The Social Deviance of the self-reference in the Third Person

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This section will cover the reactions from the employees when the customer referred to himself in the third person. While the conversations were not recorded to give an exact transcript of what was said, the main part of the conversations will be narrated.
At Chipotle, a Mexican fast food restaurant, the customer approached the first station where he ordered a burrito. The first employee asked “What can I get started for you?” The customer then replied with “Andrew will get a chicken burrito.” The employee proceeded then to warm a tortilla and ask the customer what kind of rice and beans he would like. The customer responded in similar fashion, saying, “Andrew will take some brown rice and no beans.” It was then that the customer began to look at the customer with a confused look. She did not say anything, and she continued to keep creating the burrito. When the customer went to the next part of the burrito-creating process (with a new employee), he did not begin his responses with “Andrew will have” but rather stating what he wanted on the burrito (e.g. “pico, sour cream and cheese, please.”). The next employee was the cashier, responsible for ringing up the customer for his food. The cashier asked the customer if the burrito was going to be it for him. The customer responded with “That’s going to be it for Andrew today.” The cashier then acknowledged the customer and then proceeded to check the customer out. Once the checkout was completed, the customer said “Thank you,” and left the restaurant.
The next restaurant the customer went to was Steak & Shake, a burger restaurant. Here there was only one employee for the customer to talk to: the cashier. The cashier greeted the customer with “How are you doing?” the custome...

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...owards the self-reference in the third person, more research and experimentation should be done in order to create and defend a stronger argument that can build on this study. There are many other factors that this study could not expand on due to the set-up of the experiment. It is therefore, the next step to discover more about this deviant act through different factors, settings, theories etc. Talking in third person can be peculiar act of deviance as it is one that is not detrimental to society yet it is not considered a social norm; much more can be discovered about it.

Works Cited
Jo Rudd, M.. "he use of Third Person Reference in Multi-Party Conversations in an Appalachian Community." Anthropological Linguistics 18 (): 349-359. Print.
Kitzinger, C.. "Some uses of third-person reference forms in speaker self-reference."Discourse Studies 9 (): 493-525. Print.

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