Upon being relocated from Seattle to Portland, my partner and I were excited, initially, to try urban living in a new metropolis.  Seattle is a place dear to my heart.  Having moved there from Oklahoma as a young adult, the experience of urban life and working as a technologist for twenty years in the Pacific Northwest was over the top.  Besides that, downtown Seattle, the waterfront, the beautiful eastside, and Lake Union were my favorite haunts, and the places where my friends live today.  So, when I took a job north of the Oregon border in Vancouver and eventually purchased a house here, we were both a little sad to leave the true urban lifestyle behind us.  Vancouver was a culture shock, to be sure.  Far removed from the urban centers of Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle, and with the Willamette River acting as a natural barrier between suburban Vancouver and trendy, urban Portland, the city has a markedly different socioeconomic profile defined by low- to middle-class earners, a heavy small- business and industry zoning footprint, and sprawling neighborhood, filled with a mixture of local and commuting workers.  Bisected by Interstate 205, Vancouver’s east and west sides contrast in similar ways, and in one neighborhood on the busy west side – Fourth Plain Village – bounded by Interstate 5 into Portland on one flank and a sprawling series of small businesses on the other – the Rosemere Tavern stands, serving beer and punch-board games to an unexpected mix of passers-through, local blue-collar residents, and white-collar commuters.

The Rosemere Tavern seemed the perfect place to start a linguistic term project, my own attempt at an ethnography of communication.  Not having any social organizations or even regular events as possible candidates for my research, and having visited the Tavern on one occasion with out-of-town guests, knowing the bar attracted an eclectic clientele with varying socioeconomic backgrounds made it appear that it would be the ideal place to sit down and take notes on the conversations of random people with whom I would never associate.  From the speakers at the Tavern I hoped to be able to identify “contextual components” of their speech, especially “routines – greetings, partings, apologies, thanks, [and] compliments” and reflect on them in the context of my normal social interactions, which are almost entirely comprised of high-level technical brainstorming and meeting sessions with colleagues or brief conversations with my life partner.  My general hypothesis at the beginning of the project was that informal speech acts would dominate the spontaneous conversations at the Tavern, where a diffuse set of clientele, conveying social meanings across the represented socioeconomic strata would use deferential speech characterized by “self-lowering” (and not characterized by “self-elevation”) as noted by Bonvillian to “create impressions, whether real or false, of social equality and camaraderie” in an effort to maintain a lively atmosphere.

In what is otherwise many square miles of 1940’s eras wooden homes making up the neighborhoods of west Vancouver, arterials like Z Street serve as commercial lifelines to nearby residents. Run down and awaiting renovation by the City as the Port of Vancouver expands its district, Fourth Plain Village and its busy Z Street, lined with bakeries, grocers, and convenience stores, is the ideal location for a community-oriented tavern like the Rosemere.  Its manicured and austere exterior belies its brightly lit, heavily decorated, and very clean interior.  On the south wall is a typical bar, with only one small five-tap (no liquor at the Rosemere) where patrons can easily sit and watch TV on a big screen high on the eastern wall, nearby where the entrance is located, sipping their beers.  The rest of the building is dotted with barstools and tall tables, where patrons drink one of the several beers served, or where they play punch-boards, the centerpiece attraction that appears to act as the social glue for the customers and employees.

A hundred or more products including Doritos, Cheerios, toilet paper, gallon-sized jars of mayonnaise, a remote-controlled car, and beauty aids line shelves that surround the interior of The Rosemere Tavern.  For 1-10 cents per punch, patrons use a tool to ‘punch out’ tiny, rolled up papers with numbers printed on them, from a selection of hundreds or a thousand different punch holes.  If the number on the paper matches one of several randomly selected numbers on the product, customers win the product.  As the bartender explained, “some customers come for a chance to win part of their groceries each month and others use it to pass the time.”

On my first visit to the Rosemere, I immediately engaged in conversation with a patron who happened to be a State employee – a roadworker.  My companion was a federal employee, and so I said to him, “It looks as though several branches of government are represented here – State, local, and federal,” but the conversation quickly turned to cars instead of government work:

Patron:    “Oh, I always wanted to be a park ranger with the Forest Service.”

Friend:    “It’s a great job, especially for field workers – they drive a lot of those back roads that you repair.  One crew from the office is doing a study on bear grass, a critical environmental study. That’s just one example, of how Indians harvest bear grass, and like down South it’s more hardy, so     they collect from different areas to determine growth patterns.”

Patron:    “Well, the best part would be the drivin’ around the forest in the big green Grand Cherokee.  I found one on Craigslist the other day!”

In this instance, as in other instances when I conversed with people at the bar, the conversation veered away from the personal and to more familiar, regular conversation topics including the weather, sports, and, in this instance, automobiles.  As a greeting, and an introduction, these types of speech events, as described by Bonvillain, “mark the transition to a condition of increase access.”

On another visit, a young couple came and sat at the bar next to me, and we struck up a conversation about types of beer.  They were both disappointed that there wasn’t an IPA on tap.  In fact, with only a five-tap, American-branded beers were the only ones on offer, as far as we knew.  But the bartender overheard our conversation and interjected (a frequent occurrence at the Tavern):

Bartender: “Honey, you need to try the IPA our guy brought in to us the other day.”

Patron: “Sure, what is it?”

Bartender: Gives the patron a sampler of beer.  “Should we put this on tap?”

Patron: “Can I have this?”

Bartender: “Oh no, I can’t sell you all of it.  I have to sample it out to see if we’re going to put it on our tap.”

This communicative interaction was not so interesting for its routine greeting, but instead as an unexpected and polite directive.  As the customer took the sampler he glanced at me, completing the social pattern discovered by Labov and Fanshel and known as the rule of requests, “predicated on mutually recognized needs, abilities, obligations, and rights.” Interactions with patrons, including two friendly construction workers in which, from across the bar, we toasted each other and agreed that the punch-board game was a big draw “for the wives,” that indicated permission to engage in the social activities and lent themselves to an environment fostering camaraderie among the patrons were common.

On my third visit to the Rosemere, it was a rainy, fall day and the bar had more people inside of it than I had ever seen before.  The big draw that afternoon was a football game between Washington State University and Colorado State.  Colorado was up by fourteen points, 38-24.  Two women friends were sitting with their necks craned toward the big-screen television, clutching large purses, and chatting amongst themselves.  It was clear they had just been acquaintances, having met on occasion at the Tavern.

Patron 1: “Who you rootin’ for?”

Patron 2: “Colorado.”

Patron 1: “Well, she’s ID’n!” (laughter)

Patron 2: “Guess I need to think before I speak.  Ahh you look good now!  We jetted back and she (a mutual  friend) said his boss offered him a $2.00 an hour raise for shavin’ his beard!” (laughter)

Patron 1: “But anyway, I had left to smoke was all.  Maybe next Saturday we’ll make it to Pullman.”

Patron 2: “That would be a fun college tour.”

This complimentary exchange also typified the friendly atmosphere that dominated the conversations at the bar.  Characterized by light subject matter and full of joking, the ladies were comparing crocheted items they had created – socks, coasters, and gloves that they pulled from their large purses – while they watched the game and bantered.

Even on my third visit to the Rosemere Tavern, I was out of my element, and felt as an invader into the private daily lives of my neighbors and fellow working-class citizens.  I realized that the components of speech and how people at the bar adjusted their tone to maintain a healthy social atmosphere was part of a broader set of lifeways that was heavily influenced by the troubles of everyday life.  The Tavern was a place for everyone to gain a little edge, perhaps by winning a 20-pound box of flower for a nickel, or by getting a little drunk off of some light American-branded beer while watching college football with their neighbors.  Fieldwork for me felt intrusive, as though I was recording private information about even more private lives.  The conversations and interactions at the bar confirmed that the customers and bartender preferred general subjects as topics of conversation.  As a foray into the linguistic practice of creating an ethnography of communication, I learned that I am doer and not an observer, and that when people come together at a place like the Rosemere Tavern I feel as an intruder recording their world.

References

Bonvillain, Nancy. Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Pearson. 2014.