Some of the principles guiding meaning construction in discourse (conceptual metaphor, metonymy, iconicity).
It is agreed in Cognitive Linguistics that meaning does not reside in linguistic units but is constructed in the minds of the language users. For the listener this means that he takes linguistic units as prompts and constructs from them a meaningful conceptual representation. In fact, this principle of meaning construction (MC) is not confined to language. Every transformation of a sensory stimulus into a mental representation is an instance of MC, which is rooted in the interaction of human beings with their environment. The world around us is not meaningful per se but rather acquires meaning through the human mind (e.g., the moon is not itself meaningful but may be viewed differently by astronomers and lovers).
Both the speaker's and the listener's perspectives need to be taken into account because both are involved in MC. MC is a dynamic process in which fine-tuning between the interlocutors plays an essential role. The ideal speaker anticipates the particular MC which the listener will presumably create. If there is a mismatch between the anticipated MC and the one created by the hearer, the interlocutors will negotiate repair strategies in order to obtain a closer match between the two MC.
MC is an online process in which the communicative value of each utterance is determined and redefined with each turn and contribution. It is not only a matter of the hearer and his interpretation of an utterance, but it also involves the speaker and his assessment of the hearer's state of mind, his knowledge, his emotions, etc.
e.g.,
(he) I'm really tired. I didn't sleep well last night.
(she) I didn't sleep either. I never do.
(he) Why are you trying to belittle me?
(she) I'm not! I'm just trying to show that I understand.
Only when we consider the other person's perspective can we detect the whole impact of MC in the dialog. The man produced utterance with the expectation in mind that his spouse would understand the intended meaning of his utterance and pity him; the woman gave her reply in the belief that sharing the same experience in this particular situation would mean the same to her companion as it did to her, which was not the case.
We think and experience the world in terms of scenarios. Linguistic units are prompts for accessing such scenarios, i.e. the meanings of these linguistic units metonymically stand as parts for the whole scenario. The part for the whole-metonymy can thus be seen as a fundamental principle of all kinds of MC. Scenarios are part of a given culture and are crucial sources of information in MC. Without knowledge of the scenarios surrounding September 11, 2001, language users wouldn't be able to understand the meaning of a sign in public buses in NY city: "If you see something, do something".
MC is an inferential process. The potential range of inferences is constrained by the linguistic expressions that serve as prompts, the situational and discourse context, the language users' encyclopedic knowledge, their personal attitudes and many more factors. Whichever scenario is evoked as the listener's MC, it is based on a general principle according to which things may stand for one or some of their properties.
General guiding principles of MC are metonymy, metaphor, conceptual blending, iconicity and some more.
Conceptual metonymies guide the interlocutor in the construction of meaning. Panther and Thornburg describe metonymy as natural inference schemes and inferential pathways. The conceptual metonymy thing for property of a thing is readily available to members of a community and guides more specific inferences. E.g., the presenter who completed her first public talk at the ICLC in Seoul by saying "I'm just a student" did not want to inform the audience about her academic status; it was probably an apology in case the audience felt that her paper might not meet with the high academic standards expected of presentations.
Conceptual metaphors also serve as pathways for MC. Lakoff and Johnson: the conceptual metaphor theories are buildings is structured by focusing on certain parts of a building (foundations and outer shell) but also allows us to exploit other parts (the roof, rooms, hallways, etc.) which are normally not used in the metaphor. When we are confronted with a sentence like "His theory is covered with gargoyles", we understand its schematic meaning on the basis of the metaphor theories are buildings. We can make further reasonable guesses about this particular theory of relating it to a scenario like that of grotesque creatures sitting on the gutters of medieval churches. The conceptual metaphor is predominantly lexical inference schema and less commonly found in grammar.
The notion of MC has mainly been associated with mental spaces and the emergence of new meanings by conceptual blending. Fauconnier a day Turner define mental spaces as "small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk, for purposes of local understanding and action". It occurs when two or more mental spaces are conceptually integrated to for a new complex concept. E.g., the cases in morphological blends and compounds, whose complex meanings are derived from blending two input spaces. The input spaces are typically related by a small set of vital relations, which serve as general principles guiding MC, such as relations of time, space, representation, cause-effect, analogy and so on. Metonymy and metaphor may be seen as special instances of conceptual blending.
In the United States Charles Morris (1901-1979) produced his own definition of semiotics. He subdivided the science of semiotics into 3 parts:
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- Synthetics – the analysis of the relations between signs
- Semantics – the science of the meaning
- Pragmatics – the investigation of the relations that are formed between signs and their users
Charles Peirce (1839–1914) created a typology of signs, in total he wrote about 66 types of signs (e.g. signs can be natural (lang.) vs. artificial (made by men), etc.)
Within signs there exist a classification into 3 groups of signs which are based on the relation of resemblance or the relation of conventions:
- Icons – are defined as signs that have been constructed to resemble their reference in some way (e.g. the iconicity of the Roman numeral III)
- Index – is a sign that denotes its object through factual connection to its object
- Symbol – is a sign that denotes its object through interpretive habit or norm of reference to its object.
Various signs might have various degrees of iconicity depending on accuracy of representation. Iconic signs are said to be highly motivated. Iconicity is relations of similarity between the representation and the object represented.
Thus, in functional-cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign (linguistic or otherwise) and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness (произвольность).
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Iconicity - the relations of similarity btw the representation and the object it represents. Icons are defined as signs that have been constructed to resemble their reference in some way. To say that something is iconic may mean that a linguistic expression iconically reflects some aspect of the existing reality or that particular expression iconically reflects our perception of the object. Essentially iconicity refers to the conceived similarity between linguistic form and conceptual structure. Two types of iconicity are often recognized: imagic iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity. Whereas the former refers to oral/aural, tactile, visual signs, the latter consists of structural and semantic kinds. Between the two types of iconicity, diagrammatic iconicity lies in the fact that the essence of a diagram is that the relationship between the parts of a complex sign resembles the relationship between the parts of the concept it represents.
There are two kinds of diagrammatic iconicity: isomorphic principle and motivational iconicity. Isomorphism is defined as one meaning standing for one prototypically clustered set of meanings connected through family resemblances. Motivational iconicity delineates that “categories that are marked morphologically [...] are also marked semantically”.
Peirce differentiates between three types of icons: images, metaphors and diagrams Diagrams “represent the relations, mainly dyadic, or so regarded, of the parts of one thing by analogous relations in their own parts”. Iconicity can be viewed in light of either isomorphism (the tendency to have each meaning represented by exactly one form) or that of motivation (the form of the sign is motivated by its meaning).
Three Iconicity Principles
The quantity principle – A larger chunk of information will be given a larger chunk of code. Less predictable information will be given more coding material. More important information will be given more coding material.
The proximity principle – Entities that are closer together functionally, conceptually, or cognitively will be placed closer together at the code level, i.e., temporally or spatially. Functional operators will be placed closest, temporally or spatially at the code level, to the conceptual unit to which they are most relevant.
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The principle of sequential order – The temporal order of events in the conceived world is mirrored in the order of clauses describing them.
Classification
- Visual icons (photos, a portrait)
- Vocalic signs (onomatopoeia)
- Tactile signs
Humans understanding is guided by sensory perception. It is sensitive to patterns of color, shape, dimension, movement, sound, taste and others. In our life iconicity serves a huge range of social functions. This tendency of perceiving iconicity or relations of similarity btw different objects and phenomena is believed to be characteristic of our biological nature. Iconicity is a creative force not only in language as such but it is a creative force on written texts and particularly in literature.
An approach. The recent research differentiates two types of iconicity: 1)echsophoric (form miming meaning), 2)endophoric (form miming form).
Yuriy Lotman developed a theory of iconicity as a secondary modeling system built on language, which functions as a primary modeling system. Endophoric iconicity concerns the syntagmatic and paradigmatic mapping of language, which includes features such as repetition, parallelism, alliteration, rhyme, meter. An icon may refer not only to the real object but also to a fictive, imaginative one.
22. Speech-act theory.
Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the use of language in social contexts and the ways in which people produce and comprehend meanings through language. In other words, pragmatics refers to the way people use language in social situations and the way that language is interpreted. The term pragmatics was coined in the 1930s by C.W. Morris. Pragmatics was developed as a subfield of linguistics in the 1970s.
People talk for a purpose to assert beliefs, request help, promise action, express congratulations, or ask for information. Listeners would be remiss if they did not register this purpose and act accordingly. In normal circumstances, listeners record beliefs, provide help, record promises, acknowledge congratulations, and provide information. In the process of comprehension, listeners figure out what a sentence is meant to express. They also register how the sentence is meant to carry forward the purpose of the speaker. They infer the underlined propositions and use them in the way speakers intend.
The fundamental function of language is communication. In this activity, there are three main elements: a speaker, a listener, and a signalling system or language. The signalling system must be one that speakers and listeners are both able to use. Communication begins with speakers. They decide, for example, to impart some information in a particular way. They then select signal. This signal is a particular utterance. They believe that it is appropriate and therefore they produce it. The listeners receive the signal which is the uttered sentence and take it for immediate use.
Speech-act theory is a subfield of pragmatics concerned with the ways in which words can be used not only to present information but also to carry out actions.
As introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (How to Do Things With Words, 1962) and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle, speech-act theory considers the levels of action at which utterances are said to perform:
- Locutionary acts
- Illocutionary acts
- Perlocutionary acts
In speech-act theory, a locutionary act is the act of making a meaningful utterance, a stretch of spoken language that is preceded by silence and followed by silence or a change of speaker—also known as a locution or an utterance act. The term locutionary act was introduced by British philosopher J. L. Austin in his 1962 book, "How to Do Things With Words." American philosopher John Searle later replaced Austin's concept of a locutionary act with what Searle called the propositional act—the act of expressing a proposition. Searle outlined his ideas in a 1969 article titled "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language."
Types of Locutionary Acts
Locutionary acts can be broken into two basic types: utterance acts and propositional acts. An utterance act is a speech act that consists of the verbal employment of units of expression such as words and sentences, notes the Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Put another way, utterance acts are acts in which something is said (or a sound is made) that may not have any meaning, according to "Speech Act Theory," a PDF published by Changing Minds.org.
By contrast, propositional acts are those, as Searle noted, where a particular reference is made. Propositional acts are clear and express a specific definable point, as opposed to mere utterance acts, which may be unintelligible sounds.
Illocutionary vs. Perlocutionary Acts
"In the past three decades, speech act theory has become an important branch of the contemporary theory of language thanks mainly to the influence of [J.R.] Searle (1969, 1979) and [H.P.] Grice (1975) whose ideas on meaning and communication have stimulated research in philosophy and in human and cognitive sciences. . . . From Searle's view, there are only five illocutionary points that speakers can achieve on propositions in an utterance, namely: the assertive, commissive, directive, declaratory and expressive illocutionary points. Speakers achieve the assertive point when they represent how things are in the world, the commissive point when they commit themselves to doing something, the directive pointwhen they make an attempt to get hearers to do something, the declaratory point when they do things in the world at the moment of the utterance solely by virtue of saying that they do and the expressive point when they express their attitudes about objects and facts of the world.
"This typology of possible illocutionary points enabled Searle to improve Austin's classification of performative verbs and to proceed to a reasoned classification of illocutionary forces of utterances which is not as language-dependent as that of Austin." (Daniel Vanderkeven and Susumu Kubo, "Introduction." Essays in Speech Act Theory. John Benjamins, 2002)
An illocutionary act refers to the performance of an act in saying something specific (as opposed to the general act of just saying something), notes Changing Minds, adding:
"The illocutionary force is the speaker's intent. [It is] a true 'speech act' such as informing, ordering, warning, undertaking."
An example of an illocutionary act would be:
"The black cat is stupid."
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This statement is assertive; it is an illocutionary act in that it intends to communicate. By contrast, Changing Minds notes that perlocutionary acts are speech acts that have an effect on the feelings, thoughts, or actions of either the speaker or the listener. They seek to change minds. Unlike locutionary acts, perlocutionary acts are external to the performance; they are inspiring, persuading, or deterring. Changing Minds gives this example of a perlocutionary act:
"Please find the black cat."
This statement is a perlocutionary act because it seeks to change behavior. (The speaker wants you to drop whatever you are doing and go find her cat.)
Speech Acts With Purpose
As noted, locutionary acts may be simple utterances devoid of meaning. Searle refined the definition of locutionary acts by explaining they should be utterances that propose something, that have meaning, and/or that seek to persuade. Searle identified five illocutionary/perlocutionary points:
* Assertives: Statements that may be judged true or false because they aim to describe a state of affairs in the world
* Directives: Statements that attempt to make the other person's actions fit the propositional content
* Commissives: Statements that commit the speaker to a course of action as described by the propositional content
* Expressives: Statements that express the sincerity condition of the speech act
* Declaratives: Statements that attempt to change the world by representing it as having been changed
Locuationary acts, therefore, should not simply be locutionary acts, which may be meaningless bits of speech. Instead, they should have purpose, either seeking to bolster an argument, express an opinion, or cause someone to take action.
Locutionary Acts Do Have Meaning
Austin, in a 1975 update of his book "How to Do Things With Words," further refined the notion of locutionary acts. Explaining his theory, Austin said that locutionary acts, in and of themselves, did indeed have meaning, stating:
"In performing a locutionary act, we shall also be performing such an act as:
* Asking or answering a question
* Giving some information or an assurance or a warning
* Announcing a verdict or an intention
* Pronouncing a sentence
* Making an appointment, an appeal, or a criticism
* Making an identification or giving a description"
In other words, locutionary acts are not mere meaningless utterances. Austin argued that locutionary acts did not need further refinement into illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Locutionary acts by definition have meaning, such as providing information, asking questions, describing something, or even announcing a verdict. Locutioinary acts are the meaningful utterances humans make to communicate their needs and wants and to persuade others to their viewpoint.
To understand how speech acts work it is necessary to look at the components an utterance consists of - namely locution, illocution and perlocution.
2.1.1 Locution
The locution is the physical act of speaking. That means that the speaker composes a sentences in a specific context. The locution thereby is the grammatical structure of the utterance.
The following examples show the different grammatical forms that an utterance can have:
(1) Declarative: “You are generous.”
(2) Closed- interrogative: “Are you generous?”
(3) Open- interrogative: “Who is generous?”
(4) Imperative: “Be generous!”
(5) Exclamative: “How generous you are!”
(Huddles and Pullum 2002, 853)
2.1.2 Illocution
When making an utterance the speaker always has an intention behind it. The speaker makes an utterance to make either a statement about the world, to apologize or to explain something. This intended meaning behind the utterance is called illocutionary force and is internal to the locutionary act. The same locution can have different possible meanings depending on the context.
By looking at the example “It is cold in here.” the declarative can be stated either to make a statement about the current temperature but also to make the hearer do an action such as closing the window. This makes it obvious that in conversation it is not always clear what the intended meaning behind an utterance is. That shows that the same utterance can be ambiguous and can only be understood by looking at the context in which it is uttered.
2.1.3 Perlocution
The Perlocution is the intended or unintended effect that the utterance can have on the hearer and is external to the locutionary act as the speaker cannot control the effect the utterance will have on the hearer. Looking at the example of “There is a good movie tonight.” the perlocution can be that the hearer understands the declarative as an information and answers “Thank you.” or the utterance is understood as an excuse and “Never mind.” is answered. (Renkema 2004, 14)
2.2 Speech Acts
As the example “It is cold in here” has shown, utterances can be used to make other people do something. The speaker can chose to make his intended meaning explicit or to state it indirectly.
2.2.1 Direct Speech Act
An utterance is seen as a direct speech act when there is a direct relationship between the structure and the communicative function of the utterance. The following examples show that the form correspondences with the function:
(6) A declarative is used to make a statement: “You wear a seat belt.”
(7) An interrogative is used to ask a question: “Do you wear a seat belt?”
(8) An imperative is used to make a command: “Wear a seat belt!”
(Yule (1996, 55)
Direct speech acts therefore explicitly illustrate the intended meaning the speaker has behind making that utterance.
2.2.2 Indirect Speech Act
Searle stated that an indirect speech is one that is “performed by means of another” (Searle quoted in Thomas, 1995, p.93). That means that there is an indirect relationship between the form and the function of the utterance. The following examples show that the form does not correspondence with the function:
(9) An interrogative is used to make a request: “Could you pass the salt?”
(10) A declarative is used to make a request: “You’re standing in front of the TV.”
(Yule 1996, 56)
The speaker does not explicitly state the intended meaning behind the utterance. It is the hearer’s task to analyse the utterance to understand its meaning.
Felicity Conditions
According to Searle, general conditions have to be fulfilled to have a successful communication. The participants have to understand the language that is being used and that they are non-playacting. Besides these general condition Searle further divides felicity conditions into four classes: propositional content conditions, preparatory conditions, sincerity conditions and essential conditions. (Renkema 1993, 23)
Propositional content condition requires that the locution must exhibit conventionally acceptable words for erecting the particular speech act. Preparatory condition requires that specific requirements are existing such as that the utterance is made by a person that has the authority to do the action and that the utterance is stated in appropriate circumstances with appropriate actions. If that condition is not met the act has not been carried out. The sincerity condition requires that the person performing the act must have appropriate beliefs or feelings to do the action. If that condition is not fulfilled there is an abuse. The essential condition requires that the speaker commits himself to the speech act and takes upon himself the responsibility of carrying out the act. (Renkema 1993, 23)
The propositional content condition is that it must be a future event. The preparatory precondition requires that the speaker believes the event will occur and be disadvantageous to the hearer and the speaker believes that it is not obvious to the hearer that the event will occur. The sincerity condition requires that the speaker truly believes that the event will be disadvantageous to the hearer. The essential condition requires that the speaker wants to inform the hearer about an event that will be disadvantageous to the hearer.
Presupposition
Presupposition: interesting parameter to examine because in discourse (i.e. when examining bodies of naturally occurring texts) it has been linked to
- Manipulation by presenting certain beliefs as true/given/unquestionable
- Shared background knowledge necessary for indirect ideological statements to be communicated without being explicitly asserted and justified
Two approaches
However, ‘shared knowledge’: extremely broad
Communication on every level requires vast amounts of shared knowledge (semantic knowledge/knowledge of the aspects of the world evoked by words, pragmatic knowledge on how discourse works, social norms of appropriacy)
· Austin (1975: 50-51): Felicity conditions are the presuppositions of a speech act
· Fillmore and Atkins (1992: 75): ‘knowledge of [cognitive structures-frames] is presupposed for the concepts encoded by words’
· Can ‘presupposition’ include ‘everything knowable’ (Fillmore, 1985: 248)?
Also, methodological problems of identification:
· Issue of scope, since every word/concept is an access point to the whole knowledge network (Langacker, 1987) – How much knowledge is activated?
· Presuppositions that is linguistically marked and presuppositions that are not (Sbisá, 1999)
· Presupposition as background knowledge and/but not identifiable text (Fairclough, 1989: 39; 1992: 121)
· What is not asserted, is presupposed (Van Dijk, 1998: 39, 102 ff., 2003, 2005)
Van Dijk (2005) includes:
- Shared knowledge/beliefs which are not asserted (e.g. ‘Palestinians live in Gaza’ in article on conflicts in Gaza)
- Backgrounded beliefs (difficult to infer – ‘unfair presuppositions’, Bekalu, 2006 - mystification)
- Beliefs presented as given
- Too much information presupposing ignorance (pragmatic level) (2005: 89)
Theoretical discussion (no examples for the last 3 categories)
Ø Word/phrase level (semantic frames, Fillmore, certain ‘presupposition triggers’ such as ‘stop’ – related to referential and predication strategies)
Ø Clause/sentence structure level (framing, interacts with word level, certain ‘presupposition triggers’ – secondary clauses setting the background)
Ø Text and discourse level (position of information in the text, how the text fits with the overall knowledge in the related epistemic/discourse community. Allusions, presumptions, background knowledge)
Ø Pragmatic knowledge of how discourse works and how this interacts with participants’ knowledge about the world (Goffman, 1997: Ch. 13, Austin’s felicity conditions, Grice’s Co-operative principle, generic and appropriacy conventions, presumptions, intertextuality – every negation presupposes an assertion Fairclough, 1992: 121-2, Ducrot, 1980, cited in Borutti, 1984)
23 . Face threatening speech acts.
Face as a sociological term
The term face has been established in the late 1960s by the American sociologist Erving Goffman. It is defined by Goffman as an image of the self which depends on both the rules and values of a particular society and the situation the social interaction is embedded in. It hence mirrors the way a person wants to be perceived by others in his surrounding space. Goffman describes three levels which influence an individual's actions in order to correspond to one's face needs:
* The need to fulfil one's own desires is described as pride.
* One's emotional and physical attitude in social interaction is described as dignity.
* An individual's duties towards the society are defined as honour.
The dependance of face on social values is, for instance, reflected in the way a person behaves when representing a particular religious community or profession. Sense of face in social interaction is mutual with regard to individuals sending and receiving a message. The person committing a social act is equally aware of the addresse's face. Aiming at avoiding threats to one's own and and the other person's face, verbal and non-verbal acts are modified accordingly. These interaction patterns serve as face-saving acts. On the contrary, acts which work against the face needs of sender and recipient are known as face-threatening acts.
Face-saving acts
Saving one's own face depends on the mutual interaction between sender and recipient. Accepting each others' faces and the corresponding social roles people are taking, is defined as face-to-face talk. According to this definition, a teacher is able to interrupt his student, whereas the student might commit a threat to the teacher's authority when interrupting the latter.
To avoid misleadings of one's own or the addressee's face, social actions are put into a specific order. This is called an expressive order. Expressive orders need to be taken care of in order to avoid threats to one's face and to restore one's face after it has been threatened.
Misleading of Face
The faces of both the sender and recipient are always in progress. An individual's behaviour and the information conveyed about this individual at a particular point in time lead to future expectations of others towards this individual. Signals which do not fulfill these expectations are called misleadings of face.
One distinguishes between two kinds of misleadings of face. If particular information about an individual does not fit the overall impression of others, this person is supposed to be in the wrong-face. This is, for instance, the case with people who are known to be punctual by their peer group and called unpunctual by others who do not belong to this social group. If a particular behaviour of a person does not fit the overall impression of others, a person is supposed to be out-of-face. A person known to be punctual is out-of-face, if she/ he starts to arrive late for meetings within his/ her social group.
Positive and Negative Face
Face-work is directed to both the basic needs of face (negative face) as well as the desire for the appreciation of one's personality (positive face) (see: positive and negative Face). Linguists Stephen Levinson and Penelope Brown were the first to divide these two aspects of Goffman's face. According to them, politeness in language is the universal tool to protect all aspects of faces in interaction.
A face-threatening act (FTA) is an act which challenges the face wants of an interlocutor. According to Brown and Levinson (1987 [1978]), face-threatening acts may threaten either the speaker's face or the hearer's face, and they may threaten either positive face or negative face.
Types of FTAs
(cf. Brown and Levinson 1987 {1978])
A distinction can be made between (i) FTAs which threaten positive face and those which threaten negative face, and (ii) FTAs which threaten the hearer’s face and FTAs which threaten the speaker’s face.
FTAs Threatening the Hearer’s Face
Positive Face
FTAs threatening the hearer’s self-image include (i) expressions negatively evaluating the hearer’s positive face, e.g. disapproval, criticism, complaints, accusations, contradictions, disagreements etc., as well as (ii) expressions which show that the speaker does not care about H’s positive face, e.g. expressions of violent emotions, taboo topics, bad news, emotional topics, interruptions etc.
Examples
* Criticism: “I think your report was not concise enough.” -> The hearer’s positive face is threatened because s/he is blamed for having done sth. badly, i.e. his/her self-image is negatively evaluated.
Negative Face
FTAs restricting the hearer’s personal freedom include (i) acts predicating a future act of the hearer, e.g. orders/requests, suggestions/advice, reminding, threats/warnings/dares, (ii) acts predicating a future act of the speaker towards the hearer, e.g. offers/promises, and (iii) acts expressing a desire of the speaker towards the hearer or his/her goods, e.g. compliments, expressions of emotions.
Examples:
* Promise: “I promise I will come by tomorrow.” -> The speaker states a future action in which the hearer should be involved.
* Compliment: “I really like you.” -> The speaker expresses positive emotions towards the hearer which may involve an anticipation of a positive reaction by the hearer (giving thanks/expressing positive emotions towards the speaker).
FTAs Threatening the Speaker’s Face
Positive Face
FTAs threatening the speaker’s self-image include apologies, acceptance of a compliment, breakdown of physical/emotional control, self-humiliation, confession etc.
Example:
* Apology: “I think I made a huge mistake.” -> The speaker makes a statement about his/her own shortcomings, thereby 'damaging' his/her own positive self-image/face.
Negative Face
FTAs threatening the speaker’s personal freedom include theexpresion of thanks, acceptance of thanks/offers/compliments, apologies, excuses etc.
Example:
* Expression of thanks: “Thank you so much for your help.” -> The speaker expresses thanks because he/she feels obliged to do so. His freedom of action is thus threatened in the moment of speaking.
Face-threatening acts are acts which in some way threaten the 'face' or self-esteem of another person. Some people think that all communicative acts are potentially threatening. In fact, the potential does exist to threaten 'face' with every act of communication. Whether the act is actually a threat depends not so much on the intent of the speaker but on the perception of the listener.
Face-threatening Acts include acts other than spoken or written. Very often we can threaten others' face by a look, an expression or some other non-verbal communication. Staring at someone is often perceived as an FTA for no other reason than it can be so unnerving. The starer's motivation is always questioned. The person who is being stared at must wonder, what is wrong? What don't I know about my appearance or even my presence here? A stare can take place from a relatively distant place but the resulting discomfort is akin to standing too close. A child (or adult) at times can be more expressive and rather than hide an FTA, might express himself or herself openly. Sticking one's tongue out at someone else can be done with no attempt to conceal the act. It can be an FTA 'in your face'.
In their foundational works on politeness, P. Brown and S. Levinson (1978, 1987) assume that all competent adults belonging to a society are rational agents who have a positive and a negative face. They conceive this double-featured face as the public self image that every individual, every member of a society, wants to claim for himself/herself. It consists of two related aspects. The negative face is the basic want of freedom from imposition, whereas the positive face is the basic desire of appreciation and approbation of his or her wants. This notion of ‘face’ is originally derived from that of Goffman (1967), and it deals with some folk terms such as ‘losing face’ in English, or its Spanish equivalent ‘perder imagen’ (Gil 2001: 223). For example, when the speaker (S) asks politely the hearer (H)
* 1) Could I just borrow a tiny bit of paper? (Grundy 1995: 128), S threatens H’s negative face, because S imposes H a future action (giving S a sheet of paper). We may consider many other types of face-threatening acts (FTA). For example,
* 2) I arrived a little bit late yesterday because I had an interview with the dean.
When admitting responsibility of having been late, S directly threatens his/her own positive face. Roughly speaking, every single utterance is co-extensive with the realization of a speech atc, and every realization of a speech act is co-extensive with a single utterance. As a whole, an utterance is a piece of evidence about the speaker’s meaning, and comprehension is achieved by inferring this meaning from evidence provided not only by the utterance but also by the context (Sperber and Wilson 2005: 355).
In this sense, all speech acts (and all utterances) are face-threatening. Even an apparently innocent assertion talking about the weather may generate disagreement. The single act of speaking threatens H’s face, because when S speaks H has to listen. It is crucial to emphasize again that every utterance implies the realization of single speech act. In fact, an utterance is every single linguistic realization, which has a variety of properties, such as an illocutionary force and a linguistic structure (the sentence). Sentences are described by abstracting out the purely linguistic properties of utterances (Sperber and Wilson 1995: 9; Sperber and Wilson 2005: 354). However, the correspondence between a single utterance and a single speech act does not imply that the recovery of the speech act be essential to verbal comprehension (Sperber and Wilson 1995: 245).
Generally, the meanings evoked by threatening or invading speech acts have not been individually intended by S. That is to say, S may be polite or may be rude, without the conscious intention of being polite or rude. However, any hearer and even any observer can be able to recognize that S’s speech act has been threatening or invading.
24 Theory of relevance
Relevance theory is psychological model for understanding the cognitive interpretation of language of language, as well as “an inferential approach to pragmatics”. It stands opposed to classical code model whereby information is encoded into a message, transmitted and decoded by another party, with another copy of the code. Inferential approaches to pragmatics hold that linguistic meaning of the words decoded by the receiver is just one of many inputs that can affect interpretation.
Relevance theory argues that the thing that causes an input to stand out from others is its relevance to the receiver. Wilson and Sperber make these rules:
“a. Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects achieved by processing an input, the greater the relevance of the input to the individual at that time
b. Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended, the lower the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.”
So what we have, cognitively speaking, is a cost/benefit analysis whereby the cost of processing is weighed against the possible positive cognitive benefits. This is summarised by Wilson and Sperber as The Cognitive Principle of Relevance:
“Human cognition tends to be geared towards the maximisation of relevance”
This rule helps to make sense of the cognitive relevance of information, but if we were just sucking in every possible input and scanning it for relevance then communication would become quite difficult (no shit). Inferential models of communication make the claim that communication contains not only the information that you wish to transmit, but also the information of your intention to inform the audience of your intention. So it’s not enough to communicate, you also have to draw attention to your intention to communicate, and this is carried with the message itself. So the cognitive principle of relevance is balanced in relevance theory, by The Communicative Principle of Relevance:
“Every ostensive stimulus conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance”
And by optimal relevance they mean that it is worth the audience’s processing effort and that it is the most relevant message in terms of compatibility with the communicators abilities and preferences.
So to summarise:
Relevance theory states that receiving communication is a process of sifting through the available inputs to find the communication of most relevance. However messages carry information about their own ostensive relevance which allows the receiver to infer which are the most important, and permits the sender a degree of control over their importance.
Или, насколько я поняла (Sasha here) мозг фильтрует инфу на релевантную, и быстрее обрабатывает релевантную. Релевантность понимается не только по содержанию, но и по тому, какое намерение выказывает говорящий. Типа, если тебе нафиг не надо слушать Киру, но она подходит и гладит тебя по плечику, то ее намерение поиметь коммуникацию с тобой перевешивает ненужность всей ее речи. И ее вопрос становится релевантным.
Билеты КМ 25, 26, 27, 28
25. Narrative & description (features that characterise)
Quick reminder: according to KM there are 7 types of discourse: narrative, description, procedural (instructive/instructional), expository/explanatory, persuasive, argumentative, conversational. However, the Internet says there r 5 main types of D: narrative, description, persuasive, argumentative, expository.
Narrative/narration
Features in no particular order:
- quite active
- organised in time
- ??: what? Who? How?
- relies on unsaid (not mentioned)
- verbs that denote actions, a change of state & seem to inform about smth or transmit some feelings
- objective & subjective
- manifests change of sentence
- adverbial of time & place
Additional info from me:
- chronological ordering, flashbacks
- rate & pausing — fast, pauses for effect
- tense mostly past
- set up scenes & characters
- action verbs
- point of view subjective (opinions)
- causal register
- level concrete
- personification, proper nouns, classifiers, quotations
- elements of description can be found: descriptive narration
Descriptive/description
- static
- renders a scene/situation by offering a № of details to create an image or a reflection of smith in the readers mind
Lil bit info from me:
- noun phrases
- existential clauses (there is, there are)
- place, time and manner
- objective & subjective (*если естественное описание, то носит субъективный характер)
- expressive or informative
26. Exposition & argumentation
Expository/exposition
- may include other types
- explanation of some kind
- existential clauses
- sets forth certain facts, ideas, an opinion to come to a full understanding of a text
- CLARITY!
- slower pauses btw components
- 3 types of E:
• informational (delivers info, facts)
• analytical (greek, requires detailed analysis)
• persuasive (not to say/give fact but use them in order to explain smith, to uncover the meaning)
NB! persuasive D changes our minds while explanatory provides info
More info from me:
- ordering nonlinear, random
- rate & pausing — slower, pauses btw components, pauses for comprehension & response
- set up objects or categories
- lots of passive voice
- stative vers ‘be’
- point of view objective (facts)
- level concrete
- descriptive adj/adverbs, classifiers, rhetorical ??, technical terminology
- ??: what? how? why?
- e.g. science-popular, written documents, student’s essay, распоряжения, указы правительственные
Argumentation
- changes our beliefs
- serves the purpose of changing people’s beliefs, attitudes or making them adopt a new view or merely a view of smith
- appeals to reason (persuades)
- However, mere persuasive if they use emotions
- based on reason
- usually deductive or inductive (deductive — based on 1 or more syllogisms (e.g. Сократ — человек. Все люди смертны. Сократ смертен); inductive — used more often, texts r build on to some general idea, начинается с факта, затем даёт общее заключение)
- logical & persuasive cause of logic
- premise - argument. If a premise is false, an effective way is to expose it
- based on slower pauses & comprehension
Some info from me:
- logical ordering
- rate & pausing — slower, pauses for comprehension & response
- set up ideas
- point of view subjective (opinions)
- level abstract
- rhetorical ??
- is used w/ persuasive
- arguments support claim
27. Sequence & structure in conversation
Sequence & structure in conversation (info from the Internet, ibo ya ne ebu chto ona na pare pro eto vtirala + e.g.s. for closing conv r just 4 fun) If you know what to say here please add 🙏🏻
- opening conversations
people open conversation by:
1. summon (e.g. in phone conv, the ringing phone can act as the summon)
2. greetings
3. small talk
- closing conversations
e.g. direct parting (see you when I see you); pre-closing (ok then, unsee you later); summarising (’k bye!)
- turn-taking
- adjacency pairs
utterances produced by 2 successive speakers in a way that the 2nd utterance is identified as related to the 1st one as an expected follow-up to that utterance (Hi there — Hello; Bye then — bye)
- preferred (agreeing, accepting, granting)
- dispreferred (disagreeing, rejecting, refusing)
- feedback (backchannels)
- repair (тип поправить самого себя же)
Features from me about conv D:
- existential clauses
- pauses for effect or turn taken
- nonlinear, random order, flashbacks
- rate & pausing — variable, pauses for effect or turn-taking
- register causal
- incomplete sentences
- quotations
28. Lexical density in spoken vs written
From year 4 stylistics
Lexical sparsity/density — a very important yardstick (measuring device) to understand the difference btw the written & spoken English
Lexical sparsity — the № of content words divided by the № of clauses
Content words — nouns, verbs, adjectives
e.g. The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer & faster train running in the most adverse weather conditions.
12 content words & 1 clause — lexical density = 12 (high) => written, formal speech
if e.g. 10 content words & 5 clauses — lexical density = 2 (low) => oral speech
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