The Sociological Influences of Language

Most of our activity is with others
Seeking the cooperation of others is a recognized basic human skill
Even when we are acting individually, we do so with a consciousness of others. How others would do it? How they expect us to do it? Whether they would approve or disapprove.

Humans have a capacity for group flexibility in social relationships

Each individual is partially included in each social grouping. We bring an identity into each group that does not vary from group to group. No social grouping claims us at any one time (if it does we speak of cults).
Partial inclusion establishes a dialectic of identity and identification. That is, we always bring an identity, but we also always seek to relate to groups. Thus we negotiate the relationship between identity and identification. We quickly adapt from group to group as we attempt to identify with the groups. Each of these encounters interacts with our identity to reinforce or alter it.
Humans learn roles within each identification. We learn to perform the group's culture, the actions that the culture authorizes.

We want to reverse the inquiry to study communities

When I look at the social landscape, I see great sweeps of conflict and cooperation. I see conflicts everywhere. I hear strident statements of difference. I see groups organizing around these conflicts; people moving around each other. I hear ways of talking coalescing. I see groups becoming larger and smaller. I hear ideas chaining from some groups to others. I see groups defining our actions. I see our communities put at risk by divisions and conflict. And I see groups that die, to have power no more.
When I look at the social landscape, I see moments of cruciality. Moments give content to our talk about. Moments happen. We cannot resist it -- we find others to talk to about what has happened. We hear many interpretations of the moment that we are talking about. This talk about is about facts, but also about what is problematic about what happened. We relate the moment to other moments. We see similarities. We see sequences of events that make sense in their relationship to each other. We decide what is right with the moment, what is wrong. We also talk about what we should do in response to our understanding of the moment and its meaning.
When I look at the social landscape, communication is everywhere.

Social bonds are communication. There is nothing that holds people together but an ongoing, recalled, repeated talk about of communication.
Communication is an intrinsic part of the community's life. We always see it.

What we want in our study is this change in perspective on communication

We concentrate not on individual, instrumental communication: speaker to audience, and strategy to achieve goal.
We focus on the social creation of communication. People talking to each other create the communication as they talk.

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What do we know about the social power of communication?

Communication is characterized by punctuated variety. There are many but not unlimited ways of talking about any subject matter. These ways of talking develop in talk about, the give and take of conflict.
The differences of this variety form the texture of social ordering. People cluster together according to their understandings of the things that are going on around them. They share and develop their understandings by talking about the things around them. Understandings, we may say, emerge from the thick talk about. And arriving at an understanding affirms social bonding.
From understanding and valuing come the breadth of our action in the face of events. When we are capable of responding to the things that are happening around us, responses are chosen and coordinated in our talk about.
The glue of our common understanding and action binds us beyond the event. Our talk about precedes the event, and goes on after the event. Our ability to talk about events gives us the bonding with others that transcends the events. Through this process, communication forms community bonds.

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The Texture of Social Order: What are the characteristics of Social Order we wish to explain?

Cohesion and Anomy. A community must work toward directing the energy of its members toward holding the community together. Anomy -- the tendency of a community to come apart -- is the natural condition of communities. Energy must be expended to hold a community together. That energy is communication. How do groups do this?
Distinctions and Community Divisions. One of the things that communities orient themselves to are other communities. We seek to orient to other communities, to understand the valence of groups to each other. How do we develop friends? Enemies? How do we define the boundaries of a community?
Hierarchy. Communities value. They prefer some things to others. Human choice involves this valuing. How do we explain this valuing? How does the valuing become transformed into authority?
Struggle of Conflict. Social order is textured in conflict. How is conflict conducted? How does it alter communities?

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We study two influences of language

The Instrumental Influences of Language on Communities. We want to understand how communication works to make communities tick. We want to draw some conclusions about the process in which communities form, perpetuate themselves, and dissolve. This is the sense in which communication facilitates communities.
The Formal Influences of Language in Communities. We are also interested in seeing communication's power to shape community action. We are not just interested in how communication influences to communities but how particular shapes emerge from that communication.

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Communication and Social Order

Modes of Communication

The modes of communication are a vocabulary that tells us what to look for in communication to see the influences on social order.

Symbolic Names. A name instantly declares the existence of a recognizable group. We use names to identify people with groups. We use names to differentiate communities. We know who is not in our community by the names that will not characterize them. Of course, communities need not have names, but almost all do.
Vocabulary. Communities develop a characteristic vocabulary common to those in the community. The ability to use that vocabulary properly to talk about the things that happen is a performance of our membership in a community. An inability to use the vocabulary marks us as "other."
Proverbs. Each community has a set of propositions that it accepts on faith without question. Often these are stated in the form of short, familiar phrases, such as "A stitch in time saves nine." These provide the values, the guides to action supported by the community.
Heroes and Devils. Communication singles our people to talk about. Some we talk about in terms that praise them. We endorse their actions. In the process we reflect our values. Others we condemn. We declare their actions loathsome. These also reflect our values, only negatively.
Stories, Myths, Histories. Each community has these narratives that become key symbols for the group. Perhaps they tell the story of how the community came to be, perhaps of its successfully overcoming a moment of crisis, perhaps it is a biography that establishes a hero or condemns a devil. Knowing the stories marks our identification with the community. Being able to use the story helps to coordinate our understandings and response.

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Moments for Communication in Communities

As we look at communities, we will find that particular moments are occasions for communication that do the social work we are studying.

Encounters: Day to day communication. Communities communicate day-in, day-out as they enact their environment. They call upon characteristic ways of talking, and test those ways of talking in application. They perform encounters in their terms. In the testing, the social is strengthened or weakened.
Rituals. These are established times to overtly discuss the community. They declare unity and they stylize our responses to situations. Some rituals -- the Fourth of July celebration -- are done by the clock and calendar. Others -- a funeral -- are timed by the events of life.
Crises. Crises are times which demand attention. Their presence with us compels society to deal with them. These are the ultimate tests of a community's way of talking about events. If they cannot correctly assess these crises and respond to them properly, the community will risk total anomy. Such crises define the social fabric. Strong communities often have rituals -- funerals, for example -- to work through crises.
Deviants. The encountering of deviants is another key moment of community talk. Communities must declare deviants and pronounce the nature of their deviation or the norms of the community are destroyed. A rhetoric that condemns deviates develops. Again, communities may ritualize their treatment of deviants. The criminal justice system is an example.

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Communication Strategies which define Social Order

There are characteristic ways to invoke the modes of communication in the moments above to strengthen community.

Declarations of Uniqueness. The unique identity of the group is celebrated. Such celebrations unify the community, declare how it differs from others, and usually declares the basis of the community's superiority.
Declarations of Contrast. Distinctions that articulate division become symbols, thus declaring unity by opposition. In the extreme, this strategy creates scapegoats, people that can be blamed.
Symbol Creation. Communities can imbue some word or material object with the power of representation. Flags, uniforms, handshakes, chants, bumper stickers, are all examples. These symbols allow those in the community to signify their identification.
Praise and Blame. Praising (or condemning) actions, values, and beliefs make goodness and badness into symbols of the groups unity. Everyone can participate in the cheering for someone praiseworthy, and in the process celebrate their identification with the group.

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Permanence and Change in Social Order

We are interested in the ways that social orders maintain themselves and adapt to new conditions. Social orders that do not maintain themselves dissolve into anomy. Social orders that do not adapt to changing circumstances will fail their tests of understanding and response and will dissolve from failure.

Creating a Community

When a group comes together for whatever reason, they begin to share commonality: Identification.
They perform various communication strategies to organize that identification into coordinated action.

The may select a name.
They begin to develop vocabulary, a history, and stories.
They discuss what holds them together and develop moments of ritual.

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Socializing new members

Someone must often sponsor new members. These sponsors are their teachers, preparing them to participate meaningfully in the talk about.
New members must learn vocabulary, stories, and history.
Groups form rituals of full admittance to the community.

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Rituals of Maintenance in Social Order

Histories. In talking about the past, communities develop a rich texture of usage for their ways of talking about experience. Learning these histories becomes a route to membership. History provides a rich complex of ritual to celebrate the values and understandings of the communities.
Drama: TV, Film, Literature. These are narratives and so they also play out heroes, villains, the implications of actions. In short, values take shape in these narratives. Drama may celebrate established values, but may also induce change.

Sociolinguistic Performance. The day-to-day communication also performs social order. Forms of address establish hierarchy and authority. The daily use of reasoning celebrates standard patterns of the community.

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Social Order at Risk: Moments of transformation/reaffirmation

Moments of transformation/reaffirmation in be tracked in the structure of the dramatistic process

A sense of some order violated: Pollution. Discourse conveys a sense of what is violated.
What order is violated? Who or What is responsible? Discourse must locate the responsibility for the pollution.
An avenue of remedy. Remedies correspond with responsibility and the nature of the problem.
Restoration of Order. Discourse ritualizes the end to the crisis, the social order reaffirmed.

Casting events into the dramatistic process locates and targets change. The narrower the locating of responsibility the less likely transformation in the community.
The struggle of interpretation in a community is, therefore, the struggle for social order. The interpretation that emerges as the one having the greatest support will guide the permanence and change of the order. Some struggles conserve the social order; some promote change. In the extreme, the social order itself passes away.

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The Life of a Community

You need to begin to see communication in the life of a community. Communities are:

Born in creative communication that unites people in identification

Maintain themselves by providing a context for communication that adjusts people to events that occur

Die when their identifying ways of understanding no longer aid people in responding to their world

Language plays out the ebb and flow of social form.

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