Go back to the LSoRB Program Gumperz (1982) has shown that there are different expectations and rights in a conversation in different cultures. The study undertaken here shows cultural differences between two types of Puerto Rican speakers with respect to conventions as to how one carries on a conversation.
This paper examines oral narratives in the speech of 20 Puerto Rican informants ranging in age from 24 to 88 years. Those who are under 60 years (6 females and 5 males) are professionals or social service volunteers having substantial contact with non-Puerto Rican culture in Cleveland. Those who are 60 and over (3 females and 6 males) are retired and/or performing volunteer work, most are of lower income, and at least two are illiterate. The older informants generally lack fluency in English and appear to have very little contact with non-Puerto Rican culture.
Preliminary analysis shows that the older, less educated speakers, who have spent more of their life on the island, are more evasive in their responses to interviewers' questions and prompts, and are more likely to create theirown topics of discussion. In contrast, the younger and middle-aged speakers, who have a higher educational level and have spent more of their life on the mainland United States, are more direct in their responses during the interview. However, most speakers told very effective narratives involving a large amount of complicating action, in addition to orientation and evaluation.
This paper will show that a difference in narrative strategy exists between Puerto Ricans with greater and lesser contact with mainland United States culture. Those Puerto Ricans who maintain Spanish as their primary language and have limited contact with non-Puerto Rican culture tend to deliver more involved narratives with more elaborate evaluation devices, such as historical present or reported direct speech. For example, one narrative told by an 88-year-old man shows historical present beginning on an average of every 6.33 lines, and reported direct speech beginning on an average of every 5.52 lines, during the complicating action portion. Furthermore, these speakers in their senior years are more likely to use one narrative as a springboard for other stories they wish to share, changing topics at will without interviewer prompts.
In contrast, Puerto Ricans with more regular contact with non-Puerto Rican culture, and with much greater fluency in English, tend to limit topics of narratives to those introduced by the interviewer and wait for further prompting after each narrative. The narratives that these younger, generally more highly educated speakers deliver are more direct, and, consequently, less elaborate, showing little or no historical present or reported direct speech.
Go back to the LSoRB Program