PRAGMATICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION TO

PRAGMATICS

AND

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

1.     DEFINITIONS OF DISCOURSE

1.1. Introduction

In this introductory unit we are going to look at a number of definitions of discourse and to try to define some key terms used in discourse analysis, with the aim of clarifying its scope in such a way that it can deal with a wide range of problems and phenomena, but in a more systematic and coherent way.

Pragmatics and discourse analysis refer, in a very basic sense, to talk. What most people do most of the time is talk, because to do anything requires talk and, often, texts, both in private and public spheres. However, until recently, little attention has been given to what people actually say and do in particular everyday circumstances. People talk about the world, about their work, about others and their relations with them. And in talking, they do things. That was Austins (1962) revolutionary insight into an aspect of language that had not been fully recognized: the pragmatic function of language, what language does to make social life possible. This turn to language, or to discourse, has had the effect of breaking down barriers between different social sciences concerned with the analysis of everyday social life.

1.2. Definitions of discourse

Discourse analysis is widely recongnised as one of the most vast and least defined areas of linguistics. One reason for this is that the understanding of discourse is based on scholarship from a number of academic disciplines that are quite different from one another, such as, the philosophy of language, pragmatics, sociolinguistics.

In a very general sense, two definitions are prevalent in the field, which underlie two different assumptions about the general nature of language and the goals of linguistics: the so-called structuralist or formalist approach, and the so-called functional approach. The former defines discourse analysis as language above the level of the sentence (Stubbs, 1983, and many others). Those who practise the formalist approach to language analyse discourse to find constituents that have certain relationships with one another and occur in a number of arrangements (the sort of linguistic analysis at the level of phonetics, morphology and syntax). We may call this type of approach to the analysis of language sentence linguistics, and it will not be included in the scope of our course for reasons to be explained further down.

The latter approach defines discourse analysis as language in use, for communication (Cook, 1989). Its view is that analysis of discourse cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes/functions which they are designed to serve.

Another definition is that discourse is utterances (D.Schiffrin, 1994). Discourse is seen as above the sentence (larger than other units of language). In other words, the utterance (not the sentence) is considered the smallest unit of which discourse is comprised, meaning that discourse arises as a collection of inherently contextualised units of language use. We are looking at the construction of meaning, i.e we are talking about utterance meaning and speaker meaning (and also about how the hearer interprets the meaning of an utterance).

Examples of this view of language are the Speech act approach (based on the philosophy of language), the Ethnography of communication, and pragmatics (the study of meaning in use). The question that such scholars ask is: What gives stretches of language unity and meaning?

Lets now look at the differences between sentence linguistics and discourse analysis from the point of view of the types of data they use when analysing language (cf. Cook, 1989).

Differences between sentence linguistics data (which applies rules of semantics and grammar) and discourse analysis data:

Here are, according to Cook (1989) some arguments concentrating on artificially constructed sentences in relation to language teaching and linguistics:

         They are the best for the study of a foreign language because they isolate it from context

         Actual language is degenerate and deviates from the rules of grammar (Chomsky)

         The treatment of language in terms of sentences has been successful in revealing how language works (by giving examples of grammatically correct, but somehow peculiar sentences such as: Sincereity may frighten the boy Chomsky, 1965:63).

Now, here are some arguments for studying language in use, in context, on which the present course relies:

         It is more to producing and understanding meaningful language (to communicating) than knowing how to make or recongnise correct sentences

         Being a communicator, having communicative competence (Dell Hymes, 1967) involves more than just being able to construct correct sentences.

1.3. Key terms

In this section you will be given some key terms that are currently being used when dealing with pragmatics and discourse analysis. They will be detailed in further units of the course.

      Language as action

This is a basic assumption about the nature of discourse, assumption which has come to be taken for granted by both social scientists and laypersons. A major source of the view that language is action is Austins (1962) theory of speech acts (see Unit on speech act theory). Austin pointed out that utterances not only have a certain meaning (i.e. they refer to states, persons, events, etc.), they also have force, that is, they also do things. In other words, language is action.

      Functions of language

As already mentioned above, utterances may be seen to perform certain functions, or acts. Lets look at the following example:

The speakers utterance can be understood (functions) as both a question (about the hearers ability to pass the salt) and as a request (for the hearer to pass the salt). This is an example of how one and the same utterance may have different functions, since the two understandings are largely separable by context (the former associated, for example, with tests of physical ability, the latter with dinner table talk). The speech act theory is the approach to discourse that focuses upon knowledge of the underlying conditions and interpretations of acts through words. Contexts may help separate multiple functions of utterances from one another. (See the unit Speech act theory)

      Context

There are very many definitions of context, but here are some concepts used in the literature:

- co-text, or the linguistic context.

Consider the following example:

We can understand Bs reply only in relation to As question. In order to understand this exchange as meaningful talk, we have to infer that there is some further knowledge, shared by the two participants. Thus, Bs reply becomes meaningful if A knows that whenever the postman arrives and introduces the mail into the letterbox, B can hear the letterbox. Thus, Bs answer may be interpreted by A as No.

-          physical context - the actual setting in which the interaction takes place. Meaningful discourse may also been interpreted as such, depending on the actual place or setting in which it takes place. For instance, we understand the utterance in example 1 above (Can you pass the salt?) as a request and not as a questions if it takes place at a dinner table and not in a testing laboratory or a medical interview.

-          social context: the social and personal relationships of the interactants with one another.

Consider the following example, in which the two interactants clearly state how the direction of talk is influenced by their social relationships as magistrate and defendant during a court hearing.

- cognitive context - the background knowledge and shared knowledge held by participants in the interaction (see Unit Knowledge in discourse).

      Text

Text is being referred to as the verbal record of a communicative event (Brown and Yule, 1983). In other words, it is any use (stretch) of language that holds together. Texts can be written or spoken (the verbal record, the written transcription of the tape-recording).

Instead of a conclusion, we could say that pragmatics and discourse analysis concern a set of methods designed for the close analysis of talk and writing, but also a perspective on the nature of language and its relationship to some central issues that belong to various other disciplines. There are two basic assumptions about discourse: language as action, and the functions of the language.

TASK 1.

Some of the following are invented examples, for language teaching or grammatical analysis, and some pieces of language which were actually used to communicate. Is there any way of telling which is which?

1.      John considers the analyst a lunatic.

2.      Which of you people is the fish?

3.      Please dont throw me on the floor!

4.      I wish someone had told me he is a vegetarian: I could have made an omelet.

5.      Chicken and vegetablehotmediumhoter riceer two poppodamus and awhats a bhindi bhaji?

TASK 2

Here are two pieces of language:

A. This box contains, on average, 100 Large Paper Clips. Applied Linguistics is therefore not the same as Linguistics The teas hot as it could be. This is Willie Worm. Just send 12 Guinness bottles.

B. Playback. Raymond Chandler. Penguin Booksin association with Hamish Hamilton. To Jean and Helga, without whom this book could never have been written. One. The voice on the telephone seemed to be sharp and peremptory, but I didnt hear too well what it said - partly because I was only half awake and partly because I was holding the receiver upside down.

1.Which of these two stretches of language is part of a unified whole?

2. How did you distinguish between them?

TASK 3

Here is part of a verbal exchange between two people, which was recorded and then transcribed:

A: Right, (.hhh) whos goin to lift the bottom?

Wellcome osomeones got to take old of it.

B: I aint goin to.

A: Dont jusCome on will you?

1. What does the kind of language used tell you about the interactants?

2. What does Dont jus (false start) suggests to you about the person?

3. What do you think the two people are doing? Is it important to know?

4. What does the transcript suggest to you concerning the social relationships between the two?

2. DISCOURSE AND TEXTS

2.1. Introduction

Remember that we defined texts earlier as being the verbal record of a communicative event. A number of authors have been concerned to provide a more formal account of how speakers of English come to identify a text as forming a text (for example, Halliday&Hassan, 1976). They are concerned with what binds a text together and force co-interpretation, i.e. what makes them to be interpreted in the same way by readers (hearers in the case of spoken texts). Halliday and Hassan consider that the primary determinant of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesive relationships within and between the sentences, which create texture.

2.2. Cohesion

Cohesion refers to facts inside the language and it is achieved through the formal links that give a sense of unity beyond the sentence. You cannot take it for granted that a text is a text unless it has formal links.

Cohesive links within a text are set up where INTERPRETATION of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one PRESUPPOSES the other in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by recourse to it. (Halliday and Hassan, in Brown and Yule, 1983:191).

For example, the following two sentences form a text, and we interpret them as a whole, because them in the second sentence refers back to the six cooking apples in the first sentence:

Such formal links or relations between sentences and clauses are called cohesive devices.

2.3. Cohesive devices

I shall next briefly outline a taxonomy of types of cohesive relationships which can be formally established within a text, providing cohesive ties which bind a text together.

1. Verb form:

The form of the verb in one sentence can limit the choice of the verb in the next. In the following example, the verbs are all in the past tense. The first tense conditions all the others:

2. Conjunctions and adverbials

Conjunctions and adverbials draw attention to the type of relationship between the sentences/clauses. These can be of several types:

a. additive: and, or, furthermore, similarly, in addition

b. adversative: but, however, on the other hand, nevertheless

c. causal: so, consequently, for this reason, it follows from this

d. temporal: then, after that, an hour later, finally, at last

3.Parallelism

Parallelism suggests a connection, simply because the form of one sentence repeats the form of another. It is often used in speeches, prayers, poetry and advertisements because the rhythmical repetition of the same structure renders an emotional touch and may also function as an aide-memoire. The following examples are taken from Cook, 1989:

In the example above, as you can notice, the parallelism consists of repeated grammatical structure: to X and not to Y the/for Z

In the next example, there is also a repetition of the same grammatical structure, but this time it links to sentences to make a text:

Here, the grammatical pattern is definite article+proper noun+copula+complement Notice also the contrasted masculine and feminine genders reinforcing the metaphor of deceased husband and bereaved wife.

In the following example, we have a different kind of parallelism, the so-called semantic parallelism, where two expressions mean the same thing:

Notice that the use of the colloquial expression to parallel the formal one creates a humorous effect.

4.      Referring expressions (pronouns)

Another type of cohesive relationships that may be present in a text are the so-called referring expressions, such as the pronouns he, she, it, they, this, etc.

Reference is sometimes substituted, by some authors, for co-reference (Brown & Yule, 1983). Co-referential forms are forms which, instead of being interpreted semantically in their own right, make reference to something else for their interpretation. These forms direct the reader/hearer to look elsewhere for their interpretation. Where their interpretation lies outside the text, in the context of the situation, the relationship is said to be an exophoric relationship which plays no part in textual cohesion. Where their interpretation lies within the text, they are called endophoric and do form cohesive ties within the text. Endophoric relations are of two kinds: those which look back in the text for their interpretation, called anaphoric relations, and those which look forward in the text for their interpretation, which are called cataphoric relations.

The following examples are taken from Cook (1989:16-18)

a. Example of anaphoric relation:

In order to understand what the it in the second sentence refers to, we have to look back to identify the noun pineapple.

Notice, however, that the meaning is not always in the sentence, but also contextual (exophoric relation). For example, if two people arrive at the door with a piano and one says:

we can assume that IT means the piano. We choose the most likely meaning of IT from the world, and in this case the meaning is contextual. One of the people with the piano might have had a pencil between his teeth, but would probably have been annoyed if we had taken IT to mean the pencil and said:

Then misunderstanding can occur, and we have to say:

b. Example of cataphoric relations

As you can see, in order to identify who they in the first sentence refer to, we have to look forward in the text. It is the favourite opening device for novel writers, because an unidentified he/she entices us to look further and plunges us in the middle of a situation as though we already knew what was going on.

5. Repetition and lexical chains (co-referential chains)

Repetition of words can create the same kind of chain as pronouns.

a. Repetitions (the examples are taken from Cook, 1986):

In the example above referring expressions are avoided and repetition of the same word is used instead. As you can readily notice, the text comes from an advertisement, where repetition of the word denoting the product that is being advertised is used for commercial reasons.

The following example, however, taken from a legal discourse, uses repetition in order to avoid any ambiguity that might have arisen if referring expressions had been used instead:

We may say that in certain discourse types, such as advertisements, legal documents or instructions, lexical repetitions are preferred for reasons of clarity or in order to be more easily remembered. In casual conversation or literary writings, however, such repetitions might seem pretentious or might be indicative of a bad style. In order to avoid repetition of the same word, the so-called elegant repetition may be sued instead.

b. Lexical chains (chains of reference)

Lexical chains, or chains of reference, are connected words running through discourse. They need not necessarily consist of words which mean the same, however. They may be created by words which associate with each other. For example:

      animal - horse - wildlife

      rock star - world tour - millionaire - yacht

6. Substitution

7. Ellipsis

2.4. Conclusion

We now have a means of assessing the extent of formal links within a piece of discourse. Different types of discourse will display different degrees of cohesion for good reasons. As we shall see in further units, these links are neither necessary nor sufficient to account for our sense of the unity of discourse Their presence does not automatically make a passage coherent, i.e we do not necessarily perceive a continuity of meaning, and their absence does not automatically make it meaningless.

As we sill see in the next units, in order for us to understand the meaning of a linguistic message, knowledge of the cohesive devices or the structure of the sentences is not enough. We also need knowledge of other standard formats in which information is conveyed. We are able to readily fill in any connections which are required.

TASK 1.

Read the following text and then answer the questions

Available in the United Kingdom. A BMW for the animal kingdom.

In childrens fiction, it was Doctor Doolittle who talked to animal. Today, thanks to doctors at the Bavarian Institute of Zoology it is the engineers at the BMW. At frequencies over 20,000 Hz, sound becomes inaudible to most humans. A hedgehog, on the other hand, can detect frequencies up to 45,000Hz. For this reason BMW has developed the concept of WAIL (Wildlife Acoustic Information Link). This operates on the same ultrasonic echo-sounding principle as BMWs Park Distance Control System. Sonic waves are emitted from the front bumper producing a warning call which alerts stray animals to the approaching car. This encourages them to jump in the nearest hedgerow. Available from April 1 on selected models, we believe it will be resounding success with all road users. Both the four and two legged varieties.

[BMW logo] The Ultimate Driving Machine

(The Guardian, 1 April 1977)

      What can you say about this text as discourse?

      Identify cohesive devices in the text

      To what other texts might you compare it?

TASK 2.

Underline some of the cohesive devices in the following texts. One is the opening of a scientific report, the discovery of DNA fingerprinting. The other is from a popular report on this discovery. Look for cohesive devices even if you do not understand the scientific terminology. How do they differ? How do these differences affect reading?

A.

1. DNA polymorphisms have revolutionised human genetic analysis and have found general use in antenatal diagnosis, mapping of human linkage groups, indirect localisation of genetic disease loci by linkage and analysis of the role of mitotic nondisjunction and recombination in inherited cancer.

2. Single-copy human DNA probes are used normally to detect restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), most of which result from small-scale changes in DNA, usually base substitutions, which create or destroy specific restriction endonuclease cleavage sites.

3. As the mean heterozygousity of human DNA is low (about 0.001 per base pair, few if any restriction endonucleases will detect a RFLP at a given locus

(A.J. Jeffreys, et. al., Nature 314, 1985 :67)

B.

1. Human DNA does not vary very much between different members of the species; roughly 999 out of 1000 base pairs (the letters of the genetic code) are the same in two unrelated individuals.

2. There are, however, some regions that seem to be more variable, with a different structure in different individuals.

3. One is near the insuline gene, a second in the alpha-globin gene, and a third in the cancer gene known as c-Ha-ras-1.

4. Jeffreys had previously isolated a fourth, which lies within one of the non-coding regions of the gene for myoglobin, a protein that stores oxygen in muscle.

5. All of these so-called hypervariable regions have a similar structure.

(Jeremy Cherfas, The New Scientist , 28 March 1985:21.)

3. SPEECH ACT THEORY

It is important to realize that discourse analysis/pragmatics, as mentioned in the introductory section, is a different view on the same linguistic resources as the other components of linguistics look into. To understand the meaning of a linguistic message we certainly rely on the syntactic structure and lexical items, but it is a mistake to think that we operate only with this literal input to our understanding. We can recognize, for instance, when a writer (speaker) has produced a perfectly grammatical sentence from which we can derive a literal interpretation, but which we cannot say to have understood, simply because we need more information.

To illustrate this, lets take the following example (from Levinson, 1980:8), where the conjunction because is not only used to connect two clauses in a complex sentence. It is also used to introduce the reason for asking a question:

E.g.

Whats the time, because Ive got to go out at eight?

We can safely say that (cf. Levinson, 1980:8), in the example above, the structure of the sentence is not that normally associated with because as a logical connector. In other words, our understanding of the example is based, not on an interpretation of the sentence on the page, but on our assumption that a reason is being expressed for an action performed in speaking

We will next look at the speech act theory, which is basic to any pragmatic approach to language.

I.                   LANGUAGE AS ACTION

Inferring the function of what is said by considering its form and context is an ability which is essential for successful communication. Speech Act Theory provides us with a means of establishing the function of what is being said. The theory was developed from the basic belief that language is used to perform actions. Thus, its fundamental insights focus on how meaning and action are related to language. This is a position in which we shall be able to examine the structure of discourse both in terms of surface relations of form, and underlying relations of functions and acts.

Speech Act theory was formulated by the philosopher John Austin in a series of lectures now collected in a short book: How to Do Things With Words (1962). These ideas were further developed by the philosopher John Searle (1967, 1975), who added to them and presented them more systematically, and subsequently developed by other thinkers

Austin, his almost equally influential pupil H.P.Grice and a group of other philosophers working at Oxford came to be known as ordinary language philosophers.

The ordinary language philosophers reacted against the view of such Oxford-based philosophers as Russell, (cf. Thomas, 1995:29) who believed that everyday language is somehow deficient, full of ambiguities, imprecision and contradictions. Their aim was to refine language, removing its perceived imperfections and to create an ideal language. The response of Austin and his group was to observe that ordinary people manage to communicate extremely efficiently with language just the way it is. Instead of striving to rid everyday language of its imperfections, he argued, we should try to understand how it is that people manage with it as it is.

II. DECLARATIONS AND PERFORMATIVES

Speech acts are actions performed via utterances (apology, complaint, compliment, etc.) They apply to the speakers communicative intention in producing an utterance. The speaker normally expects that his/her communicative intention will be recognized by the hearer. Both speaker and hearer are usually helped in this process by the circumstances surrounding utterances. These circumstances, including other utterances, are called speech events. In many ways, it is the nature of the speech event that determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech act.

For example, the utterance This tea is really cold (Yule, 1996:48), functions as a complaint if it is uttered on a winter day, when the speaker reaches for a cup of tea, believing that it has been freshly made. It may also function as a praise if it is uttered on a really hot summers day, with the speaker being given a glass of iced tea by the hearer.

Speech Act theory begins with the observation that there is a class of highly ritualistic utterances which carry no information about the world outside language at all because they refer to themselves.

E.g.:

a. I swear to .

b. I sentence you to death.

c. I hereby open the Theater House.

d. I hereby name this ship Aurora.

In the utterances above, saying the words and doing the action are the same thing. By uttering them, we perform the acts of swearing an oath, sentencing a criminal to death, opening a building, and naming a ship. In other words, the function of the utterance is created by the form. They are called declarations.

However, the utterance succeeds only if certain external conditions, or expected, appropriate conditions are fulfilled. For example (Cook, 1989:35) I sentence you to death has to fulfill the following felicity conditions for the utterance to succeed:

      the words must be uttered by someone with the necessary authority (a judge), in a country where there is death penalty, to a person who has been convicted of a particular crime;

      they must be spoken not written, at the right time (the end of a trial), in the right place (in court)

Declarations are only a special case of a much commoner group of utterances called performatives for which saying is doing. Unlike the declarations, in the performatives, the related verbs (vow, arrest, declare, etc.) are not actually said. For example, in ordering someone to do something you can use the verb order, thus the utterance becoming an explicit performative:

E.g.

I order you to clean your boots.

(Source: Cook, 1989:36)

But you can also use the imperative instead, and this is called implicit performative:

E.g.

Clean your boots!

The assumption is that underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the function explicit. The basic format of the underlying clause is:

I (hereby) Vp you (that) U

I hereby order you that you clean your boots.

      the subject must be first person sg., + the adverb hereby, indicating that the utterance counts as an action by being uttered + a performative verb in the present tense + indirect object in the 2-nd per.sg. This underlying clause will always make explicit what may be implicitly expressed.

II.                FELICITY CONDITIONS

As we have already seen in the section above, for an utterance to perform a certain act, some appropriate conditions have to be fulfilled. Technically, they are called felicity conditions. Speech act theory defines underlying conditions that must hold for an utterance to be used to realize a certain speech act.

Here is an example taken from Yule (1996:50-51): In everyday contexts among ordinary people, there are preconditions on speech acts. These are called general conditions on the participants, for example, that they can understand the language being used. There are also the so-called content conditions. For example, for a promise, the content of the utterance must be about a future event. The preparatory conditions for a promise require first, that the event will not happen by itself, and second, that the event will have a beneficial effect. Related to these conditions is the sincerity condition that, for a promise, the speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future action. Finally, there is the essential condition, which covers the fact that by the act of uttering a promise, I thereby intend to create an obligation to carry out the action as promised. In other words, the utterance changes the state from non-obligation to obligation.

Here is another example of the felicity conditions required by the act of ordering (they are not detailed here in types of conditions) (cf. Cook, 1989:36):

1. the sender believes the action should be done

2. the receiver has the ability to do the action

3. the receiver has the obligation to do the action

4. the sender has the right to tell the receiver to do the action

If any one of these conditions is not fulfilled, the utterance will not function as an order. If the conditions do hold, then any reference by the sender to the action will be perceived as an order even if it is implicitly made.

Cook (1989:37) illustrates how a sergeant, speaking to the private, can utter any of the following and they will be perceived as an order:

E.g.

I think your boots need cleaning, Jones (Condition 1)

Im bloody sure you can get your boots cleaner than that, Jones! (Condition 2)

Youre supposed to come on to parade with clean boots, Jones! (Condition 3)

Its my job to see youve got cleaner boots than this! (Condition 4)

The private, for his part, may try to challenge the felicity conditions invoked, and, if he succeeds, he will take away the status of order from the utterance:

E.g.:

Dont you think having a well-oiled rifle is more important?

Ive been scrubbing all morning and they wont come any cleaner.

I didnt see that in the standing orders, sergeant.

The Captain told me it was all right.

In armies the power relations are so clear, and the rights and obligations of the participants so firmly established that these comments are likely to be punished. It rarely happens that explicit ordering and challenging take place.

III. UNDERLYING FORCE (ASTIN)

Austin has shown that on any occasion, the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts:

1. locutionary act: the basic act of utterance, producing a meaningful linguistic expression. Producing Aha mokofa in English will not normally count as a locutionary act.

2. illocutionary act: performed via the communicative force of an utterance, the function that we have in mind when we produce an utterance. We might utter Ive just made some coffee to make a statement, an offer, an explanation, etc. This is also known as the illocutionary force of an utterance.

3. perlocutionary act: the effect you intend your utterance to have on the hearer, for example, to get the hearer drink the coffee. This is also known as the perlocutionary effect of an utterance.

In the example discussed in the previous section, the utterance Ive been scrubbing them all morning and they wont come any cleaner, we may relate the three acts as follows (cf. Cook, 1989:40):

1. The locution: the statement conveying information that the speaker has been cleaning his boots all morning;

2.The illocution: to challenge the sergeants order;

3. The perlocution: to undermine the sergeants authority, or to be cheeky, or to escape the duty of cleaning the boots.

Notice how meaning becomes more and more slippery as we move from one layer to the next. This is what human beings exploit to their advantage. It enables them to avoid committing themselves and to retreat in front of danger; and it is one of the reasons why people speak indirectly:

      Accused of being insolent, the private may deny it.

      Indirectness also enables us to give the option of retreat.

Cook (1989:40) shows how quite often people explicitly clarify the upshot of what is said by explicitly formulating the illocutionary and perlocutionary force of what is said.

E.g.

I suggest that when you told my client he might get hurt you were in fact threatening him. And I suggest that you made a number of such threats which constituted a sustained campaign of intimidation.

The upshot is not always confined to words. Here is an example from a court in Oxford, which heard a case concerning a fight in a Chinese take-away. A man picked up a bottle of sauce on his way out, without paying for it. The owner picked up a metal rolling pin, whereas the man took off his metal belt. The jury were asked to decide whether either or both of these actions could be interpreted as a threat. (Source, Cook, 1989:40)

IV. TAXONOMY OF SPEECH ACTS (SEARLE)

The practical problem with any analysis based on identifying explicit performatives is that, in principle, we simply do not know how many performative verbs there are in any language. That is why, some general classification of types of speech acts are usually used. Discovering the number and categories of illocutionary acts is an important part of speech act theory.

Searle proposes five classes of speech acts: declarations (e.g., appointing), representatives (e.g. asserting), expressives (e.g. thanking), directives (e.g. requesting), and commissives (e.g. promising). The principle according to which he differentiates the five categories concerns the illocutionary force of the act. This is derived from the essential condition of an act (the condition that defines what the act counts as). We thus have the following categories of speech acts (examples taken from Yule, 1996:53-54):

Declarations: speech acts that change the world via their utterance.

E.g.:

Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.

Referee: Youre out.

Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty.

Representatives: speech acts that the speaker believes to be the case or not.

For example,

      statements of fact (The earth is round)

      assertions (Chomsky didnt write about peanuts)

      descriptions (It was a sunny day)

In using a representative, the speaker makes words fit the world (of belief).

Expressives: speech acts that state what the speaker feels (psychological states). For example, expressing pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, sorrow, etc. They can be caused by something the speaker does or the hearer does, but they are about the speakers experience:

E.g.

a. Im really sorry.

b. Congratulations!

c. Oh, yes, mummy, great, mmmm!

In using expressives the speaker makes the words fit the world (of feeling).

Directives: speech acts that speakers use to get someone else do something. They express what the speaker wants. For example, commands, orders, requests, suggestions, etc. and can be positive or negative:

E.g.

a. Gimme a cup of coffee. Make it black.

b. Could you lend me a pen please.

c. Dont touch that.

In using a directive, the speaker attempts to make the world fit the words (via the hearer).

Commissives: speech acts that the speakers use to commit themselves to some future action. They express what the speaker intends. For example, promises, threats, refusals, pledges and can be performed by the speaker alone or as a member of a group:

E.g.

a. Ill be back.

b. Im going to get it right next time.

c. We will not do that.

In using a commissive, the speaker undetakes to make the world fit the words (via the speaker).

V. DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

A different approach to distinguishing types of speech acts can be made on the basis of structure, provided by the three basic sentence types in English which relate to the three general communicative functions (Yule, 1996:54):

________________________________________________________________

Utterance Sentence type Communicative function

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You wear a seat belt. Declarative Statement

Do you wear a seat belt? Interrogative Question

Wear a seat belt! Imperative Command/Request

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Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between structure and function we have an indirect speech act.

For example, in English most requests are done by using declaratives:

E.g.

Its cold outside:

The utterance above, used as a statement, is a direct speech act (I hereby tell you that it is cold outside), used as a command/request, it is an indirect speech act (I hereby request you that you close the window).

One of the most common types of indirect speech acts in English has the form of interrogative, which is not typically used to ask a question (we dont expect only an answer, we expect an action).

E.g.:

Could you pass the salt?

Would you open this?

Indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech acts.

The usefulness of speech act analysis is in illustrating the kinds of things we can do with words and identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we use to perform specific actions. However, there are several problems with the speech act theory. For example, many speech act theorists fail to take proper account of indeterminacy (i.e. by leaving the force of an utterance unclear, the speaker may leave the hearer the opportunity to choose between one force and another). Thus, the utterance If I were you Id leave town straight away, can be interpreted according to the context as a piece of advice, a warning, or a threat.

Also, speech acts are often played out over a number of turns, so we need to look at more extended interaction to understand how these actions are carried out and interpreted within speech events.

In this chapter we have seen how utterances perform actions, how speakers can mean considerably more than their words say. In the next chapter we shall address the question of how hearers get from what is said to what is meant.

1. What are the felicity conditions for the following utterances to function and to what extent do they vary from culture to culture? (Source: Cook, 1989)

1. I pronounce that they be Man and wife.

2. I name this ship Queen Elisabeth.

3. You are under arrest.

4. I absolve you from all your sins.

5. I declare the said person duly elected to Parliament.

2. Imagine a situation in which a teacher is telling a student to write a longer answer. Invent a conversation which follows the same stages as that between the sergeant and the private: (Source: Cook, 1989)

S: I think your boots need cleaning (cond.1)

Pr: Dont you think having a well-oiled rifle is more important? (Challenge)

S: Im bloody sure you can get your boots cleaner than that, Jones. (cond.2)

Pr: Ive been scrubbing all morning and they wont come any cleaner. (Challenge)

S: Youre supposed to come on to parade with clean boots, Jones! (cond. 3)

Pr: I didnt see that in the standing orders! (Challenge)

S: Its my job to see youve got cleaner boots than this! (cond.4)

Pr: The Captain told me it was all right. (Challenge)

S: Jones! Clean your boots ! (imperative)

Pr: No, sergeant. (refusal)

S: Jones, I order you to clean your boots (explicit performative)

Pr: No, sergeant. (refusal)

S: Right, youve had it now. Trying to undermine my authority! Youre on a charge!

Teacher and Student:

T: I think this answer could be a bit longer.(Condition 1)

St:..(Challenge)

T:..(Condition 2)

St:..(Challenge)

T:..(Condition 3)

St:..(Challenge)

T:(Condition 4)

St:..(Challenge)

T:...(Imperative)

St:...(Refusal)

T:....(Explicit performative)

St:.(Refusal)

T:

3. Look at the following utterances and try to determine what might have been their illocutionary force (Source: Cook, 1989):

1. Please, open the window.

2. Its very stuff in here, isnt it?

3. Im sorry for what Ive done.

4. I promise to repay you tomorrow.

5. Somebodys messed up my computer.

4. Look at the following transcripts of exchanges between a husband and a wife. How does A exploit ambiguity in the illocutionary force of what is said? Do the utterances which explicitly formulate the upshot refer to the illocutionary or perlocutionary force? (Source: Cook, 1989)

Exchange 1.

A: Are you planning to do it this afternoon?

B: (angrily) Well WHEN this afternoon?

A: (with injured innocence) Im just asking whether youll be able to do it this afternoon.

Exchange 2.

B: Oh no, we havent got the TV programme.

A: Go and get one then.

B: Go and get one! Ive just come in.

A: Well if you dont go Ill go.

B: Thats blackmail.

A: Its not blackmail, its just a FACT.

5. Comment on the following utterance. Does it qualify as a promise? Why (not)? (Source: Mey, 1993:127)

I promise not to keep this promise.

Suppose you come across a street sign whose text says: (Source: Mey, 1993:127)

DO NOT READ THIS SIGN

What speech act are we dealing with?

Can one take this seriously? Why not?

What is the problem with the following speech acts. Do they all suffer from the same irregularity, or are they irregular different ways? Can you think of any conditions that make any of these speech acts acceptable? (Source: Mey, 1993:127)

I promise (hereby) to set fire to your house.

I hereby warn you that you will be awarded the Nobel prize in literature.

WRNING: Your lawn will turn brown in November

Consider the following text, found on a package of American brewers yeast in the 1920s: (Source: Mey, 1993:127)

Do not mix the contents of this package with 2 qts of lukewarm water

Do not add 1 lb of sprouted barley

Do not put in a warm spot (74 degrees) for 7-10 days

Do not skim

Do not put mixture in copper pot and heat

Do not condense vapors

Do not consume end product

Do not get caught

What speech acts are these (if any)?

Comment on the text from the point of view of Grices cooperative principle.

The famous sage-buffoon Nasredin Hoca, a figure familiar to popular culture from Serbia to the Middle East, reportedly once had a visit from a neighbour, who wanted to borrow a length of rope. This is how the Hoca (Teacher) managed to get out of the bind without offending his neighbour too much: (Source: Mey, 1993:149-150)

Neighbour: Efedin, could I borrow your rope?

Hoca: sorry, my friend, the rope is in use.

N: But I cannot see anybody using it.

H: Of course not, my harem is using it.

N: What could your harem possibly be doing with a length of rope?

H: Theyre putting flour on it.

N: Allah! How could anybody be putting flour on a rope?

H: Clearly, thats what one does when one doesnt want to let ones neighbour have it.

What speech acts are being used here?

Discuss the cooperative principle on the basis of this example.

4. CONVERSATIONAL PRINCIPLES: COOPERATION

People are interpreting other peoples language - and expecting other people to interpret their own - all the time, apparently with a surprising degree of accuracy. This happens, as we have seen in the previous chapter, because words and sentences are used by people in certain contexts to do something. They have certain functions.

For example, depending on who is speaking to whom and in what context, the following sentence has different functions:

The window is open (Source, Cook, 1989)

Thus, it may be an expression of worry if it is uttered by wife to husband in the middle of the night. It may be an order, if it is uttered by the head-teacher to a student. It may also be an interpretation if it is uttered by a detective to the assistant.

However, as we have seen in the previous chapter, there are problems with the functional interpretation of the language, because not all functions can be neatly labelled, and because there is not always a neat correspondence between a single utterance and a single function. Thus, the following questions might be asked:

1. If people can mean different things with the same words, how do human beings interpret what is meant from what is said?

2. Why is there a divergence of function and form, or why do not people speak directly and say what they mean?

For an answer we have to look at the work of Paul Grice, who attempted to explain how, by means of shared rules of conversations, competent language-users manage to understand one another.

Like Austin before him, Grice was invited to give lectures at Harvard University, and it was there in 1967 that he first outlined his theory of implicture. A shorter version of these lectures was published in 1975 in a paper Logic and conversation. Later, Grice expanded upon his earlier work and it proved to be one of the most influential theories in the development of pragmatics. Grices theory is an attempt at explaining how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant, from the level of expressed meaning to the level of implied meaning.

I. CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE: IMPLICATURES AND INFERENCES

The basic assumption in conversation is that (according to Grice, 1975), unless otherwise indicated, the participants are adhering to some shared rules of conversation, which he calls the Co-operative Principle. Lets have a look at an example (Levinson, 1983) :

E.g. A: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

B: Ah, I brought the bread.

In order for A to understand Bs reply, A has to assume that B is co-operating, and has given B the right amount of information. But he didnt mention the cheese. If he had brought the cheese he would have said so. He must intend that A infer that what is not mentioned was not brought. In this case B has conveyed more than he said via a conversational implicature.

Before going into Grices theory of conversational implicature, we shall try to clarify two terms, implicature and inference, and the corresponding verbs to imply and to infer. The verb to imply is used when the speaker generates some meaning beyond the semantic meaning of the words. Implicature (term devised by Grice) refers to the implied meaning generated intentionally by the speaker.

Infer, on the other hand, refers to the situation in which the hearer deduces meaning from available evidence. Inference is the inferred meaning deduced by the hearer, which may or may not be the same as the speakers intended implicature.

Here is an example which illustrates the distinction between implicature and inference:

E.g.

The following example is taken from a childrens book, set in Holland under William the Silent, during the war with Spain. Maurice was a boy caught up in the events; Theo was a manservant:

Tears filled his eyes; he cried easily in these days, nor having full control of himself, and Theos fate caused him great grief. The Duchess had told him that she had been able to discover nothing, and therefore it was assumed that he head been released as entirely innocent. Maurice was convinced that nothing of the kind had happened, and assumed that the Duchess had found out that Theo was dead and had invented the agreeable solution in order not to distress him. He could not do anything about it and had accepted the statement in silence, but he fretted a great deal over Theos death.

(source: Thomas, 1995:58-59)

Here, the Duchess implied that Theo was all right. Maurice understood what she had implied, but nevertheless inferred the opposite (that Theo was dead).

Here is another example (source: Thomas, 1995:59):

Some years ago, Jenny Thomas went to stay with her brother and his family, including his son, aged 5. She had had with her an electric toothbrush, into which she had recently put new batteries. Her brother asked to see the toothbrush, but when he tried to operate it, it would nor work:

J.T.: Thats funny. I thought I put in some new batteries.

Nephew: (Going extremely red): The ones in my engine still work.

Here is Thomass interpretation of what was going on in the above conversation:

J.Ts remark had been a genuine expression of surprised irritation, addressed to the family at large and she did not expect any response. However, her nephew misinterpreted the force of her utterance as an accusation and inferred (wrongly) that he was a suspect.

II. CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

Lets consider the following scenario (from Cook, 1989). There is a woman sitting on a park bench and a large dog lying on the ground in front of the bench. A man comes along and sits down on the bench.

Man: Does your dog bite?

Woman: No

(The man reaches down to pet the dog. The dog bites the mans hand)

Man: Ouch! You said your dog doesnt bite.

Woman: He doesnt. But thats not my dog.

The problem here is the mans assumption that more was communicated than was said. In other words, the man assumed that the woman, by saying NO, meant that the dog lying at her feet was her dog, and it didnt bite.

From the mans perspective, the womans answer provides less information than expected: she might be expected to provide the information stated in the last line (But thats not my dog}.

The concept of there being an expected amount of information provided in conversation is just one aspect of the more general idea that people involved in a conversation will co-operate with each other. In most circumstances, the assumption of co-operation is so pervasive that it can be stated as a co-operative principle, which was elaborated by H.P.Grice (1975) in four sub-principles or maxims.

Grices principle is formulated as follows: Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

According to this principle we interpret language on the assumption that its sender is obeying (observing) four maxims:

1. Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose of the exchange. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

2. Maxim of quality: Do not say what you believe to be false; Do not say that for which you lack evidence.

3. Maxim of Relation: Be relevant

4. Maxim of Manner: Avoid obscurity of expression; Avoid ambiguity; Be brief; Be orderly.

Using this assumption, combined with the knowledge of the world, the receiver can reason from the literal, semantic meaning of what is said to the pragmatic meaning and infer what the sender is intending to do with his/her words.

E.g.: A neighbour:

Sorry, love. I saw you were home. Theres a cat stuck under the gate at number 67.

(Source: Cook, 1989)

The hearer starts from the knowledge and experience of the world, that a cat is likely to be very unhappy stuck under a gate; that a human is likely to be able to free such a cat, etc.

According to the co-operative principle the hearer assumes that the neighbour is telling the truth (not playing a joke); that she is being relevant (compare with: Theres a flower growing in the garden at number 67). So, the utterance is interpreted as a request for help in freeing the cat. The pragmatic meaning would be: Come and free the cat which is stuck under the gate at number 67.

The maxims are unstated assumptions we have in conversations. We assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information; we assume that they are telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as they can. Because these principles are assumed in normal interaction, speakers rarely mention them. However, there are certain expressions used to mark that speakers may be in danger of not fully adhering to the principles. These expressions are called hedges. The following examples are taken from Yule (1996:38-39):

E.g.:

Quality:

a. As far as I know, theyre married.

b. I may be mistaken, but I thought I saw a wedding ring on her finger.

c. Im not sure if this is right, but I heard it was a secret ceremony in Hawaii.

d. He couldnt live without her, I guess.

Quantity:

a. As you probably know, I am afraid of dogs.

b. So, to cut a long story short, we grabbed our stuff and ran.

c. I wont bore you with all the details, but it was an exciting trip.

Relation:

a. I dont know if this is important, but some of the files are missing.

b. This may sound like a dumb question, but whose handwriting is this?

c. Not to change the subject, but is this related to the budget?

Manner:

a. This may be a bit confused, but I remember being in a car.

b. Im not sure if this makes sense, but the car had no lights.

c. I dont know if this is clear at all, but I think the other car was reversing.

There are cases in which not all four maxims can be observed. Brevity and truth often pull in opposite directions (a short answer is often simplified to the point of distortion). Legal discourse and scientific discourse often sacrifice the maxim of quantity to the maxim of quality. Maxims of quantity and manner are often at odds. To be clear one sometimes needs to be long-winded.

III. FLOUTING THE MAXIMS (GENERATING IMPLICATURE)

The situations which chiefly interested Grice were those in which a speaker blatantly, deliberately, fails to observe a maxim, not with any intention of deceiving or misleading, but because the speaker wants to prompt the hearer to look for a meaning which is different from the expressed meaning. These are intended violations of the maxims; the sender intends the receiver to perceive them as such. If the sender does not intend violations to be perceived as such, or if the receiver does not realise that they are deliberate, then communication degenerates into lying, or simply breaks down.

1. Flouts exploiting maxims of Quality

Flouts which exploit the maxim of Quality occur when the speaker says something which is blatantly untrue.

E.g. (source, Thomas, 1995:55)

Late on Christmas Eve 1993 an ambulance is sent to pick up a man who has collapsed in Newcastle city centre. The man is drunk and vomits all over the ambulanceman who goes to help him. The ambulanceman says:

Great, thats really great! Thats made my Christmas!

Here an implicature is generated by the speakers saying something which is patently false. According to Grice (cf. Thomas), the deductive process might work like this:

i)                    The ambulanceman has expressed pleasure at having someone vomit over him.

ii)                  There is no example in recorded history of people being delighted at having someone vomit over them.

iii)                I have no reason to believe that the ambulanceman is trying to deceive us in any way.

iv)                Unless the ambulancemans utterance is entirely pointless, he must be trying to put across some other proposition.

v)                  This must be some obviously related proposition.

vi)                The most obviously related proposition is the exact opposite of the one he has expressed.

vii)              The ambulanceman is extremely annoyed at having the drunk vomit over him.

2. Flouts exploiting the maxim of Quantity

A flout exploiting a maxim of Quantity occurs when a speaker blatantly gives more or less information than the situation requires. We have already seen one instance of a person giving less information than required, in the example with the dog that has bitten the man. Here is a similar one:

E.g. A: How are we getting there?

B: Well, were getting there by Daves car.

(Source, Thomas, 1995:69)

B blatantly gives less information than A needs, thereby generating the implicature that, while she and her friends have a lift arranged, A will not be travelling with them.

3. Flouts exploiting the maxims of Relation

The maxim of Relation is exploited by making a response which is very obviously irrelevant to the topic at hand.

E.g. (taken from Thomas, 1995:70)

Geoffrey is a vicar, trying hard to curry favour with his bishop. The speaker is Susan, his wife, who couldnt care less about the church or religion:

We were discussing the ordination of women. The bishop asked me what I thought. Should women take the services? So long as it doesnt have to be me, I wanted to say, they can be taken by a trained gorilla. Oh yes, Geoffrey chips in Susans all in favour. Shes keener than I am, arent you, darling?. More sprouts anybody? I said.

In this example, according to Thomas, the bishop is likely to come to the conclusion that Susan is not interested in the subject of womens ordination and wishes to change the topic.

4. Flouts exploiting the maxim of Manner

The following is an example of flouting the maxim of Manner:

E.g. (taken form Thomas, 1995:71)

This interaction occurred during a radio interview with an un-named official from United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince Haiti:

Interviewer: Did the United States Government play any part in Duvaliers departure? Did they, for example, actively encourage him to leave?

Official: I would not try to steer you away from that conclusion.

The official could simply have replied Yes. The actual response is extremely long-winded.

Flouting the co-operative principle in order to make a point more forcefully also explains:

      metaphors (Queen Victoria was made of iron)

      hyperbole (Ive got millions of beers in my cellar)

      irony and sarcasm (I love it when you sing out of key all the time)

      humour (e.g. puns)

5. Other ways of not observing the maxims:

Opting out, i.e refusing to answer, is another way of non-observing the maxims Such an example is Bill Clintons response to a journalist who was asking him about the Whitewater affair, a scandal in which Bill and Hillary were involved. When the journalist asked the question, Clinton took his microphone off, got out of his seat, told the journalist hed had his two questions and went off.

Suspending the (universality of) maxims

There are occasions/situations/cultures when it appears that there is no expectation that all the maxims will be observed. Compare, for instance, an interrogation, where we would not expect that the maxim of Relation should be observed by the defendants, with a confessional, where we expect the opposite.

Infringing:

A speaker who, with no intention of generating an implicature and with no intention of deceiving, fails to observe a maxim is said to infringe the maxim. For example, a speaker may fail to observe a maxim because of imperfect linguistic performance (foreigners, young child speaking, nervous speakers, etc.)

In this chapter we have explored one approach to explaining how people interpret indirectness. Before going on to the next chapter, we should mention some of the problems with Grices theory. The main problems are:

      It can be difficult to distinguish between different categories of non-observance

      Sometimes it can be difficult to determine which maxim is being invoked, since maxims seem to overlap sometimes;

      Sometimes an utterance has a range of possible interpretations. How do we know which implications are intended?

      Grices four maxims are not all of the same order, they seem to be rather different in nature.

1. Which maxims of the co-operative principle are being flouted in the following, and why?

a. I think Ill go for a W-A-L-K (spelling the word letter by letter in front of a dog)

b. [At a dinner party]: Is there anywhere I can powder my nose?

c. This meal is delicious (said by a guest who finds the food disgusting)

d. Child: Im going to watch Match of the Day now.

Parent: What was that Maths homework you said you had?

(Source: Cook, 1989)

2. Which are the maxims flouted and he implicatures generated in the following examples:

(Source: Culpeper, Lancaster University, Unpublished course notes)

[A is working at a computer in one of the departments lab when she experiences a problem]

A: Can you help me?

B: Graemes office hour is in five minutes

[Jonathan, sensitive about his lack of progress in Italian, has just returned from an Italian evening class]

Elena: What did you do?

Jonathan: This and that.

[Victor has been buried up to his neck in the back garden by an irate builder. His wife, Margaret, comes out]

M: What are you doing?

V: Im wallpapering the spare bedroom, what the hell do you think Im doing?

(One Foot in the Grave, BBC 12/11/96)

[This is part of the queens speech at the anniversary of her 40th year on the

throne. It had been a bad year for the queen - marital difficulties of her children, the Windsor Palace had gone up in flames]

Queen: 1992 is not a year which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.

3. Analyse the following extract in relation to the Co-operative Principle:

[Context: a television serial, called Boys from the Blackstuff, follows the lives of a group of men facing unemployment in Liverpool. This scene takes place in a Department of Employment. Chrissie is under suspicion for illegally claiming unemplyment benefit.]

Clerk: It seems from your files, Mr. Todd, that one of our inspectors has visited your house on two separate occasions during the past ten days without receiving an answer.

Ch.: Ah, what a shame

C: You were out?

Ch: Looks that way doesnt it?

C: Can you tell me where you were?

Ch: I might be able to if you tell me when you called.

C: Its themorning of Tuesday the third, andthe afternoon of Thursday the 12th

[There is a pause]

Ch: Havent a clue.

C: Were you employed during those days?

Ch: Who, me?

C: Look, have you got a job, Mr. Todd?

Ch: Oh yeah, I just come here for the company and the pleasant surroundings.

C: (patiently, and not without sympathy) You havent answered my question.

Ch: [Looking away] I havent worked in over a year.

C: Right, Mr. Todd, thats all.

(Chrissie stands)

C: We will, however, be making further visits to your house in due course.

Ch: Ill bake a cake.

4. Discuss the following exchanges in terms of the CP and implicatures

1. ( Thomas, 1995:65):

The speaker is Rupert Allason (author, M.P. and expert on the British intelligence services). He is discussing the identity of the so-called Fifth Man:

It was either Graham Mitchell or Roger Hollis and I dont think it was Roger Hollis.

2. (Thomas, 1995:68)

B was on a long journey and wanted to read her book. A was a fellow passenger who wanted to talk to her:

A: What do you do?

B: Im a teacher.

A: Where do you teach?

B: Outer Mongolia

A: Sorry I asked.

3. ( Thomas, 1995:70):

I finished working on my face. I grabbed my bag and a coat. I told mother I was going outShe asked me where I was going. I repeated myself Out.

4. ( Thomas, 1995:71):

This interaction occurred during a radio interview with an un-named official from the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

Interviewer: Did the United States Government play any part in Duvaliers departure?

Did they, for example, actively encourage him to leave?

Official: I would not try to steer you away from that conclusion.

5. (Mey:69)

A: Well all miss Bill and Agatha, wont we?

B: Well, well all miss Bill.

6.

A child walks into the kitchen and takes some popcorn

Father: I thought you were practicing your violin.

Child: I need to get the [violin] stand

Father: Is it under the popcorn?

5. POLITENESS THEORY

5.1. Introduction

In the previous sessions we have looked at indirectness and we already have a framework for the description of how people make sense of each others talk when more is implied than is said (co-operative principle). We have also seen that there may be a number of explanations why people choose to be indirect first of all. Politeness theory has tried to explain this.

Much of what is said in an interaction is determined by our social relationships. A linguistic interaction is necessarily a social interaction. In order to make sense of what is said in interaction, we have to look at various factors which relate to social distance and closeness.

Some of these factors are established prior to the interaction and hence are external factors. One such factor is the relative status of the participants. Speakers who see themselves as having a lower status tend to mark social distance between themselves and the higher status speakers by using address forms that include a title, a last name, but not the first name (e.g.:Mr. Adams, Mrs. Clinton).

Other factors, such as the amount of imposition (degree of friendliness), which are often negotiated during an interaction, are internal factors to the interaction and can result in the initial social distance changing and being marked as less or more during its course. (e.g.: moving from a title-plus-last name to a first-name basis within talk).

Both types of factors have an influence not only on what we say, but also on how we interpret it. In many cases, the interpretation goes beyond what is said, and takes on an evaluative meaning. We may thus consider a person as being rude if he or she does not use the language appropriate to the cirucumstances. Recognising the impact of such evaluations makes it clear that more is being communicated than is said.

5.2. Definitions of politeness

The word politeness has been tremendously used in the literature on politeness, but people have been using the same term in very different ways, and have been operating with different definitions of politeness. We are interested here in politeness as a pragmatic phenomena, that is as a strategy, or a series of strategies, employed by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals, such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relations (Thomas, 1995:157-158).

We shall see first what definitions or understandings of politeness we are not interested in for a pragmatic analysis of language, in order to avoid confusions related to the term. We are not interested in politeness interpreted as a genuine desire to be pleasant to others, and we shall not discuss whether one group of people is politer than another (in the sense of genuinely behaving better than do other groups).

Some people frequently equate politeness with deference, but we shall not be interested in that either. Deference refers to the respect we show to other people by virtue of their higher status, greater age, etc., and can be manifested through general social behaviour (for example, we may stand up in a bus to offer the seat to an older person).

There are two main views on politeness that we shall look at in this session, the latter being the most used in the literature: a) the conversational-maxim view (Leech, 1983 and Lakoff, 1989) and b) the face-saving view (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

5.3. The conversational-maxim view

Leech and Lakoff have attempted to describe politeness in terms of general principles or maxims (as Grice did in his co-operative principle), which people assume are being followed in the utterances of others. As with the co-operative principle, any flouting of these maxims will take on meaning.

Lakoff (1989:102) defines politeness as a means of minimising confrontation in discourse both the possibility of confrontation occurring at all, and the possibility that a confrontation will be perceived as threatening. She lists the following maxims of politeness:

         Dont impose. Thus, we often give orders, and make requests and pleas in the form of elaborate questions, which give the interlocutor the option of refusal.

         Give options.

E.g: Would you mind?

Could you possibly?

May I ask you to.?

         Make your receiver feel good. For example, we may add in prasie to make our hearer feel good.

E.g.: Could you give me a helping hand? You know much more about car engines than I do.

Leech (1983:82) says that the Politness Principle has the role to maintain social equilibrium and friendly relations which enable us to assume our interlocutors are being co-operative in the first place. He introduces a number of maxims which, he claims, stand in the same relationship to the pragmatic principles as Grices maxims stand to the co-operative principle. These maxims are necessary in order to explain the relationship between sense and force in human conversation (Like Grices maxims, Leechs maxims are formulated in the imperative, though he claims that they are simply statements of norms speakers can be observed to follow).

Here is a list of Leechs maxims, with examples provided :

1. TACT MAXIM: a. minimise cost to other, b. maximise benefit to other (Just pop upstairs and; Ive got a bit of a problem). Notice that the minimalisation is done with the help of just, pop instead of come, and a bit of.

2. GENEROSITY MAXIM: a. minimise benefit to self, b. maximise cost to self (You must come and have dinner with us)

3. APPROBATION MAXIM: a. Minimise dispraise of others, b. Maximise praise of others (I enjoyed your lecture said by a person in the audience to the lecturer).

4. MODESTY MAXIM: a. Minimise praise of self; b. Maximise dispraise of self (A: This coffees very good; B: Not bad, is it? B miniasises the praise of self by using the negative and the opposite of good)

5. AGREEMENT MAXIM: a. Minimise disagreement between self and other

b Maximise agreement between self and other

(A: I dont want my daughter to do CSE, I want her to do O level.

B: Yes, but Mr. Sharma, I thought we resolved this on your last visit. Notice here that B, who wants to disagree with A, starts the answer with Yes, then introduces the utterance with but.)

6. SYMPATHY MAXIM: a. Minimise antipathy between self and other

b. Maximise sympathy between self and other

Leech suggests that the Pragmatic Principle maxims may be weighted differently in different cultures.

There is a major flaw in Leechs approach to politeness, which has been discussed by a number of people (see for instance Thomas, 1995): there appears to be no motivated way of restricting the number of maxims. In theory it would be possible to produce a new maxim to explain every tiny perceived regularity in language use.

5.4. The face-saving view (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

The most influential theory of politeness was put forward by Brown and Levinson. They say that politeness, like formal diplomatic protocol (for which it must surely be the model), presupposes that potential for aggression as it seeks to disarm it, and makes possible communication between potentially aggressive parties. (Brown and Levinson 1987:1)

Central to their theory of politeness is the concept of face, in the sense of reputation or good name, or the public self-image of a person (self-esteem). Face has two aspects:

Positive face, i.e., the want to be approved of, to be treated as a member of the same group, to know that his/her wants are shared by the others.

Negative face, i.e., the need to be independent, not to be imposed on by the others.

According to Brown and Levinson, certain illocutionary acts are liable to threaten or damage another persons face, and such acts are known as face threatening acts.

For example, there are face threatening act (FTA) for the negative face, i.e. if a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individuals expectations regarding self-image (e.g.: requests, orders, threats/unwilling promises or offers (these acts are a threat to the face of the speaker).

There are also FTA for the positive face: criticism, complaint, disagreement (which threaten the face of the Hearer), and apologies, confessions (which threaten the face of the Speaker).

A face saving act is when the speaker says something to lessen the possible threat to anothers face.

E.g.:

A neighbour is playing his music very loud and an older couple are trying to sleep.

Him: Im going to tell him to stop that awful music right now.

Her: Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because its getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep.

(Source, Cook, 1989)

In the example above, the husband proposes a face-threatening act (ordering the neighbour to stop the music), while the wife proposes a face-saving act (a request to stop the music followed by an explanation).

We can now define or see politeness as the means (strategies) employed to show awareness of another persons face.

Positive politeness, then, is a face saving act which is concerned with the persons positive face and which tends to show solidarity. The tendency to use positive politeness forms means that a person uses solidarity strategies. Here are some solidarity strategies:

         include personal information

         attend to H (e.g.: Hello)

         shared dialect (or register) E.g.: How about letting me use your pen?

Hey, buddy, Id appreciate it if youd let me use your pen

         the use of inclusive terms e.g.: we, lets

         exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H) e.g.: That was so awful, my heart bled for you

         avoid disagreement e.g.: Yes, its kind of nice

• indicate Speaker knows Hearers wants and is taking them into account. E.g.: I know how you feel

Negative politeness is a face saving act which is oriented to the persons negative face and which will tend to show deference. It is typically expressed through questions and expressions of apology for the imposition, or hesitations.

E.g.: Could you lend me a pen?

Im sorry to bother you, but can I ask you for a pen or something?

Deference strategies show the tendency to use negative politeness forms, emphasising the hearers right to freedom. Here are some examples of deference strategies:

           the use of impersonal expressions, e.g.: Customers may not smoke

                     absence of personal claims, e.g.: Theres going to be a party (instead of Im going to have a party)

                     be pessimistic, e.g. I dont suppose there is any chance of a cup of tea

                     apologise

                     state the FTA as a general rule, e.g.: I know this may be an imposition, but could you?

One way to see the relevance of the relationship between these politeness concepts and language use is to take a single speech event and map out the different interpretations associated with different possible expressions used within that event. Brown and Levinson (cf. Cook, 1989) give the example of the following possibilities to get a pen from someone else. Imagine that you arrive at an important lecture but discover that you dont have anything to write with. You have several choice:

say something say nothing (but search in bag)

say on record say off record (I forgot my pen)

on record with face saving act bald on record (Give me a pen)

positive politeness negative politeness

(How about letting me use your pen?) (Could you lend me a pen?)

Saying something off record means not directly addressing to the other but rather hinting, as in the example I forgot my pen, actually meaning that you would like him to lend you one.

Saying something on record, means saying it by using direct address forms. You may say it:

a. bald on record, which is the most direct approach, using imperative forms, as in the example above (give me a pen), or

b. using mitigating devices: expressions like please, would you?, to soften the demand

5.5. Conclusion

Though Brown and Levinson model is based on face-to-face interaction, it has been adapted for analysis of writing, where the relationship and social distance between writer and reader can be seen through the politeness strategies adopted.

However, a number of criticisms have been made of their model, primarily that in fact, many acts can be seen to threaten both the face of speaker and that of the hearer simultaneously.

TASK 1. Classify the utterances below according to the solidarity or deference strategies used:

I wonder if you can help me.

Help me with this bag, will you mate.

This food tastes sort of strange.

Lets have something to drink.

Youll have another drink, wont you.

Could I see you for a second.

(Source: Cook, 1989)

TASK 2. What FTAs are involved in the following conversation and how are they dealt with?

Colonel: Excuse me, senorita, do you mind if we join you? Im feeling you are being neglected.

Donna: Well, Im expecting somebody.

Col.: Instantly?

Don: No, but any minute now.

Col: Some people live a life time in a minute. What are you doing right now?

Don: Im waiting for him.

Col: Well, do you mind if we waited for you? Just to keep the womanisers from bothering you.

Don: No, I dont mind.

Col: Thank you.

(from the film: Scent of a woman)

TASK 3. What negative politeness strategies can you identify in the following written note sent by an academic to professor Jenny Thomas who had forgotten a previously arranged appointment:

Dear Jenny Thomas,

Im sorry I missed you today. I wanted to discuss with you

I know it is a terrible imposition, but if you had any time, Sat. p.m. we could perhaps meet in Lancaster for a coffee? Id be very grateful.

Best wishes

(from Thomas, 1995:172)

6. KNOWLEDGE IN DISCOURSE

6.1. Introduction

Remember that we have already seen how existing knowledge in the receiver of a message and the correct assessment of the extent of that knowledge by the sender are essential for successful communication. In other words, the way in which we speak (or write) shows our assumptions about what the receive already knows and about what he wants to find out. This may be observed at all linguistic levels, such as (cf. Cook, 1989):

• the use of articles, as in the example below where the use of indefinite article to introduce new information may be interpreted as the speaker sharing with the hearer the assumption that pineapples are edible, while tables, for instance, are not:

• the structuring of information, as in the following example, where the focus on John has a bearing on the syntactic structure of the sentence:

• At the level of discourse and the function of utterances, as in the example below, where the sergeant assumes that Jones has knowledge of the authority of sergeants, the obligations of soldiers an the importance attached to clean boots on parades grounds:

E.g.:

S: Jones. Clean your boots.

Pr: No sergeant.

S: Jones, I order you to clean your boots.

Pr: No. sergeant.

S: Right, youve had it now. Trying to undermine my authority! Youre on a

charge!

We will next look more closely at the role of knowledge, and how it interacts with language to create discourse.

6.2. Knowledge structures: schema and schemata

In order to function in the world, people cannot treat each new person, object, or event as unique and separate. They can only make sense of the world by seeing connections between things, and between present things and things we have experienced before or heard about. These vital connections are learned as we grow up and live in a given culture. As soon as we measure a new perception against what we know of the world from prior experience, we are dealing with expectations.

A broad range of fields, including linguistics, have started to study the notion of expectations, which lies at the root of much talk about such notions as frames, scripts and schemata in linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, social psychology, sociology and anthropology. Because of the large number of fields and writers, who have used different notions in different contexts, confusion may result. That it why, I will here rely on two main authors who come from different fields of investigation: Cognitive psychology (Eysenck&Keane, 1990) and Discourse Analysis (Tannen, 1993), who had a contribution to schema theory.

This theory was stimulated by findings in Cognitive psychology and Artificial Intelligence (attempts to program computers to produce and understand discourse, namely, how pre-existent knowledge of the world and language interact in order to reproduce the process in computers).

According to Eysenck&Keane (1990:275), A schema is a structured cluster of concepts; it usually involves generic knowledge and may be used to represent events, sequences of events[], situations, relations and even objects. Schemata are higher-order cognitive structures.

A schema consists of a particular configuration of variables or slots that may accept a range of concepts. The concepts that fill slots are called values. Our knowledge of typical values/slots constrains what may go into a slot. However, slots can be left unfilled or have an assumed or default value. Here is an example of a restaurant schema that one may have in mind, which includes physical surroundings, a certain sequence of the events, and certain people with certain social relations. What you cannot see, when entering a restaurant, you assume. So you fill in the missing slots by inferencing what else is there.

For some evidence of the existence of schemas and schemata, lets look at a real life example. Here is what a witness in a court case tells the court about her movements in the morning, when she is asked to tell everything she did, the whole truth:

Try to fill in variables that you infer or assume to exist from your Getting up in the morning schema, which have not been mentioned by the witness.

When a sender judges her receivers schema to correspond to a significant degree to her own, she need only mention features which are not contained in it. Other features will be assumed to be present by default, unless we are told otherwise. For example (Cook, 1989), compare:

I went to work in my pyjamas.

I went to work in my clothes.

The second utterance seems odd because we usually do not say that we go to work in our clothes. This information is present by default, that is, we assume that all people go to work dressed in their clothes. In the first example, however, the information about how I was dressed becomes relevant, because it is something unusual, or new, presumably, for the listener.

Schema (schemata) are stereotyped patterns which we retrieve from memory and employ in our understanding of discourse. What you cannot see, you assume, you fill in slots by inferencing/assuming. The mind , stimulated by key words or phrases in the text, activates a knowledge schema (our expectations about objects, people and events).

Here are some nice examples, taken again from Cook (1989), of how our minds work in making sense of discourse:

Now look at these continuations:

1all neatly arranged in little jam jars in the cellar, graded according to length, on the shelf above the hammers and the electric drills.

2.waggled it flippers, and caught a fish in its mouth.

The schema activated by the opening leads to one interpretation of nails and seal (This is called expectation driven understanding in Artificial Intelligence). There is a conflict here between the ease with which we process the information and our interest. Generally speaking, activating a certain schemata and then overturning it, as in the examples above, is a device often used in jokes, puzzles and literature.

Schemata enable us to draw inferences. We are able to construct an interpretation, a representation in memory, that contains more than the information we receive. Schemata may be thought of as being in an inactive state in the mind until they are cued and thus made active. Generally, one might suppose that only relevant schemata are activated, in other words, that fit the incoming information. But these can be many. The question then arises: What is to stop virtually every word in a text activating a schema? A plausible solution may be offered by the Relevance Theory.

6.3. Relevance theory (D.Sperber & D.Wilson, Relevance. Communication and Cognition, 1986, Blacwell)

The Relevance theory tries to answer the question: What determines which schemata gets activated? In short, Relevance theorists Sperber and Wilson consider that human mind have a long-term aim: to increase their knowledge of the world. In each encounter with discourse, we start with a set of assumptions, whose accuracy we seek to improve.

Information is relevant when it has a significant effect on our assumptions, that is, when it allows us to alter our knowledge structures to give us a more accurate representation of the world.

On the other hand, successful communication must work within the framework of the receivers existing knowledge; it must not make too many demands. So relevant information adjusts out picture of the world: it is information which yields the greatest change in our knowledge for the least processing effort.

Relevance theory says:

a). Other things being equal, the greater the contextual effects, the greater the relevance.

b) Other things being equal, the smaller the processing effort, the greater the relevance. (1986:29)

Lets illustrate this, with a quotation taken from Sperber and Wilson (1986:269):

Mary wants to make it quite manifest to Peter that she will be out from 4 oclock to 6 oclock. She might inform him of this by saying any of (10a-c):

(10) (a) Ill be out from 4 to 6.

(b) Ill be out at the Joness from 4 to 6.

(c) Ill be out at the Joness from 4 to 6 to discuss the next meeting.

Suppose she assumes that any of these utterances would be relevant enough to Peter. Suppose it doesnt matter to her whether she tells him where she is going and why. Suppose the amount of effort needed to produce any of these utterances makes no difference to her. Then it would be rational to enough to utter any of (10a-c), since each would achieve her goal at an equally acceptable cost to her. However, it would be most rational to produce the utterance most relevant to Peter, since this would make it most likely that he would attend to her communication, remember it, and so on: in other words, it would maximize the manifestness to Peter of the information that Mary wants him to have. Since (10c) would demand more effort from Peter than (10b), and (10b) than (10a), Mary should choose one of these longer utterances if and only if the extra information conveyed yields enough effect to make it more relevant to Peter. If he doesnt care where she is going, she should choose (10a). If he cares where she is going, but not why, she should choose (10b). If he care both where and why, she should choose (10c)

Information is relevant to you if it interacts in a certain way with your existing assumptions about the world. There are 3 types of interaction leading to contextual effects:

1) it produces new information

2) it strengthens our existing assumptions.

3) it contradicts and eliminates our existing assumptions.

6.4. Conclusion

A step forward in understanding how people can communicate successfully is to understand that people approach the world not as nave receptacles, but rather as experienced veterans of perception who have stored their prior experiences as organised mass, and who see events and objects in the world in relation to each other and in relation to their prior experiences. This prior experience takes the form of expectations about the world, and in the vast majority of cases, the world confirms these expectations.

However, miscommunication may occur in a number of situations, such as

      When there are misjudgments and mismatches of schemata between the sender and the receive. These are particularly likely when people try to communicate across cultures

      Communication suffers when people make false assumptions about shared schemata

      When one steps outside the predictable patterns (discourse deviation)

TASK 1.

Compare the following two texts. Do either of them sound peculiar, and if so why?

a) Have you heard about Peter and Susans wedding? well, apparently the minister was late, the best man lost the rings and the cake tasted pretty awful. A complete disaster!

b) Have you heard about Peter and Susans wedding? Well, apparently a minister was late, a best man lost some rings and a cake tasted pretty awful. A complete disaster!

TASK 2.

What is odd about the following story?

What does it tell you about the schema you employed in interpreting the discourse?

A father was driving his son home when he had a crash. The father was killed and the son rushed by ambulance to hospital. As the boy was being prepared for an emergency operation, the surgeon walked in, looked at him and cried; I cant operate on this boy: hes my son!

TASK 3

Comment on the following pieces of discourse using the schema and/or relevance theories:

a) Is the doctor at home? the patient asked in his bronchial whisper. No, the doctors young and pretty wife whispered in reply. Come right in.

b) The Monty Python Spam sketch

Cut to cafe. All the customers are Vikings. Mr and Mrs Bun enter downwards (on wire)

Mr. Bun: Morning

Waitress: Morning

Mr. Bun: What have you got, then?

Waitress: well theres egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg

and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam, and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes with sauce garnished with truffle pate, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam.

c). A Sanatogen radio advert.

Comment on it thinking of:

Persons involved (preferences, Goal, Trait)

Social roles:

Group membership (Gender, age):

Frame:

Script:

Voice A: [Singing to loud disco music]. There I was looking for you luv, couldnt get enoughooh, oohyeah-eah, stop

Voice B: [Two loud thumps as if on a door. Speaking above music] Turn that racket down, now! Do you hear me! Now, I said!

Voice A: [Singing to the music]right now.

Voice B: What did you say? How dare you speak to me like that! Honestly Mum, I dont know whats got into you lately.

Voice-over: Sanatogen Classic 50 Plus [etc.].

7. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS VS. CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

DISCOURSE AS PRODUCT VS. DISCOURSE AS PROCESS

7.1. Introduction

In the previous units we have looked at some Politeness theories as explanatory theories for why people might be indirect. As you have seen, Brown and Levinson were mostly interested in how to account for different ways of performing certain speech acts. However, applied linguists were also interested to examine longer stretches of discourse, to see not only how meaning develops at a certain point, but also how a particular type of discourse is structured. Because such structures are conventional, and hence culturally specific, the non-native speakers need to be able both to identify what type of discourse he/she is involved in, and to predict how it will be typically structured, in order to operate effectively as a participant in the discourse. Discourse is thus seen as a product and not as a process in development.

In order to better understand how the structural relationship between parts to a whole works, Cook (1989) refers to the rank structure, in which one rank is made up of one or more of the ranks below. Here are some examples, taken from Cook (1989), of rank structures from the filed of linguistics, discourse, and from a criminal trial:

7.2.         The Birmingham School: Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)

The pioneering work of this school involved recognizing discourse as a level of language organization. Their model of discourse organization of school lessons, based on hierarchically organized speech acts, can be applied, with modifications, to discourse in general. Sinclair and Coulthard recorded a number of British primary school lessons and proposed the following rank structure (Cook, 1989):

-          Lesson

-          Transaction

-          Exchange (teaching exchange)

-          Move (Opening move: eg.: We are going to continue)

(Re)Initiation: eg.: What is the capital of Australia?

Response: eg.: Cambera

Feedback: eg.: Right

(Closing move: eg.: Thats all about geography today)

-          Act (speech acts)

As you can notice in the IRF example above, the teachers first contribution is an initiation move, the pupils answer is a response, and then the teacher gives feedback. Usually, one contribution may consist of more than one move. As Fairclough (1992:14) observes, the consistent presence of the teachers feedback can be interpreted as his/her power to evaluate pupils contributions, and teachers questions are not real question to find out information, but display questions, to test what pupils know, and train them to say things which are relevant according to their criteria.

As already mentioned above, a move consists of one or more acts. Sinclair and Coulthard distinguish - 22 acts for classroom discourse. Here are some examples:

-          A bid when, for example, the pupil signals that he/she wants to contribute

-          Elicitation when the teacher asks a question requesting an answer

-          Metastatement when the teacher explicitly refers to development of the lesson.

The strength of Sinclair and Coulthard framework is in the way in which they draw attention to systematic organizational properties of dialogues, and provides ways of describing them. However, it is doubtful that such a model would have been attempted for more free-flowing conversational interaction. Also, the IRF model tends to obscure the social relations of the classroom, since Sinclair and Coulthards classroom was a traditional one, and in their model they tend to ignore the task of analyzing how mutual understanding is achieved by the participants.

Discourse analysts are thus interested in conversational structure as an extension of other linguistic rules. The Birmingham School approach has been applied to different other discourse types, such as medical consultations (Coulthard and Montgomery, 1981), or TV quiz shows (Berry, 1981).

If the Birmingham School analysts are interested in discourse as a product, ignoring the on-going development of mutual understanding in the classroom, Conversation Analysts are interested mainly in what they call everyday conversation.

7.3. Conversation analysis

Conversation analysis is a branch of study which sets out to discover order in conversations. Associated with the ethnomethodologists (a group of scholars in USA Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson who set out to discover what methods (methodology) people (ethno) use to participate and make sense of interaction. They start from the most local level to see how participants handle conversation, that is, how they judge who can speak and when. Unlike the Birmingham School, they view discourse as a developing process. In other words, they focus on the sequential structure of talk, that is, the way one turn follows another. Most important, they insist they are looking for the way the talkers organize their talk, not for structure brought in by the analyst. So, they look for the way the participants respond to any unusual patterns.

7.4. Basic concepts of conversation analysis

The starting point in conversation analysts work has been the observation, on corpora of North American conversational data, the conversation involves turn-taking, and that the end of one speakers turn and the beginning of the next latch to each other with almost perfect precision and split-second timing. Overlap of turns occurs only in about 5% of cases, and this suggests that speakers know how, when and where to enter. They signal that one turn has come to an end and another should begin. So the basic characteristic of conversation, or talk, in their opinion, is the turn-taking mechanism.

7.4.1. Turn-taking mechanism (rules):

On the basis of this observation, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974/1978) describe a system for selection of next speaker within the turn-taking mechanisms, that is, the way in which speakers hold on or pass the floor. In summary, they have come up with the following turn-taking rules:

1.      if current speaker selects next speaker in current turn, the speaker must stop speaking and the selected speaker must speak.

2.      if current speaker does not select next speaker, then any other party may self-select, first speaker gaining rights to the next turn.

3.      if current speaker has not selected next speaker, and no other party self-selects, then current speaker may (but need not) continue.

Where there is an overlap between turns it has significance, signaling urgency, annoyance, or desire to correct what is being said. Turn-taking mechanisms vary, however, between cultures and languages. Thus, it has been observed that Latin people allow for more overlaps in their talk as compared to the Anglo Saxons.

It should also be mentioned that there are other factors involved in signaling turn-taking, such as eye-contact, body position and movement, intonation and volume of the speech, and also the relative status of the speakers or the roles they play.

7.4.2. Turn types

Adjacency pairs

Conversation analysts introduce the notion of adjacency pairs as the basic turn-taking type. Adjacency pairs refer to turn alternations where the utterance of one speaker makes a particular kind of response very likely. For example, a greeting, as first pair part, is normally followed by greeting (as second pair part). A farewell is followed by a farewell; a question by an answer. If they are not, we are likely to interpret this somehow, either as being rudeness, or lack of attention, etc. In these examples, the adjacency pairs are tightly constructed, with strong limitations on the second parts to be followed.

Preference structure

In other adjacency pairs, there is a choice of two likely responses, of which one is termed preferred response (because it occurs most frequently), and the other dispreferred (because it is less common). Here are some examples of preference organization of adjacency pair (from Cook, 1989):

1. Offer A: Like a lift?

- Acceptance (preferred) B: You saved my life.

- Refusal (dispreferred) B: Thanks, but Im waiting for a friend.

2. Compliment A: Thats a nice shirt.

- Acceptance (preferred) B: Thanks.

- rejection (dispreferred) B: Well, I think it makes me look old.

- agreement (preferred) B: It is quite nice, isnt it?

- shift B: Judy found it for me.

- return B: Thanks, I like yours too.

3. Question

-          expected answer (preferred)

-          unexpected answer (dispreferred)

4. Complaint A: You ate the cake I left in the fridge!

- apology (preferred) B: Sorry.

- denial (dispreferred) B: No, I didnt, it must have been Ann.

- excuse B: You shouldnt have left it there.

- challenge B; So what!

Usually, the dispreferred responses a marked by a slight pause or by prefaces such as Well, or You see, or by an explanation or justification. This is also a cue for the analyst that the participant perceives the response as being the unexpected one.

Insertion sequences and side sequences

There are also cases in which the second part of an adjacency pair is delayed by an alternation of turns occurring within it. These sequences are called insertion sequences, whenever the topic discussed is related to that of the main sequence in which it occurs.

As you can see in the example, the main sequence consists of a question (1) and the answer (4). However, before giving the answer, B inserts a related question to which A has to answer, before the answer to the first question is given. Thus, the format of an insertion sequence would be: Q (Q-A) A.

Whenever the speakers simply switch from one topic to an unrelated one, and then back again, we have what the conversation analysts call a side sequence.

In the example below, the side sequence is typed in bold.

Repairs

Unlike most written discourse, conversation is constructed and executed as it happens, by the participants. There is no possibility of restructuring, crossing out or rewriting. Consequently, participants may often correct either their own words or those of another participant, edging towards a situation in which maximum communication is achieved. These corrections or reformulations, are called by conversation analysts repairs.

In the example above, A initiates and does the repair, by partially repeating the prior turn, with the repair done in the same turn as the partial repetition.

Pre-sequences

Finally, another notion introduced by conversation analysts, that of pre-sequences, refers to the fact that participants in a conversation draw attention, or prepare the ground for, the kind of turn they are going to take next. Thus, usually, before an invitation or a request, for example, there is a pre-invitation, as in the examples below:

Often these turns also act as devices for obtaining the right to a longer turn, like a story or a joke. If the right to a longer turn is obtained, then its ending also must be signaled so that the other participants know it is finished and a contribution from them will not be construed as an interruption. Such signals might be pauses, laughter (especially in the case of jokes), or fillers, such as Anyway So. Clarifications are also considered as a form of repair.

7.5. Conclusion

Conversation analysts depict conversation as discourse constructed and negotiated between participants, following pre-established pattern, and marking the direction they are taking in particular ways, such as, pauses, laughter, intonation, fillers. These conventions enable the participants to orient to what is happening, and make sense of the interaction. Discourse analysts following the Birmingham School model, on the other hand, are more interested in the structural organization of discourse, looking for recurrent patterns, or regularities, and for categories. The next unit aims at giving you an example of how conversation analysis can supplement a traditional IRF analysis of a classroom exchange which is less traditional than Sinclair and Coulthard primary class.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

As you may have discovered while learning about pragmatics and discourse analysis, these fields are different from other areas of linguistics, in particular in that they are probabilistic rather than precise sciences. Within grammar, the linguistic is striving to make rules which are as comprehensive as possible, whereas in pragmatics and discourse analysis linguistics are trying to show how people use language in real-time, in real interactions. In these situations, people are most of the time uncertain about the precise meaning or intentions and can tolerate ambiguities. Pragmatics and discourse analysis try to offer a descriptive system for such indeterminancies.

On the other hand, the question has often been risen : is there any practical relevance in doing discourse analysis? The methods and findings of pragmatics and discourse studies have been applied in a wide variety of fields, such as, political communication, human-computer interaction, the treatment of language disorders. Some linguists talk about practising pragmatics in the sense o emancipatory linguistics (Mey, 1993), i.e. as the elimination of social injustice. As Mey (1993:310) states, if pragmatics is the study of the conditions of human language use in a societal context, its problems will save linguists and linguistics from focusing exclusively on their own problems.

TASK 1

Identify the turn types and turn taking mechanisms in the following extracts:

a.

A: so if theres a hardware store we could call in and get one on the way back

B: do you think there is one?

A: yes

B: OK then

A: that would be nice, wouldnt it?

B: yes it would.

A: I mean the job not the hardware shop.

B: yea I REAlise. What do you keep telling me for.

(from Cook, 1989)

b.

B: Uh if youd like to come over and visit a little while this morning Ill give you a cup of coffee.

A: hehh Well

Thats awfully sweet of you,

I dont think I can make it this morning uhm Im running and ad in the paper and-and uh I have to stay near the phone.

TASK 2

Try to record and then transcribe a very short classroom exchange and analyse it according to the Birmingham School model.

TASK 3

Analyse the following classroom extract and see to what extent the IRF model can be applied. Try also to apply some concepts from conversation analysis.

The following extract comes from a lesson where an American teacher teaches Romanian 11-th form pupils. The following exchange occurs at the beginning of the lesson, after the teacher has called the roll and has introduced the topic of the lesson (yesterday this poem er (.) I did get to read about half of them, I didnt still get through all of them). T stands for teacher, and the other letters stand for different students.

T: so but some of you had some very interesting answers or responses to the poem (.) Denisa I liked ah what you said . could you tell me (2) there were two things you mentioned. first of all you mentioned

something about how they were all different people or different voices. could you tell me ?

D: er people are presented (?) for different parts of the world wise men good men wild men brave men old age.

T: yes ?

(laughter)

D: and at the end his own father who is a very important figure for him

T: OK then how does he (.) do these different people go together, I mean how does he connect them?

D: they form the world I think they (.) they make a home.

T: OK

D: /but still

A: /they have the same reaction.

Ro: so I think

D: /yes the same reaction

Ro: /it presents the world from a general point of view.

T: OK

Ro: then from a personal one.

T: OK at the end its a personal one right? he finally ends up with a very personal point.

D: they react in the same way in front of death facing death.

T: OK and how does he characterise that ? I think thats important. its pretty clear.

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