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Ethnomethodology and microethnography
The influence of ethnography on the intercultural approach goes
beyond the general observation of a target culture. Some research into
behaviour in context has concentrated much more specifically on how par-
ticipants in conversations interact to construct meaning jointly. This
particular focus on communicative events is the substance of ethno-
methodology (Garfinkel, 1967; Gumperz, 1977, 1984; Saville-Troike, 1989:
130–3). Ethnomethodologists argue that meaning arises out of the interac-
tion between individuals in a specific context, the individuals bringing to
their encounter social knowledge and prior experiences that are used to
interpret the utterances of the other participants. Communication through
dialogue therefore arises out of a complex, ongoing negotiation about what
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utterances mean. The idea that meaning is ‘dialogic’ (i.e. negotiated
through interaction between participants in a context) rather than ‘mono-
logic’ (arising, say, from an individual’s wish to express him or herself)
echoes the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s writing in the 1920s.
Bakhtin’s work was suppressed by the Stalinist regime, however, and so
his writings did not filter through to the West for a number of decades,
and then only in translation and under assumed names (e.g. Vološinov,
1973). However, now that his ideas are more widely accessible, Bakhtin
can be recognised as a precursor of much that is considered ‘new’ in
language research from a sociocultural perspective, and his ideas have
influenced much recent work on culture and language teaching (e.g.
Kramsch, 1993).
The detailed description of how particular conversations work is termed
‘microethnography’ or ‘ethnographic microanalysis’ (e.g. Erickson, 1996).
The assumption is that meaning is dialogic, and so the model of ‘active
speaker and passive listener’ is discarded in favour of ‘active-speaker and
active listener’. As one participant speaks, the listener actively processes
the message, perhaps offering back-channelling sounds (e.g. ‘uh-uh’,
‘yeah, ‘mmm’), or perhaps overlapping in speech by interrupting, clarify-
ing, paraphrasing, and so on. A concrete situation is also important to
microethnographic analysis insofar as it affects the way participants
present themselves to each other. An individual will present him or herself
in different ways, depending on whether he or she is conversing with, say,
a parent, a potential employer or a close friend. Where ethnography
considers the whole life of the community, then, microethnography
focuses on the ‘ebb and flow’ of particular conversations, using the context
only to elucidate the ways in which participants present themselves and
negotiate meanings. Microethnography has influenced the kind of descrip-
tion of casual conversation already discussed in Chapter 3, and it also
influences detailed discourse analyses of intercultural communication,
such as Scollon and Scollon (2001).
The kinds of ethnographic research so far considered range from the
anthropologist’s general interest in providing a detailed account of the
practices and beliefs of whole communities, to the specific issue of how
meaning is constructed through dialogue between members of a
community. As noted above, however, ethnography has regained popular-
ity beyond the discipline of anthropology. It has also been adopted and
modified in the relatively newer disciplines of cultural and media studies.
The kinds of ethnographic techniques practised within these disciplines,
and their core concerns, have also influenced intercultural language
teaching.
Ethnographic Approaches to Culture and Language
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