Language use as Social Strategy: A Review and an Analytic Framework for the Social Sciences

Abstract

Language use as a social strategy is reviewed and a new interdisciplinary taxonomy developed. Four categories are suggested for using language: to get people to do things, to get people to say things, to keep people's attention, and to maintain social relationships. Within these categories, all of the discourse and conversational analysis literatures are reviewed, allowing a common framework within which to make more systematic analyses. Reinterpretations of psychological theories are suggested, and fresh avenues for interdisciplinary research are created. A major imperative from the review is that some form of ethnographic data collection is needed for all analyses of conversations and texts to incorporate more of the social, economic, historical, and cultural contexts into both our observations and theorizing.

Analyzing Rumors, Gossip, and Urban Legends Through Their Conversational Properties

“…Another important conversational property of these story forms, one not covered by previous theories, is whether you can be the first one to tell them (Guerin , 2003(Guerin , , 2004. Being the first to tell a story has a huge "conversational cash value," whereas telling a story to people who have already heard it does not.…”

“…What we find, then, is a huge range of ways of talking that promote the formation and maintenance of social relationships (Guerin, 2003(Guerin, , 2004. People make jokes, tell stories, engage in collaborative conversations, talk about work, talk about the weather, complain, seek controversy, tell histories, denigrate enemies, praise each other, and talk about television.…”

“…For example, urban legends are not usually credible or of personal consequence to the listeners, but this is traded off with properties of being much more engaging and attention grabbing , and being in a narrative form with a story plot that encourages listening. Short stories are usually more appreciated in conversations, but this can be traded off by the story having personal consequences to the listener, by allowing interruptions and collaboration by listeners, and by the use of a narrative form (Guerin , 2003(Guerin , , 2004. As a third example, many stories are barely credible, but they can still function as good conversation if they have horror, joking, or scandalous content to assuage the listener.…”

“…Most of these can be subsumed under the categories of influencing listeners to like you , maintaining social relationships with listeners, keeping their attention, and maintaining status with listeners (Cheshire, 2000;Guerin, 2003Guerin, , 2004 . To see this, we remind ourselves of how important groups and relationships are to living our lives.…”

Do Online Gossipers Promote Brands?

“…4 In the literature of evolutionary psychology, gossip has been conceptualized as one of the verbal (or conversational) strategies people use to influence others in some way, and there are probably as many verbal strategies as there are social interactions. 5 In this light, this study regards online gossip as an attention-grabbing, cybercommunication strategy about social and personal topics that people use to influence others on the Internet.…”