Project Topic

Title: Cell Phone Etiquette
I am very interested in when and where people think it is appropriate to use their cell phones. I am always very shocked by behavior that I think is rude. I want to find out where and when most people think is appropriate to use cell phones and where it is impolite.

Procedure – conduct a survey to collect information on people’s cell phone use behavior and do additional research for studies already conducted.
Possible questions:
1. How many minutes do you use your cell phone for talking per day?
2. How many text messages do you send per day?
3. Where do you talk on your cell phone?
4. Where do you text on you phone?
5. Where do you keep the ringer on your phone ON?
6. Where do you turn your phone on vibrate?
7. Where do you turn your phone off/on silent?
8. Where do you think it is rude to talk on the phone?
9. Where do you think it is rude to text?
10. Where do you think it is rude if someone’s phone rings?
11. Where do you think it is rude if someone else’s phone vibrates?

After all the "where" questions, I intend to have this list of potential places to use a cell phone:
i. In class
ii. In church/religious services
iii. At work
iv. During meetings
v. In a group of friends when the call pertains to the group
vi. In a group of friends when the call does NOT pertain to the group
vii. At restaurants/public eating places
viii. Walking on the street
ix. In the car alone
x. In the car with another person/people
xi. On public transportation (buses, trains, etc)
xii. When in the same building as the person being called
xiii. When anyone is talking to you.


If anyone has any ideas of other questions that I should ask or other places/situations that I should add, please comment! Thanks!

Call or knock?

One part that struck me in the Matsuda article was the discussion on reducing chance encounters with people through telephones and later through mobile phones.

Matsuda says:
“Before the advent of the telephone, visitors used to show up at homes unannounced, but after the wide adoption of the telephone, it became impolite to make a visit without advanced notice. Through keitai, in a similar fashion, one fixes appointments and reduces chance encounters and spontaneous gatherings. Now people must always make conscious choices of whom to call and meet.” (p 134)

I thought this was very relevant to my own life. My mom always tells me that I should just walk to my best friend’s house unannounced, knock on the door, and ask her if she wants to hang out. My best friend from home lives less than a mile away and I see her almost every day in the summer and over breaks. We have been friends since gradeschool and so if there were anyone that I would just pop in on, it would probably be her. However, I would never just show up without calling first. I would consider that to be rude.

My mom doesn’t understand this. She always says that when she was a kid, they would always go to people’s houses unannounced. I think this shows an interesting change that has happened within the last thirty to forty years. I suppose my mom’s generation was one that grew up with telephones being relatively new in being widespread. There had not yet been the social change of calling before going to someone’s house. My generation seems to have been taught by society, not by our parents, that it is rude to just show up without previous plans.

Orwell would not approve of the Basilica's Petitions

I am the Liturgical Commissioner for Pangborn Hall. (I basically set up and clean up for Mass in the dorm). Our priest, Fr. Gary, and I read through the Basilica-issued petitions before mass and groan at the terrible way in which they are written. We cut most of the incomprehensible ones. This past week I realized that this is exactly the type of language that Orwell is talking about in his article “Politics and the English Language.” Obviously, the petitions are not political, but they suffer from the degradation of language that Orwell talks about. (I would just like to say that I mean no disrespect towards Catholics or the Basilica.)

Dying metaphors:
“For the Church, who gathers the families of the world to a plentiful table. May she continue to provide a feast of Word and Sacrament to all who come to her holy mountain”
It’s difficult to analyze metaphors used by the Church, especially when they are from the Bible, considering the text has been around for nearly 2000 years. I wouldn’t say they are dead metaphors. However, the person who writes the petitions does not need to draw from all the Biblical metaphors he/she can get her hands on. It makes the petition confusing and long winded. Here are the metaphors I picked out in this petition alone. It’s difficult to find out if we are praying for something real or metaphorical because of the great amount of metaphors.
“Gathers the families” – shepherd metaphor
“Plentiful table” – do they mean the Eucharist or a “table” of physical sustenance?
“She” – metaphor for the Church
“a feast” – similar metaphor to table metaphor – here it seems to be used as a term for the Mass
“holy mountain” – this can be a metaphor for sacred ground, possibly referring to Mount Sinai. Honestly, I have no idea what idea the writer is trying to get across.
The entire petition is metaphorical. This language makes it difficult to pick out what exactly we are supposed to praying for.

Operations or verbal false limbs:
“For all who work the fields. May those who till and plant be blessed in their labors.”
The second part says exactly the same thing as the first short part of the prayer. This sentence is made more than twice the length it needs to be just for the sake of symmetry. All petitions are padded in similar ways. The first few words tell the listeners who the petition is for. The second elaborate sentence repeats exactly what the first part said but in flowery, long-winded language.

Pretentious Diction –
“Let us pray for the Church. May she, through the example of her leaders, protect and nurture all the gifts brought forth from the Lord’s vineyard.”
“Protect and nurture,” “brought forth” and “Lord’s vineyard” are rather pretentious ways to say “ Let us pray that member of the Church use their gifts wisely.” This example is also very metaphorical.

Meaningless words:
“For Civil Leaders – for those who stand guard over the fortunes of the world, may they govern with the hands of justice.”
This entire petition is full of meaningless words. What does it exactly mean by “stand guard?” This could be anyone from the military, to presidents, to police officers, to bureaucrats, to high school hall monitors. It is extremely vague.
“Fortunes of the World” is again vague. Do they mean monetary fortune? Education? Peace? Crops? Oil? Natural resources? Children?
“Justice” is another meaningless word. Justice can take on an individual meaning for each person who hears the petitions.
These meaningless words make the petition completely unintelligible. Who exactly are we praying for? No one seems to know. The Basilica should write petitions that people can actually understand. I, personally, would like to know what I am praying for. I think most people just mumble “Lord, hear our prayer” without really knowing what they are praying for.

I would like to contrast the Basilica’s petitions with the prayers from the Sacrament of Annointing of the Sick that my parish did while I was home over fall break. Although these were not the petitions said at mass, the prayers printed in the program were in the form of petitions:

1. “Free them [those receiving the sacrament] from sin and do not let them give way to temptation”
2. “Assist all who are dedicated to the care of the sick”
3. “Give life and health to our brothers and sisters whom we lay hands on in Your Name”

These petitions are all extremely clear cut, especially in comparison to the Basilica’s petitions.

Fairclough and Swaziland news

For this assignment, I chose an article from the Times of Swaziland on a call from a member of Parliament to create political parties for Swaziland. The article can be found at "the Times of Swaziland" - http://www.times.co.sz/index.php?news=2013. Using Fairclough’s analysis of media, I found instances of presupposition, nominalizations, and foregrounding throughout the article.

It was very easy to pick out what was presupposed in the text because, as someone who is unfamiliar with the Swaziland government, certain things in the article did not make sense to me. The writer presupposed that the reader knows that there is both a king and a Parliament with elected members who are not part of political parties. However, it was somewhat confusing because the writer mentions already formed political parties when it would appear from the text that these parties are illegal. The writer references groups such as the African United Democratic Party, the Tinkhundla system, and the Southern African Development Community without explaining what these organizations do or what their legal status is. He presupposes that the readers are familiar with these groups. There is also a presupposition that the reader will be familiar with Swaziland geography. MPs are identified by the region that they are from such as “Ludzeludze” and “Lobamba.” I am unsure whether these are cities, regions, states or some other politically divided territory, but the Swaziland reader and writer evidently know what these mean.

Along with presupposition, the writer also makes use of what Fairclough terms “nominalizations.” Especially after the second headline in bold, the writer becomes vague and uses groups to become actors. For example, “Following a call by political parties for the new Parliament to enact legislation that would allow political parties to take part in the countries governance, the Times spoke to some MPs to hear what their views on the subject were.” Here, political parties are doing the action of “calling” for the Parliament to do something. Both political parties and Parliament are used here as an agent and patient, respectively. However, these are groups of people and cannot act or be acted upon in these sense that the author uses. He nominalizes these groups and makes something abstract seem to be concrete. This sentence has another nominalization when the author talks about “the Times” speaking to the MPs. The Times is a newspaper, an inanimate object, and cannot act on its own. The writer uses the “Times” as an agent when it is actually an abstract idea and not a concrete actor like a writer.

As an outsider reading the Swaziland news, I was also aware that the writer foregrounds the views of those who want political parties and does not include any information about the king or other politicians who do not want political parties. It can be assumed that these people exist considering that the politicians in the article are protesting and demanding the use of political parties. They must be protesting against the system that is already in place and everyone does not agree with the proposed change or else there would be no protest. Nearly the first page of the article is dominated by a politician named Khumalo who appears to be a leader in the fight for political parties. After the second bold headline, the article includes mostly nominalizations and vague language about those who also support political parties. The last two MPs who were interviewed both said that they would consult the people on the issue and had not made up their minds about whether or not to have political parties in Swaziland. No where in the entire article are the opinions of those that support the current system attention. Clearly, the writer is foregrounding the issue of political parties and is supporting the movement. The obvious absence of the one side of the story allows the writer to foreground the side that he supports.

Presuppositions, nominalizations, and foregrounding are all techniques that the Swaziland writer uses to give his side of the argument. Whether or not the writer consciously intends to support the political parties is unclear. However, his representation of the events favors one side over the other.

Luntz' rules and Palin's speech

I looked at the transcript for Sarah Palin’s statement at Ground Zero in New York and decided to compare it to the 10 rules for effective language that Luntz outlines. Here is the short statement which I found on CNN.com.

PALIN: “Every American student needs to come through this area so that, especially this younger generation of Americans is, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here and never repeating, never allowing a repeat of what happened here. I wish every American would come through here. I wish every world leader would come through here, and understand what it is that took place here and more importantly how America came together and united to commit to never allowing this to happen again. And just to hear and from and see these good New Yorkers who are rebuilding not just this are but helping to rebuild America has been very, very inspiring and encouraging. These are the good Americans who are committed to peace and security and its been an absolute honor getting to meet these folks today.”

Rule One: Simplicity – None of the words in Palin’s speech are obscure or not readily understood.

Rule Two: Brevity: Use short Sentence – Palin’s sentences tend to be very long and complex. This speech contains only five sentences although the speech contains 139 words. This is an average of 28 words per sentence. These long, drawn out sentences make it difficult to understand her at times.

Rule Three: Credibility: Her words seem credible to me. Although I could not hear her speaking the words, the long sentences and repetition make it seem as though she was deeply emotionally affected by coming to Ground Zero. It is understandable that she would be.

Rule Four: Consistency – She repeats herself a lot in this short speech. However, it doesn’t seem like Luntz is talking about this type of consistency. It seems as if Palin is tripping over words as opposed to purposefully reiterating that we should never forget 9/11. However, she (along with pretty much every politician) is consistent in asserting that we should not forget the terrorist attacks on this country.

Rule Five: Novelty – Palin doesn’t really say anything novel in this speech. Not forgetting 9/11, America uniting after the attacks, and praise for New Yorkers’ response is more consistent than novel.

Rule Six: Sound and Texture: It is difficult to evaluate this because I have not heard the speech. There are points in the speech which are not grammatically correct but that might have made more sense in context with pauses, rhythm, and inflection. From the text alone, I would say that not much attention is paid to sound and texture. She does use repetition of words such as “repeat,” “come” and “America.” She also uses some parallelism in sentences 2 and 3 in saying that she wishes someone would come to the site.

Rule Seven: Aspirationally – This is what people want to hear. Everyone wants to hear that America came together and united after terrible attacks. Everyone wants to remember the victims.

Rule Eight: Visualize – There is some visualization – especially when she mentions not forgetting. The remembrance of 9/11 is something that is different for everyone and can be related to Luntz’ idea of “imagine.” The speech is not particularly visual.

Rule Nine: Ask a Question – no.

Rule Ten: Provide Context – it is obvious that she is standing at the base of Ground Zero, giving this speech. She doesn’t explicitly give the context but it is implied as being already known.

The score:
Rules used effectively: 1, 3, 7, 10
Rules moderately used: 4,6,8
Rules not used:2,5,9

Palin only used 4 of the rules effectively and three of the rules moderately. It seems as if this speech, therefore, according to Luntz’ rules is very mediocre. It is neither excellent nor absolutely terrible.

Linguistic Anthropology is everywhere

My friends and I went to Steak 'n' Shake over the weekend, and one of my friends decided to get a kid's menu to have something to do during the wait. Over half the games on the place mat were metalingual! It made me really excited! There was a word search; madlibs- a game where you fill in empty spaces in a story (they tell you to choose and adjective, noun, number, verb etc); a game where you have to find an item in the restaurant that begins with each letter of the alphabet; Scrambled letters that you had to unscramble to find words; and a few others;.

One things that I thought was interesting was that these games were all on a children's menu. All of these games have to do with drawing attention to words, spelling, or how words are used. The madlib game in particular was playing with grammar by changing words in a story with the same type of words. The story that was made was silly and nonsensical most of the time but some of the insertions actually made sense.

It is also interesting that these games were targeted towards children. However, most of these games appeal to a wider audience. There are word searches and scrambled words in newspapers that are targeted towards adults. On road trips my family plays a game where you have to find the letters of the alphabet in order on signs that you pass. In high school gym class, when my friend and I did not feel like participating, we would stand in the field and play a game where you have to create a list of items in alphabetical order, reciting the list that has already been made and then adding an item of the next letter of the alphabet in order.- Both these games are similar to the game at Steak 'n' Shake. It seems that metalingual games are all around as ways to pass the time and are not just for children.

Dickens and Orwell were on the same page

I'm reading David Copperfield for an English class and Dickens makes a comment about using verbose, ridiculous language. He says about the same thing that Orwell. I couldn't believe it when I read it this evening. What excellent timing! Dickens doesn't analyze this in an anthropological way. He instead makes a comment on how this use of language can get people into trouble, is meaningless and is generally silly. Throughout the book, Dickens uses a somewhat ridiculous character, Mr. Micawber, who likes to use over-the-top language (meaningless words, dying metaphors, extremely pretentious diction, and a lot of verbal false limbs) to show that this type of language is silly. In this passage, Mr. Micawber has just read a letter aloud that is in this language and the narrator, David Copperfield, comments on it. My comments are in brackets and in caps. Here's what Dickens has to say:

"Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it in the course of my life, in numerous men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea;[VERBAL FALSE LIMBS] as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure or so forth [PRETENTIOUS DICTION]; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about he tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, [MEANINGLESS WORDS] if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get inot trouble by amking too great a show of liveries, or as slaves whenthey are too numerous rise agaisnt their master, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get inot many greater, for maintaining too large a retinue of words." (David Copperfield, Dickens, ch. 52. p 758-9 in the Penguin edition.)

It is interesting that Dickens comments on how people in legal and political professions use this over-the-top language. We discussed the use of vague rhetoric in politics. Dickens also seems to think that this type of language gets people into to trouble and will continue to get the country into trouble.

As an English major and a fan of Dickens, I have to defend one of my favorite authors from Orwell's accusations. I know some people have a grudge against Dickens because they think that just because he got paid by the word he added extra, superfluous words. I would like to refute this. Dickens was paid to fill up certain amount of space in a monthly magazine. He wrote his novels in installments and planned out the novels to be at certain points at the end each installment. Therefore, there are places were he had to add passages to meet his length requirements. I don't think that Orwell would have accused Dickens of this degraded type of language. Dickens uses very original metaphors and descriptions, and, though his sentences are complex, they don't use a lot of passive voice, pretentious diction, or verbal false limbs.

It is interesting that this type of "degraded" language has been around for quite a long time. David Copperfield was written in 1849-50, nearly 100 years before Orwell wrote about the degradation of language. I think linguistic anthropology has made us aware of a type of rhetoric that has been around for a long time.