Download Hymes` Functions

Hymes’
Functions
Jan Blommaert
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Intellectual powerhouse and empire builder
– Reed, Indiana, Harvard, Berkeley, Pennsylvania,
Virginia
– Linguistics, anthropology, folklore, education
– Students and colleagues: Bauman, Sherzer, Darnell,
Silverstein, Ochs, Irvine, Hornberger, Gumperz, ErvinTripp, Goffman, Cicourel, Jakobson, Burke
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But never wrote a synthesis of his theoretical
insights
– 1974: Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An
Ethnographic Approach
– 1996: Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality:
Toward an Understanding of Voice
Main concerns
Understanding the role of language/speech in
individual lives and in the lives of collectives
 Understanding linguistic inequality as a practical
and theoretical problem
 Developing a fully social and humanistic theory
of language/speech
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– Paradigm shift in linguistics: ‘sociolinguistics’
– Extending anthropological tradition: ‘ethnography’
Background 1: linguistics
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1957: Chomsky « Syntactic structures »
– Object of linguistics: The ideal speaker in a
contextless environment
– Distinction between Competence (abstract
grammatical capacity) and Performance
(actualization of competence)
– Linguistics concerned with Competence:
structure, grammar
– Theoretically elaborate: model of a socialscientific ‘theory’
Background 2: Anthropology
Boas-Sapir-Whorf tradition of understanding the
place of language in culture
 Ethnography: comprehensive description of
cultural phenomena (incl. Language)
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– Focus on context of cultural phenomena
Language structure is related to culture, informs
us about culture (or vice versa)
 Sapir-Whorf thesis: linguistic relativity
(different forms can have the same function)
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Hymes the anti-Chomskyan
Responds to Chomsky from within
anthropological paradigm
 Distinction between STRUCTURE and USE
 Structure = concern of Chomskyan
linguistics
 Structure AND use is concern of
ethnography of speaking
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EoS = continuation of anthropological
paradigm in response to Chomsky
– Study of language should be study of ALL of
language, i.e. also its use
– Its use is also rule-governed and can be
approached theoretically
– If we do that, we may get a better idea of
structure as well
 Linguistic relativity was about language structure
Second linguistic relativity
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Sapir-Whorf relativity: different form,
same function
– In different cultures, the same things can be
achieved with very different linguistic forms
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Hymesian relativity: same form different
function
– In different cultures, the same linguistic forms
can have very different patterns of use
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Hymesian relativity is underlying to Sapir-Whorf
relativity because it looks at language from
within a wider pattern
Distinction between language and speech
Speech = totality of (cultural) communicative
forms, including language (linguistic patterns)
Speech is always repertoire
Linguistic forms need to be considered as part of
a repertoire of speech forms
The place of linguistic forms in this repertoire
needs to be described and understood
So: EoS looks at repertoires of speech
forms and determines the place of
particular resources within this repertoire
 The same linguistic forms can have very
different places in the repertoires of
different cultures
 Function = place within a repertoire
 Determining such functions is the essential
task of EoS (and has been neglected by
linguistics and pre-Hymesian
anthropology)
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A simple example
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Newspapers
– Compare newspapers in Belgium with newspapers in
Tanzania (typologically very similar)
– In Belgium: ‘mass media’ and ‘reflection of public
opinion’
– Belgium:
 very high literacy rate (literacy in standard language is part
of most people’s repertoire)
 Most people (the masses) buy and read newspapers
 Linguistically homogeneous/centralized: newspapers are in
‘the language of the masses’
– Tanzania:
 Very low literacy rate (literacy is not part of most
people’s repertoire)
 Newspapers are in English; does not belong to the
repertoire of most people
 Most people who are literate in English are
clustered in cities: very small elite
 The language of newspapers in Tanzania occupies
a very different place in the repertoires than in
Belgium
> Newpapers are an urban elite medium in Tanzania
From function to inequality
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Concern for repertoire is anthropological or
sociological
– Forces one to look into the fabric of societies
– Becomes a critical social science, because:
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Repertoires are collections of unevenly
distributed resources
– Compare literacy in Belgium and Tanzania
– Has an effect on what people can do with speech
resources
– Some people have a lot, some a little
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Speech resources have (uneven) value
Are organised according to norms and customs
that rank resources-in-use
The deployment of resources is a socially
evaluated act, which comes with a price (good
speakers – bad speakers, good language – bad
language)
Communicating well (= normatively) matters, is
a problem to people and requires work
Language as CONSTRAINT, not just opportunity
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Norms are social and cultural codes of use
– Of grammar
– Of language variety and code
– Of ‘style’ in performace
A competent member of a society can
handle the norms, including shifts
between them
 Because multiple norms are the rule (use
of speech is never ‘stable’)
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– In multilingual environments
– But equally in ‘monolingual’ environments
So we see
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A transition from ‘language’ to ‘resources’
Ordered in repertoires
In which resources have a place
Which is organised by sociocultural norms of use
and shifts
And involves uneven access to different
resources
Due to social and cultural structures (e.g. young
children are illiterate)
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A whole new vocabulary to talk about
communication
– Not languages but particular resources
– Everyone is ‘multilingual’ even when
‘monolingual’
– Meanings are effects of social and cultural
factors
– Diversity and inequality are essential in
understanding the system of speech in society