Speech Code Theory describes a “historically enacted, socially constructed system of terms, meanings, premises, and rules pertaining to communicative conduct”. It examines how people communicate based on societal, culture, gender, and other key factors. The theory relies on six philosophical pillars. For example, the first proposition, called the distinctiveness of speech code, states that for each culture there will be a distinctive speech code. Consider the example of the use of the world football. In America, football describes the hard-hitting, gridiron game. Outside of the United States, football describes what Americans call soccer. These cultural differences have led to people describing the same sport with different words.
A standpoint is a place from which to critically view the world around us. Standpoint theorists suggest that we can use the inequalities of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation to observe how different locations within the social hierarchy tend to generate distinctive accounts of nature and social relationships. This theory encourages the idea that you can gain more knowledge and a better perspective from those less powerful than you than those who are more powerful. An example of this are service trips. My oldest sister went on a trip to South Africa when she was in high school and it had a major impact on her and how she sees the world and people around her. It changed her perspective on how thankful she needed to be for everything in her life.
Sandra Harding and Julia T. Wood, creators of the standpoint theory, believe that the best way to discover and learn how the world works is through looking from the standpoints of women and other groups on the margins of society. A standpoint is defined as a place from which to critically view the world around us (447). All standpoints or perspectives in life are partial, but some are more so because of different locations or social hierarchies, which affect what is likely to be seen. Harding and Wood delve more deeply into the standpoints of women and minorities, but are quick to defend that not all people within these groups have the same standpoint. A good example of the standpoint theory is in The Help. The movie is told from the perspective of a southern society girl, so she obviously meets the women checkpoint, but then she also interviews black women from the town who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. If this story was told from the perspective of a male, it would have been very different. And, if she would have interviewed white women during the time, it also would have been very different. Their standpoints are what make all the difference. Below is a trailer to the movie.
A standpoint is a place from which to view the world that determines what we focus on as well as what is obscured from us. Sandra Harding and Julia Wood claim that the social groups to which we belong shape what we know and how we communicate. Standpoint theorists suggest that societal inequalities generate distinctive accounts of nature and social relationships and it also suggests thatthe perspective from the lives of the less powerful can provide a more objective view than the perspective from the lives of the more powerful.Wood offers two reasons why the standpoints ofmarginalized groups are less partial, distorted, and false than those of men in dominant positions. The first one is that marginalized people have more motivation to understand the perspective of the powerful than vice versa. The second one is that marginalized people have little reason to defend the status quo. There is a famous story of Emperor Hui of Jin. Hui of Jin is the king of Jin dynasty in ancient China. The whole state suffered from poverty under his ruling. His minister reports to him that people can not afford to have rice. Then he replied, why not have meat? This is a great example of standpoint theorists. The king himself stands in a privileged position and he does not have the motivation nor the opportunity to experience the life that his people have.
Standpoint Theory is a theory explained by Harding and Wood in the communication theory text book. It is a theory that explains that different people’s perspective in life and their view point impacts their views on different social situations. This theory states that people’s experiences impact their viewpoint on perception. This can be impacted by gender, race, socioeconomic status, or sexual orientation. One example of this is in the Movie Mean Girls, however, her standpoint is impacted by her nationality. Cady, the main character, was from Africa and was now in an American high school. This was a culture shock to her and she viewed the people in the cafeteria (or at the mall) in terms of jungle animals. The reason for this was because that was what she had experience with. This following clip is from the cafeteria scene.
Harding and Wood define standpoint as “a place from which to critically view the world around us”. They also define local knowledge as “knowledge situated in time, place, experience, and relative power, as opposed to knowledge from nowhere that’s supposedly value-free”. In the movie “Remember the Titans” the standpoint that whites have on the topic of race is quite clear. They discriminate heavily against the black football players. These African American players and coaches have local knowledge of how it feels to be treated this way. They have experienced it first hand and it is not knowledge that is available to anyone. Although the coach in this scene is white and has not experienced the treatment first hand, he does his best to understand the standpoint of his players and defends them when they are treated unfairly. African Americans, like women, are a marginalized group that have knowledge and a view of the world that people not in the group can’t ever fully understand. Remember the Titans
Sandra Harding and Julia T. Wood, both standpoint theorists, claim that one of the best ways to discover how the world works is to start the inquiry from the standpoint of women and other groups on the margins of society. A standpoint is a place from which to critically view the world around us. Standpoint theorists believe that “people at the top of the societal hierarchy are the ones privileged to define what it means to be female, male, black, homosexual or anything else in a given culture.”
The movie “Remember the Titans” offers a variety of different standpoints but the director does a very good job on portraying the differences standpoints of the African- Americans and white people, in this particular movie, who have completely different opinions on topics as their white/black acquaintances. When Herman Boone, the new head coach, is surprisingly (surprisingly, because he is black) hired, the white team members and their parents threaten to quit the team, transfer schools etc. This scene shows how white people, who believe that they are at the top of the societal hierarchy, are the ones privileged enough to define what a) is good for this program without even meeting the coach or knowing his bio and b) it means to be a minority in the society.
Attached you will find the clip where Coach Boone gives a very inspirational speech to his team and finally unites his team, regardless of the racial prejudices in the community.
The concept of genderlect made me think of the movie, Guilt Trip, that came out a few years ago about a son going on a road trip for interviews to pursue his dreams and make it big. His mom decides that it would be fun for her to go with him. This creates some problems, especially at the offices in which he has interviews, because he is conceded with his status and seeming professional while his mom is calling him names like “sweeties” and telling him that she loves him. She gives this kind of encouragement all throughout the movie even though her son begs her to stop, and he continuously is hateful and hurtful to his mom in his strong comments that he uses to respond to her over the top sweet gestures. This constant cycle of such differing communication cycles is never ending and hurtful to both parties. At the end of the movie they realize that each has good intentions and that they should try to compromise and be more understanding of the different ways that they each communicate and show love to each others.
Speech code is a historically enacted, socially constructed system of terms, meanings, premises, and rules pertaining to communicative conduct. Philipsen’s account of his encounters with the Teamsterville and Nacirema groups reminds me of last summer when I spent several weeks up North with some friends I have made over past summers. I spent time in both Maine and New Hampshire with different friends and picked up some similar speech patterns in the communication of both of those friends that are not common in communication in the South. One example is the use of the word “wicked.” When I think of that word, I think of something similar to the wicked witch of the west, but their use of wicked implies that something is really awesome. The same situation of cultural differences in communication was true on their end as well though. For example, while I really barely have a Southern accent at all, to them it was very strong, and they therefore thought I said words like lawyer and vehicle really weird. Overall, it was just a really interesting experience to see how differing cultures had shaped our perceptions of and pronunciations of the exact same words.
Sandra Harding and Julia T. Wood’s Standpoint Theory focuses on understanding the different communications theories we have talked about by looking at which standpoint, or viewpoint/perspective, we are holding. Harding and Wood focus on the feminist standpoint. They focus on this due to the gender inequality that flows across many cultures and greatly affects communication. They believe the standpoint of those in marginalized groups is the most important to look at as the dominant groups try to convey messages to keep the current status quo, and this is the idea of strong objectivity. They give a very good example of how standpoint affects how messages are conveyed and understood when talking about the white male slave-owner versus the black female slave. Rightly they assume that a book about slavery by the slave-owner versus the slave would read very, very differently due to their respective standpoints. When thinking of the standpoint theory it made me think of how the U.S., a dominant world power, perceives the women of Saudi Arabia to be very oppressed as they cannot drive and have to constantly cover their bodies and face (American standpoint). However, many women of Saudi Arabia, a marginalized group, due to their culture embrace this life and even talk of how they feel that their attire and certain “oppressions” make them feel safe and comfortable (Saudi woman standpoint). The video below uses documentary film to explore a completely different standpoint/perception of the “oppression” of Muslim women in Saudi Arabia, and how in fact many American standpoints are in fact false when looking at this particular marginalized group of people.
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