Conversational style and gesture: exploring the role of communication in shaping, maintaining and reinforcing American Jewish identity

Abstract

This essay examines the little explored relationship between communication and Jewish identity, using communication as a means through which to open a discussion on the state of American Jewish identity in the twenty-first century. Focusing in particular on the topics of conversational style and gesture, this paper draws both on historical studies of Jewish behaviour and a contemporary analysis of the television sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm to determine the extent to which identifiably Jewish behaviours continue to be seen in the United States, before seeking to explore the impact of these behaviours on shaping, maintaining and reinforcing American Jewish identity.

Keywords:

• communication
• conversational style
• gesture
• American Jewry
• identity
• assimilation

Notes

1. Fearon, J. D., “What is Identity (as we now use the word)?” DRAFT (1999), http://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/papers/iden1v2.pdf (accessed July 15 2013), 1–45 (36); Stets, J. E. and Burke, P. J., “A Sociological Approach to Self and Identity,” in Handbook of Self and Identity, ed. Leary, M. R. and Tangney, J. P. (New York: The Guilford Press, 2003), 128–153 (128).

2. Stryker, S., Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version (Menlo Park: Benjamin/Cummings, 1980), 60.

3. Sanders, J. M., “Ethnic Boundaries and Identities in Plural Societies,” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002), 327–57 (328).

4. Waxman, C., Jewish Baby Boomers: A Communal Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 116–7; for a discussion of some of the challenges facing contemporary American Jewry see Lerner, M. (ed.) Best Contemporary Jewish Writing (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001).

5. For more on straight-line theory see Sandberg, N., Ethnic Identity and Assimilation: The Polish-American Community; Case Study of Metropolitan Los Angeles (New York: Praeger, 1974); Sandberg, N., Identity and Assimilation: The Welsh-English Dichotomy, A Case Study (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981).

6. Gans, H. J., “Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2, no. 1 (1979), 1–20 (5).

7. Ibid., 7.

8. Waxman, C., 154.

9. Gans, H. J., 9, 14.

10. Jung, E. and Hecht, M. L., “Elaborating the Communication Theory of Identity: Identity Gaps and Communication Outcomes,” Communication Quarterly 53, no. 2, 265–83 (266).

11. Ibid., 266–7.

12. Hecht, M. L. et al., “A Layered Approach to Ethnicity: Language and Communication,” in The New Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, ed. Giles. H. and Robinson, W. P. (New York: Wiley, 2001), 429–50 (430, 444).

13. Brook, V., Something Ain’t Kosher Here: The Rise of the Jewish Sitcom (Piscataway: Rutgers University Publishing, 2003), 148–9.

14. Tannen, D., “New York Jewish Conversational Style,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 30 (1981), 133–49 (136).

15. Tannen, D., Conversational Style (New York: Ablex, 1984), 2.

16. Ibid., 1.

17. Ibid., 8.

18. Irvine, J. T., “’Style’ as Distinctiveness: The Culture and Ideology of Linguistic Differentiation,” in Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, ed. Eckert, P. and Rickford, J. R. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 21–43 (21–2).

19. Tannen, D., (1984), 10, 19.

20. Irvine, J. T., 23–4.

21. Tannen, D., (1981), 136; (1984) 10.

22. Participants in Tannen’s study: Tannen (Jewish, New York); Peter (Jewish, New York); Steve (Jewish, New York, Peter’s brother); Sally (Jewish, England); David (non-Jewish, Los Angeles); Chad (non-Jewish, Los Angeles).

23. Tannen, D., (1984), 27; Tannen, D., (1981), 137.

24. Tannen, D., (1984), 30–1.

25. Tannen, D., (1981) 134–5.

26. Tannen, D., (1981), 138–42.

27. Becker, A., “The Figure a Sentence Makes” in Discourse and Syntax, ed. Givon, T. (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 18.

28. Tannen, D., (1984), 27.

29. Ibid., 64–6.

30. Ibid., 77.

31. Gerald Goodman, quoted in Tannen, D. (1984), 78.

32. Tannen, D. (1984), 77.

33. Annie Hall (1977). Film. Directed by Woody Allen, USA: MGM.

34. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000) Season 1 Episode 1, The Pants Tent, HBO, 15th October.

35. Tannen, D., (1984), 59.

36. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000) Season 1 Episode 4, The Bracelet, HBO, 5th November.

37. Tannen, D. (1984), 94.

38. Ibid., 87.

39. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001) Season 2 Episode 8, Shaq, HBO, 11th November.

40. Tannen, D. (1981), 143.

41. Tannen, D. (1984), 85–6.

42. Ibid., 84.

43. Ibid., 107–9, 115.

44. Benor, S. B. and Cohen, S. M., “Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity,” Hebrew University College – Jewish Institute of Religion (2009), http://huc.edu/survey/09/docs/Survey%20popular%20paper%20final.pdf (accessed March 20, 2013), 8.

45. Kendon, A., “Gesture and Speech: How they Interact,” in Nonverbal Interaction, ed. Wiemann, J. M. and Harrison, R. P. (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983), 13–46 (13); Kendon, A. Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1.

46. Kendon, A. (2004), 1.

47. Ibid., 15.

48. Ibid., 12.

49. For a greater elaboration of the various communicative purposes of gesture see Kendon, A., “Gesture and Speech: How they Interact” in Nonverbal Interaction, ed. Wiemann, J. M. and Harrison, R. P. (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983), 13–46.

50. Birdwhistell, R. L., “Some Relations between American Kinesics and Spoken American English” in Communication and Culture, ed. Smith, A. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), 182–8 (184).

51. McNeill, D., Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 4.

52. Thomas, K., “Introduction” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Bremmer, J and Rodenburg, H. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 1–14 (6).

53. Kendon, A., (2004), 14.

54. Kendon, A., (1983), 25.

55. Kendon, A., “Gesture” in Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997), 109–28 (112).

56. Mayberry, R. I. and Nicoladis, E., “Gesture Reflects Language Development: Evidence from Bilingual Children” Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, no. 6 (December, 2000), 192–6.

57. Kendon, A., (1983), 31; Kendon, A., (1997), 117.

58. Thomas, K., p. 3; see Mauss, M., “Techniques of the Body” Economics and Society 2, no. 1, 70–88.

59. Kendon, A. (1997), 118.

60. One particular example is the use of the ‘ti faccio un culo cosi’ gesture by the character Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, see The Sopranos (1999), Season 1 Episode 8, The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti, HBO, 28th February.

61. Okrent, A., “Body Language” in Lapham’s Quarterly, http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/body-language.php?page=all (accessed March 11, 2013).

62. Efron, D., Gesture, Race, and Culture: a tentative study of the spatio-temporal and ‘linguistic’ aspects of the gestural behaviour of Eastern Jews and Southern Italians in New York City, living under similar as well as different environmental conditions (The Hague: Mouton, 1972).

63. Kendon, A., (1983), 31.

64. See Boas, F., Race, Language, and Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1940).

65. Efron, D., 21–4.

66. Ibid., 72.

67. Ibid., 79, 89.

68. Ibid., 94.

69. Kendon. A., (2004), 332–3; Efron, D., 82–3.

70. For the comparison between the gestures of traditional Eastern Jews and traditional Southern Italians see Efron, D., 68–105.

71. Okrent, A.

72. Efron, D., 98–9.

73. Okrent, A.

74. Efron, D., 159.

75. Tozzer, A. M., ‘Review: Gesture and Environment. David Efron’ in American Anthropologist 44 (1942), 715–6 (716).

76. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000) Season 1 Episode 9, Affirmative Action, HBO, 10th December.

77. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001) Season 2 Episode 5, The Thong, HBO, 21st October.

78. See Friends (1994–2004), Series 1–10, Warner Bros; Annie Hall.

79. Exchanges between Larry and Jeff occur in the episodes “The Nanny from Hell” (once), “Lewis Needs a Kidney” (twice) and “The Ski Lift” (once).

80. Mayberry, R. I. and Nicolaidis, E., 194.

81. Gumperz, J. J., “The Speech Community” in Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Duranti, A. (Chichester: Blackwell, 2009), 66–73 (66).

82. Ibid., 67.

83. McNeill, D., Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1.

84. Ibid., 2.

85. Lakin, J., Jefferis, V. E., Cheng, C. M., and Chartrand, T. L., “The Chameleon Effect as Social Glue: Evidence for the Evolutionary Significance of Nonconscious Mimicry,” Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour 27, no. 3 (Autumn 2003), 145–162 (145).

86. Lakin, J., Exclusion and Nonconscious Behavioural Mimicry: The Role of Belongingness Threat (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), (Ohio State University, 2003), 1–2.

87. Ibid., 11, 14.

88. Chartrand, T. L. and Bargh, J. A., “The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behaviour Link and Social Interaction,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, no. 6 (1999), 893–910 (893).

89. Ibid., 897.

90. McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., and Cook, J. M., “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks,” Annual Review of Sociology 27 (2001), 415–44.

91. Waxman, C., 94.

92. Jung, E. and Hecht, M. L., 266.

93. Hecht, M. L. and Faulkner, S. L., “Sometimes Jewish, Sometimes Not: The Closeting of Jewish American Identity,” Communication Studies, 51, no. 4, (Winter 2000), 372–87 (372).

94. Jung, E. and Hecht, M. L., 266–7.

95. Hecht, M. L. et al. (2002), 859.