Sociology

157

Talking Acadian: Communication, Work and Culture provides a look into the lives of the French-Speaking American Acadians, and particularly those who left eastern Canada to Settle in Massachusetts in the 1960s. This book captures their stories about family and their values, mores and morals. It also traces the ways that 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 communications studies, more specifically the Coordinated Management Meaning by analyzing the situationed interactions of this community, demonstrating the capacity of communication to transmit the rules of grammar of a culture, and highlighting Cronen's consequentiality of communication.

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Talking Acadian

Each fall congregants of Notre Dame du Saint Rosaire (Our Lady of the Holy Rosary), a Catholic church located in Gardner, Massachusetts, stage a fair to raise funds for the support of the church and its elementary school. This annual event has been an important part of the community ,one that members of the church have shared for nearly half a century. The church has served Acadians and Acadian Americans, along with others who emigrated from Canada, for the past one hundred years. The Acadians are people who came from Eastern Canada, generally to find work. The majority of the Acadians came in the twentieth century to the city of Gardner to work in its mills. At the church fair, the items that draw the most interest ,and generate the most funds, are prepared dishes of traditional Acadian foods. I initially entered this community as a par- ticipant-observer and volunteered by helping with food preparation. On my first day at the fair. I stood in line peeling potatoes with approximately twenty members of the church. The talk around the table was about work. Members recounted and shared their stories about their first jobs, best jobs, and difficulties they had encountered while working. There was laughter and joking about how hard they, and other members of their community work. The Acadian Americans even talked about how "outrageous "their actions must appear to others outside of their community.

I have lived among Acadian Americans for several years, and when I have been with Acadian Americans, I am deeply struck with their talk about working, how much of their life story is about working, and how important work- ing appears to be to them as members of a community. There is something interesting about how pervasive the term work is among members of this community, and their awareness that their ways of working are different from those of others. As will be shown, "working" refers to more than a paid job for the Acadian Americans. Working, and especially working hard, is a way of being in this culture. Personal success and competence are not measured by what a group member does for work, but by how hard they work at it. Work extends beyond the boundaries of a job and touches leisure time, social life, and family life.

I chose to study the concept of working among members of the Acadian- American community. The Acadian Americans were selected because of how intently work is featured in their interactions and lives. I recognize that work is not the same in all places, but this is an exceptional starting point to explore the grammar of the term working because of its prominence among these people. The Acadian Americans do not represent all cultures, but they show us that the meaning of "working "is not bounded by accomplished tasks. They can show how the meaning of the term extends into rules and practices that are made in interaction among a community of people. I have found the Acadian Americans' understanding of working is much more than of a word with a common definition. In fact it will be shown that working, the act or process as well as the word, has an inseparable link to many aspects of their lives. I chose to study the concept of working among members of the Acadian- American community. The Acadian Americans were selected because of how intently work is featured in their interactions and lives. I recognize that work is not the same in all places, but this is an exceptional starting point to explore the grammar of the term working because of its prominence among these people. The Acadian Americans do not represent all cultures, but they show us that the meaning of "working "is not bounded by accomplished tasks. They can show how the meaning of the term extends into rules and practices that are made in interaction among a community of people. I have found the Acadian Americans' understanding of working is much more than of a word with a common definition. In fact it will be shown that working, the act or process as well as the word, has an inseparable link to many aspects of their lives.

Because of the inextricable link between working and the life of an Acadian American, this book also serves as a study of Acadian Americans' culture. For various reasons there is little research devoted to the Acadian-American culture. There are excellent sources that discuss the lives of Franco-Americans, but usually the focus of these works is the experience of the Quebecois. The two groups share many similarities, yet they differ in as many significant ways. This text makes a contribution by presenting and analyzing the life stories of Acadian Americans. Their stories provide a meaningful and valuable perspective about their community and how a person lives as a member of this rich and unique culture.