Deck 13: Ethnography: Interpreting and Evaluating Cultural Communication

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT a major premise of ethnomethodology?

A) Interactants work together to accomplish sense making.
B) Sense making has its roots in an objective reality.
C) The focus is on everyday life interactions in their natural contexts.
D) All of the above are major premises.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

In ethnomethodology, the reasons people give for deviating from the rules are called:

A) Accounts
B) Attributions
C) Repair
D) Warrants

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The form of ethnographic research that aims to describe and explain culturally distinct communicative patterns and practices using Dell Hymes' (1962) SPEAKING acronym as a theoretic framework is called:

A) Autoethnography
B) Naturalistic inquiry
C) Speech community
D) Ethnography of speaking

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Within a particular speech community, the set of rules for speaking and interpreting others' speech is called the:

A) Communication code
B) Language style
C) Dialect
D) Communal function

Question 5

Which form of ethnographic research is most likely to focus on how members of particular speech communities constitute their place and positions in particular settings or situations?

A) Autoethnography
B) Ethnography of communication (EC)
C) Ethnography of speaking (EOS)
D) Performance ethnography

Question 6

Which of the groups of people below do not fit the definition of a speech community?

A) Members of a trade association (e.g., Public Relations Society of America)
B) Instagram users
C) Strangers seated near each other on an airplane
D) Communication majors

Question 7

If any of the key informants in the study is one of the researchers in the study, the form of ethnography is partly:

A) Autoethnography
B) Ethnography of communication (EC)
C) Ethnography of speaking (EOS)
D) Performance ethnography

Question 8

Which of the following is characteristic of rule systems?

A) Social systems are constrained by them
B) They are general prescriptions for behavior within a context
C) They can be formal or unspoken
D) All of the above

Question 9

One of the key ways that performance ethnography differs from EOS, EC, and autobiography is that

A) It studies cultural performances only
B) It might make oppression visible through an artistic presentation
C) It focuses on evaluating communication performances
D) Both b and c

Question 10

Which types of ethnography are likely to produce reports that differ in tone and style from typical research reports used in interpretive communication?

A) Autoethnography and performance ethnography
B) EC and EOS
C) EC and autoethnography
D) EOS and performance ethnography

Question 11

These two types of ethnography are more likely to be used to explore claims of interpretation as opposed to claims of evaluation and reform:

A) Autoethnography and performance ethnography
B) EC and EOS
C) EC and autoethnography
D) EOS and performance ethnography

Question 12

The claim "How are communication resources used by the campus chapter of Phi Kappa Phi to interpret and organize action" is an example of a

A) Interpretive claim
B) Evaluative claim
C) Reform claim
D) Performance claim

Question 13

When your college adviser asks you how your classes are going, you notice that the way you speak to the adviser differs from the way you would talk to your friends asking the same question. This is an example of

A) Communal function
B) Repair
C) Code switching
D) Accounts

Question 14

Goodall's term writing as inquiry refers to the idea that

A) Writing should be done only after the data inquiry is complete
B) Writing is the manner of interrogating and exposing power relations in a social situation
C) Writing should avoid inquiring into the researchers' belief and participation in an oppressive social system
D) All of the above

Question 15

Regardless of a researcher's degree of participation during observation, the researcher must be able to

A) Develop and maintain trusting relationships with group members being studied
B) Be outspoken and contentious when participants are failing to cooperate with the researcher
C) Avoid giving participants the benefit of the doubt and follow the researcher's beliefs
D) All of the above

Question 16

Before conducting your first ethnographic interview, you will need to:

A) Create a face sheet
B) Make a postinterview comment sheet
C) Develop rapport with the interviewee
D) Both a and b

Question 17

The fundamental purpose of triangulation in ethnographic research is to

A) To enrich the description and understanding of the data sources used
B) To enrich the description and understanding of etic realities
C) To enrich the description and understanding of emic realities
D) To enrich the description and understanding of ethnographic themes

Question 18

A gatekeeper may help a researcher

A) Become a sponsor to gain access to a group to be studied
B) Select the participants needed for a representative sample of the group to be studied
C) Identify key informants in the group to be studied
D) Find deviant cases for theoretical sampling purposes

Question 19

As a researcher is coding data gathered from observing a group, the researcher uses the members' own terms to refer to patterns in talk or texts. This type of coding is known as

A) Open coding
B) In vivo coding
C) Performance coding
D) Etic Coding

Question 20

Member checks are a way for researchers to

A) Begin exiting the group that was studied
B) See whether the group participants approve of the researchers' interpretation and choices in the report or performance
C) Ensure that the interpretation offered in the study is an adequate and faithful representation the natives' social world
D) All of the above
Essays:

Question 21

Briefly explain the following steps in ethnographic data collection: gaining access to the setting, selecting key informants, taking field notes, and exiting the field.

Question 22

Define and describe a speech community to which you belong. Then discuss how code switching and the communal function of communication are reflected in the speech community you have described.

Question 23

Select one of the four forms of ethnographic research identified in this chapter: Identify your research topic, question or setting, and discuss how you would protect the participants' rights to freely choose participation, privacy, honest treatment, and freedom from harm, as you collect and analyze data, and as you publish or perform the results of your study.