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part2- 16. Pragmatics of Language Performance, Materiały naukowe, The Hanbook of Pragmatics

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16. Pragmatics of Language Performance
HERBERT H. CLARK
Theoretical Linguistics
Ç
Pragmatics
Subject
Key
-Topics
Topics
language
DOI:
10.1111/b.9780631225485.2005.00018.x
1 Introduction
Introduction
Language seems orderly when it is found in novels, plays, and news broadcasts, but much less so when
it is heard in cafs, classrooms, and offices. Take this exchange between two British academics:
(1) Peter: And he's going to go to the top, is he?
Reynard: Well, Mallet said he felt it would be a good thing if Oscar went.
This is an example worthy of a playwright, but what Peter and Reynard actually produced was this:
1
(2) Peter: and he's going to . go to the top, is he?
Reynard: well, . I mean this . uh Mallet said Mallet was uh said something about uh you know he
felt it would be a good thing if u:h . if Oscar went, (1.2.370)
In his answer, Reynard decides what to say as he goes along. He takes first one direction (ÑMallet said
something aboutÒ) and then another (Ñhe felt it ÈÒ). Along the way he replaces phrases, makes
clarifications (with I mean and you know), and introduces delays (with uh). Reynard's utterance looks
anything but orderly, and yet he succeeds in coordinating with Peter on what he wanted to say. How do
they manage?
Pragmatics traditionally has focused on the
PREPLANNED
,
NON
-
INTERACTIVE
language of novels, plays, and
news broadcasts. The pioneers in the field (e.g. Austin 1962, Lewis 1969, Searle 1969, 1975a, Bach
and Harnish 1979, Sperber and Wilson 1986a, Grice 1989) all worked from clean, invented examples.
2
But if pragmatics is the study of language in use, it must also account for the
SPONTANEOUS
,
INTERACTIVE
LANGUAGE
of cafs, classrooms, and offices. Language evolved, after all, before people could read or
write, attend plays, or watch television. Even today, the primary setting for language use is
conversation. Accounting for the features of (2) that are absent from (1) will require principles beyond
those needed for preplanned, non-interactive language.
This chapter is about communicative acts that are needed in the performance of language. The
argument is this (H. Clark 1996, 1999): Spontaneous, interactive language has its origins in joint
activities. When people do things together in cafs, classrooms, and offices, they need to coordinate
their individual actions, and they use a variety of communicative acts to achieve that coordination.
These constitute the
PRIMARY
SYSTEM
of communication Ï the official business of their discourse. But
communicative acts are themselves joint actions that require coordinating, and people have a special
class of communicative acts for this coordination Ï including many of Reynard's actions in (2). These
constitute the
COLLATERAL
SYSTEM
of communication. The goal here is to characterize the collateral
system and the pragmatic principles by which it works.
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2 Saying and
2 Saying and Displaying
Displaying
In using language, speakers make communicative choices of many types. Consider an exchange
between two academics in a British university common room:
(3) Nancy: I acquired an absolutely magnificent sewing-machine, by foul means, did I tell you
about that,
Julia: no.
Nancy utters the sentence Did I tell you about that? as a signal to Julia. A
SIGNAL
here is any action by
which one person
MEANS
something for another person in the sense of Grice (1989). Nancy performs
her utterance to ask Julia a question and, in turn, to gain her consent to tell her a story.
Signals, however, are Janus-faced objects. One face is
CONTENT
, the choice of what to signal. Nancy, for
example, chooses to seek Julia's permission to tell a story; she chooses to do that by asking a
question; to ask the question, she selects the English sentence Did I tell you about that?; and so on.
The other face is
PERFORMANCE
, the choice of how to realize the signal. Nancy, for example, chooses to
direct her voice, face, and gestures at Julia. She does this to designate herself as speaker, and Julia as
addressee. She chooses to initiate her utterance at that precise moment Ï not earlier or later Ï to
designate the now of her signal (e.g. for the interpretation of did) and its relation to her previous
phrases (e.g. for the interpretation of that). Nancy's very realization of the sentence Did I tell you about
that? designates the content of her signal.
Speakers make choices not only in
WHAT
they say, but in
HOW
they say it. They perform what they say
IN
A
PARTICULAR
TIME
,
PLACE
,
AND
MANNER
Ï at the right moment, for the right duration, originating from and
directed to the right locations, at the right amplitude, with the right gestures. In the terminology
adopted here, they
DISPLAY
their signals to others in order to designate such things as the speaker,
addressee, time, place, and content of their signals. What speakers mean by a signal, then, is
determined by their choice of both content and display. Schematically:
signal = content + display
Both parts are necessary to the whole. Speakers cannot express the content of their signal without
displaying it, nor can they form a display without content to display. And both parts require
interpretation la Grice.
2.1 Displays as indicative
2.1 Displays as indicative acts
acts
Displays, in this view, are communicative acts of
INDICATING
. The prototype of indicating is pointing.
When June asks, ÑWhich car is yours?Ò and David points at a nearby Honda, David indicates the Honda
as Ñhis car.Ò His act of pointing is an index to the car. An index, according to C. S. Peirce (Buchler
1940), signifies its object, its referent, by means of an
INTRINSIC
CONNECTION
-a spatial or causal
connection Ï between the index and the object. David's pointed finger has a spatial connection to the
car. The problem is that his pointed finger also has intrinsic connections to his fingernail, his right
arm, and the left front door of the Honda, and so brute pointing isn't enough. June is to recognize the
connection David intends by inferring his purpose against their current common ground. As a response
to her question, he must be indicating the Honda as his car.
Nancy's display of ÑDid I tell you about that?Ò has intrinsic connections to a number of
SITUATION
INDIVIDUALS
, and these allow Nancy to use her display to indicate, or point to, these individuals. So in
the very realization of her display, Nancy creates a set of
PERFORMANCE
INDEXES
:
¤ P
RODUCER
(abbreviated p): Nancy uses the index p to indicate herself as producer of the signal.
She creates p through the source and distinctive quality of her voice. Let us denote Nancy's
index as p (Ñdid I tell you about thatÒ), which is to be read: the index to the producer of the
display of Ñdid I tell you about that.Ò
¤ R
ECIPIENT
(r): Nancy uses index r to indicate Julia as the recipient of the signal. She creates r by
gazing at Julia and directing her voice in Julia's direction at an amplitude appropriate for a
person 1.5 meters away.
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¤ T
IME
(t): Nancy uses index t to indicate the current moment as the now of the signal. She
creates t by producing her utterance over that precise interval.
¤ L
OCATION
(l): Nancy uses index l to indicate the current location as where she is posing her
question. She creates this index by the source of her voice and gestures and by the placement
of her body.
¤ C
ONTENT
(c): Nancy uses index c to indicate what she is realizing as the content of her signal
to Julia.
These are not the only indexes Nancy can create, and each can be analyzed further.
Content c, in particular, is a complex index. In traditional accounts, the content of a signal has several
levels (Austin 1962, Searle 1969, Bach and Harnish 1979). When Nancy produces ÑDid I tell you about
that,Ò she performs a
PHONETIC
ACT
(producing certain speech sounds), an
ILLOCUTIONARY
ACT
(asking a
question), and a
PERLOCUTIONARY
ACT
(getting Julia to agree to answer it), among others.
These accounts, however, assume that speakers act independently of their addressees, and vice versa,
and the assumption is clearly false (H. Clark 1996). In their dialogue, Nancy and Julia work together to
assure (1) that Julia attends to Nancy's vocalizations and gestures; (2) that Julia identifies Nancy's
words and gestures; (3) that Julia figures out what Nancy means by her words and gestures; and (4)
that Julia considers what Nancy is proposing. The two of them engage in joint actions at the four levels
shown in the table in (4), with A as speaker and B as addressee. These form a ladder of actions that run
from Level 1 to Level 4. A and B perform their joint actions at Level 2 by means of their joint actions at
Level 1, and so on up the ladder (see Goldman 1970).
(4) Four levels of joint action in communicative acts
Level
LevelSpeaker A's action
Addressee B's action
1. A makes sounds, gestures forBB attends to A's sounds, gestures
2. A presents a signal for B B identifies what A's signal is
3. A means something for B B understands what A means
4. A proposes a joint project to B B considers A's proposal
Speaker A's action
Addressee B's action
Nancy's display of ÑDid I tell you about that?Ò then indexes at least four levels of content: Nancy's
sounds and movements; Nancy's phrases and gestures; what Nancy means; and Nancy's proposal. We
can denote the index to what she means (Level 3), for example, as c3 (ÑDid I tell you about that?Ò).
When Nancy indicates what she means with this index, she expects Julia to identify the referent of the
index Ï namely, what she means by ÑDid I tell you about that?Ò If Julia were to say, ÑWhat did you mean
by that?Ò she would be using that to refer to that content.
In this scheme, therefore, speakers use the display of a signal Ï the time, place, and manner of its
performance Ï to indicate situational individuals that are essential to the interpretation of the signal. It
is as if the producer were saying to the recipient, ÑIn displaying this signal to you, I hereby indicate
myself as producer, you as recipient, now as the time of the signal, here as my location, and this
sentence, among other things, as the content of the signal.Ò Without these indexes, Nancy has no way
of establishing that she is addressing Julia there and then with the content of her utterance.
2.2 Uses of performance
2.2 Uses of performance indexes
indexes
The most obvious use of displays is to fix the referents of
INDEXICAL
EXPRESSIONS
such as I, you, here,
now, this, and that. For Nancy to ask Julia, ÑDid I tell you about that?Ò she must specify the individual
people, objects, and times she is referring to with I, you, that, and did. She does this by indicating
them with the display of her utterance Ï with performance indexes p, r, l, and t.
Consider the word I, which means Ñthe person producing this word.Ò This meaning doesn't by itself
specify the referent. It takes p (ÑIÒ) to complete the specification. In (3), then, Nancy's use of I indexes p
(ÑIÒ), and it is p (ÑIÒ) that indexes Nancy herself. Even with the display, it isn't always easy for speakers
to get addressees to identify the producer. When a student in a large class yells, ÑI doÒ in answer to the
question, ÑDoes anyone need a syllabus?Ò the professor may need to ask, ÑWho said that?Ò to fix the
student's identity. The same holds for other indexical expressions.
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Performance indexes have other purposes, too. When June sees David across the street and yells Ñ He,Ò
she indicates him as his addressee by means of r (ÑheyÒ), based on the amplitude and direction of her
voice and the direction of her gaze and waving hand. When June asks David in a dark room, ÑWhere are
you?Ò and he answers, ÑYo,Ò he uses l (ÑyoÒ) to indicate his location at the moment indicated by t (ÑyoÒ).
When a race official says ÑReady È set È go!Ò he uses t (ÑgoÒ) as the starting time of the race. June,
David, and the race official use these indexes to fix speakers, addressees, times, locations, and content
even when there are no indexical expressions.
The point is especially clear with interjections (see Wilkins 1992). When June calls David on the
telephone and says, ÑHello,Ò she is performing an illocutionary act whose basic meaning, crudely put, is
ÑI hereby greet you here now.Ò Unlike the paraphrase, June's utterance (ÑHelloÒ) makes no explicit
reference to the speaker, addressee, time, location, or content of that utterance. She indicates these
individuals through her display of hello, creating p, r, t, l, and c to bind the arguments associated with
greet. These is nothing special about interjections. Speakers create the same indexes whenever they
display signals to other people.
In all these examples, performance indexes are being used in the primary system of communicative
acts Ï for the official business of the discourse. They are also essential to the collateral system, the
topic we turn to next.
3 Coordinating on the Use of Language
Coordinating on the Use of Language
Language is ordinarily used for coordinating people's participation in joint activities. Consider Alan and
Barbara assembling a TV stand from its parts, as captured on videotape.
3
The two of them proceed by
agreeing on which pieces to connect at which moments, how to orient each piece, who will hold a piece
while the other attaches the screws, and so on. They reach these agreements, or
JOINT
COMMITMENTS
, by
means of language and other signals.
What are these agreements about? To engage in any joint activity Ï from assembling TV stands to
negotiating contracts Ï people must become jointly committed, explicitly or tacitly, to certain
REQUISITES
, including these:
¤ Participants: What individuals are to participate in the joint activity?
¤ Roles: In what roles?
¤ Content: What actions are they to perform, and what conditions are they to adopt?
¤ Timing: When are the actions to take place and the conditions to take effect?
¤ Location: And where?
In assembling the TV stand, Alan and Barbara begin by agreeing to be the participants, as co-builders,
in assembling a TV stand at that time and location. Later, as they go along, they agree to more specific
content, timing, and locations.
A common way to reach joint commitments is with what I will call
PROJECTIVE
PAIRS
. A projective pair
consists of two actions, by two people, in which (a) the first person
PROPOSES
a joint project to the
second, and (b) the second person
TAKES
UP
that proposal in some way. The classic form is the
ADJACENCY
PAIR
(Schegloff and Sacks 1973), as in this exchange in assembling the TV stand:
(5) Alan: Now let' s do this one [picking up the top-piece]
Barbara: Okay.
In turn 1, Alan makes a proposal to Barbara, and in turn 2, she takes it up, establishing the joint
commitment to do the top-piece next. In adjacency pairs, however, both parts must be spoken actions,
and in many situations, one or both actions are non-linguistic, as in this example:
(6) Barbara: [Extends hand with screw] So you want to stick the screws in?
Alan: [Extends hand to take screw]
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Here Alan takes up Barbara's request, but with a gestural signal. The term projective pair is intended to
cover both types of pairs.
Using language, however, is itself a joint activity, which requires its own coordination. As noted earlier,
communicative acts consist of joint actions at four levels, so in dialogue the participants have to
manage who talks when, whether they are attending to, hearing, and understanding each other as
intended, and so on. If so, then the participants should have to agree on the same five requisites for
each signal. For Alan to suggest to Barbara, ÑNow let' s do this one,Ò they must agree on the
participants (Alan and Barbara), their roles (speaker and addressee), the timing of the signal (starting
with Alan's ÑnowÒ), the location (there), and the content of his signal (all four levels). These, of course,
are just the elements indicated by the five performance indexes of Alan's display Ï producer, recipient,
time, place, and four levels of content.
Using language, in short, requires speakers and addressees to work together to establish the intended
producer, recipient, time, place, and four levels of content.
3.1 Grounding
To communicate is, etymologically, to Ñmake commonÒ Ï to establish something as part of common
ground. But what is it that speakers try to make common? The obvious answer is what they are saying
Ï for example, Alan's suggestion in (5) that he and Barbara do the top-piece next. But to do that, they
have to make common all five requisites Ï not only content, but also participants, roles, timing, and
place.
The process of establishing something as common ground is called
GROUNDING
(H. Clark and Marshall
1981, H. Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs 1986, H. Clark and Schaefer 1989, H. Clark and Brennan 1991). Take
Alan's suggestion in (5). To succeed at Level 3, the two of them must establish the mutual belief that
Barbara has understood what Alan means by ÑNow let's do this one.Ò They don't need to establish this
mutual belief for certain, but only
WELL
ENOUGH
FOR
CURRENT
PURPOSES
. To ground something, therefore,
is to establish it as part of common ground well enough for current purposes.
In dialogue, people ground many signals in the very course of their official business. Consider this
exchange:
(7) Kenneth: how how was the wedding, -
Fran: oh it was it was really good, (7.31.1441)
In the first turn, Kenneth invites Fran to tell him about a wedding. He does this by getting her
attention, getting her to identify the sentence how was the wedding, getting her to understand what he
means, and getting her to consider his invitation. But is he successful? Fran gives him evidence that he
is by responding with an appropriate reply. With it, she shows that she has attended, identified his
sentence, grasped his invitation, and considered telling him about the wedding. That evidence is just
what they need to reach the mutual belief that they have established all four levels of content well
enough for current purposes. It is also evidence for the mutual belief that they have established the
speaker, addressee, timing, and location as well.
Other forms of grounding work by a different logic. Fran and Kenneth continue the dialogue in (7) as
follows:
(8) Fran: it was uh it was a lovely day,
Kenneth: yes,
Fran: and . it was a super place, . to have it . of course,
Kenneth: yes, -
The first two lines may appear to form a standard adjacency pair, but they do not. In line 2, Kenneth
does not mean ÑYes, it was a lovely day.Ò He has no idea whether the day was lovely or not. What he
means is, ÑYes, I understand, or see, what you mean by Óit was uh it was a lovely day.'Ò And in line 4, he
means, ÑYes, I understand, or see, what you mean by Óand it was a super place to have it of course.'Ò
His yes's are not about the content itself, but about his
IDENTIFICATION
of that content. The first
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