Interviews: On Defining Words

We've spent time in class talking a lot about symbols and how words are symbols is something I've mentioned a few times already. Two people can be talking about the same thing and using the same words but have a different definition of what that words means about the topic.  This can be an obstacle in communication and in understanding the culture of a person.  It is also something that plays a large role in good interviewing, trying to work out the language of a person.  From Spradley's reading one of the descriptive questions practices is to work out the language of a person and then to begin use it in their way to communicate with them.


When I was doing my interview some of the definitions of words or terms also became big signals to me of what it is I need to define better in order to understand my project and help others to also. The final paragraph of my interview notes  explain this:

A few things I realized when trying to explain my project and questions I have going into the project are how I differentiate culture and identity, what the definitions of each are and how they differ, if at all. It was much easier for my informant to answer questions in terms of culture but I was also not sure and never probed further on what his own definition of culture was. Understanding this or asking this would have helped inform me further on what he meant by certain things or how similar or different our definitions of culture were so we could come to a better mutual understanding of our topics.    

If I were asked to define culture and identity and discuss their differences, my simple response in differentiating the two is that culture is more external (seen by others more easily) and identity is intrapersonal or how one views themselves within the culture. This can be expanded to how outsiders see a group and define it by their culture and within that group there is a similar identity or how they view each other as a part of the whole. I have some more thinking to do about this idea and how I want to use it to further discuss my interests and research on language and its place in both culture and identity, or if all along I've been meaning mostly one thing and what it is that piece of each is. 

I feel as though there are aspects of each that are important to me and it may be that it is culture that is more affected by language than identity is but since it's language that we often use or are left to in defining these intrapersonal feelings it makes it into a language game anyway.  I have many unfinished thoughts about this meaning there will be more to come.  For now, defining words will probably be a three fold activity going from one language to another to actual meaning or feeling behind the words and this will make for some very interesting communication. I'm excited.