or
claim certain identities (or certain aspects of themselves) through various
interactions. He goes on to illustrate how identities can be a number of
things: stable roles that participants use to accomplish certain social
actions (our identity kits, p. 138); the accomplishments themselves in each
new interaction (identity management, p. 147); and our ‘historical bodies’
(Scollon, p. 134) – the collections of our past interactional experiences
(identity projects, p. 153).

Chapter 7 (Talk and Communities) looks at how participants speak as members of
different groups or ‘communities’, how different technologies of talk affect
and characterise interactions within and between groups and how group
membership is used in interactions.  Following an initial section on culture
and intercultural communication, the rest of the chapter is based on a
discussion of the three different notions of ‘community’ which make up
Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’ (p. 160): speech communities, discourse
communities and communities of practice.  Jones shows us how imagined
communities give people a way to make sense of their experiences and
identities through their membership in various groups, and how this is
intertwined with membership in certain concrete communities, in turn
influencing discourse practices.

Jones’ final chapter (Answerability and the Future of Talk) summarises the
main points of the book: how all conversations involve issues of identity,
agency, and group affiliation, where the speakers expose themselves in some
way, and where the participants must respond to each other (p. 181).  The
author reminds us of Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue (p. 181), and its
connectedness with past discourses in our consciousness - those conducted with
others or those conducted by others - which have influenced us.  This
connectedness leads Jones to reiterate an important point that he has made
throughout the book in his frequent references to the bigger picture: this
connectedness across discourse has an ethical dimension, described by Bakhtin
as ‘answerability’ (p. 183).  When we participate in social interaction, we
are answerable for what we say and do – not only to the other immediate
participants but also to the wider community and the ‘big C’ conversations to
which we are contributing in our societies, and to ourselves and the person we
want to be. Jones asks us all to consider the consequences of our utterances:
for ourselves, our interlocutors and our societies.  Mediated discourse
analysis provides us with the tools to explain how this answerability is
possible, essentially through the reflexive nature of discourse, which allows
us to look back at what we have said and to talk about it through
metadiscourse (p. 185).

The final sections of the book concern the analysis of two particular
incidents of police mistreatment of African Americans showing how these
incidents are connected to and contribute to the ‘big C’ conversation around
racism and police brutality towards African Americans, but how at the same
time the analysis of these incidents can be manipulated to contribute to the
portrayal of African Americans as threatening or dangerous, and how
metadiscursive strategies can shape our perceptions of reality and our
treatment of others (p. 195).  Jones concludes with a warning to discourse
analysts to remember that our analyses are filtered through various
technologies of talk, and that to fully analyse spoken discourse we need to
take into account the broader social and historical context, as well as the
micro detail of the interaction. To do this we need to become adept at
‘circumferencing’, at “continually adjusting our perception of phenomena so
that we don’t get ‘stuck’ either in the ‘small d’ discourse of the individual
interaction or the ‘big D’ discourse of the social context” (p. 196).

EVALUATION

Despite the author’s disclaimer that he was unable to cover all approaches and
work to date (p. 25), Jones manages to provide a thorough and comprehensive
examination of spoken discourse. The book covers the most important areas of
spoken discourse in a logical and systematic manner, beginning with a survey
of the history and main contributors to the field. The author summarises and
outlines a number of important frameworks and approaches to the analysis of
spoken discourse, concluding with an explanation of his choice to use a
combination of these through the mediated discourse analysis approach. Jones
clarifies the five key concepts of this approach and then uses the following
five chapters (Chapters 3 to 7) to examine these one by one through the
analysis of a number of examples of spoken discourse. He achieves this, at the
same time incorporating many of the main authors and frameworks as he moves
deftly from micro to macro analysis of the examples of interaction, discussing
the philosophical and practical nature of the connectedness of discourse along
the way. For the most part clear and well written (apart from a couple of
distracting typographical errors in the first half of the book), as will be
seen from this review itself, the book is nevertheless dense and demands a
high level of focus from the reader at all times. 

My main criticisms would be with two of the reviewer quotes on the back of the
book which I find misleading. One reviewer implies that this is a textbook.
The coherent and progressive narrative throughout this monograph makes it
difficult to imagine students using this as a textbook which they might dip in
and out of. This point is linked to my second criticism which is to disagree
with the reviewer who recommends this to “both experienced discourse analysts
and novices in the field”. Again, it is hard to imagine this book as
appropriate for novices to spoken discourse analysis. While Jones outlines
important scholars and frameworks, a certain existing knowledge of the field
is required to fully appreciate the summaries covered, given the limits of
space within which the author necessarily has to operate. Although mentioned
above as a strength of the book, in my opinion it is precisely Jones’ micro
and macro analysis of interaction and his philosophical and ethical
discussions of the connectedness of discourse which would challenge many
novices in the field. This is not to dissuade novices from reading this
important book, but more experienced discourse analysts with an understanding
of the range of approaches are more likely to benefit from this work.

This book is without doubt a very valuable and thought-provoking contribution
to the literature on spoken discourse analysis. Not only is it a useful
reference as a history and explanation of various discourse analysis
frameworks, it also offers a balanced and an up to date summary of all sides
of the contemporary debates surrounding the terminology and approaches to
discourse analysis. In addition, the book’s constant reminders of the
connectedness of discourse and the part we all play in that and in our
societies will resonate strongly with the reader. As Jones points out (p.
196), “[t]he purpose of analysing spoken discourse is not just to find out
something interesting about language and communication. It is to make us
better at it”. And if we get better at analysing discourse, we might also
manage to create better societies.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Kerry Mullan is Senior Lecturer and Convenor of Languages at RMIT and Deputy
Director of the Centre for Global Research. She teaches French language and
culture and Global Language. Her main research interests are cross-cultural
communication and the differing interactional styles of French and Australian
English speakers. She also researches in the areas of intercultural
pragmatics, discourse analysis and language teaching. She is currently
investigating humour in French and Australian English social interaction.





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