Vocatives: A double-edged strategy in intercultural discourse among graduate students

Elizabeth Axelson

Abstract

This paper takes a critical interactional sociolinguistic approach to examine the construction of interculturality (e.g., Nishizaka 1995; Mori 2003) through the use of vocatives in the discourse of a multi-cultural graduate student project group at a large American university. Interviews and descriptive information contextualize the analysis to demonstrate that the use of vocatives achieves a tight linking of inclusion but also inequality in the group talk that involves the Japanese member. The group’s vocatives show a shared interest in bringing the Japanese member into the interaction, but they also construct unequal rights to the floor. They contribute to an interculturality of subordination and an artificial sense of intimacy, characteristics consistent with the institutional setting of the group and attitudes members held about each other. In this environment, the status quo of power identities and a deficit view of the Japanese member goes largely uncontested and limits the ability of American members to learn from their Japanese partner.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Axelson, E
(2003) A longitudinal study of intercultural discourse in a master’s thesis project group. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI.
Ainsworth-Vaughn, N
(1998) Claiming power in doctor-patient talk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Aston, G
(1993) Notes on the interlanguage of comity. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 224-250.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M.M
(1986) Speech genres and other late essays. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Barton, E
(2002) Inductive Discourse Analysis: Discovering rich features. In E. Barton, & G. Stygall (eds.), Discourse Studies in Composition. Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 19-42.Google Scholar
Becker, A.L
(1995) Beyond translation: Essays toward a modern philology. Ann Arbor MI: The University of Michigan Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Behar, R
(1996) The Vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad, and E. Finegan
(1999) Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Brown, P., and S.C. Levinson
(1978) Politeness: Some universals in language use (1987 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cantor, N
(2000) Reinvention: Why now? why us? A second anniversary retrospective on the Boyer Commission report [speech]. State university of New York, Stony Brook, April 28, 2000. Retrieved, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://​www​.umich​.edu​/~provost​/speeches​.htm.
Day, D
(1994) Tang's dilemma and other problems: Ethnification processes at some multicultural workplaces. Pragmatics 4.3: 315-336.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Edelsky, C
(1993) Who's got the floor. In D. Tannen (ed.), Gender and conversational interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 189-227.Google Scholar
Eggins, S., and D. Slade
(1997) Analysing casual conversation. London: Cassell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C.J
(1994) Humor in academic discourse. In A. Grimshaw (ed.), What's going on here? Complementary studies of professional talk, Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing, pp. 271-310.Google Scholar
Green, J.L., and C. Wallat
(1981) Mapping instructional conversations - a sociolinguistic ethnography. In J.L. Green & C. Wallat (eds.), Ethnography and language in educational settings. Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing, pp. 161-205.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, J.J
(1982) Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1992) Contextualization and understanding. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 229-252.Google Scholar
Gurin, P
(2000) The compelling need for diversity in higher education [expert report]. University of Michigan. Retrieved October 17, 2000, from the World Wide Web: www​.umich​.edu​/~urel​/admissions​/legal​/expert​/gurintoc​.html
Hook, D.D
(1984) First names and titles as solidarity and power semantics in English. IRAL 22.3: 183-189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaworski, A., and D. Galasinski
(2000) Vocative address forms and ideological legitimization in political debates. Discourse Studies 2.1: 35-53. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Koole, T., and J.D. ten Thije
(2001) The reconstruction of intercultural discourse: Methodological considerations. Journal of Pragmatics 33.4: 571-587. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kramsch, C
(1993) Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Leech, G
(1999) The distribution and function of vocatives in American and British English Conversation. In H. Hasselgard & S. Oksefjell (eds.), Out of corpora: Studies in honour of Stig Johansson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 107-118.Google Scholar
Leki, I
(2001) "A narrow thinking system": Nonnative-English-speaking students in group projects across the curriculum. TESOL Quarterly 35.1: 39-66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S.C
(1979) Activity types and language. Linguistics 17.5-6: 356-399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lindemann, S
(2001) Non-native speaker 'incompetence' as a construction of the native speaker: Attitudes and their relationship to perception and comprehension of Korean-accented English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI.Google Scholar
Loveday, L
(1986) Explorations in Japanese sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Maynard, S.K
(2001) Expressivity in discourse: Vocatives and themes in Japanese. Language Sciences 23.6: 679-705. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, M.J., and A.O. O'Keeffe
(2001) What's in a name? Vocatives in casual conversations and radio phone-in calls. Paper presented at the The Third North American Symposium on Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching, Boston.
Meeuwis, M., and S. Sarangi
(1994) Perspectives on intercultural communication: A critical reading. Pragmatics 4.3: 309-313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merriam, S.B
(1988) Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Mori, J
(2003) The construction of interculturality: A study of initial encounters between Japanese and American students. Research on Language and Social Interaction 36.2: 143-184. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Morita, N
(2004) Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly 38.4: 573-603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nishizaka, A
(1995) The interactive constitution of interculturality: How to be a Japanese with words. Human Studies 18.2-3: 301-326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ostermann, A.C
(2000) Reifying and Defying Sisterhood in Discourse: Communities of practice at work at an all-female police station and a feminist crisis intervention center in Brazil. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI.Google Scholar
Psathas, G
(1995) Conversation Analysis: The study of talk-in-interaction. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scotton, C.M., and W. Zhu
(1983) Tongzhi in China: Language change and its conversational consequences. Language in Society 12.4: 477-494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shea, D.P
(1994) Perspective and production: Structuring conversational participation across cultural borders. Pragmatics 4.3: 357-389.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spradley, J.P
(1979) The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Swales, J.M
(2004) Research genres: Explorations and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taniguchi, Y
(2001) An additional dimension: Use of address forms and foreign language learning. Unpublished manuscript.
Tannen, D
(1984) Conversational style: Analyzing talk among friends. Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Company.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Tracy, K
(1995) Action-implicative discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14.1-2: 195-215. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Troemel-Ploetz, S
(1994) "Let me put it this way, John": conversational strategies of women in leadership positions. Journal of Pragmatics 22.2: 199-209. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Wood, L.A., and R.O. Kroger
(1991) Politeness and forms of address. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 10.3: 145-168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zuengler, J
(1993) Explaining NNS Interactional behavior: The effect of conversational topic. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 184-195.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A.M
(1974) Hey, whatsyourname! Papers from the Tenth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society 10: 787-801. Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago.Google Scholar