Critique on Speech Codes Theory

By Kindra Krebs

In order to analyze the speech codes theory I am going to rely on Em Griffin, who developed a criteria to determine if a theory was humanist or scientific. According to Griffin's criteria, the speech codes theory is a humanistic theory. What makes a humanistic theory good is if it accomplishes some or all of the following functions:

create understanding in people
inspire aesthetic appreciation
stimulate agreement
change society
identify values

I am also going to rely on Gerry Philipsen, the developer of the speech codes theory, who performed a cross-cultural study. He named these two cultures, Teamsterville and Nacirema, which will be used as examples throughout this web page to help me critique his speech codes theory.

Philipsen tries to create understanding in people through speech codes by analyzing cross cultures. He makes the mistake of addressing culture, in Teamsterville and Nacirema, as a generalization or as a stereotype of people. Instead, he should focus on specific cultures, such as low context culture's or collectivist culture's speech codes.

The speech codes theory does have aesthetic appeal. If Gerry Philipsen had not incorporated his study of Teamsterville and Nacirema cultures into his explanation of the theory, then I would have had a hard time understanding what the speech codes theory was advocating. It is these examples, of Teamsterville and Nacirema, that he provides that makes the speech codes theory easier to understand and comprehend.

A good humanistic theory can be identified by the amount of support it generates within a community of like-minded scholars. I believe that a lot of scholars applaud Philipsen for his long-term study of Teamsterville and Nacirema, but I think some scholars are a little skeptic of what Philipsen did not say. For example, Philipsen did not address the hegemony problem in Teamsterville. He also could have broken the data sets, Teamsterville and Nacirema, down into more than two cultures, since more than two cultures exist.

A good humanistic theory often generates change. Philipsen's speech codes theory does not create change. He describes speech codes as a solid thing. He does not allow for change to occur, especially in Teamsterville and Nacirema. Philipsen uses these two culture's speech codes to analyze and support his claims about the theory. Not once does Philipsen generate a way or suggest these cultures change their speech codes.

A good humanistic theory brings people's values into the open. The speech codes theory does bring people's values into the open. Proposition 1: Whenever there is a distinctive culture, there is to be found a distinctive speech code (434). Thus, people's values are brought into the open when there is a distinctive speech code. For example, this can be found in Philipsen's Teamsterville, where the citizens did not welcome diversity. This displayed that their values were very narrow minded, thus a distinctive speech code of prejudice could be found in their conversations.

After I have compared Gerry Philipsen's speech codes theory to that of Em Griffin’s criteria for determining if the speech code theory is a good humanistic theory or not I have determined that it does not qualify as a "good" humanistic theory. Philipsen fails to create an understanding of people, stimulate agreement with his with scholars, and does not reform society. It is because of this, that I would not qualify Gerry Philipsen's speech codes theory as a good humanist theory.

Links to Other Pages

Here is a link back to Matt's title page on Speech Codes Theory.
Here is a link to where leading scholars, including Gerry Philipsen, present the principle findings and conclusions of along-term program of research into the nature of human communication.

This web page was last revised by Kindra Krebs on March 10, 1999.