Book Description

One of the most fascinating of the many subcultures of North America is that of the French-speaking Acadians. TALKING ACADIAN: Communication, Work and Culture, by John Chetro-Szivos looks into the lives of the French-speaking American Acadians, particularly those who left eastern Canada to settle in Massachusetts in the 1960s. This book captures their feelings about family life and their values, mores and morals. It traces the ways they use communication to develop and maintain their culture. What the reader learns is that to talk about Acadians you must talk about work. This group gives us new insights into the world of work - a central feature of living for the Acadians and crucial to their self-definition. There are few sources about this culture and their experiences in the United States. This book makes contributions to communication studies, more specifically the Coordinated Management Meaning by analyzing the situated interactions of this community, demonstrating the capacity of communication to transmit the rules and grammar of a culture, and highlighting Cronen's consequentiality of communication. John Chetro-Szivos is a communication scholar and chair of the Department of Communication at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from Assumption College, a master's from Anna Maria College, and his doctorate in communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has published several works in the field of communication, specifically on the Coordinated Management of Meaning theory and American pragmatism.