Conversation closings: The effects of gender, ethnicity and social proximity.
Item
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Title
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Conversation closings: The effects of gender, ethnicity and social proximity.
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Identifier
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AAI9618085
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identifier
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9618085
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Creator
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Montgomery, Carol.
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Contributor
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Adviser: John Dore
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Date
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1996
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics | Speech Communication
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Abstract
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the orderliness and variability of conversation closings. Because closing a conversation is a sensitive undertaking, preclosing signals are often indirect and consist of one or more polite expressions. Closing rituals are conventional, collaborative and consciously taught to young children.;A number of contextual factors influence the initiation, length and level of politeness of the closing. The socio-cultural variables used in this study are gender, ethnicity (Spanish, Chinese and English L1), social proximity and power. A corpus of 142 audiotaped conversations was collected and analyzed.;The study addresses the following research questions: (1) Which party gives the first preclosing signal? The person who initiated the conversation (the ICP) or the other partner? (2) In which conversations are the longest closing sections found? Length was measured in speaker turns, actual time, and information phrases (Edwards and Lampert 1993). and (3) Which pairs of interlocutors produce the most polite expressions, oriented to positive or negative face?;The (ICPs) gave the first preclosing signal 74.6% of the time. In the male conversations, it was 96% and between strangers, it was 91%. In male/female conversations, it was lower--63.2%.;The number of speaker turns remained fairly stable across the variables. Ethnicity was a significant determinant of length measured in seconds and number of information phrases. The Spanish speakers constructed long closings and Chinese short ones. But the longest and shortest closings were in closings of conversations between interlocutors of different ethnicities. Intimates and friends produced more talk in closings than strangers.;The ICPs employed more polite expressions than the OCPs, confirming that moving to close a conversation creates a risk to the addressee's face. Gender was an important variable in determining level of politeness, with the women's closings containing the most polite expressions and the men's the fewest. Ethnicity was also significant, with the Spanish speakers using more such expressions.;The Bulge Theory (Wolfson 1989) predicts that friends will be more polite than either intimates or strangers. However, the degree of politeness of friends and strangers was similar, while intimates used unconventional types of closings. Power was not found to be important here.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
