Communicative effectiveness Contextual phenomena Lesson 11 27 March 2017 Discourse and context The complex relationship between discourse and context: Broader socio-political, historical and cultural context Social situation and institutional frame Extra-linguistic level Intertextuality Connections Endophoric Exophoric T Co-text Intra-linguistic level
Contextual phenomena Contextual phenomena are phenomena in which discourse appears to be related to, or dependent on, the extra-linguistic context (particularly the social situation and the cultural and institutional frame) on the basis of exophoric connections ( ). The main contextual phenomena are: a) Deixis b) Staging c) Perspectivisation d) Inference Deixis Deixis is the phenomenon in which the dependency of discourse on the situation is most striking. It refers to those discourse elements (deictics) that can only be fully understood in relation to the situation. Example: A: I am now standing on the roof. The word I refers to the person uttering the sentence; the time which now denotes is dependent on the moment the statement is uttered. The words standing and roof, on the other hand, are not deictics because their meaning remains constant in different situations.
Deixis Deixis is focused from the speaker s perspective. At the center of the deictic field, which Bühler (1934) called the Origo, are the words I, here and now. Three types of deixis: i) person deixis ii) space deixis iii) time deixis Person deixis Person deixis is realised using personal pronouns. The speaker as first person, I or we, directs the utterance to the listener as a second person, you, and might be talking about a third person, she, he or they. Social deixis refers to the manner in which the second person is addressed in some languages, such as Italian (tu, Lei, Voi). Japanese is known for having an elaborate system of politeness forms called honorifics.
Place deixis In place deixis, a speaker can refer to something that is in the vicinity or further away. This can be realised by the use of demonstratives (this, that etc.) and expressions related to space (here, there, left/right of, near, far etc.). Sometimes place deixis can be ambiguous: A: Steve is standing in front of the car. OR? Time deixis Time deixis is realised by using language resources such as time adverbs and adjectives (yesterday, today, tomorrow, ago, early, then, soon, late, recently etc.). Example: A: It s raining now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny. Consider the word this in the example above. What kind of deixis is that? The answer is in the next slide
Discourse deixis An additional category of deixis is discourse deixis, which indicates the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance (including the utterance itself). Examples: 1. This chapter will discuss various theories... 2. This sentence is false. Symbolic and gestural usage of deixis It is helpful to distinguish between two usages of deixis: symbolic and gestural. So far we have discussed instances of symbolic deixis. Gestural deixis refers to expressions that require some sort of audio-visual information to be correctly understood. Examples: 1. A: I love this city. symbolic deixis 2. A: I broke this finger. gestural deixis (A shows the finger to B, B interprets the deixis based on such visual information)
Deixis or anaphoric reference? Be careful not to confuse deixis with anaphoric reference! Ask yourself: is the connection endophoric or exophoric? A: He was standing there. If he and there refer to a person and a place that were previously mentioned in the discourse, then the connection is endophoric ( anaphoric reference). If he and there can only be fully understood in relation to the concrete discourse situation, then the connection is exophoric ( deixis). Deixis Activity: identify the deictic expressions in the examples. 1. It s cold in here. May I close the window? place, person 2. We must stop polluting this place now, tomorrow will be too late. person, place, time, time, time 3. Hey kids, have we washed our hands? person, person 4. We choose to go to the Moon. person 5. (pointing to a map) That s Alaska. Mike was there two years ago. place (gestural), time
Deixis Activity: identify and explain the deictic expressions used in these pictures. How do they help convey the message? Staging In discourse, information is usually presented according to the importance it is supposed to have in a given context. Speakers may foreground or background information. This is called, using a theatre metaphor, staging.
Staging Compare the utterances below. Which information is in the foreground, and which in the background? 1. Every year I go on vacation to Aruba for two weeks. 2. Every year I go to Aruba on vacation for two weeks. 3. For two weeks every year I go on vacation to Aruba. 4. I go on vacation to Aruba for two weeks every year. The underlined information appears to be in the foreground, while the rest is more in the background. On what does this depend? Staging: the head-tail principle According to the head-tail principle, the more to the left (head) or right (tail) the information is presented, the more important and in the foreground it becomes. Example: 1. Every year I go to Aruba for two weeks on vacation. 2. Aruba is where I go on vacation for two weeks every year. In (1), on vacation is more in the foreground than it is in (2). In (2), Aruba is more in the foreground than it is in (1).
Staging: the head-tail principle Now consider utterance (2): A: Aruba is where I go on vacation for two weeks every year. This type of construction is called cleft sentence. The basic structure is: [it/that + verb to be + X + clause]. Examples: 1. It is Joey we're looking for. 2. It was from John that she heard the news. 3. It was meeting Jim that really made me nervous. Cleft sentences are an example of staging devices, since they serve to bring information to the foreground. Staging: the head-tail principle The head-tail principle also applies to paragraphs and longer passages of text. Compare the following passages: 1. I am against an expensive overseas vacation. We have already spent so much money on special things this year. After all, there are so many fun things we can do here. 2. We have already spent so much money on special things this year. That is why I am against an expensive overseas vacation. After all, there are so many fun things we can do here. Passage (1) is more effective than (2) because it better foregrounds the speaker s opposition to the vacation (by bringing it to the head of the paragraph).
Perspectivisation Information can be presented from a number of different perspectives. In discourse analysis, this phenomenon is called perspectivisation. Perspectivisation Identify the perspectives from which these short stories are told: 1. There was a man at the bar. The door opened. A woman and a child came in. external observer in the bar 2. There was a man at the bar. The door opened. A woman and a child walked inside. ext. observer outside the bar 3. There was a man at the bar. He looked up when the door opened. A woman and a child came in. the man 4. A woman opened the door for the child. He walked in and saw a man sitting at the bar. the child
Perspectivisation You could define perspective as the position of the camera that is filming the scene. In discourse analysis, there are three main approaches to perspective: Vision: sociologically-inspired research into the ideological perspective. Focalisation: literary-oriented research into the narrator s perspective. Empathy: syntactically-oriented research into the speaker s attitude. Perspectivisation: vision Vision refers to the fact that our ideological perspectives (i.e. our understanding of social norms and values) affect our language use. Compare these extracts from 2 reports of the same event: 1. With 400,000 demonstrators participating, double that of the organisers highest estimates, the peace demonstration in Amsterdam has already been labelled an important political event. 2. The fears on the part of thousands of Dutchmen that the peace demonstration in Amsterdam would culminate in an aggressive anti-america orgy were not fulfilled. What different visions do the two reports embody?
Perspectivisation: vision In extract 1, which is taken from a leftist/ progressive daily newspaper, the peace demonstration is looked at favourably. In extract 2, which comes from a right-wing/ conservative daily newspaper, the demonstration is instead stigmatised as potentially dangerous. In critical discourse studies (see L13), discourse is considered to be inherently ideological. This means that all kinds of discourse, not just radical discourses, are seen as embodying and promoting certain ideological perspectives (visions) of social reality. Perspectivisation: vision Vision is also a key concept in multimodal discourse analysis, which focuses on how meaning is created through the use of multiple modes of communication. Compare the 3 photos in terms of vision (or point of view):
Perspectivisation: focalisation In narrative theory, the perspective from which a story is told is called focalisation. The subject of the focalisation may be (1) a narrator who is observing everything from an external viewpoint, or (2) a character in the story itself: 1. There was a man at the bar. The door opened. A woman and a child walked inside. 2. There was a man at the bar. He looked up when the door opened. A woman came in, followed by a child. Focalisation is typically signalled by verbs of observation (to see, to notice, to hear, etc.) and by expressions of space. Perspectivisation: focalisation Activity: identify the change of focalisation. There was a man at the bar. He looked dispirited. He was mumbling something about murdering his great love and his only future. The door opened. A woman and a little boy entered. The boy gazed at the customer at the bar. Suddenly he felt the woman s hand in front of his eyes. From the verbs of observation used, it can be deduced that at first there is an external narrator. At a certain point the story continues from the child s perspective.
Perspectivisation: empathy In discourse analysis, empathy refers to the degree to which a speaker identifies with a person or object described in the text. Empathy is expressed in the syntactic structure of a sentence. Compare: 1. John is angry at Mary. 2. John is angry at his wife. 3. Mary s husband is angry at her. In (1) empathy is equally divided. In (2) more empathy is directed towards John than Mary. In (3) more empathy is directed towards Mary than John. Inference As we know, listeners and readers can often derive more information from the discourse than is explicitly stated. Inference is the collective term for all possible implicit information which can be derived from a discourse. The most important forms of inference are: a) Presuppositions b) Entailment c) Conventional implicature d) Conversational implicature (see L06) e) Connotation
Inference: presuppositions Presupposition refers to the information that must be true for the sentence in question to be itself true or false. Examples: A: I have stopped smoking. The utterance can only be true or false if A in fact used to smoke. The presupposition is: A used to smoke. A: Oops, I did it again. The utterance can only be true or false if A has already done it before. Presupposition: A has done it before. Inference: presuppositions Activity: enunciate the presuppositions of these sentences. a. John is opening the window. The window is closed. b. John is not opening the window. The window is closed. c. Carl has the flu again. Carl has had the flu before. d. Molly is a better linguist than Carol. Carol is also a linguist. As shown by the examples, presuppositions can be prompted by certain words or by the sentence structure.
Inference: entailment Entailment denotes a logical relationship between two propositions, where if one is true then the other must also be true. Example: Pete bought oranges. Pete bought fruit. Unlike presuppositions, entailments do not necessarily hold true if the original proposition is negated. Inference: conventional implicature Conventional implicature refers to the information that can be derived from certain discourse elements through their fixed meaning or by convention. Examples: 1. You are already here! I did not expect you so early. 2. He is quite athletic for a white guy. White guys are usually not very athletic. 3. Frank made this cake, but it s quite tasty. Frank s cakes are usually not very good.
Inference: conversational implicature Be careful: conventional implicature is not the same as conversational implicature! In Grice s theory, conversational implicature refers to the additional information that is created every time a speaker deliberately flouts one or more maxims of the cooperative principle (see L06). Inference: connotation Connotations are inferences based on culturallydetermined associations. Read this short story: A father and a son are sitting in a car. They are in a serious accident. The father is killed on impact and the son is taken to the hospital in critical condition. As the victim is brought into the operating room, the surgeon exclaims: Oh no, I can t operate. That s my son! The profession of surgeon evokes the image of a man (at least in most Western cultures). This connotation makes the story puzzling. The surgeon is in fact the child s mother.