Drama as Conversational Genre

Drama as a Conversational Genre

• Drama is a literary genre that closely resembles naturally occurring conversation
• The presence of an audience and scripted dialogue differentiates it

Discourse Structure of Drama

• Prototypical drama has at least two discourse levels
• Author/audience/reader level
• Character-character level
• Dramatic irony arises from this "doubled" structure
• Variations exist with more than two discourse levels, like plays with a narrator
• Different plays possess different "discourse architectures" affecting understanding and reaction

How Dramatic Dialogue Differs from Real Conversation

• Dramatic dialogue is written to be spoken, making it more fluent and purposeful
• Natural conversation contains non-fluency features
• Voiced fillers
• Pauses
• Mispronunciations
• Repetitions
• Abandoned structures
• Feedback is less frequent and more stylized
• Dramatic dialogue serves narrative ends and aims to characterize
• Real conversation is not always meaningful

Similarities Between Dramatic Dialogue and Real Conversation

• Both involve turn-taking patterns
• Overlaps are less frequent in drama
• Speech functions as acts are performed by speakers/characters
• Speech acts include questions, promises and requests
• Reliance on pragmatic assumptions and shared understanding of context is evident
• Characters often imply meaning, similarly to implicature

Speech Acts in Drama

• Characters perform speech acts, revealing intentions, relationships, and power dynamics
• Speech acts possess:
• Illocutionary force (the act performed by speaking)
• Perlocutionary effect (consequences of the act)
• Speech acts can be direct (matching grammar and function) or indirect (mismatch)
• Understanding felicity conditions is crucial for interpreting dramatic meaning

Turn-Taking and Topic Control in Drama

• Drama exhibits turn-taking controlled by playwrights for specific effects
• Turn-taking patterns indicate conversational power
• More powerful interactants have more extended turns
• They initiate topics
• They control who speaks
• They interrupt more
• Characters engage in topic control by shifting or maintaining focus

Politeness in Dramatic Dialogue

• Politeness strategies manage social interactions, relating to the concept of face
• Positive face wants (seeking connection and approval)
• Negative face wants (respecting independence)
• Characters employ positive or negative politeness
• Face-threatening acts (FTAs) threaten someone's face
• Politeness strategies mitigate FTAs
• Impoliteness can create conflict and reveal character relationships

Speech Acts

• Language performs actions known as speech acts

Direct vs. Indirect Speech Acts

• Speech acts can be direct or indirect
• Direct Speech Acts: Clear match between grammatical structure and function
• Indirect Speech Acts: Mismatch, with implied actions rather than explicit statements
• Examples of Direct Speech acts:
• Interrogative: ‘Is she seated?’ → Question
• Imperative: ‘Sit down!’ → Command
• Declarative: ‘She is seated.’ → Statement
• Examples of Indirect Speech acts:
• WAITER: Would you like the soup or the salad? (Interrogative) → Offering a choice.
• MANAGER: It's rather cold in here, isn't it? (Declarative) → Requesting someone to close the window.
• Interrogative: ‘Aren’t you being a bit greedy?’ → Criticising/Judging.
• Declarative: ‘It’s a little chilly in here.’ → Requesting someone to close a window.

Illocutionary Force and Perlocutionary Effect

• Illocutionary Force: Act performed by the speaker through the utterance, representing the speaker's intention
• An example of Illocutionary force is "Would you mind passing the salt?", where the illocutionary force is a request
• Intended Perlocutionary Effect: Effect the speaker intends to have on the hearer.
• If we go back to the salt example, the intended perlocutionary effect is that the hearer will pass the salt.
• Actual Perlocutionary Effect: Actual effect the utterance has, matching, or not matching, the speaker's intention
• Actual effects in the "salt" example: The hearer may pass the salt, ignore the request, or misunderstand it.
• Example of Perlocution:
• Illocutionary Force: Warning/Threatening.
• Intended Perlocutionary Effect: For the child to start or finish their homework.
• Possible Actual Perlocutionary Effect: The child starts their homework, the child ignores the parent, the child becomes upset.

Types of Speech Acts

• Actions depend on the speaker’s intention
• Claiming
• Complaining
• Contradicting
• Criticising
• Guessing
• Judging
• Informing
• Pleading
• Promising
• Questioning
• Reminding
• Requesting
• Seducing
• Stating
• Suggesting
• Threatening
• Warning

Felicity Conditions

• Certain conditions must be in place for a successful speech act
• These include contextual and social requirements
• Promising "I'll help you with that tomorrow morning." has a set of possible conditions
• The speaker must intend to help
• The speaker must believe they will be able to help
• The hearer must want or accept the help
• Stating “Paris is the capital of France.” comes with certain conditions
• The speaker knows that Paris is the capital of France
• The hearer does not know that Paris is the capital of France
• The speaker believes that the hearer does not know that Paris is the capital of France

Turn-Taking

• Conversation is an orderly activity of taking turns to speak
• Its analysis in conversation relies on:
• Adjacency Pairs: Utterances create an expectation for a particular response
• Question → Answer
• Greeting → Greeting
• Invitation → Acceptance/Decline
• Offer → Acceptance/Decline
• Request → Acceptance/Refusal
• Preferred and Dispreferred Responses: Some responses are preferred (socially expected), while others are dispreferred (unexpected, marked by hesitations/explanations)
• Someone says "Would you like to come to the cinema with me tonight?", leading to a Preferred Response of "Yes, I'd love to!",or to a Dispreferred Response: "Oh, that's really kind of you to ask, but I've already made other plans."
• Dispreferred responses potentially create tension

Politeness:

• Politeness manages social relationships and avoids face-threatening acts
• This Theory centers around the concept of face
• Public self-image
• Needs to be liked and respected

Face Wants

• Negative Face: Need to be independent, have freedom of action
• Positive Face: Need to be liked, accepted, and treated as a member of a group
• Self-image and opinions are valued

Politeness Strategies:

• Speakers address face wants
• Negative Politeness Strategies: Minimize imposition, respect hearer's negative face
• Being indirect
• Using hedges and hesitations
• Minimizing/apologizing for the imposition
• Showing deference
• Positive Politeness Strategies: Build solidarity, show friendliness, appeal to hearer's positive face
• Using first names/nicknames
• Using in-group language
• Referring to shared experiences
• Showing interest in hearer's well-being
• Being optimistic

Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)

• Acts inherently threaten speaker's/hearer's positive/negative face

Examples of FTAs

• Student tells lecturer feedback was unhelpful
• (FTA to lecturer's positive face)
• Friend asks to borrow money
• (FTA to borrower's negative face)
• Manager tells employee to work overtime
• (FTA to employee's negative face)
• Someone criticizes another's taste in music
• (FTA to other's positive face)

Applying a polite command using Negative and Positive Politeness

• The impolite command is "Tell me what happened."
• Polite Request using a Negative Politeness Strategy: "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but could you possibly tell me what happened?" (Includes apology, hedge, and indirectness).
• Polite Request using a Positive Politeness Strategy: "Hey, it's been a while, could you fill me in on what happened?" (Includes informal greeting, implies shared context/friendship, and softens the request).

Exercises in relation to negative and positive politeness

• "I know you're really busy, but could you possibly just take a quick look at this for me?" - Negative Face (acknowledges their potential imposition).
• "That's a fantastic presentation! You clearly put a lot of work into it." - Positive Face (praises their effort and achievement).
• "Just do it!" - Negative Face (threatens their freedom of action).
• "Perhaps we could help each other out with this task." - Positive Face (emphasizes collaboration and shared goal).

Examples of Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)

• Student tells lecturer that their feedback on an essay was unhelpful - FTA to Positive Face (criticizes the lecturer's work/competence)
• Friend asks to borrow a large sum of money - FTA to Negative Face (imposes on the friend's resources and freedom to use their money as they wish)
• Manager tells an employee they need to work overtime - FTA to Negative Face (imposes on the employee's time and freedom outside of work hours).
• Someone criticizes another person's taste in music - FTA to Positive Face (criticizes their personal preferences and identity).

“There’s a bit of washing up to be done.” Analysis:

• Direct speech act/ Grammar: Declarative
• Indirect speech act: Requesting
• Intended effect of speech act: Get hearer to do the washing up
• Actual effect of speech act: Hearer does the washing up / or not
• Literal meaning of speech act: There is a bit of washing up to be done