Ethnography for Language Learners

Leo Hickey

ABSTRACT If language is part of culture, there is also a sense in which culture is a component of language. When going abroad to learn or practice a foreign language, students should have some awareness of the iarget society’s ethnography. If they adopt the role of lforeign tourist,’ they may be treated as outsiders, whereas a basic acquaintance with proxemics, kinesics, and sociology will help them play a more profitable

role. The move f rom one society to another may no1 simply be horizontal, but may also involve diagonal change f rom one class or status to another, without the subject’s realizing it. Some familiarity with elicitation techniques, especially in distinguishing implicit background information f rom the surface messages in which it is embedded, can help in learning how a language is used.

Language in Culture: Culture in Language Natural language neither arises nor functions in a vacuum but always forms part of a wider culture from which it derives its significance. There is really only ‘language-in-culture,’ just as there is only ‘meaning-in- culture.’ There is no such thing as knowing a language without knowing-systematically or not-the culture of which it is a constituent element and which allows it to function; in each particular speech event, this knowledge determines behavior and interpretation of behavior in the light of all the surrounding cir- cumstances. To try to learn a language without situating it in its culture is analogous to learning phonetics or mere sounds without ever moving on to phonology or meaning. To learn that sereno is Spanish for “night watchman”’ does not explain that to get into your house after 10:30 at night you may have to clap your hands and wait until this official comes along. To learn that leche is “milk” does not explain the many situa- tions in which the word is taboo or at least an expletive.

Native speakers know their language automatically, in the sense that they are competent to handle a certain range of the resources the language offers them, without ever having to formulate the rules which govern their usage. In the same intuitive way, they know how to use that range in accordance with the roles which they may’ have to fulfill within their own speech community, group, and class, and especially in connection with work, interpersonal relationships, and the cir- cumstances in which they regularly find themselves.

Luo Hickey (Dr en F y L , University of Madrid) IS Keader in SpdniSh at [he University of Salford, England

Foreign language students on the other hand, just as they have to learn the sounds, morphemes, and syntac- tic patterns of a language in some kind of deliberate or systematic manner, also have to learn, in an orderly, conscious way, how to use the resources of the language they are trying to master. The distinction between ‘knowing’ and ‘knowing how to use’ a language, though theoretically unreal, is very real in practice. It also reflects and summarizes the two parts of a definition of language put forth by Ward H. Goodenough, who says that language “consists of whatever it is one has to know in order to communicate with its speakers as ade- quately as they d o with each other and in a manner which they will accept as corresponding to their own.”’ It is the second part of this formula which interests us here, that is, the manner which people will accept as cor- responding to their own way of using their language after the student has learned it. This question involves both a material and a formal aspect: it relates to what people may want to say and how or in what situations they may want to say it.

The linguistic habits of a speech community allow its members normally to speak only of what they know as reality in the broadest sense-the world as it is perceived in that community-and it is well known that this dif- fers greatly from one group to another. Our point is that language makes use of precisely that reality in order to speak about reality. Any two people who are com- municating with one another must have a “common perceptual world,” to use Christopher Caudyell’s term,’ for language functions by means of direct or in- direct reference to something outside itself and outside its speakers: the physical world, but also knowledge, assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, concerns, hopes, norms,

Foreign Language Annals, No, 6 , 1980 415

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values (whether attached to persons, objects, events, ac- tions, or levels of satisfaction), time and place, current and historical affairs, public opinion, and all the other segments of reality and experience accepted as real in a given society. Reference to popular television programs will be more widely understood in societies that have only one or two channels than in those that have several. University education will involve different concepts in countries where it is free and in those where people have to pay for it. In Spain it is the Reyes Magos, or three wise Kings, who bring presents, not Father Christmas, and they bring them on January 6.

If language is part of culture, there is also a very real sense in which culture forms part of language. We refer to the fact that most language use is highly elliptical: the speakers are already bound together by the common culture, and not only is there no need to say everything, but it would be impossible to d o so. There is a difference in any speech situation, as Harold Garfinkel shows, be- tween what is being said and what is being talked about, the former being a “sketchy, partial, incomplete, masked, elliptical, concealed, ambiguous, or misleading version” of the latter.‘ One might well ‘understand’ what people are saying in some narrowly grammatical way, and yet fail to grasp what they are talking about, for lack of the taken-for-granted background knowl- edge: this is the position, for example, of an outsider who listens in on a conversation, or of a foreign student who has not learned about the culture of the language he or she is studying. Hadley Cantril-who has very specific cases in mind, but we may validly generalize his point-claims that “individuals d o not mention aspects of life they take for granted-thus, for example, American college students tend not to mention a high standard of living, which they assume they will have, but on the other hand will talk about the place in society they want t o attain or how they measure up to their own standards.”’ If a language-user is to fulfill the second part of Goodenough’s formula, he or she must (a) be able to understand what native speakers are talking about, even when they omit the things they take for granted, and what the factors expressed mean in rela- tion to the parts omitted in situations in which a native would be able to d o this, and (b) be capable of omitting the right things, and only the right things, in the right circumstances: for instance, he or she must have a good idea of what is obvious for native speakers and not presume that what is natural for him or her must also be natural for them. For instance, some sectors of western European society currently consider thrift as a virtue, equivalent to prudence, while others regard it as the vice of avarice or hoarding.

Attitudes as Part of Meaning One aspect of this question is the fact that in any

culture the meaning of a term may differ in denotation and connotation from the meaning of a corresponding term in other cultures. People tend to use a sign and res- pond to it in ways that closely depend on their attitudes

about the thing or concept to which it refers, and pail any language-user’s know-how consists of being able recognize and rely on such attitudes and their relario ships with other cultural factors. Attitudes, it is s: established, are an important dimension of meaning.”: connection with what he calls designafa and we migl adequately term referents, Joseph H. Greenberg pain out that “Since the designatu of morphemes are objtt in the cultural universe of the speakers, the linguistti only state meanings by referring to exqalinguirt aspects of culture”’ or, as Eugene Nida states mores# cinctly, “Words are fundamentally symbols for featurb of the culture.’’8 When a young foreigner asked$ sabgo in a Portuguese shop he was offered an enormou block of washing soap; on indicating that he on!, wanted a normal bar of toilet soap he was told that their was none in stock. On leaving the store he saw ash$ full of ‘normal-sized’ bars of soap, picked one u p ad wondered why the assistant had said she had none, Sht explained that that was not sabzo: it was a saboneb The product did not vary in size: the size made two dli. ferent objects, just a s in English a spoon is not regarded as a small spade, though a fork can be for eating or foi

digging. This is true not only of physical objects but of all

segments of reality as postulated and perceived in a par. ticular culture and of every subtle concept that attachtr itself to any such segment, including, for instance, rela. tionships, likes and dislikes, and ways of reacting la

particular situations. How many English speakers regard a palindrome as an important thing, or even know what it is? Yet very young Spanish children will know what a capicua is and will have some affection for it. Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum show that many sub- tle factors are involved in people’s concepts or in their reaction to a term, factors like evahalion, potency, and activify. That is to say, people subconsciously perceive in things a mixture of properties and qualities such as goodness or badness, strength or weakness, action or in- action, as well as related qualities like weight, toughness, speed, excitement, warmth, or agitation, and their assessment of these factors influences their af - titudes, their tendencies, or the emotional power of the concepts-that is, their meaning-for the members of any particular speech community. Apart from seeing what we call a “corner” as two unrelated objects, Spaniards see a rincon, or right-angled corner, as secure, warm, comfortable, etc., whereas an esquinu, or outside corner, is cold, open, unprotected. A Spaniard can also feel actively engaged in something when haciendo la digestion, whereas an American believes that no one does the digesting or, a t most, the digestion itself does it.

Since all reality is segmented, conceived, handled, spoken about, responded to, used, liked or disliked dif- ferently from one culture to another, and since “sense perceptions are permeated with value- preference^,"^ it would be unsafe to assume that when two people from different societies look at even such ‘objective’ facts asa rainbow, a political poster, or a glass of beer they see

417 DECEMBER 1980

the same thing, much less that they react to it in the same way or feel inclined to say the same things about it. The next important step for language learners is to realize that whatever they may say about it, they may mean rather different things. Consider the differences between “dog” for an Englishman, who can sincerely wonder at the treatment of the sacred cow in India without seeing any similarity to his own treatment of what is objectively a far more dangerous animal, and perro for a Spaniard. It will not take long for a visitor to Spain to learn that the simple phrase tu madre-literally “your mother”-can be a gross insult.

There is still a lingering tendency for language learners to think of meaning in excessively psychological terms, regarding meaning only as something that goes on in people’s minds more or less independently of the society in which they live and as being roughly the same as what goes on in other people’s minds, even if it hap- pens to be expressed in a different language. Authors like Nelson Brooks have emphasized that while some cultural situations appear to be universal, others cer- tainly are not, and that cultural anthropology has an im- portant part to play in foreign language learning.” Semantics relate directly to social structures, institu- tions, habits, customs, events, and experiences, and these are just as relevant as any subjective or psychological distinctions. Here we are touching on the Sociology of Knowledge, which is concerned with “the study of mental productions as related to social or cultural factors,”” for “the structure of the mind always accommodates itself to the structures of the society within which it has to function”” and language is directly dependent on what passes for knowledge in society, what people believe or think and, consequently, what they may want to talk about. Everyone ‘knows’ in certain western European countries, for example, that anyone who bathes within two hours of eating will almost certainly die, and anyone who rejects this knowledge does so at his own risk.

Marshall Durbin’s claim that “most grammarians have ignored the functions of language in a given socie- ty’”) is a reminder that the aspects of language which interest grammarians constitute only part of language. Durbin quotes Firth’s saying that “the complete mean- ing of a word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from a complete context can be taken seriously,” again emphasizing that utterances cannot be properly interpreted unless a listener understands the total situation, and that a speaker cannot use language properly unless he or she is reasonably aware of the range of implications of the situation. On the simplest level, for example, taboo words and topics must be recognized and treated as such, the situations in which certain wbjects of conversation may be appropriate or inappropriate must be known, and relationships be- tween speakers must be seen as conditioning certain linguistic forms. On another level, indirect usages, rely- ing for full interpretation on their contexts, must be ap- preciated: irony, sarcasm, allusions, or such subtle ac- tivities as ‘getting at’ people must be identified; recogni-

tion of incomplete proverbs, allusions to nursery rhymes, popular songs, sayings, puns, and other formv of word play is important. An English woman, on vaca- tion in Spain, was advised by a physician to drink leche ligeramenfe azucarada, (slightly sugared milk); she was disgusted at the idea of having to add sugar to milk, which she would never d o at home. The doctor actually meant that, since people in Spain normally add a lot of sugar to milk and this would be bad for her condition, the less sugar she took the better, and none would be best of all. In other words, leche ligeramenlr uzucaruda and “slightly sugared milk” are very different concepts.

Language Rules Versus Language-Use Rules The common assumptions which form the

background for any meaningful use of language not only relate to the objective and conceptual worlds, but also include seldom formulated agreements on how lan- guage itself is to be used. Language use is permeated with linguistic and extralinguistic or paralinguistic rules which the speakers take so much for granted that they hardly notice them. These rules are based on such fac- tors as the relations between the sexes, age groups, or members of a family, the degrees of friendship between speakers, or the formality of the occasion. As Gumperz and Hymes remind us, social meaning of this kind is always embedded in reference and it is important not only to recognize the elements in a situation which determine the linguistic forms that may be appropriate and to know what these are, but also to know what hap- pens when the factors change, for example when the people become more intimately acquainted, when a child joins the group or when someone is ~ f f e n d e d . ’ ~ One would need to know, for instance, in what situa- tions it is permissible to use the familiar form of the Spanish, French, Italian, or German verbs with sfrangers and how to change from the polite to the familiar form when a relationship becomes sufficiently intimate in normal use.

Any familiarity with language use will include some understanding of the proxemics relevant to the society in question.lJ Such matters as how directly one inter- locutor should look another in the eye, the physical distance normally kept between them, the significance of touching one another, the acceptable loudness of voice or of laughter, the implication of moving toward or away from one another in conjunction with what is being said, even the use of perfume, are all part of the communication system to be learned by students. Nor- mally, as 0. Michael Watson says, “people are not con- scious of the importance of these norms until they are violated, and they are violated most typically in a cross- cultural interaction.”’6 Foreign language students in- volved in practical cross-cultural interaction may never know the price they pay for not having assimilated such facts. In western Europe a loud voice often suggests vulgarity and visiting Americans frequently are mis- judged because they are accustomed to a higher volume in speech.

478 FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS

The related matter of kinesics is also relevant,” for body movement may not necessarily be transferable from one society to another. There are gestures which can replace words or phrases and may do so quite nor- mally in conversation; others complete the sense of what is being said; some, such as facial signs of surprise or sadness, waves, and nods, may be used to complement words, while other movements add emphasis, humor, irony, or disbelief; there are also gestures which simply aid the act of speaking or help to illustrate what is meant. In all cases, however, any deviation from what is regarded as normal will cause an adverse reaction, or even incomprehension, in the native speakers. This writer has seen American students in Spain silently treated as outcasts because they leaned back in chairs balanced with only two legs touching the ground; anything they said in that position would not even get a hearing.

Just as language students have to master vocabulary and rules of grammar deliberately and as systematically as possible, they also should learn something of the ethnography of the society whose language they are studying, and they should d o this in a non-casual, non- random way, acquiring knowledge which will almost in- evitably be more conscious and formulated than that possessed by most natives. What Hadley Cantril calls “ongoing, naive experience . . . unanalysed (sic), un- conceptualized, unmediated, with no concern on the part of the experiencing individual to describe, analyse (sic), conceptualize, or communicate this experience”l8 is, in fact, the normal experience of native speakers of a language, who are unaware of rules, patterns, or signifi- cance in the everyday routines and realities they take for granted. This is the first of four levels of experience described by Cantril and is inadequate for language students, who should aim at the second of the levels he describes. This level is called the “description level,” where verbalization and communication begin, that is, the person can express in words what he or she is actual- ly doing or experiencing. Since foreign language students cannot rely on any “ongoing, naive experience,” they have to learn what is going on and how to participate. This level alone involves no academic activity, no systematic thinking out of the significance of any phenomena, and we suggest that for ‘academic’ pupils or those who want an ‘academic’ knowledge of the language, Cantrii’s third level, the level of analysis and conceptualization, would be more appropriate. This level involves an attempt to “figure out conceptually what is going on,” that is, to under- stand the relation‘ships between words, everyday reality, norms of conduct, routine ways of doing things, every- day rules for speaking, attitudes toward the world, and all the other factors that make up a speech situation. This would involve a conscious and methodical study of some selected aspects of reality in the target culture and would be a valuable academic procedure. Nelson Brooks lists certain anthropological items,” but at- titudes are just as important as overt practices: at- titudes, for example, about wealth and poverty, in-

surance, deviance, marriage, death, morals, religion, and the countless other factors in the unnoticed routine of daily life. English language learners may have dif- ficulty in realizing that not all societies share their norm that, while lying is generally acceptable and taken for granted, to call someone who is lying a “liar” is socially and legally objectionable.

The Foreign Tourist Learns Little When foreign language learners go abroad they nor-

mally go to learn the language. In current practice this frequently seems to mean that they adopt the role of ‘foreign tourist,’ with the additional eccentricity that they speak the language to some extent, which makes them, if anything, deviant foreign tourists. There is no doubt that this role may have certain advantages in many situations: for example, it may allow the students to take photographs or even to enter buildings which might not be accessible to others, i t arouses curiosity in some natives and provides an opportunity for conversa- tion, it justifies having long hours with no obvious work to do, giving a certain freedom to wander about or sit on park benches. Whatever other roles are adopted, this role need seldom be abandoned completely, but can usually be resumed whenever it seems likely to be useful. Its disadvantages, other than as a kind of backup or residual role, are numerous and serious. By definition, it excludes the student-tourist from playing any genuine part in the culture, except as a spectator. “As I see it,” says Goodenough, “a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.”’o Obviously there is no role of ‘foreign tourist’ accepted for any native. In situating tourists outside the culture, in this sense, it sets them apart from ‘ordinary’ people, to be treated differently. It isolates them and makes them deviant in relation to society. Any questions they may ask, however cleverly formulated, may elicit the responses the native informant thinks he or she should give to a foreign tourist and they will be unreliable: depending on individual politics, personal beliefs, and background, the informant will try to please, to win sympathy for a cause, to make a good im- pression, to convince, or to criticize. The essential features of common understanding between the natives, of which Harold Garfinkel speaks, will never affect the tourists: what native speakers leave unsaid among themselves they will make explicit for the tourists’ sake. Their presence will influence the choice of topics of con- versation, and good manners may dictate that certain topics be avoided.

Diagonal Cultural Change

Students will be accustomed to fulfilling certain roles and to enjoying a certain status in their own class and group at home. In the normal course of events, they will automatically take the consequences of this limited world for granted, as ‘natural,’ ‘common sense,’ and

DECEMBER 1980 479

‘real.’ The rules they have unconsciously learned in order to occupy their normal position will be the ‘right’ ones; what is natural for them will be ‘natural,’ and reality as they see i t will be ‘reality’ tou/ cow/. When they go abroad, without realizing it, they may find themselves in a social class or group which does not even approximately correspond to the one in which they nor- mally move at home. That is to say, the move may not merely be horizontal but diagonal, and this may involve some confusion, misunderstanding, or anxiety, not to mention error, for they may fall into the trap of regard- ing their new situation as typical of the whole new socie- ty. I f they are aware that each society may be stratified and segmented more or less arbitrarily into little groups, they may avoid some of the pitfalls involved in these diagonal movements, such as a use of slang unaccep- table in one sector or by members of one age group which might be tolerated by others. I f a middle-class American travels second class in a Spanish train he may be offered some food with the phrase iUsted gusla? and may fail to understand (a) that it is a mere ritual and (b) that it would be inappropriate in almost any other situation in which he is likely to find himself.

Language learning should include an attempt to ac- quire explicit information on the ethnography of at least one community in which the target language is spoken. Each attempt to learn a linguistic item of any kind might include a mental entry of the type: “Used in the follow- ing situations . . . ,” “What is understood by this i s . . . ,” “ I f one speaker wants to show deference to another he uses the following form . . . .” Particularly with beginners or young pupils, this approach would stimulate interest in the speakers of the language as iuell as in the language itself. Especially if learned con- trastively, this could become a positive feature in its own right; as well as contributing to an understanding of the language, it could be a human study at an ap- propriate level. Above all, when students are planning a trip abroad, they could think seriously about the role of language student, which is different, objectively and subjectively, from the role of foreign tourist. It involves observing and imitating table manners, meeting strangers, adopting appropriate dress and behavior, as well as achieving specific linguistic objectives.

Elicitation Techniques One of the first practical objectives and methods of

the language learner is to engage in conversation with people who have information, attitudes, and ideas which would help to explain their society and language, and to converse with them in such a way that they will pass on their information without tampering with i t , perhaps without realizing that they are giving any social o r linguistic information at all. This means that the items of information, opinions, and arguments which they express consciously are of relatively little in- terest-after all, every individual is a member of many subgroups, with limited personal experience, with idiosyncrasies and other traits which make deliberately expressed views unreliable or merely of personal signifi-

cance. What is really trustworthy is the information which is implicil in the surface communicalion, that is, what the speaker assumes the listener already knows or accepts and which is used as reference or background i n order to tell something new. The surface message is the only thing that normally matters to the rpcakers, and they express it, superimpose it, on a basis of taken-for- granted, shared (they think) knowledge and belicfs, and this is precisely what interests the student. As soon as speakers realize that they are transmitting information, ideas, or attitudes other than those they are conxiously expressing, they usually attempt to control or edit them. The student must digtinguish between such explicit messages (for example, “My liver never troubles me”) and the background implications (“In this society peo- ple seem to know where their livcr is, liver-complaints may be common, possibly too much alcohol is con- sumed . . , ”). An expression like “He is a genius: he never had to cheat at an examination” may give a clue as to how usual cheating is in such a society and the vocabulary related to the subject may be investigated.

Some of the field elicitation techniques for use with linguistic informants can be adopted by students to get people to talk freely. For example, students might care to use the types of method which William J. Samarin calls analytical (e.g. “Could you tell me more about that?”) or covert (e.g. “My stomach hurts” followed by silence or just a murmur, to see what the informant says in reply).” However i t is done, i t is important that students stimulate talk around a subject, or on a level, which is more superficial, more vaguc, or more general than what actually interests them, and it oftcn hclps to converse as i f they already knew a lot about the subject. I t is well recognized that one should try to avoid directly mentioning the word or topic that is of interest or asking direct or leading questions, particularly those that may be answered by an uninformative “yes” or “no.” We will learn little from a question like “Have you any ham sandwiches?” However, if we ask “What have you got to eat?” and listen to the list, it may include the word for “sandwich” and that may be followed by “What sandwiches have you got?” The impressions and in- complete suspicions that we think we havc gleaned may be treated as hypotheses and tested in later convcrsa- tions. This field work, akin to the anthropologist’s or dialectologist’s task, is a serious and interesting aspect of a trip abroad. It would be useful if students set themselves specific projects on aspects o f the everyday reality or life in the foreign country,” possibly with some direct linguistic application. The method used is almost bound to be contrastive, involving comparisons between the student’s own background and the target society. Topics such as the following could be studied: the housing system (what names are used for a house oc- cupied by only one family, by several, occupying its own grounds, attached to one other house, attached on both sides; who lives in apartments, in other forms of accom- modation, hotels; how are rooms distributed and named?); medicine: (how does a patient get to a specialist, who pays him, what d o people think of their

480 FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS

physicians, do they rely mainly on drugs, diets, or other therapeutic methods, what medical terminology is com- monly known?). Where does one buy perfume, sleeping pills, ice-cream, photographic equipment?

To be accepted in a role other than that of foreign tourist, students might try to dress, look, and behave like native students. This writer was flown to a provin- cial Spanish university some years ago at a few hours notice because a group of English students were threatening to walk out of their course on the grounds that it was an unfriendly place and Spanish students refused to have contact with them; he had the unhappy task of pointing out that people who looked like dropouts would be treated like dropouts and that native students washed, shaved, and wore ties and suits. It is not a question of pretense or aping, but of not being a deviant. Obviously some societies have wider margins of tolerance than others in matters of appearance, but students might at least become aware of the degrees of freedom allowed and the sanctions-usually tacit and requiring some sensitivity if they are even to be noticed-imposed for breaking the rules. They should be prepared to listen-and listen in-to conversations of which they are not the center and to tabulate mentally everything they hear, together with what they think is being talked about and what information is implicit behind it all. They should observe behavior, ways of talking, modes of dress, greetings, and all other elements that constitute the culture in question so as to learn them item by item. They could ask themselves questions of the following kinds, though our wording is too psychological to be used as a literal formulation in any specific case: what would a native of this level of education, of this social class, of this age group, of this political persuasion, etc. do, say, write in this situation? What did that native mean, feel, envisage, have in mind, hope, etc. when he said, did, wrote that? What did that other person understand, feel, fear, etc. when he heard, read, or saw that? How would a native react to what I have just heard, read, or seen?

Ethnographic Observations

Cantril suggests that we need “to get an overall pic- ture of the reality worlds in which people [live], a pic- ture expressed by individuals in their own terms,’’24 a picture which may differ greatly or subtly from one society to another. Berger and Luckmann express this point as follows: ‘ ‘ I apprehend the reality of everyday life as an ordered reality. Its phenomena are prear- ranged in patterns that seem to be independent of my apprehension of them and that impose themselves upon the latter . . . The language used in everyday life con- tinuously provides me with the necessary objectifica- tions and posits the order within which these make sense and within which everyday life has meaning for me.”*’ One might add: “provided I am a native speaker fully socialized in that community.” The foreign student is in the exciting dilemma of having to learn the language very carefully in order to make sense of life in the socie-

ty he or she is studying, and having to understand the society very well if he or she is to make sense of the language. Anthropologists, ethnomethodologists, sociolinguists, and their associates have failed up to now to compile any list of the components of culture, and it is unlikely that such a list could ever be made, for culture is a continuum, not a conglomeration of discrete elements. However, since as little as possible should be left to chance experience on the part of individual students, let us now attempt to give a few general headings, or suggestions concerning the types of ethnographic observation which students might care to make while abroad.

A) Uses of language: Greeting5 and leave-taking for- mulas, which are used for superiors, equals, inferiors, how many times are they uttered before actual parting? When acquaintances pass one another without stop- ping, do they use a hello greeting or a good-bye greeting? Phatic communication, what people talk about or say when they have little to communicate but want to be friendly; alternative and concurrent linguistic forms which depend on age, sex, social relationships, when and how polite forms change to familiar forms; use of titles, first names, last names; taboo words and subjects: when can they be used, what alternatives are there? Euphemisms; what is considered vulgar in what company, are sex differences relevant? What lies are ac- ceptable and in what circumstances? What personal in- sults are tolerated? Who speaks first? What d o people in different types of groups talk about? Use of the telephone and letters: what to say when introduced to a stranger, to offer condolences, to send a telegram of congratulations, to call to someone from across the street, to summon a waiter, when lost for a word; what has been called “sympathetic circularity,” that is, phrases corresponding to “you know,” “see?”; uses of crosswords, riddles, proverbs, songs, nursery rhymes, stories, word play, puns; when to command, when to re- quest; when to thank and when to say please; levels of abstraction in conversation and in speeches: are abstract ideas expressed as such or are examples frequently given?

B) Social phenomena: The class system; snobbery; how the law operates, prisons, roles of such persons as policemen, soldiers, judges; treatment of deviants, the insane, criminals; marriage, family life; church, religious practices, beliefs; public and private morals: how they differ; modesty, prostitution, sexual relation- ships; good manners and etiquette, how long one can stare at another before being considered rude, table manners; social customs in various situations: parties, festivals, meetings, visits; use of leisure time, sports, games, hobbies; dress, hairstyles, fashion; routine; government, the economy, defense, education, health and welfare, science and technology; orders of wrongness in moral and social matters; use of wealth, thrift, taste, waste; taxi drivers; tipping.

C) Norms and values: Personal and national hopes, aspirations, fears, concerns, past experience, current view of national history and place in the world; art and

DECEMBER 1980 48 1

literature as affecting the man in the street; what con- stitutes heroism, nobility, justice, equality, succes , failure, happiness, personal worth, patriotism; what and who is admired or despised; sense of lairness and justice in everyday matters; work satisfaction, change o f job$, industrial relations.

D) Mentality and systems of knowledge: Collective symbols, ideas; philosophical ideas; neuroses, fears of (he unknown, myths and legends, convictions, public opinion; what is taken for granted as certain and what is problematical; attitudes toward death, the community,

isdoubtful whether he or she has done anything worth- while. I f he or she speaks in a way that a native would understand but behaves in a way that classifies him or her as weird, one is bound to wonder whether very much was achieved. If he or she used a correct linguistic form in a situation in which a native speaker would normally only hiss, make a gesture o r change facial expression, has the correct use of the language been learned? I f he or she translates a passage into a foreign language in such a way that the reader has to be an expert on the society of the rource language in order to make ad- justments and thus understand what is actually meant, one may doubt whether i t was a good translation. It is easy to see why Dell Hymes should feel i t necessary to warn us that "Sentences that translate each other gram- matically may be mistakenly taken as having the same function in speech, just as words that translate each other may be taken as having the same semantic func- tion.'"6 I t should prove interesting, profitable, and en- joyable to heed this warning.

Award-Winning Foreign Language Programs

Prescriptions for Success by William D. Sims

and Sandra B. Hammond

This comprehensive study provides descrip- tions of fifty model programs from around the country. The book deals with various ways that language programs are successful- i jr maintaining students' interest in language study.

Now available through the ACTFL Materials Center! Send check for $9.75 ($1 3.dO for non-members) to: Successful Programs, ACTFL Materials Centers, 2 Park Ave., New York, NY 10016.