¶ … Ethnography of Communication in High School Film
The EOC (ethnography of communication) is the analysis of communication within a culture, and practices of speech of a number of community. The EOC refers to the discourse analysis in linguistic drawing the anthropological field investigating the use of speech, their meaning or interpretation as being found in human groups or particular communities. The normative and cultural are two important concepts in the ethnographic communication analysis, which are used to analyze language, cultural norms, and situation context that influence communication among people.
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the concept ethnographic of communication using the film titled "High School" directed by Frederick Wiseman.
Part 1 of Project
The study uses the film titled "High School" to illustrate the concept ethnographic communication. High School is an American film directed by Frederick Wiseman in 1968. High School is an ethnographic film depicting Northeast High School student's events. After the film production, High School has been distributed on DVD through Zipporah Films and rented to colleges, high school and libraries on 5-year term lease.
The intent of this study is to present text in the film based on cultural and normative analysis of communication. A particular text in the film reveals the communication between three participants: a student, a school counselor, and the student mother. All of them were seated in the counselor's office, and based on the tone of their conversations, it was evident that the students had been reprimanded for misbehaving, and the school counselor called in the mother for a conference. The following ethnographic texts described the episode in the film that resulted in the student being reprimanded.
Student: All of us were just messing around. We locked her up in the closet and threw her a book...
Counselor: I must admit that the teacher was not doing the best that she ought to be. What is your contribution?
Student: She is just messing around similar with everybody else.
Mom: Well, can you tell me the meaning of what "messing around"? This is what I have been trying to figure out...Almost every time you keep saying messing around, what does messing around actually mean?
Student: I admit, we were, talking, laughing.
Mom: Just plain talking, well, and laughing isn't offensive.
Student: Uhm, well, we threw a book around or something...
Mom: You threw a book around. OK, ...
Student: Mom (pause), not just me
Mom: Whoever was involved?
Student: Yah, I know I did, I must admit I talked back a lot.
Mom: Did you actually talk back to your teacher?
Student: Yea. (pause)
Mom: And this is what you are referring messing around? Isn't that more disrespectful?
Student: What I did, I know I was more disrespect. What the rest, What I, and what else everybody did was also just messing around,
Mom (later): You know, to be disrespectful is one of the worst things to do in the manner of speech or in the way of talking.
The study uses three theoretical frameworks applicable to the data collected from the film "High School." "
Theory I
Name Theory: Rules Theory
Online Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40237289?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Brief Explanation of the Theory:
The rules theory describes the behaviors that are preferred, prohibited, or obligated in a given text. Typically, rules facilitate an effective process of communication as well as making symbolic interaction meaningful. However, rule varies across cultures, communities, languages, time and contexts. Although, there are varieties of rule theories in the communication field, however, these theories share the same rules in meaning, pronunciations, grammar and use. According to the rule theory, customs, conventions, taboos, prohibition, principles, guidelines, and norms are a common concept. (Shimanoff, 1980). For example, it is a general norm that a student does not come late to the class. Moreover, it is a general norm that students should respect their teachers and avoid talking disrespectfully to teachers.
Application of Data to the Theory
Different scenes in the High School film have been related to the rule theories. In the school, it is evident that there are rules that all students should follow and failure to respect the rules will lead student's punishment. From the data extracted from the film, the student has broken the school rules by using foul language on her teacher. Thus, the school counselor called her mother for a conference. The following data in the film has shown that the student...
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