Compare + Contrast Flashcards
Gumperz Frame Theory
1982
- Using past experience to structure conversation
- We pick up contextual cues, enabling us to recognise the situation and structure our responses appropriately
- Helps us to interpret the situation and anticipate what happens next
EXAMPLE: in a doctors appointment or interview there are frames which we can recognise and structure our utterances around
Michael Hoey Problem/Resolution
1983
- One of the most common discourse patterns
1. A previous situation which provides context (OPTIONAL)
2. The ‘problem’ or aspect of a situation requiring a response
3. A response to the problem
4. A positive result or evaluation
EXAMPLE: 1) I was once an English teacher 2) One day, some students came to me unable to write their names 3) I taught them text analysis 4) Now they all write novels
Labov’s Oral Narrative Theory
Stage 1: ABSTRACT - A brief synopsis of what the story is about, e.g. ‘you won’t believe what happened to me at college earlier…’
Stage 2: ORIENTATION - Who, what, when, where, why (setting the scene), e.g. ‘I was going up the hill with my friend Daisy and it was raining really heavily’
Stage 3: NARATIVE - What happened, the event moves the story on, e.g. ‘She slipped and fell on the ground’
Stage 4: RESOLUTION - The conclusion to the story, e.g. ‘She managed to get cleaned up and changed clothes’
Stage 5: CODA - The speaker returns to the conversation or listener, e.g. ‘anyways’, ‘how was your journey up’ etc.
Topic management: Pre-closing items
Words and phrases that signal the end of conversation
Topic management: Agenda setting
Introducing a new topic to the conversation
Topic management: Terminating
Closing off an old topic or the entire conversation
Termination markers: ‘all right’, ‘right’, ‘there we are’
Topic management: Changing topic
Abandoning the current topic in favour of a new, unrelated topic
Topic management: Shifting topic
Moving from one topic to a related topic
Topic management: Drifting topic
Involves moving almost imperceptibly from one topic to another - usually some kind of associated link, but not as obviously connected as a shift
Topic management: Digressing
Moving temporarily from the current topic, can be spontaneous or deliberate and can be related or unrelated - often shown by digression markers such as ‘actually’, ‘by the way’
Topic management: Resuming
Ending digression to go back to the topic marked by return markers such as ‘anyway’ or ‘sorry, carry on’
Turntaking cues
- Interrogatives
- Tag questions, e.g. ‘It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?’
- Use of vocatives
- Fluent pauses
- Concluding statements, e.g. ‘that’s about it’
- Eye contact
- Leaning forward
- Rapid nods
Backchannelling
Sounds/words like ‘mhm’, ‘uh-huh’, ‘yeah’, ‘I see’ to support the speaker and encourage them to continue
Insertion sequences
One adjacency pair is embedded into another
- First adjacency pair can’t be completed until the embedded pair is completed
e.g.
John - Are you coming tonight?
Will - Is Bob going to be there?
John - I think so
Will - Okay, I’ll be there at 8
IRF sequences
Initiation, e.g. ‘as you’re going to the pub, could you give me a lift?
Response, e.g. ‘yeah of course, I’ll pick you up at 8’
Feedback, e.g. ‘Brilliant thank you’
Erving Goffman Face Theory
1967
Suggested that everyone wants to show a particular public image which manifests itself in how we communicate
Individuals have different ‘faces’ they want to show or protect depending on context
Face saving devices
Protecting our own face and others, what we have been socialised to do
- Use of mitigation to soften imperatives
- Use of epistemic modal auxiliary verbs ‘might’ ‘may’ suggesting possibility
- Being indirect, e.g. ‘Its cold in here’ (wanting window to be shut)
- Being tentative
- Impersonalising (takes blame away)
- Understatement markers ‘quite’, ‘fairly’, ‘somewhat’
- Hedging/vague language
- Apologising
- Humour
- Plural pronouns, e.g. ‘we forgot to tell you..’
Face threatening devices
When we break these rules and damage someone’s self esteem
- Dysphemism (taboo language/swearing)
- Direct imperatives
- Insults/belittling the listener
- Stronger deontic modal verbs (must/will/can) indicate obligation
- First person
- Lack of hedging
- Adverbs to suggest immediacy or certainty
- Use of declaratives/exclamatives instead of interrogatives
Brown + Levinson Extension on face theory
1987
- BALD ON RECORD - Speaker is blunt and direct, e.g. ‘Get out!’ (FT)
- POSITIVE POLITENESS - Speaker takes a more informal approach of showing interest in and agreement with the other speaker and features may include use of a vocative, presupposition, jokes, informality and tag questions to make the other person feel good (FS)
- NEGATIVE POLITENESS - Speaker takes a more indirect route using mitigation, indirectness, deference, apologies and formality - They know they are imposing on you (FS)
- OFF RECORD - Where the speaker doesn’t threaten the others face at all, e.g. changing subject or walking away (FS)
Grice’s Maxims (Cooperative Principles)
We agree to cooperate in conversation by following these maxims
- QUANTITY - Say neither more nor less than required
- QUALITY - Do not say what you believe to be false, do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
- RELEVANCE - Be relevant
- MANNER - Avoid obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity, be orderly
Following Grice’s Maxims
Obeyed - Maxim is not broken
Violated - Speaker secretly breaks maxim (e.g. intentional lying)
Flouting - Speaker breaks the maxim for some kind of linguistic effect (e.g. sarcasm or irony)
Features of Spoken Mode
- Incomplete utterances
- Shorter and simpler utterances reliant on using repetitive conjunctions
- Colloquial language possibly belonging to a sociolect or dialect
- Non-fluency features
- Hedges
- Deixis (pointing words)
- Discourse markers
- Direct address
- High frequency lexis
- Prosodic features
Features of Written Mode
- Complete grammatical sentences
- May use more complex grammar + sentences
- May use more formal, lexical choices
- No non-fluency features
- Fewer or no hedges, more precise
- Fewer examples of deixis
- Discourse markers used to organise lexis
- More examples of low frequency lexis
- Punctuation to demarcate sentences
Non-fluency features
Interruptions of fluency in speech and sometimes writing
- Hesitation
- Fillers
- Non fluent pauses
- False start
- Non fluent repetition
- Recyclying
- Self corrections
- Hedging
- Ellipsis/elision
Non-fluency features - Fillers
Words and phrases used to fill a pause rather than fall silent, e.g. ‘um’ ‘er’
Non-fluency features - False start
A construction/utterance which is abandoned before completion and a new one follows instead (e.g. if you don’t stop (.) please stop!)
Non-fluency features - Recycling
More than one attempt to utter a word or phrase (e.g. she was pa-paralysed)
Non-fluency features - Self corrections
The correction of (usually) the wrong lexical choice by the speaker (e.g. we need three (.) no (.) four)
Non-fluency features - Ellipsis/elision
Missing out whole words/letters when speaking
Diversity Theory (Cockcroft and Clerk)
1) Susan Cockcroft
- “Social context determines language behaviour, not simply biological difference”
= context determines language NOT gender (eg if in an interview would all use standard english du to env)
2) De Clerk
-> The rise in female swearing poses a challenge to men.
-> Verbal hygiene: women should speak with polite forms
Difference theory (Tannen and Coates)
Men and women learn different ways of communicating in childhood which then influences them in adult life.
Deborah Tannen
Affective -> women use compliments to form relationships/emotional (cooperative, save face)
Referential-> men use compliments to gain info/facts (competitive, less likely to save face)
Jennifer Coates
Public discourse (men) : how to talk in workplace; competitive
Private discourse (women) : how to be supportive and look after kids; cooperative
Dominance (Zimmerman West and Fishman)
Zimmerman and West (1975)
“Men are seen as controlling and commanding mixed sex interaction”
findings:
1) 96% of interruptions were male, therefore seen as restricted linguistic freedom of women compared to men
2) specific language features did not belong to certain genders
3) caused by power indifference
(REMEMBER: man in the middle interrupting)
= Fishman (female-1980)
- found women used 3x more yes/no and tag questions than men
- she analysed couples and claimed tag questions can be a feature of strength as they force listener to give feedback (challenges Lakeoff)
Deficit theory (Lakeoff)
Robin Lakoff
“Female language is seen as inadequate in some way to the established norm”
Female talk features…
1) tag questions -> shows uncertainty
2) hedges and fillers -> “like “well”
3) empty adjectives -> “nice” lovely”
4) intensifiers -> “so” “really”
5) precise colour terms -> “magenta”>”purple”
6) standard grammar
7) avoidance of taboo lexis -> “shut the front door”
8) raising intonation on declaratives
9) emphatic stress on specific words -> “that’s a GORGEOUS dress”
NO RESEARCH
If you see something in a text that supports this theory, use another explanation after (criticism kind of)
Speech Act Theory (Austin)
Locutionary acts -> the act of saying something ‘There’s a fly in my soup’
Illocutionary acts -> implied meaning ‘Get me another soup’
Perlocutionary acts -> result of the illocutionary acts eg waiter removes fly from soup
Accommodation Theory (Giles)
accommodation : where a speaker adapts to another speaker’s accent, dialect or sociolect (relational thing).
-> convergence: speaker moves towards another speakers accent/dialect/sociolect
a) upwards convergence: more formal/prestigious (to gain power over someone else)
b) downwards convergence: more informal (ie slang)
-> divergence : when you stop/prevent yourself from sounding like other ppl (usually those we dislike)
Overt and Covert Prestige (Trudgill)
People belonging to higher social classes would use more standard language forms, and the higher the social class, the closer to prestige varieties their language would be.
Overt prestige was present in the more prestigious stores demonstrates how standard forms of language are deemed as being more socially acceptable than non-standard forms.
