LEON A

In our own history, we encountered the ethnomethodological school through the work of Goffman, Garfinkel, and Sacks (see References). From their writings we acquired conceptual tools for studying language behavior as a sociopsychological phenomenon; that is, that language behavior in natural situations was a spontaneous, reactive phenomenon. Discourse production was to be seen as a natural biological phenomenon, hence, responsive to environmental effects. Sociologists Goffman, Garfinkel, and Sacks took social organization on the daily round as the basis for defining the functional units of language behavior. As sociologists, they viewed the analysis of natural talk as a task in uncovering the effective social stimuli that made possible the successful accomplishment of ordinary transactional routines. Discourse production thus became a medium for transactional exchanges. The unit of analysis thus becomes the transaction; not the word, hut an ‘exchange of words’!!

The second development that shifted our theoretical position from the word to the exchange, was the work of the British Ordinary Language School (see Steinberg & James, 1971, for representative articles). Here we acquired the idea that discourse and talk operate through ethnosemantic conventions the meaning of the message is carried along with the un-verbalized support of presuppositions and implications. Thus, the unit of language behavior must relate to the social context of the situation. There exist operational rituals for transacting topical exchanges, and these commonly held operations provide a motivational direction to talk.

In summary, then, we started with the word as the unit, and we moved beyond it, to the transactional exchange. We would like to discuss some theoretical and practical issues involving this new focus for psycholinguistics. The accompanying table presents the focal issues in our own theoretical development.

TABLE I

Focal Issues in Our Theoretical Evolution

Decade Unit of Analysis Theoretical Issues

1940’s        basic patterns             grammatical form classes and contrastive
                                                        structural analyses; developmental hierarchies
1950’s        the word                      psycholinguistics; conditioning; semiotics;
                                                        acquisition of sign-function
1960’s        (i) the exchange          Ethnomethodology; social organization on
                                                        the daily round
                    (ii) the transaction       ordinary language philosophy; speech acts
                                                        theory
1970’s        the situated display     ethnosemantics; argument logic; role-type

Shifting focus from the word to the exchange is accompanied by the realization that all discourse is interactional discourse, i. e., discourse is produced by more than one individual. This is of course most obvious in the study of conversation where it appears that participants take turns at talk: it is clear that the discourse visible in a transcript is interactionally produced. But this is equally true in both writing and in interior dialog where there appears to be only one person producing the discourse. However, it is a matter of common observation that writers change their discourse in response to the intended or imagined audience, showing that it too is a form of interactionally produced discourse, in self-talk (or interior dialog), the person acts as if there is an audience: reports of interior dialog produce transcript-like segments in which the person addresses himself or herself using the pronouns [I, you, we] along with the appropriate verb form, thus indicating that the discourse produced in self-talk is also a derivative form of interactional discourse.

The analysis of interactional discourse hinges on the recognition that discourse production is a spontaneous reactive phenomenon. By analyzing the organizational structure of interactional discourse one in effect investigates the structure and operation of a social psychological phenomenon. The laws of social interaction are uncovered through a close analysis of the setting in which the discourse is a byproduct. Discourse is thus seen as a medium within which interactions are transacted. This presupposes the notion that a discourse intervention by participant counts as a move. The functional significance of discourse derives therefore from its significance as a transactional move. Transactional moves are organized by preestablished rituals of talk. These procedural operations are acquired as part of one’s ordinary social competence on the daily round. We would like to explore so theoretical issues that arise from this perspective.

II Theoretical Issues

The primary theoretical issue that arises as one moves beyond the word to the social exchange, is the explanation of connectedness at two separate levels of operation. The idea of ‘having an exchange of words’ implies the minimal diadic arrangement, and we follow the ethnomethodologists in the technique of dividing conversational exchanges into turns at talk, or talking turns. The taling turn (TT) is one level of organization for interactional discourse, i. e., discourse produced by more than one talker.

Another level of organization for the connectedness of natural discourse is what we would call the “within turn” organization, i. e., the discourse produced by a single individual during his turn at talk. The following diagram depicts this description and points to some implications.

CONNECTEDNESS IN INTERACTIONAL

DISCOURSE (== NATURAL TALK)

(DYNAMIC LEVELS)

Between Turn Principles Within Turn Principles

I.   Participant-oriented features               1. Situated comment is minimal topic
      (=. Ethnomethodology).                             unit.
2.   Exchanges are managed.                   2. A move raises a contention point.
3.   Episodes are situated.                         3. Topicalization is the resolution of
                                                                         contention points.

4. Transactional function given by exchanges slot, i.e., locus.

We shall explore here only the theoretical implications of between-turn connectedness and present the direction of our current work dealing with the social psychology of language behavior or, “sociopsycholinguistics.”

III Some Syntactic Properties of Conversational Interaction

A first practical issue to be resolved about the common phenomenon of coaversation is represented by the question, “What’s going on in the conversation?” We follow here the ethnomethodological dictum that the answer to this question must exclude anything, which cannot be demonstrated to be a feature to which participants are oriented. This stricture insures that the theoretical explanation objectively matches the actual units that govern the organization of verbal exchanges. By “actual units” we mean to designate the features of the social exchange which conversationalists are oriented to notice by virtue of their common socialization training. In other words, the phenomenon of conversation is viewed as a managed exchange — managed by the participants according to shared rituals of operation. The question then arises as to how the interactional exchange is successfully managed by the participants; more specifically, what mechanisms are there for regulating the sequence of turns in a conversation? The mechanisms to be described must be mechanism that are actually used, and these are perforce dependent on the noticing of the participants when to talk, when to say what, when to acknowledge, disagree, change topics, and so on.

To proceed with this task, then, we begin by defining the minimal unit of exchange as a situated episode. An “episode” is a sociopsychological concept. It derives from Goffman’s work on the nature of ritual behavior on the “daily round.” All social behavior is situated in time and place A “setting” is defined as a time/place specification for routine activities in a community. For example, our students in social psychology are given the exercise of recording, minute by minute, the course of a day. Here is a sample:

Place, Circumstance, Activity

Time

     7:35           A.M.      (i)         5 mm.; (ii) at home; (iii) me and Rob; (iv) talking about what
                       to have for breakfast.
     7:50           A.M.      (i)         15 min (ii) in bathroom; (iii) me; (iv) doing personal chores.
     8:15           A.M.      (i)         25 min (ii) in the living room; (iii) me and Rob; (iv) eating
                       breakfast.

With this technique, which we call logging activities, one can arrive at a local ethnography of community settings. It is, in other words, a daily round map that empirically specifies the available settings in a community. With such a map as a reference point, episodes may now be investigated as a function of the setting within which the exchange occurs. The following diagram depicts these relationships:

SITUATED EPISODES

STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS FUNCTIONAL COM PONENTS

community map of available settings ritual or routinized operational

obtained through records of logging sequences called “episodes” on the

activities (= time/place specifications). daily round and localized on the

community map of available settings.

We shall present a transcript segment, prepared by a student, and illustrate some techniques that are possible for investigating the functional components of situated episodes (Winskowski, 1977).

Transcript segment: A and B are friends in their early twenties. B is A’s boyfriend and has come to pick up A at her house. As the doorbell rings, A opens the door, holding .a tape recorder in her hands.

1.      B:                                               Hi. [opening front door.]
2.      B: What’s up? [gesturing to the tape recorder.]
3.      A:               I’m tape recording you.
4.      B:                  Are you kidding me?
5.      A:            Nope.
6.      B: But what am I supposed to say?

7. A: Whatever you want. (walking in the kitchen.]

8. B: Well, what a nice bunch of groceries you’ve got. [said in the exaggerated tone of Little Red Riding

Hood, exaggerated tone, seeing two shopping bags on the table]

9.      A:                            How ‘bout that.
10.    B:                         That’s very nice.
11.    A:                             Amusing, eh?
12.    B:                                      Uh, huh.
13.    A: I got most of my gear together except I gotta get something of...
14.    C:               Randy, you’re on time. What’s wrong with you? [C is A’s mother who
                         just walked into the kitchen]
15.    B:                                  No, I’m not. I’m fifteen minutes late.
16.    A: You’re fifteen minutes late, you know. Did you know that.
17.    D:                                   Hi, Randy. [D is A’s father who walked in with C in (14)]
18.    B:                                                Hi.
     etc. etc.

The accompanying table presents a first-order analysis of the structural and functional components of this transcript segment.

STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS

BRACKETED SEGMENTS

TALKING TURNS

SETTING LOCALE

front door exchange

walking into the kitchen

play talk sequence

in the kitchen

FUNCTIONAL COMPONENTS

EPISODAL SEQUENCE

OF OPERATION

greeting sequence

interrupted topic switch

greeting sequence

play talk intervention

greeting sequence

1-2

3-12

14-15

17-18

Note that we’ve arranged the interactional discourse recorded on the tape in terms of six parts which we call bracketed segments of the conversation. The first segment comprises the structural units of talking turns 1 and 2, which occurred at the front door. This setting is familiar to the participants: both share common ritual sequences known as “greeting” — a ritual that occurs when two acquainted participants suddenly find themselves in face-to-face contact. In other words, TT’s (“taking turns”) 1 and 2 are structurally localized (Episodal openers) and functionally standardized (greeting).

To demonstrate the functional properties of this syntactic ‘slot’ one need only consider alternative forms that might occur there without change of function: e.g.,

A Hi B:

a1: What’s up?

a₂: Hi.

a₃: Well, whatcha got here?

a4: I’ll wait for you in the car.

a5: Hello, there, sweetheart.

etc.

The set of alternatives a is a form class whose items distribute themselves over variable topical dimensions, but remain functionally equivalent, being each a greeting response, thanks to their structural location as Episodal openers.

This observation leads us to a fundamental principle of interactional discourse production, namely, that transactional function and topical content are independent. For example, TT (II), has a form class aa, as follows:

II. Amusing, eh? 12. B:

aa1: Uh, huh.

aa2: You think so?

aa3: Not really.
aa4: Fantastic

aa5: Yup.

etc.

The sum of the sets of alternatives available in a talking turn, i.e.,

E [a, aa, aaa … I]TT

may be called the display repertoire of the verbalizing community. Through socialization, training, and experience, a conversationalist acquires a certain portion of the culturally available display repertoire. Individual variations exist in available responses to a talking turn. Skilled conversationalists have available a greater range of the verbalizing community’s display repertoire than those who are less skilled. We may speak here of social or transactional competence. One strategy in becoming a better ‘transactional engineer’ would presumably be to (i) catalogue the set of alternatives available in particular conversational slots, and (ii) learn them. Step (i) amounts to making a local ethnography of social settings by some natural history technique (as in” logging activities”, discussed above). Step (ii) amounts to becoming acculturated, i. e. learning standardized patterns of topical interventions. The latter may be recognized as the perennial problem of the young, the visitors, and the foreigners: “What shall I say, When, and How?l?” Assimilation and re-educational training can be viewed as attempts to enlarge an individual’s set of alternatives in interactional discourse — but enlarge in a particular direction, namely, the direction of greater overlap between the individual’s current performances and the target ‘norm’. This element is not fixed, but operates within a ‘range of normalcy’ (Goffman’s term). Episodal exchanges are progressive, i.e. they wind down from ‘openings’ to ‘closings’ (Sacks; Shegloff). At any point within this sequence a participant may find himself “at a loss for words.” This is a “normal” occurrence on the daily round. Yet because episodes perforce wind down, there must be mechanisms for re-starting so that the closing exchange may ultimately occur. This mechanism also operates when one is ‘at a loss for words’, at which time one restarts, viz., begins a new bracketed section of the conversation.

We can summarize the above considerations by stating the following empirical hypotheses about the character of conversational interaction:

Hypothesis 1: Verbalized utterances in a talking turn are treated by participants as particularized surface variations of a form class the items of which have the same transactional significance or function.

Hypothesis 2: The first pair of talking turns, i. e. the first “adjacency pair” (Sacks’ term), in a conversational episode is treated by participants as a greeting opener,

Hypothesis 3: The transactional or functional significance of a talking turn is jointly recognized by participants in accordance with a, transactional code which they share by virtue of their common membership in a verbalizing community. We may state a fourth hypothesis upon considering TT (2) in which participant B says “What’s up?” while gesturing towards the tape recorder held up by A upon opening the front door.

Hypothesis 4: Any publicly noticeable change in the “normalcy” status of the environment (Goffman’s term), is a routinely available candidate for being made the topic of an utterance in a talking turn. When we consider that the utterances in one talking turn have a functional relation to utterances in adjacent turns (before and after), we are led to a notion, discussed by Sacks and others, known as “the setting-up-move.”

Hypothesis 5: There is a class of utterances, known as general purpose inquiries, that when uttered in a talking turn, will be treated by participants as serving to set-up the immediately next alternating talking turn such that it will contain a move that will constitute a justificatory comment on a readily noticeable environmental event.

Hypothesis 6: If a talking turn is made up of an utterance of the class belonging to a general purpose inquiry, it will be seen by participants to serve as a setting-up move for the utterance in the immediately next alternating talking turn such that it, in turn, will be seen as a directed response, a supportive move, a reply, a remedy.

The fifth and sixth hypotheses are general formulations that have the merit of showing up the common structural basis of a large class of conversational events that relate to the sequential aspects of alternating talking turns. Next, when we consider talking turns (3) — (12), we note that they constitute a bracketed segment of the Episodal exchange. This leads us to the formulation of the next hypothesis.

Hypothesis 7: There is a class of conversational events in the form of an exchange of alternating talking turns that is bracketed from other parts of the conversation, and where the bracketed exchange is seen by participants as specifically different from adjoining conversational material, this difference being that it is to be seen as semi-serious or “play talk” in contradistinction to the rest which is seen as serious.

The seven hypotheses outlined above imply the existence of three types of functional mechanisms in conversational interaction. First, we may mention the mechanism of sequencing devices. Given that talk proceeds through time, the events that, take place in it must be ordered in some way, and a description of these ordering procedures is what’s called for in the elaboration of conversational sequencing devices. Second, we may mention the mechanism of boundary limits in bracketed sections of conversation. The function of boundary limits is to indicate to participants where some event begins and where it ends. We've reviewed some of the elements of boundary limits, namely, talking turns, adjacency — pairs, opening sections, closing sections, and play talk sections. Third, we may mention the mechanism of transactional moves. The function of transactional moves is to indicate to participants the significance of a conversational display (utterance or gesture) for their relationship, i e. for their behavioral or interactional implications. Thus, sequencing devices, boundary limits, and transactional moves are theoretical mechanisms that are available to participants for ordering the sequence of talking turn utterances within a conversational episode. The elaborations of these mechanisms in Hypotheses I through 7, stated above, attempt to show that conversational displays (in gestures or in utterances) are treatable as transactional moves whose significance derives from their structural properties, that is to say, their locus of occurrence in the conversation. By “locus” we mean such things as sequence of talking turns, boundary limits of the bracketed section they belong to, place of that section within the overall episode, and type of relationship of participants as implied by previous history of joint conversational episodes.

We have reached here a crucial stage in our theory building. Since the list of empirical hypotheses (as proposed above) is potentially open-ended or indefinitely large, we need an explanatory mechanism that accounts for the occurrence of an indefinitely large number of transactional sequences, as one observes regularly in the continuing round of episodes on the daily schedule. In other words the listing of empirical hypotheses about natural talk is a descriptive stage of data processing (taxonomy?). We now need a process-valued function that sets talking matters in motion, and directs movement towards an objectively identifiable goal. We shall refer to this post-taxonomic phase as the psychodynamics of talk.

Goffman’s elaborated notions on “face work” serves as the starting point for our proposal relating to the motivational dynamics of talk. The dialectic of offense and remedy is posited as the generating mechanism. Utterances and gestures are displays, or display presentations, or performances. Displays are organized as moves in transactional sequences. Moves have direct ‘face work’ implications, i. e. moves are indices to a person’s transactional reputation. Each utterance or gesture displayed within a talking turn carries a transactional function. The transactional value of a talking intervention is either positive or negative. When positive, the move counts as a remedy; when negative, it counts as an offense.

The dialectic of remedy and offense provides us with the theoretical starting point for evolving and explanatory account for the connectedness between talking turns in a conversational episode. We have pointed out at the outset of this section that the answer to, “What’s going on in this conversation?” must allow only elements which pertain to what the participants themselves orient to, as the episode winds down to a closing. We need therefore a notation system for recording the occurrences of noticing during talk. Let us call this type of record a relationship history.

It is intuitively valid that the transactants to an episode have a coding system for keeping track of the episode’s evolution. Thus, topics that occur earlier are pre-supposed in subsequent bracketed sections of the conversation. As well, there is left an impression of the quality of the transactional face work — whether pleasant, friendly, involving, or their opposites. And finally, there is a sense of the episode’s context, in time, place, and schedule on the daily round.

It is, then, intuitively valid to presuppose, in natural talk, the existence of methods participants use to keep track of the directionality and cumulative value of each other’s face work. This cumulative record serves to reify the mediating mechanisms of interactions, i. e. the reputation and Identity of co-tranactants.

Relationship history is the cumulative record of Episodal interactions between two individuals. Individuals use standard methods of keeping track. Garfinkel calls these methods “accounting practices” while we refer to them as “community cataloguing practices” or “CCP’s” (see James & Gordon, 1975—77).

To recapitulate, we are proposing that the directional syntax which generates the organizational sequencing of transactional moves in social episodes, is the dialectic of offense and remedy in face work. This motivational dynamic gives a goal-orientation to conversational exchanges, and accounts for the natural winding down of all episodes. Participants have standardized methods for keeping a cumulative record of each other’s relationship history. These standardized methods for keeping track reify reputation and identity. Now we are proposing to investigate these cataloguing-practices that must form part of ordinary social competence on the daily round. By generating such data we are preparing the components needed for explaining the connectedness of utterances in interactional discourse. The explanation of this connectedness will involve explaining, (i) how participants keep track of what’s going on, i.e. the features of the setting they orient to, notice, and code into a cumulative record; (ii) how the cumulative record reifies the natural phenomena of reputation and identity; and (iii) how reputation and identity provide a mechanism for relating moves to each other, i.e. for explaining the connectedness of utterances in a conversation.

We can only present here a brief account of our work thus far, but in any case, that work is only initial, our interest here being, to offer some possible directions which we are finding fruitful (James & Gordon, 1978; 1979).

The Daily Round Archives or “DRA” as our students refer to it, can be viewed as a local ethnography of a community’s daily round cataloguing-practices. What gets kept track of provides the investigator with the data needed to map the social settings and indicate their ‘sociodynamics value’, i.e. their influencing effects on the behavior of participants. The DRA files at the University of Hawaii are prepared and catalogued by students who are trained in psycholinguistic techniques applied to the natural history description of community life. We have been using ethnosemantic sampling techniques for building a cumulative catalog of social occasions on the daily round of our students. A portion of the current taxonomy is shown in the accompanying table:

DRA CLASSIFICATION SCHEME

I. MAJOR CLASSIFICATION LEVEL

ZONE I: BIOGRAPHIC RECORD

ZONE 2: TRIBE

ZONE 3: ROLE

ZONE 4: PSYCHOHISTORY

ZONE 5: TERRITORIALITY

ZONE 6: APPEARANCE

II. SUBCLASSIFICATION LEVEL

ZONE I: BIOGRAPHIC RECORD

1 A MY VITA

ZONE 2: TRIBE

2A MY TALK

2B CONNECTIONS

2C FAMILY TREE

ZONE 3: ROLE

3A LOGGING ACTIVITIES

3B SITUATED INTERIOR DIALOGUE

3C SITUATED STANDARDIZED IMAGININGS

3D SITUATED PSYCHOLOGIZINGS

3E SITUATED SENSATIONS AND FEELINGS

3F SITUATED FEELING ARGUMENTS

3G SITUATED FANTASY/DAYDREAM EPISODES

3H THE ELEVATED REGISTER

31 RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

3J SOCIAL MEMBERSHIPS

ZONE 4: PSYCHOHISTORY

4A SITUATED ATURIBUTIONS

4B SITUATED EVALUATIONS AND ASSESSMENTS

4C SITUATED JUDGMENTS

4D INTERVIEWING THE SELF

ZONE 5: TERRITORIALITY

5A REGULAR LISTS AND BELONGINGS

5B ROUTINE CONCERNS: SELECTED INVENTORIES

5C NOTICING OBSERVATIONS

5D DESCRIPTION OF TRANSACTIONS

5E TRANSACTIONAL STRATEGIES: EPISODES WHEN I:

5F DECLARATIONS

5G SLOGANS

5H EPITHETS

5I HANGOUTS AND GROUP ACTIVITIES

5J REPORTING JOINT ACTIVITIES

5K NON-JOINT ACTIVITIES

ZONE 6: APPEARANCE

6A INTERVIEWING OTHERS

MICRO-CLASSIFICATION LEVELS

ZONE 1: BIOGRAPHIC RECORD

1A MY VITA

1A1 Current Status in Community

1A2 Background

1A3 Topic Focus

1A4 Personal

1A4.l Ambitions

1A4.2 Favorites

1A4.3 Fears

ZONE 2: TRIBE

2A MY TALK

2A1 Analysis of Argument Logic

2A1.l Schema of Argument Structure

2A1.2 Description of Operational Talking Procedures..

2A1.3 Shema of Behavioral Strategies in Talk

2A2 Analysis of Relationship

2A2.l Case History

2A2.2 Relationship Dynamics

2A2.3 Tabulation of Pair Types

2A2.4 Tabulation of Role Types

2A3 Analysis of Sequence

2A3.1 Schema for Move Embeddings

2A3.2 Tabulation of Adjacency of Relations

2A4 Analysis of Setting

2A4.1 Discourse Analysis

2A4.2 Tabulation of Derivative Relations

2A4.3 Tabulation of Implicit Meanings

2A4.4 Tabulation of the Rhythm of Exchange

2A4.5 Transactional Engineering Through Talk

2A5 Analysis of Topic

2A5.1 Breakdown of Topics Exchanged

2A5.2 Topical Annotations

2A5.3 Topical Chart of Transcript

2A5.4 Topicalization Dynamics

2A6 Transcript Annotations

2A6.1 Explanations

2A6.2 Stage Directions

2B CONNECTIONS

2B1 People I Live With

2B2 People Who Are My Immediate Family

2B3 People Who Are My Extended Family

2B4 People Who Are Acquaintances of the Family

2B5 People I Know From Work

2B6 People I Regularly Socialize With

2B7 People Who Have Provided Me with Professional Services

2B8 People Whose Change in Financial Status Would Affect My Financial Status

2B9 People Who Are Non-Intimates and Non-Family Whose Ill Health or Death Would Affect Me

2B10 People Whom I Might Ask for a Recommendation

2B11 People Who Influenced My Intellectual and Personal Maturity

2B12 People I Don’t Know Personally But Whose Ideas Affect Me

2B13 People Who Have or Could Ask Me for a Reference

2B14 People I See Regularly for Service or Supplies

2B15 People I’d Like Currently to Meet

2B16 People I Know Whose Words I Quote or Stories I Tell

2B17 People Whom I Believe to be Admired by My Parents

2B18 People Whom I Know Who I See or Think About Only Rarely

ZONE 3: ROLE

3A LOGGING ACTIVITIES

3A1 Time

3A2 Duration

3A3 Place

3A4 Participants

3A5 Occasion

3A6 Nature of Activity

3B SITUATED INTERIOR DIALOGUE

3B1 Overlays of Comments to Self

3B2 Value Expressions

3B3 Preparing Schedules

3B4 Reviewing/Making Plans and Lists

3B5 Emotionalizing Episodes

3B6 Rehearsals and Practicing’s

3B7 Annotations, Memorizing, Editing

3B8 Unmentionables Within the Relationship

3C SITUATED STANDARDIZED IMAGININGS

3D SITUATED PSYCHOLOGIZINGS

3E SITUATED SENSATIONS AND FEELINGS

3E1. Micro descriptions of Sensory Observations

3E1.1 Aches and Pains

3E1.2 Stretchings and Exercise

3E1.3 Blushing

3E1.4 Retinal Sensations, etc.

3E1.5 Appetite and Cooking

3E1.6 Energy Level

3E1.7 Smells and Odors

3F SITUATED FEELING ARGUMENTS

3F1 Figuring Out a Conflict

3F2 Making Resolutions

3G SITUATED FANTASY/DAYDREAM EPISODES

3G1 Elaboration of Dramatized Scenarios

3G2 Construction of Catharsis Stories

3G3 Re-contacting Nostalgic Memories

3G4 Working out Alternative Realities

3H THE ELEVATED REGISTER

3H1 Praying/Invocations

3H2 Altered States of Consciousness

3H3 Meditations/Reading of Scriptures

3114 Poetic Expressions

31 RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

3J SOCIAL MEMBERSHIPS

ZONE 4: PSYCHOHISTORY
4A SITUATED ATTRIBUTIONS

4B SITUATED ASSESSMENTS/EVALUATIONS

4C SITUATED JUDGMENTS

4D INTERVIEWING SELF

4D1 Who Am I

4D2 What Am I

4D3 How Am I

4D4 What Do I Look to You

ZONE 5: TERRITORIALITY

5A REGULAR LISTS AND BELONGINGS

5A1 Invitations

5A2 Announcements

5A3 Subscriptions

5A3.1 Periodicals

5A3.2 Membership Dues

5A3.3 Contributions

5A4 Bills

5A5 Closets

5A6 Drawers

5A7 Objects

5A8 Documents and Mementos

5A8.1 Official/Legal/Medical

5A8.2 Personal/Biographical

5A8.2.1 Prizes

5A8.2.2 Letters

5A8.2.3 Gifts

5A8.2.4 Albums

5A8.2.5 Souvenirs

5A9 Personal Effects: Selected Inventories

5A9.1 Purse/Wallet

5A9.2 Car Glove Compartment

5A9.3 Your Own Drawer for Stuff

5A9.4 Clothes Closet

5B ROUTINE CONCERNS: SELECTED INVENTORIES

5B1 Privacy

5B1.1 From the EYES of Particular Others

5B1.2 From the NOSE of Particular Others

5B1.3 From the EARS of Particular Others

5B1.4 From the KNOWLEDGE of Particular Others

5B1.4.1 Involving Your Activities

5B1.4.1.1 Places

5B1.4.1.2 People

5B1.4.1.3 Purchases

5B1.4.1.4 Bills

5B1.4.2 Involving Your Ideas

5B1.4.2.1 Memories

5B1.4.2.2 Attitudes

5B1.4.2.3 Opinions

5B2 Information: Record Keeping

5B2.1 Schedules

5B2.2 Shopping Lists

5B2.3 Date and Address Books

5B2.4 Check/Bank Books

5B2.5 Biographical

5B2.5.1 Diary

5B2.5.2 Notes

5B2.5.3 Resolutions

5C NOTICING OBSERVATIONS

5CI Visual Sightings

5C1.1 Physical State/Appearance of Things and Places

5C1.2 Change in Normalcy Signs

5C1.3 Weather

5C1.4 People in Public Places

5C2 Relationship Events

5C2.1 Noticeables About People You Know

5C2.1.1 Physical Appearance

5C2.1.2. Mood

5C2. 1.3 Unmentionables Within the Relationship

5C2. 1.4 Disoccasioned Mentionables

5C3 Auditory Pickings-up

5C3. 1 Overheard Snatches of Talk

5C3.2 Sounds, Noises

5D DESCRIPTION OF TRANSACTIONS

5D1 Gossiping

5D2 Catching Up on News

5D3 Having an Argument

5D4 Joking

5D5 Exchanging Information

5D6 Making Arrangements

5D7 Working Out a Problem

5D8 Sharing Secrets/Confessions

5D9 Routine Reviews/News of the Day

5E TRANSACTIONAL STRATEGIES: EPISODES WHEN I:

5E1 Lied

5E2 Avoided

5E3 Persisted In

5E4 Pursued

5E5 Insisted On

5F DECLARATIONS

5F1 Problems

5F2 Concerns

5F3 Secrets

5F4 Disoccasioned Topics

5F5 Superstitions

5G SLOGANS

5G1 About Appearance

5G2 About Health

5G3 About Diet

5G4 Folk Wisdom

5H EPITHETS

5H1 Pet Peeves (self and others)

5H2 Family Sayings

5H3 Nicknames (self and others)

5H4 Personal (self and others)

5H5 Regularized References to:

5H5.1 Time

5H5.2 Place

5H5.3 Events

51 HANGOUTS AND GROUP ACTIVITIES

                        511    Places
                        512    Circumstances of Crowding With
                        513    Activities with Others
                        514    Rights and Privileges
                        515    Reputation

5J REPORTING JOINT ACTIVITIES

5J1 Doing Something With Dates, Appointments

5J2 Telephone Calls

5J3 Writing/Receiving Notes, Letters, Memos, Ads, etc.

5J4 Raying Bills

5K NON-JOINT ACTIVITIES

5K1 Doing a Task for Another Person

5K2 Buying a Gift for Another Person

5K3 Mentioning a Person to Someone

5K4 Avoiding a Person

5K5 Going to See/Looking for a Person

5K6 Having a Mental Exchange with Someone

ZONE 6: APPEARANCE

6A INTERVIEWING OTHERS

6A1 Who Am I

6A2 What Am I

6A3 How Am I

6A4 What Do I Look Like To You

The DRA Index is a cumulative record of the cataloguing-practices of the community, as witnessed by the contributors to the daily round data bank. This catalogue serves to identify the ordinary noticing of participants engaged in social episodes, whether monadic (by oneself), or diadic, or public. Contributors use a specified format of reporting which we provide and which evolves as we understand more about what’s to be done! We find one particular technique useful, what we call annotations. Contributors make reports, which involve the form of transcripts, microdescriptions, and interior dialog or discourse thinking (inner arguments and comments made to the self). These form the raw data. Next, the raw data are processed two ways through ‘witnessings’: first, the contributor annotates the raw data; second, “readers” annotate them as well, and in some cases, annotations are annotated by subsequent readers. This generational processing of the data bank creates a cumulative catalogue of what social stimuli are noticed and are being kept track of in a community. Assuming progress in a successive approximation towards the solution of the cataloguing issue (above), the next phase of this theoretical program is to ascertain the transactional value of the noticings on the daily round that participants keep track of. We do this by obtaining particular kinds of annotations of the recorded noticings by both the participant-contributor to the DRA and as well, by readers or users of the DRA. These ‘readers’ are successive generations of students so that the data in the DRA gets processed cumulatively in the form of annotations on annotations.

FOOTNOTES

1. This article is based on our Lecture Notes for “Applied Psycholinguistics in Social Psychology” (now Psychology “397”, University of Hawaii), written in 1972. A mimeographed version of the lecture notes appears in Vol. 1 “The Functional Analysis of the Verbal Community” in Series 3 of James and Gordon, 1975—77, see References.

2. Leon James is Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii. In 1966, as Co-director of the Center for Comparative Psycholinguistics, University of Illinois, he visited the Institute during which he had the good fortune of meeting Prof. Kostic, and would like to take this opportunity of expressing both honor and pleasure, at “unveiling” these newer ideas on psycholinguistics, for the first time in this volume, published in honor of Prof. Kostic, who has, over the years, shown a keen interest in this specialization of the language sciences, and in that interest, has supported its development (James, 1966).

3. Barbara Gordon is Visiting Colleague in Psycholinguistics at the University of Hawaii and is President, Transactional Engineering Corporation, Florida and Hawaii. Since 1950, she’s been active in Educational Linguistics, a branch of the language sciences that concerns itself with the applied uses of linguistic knowledge in school settings, as in training teachers, in ameliorating academic literacy, in expanding cognitive development, and so on (see Gordon, 1962; Aarons, Gordon, Stewart, 1969; James and Gordon, 1974).

4. DRA table footnote. The classification scheme shown here is based on our, as yet unpublished work (James and Gordon, 1975—77), on what we label "ethnosemantics.” The basis of this method of analysis of cultural phenomena of meaning and function (= “situational pragmatics”) is our discovery of a natural hexagrammatic order, differentiated along developmental stages. The six zones and their derivative sub-zones in the DRA classification scheme, follow this hexagrammatic hierarchy. For further details, see in addition James and Gordon, (1969; 1968). 1. Mayer (1935) was among the first to our knowledge to foresee the use of evidential procedures in social psychology, as exemplified in the natural history methodology of the DRA project.

REFERENCES

Aarons, A., Gordon, B. Y., & Stewart, W. (Eds.). Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education, Special Anthology Issue of The Florida FL Reporter, Vol. 7, 1969.

Garfinkel, H. Studies In Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. Goffman, E. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books, 1971

(Harper Colophon Books, 1972).

Gordon, B. Y. >An Application of the Findings of Structural Linguistics to the Teaching of English in the Lower Elementary Grade: An Exploratory Study. Language and Literature, Linguistics, Columbia University, Ed.D., 1962.

James, L. A. Comparative Psycholinguistics in the Study of Culture. International Journal of Psychology, Vol. 1, 1966, pp. 15—37, reprinted in translated version (French) in T. Slama-Cazacu (Ed.) La Psycholinguistique, Paris: Editions Klincksieck, 1972.

James, L. A., & Gordon, B. Y. Society’s Witnesses: Experiencing Formative Issues in Social Psychology. Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, 1979 (mimeographed lecture notes).

James, L. A., & Gordon, B. Y. Workbook for the Study of Social Psychology (2nd Edition). Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, 1978.

James, L. A., & Gordon, B. Y. Community Cataloguing Practices (Series I through VI). Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, 1975—1977 (mimeo). (Abbreviated as J & U, 1975—77.)

James, L. A., & Gordon, B. Y. The Context of Foreign Language Teaching. Rowley, Mass.:

Newbury House Publishers, 1974.

James, L. A., & Miron, M. S. Readings in the Psychology of Language, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-I-tall, Inc., 1967.

Sacks, H. Unpublished Lectures. University of California at Los Angeles. Davis (mimeo), ca. 1966. Sacks, H., Shegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. A. Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn

Taking for Conversation. Language, 1974, 50, (4), 696—735. (Also reprinted in Schenkein, 1978.)

Schenkein, J. (Ed.) Studies In the Organization of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic Press, 1978.

Steinberg, D. S., & James, L. A. (Eds.). Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971.

Winskowski, C. An Empirical Investigation of Topicalization. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, 1975.