Speech genres and cultural value in the Anglo-American public speaking course as a site of language socialization

Abstract

ABSTRACTSpeech genres have a significant role in socializing children and adults not only to speak in culturally appropriate ways but also to present desirable identities. We analyze narratives of self-transformation collected in an undergraduate public speaking course in the United States to learn how the acquisition of public speaking as a speech genre contributes to U.S. students’ language socialization. Our study contributes to two traditions of intercultural communication research, one interested in the context-bound, culturally situated character of Anglo-American speech, and another that seeks to explain how local communication resources, including speech genres, travel across cultural boundaries.