Defining activity type

Activity type is a theoretical construct which contextualises language-in-use, and situates language within broader macro-structures. The construct links linguistic and other communicative practices to their contexts of use, through ‘routinization in communication’ (Luckmann, 2009, p. 267). It is thus a ‘bridging meso-concept’ (Linell, 2010, p. 36) connecting the interaction order to the institutional order. Activity type is underpinned by the observation that in certain contexts of use, similar communicative practices are drawn upon across different instances of communication, and that specific sets or combinations of communicative practices are therefore shaped by a particular communicative context and are, to an extent, predictable through it. In dialogical relation, the use of such sets of communicative practices also contribute to shaping and signalling the context. An activity type is a classificatory label attached to a particular kind of communication that is expected within a particular communicative context. It is an explanatory device for the relation between context and the form(s) of communication typically used within that context.

The construct of activity type has been variously theorised and named within a range of intellectual traditions and academic disciplines. Definitions used include genre (Hymes, 1974), speech genre (Bakhtin, 1986b); language game (Wittgenstein, 1958); frame (Goffman, 1974); communicative genre (Luckmann, 2009); speech event (Hymes, 1974); discourse event (Blum- Kulka, 2005); activity type (Levinson, 1979); and communicative activity type (Linell, 2010). According to Bauman (2006), the concept of genre was first advanced in literary criticism by the Grimms, who in the early nineteenth century classified literary narratives into the genres of legend, myth, and fairy tale on the basis of their functional and formal properties. Notions of genre as a means of classifying literatures were expanded on by early linguistic anthropologists such as Boas and Malinowski, who classified different kinds of spoken narratives encountered in societies (Bauman, 2006). This approach was substantively developed and theorised by Hymes, who included genre as a component of his ‘ethnography of communication’ framework for investigating language use in specific social and cultural settings (Hymes, 1974).

The focus on genres in speech within linguistic anthropology mirrored the thought of Bakhtin, who argued that genre exists not only in literature but also in speech:

Language is realized in the form of individual concrete utterances (oral and written) by participants in the various areas of human activity. These utterances reflect the specific conditions and goals of each such area not only through their content (thematic) and linguistic style, that is, the selection of the lexical, phraseological and grammatical resources of the language, but above all through their compositional structure. All three of these aspects – thematic content, style, and compositional structure – are inseparably linked to the whole of the utterance and are equally determined by the specific nature of the particular sphere of communication. Each separate utterance is individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech genres. (Bakhtin, 1986b, p. 60)

Bakhtin conceptualises genre as ubiquitous, a characteristic of all language use (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986a). Through speech genres, an individual’s choice of how to formulate his utterance, and how to interpret the utterances of others, is regulated by typicality: ‘in the genre the word acquires a particular typical expression. Genres correspond to typical situations of speech communication, typical themes, and consequently, also to particular contacts between the meanings of words and actual concrete reality under certain typical circumstances’ (Bakhtin, 1986b, p. 87). Bakhtin argued that all forms of speech and language use are organised into

different kinds, manifest in different communicative situations, each of which will have its appropriate kind of language and its own terms of art, implied meanings etc.

This conception of genre or activity type as organising interaction is shared by Goffman, although Goffman adopts a broader perspective, considering social interaction more generally:

I assume that when individuals attend to any current situation, they face the question: “What is it that’s going on here?” Whether asked explicitly, as in times of confusion and doubt, or tacitly, during occasions of usual certitude, the question is put and the answer to it is presumed by the way that individuals then proceed to get on with the affairs at hand. (Goffman, 1974, p. 8)

Goffman is referring to his concept of ‘frames’, which as discussed in Chapter Two (section 2.5.2), are important contextualizing resources in intercultural communication. The notion of ‘frame’ emphasises the formative or constraining effect that genre has on social interaction, but also its supportive function: having recognised the interactional frame that they are engaged in, participants in a communicative encounter will usually modify their behaviour and communication (their “footing”, Goffman, 1981a, p. 128) to fit within generic expectations for that frame, ensuring that the interaction proceeds more smoothly. Goffman’s focus is on the level of social interaction and social behaviour (implicitly taking in language and other forms of communication), and Bakhtin focuses more on how language is employed within social interaction; their ideas, however, mirror each other.

Others hold that genre is not ubiquitously applicable, but relates only to interaction that is purposeful, or that has a specific function. Levinson, an interactional sociolinguist, adopts this stance in his concept of ‘activity type’ (Levinson, 1979), choosing a different terminology to acknowledge that communication takes place through a variety of modes, speech being only one of the possibilities. The concept of activity type declares a focus on purpose: activity type is ‘a fuzzy category whose focal members are goal-defined, socially constituted, bounded, events with constraints on participants, setting and so on, but above all on the kinds of allowable contributions’ (Levinson, 1979, p. 368, italics in original; my emphasis). Within activity types, constraints exist on (a) goals/purposes, (b) roles activated in the activity, (c) sequential structure or stages, and (d) participants and setting (Levinson, 1979). The concept of activity type expresses the idea that the purpose(s) or function(s) of an interaction constrains the type of communicative resources that can be used, and how they can be used: structural elements of the interaction such as organising phases and sequencing of these, allocation of speaking turns, how contributions are

judged to be functionally adequate, and how topical cohesion is achieved are ‘rationally and functionally adapted to the point or goal of the activity in question' (Levinson, 1979, p. 369). Whilst there is normally an overarching purpose for the interaction that is shared by all participants, it does not necessarily follow that all parties have the same goals, or that the interaction is inherently co-operative. Levinson (1979) discusses the example of a cross- examination in a British criminal court, within which the defendant and the prosecuting barrister are both engaged in the same interaction, with the shared overarching purpose of giving and obtaining evidence for the case at hand, but in relation to which the prosecuting barrister and the defendant have very different goals. This interaction is normally characterised by questions and answers in a sometimes confrontational style, and although the defendant probably does not welcome the confrontation, he or she will be expecting it; it forms part of the communicative style of the activity type. The observation is relevant to this study of legal advice-giving, in that the interaction is purpose-driven, and on one level both lawyer and client have a shared goal (to give and receive legal advice), although at a deeper level it is possible that lawyer and client may have very different goals for the interaction. 3.3.2 A culturally specific construct?

Practice-oriented perspectives on genre or activity type view the construct as ‘a guiding framework for communicative practice’ (Bauman, 2006, p. 753), and ‘a mechanism for the regimentation of participation in communicative interaction’ (p. 753) within particular communities. They operate in this way due to the recurrent nature of the communicative situation, which gives rise to shared conventions amongst a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) whose members are regularly involved in that type of communicative situation, as to the most appropriate ways of communicating in that situation. As Gumperz notes:

Knowledge of the conversational activity entails expectations about possible goals or outcomes for the interaction, about what information is salient and how it is likely to be signalled, about relevant aspects of interpersonal relations, and about what will count as normal behaviour. (Gumperz, 1982b, p. 101)

For this reason, activity type is often viewed as a culturally specific construct, which, it is theorised, gives rise to the potential for communicative misunderstanding when someone unfamiliar with the culture (and the norms of interaction within the activity) communicates in a context typified by generic communication. The ‘activity-specific rules of inference’ (Levinson, 1979, p. 393) are unlikely to be known to cultural outsiders.

Illustrating this, in an analysis of job interviews with local English speaking, and ethnic minority English L2 speaking, candidates in a company in the British midlands, Gumperz (1992) examined the use of and responses to contextualization cues (see Chapter Two, section 2.5.2) by individuals from the two groups. The inability of the ethnic minority candidates to recognise and respond correctly to contextualization cues such as specific uses of register (matching informality with informality in greetings) and prosody (recognizing stress on key words as an implied request for the candidate to offer further information on that subject) resulted in their performance at interview being judged more negatively by the interview panel. Gumperz concluded that the ethnic minority candidates failed because they were unfamiliar with the expected communicative norms (activity type) of the interview. Gumperz’s study supports the argument that only those familiar with the culture that the norms of an activity type are shared within are able to successfully function within, and manipulate the resources of, the activity type. In fact, repeated correct use of the particular generic resources creates and/or reinforces the culture and the activity type. If correct, this finding is relevant to this study, which may involve clients with little knowledge of the activity type norms in legal advice-giving in the English law context.

Such a conception of the relation between activity type and culture, however, arguably views both constructs as relatively fixed, stable and unchanging: it assumes that there are fixed ideas circulating about “the culture of the British job interview” and “the correct activity type” that should be used for communication within it. Gumperz’s study, which has been built on by subsequent work (Baptiste & Seig, 2007; Jupp, Roberts, & Cook-Gumperz, 1982; Roberts & Sarangi, 2003), can alternatively be interpreted as illustrating inflexibility or lack of fluidity in the particular institutional activity type (and culture) of the British job interview. In this perspective, there is a strong connection between the findings of Gumperz’s study and the institutional, gatekeeping function of the interactions: hierarchies of power, and the linked prestige and consequent inflexibility of the style of communication that is the expected ‘norm’ in the job interview, play a role in determining the outcome (Roberts, 2009). Purpose-driven communication and communicative inflexibility associated with institutional processes is characteristic of many institutional settings, and makes the construct of activity type relatively easily observable in institutional communication (Blommaert, 2009; Maryns & Blommaert, 2002; Sarangi & Slembrouck, 1996). However, and for that reason, focusing exclusively on institutional contexts can also lead to an oversimplified conception of what activity type is and how it operates. 3.3.3 A fuzzy and fluid construct Contesting this view of fixedness, in a seminal paper applying Bakhtin’s ideas on intertextuality (‘the relational process by which texts relate to each other’’ ’Rock, 2013, p. 80, drawing on

Bauman, 2004 and Gee, 2005) to studies of genre in linguistic anthropology, Briggs and Bauman (1992) point out that genre is ‘quintessentially intertextual’ (Briggs & Bauman, 1992, p. 147) and not as stable as some might like to think. They argue that genres-in-practice are manifestations of intertextuality, since the generic ‘ideal’ of how to communicate in a particular context is drawn upon and repeatedly performed in individual communicative acts. As such, particular performances are never exactly the same but display ‘intertextual gaps’ (Briggs & Bauman, 1992, p. 149) between the actual performance and the generic ideal that it is modelled on. Formulated another way, genres ‘leak’ (Lefstein & Snell, 2011, p. 41), in that the reality never matches the ideal, but always approximates it. These intertextual gaps are deliberately manipulated to express either innovation or resistance to authority (if the ‘gap’ is maximised) or adherence to tradition and/or respect for authority (if the ‘gap’ is minimised). Thus, Briggs and Bauman argue that ‘generic intertextuality cannot be adequately understood in terms of formal and functional patterning alone – questions of ideology, political economy, and power must be addressed as well if we are to grasp the nature of intertextual relations’ (Briggs & Bauman, 1992, p. 159). In this perspective, genre is not inherently fixed or bounded, but can be open, flexible, and ambiguous. Where fixedness is encountered, such as with the inflexibility of generic forms of communication in institutional settings like those studied by Gumperz, this may well be associated with the hierarchies of power operational within such settings.

In line with Briggs and Bauman’s (1992) thought, studies of activity type or genre have increasingly explored the dynamic and contingent nature of social interaction, with views of activity type becoming ‘flexible, contingent and emergent’ (Bauman, 2006, p. 757). The fluidity or ‘fuzziness’ (Lefstein & Snell, 2011) of activity type or genre has been observed in studies within a range of interactional situations, leading to more complex conceptions of genre and its relation to context. Lefstein and Snell (2011) examine the leaking of the popular culture genre of the TV talent show into a primary school literacy lesson. The authors argue that a video recording of a lesson in which the teacher organised peer feedback on one pupil’s written story in the style of an episode of the TV show ‘X-Factor’, reflected Bakhtin’s view of genres as potentially complex, ‘absorbing and digesting’ (Briggs & Bauman, 1992, p. 145) other generic types in a form of hybridity. In this, speaker agency is central in bringing in other generic forms (and hence other contexts), underlining that genres do not exist in and of themselves: they are brought into being interactionally and performatively by the parties in an example of context being brought into interaction and actively negotiated (see section 3.2). Blum-Kulka’s (2005) analysis of family dinner table conversation and children’s play in a school setting also illustrates the fluidity of genres/activity types, with rapid shifting across and between genres and contexts taking place through dialogue. Blum-Kulka argues that speech genres are ‘cultural constructs’, and ‘their

degree of structural and functional stabilization may vary with discourse worlds’ (Blum-Kulka, 2005, p. 283), with institutional settings exhibiting the most stable and distinguishable genres. Sarangi (2000) argues for balance between fixedness and fluidity in institutional activity types in a discussion of the analysis of genetic counselling talk. Sarangi observes that genetic counselling interactions involve three different phases or ‘critical moments’ (p. 23), of (a) information giving (within which information is itself ‘structurally packaged’ into four different ‘modes of explanation’ (p. 18)), (b) advice seeking, and (c) decision making, with each phase being characterised by the use of a distinct ‘discourse type’ ('specific manifestations of language form in their interactional contexts', Sarangi, 2000, p. 1 following Fairclough, 1992). Sarangi acknowledges that discourse types are embedded within activity types, and can occupy ‘focal positions’ (p. 14) within them, but also argues that ‘the same discourse type can occur in different activity types and may receive differential treatment’ (p. 14). Sarangi argues that activity types demonstrate hybridity even in professional and institutional settings, and this in part derives from different ‘discourse types’ being drawn on within and across activities. The combination of Levinson’s activity type framework, and analysis of the use of different discourse types within activity types, provides (in Sarangi’s view) a more sophisticated conceptualization of the generic variation observable in institutional discourse.

Linell’s (2010) notion of ‘communicative activity type’ (p. 33) synthesises many of the approaches discussed above, and is the conceptualization used in this study. Like Levinson, Linell avoids the term ‘genre’ because of its associations with written and literary texts, using the term communicative activity type (CAT), to express the embeddedness of communication in social activity and the range of semiotic resources that can be drawn on, including language. For Linell, a CAT is characterised by (a) a relation to a social situation and encounter which is recognized and often named by participants (e.g. the “performance review”); (b) being framed by specific expectations and purposes; (c) a predictable structuring and ordering of the dialogue, sometimes divided into different sequentially ordered subactivities (‘phases’); and (d) often being linked to, and administered by, institutions or professional or societal organisations (p. 42-3). These categories take the concept close to Levinson’s construct of activity type. However, Linell points out that CATs manifest hybridity in at least three different ways: firstly, they exhibit sequential hybridity in which different CATs follow each other sequentially; secondly, CATs can be embedded within each other in a layering of frames within frames (drawing on Goffman, 1974), which Linell describes using the sub-category of ‘communicative projects’ (Linell, 2010, p. 36); and thirdly, there can be a merging of CATs with participants orienting to several frames simultaneously (Linell, 2010 drawing on Sarangi, 2000). Linell also points out that most CATs exhibit some form

of asymmetry, with one party doing more ‘communicative labour’ (p. 39) than others; however in spite of this, contributions are complementary and there is collective accomplishment. Linell illustrates his approach by analysing a series of ‘train traffic control calls’ made within the Swedish rail network, noting three aspects: the set sequential structure of the calls, which nevertheless exhibit variation depending on the exact purpose of the call and the degree of urgency of the message; the blending of the usual formal style with occasional informality; and the asymmetrical nature of much of the communication set against the complementarity of the participant roles. I find Linell’s CAT model the most useful to apply to legal advice interactions, since it combines a focus on an overarching discursive structure with a recognition that such structures are internally complex, fluid and situationally responsive.

3.3.4 Using the construct of communicative activity type in analysis of legal advice in an