Aspects of Oral Communication [Reprint 2011 ed.] 9783110879032, 9783110144659

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Aspects of Oral Communication

Research in Text Theory Untersuchungen zur Texttheorie Editor Jänos S. Petöfi, Macerata Advisory Board Irena Bellert, Montreal Antonio Garcia-Berrio, Madrid Maria-Elisabeth Conte, Pavia Teun A. van Dijk, Amsterdam Wolfgang U. Dressler, Wien o Nils Erik Enkvist, Abo Robert E. Longacre, Dallas Roland Posner, Berlin Hannes Rieser, Bielefeld Hartmut Schröder, Vaasa Volume 21

W DE

G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1995

Aspects of Oral Communication Edited by Uta M. Quasthoff

W DE

G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1995

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Aspects of oral communication / edited by Uta M. Quasthoff. p. cm. - (Research in text theory, ISSN 0179-4167 ; v. 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-014465-4 1. Oral communication. I. Quasthoff, Uta M. II. Series. P95.A86 1995 302.2'242-dc20 94-45206

CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication-Data Aspects of oral communication / ed. by Uta M. Quasthoff. Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1995 (Research in text theory ; Vol. 21) ISBN 3-11-014465-4 NE: Quasthoff, Uta [Hrsg.]; GT

ISSN 0179-4167 © Copyright 1995 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Typesetting and printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer-GmbH, Berlin

Contents I. Introduction Uta M. Quasthoff Oral Communication: Theoretical Differentiation and Integration of an Empirical Field

3

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines Ron Scollon and Suzanne Scollon Somatic Communication: How Useful is Orality' for the Characterization of Speech Events and Cultures?

19

Elisabeth Gülich and Thomas Kotschi Discourse Production in Oral Communication. A Study Based on French

30

Theo Herrmann and Joachim Grabowski Pre-Terminal Levels of Process in Oral and Written Language Production

67

III. The Empirical Domains Oral Cultures Richard Dauenhauer and Nora Marks Dauenhauer Oral Literature Embodied and Disembodied

91

Helga Kotthoff Verbal Duelling in Caucasian Georgia. Ethnolinguistic Studies of Three Oral Poetic Attack Genres

112

Dietrich Hartmann Orality in Spoken German Standard and Substandard

138

Levels of Analysis Arvid Kappas and Ursula Hess Nonverbal Aspects of Oral Communication

169

Heiko Hausendorff Deixis and Orality: Explaining Games in Face-to-Face Interaction

181

Charles Goodwin Sentence Construction Within Interaction

198

VI

Contents

Heiko Hausendorf and Uta M. Quasthoff Discourse and Oral Contextualizations: Vocal Cues

220

Orality in Ontogenesis

Uta M. Quasthoff The Ontogenetic Aspect of Orality: Towards the Interactive Constitution of Linguistic Development

256

Jenny Cook-Gumperz "Tell Me a Book" or "Play Me a Story": The Oral Roots of Literacy Socialization

275

Drama and Narration

Jörg R. Bergmann and Thomas Luckmann Reconstructive Genres of Everyday Communication

289

Erika Fischer-Lichte Written Drama — Oral Performance

305

Public and Institutional Orality

Norbert Gutenberg Orality and Public Discourse. On the Rhetoric of Media and Political Communication

322

Werner Holly Secondary Orality in the Electronic Media

340

Aaron V. Cicourel Medical Speech Events as Resources for Inferring Differences in ExpertNovice Diagnostic Reasoning

364

IV. Methods John Heritage Conversation Analysis: Methodological Aspects

391

Peter Auer Ethnographic Methods in the Analysis of Oral Communication. Some Suggestions for Linguists

419

Dafydd Gibbon Empirical and Semiotic Foundations for Prosodic Analysis

441

Harald G. Wallbott Analysis of Nonverbal Communication

480

Subject Index

489

I. Introduction

UTA M. QUASTHOFF

Oral Communication: Theoretical Differentiation and Integration of an Empirical Field Human communication is in essence — albeit not exclusively — the mutually oriented vocal production and reception of linguistic signs. In this sense it is a basic human condition, essentially different from other physical signal systems used by animals and also to be distinguished from written communication which is not an essential element of being human. Corresponding to this central importance to human life oral communication is a highly complex and heterogeneous phenomenon, which as a result of its scientific investigation has been divided into many different aspects. In order to be able to cope with such a high degree of complexity, research tends to focus on only one — or very few — of these aspects and often assigns the varying aspects to different disciplines. Consequently, the process of integrating different aspects of such a research object in an attempt to reconstruct the complex reality is thus rendered all the more complicated. Research into oral communication is subdivided at a minimum into the following aspects: — verbal, non-verbal — syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and sound levels of analysis — different languages and cultures. The division of labor among the various disciplines concerned with aspects of oral communication includes at least the following: — — — — —

anthropology/ethnography linguistics literary and theater science psychology phonetics/phonology rhetoric semiotics sociology.

In the light of this complexity on the object level and the heterogeneity on the research level one must ask: Is it legitimate to edit a volume on Oral Com-

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I. Introduction

mumcatiori? Shouldn't one concentrate on one or only a few aspects of this complex phenomenon as opposed to attempting to cover the breadth of its manifestations? It seems to me that there are at least two good reasons for a collection of papers on oral communication at present: (1) As a consequence of the heterogeneity of the research scene it is necessary and reasonable to present the state of the art in the different fields of oral communication. (2) The synoptic view on the different approaches to the investigation of aspects of oral communication will reveal that behind the apparent heterogeneity there are common orientations to be found. Thus, the purpose of this edited collection is twofold: It attempts to represent aspects of the field in all its heterogenity and broadness while simultaneously endeavoring to discover recurring observations or patterns of explanations which underlie the different methods and theoretical frameworks. The heterogeneity of the field is manifested at least in the following systematic variation of approaches: — The different theoretical framings of the entire object which different disciplines and different methodologies favor according to their repertoire of research traditions. — The investigation of different empirical domains in which variants of oral communication take place. - The different data which each approach considers to be suitable for its specific investigation. Each of the disciplines mentioned above is represented in this collection. Three of them, however, are in a certain manner considered prototypical of different segments in the wide range of approaches to the investigation of aspects of oral communication: anthropology, linguistics and psychology. From the view of anthropology orality is used as a basic criterion to distinguish and characterize societies. Linguistic methodology reconstructs 'communication' under the aspects of its being realized by the use of ordered verbal structures on different levels of complexity. Psychology focuses on the cognitive processing of knowledge as the basic function of communicative processes. These fundamentally different orientations seem to be prototypical in the sense that they cover the range of descriptive approaches, which represent variants of these prototypical conceptions: Forms of communication as cultural criteria, sign structures of different forms of communication, mental representations as a prerequisite and function of different forms of communication. Accordingly, anthropology, linguistics, and psychology have been assigned a special role in this collection. They are represented by contributions whose purpose is to present the perspective of the respective discipline on this phenomenon, to convey the particular framing of the research object Oral communication' which is part of the methodology, the theoretical tradition, and the line of reasoning typical of the respective discipline.

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

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We are, of course, aware of the fact that decisions as to what may be "typical" of an entire discipline are always bound to attract vehement criticism, that it is probably impossible to have an entire discipline represented by one single approach. Nevertheless, the collected articles in Part II of this volume seem to fulfill this function amazingly well: The article by Ron and Suzanne Scollon Somatic Communication: How Useful is Orality' for the Characterisation of Speech Events and Cultures? discusses Orality' in view of its usefulness as a descriptive criterion with respect to cultures, whereas the linguistic approach by Gülich and Kotschi Discourse Production in Oral Communication: A Study Based on French — as well as the psychological article by Herrmann and Grabowski Pre-Terminal Levels in Oral and Written Language Production — attribute Orality' to verbal acts of communication. The linguistic and the psychological reconstruction of oral acts of communication, however, differ considerably, too: Gülich and Kotschi follow a typical linguistic procedure with respect to their starting-point: In categorizing and describing oral communicative acts they analyze the linguistic markers observable on the surface of the utterance as traces of the underlying production process. In contrast to that, Herrmann and Grabowski as psychologists present a model of the entire generation process, starting out with focusing procedures governed by truly non-linguistic parameters such as goals, world knowledge, partner model of the speaker and social conventions characterizing the situation. In addition to the differences in reconstructing the object of research Oral communication' represented by the different disciplines, each article within its own framework of course adds differentiations to the aspects covered by the respective approach. Scollon and Scollon contribute considerably to the differentiation of the concept orality by discussing a list of shortcomings of this notion as an anthropological criterion. Gülich and Kotschi present a very differentiated taxonomy of production activities based on their empirical analysis of a large amount of discourse markers. Finally, Herrmann and Grabowski, in contrasting oral and written utterances with respect to their procedural conditions in different phases of production, provide subtle insights into the generative differences of the wide range of types of oral utterances. Notwithstanding the differences among the disciplines and the amount of differentiations in the respective fields which are offered by these studies — there are schemes of common observations or even orientations appearing behind the manifest differences. It can easily be seen that the linguistic and the psychological reconstructions of aspects of generation processes should be compatible on a certain level of theoretical explicitness. They roughly share the reconstruction of what Oral communication' means, but focus on different phases of the complex production process. The types of discourse markers analyzed by Gülich and Kotschi should be producible by the local mechanisms as part of the psychological

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I. Introduction

generation model; the linguistic and contextual constraints with respect to their use should be explainable by means of their integration into the different ensembles of planning conditions. The "traces" of planning processes on the surface on the other hand could also be (and in fact are) used by psychological production models. Ron and Suzanne Scollon's reconstruction of Oral communication' as a possible feature of cultures or societies at first glance seems to be incompatible with single communicative acts as the object of description. However, the collection of approaches to the investigation of oral communication presented here provides the theoretical and conceptual "missing link": The notion of a communicative budget of a society offered by Bergmann and Luckmann can serve as a theoretical tie between the actual communicative acts — often organized in a format of genres (Bergmann & Luckmann, Cook-Gumperz, Kotthoff), schemata (Herrmann & Grabowski), macrosyntax (Gülich & Kotschi), communication patterns or speech genres (Gutenberg), patterns of dialogue (Gibbon), types of discourse (Hartmann) or discourse units (Hausendorf, Quasthoff, Hausendorf & Quasthoff) — and the communicative conventions which characterize an entire society. The broad variety of communicative occassions, patterns and rituals dealt with in this volume represents parts of this communicative budget of societies. All the communicative conventions of a community taken together — from oral literature to forms of speech in the electronic media, from everyday conversation to children's speech — form a kind of communicative "identity" of a culture. Seen this way the differentiations of Orality' as an anthropological criterion proposed by the Scollons are of immediate plausibility: The variability of communicative patterns typical for a speech community resists any simple division of cultures into monolithic types called "oral" and "literate". Thus, in the synoptic view the basic heterogeneity of different disciplinary approaches partly turns into a relationship of mutual compensation. The heterogeneity of methods in the investigation of aspects of oral communication is of course closely related to the variability of approaches represented by different disciplines. Methodological heterogeneity, however, should always be preserved as such. "Merged" procedures are in danger of losing the internal controllability typically inherent in a standardized methodological operation. Of course, this does not mean that methodologies should not be changed, developed, or combined in a controlled way. In the field of oral communication — as in other domains — the distribution of methods does not necessarily follow the disciplinary boundaries. As far as the collection, documentation and analysis of communicative data is concerned, many approaches share methods with orientations outside of their own discipline, while they are vehemently opposed to methodological procedures favored by other traditions within their own discipline. In many respects, the methodological orientation of Gülich and Kotschi, for instance, is closer to ethnomethodology — a sociological method — than to grammatical research methods (cf.

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

7

the review on the spoken language tradition in Gülich & Kotschi) which are considered to be standard linguistic procedure by some researchers. The line of reasoning in the anthropological discussion by the Scollons, to name another example, is often a "linguistic" one. With respect to the heterogeneity of the field and consequendy the methods used — and taken for granted — in the different approaches, the volume provides the reader with access to different methodologies which widely characterize the field in our view. This "service" became advisable to the extent that methodological frameworks for research on aspects of oral communication sometimes are not included in the mainstream standards within the respectice disciplines. The article by Herrmann and Grabowski, e. g., can be read as a new theoretical suggestion based on principles of standard psychological theory formation and experimental methodology. This exactly is the global function of the article within the ensemble of contributions in the first section of the volume. Accordingly, the reader does not necessarily have to be especially introduced to the methodological backgrounds of the psychological information processing paradigm. As opposed to that, Goodwin's ethnomethodological approach to the analysis of sentences, to consider another example, fits neither into the standard linguistic procedure of syntactic analysis nor into any mainstream sociological framework. The fact that my view as to the most influential among the "non-mainstream" methodological orientations is directed as much by my own profile as a scholar as are my decisions with respect to disciplinary matters I am prepared to accept. The methodological chapters in part IV of the volume comprise procedures which are either primarily oriented towards the "orality" or the "communication" aspect of the field Oral communication'. The procedures of prosodic analysis (Dafydd Gibbon) — methodologically situated between phonetics and linguistics and theoretically framed by semiotics - or non-verbal behavior (Harald G. Wallbott) represent approaches which deal with the "channels" of oral communication. In contrast to a simple notion of orality being constrained to the sound level, an integrative conception of Oral communication' views the entire body as semiotically expressive (see the important notion of somatic communication by Scollon & Scollon) and thus requires that the field of non-verbal behavior be covered in connection with the channels of oral communication. Ethnography (Peter Auer) and ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (John Heritage) seem to be so close to each other that they are sometimes even combined in the practical analysis of communicative instances, like in Cicourel's contribution. This made them eligible for separate treatment in this collection in accordance with the principle that combined methods need an especially high degree of methodological reflection. The four articles in the methodological section of this volume share the character of handbook articles. Consequendy, they can be consulted with respect to the methodological foundations of the entire field including approaches

8

I. Introduction

which are not represented in this volume. Based on the present collection, the explicit or latent methodological orientations of almost all the contributions make use of procedures covered in one or more of the methodological chapters. Oriented within the framework of ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (Heritage) are the articles by Goodwin, Hausendorf, Hausendorf & Quasthoff, and Quasthoff. Ethnographic categories and procedures are used to different degrees by the following authors: Bergmann & Luckmann, Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer, Hartmann, and Kotthoff. Cicourel's article contains an elaborate methodological discussion in favor of an ethnographic enrichment of the methods of Conversation Analysis. The methodological chapters by Gibbon and Wallbott provide necessary background to the contributions by Cook-Gumperz, Fischer-Lichte, Hausendorf, Hausendorf & Quasthoff, Kappas & Hess. Even approaches which are coined by particular discipline-specific traditions such as research on theater (Fischer-Lichte), media (Holly), rhetoric (Gutenberg), and socialization theory (Cook-Gumperz, Quasthoff) share methodological conceptions and categories dealt with in the methodological section of this volume. Thus, the semiotic foundation of Fischer-Lichte's contribution on Written Drama — Oral Performance reappears as the theoretical framework of Gibbon's chapter on prosody. Returning to the heterogeneity of the field as it is represented by the variability of disciplines: we can discover more integrative tendencies stemming from methodological orientations shared beyond the disciplinary boundaries. With respect to the empimal domains the field in its broadness requires systematization. The present attempt to categorize the various research domains in the vast field of oral communication preserves a certain analogy for disciplinary boundaries and orientations, and simultaneously one for thematic aspects and relations. The section on ORAL CULTURES, for instance, relates to anthropology as a discipline represented in the first section of the volume, as much as the section on ANALYTICAL LEVELS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION clearly is inspired by linguistic conventions in defining different levels of strings of utterances. ORALITY IN ONTOGENESIS is situated between psychology, linguistics and sociology, whereas the sections on DRAMA AND NARRATION and PUBLIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ORALITY represent especially active research fields which are thematically characterizable by certain communicative patterns or occassions or both. "Oral cultures" are not only viewed in the sense of cultures or communicative practices being "pre" literacy such as the Indian tradition in Alaska (Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer) or the Georgian patterns of oral dispute genres described in the chapter by Kotthoff (see Scollon & Scollon for the critical analysis of the principles of negativity and obsolence which have coined our conception of orality in cultures). A certain "oral culture" can also be found in oral registers and their social function in highly literate societies such as Germany (Hartmann). The regional scope from contemporary Alaska to Caucasian Georgia to reunified

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

9

Germany represents different forms — "degrees" — of "secondary" orality, as Ong calls oral practices in a literate context. Even practices developed by the use of electronic media (Holly) could be discussed under this concept. A very personal account of the various problems typical for a society characterizable by a dying orality and dying languages is given by Richard Dauenhauer & Nora Marks Dauenhauer. Their article on Oral Literature Embodied and Disembodied represents one of the rare instances in science where expert knowledge and experience are combined with personal concern and involvement and where neither of the two poles is inhibited by the other. Both authors live in Alaska as part of the field they work in. Nora Marks Dauenhauer is a member of the Indian Tlingit tradition as well as a Tlingit poet and an anhropological researcher. Both authors do the kind of "embodied" research on oral languages, literatures and cultures they describe and they simultaneously analyze the changes, effects and perspectives of their own research in the course of the cultural development — or of the process of " disembodying" orality. Both authors are speakers of the language whose future death they foresee and mourn. Helga Kotthoff's Ethnolinguisfic Studies of Three Oral Poetic Attack Genres focuses on the actual everyday patterns of oral literature in some areas of rural Georgia, instead of the problems of describing, preserving, or publishing this sample of orality, which are the central focus of the contribution by Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer. In this way both articles complement each other perfectly. Large pieces of data are presented and analyzed in Kotthoff's article, documenting in which way the aesthetic and the communicative qualities of the poetic genres described interact in the acts of performance. The manner in which this kind of oral literature is still "embodied" in the everyday activities of the rural culture-bearers is reconstructed; however, it is not difficult for the reader to imagine "disembodying" processes with respect to these Caucasian cultural practices which are similar to those in Alaska. The article Orality in Spoken German Standard and Substandard by Dietrich Hartmann approaches the phenomenon "oral cultures" from a different angle — due to the fact that contemporary Germany's "communicative budget" (Bergmann & Luckmann) is clearly different from either the Indian culture in Alaska or rural Georgia. Germany of course stands for highly industrialized societies which are characterizable by an extreme degree of division of labor and flooded by written language, be it in print, in institutional contexts or in the different forms of leisure time activities. Therefore, it may seem astonishing that the description of speech behavior in such a society has been subsumed under the heading "oral cultures". But the rich body of linguistic observations as to the characteristics of substandard — especially regional substandard, i. e. dialect — as an oral variety and its functions in use presented by Hartmann shows that there are indeed oral "sub-"cultures in highly literate societies. These oral "reservations" represent a different variant of "secondary orality" compared to the "faked" oral communications in the electronic media described by Gutenberg and Holly.

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I. Introduction

These oral subcultures in fact share some characteristics with the more prototypical oral cultures in Alaska and Georgia: The decline of dialect in present day Germany, documented in Hartmann's contribution, fits into comparable processes of language death described with respect to Alaska or Georgia. It even seems that the "dialect renaissance" — the intentional and therefore somewhat "artificial" use of dialect in public or formal speech — described by Hartmann can be assessed as an instance of "disembodying" an oral register from its traditional functional context. In this respect special broadcasts in a regional dialect would be similar to the assignment of oral traditions to "children's worlds" in modern Alaska. Whereas the different approaches to ORAL CULTURES in various ways relate to an anthropological concept of oral communication, the section LEVELS OF ANALYSIS takes up a linguistic division into the analytical levels of verbal expression. The sound level on the one hand is distinguished from the word meaning, the sentence and the transsententional discourse level on the other hand. The ways in which the respective contributions deal with these analytical levels, however, does not necessarily represent mainstream linguistic theorizing. The sound level of analysis is dealt with in the article by Arvid Kappas & Ursula Hess Nonverbal aspects of oral communication. From a psychological point of view the contribution describes the ways in which affective states of the speaker are transmitted by vocal cues. Kappas & Hess thus focus on an aspect of oral communication which is often neglected: the fact that physio-psychological states are inherently expressed in oral as opposed to written communication to the degree in which these states affect the voice as part of the body. In written communication authors can to a large degree choose to hide the emotions they have at the time of the writing process by deciding not to put them into words. In oral communication the speaker often cannot hide his/her emotions in that the corresponding physical states such as muscular tension, tremor or respiration rate may affect the vocal chords and, consequently, speech as a physical activity, in an uncontrollable manner. (That such an effect can be displayed specifically for interactive purposes is shown in the article by Quasthoff & Hausendorf). In other words, the article by Kappas & Hess in its thematic orientation on the paralinguistic cues of psycho-physical states provides a prototypical example of the "somatic" character of oral communication, which is suggested by Scollon & Scollon. Heiko Hausendorf's contribution Semantics: The Role of Deictic Elements in Oral Discourse describes how local indexical expressions such as there or here are used by children and adult speakers in explaining how to play a board game. These explanations are "embodied" in the plan of the speaker and listener to play the game together. Hausendorf observed that under conditions where speakers could not refer to a physically present frame of local orientation (e. g. the board) they created

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

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this frame of local reference verbally and gesturally ("Imagine this is the board"). The article thus exemplifies a prototypical function of deictic expressions in a theoretically and empirically specific manner: The analysis reconstructs the use of the relevant expressions in the course of verbal and non-verbal interaction instead of explicating the relationship between the linguistic expression and its possible referents in the classical semantic framework. With respect to the integrative aspects of different approaches to the analysis of oral communication it is important to point out that Hausendorf, by analyzing the speaker's bodily involvement in creating a substitute frame of local reference, also presents a prototypical example for the physical boundedness of oral, i. e. "somatic" (Scollon & Scollon) communication. Notwithstanding the fact that syntactic analysis is considered the core field of linguistics by many linguists, the "oral sentence" among the linguistic levels of analysis is dealt with by a sociologist with an ethnomethodological background in this volume. The framework of Conversation Analysis provides the methodological orientation of Charles Goodwin's Sentence Construction Within Interaction. As opposed to the classical linguistic conceptions of sentence construction being the work of one grammatically inspired generator or of one more cognitively based parser, the structural achievement of a sentence uttered within oral communicative activities according to Conversation Analysis is the joint structural work of at least two participants in the communicative endeavor, namely the current speaker who is constructing the utterance and his/her recipient^). Sentences are analyzed as "intrinsically mutable objects", which can be reconstructed during the course of the utterance relative to the displayed attentiveness of the recipient or the change of the addressee among the listeners. According to the general principle of communication called 'recipient design' by Conversation Analysis the information given in a sentence (Herrmann & Grabowski) and the way it is linguistically marked (Gülich & Kotschi) must be oriented towards the specific state of knowledge — inter alia — attributed to the recipient. Thus, a shift from one addressee who is not informed with respect to a specific topic to the next who is informed in the course of an utterance automatically requires addition to a sentence already formulated or a reformulation. The most important way in which attentiveness of a recipient towards a current utterance of a speaker is displayed in oral, face-to-face communication is by gaze direction. In other words, when Goodwin reconstructs how the structure of a sentence is influenced by whether the recipient is looking or is not looking at the speaker, he simultaneously reconstructs one aspect of the somatic quality of oral communication — interestingly enough focusing on the recipient's physical appearance and not on the speaker's. The most complex analytical unit dealt with in this section is the discourse level. Discourse and oral contextualii^aiions: vocal cues by Heiko Hausendorf and Uta M.

12

I. Introduction

Quasthoff makes clear that the notion of a context-free, abstract linguistic structure — such as the sentence models which Goodwin discusses in contrast to his own analysis — is not applicable on the discourse level. Discourse, in the sense it is used here, is always contextualized in two ways: First, each of its utterances is context and provides context at the same time. Secondly, the coherent activities within a global discourse format provide the contextualization cues as to the type of activity they are performing. Small talk among friends is small talk among friends — just like classroom interaction is classroom interaction or a medical interview is a medical interview — according to the way it contextualizes itself by use of relevant linguistic and non-linguistic cues. The article investigates one domain within this mechanism: the way in which paralinguistic indicators, contextualization cues produced by vocal means, are used to "frame" the activities, to mark, e. g., informality or lack of control. The occurrence and the placement of vocal devices such as crying, laughing, sighing, or the range of prosodic possibilities between, e. g., loud and soft or fast and slow distinguishes private from institutional frames. In other words, another aspect of oral communication — viewed as communication bound to the physical being of the communicator — is presented and discussed here: the sign quality of the human voice as bodily manifestation and its systematic use in providing cues as to the type of activity being performed. The section on QUALITY IN ONTOGENESIS starts with a contribution which sheds light on the same essential quality of oral communication that has become apparent in many of the other contributions. Uta Quasthoff's paper The Ontogenetic Aspect of Orality: Towards the Interactive Constitution of Linguistic Development asks the seemingly naive but heuristically rewarding question: Why is it (i. e. in which sense is it functional) that children first learn an oral language? Why do they first learn speaking and not writing (or some other visually constituted sign system)? In the course of dealing with this question it turns out that the central notion for the mechanisms of language acquisition at first sight is not so much Orality' but 'interaction'. The author reconstructs the developmental functions of basic interactive principles. Note that these principles are observed by adults in interaction with children for the purpose of achieving the orderliness necessary for the communicative achievement of the dyad, not for the purpose of teaching the child how to speak his/her language. As part of the developmental functions of interactive principles it can then be made explicit why, e. g., the transitory character of oral speech is a necessary resource for the language learning child, instead of being a disadvantage with respect to the processing constraints of the working memory. Only the transitory quality of oral utterances enables their exact sequential placement in the course of the interactive flow. It is this kind of contextualization which the child needs in order to assign meaning — in a broad sense — to an interactive move and thus to a linguistic form.

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

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The transitory quality of oral interaction — just like the other features of faceto-face interaction discussed in the article — is to be seen as an indication of the boundedness of the communicative acts to the physical presence of speaker and recipient. In other words, the somatic quality of oral communication is exploited as a developmental resource by the child. "Tell me a book" or "Play me a story": The oral roots of literacy socialisation by Jenny Cook-Gumperz focusses - as the tide indicates - on the various intersections between the exposure to oral and written language in the process of children's acquiring literacy. Children listen to orally transmitted texts very early in life. Some of these texts are spontaneously told everyday stories, others are read or retold written narratives. No matter whether the original source is "oral" or "written", the article makes clear that it is the communicative procedures between child and adult, the process of interpretation on the part of the child and the resources s/he exploits in the course of this process, that are responsible for early literacy socialization. As a result of these forms of adult-child-interaction children acquire basic principles of literacy such as textual coherence or a "notion of textuality", to put it into more general terms. It is reconstructed in the article in which way the written version of the story in the book, the pictures, illustrations, and other graphic features interact with the oral communication about the book in building up this "notion of textuality". The article thus adds a new aspect to the function of orality within language acquisition: Even the acquisition of literate forms of language use seem to be dependant on the principles of oral — somatic — communication as they are bound to the mutually oriented interaction of physically co-present communicators. Another section of the heterogeneous empirical domains in the field of oral communication is associated with the expressions DRAMA AND NARRATION. As opposed to the division of the respective prototypical genres in literary theory, drama and narration in everyday communication and also in the dramatic arts are intertwined in various ways. Everyday conversational narratives are performed in a "dramatic" discourse pattern in many cultures which puts the events verbally "on stage". Theatrical performances, on the other hand, go back to written literary dialogues which in the form of "secondary text" (Fischer-Lichte) contain many narrative elements. In addition to that drama and narration both are members of the family reconstructive genres as they are analyzed by Bergmann & Luckmann. Reconstructive Genres of Everyday Communication by Jörg Bergmann and Thomas Luckmann widens the view from the traditionally investigated narrative genre to the broader concept of all communicative patterns which serve to reconstruct past events. Rumor is introduced as an example of a reconstructive genre. It represents a communicative pattern which in comparison to patterns of everyday

14

I. Introduction

narrative is more complex as far as global structures are concerned and more restricted as far as the situational constraints of its use are concerned. In addition to conceptualization and analysis of global communicative forms used to solve recurrent communicative tasks in a community, the article introduces the concept of a communicative budget, as was mentioned above. This notion of the ensemble of genres conventionalized in a given society offers a category which binds macrosociological structures to the microsociological phenomena of everyday interaction, or the abstract features of the complex "body" of a society to the rules of social action which direct the concrete communicative behavior of each of its members respectively. It thus provides an important integrative conception within the heterogeneity of disciplines, methodologies and empirical domains in the field of oral communication. Another kind of integrative aspect is provided by Fischer-Lichte's contribution on Written Drama — Oral Performance by means of its theoretical and terminological orientation within the frame-work of semiotics. In this respect her article is — although representing research on drama and theater as a discipline — to be related to Gibbon's approach in phonetics and linguistics. For different genres in dramatic literature, Fischer-Lichte discusses the relationship between speech text and secondary text in written literary dialogue. 'Speech text' means the actual discourse to be performed by the actors, whereas 'secondary text' refers to stage directions, or all kinds of indications as to the paralinguistic and non-verbal realizations of the primary text in performance. As opposed to literary dialogue, dramatic dialogue "represents" actual instances of oral communication. It can be systematized with respect to the dominance of either verbal or non-verbal expressions and analyzed according to the different functions the various sign systems perform. Therefore, dramatic dialogue can be considered to be an "incarnation" of literary dialogue, thus being susceptible to many of the characteristics of "embodied" or "somatic" communication described with respect to other fields in this volume. However, as a part of this interplay between the various sign systems involved in physically bound communication dramatic dialogue also conveys aesthetic conceptions designed to be received by the spectator. In this respect of "double recipient design" it is comparable to the "windoweffect" of dialogue in the electronic media, which is dealt with in a section on PUBLIC AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY. With Norbert Gutenberg's article Orality and Public Discourse. On the Rhetoric of Media and Political Communication a new disciplinary frame-work is added to the ensemble of disciplines dealing with oral communication: rhetorical theory and pedagogy. (Oral) communication is constituted as rhetorical communication, i. e., as verbal behavior which is characterizable by the (sometimes hidden, but reconstructable) intention behind the purpose-means-relation of communicative acts.

U. M. Quasthoff, Theoretical Differentiation and Integration

15

The rhetorical point of view adopted by Gutenberg includes a persistent critical point of view on the forms of oral communication dealt with in the article. The "ideology criticism" is theoretically framed as rhetorical criticism which not only reveals hidden purposes behind "make belief" speech patterns, but also takes a stand as to the evaluation of the intentions themselves. Greek and Roman philosophy provides the value system behind this evaluation. Gutenberg pairs the concept orality with that of aurality, thus indicating that true orality includes not only speaker and listener but also mouth and ear of the communicators as co-present psycho-somatic entities. Again we find the integrative aspect of oral communication being a physically bound activity which has been recognized as part of so many different approaches. Based on these concepts of communication and orality Gutenberg reveals most forms of orality presented in the mass media as faked orality, because speech is not spontaneously produced but secretely read from written versions of the text. The public character of "public speech" in the media or in parliament for that matter is also recognized as a delusion in that the notion of publicity is counterbalanced by the strategies of personalization typical for the mass media. Also the debates in parliament over decisions which already have been made elsewhere are revealed as faked publicity in relation to the original sense of publicity having to do with democratic procedures of decision making. Faked dialogue finally is the verdict for the truly oral (i. e. not read), seemingly casual, spontaneous forms of talk typically presented in conversational settings of the electronic media which nevertheless have been evoked artifically for the purpose of the window effect. Werner Holly in his article on Secondary Orality in the Electronic Media also describes media orality as "derived", "transposed", and "fictitious", but he warns that this quality should not be understood in a pejorative sense. What Gutenberg reconstructs as "faked orality" is in Holly's view a certain style which evolved as a consequence of the combination of two factors, made possible by the technical possibilities of the electronic medium: the oral presentation of speech on the one hand, which without medial transmission is reserved to intimate face-to-face contacts, and on the other hand the anonymity of the audience, which is typical for the modern mass media. Holly's contrastive linguistic analysis of two interviews with a West German and an East German politician reveals that the verbal strategies can be more or less oriented towards oral or written language respectively. In other words, oral style is a matter of degree. On the basis of his analyses Holly rejects the claim that the electronic media are responsible for a renaissance of an oral culture in modern societies. The orality of the modern media is something entirely new, specific, unique. Gutenberg's unmasking of the faked character of decision making in medially transmitted publicity shifts the focus of attention to communication in those

16

I. Introduction

institutions which are parts of public life and where decisions in fact are made. Institutional communication is represented by Aaron Cicourel's article Medical Speech Events A.S Resources for Inferring Differences in Expert-Novice Diagnostic Reasoning, which ends the section on public and institutional discourse. The paper investigates the institutional communications through which medical novices are socialized into their profession. The contrastive analysis of two members of the house staff in a teaching hospital producing a diagnosis which is evaluated by the attending doctor serves as data base. The novice's anamnestic communications with two patients, their subsequent reports about the patients to the attending doctor and the attending doctor's judgement of the novice's professional performance are used for analysis. Oral communication here is analyzed under the aspect of its being the basis of the expert's assessment of the novice. In other words, the novice's ability to transform textbook knowledge into interactively displayed expertise is the main criterion according to which a doctor's professional competence is judged. Thus, orality in this article is reconstructed in a very special way: The complementary concept is not 'writing' but rather 'tacit knowledge'; oral communication is reconstructed as the externalization of elements of knowledge which remain ineffective unless adequately displayed in communication with a recipient. Oral communication in this sense is a particular kind of competence which is responsible for professional performance. Oral display in this sense is also a kind of materialization, i. e. physical externalization, of information, which otherwise is not "visible and audible". This short summary of the empirical domains of oral communication which are dealt with by different disciplines and approaches must be supplemented by a reference to the data used. As a consequence of the variability of the empirical domains the data transmit the impression of broadness and heterogeneity. To name only a few: American, German, and French conversational fragments, traditional oral poetry from Alaska and Caucasus as well as excerpts from classical German drama, monological therapeutic recordings as well as recordings on telephone answering machines, children's speech as well as interviews with politicians, narratives as well as game instructions, institutional discourse from classrooms and hospitals. ... are used as empirical bases in different contributions of this volume. Certainly this data base cannot represent the myriads of oral communicative types being instantiated every day all over the world. But enough aspects of the typological variability to give the impression of hopeless disparateness seem to be included. In view of this seemingly disparateness the degree to which constancy has been discovered by this introduction — and can be discovered even more by careful reading of the chapters — proves to be rather remarkable.

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

RON SCOLLON and SUZANNE SCOLLON

Somatic Communication: How Useful is Orality' for the Characterization of Speech Events and Cultures? Literacy in recent decades has grown to be a field of research in itself1. Alongside of literacy a complementary field of orality has developed a noticeable presence. Indeed, this book manifests both the complexity and the diversity of the field of orality. Nevertheless, now that computers help us to quickly scan a field, a keyword search of the words 'literacy' and Orality' shows that most scholars have serious questions about the simple and unexamined use of either of these terms. It has now become a commonplace to say that while much can be said in favor of using these two terms to discriminate among both cultures and speech events, the degree and kinds of overlap between these terms has made both of them all but obsolete. This brings us to our problem: Now that most scholars recognize the problems of trying to mark a distinction between 'literacy' and Orality', how useful is the term Orality' for the characterization of speech events and cultures? On the face of it the answer must be that Orality' is still a very useful term, otherwise a book such as this one could not be written. In spite of this usefulness, however, we feel there are at least six problems with the use of the term; we believe Orality' as a technical term at least is insufficient, negative, obsolescent, phonocentric, logocentric, and uniformitarian. Further, we will suggest that the characteristics scholars have been trying to capture in the use of the term Orality' might be better framed as 'somatic communication'.

/. The insufficiency

of orality2

Orality has been used widely and often ambiguously to talk about both the means of communication and the ways of thinking of people who are not primarily literate. In this is it primarily an anthropological or sociological term. 1

2

Gee (1989) is a collection of essays including review essays in which the development of this field of literacy (>discourse) in linguistics and education is charted with subtlety and in considerable detail. Having introduced our subject with a liberal use of quotation marks on such words as 'literacy', Orality', and 'somatic communication' we will assume the reader is now conscious of the problematicity of these terms and from now on we will feel safe in using the terms without flags to signal our doubt.

20

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

Ong (1982) is, perhaps, the most elegant presentation of this line of thinking. A parallel interest in orality has developed during the same period (since midcentury) among poets, particularly those of the American West Coast following on Ezra Pound and Charles Olson (Snyder 1980). With a deep awareness of both of these intellectual developments a third line of thought has developed at least partly under the name of ethnopoetics as seen in the writings of Tedlock (1983) and Hymes (1981). The anthropological line of thought emphasized at first what Street (1984) has called the great divide between literacy and orality. Unfortunate for the great divide theories of orality and literacy is the fact that many so-called oral cultures do not show the properties attributed to oral cultures. And literacy has been shown to be a widely varied phenomenon as well. Athabaskans, a group which have only become literate to any measurable extent in this generation, for example, do not show the 'bard-and-formula' style of speech so often taken as paradigmatic of oral cultures by scholars such as Goody and Ong (Scollon and Scollon 1980, 1981). The lengthy epic performances described by Lord (1970), for example, have never been reported anywhere in the Athabaskan ethnographic literature. Instead one finds an aesthetic of minimal performances, sometimes even of riddles. Furthermore, the relationship between the 'storyteller' and the 'audience' is not the one-to-one of the intimate conversation nor the one-to-many of the bard-like epic performance. What is most characteristic of this tradition is a primary (and generally elder) storyteller who speaks to a primary (generally elder) listener who responds, with an indefinite number of third parties listening in who do not openly respond to this storytelling (Scollon and Scollon 1980, 1981). The formulas which have often been seen as the cornerstone of oral traditions from Homer down to Lord and Goody are also absent from the Athabaskan oral tradition. One does not find the familiar 'rosy-fingered dawn', nor the 'wine-dark sea'. While it has been argued that such formulas are essential aspects of an oral performance tradition, it is perhaps better to see them as essential to a tradition of rhythmic line setting which requires some fixed set of prosodic feet which may or may not require rhyming as well. As Hymes (1981) has indicated for other Native American oral traditions, such formulas are not salient features if found at all in the Athabaskan oral tradition. At the other extreme, it can be argued that Sinographic literacy, the literacy of China and a number of its neighboring cultures, shows throughout its history a number of features thought to be exclusively the characteristics of orality (Scollon 1991)3. In addition, the work of Scribner and Cole (1981) has shown 3

And here we should rush to point out that this oral tendency of Sinographic literacy is not attributable to the non-alphabetic nature of Chinese writing as might easily be supposed (DeFrancis 1989). The demystification of Chinese literacy is, of course, a separate subject and one long overdue to be treated by scholars interested in defining the characteristics of both literacy and orality.

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21

that even within a single cultural group such as the Vai of Liberia, literacy can take multiple forms. The literacy used in school contexts contrasts in social and cognitive implications with that literacy in Arabic on which religious functions have been established. Furthermore, the indigenous Vai literacy shows a range of social distribution which has almost no overlap with the other two literacies in practice. In each case Scribner and Cole were able to show that the so-called higher order intellectual skills so often associated with literacy were not a function of literacy itself but of other social and cultural practices. Basing his argument on such studies, Street (1984) has argued that literacy cannot be seen as an autonomous phenomenon to which can be attributed either social or psychological characteristics. Obviously if literacy cannot be seen as an autonomous phenomenon, a fortiori orality cannot be seen as such. Literacy or orality have been shown by these scholars to be complex phenomena embedded in societal structures and not susceptible to independent analysis. Other scholars such as Tannen (1989) have approached the great divide theory from a position within a literate society. They have argued convincingly that literacy and orality are so thoroughly interpenetrating that it is virtually impossible to assert about any particular event that it is either literate or oral. The use of dialogue in novels, the scripting of drama (see Fischer-Lichte, this volume), the quotation of things read in conversation, and the spoken public lecture (see Gutenberg, this volume) are just a few of the many linguistic events which indicate the insufficiency of literacy and orality as dissecting terms in making one's analysis. No great divide was proposed by the movement in poetics and ethnopoetics toward a re-emphasis on the oral. Poets such as Snyder, having been influenced in part by works from Pacific Northwest Indian cultures, especially Haida, have worked toward an emphasis on the oral in their own poetry as a restorative to the textually focused works of modernism. Tedlock and Hymes have struggled with the problems of the transcription and translation of works from oral traditions into literate form (see Dauenhauer/Dauenhauer, this volume); Tedlock has asserted the absolute necessity of capturing the oral or phonological quality of the original text, while Hymes has shown how many of the oral qualities of the text resonate with more formally grammatical and morphological structures. In each case these scholars have emphasized the impossibility of accepting any great divide between the oral and the literate and the insufficiency of either orality or literacy to serve as the crucially discriminating term.

2. The negativitiy of orality

Orality is a negative term in at least two ways, as a complement to another term which is the preferred term for analysis or as a preceding or inferior form of development when contrasted to a later or preferred form of culture. As a complement to civilized, primitive was a term which once conveyed not a nega-

22

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

tive state of culture but, in fact, a rather positive (though, of course, Romantic) more basic or primary form of culture. Primitive cannot now be used without a strong sense of opprobrium. It no longer retains its earlier sense of that which is most fundamental. As anthropologists and others have struggled to find a way of talking about human culture as it has been known to us since, perhaps, the Neolithic a host of terms have been tried. Among them are traditional, tribal, natural, pre-literate, non-literate, and, of course, oral. Perhaps it is fair to say that in each instance the motive in choosing the term has been twofold. The first motive is to try to characterize what is basic, fundamental, primary, normal, natural to human culture. The second motive is to try to distinguish between that quality (or set of characteristics) and something which has been seen as coming along later and somehow distorting those characteristics. It is this latter point which is telling. Behind virtually any term we might use lies the idea of progress. We do not mean to suggest that the idea of progress has always been in the presuppositional base of the scholars who have used these terms. What we mean is that in our contemporary vision of the world it is almost impossible to find a language which does not make some implications of earlier and later, more basic as opposed to more elaborated, more fundamental to more ephemeral. The belief in progress transforms all of our language of the primary, of the traditional into a subtle implication of backwardness. A worldview of progress cannot see its own antecedents as anything but an awkward groping toward the present to be gotten over and forgotten as quickly as possible. As a result even the best of intentions in naming our most fundamental processes leads to their dismissal as being of lesser interest compared with what is current. Orality, then, becomes a negative to literacy. We are certain that this is not intended to be the case for the writers of essays in this particular collection. Nor is it the case for most of the writers who would use the word oral. Unfortunately, our experience leads us to believe that it is the case with our students and with other generally educated readers, in other words, with those who are literate. We believe that it is an act of tremendous effort and goodwill for a person who is deeply literate to imagine the life of a person who is not literate. Our terms for this, non-literate, pre-literate, illiterate, and even semi-illiterate do not differ that significantly from the word oral in the negative psychological resonance they have for a person who is literate.

). The obsolescence of orality Because the idea of progress lurks presuppositionally behind any discourse about communication or culture, orality takes on a tone of obsolescence. Scholars such as Ong (1982) assert that literacy inevitably transforms orality both for the individual and for the society. A person or society once literate cannot ever

R. Scollon and S. Scollon, Somatic Communication

23

return to the state of orality in his view. Organizations such as UNESCO take a similar view of societies, though that organization tends to see literacy as opposed to illiteracy and in economic-progressive terms. For example, in a widely quoted sourcebook illiteracy is classed with malnutrition and poverty as a "barrier to progress," while literacy is a factor in the Physical Quality of Life Index (Meyers 1984). This transformative or replacive sense of literacy presupposes that orality once eliminated will never return. There is, of course, an irony here. It seems to be those who most believe that literacy can transform a society who are most worried that literacy is rapidly being lost (Hirsch 1987). Furthermore, Shils (1981) makes a convincing argument that what he calls tradition (but which covers much of the territory other scholars would use the word orality to cover) continually reasserts itself. Indeed, he argues that it is a much larger aspect of any transmission of culture than is usually recognized. As just one example of this Shils notes that the teaching of scientific method rarely uses the scientific method. Much of what a student learns in science is learned orally and on authority, not experimentally one hypothesis at a time. Not only then does the use of orality lead to a tendency to treat the phenomenon (whatever it really is) negatively, it is observationally inadequate. Orality is not something to be gotten over, not something of the past, nor something which stands in the way of the achievement of higher levels of social or cognitive development. These notions, however, are often difficult to prevent from arising presuppositionally when the word orality is used.

4. The phonocentnsm of orality

The insufficiency, negativity, and obsolescence of the term orality could be thought of as unfortunate side-effects which are likely to plague any word used to designate the phenomenon. No term is likely to cover all the necessary ground and as long as there remains a generally progressive cast to our everyday worldview, any term which focuses on what is prior in time or logically more fundamental is likely to take on a negative and obsolescent shadow no matter how carefully scholars work to avoid such presuppositions. The phonocentrism of the term orality' is, however, a more serious matter for scholarship. This is for two reasons: first, orality focuses our attention on the sounds of language and tends to shift attention away from many other significant aspects of the speech event or cultural transmission; second, in doing so, orality more deeply entrenches our alphabetistic conception of the nature of language. To put this another way, orality by being a term posed as a complement to literacy brings into our analysis the presuppositional base of alphabetic literacy which forms a filter through which all of orality or oral culture is seen. Orality, of course, refers to the sounds of language. These sounds are many and perhaps it is their abundance which has made this phonocentric view of

24

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

language seem a richer view than a strictly literate one. In the past several decades there have been many attempts to capture such paralinguistic and prosodic effects as pitch variations, tempo variations, shifts in voice quality, and variations in loudness (see Kappas & Hess, this volume). Scholars have argued over whether or not tape recording is essential for the analysis of spoken texts and whether or not it is ultimately possible to produce a transcription which will reflect the significant aspects of vocal variation in the production of speech. While much has been done in this respect, many scholars have remained frustrated with their inability to capture other aspects of the communication which in some cases are apparently equally significant such as gesture, body movement (see Wallbatt, this volume), references to audience placement, dress and regalia, song, and setting. These latter phenomena point to the central aspect of what is called orality which is missed in the phonocentrism of most of our approaches and that is that oral communication is essentially redundant; oral communication makes use of not only sound but vision, touch, and kinetic sensation. If for a moment we include along with sound only vision we will see the extremes of absurdity to which the phonocentrism of the term orality leads. In the third chapter of his Orality and Literacy Ong (1982) derives a number of his features of the psychodynamics of orality from what he calls "interiority of sound" (1982:71). This he contrasts with the "exteriority" of vision, i. e., literacy. Sounds, Ong says, register what is on the interior of structures; sight isolates objects and dissects them. Thus one can rap on a box to sense its interior qualities, but sight puts the observer outside the object of vision. Therefore, he says, sound unifies human consciousness by bringing us closer together, but sight forces separation, clarity, and distinctness. From such a separation between object and viewer arises the concept and ultimately the science of signs. Once Ong has drawn this great divide between sound and vision he goes on to draw a considerable number of conclusions. One might say that virtually all of the conclusions about the effects of literacy as extended in print in Ong's chapter five "Print, space and closure" are based on this great divide between the interiority of sound as opposed to the exteriority of vision. Whatever one might want to say about Ong's assertions about this difference between the senses of sight and sound it is obviated by the unfortunate fact that orality is as visually oriented as anything in print. Until the telegraph, in fact, we have most often seen those with whom we have spoken. If there is a significant difference between orality and literacy, it is not that orality is mono-sensual; it is that orality is fundamentally integrative of all the sense modalities whereas literacy tends to be sensorily limited to one, vision alone. Along with this, however, comes the caveat that at least with alphabetic literacy, the visuality of the text is based exclusively on the sound (i. e. the phonology) of the words which have been written. Ironically, then, since the alphabet is a highly productive way of representing the sound (and nothing else) of the

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25

spoken word it has limited our understanding of orality to nothing but sounds. This has, in turn, led scholars such as Ong to posit the visuality of the written sound system as being in direct contrast to the sound system of language as spoken. We believe that this narrowing of the focus in this discussion to nothing but the contrast between spoken phonology and written phonology could only have arisen in a scholarship dominated by the phonocentrism of the alphabetic written word.

5. Orality is logocentric It is a short step from seeing the phonocentric nature of the term orality to seeing as well that it places an undue emphasis on the word or on language itself. Since our original goal in writing is to question whether or not orality is a useful term in classifying either speech events or cultures, here we can question how useful it is to draw a line between the spoken aspects of a speech event (or culture) and the rest. In looking at the phonocentrism of the term orality we argued that it places an excessive emphasis on the sounds of language to the exclusion of visual (and other sensory) aspects of communication and that those other aspects are equally essential to the meanings of such events. In like manner then we believe that to focus on only the language to the exclusion of the rest of the oral performance in communication is to place an arbitrary and alphabetically linguistically motivated circumference around the phenomena we wish to understand. The term speech event itself carries with it the logocentrism conveyed by the term orality. We know, in fact, how difficult it is to classify communicative events on the basis of speech. In such a simple speech event as a casual conversation between friends over a cup of coffee the logocentric view gives preference to the transcript of the conversation and relegates to marginal status such aspects as the placement of the parties about the table, their negotiation of such positions, and the buying of the coffee itself, and yet we know that these aspects of the event are crucial to the definition of self and the relationships among selves which may well be the central social function of the event (Goffmann 1961). As a way of characterizing cultures the logocentrism of the term orality tends to give primacy to such aspects of culture as language, reason, cognition, or worldview. At the same time other aspects of culture and of cultural transmission such as song, dance, craft, hunting and cooking, kinship, and the rest are marginalized. It would go far beyond the scope of this paper to argue convincingly that there is in this logocentrism in anthropological studies a reflection of the Greek assertion of the ascendancy of reason as the defining characteristic of humans. By contrast one would want to investigate more closely the assertion by Xunzi (313—238 BC) that it is justice O 7 'fL'> the ability to choose to put oneself behind others) which is the defining characteristic (Ho 1985). Surely

26

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

such a difference, if truly cultural, would reflect itself in some differences in emphasis. One final aspect of the logocentrism of the term orality is that, paired with literacy as equally and complementarily logocentric, it gives rise to media-based histories of progress. Scholars who accept this logocentrism then tend to see history as a movement from early forms of representation in papyrus or bamboo and brush through block printing and moveable type, down to telegraph, telephone, and computers. A great deal of analysis is given over to, first, whether the printing press or some other factors produced the great shift from the Medieval Period to the Renaissance, and then, if it was the press, why the press did not have such an effect when it was introduced into Asia some century or more earlier than in Europe. 6. The uniformitananism of orality

As studies of literacy have matured in the past two decades it has become increasingly clear that literacy is not a uniform phenomenon. Perhaps there are few scholars remaining who would take the strong position that there were some (or even any) essential aspects of literacy which could then be related to particular cognitive or social effects. We have come to see literacy as a complex of skills, social positions, and analytical positions which ultimately reflect ideological conditions in a particular society. We have not been so subtle, however, in our studies of orality. There is lurking behind most uses of the term a sense that orality is somehow the same everywhere. There is the sense that orality is somehow the human condition from which other phenomena like literacy have arisen. Orality has taken on something like the position of natural law in the more physical sciences. Like the uniformitarian assumption in geology it seems to be presupposed that what one might observe about orality in one place or time would hold with minor qualifications anywhere in human history. To give just one window on this problem we want to make reference to a recent paper by George Grace, an eminent Austronesian linguist (Grace 1991). His problem and the problem of other Austronesian specialists is that a fair number of languages in their area of study appear to be aberrant. By that they mean that they simply do not fit any clear pattern of historical development or association with other languages in either the language family or the linguistic area. Grace argues that the problem with these aberrant languages lies not in the languages themselves but in the assumptions made by historical-comparative linguists that "each language has its own community of speakers and each community has its own language" (1991:27). There is the further assumption that "the same association between people and language will continue from one generation to the next" (1991:27). By focusing on language as the defining characteristic of either events or cultures, orality as a term leads scholars into the problem which Grace has highlighted. Both historical and contemporary evidence convincingly show that

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language and language use vary widely throughout human society as do human societies themselves. While sociolinguists have generally accepted this as true for contemporary society, Grace's analysis argues that such variability must be assumed to be the case in all strictly oral societies as well. In other words, the term orality is no safe haven in which we can find the basic or fundamental human condition from which everything else derives. Orality as a phenomenon is as complex as we have come to find literacy to be. 7. Somatic communication

It is not difficult to argue that the term orality is insufficient, negative, obsolescent, phonocentric, logocentric, and uniformitarian. What is difficult is to suggest a term which will be useful in talking about at least the essential aspects of what has been called orality and which does not lead to the same problems or perhaps worse ones. So it is with considerable trepidation that we propose that somatic communication might be somewhat preferable. By suggesting the word somatic ((Greek 'body') we mean to make reference to the human body as the foundation of communication. In this we are following the lead of a Navajo woman whose grandson wanted to tape record and transcribe her stories. She said, "When you separate the word from the body, that's death" (Scollon and Scollon 1987). We would like to take her meaning to cover both the recording and transcription of words as well as to cover the exclusive focus on her words as separable from her actions. By using the word somatic we want to emphasize the multimodal or multisensory nature of communication between bodies, the inherent redundancy or resonance among these multiple modalities, the real-time rhythmic synchronies involved in such communication, and the essential co-presence of all participants to the communication. In suggesting such a term it is worth asking what it allows us to do as well as how it limits our analysis. In the first place, to emphasize somatic communication makes us aware that there is a somatic element in all communication. Such a term prohibits any construction of a great divide between what is somatic and what is not. One might talk of communications which are more or less somatic, perhaps, but none which are non-somatic or purely extra-somatic. Such neologisms as non-somatic or extra-somatic point to a characteristic of some interest then in analyzing writing, tape recording, photography, video, telephone, computers, or, in fact, drums and smoke signals — that they are dependent on some form of technological intervention between the bodies in communication. From such a point of view what is at issue here is technological intervention, not the inherent supposed psychological characteristics of any particular medium. Not only would one find no communications which are purely extra-somatic and therefore not be inclined to talk about 'somatic communication events' as a replacement for 'speech events', one would also find it absurd to try to imagine a purely extra-somatic culture. The somatic basis of all culture would be signaled

28

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

and one would hope no great divide of somatic vs. non-somatic cultures would be imagined. While we are putting this notion forward as an imaginative alternative we might also ask which problems this might shed new light upon. Among the characteristics assigned to literacy by great divide theories of literacy and orality is that literacy is decontextualizing. This has led to the alternative position of asserting the textuality or intertextuality of literacy. Clearly the difference lies not in context itself since it is taken by virtually all theorists of communication that meaning lies in the combined effects of message and context. Rather than quarreling about whether literacy or orality is more truly contextualized it might be said that intervening media tend to de-somatize communications. An analysis would show this, in turn, to mean something like simplification, a narrowing to a level of lesser sensory redundancy, to a dominance of some sensory modality over the others, to a dependency on the technology of the intervening medium, and to a shift from real-time processing to unlimited reanalysis through indefinite time.

8. The recognition of the somatic in communication For all of its problem the use of the term orality has come into common currency as part of a movement to recognize the somatic foundation of human communication. It is this to which the term orality has pointed. Pound, Olson, Snyder, Duncan and many others have n'ow worked at restoring the human voice in contemporary poetry. Since Albert B. Lord (Lord 1970) called the attention of scholars to the singing of tales we have learned to hear as much as to read such works as The Iliad or Beowulf. We have been reminded again and again of the human body at work in not only our greatest literature but our most common day-to-day conversations. As a reminder and as a stimulus toward this recognition the term orality has served us well. Orality as a term, however, has tended to block our understanding that all culture is based on orality (insufficiency), that orality is not an ostacle to be overcome (negativity), that orality is not a historically or developmentally prior condition (obsolescence), that orality is, in fact, multisensory and multimodal (phonocentrism), that orality is non-verbal as well as verbal (logocentrism), and that it is a highly variable phenomenon across events, societies, and throughout history and prehistory (uniformitarianism). To the extent these limits are understood and considered in comparative analyses, orality can still be a useful term, but perhaps it is time to begin to look for another word.

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References Cited DeFrancis, J. 1989 Gee,J.P. 1989

Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Essays by James Paul Gee. Journal of Education 171(1).

Goffman, E. 1961 Asylums. Garden City: Anchor Books. Grace, G. 1991 "How Do Languages Change? (More on 'Aberrant' Languages)." Paper Presented at the Sixth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Honolulu, 24 May 1991. Hirsch, E. D. 1987 Cultural Literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Ho, P. Y. 1985 Hymes, D. 1981 Lord, A. B. 1970 Meyers, N. 1984 Ong, W.J. 1982 Scollon, R. 1991

U, Qi and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilisation in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. "In Vain I Tried to Tell You." Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. The Singer of Tales. New York: Atheneum. Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management. Garden City: Anchor Books. Orality and literacy. New York: Methuen.

"China and Literacy: Does Sinographic Asia Tell Us Anything New or Useful About Literacy?" Working Papers on China, Literacy, and American/East-Asian Intercultural Communication. Haines, Alaska: Black Current Press. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. 1980 "Literacy as Focused Interaction." Quarterly Newsletter of the laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. Vol. 2(2): 26-29. 1981 Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. 1987 The Problem of Power. Haines, AK: The Black Current Press. Scribner, S. and Cole, M. 1981 The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shils, F. 1981 Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Snyder, G. 1980 The Real Work: Interviews and Talks, 1964-1979. New York: New Directions. Street, B. 1984 LMeracy in Theory and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tannen, D. 1989 Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tedlock, D. 1983 The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press.

ELISABETH GÜLICH and THOMAS KOTSCHI

Discourse Production in Oral Communication A Study Based on French* /.

v4 linguistic approach to the description of discourse production activities

1.1 Previous linguistic research In the approach to the analysis of oral communication to be presented in this article, we will concentrate on the activities speakers carry out during the process of discourse production. In particular, we will deal with so called formulating activities, i. e. activities for which a speaker holds him/herself responsible and can also be made responsible for by an interlocutor. Assuming that utterances produced in oral communication are a result of such formulating activities, an important part of our work will consist of looking at the characteristic features of spoken utterances — as they have been described for English, French, German and many other languages — from the point of view of some theoretical considerations about the phenomena of discourse production. Studying these features under the perspective of this approach may allow us to reinterpret them to some extent, to provide a new, and perhaps better, systematic description of these features, and to relate them to other aspects of oral communication. Focusing on the concept of discourse production, and in particular formulating activities, in the analysis of utterances from oral communication, means at the same time devoting special attention to the process by which these utterances come into existence. For a long time linguistic, and even text-linguistic studies of spoken language concentrated on the result, i. e., on utterances or on texts, and largely neglected the process which brings them about. Studies of discourse production were considered to be the domain of psycholinguistics. In contrast to such psycholinguistic studies, the cognitive aspects will not be emphasized within the view that this article takes of discourse production activities; instead, we will focus our attention on phenomena which are directly observable in discourse.1 The assumption is that, whenever problems emerge or obstacles * This article goes back to a draft originally written in German. The present version is based on a translation by Gisela Baumann. 1 This view is held by a number of authors in the collections of Antos/Krings (1989) and Krings/ Antos (1992). Antos (1989) gives an extensive overview of the different approaches to research on discourse production. Levelt (1989) is representative of recent psycholinguistic work. The contrast of "cognitive" and "directly observable" phenomena is of course a simplification. Levelt

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

31

have to be overcome, a speaker's work of discourse production leaves traces in his/her linguistic utterances, which are then accessible to linguistic analysis2. We thus discuss activities of discourse production in the process of conversational interaction. We will analyze how the work of discourse production is done under the conditions of spontaneous oral communication or "conceptional orality" (a term used by Koch/Oesterreicher 1990). We will speak of procedures which the co-participants employ to produce linguistic utterances. Some of these procedures were described in our earlier work (e. g. Gülich/Kotschi 1987 a and b; Gülich 1986 a and b; Kotschi 1986, 1990). In this paper we will put the emphasis on reflections both on the theoretical status of such procedures and also on how they relate to each other. We may thus be able to contribute to a theory of discourse production activities to be worked out, hoping that it will be possible to place it within the context of other approaches to the analysis of oral communication. Even though previous linguistic research on oral communication did not pay particular attention to discourse production, we can usefully take it into consideration and build on its results. Two research strands in particular, both with their own specific profile, are merged in our approach to the analysis of oral communication: spoken-language research on the one hand and text linguistics and pragmatics on the other hand. The study of spoken language has a long tradition, reaching back to a time when there was no specific interest in communicative aspects; instead, the focus was on issues concerning the differences between spoken and written language, and thus on the typical features of spoken language, including special consideration of the problems of linguistic norm. Only in connection with the text linguistic approach more complex features of discourse came into view. Structuring markers, for example, have been regarded as typical of spoken language for a long time, but — as can now be shown — their functions with respect to oral communication can only be adequately described with respect to the discourse context (cf. Gülich 1970). In our own work on activities of discourse production, we also started out from certain individual phenomena of oral communication, such as paraphrase markers (Gülich/Kotschi 1983 a and b), and later slowly shifted our attention first to reformulating procedures and then to activities of discourse production in general. Studies of spoken language generally indicate that the interest in matters of oral communication and discourse production has increased considerably. The most recent extensive study of spoken French for example — Blanche-Benveniste (1990) — clearly expresses this tendency:

2

in particular also shows an interest in "surface structures"; the difference lies in the startingpoints: whereas Levelt procedes "from intention to articulation", it is the articulated discourse which is chosen as the outset for the approach presented here. "Formulating as problem solving" is the basic idea of Antos (1982; cf. especially ch. 4), which we took up in Gülich/Kotschi (1987 a and b), developing it further with reference to examples taken from oral communication in French.

32

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines To study spoken French is to study discourse generally not prepared in advance. So when we produce unprepared discourse, we construct it in the course of its production, leaving traces of this production (17; translated from French).

Koch/Oesterreicher (1990) argue in a similar way when they take some features of spoken language to be universal because "one can describe how they derive from universal conditions of communication and verbalization strategies" (50; translated from German); some syntactic phenomena are explicitly said to be "reflections of the process of discourse production in the syntactic structure" (83). The development of research on spoken language thus exhibits a clear tendency towards regarding spoken language as an independent field which follows its own rules and regulations, instead of analyzing it only in contrast with written language. This tendency is already evident in the review article by Betten (1977/ 78), which deals extensively with the influence of pragmatics and conversation analysis on spoken-language research (cf. also Schank/Schoenthal 1976, 21983). So the research object not only expanded from smaller to more complex units (macrosyntax), it also underwent a qualitative change: new phenomena came into view — to an extent that the "classic" features of the code par/e, usually contrasted with a code ecrii, lost their particular relevance (cf. Blanche-Benveniste's comprehensive study offranfaispar/e, where typical morphological features as well as other characteristics are intentionally left aside; see 1990:14). While on the one hand our research work is to be seen within the context of studies on spoken language, it has, on the other hand, been strongly influenced by the research in text linguistics and pragmatics that has been carried into effect during the last 25 years. The importance of early studies in text linguistics, for instance, manifests itself in the fact that the textuality of the linguistic sign (Hartmann 1971) and the systematic interpretation of linguistic phenomena from the angle of context and speech situation (demonstrated by Weinrich (1964) for the example of tense) could then also be studied with respect to utterances from oral communication. Text linguistics, which previously had been mainly oriented towards written texts, could then exert some influence on the development of new approaches in discourse analysis (which we participated in). As far as pragmatics is concerned, the special consideration to be directed towards speech act theory and the theory of verbal action in general, had an important impact as well: in Gülich/Kotschi (1987 a) we took up the distinction between several types of verbal actions made by Motsch/Pasch (1987) and distinguished structures of discourse production activities from other verbal actions. At the same time, with respect to the description of individual reformulating procedures, we have been led by proposals coming from ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis. This resulted in an increased concentration on interactive phenomena. Again, developments within this research tradition come out to be modifications in quality as well as quantitative extensions of the research object: text, action and interaction3 appear to be quite distinct research topics. 3

The role played by the concept of interaction in the whole development of recent linguistics is traced in detail by Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990). See also Heritage, this volume.

R. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

33

One can therefore regard our approach as a contribution to the analysis of spoken interactional discourse which continues the research on spoken language but shifts the methodological focus by taking procedures of discourse production instead of individual linguistic phenomena as the object of study. These procedures are indicated by specific linguistic phenomena observable in spoken discourse. 1.2. Methodological considerations In our analysis of these phenomena we are guided at the present time by methodological considerations put forward in the frame of studies which are mainly linked to two approaches: 1) to ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis, developed by Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson and others4 and 2) to the kind of discourse analysis developed by Roulet and others in Geneva, which is based on dialogue, speech act theory and argumentation theory3. There are thus three leading principles which determine our analysis of activities of discourse production: — We emphasize sequential aspects of verbal utterances: the activities of discourse production are regarded as processes in the course of which formulations are produced, treated as unsatisfactory and reformulated in such a way that the progressive accomplishment of utterances can be observed. — We stress the interactive character of discourse production and regard verbal utterances as the result of an "interactive construction" (Goodwin 1979 and this volume) or — as Schegloff (1982) puts it — an "interactional achievement": The production of a spate of talk by one speaker is something which involves collaboration with the other parties present, and that collaboration is interactive in character, and interlaced throughout the discourse, that is, it is an ongoing accomplishment, rather than a pact signed at the beginning, after which the discourse is produced entirely as a matter of individual effort (1982:73).

As a logical step, we also regard every monologic utterance, as potentially dialogic (cf. Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1990:14). — We take into account the specific function that certain groups of markers fulfill in creating and specifying relations between discourse constituents on 4

5

For an overview cf. Sudnow (1972), Schenkein (1978), Psathas (1979) and Atkinson/Heritage (1984), as well as Kallmeyer/Schütze (1976), Bergmann (1981), Streeck (1983) (for its reception in Germany) and Bachmann/Lindenfeld/Simonin (1981), Bange (1983), Coulon (1987), Gülich (1991) (for its reception in France). See also Heritage, this volume. The earliest version was published in Cahiers de I'mguistique francaise 1/1980. Roulet et al. (1985) can be regarded as representative of the early phase in the development of this model. Roulet (1989) and Moeschler (1990) give a summary of the development, while Roulet (1991) and issue no. 13/1992 of Cahiers de Ijnpuistique Francaise, ed. by Moeschler, provide information about more recent developments.

34

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

various hierarchic levels. By subjecting some of these markers to structural and semantic analyses, distinctions between and classifications of discourse production activities can be described more adequately. Some of these markers (especially connectors) combine discourse productive and argumentative functions (cf. Roulet 1987); insofar as studies of discourse production activities make use of such analyses of markers, new perspectives may also open up for a description of the structure of conversational argumentation. The first two principles are taken from Conversation Analysis; principle three is derived from the analysis of French conversations carried out on the basis of the "Geneva model" of discourse analysis6.

2.

Three types of traces of discourse production

2.0.

Preliminary remarks

We stated above that the speakers' work of discourse production leaves traces in the utterances they produce and that it is these traces which are accessible to linguistic analysis. As a result of the analyses we carried out on corpora of spoken discourse and of our previous work on reformulating procedures, we have distinguished three types of such traces and have related them to different aspects of the work of discourse production. The first type consists of all phenomena usually regarded as typical of "parole" or "performance": hesitation phenomena, incomplete utterances, false starts, repeated words or syllables etc. They are no doubt part of what constitutes 'conceptual orality' and certainly have their own structures and order. We interpret them as markers signalling verbalisation procedures, such as self-repair, completion, etc. Among the second type of trace we subsume phenomena with a more complex structure; it is characteristic of them that they refer to a preceding segment by means of a new utterance, which somehow changes, modifies, reformulates or expands the earlier utterance. In other words, the speaker performs some kind of treatment on an utterance which has already been produced. We will therefore refer to this type of trace as treatment procedures. Wellknown treatment procedures include paraphrases, repetitions, corrections, or explications. In French, typical markers of these procedures are expressions like c'est-a-dire, enfin, done, etc. Finally the third type consists of explicit metadiscursive evaluation and commenting procedures, where expressions such as comment dirais-je, entre guillemets, comme on dit serve as markers. With such utterances on a metadiscursive level, a speaker refers 6

The compatibility of 'conversation analysis (based on ethomethodology)' and 'discourse analysis (based on speech act theory)' has been the subject of a long-running debate traced by Brassac (1992) (cf. also Searle etal/1992).

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

35

Table 1

VERBALIZATION markers

procedures

TREATMENT markers

procedures

QUALIFICATION markers

procedures

to different kinds of problems in discourse production. In contrast to treatment procedures, they tend to designate rather than to selve certain communication problems. These procedures are somewhat like an explicit manifestation of a speaker's constant cognitive monitoring of his/her discourse production. With respect to this third type of trace we will speak of qualification procedures. These three types of traces refer to different kinds of discourse production activities, i. e.: verbalisation, treatment, and qualification. Among these activities verbalization is the fundamental one as it takes place whenever linguistic utterances are produced, while treatment or qualification of utterances already produced are additional activities, even though very common in spontaneous spoken discourse. Table 1 sums up the distinctions we have made. It shows the different activities of discourse production (verbalization, treatment and qualification) and the traces they leave in discourse. We take these traces as our starting-point, for the analysis of traces makes it possible to infer specific types of activities. In addition to the marker itself (e. g. the expression c'est-a-dire or a hesitation phenomenon like a filled pause) the respective procedure it specifies (e. g., paraphrasing or self-repair) is also regarded as a trace of discourse production activities. The various types of traces shall be discussed in greater detail in the following sections, using examples from French. Their analysis will give us better access to several different, but always central features of discourse production. 2.1

Verbalisation procedures

2.1.1

General characteristics

Markers of verbalization procedures appear in nearly every fragment of spontaneous speech. The following example may serve as an illustration. It is taken from a conversation between two young Frenchmen talking about the requirements for taking an external baccalaureate; they have difficulty in naming the necessary documents.

36 (1)

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines 1 C: 2 3 4 5 A: 6 C: 7 A: 8 9 10 [ C: 11 A:

12 C: 13 A: 14[C: 15 A:

(forte) ban prHmierement pour=eh & pour avoir la listH, pour qu'ca soit HUx . qui definissent la liste des:—Oeuvres a travailler' - et qui ä p/ äpartir de la'. euh: t'envoient des: des COURs'.. euh: (en)fm des devOIRs . sur sur ces oeuvres-lä .mh paar ta preparation, .j(e) CROIs qu'c'estpossib(le) ca, ... (hesitating) OU1 non mais ca c'est euh:: j/ . (en)ßn c'est c(e) quej(e) j'favais: c'est Je: /es:: les papiers qu(e) favais euh: . que le cned m'avait envoyes: au debut (toying with a lighter) de l'annee'

. mbm

16 C: [Lettre au rectorat]

(en)ftn en semptEMbre ou: * ouais, ouais,* AOUT(H),+ mh

Focusing on lines 8 and 9 alone, one can find no less than six markers of verbalization procedures within this short stretch of talk: a filled pause (euh::), a false start (//), a correction marker ((en)ßti), a new start after an unfinished utterance (c'est c(e) que), a lengthened vowel towards the end of a word (j't'avai: s); finally, there are two cases of a syntagmatic combination of two elements which belong to one and the same morphological paradigm (le: les:: and les:: les papiers). (Such combinations are usually marked prosodically — here by means of vowel lengthening.) Such markers are relatively well-known because they have been described again and again as typical features of spontaneous discourse production. However, the procedures themselves, which are signalled by these markers, have rarely been studied — one of the few exceptions being self-repair. Some further candidates for a typology of such procedures are changes of syntactic construction, (interactive) progressive completion (cf. Giilich 1986 a) or the so-called "denominating work", which has recently been described rather extensively by Blanche-Benveniste (1990) (cf. 2.1.2. below). It is a general feature of verbalization procedures and their markers that they "interrupt" the linear succession of constituents of the syntactic surface structure. In written records of oral utterances (such as normally in written versions of interviews), they are therefore often deleted, and one obtains a structure which, as a rule, corresponds to what an interlocutor has understood and stores in his/her short-term memory. For example, someone hearing extract (1) will comprehend part of the lines 8 and 9 of the dialogue as something like, "c'est [or: ce soni\ les papiers que le cned m'avait envoyes", although the form actually uttered is (la) c'est le: les:: les papiers qu(e) favais euh: . que le cned m'avait envoyes:'

For the purposes of our study it is particularly useful to have a description of verbalization procedures which insures that the actual sequence of utterance constituents remain clearly visible, and that at the same time the procedures themselves be recorded in every detail. These requirements are met by the tran-

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

37

scription system suggested by Blanche-Benveniste (1990); it places all verbalization procedures along the axis of paradigmatic relations, so that the syntagmatic relations alone are exposed along the "horizontal" axis. Transcript (la) is then transformed into (la') c'est le: /es:: /es papiers

qu(e) j'avais euh: . que le cned m'avail envoyes

Such a transcript layout in which line numbers and initials of speakers are omitted immediately reveals the linguistic structure of procedures such as self-repair and progressive completion. 2.1.2. Occurrence on various levels In general, verbalization problems indicated by markers of the kind mentioned above can occur on various levels. (i) On the level of phonetic realization: the false position of a phoneme can constitute a verbalization problem, which is solved by interrupting one's talk and starting afresh, as in the following example (taken from a different recording): (2)

c'est tout ä fait une astuce qu'on appelle une legende jur/ urbaine [Bouillon de culture]

(ii) On the morpho-lexical level: a verbalization problem may occur when a speaker produces or memorizes a complex word or a particularly unusual wordform, e. g. for stylistic purposes. Inserting a filled pause (or something similar) may then contribute to its resolution. (3)

mime si un un disons quelqu'un euh disons un francais de souche [Elsaß]

(iii) On the lexico-semantic level: verbalization problems appearing on this level can be solved by so-called "denominating work" (cf. Blanche-Benveniste 1990), which a speaker may carry out: he/she tries to find a word to express a certain concept, and to this end either syntagmatically links two or more linguistic expressions paradigmatically related to each other, or provides "lists"; see, for instance, another extract from (1): (lb)

la an debut de I'annee' (en)fm en septHMbre ou:AOUT(E),+

It is remarkable that verbalization procedures, in particular on the lexicosemantic level, often take an interactive form. The following fragment is a case in point; both speaker and interlocutor participate in the "denominating work" (including the use of metadiscursive expressions, see 2.3. below):

38 (4)

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines I T : 2 3 4 Γ MB: 5 [ T: 6 7

[...] j'ai dit ma fille ilfaut absolument que . que tu series de ta coquilk . ek et bien I'attitude dans /es memes maisons 1'attitude des gens n'est plus du tout la meme mhm mhm if/ ifaut: i faut., comment vous dirais-je: .. ifautpas avoir I'air de. d'hesiter ilfaut je (tie) sais pais il ilfaut s'creer une personnalite out

MB:

8 9 10 11

T: MB: T:

12

MB:

out avoir I'air s'imposer s'impo/ pas euh non

13 T: s'imposer tout tout en 14 j· 'imposant pas 15 MB: c'est ca out naturellement alors [Orleans 53]

For lines 5 to 14 of this example the transcription conventions suggested by Blanche-Benveniste yield the following pattern7: (40

// ifaut ifaut c. vous dirais-je: .. i faut pas avoir fair de d'hesiter ilfaut je (tie) sais pas il ilfaut s'creer une personnalite oui oui avoir I'air s'imposer s'impo/ pas euh non s'imposer tout tout en s'imposant pas

In this example, the interlocutors participate in a conversational negotiation process, which ends when they agree on a concept, which, however, is not adequately expressed by only one of the expressions they put forward. In the course of this process the interlocutors constitute a new "social meaning" (cf. KaUmeyer 1981:90). (iv) Problems coming up when the speaker has to choose a syntactic structure which has to be the "right one" (with respect to the "state of affairs" to be identified or to its insertion into the co-text), can also count as verbalization problems. In example (1 a') the selection of the verb form envojes makes it necessary to change the syntactic structure already embarked on.8 - Also with respect 7

8

In the context of the present argument it is perfectly legitimate to omit markers for the designation of the individual speakers. This omission even allows to illustrate more clearly the interactive character of the activity of discourse production taking place. It is especially because of such structural breaks that the concept of sentence was abandoned in studies of grammatical characteristics of spoken French (cf. Blanche-Benveniste 1991, Deulofeu 1989 and, for further discussion, Kotschi 1991). Instead, units pertaining to the information structure moved into the center of analytical and descriptive attention.

R. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

39

to this level, one can observe the procedure of interactive completion mentioned above, as can be illustrated by means of the following example: (5)

1 A: s(i) tu vas ä Lyon c(e)l apres-midi moije te conseille un true' c'est d'aller 2 C: ouais 3 A: euh:: 4 C: au Flammarion' 5 A: . ben on tu VliUx mais en tout cas' de & de & de t(e) 6 TROUVHR des . des—annales du bac de francais' [Lettre au rectorat]

At a certain point of speaker A's turn, speaker C selects one of several possible syntactic continuations (namely by "offering" a prepositional phrase, au Flammarion, in line 3 instead of an alternative non-finite construction, which is handed in later in the form of trouver, etc.). (v) Finally, the pragmatic level needs to be considered, for any verbalization includes structuring of the text by "packaging" it into information units (cf. Brown/Yule 1983; Chafe 1987). One of the tasks a speaker has to fulfill is to specify the size and internal structure of information units. Therefore, transition places between two information units often exhibit markers of verbalization procedures, such as pauses, hesitation phenomena, modifications in the speech melody, or other prosodic variations, cf. (6)

1 W3: oui mais quand meme justement' les bouquins de Queneau OH de Vian o»: 2 euh ban . quoi si on prend ces exemples-la [Norm 304]

The lengthened on: , the euh, and also the brief pause between bon and quoi can be regarded in this case as markers of verbalization procedures. The use of bon and quoi shows that the markers discussed here can co-occur with so-called structuring markers. Occurrences of the latter (at least in some of their uses) can have functions very much like those of markers of verbalization procedures. 2.2

Treatment procedures

2.2.1. General characteristics

A second type of trace of discourse production is involved when a speaker delimits an earlier segment of talk, produced by him/herself or another interlocutor, by referring back to it with a new expression, "working on it" or "treating it" in some way. We therefore speak of treatment procedures. Examples (7) and (8) show how a speaker treats a preceding expression, which we will call the reference expression, as insufficient by suggesting an alternative, the treating expression. (7)

1 C : moiffai passe [i. e. le bzc]j't'ai dit' . dam des conditions completement euh:: 2 normales (softly) enfm bon euh: + apres une premiere' quoi [Lettre au rectorat]

(8)

1 C: & done tu tombes avec un examinateur mais tu saispa:s qui: avanf . (breathes) 2 et euh: U regarde ta liste' ei pis i(l) choisit a/ors i// parfois i(l) te demande ton 3 avis' c' (est)-ä-dire sur quoi tu preferes travailler' mais c'est relativement rAre [Lettre au rectorat]

40

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

Table 2

reference expression ex. (7)

marker

treating expression

dans des conditions completement eub:: normales enfm bon eub:: apres une premiere quoi

ex. (8)

i(l) te demand« ton avis' c'(est)-a-dire sur quoi tu prefires travailler1

The speaker's activity in these examples consists of retrospectively characterizing an expression produced earlier on (dans des conditions completement euh: normales and i(l) te demande ton avis', respectively) as insufficient and therefore merely preliminary (as the trouble source, to use a conversation analytic term). To resolve the problems thus indicated, the speaker has procedures (or "methods" in the ethnomethodological sense of the word (see Heritage, this volume)) at his/her disposal; they allow him/her to modify, to state more precisely, to explicate, or to correct the segment of talk which is thereby specified as a "reference expression". Such treatment procedures are called reformulations. The typical structure of reformulations contains one or more expression functioning specifically as a marker or markers; the three-part structure which thus results (and which is described in detail in Gülich/Kotschi 1987 a and 1987b) is illustrated in table 2. Similar structures can be observed with other procedures as well. In those cases, however, the motivation for treatment seems to originate less in some trouble source than in more global discourse goals, e. g., certain argumentation strategies. This applies, for instance, to generalisations (cf. (9)) or exemplifications (cf. (10)): (9)

1 R: votfs i'alimente^ comment ce compte [...] comment vous I'alimente^ . & pane 2 que . un compte de non-resident'. ilfaut qu'il sott alimente eu:: h .. [...] [A la banque]

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production (10)

41

l E: l'alimentation du campte' .. ilfaut que . qu'ette reponde ä des normes precises 2 j(e) VOHS dis' . + u n travail effectue en france'. ou bien le cas d'un marinier' 3 par exemple, quifait un transport pour eu: h . un francais'. ä ce moment-lä /'/ lui 4 faut la: .. facture'. ilfaut des . des preuves' [A la banque]

In (9) the speaker, a bank clerk, addresses a German student and comes up with the question of how she as a foreigner will ensure that money will be regularly paid into the account she intends to open (VOHS I'alimente^ comment ce compte). Subsequently he formulates a general rule: un compte de non-resident ilfaut qu'il soit alimente. Extract (10) illustrates the opposite procedure: first, the speaker gives the general rule (I'alimentation du compte il faut qu'elle reponde a des normes precises], then he illustrates it by a sequence of examples (which comprises several steps), presenting among others the case of a sailor (j(e) vous dis un travail [...] Ufaut des preuves}. In both examples, an already existing expression becomes the reference expression of a treatment procedure; but the relationship between reference and treatment expression is obviously more complex in this case than in examples (7) and (8). Procedures such as generalizations and exemplifications will therefore be called non-reformulating treatment procedures. Comparing reformulating and non-reformulating treatment procedures, it appears that markers occur less frequently together with non-reformulating than with reformulating procedures. Although exemplifications are often realized by means of markers such as par exemple (see e. g. (10)), one can hardly say with respect to generalizations that an element from one specific subgroup of markers9 is usually employed (cf. Drescher 1992). The following two aspects need to be emphasized in connection with reformulating as well as non-reformulating treatment procedures: — the semantic relation between reference expression and treatment expression and the role of markers indicating this relation (cf. 2.2.2); — possible classifications of reformulating and non-reformulating treatment procedures (cf. 2.2.3). 2.2.2. Semantic relations and their markers The semantic relation between reference expression and treating expression can always be characterized in terms of two opposite perspectives. On the one hand, we usually find a relation of equivalence, even if only in a broad sense, which is either expressed by the features of the two respective expressions or indicated by a special marker (for the crucial role that markers play in such procedures, see also 2.2.3. below). On the other hand, there has to be a relation of "difference" between reference and treating expression — otherwise there would be nothing that could legitimately be designated as "treatment" procedure. Both 9

The marker pane que appearing in (9) cannot be regarded as a member of such a subgroup. In the present context it has a far more general function (cf. Moeschler 1989).

42

II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

relations can be present to varying degrees; the way in which they are combined is probably a central feature of the various types of treatment procedures. (i) In the present context, the relation of equivalence is to be understood in a fairly broad sense because it encompasses a wide range of graduations. In line with Viehweger (1977:260ff.), this broad concept also includes relations between expressions sharing only a limited semic basis and which can therefore be counted as equivalent only in a "partially denotative (i. e. a mixed denotativereferential) sense" (261). For crucial functions in discourse, this weak equivalence is, however, sufficient; with respect to two constituents, X and Y, it permits an "identifying referential repetition" (Hölker 1988:78ff.); this is to say that a speaker can refer with to the same referent to which he already referred with X, with the additional requirement that the referent is identified (or shall be identified) with both X and Y. The expression of equivalence then serves not only to establish coherence between different parts of a text (as it is the case with pronominal substitution), but also to perform a double identification, avoidable in principle, which is usually achieved by different means. Insofar as specific forms of such a kind of equivalence can normally be found in any sufficiently large corpus, it might appear as if the relation between reference expression and treating expression was generally based on this relation of equivalence. However, taking a closer look at the role played by the range of pragmatic markers in establishing the treatment relation, it becomes evident how in some cases the mere use of certain markers (a good example is c'est-a-dire) causes the simultaneous presence of two given expressions to be understood as establishing a relation of equivalence. The marker can then be interpreted as an instruction to the hearer to relate the two expressions to each other. (ii) The second aspect relevant to the description of the relations between reference expression and treating expression concerns the specific kind of "difference" expressed by a treatment procedure: every treating expression contains something new, an element of change, of communicative "progression". As a rule, some kind of "variation" is at least suggested. Even in the borderline case of syntactic and lexical identity between reference expression and treating expression, i. e., in the case of repetition or "rephrasing", the repeated segment may receive a modified meaning by some kind of intonational deviation. At the very least, the difference consists in the fact that — simply because of its position — the treating expression has a different, larger "discourse history" in comparison with the reference expression. Indeed the procedural character of conversation (cf. Franck 1980:49, see also Heritage, this volume) requires particular attention: as every discourse segment must be interpreted in the light of the preceding onces (cf. e. g. Brown/Yule 1983), there can be no "pure" repetition without any "increase" of semantic features (which is why the term rephrasing is preferable to repetition], It is these aspects of content making up the difference between reference expression and treating expression which determine the particular type of treat-

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ment procedure: the specific kind of variation between two expressions can be achieved e. g. by paraphrasing, correcting, exemplifying generalising (see below 2.2.3). (iii) A prominent structural feature of treatment procedures is the use of expressions specifically functioning as markers, such as c'est-a-dire, enfm, bon, quoi, de taute fafon, en general, par exemple and many others. Their use represents the standard case because such markers, alternatively called connectors, occur in most instances of "prototypical" treatment procedures (see below 2.2.3). They are missing in only very few cases or in marginal procedures, and even then one can assume on the basis of individual cases — systematic studies are still missing — that the functions markers normally fulfill are instead realized by intonational or paralinguistic means. An explication of the frequent occurrence of markers could be that they themselves contribute in an important way to the creation of a relation between reference expression and treating expression. For it seems to be often the case that the semantic and structural features of the relation between reference expression and treating expression cannot on their own sufficiently determine the specific nature of the type of treatment concerned; in such cases this task is then exclusively fulfilled by the marker. It is probably due to the prominent status of markers that the occurrence and function of quite a few of them were analysed before the procedures they indicate had been studied (cf. Kohler-Chesny 1981; Schelling 1982; Gülich/Kotschi 1983 a and 1983 b; Hölker 1988). Notably paraphrase markers (such as c'est-a-dire, c'est que, je veux dire, autrement dit, en d'auires termes) were studied from various angles (KohlerChesny 1981; Gülich/Kotschi 1983 a and b; Authier-Revuz 1987; Murat/CartierBresson 1987; Tamba 1987 and especially Kotschi 1990). Without being able to develop the implications of a thorough analysis of some of these markers in any greater detail, we would like to emphasize at this point that their detailed description constitutes an important preparation for developing a typology of the treatment procedures themselves. It can therefore be safely assumed that any description of the occurrence and functions of an individual marker will help to complete the typology of procedures. 2.2.3 Typology Any attempt to classify treatment procedures has to take into account at least the following aspects: (i) Reformulating versus non-reformulating treatment procedures. — A first distinction briefly mentioned in section 2.2.1 concerns reformulating and nonreformulating treatment procedures. The need for this distinction arises from the following observation: procedures by which the speaker retrospectively characterizes an utterance as insufficient, and therefore recognizes it as a trouble source, are not the only type to play a role in this group; there also exist procedures where the motivation for working on a preceding expression seems to derive less from a trouble source than from discourse goals independent of it (such as certain rhetorical or argumentative strategies). In both cases, motivation by a trouble source or by some other means, one can, however, speak of treatment.

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

treatment procedures

non-reformulating

reformulating

paraphrastic

repetitions

non-paraphrastic

paraphrases

dissociations

corrections

Figure 1

This is because the second type also constitutes a procedure in which a certain expression refers to a preceding expression in such a way that a relation characterized by equivalence and difference is established between them. Thus we will call reformulating treatment procedures all those procedures motivated by a trouble source, and we will refer to all others as non-reformulating treatment procedures. Prominent examples of the latter group are generalisations (cf. ex. (9); Drescher (1992) provides a detailed study of this procedure) and exemplifications (cf. ex. (10)).10 (ii) Paraphrastic versus non-paraphrastic reformulations. — It is possible to differentiate between paraphrastic and non-paraphrastic reformulations (cf. Roulet 1987 and Rossari 1993). This suggestion offers an interesting way of subdividing the class of reformulating treatment procedures. The distinction is based on the assumption that markers like de toute fapn, en somme, en un mot, tout compte fait, somme toute, apres tout, en tout cas, en fait, de fait, au fond have a particular feature in common: they indicate something which would not be expressed by the discourse structure alone (i. e. without the presence of one of these markers), namely the "change in utterance perspective", which at the same time indicates a certain degree of distance to the perspective contained in the reference expression. Since the maximum degree of distance can even equalize "invalidation" (indicated e. g. by enfiri), one may assume that this subclass also comprises the systematic place to be occupied by corrections. — Figure 1 incorporates the distinctions between procedures mentioned so far as well as those between the procedures we will discuss in (iii) and (iv). 10

The distinction between reformulating and non-reformulating treatment procedures — made with reference to the criterion of trouble source — could be criticized because of the fact that it appears at first sight to apply only to cases of self-treatment as a matter of fact, other-repetitions and other-paraphrases for instance frequently function as agreement or confirmation in dialogues (cf. Krüger 1992) and one could wonder whether this is still in agreement with the assumption that

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(iii) Repetitions versus paraphrases. — The distinction between a) repetitions and b) paraphrases arises from their particular structural characteristics and their functions. a) We speak of repetitions (rephrasages, cf. Gülich/Kotschi 1987b; repetitions, cf. Arditty 1987) if reference expression and treating expression are identical with respect to their lexical and syntactic structure, and we assume this to be also the case where pronouns, verbal morphemes, etc. of the reference expression are substituted within the treating expression to adapt the personal and temporal deixis to the requirements of the communicative situation. Accordingly, we distinguish between literal and non-literal repetitions. This distinction, however, applies only to other-repetitions, for self-repetitions are always literal: if morphological changes of the stated kind occur, one has to speak of paraphrases, "dissociations" or corrections. The following extract (11) contains one example each of a literal and a non-literal repetition: (11)

1 W2: 2 3 4 A: 5 [ W2: 6 [Norm]

[...] quandje repis une lettre de quelqu'un [...] je fais attention (...?) tiens y a une faute tiens y a une faute tiens y a une faute (softly) tiens y a une faute+ mhmh et fa te choque quandje re/ ouats quand enfin fa me choque ban: tout est relatif[...\

While the three repetitions of tiens j a une faute are a stylistic device which iconically represents the reported fact that the speaker repeatedly found another mistake, the repetition of fa te choque as fa me choque has quite a different function. When speaker W2 utters fa me choque — after twice having interrupted her utterance —, she is doing two things: On the one hand, she quotes A's fa te choque (the change from te to me has no interpretative relevance here), and thus accomplishes — after having produced the correction marker enfin — her new start with an expression establishing coherence (ca [...] choque — ca [...] choque) and which she subsequently turns into the object of a comment. On the other hand, she presents ca me choque (and now the change in the personal pronoun is indeed relevant) as an utterance for which she takes responsibility, but whose validity is restricted by means of ban: tout est relatif insofar as one can understand it like this: fa me choque is valid, provided that the meaning of chequer is qualified. This dual chapter of a treating expression such as fa me choque in example (11) has been termed "explicit diaphony" (cf. Roulet et al. 1985 : 72 ff.). Such diaphonic expressions occur preferably, though not exclusively, in connection with nonliteral repetitions. Although they are probably not absent altogether from literal repetitions, the substitution of pronouns (or other morphemes), which is typical of non-literal repetitions, does seem to favour a diaphonic interpretation. these treatment procedures should be motivated by the existence of a trouble source. It seems adequate, however, to assume that the functions of confirmation and agreement are secondary ones which, under certain conditions, come to the fore, without negating any identification of a trouble source. So cases of "other-treatment" can be seen to fulfill this criterion, too.

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

repetitions

non-literal

literal

complete

partial

complete

partial

Figure 2

paraphrases

expansions

specification

variations

explication

resume

reductions

denomination

Figure 3

The typology of repetitions should also draw upon a distinction between complete and partial repetitions, especially as far as other-repetitions are concerned. Example (11) contains complete repetitions. The treating expression of partial repetitions often consists only of a lexeme, syntagm of some other partial structure of the reference expression. Partial repetitions frequently function as an instruction addressed to the interlocutor to repeat an element of his/her utterance which deviates from the speaker's expectations in terms of acoustic clarity, coherence or normative conformity. Complete repetitions for their part can also serve to express agreement with the interlocutor's claim for truth raised by uttering the reference expression; moreover they can encourage turn continuation or (diaphonically) incorporate a coherence-securing expression as a startingpoint for taking the Boor (cf. Arditty 1987 : 62; Krüger 1992 : 76 ff.). The occurrence of partial and complete repetitions can present a particularly clear manifestation of interactively achieved discourse production, especially when the reference expression constitutes a more or less "fixed expression" (cf. Tannen 1987). We thus arrive at the typology of repetitions which is shown by figure 2. b) A typology of paraphrases was suggested in Gülich/Kotschi (1987 a : 239 f£), where the elements shown in Figure 3 are distinguished.

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Expansions are cases where the treating expression has a larger formative extension than the the reference expression, so that a sememe (or several sememes) of the reference expression is more or less arbitrarily broken down into individual features, which are represented by independent linguistic units in the treating expression (cf. Viehweger 1977:257). In extract (12) this applies to the two bold-face expressions, for the treating expression (avecurn sorte ...) explicates components of the sememe of rhi^omateux.11 (12)

1 M: [...] ces iris comme ca qui sont rhispmateux c'est-a-dire avec une sorte de. 2 de grosse rafine une . un gros tubercule allonge c'est bien C/T 3 O: out out out [MJ, Iris sauvages]

Reductions reverse the process characterizing an expansion; semantic features of a formatively larger semantic unit are "gathered up" and "condensed" into the sememe (or the sememes) of the treating expression, cf. (13)

1 M: [...] ces (überwies' fautpratiquement les latsser a la SURface du sol' [...] 2 O: et ne pas trap les: enterrer a/ors, [MJ], Iris sauvages]

Variations exhibit neither the characteristics of expansions nor those of reductions; as a rule, they can be recognized by the different sequential arrangement of more or less the same words. The following example shows this phenomenon: (14)

l MC: [...] done il a un pouvoir enorme sur le terrain quol, /outpas exagerer [...] 2 mais sur lapolitiquegenerale [...] c'est quandmeme enorme comme 3 pouvoir hein, [Assemblee generale]

Among the paraphrases corresponding to this type there are also those which can only be recognized as such if the referential relations of reference expression and treating expression are known. Paraphrases need to be subdivided even further: the paraphrase type of expansion is broken down into specification and explication, while the paraphrase type of reduction is subdivided into resume and denomination. This takes account of cases where paraphrases are used to introduce new aspects, to define an abstract concept, to make a summary, or to find a conceptualizing expression for some complex matter (for details see Gülich/Kotschi 1987a:241 ff.). (iv) Dissociations versus corrections. — The differentiation between a) dissociations and b) corrections as types of non-paraphrastic reformulating treatment pro11

One has to keep in mind that the treating expression — despite its larger formative extension — often contains not more but fewer denotatively relevant features than the reference expression. This also applies to the two expressions in example (12): some of the features of rhi^pmateux are not contained in avec une sorte de . de grosse racine une . un gros tubercule allonge (not all long root bulbs are rhizomes). Nevertheless it is possible of course that the word rhisymateux be little known or even unknown to an interlocutor. In this case the reformulating expression has the larger number of semantic features for this person.

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

dissociations

recapitulation

reconsideration

detachment

Figure 4

cedures is founded on the criterion of "invalidation": the validity of the reference expression is partly or completely "annulled" (cf. Gulich/Kotschi 1987 a: 243) in the instance of a correction, whereas this does not apply to "dissociations". a) We can distinguish three types of dissociation: recapitulations, reconsiderations and instances of detachment (cf. figure 4). Markers of recapitulations (i. e. "weak" dissociations) are en somme, en un mot and href. Reconsiderations ("medium" dissociations) are indicated by tout compte fait, somme toute, apres tout, en fin de compte, finalement, en definitive and instances of detachment ("strong" dissociations) are indicated by en tout cas, de toute fafon/maniere, en fait, de fait, en realite, au fond (on the semantic-pragmatic potential of individual markers, cf. Roulet 1987 and 1990; Rossari 1993). A speaker realizing "dissociation" procedures cannot omit the markers mentioned above without any loss; these procedures can only be realized (and recognized) if the corresponding markers are present. What the presence of a marker specifically expresses cannot be inferred from the discourse structure alone. So it takes the selection of a particular expression to determine the specific quality of the relation between reference expression and treating expressions.12 For some of these connectors the reference expression need not correspond to an actually realized discourse constituent; it can remain implicit, i. e. as a piece of information to be retrieved from discourse memory. For apres tout this holds even in the majority of cases, cf. (15)

1 C: [...] et aujourd'hui comment consideres^vous c(e) moment-lä: et 'eom2 merit pourrie^votts eire marxiste' ou avoir=encore en vous une PEtite graine 3 de Marx, .. 4 L: mais . la GRAINE de Marx quefai gardee' ires certainement' c'est 5 euh c'est certaines pensees d(e) philosophic' de Marx—apres tout, euh Marx a 6 ete . un . GRAND specialiste de c'que nous app(e)lons les sciences sociales 7 et humaines' et: [...] [Chancel/Levi-Strauss]

The reference "expression" of apres tout in this example is not a preceding discourse constituent but information accessible to all interlocutors, concerning 12

This applies to the procedure of recapitulation in the same way as to the other two types, which is why they are to be regarded as "dissociations" — despite their close relationship to paraphrases (and especially reductions).

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49

views on Marxism, possible counterarguments against a declared belief in Marxism at the time of speaking (aujourd'hui), etc. This information is associated with one standpoint and contrasted with a new, more appropriate point of view expressed by the treating expression Marx a ete un grand spedaliste de ce que nous appelons les sciences sociales et humaines. However, — and this is the specific function of apres tout — L expresses an all in all only limited dissociation from the first standpoint and merely "instructs" C not to keep all assumptions associated with the reference "expression" in his discourse memory.^ If one regards (15) as an example of a treatment procedure — which is what we suggested doing — one has necessarily to presuppose an understanding of the concept of "treatment" that allows for all cases in which the relations between an X and a Y typical of a "treatment" procedure can be established by the speaker (and comprehended by the interlocutor), even if X stands for information which is not explicitly expressed. At least two arguments can be put forward in favour of this conception: First: It generally applies to any discourse constituent that it needs to be interpreted not only in view of the information contained in the preceding constituents but also in the light of information inferable from them, or from the context and the general knowledge, respectively. Insofar as these two kinds of information (explicitly expressed information and inferable information) have a similar status in this general respect, one may tentatively place them on the same level when it comes to specifying constitutive elements of treatment procedures. Second: Recent studies of various types of pragmatic markers (cf. e. g. the contributions in Cahiers de linguistique franfaise 11 (1990), entitled "Marquage linguistique, inference et interpretation dans le discours") make it clear that an adequate description of these markers' particular achievement needs to take into account implicit information and mechanisms of infering it to a considerably larger extent than has been the case in the past (cf. Moeschler 1991 :22). b) Finally corrections: We take up Hölker's suggestion (1988: 81 ff.) and distinguish between corrections of form, corrections of formulation and corrections of content. Of special interest are corrections of content, which can be broken down into genuine and non-genuine ones (cf. Hölker 1988:57 and 81 ff.). The intended object of reference remains the same in non-genuine corrections of content, in spite of the change from reference expression to treating expression, whereas genuine corrections of content always contain a change in the intended object of reference. Example (16), which has been constructed for the purpose, may illustrate this point: 13

It might appear as if the marker apres tout had an argumentative function and identified the constituent it introduces as the argument for the preceding constituent. As Roulet (1990) emphasized in his detailed study of this marker, the argumentative relation exists independently of apres tout (even though an argumentative reinterpretation of this indicator is possible on a second level of meaning).

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corrections

corrections of form

corrections of formulation

genuine

corrections of content

non-genuine

Figure 5

(16) (a) Maintenant tu tournes a droite, enßn ä gauche, quoi. (b) Maintenant tu tournes a droite, enfin non, a gauche.

(16a) is uttered in a situation in which right from the beginning of the utterance the speaker refers to the direction which involves crossing the road; a droite can count as a mere slip of the tongue. (16b), however, could be uttered in a situation in which a speaker changes his/her mind in the course of the utterance and refers to one instead of the other direction. The use of quoi is only possible in the first case, i. e. in a non-genuine correction; in other words: in case of a correction of content, quoi indicates a non-genuine correction. This gives us the typology indicated in figure 5. (v) Summary. — Two results can be emphasized at the end of this discussion of reformulating treatment procedures. Firstly, it emerged that the sequence repetition—paraphrase—dissociation—correction is characterized by an increasing restriction of validity. While repetitions express no "distance", or do so merely under the particular conditions of explicit diaphony, one can say of paraphrases that they generally express "distance", albeit fairly weak. Dissociations contain various degrees of distance, "weak", "medium" or "strong", which always remain below the level of an invalidation; the latter is reserved for corrections. Secondly, we found that the four types of reformulating treatment procedures characteristically differ in their markers. Repetitions usually occur without any segmental marker. Although expressions such as ah, oui, c'est vrai, etc. appear in their vicinity, they do not, for themselves, mark the procedure as a repetition but serve independent, though sometimes parallel functions. For paraphrases there exists a very well characterized set of markers; they are, however, not indispensable to the signalling and the interpretation of a procedure as a paraphrase. This, in turn, is the case with markers of dissociation procedures. A constellation of discourse constituents cannot be marked as a dissociation without their presence. Corrections, finally, present a diffuse picture. Segmental markers

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are frequently used, but not always, and the markers used differ in their status. Beside typical correction markers such as enfm there are also markers with a different primary use (e. g. c'est-a-dire). 2.3. Qualification procedures

A third type of traces of text production is indicated by a large group of expressions of a (more or less explicit) metalinguistic or metadiscursive kind; speakers employ them to evaluate or to comment expressions (or sequences of expressions) which are part of the ongoing discourse and in doing so they mark out certain verbalization or communication problems. 2.3.1 General characteristics In French such expressions include tu vois/vous voye^ si vou^ voule^ entre guillemets, comment dirais-je, disons le mot. They occur in the following two extracts. (17)

1 Wl: alors tonte conversation qui n'est pas habituelle /' obligK a utiliser unli norme 2 W2: ben oui (...?) (?ca) 3 Wl: justement qui est unhi norme qui est vachement stereotypee to vois qui est ouais 4 A: 5 Wl: imposeepar euhpar tub /es instances superieures et euh [...] [Norm]

(18)

l C: anpeintre de talent, qui n'ajamaispu se: ... s'exprimer enfm euh ... sortir si 2 vous voule% entre quillemets voila, [...] et d'autrepart c'etait un homme qui 3 n 'avail pas LE comment dirais-je ... le le culot disons le mot le culot pour 4 s'affirmer [Claude]

In (17) speaker Wl uses tu vois to refer to the preceding stereotypee and marks it out as an expression which merits the particular attention of the listener — probably because it is a foreign word.14 In (18) we are dealing with a stretch of discourse in which a speaker chooses his words with great care. He first replaces the expression s'exprimer by sortir — employing the correction marker enfin (followed by a marker of a verbalization procedure, namely a filled pause (euh)). The speaker thus begins by realizing a treatment procedure, linked with a verbalization procedure. He then expresses his reservations with respect to the treating expression of this procedure (sortir); for this purpose he employs the expressions si vous voule^ and entre guillemets. This pattern is repeated for culot the speaker refers to it with the preceding comment dirais-je on the one hand (which itself occurs in the vicinity of a marker of a verbalization procedure, "repeated article + pause"), and with postpositive disons le mot on the other hand. Examples (19) and (20) present a similar picture: 14

Expressions such as tu vois have already been studied in connection with other questions (cf. Gülich 1970). Settekorn (1977) regards them as "minimal argumentative constructions", Davoine (1980) speaks of "connecteurs phatiques", Luzzati (1985) investigates their function in discourse structuring and Auchlin (1981) subsumes them in a similar way under "marqueurs de structuration de la conversation". Tu vois/vous voye% clearly have a marked multifunctional character.

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(19)

1 C: ilfautqu'elksoitlafemmecomprebensibl'et 2 D: oui. 3 C: et puts d'un caractere doux 4 qu'elk soitpas. faimepas lesgens ... mechants v(ous) voye% on euhjffje 5 n'sais pas . renfermes [Claude]

(20)

1 Γ A: et ξα te choque 2 [ W2: quandje re/ ouais quand enfin fa me choque ban: tout est relatif [Norm, cf. example (11) above]

In (19) speaker C uses je n(e)ais pas to signal his uncertainty as to renfermes as an adequate description in the context of this utterance — where renfermes itself is already a reformulation of the word mechants, which in turn is qualified by v(ous) voye%. The essential feature of extract (20) seems to be the point that the speaker, with her hyperbolic tout est relatif, challenges the absolute adequacy of any linguistic expression, thus including the verb choquer to which this expression of metadiscursive character refers. We refer to the traces of conversational activities indicated by these expressions of metadiscursive evaluation and comment as procedures of qualification (cf. Gulich/Kotschi 1987 a and b, Kotschi 1986 and G lich 1986b). 2.3.2 Structural and semantic description

The structural properties of qualification procedures are essentially determined by the fact that the qualifying expression can either precede (cf. (a)) or follow (cf. (b)) the expression qualified: (a) (b)

je n(e)sais pas renfermes (example (19)) Stereotypie tu vois (example (17)) pa me choque [...] tout est relatif (example (20))

As the examples show, our corpus also contains instances of two (or more) qualifying expressions occurring together, both either in postposition (cf. (c)) or combining initial and final position (cf. (d)):15 (c) (d)

sorfir st vous voule^ entre guillemets (example (18)) comment dtrais-je le le culot disons le mot (id.)

Even in the case of two (or more) co-occurring qualifying expressions, it still applies that each expression individually refers to the expression evaluated or commented on. We are thus dealing with a two-part structure — quite distinct

15

In principle, a qualifying expression can of course be incorporated into an expression evaluated or commented on. This is, however, not the case with (18), where comment dirais-je is preceded by the article of the NP le culot, which is later repeated. We have here a combination of a verbalization procedure and a qualifying procedure (see below 2.3.3.); therefore the qualified expression as a whole appears to the right of the qualifying expression.

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Table 3

TREATMENT PROCEDURES

reference expression

marker

QUALIFICATION PROCEDURES

qualified expression

qualifying expression

treating expression

from treatment procedures, which consist of three constituents (reference expression—marker—treating expression), cf. table 3. The qualifying expression exhibits some similarity to the marker of 'treatment procedures', for both can be located on the metadiscursive level insofar as they interrupt the flow of discourse and contain information on properties of discourse constituents which are within their scope. They also correspond in a second respect: qualifying expressions as well as markers exhibit a scale of formative realizations ranging from large, relatively freely formed expressions (of the type c'est un mot un pen con otj'avais dit tout a I'heure), to short expressions having the character of fixed phrases, such as comment dirais-je or c'est-a-dire, and even to mere intonational markers. The crucial difference, however, between markers of treatment procedures and qualifying expression has its roots in the fact that a treatment marker is a connector, marking (or creating) a relation between two discourse constituents, while a qualifying expression functions more like an operator. A speaker uses this operator — and in this respect it can be compared to the so-called argumentative operators like meme, presque, trop etc. (cf. Ducrot 1983; Moeschler (1985)) — in order to give a specific opinion to be assigned to some aspect of one single given expression (or one set of expressions to be regarded as a single unit) which is identifiable in the discourse structure. It is primarily these different functions of treatment markers (as connectors) on the one hand and qualifying expressions (as operators) on the other hand that justify the distinction drawn between treatment procedures and qualifying procedures as two fundamentally different types of traces of discourse activities (as is shown in tables 1 above and 3 below). With respect to the individual structural and semantic features of qualifying procedures, we can refer to Kotschi (1986) and restrict ourselves here to a brief discussion of some aspects. The qualified expressions can vary in size to the same extent as the reference expressions of treatment procedures; and like them (or properly speaking, like the reference expressions of reformulating treatment procedures), expressions to which speakers refer by means of a qualification procedure are usually characterized as a trouble source. This characterization as a trouble source concerns form, content or conditions of use of the respective expressions qualified, and frequently more than one of these aspects at the same time.16 This particular

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

kind of qualification — it can be an evaluation or rather a comment — is determined by the specific features of the qualifying expression. As mentioned above, the qualifying expression cannot only consist of short fixed phrases (cf. comment dirais-je and the other expressions in (17) to (20)), but also of larger, relatively freely formed syntagms or discourse constituents. Example (21) is a case in point: (21)

1 M: Us sont d'un caractere un petit peu domina THUR' ilfaut essayerde dominer 2 au mains quelque chose' 3 J: . out' mats dominer quelqu'un . (laughing a bit) ca 4 c'est'+ 5 M: oui' enftn, dominHr', mot f atme pas ce mot-la par ce qu'il fait peur 6 un peu c' (es) t un peu: euh 7 J: out' ["Hallo Macha")

The qualifying expression in this extract consists of a complex sentence followed by a continuation which remains incomplete; the latter even serves as the opening of a reformulating treatment procedure (which highlights its character as a free syntactic formation). From the analysis of a large corpus it emerged that qualifying expressions can be assigned to three groups. — A first subgroup contains formes which consist of two elements: first an anaphoric expression with the structure (X)Y(Z) — X being the part of the treated expression which is taken up again, Υ an anaphoric element (e. g. a pronoun or adverb) and Ζ a metalinguistic expression — and second an evaluating expression; an evaluating expression typically contains a predicate expression which fulfills approximately the criteria mentioned by Milner (1978: chapter 7). This first subclass includes expressions such as fa n'est pas pejoratif de dire X, X est presque pejoratif la, c'estjolie votre expression as well as the complex expression moifaime pas ce mot-la, pane qu'il fait peur un peu/ c'(es)t un pen: euh in (21). — A second subclass contains qualifying expressions which have at least one metalinguistic element as their main constituent, e. g. dire, mot, guillemets (cf. the expressions entre guillemets, comment dirais-je, disons le mot of example (18)), or appeler, reprendre and metaphore (cf. the expressions ce qu'on appelle and pour reprendre une metaphore occurring in other examples). In addition to this, the qualifying expressions of this subclass also contain an anaphoric (or cataphoric) element, although this is not always explicitly expressed (as in ce qu'on appelle and disons le mot) but may often be merely present in a more or less implicit form (with reference to a scale of different degrees of explicitness, cf. Kotschi 1986:217 and Kotschi 1990:4 f.). 16

From the class of the qualifying expressions we thus exclude metacommunicative discourse constituents which are used to evaluate or comment on the structure and function of the discourse as a whole or one of its constituents (be it a speech event, a sequence, an exchange, an "intervention" or a speech act, cf. Roulet et al. (1985) and Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990). Such utterances

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

55

— The qualifying expressions of the third subclass, which are all more or less standardized, contain neither an evaluating nor a metalinguistic expression. They correspond to the so-called "hedges" (Lakoff 1975). Among them are the expressions tu vois/vous voye% si vous voule^ and je n'sais pas of examples (17) to (19), as well as forms like une espece de, en quelque sorte. We assume that expressions of the first subclass contain an evaluation, those of the second subclass a comment, (while an evaluation can contain elements of a comment and a comment can often be deduced from an evaluation); for the "hedging" expressions of the third subclass, it holds that they refer to the vagueness or indeterminacy of the qualified expression in a more general way — due to the reservations concerning the application of an expression signalled by them — and thus allow no distinction between evaluation and comment at all. 2.3.3. Functions The general functions of the qualifying procedures are closely linked to the fact that these procedures frequently occur immediately adjacently to verbalization and/or treatment procedures. To illustrate this point we can refer again to two examples quoted above: (22)

1 C: [...] et d'autrepart c'etait un komme qui n'avaitpas Lli comment dirais-je ... 2 le le culot disons le mot le CM lot pour s'affirmer [Claude, cf. example (18) above]

(23)

1 C: j'aime pas les gens ... mechants v(ous) voye^ ou euh fffje 2 renfermes [Claude, cf. example (19) above]

n(e) sais pas .

Example (22) allows us to study the occurrence of two qualifying expressions (comment dirais-je and disons le mof) immediately connected to a verbalization procedure (repetition of the article le as well as of the complete NP le culof). The latter consists of a "progressive completion" which may have been elicited by the fact that the search for a suitable word constitutes a communication problem. After culot has been uttered as a suggestion for it, it is to this word that the two qualifying expressions refer: comment dirais-je marking the starting-point of the procedure itself and disons le mot specifying it more closely. In this case, the treated expression of the qualification procedure is not a random text constituent but an expression which is the subject of a verbalization procedure. The qualification procedure refers to the verbalization procedure and is thus to be located on a different level of the textual structure.

were taken into account, for instance, by Morel (1985); in the "Geneva model", too, they have a specific structural and functional status (e. g. as discourse constituents with a ritual interactive function, cf. Drescher/Kotschi (1988)). In addition, one can refer to the recent study of speech acts "supporting acceptance" by Techtmeier (1994).

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

We can interpret example (23) in a similar way. The two qualifying expressions v(ous) voye^ and ye n(e)sais pas refer to the reference expression (mechants) and the treating expression (renfermes) of a reformulating treatment procedure respectively, so that qualification procedure and treatment procedure are closely linked together. In this case, too, different levels of the textual structure come into play. This particular relation between qualification procedures and treatment procedures can be characterized in two ways: on the one hand, the former refers to the latter, on the other hand, what is marked by the use of the first qualifying expression can be said to give rise to the opening of the reformulating treatment procedure or to "trigger" it somehow; the speaker expresses his reservations concerning the use of the word mechants, i. e. he makes it clear that the use of another word might be more appropriate. This serves to prepare the next step, in which a word apparently more appropriate in this context is suggested. This step is realized in the current example in the form of a reformulating treatment procedure with the marker ou and the treating expression renfermes (and this in turn is uttered with reservations, indicated by the preceding^ n(e)saispas). Every time a speaker employs a qualifying expression — and this is arguably the way in which one can specify the general function of the respective procedures (cf. Kotschi 1986) — this speaker manifests his/her consciousness of a certain linguistic norm and indicates a) that he/she — even though perhaps only to a minor degree — deviates from it or is made to deviate from it and b) that he/ she demands to be excused for it. Whenever a speaker refers to such a norm by means of qualification of a linguistic expression, he/she evokes an alternative formulation better suited to this norm. It seems to suggest itself that he/she will often go beyond merely evoking such an alternative formulation, thus leaving it implicit, and will try to make it explicit instead by means of a reformulating treatment procedure (if only in a preliminary way). We have illustrated above how speakers combine verbalization procedures and treatment procedures on the one hand and qualification procedures on the other hand. To describe the functions of these procedures as they become evident in this process, it is quite important to bring out particularly their different status, too. It was pointed out above, especially in 2.3.2, that we are dealing here with fundamentally different types of traces of discourse activities. In addition to this, we would like to stress two more aspects. A remarkable difference becomes manifest in the nature of the markers of those different types of traces. While markers of verbalization procedures have a kind of "para-morphematic" quality due to their form (pure pauses, filled pauses, lengthening, incomplete utterances, reduplication, etc.), markers of treatment procedures and qualification procedures typically occur as morphemes or combinations of morphemes (or can at least be replaced by them, provided they consist of properties of the prepositional structure of the respective expressions, as it is often the case with non-reformulating treatment procedures). Markers of treatment procedures and qualification procedures in turn can be distin-

E. Giilich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

57

mark;ers

para-mo rphematic (verbalization procedures)

morphematic

connectors (treatment procedures)

operators (qualification procedures) Figure 6

guished in so far as the former have the status of connectors, the latter the status of opertors, cf. figure 6. To these contrasts corresponds the way in which the three procedures are assigned to the different layers of textual structure. If we assume that the pragmatic domain of textual structure encompasses at least one further structure besides the speech act structure, viz. the information structure (for the current discussion on this see e. g. Brandt/Rosengren 1992)17, good reasons can be put forward for the assumption of the following interrelations. Verbalization procedures and treatment procedures are both to be assigned to the information structure, although with different implications. While (markers of) verbalization procedures are frequently observed at boundaries between units of the information structure (mostly basic units, sometimes also units on hierarchically higher levels, where they help to deliminate such units), treatment procedures operate on these units, for instance by constituting relations between such units or parts or combinations of them, respectively. Qualification procedures, on the other hand, do not immediately operate on units of the information structure. In view of the fact that they are rather more explicit manifestations of the cognitive control a speaker exercises over his/her discourse activities, it may be preferable to assign them to the speech act structure (cf. Kotschi 1994).18 17

18

Recent studies seem to suggest that within the pragmatic structure of discourse at least one further "structural module" should be assumed beside the speech act structure and the information structure, a module which one could refer to as hierarchical structure or structure of discourse constituents (cf. Kotschi 1994). The view that metacommunicative evaluations and comments (i. e. qualifications) have the status of a special type of actions has already guided the considerations in Giilich/Kotschi (1987 a). (It was, however, somewhat hastily extended to reformulations, i. e. one type of treatment procedures.) The question needs further examination. A recent discussion of related questions appears in Techtmeier (1994).

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

2.4. Results and perspectives

Finally, we will combine the types of activities of discourse production (see also Herrmann & Grabowski, this volume) on the one hand and linguistic traces on the other hand in a concluding diagram. We will take the diagram from section 2.0 and add to it typical examples of linguistic traces discussed in the preceding sections, cf. table 4. The categorizations represented in this table are based on the assumption that the different types of linguistic traces indicate different types of discourse activities, viz. on the one hand the fundamental activity of verbalizing cognitive content, and on the other hand those activities which refer to already verbalized expressions. 'Referring to an expression' either means the treatment of the expression, or it takes the form of a speaker voicing an attitude to expressions either previously produced or yet to be produced, and thus to "qualifying" them in some way. The layout of the diagram (verbalization on the left, both treating and qualifying on the right) makes it clear that verbalization is fundamental to the other two activities: Even when a speaker treats or qualifies already existing expressions, he/she is also verbalizing the treatment or the qualifying expression; in other words, they, too, are always the result of verbalizing. As a consequence, traces of verbalization activities also occur in the context of treating and/or qualifying expressions. Conversely, one can find traces of verbalization activities not followed by any later treatment or qualifying of the expressions produced. The distinction between these activities takes into account not only the different conditions under which they take place but also their various effects on the discourse structure. If we say that the various types of activities of discourse production can be recognized by the traces they leave in discourse, our understanding of the notion of "trace" presupposes the distinction between markers and procedures: markers are typical features of spoken language and therefore occur frequently, and they have already been described from various linguistic angles. The assumption that these markers indicate discourse production procedures which speakers use in order to solve production problems has been fundamental to our approach towards formulating activities. Since a marker plays a central role in the interpretation and classification of individual procedures, we attach great importance to the detailed description of individual markers - for, by employing a certain marker, a speaker can establish a conversational link between two expressions and thus present or define them as a paraphrase, a correction etc. Although markers and procedures are regarded as traces of activities of discourse production in oral communication (rather than as characteristics of spoken French, for instance, as in the studies mentioned in section 1), their specific realization and the functioning of individual markers and procedures can, of course, only be analyzed with reference to a specific language. In this article the detailed analysis necessary for the discussion of markers and the corresponding pro-

E. Giilich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production Table 4

VERBALIZATION markers pauses hesitation phenomena false starts broken off utterances

procedures progressive (interactive) completion self-correction work of "denominating" change of syntactic construction

TREATMENT

markers

procedures

c'est-a-dire done

en d'autres termes enfin quoi

self-/other— paraphrases — corrections — repetitions — dissociations

apres tout

href

par exemple

exemplification

en general

generalization

QUALIFICATION markers c'estjoli votre

procedures evaluation

expression

comment dirais-je

comment

comme on dit ce qu'on appelle

si VOHS en quelque sorte

une espece de

"hedging"

59

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

cedures could only be treated in a summary fashion, because here the specific problems of the French language are not our primary concern. It appears that there is hardly ever a one-to-one relation between markers and procedures. In particular prosodic markers of the first group (pauses, hesitation phenomena, etc.) and verbal markers like eh bien, bon, alors etc. in French are polyfunctional with respect to procedures. Markers in the second group, e. g. c'est-a-dire, which typically indicates paraphrasing procedures, or enßn, which frequently signals correcting procedures, have closer ties with a particular procedure, but even in these cases this relation is not exclusive. Our material suggests that fairly clear markers like par exemple for exemplifications or en general for generalizations seem to occur relatively seldom. There appears to be a range of other linguistic means of initiating these procedures. Markers of the third group, however, can be more easily matched with individual procedures. Thus, in table 4, we specified the relation between individual markers and procedures only for the latter group, while in all other cases we merely matched groups of markers with groups of procedures. There is no clear dividing line between the various types of activity or between the different types of traces, i. e. we do not present a rigid categorization according to clearly defined criteria; and the various phenomena cannot easily be separated in the analysis of conversational data either. Traces of activities of discourse production often occur together. So, traces of verbalization activities (on the left of the diagram) can appear together with all traces of the activities referring to already produced utterances, i. e. treatment and qualifying procedures (in the right-hand column). This is not only because treatment and qualifying expressions themselves are verbalized, but also because treatment and qualifying procedures are often employed after the existence of a problem has already been signaled by traces of verbalization activities. Problems are mostly not resolved in one go, but a first tentative expression may subsequently be subjected to further treatment. Occasionally such further treatment does not solve the problem and the speakers, by adding a qualifying expression, content themselves with pointing out its existence. Traces of treatment and qualifying activities (upper and lower section of the right-hand column) also frequently occur together. When a speaker uses a qualifying expression to specify an expression as unsatisfactory or requiring reformulation, this is often actually followed by attempts to reformulate this expression, or vice versa: some treatment is often commented on afterwards.

3. Conclusion

In the present article, we have tried to provide a systematic description, based on detailed analyses of extracts from spoken discourse, of several fairly disparate linguistic phenomena typical of oral communication; and for this purpose we have introduced several theoretical distinctions. However, this does not amount

E. Gülich and T. Kotschi, Discourse Production

61

to saying that clear and definite boundaries can be drawn in every case. One can speak of transitions rather than boundaries, both between types of discourse production activities and between types of markers and procedures. Our aim was to describe the use speakers make of the linguistic inventory at their disposal in natural situations, i. e. the "methods" they can rely on when doing the work of discourse production. Thus, specifying the function of a marker requires a detailed sequential analysis, which describes, step by step, the specific local context of the marker and reconstructs the procedure it signals. It is also imperative to consider the activities of both parties to a conversation because both can be involved in the production of discourse: a procedure may, as in the case of other-reformulations, operate on utterances of both parties, and is therefore achieved interactively; other forms of interactive achievement occur when one party initiates a procedure for the other, e. g. in the case of other-initiated self-correction, or when one participant ratifies the other's steps in the procedure. Thus the principles of sequential and interaction-oriented analysis turn out to be fundamental to an adequate theory of activities of discourse production. Working with these principles, it becomes possible to describe not merely individual linguistic phenomena but rather procedures which speakers employ in the work of discourse production. By putting the emphasis on speakers' activities, linguistic studies of oral communication can help to provide a picture of the whole range of "methods" participants use in spontaneous oral discourse production.

Transcription system The system of transcription used in this article has been developed by U. Dausendschön-Gay/ . Gulich/U. Krafft, a research group at the University of Bielefeld. On the whole it follows ordinary orthographic conventions, but punctuation marks do not have their normal function. Where an example has been taken from another corpus, the notation has been adapted.

& ' ' E CAPITALS : :: :::

e. g. ä partir de la' e. g.je sais pas, e. g. unE e. g. c'est Eux e. g. le:, eub::

(x) =

e. g. peut-et(re) e. g. pas—evident

short pauses (the number of dots reflecting the length of the pause) immediate onset of next utterance rising intonation falling intonation pronounciation of final "e" extra strong stress lengthening of sounds (the number of dots reflects the degree of lengthening) lax pronounciation unusual linking

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II. Approaches to Orality from the Perspectives of Different Disciplines

(? x) e. g. (? devoir) (...?) / e. g. s'impof (softly), (laughter) etc. + en septembre ou * ouais ouais*

uncertain transcription incomprehensible passage speaker's self-interruption transcriber's comment on speech characteristics or on non-verbal phenomena end of validity of such comments simultaneous or overlapping utterances (* = end of overlap)

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"De la structure de la conversation ä la structure d'autres types de discours", in Rubattel, C. (ed.): Modeies du discours. Recherches actuelles en Suisse romande, Bern: Lang, 35-61. 1990 "Et si, apres tout, ce connecteur pragmatique n'etait pas un marqueur d'argument ou de premisse impliquee?", Cahiers de linguistique francaise 11, 329—343. 1991 "Vers une approche modulaire de l'analyse du discours", Cahiers de linguistique francaise 12, 53-81. Schank, G. and Schoenthal, G. 1976 Gesprochene Sprache. Eine Einführung in Forschungsansät^e und Analysemethoden. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (Second edition 1983) Schegloff, E. A. 1982 "Discourse as an interactional achievement: some uses of 'uh huh' and other things that come between sentences", in Tannen, D. (ed.): Analysing Discourse: Text and Talk. Georgetown University Roundtable on languages and Linguistics 1981. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 71—93. Schelling, M. 1982 "Quelques modalites de clöture: les conclusifs fmalement, en somme, au fond, de toute facon", in Cahiers de linguistique francaise 4, 63-107. Schenkein, J. (ed.) 1978 .Studies in the Organisation of Conversational Interaction. New York, San Francisco, London: Academic Press.

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Searle, J. R. et al. 1992 (On) Searle on Conversation. Compiled and introduced by Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Settekorn, W. 1977 "Minimale Argumentations formen — Untersuchungen zu Abtönungen im Deutschen und Französischen", in Schecker, M. (ed.): Theorie der Argumentation. Tübingen: Narr, 391-415. Streeck, J. 1983 "Konversationsanalyse. Ein Reparaturversuch", Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 2, 72-104. Sudnow, D. (ed.) 1972 Studies in Social Interaction. New York: The Free Press. Tamba, J. 1987 " dans les tours du type

/V^lleicht in x n /paar Tagen SO/ [viel langsamer]/ [extrem leise]

—>

/Malte der wird der wird sich schon WUNdern/ [sehr laut] Warum? Derss Janine schon wieder heute an der Bushaltestelle gexärgert

M: F:

Translation:

Pause [15,2 sec] within topic F:

/I call her — then O.K.?/ [extreme quietly

M: F:

Pause [9,5 sec] /How many weeks has her mother been away?/ [quietly] Shevs coming back in a coupla weeks Susi says.

—>

/Maybe in /COUpla days or SO/ [much slower]/[extremely quietly]

—> M: F:

/Malte he's gonna be surPRISED/ [very loudly] How come? He was teasing Janine again at the busstop

According to the auditive impression the topic switch (Malte ...) is marked by an extreme contrast between softness and loudness although it is not even a conversational narrative in a strict sense which is initiated by the loud utterance. The openings of conversational narrative are, as a rule, indicated by a switch in pitch and loudness. However, it is normally not as extreme as the one that we find in (4), where it announces not a narrative but a plan. To give an impression of the frame relevance of prosodic contrasts such as the one in (4) we present an instance of topic shift in the formal classroom interaction. (5) T = teacher, B = boy, C = child. The general topic is a guided tour through the medieval quarters of the city that took place some days ago. The immediate topic is the city wall. B: Da — is doch jetz nur noch [L] ein Wehr_ [L] Wehrturm oder?

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T: C: T. C: T: T: T: K: T: K: T:

237

Richtig. Man hat die

ganze Stadtmauer — nicht mehr [(auch abges_ ) [(auch abges ...) aufgebaut sondern nur noch Teile stehn lassen. /Un warum?/ [leise] Ja weil se zum Teil zerst'ört wurde [ ] un man das dann nich mehr aufbauen wollte [ ] [und man eben eben da auch mittler[/weile/ [lauter] andere Dinge [(....) [(...) gebaut hatte. (....) [ Wir gucken uns nachher hier auf dem Stadtplan nochmal an wo die Stadtmauer — hergeführt hat. Pause [2,45 sec]

—> T: C:

Du hast — eben gesagt ganz in der N'ähe von der Stadtmauer waren WOHNhäuser. Ja direkt ungefähr nach dem ... (3. Kl. 3/6/92:045 "Stadtführung")

Translation:

B: T: C: T: C: T: T: T: K: T: K: T:

Now — there's just [L] one watch— [L] watchtour right? That's right. The entire city wall — has not been [(also_ ) [(also...) rebuilt only some parts have been left standing. /But why?/ [leise] Well because it had been partially destroyed [ ] and nobody wanted to rebuild it [ ] and because in the mean/time/ [louder] other things [(....) [(...) were built there. (....)[ [Later we take a look at the map to see where the wall used to be. [Pause [2,45 sec]

—» T: C:

You just said that right near the wall were HOUses. Yea right somewhere after the ...

The topic change from the city wall to the dwellings is marked by a short pause and a special articulatory emphasis on the keyword of the new topic (WOHNhäuser) and not by extremes in loudness or pitch. Of course this comparison cannot serve as evidence for our claim: There could be other functions in the more formal interaction which are marked by prosodic extremes. In fact we find the marked "teaching style" register on the part of the teacher which is characterized by special pitch contours and instances of well articulatedness. The intonational pattern to a certain degree does consti-

238

III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

tute a particularly clear profile of "highs" and "lows", but according to the auditive impression — i. e. the contextualized effect — the distances between extremes are not as high as in the case of the private interaction. Leaving empirical evidence to further, more specialized research we only add a literature based argument to the plausibility of our claim. The discovery that there are different styles of oral discourse which are distinguished according to their being either oriented towards literacy or towards orality (Michaels & Collins 1984) corresponds very well with our observation. The styles are differentiated by the extent of prosodic vs. lexical or syntactic cues which are used to contextualize speech. If prosodic cues in the case of the "more oral" (more informal) style carry the higher "functional load" it seems very plausible that they should also make better use of their potential, including extremes. 5.2.3. The last of the three domains of auditive differences mentioned above has to do neither with occurrence vs. non-occurrence nor with more or less extreme values but rather with a different way of applying vocal means. This refers mainly to activities such as reading or singing which play, of course, a well established role in class but which are also frequent in dinnertable interaction. Reading activities at the dinnertable in our data might be due to the fact that one of the children is in the process of acquiring literacy and applying his new competence whenever there is a chance. But singing can be expected in all kinds of informal family interaction with children in our culture. The special vocal quality of "reading style" (Labov 1972) or singing establishes an additional use of vocal devices so that their occurrence in informal interaction can be taken as a case in point with respect to our general claim. However, at first glance the contrastive frame relevance does not seem to hold in this case since we find the same activities in the most formal school settings. Let us look at a typical instance of reading at the dinnertable: (6) M = mother, J = son (7; 2), F = daughter (8; 9) During the entire fragment there is a constant loud twitter of the budgie. M: Wie is denn das mit Susanne hö ma Die sollte doch morgen / die sollte doch/ [schneller] mindestens einmal in der Woche jetz komm wo die Mutter nich da is F: M: Wiste sie hatse dir | ( )) |_ [lautes Kreischen des Vogels] Vogel:

F:

Jaa

(

) Hab ich vergessen

ßautes Kreischen des Vogels] _Oooooo ennnnn

ww

H. Hausendorf and U. M. Quasthoff, Discourse and Oral Contextualizations

M: J: J: M: J: M: J: M:

Dann ruf se gleich nochma an damit se das der Oma gleich sacht Tim Grunde genomm is Mittwoch ja der einzje Tach [/ iiis ooooch oooool Γοοοοηηηηηη / [sehr laut] [julian sei ma still otschsch tschaaaaa rsch. Otschar. Wat? olscha ol_ oooooo_ ool_ oooo ol_ l: l: Was liest du denn? [Pause 3,8 sec]

M:

J: M:

/ Dann ruf se gleich nochma schnell an / [tiefer] denn wenn die Γ dienstags [ich lese dies hier - oi: oi: Γ L/Da mu te doch noch n M 'D' davor lesen / [sehr laut] Julian He? - / Ein 'D' mu te noch davor /le:sen/ [langsamer / [tiefer]

J:

O O [doppelter glottaler Verschlu laut f r "nein"]

M: J: M: J: M:

J a. Gibse

J: M:

J: M: F:

mir mal die ( ) /mu t doch nich so cn £S L/I 1 doch nur das von:: SCHRlEIn Mensch /[gefl stert] [O::: vor. /[sehr laut] Ein 'D' steht vor dem eu. /Schweizer K se bitte/ [gefl stert] Οευ:::Γ:::::: /deutscherrrrrr/ [laut] deutscher [jawoll (Wo. . .) liest du? (vor?) [Pause 3 sec]

J: M: F: J: M: J: M: J: M:

239

/Deutscher / [er spricht vollem Mund] DeutscheA — un dann gehts weiter? DeutSCHER steht da liebe Uta De utscher [Tats chlich. Deutscher Δ un dann? 'B' 'r'? Bru_ Bru::::: Bru::::::: Bx ru Bru:::::::nen Deutscher |_Br/)a /t k H (· · ) Brunnen Deutscher Brunnen. Also Franziska weil mittwochs mittwochs un freitags is ja der einzje Tach . . .

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III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

Translation

M:

F: M: F:

Listen what's the deal with Susanne She ought to / she ought to / [faster] come by at least once a week as her mother is not there [Yea Do you want - did Γ she ( ) |_ [loud shrieking of the bird] ί Yea ( ) I forgot [lautes Kreischen des Vogels]

M: J: J: M: J: M: J:

Oooooo ennnnn ww Then call her right away so she can tell her Grandma actually Wednesday's the only day [/ iiis ooooch oooool oooonnnnnn / [every loudly] [Julian be quiet otschsch tschaaaaa rsch. Otschar. What? olscha ol_ oooooo_ ool_ oooo ol_ ol: ol:

M:

What are you reading? [Pause 3,8 sec]

M:

/ Then call her quick/ [lower] cause if Tueslday she [l'm reading this here — oi:

J: M: J: M:

foi: [/You've got to

say a 'D' before that / [very loudly] Julian Huh? - / You have got to say a TJ'/before that/ [slower] / [deeper]

J:

uh uh [double glottal stop for "no"]

M: J:

Yes. Could you pass [the ( ) / you don't have to >rn ust rea |_/I ) ding from oo:::/[very loud]

M:

SCREAM/ [gefl stert]

J: M:

J: M: F:

There's a 'D'in front of the 'eu' /Swiss cheese please/ [whispered] Deu::: :::::: /deutscherrrrrr/ [loud] deutscher (= German) [that's it (Where . .) are you reading?

J:

[Pause 3 sec] /Deutscher / [he speaks with his mouth full]

M: F: J: M:

DeutscheA — and what comes next? DeutSCHER say it here whaddaya know! De utscher [Oh really. Deutscher A and then? Έ' V?

H. Hausendorf and U. M. Quasthoff, Discourse and Oral Contextualizations

J: M:

Bru_ Bru::::: Bru::::::: Deutscher |_Br_

Bx

241

ru Bru:::::::nen (=spring) /yea /[short] (. .

)

J: M:

Brunnen Deutscher Brunnen. So Franziska Wednesday since Wednesday and Friday's the only day

J reads the label of a bottle of mineral water, which he sees on the table. This reading is a self initiated activity, started in overlap to mother's talk, topically unconnected with the ongoing thematic orientation. Accordingly, for quite awhile it is treated as inappropriate and disturbing behavior: Julian set ma still (J. be quiet). Probably partly due to their loudness these reading attempts in their difficulties to make sense succeed in gaining the floor and finally even the focus of attention for a short period of time. This kind of contextual embedding displays that reading is not considered to be an activity central to the frame. It is only the license for all kinds of activities in this informal, undirected kind of interaction which also allows for reading. In other words, at the dinnertable the vocal register reading adds to the richness of vocal devices just like sighing, gagging or prosodic extremes. Even without presenting an instance of reading in class it is clear that in this setting the activity is contextualized very much differently. It is normally teacherinitiated, not in overlap (if so, the teacher intervenes), and it has automatically the status of the focussed-on activity. In other words, as a classroom activity the vocal register reading is not part of the spontaneous richness of "allowed" forms of expressions but rather an "ordered" — i. e. highly controlled — form of "bodydistant" interaction. 5.) Vocality in oral messages

To complete the empirical illustration we turn to an aspect of our hypothesis that has already been presented before but can best be demonstrated in connection with our second data type, oral messages. We will attempt to illustrate the fact that the use of the voice, in principle, displays a degree of control over one's own physicalness (s. above 4). In recent years it has become a common every day activity to communicate with other people by means of recorded messages, for instance, by leaving messages on cassette-tapes or answering machines.10 Contrary to face-to-face interaction this modern type of communication does not depend on the participants' being co-present. Consequently, there is no simultaneity between the 10

Communication on telephone answering machines has only occasionally been investigated. See, for instance, Alvarez-Caccamo/Knoblauch 1992 with respect to messages left on answering machines, and Wojcik 1987—1988 with respect to the outgoing messages on answering machines. In this paper, outgoing messages are not analyzed as a subject in itself but merely for illustrative reasons.

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III. The Empirical Domains - Levels of Analysis

speaker's production and the listener's reception of the message as it is the case of face-to-face interaction (s. above 4). Leaving a message on a tape trust is placed in a mechanical apparatus that will conserve the message for reception posterior to its production. As opposed to telephone conversations — which also depend on a mechanical apparatus but which nevertheless provide simultaneity between speaking and listening — there is no organization of turn-taking within messages on answering machines, for instance: there is no co-present alter to contribute a next turn. As far as this temporal disruption of production and reception is concerned, messages left on tapes are comparable to traditional forms of messages sent to the adressee by means of written letters. Recorded messages, in this sense, can be considered as a kind of oral letter. Two very different types of oral letters will be dealt with in the following. The first and very prominent one in every day life is the type of message recorded on an answering machine intended to provide callers instructions for contacting the desired party (s. below 1—2). In contrast to these recordings we investigated a second type of oral letters that was produced by a client within a psycho-therapeutic setting: As part of the therapy the client recorded in her home information she considered to be relevant for her therapist11 (s. below 3-5). Aside from the differing frames connected with these two types of oral messages (see below) note that there is a further difference in terms of the speaker's anticipation about the recipient: in the case of therapeutic discourse the speaker (client) directs her message to one single listener (her therapist). Similar to faceto-face interaction, she is obliged to adjust her speaking to her (not co-present but) anticipated listener ("recipient design": cf. Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson 1974). In the case of pre-recorded outgoing messages on answering machines the speaker, usually, cannot direct his/her message to one certain person but is forced to take into account all possible callers. As a result of being confronted with such anonymous listeners speakers must avoid personal cues suited to single adressees but can at best adjust their speaking to an anticipated group of possible callers corresponding to different social "categorization devices" (Sacks 1972)12. In the following analyses we will not reconstruct these different forms of "recipient design" but will focus on the different social frames established within and by the messages (see above 2). With respect to this framing procedure both kinds of oral messages have in common that there is only one communicative channel available, namely what 11

12

We are grateful to Jutta Nordmeyer (Medizinische Hochschule Hannover1) who allowed us to use her data. In such cases, the anticipated group of callers in terms of different social categorizations seems to be responsible for the kind of vocal performance and framing: As opposed to the more formal messages that will be illustrated and discussed in the following, there are informal outgoing messages that correspondingly show a larger use of vocal possibilities.

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243

is to be heard by the addressee. Accordingly, there is reason to assume that especially the vocal transmission would play an important role in achieving the different frames and in contextualizing the messages. Even a surface inspection of the data can provide some evidence for such an assumption: there are quite different degrees to which the speaker on the answering machine on the one hand, and the client on the other hand control their vocal production, thus displaying very different degrees of closeness or distance to their physicalness. These differences, of course, are influenced by and, vice versa, have influence on the different frames intertwined with (types of) telephone conversation on the one hand, and therapeutic discourse on the other hand. To illustrate the participants' different uses of vocality we, firstly, take up some instances from outgoing messages on answering machines. To begin with, let us listen to the voice that is heard late at night when a caller, anxious about his/ her ill child, calls the doctor: (7)

Answering machine: Pediatrician a (male voice) (tape 1,060) sie hÖ :renA den automatischen Anrufbeantworter: der praxis (X'X) (L) die praxis ist nicht mehr besetzt in dringendenA — nicht AUfschiebbaren nO :tfällen

(L) können sie mich — telefonisch unter der nummerA (XX XX XX) (L). erreichen. — an den wErktagen A — ab Acht uhr — sind wir unter den Üblichen nummern wieder für sie erreich :bar — En :de der dURCHrchsage. Translation:

You're listening to the (automatic) answering machine of the praxis (xx)

(L) our office is not occupied at the moment —

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III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

in urgent — undelayable emergencies

(L) you can — reach me by telephone at (xx xx xx) (L) we are available workdays from 8 a. m. at out regular number — this is the end of the recording.

The following instances stem from ecclesiastical welfare centers: (8)

Answering machine: Family Care a (female voice) (tape 1,114) L gUten Tag. — hier ist die evangElische FamilienpflE: ge — tElefon ( . xx. x'x.) unser Bür'o: ist zur Zeit — nicht besetzt. L Aber Sie können uns eine Nach: rieht hinterlassen. L bitte sprECHen SieA ihren NAmen und ihre TELefonnummer — sowIE ihren Wunsch auf Band. — wir wERden uns — bald möglichst bei Ihnen melden, bitte sprechen Sie nU: n. nach dem SignAlton. (Piepton) Translation:

(L) Hello this is the protestant family care line (x — xx — xx —) our office is not occupied at the moment (L) but you can

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245

leave a message (L) please give your name telephone and your message — we'll get back to you as soon as possible. please begin at the sound of the tone (tone) (9)

Answering machine: Consulting station b (male voice) (tape 1,053) hier ist die evangelische berA: tungsstelle — unser büro ist im moment nicht besetzt. — sie erreichen unsA — mONtags bis freitags — ACHt uhr bis zwölfuhrdrEIssigund dreizehnuhrdreissig bis siebzehnuhr. — L wenn sie mö: gen — hinterlassen sie eine nachricht bei uns — gEben sie name und telephonnummer an und sprechen sie nach dem pIEpton. — in nOtfällen rufen sie die telefONseelsorge (xxx — xx —) oder den kri: sendienst — (xx — xx — xx) an. (Piepton) Translation:

this is the protestant counseling station — our office is not occupied at the moment. — you can reach us — Monday through Friday — from 8 a. m. to 12 p. m. and 1 p. m. to 5 p. m. if you like leave us a message — please give your name and phone number at the sound of the tone. — in an emergency — call the open line (xxx — xx —) or the crisis service (xx — xx — xx) (tone) Apart from the idiosyncratic quality of the different voices the given fragments (and countless others) have in common that they perform a low degree of

246

III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

variance in the speaking apparatus mainfested by the use of prosodic devices such as accenting, stressing, pitch, and overall contours. There is also a very small range concerning tempo, loudness, and rhythym. Prosodic devices, especially rising and falling as well as suspending contours serve as vehicles which seem to transform a written into a spoken text or which allow a written text as given in to become audible. They serve as some kind of oral markers of literacy in that they re-achieve graphemic punctuation-marks such as periods, commas, and colons in the shape of prosodic phenomena. The voices on the answering machines represent someone who is trained and exercised in the oral performance of text, guided by some kind of visual preparation. This performance depends on and reproduces a high degree of control in vocality. The speaker seems to lend his voice for a certain purpose independent from his own person. Reduced to the purpose of transmitting information, the repertoire of vocality, as illustrated earlier by dinner table conversation (s. above 5.1) is hardly made use of by the speakers on the answering machines. There is, if at all, only a very small range of loudness, pitch, tempo, and rhytmic acceleration and deceleration in favor of a rather constant sound-flow of voice. This restriction in using the vocal repertoire contributes to the impression of a high degree of physical control. It is, in a sense, a distancing from the body that is displayed: Imagine a broadcasting news speaker who is professionally skilled in speaking no matter what kind of message has to be transmitted. Speaking appears to be a systematically achieved control over the vocal organs like tongue, lips, larynx, glottis, and chords. It is this vocal connotation of a formal, impersonal frame that is also lexically pointed out in the closing of one of the messages: Ende der Durchsage. The message is labelled as an announcement and an announcement does not depend on the quality of the voice but on the kind of information being passed on. Thus, the degree of vocal control supports the achievement of a relevant frame: A high degree of displayed control leads to the impression of an impersonal, official or institutional setting. The voice on the answering machine, therefore, does not represent the physical person of a certain individual but his/her institutional role of being a pediatrician, or a professional advisor, respectively. Let us now look at some instances of therapeutic discourse, specifically some fragments of oral letters about personal experiences and related mental and physical problems. The tapes often begin with some metacommunicative activities (cf. Giilich/ Kotschi, this volume) announcing what will be discussed. These announcements are striking insofar as they, compared with other parts, show a high degree in the control of vocality, to some extent comparable with the messages on the answering machine (s. 7—9 above):

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(10) Therapeutic discourse: Metacommunicative starts [female voice]) a (tape 1, beginning) ich möchte nochmal auf unser Gespräch vom sechsten Juni zurückkommen Translation:

I'd like to go back to our conversation on the 6th of June b (tape 2, beginning) dass Sie mich heute noch ANgerufen haben Frau Doktor (x x) dafür bin ich Ihnen sehr dankbar. L leider — hatte ich Besu: ch — und konnte nich so frei reden. — wich ichs wohl gerne getan hätte

—

ja: wie kAm es — [schneller] dazu dass ich schon wieder Blut haben mußte Translation:

I'm very grateful to you Doctor that you called me today unfortunately I had a visitor and was unable to speak as openly as I would have liked to well how did it happen [faster] that I needed to get blood again c (tape 2,054) ich wollte nU: n noch (n) ganz gerne n bisschen — über — die ANgst vor meinen Eltern — reden. Translation:

I'd like very much to talk a bit about my fear of my parents d (tape 2,090) [schnell] ich möchte noch n bisschen von meiner/ — KrANkheit sprechen in den Jahren — wo ich zuhAUse mit meinen Eltern — LEBte. pes war im Jahre -neunzehnhundert:

[leise

] vierundsechzig/ bis

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III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

neunzehnhun dert-funfunsiebzig — so in etwa. Translation:

[quickly] I'd like to talk a bit about my sickness during the years when I was living at home with my parents that was about nineteen [softly] sixtyfour to nineteen seventy-five e (tape 3, beginning) [in einem Atemzug] ich möchte ganz gern nochmal über meine BLUT: transfusion berichten. Translation:

[in one breath] I'd like (very much) to report about my bloodtransfusion again f (tape 3, side 2, beginning) ein Bericht wie es dazu kam dass ich mich von Zuhause löste. Translation:

This is a report as to how it happened that I broke away from home As was mentioned above, to some extent, the vocal quality of these starts is similar to that heard on the answering machine. Compared with other parts of the recordings (s. below) there is only a small range in loudness, pitch, tempo, and rhythm. Prosodic means are in the usual way systematically applied to mark the textual structure of the message. Look, for instance, at the prosodic indicator of some kind of rhetoric question in example (10b) or the establishing of a kind of title in (10 f.). These starts illustrate the client's efforts to produce a clear and controlled voice. It is the speaker's communicative contents that have to be transmitted. The physical act of speaking in itself does not matter: Speaking is not accounted for as a vocal act which, necessarily, allows some insight into the speaker's physical state but as a sole medium of communication. In announcing what will be talked about, the client is using expressions like berichten über, zurückkommen auf, reden über, sprechen von, that focus on the kind of information that will be transmitted. The displaying of vocal and physical control that can be seen in examples (10 a—f) above systematically gets lost in the course of these messages, however. At the opposite extreme, there are some metacommunicative closings stating that the recordings need to be interrupted for reasons having to do with a loss of control:

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(11) Therapeutic discourse: Metacommunicative closings a (tape 1) ich kann so nich weitersprechen ich ich muß jetzt unterbrechen Translation:

I can't talk like this anymore i have to interrupt now b (tape 4) ich muß jetzt Schluss machen Translation:

I have to quit now By announcing the end of the recording the client displays that she is forced to interrupt or to close the session or that she is unable to continue speaking: There is something outside the client's communicative intentions and willingness emphasized at the beginning of the messages (s. above 2). It is physical boundedness of the communicator that is interrupting the process of speaking and that serves as some kind of account for the interruption of the recording. To demonstrate this intervention of physical constraints the client does not make use of lexiko-semantic expressions but audibly performs the loss of vocality and the failure in controlling and restraining bodily expressions such as, for instance, sobbing, sniffing and sneering, crying, whining, and wailing. Let us look to examples (12 a and b) to study this auditory performance of the failure in controlling vocality. (12) Therapeutic discourse: Losing the voice a (tape 4, beginning) [sehr leise] sehr geehrte Frau Doktor (x x)/ — ich bin [brüchige, zittrige Stimme] ganz verzweifelt/ — [kindliche Stimme, weinerlich, gepreßt, in einem Zug, kaum verständlich] warum ham Sie mich aufgegeben — [schluchzend] Sie harn — [schniefen] Sie harn mir doch versprochen/ [leise, weinend] (mit mir?) Gespräche zu führen [4 sec.] [schniefen, weinen] [leise, nasal] haben Sie den Glauben denn an — mich — an mir — verloren nur weil [gepreßt] die Mediziner [leiser, allmählich in Weinen übergehend] an meine Krankheit zweifeln — [laut einatmend] ich kann das einfach nicht fassen [in Weinen übergehend] es — kann doch [weinen, schniefen]

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III. The Empirical Domains — Levels of Analysis

peise] wenn ich jet2t sterben muß/ [kindliche Stimme] (und das?) muß ich ja wohl/ bitte — L glauben Sie mir — [betont] ich — habe — nicht — mani [brüchige, zittrige Stimme] puliert — nie/ [weinend, leise, gepreßt] ich habs getan/ [weinen] [lautes Einatmen] es is ein [gepreßt, stoßweise] ganz ganz bitteres Gefü :hl [kaum verständlich, nasal, unterdrückt] ein ganz furchtbares Gefühl un warum [unterdrücktes Schluchzen] is das so [lautes Einatmen] [weinen, schniefen] [schnell] ich muß jetzt Schluß machen Translation:

[very quietly] very honorable Doctor (xx) I'm [broken, shaking voice] completely desperate [childlike voice, sobbing, forced, in one breath, hardly comprehensible] why have you given up on me you [sniffing] you promised me [softly, crying] to conduct sessions (with me) [4 seconds] [sniffing, crying] [softly, nasally] have you lost your faith in m- — in me just because [forced] the physicians [softly, crying] have doubts about my sickness [inhaling loudly] I just don't get it [crying] it still could [softly] if I'm going to die [childlike voice] (and that) i'll surely have to please — (L) believe me (emphasized) I have not mani [broken, shaking voice] pulated — never [crying, softly, forced] I did it [crying, loud inhale] it's a [forced] very very bitter feeling [hardly comprehensible, nasal, suppressed] a really terrible feeling and why [suppressed sobbing] is it [loud inhale] [crying, sniffing] [quickly] I have to stop now b (tape 4,072 [schnell] warum soll ich alles — warum — warum [verschluckt] muß/ ich meine Krankheit — be [kindliche Stimme] wei: sen/ [andere, fremde Summe] is ja ein komischgemisches Gefühl (all die?) [leise, stoßweise] nein nein nei: n [5 sec.]

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(—?) [weinend, schluchzend] (kann nich?) (nein?) [krampfartiges Schluchzen, lautes Weinen]

Translation:

[quickly] why should I why — why [swallowed] must I [childlike voice] prove my sickness [strange voice] it's really a curious feeling (all those?) [softly] no no no [5 seconds] (—?) [crying, sobbing] (can't?) (no?) [convulsively sobbing, crying]

These fragments not only show the speaker's performance of losing (control over) her voice but also show her performance of being overtaken by uncontrollable physical reactions in general. This loss of control becomes audible on the tape and, in this way, becomes a part of the message. We, in fact, treat the documented spasmo-convulsive in- and exhaling as well as the secreting liquids from the eyes and the nose (tears and mucus) as communicative devices in that they audibly (and visually) manifest a physical reaction that cannot be held back. To be sure, spasm, convulsion, and secretion represent physiological reactions that, at least to some extent, are extraneous to the speaker's conscious use. Exactly in this regard they, however, become a relevant part of communication when occuring on a tape which will most likely be and in fact was heard by the therapist. As far as spasm, convulsion, and secretion can automatically be interpreted (by the participants as well as by analysts) as signs of intervening physical reactions that have gotten out of control, the normal use of vocal organs in the sense of controlled air-current, pronounciation, and articulation, on the other hand, can be viewed as a constant sign of physical functions being under conscious control. Therefore, speaking or, more adequately, voidng in general has to be analyzed in terms of performing vocality as the achievement of (degrees of) control over physical reactions. The loss of voice, that is demonstrated on the tape (s. (12) above), is a loss in distancing the body as an uncontrollable physical domain. The immediate presence of the body overtaking the speaker's normally controlled physical reactions in all cases leads to the suspension of the established frame (s. (10) above): The participants' control over their physical functions has to be considered a basic condition for any kind of frame (cf. Goffman 1974). The presence of uncontrollable physical reactions actually calls for a close, intimate contact of bodily communication which is unusual even for the frame of

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therapeutic discourse and which is possible only under conditions of the participants' co-presence. Such a close, intimate contact that requires some kind of mutually shared physical presence is, for instance, realized in the mother-baby/child dyad whose early communicative patterns are bound to bodily contacts like sqee^ing, pressing, caressing, fondling, holding, hugging^ or even suckling. The client's making use of vocal ressources in the sense of adopting a child's voice (see fragment (12b)) might be interpreted in the light of this consideration: Using different voice-qualities as a vehicle of establishing or breaking frames. Varying the quality of the voice in the sense that was described above represents a further instance of the vocal repertoire of speakers. The use of a large segment of this repertoire contributes to the impression of a more informal frame (s. above 5.1). Oral messages on outgoing answering-machine recordings on the one hand and oral messages extracted from therapeutic discourse on the other hand represent extremes of formal and informal discourse. The fragmentary analyses presented here may shed a light on how the communicative framing of such discourse types can be established by vocal means, e. g., by means of performing a high degree of control or, vice versa, a loss of control over the bodily production of voice. Degrees of control over one's voice, at the same time, are degrees of control of one's physical functions. Closeness or distance to physical boundedness, finally, depends or or reproduces, respectively, the frame of discourse the participants establish.

6. Conclusion Classroom interactions, dinnertable conversations, outgoing messages on answering machines and therapeutic recordings represent quite different realizations of oral communication. This holds for general criteria such as the participants' co-presence as well as for activity-type specific criteria in terms of social frames. Aside from these differences, however, all of them have in common one of the basic elements of orality: The vocal quality of the linguistic forms (s. above 1 and 4). In this paper, orality was viewed as a resource that emerges from the production of the voice by means of the physical speech apparatus. In this sense, orality is an aspect of the physical boundedness of the speaker. That is, speaking automatically displays different degrees of closeness or distance to the speaker's physical entity. The data discussed above (see 12) give some evidence that this degree of closeness and/or distance to the physical functions obviously is connected with the kind of activity type: Oral communication that approaches the pole "oriented towards formality" (s. above 4) shows a very small use of vocal possibili-

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ties, e. g. a low range of loudness, pitch, rhythmic acceleration and deceleration. This holds for "formal" classroom interaction as well as "formal" messages on answering machines (s. above 5). Oral communication that approaches the pole "oriented towards informality" (s. above 4) contrarily shows a much larger use of these vocal possibilities including not only prosodic elements but also bodily expressions such as sobbing, sniffing, sneezing, crying, whining, and wailing. This holds for "informal" dinnertable conversations as well as "informal" therapeutic discourse (see fragment 12). The frame relevance of these vocal devices is demonstrated by the fact that their occurrence or absence respectively change the frame within a given setting. These observations give reason to assume that members' use of their voice essentially contributes to the basic requirement of contextualization: Whenever a person speaks s/he vocally frames, and in doing so, establishes the social situation. References Alvarez-Caccamo, C. and Knoblauch, H. 1992 " was calling you': Communicative Patterns in Leaving a Message on an Answering Machine", in Text 12(4), 473-505. Auer, P. 1992 "Introduction: John Gumperz Approach to Contextualization", in Auer, P. and DiLuzio, A. (eds.): The Contextualization of language. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1—37. Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, Th. 1969 The Social Construction of Reality. New York. Biber, D. 1986 "Spoken and written textual dimensions in English." In: language 62, 2, 384—414. Bühler, K. 1965 Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Stuttgart: Fischer (first publishing 1934). Chafe, W. and Danielewicz, J. 1985 "Properties of spoken and written language." In: Horowitz, R. and Samuels, S. J. (eds.): Comprehending oral and written language. New York: Academic Press. Ehlich, K. and Rehbein, J. 1986 Muster und Institution. Untersuchungen %ur schulischen Kommunikation. Tübingen: Narr. Erickson, F. 1980 "Timing and Context in Children's Everyday Discourse: Implications for the Study of Referential and Social Meaning." Sociolinguistic Working Paper No 67. Austin, Texas: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Foerster, H. von 1960 "On Self-Organizing Systems and Their Environment", in Yovits, M. C. and Cameron, S. (eds.): Self-Organising Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 31—48. Goffman, E. 1964 "The Neglected Situation", in Gumperz, J. J. and Hymes, D. (eds.): Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 133-136. 1974 Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organisation of Experience. New York: Harper & Row. Gülich, E. 1970 Maknsyntax der Gliederungssignale im gesprochenen Französisch. München: Fink.

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Gumperz, J. J. 1982 a Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1982b "Prosody in Conversation", in Gumperz 1982 a: 100-129. 1982c "Contextualization conventions." In: Gumperz 1982 a: 130—152. Hausendorf, H. and Quasthoff, U. 1991 "Kinder erzählen, Erwachsene hören zu: Zur entwicklungstheoretischen Integration interaktiver, semantisch-pragmatischer und formaler Beschreibungsaspekte", in Linguistische Berichte 134, 253-275. Jefferson, G. 1985 An Exercise in the Transcription and Analysis of Laughter", in: van Dijk, T. A. (ed.): Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Volume 3: Discourse and Dialogue. London etc.: Academic Press, 25-34. Kendon, A. 1990 Conducting Interaction. Patterns of Behaviour in Focused Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Labov, W. 1972 "The Isolation of Contextual Styles", in: Labov, William: Sociolinguisiic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 70—109. Michaels, S. and Collins, J. 1984 "Oral Discourse Styles: Classroom Interaction and the Acquisition of Literacy." In: Tannen, Deborah (ed.): Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Norwood: Ablex, 219-244. Quasthoff, U. M. 1979 "Eine interaktive Funktion von Erzählungen", in Soeffner, H.-G. (ed.): Interpretative Verfahren in den Text- und So^ialivissenschaften. Stuttgart: Metzler, 104—126. Quasthoff, U. M. 1994 "Context", The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon. Sacks, H. 1972 "On the Analyzability of Stories by Children", in Gumperz, J. J. and Hymes, D. (eds.): Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 325-345. Sacks, H.; Schegloff, E. E. and Jefferson, G. 1974 "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn Taking for Conversation", Language 50, 696-735. Scott, M. B. and Lyman, S. M. 1968 "Accounts". In: American Sociological Review 3, 46-62. Selling, M. 1991 Prosodie im Gespräch. Aspekte einer interpretativen Phänologie der Konversation. Habilitationsschrift Universität Oldenburg. Tannen, D. 1982 "Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives." In: language 58, 1-21. Wald, B. 1978 "Zur Einheitlichkeit und Einleitung von Diskurseinheiten", in Quasthoff, U. M. (ed.): Sprachstruktur - So^ialstruktur. Zur linguistischen Theorienbildung. Kronberg/Ts.: Scriptor, 128-149. Watzlawick, P; Beavin, J. H. and Jackson, D. D. 1967 Pragmatics of Human Communication. A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton. Wojcik, D. 1987-1988 '"At the sound of the beep': An Analysis of the Structure and Traditional Speech Forms of Answering Machines", in Folklore and Mythology Studies 11, 81—103.

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Appendix Explanation of notation used in transcriptions —

[P/x sec.] [L] (...) ( ) ) ( ) j (xyz) xyz_

[

xyz xyz xyz xyz [xyz] /xyz xyz/ = xyz xyz ? ! CAPITAL LETTERS : xyz = eh ) xyz: oh I äh J

Caesura short pause (about 2 seconds) medium-length pause (about 3 seconds) longer pause and its duration in seconds takes a breath short, unintelligable unintelligible, consisting of 2 or 3 unidentifiable words probably as transcribed, but somewhat difficult to understand interruption/self-correction in a word; anacoluthons are subsumed under this category and not separately marked simultaneous utterances of two speakers, first speaker's utterance appears above second speaker's utterance commentary range of commentary ligature (joining of words at boundaries) primary (major) stress secondary (minor) stress interrogatory intonation exclamatory intonation simultaneous caesura and falling intonation emphasis indicates prolongation of sound prolongation of sound at the end of a word fillers rising intonation contour

Orality in Ontogenesis

UTA M. QUASTHOFF

The Ontogenetic Aspect of Orality: Towards the Interactive Constitution of Linguistic Development 7. Introduction The role of orality in language acquisition seems to be a trivial problem: No matter where the (non-handicapped) child grows up — the first language acquired is an oral one. The first communicative environment each child is exposed to is that of orality. Forms of written language are only mastered later in life — if at all — when language acquisition in the sense most researchers view it is completed. Written language is also not acquired in the same sense as oral registers, rather taught and learned in instructional contexts very much different from natural first language acquisition. So the trivial answer would be that language acquisition or linguistic development is simply a matter of orality. If, however, the term "language" in the expression language acquisition is meant to entail a more global concept of language faculty which comprises different registers including written ones — or is conceptualized as being independant of phonetic or graphic performance (Chomsky 1965) of utterances — the question has to be seen in a different light: which qualities of oral communication are those which turn it into an obviously perfect setting for acquiring linguistic structures? Or, to turn to the other side of the coin: how do linguistic structures have to be conceptualized in light of their being acquired as part of oral communication with the child? Used in the context of these questions the term Oral communication' loses its contrastive meaning (oral vs. written) in favor of a unique category which almost merges with the term (face-to-face) interaction. In accordance with this concept I will deal with the role of oral communication in linguistic development by first discussing face-to-face interaction as a prototype of orality. Secondly, I will present some of the main issues in language acquisition research including the aspects of (1) the kind of developmental concept they entail and (2) the notion of linguistic structure they suggest. Thirdly, the role of interactivity in language acquisition will be discussed, and finally I will present empirical evidence as to the operation of interactively based acquisitional mechanisms in discourse development.

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2. Face-to-face interaction as a prototype of oral communication For the matter of the present argument let us put aside the doubts one may have with respect to orality as a theoretically acceptable descriptive criterion and the difficulties in delimineating oral from written registers (see the introduction to this volume, also Scollon/Scollon, this volume). In applying a prototypical notion of orality then, we should have no difficulties achieving agreement on the following characteristic features of such a prototypical concept: (1) Semantic criterion: Here-now-me- Origo' (Bühler 1934) In contrast to written linguistic acts which are stored outside of the human memory and which accordingly do not require production and reception within the same temporal or local frame, oral utterances are in a special way tied to the immediate spatial, temporal and personal reference points of the utterance: Who talks, when, and where (to whom, one might add in extension of Buhler's famous expression) is indexically woven into the meaning of the oral utterance instead of being made explicit. This is due to the constant physical availability (see Hausendorf, this volume and Scollon/Scollon, this volume) of the situational conditions. Of course language offers a means of transgressing the situational boundedness: One may talk about "not now" in the sense of past and future events and one may also talk as if one were talking "not now". One may speak about other places and one may also speak as if one were talking at a different place. I may even talk as if it were not me who is talking (Goffman 1974). But each process of, e. g., oral story telling — taken as a prototypical example for the establishment of a discourse world other than the here-now-me-boundedness — is immediately interrupted if someone yells "fire!" or the like — thus automatically reestablishing the basic referential conditions of orality. (2) Processing criterion: Transitory quality Due to the fact that the message form of oral utterances can only be stored under the limited conditions of the working memory (Wessells 1984), it is only to a limited degree available for monitoring on the side of the producer of an utterance (see Gulich/Kotschi, this volume; Herrmann/Grabowski, this volume). Also the comprehension process is bound to the sequential conditions of text production. Among other things this leads to — and requires — a certain amount of redundancy and limits complexity' in comparison to written communication, which can be easily checked forwards and backwards. (3) Formal criterion: Multi-channel communication As opposed to writing and reading oral communication uses different acoustic and visual sign systems in the realization of one communicative act (see Walbott and Kappas & Hess, this volume). In other words, the formal manifestation of

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each oral utterance is a complex multi-channel one which cannot be reduced to the "linguistic form". Although this can cause irritations if, e. g., linguistic, paralinguistic and facial messages are not in accordance, the normal case in communication among adults again is redundancy, which facilitates processing. (4) Communicative criteria: The physical availability of the here-now-me-(and you), which constitutes the special kind of referential boundedness of oral acts in a semantic sense, also establishes particular characteristics of the speech event in a communicative sense. Recipient Design

The mutually acknowledged co-presence of the participants of an encounter (Goffman 1971, Hausendorf, this volume) shapes the actions of each speaker in orientation to his/her specific recipients and vice versa. Conversation Analysis has emphasized this mutual orientation towards actual communicative partners as one of the basic principles of (face-to-face) interaction (Sack/Schegloff 1978). Mutual display

The "sense-making" process which constitutes communication in general in the case of direct interaction is a mutual one. This means that each partner uses cues as to the intended meaning, aimed towards a disambiguation of the "message" in all its parts. Again these cues are particularly shaped in orientation towards the actual partner as a consequence of the principle of recipient design. Contextuali^ation

Each communicative event constitutes its own frame (Goffman 1974) in the course of its execution. In the case of oral events this frame is mutually displayed, shared, but also apt to change in mutual accordance. Joint achievement

It is a consequence of the co-presence of the participants in time and space that this mutual orientation entails mutual shares in its achievement. The "design" of each participant's utterance towards the "recipient" is apt for monitoring, correction, ratification, or refusal on the part of the other. Consequently, established meanings in communicative exchanges — no matter on which level of the entire communicative event — are always not only mutually agreed upon (if not marked otherwise) but also jointly achieved. Among the interactive principles named above recipient design and the joint achievement of structures are the ones which are most typical for oral communication as opposed to interaction in general. As countless empirical studies — with or without explicit reference to this principle — have shown: 'Recipient design' in the sense of Conversation Analysis operates on various levels of possible description: emotional, situational, topical, and formal levels of communicative exchanges. In other words, recipient design in the common fulfillment of

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communicative "work" establishes an emotional relationship which is mutually "sensed" as a quality of the encounter. It also regulates the contextualization of a particular frame (Goffman 1974) or definition of situation which the participants acknowledge as the relevant conditions of their dealing with each other. The content and form of what is being said follow the participants' mutual expections of relevance and appropriateness. Forms are to be read as mutually displayed indications of intended meanings. The joint achievement of structures in a sense is a corollary of recipient design. Even syntactic forms on a sentence level are jointly achieved (Goodwin, this volume) and can be negotiated among participants (Gülich/Kotschi, this volume). Thus, it is clear in which sense the prototypical notion of oral communication (in the sense of "somatic communication", see Scollon/Scollon, this volume) is an equivalent to face-to-face interaction. In later sections of this article I will show in which sense interaction is a condition of linguistic development. In the following section, however, central issues in language acquisition research will be presented as far as is required for the purposes of our discussion.

3.

Some Issues in language acquisition research

3.1.

Concepts of development

The different global explanations of the process of language acquisition, which underly the main theoretical frameworks in this field (Miller/Weissenborn 1990) can be differentiated according to the various notions of development that they are indebted to. In a very simplified matter we can distinguish: The nativist's position (Chomsky 1965, McNeal 1970, Pinker 1984) entails a concept of muturation with respect to an autonomous concept of language, a modul of linguistic competence which is essentially responsible for the fact that the (normal) human child aquires language no matter what his/her cultural, social or cognitive prerequisites are. The cognitivist's position (Slobin 1973, Cromer 1974) is based on a concept of language development which to a high degree relies on the organism's active problem-solving behavior dependant on structurally different levels of processing possibilities. This problem-solving behavior is viewed as being more or less of the same nature for different domains of abilities. Interactionalism, finally, focusses on those aspects of linguistic development which are largely an experience bound learning process, triggered and supported by social interaction. The genetic disposition in this view is assumed to be interaction rather than language oriented, although a genetic component of language ability will not be denied by most interactionists. This juxtaposition of prototypical notions of development already suggests what is being admitted more and more by the advocates of each theoretical

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approach: We cannot rely on only one of the general explanations of the complex process of language acquisition, but must rather assume that aspects of all three play their part. Seen in this way, the relationship of the competing models should develop into one of mutual completion and correction in the reconstruction of different aspects of an extremely complex phenomenon. The aim of theoretical and empirical work within the respective camps should not so much entail trying to prove the adequacy of one's own general hypothesis against an alternative one, rather making explicit for which aspects of language in ontogenetic view the theory holds. We should all cease proving that development works the way we conceptuaize it; instead we should reconstruct how language acquisition according to our theory works in the domain which it explains best. A nativist has to (and does) admit that linguistic "input", i. e. verbal interaction with the child, is a necessary prerequisite for acquiring language. An interactionist, on the other hand, has to grant some kind of specifically human genetic equipment at least of a cognitive and an interactive nature to account for the child's basic achievements as part of the interactive patterns performed by the mother-infant dyad (see below). Bates/Bretherton/Snyder (1988: 3 f.) systematize the agreement among researchers in the following way: 1. Creativity. Children are active and creative participants in the acquisition process. They make errors and innovations that cannot be found in their linguistic environment, in an apparent effort to forge a coherent albeit temporary theory of their language. [...] 2. Predispositions. Children can go beyond their data, because they are equipped with prior clues of some kind about the possible forms that a natural language can take. The debate then and now has focused not on the existence or nonexistance of these predispositions, but on their "domain specifity". Does the child come into the world with constraints on learning that are specific to the domain of language [...]? Or does s/he apply more general cognitive principles to the specific problems posed by language acquisition [...]? 3. Biological Bases. Whether they are specifically linguistic or not, these predispositions must be based on some kind of biological structure shared by every normal member of the species. [...]

With respect to the forth issue, "universality", the authors state that "there has been a shift in focus from universal content to universal mechanisms or processes" (Bates/Bretherton/Snyder 1988: 6). In other words, the discussion on "universal grammar" does not imply anymore the search for structural features that hold for all languages but rather for implicational relationships among structural characteristics of the type: If a language possesses feature a, then it should also have features b and c. What the child needs are discovery procedures which enable him/her eventually to cope with the specific structural problems posed by the language(s) of his/her environment. Recent research on cross-linguistic (Slobin (ed.) 1985) and individual differences (Bates/Bretherton/Snyder 1988) has presented overwhelming evidence to the fact that children by no means proceed in the same way in fulfilling this task. A conceptualizing of 'development' under the specific aspect of language acquisition, then, amounts to processes of actively dealing with the structural

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demands of a specific language, exposed to the child in the format of specific communicative routines, on the basis of processing mechanisms which are in some way biologically founded and which must be stimulated and adequately supported by the child's interaction with his/her social and physical environment. As opposed to this expression of a likely minimal consent the domains of disagreement among researchers constitute the majority of research activities in the field. The main source of theoretical disagreement are different conceptualizations of the nature of the linguistic abilities which are the target of the acquisition process. In other words, different theories of language imply different theories of language acquisition — probably even more so than different developmental theories imply different theories of linguistic development. 3.2. Different conceptions of linguistic abilities

The textbook division of the linguistic subdisciplines into syntax, semantics and pragmatics hides the fact that practical linguistic research, grossly speaking, takes place in two camps, each of which is oriented towards one of two competing concepts of language. In spite of the important internal differentiations which have come about as consequences of newer research, these two opposing concepts go back to the two most influential language theories of this century: In one case language is seen as an abstract system of signs (in the Saussureian sense) or rules (Chomsky 1965) which has to be described independantly of its actual use. In the other case, language "is use" in the sense that it is esentially viewed as the means of symbolic (interaction (Wittgenstein 1953, Austin 1962, Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson 1978). Not very many researchers have seriously tried to find out the compatabilities between the two theoretical orientations, although there are domains of research such as deixis (Hausendorf, this volume) — or semantics in general for that matter — which seem to fall into an overlap of the typical domains of description with respect to the two basic theoretical assumptions: syntax on the one hand and pragmatics on the other hand. Obviously the time for reconciliation has not come yet, although the object level does not necessarily call for competion, mutually exclusive theories: An action-oriented concept of language has to account for the regular linear structure of utterances in a given language just as a system-oriented approach to linguistic description should be able to deal with the various interactions between system and use. In terms of language acquisition it goes without saying that this developmental process will be conceptualized radically differently, depending on the question if the abilities to be acquired are seen as a grammatical faculty or as a competence in performing communicative acts. Again this holds, although "communicative competence" implies the mastering of "grammar", and although the empirical manifestations of grammatical competence in child language — even more than in the case of adult competence (where you can ask for judgments of

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grammatically) — are a matter of actual speech in interaction, i. e. in collaboration with someone else. It is not surprising that the advocates of an abstract system of syntactic rules to be acquired as the target of linguistic development also argue for language faculty as an autonomous domain of competence, different from cognitive abilities, largely founded by genetically predisposed, specifically human capacities. It is also easy to conclude that researchers oriented towards a pragmatic concept of linguistic abilities heavily rely on the role of interactive experience in the formation of a competent linguistic performer. By no means an adequate description of the main issues in language acquisition research has been given in this chapter. But for the purposes of our present argument with respect to the role of oral communication in linguistic development the above sketch should be sufficient. We are interested in the role of (adult-child) interaction as a prototype of oral communication in the formation of linguistic abilities, and we are interested in the conceptualization of linguistic abilities that result from this reconstructed role. What may sound close to a tautology then, may be understood as part of the basic theoretical frameworks outlined above, which structure the field.

4. The role of interaction in language acquisition In this section I will not repeat the arguments of the interactionist position in language acquisition research in favor of a central role of (mother/adult-child) interaction in the explanation of linguistic development (see, however, Bruner 1985, Doise/Palmonari (eds.) 1984, DeLemos 1981, Hausendorf/Quasthoff 1992, Hickman (ed.) 1987, Miller/Weissenborn 1990). Rather, I will discuss if and in which sense the characteristics of oral communication as outlined above in section 2 constitute necessary conditions for language acquisition and what this means in terms of a conceptualization of language faculty. A long lasting insight into children's first use of language concerns the fact that it is closely tied to the immediate surroundings of the utterance, shared by child and caretaker, the "here-now-me(-and you) origo (Bühler 1934). This holds not only in the sense that only in later phases of the child's linguistic development the child starts to talk about not here, not now, not me and you. The physical availability of the situational reference points provides the chance for pre-verbal but still symbolic communication by proxemic and gestural means, which in fact are seen as the predecessors of early language use by many researchers (e. g. Greenfield/Smith 1976). The physically based mutually shared focus of attention between child and adult in the communicative dyad provides, among other things, the necessary physical and social environment for the immediate operation — and easy discovery — of the referential principle of languages: The tie between symbolic actions and denotated parts of the physical and social environment is constituted by

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physical actions on the part of both child and adult. Named objects are moved, looked at, shown, pointed at, played with etc. This mutually shared focus of attention within a joint action frame also allows unambiguity despite the use of only minimal linguistic means for referential identification and differentiation. The co-presence and the resulting actional involvement of adult and child also provide the context for the sharing of "syntactic structures" between child and adult: In face-to-face dialog, utterance forms of one participant (the child) can be completed (Greenfield/Smith 1976), extended (Bruner 1985), repeated (and thus confirmed) etc. by the other (the adult). The linear extension of single utterances can be distributed among the participants (Goodwin, this volume). They are commonly achieved by child and adult even if they are not "co-constructed" in the sense that each participant adds something. Often this sharing seems to be such that the child provides a word, used in a deictic function, and the adult treats this word as an argument by providing a suitable predicate or offers a syntactic structure to build around the single word utterances: MOTHER

The kite went in the water? What happened to the kite? Did it go in the water?

MATTHEW kite [Something incomprehensible was said here] water

yeah (Greenfield/Smith 1976: 154)

The consequences of the here-now-me-Ofigo as a learning context for natural languages seem to suggest the following kinds of predispositions as part of an appropriate concept of language faculty: — Perceptual predispositions such as the salience of movement. — A predisposition for interactive orientation seems to be a prerequisite for the early establishment of a mutually shared focus of attention. — A predisposition towards a general symbolic (instead of a specific linguistic) orientation in the sense of the aliquid stat pro aliquo seems to account for the described developmental effectiveness of the here-now-me. With respect to the transitory quality of oral utterances one must at first sight assume that it is dysfunctional for language acquisition. It seems that — simple — written utterances would provide a better language learning context at least for the referential function of language: Written signs would be longer available for processing, could be "worked on" without the limitations of short term memory, could also be physically tagged to the named objects.

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III. The Empirical Domains — Orality in Ontogenesis

At closer inspection, however, it is just this seeming inappropriateness which offers an important insight into the character of language (acquisition). It becomes clear that written signs would lack a very decisive advantage of oral acts: They could not be contextualized in the same way within the on-going performance of the dyad's actions. In other words, it is just the transitory character of oral utterances which allows their exact placement into the on-going flow of activities. And it is this placement at structurally relevant positions which is the prerequisite for the child's exploiting of sequential implications for language acquisition (see 5.1 below). Only to the extent that unambiguous meaning is a matter of context, that forms are determined by their sequential position in a more global structure, the oral constitution of utterances provide the perfect learning context for language acquisition. Consequently, if natural languages really were to be described adequately as abstract systems of rules, the human species probably would have developed a learning context for linguistic development which relies much more on non-transitory, i. e. written signs. The multi-channel quality of utterance forms in oral communication interestingly enough does not include truly non-transitory channels. Even relatively stable signs like proxemic ones are transitory in nature in that they play their contextualized part in the dynamic flow of communication. The multi-channel characteristics of orality on the one hand constitute the redundancy necessary for the decoding of symbolic actions. The synchrony between verbal and non-verbal aspects of a communicative activity (see Walbott and Kappas & Hess, this volume) — e. g. pointing gesture plus word — puts child and adult into the position to exploit different symbolic channels to compensate difficulties in processing. In a way the simultaneous availability of different sign systems could be seen to compensate for the "dysfunctional" quality of the transitory character of orality mentioned above. On the other hand the mutual fine-tuning necessary for the sequential organization of dialog relies to a high degree on visual cues in a non-redundant sense. Actual speech in the sense of face-to-face orality, in other words, overcomes the supposed linear character of purely linguistic structures by providing simultaneity. Consequently, we can conceptualize in one respect the multi-channel organization of oral communication as a support system for the acquisition of purely linear structures, which becomes superfluous in later phases of linguistic development, i. e. when written language is mastered. However, to the extent that the linear verbal structures constitute a "derived" way of coding information which is visually built into the message structure in face-to-face communication (Hausendorf, this volume) one can argue that instances of situation-bound simultaneity are an integral part of the human language faculty which should not be lightly neglected. In a limited sense even the various forms of written texts overcome linearity: The kind of writing/print, paper, layout, illustrations, mater-

U. M. Quasthoff, The Ontogenetic Aspect of Orality

265

ial "frames" (book, newspaper, letter etc.) constitute indispensable information in processing the text. The participants' recipient design within their joint achievement of communicative structures as the most basic structural orientation of oral communication is probably the most differentiated and complex and at the same time the most important issue among the features of orality discussed here under developmental aspects. Recipient design and the joint achievement of structures are also the features of oral interactivity which will be dealt with in the empirical section 5. The general principle that the form of each communicative move in the establishment of an interpersonal (emotional) relationship, a situational frame and a semantic message is shaped according to the particular needs of the interactive partner is viewed under the aspect that it brings about the special conditions of adult-child interaction. It regulates the developmental availability of the adult's utterances for the child. Empirical analysis (see below) shows that the adult's utterances as part of the typical patterns of adult-child interaction steer the child into the "zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky 1978). In other words, in applying a general and very basic interactive principle the adult provides, firstly, utterance forms which are in principle adjusted to the child's processing abilities. Secondly, data from discourse development (section 5 below) give evidence to the fact that the structural demands which are established by the adult's scaffolding (Bruner 1985) behavior challenge the child into just those domains of competence which are apt to be acquired next according to regular sequences of discourse structural development. The joint achievement of interactively established structures also has a special effectiveness in the case of adult-child interaction. Basically it can be described in terms of compensation. To the degree that the child's share in the joint work is smaller due to a lack of competence the adult has to do more work in order to secure the common communicative achievement of the dyad. The communicative interplay of the two partners can be visualized in the metaphor of child and adult on a seesaw: The smaller the child, the more the adult has to work to keep the game going. The joint responsibility for the common communicative achievement in adultchild interaction leads to structural characteristics of this kind of interaction: The child is provided a structural frame for the appropriate contributions on his/her part. Conversational "sequential implications" (Jefferson 1978) constitute even a "suction" into the production of these contributions. This means that the child's contributions are built into structural frameworks which are beyond the child's own cognitive possibilities. In other words, the adult's conversational behavior is supporting and demanding at the same time. In addition, as a consequence of the process of mutual attributions of meanings, which is part of the joint production of structures, the child is systematically given credit for semantic or structural asepcts of his/her utterances which

266

III. The Empirical Domains — Orality in Ontogenesis

are beyond his/her communicative expressability. In other words, the child is treated as possessing and lacking communicative abilities at the same time. In the next section I will present some empirical evidence as to the actual operation of these structural regularities in discourse acquisition. Thus, it will be shown that orality is not an accidental surrounding but an essential condition of language development in the sense of the acquisition of global structures. It follows that the relevant features which have been shown to be responsible for the developmental effectiveness of orality — somatic indexicality and interactivity — cannot be stripped from a reasonable concept of language (proficiency). Language as an abstract system of rules, then, would be acquired differently. 5. Empirical evidence

We have studied narrative development as a prototypical example of discourse acquisition in general. Approximately 240 conversational narratives told by 80 children aged 5, 7, 10, and 14 (N =20 in each age group) were collected. The narrative event to be told by the children was a real life (but staged) incident which all the children witnessed — the same for all age groups: a member of the university team trips over a cord and drops a tape-recorder, thus causing all kinds of subsequent complications. Each child had the opportunity to tell about this event on three successive days in interaction with an adult listener who did not take part in the event. Of course there were different listeners each day. There were also two experimentally manipulated conditions for the story-telling-situation so that we have 10 children of each age group under the same situational condition ("formal" or "informal") in three different narrative interactions. In collecting our data we attempted to ensure that - a prototypical object of narration close to everyday interaction, which still allows comparison among the different subjects (real life incident instead of picture series or film) was provided — the impact of the contextualization process on narrative interaction as well as on narrative development was captured, (two situational conditions of narrating) — a chance to empirically check on the actual "teaching" effect of the developmental mechanisms reconstructed by our analysis existed (each child told the same event on three succeeding days in interaction with a new adult listener each time.) 5.1 Interactive patterns in adult-child interaction

Adult-child narrative interaction in our data (with the adult as listener) is characteri2ed by a specific distribution of the shares the two participants contribute to the joint achievement:

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— Adult listeners take over narrator-specific tasks of young children. — Listener activities hold the child responsible for rule-conforming global moves, even if these moves have been locally elicited by previous listener devices. — They also produce supporting and demanding activities which direct the child into the appropriate narrative devices. All these activities — the substituting, the attributing and the supporting and demanding ones — are functional in an interactive and in a developmental respect: They ensure the successful achievement of the narrative task at hand for the dyad and they enable the operation of mechanisms for the development of discourse abilities in the child. Our results show that substituting, supporting and demanding as well as "redefining" (attributing) adult listener-activities vary systematically with the child's age: (1) Listeners of the youngest narrators take over tasks — like the establishment of a specific event as reportable — which in more prototypical narrative interactions belong to the narrator's obligations. (2) In interaction only with the youngest children global sequential implications are localized. In other words, the child is asked, for instance: "Did you get what just happened in the other room?" Only when the child — locally — answers "yes", s/he is put under the subsequent obligation "Well tell me what happened". The global sequential expectation is chopped up into smaller, locally operating parts. (3) With the younger children global sequential implications are made explicit whereas they remain implicit towards older ones. After establishing the incident as something worth telling, only the 5 year old child is asked explicitly "Please tell me what happened". (4) Listeners of the youngest children require completeness of the child's narrative production whereas the older children's discourse units are governed into detailedness. In other words, following some kind of hierarchically organized structural description of the story "schema" (Gülich/Quasthoff 1985), the adults' scaffolding questions in interaction with the 5-year-olds require them to mention the main episodes of the event. They are of the type "What else happened?" Seven year old children, however, are challenged into detailing the episodes by questions such as "How did that happen?" "What did he say?" etc. (5) Listener activities of younger (5 year old) children define reports as satisfying narrative performance whereas older children are challenged into the pattern of the "replaying" (Goffman 1974) narrative, which uses devices like direct speech, historical present, imitation, evaluation etc. (Wolfson 1982, Quasthoff 1986)

268

III. The Empirical Domains — Orality in Ontogenesis

In other words, adult interactants' activities in communication with young children substitute moves which older children perform themselves (1), and they support the child in his/her interactive task ((2) and (3)) in that they demand the appropriate moves from the child ((4) and (5)) in an age-oriented way. To a certain extent (2) combines substituting and supporting activities: Localizing global constraints support the child's production of superficiously adequate moves, but these moves are local ones as far as the child is concerned. So globality on the part of the child is substituted by the adult activity. The child's local contribution, however, is treated by the adult's next turn as if it was produced as the expected global move, although it has been elicited locally by the adult's previous devices. In other words, the child is defined as a competent interactive partner who is fully responsible for the global sequential implicativeness of his/her turns even when this implication is the result of a redefinition of the child's locally positioned move by the succeeding adult turns. These typical aspects of adult-child discourse are instantiations of the principles of recipient design and joint achievement of structures which were described among the prototypical features of oral communication in section 2 and 4 above. The adult listener's taking over of tasks which are narrator's responsibilities in a more "even" interaction is an expression of the "seesaw" mechanism: In order to secure the joint communicative achievement the stronger partner has to compensate for the lacking contributions on the part of the weaker partner. Compensating activities of course are in general oriented towards the other so that this structure also shows recipient design in operation. Localizing and making explicit the global demands which the child has to fulfill in order to acquire the narrator role are also instances of the joint production of discourse structures and recipient design at the same time. The acknowledgement of a global demand is essential for the narrator's role which, therefore, cannot be taken over entirely by the adult listener without destroying a basic structure of narrative interaction. So the child-oriented support on the part of the adult has to consist in making it easier for the child instead of taking over this part of the child's load in the communicative work. The adult's steering the child into completeness vs. detailedness in elaborating the global semantic structure or into the replaying pattern as part of the global form of the discourse unit is again to be interpreted in terms of the general interactive principles of joint achievement and recipient design. The establishment of structural demands and support at the same time on the part of the adult can be viewed as the listener's contribution to the common interactive task. The age orientation of the adult's challenges clearly indicates the operation of recipient design. The developmental mechanisms operating on the basis of these described patterns of adult-child interaction will be dealt with in the following section.

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5.2. The developmental functions of adult-child interaction

Aside from their being the guarantee for the interactive fulfillment of the dayd's communicative task the described patterns - more precisely the adult listener's shares in these patterns — can be formulated in terms of their developmental functions: (1) demand (the adult directs the child into the appropriate moves by the use of local and global sequential implications in an age-specific way), (2) localization of global sequential implications (the adult establishes local implications which steer the child into the fulfillment of global tasks not yet mastered without help: "Do you know what happened in the other room?") (3) explication of global sequential implications (the adult makes explicit global implications which older children obey without such an explicit request: "Tell me what happened") (4) demonstration (the adult obeys his/her own sequential implication him-/ herself, thus providing a model for the child's appropriate move) (5) as-if-treatment (the adult treats a locally initiated move of the child as if it had the global relevance that it should have according to the global rules of the production of a discourse unit.) (6) attribution (in case the child does not behave according to the age-specific demand, the adult offers an age-specific account for the child's refusal, thus assigning a specific developmental niveau to the child.) The following diagram represents these mechanisms in the prototypical sequential order of their operation in interaction and represents the different status of the respective devices at the same time (see Fig. 1). The sequential order of these developmental mechanisms shows that the interactive patterns described in section 5.1 above provide the vehicle for the developmental functions of this kind of interaction. The fact that the operation of these mechanisms has been reconstructed as a kind of byproduct of the interactive patterns of adult-child interaction calls for an explanation of these developmental functions themselves: why do these interactive structures function not only interactively but also developmentally? In order to explain these developmental mechanisms themselves — instead of just using them as an explanatory approach to discourse development — one has to subsume these regularies under more general interactive principles which characterize interactive processes in their respective contextualizations (see Fig. 2). This diagram shows in which way the described developmental mechanisms are bound to the mutual interactive display of the partners as being communicatively uneven. It also shows that the interactive resources used to socially establish unbalanced competence of the participants work at the same time for the

270

HI. The Empirical Domains - Orality in Ontogenesis

GLOBAL DEMAND

OCALIZATION OF GLOBAL DEMAND

EXPLICATION OF GLOBAL DEMAND

LOCALLY OBEYED

"AS-IF"TREATMENT

NOT OBEYED

ATTRIBUTION

DEMONSTRATION

GLOBALLY OBEYED Fig. 1: Developmental functions of adult-child-interaction in sequential order

abolishment of this imbalance. The mutual orientation towards each other in the common fulfillment of a joint communicative "job" in the particular contextualization of adult-child interaction sets the developmental mechanisms responsible for the gradual achievement of an even division of labor in interaction into operation. In other words, basic features of oral communication have been reconstructed to be a necessary force in the process of discourse acquisition. To the extent that speech is discourse we have given evidence to the fact that basic structures of oral communication provide the necessary surroundings for language acquisition in a sense which is not reduced to the "input" of linguistic structures.

271

U. M. Quasthoff, The Ontogenetic Aspect of Orality

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471

472

IV. Methods

A modern discourse-oriented approach to semantic interpretation for a selection of prosodic categories is given by Selting (1992), who relates the selected set of prosodically realised structures to two main systems: Information focus in terms of topical focus, additional information, anaphora, focused resumption, new topical focus); i. e. discourse-determined tonicity. "taxonomy of conversational questions", in effect an elaborate modality system of unrestricted "open" conversational questions, restricted conversational questions, securing of uptake, signalling of meaning, referential and acoustic problems, and problems of expectation; i. e. discourse-determined tone. A full explanation of these categories presupposes an understanding of the semiotic nature of prosodic sign components of the kind outlined above; the close relation between referential problems and acoustic problems is easily explained in terms of the shared indexical domain of phonetics and semantics (cf. Section 9 above), in which a self-referential semantic interpretation encompasses the phonetic properties of the signal itself (Selting 1992: 331 f.; Selling's interlinear transcription is linearised here): Referential problem (w-expression, here with falling tone): Nat: has H,S(/DU denn schon mal solche Sachen ge/MACHT) ... have you ever done such things Ron: M,F(\WAS für \SAchen) which things Nat: so . H,S(/FRAUNsachen oder so) ... speM(/ZIELL( ... such women's stuff or so particularly Acoustic problem (w-expression, here with rising tone): Soc: M(Wenn sies be/SCHREIbm könn is das ja kein prob\LF,M) if you can describe it it is no problem Kli: M(we(nn) ich /WAS if I what Soc: wenn sie s be(\SCHREIbm kön=n) if you can describe it The properties of compositionality and idiosyncrasy in these examples go far beyond the simple examples listed in the preceding sections, but are not different in kind. The referential construction with the was für NP idiom and the Fall Fall pitch accent sequence, and the was in regular NP object position with an acoustic token referent and a Rise pitch accent, require reference to both prosodic and sentential combinatory principles, and to the relation of these in turn to the pattern of dialogue. These more global patterns of dialogue represent a projection of quite similar, but more local patterns of parallelism and sequence which also occur with the word and phrase components of signs. There is an extensive literature on the semantic categories involved in the interpretation of intonation, and semantic interpretation will not be discussed further

D. Gibbon, Prosodic Analysis

473

here. Earlier work is reviewed in Gibbon (1976 a); see also Ladd (1980) and Gibbon & Richter (1984). From the late 1970s, attention was increasingly paid to interpretative methods and intonation in discourse contexts (Ehlich 1979; Fuchs 1984; Gibbon 1976b, 1981; Gibbon & Selting 1983; Selting 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991); in the eighties, much work was done on categories of mood, modality and focus (cf. Altmann 1988, Altmann & al. 1989). Work on the formal syntax and semantics of prosody and on a processing theory for intonation is being developed within a Categorial Grammar framework by Steedman (Steedman 1992, Prevost & Steedman 1993). Phonetic token descriptions of prosodic categories have indexical (speakerspace-time) aspects; the same applies to semantic representations of token contexts. Semantic denotation descriptions pertain primarily to cognitive and behavioral aspects of intonation meaning. These have been most often investigated in experimental psychology and medicine, in connection with research into the signalling of physical correlates of emotional or pathological states (see Helfrich 1985). Other semantic aspects include ongoing research into the semantics of pointing, in linguistics, anthropology and software engineering (the use of acoustic and visual pointing devices, such as spoken instructions or mouse-driven pointers for computer operation).

12. Conclusion

The main aim of this paper is to motivate the development of a systematic, integrative, sign-based approach to prosodic domain definition, prosodic representation and prosodic methodology within the framework of an integrated compositional semiotic theory. One aspect of this is to outline a number of recent innovations in the methodology of prosodic analysis, in particular computational modelling and prosodic signal annotation technology, to assess their significance for prosodic theory and practice, and to promote their use in the various empirical and interpretative disciplines connected with the description of speech. The new methodology includes suggestions for standard sets of easily usable and computer readable prosodic symbols such as SAMPROSA. However, there is currently no consensus on an "International Prosodic Alphabet"; most symbols currently in use are heavily theory or language bound, so the proposed set is over-generously dimensioned in that it contains symbols for a superset of the prosodic categories which are commonly used in describing a wide range of languages in different theoretical frameworks. It will need to be restricted or partitioned as a result of future discussion. The different methodologies traditionally used in prosodic analysis, whether interpretative, structural or phonetic, have often been regarded by their proponents as mutually exclusive or indeed as mutually irrelevant. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that they are inextricably interdependent, and that a satisfactory theory and methodology for the prosodic domain will not become

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IV. Methods

available until attempts to integrate these approaches have attained some measure of success. But integration is not fusion: the different methodologies will remain complementary within their well-defined domains of relevance. References Altmann, H. 1988 Intonationsforschungen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Altmann, H. et aJ. 1989 Zur Intonation von Modus und Fokus im Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Bird, S. and Klein, E. 1990 "Phonological events." Journal of linguistics 26: 33—56. Bleiching, D. 1991 Default-Hierarchien in der deutschen Wortprosodie. ASL-TR-19-91/UB1. Bleiching, D. 1992 "Prosodisches Wissen im Lexikon." In: Görz, G., ed., KONVENS '92. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 59-68. Braun, G.; Gibbon, D.; Jin, F. and Pignataro, R. 1988 "Prosodic Cohesion." Project Report, U Bielefeld. Brindöpke, C; Gibbon, D.; Langer, H. and Pampel, M. 1991 "Prosodische Kohäsion." In: Rickheit, G., ed., Kohären%pro%esse: Modellierung von Sprachverarbeitung in Texten und Diskursen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 136—181. Browman, C. and Goldstein, N. 1990 "Tiers in articulatory phonology, with some implications for casual speech." In: Kingston, J., M. R. Beckman, eds., Papers in iMboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech. Cambridge University Press, 341—376. Carson-Berndsen, J. 1991 Ereignisstrukturen fur phonologisches Parsen. ASL-TR-9-91/UB1. Carson-Berndsen, J. 1992 An Hvent-based Phonotactics for German. ASL-TR-29-92/UB1. Carson-Berndsen, J. 1993 Time-Map Phonology and the Projection Problem in Spoken language Recognition. Thesis, U Bielefeld. Couper-Kuhlen, R. 1985 An Introduction to hnglish Prosody. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Crystal, D. 1969 Prosodic Systems and Intonation in Hnglish. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cutler, A. and Ladd, R. 1983 Prosody: Models and Measurements. Berlin: Springer. Rhlich, K. 1979 "Formen und Funktionen von 'Hm'. Rine phonologisch-pragmatische Analyse." In: Harald Weydt, ed., Die Partikeln der deutschen .Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 503—517. Rvans, R. and Gazdar, G. 1990 The DATR Papers: February 1990. University of Sussex, Cognitive Science Research Reports. Fuchs, A. 1984 " 'Deaccenting' and 'Default Accent'." In: Gibbon & Richter (1984), pp. 134-164. Gibbon, D. 1976 a Perspectives of Intonation Analysis. Bern: Lang. Gibbon, D. 1976b "Performatory categories in contrastive intonation analysis." In D. Chijoran, ed., Second International Conference of hnglish Contrastive Projects, Bucharest, pp. 145—156.

D. Gibbon, Prosodic Analysis Gibbon, D. 1990 a Gibbon, D. 1990 b Gibbon, D. 1991 Gibbon, D. 1992 a

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"Prosodic Association by Template Inheritance." In: Gazdar, G..& VK Daelemans, eds., Proc. Int. Workshop on Inheritance in Natural Language Processing. Tilburg. Survey of Prosodic labelling for EC iMnguages. Report e.6, SAM-UCL G002. SAMPROSA: A computer readable transcription system for prosody. ESPRIT 2589 (Speech Assessment Methods). Ms. U Bielefeld. "ILEX: A linguistic approach to computational lexica." In: U. Klenk (ed.), Computatio linguae. Aufsätze %ur algoritbmiscben und quantitativen Analyse der Sprache, Beihefte der Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, S. 32—53.

"Prosody, time types and linguistic design factors in spoken language system architectures." In: Görz, G., ed., KONVENS '92. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 90^99. Gibbon, D. and Ahoua, F. 1991 "DDATR: un logiciel de traitement d'heritage par defaut pour la modelisation lexicale." In: Cahiers Ivoiriens de Recherche iJnguistique (CIRIj 27, 5—59. Gibbon, D. and Carson-Berndsen, J. 1993 "Declarative word modelling in speech recognition." Ms. U Bielefeld. Gibbon, D. and Braun, G. 1988 "The PSI/PHI model of prosodic parsing." In: Proceedings, COLJNG 88, Budapest. Gibbon, D. and Richter, H. eds. 1984 Intonation, Accent and Rhythm. Studies in Discourse Phonology. Berlin: de Gruyter. Gibbon, D. and Selling, M. 1983 "Intonation und die Strukturierung eines Diskurses." Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 13, pp. 53—73. Goldsmith, J. 1990 Autosegmental and Metrical Phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Halliday, M. A. K. 1967 Intonation and Grammar in British English. Den Haag: Mouton. 't Hart, J. and Collier, R. 1990 "Intonation by rule: a perceptual truest." Journal of Phonetics 1, 309—327. 't Hart, J.; Collier, R. and Cohen, A. 1990 A Perceptual Study of Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Helfrich, H. 1985 Sat^melodie und Sprachwahrnehmung: Psycholinguisiische Untersuchungen %ur Grundfrequen^. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hess, W. 1983 Pitch Determination of Speech Signals. Berlin: Springer. Hogg, R. and McCcully, C. B. 1987 Metrical Phonology: a coursebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huber, D. 1988 Aspects of the Communicative Function of Voice in Text Intonation: Constancy and Variability in Swedish Fundamental Frequency Contours. Thesis, U Göteborg, 1988. Ladd, D. 1980 The Structure of Inlonational Meaning: Evidence from English. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lehiste, I. 1970 Suprasegmenlals. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pierrehumbert, J. 1980 The Phonology and Phonetics of English Intonation. Ph. D. thesis, M. I. T.

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Prevost, S. and Steedman, Mark 1993 "Generating contextual!)' appropriate intonation." In: EACL 93: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Utrecht, 332-340. Selling, M. 1987 "Descriptive categories for the auditive analysis of intonation in conversation."/ of Pragmatics \ 1,777-791. Selling, M. 1988 "The role of intonation in the organisation of repair and problem handling sequences in conversation."/, of Pragmatics, 12, 293—322. Selling, M. 1989 "Konstitution und Veränderung von Sprechstilen als Kontextualisierungsverfahren: Die Rolle von Sprachvariation und Prosodie." In V. Hinnenkamp & M. Selling, eds., Stil und Stilisierung: Arbeiten %ur interpretation So^iolinguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 203-225. Selling, M. 1991 Prosodie im Gespräch. Aspekte einer interpretative» Phänologie der Konversation. Habilitationsschrift, U. Oldenburg. Selling, M. 1992 "Prosody in conversational questions." In/, of Pragmatics, 17, 315-345. Sleedman, M. 1992 "Grammar, inionalion and discourse information." In: Görz, G., ed., KONVENS '92. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 21-28. Tillmann, H.-G. and Mansell, P. 1980 Phonetik: I^autsprachliche Zeichen, Sprachsignale und lautsprachlicher Kommunikationsprozeß. Slutigari, Kleit-Colia.

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Appendix 1: SAMPA computer readable alphabet with ASCII and I PA definitions (1990) Consonants

b c C d D f g G h

i k 1 L m n J N P r R s S t T v W X

H z Z ?

98 99 67 100 68 102 103 71 104 106 107 108 76 109 110 74 78 112 114 82 115 83 116 84 118 119 120 72 122 90 63

voiced voiceless voiceless voiced voiced voiceless voiced voiced voiceless voiceless

voiceless

voiceless voiceless voiceless voiceless voiced voiceless voiced voiced

bilabial palatal palatal dental/alveol. dental labiodental velar velar glottal palatal velar dental/alveol. palatal bilabial dental/alveol. palatal velar bilabial p alveolar uvular alveolar postalveolar dental/alveol. dental labiodental labial-velar velar labial-palat. alveolar postalveolar st0d, glottal stop

plosive plosive fricative plosive fricative fricative plosive fricative fricative approximant plosive lateral approximant lateral approximant nasal nasal nasal nasal losive trill trill/fricative fricative fricative plosive fricative fricative approximant fricative approximant fricative fricative

Boundary and prosodic features : papa nH papa %papa -papa 'papa 'papa "papa "papa

S

1

_

58

length mark Primary stress (also in Accent I words in Norwegian and Swedish) 34,34 Accent II words in Norwegian and Swedish 37 Secondary stress 45 Level tone (if followed by a tone group boundary) 39 Rising tone Falling tone 96 96,39 Fall-rise 39,96 Rise-fall Syllable boundary 36 124 Tone group boundary 45 Separator 34

IV. Methods

I

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front back front central back back front front central central front front back front front front back back central back front front

unrounded unrounded unrounded unrounded rounded rounded unrounded unrounded unrounded unrounded unrounded unrounded rounded rounded rounded rounded rounded rounded rounded unrounded rounded rounded

E bad G Butter

Schwa

lax

lax

lax

Two character symbols

e al tS rd u0

69,126 Example of nasalized vowel 97,73 Example of diphthong 116,83 Example of affricate 114,100 Example of retroflex consonant 117,48 Mid-close rounded central vowel in Swedish =n 61,110 Example of syllabic /n/ E/ 69,47 Example of indeterminacy (for /e/ /E/ indeterminacy in French) Currently under discussion

* \

42 Conjunctor 46,46,46 Silent pause 92 Phonetic case shift (e. g. (e. g. \*F might be used to signal a shift into French and \ would terminate the shift)

Currently used in French work

§#

35 ## 35,35 + 43

Phonological phrase Word boundary Absence of liaison Morpheme boundary

D. Gibbon, Prosodic Analysis

479

Appendix II: SAMPROSA (SAM PROSodic Alphabet) Symbol Set (DRAFT, D. Gib-

bon, 1992)

Local tone

SAMPROSA

ASCII

Definition

H L T B M

72 76 84 66 77 43 43,43 43,45 45 45,45 45,43 94 94,94 33 33,33 61 62 or 83

High pitch Low pitch Top pitch (extreme H) Bottom pitch (extreme L) Mid pitch Higher pitch Much higher pitch Peak (upward-downward) Lower pitch Much lower pitch Trough (downward-upward) Upstep Wide upstep Downstep Wide downs tep Level or same tone

== or > or S

Global tone From Local and Nuclear tone repertoire. Terminal tone From Local and Nuclear tone repertoire. 45

Nuclear tone Or / or R Or\or F " (etc.) 96,39 "(etc.) 39,96

Pause Boundary

S or. \n

Metasymbols

39 47 or 82 96 92 or 70 (etc.) (etc.) 58 34 37 46,46,46 36 or 46 35 124 91 93 45

42

Level tone (if followed by a tone group boundary Rising tone Falling tone Fall-rise Rise-fall Segment length mark Primary stress Secondary stress Silence Syllable boundary Word Boundary Prosodic break (n optional or integer; cf. Prosodic group boundary (left) Prosodic group boundary (right) Separator (the underscore, _, ASCII 95, may replace this owing to ambiguity with the level tone) Conjunctor

HARALD G. WALLBOTT

Analysis of Nonverbal Communication In this chapter we will describe methods to analyze nonverbal behaviour, i. e. the realm of human expressive behaviour which is not verbal behaviour or verbal communication. Nonverbal behaviour (see Scherer & Wallbott, 1985) encompasses both nonvocal behaviour (facial expression, gestures, body movements and body postures, as well as interpersonal distance behaviour) and vocal behaviour (voice quality, pitch changes, voice loudness, filled and unfilled pauses etc.). As vocal expression and vocal communication and its methods of analysis will be delt with in other chapters (Gibbon, Hess & Kappas), we will focus our attention here on the analysis of nonvocal communication, or "body language", as it is often addressed in popular literature. Such a "channel" approach to communicative behaviour stands in the tradition of Source-Channel-Message-(Noise)-Receiver models of communication. An example for such a model is the Brunswikian lens model as adopted in social psychology and in person perception research (see Wallbott, 1982). Applications of this model state that psychological criteria of the sender (like personality traits, interpersonal attitudes etc.) will manifest themselves in a number of "distal" cues (the encoding or "expression" aspect of the model), being objectively measurable or codeable behavioural units within one communicative channel or in different communicative channels (like facial expression, body movements, voice etc.). Such distal cues are more or less accurately perceived by the receiver of a communication (the decoding aspect of the model), and are integrated into a general "impression" or attribution concerning the sender by the receiver (for details see Wallbott, 1982). Using such an analytic approach and separating "channels" and "cues" does not imply that in "real life" nonvocal behaviour can be delt with separately from vocal behaviour, or that both domains of nonverbal behavior can be separated totally from verbal behaviour. In fact, linguists like Birdwhistell (1970) have stressed that man has to be considered as being a "multi-channel" communication system, implying that in face-to-face interaction or in oral communication all behavioral domains have to be studied in an integrative fashion. The present chapter describes methods for the analysis of nonvocal behaviour, but for many questions in research on oral communication these methods have to be used in conjunction with techniques for the analysis and description of nonvocal and verbal behaviour (see part 4).

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481

/. A short history of nonverbal behaviour notation

Body movements are an intricate part of the human communication system, exemplified by the fact that certain hand movements (illustrators) are tightly associated with the speech production process (Kendon, 1972; Kimura, 1976); that body movements like gestures or body posture changes serve a major function in regulating speaker turns (Duncan & Fiske, 1977); or that interpersonal attitudes may be communicated by posture and position changes (Mehrabian, 1972) and emotional experiences by facial movements (Ekman, 1982). Given this importance of body movements in communication it is not surprising that attempts to transcribe and describe movement behaviour have a long history. Interestingly enough, these attempts at movement notation were mainly developed in the area of the arts, especially dance, ballet, painting and sculpturing, but not by psychologists or communication researchers. Early attempts to analyze gestural behaviour within the three spatial planes, for instance, are reported by Austin (1806), whose notation system was used to describe gestures during oratorical delivery. Ballet and dance notation system to describe the steps or jumps of dancers were necessary from the beginning to record choreography in times when technical devices like film or video recordings were not available. Such dance notation systems culminated in the work of Laban (cf. 1975), Eshkol and Wachmann (see Eshkol, 1973), or Benesh (see Parker & McMillan, 1990). The Laban system describes body motion in analogy to musical notation with respect to different body areas and joints in terms of the direction of movements, their duration, but also with respect to more qualitative aspects which are referred to as "effort" (force and energy aspects) and "shape" (the spatial composition of movements). The Eshkol/Wachmann system on the other hand is more physically orientated in providing the possibility to describe all movements of the body with respect to spheres and the varying angles of the body joints in relation to these spheres (see Golani, 1976; Rosenfeld, 1982). Another important historical source are attempts to describe facial expression. Most of these attempts were motivated by the aim to provide artists with valid descriptions and depictions of human emotional facial expressions. Examples are an "atlas" with drawings of human emotional facial expressions compiled by Rudolph (1903), or the drawings of affect displays by Charles Lebrun (1696) (see also Fischer-Lichte, this volume). A more biomedical and physiological approach to the analysis of emotional facial expression was pioneered by the French physiologist Duchenne who used skin electrodes to induce prototypical emotional expressions, and whose work had a remarkable influence on Darwin's theory of emotional expression (1872). 2. Types of notation systems and their inherent problems

In general, systems for movement notation may be placed on a dimension indicating the degree of inference demanded of an observer or coder. On the one

482

IV. Methods

pole with a very low degree of inference systems which attempt to physically analyze movements may be localized. Such systems have been traditionally used in sports research or in medical rehabilitation (see Wallbott, 1980, 1985). Here small lights or light-emitting diods are attached to body parts or body joints and the light traces of theses devices are recorded with the help of special cameras or detectors allowing the analysis of movements with respect to physical characteristics like velocity, acceleration, and other parameters (an early attempt being the studies by Marey, 1894). Such technical devices allow very fine-grained measurement of human movements, largely independent of an observer, but involve highly sophisticated technical equipment partly attached to subjects, which prevents the use of such techniques in studying the role of body movements in interaction and communication to a large degree. On the other pole of this dimension techniques relying particularly on human observers or coders and demanding a high degree of inference and interpretation may be localized. Here, the measurement device is a human being, necessitating exact category specifications and resulting in problems like establishing interobserver agreement or the unitization of behaviour. As the behavioural stream in interaction and communication is continuous (Barker, 1963), the observer has to be equipped with guidelines to separate different types of movements from one another and with exact definitions for the different types of movements to be registered. Within approaches relying on human observers one may further distinguish between "channel" or "modality" approaches and "functional" approaches. "Modality" approaches provide the observer with category definitions of types of movements or movement components within one bodily modality, like for instance certain types of facial expressions or certain types of head or trunk movements. "Functional" classifications, on the other hand, provide more general categories not focussing on "objective" movement characteristics, but on the function of a certain movement within the context of interaction or communication processes. Such a functional classification system was for instance developed by Ekman and Friesen (1969, 1972), who distinguished between "illustrators" (movements, which accompany, illustrate, or accentuate the verbal content, like speech accompanying gestures), "manipulators" or "adaptors" (movements, which serve functions of drive reduction or other non-communicative functions, like scratching oneself), "regulators " (movements, which regulate and structure interaction and communication, like turn-taking signals), "emblems" (movements with precise, culturally defined meaning, which communicate information that can be readily translated into verbal form, c. f. the eye-wink, gestures signalling the intellectual deficiency of another person, or obscene gestures), and finally "affect displays" (movements, which indicate emotional or mood states to another person, like emotional facial expressions). Such functional notation systems call for a high degree of inference on the side of the observer, because the function of a movement has to be inferred

H. G. Wallbott, Analysis of Nonverbal Communication

483

within the context of interaction and communication processes, necessitating a high degree of training and frequent inter-observer agreement checks. Though such functional classification system are rather problematic with respect to definition and observer training, they may yield data more closely associated to communicative and psychological processes compared to physical measurement systems, which result in a magnitude of fine-grained data often difficult to relate to underlying communicative or psychological processes. Elsewhere (Scherer & Wallbott, 1985) a similar distinction was made by distinguishing between the measurement of motor variables of behaviour (physical measurements), distal parameters (judgements made by observers on objectively definable movement characteristics), and proximal parameters (judgements involving a high degree of inference like the functional classifications mentioned above). When discussing specific techniques for analyzing human movement behaviour in the remaining parts of this chapter we will follow this distinction.

3.

Measurement and notation of nonverbal behaviour

3.1

Measuring facial behaviour

Facial expressions are the result of movements of facial muscles and tissues. Thus, on the motor level, electromyographic (EMG) techniques can be used to describe these muscular changes (see Schwartz, Fair, Salt, Mandel & Klerman, 1976). Though EMG-electrodes allow very accurate measurement of facial movements, as well as recording of small movements not visible to an observer, such techniques are far too obtrusive to be used in studying facial expression in interaction and communication. Another aspect of facial behaviour, often treated separatelely from other facial expressions, are movements of the eyes, described as eye contact or gaze direction (see also Goodwin, this volume). Though here also devices are available to measure eye movements on the motor level (eye cameras or pupil detectors), these techniques are again rarely used in communication research because of their obtrusiveness. Given these problems, most techniques for describing facial behaviour and eye movements rely on human observers, often employing video or film records to allow repeated watching of the actions to be coded. The most sophisticated system available at the moment is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), developed by Ekman and Friesen (1978). Elaborating the anatomical descriptions of facial behaviour by Hjörtsjö (1970), FACS provides an in-depth description of more than 40 categories ("action units") based on those muscular activities of the face, which are visually distinct. Other notation systems for facial expressions are described in Ekman (1982). Functional classifications of facial expression are reported, for instance, by Ekman and Friesen (1975) or Izard (1971), who base their category definitions on expressed emotions, or by Grant (1969), whose system is based on ethological concepts like fight or flight.

484

IV. Methods

Visual behaviour, especially eye contact in communication situations, is usually coded by observers, whose task it is to determine onsets and offsets of eye contact, either in life observations or in observations from a film or video recording of the interaction. This coding can be facilitated by employing interaction chronographs or computer devices (Exline & Fehr, 1982). 3.2 Measuring gestural behaviour and body movements

As gestures and body movements are determined by the underlying actions of muscles, on the motor level EMG measurements are possible, though these are again rarely used in communication research. Another possibility is the attachment of the above mentioned light emitting devices to critical body parts or joints to record movements. As these procedures are again very obtrusive, new techniques have been devised in recent years to allow the description of movement behaviour from existing video recordings with the help of coordinate measurements via computer (Wallbott, 1982,1985). Early attempts at such coordinate measurements were reported by Efron (1941), who in comparing gestures of Jews and Italians analyzed for instance gestures' velocity and expansiveness. Notation systems to describe movement behaviour on an anatomical basis were proposed by Birdwhistell (1970), or by Frey (1987). Both systems define movements of different parts of the body with respect to the three spatial dimensions. Though these movement notations are rather cumbersome to use for an observer, they provide the possibility to transcribe all visually distinctive behaviours in a fine-grained fashion. Mehrabian (1972) has proposed a more simplified system to code body posture and body orientation. Body orientation here is coded with respect to the orientation of the head and the upper body toward or away from an interaction partner. Body posture is coded in terms of the closeness or openness and the symmetry or asymmetry of the different limbs. The techniques most often used for body movement notation are functional classifications, as the system by Ekman and Friesen (1969) mentioned above, distinguishing between illustrators, manipulators, emblems, regulators, and affect displays. This system was used especially to code hand movement behaviour. For hand movements, similar distinctions were made by Mahl (1968), Rosenfeld (1966), or Freedman and collaborators (see Freedman, Blass, Rifkin, & Quitkin, 1973), who distinguished between object-focussed hand movements (illustrators), and body-focussed hand movements (manipulators), and introduced further sub-classifications of these two functional categories. These functional distinctions may also be used to code other body movements aside from gestural behaviour, like head movements, where the head shake or the head nod may be considered as emblems, or speech accompanying head movements as illustrators. 33 Measuring interpersonal distance and personal space

Since Hall's pioneering work (1963) there was growing interest in analyzing interpersonal distance, personal space, and territory. Territory indicates a spatial

H. G. Wallbott, Analysis of Nonverbal Communication

485

region a subject claims to be his or her personal space, bound to specific places and locations. Personal space or "body buffer zone" is usually defined as the "invisible bubble" around a person's body which one usually does not want to be entered by other persons. Interpersonal distance indicates the distance to another person preferred in interactive situations, depending on sympathy and status relationships to a discourse partner as well as on the social situation and on explicit or implicit socio-cultural norms. Interpersonal distance and body buffer zone are usually measured objectively by simply determining the distance or distance changes between discourse partners (Boucher, 1972), or by employing the "stop technique", where persons are asked to approach another person until they feel uncomfortably close (Horowitz, 1968). Finally, a number of indirect methods for analyzing interpersonal distance or personal space were proposed, relying on questionnaires or schematic representations of interactive situations. These paper-and-pencil techniques are evaluated by Greenberg, Strube and Myers (1980).

4. Conclusions

In this short review of notation techniques different bodily modalities were discussed separately. But as Birdwhistell (1970) has pointed out, men are multichannel senders and receivers, which has to be taken into account in analyzing movement behaviour. Thus, relying on only one aspect of movement behaviour may be misleading when trying to understand the functions of body movements in communication and interaction. To account for this multi-channel communication process, different techniques for "multi-channel" notation have been proposed, like for instance by Condon and Ogston (1966), Birdwhistell (1970), or Scherer and Wallbott (1985), trying to transcribe different aspects of movement behaviour and including also vocal and verbal behaviour and depicting these multi-channel analyses in "multi-channel plots" or "partitures" (see Kendon, 1970). Though, in describing the various notation systems available we have contrasted "objective", physical measurement techniques with "subjective" coding and notation procedures this is not to say that one approach should be generally preferred. Depending on the question to be studied and on the approach used one question may call for physical analysis of movement, while another may be more easily answered by employing less fine-grained, but sometimes psychologically more meaningful functional categories. If one is interested in studying prototypical facial expressions accompanying basic emotions, for instance, one might want to describe and differentiate facial expressions on an anatomical basis as detailed as possible (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). If one is interested in very fine-grained changes of body movements, for instance for diagnostic purposes, one may want to use techniques of observation very close to the anatomical basis of movements (cf. Frey, 1987). If, on the other hand, the func-

486

IV. Methods

tion of movement behavior in interaction and communication is in the focus of interest, techniques less close to the distal end of the communication chain, but more close to the proximal end, like functional categories or qualitative descriptions, may be called for. We have focussed here on quantitative techniques for the analysis of movement behaviour, but certainly qualitative techniques also have their domain (see Wallbott, 1991). And finally: In the present chapter we only addressed the analysis of nonvocal behaviour. A full understanding of human interaction and communication processes requires the analysis not only of movement behaviour, but also of verbal and vocal behaviour, quantitatively and qualitatively, and considering both the proximal and the distal components of the communication process.

References Austin, G. 1806

Chironomia: or a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery. London. (Reprinted: Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966). Barker, R. G. (ed.) 1963 The Stream of Behavior: Explorations of its Structure and Content. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts. Birdwhistell, R. L. 1970 Kinesics and Context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Boucher, M. L. 1972 "Effect of seating distance on interpersonal attraction in an interview situation", Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 38, 15—19. Condon, W. S. and Ogston, W D. 1966 "Soundfilm analysis of normal and pathological behavior patterns", Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 143, 338-347. Darwin, C. 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: Murray. (Reprinted 1965. Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Duncan, S. D. and Fiske, D. W. 1977 Face-to-face Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Efron, D. 1941 Gesture and Environment. New York: King's Crown. Ekman, P. 1982 "Methods of measuring facial action", in Scherer, K. R. and Ekman, P. (eds.): Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 45-90. Ekman, P. and Friesen, W V. 1969 "The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding", Semiotica 1, 49-98. Ekman, P. and Friesen, W. V. 1972 "Hand movements", Journal of Communication 22, 353—374. Ekman, P. and Friesen, W. V. 1975 Unmasking the Face. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ekman, P. and Friesen, W. V. 1978 The Facial Action Coding System: A Manual for the Measurement of Facial Movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist's Press.

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Eshkol, N. 1973 Moving, Writing, Reading. Tel Aviv: Movement Notation Society. Exline, R. V. and Fehr, B.J. 1982 "The assessment of gaze and mutual gaze", in Scherer, K. R. and Ekman, P. (eds.): Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91-135. Freedman, N., Blass, T, Rifkin, A. and Quitkin, F. 1973 "Body movements and the verbal encoding of aggressive affect", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 26, 72—85. Frey, S. 1987 Analysing Patterns of Behavior in Dyadic Interaction. G ttingen: Hogrefe. Golani, I. 1976 "Homeostatic motor processes in mammalian interactions: A choreography of display", in Bateson, P. P. G. and Klopfer, P. H. (eds.): Perspectives in Ethology, Vol. 2. New York: Plenum. Grant, E. C. 1969 "Human facial expression", Man 4, 525—536. Greenberg, C. L; Strube, M. J. and Myers, R. A. 1980 "A multi-trait-multimethod investigation of interpersonal distance", Journal of Nonverbal Behavior ϊ, 104-114. Hall, Ε. Τ. 1963 "Proxemics: The study of man's spatial relations", in Galdston, I. (ed.): Man's Image in Medicine and Anthropology. New York: International University Press, 422—445. Hj rstj , C. H. 1970 Man's Face and Mimic IMnguage. Lund: Student-Litteratur. Horowitz, M.J. 1968 "Spatial behavior and psychopathology", Journal of Nervous and Aiental Disease \ 46, 24-35. Izard, C. E. 1971 The Face of Emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Kendon, A. 1970 "Movement coordination in social interaction: Some examples described", Acta Psycbologica 32, 100-125. Kendon, A. 1972 "Some relationships between body motion and speech", in Siegman, A. W and Pope, W. (eds.): Studies in Dyadic Communication. New York: Pergamon Press, 177—210. Kimura, D. 1976 "The neural basis of language qua gesture", in Whitaker, H. and Whitaker, H. A. (eds.): Studies in Neuroimguistics, Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press, 145—156. Laban, R. 1975 Principles of Dance and Movement Notation. (2nd ed.). London: MacDonald & Evans. Lebrun, C. 1696 Sentiments des plus Habiles Peintres. Paris. Mahl, G. F. 1968 "Gestures and body movements in interviews", in Shlien, J. (ed.): Research in Psychotherapy, Vol. ). Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association, 295—346. Marey, E. J. 1894 ΙΛ Movement. Paris: C. Masson. Mehrabian, A. 1972 Nonverbal Communication. Atherton: Aldine. Parker, M. and MacMillan, K. 1990 "Benesh: The notation of dance", in Barlow, H., Blakemore, C. and M. Westen-Smith (eds.): Images and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 81—93.

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IV. Methods

Rosenfeld, H. M. 1966 "Instrumental affiliative functions of facial and gestural expressions", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 4, 65-72. Rosenfeld, H. M." 1982 "Measurement of body motion and orientation", in Scherer, K. R. and Ekman, P. (eds.): Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 199-286. Rudolph, H. 1903 Der Ausdruck der Gemütsbewegungen des Menschen. Dresden: Kühtmann. Scherer, K. R. and Wallbott, H. G. 1985 "Analysis of nonverbal behavior", in van Dijk, T. A. (ed.): Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London: Academic Press, 199—230. Schwartz, G. E.; Fair, P. L.; Salt, P. S.; Mandel, M. R. and Klerman, J. L. 1976 "Facial muscle patterning of affective imagery in depressed and non-depressed subjects", Science 192, 489-491. Wallbott, H. G. 1980 "The measurement of human expression", in v. Raffler-Engel, W (ed.): Aspects of Nonverbal Communication. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 203—228. Wallbott, H. G. 1982 Bewegungsstil und Bewegungsqualität — Untersuchungen %um Ausdruck und Eindruck gestischen Verhaltens. Weinheim: Beltz. Wallbott, H. G. 1985 "Hand movement quality: A neglected aspect of nonverbal behavior in clinical judgment and person perception", Journal of Clinical Psychology 41, 345—359. Wallbott, H. G. 1991 "Analyse der Körpersprache" in Flick, U., v. Kardorff, E., Keupp, H., v. Rosenstiel, L. and Wolff, S. (eds.): Handbuch qualitativer So^alforschung. München: Psychologie Verlagsunion, 232—236.

List of Contributors Peter Auer University of Hamburg, Linguistics Jörg Bergmann and Thomas Luckmann University of Giessen, Sociology and University of Constance, Sociology Aaron V. Cicourel University of California at San Diego, Sociology Jenny Cook-Gumperz University of California, Santa Barbara, Education Richard Dauenhauer and Nora Marks Dauenhauer Sealaska Heritage Foundation, Juneau, Alaska Erika Fischer-Lichte Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Theater Department Dafydd Gibbon University of Bielefeld, Linguistics Charles Goodwin University of South Carolina, Anthropology Elisabeth Giilich and Thomas Kotschi University of Bielefeld and Freie Universität Berlin, Romance Languages Norbert Gutenberg University of the Saarland, German Department Dietrich Hartmann Ruhr Universität Bochum, German Department Heiko Hausendorf University of Bielefeld, Linguistics John Heritage University of California, Los Angeles, Sociology Theo Herrmann and Joachim Grabowski University of Mannheim, Psychology Werner Holly University of Chemnitz — Zwickau, Linguistics

490

List of Contributors

Arvid Kappas and Ursula Hess Universite de Laval, Psychology and Universite de Quebec, Montreal Psychology Helga Kotthoff University of Constance, Sociology Uta M. Quasthoff University of Dortmund, German Department Ron Scollon and Suzanne Scollon City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, English Department Harald G. Wallbott University of Salzburg, Psychology

Subject Index abilities, linguistic 261 f achievement, interactive 11 f, 33, 61, 182ff, 191, 194, 224 f, 246, 258 f, 265-268, 270 acquisition (of language; discourse) 12 f, 162 f, 256, 259 ff, 264,266, 270 f activity, formulating 30, 58, 225 affect affective 10, 169-175, 177 alphabet, prosodic 447, 449, 453, 463, 473 annotation, signal 93, 473 approach, functional 482 aurality 15, 325 f, 329 background knowledge 423, 427 f, 458, 365 behavior, facial 483 body (somatic) 5, 9-15, 19, 27 f, 71, 170, 220, 224, 227, 229, 241, 246, 249, 251 ff, 259, 266, 272, 480 f, 484 f - movements 314, 480 f, 483, 485 — orientation 484 — positions 481 - postures 480 f, 484 budget, communicative 6, 9, 14, 300 f category 5, 8, 68, 80, 133, 184, 305, 311 f, 315, 117, 405 f, 423, 431 f, 441, 444 f, 448 f, 469 f, 472 f, 482-486 channel 7, 143, 181 ff, 188 f, 195, 199, 257 f, 264, 272, 326, 340 f, 345, 480, 485 channel approach 480, 482 character, reciprocal classification 483 cognition, socially distributed 369 communication, political 328, 331, 333 ff -, rhetorical 322-325, 327, 329 f, 332, 335 f competence, oral 365, 380 completion point, possible context contextualization 11 f, 28, 32, 38, 41 f, 49, 52, 56, 58, 61, 68, 91, 102, 113f, 140, 144, 149, 153 ff, 157, 160 f, 163, 169, 171, 176, 182 ff, 220-232, 236, 238, 241, 243, 253, 259, 266, 269 ff, 276, 278, 280, 283, 301, 306 f, 340, 343, 365, 370, 392 f, 395 f, 398, 401 f, 404, 407 ff, 420, 426, 430, 433 f, 436, 447, 458, 465 ff, 473, 482 f

control, global 72—82 control, local 72-82 Conversation Analysis 7f, 11, 32 ff, 77, 115, 182f, 230, 258, 391,399, 428 correction 36, 44 f, 47-51, 58, 61 culture, oral 8ff, 15, 20, 353 ff data 4, 6, 9, 16, 60, 113 f, 115, 128, 141, 159, 161, 171, 186 f, 190 f, 201, 203, 221, 229, 230, 232 f, 241, 252, 301, 343, 350, 352, 369, 395 f, 399, 402 ff, 406, 419, 426-433, 435 ff, 449 f, 452, 454, 483 deception 172, 315 development developmental 9, 12f, 32 f, 72 f, 81 f, 159, 162, 187, 256, 259-267, 269, 272, 394, 397, 410, 425, 442 f, 448, 455, 473 dialect 9f, 75, 138, 140-152, 154 ff, 158 f, 161f, 347, 426,441 dialogue 6, 13ff, 20, 33, 36, 44, 72 f, 80 f, 113f, 116, 119, 122f, 263 f, 277, 280, 286, 295, 305-311, 313-320, 323, 330-336, 343, 345 f, 348, 351 differences, generational 100, 102 discipline 3-8, 14, 16, 261 discourse unit 6, 221 f, 267 f, 447 distance, interpersonal 480, 484 domain, linguistic varieties of 138 ff, 143, 146 f dominance 14, 306-311, 313 f, 316, 119 drama 8, 13f, 16, 284, 286, 305, 307 ff, 311, 320, 328, 348 duel duelling, verbal 112, 114f, 119, 123, 126, 128, 133 electromyographic (EMG) technique 483 f emotion emotional 10, 106 ff, 145, 156, 169-174, 176 f, 183 f, 265, 283, 307 f, 313, 315, 317 f, 365, 433, 441,473, 481 ff, 485 encoding mechanism 67 f, 71—74 ethnography 3, 7, 8, 93, 115, 230, 289, 291, 419 ff, 423-427, 429, 433-438 ethnomethodology 3, off, 11, 20, 32, 40, 77, 128, 420

492

Subject Index

expansion (of substandard) 139, 151, 162 expert 9, 16, 187 f, 191, 364-380 expression, facial 128, 169 f, 173, 176, 184, 312, 480-483, 485 —, metadiscursive 37 Eyak 107, 109 eye contact 483 figure 195, 301, 305 f, 308 ff, 315-318 frame 10 ff, 15, 92-95, 100, 122, 220 f, 223 f, 226-229, 231 ff, 235 f, 238, 241 ff, 246, 251 ff, 257 ff, 263, 265, 280 ff, 313, 315 function functional 41, 44 f, 49, 51, 54, 67, 71-74, 80, 114, 122 f, 133 ff, 291, 306, 309, 311-319, 392 f, 408, 441 f, 444, 481 f, 484 f function (of substandard) 138, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155-163 gaze gazing 11, 186, 195, 198-201, 203 ff, 207, 209 f, 212, 215 f, 399, 483 genre 6, 9, 13 f, 112, 114 f, 119, 121-125, 129, 133 ff, 162, 279, 282 f, 289 ff, 294, 296 f, 300 f, 306, 330, 424 f, 431 -, family of 300 —, inner and outer structure of 291 f —, reconstructive 293 ff gestures gestual behavior 126, 185-189, 191 f, 195, 264, 307, 309-313, 316 f, 399, 480-483 gossip 292, 295-300 Haida 99, 103, 105, 108 f hand movements 187, 481, 484 here-now-me origo 217, 257 f, 262 f heterogenity heterogeneous 3f, 6 ff, 13 f, 16, 71, 144, 173, 301, 342, 446

intonation 75, 138, 144, 191, 207 ff, 214 f, 227, 236 f, 281 f, 306, 311 f, 314, 316, 341, 403, 405, 443, 445, 448, 459, 473 involvement involvedness 227-230, 346, 349, 351 f knowledge proposals 208 — representation 364 language(s), moribund -, written 5, 9, 13, 15, 32, 67 f, 70, 73, 81 f, 134, 138-142, 148, 152, 264, 275 f, 278, 284, 286, 305, 325, 346 f, 349, 429 lexicon, compositional —, integrated literacy (emergent; acquisition of) 228, 238, 278 f, 283 literature, oral 91 ff, 96-103, 105 ff literature, written 91 meaning 10, 12, 38, 42, 45, 125, 157, 161, 181ff, 188, 190, 225 f, 257, 264 f, 306-309, 312-319, 391, 399, 444 f, 447, 470, 482 mechanism, acquisitional 268 ff media 8f, 14 f, 135, 139, 141 ff, 147, 150, 162, 189, 195, 224, 305, 307, 323, 325 f, 328-336, 340-345, 348, 353 ff, 435 f medical diagnostic 364 f — reasoning 16 method 4, off, 40, 61, 159, 330, 393, 410, 419 f, 423 f, 427 f, 430,436, 442 ff, 451, 455, 459, 461, 473, 480, 485 methodology methodological 4, 7 f, 11, 14, 147, 161, 173, 217, 289, 391, 394, 398, 406 f, 409 f, 420, 425 ff, 435, 437 f, 443, 449, 451, 453 ff, 456, 473 f

narration narrative instruction, oral 16, 182 narrativity 8, 13 f, 74, 77 f, 81 f, 155, 161, integration 346 f, 349 f, 352, 354, 430, 443, 447 222, 228, 236, 266 ff, 275 ff, 279, 281-286, interaction 31 f, 61, 69, 76 f, 121, 198 f, 205, 293 ff, 298, 300, 377, 433 209, 211, 216 f, 221-227, 229-233, 235, 237 f, nonverbal 7, 10 f, 143, 169 f, 173 f, 177, 182 f, 241 f, 252 f, 277, 286, 291, 299, 305, 307, 310, 185-189, 194f, 217, 224, 264, 305, 307-320, 313, 315, 318-320, 344 f, 347, 364, 366 ff, 370, 430, 480 370 f, 376, 379, 391, 393 f, 396 f, 401, 404novice 16, 207, 364-380, 434 410, 420, 427 f, 430, 432 ff, 436 f, 447, 451, 480, 482 f, 486 openness 353 f, 484 interview 142, 150, 292, 329, 332, 346 f, 349, orality, insufficiency of 19, 28 351 f, 378, 394, 401-404, 406 ff, 420 f, 431 f, —, logocentrism of 25, 28 437 f -, negativity of 8, 21, 28 interviewing 431 f, 437, 420, 433 —, obsolescence of 8, 22, 28 intimacy 343, 345, 351 —, phonocentrism of 23, 28

Subject Index

493

-, secondary 9, 15, 113, 340, 353, 355 -, staged 343, 347 ff —, uniformitarianism of 26, 28 orientation between speaker and hearer, mutual 202, 216

recording 16, 37, 230, 241 f, 248 f, 252, 435 reformulation reformulating 11, 31 f, 34, 40 f, 43 f, 47, 50, 56 f, 60 f repair 34 ff, 201 f, 208, 225, 399 f, 402, 405

paraphrase 31, 34, 43-48, 50, 58, 60, 76, 92, 377 participant configuration(s) 209, 211 participant observation 430, 433 particles, modal 153 patterns, interactive 260, 266 f, 269 perception, visual 182-185, 187 ff, 191, 195 performance 8f, 13 f, 16, 20, 25, 91 ff, 98, 112-115, 119, 121 ff, 128, 134 f, 182, 191 f, 201, 246, 249, 251, 256, 264, 267, 275-281, 284 f, 305 f, 310 f, 320, 329 f, 332, 335, 341 f, 344 f, 348 f, 353, 422, 443 pitch 171, 173, 161, 227, 235, 237, 246, 248, 253, 282, 314, 442, 445 ff, 456-461, 464, 470, 472, 480 poetry, oral 16, 114, 123 power, symbolic 366 ff practice, formulating (see: activity, formulating) pragmatics, developmental 279 problems, communicative 289, 291 problems, unproblematic 293 prosody prosodic 7f, 12, 76, 161, 224, 226 ff, 230, 235-238, 246, 248, 425, 441-445, 447 f, 450, 457, 459, 465 ff, 470 f, 473 public 8, 10, 14 ff, 121 f, 129, 135, 143, 146 f, 161, 228 f, 297 f, 322 ff, 326-336, 353, 424, 429 ff

schema, procedural 6, 72 f, 75, 80, 267 semantic 3, 10 f, 34, 41 ff, 47 f, 52 f, 75, 152 ff, 157, 160,181-184, 195, 220 f, 258 f, 261, 265, 268, 290, 292, 301, 400, 442, 444-448, 458, 465 ff, 468 ff, 472 f sentence 7,10 f, 54, 68, 71, 74, 141 f, 198-205, 208-217, 276, 279, 290, 310, 312 ff, 346, 348, 351 f, 370, 441, 445, —, as social organization 198, 208, 209 —, modified through processes of interaction shifter(s) shift 31, 33, 105, 127, 181 f, 188, 195, 205 sign, prosodic 442, 447 f, 464, 468, 472 somatic (see body) task environment 365, 380

qualification

35, 51 ff, 55 ff, 59, 295, 297, 329

recipient design 11, 14, 242, 258, 265, 268, 271 f recipient(s), knowing 206, 208-211, 213 -, unknowing 206 f, 209 ff, 213

τέχνη 322, 324, 330, 332 textuality 13, 28, 32, 248, 276-279, 283-286 Tlingit 9, 92-109 transformation through modifications of emerging sentence 202.205,215 treatment 7, 34 f, 39-45, 47, 49 ff, 53-60, 269 f, 403, 406 Tsimshian 103, 105, 108 f turn-taking 77, 183, 292, 307, 313 f, 316, 319, 351, 370, 394, 396, 399, 406, 408 f, 432, 441 uncertainty

149, 208, 379

verbalization 32, 34-39, 51, 55-60, 320, 351 vocabulary (of standard and substandard) 71, 132, 138f, 142f, 146f, 149, 151 f, 155ff, 161f, 346, 379,456 voice 10, 12, 70, 127, 169-173, 176 f, 220 f, 224-230, 241, 243-253, 277, 280 f, 283, 286, 312, 314, 426, 435, 458, 460

Arzt-Patienten-Koniniunikation Analysen zu interdisziplinären Problemen des medizinischen Diskurses Herausgegeben von Petra Löning und Jochen Rehbein XIV, 435 Seiten. Mit 26 Abbildungen. 1993. Gebunden. ISBN 3-11-013895-6 Die Kommunikation zwischen Arzt und Patient ist schlecht bis nicht vorhanden - sei es in der Arztpraxis, sei es beim Hausbesuch oder in der Klinik. Patienten klagen darüber, die Medien kritisieren diesen Zustand, wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen belegen ihn. Durch die fortschreitende Technisierung der Medizin und den zunehmenden Zeitdruck der behandelnden Ärzte wird das Arzt-Patienten-Gespräch weiter entwertet. In der medizinischen Ausbildung spielt das Beratungsgespräch kaum eine Rolle, und die Gebührenordnung für Ärzte (GOÄ) tut durch die geringe Honorierung solcher Gespräche im Vergleich zu der für aufwendige Apparatemedizin ein übriges. Gleichzeitig sind diagnostische und therapeutische Verfahren vielfältiger geworden, und chronisch kranke Patienten haben heute bessere Überlebenschancen, wodurch die Anforderungen an die sprachlichkommunikativen Fähigkeiten des Arztes noch gewachsen sind. Der vorliegende Sammelband, der aus einem interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekt hervorgegangen ist, behandelt in 17 Beiträgen von Medizinern, Sozialwissenschaftlern, Sprachwissenschaftlern und Psychologen unter anderem folgende Aspekte der Arzt-Patienten-Kommunikation: Wie kommt es zu Mißverständnissen im Gespräch trotz „ärztlichen Zuhörens"? — Wie kann man mit Gefühlen, besonders mit Angst, umgehen? — Patientengerechtes Sprechen während des Hausbesuchs — Information und Beratung von Krebspatienten — Ein Beispiel aus der ärztlichen Aidsberatung.

Kommunikation in der Stadt Teil 1: Exemplarische Analysen des Sprachverhaltens in Mannheim Herausgegeben von Werner Kalimeyer IX, 697 Seiten. Mit l Abbildung und 2 Karten. 1994. Gebunden. ISBN 3-11-014380-1 (Schriften des Instituts für deutsche Sprache, Band 4.1) Der Band enthält eine soziolinguistische Untersuchung des sprachlichen Verhaltens von Gruppen aus unterschiedlichen städtischen Milieus. Die Beiträge analysieren die pragmatischen Regeln des Sprechens, phonologische Variationen, formelhaftes Sprechen und Ausdrucksformen der sozialen Kategorisierung anhand von transkribierten Gesprächsaufnahmen.

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Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York