Conversation in the Thanksgiving Dinner

Hymes states that, “The interaction of language with social life is viewed as first of all matter of human action” (1974: 45). It means that the primary function of language is its use in social communication. According to Hymes (1974: 55), setting that is spatial and temporal dimension of a speech act and physical situation is an element of speech. However, cultural meaning influences the significance of setting; therefore physical circumstances and the “psychological setting” or scene should be counted. There is reciprocal connection between psychological setting and speech community as they determine one and another.

Hymes also positions the language in the conversation as a system in which it consists of a bounded element that connects and explains one and another. There are three elements in a social conversation which are speech communication, speech events, and speech acts. All these elements are called the hierarchy of conversation elements. Hymes (1974: 51) defines speech community as a group of people who participate in the conversation and they have a common knowledge about the rules to conduct and interpret the speech. People can understand the speech relaying on the context of speech event, such as party, wedding, fight, and seminar. The speech activities with their norms on the speech situation called speech event (Hymes, 1974: 52). Then, a certain kind of speech with its norms fixed on the speech event called speech act.

Basing Hymes’ idea, I will describe the use of language in a thanksgiving dinner in one community. Thus, in this essay I want to answer three questions which are: what kind of speech event is the thanksgiving? What community do they participate in the thanksgiving dinner? What speech act does come up in the thanksgiving dinner conversation?

Findings

Speech Community and Speech Event

There was a thanksgiving dinner, initiated by Jim and Laurie, a couple who involve with international student community. This thanksgiving dinner was a regular thanksgiving dinner when people get together with their family, expressing their thankful to the God and enjoying love and care. As said by Jim, the purpose of the dinner was to provide a home and a family where the international students can celebrate and feel love and care like what people experience in the US during thanksgiving. Thus, it can be said that the thanksgiving dinner that I attended was a kind of family gathering to celebrate thanksgiving moment. However, we were not a real family like our family in our home countries. This family was spatial and temporary, made by Jim and Laurie and for a certain purpose.

So, first of all, Jim and Laurie sent the students of East West Center an invitation to come to their house for thanksgiving celebration. They required the students to register first since the space available was limited. There were 10 students who registered, including me. I knew four of us, two were from Indonesia and another was from Japan. The remain students, I meet them several times since we live in the same dormitory, but I do not know their names. One of them was from China, another was from Iraq, and the rest of them were from Vietnam. So, we came from different countries and cultures, and spoke different languages. There were only two things that make us similar, which were the same purpose to celebrate thanksgiving and we used the same language, English, in the event. We left Hale Manoa lobby at 6.30 PM by Jim and Laurie’s car.

Speech Acts
There was several speech acts presented in the thanksgiving dinner:

1. Greetings
I remember first time when I and my friends met Jim in the lobby, most of us said, “Thank you for inviting.” When we just reached Jim’s house, one of us repeated this greeting by saying, “Thank you for driving.” Similarly, when one friend of mine gave Laurie a bag of apple, Laurie said, “Thank you so much.” This sentence was being repeated during the event, for example, when I helped Laurie to pour apple juice into plastic cup, she said, “Great. Thank you.” And, lastly when we finished the dinner, Jim and Laurie said, “Thank you for coming,” while all of the students replied by saying, “Thank you for organizing this dinner.”

As I noticed, “thank you” can emerge many times in the same event, but I think that the particular purpose or meaning of thankful’ utterance was determined by the situations and the personal intention. For example, a greeting such as “thank you for inviting” could be a repetition because for sure we already mentioned it when we replied Jim’s email. For other students the greeting might emphasize that they were happy to have dinner or it could be a polite way to start a conversation since they never known and met Jim before. So, from this speech I can say that the meaning of speech acts may be determined by physical circumstances and the psychological setting or scene.

Another greeting that I noticed is “happy thanksgiving” accompanying with shaking hand or hugging. This greeting closely related to the speech event which is thanksgiving dinner in Jim’s house. This greeting may stand for thanksgiving celebration as well as turkey and pumpkin. When people say “happy thanksgiving” and give us turkey and pumpkin, we can easily notice that we are in the thanksgiving moment. To me who live in Indonesia, we have no thanksgiving; even I never ate turkey before. But, in the US turkey is a sign that means thanksgiving meal.

2. Prayer
This prayer is kind of thankful words to God for everything we get and for the blessing. We were standing circularly around the tables and Jim led the prayer before we had dinner. The prayer word was similar with the prayer that I heard last year when I had thanksgiving dinner in another host family. However, before praying, Jim explained about the purpose of the prayer and in what way he would pray. Since he knew that four of us are Moslem, but he would pray in Christian. “Hope you can understand that I use the way Christian people pray,” he said. I think by saying it in the beginning, Jim attempted to make our gathering appropriate for multicultural and multi-religion understanding. The prayer itself is sign of religion and belief because as a Moslem I have different words to say when I am praying. The prayer also stands for thanksgiving prayer meaning that people will pray the same words when they have thanksgiving celebration.

3. Self Story-Telling
In this event, we were divided into two different tables. One table was with Jim, and another was with Laurie. I had a sit in the same table with Laurie. She talked to us one by one by asking about our activities, focus of study, the place where we come from, and our works. When one of us was being asked, other students were listening and some time get involved in the conversation by asking or adding information. For example, when my friend, Surmi was asked about different types of schooling in Indonesia, I added, “In terms of tuition, private school is more expensive because our government does not provide fund for them.” In this part, I noticed that we took turn to speak politely. We waited for the person who spoke to finish his/her speech fist then another person took his/her turn. I think because we were not so close, so people tend to maintain their politeness instead of doing something that make other feel disappointed or bad. The same thing when Jim took his turn to speak with those who sit in my table. It would be different if we had dinner with our close friends, turn taking in speech would be overlapping. We would not consider other’s feeling and to be polite. Thus, it shows that speech acts is determined by psychological setting and the sender.

4. Singing
In the mid of dinner, Jim took ukulele and gave us a collection of Hawaian song. One of us teased another friend, “Jim, she wanted to play the ukulele.” However Bhen, the lady’s name, did not know how to play ukulele. “No, I cannot play ukulele,” she replied immediately with laughing. Then, Jim played ukulele and we sang together by looking at the song collection. I think by singing, I feel closer to the environment. Song can present the feeling of togetherness, care, and love in the situation and people which I never had before.

5. Joke
Another speech act that I think can show the connection between speech community and psychological setting is joke. Because we were not so close one and another, and came from different countries and background, we did not have much joke presented. One of the jokes that I remember was a speech act spoken by Jim when Surmi introduced her name. So, Surmi’s full name is Surmiyati, and she does not have any family names. “I often have problem because of my name, because you know, family name is the US is important. When I submit any documents, they always ask my family name. That’s way some time I put my father’s name which is Sulaiman as my family name, or Surmiyati Surmiyati, or NFN Surmiyati.” There is a funny story regarding her name when she applied visa in US embassy in Indonesia. They put Jakarta which is Indonesian capital city as her family name. Subsequently we laughed because of Surmi’s story. Then, Jim said, “Well, you were in the US, you will be very famous because famous people only have one name. Like nobody knows what Madonna’s last name is. Only one name, so when you are famous in America you only use one name.” And, we all laughed.

Conclusion
Based on the description, it let me conclude that there is reciprocal connection between speech acts, speech event, and speech community. Particularly, speech acts presented in the dinner which are greeting, prayer, self story-telling, singing, and joke, are determined by the element of speech, such as the speaker, the setting, and the message content. So, it means that language with its function for social communication does not appear with empty circumstances but it is influenced and determined by what is ongoing in there.

Reference: Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations in Sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.