Review article

• Autores: Rajendra Singh, Gita Martohardjono
• Localización: Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, ISSN 0143-4632, Vol. 6, Nº. 2, 1985, págs. 193-199
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This paper critically examines interactional sociolinguistics of the type proposed by Gumperz which is concerned with communication in modern multi‐ethnic industrialised societies and seeks to infuse the hypothesis regarding the cultural specificity of language with testable empirical content. Its examination of distortions in communication in the laboratory conditions of contact, we argue, begins and ends with descriptions of differences in what it refers to as discourse strategies. Although these differences are presented within the context of superficially charitable relativism, they are invariably analysed from a demonstrably ethnocentric perspective.

    We argue that what is presented as linguistic evidence for miscommunication is in fact the locus of the violations of more general principles of human interaction, such as the Principle of Charity (Davidson, 1974) and the Principle of Humanity (Grandy, 1973). Although we do not deny that discourse strategies can and do vary from one language to another, we argue that miscommunications of the sort discussed in Gumperz result from institutionally encouraged suspensions of such principles. We argue that by ignoring the significance which non‐linguistic factors, such as power imbalance and social disadvantage (cf. Furnborough et al.) bear in inter‐ethnic miscommunication, Gumperz wrongly attributes the weight of responsibility to the minority speaker.

    Discourse Strategies: John J. Gumperz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 225 pp. £20.00 (Cloth) £6.50 (Paper). ISBN 0521 24691 1 (Cloth) ISBN 0521 28896 7 (Paper)