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of Speech Code Theory

Underlying Assumptions

Proposition #3

A speech code involves a culturally distinct psychology, sociology, and rhetoric.

1. Speech Code Theory is highly contextual; a speech code cannot be recognized or understood without observing communicative conduct in particular times and places.

2. Speech Code Theory assumes that observed communication conduct can be interpreted/explained by determining a culture's situated codes of meaning and value.

3. Although the theory is based on studies of particular ways of speaking, it provides a general understanding of communicative conduct.

Proposition #1

Wherever there is a distinctive culture, there is to be found a distinctive speech code.

What about your

hometown?

What is the speech

code like there?

How is it different from here?

Gerry Philipsen, Lisa Coutu, & Patricia Covarrubias wrote an overview, summary, and revision of the original Speech Code Theory.

Through their work, they identified three underlying assumptions about Speech Code Theory.

  • Understood as "true" from the standpoint of Philipsen's theoretical findings.
  • Address the general characteristics of this theory
  • All theories have underlying assumptions.

The Six Propositions of Speech Code Theory

The Distinctiveness of a Speech Code

The Multiplicity of Speech Codes

The Substance of a Speech Code

The Performance of a Speech Code

The Rules of a Speech Code

The Judgment of a Speech Code

Proposition #2

In any given speech community, multiple speech codes are deployed.

What about your hometown, what are

some different speech codes that are

used?

How do they differ? Who uses the different

codes? Where? When?

What is the significance of these differences?

Proposition #5

Proposition #4

The significance of speaking depends on the speech codes used by speakers and listeners to create and interpret their communication.

  • This proposition deals with the meta-communication of a code (i.e. how, when, where, with whom do we speak) & what meaning we attribute to speaking.
  • EX: The Teamsterville section about not engaging in speaking.
  • EX: Dialogue in Graduate School

The terms, rules, and premises of a speech code are woven into speaking itself.

  • Highly structured cultural forms often display the cultural significance of terms, meanings, premises, and rules that might not be accessible through normal conversation.
  • Social dramas - public confrontations in which one party invokes a moral rule to challenge the conduct of another.
  • EX: NYC Rule - Never touch a stranger
  • Totemizing rituals involve careful performances of structured sequences of actions that pay homage to sacred objects.
  • EX: Academic Conferences

Closing Questions

What are some of the meanings

that are attributed to ways of

speaking from within your hometown speech code?

When and what type of speaking is appropriate? inappropriate?

What are some of the Rules of your

hometown speech code?

What types of Social Dramas do these

rules play out in?

What Totemizing Rituals occur & what

do they idolize?

Proposition #6

What is Speech Code Theory?

The artful use of a shared speech code is a sufficient condition for predicting, explaining, and controlling the form of discourse about the intelligibility, prudence, and morality of communication conduct.

  • Thoughtful use can guide meta-communication.
  • Can have an idea of what an individual might say given what we know about how a speech code functions within a given culture.
  • People judge one’s appropriate use of a speech code to determine how smart, ethical, and sensible someone is.
  • EX: Bar Scene Judgments

Breaking Down Prop #3

Whatever the culture, the speech code reveals structures of self, society, and strategic action.

  • Psychology: Every speech code thematizes the nature of individuals in a particular way.
  • EX: Being a "Man"
  • EX: NYC vs. FF Intro Question

  • Sociology: Every speech code provides a system of answers about what relationships between self and others are appropriate, and what symbolic meanings/actions can be used when engaged in these relations.
  • EX: Symmetrical/Asymmetrical = max. vs. min. talk
  • EX: Strangers = Competition vs. Connection

  • Rhetoric: Every speech code involves ways to discover truth and create persuasive appeals.
  • EX: "Truths" of "Success" &"Happiness"

How does the proper and skilled use of your

hometown speech code impact how smart,

ethical, and/or sensible someone is?

Can you give an example of a positive judgment & a negative judgment?

What did you find out about the speech code(s) in your hometown?

Is a speech code the same as a dialect? Why/Why not?

Is speech code theory lacking because it doesn't address different forms of privilege embedded in speaking practices?

How can you use Speech Code theory at a job? How can it be helpful when adapting to a new job/getting a promotion?

A speech code is a historically enacted, socially constructed system of terms, meanings, premises, and rules, pertaining to communicative conduct.

Focus on the connection between Culture and Communication.

  • Believed that language was at the core of this relationship.
  • What tradition do you think this is in?

The Original Study

Now it's your turn...

What is the psychology of your hometown speech code? How is identity thematized?

What is the sociology of it? What relationships are created/perpetuated by the code?

What is the rhetoric of this code? What is one of the "truths" that can be evoked to persuade people from this code?

What is the Theorist's Name?

What method did he use to develop this theory?

Why do you think he needed to use this method to develop this theory?

What did you think of Philipsen's Article - -Speaking Like a "Man" in Teamsterville?

  • How was reading the primary source vs. Griffin's chapter? Which did you prefer?

  • What did you learn about the culture of "Teamsterville"? How is this culture tied to the speech code and practices of men there?

  • How does one "speak like 'man' in teamsterville?

  • What stood out for you from the article?

Speech Code Theory

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