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Communication Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
by
Donal Carbaugh

Introduction

The concept of code is used in this body of work to identify a system of beliefs and values that are immanent in communication practices. The concept has its roots in the works of Basil Bernstein, who explored patterns of communication among social classes in Britain. Bernstein formulated the idea to account for variation in communication practice, and it is that commitment to variability or diversity, along with others, such as distinctiveness and membership, which grounds the idea of speech code, or communication code, as it is used here. Cultural Discourse Analysis is a methodology for examining codes, and has been developed within this intellectual tradition. According to Gerry Philipsen, a pioneer and seminal figure in such study, cultural communication is the realization of a code in a communal conversation. The theory of cultural communication and of cultural discourse focuses on distinctive means of communication that are used in specific contexts, and the meanings of those practices to participants who use them. The methodology employed in this type of analysis is rigorously based on five analytically different yet complementary modes of analysis; these involve four nonoptional modes of theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, and comparative analyses. A fifth mode is also valuable at times, and it involves critical study.

Intellectual Background

The study of codes and cultural discourse derives from diverse intellectual traditions. Chief among these are the ethnography of communication and sociolinguistics. From this tradition, especially from the works of Basil Bernstein (e.g., Bernstein 1972), the concept of code has been appropriated and developed. Also from this tradition has been drawn the importance of studying language-in-use in contexts of everyday living, as a part of sociocultural life, especially as developed in the ethnography of communication by Dell Hymes. The idea that language is intimately linked to sociocultural life was presented in Hymes 1972 and elaborately advanced in the culture theory of Geertz 1973, which presents studies of culture as meaning-making practices, with these practices immanent in the flow of socially situated discourses. Schneider 1976 presents an influential work theorizing culture as a system of symbols and meanings, thus requiring a kind of interpretive research for understanding the meanings embodied in symbols. In the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology, Gadamer 1977 emphasizes the importance of language in creating the horizons of our realities, each horizon with its own prejudices but also with its own ways of thinking as well as fusing among others. The works annotated here therefore provide a useful intellectual background in the study of codes and cultural discourses.

  • Bernstein, Basil. 1972. A sociolinguistic approach to socialization; with some reference to educability. In Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. Edited by John Joseph Gumperz and Dell H. Hymes, 465–497. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

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    Bernstein discusses the concept of code as a patterned process of social action. He introduces coding activities people may use when conducting their social lives and identifies two types that he calls elaborated and restricted. He illustrates how each varies along dimensions of open to closed processing, and personal to positional roles. The concept is linked to variability in communication processes with the variations marking aspects of social and cultural lives.

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  • Gadamer, Hans Georg. 1977. Philosophical hermeneutics. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

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    Gadamer’s writings draw attention to the way linguistic dynamics are associated with and indeed constitute person’s views of the world. This book provides a deep introduction to Gadamer’s views and the role of hermeneutics in interpreting linguistic dynamics. The work demonstrates how a referential view of language is insufficient to understand the role of language in its constitution and construction of social life.

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  • Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.

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    This is a classic work of Geertz’s that includes his conception of culture as a semiotic “web,” consisting of symbols, symbolic forms, and meanings. His approach is explicated in the first chapter on “thick description,” with his celebrated essay on the Balinese cockfight following, along with comparative culture studies of Balinese, Javanese, and Moroccan notions of personhood. This is a must-read for all who explore culture and discourse.

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  • Hymes, Dell H. 1972. Models of the interaction of language and social life. In Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. Edited by John Joseph Gumperz and Dell H. Hymes, 35–71. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

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    This is the classic work that explicates Hymes’s proposal for ethnographies of communication. Hymes proposes social units—such as speech event, speech situation, speech community, and ways of speaking—for such study. Several components are presented for analyzing the units through the memorable SPEAKING device, each being identified by the first letter of the device, setting, participants, ends, act sequences, key, instruments, norms, and genres.

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  • Schneider, David. 1976. Notes toward a theory of culture. In Meaning in anthropology. Edited by Keith H. Basso and Henry A. Selby, 197–220. Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press.

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    Schneider’s essay presents his theory of culture as a system of symbols and meanings that has generative and regnant functions. While culture provides a system of definitions, concepts, and premises, Schneider distinguishes this system from a normative one, which, he argues, formulates patterns for action and conduct. Culture sets the stage, norms instruct one in what to do. The essay provides clarity to a discussion of these central concepts and is provocative for readers interested in theories of culture, norms, discourse, and society.

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Formative Works

The idea that codes are active in human communication, as introduced by Basil Bernstein, was developed by Gerry Philipsen. The idea of code had been used earlier to identify a subsystem of symbols, symbolic forms and their meanings, and as a constituent of cultural discourses. Together, these works established a way of studying communication as coding activity that is a fundamental aspect of social and cultural life. Several theoretical threads are woven into these works in order to develop a theory of communication codes and cultural discourse. A body of work in cultural communication identifies basic cultural functions and forms of communication, as in Carbaugh 1995 and Philipsen 1987. A second is the theory of speech codes that has a highly developed set of concepts, propositions, and corollaries, as developed in Philipsen 1997. A recent formulation of cultural discourse presents a broad methodology for the study of cultural communication and codes, with an emphasis on interpretive study and a possibility for critical analysis, as seen in Carbaugh 2007 and Carbaugh 1990. A related thread is a discourse-based view of culture, as discussed most notably by Sherzer 1990 and Urban 1991.

Cultural Communication

The prospects for studies of cultural communication were presented first by Gerry Philipsen 1987 in a programmatic statement. That chapter introduced several concepts for understanding communication as indeed cultural communication. That essay has been followed by further conceptual discussions, such as Philipsen 1989, which introduces the concept of the communal function and reviews literature pertaining to that concept, as does Philipsen 2002. Carbaugh 1995 presents a philosophy and theory for, and developments of the approach; Carbaugh 1996 includes a communication theory of identity.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1995. The ethnographic approach of Gerry Philipsen and associates. In Watershed research traditions in human communication theory. Edited by Donald P. Cushman and Branislav Kovacic, 269–297. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This is a review of various studies in cultural communication and speech codes that relate specifically to works identified by Philipsen as cultural communication. The review explicates basic axioms of the approach, its philosophical foundations, the quality of claims being made about communication, and some of its recent advances.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1996. Social identities, American community, and the communal function. In Situating selves: The communication of social identities in American scenes. Edited by Donal Carbaugh, 193–202. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This chapter reviews several studies of social identity as it is evident in the coding of communication in various cultural scenes in the United States today. An extension of the concept, communal function of communication, as introduced by Philipsen 1989, is proposed in order to distinguish within code variations such as the amplification of commonality from the amplification of differences.

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  • Philipsen, Gerry. 1987. The prospect for cultural communication. In Communication theory: Eastern and Western perspectives. Edited by D. Lawrence Kincaid, 245–254. New York: Academic Press.

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    This is a seminal theoretical essay that originally explicates the basic problems for such study including the alignment of people, the meaningfulness of their practices, and the form their communication takes. The functions are discussed as the creation and the affirmation of shared identity in spoken life, while three generic forms of cultural communication are ritual, myth, and social drama.

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  • Philipsen, Gerry. 1989. Speech and the communal function in four cultures. International and Intercultural Communication Annual 14:79–92.

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    This article examines the role of communication in creating and affirming a shared identity in four speech communities. The speaking practices include Israeli straight talk through the works of Tamar Katriel, a blue-collar style in Chicago through Philipsen’s earlier works, rural Kentucky through the works of George Ray, and a popular American discourse. The cases are used to develop an argument about how communication creates, and may resist, membership in human groups, what Philipsen discusses as a communal function of “membering.”

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  • Philipsen, Gerry. 2002. Cultural communication. In Handbook of international and intercultural communication. 2d ed. Edited by William B. Gudykunst and Bella Mody, 51–67. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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    This is an excellent review of a body of literature within the general program of cultural communication research. The review begins by tracing the history of the phrase “cultural communication” and then discusses two basic principles of cultural communication. The focus is on the ways people use cultural communication in affirming, contesting, and changing their social lives. The review serves as a heuristic for future research, comparative study, and theorizing.

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Cultural Discourse Analysis

Cultural discourse analysis is a theory and methodology used to study communication codes and cultural communication. Carbaugh 1988 uses and discusses properties of cultural discourses. Carbaugh, et al. 1997 examines central constructs in the approach. It has developed as an approach to research largely within the ethnography of communication and in the study of speech codes. Main focal concerns in these works are terms for talk, dueling forms of discourse, and terms of identification. The methodology is discussed in Carbaugh 2007 as a systematic and rigorous program of research built on exacting descriptive analyses, careful interpretive study, comparative insights, and, when warranted, critical inquiry.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1988. Talking American: Cultural discourses on Donahue. Hillsdale, NJ: Ablex.

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    This study examines prominent North American discourses as they are active in a popular “talk show.” The discourses reveal a way of speaking about persons as “individuals with a self” and a way of speaking about communication as “being honest” and “sharing one’s feelings.” The nature and qualities of cultural discourses are presented and discussed.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1990. The critical voice in ethnography of communication research. Research on Language and Social Interaction 23:261–282.

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    This article reviews ethnographic studies of communication by asking if there is a critical voice in them, and if so, what is its nature and what are its dimensions? A critical voice is defined; three dimensions of it are identified, each discussed and recombined into three possible types of criticism: academic, cultural, and natural criticism. The article serves as an explication of a critical mode in cultural discourse analyses.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal. 2007. Cultural discourse analysis: The investigation of communication practices with special attention to intercultural encounters. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 36:167–182.

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    This is an explication of cultural discourse analysis through five investigative modes. These involve theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, comparative, and critical analyses. Concepts for interpretive analyses, such as cultural proposition, cultural premise, semantic dimension, are explicated, along with five radiants of meanings concerning identity, action, feeling, relating, and dwelling. The author discusses how each radiant may serve, in some interactional practices, as a hub of meaning, with the others radiating from it.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal, Tim Gibson, and Trudy Milburn. 1997. A view of communication and culture: Scenes in an ethnic cultural center and a private college. In Emerging theories of human communication. Edited by Branislav Kovacic, 1–24. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This is a general explication of cultural discourse analysis that is designed to integrate studies of social interaction and culture. Three basic constructs are formulated as central in achieving this objective, these being communication practice, cultural scene, and cultural discourse.

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Discourse-Based Views of Culture

An important development in the ethnography of communication for anthropologists and linguists, according to Sherzer 1990, was the relocation of studies of language and culture into discourse. This enabled conceptual developments away from a study of culture as a presumably intact social group, or uniform community, and away from language as an abstract and universal system. Brought into view with the discourse view are cultural practices, such as Urban 1991, a study of chants and rituals that are used to construct ways of social living.

  • Sherzer, Joel. 1990. Verbal art in San Blas: Kuna culture through its discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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    This work advocates viewing discourse as the site of language and culture. Sherzer argues that discourse creates, contests, replicates, and otherwise is constitutive of language, culture, and their intersection. He gives special attention to genres of verbal art and verbal play as the enactment of cultural meanings and symbols.

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  • Urban, Greg. 1991. A discourse-centered approach to culture: Native South American myths and rituals. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

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    This book problematizes unreflective notions that culture is shared. Urban argues that culture must be studied empirically, and that culture, if it is active, circulates in forms of discourse such as chants, laments, and speech generally. The materials explored in the book are fascinating examinations of the expressive consciousness of Native South American views of everything from the physical world to rituals and dreams.

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Speech Codes Theory

Speech Codes Theory has been presented and developed most notably in Philipsen 1997 and later in Philipsen, et al. 2005. It is a theory that understands a code to be a system of symbols, symbolic forms, norms, and premises which pertain to communication conduct. A code is distinctive in its means and meanings, includes features about persons and actions, is active in patterns of speaking, and is prominently active in some meta-communicative vocabularies. Carbaugh 2005 explores the role of prominent communication codes in the cultural conversations of England, Finland, Native America, Russia, and popular America. These readings explicate the theory that treats thematically the nature and function of codes as such.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 2005. “The passing occasion and the long story”: Four cultural conversations. In Cultures in conversation. Edited by Donal Carbaugh, 120–132. Mahwah, NJ, and London: Erlbaum.

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    This chapter explicates Blackfeet, Finnish, Russian, and US American communication codes. Each code revolves around a rich focal symbol, respectively, of spirit, silence, soul, and self; each also involves a particular cultural commentary concerning being, acting, feeling, relating, and dwelling. An investigative stance and five corollaries for the analysis of cultural discourses are discussed.

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  • Philipsen, Gerry. 1997. A theory of speech codes. In Developing communication theories. Edited by Gerry Philipsen and Terrance L. Albrecht, 119–156. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This is the first detailed explication of speech codes theory. In this essay, Philipsen reviews ethnographies of communication and field-based reports of cultural communication that are bases for the theory. The programmatic essay addresses the existence, substance, formulation, and force of speech codes as intimate parts of social and cultural lives.

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  • Philipsen, Gerry, Lisa M. Coutu, and Patricia Covarrubias. 2005. Speech codes theory: Restatement, revisions, and a response to criticisms. In Theorizing about intercultural communication. Edited by William B. Gudykunst. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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    The authors review literature that has been developed using the theory of speech codes, slightly revise the earlier formulation of the theory based on this recent ethnographic fieldwork, and respond to critics of the theory.

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Journals

Studies of communication codes and cultural discourses are published in a wide range of journals. Many are directly in the field of communication, such as Communication Theory, which has become a central resource for conceptual analyses; the Journal of Communication; which publishes a wide range of research articles; the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, which focuses on interactive and comparative studies across groups and nations; and Research on Language and Social Interaction, which publishes a range of scholarship from discourse analyses to linguistic ethnography.

  • Communication Theory.

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    This is a journal of the International Communication Association. It publishes research that focuses on the theoretical development of communication from across a wide range of disciplines. How one conceptualizes the nexus of communication and culture, ethnographic fieldwork as involving communication theory, and the role of traditional concepts are all published in this journal. Abstracts of articles are translated into six languages (French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, and English).

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  • Journal of Communication.

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    A journal of the International Communication Association for communication specialists as it focuses broadly on communication research, cultural study, practices, policy, and theory. Cultural discourses and codes as active in a variety of media are within the purview of essays published in this journal. Included is a book review section in addition to regular symposia on current issues. Abstracts of articles are translated into six languages (French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, and English).

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  • Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.

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    This is a relatively new journal of the National Communication Association that addresses an international audience with a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. It explores international and intercultural dynamics as well as indigenous issues. The role of communication codes and cultural discourses, and their interactive use, are all concerns central to the mission of this journal. The title of the journal encourages thinking in one direction beyond nation states, and in the other beyond single cultural communities. Studies range from across social interactional to mass media systems.

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  • Journal of Multicultural Discourses.

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    This journal features a range of academic disciplines including discourse studies, cultural studies, communication studies, anthropological linguistics, literary criticism, and critical pedagogy. Published since 2006, it includes theoretical, data-based, and critical studies of discourse in cross-cultural perspective.

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  • Research on Language and Social Interaction.

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    This journal focuses on language as it is used within the contexts of social interaction. It publishes high-quality research reports on communication, cultural communication, discourse analysis, ethnography of communication, cultural discourses, communication codes, and linguistic ethnography, among other related matters. Most essays, even theoretical explications, are closely tied to data obtained through naturalistic observation.

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Focal Phenomena

The study of speech codes and cultural discourses has focused on specific communication phenomena as rich sites for the understanding of communication and culture. One body of work is the study of communication rituals. Following the conception of ritualized communication in Philipsen 1987 (see Cultural Communication), these works explore the sequential organization of communication, symbolic meanings in that sequential organization, normative qualities, and links of the ritualized action to sacred principles or objects. A second phenomenon of central interest is social dramatic communication. These authors explore how social violations are communicatively addressed, crises managed, and corrective actions proffered, and the nature of subsequent social processes. Another focal phenomenon is the meta-communicative vocabulary used by people to make sense of their communication practices, as they conceive of and evaluate them. This phenomenon had been studied variously in the ethnography of communication. A comparative analysis of this phenomenon, of “cultural terms for talk,” was conducted and resulted in a theoretical framework being used, in part, for such studies.

Communication as Ritual

The concept of ritual in Philipsen 1987 offers a special way of describing and interpreting communication. With it, communication is understood to follow a culturally identifiable sequential structure, a series of acts that are known and performed by participants. Each action is presumably symbolic, and thus imbued with local meanings and communal significance. The ritual is also understood as a kind of conduct to be done properly, as social enactment according to local standards of propriety, decorum, and subjected to the communication aesthetics at play in social life. Performances like these are deemed culturally rich, and thus as saying something important about the life of people who communicate in this way. This technical sense of ritualized communication is studied in contemporary acts of public play in the United States in Carbaugh 1996, in events of Israeli griping in Katriel 1985, and in enactments of what has been identified in popular American discourse as “good communication” in Katriel and Philipsen 1981.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1996. The playful self: Being a fan at college basketball games. In Situating selves: The communication of social identity in American scenes. By Donal Carbaugh, 39–60. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This chapter reports how the social identity of “being a fan” is expressively enacted in a ritualized sequence. The sequence involves fan solos, collective verbal chants, and vocal cheers. The analysis explores the symbolic meanings at play in the ritual and its playful qualities to those who participate in it. Implications are discussed about the potential danger in such play, especially during heated rivalries when the ritual ends without any integrative action.

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  • Katriel, Tamar. 1990. Griping as a verbal ritual in some Israeli discourse. In Cultural communication and intercultural contact. Edited by Donal Carbaugh, 99–113. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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    This is an excellent ethnographic analysis of a prominent Israeli communication practice, griping, as it occurs during speech events. The analysis draws attention to specific features of the ritualized communication, especially the problems interlocutors address and the act sequence created to address them. The functions of this ritualized event are discussed at once as an exercise in solidarity among participants and a ventilating one, each serving in its way as a performance of a shared identity.

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  • Katriel, Tamar, and Gerry Philipsen. 1981. “What we need is communication”: “Communication” as a cultural category in some American speech. Communication Monographs 48:301–317.

    DOI: 10.1080/03637758109376064Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This is a classic study of what “communication” is in prominent American scenes. Examined are the meanings of the term when used in American speech as when participants make pleas for close, supportive, and flexible interactions. The form of communication is discussed as a ritualized sequence that addresses interpersonal problems. The functions of the ritual involve celebrating the “self” of each participant and the interpersonal “relationship” each shares with the others.

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Communication as Social Drama

Some communication events can be understood as elaborate cultural sequences in the form of a social drama, conceptualizing it anew as a complex sequence of communicative actions. The form begins with a violation, for example, in Coutu 2008, when the secretary of state is criticized for failing to act in accordance with that role. When there is a violation or breach of a social code, or norm, the violation is publicized, factions forming with regard to the violation, representatives speaking, while key members of the factions or subgroups become engaged in the drama. In Hastings 2001, this involved immigrants in the United States publicizing and criticizing members of their community for acting in ways unbecoming of that immigrant identity. A third phase of corrective action can be formal and informal, but in any event addresses the violation. In Katriel 1986, this involved negotiation of what was deemed proper conduct when one talks “straight” in an Israeli Sabra way. And finally, appeals for corrective acts, including accounts and apologies like those analyzed in Coutu 2008, are requested that are designed to bring the violator into accord with proper community norms for conduct. This final phase of the drama results in the eventual separation of the violator, the continuing schism between groups, or an effective reintegration. Through the social dramatic form, culture is presented, negotiated, contested, and otherwise at play in communication.

  • Coutu, Lisa. 2008. Contested social identity and communication in text and talk about the Vietnam War. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41:387–407.

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    This study examines how two communication codes are active in one speech community. The social dramatic action involves the articulation, rejection, and then potential resolution of the social identity of the secretary of state, and the kinds of communication appropriate to that role. The study contributes to how speech communities with diverse codes manage plurality of voices and differences, especially in the arena of public service.

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  • Hastings, Sally. 2001. Social drama as a site for the communal construction and management of Asian Indian “stranger” identity. Research on Language and Social Interaction 34.4: 309–335.

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    This is an excellent examination of social drama as a site of identity management. As rules are dramatically broken, the social scene is cast as one for managing and negotiating identity. In this case, that process involves a balanced combination of staying true to one’s home identity as “Asian Indian,” yet also being interdependent on those with which one socializes, inevitably including “American” features. Hastings explores this process and its role in constructing identity within a dramatic process.

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  • Katriel, Tamar. 1986. Talking straight: “Dugri” speech in Israeli Sabra culture. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

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    This is a landmark book about a prominent way of speaking in Israeli society. Straight talk, or “dugri” speech, is identified as a social marker of the Israeli Sabra identity. Its semantic features are plain and direct, while also being understood through the metaphor of the prickly pear, which is sweet on the inside yet thorny on the outside. The straight style creates, or is used to address violations, demonstrating how this way of speaking cannot only be used in response to problems, but can also partly constitute problems in social dramatic sequences.

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Communication as Myth

Communication can involve telling stories, some of which are highly personal stories. At times, these personal stories issue forth in the form of myths, including characters, plot lines, dramatic actions, and their resolution, which become communal resources. When this is the case, one can hear narrative as mythic in form, that is, according to the theory of cultural communication, as assuming in its form a great symbolic story that represents the unity and exclusiveness of a people. The following studies examine communication in occasions where a mythic form is used as such, in Finland in Berry 1995 and among Native Americans in Carbaugh 2001.

  • Berry, Michael. 1995. If you run away from a bear, you run into a wolf: Finnish responses to Joanna Kramer’s identity crisis. In Texts and identities. Edited by Joachim Knuf, 32–48. Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press.

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    This essay explores how Finnish participants react to the character of Joanna Kramer in the popular American film Kramer vs. Kramer. A Finnish narrative treats appropriate enactment of social identities, communicative action, and geopolitical space that are violated by Kramer. These themes are interpreted as part of a Finnish myth about living properly within limits, this being a culturally rich point in a Finnish story. Comparative analysis between this mythic narrative and another that is popular in North America yields contrastive themes.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal. 2001. The people will come to you: Blackfeet narrative as resource for contemporary living. In Narrative and identity: Studies in autobiography, self, and culture. Edited by Jens Brockmeier and Donal Carbaugh, 103–127. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John J. Benajmins.

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    Among traditional Blackfeet people in Montana, there is a form of storytelling that treats the landscape, people, and spiritual life as intimately connected. This is a study of that narrative form, its use in specific interactional contexts, its motifs of time, people, and place. The form, and its mythic features, are used to enact a Blackfeet identity, to link strongly to its past and its geographic places, but also to address contemporary issues including a resistance to issues that threaten Blackfeet living in the early 21st century.

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Cultural Terms

A central and focal phenomenon in the study of speech codes and cultural discourse analyses is cultural terms that participants use to identify communication. The study of these terms, and the practices they identify, helps ethnographers and cultural analysts of discourse to gain access to the means of communication participants use to construct their expressive lives, and to understand their communication practices. Based on extant ethnographic field works, a theoretical framework was induced in Carbaugh 1989 for studying this type of communication phenomenon. Several studies are annotated here that have explored this phenomenon in order to describe, interpret, and comparatively analyze spoken, written, and nonverbal communication, among other cultural means and meanings. The range of possibilities in studying this phenomenon are evident in the following sample, including the use of speech versus writing by college employees in the United States in Baxter 1993, the study of “hate speech” in Hungarian political and mediated discourse in Boromisza-Habashi 2007, the analysis of “natural ways of being” silent and speaking in Finland in Carbaugh, et al. 2006, the examination of Colombian interpersonal ideology through its terms of reference and address in Fitch 1998, the interpretation of Chinese “pure talk” as a form of debate and eloquent wit in Garrett 1993, the exploration of “brown nosing” in American work life and its theme of excess in Hall and Valde 1995, the cultural analysis of “soul talks” giving way to “talk radio” in Israel in Katriel 2004, and the examination of a Finnish “matter-of-fact” style of speaking that is prominent in political and educational contexts in Wilkins 2005.

  • Baxter, Leslie A. 1993. “Talking things through” and “putting it in writing”: Two codes of communication in an academic institution. Journal of Applied Communication Research 21:313–326.

    DOI: 10.1080/00909889309365376Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This article examines two communication codes, one concerning “talking” and the other “writing,” that developed in response to a university trustee’s mandate concerning college governance. The codes differently express, respectively, the personal versus impersonal, or nonprofessional versus professional ways participants are to discuss their work affairs. Each is used to express deeply a model for the person, social relationships, and means of conducting work life.

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  • Boromisza-Habashi, David. 2007. Freedom of expression, hate speech, and models of personhood in Hungarian political discourse. Communication Law Review 7:54–74.

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    The study of “hate speech” as a term that identifies a type of hurtful discourse and as a central feature of legal deliberations is significant and important. Boromisza-Hibashi examines the use of the Hungarian term for such speech, the ways it is active in Hungarian political discourse, and how it activates different modes for social action and being a person. The study is illuminating of both normative and legal concerns.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1989. Fifty terms for talk: A cross-cultural study. International and Intercultural Communication Annual 14:93–120.

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    This study comparatively examines fifty terms about talk in seventeen societies that were reported in ethnographic studies about communication. The study induces a theoretical framework that focuses on indigenous labels for speaking and for communication, and identifies these as acts, events, and/or styles. The meanings are discussed as being literally about communication itself, and metaphorically about sociality (relations, institutions, roles) and personhood. Special application is drawn to dynamics in intercultural communication.

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  • Carbaugh, Donal, Michael Berry, and Marjatta Nurkiari-Berry. 2006. Coding personhood through cultural terms and practices: Silence and quietude as a Finnish “natural way of being.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 25:203–220.

    DOI: 10.1177/0261927X06289422Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Finnish terms for communication, like others in other languages, are rich and varied. This report explores a subset of these, with special attention to those that Finns call a “natural way of being.” They identify Finnish practices of “being alone in one’s thoughts” and “thinking deeply.” Each can play an important role in some Finnish social scenes and in creating a Finnish sense of Finnishness.

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  • Fitch, Kristine. 1998. Speaking relationally: Culture, communication, and interpersonal connection. New York: Guilford.

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    Among other important dynamics, Fitch examines Colombian means of communication that are embedded in their Spanish terms for speech events. The analysis shows just how the study of these terms is linked not simply to the speech events they identify, but also to deeper codes about identity and interpersonal relationships. Fitch uses this study to unveil what she calls an “interpersonal ideology” at work in such relationally based cultural communication.

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  • Garrett, Mary M. 1993. Wit, power, and oppositional groups: A case study of “pure talk.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 79:303–318.

    DOI: 10.1080/00335639309384037Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This is a highly refined study of a Chinese term for the phenomenon of talk, its use over time, its fate, and its relation to wit and opposition. The form played a key role in traditional Chinese philosophical expositions and in structured debates as a means to discovering the truth. The phenomenon involved a witty style of eloquence that activated aspects of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions.

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  • Hall, Bradford J., and Kathleen Valde. 1995. “Brown nosing” as a cultural resource in American organizational speech. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28:131–150.

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    This study examines participants’ views of the cultural speech act identified as “brown nosing.” The analysts explore how this type of speaking activates artificial and selfish models of the person, relations of competition, and potentially injurious relations to others. The main data are drawn from social situations at work where the premises of excessiveness and counterfeit motives are thematically employed.

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  • Katriel, Tamar. 2004. Dialogic moments: From soul talks to talk radio in Israeli culture. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press.

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    This is a superb monograph that examines 20th-century Israeli public discourse through its cultural terms and forms of communication. Tracing indigenous Israeli forms of communication from “soul talks” and “straight speech,” to “talk radio,” Katriel shows subtle but profound shifts through the century in models for the Israeli citizen, action, and social relations.

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  • Wilkins, Richard. 2005. The optimal form: Inadequacies and excessiveness within the “asiallinen” (matter-of-fact) nonverbal style in public and civic settings in Finland. Journal of Communication 55:383–401.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2005.tb02678.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    Wilkins examines a Finnish term for a communicative style known in English as “matter-of-fact” talk. The form is prominent in politics and educational settings, and is accompanied by a specific set of nonverbal features that is normatively based. The discourse is a basis for some Finnish ritualized sequences of communication in which an “infocentric code” is active. The code valorizes communicative action that is simple, clear, informative, and serious.

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Research Reports

The study of codes and cultural discourses is first and foremost an empirical study. While such work is theoretically based, as is evident in various theoretical explications, the theory itself has developed out of field work, just as the field work fuels the theoretical developments. In other words, field-based, empirical research is central to the study of codes and cultural discourses. The selection of works listed here is by no means an exhaustive list of such studies, but it is suggestive of the breadth of field research already done, and getting done. It is organized around works on dueling and singular communication codes, as well as environmental, intercultural, interpersonal, organizational, political, and mass-mediated discourses.

Dueling Codes

The study of dueling codes brings different practices of communication into play in ways that contrast ideas, identities, and social relationships. The following explore dueling codes in popular American discourse concerning gender and land-use issues in Carbaugh 1996, the rational and spiritual coding of war politics as seen in Coutu 2000, prisoners’ and prison administrators’ coding of a prison riot in Huspek 2000, and ways of expressing difference from a powerful figure to those less powerful in Philipsen 2000.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1996. Situating selves: The communication of social identity in American scenes. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

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    This monograph explores the cultural pragmatics of identity in several North American scenes. One involves a vacillating form of identity talk that casts people into the role of “men” and “women,” and then as gender-neutral “individuals.” Another explores dueling depictions of place by environmentalists and developers during a land-use controversy.

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  • Coutu, Lisa. 2000. Communication codes of rationality and spirituality in the discourse of and about Robert S. McNamara’s In Retrospect. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33:179–211.

    DOI: 10.1207/S15327973RLSI3302_3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This is a study of two different codes as they are active in one speech community. The one was highly active during the Vietnam War, forcing communication to honor the reason and facts of war. A second code is active in response to McNamara’s 1995 book and is erected on moral grounds concerning governance, political duties, and acts of war. The study makes evident why McNamara’s code of rationality, and its reasonable use, as honorable as it may be, are nearly incomprehensible to the spiritual code that is used to criticize it.

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  • Husepk, Michael. 2000. Oppositional codes: The case of the Penitentiary of New Mexico riot. Journal of Applied Communication Research 28:144–163.

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    This article presents an analysis of the discourses that were active during a prison riot by examining two codes: one of the prisoners, the other of prison administrators. Each provides its users with a view of the world that excludes the other. Huspek discusses how such knowledge is useful for analysts of communication and mediators who want to intervene in such intractable conflicts.

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  • Philipsen, Gerry. 2000. Permission to speak the discourse of difference. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33:213–234.

    DOI: 10.1207/S15327973RLSI3302_4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »

    This is a cultural analysis of what happened when a speaker drew attention to different ethnic identities among participants in a speech event. Subsequent discourse presented different rules for the appropriateness of mentioning such differences, with one set of rules challenging the speaker, the other defending him. Discussion focuses on different codes for appropriately identifying social difference in a public speech event.

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Environmental Codes

The environment is an important topic in communication. How it is discussed, or presumed for discussion, is the focal concern in some studies of codes and cultural discourses. Carbaugh 1999 examines the ways that a traditional Native American practice of “listening” locates people in nature’s places. Morgan 2007 examines discourses concerning nuclear waste and the ways people code this toxic by-product of human activity.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1999. “Just listen”: “Listening” and landscape among the Blackfeet. Western Journal of Communication 63.3: 250–270.

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    This is a study of a traditional Blackfeet practice identified as “listening.” This form situates people in nature’s places, draws attention to historical uses of such places, makes that environment a potential expressive resource for people, and, if attentively watched, may help address difficulties experienced by people. The Blackfeet discourse then not only provides a way of acting in places, a deep coding of feeling and relating there, but also a way of being Blackfeet in traditional Blackfeet places.

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  • Morgan, Eric. 2007. Regional communication and sense of place surrounding the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In Nuclear legacies: Communication, controversy, and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Edited by Bryan C. Taylor, William J. Kinsella, Stephen P. Depoe, and Maribeth S. Metzler. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

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    This book chapter explores the ways people make sense of places where nuclear waste is being deposited. The focus is the Waste Isolation Pilot Project and the discursive coding of that place. Two codes are active: one being a code of economy, such as providing good jobs and economic security; the other is a code of nothingness, as in “there’s nothing out there” in that part of New Mexico. Morgan interprets the deep premises of each as they constitute this place.

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Intercultural Codes

Intercultural communication can be understood as involving, in the simplest case, two cultural codes in social interaction. These codes, from the vantage of cultural discourse theory, involve different ideas about how communication can and should get done, how people can and should relate one to another, what one can and should feel about the matters at hand, and how one can and should relate to the nature of things. It is the interaction of codes, and in more detail within the features of each code, that is at play in the following studies. Carbaugh 2005 explores how codes are active in actual instances of intercultural interaction. Scollon and Wong Scollon 2001 looks at inter-discourse dynamics with special attention to the case of differences between Asian or, more specifically, Chinese and Western business communications.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 2005. Cultures in conversation. London and New York: Taylor and Francis.

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    This book explores communication codes as emergent sites of culture in actual practices of conversation. Each chapter examines specific intercultural interactions, demonstrating how participants in conversation use discourse in a deeply cultured way. The cultural discourses are varied as the coding practices span British English, popular American English, Native American, Finnish, and Russian. A final chapter explicates the five main codes at work in the book, as well as a procedure for analyzing codes.

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  • Scollon, Ronald, and Suzanne Wong Scollon. 2001. Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. 2d ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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    This book provides a discourse-based approach to intercultural communication that focuses mainly on Western and Asian speakers. The authors treat intercultural interaction as the simultaneous use of at least two discourse systems in actual social situations. The book usefully explores aspects of face-to-face interaction, issues of miscommunication, sources of difference in social interaction, the role of shared knowledge in discourse, and concludes with questions of methodology.

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Interpersonal Codes

Interpersonal discourse treats identities and social relationships as its primary themes. Several studies explore interpersonal codes in different cultural contexts. Poutiainen 2009 usefully problematizes the American idea of “dating” as well as the notion of stages of romantic development that is presumed in some social psychologically based theories.

  • Poutiainen, Saila. 2009. Do Finns “date”? Cultural interpretations of romantic relating. In Special Issue on Matchmaking in the 21st Century. Interpersona 3:38–62.

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    Dating is treated as a cultural term that identifies a stage in American romantic relationships. Finnish discourse about romantic relationships is explored, leading to a useful extension of theory by examining distinctive Finnish cultural interpretations of personhood and communication pertaining to romantic relationships. Specific theories about relationship stages are critically assessed in light of the cultural coding of dating, romance, romantic relationships, and related features of interpersonal life.

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Organizational Codes

Cultural discourses of organizational dynamics focus on the ways people make decisions or solve problems in order to provide a service or product. Witteborn and Sprain 2009 examines grouping processes as people organize themselves to address a public problem.

  • Witteborn, Saskia, and Leah Sprain. 2009. Grouping processes in a public meeting from an ethnography of communication and a cultural discourse analysis perspective. International Journal of Public Participation 3:14–35.

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    This analysis focuses on place-making, relating, and identity enactment as ways of making claims about grouping processes during a public meeting. A central dynamic revolves around claims to neighborhood identity, and a distrust of those from outside of it. The dynamic highlights differences in what constitutes community to participants, and in how public problems are to be conceived and addressed. The article offers recommendations for how public meetings can be improved.

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Political Codes

Several studies have examined political processes through the cultural discourses and codes people use to make sense of those processes. In the early 21st century a key issue in political discourses, from France and Britain to the United States, involves immigration. One way to understand this issue is through the discourses people use to make sense of themselves as immigrants, and how they relate to those around them. Witteborn 2007 is such a study, focused on Palestinian identity.

  • Witteborn, Saskia. 2007. The expression of Palestinian identity in narratives about personal experiences: Implications for the study of narrative, identity, and social interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40:145–170.

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    This article explores the narrative construction of community and personal identity. The analysis shows how narratives involve a cultural discourse, deep messages about being, acting, and relating in Palestinian lives. These messages construct the social, historical, and physical space of an identity of resistance. Central themes include being in a divided space, being a dislocated person, and resistance to punishment. Appeals are made to a common humanity for social change.

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Mass-Mediated Discourses

Some means of communication involve technologies such as computer, television, newsprint, and so on that are available to large numbers of people. Carbaugh 1988 focuses on cultural discourses used on a “talk show” in North America and was an early contribution to cultural discourse theory and analysis.

  • Carbaugh, Donal. 1988. Talking American: Cultural discourses on “Donahue.” Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

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    This detailed study examines “talk” as it is active not only on a “talk show” but also as it utilizes codes and cultural discourses. The study examines cultural discourses of personhood and speaking, and explores how ways of speaking are intimately related to ways of conceiving personhood. Properties of codes and cultural discourse are discussed as implications are drawn for theories of communication and culture.

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LAST MODIFIED: 02/23/2011

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199756841-0014

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