ETHNOGRAPHY

ETHNOGRAPHY

Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos "folk, people, nation" and γράφω grapho "I write") is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. An ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group.

Features of ethnographic research

•      Involves investigation of very few cases, maybe just one case, in detail.

•      Often involves working with primarily unconstructed data. This data had not been coded at the point of data collection in terms of a closed set of analytic categories.

•      Emphasizes on exploring social phenomena rather than testing hypotheses.

•      Data analysis involves interpretation of the functions and meanings of human actions. The product of this is mainly verbal explanations, where statistical analysis and quantification play a subordinate role.

•      Methodological discussions focus more on questions about how to report findings in the field than on methods of data collection and interpretation.

•      Ethnographies focus on describing the culture of a group in very detailed and complex manner. The ethnography can be of the entire group or a sub part of it.

•      It involves engaging in extensive field work where data collection is mainly by interviews, symbols, artifacts, observations, and many other sources of data.

•      The researcher in ethnography type of research looks for patterns of the group's mental activities, that is their ideas and beliefs expressed through language or other activities, and how they behave in their groups as expressed through their actions that the researcher observed.

•      In ethnography, the researcher gathers what is available, what is normal, what it is that people do, what they say, and how they work.

Procedures for conducting ethnography

•      Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study the research problem. Ethnography is suitable if the needs are to describe how a cultural group works and to explore their beliefs, language, behaviours and also issues faced by the group, such as power, resistance, and dominance.

•      Then identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. This group is one whose members have been together for an extended period of time, so that their shared language, patterns of behaviour and attitudes have merged into discernible patterns. This group can also be a group that has been marginalized by society.

•      Select cultural themes, issues or theories to study about the group. These themes, issues, and theories provide an orienting framework for the study of the culture-sharing group. As discussed by Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), Wolcott, and Fetterman (2009). The ethnographer begins the study by examining people in interaction in ordinary settings and discerns pervasive patterns such as life cycles, events, and cultural themes.

•      For studying cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography to use. Perhaps how the group works need to be described, or a critical ethnography can expose issues such as power, hegemony, and advocacy for certain groups.

•      Should collect information in the context or setting where the group works or lives. This is called fieldwork. Types of information typically needed in ethnography are collected by going to the research site, respecting the daily lives of individuals at the site and collecting a wide variety of materials. Field issues of respect, reciprocity, deciding who owns the data and others are central to Ethnography.

TALK AND ACTION

TALK AND ACTION

               In speaking to one another, we make use of sentences, or, to be more precise, utterances. We can attempt to classify these utterances in any one of a variety of ways. We can try to classify them by grammatical structure, e.g., their clausal type and complexity: active–passive; statement–question– request–exclamatory; various combinations of these; and so on.

                We may even try to work out a semantic or logical structure for each utterance. But it is also possible to attempt a classification in terms of what sentences do, i.e., to take a ‘functional’ approach, but one that goes somewhat beyond consideration of such functions as stating, questioning, requesting, and exclaiming.

                Through conversation we establish relationships with others, achieve a measure of cooperation, keep open for further relationships, and so on. The utterances we use in conversation enable us to do these kinds of things because conversation itself has certain properties which are well worth examining. Our concern in this chapter is therefore twofold: we will be concerned both with what utterances do and how they can be used, and, specifically, with how we use them in conversation.

                  One thing that many utterances do is make propositions: they do this mainly in the form of either statements or questions but other grammatical forms are also possible. Each of the following is a proposition: ‘I had a busy day today,’ ‘Have you called your mother?,’ and ‘Your dinner’s ready!’ Such utterances are connected in some way with events or happenings in a possible world, i.e., one that can be experienced or imagined, a world in which such propositions can be said to be either true or false. They have been called constractive utterances.

                 Speech act is an act that the speaker performs making an utterance. There are some acts conditions in speech; (1) Locutionary act is the statement having grammatical structure and linguistic meaning, (2) Illocutionary act is the speaker intension of the utterance, (3) Perlocutionary act is the effects of the utterance on the hearer, (4) Felicity conditions are necessary conditions to make successful of speech acts, (5) Prepositional contain is the utterance produced if the composer commits himself to be a future act, (6) Preparatory condition is the utterance produced if speaker believes that the listener will not perform the act without being asked, (7) Sincerity  condition is the utterance produced if the speaker wants the listener to do what the speaker has been asked, and (8) Essential condition is the utterance produced if the speaker show to listener that he really wants to persuade and does what he wants to listener.

Austin divides performatives into five categories:

 (1) verdictives

 (2) exercitives

 (3) commissives

 (4) behabitives

 (5) expositives

Cooperation

According to philosophers such as Grice, we are able to converse with one another because we recognize common goals in conversation and specific ways of achieving these goals. In any conversation, only certain kinds of ‘moves’ are possible at any particular time because of the constraints that operate to govern exchanges.

Grice lists four maxims that follow from the cooperative principle:

•       Quantity

•       Quality

•       Relation

•       manner

Conversation

Speech can be planned or unplanned (Ochs, 1979). We should note that a lot of speech has a certain amount of planning in it: : it may not be all thought out and carefully planned and even rehearsed, as, for example, is the welcoming speech of a visiting head of state. Unplanned speech is talk which is not thought out prior to its expression. Unplanned speech has certain characteristics: repetitions; simple active sentences. i.e., words and expressions such as well, like, maybe, but, sort of, you know, I guess, etc.

Conversation is a cooperative activity also in the sense that it involves two or more parties, each of whom must be allowed the opportunity to participate.

Boxer (2002) provides a very short conversation that illustrates many of the points just made. Two female students pass each other on campus on the way to class:

•       A: Hey, how are you doing?

•       B: Fine, how about you? Going to class?

•       A: Calculus, I hate it! (keeps moving)

•       B: Ugh! Well, catch you later.

•       A: Yeah, see you at the meeting.

Classroom conversation is different from ordinary conversation in the sense that the teacher may be said to ‘own’ the conversation, whereas in ordinary conversations such ownership may be said to be shared.

Conversations must also be brought to a close, e.g., an exchange of ‘Goodbye’s. It is into such places that you fit pre-closing signals which serve to negotiate the actual closing. Such signals can involve an expression like ‘Well, I think that’s all,’

The following is an example of such a closing:

•       A: So, that’s agreed?

•       B: Yep, agreed.

•       A: Good, I knew you would.

•       B: Yes, no problem really.

•       A: Thanks for the help.

•       B: Don’t mention it.

•       A: Okay, I’ll be back soon.

•       B: Okay, then, Bye. Take care.

•       A: Bye.