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Relationship Thinking: Agency, Enchrony, and Human Sociality
In Relationship Thinking , N. J. Enfield outlines a framework for analyzing social interaction and its linguistic, cultural, and cognitive underpinnings by focusing on human relationships. This is a naturalistic approach to human sociality, grounded in the systematic study of real-time data from social interaction in everyday life. Many of the illustrative examples and analyses in the book are a result of the author's long-term field work in Laos.
Enfield promotes an interdisciplinary approach to studying language, culture, and mind, building on simple but powerful semiotic principles and concentrating on three points of conceptual focus. The first is human the combination of flexibility and accountability, which defines our possibilities for social action and relationships, and which makes the fission and fusion of social units possible. The second is the timescale of conversation in which our social relationships are primarily enacted. The third is human a range of human propensities for social interaction and enduring social relations, grounded in collective commitment to shared norms. Enfield's approach cuts through common dichotomies such as 'cognitive' versus 'behaviorist', or 'public' versus 'private', arguing instead that these are indispensable sides of single phenomena. The result is a set of conceptual tools for analyzing real-time social interaction and linking it with enduring
relationships and their social contexts. The book shows that even - or perhaps especially - the most mundane social interactions yield rich insights into language, culture, and mind.
Enfield promotes an interdisciplinary approach to studying language, culture, and mind, building on simple but powerful semiotic principles and concentrating on three points of conceptual focus. The first is human the combination of flexibility and accountability, which defines our possibilities for social action and relationships, and which makes the fission and fusion of social units possible. The second is the timescale of conversation in which our social relationships are primarily enacted. The third is human a range of human propensities for social interaction and enduring social relations, grounded in collective commitment to shared norms. Enfield's approach cuts through common dichotomies such as 'cognitive' versus 'behaviorist', or 'public' versus 'private', arguing instead that these are indispensable sides of single phenomena. The result is a set of conceptual tools for analyzing real-time social interaction and linking it with enduring
relationships and their social contexts. The book shows that even - or perhaps especially - the most mundane social interactions yield rich insights into language, culture, and mind.
- GenresLinguistics
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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February 25, 2020
I like this book. As usual, I did not make a very close reading, but rather skimmed it to get the main ideas. I will have to re-read some parts of it more closely though.
I liked how the chapters made a logical progression, with the next chapter building on what came before. And the theories and models are clearly laid out with illustrative examples.
One of the points about the book is to launch the term Enchrony (is it because his name is Enfield?), which I understand as a level of analysis about how a communicative act is always enmeshed with what precedes it and what is expected to come next. Seeing in a way an act and its response as a single unit in communication. Probably not a new idea, but it seems like a useful term.
"An enchronic perspective on human communication focuses on sequences of interlocking or interdependent communicative moves that are taken to be co-relevant, and causally-conditionally related"
I liked how the chapters made a logical progression, with the next chapter building on what came before. And the theories and models are clearly laid out with illustrative examples.
One of the points about the book is to launch the term Enchrony (is it because his name is Enfield?), which I understand as a level of analysis about how a communicative act is always enmeshed with what precedes it and what is expected to come next. Seeing in a way an act and its response as a single unit in communication. Probably not a new idea, but it seems like a useful term.
"An enchronic perspective on human communication focuses on sequences of interlocking or interdependent communicative moves that are taken to be co-relevant, and causally-conditionally related"
Displaying 1 of 1 review