In the study of language, some of the most interesting observations are made, not in terms of the components of language, but in terms of the way lanauage is used, even how pauses are used, as in Jerry Seinfeld’s commentary. We have already considered some of the features of language in use when we discussed pragmatics in Chapter 10. We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users successfully interpret what other language-users intend to convey. When we carry this investigation further and ask how we make sense of what we read, how we can recognize well-constructed texts as opposed to those that are jumbled or incoherent, how we understand speakers who communicate more than they say, and how we successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis.158 __The Study of Language MEE Discourse The word discourse is usually defined as “language beyond the sentence” and so analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of language in texts and cor versation. In many of the preceding chapters, when we were concentrating on lingui tic description, we were concerned with the accurate representation of the forms structures. However, as language-users, we are capable of more than simply recognizi correct versus incorrect forms and structures. We can cope with fragments in newspa| ‘headlines such as Trains collide, two die, and know that what happened in the first was the cause of what happened in the second part. We can also make sense of noti like No shoes, no service, on shop windows in summer, understanding that a conditio relation exists between the two parts (“If you are wearing no shoes, you will receive service"). We have the ability to create complex discourse interpretations of fragmenta linguistic messages. Interpreting discourse ‘We can even cope with texts, written in English, which we couldn’t produce ourselv and which appear to break a lot of the rules of the English language. Yet we can bui an interpretation. The following example, provided by Eric Nelson, is from an essay by student learning English and contains ungrammatical forms and misspellings, yet it 7 be understood. My Town ‘My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant bet ‘my town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this Almasani that means in English Factori dt takes this name from the peopl’s carter. In my childhood I remmeber the people live. It was simple, Most the people was farmer. This example may serve to illustrate a simple point about the way we react to langu: that contains ungrammatical forms. Rather than simply rejecting the text as ungrammat cal, we try to make sense of it. That is, we attempt to arrive at a reasonable interpretati of what the writer intended to convey. (Most people say they understand the “My Town’ text quite easily.) It is this effort to interpret (or to be interpreted), and how we accomplish it, that the key elements investigated in the study of discourse. To arrive at an interpretatior and to make our messages interpretable, we certainly rely on what we know about li guistic form and structure. But, as language-users, we have more knowledge than that.Discourse analysis 159 | Cohesion We know, for example, that texts must have a certain structure that depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of a single sentence. Some of those factors are described in terms of cohesion, or the formal ties and connections that exist within texts. There are several cohesive ties in this text. My father once bough a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car would be worth a fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help puy for my college education. Sometimes 1 think I'd rather have the convertible. We can identify connections here in the use of words to maintain reference to the same people and things throughout. There are also connections created by terms that share a common element of meaning, such as “money” and “time.” The verb tenses in the first four sentences are in the past, creating a connection between those events, in contrast to the present tense of the final sentence marking a change in time and focus. These cohesive ties are listed in Table 11.1, TABLE 11.1 People My father — He - he - he; My-my-1~1 Things A Lincoln convertible - That car — it - the convertible Money bought - saving every penny - worth a fortune - sold - pay Time ‘once ~ nowadays ~ sometimes Tenses ast (bought) ~ past (did) ~ past (could) - past (sold) ~ present (think) Analysis of these cohesive ties gives us some insight into how writers structure what they want to say. However, by itself, cohesion is not sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we read. It is quite easy to create a text that has a lot of cohesive ties, but is difficult to interpret. Note that (ie following text has these connections in Lincoln - the car, red ~ that color, her ~she and letters ~ a letter. ‘My father bought a Lincoln convertible. The car driven by the police was red. That color doesn’t suit her. She consists of three letters. However, a letter isn’t as fast as a telephone call. It becomes clear from this type of example that the “connectedness” we experience in our interpretation of normal texts is not simply based on connections between words. ‘There must be another factor that helps us distinguish connected texts that make sense from those that do not. This factor is usually described as “coherence.”WEEE «Coherence The key to the concept of coherence (“everything fitting together well”) is not something, that exists in the words or structures of discourse, like cohesion, but something that s in people. It is people who “make sense” of what they read and hear. They try to arrive at an interpretation that is in line with their experience of the way the world is. You may have tried quite hard to make the last example fit some situation that accom- modated all the details (involving a red car, a woman and a letter) into a single coherent interpretation. In doing so, you would necessarily be involved in a process of bringing other information to the text. ‘This process is not restricted to trying to understand “odd” texts. It seems to be involved in our interpretation of all discourse. For example, you pick up a newspaper and see this headline: Woman robs bank with sandwich. As you try to build a coherent interpretation, you probably focus on the sand- wich part because there is something odd about this situation. Is she just carrying a sandwich, or is she eating the sandwich (taking occasional bites), or is she acting as if the sandwich is a weapon (concealed in a bag pethaps)? Deciding which interpretat is appropriate cannot be accomplished based on only the words in the headline. We need. to bring information from our experience to create a plausible situation. If you decided on the “pretend gun in bag” situation, then your coherence-creating mind would appear: to be in good working order. We also depend on coherence in coping with everyday conversation. We are contin ually taking part in convers: jeractions where a great deal of what is meant communicated cannot actually be found in what is said. In this brief interaction (fro Widdowson, 1978), there are no cohesive ties connecting the three utterances, so must be using some other means to make sense of it. One way to understand what i going on is to consider the three parts of the interaction in terms of speech acts (int duced in Chapter 10). These are listed on the right, providing a way of analyzing interaction by identifying what makes it coherent for the participants. c nm eal eR: That's the telephone. (She makes a request of him to perform action) I'm in the bath. (He states reason why he cannot comply with request) eR: OK. (She accepts reason) If this is a reasonable analysis of what took place in the brief interaction, then it clear that language-users must have a lot of knowledge of how conversation works is not simply knowledge of words and sentences, but must involve familiarity with a of other types of structures and their typical functions.Discourse analysis 161 |!" Conversation analysis In simple terms, English conversation can be described as an activity in which, for the most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence between speaking turns, (This is not true in all situations or societies.) If more than one participant tries to talk at the same time, one of them usually stops, as in the following example, where A stops until B has finished. A: Didn’t you [know wh- B [But he must've been there by two A: Yes but you knew where he was going (A small square bracket [ is conventionally used to indicate a place where simultaneous or overlapping speech occurs.) For the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signaling a completion point. Speakers can mark their turns as complete in a number of ways: by asking a question, for example, or by pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a phrase or sentence. Other participants can indicate that they want to take the speaking turn, also in a number of ways. They can start to make short sounds, usually repeated, while the speaker is talking, and often use body shifts or facial expressions to signal that they have something to say. (For more on conversation, see Task C, on page 168.) Turn-Taking There are different expectations of conversational style and different strategies of par- ticipation in conversation, which may result in slightly different conventions of turn- taking. One strategy, which may be overused by “long-winded” speakers or those who are used to “holding the floor,” is designed to avoid having normal completion points occur. We all use this strategy to some extent, usually in situations where we have to work out what we are trying to say while actually saying it. If the normal expectation is that completion points are marked by the end of a sen- tence and a pause, then one way to “keep the turn” is to avoid having those two markers ‘occur together. That is, don’t pause at the end of sentences; make your sentences run on. by using connectors like and, and then, so, but; place your pauses at points where the ‘message is clearly incomplete; and preferably “fill” the pause with a hesitation marker such as er, em, wh, ah.162 The Study of naw | Pauses and Filled Pauses In the following example, note how the pauses (marked by ...) are placed before and after verbs rather than at the end of sentences, making it difficult to get a clear sense of what this person is saying until we hear the part after each pause. A: that's their favorite restaurant because they ... enjoy French food and where they were ... in France they couldn't believe it that... you know that they had ... that they had had better meats back home In the next example, speaker X produces filled pauses (with em, er, you know) after having almost lost the turn at his first brief hesitation X: well chat film realty was ... {wasn't what he was good at y [when di X: Imean his other ... em his later films were much more ... er really more in the romantic style and that was more what what he was... you know ... em best at doing Y:_ so when did he make that one Adjacency Pairs That last example would seem to suggest that conversation is a problematic activity where speakers have to pay close attention to what is going on. That is not normally the case because a great deal of conversational interaction follows some fairly well estab- lished patterns. When someone says Hi or Hello, we usually respond with a similar greeting. This type of almost automatic sequence is called an adjacency pair, which consists of a first part and a second part, as found in greetings, question-answer (Q~ A) sequences, thanking and leave-taking. First part Second part you: Good mornin’. Me: Good mornin’ vou: Where's Mary? we: She's at work already. vou: Thanks for your help yesterday. __m&: Oh, you're welcome. vou: Okay, talk to you later me: Bye. ‘These examples illustrate the basic pattern, but not all first parts are immediately fol- lowed by second parts. For example, one question may not receive its answer until after another question-answer sequence. (See Task E, on page 169, for more.)Insertion Sequences Discourse analysis 163 In the following example, the sequence Q2~ A2 comes between the first question (Q1) and its answer (A1). This is called an insertion sequence, that is, an adjacency pair that ‘comes between the first and second parts of another pair. you: Do you want some milk? Me: Is it soy milk? you: Of course. me: Okay, thanks. (an (= @) (= A2) (=a In some situations, a complex structure can emerge from the effect of insertion sequences, This is often the case in “service encounters,” as in our next example, Notice how itis only in the middle of this interaction (Q3 ~ A3) that we have an adjacency pair together, while insertion sequences delay the occurrence of second parts for each of the other first parts. sup: Can I order pizza to go? aw: What kind would you like? sup: Do you have any special deats? AN: Well, you can get two veggie supremes for the price of one. sup: Okay, I'd like that deal. aN: Sure thing. We'll have that ready for you in no time. (=a) (= Q2) (= 93) (= a3) (= Ad) (= Al) We are not normally aware of most of these aspects of conversational structure, but speakers sometimes draw attention to the need for a second part once a first part has been uttered. In the following interaction, originally analyzed by Sacks (1972: 341), a mother immediately notices the absence of a spoken return greeting by her daughter and draws attention to the social expectation involved. Woman: MOTHER: Woman: MOTHER: ANNIE: Hi, Annie, Annie, don’t you hear someone say hello t0 you? Oh, that’s okay, she smiled hello. You know you're supposed to greet someone, don't you? [Hangs head] Hello. The expectations we all have that certain patterns of turn-taking will occur in conver- sation are connected to a more general aspect of socially situated interaction, that it will be “co-operative.” This observation is actually a principle of conversation.164 _The Study of Language [The Co-operative Principle An underlying assumption in most conversational exchanges is that the participants are co-operating with each other. This principle, plus four elements, or “maxims,” were first described by the philosopher Paul Grice (1975: 45), and are often referred to as the “Gricean maxims,” as presented in Table 11.2. TABLE 11.2 ‘The Co-operative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. The Quantity maxim: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required. The Quality maxim: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack adequate evidence. 7 The Relation maxim: Be relevant. The Manner maxim: Be clear, brief and orderly. In simple terms, we expect our conversational partners to make succinct. honest. rel- evant and clear contributions to the interaction and to signal to us in some way if th maxims are not being followed. It is certainly true that, on occasion, we can experien conversational exchanges in which the co-operative principle may not seem to be i operation. However, this general description of the normal expectations we have in cor mn helps to explain a number of regular features in our talk. For example, duri their lunch break, one woman asks another how she likes the sandwich she is eating a receives the following answer. vers. Oh, a sandwich is a sandwich, In logical terms, this reply appears to have no communicative value since it state something obvious and hence would appear to be a tautology. Repeating a phrase th: adds nothing would hardly count as an appropriate answer (o a question. However, the woman is being co-operative and adhering to the Quantity maxim about being “ informative as is required,” then the listener must assume that her friend is comm nicating something. Given the opportunity to evaluate the sandwich, her friend hi responded without an explicit evaluation, thereby implying that she has no opini good or bad, to express. That is, her friend has communicated that the sandwich is worth talking about. (See Task D, on page 169, for more.)Discourse analysis 165 Hedges We can use certain types of expressions, called hedges, to show that we are concerned about following the maxims while being co-operative speakers. Hedges can be defined as words or phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure that what we are saying is sufficiently correct or complete. We can use sort of or kind of as hedges on the accuracy of our statements, as in descriptions such as His hair was kind of long or The book cover is sort of yellow. These are examples of hedges on the Quality maxim, Other examples ‘would include the following expressions that people sometimes use as they begin a con- versational contribution. As far as 1 know Correct me if 'm wrong, but Fm not absolutely sure, but We also take care to indicate that what we report is something we think or feel (not know), is possible (not certain), and may (not must) happen. Hence the difference between saying Jackson és guilty and I think it’s possible that Jackson may be guilty. In the first version, people will assume you have very good evidence for the statement, Implicatures When we try to analyze how hedges work, we usually talk about speakers implying something that is not said. similarly, in considering what the woman meant by a sand- wich és a sandwich, we decided that she was implying that the sandwich was not worth talking about. With the co-operative principle and the maxims as guides, we can start to work out how people actually decide that someone is “implying” something in conver- sation. Consider the following example. carol: Are you coming to the party tonight? tara: I've got an exam tomorrow. ‘On the face of it, Lara’s statement is not an answer to Carol's question. Lara doesn’t say Yes or No. Yet Carol will interpret the statement as meaning “No” or “Probably not.” How can we account for this ability to grasp one meaning from a sentence that, in a literal sense, means something else? It seems to depend on the assumption that Lara is being relevant (Relation) and informative (Quantity). Given that Lara’s original answer con- tains relevant information, Carol can work out that “exam tomorrow” involves “study tonight,” and “study tonight” precludes “party tonight.” Thus, Lara’s answer is not just a statement about tomorrow's activities, it contains an implicature (an additional con- veyed meaning) concerning tonight's activities