Σεμινάρια της Τρίτης του ΕΕΠΓ – ΑΝΟΙΞΗ 2024

From interactional regimes to metacommunication and textual ideologies:
What institutions teach us … (and how that is a gateway for cultural analysis)

Isolda E. Carranza
National University of Córdoba

Περίληψη/ Abstract

Building on sociolinguistic (James Collins, Jan Blommaert, Ben Rampton) and anthropological lines of thought (Michael Silverstein, William Hanks, Paul Kroskrity), this talk presents a cross-section of aspects of communication in institutions, with an emphasis on discourse as social action, rather than discourse representation. To study discourse ethnographically is here conceived as a theoretical orientation as well as a methodological approach.

At the level of the sequential organization of face-to-face interaction, official openings and closings, routines, rituals and oaths are indicative of values and assumptions that underpin the institution. This will be illustrated with routines in witness examination that simulate the search for factual knowledge.

Next, it will be shown that making explicit the procedures, the axioms or foundations of a social practice while that practice is being performed is a way of alleging that one’s own conduct complies with those standards. This kind of reflexivity serves the interests of the institutional participant because the norms or principles that rule the activity are immune to challenges and are shared by the ratified participants in the institutional event.

When habitual institutional practices are viewed in the context of the community of practice, the strength of shared beliefs also comes to light. For example, there are expectations driven by the fixed-text idea which takes any copy to be identical to the original text. More importantly, the weight of official written records as carriers of truth usually overrides oral versions of facts by non-institutional participants.

These different levels of analysis can be productive in our exploration of the reproduction or transformation of the institutional order. They open ways to examine cultural assumptions which are either specific to an institution or compatible with the societal cultural background. Future research on the weakening of institutionality will have to address the effects of the disconnect between official practices like the ones described here and the values which institutions are expected to uphold.