Linguistics A Past Paper PDF

In the late 1960s, two elderly American tourists who had been touring Scotland reported that, in their travels, they had come to a Scottish town in which there was a great ruined cathedral. As they stood in the ruins, they saw a small boy and they asked him when the cathedral had been so badly damag...

In the late 1960s, two elderly American tourists who had been touring Scotland reported that, in their travels, they had come to a Scottish town in which there was a great ruined cathedral. As they stood in the ruins, they saw a small boy and they asked him when the cathedral had been so badly damaged. He replied in the war. Their immediate interpretation, in the 1960s, was that he must be referring to the Second World War which had ended only twenty years earlier. Butthen they thought that the ruins looked as if they had been in their dilapidated state for much longer than that, so they asked the boy which war he meant. He replied the war with the English, which, they eventually discovered, had formally ended in 1745. Brown (1998) In Chapter 9, we focused on referential meaning and the relationships between words. There are other aspects of meaning that depend more on context and the communicative intentions of speakers. In Gill Brown's story, the American tourists and the Scottish boy seem to be using the word war with essentially the same basic meaning. However, the boy was using the word to refer to something the tourists didn't expect, hence the initial misunderstanding. Communication clearly depends on not only recognizing the meaning of words in an utter­ ance, but also recognizing what speakers mean by their utterances in a particular context. The study of what speakers mean, or "speaker meaning," is called pragmatics. 150 Pragmatics Invisible Meaning In many ways, pragmatics is the study of “invisible” meaning, or how we recognize what is meant even when it is not actually said or written. In order for that to happen, speakers (or writers) must be able to depend on a lot of shared assumptions and expectations when they try to communicate. The investigation of those assumptions and expectations pro­ vides us with some insight into how we understand more than just the linguistic content of utterances. From the perspective of pragmatics, more is always communicated than is said. This pragmatic principle lies behind our ability to interpret the sign in Figure 10.1. You might think it means that we can park our “heated attendant” in this place. (They take attendants, heat them up, and this where they park them.) Alternatively, the sign may indicate a place where parking will be carried out by attendants who have been heated. (Maybe they will be more cheerful.) The words in the sign may allow these interpretations, but we prefer to think that we can park a car here, in a heated area, with an attendant to look after it. But how do we know that when the sign doesn’t even have the word car on it? Heated I 'Attendant Figure 10.1 Street sign  Context 151 Context It must be the case that we interpret the words (the “text”) in a specific situation (the “context”) with pre-existing assumptions about a likely message. The meaning of the text is not in the words alone, but in what we think the writer intended to communicate in that context. A similar process is at work in making sense of the newspaper advertisement in Figure 10.2. By analogy with the expression Furniture Sale, we might think that someone is announcing the sale of some very young children here. But we resist that interpretation and assume that it is clothes for those children that are on sale. Yet the word clothes is nowhere in the message. It is part of what we bring to our interpretation in that context. Figure 10.2 Newspaper ad In these two examples, the influence of the context is crucial. In these cases, it is largely the physical context, the location “out there” where we encounter words and phrases. When we see the word Bank on a wall of a building, we interpret it in terms of a financial institution in that context. However, if you read about art overgrown steep bank by the river, you will have a different interpretation of the word bank. In this second interpreta­ tion it is the linguistic context, the surrounding words, also known as co-text, that helps us understand what is meant. Both physical context and linguistic context play important roles in how we make sense of any text. 152 Pragmatics Deixis There are some very common words in our language that can’t be interpreted at all if we don’t know the context. These are words such as here and there, this or that, now or then, yesterday, today or tomorrow, as well as pronouns such as you, me, she, him, it, them. Some sentences of English are virtually impossible to understand if we don’t know who is speaking, about whom, where and when. For example, what is the meaning of: You’ll have to bring it back tomorrow because she isn’t here today! Out of context, this sentence is really vague. It contains a large number of expressions (you, it, tomorrow, she, here, today} that rely on knowledge of the local context for their interpretation. In context, we are expected to understand that the delivery driver (you) will have to return on February 15th {tomorrow} to 660 College Drive {here} with the long box {it} labeled “flowers, handle with care” addressed to Lisa Landry {she}. For more exam­ ples, see Tasks C and D on pages 159-160. Expressions such as tomorrow and here are technically known as deictic (/daiktik/) expressions, from the Greek word deixis, which means “pointing” via language. We use deixis to point to people (us, them, those idiots}, places {here, over there} and times {now, last week}. All these deictic expressions are interpreted in terms of which person, place or time the speaker has in mind. As shown in Table 10.1, we also make a broad distinction between what is close to the speaker {this, here, now} and what is distant or not close to the speaker {that, there, then}. TABLE 10.1 DEICTIC EXPRESSIONS Close to speaker Not close to speaker Person deixis me, us, ours, this girl him, them, that woman, those idiots Spatial deixis here, this bed, behind me there, those hills, over yonder Temporal deixis now, today, this morning then, yesterday, last week, next year This distinction may also be used to express emotions. If something is close, but we don’t like it, we can use a “not close” term to describe it, thereby pushing it away from us by using deixis. A large bowl of cold tomato soup (which you hate) is placed in front of you (so it is close), but you find yourself saying, I can’t eat that. We can also indicate whether movement is away from the speaker {go} or toward the speaker {come}. Just think about the difference between telling someone to Go to bed versus Come to bed. Deixis can even be entertaining. The bar owner who puts up a big sign that reads Free Beer Tomorrow (to get you to return to the bar) can always claim that you are just one day too early for the free drink.  Reference 153 Reference In discussing deixis, we assumed that the use of words to refer to people, places and times was a simple matter. However, words themselves don’t refer to anything. People refer. We have to define reference as an act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something. To perform an act of reference, we can use proper nouns (Chomsky, Jennifer, Whiskas'), other nouns in phrases (a writer, my friend, the cat) or pronouns (he, she, it). We sometimes assume that these words identify someone or something uniquely, but it is more accurate to say that, for each word or phrase, there is a “range of reference.” The words Jennifer or friend or she can be used to refer to many entities in the world. As we observed earlier, an expression such as the war doesn’t directly identify anything by itself, because its reference depends on who is using it. We can also refer to things when we are not sure what to call them. We can use expressions such as the blue thing and that icky stuff and we can even invent names. For instance, there was a man who always drove his motorcycle fast and loud through my neighborhood and was locally referred to as Mr. Kawasaki. In this case, a brand name for a motorcycle is being used to refer to a person. Inference As in the “Mr. Kawasaki” example, a successful act of reference depends more on the listener/reader’s ability to recognize what the speaker/writer means than on the listener’s “dictionary” knowledge of a word that is used. For example, in a restaurant, one waiter can ask another, Where’s the spinach salad sitting? and receive the reply, He’s sitting by the door. If you’re studying linguistics, you might ask someone, Can I look at your Chomsky? and get the response, Sure, it’s on the shelf over there. And when you hear that Jennifer is wearing Calvin Klein, you avoid imagining someone called Calvin draped over poor Jennifer and recognize that they are talking about her clothing. These examples make it clear that we can use nouns associated with things (salad) to refer to people, and use names of people (Chomsky, Calvin Klein) to refer to things. The key process here is called inference. An inference is additional information used by the listener to create a connection between what is said and what must be meant. In the Chomsky example, the listener has to operate with the inference: “if X is the name of the writer of a book, then X can be used to identify a copy of a book by that writer.” Similar types of inferences are necessary to understand someone who says that Picasso is in the museum, We saw Shakespeare in London, Mozart was playing in the background and The bride wore Giorgio Armani. 154 Pragmatics Anaphora We usually make a distinction between how we introduce new referents (a puppy) and how we refer back to them (thepuppy, it). We saw a funny home video about a boy washing a puppy in a small bath. The puppy started struggling and shaking and the boy got really wet. When he let go, ft jumped out of the bath and ran away. In this type of referential relationship, the second (or subsequent) referring expression is an example of anaphora (“referring back”). The first mention is called the antecedent. So, in our example, a boy, a puppy and a small bath are antecedents and The puppy, the boy, he, it and the bath are anaphoric expressions. There is a much less common pattern, called cataphora, which reverses the antecedent­ anaphora relationship by beginning with a pronoun (It), then later revealing more specific information. This device is more common in stories, as in this beginning: It suddenly appeared on the path a little ahead of me, staring in my direction and sniffing the air. An enormous grizzly bear was checking me out. Anaphora is, however, the more common pattern and can be defined as subsequent reference to an already introduced entity. Mostly we use anaphora in texts to maintain reference. The connection between an antecedent and an anaphoric expression is created through a pronoun (it), or a phrase with the plus the antecedent noun (the puppy), or another noun that is related to the antecedent in some way (The little dog ran out of the room). The connection between antecedents and anaphoric expressions is often based on inference, as in these examples: We found a house to rent, but the kitchen was very small. I got on a bus and asked the driver if it went near the downtown area. In the first example, we must make an inference like “if X is a house, then X has a kitchen” in order to interpret the connection between antecedent a house and anaphoric expression the kitchen. In the second example, we must make an inference like “if X is a bus, then X has a driver” in order to make the connection between a bus and the driver. In some cases, the antecedent can be a verb, as in: The victim was shot twice, but the gun was never recovered. Here the inference is that any “shooting” event must involve a gun. We have used the term “inference” here to describe what the listener (or reader) does. When we talk about an assumption made by the speaker (or writer), we usually talk about a “presupposition.”  Pragmatic Markers 155 Presupposition When we use a referring expression like this, he or Jennifer, we usually assume that our listeners can recognize which referent is intended. In a more general way, we design our linguistic messages on the basis of large-scale assumptions about what our listeners already know. What a speaker (or writer) assumes is true or known by a listener (or reader) can be described as a presupposition. If someone tells you Hey, your brother is looking for you, there is an obvious presupposi­ tion that you have a brother. If you are asked the question When did you stop smoking?, there are at least two presuppositions involved: you used to smoke and you no longer do so. There is a test for presuppositions that involves comparing a sentence with its negative version and identifying which presuppositions remain true in both. This is called “con­ stancy under negation.” Whether you say My car is a wreck or the negative My car is not a wreck, there is an underlying presupposition (I have a car) that remains true. For more examples, see Task G on page 161. Pragmatic Markers Speakers have other ways of indicating how their utterances are to be interpreted. They can include short forms such as you know, well, I mean, I don't know, which are optional and loosely attached to the utterance. These are pragmatic markers and they can be used to mark a speaker’s attitude to the listener or to what is being said. Speakers can use you know to indicate that knowledge is being treated as shared, and I mean to self-correct or to mark an attempt to clarify something. They had been reading something by Charles Wright, you know, the famous poet and well, I mean, he's famous in America at least, but em they didn't really understand it. After making a statement about the poet, the speaker uses well to mark a shift from conveying information to commenting on it, with I mean introducing a clarification. A more recent change of function has turned I don't know into a pragmatic marker. This phrase has evolved from a way of indicating lack of knowledge (What's a lychee? ~ I don't know) to become a marker of hesitation or uncertainty when a speaker is about to say something potentially in disagreement with another speaker. lee: I'm not very fond of Edinburgh it's so drab and it's always cold there. jen: Oh, I don't know, I really enjoyed going to the Festival there last year. By appearing hesitant about disagreeing, the speaker can signal a desire not to challenge the other speaker. It seems to be a new way of being polite in interaction. 156 Pragmatics Politeness We can think of politeness in general terms as having to do with ideas like being tactful, modest and nice to other people. In the study of linguistic politeness, the most relevant concept is “face. ” Your face, in pragmatics, is your public self-image. This is the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. Politeness can be defined as showing awareness and consideration of another person’s face. If you say something that represents a threat to another person’s self-image, that is called a face-threatening act. For example, if you use a direct command to get someone to do something (Give me that paper!), you are behaving as if you have more social power than the other person. If you don’t actually have that social power (e.g. you are not a military officer or prison warden), then you are performing a face-threatening act. An indirect request, in the form associated with a question (Could you pass me that paper?), removes the assumption of social power. You are only asking if it is possible. This makes your request less threatening to the other person’s face. Whenever you say something that lessens the possible threat to another’s face, it can be described as a face-saving act. Negative and Positive Face We have both a negative face and a positive face. (Note that “negative” doesn’t mean “bad” here, it is simply the opposite of “positive.”) Negative face is the need to be independent and free from imposition. Positive face is the need to be connected, to belong, to be a member of the group. So, a face-saving act that emphasizes a person’s negative face will show concern about imposition (I'm sorry to bother you...; I know you're busy, but...). A face-saving act that emphasizes a person’s positive face will show solidarity and draw attention to a common goal (The same thing happened tome...; Let's do this together...). Ideas about the appropriate language to mark politeness differ substantially from one culture to the next. If you have grown up in a culture that has directness as a valued way of showing solidarity, and you use direct commands (Give me that chair!) to people whose culture is more oriented to indirectness and avoiding direct imposition, then you will be considered impolite. You, in turn, may think of the others as vague and unsure of whether they really want something or are just asking questions about it (Are you using this chair?). In either case, it is the pragmatics that is misunderstood and, unfortunately, more will often be communicated than is said. The distinction between direct and indirect ways of communicating can be analyzed as different types of linguistic action, or speech acts.  Speech Acts 157 Speech Acts We use the term speech act to describe an action that involves language such as “request­ ing/’ “commanding,” “questioning” or “informing.” To take a more specific example, if you say, I'll be there at six, you are not just uttering a sentence, you seem to be performing the speech act of “promising.” We can define a speech act as the action performed by a speaker with an utterance. (See Task E, page 160, for more.) In order to understand how utterances can be used to perform actions that are both direct and indirect, we need to visualize a relationship between the structure of an utterance and the normal function of that utterance, as in Table 10.2. TABLE 10.2 SPEECH ACTS Structures Functions Did you eat the pizza ? Interrogative Question Eat the pizza (please)! Imperative Command (Request) You ate the pizza. Declarative Statement Direct and Indirect Speech Acts When an interrogative structure such as Did you...?> Is she... ? or Can you... ? is used with the function of a question, it is described as a direct speech act. When you seriously want to know the answer to Is she wearing a wig?, that utterance is a direct speech act. If we really don’t know something and we ask for the information (e.g. about ability), we normally use a direct speech act, as in Can you ride a bicycle?. Compare that utterance with Can you pass the salt?. In this second example, we are not really asking a question about someone’s ability. We are using an interrogative structure to make a request. This is an example of an indirect speech act. Whenever one of the structures in Table 10.2 is used to perform a function other than the one listed beside it on the same line, the result is an indirect speech act. For example, you can also use a declarative structure (You left the door open} to make a request (to the person, who just came in from the chilly outside, to close it). That is another indirect speech act. Indirect speech acts offer fairly good evidence in support of the pragmatic principle, stated earlier, that communication depends on not only recognizing the structure and meaning of words in an utterance, but also recognizing what speakers mean by their utterances in a particular context. We will encounter more examples of this principle at work in Chapter 11. 158 Pragmatics Study Questions 1 What kinds of deictic expressions are used here (e.g. We = person deixis)? (a) We went there last summer. (b) I’m busy now so you can’t stay here. Come back later. 2 How do we describe the pragmatic difference between the pair here and now versus there and then? 3 What kind of inference is involved in interpreting each of these utterances? (a) teacher: You can borrow my Shakespeare. (b) waiter: The ham sandwich left without paying. (c) nurse: The hernia in room 5 wants to talk to the doctor. (d) dentist: My eleven-thirty canceled so I had an early lunch. 4 What are the anaphoric expressions in the following sentence? Dr. Foster gave Andy some medicine after he told her about his headaches and she advised him to take the pills three times a day until the pain went away. 5 What is the technical term for the phrase an old car in its relationship with it in the following utterance? I have an old car, but it runs great. 6 What is the technical term used to describe the relationship between She and Ginny Swisher in the following example? She was bom prematurely. She lost her parents at an early age. She grew up in poverty. She never completed high school. Yet Ginny Swisher overcame all these disadvantages to become one of the most successful women in America. 7 What process is involved in the connection between cooking and the special meal in the following sentence? The old men and women lit the fire and started cooking early in the morning so that the special meal would be ready for their guests. 8 What is one obvious presupposition of a speaker who says: (a) Your clock isn’t working. (b) Where did he find the money?  Tasks 159 (c) We regret buying that car. (d) The king of France is bald. 9 How many pragmatic markers are used in the following interaction? mana: Why does everyone think he’s a genius, I mean, he gets things wrong like the rest of us, doesn’t he? maka: Well, I don’t know, he got that award last year for innovation, you know, the Brill award, at the convention in New York, I think it was. 10 In these examples, is the speaker appealing to positive or negative face? (a) If you’re free, there’s going to be a party at Yuri’s place on Saturday. (b) Let’s go to the party at Yuri’s place on Saturday. Everyone’s invited. 11 Someone stands between you and the TV set you’re watching, so you decide to say one of the following. Identify which would be direct or indirect speech acts. (a) Move! (c) Could you please sit down? (b) You’re in the way. (d) Please get out of the way. 12 In terms of speech acts, how would you explain the unusual nature of this interaction between a visitor to a city, with luggage, looking lost, and a man in the street outside the railway station. visitor: Excuse me. Do you know where the Ambassador Hotel is? resident: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away) Tasks A What do you think is meant by the statement: “A context is a psychological construct” (Sperber and Wilson, 1995)? B What is metapragmatics? What aspects of the following utterance illustrate metaprag­ matic awareness? I know that Justin said, 'Til help you, darling,” but he wasn't actually promising anything, I’m sure. C Why is the concept of “deictic projection” necessary for the analysis of the following deictic expressions? (1) On a telephone answering machine: I am not here now (2) On a map/directory: you are here (3) Watching a horse race: Oh, no. I’m in last place. 160 Pragmatics (4) In a car that won’t start: Maybe I’m out of gas. (5) Pointing to an empty chair in class: Where is she today? D Spatial deixis can be marked with affixes on verbs in Lolovoli (spoken on Ambae Island in the Republic of Vanuatu, in the south-west Pacific). The verbs that are used to describe the direction of movement are also deictic. Look at the following examples (based on Hyslop, 2001) and try to answer the questions that follow. (1) hivomai “come down to me” (2) huge “go away uphill” (3) hageatu “come up to you” (4) vano “go away across level space” (5) vanoatu “come to you across level space” (6) ____________________________ “come up to me” (7) ____________________________ “come down to you” (8) ____________________________ “come to me across level space” (9)____________________________ “go away downhill” (i) Can you complete the set of verb forms in (6)-(9)? (ii) What distinction is coded in the two affixes used for spatial deixis? (iii) Can you think of a reason for the distinctions in direction of movement, as coded in the verbs? E Which of these utterances contain “performative verbs” and how did you decide? (1) I apologize. (2) He said he was sorry. (3) I bet you $20. (4) She won the bet. (5) I drive a Mercedes. (6) You must have a lot of money. F The following phrases were all on signs advertising sales. What other words would you add to the description to make it clearer? What is the underlying structure of each phrase? For example, Furniture Sale means “someone is selling furniture.” Would the same structure be appropriate for Garage Sale? Back-to-School Sale Dollar Sale One Cent Sale Bake Sale Foundation Sale Plant Sale Big Screen Sale Furniture Sale Sidewalk Sale  Tasks 161 Clearance Sale Garage Sale Spring Sale Close-out Sale Labor Day Sale Tent Sale Colorful White Sale Liquidation Sale Yard Sale G Certain types of question-answer jokes or riddles seem to depend for their effect on the reanalysis of a presupposition in the question after the answer is given. For example, in the question What two things can you never eat before breakfast?, the phrase two things invites an interpretation that presupposes two “specific things,” such as individual food items, as objects of the verb eat. When you hear the answer Lunch and dinner, you have to replace the first presupposition with another assuming two “general things,” not individual food items, as objects of eat. Identify the reanalyzed presuppositions involved in the following jokes (from Ritchie, 2002): (1) Q: Why do birds fly south in the winter? A: Because it’s too far to walk. (2) Q: Do you believe in clubs for young people? A: Only when kindness fails. (3) Q: Did you know that in New York someone is knocked down by a car every ten minutes? A: No, but I imagine he must be getting really tired of it. (4) In a clothing store, a customer asks a salesperson: Q: Can I try on that dress in the window? A: Well, maybe it would be better to use the dressing room. H Deictic expressions are not the only examples of vague language that require a pragmatic interpretation. All the following expressions are vague in some way. Analyze them into the categories in the chart in Table 10.3 below (based on Overstreet, 2011: 298). Can you add other examples? and all that and everything and stuff like that around seven heaps of loads of maybe now and again occasionally possibly probably sevenish sometimes sort of blue thingamajig thingy tons of whatsisname 162 Pragmatics TABLE 10.3 VAGUE LANGUAGE Approximators (= "not exactly") General extenders (= "there is more") Vague nouns (= "inherently vague") Vague amounts (= "how many/much?") Vague frequency (= "how often?") Vague possibility (= "how likely?") I Using these examples, and any others you think are appropriate, try to decide if euphemisms and proverbs should be studied as part of pragmatics. Are they, for example, similar to indirect speech acts? (1) She's got a bun in the oven. (2) He's gone to a better place. (3) Unfortunately, there was some collateral damage. (4) The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. (5) If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. (6) People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. J Diminutives are words that signal “small” in some way. In Spanish, the diminutive formperrito (fromperro “dog”) can be used for a puppy. It can also be used to talk about any dog (even a big one) in an affectionate way, as in mi perrito (“my doggy”). Another use of diminutives is to weaken the force of an utterance by using the “small” concept to convey “not significant” or "not a big deal,” interpreted as a form of politeness. Consider the following utterances (based on Mendoza, 2005) and try to decide if they are more likely to reflect a strategy of positive politeness or negative politeness. The non-diminutive versions are on the right. (1) ¿Gusta un cafecito? (“Would you like some coffee?”) [ca/e] (2) Un momentito, por favor. (“Just a moment, please.”) [momento] (3) Tengo una casita en la cuidad. (“I have a house in town.”) [cosa]  Discussion Topics/Projects 163 (4) Cuatrito nomos tengo. (“I only have four.”) [cuatro] (5) Dame un poquito. (“Give me a piece.”) [poco] (6) ¿Alguna otra cosita? (“Anything else for you?”) [cosa] K In our discussion of politeness, we mentioned face-threatening acts, but didn’t consider those acts that clearly represent forms of impoliteness in English. Although the inter­ pretation of impolite uses of language necessarily depends on the context and relationship of the participants, certain types of expressions would seem to be intentionally face­ threatening. (For some special uses, see the examples in Task G in Chapter 19, page 308.) The following analytic categories are based on Culpeper (2011). (i) Can you connect each example below with one of the categories? (ii) Can you think of any special situations in which these expressions would not be treated as impolite? (a) Threats (d) Dismissals (b) Sarcasm (e) Condescension (c) Silencers (f) Negative personal evaluation (1) Get lost! (2) Just sit down and be quiet. (3) You can’t get anything right. (4) I’m going to get you for this. (5) That wasn’t very smart of you, was it? (6) Well, thanks very much for leaving all your dirty dishes in the sink. Discussion Topics/Projects I On the topic of “more gets communicated than is said,” consider this situation, described in Tannen (2005). A Greek woman explained how she and her father (and later her husband) com­ municated. If she wanted to do something, like go to a dance, she had to ask her father for permission. He never said no. But she could tell from the way he said yes whether or not he meant it. If he said something like “Yes, of course, go,” then she knew he thought it was a good idea. If he said something like “If you want, you can go,” then she understood that he didn’t think it was a good idea, and she wouldn’t go- (i) Why do you think “he never said no” (when he was communicating “No”)? 164 Pragmatics (ii) How would you analyze the two speech acts reported as responses in this passage? (iii) What other situations are you familiar with where “more is/was communicated than is/was said”? (For background reading, see Tannen, 2005.) II What counts as polite behavior can differ substantially from one group or culture to the next. Below are some basic descriptions from Lakoff (1990) of three types of politeness, called distance politeness, deference politeness and camaraderie politeness. As you read these descriptions, try to decide which type you are most familiar with and whether you have encountered the others on any occasion. What kind of language do you think is characteristic of these different types of politeness? (1) “Distance politeness is the civilized human analogue to the territorial strategies of other animals. An animal sets up physical boundary markers (the dog and the hydrant) to signal its fellows: My turf, stay out. We, being symbol-using crea­ tures, create symbolic fences.” “Distancing cultures weave remoteness into their language.” (2) “Another culture might avoid the danger of conflict by adopting a strategy of deferential politeness. If a participant decides that whatever is to happen in a conversation - both what is said and it is to mean - is up to the other person, conflict can easily be avoided.” “Where distance politeness more or less assumes equality between participants, deference works by debasing one or both.” “While distance politeness has been characteristic of the middle and upper classes in most of Europe for a very long time, deference has been typical in many Asian societies. But it is also the preferred model of interaction for women in the majority of societies, either always or only when talking to men.” (3) “A third strategy (camaraderie) that has recently emerged in this culture makes a different assumption: that interaction and connection are good in themselves, that openness is the greatest sign of courtesy. ” “In a camaraderie system, the appearance of openness and niceness is to be sought above all else. There is no holding back, nothing is too terrible to say.” (For background reading, see chapter 2 of Lakoff, 1990.)  Further Reading 165 Further Reading Basic Treatments Cutting, J. (2014) Pragmatics: A Resource Book for Students (3rd edition) Routledge Yule, G. (1996) Pragmatics Oxford University Press More Detailed Treatments Birner, B. (2012) Introduction to Pragmatics Wiley-Blackwell Cummins, C. (2018) Pragmatics University of Edinburgh Press The Pragmatics of English Culpeper, J. and M. Haugh (2014) Pragmatics and the English Language Macmillan Grundy, P. (2008) Doing Pragmatics (3rd edition) Hodder Context and Co-Text Malmkjaer, K. and J. Williams (eds.) (1998) Context in Language Learning and Language Understanding Cambridge University Press Widdowson, H. (2004) Text, Context, Pretext (chapter 4) Blackwell Reference and Deixis Cruse, A. (2011) Meaning in Language (3rd edition) (part 4) Oxford University Press Levinson, S. (2006) “Deixis” In L. Horn and G. Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics (97-121) Blackwell Anaphora Garnham, A. (2001) Mental Models and the Interpretation of Anaphora (chapter 4) Psychology Press Presupposition Marmaridou, S. (2010) “Presupposition” In L. Cummings (ed.) The Pragmatics Encyclopedia (349-353) Routledge Schwarz, F. (ed.) (2015) Experimental Perspectives on Presupposition Springer Pragmatic Markers Aijmer, K. (2013) Understanding Pragmatic Markers Edinburgh University Press Archer, D., K. Aijmer and A. Wichmann (2012) Pragmatics: An Advanced Resource Book for Students (Units A7 and B7) Routledge Politeness and Face Brown, P. and S. Levinson (1987) Politeness Cambridge University Press Kädär, D. and M. Haugh (2013) Understanding Politeness Cambridge University Press Mills, S. (2003) Gender and Politeness Cambridge University Press 166 Pragmatics Speech Acts Fogal, D., D. Harris and M. Moss (eds.) (2018) New Work on Speech Acts Oxford University Press Thomas, J. (1995) Meaning in Interaction (chapter 2) Longman Other References Culpeper, J. (2011) Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence Cambridge University Press Hyslop, C. (2001) The Lolovoli Dialect of the North-East Ambae Language: Vanuatu (Pacific Linguistics 515) Australian National University, Canberra Lakoff, R. (1990) Talking Power Basic Books Mendoza, M. (2005) “Polite diminutives in Spanish” In R. Lakoff and S. Ide (eds.) Broadening the Horizons of Linguistic Politeness (163-173) John Benjamins Overstreet, M. (2011) “Vagueness and hedging” In G. Andersen and K. Aijmer (eds.) Pragmatics of Society (293-317) De Gruyter Ritchie, G. (2002) The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes Routledge Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1995) Relevance (2nd edition) Blackwell Tannen, D. (2005) Conversational Style Oxford University Press There's two types of favors, the big favor and the small favor. You can measure the size of the favor by the pause that a person takes after they ask you to "Do meafavor." Small favor-small pause. "Can you do me a favor, hand me that pencil." No pause at all. Big favors are, "Could you do me a favor..." Eight seconds go by. "Yeah? What?" "... well." The longer it takes them to get to it, the bigger the pain it's going to be. Humans are the only species that do favors. Animals don't do favors. A lizard doesn't go up to a cockroach and say, "Could you do me a favor and hold still, I'd like to eat you alive." That's a big favor even with no pause. Seinfeld (1993) In the study of language, some of the most interesting observations are made, not in terms of the components of language, but in terms of the way language is used, even how pauses are used, as in Jerry Seinfeld's commentary. We have already considered some of the features of language in use when we discussed pragmatics in Chapter 10. We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users successfully interpret what other language-users intend to convey. When we carry this investigation further and ask how we make sense of what we read, how we can recognize well-constructed texts as opposed to those that are jumbled or incoherent, how we understand speakers who communicate more than they say, and how we successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis. 168 Discourse Analysis Discourse The word discourse is usually defined as “language beyond the sentence” and so the analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of language in texts and conversation. In many of the preceding chapters, when we were concentrating on linguis­ tic description, we were concerned with the accurate representation of the forms and structures. However, as language-users, we are capable of more than simply recognizing correct versus incorrect forms and structures. We can cope with fragments in newspaper headlines such as Trains collide, two die, and know that what happened in the first part was the cause of what happened in the second part. We can also make sense of notices like No shoes, no service, on shop windows in summer, understanding that a conditional relation exists between the two parts (“If you are wearing no shoes, you will receive no service”). We have the ability to create complex discourse interpretations of fragmentary linguistic messages. Interpreting Discourse We can even cope with texts, written in English, which we couldn’t produce ourselves and which appear to break a lot of the rules of the English language. Yet we can build an interpretation. The following example, provided by Eric Nelson, is from an essay by a student learning English and contains ungrammatical forms and misspellings, yet it can be understood. My Town My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant between my town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this Almasani that means in English Factories. It takes this name from thepeopl’s carrer. In my childhood I remmeber the people live. It was very simple. Most the people was farmer. This example may serve to illustrate a simple point about the way we react to language that contains ungrammatical forms. Rather than simply rejecting the text as ungramma­ tical, we try to make sense of it. That is, we attempt to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what the writer intended to convey. (Most people say they understand the “My Town” text quite easily.) It is this effort to interpret (or to be interpreted), and how we accomplish it, that are the key elements investigated in the study of discourse. To arrive at an interpretation, and to make our messages interpretable, we certainly rely on what we know about linguistic form and structure. But, as language-users, we have more knowledge than that.  Cohesion 169 Cohesion We know, for example, that texts must have a certain structure that depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of a single sentence. Some of those factors are described in terms of cohesion, or the formal ties and connections that exist within texts. There are several cohesive ties in this text. My father once bought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car would be worth a fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help pay for my college education. Sometimes I think rd rather have the convertible. We can identify connections here in the use of words to maintain reference to the same people and things throughout. There are also connections created by terms that share a common element of meaning, such as “money” and "time.” The verb tenses in the first four sentences are in the past, creating a connection between those events, in contrast to the present tense of the final sentence marking a change in time and focus. These cohesive ties are listed in Table 11.1. See Task B on page 178 for more. TABLE 11.1 COHESIVETIES People My father- He-he- he; My -my-1 -I Things A Lincoln convertible - That car-it- the convertible Money bought - saving every penny - worth a fortune - sold - pay Time once - nowadays - sometimes Tenses past (bought) - past (did) - past (could) - past (sold) - present (think) Analysis of these cohesive ties gives us some insight into how writers structure what they want to say. However, by itself, cohesion is not sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we read. It is quite easy to create a text that has a lot of cohesive ties, but is difficult to interpret. Note that the following text has these connections in Lincoln - the car, red - that color, her -she and letters - a letter. My father bought a Lincoln convertible. The car driven by the police was red. That color doesn't suit her. She consists of three letters. However, a letter isn't as fast as a telephone call. It becomes clear from this type of example that the “connectedness” we experience in our interpretation of normal texts is not simply based on connections between words. There must be another factor that helps us distinguish connected texts that make sense from those that do not. This factor is usually described as “coherence.” 170 Discourse Analysis Coherence The key to the concept of coherence (“everything fitting together well”) is not something that exists in the words or structures of discourse, like cohesion, but something that exists in people. It is people who “make sense” of what they read and hear. They try to arrive at an interpretation that is in line with their experience of the way the world is. You may have tried quite hard to make the last example fit some situation that accommodated all the details (involving a red car, a woman and a letter) into a single coherent interpretation. In doing so, you would necessarily be involved in a process of bringing other information to the text. This process is not restricted to trying to understand “odd” texts. It seems to be involved in our interpretation of all discourse. For example, you pick up a newspaper and see this headline: Woman robs bank with sandwich. As you try to build a coherent interpretation, you probably focus on the sandwich part because there is something odd about this situation. Is she just carrying a sandwich, or is she eating the sandwich (taking occasional bites), or is she acting as if the sandwich is a weapon (concealed in a bag perhaps)? Deciding which interpretation is appropriate cannot be accomplished based on only the words in the headline. We need to bring information from our experience to create a plausible situation. If you decided on the “pretend gun in bag” situation, then your coherence-creating mind would appear to be in good working order. We also depend on coherence in coping with everyday conversation. We are continually taking part in conversational interactions where a great deal of what is meant or commu­ nicated cannot actually be found in what is said. In this brief interaction (from Widdowson, 1978), there are no cohesive ties connecting the three utterances, so we must be using some other means to make sense of it. One way to understand what is going on is to consider the three parts of the interaction in terms of speech acts (introduced in Chapter 10). These are listed on the right, providing a way of analyzing the interaction by identifying what makes it coherent for the participants. her: That's the telephone. (She makes a request of him to perform action) him: I'm in the bath. (He states reason why he cannot comply with request) her: OK. (She accepts reason) If this is a reasonable analysis of what took place in the brief interaction, then it is clear that language-users must have a lot of knowledge of how conversation works that is not simply knowledge of words and sentences, but must involve familiarity with a lot of other types of structures and their typical functions.  Conversation Analysis 171 Conversation Analysis In simple terms, English conversation can be described as an activity in which, for the most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence between speaking turns. (This is not true in all situations or societies.) If more than one participant tries to talk at the same time, one of them usually stops, as in the following example, where A stops until B has finished. A: Didn't you [knowwh- B: [But he must've been there by two A: Yes but you knew where he was going (A small square bracket [ is conventionally used to indicate a place where simultaneous or overlapping speech occurs.) For the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signaling a completion point. Speakers can mark their turns as complete in a number of ways: by asking a question, for example, or by pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a phrase or sentence. Other participants can indicate that they want to take the speaking turn, also in a number of ways. They can start to make short sounds, usually repeated, while the speaker is talking, and often use body shifts or facial expressions to signal that they have something to say. (For more on conversation, see Task C, on page 179, and Task F on page 180) Turn-Taking There are different expectations of conversational style and different strategies of partici­ pation in conversation, which may result in slightly different conventions of turn-taking. One strategy, which may be overused by “long-winded” speakers or those who are used to “holding the floor,” is designed to avoid having normal completion points occur. We all use this strategy to some extent, usually in situations where we have to work out what we are trying to say while actually saying it. If the normal expectation is that completion points are marked by the end of a sentence and a pause, then one way to “keep the turn” is to avoid having those two markers occur together. That is, don’t pause at the end of sentences; make your sentences run on by using connectors like and, and then, so, but; place your pauses at points where the message is clearly incomplete; and preferably “fill” the pause with a hesitation marker such as er, em, uh, ah. 172 Discourse Analysis Pauses and Filled Pauses In the following example, note how the pauses (marked by...) are placed before and after verbs rather than at the end of sentences, making it difficult to get a clear sense of what this person is saying until we hear the part after each pause. A: that’s their favorite restaurant because they... enjoy French food and when they were...in France they couldn’t believe it that... you know that they had... that they had had better meals back home In the next example, speaker X produces filled pauses (with em, er, you know) after having almost lost the turn at his first brief hesitation. X: well that film really was... [wasn’t what he was good at Y: [when di­ X: I mean his other...emhis later films were much more...er really more in the romantic style and that was more what what he was... you know...em best at doing Y: so when did he make that one Adjacency Pairs That last example would seem to suggest that conversation is a problematic activity where speakers have to pay close attention to what is going on. That is not normally the case because a great deal of conversational interaction follows some fairly well established patterns. When someone says Hi or Hello, we usually respond with a similar greeting. This type of almost automatic sequence is called an adjacency pair, which consists of a first part and a second part, as found in greetings, question-answer (Q ~ A) sequences, thank­ ing and leave-taking. First part Second part you: Good momin’. me: Good momiri. you: Where’s Mary? me: She’s at work already. you: Thanks for your help yesterday, me: Oh, you’re welcome. you: Okay, talk to you later. me: Bye. These examples illustrate the basic pattern, but not all first parts are immediately followed by second parts. For example, one question may not receive its answer until after another question-answer sequence. (See Task E, on page 179, for more.)  Conversation Analysis 173 Insertion Sequences In the following example, the sequence Q2 ~ A2 comes between the first question (QI) and its answer (Al). This is called an insertion sequence, that is, an adjacency pair that comes between the first and second parts of another pair. you: Do you want some milk? (= QI) me: Is it soy milk? ( = Q2) you: Of course. (= A2) me: Okay, thanks. ( = Al) In some situations, a complex structure can emerge from the effect of insertion sequences. This is often the case in "service encounters,” as in our next example. Notice how it is only in the middle of this interaction (Q3 ~ A3) that we have an adjacency pair together, while insertion sequences delay the occurrence of second parts for each of the other first parts. bud: Can I order pizza to go? (= QI) dan: What kind would you like? (= Q2) bud: Do you have any special deals? (= Q3) dan: Well, you can get two veggie supremes for the price of one. (= A3) bud: Okay, I’d like that deal. (= A2) dan: Sure thing. We’ll have that ready for you in no time. (= Al) We are not normally aware of most of these aspects of conversational structure, but speakers sometimes draw attention to the need for a second part once a first part has been uttered. In the following interaction, originally analyzed by Sacks (1972: 341), a mother immediately notices the absence of a spoken return greeting by her daughter and draws attention to the social expectation involved. woman: Hi, Annie. mother: Annie, don’t you hear someone say hello to you? woman: Oh, that’s okay, she smiled hello. mother: You know you’re supposed to greet someone, don’t you? annie: [Hangs head] Hello. The expectations we all have that certain patterns of turn-taking will occur in conversa­ tion are connected to a more general aspect of socially situated interaction, that it will be “co-operative.” This observation is actually a principle of conversation. 174 Discourse Analysis The Co-operative Principle An underlying assumption in most conversational exchanges is that the participants are co-operating with each other. This principle, plus four elements, or “maxims,” were first described by the philosopher Paul Grice (1975: 45), and are often referred to as the “Gricean maxims,” as presented in Table 11.2. TABLE 11.2 GRICEAN MAXIMS The Co-operative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose ordirection of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. The Quantity maxim: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required. The Quality maxim: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack adequate evidence. The Relation maxim: Be relevant. The Manner maxim: Be clear, brief and orderly. In simple terms, we expect our conversational partners to make succinct, honest, relevant and clear contributions to the interaction and to signal to us in some way if these maxims are not being followed. It is certainly true that, on occasion, we can experience conversational exchanges in which the co-operative principle may not seem to be in operation. However, this general description of the normal expectations we have in conversation helps to explain a number of regular features in our talk. For example, during their lunch break, one woman asks another how she likes the sandwich she is eating and receives the following answer. Oh, a sandwich is a sandwich. In logical terms, this reply appears to have no communicative value since it states something obvious and hence would appear to be a tautology. Repeating a phrase that adds nothing would hardly count as an appropriate answer to a question. However, if the woman is being co-operative and adhering to the Quantity maxim about being “as informative as is required,” then the listener must assume that her friend is communicating something. Given the oppor­ tunity to evaluate the sandwich, her friend has responded without an explicit evaluation, thereby implying that she has no opinion, good or bad, to express. That is, her friend has communicated that the sandwich is not worth talking about. (See Task D, on page 179, for more.)  The Co-operative Principle 175 Hedges We can use certain types of expressions, called hedges, to show that we are concerned about following the maxims while being co-operative speakers. Hedges can be defined as words or phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure that what we are saying is sufficiently correct or complete. We can use sort of or kind of as hedges on the accuracy of our statements, as in descriptions such as His hair was kind of long or The book cover is sort ofyellow. These are examples of hedges on the Quality maxim. Other examples would include the following expressions that people sometimes use as they begin a conversational contribution. As far as I know... Correct me if I’m wrong, but... I’m not absolutely sure, but... We also take care to indicate that what we report is something we think or feel (not know), is possible (not certain), and may (not must) happen. Hence the difference between saying Jackson is guilty and I think it’s possible that Jackson may be guilty. In the first version, people will assume you have very good evidence for the statement. Implicatures When we try to analyze how hedges work, we usually talk about speakers implying something that is not said. Similarly, in considering what the woman meant by a sandwich is a sandwich, we decided that she was implying that the sandwich was not worth talking about. With the co-operative principle and the maxims as guides, we can start to work out how people actually decide that someone is “implying” something in conversation. Consider the following example. carol: Are you coming to the party tonight? lara: I’ve got an exam tomorrow. On the face of it, Lara’s statement is not an answer to Carol’s question. Lara doesn’t say Yes or No. Yet Carol will interpret the statement as meaning “No” or “Probably not.” How can we account for this ability to grasp one meaning from a sentence that, in a literal sense, means something else? It seems to depend on the assumption that Lara is being relevant (Relation) and informative (Quantity). Given that Lara’s original answer contains relevant information, Carol can work out that “exam tomorrow” involves “study tonight,” and “study tonight” precludes “party tonight.” Thus, Lara’s answer is not just a statement about tomorrow’s activities, it contains an implicature (an additional conveyed meaning) concerning tonight’s activities. 176 Discourse Analysis Background Knowledge It is noticeable that, in order to analyze the conversational implicature involved in Lara’s statement, we had to describe some background knowledge (about exams, studying and partying) that must be shared by the conversational participants. Investigating how we use our background knowledge to arrive at interpretations of what we hear and read is a critical part of doing discourse analysis. The processes involved in using background knowledge can be illustrated in the following exercise (from Sanford and Garrod, 1981). Begin with these sentences: John was on his way to school last Friday. He was really worried about the math lesson. Most readers report that they think John is probably a schoolboy. Since this piece of information is not directly stated in the text, it must be an inference. Other inferences, for different readers, are that John is walking or that he is on a bus. These inferences are clearly derived from our conventional knowledge, in our culture, about “going to school,” and no reader has ever suggested that John is swimming or on a boat, though both are physically possible interpretations. An interesting aspect of the reported inferences is that readers can quickly abandon them if they do not fit in with some subsequent information. Last week he had been unable to control the class. On encountering this sentence, most readers decide that John must be a teacher and that he is not very happy. Many report that he is probably driving a car to school. It was unfair of the math teacher to leave him in charge. Suddenly, John reverts to his schoolboy status, and the inference that he is a teacher is quickly abandoned. The final sentence of the text contains a surprise. After all, it is not a normal part of a janitor's duties. This type of text and manner of presentation, one sentence at a time, is rather artificial, of course. Yet the exercise does provide us with some insight into the ways in which we “build” interpretations of what we read by using more information than is presented in the words on the page. We actually create what the text is about, based on our expectations of what normally happens. To describe this phenomenon, researchers often use the concept of a “schema” or a “script.”  Background Knowledge 1 in Schemas and Scripts A schema is a general term for a conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory. We were using our conventional knowledge of what a school classroom is like, or a “classroom schema,” as we tried to make sense of the previous example. We have many schemas (or schemata) that are used in the interpretation of what we experience and what we hear or read about. If you hear someone describe what happened during a visit to a supermarket, you don’t have to be told what is in a supermarket. You already have a “supermarket schema” (food displayed on shelves, arranged in aisles, shopping carts and baskets, check-out counter and so on). Similar in many ways to a schema is a script. A script is essentially a dynamic schema. That is, instead of the set of typical fixed features in a schema, a script has a series of conventional actions that take place. You have a script for “Going to the dentist” and another script for “Going to the movies.” We all have versions of an “Eating in a restaurant” script, which we can activate to make sense of this text. Trying not to be out of the office for long, Suzy went into the nearest place, sat down and ordered an avocado sandwich. It was quite crowded, but the service was fast, so she left a good tip. Back in the office, things were not going well. On the basis of our restaurant script, we would be able to say a number of things about the scene and events briefly described in this short text. Although the text doesn’t have this information, we would assume that Suzy opened a door to get into the restaurant, that there were tables there, that she ate the sandwich, then she paid for it and so on. The fact that information of this type can turn up in people’s attempts to remember the text is further evidence of the existence of scripts. It is also a good indication of the fact that our understanding of what we read doesn’t come directly from what words and sentences are on the page, but the interpretations we create, in our minds, of what we read. Indeed, information is sometimes omitted from instructions on the assumption that everybody knows the script. This instruction is from a bottle of cough syrup. Fill measure cup to line and repeat every 2 to 3 hours. No, you’ve not just to keep filling the measure cup every 2 to 3 hours. Nor have you to rub the cough syrup on your neck or in your hair. You are expected to know the script and drink the stuff from the measure cup every 2 or 3 hours. Clearly, our understanding of what we read is not only based on what we see on the page (language structures), but also on other things that we have in mind (knowledge struc­ tures) as we go about making sense of discourse. 178 Discourse Analysis Study Questions 1 How is the word “discourse” usually defined? 2 What is the basic difference between cohesion and coherence? 3 What do you think the slogan “No gap, no overlap” refers to in the analysis of English conversation? 4 How do speakers mark completion points at the end of a tum? 5 What is a “filled pause”? 6 How do we describe these regular conversational patterns? Hi ~ Hello and Bye ~ See you later 7 What is an "insertion sequence”? 8 Which maxim involves not saying things you believe to be false? 9 Which maxim does this speaker seem to be particularly careful about? I won’t bore you with all the details, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. 10 What are hedges in discourse? 11 What is an implicature? 12 In the study of discourse understanding, what are scripts? Tasks A In the analysis of discourse, what is “intertextuality ”? B (i) Identify the main cohesive ties in this first paragraph of a novel (Faulkner, 1929). (ii) What do you think “they” were hitting? Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. They went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.  Tasks 179 C In conversation analysis, what is the difference between a “preferred” response and a “dispreferred” response? How would you characterize the responses by She in these two examples? (i) he: How about going for some coffee? she: Oh... eh... I’d love to... but you see... I... I’m supposed to get this thing finished... you know. (ii) he: I think she’s really sexy. she: Well...er...I’m not sure... you may be right...but you see... other people probably don’t go for all that... you know...all that make-up...so em sorry but I don’t think so. D The following extract is from a conversation between two women chatting about people they both knew in high school (Overstreet, 1999: 112-113). In this extract, Crystal uses the phrase or something twice. Is she adhering to the Co-operative Principle and the Quality maxim or not? How did you decide? julie: I can’t remember any ge- guys in our grade that were gay. crystal: Larry Brown an’ an’ John Murphy. I - huh I dunno, I heard John Murphy was dressed - was like a transvestite or something. julie: You’re kidding. crystal: I-1 dunno. That was a-an old rumor, I don’t even know if it was true. julie: That’s funny. crystal: Or cross-dresser or something. julie: Larry - Larry Brown is gay? E We analyzed a regular turn-taking pattern in terms of the two parts found in adjacency pairs, but what about three-part and four-part exchanges? Can you suggest a way of analyzing the following exchanges that would account for the conversation structure (s) involved? (1) joe: Did you need anything from the store? tom: No thanks. joe: Okay. (2) teacher: So, who knows where Tripoli is? student: In Libya. teacher: That's right. (3) passenger: Are there any early morning flights to Edinburgh? agent: When do you want to go? passenger: Oh, any time after 6 a.m. agent: Well, there's a 6:45. 180 Discourse Analysis (4) sue: Do you have any idea what time it is? jen: Em, it’s just after 4. sue: Thanks. jen: No problem. F In his insightful study of conversation, Enfield (2017) lists some observations on how we talk to each other. Based on your own experience of conversational interaction, where would you add the following items to reconstruct Enfield’s list? 60 84 200 “urn” “uh” “no” “yes” “Huh?” “Who?” one-second The average time that people take to respond to a question is about the same time that it takes to blink the eye: (1)______________ milliseconds. A (2)______________ answer to a question will come slower than a (3)_______________ answer, no matter which language is spoken. There is a standard (4)______________ time window for responding in conversation: it helps us gauge whether a response is fast, on time, late, or unlikely to arrive at all. Every (5)______________ seconds in conversation, someone will say (6)_______________ , (7)______________ , or something similar to check on what someone just said. One out of every (8) ______________ words we say is (9) ______________ or (10)______________. G This is a version of a story described in Widdowson (2007). When most people first read this story, they find it confusing. Can you identify the source of this confusion in terms of background knowledge or assumptions? A man and his son were crossing the street one day when a car suddenly came towards them and hit the boy, knocking him down. In less than ten minutes an ambulance came and took the boy to the nearest hospital. As the boy was being taken into the emergency room, one of the surgeons saw him and cried out, “Oh no. This is my son!” H (i) What is Critical Discourse Analysis? (ii) How might the following text be analyzed using that approach? This text origin­ ally appeared in the British newspaper the Sun (February 2,1989) and is cited in van Dijk (1996: 98) and Cameron (2001: 127). Britain Invaded by Army of Illegals Britain is being swamped by a tide of illegal immigrants so desperate for a job that they will work for a pittance in our restaurants, cafés and nightclubs. Immigration officers are being overwhelmed with work. Last year, 2,191 “illegals” were nabbed and sent back home. But there were tens of thousands more, slaving behind bars, cleaning hotel rooms and working in kitchens...  Discussion Topics/Projects 181 Illegals sneak in by: Deceiving immigration officers when they are quizzed at airports Disappearing after their entry visas run out Forging work permits and other documents Running away from immigration detention centres I (i) What is studied in “Stylistics”? (ii) The following text (quoted in Verdonk, 2002: 7-8) appeared on the back cover of a book of short stories by the writer Margaret Atwood. Which aspects of this text would be discussed in a stylistic analysis? This splendid volume of short fiction testifies to Margaret Atwood’s startlingly original voice, full of rare intensity and exceptional intelligence. Each of the fourteen stories shimmers with feelings, each illuminates the unexplored interior landscape of a woman’s mind. Here men and women still miscommunicate, still remain separate in different rooms, different houses, or even different worlds. With brilliant flashes of fantasy, humor, and unexpected violence, the stories reveal the complexities of human relationships and bring to life characters who touch us deeply, evoking terror and laughter, compassion and recognition - and dramatically demonstrate why Margaret Atwood is one of the most important writers in English today. Discussion Topics/Projects I In the study of discourse, a distinction is often made between "new information” (treated as new for the reader or listener) and "given information” (treated as already known by the reader or listener). Read through the following recipe for bread sauce and identify the ways in which given information is presented. (Try to think carefully about carrying out the instructions in the Method section and how many unmentioned things you are assumed to have and use.) Ingredients: 1 small onion 3 oz. fresh breadcrumbs 2 cloves 1 oz. butter 1 cup of milk Pepper and salt Method: Peel the onion and push cloves into it. Simmer gently with the milk and butter for at least twenty minutes. Remove the onion, pour the milk over the breadcrumbs. Let this stand to thicken and reheat before serving. (For background reading, see chapter 5 of Brown and Yule, 1983.) 182 Discourse Analysis II According to Deborah Schiffrin, “the analysis of discourse markers is part of the more general analysis of discourse coherence” (1987: 49). Looking at the use of discourse markers (in bold) in the following extract from a conversation, do you think that they help to make this discourse more coherent? If any of them were omitted, would it become less coherent? Given these examples, how would you define discourse mar­ kers? Are they the same as pragmatic markers, as described in Chapter 10 on page 155? Do you think the word like (used twice here) should be treated as a discourse marker? I believe in that. Whatever" s gonna happen is gonna happen. I believe... that... y’know it’s fate. It really is. Because eh my husband has a brother, that was killed in an automobile accident, and at the same time there was another fellow, in there, that walked away with not even a scratch on him. And I really fee-1 don’t feel y’can push fate, and I think a lot ofpeople do. But I feel that you were put here for so many, years or whatever the case is, and that’s how it was meant to be. Because like when we got married, we were supposed t’get married uh like about five months later. My husband got a notice t’go into the service and we moved it up. And my father died the week... after we got married. While we were on our honeymoon. And I just felt, that move was meant to be, because if not, he wouldn’t have been there. So eh y’know it just s- seems that that’s how things work. (For background reading, see chapter 3 of Schiffrin, 1987.) Further Reading Basic Treatments Sutherland, S. (2016) A Beginner's Guide to Discourse Analysis Palgrave Widdowson, H. (2007) Discourse Analysis Oxford University Press More Detailed Treatments Johnstone, B. (2018) Discourse Analysis (3rd edition) Wiley-Blackwell Paltridge, B. (2012) Discourse Analysis (2nd edition) Bloomsbury Jones, R. (2012) Discourse Analysis: A Resource Book for Students Routledge Specifically on Spoken Discourse Cameron, D. (2001) Working with Spoken Discourse Sage Specifically on Written Discourse Hoey, M. (2001) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis Routledge Different Approaches to Discourse Analysis Schiffrin, D. (1994) Approaches to Discourse Blackwell  Further Reading 183 Conversation Analysis Have, P. (2007) Doing Conversation Analysis (2nd edition) Sage Liddicoat, A. (2011) An Introduction to Conversation Analysis (2nd edition) Continuum Adjacency Pairs and Turn-taking Clift, R. (2016) Conversation Analysis Cambridge University Press Enfield, N. (2017) How We Talk: The Inner Workings of ConversationRasic Books The Gricean Maxims Grice, P. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words Harvard University Press Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1995) Relevance (2nd edition) Blackwell Implicature Kasher, A. (2009) “Implicature” In S. Chapman and C. Routledge (eds.) Key Ideas in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language (86-92) Edinburgh University Press Background Knowledge Gibbons, A. and S. Whitely (2018) Contemporary Stylistics: Language, Cognition and Interpretation Edinburgh University Press Schemas and Scripts Brown, G. and G. Yule (1983) Discourse Analysis (chapter 7) Cambridge University Press Other References Faulkner, W. (1929) The Sound and the Fury Jonathan Cape Grice, P. (1975) “Logic and conversation” In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds.) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (41-58) Academic Press Overstreet, M. (1999) Whales, Candlelight and Stuff Like That: General Extenders in English Discourse Oxford University Press Sacks, H. (1972) “On the analyzability of stories by children” In J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (eds.) Directions in Sociolinguistics (325-345) Holt, Rinehart and Winston Sanford, A and S. Garrod (1981) Understanding Written Language Wiley Schiffrin, D. (1987) Discourse Markers Cambridge University Press van Dijk, T. (1996) “Discourse, power and access” In C. Caldas-Coulthard and M. Coulthard (eds.) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis (84-104) Routledge Verdonk, P. (2002) Stylistics Oxford University Press Widdowson, H. (1978) Teaching Language as Communication Oxford University Press  MBfi 12 Language and the Brain I once had a patient who suffered a right hemisphere stroke and fell to the ground, unable to walk because of a paralyzed left leg. She lay on the floor for two days, not because no one came to her aid, but because she kept blithely reassuring her husband that she was fine, that there was nothing wrong with her leg. Only on the third day did he bring her in for treatment. When I asked her why she could not move her left leg, and held it up for her to see, she said indifferently that it was someone else's leg. Flaherty (2004) In the preceding chapters we have reviewed in some detail the various features of language that people use to produce and understand linguistic messages. Where is this ability to use language located? The obvious answer is "in the brain." However, it can't be just anywhere in the brain. For example, it can't be where damage was done to the right hemisphere of the patient's brain in Alice Flaherty's description. The woman could no longer recognize her own leg, but she could still talk about it. The ability to talk was unimpaired and hence clearly located somewhere else in her brain.  Language Areas in the Brain 185 Neurolinguistics The study of the relationship between language and the brain is called neurolinguistics. Although this is a relatively recent term, the field of study dates back to the nineteenth century. Establishing the location of language in the brain was an early challenge, but one event incidentally provided a clue. In September 1848, near Cavendish, Vermont, a construction foreman called Phineas P. Gage was in charge of a construction crew blasting away rocks to lay a new stretch of railway line. As Mr. Gage pushed an iron tamping rod into the blasting hole in a rock, some gunpowder accidentally exploded and sent the meter-long tamping rod up through his upper left cheek and out from the top of his forehead. The rod landed about fifty meters away. Mr. Gage suffered the type of injury from which, it was assumed, no one could recover. However, a month later, he was up and about, with no apparent damage to his senses or his speech. The medical evidence was clear. A huge metal rod had gone through the front part of Mr. Gage’s brain, but his language abilities were unaffected. He was a medical marvel, and even sat for his portrait, with the tamping rod, reproduced on page 184. The point of this rather amazing tale is that, while language may be located in the brain, it clearly is not situated right at the front. Language Areas in the Brain Since that time, a number of discoveries have been made about the specific parts in the brain that are related to core language functions. We now know that the most important parts are in areas around the left ear. In order to describe them in greater detail, we need to look more closely at some of the gray matter. So, take a head, remove hair, scalp, skull, then disconnect the brain stem (connecting the brain to the spinal cord) and cut the corpus callosum (connecting the two hemispheres). If we disregard a certain amount of other material, we will basically be left with two parts, the left hemisphere and the right hemi­ sphere. If we put the right hemisphere aside for now, and place the left hemisphere down so that we have a side view, we’ll be looking at something close to the illustration in Figure 12.1 (adapted from Geschwind, 1991). The shaded areas in Figure 12.1 indicate the general locations of those language functions involved in speaking and listening. We have come to know that these areas exist largely through the examination, in autopsies, of the brains of people who, in life, were known to have specific language disabilities. That is, we have tried to determine where language abilities for normal users must be by finding areas with specific damage in the brains of people who had identifiable language disabilities. More brain images are presented in Task G, on page 196. 186 Language and the Brain 3 4 Front 1 2 Figure 12.1 Language areas in the brain Broca's Area The part shown as (1) in Figure 12.1 is technically described as the “anterior speech cortex” or, more usually, as Broca’s area. Paul Broca, a French surgeon, reported in the 1860s that damage to this specific part of the brain was related to extreme difficulty in producing spoken language. It was noted that damage to the corre­ sponding area on the right hemisphere had no such effect. This finding was first used to argue that language ability must be located in the left hemisphere and since then has been treated as an indication that Broca’s area is crucially involved in the generation of spoken language. Wernicke's Area The part shown as (2) in Figure 12.1 is the “posterior speech cortex,” or Wernicke’s area. Carl Wernicke was a German doctor who, in the 1870s, reported that damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties. Significantly, this area is close to the part of the brain, the auditory cortex, that processes what we hear. This finding confirmed the left hemisphere location of language ability and led to the view that Wernicke’s area is part of the brain crucially involved in the under­ standing of spoken language.  Language Areas in the Brain 187 The Motor Cortex and the Arcuate Fasciculus The part shown as (3) in Figure 12.1 is the motor cortex, an area that generally controls movement of the muscles (for moving hands, feet, arms, etc.). The part of the motor cortex that is close to Broca’s area controls the articulatory muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and larynx and hence the physical articulation of speech. In the 1950s, two neurosurgeons, Penfield and Roberts (1959) found that, by applying small amounts of electrical current to specific parts of the brain, they could identify areas where the electrical stimulation would interfere with speech production. The part shown as (4) in Figure 12.1 is a bundle of nerve fibers called the arcuate fasciculus (“the curved bundle”). This was also one of Wernicke’s discoveries and is now known to form a crucial connection between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas. The Localization View Having identified these four components, it is tempting to conclude that specific aspects of language ability can be accorded specific locations in the brain. This is called the localiza­ tion view and it has been used to suggest that the brain activity involved in hearing a word, understanding it, then saying it, would follow a definite pattern. The word is heard and comprehended via Wernicke’s area. This signal is then transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area where preparations are made to generate a spoken version of the word. A signal is then sent to part of the motor cortex to physically articulate the word. This is certainly an oversimplified version of what may actually take place, but it is consistent with much of what we understand about simple language processing in the brain. It is probably best to think of any proposal concerning processing pathways in the brain as some form of metaphor that may turn out to be inadequate once we learn more about how the brain functions. The “pathway” metaphor seems quite appealing in an electronic age when we are familiar with the process of sending signals through electrical circuits. In an earlier age, dominated more by mechanical technology, Sigmund Freud subtly employed a “steam engine” metaphor to account for aspects of the brain’s activity when he wrote of the effects of repression “building up pressure” to the point of “sudden release.” Even earlier, Aristotle’s metaphor was of the brain as a cold sponge that kept the blood cool. In a sense, we are forced to use metaphors mainly because we cannot obtain direct physical evidence of linguistic processes in the brain. Because we have no direct access, we generally have to rely on what we can discover through indirect methods. Traditionally, these methods have involved attempts to work out how the system is working from clues picked up when the system has problems or malfunctions. 188 Language and the Brain Tongue Tips and Slips We have all experienced difficulty, on some occasion(s), in getting brain and speech production to work together smoothly. (Some days are worse than others, of course.) Minor production difficulties of this sort may provide possible clues to how our linguistic knowledge is organized within the brain. The Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon There is, for example, the tip of the tongue phenomenon in which we feel that some word is just eluding us. We know the word, but it just won’t come to the surface. Studies of this phenomenon have shown that speakers generally have an accurate phonological outline of the word, can get the initial sound correct and mostly know the number of syllables in the word. This experience also mainly occurs with uncommon words and names. It suggests that our “word-storage” system may be partially organized on the basis of some phonological information and that some words in the store are more easily retrieved than others. When we make mistakes in this retrieval process, there are often strong phonological similarities between the target word we are trying to say and the mistake we produce. For example, speakers produced secant, sextet and sexton when asked to name a particular type of navigational instrum