Wednesday 7 November 2012

What happens when you interview the wrong Guy



When watching a television broadcast interview, it is generally obvious that there are rules being followed for the interview to be carried out successfully and as expected.  Although broadcast to potentially millions of viewers, these interviews begin as one-to-one interactions between an interviewer and an interviewee and the mix of interacting with the interview institution and of genuine live interaction can bring out interesting performances of the self by those involved.  It can be particularly valuable to examine an incident when a key characteristic of the news interview is undermined as we can see the way the conventions of the interview affect performances and examine how people deal with a breach in the news interview norms.  Broadcast live on BBC News 24 programme on Monday the 8th of May 2006 such an event occurred.  Guy Goma, a man waiting for a job interview, was mistakenly interviewed on live television as IT expert Guy Kewney and interestingly, Goma almost pulled it off.  This essay will look in depth at the underlying structures, assumptions and expectations that take place in the interaction and how the format of the news interview affects the performances of the interviewer and interviewee.  When analysed closely, this piece of data provides an interesting opportunity to question the nature of the self and Erving Goffman’s ideas about performance as well as Harold Garfinkel’s findings about how people react to the breaching of social norms.

For a television interview to be successful, there are certain expectations and obligations of the participants.  The structure of the interview is characterised by a set of generic markers that define the roles of interviewers and interviewees including the modes of address, the proxemics of the interview, the structure of questions and answers and the limits within which each of the participants can negotiate the constraints of those roles (Craig 2012, p. 76).  One of the key assumptions of the roles is that the interviewee is an expert in the specific area they are being interviewed in and the interviewer will ask questions relating to this.  When some of these assumptions are not filled, it can create a strange situation where interlocutors try to keep the interview format in place, even when key parts are missing. 

Looking at an interaction when something goes wrong follows the logic of pioneering ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel (Heritage 1984, p. 78).  The incident of Guy Goma’s interview gives an insight into how people conduct themselves in accordance with certain settings and how people will attempt to make sense of a situation rather than assume there is a breach in the social norms.  Guy Goma is a business studies graduate from the Republic of the Congo and was waiting in the main reception area of the BBC Television Centre in west London for a job interview for a position as a Data Support Cleanser (Waldman 2006).  Due to a series of miscommunications, Goma was taken to the set, introduced live on BBC News 24 as IT expert Guy Kewney and asked about the Apple Corps vs. Apple Computer court case.  Goma was noticeably surprised by his introduction, but with only a slight pause he proceeded to answer the questions the interviewer, Karen Bowerman, asked him even though he did not necessarily give the responses she was expecting.  Despite this serious subversion of interview conventions, the transcript of the interview (as seen below) shows that many of the rules of the interview format are adhered to.  For example Goma and Bowerman take turns with Bowerman initiating and leading the topic.  In any interview, some departures from the desired structure are accepted and other make conflict (Heritage and Roth 1995, p. 4), but what happens when the person being interviewed is not the intended interviewee and furthermore, what happens when this mistaken interviewee identifies the interview structure and tries to adhere to it, even though the questions asked are not for them is an interaction rich with micro-sociological data.

Transcript of Guy Goma Interview on BBC News 24 on 08/05/2006

 [1] Bowerman: Well, Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless. [Camera flashes to Guy] Hello, good morning to you.
[3] Bowerman: Were you surprised by this verdict today?
[4] Goma: I am very surprised to see...this verdict to come on me, because I was not expecting that. When I came, they told me something else and I am coming. "You got an interview," that's all. So a big surprise anyway.
                [7] Bowerman: A big surprise, yeah, yes.
                [8] Goma: Exactly.
[9] Bowerman: With regards to the cost that's involved, do you think now more people will be downloading online?
[11] Goma: Actually, if you can go everywhere you're gonna see a lot of people downloading through Internet and the website, everything they want. But I think it is much better for the development and...eh...to inform people what they want, and to get on the easy way, and so faster if they are looking for.
[15] Bowerman: This does really seem to be the way the music industry's progressing now, that people want to go onto the website and download music.
[17] Goma: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe, and you can take...you can go easy. It is going to be an easy way for everyone to get something through the Internet.
                [19] Bowerman: Guy Kewney, thanks very much indeed.

When Bowerman asked her initial question in line 3, she was fulfilling her role as an interviewer by asking the interviewee’s opinion on the matter at hand.  Goma’s response in lines 4 - 6 is honest to his true self, he is indeed surprised, but Goma also keeps his answer ambiguous.  At this point it could be conjectured that Goma’s attempt to answer the questions in a way that continues the interview and does not admit he does not know the answer could be consistent with him thinking he was in a job interview and rationalising the whole experience as some kind of initiation prank (Kewney 2006).   Rather than assume a horrible mistake has occurred, Goma initially tries to make sense of the situation, which is consistent with the findings from Garfinkel’s breaching experiments that that all actions, whether in a simple game or a social interaction, are perceived to have a constitutive structure and a threat to the normal order of these events is upsetting because if we don’t behave according to the rules social organisation simply disintegrates (Garfinkel 1963, p. 198).  Goma is not the only one trying to make the situation make sense as Bowerman in line 7 agrees with Goma’s assertion that it is a “big surprise”.  By carefully observing and analysing the naturally occurring data presented on this news clip, we can begin to deconstruct how interaction occurs in a news interview format and glean an insight into how different settings affect the presentation of the self.      

In their comprehensive book on the news interview, Clayman and Heritage describe it as “an interactional encounter between a journalist and one or more newsworthy public figures” (2002, p. 1).  They continue this definition by explaining interviews consist of “a journalist asking questions of politicians, experts, or others who are “in the news.”” (Clayman & Heritage 2002, p. 1).  It is clear from this basic definition of the news interview that if the person being interviewed is not an expert in the desired area, there is a serious breach in what is expected from the interaction.  In the case of Goma and Bowerman, neither participant fulfilled their obligations in the eyes of the other.  Goma was expecting to be in a job interview, so would have initially been expected to be referred to by his own name, and then asked questions relating to the job he was applying for.  Instead, Bowerman asked him questions about the Apple court case and downloading music.  Likewise, Bowerman expected that the man brought to the stage would be an expert in the area she was interviewing him in.  In her view, her interviewee was obligated to answer the questions with evidence of relevant prior knowledge.  As Goffman postulates, if rules of social conduct are broken, the people involved run the risk of being discredited (Goffman 1967, p. 51).  As Bowerman did not fill her obligation by interviewing the right person and Goma did not respond as an expert interviewee is expected to, both parties would have seemed to be socially incapable.  Instead, they struggled on with the façade of an interview in an attempt to save face. 

The way that Goma is acting in his interview could be described as a performance in line with what is expected in any formal interview, whether it is for a job or the news.  Goffman uses the term ‘performance’ to refer to all the activity an individual consciously makes before observers.  A performance is informed by a ‘front’ that is part of individuals’ performance in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for observers (Goffman 1971, p. 32).   In the interview Goma is performing the role he feels is expected, but aware of it.  Goma recognised the setting he is in as demanding a certain sort of behaviour and then performs that behaviour.  Goffman (1971) argued that all interaction is a performance only with different levels, i.e. front stage and back stage.  Goma’s performance is extremely front stage, his surprised to composed facial expressions at the beginning of the interview evidence that he is aware he needs to perform a role in accordance to the setting he is in.  Setting is part of Goffman’s front and includes scenic parts that act as stimuli to the performer such as furniture, layout, manner and appearance (Goffman 1971, pp32-35).  Goma tailors his performance based on the setting, even mirroring Bowerman’s sitting position throughout the interview. 

Even though Goma does obey many of the interview rules, it is clear to the audience within the first few seconds that there is something amiss in Goma’s interview with Bowerman.  As watchers of news, we can tell that this because we are familiar with the news interview format.  Perhaps what gives Goma’s illegitimacy as an expert interviewee away is his authentic look of horror as he is introduced as Guy Kewney and before he re-composes himself.  While Goffman argues that all interaction is a performance, examining Goma’s behaviour in his interview might suggest there is some authentic interaction.  When  the camera shows a close up of Goma’s face as he is introduced as Guy Kewney (see line 1) Goma’s face turns from a composed front to showing a looking of horror and even mischief before he resumes a performed front stage expression and officially acknowledges the introduction.  Goma’s seemingly raw reaction and then conscious performance could challenge Goffman’s claim that a performance can only be authentic to the degree that the performer is “sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality” and a cynic “may not be taken in at all by his own routine” and only perform it for the benefit of others (Goffman 1971, p. 28).  When considering Goma’s interview, it does not seem that he is performing his initial reaction at all, but the guise that follows is clearly a presentation of the self as stimulated by the setting.  Goma is aware he is performing when answering the questions asked by Bowerman by matching her manner and even her language, repeating the word “surprise” in lines 4 and 6 after she introduces it in line 3.  Goma is clearly aware of his performance that is almost entirely dictated by the setting, but his true, unmediated self can perhaps be seen to be beneath the façade dictated by the interview format.

Goma's performance of an expert being interviewed while still revealing some of his confused and nervous state certainly raises questions about the nature of the self.  Goma’s performance is informed heavily by external factors, especially by Goma wanting to protect his how Goma wants to be perceived by Bowerman and anyone else watching.  This phenomenon can be described by Charles Cooleys looking-glass self, which suggests that self-consciousness involves continually monitoring oneself from the point of view of others (Scheff 2005, p. 147).  This could explain Goma’s persistence with answering the questions in the interview as he was introduced as “Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless” (line 1).  As Bowerman and the audience perceived him as Kewney, he presented himself as the technology expert by answering the interview questions as best as he could in that role.

Goma’s presentation of self can also be considered to be affected by the institutions he is interacting with.  Goffman describes an institution as an instrumental formal organisation that creates a product such as material artefacts, decisions, or information (1960, p. 176) and that because interactions make up institutions, they are managed by the institutional culture (Manning 2008, p. 686).  This interview is not only modeled by the institution of the news broadcast interview with its legacy and expectations (Clayman & Heritage 2002, p. 12), it is also shaped by its presence within the BBC, which is an institution itself (Engel 2011).  The institutions Goma interacts with can be read as part of the setting he responds to when trying to adhere to the expert interview structure.  The news clip exposes the strict format of the news interview, and might even go as far as showing how strong the impact of an institution on the performance of self can be.  Goma’s performance as an expert on the Apple Corps vs. Apple Computer case could be viewed as not his own performance, but as something structured by the institution.  Even with no rehearsal of the event or research on the questions, in the institutional setting Goma was able to at least partially-successfully carry out an interview, possible due to the level of influence an institutional setting has on a person’s everyday interaction.

The short news clip of Guy Goma’s interview gives us an opportunity to consider how people perform their identities in relation to their context.  We can clearly see that the performance of self is affected by a setting and by others' perceptions.  It also becomes evident that everyday interaction can be affected by institutions which have their own heavily influential structures.  The example of Goma is particularly valuable as it provides an insight to how people can perform certain identities in rather extreme circumstances, as Goma was in a context where he was provoked to take on the identity of an expert in a specific area and carry out an interview i that guise, while still having his own concerns about being perceived as a desirable job applicant at play.  This essay has gone some of the way into uncovering how identities can be performed in response to certain settings, but more research could certainly be done to explore these concepts in depth.


References:

Clayman, S and Heritage, J 2002, News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air, Cambridge University Press, Port Chester.

Craig, G 2010, ‘Dialogue and dissemination in news media interviews’, Journalism, vol.11, no.1, pp75–90, accessed 17/10/2012, doi: 10.1177/1464884909349582


Garfinkel, H 1963 ‘A Conception of and Experiments with ‘Trust’ as a Condition of Concerted Stable Actions’ in O’Brien, J (ed.) The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction, vol. 4, California, Pine Forge Press, pp370-81.

Goffman, E 1960, Asylums, Aldine, Chicago.

Goffman, E 1967, ‘The nature of deference and demeanor’, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour, Pantheon Books, New York, pp47-96.

Goffman, E 1971, 'Performances', in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin, pp28-82, accessed 29/08/2012, http://ereadings.uow.edu.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/goffmane1.pdf

Heritage, J 1984, ‘The Morality of Cognition’, in Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp75-102.

Heritage, J and Roth, A 1995, ‘Grammar and Institution: Questions and Questioning in the Broadcast News Interview’, Research on Language & Social Interaction, vol. 28, no. 1, pp1-60, accessed 20/10/2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2801_1

Kewney, G 2006, ‘That “Guy” - he really is a Guy, and not a cab driver, either!’, weblog post, Newswireless,15 May, accessed 25/10/2012, http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2708

Manning, P 2008, ‘Goffman on Organizations’,  Organization Studies vol. 29, no. 5, pp677-699, doi: 10.1177/0170840608088767

Scheff, T.J. 2005, "Looking-Glass Self: Goffman as Symbolic Interactionist", Symbolic Interaction, vol. 28, no. 2, pp147-166.

Waldman, S 2006, ‘The wrong guy’, weblog post, BBC, 15 May, accessed 28/10/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/05/the_wrong_guy_1.html

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Sociology: The Infinite Onion

In the final lecture for this subject, my fantastic lecturer Andrew Whelan wrapped up "Everyday Interaction" which was a subject that looked at microsociology.
This was my first sociology class, but it's something I have been interested in for a long time. 

From this subject I have mainly taken away that sociology is like an infinite onion.
Someone peels back a layer of the onion, holds it up to you and says "Look, this is the real onion!"
And we all "ooh" and "aah" at the truth hidden under that masking layer.

We finally wrap our heads around one layer, say Marxism, and then someone peels back that layer and says "No guys, if we peel of this layer, THIS is the real onion!" 

Just when we feel like we've torn off enough layers and are staring in the face of truth, Goffman comes along and tells us all the layers are just performances and nothing is real... so we just keep on peeling in the hope of finding something real to look at, but I'm not sure anyone has reached the final layer of the onion yet, if there even is one.

All I can say is that I have only started peeling my sociological onion, and I've found each layer fascinating.  Just when I think I've peeled enough, another layer is peeled off and my mind is blown all over again.


Friday 19 October 2012

Comment on: 'Cunt' - it's an Australian thing



I left a comment on Claire's interesting post  Week 10: ‘Cunt’ – it’s an Australian thing:
Hey Claire, I found your comparison between Australia and Canada really interesting. Are you from Canada? I noticed a big difference between the use of swearing in Canada and Australia when I was exchange near Toronto last year. I don't swear much at all by Australian standards, but in Canada some words that I didn't even think were offensive got a comment! The word "piss" is one that I found people got really offended by in Canada, while in Australia it's pretty commonplace. It's also interesting that you pointed out how words can gain and lose significance so easily. I wrote about it a bit in my post, but when I was young I though "shit" and "bloody" were the worst words in the world, but the more people use them, the more familiar they become. I wonder if we will keep inventing more offensive words once we get used to the current ones so that we never run out of ways to swear...

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Performing the Self in Institutions


This week’s topic is a good opportunity to start applying some theories to the data I have chosen to research for my major paper.  Just in case you missed my last post, I am researching a news interview when a man named Guy Goma was mistakenly interviewed as an expert on live TV, when he was really in the BBC studio for a job interview. 




This interview took place on the BBC, which is an institution in Britain. Now the BBC is not just an institution, but an Institution.  Now that might not seem that different, an Institution with a capital “I” is more than just bricks and rules, it’s a set of practices and ideas surrounding what it actually is.  The BBC is seen as a cultural success in Britain that manages to beat commercial stations in ratings and so to be associated with the Institution of the BBC is loaded with cultural meaning (Engel 2011).  Anyway, the Institution or structure that is really dictating what happens in the Guy Goma interview, besides being on the BBC, is the news interview, specifically interviewing the expert.  This clip really exposes the strict format of the news interview, as even though Goma is not an expert in Apple Corps. he can read the interview format from the setting and way the questions are framed, and amazingly knows how to perform the role of the expert, even if he is not one.
The news media interview is a complicated communicative encounter.   The news media interview is characterised by a set of generic markers that determine both the roles of interviewers and interviewees – the modes of address, the proxemics of the interview, the structure of questions and answers – and the limits within which each of the participants can negotiate the constraints of those roles (Craig 2012, p. 76). 
In this clip it is clear that Goma is in an interview setting, and although his initial facial expression reveals that he knows something is amiss, his interaction with the Institution fasciliates a performance of an expert.  It always seems to come back to Goffman doesn’t it?  Goffman said we are always performing different versions of the self and that we perform a role for the benefit of others and expect them to believe accept our performance of authentic (Goffman 1971, p. 28).   Goma’s case might seem like a clear illustration of this, a man tries to fit into a situation save the face of the interviewer by playing the part that is expected, but I think there is something deeper going on here.  Goma is performing his own self, a man who was meant to go to a job interview but ended up on live TV, but he is also consciously performing a version of self dictated by the Institutional setting at the same time. 

References:

Craig, G 2010, ‘Dialogue and dissemination in news media interviews’, Journalism, vol.11, no.1, pp75–90, accessed 17/10/2012, doi:10.1177/1464884909349582
Engel, M 2011, ‘British institutions: the BBC’, FT.com, accessed 16/10/2012, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/docview/857493008
Goffman, E. 1971, 'Performances', in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin, pp28-82, accessed 29/08/2012, http://ereadings.uow.edu.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/goffmane1.pdf

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Data Discussion - "The Wrong Guy"

Trying to find naturally occurring data to analyse is not too tricky in a world where a lot of stuff gets recorded and posted online.  I was wracking my brain for weeks trying to think of some piece of data I could analyse through the microsociological frameworks I've been learning about when I finally remembered something perfect!  A few years ago I remember seeing on the news that a man at the BBC for a job interview had mistakenly been interviewed as an expert on live television.  I quickly hit YouTube with some keywords in mind and without too much trouble found the footage of Guy Goma, a man applying for a technical support job being interviewed as Guy Kewney, expert on the Apple Music court case.  The facial expressions made by Goma when he realises the mistake that has been made is almost enough to analyse, but the whole interview gives some really interesting insights into the construction of the interview format, social breaching, Goffman's ideas about performances and the concept of self.


Thursday 4 October 2012

When Girls Swear


Swearing/profanity/cursing/cussing, whatever you call it is a pretty fascinating phenomenon.  I distinctly remember the first time I told a joke with a swear word in it.  I had overheard my dad telling it to his friend.  I thought it was the rudest and dirtiest joke because it had the word “bloody” in the punchline.  The joke was:

A woman is at a supermarket and loads her groceries onto the checkout.  She buys one carrot, one sausage, soup for one, one potato and one bread roll.  As the cashier scans all the items he says to the woman, “I bet you’re single”, and the woman says, “Why yes I am, how’d you know?”  To this, the cashier replies, “Because you’re so bloody ugly.”

In hindsight, it’s a terrible joke.  It’s not funny and rather sexist, but it was the first time I think I ever swore. 

Back to swearing! When you’re young being allowed to swear means being grown-up and we long to be part of that community.  When we’re older, swearing, when used appropriately might help us fit in with different groups of people by making us seem “real” and not stuck up.  When used inappropriately it might make us seem rude or crass.  I personally love swearing.  I don’t swear a lot at all, but I choose my moments.  I swear to make a point that I am really angry or hurt, and sometimes I swear when I want to prove that I’m, for want of a better word, tough.  This is usually with my dad and brother, but also if someone makes a comment about women not being able to swear.  

The gender divide in coarse language really interests me. Why are men perceived to swear more than women?  As I said before, I don’t swear much and many people in Australia are shocked if I ever do swear.  That’s why I found it really strange that when I was in Canada people said I swore a lot “for a girl”. 

From a feminist perspective, it can be argued that women are denied power by not having strong words, including swear-words in their feminine vocabulary (Lakoff 1973, p. 51) as humans are socialised to expect men and women to behave and speak in certain ways deemed appropriate to their sex (Lakoff 1973, p. 53).  Lakoff explains that women are faced with a difficult situation:
So a girl is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. If she refuses to talk likea lady, she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as unfeminine; if she does learn, she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two choices which a woman has - to be less than a woman or less than a person-are highly painful (Lakoff 1973, p. 48).
Now we need to remember that Lakoff was working in the 1970s and was influenced by the full swing of second wave feminism, but I think she definitely has some good points.  Some more recent psychological scholarship has proposed that biological or genetic influences may also have a role in explaining observed sex differences.  Ginsburg, Ogletree & Silakowski argue that from a Darwinian perspective vulgar language usage might be tied to aggression threats, dominance displays, or group cohesion on males (2003, p. 112).  In my opinion, even if biologically male traits started people swearing, it has certainly become a social and linguistic tool.  Swearing feels a little bit naughty, and can be used to signal that you’re really angry or hurt or even to lighten the mood.  I’ll leave you with a youtuube video that illustrates rather nicely how profanity can bring people together.





References:

Ginsburg, H, Ogletree, S and Silakowski, T 2003, ‘Vulgar Language: Review of Sex Differences in Usage, Attributions, and Pathologies’, North American Journal of Psychology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 105-115, accessed 2/10/2012, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/docview/197982883
Lakoff, R 1973, Language and woman's place, Language in Society, vol. 2, no. 1, pp45-49, accessed 2/10/2012,  http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/10.1017/S0047404500000051

Friday 28 September 2012

Mediated Communication: slaying the trolls


I think we could all agree that the internet has changed the way we communicate pretty dramatically compared to 50 years ago.  I mean you have to agree, you’re on a blog!
According to Richard Miller, the internet has brought on “the greatest change in human communication in human history” (2010, p. 143), which has some pretty huge implications for the way we interact with each other and understand the world.  One big thing the internet has changed is that we can interact with others away from the identity ascribed to us in “real life”.  I have generally thought of this as a good thing, for example a recently read an article where a young deaf woman described that that social media was a gateway to interacting with people without prejudice (Hollier 2012).

As it turns out though, there are issues linked with online anonymity. I particularly like the explanation by Randy Foster, managing editor of the New Bern Sun Journal, that “[anonymous] online commenting is the literary equivalent to road rage” (Kabay 2011).  It does make sense, when people are protected by not having to link their actions to their real life identity; they have a lot more confidence, and are often quite mean.
Long-established research in social psychology pointed out that anonymity increases anti-social behaviour.  In a 2008 experiment in Japan, 70 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions (Anonymous, Nonidentifiable, Nonaccountable, and Nonanonymous) to examine whether they would violate game rules to obtain the monetary reward through anonymity. Only participants in the Anonymous condition violated the rules to obtain the reward" (Kaybay 2011).
In light of recent nasty comments on Twitter people are more upset about the online issue (Jones & Byrnes 2012).  Some newspaper websites have taken to not allowing anonymous comments on their posts (Rosenberry 2011, p. 6).  I completely get where these people are coming from, no-one likes trolls, BUT the internet is a separate place to real life and it allows us to be anyone.  I like the freedom of it, but as the internet is increasingly becoming an integral part of real life it is inevitable it will have to change.  We can’t have trolls roaming the streets, but if we shoo them offline, where will they go next?


Reference List:
Hollier, S 2012, ‘Social media helps find work (and delivers cheap pizza)’, Ramp Up, 23rdMarch, accessed 30/09/2012,http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2012/03/23/3462327.htm

Jones, G and Byrnes, H 2012, ‘Time is up for Twitter trolls and bullies’, The Daily Telegraph, 11 September, accessed 30/09/2012, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/time-is-up-for-twitter-trolls-and-bulllies/story-e6freuy9-1226472133504

Kabay, M 2011, ‘See you anon: Reflections on online anonymity’, Network World, 26 Sept accessed 30/09/2012, http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA267972186&v=2.1&u=uow&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w

Miller, R 2010, ‘The Coming Apocalypse’, Pedagogy, vol.10, no.1, pp143-151, accessed
Rosenberry, J 2011, 'Users Support Online Anonymity Despite Increasing Negativity', Newspaper Research Journal, vol. 32, no. 2, pp6-19, accessed 30/09/2012, Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost.

Thursday 20 September 2012

Bloody Identity Eh?



Language is a hugely important part of forming identity.  As linguist Anna Wierzbicka states, “the way we speak reflects the way we think” (2002, p. 1167). I remember when I started learning German I started to feel a real affiliation with that culture and when I was living in Canada I would either emphasise my Australian accent to assert my identity or would pick up Canadian slang like "eh?' (which they really do say) to fit in with my new friends (convergence and divergence bells ringing anyone?)

After doing some research I confirmed something I already knew.  I speak Standard Australian English, which is the dominant dialect and is used by the vast majority of speakers in Australia. It is a salient marker of national identity, and is used in broadcasting and in public life.  In addition to that Wierzbicka argues that we use the adjective “bloody” a lot.  The Aboriginal and Ethnocultural varieties are minority dialects allowing speakers to express their cultural identity within the multicultural Australian context (Cox & Palethorpe 2007).  I would agree that it is a bit of a quirk of standard Australian English to chuck bloody in a conversation to show you’re not stuck up, because everyone knows Australians do not like tall poppies (Peeters 2004).

The importance of language as a link to and even form of identity can be more obvious when you don’t have it.  In a speech about the importance of Kiah Perry explains that his native language is almost lost and is fighting to save it because language is a part of culture and knowledge as a means of empowering people (Perry 2012, p. 60). He argues it contributes to the well-being of Aboriginal communities, strengthens ties between Elders and young people and gives a sense of identity (Perry 2010, p. 62).  The Department of Aboriginal affairs recognises that “to Aboriginal people, language is much more than just words. It is a direct link to land and country. It holds traditional songs and stories. It is about spirituality and deep meaning, and it reflects unique cultural concepts and ways of looking at the world” (Department of Aboriginal Affairs 2004, p. 1). 

Language is such an important part of identity it would be very painful to lose.  It doesn’t just need to be a national language either (I once heard a great quite that said a language is just a dialect with an army), as regional dialects, accents or even argot can be valued markers of identity.

Reference List:


Cox, F and Palethorpe, S 2007, ‘Australian English’, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, vol. 37, no. 3, pp 341-350, accessed 20/09/2012, http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/10.1017/S0025100307003192

Department of Aboriginal Affairs 2004, New South Wales Aboriginal Languages Policy, NSW Government, NSW, accessed 20/09/2012, http://www.daa.nsw.gov.au/data/files//languagespolicyFINAL.pdf

Peeters, B 2004, ‘‘‘Thou shalt not be a tall poppy’’: Describing an Australian communicative (and behavioral) norm’, Intercultural Pragmatics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp71–92, accessed 27/08/2012, doi: 1612-295X/04/0001–0071

Perry, K 2010, ‘Language and identity: A speech’ Ngoonjook: a Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, no. 35, pp60-63, accessed 20/09/2012, http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=880049160454269;res=IELIND
 
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