Discourse as Function

Brno StudieS in engliSh

Volume 35, no. 2, 2009

Discourse As Function

edited by

Jan ChoVAneC

£2009

MASArYKoVA uniVerZitA

© Masarykova univerzita, 2009Citace: Brno Studies in english, Volume 35, no. 2, 2009

iSSn 0524-6881

Brno StudieS in engliSh 2009

editor-in-chief: Jan Chovanec (Masaryk university, Brno)

editorial Board: Milada Franková (chair; Masaryk university, Brno) Jana Chamonikolasová (Masaryk university, Brno) Sabine Coelsch-Foisner (universität Salzburg) ulla haselstein (Freie universität Berlin) udo hebel (university of regensburg) richard Janney (ludwig-Maximilians-universität, München) renata Kamenická (Masaryk university, Brno) Aleš Klégr (Charles university, Praha) tomáš Pospíšil (Masaryk university, Brno) herbert Schendl (universität Wien) ludmila urbanová (Masaryk university, Brno)

Advisory Board: Magdalena Bilá (Prešov university) Pavel drábek (Masaryk university, Brno) rainer emig (university of hannover) Wolfgang Falkner (ludwig-Maximilians-universität, München) MilanFerenčík(UniversityofPrešov) Stephen P. hardy (Masaryk university, Brno) irena headlandová-Kalischová (Masaryk university, Brno) Martina horáková (Masaryk university, Brno) ema Jelínková (Palacký university, olomouc) gunther Kaltenböck (universität Wien) Stanislav Kavka (university of ostrava) Klára Kolinská (Charles university, Praha) Jaroslav Kušnír (university of Prešov) Michael Matthew Kaylor (Masaryk university, Brno) StanislavKolář(UniversityofOstrava) georg Marko (Karl-Franzens-universität, graz) SoňaNováková(CharlesUniversity,Praha) renata Povolná (Masaryk university, Brno) KateřinaPrajznerová(MasarykUniversity,Brno) MartinPšenička(CharlesUniversity,Praha) VáclavŘeřicha(PalackýUniversity,Olomouc) Veronika Schandl (Pázmány Péter Catholic university, Budapest) renáta tomášková (university of ostrava) Zenó Vernyik (technical university, liberec) radek Vogel (Masaryk university, Brno) KamilaVránková(UniversityofSouthBohemia,ČeskéBudějovice) JitkaVlčková(MasarykUniversity,Brno)

Brno Studies in EnglishVolume 35, no. 2, 2009

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edited byJan ChoVAneC

CONTENTS

discourse As Function: introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Jan ChoVAneC: ludmila urbanová: An Appreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

PArt one: AnAlysing sentence structure AnD Function

JanaCHAMONIKOLASOVÁ:WordOrderandLinearModificationinEnglish . . . . . . . . . . . . 17libuše dušKoVá:NounModificationinFictionandAcademicProse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Aleš Klégr: “the Fifth element”: A remark on the FSP Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

PArt two: PrAgmAtic mArkers AnD Discourse segments

Karin AiJMer: Please: A Politeness Formula Viewed in a translation Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 63Angela doWning: Surely as a Marker of dominance and entitlement in the Crime Fiction

of P.d. James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79renata PoVolná: on Contrastive relations in Academic Spoken discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

PArt three: Discourses in the Public sPhere

Jan ChoVAneC: Simulation of Spoken interaction in Written online Media texts . . . . . . . . 109olga dontCheVA-nAVrAtiloVA: interpersonal Meanings in the genre of diplomatic

Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Milan FErENČíK: ‘doing interrupting’ as a discursive tactic in Argumentation:

A Post-Pragmatic Politeness theory Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

PArt Four: Discourses over the course oF time

hans SAuer: how the Anglo-Saxons expressed their emotions with the help ofInterjections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

herbert SChendl: William harvey’s Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis (1616): Code-Switching in early Modern english lecture notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Jarmila tárnYiKoVá: english Borrowings in Czech: health to our Mouths? . . . . . . . . . . . 199


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introDuction

the present issue of Brno Studies in Englishisthefirstofthespecialissuesthathavenow,fiftyyearsafterthefoundationofthejournal,becomeannualfeatureofthejournal.Thisspecialissue,entitledDiscourse as Function, is a collection of twelve papers that are tied together by several elements. All the articles are lin-guistics papers, primarily dealing with various aspects of spoken language from the perspectives of functional linguistics and pragmatics. Thetitleofthisspecialissueconnectstwoconceptsthatreflectnotonlythe

contentsoftheissuebutalsothepaththatthepresentjournalhastakenoverthepastfiftyyears.Thus,itnotonlyrelatestothetraditionoffunctionallinguisticsin the Prague School approach, but also indicates the shift from ‘structure’ to ‘dis-course’ that has characterised mainstream linguistics over the past decades.

this orientation is not accidental, because the authors are connected by ano-ther,muchmorespecific,bond:theirrespectforthelinguistLudmilaUrbanová(*1944), towhomtheirpapersarededicatedon theoccasionofhersixty-fifthbirthday. the contributors to this issue are either her close colleagues or former students, and their papers symbolically touch upon various aspects of her own work, from functional sentence perspective and stylistics to spoken language and dialogic interaction. What connects the articles is not so much their orientation to spoken language, but their attention to features of spokenness and interpersonal interaction that are to be found in texts and discourses regardless of the mode they are in, be they spoken or written.

the collection is organized into four thematic areas: analysis of sentence struc-ture and function; pragmatic markers and discourse segments; discourses in the public sphere; and discourses over the course of time. Although the individual papers draw on various methodologies, they are all functionally and pragmati-cally oriented: they strive to explain the linguistic phenomena under analysis with respect to the relevant contexts, the speakers’/writers’ intentions, and the effects which they hope to achieve.

6 diSCourSe AS FunCtion

Part i brings together three papers that deal with various aspects of sentence structure. their orientation to the functional description and explanation of sen-tence-level phenomena makes it evident that the articles share the structuralist-functionalist approach of the Prague School and develop some of the traditional notions in a novel way.

the section opens with Jana Chamonikolasová’s article on word order and linearmodificationinEnglish.Adoptingadiachronicapproachtoconceptsinthetheory of functional sentence perspective, the author illustrates how english syntax changedfromflexiblewordordertofixedwordorderonthewayfromOldEnglishto Modern english, which translates into the reduction of the importance of linear modificationasawordorderprincipleattheexpenseofthegrammaticalprinciple.Asaresult,linearmodification,expressingthenaturalorderofrisingimportanceof sentence elements, has become subordinate to the grammatical principle of re-lativelyfixedwordorder.Theauthor’sdiachronicanalysisofthechangingbalancebetween the two principles in the history of english is illustrated with relevant material from chronicles written in old english and Modern english.

Libuše Duškováfocusesonnounmodificationinfictionandacademicprose,with the aim of identifying possible style markers. the analysis shows that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the two genres. non-modifiednounphrasesaremorecommoninfiction,whilemodifiednounphrasestend to occur more often in academic prose. Fiction appears to be characterised by the possessive case (especially in connection with proper names), while ac-ademic texts contain a comparatively higher proportion of apposition. on the syntacticlevel,relativeclausesinacademicprosetendtoappearinthesubjectfunction, with relativizers being predominantly inanimate. dušková concludes that such features as the role of proper names and the distribution and semantics ofpremodifiersmaybestylisticallyrelevant.

Aleš Klégr reconsiders the four traditional factors signalling functional sen-tenceperspective(linearmodification,semanticstructure,contextandintonati-on) and argues for the adoption of another element: typography or punctuation marking FSP-relevant prosody in writing. though marginal and discretionary, such devices as italics, boldface and small capitals can be used in written texts to indicate prosodical features that assist the reader in processing a given sentence in a way relevant to FSP analysis. As a parallel to ‘prosodic prominence’ in spoken texts, Klégr suggests a typology of ‘typographic prominence’ for written texts, with the following categories: perfect correspondence (typographically unmar-ked),selectivenon-re-evaluatingintensification,andre-evaluatingintensification(typographically re-evaluating a thematic element into a rheme).

Part ii consists of three articles that deal with pragmatic and discourse mar-kers. they all share a commitment to functional explanation, examining the phe-nomena with respect to the goals and intentions of the speakers, often adopting a contrastive perspective on the material under analysis.

7introduCtion

the section opens with a text by Karin Aijmer. in a contrastive study of the discourse marker please in english and Swedish – based on Swedish translations ofseveralBritishnovels–Aijmerconsidersthedifferentfunctionsofplease. She shows that it is used not only conventionally (as a standardised politeness marker inrecurrentsocialsituations)butalsostrategically(asawayofavoidingconflictby being tactful). it is these two different functions that are evinced by the use of different Swedish translation equivalents (and their variations): var så och and var snäll och, respectively.

Angela Downing analyses the pragmatic marker surely in British english, drawing on data from the crimefiction novels of P.D. James. She focuses onthe function of the marker in interactive discourse as an indicator of a speaker’s dominance, showing that it can convey different personal stances. evidence indi-cates that surely functions as a bid for the recognition of the speaker’s dominance andentitlement,indicatinghisorherself-confidenceandself-belief.Inindirectspeechandfictionalthought,surely can also introduce an element of doubt and conceal one’s own opinions, thus conveying the weaker stances of persuasion, tentativeness and self-questioning.

Renata Povolná deals with contrastive relations between discourse segments in spoken academic discourse. her corpus-based study reveals that the frequency of contrastive discourse markers increases with the interactivity of the situation. Spoken academic discourse tends to draw on paratactic discourse markers: this favours the natural ordering of discourse segments with new or unexpected in-formation coming later in the sentence. As regards the meaning of contrastive discourse markers, Povolná stresses that it is the entire context that plays a role, notjustthemeaningoftherelevantmarker.Asregardstheirfunction,themarkershelp to establish coherence over extended stretches of discourse.

Part iii addresses various discourses in public and mass media situations. Stress-ing the interpersonal dimension of language use, all three contributions aim to identify the typical patterns and discourse norms characterising the genres that they deal with.

Jan Chovanec describes live text commentary (ltC) – a new genre of written journalisminwhichtextualreportsofeventsareproducedonlineinreal time.noting its genre hybridity, he argues that ltC draws on several models: unscrip-ted spoken commentary, everyday conversation, and online chat. As a result, the online written texts contain numerous linguistic features that are traditionally as-sociatedwithspokenlanguage.Ononehand,suchmixingofmodesisareflectionof the producers’ efforts to increase the interactivity of their texts; on the other, of the actual interactions underlying the processes of text construction. ltC emer-ges as structured as a pseudo-dialogical event in which conversationalism and spoken features are used in order to give the impression of genuine interpersonal interactions.

Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova deals with interpersonal meanings in the genre of diplomatic addresses. Considering the communicative purposes and rhetorical

8 diSCourSe AS FunCtion

structures in this sub-genre of political speeches, she argues that the ritualistic character of such addresses contributes to the perception of discourse coherence. Social deixis, with rather formal and deferential terms of address, is used to show respect and create common ground (e.g. the pronoun we). despite the formu-laicnatureofthisgenre,speakersindicatesubjectivityatvariousplacesintheirspeeches, using conventionalized phrases and other features typical of spoken interaction.

Milan Ferenčík, using the methodology of conversation analysis and prag-matics, offers an analysis of ‘turn taking’ in radio phone-in interactions from the perspective of post-modern politeness theory. Focusing on interruption, he notes that this phenomenon is commonly seen as a violation of the agreed norms of acceptable behaviour and, hence, is evaluated negatively as ‘impolite’. however, Ferenčíkarguesthat,withinthelocalnormsofagivencommunityofpractice(which are, in his case, characterised by a confrontational communication set-ting), interruption in fact constitutes ‘politic’ behaviour. As a result, in dialogic interactions, the seemingly intrinsic impoliteness of interruption is neutralized.

Part IV includes papers that provide a functional explanation of interjections,code-switching, and linguistic borrowing from the point of view of language change, analysed both synchronically and diachronically. All three papers offer pragmatically-oriented explanations of the phenomena under analysis.

Hans Sauer looks at the ways emotions were expressed in old english texts withthehelpofinterjections.AnalysingÆlfric’sGrammar and the old english Soliloquies,hedealswithinterjectionsnotonlyasmarkersofemotion,butalsoin their other, less traditional functions, such as attention getters, greeting forms, responseforms,etc.AfteroutliningÆlfric’sownclassificationoftheword-class,Sauer provides an analysis of the formation and morphology of old english inter-jections,discussingtheirsemanticandpragmaticfunctions.Heestablishesalistof around 40 items out of which only a few survived into modern times (namely yea(h), haha, what, lo, no and woe),whilethemajorityoftheOldEnglishformswere replaced with French and latin borrowings during the Middle english pe-riod.

Herbert Schendl focuses on historical code-switching. drawing on the ana-tomist William harvey’s hand-written lecture notes (Prelectiones Anatomie Uni-versalis),heidentifiesnumerousinstanceswheretheauthorcode-switchesfromLatinintoEnglish.Heshowsthatnon-finiteandellipticalsentencesandclausespredominate, with one- and two-word switches being equally frequent. Switches are used for a number of pragmatic reasons, such as illustrating or enumerating. however, they also provide english translations of and equivalents for latin me-dical terms and can, thus, be appreciated in the context of the vernacularisation of medical texts in the later Middle Ages. Schendl concludes that the overall function of code-switching is closely linked to the purpose of the analysed text: since the notes served as the basis for harvey’s spoken commentaries, the swit-

9introduCtion

ches most likely made the anatomist’s description of the dissection more vivid to mixed audiences.

Jarmila Tárnyiková considers the issue of linguistic borrowing in the context of globalisation. Adopting a pragmatic perspective, she argues that the contact-in-duced processes of language adoption and adaptation (i.e., domestication) should not be analysed solely in respect to loanwords taken by one language from ano-ther (e.g, Anglicisms in the case of english borrowings in Czech) but should also consider structural borrowings, borrowings of function words, discourse markers, communicative strategies, etc. – explicit manifestations should be complemented with implicit manifestations, which tend to be neglected by analysts. drawing on an extensive sample of recent data from Czech, she illustrates two phases in the dynamic process of linguistic borrowing: contact-induced language choice and contact-induced language change. Among the types of borrowings that she iso-latesaremodificationsinsyntacticpatterns(slightstructuralborrowings),shiftsin evaluative strategies, English discoursemarkers and interjections inCzechdiscourse, adopted communicative strategies, and lexical borrowings (including thevariousreasonsfortheinfiltrationofEnglishloanwordsintoCzech).

the notion of ‘function’ provides a link between all of the authors: they treat language as a resource for meaning-making, regardless of the actual theoretical frameworks they adopt in their analyses – be those functional syntax, pragmat-ics, politeness theory, sociolinguistics or historical pragmatics. in other words, the contributors see linguistic analysis as inseparable from communicative inten-tions,goalsandstrategies:theyalllookatdynamicfunctions(ratherthanfixedstructures) and study the way meanings arise in actual texts and contextually-situated interactions.

Jan Chovanec


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Jan ChovaneC

luDmilA urbAnová: An APPreciAtion

the academic career of ludmila urbanová, in a sense, has run in parallel with the developmentofthisjournal.UrbanovástudiedattheEnglishDepartmentinBrnowiththelateProfessorJosefVachek,thefounderofthisjournal.Shortlybeforeher graduation in 1966, she accepted a teaching position at the Faculty of Arts in Prešov, Slovakia, to help strengthen its newly formed english department. With-inafewyears,shecompletedherpost-graduatestudiesinthefieldoffunctionalsentence perspective, focusing on the prosodic realization of sentence adverbials, which led to her titles of Phdr. (1978) and CSc. (1984). her advisor and mentor was the late Professor Jan Firbas, a follower of the Prague School of linguistics who remains Brno’s most renowned linguist. during her Prešov years, urbanová taught phonetics, phonology and stylistics, developing her life-long involvement in the study of spoken language.Inthe1980s,shewasamongthefirstscholarsinCzechoslovakiatoturntheir

attentiontotherelativelynewfieldofpragmatics,whichhasremainedherdomainever since. thanks to her background in functional linguistics – which conceives of language and human expression as a goal-oriented activity through which in-terlocutors satisfy their communicative needs – she found pragmatics naturally appealing, particularly the idea of the speaker’s communicative intention, which, thoughsubjectiveandnotdirectlyavailableforanalysis,perceptiblyshapesac-tual utterances and the whole speech event. At this time, she conducted research with Professor Sidney greenbaum at university College, london, and studied with Professor Jan Svartvik at lund university in Sweden, where she gained ac-cess to the london-lund corpus of spoken english conversation. As a sign of her respect for Professor Svartvik, she, together with Professor Firbas, was later in-volved with Masaryk university’s awarding him an honorary doctorate in 1998.

At the beginning of the 1990s, at the suggestion of Professor Firbas, she moved back to Brno and became the head of the newly established english de-partment at the Faculty of education. thanks to her hard work and international

12 JAn ChoVAneC

contacts, the department was launched on a successful path in regard to both teaching and research, especially through her work there with numerous doc-toral students.

in 1997, urbanová moved to her current position in the department of english and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university, where she be-came an associate professor in the following year, after defending her dissertation devoted to semantic indeterminacy in english conversation. With her arrival, the department, previously dominated by the structuralist and functionalist traditions ofthePragueSchoolofLinguistics,experiencedasignificantchange.Teachingand research shifted from the previously prevailing structuralist preoccupation with the sentence level towards the pragmatic analysis of discourse.

it is not surprising then that she soon started to play an important role within the postgraduate studies in the department, taking over the role of the head of the programme from professors Jan Firbas and Josef hladký. She has supervised morethentwentydoctoralstudents,fifteenofwhomhavealreadybeengranteddoctorates and assumed teaching and research positions at departments through-out the Czech republic and Slovakia. As a tutor, urbanová is demanding and uncompromising – as some of the contributors to this volume know quite well. in this, she is extending to them the treatment and attention she received from her own professors, the Czech linguistics legends Vachek and Firbas, the two leading Czech linguists in the post-war era. For urbanová, students have always come first,takingprecedenceevenoverherowncareer.

in her own work, urbanová combines the methodology of conversation analy-sis, discourse analysis and pragmatics. She has dealt with such issues as semantic indeterminacy, spoken and written styles, genre hybridity, dialogic discourse, and meaning in interaction. She has written several textbooks and chapters of text-books, as well as the monographs On Expressing Meaning in English Conversa-tion (2003) and Stylistika anglického jazyka (2008, originally published as Úvod do anglické stylistiky, 2002, and co-authored with Andrew oakland).Morerecently,shehasfocusedonfictionaldialogueandtextualaspectsofdi-

alogism, exploring the linguistic manifestation of the phatic function and the role of ritual in conversational interaction. She draws on functionalist and structuralist concepts, such as phaticity, enriching them with discourse analysis and pragmatic perspectives, thus arriving at unexpected and novel understandings of the way discourse and interpersonal interactions operate. in her conception, language is ameanstoanend.Languageformsaretobestudiedincloseconjunctionwithsituational and extralinguistic phenomena, such as speakers’ intentions, commu-nicative effects and social constraints. in this sense, she is a true follower of the Firthian principle of ‘language as function in context’. For urbanová, meaning is located not only in the language use and context but also the social ritual underly-ing such contextualized language use.

ludmila urbanová has closely cooperated with colleagues from various uni-versities abroad, such as east Anglia (the late roger Fowler), lund (Jan Svartvik, Bengt Altenberg), Vienna (herbert Schendl) and Munich (hans Sauer, richard

13in honour oF ludMilA urBAnoVá

Janney). in more recent years, ludmila urbanová has been sharing her inspirati-onal approach to linguistics with students at universities across Central europe. in the context of Czech and Slovak Anglicist studies, she has played a crucial role in introducing, promoting and developing modern trends in linguistics.

PArt one

AnAlysing sentence structure AnD Function


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Jana Chamonikolasová

worD orDer AnD lineAr moDiFicAtion in english

AbstractThe paper examines the role of linear modification in shaping the syntacticstructureofanEnglishsentence.Linearmodification–theprincipleofpresent-ing ideas in an order of gradual rise in importance – co-determines word order in allIndo-Europeanlanguages,thoughitislesspowerfulinlanguageswithfixedwordorderthaninlanguageswithflexiblewordorder.EnglishsyntaxchangedquitesignificantlyonthewayfromOldEnglishtoModernEnglish.Theshiftfromflexiblewordordertofixedwordorder,whichwascloselyrelatedtocer-tain phonological and morphological features of english, was accompanied by areductionofthepoweroflinearmodificationasaword-orderprinciple.Thepaper tests this reduction by an analysis of written old english and Modern english texts.

Key wordsWord order; linear modification; functional sentence perspective; Old English; Modern English; word-order principles

1. The concept of linear modification

the term linear modification was introduced in linguistic theory by Bolinger (1952: 1125), who claims that within a sentence, ‘gradation of position creates gradation of meaning when there are no interfering factors’. Bolinger’s study of the relationship between syntax and semantics suggests that speakers and writers tend to express pieces of information in order of increasing information value. the placement of less important (context dependent or accessible) ideas in initial position andmore important ideas in final position reflects the processes tak-ing place in the communication participants’ minds. Word order respecting linear

18 JAnA ChAMoniKolASoVá

modificationisreferredtoasobjectiveandwordorderviolatinglinearmodifica-tion as subjective(seeMathesius1975:83–4).Belowareexamplesofobjective(1)andsubjective(2)wordorder.

(1) in the middle of the night the villagers heard a fearsome cry.(2) A fearsome cry could be heard in the middle of the night.

2. Word order and information structure

Mathesius (1975: 153–63), Firbas (1992: 117–140) and Vachek (1994: 32–40) identify principles determining word order in indo-european languages. the most important are the linearity principle (ordering elements in accordance with linear modification) and the grammatical principle (ordering elements in accordancewith a grammaticalized word-order pattern).1 the linearity principle is stronger inlanguageswithflexiblewordorder,thespeakersofwhichareabletoproduce‘gradationofmeaning’moreeasilythanspeakersoflanguageswithfixedwordorder, in which the linearity principle is subordinate to the grammatical principle. In English, the grammatical principle enforces the sequence subject (S), verb(V),object(O),complement(C),adverbial(A).Sinceobjects,complementsandadverbialsoftenexpressmoreimportantideasthansubjects,alargenumberofenglish sentences observe the grammatical principle without necessarily violat-ing the linearity principle.Linearmodificationoperatesnotonlyatthesyntacticlevelbutalsoatthelevel

of information structure of a sentence. According to the Brno theory of function-al sentence perspective created by Firbas, the interpretation of the information structureofasentencereliesonspecificsyntactic,semantic,contextual,and–inspoken language – prosodic criteria (cf. e.g. Firbas 1989 and 1992; dušková 1985 and 2002; Svoboda 1981 and 1989; and Chamonikolasová 2005 and 2007). dif-ferent degrees of communicative prominence (dynamism) carried by communi-cative units (sentence elements) correspond to different FSP functions. A simpli-fiedscalestartingwiththeleastdynamic,i.e.thematicelements,andendingwiththe most dynamic, i.e. rhematic elements is presented below:

theme proper (thPr)diatheme (dth)transition proper (trPr)transition (tr)rheme (rh)rheme proper (rhPr)

Sentenceswithobjectivewordorderstartingwiththematicelementsandendingwithrhematicelementscomplywiththeprincipleoflinearmodification,whileinsentenceswithsubjectivewordorderstartingwithrhematicelementsandending

19Word order And lineAr ModiFiCAtion in engliSh

withthematicelements,linearmodificationisviolated(cf.examples2and3-Pr);partialviolationoftheprincipleoflinearmodificationoccurse.g.insentenceswith a rhematic element in penultimate position followed by a thematic element infinalposition.

3. Word order in Modern English

As mentioned above, Modern english is an analytical language with limited mor-phological variation and a relatively fixedword order governed by the gram-matical principle. owing to the operation of the grammatical principle, variation within word-order patterns in english is rather limited. unmarked sentence pat-ternscontainasubjectimmediatelyfollowedbytheverb.Theremainingsentenceelements occur in post-verbal positions; non-obligatory adverbials are alterna-tivelyplacedbefore thesubject in initialposition.Quirketal. (1985:720–21)lists the following unmarked sentence patterns:

(3) SV the sun is shining.(4) SVo he’ll get a surprise.(5) SVC he’s getting angry.(6) SVA he got through the window.(7) SVoo he got her a splendid present.(8) SVoC Most students have found her reasonably helpful.(9) SVoA he got himself into trouble.

the sentences above all observe the leading grammatical principle. With the ex-ception of sentence (3), they also observe the linearity principle: they start with thematic context-dependent or easily accessible elements carrying low degrees of communicative dynamism and end with context-independent rhematic elements.

When occurring in the most natural context, sentence (3) is interpreted as a sentence presenting the rhematic phenomenon the sunonthescene.Thesubjectcarries the highest degree of communicative dynamism and the highest degree of prosodic prominence (indicated by capitalization):

(3-Pr) [What is the weather like today?] – the Sun is shining.

Underveryspecialcontextualconditions,thesubjectofexample(3)canperformthe function of a thematic quality bearer; the highest degree of communicative dynamism is then carried by its quality “shining”:

(3-Q) [Thesunisnowprobablyhiddenintheclouds,isn’tit?]–No.ThesunisShining.


Example(3-Q)isinharmonywithboththegrammaticalandthelinearityprin-ciples. example (3-Pr) complies with the grammatical principle but violates the linearity principle – its word order is subjective. The sun is rhematic but has to beplaced in the initial positionbecause it fulfils the syntactic functionof thesubject.Thegrammaticalprincipleinthiscaseactsasafactorinterferingwithagradual rise in communicative value. 2 however, the deviation from the linearity principle, which is subordinate to the grammatical principle in english, does not render the sentence marked.3

Although the grammatical principle is superior to the linearity principle in eng-lish, in certain types of existential sentences, the struggle between the two princi-ples ends with a partial or complete victory of the subordinate linearity principle:

(10) there was a large cloud in the sky.(11) next to the window hung a small picture.

the development of sentences containing the existential there is related to the naturalneedofthespeakertopresentideasintheobjectiveorder(seeBreivik1983). the operator thereoccupiestheinitialpositionofthegrammaticalsubject,satisfying the grammatical principle; the postponement of the actual rhematic subject/phenomenon satisfies the linearity principle (10).Existential sentenceswithout existential there like (11) are reflections of earlier stages of syntacticdevelopment. however, they are rather rare and mostly restricted to written lan-guage.

4. Word order in earlier stages of the development of English

the syntactic structure of present-day english outlined above results from a sub-stantial transformation of the syntactic structure of old english and Middle eng-lish.WhileOldEnglishwasaninflectedlanguagewitharelativelyflexiblewordorder, in Modern english – as illustrated above – word order variation is very limited.Theshiftfromflexibletofixedwordorderistheresultofanumberoflinguistic and sociolinguistic changes in the history of the english language. the mostsignificantfactoracknowledgedbymostscholarsisthelevellingofinflec-tion accompanied by the loss of morphological signals indicating semantic rela-tions between syntactic elements of a sentence, e.g. the relation between the agent (subject)andthepatient(object)oftheprocessexpressedbytheverb.Other,lesssignificant, factorsaffecting thementioned transformationare theoperationofthe principle of end-weight, the integration and grammaticalization of language units expressing afterthought, and language acquisition in contact areas (cf. e.g. Seoane 2006 and Jucker 1995).ThegradualmodificationofEnglishmorphologyandsyntaxresultedinatypo-

logical shift of english from a predominantly synthetic to a predominantly ana-lytical language. the wide range of grammatical changes involved in this process


have been described e.g. by Firbas (1957); Mathesius (1975); Breivik (1983) and (1991);Vachek(1994);Sauer(1995);Baekken(1998);Čermák(2000);Schendl(2001); Pintzuk and taylor (2006); and Seoane (2006).

the syntactic change of the english language manifests itself in the word-order patterns applied at different stages of the development of the language. numerous studies (e.g. Breivik 1983: 358–403) describe old english as a V2 language, i.e., a language with the verb-second constraint similar syntactically to Modern ger-man and dutch. the common feature of languages that have or have had the verb-secondconstraintisthedevelopmentofdummysubjectssuchastheexistentialthere or the dummy it in english (cf. haiman 1974; Breivik 1983: 358–403 and 1991). during its historical development, english changed from a verb-second language to a verb-medial language: in Modern english, the verb has a tendency tofollowthesubjectandtoprecedetheobjectoradverbialandcomplement,butnot necessarily as the second element in a sentence. even if the sentence starts withanadverbial,theverbisnotinsertedbetweentheadverbialandthesubjectbutoccursinthemedialposition,i.e.aftertheadverbialandthesubject.

looking at the gradual syntactic change of english from a different angle, some authors (cf. Pintzuk and taylor 2006) describe it as a change from an oV to a Vo language,i.e.fromalanguageinwhichtheobjectprecedestheverbtoalanguageinwhichtheobjectfollowstheverb.Thischangeiscloselyrelatedtothelossoftheverb-secondconstraintandrepresentsjustanotherconsequenceofthemajorshiftofEnglishfromasyntheticinflectionallanguagewitharelativelyfreewordordertoananalyticalnon-inflectionallanguagewithagrammaticalizedwordorder.

5. Analysis

Thepowerof linearmodificationaswordorderprinciple in thehistoryof theenglish language will be tested by the analysis of the communicative loads of initialandfinalsyntacticelementsinOldEnglishandModernEnglishtexts.Thematerial analyzed includes selected extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,4 and the Chronicle of Britain and Ireland (1992).5 the Modern english chronicle is written in a contemporary language and style but it resembles ancient chroni-cles in form: historical events are presented as if they happened recently. the material consists of 100 old english and 100 Modern english sentences.

Below are examples of the analysis of the syntactic and information structure patterns of sentences selected from the two chronicles.6 the syntactic analysis is based on conceptions presented in A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language(Quirkatal.1985)andtheLongman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biberetal.1999).Eachmainindependentclauseandeachconjoinedmain clause (i.e. each of the clauses conjoined by a co-ordinate conjunction)representsonesentencepatternandonefieldofdistributionofcommunicativedynamism. Subordinate clauses are considered as a component of the main clause functionally equivalent to simple (non-clausal) elements; clausal and non-clausal


sentence elements are denoted by identical symbols – for example, ‘A’ denotes adverbial phrases aswell as adverbial clauses.Conjunctions and relative pro-nouns are considered to be in ‘zero’ position and are therefore not counted as initial elements.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

(12) We || witon || oþer igland her beeastan, þær ge magon eardian gyf ge wyllað. We || know || about an island here to the east where you may dwell if you wish. S V o

thPr trPr+tr rhPr

(13) 7 gyf hwa eow wiðstent, || we || eow || fultumiað || þæt ge hit magon gegangan. And if someone to you stands up,|| we || you || will support || that you may gain it. A S o V A dth thPr thPr trPr+tr rhPr

(14) Ða || genamon || þa Walas || 7... Then || went || the Welsh || and... A V S dth trPr+rhPr dth

(15) Suþonweard || hit || hæfdon || Bryttas. Southward || it || possessed || the Britons. A o V S dth thPr trPr+tr rhPr

Chronicle of Britain and Ireland:

(16) Patricius (Patrick), the missionary who converted many irish to Chris tianity, || has died. S V rhPr trPr+tr

(17) (the newcomers derive from a variety of germanic tribes) but || [S] || fall || into three principal groups: Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. [S] 7 V A [thPr] trPr+tr rhPr

(18) in his Confession || he || tells || how he had a second vision in which … A S V o dth thPr trPr+tr rhPr

(19) opposite the mouth of the rhine || is || a great island, divided down the middle by a wall. A V S dth trPr+tr rhPr


6. Results

the results of the analysis of the old english and Modern english texts are pre-sented in tables 1–6 below. tables 1 and 2 provide a survey of word-order patterns inthetwotexts;Tables3–6indicatethecommunicativeloadsofinitialandfinalsentenceelements.Ellipticalsubjectsarenotincludedinthedatabecausetheydonothaveanyformalrealization;inclauseswithellipticalsubjects,theinitialposition is usually occupied by the verb, performing the transitional function.

Table 1. Word-order patterns in old english (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) 8

Basic word-order pattern

Variations within the basicword-order patterns

no. ofoccurrences

SV (A)SV, (o)S(o)(C)V 16SVO (A)SVO(o)(A), Sv9oV(A) 21SVA (A)SVA(A), (A)SvAV(A) 12SVC (A)SVC(A) 9SOV (A)SOV(o)(A) 9AVS (A)AV(A)(C)S(A)(o), AvSV(A) 30OVS (A)OVS 3total 100

Table 2. Word-order patterns in Modern english (Chronicle of Britain and Ireland)

Basic word-order pattern

Variations within the basicword-order patterns

no. ofoccurrences

SV (A)SV, S%V(A)S%10 13

SVO (A)SVO(o)(A) 15SVA (A)SVA(A)(o), 50SVC (A)SVC(A) 14sVS s11V(C)(A)S(A) 7AVS 1total 100

Table 3. FSP functions of initial syntactic elements in old english (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

S V o A C totalthPr

theme14 --- --- 11 --- 25

85dth 6 --- 15 39 --- 60trPr+tr transition --- 15 --- --- --- 15rhPr rheme --- --- --- --- --- ---

total 20 15 15 50 --- 100


Table 4. FSP functions of initial syntactic elements in Modern english (Chronicle of Britain and Ireland)

S+s V o A C totalthPr

theme20 --- --- --- --- 20

74dth 29 --- --- 25 --- 54trPr+tr transition --- 17 --- --- --- 17rhPr rheme 9 --- --- --- --- 9

total 58 17 --- 25 --- 100

Table 5.FSPfunctionsoffinalsyntacticelementsinOldEnglish(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

S V o A C totalthPr

theme--- --- --- --- --- ---

7dth 2 --- 1 3 --- 7trPr+tr transition --- 7 --- --- --- 7rhPr rheme 6 13 20 42 5 86

total 8 20 21 47 5 100

Table 6.FSPfunctionsoffinalsyntacticelementsinModernEnglish(Chronicle of Britain and Ireland)

S V o A C totalthPr

theme--- --- 1 --- --- 1

17dth --- --- 2 13 1 16trPr+tr transition --- 3 --- --- --- 3rhPr rheme 8 4 19 34 15 80

total 8 7 22 47 16 100

the results of the analysis of word-order patterns presented in tables 1 and 2 testifytoagreaterflexibilityofwordorderintheOldEnglishtextcomparedtotheModernEnglishtext.WhilethebasisofthemajorityofModernEnglishsen-tences (92) is the pattern SV (SV, SVA, SVo, and SVC), the old english material contains a greater variety of sentence patterns (SV, SoV, oVS, AVS); in almost onethirdofthem,thesubjectisprecededbytheverb.12

tables 3 and 4 provide a survey of syntactic and FSP functions of elements occurring in the initial position. the most frequent in old english are thematic adverbials(50),followedbythematicsubjects(20), thematicobjects(15),andtransitionalverbs(15).InModernEnglish,thereisnoobjectininitialposition,andthematicsubjects(49)aremorefrequentthanthematicadverbials(25).Themodern english text contains 9 presentation sentences with initial rhematic sub-jects,whichdonotoccurintheOldEnglishmaterialatall.13 the results of the


comparison of sentence beginnings in old english and Modern english texts presented in tables 3 and 4 suggest certain differences in the communicative loads of initial sentence elements. Although most of the elements (85/74) in both texts perform thematic functions, the ratio of themes is slightly lower in Modern english, where 9 initial elements perform rhematic functions. Both old english andModernEnglishtextscontaininitialtransitionalelementsinconjoinedco-ordinateclausesafteraconjunction(15/17).

tables 5 and 6 indicate the frequency of different syntactic and FSP functions ofsentenceelementsinfinalposition.IntheOldEnglishtext,themostfrequentelementinfinalpositionisrhematicadverbial(42),followedbyrhematicobject(20),verb(13),subject(6),andcomplement(5).Asmallnumberoffinalelementsarenon-rhematicunits:thematicsubjectsoccurringinsentencefinalpositiondueto verb-second constraint and the use of the adverbial þa in initial position (cf. example14);thematicadverbialsandobjectsexpressingsettings;andtransitionalverbal units14.IntheModernEnglishtext,themostfrequentunitinfinalpositionisrhematicadverbial(34),followedbyrhematicobject(19),complement(15),subject(8),andverb(4).Mostoftherhematicsubjectsinfinalpositionaresplitsubjects15orsubjectsincleftsentences;sentenceslikeexample19areexception-al.Non-rhematicelementsoccurringinfinalpositionincludethematicadverbialsandasmallnumberofthematicobjectsandcomplements,andtransitionalverbs.ThecomparisonofdatainTables5and6suggeststhatthetendencyforthefinalplacement of rhematic elements is very strong in both old and Modern english. the ratio of rhematic elements in Modern english, however, is slightly lower than in old english (80/86).

the comparison of old english and Modern english chronicles suggests that the syntactic change from old english to Modern english was accompanied by a reductionoftheflexibilitywithinwordorderpatterns;anincreaseinthefrequen-cyofinitialsubjectsattheexpenseofinitialadverbialsandobjects;anincreasein the potential of the initial syntactic element to convey rhematic information and to express the goal of the message of the whole sentences; and a slight reduc-tionofthefrequencyofrhematicelementsinfinalposition.Thechangeofthehierarchy within the word-order principles during the development of the english language, however, did not result in a significant increase in sentences with sub-jectivewordorderowingtothegradualdevelopmentofsentencestructureslikeexistential there-sentences and cleft sentences that satisfy both the grammatical and the linearity principle.

Notes

1 these are supplemented by the rhythmical and the emphasis principle.2 Inlanguageswithflexiblewordorder,suchelementnaturallyoccursinfinalposition(cf.the

Czech sentence Svítí slunce [is shining the sun.]).3 (3-Pr) is in realitymore natural than (3-Q),which only functions in a rather constructed

context.


4 Manuscript d, Cotton tiberius B iv (copied from older manuscripts around 1050): introduction and entries for years 47, 62–68, 716, and 755.

5 entries for years 480, 490, 500, 540, 550, and 563.6 This paper presents a simplified form of FSP analysis. In sentenceswithmore thematic

elements Firbas (1992) distinguishes the following units: theme proper, theme proper oriented theme, diatheme oriented theme, and diatheme. in this paper, the abbreviation thPr denotes themes proper and theme proper oriented themes; dth denotes diathemes and diatheme oriented themes.

7 Ellipticalsubject.8 WordorderinOEwasinfluencedbyawiderangeoffactors.Forinstance,sentenceswith

subjects expressed by a personal pronoun rarely showed verb-second; in sentences withinitial þa, by contrast, verb-second was categorical (cf. Fischer & Wurff 2006: 184). Since thefocusofthispaperisthecommunicativeloadofinitialandfinalsentenceelements,thesefactors have not been dealt with. however, it should be noted that of the 30 occurrences of the AVS pattern listed in table 1, 25 contain the adverbial þa preceding the verb.

9 Auxiliary verb.10 Splitsubject.11 Dummy(grammatical)subject.12 Shann (1964: 13) and Bean (1983: 67) indicate a lower percentage of the patterns VS. due

to different categorization of sentence types, however, a precise comparison of the data is not possible.

13 However,someoftherhematicsubjectsintheOldEnglishmaterialoccurinapost-initialposition following the adverb þa.

14 Mosttransitionalverbsinfinalpositionareprecededbyrhematicelements,e.g.“...7wæsheora heretoga reoda gehaten”.

15 Exampleofasplitsubject:“reportsarecirculatinginthisregionofadecisivevictory...”.

Acknowledgement

this paper was written under the auspices of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Re-search into Ancient Languages and Early Stages of Modern Languages (research program MSM 0021622435) at Masaryk university in Brno, Czech republic.

Texts analyzed

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS D – Cotton Tiberius B iv. (1926) Classen, e. and harmer, F. e. (eds.) Manchester: the university Press.

Chronicle of Britain and Ireland (1992). heald, henrietta (ed.) Jl international Publishing.

References

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Biber, douglas, Stig Johansson, geoffrey leech, Susan Conrad, and edward Finegan (1999) Long-man Grammar Spoken and Written English. harlow: Pearson education limited.

Bolinger,DwightL.(1952)‘Linearmodification’.Publications of the Modern Language Associa-tion of America 67, 1117–1144.

Breivik, leif e. (1983) Existential THERE. Bergen: university of Bergen.Breivik, leif e. (1991) ‘on the typological status of old english’. in Kastovsky, dieter (ed.) His-

torical English Syntax – Topics in English Linguistics 2. Berlin and new York: Mouton de gru-yter, 31–50.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (2005) ‘dynamic semantic scales in the theory of functional sentence per-spective’. in: Panevová, Jarmila and Barbora Vidová-hladká (eds.) Aleg(r)ace pro Evu. Papers in Honour of Eva Hajičová. Praha: univerzita Karlova, 61–67.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (2007) Intonation in English and Czech Dialogues. Brno: Masaryk uni-versity.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (2009) ‘initial syntatic elements in old english and Modern english sen-tences’.InLoudová,Kateřina,MarieŽáková(eds.)Early European Languages in the Eyes of Modern Linguistics. Brno: Masaryk university, 99-110.

Čermák,Jan(2000)‘ATypologicalnoteonthecategoryofgenderinOldEnglish’.In:Čermák,Janand Aleš Klégr (eds.) The Tongue is An Eye. Studies Presented to Libuše Dušková. Praha: Ústav anglistikyaamerikanistikyFFUKaKruhmoderníchfilologů,15–20.

dušková, libuše (1985) ‘the position of the rheme in english and Czech sentences as constituents of a text’. Philologica Pragensia 67, 128–135.

dušková, libuše (2002) ‘Constancy of syntactic function across languages’. in hladký, Josef (ed.) Language and Function. To the Memory of Jan Firbas. Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 49.Amsterdam/Philadelphia:JohnBenjamins,135–53.

Firbas, Jan (1957) ‘Some thoughts on the function of word order in old english and Modern eng-lish’. Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Brněnské univerzity A5, 72–98.

Firbas, Jan (1979) ‘A functional view of “ordo naturalis”’. Brno Studies in English 13, 29–59.Firbas, Jan (1989) ‘degrees of communicative dynamism and degrees of prosodic prominence’.

Brno studies in English 18, 21–66.Firbas, Jan (1992) Functional sentence perspective in written and spoken communication. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge university Press.Fischer, olga and Wim van der Wurff (2006) ‘Syntax’. in: hogg, richard and david denison (eds.)

A History of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 109–198.haiman, John (1974) Targets and Syntactic Change. Janua linguarum Series Minor 186. the

hague and Paris: Mouton.Jucker, Andreas h. (ed.) (1995) Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of

English.AmsterdamandPhiladelphia:JohnBenjamins.Mathesius, Vilém (1975) A Functional Analysis of Present-Day English on a General Linguistic

Basis. transl. libuše dušková, ed. Josef Vachek. Prague: Academia.Pintzuk, Susan, and taylor, Ann (2006) ‘the loss of oV order in the history of english’. in: Kame-

nade, Ans van and los Bettelou (eds.) The Handbook of the History of English. Maldon/oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 249–274.

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Sauer, hans (1995) ‘das gegenwärtige englisch und seine historischen hintergründe’ [Present-day english and its historical Background]. in: Ahrens, r. et al. (eds.) Handbuch English als Fremd-sprache. Berlin: erich Schmidt, 17–23.

Seoane, elena (2006) ‘information structure and word order change: the passive as an informa-tion-rearranging strategy in the history of english’. in: Kamenade, Ans van and los Bettelou (eds.) The Handbook of the History of English. Maldon/oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 360–391.


Shannon, Ann (1964) A descriptive syntax of the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle from 734 to 891. the hague: Mouton.

Svoboda, Aleš (1981) Diatheme. Brno: Masaryk university.Svoboda, Aleš (1989) Kapitoly z funkční syntaxe [topics in functional syntax]. Prague: Státní peda-

gogické nakladatelství.Vachek, Josef (1994) A Functional Syntax of Modern English. Brno: Masaryk university.

Jana Chamonikolasová is an associate professor in the department of english and American Stud-ies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university in Brno, Czech republic, where she teaches classes in functional syntax and the history of the english language. She has published a monograph In-tonation in English and Czech dialoguesandpapersinvariouslinguisticjournals.Inherresearchshe focuses on the interpretation of spoken language from the viewpoint of the theory of functional sentence perspective and intonation.

Address: doc. Phdr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.d., department of english and American Stud-ies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university, Arna nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech republic. [email: [email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

libuše Dušková

noun moDiFicAtion in Fiction AnD AcADemic Prose

AbstractThearticleexaminesnounmodificationinfictionandacademicprosewithaviewtoascertainingfeaturesclassifiableasstylemarkers.Nounphrasesintwotextsampleswereclassifiedaccordingtowhetherornot theycontainedmodifica-tion,andinthecaseofmodifiednounphraseswithrespecttothetypes,realiza-tionformsanddistributionofthemodifiers.Nounphrasesdevoidofmodifiersdisplayedasignificantdistinctionintherelativelyhighrepresentationofpropernamesinfictionascomparedwiththeirmarginaloccurrenceinacademicprose.Modifiednounphrasesrevealedqualitative,ratherthanquantitativedifferences,especially in the semantics of premodifiers. In academic prose premodifyingadjectivesand ing-participlesweremostlyclassifiersconstitutingcomponentsof zoological terms,while premodifiers infictionwere largely descriptive orevaluative. the differences in the quantitative results compared with the data in Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English are to be ascribed to the limitedamountoftheresearchmaterialandthespecificfeaturesoftheemployedtext sample within the respective text genre.*

Key wordsNoun modification; realization forms; semantics; style markers; fiction; aca-demic prose

1. Introduction

the following discussion is concerned with the occurrence, structural variety and semanticsofmodificationofcomplexnounphrases,definedasNPscontaining,inadditiontoadeterminerandaheadnoun,oneormoremodifiers.Twosortsoftextswereexaminedfromtheseaspects,asampleoffiction(Ishiguro)andasam-

30 liBuše dušKoVá

ple of academic prose (Morris), see Sources. they are attached in the Appendix.1 the study attempts to confront the results of an analysis of the two texts with thedescriptionofnounphrasemodificationindifferenttextsortsaspresentedinrepresentative grammars, in pursuit of uncovering some less investigated, poten-tially novel, albeit minor points, and thus to contribute to the overall description. Admittedly, thefindingsof theanalysisare limitedbothby thenumberof thesamples and the number of excerpts. Moreover, authors’ styles vary, especially infiction,andsodoesthestyleinacademicprose,inparticularbetweendifferentfieldsofstudy.Neverthelesswherethedifferencesareconsistentwiththecharac-ter of the respective text sort, they can be afforded some stylistic relevance.

the overall material of the study comprises 510 noun phrases all but equally drawnfromtherunningtextofthefictionsample(256instances)andrunningtextof academic prose (254 instances). All noun phrases, i.e. both with and without modification,were counted except nouns in complex prepositions of the typepreposition + noun + preposition (e.g. on behalf of, for the sake of, etc.) and nouns infixedphrases(likeof course, for example, etc.). Since the point under study was the structure of the noun phrase, nouns in the possessive case are included amongmodifiers,althoughtheymostlyoperateasdeterminers(cf.Quirketal.1985: 326). Accordingly, the concept of determiner is here limited to the articles andthedeterminativefunctionofpronounsandquantifiers.

the material includes some noun phrases with non-substantival heads, mostly indefinitepronouns,numeralsanddemonstrativepronounsfunctioningassubstantivalproforms. these instances, generally regarded as noun phrases2, were registered wheretheheadwasmodifiedandnotedasNPswithnon-substantivalheads.Asregardsnon-substantivalNPswithoutmodification,theylackeitherdefiningfeatureof the type of nP here studied. Containing neither a determiner, nor a noun in their structure, they were left out of account, i.e. they are not included in the group of non-modifiedNPs.Thoughthisstructureisofinterestfromtheviewpointofwhichnon-substantivalheadsallowmodificationandwhatmodificationtypes,thisaspectwas not followed because in the examined samples the structure is marginal.3 noun phrases with non-substantival heads are illustrated in (1).

(1) a.nothingobjectionable [ishiguro 89] b.oneofmypupilswhofirstbroughtittomyattention[Ishiguro47] c. those who had not wished the house to pass out of the family [ishiguro

115ib]

in the analysis a problem sometimes arose as to how to class a prepositional phrase followinganobject,orthesubjectinexistentialconstruction.Someprepositionalphrasesinthispositionpresentedneitheraclear-cutinstanceofpostmodification,nor of an adverbial. in these cases the adopted solution is only one of the ways of dealing with the problem and other solutions may be preferred. Conveniently for thequantitativedata,theseinstancesareagainstatisticallyinsignificant.Compare(2):

31noun ModiFiCAtion in FiCtion And ACAdeMiC ProSe

(2) there is a label [1] on a cage [2] at a certain zoo [2b] (Morris)

Istheprepositionalphrase[2]toberegardedasamodifierofa label (there is a label located on a cage…) or as an adverbial of place (on a cage there is a la-bel…); and similarly does at a certain zoo modify the cage (a cage which is at a zoo…) or are both prepositional phrases separate locative adverbials (At a zoo, onacage,thereisalabel…)?Orfinallydotheybothsuccessivelypostmodifythe head noun (a label stuck on a cage located at a zoo)? As shown by the mark-ing in square brackets, the solution adopted here is classing the two prepositional phrasesasonelocativeadverbialinwhichthesecondspecifiesthefirst.Thetestsapplied here were alternative word order On a cage at a certain zoo there is label and the question test (where is there a label?). As pointed out above and shown by the other alternative forms, instances of this kind are mostly indeterminate and may be treated differently.

2. Realization forms of noun phrases

Nounphrases in the twosamplesunder studywerefirstgroupedaccording towhetherornottheheadnounwasmodified.Therespectivefiguresaregivenintables 1 and 2.

Table 1. realization forms of noun phrases: ishiguro

Noun modificationNounswithoutmodifiers 91 (100%) 35.5% Common nouns 81 (89%) Proper names 10 (11%)Nounswithmodifiers 165 64.5%total 256 100%

Table 2. realization forms of noun phrases: Morris

Noun modificationNounswithoutmodifiers 78 (100%) 30.7% Common nouns 77 Proper names 1 Nounswithmodifiers 176 69.3%total 254 100%

ThefiguresinTables1and2showmoreorlessexpectableresults,viz.thatthenounphraseinacademicproseismorecomplexthanthatinfiction:intheformer,


nounphraseswithoutmodificationareby5%morefrequent.However,whenwetake into account the proportion of the two groups of nouns subsumed under non-modifiednouns,thisdistinctionappearsinadifferentlight.Whilenon-modifiednoun phrases in academic prose are almost exclusively accounted for by nPs with determiners, there being only one proper noun (a geographical name, for that matter, cf. Africa,Morris[8]),infictiontheproportionofpropernamesismuchhigher(10instances,11%).Evidently,thisreflectsthenatureoffiction:allpropernounsarehere personal names referring to the characters of the story being told. if proper nounsaresubtracted,therepresentationofnon-modifiedNPsinthetwosamplesdiffers only by 1% (77 instances out of 254 [30.3%] in academic prose, and 81 out of256[31.6%]infiction).TherelativelyhighrepresentationofpropernamesinfictionmayplayaroleintherelativelylowerrepresentationofmodifiedNPsinthissampleinsofarasmodificationofpropernamesisingeneralgreatlyrestricted,andhencerare(theexaminedsamplecontainsnoinstanceofamodifiedpropername). thus the only distinction between the two texts sorts emerging from the groupofnon-modifiedNPsistherelativelyhighrepresentationofpropernamesasafeatureoffiction.Thisisdoubtlessoneoffiction’sgeneralfeatures,moreorless independent of the style of the author and the role of the narrator.

3. Realization forms of modifiers

the second point of potential relevance for the present discussion concerns the realizationformsofthemodifiers.Theformsfoundinthetwosamplesarepre-sented in tables 3 and 4.

Table 3.realizationformsofmodifiers:Ishiguro

Types of modification Abs. %Adjective 71 36.4Prepositional phrase 61 31.3relative clause 18 9.2Converted noun 12 6.2Possessive case 9 4.6ed-participle 9 4.6gerund 5 2.6ing-participle 4 2.1Infinitive 2 1.0Apposition 3 1.5Adverb 1 0.5total 195 100.0


Table 4.realizationformsofmodifiers:Morris

Types of modification Abs. %Adjective 92 45.3Prepositional phrase 55 27.1ing-participle 12 5.9relative clause 12 5.9Converted noun 9 4.4Apposition 9 4.4gerund 6 2.9Possessive case 3 1.6ed-participle 2 1.0Adverb 2 1.0Infinitive 1 0.5total 203 100.0

the differences in the totals between tables 1 and 2 on the one hand, and tables 3 and4ontheother,areduetoinstancesofmultiplemodification,i.e.nounphraseswithoneheadnounmodifiedbymorethanonemodifiernoneofwhichcontainsan nP in its structure, cf. the examples listed under (3):

(3) a.thefinecedargateway[Ishiguro21] (adjective+convertednoun) b. the special food of the district [Morris 43, 43b] (adjective+prepostionalphrase) c. the great advantage we have when studying… [Morris 64] (adjective+relativeclause)

3.1. Noun modification by adjectives and prepositional phrases

Thetworealizationformsrankinghighestinbothsamplesaretheadjectiveandthe prepositional phrase, 36.4% and 31.3% in ishiguro, and 45.3% and 27.1 in Morris, respectively. these results are in agreement with the data in Biber et al.:“Commonadjectives(i.e.non-participialadjectives)are themostcommoncategoryofpremodifiersinallregisters”(1999:589).“Prepositionalphrasesarebyfarthemostcommontypeofpostmodificationinallregisters”(1999:606).in the examined texts prepositional phrases were more frequently registered in fictionthaninacademicprose.HereBiberetal.donotoffercomparabledata,relative frequencies of occurrence being presented only for the different forms of pre-andpostmodifiersseparately.Similarly,theconsiderabledifferencebetweentherepresentationofadjectivesandprepositionalphrasesinfictionandacademicprose (5% and 18%, respectively) cannot be related to comparable data in Biber etal.Asregardsthenoticeablyhigherrepresentationofadjectivesinacademic


prosethaninfiction,partlycomparabledatacanbefoundinFigure8.7(Biberetal. 1999: 589), but the difference between the two registers in this respect does not appear to be so prominent.

3.1.1Intheacademicsample,thehigherrepresentationofadjectivalpremodifica-tion may be partly accounted for by the recurrence of collocates of the descriptive adjectivenew + form (3 instances), species (3 instances), squirrel(s) (2 instances), type(oneinstance)inreferencetothehyperthemeofthepassage.Theadjectivenew has altogether 11 occurrences in the text, its use with other head nouns being also connected with the novelty feature of the hypertheme, cf. (4) a. and b.

(4) a. new form [Morris 22, 28, 51], new species [46, 55, 102], new squirrel(s) [35, 73], new type [45b]

b. new trend [23] , new medium [138]

Anotherfactorcontributingtoadjectivalmodificationintheacademicsampleisthe realization form of some zoological terms, which includes, in addition to the headnoun,aclassificatoryadjectivedenotingasubclassofthespeciesdesignatedbytheheadnoun.Theadjectiveperformsthisfunctionaloneorinconjunctionwithotherpremodifiers,cf.theexampleslistedunder(5):

(5) a. black-footed squirrel [Morris 9, 65], the African black-footed squirrel [60]

b. aquatic animals [146], human animal [67], human being [71], tailless great apes [83b], reptilian ancestors [119], the naked mole rat [144b]

While the recurrence of the adjectivenew is connected with the treatment of a new hypertheme and is derivable from the text build-up, the two-word structure of zoological terms is a noticeable terminological feature in general and may be assigned stylistic relevance.

3.1.2Therelativelyhigherrepresentationofadjectivesinacademicprosethaninfictionisalsoapparentininstancesofmultiplepremodification,theprevalenceof this type in the former being commensurate with the overall predominance of adjectivalpremodificationinthissample(15vs.10instances).Intheexaminedsamples, apart from coordinated adjectives multiple premodification includesconverted nouns, participles and the possessive case, cf. (6) a. and b.

(6) a. this old and hidebound family [ishiguro 91], certain interesting rumours [ishiguro 107]; various other anatomical features [Morris 75d], their pro-tective furry covering [Morris 117]

b.the city’smost respected and influentialmen [Ishiguro19]; a constanthigh body temperature [Morris 121b], a thick hairy, insulating coat [Mor-ris 127b].


Thefictionsamplecontainedtwoinstancesofacoordinationtypecharacteristicof informalspeech,viz.modificationwithor so to express approximation (cf. Quirketal.1985:981).Compare(7).

(7) for a year or so [ishiguro 44]

Twoinstancesofmultiplemodificationbyadjectivesdeservetobementionedfordisplayingspecialfeatures.Fictionprovidesanexampleofdiscontinuousadjec-tivalpremodificationduetotheinsertionofacommentclauseinthefunctionofparentheticaldisjunct(cf.Quirketal.1985:1112–117),aconfigurationindicativeofthestyleoffiction.

(8) a most curious – some may say – foolish procedure [ishiguro 28]

Theotherinstanceofdiscontinuousmodification,foundintheacademicsample,representsacaseofcomplexmodificationstructureconstitutedbymultiplead-jectivalcoordinationandmultipleapposition.Thediscontinuityinvolvestwoofthreecoordinatedadjectives,andtheentiremultipleapposition,cf.(8).

(9) a new species [Morris 46] would have evolved, separate and discrete, auniqueform[46b]oflife[46bα],athreehundredandsixty-seventhkind[46c]ofsquirrel[46cα]

Asregardsotherinstancesofpostposedadjectives,apartfromobligatorypost-positioninthecaseofindefinitepronounheads(cf.ex.(1)a.,altogetherthreeinstances)andtwooccurrencesoftheadjectiveworth (cf. (20) c.), the texts under study did not provide any examples.

3.1.3 Potential stylistic relevance was further sought in the semantics of the modifyingadjectives.FollowingthesemanticclassificationinBiberetal.(1999:508–515),theadjectiveswerefirstclassedasdescriptorsorclassifiers,thedis-tinction between the two groups consisting in the delimiting or restricting func-tionwithrespecttoanoun’sreferentinthecaseofclassifiers,whiledescriptorsprototypically denote such features as colour, size, weight, age, etc. needless to say,semanticclassification,whatevermodelmaybeused,ishardlyeverunivo-cal. hence the quantitative data are of the more-or-less kind rather than repre-sentingexactfigures.Inconsequenceoftheoveralllargernumberofadjectivalmodifiersintheacademicsample,allsemanticgroupsnumbermoreexamplesinthis text, the only measure of comparison thus being the relative representation of the different semantic groups within each sample.According to thecorpusfindings inBiberetal. (1999:510–511)evaluative

descriptorsareequallyrepresentedinbothfictionandacademicprose,whereasthegreatestdifferenceisfoundinthecaseofrelationalclassifiers,wheretheratiooftheirrepresentationinfictionandacademicproseis2:18(cf.Table7.2,p.511).


Inthetextsunderstudynearlyahalfoftheadjectivesfoundinfictionareevalu-ative,about30%descriptiveand20%classificatory.Inacademicprosethisscaleisreversed:about47%areclassifiers,35%descriptorsand18%evaluators.Thesemanticcharacteristicsofadjectivalmodificationinthetwosamplesthusappeartoconsistintheprevalenceofevaluatorsinfictionincontrasttothepredominanceofclassifiersinacademicprose.Thishasalreadybeensuggestedbytheadducedexamplesofadjectivalmodification.Aqualitativedistinctionmoreoveremergeswhentheevaluatorsinthetwotextsamplesarecompared.Whilefictiondisplaysemotive or attitudinal evaluation, the evaluators in the academic sample are intel-lectual. Compare examples (3) a., (6), (8) and (10) a. with (3) c. and (10) b.

(10)a. theroofwithitseleganttiles[Ishiguro21cα],twohaughty,grey-hairedladies [54c], an eccentric procedure [88], some bitter arguments [110]

b. a primate of a very odd kind [Morris 76c], of vital importance [126], sim-ple observation [104ib], a slight advantage [29]

notably, the evaluator simple occurs three times (Morris 104, 59). evaluating adjectivescomparablewiththosefoundinthefictionsamplearefew:inadditionto odd in (10) b., a clear example is drastic (this drastic step [136]).

3.2 Premodification of nouns by converted nouns and possessive case

Otherrealizationformsofpremodifiersfoundinthetextsunderstudycomprisedconverted nouns and the possessive case (see tables 3 and 4). the representation of these forms in the two samples (converted noun and possessive case in ishig-uro 12 and 9 instances, respectively; in Morris 9 and 3 instances, respectively) suggests that only the possessive case may have some stylistic relevance.

3.2.1 According to Biber et al. (1999: 589) converted nouns account for c. 30% ofallpremodifiersinacademicproseandjudgingfromfigure8.7(ibid.),theyareapproximatelytwiceascommoninthis textsortas infiction.Neitherof thesecorpusfindingscorrespondswiththedatagiveninTables3and4.Inthetotalofallpremodifiersconvertednounsaccountforsome8%inacademicproseandforover12%infiction.Asinseveralpreviouspoints,thefictionsamplehereap-pears to be rather atypical. of the many semantic relations obtaining in the noun + noun sequences (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 590–591), most premodifying nouns in the academic sample express the genitive relation (of-relation), cf. (11) a. other relations are illustrated in (11) b.

(11)a. squirrel family [Morris 16bα], primate species [93], skin surface [92],body temperature [121ib], body processes [122b]

b.heat loss (object relationship[129]),haircovering(source/composition[145])


Thesemanticrelationsexpressedbynounmodifiersinfictionaremorevaried,someofthemfittinginnoneofthetypeslistedinBiberetal.

(12) garden wall (location [21bα], marriage negotiation (content [90]),gingko trees (kind [4b], cedar gateway (material [21], family mem-bers(partitive[150]),inkbrush(purpose[75id]),artenthusiast(object[106b])

Whethervarietyofsemanticrelationsinthisformofpremodificationhasstylisticrelevance remains to be ascertained on the basis of larger and more varied text samples.

3.2.2 the possessive case appears to be more suggestive in this respect. Although theabsolutefiguresdonotexceedten,thereisamarkeddifferenceintherepre-sentationofthisforminfavouroffiction:ninevs.threeoccurrences(seeTables3 and 4). this is expectedly connected with the nature of the head nouns in the twoexaminedtextsorts.Overahalfoftheinstancesdrawnfromfictionrefertothe characters of the story, the remaining forms being comparable both in number and semantic type with the head nouns of the genitives found in academic prose, cf. (13) a. b. and c.

(13) a. our children’s marriage prospects [ishiguro 39b], Akira Sugimura’s house [48b],theirlatefather’shouse[60cα],theyoungersister’swords[104bα],the Sugimuras’ high-handedness [148b]

b.his patient’s disease [Morris 54bα], one’s moral conduct [Ishiguro137ibα],one’spurse[Ishiguro137ifα](genericpersonalhead)

c. theanimal’shistory[Morris58b],thesun’srays[Morris132bα],thecity’smostrespectedandinfluentialmen[Ishiguro19b],halftheproperty’struevalue[Ishiguro26bα/α](genitiveofnon-personalnouns)

Ascanbeseen,theadducedinstancesofpossessivegenitivelargelyreflecttherelativelyhighrepresentationofpropernamesinfiction,notedin1asitsspecialfeature, thus contributing to this feature’s stylistic relevance.

3.3 Modification forms occurring in both pre- and postmodification

Oftherealizationformsthatoccurbothaspre-andpostmodifiersthetextsunderstudy contain ing- and ed-participles and the gerund. Biber et al. (1999) offer relative frequencies of occurrence only for each of these forms with respect to theotherpre- andpostmodifiers,butnot for each form in regard to itsoccur-renceinpre-andpostmodification.Whilepostmodifyingpastparticiplesarede-scribed as more common in academic prose than in any other register (Biber et al. 1999:606),occurrenceinpremodificationisnoted“assomewhatmorecommoninacademicprosethanintheotherregisters”(Biber1999:589).Withinfiction,


the representation of ing- and ed-participle appears to be approximately equal, whereas in academic prose ed-participles predominate (cf. Biber et al 1999: 606, Fig.8.13).Thefiguresfor thepremodifying ing-participle presumably also in-clude the gerund, since this category is not recognized. the occurrence of post-modifyng gerunds can be only guessed at from the data for of + ing in comparison to to-infinitive,contentthat- and interrogative wh-clauses (ibid. 647, Fig 8.23), where of + ing is shown to be three-to-four times more frequent in academic prosethaninfiction.

3.3.1 in the texts under study the ing-participle has 12 occurrences in academic proseand4infiction.Intheformeritranksthirdonthefrequencyscale,followingthetwomostfrequentmodifers,whereasinfictionwithfouroccurrencesitfallsinthe group of the four least frequent forms. out of the 12 ing-participles in Morris, sevenoccurinpremodificationandalloperatehereasclassifiers,cf.(14):

(14) living species [Morris 15], independent breeding population [19], startingpoint [57], livingmammals [116bα],flyingmammals [139],burrowing mammals [143]

Thefictionsamplesdisplaystwoing-participlesinpremodification,bothofwhichconvey evaluative, qualifying meaning, cf. (15):

(15) a commanding position on the hill [ishiguro 5, 5b], the imposing air of the house [10, 10b]

the semantic distinction appears to be connected only with the premodifying function of the ing-participle.Inpostmodificationnosimilardistinctionhasbeennoted, cf. (16) a. and b.:

(16)a.specialmodifications,makinginterbreedingwithotherkinds…unlikely[Morris 41ib]; a starting point, telling us… [57i]

b. the steep path leading [2i] up from the little wooden bridge [ishiguro 2i]; itsstylishlycarvedridgepole[21cβ]pointing[ii]outovertheview

As shown in (14), most premodifying ing-participles constitute components of zoologicalterms,thusperformingthesamefunctionasmanyclassifyingadjec-tives (see 3.1) and may be regarded as style markers.

3.3.2Nounmodificationbytheed-participle in the two texts presents a reversed picture, at least with respect to relative frequency of occurrence: there is consid-erable prevalence of ed-participlesinfiction,viz.nineoccurrencesagainsttwoin academic prose. this result is presumably due to the limited length of the samples, or else the relatively high representation of the ed-participle may be aspecificfeatureofthestyleofthenovel’sauthor.Mosted-participles here oc-


curinpostmodification,againwithoutevaluativecolouringofmeaning,cf.(17)a. and b.

(17) a. a simple descriptive name based [Morris 104i] on a simple observation b. the little wooden bridge still referred to [ishiguro 2ibii] around here as the

Bridge of hesitation

Thefictionsamplecontainsthreepremodifyinged-participles, one of which con-veysevaluativemeaningbyitself,andanotherisevaluativelymodified,cf.(18):

(18) a. the exaggerated [ishiguro 51i] respect my pupils always had for me b.itsstylishlycarved[Ishiguro21cβ]ridgepole

3.3.3Thegerundisrepresentedaboutequally,havingfiveoccurrencesinfictionandsixinacademicprose(seeTables3and4).Whileallinstancesinfictionil-lustrate the postmodifying function, the academic sample contains three premodi-fying gerunds (in one case gerunds in coordination) which, in connection with what has been observed about a notablenumberofpremodifyingadjectivesanding-participles in this sample, appears to be of stylistic relevance, cf. (19):

(19) their mating calls and displays [Morris 44ia, ib], heating and cooling problems[Morris153id],onthedissectingtable[Morris72bαi]

Thesegerundsfallinthesemanticclassofclassifiers,theinstancesthemselvesbeing well on the way to becoming terms.

gerunds in the postmodifying function were found after several prepositions, of which only of had more than one occurrence (three instances), and two gerunds occurred as complements of worth, cf. (20) a. b. c.

(20) a. the importance of our having a house [ishiguro 37i], the great physiologi-cal advantage of being able [Morris 121i] to maintain a constant, high body temperature

b. my surprise at receiving [ishiguro 55i] such personal attention, a very powerful reason for abolishing it [Morris 134i]

c. one worth having suffered [ishiguro 143i] a few inconveniences for, something worth pursuing [Morris 57non-sb head iii]

Asnotedinthecaseofadjectivesanding-participles, also here it is the premodi-fying use that appears to play a role as a marker of stylistic distinction.


3.4 Postmodification by apposition, relative clauses, infinitives and adverbs

Theremainingnounmodifiersoccurredonlyinpostmodification.Twoofthese,apposition and relative clauses, are represented by a number of examples that al-lows drawing some conclusions.

3.4.1 As regards apposition, in Biber et al. (1999: 639) it is described as a maxi-mallyabbreviated formofpostmodificationcharacteristicof registerswith thehighest informational density, viz. news and academic prose, where it accounts forabout15%ofallpostmodifiers.Thisisinagreementwiththefindingsofthepresent study, apposition being represented by 9 examples in academic prose as againstthreeinfiction(cf.Tables3and4).Inthetotalofallpostmodifiers,inthe academic text under study apposition accounts for 10%, which is less than thefigureadducedinBiberetal.,butstillmorethanthreetimeshigherthantherepresentationofappositionamongthepostmodifiersinfiction,viz.3%.

however, as noted in several cases before, more illustrative than the quantita-tivefindingsarethequalitativedifferencesinthetypesofappositionfoundinthetwotexts.Ofthethreeinstancesofappositiondrawnfromfiction,twoareofthekind most frequently displayed by this text sort, viz. equivalence involving appel-lation(Quirketal.1985:1309),cf.(21)a.;atitleinpre-position(ibid.1319),cf.(21)b.;thethirdexampleexpressesequivalenceoftheidentificationkind(ibid.1309), cf. (21) c.

(21) a. Setsuko, our eldest [ishiguro 41b] b. Mr. ono (in direct speech as a form of address [ishiguro 99]) c.anominalsum–afigure[Ishiguro26b]probablynotevenhalftheprop-

erty’s true value

Theexamplesfoundintheacademictextexpressidentificationthatfurtherspeci-fiesthefirstappositive,cf.(22)a.,exemplificationorenumeration(22)b.,andaconsequenceofthecontentofthefirstappositive,whichisafiniteclause(22)c.

(22) a. the symptoms, the rash [Morris 52b] that gives a doctor a clue; the mark-ings of its fur – its black feet [Morris 50c]; another species, a strange form [Morris72b]oflife;theflyingmammals,thebats[Morris139b]

b. the tailless great apes such as the chimpanzee and the gorilla [Morris 83c, d]; the burrowing mammals – the naked mole rat, the aardvark and the armadillo [Morris 144b, c, d]; the aquatic animals such as the whales, dol-phins, porpoises, dugongs, manatees, and hippopotamuses [Morris 146b, c, d, e, f, g]; those abnormally heave giants, the rhinos and the elephants [Morris 153b, c]

c. we ourselves are not black-footed squirrels – a fact [Morris 65b] which forces us into an attitude of humility


Equivalencethroughidentificationthatfurtherspecifiestheconceptdenotedbythe first appositive is found in both texts, but appears to bemore frequent inacademic prose. An obvious factor that plays a role here is the inherent need of academic texts to express meaning with maximal exactness. the other two types appear tobespecific to the respective text sort, especially title inpre-positiontofiction,cf.(21)b.,andenumeration/exemplificationinacademicprose,asin(22) b.

3.4.2relativeclausesaremorenumerousinthefictionsamplethaninacademicprose in the texts under study, viz. 18 vs. 12 instances. this is in agreement with the data in Biber et al. (1999: 606, Fig. 8.13) which show relative clauses to be mostfrequentinnewsandleastfrequentinconversation,withfictionandaca-demic prose ranking in between, the former taking the place next to news. even the distribution of the relativizers and the registered types of relative clauses cor-respondwiththedescriptiontherein(ibid.607–611).Inthefictionsampleahalfof the relative clauses (9, i.e. 50.0%) identify or characterize personal anteced-ents. in all but one of these clauses the relative pronoun is who in thesubjectfunction. the only other relativizer with a personal antecedent is zero in the ob-jectfunction,cf.(23)a.andb.

(23) a. two haughty grey-haired ladies who turned out to be the daughters of Akira Sugimura [ishiguro 54bi]; the younger sister, who had barely spo-ken [ishiguro 73i]

b. the house… should pass to one our father would have approved of [ishig-uro 68ibi]

inanimate entities were antecedents of relative clauses mostly where the relativ-izerperformedtheobjectfunction,viz.sixinstances,alldisplayingzero,cf.(24)a.Asantecedentsofsubjectrelativizersinanimateentitiesoccurredtwicecf.(24)b. in one clause the relativizer performed adverbial function, cf. (24) c.

(24) a. the exaggerated respect my pupils always had for me [ishiguro 51i]; the house our father built [ishiguro 68i]

b. in the days which followed [ishiguro 102i]; things that will be to our ad-vantage [ishiguro 128i]

c. such a contest, in which one’s moral conduct and achievement are brought as witnesses [ishiguro 137i]

in the sample of academic prose the difference in the syntactic function of the relativizersismoreprominent,cf.9subjects/2objects(withinthetotalof12relativeclauses)vs.10subjects/7objectsinfiction(withinthetotalof18rela-tiveclauses).Asinthefictionsample,onerelativeclausecontainsanadverbialrelativizer, when. Compare (25) a., b. and c.


(25) a. i. even for the zoologist, who is used to calling an animal an animal [Morris 68i]

ii.aspecialkindoflocomotionwhichhasmodifieditsbasicform[Morris88i];anattitudeofhumilitythatisbecomingtoproperscientificinvesti-gation [Morris 65icii]

iii. abnormally heavy giants which have heating and cooling problems [Morris 153i]; other species that appear to be closely related [Morris 74i]

b. all we can be certain about [Morris 49i]; the great advantage we have when studying such animals [Morris 64i]

c. the moment would eventually arrive when it would be advantageous for them to become isolated [Morris 37i]

As regards the realization form of the relativizer, the two samples are basically comparable.Inboththeobjectrelativizerisinvariablyzero(cf.(24)a.and(25)b.),whilethesubjectfunctionisimplementedbywho (referring to a personal antecedent, cf. (23a. and (25) a. i.), and which and that (in reference to non-personal inanimate and animate antecedents, cf. (24) b. and (25) a. ii and a. iii). Whether that or which isfavouredinthefictionsamplecannotbejudgedsinceeachoccurredonlyonce,there being two examples in all. in the academic sample that was found to be more common(fivevs.threeinstancesofwhich). this differs from the data in Biber et al. (1999: 611), where which is characterized as the most frequent relativizer in all registers of academic prose. looking for potential factors motivating the choice between the two relativizers in the academic sample, a point that presents itself is the nature of non-personal antecedents, viz. animate vs. inanimate. however, the registered examples fail to suggest any tendency in this respect insofar as both that and which are used to refer to either antecedent type. Assuggestedbytherepresentationofthesubjectrelativizers,thegreatestdif-

ference between the two samples, apart from the prominent prevalence of the subjectfunctionovertheobjectfunctioninacademicprose,appearstoinvolvetheantecedentsofthesubjectrelativizers.Whereasinfictiontheantecedentsaremostly personal, viz. the individual characters of the story, in academic prose there is only one instance of this kind, illustrated in (25) a. i. notably, even in this instance the antecedent differs in having general reference. in the academic sam-plealargemajorityoftheantecedentsofsubjectrelativizerswereinanimate(6instances), as in (25) a. ii., and non-personal animate (2 instances, cf. (25) a. iii).Another point characteristic of formal writing is found in themodification

structure of the noun phrase in (25) c. in that the postmodifying relative when-clause is discontinuous, the intervening element being the verb. discontinuous postmodificationasafeatureofformalwritinghasalsobeennotedinthecaseofapposition, cf. (9).

3.4.3Thetworemainingrealizationformsofpostmodification,theinfinitiveandthe adverb, each represented by three examples, are mentioned for the sake of completeness.


(26) a. it is not a property to be endangered or discarded lightly [Morris 124i]; nothing further to do with them [ishiguro 121i]; no attempts to hide [ishiguro151i] their hostility

b.theparticularconditionsthere[Morris25icα];theirrelativesnearby[Mor-ris 27i]; all others nearby [ishiguro 6b]

Hereacommentcanbemadeonthepassiveformoftheinfinitiveinacademicprose, which is suggestive of formal text sorts, and on the phraseological nature oftheinfinitiveto dopostmodifyinganindefinitepronouninfiction.

3.5. Complexity of the modification structure

Thelastpointtobementionedisthecomplexityofthemodificationstructurebywhich is meant expansion through coordination and subordination. Both have been partlytreatedbefore,viz.coordinationinthecaseofpremodification(cf.3.1.2)andenumerativeapposition(cf.(22)b.),andsubordinationinthecaseofallmodifiersonthefirstlevelofdependence.Whatremainstobediscussedconcernscoordinationinthenounphrasestructureoccurringintheheadnounand/orinpostmodification,andsubordinationonlowerdependencelevelsthanthefirst.Coordinationappearstobemorecommonintheacademicsamplethaninfic-

tion, cf. coordination in the head noun in (27) a. and in different kinds of post-modificationin(27)b.Coordinationinfictionisillustratedin(28).

(27) a. their mating calls and displays [Morris 44a, b]; overheating and damage [Morris 131, 131b] to the skin;

b. other living species already known and described [Morris 15i]; every as-pect of its behaviour and structure [Morris 61b, c]; species of monkeys andapes[Morris78bα,β];conspicuoustuftsofhaironthehead,inthearmpitsandaroundthegenitals[Morris91bα,β,γ];smallnakedpatchesofskinontheirrumps,theirfaces,ortheirchests[Morris97bα,β,γ]

(28) a. one’s moral conduct and achievement [ishiguro 137ib, ic]; the state of the house and alterations [ishiguro 159b, c]

b. on grounds purely of good character and achievement [ishiguro 66, 66b]; a closer investigation of my background and character [ishiguro 86b, c]

Asregardsinstancesofmodificationwithmorethanonelevelofsubordination,most examples in both texts display two subordination levels in different combi-nations.Afrequentconfigurationcomprisestwoprepositionalphrasesinsucces-sive dependence, cf. (29).

(29) at some point in the evolution of the squirrel family [Morris 16, 16b, 16bα],arapidsurveyofthewholerangeofthelivingmammals[Mor-ris116,116b,116bα],atoneendoftherowoftheskins[Morris82,


82b,82bα]; the ideaofan ‘auctionofprestige’ [Ishiguro133,133b,133bα], thesentimentsofa familywithsuchadistinguishedhistory[Ishiguro118,118b,118bα]

Otherconfigurations,illustratedin(30),arerarer,e.g.

(30) a. the symptoms, the rash that gives a doctor a clue (apposition + relative clause) [Morris 52bi]

b. the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as ‘the Bridge of hesitation’ [ishiguro 2, 2i, 2ii] (ing- and ed-participle)

c. a visit [ishiguro 54] one afternoon [54b] from two haughty, grey-haired ladies [54c] who [/r clause/ i] turned out to be the daughters (preposi-tional phrase + relative clause)

Postmodificationinnounphrasesasconstituentsofnon-finiteclausesinvolvesanadditional dependency level, cf. (31).

(31) no attempts [ishiguro 151] to hide [151i] their hostility [151ib] to-wardsus[151ibα]

Stillmorecomplexinstancesofpostmodificationareillustratedin(32).

(32) a. a fact which [Morris 65bi] forces us into an attitude [65ic] of humility [65icα] that [65icii] is becoming to proper scientific investigation (tworelativeclausesinsuccessivedependence,combinedwithpostmodifica-tion by prepositional phrase);

b.anotherspecies[Morris72].astrangeform[72b]oflife[72bα]onthedis-sectingtable[72bαi],awaiting[72ibi]analysis(twoprepositionalphrasesin successive dependence, followed by a postmodifying ing-participle, the whole structure occurring in apposition);

c. thefinecedargateway [21], the large area [/Co-ord/ 21b] bound [/-ed/ i] by the garden wall[21biα],the roof [/Co-ord/ 21c] with its elegant tiles[21cα] and its stylishly carved [/-ed/ i] ridgepole[/Co-Ord/21cβ]pointing out [/-ing/ ii] over the view [21iiβd] (coordination of headnounscombinedwithpostmodicationbynon-finiteclausesandprepo-sitional phrases)

According to Biber et al. (1999: 578–579), the complexity of noun phrases in-creases across registers with conversation at one extreme and academic prose at the other. of the other registers the one closest to academic prose is news. the resultsofthepresentstudydivergeinthatthemodificationstructureofthetwosamples does not essentially differ but rather shows a fairly comparable degree of complexity. the differences that have been found consist in a greater representa-


tionofmodifiednounphrasesintheacademicsample,whichprovidesgroundforahigherrepresentationofNPswithcomplexmodificationstructure.Asregardsthecomplexmodificationstructure itself, themostnoticeabledifference is thecombination of multiple coordination and subordination in the academic sample, especially in the case of apposition. the similarity between the two text sorts inthisrespectistobeascribedtotheratherformaltenorofthefictionsample,shown in addition to the adduced features, even by one instance of discontinuous structure (cf. (30) c.)

4. Conclusion

the conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing discussion concern both non-modified andmodified noun phrases.The higher representation of the formerinfictionappearstobeatleastpartlyduetoarelativelyhighfrequencyofoc-currenceof proper names,whosemodification is greatly restricted in general.in the academic sample this category is marginal. on the other hand the higher representationofmodifiednounphrasesinthelattersampleappearstobeatleastpartly connected with the structure of technical terms, which are frequently two-wordformations,withthemodifierspecifyingthemeaningoftheheadnounordesignating a subcategory of the concept denoted by the head noun.

Another feature of stylistic relevance was noted in the semantics of the pre-modifiers.Whileintheacademicsamplethesemodifiers,includingnotonlyad-jectives, but also premodifying participles and gerunds, express classificatorymeaning and often function as components of technical terms, in fiction theyconveydescriptiveorevaluativemeaning,andnon-finiteformsarerarerinthisfunction.Bothquantitativeandqualitativedifferences reflecting thesubjectmatterof

the texts were further noted in the case of the possessive case and apposition. While the possessive case, in connection with the relatively frequent occurrence of proper names, appears to characterize fiction, apposition, especially of theenumerative/exemplificatorytype,reflectstheexpositorynatureoftheexaminedacademic text.Minor differences connected with the subject matter were also found in

the case of relative clauses. the syntactic functions of the relativizers differed inamarkedprevalenceofthesubjectfunctionintheacademicsample,whereasthefictionsampledisplayedgreatpredominanceofpersonalantecedentsofthesubjectrelativizers.Inacademicprosetherewasonlyoneinstanceofthiskind,alargemajorityoftheantecedentsofsubjectrelativizersbeinginanimate.Asregards thedegreeofcomplexity in themodificationstructure,nomajor

differences, either quantitative or qualitative, were noted in the two texts. this is ascribable to the formal, rather than informal tenor of the narrative, and may be classed as a feature of the author’s style. Similarly, the high representation of apposition and the particular types in the academic sample may be due to the


particularfieldofstudyfromwhichthetextisdrawn.Nevertheless,someofthepoints that have been made, notably the role of proper names, the distribution andsemanticsofpremodifiers,andpossiblysomeothers,maybeaffordedmoregeneral stylistic relevance.

Notes

* Stylistics being one of the major spheres of Associate Professor Ludmila Urbanová’sacademicpursuits,mypaperforthepresentoccasiondealswithatopicfromthisfield,asa way of paying her a modest but heart-felt tribute.

1 in the appended texts noun phrases containing one noun are denoted successively by Arabic numerals(1,2,3,…);nounphrasesfunctioningascomponentsofmodificationstructuresaremarkedbyArabicnumeralsand letters (1b,1c,…).Clausalmodifiers (non-finiteandfinite)aredenotedbysmallromannumerals(i,ii,iii,iv,…),andlowerdependencylevelsareindicatedbyGreekletters(α,β,…).Themarkingisgiveninsquarebracketsaftereachnoun.

2 According to huddleston and Pullum (2002: 326ff.), pronouns are a subcategory of nouns.3 Forexample,therewerenoinstancesofadjectivalheads,suchasthe poor, the city poor.

Appendix

Text Ishiguro

if on a sunny day [1] you climb the steep path [2] leading up [/-ing/ i] from the little wooden bridge [2ib] still referred to [/-ed/ ii] around here as ‘the Bridge [2iic] of hesitation’[2iicα],youwillnot have to walk far before the roof [3] of my house [3b] becomes visible between the tops [4] of two gingko trees [4b]. even if it did not occupy such a commanding [/i/-ing] position [5] on the hill [5b], the house [6] would still stand out from all others [non-sb head] nearby [6b], so that as you come up the path[7],youmayfindyourselfwonderingwhat sort [8] of wealthy man [8b] owns it. But then i am not, nor have i ever been, a wealthy man [9]. the imposing [-ing/ i] air [10] of the house [10b] will be accounted for, perhaps, if i inform you that it was built by my predecessor [11], and that he was none other than Akira Sugimura [12]. of course, you may be new to this city [13], in which case [14] the name [15] of Akira Sugimura [15b] may not be familiar to you. But mention it to anyone [non-sb head] who [/r clause/ i] lived here before the war [16i] and you will learn that for thirty years or so [17], Sugimura [18] was unquestionably amongst the city’s [19b] most re-spectedandinfluentialmen [19]. if i tell you this, and when arriving at the top [20] of the hill [20b] you stand and look at thefinecedargateway [21], the large area [/Co-ord/ 21b] bound [/-ed/ i] by the garden wall[21biα],the roof [/Co-ord/ 21c] with its elegant tiles[21cα] and its stylishly carved [/-ed/ i] ridgepole [/Co-Ord/21cβ]pointing out [/-ing/ ii] over the view [21iiβd],youmaywellwonder how i came to acquire such a property [22], being as i claim a man [23] of only moderate means [23b]. the truth [24] is, i bought the house [25] for a nominal sum [26] - afigure [26b] prob-ably not even half the property’s [26bα/α]true value[26bα]at that time [27]. this was made pos-sible owing to a most curious – some may say foolish – procedure [28] instigated [/i/ -ed] by the Sugimura family [28ib] during the sale [29]. it is now already a thing [30] ofsomefifteenyears [30b] ago. in those days [31], when my circumstances [32] seemed to improve with each month [33], my wife[34]hadbeguntopressmetofinda new house [35]. With her usual foresight [36], she had argued the importance [37] of our having [/gerund/ i] a house [37ib] in keeping [/gerund/ ii] with our status [37iic] – not out of vanity [38], but for the sake of our children’s [39b] marriage


prospects [39]. i saw the sense [40] in this, but since Setsuko [41], our eldest [41b], was still only fourteenorfifteen,Ididnotgoaboutthe matter [42] with any urgency [43]. nevertheless, for a year or so [44], whenever i heard of a suitable house [45] for sale [45b], i would remember to make enquiries [46]. it was one [non-sb head] of my pupils [47b] who[/rclause/i]firstbroughtitto my attention [47ic] that Akira Sugimura’s [48b] house [48], a year [48c] after his death[48cα],wastobe sold off. that i should buy such a house [49] seemed absurd, and i put the suggestion [50] down to the exaggerated respect [51] [/r clause/ i] my pupils [51ib] always had for me. But i made en-quiries [52] all the same, and gained an unexpected response [53]. i received a visit [54] one after-noon [54b] from two haughty, grey-haired ladies [54c] who [/r clause/ i] turned out to be the daughters [54id] of Akira Sugimura [54idα].When I expressedmysurprise [55] at receiving [/gerund/ i] such personal attention [55ib] from a family [56] of such distinction [56b], the elder [57] of the sisters [57b] told me coldly that they had not come simply out of courtesy [58]. over the previous months [59], a fair number [60] of enquiries [60b] had been received for their late father’s [60cα]house [60c], but the family [61] had in the end [62] decided to refuse all but four [non-sb head] of the applications [63b]. these four applicants [64] had been selected carefully by family members [65] on grounds purely of good character [66] and achievement [Co-ord 66b]. ‘it is of the firstimportance [67] to us’, she went on, ‘that the house [68] [/r clause/ i] our father [68ib] built should pass to one [non-sb head] [/r clause/ 68ibi] he would have approved of and deemed worthy of it. of course, circumstances [69] oblige us to consider thefinancialaspect [70], but this is strict-ly secondary. We have therefore set a price [71].’ At this point [72], the younger sister [73], who [/r clause/ i] had barely spoken, presented me with an envelope [74], and they watched me sternly as i opened it. inside was a single sheet [75] of paper [75b], blank but for afigure [75c] written [/-ed/ i] elegantly with an ink brush [75id]. i was about to express my astonishment [76] at the low price [76b], but then saw from the faces [77] before me [77b] that further discussion [78] offinances [78b] would be considered distasteful. the elder sister [79] said simply: ‘it will not be in the inter-ests [80] of any [non-sb head] of you [80b] to try to outbid one another. We are not interested in receiving anything [non-sb head] beyond the quoted [/ed/ i] price [81b]. What we mean to do from here on is to conduct an auction [82] of prestige [82b].’ they had come in person [83], she ex-plained, to ask formally on behalf of the Sugimura family [84] that i submit myself - along, of course, with the other three applicants [85] - to a closer investigation [86] of my background [86b] and credentials [/Co-ord/ 86c]. A suitable buyer [87] could thus be chosen. it was an eccentric procedure [88], but i saw nothing [non-sb head] objectionable about it [89b]; it was, after all, much the same as being involved in a marriage negotiation[90].Indeed,Ifeltsomewhatflatteredtobeconsidered by this old and hidebound family [91] as a worthy candidate [92]. When i gave my consent [93] to the investigation [93b], and expressed my gratitude [94] to them, the younger sister [95] addressed me forthefirsttime [96], saying: ‘our father [97] was a cultured man [98], Mr ono [99]. he had much respect [100] for artists [100b]. indeed, he knew of your work [101].’ in the days [102] which [/r clause/ i] followed, i made enquiries [103] of my own [103b], and discovered the truth [104] of the younger sister’s [104bα]words [104b]; Akira Sugimura [105] had indeed been something [non-sb head] of an art enthusiast [106b] who [/r clause/ i] on numerous occasions [106ic] had supported exhibitions [106id] with his money [106ie]. i also came across certain inter-esting rumours [107]: asignificantsection [108] of the Sugimura family [108b], it seemed, had been against selling the house [109] at all, and there had been some bitter arguments [110]. in the end [111], financialpressures [112] meant a sale [113] was inevitable, and the odd procedures [114] around the transaction [114b] represented the compromise [115] reached [/-ed/ i] with those [115ib non-sb head] who [/r clause/ ii] had not wished the house [115iic] to pass out of the family [115iid]. that there was something [non-sb head] high-handed about these arrangements [116b] there was no denying; but for my part [117], i was prepared to sympathize with the sentiments [118] of a family [118b] with such a distinguished history[118bα].My wife [119], however, did not take kindly to the idea [120] of an investigation [120b]. ‘Who do they think they are?’ she protested. ‘We should tell them we want nothing [non-sb head] further to do [/inf/ 121i] with them.’ ‘But where’s the harm [122]?’ i pointed out. ‘We have nothing [non-sb head] [/r clause/ i 123] we wouldn’t want them to


discover. true, i don’t have a wealthy background [124], but no doubt [125] the Sugimuras [126] know that already, and they still think us worthy candidates [127]. let them investigate, they can onlyfindthings [128] that [/r clause/ i] will be to our advantage [128ib].’ And i made a point [129] of adding [/gerund/ i]: ‘in any case [130], they’re doing no more than they would if we were nego-tiating a marriage [131] with them. We’ll have to get used to this sort [132] of thing [132b]. Besides, there was surely much to admire in the idea [133] of ‘an auction [133b] of prestige’[133bα],asthe elder daughter [134] called it. one wonders why things [135] are not settled more often by such means [136]. how so much more honourable is such a contest [137], in which [/r clause/ i] one’s [137ibα]moral conduct [137ib] and achievement [Co-ord 137ic]] are brought as witnesses [137id] rather than the size [137ie] of one’s[137ifα] purse [137if]. i can still recall the deep satisfaction [138] [/r clause/ i] i felt when i learnt the Sugimuras [139] - after the most thorough investigation [140] - had deemed me the most worthy of the house [141] [/r clause/ i] they so prized. And cer-tainly, the house [142] is one [non-sb head ] worth having suffered [/gerund/ 143i] a few inconven-iences [143ib] for; despite its impressive and imposing [/-ing/ i] exterior [144], it is inside a place [145] of soft, natural woods [145b] selected [/-ed/ i] for the beauty [145ib] of their grains[145ibα],andall[non-sbhead]ofus[146b]wholivedinit[/rclause/i]cametofinditmostconducivetorelaxation [147] and calm [Co-ord 147b]. For all that, the Sugimuras’ [148b] high-handedness [148] was apparent everywhere during the transactions [149], some family members [150] making no attempts [151] to hide [/inf/ i] their hostility [151ib] towards us [151ibα],anda less understand-ing buyer [152] might well have taken offence [153] and abandoned the whole matter [154]. even in later years [155] i would sometimes encounter by chance [156] some member [157] of the fam-ily [157b] who [/r clause/ i], instead of exchanging the usual kind [157b] of polite talk[157biα],would stand there in the street [158] interrogating me as to the state [159] of the house [159b] and any alterations [Co-ord 159c] i had made [/r clause/ i]. these days [160], i hardly ever hear of the Sugimuras [161]. i did, though, receive a visit [162] shortly after the surrender [163] from the younger [non-sb head b] of the two sisters162bα]who [/r clause/ i] had approached me at the time [162bαic]of the sale[162bαicα].the war years [164] had turned her into a thin, ailing old woman [165].

Text Morris

There is a label [1] on a cage [2] at a certain zoo [2b] [/r clause/ i] that states simply, ‘this animal [3] is new to science’ [4]. inside the cage [5] there sits a small squirrel [6]. it has black feet [7] and it comes from Africa [8]. no black-footed squirrel [9] has ever been found in that continent [10] before. nothing is known about it. it has no name [11].

For the zoologist [12] it presents an immediate challenge [13]. What is it about its way [14] of life [14b] that has made it unique? how does it differ from the three hundred and sixty-six other living [/ing-participle/ i] species [15] of squirrels [15b] already known and described [Co-ord /ed-participle/ i]? Somehow, at some point [16] in the evolution [16b] of the squirrel family [16bα],the ancestors [17] of this animal [17b] must have split off from the rest [18] and estab-lished themselves as an independent breeding [/ing-participle/ i] population [19]. What was it in the environment [20] that made possible their isolation [21] as a new form [22] of life [22b]? the new trend [23] must have started out in a small way [24], with a group [25] of squirrels [25b] in one area[25bα]becoming[/ing-participle/ i] slightly changed and better adapted to the particular conditions [25ic] there[/adverb/α].Butat this stage [26] they would still be able to interbreed with their relatives [27] nearby [/adverb/ i]. the new form [28] would be at a slight advantage [29] in its special region [30], but it would be no more than a race [31] of the basic species [31b] and could be swamped out, reabsorbed into the mainstream [32] at any point [33]. if, as time [34] passed, the new squirrels [35] became more and more perfectly tuned-in to their particular environment [36], the moment [37] would eventually arrive when [/r clause/ i] it would be ad-


vantageous for them to become isolated from possible contamination [38] by their neighbours [38b]. At this stage [39] their social and sexual behaviour [40] would undergo specialmodifica-tions [41], making [/ing-participle/ i] interbreeding [41ib] with other kinds [41ic] of squirrels [41icα]unlikelyandeventuallyimpossible.Atfirst,their anatomy [42] may have changed and become better at coping with the special food [43] of the district [43b], but later their mating [/gerund/ i] calls [44a] and displays [Co-ord 44b] would also differ, ensuring that they attract only mates [45] of the new type [45b]. At last, a new species [46] would have evolved, separate and discrete, a unique form [46b] of life[46bα],a three hundred and sixty-seventh kind [46c] of squirrel[46cα].

When we look atourunidentifiedsquirrel [47] in its zoo cage [47b], we can only guess about these things [48]. All [non-sb head] [/r clause/ 49i] we can be certain about is that the mark-ings [50] of its fur [50b] – its black feet [50c] – indicate that it is a new form [51]. But these are only the symptoms [52], the rash [52b] that [/r clause/ i] gives a doctor [53] a clue [54] about his patient’s[54bα]disease [54b]. to really understand this new species [55], we must use these clues [56] only as a starting [/-ing participle/ i] point [57], telling [/-ing participle/ ii] us there is something worth pursuing [non-sb head] [/gerund/ iii]. We might try to guess at the animal’s [58b] history [58], but that would be presumptuous and dangerous. instead we will start humbly by giving it a simple and obvious label [59]: we will call it the African black-footed squirrel [60]. now we must observe and record every aspect [61] of its behaviour [61b] and structure [Co-ord 61c] and see how it differs from, or is similar to, other squirrels [62]. then, little by little, we can piece together its story [63].

the great advantage [64] we [/r clause i] have when studying such animals [64ib] is that we ourselves are not black-footed squirrels [65] – a fact [65b] which [/r clause i] forces us into an attitude [65ic] of humility[65icα]that[/rclause/ii]isbecomingtoproperscientificinvestiga-tion [65iid]. how different things [66] are, how depressingly different, when we attempt to study the human animal [67]. even for the zoologist [68], who [/r clause/ i] is used to calling an animal [68ib] an animal[68ic],itisdifficulttoavoidthe arrogance [69] ofsubjectiveinvolvement [69b]. We can try to overcome this to some extent [70] by deliberately and rather coyly approaching [/gerund/ i] the human being [71i] as if he were another species [72], a strange form [72b] of life [72bα]on the dissecting [/gerund/ i] table[72bαi],awaiting[/-ing participle/ i] analysis [72ibi]. how can we begin?

As with the new squirrel [73], we can start by comparing him with other species [74] that [/r clause/ i] appear to be most closely related. From his teeth [75], his hands [Co-ord 75b], his eyes [Co-ord 75c] and various other anatomical features [Co-ord 75d], he is obviously a primate [76] of some sort [76b], but of a very odd kind [76c]. Just how odd becomes clear when we lay out in a long row [77] the skins [78] of the one hundred and ninety-two living [/-ing participle/ i] spe-cies [78b] of monkeys[78bα]andapes[Co-Ord78bβ],andthentrytoinserta human pelt [79] at a suitable point [80] somewhere in this long series [81]. Wherever we put it, it looks out of place. eventually we are driven to position it right at one end [82] of the row [82b] of skins[82bα],nextto the hides [83] of the tailless great apes [83b] such as the chimpanzee [83c] and the gorilla [Co-ord 83d]. even here it is obtrusively different. the legs [84] are too long, the arms [85] are too short and the feet [86] are rather strange. Clearly this species [87] of primate [87b] has developed a special kind [88] of locomotion[88b]which[/rclause/i]hasmodifieditsbasic form [88bic]. But there is another characteristic [89] that [/r clause/ i] cries out for attention [89ib]: the skin [90] is virtually naked. except for conspicuous tufts [91] of hair[91b]onthehead[91bα],in the armpits [Co-ord 91bβ]andaround the genitals[Co-Ord91bγ],the skin surface [92] is completely exposed. When compared with the other primate species [93], the contrast [94] is dramatic. true, some species [95] of monkeys [95b] and apes [Co-ord 95c] have small naked patches [96] of skin [96b] on their rumps[97bα],their faces[Co-Ord97bβ],ortheirchests[Co-Ord97bγ],butnowhereamongst the other one hundred and ninety-two species [98] is there anything [non-sb head] even approaching [/-ing participle, i] the human condition [99i]. At this point [100] and without further investigation [101],itisjustifiabletonamethis new species [102] the ‘naked ape’ [103]. it is a simple, descrip-


tive name [104] based [/-ed participle/ i] on a simple observation [104ib], and it makes no special assumptions [105]. Perhaps it will help us to keep a sense [106] of proportion [106b] and maintain ourobjectivity [107].

Staring at this strange specimen [108] and puzzling over thesignificance [109] of its unique features [109b], the zoologist [110] now has to start making comparisons [111]. Where else is nudity [112] at a premium [113]? the other primates [114] are no help [115], so it means look-ingfartherafield.A rapid survey [116] of the whole range [116b] of the living [/-ing participle/ i] mammals [116bα] soon proves that they are remarkably attached to their protective, furry covering [117], and that very few [non-sb head] of the 4,237 species [118b] in existence[118bα]haveseenfittoabandonit.Unliketheir reptilian ancestors [119], mammals [120] have acquired the great physiological advantage [121] of being [/gerund/ i] able to maintain a constant, high body temperature [121ib]. this keeps the delicate machinery [122] of the body processes [122b] tuned in for top performance [123]. it is not a property[124]tobe[/infinitive/i]endangeredordiscarded lightly. the temperature-controlling devices [125] are of vital importance [126] and the possession [127] of a thick, hairy, insulating [/-ing participle/ i] coat [127b] obviously plays amajorrole [128] in preventing [/gerund i] heat loss [129]. in intense sunlight [130] it will also prevent over-heating [131] and damage [Co-ord 131b] to the skin[131bα]from direct exposure [132] to the sun’s [132bα]rays [132b]. if the hair [133] has to go, then clearly there must be a very powerful reason [134] for abolishing [/gerund/ i] it. With few exceptions [135] this drastic step [136] has been taken only when mammals [137] have launched themselves into an entirely new medium [138]. Theflying [/-ing participle/ i] mammals [139], the bats [139b], have been forced to denude their wings [140], but they have retained their furriness [141] elsewhere and can hardly be counted as naked species [142]. the burrowing [-ing participle/ i] mammals [143] have in a few cases [144] – the naked mole rat [144b], the aardvark [Co-ord 144c] and the armadillo [Co-ord 144d], for example – reduced their hair covering [145]. the aquatic animals [146] such as the whales [Co-ord 146b], dolphins [Co-ord 146c], porpoises [Co-ord 146d], dugongs [Co-ord 146e], manatees [Co-ord 146f] and hippopotamuses [Co-ord 146g] have also gone naked as part [147] of a general streamlining [147b]. But for all the more typical surface-dwelling mammals [148], whether scampering about on the ground [149] or clambering around in the vegetation [150], a dense hairy hide [151] is the basic rule [152]. Apart from those abnormally heavy giants [153], the rhinos [153b] and the elephants [Co-ord 153c] (which [/r clause/ i] have heating and cooling [/gerund/ ii] problems[153id]oftheirown[153idα],the naked ape [154] stands alone, [marked off by his nudity from all the thousands of hairy, shaggy or furry land-dwelling mammalian species.]

Sources

desmon Morris, The Naked Ape. triad grafton Books. london, 1977. Pp. 13–16. Kazuo ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World. Faber and Faber. london, 1990. Pp. 7–11.

References

Biber, douglas, Stig Johansson, geoffrey leech, Susan Conrad, and edward Finegan (1999) Long-man Grammar of Spoken and Written English. london: longman.

huddleston, rodney d. and geoffrey K. Pullum (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: university Press.

Quirk,randolph,SidneyGreenbaum,GeoffreyLeech,andJanSvartvik(1985)A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. london: longman.


libuše Dušková is Professor emerita of english language at the department of english language and elt Methodology, Charles university, Prague. her books include Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny (A grammar of Contemporary english against the background of Czech) and two volumes of Studies in the English Language. She is the author of the translation of Vilém Mathesius’ Obsahový rozbor současné angličtiny na základě obecně lingvistickém (A Functional Analysis of Present Day English on a General Linguistic Basis), editor of the english translation of Dictionnaire de l’École linguistique de Prague (Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics) andchiefeditoroftheinternationalacademicjournalLinguistica Pragensia. her recent research concentrates on the relations between syntax and information structure, with extension into text organization.

Address: Prof. Phdr. libuše dušková, dr.Sc., department of english language and elt Method-ology, Faculty of Arts, Charles university, nám. Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Prague 1, Czech republic. [e-mail: [email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

aleš klégr

“the FiFth element”: A remArk on the FsP FActors

Abstractit has become canonical when listing the factors signalling Functional Sentence Perspective(FSP)tonamefourofthem:linearmodification,semanticstructure,context and (emphatic, contrasting, and focusing) intonation. the paper argues for the inclusion of one more candidate for the status of a potential FSP indica-tor – typography or punctuation – to cover cases where FSP-relevant intonation is marked by typographic devices, such as italics, boldface, small capitals, etc., in written text. Acknowledgement of punctuation marking FSP-relevant prosody in writing, however marginal and discretionary, as a potential contributory fac-tor– the‘fifthelement’– indecodingFSPwouldbemethodologicallysoundand consistent. it would also be a useful antidote to the widespread practice of using self-supplied intonation in the FSP analysis of written communication, which, strictly speaking, somewhat presumptuously amounts to confusing two different modes of language and oversteps the boundary between the writer and the reader of the text.

Key wordsFSP factors; potentiality; intonation; punctuation; emphasis

information structure or Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) – as developed by Firbas (1992) and referred to in this paper – is essentially about a special type of meaning which words acquire in text/sentence, a meaning relevant to what is being communicated and integral to the import of the message. it is this mean-ing that leech (1981: 19–20), in his outline of seven types of meaning, calls “thematic meaning” and lists alongside conceptual and associative meanings. thematic meaning is described there as “what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and

54 Aleš Klégr

emphasis”. Cruse (2006: 181) goes on to add that “the two main dimensions of thematic meaning are topic vs comment and given vs new information.”Quiteclearly,thematicmeaningwithaninformation-structureindicatingfunc-

tion is not an inherent feature of linguistic units. it has to be generated each time anew with every new text/context. it arises from speaker-hearer interaction and is in principle calculable from the text. Such a description, of course, falls straight into the realm of pragmatics and, although FSP theory came into being long before and independently of the emergence of pragmatics, the investiga-tionofinformationstructureisnowadayssubsumedunderthisfieldofstudy.So,for example, horn and Ward’s (2004) The Handbook of Pragmatics devotes two chapters to FSP issues. Both of them mention Firbas (though not his compre-hensive monograph), but only the second one, gundel and Fretheim’s topic and Focus,givesduecredittotheextentofresearchintothisfieldinCzechlinguistics(175–176): “Work of the Czech linguist Mathesius in the 1920s (e.g. Mathesius 1928)initiatedarichandhighlyinfluentialtraditionofresearchinthisareawith-in the Prague School that continues to the present day (see Firbas 1966, daneš 1974, Sgall et al. 1973, Sgall et al. 1986, inter alia).”

in the Brno approach to FSP the distribution of thematic meaning in the sen-tence is viewed in terms of communicative dynamism (Cd) conveyed by the sentence elements with varying degrees of Cd. the pragmatic functional load, i.e. the degree of Cd, carried by sentence elements is computed primarily from threeFSPfactors,thelinearmodification,contextandsemanticstructureofthesentence. (the semantic factor broadly speaking refers to leech’s other types of meaning, conceptual and associative.) in the spoken language, the interplay of these factors is extended by a fourth factor, intonation (prosody). to quote Firbas (1992: 218), “intonation, which is absent from the inventory of the means of the writtenlanguage,indeedreflectstheCDdistributionasdeterminedbytheinter-play of the non-prosodic FSP factors”.

thus, decoding FSP in a written sentence, according to Firbas (1992: 219), goes by the signals provided by the (i) syntactic implementation of a given sen-tence element and its relations to other elements, which activates its semantic content and character, and/or its (ii) linear position, and/or (iii) the element’s rela-tion to the immediately relevant context. As regards intonation, Firbas explains that“[it]assertsitselfinitsspecificcontributorywayifiteffectsprosodicinten-sification,non-reevaluatingorre-evaluating,andtherebyraisesthedegreeofCDalreadyassignedtotheelementbythenon-prosodicfactors”.Hence,herejectsclaims that Cd can be equated with prosodic prominence (PP): “As a participant in the interplay of FSP factors, intonation cannot operate independently of the other FSP factors.” Firbas is said (Adam 2007: 35) to have likened it to a running attitudinal commentary on the content of the utterance, capable of changing the overall distribution of Cd, even causing the theme to become the bearer of the highest degree of Cd.

the standard description of the role of intonation as an FSP feature, i.e. the relation between the degrees of communicative dynamism and those of prosodic

55“the FiFth eleMent”: A reMArK on the FSP FACtorS

prominence (PP), appears in Chamonikolasová (1995, 2007, 2010) and Adam (2007: 35–7). there are three types of relation between Cd and PP – perfect cor-respondence, selective non-reevaluating intensification and reevaluating inten-sification.Perfectcorrespondencemeansthattheintonationcopiestheinforma-tion structure emerging from the non-prosodic factors with the rhematic element receivingthenuclearstress.Selectivenon-reevaluatingintensificationaffectingthe thematic element represents a deviation from the Cd signalled by the non-prosodicfactors.However,thethematicelement,thoughprosodicallyintensified,remains thematic and thus the PP distribution does not reevalute the Cd distribu-tion (e.g. ‘his wife is okay, but he seems to have troubles’ – with ‘he’ contras-tivelyintensified,but‘troubles’remainingprosodicallymostprominent).Finally,andmost importantly, reevaluatingprosodic intensificationdefeats, as itwere,the non-prosodic factors, alters the theme-rheme sequence they would signal in theabsenceoftheintensification,andproducesanemotionallymarkedinforma-tion structure (‘i think she is wrong. – Well, but she doesn’t.’). Accordingly, it is maintained that intonation becomes an important FSP factor only when it endows a sentence element with a marked emphasis.

the central idea of the present paper is very simple. Since thematic meaning or FSP has to be calculated, i.e. worked out on the basis of the FSP factors, and since written text offers only three such factors for FSP analysis, analysts may sometimes come up against ambiguities and potentialities and need further help in FSP inferencing. Actually, it is common practice in the FSP analysis of written data to have occasional recourse even to the fourth factor, prosody, as a means of disambiguating the theme-rheme distribution. it is interesting that the test by intonation is used by researchers who are non-native speakers of english and they report having no doubts about the correctness of their assignment of intona-tion to the written sentence. Methodologically, however, the use of self-supplied prosody in the analysis of a written text is somewhat tricky.

on the other hand, while it is generally recognized that prosody is at least partly, thoughcrudely, reflectedbyorthographicmeans, i.e.punctuation, thereseemstohavebeennosystematicstudytofindoutwhatthepunctuationpracticerelevanttotheme-rhemedistributioninEnglishislike.Itisnotdifficulttoimag-ine that the above Cd-PP typology could easily be applied to the relation between Cd and ‘typographic prominence’. Such a typology would again include perfect correspondence(typographicallyunmarked),selectivenon-reevaluatingintensifi-cation (typographically marking the thematic element without backgrounding the othernon-prosodicfactors)andfinallyreevaluatingintensification(typographi-cally re-evaluating a thematic element into rhematic).

Such a study could settle the issue to what extent punctuation and FSP are correlated, in what way, and which punctuation marks are actually used for this purpose and how often. it could resolve such questions as to whether punctuation marks are used only in the two cases mentioned above of ‘selective non-reevalu-atingintensification’withnoeffectonFSPand‘reevaluatingprosodicintensifica-tion’, resulting in emotionally marked information structure and outweighing the

56 Aleš Klégr

non-prosodic factors, or whether there are instances, for example, where punctua-tion (typographic prominence) coincides with the other FSP factors and produces a typographically extra marked rheme.

Certainly the information provided in the standard accounts of english punc-tuation is not very helpful in this respect, as a look at the two largest authoritative grammars anda sprinklingofothers shows.WhileAppendix I inQuirk et al.(1985) is described as surveying “a set of prosodic devices that help to commu-nicate grammatical and other distinctions in spoken english”, Appendix ii is said to “examine the visual devices that perform a similar role for written english”. the question is to what extent prosodic marking in speech is matched by visual marking in writing. obviously, there are limits to what typography/punctuation can do as well as limits determined by the prevailing conventions as to the use of the existing punctuation marks. A section in Appendix i called ‘Prosodic marking compared with punctuation’ (1606) points out that conventional punctuation is in many respects inadequate to deal with important aspects of prosody, “… although we can indicate emphasis in written english (usually by means of italics in print and underscoring in typescript or handwriting), we cannot distinguish emphases of radically different sound and value” as in ‘You shouldn’t give her any flow-er’; and it indicates how prosodic notation can represent these differences (‘You |shouldn’t give her ↑ÀNyflowers’|). it also shows how prosodic marking helps to identify focused items in cases like these:

|John could only SÈe his wife from the doorway| |John could only see his WÌFe from the doorway| |John could only see his wife from the dÒorway|

in Appendix ii punctuation marks are described as serving two purposes, the separationoflinguisticunitsandthespecificationofagrammatical,semantic,orpragmatic function. it is the latter purpose that appears to be potentially relevant forFSP.Punctuationusedforspecificationincludesquotationmarkswhichmay“match a heavy prosodic marking in speech” (p. 1635), but the appendix men-tions only their use to indicate “a hesitation or apologetic introduction of a doubt-ful or discordant item” or “doubtful validity”. to mark emphasis, the Appendix says, italics, underlining, wriggle underlining and occasionally capitals, bold face and small capitals are typically used (‘i told him that his ‘wife’ had come and let him know by the way i said that i didn’t think she really was his wife.’).

there is no explicit mention of the focusing function in huddleston et al. (2002). however, in their chapter on punctuation, they introduce some interesting termi-nological innovations. they call punctuation marks “and the other devices that fall within the domain of punctuation” punctuation indicators. those indicators which are potential candidates for FSP marking, i.e. italics, capital letters, bold face,andsmallcapitals,areclassifiedasnon-segmentalandviewedas‘modifi-cations’ of the default form, i.e. ordinary lower-case roman. unfortunately, no examples of punctuation indicators used as signals of emphasis are given.


By contrast, truss’s (2003) popularizing book on punctuation, without men-tioningthefocusingfunctioneither,containsseveralaccidentalexamplesinjusta few pages (105–126), illustrating a wide range of focusing devices, such as capi-tals (Crocodile dundee’s famous repartee: ‘Call that a knife? thAt’s a KniFe.’), quotation marks (‘… remember she said the comma was “servile”’?), colon (a quotefromG.B.Shaw:‘Ifindfaultwithonlythreethingsinthisstoryofyours,Jenkins: the beginning, the middle and the end.’), and italics (‘the main reason people use it, however, is that they know you can’t use it wrongly. – And we have you to thank, Special Policeman Semicolon.’).

Finally, trask (1997: 107–118) in his brief guide on punctuation explicitly men-tions and demonstrates the use of punctuation marks to indicate emphasis or con-trast.Hestartswithaspecificbrandofquotationmarks,anditisworthnoticingthat in his description he employs two more devices, italics and boldface. “What the writer is doing here is distancing himselffromtheterminquotes.…Quotationmarks used in this way are informally called scare quotes.” his example is:

the institute for Personal Knowledge is now offering a course in ‘self-aware-ness exercises’.

Speaking of italics, he has this to say: “Most commonly, italics are used for emphasis or contrast – that is, to draw attention to some particular part of a text.” here are some examples:

the Battle of new orleans was fought in January 1815, two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed.

According to the linguist Steven Pinker, ‘Many prescriptive rules of gram-mar are just plain dumb and should be deleted from the usage handbooks’ [emphasis added].

Standard english usage requires ‘insensitive’ rather than ‘unsensitive’.lemmings have, not two, but three kinds of sex chromosome.

“Thefirsttwoexamples”,heexplains,“illustrateemphasisandthelasttwoillus-trate contrast. this is the standard way of representing emphasis or contrast …” describing boldface letters (‘A colon is never followed by a hyphen or a dash’), he says “they are sometimes used to provide very strong emphasis, as an alterna-tive to italics”, and concludes by a note on small capitals, “Very occasionally, small capitals are used for emphasis, but it is usually preferable to use italics for this, or even boldface.”

the only quantitative study focusing on a punctuation mark and its uses (with possible relevance for FSP) that i have come across so far is douglas’s (2009) conference paper ‘encoding intonation. the use of italics and the Challenges forTranslation’.InitheexaminesthedistributionofitalicsintwoEnglishfic-tion texts (henry James’s What Maisie Knew, Frank o’Connor’s The Complete Stories, including the total of 278 000 tokens) and two italians texts and ana-lyzes the functions of this punctuation mark and the way it was dealt with in the respective translations into italian and english. he distinguishes between uses

58 Aleš Klégr

due to punctuation conventions (designation of titles, quotations, foreign bor-rowings, onomatopoeia, representations of dialect, narrative prominence, embed-ded quotations) and the use marking prosodic effects, i.e. tonic prominence. he findsasignificantproportionoftonic-prominenceuses(357tokens/102typesinJames, 51/36 types in o’Connor). the twenty most common italic types denoting tonic prominence, which account for 63.8 per cent of the total, include the follow-ing words (in descending frequency order): me, you, I, is, her, him, she, can, that, are, have, will, with, would, do, he, us, was, must, now.

unfortunately, the author does not examine these italic uses denoting tonic prominence from the FSP perspective and focuses on translation issues. Among otherthings,thefindingsofthepapersuggestthatthenumberofitaliciseditemsin texts may be far greater than might be expected, on the other hand their use is idiolectal and may vary greatly from author to author. next, the number of tonic-prominence cases is conspicuously high compared to convention-based uses. Finally douglas’s list of the twenty most frequent italicised words bearing tonicprominenceseemstoconfirmtheimpressionobtainedfromFSPstudiesthatitalics and intonation centre frequently co-occur in personal pronouns in cases where the FSP structure is not unambiguously indicated in the written language, i.e. in cases of potentiality. it is also clear that punctuation marks such as italics aremultifunctionalandinstancesunrelatedtoFSPhavetobefilteredoutandthatFSP-related punctutation marking is optional.

however, there is no doubt that written language does have certain systemic means whereby it can substitute for the prosodic FSP factor when the occasion arises. the relation between written and spoken language and their respective norms was of great interest to Vachek (1973, 1989). he speaks of their functional specificityandcomplementarinessandtheexistenceofcompensatorymeansineither of them (1989: 108–9). “one should only realize that opposed to the rich scale of melodic and expiratory means available to the spoken norm its written counterpart has at its disposal only a much poorer inventory of punctuation and other differentiating means (e.g. italics, bold types, spaced print, etc.).” At the same time he stresses that the written norm and its range of devices are not infe-rior, but simply different.

Speaking of style, Vachek (1989: 45–7) also draws attention to the fact that written stylistic norms and the use of punctuation may differ across languages and even across different stages of one and the same language. Among the par-allels he mentions the “use of the italic symbols, signalling the emphatic and/or emotional quality of the words or word-groups …” and quotation marks that may signal emotion and even carry a special colouring (irony or even sarcasm) in addition to other things. in russian and other languages using Cyrillic, he notes, italics are used to signal only emphasis or emotion, but not foreign words (as is common in english). in hand-written utterances, he observes, underlining can be used exclusively to signal emphasis. Finally, he mentions one other device signalling emphasis, the spacing out of graphemes which appears to be common in Czech and german, but is rarely used in english. (the list of typographic de-


vices available to signal emphasis and contrast also includes capitalization, font size, wriggly underlining, quotation marks, coloured highlighting, and possibly others.) Firbas (1954), in his article on english sentence punctuation, observes that one of the differences between english and Czech is the fact that in the english punctuation practice the emotive-volitional factor is far more prominent, although even here it is subordinate to the grammatical factor.

to sum up, we started by pointing out the pragmatic nature of the FSP mean-ing which is inferred from text by considering its linear arrangement, context and semantic structure, and in the case of spoken language, by considering its (em-phatic, contrasting, focusing) prosody. At the same time, it is taken for granted that in writing intonation relevant for FSP may be, if partially, denoted by punc-tuation (italics, etc.) or other typographic means. it was also pointed out that it is common practice to use self-supplied intonation in the FSP analysis of written communication, thus mixing up two different modes of language and blurring the distinction between the producer and the recipient of the text. Yet, punctuation, afeaturespecifictowriting,isnevermentionedasapotentialcontributoryfac-tor in decoding FSP at all. it is therefore argued, for the sake of methodological consistence and completeness, that punctuation marking FSP-relevant prosody in writing, however marginal and optional, should be listed among the four FSP factorsasthe‘fifthelement’fromwhichFSPmaybeinferred.

References

Adam, Martin (2007) A Handbook of Functional Sentence Perspective. Brno: Masarykova univer-zita.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (1995) ‘intonation centre in english and Czech sentences’. Brno Studies in English 21, 9–15.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (2007) Intonation in English and Czech Dialogues. Brno: Masarykova univerzita.

Chamonikolasová, Jana (2010) ‘Communicative dynamism and prosodic prominence of pronouns in english and Czech’. in: Procházka, Martin, Markéta Malá and Pavlína šaldová (eds.) The Prague School and Theories of Structure. göttingen: V&r unipress, 143–162.

Cruse, Alan (2006) A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. edinburgh: edinburgh university Press.

daneš, František (1974) Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective. the hague: Mouton de gru-yter.

douglas, Peter (2009) Encoding Intonation. The Use of Italics and the Challenges for Translation. Corpus linguistics Conference, 5th Corpus linguistics Conference, 2009, 20–23 July 2009, uni-versity of liverpool, uK, <http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/publications/cl2009/#papers>.

Firbas,Jan(1954)‘Anglickávětnáinterpunkce’.Časopis pro moderní filologii, 36(3), 152–164. Firbas, Jan (1992) Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge university Press.Firbas, Jan (1966) ‘Non-thematic subjects in contemporary English’. Travaux linguistiques de

Prague 2, 239–256.gundel, Jeanette K. and thorstein Fretheim (2004) ‘topic and focus’. in: horn, laurence r. and

gregory Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

60 Aleš Klégr

horn, laurence r. and gregory Ward (eds.) (2004) The Handbook of Pragmatics. oxford: Black-well Publishing.

huddleston, rodney and geoffrey K. Pullum (2002) Cambridge Grammar of the English Lan-guage. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

leech, geoffrey (1981) Semantics. harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Mathesius, Vilém ([1928]1967) ‘on linguistic characterology with illustrations from modern eng-

lish’. reprinted in Vachek, Josef (ed.) A Prague School Reader in Linguistics. Bloomington, in: indiana university Press, 59-67.

Quirk,randolph,SidneyGreenbaum,GeoffreyLeechandJanSvartvik(1985)A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. london: longman.

Sgall,Petr,EvaHajičová,andJarmilaPanevová(1986)The Meaning of the Sentence in its Seman-tic and Pragmatic Aspects. dordrecht: reidel.

Sgall,Petr,EvaHajičová,andEvaBenešová(1973)Topic, Focus, and Generative Semantics. Kro-nberg: Scriptor Verlag gmbh.

trask, r. lawrence (1997) Penguin Guide to Punctuation. harmondsworth: Penguin Books.truss, lynn (2003) East, Shoots & Leaves. london: ProfileBooks.Vachek, Josef (1973) Written Language. the hague: Mouton. Vachek, Josef (1989) Written Language Revisited.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins.

aleš klégr is Professor of english linguistics at the department of english language and elt Methodology, Faculty of Arts, Charles university, Prague. he specializes in english lexicology and lexicography. his publications include the monographs The Noun in Translation (1996) and Eng-lish Complex Prepositions of the Type in spite of and Analogous Sequences (2002), translation of Josef Vachek’s Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics(2003;withL.Dušková,J.Čermák,M. Malá, and P. šaldová), bilingual collocational dictionaries, e.g., Czech-English Combinatory Dictionary: Noun and Verb (2005; with P. Key and n. hronková), and the roget-style onomasio-logical dictionary of Czech, Tezaurus jazyka českého (2007).

Address: Prof. Phdr. Aleš Klégr, CSc., department of english language and elt Methodology, Faculty of Arts, Charles university, nám. Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Praha 1, Czech republic. [email: [email protected]]

PArt two

PrAgmAtic mArkers AnD Discourse segments


iSSn 0524-6881

karin aiJmer

Please: A Politeness FormulA vieweD in A trAnslAtion PersPective

AbstractMany languages have a marker of politeness such as please associated with the making of a request (e.g. german bitte, French s’il vous plaît). Swedish on the other hand does not have a routinised politeness marker corresponding to please. the present paper studies the correspondences of please in Swedish in order to get a closer picture of its different functions in english and its translation cor-respondences. it is shown on the basis of translations that please is used both asastandardisedstrategyinsocialsituationsandasawayofavoidingconflictby being tactful. When please is associated with social politeness it is translated by var så god. the tactful or strategic please signals intensity, emphasis and power and has emotional side-effects. it is never translated as var så god. it is shown that the functions of please depend both on the social situation and on the patterns where it occurs (e.g. position in the utterance and the grammatical context.

Key wordsSocial politeness; illocutionary force; pragmatic marker; contrastive; parallel corpus; tact

1. Introduction

the little word please has recently attracted considerable interest (house 1989, Fraser 1996, Wichmann 2004, Sato 2008).1 According to Fraser (1996), please is a pragmatic idiom signalling illocutionary force: “[w]hen please occurs before an imperative structure, it signals that the speaker intends the utterance to be taken as a request, and only as a request” (Fraser 1996: 174). in addition to (illocution-ary) force it has been suggested that please marks politeness. According to Wich-

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mann (2004: 1524) “the word please in contemporary usage is […] undeniably associated very closely with being ‘polite’”. We can conclude that please occurs‘with a varying degree of politeness and directive force’ (Sato 2008: 1250).

A cross-linguistic analysis based on the comparison between english and Swedish will be the starting-point for discussing the politeness and illocutionary force expressed by please. translations can focus on the illocutionary force as-sociated with please or on its use as a politeness marker depending on different linguistic and non-linguistic features present in the speech situation.

Many languages have a marker such as please associated with requests (es-pecially the imperative) and with politeness (e.g. german bitte, French s’il vous plaît). Swedish differs from german or French in that it does not have a routinised politeness or force marker corresponding to please. ohlander (1985) refers to ‘the chronic shortage’ of a universal politeness marker in Swedish of the same type which is found in english and in many other languages. the rules of usage may also be different. For example, german speakers use bitte more frequently than english speakers use please in everyday request situations (house 1989: 97).

there is no direct correspondence of please in Swedish. however we can look at its translations into Swedish (as well as looking back at the Swedish sources when please is used in english translations). translators have to make decisions about what please means on the basis of analysing its functions in the source language. their decisions are based on the relationship between the speaker and hearer, degree of formality and the extent to which the situation has become routi-nised.

the outline of the paper is as follows. the distribution of the correspondences in the material will be discussed in Section 2. Section 3 deals with the functions of please on the basis of the translations. the conclusion in Section 4 discusses the two types of politeness signalled by please.

2. Material

We can study the ways in which please is translated on the basis of the english-SwedishParallelcorpus(ESPC)(AltenbergandAijmer2000).Thecorpuscon-sists of roughly 3 million words of english texts translated into Swedish and a similar amountofSwedish textswithEnglishcorrespondences.Bothfictionandnon-fiction textshavebeencollected in roughly the sameproportions (40texts each of 10,000–15,000 words).

translations will be the raw material for the discussion of please and polite-ness. the direct confrontation involved in translating from one language to an-other makes it possible to establish (translation) paradigms displaying the ways in which a particular element has been translated. table 1 shows the paradigm resulting from extracting the translations of please in the eSPC.

the examples of please in the english originals can be assumed to be rep-resentative of how the word is used in english although the examples are few.

65PLEASE: A PoliteneSS ForMulA VieWed in A trAnSlAtion PerSPeCtiVe

there were 65 examples of please in english original texts, eight of which were examples of the verb please (including one example of if you please) and there-fore not counted. in order to study the polite please Ihaveusedonlyfictiontexts.the examples can be taken to represent natural speech since all (except three) ex-amplesoccurindirectquotations.Thefictionalcharactershavedifferentspeakerand hearer roles (involving more or less power) and several types of social situa-tions and scenarios are represented.

Table 1. Swedish translations of please in fiction texts in the ESPC (english originals Swedish translations)

(åh) snälla (X) with the variants var snäll och, snälla du/ni, är ni snäll; kära(oh dear (X), be so kind and, dear you, are you kind, dear)

29

Ja tack (gärna) with the variant gärna(yes thank you willingly)

4

Var vänlig och with the variants var bussig och, är ni hyggliga (be kind (and), are you kind)

5

Kan kanske (perhaps) 1Så ska ni få höra, säger jag (i say, listen to this) 1Var så god with the variant var god ‘be so good and’, ‘be good’ 2Ø 10other 5

A comment on the translations: Swedish has no politeness marker corresponding to (all the functions of) eng-

lish please. As a result there is not a single translation correspondence. the translations can be distinguished by their different meanings although this

isnotclearfromthemeaningoftheadjectivesused(snäll, vänlig, god). the fol-lowing invented examples (translations of please sit down) have different mean-ings depending on several different factors such as the authority of the speaker and whether the situation is regarded as routinised or negotiated by the speaker and hearer.

a. Var snäll och sätt dig (i urge you to sit down)b. Var så god och sitt ner (do sit down)

We can also change the translation direction and study please in translations from Swedish. table 2 shows the words and constructions in the Swedish source texts. if please is translated by a construction with snäll(a) (var snäll och), vänlig (var vänlig och), or var så god we would expect these constructions to be the source of please in the Swedish original texts. this is indeed the case. the translator has

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also used please when the Swedish original explicitly marks illocutionary force (jag ber dig ‘i ask you’).

Table 2. Please inEnglish translationsofSwedishoriginals infiction texts ineSPC (Swedish originals english translations)

Please added with no correspondence in the source text 16Snälla (including snälla snälla counted as one example) 3Var så god(a) with the variant var god(a) ‘be (so) good’ 3Vill du (will you) 2Gärna with variant för all del ‘willingly’, ‘by all means’ – only as a response

2

Vill ni vara så vänliga och with the variant vill du vara vänlig och ‘will you be (so) kind and’

2

Det går bra att (‘it goes well to’) 1Så ber jag dig (‘so ask i you’) 1Jag vill att (‘i will that’) 1Säger jag (‘i say’) 1

the frequencies of the correspondences should also be noted. Johansson (2007: 32) mentions please as an example of a word which does not have a straightfor-ward counterpart in norwegian and is therefore underused in translations from Norwegian.Wefindasimilar imbalancewhenwecompare thedistributionofplease in english originals and english translations in the eSPC. A comparison between table 1 and table 2 shows that snälla is used less frequently in Swed-ish originals than in the translation. (29 examples in translations, 3 examples in Swedish originals).

Moreover please has been added in a large number of examples (i.e. the op-posite of omission in translations from original texts). Addition (like omission) is interesting from a typological or cross-linguistic perspective.

Addition can be interpreted as the translator’s response to the whole context,reflectingcross-linguisticdifferencesinthesortofmeaningsthatare conventionally expressed in natural discourse. (Johansson 2007: 26)

the reason for the addition of please in ‘back-translations’ may be that formulaic politeness markers are needed in some situations in english when they are not needed in Swedish.

the translations are interesting because they give an indication of when polite-nessispurelyformalandwhenitisusedstrategicallytoavoidconflict.Theyalsoindicate that please is not only a politeness marker but a marker of illocutionary force linked to the speaker’s authority. the patterns with please will be further analysed in Section 3.


3. Analysing patterns with please

Please occurs with imperatives and with indirect requests. there were 12 differ-ent patterns shown in the table below:

Table 3. Please in different patterns in english original texts

Please + imperative 26imperative + please 3Could you please 1Could I … please 1Please would nP VP 1Please will you 1Would nP VP please 1Please + wh question 1Wh-question + please 1nAMe + please 2Yes please 2Please 1

Please canbeplacedinitially,finallyandmedially(oralone)whichexplainsthelarge number of patterns. We can see that although many patterns are represented, the pattern ‘please + imperative’ is dominant. 26 out of 57 examples occurred with an imperative (29 out of 57 examples if the pattern ‘imperative + please’ is included).ThisissimilartothehighfiguresfoundbySato2 (2008) for American andNewZealandEnglish(cf.alsoAijmer1996whofoundthatplease was more frequent with imperatives than with indirect requests in the london-lund Cor-pus). indirect requests in the form of a question included could you, could I (abil-ity), would NP, will you (willingness), (so-called query-preparatory requests). the pattern yes please is restricted to formulaic responses to offers.

Please was rarely used with indirect requests. however many examples from non-fiction(notpartofthestudy)haveanindirectformwill you please, would you please, could you please which suggests that stylistic differences such as degree of formality are involved. in the rest of the paper i will use translations to unpack the functions of please.

3.1. Please and imperatives

Please tends to be neglected as a linguistic item because it is above all associated with social behaviour. it is formulaic and is used in social situations “character-izedbyroutineandrecurrence”(Aijmer1996).Aclearexampleofasocialsitua-tion where the polite ‘please’ is expected is in the response to an offer. People are

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expected to say yes please (or yes thank you) when they are offered something because it is socially appropriate.

Social politeness is rooted in people’s needs for smoothly organized interaction with other members of the group. As member of groups, people must behave in more or less predictable ways in order to achieve social coordination and sustain communication. one way of doing this is to follow conventional or social politeness. (Janney and Arndt 2005: 22–23)

other recurrent social situations are for instance asking someone to sit down, to come in, to have something more to eat, to wait on the telephone, etc. in recurrent social situations please has little meaning although its absence might be noticed and associated with sanctions.

the translations of please preceded or followed by an imperative show that there are several different uses of please. to express social conventionalized po-liteness the translator has used var så god. (1) “You’re letting the cold in.” listen to how his wife spoke to him. no respect. diana smiled and said, “Please come in.” normally, nothing would have induced Wilf to leave the doorstep and

enter a house full of hell Close women, but he had to see diana, listen to her lovely voice.(St1)3

“du släpper in kylan.” hör bara hur hans fru talade till honom. ingen respekt. diana log och sa: “Var så god och stig in.” i vanliga fall skulle ingenting ha kunnat få Wilf att lämna trappan och

gå in i ett hus fullt av kvinnor från lusgränd, men han måste se diana, lyssna till hennes underbart vackra röst.

other situations where please corresponds to ‘var så god(a) och’ are (2) ‘asking someone to sit down’ and (3) asking someone to (sit down and) have a bun.

(2) Wallander was surprised by the man’s forthright statement. “let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Please sit down.” i’m afraid the chair’s a bit old. (hM2t)


Wallander blev överraskad av mannens direkthet.-Vifårtadethelafrånbörjan,sahan.

Var så god och sitt. tyvärr år stolen dålig.

(3) “they’ve no sense of humour,” said igor. “May i have a bun?”) “Yes, of course, please do, and please do take a seat,” said elsa. “I’lljustgoandfetchthecoffee.” (ArP1t)

— dom har ingen humor, sa igor. Får man ta en bulle? — Ja varsågoda och slå er ner, sa elsa. Jag ska hämta kaffepannan.

Var så god is the only conventionalized politeness marker in Swedish.4 the trans-lation shows if the translator has regarded politeness as purely conventional or as more strategic. in (4) the choice of an indirect request in the translation suggests that the speaker considers the hearer’s face needs:

(4) But at that moment the mirrored door at the rear of the shop opened and LouisZablonskycameout.Hewasashort,wizenedmanoffifty-six,butlooked older.“Mr James,” he beamed, “how nice to see you.”

Pleasecomeintomyoffice. “how have you been keeping?” (FF1)

Men i det ögonblicket öppnades den spegelklädda dörren längst in i affären, och louis Zablonsky kom ut.han var en kortväxt och skrumpen femtiosexåring, men han såg äldre ut.

“Mr James,” sa han och log brett, “så trevligt att se er igen. Vill ni inte stiga in på mitt kontor? hur har ni haft det?”

(literally:willyounotstepintomyoffice)

in the following example the translator has added please going from the Swedish source text to the english target. Please is enforced by the social situation and social rules for what is appropriate. the absence of a correspondence in Swedish reflectsthefactthatSwedishdoesnotneedtouseapolitenessmarker:

(5) “Can’t you say who it is you want to talk to?” “no, no, that’s not necessary... please excuse me.”

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it sounded as if the receiver had been put down. (Mg1t)

— Kan du inte säga vem du vill tala med?—Nejnej,detbehövsinte...ursäktamej.här lät det som om luren lades på.

As has been observed by ohlander (1985) var så god och and var vänlig och (var snäll och) are quite different as translations. using Sato’s (2008) terms we can refer to var så god as ‘submissive’ and var snäll och (and variants) as volitional or intentional. the politely submissive variant has become associated with social appropriateness (in Swedish) rather than var snäll och which is used for strategic politeness or ‘being tactful’. Var snäll och expresses the speaker’s involvement and assertiveness:

(6) Miss honey looked carefully at the tiny girl with dark hair and a round serious face sitting in the second row.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Please stand up and recite as much of it as you can.” Matilda stood up and began to say the two-times table. (rd1)

FrökenHonungbetraktadeingåendedenlillaflickanmeddetmörkahåretoch det runda allvarliga ansiktet som satt i andra raden.

“Vad bra!” sa hon. “Var snäll och res dig upp och läs upp tvåans tabell så långt du kan.” Matildarestesiguppochbörjaderabblatvåanstabell. (rd1t)

Please in the volitional meaning can be impolite and brusque even when polite-ness is signalled: “the speaker manipulates the recipient’s knowledge of please as a courtesy token, thereby using politeness as a warrant for delivering the as-sertive act” (Sato 2008: 1273–1274). When please is used strategically it can be associated with power and authority. in (6) ‘Miss honey’ is in a position of au-thority or power in relation to the ‘tiny girl with dark hair’ because of the teaching situation. Authority and power with implications such as urgency or insistence, impoliteness, annoyance are suggested by the translations.

urgency can be suggested by the translator’s glöm inte (‘don’t forget’):

(7) “Please let old Victor know our troubles. Hecan’tfixwhathedoesn’tknow. And — please — wish Victor happy Birthday from us all.” (JC1)


“ni kan väl tala med Victor om saken är ni snäll. Hankanjuintegöranågotåtdetomhanintefårredapådet. och glöm inte att gratulera honom från oss alla!”

irritation and impatience are expressed by the translation in (8):

(8) “Ifthere’sanywayIcanhelpwiththat,justletme—” “Andrew! Please be serious.” “Can’t.” (Ah1)

“Omjagkanhjälpadigmeddetpånågotsätt,ärdetbaraattsägatill…” “Andrew! Försök vara allvarlig.” “det går inte.” lit. ‘try to be serious’

Please is assertive, involved and emotional. the translator has used försök(a) ‘try’ which suggests that the hearer does not want to make an effort. Please in the example above is associated with ‘being tactful’ (Janney and Arndt 2005), i.e. with a more strategic use of politeness in communication. “the speaker does not only behave in a socially appropriate way but uses please strategically to avoidconflictsandtoestablishpositivesocialrelations”.Translatingplease in-volves more than simply looking for a correspondence in the other language. the translator has to consider who the speaker is, the social goal as well as intended or non-intended effects in order to choose the appropriate translation. As shown by the example above ‘the tactful’ please can also be impolite when it displays emotion.

the translation can also render the illocutionary force associated with please. Please is used to make a strong demand as suggested by the translation jag måste be er ‘i must ask you’ (not to do something).

(9) “how can you call it customer service when you don’t do shit?”her mouth turned prim.

“Please don’t use language like that around me. it’s very offensive.” (Sg1)

“Hurkannikalladetkundtjänstnärniintehjälpertillmedettskit?” hennes mun drogs till en pryd grimas.

“Jag måste be er att inte använda sådant språk.det är mycket obehagligt.”lit. ‘i have to ask you’

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Please expresses both illocutionary force and (im)politeness as shown by the translations. in (10) the translator has chosen säger jag (i say this) to emphasise that the speaker will not tolerate a refusal:

(10) Please order a taxi. (MS1t) Vill du beställa en taxi, sägerjag

A ‘strong’, authoritative request needs to be distinguished from an appeal (a per-suasive demand or a plea). in (11) the speaker uses the appealing please because the hearer is unwilling to comply with the speaker’s wishes. the translator has chosen the vocative snälla du (‘kind you’, ‘dear’) to render appeal.

(11) “i don’t think i want to say it, Miss honey.”“Please tell it,” Miss honey said.

“i promise i won’t mind.”(rd1)

“Jagtrorinteattjagvillläsauppden,frökenHonung.” “Snälla du, gör det,” sa fröken honung. “Jag lovar att inte bli förnärmad.”

3.2. Translations of indirect requests

An indirect request pays attention to the social relationship with the hearer (stra-tegically tactful behaviour). Please was never translated as snälla suggesting that please is not used for appeal in this context. Could you please and Could I … please are used for requests and not for questioning. Please is therefore primarily a request marker.

(12) Celiastartedtosay,“Dowehavetime?”butwasunabletofinishbecauseAndrew was kissing her.Moments later, he murmured, “Could you please clear that bed?”reaching behind, without looking and with one arm around Andrew, Celiabegantothrowclothesonthefloor.(Ah1)

Celiabörjadesäga:“Hinnervi?”menhonkundeinteavslutameningeneftersom Andrew kysste henne.några ögonblick senare mumlade han: “Kan du ta bort de där sakerna från sängen?”hon sträckte handen bakåt utan att se sig om och med andra armen runt Andrew,ochbörjadeslänganerklädernapågolvet.


Kan kanske (‘can perhaps’) suggests that please can in addition be used as a miti-gating politeness marker:

(13) “Wonderful,” Macon said. he cleared his throat. “So could i have him back, please?” (At1)

“underbart,” sade Macon. han harklade sig. “då kanjagkanske få honom tillbaka.”

3.3. Translation of elliptical forms

Please with elliptical forms is only found in recurrent social situations, for exam-ple to ask a person to wait on the telephone or to ask for a drink at a restaurant. Please is used as a force idiom which need not be translated since the (institution-alised) context makes it clear that a request is made.

(14) “Yes, that’s me.” “one moment, please. i have a call for you from the village of Frankenstein.” (ArP1t)

—Ja,detärjag! — ett ögonblick. det kommer samtal från byn Frankenstein.

in (15) the translator’s choice of the imperative conveys the requestive function:

(15) oh dear, i think i caught a chill sitting there watching out for hares.innkeeper, a glass of mulled wine, please.

(ArP1t)Oj,jagtrorjagblevkallnärjagsattochluradepåharen—Krögare, ge mejettglasvarmglögg!

3.4. Translations of the pattern (yes) please

Yes please occurs in the response to an offer with a softening function. the translation (ja tack ‘yes thank you’) indicates the close similarity between please and thanking. Gärna expresses the hearer’s willingness to accept the offer (gärna ‘willingly’).

74 KArin AiJMer

(16) “that never occurred to me. More champagne?” “Yes, please.”

(Ah1)

“Detharjagaldrigtänktpå. Mer champagne?” “Ja tack.”

3.5. Translations of freestanding please

When please occurs alone it can be preceded by oh, it can be repeated, and ac-companied by a name referring to the person addressed. Please in this function has been described as an attention-getter (Sato 2008). its main function is to in-fluence another individual’s behaviour. In the example below it expresses thespeaker’s desperation:

(17) Notfromexcitement,butfromanxietythatshewouldn’tbeabletofindtherightwordsofpraisewhenshefinallygotthewrappingsoffandopened the box.She didn’t pray to god, because she hadn’t heard about him yet, but she repeated over and over again to herself:

“Please, please, i must be pleased, i must be pleased… pleased.”(Mr1t) Inteavspänningutanavängslanföratthoninteskullekunnafinnaderättaglad-orden,närhonäntligenhadelyckatsfåavhöljetochöppnatasken.hon bad inte till gud, för hon hade inte hört talas om honom utan upprepadetystförsigsjälv.— Snälla, snälla,jagmåstebliglad…jagmåstebliglad…glad.

Please does not have a mitigating or illocutionary force function but is strongly emotional (as indicated by snälla).

4. Conclusion

Please isbothastructurallyandfunctionallyflexibleelementasshownbythemany patterns in which it occurs. Sato (2008) has for instance shown that please has different functions depending on its position in the utterance. Another im-portant factor is the type of sentence pattern (e.g. whether please occurs with an imperative or an indirect requestive form). the close analysis of the correspon-


dences of please suggests that politeness can be realized in different ways. the use of please is regulated by ‘politeness conventions’ providing a ‘framework of standardised strategies for getting gracefully into, and back out of, a recurring social situation’ (Janney and Arndt 2005: 23). this is social politeness illustrated in the Swedish translation ‘var så god’. Please can be idiomatic but it can also be used strategically in a number of ways including being impolite in a polite way. this type of politeness has been described by Brown and levinson (1987) and also by Janney and Arndt (2005) who speak about ‘tact’ rather than face-saving. tact is not governed by social conventions but involves the strategic calculation ofhowconflictcanbeavoided.“Beingtactfulisnotsimplyamatterofbehavingin a socially ‘correct’ way – i.e., following rules of social usage; rather it is a mat-ter of behaving in an interpersonally supportive way” (Janney and Arndt 2005: 23).Examplesofconflict-avoidingstrategiesareforinstanceindirectformsrath-er than direct ones, clustering of polite ‘mitigating’ features, a special prosody, repetition, use of names, etc.

the distinction between please as a conventionalised politeness marker in re-current situations and please imposing on the hearer to do something is supported by translations. Swedish var så god signals empty or social politeness in recur-rent social situations. it cannot be replaced by var snäll och (or a variant) which is assertive or brusque rather than polite. on the other hand, var snäll och can signal intensity, emphasis and power and has side-effects such as impatience and urgency (strategic or volitional tactful behaviour). the use of please to make per-suasive appeals is at the most volitional end of tactful uses (indicated by transla-tions such as snälla du/ni, snälla + name).

Notes

1 For an overview of the extensive literature on please see Sato (2008).2 40 out of 100 examples (Ame) and 34 out of 100 examples (nZe).3 St refers to the name of the author (Sue townsend).4 however ohlander (1985) shows that there are examples in presentday colloquial Swedish

where snälla has become a routinised politeness marker (without any meaning of ‘appeal’).

Primary sources

English originals

Ah Arthur hailey, Strong Medicine. Michael Joseph ltd. london 1984.At Anne tyler, The Accidental Tourist. Alfred A. Knopf. new York 1985.FF Frederick Forsyth, The Fourth Protocol. hutchinson. london 1984.JC Jim Crace, Arcadia. Jonathan Cape. london 1992.rd roald dahl, Matilda.PuffinBooks.London1988.

76 KArin AiJMer

Sg Sue grafton, “D” is for Deadbeat. Pan Books ltd. london 1990.St Sue townsend. The Queen and I. Methuen london 1992.

Swedish originals

ArP Allan rune Pettersson, Frankensteins faster – igen. Bonniers Juniorför-lag. Stockholm 1989.

hM henning Mankell, Den vita lejoninnan ordfront. Stockholm 1993.Mg Maria gripe, Agnes Cecilia. Bonniers Juniorförlag. Stockholm 1981.Mr Maud reuterswärd, Flickan och dockskåpet. Bonniers Juniorförlag

Stockholm 1979.MS Maria Scherer, Kejsarvalsen. Albert Bonniers Förlag. Stockholm 1983.

References

Aijmer,Karin (1996)Conversational Routines in English: Convention and Creativity. london: longman.

Altenberg,BengtandKarinAijmer(2000)‘TheEnglish-SwedishParallelCorpus:Aresourceforcontrastive research and translation studies’. in: Mair, Christian and Marianne hundt (eds.) Cor-pus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Papers from the 20th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (iCAMe 20) Freiburg im Breisgau, 1999. Am-sterdam & Philadelphia: rodopi, 15–33.

Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. levinson (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Us-age. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

Fraser, Bruce (1996) ‘Pragmatic markers’. Pragmatics, 167–190. house, Juliane (1989) ‘the functions of please and bitte’. in: Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane

house, and gabriele Kasper (eds.) Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. nor-wood: Ablex, 96–119.

Janney, richard W. and horst Arndt (2005) ‘intracultural tact versus intercultural tact’. in: Watts, richard J., Sachiko ide, and Konrad ehlich (eds.) Politeness in Language. Berlin: Mouton de gruyter, 21–41.

Johansson, Stig (2007) Seeing through Multilingual Corpora. On the use of Corpora in Contrastive Studies.Amsterdam&Philadelphia:JohnBenjamins.

ohlander, Sölve (1985) ‘“Snälla ta med brickan!” om ett nytt uttryck för hövlighet i svenskan’. Språkvård 3, 4–15.

Sato, Shie (2008) ‘use of ‘please’ in American and new Zealand english’. Journal of Pragmatics 40, 1249–1278.

Wichmann, Anne (2004) ‘the intonation of please-requests: a corpus-based study’. Journal of Pragmatics 36, 1521–1549.

karin aiJmer is professor emerita of english linguistics at the university of gothenburg, Sweden. her research interests focus on spoken english, corpus linguistics, contrastive analysis, modality, discoursemarkersandphraseology.Sheisengagedinvariousresearchprojectsonlearnercorporaand on parallel corpora. She is the author of Conversational Routines in English: Convention and Creativity, longman (1996), English Discourse Particles. Evidence from a Corpus, Benjamins


(2002), co-author of The Semantic Field of Modal Certainty: A Study of Adverbs in English (2007), editor of Dialogue Analysis VIII: Understanding and Miunderstanding in Dialogue. Selected Pa-pers from the 8th IADA Conference, Göteborg 2001, niemeyer (2004), and co-editor of Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora,Benjamins(2004),Advances in Corpus Linguistics. Pa-pers from the 23rd International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Cor-pora (ICAME 23), Göteborg 22-26 May 2002, rodopi (2004) and Pragmatic Markers in Contrast, elsevier (2006). She has had a large number of articles published in the areas of spoken english, pragmatics and discourse.

Address:ProfessorKarinAijmer,DepartmentofLanguagesandLiteratures,UniversityofGothen-burgBox200,40530Göteborg,Sweden.[email:[email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

angela Downing

surely As A mArker oF DominAnce AnD entitlement in the crime Fiction oF P.D. JAmes

Abstractin this study i make the claim that the pragmatic marker surely is used in Brit-ish english to externalise a speaker’s bid for dominance at a particular point in interactive discourse. in so doing the speaker positions himself/ herself towards other speakers within the contextual setting. the position of surely in the sen-tence as well as the position in which it occurs in the sequence of talk contribute to the different strengths and types of stance in context. the data used are drawn fromthreeofthecrimefictionnovelsofP.D.James.Thismaterialallowsthereaderaccesstotheillusion,firstofinteractionsimilarinsomewaystonaturallyoccurring talk and second, to that of entering characters’ minds. Self-question-ing is one of the functions served by surely in the novelist’s representation of thought.

Key wordsPragmatic marker; surely; dominance; entitlement; stance; discourse; fiction; P.D. James

1. Introduction

At a recent conference in Spain during which i read a paper on the historical evolution of surely, question time produced an immediate comment from a young British delegate sitting in the front row. it was as follows:

(1) “i don’t like people who use surely; they make themselves superior to you. When i was at school, the headmaster used to stand by my desk look-ing down at me and would say ‘Surely you can do better that that!’”

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Thisanecdoteisneitherfictionalnorattestedinwriting.Itisanaccountbyare-liable source of an event that occurred more than once. Both the young man’s spontaneous comment and the unequal power relations evident in the scenario pointtothesubjectivityofsurely and the sense of entitlement on which uses such as this are based.

in this respect the anecdote illustrates Brazil’s (1985) postulate of a general condition of shared understanding of which participant is in control of the discourse at any one time. teachers, doctors, interviewers are the ones who ask questions; traditionally they are the ones in control, although students, patients and interviewees may compete for control. Where there is no prior distribution of roles, there may be an ongoing, albeit incipient, competition for dominance (1985: 131). the dominant speaker, Brazil claims, has the choice of superimposing or not superimposing on an utterance an increment of communicative value that he terms ‘dominance’. this is achieved in Brazil’s account by prosodic means. the non-dominant speaker does not have this choice, unless s/he is making a bid for dominance.

in effect, evidence is provided by the london-lund corpus of a rise-fall tone and heavy stress accompanying initial surely in an almost identical sequence: but, “s^urely# you can, in which the quote-like sign stands for heavy stress and the hatch # marks the end of a tone unit (5-2k). For much of the time, Brazil notes, role distribution is probably not an issue. But when it is, conspicuous adoption of the tone, whose use is reserved for ‘superior’ participants, externalises the speaker’s claim to that role (Brazil 1985: 131).

in this ongoing research, i put forward the claim that in present-day British english the pragmatic marker surely can be used to externalise and index domi-nance in varying degrees in interactive discourse. in Brazil’s terms, it may be considered, in purpose-driven, language as an ‘incremental’ step in an utterance. i would go further and claim that part of the purpose in using surely is to index the current speaker’s authority and entitlement.

2. Materials and scope of the study

in this study i am interested in ascertaining whether the role of surely as stated aboveisreflectedinthediscourseofP.D.James’crimefictionandtowhateffect.TothisendmydatahavebeengatheredfromthreeofP.D.James’scrimefictionnovels, randomly selected, namely Shroud for a Nightingale (Sn), The Murder Room (Mr) and Innocent Blood (iB). Formycurrentpurposefictionaldialoguehasbothadvantagesanddisadvan-

tages. one disadvantage is what norman Page calls “the inevitable gap – wider or narrower at different times, but never disappearing entirely – between speech, especially in informal situations, and even the most ‘realistic’ dialogue in a work of literature” (Page 1988: 7). Ontheotherhandfictionaldialogueis,againaccordingtoPage,“oftencharac-

terised by a greater density of features which may well be found to appear, only

81SURELy AS A MArKer oF doMinAnCe And entitleMent

much more thinly distributed, in real speech…” (1988: 11). i consider it a further advantageinJames’sfictionthatbothdialogueandnarrativeprovideabundantclues in their choice of lexis as to how certain utterances might be interpreted and responded to. By contrast, much recorded natural dialogue in corpora, unless video-recordedorannotatedforprosodicfeatures,providesaninsufficientlyclearreflectionoftheinteractivesituation,includingthosepersonalandsocialfactorsthatinfluencetherelationshipsbetweentheparticipantsandthatwillbereflectedin their talk.

3. Positions and functions of surely

As in a previous study in which tokens were taken from the BnC (downing 2001), the current tokens of surely were sorted according to the different posi-tions that surely is able to occupy in present-day english. Present-day surely is flexiblewithregardtopositionintheclauseinthatitcanoccurinitially,internallyandfinallywithinasentenceorutterance.Theseareillustratedinexamples2,3and 4 respectively.

When initial, as in (2), surelyhas thestatusofadisjunctandhaswithin itsscope the whole of the following clause or sentence. “initial position can readily be associated with this principle of ‘inclusiveness’. the adverb establishes the modal theme of the utterance and gives it prominence through an extensive as-sociation with the modal auxiliary” (Bolinger 1972: 34), quoted in hoye (1997: 201). in speech, initial surely is tonic and may take up a whole tone unit, depend-ing on the force the speaker wishes to give it. Position, stress and the fact that surely has become largely desemanticised enable the surely-user to take up a po-sition of greater or lesser strength vis-à-vis the addressee, in order to challenge or contradict a prior utterance and to make a counter-claim. Paraphrases such as ‘as maybeconfidentlysupposed’,‘asmustbethecase’,‘maynotonebesurethat…’are suggested by the Shorter oed 1973 edition, but one should be aware that these are purely orientative and are not idiomatic substitutes for the word itself.

(2) “Annie and i thought we might open a restaurant close to the campus of one of the modern universities. Annie’s quite keen except that she feels we should do something socially useful.”

“Surely few things are more socially useful than providing the young with decent food at reasonable prices.”

“When it comes to spending a million, Annie thinks internationally. She has something of a Mother teresa complex.” (Mr 42)

Clause-internal surelyasin(3)followsthesubjectandprecedesthemainverb.the modal auxiliaries must, can, will, ought, should frequently combine and in-teract dynamically with surely. the position adopted by surely tends to be post-modal and is attested as such in my data. Pre-modal position is not common, but is

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attested in the BnC in elliptic utterances as in “…as they surely must”. i suggest that this order is conditioned by information structure; the modal has necessarily to receive end-weight otherwise surelyisleftinfinalpositionasaparenthetical:“…as they must, surely”, thus producing a different kind of meta-message.

Clause internal surely tends to be less forceful than initial surely. it reaches out totheaddress,seekingagreementorcollaboration.Withthesubjectpronounwe, the dialogic dimension of surely is preponderant, while thereassubjectismoreimpersonal or tentative. Semantically, surelycanindexvariousdegreesofconfi-dence in medial position, ‘almost certainly’ being an acceptable paraphrase:

(3) “Mr dalgliesh, there’s one thing i want to say. i feel … i am in loco parentis to my students. if ever any question…if you should begin to sus-pect that any one of them is involved, i can rely on you to let me know? … there would surely be the question of a solicitor. (Sn 92)

Final surely is parenthetical, and functions as a question tag, as in (4). like gram-maticalquestiontags,itseeksconfirmationoragreement.Inaddition,parentheti-cal surely can be interpolated in other positions within the clause, as in (5).

(4) “Who was her friend here? She musthavehadsomeonesheconfidedin,surely? (Sn)

(5) Kate didn’t reply. he couldn’t mean, surely, that Mrs. Faraday was a woman incapable of such a murder. (Mr)

Thepresentmore limited andgenre-specific sourcematerial yielded the sameoverall distribution of surelyaccordingto its initial,medialandfinalpositionsas did the wider coverage of genres of the BnC in the 2001 study. initial surely predominates, followed by clause-internal surelyandlastly,final,parentheticalsurely.1 instances of surely in elliptic sentences, which were not previously con-sidered, are also found to be worthy of note within their interactional settings in the present study, as in (6):

(6) And the records are destroyed so quickly? Surely not. (Mr 287)

4. Background

until recently, surely has received little attention in comparison with other ad-verbs of modality and stance. this scarcity of comment may be due in part to its relatively infrequent use in comparison with certainly, which is now used as a handy emphasiser in all types of context. the fact that surely has not become entrenched as a pragmatic marker in everyday American usage as deeply as it has inEnglandmayalsobesignificant.2Butthemajorreasonwhysurely is sparsely


usedlies,Isuggest,inthespecificstancesthatusersofsurely take up, ranging from antagonistic and challenging to persuasive and agreement-seeking. Such stances are not likely to be repeated throughout a conversation with the frequency that emphasisers are. Furthermore, one possible variant to initial surely is the negative yes-no interrogative sentence, which, as we shall see later in example (7), is used to challenge an interlocutor and can co-occur in the same stretch of discourse with surely.

An early mention of the adverb surely in the literature was that of Biber and Finegan (1988). Yet, among the adverbs grouped by these scholars under the heading ‘the surely adverbs’, surely is in fact the odd man out. it is not inter-changeable with other adverbs of the group in the way that clearly and obviously are. nor can it be paraphrased as ‘*it is sure that...’ in line with ‘it is obvious/evident/ clear that...’ Furthermore, nor can it be paraphrased by ‘i am sure that’ without an important loss of implied meaning and attitude. thus, if the headmas-ter had said “i am sure you can do better than that” he would be putting across a gentler message, almost of reassurance, whereas surely in such cases as (1) projectsthemeta-messageofsurpriseanddisappointment,annoyanceorindig-nation even, depending on the accompanying tone and on the context in which it occurs. it is noteworthy that in the subsequent Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, edited by Biber et al. (1999), surely is not discussed nor does it appear in the lexical index.

hoye’s Adverbs and Modality in English (1997) devotes space to surely among other adverbs. the concept of ‘speaker orientation’ is relevant in that “overt mark-ing of the speaker’s intrusion and his authority to comment on the relevance of what he is saying are given a prominence which tends to override purely syntactic considerations of scope” (hoye 1997: 202). nevertheless, in this work the prag-matic functions of surely are restricted to that of seeking agreement.

later work on surely has centred mainly on its meaning as a modal adverb andthedegreeofcertaintyitisthoughttoexpresswithinthefieldofmodalcer-tainty(Aijmer2002;Simon-VandenbergenandAijmer2007).Inthelattervol-ume,thenotionofdoubtfigureslargelyasthemeaningofsurely, a meaning that i would not prioritise, as will be explained shortly. Attention has been paid to the comparison of surely with certainly and other modal adverbs. Parallel corpora have been used to ascertain the translation ‘equivalents’ of surely and certainly among others. While it is true that “languages which express certainty in the same way develop a similar range of new functions by means of grammaticalisation”, amongthemthefunction‘uncertainty’(Aijmer2002),itwouldseemthatinthecase of the Spanish cognates of surely the nuances are different (downing 2006). While the semantic values of the cognates and surely are sometimes close, nei-ther seguro nor seguramentefulfilsthefunctionsofpragmaticmarkersassurely does. in fact, despite the use of national corpora of english and Spanish naturally-occurring spoken data rather than translations, no lexical counterpart to english surely was revealed among the Spanish cognates or elsewhere to carry out the pragmatic functions of surely in initial and parenthetical positions. Consequently,

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i resorted to negative-interrogative counterparts, which worked well for the data used. in clause-internal position a degree of similarity is present, but without the dialogic overtones of surely.

5. Characterising surely

Present-day surely is attitudinal. it is also covert. As a result of semantic bleach-ing through grammaticalisation it is not what it seems. For this reason it has to be recovered procedurally by inferencing on the part of the recipient. its syntactic behaviourhasalsoamplified,spectacularlyin the18th and 19th centuries. Con-sequently, surely is now opaque in comparison with other so-called adverbs of certainty. it indexes, rather than encodes, a strong belief in the self-evident plau-sibilityofthestatementqualified,abeliefbasedonthespeaker’sexperience,andright, especially in the face of imaginary or possible dissent (adapted from the Shorter oed, 2002). Knowledge, status and entitlement, common sense, even, are i claim, additional attributes that condition the use of surely at a particular point in the discourse. Furthermore, the use of surely can foreground the speak-er’s expectation that his or her status as the controller of the discourse at that point will be recognised by the co-participants in interactive discourse. this point is well captured in example (7).

5.1. Surely as a covert question

Surely occurs in declarative clauses which function like negative-interrogatives, particularly when surely is initial. thus, (1) ‘Surely you can do better than that’ could be paraphrased as ‘Can’t you do better than that?’ Another alternative is a positive declarative followed by a negative question tag: ‘You can do better than that, can’t you?’ For this reason initial surely utterances are often found in print followed by a question or an exclamation mark. the variants differ in abruptness and so in degrees of politeness, as they are softened or heightened by prosodic featuresinspeechwithinspecificcontexts.readersofwrittenorprintedtextareable to assign the relevant intonation pattern to achieve information focus.

it has been suggested that negative-interrogatives are based on contradictory assumptions.Quirketal(1985:808)distinguishtheseasthe‘oldexpectation’andthe ‘new expectation’, respectively. in (1) ‘Surely you can do better than that’ the old expectation is positive, that you can do better than that; but evidence, visual in this case, suggests the contrary, that you cannot do better. the old expectation tends to be associated with the speaker’s hopes and wishes, while the new as-sumption appears to contradict this. For this reason, negative-oriented questions tend to express disappointment or annoyance. Consequently, one would expect the same to occur with surely- prefaced declaratives. they often do, as in (1) and (7), but not always, as we saw in (2), where the reply prefaced by surely aligns withthepreviousutterancewhilequeryingAnnie’sjudgement.


it is for this reason of similarity of function with negative questions that surely lends itself to expressing surprise and opposition towards the speaker of a prior utterance, in the form of a contradiction, a challenge or a counter-claim.

6. Contextual patterns of surely

in this section i wish to test my claim that surely isessentially theconfidencemarker of a speaker who challenges, contradicts or tries to persuade a prior speaker in interactive discourse. At the same time s/he makes a bid for the rec-ognition of entitlement at a particular point in the discourse by virtue of his/her status,authority,experienceorsuperiorknowledgeofthecurrentsubject.Suchattributes confer entitlement; they also create expectations as regards knowledge, performance and the like on the part of others.

Surely is triggered by the sudden awareness that opposition from a co-par-ticipant to the speaker is imminent or is already occurring (downing 2001), or conversely, the current speaker reacts to an immediately prior utterance or visual evidence which s/he considers in some way inadequate or goes against her own beliefs and expectations as in (1) and (2). Thefictionalexchangecomprisingexamples(7)and(8)respectivelyillustrates

two patterns of use: First, in reply to an initial request by a police Sergeant, surely introduces a forceful challenge on the part of a senior surgeon, who adopts the role of dominant speaker. Second, this is followed by a counter-claim made, more judiciously,bythefirstspeaker,whoeffectivelytakesoverthedominantrole.

Pattern1a:Confident,authoritativespeaker,initialsurely expresses surprise, dis-belief at prior speaker’s request. Challenge; seeks acquiescence. (7)

Pattern1b:Denialofacquiescencebyconfidentspeakerwithhisownauthorityin a different but relevant sphere. Counter-claim, medial surelyexpressingconfi-dence, though not absolute certainty. Seeks acceptance. (8)

(7) Sergeant Masterson said: ‘i wonder, Sister, if i could see the ward report book covering the period when nurse Pearce was on the ward? ’i’m par-ticularly interested in her last week here.

Mr Courtney-Briggs broke in roughly: ‘Aren’ttheyconfidentialrecords,Sister?Surely the police will have to

apply for a subpoena before they can make you produce them?’

(8) ‘oh, i don’t think so sir’. Sergeant Masterson’s voice, quiet, almost too respectful, yet held a tinge of amusement which wasn’t lost on his hear-er. ‘Ward nursing records surely aren’t medical in the proper sense. i merely want to see who was being nursed here during the period and if anything happened which might be of interest to the Superintendent.

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Sister Brumfet, mottled and shaking with anger, which left small room for fear, found her voice.

‘nothing happened on my ward. nothing! (Sn 165)

in examples (7) and (8) each speaker has authority and status in his own domain. the reader will expect Masterson, as a detective sergeant on a case, to have the right to request documents. Mr Courtney-Briggs, as an eminent surgeon, and by virtue of superior knowledge in the hospital domain, though not a member of the hospital staff, assumes a dominant role through belief in his right to question the handing over of ward records to a police sergeant. Yet, despite the latter’s polite-ness, he addresses the Sister “roughly”. he calls into question the legality of the request,first by anegativeyes/noquestion, thenby an initial surely, likewise functioning as a question, both of which centre on the putative non-entitlement of the police to make such a request. Both structures convey surprise, disbelief and authority; they are to be heard as challenging, more so in view of their sequential position in the dialogue. readers will be alerted by such a display of dominance to the fact that something other than protocol may be behind the surgeon’s out-burst.

By contrast, Sergeant Masterson makes a counter-claim by using medial surely in a voice that is “quiet, almost too respectful”, but “with a tinge of amusement” to convey what is an apparently authoritative statement, although without ex-pressingcompletecertainty.Thisaccountmayinfactbelesstruethanheconfi-dently puts across, but it is not disputed. in an environment of tension and embat-tlement surely is used by each participant in turn as a weapon that masks their possibly less than perfect knowledge of police rights. Both men display authority via surely, but while Courtney-Briggs externalises his claim to the role in a way that is offensive to the hearers, Masterson succeeds in conveying his authority andentitlementbyalmostexquisitepolitenessinawaythatisunobjectionable.eventually, Mr Courtney-Briggs opts for retreat and reacts by blandly backing down from his prior claim, to the fury of Sister Brumfet.

Pattern 2: Junior professional, initial surely, shocked disbelief, contradicting prior speaker of higher status.

(9) ‘Theyoughttohaveseenusfirst.Afterall,we’reSisters.[…]Andwhyisn’t Brumfet here? i don’t see why she should be treated any differently from us’.

Sister rolfe: ‘too busy […]’. ‘Sister gearing’s voice became petulant. ‘that’s all very well, but she ought to be here. god knows, we’re busy

too. Brumfet lives in nightingale house. She had as much opportunity to kill Fallon as anyone.

Sister rolfe said quietly ‘She had more chance,’


Sister gearing’s sharp voice cut into the silence and one of the Burt twins lifted her head:

‘She’s had Fallon in her power in the sick bay for the last ten days.’ ‘But surely you don’t mean…? Brumfet wouldn’t! ‘Precisely’, said Sister coldly, ‘So why make stupid and irresponsible re-

marks?’ (Sn 204)

in example (9) the speaker of the surely utterance is one of the identical Burt twins, both student nurses under the supervision of Sister Brumfet, who is not present in this scene. normally equanimous, Burt on this occasion makes a bid for attention in defence of Sister Brumfet. her two elliptic exclamations are in direct contradiction to Sister gearing’s previous somewhat incriminating remark regarding Sister Brumfet. the discussion is cut short by the more authoritative of the Sisters. Pattern 3: Self-confident junior participant,medial surely, persuasiveness and reasoning in assessment of probabilities.

(10) ‘one never does really know another human being. Anything is possible for anyone. i’ve always believed that. And it’s surely more likely that she killed herself than that someone murdered her. that seems absolutely incredible. Why should they?’

‘i was hoping you might be able to tell me.’ ‘Well, i can’t. She hadn’t any enemies at the John Carpendar as far as i

know. ‘She wasn’t popular. She was too reserved, too solitary. But people didn’t dislike her. And even if they did, murder surely suggests some-thing more than ordinary dislike.’ (Sn 98)

the student nurse Madeleine goodale is interviewed by Chief Superintendent Adam dalgliesh. the difference of status, authority and knowledge is great. nonetheless, nurse goodale acquits herself well in her analysis of the dead girl’s character and the reasons for Fallon’s unpopularity. unprepossessing features are dismissedasirrelevantinanassessmentofmodalprobabilityinwhichobjectivitycovertlymasksherownsubjectivity.Atthesametimedialogicintersubjectivityis shown in her two uses of surely which, without claiming certainty, make a per-suasive suggestion that invites the Superintendent’s agreement. Pattern 4: dominant speaker interrogating a suspect; parenthetical surely, in mo-dal harmony with must expressing epistemic necessity, countering the prior state-ment.

(11) “how long have you been an intimate friend of Caroline dupayne?” lord Martlesham said unhappily. “i wouldn’t say that we were inti-

mate.”

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“But you must be, surely. She’s a very private woman, yet she lends you herflatandhandsoutkeystoyouandtoCeliaMellock.(Mr345)

in this context, the Superintendent’s use of surely reinforces modal must in what is conviction based on logical reasoning and common sense.

7. Surely as a resource in free indirect speech and thought

in addition to the use of direct (i.e. quoted) speech as a vehicle for the display of attitudes of dominance by one or other of the characters, James makes consider-able use of other techniques for the presentation of speech and thought: indirect reported speech, free indirect speech and free indirect thought are commonly used in these novels to give the illusion of entering the minds of their characters. the following three examples illustrate these techniques.

example (12) illustrates indirect self-reported speech as the vehicle for heavy irony ascribed by James to the somewhat unsympathetic character, Sister rolfe, here interviewed by dalgliesh. Medial, post-verbal surely is noticeably intersub-jective,covertlyandironicallyinvitingtheSuperintendenttoaccepttheplausibil-ity of her argument.

(12) She regretted she could offer no witnesses to her own movements before or after the meal, but that was surely understandable: for some years now she had preferred to wash and go to the lavatory in private. Apart from that, she valued the free time before the days’ work and preferred to spend it alone. (Sn 111)

example (13) might appear to be straight narration, but is in fact the expression of indirect thought from the words “he was surprised” onwards. in this context, initial surely (much more effective than ‘isn’t it the case’) indexes not so much a challenge as a bout of self-questioning. the ‘old expectation’ that he should feel some emotion is counteracted by the ‘new’ self-evident fact that he feels nothing. this clearly gives rise to perplexity, not doubt, at not entertaining appropriate emotions on the last day of his working life.

(13) Closingtheofficedoorforthelasttimeandenteringtheemptycorridor,he (Marcus dupayne) was surprised and a little concerned at his lack of emotion. Surely he should be feeling something – regret, mild satisfac-tion, a small surge of nostalgia, the mental acknowledgement of a rite of passage? he felt nothing. (Mr 29)

Finally, example (14) illustrates how “the boundaries between the categories are not rigorously discrete, so it might be more appropriate to consider the presenta-tion of both thought and speech as a continuum of varying degrees of freedom and


directness” (Simpson 1993: 24). they also merge into the narrative and it is not always easy to distinguish one from the others. in ‘A chill of horror swept over her’ it is neither thought nor speech but the illusion of sensation that leads the readertotheself-questioningandthefinalcounter-claimintheformofaprayer.the instances of surely in this extract index disbelief but with a suspicion of doubt which is implicit, and no doubt inferred by the reader, but is not exteriorized.

(14) After a few minutes the dreadful shaking ceased and nurse dakers grew calmer.

She began to mutter, her voice hiccuping with sobs. ‘i’m so miserable, so ashamed.’ the Matron bent her head to catch the words. A chill of horror swept over

her. Surely she couldn’t be listening to a confession of murder? She found herself praying under her breath.

‘dear god, please not. not this child! Surely not this child?’ (Sn 75)

8. Concluding remarks

TheuseoffictionalmaterialofthekindprovidedbyJames’snovelsis,Ihavefound, instructive and useful. For one thing, the availability of extensive context leadsonetoamorerefinedanalysisofsurely-prefacedfictionalutterances.Thisis because the use of surely is highly sensitive to the linguistic and social environ-ment in which it occurs, a fact that is immediately obvious in real life encounters, but is not easy to capture from a transcription. hence, an occurrence of surely in a relaxed environment of conversation between women friends can be seen to produce an instance of initial surely which might be better categorised as some-thing less than ‘challenge’ as its pragmatic function. Such is the case with (2), which if it is a challenge, it is a very friendly one. As seen from Clara’s reply the friends are expressing independent points of view rather than dominance: “When it comes to spending a million, Annie thinks internationally. She has something of a Mother teresa complex.” And if there was still any doubt of the possible inter-pretation of the surely-preceded utterance, the subsequent closing of the topic by the author’s comment ‘they walked on in companionable silence’ makes it clear thatinthefictionalworldofthenovel,thetwofriendshavemutuallydroppedthetopic without animosity. this reaction, ‘agreeing to disagree’ represents a fourth option to the three-way choice of responses to challenges, namely those of ac-cepting the challenge, backing down from the prior claim and eventually aligning withthechallenger.‘Agreeingtodisagree’representsaspecificepistemicstancetowards the speaker of the prior utterance and falls within the domain of align-ment rather than that of disalignment.

By contrast, more violent challenges and responses occur in already estab-lished environments of disagreement, insinuation or complaint. Such is the case in example (9): the tense atmosphere that surrounds the nurses gathered in a room

90 AngelA doWning

waiting, as suspects, to be interviewed by the Scotland Yard Superintendent helps make for the stronger positionings of covert accusation and counter-claim.

Another feature of the novels with regard to the use of surely is the fact that James uses point of view with a certain discrimination. All James’s main char-acters are professionals of varying rank. Many of them, although not all, are privileged in that the reader on occasion is enabled to gain access to the events described through the eyes of a certain participant. interestingly, it appears that surely-speakersarethemostprivilegedinthisrespect.ThemostsignificantamongthisgroupisDalgliesh.Ashisisafigurewhosepersona is forged over a series of novels we learn aspects of his inner self, not only in the scenes directly involved in the hunt for a murderer, but in what would appear to be more trivial details. Some of these are revealed by the short, throwaway signals that we pick up in the middle of a mental depiction, through his eyes, of the district where he lives overlooking the thames “and he could have imagined this was spring except for the autumnal sea-tang of the river – surely half imagined – and the keenness of thebuffetingwindashecameoutofthestation”(Mr4).Otherfiguressuchasthe “poor little murderer manqué” whom the reader follows throughout almost three hundred dense pages of Innocent Blood (310) in expectation for him to strike, builds up detail by detail as a more complex character than would have seemed possible at the start.

Yet other insertions of ‘thoughts’ prefaced by surely seem to have as their func-tion that of signalling idle speculation masking an advance warning to the reader of something quite different to be coped with: “She felt it was her responsibility to keep their minds off the accident, and surely it could only have been an ac-cident”(SN24).Itisintheartificeoffictionalthoughtthatasub-textofdoubtcan be sometimes detected, as in example (14). in other cases, surely is used disingenuously, as it is in real life. Speakers may be concealing their real opinion while putting across another.

to conclude, a complex pattern emerges when we come to take stock of the stances of surely displayed under the titles of P.d. James’s novels. evidence sug-gests that dominance and entitlement can be seen from different angles and as carrying different strengths. Perhaps the main conclusion to be suggested by the data presented is that the speakers using surely,basedontheirownselfconfidenceand self-belief, are shown, via direct speech, to exteriorise their claim by making a bid for recognition of their authority and entitlement. As du Bois (2000) puts it, we enact our stance in the public space of dialogic interaction. By contrast, indirect speech and thought lead the reader from the stronger stance of challenge to weaker stances of persuasion, tentativeness and self-questioning.

in the novels examined here James’s characters who use surely are almost all professionalpeople.Theyareportrayedasconfident,knowledgeable,independ-ent, self-assured, aware and articulate. When they make claims and counter the claims of others they often do so by means of surely. this is not a necessary or only choice. there are other means, namely negative yes-no questions. indeed, negative questions are used side by side with the more covert surely questions.


Again, without the preface of surely, sentences would still make sense but would be plain declaratives, monologic, not inviting comment from other voices. And without surely, there would less subtlety, less speculation, less inferencing, few-er leading questions. there would be less suspense. in the words of leech and Short, “We cannot see inside the minds of other people, but if the motivation for the actions and attitudes of characters is to be made clear to the reader, the representation of their thoughts, like the use of soliloquy on stage, is a necessary licence (1981: 337).

Notes

1 the same order of frequency, namely, the predominance of surely in initial position, followed by internal and thenfinalwas also attested in Simon-Vandenbergen andAijmer’s (2007)corpus.

2 For an explanation of surely as characterising British cultural values, see downing (2009). the Ame use of surely denoting agreement or permission was not attested in my data.

References

Aijmer,Karin(2002)‘ModalAdverbsofCertaintyandUncertaintyinanEnglish-SwedishPerspec-tive. In:Hasselgard,Hilde,Stig Johansson,BergljotBehrens, andCathrineFabricius-Hansen(eds.) Amsterdam and new York: rodopi, 97–112.

Biber, douglas and edward Finegan (1988) ‘Adverbial Stance types in english’. Discourse Proc-esses 11, 1–34.

Biber, douglas, edward Finegan, Stig Johansson and Susan Conrad (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. london: longman.

Bolinger,Dwight(1972)‘LinearModification’.Publication of the Modern Language Association of America 67, 1117–44.

Brazil, david (1985) The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. discourse analysis mono-graph no. 8. english language research. university of Birmingham.

downing, Angela (2001) ‘“Surely you knew!” Surely as a Marker of evidentiality and Stance’. Functions of Language 8 (2), 251–282.

downing, Angela (2006) ‘the english Pragmatic marker Surely and its Functional Counterparts in Spanish’.In:Aijmer,KarinandAnne-MarieSimon-Vandenbergen(eds.)Pragmatic Markers in Contrast. oxford: elsevier, 89–56.

downing, Angela (2009) ‘From Manner Adverb to Stance Marker. Surely,(Inter)subjectivityandenglish Cultural norms’. in: Bowen, rhonwen, Mats Mobärg and Sölve ohlander (eds.) Corpo-ra and Discourse – and Stuff. Papers in Honour of Karin Aijmer. gotherburg Studies in english 96. university of gothenburg: Acta universitatis gothoburgensis, 13–22.

du Bois, John (2000) ‘taking A Stance: Constituting the Stance differential in dialogic interac-tion’. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, november 18, 2000.

hoye, leo (1997) Adverbs and Modality in English. london: longman.leech, geoffrey, n. and Michael h. Short (1981) Style in Fiction. A Linguistic Introduction to

English Fictional Prose. london and new York: longman. Page, norman (1988) Speech in the English Novel, 2nd ed. houndsmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan

Press.

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Quirk,randolph,SidneyGreenbaum,GeoffreyLeechandJanSvartvik(1985)A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. london: longman.

Simon-Vandenbergen,Anne-MarieandKarinAijmer (2007)The Semantic Field of Modal Cer-tainty. A Corpus-Based Study of English Adverbs. Berlin and new York: Mouton de gruyter.

Simpson, Paul (1993) Language, Ideology and Point of View. london and new York: routledge.

Literature Analysed

P.d. James Shroud for a Nightingale Penguin Books, 1989 (1973).P.d. James The Murder Room Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.P.d. James Innocent Blood Penguin Books, 1989 (1980).

Literature Consulted

A Corpus of English Conversation (1980)EditedbyJanSvartvikandrandolphQuirk.CWKgleerup. lund.

Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles, 2002.Collins Cobuild Dictionary, 1987.

angela Downing holds B.A.honours and M.A. degrees in French and Spanish from the university of oxford and is also a graduate of the universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she obtained her Phd. She held the Chair in english language and linguistics at the universidad Complutense from 1986 until 2003 and is now Professor emérita. With Philip locke she co-authored A Universi-ty Course in English Grammar (Prentice-hall 1992), which in 1993 won First Prize in the grammar and dictionaries category of the duke of edinburgh’s Award and also the Premio de investigación enrique garcía díez granted by AedeAn. A new edition was published by routledge in 2002, fol-lowed by a second revised edition in 2006 under the title English Grammar. A University Course. her research interests centre on functional grammar, discourse and pragmatics. She has authored researcharticlesinthesefieldsinnationalandinternationaljournals.ShewasEditor-in-ChiefofthejournalEstudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense from its foundation in 1992 until 2006, and is currently general editor of Atlantis.

Address: Professor Angela downing, departamento de Filología inglesa 1, Facultad de Filología, UniversidadComplutensedeMadrid,28040Madrid(Spain).[email:[email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

renaTa Povolná

on contrAstive relAtions in AcADemic sPoken Discourse

AbstractContrastive relations between successive or more distant segments of discourse rank among the most informative semantic relations in both spoken and writ-ten english (cf. Kortmann 1991) since they create important cohesive links and thus contribute to the establishing of discourse coherence. the author investi-gates authentic texts from four different types of speech situations representing academic spoken discourse (MiCASe) while searching for discourse markers (dMs) expressing contrastive relations with the aim to describe the ways in which selected markers are used by native speakers of American english to form coherent discourse.1

Key wordsAcademic spoken discourse; coherence; coherent interpretation; cohesion; co-hesive device; concession; contrast; contrastive relations; discourse markers

1. Introduction

Cohesion and coherence conceived as two of seven standards of textuality (cf. de Beaugrande and dressler 1981) are two closely related linguistic notions. hal-liday and hasan (1989: 94) express their relationship by stating that “variation in coherence is the function of variation in the cohesive harmony of a text”. in conformity with linguists who draw a stricter line between these two notions (e.g. Stubbs 1983, Widdowson 1979, Mey 2001) it is assumed that cohesion establish-es overt relations between syntactic units, while coherence concerns relations ob-taining between the meanings expressed by these syntactic units, in other words “cohesion establishes local relations between syntactic items (reference, concord

94 renAtA PoVolná

and the like), whereas coherence has to do with the global meaning involved in what we want to express through our speech activity” (Mey 2001: 154).

Both cohesion and coherence are regarded as important constitutive qualities of text, although it can be claimed that a text can be understood as coherent with-out any cohesive means and, conversely, can comprise cohesive means without being perceived as coherent (Povolná 2007). i fully agree with Seidlhofer and Widdowson (1997: 207), who state that “one might derive a coherent discourse from a text with no cohesion in it at all. equally, of course, textual cohesion pro-vides no guarantee of discourse coherence”.

According to the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary, “coherence is the quality that something has when it makes sense or is pleasing because all thepartsor stepsfit togetherwelland logically”andsomething isunderstoodtobecoherentif“itspartsfittogetherwellsothatitisclearandeasytounder-stand” (1987: 264). it necessarily follows that coherence and the quality of being coherent are important in particular when expressing relations within discourse, including spoken discourse used in academic settings, which is at the core of the present paper. Since “the process of creating coherent text involves an indication of relationships between the things one is ‘on about’” (halliday and hasan 1989: 94), it becomes clear that cohesive means including selected dMs expressing contrastive relations can enhance the perception of a text, either spoken or writ-ten, as being coherent.

2. Contrastive discourse markers

discourse markers2, viewed here in conformity with Fraser (1990) as a class of commentary pragmatic markers signalling sequential relationships within dis-course, necessarily contribute to discourse cohesion. Since they signal how the speaker intends the current basic message that follows to relate to the previous discourse, these language means can foster the establishment of discourse co-herence, which is understood here as a context-dependent, hearer-oriented and comprehension-based, interpretative notion (cf. Bublitz 1997).

Successive or more distant discourse segments3 which are marked with a dM are usually processed faster (cf. haberlandt 1982). if a dM is absent, the current hearer is left without any overt guiding signal concerning the intended relationship between discourse segments, i.e. without any lexical clue for an interpretation of the speaker’s communicative intentions in a given situation; this can even cause a breakdown in communication. however, since the current speaker is aware of the hearer and his/her efforts to arrive at an intended coherent interpretation, he/sheusesguidingsignals,forexample,“cohesivedevices(e.g.conjuncts,cross-reference expressions), which organize the discourse and clarify the progress of the [speaker’s] argumentation” (dontcheva-navratilova 2009: 34). AccordingtoFraser(1990,1998,1999),DMscanbedefinedaslexicalexpres-

sions the core meaning of which is procedural rather than conceptual and which

95on ContrAStiVe relAtionS in ACAdeMiC SPoKen diSCourSe

function to “signal a relationship between the interpretation of the segment they introduce, S2, and the prior segment, S1” (Fraser 1999: 931); dMs do not ‘dis-play’ the relationship between discourse segments, but rather impose “on S2 a certain range of interpretations, given the interpretation(s) of S1 and the meaning of the dM” (Fraser 1999: 942). thus, the analysis of dMs and in particular the way they express coherence relations (cf. rhetorical relations in taboaba 2006) can be understood as “part of the more general analysis of discourse coherence – howspeakersandhearersjointlyintegrateforms,meaning,andactionstomakeoverall sense out of what is said” (Schiffrin 1987: 49).

Contrastive relations can be counted among “the most complex of all semantic relations that may hold between parts of a discourse” (Kortmann 1991: 161); for this reason they tend to be marked overtly and typically expressed through sub-ordination (cf. taboada 2006: 576), particularly in academic discourse, in which presenting and supporting arguments is of great importance (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 880).However, themore specific type of contrast that a givenDM signals isnegotiated by the context, both linguistic and non-linguistic, since “a text is not coherent in itself but is understood as coherent in an actual context” (Bublitz 1988: 32). the context plays a crucial role in the interpretation of meaning in spo-ken language in particular, which, as stated in urbanová (2008: 43), is strongly “contextually bound” and where an adequate knowledge of a given communica-tive situation and relationships between discourse participants enhances the ad-dressee’s understanding.

in forming a text as in forming an utterance, speakers choose between a set of alternatives that establish relations between individual parts of the discourse. Since dMs, including those expressing contrastive relations, perform text-organ-izing functions above all, they are primarily viewed here as cohesive devices and their relatively high frequency of occurrence in academic discourse such as that underinvestigationreflectstheneedofthecurrentspeakertopresentandsupporthis/her arguments in a straightforward way. these cohesive devices enable the current hearer(s) to arrive at a coherent interpretation and understanding of the message which comes as close as possible to the current speaker’s communica-tive intentions.

the present study is concerned with the relations obtaining at clausal and high-er levels of discourse, since it is assumed in harmony with Fraser (1999: 939-940) that at these levels the marker relates two separate messages, functioning as a DM,asin(1)and,belowtheclausallevel,purelyasaconjunctionwithinasinglemessage, as in (2).

(1) that’s the only thing that interests me. the the thing that brought me up short a little bit and, i’m not trying to catch you on anything but i wonder if you’d justcommentonitwasth-th-thedateofthequotewassixty-nine,whichisquite a bit before, that particular concert

(MiCASe, deF420SF022.3)4

96 renAtA PoVolná

(2) iwasfascinatedbyraviShankar,andboughtmyfirstsitar.uh,staywithmehere, for a second this is uh going to have to do something with, sitar but also with, Keith Jarrett indirectly. in order to learn sitar i contacted a german who had been recon- recommended to me,

(MiCASe, deF420SF022.1)

As regards formal realization of the markers analysed, they are, from a morpho-logicalpointofview,drawnprimarilyfromconjuctions(e.g.but, although), ad-verbs (e.g. however, anyway) and prepositional phrases (e.g. on the other hand). nevertheless, they “do not play the role in a sentence that their classes would suggest, but instead, they are separate from the propositional content” (Fraser 1999: 302) and, as noted above, their meaning is procedural rather than concep-tual. hence it follows that if a marker is omitted, the propositional content of the respective discourse segments does not change, as would be the case in example (3) below without the dM but; however, without any marker it could be more difficultforthehearer(s)toarriveataninterpretationcoherentwiththecurrentspeaker’s communicative intentions.

(3) yeah, here i’ll put up this one this is actually, i thought this was harder to read so i changed it to being a, a frequency table but, basically you can see here there’s, uh, (wait cuz this is the wrong one)

(MiCASe, StP355Mg011.5)

From a syntactic point of view, contrastive dMs can be subdivided into dMs occurring in hypotactic relations and those expressing paratactic relations (cf. Malá 2006). (For a list of contrastive dMs analysed in the study, see table 1 be-low). the reason for this subdivision is above all the expected marked difference between the two syntactic groups in frequency of occurrence, since hypotactic relations are usually expressed overtly by certain markers (e.g. although, even though), while paratactic relations, apart from being indicated by certain markers (e.g. anyway, however), can often remain overtly unexpressed; this does not mean that in the respective discourse segments there will not be semantic clues, such asnouns,verbs,adjectives(e.g.contrast, contrasting; for the latter, see example (4) below), prepositional phrases (e.g. in spite of, contrary to); or some ways of expressingpolarity (e.g.adjectivesofoppositemeaningold vs. young). these possibilities, however, have been excluded from my analysis.

(4) there’re things you can’t, control, there’re things that lie beyond your ability to, to change, uh and, uh then that he he he he’s a different man at the end, i think he is noble, you know and certainly James is wanting to say, if you’re contrasting these two societies these two characters, surely surely we would agree i think the American emerges as the, the better the nobler, you know the the the victory goes in that sen- in the moral sense clearly to the American.

(MiCASe, leS300Suu103.11)


Since the paper deals with academic discourse, in which clear argumentation plays a crucial role, a greater number of explicitly expressed markers can be expected, in particular those occurring in hypotactic relations; on the other hand, since the analysis concerns spoken discourse, in which paratactic rather than hy-potactic relations tend to be realized, dMs expressing paratactic relations are supposed to be more common. (For ‘loose’ coordination discussed as a feature typical of spoken english, see urbanová 2008: 43.)

Concerning the relationship between contrast and concession, it should be stressed that in this study concession is subsumed under contrastive relations be-cause it is viewed as a special case of contrast, namely that between the expected/usual causal relationship and the actual situation (cf. dušková et al. 1988, Fraser 1999). Accordingly, contrastive dMs subsume markers expressing contrast as well as concession. Moreover, it is not always possible to distinguish exactly between contrast and concession, “since in some cases, elements of contrast and concession are combined in uses of linking adverbials” (Biber et al. 1999: 878). (For a list of different labels used for linking devices such as contrastive dMs, seeHůlková2005.)

3. Material

My results are based on the analysis of several texts chosen from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MiCASe). As the title of the corpus itself suggests, this corpus represents spoken discourse used in academic settings. the texts are taken from four different types of speech situations, namely students’ presentations, defences, small lectures and large lectures, all in the area of the humanities and arts. each speech situation is represented by 15,500 to 17,300 words, amounting altogether to approximately 65,000 words. (For details con-cerning the number of words analysed in individual speech situations, see tables 1 and 2 below.)

Students’ presentations are classes in which one or more students speak in front of the class; defences are Ph.d. thesis defences in front of a board of aca-demics; small lectures are lectures given to forty or fewer students; and large lec-tures are lectures for more than forty students. All the interlocutors in the data are native speakers of American english, and for the most part they are graduate or undergraduatestudents.However,sincethemainobjectiveofmyinquiryisnota comparison of the four different types of speech situations, but above all ways in which contrastive relations can be expressed by what is called here contrastive dMs, differences between the texts, such as those in the tenor of discourse and the length of the texts, are not considered relevant. differences between indi-vidual speech situations are supposed to be due above all to particular speakers’ preferences in their speaking habits rather than to differences in the natures of given speech situations.

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4. Results and their exemplification

4.1. Degree of interactivity in different speech situations

As regards the degree of interactivity in different types of speech situations, it is suggested that Ph.d. defences (one student in front of a board of academics) are slightly more interactive than students’ presentations (a few students giving their presentations one after another), which in turn are more interactive than small lectures (one main lecturer and fewer than 40 students), which in turn are expected to be slightly more interactive than large lectures, in which one main lecturer and more than forty students participate.

Concerning the total number of contrastive dMs analysed, it is worth noting that the more interactive the speech situation, the higher the number of dMs used to express contrastive relations. Accordingly, it is assumed that speakers of American english use selected dMs slightly more frequently in more interac-tive speech situations (such as Ph.d. defences and students’ presentations) than in speech situations (such as small and large lectures) that are considered in my studytobelessinteractive.Thesefindingsbecomeevenmoreevidentwhenthetotal number of words under examination in each type of speech situation is taken into consideration: the length of the most interactive type is 15,516 words (Ph.d. defence) and that of the least interactive (large lecture) amounts to as many as 17,348 words. in terms of the frequency of occurrence of contrastive dMs found in the texts the positions are reversed: the shortest text (Ph.d. defence), which is viewed as most interactive in this paper, has the highest number of contrastive dMs (198 occurrences), whereas the longest text (large lecture), regarded as least interactive of all, has the lowest number of selected dMs (109 occurrences). the reasonforthesefindingsmightbeeffortsonthepartofthecurrentspeaker(s)inmore interactive speech situations to help their hearer(s) arrive faster at an ade-quate interpretation of the intended relations between discourse segments, which implies a more frequent use of certain guiding signals such as selected dMs.

4.2. Types of contrastive DMs

As can be seen in table 1, in accordance with my expectation contrastive rela-tions expressed by hypotactic dMs (50 cases) are considerably less frequent in the data than those occurring in paratactic relations (657 cases), although the former are usually marked overtly in discourse.

the most interesting and striking result recorded in table 1 is the uneven dis-tribution of the markers analysed, both in terms of types and tokens. of the 29 contrastive dMs listed in table 1 only 22 actually appear in the data. Some markers are very frequent, such as but (475 occurrences) and actually (89 occurrences), or relatively frequent, such as still (36 occurrences) and although (26 occurrences). of these, the marker but is twice as common as all the other markers together. (Similar results have been found in both spoken and written english by Altenberg


1986.) on the contrary, some other markers selected for the analysis are either very rare, such as at the same time, by contrast, in contrast, instead, nevertheless, and nonetheless, each having only one or two occurrences, or totally absent from my data, such as alternatively, conversely and while,tonamejustafew.Somemarkerswhich are not likely to appear in any corpus of contemporary english (e.g. albeit, notwithstanding and oppositely; cf. Altenberg 1986) are not even included in table 1, although they have also been searched for during my analysis.

Table 1. dMs used for hypotactic and paratactic contrastive relations in four dif-ferent types of speech situations (MiCASe)

No. of words 15,516 15,956 16,104 17,348 64,924Hypotactic DMs Defence Students’

presentationSmall lecture

Large lecture

All speech situations

although 3 4 5 14 26despite the fact 0 0 0 0 0even if 0 0 4 0 4even though 5 2 0 3 10except 1 0 2 0 3in spite of the fact 0 0 0 0 0though 0 2 1 1 4While 0 0 0 0 0whereas 0 3 0 0 3All hypot. DMs 9 11 12 18 50Paratactic DMs Defence Students’


Large lecture


actually 22 52 4 11 89after all 0 1 4 0 5all the same 0 0 0 0 0alternatively 0 0 0 0 0anyhow 0 0 0 0 0anyway 3 1 3 1 8at the same time 0 0 1 0 1but 152 118 126 79 475by contrast 0 0 1 0 1conversely 0 0 0 0 0however 3 1 2 2 8in any case 3 0 1 0 4in contrast 0 0 0 1 1instead 1 0 1 0 2nevertheless 0 0 2 0 2nonetheless 2 0 0 0 2on the other hand 1 0 3 2 6still 6 11 11 8 36though 2 4 3 0 9yet 3 1 1 3 8All parat. DMs 198 189 162 108 657All DMs 207 200 174 126 707

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UnlikeTable1,Table2belowincludesonlythosecontrastiveDMsthathavefiveor more occurrences in the data; this only concerns two hypotactic dMs, namely although (26 occurrences) and even though (10 occurrences), out of ten selected for the analysis, and ten paratactic dMs out of 21 searched for in my corpus.

Table 2. More common dMs used for hypotactic and paratactic contrastive rela-tions in four different types of speech situations (MiCASe)

no. of words in texts

15,516 15,956 16,104 17,348 64,926

Hypotactic DMs Defence Students’ presentation

Small lecture

Large lecture


although 3 4 5 14 26even though 5 2 0 3 10All freq. hyp. DMs 8 6 5 17 36Paratactic DMs Defence Students’


Large lecture


actually 22 52 4 11 89after all 0 1 4 0 5anyway 3 1 3 1 8but 152 118 126 79 475however 3 1 2 2 8on the other hand 1 0 3 2 6still 6 11 11 8 36though 2 4 3 0 9yet 3 1 1 3 8All freq. par. DMs 192 189 157 106 644All frequent DMs 200 195 162 123 680

(5) men and women were not competing, in the work force and so in the depression althoughwomendidlosetheirjobs,theydidn’tlosetheirjobs,inthesamewaysthatm-mendidbecausetheyweretie-servicejobsthatwere needed in spite of the breakdown of the economy.

(MiCASe, lel105Su113.11)

(6) we used to, ask questions like well what did, your father do? what did your mother do? did your mother work? and you know the answer if you were middle class was no. she didn’t work. even though my mother did not work for wages outside of the home i was lucky, she she worked, all the time i mean she was, never i never saw her sitting down i never saw her she was facilitating everybody in the world i mean that was, what she did she did a prettygoodjobofit

(MiCASe, lel105Su113.5)


examples (5) and (6) comprise although and even though respectively, showing that subordinate clauses introduced with a hypotactic contrastive dM precede rather than follow their superordinate clauses; in other words, clauses provid-ing background information come before clauses in which some contradiction is expressed. this tendency in positioning subordinate clauses in relation to their superordinate clauses is in conformity with the natural ordering of discourse seg-ments according to which known information, which has a ‘grounding’ function in discourse (cf. Altenberg 1986), usually comes before new information or some new aspect within given information; this way of sequencing discourse segments concerns in particular those introduced with the hypotactic dM although, since “although-clauses tend to be most frequent in initial position” (Altenberg 1986: 22). in addition, it explains “the strong tendency in the spoken material to prefer coordination to subordination” (Altenberg 1986: 21, cf. leech and Svartvik 1994: 14),whichenablestheplacingofknown,backgroundinformationfirst,i.e.intheprior discourse segment, and that of new, unexpected information in the subse-quent segment which comprises a dM (see however in example (7) below). this tendency is evidenced by my results, in which dMs expressing paratactic rela-tions (657 occurrences) and thus occurring in the subsequent segment dominate over dMs used for hypotactic relations (50 occurrences). (For results, see table 1,andformoreexemplifications,seeexamples(1)and(3)above.)

(7) uh after all, i- i- i think James later in his career would have been perfectly able and willing to have made a novel out of, nothing more than their forcing Claire to break off the engagement, see, uh, you can get great literature out of, families, getting in the way of love you know romeo and Juliet all that sort of thing, uh and i think James would have done that. here however he complicates it by wanting to make this in a sense really a kind of melodrama, of good and evil, uh and the Bellegardes then in some way have to be, uh b-i-ortransmogrified?okay.that’sabigword,forourrecordingtoday.

(MiCASe, leS300Su103.3)

As regards subordination, it should be noted here that the tendency to facilitate the processing of information under conditions of real-time planning often results in ‘right-tending’ contrastive subordination in spoken discourse, which is shown in example (8) in which the hypotactic dM whereas is used in the subsequent discourse segment.Inspokenlanguage,thecurrentspeakerdoesnotoftenhavesufficienttimeto plan in advance what to produce next as in the case of written language; therefore it is easier for him/her “to qualify a superordinate idea retrospectively (by postposi-tion) than to anticipate it by means of grounding (pre-position)” (Altenberg 1986: 21). this explains why clauses comprising a contrastive hypotactic dM sometimes come only after those in which new and/or unexpected information is given.

(8) you can see again there’s, a higher distribution for the Spanish speakers than the hindi speakers for the aggregate score, like all these together, um, (let’s)

102 renAtA PoVolná

see and the other interesting things, th- only one person i think said yes they would live in a country where hindi was spoken basically india right, um, whereas, um several people said yes they would, (live, in) live in a Spanish speakingcountry,definitelyandum,let’ssee,theotherinterestingthingisthathardly anybody said that, they would not raise their children bilingually,


As already stated, among paratactic dMs the marker but unambiguously prevails (475 occurrences), although, for instance, in written academic prose, “however is uniformly preferred” according to the results of Biber et al. (1999: 889). in my data however (see example (7) above) has been found only in eight cases. Similarly to however, the paratactic contrastive dMs anyway and though are not frequently represented (only 8 and 9 occurrences respectively), even though they are usually labelled in grammars and dictionaries as ‘informal’ linking devices used especially in spoken english (cf. Sinclair et al. 1987, leech 1989). on the other hand, the paratactic dMs actually (89 occurrences) and still (36 occurrenc-es) have been found with notable frequency (see examples (9) and (10), respec-tively), sometimes in cases in which several tokens of the same marker occur in close,evenadjacent,clauses,orincombinationwithanothermarker,inparticularbut, as in (10); nevertheless, it is assumed that speakers choose a particular mark-er from a set of alternatives according above all to preferences in their speaking habits;thistendencyisexemplifiedinexample(9),inwhichthecurrentspeakerkeeps using the marker actually, although other paratactic markers are available, while in example (10) another speaker gives preference to the marker still when expressing contrast.

(9) but in terms of the academic stuff, it would seem to me that the class actually encour- encourages the students to look at Spanish in a new domain. [S1: right] encourages very academically based [S1: right] so it would be interesting to actually, perhaps, in another time another [S1: mhm] place, [S3: a new world] <SS: lAugh> to actually see you know these um language attitudes before the class begins. [S1: right, that would, that would be helpful yeah Jenny mentions] for classes like that and then, see what happens (with it) because umidoknowsomepeoplewhoare just totallyamazedthat, that theycanactually feel like they (can) (xx) (their own) Spanish. [S1: mhm] and that they feel validated [S1: okay] in that domain.


(10) but then you have the situation where people become, dominant and people actually,just,usingthisIndianEnglish.soumthere’sbeensomeresearchthere’s research on that but still it’s ongoing [S3: mhm] because it’s still you still have, so many different languages you still, the typology’s still not there butuhit’sit’saafieldthatisveryveryumpopularrightnow.



5. Conclusion

drawing on results as presented and discussed within the scope of the present study, it can now be concluded that contrastive relations between discourse segments are frequently expressed overtly in academic spoken discourse, in particular by some paratactic dMs; their use enables the natural ordering of discourse segments, i.e. theplacementofdiscoursesegmentswitha‘groundingfunction‘firstandthusbefore segments which provide new and/or unexpected information. hypotactic dMs are not so common; however, if hypotactic contrastive relations occur, they are, as a rule, marked by a dM. the position of the discourse segment comprising a guiding signal depends on which marker is used, since there are some differences between individual hypotactic markers. however, the type of contrast a particular dM signals is always dependent not only on the meaning of a given marker, but above all on the entire context. Finally, it must be stated that both paratactic and hypotactic dMs expressing contrastive relations clearly enhance faster and coherent interpretation and understanding of the message, thus contributing to the expres-sion of coherence relations and establishing discourse coherence.

Notes

1 This article is part of the grant project 405/08/0866Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse, which is supported by the Czech Science Foundation.

2 For a broad discussion on the terms commonly used to refer to dMs, see Povolná 2008 and 2009.

3 in agreement with Fraser (1999: 938) the term ‘discourse segment’ is used here “as a cover term to referto‘proposition’,‘sentence’,‘utterance’and‘message’unlessmorespecificityisrequired”.

4 in the transcription of texts from MiCASe, . marks a short pause, and – a long pause.

References

Altenberg, Bengt (1986) ‘Contrastive linking in spoken and written english’. in: tottie, gunnel and ingegerd Bäcklund (eds.) English in Speech and Writing. A Symposium. uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 13–40.

Biber, douglas, Stig Johansson, geoffrey leech, Susan Conrad, and edward Finegan (1999) Long-man Grammar of Spoken and Written English. london: longman.

Bublitz, Wolfram (1988) Supportive Fellow-Speakers and Cooperative Conversations. Discourse Topics and Topical Actions. Participant Roles and ‘Recipient’ Action on a Particular Type of Everyday Conversation.AmsterdamandPhiladelphia:JohnBenjamins.

Bublitz, Wolfram (1997) ‘introduction: Views on coherence’. in: Bublitz,Wolfram,UtaLenk,andEijaVentola (eds.) Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins,1–7.

Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987) london: Collins.de Beaugrande, robert and Wolfgang u. dressler (1981) Introduction to Text Linguistics. london:

longman.dontcheva-navratilova, olga (2009) ‘evaluation in non-native writer’s academic discourse: Stance devices’.In:SvětlanaHanušováakol.Research in English Teacher Education. Brno: Masaryk university, 33–42.

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dušková, libuše, Zdenka Strnadová, dagmar Knittlová, Jaroslav Peprník, Jarmila tárnyiková (1988) Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Praha: Academia.

Fraser, Bruce (1990) ‘An approach to discourse markers’. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 383–395.Fraser, Bruce (1998) ‘Contrastive discourse markers in english’. in: Jucker, Andreas h. and Yael

Ziv (eds.) Discourse Markers. Description and Theory. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Ben-jamins,301–326.

Fraser, Bruce (1999) ‘What are discourse markers?’ Journal of Pragmatics 31, 931–952.haberlandt, Karl (1982) ‘reader expectations in text comprehension’. in: le ny, J.-F. and W. Kint-

sch (eds.) Language and Comprehension. Amsterdam: north-holland, 239–249.halliday, Michael A. K. and ruqaiya hasan (1989) Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Lan-

guage in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. 2nd ed. oxford: oxford university Press.Hůlková,Irena(2005)‘LinkingdevicesinEnglishacademicprose’.In:Povolná,renataandOlga

dontcheva-navratilova (eds.) Discourse and Interaction 1. Brno Seminar on Linguistic Studies in English: Proceedings.SborníkpracíPedagogickéfakultyMasarykovyuniverzityvBrně.Vol.187. Brno: Masaryk university, 53–60.

Kortmann, Bernd (1991) Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English. london: routledge.leech, geoffrey (1989) An A-Z of English Grammar & Usage. london: nelson.leech, geoffrey and Jan Svartvik (1994) A Communicative Grammar of English. 2nd ed. london:

longman.Malá, Markéta (2006) ‘Contrastive markers and dialogicality’. in: Povolná, renata and olga

dontcheva-navratilova (eds.) Discourse and Interaction 2. Sborník prací Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity. Vol. 198. Brno: Masaryk university, 97–107.

Mey, Jacob (2001) Pragmatics. An Introduction. 2nd ed. oxford: Blackwell Publishers ltd.Povolná, renata (2007) ‘Aspects of coherence in spoken discourse’. in: Schmied, Josef, Chris-

toph haase, and renata Povolná (eds.) Complexity and Coherence: Approaches to Linguistic Research and Language Teaching. REAL Studies 3. göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 107–125.

Povolná, renata (2008) ‘Why are there so many labels for discourse markers?’ Discourse and In-teraction 1(1). Brno: Masaryk university, 115–124.

Povolná, renata (2009) ‘exploring interactive discourse markers in academic spoken discourse’. in: dontcheva-navratilova, olga and renata Povolná (eds.) Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse. newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 60–80.

Quirk,randolph,SidneyGreenbaum,GeoffreyLeech,andJanSvartvik(1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. london: longman.

Schiffrin, deborah (1987) Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.Seidlhofer, Barbara and henry g. Widdowson (1997) ‘Coherence in summary: the contexts of

appropriate discourse’. in: Bublitz,Wolfram,UtaLenk,andEijaVentola (eds.) Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. How to Create it and How to Describe it. Amsterdam and Phila-delphia:JohnBenjamins,205–219.

Stubbs, Michael (1983) Discourse Analysis: The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural Language. oxford: Basil Blackwell.

taboaba, Maite (2006) ‘discourse markers as signals (or not) of rhetorical relations’. Journal of Pragmatics 38(4), 567–592.

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Press.

renaTa Povolná is Associate Professor of english linguistics at Masaryk university, Brno, Czech republic. She specialises in discourse analysis, pragmatics, and conversation analysis, concentrat-ing mainly on impromptu and academic spoken discourse. She is currently involved in the research projectCoherence and Cohesion in English Discourse, the aim of which is to conceptualize coher-ence and cohesion as constitutive components of human communication and to apply theoretical in-


sightstotheanalysisofspokenandwrittendiscourse.Sheco-editsthelinguisticjournalDiscourse and Interaction.

Address: doc. Phdr. renata Povolná, Ph.d., department of english language and literatureFacultyofEducation,MasarykUniversity,Poříčí9,60300Brno,Czechrepublic.[e-mail:[email protected]]

PArt three

Discourses in the Public sPhere


iSSn 0524-6881

Jan ChovaneC

simulAtion oF sPoken interAction in written online meDiA texts

Abstractthe article deals with the features of spoken language in the written discourse oflivetextcommentary,amoderngenreofonlinejournalism.Afterlocatingthenew genre at the intersection of spoken live commentary, computer-mediated communication and everyday conversation, it identifies some of the featuresconveying spokenness on the phonological/graphological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic levels. Based on data from recent sports reports, the article argues that orality represents an unstated norm in the interactive subtype of ltC found, for instance, in the online British newspaper the Guardian. Spoken features and the pseudo-conversational structure of the reports are devices whereby the au-thors of the texts create a sense of immediacy in their reports, on the one hand, and construct and enhance the illusion of an interpersonal speech event, on the other.ThelinguisticcharacteristicsofLTC,whichreflectthehybridnatureofthe genre, can be seen as serving the purpose of social bonding within the virtual group of readers.

Key wordsSpoken and written language; orality; dialogism; hybrid genres; synthetic per-sonalisation; computer-mediated communication; live text commentary

1. Live text commentary

live text commentary (“ltC”; also known in various media as ‘minute-by-minute’, ‘text commentary’, ‘live match report’, etc.) is a relatively recent and so far under-researched genre (cf. Jucker 2006, Chovanec 2006, Pérez-Sabater et al. 2008). the online commentary is ‘live’ because it is made available on the internet almost in real time, i.e., contemporaneous with the event that it describes,

110 JAn ChoVAneC

yet it is in the written mode, hence the attribute ‘text’ that distinguishes it from ‘spoken’ commentary (cf. Jucker 2006). it is precisely this hybrid nature of ltC that lends it some of its typical characteristics and also provides the genre with the models on which it draws.LTCisanewgenreofonlinejournalismthathascomeintoexistencethanks

to modern information and communication technologies which allow the almost instantaneous production and dissemination of textual reports to broad audiences. ItisdistinctfromblogginginthatLTCisaninstitutionalizedgenreofjournal-ism rather than a personal account of events: the texts are written by professional journalistsandarepresentedonlineonthewebpagesofestablishednewspapers,usually in the news or sports sections. Moreover, the commentary is produced at the same time as the extralinguistic events which the ltC describes, allowing for only the minimal time-lag necessary for the physical production of the written message and its posting online. needless to say, ltC may – similar to weblogs –containadegreeofsubjectivityandlacktheimpersonalityofpresentationpre-ferredinotherkindsofjournalism;thispropertyistakentobeconnectedwiththeimpression of immediacy which ltC tries to recreate in the written text.

not surprisingly, ltC now appears widely in various newspapers because it can bring readers the most topical information imaginable – the events are re-ported on while they are still unfolding, i.e., ‘in medias res’. the live news report thendevelopsinanincrementalfashion,reflectingtheactualdevelopingevent.it follows a temporal framework with (ir)regular updates on the latest develop-ments.

ltC is suitable particularly for those events that can be scheduled in advance, so that journalists caneitherbepresent at the sceneor followsomemediatedcoverage of the events in real time, e.g. on tV. Parliamentary inquiries, presiden-tialinaugurations,nationalelectionsandothermajorpoliticalandsocialeventscan be easily prescheduled and are covered by the media in the form of live text commentaries.

nevertheless, the area that is most widely covered in the media by means of LTCissportsreporting.Thisishardlysurprising:sportseventshaveafixedtem-poralstructureandaclearculminationinthefinalresult,whichprovidesanaturalfocus for the reporting as well as the motivation for the readers to keep on read-ing.

in terms of its textual and information structures, ltC has several distinct types. First, there is ltC that reports on the extralinguistic events. the orienta-tiontotheinformation-providingfunctionmakesthisthe‘purest’kindofjournal-ism among the different kinds of ltC (cf. the analysis of this text type by Jucker 2006).Thejournalist’saccountcanbesolelyfactual,thoughitcanincludeeva-luative comments. Second, there is live text commentary that incorporates reader feedback(cf.Chovanec2006,Pérez-Sabateretal2008).Inthiscase,thejournal-ist includes textual segments from the readers’ emails or other kinds of messages, often responding to them. As a result, the live text commentary becomes interac-tive and heteroglossic, i.e., consisting of several distinct voices. Finally, there are

111SiMulAtion oF SPoKen interACtion in Written online MediA teXtS

some other kinds of ltC, most notably where the text of the commentary is a monologic, referential account of the events while the relevant web page simul-taneously provides space for unregulated chat communication between members of the audience (cf. Chovanec forthc.-b).

the interactive kind of ltC, which incorporates reader feedback, can be anal-ysed on two levels which exist parallel to each other: the temporally-organized descriptionofthegameandthetopically-organizeddebatebetweenthejournalistand the readers (cf. Chovanec 2008a, 2010).

2. Live text commentary as a subgenre of sports reporting

As mentioned above, ltC has become very common in the area of sports report-ing. Such reporting provides one of the genre models – in the form of ‘unscripted commentary’ (Crystal and davy 1969), ‘sports announcer talk’ (Ferguson 1983) or live spoken sports commentary in general. While register-oriented studies tend to definevarietiesonthebasisoflinguisticfeatures,genresaredefinednon-linguis-tically (Biber 1989: 39) as systematic and predictable variations in language use, sometimes with respect to their central purpose, prototypical form and content, and recognition within the community (Swales 1990). genres describe recurrent patterns of language use. they are dynamic in the sense that they do not exist as some independent entities; speakers/writers use them to achieve their own com-municative goals and to develop and sustain personal relations with others.

As mentioned above, ltC is an instance of mass media communication, with sports commentary as one of its models (due to the lack of visual input, the model is radio rather than tV broadcast). ltC, as a subgenre of sports reporting, is a mass media speech event, produced by professional commentators in real time forthebenefitofmutuallyanonymousmassaudienceconsumingthecommen-tary in a split spatial context, i.e., in numerous locations different from its place of production. As Ferguson (1983: 156) points out, the register of ‘sports announcer talk’ shares a crucial element with other forms of broadcasting talk: it “is a mono-logue or dialog-on-stage directed at an unknown, unseen, heterogeneous mass media audience who voluntarily choose to listen, do not see the activity being reported, and provide no feedback to the speaker”.

however, sports reporting, as noted in the pioneering study by Crystal and davy (1969), differs from some other types of mass media communication by creatingtheimpressionofconversationalcasualness.Accordingtotheirfindings,this effect is conveyed by the skillful use of both grammatical structures and lexi-cal items. the sense of casualness is, for instance, achieved on the syntactic level bytheloosestringingofsentencesbymeansoftheconjunction‘and’.Astolexis,the impression of casual conversation and spontaneity is signalled by the choice of informal vocabulary.

in comparison to canonical types of sports commentary, online live text com-mentary displays several similarities and differences. it is, likewise, an institu-

112 JAn ChoVAneC

tionalized instance of mass media communication, since it is created by profes-sional commentators working for online versions of national daily newspapers, such as the Guardian Unlimited website, which has provided material for analy-sis in this article.

Yet, ltC differs from traditional sports commentaries on tV and radio in two important respects: (1) the medium (i.e. the mode) of the text and (2) its time of production. unlike real-time commentaries, live text commentaries are written for the internet and are read online by their audience. in addition, there is a brief timedelaybetweentheoccurrenceofaneventinthefieldanditstransformationinto a written verbal commentary, which removes some of the immediacy of real-time spoken commentary (and occasionally also real-time spoken speculation over the facts of some less obvious event happening on the pitch and requiring a replay in slow motion, for instance).

Although ltCs are, thus, substantially different from traditional types of sports reporting, they nevertheless aim to create much the same effect of casualness and spontaneity. the authors of online ltCs skillfully manipulate various linguistic structures and strategies in order to create a communicative event which com-bines information about the game with interpersonal gossip unrelated to the game itself, thus constructing a text that operates on two levels of narration. As a result, the interactive type of ltC can be approached in terms of a primary layer of nar-ration, i.e., the commentary on the game itself (be it in the form of a relatively factualprovision/reportingofinformationorahighlysubjectiveandevaluativecommentary), and a secondary layer (the “gossip layer”). in addition, to further complicate the narrative structure, the latter may become fragmented into several parallel thematic lines pursuing their own topics (cf. Chovanec 2009, 2010).Thepresenceofthesecondarylayerhassignificantimplicationsforthegenre

characteristics of ltC because it provides additional genre models. thanks to the presence of interpersonal quasi-interactions and the conversational structuring, ltC can also draw on the norms of casual conversation and computer-mediated communication, mainly asynchronous online chat (cf. herring 1996, 1999, Crys-tal 2001). As a result, the interactive type of ltC can be characterised as a hybrid genre (or even a generic hybrid).

3. Interaction and interactiveness

due to the above-mentioned distance between the producers of media messages and their audiences, the media try to compensate for the lack of personal contact. there are essentially three ways of achieving this effect by laying emphasis on (1) interpersonal interaction, (2) verbal and visual interactiveness, and (3) a com-bination of both. Some media (typically broadcast and online) can draw on vari-ous modern technologies to engage the audience members in direct interactions (e.g. by means of phone-ins, text messages, email communication, Facebook groups, etc.). As a result, select individuals are allowed to contribute in a spoken


or written way to the mass media speech event – by posing questions or offering personal opinions. though the interaction is mediated in order to overcome the separation of contexts (cf. talbot 2007: 84), it is dialogical.

the other way of compensating for the lack of personal contact is to focus on interactiveness, which is a matter of the presentation of the communicated content (cf. leitner 1997). this occurs in mediated quasi-interactions (thomp-son 1995), such as watching television, listening to the radio or reading (talbot 2007: 84).What defines such quasi-interactions is the lack of reciprocity: thecommunication is one-way and monological. Yet, such quasi-interactions can contain dialogical and conversational features and structures – either as traces of other real interactions (which, however, exclude the audience or the recipients of the messages from direct participation) or as staged, mock interactions with the physically absent audience or with other non-present persons and personas. in this connection, Conboy (2006: 20–22) mentions the “rhetoric of dialogue” in which some tabloid media (such as The Sun) frequently engage, while talbot (2007) describes this phenomenon as “simulated interaction”.

there are numerous strategies for enhancing the impression of personal contact in simulated interactions. they include, among others, synthetic personalisation and heteroglossia, which typically result in the strategic use of various phenom-ena connected with the spoken mode. informality and conversationalism, thus, contribute to the impression that the speaker/writer knows the audience members personally. Syntheticpersonalization isdefinedas“acompensatorystrategy togive the

impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual” (Fairclough 1989: 62). it is used to simulate the atmosphere of friendliness be-tween strangers and in mass media contexts. For instance, talbot (1995) notes that in women’s magazines, it constructs what she calls “syntentic sistherhoods” – groups of readers whose members offer each other intimacy, emotional support, confidentialityandadvice.Inmen’smagazines,itintroduceselementsofrivalry,humour, language play and self-irony (cf. Benwell 2001).

in live text commentary, the readers are treated (and themselves behave) as members of a virtual group of sports fans which has a shared group identity. this is manifested by their reliance on shared contexts (cultural, linguistic, etc.) as well as on background knowledge, e.g. about famous matches from the past, the progression of various sports championships, the personal histories of sportsmen, the pursuits of individuals and teams, etc. Since not every reader will be able to understand all assumptions, it may be hypothesized that ‘degrees of membership’ exist on the part of the audience, with some members being more ‘core’ than oth-ers on account of their broader knowledge. this seems to be supported by some evidence from the readers’emailedcommentsand the journalists’ reactions tothem, cf. such pseudo-dialogical exchanges as the following:

(1) Shambling prediction […] if France win we have the most romantic farewell imaginable for Zizou, the greatest ever player since Maradona

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(personally i think ronaldinho and des lyttle are better but they need to do it over an entire career), […] (ita-Fra, introduction)[...]Is Zidane rubbish? […] People don’t put Zidane up with Pele and Maradona, do they? high in the second tier, but below the Pele/Maradona/Collymore types, seems fair to me. (ita-Fra, half-time)[...]51 mins “Are you a fan of the great Forrest team of the mid 90s?” says richard Beniston. “two references to Collymore and the mighty des “Bruno” lyttle in a minute by minute during the World Cup Final indicates you have some love for Frank Clarke’s boys.” And the mis-spelling of Frank Clark suggest you don’t, richard. (ita-Fra, 51 mins)

Theexampleshowsareader(richardBeniston,addressedbythejournalistinafamiliar way as ‘richard’) who reacts by email to the names of two local football players, mentioned by the sports commentator at the very beginning of the live text commentary and during the half-time. the incongruity of including such local players among the top international football stars may be seen as humor-ous;however,inordertoappreciatethejournalist’shumourandobviousexag-geration, readers have to be able to perceive the incongruity, i.e., they must share some background knowledge of what football players are – and are not – among the most famous ones on the international level.

however, the reader – whose email is cited in minute 51 of the ltC – goes even further: he is able to place the two lesser-known players with a particular local team, and provide some additional details about the time of their activity as well as the team’s manager. By being able to supply all these details, the reader indeed proves himself to be a ‘core’ member who knows a lot about football historyand,hence,sharessubstantialbackgroundknowledgewiththejournalist.

his claim to ‘coreness’ within the virtual group, however, is denied by the journalist,whocorrectsthereader’sspelling(interestingly,alsothenameoftheteam is misspelt as Forrest instead of Forest) and openly challenges the reader’s knowledgeability.Thejournalistseeminglymakesaface-threateningactbycor-recting the reader and actually putting him down. however, what might seem as a verbal act of aggression and even exclusion from the virtual group of ‘those in the know’isactuallyalmosttheopposite:thejournalistadheresheretotheunstatednorms and rules of a discursive game between himself and his readers. Based on the pattern of foregoing pseudo-dialogical exchanges, it is understood that the journalist(inhisroleofthegate-keeper)alwayshasthelastwordandreactsinacritical or humorous way to the preceding comment voiced by a reader.

the local norm for such pseudo-interactions within live text commentaries, thus, includes verbal competitiveness (cf. Chovanec 2006). Such a verbal con-test (or ‘duelling’) has been known from other contexts for a long time (labov 1997[1972]). it can have an almost ritualistic function: as Benwell (2001) notes, it can be good-natured and actually serve for the construction and enactment of


one’s identity (even in gendered terms through so-called ‘male gossip’). What appears as a face-threatening act from the perspective of everyday conversation can, then, actually be seen as an instance of politic behaviour (cf. Watts 2003), i.e., behaviour that is not marked for politeness or impoliteness and adheres to the local discourse norms appropriate for a relevant ‘community of practice’ (cf. Wenger1998,Ferenčík2009).

the example above illustrates two additional issues. First, it shows the hetero-glossia resulting from the presence of multiple voices in the text, in this particular case through a direct citation from a reader’s email. As mentioned above, the interactionisnotreal:itisstagedbythejournalistwhochooseswhatsegmentof the reader’s verbal contribution to include (or exclude) and how to structure it with respect to his own comments that may either precede or follow.Second,theexampleshowsaphenomenonthatisthesubjectofthisarticle:

namely the presence, in a written text, of some elements of spoken interaction, which lends the entire speech event informality and conversational style. in ad-ditiontothedialogicaljuxtapositionofthetwovoices,thebriefexampleabovealso includes a direct form of address (Richard), ellipsis (seems fair to me), in-terpolation (i.e, the comment about two football players inserted in brackets and supplied almost as an afterthought to modify what had been mentioned before: Personally, I think Ronaldinho and Des Lyttle are better but they need to do it over an entire career), etc., i.e., linguistic features typical or evocative of the spoken mode.

4. Spoken features in live text commentary

Sofar,livetextcommentaryhasnotbeensubjecttomuchsystematicattentioninterms of linguistic analysis. however, the few authors who have dealt with this specific kindof computer-mediated communication (CMC)donote its hybridcharacter and point out its reliance on the various spoken models of communica-tion,mostnotablylivespokenreporting,thoughtheyalsomentiontheaffinityofthe genre with other kinds of CMC.

As regards the spoken features in ltC, Jucker (2006) focuses on what he refers to as the ‘parlando’ style, tracing several features of orality that are used in writ-ten texts. in his view, live text commentary stands at the intersection of orality and literacy. the analysis shows that live text commentary, rather than occupying someintermediarypositionbetweenconversationandfictionontheonehandandnews reporting and academic writing on the other (as far as the analytical catego-ries used by Biber et al. 1999 are concerned), is a new form of communication whichexhibitssomehighlyspecificcharacteristics.Similarly,Pérez-Sabateretal. (2008) note that written online sports commentary draws on traditional oral genres and follows the shift towards orality in written (and public) discourse. Theyconsiderseverallinguistictraitsidentifiedasmarkersoforalityandperforma comparative analysis in english, French, and Spanish live text commentaries.

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they conclude that “the British newspeapers, while cultivating an informal, oral style, consistently avoid traditional CMC markers of prosody”, which, it is ar-gued, are more common in Spanish online newspapers.Thefindingsconfirmthegeneraltrend,noticedbyanumberofauthors,towards

an increased conversationalization and informalisation of the media. Fairclough (1995: 66), for instance, argues that conversationalization is connected with en-tertainment in “public-colloquial discourse style”. Similar observations are made by tolson (2006) and o’Keeffe (2006) for various kinds of spoken media, as well as Montgomery (2007), who points out a tendency towards informality in deliv-ery in tV news broadcast. Biber et al. (1999: 1098–9) note that the same holds true for modern conversation, where “a general drift towards the casualization of everyday speech” is detectable.

the actual manifestation of the hybrid nature of ltC as regards spoken/oral/conversational features and informal ways of expression is apparent on all levels of linguistic analysis – phonological/morphological, lexical, syntactic, as well as discoursal/pragmatic. the present article does not aim to provide an exhaustive listoraclassificationofthespokenfeaturesoccurringinthewrittentext;rather,it shows how the mixing of the spoken and written modes comes to constitute the implicit norm of the genre and how it is used as a strategy of synthetic person-alisation.

4.1. Graphology and prosody

in the written mode, graphology takes over some of the functions which fall with-in the scope of phonology or prosody in the spoken mode. this concerns both the actual representation of sounds and the conventional indication of certain suprasegmental features such as intonation, stress, etc.

Features evocative of the spoken mode are thus realized, among others, as the emphatic lengthening of written representations of sounds (e.g., Peep! Peep! Peeeeeep!! It’s all over.; ger-tur, end of game) and the excessive use of multiple punctuation marks and capital letters (cf. Jucker 2006: 125). this is a stock strat-egy shared with other types of computer-mediated communication, such as email or online chatting (cf. Crystal 2001: 34, herring 1996, 1999).

in ltC, such emphatic lenghtening imitating the genuine emotional-ity of speech in the written mode typically occurs in the reporting of cru-cial moments of matches, as in the following example when a goal is scored: GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! England 1 Brazil 1 (diego 90+2, eng-Bra, 90 mins). A similar function of indicating an increased degree of emotionality is sometimes performed as a result of the segmentation of clauses and phrases into independent units, cf. GOAL! France 1 Italy 0 (Zidane 7 pen) Oh. My. God. (ita-Fra, 7 mins).

other features include the conventional indication of emphasis by means of changing the font (I really hope he’s being sarcastic […] (Por-gre, half-time)), theinclusionofvarioushesitationsoundsandfillers(Diarra is booked for, erm,


he’s booked for, erm, very little in fact. (ita-Fra, 76 mins)), as well as the written representation of other paralinguistic phenomena, such as pauses ([…] by win-ning the ball, going on a surging run down the left flank and then … losing it again. (gre-Cze, 46 mins)).

4.2. Lexical level

on the lexical level, markers of informality and cues to the spoken mode are particularly frequent. Some of the most prominent ones include (for others, see Chovanec 2008a and 2008b):

Colloquial/slang vocabulary, e.g.:

(2) Ballack […] is covered in blood. he’s taken a whack to his left eye. oh dear. (ger-Spa, 38 mins)

this is hotting up. (ger-Spa, 64 mins) And they’ve got a brilliant, if slightly bonkers manager (have a gander at

Scott Anthony’s blog […]) (ger-tur, pre-match) Ballack pings a ball forward […] (ger-Spa, 2 mins) lehman claws brilliantly away for a corner […] (ger-Spa, 14 mins) Pavlyuchenko volleys wide, but he was parallel with the near post, so it’s

no biggie. (hol-rus, 64 mins) heitinger has a wee cut on his chin. (hol-rus, 67 mins)

Shortening (of lexemes as well as phrases and compounds), e.g.:

(3) […] and the ref does bugger all. (ger-Spa, 64 mins) the Czechs attack and win a free. (gre-Cze, 52 mins)

expletives, e.g.:

(4) good god this is dull (Por-ger, 44 min); the presentation ceremony: they want to bloody well get on with it, is

what i’m suggesting. (ger-Spa, end of game) Semshov is off for (oh, Jesus) B-i-l-Y-A-l-e-t-d-i-n-o-V. (hol-rus,

69 mins)

Vulgarities, e.g.:

(5) then suddenly a total cock-up by Sergio ramos (germany-Spain, euro 2008 Final, 2 min)

[…]itwasPodolskiwhoinjectedtheheatintothesituationinthefirstplace by standing in his opponent’s face inviting bother. Common sense prevails and the ref does bugger all. (ger-Spa, 64 mins)

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Written representation of non-standard (and possibly regional) pronunciations. e.g.:

(6) the Foreign referee Wot Sent Wayne off rightly gives italy a free kick (ita-Fra, 35 mins)

Clears for the Czechs – giddit? (gre-Cze, 49 min) the Czech players are not getting a second to settle on the ball and they

don’t like it up ’em (gre-Cze, 62 mins)

the last example illustrates phenomena which are again located at the intersection of phonology in the spoken mode, graphology in the written mode, as well as lexicology and pragmatics, since written representations of such non-standard pronunciations can be used for the stereotypical characterisation of the speakers and even for humorous purposes,i.e.,asaspecificdiscursivestrategyadoptedbytheauthor.Spokenlanguagephenomenaonthelexicallevelalsoincludeinterjectionsand

verbal representations of sounds, e.g.:

(7) Full time – extra time beckons. hurrah! (gre-Cze, 90 mins)

Interjections are also occasionally used in unusual syntactic functions, e.g. asverbs or as components of various ad-hoc utterances and nonce-words, as in the following examples where the author shows his linguistic creativity through de-scribing the spectators’ reactions:

(8) Spain are dominating possession, and their supporters are cockily ole-ole-oleing! every pass. “it’s early days for oles,” warns the guardian’s david Pleat (rus-Spa, 59 mins)

touch-ole!-touch-ole!-touch-ole!-touch-ole! Spain are playing keepball and russia can’t get hold of it. (rus-Spa, 80 mins)

Some other lexical devices with similar functions include:Allusions to taboos, e.g.:

(9) A quiet start to the half again, and yet again the germans begin by seeing more of the ball. they are doing eff all with it, mind. (ger-Spa, 48 mins)

Metaphorical language, e.g.:

(10) Marchena hoofs Klose right in the trousers. that’s a fair old newton’s Cradle clack. Poor guy. (ger-Spa, 50 min)

TheSpainmidfildertakesaswipe;thedaisycutterwasgoingjustwideleftbutLehmannfingertipsitoutanyway.(Ger-Spa,53mins)

Code-mixing (regardless of whether the forms are correct or not), e.g.:


(11) Jaaa! Michael Ballack spielt!!! […] Jaaa! david Villa ist mit der thigh-knack!!!! (ger– Spa, pre-match)

lexical repetitions (cf. Culpeper and Kytö 2006: 70), e.g.:

(12) “Enjoyyourcakes,mate!writesDavidWachter,whoeitheremailedbe-fore my second cake-related post, or is a cruel, cruel man. (Cro-tur, et 2 mins)

Most of the lexical items in the list above communicate extra meanings beyond their denotative meanings: they add the writer’s positive or negative emotions andevaluations,conveyingarangeofmeaningsthatcanbeclassifiedasstylistic,connotative, etc. (cf. whack; ref; cock-up). Some of the items have little refer-ential meaning in themselves, serving solely or mostly as markers of positive or negative emotion (cf. expletives such as bloody; Oh Jesus; etc.). Still others are relativelyneutral (e.g., theadjectivecruel), but they can be used in ways that indicate the author’s evaluative stance (cf. the repetition a cruel, cruel man in the last example where the connotation of orality is conveyed by means of the writ-er’s text-forming strategies rather than the systematic organization of the lexicon as in some of the other examples).

the highly colloquial and informal tenor of many of the lexical categories identified above shows an overlapwith the characteristic style of the popularpress with its ‘tabloid rhetoric’. the overall effect of these expressions rests in the creation of an atmosphere in which the readers may feel at ease: they are addressed in a code which is casual and informal, and, thus, more personal than what is typically the norm for such institutional contexts as the traditional print media (at least in the broadsheet press of which the Guardian is a representa-tive). Such expresions as expletives and taboo words help to bring down barriers existinginofficialandimpersonalcommunication–thepublicmergeswiththeprivate. this conclusion is in harmony with lewis (2003: 102), who notes that “[o]nline, boundaries blur between mass and personal communication, between the published and the unpublished, between news and information, and the geo-graphically-definedcommunitiesandpeer-definedcommunities.”

4.3. Syntactic level

on the syntactic level, there is, again, a whole host of devices and structures whose informality and spokenness contribute towards the synthetic personality of ltC. Jucker (2006: 122) shows that the proportion of clausal and non-clausal units in ltC is almost identical to Ame and Bre conversation (as based on the data in Biber et al. 1999). As regards sentence types, statements satisfying the referential function of information-provision are complemented with exclama-tives, directives and interrogatives with their expressive (emotive) and conative functions. this means that the focus is no longer exclusively on the message but

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also,toasignificantdegree,ontheactualdiscourseparticipants.Thisfocuscanbe both other-oriented (as in directives and questions) and self-oriented (as in exclamatives), cf. the following examples:

(13) Preamble. Shut up. Stand up. Whatever you’re doing, stop it. Shut up. take a moment to salute this historic occasion – the return of international football to the greatest Football Stadium in the entire World/north West london/the hA9 Postal district/Whatever. (eng-Bra, preamble)

Shock! horror! greece are actually mounting a few dangerous looking attacks, mainly down the left. (Por-gre, 31 mins)

exclamatives – as in the last example above – often serve the function of emotive and involved commentary on the progress of the game. the same holds true for interrogatives, such as Shouldn’t that be a penalty? (Por-gre, 67 mins), where the negative polarity of the question indicates its rhetorical and evaluative character, in that it presupposes a particular (i.e. a positive) answer.

once again, the role of questions in creating a more interactive feeling in ltC is noted by Jucker (2006: 125). his material, however, is based on the informa-tivetypeofLTC:questionsaskedbythejournalistthatreallycannotbeansweredby the audience who lack the possibility of providing feedback. in the interactive type of ltC that is analyzed here, some questions (and imperatives) do not have merely such a rhetorical function but operate as part of the textual interaction be-tweenthejournalistandthereaders(regardlessofwhethertheinteractionisseenas real or staged, see below).

in the interactive type of ltC, exclamatives and interrogatives are not limited totheprimarylayerofgamedescription,i.e.,asthejournalist’sevaluativeandpersonalized commentary. Characteristically, they also occur in the secondary layer (within the various parallel thematic lines) as part of the gossip exchanged between the writer and his audience. in this case, they can be quite unrelated to the primary layer, i.e., the running match commentary. Cf. the following ex-amples, which react to two comments made by readers in their emails – one about the ‘Fantasy Football’ game and the other about the obligation to work on the day of the match:

(14) Fantasy Football? gah! don’t any of you blokes have girlfriends? inci-dentally, your man is playing, except the wires have spelt his name hari-steas. (gre-Cze, 18 mins)

Working on independence day? Bah, humbug! (Por-gre, 29 mins)

Questionssuchasthesemayactuallystimulatethereaderstowriteemailsandbecomeactively involved in the co-construction of the text of the live text commentary. that is the case with the latter question, which is not a genuine interrogative, although


itisaddressedbythejournalisttoaparticularreaderasawayofexpressingmockdisbelief (actually echoing the reader’s prior words and thus acting rhetorically ratherthaninvitingsomeanswer–cf.therestoftheutterancewiththeinterjectionand the evaluative exclamative Bah, humbug!). Yet, this sparked the reaction of anotherreader,whoinformsthejournalistofhispresenceinanoffice:

(15) no changes in the second half, which Portugal get underway. Meanwhile in hong Kong, Benny Wong, eh, writes: “i am having an over-night shiftinofficetonightalone,again,” he confesses, bringing a tear to your minute-by-minute reporter’s eye. “i am a football fan and want to thank you guys for reporting the euro matches on line.” the pleasure is all mine,Benny.Nevermind the restof theguys– they’re all ham-fisteddilletante ingrates. (Por-gre, 45 mins)

4.4. The level of discourse organization and pragmatics

A closer analysis of the last example requires a concentration on higher levels of analysis. What we can see in terms of discourse organization is that an utterance from the primary layer of the match commentary (No changes in the second half, which Portugal get underway) is followed by a quote from a reader’s email on the circumstances in which he reads the text, i.e., an utterance from the second-ary layer. this piece of gossip is then reacted to by the commentator’s ironic self-reference in the second person (…bringing a tear to your minute-by-minute reporter’s eye).Theexchangeofpersonalcompliments,accompaniedbyafirst-namereferencetothereader,isfollowedbyahumorousput-downofthejournal-ist’s other male colleagues (cf. guys).Thisisapseudo-dialogue(constructedbythejournalistthroughthejuxtaposi-

tion of the cited voice of the reader and the commentator’s own comment) that is stagedforthebenefitandamusementoftheothermembersoftheaudience.Itisa semi-private pseudo-conversation aired in public in the presence of anonymous mass audiences. Clearly, this phenomenon goes beyond the mere syntactic pat-terning of the utterances; it is a matter of structuration on the discourse level.Astheuseofthefirst-nameaddress(cf.The pleasure is mine, Benny) in the

short pseudo-dialogic exchange above indicates, it is also personal deixis that contributes to the formation of the friendly and relaxed atmosphere of ltC. Al-though this is obviously most frequent within the secondary layer of narration, fa-miliar forms of personal names also occur in the primary layer of the commentary itself, e.g. in reference to football players or referees, as in the following example: German referee Markus “Merky” Merk leads out his funky bunch of linesmen and both teams (Por-gre, pre-match).

A similar familiarising technique is used in the text below, where the nickname Motty has its antecedent in the full name of a famous BBC commentator men-tioned in the preceding verbal context:

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(16) on BBC, John MotsonmakeshisfirstgratuitousmentionofDavidBeck-ham’sfree-kickagainstGreeceinthatdo-or-dieWorldCupqualifier–anincident that’s as irrelevant tonight as Motty’s mention was inevitable. (Por-gre, 34 mins)

occasionally, personal deixis may even be manipulated in a more creative way for the purpose of achieving humorous effects. in such instances, referential precision maybesacrificedforthebenefitofstrategicvaguenessorgenericityofexpression.this is the case of the following comment on a substitution in the game:

(17) greece substitution: Angelos Basinas for giannakopoulos. thanks for that, Mr greek manager. thanks a bunch. Basinas was a nice handy one to type. Why couldn’t you take off Costas Katsouranis or Yourkas Sei-traidis? (gre-Cze, 69 mins)

the quote also documents another phenomenon for promoting the sense of oral-ity: the commentator directs his utterances at various individuals (players, coach-es, referees, etc.) who are not present or involved in the communicative event, who cannot be the actual addressees of the message, and who obviously will not – unlike the readers – react to it in any way. the ironic and pseudo-dialogic ex-pression of thanks in the example above (with the repetition in the next sentence – Thanks for that, Mr Greek manager. Thanks a bunch.) reveals the commentator’s attempt at being humorous with the aim of entertaining his audience.

Such direct utterances may also represent direct comments addressed to the players on the field (or even other commentators in othermedia), sometimescombined with ironic, humorous, or familiar forms of address, resulting in staged pseudo-dialogical interactions, as in the following instances:

(18) Milan Baros shoots from the edge of the penalty area, stinging the palms of Antonis nikopolidis. good effort, sir. (gre-Cze, et 1)

Camera cuts to a fairly beautiful French lady in the crowd. […], Clive tyldesley [an itV sports commentator] announces: “some need make-up more than others”. Say what you see, Clive. (ita-Fra, 41 mins)

Notonlyarethesethirdpersons‘talkedto’inthisfictitiousway,buttheyarealsogivenvoicesinthecommentary.Thisconcernstheentirelyfictitiousutterancesascribed to various persons (typically football players), which take the form of made-up direct speech reactions in which the commentator is actually putting words in the players’ mouths, cf.:

(19) he sits on the ground looking bewildered, as if to say: “What the hell do we have to do to get past you pair?” (Por-gre, 82 mins)


Spokenness in ltC is further conveyed through characteristic sentence and clause structures, and numerous other phenomena more common in speech than in writing. in terms of sentence and clause structure, repetitions and incomplete sentenceswithellipsisofsubjectsandverbs,characteristicallyoccurringatthehighpoints of the game, tend to convey a marked degree of immediacy and con-versationalism in the written text. Many of the utterances manifest features that represent the constructional principles of spoken grammar (cf. Biber et al. 1999), such as prefaces and tags, non-clausal inserts, syntactic non-clausal units, and ellipsis in clausal units.

inserts, for instance, constitute an interesting phenomenon whereby utterances can be expanded. inserts can function as interactive devices that contribute to-wards increasing the dialogism of monologic texts. this concerns, above all, so-called interpolations (cf. talbot 1995), which serve to interrupt the clause struc-ture by means of inserting an explanatory or evaluative comment (or some other kind of a reader-oriented utterance, such as a rhetorical question). Such reader-oriented inserts, used as interactive interpolations of one’s own voice, occur in the following examples:

(20) unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. From a corner, greece nab a winner when a missed header at the front post by – who else? – Vladimir Smicer allows traianos dellas to head it home from a few feet. (gre-Cze, et 15)

Much hilarity in the itV commentary box as the linesman, you’ll like this, loseshisflag!Hohoho!Tuncay ferriesa replacementacross thepitch. (tur-Cze, 65 mins)

Moreover, the various means of establishing an informal atmosphere, achieved thanks to the linguistic recreation of the impression of orality, operate simultane-ously as an interplay rather than in isolation. thus, for instance, the imperative addressed to the commentator by a reader in example (21) below (Leave Ger alone) is supplemented with a humorous foreignism (Au contraire); discourse markers with a personal orientation (I say, I think); a colloquialism (Ger’s got); andapersonaladdressbymeansofafirstname(Kieran):

(21) […] leave ger alone, for a while, i say,” writes Kieran Conway. Au contraire, i think ger’s got a very sympathetic response tonight, Kieran. (gre-Cze, 54 mins)

informality and spokenness are, in addition, accompanied by other discourse phenomena and strategies, such as frequent self-references by the commentators, theuseoffirstandsecondpersonpronounsasfeaturesofinvolvement(cf.Chafe1982, Kuo 2003), the reliance on presuppositions, background knowledge and shared contexts, etc.

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5. Conclusion

As noted above, live text commentary is a hybrid genre that draws on the genres of spoken sports reporting and computer-mediated communication. it comes as little suprise then that ltC is marked by the orality, spokenness, conversationalism and informality noted in other genres of CMC as well (cf. Crystal 2001). What makes ltC unique, however, is the nature of the interpersonal interaction in one of the types of this new genre, the interactive ltC. it is here that the most diverse representations of spoken features can be found – as regards not only the interactiveness of the lan-guage but also the structuration of the utterances into pseudo-dialogical heteroglossic exchangesbetweenthejournalistandahostofother,externalvoices.

While diverse formal features of the spoken mode appear on all language le-vels, these traits of orality in the written text can be interpreted in several ways. As mentioned above, some of them are used as strategies of synthetic persona-lization with the intention of addressing the readers on a more individual basis, thusovercomingamajorbarrier inmassmediacommunicationcontexts.Thisconcerns particularly some of the lexical and syntactic phenomena, such as infor-mal colloquial lexis, vocatives, imperatives, questions and inserts (cf., e.g., Fair-clough 1995, talbot 1995, and urbanová 2006 for similar traits in other types of mass media). these, as well as other related phenomena, reinforce the casual and informal tenor of ltC. in connection with the structuration of the interactive type of ltC along the two layers of narration and the presence of frequent pseudo-dia-logical exchanges, segments of ltC resemble informal conversations reminiscent of online chat. it is here that the spoken features can be seen as instantiations of the genre of gossip (cf. eggins and Slade 1997), with its sociolinguistic function of enhancing the bond between the discourse participants.

that appears to be, in fact, one of the main functions of ltC: it is meant not only to provide information about a currently played sports match, but also to help construct the virtual group of readers and contribute to their virtual social bonding in the online environment. it is not accidental that this function, to which the features of spoken language in ltC ultimately contribute, is particularly strong in the case of sports reporting: the connection between sports talk and social cohesion has been pointed out before, even in gendered terms (cf. Johnson and Finlay 1997 on men’s football talk on tV, and Kuo 2003 on sports reporting). As a result, we can see a further blurring of the lines separating the public and the private (cf. Kuo 2003: 492, who notes that “male sports reporters attempt to imitate, in the public arena, their talk in the private sphere”).

the mixing of modes in the context of modern communication media also leads to the consideration of the traditional characteristics assigned to the two modes. Written and spoken language have been described with such contrasts as permanent/ephemeral, planned/unplanned, integrated/fragmented, and solita-ry/social and (Vachek 1959, ochs 1979, Chafe 1982, tannen 1982, Milroy and Milroy 1999), whose mutual combinations can be used to characterise such situ-ations as ‘spoken to be written’, ‘written to be spoken’, etc.


in ltC, as a genre of mass media communication, the use of linguistic features connected with orality and casualness also combine with the topicality of the events covered or discussed. this is because the spoken language provides an immediate, though ephemeral, reaction to the events. While ephemerality is not an issue in written online media (since the written mode guarantees preservability), the im-mediacy connected with the spoken mode is retained. Spoken features on whatever level – phonological, lexical, syntactic, pragmatic – may then help to convey the impression that the events are being covered in as topical a manner as possible. Since the events are, of course, being reported almost in real time anyway, the choice of the various linguistic features characteristic of spoken – rather than writ-ten – language becomes a symbolic simulation of the immediacy of the events.

Sources

the text uses material from live text commentaries (minute-by-minute match re-ports) from guardian.co.uk; the online version of the British daily newspaper the Guardian – full texts are available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/. the data cited in this article appeared in the sports section from 2004 to 2008. Theyarealllivetextcommentarieswrittenbyprofessionaljournalistsonhigh-priority international football matches.

Abbreviations

et: extra timeCro-Tur: Croatiav.Turkey(1-1,1-3pen),Euro2008QuarterFinals,20June

2008, report by John Ashdowneng-Bra: england v. Brazil (1-1), a friendly match, 1 June 2007, report by rob

Smythger-Spa: germany v. Spain (0-1), euro 2008 Final, 29 June 2008, report by

Scott Murrayger-tur: germany v. turkey (3-2), euro 2008 Semi Finals, 25 June 2008,

report by John Ashdowngre-Cze: greece v. Czech republic (1-0), euro 2004 Semi Finals, 1 July 2004,

report by Barry glendenningHol-rus: Hollandv.russia(1-3),Euro2008QuarterFinals,21June2008,

report by tom lutzita-Fra: italy v. France (1-1, 5-3 pen), Football World Cup Final, 9 July 2006,

report by rob SmythPor-gre: Portugal v. greece (0-1), euro 2004 Final, 4 July 2004, report by

Barry glendenningrus-Spa: russia v. Spain (0-3), euro 2008 Semi Finals, 26 June 2008, report

by Sean ingle

126 JAn ChoVAneC

tur-Cze: turkey v. Czech republic (3-2), euro 2008 group A match, 15 June 2008, report by John Ashdown

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128 JAn ChoVAneC

Jan ChovaneC is an assistant professor in the department of english and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university in Brno, Czech republic, where he teaches classes in media discourse,languageandlaw,andsociolinguistics.Hehaspublishedinvariousjournals(e.g.,Dis-course & Communication) and volumes (e.g., Cases on Online Discussion and Interaction: Expe-riences and Outcomes; Perspectives in Politics and Discourse; Cohesion and Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse; Language and the Law: International Outlooks). his research interests in-clude the interactive nature of discourse in media contexts, the representation of social actors, face and politeness in interpersonal interactions, and word play. he has recently focused on dialogism and humour in the discourse of live text commentary.

Address: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.d., department of english and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university, Arna nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech republic. [email: [email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

olga DonTCheva-navraTilova

interPersonAl meAnings in the genre oF DiPlomAtic ADDresses

Abstractthis article is concerned with the construction of interpersonal relations in a relatively neglected genre of political discourse – opening addresses delivered by directors-general of uneSCo at international conferences and meetings – arguing that the genre-specificdistributionof interpersonal cues in addressesenhances the perception of coherence. While exploring the communicative pur-pose and the rhetorical structure of addresses, the analysis relates the rhetorical moves of the genre to communicative functions of language conveying interper-sonal meanings and considers their contribution to the perception of discourse coherence.Thefindingsoftheanalysisshowthatowingtotheritualisticcharac-ter of addresses, interpersonal meanings contributing to the perception of coher-ence convey a continuous appeal to the audience related to claiming common ground and shared ideology, and a consistent subjective evaluation of socialactors, their actions and relations by the speaker.

Key wordsInterpersonal meaning; coherence; genre; rhetorical structure; evaluation; sub-jectivity; modality; political discourse

1. Introduction

opening addresses are a sub-genre of the genre-colony (Bhatia 2004: 7) of politi-cal speeches and thus share most of their characteristic features, including the macro-communicative purpose of persuading the audience to accept the speak-er’s understanding of reality and of supporting the ideologically biased views andpolicyhe/shesuggests(Dedaić2006:700).Owingtothespecificityoftheinternational context and their ritualistic character, however, they differ from the

130 olgA dontCheVA-nAVrAtiloVA

majorityofpoliticalspeechesinthattheydonothavetheulterioraimofpersuad-ing the audience to vote for the speaker or the party he/she represents. drawing on donahue and Prosser (1997: 4), the rhetorical genre of diplomatic addresses canbedefinedasepideicticoratoryforceremonialoccasionswhichmayincludedeliberative aspects; opening addresses presuppose a high level of personal in-volvement, they focus on the present, though may refer to past events and to the future, and involve an evaluative treatment of people, actions and events by emphasising praise or blame. As a result the interpersonal meaning component, related to establishing contact, appealing to the audience and expressing feeling andjudgements,comestothefore,andonmanyoccasionseclipsestheinforma-tive value of the speech. Since the persuasive force of political talk depends on several aspects of coherence, namely discourse coherence, i.e. the interpretative perception of the semantic unity and purposefulness of discourse (cf. Bublitz 1997, Seidlhofer and Widdowson 1997, Povolná 2007 and dontcheva-navrati-lova 2007, 2009), “the audience’s evaluation of the coherence of ‘what has been said’ and ‘what has been meant’” (Fetzer 2002: 185), i.e. speaker’s credibility, and existential coherence (duranti 2006), i.e. the ability of the speaker to represent his/her behaviour and attitude to people, values, facts and ideas as consistent and continuous, the aim of this paper is to investigate how interpersonal meanings in addresses contribute to discourse coherence and to the integrity and credibility of the speakers, while helping them achieve their communicative intentions with regard to the situational, socio-cultural and pragmatic context in which the inter-action takes place.

2. Interpersonal meanings and communicative functions

the interpersonal component of language (halliday 1985) is concerned with the relations between the addressor and the addressee present in the communicative event, and can be related to the phatic, expressive and conative functions as de-finedinJakobson’stheoryoflanguagefunctions(1990).Sinceinagreementwithtrosborg (2000) this analysis of interpersonal meanings in diplomatic addresses is based on a discussion of the communicative functions language performs to transmit meanings associated with the rhetorical moves which make part of the structure of the genre under investigation, the relevant language functions are briefly introduced here. It should be noted that the form-function correlationsdiscussed below are considered to be genre specific; however, since languageforms may perform different functions on different occasions or more than one function simultaneously, the full interpretation potential of a text can be revealed only taking in consideration the particular situational and socio-cultural context in which the interaction takes place.

the phatic function is signalled by urbanová (2008: 46) as the most important function in spoken language from a sociolinguistic point of view. it is related to the establishment of interpersonal relations by attracting the attention of the audi-

131interPerSonAl MeAningS in the genre oF diPloMAtiC AddreSSeS

ence, ensuring that the channel of communication is open and creating an atmos-phere of sharing and togetherness; the language devices realising this function are cliché phrases used in social rituals, greetings, polite formulae, terms of address, and the inherently polite speech acts of thanking and apologising (Brown and levinson 1987).

discourse which appeals directly to the audience with the aim of having a spe-cificeffectorinfluenceontheiropinionsorbehaviourisexpressedbythecona-tive function. While not involving an assessment of the truth value of the proposi-tion, it presupposes a reaction and an uptake on the part of the addressee, who is expected to be persuaded, convinced, deterred or misled into sharing a particular opinion or undertaking action. the main devices associated with this type of in-terpersonal meanings are vocatives, questions and commands, which can be real-ised by direct or indirect speech acts.

the meanings that the expressive use of language conveys reveal the speaker’s emotions and attitudes to the state of affairs at issue and therefore are inherently subjective.Theyareexpressedbylexicalitemswithconnotativemeaning,per-sonal intrusions on the part of the speaker by means of self-reference personal pronouns, verbs of thinking and emotions, and the speech acts of apologising, congratulating, wishing and thanking (Searle 1991). Subjectivity may also be expressed in utterances which perform primarily

a representative function; by categorising events, social actors and their actions which make part of their representation of the world, the speakers evaluate the state of affairs from the point of view of their ideology as fair or unfair, desirable or undesirable etc. Such statements contribute to the persuasive effect of dis-course and may be referred to as verdictives (Austin 1962: 150, trosborg 2000: 124).

Concluding this brief review of communicative functions associated with the expression of interpersonal meanings, it should be stressed that it is not always possible to distinguish the functions clearly, since individual stretches of dis-course may convey several communicative intentions.

3. Generic structure of opening addresses

genre analysis as developed by Swales (1990, 2004) and Bhatia (1993) com-bines socio-cultural, cognitive and interactional considerations in order to ex-plain socially constructed form-function correlations as manifested in different discourse forms used by members of various discourse communities in academic, professional and other institutionalised settings (Bhatia 2004: 123). Within this approach,genre isdefinedas a conventional communicativeevent recognizedby a particular discourse community which is associated with particular types of socialoccasions,andwhichhasaspecificsetofcommunicativepurposes,impos-ing constraints on the choice of content and style (Swales 1990: 46-58). the most important criterion for genre delimitation is the communicative purpose(s) that


theusersexpectdiscoursetofulfilinaparticularcontext;however,agenremayallowforinternalvariation,i.e.sub-genres,reflectingdifferenceinspecificcom-municative goal(s) and associated discourse strategies (Bhatia 1993: 21).

An analysis of generic structure deals with “the cognitive aspects of language organisation” (Bhatia 1993: 29). it aims at identifying the rhetorical move-struc-ture present in texts representative of the genre which helps the speaker/writer fulfilhis/hercommunicativepurposes,and the rhetorical featuresused incon-structing the text; however, since instances of genres differ in their prototypi-cality(Swales1990:49),thereisflexibilityintherealisationofthemovesandrhetorical features used on particular occasions. While endeavouring to identify the move structure of the genre of opening addresses, this paper studies inter-personal meanings and related communicative functions expressed in individual moves and considers their contribution to the perception of discourse coher-ence.

As stated above, the material under investigation comprises addresses deliv-ered by leaders of uneSCo, one of the international governmental organisa-tions within the united nations system. the research has been carried out on thirty speeches delivered by three politicians from different cultural backgrounds whowere the last tohold theofficeofDirector-GeneralofUNESCO,namelyAmadou-Mahtar M’Bow from Senegal, term of office: 1974–1987; FedericoMayorZaragoza fromSpain, termofoffice:1987–1999;andKoïchiroMatsu-urafromJapan,termofoffice:1999–2009.(Thetextsofallthespeechesofthedirectors-general of uneSCo are available at the following website address: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/director-general/the-organization/the-directors-general/, where they can be accessed by choosing firstthenameofaDirector-General,thenthe‘Speeches’options,andfinallybyindicatingthespecificoccasionatwhichthespeechwasdelivered.)

opening addresses have primarily a symbolic and ceremonial function and serve the following communicative purposes:

1) they draw the attention of the audience to the importance of the event and establish a social relationship.

2) By asserting the interest and participation of uneSCo in the event, the speaker aims at enhancing the feeling of belonging to a community which shares the ideology supported by the organisation. the presence of the di-rector-general and the ceremonial address he/she delivers symbolises the involvement of uneSCo in the event and supports the audience’s alle-giance to its aims.

3) opening addresses offer an appraisal of a situation, process or event of re-gional or international importance from the point of view of the institutional ideology.

4) When situations, processes or events may be interpreted as a problem, the speech offers a solution and suggests intervention pertaining to the scope of action of the organisation. in these cases, addresses have a persuasive func-


tion related to the necessity of urging the audience to support the suggested course of action.

5) An additional function of opening addresses is to encourage the audience to participate actively in the event and to persevere in their efforts to contribute to the realisation of common goals.

Thesecommunicativepurposesarereflectedinthestructureofthegenre.Sincethe focus of this paper is on interpersonal meanings, the rhetorical structure of opening addresses suggested below is restricted to typical moves and sub-moves available in the genre, without accounting for intra-generic variation:

1) Salutation – the opening section in which the speaker creates common ground with the audience by giving acknowledgements to his/her hosts and to the audience, such as gratitude for servicers received, or recognition of personal and/or professional association. it is frequently not related to the topic of the speech propera) direct address to the audience, including congratulations to the cur-

rentpresidentoftheproceedings,orasimilarofficerand,occasionallyother members of the audience

b) thankingtheofficialsaddressedfortheirsupportfortheissue,eventoractivity central to the occasion and for their allegiance to uneSCo. this may often include personal involvement of the speaker with the person to whom he/she refers

2) Asserting centrality of the issue, event or programme to the uneSCo ideol-ogy and action plana) claiming centrality of the issue, relating it to the programme and activi-

ties of uneSCob) if another organisation/member-state is involved, the speaker stresses

the importance of cooperation between this institution and uneSCo, thus reinforcing common ground

3) introducing the situation a) evaluation of regional and world issues relevant to the event from the

point of view of the uneSCo ideologyb) evaluative description of facts relevant to the situation and related pre-

vious actions of uneSCo4) indicating a problem

a) problem description, highlighting urgencyb) problem evaluation, assuming that the audience shares the speaker’s

assessment5) Suggesting a solution to the problem

a) suggesting interventional measuresb) motivating the necessity of the intervention and the necessity of urgent

commonactiontoachievejointgoals


6) evaluating the contribution of the event or suggested action plan from the point of view of uneSCo and the regional or international community

7) Closure a) wishing the event success b) thanking the audience for its attention

it is obvious that moves 3 – 6 draw on the SPre (situation-problem-response-evaluation) model suggested by hoey (1983, 2001), which has been proved to be applicable in the analysis of rhetorical relations above clause level in differ-ent discourse types (cf. edge and Wharton 2001, Flowerdew 2008). it should be mentionedthatthesemovesarefull-fledgedinaddresseswhichhaveadelibera-tive aspect.

4. Analysis

the analysis of interpersonal meanings in addresses generally follows the same sequence as rhetorical moves; however, when the same interpersonal device is used in several moves, its functions tend to be discussed by taking into considera-tion all the moves in which it is used. WhenopeninghisaddressaDirector-Generalhasfirsttoattracttheattention

of the people in order to persuade them to listen. therefore, in the salutation he exploits the phatic function to establish interpersonal relations with his audi-ence; as dontcheva-navratilova (2008) points out, this involves both negative and positive politeness strategies related to showing respect and creating com-mon ground. Since diplomatic discourse is highly ritualistic and formal, the terms of address used for direct appeal to the audience express deference and include titles (Doctor, Professoretc.)andhonorifics(e.g.Madam, Sir), which indicate the relative status of the participants. For instance, in the salutation of Matsuura’s speech delivered at un headquarters (1) the president of the proceedings and otherofficialsareaddressedbyhonorificortitleandsurname,i.e.theunmarkedformsforthiscontext;theorderofthelistingreflectssocialandinstitutionalrank,often signalled explicitly by appositives. the groups are referred to by contex-tually determined formulaic address terms; however, owing to the potential of linguistic selections to construct interpersonal relations, the choice of the label colleagues claims common ground and indicates in-group membership (Brown and levinson 1987).

(1) Mrs Anan, dr Arima, representative of the government of Japan for deSd Affairs, Mrs rima Salah, deputy executive director of uniCeF, Professor rockefeller, distinguished Members of the diplomatic Corps, Colleagues from the un system,


distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

the occurrence of the vocatives Ladies and Gentlemen and occasionally Excel-lencies is not restricted to the salutation part of the speech; they are also used as indicators of discourse structure at transitional points between rhetorical moves to check that the channel is open and enhance continuous interpersonal contact. this is illustrated in (2), where the vocative, the metadiscourse marker realised bythefirst-personimperativeLet me, “common when the speaker/writer is sig-nalling an upcoming aspect of the text” (Carter and McCarthy 2006: 288), and the direct address to the audience by the personal pronoun you, draw the attention of the listeners to the importance of cooperation and action in Africa to uneSCo’s activities, thus explicitly marking a coherent transition to rhetorical move (2a) – ‘claiming centrality of the issue, relating in to the programme and activities of uneSCo’.

(2) ladies and gentlemen, LetmefirstofallbrieflyremindyouofUNESCO’sapproachtothecru-

cial question of cooperation and action in Africa.

Theparticipants’interpersonalrelationsarenotdefinedonlybythetermsofad-dress the speaker uses; they are also constructed by the use of personal pronouns and other indexical expressions which, on the one hand, are sensitive to the social contextandreflectinterpersonalrelationsintermsofpowerandsolidarity,andon the other, may be exploited to (re-)construct such relations via language. in the second move of the salutation which conveys both phatic and expressive mean-ingstheDirectors-Generalshowpersonalinvolvementandpaycredittoofficials,thanking them for their allegiance to the ideas and aims of uneSCo. the explicit attribution of views and opinions to the speaker presents him as an active dis-course participant, thus making the speech more interactive and contributing to greater speaker visibility (gosden 1993: 62–67). this is typically associated with thediscoursestrategyofself-disclosureinvolvingthefrequentuseoffirst-personstructures (donahue and Prosser 1997: 74), which contributes to the credibility and existential coherence of the speaker by making explicit his attitude to people, facts and ideas, thus allowing him to represent these as continuous. taken from an address delivered by Mayor to a session of the international narcotics Control Board, extract (3) shows how the strong personal presence of the speaker com-bined with direct appeal to the audience (indicated by the pronominal forms you/your) and the politeness strategies of showing deference towards the interlocutor (expressedbytheuseoftitleandhonorificsandtheactofthanking)andclaim-ing common ground in a shared deictic centre (the session), gradually lead to the definingofcommitmentsofsocialactorsbythestatementofanintentiontoun-dertakejointactionagainstacommonthreat,thustransforming‘I and you’ into ‘us’ against ‘them’. Approval of the beliefs and actions of others is enhanced by


politenessformulaecontainingstronglypositiveaffectiveadjectives(honoured inthisexample;otheradjectivesusedinthecorpusare,e.g. delighted, dedicated, happy, inspiring) which evaluate speaker-audience relations.

(3) i am very honoured by your invitation to address this 58th session of the international narcotics Control Board and to discuss with you global is-sues of drug abuse and control and uneSCo’s aim of reducing the de-mand for drugs through a preventive education programme. to Professor hamid ghodse, President of inCB, i offer my personal thanks for invit-ing me to speak, and i should like to thank you all for being here around thistable.Ihopetospendthismorningwithyoufindingwaysandmeansof tackling what i consider to be one of the most serious global threats to society, to health and to the economy – the threat of drug abuse and drug trafficking.

thus established, the continuity of the represented identities, roles and commit-ments of the social actors and their consistent evaluative treatment throughout the speech contribute to the perception of discourse coherence.

in the following moves of the rhetorical structure of opening addresses – as-serting centrality, introducing the situation, indicating a problem, suggesting a solution, evaluation of the contribution of the event – the speakers exploit the expressive, conative and verdictive functions of language to express interper-sonalmeaningsindicatedprimarilybysubjectivitymarkers,persuasivestrategiesandevaluativejudgements;thesearetypicallyconveyedbyreferencedevicesandrelated nominal categorisation, modality markers and evaluative lexical items.

the interpersonal potential of pronominal choice in addresses is related to the levelofinvolvementofthespeakerwiththetopicandtheaudience.Subjectivityindicated explicitly by personal intrusions for showing commitment and sincerity is not restricted to a particular rhetorical move. Itistypicallyrealisedbyfiniteclauses with mental-process verbs, such as I think, I want, I trust, I know, I hope and I believe (4a, b), which guide the audience towards an intended interpretation ofthediscourse.Byinvitingthelistener’sjudgementandthusenhancinglistenerinvolvement, these expressions indicate interpersonal appeal, which is stressed by the shift to the inclusive we in (4a).

(4a) i think that we must explore this approach of considering drug addicts as persons who need care and to whom such care should be provided in the same way as any other kind of medical assistance.

(4b) And the greatest part of that challenge, i believe, is to learn the lessons of interdependence.

owing to the opacity of pragmatic markers in spoken discourse, the use of I think and I believe, which are typically regarded as attenuation markers indicat-ing a lesser degree of certainty (this concerns both matrix clauses termed hedges


by Brown and levinson 1987: 164, and comment clauses with the function of opine markers as discussed by Povolná 2009: 74) to convey a personal attribution of judgement in(4a,b),mayalsobeinterpretedasanaccentuationdeviceex-pressing strong commitment on the part of the speaker (urbanová 2003: 67). the persuasive force of such pragmatic markers stems from the fact that, drawing on the expertise and institutional authority of the director-general, they put forward a strong position conforming to the shared values and views of the organisation.

the use of we referring to a group contributes to the construction of group identity by identifying and categorizing the members of the group and excluding others from membership in this group (helmbrecht 2002: 31). While stating his and the institutions’s membership of the group, typically in move 2, ‘asserting the centralityof the issue’, theDirector-Generaldefineshis interpersonalrelationswith (members of) the audience by anchoring the group to his deictic centre, thus determining it as proximal in terms of the dimensions of space, time and modali-ty; the establishment of a shared ideology and the continuity of in-group relations contributes to discourse coherence and to the perception of the existential coher-ence of the speaker and the institution he represents. thus (5) shows that the cat-egorisation of uneSCo as lead agency for promoting educational programmes enablestheDirector-Generaltoreaffirmhisinstitutionalidentity,and,byrelatingpast action to future expectations, to enhance the existential coherence of the organisation which is presented as acting consistently towards a goal shared with a partner (eCoWAS). in fact, our hope suggests an implicit ambiguity, since it is possible to identify the referent of our as uneSCo only, or as uneSCo andECOWASsharingjointgoalsandaims;afurther interpersonal dimension is added by the sentence initial adverbial appealing directly to the audience to claim shared knowledge.

(5) As you are already aware, uneSCo has given priority to its work as lead agency for promoting education for All (eFA) and the education-related Millennium development goals (Mdgs). in this regard, we have responded to the request of the Secretariat and member states for assist-ance in the formulation of the eCoWAS education Protocol, which now serves as the basis for collaboration between eCoWAS member states in this important area. in addition, we have collaborated with the Secretariat in designing a regime for the recognition of higher education degrees across the sub-region. ECOWASmember states benefit here not onlyfrom uneSCo interventions in response to bilateral agreements with eCoWAS, but also directly by virtue of their membership of uneSCo. our hope and expectation is that through eCoWAS sponsored networks, thesebenefitswillbesharedacrossWestAfrica.

Categorisation of social actors is exploited for persuasion purposes in the situa-tion – problem – response moves of addresses with deliberative aspects, where thespeakertypicallyexpressessubjectiveevaluationofthestateofaffairsfrom


the point of view of the institutional ideology and conveys a strong commitment to a suggested plan of action. this interpersonal dimension of addresses is typi-cally enhanced by epistemic and deontic modality markers; epistemic meanings frame the discourse in subjectivity by showing the feelings, beliefs and criti-calthoughtofthespeaker,thusreflectinghis/herideologyandposition(Simon-Vandenbergen 1997: 342), while deontic meanings connected with the neces-sity or desirability of acts performed by morally responsible agents (lyons 1977: 823), convey an ideologically biased representation of a discourse world in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. drawing on Chilton’s (2004) approach to the analysis of political discourse, the discourse world of the speaker may be seen as constructed along three dimensions of deixis – space, time and modality – which position the speaker at the deictic centre, associated with “not only the origin of here and now, but also of epistemic true and deontic right” (Chilton 2004: 59). Since modality – similarly to spatial, temporal and social relations – is conceptualised in terms of remoteness, the modal scale may be claimed to represents the speaker’s con-ceptualisationofrealityrangingfromconfidentpredictiontonearimpossibility,and from true, right and desirable, located near to or co-located with the self, to false, wrong and undesirable located with the other(s). this conceptualisation of the discourse world in contrastive sets of values tries to provoke a response from the audience, the aim of the speaker being to convince the listeners to support his ideology and suggested plan of action.

example (6a) shows the opening lines of Mayor’s address to the 58th session of the united nations international narcotics Control Board. the director-gen-eral uses a very interesting strategy – he gives a summary of the SPre rhetori-cal moves in his speech before formally addressing the audience. owing to this unexpected structural arrangement, the high level of certainty indicated by the presentation of the situation as a fact, and the expressive war metaphor enhanced by triple parallelism, the contrast between the negatively-assessed reality (drugs; drunks; cancer; kills like war; addiction; shame) and the desirable state of affairs (personal and social security; health) attracts the attention of the listeners and enhances the persuasiveness of the rhetoric. obviously, the aim is to convince the audience of the necessity of undertaking action (severe judicial sanctions; coura-geous; firm; innovative measures; radical measures; international measures) to stop wrongdoing and to protect victims. the presupposed high degree of consen-susandsolidarityontheissueofdrugaddictionisreflectedinthedirectivefunc-tion of most modal meanings, which gives the whole speech a coherent frame, and the high degree of certainty in the necessity of undertaking action (absolutely indispensable). the authority of Mayor’s expert knowledge as a biochemist is used to support his institutional authority as director-general of uneSCo to impose obligations on the addressee, expressed by the modal must. the high de-gree of personal involvement on the part of the speaker is indicated by the use of first-personpronouns, which in the case of we, drawing on the pragmatic strat-egy over-inclusion (Bull and Fetzer 2006: 15), may be interpreted as referring to all institutions and individuals sharing the view that drugs should be eradicated.


however, in the extract taken from the ‘suggesting a solution to the problem’ move (6b), when referring to measures at international and national level, i.e. presupposing competences which are outside the scope of uneSCo, the speaker conveys a lesser degree of certainty (I think it would be worth considering; to whom care should be provided; we could thereby contribute) since he lacks the power to impose such measures.

(6a) drugs kill: they kill like war. Cars driven by drunks kill: they kill as in war. lung cancer kills: it kills like war. As a brain biochemist, i must warn particularly against the damage produced by drug addiction. irre-versibility is the supreme criterion for action. it is a matter of the ethics of time.Courageous,firm,innovativemeasuresmustbeadoptedatinterna-tional and national level alike if we really want to end this shame of many people, too often young, being trapped by an addiction harmful both for them and for their social entourage. there is a need to publicize and issue stern warnings concerning the effects of drugs on health, behaviour, and personalandsocialsecurity.Swiftandseverejudicialsanctionsarealsonecessary.Wemustprosecutethedrugtraffickersjustaswemustcareforthe health of the addicted. Both supply and demand must be reduced. this means adopting radical measures for preventing the laundering of money of unknown provenance. the adoption of international measures to this effect is absolutely indispensable if we wish to address the real problems and not merely the symptoms. […]

(6b) i think it would be worth while considering an international agreement to allow, under medical control, a limited supply of drugs to drug addicts who need them and are unable to break with their habit. they should simultaneouslybenefit fromsocial andmedical care, andbehelped inthe same way as patients suffering from a curable disease. i think that we must explore this approach of considering drug addicts as persons who need care and to whom such care should be provided in the same way as any other kind of medical assistance. We could thereby contribute to the curing process while ensuring that the drug will be made available to those concerned without the need for recourse to the means they are pres-ently forced to adopt.

the evaluation of the importance of the event has a conclusive function and may be closely interwoven with the closure move which follows. As extract (7) il-lustrates, this move is typically signalled by an explicit metadiscourse marker (I should like to conclude), which attracts the attention of the audience to the forthcoming end of the interaction and to the importance of the evaluative part ofthespeech,whichismarkedbyahighlevelofsubjectivityindicatedbymark-ers of personal involvement of the speaker (I should like; I also wish; I wish; I am convinced). By pointing to the contribution of the event to the realisation of the policy of the organisation, this move highlights the existential coherence of


uneSCo; furthermore, it indicates solidarity with the host country by expressing gratitude for the services provided.

(7) i should like to conclude by underlining once more the importance of this present Conference for a better sharing of knowledge and for the strengthening and development of the ability of nations to innovate and shape their own infrastructure in such a vitally important area of research as the human genome. i also wish to express my gratitude to Chinese scientists and the Chinese authorities for having agreed to host the Con-ference and for all the facilities they have provided to the participants. i wish this Conference every success, and i am convinced that it marks the beginning of a new chapter in international co-operation in the biological sciences under uneSCo’s auspices.

thank you.

Similarly to the salutation, the last rhetorical move in addresses – the closure – is primarily associated with interpersonal meanings related to the phatic and expres-sive functions, conveyed by pronominal reference and the polite acts of wishing success and thanking (8). the pronoun you, which is used in combination with the self-reference pronoun I, represents the addressee as sharing the deictic cen-tre of the speaker. the act of thanking is a conventional indication of the end of a speech.

(8) i wish you rich and fruitful deliberations. thank you.

Thehighlyritualisticfirstandlastmovesoftheopeningaddresseshaveacrucialrole in the construction of interpersonal relations between the participants, since they open and close the channel of communication and, thanks to the personal involvement of the speaker and direct address to the audience, enhance continuity and coherence of interpersonal relations.

5. Conclusions

Thefindingsof theanalysishaveshownthatdueto theritualisticcharacterofuneSCo opening addresses the interpersonal meanings expressed by the speak-ers convey a continuous appeal to the audience related to the claiming of common groundandsharedideology,andaconsistentsubjectiveevaluationofsocialac-tors, their actions and relations. thus they contribute to discourse coherence and enhance the integrity and credibility of the speakers, while helping them achieve their communicative intentions with regard to the situational, socio-cultural and pragmatic context in which the interaction takes place.


the interpersonal meanings expressed in the rhetorical moves of the genre of openingaddressesreflectthecommunicativeintentionsofthespeaker.Thesalu-tation and the closure of the speeches, which aim at attracting attention, appeal-ing to the audience and claiming common ground, convey phatic, conative and expressive meanings. the body of the address, which can be analysed using the SPre model of rhetorical relations, concentrates on an evaluative treatment of people, actions and events and, in the case of addresses with a deliberative aspect, endeavours to persuade the audience to share a suggested view, policy and plan of action; it is therefore related primarily to the verdictive, conative and expressive functions of language.

obviously, opening addresses show numerous features typical of spoken inter-actionand,inparticular,ofpoliticalspeeches.Thespecificityofthegenreresidesin the ritualistic aspects of the rhetoric and the highly formal intergovernmen-tal character of the communication, which should accommodate the interests of numerous institutional participants coming from different cultural backgrounds. thus, while dealing with issues of regional and international importance, the speakerdoesnotappealdirectly toa largeaudienceofvoters,but toofficials,who in most cases are not empowered to take immediate decisions. it follows that typical addresses convey a symbolic proclamation of moral values and an ap-praisal of social actors, actions and events, rather than a direct appeal for action.

in conclusion, it should be stated that the results of this investigation substan-tiate the view that the selection of interpersonal meanings expressed in a genre reflectstherhetoricalstructureofdiscourseandcontributesdecisivelytotheper-ception of discourse coherence. Further research may explore in greater detail differences in contextually motivated interpersonal choices in the genre colony of political speeches.

Note

Thisarticleispartofthegrantproject405/08/0866CoherenceandCohesioninenglish discourse, which is supported by the Czech Science Foundation.

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man.Bhatia,Vijay(2004)Worlds of Written Discourse. A Genre-Based View. new York: Continuum.Brown, Penelope and Steven levinson (1987) Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage.

Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. Bublitz, Wolfram (1997) ‘introduction: Views on coherence’. in: Wolfram Bublitz, uta lenk and ElijaVentola(eds.) Coherence in spoken and written discourse.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins,1–7.


Bull, Peter and Anita Fetzer (2006) ‘Who are we and who are you? the strategic use of forms of address in political interviews’. Text & Talk 26-1, 3–37.

Carter, ronald and Michael McCarthy (2006) Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cam-bridge university Press.

Chilton, Paul (2004) Analysing Political Discourse. london: routledge. Dedaíć,MirjanaN.(2006)‘PoliticalSpeechesandPersuasiveArgumentation’.In:KeithBrown

(ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol. 9. Amsterdam: elsevier, 700–707.donahue, ray t. and Michael h. Prosser (1997) Diplomatic Discourse: International Conflict at

the United Nations – Addresses and Analysis. london: Ablex. dontcheva-navratilova, olga (2007) ‘on coherence in written discourse’. in: Schmied, Josef,

Christoph haase and renata Povolná (eds.) Complexity and Coherence: Approaches to Linguis-tic Research and Language Teaching. göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 127–145.

dontcheva-navratilova, olga (2008) ‘Forms of address and self-reference and other-reference in political speeches’. in: grmelová, Anna, libuše dušková, Mark Farrell, and renata Pípalová (eds.) Plurality and Diversity in English Studies. univerzita Karlova v Praze, Pedagogická fakul-ta, 70–80.

dontcheva-navratilova, olga (2009) ‘Building up discourse coherence: Creating identities in po-litical speeches’. in: olga dontcheva-navratilova and renata Povolná (eds.) Coherence and Co-hesion in Spoken and Written Discourse, newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 97–119.

duranti, Alessandro (2006) ‘narrating the political self in a campaign for u.S. Congress’. Lan-guage in Society 35, 467–497.

edge, Julian and Sue Wharton (2001) ‘Patterns of text in teacher education’. in: Scott, Michael and thompson, geoff (eds.) Patterns of Text.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins,255–286.

Fetzer, Anita (2002) ‘“Put bluntly, you have something of a credibility problem”: Sincerity and credibility in political interviews’. in: Chilton, Paul and Christina Schäfner (eds.) Politics as Text and Talk. Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse. Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins,173–202.

Flowerdew, lynne (2008) Corpus-Based Analysis of the Problem-Solution Pattern. Amsterdam: JohnBenjamins.

Gosden,Hugh (1993) ‘DiscourseFunctionsofSubject inScientificresearchArticles’.Applied Linguistics 14(1), 56–75.

halliday, Michael A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. london: edward Ar-nold.

helmbrecht, Johannes (2002) ‘grammar and Function of We’. in: duzsak, Anna (ed.) Us and Oth-ers. Amsterdam:JohnBemjamins,31–50.

hoey, Michael (1983) On the Surface of Discourse. london: george Allen and unwin.hoey, Michael (2001) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis. london,

new York: routledge.Jakobson, roman (1990) On Language. london, Cambridge: harvard university Press.lyons, John (1977) Semantics, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press. Povolná, renata (2007) ‘Aspects of coherence in spoken discourse’. in: Schmied, Josef, Christoph

haase and renata Povolná (eds.) Complexity and Coherence: Approaches to Linguistic Research and Language Teaching. göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 107–125.

Povolná, renata (2009) ‘exploring interactive discourse markers in academic spoken discourse’. in: dontcheva-navratilova, olga and renata Povolná (eds.) Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse, newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 60–80.

Searle, John (1991) ‘indirect Speech Acts’. in: davis, Steven (ed.) Pragmatics. A Reader. oxford: oxford university Press, 265–277.

Seidlhofer, Barbara and henry Widdowson (1997) ‘Coherence in summary: the contexts of appro-priate discourse’. in: Bublitz,Wolfram,UtaLenkandElijaVentola(eds.) Coherence in spoken and written discourse.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins,205–219.

Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie (1997) ‘Modal (un)certainty in political discourse: A functional account’. Language Sciences 19(4), 341–356.


Swales, John M. (1990) Genre Analysis. English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

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trosborg, Anna (2000) ‘the inaugural address’. in: Analysing Professional Genres. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:JohnBenjamins,212–145.

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olga DonTCheva-navraTilova is Assistant Professor of english linguistics at Masaryk university Brno, Czech republic. She specialises in discourse analysis, stylistics and pragmatics, focusing on politicalandacademicdiscourse,andiscurrentlyinvolvedintheresearchprojectCoherence and Cohesion in English Discourse, the aim of which is to conceptualize coherence and cohesion as constitutive components of human communication and to explore features and strategies enhancing the perception of coherence and cohesion in different genres of spoken and written discourse. She co-editstheacademicjournalDiscourse and Interaction.

Address: Mgr. olga dontcheva-navratilova, Ph.d., department of english language and litera-ture,FacultyofEducation,MasarykUniversity,Poříčí9,Brno60300,Czechrepublic.[e-mail:[email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

Milan Ferenčík

‘Doing interruPting’ As A Discursive tActic in ArgumentAtion: A Post-PrAgmAtic Politeness

theory PersPective

Abstractunderlying every speech system is the turn-taking system which is in charge of effective distribution of participation space (turn) and is the source of partici-pation rights and obligations, esp. participants’ right to turn. turn boundaries often become an area of struggle for participation, with interruption becoming a means of expropriation of the current speaker’s turn as well as a resource for the exercise and display of discursive power. the paper focuses on interrup-tion as a discursive tactic employed by participants in the public-participation mass-media genre of phone-in and approaches its status from the perspective of post-modern politeness theory.

Key wordsInterruption; discursive power; post-modern politeness theory; (im)politeness as discursive struggle; argumentation; phone-in interaction

1. Introduction

in principle, underlying any conversational activity is a system for the distribution of participation space, whereby participants monitor each other’s verbal activity and, while orienting to certain linguistic (morphosyntactic and suprasegmental) and paralinguistic clues, identify those points in talk where they can lay their claim to a portion of communication space, viz. to turn. the fact that, under nor-mal circumstances, transfer of speakership occurs smoothly, i.e. without notice-ably long pauses or simultaneous talk, is suggestive of the existence of a system of rules that guide such behaviour. obviously, occurrences of unsmooth transfer

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of speakership are far from being rare, especially in discourses marked for a high degree of participants’ involvement, such as in argumentation. the media genre of phone-in represents such a case; as an instance of public participation radio programme it gives its audience an opportunity to voice their opinions in live broadcastanddiscussthemwiththehost.Theparticipationinthisspecificsettingis describable in terms of participants’ uneven access to interactional resources, which is manifested, among other things, in patterns of turn-allocation. this im-balance is, however, open for contestation, and possible shifts in the pre-allocated patterns of participation may become a manifestation of their struggle for dis-cursive power. the paper, which is informed by the theoretical-methodological underpinnings of Conversation Analysis and by that strand of post-modern po-liteness research which conceives of politeness as discursive struggle, discusses several extracts from a radio phone-in programme in which participants are in-volvedinthedeploymentofinterruptivediscursivetacticwiththeobjectivetotrace whether or not this discursive practice surfaces in participants’ own evalu-ations as having repercussions upon the level of their relational work, or more concretely, upon their (im)politeness evaluations.

2. The theoretical framework

2.1. The turn-taking system

the system of turn-taking (tt) is an organization form which underlies various types of social activities whose purpose is to allocate access to valued material or immaterialresourcesinanefficientway(cf.‘queuing’asaculturalphenomenonand the sensitivity to breaking the line, as discussed in Watts 2003). how tt op-eratesinspeechexchangesystemswasfirstsystematicallydescribedbySacksetal. (1974) who proposed that tt as a “prominent type of social organization” is worthy of attention in itself. their ‘simplest systematics’ for the organization of tt has since been generally accepted as a description of procedures underlying the distribution of turns among participants and as the basis for claiming partici-pants’ interactional rights. tt is suggested to be constituted of an ordered set of recursively applied rules which are able to generate and distribute a wide array of turn types in any instance of mundane conversation. turn can be seen as a kind of resource which participants attain, possess and exchange. turn distribution is performedbymeansofasetofspecificprocedureswhichsecurethata)onepar-ticipant only speaks at a time, and b) that the speaker change happens recurrently. Whiletheformerrequirementaccountsfortheefficienttransferofturns,thelatterguarantees that the interchange does not collapse after every speaker-to-listener shift. Sacks et al. (1974) suggest that tt system has two components:

1. turn-constructional component, which describes types of unit of which turns may be constructed, viz. turn-constructional units (tCu); tCu allows for a con-

147‘doing interruPting’ AS A diSCurSiVe tACtiC in ArguMentAtion

structional predictability of a turn, which enables participants to locate a place of possible turn switch, viz. a transition-relevance place (trP). A corollary aspect of the component is the speaker’s ‘entitlement’ to turn: “For the unit type a speaker employs in starting a construction of a turn’s talk, the speaker is initially entitled, in having a ‘turn’ to one such unit.” (Sacks et al. 1974: 12; my emphasis),

2. turn-allocational (distributional) component, which includes a set of rules de-scribing how turns are allocated at trPs. Put simply, a) if the current speaker selects a particular next speaker, then the selected next speaker has the right to begin speaking (rule 1a), b) if the current speaker selects no particular speaker, then a self-selection by any potential next speaker may occur; in such a case the self-selected speaker has the right to begin a turn (rule 1b), c) if the next speaker does not self-select, then the current speaker may, but need not, continue speak-ing until the next speaker self-selects (rule 1c). if this should happen, rules 1(a)–(c) are applied recursively at each next trP until a speaker transfer is reached (rule 2).

ThesignificanceofTTrulesrestsintheirabilitytoaccountforvariousinterac-tional phenomena, such as overlaps, interruptions, pauses, gaps, lapses or even extendeduninterruptedturns(e.g.injokesornarratives).Themodelalsoallowsfor other speech exchange systems (debates, ceremonies, panel discussions, inter-views, etc.) to be seen as systematic transformations of the tt practices. Sacks et al. (1974) further maintain that tt in speech exchange systems is, with respect to their turn-distributional arrangements, linearly arrayed, with the two poles being ‘one-at-a-time’ (viz. local) allocation (as in conversation) and pre-allocation of all turns (as in political debate or ceremony) respectively, with a medial position reservedforthecombinationofthetwo(asinofficialmeetings).Conversationis considered “the basic form of speech-exchange system, with other systems on the array representing a variety of transformations on conversation’s turntaking system” (Sacks et al. 1978: 11).

2.2. Politeness theory: an overview

Since its inception in the early 1970s, the issues treated under the keyword of politenesshavebeenfirmlyestablishedontheinterfaceoflinguistics,pragmat-ics, sociology and psychology. nested within what has gradually emerged as Po-liteness theory (Pt) is a number of approaches with differing orientations to its central problems, including the concept of politeness itself. Following especially the republication of Brown and levinson’s (1987) groundbreaking monograph, the last two decades have seen an upsurge of interest in politeness issues, which manifested itself in a wealth of empirical research. Most recently, the launch of Journal of Politeness Researchin2005testifiestotheneedofaspecializedplat-form of politeness research which, along with the publication of several metathe-oretical works and monographs, is symptomatic of further consolidation of this

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strand of social research. Pt is, however, not a monolith but rather a conglomer-ate of approaches loosely clustered around the notion of politeness. in spite of howvaguelyorvaryingly it isdefined,‘politeness’hasmanagedtosurviveasan umbrella term until today. over the past two decades research within Pt has diverged into two widely differing orientations, viz. ‘traditional’, or ‘modern’, and ‘post-modern’. however, rather than seeing them as two antagonistic en-deavours, i suggest that these approaches be viewed as complementary, as we can fruitfullybenefitfromtheirperspectivesoftheaspectofinterpersonalinteractionframed as (im)politeness.

2.2.1. Traditional theories

Within the approaches termed as ‘traditional’ three ‘classics’ are included, viz. lakoff (1973), Brown and levinson (1987[1978]) and leech (1983). Finding their source of inspiration in the philosophy of language (grice’s Cooperative Principle and Searle’s Speech Act Theory) and sociolinguistics (goffman’s (1963) notion of face), they see politeness as a rationally-driven departure from theprinciplesofcooperation(viz.maximumefficiency)calculatedbyanabstractModel Person who belongs to an internally homogeneous culture whose mem-bers assess these departures in a similar way. Motivations for the departures lie in the effort to abide by the pragmatic ‘rules’ (lakoff) or ‘principles’ (leech) of politeness, or to avoid committing a face-threatening act (Brown and levinson). Politenessisseentohaveastable,independent,and‘objective’referent,thefocusis on speaker’s intentions (which hearers are expected to reconstruct faithfully) built into single-function utterances. Politeness is claimed to reside in the use of particularlexico-grammaticalstructuresandstrategies,andisexemplifiedviatheuse of fabricated, decontextualized examples. the claims made by the ‘tradition-alists’ were challenged, among other things, for their claim of universality, for their ethno(Anglo)centrism, but more importantly they became frowned at for the lack of match between the theoretical assumptions and the real data; empirical research provided evidence that participants’ evaluations in real-life encounters often differed from those predicted by theoreticians (for a thorough critique of the traditionaltheoriesseeforexampleEelen(2001),Terkourafi2005,Watts2003,andLocher2004).Asaresult,accumulatingobjectionstotheepistemological,ontological and methodological foundations of ‘modern’ politeness research has led to the articulation of alternative standpoints.

2.2.2. Post-modern theories

Loosely identified as ‘postmodern’ (Arundale’s (1999, 2006) Face Constitut-ingTheory,Spencer-Oatey’s (2000)rapportmanagement,Terkourafi’s (2005)frame-based theory, haugh’s (2007) interactionally-achieved politeness), these novel approaches look for alternative sociological and psychological founda-tions. Among them, the ‘discursive’ approach to politeness espoused by r. J.


Watts and M. locher in a number of their publications (e.g. Watts et al. 1992, Watts 2003, Watts and locher 2005, locher and Watts 2008) has been able to ar-ticulate an alternative most cogently. the most important points of their departure from the ‘mainstream’ theorizing include: incorporation of a distinction between lay and technical conceptualizations of politeness (or politeness1 and politeness2) along with the insistence on the necessity to focus on the former when attempt-ingtopassjudgmentsonpolitenessvalueofutterances,rejectionoftheclassi-cal speech-act theory while focusing on longer stretches of discourse, inclusion of Bourdieu’s social-theoretical framework (theory of practice, habitus) and of the notion of behaviour seen as appropriate (politic) to the norms of interaction which emerge over the course of their repeated occurrence and which are inter-nalizedinandobjectifiedbyeachindividual’sdispositionstoactappropriately(viz. in one’s habitus). Consequently, polite behaviour is seen as being in addition to what is expected as appropriate in a given situation, with a focus placed on hearer’s evaluations of (im)politeness whose emergence is not dependent upon particular structures/strategies but discursively negotiated (or struggled-over) in situated exchanges by the participants themselves. Politeness is thus located within a broader framework of negotiation of interpersonal relations (relational work) as a positively marked behaviour; politeness and impoliteness are not seen as dichotomies (cf. the traditional view that impoliteness is a lack of politeness) but as two positions in the spectrum of relational work.

naturally, the discursive approach is not without problems, among which its operationalization, viz. how to get hold of politeness1 as a discursive concept and describeit,isacentralone(cf.e.g.Terkourafi’s(2005)critiqueofpostmoderntheories). As no stable (politeness2) referent to politeness is expected to exist, ana-lystsareinvitedtosearchforthosemomentsintheflowofon-goinginteractionsin which evaluations of (im)politeness emerge. however, as participants rarely evaluate each other’s behaviour overtly and analysts have no direct access to their implicit evaluations, the latter are advised to resort to minute descriptions of situ-ated exchanges when pointing out instances in which participants may possibly be engaged in evaluating each other’s behaviour as departing from the norms of ap-propriateness towards the negative (im/overpoliteness1) or positive (politeness1) end of relational work. the effort to capture the nature of politeness1 becomes a search for various lexemes associated with lay conceptualization of what constitutes ap-propriate and deviational behaviour (rude, aggressive, abrasive, tactful, etc.); this virtually amounts to politeness being nearly emptied of its content and, consequently, to the opening of the question of its feasibility as a central concept of the entire politenessresearchwithinthebroaderfieldofinterpersonalcommunication(cf.haugh 2007). despite the fact that postmodern modelling claims to abstain from working with a stable and independent notion of politeness (which would in fact amount to being a politeness2definition),Watts(2003:17)neverthelessprovidesits ‘stable’ referent when maintaining that it refers to “mutually cooperative be-haviour, considerateness for others, polished behaviour, etc. [which is] a locus of socialstruggle”.Thus,asTerkourafi(2005:243)claims,Wattsactuallyprovides

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a politeness2definitionofpoliteness1 (and brings back politeness2 “through the back door”), as “without such an independent yardstick a language relative (and speaker-relative) concept such as politeness1 cannot be pinned down for study”. Finally, the abandonment of prediction and resignation to the effort to relate lan-guage expressive resources and their politeness potential is also problematic, since predictiveness and generalization are not only at the heart of any serious theorizing but also underlie ordinary language users’ behaviour as well.

Although the ‘traditional’ and ‘post-modern’ traditions occupy opposing stanc-es, it is more productive to see them as being mutually complementary since they approach the problemof politeness, asTerkourafi (2005) sees it, “at differentlevels of granularity”: at the macro- and micro-levels respectively. i believe the two levels can also be seen as paralleling the two research paradigms in social sciences that have evolved over the past decades, viz. quantitative and qualita-tive research (cf. nekvapil 2000), and as sharing their strong and weak points. Both represent valid approaches to the phenomenon, albeit with a different focus, whichmaybechosendependingontheresearchobjectives.

By way of example, the structure I’d like, when approached from the per-spective of the ‘traditional’ Brown and levinson’s (1987) theory, is a means of encoding conventional indirectness as a negative politeness strategy employed to counter a face-threat of an act of requesting (cf. “Be conventionally indirect”; Brown and levinson 1987: 132). it may be claimed that when embedded in a larger structure, such as I’d like to change the subject, it is employed to perform an interpersonal act whereby the speaker signals his/her orientation to an exist-ing norm which stipulates the use of an indirect locution in a face-threatening environment, and, accordingly, shows his/her considerateness of the addressee. this interactional dimension of communication is, however, inseparable from its transactional aspect present in the ‘content’ of the locution (viz. referential act; cf. ideational and interpersonal meaning; halliday (1978), or transactional and in-teractional discourse; Kasper 1990). From the viewpoint of the traditional ‘pro-ductionist’ politeness approach this strategy should be a realization of linguistic politeness, as it shows respect of the hearer’s negative face (viz. his/her right of non-imposition). however, in the light of the discursive approach, rather than making an a priorijudgement,researchersneedtosearchforevidenceofsuchanevaluation in participants’ reactions. As an example, compare the following radio phone-in openings in which the topics are negotiated:

(1) IHS III 1 001 M ((laughter)) to: Kevin in north-east Philadelphia. good morning Kevin. 002C→ goodmorning irv. if i may.I’dliketochangethesubject? 003 M you certainly? may? in open Forum you may talk about dog doo on your 004 neighbour’s lawn.

(2) IHS III 8 001 M .h eh garry on the car phone good morning garry. 002C hi irv how are you doing


003M good. how about you. 004C→ allright. i guess, e:h i wanna address the car insurance? in Pennsylvania? 005M yes.

(3) IHS IV 4 001M let’sgotoEd?inQuakertown,goodmorning,Ed. 002C→ goodmorning.sir?thisisinreferencetoarichardNixon’spresidentialpardon? 003 M yes.

(4) IHS I 4 001M .hh5.19onWWDB?Vito.inQuakerTown. 002C howareyoudoing.firsttimecaller. 003 M welcome Vito. 004C→ question.()everybody’stalkingaboutfifty-fivemileanhour.= 005M =I’mtalkingaboutwhorehouses.

the extracts demonstrate the progressive decrease of “indirectness” (and, in the ‘traditional politeness’ paradigm, politeness) in the way the topic is addressed bythecaller(C).Intheextract1,judgingbythemoderator’s(M)reaction,C’s“polite”requestforapermissiontochangethesubjectisevaluatedasanunnec-essary deviation from the accepted norm (i.e. from the politic behaviour); what is more, it also seems, through the deployment of sarcasm, to be sanctioned as overpolite (and in fact impolite) in the community of practice (CoP) of the radio phone-in. however, since in extracts 2–4 where C’s requests are made directly and still remain unsanctioned by M, it may be assumed that their respective levels of (in)directness do not deviate from the accepted norm of interaction, and are then merely appropriate (or, in Watts’ terminology, politic). thus, in evaluations of (im)politeness it is useful to orient to norms of appropriateness as constructed within a given CoP.

that the two approaches seem to give contradictory results of the evaluation of the (im)politeness potential of the act of requesting is explainable on the basis of the assumptions they adopt; these, however, may be seen as mutually corroborat-ing, which is intuitively plausible: as language users we predict potential impact of our behaviour upon the level of relational work. While doing this, we refer to the history of our socialization (experience, upbringing, etc.; cf. Bourdieu’s habi-tus;Terkourafi’sframe), viz. to our lay-theoretical conceptualization of what may count as appropriate and what may depart from it. Also we monitor our partners’ assessments of our behaviour in terms of its placement on the (in)appropriate-ness scale and of the attribution of potential im/polite intentions to it. hence, in a sense, in lay person’s (politeness1) approach to politeness the ‘pragmatic’ and ‘post-pragmatic’ perspectives are reconcilable. it seems that the history of politeness research follows this shift of perspective from speaker to hearer only to reinstate the complementariness of both (cf. locher’s (2004: 91) bi-directional definitionofpoliteness,viz.forthespeakerandfortheaddressee).

the present study is positioned among those inspired by the post-modern para-digm within politeness research by understanding politeness as an interactional

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achievement which, rather than being nested in concrete inventories of linguistic structures or aspects of non-verbal behaviour, arises from interpersonal negotia-tion. however, this constructivist perspective is moderated by the inclusion of the notion of CoP which encapsulates a social-cognitive baggage which exists priorto,andisindependentof,anyoccasionoflanguageuse.Idefinepolitenessas a (perlocutionary) effect of a speaker’s (non)verbal behaviour upon the hearer who evaluates it positively as going, intentionally or unintentionally, beyond the norms of behaviour appropriate to a given situation within a CoP, who sees its motivation in the speaker’s effort to demonstrate positive concern for his/her face needs and who may display this evaluation in the sequential design of the unfold-ing interaction. thus i propose a view of politeness as an ‘emic’ (viz. actual user’s, or‘insider’s’)notionwhichisinteractionallyachievedandjointlyco-constitutedinthecourseofinteraction.Theensuingfine-grainedanalysisofauthenticinter-actions enables me to see (im)politeness as the most basic feature of interpersonal interaction which is being incessantly striven after by the interlocutors and which rests in their own evaluations. My attempt here is to demonstrate that interrup-tion, along with other aspects of conversational organization (repair, or topical flow),hasrepercussionsupon(im)politeness,asitisexplainablewithrecourseto face-work (cf. holtgraves 2005). Consequently, while being informed prima-rily by Watts’ and locher’s perspective of politeness as ‘discursive struggle’, the mostcoherentlyarticulatedpost-moderntheorizing,thestudyalsoprofitsfromthe Conversation Analytical conceptual and methodological toolbox in the hope that the two approaches are helpful in coming to grips with the phenomenon un-derstudy.Ibelievethattheconflationofthetwoperspectiveswillofferamoreadequate picture of how participants’ (im)politeness evaluations become salient as interactions sequentially unfold.

3. The data and methods

the data are taken from a corpus of radio phone-ins (Irv Homer Show, uSA, recorded between 1995-2000), a CoP which falls within the medial category as outlined in 2.1. and which is characterizable by its following aspects being pre-set: a) the turn ordering (M produces an introductory turn), b) the length of turns (it is limited by programme length and by a one-question-per-call provision), c) the length of interaction (one hour), d) what parties say (topical organization is pre-given), and e) the number of parties (two). As the CoP involves only two par-ticipants, the main organizational problem is thus not turn-allocational but turn-constructional;inotherwords,itistheturnsizethatbecomesthemajorresourceover which the parties demonstrably compete and which is primarily manifested in the overall occurrence of overlap and interruption.

As mentioned earlier, the transcribed dialogical encounters are approached from the perspective of ‘discursive’ politeness theory and analysed using the the-oretical-methodological toolbox of Conversation Analysis. i take the two pillars


of the paper to be compatible: while the former stresses the discursive negotiabil-ity of perceptions of politeness and places them within the scope of participants’ evaluations, the latter enables an analyst to get to grips with the interaction as evolving in time, with how the participants engage in the negotiation of their identities (for the discussion of membership categorization processes underlying phone-ininteractionsseeFerenčík2007)andhowtheymakesenseofeachoth-er’s actions; within this sense-making the attribution of (im)politeness intentions forms an inseparable part. next, i utilize the notion of participation framework (Young 2008) to describe the discursive practices and to observe the norms of participation within the given type of community of practice (e.g. Wenger 1998). rather than being stable, the participation framework is negotiable and is (re)pro-duced in every instance of the call. those forms of behaviour that stay within the framework are appropriate (politic), whilst those which go beyond the framework and are positively marked are open to potential interpretation as being polite. the lines of participation include: for the moderator, construction of interpersonal level of interaction (geared towards reducing distance and increasing solidarity), provision of relevant input (setting the topic), managing callers’ participation (an-swering questions, challenging, teasing, etc.); lines of participation for the caller include: provision of relevant input (topical talk), co-management of participa-tion (asking questions, presenting his/her opinion).

4.1. Analysis

4.1. Politeness aspects of simultaneous talk

Whileturn-taking(TT)ideallyaccountsforefficientredistributionofcommuni-cation space, it does not preclude occurrences of both simultaneous talk (over-lap and interruption) or absence of talk (gap, pause and lapse). the existence of overlap and gap is presupposed by tt – their minimization is a necessary consequence of the primary organizational requirement of tt in conversation, viz. ‘no more than one’ at a time; interruption, pause and lapse may be seen as by-products of the mechanism. Further, while it is in continuous talk (viz. one which continues across trP) where overlap and gap, along with interruption, are materialized, pause and lapse are instantiated in discontinuous talk, viz. when, at some trP, a current speaker has stopped and no speaker starts/continues (lapse), or when a current speaker has made a silence within his/her turn (pause). the tt system,however,doesnotaccountforwithin-turnsilences(pauses),justasmuchas it does not for within-another’s-turn-starts (interruptions).AccordingtoSacks(2004:41),interruption“involvesastartthatisprojected

to occur within another’s turn, [and] does not have the minimization of gaps as abasisorjustificationforitsoccurrence”.HenleyandThorne(1975:114)viewinterruption as a procedure which penetrates “the boundaries of a unit-type prior tothelastlexicalconstituentthatcoulddefineapossibleterminalboundaryof

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a unit-type”. As a violation of tt, interruption leads to the current speaker’s loss of turn. A corollary feature of the disruptive nature of interruption is its repercus-sions on a participant’s face. this was acknowledged by Sacks himself when he identifiedtheexistenceof“illegalityofinterruption”towhichpartiesorientbyemploying “rules which penalize interruptions” and who take “remedial actions which interruptions permit” (Sacks 2004: 42). hutchby (1992) ascribes ‘moral dimension’tointerruptionwhichresultsfromthatfeatureofturnprojectabilitywhereby the speaker is entitled to the amount of time necessary for the comple-tion of his/her turn: “1.a. if the turn-so-far was constructed in such a way that the current speaker selected the next speaker, then the person selected had the right to begin to speak in next turn” (Psathas, 1995: 37; emphasis added). it follows that an incursion aimed at challenging this entitlement to turn is denying the current speaker’s participatory right and may be seen as intrusive, disruptive, or even hostile.

there seems to be, however, a problem with this ‘positivistic’ operational con-ception of interruption which sees it as existing prior to acts of interaction, i.e. independently of participants’ evaluation as being such. it must be admitted that only rarely do participants resort to sanctioning each other’s behaviour as inter-ruptive in a ‘moral’ sense; rather than that, sequentially interruptive behaviour is ‘passed unnoticed’. it follows then that it is more fair to conceive of interruption as a “members’ evaluative construct, a term in which participants in everyday discourseroutinelyandunproblematicallytraffic”(Hutchby1992:368).Asare-sult, a more adequate treatment of interruption is it being an interactional ‘deed’, viz. “an accomplishable feature of given interactional environments, as a social resource by means of which one speaker does something to or else is treated as having done something to another” (hutchby 1992: 349). empirical evidence suggests that not all incursive acts are treated as interruptive, hence hostile (and potentially impolite). Further, mostly there is no explicit evidence of incursive behaviour being evaluated (negatively or otherwise) by the interruptees at all. Consequently, such an approach, which relies solely on the “mechanics” of tt can rule out numerous instances of interruption which are sequentially disruptive butinterpersonallysupportive(cf.“recognitionalinterruption”;Ferenčík2006),is untenable.

4.2. Interruption in argumentation

in the following section i argue that, in the argumentative environment of the given CoP, participants utilize interruption as a resource to control both space and content of talk. one such type of interruption is ‘relationally loaded power inter-ruption’ (goldberg 1990) and is employed especially by the moderator. in the following extract (5) this tt tactic is used as a means of undermining C’s cred-ibility and rendering his position unfounded. examined within the framework of the Brown-and-levinsonian paradigm, this procedure constitutes a potential FtA to the C’s negative face (as well as to M’s positive face, as face-threats are


bi-directional). in the extended extract of talk taken from a series of calls on the issue of legalization of houses of prostitution, M exerts persistent effort to under-mine the credibility of C’s claim (viz. that, for males, their mistresses are more trustworthy than anybody else).

(5) IHS IV 2 001 M .h to eh John in Wilmington good morning John welcome to the irv homer 002 show. 003 C eh good morning. irv i have to disagree with you on e:h this one .h but e:h i 004 you know but i’ll make eh three quick points ‘cause it’s a hot day and we don’t 005 want to argue. .hh number one, you know there there has there have been 006 arrests in the White Water. so it’s not it’s not a completely ridiculous 007 investigation. .h number two, people do tell their mis men do tell their 008 mistresses things they do not tell // anybody else? + number three 009M→ //wellhahaJohnJohnJohnJohnJohnhave 010 you ever had a mistress? 011C noIhaven’t.= 012M =wellthenhowdoyouknowwhatmentelltheirmistresses.= 013C =it’salegitimate? no. the police know it so it’s a // legitimate ( ) 014M→ //nowwaitaminute.Joareyou 015 saying .h are you saying that priests have mistresses? 016 C no no. the // ( ) 017M→ //wellthenhowhowdoyou?know?howdoyouknow// 018 C // ((laughter)) 019→ nowletmesay//thatjustonemorepointIrvandthenyoucantalk.okay? 020M→ //no no no no no no John John John John i’m not gonna argue 021 withyouIjustwantyoutoclarify.hsomeofyourstatementsnow..hyousaid 022 mistresses know a lot? and you don’t have a mistress? so there’s no way i can 023 findoutwhetheryourevealedanythingtomistressornot.hthenyousaid 024 priests know that mistresses? and do you know any priests who have mistresses? 025 .h and you don’t know of any priest .h who has revealed to you. John? // .h the 026 C // no i 027 M sanctity of the confessional? .h where the priest so you know what? .h i heard? 028 .h that this guy? i i i eh eh // ( ) 029C→ //wait a minute. i said police // not priest. 030 M // oh police. oh well do 031 you know any policeofficers.hwhohaverevealed anything .h eh p people who 032 have arrested anyone where they revealed that the mistress or something? that 033 they .h that they have credibility? 034 C well they they have gotten clues from mistresses. yes. that i know. police 035 officershavetoldmethat.//.halotofthemsay.ifyouwanttoknowdon’task 036 M // oh poli ok. 037 C the wife. ask the mistress. 038 M okay. 039 C okay? number three though. …

TochallengetheC’s“epistemologicaldisposition”(He2004),Musesthefirstinterruption (line 9) to check whether C belongs to the membership category of ‘a man who has had a mistress’ so as to claim authenticity for his position. When the C admits that this is not his personal experience (11), M repudiates his position

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(12) on the grounds that he is not being able to “authenticate” it (cf. thornbor-row 2001). this move appears to be a FtA to the C’s negative face and is thereby open to potential interpretation as impolite. in what could be his attempt to save his negative face, C quotes the “police”, which M mishears as “priests”, as a reli-able source of the given information (13). the ensuing talk brings further threat to C’s negative face: while building his argumentation on a misheard word, M formulates the proposition “priests have mistresses” and invites C to make an explicit commitment to it (15). in order to do so, M resorts to an interruptive tac-tic launched by a formulaic gambit (wait a minute), whereby he underscores the incursive nature of his move. As a response, C issues a denial token (16) which becomesasufficientcueforMtodrawtheconclusionthatCnegatesthecontentof the proposition “priests have mistresses” and, as a result, to identify a fault in C’s argumentation (17); this procedure only further aggravates threat to C’s nega-tive face. Untilnow,Chasbeenmadetocomplywiththetrajectoryofthetalkasdeline-

ated by M. As a self-defensive tactic, however, C himself resorts to the utilization ofinterruption(18)toclaimhisparticipatoryrightfortheunfinishedturnandtoopenly sanction M’s interruptive behaviour by calling to attention a tt rule (19: let me say just one point and then you can talk). C’s explicit orientation to the tt rule is interpretable as a display of his evaluation of M’s incursive behaviour (who has methodically denied him a chance to exercise his right to a fair access to conversationalfloor)assteppingoutoflineand,consequently,asimpolite.How-ever, his request for the partner’s adherence to the “rules of the game” is blatantly ignored (20) by M’s production of a “deep incursion” into C’s turn. this demon-stration of a total control over the discourse space is followed by a display of a to-tal control over the content of the talk (21-27): M offers an extensive summary of his version of C’s position. the displays of control over the space and content of the talk are prime manifestations of M’s utilization of his power which he has managed to negotiate for himself. the extract concludes with a resolution of the misunderstanding: C initiates an other-repair (29) in which he implicitly accuses M of being responsible for the mishearing (a potential FtA); M, however, passes this implicit accusation unnoticed when offering no facework to compensate for C’s potential face loss – the move is again opened to evaluation as an impolite act (viz.withholdingapologywhereexpected;cf.Bousfield2008).Onthecontrary,in line with his persistent effort to subvert C’s credibility, M challenges C once again (30). this time, however he accepts C’s subsequent authentication (38), whereupon the talk shifts to another topic.

in the given extract, both participants are engaged in ‘doing being in control’ overthediscursiveresourcesoffloorandcontent,wherebytheydiscursivelyne-gotiate the lines of participation, and (re)construct the participation framework of the CoP. M, with whom the institutional power is invested, demonstrates his monopolya)overthefloor,byutilizinginterruptionasaprincipalcontroldeviceand reinforcing it by an extensive (and effective) use of reduplication of linguistic structures, and b) over the content, by employing the strategy of formulation of


the gist of C’s claims and ‘reining back’ (hutchby 1996) C’s line of argument. C, being almost always on the defensive, avails himself of the resources of in-terruptionandrepair.Overall,inconflictualsituations,suchaspresentedintheabove fragment, participants abstain from employing positive facework. Since it is probably the case that this kind of behaviour constitutes a part of their habitus for the CoP, they may have stayed within the framework of politic behaviour; there are clues however, such as C’s invocation of the tt rule, that M’s behaviour may have been taken as falling out of line and become open to interpretation as impolite.

A noticeable feature of the way M’s interruptions are conducted is their precise localization:theyseemtobesystematicallyplacedatspotsidentifiedbyJefferson(1986) as postcontinuations, viz. places where “the current speaker has given the indication that he or she wishes to carry on speaking following a possible com-pletion” (hutchby 1996: 86). Postcontinuation interruptions (lines 14 and 17 in extract (5); line 52 of extract (6)) are used as M’s effective tool for the control of C’s participation. in extract (6), in order to sustain the argumentative character of the interaction, M attempts to constrain C’s options by ‘reining back’ the line of his talk. the second interruption (56) demonstrates what could be framed as M’s afterthought appended (after a short pause and C’s acknowledgement) to his previous turn.

(6) IHS II 10 051 C so we should go we should have a tax on the trusts? then the // the 052M→ //wellremove 053 remove the so called tax exempt status at these foundations and endowments .h 054 e:h eh eh make themselves immune to taxation. 055 C + oh. okay? // and wha 056M→ //Imeaniiiiiit’salikeIsaid.Idon’tknowwherewhatkindof 057 history Bartlett and Steele read but eh nineteen thirteen was the year of tragedy 058 for the working men in America.

Another power-loaded use of interruption invested in M’s institutionally claimed power is used to constrain C’s answer by pushing it in the desired direction. Fol-lowingJefferson(1981),Hutchby(1996)identifiesthispatternof interruption,which seeks to deal with unfavourable response and to press towards a favour-able one, as ‘post-response-initiation’ interruption. in extract (7) M’s wh-question (81)servesasarequestfortheconfirmationofhisassumptionthatthestatebudg-et will not be balanced once dole is elected for the President. in his response, C issues a fairly strong disapproval (83) whereupon M resorts to an interruptive bid to press for his point. the confrontation of opinions escalates both on the level of argumentation, with M’s denial of the relevance of C’s argument (95), and on the level of participation, with the participants’ engaging in overlapping talk. the extract is terminated unilaterally by M who, upon having received a denial of the content of his reproachful question, claims for himself the power to control the flowoftalkandtodoawaywithunfavourableanswers.

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(7) IHS III 9 081 M do you really believe? you really believe? that the that that if dole? gets elected 082 that the budget will be balanced in seven years 083 C + i certainly? do. i think there’s a lot of fraud // and waste, too many special 084 programs 085M→ //wellI’vegotathousand 086 M well i’ve got a thousand i’ve got a thousand // dollar bet with wha do you do 087 C // right. 088 M realize right now Fran .h that we still don’t have a budget? + you know there’s 089 no budget in the united States right now,+ and by law we were supposed to 090 have a budget .h last September, // you know that as we speak as we speak 091 C // all right well i personally i think ( ) 092 M right now .h neither the democrats or republicans have a budget // in place? 093 C // we have had 094 the democratic congress for twenty some years. // .h ( 095M→ //thathasgotnothingtodowith 096 what we’re saying today. 097 C ) they’re the ones that spend the money. 098 M i am saying? that they right now as we speak there is no budget with the 099 Democratsortherepublicansinoffice..hnobudgetwhatsoever.itis 100 constantly? .h getting more money for spending they keep the government from 101 sh shutting down? as the did before? .h the republicans? vote with it the 102 democrats? vote with it .h that’s a more? and more .h more? and more 103 spending more? and more spending they keep upping the rate .h we have no 104 budget. .h and you wanna vote for democrats? or republicans? 105 C .h i am voting for yes. i am? 106M goodforyou?then//thanksforcalling.tenfiftyonWWDB.we’llbeback. 107 C // not like

throughout the discussion of the extracts it could also have been noticed that, contrary to expectations, in argumentative encounters interruptions are rarely made noticeable, let alone subject to negative evaluation.The reasonmay bethat they generally do not cause disruptions inasmuch as the parties are trying to maintain the topical talk and sustain coherence of their talk. Among the tech-niques used to this end are repetitions and recycled structures, starting off at the point of interruption and retrieving the overlapped turn parts.

however, there are instances in which interruption is employed as a control device imposing limits upon co-participant’s range of options. in these instances, interruptions, true to their name, are violative both constructionally and topically. there are two reasons for which interruption as a control device is used: pressing for a favourable (extract (7)) or particular (extract (8)) answer, or even cutting off C from the air (extract (9)).

(8) IHS I 3 001 M .h // let’s go to John in Chester. 002 C // eh 003 C hi. 004 M yes John. you are on WWdB. 005 C oh. hello.


006 M hello. 007 C i wasn’t expecting that. 008 M well what. did you call? 009C→ yes?Idid.//Ijust+e:hm 010 M // well did you di 011 M did you expect me to push your button? 012 C yeah i did. 013 M ok.

InthefirstlinesofthiscallwefindCbeingadmittedtotheair,withhisinitialhesitancyand uncertainty (I wasn’t expecting that) being treated as unfounded by means of aseriesoftwoconfirmationrequests.Bycastinghisrequestasconfirmation-seekingMconstrainsC’soptionbuttoconfirmit.Thisprocedureisopentointerpretationas potentially impolite, as it puts a particular aspect of C’s negative face, viz. his competence to act appropriately in this interactional arena, at stake.

interruption as a control resource is used in the following extracts to push for-ward M’s point in which he either elaborates on C’s position (‘the secret ballot’ in America is not secret, extract (9), line 96), or denies it altogether (extract (10), line 62). these procedures are employed in line with the preference for argu-mentation being a part of the CoP’s format, since it fuels controversy and incites confrontation.

(9) IHS III 10 086 C + a:nd also there’s one other thing that gives me a clue this is a little more 087 vague? but if you’re there it’d seem real to you .h when i came out of the 088 booth. i voted for third parties when Perrot was running and third and fourth 089 parties. .hh and when i came out both republican and democratic committee 090 men were looking down at the ground, they looked up at me they looked? real 091 sadanddejected.hhandIIcouldtell. it’s like as i was saying well how do you 092 knowwhoIvotedforwhy’reyoulookingatmeinthisdejectedway. 093 M maybe was that little smirk you had on your face that helped the two of the men 094 can tell 095 C ((laugh)) .hh you don’t think there’s any way that // 096M→ //Idon’tthinkunderthisso 097 called guise of privacy that we have in America today? .h if anything is private. 098 including your vote. that is how that is how cynical i have become. 099 C yeah. and i wouldn’t be i wouldn’t be a bit surprised that they mess with the 100 vote. i mean who’s to keep // 101M→ //welllistentothis.manymentoLibertarianParty? 102 inmydistricthadafileincourt.htogetatruereadingofhowmany 103 libertarians voted in the last elections. thanks. for calling? we’ll be back?.

(10) IHS III 2 060 C + + and what do you think the chances are irv that if you know. that if any of 061 this is gonna happen at all. i need anything // 062M→ //thereisnothinggoingtohappen 063 different with Bob dole or Bill Clinton .h // four years from now .h you’re still? 064 C // ( ) 065M goingtohavetheIrSdoingprofileaudits.hyou’restill?goingtohave.htaxes

160 MILANFErENČíK

066 coming out of your wazoo and you’re still? going to have Alan green spend 067 ahead of the fed .h telling you .h that the growth of this country will not be 068 more than two and a half to three pre cent.

interruption as a call termination device is available unilaterally to M as a means of exercising his institutionally granted entitlement to control the extent of talk. however, as a rule, calls are typically terminated collaboratively, with M issuing an acknowledgement of C’s participation (thank you for calling + address term) and C preferably accepting the termination bid (extract (11)):

(11) IHS II 4 043 C yeah. but then why does the federal government then play the tap dance, the 044 song and dance? .hh all the stuff we have to do something to improve our 045 economy?wehavetocreatejobsetceteraetcetera. .hh 046M youjustyoujustyouintheopeningstatement.hhyouspelledthatout. .hh why 047 do they dance and song and dance and play games. and the question ( ) the 049 answeris.hhbecausenobodyputstheirbehind?tothefire?.hinanyofthese 050 senate hearings .h and i don’t know why. .h thanks for calling my friend. 051 C thank you irv.

locations of closing bids are noticeably not haphazard; rather, they are placed after M has presented his opinion on the issue in question. this may become a convenient way for the M to withdraw from further dispute and to unilaterally bring a call to an end. By way of illustration i quote extract (12): after present-ing his opinion (20–24) on the matter of houses of prostitution (viz. that they should be legalized) M attempts to halt further C’s elaboration of the point – by acknowledgingC’sparticipationinjectedintoC’sturn(26)hemanagestoattainC’s cut-off. the two participants have evidently access to the overlapped verbal material, since they manage to maintain the coherence of the exchange and, after M’s reissuance of the closing bid (27), collaboratively bring the call to a close.

(12) IHS I 7 020 M + .hh it’s not? facilitating? a healthy? relationship? it’s better? when he goes? 021 and suffers? in silence? he has no communication? with females? all together? 022 .hh you think? prostitutes don’t talk? you think they’re dumb? you think they’re 023 stupid? .h some of these girls have college degrees. and can’t make the living. as 024 a secretary. 025 C + i understand what you’re you’re being // ( ) 026M→ //thanks? 027 M i know i am natali? i intend to be. thanks for calling. 028 C ok. 029 M take care love.

5. Conclusion

the system of turn-taking in phone-in interactions, as in any other type of verbal interchange, manages the participants’ access to turn – it both describes places


where a switch of speakers is legitimately done but also sets the basic participa-tory rights, viz. the “right” to current turns. the paper discusses the phenom-enon of interruption, which is a by-product of the turn-taking system, whereby interruptees claim participatory right at places outside of transitionally relevant areas. As an expropriation of the current speaker’s right to bring the turn to an end interruption is generally seen as stepping out of the agreed upon norms of acceptable behaviour and, accordingly, may be evaluated negatively as impolite. in the present CoP, however, they are utilized as discursive resources and as such they form a part of the participants’ habitus for this type of social organization. in a predominantly confrontational communication setting marked, among other things,bythefloorbeingoftencapturedat“illegal”placesinordertoconstrainthe other participant’s options, to control the content and size of the talk, and ultimately to exercise power, interruption falls within the politic framework of interaction and as such its “intrinsic” impoliteness is neutralized.

Note

Thispublicationistheresultoftheprojectimplementation:Establishing a Center of Excellence for Linguaculturology, Translation and Interpreting supported by the research & development operational Programme funded by the erdF.

Abbreviations

C caller CoP Community of PracticeFtA face-threatening act M moderatorPt Politeness theory tt turn takingtCu turn-constructional unit trP transition relevance place

References

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Arundale, robert (2006) ‘Face as relational and interactional: A communication framework for research on face, facework, and politeness’. Journal of Politeness Research 2(2), 193–216.

Bousfield,Derek(2008)‘Impolitenessinthestruggleforpower’.In:Bousfield,Derek,andMiriamA. locher (eds.) Impoliteness in Language. Studies on its interplay with Power in Theory and Practice. Berlin/new York: Mouton de gruyter, 127–154.

Brown, Penelope, and levinson, Stephen (1978) ‘universals in language usage: Politeness phe-nomena’. in: goody, e.n. (ed.) Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. Cam-bridge: Cambridge university Press, 56–289.

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Ferenčík,Milan(2006)‘Non-impoliteinterruptions:Politenessaspectsofrecognitionalinterrup-tions on talk radio’. Discourse Studies: Trends and Perspectives. nitra: FF uKF, 47–58.

Ferenčík,Milan(2007)‘Exercisingpoliteness:Membershipcategorisationinaradiophone-inpro-gramme’. Pragmatics 17(3), 351–370.

goffman, ervin (1963) ‘on face-work’. Interaction Ritual. new York: Anchor Books.goldberg, Julia (1990) ‘interrupting the discourse on interruptions: An analysis in terms of relation-

ally neutral, power and rapport oriented acts’. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 883–903.halliday, Michael A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic. The Social Interpretation of Language

and Meaning. london: edward Arnold.haugh, Michael (2007) ‘the discursive challenge to politeness research: An interactional alterna-

tive’. Journal of Politeness Research 3, 295–317.he, Agnes W. (2004) ‘identity construction in Chinese heritage language classes’. Pragmatics 4(2),

199–216.henley, nancy and Barrie thorne (1975) Language and Sex: Difference of Dominance. Massachus-

setts: newbury house Publishers, inc.holtgraves, thomas (2005) ‘Social psychology, cognitive psychology, and linguistic politeness’.

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radio’. Text 12(3), 343–371.hutchby, ian (1996) Confrontation talk: Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio.

Mahwah, nJ.: lawrence erlbaum Associates, Publishers.Jefferson, gail (1981) The abominable “ne”?: The working paper exploring the phenomenon of

post-response pursuit of response. (occasional Paper no. 6). Manchester, uK: university of Manchester, department of Sociology.

Jefferson, gail (1986) ‘notes on latency in overlap onset’. Human Studies 9, 153–183.Kasper, gabrielle (1990) ‘linguistic politeness: Current research issues’. Journal of Pragmatics

14, 193–218.lakoff, robin (1973) ‘the logic of politeness; or minding your p’s and q’s’. Papers from the Ninth

Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, 292–305.leech, geoffrey (1983) Principles of Politeness. london: longman.locher, Miriam (2004) Power and Politeness in Action. Disagreements in Oral Communication.

Berlin/new York: Mouton de gruyter.locher, Miriam and richard J. Watts (2008) ‘relational work and impoliteness: negotiating norms oflinguisticbehaviour’.In:Bousfield,Derek,andMiriamA.Locher(eds.)Impoliteness in Lan-guage. Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice. Berlin/new York: Mouton de gruyter, 77–99.

Nekvapil, Jiří (2000) ‘Teze k utváření interpretativní sociolingvistiky’. Časopis pro moderní filologii 82(1), 1–3.

Psathas, george (1995) Conversation Analysis: The Study of Talk-in-Interaction. thousand oaks: Sage Publishers.

Sacks, harvey (2004) ‘An initial characterization of the organization of speaker turn-taking in conversation’. in: lerner, gene h. (ed.) Conversation Analysis. Studies from the first generation. AmsterdamandPhiladelphia:JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany,35–42.

Sacks, harvey, Schegloff, emanuel A. and Jefferson, gail (1974) ‘A simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation’. Language 50(4), 696–735.

Sacks, harvey, Schegloff, emanuel A. and Jefferson, gail (1978) ‘A simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation’. in: Schenkein, J. (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. new York: Academic Press.

Spencer-oatey, helen (2000) ‘rapport management: A framework for analysis’. in: Spencer-oatey, helen (ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. london: Con-tinuum.


Terkourafi,Marina(2005)‘Beyondthemicro-levelinpolitenessresearch’.Journal of Politeness Research 1, 237–262.

thornborrow, Joanna (2001) ‘Authenticating talk: Building public identities in audience participa-tion broadcasts’. Discourse Studies 3(4), 459–479.

Watts, richard (1992) ‘linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: reconsidering claims for universality’. in: Watts, richard, Sachiko ide, and Konrad ehlich (eds.) Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practise. Berlin: Mouton de gruyter.

Watts, richard J. (2003) Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.Watts, richard J. (2005) ‘linguistic politeness research: Quo vadis ?’. in: Watts, richard J., Sachiko

ide, and Konrad ehlich (eds.) Politeness in Language. Studies in its History, Theory and Prac-tice, 2nd edn. Berlin and new York: Mouton de gruyter, xi–xlvii.

Watts, richard J. and Miriam locher (2005) ‘Politeness as relational work’. Journal of Politeness Research 1(1), 9–34.

Watts, richard J., Sachiko ide and Konrad ehlich (eds.) (1992) Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de gruyter.

Wenger, etienne (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

Young, richard F. (2008) Language and Interaction. london and new York: routledge.

Milan Ferenčík is an Assistant Professor at the institute of British and American Studies of the uni-versity of Prešov, Slovakia where he teaches linguistic courses, such as english Morphology, Syn-tax, Stylistics as well as courses in Pragmalinguistics (Politeness theory) and ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis. he received his Ph.d. in 1999 from the university of Prešov, Slovakia. his research interests include discourse Analysis, Conversation Analysis, Membership Categorization Analysis and Politeness theory. in his recent research and publications he has focuses on politeness aspects of interaction in radio phone-in programmes.

Address:PhDr.MilanFerenčík,M.A.,Ph.D.,InstituteofBritishandAmericanStudies,Depart-ment of english linguistics and teaching Methodology, Faculty of Arts, university of Prešov, ul. 17. novembra 1, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia. [e-mail:[email protected]]

PArt Four

Discourses over the course oF time


iSSn 0524-6881

hans sauer

how the Anglo-sAxons exPresseD their emotions with the helP oF interJections

AbstractTheemphasishereisontwoOldEnglishtexts,namelyÆlfric’sGrammar and the old english Soliloquies, presumably translated by King Alfred. the Grammar offers a kind of theoretical discussion, whereas the Soliloquies show the use of interjectionsinadialogue.InaccordancewiththetraditionÆlfrichasachapterontheword-classofinterjections,wherehestates,forexample,thatinterjectionsexpress emotions and (translated into modern terminology) that they are phoneti-callyandmorphologicallyirregular.Thisisonlypartlytrue,however:Interjectionsalso have several other functions: they can serve as attention getters, as greeting forms,asresponseforms,etc.Formally,primaryandsecondaryinterjectionscanbe distinguished as well as morphologically simple and morphologically complex interjections.Etymologically,somewere inheritedfromIndo-EuropeanorGer-manic, whereas others (especially the complex ones) were newly formed in old English.AltogetherÆlfricmentionsca.tenOldEnglishinterjections;someoccurinseveralvariantsandforminterjectionfamilies.SeveralOldEnglish interjec-tionsareonlyattestedinÆlfric’sGrammar, although they must have been com-mon, e.g. afæstla and haha / hehe. the Soliloquies are a theological-philosophical dialogue. especially one of the partners (the author) often gets very emotional and accordinglyfrequentlyusesinterjectionsandinterjectionalphrasessuchasgea la gea ‘yes oh yes’ and in particular nese la nese ‘no oh no’.

Key wordsEmotions; interjections; Ælfric; Alfred; Grammar; Soliloquies; morphology; etymology; Old English; Latin

1. Introduction: Emotions and interjections

Emotionsare strong feelingswhichareoftendifficult tocontrol, suchas loveandhate,hopeandfearordespair,joyandsadness,anger,etc.Theredoesnot,

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however, seem to be a complete or generally accepted list of emotions. one of the problems is that emotions cannot always be easily separated from the way in whichtheyareexpressed:Laughter,forexample,canbeasignofjoyormirth,and tears and lamentations can be a sign of grief.

the word emotion itself is a relatively recent addition to the english vocabu-lary: it was borrowed from French in the 16th century but developed its modern sense only in the 19th century. Roget’s Thesaurus,forexample,whichwasfirstpublished in 1852, still uses ‘affections’ and not ‘emotions’ as the superordinate term for feelings such as love, hate, fear, hope etc.1 nevertheless the Anglo-Sax-ons certainly also had emotions. Oneword-classwhosemain function has been traditionally defined as that

of expressingemotions is the interjection.Mattersare,of course,notquite sosimple,becauseinterjectionsalsohavevariousotherfunctions,e.g.asdiscoursemarkers, and conversely emotions can be expressed in various other ways, e.g. descriptively (“he answered in an angry voice”). i shall nevertheless concentrate hereonOldEnglishinterjectionsasmarkersofemotion,butIshallalsomentionsome of their other functions. Anotherproblemisthatinterjectionsaremainlyaphenomenonofspokenlan-

guage, but for old english (and generally up to ca. 1900) we can only list and analyse those that have been recorded in written documents. it is also not always easytodistinguishinterjectionsfromotherword-classes,e.g.fromadverbs.InformationabouttheOldEnglishinterjectionsisstoredinsomeplaceswhich

we would probably not primarily associate with emotions. Perhaps the most im-portant of them isÆlfric’sGrammar, written around 1000, which is the only theoretical discussion of emotions in old english.2Interjectionsoccur,however,inawidevarietyoftextualgenres.Textswhichemployinterjectionsinclude:theold english version of the Soliloquies, commonly ascribed to King Alfred and accordingly written shortly before 900.3 Although the Soliloquies are a theologi-cal and philosophical text in the form of a dialogue, the speakers often get very emotionalandtheauthor(ic)especiallyusesavarietyofinterjections.

it is perhaps less surprising that many sermons contain highly emotional pas-sages, because preachers often not only want to teach their audience, but also to move them; one well-known example is Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. the old english version of the love and adventure story of Apollonius of Tyre, origi-nallyanovelfromLateAntiquitywhichisfullofpursuitsandflights,stormsandshipwrecks, love and hate, separations and reunions, is also full of emotions and accordinglyusesanumberofinterjections.Inthepresentarticle,however,IshallconcentrateonÆlfric’sGrammar and

on King Alfred’s Soliloquies.

169hoW the Anglo-SAXonS eXPreSSed their eMotionS

2. Research on the Old English interjections

Interjections have neither been among themain research interests of moderngrammarians nor of Anglo-Saxonists.4 grammars and handbooks of old english often do not even mention them. For example, they do not seem to occur in the first volumeof theCHEL (Cambridge History of the English Language).5 An earlystudy,concentratingontheAlfrediancorpus,isWülfing(1901,I:686–695).offerberg (1967), apparently the most comprehensive study of the old english interjections,isunfortunatelyunpublishedandthusnotavailabletomostschol-ars. Bruce Mitchell in his Old English Syntax (1985, i: 526–528) devotes three ofhisca.1900pagestotheOldEnglishinterjectionsandgivesausefullistofca.35interjections.TheThOE (1995, i: 463) has a very brief section on inter-jections,listingonlyseven(09.01.03.01.).6 recently, there seems to have been some revival in interest; there have been more general articles by Cassidy (1996), Hiltunen(2006),andmyself(Sauer2006and2008),andanarticlespecificallydevoted to hwæt by Stanley (2000).7

3. Interjections and emotions in Ælfric’s Grammar

InaccordancewiththeLatingrammaticaltraditionÆlfrichasachapteroninter-jections(pp.277–280ed.Zupitza;cf.alsopp.10–11).8Hedefinesinterjectionsquite traditionally as the word-class that expresses emotions:

Interiectio est pars orationis significans mentis affectum voce incondita:Interiectioisandælledenspræcegetacnjendeþæsmodesgewilnungemidungesceapenre stemne (277–278). Theinterjectionisapartofspeechwhichsignifiesthemind’scommotionwith an unformed voice/with unformed sounds.

Ælfriccallsemotionsmodes gewilnung ‘mind’s desire’ or modes styrung ‘mind’s commotion, disturbance’, which seem to be alternative translations of the latin mentis affectus–whetherthesewerecommonOldEnglishtermsorjustÆlfric’sowntranslationsisdifficulttotell.9

his terms for l interiectio are betwux-aworpennyss and betwux-alegednys, lit. ‘[something] thrown in between’ or ‘[something] put in between’; these are alter-native loan-translations of the latin term inter-iectio. they are hapax legomena and seem to have beenÆlfric’s coinages; probably theywere not part of thegeneralOldEnglishvocabularybutjustpartofÆlfric’sgrammaticalterminologyand mainly used in the classroom for teaching grammar. Inaccordancewiththegrammatical traditionÆlfricalsomentionsthemain

characteristicsoftheinterjections,someofwhicharestillre-iteratedinpresent-daygrammars(iftheydealwithinterjectionsatall).Translatedintomodernter-minology these are:10

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(1)Semantic:Interjectionshaveameaning(significatio – getacnung): they ex-press emotions (modes gewilnung etc.).

(2)Phonologicandmorphologic:Interjectionsarephonologicallyandmorpho-logicallyirregularandhavenofixedshapeorstructure;theyarepronouncedvoce incondita – mid ungesceapenre stemne ‘with an unformed voice or sound’ or with behyddre stemne ‘with an unclear (lit. concealed) voice/an unclear sound’. FurthermoreÆlfricexplainsthatinterjectionscanbeshortenedorlengthenedac-cording to the speaker’s emotional state: “ac heora sweg byð hwilon gescyrt and hwilon gelencged be ðæs modes styrunge” (280/11–13).

(3)Syntactic:Interjectionsareusuallynotintegratedintothesentence,andoftentheyprecedethesentence.Ælfricsaysthattheinterjectionliesbetweentheotherwords: “lið betwux wordum” (278/3), and this is, of course, also the meaning of his derived term betwuxalegednys (and betwuxaworpennyss).

(4)Interlinguistic:Ælfricaddsthatinterjectionscannotalwaysbe(easily)trans-lated from latin into english (279/12–280/1). however, he also says that some interjectionsareidenticalinLatinandinOldEnglish(haha and hui; see below).

the statements made under (1) and (2) are especially only partly true, however: Interjectionsalsohaveotherfunctionsbesidesexpressingemotions;furthermoreinterjectionswereaffectedbyregularsound-changesandmanycomplexinter-jectionswerecreatedfromsimpleinterjections(orfromsimpleinterjectionsandwords belonging to other word-classes, see below). As regards (3), at least l uae – oe waissometimesintegratedintothesentence,seebelow.Ælfricalsostatesthatinterjectionsarelikewords:“þesdælinteriectiohæfðwordesfremminge”(279/12); this is, of course, also clear from the fact that he treats them as one of the eight word classes or parts of speech.11

TheemotionswhichÆlfricmentions,andwhichcanbeexpressedby(Latin)interjectionsare: joy(modes bliss), grief and distress (modes sarnyss), wonder and astonishment (wundrung), fear (oga), anger (æbylignyss, yrre, yrsung), re-pentance (expressed verbally: behreowsian), contempt (forsewennyss), scorn (bysmerung); expressions of emotions are lamentations (wanung), threats (ðeow-wræc – ðeowracan), cursing (wyrigung), although he does not distinguish explic-itly between emotions and the way they are expressed. Ælfricalsopointsoutthatsomeinterjectionsarepolysemousandcanexpress

quite different emotions, e.g. l euge:joyandscorn(bliss and bysmerung). latin o evenhasfivefunctions(280/3–5):(1)itexpressesanger(æbilignyss); (2) grief (sarnyss); (3) astonishment (wundrung); (4) but it also expresses the vocative (“adverbium vocandi”): “o magister” – “eala ðu lareow”; (5) and it stands for the letter <o>. Thisalsoshowstwofurtherphenomena:(a)Notallfunctionsofaninterjection

express an emotion; (b) A word can belong to several word-classes – o can be an


interjectionandanadverb(accordingtoÆlfric);aletter(stæf), of course, still has a different status. Similarly, a and einLatinareinterjections,prepositions,andletters (280/5–6), etc. Ælfric’sGrammar is basically a grammar of latin, but written largely in old

English.Accordinglyhe listsprimarilyLatin interjections (a, atat, e, ei, euge, haha / hehe, heu / heu mihi, hui(g), la, o, pape, pro, uae /uae illi / uae uobis);12 twointerjectionsaccordingtoÆlfricarefromHebrew(racha, uah). But he also mentions severalOldEnglish interjections, partly as translationsof the corre-spondingLatin interjections, andpartly independently. In twocasesheclaimsorimpliescorrectlythataLatininterjectionanditsOldEnglishcounterpartareidentical in form and meaning: haha / hehe for laughter; hui / huig.13 Moreover he mentions lainthecontextofLatininterjections.ItsstatusasaLatininterjectionseemsdoubtful,however,but itwascertainlyanOldEnglish interjection (seebelow).14

AltogetherÆlfricmentionsca.tenOldEnglishinterjections,namely:15

(1) afæstla ‘certainly, assuredly’ (hapax legomenon);(2) eala ‘alas, oh, lo’ (very frequent in old english); (3) haha / hehe ‘ha! ha!’ (indicating laughter) (hapax legomenon); (4) hilahi ‘alas, oh’ (hapax legomenon); (5) hui / huig: itsmeaningisdifficulttoascertain–perhapsitexpressesad-

miration or astonishment and (pleasant) surprise; cf. g hui.Ælfric’sex-ample, however, is (278/11): “huig, hu færst ðu” (but he gives no latin equivalent). here huig seems to be a greeting form, perhaps combined with a pleasant surprise, and perhaps to be translated as ‘hello, how are you?’; the French translators render it as ‘tiens! Comme vas-tu?’;

(6) la ‘oh, ah, lo, indeed, verily’ (Mode lo, the origin of which is more com-plex, however); oe la was also often used as an element in complex interjections,seebelow;

(7) wa ‘woe, alas’, also used for cursing someone (Mode woe); as a noun ‘misery, affliction’; alsooftenusedas anelement in complex interjec-tions, see (8) – (9) and 5. below;

(8) wa is me / wamme (Mode woe is me), for l heu mihi and uae mihi.16 Ælfricgives several examples, e.g.uae illi – wa him; uae uobis – wa eow; uae tibi sit – wa þe si (278/13–16). these examples also show that uae – wa is integrated into the sentence in latin as well as in old english, because it governs a case-form (the dative);

(9) wala ‘woe, alas’ (common in old english);(10) wellawell ‘woe, alas’.

Countingis,however,notaseasyasIhavejustsuggested:Ihaveregardedtheforms haha / hehe, hui / huig, wa is me / wamme as variant forms of basically thesameinterjections;iftheywerecountedseparately,thenumberwouldbestillgreater.ThisalsoshowsthatseveralinterjectionsdidnothaveafixedforminOld

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english, at least not in writing (but this applies to latin as well). Wala, wellawell etc. canperhapsbe regardedasmembersof anentire interjection-familywithmany variant forms (to which belong also wegla, weglaweg etc.; see further 5.1 below); the common elements are w and la, connected by the vowels a or e, and often by internal rhyme (wala etc.) and/or reduplication (wel-la-well etc.). i have not included in the list the word wawa ‘grief, woe, misery’, which is used as anounbyÆlfric(threetimesonp.279ed.Zupitza).Hilahi can perhaps also be regardedasamemberofaninterjectionfamily(variantsnotmentionedbyÆlfricinclude hi, hig, higla, higlahig and hela).Oneusefuldistinctionisbetweenprimaryinterjections,whichwerecoinedas

such,andsecondaryinterjections.Thelatterarewordsfromotherword-classeswhich are then also used as interjections.But even this distinction is notfineenough, because there were morphologically simple and morphologically com-plexinterjectionswhicharosefromacombinationofprimaryorofprimaryandsecondaryinterjections.

From a morphological and word-formational point of view there are thus at least four groups:17

(1) morphologicallysimpleprimaryinterjections:la, hui(g);(2) morphologicallysimplesecondaryinterjections:wa; (3) morphologicallycomplexinterjections,whichcanbesubdividedinto

(a) combinationsconsistingofprimaryinterjections:eala, haha / hehe, hi-lahi, wellawell, and

(b) combinationsconsistingofsecondaryandprimaryinterjections(afæstla, wala);

(4) full and condensed phrases: wa is me; wamme.

La was obviously used particularly frequently in the formation of complex inter-jections,fivetimesintheexamplesprovidedbyÆlfric,i.e.itoccursinhalfoftheinterjectionslistedbyhim:afæstla (probably afæst /æwfæst ‘upright, pious etc.’ + la)18; eala (ea ‘alas, oh’+ la – eaisnotlistedseparatelybyÆlfric,however);hilahi; wala (wa ‘woe’ + la); wellawell.19 For the formation of haha / hehe redu-plication has been used, and in hilahi and wellawell reduplication and the use of la have been combined. Wamme is apparently a contraction of the phrase wa is me.

From an etymological point of view ea (as in eala), wa, la, hui and haha are oldinterjections,goingbacktoGermanicandeventoIndo-European.

(a) ēa < gmc *au (cf. g au) < ie; cf. l au.(b) haha < gmc *haha (cf. g haha) < ie; cf. l haha.(c) hui < gmc *hui (cf. g hui) < ie; cf. l hui. (d) lā: holthausen compares it to ohg lē and to l il-le.(e) wā < gmc *wai (cf. g weh(e)) < ie; cf. l vae.


MostofthecomplexinterjectionsseemtobeOldEnglishformations,however.Althoughgrammarsoftenstress that interjectionsarenatural soundsor inanycase of an onomatopoetic or sound-symbolic origin and that they are phonologi-callyandmorphologicallyirregular,theexamplesshowthatinterjectionsoftenhad conventionalized forms. Many were morphologically complex. Moreover, evenoldandsimpleinterjectionswereaffectedbylatersound-changes;thusOEēa evolved through regular sound-change from gmc *au (cf. g au), and wā de-veloped from gmc *wai.Fromtheirsemanticandpragmaticfunctionmostoftheinterjectionslistedby

Ælfricexpressnegativeemotions(sorrow,grief):eala, hilahi, la, wa, wamme, wala, wellawell; only haha / hehe for laughter expresses a (normally) positive emotion(signofjoy).Hui(g) seems to express surprise or admiration, but in the examplegivenbyÆlfricitfunctionsratherasagreetingformula.Afæstla seems to be a response form. Hui(g) and afæstla thus show two of the other functions ofinterjections.AfinalquestioninconnectionwithÆlfric’Grammarishowfartheinterjec-

tionsmentionedtherereflectactualOldEnglishlanguageuse,perhapsevencol-loquial speech. Eala, la, wa, wala are attested outside his Grammar and were ap-parently used frequently. Ealaisthemostfrequentcomplexprimaryinterjectionin hiltunen’s data (2006: 96), and according to the DOE there are ca. 1250 occur-rences of eala in old english texts. Haha / hehe, hilahi, hui(g) on the other hand are rarely attested, at least in writing, or even hapax legomena – but probably they were more frequent in the spoken language. For haha this is quite likely because it apparently goes back to indo-european, and is still used to express laughter in Modern english (as well as in german) and thus apparently has an unbroken tra-dition;fortheothersitismoredifficulttotell.Afæstla is a hapax legomenon, at-testedonlyinÆlfric’sGrammar.Butsincehespecificallylabelsafæstla, together with hilahi and wellawell,as“englisceinteriectiones”,as‘Englishinterjections’(p. 280/14) and also does not give any latin equivalents for them, it seems un-likely that he made them up. it seems more likely that like hahatheyalsoreflectactualOldEnglishusage.ThusÆlfric’sGrammar is one of the rare witnesses (or eventheonlyone)ofsomeinterjectionswhichwereperhapsfrequentinspokenOldEnglish.Thuswefindtracesofcolloquialspeechinagrammar.20

Ælfriclistsmany,butnotalloftheOldEnglishinterjections.Ofthemorefre-quent ones, noticeably hwæt is absent, but this may be due to the fact that hwæt is a discourse marker and does not primarily express an emotion. Hwæt occurs, however, in King Alfred’s version of the Soliloquies, see the following section.

4. Emotions and interjections in the Old English Soliloquies

the old english version of Augustine’s Soliloquies is another text in which we mightperhapsnotprimarilyexpectinterjections.21 it is a theological and philo-sophicaltreatise,an“attempttoknowGod,andtoaffirmHisandthesoul’sim-

174 hAnS SAuer

mortality”(GreenfieldandCalder1986:52). Ithas theformofadialogue,anexchange between the author (St. Augustine; ic in the old english version) and his reason (oe (ge)sceadwisnes),althoughthelatterisnotclearlydefined(seep. 3, ed. endter).22

the old english version is commonly ascribed to Alfred, although the corpus of Alfred’s own translations has been shrinking continually in recent decades: the old english Orosius was taken from him some time ago and shown to be an anonymous translation.23 More recently Malcolm godden has taken the old english Boethius from Alfred, too.24 godden also doubts whether Alfred was the author or translator of the old english version of the Soliloquies, but we can leave this question open for our purpose.25 if the original translation was made by Al-fred, it must have been composed in the 890s, but it survives only in a manuscript from the 12thcentury,nowthefirstpartofLondon,BritishLibrary,CottonVitel-lius A.xv (cf. Ker 1957, no. 215).

the Soliloquies are not an impassionate or detached philosophical dialogue – often the speakers, and especially the author (oe ic) get quite emotional and expressintensefeelings.Theauthorfrequentlyusesinterjections,whereasrea-son / (ge)sceadwisnessemploys interjectionsmuchmore rarely.Often there isno exactly corresponding word or phrase in the latin source; therefore the old english version frequently seems to be emotionally more intense than the latin original, and the intensity seems to increase as the dialogue progresses. Toachievetheemotionalintensity,itisnotonlyinterjectionswhichareused,

butalsoanumberofrhetoricalfiguresandstructures,e.g.repetitionandanapho-ra,especiallybyreason.reasonusesinterjectionsonlytwice,andinbothcaseshwæt, hwat (25/7; 60/28–29), as a kind of indignant surprise (see further below). reason’s favourite emotion actually is wondering about the author, who on the one hand is slow to understand what she tells him, and on the other hand is also quicktoforgetwhatshehasjusttaughthim.26 her favourite phrase therefore is ‘i wonder’, ic wondrie, which often has no correspondence in the latin original, but was apparently frequently added by the old english translator, e.g. “ic won-drie þin”, ‘i am surprised about you’ (15/19); “ic wundrige hwi þu swa spece” ‘i wonder why you speak so’ (24/1; cf. 53/8; 60/8; 63/3); and conversely “nis þæt nan wundor “ ‘this is no wonder’ (32/22; cf. 34/17; 35/11).ThefollowinginterjectionsareusedintheOldEnglishSoliloquies, apart from

hwæt mainly by the author (ic):

(1) gea ‘yes’ (Mode yea(h)); 6x: 20/16; 21/9; 22/1; 51/5; 53/6; 66/19.(2) eala, æala: expressing regret, but also astonishment; 5x: 12/17; 28/1;

53/1; 55/11; 63/18.(3) na, ne, nese ‘no’: ne: 21/19; nese 17/18; 18/6 – for combinations with

nese see below.(4) hwæt: uttered by ic: 12/3; uttered by reason: 25/7; 60/29. Attention get-

ter, but often used in a reproachful way.


(5) wel la: 13/6; and walawa 43/10, both for ‘woe, alas’; on the latter, see below.

ThustherearefewerinterjectionsthaninÆlfric’sGrammar (which, of course, is the later text): eala is also listed there; walawa and wel la can be regarded as fur-ther members of the wala(wa)interjectionfamily.NotlistedbyÆlfricarehwæt, gea and nese. the reason is perhaps that hwæt is an attention getter, and gea and nese are response forms. Oncemore,however,countingisnotsoeasy,becausetherearealsofivedif-

ferent reduplicative combinations of the shape ‘X la X’ (gea la gea etc.), which were obviously created to achieve a very intense and emphatic way of showing emotion and also of emphatically agreeing and disagreeing. they also show once more the importance of lafortheformationofcomplexinterjectionsandalsotheuse of reduplication. they are not listed by the dictionaries as headwords, prob-ably because most of them are groups rather than compounds, but their form and use is quite striking.

the word-division is, of course, at least in some cases editorial: wa la wa / walawa is spelled as three words in some editions and dictionaries, but as one word in others. the same is true of punctuation: for example the exclamation mark which is sometimes used after eala is editorial.

the following combinations are used in the oe Soliloquies:

(6) do la do ‘do it oh do it’: 60/28(7) gea la gea ‘yes oh yes’: 2x: 35/1(8) nese la nese, or nese, næse ‘no oh no’: 9x: 3/15; 47/1; 50/14; 52/9; 61/5;

61/16; 62/5; 68/14; 68/22(9) swuga la swuga ‘be silent oh be silent’: 49/1(10) wa la wa ‘alas’ lit. ‘woe oh woe’: 43/10

Whereas gea la gea, do la do, swuga la swuga and wa la waareusedjustonce,and nese la nese (or nese, næse) is used nine times. i give an example in context ofeachoftheinterjectionsusedbyAlfred.Astheexamplesshow,theinterjec-tionsareoftenusedaftertheintroductoryformula“Đacwæðic”‘ThenIsaid’.

(1) gea:“Đacwæðic:gea, ic hys gelife.” (18/15)(2a) eala:“Đacwæðic:eala! ic eom myd earmlicre ofergiotolnesse ofseten

…” (63/18)(2b) eala: “Eala, hu þin godnes is to wundrienne, forþæm heo is ungelic æal-

lum goodum!” (12/17–18)(3) nese, na, ne: “Đa cwæð ic:nese, ne do ic hi na ðe raðor gelice …”

(17/18)(4a) hwæt (the author): “for[ðam] ic eomfleonde framhym.hwæt, hy me

underfungon ær …” (12/2–3)

176 hAnS SAuer

(4b) hwæt (reason):“Đacwæðheo:hwæt! ic wat þæt þu hefst ðone hlaford nu …” (60/28–29)

(5) wel la: “Wel la, god feder, wel alyse me of ðam gedwolan …” (13/6–7); for walawa see below

(6) do la do:“Đacwæðic:do, la do! gedo þæt me scamige forði.” (60/28)(7) gea la gea: “Đa cwæð ic:gea, la gea; gyf hyt nu færenga gewurde …

(35/1)(8) nese la nese:“Đacwæðic:nese, la nese; ne nawer neah!” (61/16) ‘then

i said: no, oh no; not nowhere/never near’(9) swuga la swuga:“Đacwæðic:swuga, la swuga!” (49/1)(10) wa la wa: “Đa cwæð ic:Wa la wa! hwæt þu me forhæardne lætst!”

(43/10)

As far as origin (etymology) is concerned, gea, hwæt, and perhaps also nese are old words, going back to germanic or even indo-european:

(a) gea < gmc *ja; cf. g ja. Mode yea(h).(b) hwæt < gmc *xwat (cf. g was) < ie *kwod, cf. l quod. like quod, oe

hwæt (> Mode what) is also used as an interrogative pronoun as well as aninterjection;buthereweareonlyconcernedwithitsuseasaninterjec-tion.

(c) na, ne, nese ‘no’: ne apparently goes back to indo-european, cf. l ne. Na (> Mode no) is explained as from ne + ā ‘not + always’. Nese is ex-plained as an originally complex form, arising from *nisi or *ne sī ‘be it not, it may/shall not be’, see, e.g., holthausen.

the reduplicative combinations with la seem to have originated with walawa, which is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most frequently used formation of this type; probably this pattern was then extended to the response forms (gea la gea and nese la nese) and even to verbs in the imperative (do la do; swuga la swuga).

Functionally, gea and nese are response forms, and hwaet is an attention getter (seefurtherbelow),buttheyalsobelongtotheinterjections;thisisparticularlyclear in the Soliloquies, where gea and nese are combined with la. According to Wülfing(1901,II:695)gea and nesebecomeinterjectionsthroughthecombina-tion with la. Themorefrequentlyusedinterjectionsespeciallyhaveanumberofsemantic

shades which can vary according to context.

(1) Hwæt is basically an attention getter, i.e. it “draws the listener’s atten-tion to what is being said” (hiltunen 2006: 103).27 When it is uttered by the speaker, it implies also regret for his sins in his prayer to god (12/3). When it is uttered by reason (gesceadwisnys), it seems to imply a kind


of indignant surprise (25/7; 60/28–29). For further details, see Brinton (1996); Stanley (2000).

(2) Eala: From its etymology (ea + la), eala expresses sadness and regret, and this seems to be its function in most cases when it is used by the author (ic) in the Soliloquies, e.g. 28/1; 53/1; 55/11; 63/18. in some pas-sages it seems to express admiration and praise, however (12/17–18; see example 2b above). Eala is also often used in old english where the Latinhasavocative(onÆlfric’sstatementaboutthecorrespondingLatino see p. 170 above); this is also the case in 12/17–18: “o admiranda et singularis bonitas tua”, which in the old english version has, however, been transformed into an exclamation of admiration and praise: “eala, hu þin godnes is towundrienne”.The gloss toÆlfric’sColloquy also has several examples of the use of eala as a marker of the vocative, e.g. “magister – eala lareow”.28 For further details, see the DOE s.v. eala.

(3) Wa la wa and wel lawereapparentlypartofawidespread interjectionfamily with many variant forms (see above), but basically the same func-tion, namely to express sorrow, regret etc.

Thisleadsustothequestion(whichweaskedaboveconcerningÆlfric)ofhowfartheinterjectionsandformulaeusedbyAlfredintheSoliloquies were his lit-erary creations and how far they can be regarded as common or even colloquial spoken old english.

According to hiltunen (2006: 102), who refers to offerberg (1967), la was idiomatic old english and part of the spoken language – but, as we have seen, it is used much more often in combination than in isolation by both Alfred and Ælfric.

Eala (which was formed with la as second element and accordingly must have originated later) is very frequent in old english. According to hiltunen (2006: 98 & 104–105) it is mainly literary and Christian, and hwæt was part of the poetic diction – but as its use by Alfred in the Soliloquies shows, hwæt was also em-ployed in prose.

Gea ‘yes’ and nese ‘no’ were probably common response formulae. Wa la wa seems to have been a common formula of sorrow and regret, belonging to an in-terjectionfamily.Theotherformulaecreatedaccordingtothispattern(gea la gea, nese la nese, do la do, swuga la swuga), however, apparently were not common.29 it seems that they were created by Alfred (or whoever translated the Soliloquies) for special emphasis. Nese la nese also occurs in the old english Boethius; this text furthermore has the formula gise la gise ‘yesohyes’;seeWülfing(1901,II:695).30

178 hAnS SAuer

5. Summary

if we combine the evidence from Alfred’s Soliloquies (Solil; before 900) and fromÆlfric’sGrammar (Gramm; around 1000), we get the following picture of theOldEnglishinterjections:

5.1.CorpusofOldEnglishinterjections:AltogetherOldEnglishhadca.35–40interjections.Asexplainedabove,itisimpossibletogiveaprecisenumber.Thefollowingca.12interjectionsareattestedinÆlfric’sGrammar and in the Solilo-quies; the number is comparatively small because several forms are here regarded asvariantformsorasbelongingtoaninterjectionfamilyorasgroupsformedwith la, butmost of the frequent and importantOld English interjections arecertainly included, and also some of the ones attested rarely, at least in written documents:

(1) afæstla: ‘certainly, assuredly’; Gramm (hapax legomenon). (2) eala: ‘alas, oh, lo’; Gramm, Solil (very frequent in old english); æala,

æla mentioned by Mitchell (1985) are probably variants.(3) gea: yes’; Solil (probably common in old english).(4) haha / hehe: ‘ha! ha!’ (indicating laughter); Gramm (hapax legomenon).(5) hilahi: probably ‘alas, oh’; Gramm (hapax legomenon). Mitchell (1985)

also mentions hig, hig hig, higla, higlahig: probably these formed an in-terjectionfamily.

(6) hui / huig: may have expressed admiration or surprise (or both; cf. g hui), butaccordingtoMitchell(1985)‘alas!’;inÆlfric’sexample,however,itseems to be used as a kind of greeting formula, see p. 121 above); Gramm (rarely attested).

(7) hwæt: attention getter; Solil. Very frequent in old english; see Brinton (1996) and Stanley (2000).

(8) la: ‘oh, ah’ (Mode lo);31 Gramm; frequently used for combinations: (a) afæstla, eala, hilahi, wala, wellawell, walawa, wella (some attested in Gramm, some in Solil, and some in both); and: (b) in Solil: do la do, gea la gea, nese la nese, swuga la swuga (plus walawa); and in the oe Boethius furthermore gise la gise. thus altogether six formations in ac-cordance with this pattern seem to be attested.

(9) na, ne, nese: ‘no’; Solil (probably common in old english).(10) wa: ‘woe, alas’ (Mode woe); asanoun‘misery,affliction’;Gramm; for

combinations with wa (interjectionfamily)see(11)–(12).(11) wa is me / wamme etc., (Mode woe is me); Gramm.(12) wala (Gramm), wellawell (Gramm), walawa (Solil), wel la (Solil): ‘woe,

alas’: probably together with wa an interjection family. Mitchell also mentions the forms weg la, weilawei, wilawei etc.


Apart from these, Mitchell (1985: i: 528) also lists (but says nothing about fre-quency or rarity):32 ea ‘alas’ (the basis of eala) and æ (perhaps a variant of ea); efne / æfne (nu) ‘behold!’; egele etc.; enu / eono / ono ‘behold!’; eow / eule etc.; georstu ‘o’; gese / gyse ‘yes’; ?hela; henu / heono etc. ‘behold!’ (perhaps variants of enu / eono); hu (la) (nu) ‘how (now)! come!’; huru ‘indeed, surely’; nic ‘no’; nu (l ecce); nula (l heia); sehde etc. ‘behold!’; tæg tæg (l puppup); ?uton.

5.2. Form (morphology): regarding their morphologic shape the following groups can be distinguished:33

(1) simpleprimaryinterjections:gea, la, hui(g), ne;(2) simplesecondaryinterjections:hwæt, na, wa;(3) complexinterjections:

(a) consistingofprimaryinterjections,oftencombiningla and another inter-jection,andsometimesusingreduplication:eala, haha / hehe, hilahi, wel la / wellawell;

(b) combinationsofprimaryandsecondaryinterjections(orwords),atleastoriginally: afæstla, nese, wala, walawa;

(4) phrases (full and condensed phrases): wa is me / wamme; do la do; gea la gea; nese la nese; swuga la swuga.

5.3.Etymology:Severalof the simpleprimaryand secondary interjectionsgoback to germanic or even indo-european, namely ea, gea, la, haha, hui, hwæt, ne, wa, and perhaps also nese.Mostofthecomplexinterjections,includingthosewith la as an element, seem to be old english formations, however, e.g., afæstla, eala, hilahi, wala, wellawell, as well as the phrases, e.g. wa is me, gea la gea etc.

5.4. Function: Just taking Gramm and Solil into account, four functions of in-terjectionscanbedistinguished;someinterjectionscanhaveseveralfunctions,however, i.e. they show polysemy:34

(1) interjectionsexpressingemotions:(a)positiveemotions:haha / hehe for laughter; possibly hui(g) for surprise and admiration; (b) negative emo-tions,expressinggrief,regret,sorrowetc.(apparentlythelargemajority):eala, hilahi, la, wa, wa is me / wamme, wala, walawa, wellawell;

(2) attention getters: hwæt;(3) greeting forms: hui(g);(4) response forms: afæstla, gea, na / ne / nese.

5.5.ItisperhapsironicthatsomeOldEnglishinterjectionswhichmusthavebeencommon (e.g. haha) and colloquial are mainly or even exclusively preserved in a grammar and a philosophical-theological treatise.

180 hAnS SAuer

5.6.Further fate:Manyof theOldEnglish interjectionsdiedoutandwere re-placed inMiddleEnglishby interjectionsborrowedfromFrenchand/orLatin.Among those that survive are (although in some cases the functions have or may have changed): yea(h), haha, what, lo, no, woe. For a survey of Middle english interjectionsseeMustanoja(1960:620–640);cf.alsoSauer(2008).

Notes

1 here used in the revised edition by dutch (1962). on the question of terminology, see also Sauer (2008: 389–390).

2 OnabbotÆlfricsee,e.g.,Gneuss(2009),andtheentryinBEASE,s.v.ÆlfricofEynsham.AccordingtoGneuss,ÆlfricwrotehisGrammar shortly after 992, and probably in Cerne (2009: 22).

3 on King Alfred see, e.g., Frantzen (1986); the entries in BEASE, s.v. Alfred and s.v. Alfredian texts, the recent edition of the old english Boethius by godden (2009), and godden (2007).

4 See also Sauer (2008: 390–393).5 in any case the index of CHEL I does not list the terms ‘interjection’, ‘exclamation’, or

‘feeling’.6 Buf, eala, efne (nu), georstu, o, hu la, hwæt la, la hu.7 For assistance with the present article, my thanks are due to Susan Bollinger, Susanne gärtner,

elisabeth Kubaschewski, Katharina Wolff and gaby Waxenberger.8 OnÆlfric’streatmentofinterjectionsseeSauer(2006).HisGrammar is here quoted in the

edition by Zupitza. For a French translation, see Mensah and toupin (2005).9 Clark hall lists a number of compounds with mod, but no *modstyrung or *modgewilnung.10 Cf. also Sauer (2006: 43–44).11 Ælfric deals with the following word-classes: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle,

conjunction,preposition,interjection.12 Most of these are listed by lewis & Short. A is treated under ah, and haha is treated under ha.

E, hehe and la arenotlisted.Ontheotherhand,Lewis&ShortgivemanyLatininterjectionsnotmentionedbyÆlfric,e.g.ehem, eheu, eho, eia, hei, heia, heus etc.

13 he does not give a meaning for hui(g); according to the latin dictionaries (lewis & Short) itexpressesastonishmentoradmiration;ClarkHalllistsitasanOldEnglishinterjection,butdoes not give a meaning.

14 La is apparently not listed in the Theasurus Linguae Latinae.15 Clarkhall often puts an exclamation mark behind the meanings. the treatment of these

exclamations in the dictionaries (Bt, Clarkhall, holthausen) is very uneven. not all of them arelisted;someofthecomplexinterjectionsarejustlistedundertheirfirstelement;especiallyClarkHalllistssomeoftheinterjectionswithoutgivingameaning.

16 Cf. the song by harry Belafonte “Woe is me, shame and scandal in the family…”17 Cf. also Sauer (2006: 46–47).18 or possibly ā ‘always’ + fæst‘fast,firm’+la.19 unfortunately i have no explanation at present for the weg in weg-la-weg or the wel in wel-

la-well; they do not seem to be identical with the noun weg ‘way’ and the adverb wel ‘well’.20 Von lindheim (1951) (in his article on traces of colloquial speech in old english) does not

mentiontheinterjections.21 the main source are St. Augustine’s Soliloquia, but other sources were also used for the old

english version. the text is here quoted from the edition by endter.22 4/11–14/7 (ed. endter) form a prayer by the author to god.23 Frantzen (1986) lists as Alfred’s works: (1) his oe law-code; (2) the oe Pastoral Care; (3)


the oe Boethius; (4) the oe Soliloquies; (5) the Paris Psalter.24 in: The Old English Boethius, ed. godden et al (2009), esp. i: 140–146. in 1992, godden

had still subscribed to the traditional view, namely that Alfred was the translator of the oe Boethius and the oe Soliloquies: godden (1992: 513 & 524-526).

25 in: The Old English Boethius, ed. godden et al. (2009: i: 143); see also godden (2007).26 As indicated above (see p. 120),Ælfric also regards ‘wondering, being surprised’ as an

emotion.27 HwætisthefirstwordofBeowulf and several other old english poems.28 TheLatinColloquyisbyÆlfric,buttheOEglosswasaddedbysomebodyelse.29 the DOE s.v. do, for example, does not seem to list the phrase “do la do”.30 godden in his introduction to his edition of the old english Boethius noticescertainaffinities

between this text and the old english Soliloquies.31 the origin of Mode lo ‘behold, indeed, verily’ seems to have been more complex, because it

may have combined oe lā > lō and a shortened form of look.32 ForaninventoryofOldEnglishinterjections,seealsoSauer(2008:394).33 See also Sauer (2008: 397).34 Ofcourseinterjectionscanhavemanymorefunctions;see,e.g.,Sauer(2008:392&397–

398).

References

Editions

Ælfric’sGrammar: Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Julius Zupitza. Berlin: Weidmann, 1880; 4th ed. with a new introduction by helmut gneuss: hildesheim: Weidmann, 2003.

Ælfric’s Grammar, French translation: Marthe Mensah et Fabienne toupin, La ‘Grammaire’ d’Ælfric: Traduction et Commentaire linguistique. Publications de l’Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l’enseignement Supérieur. Paris, 2005.

Boethius: The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s ‘De Consolatione Philosophiae’, ed. Malcolm godden, Susan irvine et al. 2 vols. oxford: oxford uP, 2009.

Soliloquies: König Alfreds des Großen Bearbeitung der Soliloquien des Augustinus, ed. Wilhelm endter. Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 11. hamburg, 1922 [repr. darmstadt: Wissen-schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964].

Dictionaries

Bt: Joseph Bosworth and t. northcote toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. oxford: oxford uP, 1882-1898; Supplement by t.n. toller, 1921.

Clarkhall: J.r. Clark hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 4th ed. with a supplement by herbert d. Meritt. Cambridge: Cambridge uP, 1960 [many reprints].

DOE: The Dictionary of Old English, ed. Angus Cameron et al., Fascicles A-F on Cd-roM, ver-sion1.0.Toronto:PontificalInstituteofMedievalStudies,2003.

holthausen: F[erdinand] holthausen, Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch.3.Aufl.Heidel-berg: Winter 1974.

lewis & Short: Charlton t. lewis & Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary. oxford: oxford uP, 1879 [many reprints].

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roget: Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, new edition by robert A. dutch. london: longman; harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962 [many reprints].

ThOE: Jane roberts & Christian Kay with lynne grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English. 2 vols. lon-don: King’s College, 1995; 2nd impression: Costerus new Series 131. Amsterdam and Atlanta, gA: rodopi, 2000.

Studies and handbooks

BEASE: lapidge, Michael, et al. (ed.) (1999) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. oxford: Blackwell.

Brinton, laurel J. (1996) Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Func-tions. Berlin: Mouton de gruyter.

Cassidy,F.C.(1996)‘TheAnglo-Saxoninterjection’.In:Pollner,C.etal.(eds.)Bright is the Ring of Words: Festschrift für Horst Weinstock. Bonn: romanistischer Verlag, 45–48.

CHEL: hogg, richard M. (ed.) (1992) The Cambridge History of the English Language: Vol. 1: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge uP.

Frantzen, Allen J. (1986) King Alfred. Boston, Mass.: twayne.gneuss, helmut (2009) Ælfric of Eynsham: His Life, Times, and Writings. old english newsletter

Subsidia 34. Kalamazoo: Medieval institute Publications, Western Michigan university.godden, Malcolm (1992) ‘literary language’. in: hogg, richard M. (ed.) The Cambridge History

of the English Language: Vol. 1: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge uP, 490–535.godden. Malcolm (2007) “did Alfred Write Anything?”, Medium Ævum 76, 1–23.Greenfield,StanleyB.,andDanielG.Calder(1986)A New Critical History of Old English Litera-

ture. new York and london: new York uP.hiltunen, risto (2006) “‘Eala, geferan and gode wyrhtan’:OnInterjectionsinOldEnglish”.In:

Walmsley, John (ed.) Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell. oxford: Black-well, 91–116.

Ker, n. r. (1957) Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. oxford: oxford uP.Mitchell, Bruce (1985) Old English Syntax. 2 vols. oxford: oxford uP.Mustanoja,TaunoF.(1960)A Middle English Syntax. Part I: Parts of Speech. helsinki: Société

néophilologique.offerberg, i. (1967) A Study of Old English Interjections. unpublished doctoral dissertation, uni-

versity of Stockholm.Sauer,Hans(2006)‘Ælfricandemotion’.Poetica [tokyo] 66, 37–52 [Special issue: The Expres-

sion of Emotions in English with an Emphasis on Old and Middle English, ed. hans Sauer and Michiko ogura].

Sauer,Hans(2008)‘Interjection,emotion,grammar,andliterature’.In:Amano,M.,M.Ogura,M.ohkado (eds.) Historical Englishes in Varieties of Texts and Contexts: The Global COE Pro-gram. International Conference 2007. Frankfurt am Main: lang, 387–403.

Stanley, eric gerald (2000) ‘hwæt’. in: roberts, J. and J. nelson (eds.) Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy. london: King’s College Centre for late Antique & Medieval Studies, 525–556.

von lindheim, Bogislav (1951) ‘traces of colloquial speech in oe’. Anglia 70, 22–42.Wülfing, Ernst Peter (1901) Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Großen. 2 vols. Bonn:

hanstein.


hans sauer is Professor at the university of Munich (lMu), where he has the chair of eng-lish language and Medieval english literature; he also teaches at the Wyzsza Szkola (gallus) in Katowice. Previous posts and assignments (some still continuing) were at eichstätt, Würzburg, dresden, innsbruck, lodz, Palermo, Columbus/ohio, and Brno. his research interests and publica-tions include critical editions and studies of Medieval english texts (e.g. Theodulfi Capitula 1978; The Owl and the Nightingale 1983; Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Munich 2005), word-formation (e.g. Nominalkomposita im Frühmittelenglischen 1992), glosses and glossaries (e.g. The Épinal-Erfurt Glossary), lexicography, plant names, Beowulf, especially Beowulftranslationsandfilms,thehis-tory of linguistics and of english studies, varieties of english (e.g. pidgins and creoles; advertising), interjections.In2009hisintroductiontoEnglishlinguisticswaspublishedinarussianversion.Heis a co-editor of, e.g., Anglia and Middle english texts (Met).

Address: Prof. hans Sauer, university of Munich (lMu), department of english and American Studies, Schellingstr. 3, 80799 München, germany [e-mail: [email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

herberT sChenDl

williAm hArvey’s Prelectiones anatomie universalis (1616): coDe-switching

in eArly moDern english lecture notes

Abstracthistorical code-switching has attracted increasing interest in recent years. From theMiddleAgesonwards,medical textshavenotonly reflected thecomplexmultilingualismofBritain,butalsotheincreasingvernacularisationofscientificwriting in general. this vernacularisation is often linked to a high incidence of code-switching throughout the medieval and well into the early modern period. the present paper analyses the frequent occurrence of code-switching from latin into english in a medical text, namely William harvey’s Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis (1616). the Prelectiones represent harvey’s personal hand-written notes for a cycle of anatomical lectures accompanying a dissection. As such they have been claimed to be rather close to spoken language, though they often con-sist of incomplete and elliptical syntactic structures. the paper presents a brief analysis of structural and functional aspects of code-switching in these notes and concludes with a discussion of the relation between the written code-switches and their possible spoken realisation in the course of the anatomical lectures.

Key wordsCode-switching; Early Modern English; Latin; medical texts; William Harvey; lecture notes

1. Introduction

the use of the english vernacular in medical texts has a long history in Britain, going back as far as the Anglo-Saxon period. it became particularly wide-spread in the later Middle Ages, when the increasing vernacularisation of medical texts helped to spread medical knowledge outside universities and gave more and more

186 herBert SChendl

people access to learning (cf. Pahta and taavitsainen 2004: 2–12). the co-exist-enceofLatinandEnglishinmedicalwritingisalsoreflectedinthelargenumberof late medieval multilingual manuscripts as well as in the frequent occurrence of code-switching in medical texts (see Voigts 1989: 96). the choice between latin andEnglishpartlydependedonthespecifictypeoftext,withacademictreatisesbeing more typically in latin than, e.g. remedy books.1A“firstphaseofvernacu-larisation seems to have been largely complete by 1475” (Pahta and taavitsainen 2004: 12), by which time even academic medical treatises were sometimes written in english (Voigts 1996). however, as late as 1534, thomas elyot felt compelled tojustifytheuseofthevernacularintheprefacetohisCastle of Health, a book on‘physicke’,i.e.anacademicmedicaltreatise.Quitegenerally,“Latinprevailedinprintedscientificbooksuntilthemiddleoftheseventeenthcentury”,thougha number of scientists, including Francis Bacon, wrote and published works both in latin and in english (taavitsainen 2004: 38; 69, note 2). the long preference for latin in specialised treatises resulted on the one hand from its still undisputed status as the language of education and institutional discourse in Britain, on the other hand on its status as the international language of science. Any author who aimed at an international readership would have used latin as the lingua franca for his published works.

the above-mentioned frequent occurrence of code-switching is not restricted to medical texts, but is a widespread phenomenon in medieval texts in general, whichreflectsthecomplexmultilingualsituationofmedievalBritain(see,e.g.,Wright 1998, Schendl 2000, 2002, Pahta and nurmi 2006, Schendl and Wright forthcoming).Itseemspartlylinkedtotheprocessoflanguageshiftinspecificgenres and text types (see Schendl 2002: 70) and the vernacularisation of medi-cine and medical treatises seems to have provided a favourable background for this particular expression of bilingualism in written texts.

Code-switching in medieval medical texts has attracted the interest both of medievalists and historical linguists for some time, see in particular Voigts (1989, 1996), who provides a typology of mixed medical texts, hunt (2000) and Pahta (2003, 2004), though there is still room for further research. these studies list quite a number of typical functions of code-switching both in latin and in ver-nacular medieval medical texts, such as quoting from an authoritative source, using latin medical terminology, or using latin for tabooed expressions or even whole text passages; on the other hand, vernacular recipes are often inserted into Latin texts.recent research in thisfieldhasgreatlyprofitedfromthepublica-tion of the electronic Corpus of Middle English Medical Texts (2004), which has introduced corpus-linguistic methodology into code-switching research and has also provided the empirical basis for Pahta (2004).

on the other hand, code-switching in medical texts from the early Modern english period has so far received hardly any attention. A preliminary study of switching in extracts from eight medical books dating from between 1552 and 1676 is provided in Pahta (2007). her statement that the primary aim of her study is “simply to show that medical texts of the early Modern english period, like

187WilliAM hArVeY’S PRELECTIONES ANATOMIE UNIVERSALIS (1616)

their medieval counterparts, do indeed contain some code-switching” (Pahta 2007:254),clearlytestifiestothegeneralneglectofthisresearchfield.Onthebasisofhersmalldatabase,Pahtafindsarangeofformsandfunctionsofswitch-ing, which are on the whole similar to those found in medieval medical texts, with terminology, expression of intertextuality and embedded recipes being among the central functions of code-switching in her material.

Pahta’s material is exclusively taken from printed medical books, an obvious data base for such a study. however, there is also a very different type of mixed-language texts from the early 17th century whose code-switching has so far not received any linguistic attention, namely the extensive handwritten notes of Wil-liam harvey, which were not intended for publication in this form.

2. William Harvey and his Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis (1616)

2.1. General background2

William harvey (1578–1657) is most likely the greatest physician of early mod-ern england, whose revolutionary insights into the circulation of the blood have secured his permanent fame. he studied medicine in Cambridge and Padua, then one of the most prestigious medical faculties of europe. After his return to lon-don, he began a highly successful medical career, becoming a member of the College of Physicians, a respected physician at a leading london hospital and, in 1618, physician to James i.

harvey’s published writings were clearly aimed not only at a British, but also at an international readership. thus it is not surprising that all his three published bookswerewritteninLatin:thefirst,hisfamoustreatiseonthecirculationoftheblood (1628), was even published abroad in Frankfurt-am-Main, while the other two appeared in england in 1649 and 1651, though his 1649 book was also pub-lished in rotterdam in the same year. however, all three books were also avail-able in english translations as early as 1653, showing the widespread demand for vernacular versions of his works.

Apart from these published monolingual latin books, harvey left a number of unpublished writings, of which three manuscripts are particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view. these are on the one hand his lecture notes Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis from 1616 and a series of notes on the muscles (De Mus-culis)from1619,ontheotherhandanunfinishedstudyofthemovementofani-mals (De Motu Locali Animalium, 1627). though these are also written in latin, they all show some code-switching into english. Such switches are particularly frequent in harvey’s lecture notes Prelectiones, which will be the topic of the present paper, much less so in the two other manuscripts.

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2.2. The Lumleian lectures and the Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis (1616)3

harvey had been elected a member of the College of Physicians in 1607 and in 1615 he was appointed ‘lumleian’ lecturer there. in this position he had to give a cycle of public lectures on anatomy which was to be “accompanied by an anatomical demonstration and dissection” (Whitteridge 1989: 1; 1964: xxvi). the lumleian lectures had been explicitly designed “for the improvement of the standards of surgery in the country and for the better education of surgeons” (Whitteridge 1964: lvii).4

the Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis are evidently harvey’s notes for his lumleian lectures, which were used over a number of years and thus show numer-ous later additions in the margins and on separate pages. they contain a discus-sion of the body parts and of ‘the three bellies’, i.e. the lower belly, the chest with heartandlungs,andfinallytheheadandbrain(Whitteridge1964:xix,xxviii).the Prelectiones have survived in a single manuscript in harvey’s own handwrit-ing, MS Sloane 230, now in the British library. the best available edition is that by gweneth Whitteridge (1964), which not only provides a careful edition of the latin text,5 but also an english translation with some interpretation of the often difficulttext.Fromamedicalpointofview,Harvey’slecturenotesareofgreatimportance for tracing the development of his medical views on the circulation of the blood and other questions (see Whitteridge 1989: 5). their structure follows “[t]he rules drawn up for the lumleian lectures [which] were in the best tradition of medical education: read the authorities, comment on the texts, expound their application” (Whitteridge 1964: xxx). harvey used a variety of sources, but he based his lectures prominently on one particular book, Caspar Bauhin’s textbook on anatomy, Theatrum anatomicum, first published inFrankfurt in 1605.6 his notes are “in effect a commentary on Bauhin’s textbook”, whose description it follows rather closely, sometimes even quoting whole sentences, though in gen-eral mainly noting down words and phrases with his own comments (Whitteridge 1964:xxxii).Asatext,Harvey’snotescannotbeclassifiedwithanyofthethreetraditional categories of medical texts (see note 1), since they are not a treatise, not even notes for an academic anatomical lecture, but rather “notes to be used as the basis for a spoken commentary accompanying a dissection”, which becomes clear from a number of annotations in the manuscript, partly in the margin in red ink, giving directions for the actual dissection (Whitteridge 1989: 17f.; see also Whitteridge 1964: xxv). As such they can be supposed to be closer to speech than a text intended for publication, but since they are a mixture of complete as well as elliptical sentences and phrases, and of enumerations of single words, they do not really represent speech. As lecture notes, there was evidently no intended readership for the text, but its intended audience is of clear importance for the oc-currence of the frequent code-switches into english. this intended audience, i.e. the people attending the dissections, was most likely a complex one, as was the institution of the lumleian lectures as such. it is most likely that harvey’s “audi-ence consisted of physicians and surgeons, for from time to time he addresses


some remarks directly to them, saying that this or this is of particular interest for physiciansorsurgeons”(Whitteridge1964:xxxv).Thismayhaveinfluencedthelanguage used in particular lectures, as Whitteridge implies in her claim that

we cannot be certain whether he lectured either in english or latin, for it is probable that for himself he always wrote in latin. if the surgeons predominated in the audience, then possibly the lecture was in english, if the physicians, in latin. For the most part the notes seem to be relevant to an actual dissection when the demonstrator was required not only to show anatomical structure but to discuss function in health and disease. Sometimes, however, they do seem to belong more nearly to the lecture room than to the anatomy theatre and these long discussions perhaps harvey omitted or, at least, summarised. (Whitteridge 1964: xxxv)

interestingly, Whitteridge does not mention the possibility that harvey actually code-switched in his lectures, but rather seems to favour the use of either mono-lingual latin or english, depending on the composition of the audience. We will come back to this question after the analysis of patterns and functions of switch-ing in our concluding remarks.

2.3. Code-switching in the Prelectiones

As already briefly indicated,Harvey’s lecture notes are basically a Latin textwritten in a mixture of full and elliptical sentences and phrases as well as enu-merationsconsistingofnounsoradjectives.Additionally,thereisalargenumberof switches into english, which show more or less similar structures as the latin text, though the number of complete sentences is relatively small, while ellip-tical constructions and enumerations predominate, though one- and two-word switches equally occur.7 the overall frequency of these english switches is rather high and they are spread quite regularly through the whole text. Whitteridge’s (1964) edition of the notes covers 170 pages, though of uneven length because of sometimes substantial footnotes. of these, only 35 pages do not have any eng-lish material, while the remaining 135 pages show at least one, more frequently a number of switches into english of varying length.

2.3.1. Syntactic aspects

this section does not aim at providing a full syntactic analysis of switching points and patterns in the Prelectiones, but ratherwants tobriefly illustrate thewiderangeofsuchpatternsinthetextandthusHarvey’sflexibleuseofthetwolan-guages.

As said above, there is only a relatively small number of complete english sen-tences,insomeofwhichwefindaswitchbacktoLatin;bothtypesareillustratedin the passage under (1):

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(1) nan gunter etc. puto callum fecisse. The mad woman pins in her arme. Mary pin her cross-cloth begining with the cuticula as pueri volam manus. (46)8

(‘nan gunter [name of a woman] etc. i think she made herself insensitive [to pain]. The mad woman pins in her arm. Mary pin her cross-cloth beginning with the cuticula (skin) as boys [stick pins into] the palm of the hand.)

Muchmorefrequent,however,arenon-finiteandellipticalsentencesandclauses,which is not surprising for handwritten lecture notes. in some instances, their meaning is only recoverable for the modern reader through a detailed analysis of the context. however, these reduced switched structures are linguistically quite interesting, since there is hardly any comparable historical material. A systematic analysis of these switches is not possible here, but they would deserve closer at-tention.Afewinstancesshouldsufficetoillustratethislinguisticstrategy.Under(2)examplesofnon-finiteEnglishswitchesaregiven,with(2.b)show-

ing a switch back into latin. the examples are from harvey’s introductory ‘gen-eral rules for an anatomy’.

(2) a. 2. demonstrare propria illius cadaveris, nova vel noviter inventa. 3. To supplye only by speech what cannot be shewn, on your own credit and by authority. (16)

(‘2. Point out the peculiarities of the particular body, the new or newly dis-covered [things]. 3. To supply only by speech what cannot be shown, on your own credit and by authority.’)

b. 7. Not to dispute, confute alias quam argumentis ostensis, quia plus quam tres dies requiritur. (16)

(‘Not to dispute [or] confute other than by visible evidence, for [otherwise] more than three days would be required.’)

examples (3.a and b) illustrate switched elliptical sentences without a verb form, while (3.c) shows the not infrequent deletion of the copula between the latin subjectnounandthevernacularcomplement.

(3) a. SPLEN other side of the stomach towards the short rib. (74)

b. Yeong ox less tallow quia pinguescit intra carnem. (78) (‘Young ox less tallow,becauseitgrowsfatwithintheflesh.’)

c. homo naked etc.yett Nature most sollicitous dedit facultatem quae haec omnia scin wooll furres etc.

(50) (‘Man [is] naked etc., yet Nature most solicitous has given [him] the power [to use as covering] all these, such as skin, wool, furs, etc.’)


A variety of switched English constituents is found in Latin finite, non-finiteor elliptical sentences and clauses, and some of these switched constituents are equally elliptical. this will be illustrated under (4) with various types of prepo-sitional phrases (PP). (4.a) gives an example of a fully switched PP, while in (4.b) the preposition in could be latin or english and thus be seen as triggering the following switch into english; (4.c) illustrates a PP with deleted preposition. PP-internal switches, on the other hand, are rare and mainly occur before latin or greek medical terms, some of which can be considered as technical loans, as the two examples under (4.d) illustrate.

(4) a. hic sunt hinc intra tunicas progrediuntur oblique on this ridge. (96) (‘they are here [and] from there they run obliquely within the membranous coats on this ridge.’)

b. sic in a ratt interstitium longum inter cerebrum et cerebellum (324) (‘thus in a rat, [they are] in the long interstices between the cerebrum and

the cerebellum’.)

c.Quia homine intestina sexies longitudo corporis, septiesginney-cuny. (84)

(‘Because in man the guts [are] six times the length of the body, seven times [in] ginneyconeys.’)

d. infra, loos, somtime to the oss pectenis sed raro. (76) (‘Below, [it is] loose, sometimes [attached] to the pubic bone, but rarely.’) where arteria et vena porta going iecori ar slightly tyed to ieiunum. (76)

(‘where the artery and portal vein going to the liver are slightly tied to the jejenum.’)

A detailed discussion of further switched constituents would go beyond the scopeofthispaper.Letmejustillustratesomesyntacticfunctionsofsingle-wordswitches without going into further details.

(5) a. Splen contra inferiore sinistra posteriore (124) (‘[the] spleen, on the other hand, [is] lower down, on the left, to the

back.’)

b. ilia, lumbares, flanke (36) (‘[the] ilium, [that is the] lumbar regions, [and the] flank.’)

c. hae partes aliquae aliquibus absunt omnia perfectissimis, ratts, unde po-tentes (178)

(‘these are the parts, some are wanting in some [animals], all [are present] in the most perfect, [as in]) rats, wherefore [these have power to] engender.’)

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d. unde impetuose insequuntur et appetunt et agunt quod per se lothsome. (174)

(‘wherefore they pursue it impetuously and seek and perform what in itself [is] loathsome.’)

2.3.2. Some pragmatic functions of switching

in a text like the Prelectiones, which are personal lecture notes intended as a guide through a live dissection, we can hardly expect clear pragmatic functions of the various switches. however, there are some noticeable functional tendencies for switching which, though in no way regular, seem to have a higher frequency than others. Again, we cannot aim at any completeness here nor discuss any existing counter-examples, but will only illustrate some of the more obvious tendencies.Quitefrequently,code-switchingoccurswhenHarveyillustratesapointprevi-

ously made with examples or compares it to something for easier understanding and illustration, i.e., these are evidently commentaries which make a previous, sometimes more theoretical statement more vivid and descriptive, as the three instances under (6) illustrate.

(6) a.Contrafrigidaalbalividacumflatibusabsquesanguine.Humidarelaxan-tur, wett partchment or lether, flatulent; examplo cattle going to grass, equo loose belly fundament swabby gutts croake and wallop. (114)

(‘Ontheotherhandcold[gutsare]white[or]leaden,[theyarefilled]withflatus[but]withoutblood.Wet[guts]arerelaxed,[like]wet parchment or leather, flatulent; for example cattle going to grass, in a horse [with a] loose belly swabby fundament [the] guts croak and wallop.’)

b. Pulmonum divisio in partes continentes contentae. Contentae: sanguis, aer ut recenter mortuo quasi vesiculis; testudine like a heape of blathers, porpos froth like aer and water. … Praeter naturam contentae in morbis, passiones: apostema, vomicas magnas et exiguas like hoggs measels; calculi ex gypsea, pile like chalke stones; copia ichorosa materia unde astma (282)

(‘the lungs division into parts containing and parts contained. [the parts] contained: blood, air, as [may be seen] in the recently dead, [as it were] in bladders; in the tortoise [the lungs are] like a heap of bladders, in the por-poise froth like air and water. … [Parts which are] contained contrary to nature in diseases, affections [of the lungs]: abscesses, vomicae great and small like hog’s measles, calculi of gypsum, balls like chalk stones, an abundance of ichorous matter whence asthma.’)

c. Aqua acrimonia et salsedinis expers, tamen … nitrosa, slippery scowring as in butchers hands. (248)

(‘[the] water free from bitterness and taste of salt, yet … contains soda, slippery, scouring as in butchers’ hands.’)


Another frequent occurrence of switches are enumerations, though these are also sometimes mixed; frequent are enumerations of colour terms, though even these are not systematic, as (7.a) illustrates, where the second enumeration of colours is in latin (see p. 48 for a similar example). these enumerations can also provide examples or illustrations, so that there is a functional overlap with the previous type, see (7.b).

(7) a. Color: darke yeallow, alii black, alii rusty, item greenish blewish. unde diversitasbileflava,vitellosa,aeruginosa,nigra,porraceavelvirida.(148)

(‘Colour: dark yellow, in some black, in others rusty, also greenish blue-ish. thence diversity in the colour of the gall which can be saffron-yellow, egg-yolk-yellow, rust-red, black, leek-green or bright green.’)

b.Quibusdammotuvoluntario,porcupin, hedghog, turkey, coctoo, ruff bird in the ballad. hominibus: vigiliis, manè lord, how you look! as gamesters; sick leane dog; begger sick, eriguntur pili horridi. (44)

(‘in some [animals the skin can be moved] by a voluntary movement, por-cupine, hedgehog, turkey, cockatoo, ruff birds in the ballad. in men: after long watchings, in the morning, Lord, how you look! as gamesters; sick lean dog; beggar sick, the dishevelled hair stands on end.’)

An obvious function of single-word switches is to provide an english translation or equivalent of a previously mentioned latin technical term, as in the examples under (8), though this is relatively infrequent; the english term is very rarely pre-ceded or followed by anglice ‘in english’, see (8.c), where the english term is set in contrast to the formally similar but different latin term renes ‘kidneys’:

(8) a. PAnCreAS, sweetbread, sub duodeno, principio omenti (90) (‘PAnCreAS, sweetbread, [is situated] below [the] duodenum, in the be-

ginning of [the] omentum.’)

b. ut in piscibus; bronchiae or larke-netts. (242) (‘asinfish,bronchialtubesor lark nets.’)

c. lumbi, reyns anglice, licet renes altiores; (34) (‘[the] loins, in english reins, although the kidneys [‘renes’], higher.’)

Similar to the previous function of providing a translation is the use of the complex vernacular terms in (9). in this passage taken from an appendix at the end of the manuscript with the title ‘of the nerves as they appear in the course of dissection’, the english terms in the latin context most likely were used to explicitly point at the respective muscles and sinews in the process of the dis-section:

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(9) 3. laterales, stradling synews, secundum alios radix … 4. oris et palati, mowth synews, gustus etc. crassiores. … 5. interiores, close long sinews. Falloppi quartum par; (341) (‘lateral [nerves], straddling sinews, according to others [the] root … 4. [nerves] of the mouth and palate, mouth sinews, [nerves of] taste etc.

thicker. … 5. [interior [nerves], close, long sinews. Fallopius’ fourth pair;’)

A discussion of other possible pragmatic functions of switching would go beyond the scope of this brief contribution, but, like the syntactic patterns, these would deserve closer analysis. to give a fuller impression of the wide range and com-plex patterns of switching, a longer sample from the Prelectiones will be quoted under (10); this passage also illustrates the sometimes high density of english material in the latin text. As the introductory latin sentence makes clear, this text passage was intended to accompany the actual dissection, with the switches il-lustratingspecificactivities.WewouldsuggestthatthetextmayreflectHarvey’sactual wording in the dissection to a high degree:

(10) Brevitur situm et posituram horum omnium quod scio vos maxime velle, postea singulatim de unoquoque.

Situs omnium: partim certus partim incertus, natura romidg as she can best stow, as in ships propter motus agilitatem. imposterum iecoris, the gutts thrust att one side and two fingers beneth the navill. Full or empty the colick gutt on the line beneath the navil. Sitting or standing contra lying, cushiuns. Breathing,moventur.WH∆multisexactamposituraminvicemnunquam servant. gravidis, yeong girls by lacing, unde cutt there laces. Suspensa ilia, Cardinal Campeggio, hard and yet pulsare, hypogastrium cleane empty.

Intestinaaliquandosubtusinflata,aliquandocondantiaretracta.9 Signum malum imbecillitas intestinarum. ieCur magis dextra, X totum. Vide venam umbilicalem, vide conexum

lieni. Wh tumorem meum quartana. Under the chondrium tutele gratia allong 7 ribbdextrasuperior,undedifficultasrespirationistumoreiecoris,long the short ribbs, upon the stomach which it covereth. Connexum semper diaphragmati duobus fortissimis ligamentis, umbelicali venae cavae ramo, spinae; aliquando costis, peritoneo, colico. Connectitur capite per ner-vos, cordi vasibus, ventriculo et lieni per ramum splenicum.

SPLEN other side of the stomach towards the short ribbs. tangitur manu under the short ribs att the end of the ultimate or penultimate. Soe un-der and soe behinde quod vix sano sentitur precipuè ventre tenso vel pin-gui; tumense nihil facilius sentitur tactu et descendit. Connectitur omento aliquando diaphragmati, peritoneo, reni sinistro. (72f.)

(‘IwillspeakbrieflyofthesiteandpositionofeachoftheseforIknowthat


thisyouchieflywanttohear,andafterwardsIwilldealwitheachinturn. Asforthesiteofalltheguts,itispartlyfixedandpartlyvariable,Nature

rummages as she can best stow, as in ships on account of the vigour of the movement. Behind the liver the guts thrust at one side and two fingers beneath the navel. Full or empty, the colic gut on the line beneath the navel. Sitting or standing as opposed to lying, cushions. Breathing, [the guts]aremoved.WH∆inmanytheyneverkeepanexactpositioninrela-tion to each other. in pregnant women; young girls by lacing, wherefore cut their laces.ThegutsweresuspendedintheregionoftheflanksinCar-dinal Campeggio, hard and yet pulsating; hypogastric region [was] clean empty.

Sometimes the intestines are blown up from below and sometimes they are pickled and taken out.

A sign of evil portent is weakness of the guts. TheLIVEr is situated chiefly on the right side,X entirely.Observe the

umbilical vein, observe the connection with the spleen. Wh i had a tumour there when i had a quartan ague. Under the chondrium (costal cartilages) for the sake of protection, along the seventh rib on the right side lies its upperpart,whencecomesdifficultyinbreathingincasesoftumouroftheliver, along the short ribs, upon the stomach which it covers. it is always connected to the diaphragm by two very strong ligaments, to the umbilical branch of the vena cava and to the spine; sometimes it is connected to the ribs, to the peritoneum and to the colon. it is connected with the head by means of the nerves, with the heart by the vessels, with the stomach and the spleen by means of the splenic branch.

The SPLEEN on the other side of the stomach towards the short ribs. it can be felt with the hand under the short ribs at the end of the ultimate or penultimate. So under and so behind that it can scarcely be felt in a healthy man, particularly if the belly be dilated or fat; but nothing is more easily perceptible to the touch when it is swollen and descends. it is connect-ed with the omentum and sometimes with the diaphragm, the peritoneum or the left kidney.’)

3. Summary and conclusion

in this paper we have tried to show the linguistic importance of William harvey’s Prelectiones Anatomie Universalis, the written notes for his lumleian lectures on anatomy and the accompanying dissection. these notes are basically writ-teninLatin,inamixtureoffiniteandnon-finiteaswellasellipticalsentencesand clauses, but often only consist of elliptical phrases or enumerations of single words. their particular interest, however, lies in the fact that they contain a large number of code-switches into english. these switches equally have the form of full and elliptical sentences or clauses, but also of switched constituents and single

196 herBert SChendl

words. there are some slight tendencies to use switches for a number of pragmat-ic functions, especially illustrating or enumerating, but also providing vernacular translations and equivalents for medical terms. We cannot be absolutely certain in which language harvey lectured or whether he adapted his choice of language to the composition of the audience, as Whitteridge (1964) thinks, i.e. according to whether the audience predominantly consisted of university-trained physicians or of surgeons with a more practical training. on the basis of our preliminary analy-sis of the patterns and functions of code-switching in the manuscript, we would, however, rather advance the idea that the switches found in harvey’s handwritten noteswould,atleasttoacertainextent,havebeenreflectedinhisactualspokenpresentation. this is even more likely since the notes were not written for an academic medical lecture, but for a practical course in anatomy accompanying an actual dissection, where constant explicit reference to the ongoing activity was normal. Further support for this assumption lies in the fact that code-switching is on the whole rather rare in the two other unpublished manuscripts mentioned above, which were not conceived as lecture notes.

As so frequent in code-switching, not every single switch can be explained as servingaspecificfunction.However,theoverallfunctionoftheEnglishswitchesin the Prelectiones would in our view have been to make the dissection more vivid and more easily accessible for his frequently mixed audience. this does not mean that harvey’s notes fully represent his spoken words nor that he followed them literally in his presentation, but they must have served as the basis for his spoken commentaries, in other words, they were ‘written to be spoken’. this cor-responds to the everyday experiences of every lecturer, who uses his or her notes as the basis for a course, sometimes following the notes very closely, sometimes hardly at all. When writing such notes, however, one normally has the actual situ-ationverymuchinmind,afactwhichclearlyinfluencesthestructureofthewrit-ten text. A more systematic and detailed linguistic analysis may shed more light on this question, but for the moment this seems to be the most likely explanation for this mixed-language text written by a scholar whose published works are all in monolingual latin.

Notes

1 For L.E. Voigts’ widely accepted tripartite classification of medical texts into academictreatises, surgical texts and remedy books see Pahta and taavitsainen (2004: 14–15), who, however, re-label the first group as ‘specialised treatises’.The use of French inmedicalwriting will not be discussed in this paper.

2 this section is much indebted to gweneth Whitteridge’s ‘introduction’ in Keynes (1989).3 For further information see the introduction in Whitteridge (1964, especially xxviff.), as well

as Whitteridge (1989: 1f., 15–19), on which this section is largely based.4 InHarvey’slifetime,westillfindthedistinctionbetweentheuniversity-trainedphysicians

likeHarveyhimselfandthesurgeons,practitionerswhohadlearnttheirskills‘onthejob’;furthermore,therewereanumberofother,lessqualifiedmembersofthemedicalprofessionin the widest sense of the word.


5 For editorial changes in the latin text see Whitteridge (1964: xxii).6 Bauhin’s textbook would thus fall into the category ‘surgical texts or treatises’, see above

note 1, most of which “were originally compiled by university masters and used as university textbooks” (Pahta and taavitsainen 2004: 15).

7 there is a small number of greek single-word switches, mainly technical terms, and a few words from italian, which will not be discussed here.

8 Switches into english are in bold, uncertain items, such as the latin technical term cuticula, in bold italics. translations of examples are based on Whitteridge’s edition (1964), though sometimesmodified to follow the originalmore closely, with square brackets indicatingitems which are not found in the latin original, but facilitate understanding. numbers in round brackets refer to pages.

9 ‘Wh’ is used in the manuscript “either to stress a point with which [harvey] agrees or to introduce an original remark or comment”, while the triangle “usually stands for some equivalenceof‘demonstratio’or‘itcanbeshown’,oritmaysimplycallattentiontoaspecificpoint” (Whitteridge 1964: xxii).

References

hunt, tony (2000) ‘Code-switching in medical texts’. in: trotter, david A. (ed.) Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: d.S. Brewer, 131–147.

Keynes, geoffrey (1989[1928]) A Bibliography of the Writings of Dr William Harvey 1578–1657. 3rd ed., revised by gweneth Whitteridge and Christine english. Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliogra-phies.

Pahta, Päivi (2003) ‘on structures of code-switching in medical texts from medieval england’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 104, 197–210.

Pahta, Päivi (2004) ‘Code-switching in medieval medical writing’. in: taavitsainen, irma and Päivi Pahta (eds.) Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 73–99.

Pahta, Päivi (2007) ‘Flowers, cum multis aliis quae nunc praescribere longum est: on code-switch-ing in early Modern english medical texts’. in: Smit, ute, Stefan dollinger, Julia hüttner, ursula lutzky and gunther Kaltenböck (eds.) Tracing English Through Time: Explorations in Language Variation. Vienna: Braumüller, 253–266.

Pahta,PäiviandArjaNurmi(2006)‘Code-switchingintheHelsinkiCorpus:athousandyearsofmultilingual practices’. in: ritt, nikolaus, herbert Schendl, Christiane dalton-Puffer and dieter Kastovsky (eds.) Medieval English and its Heritage: Structure, Meaning and Mechanisms of Change. Frankfurt/M.: Peter lang, 203–220.

Pahta,PäiviandIrmaTaavitsainen(2004)‘Vernacularisationofscientificandmedicalwritinginits sociohistorical context’. in: taavitsainen, irma and Päivi Pahta (eds.) Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1–18.

Schendl, herbert (2000) ‘Syntactic constraints on code-switching in medieval texts’. in: taavit-sainen, irma, terttu nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti rissanen (eds.) Placing Middle English in Context. Berlin/new York: Mouton de gruyter, 67–86.

Schendl, herbert (2002) ‘Mixed-language texts as data and evidence in english historical linguis-tics’. in: Minkova, donka and robert Stockwell (eds.) Studies in the History of the English Lan-guage. A Millennial Perspective. Berlin and new York: Mouton de gruyter, 51–78.

Schendl, herbert and laura Wright (eds.) (forthcoming) Code-switching in the History of Earlier English. Berlin and new York: Mouton de gruyter.

taavitsainen, irma (2004) ‘transferring classical discourse conventions into the vernacular’. in: taavitsainen, irma and Päivi Pahta (eds.) Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval Eng-lish. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 37–72.

198 herBert SChendl

taavitsainen, irma and Päivi Pahta (eds.) (2004) Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.

Voigts, linda e. (1989) ‘the character of the carecter:ambiguoussigilsinscientificandmedicaltexts’. in: Minnis, Alastair J. (ed.) Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts. Cambridge: d.S. Brewer, 91–109.

Voigts, linda e. (1996) ‘What’s the word? Bilingualism in late-medieval england’. Speculum 71, 813–826.

Whitteridge, gweneth (ed.) (1964) The Anatomical Lectures of William Harvey. Prelectiones Anat-omie Universalis. De musculis. edinburgh and london: e. & S. livingstone (for ‘the royal College of Physicians’).

Whitteridge, gweneth (1989) ‘introduction’. in: Keynes, geoffrey, A Bibliography of the Writings of Dr William Harvey 1578–1657. 3rd ed., revised by gweneth Whitteridge and Christine english. Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1–20.

Wright,Laura(1998)‘Mixed-languagebusinesswriting:fivehundredyearsofcodeswitching’.In:Jahr, ernst håkon (ed.) Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics. Berlin/new York: Mouton de gruyter, 99–118.

herberT sChenDl is retired professor of english linguistics at the university of Vienna, Austria, wherehestillcontinuestoteach.HismajorresearchinterestslieinthefieldofEnglishhistoricallinguistics, where he has widely published, more recently especially on historical code-switching, language contact and eMode variation. he is co-editor of the Austrian Studies in English and the Vienna English Working PaperS (VIEWS). Book publications include Historical Linguistics (ox-ford university Press, 2001), Rethinking Middle English (with nikolaus ritt, Peter lang 2005); he is currently editing a volume on Code-switching in the History of Earlier English (with laura Wright, Mouton de gruyter).

Address: Prof. dr. herbert Schendl, institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, university of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2, hof 8, A-1090 Wien, Austria. [e-mail: [email protected]]


iSSn 0524-6881

Jarmila Tárnyiková

english Borrowings in czech: heAlth to our mouths?

Abstract1

this paper is based on the assumption that linguistic borrowings, accompanying theprocessesofglobalisationandthesociallystratifiedpluralityoftheworld,aremultifacetedinnature,andfindtheirwayofmanifestationatvariouslevelsof language representation (phonic, graphic, grammatical, lexical, textual…). While english loanwords (anglicisms) have been studied from various inter-disciplinary perspectives2, grammatical patterns mirroring the donor language preferences, or borrowings of discourse markers and other signals of communi-catively regulative strategies (including formulaic phrases), have still remained at the periphery of researchers’ priorities. the aim of this paper is to advocate the contribution of these less-emergent types of borrowings to the overall processes of a contact-induced language choice and/or a contact-induced language change, in which the principle of multicausation (thomason and Kaufman 1988) has a relevant say.

Key wordsLoanword; anglicism; language contact; principle of multicausation; adoption; adaptation; infiltration; language ecology

1. Introduction

in my brief outline, i would like to pay attention to a select number of corpus-based manifestations of contact-induced communicative strategies applied in the processes of language adoption and language adaptation (domestication) – in which the donor language is english and the recipient language is Czech; i.e. two typologically different languages (the former being prevailingly analytical, the latter mostly synthetic).

200 JArMilA tárnYiKoVá

Being rooted in functional linguistics of the Prague School, i would like to advocate the idea that in order to evaluate the particular results of the process of borrowing, such as traditional topic no 1, i.e. loanwords, one has to take into con-sideration other supportive manifestations of borrowings and think of their com-plex interplay in the process of language contacts, in which language choice is highlysymbolicandreflectsthedynamismofsocialmobility(Woolard1989).

Particular types of borrowings will be looked upon here as scalar entities ranging from explicit, overt language devices, such as loanwords – to implicit manifesta-tions, in which what is borrowed is the underlying communicative strategy of adonorlanguageputintothejacketofarecipientlanguagewordstock.Thisis,for example, the case of the Czech literal equivalent of the english politeness formula Thank you for your time i.e. Děkuji Vám za Váš čas, which is gaining ground as a more explicit version of the rather implicit strategy used in Czech, i.e. Děkuji Vám [thank you], with the implicit,i.e.contextuallyretrievable“object”of thanks. (For more examples see 2.2.4.)

in between these polarities, there are ‘slight’ structural borrowings (cf. 2.2.1), borrowings of communicatively regulative discourse markers (sorry, okay, all right…), borrowings of evaluative strategies (e.g. good as a mark of qual-ity is giving way to super) spreading from advertisements to everyday talk (cf. also 2.2.2). Similarly, the ‘be in’ and ‘be out’ evaluative polarization is rapidly spreading from fashion magazines (e.g. Víte, v jaké barvě plavek budete v roce 2009‚ in‘? [do-you-know-in-which-colour-of-swimsuit-you-will-be-in-2009 ‘in’], [dneS 4.7.2009: C6], or Sako je INN [Jacket-is-inn], [Story 13.7.2009: 42] – to life style in general (cf. Co je in? Proč být in? Jak být in? – or spoken discourse statements, e.g. Dnes jsem out [today-i-am-out], interpreted by some Czech users not only as ‘out of fashion‘ but also ‘out of order’, corresponding to ‘mimo’ in Czech)–nottospeakabouttherapidspreadoftheinterjectionswow and oops in the colloquial speech of young language users.

What is also gaining ground is a welcome and creative playing with Czech words by coating them into the forms echoing english, as in PlumLove, which is a multi-genre music festival taking place in the locality called Plumlov since 2006.

though the present study is synchronic, the diachronic dimension is implicitly projectedintothesharedexperienceoftheCzechs,whohavebeenexposedtovarious contact-induced waves of borrowings through centuries, in which the Czech language has adopted and gradually adapted a large number of loanwords from various languages – with many of them perceived nowadays as productive components of the ‘common core’ of language potential, ranging from A (abstinent) to Z (zadaptovat) [=toadapt[perfective]].Theirformsrevealeithertotalidentitywith the source language spelling (copyright, computer, e-mail, interview, public relations, snowboard, to name but a few) or various degrees of adaptability to spellingorgrammar,reflectingvariousstagesofphonologicalandmorphologicalnativization(brífink, beachvolejbal, komiksy, kornflejky, bukovat, zabukovat).3

201engliSh BorroWingS in CZeCh: heAlth to our MouthS?

Duetotheconstantflowofnewinformation,theCzechwordstockhasswollenwith new loanwords, and the numerical impact of anglicisms together with their social-determined status in the Czech community has contributed to the percep-tionoftheEnglishinfluenceasanenrichmentinthosedomainswherethereisno functional equivalent in Czech (for example in professional communication, information technologies, etc.).

But not all the ‘english-based’ borrowings are perceived as enrichments by language users and the reasons are rather socio-linguistic – unnecessary (indis-pensable)loanwordsputintoajacketoftheCzechparadigmaremostlyfrownedupon, as in Nejsme schopni to [umanidžovat] (We are not able to manage it.) in a tV debate (Channel 2, 2.6.2009). Similarly, there appear various borrowing-based sequences, in which english loanwords are ‘embroidered’ into the gram-matical canvas of Czech, as in the following example quoted by Behún (2006: 4) (for a brief discussion see also miscellany in 2.2.5.):

Edukujeme benefity baby-sittingu (sentencepatternV-O-Attr.Postmodifier) [educate[indicative, present tense, 1st person pl.] –benefits-baby-sitting[genitive sg.] ] Weeducatepeopleonthebenefitsofbaby-sitting.

1.1. Narrowing the scope

As mentioned in the introductory section, the focus will be narrowed to less ob-vious and hence less discussed manifestations of contact-induced language bor-rowings, with english as the donor language and Czech as the recipient language. this restriction, however, does not totally exclude loanwords from our considera-tions. But if discussed, the goal is not to attempt to count individual loanwords (i.e. anglicisms in this case) but rather to account for the reasons behind their usage and contextualize lexical borrowings into a larger framework of other lan-guage-contact induced borrowings.

1.2. Theoretical framework

Letmefirstintroducethetheoreticalbackground:Ibasemystudymainlyonthefollowing theoretical sources:

a. halliday’s (1978) conception of man as social man – and the consequent interpretation of language as social semiotic. With this view in mind, bor-rowings are supposed to represent a contact-induced set of social markers endowed with various social functions.

b. thomason and Kaufman’s (1988: 74ff) principle of multicausation based on the idea that the linguistic outcome is a result of a combination of in-ternal linguistic and external sociolinguistic factors with the following 5 degrees (gradations) of contact:


(1) casual contact resulting in lexical borrowings(2) slightly more intense contact > slight structural borrowings(3) more intense contact > borrowings of function words(4) strong cultural pressure > moderate structural borrowings(5) very strong cultural pressure > anything goes

c. Verschueren’s (1987) concept of pragmatic perspective (see 1.3 below) as a necessary part of a language-contact description.

two phases seem to be relevant for the interpretation and evaluation of the re-sults, i.e. the phase of a contact-induced language choice (in which the borrow-ings from the donor language have the status of possible alternative choices) – and the phase of a contact-induced language change(inwhichtheinfiltrationinto the recipient language results in various degrees of adaptability leading to a change). Both will be looked upon as mutually dependent scalar notions.

1.3. Interdisciplinary approach

i base my analysis on the assumption that language contact as a phenomenon is in thefirstplaceasocio-culturalmatter(itisthesocio-culturalandsocio-linguisticfactors, and not the factors of a purely linguistic nature that bring communities into contact).

language contact, however, is also a pragmatic matterreflectingourexpe-rience with particular communicative strategies and language means used to meet the intended goals. With cross-language comparison in mind, our approach should also be sensitive to cross-cultural pragmatics (cf. Wierzbicka, 1991) and the ethnography of communication (cf. the need advocated by leech (1983) to make a distinction between communicatively constitutive units of language that are rule governed – and communicatively regulative units of language that are principle controlled). the distinction proposed by leech enables us to keep apart those lexical borrowings that represent naming units from those represent-ing contact words, discourse markers, etc. (sorry, okay, all right).

1.4. Dynamism of the processes

the processes of contact-induced language choice and contact-induced language change are treated here as dynamic processes, in which the cultural pressure and therelativelinguisticdistancecanspeeduporretardtheinfiltration,respectively(cf. the common adoptions and adaptations resulting in such hybrids as homelesák (a homeless person), rockotéka, šoumanka, etc., but also patchworkový balíček [patchwork+adj.ending+parcel]–andtheobviousdifficultywiththeinfiltrationof e.g. quotational compounds of the type glove-brush to Czech, as in:

(1) úžasnárukavice-kartáčpropéčiosrstVašichmiláčků [fantastic-glove-brush-for-care-of -fur-of-your-pets]).


Such word-formative process, however, is not productive in Czech and only rare exceptions occur, cf.:

raketa země-vzduch [missile surface-air] surface-to-air missile

on the other hand, the pressure of the language of advertising can be very strong, ascanbeexemplifiedbysuchcolloquialinfiltrationsas‘vantáč’<one touch used to refer to one touch deodorants, or ‘pušapky’ < push-up bras (both found on the list of products offered at the street market in my home town).

this dynamism is also seen in the status of the results of language contact, be it a lexical item, a syntactic structure or an underlying communicative strategy. TheattitudestowardsEnglishinfiltrationvaryintimeandonehastobeverycau-tiousinusingfirmlabels,sinceanydescriptionisratherindicativeoftendencies in use, and hence tentative.

1.5. Two varieties of English

ThediscussionofEnglishinfiltration,aspresentedinthispaper,issensitivetothe existence of two varieties of english, i.e. institutionalised variety (eSl, eng-lish as a second language) and performance variety (eFl, english as a foreign language).So,fromnowon,ifnotspecifiedotherwise,mydiscussionofEnglishwill focus on the performance variety, i.e. eFl used as a link-language (cf. also the growing interest in english as an international language (eil)).

the extent to which english loanwords (anglicisms) are positively evaluated depends very much on the kinds of dimensions that we tap. it is fair to say that the positive attitudes to such processes are not always as visible on the surface as the negative ones, and, consequently, reported less often.

1.6. Generally shared attitudes towards English

there is no doubt that while russian meant a language that was rigorously ham-mered into our heads as the only “foreign language”, english, after the “velvet revolution” has become a symbol of social and political prestige.

With average language users, however, the hunger for english has been giv-ing way to a period of sober evaluation, criticism and calls for serious reasoning, monitored and regulated by language planning agencies (cf. the institute of the Czech language). Some of the language users’ attitudes reveal the purist inten-tions of “word-watchers”, while some of them are aimed at the functional purity ofthemothertongueinthosecasesinwhichEnglishinfiltrationseemstobeanunwanted redundancy.

the principle of utility, on the other hand, is a powerful pragmatic argument fortheinfiltrationofthoseEnglishloanwordsthatfillinthelexicalgap(hard-


ware, software), contribute to the principle of economy, and – last but not least – function as social markers of self-identity.

the role of linguists in the processes of language adoption and adaptation seems to be one of language therapists contributing to language ecology in an environment in which the reasons for promoting english as a language of wider communication are both pragmatic and prestigious.

generally shared attitudes to english: english is pleasing to the ear and has a long-lasting reputation as a world language and one of the three working lan-guages of many of eu institutions and bodies, acquiring the status of lingua franca for Europe, which contributes to the constant growth of euro-anglicisms of the Eurobank type. reasons for learning are instrumental (attainment of per-sonal goals), interactive (participating in world-wide events) personal satisfac-tion (songs, reading books, etc.).

2. Discussion of the data

2.1. Data gathering

three samples of data from different periods have been compared for the pur-poses of the present discussion (with a total of 157 borrowings, of which 85 were lexical, 31 structural, 41 occurrences represented borrowings of communicative strategies). these were extracted from four sources, i.e. newspapers, tV news, tV round-table discussions, and radio news in different periods of time (i.e. the firstsample,collectedoveraperiodofthreemonths,JanuarytoMarchin1993,the second over the same period in 1996 and the last in 2009, January to July).

the results have supported my assumption that besides comparing the results there is a need to study the underlying communicative strategies leading to the results (i.e. the linguistic outputs), since, surprisingly enough, the result may be a typical Czech wording used to manifest a non-typical Czech communicative strategy (cf. the example with Děkuji vám za váš čas. Thank you for your time introduced in section 1.1).

2.2. Types of borrowings

Sincetheprocedureswiththeinfiltrationofloanwordsarewelldescribedinlit-erature, i would like to focus on the contact-induced communicative strategies firstandsub-categorizethemintothefollowingsub-types.


2.2.1. Slight structural borrowings: modifications in syntactic patterns

(occasional, frowned-upon, typical of written ads mirroring the underlying eng-lish text.)

these were represented in our samples by • long pre-modifying chains in nPs in Czech (imitating the donor language

nPs), as in the following example:

(2) pokrokový, nejedovatý, čočkový materiál [advertising sun-glasses in newspapers]

[progressive-poisonless-lens material]

There arise some difficultieswith the borrowed pre-modifying chains inCzech. Being a synthetic language, Czech requires a grammatical concord ofthepre-modifyingadjectiveswiththeheadNoun(ingender,numberandcase)sothattheoriginalEnglishsecondaryadjectives(i.e.N+n sequences) havetobechangedintoadjectives,which,insomecasesarerestrictedinuseinCzechtooccurinspecificcollocations.Thisise.g.thecaseoftheadjectivečočkový (based on (lens) but also used for (lentil)), which mostly collocates with soup, i.e. čočková polévka (lentil[Adjfem.ending]soup[Nounfem.])but sounds funny in collocation with material, as in ex.(2) above.

• pre-modificationoflongcompoundadjectives(rareinCzech),seeEx.3.

(3) V tomto mladofrontovském výboru [inthisMladáFrontacollection](Mladáfronta=apublishinghouse)

(A more appropriate – and hence expected – solution would be a well-balancedNPinwhichthelongpre-modifyingadjectivewouldbepostponedand realized as a word group, i.e. v tomto výboru Mladé fronty…[in this-collection-of-Mladá Fronta].)

• the use of stative Be-predications (typical of ‘nominal’ english) instead of more dynamic V [lex] predications typical of ‘verbal’ Czech as in

(4) Ten pohled je prostě dech beroucí. [radio Prague 2, 14.4.2009, discussion on iran] [the-view-is-simply-breath-taking]

• quotational compounds (newspaper and tV ads) – rare, since hyphenation is not typical of compounding in Czech – and hence stylistically marked; cf. ex. (1) above.


2.2.2. Shift in evaluative strategies

Contact-induced language change seems to be in progress in the frequent intro-duction into the language of ads of evaluative communicative strategies exagger-ating positive values. this is typical of both spoken and written advertisements. While good once meant a mark of quality, now, the positive degree in the process of gradation is, as it were, devalued, giving way to comparatives (less frequent) but mostly superlatives. As a result, everything is the best, super, or the only one (exclusive uniqueness). Similarly, blue must be bright blue, etc. once we begin the evaluative strategy with the superlative, the way how to gradate the quality is to switch to a different evaluative scale of gradation, such as the one occurring in ads nowadays, i.e. super gives way to new, to become later super new.

this phenomenon, however, is not typical of english borrowings only: in present-dayCzech,manyabsoluteadjectivesbecomesubjectstogradation,re-sulting in such superlatives as nejšpičkovější [the most top], nejhlavnější [the most main] – very often to impress the addressee by the degree of value, reliance, etc.; unfortunately, very often in those situations in which the vagueness of the argument is compensated for by the power of words.

Similarly, the ‘double gradation’ of the type více propracovanější řešení [more elaborate [+ more] solution] is far from being ‘healthy to our mouths’. For more details see Svozilová 2003. A fashionable contribution to evaluative strategie is thespreadingoftheadjectivecool, as in:

Pak jsem změnil školu, objevil gel na vlasy a začal být cool. [tV Max 14/09:8][then-i-changed-school-discovered-gel-for-hair-and-began-to-be-cool.]

2.2.3. English gambits (discourse markers) in Czech discourse

typical of young language users who have less than a survival command of eng-lish but want to sound ‘westernized’(trying to imitate the ‘life-in-the-big-city’ atmosphere) is a trendy and fashionable preference for such gambits as OK, all right but also sorry, or sure. less frequently, the same strategy is followed by those adultswho ‘watch their self-identification’ and social role/s.The result-ing product is a ‘macaroni’ Czech, with english discourse markers. But, since languageshouldnotbeabattlefield,aclearpositionof tolerance isnecessary,together with the hope that this is a temporary, trendy and fashionable price we pay for the lack of language contacts with the West under the last regime. Some of the discourse gambits, such as sorry have been hybridized, cf. sorry > soráč, which, however is too colloquial to achieve a wide-spread use (cf. also second-hand shop referred to as sekáč in colloquial Czech).


2.2.4. English interjections in Czech discourse

restricted in choice but gaining ground namely in the speech of the young gen-erationare interjectionswow (used to express context-retrievable kinds of sur-prise, concern, wonder, pleasure, but also compliment, namely if accompanied by a relevant gesture), and oops (used to express acknowledgement of a (minor) accident, a mistake or blunder (e.g. when dropping something, causing sb. or st. to fall, etc.). Both are linked with overt language manifestations of politeness and are used for almost the same reasons as in the donor language communica-tive situations. Similarly to the perception of the above-mentioned loan discourse markers,theseinterjectionsareconsideredtrendyandcool.

2.2.5. Language reflection of adopted communicative strategies

this process can be described as a shift from implicit to a more explicit way of manifesting communicative strategies (primarily linked with politeness) by means of language. thus, e.g. while in Czech, the usage of thank you used to mean‘thankyouforXinagivensituationalcontext’,nowadays,undertheinflu-ence of mass-media, the formulaic language (imitating english pre-fabricated utterances) is gaining ground in various tV round-tables, interviews, etc. the prototypical result of such a strategy is the Czech version of the english sayings ‘Thank you for your time’ – Děkuji Vám za Váš čas., or ‘It was nice talking to you’. – Rád jsem si s Vámi popovídal. the latter, unlike the english polite way of closing the discussion, tends to be understood by Czech users in its ‘primary interpretative plan’, i.e. as an expression of delight over talking to someone. Sim-ilarly Have a nice day! can be heard in Czech as a literal wording Mějte pěkný den! instead of the traditional Pěkný den (přeji)!

2.2.6. Lexical borrowings (loanwords)

the lexical borrowings will be understood here as manifestations of lexicon-in-action as opposed to lexicon-qua-word list. their usage can be looked upon as a result of casual contacts andmostlyincludescientificandtechnicalloanwordsfrom english, typical of similar borrowings in other languages – but also some trendy (fashionable) and snobbish borrowings, as some of the samples below might illustrate.

A number of reasons have been put forward at various times to explain the spread of borrowings (cf. changes in morals, standards of a community, shift in the focus of interest, intensity of contacts, etc.). Below is a tentative (sample based)enumerationofpossiblereasonsfortheexistenceandinfiltrationofEng-lish loanwords in the domestic word stock of Czech:

• tofillinthelexicalgap(e.g.inthelanguageoftechnologyandresearch)–


cf. the stage of casual contactinThomasonandKaufman’sclassificationintroduced here in section 1.2.); as in

(5) keše hardverových řadičů [caché[pl.]-of-hardware-controllers]

• language economy ( i.e. slight structural borrowing)

(6) převádění naší armády na západní styl > westernizace naší armády [transformation-of our-army- towards- the western style] > [westernisation

of our army]

• internalisation of communication, as in

(7) peníze jsou alokovány parlamentem [money is allocated by the Parliament]

• prestige(toimpress;cf.Benrampton’s(1995)identityprojection)

Thisisthedomainofcountlessjokesandparodiesimitatingvariouspoliticiansand celebrities but also tV announcers wanting to impress. Sometimes the lack of knowledge of the original meaning can result in funny collocations. OneofthemcanbeexemplifiedbyEx(8):

(8) stručný brífink [TVnews],inwhichtheCzechadjectivestručný means brief, so that the result is in fact a pleonastic collocation ‘brief briefing’, but since the original meaning of the loanword does not belong to generally shared linguistic awareness, one can hear tV announcers speak about a ‘longer briefing’aswell.

in the following exs. 9-10, the foremost intention of the author was to impress the tV viewers (ex.9) as well as other participants of the tV debate, obviously with no sense of empathy towards the addressee, or to impress the localjournalreaders(Ex.10):

(9) V úvodním spotu se detekují snahy odhalit terorismus [tV debate, 1996] [in-the-introductory-spot-attempts-are-detected-to-disclose-terrorism]

(10) Novinkou byla letos druhá stage postavená v kempu Žralok. [olomoucký večerník,7.7.2009:8]

[news-was-this year-second-stage-built-in-camp Shark] (Within the text, another collocation with the stage appeared, i.e. spodní

stage [lower stage]).


• determinologisation – cf. e.g. a wide-spread use of the verb “to map” at variousfieldsofhumanactivities,suchas:

(11) mapovat situaci, problém, etc. [to map the situation, problem…]

• generally accepted professionalisms (see also ex 5 above)

(12) currentové indexy, impaktované časopisy [currentindexes/indices],[impactjournals](13) zabukovat si letenku [tobook[perfective]+reflexivepronoun+aplaneticket] tobookaflight

• a welcome wordplay in political competitions

(14) Paroubegg/ParoubEGG/ParoubEgg (blending the name of the Party leader ‘Paroubek’ + ‘egg’ to allude the happenings during which eggs were thrown on Paroubek, as in

ParoubEgg in Prague. 27 May 2009 – The throwing of eggs during rallies of the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) culminated in Prague

• an attention getting means in mass media

(15) Flash Floods. O to tu jde. [ln 29.6.2009, p.13] in the body of the text, the term is explained and translated, cf. Mnohdy

se dostavují doslova jako ‘blesk z čistého nebe’. Ostatně to velice dobřepostihujejejichanglickýnázevflashfloods´=‘bleskovépovodně’.

(Some of the translations, however, have to be taken with reservation, namelyifthe‘translator’israthermorekeenthanqualifiedandtranslatesthe text in a brick-by-brick fashion, cf.

(16) Open Air Happening Otevřeně vzdušná událost, která pobaví nejen nás, ale i Vás... (a poster

inviting students to participate in a musical event, olomouc, 29. 6. 2009).

• miscellany

Appended to this section is a ‘waste basket’ of those samples in which it was not easy to identify their main communicative role as well as their impact as social markers. the unifying feature of these borrowing is that they are unnecessary innovations, in which the novelty of the expression and their


attention-getting role might be the main reason for their introduction (though the social role of self-identity seems to be omnipresent, see e.g. ex. 22); cf.

(17) rozdělili si prize money [tV sport news, 2009] [theyhavedivided[reflex]prizemoney] i.e. a preference was given to a loanword, though a neutral naming unit is in

existenceinCzech(i.e.prizemoney=peněžitáodměna).Similarlyin18–22there exist more common and ‘neutral’ Czech expressions:

(18) nemají cash money [tV sports news, 2009] [they-do-not-have-cash-money] cash money = hotovost in Czech

(19) kup si 4 pack koly a vyhraješ [tV Ad, 2008] [buy[reflex]-4pack-of-Cola-and-you-will-win] 4pack=4balení in Czech

(20) linka na bázi amerického systému pure-pak [line-on-the-basis-of-the-American-system-pure-pack] purepack=čisté balení [milk factory olma ad, 2008]

(21) Do práce. 50 nových jobů! [newspaper ad, 2007] [To-work.50-new-jobs]=50novýchpracovních míst

(22) Nejsme schopni to [umanidžovat]. [tV 2, 3.6.2009] [we-are-not-able-to-manage-it]=Nejsmeschopnitozvládnout./ neumíme

si s tím poradit., Nestačíme na to, etc.

• the negative impact of de-semantized loanwords

Closing our tentative list is a brief note about the negative effect of mispronunciation (i.e. an inaccurate/incorrect pronunciation) and the consequent de-semantization of loanwords often accompanied by incorrect spelling. the result is a foreign effect of a de-semantized chain of loanwords whose meaning is partly retrievable from the situational context. they mostly occur in tV ads, where the advertised product with a written name on it (often based on a pun in english), is accompanied by the sound track inwhichasimplified,orwrongpronunciationdisrupts the intendedcommunicative effect. the following samples might illustrate the situation.

(23) BEDAZZLER [bedazle:r] < Be dazzler (here the recipient language spelling and the adapted donor language pronunciation seem to result in a total loss of the original communicative intention); cf. also


(24) Busy B – pronounced as [bizi be:], so that the pun with busy bee is lost [tV Ad, 2007]; similarly

(25) AB Doer – pronounced as [abdo:r] [tV Ad, 2008].

3. Concluding Remarks

the process of linguistic ‘anglicisation’ is a multifaceted phenomenon, dynamic innatureanddiversifiedintheimpactontherecipientlanguage,itsusersandtheoverall socio/cultural setting of a given language community.

As a result, reality of language is not homogeneity but continuous diversity. What we have in fact is a continuum of variation, starting from the individual and gradually extending throughout the entire population of those who speak the language.

While some of the contact-induced language choices and language changes involvefirstofallaninquiryatthemicro-leveloflanguageprocesses(i.e.theyare perceptible within the micro-communicative context), others are perceptible only when larger corpora are taken into consideration.

Consequently, inquiries at both the micro-level language processing and mac-ro-level contexts seem to be necessary pre-requisites for relevant research in this area in the future.

loanwords, though more emergent from the text than other results of the proc-esses of borrowing, represent only one of the possible language manifestations of the processes of adoption and adaptation – and in order to grasp their status in a given language, the investigator should also take into consideration other supportive types of borrowings, such as structural borrowings, borrowings of function words, discourse markers, communicative strategies, and perhaps many more.

the linguistic treatment of contact-induced foreign elements in a given lan-guage community has to be also correlated with socio-pragmatic functions of the borrowings in individual text-types, discourse topics, thematic areas in which they are mainly used, etc.

As Woolard (1989) pointed out, language choice is highly symbolic and lan-guage shift is often motivated by the dynamics of social mobility.

the universalization of english, i.e. the cross-cultural and international uses of english, demand new concepts, new types of research, new methodology, and, perhapsnew teachingstrategies. In thesefieldsof innovation, linguists shouldact as therapists, sensitive to both cultural and social values, since, as Ander-son (1974: 172) put it, ‘linguistic borrowing is not radically different from other types of cultural borrowing inasmuch as some items…are accepted and others rejected’. But, as the antique wisdom prompts, Panta rhei…


Notes

1 this contribution echoes the topic of my section paper read at the Brno Conference in 1996 but never published so far. during the discussion section, it was ludmila urbanová who backed my arguments by readily supplying me with samples of authentic language data. this paper is a modest contribution by which to express my sincere thanks.

2 Cf. Manfred görlach, ed. (2001) A Dictionary of European Anglicisms, oxford: ouP (recording the usage of anglicisms in sixteen european languages, with entries presented accordingtothedegreeofacceptance,withafivepointscalerangingfrom0to5).Thiswasfollowed in 2003 by görlach’s publication English Words Abroad. Amsterdam:Benjamins.

in 2006 an international conference was held at the universität regensburg under the general theme ‘Anglicisms in europe’.

3 HeretheCzechprefixz(a) +andoneofthetypicalverbalsuffixes,i.e.-ovat sandwich, as it were, the loan verb to book, Czechified in spelling into “buk” , cf. za-buk-ovat (in its perfective interpretation).

References

Anderson, James M. (1974) Structural Aspects of Language Change. london: longman.Behún,Dalibor (2006) ‘Hříchyprošílenéhokorektora–Quovadis,češtino?<http://interval.cz/

clanky/ hrichy-pro-sileneho-korektora-quo-vadis-cestino/> [accessed on 18.6.2009]Blommaert, Jan and Jef Verschueren (1992) ‘the role of language in european nationalist ideolo-

gies’. Pragmatics 2(3), 355–75.Čmejrková, Světla, František Daneš and Jindra Světlá (1999) Jak napsat odborný text. Praha:

leda.halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic. london: edward Arnold.hudson, r.A. (1981) Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CuP.leech, geoffrey n. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. london and new York: longman.Meeuwis, Michael (1991) ‘A pragmatic perspective on contact-induced language change: dynam-

ics in interlinguistics’. Pragmatics 1(4), 481–516.rampton, Ben (1995) Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. (real language se-

ries). london and new York: longman.Salzmann, Zdenek (1991) ‘the morphology of anglicisms in comtemporary Czech’. in: Mácha,

Karel and drews, dieter (eds.). Aspekte kultureller Integration. Festschrift zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. Antonín Měšťan. München.

Sparling, don (1991) English or Czenglish?: jak se vyhnout čechismům v angličtině. Praha: SPn.Svozilová,Naďa(2003)Jak dnes píšeme/mluvíme a jak hřešíme proti dobré češtině. Praha: h&h

Vyšehradská s.r.o.thomason, Sarah gray and terrence Kaufman (1988) Language Contact, Creolization, and Ge-

netic Linguistics. Berkeley, los Angeles: university of California Press. Verschueren, Jef (1987) Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguistic Adaptation. A Handbook of Prag-

matics. iprA Working document i.Wierzbicka, Anna (1991) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. The Semantics of Human Interaction. trends

in linguistics. Studies and Monographs 53. Berlin, new York: Mouton de gruyter.Woolard, Kathryn A. (1989) Double talk: Bilingualism and the politics of ethnicity in Catalonia.

Stanford: Stanford university Press.

Jarmila Tárnyiková is Professor of english linguistics in the department of english and American Studies,FacultyofArts,PalackýUniversity,Olomouc.Academicdiplomawithhonours,majoring


in english and Czech. Phd in Applied linguistics in 1972, nominated and appointed Professor in 1997. her main research areas embrace present-day english syntax (Sentence Complexes in Text. Processing strategies in English and in Czech, 2007), text/discourse analysis (From Text to Texture. An Introduction to processing strategies, [2002], 2010), pragmatics (Chapter 6 in Rudi-ments of English Linguistics,2000)andthelanguageoffiction.Herpresentresearchfocusesoncorpus-based analysis of vague language (vague reference to notional categories, 2009, vague non-numericalquantifiers,2010)andacross-languageanalysisofloanwords.MemberofSLE,aregularparticipant of Sle conferences. in 2010 nominated member of the Prague linguistic Circle. her monograph on Sentence Complexes in Text received rector’s Award for the best monographs of 2007. Associate editor of Linguistica Pragensia, co-editor, Anglica III Linguistica (2009).

Address: Prof. Phdr. Jarmila tárnyiková, CSc., department of english and American Studies, Fac-ultyofArts,PalackýUniversity,Olomouc,Křížkovského10,77180Olomouc,Czechrepublic.[email: [email protected]]

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redakčnírada:Univ.-Prof.Mag.Dr.SabineCoelsch-Foisner(UniversitätSalzburg)prof.Mgr.MiladaFranková,CSc.,M.A.(předsedkyněredakčnírady;Masarykovauniverzita)

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