'Dude' By Scott F. Kiesling Essay

The goal of this paper is to present a map of the argument in the article “Dude” by Scott F. Kiesling. This argument mapping will do the following things. First, it will present what I believe are the main claims of the article. While doing this I will also explain any important terms or concepts needed to understand the Kiesling’s argument. I will then link the claims to the kinds of evidence that Kiesling uses in order to support them. Finally, I will close my argument mapping with an overview of how Kiesling’s argument is structured. Kiesling’s article focuses on the use of the word “dude” by young men. He makes five claims about how college-age men use the word to communicate with each other, or the word’s interactional functions. These five functions are marking discourse structure, exclamation, confrontational stance mitigation, marking affiliation and connection, and signaling agreement. The author then claims that although “dude” is used by both male and female speakers in many different types of relationships, it is most often used between close friends who are both male. …show more content…
During this study, he recorded audio of conversations between fraternity members and found five common functions of the word: discourse structure, exclamation, confrontation, affiliation, and agreement. Each claim of an interactional function is supported by an excerpt of Kiesling’s recordings. I have called this type of evidence an ethnographic example. For instance, one member of the fraternity uses “dude” to enthusiastically agree with a statement made by a student rushing the fraternity, or a potential member. This illustrates the use of the word as a sign of agreement. However, each of the five claims Kiesling makes is only supported by one ethnographic example. It is assumed that Kiesling heard “dude” used with each function on several