Holly Sisk’s blog

I thought the article on nodding and smiling during silence was interesting because I like to see how some cultures might act differently (or in this case not so differently) during conversation.  I think it is interesting how the flow of conversation can be kept by using non-verbal movement.  Along with nods and smiles, gaze was also discussed.  In one example, the listener was still nodding, but they were no longer gazing at the speaker.  I thought this was odd because I usually maintain eye contact while doing these things.  In my own life, I find myself nodding and smiling more when I talk to people I don't know as well or who have authority over me rather than with my friends and family.  I guess I think I seem more social/outgoing or agreeable when I do these things so I do them when I am trying to make a good impression.  I also say things such as 'right', 'yeah' and 'mmhmm' while I nod.  I know a person that is constantly nodding when anyone speaks to him and it is a little strange, so I think nodding can be used too much.  I try to nod and smile just enough that I maintain interest in the conversation.  What do y'all typically do during conversation?

On the attendence sheet for Tuesday, Dr. Myers asked us if we waited our turn or interrupted a conversation.  I wrote that I wait my turn, but after I wrote that I realized that is not always true.  I know that the correct and polite thing to do is to wait your turn, but sometimes that doesn't always happen.  Sometimes the transition relevance place is unclear, sometimes I accidently overlap because I get excited and want to share my opinion, and sometimes I just get tired of hearing the other person talk so I start talking.  So if you think about it, does anyone really wait their turn every time they are in a conversation? I don't think so, but what is your opinion? Also, what do you do when you interrupt someone? If it was an accident do you ackowledge it and say something or do you just pretend like nothing happened? Or if you meant to interrupt do you say excuse me or just keep on talking?  If I accidently interrupt someone, I usually say, "oh sorry. go ahead".  What do y'all do?

I was thinking about politeness and conversation maxims and how I use them in my life.  After going through the examples of possible responses to questions, I thought about how I usually answer them.  Most of the time if someone asks me if I liked something and I didn't really like it, I usually just say, "It was interesting!" I try and make it sound positive even if that is not the way I really think.  Even if I am talking to my friends I sometimes try and save face.  The other day my friend asked me if I wanted to watch a movie.  I didn't like the movie, but I didn't want to tell her that, so I just said that I had already seen it, and it was getting late so I should probably just go on home.  I was following the quality maxim because I had in fact already seen the movie, however I chose not to tell her I didn't like it.  I thought what I said was more polite than saying, "No I hated that movie!"

I read an email yesterday(Sunday) that had been sent to me on Friday.  It was about the program I volunteer for at a local elementary school.  I email started off by stating that "Fayette Co. Public Schools are on Spring Break next week, so there will be no volunteering." It never mentioned the dates of the break.  Since I was reading it on Sunday, I thought it meant the week of April 7. Then I realized it was sent on Friday and that it could mean this week.  After thinking about which week it was talking about I decided to just look online.  I found my answer, and Spring Break is this week (as in March 31- April 4).  This example of temporal deixis really makes me want to include dates when referring to something from now on so there is no confusion!

I babysit a 3 year old girl and the other day while I was watching her we had the following conversation:

Lily: You know what?

Me: What?

L: I love you.

Me: Well I love you too.

L: And I don't potty in my pants.

I realize that she is only 3, but I automatically thought the she did not follow the relation maxim because the two topics were not relevant to each other.  I'm not sure if this is really that good of an example, but I thought it was pretty funny when she said those things!

I know we didn't talk about 'hedges' very much in class, but the topic caught my attention.  Hedging is when you say something before you are about to flout a maxim.  I automatically thought that I do this a lot.  I say, "This is random, but...".  I know that I am about to abrubtly change the subject, but I let my listener know before I do so to stay away from confusion.   I don't know if it better to say this all the time or to just start a new topic without the listener knowing!

The other day I was talking to my boyfriend and I said, "I really love flowers."  This statement was a locutionary act because it was the actual utterance.  The illocutionary act was that I was trying to tell him that I would love to receive flowers from him.  This was the internal force behind my utterance.  I decided that there are several perlocutionary acts that could take place.  He could have been ignoring me when I was talking and not heard what I said, he could ignore what I said, or he could read into what I said and get me flowers.  So far, my illocutionary act has gone unnoticed by my boyfriend. Haha

The discussion we had in class on using here or there made me think about what I usually say.  I realized that often times I will say here when I am talking about Lexington no matter where I am.  On spring break, I caught myself saying here (referring to Lexington) even though I was not in Lexington.  Since I was with people who also live in Lexington and knew what I was talking about, I thought it would be okay to say here instead of there.  I can definitely see how it could be confusing to not switch 'here' for 'there' when you change locations.

Ever since we mentioned it in class, I have been trying to listen to people make semantic substitution errors.  I was talking to my boyfriend one day and he said, "It's cloudy, so it's not very dark outside."  He meant to say, "It's cloudy, so it's not very bright outside."  Since he substituted bright for dark, he substitued antonyms.  The interesting thing about this error was that I did not even notice it until he corrected himself.

While giving my 3 year old cousin a bath, she says, "wash my body and my legs".  That struck me as odd because I consider my legs part of my body (rather than my head).  I know the body can be referred to as the torso, or trunk, but that is not something a 3 year old would know.  To me, body and legs are meronymic.  That is, legs are a part of the body.  The way my cousin stated it, body and legs would be co-meronyms. In this case, what would the superordinate be? Could it be body(1) and have an overall meaning of 'from the neck down', where body(2) would be the chest, stomach, and back? Let me know your thoughts!