Understanding Casual Conversation From Ethnography Of Communication Perspectives

Casual conversation is a frequent phenomenon in our life. It refers to the type of conversation which is not motivated by pragmatic purpose such as buying and selling, giving information, making appointments and persuading. Generally speaking, its topic is impersonal,safe and trivial and changes frequently. In fact in our life it serves many functions.Although it is a fact, some people hold the idea that casual conversation is a waste of time and disparage it. Although some scholars such as Tannen, Coupland, Eggins and Slade have studied casual conversation, casual conversation has not received its due attention. Especially in Chinese culture, few scholars (such as Wu Geqi, Ma Boshen and Zhang Rongjian) pay attention to casual conversation in English teaching. The research on casual conversation can be drawn back to Malinowsky's phatic communion. On the basis of phatic communion, other linguists begin the study on casual conversation. However their studies are focused too much on the function of casual conversation and they mostly consider casual conversation in universal culture but little in different culture. This thesis is a study from an ethnographic perspective, which offers a new perspective on casual conversation study.On the basis of previous researches on casual conversation, this thesis aims to display that casual conversation can be analyzed in the frame work of SPEAKING by Hymes and suggest that besides the function of casual conversation, other aspects (such as setting, participant, key, norms) also should be given much attention to. In addition, functions of casual conversation are generalized and demonstrated at the two levels: individual and societal in this thesis. And then the analysis of Chinese communicative incompetence in casual conversation in intercultural communication, to some degree, makes up for the previous study and suggests that culture is also embedded in casual conversation.The present study of casual conversation may shed light on the future study on casual conversation. Moreover, it may provide some implications for the English teaching, English learning and teaching materials'compilation.This thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, in which the author introduces the relevant concepts concerning casual conversation, some backgrounds related to casual conversation, points out the objectives of this study, the necessity and feasibility of the study and defines the organization of this thesis. Chapter Two is a review of the literature relevant to casual conversation study. It begins with the history of study on conversation and states the reason why casual conversation has been chosen to study in this thesis. And then, it goes on reviewing previous researches on casual conversation and then points out the limitation of those study perspectives. Chapter Three focuses on the relevant componential elements of casual conversation with Hymes'SPEAKING concept and suggests that casual conversation can be analyzed from those aspects. Chapter Four deals with functions of casual conversation at the two levels: individual and social. Chapter Five specifically focuses on Chinese communicative incompetence in casual conversation in intercultural context and offers some suggestions to improve their communicative competence as such. Chapter Six is applications and implications of this study. The study of casual conversation in this thesis may give some suggestion for compilation for English teaching materials, for English teaching and English learning. Chapter Seven serves as the conclusion of this thesis, in which the author summarizes the major findings, and shows the limitations.