Real World Observations

On the weekend of November 9th, 2007, I had the opportunity to join a couple of my friends to watch the Houston Rockets vs. Milwaukee Bucks basketball game in a box seat reserved for the lawyers and clients of Vinson & Elkins. The game wasn't expected to be the best game of the season but it was the first game where players from all 6 continents [including two players from China] was to be playing on the court. It took place in Houston's own Toyota Center downtown where thousands of people gathered to cheer on the Rockets and watch them win their 5th game of the season. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to observe communication and language for my real world observation project, and thus I quickly agreed to join my friend when he invited me to go. Little did I know that I would not only be learning about the different communication levels that takes place in a basketball game but also the rules for which one subconsciously follows in being there.

When my friends and I showed up to box, the game was already into the 2nd quarter and 7 people were already settled in the box seat, 4 Caucasian men who were sitting in a bar like table looking towards the court, another Caucasian male who was already seated in the lower section of the box, part of the crowd, and a man and woman (who were also Caucasian) standing while conversing with one another in an aisle section of the box area. While my Chinese and Mexican friend were admiring the seats in the lower section of the box, I seated myself behind the 4 men at the bar, in an island-type table, to get start my observation. The clock showed 8:07 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Rockets: 24; Bucks: 25.

The four men were seated, all facing towards the central area (which was the court) but still leaning into each other to engage in conversation about the players on the team. I assumed that all four of these men were either lawyers or clients of the attorneys given that the box was bought out by Vinson & Elkins for the purpose of socializing and building relationships with the clients. However, I myself was an exception to this general rule, and thus I will not make any statements as to their occupation or status other than that they worked at some office (which I know because one of the men asserted "I'm going back to the office" and immediately asked a man next to him "Do you need a ride back?").

Honestly, I don't believe that this was the most ideal situation for language observation because all four of these men were faced towards the court (which means away from me) and the roaring of the crowd was so loud I could barely hear what they were saying. From the look of things, I could not judge whether or not these men knew each other previously or if they had randomly met at the box where we were seated. By the time I had come in, whatever greetings would or could have taken place was already over with and they were conversing about the various basketball players on the court.

"He's gotta be 6' 10''."

"No way man, 6' 7''."

"Are you kidding?? Nah, nah, man. 6' 4''."

"No he wasn't, dude."

This is how the conversation kept going. The uses of words such as "dude", "man", and "gotta" showed that there was surfer dude slang, along with some AAVE dialect regarding the pronunciation of the words, especially in pronouncing "no" as "nah". The most interesting thing, however, was that while I was sitting there observing for about 20 minutes, these men continued to keep talking about the height of the basketball players. Intertwined with verbal language were paralinguistic gestures of which players they were talking about, or motioning of height difference estimates.

Every once in a while, a man would look up and shout something like "Come on, Yao!!!", or "BOOO" or "Aw! Bullshit!" depending on the progress of the game. It was interesting how even though whoever had shouted out completely interrupted whichever one of the men were talking at the moment, none of them seemed to care. It seemed to be permissible in the context of the situation. Normally, if two people are sitting down at a cafÐ"© and conversing about something and one of them decided to stand up and yell something out to someone, it would be considered rude and disrespectful, however at this game, it seemed to be ok. Moreover, each one of the men at some point in my observation interrupted another guy in order to cheer for the home team, or hiss at the opposing team or throw a fist pump for a nice shot that was made by a Rockets player.

By the end of my 20 minute observation, the 3rd quarter had come to an end and the man sitting on the far right turned towards the other three and said, "Hey, well I'm going to go and get something to eat. I'll see you guys later." With this statement, he excused himself and went out of the room to, I suppose, get something to eat. He was much more polite about interrupting the men to grab a bite to eat than he was about shouting for the team. I noticed a difference there in that the men gave no warning whatsoever that they were going to shout for the team or engage in cheering for the crowd, however they found it necessary to excuse themselves politely to get up and leave although they were engaging in the same act of interrupting. Not once did I hear a man say, "Oh well that's an interesting point, but could you hold on a minute while I hiss at the ref?" Was it because it was now halftime? Maybe it's because the game was halted for the next 10 to 15 minutes? There must have been a general understood rule that said this is permissible at a basketball game while that is not.

While I was pondering about this phenomenon, I found that the man who had gotten up to get some food was speaking to me! I did not hear what he had said to me the first time so I asked again, "Excuse me?" and he replied with a smile and, "You are working too hard."

For the first time I noticed that I was the only one in the club box who had papers scattered, pen out, and was scribbling notes. Although these men were business men, none of them were working! At almost the same time, my Chinese friend had gotten up from the lower club seats and said to me, "Eunice, are you even going to watch the game?" I had clearly broken some rule of basketball-ball-watching in that, first and far most, I wasn't even watching the game. There was no one in the lounge area of the club. Everyone was positioned at a place where their eyes could have some (if