ARTSC105: Language in Context - Service Encounter Ethnography

This report provides an ethnographic analysis of a service encounter, specifically a customer purchasing a product at a cosmetic shop. It begins by defining the ethnography of communication and its role in social interactions. The report details the event description, including the setting, purpose, and participants (a customer and a sales assistant). It presents the act sequence, the actual dialogue, and analyzes the rules of interaction, considering factors like social status and roles. The report examines norms of interpretation, shared knowledge, and assumptions influencing the conversation. The analysis highlights how language is shaped by context and participant characteristics, revealing cultural norms. The report finds the conversation successful due to the maintenance of tone, adherence to interaction rules, and clarity of language, emphasizing the importance of ethnographic studies in understanding communication dynamics. The report concludes by summarizing the key aspects of the interaction and highlights the value of such analysis in specifying rules for different conversational situations.

Running head: LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT
LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive summary
The following report begins with defining ethnography of communication and its role in
social conversational situations. The report talks about the various factors that an
ethnographic study is based on and they are elaborated separately. An act sequence is
provided as an example and this report follows the format that is required for the said
sequence. The rules of interaction and interpretation are analyzed and the key points as to
why the stated conversation leads to success are provided. the report ends in a summary of
the entire analysis and reasons to why this sort of a report might be considered essential is
provided as well.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Event Description.......................................................................................................................3
Participants.................................................................................................................................4
Act sequence..............................................................................................................................5
Norms of interpretation..............................................................................................................7
Summary....................................................................................................................................8
Reference..................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The ethnography of communication (EC) is an approach to language and social
interaction where one seeks to discover the cultural peculiarities and general principles of
communication. The ethnography of a communicative event is the description of all the
factors relevant to the achievement of the objectives of that conversation (McCarty, 2014).
There are four general assumptions about communication, language, and social interaction
related to this. Firstly, communication is how people perceive it; secondly, communication
demonstrates systematic social organization and hierarchy (Rochemont, 2014); thirdly,
communication, language and social interaction all are radically and deeply culture-specific;
and lastly, communication is a basic component for the formative structure of a society or
community (Carbaugh & Boromisza-Habashi, 2015).
In this following report, the type of conversation or encounter that is being analyzed
is that of a service encounter, that is, an individual making a purchase at a shop with the help
and guidance of a sales assistant. The report will elucidate further on the topic by looking
deeper into the event description, participants of the conversation, the act sequence followed
by the participants, and the rules that the interpretation of the act follows, along with the
interactive rules that the participants abide by during the conversation.
Event Description
The event description is used to describe what will be happening in the upcoming
communicative event, the identity of participants, and the information that one might gain out
of attending to this. It is basically the linguistic representation of the incidents that take place
during a conversation.
This section includes the general details of the conversation that is taking place
between Emily and Helen. The genre of this conversation is a dialogue between the

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participants in a setting of a shop or retail counter. These features were described according
to Dell Hymes’s proposed ethnographic framework. The purpose of the conversation is for
the individual Emily to purchase of a beauty product, a moisturizer to be exact, that is
suitable for requirements. The setting of the act is that of a retail counter where a woman,
Emily is asking for information about a beauty product from the sales executive, Helen in a
cosmetic shop. The conversation is oral and takes place completely in English. The tone of
the conversation is somewhat formal, where one participant is formal and the other is less so;
the entire conversation is light-hearted and polite, as the participants are not known to each
other and are strangers (Wardhaugh & Fuller, 2014).
Participants
The participants of a conversation include multiple combinations of speaker-listener,
addressor-addressee, or sender-receiver. These individuals are expected to fill certain socially
specified roles. These relationships change according to the setting of the communicative act
taking place and.
This section elaborates the relationship between the individuals partaking in the act.
This is a two-person conversation where the role of the speaker and hearer is interchangeable.
Here the two individuals are women. One of them is the customer, Emily, who is less formal
and is more direct in her approach. The other is the sales executive, Helen, who is more
formal and uses more fancy language in order to please the customer (Saville, 2008). There
are other factors which come into play when discussing this section, namely, age, gender,
socio-economic class, social roles, and more. Emily is of a higher status, given the fact that
she is making a purchase at a high-end cosmetic shop. Helen is of a lower status, working as
a sales assistant at the shop. Therefore, the individual of a lower social status speaks more
formally with the one with a higher status (Calvo and Biyalistok, 2014). Another point to be

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kept in mind the social role. Helen is trying to make a sale, which would benefit her
economically. Thus, her demeanour is more polite and pleasing towards Emily. It is also seen
that women use language that reinforces their subordinate role in a patriarchal society.
Therefore, given that both participants are women, the general tone of the entire conversation
is softer and more reserved, as well as well structured (Holmes, 2013); (Holmes and Wilson,
2017).
Act sequence
This section talks about the actual form and content of the conversation being made. It
deals with the language, its use, and the relationship with the topic discussed. The act
sequence of a conversation differs based on the environment where it is taking place, like, act
of a public lecture would be completely different than that of a cocktail party. The act
sequence of the conversation in question is given below.
Emily - less formal, higher status, as consumer
Helen - semi-formal, lower status, as assistant trying to promote
E (walks in)
H: Hi afternoon. Welcome to the Body Shop, how could I help you today?
E: Hey afternoon. I’m looking for a face moisturiser for oily and acne prone skin.
H: Sure, we could help you with that. In fact we have just put out a newly formulated skin
care range. It is organic tea tree range and is water based, since it is oil free, after you put
it on you wouldn’t feel very heavy and greasy at all, would you like to try it?
E: Yes, sure.
H: It is totally cruelty free, we put tea tree extract and aloe vera too to make sure it helps with
oily complexion skin types! It does not contain chemical fragrance so this moisturiser will
not irritate your skin.
H: Smell it

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E: Yeah it smells really refreshing.
H: Yes, you are right it has natural fragrance from the tea tree and aloe vera extract.
E: Does it contain alcohol though?
H: Well… let me check!
H: Check packaging
H: Yep, yep, this product does not contain any alcohol, it is alcohol free, it is harmful to acne
prone skin so in this product we didn’t put any alcohol-based ingredient!
E: That’s great, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, I will take it.
H: Sure, and do you need anything else?
E: No, that’s all for today. Thanks.
H: Sure, please come with me to the register.
There are a certain set of rules of interaction that must be followed when acting this
sequence. First, the sales executive approaches the customer first; second, the customer
provides details about her skin type before asking for a product best suited to her needs; and
third, the sales executive provides opportunity to test the product on the customer in a patch
test before recommending it to her.
From the sequence discussed above, the sales assistant Helen greets the customer
Emily as soon as she enters the cosmetic shop, Body Shop. She immediately asks for the
customer’s desire and what she is exactly looking for. As soon as Helen gets to know that
Emily has acne-prone and oily skin, she was prompt enough to promote the shop’s latest
products. She mentions that it has ingredients which are suitable to the customer’s
requirements and makes additional effort by asking her to smell the product after it has been
applied on her skin for a patch test. This enhances the experience of the customer and helps
Helen in making the sale. The rules of interaction, in this case, were followed thoroughly and
that is why this conversation led to a successful sale of the product an achieved its goal.

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Norms of interpretation
Norms of interpretation refers to the behaviours and properties observed in speech and
how someone who does not share the same norms perceives these. These norms vary
according to social groups and social settings. Therefore, something that might be considered
usual in one setting might be considered unusual in another (Bowe, Martin and Manns,
2014). This section involves the general and shared knowledge of the conversation event
discussed above, and expectations and assumptions from the event. The first one is that the
sales assistant must be knowledgeable and should be capable of answering all queries
regarding the products available at the cosmetic shop, such as, suitable products to different
types of skin and basic ingredients of any particular product. The second would be that if the
customer is being offered a product sample by the sales person to test if it’s suitable, it would
be very rude on the former’s part if she did not make the purchase. These rules are common
in case of service encounters involving other businesses as well (Brown and Levinson, 1987).
In the act sequence discussed above, Helen had the knowledge that their new line of
products had tea tree extracts and aloe vera extracts in them, which made them soothing on
the skin , especially for people who have acne-prone skin. This meant that she was capable of
providing this information to the customer, which helped in the progression of the
conversation. When it came to Emily’s reaction, she did not reject the offer that Helen made
and acted courteously by allowing her to test the sample on her skin. Both participants
cooperated with each other and this proved successful in carrying out the goal of the
conversation topic.
There is another factor that should be considered when speaking on interpretive norms
and that is ‘inappropriate’ behaviour of participants. The main rule that should be followed is
avoid being rude or disrespectful towards the other participants of the communicative act
(Creese and Copland, 2017). This holds true in all conversations. Another rule that should be

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followed is to avoid aversion towards the topic mentioned by the other participants. This
might not allow people to receive adequate information about their concerned topic (Keller,
1999).
Summary
To summarize, the above report discussed the ethnographic features and significance
of the conversation that takes place between a sales executive and a customer, trying to
conduct a sale of a beauty product at a cosmetic shop. The report speaks about the description
of the communicative event, individuals participating in the event, the rules followed by the
interacting individuals, and the rules of interpretation that one should follow when observing
the conversation. The conversation takes place between Emily, a customer, and Helen, a sales
assistant. The conversation takes place in a public setting and is semi-formal in nature. The
conversation follows the specified rules and progresses smoothly, ending in a successful
purchase of the product in question. If the proper rules had not been followed, it would not
have seen the same outcome, is what could be assumed. The key points to be noted through
this report are; first, the tone of the conversation was maintained throughout the conversation;
second, the participants acted according to the rules of interaction; third, the interpretation of
the act was successfully done due to clarity of language that was used by the participants, by
not resorting to confusing, rhetorical language.
The ethnographic study of communication is important, in the sense that they help in
specifying and categorizing certain rules of interaction and interpretation to particular
conversational situations. This might prove helpful in training professionals in knowing how
to act in certain situations.

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Reference
Bowe, H., Martin, K., & Manns, H. (2014). Communication across cultures: mutual
understanding in a global world. Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Vol.
4). Cambridge university press.
Calvo, A., Bialystok, E. (2014). Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic
status on language ability and executive functioning, Cognition, York University,
Canada, 130, 278-288.
Carbaugh, D., & Boromisza-Habashi, D. (2015). Ethnography of Communication. The
International Encyclopedia Of Language And Social Interaction, 1-16. doi:
10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi119
Creese, A. Linguistic Ethnography. Encyclopedia Of Language And Education, 3424-3436.
doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_257
Creese A., Copland F. (2017) Linguistic Ethnography. In: King K., Lai YJ., May S. (eds)
Research Methods in Language and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and
Education (3rd ed.). Springer, Cham
Holmes, J. (2013). An introduction to sociolinguistics (4th ed.). London, England: Routledge.
Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Routledge.
Keller, J. D. (1999). Anthropological linguistics: An introduction. American
Anthropologist, 101(1), 197-198.
McCarty, T. L. (Ed.). (2014). Ethnography and language policy. Routledge.

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Rochemont, M. (2014). A Theory of Stylistic Rules in English (RLE Linguistics A: General
Linguistics). Routledge.
Saville-Troike, M. (2008). The ethnography of communication: An introduction (Vol. 14).
John Wiley & Sons.
Wardhaugh, R. & Fuller, J. M. (2014). An introduction to sociolinguistics,7th edition. Malden,
MA, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Part III. Language and Interaction. Chapters 9 to 11.