Contested Social Identity and Communication in Text and Talk About the Vietnam War

Abstract

Robert S. McNamara's (1995) In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, and the public response to it, provide a rich site for investigating the negotiation of social identities in a speech community in which more than 1 speech code is deployed. Drawing from the ethnography of speaking (Hymes, 1962, 1972, 1974), speech codes theory (Philipsen, 1997; Philipsen, Coutu, & Covarrubias, 2005), and identity construction (Carbaugh, 1996), I demonstrate, within the communication form of a social drama, the articulation, rejection, and then potential resolution of the social identity and appropriate communication of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In so doing, the study contributes to the understanding of how communities with diverse codes manage public discussions about potentially intractable issues.

Notes

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the National Communication Association Convention, Chicago, November 2007, and the “Conversation, Codes, and Cultures: Ethnographic Inquiries” conference, Amherst, Massachusetts, April 2007. For their constructive comments and useful suggestions, I thank the participants at each of these events, Kristine Fitch, and the anonymous reviewers, Gerry Philipsen, Donal Carbaugh, Adam Jaworski, and Chuck Braithwaite. I am grateful to Tema Milstein and Deborah Bassett for their research assistance.