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that the ethnography of communication studies the norms and rules for using language in social situation in different culture Trudgill, 1995: 31
It is necessary to understand the fundamental concepts of the ethnography of communication considering not only on the phenomena which occur in the
community regarding to the factors that go along with it but also the context of situation and culture in order to achieve a successful conversation. The example
taken from The Day After Tomorrow may help to clarify ethnography of communication:
Terry Rapson : I enjoyed your testimony, professor. It was very spirited.
Jack Hall : Oh, thank you. Thats what were here for, right? Put on a
good show? Terry Rapson
: Quite. Terry Rapson
: I was wondering if I could talk to you about your theory on abrupt climate shift. The names Rapson. Terry Rapson.
Jack Hall : Professor Rapson? Of the Hedland Center?
Terry Rapson : Thats me.
The conversation shows that Terry Rapson knows well the norm of introductions. He mentions his name first before he has a further conversation
with Jack. Terry Rapson already knows Jack Hall when he presented his theory in the conference meanwhile Jack has not recognized him yet. Therefore, a
politeness norm is used by Terry. He introduces himself first, before Jack asks his name. The norm is one of the elements in ethnography of communication. In
conclusion, ethnography of communication offers a radically descriptive orientation for the accumulation of data on the nature of ways of speaking within
speech communities.
2. Fundamental Notions in Ethnography of Communication
Related to the study of the ethnography of communication, Hymes lists the essential concepts of ethnography of speaking which include, speech community,
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which have a relationship with speech situation, speech event and speech act. Thus, in order to achieve a successful conversation, the speaker should
understand the pattern of speech activity by having a communicative competence. This communicative competence can be learned through the learning of
relationship among speech community, speech situation, and speech event. The following section will present the explanation of those concepts.
a. Speech Community
The speech community is the central concept of the discussion because it is the group of which particular ethnographic description applies. Gumperz in
Chaika, 1994: 309 defines a speech community as a group of speakers who share a set of norms about the use of a language or languages. Meanwhile, Fishman
1972 defines another definition of a speech community: A speech community is one, all whose members share at least a single
variety and the norms for its appropriate use. A speech community may be as small as single close interaction network, all of whose members regard
each other in but a single capacity p. 22 Furthermore, Hymes says that all members of a speech community share
not only the same rules for speaking, but at least one linguistic variety as well. From the definition above, it can be summarized that a speech community
is a group of people who share at least a single speech variety and has the same rules for speaking. In addition, Saville-Troike in Fasold 1990: 40 argues that it
is not necessary for each speaker to belong to only one speech community or even to two or more completely separate communities. This is what is termed as
overlapping speech community. People can be members of several speech communities at the same time if they alter their norms for speech behavior to
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conform to the appropriate speech community by adding, subtracting and substituting rules of communicative behavior in Fasold, 1996: 42.
b. Speech Situations, Speech Events, and Speech Acts
There are three units of interaction within a speech community namely speech situation, speech event, and speech act. The speech acts are part of speech
events, which is in turn, part of speech situations. Speech situations, according to Hymes, deal with the initiation of speech,
which is signed by the norms of speech 1974: 54. Hymes in Fasold, 1996: 42 defines speech situations as situations associated with or marked by the absence
of speech. This speech situation influences communicative behavior within a speech community. Furthermore, Fishman 1978 states that here are three
ingredients space, time and roles that constitutes a construction of the social situation. It means that speech situation strongly related to any circumstances in
which a conversation takes place. Within speech situation, there lies speech event. Speech events are
restricted to activities or aspects of activities that are directly governed by rules or norms of the use of the speech Hymes, 1986: 52. A speech event takes place
within a speech situation and is composed of one or more speech acts. The third units of interaction, speech acts, are the minimal component of
speech events. A speech act focuses on how to do something by saying word. It means that the speaker actually does the action through the utterances and
expects that the hearer will recognize his or her communicative intention. Austin in Levinson, 1983: 236 divides three kinds of acts that are
simultaneously performed in which in saying something one is doing something.
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1. Locutionary act: the utterances of a sentence with determine sense and reference.
2. Illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence by virtue of the conventional force associated with
the sentence. 3. Perlocutionary act: the bringing about effects on the audience by means of
uttering sentence, such as effects being special to the circumstances of utterance.
In simple way, locutionary act is the act of saying something, illocutionary act is what is done in the act of saying something, and perlocutionary act is the
effect produced by saying something. The following example from The Day After Tomorrow may help to give clear understanding:
Sam : Hey, you look beautiful.
Laura : Thanks.
The act of saying, “Hey, you look beautiful” is the locutionary act. Sam complimenting Laura is the illocutionary act. The acceptance of the compliment
by Laura is the perlocutionary act. From the explanation about speech situation, speech event, and speech
act, it can be concluded that three of them are connected one with others. It means that speech event resides within speech situation and speech act is within
speech event. The following example from The Day After Tomorrow may explain what speech situation, speech event, and speech act are:
Jack Hall : Let me explain. The Northern Hemisphere owes its
climate to the North Atlantic Current. Heat from the sun arrives at the equator and is carried north by
the ocean. But global warming is melting the polar ice caps and disrupting this flow. Eventually it will
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shut down. And when that occurs ... there goes our warm climate.
Venezuelan Delegate : Excuse me. When do you think this could
happen, professor? When?
Jack Hall : I dont know. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe in a
thousand. But what I do know is ... that if we do not act soon, it is our children and our grandchildren
who will have to pay the price.
This is a conversation between Jack Hall and Venezuelan Delegate. It occurs in the United Nations Conference on Global Warming in New Delhi. They
are in the meeting situation in which they talk about global warming and its effect. This meeting can be called the speech situation. In speech situation
occurring between them, a speech event happened. The speech event is the presentation done by Jack Hall in front of all members of UN Conference
delegates. Within the speech event, there lies speech act. The speech act written in bold words in the conversation is in the form of question form, which can be
categorized as speech act of ‘asking’.
3. Components of Speech
