Constructing, construing, and communicating: Intercultural communication in La Paz, Bolivia.
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TextDescription: 423 pISBN: 0493580328Subject(s): Anthropology, Cultural | Language, Linguistics | 0326 | 0290Dissertation note: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002. Summary: I present my research on communication between citizens of La Paz, Bolivia whose linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds differ. The research is based on the premise that people in a given society do not always have access to, or interest in, the same sources or types of knowledge. I conducted the research in the bureaucratic context of <italic>audiencas</italic> (‘audiences’) that are held by several city government officials to hear petitions, complaints, and questions brought forth by neighborhood representatives. In most of the audiences that I observed, the neighborhood representatives were bilingual Spanish and Aymara speakers and the officials were monolingual Spanish speakers. The representatives and the officials participate in social networks that do not frequently overlap outside of the institutional context. Given the social separation, the way that they learned to speak Spanish will differ.Summary: My central hypothesis is that the officials and representatives will use different discourse cues to signal social meaning and that these differences will sometimes result in miscommunication. Although I find instances where differences in the discourse cues could have led to misunderstanding, it is not always that clear-cut whether they did or not. The expectations that the officials and representatives hold in relation to the situation and each other strongly influence the discourse strategies they use and their willingness to work toward common communicative ground. Their expectations are formulated on the knowledge they have of each other and the situation based on their prior interactions or their knowledge of others' prior interactions. I move beyond my original hypothesis in attributing more agency to the participants than the hypothesis entails. In the speech events that I examine it is entirely possible that the participants are aware of the differences in their discourse strategies and persist despite this recognition and the miscommunication that ensues. Differences in discourse strategies, therefore, go beyond simple linguistic interference. They are linked to the individual's knowledge about the world and are often motivated by conflicting goals and expectations based on this knowledge, and may be actively asserted in the course of the conversation in the face of countering communicative strategies.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-02, Section: A, page: 0645.
Adviser: Janet D. Keller.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.
I present my research on communication between citizens of La Paz, Bolivia whose linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds differ. The research is based on the premise that people in a given society do not always have access to, or interest in, the same sources or types of knowledge. I conducted the research in the bureaucratic context of <italic>audiencas</italic> (‘audiences’) that are held by several city government officials to hear petitions, complaints, and questions brought forth by neighborhood representatives. In most of the audiences that I observed, the neighborhood representatives were bilingual Spanish and Aymara speakers and the officials were monolingual Spanish speakers. The representatives and the officials participate in social networks that do not frequently overlap outside of the institutional context. Given the social separation, the way that they learned to speak Spanish will differ.
My central hypothesis is that the officials and representatives will use different discourse cues to signal social meaning and that these differences will sometimes result in miscommunication. Although I find instances where differences in the discourse cues could have led to misunderstanding, it is not always that clear-cut whether they did or not. The expectations that the officials and representatives hold in relation to the situation and each other strongly influence the discourse strategies they use and their willingness to work toward common communicative ground. Their expectations are formulated on the knowledge they have of each other and the situation based on their prior interactions or their knowledge of others' prior interactions. I move beyond my original hypothesis in attributing more agency to the participants than the hypothesis entails. In the speech events that I examine it is entirely possible that the participants are aware of the differences in their discourse strategies and persist despite this recognition and the miscommunication that ensues. Differences in discourse strategies, therefore, go beyond simple linguistic interference. They are linked to the individual's knowledge about the world and are often motivated by conflicting goals and expectations based on this knowledge, and may be actively asserted in the course of the conversation in the face of countering communicative strategies.
School code: 0090.
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