Sociocentric Speech

In recent years, most theorists and researchers have come to look upon commu­nication as developing through interaction—that is, as a social phenomenon. Elliott (1984) argues, based on a broad summary of research, that the child is not egocentric but rather sociocentric—that is, centered on social interaction—from birth. The development of competence in communication is seen as a three-part process: the initial interaction between infant and mother is described as primordial sharing; this leads to proto-conrersation, which ultimately leads to conversation.

Primordial sharing refers to the mothers exchanges with the infant— through grimaces, glances, vocalizations, and so on—and, soon after, the infant's responses. This is a "you and me" stage of communication: meaning and context are not differentiated; "you" and "me" are, in effect, both the context and the meaning. Exchanges between mother and infant convex- mutual attention and recognition. Infant and mother appear to engage in a coordinated interaction: mutual attention, responsiveness, turn-taking, and synchrony of signals. If either mother or infant is unresponsive, there is no interaction, no context, no meaning.

Once mother and infant direct attention to some object outside their pair, proto-conversations begin. Infants as young as four weeks attend to objects in their environment. In the next few months, the mutual regard of other objects is supplemented by other actions—for example, alternate gazes to object and other, infant babbling, and development of interpretable gestures such as pointing. These proto-conversations can be characterized by ''you, me, and it." The extension to objects permits a range of meanings and so, for the first time, meaning may be ambiguous (a child points and the mother interprets the possible object, the reasons for pointing, and so on). By the age of three or four, the child's proto-conversation has become pretty successful for taking communicative action. Proto-conversation is limited, however, by what can be pointed to or indicated.

Conversation, the third phase, begins when the context within which interactive meanings are generated includes references to entities and situations that are not present; these may be imaginary or even unknown. Although meaning is distinguished from context in proto-conversation, the context in conversation is far larger; now meaning and action may be generated within the interaction itself.

The child's development of conversational abilities has been traced by Haslett, who looks at four aspects of the child's "increasing understanding of how conversational exchanges take place" (1984, p. 107). Four areas of competence are developed out of social interaction. First comes the child's understanding of the value of communication. According to Haslett, human beings seem to have an innate grasp of interpersonal interaction; this sense that through communication we establish relationships may correspond to Elliott's notion of being sociocentric. Thus, children are motivated, perhaps innately, to communicate with others. The infant explores communication by interacting with an adult caretaker—in Western cultures, usually the mother.

The second stage is reached when the infant's behavior becomes less idiosyncratic and more conventional—that is, it takes on more of the characteristics of generally agreed-upon communication signals. Now infants communicate inten­tionally: they check adults for feedback, alter their signals when adult behavior changes, and shorten and ritualize signals so that they become more conventional. The effort, then, is to enter a world of shared meanings. Over time the child progresses from intent-to-act (usually on physical objects) to intent-to-convey (the expression of content). During the course of interaction, the infant's use of words becomes more accountable through the mother's responses—that is, the mother and child negotiate meaning.

The third stage of the child's development concerns understanding the nature of conversation. While many of the infant's first communications were mono­logues, dialogues (conversations) represent a joint negotiation of meaning be­tween two parties. Before understanding the nature of conversation, the child must recognize four fundamentals:

1. Conversations have signals that indicate beginnings and endings.

2. Conversations require both speaking and listening.

3. Roles reverse during conversation; you listen sometimes and speak at other times.

4. Participants reverse roles by taking turns, (p. 113)

Americans often expressed surprise in my presence at the fact that French people, "who claim to be very big on manners," are themselves so "rude": "they interrupt you all the time in conversation," "they finish your sentences for you," "they ask you questions and never listen to the answer," and so on. French people, on the other hand, often complain that American conversa­tions are "boring," that Americans respond to the slightest question with a "lecture," that they "go all the way back to Adam and Eve," and that they "know nothing about the art of conversation." (Carroll, 1988, p. 23)

The word "conversation" is the same in English and French, but as Raymonde Carroll explains, "It is far from signifying the same thing in the two cultures." Words per se cannot be said to "contain" meaning. As we will see, even for people who share a common language, words often generate very different associations.

As we examine verbal messages in this chapter, we will take up four major concerns. The first is the relationship between words and meaning. Thus we will be talking about the symbolic nature of language, the descriptive and associative aspects of words (denotation and connotation), as well as private and shared meanings.

A second section takes up the complex process of formulating verbal messages and how we all learn to do this. As we examine the next issue, how language and thought are related, you will learn about a highly influential theory on the subject, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and then look at several ways in which language use— abstraction, for example—affects your thinking.

In the concluding section, you will also learn about the influence of language usage on feelings and behavior. You will be looking at sexist language, gender differences in the use of language, and the linguistic forms considered more powerful or effective.

Let's turn first to a consideration of the nature of language.