Verbal Communication and Leader

Employing Linguistic Anthropology Theories There are myriad facets of the cultural ramifications for linguistics and its convergence with anthropology. As such, these cultural consequences pertain to people in various nation states and the verbal expression that reflects how people communicate in those countries. The early 2000's film The Italian Job offers an accurate portrayal of certain linguistic tendencies evinced within American culture. Specifically, it delineates certain facets of power within social constructs as it applies to the way people speak to one another.

A close analysis of these proclivities reveals that three linguistic anthropology theories -- remaining polite and clear when speaking to others to demonstrate competency as a speaker, turn-taking among various participants, and deploying bald directives as a means of demonstrating power -- abound more than others do. All of these theories are manifest in this film to prove that the leader of the group attempting to steal stolen gold is a suitable leader.

One of the important linguistic anthropology theories used in The Italian Job is the practice of speaking politely and clearly to others. The notion behind this particular theory is that those who are able to do so are considered competent speakers. There are approximately two forms of this sort of politeness, one of which is deemed positive, and the other which is deemed negative.

Charlie, the leader of the team that is attempting to steal gold from Steve, practices both forms in the initial sequence in which introduces Stella to meet the rest of his team, which is indicative of his competence as leader of his group. One of the primary ways of practicing what effectively functions as a virtue is by including others with oneself when describing the sort of tasks that are required.

Charlie is unequivocally the leader of this group, and has a substantially greater amount of hegemony and social authority over the others -- who are essentially working for him. Still, he practices competent speaking by including them in his statements, which underscores a degree of solidarity amongst the group that evinces both politeness and clarity. When he and his team are initially scouting out the residence of Steve, Charlie says, "We need an in to get a video blueprint of the interior" (The Powers, 2001, p. 18).

He could have very easily modified this statement to convey the fact that as team leader, he needed that "in." However, he chooses to use the pronoun "we" instead to include the group in his ambitions, which also reinforces a degree of politeness and clarity to his verbal communication. As such, he has demonstrated that he is a competent speaker and, perhaps even more, the fact that he is in essence a competent leader.

The amount of turn-taking that occurs among different participants is another fairly important linguistic anthropology theory that is readily deployed in The Italian Job to demonstrate that Charlie is unambiguously the leader of his team. Turn-taking among groups denotes social constructs of power. It is evaluated in a number of different ways that involve both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Therefore, it is extremely significant that in the foregoing scene Charlie speaks five times; no other characters speaks more than twice, while one character only speaks once (with just two words) (The Powers, 2001, p. 17-18). The fact that Charlie has more turns to speak than the others implies that there is a preeminence associated with his conversation that outstrips those of the others -- because he is their leader. As previously alluded to, the amount of speech that a person has is also a significant consideration when evaluating turn-taking.

Most characters simply give affirmative responses to Charlie, who in turn issues at least one detailed, fairly lengthy speech. Qualitatively, it is vital to note what the speech in the various turns that the characters have is about. Charlie is issuing directives. The vast majority of the characters in this scene are simply responding to them. Furthermore, it is also significant to realize that during the scene, Charlie is speaking to the other characters, who are waiting their turn to reply to them.

Thus, the power structure in this conversation buttresses the reality that Charlie is the leader. There is just one exchange when the other characters speak to each other. In all the other exchanges, they are merely answering Charlie's questions. The combination of these qualitative and quantitative factors solidifies the fact that Charlie has a degree of social salience in the group, predominantly because he is its leader.

Finally, the linguistic anthropology theory that is readily evinced in The Italian Job is related to the usage of directives, and of bald directives in particular, to denote power constructs and the relationships between characters. In the aforementioned scene, Charlie utilizes directives to demonstrate that he has a degree of control in the conversations with the characters that is emblematic of his control over the group. Earlier in the scene, when he is driving with Stella, he utilizes directives for much the same purpose.

The fact that he issues bald directives underpins the notion that the power reflected in his conversation mirrors the power he has over her as leader of her group. Actually, the deployment of bald directives is extremely informative to the reader who might otherwise believe that since Stella is driving a car in the scene, that she has some sort of hegemony over Charlie.

Despite the fact that he is in the passenger seat, Charlie makes it clear that he is in control by guiding Stella with a series of Bald directives. "Left," he tells her (The Powers, 2001, p. 14). "Another left," (The Powers, 2001, p. 14) he adds the next time he speaks to her. Charlie's leadership positioned is proven by the fact that Stella readily follows his directives and guides the car accordingly. She does not even know.