Multiphrenia: looking at a friend’s facebook account.

In class, we read about multiphrenia, the presentation of the self in different ways according to the situation. I decided to do a small ethnographic study to see how my friend from home, Laura, presents herself on facebook as opposed to how she presents herself to me and to people that she has just met.

I have noticed that Laura is very shy around people that she doesn’t know well, and I expected her to present herself this way on the internet since she would not know who is looking at her profile. I would say that Laura is a person who values privacy and is not quick to open up to strangers. I was surprised to find that she presented herself on facebook much closer to the way she presents herself to me. She is very open about her likes and dislikes in movies and music when she usually is embarrassed to tell people that she doesn’t know well what she likes.

Many of her facebook profile pictures and albums are of her making faces or acting silly. When Laura meets someone for the first time, she is not usually this open to show her silly side. Laura presents more of her “true self” on facebook than she does when meeting strangers. We have read that since the blogger/internet user can’t see the audience and doesn’t know who is reading what they are putting online, they are free to be more themselves. I think this is certainly true of my friend.

Minnesota vs. Pennsylvania

It just so happens that most of my friends are either from Minnesota or Western/Central Pennsylvania. Our group is divided according to accents. Though I don’t usually recognize the fact that I have an accent, my friends are quick to remind me. The MN people have also commented that they don’t realize that they have an accent except when the PA people tease them. The functions of these conversations are both phatic and metalingual.

However, all of us are proud of our state and, to a certain extent, our accents. I tease the MN people for saying “Ooooh yaaaah” or “Suuuure yooou betcha dontcha knooow” or “oofda!” They make fun of my colloquialisms (gumband = rubberband, read up = clean up, sweeper = vaccuum) and failure to pronounce L’s and double O’s.

Accents define who we are to a certain extent. They let other people know where one is from and often are the basis by which people are judged. I have become much more aware of my accent by comparing the way I speak to the way my friends from MN speak.

Questions about Language:

This course has answered a lot of questions that I had about language but also opened up the possibility for more questions:
1. How aware are people of the functions that their language performs?
2. What are the functions of politeness? Phatic?
3. Why is it that when verbal art is analyzed, it is no longer funny?
4. How is electronic communication perceived by older people who did not grow up with it but who use it now?
5. Why is it that people who are aware of the techniques persuasive language are still persuaded by it?
6. Are there any examples of pure performance?

So many questions, so little class time…

Presenting myself as “That other one”

Being identical twins, my sister, Pam, and I have to put up with people mixing us up, calling us by the wrong name, and saying things like “You’re the same person.” It can be frustrating. So, once a year for the past three years we have decided to get revenge/play tricks/see who really knows who we are. We do this by switching places in the marching band. She plays trumpet in the band. I do not play an instrument and have never been in the marching band. This Friday, we switched places in for the pep rally. We met up after her practice and switched coats and hats. I went to the pep rally and she went to dinner. (By the way, I definitely saw Caitlin there but I don’t think she thought it was me.)

Beforehand, Pam has had to train me how to “be” her. There are practical issues such as marching, how to hold a trumpet and pretend to play, and whistle and hand signals. However, there are also other ways of presenting myself as her linguistically. She informed me of different inside jokes she has with certain people. She also has different ways of greeting different people. For example, many band members have nicknames that may not be used outside of the band. In order to present myself as Pam, I have to call these people by their nicknames and not be the names that they may introduce themselves as. I also had to pretend to know what the trumpets were talking about when they discussed other band members, music and formations (which I know nothing about.) I would give back-channel cues as if I knew exactly what was going on. There was also the very simply procedure of answering to the name “Pam.” I usually do not do this (unless I know someone is confused). I also had a few of Pam’s friends who were in on the prank call me Pam. Here is what I observed:

We counted at least 12 people who we were 100% sure that they were fooled, either because they called me Pam or they did not think there was anything strange that I, and not Pam, was there. There were a lot of people who walked past me and did not take much notice of me/Pam. I’m not sure if Pam does not know them or if they didn’t notice that I wasn’t Pam.

There were 2 cases of particular interest:

One girl (whose name I can’t remember) came up to me and started talking to me. She said that I looked particularly like Em that night, more than usual. I thought that she knew the truth but she kept talking about how I/Pam sometimes look more like Em than usual. I went along with the conversation but didn’t explicitly say that I wasn’t Pam. About five minutes later, Chris (on of Pam’s friends who was in on the prank) slipped and called me Em. She was really shocked that I actually was Em and not Pam who just happened to look more like Em that night. I thought that she was testing waters with her language by saying that I looked like Em. I think that she expected a confession if I turned out to be Em and not Pam.

I had a fifteen minute conversation with one boy, Bobby, who told me all about his bad day. I commiserated with him, pretended to know all the people that he was talking about, and was generally nice to him (as I imagine Pam would be). The people who had figured it out were laughing the whole time, but Bobby didn’t catch on. Finally I told him that I wasn’t Pam. He got really made – profanity included. He said that it wasn’t fair that he didn’t realize it was me because I was in a the band, a situation where he wasn’t suspecting I would be. He was also mad that I went along with the conversation, that I presented myself as Pam. He said that he couldn’t be expected to tell us apart if I was presenting myself as Pam.

I think this is the key to the whole situation. If you present yourself as one person and talk and act like that person in a situation where that person usually is, than no one should suspect you are any thing other than what you present yourself as.

Self presentation and being agreeable

The article that I found for Monday was about presenting oneself and trying to make people like you when discussing different political views. It was called “Taking the Edge off disagreement: linguistic abstractness and self-presentation to a heterogeneous audience” by Monica Rubini of the University of Bologna and Harold Sigall of the University of Maryland. The article became very technical, but I will do my best to summarize it:

The authors did an experiment where they told participants that they wanted them to talk to two strangers and try to get the strangers to like them. They two people were either both of the same political view, both of differing political views, or a mix of one person with the same political view and one person of differing views from the participant. The language was measured by how abstract it was. There were four categories starting from the most concrete (also listed are the examples that they gave in the article):
1. Descriptive action verbs – uses objective language – “John tripped Tom”
2. Interpretive action verbs – verbs that evaluate the action – “John injured Tom”
3. State Verbs – verbs that do not have temporal or situational reference – “John envies Tom”
4. Adjectives – “transcend specific situations, objects, behaviors, or reference persons” (344), - “John is nasty”

The participants differed in how they presented themselves linguistically. People tended to use more abstract language with the people with whom they shared political views because it is more “trans-situational and stable over time.” (344). Although I’m not completely sure, I think that this means that the people were comfortable making much broader statements that didn’t have the same amount of evidence as concrete statements which were used with people with whom the participants did not share political views. It seems to me that abstract language can be the most easily misinterpreted. When someone does not agree with your political opinions, they may easily take an abstract adjectives and put a different meaning than what was intended. This could lead to a misunderstanding and make the participant disagreeable to the other two interviewers. When someone agrees with you, then they will also agree with your abstract language. It is safer to make broad statements when everyone already agrees with you.

Response to Koven

I really liked how Koven looked at the way that people present themselves differently through different ways of speaking. I think that we all have different codes even if we are not all bilingual. She somewhat addresses this in her conclusion:

“Different ways of speaking, within and across languages, create socially and psychologically real effects for people, producing for the same speaker multiple expressions and experiences of socially recognizable selves” (437).

I can relate to this. I find myself speaking more politely and in general acting more politely around strangers, especially when I am asking them for something. I notice that when I talk to a cashier, university official or when I ask for directions I am use very polite language. I go over-the-top with directives, stand up straight, and hedge a lot. I would describe myself as polite, humble, and somewhat timid. I do not act like this at all around my friends where I am much more relaxed. I present myself differently for different sets of people through the language that I use.

I notice similar changes in behavior and language in my little sister when we go to our grandma’s. It doesn’t matter if she was fighting with me, swearing, or using informal language. The second we walk into my grandma’s house, she presents herself as the angel child, speaking politely and using proper grammar. Her speech and her entire attitude change.

My best friend from home also is guilty of code-switching behavior, especially when answering the phone. She speaks in an extremely high-pitched, saccharine voice when she says “Hello, this is Laura.” If I am on the other end, then she reverts to her normal voice and informality. If we are in the same room and an adult is on the other end of the phone, she continues on with the “fake” voice. She is extremely polite and obliging. However, once she hangs up the phone, she is back to her normal self.

I don’t think there is anything hypocritical in these changes in language and behavior. I think that we are all “multiphrenic” as we read earlier. There are appropriate times to present oneself in different ways.

Response to The Decline and Fall of the Private Self

I found Flora’s article to be closely connected with Gergen’s idea of the multiphrenia – people portray themselves in different forms through the means of blogging. Flora writes that “Whether he [the blogger] realizes it or not, the online scribe cultivates an identity that anticipates and responds to its audience.” I take this to mean that a person cultivates a persona that he or she portrays online. This persona may be different from how one presents oneself in face-to-face situations. “You become a character [online], a speaking part, in the larger theater of society.” By playing a character, the person would seem to not be being himself and would not be connected to reality, which is not like a movie. There are a lot of instances where people make up completely fake persona’s, like lonelygirl15, and blog or present themselves online. When people find out that this is not their true selves, they become upset. It is surprising to me that anyone can think that what a person chooses to tell about himself online is absolutely true. It seems like this is another instance of not being connected to reality.

On a completely separate note, I found that this article put into words why I find blogging so uncomfortable and somewhat “creepy.” The people in the article talk about themselves as being characters in a movie. It seems as if they crave being a celebrity and will put all privacy aside in an attempt to be famous. I do not want to be a celebrity. I value my privacy and feel uncomfortable sharing personal information about myself with strangers. Even homework (such as this blog) feels to me as if I am allowing people to read my personal work. I feel obligated to put on the perfect persona of being an intelligent, articulate student. When I blog, I feel like I am being watched and judged by others. I think that people who blog regularly feel like they also are being watched and judged but that they just enjoy that kind of attention.