According to Cheris Kramarae, language is a man-made construction, thus “women’s words are discounted in our society; women’s thoughts are devalued.” So, women are the muted group in this muted group theory. Muted group is defined as “people belonging to low power groups who must change their language when communicating publicly, thus, their ideas are often overlooked.” Kramarae lists three women’s stories about how they have to change their style of communication so they are heard and respected among the other men. Kramarae states that women with less self-confidence than these three women have a tough time working through the system organized by men. This relates to the events in The Devil Wears Prada. Andy lands the job that every girl in New York wants to have. However, she does not fit in at the workplace at all because of the way she looks and the fact that she doesn’t understand fashion. Along with everyone else she works with, Andy’s boss, Miranda, treats her poorly and makes fun of her terrible outfit choices. Miranda also makes Andy do almost impossible jobs, for example, assigning her the task to fly Miranda home in a huge thunderstorm. Although Miranda is a woman, Andy is still part of the muted group because she doesn’t speak up and say anything to defend herself.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1220608025/

Sandra Harding and Julia Wood are standpoint theorists who claim that, “the social groups within which we are located powerfully shape what we experience and know as well as how we understand and communicate with ourselves, others, and the world.” In essence, our standpoint shapes our view of the world. For example, Georg Hegel found that “what people ‘know’ about themselves, others, and society depends on which group they are in.” The group they are in also defines their standpoint. This relates to the movie, Planet of the Apes, because of the different standpoints Caesar, the main ape, experiences. Caesar acts out in violence so he has to go to a facility where other misbehaved apes were placed as well. However, Caesar does not know how to react around these other apes since he was raised by humans. He never had the normal standpoint of the apes so he is confused and scared.

Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don’t Understand, researched the differences between the way men and women communicate with each other. According to Tannen, when adult men and women are communicating with each other they are “tuned to different frequencies” and are speaking “different words from different worlds.” As Tannen studied men and women in conversation, she discovered that men are focused on being superior to everyone else while women are more focused on creating relationships and connections. There are five different topics that Tannen talks about which show the differences between men and women. The first one is private vs public speaking. She states that women usually have a rapport style of talking which is based on making a connection with the other person. Men usually have a report style which is used to command the attention of everyone in the room. The second topic is story telling. Tannen talks about how men tell more stories than women do, and when their stories aren’t jokes they (the men) are usually the heroes in the stories they are telling. Topic number three is all about listening and how it always seems that women pay more attention to what people are saying. This is because of the short phrases women interject into a conversation while the other person is talking, for example, “yeah” or “uh-huh.” The fourth topic has to do with asking questions. Men never ask for help, especially for directions, because it “whittles away at the image of self-sufficiency that is so important to a man.” The final topic is about conflict and how men don’t mind conflict since they see life as a contest.

This cartoon shows a little boy asking his grandma why moses wandered in the desert for forty years, to which she responds, “Because even back then men wouldn’t ask for directions.” This goes under Tannen’s fourth point about asking questions. Men think that asking for help will make them seem less superior to everyone else, so they never ask for help.

Gerry Philipsen defines a speech code as “a historically enacted, socially constructive system of terms, meanings, premises, and rules pertaining to communicative conduct.” Ethnography is used to understand speech codes because without this understanding, one isn’t able to understand the culture and communicate with the people of that culture. Philipsen created six propositions for the speech code. The first one talks about how each distinctive culture has a distinctive speech code. For example, he compared Teamsterville and Nacirema dinner table rituals and how the Teamsterville children are usually silent during dinner while Nacirema children are always talking. The second proposition says how in any community, there can be multiple speech codes. Proposition three talks about psychology, sociology, and rhetoric and their importance to speech codes. In the fourth proposition, Philipsen states, “if we want to understand the significance of a prominent speech practice within a culture, we must listen to the way people talk about it, and respond to it.” Proposition five shows the importance of totemizing rituals to a speech code. The sixth proposition suggests that if one knows the specific speech codes then that will help them “predict or control what others will say and how they’ll interpret what is said.”

In this cartoon, the cavemen have finally learned how to speak and one of them suggests they establish speech codes. Establishing speech codes is important because every culture has different ways of speaking and different slang. By establishing speech codes they are also establishing their culture, in a way.

George Gerbner, creator of the Cultivation Theory, stated “that because TV contains so much violence, people who psend the most time in front of the tube develop an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world.” In essence, television shapes the society we live in. There are different types of TV watchers: the heavy viewers who watch on average four hours of television every day, and light viewers who watch at least two hours of television everyday. Since the heavy viewers watch so much TV everyday, they begin to view the world as they do on TV. As Nancy Signorielli said, “those who spend more time ‘living’ in the world of television are more likely to see the ‘real world’ in terms of the images, values, portrayals and ideologies that emerge through the lens of television.” These heavy viewers are more prone to violence on television since they watch such a large amount everyday which then as a result causes them to have the mean world syndrome. This cynical mindset is when heavy viewers have a “general mistrust of others” because of all the violence they have been exposed to.

In this comic, you can tell the little boy is so entranced in watching the television show, which seems to be violent, because his eyes are huge and he is very close to the screen. This little boy is obviously a heavy viewer because of how he responds to his mothers comment about his head exploding if he watches more violence. The fact that the little boy thinks his head exploding is “cool” shows how the television watching and violence has affected him.

For Roland Barthes, Semiotics “was not a cause, a science a discipline, a school, a movement, nor presumably even a theory” because “it is an adventure.” Semiotics is all about signs, whether they are verbal or nonverbal. Barthes created two other words to go along with sign: signifier and signified. The signifier is the image we see, the signified is the meaning of this image, while the sign is the connection of the two. Charles Peirce, who developed the triadic model of the sign, also described three types of signs: symbolic signs, iconic signs and indexical signs. Symbolic signs “bear no resemblance to the objects to which they refer.” The surrounding culture has to establish the meaning of this object. An example of a symbolic sign is the bathroom symbol. Although it is universally known now, the image on the sign(a man or a woman) has no relevance to the actual meaning of it. Therefore, cultures had to establish the meaning of this symbol. Iconic signs are the exact opposite of symbolic signs because of the fact that these signs “have a resemblance with the objects they portray.” The fast forward button, for example, is an iconic symbol because it portrays the motion of moving forward using arrows pointing to the right. Lastly, indexical signs are those that “are directly connected with their referents spatially, temporally, or by cause and effect.” An indexical example is a rainbow, symbolizing that it just rained.

According to Aristotle, rhetoric is “the art of discovering ways to make truth seem more probable to an audience that isn’t completely convinced.” Aristotle created four different proofs or categories for rhetoric: rhetorical proof, logical proof, ethical proof, and emotional proof. Emotional proof, otherwise known as pathos, is essential in a speech because it can help sway the audience one way or another in the form of emotions. There are many different forms of emotional proof, including “admiration versus envy” which is when the speaker shows how “an individual has acquired life’s goods through hard work rather than mere luck” so that their admiration or self esteem will increase. This form of emotional proof is used in the film, Miracle. Herb Brooks, the coach of the US ice hockey team, delivers a speech at the end of the film right before the team plays the Soviets in the championship game. This speech brings about many emotions for the team in order to inspire them. He starts off by telling the team, “great moments are born from great opportunities” and how this team has earned to be in the championship game. Herb’s delivery builds the team’s confidence for the game. For example, when he tells the team “we are the best hockey team in the world tonight,” he is demonstrating his confidence in them. All of the built up emotions Herb has created are now ready to be released in the rink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmyoMe4iHM

(Start video at 1:40)

Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran strongly encourage group decision making because they believe communication helps the group reach conclusions better than when you are alone. Their theory is called functional perspective which “specifies what communication must accomplish for jointly made decisions to be wise.” In this theory, there are four different functions: analysis of the problem, goal setting, identification of alternatives, and evaluation of positive and negative characteristics. The last function, evaluation of positive and negative characteristics, is when the group tests the benefits and disadvantages of their options.

In this scene from the movie, Bridesmaids, the maid of honor, Annie, is planning the Bachelorette party for Lillian. Annie sends out an email to the other bridesmaids suggesting they go to the lake house, however, she is then bombarded with phone calls from the girls telling her how they want to go to Las Vegas instead. Annie is very hesitant about this because she is low on cash right now so she tries to list the disadvantages of going. She tries to convince the girls that the party should be at the lake house by listing the positives to her plan. This part of the planning is the evaluation of positive and negative characteristics function. This last function of the group planning process is very important because one has to compare the pros and cons to make any effective decision.

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/bridesmaids/planning-the-bachelorette-party/#!cast/

Cognitive Dissonance Theory, created by Leon Festinger, is “a distressing mental state caused by inconsistency between a person’s two beliefs or a belief and an action.” Festinger made three hypotheses to go along with this theory. The second of the three hypothesis is called Postdecision Dissonance. This dissonance is similar to buyer’s remorse. One feels a great amount of tension after they have bought something and starts questioning themselves. However, buying something isn’t always the situation. This type of tension can happen after any difficult decision has been made. After the decision has been made, the person then questions themselves on whether or not they made the right decision.

In the movie, The Sandlot, the main character, Smalls, hits his dads baseball over the fence. After, all of his friends question him about why he did that since that baseball was personally signed by Babe Ruth. Smalls feels instant guilt and he is filled with anger because of his decision to hit the baseball over the fence. Smalls has increased his post decision dissonance because of the fact that he hit his father’s precious signed baseball over the fence where a ferocious dog, otherwise known as The Beast lives.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sandlot+great+bambino

Coordinated Management of Meaning as an interpretive theory has four different examples of ways to define it. One way is called reflexivity, which is when “our actions have effects that bounce back and affect us.” In the text, an example about pollution was used. If we don’t recycle, we are actually harming ourselves since we have to breathe in the air that we polluted. This is the same concept as communication. If we pollute the air with mean phrases, or act cruelly towards someone, in the end these actions will bounce back and affect us.
To depict this theory, I chose a scene from the movie, Mean Girls. In this scene, two of the main characters, Regina George and Cady Heron, start fighting in the street outside their school. This is more of a one sided fight because Regina is the one who is yelling at Cady. Regina tells Cady how everyone thinks she is a “homeschooled jungle freak” and calls her other very mean names. However, Regina isn’t even able to finish her sentence because she gets run over by a bus. Even though this is a very extreme example, I thought this scene fit well with the reflexivity process since Regina’s actions and cruel words bounce back around and affect her instantly.

Mean Girls scene