CMN457: Introduction to Interpersonal Communication

Spring 2003, Professor John Shotter

REVISION HINTS FOR FIRST EXAM

[The exam will cover material from: Introduction to the course (in course outline); #1 Shotter; #2 Mills: #3 Scott & Lyman; #4 Garfinkel Ch.2; #5 Garfinkel Ch.3; #6 Goffman]

‒            Aim of the course: to notice thousand and one small details of IPC.

‒            Why?

‒            What are the two main (relational) characteristics of our talk?

‒            What are the two assumptions about talk that we shall relegate to second place in our ideas about its nature?

‒            Why study IPC, when we already know how to do it?

‒            Why is the 'inter' aspect of interpersonal communication so important for us?

‒            What is special about conversational realities?

‒            What do we create in our everyday conversation?

‒            Where do we find the ‘tools’ for our understanding of IPC?

‒            Do we easily understand each other?

‒            How do we achieve common understandings?

‒            What is special about “joint action”?

‒            What is special about “the interactive moment”?

‒            What is special about being in love? – think of all the relevant points.

‒            What begins to happen when love ‘breaks down’?

‒            What is special about Mills’s (1940) approach to motive-talk?

‒            Why are “vocabularies of motive” situated?

‒            Where can we find the ultimate basis for making sense of ways of acting in our culture?

‒            How do parents bring their children up to be oriented toward the same motives as everyone else in their culture?

‒            When must we give an account of our actions?

‒            What do accounts do?

‒            Background expectations and anticipations.

‒            What is the difference between a justification and an excuse?

‒            Strategies for avoiding an account.

‒            Why is the negotiation of identities an issue here?

‒            Different speech communities.

‒            What is ethno-method-ology?

‒            Note the fluid, unsystematic nature of everyday conversation.

‒            Is it different from scientific talk?

‒            What are the five major findings from the Dana conversation?

‒            Are meanings ‘in’ words, or are words simply used in the making of meanings?

‒            What is the nature of “the matter talked about”?

‒            Is there a morality in everyday conversational exchanges? What is it?

‒            Background of “seen but unnoticed” features.

‒            Persons “require these properties as conditions under which they are entitled to conduct their affairs withour interference.” What properties?

‒            What happens when persons “breach” normal expectations in conversational exchanges?

‒            Why is common sense, i.e., shared, knowledge of social structures important in our everyday understanding of each other’s talk?

‒            How did Garfinkel catch “fact production in flight,” so to speak?

‒            What are the two main features of “the documentary method of interpretation”?

‒            Study all nine findings of the “pseudo counseling” experiment.

‒            Note at least one important conclusion from this ‘experiment’.

Toward the end of the week, beginning of next week, I will put all the course notes on my web-site:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jds Look out for it.