ANTHO 142a -- MICRO-ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

 

Professor: Valentina Pagliai

University of California Los Angeles

 

Lec. 1: M & W 11:00am to 12:15pm

Hershey 1201

 

Office: Hershey Hall 2112

Phone: (310) 825-

Office Hours: M & W 12:30-1:30pm

or by appointment

E-mail: vpagliai@ucla.edu

Web Page: www.geocities.com/~vpagliai/ant142a/index.htm

 

 

 

Course Description and Goals: As human beings we are profoundly social animals.  Most of our lives are spent interacting, either directly or indirectly, with other human beings.  Language, the uniquely human ability that defines our species, is central to this process.  Until fairly recently the detailed study of how human beings use language to build their social worlds in face-to-face interaction was largely ignored.  That situation has now been changed by exciting research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries in the human sciences.  This course will introduce students to the methods that have made such research possible.

Students will learn how to

1)   Videotape human interaction in natural settings

2)   Make audio transcripts of the talk they record

3)   Explore different ways of transcribing the visual features of such interaction (including intonation, body behavior and features of the setting).

4)   Manipulate the data using computer technology: digitalization of video, manipulation of images, production of video.

5)   Create a web-site to present the materials they have collected.

4)   Organize the results into an analytical paper.

We will work together throughout the course, with different classes devoted to field observation, audio transcription, learning how to record video and sound in everyday settings, discovering the boundaries of natural events in your tapes, making collections, editing a video with subtitles, and writing up your findings.  Throughout the course we will spend most of the time in a seminar format, working on data you provide.

 

Readings:

1) The readings listed in the syllabus will be put on reserve in the library of the Department of Anthropology.  Readings must be completed by the class period for which they are assigned. 

2) Each student will have to build an additional bibliography of at least 5 articles/books, chosen in consultation with the professor and according to the needs of his/her project.

 

Supplies:

During the quarter you will need:

∑       Transparencies with erasable marker.

∑       VHS tapes and HI8 tapes.

∑       Minitapes for digitalization

∑       Computer diskettes and writable CDs.

∑       Other Computer supplies

 

Class Format:

            Discussion of Readings

            Data Seminars

            Group Assignments, which will be Presented and Discussed in Class

            Presentations of Final Project

 

Additional Requirements: Presence in class is mandatory: After the first 2 absences, you will loose a grade (e.g. from B to B-) for each additional absence.  Moreover you will have to make appointments and see me in office hours at least twice, to discuss your projects.

 

NOTE: Many of the classes will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B (third floor of the Powell library, enter from the front door).

 

 

WEEK 1

 

M 4/2 -- Introduction to the course: How the course will be organized.  How to choose a field-site.

 

Assignment #1 distributed.  Choose speech event.

 

W 4/4 -- Camerawork as theory.  Using the video-camera: Basics.

 

Readings:

1) Arthur L. Gaskill & David A. Englander 1985.  How to Shoot a Movie and Video Story.  New York: Morgan & Morgan INC. Publishers.  Pp. 8-28, 47-58 & 106-107.

2) David McDougall 1975.  "Beyond Observational Cinema."  In P. Hockings (Ed.) Principles of Visual Anthropology.  The Hague: Mouton Publishers.  Pp. 109-122.

3) James Roy MacBean 1983.  "Two Laws from Australia, One White, One Black: The Recent Past and the Challenging Future of Ethnographic Film."  In Film Quarterly, Spring 1983.  Pp. 30-39.  (Suggested reading: Pp. 39-43).

 

 

WEEK 2

 

M 4/9 -- Camerawork as theory continued.  Hands-on exercise.

 

Assignment #1 Due at the beginning of class.

 

Guest Speaker: Mary Hardy: "Whose perspective is it?  Getting Different Perspectives on Camera."

 

Readings:

1) Goodwin, C. (1994) "Professional vision," American Anthropologist 96. 

2) Eliot Weinberger 1994.  "The Camera People."  In L. Taylor (Ed.) Visualizing Theory.  New York and London: Routledge.  Pp. 3-18.  (Suggested reading: Pp. 18-26).

3) Suggested reading: David MacDougall 1994.  "Whose Story Is It?"  In L. Taylor (Ed.) Visualizing Theory.  New York and London: Routledge.  Pp. 27-36.

 

W 4/11 -- Camerawork as theory continued.  Tape-recorders and Microphones.

 

- Discussion of findings from Assignment #1

 

Assignment #2 distributed.  Gather video data

 

 

WEEK 3

 

M 4/16 -- Hands-on session in the Media-lab on digitizing movies.

 

- This session will be led by Mr. Dwayne N. Washington.  The Instructional Multimedia Production Lab is in the Powell building, Room 60, floor 1, (use Powell's side entrance).

 

W 4/18 -- Making a Web-Site:

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

- Html basics

- Web-editor basics

 

- Assignment #3 distributed: make a web page.

 

 

WEEK 4

 

M 4/23 -- Transcription as theory.

 

- Basic transcription notation

- Exercise in transcription

 

Readings:

1) Elinor Ochs, "Transcription as Theory."

2) Alessandro Duranti 1997.  "Transcription: From Writing to Digitized Images" in Linguistic Anthropology.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Pp. 154-161.

3) Suggested reading: Haviland, John B.  1996.  "Text from Talk in Tzotzil."  In Natural Histories of Discourse, Silverstein and Urban (eds.).  Chicago University Press.  Pp. 45-78.

 

W 4/25 -- Creating a Web-Site.

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

- Assignment #3 due.

 

            - Web-editing, second part.

            - Discussion of Assignment #3

 

 

WEEK 5

 

M 4/30 -- Digitalizing movies

 

- hands-on session in the media lab

 

W 5/2 -- Lesson 10 -- Using Adobe Photoshop: taking frame grabs and manipulating images.

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

Assignment #2 Due at the beginning of class.

 

Assignment #4 distributed: digitalize video segments.

 

 

WEEK 6

 

M 5/7 -- Performance, SPEAKING model and Audience.

 

            - Performance.

- The SPEAKING model and its elements

            - Context and audience (setting + participants)

 

Assignment #5 Distributed.

 

Readings:

1) Dell Hymes 1972.  "Models of Interaction in Language and Social Life" in J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (Eds.)  Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication.  Oxford: Basic Blackwell.

2) Verbal Art as Performance (Bauman) ch. 5, p. 37-45 & ch.6, p. 47-48.

3) C. Goodwin "Audience diversity, partecipationa dn Interpretation" Text 6 (3) pp. 283-316.

 

W 5/9 -- Genre.

 

            - Genre

            - Storytelling

            - Verbal art

 

Readings:

1) Bakhtin 1986.  "The Problem of Speech Genres."  In Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. by C Emerson & M Holquist.  Austin: University of Texas Press.  Pp. 60-102.

2) Adams, Karen L. & Winter, Anne.  1997.  "Gang Graffiti as a Discourse Genre."  Journal of Sociolinguistics 1(3): 337-360.

 

 

WEEK 7

 

M 5/14 -- Discussion of Students' Transcripts.

 

Assignment #5 due.

 

W 5/16 -- Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis.

 

            - C.A. style transcription and discourse analysis transcription

            - Looking at the processes inside the utterances and across them

            - Ritual elements of the encounters

            - Translation

            - Discourse analysis

            - Participant frameworks

 

Readings:

1) John Heritage 1984.  "Conversation Analysis."  In Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology.  Cambridge: Polity Press.  Pp. 233-292.

2) Schegloff and Sacks, "Opening Up Closings."

3) Suggested Reading: Psathas, George & Anderson, Timothy.  1990.  "The 'practices' of transcription in conversation analysis."  Semiotica 78-1/2.  Pp. 75-99.

 

 

WEEK 8

 

M 5/21 -- Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis, Continued.

 

- Non-Verbal Language.  Contextualization cues.  Indexicals.

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

Readings:

1) Marjorie H. Goodwin 1990.  He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

- "Talk as Social Action" pp. 1-17.

- "Directive/Response Sequences and Social Organization" pp. 63-137.

2) Suggested reading: Alessandro Duranti 1997.  "Units of Participation" in Linguistic Anthropology.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Pp. 280-330.

 

W 5/23 -- Students present their Projects

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

 

WEEK 9

 

M 5/28 -- HOLIDAY (No Classes)

 

W 5/30 -- Students present their Projects

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

 

WEEK 10

 

M 6/4 -- Students present their Projects

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

W 6/6 -- Students present their Projects

 

- This class will be held in the CLICC Lab, Room B.

 

 

FINALS' WEEK

 

- Final Paper due on Thursday.

 

 

Brief Overview of the Assignments:

 

#1: Choose your field site, visit it, and write a brief (2-3 pages) report.  (Group Project)

 

#2: Videotape an interaction in the chosen field site.  (Group Project)

 

#3: Create a simple web-site.  (Individual Project.)

 

#4: Choose one or more segment(s) and digitalize them.  (Individual Project)

 

#5: Transcribe the selected segments.  (Individual Project).

 

More information about the Assignments and the Final Project will be distributed later on, during the course. Late assignments will be marked down.

 

Grading:

Participation                            10 points

Assignments                             40 points (8 points each)

Presentation of Project                         15 points

Final Paper                               35 points

                                                _________

                                                100 points

 

The grading scale for tests, term paper, the project, and the total course grade will be:  90-100= A; 80-89 = B; 70-79 = C; 60-69 = D; less than 60 = F.

 

Final Note: Although the syllabus will be followed as much as possible, it is intended as a guideline and circumstances may require a change to the schedule.  Students are responsible for any changes announced in class.